Golden State Warriors Draft Outlook

Hello and welcome to Group chhat. I am Justin Barrier and joining me as always, Jay Kyle Man and the new head coach of the Dallas Mavericks. It's Rob Mahoney. What's up? I got the job Yeah Did't you know? What are my qualifications? becausecause I wouldn't know Good guy. Okay. likes basketball. sure. knowows how to speak to the fans. A good representative of what the franchise is all about, baby. You know what? I would say those things alone, pretty dramatic upgrade over past iterations. So congratulations to me and the Dallas Mavericks, I guess Yeah, efficient speaker, homegrown guy, you know, I think has the right temperament for it. I don't know that I've ever seen Rob get too wild about anything other than, you know some You know, open d inem shirts or anything like that. I mean he typically keeps it pretty, pretty cool. Don't give me flustered on Er Kyle, please Well, Rob had a couple days off from us. L how you feeling Like, do you feel regenerated? Do you feel like what did you evenar? moving through you to talk about some trade fodder from maybe trades I mean, I missed you both. I have to say. didid I miss the NBA draft I mean, I'm getting cau up. You know, I'm still getting continued condescension, at least at least it's shitty when it goes into the bottle because we have to uncork it come in the fall with all his takes. Who's Tyler Kolick? NBA champion Tyler Kolick Rob stick that one squarely up, your ars. Look, genuinely it is not condescension. Just me acknowledging my personal limits. Do I know all of these prospects? I'm still getting up to speed. I'm still reading J Kyle Man's draft guide, I'm still reading the mocks. I'm still crunching tape If if I'm being totally honest, I'm crunching more Lawrence of Arabia, seventy Millimeter tape at this given point in time. I'm trying to take a step back. from the NBA lifestyle to just like O a liver, liver well rounded. existence, Is that allowed on this pod You got three hours for Lawrence of Arabia, but you don't have three hours for Braden Burry's tape. Come on, man. I got bad news. It's more than three hours. That That crazy. Unbelievable, but it was like, I think it was it's almost four hours plus intermission. Holy Mly Well, that's a great sell for this podcast though because we're going to be talking some draft stuff later on, but we're also going to be mirarrying it with like teams that might be doing things outside of that. teeams kind of stuck in this middle ground where they have high draft pigs But they also have some business to attend to into the off se. a little draft cause and effect is what we're going to call it that out But first, we got to talk about Janis, but we'll do that after the break This episode of the Ringer NBA showow is presented by Ferrero The world is watching. Go all in for your team this summer with Ferrero Enter for the chance to win a range of prizes just by purchasing your favorite treats like Kinder Bueno with an irresistible chocolate wafer and creamy hazelnut filling, or Kibbler Chips deeluxe cookies with indulgent and rich chocolatey chunks, or Ferrero Roche squares, with crunchy hazelnuts and milk chocolate wrapped in iconic gold Go all in. buy any two for Rrero brands and you could win one million dollars official rules apply. Learn more at go all inandwin. com All right, it is currently nine fifteen AM Pacific time on Monday. So if you are listening to this, that means that Yonis has not been traded We are going to talk about this and what could happen because it seems like something is at the very least on the goal line. We have reports as of this morning, seemeems like it's Miami or Boston and it seems pretty certain that he's going to get moved before the deadline. Rob, I don't know about you, but like I'll say this. I was pretty much done with all Yan's talk until about like two days ago or so just really fatigued. And so if the audience is out there being like, o my go, what what's going on here? We're gonna to do this again. At the very least, like this feels more realistic than ever before. Like it feels like we're about to get something final. We'll take it. We will take the finish line. I think all I was really hoping for though was if this process was going to drag on and it certainly has that we would get some twists and turns. that would get some new suitors entering the fray that, you know, teams like Portland would be considered in a totally different light. The fact that we're here and it's still just kind of like the heat, and I guess the change is that the Celtics are materially involved in these conversations and that Jayen Brown in particular is so heavily rumored in them That's the new development Maybe that's enough. Maybe that's enough to kind of get the juices flowing again and make this feel exciting after. I mean, we've just gone round and around with Iana stuff for so long. It feels like every other possible consideration and option, we've already kicked around Yeah, I think the combination of Jayin's the thing that has kind of made this cross the go over the mountain into, you know more of a real like it's a realistic possibility and a more interesting possibility in my opinion is the combination of This track that Jayen Brown set on with Tatum being out this past season where he went on this journey of having all this new responsibility that he clearly enjoyed and relished and maybe, you know, like Caesar once he got control of the arrmy didn't or he became that the way this he didn't want to didn't want to give his power back after he had taken it. So I think and so the I think the juxtaposition of you know, Jaylen may be wanting to segue at this point into his career to his own team needeing a new kind of central piece for their team, getting rid of Yanis. I mean, that's one of the possibilities this has yet to, as we said, actually formally happen. But it's a very, very interesting storyline, I think. And watching Jayalen, if this does go down, I think will become a very fascinating thing in the east for more. This episode is brought to you by Borishead. What if we told you the taste of deep fried turkey is now available at your local deli Bcehead just did that. Bursting with flavor perfectly seasoned with that indulgent taste. that usually means planning your whole day around it presenting the Friar's turkey breast only from Barhead ard tradition now available behind the counter Visit your local deli today, disiscover the craftsmanship behind every bite boars head commommitted to craft since nineteen oh five So is the Dieas cast moment to just like really torture the Caesar thing further. Is it Jalen Brown becoming a superstar or is it him becoming publicly kind of involved in these conversations to a point where maybe there's no going back from something You're saying like saying on a Twitch stream that you would prefer to have your own team might have like pushed them in the direction of giving him his own team. He said a lot of thing on Twitch streams, you know, like I think it can all be chopped and lipseed into being whatever you want it to be, but Look, he's been, I think as forthright as you're going to get an NBA player to be on record about the fact that he enjoyed having this opportunity. I really don't begrudge him that. L I know it's a little weird coming off of a season like this to say things in that particular fashion, but a lot of these guys want the chance, want the control, want to lead a team of their own, want to see what they can do It just may take moving away from Boston in a deal like this to kind of really make that happen for Jalen Brown in a sustaining sort of way You're welcome to lead your life any way you want. If you would prefer to be playing off of Ryan Rollins and whatever like second round picks the bucks can cobble together over the next like five drafts or howateever it is long it is until they get their own picks back, like have at it. I think the thing Kyle that really like jumps out to me throughout this entire process and is still going to be the case once we finally get a Yanest deal is just that the bucks really strewed this up by waiting this long. Like as we're going through the draft, I'm like, why didn't you like just settle this last off season, tank so that you could be a part of this great draft that we're about to get and also avoid the forthcoming penalties or the new lottery restrictions that are going to make it tougher to be in your exact position going forward from this point U And it also feels like they're in the situation where they have to choose between two like fine returns. It's either Jalen Brown plus whatever else is cobbled together or like the poopoo platter in Miami, where it's like Haquz hero where you might spin hero off some like late round picks and so on'm like Can I have neither? Like is neither an option anymore? Well, I think parsing which one is the poopoo is a big question here because I keep hearing it's all a matter of perspective. obbviously. we're evaluating guys in when we go into these deals, evaluating doesn't just happen when guys come into the league. I talk to people run the league who work for teams. They' like, we're always evaluated. We're always evaluating guys that have been in the league for a while. And I think when you look at the Miami heat one I keep hearing repeatedly people like saying that that's or it was reported this morning that it was believed to kind of be the better asset play but I'm like, Cell Whare was sort of a risky pick for Miami took him knowing that that was sort of a like this might turn into something. I don't know that we've moved out of this might turn into something phase with Kle whereare as much as he's shown off and on. We're like Tyler Hero is he? We know he can we know he's clutch. We know he's been in big games. We know he'd be hypothetically going home. peopleeople keep talking like that. That's more of a just connection that I think we all keep drawing and assuming that it's like some kind of positive thing for the bucks. It's like I don't know that it necessarily is. I think repeatedly we've heard these these NBA players like I wouldn't want to move to my fucking hometown. I don't know if you guys are like this grranted I'm from a very tiny town, but I nothing against Taylorsville, but granted I just I can't I think there was a lot there. I just did Sailorsorville. sorry, it's just small. I don't want to live there anymore. Bullets and board material for kids. Man, I can't go I'm not getting a banner, that's for sure. No Just talking about which one makes the most sense. I mean, we went through this cycle of the bull or the, you know, the warriors with their their offering that and I thought that that was kind of an attractive offering But I also think we've gone on an interesting ride with Janis in terms of his The three of us charted this throughout the year where U It's almost like the bucks sort of in there in there like accepting the possibility that they might be breaking up with Janis and like and moving on and and sort of trading that off. I feel like we've gone on an interesting ride with him where I don't feel like we feel the same way about him that we did six months ago. I mean, even how recently it's just been a it's been an odd sort of sea change for how he's viewed within the league, I feel like Yeah, he's going to be what? thirty two next season. obbviously the injuries have been mounting even before this this season. And the weird thing is it feels like no matter where he goes, let's say it is Boston or Miami at this point. they're going to need a lot of him because you're gutting probably a lot of the depth or your rotation pieces in order to do, especially in Miami. And so it's just like you're going to need a lot from him and that led to some of the soft tissue injuries with the bucks in the first place. And so I get all that It's just I just don't know at this point if you're the heat, for instance, if you want to take this team by team, like What else are the heat going to do? That's kind of where I've ultimately nett it out here. At first I was a skeptic of like Miami trying to pull the trigger on something like this, Rob, but like you go through it. It's just like is BAM John is Wiggins if they bring back Norm Powell, like that's way better, I would assume than just going with the poopoo platter and figuring out