Knicks Build with Bridges, Rockets Fuel Up, Wolves-Spurs Trade, Edey to Memphis, and Portland lands Clingan
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And now, The Low Post. Welcome to The Low Post Podcast. Round one of the NBA Draft is over. There were some twists and some turns and some people on Twitter making fun of the fact that they had never heard of any of the players that were in the draft. There goes Ron Holland up and there goes Matas Buzalis down and where's Isaiah Collier? Dalton Connect falls to the Lakers. Oh my God, JJ Redick is already drawing up pin downs on...

The white bull with Rob Pelinka, which by the way, unless I see video footage of that, I don't believe it. I think it's a fable. I don't believe it at all. Jonathan Gavone and the Wolves. The Wolves straight from Rob Dillingham. The Spurs, not only did they not package number four and eight to move up to number one, and by the way, from what I heard last night, they didn't

really have any serious dialogue about doing that at all with the atlanta hawks there was no tray under was no dejan de murray the spurs took number four and then traded number eight for some good stuff that's going to convey right when victor wimbanyama is in the smack dab middle of his prime the spurs remember all that noise a few months ago oh i don't know how long they can wait with victor wimbanyama he's gonna get impatient they're like no we're good like we're good 2031

We're going to take the long lens on this. And by the way, Victor is so goddamn good that we opened up a little cap space in this Rob Dillingham trade. We're going to get someone in the door, probably not a big name, but he's so goddamn good we might win 40 games next year and he'll be happy to have these good Jonathan Cavoni. I've had two cups of coffee. I can tell. How are you, Zach? You sound great. Well, I'm good.

I'm excited for the second round today because, as you know, I've done deep dives on all the players who are going to be picked today. And I'm just I've been furiously watching film of none of them. I don't accept the mirror. It's a pronouncing Montez Rubis over and over and over again. I did like that someone asked Nikola Topic last night. A nice pick for the Thunder, by the way.

He was a pick before he tore his ACL or partial tear of his ACL that everyone thought top 10, maybe a Spurs target, big point guard, good passer. And the Thunder were like, yeah, we'll just redshirt you. We're cool with that. And they asked him, what's with all the Nicolas? Imagine if your name was Nicola and you just got drafted in the NBA. And one of the questions was like, hey, noticing a lot of Nicolas.

Coming into the league and he was like, well, you know, a lot of people in Serbia are named Nikola and, you know, that's just kind of a popular name in Serbia. He answered it very matter of factly. Okay. I don't believe the whiteboard story at all, by the way. I need footage of it. I think it's a fable. But the headliner, Mr. Gavone.

And I wrote a column on it yesterday, but I haven't podcasted on it. The earthquake that happened at 10.01 Eastern Time Tuesday night when producer Dan, a Knicks fan, was asleep and missed it. The New York Knicks, after years of carefully hoarding their own picks, extra picks from Detroit,

And Washington, the Washington one may never actually get to them as a first round pick. That's a different story. Not trading enough for them or to get Donovan Mitchell and kind of being fortunate to having not done so because Jalen Brunson becomes a star.

And they suddenly strike and trade four unprotected Knicks picks, another Milwaukee pick, some seconds and some swaps to the crosstown rival, sad sack Brooklyn Nets for Mikael Bridges, uniting more of the Villanova Voltron and MSG, humiliating the Brooklyn Nets, who have now capped off

One of the most tumultuous 12-year periods for any franchise in the history of professional sports anywhere, which included the murder of their own mascot, the Brooklyn Knight, among many other travails and trials.

And now are tanking wholeheartedly for Cooper Flagg. They got their pick back in a little side deal with Houston, which is very interesting. And by the way, those two trades are connected. The Nets do not do the McHale-Bridges trade without getting their 2025 Cooper Flagg, maybe golden ticket pick back from the Rockets. But the headliner here is obviously the Knicks, who also had two picks in the 20s last night. We can talk about what they did with that. Trading five first round picks for a 27-year-old who has never made an all-star team.

I would say is unlikely to ever make an all-star team. Definitely unlikely to ever make an all NBA team. Hasn't made it on all defense team in a couple of years now. Traded as many picks as the Wolves traded for Rudy Gobert in a much maligned deal that was less maligned when it looked like the Wolves might make the finals this year. And then they didn't. And Lucas said some bad words to Rudy Gobert.

traded one more pick for Mikael Bridges than they got for Kevin Durant. Now, obviously, they got Mikael Bridges and Cam Johnson in that deal. Kevin Durant has now turned into nine, nine, nine first-round picks for the Brooklyn Nets. It is, by any measure, in a vacuum, a pretty large overpay for someone that you would describe as an apex-level role player in the NBA. Yeah.

And yet, looking back and thinking about it, I mean, set aside, the whole transaction is a home run for the Nets. We'll get to them later. Home run. Interesting bet for Houston. I don't love it as much as most people do, but it's one they might have been leveraged into making. And it's going to be totally fine. They have these Phoenix picks now. That's what they got in return for giving back the Nets their own picks. And now they get to look at Phoenix like, hey, we're over here. Your thing is...

Your thing doesn't seem to be working out that well if that's what happens. I know you said 26 GMs would trade places with you, but we got your picks if you want to pivot off that stance. But for the Knicks, it's interesting, Jonathan. I was thinking back to the Durant trade to Phoenix and how...

I was a little more queasy about that than you would have thought from the Suns perspective when it happened, given that it's Kevin freaking Durant and he's a top 12 to top 15 player in the history of basketball at worst. And he was going to a team with Chris Paul and Devin Booker. And I remember talking a lot about, you know, look, this has a downside. Like the downside is dangerous. They're kind of naked back here. And I know Kevin Durant is Kevin Durant, but like, I guess you have to do it. But just acknowledge that there's some risk built into this.

And I didn't have as many of those feelings bubbling up to me about the Knicks trading more picks for a far worse player. And I wondered to myself in sort of the haze of reacting to this, well, why is that? Like, that doesn't seem fair or logical. And I thought, okay, let me go through my brain. Number one,

Mikael Bridges is eight years younger than Kevin Durant. Number two, the Knicks play in the East, which the Indiana Pacers just made the conference finals in the East. No disrespect to them, it's not the West. If there's a conference to kind of go for it in, it's the current present day Eastern Conference. Number three, Mikael Bridges never misses games. He's healthy all the time. Kevin Durant has had some issues here and there since tearing his Achilles after the calf injury. Number four, there are no...

chemistry issues coming up for the the Knicks there is no like well we got to figure out how this guy fits and who's going to have the ball and like we got to redesign our whole offense and is he going to be unhappy standing in the corner 10% more of the time than he used to be this just blends right in as another long shooting three and D with some off the bounce juice role player around Jalen Brunson and at least for now Julius Randall it fits like a glove and

And I think the most important reasons I didn't have the queasiness to the same level. I'm a little queasy. Like, 2029 and 2031, we don't know. Like, I saw the movie The Day After Tomorrow. Like, New York City could be a frozen wasteland by then. I have no idea what's going on in 2029 to 2031 when the last two picks convey. But the most important reason is...

I believed in this team. Like I've said over and over again since January, February, I think the fully healthy version of the Knicks, now that included Boyan Bogdanovich, who's not on the team anymore. It included Mitchell Robinson, who I will see if he's on the team. The Knicks have some financial pressure now and they have Hartenstein and free agency. They need to figure out the center spot. But I've said over and over that team, in my opinion, if you stacked up all the teams and gave them full health in April 2024, you're

I thought they were the second best team in the East ahead of Milwaukee, ahead of Philadelphia, not by a lot, but this is just my one man's opinion. And the team that would put the most pressure on Boston in a seven game series, I've said it over and over and over again, I would have picked Boston in that series. And now with Mikhail bridges, I think the gap narrows and it's, it's not a big sample size. Like in an OB got hurt pretty fast. Randall got hurt pretty fast. Randall never came back. Then everybody got hurt in the playoffs and they had to gut out that six or series and

But I think what I saw was real. I think this team is really, really good. And I think they were the team in the East that the Celtics feared the most. And their own success and the ages of the players, all in their late 20s now, basically the core guys, plus the financial crunch that's coming with Brunson's going to have a new deal soon and Anobi just got a massive new deal. I should have said that up front, four years, $212 million. I'm sorry, five years. Five years was key. $212 million.

