Breakdown of Key Summer League Prospects

The sppurs have replaced Sean Sweeney LeBron Buzz is still buzzing. And Smmer League action starts for your summer spurs tonight. It's the fourourth of July weekend. Let's send you into it with something to talk about it, all right Let's good You are Lcked on Spurs, your Daily San Antonio Spurs podcast, part of the locked on podcast network. Your team every day Hello and welcome back to Lcked on Spurs. My name is Matthew Tine and thank you as always for making us a part of your day. todayoday's show is brought to you by Fandel The biggest stage in world soccer is here. Let there be goals on fandou. Visit fandool d. com to get started now on today's show We're going to get into some summer League stuff some summer League conversations Carter Bryant might not be playing in the California classic he comes later in the Vegas suummer League, but they do have a number of well, three of their four draft picks from this from this June's draft will be in action. So we'll get into that We're also going to get into what popped up this morning and is a very unique view what it looks like from an agent's perspective as he is is trying to find suitors for his client. in this in this case, one of the biggest clients that we've ever seen in NBA history and one of the most powerful agents that we've ever seen in NBA history in LeBron James and Rich Paul. And by the way, Tyler, the producer He was heated before this show started. He has opinions We will be getting to those, I promise. But first We got to talk a little bit more After we've had a day or so, well, not even twenty four hours to digest the hiring of Billy Donovan in San Antonio to replace Sean Sweeney who had a obviously an excellent run as essentially the architect of the defense and now he is in Orlando. It was it's one of those things where you can't pass up a good opportunity and he knew what he was doing coming to San Antonio. and I have a feeling that Billy Donoan knows what he's doing too. But before we get into that aspect of things, I want to sort of What haunted the spurs? in the post season and in particular U the finals. It wasn't necessarily the preparation F after all, took double digit leads on every in every single game they played against the Kicks this year. And it really wasn't a problem all season long. San Antonio was a prepared team All season long came in with the right type of game plan. For the most part executed those game plans, was also very good at learning from prior mistakes and applying them into future game plans But the very obvious problem in the NBA finals Whats Couldn't hold onto the lead You look at that coaching staff just like the players very young. Sewn Sweeney is like forty two Mid Johnson thirty nine, Corless Williamson Young dude himself He's got a little bit more experience with the post season, but not not as much, especially not in the elevated positions. on the bench. Billy Donovan comes in with a wealth of experience and while he hasn't won necessarily at the NBA level, he does have Championships in college basketball, plural He also is well known around the league as a floor razor and at worst a floor razor and at best, a schematic savant There was thoseose Bllls teams that he's coached during his that he coached during his tenure in Chicago had no business winning the number of games that they did. I know it was sort of a running joke that they're in the play in every year really didn't have much success in the playoffs or post season, but I bring back the point, the original point. They did not have business winning that many games They did not have any business being as competitive and sort of a pain in the butt to play. Think about Over the last several years, how annoying it was to play Chicago. whether it was their pace and space stuff, whether they was just their funky schemes, their offense that gave San Antonio trouble somehow despite not having any real good defensive players Defense was a pain in the butt A lot of that is just Billy Donovan being really good at his job It's never mind the experience portion of things. like that can only help. This is a guy who has been around for forever Like I said The experience aspect of things is only going to help the bench in San Antonio So I think this was aboutbout as no brainer of a hire as as you could ask for. I think One of the areas that makes this interesting is from the optics standpoint. where You have a guy that you've expressed a ton of confidence in and Mitch Johnson. You don't often see especially in the when it comes to the coaching hierarchy on a team You very rarely see guuy of Billy Donovan' status brought in as an assistant coach This is a guy who has been a head coach for forever and he is still absolutely qualified. to be a head coach So you don't typically see this Now, you have seen this over the years in San Antonio. if you really look back. And I'm not talking about like the guys who made their way up the