later Yeah, I think it's better in terms of the basketball. I also think it's better just in terms of sort of the spirit and energy around the team Miami likes to kind of linger in these spaces and see what developmental projects are going to pop. What's the piece that might elevate them to a surprising tier Frankly, we've seen them do that enough and Eric Spolstra do that enough to ever kind of turn our noses up at it. L they are very good at finding ways from the middle of the easastern confonference pack up into competitive echelons That said, like this particular group, it's harder and harder to see those in rows. L this is a perfectly competent team. I suspect if they rolled it out as is, they would be perfectly competent again in many ways But But why? Like to what end other than that continued sort of treadmill existence, hoping that you get the jump, hoping that you get the pop Why not see what you can do with Yonis? A player who, I think in temperamentally in terms of his habits, aligns with a lot of what the heat are about, could fit what they do in a lot of ways, could fit the development of someone like BAam who is trying to stretch out his game more and more every season. And thus those two guys might be able to play together if you can keep BAam in a trade like this I really just don't see the downside for Miami, given everything that they're playing for right now, which is mostly just Where are you going to fall in the play and mix if that No, I mean, I know Miami wants to do it. I'm just kind of what do we if we're weighing the potential offerings between Boston and Miami though, are you taking Miami? like just No Well, sure because I'm not. I don't see it as much My thing with every one player centric offer for Yanis, dating back to when E Moby was like a hot like sort of speculation is that why would you just basically trade Yanis for another player in a similar situation where you had so much difficulty building the right contender immediately around Yanis. Jalen Brown is just like a younger different version of that And I get if you're an owner and you just want to sell a certain product and the offers are already so middlink to begin with, maybe there's enough there. But I like Jailin if they're then going to spin jailin off into other assets because my whole thing for this entire like what two years at this point is you just need stuff because you traded all your stuff, all your raw resources, your draft picks everything else in order to build the teams you had in the past. Like where's the other stuff coming from? Like there are no means to get there other than just like mining guys from the G League and like on the fringes So we're just in stuff acquisition mode if we're the bucks now. We're not thinking like we reset. now we have Jalen we're moving forward. I mean, is that I feel like that's that the smart way to go. Yeah. That would be my approach. Yes. because what's left with Jayalen? It's Ryan Rollins, you presume Whses m might get traded in this? like Turner you would assume want to like spin off again. like it would just be a like six C like what we're saying about the heat right now. Sure. It would be that sort of team where it's like playing maybe in the right year. it gets a little bit better Well too me, all this is kind of order of operations talk. Like do you want the supporting picks and role players infrastructure necessary before you try to bring in a star? Or do you want the star to be a kind of foundation that then frees you up to trade and try to acquire the other things through other means I think the Miami offer as it's been reported so far, will see if that is up happening, the what the finals on it turn out to be But there's nothing in it that's so definitive that it gives you hope There's a lot of like ifs Dent enough players, interesting enough players, potential picks, and the picks are useful for exactly the reason you laid out JV But at least with Jaylen Brown, yes he's a lesser version of Yahonas, but he buys you time. Like that's that to me is the huge variable in what you're talking about. So like why do you trade Yonis for a worse player who's maybe a little bit younger The anser is Janas doesn't really want to be here anymore. Time will tell if someone like Jalen Brown wants to be the leader of the next version of the Bucks or not But at least you have time under contract to make some decisions, to make some further moves to like figure out what the next stage of this is really gonna to look like without The sentimentality that I think clouded a lot of the ywnest trade Odyssey to begin with It helps that Jayalen Brown is trapped, basically, which is always the funny thing about this. It's like we need to get rid of this disgruntled guy who wants out for a guy who has no options and has to be here. U couldould you talk about the Celtics and all of this as well? because I guess I get it from a pure talent crab standpoint, like marrying Jason Tayon with Yiana' two top ten players in the league. like is a pretty attractive option. I just don't know how we got here so quickly. I guess like I kind of do because we just laid out like with Jalen Brown all the difficulties he is as just like a personality type But I left the season and even the playoffs being like, e, you know, injuries, but this team still has a lot of what made it good. The fact that they found so many interesting guys on the fringes. I know Brad Stevens came out pretty like strongly, basically being like we're not good enough in his post game or his postseason press conference. He had that set about like being three and eleven against the top three seasason in his conference. I get all that But I didn't think that they were like light years away from leveling up and being on the same level of like a Nx a cavves in the East where they had a chance at it And if anything, they basically did such a good job resetting to the point where they could add something else. I know they were in the mix for Visa Zubach, for instance at the trade deadline, something like that to just add to what they have. I have to imagine that like they're just so sick of dealing with not only Brown as a personality, but perhaps just like dealing with all the struggles that comes with trying to bring out the best of these two guys as our pillars. Yeah. It took Jrew Holiday and Christops in this like awesome Rock solid core that played the exact right style in order to hit the ground in twenty four and win the title. Maybe it's just like it was just so like exhausting trying to make this all work from both the personality and the fit side that they're just like, let's just do something different. I think that's the way to think about it. And I want to soften the like Jayen Brown as difficult personality stuff a little bit because to me, it's less that he is uniquely challenging to work with or uniquely difficult. Most NBA stars are challenging in their ways. They have certain demands, they have things that they want. I think the way you laid it out, though, Justin, as far as like How much How much work does it take to make this function at a potential championship level And clearly it takes some work. like it takes some work in terms of the personalities involved. It takes some work in terms of the basketball side and building around. You know, Tay him and Brown in the best and optimal way and figuring out how to reload and do that yet again. All of that stuff takes a lot of effort and a lot of consideration and a lot of resources And maybe at a certain point it is worth it for everybody just to move on a little bit and turn the page and try something new. I think That's a normal healthy part of the team building cycle. And to me, it has less to do with like, oh, Jayen Brown is such a challenging part of this and more just These things run their course and this team has been good and they've been together and maybe they can be good and be apart and that's going to be fine too. You guys like either option more than the other F fromom her' perspective. I guess from The team that is trading for Janis. Do you like Janis on the heat more than Janis on the Celtics I like him as a Celtic a little more. Kyle. I mean, how are you feeling about it U I'm in the same camp. I mean, It kind of depends on how big a bite out of the Celtics roster they would have that you know, the bucks would take based on what's there. I mean, I would like for like Derek White to be there Although the Dere White part of this, I think when you when you're comparing, why couldn't the Celtics have just kind of gone forward with the version of the roster that existed? The fact that Derek White kind of turned into a non entity on offense, at least as a score, I think is a huge part of why you can't just go business as usual for them Is that a blip or is that a trend that we think is like going to continue. I kind of feel like he'll I feel like he'll come back the other way. I don't know. I've seen it so the sample size is so good Yeah at this point. Do were you guys to say something I think he's going to be better. likeike he's going to shoot better almost because he can't shoot worse, but I wouldn't expect him necessarily to reach the kind of scoring and play making highs that he has earlier in his Celtics career already. Like that that might have been kind of the high watermark for the version of the player he's going to be for this team and he's still going to be useful and he's still going to be an incredible defender, especially in help and off the ball. but expecting him to be a real deal consistent score just might not be what his role is for Boston going forward. Yeah, I think the playoffs are really where it becomes a concern there. All of like the connective plus minus Godty traits that he has that like kind of support him when he isn't shooting well. I think stand out just a little bit more when you're counting on him to provide offense and like you shot thirty three percent, I believe in the regular season. Yeah excuse me, yeah, thirty three percent from three in the regular season He was worse in the playoffs. It was like dreadful at times where you just couldn't count on him hit shots and that's just critical. opponent to like what they're doing. I agree with what Rob is saying, like I think he's to be honest with the Celtics, obviously there's just way more talent there. I just find the fit a little bit less seamless If only because like one, like are we sure that Janis can play with another big? I think it's a little bit easier now that we're not in like the thick of the three point boom. like the teams are doing things a little bit differently and you have so much support outside on the rest of the team with that by There's still like some stuff to figure out there where it's just like, is he going to play center? Is he going to play next to Kada? Will you then have to trade for a shooting center? Is that going to like be Nikolav Yusovich? Like is that someone you want? nextext to Yanis because the whole thing with Broke Lopez is he could protect the rim on top of being able to shoot. And so like, I don't think it's as plug and play as you think. whereereas like Jayalen Brown is like that's the exact type of player you want in order to solve some of these issues you're talking about. And so, if you're not if you're not taking advantage of the next year with Yonis, you say we're hitting the ground running and we can win a title tomorrow. Then I'm less prone to like be willing to rip things up in the same way that it seems that they're willing to with jail Yeah, I mean, you would have some questions to answer for sure. you'd have to go find something. I mean, you know, Brook Lopez is as much as peoplee might not think that You might not think he's a super unique special player, but finding a guy that can shoot pushing forty percent from three and protect the rim and above, you know, it's just those guys aren't They're just not really out there. But I think if you look at Janis on the Celtics I brought this up to you all over Group teext. There are some interesting parallels that he is the same. I don't know if you wanted me to bring this one up now, JavV or not, but he's the same age and at at the same mileage as Kevin Garnett was when he came to the Celtics in two thousand eight, which I find interesting. So you could I know people kind of worry about his health style