Other deals will come up soon and get bigger. Like they had a window now and they're going for it. They still have their own first round picks in the other years that it didn't trade. They still have the Detroit pick. They still have the Washington pick. They can trade Randall if that's the direction they choose to go. I'm not sure that's as much of a no brainer as people seem to think it is, but they can recoup some value there.

I'm excited about the Knicks. It's a home run for the Nets. For whatever reason, I guess I just outlined them all. I think this team is nasty and deep. And that's the other thing they had over Phoenix. Depth. Depth. Depth. Phoenix, by the end of last year, didn't know who the hell to play. Josh McCoy, come on in. We haven't played you in two months. Can you try an elimination game? Nasir Little, are you still on the team? You are. Come on in. The Knicks are going to have Josh Hart and D'Vincenzo probably coming off the bench now. They played every second of every game. They're going to come off the bench.

bench. Deuce McBride's coming off the bench. John Ligavone, this was a hell of a trade. It's got a lot of angles to it. Where do you want to start? Hell of a trade. I'm like you. I really like this Knicks team now. I think they're going to be really, really good. The first reaction I got from my friends around the NBA was, holy cow, that's a lot of picks to give up for Mikau Bridges. Five first rounders. One friend of mine said,

If Mikkel Bridges is five first rounders, what happens if Giannis walks into John Horst's office tomorrow and says, I want to trade? Is it 10 first rounders for Giannis? You know what? That's what some people were concerned about. It's like, wow, the bar, they don't care about the Knicks. The bar has been set so high now that, you know, where are we getting to? But I...

I also think it says something about the value of these three and D wings. And I think we saw that in the draft last night with Zachary Rizashe. Mikhail Bridges was drafted when he was 21 years old. Very similar dimensions to Rizashe.

8'8 standing reach for Bridges. Reza Shea, 8'11". Similar body types. Mikael Bridges, 38% three-point shooter in the NBA. Zachary Reza Shea can be a 38% three-point shooter.

uh, you know, elite off ball on ball defender. So I think it's interesting about, you know, what it says of what NBA teams are targeting. I mean, we saw it in the, in the NBA finals with the Celtics. So generally speaking, I, I, uh, I like to pick, I live in New York. I live in New York city. So it's fun when the Knicks are good, you walk around, there's a buzz, you know, every Uber you get into people want to talk even during the regular season. So, um,

I think it's awesome. I think it's awesome for the Nets, too. I mean, you know, we talked about this on the pod a month ago, you know, when Joe Sy went into a press conference and started talking about a longer-term approach. You know, we could see the writing on the wall. I mean, I thought they were possibly going to get something done with the Rockets to get their pick back, and they did in a roundabout way, and they got a billion more picks on top of that. So I think it's a great trade for the Nets.

And I'm excited to see, you know, which direction both franchises go in here the next three to five years. It's a home run trade series of trades. I look at it as one trade wrapped together for the Nets to get their pick back next season and in 2026. Now the Rockets will tell you just FYI, we still have their 2027 pick and they're

A lot of rebuilds don't go that fast if you don't get lucky in the draft and free agency. The Nets could still be bad in that season. People want to play in Brooklyn, though. This is a place that if you show people something, you are going to get guys...

coming to you. People want to live in Carroll Gardens or Cabo Hill. I mean, the practice, officially, the location is the most attractive in the NBA. And then Brooklyn, you know, the Barclays Center. So, like, I think the Nets are, you know, if they play their cards right, they're two years away from being right back in contention for, you know, home court advantage in the playoffs. I kind of feel like the Nets...

Need to just take a nap for a couple of years. Let's just think about all the things that have happened in a 12-year period. They relocate from one place to another. They make this massive trade to Boston that is going to go down. It's a good thing Bobby Marks had to cancel today to go and get up. That is going to go down as an all-time flashball moment in the NBA. They're good for a hot second. Paul Pierce blocks Kyle Lowry. They win a playoff series. Then they get bad. Then they get embarrassingly bad.

And then they decide, well,

There's nothing we can do about the picks that we gave out. Oh, my God, they turned in to Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum. Then they get kind of good and plucky and, wow, unbelievable without their own picks. They couldn't tank, and they pulled off this miracle of we're going to just treat the picks like a complete sunk cost and ignore it, and we're going to rebuild, and we're going to work the fringes and trade a veteran for Karis LeVern and get D-low and D-low suddenly an all-star. How the hell did that happen? The East, baby, that's how it happened.

And then Kyrie and Katie are like, whoa, that's cool. Um, why don't we come along for, for the ride here? Uh, and they signed in for the agency. Everything's great. Even though Katie's hurt, they go to the bubble. They can't really do anything. Cause Katie's not there. Kyrie's not there. Um,

He's injured too. And then James Harden comes. Steve Nash becomes the coach at some point. Kyrie goes on multiple AWOL absences, then tweets a link to a controversial documentary is not even the right word for it. Thing that exists. He gets suspended. They end up trading all three of them together.

at the same in like a two year, one and a half year span after Kevin Durant initially demanded a trade and intimated that he'd like Sean Marks and Steve Nash fired. And now they're tanking again, except this time they looked at the miracle they pulled off in Sean Marks regime 1.0 and said that was a miracle.

miracles don't happen twice we want our goddamn pick back because if we're going to tank we want to do it properly this time ahead of the cooper flag draft it's a home run for them i just kind of feel like i just everyone just needs to take a nap i don't you're talking about people will come to play there i need a nap one of the things that happened in this trade is they decided actually nobody is coming to play here in the immediate future with mckill bridges donovan mitchell's not coming to play here car whoever is not coming to play here

And this is an offer we simply have to take. We have to go to Houston and say, look, we have to take this offer, but we can't do it without our pickback. Here's the other stuff we can give you. And if you don't do this trade, we're not going to trade McHale bridges and we'll try to be mediocre and you'll get mediocre picks from us anyway. And here we are. It's a home run for them, but I will say Jonathan, and this, this came up a lot during the process with Philly. I had a GM of a team yesterday, contacted me and said, we've never given the executive of the year to someone who,

on a tanking rebuilding team. I think this might end up being the first time we do it with Sean Marks. That's how good this trade was. And I said, that's cool. Like, I get it. It's easier to win the trades when you're selling, when you're trying to be bad.

And there's obviously a lot of gray area there. Like they won this trade big time. I mean, for them, it's a win big time. They got a lot out of it more than you would think. It's a lot harder to build the team up. And I actually think they did a good job building a team that absent a pandemic and just whatever, all the Kyrie stuff could have been, I picked them to win the championship the year that it all fell apart with Harden, KD and Kyrie. But, you know, the next steps are the harder steps, but man, it's,

If I knew any Nets fans, I would be like, it's been, it's been, are you okay? Like, do you need therapy from all this? Are you, have you given up? Like, but I don't really know any Nets fans. Do you? You live in Brooklyn. You must know. What's the buzz in the Ubers like in Brooklyn when you're Ubering around? It's about the Liberty and it's about Ellie the elephant. Dude, Ellie the elephant. Talk about it. She's the number one mascot in professional basketball. I don't.

don't know where this hat what how they they have struck gold with Ellie the elephant I mean just went to a game two weeks ago my kids were going crazy they didn't watch one second of the game they just wanted to chase after Ellie the elephant we were actually there were six mascots at the game we were at because it was Ellie the elephant's birthday and so they had the Yukon Husky they had the Syracuse Orange the Oregon Duck and

They had Dale the Eagle, the Long Island Nets mascot. My children were in heaven. Look, if they're not careful, Ellie the Elephant's going to become more famous than Breonna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu and Jonquil Jones. Like, if they're not careful, like, the chemistry on the team is going to fray because the mascot is going to start taking all the attention away from the players. Yeah, the Nets, take a nap for a bit. The Knicks, look, here's the bottom line. I think the Knicks can win the championship.

