Brunson's Team Friendly Extension with the Knicks and a WTF Are These Teams Draft
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And now, The Low Post. Welcome to The Low Post podcast on a steamy Monday morning. Kevin Pelton from ESPN.com. We've got some news to discuss that came out Friday and exploded into the weekend. And we have something, an exercise that I like to do every summer. I don't think we've ever called it this before, but it's something I, you're one of only two or three people in the whole NBA world I'd really want to dive into these teams with because they are not

The glamour team for the most part. It's the WTF are these teams? What are they? And I gave you a selection of five teams. You pick three, we'll get to them. But we have to start with the news of the weekend. The New York Knicks. Again, I don't know, Kevin. Like, you're supposed to dump bad news on Friday at 5 p.m. The Knicks dumped incredible, stunning news to a lot of people within the league last Friday at 5 p.m. Jalen Brunson, who could have played out the season,

and signed a five-year $270 million extension. Instead, preemptively signed a four-year $156 million extension. The delta between those deals is $113 million. It was billed in the reporting, Woj broke the story, as essentially an unprecedented move.

by a player of this stature to give back, quote unquote, this amount of money. Now, as a lot of smart salary cap people pointed out, he may not end up giving back that much money at all because this is going to end up being a three-year extension, if all goes well, a three-year extension plus a player option that he will decline, conveniently catapulting him back into free agency after 10 years of service, which

where he can get the full 35% max when the cap is going to be so gargantuan that the salaries are going to be unbelievable. And by signing back then at that level, recoup almost all of the $113 million that he is, quote, giving up in this deal. However, if, if, if, like you just don't know three, four years later,

what's going to happen in your career, what your team is going to look like. And, you know, the if goes the other way too, where he could say, and we'll say, I'm assuming like by signing this extension now ahead of time, I'm at least hedging against an injury in this coming year. Like I'm locking in.

$156 million potentially. So it remains to be seen sort of how this all nets out financially for Jalen Brunson over the next like eight years of his career pending good health and great play. But it's clear that

In the medium term, this is a gigantic deal for the Knicks because with a lot of their players cycling back into free agency over the next three years, it's going to give them more wiggle room getting under the second apron to try to keep this team together, keep McHale-Burgess, keep DiVincenzo, keep Josh Hart, keep Mitchell Robinson or some other center. And in fact, if I've done my math right, Kevin, in the 25-26 season,

So not this coming season, the next one, when this deal kicks in. The Knicks would right now, without Julius Randle's salary, and boy, does he become an interesting player to watch right now. The Knicks would have $153 million, about, thereabouts, committed to nine players. So that's like not that far from a full team, which would give them about $55 million below the second apron. The year after that,

You have to start doing some estimates for what Mikhail Bridges' new deal is going to be, what Mitchell Robinson's new deal is going to be, where they pick in the draft because that's a year in which they have their draft pick.

They're going to be a little closer to the second apron, but they could still have something like $35 million to $40 million of room before the second apron. And then it gets even tighter into the 30s, mid-30s the year after that. And the difference between Brunson's salary in this deal that he's taking now and the one he could have taken after next season is like between $11 and $13 million every year. Those $11 to $13 million are going to be huge for the Knicks.

But where did you see, like when this happened and you started crunching the numbers and looking at the math, because I know you did and you wrote about it, what was your sort of first reaction either from Brunson's standpoint or where did you see the big benefit coming for the Knicks? Yeah, I think really that 2025-26 season because, you know, if you spend all of that time

apron wiggle room next offseason, then that's probably going to push you into the second apron in 26-27 when that Mikael Bridges new contract starts and gives him presumably a similar raise to this

where there's a maximum of 40% you can go up in the first year of an extension. And that's why Brunson in this extension was limited to substantially less than what his max would be had he gone to free agency. And I think that three-year frame is the right way to look at it. But Rukup, he also could have just gone to free agency and signed a three plus one deal at the max.

And taken it all. So that's the, that's a $37 million difference over those three seasons. That's to me, the relevant number here, the most relevant. That's my like 11 to 13 million per season. Yeah. And they, we've, we've seen players take pay cuts like this, but primarily at the end of their careers.

Not really when they're right in the middle of their prime and they haven't made as much money as Jalen Brunson has. I think, you know, obviously there's a few things worth noting about that decision. Number one, this literally is family, a family business with his dad on the bench, with the ties to Leon Rose, his godfather, you know, in the front office.

uh with his agent sam rose being leon's son like there's a lot of family ties before we even get to the fact that he's playing with all these other villanova teammates on this roster so there's probably a greater degree of trust here than there would be with a lot of players and organizations

and a greater willingness to sort of, you know, a greater urgency to sort of see what's best for the franchise instead of what's best for me individually here. So the other thing I think that's worth noting here is the Knicks also sort of earned this

They paid Jalen Brunson a lot more than anyone else was willing to do two summers ago, a contract that most people in the league, I think, thought was an overpay at that time. And no one was suggesting the possibility like, hey, the problem with this extension, this contract is it might not be high enough to give him a max extension in two years.

No, you're correct. This is family and friends night at Madison Square Garden. Family and friends discount at MSG. But we'll see how much of a discount it ends up being really. If everything works out for Jalen Brunson, maybe not that much at all. But certainly there's some risk built into not playing this out for a year and not signing the 270. Like you just never know. You know, there's been a lot of talk about, well, first of all, like we don't really know

and tax lines and all of this is gobbledygook to a lot of fans who kind of really want to know, like, what can the Knicks... What does this actually allow the Knicks to do? Like, how does this help my team try to win the championship? So maybe can you explain to people how does this actually... So second apron, whatever, like, as a Knicks fan, why should I be happy for this? What possibilities are opened up that would maybe not be opened up before? So, I mean, I think the first question is...

would there have been a reluctance to extend or re-sign Julius Randle or alternatively trade him for someone else into that salary spot if you didn't have that wiggle room? And then the other thing is, assuming that that number is about where we think it's going to be, then it's the ability to use the taxpayer mid-level exception next summer and add one more piece to this roster. Or maybe it's a backup center. Do you mean the big one or the small one? The big mid-level, the small one? They can't unlock the big one?

Because you're capped at the first apron, right? If you use the big one, you're capped at the first apron. See, I'm still learning my aprons. I'm still learning how the aprons, one layers over another. I got a double apron. Do they tie together at the front? I don't know. No, the one thing is...

The taxpayer mid-level, now that it's been reduced so much, it has not had as much spending power. I think the Nuggets may be the only team to have used it either of the last two years. They used it to re-sign Reggie Jackson last summer, this year to sign Dario Schar. It's no longer that much more than the veterans minimum, but particularly if you're targeting a younger player, I think it could be a difference maker. You look at someone who would have fit into that spot this year, who could have helped the Knicks a lot.

is Andre Drummond. So, you know, I think that's kind of the type of player we're talking about. And then,

Even if New York pushes into the second apron in 2026-27, what that does is limit your ability to bring in new players. It doesn't limit your ability to re-sign or extend your own players. And if the Knicks feel like we've got this group going forward, and then they've got a window of probably through at least 2028-29 before you start seeing the harshest penalties of the second apron start to affect their willingness to spend.

Yeah, because once you get into it two years in a row, a lot of bad stuff starts to happen to your draft picks, get frozen, one of them gets frozen, then it gets moved to the end of the first round, and it's hard to sort of wriggle out of that.

They're going to be under this coming year. They're going to be under 25, 26 because of Brunson. They've got a shot to be under in 26, 27. After that, depending on a lot of different things and like I've got ballpark estimates for what Bridges new salary is going to be, what Mitchell Robinson or like, do they just just just say we can get to your point?

We don't need to resign Mitchell Robinson because we can get a taxpayer mid-level center. I mean, that's a risk because they've already lost Hartenstein. They may lose Precious Achua. Who knows? DiVincenzo's deal comes up. Deuce McBride's deal comes up. They're going to have to cycle through all these guys. So it's hard to say. But I did have an agent and a couple of agents actually kind of frame it like this.

Like whether it's Randall or somebody else, they've almost created a salary slot that may not have been accessible for them to bring in another impact player. Now they've traded Randall.

