Think about the 31st Newly!
Why? Last call for a steuer.
Oh no! I don't know where I'm going to go.
Why do you mean steuer?
“Because how steuer is a key to a honest stress?”
Is that simple? Of course, it's almost all automatic. Steuer is long? No, just a few times. No, then.
Hold it now, then. With this steuer. It's about the 31st Newly. Hello, welcome to Collective Podcast. We talk about the MBA which we're doing on
Thursday afternoon, joining me from Dallas, Texas. Where he was on television with me this morning, right in early. Ban McMan. Howdy, partners.
Hey, anybody seen bontamps? Haven't heard from me for a while. Bontamps? Bontamps? Don't recall.
Joining me from somewhere else in this building in New York City, where we've been talking a lot about today's topic, which is a lamellable, getting traded to the Minnesota Temple Wolves is Vince Goodwill. What up, though, Wendy?
What up, though? Oh, what up, though, I like it. By the way, Nick Man, the other day, amazing moment. We're on the Hoopstreme set.
And that was cool too. But, Abuka, Corey, the gun guard from Stanford, speed demon, came up, he was getting ready to relocate his whole life to Detroit, and Vince Goodwill provided him with the Hennessy classes.
What do you call him? Hennessy tent, that was that's the Hennessy tent. He put him on, and it was like, "Welcome to Detroit."
“I think you were like with the official Detroit”
welcoming committee. Listen, they didn't need a many more. Detroit's in his rear view mirror. So that's right, he's here in New York City. All right, we have a guy who's headed to Minneapolis,
and he's going to need a car carrier, and he's going to need some snow tires. Josh Green? Josh Green, too. They're going to need some minutes of forward.
I don't know if you heard, but they traded there, frankly, the whole front court in a-- OK, so I thought it was possible that Lamello Ball might get traded this year, because for various reasons we can talk about.
The idea of him getting traded to Minnesota
in basically, deal with the came together very quickly.
McMahon, that caught me off guard. So Lamello Ball goes to Ant Edwards, new running mate, new back court mate, new double team buster, new co-star, new must-see TV grouping. You thought the mellow wasn't on TV a lot?
Well, get ready, because he's going to be. And the NBA changed shape a little bit with this deal on Thursday. Yeah, and it's a fascinating deal. And look, at this point last year, going in the season,
I personally had a lot to say about Lamello, about how I didn't believe in him, about the immaturity about the erratic game, unriability, all those kinds of things. He had the best season in his career. He was a driving force in kind of the darling of the NBA,
at least the second half of the season. They found that starting five that had the best net rating in the league, and clearly what happened was Jeff Peterson, the horns general manager thought it was fool's gold, didn't believe in it.
And, you know, last year Bobby Marks and I wrote the story early in the season about the three max point guards who people thought would be available on the trade market with not much of a market forum. Well, the hotstraded trade-ung and didn't get a huge return,
the Grizzies would beg for you to call them about John Moran right now. And then the hornets, let's be honest, they restored the value to a certain degree of lamellabal and they pounced on the opportunity to move off with them
and kind of hit the reset button in terms of the culture of that franchise and riverboat gambler, Tim Conley, pounced on the opportunity to add a star caliber player alongside Anne Edwards to kind of, you know, tell those voltures to go circle somewhere else for a little bit.
And, you know, it's a swing. It's a swing, it's a risk, I get why the wolves took it, but I don't know about you guys, but the majority of the people I've reached out to around the league, the immediate reaction is great deal for the hornets.
“- Yeah, I think that's the sense that I got,”
I think it's because of the return that they got.
The first one picks the swaps.
We all know first one picks a gold and this is the first big deal that we have in this new lottery era of uncertainty and first round draft picks. I'll say this, I file players into two categories.
Do you drive winning or do you influence winning? I think lamello ball is an influencer of winning.
When you look at, he's definitely an influencer.
- Oh, he's an influencer. - Yeah, he's an influencer, all right.
“Like the fact that he had a top 10 usage this year”
and we don't think of him as being a top 10 player. His uses was hired in K, Cunningham, hired in Nikola Yokech, a shade behind Anthony Yowards. Like I'm very curious to see how those two guys fit together. You got to get the ball, the aunt's hands,
you got to be able to get someone who can get him the ball and places where he can make things happen without being faced with double teams. Also, the Mueller ball's a guy who can shoot six, seven, eight, three's in the game. - Six, seven, eight.