bench and eventually became head coaches along the way I'm talking about guys who are super accomplished as head coaches even before arriving on the bench in San Antonio. There was obviously the Brett Brown reunion. pop You can even go back to like Eore Messina. who is one of the most decorated international coaches in the world. comoming to be on coaches on pop's bench There was a common theme there, right A lot of team success, organizational infrastructure learearning from someone like Pop Figuring out how the most successful organizations in sports are run taking that information with you and applying it elsewhere And I suspect, I suspect We're going to start seeing more of that in San Antonio moving forward. Maybe it's not an every year thing. Maybe it's not like they're going to be cycling through high profile coaches on a regular basis But I do think that this is a very appealing spot for a lot of those same reasons. Papoich is still around. RC Bauford is still around Brian Ride is a really well respected executive, the front office in general is really well respected coaches who want to come and remember, by the way, like Over the years as well, guys who have been fired from their previous jobs have like landed in San Antonio to hang out for a while. Mike Brown, Monnie Williams, like these guys that come back and just sort of hang out in San Antonio and try to soak it all in, absorb it, leararn from from their maybe past mistakes and try to learn whatever grasp whatever is working in San Antonio and take it with them. And I think that even a guy like Billy Donovan, who's as accomplished as he is He still hasn't done the the made the big accomplishment or had the big accomplishment at the NBA level And one thing is for sure In San Antonio now, you're going to get exposure Be as long as Viictor Wimbanyyama is healthy, you're going to be winning a bunch of games. You're going to be on national television. You're going to be making playoff runs, you hope And so I think that this might just sort of be an opportunity for anyone from a from a young guy like Sean Sweeney who had been well respected for years even before coming to San Antonio and getting this head coaching job Ed Orlando like that was a guy that everyone suspected at some point was going to be a head coach Maybe he was looking for a chance to expedite that process. It worked Maybe for Billy Donovan who as the ranks of coaches in the NBA get like decidedly younger Maybe this is a guy who wants to come to San Antonio and say Hey, I could use a refresher course. And at the same time I'm going to be of major help to a young coaching staff to a young team He has a resume gettingting the best out of young players. He has a resume creating advantages for both on both sides of the ball that maybe others didn't quite see pulling sub through the cracks that you thought maybe wasn't there win win all around and if it leads to By the way, I brought up the optics thing And one of the reasons that they don't typically do this is because it it almost looks bad for the head coach who's already in play Mitch Johnson is securing his job This isn't some sort of like Billy Donovan is looming. likeike a shadow behind him. That's not what this is I think as long as everybody is able to put sort of their egos to the side, bothoth of these guys. Billy Donovan be an assistant again. and Mitch Johnson to have that kind of experience sitting next to him then this could be a perfect marriage And I don't think that any of this would be going down if either of those guys didn't want to sign off on it This isn't a situation where the front office went over Mitch Johnson's head to go hire Billy Donovan. Mitch Johnson was part of that decision So as long as everybody is willing to work together and I would be shocked if that weren't the case considering the way San Antonio operates so long as everything is cool on that end of on that end of things this could be a perfect marriage All right, coming up next. We got to talk about this LeBron James thing Rich Paul brings out a whiteboard with a word cloud, shows all of the places that LeBron James was interested in signing Oh man LeBron James just is the gift that keeps on giving, right? All right We'll talk about that next Today's episode is brought to you by Fan Duel. The biggest stage in world soccer is here and every match feels like it has the potential for a memorable moment. One goal can completely change the energy of a game, shift momentum and alter the outcome in an instant. And that's been the case of the World Cup so far all the way through the knockout round That's what makes tournament soccer so exciting from the opening kick to the final whistle. Now Fandal is giving fans another reason to stay locked into every match with every goal pays B on a match and get bonus bets for every goal scored in that match. moreore goals mean more bonus bets. All you have to do is turn on your token. That's what I love about these tournaments. You