The Future of the Cavs, Possible Draft Night Trades, and Paul George Rumors
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And now, The Low Post. Welcome to The Low Post podcast. It's Monday morning. It's draft week. That means the offseason is well underway. The trade rumors are flying fast and furious. Jonathan Cavoni, how are you? I'm doing great, Zach. How are you? This is your hot time of the year. I mean, every year, every time of the year is a hot time of the year. But now we're on mock. What mock draft are we on today? You just published your latest mock draft. Which one is it? $7 billion.

Starting a year and a year. I was just looking through my mock from February of 2023, our very first 2024 mock. I was just laughing at how much has changed since then.

Uh, Bronny James penciled in at number 55 now pretty constantly and all the mocks from a 6 billion to 7 billion. I think he's been, he's been right there, but we have, we have news this morning to start off with not directly draft related, but interesting. Nonetheless, the Cleveland Cavaliers have hired Kenny Atkinson, former head coach of the nets, now an assistant with the warriors as their next head coach over James Borrego. Um, so,

It's a big decision for the Cavs, obviously, after parting ways with J.B. Bickerstaff. That relationship between roster and team, it obviously run its course. This is the first big checkbox for what is a massive Cleveland Cavaliers offseason. Woj has a line in his story. He broke the news this morning about the next step is securing Donovan Mitchell on a max level extension. That could happen anytime.

Anytime, pretty much, if he wants it to happen. And then from there, there will be future decisions on Darius Garland. Evan Mobley's up for an extension. How long do they want to keep this four-man core together of Garland, Mitchell, Mobley, and Allen? And the poetry of Kenny Atkinson reuniting with Jared Allen after their shared time together in Brooklyn, after...

The decision to start Jared Allen over DeAndre Jordan played a role in Kenny Atkinson's dismissal during the Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving 1.0 iteration of the Brooklyn Nets. They get to reunite. Same with Karis LeVert. Jonathan, I just think like, look...

Kenny's a grinder. And I think that he's had to learn a little bit that to, to sort of dial it back both for his own sake and for the sake of his players. This is a long slog. Every NBA season waking up at four in the morning and hitting the bike and treating every possession like it's life or death. I think he's learned particularly with that. This is like the Steve Kerr golden state effect. We play music and practices. Everything is kind of chill here. And I,

He has more than deserved a second chance as an NBA head coach. I thought Brooklyn made a mistake firing him when they did. He did a great job building that team up from the ground up. He's a very creative thinker and a tinkerer on both ends of the floor with players of many different. He's done good player development work with bigs, with guards, with,

He almost got, he did get the Charlotte job and then moon walked right out of there after getting a peak under the hood. This is a good hire for the Cavs. Obviously it's a, it's a pivotal off season for them. They have number 20 in the draft and it's a pick that,

Like they don't own, they don't control their pick much at all for like the next six or seven years. Thanks to the Donovan Mitchell trade, among other things, it's a pick that they've got a nail and you've got them picking a Bob Carrington in the latest mock. What's your reaction to all this? And, and like calves calves going forward.

This was a tough decision for them. From what I understand, it was really close between Kenny Atkinson and James Borrego. They did hundreds of intel calls on both guys. They spoke to every person under the sun to get as much information as possible on both guys, as well as on Mike Inori.

And so, I mean, I think Kenny Atkinson is a stud. I think this is a great hire. He's one of the few NBA head coaches that I actually know decently well, just because he was a longtime fixture player.

at the Adidas Euro camp for years. And so I even got a chance to sit next to him on one of those plane rides from back from Venice to New York city and just got to, you know, chop it up with him for like nine or 10 hours. And I mean, the guy is, he's an encyclopedia of basketball and he thinks the game at the very highest level. Uh,

He really looks, you know, he loves young players. He was, you know, really passionate about talking about all the young guys on his team at that Euro camp. And so,

You know, he lived in Brooklyn and Carroll Gardens for a while. And, you know, so I would see him sometimes on the street. I live in Carroll Gardens, too. And so, you know, I think this is an awesome hire. And, you know, this is like New York. You know, one one guy from Long Island, one guy from Brooklyn, Kobe Altman, you know, reunited together here in Cleveland. So it's going to be a lot of fun. I mean, the Cavs are they're an exciting team, man. They've got a lot of talent. And so I think, you know, if they keep this group together, you know,

They add another good young piece in the draft. I mean, they've drafted well. I think they need to go out, probably round out their bench a little bit more with a little bit more shooting. They're going to be a force here. I mean, I'm hearing what you're hearing about Donovan Mitchell. It's not a done deal. But I think that there's optimism that something will get done after the draft. And so, yeah, I think the Cavs are in a really good shape here moving forward.

Yeah, there's been, I wouldn't say a rush, but a lot of talk about breaking up these four guys in some form. Two small guards who want the ball, two non-shooting bigs, although Evan Mobley has dabbled with shooting a few threes here and there. And I get that. I mean, Darius Garland did not have a good season. Now, I think he's a fantastic by-low candidate given all the health issues he had and they were lasting. Like, you break your jaw once.

your mouth is wired shut you can't eat real food you lose weight like that's gonna mess you up for a long time as you get back to playing NBA basketball where dudes are knocking you all over the floor and the Mobley Allen thing offensively there's no doubt that it can get clunky and yet I

It just feels – and look, I mean Rich Paul gave this long on-the-record interview with Chris Haynes like a month ago talking about like very openly about a bunch of different players and different situations that he represents as the CEO of Clutch. And then Chris Haynes asked him about Darius Garland and like, well, would you want him –

trade it out of there if Donovan Mitchell extends and Rich transitioned from like completely open book to kind of agent speak of like, well, I just have to do what's best for me and my client. And that was a little red alert to me. Like, okay, okay. I see, I see it. But I thought they had found a formula.

doing the best they can last year of just ultra staggering the guards and ultra staggering the bigs and that they had filled out the wing position well enough to actually do that with Levert and Struis and whatever they could get for a Coro from a Coro rather, who's also up for a new contract this, this summer. And that's an interesting, interesting name as well. I did not play that well in the playoffs, had a nice regular season. The shooting didn't last people didn't guard them, et cetera, et cetera. And,

I thought that formula worked well enough to sort of live with the awkwardness for a little bit longer. Like there are massive benefits to pairing Mobley and Allen together defensively. They're just monstrously effective when the two of them are on the floor, but,

Let's see kind of how you can develop Evan Mobley's perimeter game. Mitchell Garland. Yeah, it's like a one ball problem, but they both can shoot. They should complement each other over time a little bit better than they did last year. I'm not in that much of a rush, even though when Jared Allen missed games in the playoffs against the Celtics and Evan Mobley got to play center, he

full time all the time no other non-shooter on the floor for the most part other than you know really none they staggered him with tristan thompson's like oh he's rolling to the rim with force and and like getting these physical buckets like this looks pretty good i get it um i i i don't feel any rush and i and i don't think the cabs do either believe me they've heard all the noise about darius garland about how you know is he gonna want to stay here is he gonna want out of here and they're like look

He's got four locked in years left on his deal. Like there's not an option at the end of it. It's four years, average of 40 million a pop. He's 24 years old. He's not 28. He's not 29. We're not in a rush to move that dude. And this just might be a case of like fresh coach, fresh insight, fresh system. Let's just see how it all works. And I'd be kind of excited about that. If, if, if, if Donovan Mitchell indeed signs an extension.