- Yeah, six, seven, they go win. - Good job, good job. - There you go. All the three's in a game in the way that he hasn't had another perimeter explosive player. Let's, let's be honest, y'all.
The Julius Randall thing had a shelf life and had a high and hard ceiling, more so irregular season ceiling than a playoff ceiling. The Mueller ball thing might have a lower floor, but also has a higher ceiling.
I want to see this young man harness his game and be able to fit next to Anthony Yowards in a way that this is your reliable co-star. Can we count on the Mueller ball to be on the floor, so be available to make the right decisions?
Those are the questions that I get that I still have 'cause last year could just very well be an anomaly in the grand scheme of things. - And that's the better horns are making. They had to do something for aunt.
They had to do it. I mean, like, I mean, whether this,
“well, here's the thing, to explain why the point guards”
are the value of the point guards is tough. There's, and this will use to be, but this is one of Bonnam's big things. There's so many teams out there that are set at point guard. Okay, there's just, there's just not that many teams
that are in need of point guard. By the way, the rules were one of 'em, okay? So you have those. Then you have the fact that how many possible franchise point guards just went in this draft?
For, ish, I mean, maybe they'll end up being more, but like, those teams don't need it, all right? So then you have the fact that, you know, trade young, John Moran, 'cause he's in this bucket too, and Lamello
were on max contracts.
So, trade had one year and $15 million left.
Now, he's opted out and resigned. But he went for, if you just so you remember, that deal was CJ McCollum and Corey Kissberg. McCollum was an expiring contract. He ended up being a very good for the hawks.
They started winning immediately. He was big for them in the playoffs. He has sent a, signed a one-year extension, and they have drafted Kingston Flemings, who will be their franchise point guard,
you know, going forward after some tutelage from CJ. This trade, Bamello has three years and 130 million left on his deal. And his production is, you know, substantial. He's average 20 points of game pretty much every year.
He hits a high volume number three pointers, a high volume assist guide, plays, high tempo, can really drive your offense.
But $130 million for a guy who basically missed
two whole seasons with ankle injuries. It's a high bar if there's a number of teams in need point. I was just, it's just hard to do. And so, I don't think Charlotte was dying to trade him, but I think Charlotte was like,
we got conk in Apple. That's the guy we're going to build around. He's 21 years old. If we can get a return for Lemlo that we like, we probably should do it now,
because he's coming off a season where you only miss 10 games and showed some durability. And they get three swaps, you know, four draft assets, three swaps in the first round pick. And, you know, Nas Reed, who, you know,
if they need big man help. And, you know, he's a floor stretching big man, who has, you know, he's sort of he's little up and down last season, but, you know, a quality player. And it clears out the way for them to sign Kobe White
to a three year 25 million dollar deal.
I'm no Kobe White.
“Shot, I think 40% from three after he got traded there last year.”
That's so, you know, you've got, you've got that. You've got him to balance out with, with Kinnipple. And he's going to be, God, wow, see how much cheaper. So it's 25, so Lemlo is, it's 44th in price. Yeah, Lemlo is 44 million over the next three years.
Um, Kobe is going to be 25 million. Yeah. And he won't score quite as many points I don't think. But it's going to be somewhat comparable production for a lot less money. And you have the assets. And, and you, you know, you have money to pay branded Miller.
Random Miller is a contract extension eligible this summer. Clean up your books. And I don't think Charlotte thought that they were like,
With the same roster was going to, you know, be a top three seat in the East.
A few things here, a GM that I asked about this deal. One of the things he said about Lemlo was Jeff clean them up and got him out. Smart Jeff Petersen.
Jeff Petersen, the Hornet GM basically said, hey, Lemlo had minimal value a year ago.
Had a good year, you know, they, they won some games. He was on the floor, restored his value to a certain point. And boom, pounds on an opportunity to trade him once there was some value.
“So I don't buy that, like, like, I think the hornets win into the summer saying he's got value.”
Let's, let's get a deal and move my dad to old. They weren't shopping. I don't buy all that. I'm not criticizing. I, I just don't buy that whatsoever.
Now, as far as you're pulling about like, Cody, uh, Kobe White being able to, like, if you put their basketball cards together, I think the production will be pretty similar. If you look at the impact, though, the hornets had what would have been the best offense in the league when the mellow was on the floor. That offense cratered.
It would have been a bottom five offense, just based on his numbers off the floor. It looked conchanical. That's clearly going to be their guy going forward. He benefited tremendously from playing with Lemlo ball during his rookie year. Lemlo assisted on 110 of his buckets, it's more than 20% of his buckets.
