Kawhi Trade On Pause: What Does This Mean For Clippers & Raptors? + Blockbuster Top Pick Battle

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"It's very good." "With this style." "It's on 31 July." Hello, welcome to "Click to Podcast." We talk about the NBA, which we're going to be doing on Thursday afternoon, although

we're coming back later tonight after this Darren Peterson, the AJ debons the game in Vegas. I don't like doing non-play-off post-game podcasts. Normally what happens is McMahon or Jackson will suggest them, and I just won't answer. I'll just pretend like I'm sorry, I haven't introduced you yet. It's quite, and then I'll just run out the clock, but I am sufficiently excited enough

for this Jazz Wizard's summerly game that I will be coming back later to talk about it. But how would you think about that? All right, joining us from New York City from the studios that ESPN and ABC and all the Disney shows share is Vince Goodwill. What up, Bill fellas?

What up, though?

Don't you think it's totally amazing that that you've been with us for a season, you've

been in our studios a lot, and how the NBA, or just the ESPN people, like, mingle with the ABC people, good morning America, and the view and stuff like that. I am so you're in the hallway, and seeing, you know, Tim and Hall will be Goldberg, this is just one big happy family. It's funny.

All right, I'll let you out of the cage. Joining us from Dallas, Texas, is bandic man. Howdy partners, I have not been invited to those New York studios, of course, as I get to being able to hang out with good morning America folks, as everyone's on a while.

“I'll hold, I'll make Andrews say, how do you do me?”

When she's not being bothered, when she can't be bothered with doing tennis, and what did you see she did in a feature? How Malica is this, that she did a feature on the Equestrian Stables at Wimbledon. Yeah, I look forward to when she comes back to this side of the pond. Wendy though, like, you're quiet quitting us, you've been, you've been rude.

One of one of your regular co-hosts is already left you do your unfair treatment, Jack asks. Okay, you might want to be nice to me. All right, well, I'm just saying it's, you know, those, this is Sports Center commercials, and there's the mascots and everything, you know, but like, literally in New York, like,

you'd see, like, Emily Bluntner, Adam Lambert, like, walking in the halls next to, like, a WWE guy in full face pain. Well, they say they tell people how they got to run into Brian Wendy Winhurst.

Never, never, never, never seen that.

I do not think Adam Lambert was impressed with me. Adam Lambert, now there is a gentleman who is tall. All right, so we had some interesting NBA news, actually I would say non news on Thursday afternoon, and that was dueling statements put out by the Toronto Raptors and the L.A. Clipper who's over what is now as of now, a co-y Leonard trade on home.

“And so the Raptors, I believe, made their statement first, I'm not mistaken, where they,”

basically, let me get the exact statement, and you know, the thing about it is, is that because this trade has not happened yet, even though it's reported, and, you know, widely circulated, in fact, co-y, did you guys see co-y was at Kyle Lowery's retirement ceremony as a quick aside, which I've been known to do. I've got their statement when you're ready, by the way.

Okay, great.

I thought what the Raptors did this week with Kyle Lowery was total first class, like

even the concept of the one-day contracts, which happens in other sports. It's a cool thing, even by those standards that we've seen before. Nick, man, did you see how well they treated Kyle Lowery for this thing? Yeah, I mean, listen, and he should be treated like that. He's a legend in Toronto, they're gonna put his number up in the Raptors, but now it was

absolutely a first class deal. In the locker room, they put like, they made every locker like a Kyle Lowery locker, and they put like artifacts from different phases of his career in there, you know, they, like, they had all their employees, they're like, I just thought it was so first class by the Raptors to do that, and you guys know that I don't, I'm not sappy.

“So like, Bonnie's who was trying to say, we noticed on the bottom, how did I do it?”

How do we get it? We'll get it to the bottom of the list, okay, here's the statement from the Raptors. Regarding our plan trade with the LA Clippers for Quilinard, the NBA League Office informed us that as a result of the ongoing investigation involving the Clippers, we would assume the risk of any potential outcome of the investigation, impact, and quiet, in light of

The Raptors remain eager to bring Quilinard back to Toronto and look forward to a swift resolution for our players, our organization, and our fans. Now, swift, now Vince, the way that that is written, it kind of implies that they were just told, yeah, or that it's a development, well, maybe maybe that's a better way to say it. So I checked on this, and what I am told Vince is that it is not a development that before

they entered into the verbal agreement to trade for Quilinard, that the league office,

the league lawyers basically told the Raptors exactly that.

If you trade for him, the investigation is ongoing. If you trade for him, you accept the risk of what might happen to him after you trade for him. So they were informed of that, they made the deal, and I don't know, hoped assumed that speculated that by, you know, July 9th, that the investigation would be wrapped up, and

that everything would be clear, but it hasn't happened.

“And now it's, I think they had to make a statement, because we're four days into the new”

league year and the trade hadn't happened yet. Something smells off here. Ah, look, for one, the Board of Governors has their meeting was at next Wednesday. I believe Monday, Tuesday, Monday, Tuesday. And we're going to, they will be in Las Vegas.

We'll be able to get the post-mortem from Adam Silver.

That is going to be one of the first things on the bucket.

It's almost like, and this is me just merely speculating here, it's almost like the Raptors were under the impression. Go ahead and do the deal, not just going to happen. You're going to incur whatever penalties that are going to happen, but it doesn't seem that there's anything that's going to happen.

And then they were told something different or led to believe something different. Uh-oh, what's that, what's that finger up band with man?

