20 Burst results for "Kevin Pelton"
The Lowe Post
"kevin pelton" Discussed on The Lowe Post
"Would Phoenix ever do Tim Hardaway junior Dorian Finney Smith in the first round pick for Deandre Aiden. Who says no to that deal? I'm just coming out of the blue. I'm coming, I'm looking at my notes, like what have I not mentioned yet? It feels like it leaves Dallas to center heavy unless they can find a Christian wood trade simultaneously. So I don't feel like I would do that as the maps, but it's interesting. When both teams, both teams are having a media about that one, I agree. The other team that we didn't mention is the bucks who have been most closely linked to crowd or the athletic was first to report that they had permission to meet with Jay Crowder. That is true. I think they're looking around a little even harder than people think for someone in that big wing three, four mold. Before I let you go, 'cause I know you got a lunch meeting. Any teams we didn't hit that you were dying to hit. That was everyone that was on my we didn't talk about New Orleans at all. I guess that was the other team we didn't talk about. I did want to say quickly when Milwaukee though, I feel like Grayson Allen is being treated as kind of like bad salary in all of these conversations. And I get why he doesn't make sense in Phoenix because they have Landry shamit already use a very similar player, although I think signed to a worse contract and probably not as good a player. But if, you know, Grayson Allen ends up in Orlando or Detroit or on some rebuilding team that desperately needs shooting. Grace Allen is a useful player. I agree, I've done the whole, I think people just watched the Boston series. And watch Tatum and brown eat him for lunch, possession after possession and be like, well, Grayson Allen's not good. I think grace now is pretty good. On the other hand, I think the bucks have to plan for that series. And if they don't think he can play in that series, then maybe you sell a little low on him in just sort of vacuum value for a player who fits that series a little better. Talk to me about New Orleans who obviously has a gazillion first round picks in his slid all the way to tenth in the west. So I think one of the larger themes of this conversation, by the way, is I think there's a lot of teams that sort of have to figure out, can we be good enough this year to convince ownership to pay the luxury tax next year? When Zion's deal kicks in. Exactly. Portland is a team that has not been good enough to do that. So that's why Josh Hart probably should be traded before the deadline. You know, New Orleans, I think, is on the borderline right now. Phoenix also, if we were talking about the Collins and Aiden possibility would fall into that camp. You know, I think the idea of New Orleans paying the tax next year always difficult in that market, but became more was more palatable when they were the third best team in the west than it is right now and they've slumped a little bit and are in the play and I believe as we speak. Clinging to tenth at 500, they're down to exactly 500. So the challenge is you've got all these big salaries for next year with that Zion extension kicking in. You kind of have to trade one of those big salaries if you're going to add someone else with a big salary. So OG and yobi gets mentioned to New Orleans a lot. I don't think they can make it work financially, even though clearly they have depicts to be able to do it. So in other words, your big salaries are Ingram, McCollum, Zion. JV's up after this season, right? Yeah, so like a center upgrade or a point guard upgrade. I think are more realistic if you're sending one of those two guys out. Like I loved the idea of, you know, I tried to do the miles Turner, make the renegotiate and extend and trade all happened in New Orleans, like pretty clearly it sounds like that's off the table, but it would have been perfect for them because his salary the next two years is not that much higher than the onus Fallon Tunis is scheduled to make next season. And they could have taken in the increased salary this year because they've got a little more wiggle room with some of the contracts like Jackson Hayes. Well, we got a week to figure this out. One team we didn't mention, we probably should as the nets, but that's for another day. Kevin pelton live from Seattle where athletes are just leaving Willy nilly, teams are leaving, athletes are leaving. Always appreciate your time. You're going to be you are a must read all the time, but particularly at this time of year and in July. So there's going to be a lot of Kevin pelton content in the next week. I'm sure I will be leaning on you. In that week, thank you, sir. Thanks for having me. Stream two thousand plus college basketball games this season from 27 conferences across the country including the SEC ACC and the big 12 all on ESPN+ sign up now at ESPN+ dot com slash college.