Like, I'm not going to pick them. But we'll see. I mean, I don't know. I picked the Celtics last year. The Celtics ended up winning the championship. They're going to run it back. They have now the championship, like, steal. Like, we did it. We overcame the jitters against Dallas that hit us when we almost lost game three and we got drilled in game four. We're champions now. But I think this Knicks team, we'll see what Philly does. We'll get there. We'll see what Milwaukee does. We'll get there.

I think the Knicks can win the championship. And I think they have a window here with all these guys in their late 20s. It's amazing, Jonathan, that they took so much pride in, man, R.J. Barrett broke the Charlie Ward streak. We finally signed one of our draft picks, first round draft picks to an extension on our team for the first time since the dude that won the Heisman Trophy.

And wow, what a great pick quickly was. And Grimes, we're really proud of him. He's starting for us. And Obi Toppin, CAA guy. Yeah, we picked him over Halliburton. Let's not talk about that. And they're all gone. All of them are gone. And yet it doesn't feel as if they have been frivolous or wasteful in picking the players that they've picked. The name you mentioned is very interesting is Giannis.

And this GM texting you or whoever it was saying, what is it going to take? 10 first round picks? I mean, I know a couple of teams that could trade 10 first round picks for Giannis, by the way. And I think the Knicks, for whatever reason, just concluded like, we can sit here and wait and wait for the perfect guy. We've been waiting. And I think their intel told them, we don't know what's going to happen with Giannis. It doesn't seem immediate. Like, so how long are we going to wait?

we don't know what's going to happen with mb their long-rumored dream target who has a place in new york city in the offseason and all of it you know philly has probably indicated to him someone is coming into our cap space whoever it's going to be we're going to do it like so how long are we going to wait for him by the way his injury history is terrifying and he's 30 years old

And then after that, it's like, well, what are we going to do? Wait for Carl Towns? Wait for Devin Booker? Wait for Zion, who's also had a terrible injury history? Like, we don't know if any of these guys are ever going to get traded. We have this financial window right now before we get too expensive. We have players who are in their primes right now.

Let's just go for it and see what happens. And I like it for them. I get the opportunity cost people are talking about, like they're kind of out on whatever derbies come next. But part of the reason, and I wrote about this, Jonathan, is we've seen more of these

trades involving teams tossing out three or more first round picks in like in the last three years, four years than we had in the entirety of NBA history before that. And I think one of the two of the connected reasons for that are the correct conclusion that these teams are making that the league is open at the top. Like no one has repeated in quite a while since the Durant Warriors. If you have a shot, you should go for it.

Um, windows are shorter for, for various reasons. And you know, the, the lottery odds being flat like this, it's like your, your first round pick, even if you're bad, it's not an automatic golden ticket to the number one pick in the draft. The Pistons have picked fifth, three years in a row. And there's such an embarrassing franchise at this point that they tweeted their own account, tweeted the three person Spider-Man meme.

with the Spider-Men wearing Detroit Pistons hats and a little bubble saying, Detroit picks fifth this year, Detroit picked fifth last year, Detroit picked fifth the year before. I'm like, it's not cool that you pick fifth every year. It's bad on every level. It's bad because your team sucks, and it's bad because you suck in the lottery too, and you keep getting lower. Like, it's not good. Stop making fun of yourself. Your fans hate it. Anyway.

uh you did bury the lead here uh pacom.da i'm disappointed you didn't mention that that's the biggest addition the knicks made this week well tell me about him because i i don't know anything about him people said draft and stress draft and stash it but like you had him mocked around 30 like yeah i didn't think so either right last night he said no pacom.da is coming over right now he's gonna get a full roster spot and uh he's you know they're buying him out and it's it's a done deal so he's

You know, he, he's going to play zero minutes per game next year is my guess. You know what I mean? But, uh, 18 years old, six foot nine, uh, you know, I wouldn't call him a shooter. I'd call him more of a score. Um,

He's talented. Like he's got a chance. I think one, you know, one of the teams right behind the Knicks were saying what we like about Paco Darié is not what he is right now. It's the fact that he's a blank canvas. He's the guy that we can mold into any type of wing player that we want him to be. Now, he's going to have to improve quite a bit defensively to ever get on the floor for Tom Thibodeau. I think that's the weakest part of his game right now.

He's kind of got these thick hips and, you know, not great at, you know, flipping his hips and moving laterally. His off-ball awareness right now is very poor. He's not a good defender off the ball. But listen, he's 18 years old. There are very, very few players...

who can play international basketball at 18 years old. Zachary Rizashe is the exception, not the rule, for a guy who is the best defender on a very good team in Europe. So Pacom Dadier, long-term swing for the Knicks. I was a little bit surprised at this pick. I feel like with Ryan Dunn on the board, with Terrence Shannon, with Baylor Shireman, you had a chance to take a guy that

could potentially be in your rotation at some point in the next year or so. But they went with the swing. I mean, that's what the NBA draft is all about. So let's see how it turns out. Well, look, I mean, the Knicks history with French guards speaks for itself. I mean, it's been a home run there every time they've tried it. And then they traded. So they had two draft day trades. They traded 24 to Washington,

And then move back for daddy. Yeah. They moved back to 25 and 26. Then they traded 26 to the thunder for five second round picks, I think, which is, which is a trick kind of trade. We talked about Phoenix made the same trade. They moved from 22 to 28. Cause the nuggets really called their shot with this Holmes kid. We're like, we want this Holmes kid. And they got three seconds. The sons did in exchange for that deal. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Next. Yeah.

To hell with the trade, man. There are very few trades where the combination of the two and how the swaps with Houston and Phoenix and Brooklyn were initially hard to follow, like what's going where and when and how. There are very few trades that I sit back and I'm like, I got to take a minute and map this all out in my head. This is a fun one. I think the Knicks are going to be awesome. I do think there's some optionality now with Randall. I would love the idea of Randall.

It's like a super-duper six-man coming off the bench because his on-ball skills are slightly, not totally, but slightly duplicative with Brunson. Those kind of things don't happen in the NBA when you have an all-NBA guy and an all-star.

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Okay, so Houston, we talked about the bet they made against the Suns. You know, they can want Kevin Durant and Devin Booker if they want. Like, the Suns are not doing that. Matt Ishbia came out and kind of tweeted very loudly about that. They did not take Donovan Klingin at three. They took Reed Shepard at three, as you had mocked them doing.

I said, as soon as they can go back to my lottery column, like everyone assumed that pick was going to get traded when they got it. And I cautioned in my post lottery column, like, hey, in this day and age of the second apron and they have six young prospects already, Reed Shepard will make seven.

Like these cheap-ish bites at the apple, these draft slots, even though number three is not cheap, are important and they give you some optionality. And indeed, Houston now has a kind of player that is just totally different from anyone else on their team. That pick obviously didn't surprise you. You had it mocked there. What surprised me a little bit was the idea that was proffered in a few places that, well, if they take Klingon at three,

Well, you got to keep an eye on Shen Goon. Like Shen Goon could be an interesting trade piece around the league, like whether it's for a win now trade or future picks or whatever it is. What did you think of all that Houston did and didn't do?

Yeah, we kept hearing the past few weeks that the Houston Rockets valued the number three pick more than the trade offers that they were getting. And I'm a big Reed Shepard fan, so I like this pick for them. I think that what this signals is, you know, the backcourt of the future is a man Thompson and Reed Shepard. And these guys complement each other really, really well. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. There's another guard on the team.

Who was picked really high and kind of blew up at the end of last season. Jalen Green. They can all play together. Okay. You know, like, why not? You know, and then Thompson can guard everybody. Well, he's giant. Yeah, he's unbelievable. Yeah, so I think that, I think the pieces fit here. And, you know, Reed Shepard can play with anybody because he's the best shooter in the draft. And he has an elite feel for the game. And he's super unselfish.

And, you know, it helps to have a guy like a man Thompson who can literally guard one through four. He's an absolute wrecking ball. He's one of the best athletes in the NBA. He's got an incredible body. And so this is the Houston Rockets are going to be really, really fun. I'm obviously like you think they're not they're not done here. They have a lot of picks. They can do a lot of stuff.

But they have the, you know, the options now to keep getting better. You know, Matt Ishbia doesn't want to trade Kevin Durant. What does Kevin Durant think about this? That's what I want to know. I think Kevin Durant is cool being in Phoenix for a bit here. How long? Well, look, I mean, I don't know that Kevin Durant cares what anyone thinks about the quote unquote narrative of his career.