A lot of those other shots that he got, those good looks at threes were created off of Lemlo breaking the defense down to ball starting to, to ping around the mellow or just the pace that he played with. The mellows impact on them offensively was much more than his, his counting stats. And I say that as a guy, you know, I count me as a mellow skeptic.
Now, for the wolves, it's kind of a lack of them all as far as problems. Yes, and it's going to be happy with this. Yes, you've got a potential solution, a potential star solution to what was a glaring hole at point guard, but in the whack mole thing here is pop, you've got a power forward problem now, somebody with the wolves told me, we wouldn't 48 minutes about standing
a power forward play to zero. Now, I'm guessing they'll bump McDaniels up to the four. They might start those three guards with the a/o to zoom move, but they've got, they've got some things to figure out and not a lot of flexibility to figure out as far as what they're going to do at that four spot.
“I think one of the things that has happened here is that there was a lot of questioning”
the wolves after the Julius Randall trade, including by us, me, especially about salary dumping. And there's been like, okay, well, this is, you know, they put the money back, not quite. This still vastly reduced salary, because Randall, you know, Nas reads salary and Randall salary is slightly higher, but they still is going to put them in position where they're not going to be able to use their exceptions. Or they use their full mid-level, I don't think.
And if they're going to be in the tax, I think I don't know if they're going to use their many mid-levels. So they are going to have to add to the team, but I don't know what their mechanisms are going to be, but I've got to tell you that starting five that they have? If it's those three guards McDaniels and Rudy, and by the way, Rudy's going to be happy,
he's going to be getting lobbed up and he's never been more important to this team.
Yeah, he's going to be happy on one end of the floor. He's going to have to cover up for a lot more on defense, because uh, well, this playoff has shown it's hunting season, like you find a mismatch and you start hunting that mismatch. This goes, this goes without saying, but on the other hand, lamello has never had back protection like Rudy. Well, and and lamello is at least six foot seven, like you know, I used to say about one of Lucas, one of Lucas's greatest defensive strengths is
you can hide in my multiple positions. And I'm not kidding about that. Same thing with the mellow, like you don't want him bang him necessarily, like physical fours, but you know, you can pick one through four what's the weakest link for the other team offensively and give mellow that assignment. I don't think you can because he's so slightly built in such a health risk that I don't think
“you want to do that. I think you want to keep mellow where you can see him and tell him to guard you”
yard a little bit. Like Anthony always is already going to be taxed as is. He's one of the best
two way guys in the league. He's going to be taking, you know, one of those matchups anyway. You've got it. Yeah, think about this. They've gotten from being lack of a better phrase, "Gurphi" to be a little bit on the skinny side. All right. All right. All right. Listen man, do you do what you got to do? Sorry. Sorry Wendy. I know you would have for cringy moment at the draft. But when Shump did not bail me out in any way, shape or form.
By the way, you've got a theme.
our brothers within the who-collective family and management. Okay. Fine. McMahon.
“Three and a half hours of live television with Shump and Vinnie. Let's just say, you know,”
do you have you seen that video of that jet that just did like the low pass? It's maybe a size on my Twitter aviation Twitter. You see with the, and that with the wing almost hits the ground, we were like that a few times. Yeah, I can believe it. For Shump, you know, corrected, get up in the air or Vinnie corrected pulled up. But I'm just going to tell you it was an entertaining three and a half hours. Just leave it at that. That's kind of like if Limello's games go four
over times, they're an entertaining three and a half hours. You might be skimming the ground, you know, you might hit your head. I wasn't going to get us fired. I was not going to get us fired. You didn't. No, you didn't. Hey, Tara Shannon Jr. has some growth. And he's going to have the
“Chris Finch is going to have to play him. I'm going to have to rely on him more than he has in the past.”
Well, and you get one very Jay. Let's not, I mean, like, there's a lot of excitement around Baron Jay, the Wolves number one pick. I mean, I got, I would have to assume I don't know this to be sure. I mean, I'll do some reporting on this. I would assume it's Charlotte Astro Baron Jay. I would bet for sure. And my guess is like my guess is the, the Wolves were like, listen, we're not, I don't know this. But my guess is that the Wolves were like Baron Jay's off limits. Does they
need a Baron Jay to be part of this? And look, Baron Jay is is a Rudy under study. He, I assume he's going to be about a, you know, 16, 18 minute per game back up this year. But he's the eventual replacement. And if Rudy and Bear Jay are both healthy, they should have 48 minutes of
“lob catchers and room protectors on the floor, which is going to be critical because they are”
pretty small as you guys are saying outside of that. Can I make a quick point, though, like,
about these swaps and you see, oh my gosh, three swaps and, and the first round pick is impressive.