The Lowe Post
"kevin pelton" Discussed on The Lowe Post
"Our other core guys are young. Why can't we just sort of keep this together and try to churn around the fringes a little bit? It's not like anyone in the west is sprinting away from us. Now, in a year, we could be talking about Memphis and New Orleans sprinting away from them along with some of the other teams at the top in New Orleans, injuries just killed their season, Memphis is young and rising and all that. You know, they could look, I think honestly say to themselves, oh, we'll just keep dame Simon's grant, you know, we don't have much flexibility, financially, but we have a little bit more than if we turn simons into some big $40 million contract. And we'll tinker and tinker and maybe sharp pops, they love sharp, maybe sharp pops in two years, maybe we luck into a good trade opportunity somewhere down the line. And all of a sudden, we're just like we were previously in the dame CJ or all of a sudden we're like a 51 team. Again, I don't think that's totally unreasonable for them to just sort of stay the course and have that optimistic outlook on life. And I think they have to because I just don't think they're going to trade simons, and I don't see any other, I don't see any other way for them to sort of do this sort of reorienting our franchise deal that we talked about with Phoenix. Agreed. Yeah, a grain is 29. Yeah, I mean, I was not that far off. Yeah. If you weren't for the or will be 29 in March, I should say. He's not yet 29. Let me not age him. Yeah, you can't do that, believe me. If you age me by a month I'm going to be angry. If it weren't for the idea that the police are out there being aggressive as buyers, I wouldn't think of these Simon's trade possibility. I just think that's the only realistic scenario for them to add to the roster right now is with simons unless for some reason they're going to give up sharp, which again I don't think they're going to do. Can I give you another fake one that is just going to break my brain has already broken my brain? We'd have to get more stuff in this one. Nurkic and simons, my pet package again. It's just not going to work. I really want to build this trick. Nurkic and simons to Minnesota for Rudy Gobert. That's intriguing. That's almost exact salary match. It's almost an exact salary match. It's within, I think it's within a million. It's within it's within $300,000. I mean, the one thing the blazers have tried for so long to pair day in with a variety of like these stand out defensive forwards over the years. They have never gotten like the old defensive caliber front court player to pair with him. I'd be intrigued to see how that looks. And I can hear the blazer fan saying, wait a second, haven't we just spent the whole last 6 months trashing the Rudy Gobert trade? How much Minnesota overvalued him? Blah, blah, blah. And we're trading this 23 year old, you know, athletic shooter, that's not fair. And I get it, maybe Minnesota has to include something more. I think what those fans need to come to grips with is like nurkic on that contract with three years left after this one is not a trade asset. It's not someone that a lot of teams are going to be super psyched to have. I just thought that was interesting. Can we talk about the Knicks for a second? Why is nobody talk? The only Nick stock there is is cam reddish, which with respect to cam reddish, I just don't really care that much where he ends up. And this is a team that just got to the goal line and then threw its phone in the toilet on the Donovan Mitchell trade talks with everything but Grimes and varying amount of picks depending on who else is in the deal to sometimes three. I had someone say to me yesterday who's not on the not with any of these teams, not with the bulls not with the Knicks, not with the Lakers, just a third, a fourth, whatever source. Just spitballing said, if I'm the bulls, I'm gonna get the Lakers in the Knicks to bid against each other for Zach lavine because that's just what I would do. And I thought, did nicks have been linked to a lot of, you know, in an obie's name has been out there Ian begley. I think it was the first person to put his name out there. Why are we not talking about the next more? Because the Knicks have a good problem, which is that it's very difficult to upgrade their rotation right now. Like they've got a lot of solidly average or better players, it's even though they have Jane Brunson and joyous randal or in all star conversation. The fact that they don't have that top 20 guy in the league, I think is their biggest issue right now. And Zach lavine atop 20 guy in the league right now. I don't think he probably qualifies since he's not in the gallstone conversation. He's not to be