can turn on any match between teams you don't normally follow and suddenly one goal changes everything. The tension builds so quickly that you're invested before you even realize it Now you get to benefit from each goal scored from the opening kick to the final whistle. let there be goals on Fandoule visit andel. com to get started now Alrighty, we are back and just a reminder for those of you, especially for those of you who are who are new to the channel, new to the podcast. It would be wonderful if you're enjoying the show to like, share, subscribe, do all that stuff, but you know, turn on the auto downloads on your podcast feed really helps us out a lot and we appreciate everybody who's been along for on the ride with us for the last few months. All right I am going to bring in Tyler the producer now. by the way, he did have some he did have some Billy Donovan thoughts because he's a Billy Donovan fan. I didn't get to him because I was Rambling for too long and we ran out of time Well it o ahead, Tyler. You co get into the good stuff. You covered most of what I was gonna say I'm a big fan of this hire. I think he's a guy who's really good at knowing how to talk to young guys, knowing how to get the best out of them. and we just so happen to have a lot of young guys on this team Not a young g I think his skill and his experience are going to be a boon Behind Mitch Johnson on the bench Um, Correct me if I'm wrong, the two years ago when Miss Json was acting coach was Brent Brown still there next job I think it's going to be kind of a similar relationship. Like during that season, you saw a lot of Mitch Johnson kind of leaning on B Brown in situations and I think that's going to be good for him to have this year Yeah, that was a remember like going back to that point. That's when it was like, o U, Okaykay, I we we see what they think about Mitch Johnson now because like if you're If you're just sort of looking at it in a vacuum You know, Greg Greg Popoit suffers unfortunately a stroke Um, and you're like, okay, well, Brett Brown makes the most sense at this point. No went right to Mitch Johnson went right to the young guy. So that was kind of the the turning point at least for those of us sort of behind the scenes where we're like, o, they might actually like this might be a real test run for this guy and then the more the the longer the season went on, you're like, okay, no, I think that I remember going on talk shows like toward the end of that season and people were asking who the next coach is going to be and like seemed to be fuddled when I said, I think it's going to be Mitch Johnson, but It was that was I think probably a similar dynamic. I don't know if this is a case where, you know, Billy Donovan sixty one years old. gettinget up there a little bit I don't know if he wants to if he is content at this point with The career he's had as a head coach. I have no clue Um It's been certainly not a bad place to continue it if you are It's been a pretty good career already in the haall of Fame to back to back NCAA Championships will do that for you. Tough to do. I was kind of shocked in twenty twenty, I think when OKC ended up moving on from him because I he would be a great person to lead those young guys, but H hard for me to fall OC. it's kind of worked out for them Um So yeah. Are we u I guess we're gonna talk about Rich Poll and his whiteoard now. And you are so excited to do so. me let me let me tell you I thought that this was cool from from this perspective You just never get a look if you're a fan of all this gives fans a look into what that side of things actually looks like. I think that a lot of people might believe that behind the scenes when it comes to the the, especially on like the player agent side of things that it's some complicated or fancy or highly intellectual conversations going on behind the scenes. when oftentimes it's just a whiteboard and a word cloud and honestly like I've told people this before. a lot of this stuff, especially when it comes to Um, obviously like Clearly on the team side, it gets a lot more complex because you you're working with cap stuff Um, you're you're operating with all these different moving parts A lot of times the free agents are like, well get that done and we're interested. And then they're kind of they kind of leave it up to the team. So yeah, it gets a lot more complicated from the team side of things, but the conversational like the bring these conversations like light that light them on fire Often don't start with anything more than this. And even when we're talking about like you see reporters and you see them list sources and you hear what those sources had to say A lot of times it's coming from agents and executives doing this. Yeah. We're just we're just sort of having, you know, they're brainstorming And they're sort of, even if they don't have like direct knowledge, they're like, well that? place makes sense for so and so and they have this