Yeah, I mean, two points. I mean, one of the things that I heard was a big factor in the interview process was,

they want to, they want to hear fresh ideas for how this new coach would utilize, you know, the lineups that they have, um, you know, putting guys in more five out type sets, even with the bigs, you know, like maybe experimenting with these guys shooting more threes and, you know, just where like the creativity for how to utilize the group that they already have. I know that that was, that was a factor. Um,

And I think teams are looking at the Cavs and they're saying they're just, it's an expensive group, you know, like if you're gonna, you know, with Donovan Mitchell on the max, Darius Garland making close to that, Jared Allen, and then Evan Mobley's extension coming up, are they going to be able to afford the four of them with, you know, adding other pieces that you need to add in too? And so I think that's, that's where maybe some of those rumors come in with, with Jared Allen and, um,

He's eligible for an extension starting July 6th himself, Jared Allen. Exactly right. So I think that's what a lot of people are looking at. But, you know, I mean, they're...

The Cavs are good. And so they have decisions to make, but like if they, I don't, I just don't see like Darius Garland being traded to the Lakers or the Spurs, you know, like unless somebody like really blows them away with an offer, which I've been told they don't, it's not anticipated that that's going to happen. And I mean, Darius Garland is cool, you know, like with the current situation and all that. I mean, I think some of the friction with Mitchell may have been around, you know, the reporting indicates with JB Bickerstaff and all that. So now you get a new coach in,

And, you know, it's just a new opportunity to try some different things with them offensively. Well, as you say, you have all those four guys on whatever their next contract is going to be in the case of the two bigs. And Mitchell, if, if, if, if, if. It's going to be an expensive team. And Bobby Marks and Tim Bontemps laid it out this morning. This is the summer of the second apron. The second apron is here.

Put the first apron, you know, put the second apron over the first apron. You got to wear two aprons now while you're cooking. If you're a lot of these teams, two aprons for the summer barbecue.

And the restrictions for that are unbelievably onerous. Forget the fact that you're going to pay a huge tax bill. And then if you stay up there, you're going to pay a huge repeater tax bill. You really can't do anything to build your team. Like you're restricted from doing so many different things, aggregating salaries and trades, taking on a dollar, a cent, a penny more than you send out in a trade. Can't do sign-in trades, bringing a player in. Most importantly...

And this is the one that kills you. Your pick gets frozen seven years out. And then if you keep staying above the aprons, it gets moved to last in the first round. That's the one that teams are like, oh my God, really? And so I think we're going to see teams sort of deal with this reality in many different ways, big and small. I know you've heard some of that too. And it's going to start sort of right away with...

I think people have really caught on now. The first domino of this offseason is Paul George with the Clippers. And what exactly happens there? Does he resign? Does he opt in and ask for a trade? Does he just walk in to somebody's cap space like Philadelphia? The Clippers are...

One of the teams, along with the Warriors, that were sort of the poster child for why the second apron supposedly needs to exist to restrict these huge market, huge spending teams from just hoarding players, hoarding talent, even though none of the teams that paid the tax other than Boston really did anything in the playoffs this year, including the Clippers.

And the Warriors who didn't even make it. Bill Simmons talked about this this morning. Now there's like, is there a mega deal where like Paul George opts in and Chris Paul's salary, which is mostly non-guaranteed until June 28th when the Warriors have to make a decision on it. They guarantee it and they trade him somehow to the Clippers and they get Paul George back. And like, what are the Warriors sending out in that deal? And then your brain starts to explode. It's the summer of the second apron, Mr. Gavone. Here we are.

Yeah. And this is why Bobby Marks is going to be the most important guy on our draft show, both the first night and the second night. As I'm making calls around the NBA, I keep hearing, you know, again and again, all this talk about teams, you know, talking about trading out of their first round pick.

teams that have multiple second round picks like the Spurs have 35 and 48. The Pacers have 36, 49 and 50. Memphis has 39 and 57. Portland has 34 and 40. Those second round picks are going to be very attractive to teams like the Phoenix Suns, for example.

Like you said, they just aren't going to have many ways to add talent. And that second round exception, you confirmed it today that you could use that multiple times in the same summer. And that's really, really important because you can save... For people who don't understand what that means, the second round exception means...

You can sign the people you pick with second round picks to three or even four year contracts without using your mid-level exception, which you can then reserve all of that if you have it.

for actual NBA veteran free agency. You didn't used to be able to do that. It was only two year deals. I believe was the longest they could be without using the mid-level exception. Now you can sign those second rounders for a long time. The Kings did this with Colby Jones last summer. They signed him to a four year deal at, and you can go up to above the rookie minimum. You don't have to. And in fact, part of the reason why you're hearing some of this stuff about, can we acquire multiple second round picks for a really late, late, late, late first round pick is because,

If you sign those deals at the rookie minimum or there are the cap shenanigans where you can sort of get around, not get around, but it doesn't count as much toward the apron as it would otherwise. And it saves you a lot of money. That's really interesting that you're hearing that.

That you're hearing that. The Suns have, what, 22? 22. And so they're thinking, potentially, if we can get three second-round picks for that. We have no picks, you know? So it's like, that's the only way that they could add talent, potentially, is, you know, also in deals, but also, I mean...