clear. He's not like super distant from that. We're not trashing faculty in top 20. If you actually start writing down the names, like it's hard to get there. So I mean, I think, again, it makes there's no one out there out there for them to go all in on. OG, I think, makes more sense in terms of bringing complementary skills to what they have in the starting lineup than Zach lavine. Again, offensive creation is not the Knicks problem with Brunson and Randall. I also don't think it's unreasonable for the Knicks to just keep their ammo drive for the summer because I think one of the themes in windy was talking about this on his pod the other day. I think the playoffs are going to be really, really telling in terms of who becomes available this summer. There are lots of teams and I've talked about it before with so much at stake and so much potential uncertainty if things go wrong for them in the playoffs that there are going to be interesting names that are going
The Lowe Post
"kevin pelton" Discussed on The Lowe Post
"Or the New York Knicks, which would you like to talk about? Well, let's do Portland both because I'm well prepared for that and also because I think it intersects with the Chicago conversation. And with the Phoenix one, I have so many crazy Portland trailblazers trades, all of which are probably total non starters for the Portland Trail Blazers, but I don't really care. I want to have fun. It's the trade deadline I want to have fun. Why are the Portland Trail Blazers on your list of trade deadline wildcards, Kevin pelton? I mean, the case for them is a little similar to the Lakers in terms of their star Jamie and Lillard is still performing at this elite level. You know, I was there last week when he scored 60 points against the jazz, he's been on an incredible heater during this home stand that they've had going. They still haven't played very well during it, which is which is the problem. So yeah, because of that, they need to find better pieces around Damian Lillard, and even though I think everyone thinks of them is a tear down team and they do have probably a need to figure out the Josh Hart situation before the trade deadline. They're also I think a team that's going to be aggressive looking to add to their core rather than subtract from it. Okay, so. Given the constraints of reality in Portland's salary structure, Jeremy grants a free agent after this year, hasn't signed an extension. Think Jason quick had a piece about that this week in the athletic. Might want to wait until the off season to sign a bigger contract than can be offered now. Heart, let's just say he's a 12.96 million expiring contract is a very good role player. And use of nurkic who has slumped in the last 6 weeks and at times kind of slumped out of the fourth quarter rotation in favor of drew Eubanks jumping drew Eubanks makes about $55 million over the next three seasons after this one all guaranteed. Given those constraints, how Kevin pelton and the fact that I owe the Chicago Bulls, a lottery protected pick. Through 2028, so that as of right now, I can not trade a first round pick, can not can not trade a first round pick. Now I can go to the bulls and say, what's it gonna cost me to amend the terms on those picks and how dangerous is amending the protections on those picks going to be to me the Portland trailblazers are currently and I think 11th place in the Western Conference, I can't just be too too reckless with my own draft picks. How can I win now? So that's why I kind of like Chicago is a trade partner for Portland because if anyone is going to be like willing to work around that trade that protected pick situation, it's going to be if you're dealing directly with the bulls because then they know they get the pick either way, basically. So I'm so excited for these fake trades that are going to be crazy and we have no chance of reality because I have a lot of them myself. So please, I'm so excited. All right, well, so you started, I think, with Zach lavine to Portland, which is logical for a few reasons. To meet Derozan is an interesting fit there. I believe still shares an agent with Damien Lillard. So there's that bit of a spicy he does, the good ones. Yeah. So, and then if you look at Derozan and Caruso, they're almost an exact salary match for Anthony Simon's and Josh Hart in a way that solves the blazers problems because they don't have to worry about like what's Josh Hart going to make in free agency next year. How do we figure that out? And then for Chicago, it's not really an issue for them. They get dramatically younger by going from Jerusalem and cruise at assignments. You've got to believe in Simon's future that he can be, if not an all star in the all star discussion type of player, I think, for that