Free Agency Roundup With Bobby Marks, and Dan Woike on the Lakers!

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"And it's very good." "Very good." "With such a price, it's $30.00." Turn up on the Zaclo show. Free agency is winding down with a few notable exceptions, Lebron James, among them, as of

now anyway. Bobby Marx, my old teammate, my fellow suffering metz fan, is here to sort of sort through the rubble of free agency. Who got better? Who got worse?

What are some small deals that we like?

What are some small deals that have left us a little puzzled? We revisit because we're going to be revisiting it for the next year. So Jalen Brown, a transaction we're going to be talking about for a long time, it touches on so many NBA flash points from analytics to collect the Barney Agreement to the apron, to salary levels, to all sorts of things we're going to hit every angle of that.

Now that the Celtics, the sixers, the league at large has had some time to digest it, how go to the sixers actually? How much worse are the Celtics? We talk about all of that and just, you know, we've got a ton of deals to sort through the big deals, the small deals guys like Tariysin, Norm Powell, lots of stuff to talk

about with Bobby Marx.

“And Dan Boyke, from the athleticist here, to talk about the lakers because I think it”

got swept under the rug a little bit amid the jail and Brown mania.

They took a lot of huge swings to remake this franchise, the league's glamour franchise around

Luka Dantish. Is it good enough? Are they trapped into a team that's just good with no pathways to be great? Who is Walker Kessler? How is he going to fit with this team?

All of that and more coming up on the Zack Low Show. Welcome to the Zack Low Show, the NBA offseason has won huge storyline left and that's LeBron James, who broke up with the lakers before they could break up with them. You can't fire me, I quit, and there's a lot of stuff going on around the league too. Bobby Marx is here.

How are you doing, buddy? I'm good. How are we doing? Good. I'm here to announce that the low family is throwing its entire football loyalty behind

Norway from here on out, so just make note of that and that's my press release for today. Do you have a team that you are now throwing your full loyalty behind? That's a good one. I mean, watching Team USA last night was like watching Nets, Pistons, O4, Eastern Conference, my final game seven and lose by 30, you know, the hype was there and then it just didn't

live up to you. Or any of 60 match games that have happened so far this season, which is what I thought up when our goalie dragged us foot on the floor and that was it.

“Yeah, we're going, we're going Norway and that's what we're going to do.”

So Bobby, before I thought this was fitting right before I hopped on with you, I just watched the six-minute video that the Raptors and Kyle Lowery posted about him signing a one-day contract today with the Raptors and retiring after 20 years. And I thought that's such an interesting sort of just thing to happen in the same week as all this jail and brown discourse occurs because they're similar and so different and

in so sort of like divisive and similar but opposite ways. So like, Lowery and Joe and Brown, you stack them up next to each other. No one on the eye test, whatever suggests that Kyle Lowery is a better basketball player than jail and brown, right? Joe and Brown's a six-eight wing.

He does all these things. He's a much more natural floor razor than Kyle Lowery. Kyle Lowery is a six foot nothing, whatever he is, you know, like average 20 points of game only twice in his entire career and yet the advanced analytics, which have become such a flash point at all, this is you Bobby Marks know better than anybody else would

tell you that in his prime, Kyle Lowery did advanced analytics with tell you this. Not Zach Low, not Bobby Marks, the advanced analytics and not just some of them pretty much all of them because there are a lot of advanced analytics would tell you that Kyle Lowery was a flat out better basketball player than jail and brown. I also think that's interesting because, you know, Kyle Lowery was another one of these

guys who was tagged with the quote, "smartous guy in the room thing" throughout his career calling cowards, citing anonymous sources called jail and brown, "smartous guy in the room thing" or cited sources calling it a quote unquote disease, which I thought was a cheap shot on every possible level. But it's a useful reminder that this kind of label in varying degrees has been tagged

to Chris Paul, it's been tagged to Spencer Dinwitty and really hurt his career.

Killer, and is now retiring today as the all-time franchise legend of the Toronto Raptors. Chris Paul, did I say Chris Paul, Jared Allen, he liked computers too much to play, a lot

“of this stuff is sort of nonsense, but I think that it's just such an interesting dichotomy,”

the Kyle Lowery day, props to Kyle Lowery, what a story like discarded by Memphis, traded by Houston, you know, all of this stuff and becomes a franchise legend and a champion in Toronto, and jail and brown, I don't know Bobby, like what have you learned in the past week or six days or whatever since this jail and brown trade, is anything changed in your perception of it?

Well, I mean, I would start with, you know, just going back to, you know, when I spoke with serious radio, I kind of had an idea that what his trademark it looked like. Like that was, like really, that was like when I said, you know, and I, and it wasn't just one person, like I talked to a lot of people, and a lot of people in front offices here about where his, his trademark was, and it wasn't that, you know, whether he's a seventh

man or whether he's a rotational player or, you know, some of these other things, which I told

I, I totally agree, I disagree with what I was basically what's set in the stage, as

far as like when this guy gets traded, be prepared that his value is where it is.

“And I think like, it was almost like doing weather and say, hey, there's a storm out there,”

like be prepared. It's going to come soon, and that was really the reason, and for me, you know, I mean, for me, it was like kind of defending him, like say, wait a minute, like this thing is going to fall off the tracks here with everything there. I agree with you, I think listen, whether you think you're the smartest man in the room

or the, you know, or you have, I don't want to say, hi, opinion or, you know, you like other things other than just basketball, like I do think that sometimes there is a perceived notion, the disease thing is off, like way off, like, you know, like, like, that is like beyond everything like that. And that's one, that's a personal shot.

Yeah. And we need, we need to draw, yeah, we need to draw a line between like anonymous sources. This has been my pet peeve with the sports illustrated anonymous scout for 30 years. Yeah.

“You need to draw a line between anonymous sources who are giving you news that you otherwise”

cannot get or giving you sort of just insight that fair basketball criticism versus name calling. And that's, that's name calling and that's like put your name behind that one. Well, that's right. Like, you know, when I talk to whether it be an analytics person or whether it be someone

in the front office or whether it be, you know, like, that was like, hey, this is what, this is what the perceived notion is. Now that wasn't across the board with every team, but there was a, there was a strong belief as far as how teams you to now, you could look at all the different numbers on off, you know, plus minus.

But as I said, listen, at the end of the day was 191 and 80 and four years, he led a team

that basically had no Jason Tatum this year to what 53 wins in the two seed in the Eastern

Conference and finished six and MVP voting. I think that kind of carries a lot of weight as far as how you evaluate, how you evaluate the player and everything like that. And at the end of the day, you know, I watched Brad Brad Steven's press conference on Monday and he like, you know, listen, he, it felt like it kind of pained him, right?

Like, oh, they're going through it right now. I mean, they're going through it on a lot of different levels in Boston right now. You know, whether you could talk about the, you know, having two max play super max players that tie up, I don't know, 70% of your salary cap made a good point. I think he said 3 years ago is 44% of your salary cap and the ability to, now you can

make the counter argument like, wait a minute, you just traded a max for a max. But it does give you the optionality, as far as with Paul's one less year and there's a player option there and everything like that. But yeah, it's, it's, it's probably been one of the more bizarre weeks for me, at least just based on this discussion that started last week.

And really, it's like, it's funny, after they lose the filly in the first round, it's

like, how do we get here, right? Like, how did we get to this point and then the honest trade, right? Like, and then it doesn't happen and now we're, like, we're here and everything like that and that's, that's, you know, that's the biggest thing is that a guy that, as I said finished 6th in MVP, was basically like, like, when we look back five years from now, this

is going to be one of those, like, studies, right? It's, it's all the league is talking about a week later. And I'm glad you mentioned you honest, because that's almost like,

because of an extra first round pick, you know, they would have taken three first and at

least who will Gonzalez, if not Baylor Scheirman. And you said the word optionality and you got to give the, the Celtics points, at least for this consistency, they decided we don't want 35% of the max tied up with Yannis, or we don't want it enough to trade what it's going to take and we don't want it necessarily long term with Jalen Brown who's extension, I think was hovering over all this too. Look, there are two separate questions here. Number

one is just the big general one. Why trade Jalen Brown at all. Number two is the Y now and Y for this. Let's start with Y trade Jalen Brown. I think this is very simple and it's been over complicated a little bit because there are these ancillary issues like what's he going to be happy with his role coming back onto this team with Jason Tatum as the new ish old new old number one guy. I think that was a real thing. I think there was as the athletic reported some internal concern related to that

role issue with how Jalen Brown played in the Philly series and the first round a little out of control, a lot of turnover is maybe forcing the issue a little bit. I think they're kind of blowing that out of proportion personally, like he was not great, but I don't think it was like cataclysmically bad. So there's those issues, but really what it comes down to is this. You can

“argue whatever you want about analytics. I don't really care. Here's the thing, all of them. There are”

certain players around the league, certain star players, two or three or four always around the

get a time where all the advanced analytics, not just some of them, all of them, whether it's warps or snoreps or adjusted plus minus or this system or wind shares or whatever box score plus my like take the whole spectrum of them. They all scream in unison. This player is not as good as the traditional stats say that he is or the MVP people. It's state of that he is. There's always players like that. Devin Booker is another one where the advanced analytics when you put them

all the spreadsheet, he always comes out so low that you're like, wait, are these like broken, but when they all say the same thing, it behooves you to listen to them at least a little bit. That doesn't mean they are gospel. That doesn't mean jail and brown is the 50th of best player in the NBA or the 70th best player in the NBA or the 7th best player on the Celtics.

“It just means they are flagging something and I think in jail and brown's case what they are flagging”

is he is good at doing the number one option type of stuff, but not great, right? Like his playmaking, his assistant turnover ratio is usually about even, not a great pass or not a great three point shooter and he is just okay at the number two option stuff of defense and three point shooting and extra passing and all of that, which is why some of those analytics systems would rate guys like Derek White above him because Derek White is elite at the secondary option stuff,

not as good at the first option stuff. That doesn't mean all of that stuff is true and you have

to believe all that about jail and brown, but the analytics are sniffing out something about him. And so when I say this trade really boils down, you can don't don't get too caught up in the role definition and the culture of the team and all that, and to me it really boils down to this. Me personally, I look at the I test, I watch a gazillion games, seeing jail and brown plays, gazillion games, I've seen him when finals MVP deservedly, he's finals MVP deservedly.

I put him second team all NBA this year on my fake ballot deservedly. I know how good jail and brown is. I also pay attention to the analytics. To me, that nets out at probably jail and brown is something like the 12th to 20th best player in the NBA. 12th at the absolute apex,

“20 to 22 or something at the absolute floor, really great player. And I think all this trade is,”

it may be disagree with me and if so, please jot chime in is he's making the fourth or fifth most amount of money in the league and he's the 15th, 16th, 17th best player in the league and the eyes of maybe some decision makers. I don't know where exactly Boston ranks him and that's it. Like that's that's the whole thing. That dichotomy between where his salary ranks and where he ranks is I think why this trade happened, why it happened now and why this return we can get into. But I

really think that's basically what it is. I think I didn't get right on the head. I think listen, I think for me, the analytics part, yeah, I think there's a role for it. And I think a lot of teams, when they went through the jail and brown process, they looked at it, okay, why do these numbers stand? Why do this pop? And then you kind of go to the film part of it and then you look at kind of your roster construction as far as if you were going to make a trade for them and how

he fits in. And then also the financial part of it. I think the financial part is the biggest part. And I keep on going back and saying, I think I might have said this on TV. Really the only pathway

so when you look at yawnets, right? You know, max for max. When, you know, none of us talked about

“Paul George max for max, okay? And when you talk with teams throughout this after the trade”

happened and didn't you go back and like, what happened? A lot of it came down to originally the offers were too high, which Boston was looking for. Boston's asks. Boston's asks were too high. There was such a short window when free Agnes, he was about to start that we needed to go back and we need to go do our own business, right? Like we weren't going to go back to the table and say, instead of this amount of picks, we're going to do this amount of picks because we already had

trades lined up. We already had free Agnes signings lined up. The basically had to be, hey, this is what it is. Let's do it now. And if not, then we're going to move on to our other business.