You know, I know it was a popular thing to say, and I said a version of it too, that at some point he needs to find a spot and make it work. And if it's not Phoenix, like, I mean, how many times are you going to watch this movie? But for now it's going to be Phoenix. We'll see, man. If this, if this year goes sideways, it's,

And, you know, they got their guy, they got Ryan Dunn. I think that's who they were targeting and they got some extra picks for moving back six spots. They got to just figure out their depth and their chemistry. Like it just was not good enough at any point last year on any front. And you will see like they're probably going to resign Royce O'Neal. I would suspect that's big. Grayson Allen got hurt in the playoffs. He'll be back. That's big.

The center position is just kind of what it is. Drew Eubanks didn't work out. They got to find a backup to Nurkic, who they played, overplayed. It might be Ryan Dunn. You know, that might be the center right there. I mean, this guy can guard one through five, and he's probably at this stage in his career, he's at his best operating from the dunker spot until he figures out a way, you know, not only make threes, but make free throws.

then that's probably where he is, you know, offensively. It is a five in the NBA. What I just, what I worry about with the Suns is the West is stacked and they don't have a lot of ways to add talent with the new rules, the second apron and all of that. So they picked up a couple of seconds. Sure. You know, let, it's going to be very interesting to see how the next two years go for them. On the Rockets front, I understand cognitively the idea of,

landing for a world in which you have to trade one of your core young players up to and including Shen Goon. The idea would be we don't know how he fits with all of our guards, ball-dominant guards, because he needs the ball too. He's a great hub on offense. We saw...

I'm in Thompson, how good he looked essentially playing center on offense when Shen Goon was hurt and we went on a winning streak. Now, a lot of people forget the winning streak started with Shen Goon healthy. I think the first four or five games, at least three or four were with Shen Goon. Can you ever build a championship defense around Shen Goon? Who's not the quickest dude and not the biggest leaper.

I get all of that. It just feels way too early for me to make a decision of that magnitude. Like, I just need more information about the team. Jalen Green had a good couple of months. Great. He had a horrible first three months. Let's see what sustains. Let's see how Amin Thompson can develop his jump shot. I know that's a major focus for them in the offseason. And like a lot of teams, a lot of teams with young non-shooters,

are using josh giddy as the cautionary tale and being like hey did you all watch the playoffs and like they just traded him like you've got to learn to shoot that's crazy by the way josh giddy i mean come on he's 21 let's not as a not as a cautionary tale like your career is going to go sideways i think josh giddy is going to put up big numbers in chicago i don't know what it's going to lead to for the bulls um it would be helpful if it led them to the bottom in the next draft but

or the bottom of the league in the top of the draft. But I'm just saying like he got played off the floor in the playoffs. And then this team was like, well, we can't, we just can't have you on the team. We need a better fit. And like Whitmore, we barely know Eason was injured. We, we, we need more information about him. Like I just need more information before I make a decision like that. And Shingun is really good. Like there was a lot of all-star buzz for Shingun last year. And I think he deserved it. Like he didn't make it, but I think he deserved to be in the conversation. He's a really dynamic offensive player and,

I would be wary. I understand the money is going to be the money you're going to need to consolidate here and consolidate there. And I can be able to pay all these guys with 25 percent maxes and you don't have to pay them all 25 percent. You can negotiate hard. And Jalen Green's negotiation starts now, I think, for his extension, basically. You can negotiate hard and the cap's going to go up 10 percent every year.

apron and everything with it. Like, I just think you can just chill, just chill. That's my only thought, but you like to find, I think you need to find like a Jaron. I mean, it's really hard and everybody's looking for that. You need to find a Jaron Jackson type guy to put next to Shingun who can protect the rim, who can step outside and make threes and,

you know, a unicorn. And so is that guy out there somewhere? I thought Alex are, you know, in the unlikely scenario, he slid to three, but that was actually a pretty interesting fit with Shingun. You know, the league is trending big. A lot of teams are going to be rolling out to two bigs, two big lineups. And so, you know,

uh you know is Jabari Smith that guy you know like they need him to make a major lead it's crazy that we've talked all this time we haven't gotten we haven't I love and I love Jabari Smith Jr. and that's another guy like I want to see what he can grow into defensively and if like we ever get to a point where Ahmed Thompson and Jabari Smith Jr. and Shingun can all be on the floor in crunch time that's I got something there on both ends of the floor definitely all right well let's talk about some of the other draft stuff and we'll get back to the Paul George and everything

The most interesting trade, I think, there's a lot of interesting picks that we'll get to because I want your analysis on them. But the Spurs on the clock trading the number eight pick to Minnesota for a 2031 unprotected first round pick and I believe a top one protected 2030 swap. The Spurs now have that swap. They have a Mavs swap. They have a Celtics swap, 2028, 2030, 2030.

And the Wolves selected Rob Dillingham with that number eight pick. That one you didn't hear. I mean, I didn't get wind of that until it happened. And I don't think the Spurs knew anything.

who Minnesota was taking until that pick was on the clock. They just knew that they had this package there that was potentially sitting there for them, and it's a package they decided they couldn't resist. What was your reaction to that trade? How does Dillingham fit with the Wolves? It's a really interesting bet for Minnesota. They don't have a ton of avenues to add talent like this. And Tim Connolly, I love the GMs with conviction. Calvin Booth wants who he wants. Sam Presti wants who he wants. The...

The kid they picked at 20, wherever, 26. Like that was, he was mocked in like the forties and fifties in some drafts. And like, they're just like, no, we want him. Tim Collins, I want Rob Dillingham. So how do you think that fits? We saw this coming with Rob Dillingham. I mean, I was talking to Tim quite a bit in the lead up to the draft. I wasn't going to blow up his spot, but he loved Rob Dillingham. He called me two days before the draft. Hey, John,

we just shot and watched Rob doing him for two hours. Dude, this guy is awesome. He's just so fun to watch. And so I think that Tim Conley just got eliminated by the Dallas Mavericks. He saw Luca and Kyrie say, Hey, I need a version of that. Get me the best ball handler in this draft. And he went, he went and did that with Rob doing him. This guy gets anywhere he wants on the floor. He's an incredible pick and roll player. He's an incredible shot maker. He's,

Mike Conley is turning 37 in October. He knew that he needed to find point guard of the future. And he went and made an aggressive move. 2031.

Tim Conley, you know, is not planning on being a GM in 2031. I can guarantee you that he's going to be somewhere in Spain kicking his legs up. Maybe he's the GM of Barcelona or Real Madrid. And so he said, man, let me enjoy this team that we built right now. Let's just go make an aggressive push. There is not a more fun player in this draft than Rob Dillingham. And he went out and got him. And I love it because I'm a huge Rob Dillingham fan, too. And I can't wait to see him and Anthony Edwards together in the same backcourt.

You need shot creators in the playoffs. Like, at the highest level, sometimes you just need somebody who can go get a bucket. I think it's a really fun swing for the Wolves. It's going to add to their tax bill, which is interesting because we don't even know who owns the team, but...

What about from the Spurs? And I mentioned all the swaps they have. And just to remind people, they own the Hawks picks in 25 and 27 and the swap in between. They own a Bulls pick that's top 10 protected and then top eight protected. They own a Hornets pick that may not get that first round pick. It's lottery protected next year and then it converts. They have about $25 million in cap space this summer, according to Bobby Marks.

What should we think of this team next season? What did you think of this move from their perspective? So I'm of two minds here. On one hand, I would have loved to see Rob Dylan him with Victor Wynn-Banyama. I feel like that could have been one of the best pick and roll duos in the NBA moving forward. I thought from the very start that I wrote an article about this, that Rob Dylan him is a perfect partner for a guy like Victor Wynn.

On the other hand, we talked about the fact that they want to be patient, you know, like they're not in a rush. They want to take this rebuild slowly. They're not hearing all this outside noise and, you know, future picks. I mean, stocking these assets is,

This is how you position yourself to go make that big move down the road to get the guy that you really want. If they didn't feel like Rob Dillingham is their point guard of the future, then you keep stockpiling picks. And when a great point guard becomes available, then you go get him because now you have the assets to do that. So, you know, it all really depends on how Rob Dillingham turns out and what they can do with all these assets that they have long term.

