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

Like so?

Last call for your steuer.

Oh no, I don't know where I'm supposed to go. Because you're steuer. That's how steuer is going to be. Is that easy? Of course, it's all automatic.

Steuer is long? No, just a few times. No, then. Hold it now. With this steuer.

It's about the 31st Newly.

“Coming up on this, is that close show for my hotel room in Las Vegas?”

Oh, boy. Another collidered bomb show or something like a bomb show drop today.

Right when I got to Las Vegas, the trade to Toronto.

Oh, not happening quite yet. Will it happen? Why isn't it happening? What's going on? Why is everything with collidered so confusing?

Who stands to lose the most here? If this somehow gets undone, do we think it's getting undone? Oh, Toronto, the clippers, the league office, a law firm that won't stop building hours, the collidered story of 2026, maybe going into 2027, Howard back this year, to get into all of that.

We talk about Donovan Mitchell's contract extension, which broke during our last episode. We get a little bit more in depth to that. How it's similar and dissimilar, maybe from the jail and brown contract that just got traded. Yes, there is more jail and brown content to come.

Some summer league observations, AJ, the bands are playing against Darren Peterson tonight, that is to say the jazz played against the wizards. What did we see?

“I think of those teams, LeBron, yep, more LeBron talk, he hasn't signed yet as we're”

recording this. Where's he going to sign? Should he go to Cleveland? How does that interact with Donovan Mitchell? Then we talk a little bit about the relegation zone and the teams that are facing it, how

they will behave.

Lots to talk about, never stops this NBA.

That's all coming up on the Zack low show. Welcome to Zack low show, I'm in Las Vegas, and it's time to say, the three most anticipated words in niche basketball podcasting, Bill, a bull, hours, wait, no, that's not it. Howard Beck is here.

What up, Beck? That was a great misdirection play, what's happening, Zack? Billable hours, baby, because something, we just watched Darren Peterson and AJ to bands a play, half of the best of what we'll talk about that later, very exciting, both those teams, very exciting, but the biggest news of the day kind of sent shockwaves through

the league. It's been rippling behind the scenes, apparently, for the past 48 to 72 hours, at least among the principal parties involved, the Kawai Leonard trade. The reunion with the Toronto Raptors, the trade with the Clippers, is on hold, pending the results of the endless, walk till Lypton, rosin, and cat slash NBA, billable hours,

extravaganza, investigation into the aspiration scandal uncovered by Pablo Torre, the Clippers of course say they did nothing wrong. They said very directly today. We did not funnel money toward Kawai Leonard through aspiration. But the deal is on hold, frozen, pending the results of that investigation, because

the Raptors apparently have learned, at some point, we will talk about when and who and why, that they would be not exactly on the hook, but the sufferers of any consequences should Kawai Leonard himself be punished. It should just trade go through and Kawai Leonard either have his contract void it and boy with that, be a can of worms, or you could envision a scenario where he's suspended for

10, 20 games, something like that. What does that do? Does that change the terms of the trade? And so there is now the Raptors learn this, and there is now sort of a frozen moment. And Howard, it's hard not to have the initial reaction of like, how in the world did we end

up here? But almost six weeks ago, Adam Silver stood up at the NBA final, and said, the investigation that started almost 10 months ago, and nine months at that point, should be wrapping up soon. These teams need to move on, everybody needs to move on with their business.

Hell, the clippers are sitting here with the potential of cap space, extra picks from the Toronto Raptors, and an ability to maybe work some sort of sign and trade with Peyton Watson if they wanted to. What the hell are they supposed to do now?

“I think this is just, it just looks terrible for everyone involved in everybody should”

be embarrassed that we have arrived here. It's a debacle upon a debacle, it's the most debacley debacle that ever debacleed. I mean, it's a debacle that the NBA is investigating cap circumvention at all in the year 2025, 2026, and only because publicory uncovered it. And in the absence of that, who knows if this ever comes to light, Zach?

That's embarrassing for the league on its face. That we're here now in early July, we're a trade that had been reported has to be paused, pending this, just shows how what a folly it is that they didn't resolve this sooner. And we'll get back to that about the timing of this, because it's easy for all of us to sit here and say, oh, they should have wrapped it up sooner.

the last 10, 11 months, I was one who always believed it will, you know, they'll do their

due diligence, but I didn't think it was going to come out during the season. I thought they would wait for a nice quiet moment, but the one thing I was sure of absolutely sure of, and I've been absolutely wrong about with this, had to be done by July 1st because you can't get to the offseason, the free agency transactional part of the offseason, the moratorium, all of it without resolution, because it would leave the clippers unsure

of what they could or could not do with coi Leonard and coi Leonard and sure of his own future and other teams unsure of whether they could trade for like, I thought for sure, Zach, that however long it took, however much due diligence, they do diligence, it was going to be done by July 1st and it wasn't, and now here we are, this is, this is embarrassing

“for everybody involved, but I will say, and I'll leave it this until you, because I think”

we both made some calls today, I think this is more embarrassing for Toronto right now than anybody or at least should be. I don't, I don't agree with that, and we'll talk about why, but let's zoom out, I think everyone involved remains optimistic that this trade will go through that coi Leonard's contract will not be voided, there is this weird middle ground like what if he suspended was that mean, but everyone seems to think in both official

statements released by the clippers and the raptors, seems to think that this will actually get across the finish line, and we can just sort of men in black magic ray this out of our minds and forget that this ever happened, do you agree or no? If only. I think I'm less confident in saying that this will definitely get resolved, only because we really don't know what the result of the investigation are going to be, and the whole reason it's on pause at all is

there is still a chance, whatever percentage it is, and I don't think anybody really knows what the percentage is, but there is a percentage chance that coi Leonard's contract would get voided. That is the biggest reason this is being held up right now, is the possibility that it gets voided, let's imagine this reason is it would be the long suspension. Let's imagine what coi's contract getting voided actually looks like. So this trade happens,

coi's contract is voided. Does that immediately mean that the trade never happened because

the contract and the player attached to were not allowed to be traded? Does that mean there's a separate arbitration where we have to decide what to do this knowingly and what goes back to Toronto? You could imagine a scenario where the contract is voided, the trade stands and coi just signs with Toronto for the minimum. That's almost like a win-win win for Toronto. By the way, if the contract were voided, the league is mostly out of cap space. The only two teams who have

workable cap space left are Brooklyn, doesn't seem like a fit. And the clippers, somehow I don't think the clipper is going down with the clippers, re-signing collided with their cap room. And then the suspension is like, what's a 20-game suspension worth? Is that like we get a swap back in the trade? How does this even work? It's crazy. No, it really is, but I do think in terms of order of operations, logically to me,

I am not a lawyer and I'm not an MBA lawyer and they have a thousand of them. But order of operation to me is like if the trade had been, if they just let it go through, like to be clear, the MBA is not holding this up. The raptors and the clippers essentially,

“but the raptors really are the ones I think who paused this. Why do you say that?”