It feels like the proven guys in the second round are – there's going to be a big run on them, you know, like having those cheap second-round picks who can contribute immediately like a Trace Jackson Davis or an Herb Jones or whatever, that is more important than ever because they make nothing and, you know, it saves you a lot of money. So it feels like a lot of these proven college guys –

are going to go higher than they normally would. You know, like a Cam Spencer from UConn, Kevin McCullough from Kansas, Adam Bona from UCLA. These are the kind of guys that you could see them playing in an NBA game tomorrow. And so having them on a four-year deal, two or three of those years being non-guaranteed is hugely valuable. I think if you want to look at

a second apron free agent potential casualty. I think the name that I've heard the most about in the last 48 hours is Contavious Caldwell Pope, who has a $15 million player option with the Nuggets that he's going to almost certainly turn down in search of a bigger payday, both years and dollars. I've reached the point where I will be at least mildly, just mildly surprised. Nothing really surprises me. But if you ask me right now,

you have to pick is Contavious Caldwell Pope a nugget next season? I think, I think I would lean. No, I think there's going to be a market for him. Denver is going to have a ceiling in terms of just what it's able to commit. They have an Aaron Gordon extension coming down the line. They have Christian Brown sitting there on the bench and you could say, well, if he's ready to look to shooting decline and drop off is, is meaningful unless he makes a leap in terms of volume and accuracy. And then again,

The trickle down effect on the bench is meaningful too, but that's a name. I don't know what you've heard. Now we're on apron. So we're going to get to the draft. I promise. But like, that's a name that if you're looking for, like, what is the concrete implication of the second apron? That's an example. If he changes teams and Denver, who is one of the prohibitive favorites for the title next year, as is just says, you know what? We can't resign our, our starting shooting guard, even though we, we have his bird rights and all that.

That's a big moment, I think, in NBA CBA lore. Yeah, but how do you replace that? That's the problem is that, you know, like that's a huge loss for the Denver Nuggets.

And I'm not just to be clear, I'm not reporting it. I'm not saying it's happening. I'm saying like if you just ask me based on the Philly stuff with with Caldwell Pope. Well, there's more teams than that. Even I would just say it's like I would lean like 60 40. He's going to leave in free agency. But maybe they just decide this is one of those like this is one of those like, all right, let's gather together. Ownership cronkies. Everybody. We're a championship level team.

Are we really ready to do this? Or can we, are we really ready to pay this enormous amount? It's a big, it's a big moment. But what message are you sending to Nicola Jokic and Jamal Murray and Aaron Gordon and all these guys and saying like, we lost, we let Bruce Brown go a year ago. Now we're losing Contavious Caldwell Pope, you know, like, are we moving further and further away from championship contention? You know? So that's what, what I wonder if, um,

from Denver. And like, so, you know, they were trying to get ahead of this last year by drafting Hunter Tyson and, and, and Jalen Pickett and Strother, you know, like, and so they saw this coming, but the problem is that these guys aren't normally good enough to help you right away as rookies. And so this is where, why it's so scouting is going to be more important than ever. I think, you know, Intel is going to be more important than ever. Yeah.

you know, going years out and and finding guys and, you know, finding those steals in the second round and the late first round. It's it's never been more important in today's NBA. And I could very well be wrong about this. They could end up paying him. He could end up taking a discount to stay there because like, you know, there's playing with Nikola Jokic and there's not playing with Nikola Jokic. It's two different universes, as Bruce Brown also found out last summer.

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All right, let's get to the draft. I do want to do the Paul George thing, but we'll find a way to do it later. Your latest mock draft with Jeremy Wu is out. Let's just start right at the top. The Atlanta Hawks, you have them taking Risa Shea, number one. It's fluid. You have tidbits in there about, obviously, you know,

The Hawks are in a weird spot and everyone around the league. I mean, I've had so many executives from other teams ask me, like, what are you hearing about the Hawks? So we can't get it. We can't get a good through line on like what the Hawks are doing. And it's because they have the number one pick. And they also have this massive organizational decision hanging over their head about, you

Do we trade Trey Young or DeJounte Murray or both? Wait a second. We don't control our picks. We can't really tank. Trading both seems like a bad idea. Trading one, well, we pretty much stayed afloat without Trey when he was injured last summer. We're pretty confident we could stay afloat with Trey and without DeJounte.

We got multiple tentacles out in different directions. You mentioned New Orleans as a possible destination for one of the two guards if they do end up trading them. I'm interested to hear more about that. But right now, it's like very tentatively, your guess would be Riz Sashay.

Yeah, I mean, one of the things that I do in calling around the NBA is, you know, I talk to pretty much every team and I say, you know, can you read me your mock draft at the top of the draft and teams that are drafting, you know, in the middle of the first and especially the end of the first or like later in the lottery, like they don't care, you know, like they're saying this is, you know, so pretty much everybody has Riza Shay at one. So, yeah.

You know, could the Hawks surprise us? They're, you know, putting out smoke here that, you know, that Alex Saar is still firmly in consideration there, even though they haven't gotten him in for a workout. So, you know, the Hawks could do anything. And that goes in a lot of different ways, you know, like with Trey Young, with DeJounte Murray, with Clint Capella, with their whole roster. But I think if anything but Zachary Rizashe happens at one, I think that would be a big surprise around the NBA. Yeah.

And I've been adamant from the moment the lottery ended that, you know, the Hawks can live the best of both worlds. They can take who they want at number one or turn it into multiple top 10 picks in this draft, whatever. Do the go young direction and trade one of the guards for whatever pieces they want. Ideally, a combination of players and picks and whatever.

still be a decent team with a decent infrastructure and not have to go all in. We got to win now. We got to win now. They can do kind of both at once. Why has Saar not worked out for them? It just seems that he's looking at Washington's situation with, you know, their centers being Rashawn Holmes and Marvin Bagley III. And, you know, the four is like, you know, Kuzma who can move to the three also. And so I think he's looking at that depth chart and saying, you know,

you know, there's a lot of space for me there to not only play, but to be a featured player for them offensively. Whereas the Hawks have Jalen Johnson, who a lot of people feel is like, is really the only untouchable piece on the Hawks roster. And Jalen Johnson is a ball handler. He's a playmaker. Like he's a lot of different things for the Hawks. He's,

Good. And then they have Onyeko Kangu signed to this big extension. Not big. I mean, it's like, I don't know, 60 million over three or something like that. Maybe over four. It was a good deal for the Hawks, I thought. Yeah, that kicks in this summer.

And then they have to figure out what they do with Capella, you know? And so like, I mean, it's obviously not a huge part of their future, but so they have three pretty good pieces there already. So it's like, I think they're looking at it and they're saying, you know, where, where is the opportunity better? Where would I rather be? I don't think it's anything against the Hawks, but you know, the Hawks have some stuff to figure out, you know, with Trey young and, you know, like Deshaun Murray, there's some

stuff out there you know about the hawks and so i think that you know probably it's a little bit less drama in washington and just the opportunity is cleaner for him um capella is a name i've heard a lot in the last week of other teams saying we think he's available we think we could get him you know he's in the last year of his contract so coming up so that makes sense uh akong was there

It's interesting in conjunction with the center and Saar being towards the top of the draft and another in Klingon also being toward the top of the draft and Klingon's name is just all over the place in terms of where you might be able to go.