“Well, and hold on, I'm not going to, the, the Clipper statement is like five paragraphs,”

but I'm going to read one paragraph. On June 30, we reached an agreement in principle to trade quietly into the Toronto Raptors. We have since been informed that the trade can only be finalized if the Raptors ownership group assumes the risk of penalties related to the quasi contract that could theoretically result from the ongoing investigation.

The investigations ongoing, and we expect that trade to be finalized, followed in its inclusion. Keywords there, we have since been informed. Well, I went to a pretty high authority and was told that the Raptor, I can't speak to the Clippers, but I can speak to what the Raptors were told. I had been told that the Raptors were informed before they came to a verbal agreement that

of this exact set of circumstances, that this is not a change in circumstances. Yeah, and, and I don't know why the Clippers wouldn't have been informed. I don't know why the Clippers as there are considering trades in Europe for a while in it wouldn't have passed. It's just, again, back to your point.

I'm sure they know, I mean, they, this is not flippant.

This is, you know, a trade for a $50 million player that they intended to extend, you know,

this is a, most likely, a $150 million monetary deal because, well, why is probably getting a multi-year contract, right? And they traded two first round picks and a pick swap in two seconds. I believe so four picks on a swap. This is not a minor interaction.

You're not swap in two ways here.

“And Brandon and I think, or who is not right out there in limbo right now.”

Well, the internet's loose were noticing, so the Clippers have been posting some video and stuff, you know, just various of their, or their standards that they would post, you know, they'd been having training camp ahead of, um, summer league, et cetera. And they'd noticed, you know, the Clippers fans, uh, the extremely online Clippers fans had noticed that greedy dick who was also in the trade had been seen in the Clippers facility,

but Brandon and Grim had not been seen, which led people to speculate whether Brandon and Grim would, you know, be seen in the Clippers. Now, a player of his caliber isn't expected to do workouts with the summer league team. And the great dick is fighting for, I'm not going to say to stay in the lead, but to, to carve out a role in a career.

Correct. So, but I'm just, I'm acknowledging that there was some chatter about the absence of Brandon and Grim. The point about, the point I'm making here is this is a big giant trade, lawyers were involved with this.

This wasn't something that they were like, yeah, well, just, we'll just figure it out. So, you know, but what's the big mess? Like, I don't get what anybody, like Wendy, Tim, the fact that whatever this trade hasn't been finalized, whatever this decision embarrassment for the league at this point, the fact

that all of this has come out, they got a SPN, like they know what's been recorded about Kawai being traded there on, you know, whenever it, whenever the day that it was, the problem

the guys that probably nothing was going to happen to Kawai, you know, giving up all that

draft capital and everything that they gave up, if you are going to believe that Kawai Leonard is going to be heavily penalized for this investigation. They didn't, that's, that's not what this was reported to us by Shoms, so the fact that the league let this go on for weeks, or a couple of weeks now, this isn't embarrassment for the league.

I don't care what their excuses or what they've notified the teams up, clearly the message was not relayed clearly and this falls at the feet of Adam Silver, bottom line. - 100% and, you know, I mentioned when the trade went down, the board of governors, what is it chairman? Is that the right term, Wendy, is, is Larry Tannenbaum, yeah, I'm going, governor of the, the

Toronto rappress. I just have a hard time believing there was no communication between him and the league office.

This, none of this makes sense.

“And what did Adam Silver say the last time he talked behind the investigation?”

- That was almost six weeks ago. - Well, God. - Lee. - Yeah. - Can we get a resolution here?

- So officially, what we're, you know, we've sort of given the official positions. It does feel like that something has changed because the rappress would, why would the rappress apply the brakes when they were full, you know, you trade four picks in a swap in Brandon Ingram, that's not like a tentative move, like, and not only that, but the clippers have gone forward with the rest of their offices.

They've, you know, they've signed players and not picked up contracts and things like that.

Like, you know, it, there's some things that can't be undone here.

I do think we should read some of the other parts of this clipper statement, if just for the record, McMahon, where the clippers, once again, for the empty time, but just let it be known, they once again said, on the record, we did not funnel money to quit Leonard through aspiration. We were victims of fraud initiated by Joe Sandberg, who's now in federal prison for defrauding

investors, including Steve Balmer. And they go on to say, we recognized the uncertainty this has created and the impact that it has had on our team, our fans, the Raptors organization, their fans and the players whose futures remain affected while this process continues. We remain confident that when the facts are evaluated fairly and thoroughly, the NBA

will confirm exactly what we have said from the beginning, we have not done what we are accused of doing. And again, that's careful. That's careful length. It's just like a very sticky process statement.

Well, okay, we didn't say we didn't know wrong. They just said, we're not accused of what we, we don't guilty of what we are accused of. Let's get a conclusion, or six months ago, six months removed, Madam Silver Saiyan's time. It's past time.

Like your whole not business for another franchise, this is terrible. Look, there's been two terrible looks, Madam Silver, in the last year. This and the whole saga of bringing in an absolute cheap ass to own the portum blaze of trailblazers. So, both of those are embarrassing for the commissioner on the league. So, let me, so let me get this straight, y'all.

“We're supposed to go to Adam Silver and another week, right?”

And he's going to, right, oh, yeah, it's all right, let's like five days or now, right? And he's going to serve somewhere and fix his mouth to tell us, we are still investigating this. Like, they need to have, they need to have this done before he meets with the median next week.

I'm sorry. Six weeks ago, it's time and then say, well, it's not, we're not done yet, seven weeks later. I feel like I feel like it will be done. And that's just me thinking how embarrassing it would be if you come back to say that

it's not finished. Six weeks after saying it's time for this investigation to end, all you got to do is press the button dog, like this ain't that hard, either you got the goods, you get them or you don't. And the long time goes on, it feels like they don't.