But you hit it right on ahead when you look at trading a, you know, a 54 or 58 million dollar

player in this day and age, it is extremely hard for teams from a roster construction standpoint, trading three or four guys. Like it just really is. And Brad, you know, it's funny, Brad Stevens, you know, he talked about, you know, when you have two max guys tied up and it hurts your depth, I actually thought at a point last year, I applauded the Celtics depth when you look at what they were able to do, like even to the point, I wrote in my, when I write my off season articles,

I wrote when I was writing six years article. And I said, and I changed it because affiliate beat them in the first round. I said, listen, if, if your affiliate, you kind of want to mirror how Boston has built out, how they've drafted with Jordan, Washington, Hugo Gonzalez and Luca Garza and Bell Shar, like, you know, all these guys, they were able to find and develop a name is Cated, right, like these under the radar guys. And I thought for them last year, that kind of really

sustained some things when you didn't have Jason Tatum for the most part of the year. So I understand when when Brad says, hey, like, listen, I'm watching New York and their depth and everything like that. Well, two years ago, we were talking about the next depth as their Achilles, right? So it's not like all the side and you swap the max for the max. And now you, yes, you're able to get Mitchell Robinson, but Zach, at the end of the day, you would have been able to get Mitchell

Robinson if you had Jim Brown still on your roster because they were salary wise and everything like that. So listen, I understand a lot of the different angles with, with this trade from the teams that were interested from, from the Celtics perspective here, you know, the, you know, I, listen, I don't think a team did not trade for Jason Tatum because they thought he was the 50th of Brown, Jim Brown. Yeah, Jim Brown, because he was the 50th. So teams tried to trade for Jason Tatum. Some teams

who did not express their social and jail and Brown and had the assets to do so, did express interest in Jason Tatum and were shrugged away, which is another sort of sight angle to this.

“Well, I always say, like, you know, unless you ask, you never know. Why not ask? Why not ask?”

I don't know. Here's, um, like, the optionality thing is going to be interesting and you bring up the nicks. It'll be interesting to see where the Celtics are end up because you could end up is the optionality just going to lead you to another superstar player that's going to put you into the same game. So like, if you're, are you going to trade all of this stuff for superstar X down the line,

or are you going to try to mimic what the nicks did, which is get a bunch of guys making between

15 and 45 million and nobody making the max. And guess what part of that is because jail and

Brunson took a family discount that no other player is going to take in any other situation that has enabled them still to squeeze under the second apron. They're still under right with on right now. That will be. And by the way, the Andre Drummond Mitchell Robinson thing, it's not nothing.

“I think it's a meaningful downgrade for the nicks and just like Andre Drummond is a great offensive”

rebounder 17 and a half percent offensive rebounder rate. Mitchell Robinson was out of the universe as an offensive rebounder last year, almost 25 percent. The bigger declined to me will be rim defense. Andre Drummond allowed almost 70 percent shooting at the rim when he was contesting. Mitchell Robinson was under 60 to 58 percent. That's a pretty good number much faster, much

different player. It's a meaningful thing and they are squeezed under the second apron. And I'm

sure you've heard people talk about what we're talking about Denver later. The second apron is acting like a hard cap in a lot of these cases. And it goes back, I'm going to get back to jail and Brown, but it goes back to like, I go back to this piece. I wrote just for myself all the time. In 2018, 2018, eight years ago, I wrote a piece about the supermax and how it was forcing teams into very

became supermax eligible and the bulls with Jimmy Butler just entering his mid 20s decided

“we have to get out of the Jimmy Butler business now. 30th pick, homegrown superstar. And yes,”

just like Jalen Brown, there were ancillary issues like Didi was he disagreeing with Fred Hoyberg

and poisoning the culture at all above above above. The bottom line is they didn't want to pay

him the money. And I wrote in that article like, these, these, if you draft a player and he becomes a success story to the point that Jalen Brown did, finals MVP champion, beloved in the community, all of that, it just feels viscerally wrong to me that his contract is something that you want to get rid of. And so how can we fix that? And in that story eight years ago, I talked about like, should you get some cap tax relief? If it's a homegrown drafted, has only played on

your team superstar earning the 30 or 35% max. And I said, well, get a cap tax relief. That's really just saving the owner's money. Kind of less so now in the apron, because it's giving you more like flexibility to do stuff. I even pitch like, should you get some sort of mini middle-level exception? If you have one of those players on your team to help you build the team around him and reduce the force you feel to get him off of your team. And I remember thinking, well, you know,

does that make tanking a little bit more beneficial? Because that's the way you get these super star players. But now tanking has been like crippled under the new ladder. Well, I just, I just still this really believe that it's something is wrong with the system that turns these homegrown stars. In some cases, not all, but like in that, in that article, I talked about Blake Griffin, Russell Westbrook, you're on and on, that turns them into albatross contracts that you what,

the Celtic should want jail and brown to be a Celtic for life. Their fans want them to be a Celtic for life. And at some point, like, this does become about the fans, like this fit, Boston fans, I have to watch jail and brown put on the freaking Allen Irish and black sixers jersey.

“Like, that's going to hurt. It's painful. It's emotional. And I think we, something, there's”

got to be something there. I don't know what it is, but it just feels wrong to me. And it's almost like, you know, just thinking out loud. Like, you know, so it's a lot different because of the salaries. Like, so when you sign a veteran minimum, okay, the league of once you sign guys who have been in the league. So when you sign for the veteran minimum, if, um, if LeBron signs with Cleveland,

for example, and he's signing for the veteran minimum for that 3.9 million. Well, for cap purposes,

you're only getting charged 2.4. So if you are talking about a super max guy who a 35% right, so shade, Jason Tatum, um, jail brown, guys like that, why don't you get charged 30, guy, I can still earn 35%. Right. You can still earn your 58, but instead of maybe, yeah, we have 30, we're getting charged 30%. Oh, my, all my proposals weren't the player gets all the money. Like, it's, it's about all the cap issues and stuff. Yeah. And for cap hits, it's 30%.

So there's a big difference. You know, like, we go back to like Evan Mowgli, for example, and listen, Cleveland and him negotiated that in his rookie contract, Kate also in Detroit, where when they did the rookie deals, they had the escalators in there that won from 25 to 30% and if you're in first team on BA or defensive player the year, and they hit him, right? Evan

got named defensive player the year instead of, you know, a $224 million contract and came like 270.

Teams root, like, it's a real thing. Teams, I'm not saying just about Cleveland. I'm saying, teams root almost root against their players achieving things like that, like all NBA and defensive player the year for financial reasons. And that's like toxic. That, like, that, that should not be. All right, I just want to get before we could go far down. You know, it's a real real real real real quick regarding Boston. And I know they're talking about finance as an optionality. I'm just

looking at his contract right now. It's interesting that they gave Mitchell Robbins in a three-year guaranteed deal. Like, fully guaranteed across the board where you look at some of these other centers, not Walker Kessler, but Robert Williams in Portland, Scott, you know, guaranteed game classes in Ashokland, and Atlanta gets a one-year deal, right? Like, so it is interesting that they went the full boat because really, there's a player option in the last year. Mitch was like,

the last man standing, right? Like, there was like, he was the last of the centers to come off the board here. And that's, you know, they came three years, 47 million plus of, you know, guaranteed money. I'm glad you brought that up because later in this episode, I have Dan Wakey on and we talk about the lakeers off season. And how I think they just kind of have trapped themselves into a team

“that isn't going to be as good as they think it is. And the question that you need to ask is like,”

what are the alternate paths? What is the alternative to paying Walker Kessler a gigantic amount of

total for Walker Kessler. No one is debating that. What is the alternative that doesn't

piss off Lucatacha? It just he approaches like almost the end of his contract in a couple years. And it's something like Mitchell Robinson who's an injury risk at the mid-level exception, but there are other alternatives like that. Anyway, that's like, okay, jail and brown. The other thing is why this deal and why now? And as we begun to sift through the rubble of this,

“the answers to that has become a little bit clearer. And I think it's because Boston felt”

an urgency to do this. I think they're just they were worried about the internal discord of bringing him back into a team that was going to be at least mostly Jason Tatum's team is the number one option. I think they were worried that deals were starting to disappear. So like Brooklyn moved on

to other business. I think there was real interest there. Minnesota moved on to its business. I

think there was real interest there. John Christmas, he talked about it on the podcast. You know, Toronto, if they had been interested at all, pivoted to Coly Leonard and coming back to Toronto and all of that. And so was there fear that I think Boston probably miscalculated on a couple of levels. Number one, the filly option was not going to go away. I think fillin became I think Josh Harris became pretty fixated on getting jail and brown. And I think they could

squeeze another asset out of the sixers for sure. And I also think I don't know, I'm curious to hear, I think there was at least one or two other teams who might have been interested in jail and brown, who got intel that jail and brown was not super interested in them and to maybe stay out of the bidding. So I think Boston felt the circle closing and then you throw on top of that teams like Houston and Cleveland who like could have had the assets just weren't weren't

diving into it in Portland. Portland mixed to like I thought Portland was kind of a wall card just based on this and they got five guards that you could start. That's the one that I'm like to jail and brown I want to be there. Like that is that is that. So I, you know, I think all of that is sort of what drove them to do it now. It's just, it's going to be a trade we talk about for a long time. It's not a good trade. It's not a good return. I think we all agree. I do think it's going

to age better than it will right now in part because I think like it would not surprise me at all of Boston wins more games than the regular season than Philadelphia. That doesn't mean

“there is good of a playoff team because I think that's that's what the analytics may be missed”

is that when the game really gets tough and the defense is really get top notch and it's not a hundred game sample size. It's a seven game sample size against a defense with tons of great wings. That's the game planning only to be you. Do you have more than one guy who can get a good shot, bully you into the paint, compromise your defense pretty much every possession against any defender you can throw it in jail and brown for whatever war team I'd have as a pastor, a playmaker,

tough shot take or all of that. He can do that. Paul George can't anymore. Paul George will play really well against the Celtics by shooting threes and hitting a lot of mid range turn around jumpers in isolation like he like fade away is that no one is sending doubles in him. They're really really tough shots. He's not getting into the pain. He's not getting to the rim. He's not getting to the dotted line. I think that's when you're going to miss jail and brown in the playoffs. But look,

like they got two really good draft picks out of it. We'll see what those turn into. I think they're going to win a decent amount of regular season games to self-explicate. But it's it's a painful one that they're going to be thinking about in Boston for a long, long time. When you talk about optionality, if you're going to say that stuff at a price conference like Brad Stevens said, I don't think it's going to be this season. Maybe it's next season next summer. Like you better

nail the next move. And that was the obvious angle I talked about right in my emergency podcast was

“to judge this trade fully. You have to see what they do when Paul George is an expiring.”