Look, I'm, is that climate in Memphis would do backflips to get a fraction of this for John Moran. But the swaps are kind of funny money here. The 2028, I would weigh drawn the Wolves being better than the Hornets. The 29, that's a, they owe that pick to Utah top five protected. So that's old now, the upside, it's high. But it's only, it's only swaps. I need like a white board to figure out because because the, because the, the lottery, new lottery rules like top five protected,
like who knows how to project that and that's the thing. It's only a swap if it's in the top five. So it's soaring high upside, but very unlikely to convey. And then the 2030 is, it's like a swap of a swap where there's another swap played. I don't know the, that's fair, but it's, it's, they're draft that, this is where you get the catch all draft assets. So yeah, but my point is the volume of the swaps doesn't necessarily mean there's value in those, especially in these circumstances
with all the asterisks on. It looks, it looks like a sticker price and then you get down to what it actually, you guys. And I appreciate you breaking that down. Okay. I will also say that Mark Lori and Alex Rodriguez, this is going to be expensive team, still going to be expensive team. I just hope they can cater the team playing still. Well, this is going to be expensive team. So and you know, they're probably going to add a little bit more to it. So Tim Connelly, he goes,
he's been big game hunting, hunting, he really couldn't do much big game hunting when he was in Denver. He did make that Aaron Gordon trade. But he's done big game hunting ever since he got to Minnesota trading for Go Bear, you know, then the Julius Randall swap tried to trade for Durant, tried to trade for Janice trades for La Mello, like say what you will, the man is on the phone, and he's aggressive. So well, and listen, people killed Connelly for the Rudy Go Bear deal
and it didn't have been a great trade for the wolves and helped them have the most successful chapter in franchise history. And even the people I talked to who thought that the hornets got the best of the deal, they're like, hey, but respect to Tim Connelly because the guys got a set of Cahoni's on them. Yeah, there will be a lot to a lot to digest with this trade
in the coming days and a lot more. So we always have surprises in the summer and this is certified
One of them.
We have a lot of player transactions going on this week. Obviously, we're going to have a lot of more player transactions, who knows what actually happened and player transaction wise. We have a lot of player transactions going on this week. Obviously, we're going to have a lot more player transactions. Who knows? Well, actually have a player transaction wise. Actually, happen, player transaction wise from one the time we record this until the time it posts.
“But that's the nature of the business these days. But honestly, I was very interested in the story that you posted”
dot on the second day of the draft and had nothing to do with players and nothing to do with draft picks.
And everything to do with the hiring of Micah Norrie as the new head coach of the Portland Trailblazers. And I wish you could take us through what you wrote. Yeah, and to clear everybody in the coaching community loves Micah Norrie and respects Micah Norrie and thinks that he is ready and deserving of a head coaching job. And I talk to several coaches who are absolutely I rate about the circumstances specifically the structure of this contract. And this is Tom Dunden's work. This is that Stanley Cup winning
Dallas based billionaire who in his brief time in NBA has been notoriously cheap, uh, frugal,
uh, doesn't travel to a guy for the playoffs, has had layoffs, no late checkout. I think, you know,
if you're at the hotel, you probably gotta find some real-steed lunch, all kinds of stuff.
“And man, that's how he conducted this coaching search, which by the way, started midway through the”
season while Tiago Splitter was working his ass off under insane circumstances leading your team to the playoffs and your interview and mid-major coaches who are telling you, dude, I make more money than what you're talking about offering at a mid-major in college. So I think the salary is secondary to the salary secondary because this is, um, my couldn't already accept the contract as a Rina Coach. And that's the best way I can put it. Coach on probation. That's a one. It's a one
plus one plus one contract. It's a three-year deal with team options for the second and third year.
And I'll be honest with you. I heard from a whole lot of coaches. A few were ready to go on the record and backed out, props to J.B. Bicker staff. It was the president of the MBCA, the National Basketball Coaches Association. He felt like it was his duty as the president of that organization to take a firm stance on this. And as he told me, he felt like this contract. And he cast it with love for Micah. But he felt like this contract was a slap in the face
to our value. That's a direct quote. And his point, one of his points was they basically leverage Micah's dream to put him into a position where not only are they concerned about it's setting a precedent, but it puts Micah in a really tough position. Yeah, bet on yourself. Why wouldn't you bet on yourself? Sure. And Micah's doing that. But he's betting on himself with an
“arm tied behind his back because what is a critical element that a coach needs?”