amount of money that seems like a likely spot for them to end up or at least like that seems like a good match. So I just thought that this was an interesting look behind the scenes and also just let's let's run this clip real quick, but they they say it right up front And for the audio audience I'll do my best to set it up real quick Rich Paul. in in their podcast game overver with Max Kellerman and Rich Paul brings a whiteboard into this room has LeBron's name circled in the middle and it has this these arrows pointing to all these different teams. Every team has like A couple of players listed and like who would be attractive on the whiteboard And then often the corner is just the spurs underlined. notothing else listed. They basically didn't even talk about San Antonio, but obviously U this was a situation where like The sppurs are on the board. So it was part of the brainstorm. Anyway, that's where we're working with for the for the audio audience for the folks on YouTube. Check it out So I prepared this boort just to take you through a little bit of it, but again Crazy rich. I'm sorry interrupt bigiggest story is still LeBron. Yeah. he's still he's still the face of the league. Yeah, it's crazy And again because of show way he'sing to Yeah, I mean, and again, being forty two and still playing at this level is insane. If the Nicks hadn't a won This wouldn't there would be no board. He'd be going to the nextick. He'd be going to the Kicks. Interesting. But the fact that they won, I always thought that eliminated That part is interesting.. And he did and he did go on to say that like the only way that that would be a possibility whether it was the Kicks. And by the way, the two teams that were just simply underlined But had nothing else listed were the sppurs in the Kicks, the two teams that were in the finals and Rich Paul said about the Kicks was it would probably take Jaalen Brunson picking up the phone callalling LeBron and saying, it's all good with me, man. Like come on in there what Rich Paul was talking about was that there is a conscious like a thought in LeBron's head about like They've got a good thing going. I don't want to go step on that unless you hear directly from a guy like like Brunson. With the spurs, it would almost assuredly be like would have to pick up the phone and say, I want you to come to San Antonio for that to be a possibility The LeBron I know I I called it something like I think I called it like a zoo E that comes with LeBron Rich Paul put it a much more polite way and politically correct way and saying like the LeBron entnerprise It's a big thing when it arrives on your lap U, But I just thought that this was fascinating and I thought that like Another thing that he pointed out is that the majority of teams in the NBA reached out to reached out to him. and I'm sure the Spurs did. If anything, just to say hello. like Brian Rright is really good from a relationship standpoint. It's one of his strengths just having good relationships with people around the league. And it's important to like check in and be like, hey, just want to let, you know, we we have a lot of respect. for LeBron for you for all these guys. And so we're just doing our due diligence. It's probably not a great match at this point, but just wanted to say hi Catch up a little bit. seeee how the family' doing, that kind of thing And you're you're you're you're just st it over here. go for it Go Yeah LeBron still the face of the league at forty two years old I'll try to do this quick because we do have to go to breaks soon One LeBron James was never coming to San Antonio I was smokeking mirrors. That was media narrative wanting to get out there and say, oh, what would have LeBron played with Lemby First, honestly, I don't think San Antonio is big enough for Victor Wiminyama and Lebron James to occupy the same space. like an old Western like this town ain't big enough for the two of us type thing U seconde I think the fact that the Kicks were like and I only listen to the clip that we put the eight minutes or whatever that was on YouTube, I don't on Spotify. So I didn't hear the part where he said LeBron doesn't want to mess up chemistry in New York or whatever by going there, I don't buy that at all The fact that the Kicks came off his board because they won tells me And Maria Medina just commented this on her thing. He wants the narrative to be that they need him, not the other way around. Because if he only cared about winning He would want to go to the team that gave him the best chance to do that Finally I find this whole process ridiculous. This is like the decision two point zero. He learned nothing from that. LeBron loves him some LeBron. and you know what? If I was one of the greatest basketball players of all time, I probably would too but It's just it's a everything is a spectacle withith Lroad James You know what, you know what Ridge Paul said in the in the I skipped around it I didn't hear the whole thing, but