As I understand it, then we'll get to the reporting part of this. As I understand it, from what I was able to gather today in accordance with sources that I've talked to.

Well, let me, let me back up. I'll get to that in a second. My first reaction when I saw this

news today's act when I saw that the two statements come out was one holy shit, but two, how is it possible that the Toronto raptors agreed to a deal in principle to trade for Kawai Leonard without knowing that there was still a possibility that he's conjured to be voided and if it were, that that's on them, that they just simply lose out. In a by the way, that's all to answer your other question. I think it's implied what the order of operations is here.

You made the trade, you got Kawai and then we void it as contract. He's no longer yours and you give it Brandon and Graham, Grady Dick, sorry, tough shit. I think that's the way this goes. And I think that's the reason why it's held up now is because you don't want to make the deal at all.

“So the trade is not happened. So that's why the, so we've essentially caused mid-transact.”

The trade is not a fit for trade. Is that happening? Right. But my first reaction was how could the raptors agreed to this in principle at all and haven't get then leaked to Shoms on June 30th. If they hadn't, at least, done their due diligence with the league to say, hey, listen, if we make this deal, what are the potential consequences for us? And to be clear, because there's a lot of nonsense floating around on social media about this, the raptors would not be getting punished for

the clippers crimes people. They're not going to get fined. They're not going to get any, no one's getting docked anything. There's only getting suspended. The consequences are that they would lose Kawai Leonard because the contract got voided or, let's say, it was a 50 game suspension or something. You're losing his services and under those circumstances, you say, well,

weeks ago. They make the trade in principle. They have the handshake deal. It comes out on June 30th. And all I could think today is, why didn't you know this on June 30th? If what caused you to pause it today was known to you then, why wouldn't you have just not gone into the deal into that agreement then? What I've learned today, according to sources, is the raptors in the MBA did have that conversation. The raptors did do their due diligence to their credit. They just

simply apparently did not believe it enough or were not convinced enough or concerned enough at that time to pause then. So, they went ahead with the handshake deal. The trade gets leaked. We all know about it. The whole world knows about it. The whole world's expecting this to happen. The moratorium

comes and goes. The deal still not finalized. And when they finally get to the trade call

in the MBA is, once again, reminding them, we can't guarantee anything about Coise contract or his availability. Suddenly the raptors get cold feet and this is why I set a few minutes ago. I think they should be more embarrassed than anyone because this is a decision they could have made, but whatever, a week and a half ago. And it shouldn't have gotten to this point. I think everybody got cold feet. I don't think that the raptors got cold feet. I don't even know

if the feet are cold. There may be just a little old nippy. I don't know. Here is a great

“box up there in Toronto. You have to. It's Canada. Here's a sentence from the athletics reporting”

Sam Amick and Law Murray, who covers the clip or something on this story. The MBA informed the

teams, the clipers and the raptors, before they agreed to the trade that the investigation could

cause issues with any deal involving Leonard, according to league sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity blah, blah, blah. And so that's what you're saying, that this conversation occurred. I've also heard such a conversation occurred. Look, I'll guarantee you, like Bobby Webster who runs the raptors came from the league office. These are all of his former colleagues, many of them, who he's talking to presumably in the legal department and the cap department and

all that in the league office. So what did they know when that conversation took place? And what do they know that's different today? I don't know the answer to that question. I suspect based on what I've heard that as they were because something happened between two and three days ago, we're suddenly this began consuming all the parties involved that something was a miss. So there's like a five or six day gap where like, Coise is like on the raptors. He's at Kyle

Lauery's thing the other day. He's like, everyone's excited about this. There was already like word of that word, but like rumblings up, are they going to have extensions talks with coal, Leonard is eligible for a two year something extension. Everything's fine. And then at some point in the last two days, everything's not fine anymore. What happened? I don't really know my theory is that as they're beginning to prepare for the trade call and paperwork this is they do,

“I think something like a little memo or a dendom from the league office came in that's like extra”

on top of the trade stuff that's like, hey, just remember we talked about this. If there's stuff that happens to collide, you are liable for it. And now suddenly this is blowing up. Look, I'm going to proceed on the assumption, perhaps naively, that this gets finished, that the trade goes through that Coise contract is not voided. But to your point, I don't, there's some, we don't, we have anything, if we've reached a point where a trade is being halted halfway through

because of an investigation that simply will not end anything is possible at this point, Adam Silver is speaking after the Board of Governors to the media next week here in Las Vegas. Is it really still going to be going on then? When does this end? Why is this taking so long? It can't be that so many people were were Calcitorint to talk, were Calcitorint, is that the right word reluctant, whatever I'm trying to say, to talk to the billable hours, my straws

“and walk to a lift and rows and and cats. Don't forget cats. It's been 10 months. What are we doing?”

Like, yeah, I feel that too. I think we all do. Like, there's just an exhaustion here. I will say, this is one of those can't win situations in a way for the league because if you wrap up the investigation and you haven't unturned, you know, turned over every stone and spoken to every possible witness and the next person that they referred you to and the next person and the next person and that's the way these things go. Is that, well, who else should we talk to? Here's 10 more

names. If you don't do all of that and you conclude the investigation, you give them a slap on the wrist, oh, we didn't find a smoking gun, whatever it may be and then somebody comes out a couple weeks later or Pablo has another podcast episode a few weeks later with more envelopes taped under chairs and other pieces of furniture and suddenly it's like, oh, here's the smoking gun or

here's a person who talked to us who said the league never, the league's lawyers never came to

them, walked to a lift and never called me. I could have told them and so there's some of that here,

but they have to do enough to be airtight in whatever the decision is, knowing full well that

if they fall short, we're going to all jump on them for missing something. And if they take too long, as it feels like they have, we're all over them right now for not resolving this and creating the conditions for what we're now seeing with the trade paused, so there is to an extent and no one situation here in terms of perception. I do think, you know, look, the highest, you know, level of of of of of responsibility here is to turn over every stone to talk to everybody you could

possibly talk to that may have evidence and even with Pablo's show, right? Like he, the revelation comes last whatever September, October, whenever it was and there have been how many different installments since then of the slow drip drip and they've been able to get that just as journalists not as investigators for the league who have the ability to demand much more of the teams and of co-wise, well, maybe not his, his, his representation, but certainly of the clippers,

Pablo can't demand anything of the clippers, but the league's lawyers can. And so there's much more available to them and that they are obligated to pursue. There's just, I mean, the repercussions are unbelievable. Like the clippers we talked about like they're clearly pivoting in a new direction and have these extra picks from the raptors and who knows what they

“could turn brand and anger them to and grady, dick, poor, grady, dick is like, hey, can I have a team?”