to make sense for them depending unless there's a lot of draft picks going. So outline the deal for me so I get it completely right. Derozan and Caruso for heart and Simon's. No draft equity? Some pick DVD. That's the player part of it. So here's the issue we're going to run into over and over again. I don't think the blazers want to trade in for an assignment. I think their view of the situation is we upended our franchise last season in the CJ McCollum trade, in part because of the faith we have in homegrown first round pick Anthony simons. I think there's sort of an attachment to that idea. And he's the bridge to the post name era. He's the only real bridge. I mean, shade and sharp is far, far away. He's playing now, that's good. But I think he's part of this conversation because one of the things that we've seen with shade and sharp this year is he, he's probably a shooting garden, not a small forward, given his rebound rate. And so like long-term is shade and sharp Simon's in lower to fit. Like that is that going to create kind of the same redundancy issues we've been talking out for Portland for a long period of time. So if you really believe in sharp is the long-term guy, then Simon's may be the one who ends up going because of that. Now one of the advantages of acquiring Derozan over Levine, which is the fake trade I pitched earlier this week, is Derozan makes $10 million less than Levine. And so you're not handcuffing yourself to let's say Jeremy grant. What's a good estimate for Jeremiah? Should we just say 28 or 30 or something? So you're not committing a $110 million to three players, you're committing a little bit less than that, which is also part of the value of Anthony Simon's contract is that that contract is going to age pretty well in the mid 20s instead of a gigantic $40 million contract. I like that one. Can I read you my Portland Chicago one?
The Lowe Post
"kevin pelton" Discussed on The Lowe Post
"In their prime to kind of be the guy to attract them. So I don't think it's like full scale care everything down have a 150 million in cap space or whatever the number is 200 something million by the time we get to that point. But I don't know if I want to take on that entire Zach lavine contract. And again, give up so much for the privilege of it. So you're holding your nose at two time all star Zach lavine. With LeBron averaging 30 points a game at age 38. And my third option in the starting 5 right now is the guy we just traded for from the wizards, the Washington Wizards of Washington didn't want him, you're turning your nose up at Zach lavine. I'm turning my nose up at two unprotected first round pages. The only known for one because to get off of Russ is one pick buys. And by the way, can we just stop, maybe you disagree with me? The rust for 6 men of the year train has just, to me, has just got to stop. I think he's played pretty well coming off the bench, but the lack of shooting is still so detrimental and the turnovers are so detrimental that I mean, I think he stole the Vegas favorite to win 6 man a year. There's just got to be a better candidate than Russ for a 6 man of the year. You can't win 6 man of the year if your team would still trade you at like the first opportunity to get a really good play. Yeah, I can't say I've looked at the 6 man award race because it doesn't feel like anyone has emerged in the way that no, he might win by default like Christian wood got hurt brogden's been good. Bobby portis got hurt. I don't know who it is right now. Broadway is definitely the kind of person I would vote for. Can I just retroactively vote for 2016 Andre Iguodala? So but also I don't think that Chicago can come into this with the demand that one of those picks for Westbrook because the Lakers aren't in the kind of urgency to move Westbrook that they were before this season. And you're only taking on half a season of his salary. And it's matching salary in this case. You're not, you know, you're sending out salary in addition to taking it back in. So I would reject that part of Chicago's hypothetical premise. All right. All right. The other thing I think we should say about the Lakers is one of the reasons they've gotten in this situation is at every turn since adding Anthony Davis. They have prioritized shot creation in terms of the skills that they have wanted around Anthony Davis and LeBron James. Do you think back to trading Danny Green for Dennis Schroeder? Better shot created and not as good at the other stuff. And I liked that trade for them. I can't sit here and say it was obvious to me that that trade would go but actually Dennis schroder's been good for them this year. I liked the idea of I need another ball handler next to LeBron and now I didn't think that that trade