Tell me about Castle and his fit. The Spurs took him at four. That generally seems to have drawn raves. I've heard very good things about him. I'm not a college basketball expert. Tell me how you think that fit shakes out. He's a Spurs guy. In terms of the character, the work ethic, the intangibles, the unselfishness, the defense versatility, the toughness. We saw what he did this year helping UConn win a national championship. He played a huge role in that. He got better and better as the year moved on.

You know, he knows he's comfortable being a role player. I thought it was really cool seeing the way that Victor Wimpanyama welcomed him to the team, calling him last night. I think that was awesome.

Now, is he going to develop into a good enough shooter to not make things more difficult on Victor? And that's my concern with the Spurs right now in the very short term is that they are one of the worst shooting teams in the NBA. Victor Wimbanyama is going to be a major playmaking hub for you. Every time he puts the ball down on the floor,

The entire defense is going to collapse on him. And is there enough shooting here for him to kick out and for guys like Stephon Castle to make an open three? I mean, we'll see. This is the nature of the draft. They believe in their player development system. They think they can help Stephon Castle get to where he needs to be as a three-point shooter. We will see. This reminds me that in talking about the Nets, we did not mention that both Dorian Finney-Smith and Cam Johnson now stand as obvious trade candidates for them.

They did re-sign Nick Claxton to a four-year, $100 million contract. I think that's a great deal for the Nets. Claxton's good. That's just the price of doing business. It's good. Bam out of bio, by the way, we should mention that. He's growing to sign a three-year max extension. Bam is a winner. You pay for guys like that. It's going to take him through his prime. Again, cap's going to go up and up and up. That's a good deal. It seems like a lot, $50 million plus a year. Bam is a goddamn winner. You pay for that.

Ham Johnson is the interesting one to me. You just – like I have a list of teams for him. Maybe the Spurs are one, and I know he doesn't fit their aging curve. He's a little older. He was older when he got drafted. I remember we talked about that the day after that draft when Minnesota and Phoenix made that trade. I just – someone should go get him even if it costs a little too much because –

He's a knockdown shooter. Like I was even thinking about the Thunder who have been linked to Hartenstein and Biggs. And I get that. Maybe that's the direction they go as great of a shooting team as they were last year. And they were a great shooting team up at like mid range threes. They don't want to have a shooter. I mean, Jalen Williams is just, he's a, he shot 43% or whatever. He doesn't take that many. And that's not like his game.

Caruso shot 41%. We'll see if that sustains mid, mid, medium range volume. I love the idea of just a knockdown terrifying shooter on that team. Like,

A Klay Thompson, a Cam Johnson. I love that for the Spurs too. Just like, hey, it doesn't fit, whatever. Let's just see how it looks if we have, I mean, that was the idea of McDermott with them and it didn't really work. Let's see if we, let's see just like complete knockdown shooter. I like him in Sacramento. I like him in Orlando. I feel like someone, if I were Oklahoma City, I would be very, very tempted to just be like,

We'll give you two firsts and a young player for Cam Johnson. He may not start for us. He may not close for us. But there's going to be 20 minutes a game where we're going to have Shea and we're going to have another knockdown shooter other than Isaiah Joe. A little bit bigger than Isaiah. I mean, that's who it is on their team is Isaiah Joe. A little bit bigger than him. A little bit stouter defensively. I don't know. I'm just thinking out loud. But maybe the Spurs are a good fit for him. Yeah, that would be fun. I would love to see Cam Johnson with Victor Winn-Bunyama. Really?

Really interesting trade. All right, let me, I'm going to go rapid fire with you on some of the surprises of the draft. Dalton connect slipping to the Lakers at 17. Give me your thoughts. I'm flabbergasted that he slipped to 17. I can't believe that the heat passed on him at 15 and,

I did a lot of, you know, as he was sliding, once he got past 10, I just started texting people like crazy. Every GM I know is saying, what in the world is going on here? What am I missing with Dalton Connect? People are like, he's old. It's like, well, he's 23. You know, like, it's not like he's 30. So...

Yeah, the physical was okay. There's no medical red flags. I hit a bunch of people on that. They said it's clean. They said the workouts were good. You know, there were one on zeros. The interviews were good. There were some like wonderlick type bulls**t people were talking about, but I don't think that really matters. This is, you know, it's not even worth addressing.

I'm excited. Wait, did he take the cash out of the playbook or something? Like, did he take the dollar out of the $100 bill out of the playbook? I'm excited for the Los Angeles Lakers. I'm excited for J.J. Wreck to be able to coach Dalton Connect. This is an amazing spot for him to, you know, spend the next...

eight years in Los Angeles and playing off of LeBron and AD. They really thread the needle in like the perfect way where they get a young guy on a cost controlled contract, but this guy's ready to play right away. I don't understand how the rest of the NBA let this happen. Somebody should have moved up, you know, into 16 or 15 or 14 or wherever it should have been and gotten Dalton Connect. I mean, my understanding of what happened is that

He only worked out for a group of teams. His last workout was with Utah, who had the number 10 pick. Once Utah passed on him, you know, this Ron Holland thing created like a cascading effect. And all of a sudden, all these guys that people thought weren't going to be on the board were there. And in Chicago with Buzellas and Devin Carter at 13. So I get it.

But I just think we're going to look back on this draft five years from now and say, how in the world did they let Dalton Kett connect get to the Los Angeles Lakers at 17? It's interesting. And everyone raving about this pick for the Lakers and the fit and a team that starved for shooting and all the things that he brings.

It does sort of remind you, wait a second, we've talked for months now about how the Lakers are going to have three first-round picks to trade for a veteran and an upgrade. And, you know, LeBron and AD are going to want to win now and this and that. Well, one of those picks is now Dalton Connect, who was mocked in the top 10 in a lot of drafts, and everyone's very excited. Just interesting. Makes that – it's not as much of like a –

a no-brainer i guess to just why we gotta trade everything for whoever johan de murray whoever becomes available uh maybe it allows you on the other hand to make that kind of trade without putting austin reeves in it because this the person you picked at 17 now has more value around the league probably than the typical person picked at number 17 or the number 17 pick before the draft um

Ron Holland to Detroit at number five was the first swerve in the draft. I wouldn't say polarizing, but I mean, John Hollinger had him as the number one prospect in all of the draft, despite an inefficient season with the Ignite. He was generally mocked 10, 12, 13, 15. What happened here? Wuzelis was the guy there all along. They changed leadership midway through the draft process.

What happened here and how does he fit with the Pistons? Ron Holland was at one point projected to be the number one pick in the draft on our board. So for him to go fifth, it's not insane. I just wonder about their team right now. Let's say Ron Holland is the starter with Cade Cunningham and Jaden Ivey and Isaiah Stewart and Jalen Durham. Is there enough spacing here? Do you have enough space?

you know, is the system built for Ron Holland to thrive? What does this mean about the moves that Detroit's going to make here? You know, with Cade and all of that, that's what I wonder about.

I'm not here to kill the pick and say Ron Holland is going to be a bust. Ron Holland is a super talented guy. He made 24% of his threes last year and shooting is very important in the NBA. So I'm very curious to see how this turns out. I would have liked him on a team with more shooting where there's more, you know, where he doesn't have an entire defense collapsing on him every time he puts the ball down. But let's see how this turns out.

Well, Buzelis, I looked up his stats. He did not shoot the three well either. But he has a history of making threes. He hit 43% of his threes as a high school senior. Hey, Matas Buzelis could turn out to be a guy who can't shoot also. But you watch him in a workout setting, you're like, Matas Buzelis can shoot. There's something to work with here. We went to the Pro Day in L.A. Ron Holland was shooting airball after airball. He just stopped shooting threes at one point. People were like, ooh, this is alarming here. You know, like, so...

You want to see a guy make progress from the season to the combine, then the pro day into workouts. From what I understand, that did not really happen with Ron Holland in other workouts. I do not know what happened in Detroit's workout with Ron Holland. There's a lot to like here with the toughness and the defensive versatility and the aggressiveness. And he's 18 years old.