Okay, that's totally what you're both are saying or reasonable. Let me just take this position because what you guys are saying is what people in the league that I'm talking to are saying, you know, like, when this went down today, I call some

“people, I'm like, what are you hearing, what do you think?”

And they set essentially this exact same thing. But here's my, my, my, my, my, my bottle is you are potentially entering into a legal battle with one of the richest men on the planet and his lawyers who are the best. So if you are going to do something that especially the involves any sort of punishment, you've got to have it nailed down, not button down nailed down.

And so I, I don't speak that with knowledge of what they have to discover. I just speak to that with knowledge of the realities of the world and being married to an

There you go.

And, and having lost a lot of arguments, it sounds like, well, that's all another

topic altogether. So, but anyway, this is, but you're, then you're right, it is a mess. It is a mess right now because two teams, whole off seasons, hinge on this and, you know,

“one hand, I'm told that that they were advised and I believe that, but on the other”

hand, it's hard for me to believe that they wouldn't have applied the brakes if, yeah, that that's what didn't make sense. I know. That doesn't go with my information, so I'm, I'm, I don't want to, I don't like stepping out of that line from what I know.

Yeah, advice. This is the opposite, not saying how likely something is, clearly the raptors, I'm guessing, asked a lot of questions, like the clippers don't have any reason to be straight up when

I think they feel like the clippers feel like, "A, we got to get all quite what we can."

Right? Like, you're not going to, you're not going to operate in bad faith, but you're not going to be fully for it. But the clippers can just say what they've said. We're going to conduct business.

We didn't do anything wrong.

“But it's upon the league to be, like, you have to look out for the best interest of your”

30 member franchises, including the team that is going to inherit a player that's under investigation. So, if I'm surrendering all those draft picks and I'm making this trade and the financial commitments that come with that, you better believe I went to the league and said, "Hey, what am I getting here and if the league is in, hey, it doesn't seem very likely go ahead

and take that on blah, blah, blah, cool. It doesn't sound like that has been in the case unless the league has magically discovered after how many months has been us since 11 months or 12 months or whatever it is, they magically discovered something under some magical rock in the last couple of weeks that they did not retrieve or come on, y'all.

This is something that one of those trees that we're planning, one of the four trees he planted. And I was like, there was at least a giant large, like, by and large, and this is not an easy situation to inherit, especially considering Steve Bombers, the Chair of the Finance Committee.

“Steve Bombers, one of Adam Silver's biggest allies in the room and you have to be very careful”

about going after one of your allies when you're Adam Silver, you get all these new dudes around. I completely understand that, but when you watch a transaction like this go down, you can't wait until they start falling. The paperwork to be like, hey, hey, you might want to slow down because something was

done. Yeah, what did they get on the trade call like, by the way, but you talk about the risk associated with Coise contract. What are those potential risks? One could be, they say, hey, that contracts now null and void.

And so then you're just, you gave up all the picks and guy who, I believe England led them the score last year, if not is one of their, you know, guy was an all, I'll start team last year. You gave all that stuff up for, you know, nothing. Two, the other risk could be that there would be some sort of suspension levied.

I'm just curious, well, the risk that you would have, I think, is that they would void its contract. Well, I just said that that, and that that leaves you with nothing. I do want to face a side, it's going to be a suspension. How long would this suspension have to be for the, for the raptors to back totally out

of the contract? Now, that is an interesting question. I mean, because it's got a load management, you know, the other thing here is the work for Paul George, it costs a lot of money, but it work for him and later, well, after that. And this is, this is just going down into the theoretical hypothetical, all that.

If, if there's going to be a suspension for Coise, how much is this trade revised, how much is it amended? And, you know, what do we like, if I'm the raptors, I'm like, hey, we want back, you know, no swap, whatever, you know, maybe we want to pick that. Well, listen, I mean, not that this is Apple's apples, but last year, the trade deadline,

Coise White got sent to Charlotte, I'm going to look up how many games he actually missed.

He got sent to Charlotte and they discovered a calf injury, and they took back a second

round pick. Let me see how many games he actually, I don't think he even missed that many games. I mean, you know, not, not that it's, okay, so he got traded, he missed seven games. And that was worth a second one, one second round pick, seven fewer games for, I mean, maybe they didn't know exactly how long he was going to miss when they went.

Well, but you see trades get amended based on the on physical life all the time, right? Winna, Winneco made the second worst trade of February, 2024 and St. Quentin Grimes to Philly for Caleb Martin. And then, you know, Caleb Martin, he was heard at the time, he got to Dallas and I want to say it was a hip, but the fiscal was like, oh, he's going to be out for a while. The mattress got an extra second round pick out of that. That was

true negotiating. Yeah, it certainly, I'm sure the clippers were hoping that were actually a way in this trade

that would actually be flagged in the trade call. This is before, this is before the trade

call would happen. They never went to the trade call. They never scheduled the trade call.