Not all of their draft equity because they got a couple extra picks still from, I think, Detroit and Washington. They're not great picks. They have their own swaps, I think, that are still intact from the McHale-Bridges deal. So there's things they can do, but it's not like they have another pile of picks to go make another gigantic trade. That was the opportunity cost of the McHale-Bridges trade. There is no...

you know, pick a superstar that becomes disgruntled in the next year or two that the Knicks and other teams have been waiting on. That deal is now probably not accessible to them unless they're going to dip into this pool of players that they now have, which are all good players. I really like this team. I thought they were the second best team in the East last year when fully healthy. I still think Randall has a role on this team. He's kind of been...

almost not excluded from the discussion of the Knicks because the Knicks were so good when they had Brunson and Ananobi, who obviously was re-signed at a gargantuan deal.

And, you know, well, Randall needs the ball. How does he fit with Brunson in terms of now they have Brunson and spacing and a roller? How does how does Randall fit into that? I still think this team needs a second guy who can just get a bucket, who can just go get a bucket one way or another. Maybe Randall isn't the perfect guy for that role because of his limitations as a shooter. But I think he was.

a more willing passer last season after a slow start, a more willing screener and roller. They use them in the pick and roll as a ball handler more, sometimes in inverted pick and rolls with Brunson. I think they were shifting toward a right balance of how can this all coexist. I am fascinated sort of what they do, but it's too early for me to power rank the East behind Boston. Philly has obviously made a splash. They signed Kyle Lowry, one of the Villanova guys the Knicks did not get.

I thought Kyle Lowry was helpful for them last year. And between Lowry and Caleb Martin and Eric Gordon and Andre Drummond and Kelly Oubre coming back, they're starting to put together a real team around Maxie, George, and Embiid. Boy, the top of the East is really good. But there's something about this Knicks team that if they can just stay healthy, it's a big if with Ananobi. You can't just talk around it. He's been hurt a lot.

I like this team. I like the optionality they've built in. It's a huge win for New York that he signed this and

There's been a lot of commentary I've seen and read and heard about the precedent. Is this a dangerous precedent? We've seen players, to your point, give up money before to help their... And it wasn't just giving up money. Oh, it just saves the owner's money and luxury tax. Who cares about the billionaires? Some of the players you're talking about, Tim Duncan, Dirk Nowitzki, they gave up money to help their teams fit players into salary cap slots that otherwise would not be available to their teams. So a player doing something...

sacrificing for the sake of his team is not entirely new. It's new at this level. And I do think it's fair to ask whether in the apron era players being asked, nudged, lionized, even build the statue for

for taking pay cuts to help their teams stick together in the long haul is going to become more of an urgent question for a lot of players at all points in their career, at all ages, at all levels of ability. I do think that's a fair question. I'm not sure how much of a precedent this is going to be. I'm not sure how much has changed, but it does feel like the apron and the dread that teams have over the second apron is going to put more players maybe in more positions like this

And, you know, it does stink that the onus is on the players, right? Like the onus is on the players. I just, I don't, I am skeptical that this is going to be like a very common thing, but it, there's just, I don't know how avoidable it is, but the onus being on the players, like, well, I'm sorry, it's up to you. Like, I don't know what else to tell you is a little uncomfortable to me. I mean, I would say to a degree,

This has always been the case, and maybe just people weren't thinking about it as much. It wasn't specifically taking discounts when the Warriors stars signed their first extensions that set them up to have the cap space to add Kevin Durant, but Steph Curry signed at a point where he was still an injury question mark.

Klay Thompson signed for slightly less than his max. Draymond Green signed for less than the max. Giannis signed for less than his max. Remember Giannis like signed his first contract was like, whoa, wait, he didn't get the max.

Yeah. And a deal that probably didn't work out for Milwaukee financially down the road because they didn't get the full five years because it wasn't the max. So he was able to get up to the supermax earlier than he would have otherwise. But that's what allowed them. Those guys have making less than they potentially could have is what allowed them to sign Kevin Durant. Like there's always been that sort of push and pull between, you know, what your stars are making and what else you're able to do.

I do think probably there's a lot more focus on it. It's interesting. We've seen in the WNBA, which does have a hard salary cap, you know, stars take, you know, in their case, you know, it's tens of thousands of dollars rather than tens of millions of dollars because of the difference in the salary scale between the two leagues. But that's what facilitated the New York Liberty and Las Vegas Aces building the two teams that met in last year's WNBA finals is both of those teams having stars take less than the max. So, you know, there certainly is something

Proof of concept for it, whether other players will have the trust in the organization that Jalen Brunson has in the Knicks, I think is I'm very dubious that. And then to your point again, it's not just Jalen Brunson doing this. So the players make less money. The amount of money the players make is guaranteed by the by the CBA.

It's set based on a percentage of revenues. If one player takes less, another player makes more. Now, whether again, you know, it's fair to ask the star of the team to make less. So a role player makes more. That's a, that's a difficult ethical question, but it's not, this is actually hurting the players in the aggregate. No. And look, I've had some agents and people on the player's side say that they're shocked that he did this, that it was the wrong quote unquote, the wrong decision. I've had some agents and people on the player's side say, well,

you know, look, he's banking $156 million. And if he's fully informed of all of his options and his agents have fully informed him of all of his options, then what are we supposed to do? He's made a calculated decision based partly on happiness and the quality of his team and the quality and identity of his teammates. And he has a chance down the line to make up for a lot of it. And I do think for better or worse from the player's perspective, like to your point,

The players are guaranteed roughly half of basketball-related income in the aggregate every year. Remember when they went down from 57 to roughly half in the 2011 lockout and everyone was like, man, what a just a destruction. The owners, it just smashed the players in negotiations. Those seven percentage points or whatever, six and a half percentage points.

It's still like the players to going back to the basically the existence of the cap to bake in this percentage of basketball related income. This TV deal that's about to be announced this week in Vegas, most likely for 76 whatever billion dollars it is over X amount of years. Like the fact that they've locked in half of this money has turned into such a great, great deal for the players that.

And I'm happy that it has because I might, as I've said many times, my dad told me when I was young and salary starting to get big, who do you want to have? Who do you want to make the money? The players you like watching or the anonymous billionaires who just, you know, pay the bills. I want the players to get the money and these salaries. I mean, you look at the potential salaries in Brunson's next deal and it's like in the eighties and the nineties and soon we're going to get into triple digits with some of these players are going to be making a hundred million dollars a year. And yeah,

I do wonder if that you're going to reach a point where that's just so much money that players in Jalen Brunson's position are more willing might be the wrong word, but like more more willing to just be like, hey, if I give up 10 million, does that help my guys stay on the team? Like it's just the month of sheer volume of money is going to be that high.

Right. It's already a life-changing amount of money either way. Seth Partnow made that point on Twitter about what we could potentially see going forward. The other thing, while we're talking about the BRI split...

As critical as a lot of people have been about what the CBA meant for the Players Association because of the second apron creating more of a hard cap on many teams, which I think is a little bit overstated. The percentage of the number of teams that spent over what is now the second apron was always a handful. It was never 10. And there were always lots of teams that were hard capped at the first apron because of the fact that they used the taxpayer mid-level or the non-taxpayer mid-level or made a sign and trade. It just wasn't.

is obsessive a focus of the coverage but the trade-off for that which may have meant a little bit

you know fewer options for some players particularly in resigning with their own teams is they grew the size of the what is defined as basketball related income and so therefore their share of the pie is slightly bigger than it had been previously even though the percentage split is still the same as it was what do you think of this next team next season um i've already said like

I think they're going to be in my inner circle of championship contenders. I think they can win the championship. I think that's plausible. I'm not going to pick them to win. He's not picking anyone over Boston. If Boston is even remotely healthy and we'll see how long Porzingis is out. I love what Philly did. I'm not just going to completely throw Milwaukee to the side as long as they have those, those two dudes healthy with some, some training camp, but they have lost a little bit of ground. And like, there's these other teams that are, are rising and are going to be feisty or, and, or really good.

I think this Knicks team can go toe-to-toe with anybody. I think this Knicks team... Look, until I see Philly actually do it in the playoffs... Not that I've seen the Knicks do it. I mean, the Knicks didn't get any further this year than Philly has gotten in the Embiid era. I do think the Knicks would have put up the biggest fight against Boston of all the fully healthy Eastern Conference teams, including a fully healthy Embiid and fully healthy Philly.

I think I might still think that, although that Philly big three is fearsome. But all you can ask for as a fan is, does my team have a plausible chance to win the championship? Or do we need a miracle? Or is it like there's a plausible path to it? And I think the Knicks are good enough. Now, we'll see the Randall thing later.

I don't know what realistic routes you see with Randall in terms of if they decided, like, we're going to trade him, this is who we could get given the draft picks they've already gone out the door. But I'd love to hear your thoughts on that if you have any. But I think this team, I think I'd probably power rank them number two in the East going into the season.