It's not easy to score 20 points per game in the G League as an 18-year-old. Now, he needed 1,000 shots to do it, and he was one of the most turnover-prone guys in the league. But, again, the team context there was horrible. They had no shooting, they had no defense, so their vets sucked. They had eight guys who all thought they were point guards. And so let's see how this turns out. I'm very curious to see. Me too, and I like the idea of Detroit just saying,

I mean, I think this is really almost a starting over again for the Pistons under Trajan Langdon. Like, they're not going to rush into this with veterans and the cap space. I think they're going to be a dumping ground for bad contracts if you attach something nice to them. We'll take your Tim Hardaway juniors or whatever it ends up being.

And I like the idea of like- If you're going to take the big board approach, then take Donovan Klingin. You know, like Donovan Klingin, this is what I would have done. Not everybody liked Donovan Klingin like that, but I had Donovan Klingin ranked number three on my big board. Absolute steal for him to end up in Portland at number seven. Hopefully we talk, we're going to talk about that. But that's probably what I would have done if I was there at Detroit number five. Well, I mean, do you, does loving Jalen Duren-

affect that decision for you um at all because they do love jalen durden who i think has some very interesting upside he's a little behind the curve defensively but um does that does that impact your clinging clinging thinking there it does you know but i'm just saying like if you're going to take the big board approach like we're just going to take the best player available then i think i thought the best player available was with dynamite clinging but you know time will tell how this turns out

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All right. Well, that's an easy transition to the center drama from last night, which really started with the number six pick in Charlotte. Charlotte had some trade conversations around that pick. They ended up not making any trade. I do think there's truth to the maybe. Well, look like there was some buzz last night that Memphis was trying to trade up to that pick to get Donovan Klingon. I think there was some truth to that from what I heard. Yeah.

They obviously couldn't strike a deal. I'm not sure at this point what exactly the parameters, what the gap was there. Charlotte ends up taking Salon at six and then Portland gets Klingon at seven.

And Memphis gets Zach Eadie at nine, which by the way, bravo to Memphis because the smoke screen on that was incredibly effective. I heard from so many people like, yeah, I don't there. I've heard Memphis isn't going to reach for Eadie at nine. It's not going to happen. Blah, blah. And like they took him in nine. What do you think of that fit?

I love it. I'm a huge Zach Eadie fan, as everybody knows. We moved him into the lottery already in January when people had him as an undrafted player, as a late second round pick. And so it was not shocking to me to see him go nine. You know, we had always heard that his range was nine through 19, nine through 20. So for him to go at the top end of that, I totally get it. You know, Memphis needs a big Zach Eadie was the best big man available.

John Morant is going to love playing pick and roll with this guy. He's the best screener in the draft. That's the key from what I've heard because –

There was all this like, well, he's a low post guy. Like John Moran is kind of a non-shooting driving point guard. How is that going to work? And what you hear back is he's a pick and roll guy too. That's what we're leaning into. He's a much better, he's going to be a much better pick and roll play. He can post up too. Like, listen, if you switch and he's got a six, two guy on him, he's going to destroy that guy. He's going to bury him under the rim. But to me, his best attribute is the way that he screens. John Moran is going to be open every time he gets downhill. Yeah.

Zach Eadie is going to roll to the rim. You better tag Zach Eadie when he's rolling to the rim. And so there's going to be wide open threes on both sides, both corners. And John Morant is going to love just throwing the ball up. Zach Eadie has a 7'11 wingspan. He catches everything. He's going to dunk everything. This is going to be awesome for Memphis. You know, the big question is going to be,

Can he run with job? Because like you need to be able to change ends, get up down the floor. I think Zach Eady is going to be okay in that, in that regard. And I think he's going to be a lot better than people think defensively. So I like this pick. I can't wait to see Zach Eady in Memphis. If they give him the runway, they gave him 25 minutes per game. Zach Eady can make a run at being an all rookie team. You know, maybe he's a sleeper for rookie of the year. Ooh,

I like that. Well, look, it's interesting because the fit is there. Jaron Jackson Jr. as a hybrid big man with range who can shoot not just spot up threes, but off pin downs, off the dribble and an elite shot blocker rim protector who can play the five defensively if you need him to, if you can stash ED somewhere else, if you're playing a team that allows you to do that, i.e. like a team with a non-shooting wing. That's interesting there. The fit is there.

In some ways, the speed thing is going to be interesting. Like how many possessions are going to be like he ends up jogging from one three point line to the other while the game like happens around him. I don't know. Not a jogger. This guy, you know, he only knows how to go 150 percent. This guy's motor is unbelievable. The level of physicality is unreal. He's going to get you a thousand offensive rebounds. He's going to get you in the bonus game.

five minutes into every quarter that he starts. Zach Eadie is going to be really good in Memphis. So I've only watched a few Eadie games because obviously they made it far into the tournament, and I watched the 116 game the year before. We talked about this. Like, the motor, that's super meaningful to me. Like, it's meaningful to me that a guy that size plays so many minutes and plays so hard and plays with such physicality that he does all those things like get your team to the – but, like, that's –

the durability for a guy that size and the ferocity with which he plays every minute is really important to me. That the interesting thing is this team is ready-made to, to try to contend next season. And they don't really have a starting center. Like there's a, is there a world in which he walks in the door and they're trying to chase the number one, two, three, four seeds in the East and, and they're starting a rookie at center. I mean, they'll look for others in free agency, minimum guys in this and that, but, but,

That doesn't seem implausible to me. If any rookie in this class can start, it's Zach Eadie. I love your enthusiasm. All right, let's talk about the Klingon part of it. Another interesting trade in the draft, the Wizards traded Denny Avdia coming off a most improved player candidacy type of season, in which he shot 37% from three and actually started taking them instead of being scared to take them, to the Blazers from Malcolm Brogdon and two first-round picks.

One of them was, by definition, a lottery pick. It was a number 14 pick last night. The Wizards took Bob Carrington. The second one will be the second most favorable pick of the Milwaukee, Portland, and Boston first-round picks in 2029. It's actually not a bad bet. 2029 is a long way from now. You would assume Boston is still very good. Milwaukee is a little bit of a mystery box. Portland is...

the biggest mystery box in the NBA. This is like the most random collection of players. I don't really know what, what the vision is, but the vision clarified a little bit with Brogdon being cashed in for Abdi. And I liked any obvious 23. He's a good two way player. He fits whatever it is you're doing. We'll talk about the Portland end of that in a bit. And then they take Klingon at seven with the pick that was theirs to begin with. And they add them to Aiton and Robert Williams, which is,

It's not that big of a deal to me. What do you think? So Portland, I actually think that Abdiatrade can be okay for both teams. If I'm a Wizards fan, I'm like, man, that's a homegrown guy. He's 23. He's coming off a great season. What are we doing? We're really just trying to be this crappy? Even 23-year-olds that are good are being cashed in for future assets.

On the other hand, two first round picks, at least one of which is a quote unquote lottery pick, although it's borderline. That's about peak value for Denny Avdia. He's also on a great contract, Jonathan, four years, 55 million that declines. It's a crazy good contract. It feels like it's about peak value, but maybe it's not going to end up being peak value.

For the Blazers, everyone's like, well, I don't understand. They're a mishmash. What are they doing? Why are they trading future assets for Denny Avdi? I'm like, Denny Avdi is good. He can play a lot of different positions. They're going to need that positional flexibility. Feels like a trade to me that's like a B minus B for both teams. I don't feel particularly strongly about it. I'd be interested in your take, and I'd be very interested in your take of Donovan Klingin with Scoot Henderson and Shaden Sharp and Anthony Simons.

I like this trade for Portland. I like the draft that they had in general, you know, with drafting Donovan Klingin at seven and then picking up Danny Avdia. Your defense just got a lot better last night. And you also have two guys who can really pass, who really know how to play, which is important with some of the guys that they have on their team right now. Like you said, Danny Avdia, his contract is incredible. It's such a team friendly deal. Danny Avdia was incredible.

quietly unbelievable. The last two months of last season, he scored 43 points in a game. Every time that Kyle Kuzma went out of the lineup, Denny Abdiah just exploded. So, you know, Denny Abdiah is, you know, pretty much the same age as Dalton Kinnett. So this is a lottery pick for them. I'm not sure about the, you know, the trade value of Malcolm Brogdon with, you know, all the foot stuff and all that. That's something that I don't know about.