What team am I on? It's a reclamation project for them. The raptors are like, hey, we just played the calves to the Hill in the first round of the playoffs and turned brand and ingramed into co-wide Leonard. Like, could we, could we make a run at winning the east next year? I personally, I mean, they're clearly very good and I just have said before, like, I just,

co-wide Leonard never seems to be healthy for multiple playoff rounds anymore and has not been

since like the bubble. And so I'm kind of skeptical that it takes three Howard, if you remember, playoff series wins to make the finals. And we'll see, but they're clearly a very good team with them. And now everything is held up to your point about the raptors and the diligence and all that. Like, there's a 10,000% chance that they called and worked and got the information that they thought they needed and went forward. I will say there's at least one team that I know of because I asked

them about co-wide a team that theoretically had, you know, if I'm going through my fake trades, would have all the assets that they would need and all the motivation that they would need to go at least call about co-wide Leonard. And this team told me, we're not touching that until this investigation is over. So there were teams in the league who were like, this is a complete hands-off, can't touch it with the 10-football situation, until whatever this investigation is, is over.

I can't say what team that is, but it exists. And so here we are. I mean, I don't really know what else to say other than, I'm just now in wait and see mode and I'm enjoying summer league and I'm enjoying the 110-degree weather in Las Vegas. But this was a, this was a shockwave across the league

“today, the likes of which no one can really remember anything quite like this. Obviously,”

from not, not the whole saga itself from Pablo's first episode till now, but just like, oh wait, the trade was, like, the trade was done. Everyone was like moving on with their business and now it's, it's not done and it might, like, are we undoing it? What, what happens in that case? It's a crazy situation. And the thing is, this is coming on the heels of a Jonas trade and a Jalen Brown trade and a John Morant trade and LeBron opting out. And like,

I actually was starting to consider earlier today. Like, I'm not as good at this as Bill is off the top of my head, but we've got to be in the zone for like, most bonkers, like, eight-day span of an off-season in NBA history. Like, the number of massive things that have happened

in the last week, week and a half is just incredible. And, and this one is in a category of its own,

because this whole fucking investigation isn't a category all of its own. And, you know,

“the only thing you can compare this thing to is Joe Smith and that was over 20 years ago,”

25 years ago, whatever it was, and different commissioner, different NBA, different circumstances by far, but that's the only one we've ever been able to compare this to, but to have a trade of this magnitude. And with implications, by the way, like if you alluded to it, Toronto's an Eastern Conference contender with Kauai Leonard, if he's healthy. If this trade does not go through, they are not. And, and the clippers and the raptors both have a lot of, uh, uh, fences to

men or something with players. You know, who else is very interested in all of this is the players, union, who, if the collides contract were to be voided, and there were to be, it increased policing of endorsement deals for players and all of that. Like, that's an area of extreme interest for the players, union. There's all sorts of other processes that need, um, that need to happen here.

the Board of Governors meets, uh, next week here in Vegas. And I don't really, I mean, it's, the, the,

“the other crazy, obviously, and I, fittingly is, is of of recent vintage anyway, is the Kauai”

offseason of 2019 where there's the literal earthquake in Las Vegas, the night that he and Paul George are simultaneously going from various places to the clippers that's the same offseason that, uh, Durant and Kyrie choose the nets. There's all sorts of stuff happen. There's all sorts of stuff happening. And, uh, and here we are back here again, what seven years later, and it's another Kauai offseason, and everyone's just sort of wait and see what happens. And he, any final thoughts

on is anything that we missed? I don't think it was, uh, particularly encouraging that when everybody reached out to the league, the statement from the league about the investigation was, yeah, you know, we've spent wrapping up in the next couple of weeks. It looks to come. It's interesting. If I go to Croatia and this thing, or we're going to a couple of places, but if I'm in Croatia and this thing wraps up, and I have my microphone, and I'm three shots of Rackia into my night

into Bravnik. Like, I'm going live and all bets are off, where live streaming, we're filled with no filter. Can I be on that show? I will, I will even go around the corner of my local liquor store here at Kauai Gardens, Brooklyn, and find Rackia, so I can drink with you on the show while we were gail ourselves with Kauai Leonard conclusions, whatever that may be. I mean, you could even think of like, I wonder if the Celtics, I don't think they are,

because I don't think there was any ever, any momentum with real momentum, with jail and brown, going to either Toronto or the Clippers, like one of the two. But if you're the Celtics, you're like, man, it's going to be handy to know at least a little bit more information, but maybe the Raptors don't get Kauai and they get desperate and they're really interested in

jail and brown. I never got the sense that there was a unified front in Toronto in favor of

pursuing jail and brown, but you never know. Okay, I'm done talking about Kauai. Let's take a quick break and we'll talk about some other semi-pressing league business. Okay, the last episode I recorded, it was a couple of days ago, Bobby Marx, and on that episode, as we were recording, the cab signed out of the initial two a four year, 273 million dollar contract extension that kicks in in 2728 and could pay him over 75 million dollars in the 2031 season when he will be

“34 years old, I believe. We had to give this kind of short, that we didn't give it short,”

it was just a habit, it was like a bomb in our faces, we did, we just reacted live. We've had some time to think about it, obviously it's an interesting juxtaposition with jail and brown, whose similar size to contract was, you know, considered clunky enough for a team with another player, Jason Tatum, making the same or similar amount of money and how constraining that

is to have two players taking up 70% of your cab space in the second eight-minute world to at least

view as something like, could we get off of this and get some quote, "optionality" in terms of picks and future cab flexibility, a year or two down the road, and Donovan Mitchell is almost exactly his old as jailing brown, they're both 29 years old, to self-extrated jailing brown when he was 29, the cabs extend Donovan Mitchell a small guard when he's 29, into his mid-30s, at an enormous salary figure. For a team that finally did to their credit, it wasn't in the most

convincing fashion, break through to the conference finals last year, only to get walloped by the next, a team that is in the hunt for the bronze james, a decision that could come any moment now, and presumably would either way resign James Hardin, who like Dramon Green is sort of sitting out there and hey, just get to me when you're done with the bronze stuff, another world. Now that you've had some time to think about this, and what it means for the cabs,

what it means about Evan Mobley and Donovan Mitchell, what it means for Jared Allen, what it means for this team is they begin to recoup assets that they on the back end that they

“sent out to acquire Donovan Mitchell. What do you think of this? What do you make of this?”