I would too. I mean, we, yeah, we talked about this, you know, when, when I was last on the low post and I think Philly has done a good job of filling out the roster to some degree since then. I think Lowry is the only one we didn't know at that point. I, if I think about things, teams in terms of championship contention going into next season, I,

I would have Boston in a tier of their own because we just haven't seen a defending champ bring back everybody. O'Shea Brissett is going to be the most notable player that presumably is not going to be back in Boston. That we haven't seen in a long period of time. And given how dominant the Celtics were in the regular season and throughout the playoffs, I think they're in a tier of their own. I think OKC might be in a tier of its own.

is the number two team after what they've done this off season. And then I think you would throw in the next three teams in the East. Like you mentioned the next three teams in the West, Dallas, Denver, Minnesota, and have that be just a giant tier three for me. Any final thoughts on the Knicks or what you think might happen or could happen with, with Julius Randall? Who's eligible for an extension? I,

I think I would wait this one out unless he's willing to sign also at a substantial discount from what he might potentially be able to get in free agency because I just want to see what it looks like. Does Mikael Bridges offer enough supplementary shot creation that the need for Julius Randle in that role is no longer as large as it was last season? I threw out a hypothetical that was posed to me by someone in the league here in Vegas on the Hoop Collective. Would you rather...

on the same contract for this Knicks team have Julius Randle or Isaiah Hartenstein, who they obviously couldn't offer that kind of contract this summer as a free agent. They were very limited in what they could offer him. And I think Knicks fans interpreted me as saying, endorsing that I would take Hartenstein. And I don't think I would for the reasons that you've laid out about the importance of Randle's shot creation. But I do think it's close enough that it's a legitimate question worth discussing. Trey Lockerbie

I'm glad that you brought up Bridges before we move on. He was a disappointment last season for Brooklyn. He was overmatched as the number one option on a bad team that is now going to be epically bad without him and other people that they may or may not trade before the season.

And I think that's led to sort of like a total pendulum swing back to, well, he should really just be the player he was in Phoenix when he was just like three and D guy, low usage, you know, a post up here and there. If he can get a quick seal on a point guard, a cut, whatever around Chris Paul and Devin Booker and dominating. Of course you can't forget dominating. I think that's too, I think, I think that's too far.

Um, those three months he had in Brooklyn in his first season there, when he went on a heater for a long time, you know, average 27 a game was really on fire from the mid range, pull up, pulling up in the pick and roll, uh, got to the rim a little bit more, opened himself up a bit more as a pastor. He's not a great pastor, but he's got some pick and roll chops to him now.

That wasn't – just because that didn't subsist totally into the following season, which was just full of dysfunction and here comes Ben Simmons and there goes Ben Simmons and whatever. He's somewhere between like a role player and an all-star – like an all-star level offensive player. Like he does offer –

some secondary shot creation that can masquerade for a stretch here and there is like almost primary shot creation. And I do think in your Randall calculus, that's really, really important. Like he's going to have, he's going to have some games this year where he's got a friendly matchup because the primary guys are on Randall and Brunson and they run some stuff for him. And people are going to be like, Oh yeah, that's the guy who kind of was on fire for three months when Phoenix traded into Brooklyn. I think that's a good point.

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One thing I wanted to get your take on, I had Tim McMahon on last week. We talked about the Warriors and sort of just what are the Warriors right now, which is a discussion that I don't think a lot of people have had because it's been all clay going out and who's coming in. Is it Lowry Markin and whatever? And I wanted to pause and say, like, what is this team? It's an interesting team. But then the Markin and stuff obviously comes up because they're trying to get him. They would like to get Lowry Markin. And Tim and I talked about

And you and I have talked about this too. The question that you must ask yourself is, if we give up a critical young player and a significant amount of draft equity, and for the Warriors, I would define their critical young players as Brandon Pajemski and Jonathan Kavinga. If we give up one of those guys and most of our draft equity and we get back Lowry Markkinen, and maybe there's some supplementary pieces flying back and forth both ways to make the math work.

Are we good enough to make an honest run at a conference finals appearance? We know we're not going to be favorites. We're not going to be a juggernaut ever again. But if we have Steph, Draymond, Wiggins, Markkinen, and one of Pajemski and Kaminga, and maybe Moody, maybe not Moody, maybe Moody has to be in the deal too, and then Melton and Kyle Anderson and Buddy Heald and all these guys we've signed,

Are we an honest to God, like we got a chance at making the conference finals? And from there, hey, you never know. Are we good enough? Because that's how good we've got to be to justify that outlay. And I wanted to get your opinion on it. I want to get your opinion on it in light of the athletic had to cut a semi update on this today. I don't think it's particularly groundbreaking, but I'll just read it to you.

The Golden State Warriors have been the most engaged team for marketing in recent weeks. League sources tell The Athletic they have discussed a proposal around Moses Moody, multiple first-round picks, multiple pick swaps, and multiple second-round picks. The Jazz, however, have asked for the bulk of young talent and capital the Warriors possess, including Moody, Kaminga, and Pajemski,

along with picks which has been a non-starter thus far for golden state league sources said now duh that's kind of common sense the warriors are like here's one offer the jazz are like how about everything how about all of it and obviously if you're ever going to make a deal you're going to land in a middle ground and let's say the middle ground let's say and i'm not saying utah whatever seed all the way here but let's say the middle ground ends up being the picks the

salary filler, and one of Kaminga and Pajemski. You can pick whatever one. To me, they're very different players stylistically and sort of ceiling-wise. If that's the price, is that worth it for the Warriors? Should they do that? Are they good enough? I think it's right on the borderline for me. I think that would put them into that second group of contenders for me, but I don't know they would necessarily put them ahead of any of Dallas's

Minnesota and Denver in the West, I think you'd sort of be banking on one or two of those teams or maybe all three of those teams taking a pretty big step back or getting the wrong playoff matchup. So that sort of thing to be counting on yourself is being able to get to the conference finals. Now, look, we've seen that happen regularly. I think that's one of the mistakes people make if they, you know, peg those top four teams in the West and put them in pen in the top four spots next season. Like remember,

A year ago, Dallas missed the play in. Minnesota was in the play in. Denver, obviously, was very good at that point. There's more volatility from year to year depending on health and that sort of thing than I think we'd like to give credit. One of those teams will not be in the top four next year. This happens all the time. One of them will be like, oh my God, they're seventh. That's just going to happen.

And Golden State would be well-positioned to take advantage of that, have home court advantage for one round, and then, hey, let's see where the matchups fall. Can we make another run like we did in 2022? That sort of thing. I mean, the biggest question here is like,

Is Steph Curry still going to be the kind of superstar who's good enough to lead that kind of upper echelon team? I think that's... How about is Draymond Green still going to be, A, reliably on the floor, and B, as he gets into his mid-30s, the same kind of superstar, at least defensively? I mean, offensively, I think we know what he is and we know what his limitations are going to be. But for him to retain that kind of value to the point where that nucleus is actually...

potentially good that you're just in that group that you're talking about, like a breakaway kind of group. He's got to maintain, like I thought he was still an all defense level player when he was on the floor this year. How much longer of that does he have? Because as soon as he slips to like normal, good defender, given all he does in terms of his versatility, his quarterbacking and the defense is causing turnovers, all of it. That's a big, that's a big slip in terms of their, whatever sniff of championship equity you think this group could have.

But one of the things I most love about the idea of Markkinen on the Warriors is Markkinen-Draymond Green frontcourt because pairing him, I mean, that's

That's the death lineup model, you know, pairing him with a five with a four who is a really dangerous shooter and score like that has unlocked a lot of things for the Warriors. Again, I don't know that Steph is, you know, still at that MVP level that he once was. And, you know, maybe you're counting on your county. You're probably still counting on Wiggins playing much more like he did in at least 2022 23 than last season, which is,

which was such a disappointment for him. But you need that kind of wing defender that you don't necessarily have, especially if it's Kaminga is the guy that you're losing out of that group, which seems a little more likely to me than Pajemski just in terms of how the Warriors would value him relative to how Utah would value him.