Credibility and authority. Like if the players don't respect him with the players think that he's expendable, how's he going to, how's he going to, how's he going to build out a coaching staff? When those coaches are like dudes, we just stay like an extin, stay motel, like how long we're going to be here. And so it's an extraordinarily challenging situation for Micah Nori, you know, and I've got empathy for Micah. This is a guy who has been a lifelong grinders in a
system coach. His established reputations want the best assistant coaches in the league. By the way, if you didn't people who, like the casual thing, you probably know Micah from his halftime interviews on the Wolves broadcast, absolutely hilarious guy. And you see his personality shine through all the one-liners there. But he's also a great basketball mind. But he'd interviewed for like six or seven head coaching jobs. He'd been a finalist on multiple. And he wasn't breaking through.
So he feels like man, I've got one I can take now. If I pass on this,
I ever get another chance and was leveraged because they're also negotiating ...
simultaneously in his weird game of limbo. How low can you go? Or how low are you willing to go?
“And he felt like he couldn't pass on an even with it being just, I was stuck with the deal.”
I was talking to another head coach who sort of comes from the same lineage as Micah Nori. Okay. And he's like, for those of us who like coached in the G league and stuff like this, all the jobs we're ever going to get are going to be bad jobs. We're not going to get Jason Kid walking into coaching KG Pierce and those guys. And we're not going to get the job that Steve Nash walked into. We're not going to get the job. The Steve Kerr was able to get
over a minute, so on and so forth. Yeah. If you're a grinder and you come up that way, you're going to get a job where it's a three alarm fire. Maybe not a five alarm fire, but a three alarm fire. I actually you look at Chris Finch who was Nori's, you know, he and Nori are actually a lot alike. They're both from sort of a small town of Ohio, both coach to the minor leagues. Funfinch got that timber world job. It was in the middle of the COVID year. Okay. It was on the
Raptor staff. He comes over and it was like fix this situation right now and you basically can't practice. You don't even know if you're going to have your players depending on how today's tests go. And, you know, Finch had coached overseas. He'd coached in the G league, blah, blah, blah. And, you know,
“so part of the video is you're going to get a tough situation. I think that's probably why”
Mike took the job because it's like, look, if I sit here and wait for the perfect job, it's never going
to come. And by the way, Finch's tenure in Minnesota started without rage among the coach's associations well, because remember, that's from Gorson, Roses hired him midseason without interviewing anybody else, notably without interviewing any minority candidates, then president of the coach's association, Rick Carlisle issued a scathing statement and then ended up taking the patient's job under incredibly similar circumstances. But, you know, but there was like, it was in a controversial
higher for those reasons. And there was like, there was real dispersement within the coach's association about that one as well. I will say this. And I said this on first take today and, and, you know, Vinnie had an appropriate pushback as fine. If you're a Tom Dunn, he came out and said that
“the blazer has spent a hundred million dollars more than the Carolina Hurricanes do. Okay. And”
he basically is like, you know, that can't be right. And so, and by the way, I'm not his advocate,
I am not arguing for him. I do not have his side. I am trying to just be fair. He didn't kick the players out of the hotel. He kicked some staff members out of the hotel early. It didn't give him a late checkout. And it was a hotel in San Antonio that, you know, it was a one-off situation. It's not all road trips. Okay. But we're talking about culture here at all. I understand. I'm not looking for an argument. I'm just, I'm just saying the other thing is he's, he's, I'm just
showing, I'm just saying what he's probably seeing. He's seeing Joe Masula was probably the lowest paid coach in the league that first year. No assurance whatsoever has taken off taking the Celtics switching championship. He saw Mitch Johnson. Functionally a one-year contract, they didn't have to keep him. He wasn't making any money. Has been great in that role. Mark Dagonal hired right out of the G League. Like he's, he's sitting there saying probably. I don't know what he's
thinking. Well, I'm thinking with his coach from Carolina with the hockey team and that guys made the playoffs eight years and want to stay on the cup. But they're saying hockey. I get that. Also, one of the things he's doing right now up in Portland with the renovation of the Rose Garden. The Rose Garden renovation is complicated. There's a lot of great journals of being done by colleagues in Portland. I am not trying to go anywhere near them. It's a complicated
one because it's the city, state, and county all trying to get together as a curtain cats and dogs
trying to get that thing taken care of. It's a $600 million renovation of the building.