of play, but I think his style of play does feed into a lot of the guys that they naturally already have on this teams. youre talking about just like the lesser, you know, role players that they've gotten a lot out of and elevated like the Baylor Siremans or, you know, talking about the the Samaousers Payton Prichards, guys who can just catch and shoot. We know that Jonest just makes those players look good. like, you know, Pat Conathan back in the day. It's just Here's a way of getting a lot out of those guys. So I feel like it would work He and Tatum, there is the Tatums on ball style, you kind of wonder if there might be some parallels between the way that the Dame Lillard was a little sticky. Do you need a guy who like really readily gets off the ball quickly if you're playing with the honest. They probably have to figure that out, but I don't know, I don't know that it would even be all that much different than the like Tatum brown kind of thing. It's like Tatum Tatum needs to play with somebody that is more deferential. What do you all think is the optimal state there and how much of a problem will that cause? Well, especially as far as the game contrast goes, I think there's a different kind of pressure when it's like point guard and big. It's like, okay, they have to work together. Throw them in the pick and roll. like what is their immediate chemistry? And when it's more wing and big, don there wasn't the same conversation about like how are Paul Pierarsce and Kevin Garnett going to amplify each other? It's like more, how do they function within an offense? How does it find balance? unless How are they interacting in like a really direct way all the time in part because like If Jason Tatum and Janis are to a picking roll most defenses are just going to switch that and kind of try to batten down the hatches and hold on for dear life. and maybe that'll work and maybe it won't But ultimately, I think the reason I'm a little more bullish on Boston finding a flow within their offense that works is that they're really good at one, just ball movement period, like one of the best ball movement teams in the league last season. They're really good at fainting spacing even when it's not really out there. Like they create the illusion of spacing through their movement in a way that I think is going be really challenging for teams to come up with if Jonis is also a part of that. And then I think Jianis is just going to have to play more five as his career advances. That's going to be something that he's going to have to accept as much as anything I don't know that he was ever going to get to that point with the bucks. There is that like mental hurdle when it's This is the team that I've been on. This is my team, my city, my franchise I'm going to do everything on my terms Sometimes when these guys go to a new organization, they're a little more accommodating. They want to fit in. They want to, you know, endear themselves to the Celtics faithful and they want to be a part of this kind of team and this kind of history. And so they're willing to do some things they may have not you know been willing to do otherwise. So I wonder too, how much of this will be resolved by You know, there's just a lot more space out there if Tatum is at the four and Janis is at the five.. I would guess if things go that way, we're going to see that a not insignificant bitid, especially in the playoffs. Yeah, this does feel like almost like a tacit acknowledgement to Janis that the way he's done things, especially last season where the bucks basically retailor their team so that he was everything and went out of their way in order to go into extreme debt unlike we've ever seen before in order to just get him the type of bigig that he wants, that he needs to do things a little bit different Like he's still a superstar and things should still revolve around him wherever he goes like ame situation leading into this now where like the offers aren't all that attractive. just seems like he really needs to hit that next phase, if only to avoid some of these injuries that we were talking about and only to make things a little bit easier on his life. I just don't know how much he could just keep battering his head into a wall year after year going into his thirties. And so I think you're exactly right. I almost wonder Rob if he needs a Mazula or a Spulra as much as he just needs a fresh start and new personnel around him because it would be interesting to see him embrace being more of a five I think with the Celtics, he could probably still have his preference of having the ball in his hands more than he's used to Maybe in Miami too. like Miami, I guess I lean more in that direction. One because I just want to see Miami back on the board. I just think the leeague is more fun when they're like more involved in this thing But also just like it feels like he could really energize them in a way, but it also feels like he's just going back to something similar to what he knows, whereas like Boston feels like a fresh new idea. I just don't know if he's accepting of that at this point And as far as the old idea goes, look, the reason we're having this conversation is the bucks were not a good team last season When he was on the floor, they were dominant. like even still, even with all those considerations, even with that supporting cast, like The any team driven by Yanis when he is healthy enough to do it is incredibly competitive. And so the idea of whether you're throwing that version of that player out with The heat and Janis is willing to experiment and try some new things with the Celtics where he's recast in a new light with a very different kind of co star. Those are exciting possibilities for as much as we kind of you know rude talking about every Yonis trade rumer along the way. like seeing him be a part of an actually good team again, I think will be just refreshing for all of us. Another fascinating thing is that these are two teams that he could potentially go to that have spent a lot of resources trying to figure out how to stop Yanis. That's why I always thought that the sixers weren an interesting possible in the past because If you just think about the binders and the like printer paper boxes, of course, we're talking about the digital version of that that these guys have just especially Spulstrave. if you just think about the amount of time that he has spent trying to stop Janis. So he knows all that kind of counter factual stuff in his mind about like how we can approach using him, but you're right, Rob. I mean, like I just pulled it up because I was curious. And it is going to be interesting to see if he transitions away from this if you if you wanted to say like the okay, what was Garnett like way more stationary offensive player than a Joness, notot that, you know, comparing them is going to make it live or die whether it works, but His His hardard charging ball in my hands transition transition style Uh yet one point one eight seven points for possession in transition as the ball handler pushing seventy percent from the field got fouled almost thirty percent of the time. I mean, he's still one of the most unstoppable transition proposions in the world. So I mean it be it'll be interesting interesting to see if they can kind of take the pressure off of that and still get a lot of production out of him if he's more of a half court You can't be ramming your head into the wall forever, you know You stay young for so long Yes. I think just having like other players so that you can't guard him the entire length of the court so that you stop him from getting ahead of steam will go a long way. Just like getting to a new situation, having more talent. he'll be back on Well, before we move on here, I'd kind of want to talk about like a subplot of the subplot going on here where I guess if the Miami package is accepted, it seems like Tyler Her and Mike is spun off. istons might be interested there. Then there also is the whole like conspiracy theory that like maybe Isaiah Stewart might also go to the Lakers in that situation. And so I'm just curious overall, what you guys think about Hero to Detroit And second to all that like Is this the answer for Luca with the Lakers? Like we've been now two years into this whole mess. like I guess is if Beast Stu plus Austin Reeves plus maybe LeBron coming back like the best we're going to get in this situation Wh where do you want to start Ky? You want to talk pistons firstvers or Lakers first How did we spein to the Lakers? Like them in the Yoneps J just' driving the ship. anyy road can go to the Lakers, you know? like what is this? This is just like, I would say this is the other story out there that's like a major thing going into the draft because I don't know, it's just like as I think through like all these teams that really need to do something, it's just like Look's been there for two years and we're basically being like, oh, they need to bring back Austin Reeves and then figure everything else out. I'm just like Why? How is this happening? Well, she's been there for like seventeen months. Yeah, year and a half. And this is going to be the reality of the Laker situation is going to be one kind of piece acquired at a time in a lot of ways. Honestly, they got about as lucky as they were going to get in terms of like the returns on Marcus Smart, for example, or even what they got out of Deandre Aiden, I would say was above expectation given the player that he was in Portland A lot of almost got through the year with with Aiden they almost got they tried And even then look, he had some huge games that he had had to show up for. So I don't want to throw Deandre Aiden under the bus other than to say this is going have made incremental project given where the Lakers finances were before acquiring Luca, given the state of the team and how long this thing is going to take to kind of turn around to begin with to reshape what kind of roster you want around him It's going to be an Isaiah Stewart there, a Peyton Watson offer there. like I just don't see things shifting so dramatically for the Lakers that all of a sudden they're going to come into next team and even then look like a fully formed Lukaantchich operation ready to go Do you have to move past LeBron to really begin that conversation though? because it just I wonder if these two things are working against each other because you didn't expect to get Luca, you didn't expect to be in this position. It kind of makes me wonder if You got to you got to move on let go of one branch to really free up the resources to enable the other because But he's also so much better than so many of the alternatives. It's true. It is, but he eats up so many resources. And this at this point, you know, there are caveats with LeBron too. I mean, he is I just And there is some kind of dissonance between the way those two guys play. grranted they can put up points, but it's like the defensive stuff that you have to I wonder if it just makes more sense to just kind of move on ye That's what I I'm starting to wonder if like the real logic behind trading him was to put him into this weird purgatory where although he'll just be like just good enough for the rest of his career. He's still really good. I'm try I want to beful to say that he's incredible. He dominated a first round. We went on and off about it on No It's more about like the construction of the team where it says because LeBron is so good, you can't really just like easily move on from him and because Reeves is coming into his own, you can't move on from him or just like and if you try to trade him like what do you get back for all this stuff? It's just like you're really just stuck in this in this muck and I don't really know how to get out of it And I don't know what you would trade in order to get something good enough in order to put alongside him while still having the role players in order to put together in a good team. So it's like it's like a multi step process that I don't know when it's going to start. and we're now two years into this seventeen months or whatever you want to say. And it really hasn't started. Like they haven't turned the page to the Luca centric team pererhaps spiritually, but certainly not functional They have, I think they did to an extent last season and we started to see that shift as LeBron went into