One of the things that just hit me was that as you're mentioning LeBron again is that I think I said opt out when obviously he just walked away as a free agent, but he opted for being single, Howard. He just broke up with the lakers before they could break up with him, which is a framing that I find quite funny because I think both the lakers signed 17 people in like 40 seconds and it just happened. I think they were ready. I think everybody was ready for this,

and I've talked to the length about what the lakers did and what I like and don't like about it. But anyway, Donovan Mitchell. Yeah. But the number of people who were kind of just taking it face by the idea LeBron made this decision independent of anything, and yet we saw like this flurry of moves, some of which were complicated because the Walker Custle side and trade doesn't just happen in five minutes. Like, come on, he read the room, or they both read the room,

they read each other, whatever. Donovan Mitchell, I think the part of this, here's the pull back

and most especially this one, which is now a virtual hard cap, which by the way, I've even had

“people whether they misspoke or whether they meant it. Actual league office people use the word”

hardcap with me. What was in the last few months? Good thing nobody from the players union was in your shot. Actually, the players you would probably like that because that would give them grounds to be angry or angry about it. I mean, it is a virtual hardcap, and one of the things that a hardcap does to you, especially in a league where players can make 30, 35% of the cap and up because of raises, and they make more as they get older, is it puts you in a position where

you really can only have one of those guys? You can have two if they're on different timelines if they're like three, four, five years apart, and they're on different maxes, right? The maxes is not the max in this league. There's three different maxes, and then those maxes aren't even the same every few years because the BRI keeps going up, and the cap goes up, and the percentage. So what it results in is teams making have to make extremely difficult decisions to decide

“sometimes on having just one star. The Celtics kind of just did this, and I understand”

Paul George is making basically the same amount of jail and brown, but the optionality thing was

about we're going to loosen things up a little bit, and it's one year less, and maybe we can move off of Paul George, but we can't sign jail and brown to get another max extension and have Jason Tatum. They had to make a choice, and the Cavaliers at this stage, having flipped Garland for James Hardin, well Hardin's no longer a max guy. Evan Moly will, you know, is a max guy on a different timeline. His percentage of the cap is in like the low 30s, whereas none of the

Mitchell's is in the mid going up to the high 30s, and we have to think of percentage of the cap as much as we think a dollar value. And a big, a big sort of wildcard in all of this, and something I was remiss and not mentioning during the jail and brown fallout podcasts plural, then I did was that, you know, these maxes go up what 8% each year salary wise, and if the cap does not match that, there was sort of a assumption that the cap would grow faster than the max contracts would

grow annually, and so they would take up less space over time. And what's happening is they might actually take up more space over time, like Evan Moly wins defense of player the year, triggers his version of the super max, so he's at 30% of the cap instead of 25% of the cap. The calves, of course, ironically are in a position, an awkward position, we're like, hey, that's great, our guy one defense player the year sucks for our cap sheet. And they are on different

timelines, but they're both down to Mitchell and Evan Moly taking up huge portions of the cap that may not be rising as much as anticipated. Yeah, I mean, you know, what's upon a time this time of year, many years ago, you and I and our friend Rachel Nichols would do our drunk with power podcast, and we would go around suggesting things that we would change if we were commissioner for a day and could just wave a magic wand. And I don't remember if I've mentioned

this one back then, but it's one that's all I've always thought. It's one, it's kind of silly

to be a players of races. Like people like us need raises, right? We're trying to keep up with the cost of living players, making tens, even hundreds of millions of dollars over the course. Do they need raises? Why do we have raises at all in the NBA? Just have make it an average, make it a total, whatever it is. That's one. The second one is we have these three separate masses that are whatever, 25, 30, 35% of the cap, based on years of service. And the highest percentage

you can get is for the guys who are 10 years in over, and what we see more and more, Steph and LeBron notwithstanding, Chris Paul notwithstanding is that most guys as they get to their mid to late 30s, there's a massive decline in production and efficiency and contribution to winning.

“And so there's another piece that the the CBA just doesn't make sense on, right?”

Now you have Donovan Mitchell, who's going to be making 37% of the cap at age. Would you say 34, 35? Some like that. He's almost, he's about to turn 30, I think, but not about his close-age to 30. So that's problematic. It makes it hard to build a team around him, and even more so now than ever,

because we have a virtual hard cap called the second apron. And so that's one piece.

That's the reality. But the other reality is that is this. I think that's the Donovan Mitchell contract, just like the J.L. Brown previous extension that he had gotten with Boston, falls in the category of all capitol on all these words. Things you just have to do when you have a top 15 to 20 player. You don't tell your top 10, top 15, top 20 player. We really don't want to pay you the max. You rightly shouted out Rafael Stony the other day for how much of a hard line the

rockets take, Alpine Shengun and others. But like you don't do that usually with the guy who's like a true like top, you know, you know, an all MBA type player in their prime. Also easier to take a harder line against guys coming off their rookie skill contracts because any new contract they make is going to just trump by so many degrees what they've made before. Donovan Mitchell is prideful in the middle of his career and is like, no, I want, I want all,

cast position would have told Donovan Mitchell know to this max or we're going to try to squeeze you or you know what if we can't pay you so we're just going to trade you. Like you just, you can't do that. You don't do that and there aren't going to be many Jalen Brunson's taking a

discount. Probably one he will never accept again. I would imagine. So what do you do?

“What else do you do? You have to resign your top 10, your top 15, your top 20 guy.”

And you you're wincing as you do it. Your cap guys are going to look at the year 2030 here, boss, it's looking kind of and you're saying I know and the owner's going, we're really, I mean, it was probably the same with the Devon Booker deal, whatever it was a year or two ago. What choice do you have? There are market forces. There's respect from your players and and keeping faith with your players, keeping faith with your fans, sending the right message

to the rest of the league, other players and their agents. It's hard. It's, it's almost impossible to just say, we'll do the right thing, quote unquote, right thing and and, you know, keep, keep the costs down so you can keep your cap flexible. Like good luck with that. Yeah, I mean, I said with Bobby the other day, eight years ago, literally eight years ago, 2018. I wrote a piece for ESPN about just how how visorally bad it feels to me that homegrown stars who end up achieving so much for

your team that team that drafted them or traded for their draft rights, whatever, basically

drafted them. End up making so much money that their contracts, if they're not like no grain or top five, top six guys, become albatross contracts, painful for you to have. And I thought, I framed the story as I said last week around the bulls deciding, oh, oh, Jimmy Butler's eligible for the supermax. This all comes from the supermax, which all comes from Durant leaving Oklahoma City to go to Golden State, but that's a different story. The bulls saying voluntarily,

you know what, Jimmy Butler's right in his prime, we just would rather not have him on our team. And what if the bulls done since then, since that moment, a whole lot of nothing. And I realized that Donovan Mitchell is not a homegrown Cleveland Cavalier. They did not draft him. They did not trade for his draft rights. So I don't know. And because I pitched like, maybe you should get some cap or tax relief or something. If you have one of those players on your books, they don't account

for so much to the apron or whatever. Do those rights go with you when a team like Cleveland Treasury? I don't know. I don't know what the right answer to any of these questions are. And the counter argument that I did not mention with Bobby that I heard from a lot of executives when I wrote that PC years ago is, it's really a cute deck that you think that there should be cap relief and all these things. And it's so awkward to have one of these guys under. It's like

“it's not awkward. It's so sad to you that these guys become albatrosses. You know what you have to do?”

This is what minority people would tell this to me. And this goes to the Donovan Mitchell, what are you supposed to do? Question that you asked. They said, you know what you have to do, is that you have to make some tough decisions. Buck up and make some tough decisions. Offer them less money. Trade them before it becomes an issue. Trade them early on in the contract. Do whatever you have to do because if it's going to hurt you, it's your job to make the tough decisions.

And I was like, yeah, I mean, that's true. And it's just like, so if you're applying that to this, and you think that this deal is going to be, um, if not an albatross, then a, you know, let's say net neutral kind of deal. A deal that will be hard to trade in five years. Like, so what am I supposed to do? If I'm called be up and am I supposed to sign him to a shorter extension? That's not going to go over well. Am I supposed to not offer the extension at all? Then I'm looking at a trade demand.