So let's just play it out. Let's say you're the Warriors and you quote-unquote win this negotiation down to the point where it's Kaminga, salary filler that we'll call Gary Payton II, and some amount or all of your draft picks or most of your draft picks. We'll say you keep a couple, keep a pick and a swap. So the team you're left with is I'm going to start Curry, Pajemski, Wiggins, to your point,

Part of this happy equation for the Warriors is baking in, oh, that Andrew Wiggins from two years ago still exists somewhere. Curry, Pajemski, Wiggins, Green, Markkinen. That's fun. That's really good. Like that lineup works. I get it. Let's say again, in this scenario, I've kept Moody. So my bench is I've got Melton. Still don't have a backup point guard. Maybe I get one along the way somewhere. But I've got Melton, Moody,

Slow-mo, healed. I got a bunch of centers, Looney, Jackson, Davis. Like, I got a deep team. It's deep. Like, it's not great deep, but it's deep and good players. Like, that's a good team. But what you're really, really banking on is Curry, Green, Markkanen, and fill in the other two positions as we go. Like, Markkanen's actually that good. A five-out lineup or a Draymond and four perimeter shooters slash players lineup is

It's still that good on both ends of the floor. Maybe I'm, I'm going to say I'm skeptical. I don't think that they quite would reach. Now we can talk about the Kaminga version later if you want, where it's Pajemski out Kaminga stays, which brings you some more spacing and playmaking concerns maybe, but more upside in terms of just explosiveness, defense size, transition, rebounding. Although Pajemski is an unbelievable, Pajemski might be a better rebounder than Kaminga actually. Um,

I'm skeptical that they're even in that tier that you mentioned them in, but they're close to there. But maybe you just sort of like got – maybe you just got to do it for Steph. Maybe that's all this is. It's just like – but if you're giving up like three picks and three swaps and a couple of good young players or at least one, like you kind of have to be in the tier you're talking about to make it worth it because at some point soon, Steph ain't going to be there forever.

And Draymond ain't going to be there. And you're really going to be in a deep, deep trough where you're counting on the lottery and you're counting on some luck and free agency and all that. The other thing worth considering on this trade is the financial ramifications down the line, because, you know, part of the reason the Warriors can make this move now before, you know, the possibility of Mark and signing a renegotiation and extension is he

He's only counting $16 million on the cap this season. That's why you're not having to send out that much salary filler. Presumably, you're doing this in conjunction with, I don't think you could extend him. You'd have to take it out to free agency, but maxing him out in the summer of 25. If he gets that huge raise and it's Kaminga that stays instead of Pajemski, he also gets an enormous raise coming off his rookie contract.

Now you're right back in second apron land in all likelihood. And that's where keeping Pajemski is almost potentially more valuable because he's got two more years after this on his really cheap rookie contract as a late first round pick. Let me say this. Kaminga is eligible for an extension now. It's July 15th right now. I'll be surprised if we haven't heard something about Kaminga negotiations, talks, status by August 1st.

Because I think it's kind of go time one way or the other on the Kaminga issue. Look, maybe I'm underestimating just how powerful Steph and Markkinen, two elite shooters at the extremes of the positional spectrum with capable playmaking because Pajemski is a good playmaker. Draymond is a Hall of Fame playmaker and a good bench. I might be underestimating how good that team is. I'm open to that. And I'm open... Like Denver got a little worse.

Dallas is kind of like TBD. Can they actually repeat what they did in the playoffs? Are they actually that good? I think they probably are. They have a top three player in the world, but they made some changes. I see it. OKC is awesome. Minnesota, I'm assuming they'll get kind of a little bit better with age and experience, particularly from Ant. But I can see what you're saying, that there's like there are some windows, there are some holes to kind of punch through. That Warriors team is going to be

in some of those matchups. Like, you know, Rigobert is going to have to guard an open space. Jokic is going to have to guard an open space against those groups. Like, it's an interesting counterpunch to a lot of the teams in the West. And crap, maybe it's just kind of... I don't know. Maybe I'm just too skeptical. I'm always, to a fault, too protective of the future. Sometimes that would have served me well. Like, if I were the GM of the Celtics, I would not have traded Jalen Brown in, like, a lot of these fake trades, particularly for Durant two summers ago. But...

Maybe, maybe an icon like Steph deserves a little just throw caution to the wind. I don't know. Any parting warriors thoughts? Yeah, I mean, I think the other possibility is, look, sometimes and the Warriors may have already found this out, like by trying to prioritize both now and the future.

You win neither. Yeah, since 2022, whereas it worked quite well for them to prioritize both of those things as it turned out. If you're trying to do both things, you do neither thing. How good is this core actually going to be when Steph is no longer around or at least no longer an all-star type of player? I think it's a fair question as much as I like Pajemski in particular and Kaminga.

what is the ceiling for that? It was sort of like the question Phoenix faced, I think, when they made the Kevin Durant trade, which is like, okay, if it's, you know, Michaela Bridges, DeAndre Aydin, Devin Booker as a core, like how good is that group actually going to be after Aydin, who seems to be a through line during this podcast, no longer looked like a future star. So, you know, I think that's worth considering. The other thing you mentioned, August 1st is his date on the Kaminga negotiation. So we have a deadline here, August 6th.

As the marketing date becomes, he becomes eligible to do a renegotiation and extension of his contract. It also is the very last day that he can be extended and still be traded before the deadline. So we are probably going to get a resolution on this one way or another by August 6th. And yeah, maybe the state of what the negotiation extensions are with Kaminga informs the Warriors willingness to include him in this trade.

That's such a great point about the Phoenix sort of example relative to this example is like, well, where am I going anyway? Is basically what you're asking. Like, where am I going? And when Steph is gone, I'm hitting the restart button. Now, one way or another would help if I had my picks, obviously, but I'm bottoming out one way or another. Maybe that's so far down the line that we already have our picks by then. But that was, if you'll recall, I was a little bit less...

optimistic about the Durant trade to Phoenix than a lot of people were because the cost in the future was so enormous that

And I just don't like trading for old guys with scary injury histories. Now, Durant is obviously in a stratosphere all of his own. He's one of the 15 best players of all time. I get it. I don't like trading young for old. They didn't trade any young player on par nearly with Kevin Durant, nearly with Jalen Brown even in the Celtics example. But the ultimate rebuttal to my caution was –

Well, okay, but where were you actually going? Like, where's McHale Bridges plus DeAndre Aiden plus some draft picks, all your own picks? Like, what are you turning that into? And there was this whole, remember, there was this whole middle ground. Like, they had a deal for John Collins that was ready to go that was going to cost them a little bit, but not that much. And then they'd have all this other ammo. Like, was that, like, John Collins? Is that really, like, doing anything for you? And it's interesting just sort of how the reaction to that trade was.

And trades like it swings back and forth. Like at the time, I would say the consensus was it's Kevin Durant. Like, what are you quibbling about? It's Kevin freaking Durant. All of you people that are being cautious are being insane. Then a year later, it's like what the sun's like to have that trade back. Like that, that whole sort of where were they going has kind of been forgotten. Like what else are you doing with this nucleus has kind of been forgotten. The first season was the first season and a half, frankly, had been such a disaster that,

relative to expectations and costs that now the narrative has shifted all the way back to well was the trade a mistake and few people revisit the the central question which is had we stood pat did we have a championship upside ever anyway and i think that's the that's the central question

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Let's hit some of the lesser lights of the league, lesser discussed teams of the league. This is the WTF is this team segment with Kevin Pelton. And Kevin Pelton, I gave you five teams for the WTF segment. I don't know why I have trouble saying that. WTF. Maybe I should just curse and then I would just not have trouble saying it. I gave you five teams. I told you pick three. Among the Detroit Pistons, the Portland Trailblazers, the Atlanta Hawks, the Charlotte Hornets,

And the Toronto Raptors. Now, you may say some of these teams, there's no mystery to WTF they are. They're just bad. They're tanking. The Pistons, for instance, seem to be tanking. The Blazers, for instance, well, I mean, yeah, they have Jeremy Grant and Dominayton, but what are they doing? The Hornets. I happen to think some of these five teams, although the ones more toward the bottom, a couple of them might have a chance to be a little friskier than people expect. But the point of this is take the team as presently constituted.

Like, what's what is it this coming season? What are the interesting questions about what lineups are being played and how good a team is? And then bigger picture, like, OK, so what's the roadmap to wherever they want to go? So I told you to pick three of those teams. Would you like to reveal to the world which two teams you shunned and which three that you pick? The two teams you shunned will be in part two of this somewhere down the line.

So Charlotte, to me, is the easiest to say, what are they doing? Because I think they are finally acting like a rebuilding young team and making smart moves around the margins. I like the job. Shunned! Shunned! Charlotte shunned!