I mean, I really liked the night that Portland had yesterday. So Klingon now has to compete for minutes with Aiton and Time Lord if Time Lord can ever get and stay healthy. You know, Portland dabbled in, like, can we play our centers together? Maybe they'll try that a little bit to –

eliminate the minutes crunch obviously they are going to investigate trades for ayton and williams i mean that's just common sense i'm not reporting anything there i assume at some point they will at least take calls on those guys and ayton's contract is and robert williams health is and they're both good players that can help teams robert williams specifically in his contract could really help the team i will say center is the one position where i get a tiny bit wary of

of stacking too many young guys at the same time because it's harder to play them together. And we have seen instances, notably with the Sixers when they had Noel and Okafor and Embiid, et cetera, where it kind of hurts the trade value of the guys that you end up deciding to trade. But to me, like this team is so young with Scoot and Sharp and, and Simons, who's now an interesting trade piece too, I guess. Like I, I,

I kind of want them to just start clinging and figure out the rest later. I don't know what they're going to do, though.

I would imagine that they keep playing Aiton and try to maintain whatever value he has because in a year from now, he's an expiring contract. And so at that point, you know, somebody might trade for him and say like, the guy can really score. Okay. Like talent is not the question with DeAndre Aiton. Maybe bringing Donovan Klingin in, who is one of the hardest playing guys in this draft, lights a little bit of a fire on

under DeAndre Aiton's ass and causes him to rev up his motor and just play harder. And I think that has to be one of the keys in Portland's thinking last night. We've just got two guys who play their balls off on every single possession, and that's going to make a big difference on their team next year. It'll make them a lot more watchable. You can't have this culture where it's just like, we're rolling out guys, we're tanking.

Nothing really matters. Now they've got some pieces. They've got Tumani Kamara, Ryan Ruppert. These guys play hard as hell. I thought this was a very interesting pick. You can go through Mike Schmidt's archive.

On ESPN and DraftXpress, he was the number one Danny Avdija fan on earth. So I know that he's very excited about being able to trade for him finally. There were a bunch of teams that inquired about Avdija at the deadline last year, but the Wizards said, no way, we value him way too much. And so it was a very interesting trade for them. I think Danny Avdija is going to be awesome for them. They do have this foursome now of Simons, Scoot, Sharp, Avdija.

That you could play them all together. It would just be quite a small group. And the trio of Simon's scoot and sharp struggled horribly in their minutes together. Obviously, they're young and all and have some defensive challenges. It just feels like for a team that has been bad for three years in a row. Part of it is that scoot was injured and then kind of struggled as a rookie.

It just feels like I don't know enough about what this team is actually trying to be. What's the tentpole structure? What identity is it trying to build? I'm not sure how the obvious trade fits into that, but he's a helpful player to have around who does a lot of things well and can play a lot of positions. They paid a high price for him. We'll see. We'll see how it turns out. I already said what I thought of the trade. It just feels like there are other moves that need to come here with the centers and

I with, with one of the guards, I don't know, but I'd like to get to the end of this season, a fourth straight season in which this team is going to be bad and, and know a little bit more about the structure of the team. Part of this is just like, this is kind of what happens when you delay the

Not through any fault of your own, but the Dame thing just got delayed and delayed and delayed. And they were stuck in this sort of purgatory. And then he was injured and they were bad by accident. They didn't want to be bad. And you kind of end up with a bit of a confusing group of players. But I'd like to see where they go. But I like Abdi. Abdi is good. I mean, for Portland, it's all about Scoot Henderson and Shaden Sharp. What kind of jump can they make?

This upcoming season, Anthony Simons is really, really good. So, you know, adding Donovan Klingin, who is, you know, the second best screener in this draft, that's going to help scoot a lot. And so he's got to make a big jump. His rookie year was not great. And so everything really hinges on how he develops and if Shady Sharp can take the next step in his development, too.

Let's see. What else should we talk about? Tell me about A.J. Johnson. Yeah, A.J. Johnson. The talent has never been the question with A.J. Johnson. He was a projected lottery pick coming into the preseason. Six foot five combo who can, you know, slippery changing speeds and passing off a live dribble, shooting off the dribble. Now the question with him, he's 164 pounds. So, you know, when is Doc Rivers going to play this guy? That's what I'm not sure about. And so, yeah,

I'm just, I'm a little bit confused about, you know, what the Bucs are doing here. Like there were a couple of guys here, I thought that had a chance to be playable for them. You know, like they're in win now mode, Dame Lillard not getting any younger. So I like A.J. Johnson in a nutshell. I wonder if he would have been available with the 33rd pick. Obviously they had some intel that indicated Lillard

not. I mean, AJ Johnson was pretty much shut down. It seems like he at the very last minute, right before the pro day in LA, it's like, Oh, AJ Johnson canceled his ankle. Everybody in the gym is like, all right, he's got a promise. Which one of you promised AJ Johnson? So it's going to be, I like AJ Johnson, but him and Doc Rivers would be an interesting, interesting combination. You mentioned Milwaukee. Yeah.

And one of my, you know, as we'll see what happens in the second round today, if anything of note, other than where Bronny goes, as we as we get toward free agency, where it starts on Sunday, I think one of my big questions, I have these like big questions for the rest of the offseason, if I get around to writing the column or not. One of them is like, what's the case for optimism in Milwaukee next year? What's the case that they can figure this out at a level where they can really compete with Boston and New York?

And the case is, well, Dame will be acclimated and presumably healthier. Middleton will be healthier. Doc Rivers will be settled in as the coach and just roll it out and see what happens and hope for that three-player core with some seasoning and chemistry together. Boom. Something is just nagging at me that doesn't feel good. Part of it is that they'll all be a little older, Dame and Middleton particularly. Middleton has been hurt a lot.

Part of it is this, like, you keep reading about Brooke Lopez and like, do they need to do something with Brooke Lopez? His contract's up, I think, after next season. Do they really want to continue to build around him defensively? I'm like, OK, I get it. Like, I just don't know what the alternatives are. Like, what are you doing for defense if you trade Brooke Lopez for like an OK center? What's the vision there?

The young guys just haven't popped, and I don't know that Doc will trust any of them. There's just something nagging at me that's a little worrisome about Milwaukee. But look, that three-man court was dominant when they played.

And I thought they were, I said, I think I was on record saying if they play Boston, I would pick Boston at six. Probably. I think if they're fully healthy bucks against the Celtics, they need, that's a competitive series and the Celtics win it. So that's a good starting point. Something is just a little nagging at me on that one. Any other pick you're dying to talk about before we quickly do some, some veteran stuff? What'd you make of Khalil Ware to Miami at 15? What did you make of it?

I was very surprised. Khalil Ware seems like the opposite of a Miami Heat type guy. Now,

Maybe they said, like, we're going to bring him into our system and we're going to rewire this dude and we're going to get him playing hard on every possession and we're going to get him to fall in love with basketball. And if that happens, then we have, you know, this unicorn big man that everybody's looking for, a guy who can stretch the floor, who can block shots, seven foot one, mobile, great hands, great feet, great touch. Talent is not the question with Khalil Ware.

He's always heard the intel the last few years about his color. Where is like, does this guy actually like basketball? You know, like, does he can we get him revved up and playing hard consistently? He made a big step forward this year at Indiana. He played harder. But, you know, I worry a little bit about his processing speed. I worry about his feel for the game.