Contract breaking news. What do we got? Donovan Mitchell. Four years. Two seventy three. Okay. Donovan Mitchell breaking news from Shams Trania. Well, that was good. It's just finished. I thought better nail with the next move. Whether with all these picks and the Paul George expiring. Like that's if you're going to talk about it at press conference, you better than that. Donovan Mitchell, four year 273 max contract that includes

a player option for the 3031 season. So we can put it all to bed now, Bobby. Donovan Mitchell has said over and over again. I want to be in Cleveland. I want to win with this team. We made the

conference finals blah blah blah. And the trade rumors have always like, you know, like,

well, but what if this happened? Now there's that now he's on the team. Now the question. I'll tell you what. I'm looking at the numbers. It's 70 a year. 75 five and a last year, buddy. 34 years old. Look, I mean, this is nearly what we just talked about. It said he's not a home

Devon Booker contract in Phoenix where it's like, well, I mean, I can't bring it up now because the numbers have been updated for for that an initial, like there's 0.60.9 658 70.6 and 75 five. Look, good for the calves because they get, they get their stability, they're clearly going for it. What's the other option? They're clearly going for it. They're going to bring hard and back at some number. Maybe they'll get LeBron in a week in a month and three months. I don't know.

Like, they could probably use LeBron. I don't love the basketball fit there. But there's like,

almost there's like a 10% chance that Donovan Mitchell is a 75 million dollar player.

Quality wise production wise at age 34. There's like it's not going to happen. It's the same

“thing with Devon Booker. The difference is Cleveland isn't a position to go for it now. And I think”

justifiably believes we're not far from making the finals, we might be far from winning the finals, maybe not. I don't know. Phoenix is not and will not be, I don't think it any, well, it doesn't appear to be likely that they will be during Devon Booker's contract. At least Donovan Mitchell, we're breaking, we're just reacting right now. So this is my snap reaction. This is a, what else am I supposed to do? The guy, the guy was a first or second team all NBA level player,

all season. I actually had him rated above jail and brown in my sort of player rankings for the season.

He's an undersized two guard fine. He's a really great player. I don't know what else you're supposed

to do. They traded a whole shit ton to get him. You told us still benefiting from it right now. Okay, Bobby. Do you all proud of the pitch? Well, I mean, what, what, what, what, what's your reaction? I knew it was, I mean,

“you kind of knew it was coming. I'm not surprised by it. It's a summer of extensions, right?”

We've got all these all NBA, all all stars, former MVP's that are extension eligible. There's over 20 of them. I said, like, when people ask me, who's the next domino to fall in the trade? Let's see what happens in extension talks. Well, you know, who's a name that is extension eligible. And now it's a real thing that's almost on the clock because he has a player option for 27, 28. And that's it. That's the end of his contract. It's a player I talked a lot about when I was trying

to prime Celtic fans for get ready for what looks like a disappointing return on the jail and brown trade. And that's Carl Anthony Towns. Yeah. And to me, that's still the best comp for the jail and brown trade is a team in Minnesota had a great player making a huge amount of money, making a top six player amount of money that they thought was the 15th to 20th best player whatever in the league. I'm not speaking for them that's just like, I'm just going to guess

that that's what they can see to a player who was roundly mocked for his postseason performances in a lot of years and all his works in Jimmy Butler, mocked him and all that. And they decided we're kind of in jail. We need to get out of this contract to loosen up our books and give

ourselves that old word optionality. Right. You're gonna make my never mind. We're gonna make a bad

well, I was gonna make a bad office space, Joe. And they traded for Julius Randall. Don't take you in Chenzola in a first round pick. And it was like, whoa, that's Carl Anthony Towns

“straight value. I think that's what the jail and brown people said. I have no, I don't do I can”

I say some other things that are not true about the jail and brown trade or do you have more reactions? Oh, that's nice. Here are some things that I want to get off my chest. Number one, This is not as bad as the Luka Dodgers trade. It doesn't even live in the same planet. It's the Luka Dodgers trade. Boston gets a Boston canvas, the whole league. And this was the best they got. And you could decide like your criticism of should they've just done nothing. That's fair,

should they have done the honest deal. That's fair. It's not even close to the Mavericks voluntarily trading Luka Dodgers and only talking to one team about him. Not close. Number two, please miss me with the while Boston thinks Peyton Pritchard is going to be jail in Bronson talk. Did you just see jail in Bronson? Just see what that dude did in the finals? I love Peyton Pritchard. He's not going to be jail in Bronson. Number three, this is also not the Rudy Gay trade, whether it's the Memphis

trading, Rudy Gay to Toronto and getting better or Toronto trading, Rudy Gay to Sacramento and getting better. Joan Brown is a way better player than Rudy Gay ever was. Those are just things I wanted to get off my chest. Is there anything else you want to hit on this before we whether it's smart to sky in the room, optionality, Boston, Donovan Mitchell, anything else you want to hit? I think the biggest thing like in just going back, like when I meet with these when I go back and

talk about the draft prospects and stuff like that, like what they do off the court and what they do in the community and what they do giving back or what their hobbies are. I mean, sometimes

locker room, lawyer and stuff like that. I think it's easy for a lot of people who aren't in it

“who aren't part of it. Like, you know, as far as like, I think the funny thing was that people”

when I talk when I said, yeah, like, hey, I talked to somebody in analytics and I thought he was the seventh bus player, which, you know, as I said, pushed back on everyone equated, oh, someone from the Celtics, Toby Marks that it wasn't. It wasn't. It wasn't. The Celtics were not out there doing doing, you know, damaging their players trade value. That's not the case. My wife thinks I need to get a hobby. Actually, like, I'm sure on hobbies. And I'll tell you

one thing my hobby is not going to be is soccer, Bobby Marks, because I'm wearing my jersey today and I'm still pissed off about the bogus off sides call that robbed Croatia of a chance to be

Portugal and extra time. I don't understand it. I'll never understand it. You know what, my daughter,

my daughter and I were watching the game together. My wife was at the game in Toronto with her sister. My daughter and I were watching it. My daughter, like, was already in cold mode with, like, six, seven minutes left. They're down one. So they're going to lose daddy. It's over. Like, why are they still playing hard? And I was telling her, never, ever give up. This team has scored a lot of dramatic late, come from behind goals. And it's run over the last decade of World Cup,

excellence, and all that just never in sports. You never ever give up, never. This team has done special things. And they score. And I'm running around the living room. And I'm saying, see, I told you

lesson learned. This team's incredible. Never stopped playing until the whistle. And I'm like,

what a great teaching moment. The smile on her face was, like, purely, and then, well, DNA, already could have hit a follicle. And here's this little spike that indicates the chain on that. I'll get out of here with all that. All right, let's take a break and we'll talk more about, I don't know, basketball. By the way, what, what do you think is going to happen with Carlancity Towns? Isn't that kind of like a pressing item of business or do they just, like,

play it out? Like, it just seems on, you don't really ever play it out, even with the player option like that. No, you don't. I mean, you could do it. You could take it through the whole year until June 30th, just because he's got a player option. So technically, he's on a one-year deal. But as you've, as you've seen, like, next summer, like, Jan was up for an extension, right? So he's

“going to, hi, right? I'm going to cash in now and everything like that. I think, you know,”

it's, we've gone from, and I though the Mitchell case is probably a little bit different though, but like, we've seen teams more negotiate. And then the past just based on how these rules are set up. Like, the rules set up set you up to negotiate to get, like, like, if, if you, like, people think, maybe I'm wrong, like, like, like, they're quizing the sign of two for one twenty four in Toronto. I'm like, that's his max, right? That says max that he can get and everything like that. So I think,

can I, if I'm Toronto, like, hey, can we not? Can we not? Like, you're 35 years old. You never play a

full season ever. You've been healthy in the playoffs, like twice out the last six seasons, which kind of, like, a big deal. I think that was, I mentioned it in my reactions to the trade. Like, it's clearly a good trade. It clearly makes them better. It clearly gives them a little slice of eastern conference championship equity that they did not have. To have that championship equity, you need coi Leonard to play four playoff series. Three playoff series. He has not done that

in, like, a long, long time, basically since Toronto. And so why should I expect to do that? Again, and oh, by the way, there's a scandal that I guess, Bobby, like, are we going to be the woman from the Titanic being like, well, 75 years ago, it was still billing. Maybe billing people. Maybe me and you next week will be out in Vegas. And we do our annual sitting next to each other at the

“Adam Silver Board of Governors post recap and that whatever's the strip pavilion there, right?”

And maybe that's maybe then we hear about the aspiration. I don't know. Maybe, or maybe not, you know, like, to lift and walk to lift and erosion and cast. You guys are the real MVP's. You guys, you guys, great work, everybody involved. Okay. Uh, oh, towns. I saw a lot of people who I asked you about town. That was not. I'm pretty sure the town's number is exactly the same as what Mitchell just, what he's eligible for. I mean, yeah, 4 for 273. So, the 34 making 75,

six, almost 76 million dollars. Yeah, he carl towns is a $61 million player option for 2728. And that's it. Like, that's the whole entirety of his contract. It's it. Okay. By the way, speaking of negotiation and the art of actually negotiating, I asked you like, picking a small deal that you'd like or hate.

that the rockets resigned Tariys and to five years, 81 million, which is basically like, hey,

you know what you get, young promising player who turned down, I think, more or they're we're talking about, I don't know who turned what down, but the extension talks were richer per year in the fall than this. Here's the mid-level exception, basically. Like, take it or leave it. Yeah. And look,

“Rafael Stone, some people like his move, some people don't. One thing you have to give him credit”

for is like, to do it actually negotiates. He uses his leverage. Like, Alper and Shen Goon, you think you just walk into a max because, you know, you made it all start team and you're at 20, whatever, 23 year old, 24 year old center. And that's what happens. No, you don't get the max. Take this. That would, that's like Tariys and given, he's three point shot fell off a cliff halfway through last season. And he's been up and down throughout his career. I'm a believer,

but the evidence is what it is. And he's at a lot of injury issues. Like, that's a fair deal

for him. And it's still 81 million dollars. It's not like they give him a minimum. It's a ton of money.

And I think that was my pick for a good deal. And the rockets didn't negotiate. It's what they do. Well, I mean, listen, it's when you're coming off a rookie contract, it's hard to turn down guarantee money. Like, it's when you're making like $67 million dollars. Like, and you can say here,

“we're going to give you 81. I think that's, even like, in it sets up, like, did the ran extension,”

right? Like, the ran extension last year. Like, they didn't just max them out. They basically, they lowered the number and gave them the flexibility for a men Thompson, who is, is one of these extension eligible players that are up, this, him and his brother are up this, the summer with, with where they are here. I, I think for me, the nut that, and I was just going through them last night, like, there's actually three contracts, and they're from the same team. And they all came in last night.