Toronto was borderline. I just didn't have anything as interesting to say about them. I thought is Detroit. So therefore they didn't make the cut. That could be the Raptors slogan for this coming season. The Toronto Raptors. We just didn't have much to say. Not in a negative sense. It's more like I don't have takes. Like I have takes on the Pistons. All right. So the Pistons, the Blazers and the Hawks are the winners of the Pelton take draft. I will give you, you can determine the order. Where do you want to start?

Let's start with the Hawks because I have not thought about this as a basketball team very much. We thought about individual things, the DeJounte Murray trade, what that means, taking Zachary Rissachet, number one. But I had to sit down and pencil out, wait, what does the roster actually look like right now? And

There it is. There's my notes right there. See, that's the difference between us. I'm strictly a word template kind of guy for all my notes, whereas you're doing it handwritten. Age, age, Mr. Pelton. Age. It's a cruel mistress. I grew up. I just have terrible handwriting. I hate doing it. I grew up doing it.

but have rejected it. I think the question for the Atlanta Hawks for whether they're any good, like they're actually a pretty deep team this season. I kind of forgot Larry Nance Jr. is still here, just chilling as a backup power forward behind Jalen Johnson, I guess. I think they are better protected from front court injuries than they were last season, but they need either Dyson Daniels or Kobe Buffkin to step up and be a third reliable guard

with Bogdan Bogdanovich and Trey Young, or otherwise, you know, it's going to be more of the same as last season. So the Atlanta Hawks, DeJounte Murray, Trey Young, that's over. Bad idea. Reset, although not quite reset because the Spurs, bad news, still control all their picks through 2027. Sorry, Hawks. They did get some picks back in the DeJounte Murray trade, plus Larry Nance, plus a very intriguing young player in Dyson Daniels.

Cap flexibility is going to be tough for them to get in the next couple of seasons with Jalen Johnson's new deal coming up. Um,

And as you and I have mentioned before, this is exactly the path. Not exactly. This is the general path I wanted the Hawks to take once they won the lottery. Have your cake and eat it too. Use the pick. Take who you think is the best player. Go young in that respect. Trade whichever of the two guards you think you can get the most return for. And unless you can get your picks back from San Antonio, keep the other one. Tread water. Do everything at once. They've done it. And yet I am looking at this team and I'm like, oof.

Okay. All right. It's going to be interesting. So let's just like, here's their, here's their, I don't even have a starting five. I only have three starters in Penn. Trey Young, who might be looking around, although he's only 25 and being like, what happened?

What's going on? Sadiq Bae's gone too? Five second round picks, he's gone? Trey Young, Jalen Johnson, and Ace Center are going to start for the Atlanta Hawks. Maybe it's Quinn Capella. Maybe Quinn Capella, who they got in an ice trade, is gone. Maybe it's Onyeka Okongwu. Maybe it's Larry Nance Jr. here and there. Hopefully, I would say hopefully it's Okongwu at this point. If we're going to go half young, let's go young there too. But the other two starters...

If you had, I don't, I have no idea. I would like, I think the most fun outcome is that it's Dyson Daniels and, and resushay at the three. I'm not sure that's the most fun for Trey young. If Trey young wants to like actually try to win the most basketball games next year. But I think that's the most fun. I also think it keeps bugged Donovich in a bench role as one of the best six men in the league.

DeAndre Hunter is listening to this and is like, wait, what? What's happening? That French kid is starting over me now? I'm coming off the bench? Well, sorry, you've been hurt a lot and just kind of okay when you're healthy. So he comes off the bench. Buffkin comes off the bench. Vic Krejci maybe gets some playing time off the bench. Beyond that, particularly if you consider Nance a third center more than a backup four, if Hunter is going to be a backup four,

It gets a little slim, like one injury and your eighth, ninth spot becomes pretty dicey. It's an interesting team. I have no idea what to make of it, though. But what would your starting five be? If you were Quinn Snyder and you just had carte blanche, who are you starting?

I mean, I think, you know, I need to see everybody in training camp, but would you consider starting research and Hunter together with that? Now the challenge is, does that give you enough? So I have a gigantic lineup with research, a Hunter, Jalen Johnson and Capella or a Congo. Yeah, sure. I'll consider I'm open to anything. Kevin Pelton. What else? What do I have to lose? Yeah. I mean, Trey's going to have the ball in his hands nearly all the time. Anyway, Jalen Johnson provides some supplementary ball handling, uh,

Risa Shea was really good in his debut, the one versus two mashup against his fellow Frenchman Alex Saar on Friday night. Showed, I think, more playmaking juice off the dribble than I was expecting. Showed a really nice left hand. It was a much rougher second game for him on Sunday, and I think that's kind of the nature of what it's going to be if you're starting a rookie. And part of it kind of depends on how ambitious the Hawks are in terms of long-term versus this year. I mean, we should probably circle back to

The idea of trade whichever Murray or Young gets you more. A couple years ago, the idea that trading DeJounte Murray was going to net you more than Trey Young, I think, would have been pretty shocking. But it didn't sound like there was a great market out there for Trey Young. I have not heard... Again, all this could change in a pinch. But if the Spurs were going to offer their picks back, the Hawks' picks back and stuff like that, which is really...

The biggest part of the equation here is that the reluctance of the Hawks to tear it down is because of the remnants of that DeJounte Murray deal, the original one. If the Spurs are going to offer that, I think Trae Young might be on the Spurs right now. If the Lakers were going to offer all of their picks, including now Dalton Connect and some other good stuff, I think Trae Young could be on the Lakers right now. Those deals haven't happened. I've heard that those teams kind of have cooled on him.

And so here we are. And to your point, he feel, although again, this is the kind of middle ground I wanted them to, to tread. He just feels a little out of place now on this team. Now this may, maybe we'll see them play and it'll be so fun. Like they won't win that many games, but there'll be fun to watch. He'll be tossing out loops to Jalen Johnson and resus. She will be pushing the ball, finding him for threes. Maybe it's like, Oh, this is fun. I'm 25. I can have fun on a 38 win team. Maybe that's, that's all cool. Um,

I do like Bogdanovich off the bench because one of the things they lose with DeJounte Murray is this ability to stagger the guards so that the offense doesn't fall into a sinkhole without Trey Young on the floor. Kobe Buffkin isn't ready just to show – I like him. I like the flashes he's shown. I like his kind of herky-jerkiness.

he's not ready to do that and so i like the safety net of having a guy like bogdanovich off the bench but that staggering problem kind of rears its head again with murray gone i just look at this team like man i don't know what's the what's the roadmap to 55 wins and conference finals level ability and i it's it's hard to see from here maybe that's okay trae young is only 25 maybe that's actually just okay it's just it's a strange brew

Can I pose one other question to you? Absolutely. Should the Hawks have just taken Reed Shepard, even though pairing him and Trey Young doesn't necessarily make a lot of sense? He was my top prospect in the draft. He's looked very much, you don't want to read anything into two summer league games, but he's looked very much the part so far in Vegas. So it's a question that's at least worth asking. Should they have just taken Luka Doncic with the third pick in the 2018 draft or whatever it was?

That was also what my projection said in that particular case. Yeah, Reed Shepard looks awesome. Kudos to the Rockets for hanging on to that pick, not doing anything rash, as I've talked about with them before. Yeah, it's just a weird team, and I don't know where they go, except maybe they just kind of waited out. Is Trae Young going to be patient enough? What's going to happen if he's not? Is there going to be a market for him that explodes? I don't know. It's a strange...

I don't really even know what I would feel as a Hawks fan. I guess I would feel mostly kind of excited that we have the number one pick in the draft. That was like a complete surprise. We jumped from number nine. He looks like pretty good. Dyson. I think Dyson Daniels, if you can limit the lineups where there's another non shooter on the floor, which is going to be hard because you have two rim rolling kind of centers. I think he's a really interesting player. Like he is a game changing defensive player right off the bat.

He's a smart playmaker. It just gets harder for him to hire the stakes get because no one's going to guard him. And particularly if he plays with Trey Young, if he starts with Trey Young, as I'm proposing is the most fun outcome here. He's not going to have the ball a lot and he's just going to be completely on guard. So I don't quite know how he fits. He's very enticing, but he's only so enticing if he just remains a zero as a perimeter shooter. And he's had stretches where he's made threes and taken threes and made them an acceptable rate. He just hasn't been able to sustain them.