So just, just FYI, I will say this in the Raptor statement, McMahon, the Raptor did use the word "eager". We're eager to do this. And Swift. Oh, yes. Maybe I should shout out to the Kelsey's. I found that I know they're Swift song. I didn't think I knew a single Taylor Swift song until one of the makeup girls in the room started singing a Taylor Swift song. And I was like, oh, that's our head no clue. Like, you know, you don't like

Taylor Swift? I don't, I didn't say that. Oh, then say that. Then say that. Then say that. Okay. Well, let me tell you something. Don't you do that. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,

“hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Oh, I think that's a Taylor Swift reference. Okay, guided. Oh,”

you smooth. Hey, I made a, uh, I made a Kevin Gates reference last time you were on the

using him to catch you. I didn't, the part of the joy is when he didn't catch it, but if the plug went for the load, come on now, let's go. Got to be versatile with your musical taste here, Vinnie. Uh, I'm sure the musical styleings of Tim Bond, Tim's was very, very vast on the spectrum, nails on a chalkboard as his. All right, so to be continued, I, I would just point out though, they didn't have to use the word eager and Swift. You know, I think those words

were used, I think, to verify that they're not trying to back out. Also, like, move along here. Right, right, I think there. Okay, let me ask you guys this. If it's the Paul George suspension, let's say

it's a suspension and not a boy. If Colise, the standard for avoiding a contract is outrageously

hard. I don't, I don't, I have a hard time with that. If he suspended for 25 or 30 games,

“I think back a first round pick and a swap, I really, I think it's something like that. And I think”

the clipers, what the clip is going to do, like the clipers have no negotiating power at that point. They, they've got no leverage. I think they just drastically reduced the drafts. Well, they have no leverage, I suppose, but I've got a statement here from the Raptors talking about how eager they want it. They are to have them, you know, they could just say, okay, send them back. You don't get them. I'm sure Brandon Ingram will be very excited to play for you. I mean, you say that they have

no leverage, but you can start engaging some of these other teams who walked the way empty hand and say, hey, deal with, deal with Kauai and see if he wants to extend with you. Like, does Kauai lose leverage? And all of this, in him saying, I'll only resign with the Toronto Raptors. Like, it, I don't know what that happens, but I'm fascinated by if this does not come out with Kauai's clean as a whistle, the clippers clean as a whistle. What this looks like, I'm starting to, I'm more

starting to wrap my mind around the fact that, around the thought that there could be some real ramifications here for the clippers, at least ownership. Maybe long as Frank or whatever, this is just me spitballing. I didn't think anything was going to come out of this shot. I'm starting to think now that there's something that's going to come from this. When general managers will tell me, they have to bring the hammer down the clips. I'm like, are you all high? They don't have the good.

And if they don't have the goods, you're not going to do it, but now I'm starting to think

“that the league is going to at least try and now you have to figure out what that actually looks like.”

Well, and what's, I had the circular conversation for months where it's like, oh, they got them. Oh, no, they found something and then six more weeks will pass. Nice tomorrow. Friday, Friday afternoon. It's got Friday afternoon. News, Dumper, and all over it. Now, that's true. Don't say that. That's true. I, but, you know, there's no law that says that Adam and silver has to announce it next week. I mean, we've gone through many

Adam silver availability is where he's, he's, you know, you know, you know what he should do. Wait for the bra on to announce his potentially final destination and say, oh, by the way. Right, 10 minutes after the bra on, you know, releases a podcast from the golf course. I actually thought it was, it was kind of, it was kind of, um, I was kind of brilliant that, uh, Rich Paul having Bob Myers on this podcast.

Can you get Pat Riley? That would be a good. That's a good, that's a good. I was rambling on the podcast, like telling Riley stories. That would be pretty, that would actually be pretty entertaining. More who collected podcast after this.

Should I make, should I make this, so, so, so if I get your money right, story card money right, let's do that. How right, it gets his money right. He does. He has for many decades. I told Pat, so Pat did a podcast with Dan Levitard, like a year and a half ago or so. And I, so I, when next time I saw him, I said that

“podcast was really, really good. You should put all of your map because he's got all of these amazing”

stories and memories. Like the thing about Riley that is so remarkable is when something happens in the league, like, no matter, like even right now, I'll bet Pat Riley, you know, what trade gets put on hold because a team is afraid that a guy's going to get suspended. I will wager that Pat Riley, like, has seen this happen before and he'll be like, oh, oh, back in 79, you know, the San Diego Clippers wanted to trade somebody with so and so and the league put a hold. He's always seen everything

before. He's gotten incredible, no, no matter what the drama is, he's always seen it before.

And, you know, like I treasure the times where we could talk to Pat and he would tell us stories. A lot of times he's been in the league since the 60s. I mean, the guy played with no Chamberlain on a team that won 33 straight in championship, you know, and all that before he became coach, Pat. What was the name of the movie about you, Tep, Vince, with the glory row, glory road. Pat Riley was in the game on the other side. I mean, seriously, you talk about it.

Riley's the only person y'all. I seriously, not, not, and y'all let you get back without this thought just came to me. If you asked random people, some people would know Pat Riley as the next coach. Some people would know Pat Riley as the shell time coach. Some people would know Pat Riley as the heat sort of Godfather and nobody can wrong. He took everything, everything, because he once he got there, he became the Godfather like he had the he had the deal that included

ownership once he got there. Only LeBron has that many basketball lives. LeBron has, so Tom Harris to our former colleague. Now is the Yahoo, he says LeBron has three Hall of Fame careers. I say he's got four. I say he's got four. I say you're counting Olympics. I say high school. I mean, why wouldn't that count? Of course, Wendy, the same Vincent, the same Mary loves counting that. Go on. Well, I'm not saying just high school, but high school, and

is first time with the calves. A final two, a guy who went to MVP is not going to be in the Hall of Fame.

Okay. Okay. And he went to two Olympics there and was on the redeemed team, which is already they're already in the Hall of Fame for that. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. He is a literally already in all

“of them. 1999 to 2010. I think it's a Hall of Fame career, especially if you're going to count”

being on the cover sport till it's traded, all that stuff, right? He goes to the heat for four years. When's two more MVP's goes to four finals and when's two finals MVP's? You're telling me somebody who, if I said, yeah, they had a career and they went to MVP's two finals MVP's two titles. Once the four finals. You're telling me that's not a Hall of Fame career just those four years.