Interesting spot for the Hawks. Related to that, you and Jeremy report today, Risa Shea had a private workout with the San Antonio Spurs over the weekend. The Spurs hold number four and number eight and all those future Hawks picks and some other future picks and swaps from various places, including Boston and Dallas. That's interesting. The Spurs have had some...

Well-known and some lesser-known last-minute second workouts, private workouts. I don't know if this is their first or second look at Risa J or whatever, but they brought in Klay Thompson last minute for his second workout back in that draft, and it didn't get out for years. It was his first, Zach, because he arrived late.

I mean, his season ended really late. They went to the semifinals of the French League playoffs and then he had to stay in Europe to go to this new NBA draft combine in Italy. So he took him a while to arrive and he was just gassed, too, after playing 75 games this year. And so he just you know, he's making the rounds late here because his whole pre-draft process started really late. Well, tell me. Tell me. OK, so then you have that private workout for the Spurs.

You have some smoke, and I emphasize smoke out there, that they may be looking at Klingin. They interviewed him, yes. And you speculate, I think very intelligently, that that could be bait to try to get teams to trade up with them at number four, pay a bounty. If you really want Donovan Klingin, this is where you got to get. If he doesn't go three, because Houston's chopping that pick too.

We'll get to Houston. But the Spurs with four and eight and the best young prospect since LeBron James are obviously quite an interesting team. What do I need to know about their interest in Rizashe, Klingin, all things Spurs?

We've had Riza Shea number one on our board pretty much the entire season, and most of the NBA does too, from what I can gather. So the fact that he would go number one or that the Spurs would have interest in him makes a ton of sense. I mean, every team in the NBA is looking for a six foot ten wing who can defend multiple positions, who, you know, makes made 39 percent of his threes coming off screen, shooting off the bounce.

who has a great feel for the game, who can play with other players, who's competitive, who's intelligent. And he just turned 19 in April. So it's like, if you want to get that guy, the only way to get him is through the draft. And so, yeah,

And it doesn't probably hurt him that he spent a year with Victor Wynn-Banyama and that they, you know, appear to have a good relationship. So that's it makes a lot of sense why they'd be interested. I mean, they need shooting. They need passing. They need feel. And so Zachary Rizashe would be a great fit on their roster long, long term. So they have four and eight. My gut. This is just my gut. No reporting, no intel whatsoever.

That that would not be enough to get to number one. Maybe it would be. Maybe I'm wrong. What do you think the price to get to number one is for them? I mean, they also have the Hawks picks and like returning one of those picks, just one, not all of them could be more valuable to the Hawks than anything else. I've heard the opposite that maybe four and eight is...

too rich in their view. Or what the Hawks would really want is to get that 2025 unprotected first round pick that they gave to the Spurs in the DeJounte Murray trade back because that would open up space

so many possibilities for them. Then you could trade Trey Young and DeJounte Murray and Clint Capella and DeAndre Hunter and start this earnest rebuild, which could be really exciting with the possibility of maybe positioning yourself for Cooper Flagg next year or Dylan Harper or Ace Bailey or Nolan Traore or Vijay Edgecombe. The 2025 draft is loaded and people are very excited about that group.

What I've heard is that the Spurs aren't particularly interested in that either. And maybe if a trade does happen, it happens with some weirdo protections where the Spurs are like, OK, we own your pick. Top eight protected. You know, if it's nine through 30 and these are just like, you know, this is speculation around the NBA. I don't know if any of this stuff gets done. I mean, the Spurs could just sit pretty, too. I mean, they've got Victor Wimba, they've got four and eight. They've got a bunch of future firsts.

not just from the Hawks or from other teams too. So they could do a lot of different things. And so do they really need to, you know, make this really aggressive push right now? That's I think what they're weighing in their war room. I could totally see both of these things being true at the same time that the Spurs would say, well, this is a, this is a flat draft, like four plus eight,

Like how different is four than one by itself in this? I'm just posturing their negotiating position. It's much cheaper too. Four and eight is – Yeah, yeah. We're not giving that up for number one. And I can see the Hawks saying, wait, is it number one? Is like historically this ultra-valuable asset, like we're not giving that up for four and eight. Like have you seen Spurs, what the average return on the number eight pick in the NBA draft is? It ain't that great. And maybe that's sort of where they are. But you have in there that –

You know, the Spurs are kind of projecting patience like they're like there's not some. Oh, my God. We're afraid that when Benyama is going to grow unhappy, if we're not like a 48 win team next year or whatever win number you want to put on it. Is that a fair assessment of what you've heard?

Yeah, I think that they're looking at this NBA environment that we've just discussed where a lot of teams are in salary cap hell and that there are going to be opportunities there for them to make trades, to take on jobs.

bad contracts and to get, you know, good players at the same time. They have the picks, they have some young talent that they can move around. And so, you know, is there a rush? I mean, unless the great deal presents itself, they don't have to make a panic move. You know, Victor Wimbenyama is signaling all the wrong, the right things saying, you

Happy anniversary, Spurs fans. It's one year since I was picked. He's obviously not discontent. Now he's an ultra-competitive guy. He wants to win. And so that's not going to last forever, clearly. You need to improve at some stage. But I think that they feel like they're in a great spot here and they don't need to make a rushed move just to try and maybe make the play-in game in a year from now. This is what I've heard from them recently.

All along. Like, when this noise started about, well, Wemba Nyama's going to want to win and win big really soon, their reaction in my limited... Not limited. My interactions with them was like, I mean, yeah, obviously we want to win, but I don't know where this whole, like...

You know, he's going to try to force his way out of here. Implication is coming from like seems pretty, pretty happy. And we're going to try to thread the needle of of winning without getting over exuberant. And like maybe like I've pitched for months like Darius Garland is a candidate for them.