I can't let him walk in free agency. So do I up and trade him? If I do up and trade him. So then I don't control my picks for the next three years because I traded four Donovan Mitchell. I can't tank tanking is already sort of less profitable anyway. And whether that's good or bad for me, the Cleveland Cavaliers are used to be seen. Um, and so I traded him and I get back some like young players and some picks. And now my team is like Evan Mobley, Jared Allen,

maybe like James Harden is kicking around and I'm like, I don't, I don't know. So it's easy for people

“to say, well, that's your job. You make tough decisions. If you want to get out of jail, get out of jail early.”

I'm like, okay, I don't know. This is one that he's such a great player. And I had him ranked above jail and Brown for the majority of this season, even in jail and Brown's very best season. And whether you care or not, Howard Beck, the analytics, the advanced stats, all the stuff that became such a talking about with jail and Brown, Donovan Mitchell outpaces him by a lot in those, it all of those categories, every single advanced statue you want to look at, including on

off data. On the other hand, he's a small guard. jail and Brown is a big wing, like those things

matter too and how you age. I would be surprised if Donovan Mitchell earning $75 million in

them signing the contract because I don't know what the other's supposed to do. And they're going

to go for it next year. And if they get LeBron as weird as the LeBron, James Harden, Donovan Mitchell, but also you have two big guys. So how often does LeBron play the four as weird as that all could feel? It's a pretty goddamn good team. And it's like the whole point of this is to try to have a good team that can win. Yeah. And the story, I don't know. Sorry, I remember them, just it's complicated. It's a complicated topic. It is. And to the GM's who told you, oh, well, this is,

you know, they'll buck up, put it in my pants. What a big boy pants look like exactly. Are they just bigger than average pants? No, they're not, they're not over. They're not Dunga Reeves. That was back when it came up. That word came up with me. Like dad friends, recently, I wish you a number who we're talking to. We were like, remember what Dunga Reeves are like, I'm not even sure. I know what Dunga Reeves are or ever knew what they were, but I definitely had. My mom was definitely like,

we need to go over to Caldore and get some Dunga Reeves for school. We had to go to Mervins to get some Dunga Reeves. Dunga Reeves was a, that was a word that only my parents ever used. In fact, I don't think even any of my friends parents, it sounds, it sounds, I think it's James. It sounds almost profane. But anyway, I don't know. If you put on your big boy Dunga Reeves, and you,

“you have to offload somebody as the Celtics just do with Jalen Brown. One, it reminds me of what David”

Stern said way back when when we had the lockout in 2011, he used this phrase, this absolutely or brilliant phrase, player sharing. What they went was player sharing. What happened the next summer after the lockout was done and they had played a short season and then we had free agency 2012. James Hardin was player shared to the Houston Rockets from the Oklahoma City Thunder. That's what happened because we had a new CBA with a more punitive luxury tax and the Thunder decided they

didn't want to have to deal with that. And so that's what we're talking about here. Jalen Brown just got player shared to the sixers who already had a bunch of stars, so it doesn't really work on that level. But the leagues goal through all these these CBAs has been don't allow teams to build up and then keep like the warriors were able to or the clippers were able to accrue so many stars at such a high cost including luxury tax that you're outspending other teams by 50 to

a hundred million or a hundred fifty million dollars. That's they don't want that and they do

want it more talent at the high end spread around. So there's that. I get it. Are the Cavaliers? How are they going to continue to build around Donovan Mitchell now that he's on the books for this? That's going to be an issue for them. Just as it has been for, you know, whether it's Jonas or there are other things that work there. But any of these guys making the max, the super max, whichever max, it's becoming harder and harder to build around them and sustain it around them.

“And before we get too far into the, well, that's what you're paid the big bucks for and everything.”

And that's fine. If you're a GM, but not if you're a fan, like Brad Stevens put on his big boy Dungeries and made the hard trade. That's sucks to do. And he can say optionality 11 times in 10 minutes in a press conference or however many times it was. And it can all be very logical and reasoned and the owner can be on board and his cap guys are are on board and his analytics guys, fine. It sucks for the fans. And it actually eventually sucks for Brad Stevens too, because

he still has to figure out what the next couple of moves are to rebuild a championship caliber

team around Jason Tatum. I mean, there have one right now. I don't know. There are a million

reasons why that trade will be one of the rare trades that we talk about for many, many years. One of which just won and I outlined many of them with body, go back and listen to that if you want about chemistry and who's the number one option and twitch and all that. One of them is that the Celtics already won a championship very recently with jail and Brown and Jason Tatum as the best players on their team. And then had to dismantle a lot of that team to get out of the

second apron. But it's not like unproven that you can win a title with jail and Brown and Jason Tatum is your number one and two players. It is unproven that you can get to the finals with Donovan

“Mitchell and Evan Mobiley as your number one or two players. And I think this trade, this extension”

rather really underscores like the calves are now about Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobiley and everything else including I'm sorry Jared Allen is going to have to be fungible long term. And that's just the way that it's going to be. And I don't if I'm betting on one pairing of players that they currently have and I'm boxed into paying some pairing of players this amount of money. I think they've picked the right the right two and where they go from here medium term next two, three,

four years is going to be very interesting where they could go from here now is there is a world where they can get hard in back and LeBron and just go full, but they might have to sluff away a max true story than a shooter or both. But go full board and try to win these. How much Zach, do you think this extension that Donovan Mitchell just signed which they knew was coming

Because in retrospect, I feel like and maybe we should just even see that in real time,

“it feels like those things are connected to me because Hardin is as ten years older but also cheaper”

as a result. And on the back side and has whatever year or two left something, at what will be able to me a little less than number. And so from the moment they had their core four of Garland Mitchell, Mobley, Jared Allen, the concern that you'd hear Express Run League was not concerned but the clock ticking was you can't pay all for those guys. There's some overlap and skill sets that are there? All that other stuff too functionally on the court. But there was going to be a payroll

issue eventually. How long could they go before they had to break it up? And they finally just did.

And here we are. A couple of things about that. Number one, Orlando is staring a similar version of that problem. And there is a very close to 90 to 100% chance that Orlando is going to make a major move in the next 18 months because they simply cannot pay Anthony Black, Jill and Sugs, Desmond Bay and Franz Wagner and Palo Bancaro, what they're slated to pay them. Something is going to have to give there. I mentioned earlier about buck up and put on your big boy,

Dungeries. One small way of doing that is look at what the Thunder did with Jill and Williams and Chet Holmgren and the escalator clauses in their contract. The same escalator clauses that you know Evan Mobley was triggered when he got one defense player of the year. They negotiated those very carefully and very hard. And to like Chet Holmgren took a straight 25% Max doesn't matter.

“If I make the all NBA team or not, if correct me if I'm wrong, I think I think that's what”

happened. I'd have to go look it up. And Jill and Williams was kind of like staggered.