And the one thing worth noting here is he's been working with Fred Vinson, who will come up in a second here in New Orleans. And Vinson has done some great work developing a lot of players as shooters. Obviously, the Pelicans knew they weren't going to have him going forward. But if the Pelicans felt like after that couple of years with Vinson, like there wasn't that upside for him as a shooter, maybe that made him easier to include in this trade. What would I be hoping for as a Hawks fan? Maybe that Victor Wimonyama decides he really wants to play with Trae Young.

Are you implying Victor Wimbledon would demand a trade to the Atlanta Hawks? I'm just kidding. No, he would not. And Zachary Rieslashay. Yeah, let's reunite. Any parting thoughts on the Hawks before I give you second pick in the WTF are they doing draft? Let's move on. All right, you get to pick Detroit or Portland. I'd say Portland. I feel like... Close to your Pacific Northwest heart.

Yes, is the Northwest correspondent here at ESPN. Yeah, it's been pretty quiet. They basically, barring a trade, have their 15-player roster after making the Denny-Abdiah trade on draft night and drafting Donovan Klingin. They've got a lot of pieces right now. So many of these draft picks in the last handful of years, plus Anthony Simons, now Abdiah,

And Jeremy Grant is the DeAndre Ayton. And there's still no guy on the roster. And one of the things I think is really notable is, you know, there was some reporting back in March about the idea that, you know, the Blazers wanted to take a big step forward this season, kind of follow the Houston model.

And then the McDonald's All-American game and also the Nike Hoop Summit, where a lot of the practices take place at the Blazers practice facility. The game is played in Portland. Those took place and everybody saw just how good the talent is at the top of the 2025 draft. And...

you know, it's, it's the depth, I think of the 25 draft in particular, because if you're just counting on one guy, maybe even two guys like the, the Wembley scoot draft, like that's your odds of getting one of those two players, even if you're a bad team or not very good. If there's four guys, you're,

you feel like are number one or number two caliber prospects. And I think there's a lot of people that feel like that about Cooper Flagg, Noulin Traore, the French guard who was awesome in the hoop summit, Vijay Edgecombe, who's been holding his own playing for the Bahamas and Olympic

qualifying turn of it before he sets foot at Baylor, the couple of guys going to Rutgers. There's a lot of prospects in next year's draft. And all of a sudden, you didn't hear as much talk about the Blazers trying to take a step this season. Now, adding Denny Avdija is a...

veteran player a guy who's proven he can be a quality three and d type of starter with some additional playmaking for that role like that does vault them forward a little bit in a lot in conjunction with you know donovan clinkin's room protection and just the development of their young guys but i do think the blazers very much want to be in position to have a high pick next year because it's not clear there's a number one guy on this roster yet

Even if they didn't want to be in that position, they're going to be in that position. But I agree with you. They do want to be in that position. A couple of things. Number one, a lot of executives from a lot of teams were at the Team USA scrimmages, practices where Cooper Flagg was playing. And...

If the excitement for Cooper flag was at a 10 out of 10 going into those scrimmages, it's at like a 14 out of 10 coming out of them. Like it it's you, you could not overstate the degree to which that is impacting the league already because,

You know, as I mentioned last week with McMahon, like I tried to build all these three team trades where Kaminga goes somewhere else and assets from that team go to the Jazz. And you're like, you can't. It's hard to do. Same thing with Brandon Ingram. It's hard to do because some of these young teams just don't want the extra five wins or three wins or whatever it is this coming season. And even in the following season, it's the second thing is I missed whatever Houston reporting happened.

Houston model reporting you're referencing with regard to the Blazers. But I have in my notes right here, Rockets 2.0, because I don't think this year, this year, I think they're going to be bad and they're fine being bad on purpose. I think if there's a Rockets model analog that comes into play, it's in 25, 26, when they'll go into the, they'll go, they'll have some cap space ahead of the 26, 27 season, Matt, rather, I think. And I,

when some of their deals expire and it's that second year where they're going to be fine. They might want to say, can we use our flexibility to start grabbing players? I have to get my calendar straight to see what year I'm talking about, but like one more bad year and then maybe hit the gas a little bit because if they're bad for the next two years, that's five straight years of just abysmal win. And like part of the reason I wanted to talk about the Blazers was I kind of think

Like they've, they've been completely forgotten. Like when is the last time you've had a conversation with a normal human being about the Portland drill blades? It was just totally forgotten. They do have some interesting players. So I think it's 26, 27, when they would have some cap flexibility, summer of 2026, when they might want to hit the gas a little bit, maybe before then, if they got aggressive and wanted to make a trade. But if they are bad in 25, bad in 26, like that's, that's,

five straight years the Pistons will be on the streak even longer than that we can talk about that I don't know that they have the appetite for that maybe they do I think some people within the front office would have the appetite for that just be as patient as possible but that's going to be a this is a diehard fan base who's used to good teams and that's going to be a tough you're already shaking your head yeah I mean the other thing about it is just contracts are going to start forcing your issue you know Aiden and Anthony Simons are up at that point but

I guess Shaden Sharp is still on. Shaden Sharp will also be. So I guess the question is, how much do these young players develop to the point where you start having to pay them in addition? Because Houston was all guys that were still on their rookie deals last summer. They hadn't started getting into the extensions at all and won't even, I think, until this summer now where they've got Jalen Green and Elper and Shangudas, really interesting conversations.

So that's going to maybe force the issue. I think it's going to be hard for them to be bad again in 2025, 26. Just because it's just a tough pill to swallow to be bad that many years in a row for this franchise. Now, part of it is just sort of

They're kind of the victim of how the Dame era petered out in the end where he was injured for a lot of it and deflated their record. They made trades for, I think they traded two first round picks for Robert Covington. People liked that. I liked that deal at the time. I thought that was a good worthy shot for them. You liked it too. So they got nothing out of the 2020 or 2021 drafts. And like, we don't need to retrace all the history of like the Dame draft.

The 2017 draft, which is an all-time disaster where they got Zach Collins and Caleb Swanigan, and there was like a million great players all over the draft board that they didn't get. They're kind of the victim of how the Dame era –

Did not end as well as the talent on the roster suggested it should have. There were teams that looked like winning teams on paper that were really bad losing teams. And so that's why this streak is so long. But let's talk about the players they have. Because they do have interesting players. If you force me right now to guess their starting five on opening night, I would guess, now this is not going to be a good, this is just a guess. Could be completely wrong. Simons, Sharp, Avdia, Grant, Aiton.

That's like not a bad... I love Shaden Sharp. I think Shaden Sharp is going to be a really, really good wing player in the NBA. Defensively, he's got some strides that he's going to have to get up to average before we talk about anything else. I think offensively, he's going to be really good. Now that relegates Scoot to a bench role that may be...

That may be completely wrong. I'm fine with Scoot being a backup in year two after year one was so bad and so interrupted by injury and just so like, I'm just throwing it in the trash bin. Let's not feed him too much too soon. Maybe they disagree and they start him in place of who though? Who comes up? It would have to be Sharp. It would have to be Scoot. I'm starting Shaden Sharp. I'm starting, Shaden Sharp is starting for me. So whatever. But that would make my bench. I've got Scoot. I've got Thibault.

Kamara was really good for them as a role player last year. Jabari Walker could be my backup four, and I've got Klingin as a backup five. I haven't even mentioned Rob Williams. I haven't even mentioned Delano Banton. I haven't mentioned Chris Murray. They're pretty deep is the wrong word. They have a lot of play. They have a lot of guys. That's like a viable NBA team defensively.

Sharp Simons is is I don't know what their roadmap to a good defense is there. I mean, it's going to be a while. That doesn't really matter. But ultimately, the questions that they're going to face are can scoot Simons and Sharp ever function together as a trio? Can they ever survive on defense as a trio?

can they can Simons or scoot get more comfortable in an off ball role? Obviously that would fall to Simons because he's a very good shooter and scoot is not. Those are long way off questions. I think they want another bite at the high lottery Apple this season. I don't know what that means for grant. I don't know what it means for Aiden. I mean, I know what it should mean for it and they should be looking to trade it. And that's why you draft on them and Klingon. But it's an interesting, it's an interesting group of players that,

Again, I guess the roadmap is the Houston roadmap, which is let's take some shots in the draft, hope these young guys develop together, and when the time is right, we've got extra pick. They owe a pick to Chicago still, but they have extra picks, one of which they've now traded kind of half of a pick in the future for Abdi, and they traded the pick that became Bub Carrington as well for Abdi, which is a trade I could see working out fine for both teams. It's just...