That's Hall of Fame career. Second time in Cleveland, four finals come back. I mean,

five for MVP for championship for the city Cleveland and two generations. I say that's not a Hall of Fame career. I mean, trust me, there are people in the Hall of Fame that don't have those credentials. And then the lake as you give them Hall of Fame career? What championship became the all-time leading score of one another Olympic gold medal. By the way, again, how many finals MVP's are not in the Hall of Fame? Very few. One thing Pat Riving, the Bronn have in common, both had

“interest from the Dallas Cowboys to play a wide receiver. The Bronn, remember Jerry tried to”

get the Bronn during the lockout to play a wide receiver. Pat Riving was actually drafted by the Dallas Cowboys if they'd love him to round. That's crazy. I don't think if you ever want to go on a YouTube rabbit hole, gold look at Steven A's reaction when the Bronn was talking about plan for the Cowboys. He was not happy. Dude, I, listen, I remember I was covering the Cowboys around that time. And I remember talking to like Jason Witton and Des Bryant. And they agreed.

My take was the Bronn could go into the NFL and catch 10 touchdowns in a season at the time. I mean, like who's going to stop the Bronn from catching a fade? Give me a break. Well, listen, I got to know and cover an Antonio Gates. When I covered Kansas University, Antonio Gates was a point power forward. Um, I got a great Antonio Gates story that I can not tell on this podcast. Well, that's a shame. He's from Detroit. He's in Detroit, Nathan. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. He bounced around

anyway, I said to Pat, you've got to, because you know, he said, he said, look, I wrote a bunch of

“books. He said, yeah, I understand that, but the, um, the written word, it'll be there, but it won't”

carry the next generation, the next generation wants the audio word. And I said, I said, do a levitar. I'm sure a levitar. I don't know for sure, but I'm sure levitars had to suggest this. I said, Pat, you've got to, you've got to do podcasts. I was like record them and then just say they can't be released until after you die. I don't care. You've got to make a record of these stories. There's just got to be. And I was there with Alonzo morning and Andy L. Sparkle, the

heats GM, I was like, you guys got to talk him into it. You've got to talk him into doing a podcast.

The ride we know. You can give a 10 different names. It would be amazing. And he doesn't have to

talk about today's players. He doesn't have to like analyze what's going to happen. You know, he doesn't have to analyze why you trained a Tyler hero. He can just talk about the 67, he's 80s, 90s, 2000s, 2010s. It's incredible. I mean, it's crazy. Anyway, sorry. It got distracted. It's on a seven decade in the NBA and it's still a power broker. For sure, absolutely. And still making big deals. And by the way, did you, he was, he had the press conference for Tim

Hardaway Jr. Then he had a good take on this on on first take today. So did you see this, McMahon? I saw that they, they pulled his dad's number out of the raft for his dad. Well,

he decided not to do that's it. So his, so the quote was Tim Hardaway Jr. For first off,

Riley, you can tell was like, my name was Paul this between him. Like he, he was like, I agree. This is weird. He goes, you know, then Riley, by the way, retired Michael Jordan's number and damn original reasons. Like and damn original. And why does he, he didn't read those numbers. You can still wear a 13 for the isn't Reno 13? Yes. Yeah. Bam adabaios. Bam adabaios. Very well. For some reason, I mean, I know the reason, but it's just, it's a, what to tell you. Reno's jersey's up there.

But Riley's like whatever. So what, what, what Tim Jr. said was, well, my dad said no to me using his number. That was a personal decision. Me using it is a family. Yeah. He's the first conversation or

the first was a personal decision. The second was a family decision. And Vince had the following take on

that. Go ahead. Vince. I said that was the power of Mama as any. Oh, yeah, Laundra. Hardaway, Mrs. Hardaway as I like. Oh, big Timmy's wife. She probably pulled Rankin said, my son is having that jersey deal with it. That's right. And by the way, Pat Riley gave him the locker too. Same locker. Which is pretty cool. Oh, that's pretty cool. Yeah. Wow. They haven't renovated their locker when that long. I mean, it is sort of a, and a classic locker. Maybe they've, maybe they've

roasted up a little bit. But he's, I saw the video where he's like, you know, we had the guards over here. The bigs of Aaron. He's in his dad's old locker. Yeah. That's not a surprise that Riley would like say you're going to be in this locker here and whatever. It's sort of his way of doing it. Anyway, so we had some interesting news with one of our colleagues at ESPN, and I'm not talking about bond terms. Kendrick Perkins gave me the heads up. This was coming. And I really

“want to know why Perkins didn't get this done at Jackson State. I think I think the horns got a”

little bit better in IELP package. By the way, when Michael Malone left us to go be the head coach of North Carolina, you know, he was really, really busy and like, you know, those of us who were his, you know, co-workers on countdown, you know, Malika, we texted him, didn't hear back. I, it texted him because I knew he wasn't going to get back to me, but, you know, Perkins texted them at some of the producers and texted them. You know, he was like, he was really busy. He was

taking the job, trying to get recruits locked down. Sure. Malone's first communication back to us was basically to Perk saying, "Hey, how about you help me get Marcus Spears to Marcus Spears Junior to North Carolina?" Yeah, so no, but he's head in the taxes. Marcus Spears Junior, who was the number one player in the class of 2020, and the son of our colleague at ESPN Marcus Spears Senior, you know, former Cowboy and Baltimore Raiden Deepens. Well, I'm actually covered Marcus when he's with the Cowboys.