If you make first team all NBA, it can be up to this. Second team all NBA, it's a little lower.

30 like that's those things matter on the margins. And our one reason the Thunder are a couple of many transactions away from getting under the second apron in this season where they should have no business being under the second and I don't even know what the hell we're talking about the CAD. Should LeBron go to the CAD? Where do you want LeBron to go? By the way, it's almost 11 o'clock Eastern on Thursday. I don't know how long LeBron's going to take. I don't necessarily think

it's going to be as long as everyone thinks it might be. Who knows? But we've got in the universe of possibilities. We've got Cleveland, Golden State, Miami, Philadelphia, Minnesota. Am I missing anybody? Is that about it? I think that was all of them. Denver, Denver theoretically, you know, I haven't heard as much buzz about them. But, you know, Bob Myers took the extraordinary step of appearing on with Paul and Max Clemman's podcast that part of our Spotify

reading our network of podcasts to basically pitch rich in person. This is why LeBron should

come to Philadelphia. I don't think I've ever seen anything like that. Sean Stronner reported today that Rich Paul has opened his voice mailbox to voice notes that people can send him that he will then forward along to LeBron. So, a lot of faith in Rich Paul is like, "All right, boy, here's a 92nd voice note. Can you read this to LeBron?" Or listen. So, who the hell knows what's going to happen? But, obviously, a lot of people would think Cleveland is the sort of poetic ending

of his career where it began for him, both as a kid, Dan, as an NBA player, where he came back in one of them, a championship before leaving again. I don't think it's the cleanest basketball fit of Harden is there and Mitchell is there and you have this sort of everyone operates with the ball. But, he proved last year, he can feel pretty much any role you want him to, even with two other ball dominant players having two big guys who play heavy minutes complicates that a little bit.

But, those are first world problems. The Cleveland fit is not the sexiest to me, but if he were to argue, it gives me the best chance to go out, chasing a championship, and boy if I did it for my hometown team with that being credible. I don't think I can fall from for that. I couldn't do that. Remember back in 2010, when the whole thing was like, oh, the bronze making everybody come to Cleveland to come woo him at their office. It was a

Cleveland or accurate. They were all, everybody had to go the clippers and the nicks and the bulls and the heat, everybody all had to travel to Cleveland to go make their pitches and their power points and their videos and Mike Bloomberg was mayor of New York at the time. Maybe this was part of this ridiculous, come on, the bronze video. And then we had the Hamptons for Kevin Durand.

“Oh, sure. Now, we just go on Rich Paul's podcast. Like, I, I don't know if it's like who's next?”

Maybe I'm going on the podcast. Rich is here in Las Vegas. Clutch is actually having their party tonight. Maybe I should leave him a voice note and say it's LeBron ever considered just retiring and bringing the mind the game podcast into the Spotify ringer family. Here we go.

poetic choice is Cleveland by far. I think the next most poetic choice would sort of be my

“amy, but it doesn't have the same resonance, right? The, the one that I like because I'm just a”

sentimental goofball who thinks it would just be fun to watch them. I like LeBron and the warrior is best. Like I love the idea of him and Steph and Drainmond, Olympic buddies, former rivals who beat the crap out of each other. Sometimes in the, in the nuts, in the finals and now are joining forces like the Rocky Apollo thing, right? Like, I love that. And it's a senior's tour and they got you me butler along for the ride and nobody thinks they can actually win a title because they're

too old, but if they just stayed healthy, who that hell wants to see them in April or May, I love that. That's my favorite version of this, but he has no ties other than personal ties to the warriors, right? Not as a franchise. And if you think about LeBron's career in chapters, amazing luck of the ping pong balls. He gets drafted by his virtual home town team in Cleveland. When did you say luck you say? Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. When he decides to leave there,

he goes to Miami. He wins a couple of championships. He grows up a bit and I was rereading the, the essay that he did with Lee Jenkins in Sports Illustrated back in 2014, when he went back to Cleveland. And he talked about Miami as like college, right? I ever went to college or that was like college for me. I learned, you know, I grew up a little and there'd had to be a champion. All these things that I'm bringing all that knowledge back to Cleveland to raise up these young guys and

bring us a championship in Northeast Ohio and I want to be an inspiration. So he starts to frame this in terms of like these, they're chapters of a story. He does win the championship. Now he's free to leave without any guilt or backlash and goes to LA because his family loves it there and he's got his, his media empire there and everything else. Cool. So if this is now the final final chapter

to make it a new team that he's never been part of doesn't feel right in terms of like just like the

narrative arc. Miami has a little bit of it. Cleveland has the most of it by far. It's so funny how, I mean, even Brian Winhorse who's as well-sourced and careful as anybody

“in our business went on some show. I think it was a Cleveland radio show about how the vibes just”

the idea of LeBron and Philadelphia, the vibes just feel off and all the vibes about Cleveland feel right. And it's amazing how, I mean, I've been in Vegas for like eight hours of already had a bunch of meetings. Everyone is just reading the TV. I've already, I've already had one person tell me one person to leave tell me, well, you know, I mean, look, he's been around Cleveland the summer. They did the 2016 Cavs, 10 year reunion where they forgot to invite Timothy Mozgav,

but they all had a great time like he's that's him sending signals. And that is another person in agent tell me, Bob Myers really go on that podcast if he thought like LeBron wasn't coming to Philadelphia. And I'm like, I don't know. If you go, you guys are all just reaching for reaching for whatever. The, the one thing I will say that I thought in response to the windy vibes thing, there's no question Cleveland has a poetry to it, no question. And I think

would be his best chance to win. You know, you could argue maybe for Denver. That just doesn't

seem realistic. The one thing LeBron has always done in his career is take control of it and do

stuff that just feels right to him regardless of the consequences. Like, so he goes to Miami and gets pounded for it, right? Just destroy the TV show of the decision, you get destroyed. Comes back to Cleveland. Then he goes to the liquor. He's, why I don't know. The liquor is one of that good. That a bunch of young guys maybe we get Anthony Davis. Oh yeah, we did strong our boy and Anthony Davis, but he wanted to live in Los Angeles and expand his media empire. Like,

“if he decides, I think it would be kind of cool if I went to Philadelphia and, uh, or Minnesota,”

right, and just, but just say Philadelphia and like this franchise that just can't get out of its own way. They can't go two months without something absolutely insane happening to it.