That is a form of thread in the needle because of how young he is and how well he would compliment Victor Wimby. I don't expect them to go chasing like 28 to 32 year old veterans just to win a few more games. And also to your point, they could very well just pick number four, number eight and say, we like these two guys. We think they fit depending on who's there and what's happening on the clock for them. And yeah,

Look, I know the West is loaded. I know they're relatively young around Wemba Nyama and Vassell, who had an outstanding year for them last year, and they have to figure out the Sohan piece and Kelden Johnson. They have a lot of question marks, and they're young. I just think Wemba Nyama is so good that they are going to organically... I don't want to put a win total on it, but if you told me that without any sort of big move, like a big veteran free agency splash or a

a big trade for like a garland level player that they win 38 to 42 games next year i'd be like that's totally reasonable like that guy is going to be a top 10 player very very soon and those players tend to win a fair number of nba games and if you're there in year two with all of this flexibility and all this opportunity and everyone in the league looking at you like man that looks like a fun place to play right now with that dude like i think you're in great shape

Yeah. And it also took them a while to figure out how to optimize Victor. They spent, you know, half of the season playing Jeremy Sohan at point guard and, you know, and then Victor at the four, you know, with Zach Collins. And like, I think they figured out second half of the year, just, you know, what do we have here? I mean, Victor is not this fragile guy that can't play well.

the five, he's unbelievable in pick and roll. He's unbelievable in the low post and the mid post. He's physical. He's competitive. We don't have to treat him like he's made out of glass or something. He's actually proved to be pretty durable. So,

And I just, you know, having a full season of that, having a better understanding of how to use them, you know, you put some more shooting around them, a little bit of a better point guard, you know, like then Jeremy Sohan or Trey Jones. And I think you're off to the races, you know, and, but,

I do think that, like you said, there's going to be players that want to be there with Victor. It's exciting. There's going to be a lot of attention on San Antonio. I bet we're going to broadcast a bunch of their games next year. So yeah, I mean, the future is definitely bright in San Antonio. I mean, of non-playoff games...

The Giannis Victor duel from late in the season was like one of the games of the year. And I remember Windhorse going on TV the next day being like, this is the last time a game between these two is not going to be on national television. I think you could say that for a lot of Victor, a lot of Victor games. Yeah.

I mean, look, if they think Rizaj is like the guy, like we think he's an absolutely perfect pick next to Wimbanyama, then yeah, just by all means, try to bowl over the Hawks and get the number one pick and take him or whatever it takes. But if you don't, I don't know what they think and I don't know. We'll see. Let's go to Houston at three.

because as you said, the minute the lottery unfolded the way it did with Brooklyn's pick, poor Brooklyn, it just never ends for Brooklyn. Moving up from number nine to number three and going to Houston, obviously via the Harden trade. It's been no secret that Emei Udoka wants to win now. They pushed Golden State to the wire for the last play in spot this year.

splurged on Fred Van Vliet and Dylan Brooks in free agency last year. They're absolutely loaded. They have like six really good young players that I like a lot or players slash prospects that I like a lot. I mean, it's unclear what Cam Whitmore is going to be and how a man Thompson fits with Shen Goon, given that he kind of broke out as a small ball five on offense at the end of the season, but they got a lot of chips. And so they get the third pick and I was like, well, you know, get ready to trade that pick. I mean, that's, that's a, that's the trade ship to get another veteran in the door. Um,

And I get it. And I said at the time, like, I don't know what they're going to do. But all this talk about aprons and and cap hell, you know, I said at the time and I'd say it again now, I know the number three pick is not cheap. As you mentioned, like the salaries for the top five picks are high and they escalate the higher you get in the draft. So it's not like, you know, you're getting like a three million dollar little salary slot there. It's expensive.

But it's cost controlled and it lasts for four years and it leads you into restricted free agency. And as all of these dudes come up for new contracts and it's coming around the corner for Shen Goon and Jalen Green, who broke out in the last couple of months of last season,

Tar Eason is going to be there before you know it. He's recovering from an injury after missing a ton of time. Like having that optionality at the back of your roster is, is going to be a big deal. And I think about that a lot with Houston. And I think about that a lot with Memphis who's sitting at nine and clearly in win now mode, when they get their whole team back next year, they're going to be trying to frankly like win the West or compete with the best teams at the top of the West. And yeah,

You know, that cost controlled asset at nine or wherever they end up in the first round, if they stay in the first round, I think is a very handy thing for them to have and something that you got to think really hard about. Like, do we really want to trade this for a $30 million veteran or $25 million veteran? It's got to be the exact right guy. We know they've made hard runs at McHale Bridges before. I've not heard that Brooklyn has really changed its stance on not making McHale Bridges available in trade talks.

And maybe the solution for Memphis is you have them as a candidate to trade up potentially for Donovan Klingon. But these two teams and starting with Houston at three, I think face very interesting decisions where you could prioritize winning, financial stability, whatever it is. And I have no idea what Houston is going to do. You have Reed Shepard mocked there, I think. Is that right? Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, most of the league thinks that if Houston keeps their pick, it's Reed Shepard. If they trade the pick, somebody's moving up for Donovan Klingin.

So, I mean, honestly, there's just a question is what are those options going to be? Like who wants to trade up and what can they get? I mean, like we talked, you know, Bridges, you talked about, you know, you hear names like Jimmy Butler, Brandon Ingram. Is there a smaller trade like Memphis, you know, packaging the ninth pick and Marcus Smart, who Eme Udoka has quite a bit of history with from the Boston Celtics to move up to three or

you know, can Marcus Martin, Dylan Brooks, how much does that make sense? Some teams are asking, but there's, I mean, just what are the, what are the options going to be when they're actually on the clock? That's going to be fascinating for me. I know the Nets are saying they're not trading bridges, but, uh, you know, just the way that his correct me if I'm wrong, but the way that his contract is structured, his number is too low for him to get a max extension or, or, or a high enough extension, um,

What is his extension number when it comes to that? And what is it, a year or two from now? Yeah, I don't believe he's extension eligible yet. I'm bringing up his contract data now. He might be extension eligible, actually. Spotrak has him as extension eligible. Okay, there you go. He has 23.3 now, 24.9, and then he's an unrestricted free agent. I believe without consulting with Bobby Marks and doing this in real time,

That the number would be 140% of his current salary, which as you said, would not be high enough, I don't think, to get him what he would want. So that's what, if I'm the Nets, I'm wondering, okay,

When do we need to move on from Mikhail Bridgeshire? If he's not going to sign an extension with us, if we're not going to be able to retain him, can we get our picks back? And because like, as we know, the Houston Rockets own the Brooklyn Nets picks, especially for next year. If you are thinking at all about, you know, this retooling or rebuilding or whatever you want to kill it, call it. Those picks are super valuable. And so like, is there a trade there with, you know,

one or multiple of those picks and one of the younger guys maybe not joe and green but like an amend thompson or a cam whitmore like it's got to be super attractive you know i would think for the brooklyn nets then so what is the rocket's appetite for making that offer and then what are the the nets say if that offer is made when they're on the clock i mean i'm sure that i mean we all hear that they say no no no we're not training bridges but there's a price for everything in the nba right

Yeah, look, I mean, the Nets future is what it is. It doesn't look great. They're kind of stuck in the middle waiting for the theoretical second star to put next to Mikael Bridges. And if you can regain some control of your picks and now there's their pick next season, which is, as you mentioned, the gold chip draft, you know, of 2025 headlined by Cooper Flagg and Ace Bailey and all those other players.