Also, the son of Ayisha, formerly Smith, who was a, the seventh overall pick in the WMBA at a very

“good WMBA career. And the sister, I believe his, are the brother rather of, I believe his sister's name”

is Cory. I hope my boss and that, but she is, she just finished her freshman year at Texas, and is one hell of a volleyball player. My daughter actually played against her in a sand turn,

Well, volleyball. And I think it's first time she never played sand, but I remember telling my daughter

of the end, I said, "You see the difference between sports fighter jeans and and first round pick jeans." Anyway, since the boss's daughter is a volleyball player. Sorry to keep that. Watch out. That's almost say about about that. Watch out for Zary, Zary James. But yeah, Marcus Spears Junior reclassified and is heading to Texas, and it's an interesting deal. We've also seen this with a couple of other guys entering college at the age of 17.

So these are two-year deals. They cannot. It's not like Cooper Flag who, I don't know what the exact

cutoff is, but he, he's, I think it would be 19 by the time that knows not 19.

“You have to be one year out of your high school class graduating. I believe that that is the,”

okay, so I don't know exactly why Cooper Flag was able to reclass finds been only one year, but Marcus Spears got to spend two. It's something to do with the birthday. I'm, but I, I'm sitting here, and I wish I could send you a birthday, right? He's a, yeah, I, I don't know the exact rule on that, but he's got to spend two years this guy who's going to use CLA and what I call a taxpayer mid-level deal. Well, so three, we got three players in the last

couple of weeks here, big time prospects for the 20, 28 draft, all of whom reclassified and have gone to are going to college in the U.S. early. Marcus Spears Jr. who, I'm not sure where he's ranked,

“whatever, you know, he's very highly ranked. The number one player in the class of the of 27.”

The high school class of 27, so it's a potential number one pick here for sure. Okay. 10 lefty with big time skill and athleticism. Okay. So anyway, well, there's just a whole, yeah, there's a whole bunch of of the second generation star athletes coming through, obviously, as, as we see, for example, you know, I'm, I'm really getting messed up by this, McMahon as I'm dealing with the sons of all these guys that I covered. So, you know, there's a five-star

center. I'm not sure where he's going to college if he's committed yet, who I just saw was one of the,

one of the stars of the U.S. say under 17 team Eric Dampier Jr. Yeah, I've never seen his foot for years.

And, and, and he's a big kid with skills like he's Eric Jr., but his game is very different than his dad's. Yeah. Well, as I was watching Cameron Booser knocked down three, he's all weak in Salt Lake City. I was like, well, dad didn't knock down three. He's like that. That didn't pass like that either. Right. So anyway, so in addition to Marcus Spears Jr., we have Ruben Boom J Boom J. You guys remember Ruben Boom J Boom J? Yeah, his son. His son, Jo Kim,

“Boom J Boom J, who is seven footer. He played with FC Barcelona. I believe this last year.”

He is, and he played very well. They just had the world under 17 World Cup in Istanbul. The U.S. won. They beat Serbia in the final. The U.S. won by 20. Obviously there's a bunch of big time recruits on that. But Jo Kim, Boom J Boom J, has committed to Duke. And he's got to spend two years there as well. Correct. He doesn't have to spend a both at Duke. Two years in college. Right. But yeah, he's going to start at Duke. And then this guy who you've been

all excited about McMahon, the next great young Serbian, it seems. Yeah. Nicola Kuchteritsa. And he is a like six, nine, six, ten guard who has like cure-linko kind of defensive potential. And is a put the ball in his hands. Shoot it, create past kind of offensive threat. Like I said, these are these are three guys who they're all two years away from being draft eligible. But like pay attention. We will be talking about these kids. And in what as a chance to be a pretty loaded. So Kuchteritsa also was playing for Barcelona's program.

Now, you know, Luca Donchitch came out of the Madrid schools, you know, this Madrid. He was with Real Madrid. Right. You know, was, you know, obviously Slovenian sort of raised by the Spanish development system. Kuchteritsa Serbian raised by the Spanish system. In the World Cup under 17 final against the Americans,

He mostly did it by getting to the foul line. So, you know, I don't want to overreact too much to it.

But it takes a lot of time to get those shots up. Like not being funny about it. It takes a lot of energy to get up shots in that type of situation. So, yeah, the numbers don't look great. But I want, I want to see the film. I want to see him be able to get a shot. And then by the way, Bumje Bumje, even though his dad was Cameroonian, Bumje Bumje played for the American team. And I believe it was named the MVP at the tournament. Also, if you're scoring, if you see a score three, some points on 23 field goal attempts, that sounds good. And if you're doing that, you're getting a line a lot.

True. I don't know how accurate this is. But there was an outlet in Europe, Meridian's sport. I don't know their history of reporting.

But I should just note, because because McMahon just said what it was, it's supposedly a two year 12 million dollar deal at UCLA.

“Yeah, that's been widely reported. Again, that's why I call it a taxpayer mid-level. I think Bumje Bumje is getting something similar.”

I actually had a scout in Salt Lake City tell me that the Serbian kid would have gone on the top five in this draft. Whoa, now it's one scout's opinion. But it's a scout who is very versatile in the international game. Said the kid would have been a top five pick, or he would have had him top five, the least in this year's draft. Man, that's when I started looking him up and saying, oh, and I told you in bonds and he's my discovery now. I do think it's interesting. So Bumje, Bumje grew up in the Tampa area. But his father sent him to Barcelona to do his sort of high school and to make some money and to be in a big time basketball program.