Like, I don't know what type of voodoo power, Leon Rose and Brock Aller, and the group there does with some of their players. And probably it's just that they love playing in New York, and that there's a comfort level, and that the teammates really love each other. But the three guys, Jose Alvarado, Langer Sharma in Muhammad, D.O.R., they're contracts, and really not with, I'm just pulling them up now. Like, yeah, I'm telling me.

“But Alvarado goes for two, three for 14.4. First two years of guarantee, 4.4 is first year.”

Okay? Third year partial guarantee. Okay? 27.

Langerate goes for, for 24 million. First year guaranteed, 5.5 million. So basically,

it's the biennial exception. Years three and four partial. Okay? This is all with the eyes on the second apron, right? Because Bronson is going to get a raise and two. It's going to be back and all that. This is all, one, five, one, six, a partial in the third year. D.O.R., I was going to write about him when I did their offseason article because they were in this unique position because they signed him, he basically signed the one year rookie tender because he was

second round pick and I'm like, well, wait a minute, the apron is going to bite them because the team can just come in with an offer sheet and they wouldn't be able to match. He goes for four, four, 11.3, first year salary, 2.6 million. First two years guaranteed, years three and four, non-guaranteed. So as you could see, there is a trend here with the nicks as far as the back end of some of these contracts, either partial or non-guaranteed but also fitting, I mean, basically exactly

signed three guys for, I don't know, $13 million. Breaking news from Bobby Marx, there you go. Okay, there's a lot to talk about and I know you want to get to Denver and I want to get to Denver. So I'll be quick on this. The sixers, I mean, I don't know if there's any team that needs LeBron more in the LeBron, maybe the heat, but the sixers really could use an extra bit of depth at exactly LeBron's position. Start LeBron, bring Gainweight up to bench. Starting five is

Maxi VJ, Jalen Brown, Dean Wade and B. Do we know M.B. Just pencil and he's going to miss half the season. Yeah. And then off the bench, I like the Simon signing even though they have a lot of guards and they drafted Fylon. I like Justin Edwards, they have Barlow still Jabari Walker, they have a bunch of backup centers, they have a big hole, they have a big hole at that three and a half kind of four position off to bench and they're hard-capped at the first apron, correct? So they only have a few

million dollars of wiggle room. Obviously, they can trade and stuff like that to open up flexibility, if LeBron decides you want to go there. We have time in a whole off season to analyze Filly. I will say this. I am not as worried as a lot of people are about Maxi Jalen Brown and Joelle and B. He'd quote, "sharing the ball." I understand why that's a concern. Jalen Brown likes to he wanted to be the number one option and boss and sent him to a place where he's not going to

be, but he plays like he is no matter what. And B. He'd what he plays is either posting up,

but he's not a hard roll or he's he probably like he's he's involved heavily involved.

And Maxi is Maxi. He's the most important player on the team now and going forward. I get there.

There'll be hiccups and all that. Jo and Brown is not going to be a spot-up guy like Paul George basically was for them. I'm not worried about it. A because M. B. is going to miss half the games. And if you look at their lineup data, the more quality players they had, this is common sense. Like when it was Maxi, no M. B. numbers last year were a slight minus. But you throw Edgecomon, Edgecomon, Maxi, no M. B. It's about net mutual slight plus.

You throw George, Maxi, M. B. No M. B. Edgecomon, no M. B. It's a pretty

“infatic solid plus. That's why jail and Brown matters durability. And also like the ability to play”

two-man game like inverted pick and roll, Maxi, jail and Brown. There's a bully ball ingredient that they didn't have. So I'm not worried about that. I am a little bit worried about their depth and just like the idea that Joellen B. is going to be healthy for an entire playoffs. It seems unfathomable to me. That's my filly analysis. I think the depth was the biggest concern for them going into the offseason. I think the Brown edition helps alleviate, you know, Maxi, Maxi's minutes,

right? I mean, first in the NBA 30 minutes, 38 minutes per night. So it does help

probably offset some of that. I thought, Philly, I said this on TV and people thought I was crazy. I said, I, this was before they made the trade. Well, it was after the trade, but it was looking at the roster before they made the trade. I thought they were a, I didn't think they were a playoff team based on where they were with their roster. And really a lot of his act was because

“whatever one else was doing in East, like, after the Leonard trade, after New York winning it all,”

after, you know, some of the other teams that I thought Indiana, you know, I thought was a team that people should be talking about because they've got a lot of their guys back and everything. And I thought by doing it by the trade, it put them in the conversation. And their depth was a big concern because there was two ways you could go. You could have brought back one of Kelly Ubrae or Quentin Grimes, right? Or you could go out and split the the the non-taxment level into multiple players

and then use the buy-in into on a third player. And what they did was they split it between Wade and Simon's and then Pockporty goes into the into the buy-in wall there. So it's a nice, based on limited funds, I guess, it's a nice piece of business here. And I thought, from a trade standpoint, I thought Philly was in a tough spot because you see all these contracts that, like, call it, they'll make sweet spot contracts. Like, they're the 10 to 20 million dollar guys. Like,

“every team needs those. Like, five guys, like, I'm looking at, like, Charlottes, like, caption, they got 15”

guys between, like, 26 and $2 million. And when you're top heavy like that, you need those type of contracts if you're going to go out and make a deal. Fortunately, for them, the deal they made was trading a, you know, 50 plus million dollar guy for a 50 plus million dollar guy. Look, you mentioned, like, it seems like heresy almost for you to come out and say,

it's Philly, but a playoff team, preach, preach rate, even then. Here's the bottom line about

the East. There are 11 teams for 10 play-in plus playoff spots. And I'm not even counting Washington because I don't know what the fuck the wizards are at this point or who's even going to be on the team. But I'm not counting Washington, Milwaukee, Chicago, who's going to be fun, but bad and Brooklyn, who I know at earthly idea what they're doing, but they're doing something. 11 teams for 10 spots. And all 11 of them probably believe that they are going to be

or could it, or in some cases, could be a top 16. All 11 Detroit kind of TBD on their all season. They added some shooting with Isaiah Joe. They still have Dunkin Robinson, Kevin Herder, Tobias Harris for John Collins exchange. We'll see. But like, they won 60 games last year. Boston, New York, they just won the championship, Cleveland Conference Finals, Toronto, and Atlanta. Hey, they were the five and six seeds. Atlanta is like, we're the 16 despite the fact that half

our season was a mess, and then we figured ourselves out, Toronto, just had a quiet Leonard. Filly, Orlando is like, hey, are we still around Miami, got you honest? Charlotte is still going to be a solid team. I don't know if they're a top 16, but they're going to be in like this mix for the play and at least. And Indiana is like, hey, we're we're back. We're here. We added Kelly Ubraet to it's going to be hard to be a top 16 in the east. Like, one of these teams that you

view as I don't know which one it is, but there's going to be a team that people view as an absolute stone cold lock for the top six that is in the play and like for 100% for sure if you told me Boston's in the play and wouldn't be surprising. He told me Cleveland was in the play and I'd be mildly surprised because they have a lot of regular season pretty high regular season floor.

just the reality of these. Can we talk about the nuggets now? Sure. Speaking of by the way, you know, minimums and filling out rosters before we get to the nuggets. The Margaros and Wade by the Kings. Kings, the summer of oopsie for the Kings, Devon Carter got off you. Whoops, Miss Lattery picked the Margaros and goodbye. We'll maybe wave and stretch you. I mentioned a couple of weeks

“so I thought he was a potential fit for the heat with the honest and I think there'll be some”

minimum interested him. Brown is still out there. He just probably decides, of course, LeBron probably to, you know, I mean, hard and then Cleveland and and Drainman going to the state will go back, but he probably jumps to the top of the board as far as unrestricted guys. What's what's happening in Denver, Bobby? Because Nicole Yoka chasin signed his extension yet and it's not nothing but he did say yesterday in Europe that he is going to be a nugget for

life and he's just waiting till after the season so he can sign a five year gazillion dollar deal instead of a four year sub gazillion dollar deal. Fine. He said he's a nugget for life. He said it he can't say it any more clearly than that. He's not going to be on a different team. The nuggets are not going to trade him. Yep. I mean, I'd be shocked that they ever did and yet they have done very little in the off season. Payton Watson is the restricted free agent to Georgia. They leaked

strategically through the athletic that they will match any offer she for Payton Watson as if the other teams are like, well, they said it. Now we're scared. Now we're not going to do it. The athletic reported that they're going to match any offers you. I can't believe it. Only the clippers in the nets really have the cat space through, but as we have seen with Walker Kessler, there's signed

“trade agreements. I think they absolutely have to re-sign Payton Watson. I've talked about that”

at length, but like, man, they got it. Like, they haven't traded Cam Johnson or Christian Brown. They haven't salaryed nothing. Anybody, what's going to happen here? Well, I think we're going to see, uh, I know it's a minor move. We're going to see a youngness balance you can just wait on Wednesday, the eighth because that's his guaranteed date and that we'll probably see his money

stretched out as two million guaranteed over three seasons so that gives him a teeny bit of

flexibility. But I ran the numbers, Zach, um, when you, uh, if let's, I just put Payton in it at like a 25 million dollar number. Let's just say in their end there, they're luxury attack. They are a repeater team. Okay. So this is four out of five years that their tax bill would be 175 million dollars. It's not going to happen. I, like, for better or worse, like, we can sit here and say, why do you own a team with Nicole Yoke on it? If you're not willing to eat 175 million

“dollar tax bill to give yourselves all the bodies you need because you need all these guys. Like,”

if you lose Cam Johnson for nothing as shaky as he was last year, year two, he'd be better. That's going to hurt. If you salary done Christian Brown, that's going to hurt. Like he's, he's, you're, maybe your best perimeter defender other than Payton Watson. I know we had to down your last year shooting. It's going to hurt. And you're going up against teams, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, notably where there's not any weak spots to poke at there. And you need every tool you got,

but the nuggets are not going to pay under and 75 million dollars in luxury tax. They're just

not going to do it. And you can sit here and complain about it. I would complain about you on arsenal, you on the Rams. Like, how about like, are you really struggling to, like, do this, but they're not going to do it, right? No, I agree. And it's, it's interesting, like, when you're talking about, you know, finances and Christian Brown and Aaron Gordon or our camp, Johnson, like, there's, there's really no, you know, we talked about Brooklyn a little bit. They've got,

they've got like 20 million room, but most of that's going to go away after they do the Randall trade because of how they're tying it from a timing standpoint. And how, like, how teams of shave money off is like a six-step process, right? Like, there's no like big swing and all of a sudden, you're going to chop like 25 million off your books. Like, Boston did it a year ago with Palate and Porsingus and, and eventually signed, you know, all these different

moves, but it took them to February and you do. So if you're looking at, if you're looking at from Denver's perspective, and if you're a Yokech and we're if you're a Jemal Murray, you're like, well, wait a minute. Like, we're, we're keeping Peyton Watson, but at the cost of two of our starters, for example, or one of our starters. And our depth is ties Jones Marvin Bagley Zignaji Julian Strather. Well, no, I'm not Julian Strather. I'm still

a resident of Strather Straits. The wrong whole right. I can't have the proper Straits. Your depth is like, you know, because what happened was you got fortunate on the hardaway junior signing for

the minimum. Oh, and they still have to sign, I always call him Psalm and Jones, but it's not Psalm and

a restrictive for you? And two, so you add him into the mix too. So it's a fascinating, it's, you know,

“as you said, you've got the Yokech extension, and he came out yesterday and said it, he can sign”

by waiting. It's an extra $81 million. It's five years, $359, which is like unbelievable. He will

make. If he does this, he will make $725 million in career earnings act. That is remarkable. A lot of buys a lot of horses. A lot of horses. You can build his own race track with that. You basically buy some more Serbia 10 times over if he wants to. And he's a guy who, I mean, he defensively, he just is what he is and he's okay and sometimes he looks a little better than okay. And sometimes he looks a little worse. Offensively, that guy is going to be tearing people up

as long as he wants. Like, between his shooting, passing, and both, like, he's going to age superbly on that end of the floor. Like, he's going to be a high level full-gram of an offensive to his mid to late 30s if he wants to be. I have no worries about that. The dude is a genius. It's why I kind of like that would be a super fun LeBron team. And I don't know if he'd ever go to Denver. It doesn't feel like a LeBron thing to do to just like up and decamp to a mid-market in the

mountain times zone on the team he's never played for before, but it would be a hell of a lot of fun.