There's a bunch of swaps on it. Oklahoma City's involved in the swap. Houston's involved in the swap. But if you can get control of at least like some of your picks, that's a big deal for the Nets. And, you know, I don't I don't I don't know what I don't know what they're going to do. But I know that that's an interesting pivot point for both Houston and the draft. And I'm not a college basketball guy. I'm far from an expert. I think Reed Shepard is a very, very sounds like and from the video I've watched, looks like a very interesting prospect because the shooting is just crazy. And

And he's undersized and he's going to get targeted defensively. But he has these like steal and block stats and this compete factor where you're like, what what is this guy? He's how much how much more ball handling can you do than he was able to show at Kentucky? He's a very interesting guy. And I can see why teams are very high on him or as like a big swing upside kind of pick.

It's a similar conversation than what we said with Rizoshe. Every NBA team is looking for shooting, feel, guys who can play with other good players, and competitiveness.

And youth on top of that, there's some real upside there. He showed some really intriguing flashes last year out of pick and roll, just dissecting defenses, making smart reads. It wasn't at a very prolific rate. His usage rate was only about 18%, which is fairly low in this class. But Reed Shepard with the shooting and the IQ and the way that he competes, that's an easy guy to fit into any roster in today's NBA. And I said this last week about Wim Minyama.

And I didn't say it in conjunction with Reed Shepard, but it applies to Reed Shepard and the Spurs. You know, they don't pick third, but they have four and eight. There's a lot of variability here. I know small guards get targeted in the postseason all the time. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. We had a bunch of small guards do pretty well in the playoffs this year. And then you come across a team like the Seltzings and it's like, oh God, it's hell to play against these guys. Wemba Nyama is just the ultimate eraser. He is everywhere all the time and he can protect those kinds of players everywhere.

He projects to be able to protect those kinds of players as a roaming, not just back line, just a roaming everywhere guy. Like probably almost no one that has come before him in the NBA. And that gives, I think, the Spurs the leeway to take a shot or two on a guy like this and say, look, if he just if he ends up being a defensive liability, whatever.

We can make it work. And the shooting that he can bring us around when Banyama is worth it. This is just me spitballing ideas, whether what pick a, pick a small guard who you worry about being a shooting of defensive liability, but can really shoot it. If I'm the Spurs, I'm much more comfortable just dealing with whatever limitations that player has, because as long as I have one Banyama healthy, like that guy's just everywhere and puts out every fire. And he's already one of the five best defense players in the NBA. And he just started playing in the NBA. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I wrote an article about this topic exactly, you know, drafting with Victor Wimbanyama in mind, who are the best guys in this draft for the Spurs to target. And Reed Shepard was number one on my board. And it's not by accident. And talking to teams around the NBA, they all think like Reed Shepard is the perfect guy to have with Victor. Question is, will he be there with the fourth pick? And if not, you know, what's the alternative? I like Rob Dillingham for them. A lot of people disagree with me.

Rob Dillingham has the most star power of any player in this draft. He's an unbelievable ball handler. He's an outstanding off the dribble shooter. He made 45% of his threes. He's lightning in a bottle. He gets anywhere he wants on the court. You know, he's just full of energy and excitement. And so,

I love Rob doing him as a potential partner with Victor Wimbenyama. That'll probably be more with the eighth pick. We have Stephon Castle getting picked fourth here. I just worry about the shooting. You know, I went to a lot of UConn games this year. I always got there two hours early. I watched him go through these long warmup routines, uh,

And I'm filming there and saying, man, I'm going to get three or four, you know, consecutive makes from Stefan Casso. I'm going to post it on Instagram. And dude, it would take me 30 or 40 minutes to get even two consecutive makes. I'm like, man, this is alarming, you know? So it's like...

The Spurs were like a fraction of a percentage point away from being the worst shooting team in the NBA last year. You add another guy like that on top of what they already have. And we're talking about optimizing Victor Wimbaniam. This guy is an unbelievable shot creator. He's an offensive hub. He's a playmaker. But if he's going to, every time he puts the ball down on the ground, the entire defense collapses on him. That's a real problem. So that's what I'm thinking if I'm the San Antonio Spurs.

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Couple of rapid fire things. You guys have Zach Eadie mocked at 15 to the heat. And Jeremy, Jeremy Wu posted an article yesterday, clinging and Eadie and sort of the place of the center in the modern NBA that I thought was very interesting. What is Zach Eadie going to be? How is he? He's got to be less polarizing this season than he was last last season after just another crazy good season at Purdue and looking a little more spry defensively.

The heat is an interesting place to put him with Bam there at center. And Bam can obviously play the four if need be. And Klingin, you know, kind of rose into a big minutes role this past season at UConn. Like how much load can these guys handle in the NBA? How much of a minutes load can they handle given their respective limitations? And who has a better shot, I guess, at sort of developing the,

beyond those current limitations. I mean, one of the most remarkable things about Zach Eadie is the fact that he literally never came off the floor for Purdue. He would play 40 minutes consecutively and it didn't even look like he was breaking a sweat. His level of conditioning for a 7'5 guy is absolutely unreal. So where is he going to get picked? You hear him as high as Memphis at nine. You know, like if they are unable to move up from nine to three, it's

You know, the second best center in this draft is Zach Eadie. This guy is ready to play right now. Memphis is in their own kind of salary cap hell here, you know, with some pretty big contracts. They need to get some cost-controlled deals. And Zach Eadie, I mean, there's not a more ready guy to play right now. I mean, he's back-to-back national player of the year. You know, he brings an unbelievable level of physicality and intensity on every possession.

He's going to be an outstanding offensive rebound right off the bat. He's going to get you into the bonus, you know, like that because he draws, he's a magnet for fouls. He's probably the best screener in this draft.

You know, what is he going to be in the NBA? I mean, I've made the comp all year. Imagine if Jonas Valanciunas was seven foot five. That's that's what I think Zach Eadie is going to be. And Jonas Valanciunas is a is an outstanding NBA player and has been for a very long time. He started for what has been 10 years now, you know, like and he's so durable and he's such a rock. And OK, now he's probably on the decline somewhat. What is he?