he did say like, you know, LeBron LeBron's just, he's out here golfing every day. He's just waiting. Yeah, sure. I'm sure that's the narrative that he wants to sell Um No other player in the league will get away with this, especially not a second time. They'd be getting raked all over the coals by everybody, rightfully so I am really happy LeBron James is not going to be a spur I don't think this team needs the distraction that comes with LeBron James. Like if it was just purely basketball, like his skill on the court, I'm taking nothing away from LeBron James as a basketball player, I'd be down. But it's never just about basketball with LeBron James Um Also this team When you come to it requires you to let go of your ego and get over yourself. And that's never been LeBron. It will never be LeBron And y you can be like, oh, Viictor Weminyama has an ego. Yeahah, Well Victor Wemenyama iss twenty two years old and Lebron James is forty two. So if Viictor' still li like this in twenty years, we can have that discussion That's my rant. I haven't done one in a while I appreciate it. I enjoyed it very much. I'm all for anytime you have one, all you need to do is send me a text and say, hey incoming today and I'll be like Perfect. We will clear out at some point and let you have it. I also just think that like To me, it just doesn't make sense to have Like you have this really young core And like and it's on sort of is as almost as linear a path Yeah as you are on in this trajectory And you have there' twenty and twenty one and twenty two And suddenly just this dude who's twenty years older than these guys. is dropped into the mix with that and it's not even something where I doubt that they could win, of course, like if LeBron James was on San Antonio. G great chance to win it all. That' be a really fun team to watch But like long term What would it look like over the in the coming years? like when he's gone and suddenly it's like all these guys were who were on this trajectory that was suddenly sort of altered by this just behemoth presence both figuratively and liter literally What would that look like in the next two to three years and even beyond that What would it do to Victor who like is has really settled in as like, this is my team And the organization and his teammates have said, this is your team. Yeah. I don't know. It would be weird. It would be really weird. It would be like I would have been shocked If that happened, if Ki had happened, it just would be it would fly in the face of everything the way that I know San Antonio to operate It would have been weird. I thought that this whole podcast though, I thought that that was fascinating. I really did enjoy. I'm glad Rich. It's really weird to watch an agent talk openly about his whiteboard and the stuff they look like. It is weird Like just All right, just make a decision where you wantan to go and tell us dog.ob he's golfing. Hes golf Sure All right This the summer spurs start playing basketball tonight in San Francisco. We'll get into that next All right, Tyler, who do you want to talk about first? Carter Bryant, notot going to be in San Francisco. We want to get into Terce Reed. We want to get into Jacobbe Gillespie. you want to get into Mali Brown Hm Emmanuel Miller by the way, the other two way guy who is a spur a two way spur this past year by the way, you know, Let's start with Kobe Gillespie. He's o. I think he's a really interesting And I know that they tradade it up for Terrace Read. I'm super excited to have Terrace Read if y'all haven't seen the photo of him with his little sppurs teddy bear thing from his childhood that he brought to the drafts is pretty cool U I love how the sppurs have collected all these players that have like ties to the sppurs, like Stefan Castle's dad play with Tim Duncan and Wake Forest. There's pictures of Victor with a Tony Parker jersey on. Taris Fried has a teddy bear Did' Jan CQuton say his dad. favorite player was Tim Duncan or No, no, no, no, no, no. correction He said his grandfather's favorite player was Tim Duncan. to make feel old. which which caused Mike Finger who asked the question Something, you know, do does he have memories of the sppurs as a kid? And remember, this is Jaye Aquaintance is eighteen years old And Mike Finger we were at the the presser and Mike finger goes, you know Do you have any memories of the sppurs in your past? or something along those lines? And he said, o no, no, he asked him. he said, did Did you ask to wear number twenty one because J and Aquaintance wore twenty one in college? He said U he said he laughed. He said, no, that one's that one's taken. I I tried, but they shut it down immediately and And he said, Tim Duncan was my grandfather's favorite player and Mike Finger The San Antonio Express News friend of the program just like involuntarily goes That's ridiculous. Just like into the microphone, go go listen back to the audio. It's pretty funny. But yeah, that was the backstory