“Right, like I think that and he's obviously been benefited from it. So that is a, that is, you know, noted that he would, that he would do that.”

When they know, there's obviously a lot of, a lot of options. But just as long as none of them get paid to plant trees, we're all, everything's going to be fine. All right. So we'll be back later on after we see guys who worked take him in the top five of this, of this draft and I hope it lives up to the building because I've been talking about it on TV.

Basically events, I've been trying, I've been trying to talk producers into, let me talk about Darren Peterson and AJ to bonds for this week. So I don't have to give another non-laborant update.

Yeah, I've been on some of those production cars. I, I get it when the, and hopefully, a fairly fancy get off of my behind since I'm not, I'm not very popular in Philadelphia, right? Oh, no, another place you're not popular? Where are you going to pop to, Vinnie? I'm a journalist. So if I'm, you're kind of like me, you, you, you excel at pissing people off and multiple markets. Look, I went on television today and said, the pistons didn't do enough to be a top five team in the East and people call me the Detroit Homer and I'm like, no, nothing you do can hit me.

I am an equal opportunity, you know, evaluator here. All right. Maybe a participation trophy for that. I got, well, I got my, I did that I'm going to run by some folks before the start of the next season. You're going to see me have some fun. Hey, if you give me one, I'll put it right here behind me. All right. Thank you so much to all our producers, Tucker Miles Jackson. I'm sure Mark's working on this one as well. Thank you very much to Vince and McMahon. Thank you for listening. Oh, real quick before with McMahon says goodbye.

I can't, I would not well, we'll say it in the, uh, tonight. All right. Well, say it now because I probably forget it later. Maybe Jackson will remind me later.

“Starting next week, we're going down to two podcasts a week. Tuesday and Friday. Is that right, Jackson?”

Lessons of emergency circumstances. All right. All right. All right. All right. All, there's an emergency podcast request. All ignore it. And then I'll, we're a spot on the question. Pot. Oh, yes. We have big aspirations around here. Yeah. So we're going to, we're switching to a summer schedule. Let it be written. Let it be said, uh, starting next week. Barring what Jackson. We got to claim some now, Jackson LeBron news clearly. Oh, yeah. Why news, obviously. Okay. Those two big ones for sure. All right. All right. We'll be back with you later after we see these games. See later, Vince.

More who collected podcast after this.

They've played before and they've played more entertaining games. This was, uh, well, it's a summer league game.

“What was your expectations? I'm entertaining summer league games. Okay. Good for you. This, this wasn't one of them.”

It had a few glimpses and had a few moments. Listen, I know there's been a lot of whining and crying about the little free throw rule. The, you know, the one for either two or three, whatever it is. Thank God, that exists in this game. Or we'd been up, we didn't have weight past midnight. Right. So look,

I thought considering what I've seen from rookies and their first games, I thought it was good work by both of them.

It was a four point game, but it really was lopsided. The wizards won the jazz clothes that late. I'm a little bit concerned because debons that look like he was holding this calf at the end of the game. I'm hoping, and I'm not trying to be funnier, ironic here. I'm hoping it was just a cramp. Yeah. Um, I don't know. If it's a calf, we won't see him again. But anyway, I'm not seeing him again anyway. Maybe, right. Uh, well, look, AJ debons had 27 points. He had seven rebounds, two steals in a block.

He was seven of 18 from the field. It really shot the ball poorly outside, but what I was impressed with, first off, he tied a record. He tied with Blake Griffin for the most point scored for a number one overall pick in his Summerlee debut. And I remember I was actually at that Blake Griffin game the same floor. However many years ago, the first time I ever saw him play was in that game.

“So listen, you know, I think he's up there with like John Wall and some other guys who had”

quite that many points in their first game. I thought he showed a pretty good all-around game to Bansha and especially McMahon a quick first step, which is one of the reasons he kept getting foul. He got fouled eight times and he got most of his points at the foul line.

I mean, he is an amazing athlete. He had one drive and dunk. He had a couple of other finishes through

contact, um, you know, some of the shots that he missed, including one against Peterson. Like, he's going to be able to get to that little, uh, off dribble spin turnaround whenever he wants. And he creates a lot of space with that. He's only going to get better as a shooter, uh, as he, you know, obviously he has more reps and in which he has been like, he is a physical athletic specimens from the second that he stepped in to the league. Looks like he's, he's a little

bit bigger and stronger even than he was at BYU. Not that I was. Definitely. Now he definitely has stronger and, um, look, he played 26 minutes. He had one turn over and he was bringing the ball up a little bit, uh, he had one turn over and one foul. Yeah. And so he's just, he is got an NBA body and like top one percent island, the athleticism. He's, like, all that stuff is there. The shot call my thing. Well, he's, he is, uh, at his best from the mid range. He's really got a great mid range

game. The long game has to develop a little bit as this game showed, but he's got a square from day one. By the way, I should point out the trade Johnson, uh, lottery pick from the 2025 draft. He looked pretty good tonight. He looked like a set. You, you want your say, especially your lottery

picks, your second year lottery picks. You want them to be impressive. Trade Johnson was impressive.