I mean, it sure would be. I mean, he's sliding him in there with that group there. And then you basically, someone gets pushed to the bench and then that sounds a little bit of your bench pump. But I mean, just going back to their finances when, I mean, you've got five guys making North of $20-$21 million here. Two max guys. The two, it's money. It's like the two max guys is, you know, it's almost going to be like a dying breed. I mean, it really is. I mean, it's like

based on where this, where the system is and everything like that. But I'm interested. I'm, I'm just, I'm interested to see if what happens if there is no cap space left, right? And Payton Watson is sitting there like we saw Josh Giddy and Kominga and all those guys a year ago

“and they based in Jalen Dern and into Troy. And you should have mentioned Jalen Dern when I,”

when I just briefly talked about the pistons because my assumption is you will be on the team next year. And they were, I could tell you the pistons were not phased by, I mean, I don't even know if the meetings happened, did they did where these meetings with the Kings and Lakers real meetings. I have no idea, but they were unfazed. Yeah, I would, I agree with yes, far as working on a sign in a sign in Chad. I don't even think if if Lakers had, I don't, I'm just spit on,

had offered two first and two unprotectives for Jalen in a sign trade. Like, what does that do for Detroit's trying to win right now, right? That's a little, they're in a little bit different states. I know Utah is trying to win, but a little bit of a different stage. But I'm glad you mentioned Jalen Dern. Yeah, what happens if cap space drives up? I mean, Payton Watson is our presenter by clutch. We've seen clutch in Rich Paul with Eric Bledso with Tristan Thompson,

like, go to the mat and take it into the fall and take as long as it needs to get what they want. And they generally end up getting close to what they want. But the window for Denver is closing if it's not closed. So they need to claw like hell to reopen it. Otherwise, what's the point of having the yolk at your team? And you mentioned the two max guys thing goes back to what we said earlier about something just feels wrong about the idea that maybe in a year, Denver will have to

“basically salary dump Jamal Murray. If you want to call what Boston did, a glorified salary dump,”

I don't think that's quite fair. But if you want to characterize it like that, it's not like entirely off base. Like, that would suck for nuggets fans. Like, they drafted both of these guys, Marion Yokech, they make music together. They've been a tandem. And it's like, so we just, we just have to get off this guy. And if they ever did trade Jamal Murray to return, would be disappointing, just like Boston fans are disappointed with the Jalan Brown trade return.

Yeah, I mean, I think what the rules are and what it does is is that when I said this year ago, makes you kind of pick and choose. And you listen, every team is different. If you don't want to do that, and you're willing to go into the apron or pay a penalty and everything. Like, you know, like, Oklahoma City, they traded wagons and Isaiah Joe, but they were still able to retain their core, right? Like that. And because they're like an anomaly, because they've got all these draft picks,

that they can just kind of plug in when Lou Dork gets expensive or one of these other players here. But I do think it basically forces you to slot guys into different salary ranges, where your fourth best player, it's hard for them. You know, or third best player, it's hard for them

to be making $26, $27 million. Aaron Gordon, if you say he's their third best player,

is making $33 million. That's hard, right? And it has hard to do in this. It has lag issues that

they're didn't like that you wanted to mention that we didn't. advise Harris, San Antonio. Well, yes or no, are you like or not? Like, you're getting, I'm disappointed. I had to give grades on TV. I gave it a beef. I gave the overall San Antonio B+. I should have given them an amine. It's because I really thought that that was something they need. I could have said like Rui, you know, Rui Tobias, one of those two Rui goes to the clips. I'm a pretty good deal also,

but Tobias for two for 31. No options. I'm pretty sure I'm reading his contract right when they pull it up. No player option in there. So they get it for two years. I saw Kevin O'Connor, among others, kind of ripped that deal and say where they could have done better than Tobias Harris,

“all he does is shoot mid-range shots and blah, blah. Couldn't disagree more. I think that's a”

really good deal for the spurs. Power forward is the position that they're most short at. He's a good spot-up shooter. I don't know how much of his bucket getting they'll need. Like, the pistons really sorely needed. Like, the Tobias Harris turnaround jumpers because they had no

viable second option in the playoffs. The spurs will. But I just think he's exactly the position

they needed. He's purely additive to what they do on both ends of the floor. And his contract expires right when their team is set to get enormously expensive depending, of course, on what happens with the Aaron Fox and others going forward. I thought that was a really nice deal for them. One more other deal that I thought was really interesting that happened on Monday was the Quinn post offer sheet. We do. Yeah. We do not see offer sheets anymore. I think the last one,

I said said eight, but it was really Mattis Thibel back in, or whether it was a month, a two-way

“guy year ago, but that was the Thibel one and 23. I think Dallas signed them to an offer sheet”

Portland matches. We don't see it anymore. But what I found the most interesting, the apron rules really have eliminated teams from putting unlikely bonuses and contracts. Because they count against the apron. We had not last summer who went through some of no bonuses, right? Like the bonus system, which is my favorite, has dried out except for the Quentin post

offer sheet that contains one point roughly 1.3 million in unlikely bonuses.

It is contract for each year. The last few years are non guaranteed. And why say that is, if you are going to do an offer sheet and make it not appealing for the Golden State Warriors to do it, that is how you are structured the offer sheet because the Warriors are hard-capped at the second apron because of the dampening melt and signing. Okay, Bob. You are, if you are looking at Golden State's finances, and they're 38 million dollars below, and they've got Dramon

Greens still sitting out there to sign. It makes it unlikely for you to match this offer sheet because now you've got 9 million in base in another 1.3 and unlikely bonuses that will count against the apron here. So I've found that pretty interesting. I thought it was also like an indication, like how healthy is that, you do in Memphis, right? Like as far as where, you know, where they are as far as going out and getting another big there. And they already had beef stew

that they did. How fast do you think Quentin posts sign that offer sheet? Is it the world record for fact? Like if you go to do the vacuum sign, just clicking like sign finished sign finished, you make it like 2 million last year. Bob, you Marks, you're the man. Let's go match, and I will see you in Las Vegas, any parting thoughts here on anything. Listen, we wait in wait for a LeBron, and probably will be around like 10 o'clock tomorrow morning when I'm

flying over the Rocky Mountains. Somewhere, or maybe it will just be this weekend, we're all together, and we can share it the wherever he goes. Maybe it'll be in August, two knows. I mean, when I go to Europe, I'm going to take my microphone and my camera just in case, Bobby Marks,

but essential, good to see you. I'll see you soon. All right. The dust is settled around the league.

It's time to talk about the League's glamour franchise, a summer of change for the Los Angeles Lakers. Dan Wakey from the athleticist here, what's going on, Dan? Zach, I'm happy to be here. Happy to not be talking about the New York Times. Oh, that was rude. I'm a white socks fan Zach. You know, we're right now, right now. This is our time. We're America's team. We're America's underdog. I'm not going to comment on any of this. Okay, the Lakers,

a totally remade team around Luka Donchitch. It has happened after the gift from the God's fell into their lap last summer or last season, rather with the Luka trade. Now, they have actually remade the team in his image. Out goes LeBron James, Rui Hachimura, Luka Nard, Marcus Smart, Jackson Hayes, dehydrated incomes, Walker Cessler, Colin Sexton, Quentin Grimes, Mamu, Jayden Hardy, and in the Walker Cessler transaction to unprotected juicy tasty first

“round picks from the Lakers go to Utah as well as two swaps. Dan Wakey, is this all worth it?”

Is this team like what is this team? You said it. It's created in Luka Donchitch's image. I think

Like there was a mandate for change and that mandate for change started last summer. After they

tried to for Luka Donchitch when they first started to talk about a contract extension and they said,

“we can give you your team, right? I think it's important to know, contextually, right? Like the”

team that Luka got traded from was the team that he wanted most in Dallas. It was the team that he felt was best built for him, right? Now injuries and things have happened, but like that was the roster that he was supposed to win a championship race. A team that had very recently made the NBA finals, the largest one you could make in the playoffs before their general manager decided, let's just bust this whole thing up. Yeah. So I think, you know, that's the frame of mind,

right? I've Luka Donchitch won the Lakers tell him, you know, we don't have the flexibility to give you that today, but the way we're going to approach this summer in 2025 is we're going to keep that flexibility. And the biggest domino in that flexibility, right, was LeBron James's contract. There was no extension talk, right? It was we were going to treat your contract as an expiring contract. Aside of mild disrespect, I would say to the second greatest player of all

“time, but, you know, I think the type of thing that the Lakers felt that they had to do”

to fully on ramp into like sort of Luka world, right? And so I think they went about the summer, they got Luka the thing he wanted most, right, which was a center. Um, he wanted a room protecting center, um, you know, a lot of threat, whatever plan that we can talk about, whether or not he's like a lot of love threat, but like a good around the room center, who guards, um, his ass off on defense at the basket. Um, they wanted to get younger and more athletic

on the wing, um, they wanted shooters, um, and he wanted a secondary playmaker. I think the cost of the secondary playmaker, um, an awesome user contract was more than most people anticipated, but I think those were people who weren't reading the market properly, um, who didn't understand that in 2026 when guys who average 23, 5 and 5 in their primary available, they're going to have shooters when nobody good gets the free agency. And he had real shooters and the Lakers had to

“better keep them. So yeah, I mean, I think they gave Luka his team and now it's on Luka to prove”

that he's good enough. Um, I think I think they gave Luka his team step one. I mean, yes, I think that's

one. Yeah, step one. This isn't, this was never a magic bullet summer. This wasn't going

to be able to do everything all at once. But here's my worry for the Lakers, and I prepped this by saying, I think this is going to be a good team. Yeah. Next season, probably a top 16 because the West is actually weirdly in his state of flux more so than these. Um, I think if you're a good team, perhaps a very good team, probably one of the very best offensive teams in the entirely because Luka is that good and they've surrounded him with shooting, secondary playmaking,

ring rumbling center. This is the model. This works. We know it works. He's going to kill teams in this, in this environment, offensively defensively TBD. We'll talk more about that. I just feel like the the Kessler trade is going to go down is one of the most important transactions to the last 10 years in the NBA because all of this stuff rhymes, sextin, momo. That's all fungible stuff. That's all tradeable stuff. This is the bet that matters. Kessler is the bet that matters,

because they have bet everything that they have left on Walker Kessler as a French size center.