And basically he's like, I didn't pay it for any of it. I'm not paying it for any of it. I'm paying it for any of it here. It feels like we're making a pretty big investment by staying here and paying these tax rates. And so he thinks taxpayers should cover the whole thing. No, it sounds like either who just got to Portland and you know, it's probably been a few nights there. And that's about it. Well, no, it sounds like what it says, we're doing you a favor by staying here. You know,
that sounds very, you know, I've got some emails that says I really want to take this team somewhere else. Like, yeah, it doesn't sound like that he's treating this team. Like it's a civic, like a civic
Property.
there's my thing. Screw all that. I was about the curse. I'm not going to curse. If you're Adam Silver in the band of owners, how do you let this guy in? And and I didn't ask that by multiple some of the coaches were like, somebody needs to ask Adam Silver about this. Adam Silver screwed up by allowing this guy to buy the team. And what and what the league will tell you is that every owner has the right to do things their way. Every owner has to figure out things on their own. He's already
“been backing him up on the record. Adam Silver. Yeah. And what where here's the thing, we know Adam”
isn't ever going to speak out of turn against one of the, not like that. Well, we know Adam is going to be political no matter what the situation is on a bunch of different spaces. All right, my thing in general is it sets a terrible precedent. You put my canory in a completely unfair situation. Like Joe Masula and Mitch Johnson were guys who were in the building. Like adverse situation when you talk about Ema Udoka and his situation and Greg Popovich having a stroke. Like those guys were
in the building and then you take over on an interim basis and you figure out the rest later. They had Thiago Splitter in the building this year. Thiago Splitter on the second day at a damn season. He had to slide in when Chelsea Bill was indicted and everything goes and he took that team to the playoffs. That team now needs to stay together but got better throughout the course of the year and leapfrogged a bunch of teams that we thought were better from a talent standpoint and you let
him walk to the Portland Trailblazers. So more people need to say that I believe in him.
While Thiago Splitter is doing an amazing job under an incredibly difficult circumstances,
Dunnan is literally discussing this position with dozens of coaches. I think I saw him at Pierce High School talking to the JV coach about it. Listen, what he's basically saying is I don't think there's certain things I don't that I have leverage on. I don't have to value. He clearly doesn't value experienced coach with, you know, he thinks he can he can cycle through coaches because he doesn't think there's value there. He doesn't value people.
He value players. Well, not people. Not coaches. Not staffers. No. No. He sees on actions. He's like, look, why should I give any money to Portland? Like, I don't have any investment here.
“Why should I? Anyway, it's an interesting thing. The only thing that will matter is if it”
starts costing in players. Okay. If players start saying, I want to get out of here or I don't want to go there. I want to know what Damian Lillard feels like because he, you know, traded or not, he's back there and he spent all those years being the guy out front. And now he's going to have to be the guy out front again, because we're not going to ask Michael Norey these questions because he doesn't have a leg to stand on. He's not going to speak out against the guy who can fire him
at any time without any financial responsibility for it. So you're going to ask the guy who's made
over, you know, $200 million who the public trusts and everything goes in Damian Lillard. And he has to
speak for this guy. Like, this is the NBA and Adam Silver really screwed the pooch. Unless they were in such a situation where they were afraid of the Portland Trail Blazers being moved by somebody else that they were back then to this, like I will grant Wendy this whenever new owners come into situations unless they are a minority owner in the NBA already. It takes a few years to get a simulated to NBA culture. Like every NBA owner that comes in thinks that they can run their
NBA team like their local business that wants at them billions of dollars. And I understand the thinking but the NBA is something totally different and it's different than the NHL. When you have staffers importantly when they who are relieved, when they are relieved of their duties because it is a working environment that they don't want to be in, that don't feel good, man. More who
“collected podcast after this? I remember and we'll change the topic after this. I'll never”
forget P.J. Carlisselmo. P.J. Carlisselmo became, and he's obviously a longtime head coach in college and the NBA. His last head coaching job was with the Brooklyn Nets. He relieved every Johnson Middle East. And every Johnson, like one coach of the year in November, got fired into December. Maybe it was coach of the year in December, got fired in January. I can't remember. And I remember being one committee. I remember, you know, P.J. is one of our colleagues at the
SPN. We love him. I remember he came in to give his first press conference as the interim
head coach. And then he was asked, what are you expecting to get out of your meeting with owner, Michele Procroft, tomorrow? And he's like lunch. But I remember like he kind of had nothing
To lose at this point.