11 to 20 shooting 26 points didn't shoot the ball well from three, but, um, generated space and, uh, got in there. Uh, that should, that should be a good, uh, first impression there from the, wizards for the wizards. Um, as for, um, Darren Peterson, um, not a great shooting night for him. And, um, nine fouls, but man, he was one foul away from the, uh, from the dreaded 10 foul in your out, uh, summer league, uh, rule and, uh, eight turnovers and 30 minutes. The jazz definitely

were into him a little bit more. It was trying to be physical with him defensively. And it resulted in him having a very inefficient night. So I said nine fouls, eight turnovers, six to 18 shooting. He threw in like a 30 footer at the buzzer to get himself to 24 points. Still liked the way he generated open shots. Like we saw in Salt Lake, they just weren't going in as much. Yeah. And Jamir Watkins also had nine fouls. And a lot of those regarding Peterson clearly was like,

hey, I got 10 to play with. And he was just being physical, 94 feet with him. Um, look, and this is, Peterson's had an eight turnover game now, a two turnover game and a nine turnover game.

“And there's a couple things there. Number one, he's, he's more of a two than a one, right?”

And he's going to be sharing the back court with Jante George. He's going to be sharing ball handling and initiating responsibilities. Jante George will take more of those than Peterson's

reads and really good passes than he is a guy who you want, bringing the ball up the floor at this

“point in his career. And you know, I honestly, I think it's probably going to be the case.”

Didn't shoot it well, but you could see how easy it is for him to create space in the half for it. I don't see he missed some threes. They were all triple threes. That he did a great job creating space and really good footwork. I just way above that way above the norm footwork for a 1920 year old. Yeah, and and just, I mean, really athletic. He also has, you know, it's not as big and and tall as debonsa, but he's got a big frame. You know, he's, he's strong. Um, so again,

he shot a well in both of the two games he played in Salt Lake City, didn't shoot a well in this one. I wouldn't worry about that one. I owed a the turnovers. You know, it's a bit of a concern, but I also just understand he's not going to have as much initiate responsibility come to regular season. Right. And they had the ball in his hand. Like, you know, they wanted him.

“He played the, he played like the first, like out of the first 16. That's, I thought I got the first”

16 or 17 men. He played like 12 or 13. He was, they played in heavy men's in the first half, especially. And I, I, I don't know this for certain, but he might be done for Summer League, like said he played two games in Salt Lake City. Typically, he's high lottery picks only played two or three games now. Yeah. That might have been it for him. Well, I've enjoyed what I've seen. Obviously, that you know, the turnovers and et cetera, the fouls, but I, I'm very impressed with what I saw

from Peter said, and like, you know, this is a bad, you know, quote unquote bad night for him. He's still at 24 points. Got to the, he got to the free throw line eight different times. Yeah. And he's going to score, like he's going to step in like, he'll have to score. Yeah, they're both after 20s. I tell you, it'll be interesting to see how the bonds of fits with the two guys on massive

contracts on the wizards. Try young, despite being a three point shooter has never shown an

interest or much of an ability to be an off ball player. So I, I don't know how that's going to fit with it. Let the league in assist two years ago. So I mean, my nose is he's a great pick and all creator, but yeah, you know, you don't draft a bunch of number one to have him spot up on the week side of the floor. You know, you want to start with the ball in his hands and you want him getting downhill and developing that, you know, like that, things are going to be a guy who can score

25 or 30 a game pretty quickly. And then, you know, then AD, you know, AD's going to obviously want to touch. He's going to want to be involved and AD's not it. Like, you can't play five out with AD. You can't spread the floor that way. I'm just curious to see how they kind of try to figure out spacing because you, when you draft that guy number one, you've got a feature right away.

“I just, I think there's some challenges with the other two guys that you have to feature”

for the simple fact that one's making 50, some odd million, one's making 60 million.

I did like the fact that, um, I think they set on the broadcast that all 11 wizards who were on their who were their roster players who were not on the summer like team were at the game tonight. Yeah. And they had a bunch of guys on the on the floor who lost we're on the roster. You mentioned trade jobs and there were there are a couple others. Well, Riley, I thought it was, it was good to see AD there.

And Chris Middleton who's been there. Well, wizard for two days was there. Well, these were turning though. He was a wizard for a little while. That's true. It made a pit stop and dals and a U-turn.

All the way that contract five years, or upside three years, 17 million. It's like 900 guaranteed

in the second year. You write, you write. Yeah. But it was good to see AD did. 900,000 guaranteed just to be clear. Right. Right. It's like 7, 6 ish, 1,6 or 1/2 ish, 1,017 is guaranteed something like that. Right. So some flexibility there. I'm curious to see how the relationship with AD is once he's extension eligible on all the 6th. Well, the wizards are expected and I don't mean by their fans, but by their ownership and leadership to quickly rebound and contend for the playoffs this year.

Yeah. As are the jazz. I don't think the jazz. I don't think there's nearly as much expectation for the jazz. I agree, but they want to improve. Quick. Yeah. They want to be competitive. The flip is on order. I put it like this. There's real pressure on the front office and the coach in Washington that there's not in Utah. Totally agree. Totally agree. All right. Well,

All of our producers, Jackson, who's up late here, relatively. We've had worse.

“Thank you to McMahon. Thank you for watching and listening to collective. As a reminder,”

starting next week down to two a week, Tuesdays and Fridays, except when I can get talked into emergency

pods. And whenever else we change our mind, but summer rules begin next week. You know, that reminds

“me, I saw Quinn Snyder and Salt Lake City and man. He looked fresh and rested and relaxed.”

So I just saw Summer Quinn. We're about to see Summer Wendy. The Wendy sleep-up dates are off for a little while. No, they're not. If I did get up yesterday and I'm doing get up tomorrow.

“Well, next week, I think they'll diminish. Yeah. Well, I know today, they came on to the production”

meeting at at five a.m. central and they welcomed everybody in and they welcomed me in and I

see my first words where wind is football season start. All right. We'll see Summer Wendy soon.

That's a good. The beautiful beast for now. Adios Meales. [Music]