more of a facilitating almost like super charar R Gondi kind of role. Yeah before Luca got hurt. Yeah. honestly, an incredible blow to the Lakers that they didn't get to see kind of that version of the team through to the end of the season and of the playoffs But I think this is one of those things where LeBron himself is probably going to have to put this whole exercise out of its misery one way or another. He's either he's going be a part of this or he's going to go somewhere else because the like haall of fame golden handcuff situation you're describing, Justin is so real and so potent. You're just never going to opt out willingly of Oh, we have this guy on our team who can outthink everybody and also is an incredible playmaker and also even at his age can be a great like glue defender He has so much going for him in theory and in practice. It's like, when are you going to get out of the LeBron James business? When when are you going to sign up for that? It's an odd situation to be in to be as fun as they could have been and probably I mean, it would have been really fun to see them in that next round if they had had Lu who's tormented the Thunder in the playoffs in the past and just, but then to also think to yourself like this is really good, but we can't I always think about, u This is so ra bananagrams that game I think I've sa up before. You guys get at this game. My wife and I obsessively talk about this game. Sometimes you'll have all you gott to use all your tiles. It's basically like improv scrabble. you have to like use all your tes. And sometimes you'll get very far down a road and like your board and be like, I got a great board here, but you have like a few pieces you're like I don't think I can and you have to tear down a pretty good board. That's what that feels this feels like to me. where it's like the Lakers are like Jesus. they could have given the Thunder an interesting series. I don't know if they would have beaten them but sometimes you'll go far down a road like you were like Rob was saying and just have to start over because the or you stick it out because it's fun. I don't know. It's a business also. it's tough. I'm glad I don't have to make these choices You go so far down the road that you're talking about Luca when you started off at Yonis. I didn't wna Well I didn't want to belie me know my mind they they're haired because it's two players like that have been at the forefront of the league trying to figure things out this off season. before the draft, we're talking with the Likers We need someone to review the tape and Justins Justin's six degrees of separation back to the Lakers from any given topic is Do I talk about the Lakers a lot? Like youre making like a forward all your girl. LA radio gu. It's not even that you're LA radio. I think it's just you see the red meat, the editor brain and you is like, No Lua's right there. We could just jump over there and talk about Lua for No, I think of the show is more like these are the things that we've been percolating on over until we record the next one And like these are the two big stories that I have been spinning through in my brain. I don't know what the rest of the world is talking If that is just so happens to appeal to a vast number of fans, that's just my, you know expertise just showing, I guess. You're just there pruning the garden thinking about Luke Kenard, you know? I do think I do a lot of that unfortunately, which is probably explains a lot. Do we want to talk about herero quickly? Hero to Detroit possibility No one's going to hear this part of the pot. anyway, this is all going to be like in two hours. He's going to get traded and we're going to have to redo this whole thing How would that happen I like that. I mean, what do you They would just spin them off? I mean, I'm scintillated by the possibility As far you know, Tyler here is a hard guy to find a good home for, right? to find the perfect combination of every factor of the exact kind of playmaking around him, the exact kind of defensive coverage the exact kind of like potential pick and roll partners Somehow Detroit has all of the stuff and especially because he could wind up with You know, a Milwaukee team that may or may not be super interested in his services. Like I think that could make all the sense of the world for basically everybody involved. Yeah, we're talking we're writing about in the draft. Theyre they're trying to find that type of guy through the draft and you're just hoping that one of these guys can elevate and rise to that level and help outcade. But if you look at the way the pistons are built, it's like, okay, we have this pillar, this this synergy between Dururing granted everybody's got to hold up their end the bargain. But we got this guy who can, you know, get in the paint and score We could spray, we could score, we draw fls. We need somebody next to to K to sort of lighten that add some more oxyen to the offense. I think Ho would be actually one of the better options, I think there that I really like that fit because you kind of let him be himself a little bit where like you don't have the burden of being like our full time playmaker. just go be cocky audacious Tyler Ho hit big shots, Sackle when when we need you to. I think that'd be an awesome fit I mean, toobias Harris was about as important to the pistons as any player was to any team in the playoffs. So long as that is the case, Tyler Ho is a massive like schematic upgrade skill upgrade, like I think what he brings out in your offense is just so much more balanced and diverse I think this is the advantage to having the context that they do have and a lot of that stems from having such a giant creator doing things that like impacts the defense end and also just having the defense around him is that They are a welcoming home for the type of players that I think a lot of teams overpay and probably want to get off of because they don't rise to the level of being like their front line guy, the Tyler Hero types, like the on ball like juice guy that like might be a six man, but like we got to play him with the starters because that's just what his reputation suggests If anything, they seem like the perfect recipient to that. And so like I still don't know why they didn't hit the button at the trade deadline, but at the very least they seem like they're in a position this off season to add and it seems like there is a little bit of urgency to what they're doing anyway. So I mean, it would kind of be the promise of Jaden Ivy fulfilled. you know, if that if that wagon hadn't lost every one of its wheels and gone into the river This is kind of what we dreamed that it could have been. All right, let's take a break and we come back. let's talk some draft stuff. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? 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Carvana Pick up these Mfly The draft is hours away, less than twenty four hours away at this point Uh Kyle, how you feeling You know on time, you just published a mock draft recently. Almost at the finish line. what's going through your head right now Uh this is the time of the year where it's kind of like I said this Zach Low the other day. you have a moment there where you're like, did I study enough for the, you know, the SAT or whatever it is, That moment of panic of like, am I ready or? But really the work happens through the year and you know, it's like the work's kind of done. Now we just need to see where the chips fall. and And then we react to it and see, you know, and just kind of cast judgment on who's done and who's not based on what on our short term reactionary kind of thing. And that's the way this works, right? We do it every single year. I'm not your editor, Kal, but I got bad news. The work is not done. You have a lot of podcasting and writing ahead of you. So I mean, the preparation, Rob, that's what I'm referring to. We've watched all these guys unlike you. I value the That's the thing. Yeah For some beginning, you know, I I'm still getting up to speed and really Until I see some of these guys the summer League I'm not going to believe that they fully exist because to me, they will only be a YouTube sensation. So we're nearing the point of these being real corporeal NBA players All right, Well we're going to try to loop into the draft in a way that Rob can at the very least tolerate. So what we're going to go through is a couple teams that have big decisions in the draft, but also big decisions waiting them in the offseason because they're in this weird in between ground where they have a high pick, but they're still built kind of more for the now And so Kyle is going to walk us through the pick for the team why that would happen. and then we're going to get through some of the ripple effects that would come as a result of that So why don't we start at number two, which I think is going to be the most interesting point of the draft. It seems like AJ DeVana more than likely is going to go number one. I think I would agree he hast there in his mock that's out right now, which you should read on theringer. com. Number two, though, Kyle, I think is where things could swing Do you think that the jazz go camboozer or do you think if Darren Peterson is still on the board that they would go with it. I'll pretend to say this was confidence, but I think they're going to take Camboozer. This is very similar to the Paolo Pablo or Paolo chet Jibari draft where things kind of went up to the last minute because we're continuing to hear new reports about like, oh, turns out Darren does want to meet with the jazz or the jazz in New York, potentially work out with them hard to say, but We're going to go ahead and just assume that the Boozer connection there, that the organizational taste historically kind of aligns with Boozer and just kind of go from there and talk about the fit of that, which is what we're doing here So Boozer could potentially be the better player. Sounds like you have a number one on your board and it sounds like a lot of people are coming around to boozer late in the process being that guy. I think a lot of it is driven by the analytics. I think it's probably just like the more people dig into Dereren Peterson perhaps are starting to like be a little bit more shaky on drafting this guy as high as possible Um Do you want to walk us through just quickly like why you have Boozer number one and like why you would pick me even over to Banza? I'm always careful to correct people or eager to correct people, whatever however you want to put it, that it's not just an analytics thing for me because this kind of reminds me of the Yoids thing where I'm like People just say that over and over again where they're like, well, well, it's the analytics and that's all it's like, no man. I mean, like people say that people get People who think the Yokch supporters are weird, you know, often will throw like you analytics boys, you know, you Dorks and your indie rock band t shirts that just like numbers. It's like if I If you need numbers to see how good Yokiches or how good Camboozer is, I'm just kind of What numbers? How about wins? Yeah. I'm just like, well, just, you know, I mean take you to an optometrist, is my thing. It's like he's so good. You watch a basketball game and he impacts it in such a wide variety of ways. You know, if he had been born, you know, If he were playing in the NBA in the early two thousands, would he have been catching, you know, a million post ups like Al Jefferson or like his father, Carlos Boozer who played that way? It would have been a little bit different, but his skill set is very wide. He has catch a chute game We talked about this on this show just this last week. I think he's going to. He can add to your game without He's I'll put it this way Among the top three guys, he's the least like I need to get a ton of shots up to be super effective or to get the most value out of me. He will he is roll malleable in a really mature way. He can score a ton for you. I think Boozer would also be content being like, all right, I'm getting eighteen a game and seven assists. likeike he's willing to play however you need to play And then the issue here, Rob is that this is now another front court player afterfter they dec added one at the trade deadline. They were already a little beefy up front with the team that they already