And so it's going to be very interesting to see how he fits in. I know the real reason I was surprised about that, because Dalton connect sitting right there at 15, you know, you took Haka's last year, you know, we're all saying, Oh, you know, the heat, you know, they draft the ready-made dudes. This, you know, first team, all Americans sitting for you, SEC player of the year, Dalton connect. But listen, maybe they looked at it and said, Dalton connect and Tyler hero. Neither of these guys can guard a chair. We're worried about our defense. And so, um,

Just the same questions that you have about Milwaukee. I have some of the same questions about Miami. How are they going to make the next jump? You just extend Bam out of Bayou and then you draft Khalil Ware. Can these guys play together? I'm not sure. A lot of questions about Khalil Ware, but if anybody can figure it out, it's the Miami Heat. I mentioned last week on the Heat that I had heard some tepid, I wouldn't say optimism, but the idea that

There's going to be some stopgap solution that keeps Jimmy Butler on the Miami Heat, but not the mega extension that he wants. And maybe that you just play it out with him and see what happens. Maybe that you play it out with him and midway through, you strike an extension that is more palatable to you and he will accept whatever it is. Windy sort of confirmed that yesterday on TV. So Jimmy Butler is going to be on the Heat.

next year. If he opts out in a year from now and goes somewhere else in free agency, what does your team look like? Where does Miami go from there? They're rarely caught off guard with things like this, which is why I think we have not heard the last of this whole discussion. But for now, we have. And if that's true, Jimmy Butler is going back to Miami. OGN and OB re-signed with the Knicks.

Other players that would have been free agents this year never got to free agency, notably Drew Holiday. Philadelphia is running out of targets for the cap space. And the biggest story now in the NBA, we'll get some clarity on Saturday, some some I wouldn't say clarity, some version of clarity. And that's when Paul George's deadline is to opt in or opt out of his player option for next year. It's on Saturday. I don't know exactly what time.

I've given, I now have officially no feel for what's going to happen with Paul George. I, I, I, they're, like I said, last time, 2019 came out of nowhere. Even people that should have been in position to know were caught off guard by it. You know, I don't know what's going to happen, but I know Philadelphia is sitting there with this cap space and, and, and,

25% of an NBA roster sitting there knowing we've got to do something with that space to compete with Boston and now New York and probably Milwaukee and maybe Indiana and Cleveland, who's got some big decisions coming up for the, you know, the rest of these, I, I'm sure they've got plans D E and F, you know, people have whispered Brandon Ingram. People have whispered Jeremy Grant. Neither of those are as exciting to me as Paul George. Um,

I don't know what the hell is going to happen here, but we're going to get some clarity there on Saturday. We're going to get some clarity with the Warriors on Friday tomorrow because that's their date deadline by which they have to guarantee Chris Paul's $30 million contract. And obviously they'll be working to trade it between now and then to see if they can get a player in the door. And that in turn impacts Klay Thompson and what happens with him. But the PG stuff is the biggest story in the league. And I have given up trying to read the tea leaves on that one.

Yeah, I don't have a lot of insight here. I just think it's hard to leave LA and it's the offer they made is pretty good. So let's see what happens. I don't know. I really don't know. And I don't know what Philadelphia does if he doesn't come there. They can just also split it as we've talked about among a couple of guys like KCP plus player X, Y, and Z. Yeah.

Well, I mean, Calvin Booth basically said that KCP is done there. He's not coming back. I didn't see that. What happened last night? He had a press conference and, you know, he I think it's, you know, let me let me find his. Well, I mean, we talked about this on Monday. We'll be OK if Contavious Caldwell Pope doesn't return.

Yeah, you don't say that stuff if you think Contavious Caldwell-Pope is going to return. Christian Brown is one of the best net rating guys in the league, as is KCP. So I think if he's to step into the starting lineup, I would project we'll be okay if KCP doesn't return.

That's a, let me translate a little bit of that at least. He gone. Well, that and like if you play with Jokic, your net rating is going to be really good. Better make some shots, Christian Brown. We feel like we have a walking Serbian solution to a lot of our roster issues. But yeah, I mean, that's one that we've, I missed that quote. Thank you for telling me about that. I missed that last night. But that's one that we've talked about. Yeah, man. Philly, yeah.

It's going to be interesting to see what happens with Paul George and interesting to see what the Clippers' plan B is with Paul George. One last thing I forgot to talk about on the Nets-Knicks thing. Let's wrap up with that. The other reason why teams are making these trades, and I've written about this, is

If everyone is operating on short windows and an aggressive mindset, if your trade fails, your aggressive window trade fails, you can kind of turn around and make the inverse version of that trade and trade one of your good players to a team that's super hungry and like reckless or whatever. And you get a bunch of picks back. Now, the problem is you may not get your picks back, which is why the Nets really struck gold by doing both of those things at the same time.

It just required them trading with the Knicks, and you know that hurt. You know it hurt to give the roommate's podcast another roommate for them to podcast with. But hell of a trade, hell of a week. You've got to go to a Zoom now to prepare for the second round of the draft. Is there anything we should – what did we not talk about? Is there anything you really wanted to hit? Is there anything that's super interesting about this second round other than Bronny? I was shocked that Kyle Filipowski –

invited to the green room, still sitting here right now, waiting to hear his name called. I got to think the Toronto Raptors need to look hard at him at 31. This guy is seven feet tall. He can dribble. He can pass. He can shoot. He's not a bad defender. He's competitive. Uh,

You know, the workouts weren't great. People tell me there were question marks about the interviews. They said he was nervous. He didn't make shots at the pro day. You know what's going on with his girlfriend. This is all nonsense. It's hard to find a seven footer like Kyle Filipowski, who is this skilled. Somebody needs to draft him early in the second round. Wait a second. Wait a second.

- Wait a second, I'm obviously out of the loop on what the young kids are talking about. What's going on with his girlfriend? You need to elaborate. - He has an older girlfriend, she's like 25 or 26 and people are like, "Oh, this is weird." And it's like, give me a freaking break, guys. - What? That's not the, what? - He hasn't talked to his parents, you know, like it's- - Oh my God, I gotta get this guy on the podcast. I gotta get them both on the podcast. - Brother or something. - I gotta get them both on the podcast. - We're gonna get this sorted out, Kyle. And Kyle, he's gonna have a very good NBA career.

Hey, look, 25 years old. That's very, it's like a dream to me. That's young. My wife, I said that. That's a thing. You're not making this up to, to, I'm not, I'm not being clown. Five times. This came up. It was one of the biggest factors that you heard. And, um,

It's just weird, man. It's really, really weird. I think people really overthought this one. And listen, the workouts didn't help. The interviews didn't help. He's a little bit of a nervous guy, you know, but there's a lot less pressure in the NBA regular season than there is playing at Duke. So I think Kyle Foposki is going to be just fine. Well, that was a plot twist I didn't see coming. You mentioned Toronto at 31, which is a pick they traded for. They're my other team where I get asked all the time,

What exactly is Toronto doing? Part of that is confusion about they kind of picked this middle path when they got off of Siakam, who just got paid. They got off of Van Vliet for nothing. He just got paid. They got off of Ananobi. He just got paid. Everyone's like, well, everyone else seems to really think these players are good. Why did the Raptors not think they were that good? I think that's kind of an unfair question to the Raptors. But...

Because their team context is different. They got quickly. They got Barrett. Didn't love the return for Siakam. I think they waited a little too long on that, but it's fine, whatever. They turned one of those picks into Olenek and Ogbaje. I think some of the confusion is they could go under the cap or stay over the cap this summer. But they're an interesting team to watch. And not an easy one to project. And Scottie Barnes just got the max extension, too.

A lot of good players here in this second round. This is going to be a fun little afternoon for us. Johnny Furphy still on the board. He was in the green room. Tyler Kolek, one of the best point guards in the draft, still on the board. Bobby Klintman, Cam Christie, Adam Bona, Juan Nunez, my guy. I know your guy hasn't been drafted yet. I can't wait. I'm so excited. Maybe the Spurs. We'll see what happens. Not 35-48, but we'll see if he gets there. But yeah, no, there's some good players still on the board here, Zach.

I hope the green room guys that didn't get picked didn't have to sleep in the green room. I hope the NBA put them up in a nice hotel, gave them a nice black car back to the hotel. I hope they're not sitting there sleeping on couches. That's brutal, sitting there for three hours and not hearing your name called. Well, welcome to the two-day draft. Maybe you guys stay overnight and let's do it again. Jonathan Gaboney, get ready for the second day of the draft. Thank you for your time. I'll talk to you soon, bud. Thank you, Zach. For the first time, Monday Night Football streams exclusively on ESPN+.

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