on that one is that he said his grandfather's favorite player was Tim Duncan. That is how old we are all getting And yeah It's it's awfully depressing some days Um, I Jacobbe Gillespie, why? Why are you going with Jacobi Gillespie first This is not the kind of guy that sppurs usually draft like a tiny guard who shoots from outside. He's pretty athletic too and I know he's He's clearly got a high basketball IQ because despite being small, he finds ways to contribute on defense and the only way to do that is to be able to predict where passes are going to go, know where the passing lanes are understand what the offense is trying to do. So and The truth of the matter is most se around pigs don't really make it you know, into regular Yeah, it's tough. NBA rotation. So I don't know what Gillespie's future holds, but He's the kind of player that if he could work out, that's exactly the kind of guy coming off the bench that could be helpful to our team. likeike If we'd had a guy come in and just get Three point buckets off the dribble would have been super helpful in the finals. I also want to point out that The Smmer League is sort of built for guys like him. L The Summer League is not built for the more structured types. Jacobbe Gillespie is fast paced. He is a high frequency steelals guy He is a really good shooter. spot up especially. So like this is a And he is a drinkstirr as well like this is the type of environment where he can show out. It might not be necessarily be reflective of what He'll look like as a rookie in the NBA, but he should stand out there Taris Reed Should also stand out from the perspective of he's an excellent rebounder like he should be eating on the glass all day He' oldlder than a lot of these guys. although in the suummer League you have a really good mix of age, but yeah, he's older than a lot of the rookies just a six, ten to seventy seventy five wingspan. He should be able to just bury people under the hoop Oh dude,'s he's a Big dude. He's a big dude U So but but I think that guys like Gillespie, even Malike Brown who's the other second round pick who's just a really athletic defensive minded. Remember what Carter Bryant looked like on the defensive side of the floor during summer League last year. I think we might see some of that from Malike Brown who's just a shot blocking u thief on like with deflections and everything all all the above. I actually think that this is a group that should be pretty fun to watch during the summer League. They don't require a lot of structure to be successful. I mean, with Teris Reed offensively. It's just he's going to be a roll man. He's really smart out of the pick and roll or you can just dump it to him on the post and maybe he buries people under the rim. likeike I said. So this should be a fun group And it should be even more entertaining once Carter Bryant joins them in Las Vegas, unfortunately. Yeah. Dinitely no acquaintance No Jade acquaintance, but he will be out there with the team, but he will not be on the floor. Well, yeah, and he's he's coming back from a knee injury and that's that's not something we still don't really know what some kind of a lower extremity injury Right, Well it's the knee and it's the meniscus specifically, but we still don't know what they're the time What their course of action is going to be even. like we don't have news on that front yet. I haven't heard anything on that front. So I guess we'll We'll wait to see, I guess that's the best I can say. Hey, listen Happy fourth of July, everybody and thanks to everyone for making time with us here on locked on Spurs on your Friday before the holiday This is where we cover the San Antonio Spurs every single day. And remember to subscribe and follow wherever you get podcasts. you get all the latest episodes. You can find me on Twitter at Matthew Underscore Tyan and you can find both of us over at the corporate knownowledge newewsletter. That's Matthew Tynan. sububstack d. comot Tyler, where else can they find you I am over at Instagram at Tyler Prince Film. I also have my own little substack channel, the videoaman. substack. com where I talk about behind the scenes of some of the movies I shoot and some of the other video and multimedia projects that I work It's it's a it's an interesting newsletter And there were some really crazy pictures from a recent horror flick you shot. Yeah Yeah if there's a lot going on in the NBA outside of just San Antonio. So if you're into that For your second listen, you should check out the locked on NBA podcast where there is no off season. Stay up to date on contract negotiations, rumors and everything you need to be the most informed NBA fan. All right. That is going to do it for us. San Antonio Spurs tonight I believe seven PM Central, and I think on ESPN maybe video Miami heat. Okay. All right. suummer spurs. Summer League season begins tonight We will talk to everybody on Monday for Tyler Printince. I'm Matthew Tyinan. We'll see you then.