33 years old or 32 or something like that. But, you know, if you could get 10 years of that out of Zach Eadie with everything that he brings, you know, operating out of pick and roll, sucking in the defense every time he screens and rolls the rim, you have to account for him because like you just throw the ball anywhere in the general vicinity of the basket. He's going to go catch it. He's got incredible hands. He's an amazing,

amazing finisher and he's just gonna put a hurting on people every time he's on the floor people are gonna hate playing against him he's a pain in the ass because like he doesn't have an off switch all he all he wants to do is just smash you the entire game and he's talked about this in interviews he says like this is just what I like doing guys I just like hitting people you know like some people like playing golf other people like collecting stamps I like hitting people

Okay. I mean, you know, when you put it that way, that's interesting. You know, Memphis, just thinking out loud, I mean, nine, I think would be a reach for Zach Eaddy just based on where he is in mocks. But this is the draft for, you know, like where some crazy outside the mock draft picks could be made, right? That's what I'm saying. If you like the guy, you go get him. Take him.

They do have, you know, obviously the questions are, can this guy survive defensively in a spread pick and roll league where there's just shooting everywhere, right? And, you know, can, and we've seen more teams get creative of where they put their centers. If there's one, not even non-shooter, just like so, so offensive player, perimeter player, can we invert the matchup so that our center guards that guy and just kind of chills in a one man zone? Yeah.

And you do have Jaron Jackson Jr. there. He did not have a great season by his standards last year. He kind of fell off the all-defense line.

He is one of the best erasers in the league as sort of just a rover shot blocker. He can guard fives if need be. He can switch on fives. He can switch onto guards if need be. That's an interesting – I'm excited to see – I mean, look, I'm not a college basketball guy. I watched the high-profile Final Four games, so I've seen Edie here and there. I saw the 116 game the year before. I'm excited to see what he can do in the NBA because –

You know, two years ago, the skeptics were like, well, he's just Boban 2.0. He's just like, yeah, you know, the Spurs bring in or the Rockets bring in Boban and he flashes all these post moves and it looks great and he's gigantic. And then he just gets played off the floor.

And now you don't hear that anymore after another year of seasoning at Purdue. And I'm just, I'm really interested to see what he can do. I watched Boban at that age, you know, pretty extensively. You know, I was around him even when he was 24, 25. I took a bus with mega B-max from Belgrade to like the mountains of Montenegro, like sitting next to Boban, watching him getting cursed out by Serbian fans and have an awful game. He's very different than Boban Marjanovic. He's just a way...

I love Boban, but like Zack Eady is in a different stratosphere at the same age than Boban Marjanovic. Well, look, I can tell you this. When you say Serbian fans cursing you out, Balkan curse words and curse expressions are nothing like what we do in America. Our little curse words, F this, MF this. They're throwing it at you. I mean, anyway, they're spitting. Forget that. I'm just saying what they say literally is...

You don't know when you walk by a cafe in Serbia or Croatia or wherever, and you hear a bunch of old guys yelling at each other. You don't even want to know what they're saying because it involves mothers and dogs and other stuff that you don't even want to know. All right. You wrote draft sleepers a couple of days ago. I want you to tell me.

Talk about two guys who I read that article. I'm like, I'm just, I look, I know they're sleepers. So by definition, they are unlikely to hit in the NBA, but you got me very excited about two guys. Just, they seem like my kind of players. Are you ready? I'm ready. Sell the world. Number one, Juan Nunez.

I just think there is only so many players in the world who can make every pass out of pick and roll, who are six foot five, who are basketball geniuses. The way he handles the ball, the way he makes reads. People are overthinking this guy. And so, yeah,

You look at the through lines of, you know, Ricky Rubio, of Halliburton, of TJ McConnell. These guys are just smarter than everybody else. They see the play one second faster than anybody else on the court. And yeah, I get it. He's got his limitations. His shot is funky. He's kind of got this body language at times when things don't go well. I mean, doesn't always play as hard as you want on defense. But the guy is an unbelievable basketball player.

And he's just turned 20 years old. And he was a starting point guard of the Spanish national team at the FIBA World Cup last summer. And he might start at the Olympics this summer. I mean, this just doesn't happen at this age, playing for Spain, the defending European champions. And so I'll take a flyer on Juan Nunez in the 30s if I'm an NBA team. How bad's the shot?

It's not great. He shot 32 percent. He makes pull ups sometimes, you know, like and he only shot about 65 percent from the line this year. It's kind of a weird like side spin. And, you know, he's a lefty. So his shot is always going to be unorthodox. But yeah, no, I mean, it's not great. I'll tell you that. All right. Number two, Kevin McCullers Jr.,

Yeah, he's polarizing, man. I mean, this was the best player in college basketball for the first two and a half months of the season. And then he... Stop right there. Stop right there. Just end it right there. I'm so excited. I don't want to hear any more. Now I know he got injured, but that's something. Yeah. I mean, he was going to be a first team All-American if the season ended January 20th.

And then you just look at the way that Kansas' offense fell off. As soon as he got hurt, they're 10 points per 100 worse. People have questions about the shooting. He shot like 37% for three those first two and a half months of the year. He was a five-year college player. He had never done that at any point before that, but he's always been a good free throw shooter. He's always been an awesome defender. He's a very good passer.

You know, we're talking about the second round, the, you know, like the need to get these cost controlled, productive players. Somebody is going to take Kevin McCullough in the 30s, I believe, and they're going to be really happy with him. The problem is that he's been hurt, you know, so he's walking around on crutches at the NBA Combine. It's not what you want to see is like, oh, my God, I can't wait to draft the guy on crutches, you know, so he's not going to play summer league, which is a bummer, but

You know, are we trying to win the NBA championship? Are we trying to win the Summer League championship? And so, you know, he's a polarizing guy off the court a little bit, too. And but I'm a Kevin McCullough guy. I think you take the player who is a he's a very good basketball player and you figure out the rest later. I mean, the health and all that you guys spend, you know, tens of millions of dollars on on keeping players healthy. Here's another one, you know, for your infirmary.

All right, let's wrap with the Paul George situation, which I did this with Bobby last week, so we don't have to go crazy with it. I just think it's the most important thing going on in the NBA right now, this uncertainty about what he's going to do, why there's been this stalemate with the Clippers, and where he might go, particularly if he opts in Chris Paul circa 2018 style or 2019. So whenever he went from Clippers to Rockets in 2019.

and opts in and opens up the trade field beyond teams that just have cap room, but still including teams like the Sixers that just have cap room. First of all, I would caution everybody. The last time Paul George changed teams dramatically, it came absolutely out of almost nowhere. And so even people...