They they have paid them $32 and a million dollars a year over four years. They now have,

this is the team. More like the pieces around it are fungible and I think they'll play with the wings and they still have a couple of roster spots open. I think they're still hunting for a back-up center and maybe someone who could like a four who could maybe start maybe come off the bench like one of those like 67 kind of guys who might have to start. They're still on the hunt. It's not done for this season. It's certainly not done for the future, but they have really no tradeable draft

pick assets left and no avenue to salary gaps face for the next three or four years. This is the team. I think they overspent on almost everybody they acquired. I don't know that a bigger bet has been made on a player who has accomplished less in the NBA than the bet the Lakers made on Walker Kessler. That's not to say that it won't pay off. I spent a lot of my fourth of July weekend watching film of Walker Kessler trying to remember his game get a better field

for him be happy to 50th America. Thank you. I think a lot of that bet is going to pay off to a reasonable amount, but I just look at this team as great as Luca is and even if he manages to stay healthy for entire seasons and entire playoff runs which has been an issue for him the last few years. I just don't see how they can compete with the very best teams in the West. I'm not

they get any better going forward unless they reach a point where the Reeves trade becomes sort

of the only out that they have to rearrange their team. So if I'm a Lakers fan, I'm like, oh, that's like we, this is the team now. That's, that's it. I mean, it's good, but I don't,

“I don't, I don't know where it goes Dan. Maybe I'm being too pessimistic. Yeah, I think, okay,”

so I think there's three things we should talk about. I can give you Zack, you know me. I'm with nothing if not an optimist. I can give you the optimistic argument for this and I think the other thing we need to talk about is a context around centers to kind of set the deck here. I think the optimistic argument is that you have a Laker team that the last two years with flawed rosters exceeded their projected win totals. Both seasons, back to back 51 seasons,

a team that had a good defense and the regular season, a good defense, even after they traded Anthony Davis, Austin Reeves was a part of that defense, Rehatchimer was a part of that defense, LeBron James was a part of that defense. So good on-chitch was a part of that team. That's right. I think all this is to say is, I think there's beliefs in this coaching staff to like make lemonade, right? Like they've shown, I think a pretty good job of what I find to be, you know,

if we're going to boil down basketball though, it's most simplistic, which is the space I

“like to operate in, it's can you maximize strengths and can you hydra weaknesses, right? And I think”

they've done a good job with their teams to date in maximizing strengths and adding weaknesses. How that plays out in the playoffs, totally different scenario, right? And I think for the Laker's discussion, that's a huge part of this because this is not a team that is content

going to the second round. Luka Dodgers is not a player who's content going to the second round.

He wants to win a championship. So I think optimisticly the bet is that there are better versions of Quentin Grimes. There are better versions of Sandra Mama Kashfili that the best version of Walker Cessler has yet to be seen and that the Laker's coaching staff and even Consex in that degree. But the best version of Consex in his bro is yet to really fully reveal itself. The Laker's coaching staff is good enough and Luka Dodgers is good enough to take these players

to mold them into these roles and to kind of, you know, roll it out there and say like we think at least as a step one, we're moving in the direction we need to get. Obviously, they need a real

“point of attack defender. On the wing, as of today, it's Quentin Grimes. I think there's a belief”

that Quentin Grimes internally can do this. That's a really hard job for one person to take on by themselves for 82 games and a playoff. That's, you get hurt a lot. You break down a lot when you have that job. I think you mentioned looking for fours, looking for backup picks. I mean, like Manga is like a three and a half forward that I think is somebody that they they like again, not a proven defender in that way. But I think somebody who they feel like coaching

staff wise, maybe they bend it, maybe they can maybe they can be the one who makes a work. That's just where they're at. I think optimistically, it's the belief in the staff, belief in the system, belief in the start. I think the other thing though about all this and when we talk about our faith is like, I've been doing this exercise for 18 months around the NBA

even more than that, but like at start it with Anthony Aves when he first asked for a center.

Like who is going to play center for Los Angeles Lakers? It's probably the single thing I've talked about most with Intel people with other executives with scouts around the league. And the list of like quote unquote Luke at type centers is shitty. They're just aren't a lot right now. At this time in space, me and B.A. have like rim running centers to, you know, Turret Patino this, like the outer Jordan isn't walking through that door. Like there aren't just that many

guys who do this job. And the ones that do haven't been that available for that inspiring, you know, like Nick Clarkson is a guy that teams talked about a lot. Two or the, the Lakers are going to trade for Nick Clarkson. It's too small. The cost for time was too high. Not interested. They're not the right guy. You know, Mark Williams, they try to get him in the door. Didn't like how he walked through it, you know. And decided that it wasn't him.

He's M.C. has averaged five points of game in the NBA and is not played an important minute yet. But one of my favorite tweets of the offseason. Jack was Chris Haynes saying that Nick said not only tried to trade for you. It's me. But if feverishly tried to trade for you. I think it was feverishly, right? I mean, it's like the graphic. I don't want to reject it. Big letters rejected. Underneath these. If I were a GM, I would want to be known as feverish. I'd want to have someone

tweet that I was feverished by desire for a record in the back of the wrap-up center. Well, I mean, Gaffard injury concerns, dareclively injury concerns. I mean,

for centers. And uh, do you talk hashtag? So, so here's the thing. I want to start with you said

“better versions of Grimes and better versions of MAMU. I think what you were hinting at was that the coaching”

staff and this environment playing with one of the five best players in basketball will open up a better versions of those players. I think to actually contend at any point in the next three or four years at a high-high level, they actually just need better players than those guys. And I don't know what vehicles they're left with to get better players than those guys. Now, they're creative and maybe there's worlds in which lots of things happen like casserole hits and they end up trading

casserole for this and that I think the casserole bet is going to be just about good enough. I don't know if it'll ever justify the price that they paid for him in terms of the unprotected picks and all that. But I think the surrounding talent just probably is in quite

there, particularly defensively. Here's like I think this could be a top five offensive in the MBA.

Boom, done like in his beer. Can I ask you a question interrupts? Like what did you see on film? Off and talk about it. I'm going to talk about it. I think it's going to be a top five offensive in the MBA with like, could be right off the bat. And like if you're if you're top five, you can be a pretty bad defensive team and still be a 50 win team, a 48 to 50 win team. Like

“and if when I look at the West, I'm just like the Lakers, I think will be better. I mean,”

we could sit here like who's definitely better than the Lakers next year. As of right now, 350 p.m. Monday, Oklahoma City, San Antonio. I think I'd probably say Minnesota and Denver still over them and probably, but they're in the like the Houston Minnesota. I think you're the South American, but I mean, I mean, the Lakers like again, and I sound like Lakers on my last year,

the Lakers handled Minnesota with a Lakers handled Denver pressure. But like they're better than

Sacramento. They're better than Memphis. They're better than Dallas. They're better than New Orleans. They're probably going to be end up better than Golden State, depending on a couple of things, including work. I don't think in the regular season, no win more games than Houston, but it wouldn't shock me if they did it. I think they're better than Phoenix. They're better than Portland, despite the John Moran thing, which I talked about last week. I think they're

probably better than Utah, who we'll talk about a little bit at the end of this podcast. Like the West is just a little more rickety, shaky teams like trying to do two things at once, that the East. So I think it's going to be a good team. Like if they're fourth in offense and 18th in defense, that's like a really good team. Now, I think 18th in defense, and I've run this by a few few people around the league. Is that optimistic? A lot of that depends on Kessler. He's going

“to have to clean up a lot of messes. Here's the thing. 18th on defense was easier last year in the year”

before. Then it'll be this coming season because of the lottery rules. There's not going to be 18th who aren't trying that you're automatically going to be better than on defense. So I think defenses, obviously, the question for this team. I think they're going to be an awesome offense as long as their healthy. They're going to be a really good team. I'm not worried about that. And if that's like if Luca is going to be satisfied with that, and clearly he had the organization over a barrel

this summer with the contract kind of tick tick ticking away, that's fine. And maybe you get lucky and you get the spurs with Wembenjama injured or the thunder with whoever injured, but they're clearly not as good as those teams. And I don't know what Avenue they have to they have to get there. But I think they're going to be a really good team. I think Kessler will fit reasonably well. Yeah. I think so, you know, when you told me you were watching a film, I picked two games just kind

of out of random last year. I mean, it wasn't there. Only five. You watched 100% of Walker Kessler's season, 100% of his season last year. I mean, there are things that I think there are like real areas of improvement that I think perhaps with like higher stakes, like can help, right? Like playing for something on a night to night basis, I think. I mean, or maybe it doesn't, you know, maybe you break under those circumstances. You don't know. I think he's a

an okay screener. Like as of today, I think that is something obviously like if he became a great screensetter. I read screensetter. I could tell you for sure that was an area of consternation amongst great tall jazz. I agree. And and that's and you know who they think is a great screen center. Use a fair pitch. Who they signed. And and I think that that to me is something that I'll watch. Now look, you don't have to set awesome screens for Luke Adonchish and Austin Reeves. They're

they're really good. They just had good seasons with deodorating, setting those picks, and Jack's nice and in those picks. You know, you can set goodish screens. And I think he'll improve there. You said a lot of it's going to fall. Well, guess what, at this point, it feels like all to be a whole still. Oh, that is, Kessler. All the, all the rest is just noise. Every other transaction they made, they can dig out of if it goes badly or flip it into something. I'll say that that's all easy.

Here's to be a 10 out of 10 in terms of hitting his potential for this to result in what they've dreamed of their resulting in. Yeah, I think there's, there's two other things through here. I

Austin Reeves, getting him healthy in the playoffs. The sex in signing should help in theory there.