And this is a guy who had been in college and pro coaching for like 30 or 40 years. He's like, you're best chance to be successful is to have the longest contract possible with the most
“money on. And of course, I think the best chance to be successful as a podcaster would have the”
same thing. I just want everybody to know that. I'm on the record as saying that. Well, you've succeeded.
I wish that were true. But the reality is that there's some truth in that.
There's some truth in that. All right. I have no idea what's going to happen with some of these high big name players. I do think the Austin Reeves contract, what we saw was a fascinating situation of leverage. The the the Lakers from from my knowledge he signed up for four years 185 from what I was told, the Lakers were were in the range of five years 150 for Austin Reeves a couple of days ago. 30 million dollars a year. Very good contracts significantly higher than we was
making right now. And I mean, wasn't there final offer clearly, but that's where they were in the range of. And some teams in the league who thought they might have a shot at Austin were like, wow,
“that's where they're at. Might be able to get it. You know, I think pro clinical had some interest”
there to try it definitely had interest. And to try it was lining up trades to open up the even more cap space. They've subsequently, you know, salary moved Isaiah Stewart. The Lakers immediately within 24 hours of the previous discussion raised their offer to 45 or 46, whatever was it. The increase of offer by 50%, 50% from five would they do that from 30 to 45, because they thought he was going to walk right was leverage. So here's my question, Vince,
knowing that happened and congratulations to Austin, Detroit is very obviously serious about using its space. What's going to happen in Detroit? Who are they going to get? Because you're going after somebody. The crazy thing is the stuff that you heard over the past couple of days before now, you heard about Austin Reeves, you heard about Kobe White, both of those guys assigned. Now you have all this money and I take people back because we're talking about ownership.
Also, Tom Hero, I'm going to throw that here too. Still on the board, still on the board, still on the board. You Tom Gores is an LA guy and he was the guy who spearheaded that Blake Griffin deal all those years ago with six months out of the Blake Griffin sign that deal with the clippers. And he got his star and they learned a lot of lessons in how to build a team.
“You have your star now in K. Cunningham. Do you still have the appetite to go get an LA clipper?”
I'm just a look. When you trade, Isaiah Stewart, who makes 15 million dollars a year,
who's arguably the best room protected this side of Victor Wemin Yamma and a big piece of that culture, you trade him for peanuts, you'd better have a plan. I said this about Minnesota with Julius Randall and Anthony, what's going to happen? I said, they better have a plan. Let's see what they do in Minnesota had a plan and I think the Detroit knows that they have to have a plan. They're in the championships zone. When you win 60 games and you got a franchise player in K Cunningham
and you got to take care of a star Thompson, you got to take care of Jalen Dorn. I've heard things that those negotiations have not gone slimmingly well. So far, you've got to figure out getting K Cunningham a co-star. If there was one team on the NBA landscape, who had the glaring need going into the offseason, it was Detroit and another primary score next to K Cunningham. That question has not been answered yet and we got a few days before free agency.
And listen, they had an opportunity to answer this question before the trade deadline and they decided and I think it was an understandable path. Let's be patient. Let's let these guys, you know, let's give this young core that's ahead of schedule a chance to show us who they are or who they
aren't, come play off time. There's a real struggle to get out of the first round as a 60
win number one seed and then you know, they lose in the second round and it's clear, hey, you need another really dynamic offensive career. You need another, not just shooter, but you need another big time score and they've still got all those picks. They still have financial flexibility now even more so and so it's time to pounce and I'm sure they've got plan A, B, C, D, E, F and you know, A and C or whatever might be off the table, but they've got two pounce this all season because
the financial flexibility to your point is not to be off the board.
Yeah, so I think that's important to realize they've got that you've got this...
they still will sign during they go add a bunch of money to obviously to him and I don't think
he's going anywhere. But let me just real quick, talk about the coi Leonard concept here because coi Leonard is, I wish I could tell you I knew what's going to happen here. I don't know and a lot of the league doesn't know, okay. He's coming off a season. I do, I'm going to look up coi stats just just to remind myself what coi did this year. So he played in 65 games so he may was able to make all on BA. He averaged 28 points. All right. That was the most points of any season in his career.
Chuck 51% from the field. All right. And was an absolute beast from that mid range that we saw back to like his, his, his, his, his, his, his peak of his career really, definitely not mid range.