It's going to be a long haul, KP. I don't know what the... They're going to have to really hit with some of these. Like Houston hit in free agency because they just overpaid guys who were like the second and third tier free agents and fit their team and fit their timeline. The Blazers, when they've overpaid guys, now mostly it was in the cap spike summer from hell where they had to overpay. Everybody had to overpay everybody and they got caught with cap room in the wrong summer.

Maybe that's just the only solution because they're not going to get the A-plus guy. They're going to have to do what Houston did or they're going to have to make some pretty savvy trades. I don't know what those trades are. Give me your thoughts on their talent, though. They have interesting players. These are interesting players.

If they had been in position when Isaiah Hartenstein was the second most coveted free agent on the market, and it's a very short trip down to I-5 to Eugene to make the recruiting pitch to Isaiah Hartenstein. But I think one of the interesting things about what they did in the Lillard trade and even going back before that is they've taken back a lot of long-term salaries so that it's not until 2026 that they have this cap space.

And, you know, certainly with Robert Williams III, I think part of the hope there was he would retain his trade value and you would move him down the road somewhere else. I think, you know, they hope to rehabilitate Aiden's trade value. Right now, it doesn't feel great on either of those fronts. And the grant deal is just too long. Like, it's just it's such a big investment in years, in years. It's like if you're a team, it's not enormous salary wise for where the cap is going. It's in the mid 30s the whole time, I think.

But just in, it's got four more guaranteed years left in it, I think. It's just, it's just like, you got to really plan for Jeremy Grant to be on your team for the medium to long haul if you're going to trade for Jeremy Grant. And I think he could help a lot of teams. I think that's a, I think he's one of the sort of under the radar trade targets for some of these teams. But when the league sort of settles down and everyone has a better idea of what they have. Would you rather have Jeremy Grant probably on that contract than pay Brandon Ingram his next contract, right?

Yeah, I would. I mean, I like Brandon Ingram. He's just a tricky fit. And until he starts shooting the three at volume and with a little more consistency, he's

And if he's going to be making the contract that he wants is in the 50s, like, yeah, I guess I'd rather have Jeremy Grant. Jeremy Grant's like 30, though. That's the difference. And he's locked in at a decent number. I thought that Grant would have been a really intriguing fit for Oklahoma City, where he once played many iterations of both Jeremy Grant and the Thunder ago. But that's where, to your point, the length of the contract was probably a non-starter because that pushes into the Chet Holmgren, Jalen Williams extensions. Yeah.

What do you think of the Sharp, Scoot, Simons, guard trio?

I think you're going to have to eventually pick two. And I do think the Abdiya trade, to a degree, is an acknowledgement of that. That Abdiya is a guy who is going to fit well with any two of those three guys, potentially, if they hit. So I think that's why they prioritize him. He's a straight three. You're going to be too small if you're playing Abdiya at the four, I think. Yeah. Him and Grant is nice as a 3-4 combo, a little interchangeability there.

By the way, Bob Carrington, who Washington got with the pick in that deal, has looked terrific so far in Summer League. He has indeed. I've seen some of his stuff. I saw the SAR game, the Rockets-Wizards game the other night. I'm sorry, not the – who am I thinking of? I don't know. Whoever it was. Summer League. Hawks. Hawks-Wizards. Yeah, they did play the Rockets on Sunday.

That guard trio is really interesting because you'd like to have a little bit more information on Scoot than you have now after his rookie season. I thought he, like he, he showed some flashes of passing and playmaking that were really interesting. The efficiency was just so far behind. Simons, I mean, I got a list of teams for Simons. You got any good Simons deals? Because I think Simons,

should maybe be a little bit of a hotter commodity than he is. He can really score. His two-point finishing has not been as good as you hoped. He's like a sub-50% two-point shooter, and his rim finishing in particular has not been great, but he can really shoot. He's got a gorgeous floater. Defensively, it's a struggle, but I think he's an intriguing player. His contract, what does he have, two years left? That's the issue. His contract's a good contract, but it's short now.

Yeah, it's the inverse of the Jeremy Grant situation. So I had two and a half teams for Simons. I mean, the team that's always been obvious is his hometown team, Orlando, a team that has been crying out for more efficient shot creation. And particularly from someone who has, like Fred Van Vliet in Houston, the ability to also play off the ball so that you're not taking the ball out of Paolo Bancaro and Franz Wagner's hands entirely.

Simon fits all of that. They can cover for him defensively with Jalen Suggs and KCP and all of their interior guys. And even after using all their cap space this summer to make that KCP deal and the other ones, the Jonathan Isaac deal, there's still a pathway. It would be built probably around Cole Anthony and then Anthony Black would have to be the main guy coming back. And you wonder...

With Orlando presumably, you know having KCP for at least the next two years With Suggs probably sliding over to point guard. How important is Anthony black at this point in their future plans? And and what are your other teams?

San Antonio is the other clear team to me. Yes.

And Simons, you know, if you don't view Stephon Castle as the point guard of the future in San Antonio and you view him playing next to a guy like Simons, makes a lot of sense there. Or even if you do view him as the point guard of the future, he's got size. The Spurs, I love the idea of Simons. I keep wanting the Spurs to take a shot on one of these just elite shooting, defensively challenged guards because of Wemby. Like, I love the idea of Reed Shepard for them, although Castle looks like he's gonna be great.

My list of Simon's teams is Orlando, San Antonio, Utah, Toronto, Miami. Utah was my half a team. I don't feel like Toronto makes as much sense now that they've committed so heavily to quickly. Yeah, it doesn't. But I just – they're just – I have to list them because they have all their picks. And at some point, they'll do something. I don't think that point is now. I love the San Antonio fit. Okay, let's quickly go to Detroit because we both got to run. I will give you opening salvo on – so the Pistons –

The Pistons have had five straight seasons of 30% winning percentage or worse. Five. So you want to sag for flag and tank in 26. Like you're talking about seven straight misery seasons. They have had only four seasons in the last 15 where they've won even 40% of their games. It's been a slog. I don't know. They have Tobias Harris. They just resigned Fontecchio. They drafted Ron Holland, which was a bit of a surprise.

I know you like Ron Holland. Hollinger loves Ron Holland. Maybe it'll work. I have no idea. They still have Jaden Ivey. I have still just because Cade Cunningham missed almost the entire 22-23 season, they just have not been able to put Cunningham and Ivey next to each other. They played about 1,500 minutes together, which is a decent sample, but it's been amid so much dysfunction that I don't even know what to make of it. I haven't loved how they've looked together. I don't think that they make each other better in the ways that you would hope

using two major assets on them would make each other better. I don't even know who's starting for this team. I feel pretty confident about like three of the slots. I could go a million different directions with the other two if I want more shooting, if I just want to play young guys, whatever it is. What is like...

I don't know, KP. What do you got? Give me something. Make me excited about the Pistons. Yeah, I think they had a real opportunity this offseason coming into it with the most cap space to do some combination of three things, which is accumulate future picks by taking back salary,

Get young players on contracts that are going to age well as the cap goes up and then put the shooting and role players around their young guards to make them look better. I think they accomplished the third thing. Malik Beasley, I really like that contract. Tim Hardaway Jr., Tobias Harris, those guys are all going to add shooting that is going to help Cade and Jaden grow.

probably more individually when you look at just the depth charted shooting guard that they had both Beasley and Tim Hardaway Jr. They've also got Marcus Sasser who had some good minutes as a rookie that just doesn't seem to leave a lot of playing time for Jaden at the two. And then they also just don't have a backup to Cade. So he kind of has to play there. I would say, you know,

They didn't end up getting a lot of draft capital. It was only three seconds for not only taking on $16.5 million of Tim Hardaway Jr., but also sending back Quentin Grimes. Definitely, you talk to people, they wonder why Charlotte was able to get as many potential draft picks. Some of the Denver ones they've got are encumbered by other trades. But if it all hits, Charlotte gets three draft picks for taking back $5 million of Reggie Jackson. Detroit gets three for taking back $16.5 million of Tim Hardaway Jr.,

And sending out Quentin and a player who's going to be in the Mavs rotation to start the season next year, I think. So I love that deal from Dallas's standpoint. Got some questions about it from Detroit. And then the size of Tobias Harris's contract, like who were they bidding against? So I like they avoided the real landmines. Satan. They were bidding against Satan, I think, is the only answer to that question. I have no idea who they were bidding against.