“I think, you know, just getting another on the ball player over the course of an 82 game season,”

helpful from from like a scoring punch production, quit grants to score the ball a little bit too. I think like having that, they didn't have that as much last year. There was a reason why they were a better team after Luke canard got there and part because those eight to 10 points of game, like just made life easier on people. And I think, you know, Colin Sexton to me has like a real opportunity to have like kind of those like six man in the year type of seasons where you're

going to like, you're going to look at a box where he's going to average 16 points of game in here. Well, it's got to be someone Dan, like someone to have to bench us to be a six man to go and they're not going to be Vanderbilt. It's not going to be Mammoo. We might start. You might be out is probably not going to be LaRavia. It's not going to be Brownie. I don't know who's going to be. And I was saying the other thing that when I've talked to Scott Sputtleakers and we talked about

like kind of their the ability for them to like sort of make lemonade, um, you know,

they basically like the good version of their defense two years ago was by playing like a hyper small,

right, or at least Dorian Fini Smith at Center for the Bronnitz Center, play small, switch everything, and win the scrambles, right? Like last year was thinking around again, like with a match

“of zone that like our rotations are going to be tighter and that's why we're going to be able to do”

what we need to do. We can blitz Kevin Durant at half court and the playoffs and get to where we need to go and rotations and do that. Um, these are all like functional defenses. They also have like real physical tear, wear and tear on players. I think when you the style of defense that they've had to play, where you take non-defense of players and ask them to play incredibly physical and ask them to play in space and with speed and in rotations that like quite frankly like they're

not like built for. I think that's worn on them. And I think that's another thing too that that's that play here. The only thing I'll say about Luke and Austin on defense too because that's I know that's a big thing. You can't have these two guys on defense. It's impossible. You can't do it. Um, I think if Kessler is what they hope he is. Um, and those three players are in communication and are in sync defensively, I think with Lucas size and his, you know, at times, smarts and willingness to

defend, which, which we saw more of last year. And I think we've seen Austin Reeves function in team defenses in the past. That to me is that's the bad, right? Is they're betting on IQ character team defense and like we can figure this out that way. It, um, that's that's their gamble because they don't have, they don't have that guy right. I have a hard time seeing it above average NBA defense, but if they can sniff average, I think that's the, that's the road map for this team to meet and

exceed expectations. I like the Luca Reeves thing is like, what, what are you supposed to? This is the whole lake or summer is like, what are you supposed to do? You have LeBron or you have Kapspace. And if you have Kapspace, there's only certain amount of things you can do with it. There's only certain amount of players you can get. Like, like, someone floated to me, should they have just gotten Jalen Brown? Should they have used those two draft picks to get Jalen Brown instead of

“Walker Kessler and a similar, like, dump him into your Kapspace. You have to send out Vanderbilt”

and all this. I'm not sure that makes them any better than what they've done in terms of the kind of player that they need. And Austin Reeves is a really, really good player. Like, he's an awesome offensive player. And he's on your team. He's a known commodity. He fits with Luca. Sometimes you have to figure it out. And it's not like Luca and Kyrie was not some dynamic defensive duo. And they made the finals. Like, you just have to sort of figure life out. Well, Zach, the lesson, the lesson

come to the NBA finals to me. And that's just a bunch of subsidies. And more than anything else, right? Is that, like, the roadmap for teams are is like, when you have a great player or an awesome guy, is you just build the best possible team around that player. Like, don't chase the thunder. You don't chase the spurs. You don't chase the Celtics or whoever it is, right? Like, your only real chance if you have one of those dudes is to build a team that makes that guy as dangerous

as possible. Um, that, again, I'll say it again, accentuates the strengths. Highest weaknesses. Do you want no one talked about during the NBA finals? That like, Jalen Brunson was a bad

defender. Jalen and Kat together. I don't care about that. Yeah. No, they've never came up.

Step up and played the best defensive career and got into matchups that were favorable to him. And the next up talked about this had Nazium. They did two things with Jalen Brunson, who is, who is a little stouter than Austin Reeves, at least he's a little harder, he's smaller, but he's harder to emerge. There's a call on everybody. They, they were like, we're never, or we're almost never going to switch you into mismatches. And we're going to build our entire team around you with

and it worked to a team. I want to talk about Kessler because I think he is now one of the most interesting

players in the league, given what the Lakers just bet on him. He will be the 9th highest paid center in the league next year, behind Joell and B. Anthony Davis, Joker, Cat, Bam, Chet, Chen Goon, and Rudy Gobert. And obviously, when B won that new deal, kicks in, we'll, we'll jump over him and knock him to 10th. So like, that's actually not outrageous. It's not a, that feels sort of right, ish. I mean, again, the track record of Walker Kessler playing meaningful NBA games is extremely

small because he played five all of last year in the jazz up and tanking for basically the entirety of his NBA career. So like, everything with the grain of salt, his closest peer

“salary wise is now Isaiah Hardenstein. And I think that that's sort of instructive because the”

vision, when I've sat down and watched the ton of Walker Kessler film, the vision for him is can he become 85 to 90% of Gobert on defense and something like not stylistically the same, but like, as useful and offensive players, Hardenstein is for the thunder in terms of being a pick and roll release valve and all that. And if you can get there, the contract is not outrageous.

Now, the contract plus the draft picks is pretty, pretty hard to justify. But here's what I'm

going to say about Kessler offensively. You mentioned like, is, you kind of raised the question, like, is he a true lob threat, like a rim running lob threat? He is, I think he will be on this team. So I watched, like, so many pick and rolls, I don't even want it's embarrassing how many Walker Kessler screen and rolls I watch. He is not a speed demon slipping and rolling to the rim. In fact, like, one of the reasons he has to set better screens and actually lay the wood on people is,

if you are not a real speed threat to slip out of picks and your speed is not going to compromise the defense alone and he is not one of those players, then you kind of have to set good screens, because that's the way you're going to free up the guards and that's the way you're going to compromise the defense. So he's got to get better as a screener. And there are some, like, rock solid screens in that real. He hasn't in him. It's not as if he doesn't know how to do it or he's unwilling to do it.

He'll have to do it more. The reason why I think he will thrive with the Lakers as a lob threat and a putback threat in all that is because the jazz had young speed demon guards running, I was thinking of something who just want to go downhill. And so now he's not going to screen

“for Tyre's maximum. That's what our Deer and Prime Deer and Fox Colin Sexton and Kyante George”

ran Walker Kessler out of the pick and roll. His pick and roll game is a little slower. He's got a good little change of pace to him. He knows how to open himself up in the pocket if there's, like, a little bit of time to do it. Quick off the ground. He's pretty quick off the ground. And Luca is the perfect guy and Reeves too, but Luca more than anyone who slows down changes pace,

sucks the defender in one half step at the last second. He is going to feast on labs and just

putback attempts or, like, little close floaters much more than he did in Utah. I think offensively that's going to be a fit. My questions for him offensively are, if you look at his rim finishing percentages, they're elite elite. But if you actually look at it, an enormous amount of his shots, much more than most centers are either lob dunks or offensive rebound flipbacks. The other shots where he is forced to catch the ball and put it down once or even just catch it and gather it and then

go up in traffic. He can be a little soft going up in that situation. And so I'm interested to see what happens when teams blitz Luca and force him to make plays with the ball or just he just has to do a little bit more heavy lifting because he's going to see all those kinds of looks.

“And I do believe in the passing. I think like when I've watched him, it's I think it's there.”

You know, obviously he really benefited from playing with shooting, shooting banks, right? Like one of the 20 percentage games that I watched last year, which was one, you know, like there were minutes with Kyle Tilapowski, where that spacing mattered. Like obviously like with marketing, you know, and then like tiny, tiny sample. And that game against Phoenix, the one that I watched, like shot the ball with like a lot of confidence, like quick, quick decision-making,

and then as the defense adjusts of that, a couple really good passes down to size, right? Like where marketing would have a size mismatch. You would find that pass. Are the linkers going to have those mismatches? If he's playing with Sandro, Spam with Mama? Yeah, I think so. You know, like that, I think is going to be a play that they can use. And I think in his dribble handoff game, I thought too, when I watched, like looked like, all right, like, you know, I think you have

going to obviously experiment with him popping out for three occasionally. And the defense is going to ignore him. And he's either going to make enough of them. I will see, or he's just going to pivot into those dribble handoffs with Reeves coming off with Grimes coming off. Both of those guys are highly skilled at that. And if you're 15 feet off of him, those guys are going to come off those

“handoffs. And they're going to have a wide open runway to get to the rim. The other thing I think”

he's going to be good at is being at threat for labs in the dunker spot when he's not in the play. So like, a Luca Reeves pick and roll, which they're going to have to lean into that even more to hunt mismatches and stuff. There is nobody better in the league. Zero people better in the league. It's sort of dribbling those mismatches into traffic and baiting the defense until they commit just enough. And he Luca loves throwing those labs through traffic, through hands, through every

through all sorts of tiny, tiny windows to centers to dunk the ball. I think Kessler will fit with

that as well. First play of the game, first play of that game against Phoenix that they ran, started with

Walker Kessler, opposite corner. And it was a design play for a lab. That's where that lab started for him. All on the base. So I think he's going to be fine offensively. I think the teams will blitz and test visibility to make plays in open space. I'm kind of TBD on that. Yeah. I see them

“and the finishing and traffic. But I think he'll be representative enough offensively and defensively”

the rim protection is real. Actually, interestingly, Utah had him defending in space a lot more last year. And again, a limited sample size was a clear point of emphasis. Like, hey, we want you to come up to the level of the screen instead of dropping away back. We even want you to switch sometimes more than we have to have actually in the past. He was like, actually, okay, doing that. So I think like, I actually think he's going to more or less live up to expectations.

Mostly because Luca, he's going to get better and Luca is going to make him look so good and play to his strengths. Like, I think this is actually kind of a smart identification of a guy who doesn't look like a sexy offense player. He's not fast and bouncy like Derek Lively was like Derek Lively jumped out of the gym. He's flying to him. He can flip, he's like a Mario, he's like a bigger Mario, Mario, almost now fast and flip screens. That's not Kessler. But I do think he's going to

“mesh pretty well offensively with Reeves and Luca. And defensively like, again, I think he's”

really good. He's just going to have to plug a lot of holes and this team's going to have to sort out its depth. It's power forward spot and all that. But I think I think it's, I think it's going to be solid. Grimes is a big swing guy for this team, right? Like that is going to be a big sort of like how good it goes or how good it doesn't go as of like the way the roster is constructed today. Because if they like, I've talked to some of their their coaches and like they believe that

there is like a real like defensive guy there. They'll be seen it, you know, that they saw when he was in New York, they like they that this exists, right? And like we can pull this out of him again. And and if you're a shooter or if you have the IQ to attack closeouts playing with guys who touch the pain as much as Luca Doddson Austin Reeves, like this is a position that you can succeed in, right? Again, I think they will be trying to find a top five offense next year. Like I think

if they're if Luca's healthy and Reeves is healthy, I think offensively this team's going to be a machine. They're just Luca is just is he problem solves every defense. It's like you watch film on Kessler and it's like, oh, wow, they're switching pick and rolls and he's he's posting up guards and the jazz aren't giving him the ball or he doesn't look comfortable with his back to the basket and he's not. Well, that might be a problem for the lakers. No, it's not you have Luca attacking

centers on the other end of that switch. Like Luca problem solves every defense you can throw at him.

This offense is going to be amazing. I'm just skeptical of the defense. Can we talk a couple

other lakers things? Yep. I think lakers fans are curious. I have my answer. I want to hear what you you cover the team. Why is Rui Hachimura not on the team anymore? I think perhaps two limited of an offensive skill set, right? Like maybe every shot but that's the skill set every shot, but like one guy's with dribble pass and shoot, right? And Rui, and I think by the way, an undervalued skill in the NBA, the ability to stand still, not touch the ball and then when it

comes to you bang shots, there's like really, really difficult to do. And then I think they just wanted more of a high impact team defender. I think it's sort of the idea that you know, the two years, 28 million, that's not a number the lakers had in their sort of, you know, I think look, we could look at the way their summer district as what their plan was. I mean, they like unkink the hose on July 1st. Like that's the plan. Like those things were the plan, right? Everything that

followed afterwards has been sort of like I think reactionary and and moving stuff around.