had. Ace Bailey also a pretty big wing. And so if you draft Boozer, you have Boozer, you have Jaron Jackson, you have Lowerry Marketen, you have Walker Kessler, you have Ace Bailey You also have a bunch of other draft picks that they're just kind of being like,, these guys are fine. Cody Williams. Cody Wiams actually was like kind a nice little pops. Yeah. Yeah U So what do you do after that and I guess how quickly do you need to do something after that? Like Do you make a move immediately? Do you take advantage of? For instance, Detroit would be very welcoming of one Laowerry Markin as we've been saying years now. Yeah Or do you want to play it out, see things are happening? What in the draft room, if you were there, what are you recommending? Oh, I want to play a lot of it out. And some of it is if there was going to be a piece that would feel materially different after drafting Camboozer, it would be Walker Kessler. And we've already seen some of the numbers that have been percolating with his extension negotiation. had five years, one hundred forty million dollars on the table, according toim McMahon That was not satisfactory to Walker Kessler and his camp U I think the math on that changes a little bit if you have Camboozer in house. The desperation to keep Walker Kessler changes a little bit. but You also want to retain him to potentially flip him to another team. So it's not like they would just cut bait, notot like they would trade him immediately. I think you can slow play that sort of process the size of Ace at the two, Lowry at the three and a boozer Jaron Jackson front court is Very appetizing. Like I think that is an incredible kind of like allotment of skill and flexibility and mobility to throw out there all at the same time That's a version of the jazz that if I were Utah, I would really be looking to cultivate. And Walker Kessler can be a part of that or not. And if they draft K him, I would assume that over time it becomes clear that he probably will not be a part of that blueprint. Yeah, I think the interesting thing about taking Boozer here is that as opposed to taking Peterson is that you are kind of signing up for moves that you need to make or maybe a lack of a move with a Kessler. I still the interesting thing between that has muddied it a little bit for me is like They are going to have to figure out the two spot. They're going to have to if they want to go big like this, you're talking about a real lack of like off the dribol. creation likeike you have Kiante, you canre are you going to play Kante and call you're together? I just think you need to have a little more creation at the two spot there. Maybe you use some of the leftover pieces that you have there. mayaybe you go get a Tyler Hero. I don't know toak go with what we're talking about. but We the argument that I made in the mock was that I think I would just kind of look at as like this is a good problem and take be like somewhere in this in this cluster of what we have is something that is going to be really valuable that we can kind of sculpt around. I think this the most simple proposition here is just like Boozer and Jaron Jackson Jr. next to each other is kind of my starting point. You know, I'd love to keep Lowry around, but both of those guys could shoot it. So I'm not really losing front court shooting That's that's kind of where I would go from there. The Kante boozer, Jar Jackson jr. triumvirate is something that I can really work with. And you're okay with playing Jaron Jackson at true five, especially considering like, you know, against like big old boys, which the leeague seems to be adding more of these days, especially with Weny terrorizing the league and teams like kind of building theirselves in order to counter him. like him being the five and also like the lack of rebounding that comes with it I guess from a talent standpoint, yes, like, Jarren over Kessler is obviously a clear winner there. I just don't know fit wise. like there's a lot to work with and I like the fact that they would have an identity of being like the biggest baddest team like across the board But I do wonder if like threading the needle seems a little bit more difficult than pererhaps like just like, ye, we'll just get this guy over this guy, you know Well specially there's a version of having a bunch of size on the floor that just makes you like the Orlando magic. You know, It's like, yeah, you're big and you're tough, but you're also kind of awkward and inflexible as a result. And cow, I think I think you're right to single out the ball handling in particular. If they do have designs of playing Ace at the two and Kiante as their kind of go to point guard. theirir offense is basically like Kiante and the Bunder, right? It is him initiating a lot of stuff off the dribble and the ball movement and the spacing resulting from those other guys creating offense for you. but Maybe that works and maybe it doesn't. I think It depends on how heavy the stakes are for the jazz in the immediate future. Given everything we've seen from them and their willingness to be very patient with every single sometimes excruciating step of this process, I would think they're going into the season tryrying to feel it out more than anything, tryrying to understand if that Jereon Jackson Camboozer combination could be one that will work full time And that's yet another reason why you don't cut bait on someone like Walker Kessler immediately. But again, you kind of tease that into the season and you work all three of those guys into your front court together. But As far as other moves they can make too, I think if you do draft Boozer, you probably do need to make one veteran free agent wing signing of a kind. It's just like those guys are so young and so unproven in some cases. like I like Bry Sensebaw as much as anybody, but I think you need somebody who's a little more seasoned who you can bring off the bench in like certain alternative situations who isn't like Sy, you know, I think you need something else there. But if they were going to end up with a Darren Peterson in the spot, they might desperately need either to bring back use of Nkich as this backup center or a use of Nkage alternative. So you can see kind of the downstream stuff as far as their bench goes with this pick as well Yeah, it's it's interesting. you were talking about them like stay staying with like excruciating. The jazz, their like commitment to stay with the excruciating bit is like Neil Hamburger level. like it's like what man, we are really sitting in this in this for a long time. A couple kind of pro arguments to kind of say to answer what you were saying Justin about like the rebounding stuff. like you're adding an elite rebounder in Camboozer. I think he's going to cover a lot of the sort of neurotic things about the way that Jarin Jackson plays that will help. And another thing that's working your in your favor here is that Jarin has kind of developed to the point where he can kind of drive close outs a little bit. over the course of his career has started to drive the ball a little bit more. So that would differentiate them a little bit from the Orlando magic. kind of thing there. And then but yeah, you're right about like weighing it against Darren is like So much of this is side unseen because last year the the lineup that they ran out when you said Sphia reminded me. Yeah, it was the heaviest minutes lineup that they ran was Kiantes V A slowerry and use of Nerkich. So We're really seeing a lot of things for the first time here U I would be really tempted. I know I have Cam Mck here, but I would be really tempted to just roll out Peterson there because that just That would immediately make sense. That basketball team, I think would be a playoff. You on a lower seated playoff team immediately This is just the unfortunate part about going out and doing the Jaon Jackson trade when they did, where it's like you almost feel locked into thinking about the fit more than you probably would at this point because you have all this stuff here. and it is tougher to get like the exact fit you want once you've already have the names on the paper in order to make all the math work and all the actual finite U just strategic stuff work. The other part of this is just like the money is starting to add up very quickly. Like in two years. so once Chiante George presumably banks an extension, he's like up for it and he's going to have it lock in then, you have Jaron Jackson making fifty one. you have Laurry making fifty. Kessler iss going to be making what? probably thirty ish around there George like probably thirty to forty million at that point. like I was trying to approximate it. like Jayalen Green, for instance, is making thirty five on an annual value. If George goes out and has a good year to to kind of build upon last year. like all of a sudden, like you're getting more than that. We're already talking like pushing two hundred million just with those guys alone. And then you add in another high draft pick. and the problem with high draft ps is they're coming in with pretty sizable salaries at this point. The number two draft pick last year, on Harper makes about twelve million. So this isn't the type of thing where it's just like You're waiting for those guys to assert themselves and then they make the money, they make a pretty good salary just from the start. So There's just like a lot to figure out sooner than you'd hope for, but I am coming around to the basic logic of draftting Boozer, if only because like if you think he's the best player, like there are options for you still to figure this out Yeah, I think especially for a franchise that is so desperate for cornerstones even still. right? Like County George Popping was such an important development for the jazz because it was even just the hope that hey, this is a guy who could be around here for a long time. He could be driving offense for Utah on the ball off the ball, even off the bench, whatever his long term role ends up being, but could really be a part of this And like whatever you may think of Darren Peterson, there's so many questions swirling around him that just don't really seem to be there with Camp Boozer. I understand all the arguments with Cam about his athleticism and how that factors into the NBA and what he will and won't be able to do as a pro. I get it He just feels like a safer bet for a team that yes, needs stars, but needs like a safe bankable star bet. and Maybe Darren Peterson is that, but maybe he's not depending on the eye the beholder, talent evaluation wise All right, wna move along here? I have up next the clippers at five Kyle, who's the big The pick is Keet and Waggler. The justification for this is I mean, it's been hit at nauseum. It's just if you're if you're in the Darius Garland business, which they've chosen to get into, that kind of scratches off a lot of the options on the board because, you know, you don't want to really go in with a huge exacerbated guard defensive issue here. and the guys that kind of fall into that category of like I don't really know why I would do that would be Darry Secuff Michael Brown is offensive, you know, he has a lot of defensive problems. Kinkson Flemings, Lberarian Fylon, Christian Anderson Abuko Corey on and on. It's we're out of the small gar business. Keen Wagler six six. I think he projects as sort of a guy who will sort of straddle the line between some primary stuff. I don't think he's going to pound the ball and play pick and roll the way that he did at volume at Illinois where he's just kind of like pounding it surgically findine in his spot. He's capable. I know Rob, you've seen him a little bit. He's one of the dudes that you have bothered to see. He can kind of shoot the ball. He could play offball really slick with a lot of that stuff. So I think he and Garland, you'd still have defensive issues because you're wispy, you're light, your you know, your're more skill driven back court I think that he would be the pick. if you're going to if you're going to decide to keep a guy. there's all kinds of permutations where they don't keep this pick, but assuming they do, I think Wogler the guy. Well, to me, the other part of being in the Darus Garland business is you need somebody who has that on ball off ball flexibility. you're talking about Kyle But you also need somebody who could