Tobias Harris was going to go overseas. They avoided the real long-term pitfalls of spending a ton of money right now on free agents who were going to block all of their guards and they retained a lot of flexibility, but

The other thing, like I like JB Bickerstaff as a coach. I understand why they chose him. It does worry me that in conjunction with claiming Paul Rudolph waivers, another guy I like at that value, that it means we're going to see a lot more of Isaiah Stewart with Jalen Duren together in the front court. And I just, I'm ready to not see that. Can we not do that? Can we just not do that? So can I tell you how we can not do that? I just don't, one way you don't do it is you just, if you don't,

You just don't play Paul Reed. Paul Reed's a pure luxury item. You don't play him. Cause I don't want to see that anymore. Um,

Let's start positive. I don't know. I have always been on the higher end of Cade Cunningham. I remain on the higher end of Cade Cunningham. I think Cade Cunningham is really good. I see what they saw when they drafted him. A big, strong playmaker who can pass from in-between spaces, hit floaters, kind of get the defense scrambled, just begging for shooting around him.

He became a more efficient player last season on Tuesday and threes. He started to get to the line more. I think people wrote him off way too early. I don't know what he's going to be. I think I've said before, if you set the over under on Cade Cunningham career, all-star appearances at two and a half, I'm going to take the over. That's not,

awesome for Detroit like you would like your number one draft pick foundational ball handler 6'6 with vision to be more than like hey three-time all-star Cade Cunningham but that's that's not nothing I like him here's my problem I just don't think there's any possible way there's no way

That next decade Cunningham, I can start all three of Jaden, Ivy, a SAR Thompson in jail and during it's just, there's just no shooting. I don't even care who the fifth guy is to buy. I guess Tobias Harris has to start. She paid him all this money and he's Tobias Harris hashtag veteran. There's just, there's just not enough shooting. And Ivy gets all the attention because of how Monte Williams just like bizarrely demoted him to start the season and then wouldn't get staggered him so that he would have the bench units all to himself. Um,

I need to see what I got in a Sar Thompson. Cause I really liked that kid. I think he showed a lot of interesting flashes on both ends of the floor last year. He had more feel as a passer and kind of in between playmaker connector on offense than I thought, just like his brother, a man, the shooting question is just so, so dire, but I, as much as people want to focus on Ivy, I,

I think a SAR Thompson has is a big, big part of the future. I'm super excited about him. I just don't know how you play all of these guys together and put out a functional environment for Kate Cunningham and the offense. So like, here's one starting lineup that I've toyed. I have like seven different iterations of their starting five. The one with the best balance of youth excitement, shooting and Cade happiness is

Might be Cade, Malik Beasley, Assar Thompson, Tobias Harris, and Jalen Duren. I think Cade, Tobias, and Duren are going to start. Or would theoretically start anyway. The other two slots to me are going to be split between some combination of Ivy, Beasley, Thompson, Hardaway, I guess. I don't know. And Fontecchio.

And I like those players individually. I just need some shooting around Cade and I just need to see what I have in Asar Thompson. Yeah, and...

To the shooting with Hazard Thompson and also with Ron Hall in the second point, maybe the most important free agent the Pistons added this offseason was the aforementioned Fred Vinson from New Orleans, where he helped develop Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram after they had struggled as shooters in LA. Herb Jones, considered a non-shooter at Alabama, was up to 40% last season.

So if they feel like he can get Thompson and Holland to passable three-point shooters, that opens up a lot more options for the Pistons and for J.B. Bickerstaff. I do think that's probably a multi-year project rather than a one-off season one. Now, I may be ahead of my skis on Asar Thompson. He missed a lot of time toward the end of his rookie season. But you're shaking your head. Why? No, I feel the same way. He was awesome defensively.

Well, I'm just saying I may be ahead of my skis in terms of do I really need to pen him in as a starter right off the bat? We can't use him as a backup three slash backup four. And then that gives me the freedom to start Ivy. Maybe it just feels like the Jaden Ivy trade is not inevitable, but that feels like a pretty likely. I don't know if you had to guess, like if you told me is Jaden Ivy on the Pistons in three years, yes or no, I'm going to go. No, but it also feels like there hasn't even been a window to like sell high for

on Jaden Ivey. And I don't know how I open up that window if he's the backup point guard to Cade Cunningham. That's a tricky spot. But I haven't liked how those two have meshed.

And I don't know what the answer is, except the answer for sure is not Killian Hayes, who's not in the NBA right now. Sorry to bring up. We could really go down the bad draft pick memories of Killian Hayes, Stanley Johnson over who was Stanley? Oh, Devin Booker, Luke Kennard over Donovan Mitchell. And by the way, those were real draft room debates. Like I heard those in real time.

Those are not like retrospect, like we almost took that guy, but we didn't. First of all, you didn't take either of the good guys. You didn't take Devin Booker. You didn't take Donovan Mitchell. So take the L. But like those were the debates in the draft room and they came out on the wrong side of both of them. Well, you didn't mention who Killian Hayes was over.

Tyrese Halliburton, among others, Devin Vassell, et cetera, et cetera. But, you know, look, if you get enough bites at the lottery, even if the lottery gods relegate you to picking fifth every year, no matter what odds you enter with, like, you're going to get some good players. They have some good players. It's just, man, what a long winter it's been for the Pistons. But I don't know what you do with Ivy and Cade. Who would you start if you were the coach? Like, tell me about Kevin Pelton's rotation on this team.

I mean, I might lean into spacing in the front court to open up starting Ivy and go Cunningham, Ivy, Harris, Fontecchio, Durant. Fontecchio is good. And that was a good contract. Two years, 16. He's a good player on both ends of the floor. What do you think of Durant?

I think people are a little higher on his ability to go beyond the kind of rim running big archetype than I am. And he does offer a little more shot creation than, you know, say Derek Lively II, who's now like every team is going to be looking for their version of Derek Lively II, given how well he played in that role for Dallas. But I mean, he's definitely, you know, a starting center going forward in the league for many years. It's the defense that whenever I watch the Pistons play,

thing one or one a i every game i want to see a little bit of growth in jill and duran's defense because i think offensively it's it's going to be there his rim running is absolutely elite his offensive rebounding is monstrous he jumps three times before like a lot of people even get off the ground for their first jump i think he's shown some glimpses as a passer he's shown a little bit of face up stuff again to your point

Like, you don't want to, like, okay, this guy's going to be a hub of any kind. But, you know, like, I'm not going to put the ceiling as low as that. But he's shown some stuff. It's just defensively, like, all of that stuff doesn't add up to all that much without a jump shot and without B plus, A minus defense at a minimum. And he's very far from that. But he's got the tools, right?

And I think the will to get decent, it's just a long haul. I agree with you, Fontecchio is another candidate. They have interesting guys here. I just don't know where the Ivy thing is going to end up. I don't know what else to say to Pistons fans. Maybe they're a Rockets model down the line too, although when they've spent in free agency, whether it was the late Joe Dumars era or the Joe Harris stuff last year, it has not typically gone very well.

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting how everyone's trying to, you know, now the Rockets have become the model. A year ago, there were extreme skepticism about a lot of the young players. And all it takes is one year, I guess, to become the model. But it also requires like hitting on a lot of your draft picks, even though they missed on some later ones that they moved on from. They hit on a lot of the lottery picks and that's still TBD in Detroit.

All right, Kevin Pelton, you've got to go. I've got to go. Appreciate the time. Maybe I'll have you back on for the second part of the W2F as this team. We can give Charlotte and...

Toronto they're due. What do you got cooking this weekend? I think we got to be on the lookout for some summer league thoughts, I'm sure. Yeah, not much this week, but we'll have a summer league wrap up next week along with my offseason grades. Ooh, grades. The grades. Did you ever think the grades would be the source of such league-wide controversy?

I did not think that Kyrie Irving would be referencing them in postgame press conferences. No, it's interesting because I wrote the exact same things when I was at Basketball Prospectus under transaction analysis without grades. And weirdly, they were not nearly as controversial in league circles then. The grades are... Everybody looks for the grades right away. Then if the grade is extreme, then they read the analysis. But if the grade's like a B, who knows what they read. But the grades are...

For better or worse, Kevin Pelton, you are the guy with the grades. Chuck Klosterman once wrote something fictional about being a movie critic who graded every single movie he reviewed two and a half stars, no matter what he thought of it. And I have toyed with, like, let's just grade every single thing a B and see what people think. If you suddenly switch to a star system, I think, I don't know what I would do. Like, it would just be like, I'm so used to the letter grades. All right, Kevin Pelton, thank you, sir. Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me.

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