And try to lift them in my, my young fellow clutch client, Tyrese Maxi, to a place they had never

been before and that's just what I feel like doing. Like, there's something LeBronian in that as well. But you know, look, we're all going to find out. Yeah. I mean, I kind of dismissed the Philadelphia Minnesota. So like, I could be completely wrong and it's fine. I don't care. I'm not looking to to make a correct prediction here. But those feel off to me because of the idea that this is it. This, he's got a year or two left, whatever it is, and he's going to go to a place with the

where he has no ties and in Philadelphia 3000 miles from LA where he's going to leave his family behind. Um, for, for what? Like, I don't, I don't know. It just, that doesn't make sense to me. Minnesota, really? Like, it, it, it, but you're right, Zach. He has been bold in his other decisions along the way. Capital D or small D. And the idea of him going to a completely new place just because it's like, you know what? I'll be the first guy to get Philly to the, to the championships since

1983 or what, like, yeah, I could see him doing that. I mean, Rich Paul did say on the pod and I kind

he would have gone there. Like, really? Are you sure? Like, I mean, he said that with enough boldness

“that I was like, okay, like, I, I believe that's true. And I, it would, the next would have to”

want it. And I assume the Nixon that scenario would have been open to it. I just, I don't. I believe it. I, I'm, I'm, I'm, maybe I'm being too cynical on this. I am skeptical of that. And I was skeptical of much of the whiteboard. I enjoyed the whiteboard. I have a lot more, more whiteboard. Great show. There was something about Lebron, Philadelphia, Cleveland, that now I am forgetting what it was. We're all going to, we're all going to find out eventually where Lebron is going to go.

And I don't know how we're going to find out, but we will find out. I will say this, my, my final thought on it that he could still have us all, and I know some people are going to just like, fucking just like cringe at that, even saints. He still has us all captivated. Do it's going to be 41 42 in December, 42. He is 41 years old and is, but log to a 24 years in the league, and we're going to do your 24. And we are still sitting here in July, captivated by what he will do next.

“He's still one of the 25 best players in the NBA. Well, that's, we do question. Sounds like”

damning with faint praise, because it's Lebron James. He's, again, almost, he's going to be 41 and a half years old. It's remarkable that he's in the NBA at all, let alone able to be the best player on a team that won a playoff series in the Western Conference last season. Oh, I know what it was. You mentioned a place where he has no ties of going, how weird it would be to see him a place where he has no ties. I mean, other than he wanted to live there and did already live there in the

offseason, he didn't really have ties to Los Angeles. And you would find Lakers fans who are like, I still don't feel a strong tie to Lebron James eight seasons later, a championship later, and I don't want to sit here and litigate all the gazillion reasons why that is from Kobe to he wasn't drafted by the Lakers. He came there as a mercenary late in his career to the bubble

championship to no parade, but it, like, it never felt like Lebron's team and Lebron's franchise in

Los Angeles from the outside looking in. So it wouldn't be unprecedented for him to go to a place and just like where I want to go, I want to go here. I agree, but the natural fit there was, I am an all-time great, and this is one of the greatest franchises in the history of sports. And so just the magnetism of these two poles, right, of Lebron entity, you know, a superstar legend in already established all this other stuff, but the Lakers, he needs somewhere he can go

try to win championships again, you know, carve out this last stage of his career. The Lakers needed somebody to profit them back up again in, in, in the post Kobe years. It was, it's the glitz of the Lakers. So he, you don't, you didn't need another tie or another reason. The Lakers are the reason. You're saying that Timberl was going to carry the same gravitas as the Lakers. The sixers have a lot of gravitas. The sixers are, they haven't won in a long time, but they are. The Lakers do share the

same roots, they're both from Minneapolis, ultimately. That's true. All right, let's think another

quick break and just wrap up with a couple of, uh, summer league and other notes. Summer league is here, and where you have agent-to-bance of versus Darren Peterson tonight, uh, and tomorrow we have Camp Boosa versus Caleb Wilson, those are the headliners. From there, it sort of Peters out, uh, Peterson was spectacular in the Salt Lake Summer League, uh, less spectacular tonight, but it's still up to 21 points as we record this. We watch the first

half together. Debanta is up to 27 points, uh, on, let's see, he's only seven of 18, seven of eight from the line, but that really equates to like 16 free throws because we're doing the one free

“throw for all the points thing in Summer League. I just, I think both of these guys are going to be”

amazing. I'm super excited for the jazz to see George and Peterson play together. He got rough

up a little bit tonight that Wiz were pressing him all over the floor. He took some bad shots. Debanta, I mean, again, seven of 18, that's super efficient. Got the line whenever he wanted, took a lot of tough shots, and that's going to be interesting because that tough shot mid-range diet is not going to work in the NBA the way it's worked for him at other levels. He's going to learn to play off the ball more than he did tonight when Trey Young is, is running point for the

weirdo wizards, but I actually loved what I saw from his pick and roll game tonight in Summer League, like a lot of creative reads, so nice passes, a drive where he rejected the screen and dunked on everybody and brought the arena to its feet, just physically and in terms of its instincts on both ends of the floor, I can't fault the Wiz for taking them number one. I think all four of these guys are going to be awesome. And if I were a Wiz fan, it's a weird group, but I would be

over the moon by Ajay Debanta's Summer League Vegas debut tonight. Now he was fun. I mean, you know, it's summer league, so things I don't care about, not worried about how efficient they are, not worried about how much they are really involving their teammates even. If you're one of the top picks because while I want to see that kind of virtue in the regular season with your real teammates,

might not even remember their names. But I loved his aggression, I loved the confidence,

the driving to hit a dunk was at first quarter, was a nice little highlight moment.

I, yeah, Debanta looks awesome. Petersen looked good. I did not see the previous the Salt Lake Summer League and I'm getting, I will be out your way starting tomorrow Friday in Vegas, so I will hopefully get to see these guys up close. Petersen looked awesome in those games and was playing off the ball a lot tonight, which is he has good instincts to play off the ball is obviously a three-point shot gravity is outrageous and you could cut her and that's all going to come in handy when

you know, Markin is going to have the ball some running the offense and Kianta George is going to have

“it a lot. I think both these teams, particularly the jazz I think are a top six contender right off”

the bat next year in the west. The whiz are not quite in the east, but if you look at their starting five, it's, it's in theory. It's tray young, somebody at the two guard it could, I would put

below Koolabali or Kishan George there, although Tray Johnson loving every second of Summer League,

just like, just give me the ball, even will Riley also loving every second of Summer League and then Debanta saw our Davis and then all three of those other guys will come off the bench along with Bob Carrington and you know, I'll leave like, I mentioned Tray Jay will Riley Deandre eight and is now on the team imagine that. There's like a decent amount of talent in Washington. I don't know how it's all going to match. I don't know how long Anthony Davis is

for the wizards at least, you know, beyond the first half of next season. I assume we will be on the team then. It's kind of fun. They're kind of a fun team and this is what we were going to talk about, but other things happen. They are one of, we were going to do a segment and we're going to do this at some other time looking at sort of the bottom teams in each conference or at least projected bottom teams and look at like this new relegation zone thing is now a thing in the NBA starting

this year, the new lottery odds. And the teams we were going to look at are the wizards, the bulls, the bucks, the pelicans, the maves, not necessarily about them, whatever team just they were last year.

“The kings, the grids, the nets and the clippers. That's I think nine teams of those teams. They all”

control their first round pick except for the clippers. The thunder get to swap it. Somehow again,

the thunder and a swap with the clippers. The bucks do not get their pick at all. It goes to either New Orleans or Atlanta. And the nets have to swap with the rockets, which is unfortunate for them. All the other teams more or less Dallas's situations little tricky control their own first round pick, which means they are motivated to not be one of the three worst teams in the NBA because then you get relegated lottery odds wise. So like a team like the wizards, they have, I think, an incentive to try to win.