potentially fill in as a primary when Darius Garland is inevitably injured. I mean, it just kind of like happens. He picks up all these random ailments these days So the idea that, okay, this is a secondary facilitator makes sense kind of patiently working off of Darus Garlet, working off of Kawai, whatever the near term vision of the cllippers ends up being but also couldn take over some of those responsibilities when you need him to. that to me is very appealing I guess my question overall, Kyle is how much of the logic for this pick is just that Waggler would be the best player on the board at five because there's a clar ter at four if anyone hasn't been following the draft. And then there's just all these guards. likeike would you pick Waggler for the clippers in a vacuum? Are we considering the Garland Fit? And how much should we consider the Garland Fit at this point? Like is he the guy that is ultimately just going to be a stopgap? or are we thinking going forward, let's extend him. Let's make him a part of whatever is next Waggler is very good in his own right. If you wanted to just pivot away from Garland and say like, you know, there's and There have been worries about Wagler's athleticism about that he's a slow mo guy. I think we've seen enough in today's day and age that you can play that way and be an effective lead guard. You don't need to be you putting pressure like donunk pressure on the rim every single time you come down the court I have I mean, I've gone all over the map with this pick in terms of guys that would fit better if I'm trying to build a playoff team. One of the ones that I've circled back to over and over again is Burryess and you know, one of the first mocks. I don' Just don't know if you remember it. wasas it the first one where I mocked Burrys there And that was mocked in the comments. a lot. I got a lot of just like you fucking idiot. There's no way the cliiffers would do this. And then oh, lo and behold, the reports come out that Burry is being yeah, anyway. I know I did this on L Kyle, talk your shit. You got you got as you can It's just we go into the playoffs and we do the thing every year where we're like, okay, well, the upside of him scoring and his picking roll and is shooting and blah blah blah blah blah.'s like we just do all that it's like, and you get to the end of the year and it's like all that stuff was adorable, But it's like when you get into a series where you're being picked at over and over and over again, would you this is this is a classic like Ty Young Derek White thing that we talked about that we've joked about a lot. I was like Derek White upside on ball and stuff like that. No, not necessarily. Trey Young's upside is higher on that that, you know type of thing. But is Derek White going to get picked on in a playoff series? It's that's what we have to have like winning driving our mentality whenever we talk about these guys. And that's just my problem a lot of time where I get off course with people. So I've considered Burry's there because I think he's a better two way player I think he's an encapsulation of what we were talking about there. I think Wagler is going to get better defensively, you know it's just He's one of the other guys. I guess it kind of comes into a question of do you want to the guards are sort of the the implied players there? Do you want to reach for a Merez Johnson? You want to reach for a a Yaxsel Lindaaborg that high, these more playoff ready players That discussion, I think it gets a little rich to reach for those dudes there 's that's kind of where I With that guard debate too It's a lot. I know.'s No, no, no. I think there's a lot of food for thought there as there should be with the clippers in their situation. likeike they have one of the stranger circumstances to kind of fall into this pick in the first place and where they want to go if they do draft a guard, I think not only shapes how you think about Darius Garland and the future of the back court, but what happens with some of these other guards on the roster too, right? So it's like if you if you do take Wagler Chris Dunn is extension eligible. and to me that is like a no brainer, like you should try to get Chris Dunn under a couple more years under contract because his defense is going to be even more important plying off of both of those two guards and kind of alternating backwardwards But the other huge piece of business that the Clippers have is Benedict Matharin's restricted free agency And if you do end up going more defense first with this pick in terms of like, you know someone like Burry's, for example, is the math on Matharin even stranger in terms of you're willing to invest more than say the mid level or a mid level adjacent salary for a player like that because you need his punch off the bench maybe a little more than you would have expected to otherwise It's just going to affect the rest of the shape of this back forward rotation period and with two of those guys kind of up for financial consideration I think we're going to see some of the effects pretty quickly. I think the cllippers are just in the unfortunate situation where they have no other choice but to build on the fly and just to keep doing that and keep stacking good moves because they just don't have their picks until I think they don't have in control of until twenty thirty. And so I would like to say like lean into K last year and just be the best team that you can be, but I also don't believe that because I don't know how that's going to happen. And I also feel like that already has such a define ceiling to begin with. If anything, it feels like they're kind of stuck in the situation they were after trading Chris Paul and they got all this stuff back and they just happened to overachchieve. they got Sa in a trade and all of a sudden, they eventually spun that off into Kawai. but like if you could just be good enough and keep getting steadily better and like if Garland, for instance, doesn't totally fit, let's trade him a deadline from now, right? Like just basically like trading out hearts. here and there as opposed to like forming the Megatron from the jump I just don't see another path forward at this point. I also think even within that, yeah, it's a little haphazard and there's going to be some fits and starts as far as building the next version of this team It still feels really exciting to me, right? Like Darry is Garland getting a chance to kind of reframe who he can be as a creator without some of the like guard to guard overlap or obstruction, however you want to think about it, of what he was going through in Cleveland I want to see with that version of Daris Garland is Janic Kona Nederhauser when he comes back from injury. Oh my Godd, just like absolutely popped in the middle of last season I want to see what he looks like for a completing version of this team. And now you're bringing in another potential guard to work alongside those guys. There's just like another wave of clippers coming up that I thought to V honest, we were going to have to wait like four or five years before they found those sorts of players again post Ci and to have them here during this time Yeah, it's a little like too timelineishh in terms of what they're trying to balance, but I don't think they have a lot of alternatives to way you're talking about, JV. They do just have to take these things as they come. And as they're coming, they're at least bringing in like good young players in the door who are going to be interesting for the cllippers for a while I ask a quick question, just a real jumping off for the cliffppers is we keep talking about this? like it's an immediate I even did it during this conversation where I was just like, well, this has to fit with Darius right now. Are they a playoff team next year? And how much is the like urgency of w now driving this? because If you think about the fifth pick, is it Is it worth it to take a woggler if he's going to be if he's going to be your second unit guy and get those let's just say he's that. if he comes in and he's the the guy who maybe you stagger a couple of the starters with some bench guys and then Waggler takes over as the main guy. is the is it a failure if you take the fifth pick and he's kind of for two or three years playing in that role or does he need to if you take him at five is like we need this guy to come in and be a star like immediately. L how I guess where the clippers are and whatever this this timeline they're on is is drives that, I would think They were twenty and fifteen after trading Hen in Zubch. And so like they were pretty okay. I think it just really like lays on How okay are you with being pretty okay is like really the ceiling for this team? And like if you think that's a good thing, that like the expectations are low, we're just gonna to have as much fun as possible and we'll go from there, then it's fine. otherwise then it can get pretty bleak pretty quickly Um But I just think whatever pick they have should be thinking about first year Say is the goal where it's like he does enough to be a contributor T a good team playl some defense, move the ball, be a connector, do whatever you can on offense and move deal with the future down the road. J just be like a contributor to a healthy environment. I think would be a good star for the Liers. And then eventually he becomes the best player in the world. Well I was going say, but that was also like the for what fourteenth pick, I guess, you know? I guess I'm just asking is is that a little more stomachable than If you take Say at five and then you know, I guess that's what I'm I mean, they look into this pick to begin with. so I guess it's all found money to a certain degree. All right, Hawks are up Pretty active in this pre draft pre free agency sort of period here. Aaron Reagans for two seconds. seem like a no brainer. likeike just have to be able to accept the salary and give nothing back to the under done CJ. McCollum, twenty one million dollars for just giving it to the Kicks really bought him some leverage there. at eight. they have a nice little opportunity to add a good player. Kyle, who do you think they should go with for their pick There are two train tracks ahead of the haawks here and there are people who think that they could reach and, you know, address their Rim prrotector defensive anchor thing. They need another quality big, but I think it's a little rich to reach for A Daimara here based on I do have some kind of questions about his craft around the room in terms of a score. There's the minutes, the volume of minutes kind of thing. there is the they're just kind of out you know, outstanding questions for me Um, I think it would be really, really beneficial for them to go with a drinksterr like you know Kingston Flemings who is the fastest guard in this class. I think he's tougher than he gets credit for. I think he's super smart. I don't think he's a bull headed like I just have to pound the shit out of the ball and score all the time like a Cin Sexton type player. I just think about him adding to the already kind of established really great defensive perimeter personality of this team, already in an incredible in transition group, very physical He would elevate those things and make them That's the pick that I have projected there for the Hawks at eight because I think that he would do great in Atlanta. So ye. Yeah, this feels like you made this pick to appeal to me personally. Like the idea of putting in Kingston Flemings with the Niel Dyson Daniels sort of like hellish perimeter rotation. I mean really speaks to me, really speaks to my sensibilities. And I think If we're talking about how do the Hawks get to the next level, clearly they need more independently driven offense, right? Like we are we are getting post flow into like who has the shake off the dribble. And that's somewhere where you know, Aaron Wiggins for a guy who's coming in and off the bench potentially, like has a little bit of that one on one offense that could really help them Hopefully Kingston can give them a dose of that too, but without taking away from all those other defining like attributes of what made the Hawks so good down the stretch of last season and makes them still so interesting going forward I think the question might come down to whether or not they should make this pick to begin