There wasn't really $14 million there for him. I think there was a desire from people,

people really like Rui Hachimera, a great dude, good in the lock room, like again, excellent.

feel good about Rui Hachimera. It's one of their best acquisitions, right? Like a great trade

“that made Kendrick Nunn and three-second-round picks, I think, that they basically Thomas Bryant”

and Kendrick Nunn is what that trade turned out to be for Rui Hachimera for a guy who helped win you playoff games, multiple seasons. It's just I think again, in the mandate for change and stuff like that, like there were casualties and and this was one of them, right? Like that money just was not there for him. If there was a way to have slotted them in, you know, into the sexton slot, like I suppose they could have done that, but then you don't have

sexton, kind of, you don't have that offensive player. Like these are either or choices, sexton was signed with the room, the room exception. And by the way, that's still a big pay cut for what he got to get you into that into that place. And I think he looked, he wanted to stand lost Angeles. That was really, really clear. Not only the Lakers, people around Rui Hachimera, people around, look at not just people around the broad James, people around Austin, he's ever

“to knew that he wanted to stand LA. I think there was just sort of waiting to see if I'm”

that that could materialize in any real meaningful way, and it just never did for him with the Lakers.

Happy for Rui Hachimera with the Clippers. I think it'll be really good there. I think he serves and need for them. And I think there are team that's shaping up to be like kind of a real pain in the ass. Like they have that sort of like it's not going to be, they're not going to be like particularly fun to play. I don't think the Tyloo team's ever are. I think I think there'll be some teams that have a good time playing the Clippers next year. Dan, I think I think there'll be some,

I think they'll have some fun playing the Clippers. They just always play hard. That's the thing that always play hard. I do think like this is a nice, this is the kind of thing you do when you're now starting over. It's just like let's collect some assets, get some interesting players in the door. Maybe over the night for them. Maybe it's a nice, to totally find acquisition for the Clippers. If I double I'll down to why Ruiz not on the Lakers. It's both money and also just to your point

feel. Just feel on both ends of the floor. I think they wanted a little bit more feel from that spot. What is going to be your favorite memory from the dehydrate and your in Los Angeles? Because it's an era. There was the time in Milwaukee when I noticed you was wearing a t-shirt with his face and a lion mesh together. That the Lakers had printed for him. Sure. I asked him about it and he very lovingly yelled at me about how nobody asked him if he wanted to be called the lion. He

wasn't mad. Was he called? Was he called the lion at some point? He turned to me. They were calling him the lion the biggest five. A bunch of different stuff. I would say Zach maybe the time that he walked in a lot comes singing unchain. Medley by the righteous brothers is loud as I've ever heard an NBA player sing unchain medley. I'll say this. The other end was not a bad guy to be around. No. I didn't think. I didn't think the lion though. I think the you're very proud of the shirts.

I think JJ wore one in a press conference at one point. It's like his name. I'm at the Bahamian flag on the arm at the Bahamian. The issue I think obviously right is like is the effort you put into something plus the output you get out of it probably didn't match up. I think it was a lot of work to make sure you're screaming the affirmation you needed and different things like that. I just I think people under value how difficult this is for particularly

for talented players to slot down and to do less than what they're actually capable of on a basketball court, which I know that doesn't sound maybe it sounds like I'm making excuses, but it's a thing I've seen time and time again as players have tried to become role players in the NBA. It's just hard. The other end is entire basketball life. Success has been judged by how many times it was along the best. This is all life, right? And he came to a situation where success was like

did you set you know 23 minutes of good screens? Did you challenge stuff? Did you box out maybe didn't get the rebound? Like are you contributing to winning in different ways as our fifth best player? That's a difficult adjustment. I think he gave it a go by and large and there was it was a bumps for sure. I just don't think there was like a tremendous appetite to do it again.

I'm a little surprised they're able to get assets back. Trable second and a cheaper contract

“potentially. You have to do a wave and stretch or something like that. But yeah, I mean I think mostly”

that. I mean the half court shot where seemingly underhand half court shot that he takes the pregame where he somehow seemingly does with like wrapped arms. Like he doesn't there's no like actual bending as like shoulders. It's all elbows. It rests. It's he's he's up as our talented. I got to give it to the wizards. They're building like two teams at once. One of them is like this fun young team that I really want to watch and the other is this like zombie team of guys who I'm not

even sure that they realize they could see the trawis of the pick and roll that we thought the

Kessler trade, which is the jazz because I mentioned when I was going through teams that I was confident I thought the Lakers will be better than next season. I mentioned the jazz and I was a little surprised that I came to that conclusion because I was really like mid-season when they made

“the Jiren Jackson junior trade. I thought they would bring Kessler back. I think they thought they”

would bring Kessler back. I was pretty high on the jazz and I said I think they could win 50 games next year. I'm a little bit less convinced of that now and I'm worried specifically about their depth now that they've traded Kessler for I mean like they got Jackson Hayes and they brought Nirk. Sure. But like there there isn't another rotation player at a high level starter level that came back. I would project their starters right now. I bet they're going to start Nirk. If I had

to bet I bet they're going to start Nirk. It should try to mimic the triple big look that they envision with Kessler. So that would mean Kianthe George. I think Darin Petersen steps right into a starting roll and then triple J. Lowry Markin and Nirkage. And then off the bench I've got Collier Ace Bailey. Now there's a world where Ace Bailey is the fifth starter and they don't start Nirkage. It should center. They start a little smaller. We'll see. And then I've got like this

“combination of wings, like sense of all they just signed a Kogi Cody Williams. I think I would”

right see I'm going to squeeze there. Cody Williams had an okay finish to the year. Jackson Hayes is a backup five that's in the door. Kyle Philpowski is there who can play the four in the five. I think you probably stagger minutes so that one of triple J and Lowry is on the floor either at the four or the five in backup minutes. The depth is a little young and a little on proven in a little like mistake prone for my taste. I do think it's going to be an interesting team.

And I think they are doing something where it's really hard to be on two timelines at once. And I think this is almost the best possible version of doing that because Markin is only 29 and he's I feel like he's played one and a half seasons over the last four seasons. So the tires should be pretty unborn. And Jared Jackson Jr is only 26. So their veterans are like not old veterans. They're actually pretty young veterans in triple J's case. And they just have now this

trove of assets left over from the cabs trade for Donovan Mitchell, the Wolves trade for Gobert, this Lakers trade where they're going to be in any kind of they're going to be in a position to either get a third big money player in the door. Now it's hard because we seem to to build with three

guys making four year 50 million to trade one of their big salary guys for another big salary

guy who's a better fit to do any to do all sorts of things. I think they're in a great position but I think my outlook for them for next year is I think I think this is going to be a good team but I would probably rank them slightly outside the top six. I'd have to sit down and do it but like they're in like the Phoenix Portland kind of world to me and I think the Lakers are probably a healthy a little bit above that. Yeah I think here you run that down like the pressure point to

me. The big question I would have is about Kianta George and I would have that question about his ability to get them organized and into offense and to have him be a playmaker more in a score or less which as someone who's getting ready to head into extension talks from a human being standpoint

like being like hey dude you'd less is like not always a great feeling because I think right like

adding Jaren Jackson adding Daren Peterson. Well I mean I think those are shots. Those are shots. I think there was some real concern and there was like progress on that front I know it was well hardy but like it's still like easy that kind of player. I'm glad you said well hardy's name because I have a ton of faith and will hardy as a head coach and he's an A head coach and he's going to be there for a long time. I think there was some I think concern internally with

Kianta George is people about the Kianta George Darren Peterson fit and like what that would mean for his future with the team and his extension talks and all that. I personally don't share that concern at all. I'm like yeah put two awesome combo guards on the floor at the same time with the rest of these guys. I'm excited about it. I think I think the leap Kianta made last year was pretty real. The playmaking organization skills do have to come up a little bit but I think that's

also like they have a lot of guys who can collectively share in that kind of responsibility. I think the Kianta, Jared Jackson Jr. Lauri sort of tent pool trio makes a lot of sense for you to talk. I just think I think that Kessler deal was just too good to turn down. I think they really wanted Walker Kessler to be on the team next year. I think it was genuine. They had they tried to squeeze

“on the salary. That's what you do with the restricted free agent. It's not a personal insult to Walker”

Kessler that they offered him $28 million a year given his track record. It's just like it would

that would make him to $12 pay center in the league or whatever. I just think this was too good to get to pass up. And when that deal is too good to pass up, it does make you wonder like, "Ooh the lakeers really give up the farm and what are they getting in the end?" They're getting

going to be tough. But that's the fun of the stand is we get to see them try to solve it this year.

“I think that's it. One quick thing on the Jazz Act is it does relate to Lakers too. I had a”

conversation with someone who works over there. During the restricted free agency phase for Walker Kessler, we were just talking about picks and this idea that they're kind of past that the Jazz or sort of past that give us your pick stage. They're ready to go. They've got these guys. Why would those picks then be a value to them? Why would those swaps be a value to them?

I think the answer is, what it actually buys you and what the Lakers no longer have is it buys

you mistakes? It gives you the opportunity to be wrong about assigning, to be wrong about a pick, to be wrong about an extension, to all this stuff. It gives you like, there are racers that you can then put into transactions later to get off of your bad decisions, right? Like, the Lakers value believed did that with Russell Westman. That's where that 27 Utah Jazz first round pick is top four protected. That was an eraser pick from the Lakers that they used to train Russell Westbrook to

take back to Angela Russell, Jared Vanderbilt, like Beesley, none of those guys are on a team that

“team miraculously and hindsight made it to the Western government's finals. But I think that to me”

is, I believe, the most competitive sweep of all time. Second, those couples might be on that.

Gold and Brume is to make me and Gold. Okay. To get to that point, I think that's the Lakers don't have that stuff anymore and Utah has it a ton of it, right? So, you know, if the Markin and JJJ fit isn't what they want, they have the ability to go fix it and they can go fix it from a variety of angles. If they don't like their center production, you know, we talked about the list now, prices are high for centers and stuff like that. Go knock on Portland's door and pull it out

if you want, like, you know, I'm good luck. But I'm saying, like, you have opportunities, I think around the league too. If you decided you really want it also a good order to be your center. Do you have the picks to probably pry a player like that loose? You can do different things in a way that teams that don't have this option. God, that's an optionality. It's a, I say, I used that word a lot. It's fun. It's a very genius. It's such a, it's such a GMI word. It's just,

“I, I think, gives you the chance to screw up in ways that other teams don't have it because”

no matter how good of a front office you are, screw up. Everybody does. You miss picks. You sign the wrong guys to exceptions and all that stuff. Utah is the ability to undo virtually any decision they make and try again. A huge advantage. And we'll just see how aggressive they are and writing wrongs and identifying them. I, I think that is the other other hold about the roster is like, just how patient they're going to be with it, you know, or how aggressive they're going to try to

win. And I think on the flip side of that, the worst case scenarios for the Lakers are that they've trapped themselves into just a pretty good roster. And we'll see. I mean, there's on one pull. There's you hit a home run. And this is a 60 win team in two years. On the other pull is like franchise suicide. And I don't think, yeah, you're starting over. Look at us. I want to have you any more. And you have no picks. I think of downside. I think like, I don't think either of those

scenarios is complete is like likely likely. But I think the worst case one is slightly more likely than the best case one. But we shall see Dan Wookie of the Athletic. A plus job covering the Lakers. Thank you for your time. I will see you soon. And last in sunny Las Vegas, Nevada, sunny, very sunny very hot. See you there, Zach. All right. That's it for today. Thank you to Bobby Mark. Thank you

to Dan Wookie. Thank you to Billy Mike and Jonathan on production as always. And thank you all

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