And I think they have actually the talent to try to win enough games to not be in that relegation zone. On the flip side, I look at the kings. They own their own first round pick. They have in all the incentive to win. They're going to have a really, they are like the relegation zone team to watch. Like they're going to try real hard. And I'm just not sure they have enough talent. But the wizards are kind of interesting. And this is going to, it is going to be very fun to watch

these teams sort of navigate these new waters and these new incentives. I'm going to try to say this in a way that's not super confusing because it's confusing in my own head. But I'm wondering as we go into the first year of this system, Zach, are the bad teams who know they're going to be bad. They know they're going to be in the lottery. Are they actually

“be trying to avoid the relegation zone and how and what, by what means, will we see that?”

Or has the NBA simply removed the incentive to be in what is now considered the relegation zone? And that was previously the best zone to be in odds-wise, right? Because the real goal for the league was don't have incentive to be super, super awful. And what we now have is incentive, we now have incentive to get out of that bottom tier. So how that's going to manifest itself in terms of the way that teams manage their roster, their line-ups, their, in the case of use of knurkitch,

their nose surgeries. Like what exactly your team is going to do differently to to avoid the relegation zone. And I guess it's more just don't shut guys down if they can still play. Don't put out super weird line-ups in a bunch of two-way guys instead of actual NBA players. Like I guess it's that. And the net result will be better basketball. But whether there will actually see a team is quote unquote trying to avoid the relegation zone, as opposed to simply just trying to just

be competent, I mean, it's a subtle difference. I mean, there's a significant, the best place to be in the new system is not in the play-in, but not one of the three worst teams in the league.

end-top three pick. Obviously there's some incentive perhaps to fall out of the play-in and get into

that slot. I still don't, I'm skeptical. We'll ever see a team sort of duck the playoffs and the play-in on purpose. But I do think there's real incentive there. And then that's good for the league. The most fascinating one in it broke my brain is Dallas, who owes their pick to the Hornets,

“but from the PJ Washington deal, I think, to the Hornets, but with top two protection,”

meaning they keep it if it's in the top two. So they're like, I think if I played it out in my head, they're like super incentivized to chase a play-in and play-off spot because they like being in the relegation zone is bad for them on every level, and because they want to either get one of the top two picks or chase a play-off spot. And I think they actually, I know this is a

team you wanted to talk about. They're kind of an interesting group now with Kyrie coming back.

And I think Kyrie, who was one year left after this, but it's a player option, is one of the most interesting players in the league bar none for the next 18 months. The maps have loved having them around, Cooper Flag loves having them around, and yet it's undeniable that the maps have to reset their timetable a little bit around Cooper Flag, and a healthy productive Kyrie would have a lot of value around the league. But they're a team that's in an interesting spot as well, and they just

made the Santiago Dama trade, they drafted a more as, more as Johnson from Michigan, and they're

“an interesting group. I know you wanted to, what did you want to say about them?”

No, just because they're still kind of copy-tween areas, right? Like they're in the Cooper Flag era, but they're still kind of dealing with the residue of the Luka Donchitch era and the Luka Donchitch trade, and Kyrie is a big part of that. Kyrie, like if they're going to be a team that actually makes noise in the Western Conference, and the Western Conference is still really tough, and I was taking a little bit of back about the jazz as a top 16, which would be a contender for a top

score. Yeah, I feel like the top six barring the unforeseen are still locked-ish, but I'm, you know, I'm not, I'm not confident. Kyrie's 34 years old, last played in March of 2025, so it'll have been

like 19 months or something between games, has never played with Cooper Flag, is Kyrie going to come back

and still be a top 20, top 30, top, I don't know where he was when he left the stage, but, you know, what is he when he comes back? What level of star is he? What kind of playmaking do they have outside of Kyrie and Cooper Flag? His Cooper Flag had to bear too much of it last season as a rookie, and where's the internal improvement coming from? Is it just the addition of Kyrie back from the injured list? But they had all the injuries last year too, and so they're really hard to assess

in that regard, right? Derrick lively played seven games, they got less than 60 games each from death, and we don't know when Derrick lively is coming back full strength, and he's a huge part of their team. And yeah, their depth is like, there are a lot of questions marks once you get by at the top three or four guys on the team, which is the case for all these teams, like Marcus Sassur, so you're going to contribute. What is clear, I have left in the tank is Max Chrissy, a legit starter

at two guard on and on. So to your point about this exercise about like, do you want to, are you, are you actively trying to avoid, you're trying to avoid the relegation zone, the Dallas doesn't have their pick except if it's top two, you can't manipulate this now, right? Like if you ever could, and you couldn't really because of the lottery, but to the extent that you could at least put yourself in a better position by losing, you can't really now, and this is a great example of

it too, right? Because Dallas doesn't, we don't know which direction they might want to go, are you adding, are you subtracting, are you flipping Kyrie for younger pieces and picks? If

“if that is something that's even available, because you need to start building on Cooper Flag's timeline,”

does winning this season matter yet? I would argue no. Yeah, Cooper Flag going into year two, but it is an interesting case, study for this whole mixed bag of motivations with your guard to the lottery. I think they want to win games. I think Dallas wants to win games. All these teams that we're going to have a chance to talk about down the line are in earnest, New Orleans, what the hell is New Orleans? You know, Zion does anything toward the end of Zion's contract. He is

only one year left after this year. Joe Dumars has said over and over again, we want to build around him, we want to keep him, that's all going to be tested. I can't wait to watch Memphis play tomorrow, Brooklyn has Julius Randall on their team, that's the thing that happened in a bunch of young guards. It's very interesting. All right, Howard Beck, it's getting late here, even in Las Vegas. I haven't eaten dinner yet, so I'm getting hangry. Anything that we left out that you wanted to hit?

No, that's it. I did write about the whole LeBron, Chenanigans at theRingard.com earlier this week.

grind, I think, is it next week? We're on a summer schedule. I'm not sure, but I'll be seeing

“you in Vegas soon. Maybe we'll grab a drink at a Tiki bar or something.”

Oh, God. We're not going back to the Tiki bar with the talking parents. That's over.

Howard Beck, thank you, sir. Thanks, Zach.

“All right, that's it for today's episode of the Zach Low Show.”

Buying a LeBron emergency, we will be back next week as normal. Thank you to the great Howard

Beck for his insight. Thank you to Mike, Jonathan, and Billy on production as always. And thank

“you to all of you for listening to Andrew watching the Zach Low Show. We will see you soon.”

21 over in president's leg states for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas star casino or 18 and over in president and DC. You can tuck your Wyoming gambling problem. Call 1-800-Gambler or 1-800-My reset. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org and Maryland hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-505-0 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8 hope NY or text hope NY in New York.

For the Louisiana, call 1-877-770-787-867.