with Like are they so far along that actually we should be looking to spin this pick and not take a young guy into just a veteran player because we show that we're at a certain level, especially late in the season and pushing the Kicks to the only team in the playoffs that actually got two wins on them. There's a popular rumor about maybe trading this pick for Trey Murphy I think that would be great if only for the comedy of giving back the Pelicans their pick for one of their best player that seems like everybody wants. incredibly mean But also I think it's the type of guy that they need because he's young still has more in him that perhaps another team could unlock but he also allows them to level up. And so like that just as more of a timeline fit than someone like Flemings, who might need a little bit more time. Kyle, what do you think about that? Like would you rather Flemings because of the fit? or are you thinking like the Hawks are in a different phase, right I think the fit is great there. You know, if you if you think about a Ty Murphy How much did that affect sort of the strength of the thing that you already have? Like do they need to change their perimeter core? Because bringing in Treay Murphy would change their you've already got Cominga coming in that you're trying to figure out how to play grranted the Pelicans might want Cominga knowing them, but I just I think Flemings There's a hole on their roster that he fits into really well. And I think if you think of people worry about the small guard thing. it's like, no, I mean, like in shoes he six foot three. mayaybe he doesn't have the longest arms in in the world. The jumphot isn't pure, but he's like a shot maker. He tends to he's very, very fast getting into his spots. I think the wide open nature of the NBA game He's going to pop even more, I think because it was definitely a cluttered offense with bigigs that had very narrow like The two bigigs for Houston were limited in their own ways in a way that really kind of hurt Houston spacing this past year. and Flemings was still really fast getting downhill. So I think if you think about the way the Hawks are built, I just think he would really He would really help them and Another quick thing about the defense with him is If you're a small guard, the things that you can do to bridge the gap and make you less of a liability. what Brunson has kind of figured some of these things out is that he is really bullish and aggressive in his like Hing in retreat kind of principles. He's really competitive in those areas. I think Kingston's going to figure those things out I would like him with a haawk. so I think he's a good enough fit that I would go ahead and take him here. Yeah for as much as Trey Murphy could help the Hawks. I'm not so forward pressing on the timeline for them. Like Jayalen Johnson's twenty four years old. you know,ike there is time here to bring along another college or college age prospect and hope that they can be a core member of this team for the foreseeable future There's nobody who's like really on the advancing side other than CJ that you're really worried to have to replace and even he's only on the team for one more year under contract. So to me, it feels like a really natural handoff point for them to bring in another guard who yeah may be coming off the bench for the course of this season, but then could eventually take over the reins and be a critical part of driving the offense Yeah, I thought their biggest issue last year, especially in the playoffs was just the depth. And it seems like by adding Wiggins, bringing CJ back, maybe adding Flemings, maybe adding somebody else, the very least they'll round out the version of the team that they have now. Treay Murphy as good as he is seems like he's more of a finishing piece to an already established core versus what the Hawks are where they really just like don't know who they are right now. And if anything, perhaps I want to save my powder and like If I need to trade Flemings, like wait for it to be like a true blue superstar who is like a clear like companion to Jalen Johns, not just someone who augments him. They don't have their pick next year goes to San Antonio That's like, some factor, but I think they're already going to be so good that it doesn't really matter to begin with So I agree with Rob. I think they just kind of take Flemings and go for it. Yeah, I mean, they also have the twenty third pick to play with and they could flip that into another veteran guy, potentially a big. I mean, we talked about that as far as what this team really needs like I thought akongu really proved himself as a starting level center for most circumstances, but Mog as a backup five like Aason Newell will'll see if he's ever really fit to kind of play that role for them. I honestly don't know. They just need like a little burl there and all of their alternatives, you know, the Jack Landale Tony Bradley types like all those guys are going to be on the open market for agency this season. I think it makes all the sense in the world for them to play with the possibilities and not back themselves into like the Jack Landale corner just because like See what's out there. see what you can drum up. seeee what team might need to get out from a center's contract to make the moves that they want to make I think there's an opportunity there for them to do something and maybe it comes with attaching that twenty third pick to make it happen. I don't know Two more here. Dallas at nine. And before we recorded this, they just got a new head coach because Rob refused to take the job Uh, Dusty May Wh just sounds like a Dallas coach, like a Dallas sports coach likeike it's like Jimmy Johnson. Jimmy Johnson is like's from Arkansas. so I get it a little bit more, but like I know Dusty May is like an Indiana guy, but Just to me just feels like the type of Gun slinger just doesn't take no for an answer. He is an Indiana guy, but he's absolutely also been the cowboys quarterback coach at some point in time. right? Like mayaybe not up for the head job, but a positional group without question really what do we What do we think about this guy? Yeah. U, incredible. cl I mean, Dusty May had it pulled up here his his coaching history is is really wild. I mean, he just he started out at Florida Atlantic, I believe in twenty nineteen, just built that program for notothing, had them in the final four. goes to Michigan has success wins the title in year two. He's just I don't blame him also for getting out of college basketball because it is just an absolute train wreck mess right now and dealing with that headache. So but I think in terms of if you're the Mavs, I think this guy has the right temperament to coach an NBA team. He can like ch he can chew on that ass when he needs to. I've seen him get fired up and get on guys, but he also is very mellow and kind of level most of the time. So and I'm sure that you know, I'm sure theyveted this with Cooper and you know, talked about it. And I think I think this is a great opportunity for him. and I think it's going to work. I like it. And it also opens the door to like Is this going to open the door to maybe taking one of the Michigan guys at that spot? So it's interesting on that level too. Well, and just continued signaling that the Mavericks have the right priorities in place after not for at least several years there. right? That this is going to be a longer term process. This is going to be building around Cooper that this is a program, right that you're trying to cultivate, build from the ground up in terms of personnel, in terms of culture, in terms of all of those things And in doing so Not only do we just not see many college coaches jump to the NBA at all anymore, although as you're alluding to Kyle, maybe we'll see more and more of it as they get frustrated with the ins and outs of navigating the transfers and everything going on with NIL right now I was trying to remember any coach I could remember winning a championship in college and then immediately going to the pros. Because this is usually the time where you squeeze, right? It's like you flirt with the Lakers or whoever and then you sign the like insanestion like this is this is just what happens, but like Well, Billy Donovan, right signed the Almost the magic Almost And then and then aborted. But then he went back to college He the ball in the picture. Remember whichich is wild. And I think he was rumored to even be in the mix for that job again, which would have been real. coming coming full circle moment. Well, I'm glad you brought this up though, because there really are so few examples of this. When I felt like when we were younger, this was happening a lot and it was more about like taking the cult of personality and bringing it over to the NBA maybe left that for like for gates, like for seats U It's really Brad Stevens, Billy Donovan And then on the bad side, John Bayline and Fred Huberg. Horberg wasn't bad per se. He was just like, it fine. Yeah. He got dealt a pretty weird team there. I do wonder like not only because NIL perhaps in the rigors of the job in college might force guys to think about this more now But is there any opening considering the way the league is going where someone who's maybe more strategically aligned, for instance, like I thought would have made sense a lot last year for a guy in Uukon just because like his system felt a little bit more sophisticated than what was typically run in college. I think it would have applied a little bit better to the NBA. Is there more Kyle there more reason to go to coaches in college than ever before U I think theres there's a differentiator there between like Hurlely and May and that I still think Hurlely is a little bit from the last generation of coaches of traditional sort of crack the whip like coach really hard. his style emotion kind of approach. it's just so It's a different type of a buy in. I think. don I don't know that it would have poured over to the NBA super, super well, but another difference too is you talked about Beline, you talked about Donovan even reaching back like Patino and Calieri going to the NBA. Th those were guys who just It's a little different, I think with Dusty May because he is a part of this new ascendant crop of coaches that are in the college ranks that are so analytically driven that are just for forward thinking that I think it makes sense for him to sort of leap And he's thought of one of the more progressive basketball minds in the country. You know, I know he had a team that just basically had the most like old school bludgeon you to death with size kind of thing, but he he's a considered a forward thinker. So I think that he'll on that front just be jump right on the spinning the already spinning merry go round of the way the NBA runs now. It does seem like a tough thing to navigate though for a lot of college coaches. And this I think the Fred Huyberg example is kind of instructive of a guy who could walk into a college system and just have an authority based off of that rank alone. And you can talk to players a certain way. you can deal with them and address problems in a certain way And then you go to the bulls and you have to like manage a locker room with Jimmy Butler and Rajan Rondo and Duayne Wade. it's like, you are just in over your head so quickly. The difference is like, I think if you are of kind of the dusty May moold, it's a lot of your currency comes from, yes, you've done all these great things in college, but you come in and it's like If you're helping guys, whether it's helping them win, if that's the goal or helping them develop, if that's the goal Plers respond to that kind of thing, more so than just like being the big swinging dick college coach who can just like throw your weight around in a locker room. It's so much about like, how do you appeal to these players on their terms in terms of what they need from you And it does seem like he might have the right kind of temperament and approach for that as much as anything So they have number nine. in this draft. Kyle, do you think this affects anything that they're going to do? notot only just because obviously he comes from Michigan, you have Marris Johnson, you have Mara, you have all these guys in there Londenborg But also like do you try to lean more in direction in terms of like stylistically anything