One year contract at $50 million. By the way, and shot at 39% from three point range on pretty high
volume. Right. And, um, and is, how old is he? See, about 30 35 35 35 and a couple of days actually 35 and four days. All right. So, not necessarily in position to be getting four year max here, but definitely look up like he could get other contract. And certainly the way he's playing, you would extend that guy. You either extend that guy or you would trade it. The last thing you
“would do is have him on an on an, on an, on an expiring. Here's, here's the thing guys. I don't know”
what the clipper is want to do with him as if for the direction of their franchise. I think it's like extend the middle significantly lower number. Okay. But let me ask you this. Are they allowed to extend this contract? Yeah. Good question. Because this contract is possibly deemed illicit. Are they allowed to extend them? Are they allowed to trade them? Without this, this settled, with the league allowed a trade? Can the league make a damn ruling on this? I don't, I don't know
man. When you talk to people around the league, people A thought that a ruling could come down before to draft just in case of draft picks, the units of the strip. Then you hear about, hey, if nothing happens here. And I'm a skeptic. I tend to believe that nobody has the goods and until you actually have the goods. You don't have the goods. You cannot indict on speculation or hear say or look at all the circumstantial evidence and everything else. If you don't have the
goods, then you, if you don't have more than probable calls, then you can't do anything. Because it sets a bad president. But being, with that being said, what do the clippers want to do with Kowai Leonard? Like they just drafted a future franchise point garden in addition to already having Darious Garland there. Are they ready to get out of the Kowai Leonard business? Because it's because it could be possibly too much trouble than what it's worth at this point.
Add to the fact he's 35. Add to the fact that his knees in legs and lower body could be a
“ticking time bomb. This is fascinating to me on a number of levels. I think it's athletic gifts”
are worth the risk. But what about everything else? It's like, it's like one of the biggest, it's one of the biggest things hanging in this offseason. And look, three and a half weeks ago, at the start of the finals, Adam Silver said, it's time for the investigation to be over. That was great. Here's the other thing about the clippers. We're going to find out, by the way, frequency starts on Monday. That's four days from now.
Well, we're going to come on. The one thing about the clippers is important to watch. They got three guys, brook Lopez, Bogdan Bogdanovich, Nicholas Patum, all of them on team options. They don't owe money to any of them. They got to make a decision by this weekend. They cut all of them that shaved 53 million dollars off. They could be a cap space team. All right.
Obviously, could keep them and run back with Kowai. By the way, Steve Balmer has never indicated
“he wants to like go down. I think Steve Balmer is investment in Kowai is so deep. I don't see”
it stopping. But also, Kowai has if he's allowed to be traded and he's not going to face a significant suspension. It either gets a light sent penalty or none at all. He's got immense. He's got more value right now that he's had in years. Right? So, we just got done seeing Lamello ball get traded because the hornets, even if they didn't want to trade him evaluated that his value may not be able to be higher in this short term. I can't imagine if he gets out of this investigation
with that a significant penalty, how you can can dream of Kowai's value not be in higher. This is an organization that's already moved off James Harden and already marked moved off a Vizzia Zubuch. Well, and as Ampaldor, he co-blooded. And, well, Paul George is true, but that
Was, yeah, they made it a value judgment there.
of a sea change already happening. But going back to Blake Griffin to Detroit,
“they are a ruthless, it's a ruthless, cold blooded from office. That I don't mean that to be critical.”
I just mean that to be a statement of fact. It's a statement of fact to me.
That's the NBA. And if you're at Detroit, is this the star with this shelf life
“that you take the risk on? Do you view the eastern conference as being almost say getable? Right?”
But if you look at their roster and you say, okay, we're going to act Kowai Leonard to K,
Coney Ham, a Sartamson, Jalen Durran, plus whatever shooting that we can fill in the blanks on in the
meantime. Does this equal June? Does this equal? We're beating the next? We're beating whatever iteration. We're going to have the Celtics and we're going to be playing the NBA finals this year. Because you don't make that move to give yourself a two-year window, you make that move
“because you want to win yesterday. And I think part of that equation has to be if you trade for Kowai,”
what's kind of the wink wink? Not agreement that comes along with it in terms of a few you bet. You bet a not wink? Not wink? Not wink? Nothing. No Kowai Leonard at this stage. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no trees. All right. I got to cut this short because I got to go, uh, I got to go back to work. Thank you very much, Tim McMan. Thank you very much. To events, thank you to our production, especially Jackson. Thank you for watching. Let's
do a new collective all week long. Who knows what emergency pods will have to do over the weekend, but we'll talk to you soon one way or another. How do you think it goes?