Even people that should theoretically have been in positions to know that that might have been in play were like, what? He's going where? To the Clippers. So I would caution everybody that if there's something afoot, we may not know about it until it actually happens. Number two, the opt-in thing is opt-in and trade is a tricky balance, as I talked about with Bobby, because...

you're he's going to want to go to a team and the only kind of teams that are going to want him are teams that are ready to win the title now the Clippers also would theoretically like to build a team that is at least able to maybe compete at a high level now and so win now for win now trades are very tough to make and you throw in the opt-in you throw in the second apron limitations you throw in all of that you start to run into a whole lot of problems

Bobby and I mentioned the Knicks. You know, they have Randall's salary and a whole bunch of draft picks and Bogdanovich's non-guaranteed salary. That's interesting. I tried to make up fake trades with the Wolves, the Pelicans, the Cavs, the Kings, who I think are really interesting. I talked about the Kings' reluctance to take on another, a third gigantic salary. You have the Kings' number 13 pick as potentially in play in this draft, correct? Yeah, seems to be available.

And you also have them taking Ron Holland, who seems very exciting. Yeah. I mean, like at that point in the draft, you're just trying to get close, you know, like, and so if you're the Kings, like let's just take a swing on a guy who is at one point ranked the number one player in the, in, in the class and like, see what we, what we get. I mean, so if he could go to Chicago at 11, maybe Miami at 15. So we're honestly, we're just trying to get in the ballpark at that point, not part of the draft.

I just think the Kings are really interesting because it's hard to have your cake and eat it too in the NBA. They just brought back Malik Monk. I did that with Bobby last week. They want to get better. They have an urgency from the owners to get better. I think the front office shares in that urgency, perhaps not to the same degree. They have Kevin Herter's contract and Harrison Barnes' contract just sitting there as ready-made salary matching. Plus, they can trade a bunch of extra picks aside from the one they own, the Hawks,

And yet they don't necessarily, not that they don't want, but they are worried about the constraints of having three mega salaries with Sabonis and Fox and Player X. Well, okay, then you just have to build a team another way, which Monk's mid-sized contract fits into that. And now the Warriors theoretical Paul George buzz has crescendoed to the point where Bill Simmons and Ryan Russillo talked about it for 15 minutes on Bill's podcast today. And...

You know, I get it. And I think the Warriors are prepared to look at pretty much everything that doesn't involve Curry at this point. And maybe Green because he's so tethered to Curry and is such a sacred part of that organization and also is a tricky fit elsewhere. I just don't know. They have some interesting young players headlined by Jonathan Kaminga.

And they can trade two future first round picks and a piece, the better piece of the 2030, I think, pick that they owe the Wizards in the original Chris Paul trade. And they have this Chris Paul contract that has a June 28th deadline to guarantee. It's, it's, that's not, that's, they're going to get themselves into interesting conversations. What conversations they can get into without including Kaminga are going to be the pivot point for me because I just don't see any appetite there for them to trade Kaminga unless it's for like a trade.

a player that is even a stratosphere above Paul George because Kaminga has been a Joe Lacob favorite. He's still just scratching the surface of what he can do. And he has all-star potential. I mean, that's, that's clear already. And so I don't know quite what they can do. And also like, there's just not that many teams that are dying to have a

Andrew Wiggins salary, if that's what you have to use as a salary ballast and all of that. And then they have the Clay Thompson question hovering over all of this too. And Chris Paul. Big decision, June 28th. What do they do with that contract? So I just don't know what the pathway is there that doesn't involve Kameka. Obviously they've got Pajemski and Moody and Jackson Davis. Like they've done nicely at the back end of the draft. I just think that Paul George piece is,

I think everything, particularly if Mitchell ends up signing an extension in Cleveland and we don't know that that's the case, I think the whole offseason pivots from Paul George's decision. I don't want to be anticlimactic, but everything that I'm hearing as I'm making the rounds, calling teams, calling agents, trying to get intel on what's going to happen in the draft, all the same people that represent the top prospects in the draft also have all the best free agents involved.

I hear that it's tough out there. Like, it's a tough market. And so I think that we're going to be surprised by teams' ability to get deals done at maybe a more conservative number than people were expecting. It's not going to be this crazy bonanza where Timothy Mozgov and Luol Deng are getting, you know, max deals out of nowhere. I think people are going to be really, really conservative with deals

you know, with the second apron in mind. And so in that, within that vein, my prediction, I have zero intel. I have no idea what's going to happen is that Paul George stays in LA, resigns there. I mean, it's a fair offer they've made him. And so just seems so complicated trying to navigate him somewhere else. And then like, what did the Clippers get back? And,

I just, I don't know, you know, I mean, unless it's Philly and then you hear, are they interested? Are they not? You know, I texted you this question, you know, is there a possibility that Philly maybe hangs on to some of their cap space and

because they want to be the dumping ground where you know for for getting future assets there's going to be a bunch of teams that next year's trade deadline who who are need to get off of salaries and where are they going to dump those salaries where are they going to dump those contracts obviously it's not what philly fans want to hear but like if they don't get you know these

most attractive guys or whatever, you know, like, you know, we haven't even talked about Brandon Ingram. That's a kind of a major storyline that's looming here on draft night too. What is his market? You know, what is Trey Young's market? Uh,

And just, it's going to be really interesting, man. It's going to be a fascinating off season. Well, and I think Detroit is going to act as an off season dumping ground in that style with Trajan Langdon, just taking over there. That's the Intel going around the league anyways, that they're going to be that in the off season, give us your bad contracts and picks that come with them or young players that come with them. The issue with Philly is Embiid like Embiid got to win today, got to win tomorrow. Yeah.

he's got recurring knee issues at this point he's always dealing with some ailment and he's just a big dude who's had a lot of injuries and so draft zach edie you know and uh play them together yeah but so they're gonna have the problem is that they ran him into the ground last year you know like they needed him so bad to to get you know like a favorable spot in the playoffs they're like he just you know he was hurt by the time they got there and so

that's something that they're going to have to figure out at the same time. Yeah. And they're going to, that's why I'm skeptical. You're right. Like if you strike out on Paul George, if you strike out on OG and an OB, what's plan D E and F. I don't know what that is. I agree with you in theory that the most likely Paul George scenario is still that he goes back to the Clippers.

but I'm prepared for anything at this point. You've got to go prepare for the actual NBA draft, which is two days away. And now it's a two day event, which is interesting. And we're just going to see how that ages without this year. We have Bronnie James, obviously to carry interest into day two of the draft. We have the second round and we have the apron to carry us. That's what's going to carry us. Bobby Marks, man. Look, if,

Bobby Marks isn't wearing an apron. I wore an apron at the beginning of the season with Matt Ishpia's face on it. If Bobby Marks is not in Barclays Center or Bristol or wherever he's going to be wearing an apron at some point from Wednesday to Thursday, I'm going to be disappointed. Jonathan Gavone, no one does it better than you. Go do your actual job. Thanks for lending us some of your time. Thank you. Thank you, Doc. For the first time, Monday Night Football streams exclusively on ESPN+.

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