you might want to do? It did come to mind to me that I've made this parallel on a few different shows now that Linda Borg in particular is a guy that we've discussed who has a really wide range of offerings. He's twenty four years old. There's people who are worried about that, but started late. I compared his developmental arc and path to Pascalciakum who started late and just sort of like, rocketed upward. you know, he just started getting he just his rate of improvement started as a late teenager in a way that Yaxels did. but there's been like maturity concerns with with Yaxel and how he interviews and things like that Um you know, Best we forget the guy who drafted Sakum is now, you know, involved with the Mavericks. So I just and if you if you wanted to think about a situation that could absorb somebody in those concerns about Yaxel who is a very good player does all kinds of stuff. It does kind of seem like the Mavs are increasingly a candidate to do that. And I think you could play with Cooper and give you a little bit more passing. He could play with anybody. but So there's that. I don't know if it necessarily means they're going to reach for like an a Dim Mara. I think it's a little high for Merez in terms of the type the player type, even though I love Marez I still have Brain Buries mapped there because I think that he would be an excellent companion with Cooper. I think he'd be a great two way player. I think that hed give Cooper a shooter out there. He's a guy who can run some point guard and still allow Cooper to kind of take the majority of the reps. I think that he's an excellent sort of Taying up like a pairing there for him. So yeah, I still think that that's probably who should take. Yeah, I mean, the consideration for the Maps is who fits with Cooper Flag, who makes sense long term with him. You want to prioritize the talent, but you want to at least have a vision of how it might work together I also think for where the mavs are Having someone who I don't think Dallas has any urgency to trade Kyrie Irving right now and nor should they. But having someone who can handle on the roster so that when you get to January and February, if it makes more sense to trade Kyrie Irving then, you don't have to like scramble and reconfigure everything you're doing offensively. It's like, oh my God, we have to get another guard in this deal because we literally don't have enough infrastructure to allow Kyrie to leave That feels like the kind of freedom this team could really use right now. And frankly I think is a broader philosophy Getting the level of depth that lets you let go of Hry and PJ Washington and Daniel Gafford and some of these like vestiges of the last version of the Maps That's kind of the position the Dallas is in right now Have you guys been following the reunion of the twenty six Cavs title team that's been happening? I believe in Scotland? Is it in Scotland It's somewhere like that where they're basically on a big old Mega rich guy golf Oing And is it making anybody else feel old those pictures are making It's been a decckile. It doesn't look like anything to make us feel old these. I was I get up off the couch and I feel old G at those guys are like kind of my age, all of them. Yeah, I was looking at those pictures. I was like, damn, it has been a decade since that happened. Wow. Not only does it make you feel old, but then you see guys like Richard Jefferson trying to mine it for content where he's doing like Instagram TikToky memes based off of those guys all hanging out together Andm just like it has a real like old guy still trying to get after it sort of vibe and I was like, oh go timee has just slipped away from me, isn't it I mean, we well we are the old guysy still getting after it in our way. So I hope it's still all loud. I hope it's still thing that we can do. What did it for me was Dave McMeneman was posting some like flashback photos to that twenty sixteen run And just seeing LeBron who looks like a totally different person physically. like in terms of his frame, his build, He I mean, he looks Understand It was was a very slim fit era for sure. And it's just been a long time since we've seen that Lebron That's all he's doing great at forty one, but you know, it's a different time And they were like the parade was like they were just in like flatbed trucks too in Cleveland. And like in comparison to what was going on with the Kicks where it's just like fat Joe every own float seemed Every person had their own Yeah, I was pretty amazed by that. Mitchell Robinson had basically a monster truck that he was riding for. Well that's his st. I think he has several of those somehow Crazy Well I was if you're in a neighborhood with a lot of little kids I hope Mitch is riding that thing pretty slow because I was just amazed that the the kids were like under the frame of the truck like they at their sting height. I was like Hope we hope we got some speed bumps in that neighborhood that scared me. Yeah. There were a lot of health issues going on for that next parade. I don't know if you guys saw some of those, but there was Oh my God gone down Like conrats to the next. Liver damage health issues I would say just the am absolute basement of foot issue related content. just We gott to get out of the gutter guys. are what are we doing U lastast one on the board here, Golden State at eleven. Kyle Who's the pick? giveive a This is this is a tricky one because I want to get your all's perspective on this because I think you kind of have no choice but to approach this as We can't go pure upside like this guy might help us someday. You know, I think you're you are you know, I know Golden Snake fans are probably going to winince when they hear this, but You're going to have to have a two timeline thought process with the one person that you take in this situation. And somebody that's going to be able to give you something now and then be a part of whatever this next. you know, we I said in the guy here that like Steph is pushing forty years old. This can't go on forever as much as I enjoy seeing them do another run potentially I have a Dam Mara as the guy that they pick here and my reasoning is in the immediate term He's fucking gigantic. I think that he's that that just put him on the court. You got to avoid him. He's big, gives them a rim protector, gives them some depth in the, you know the Frenchman dominated looming kind of thing going on in the Western conference. You get some Porzingus insurance in the short term in case he's in and out. we could kind of have both of them go. And then I also think offensively he fits the way they play very very good passer for somebody his size for any size. He's a great passer. and then You know, going forward, you've got a seven foot three guy who's potentially could turn into an above average defensive anchor in the NBA. So that's my thinking. What do you all think about? that mindset this pick I don't have any objection to the mindset. I just like What is this front court? Like what is what are the warriors going to do where there's, you know there's rumblings that they want to bring back Kristaps forzengis We'll see if that happens or how much he's able to contribute or just like what his state is generally don't know Drreamon Green is obviously a very peiar place in his career in terms of what he gives a team and where he should be playing in the lineup and how Al Horford is a player option and could just like bolt out the door at any time if he would like to Honestly, the best versions of this team are still the versions that play like Moses Moody or Gy Santos or Jimmy Butler when he's healthy at the floor to begin with And so I'm a little worried that I mean, look the warriors have lots of problems. They have lots of limitations. They're banking on aging stars of various kinds for a one last ride kind of thing As far as their're bigs, there's a little bit of like if they draft a big here in particular and then also have a lot of these kind of old timers or guys who are not as available as you'd like. likeike where is the Goldilocks zone of this is an actual good player who can play seventy regular season games and give us good minutes at a time where we desperately need it. Like this is There is no longer the luxury of just bringing in sixteen game players anymore. It's like how do we get through the season alive? And then if you do and Steh is in good health and playing well, how can you maximize it going forward? I have no idea how they do it past the point of James Wiseman induced PTSD of like reaners was a big. because I felt like we got to the point where we move past it and like,, we're actually at our best small ball finds energy. Let's just go to what works. And then they bring back Christops. And then you bring up Mar and I'm like No it wouldd be great If they are a little bit bigger and had something a little different than they're used to in order to counterbalance all this other good stuff that they have But just like the fact of doing that, I almost feel like they moved past it. And so I don't know like how to feel about just the idea of going big at this point, especially because as Rob is alluding to, like they just need good players here, which is becoming increasingly difficult because they have so much money tied up in Jimmy Butler and Steph Curry and also if Draymon is coming back Yeah. And then because they're also like trying out there being like, oh, let's go after LeBron, let's go after Cawi and just be like the expendables. And so I just don't know how all these things fit together Is it acceptable to draft a backup big that could play in a playoff scenario at eleven? That's a question you got to ask yourself because I mean, I think so. I mean, if he's going to hold up in a playoff setting and then eventually he could become the starter because I think some of the on ball sort of guys They're risky. I mean, if if you think about taking like, you know, some of the guys that are mocked in this range, I mean Dalen Swain is a guy for Texas. He plays for Texas, but I bet Rob has never even heard of him or seen him play likeike a a big big guy big guy six seventy each guy who can really handle the ball, but it's going to be dared to shoot. So that's going to be a like, I don't know how that's going to work in the playoffs. defensively with like a cam car He's going to get attacked all the small guards, those are non starters as much as I've I've mocked Lber and Fyon there before, but stylistically I don't know that he' fits the warriors. You'd hope maybe long term we could play. that. That's my that's my kind of thing there is like I think in the short term taking a backup big who can help you in the and it's not just Wimby. it's the other big teams in the in the West. I think having Mar would be a helpful thing to have on a playoff team in the short term. So that's kind of that's why I'm thinking that. I think that's the issue with the like big how should the wararriors play big versus small debate. It's less about like what is their optimal version and just more accepting the reality that Draymond can't do that all the time anymore. Al Horford, if he's back, certainly can't do that all the time anymore. So they just sort of need size by default unless you have another anomalous playmaking for who can play the five just like you can find under a rock somewhere. likeike they just need somethingomet a little more conventional in a bunch of different respects. They need some front court size They need just like ballast on the wing. I'm not really sure where they're going to find it, especially if like D Anthony Melon's another guy who could just kind of walk out the door if he would like to. And I think there's a lot of winning situations that he or Horford could potentially sign up for that would be more promising than Golden State. We'll see what they do. Maybe they just like being around and being a part of this team But also, I mean, even if the on ball options are a little dicey as you mentioned, Kyle They just need somebody who can initiate. like you can't put Steph through the meat grinder of this through yet another year. And Jimmy Butler, hopefully being out there and healthy for a good portion of that will help But you need more than that. Like they could really use another guard one way or another who can actually drive something on offense