would then kick off a series of transactions in which they trade every single player who could shoot and compliment LeBron and AD. I just thought it would be a stand-alone. That's all. Exactly. But Marcus sold for montrez harrell prioritis in shot creation. Wow, that is also cut. Which was not technically a trade. They traded Gasol too and signed mantras harrell. Then the Westbrook trade is obviously the ultimate example of it where you've got these useful role players in Kuzma and KCP and trade them for Westbrook who is a better shot creator doesn't fit with LeBron. Even Rui, like his best NBA skill is his ability to make difficult shots, right? As opposed to being a guy who excels at making the open shots to LeBron James and Anthony Davis provide. And one of the things that's happened through all of this, maybe to a lesser extent this year than the last couple of years, they still haven't been very good when LeBron and AD are on the court because it turns out you need the other stuff in addition to shot creation then too. I don't know what the Lakers are going to do. I really don't. I don't know that there's a one pick guy out there for them. I think my gut, I'm overusing my gut. I don't know why my gut is my gut is hungry, actually. You have lunch yet? Oh, I'm Kevin, you're talking, I'm part of the 1130 a on launch club. It'll be sometimes 1105. And my wife would be like, are you making lunch? Yeah, I'm hungry. What do you want me to do? Wait, wait, what? I gotta wait till noon, there's a law. I'm hungry. I think the Lakers, at the very least, if the bulls called with and said, we'll do that deal for the two picks. The Lakers are getting everyone all the rambi everybody into a conference room. And having a really long debate about it, and I bet that debate ends with them doing it. Now, whether the bulls would do it, I don't know.
The Lowe Post
"kevin pelton" Discussed on The Lowe Post
"Go for it. And I know they were on your list. I think the Phoenix Suns might be the single biggest wild card of the entire trade deadline outside these teams that are the first domino teams. The sun's got wax last night, good day play. I can't even remember. I forgot already. They could Atlanta. Atlanta, Atlanta, wax the suns, but the suns before that had won like 6 of 8 or something to kind of repair their season to get back over 500. Here's the obvious reasons that they're a wild card. New incoming owner who according to woj Baxter homes will have control of the team. By the time of the trade deadline, Robert sarver bye bye. And for all I've heard about Matt HBO, is he wants to win, he wants to win now. I've seen other places talk about the sun's name to blow it up. It's over trade Chris Paul, move on to a new era. From everything I've heard, this guy doesn't want to do that. They have all their own picks, all the swaps all that. They have a mercurial, a word I don't think, I don't think I've said the word mercurial out loud in my life until right now. A mercurial also fitting for the suns and their sister team the mercury. Starting center on a max contract Deandre and who nobody really seems to like all that much or anywhere. I'm kind of like higher on Deandre ayton, but he can also veto trades. And then they have a giant age gap between their two best players, Devin Booker and Chris Paul. I think the reason they're interesting to me is you have to blow it up extreme over here, which I don't think they're gonna do. You have the obvious kind of win now deal, which the typical contract is picks and a young guy for a veteran who comes in and helps my team. And they'll be linked to OGN and OB who is the hottest name, I think, in the discourse. I wouldn't even say on the market, but just in the discourse for the last month. And then you have this middle ground of like, can we reorient our team while not taking a step back now and maybe in fact taking a step forward now and just kind of redirecting where our franchise goes going forward in Phoenix is in position to make that kind of trade with ayton or even Chris Paul. I don't think let me be clear. I don't think they're trading Chris Paul. I've heard I've heard nothing about trading Chris Paul in fact, I've heard the opposite. But they are in position to sort of reorient their team with those kinds of middle ground trades. And I'm interested to hear your thoughts on that and if you thought of any such middle ground trades. Well, I was kind of annoyed a few weeks ago because one of the exercises I always do this time of year is the dunked on NBA basketball podcast mock trade deadline and I got to sign the sons and had been thinking for a long period of time. What if they try to trade Chris Paul for Fred Fred van vliet? And that's that sort of trade where potentially makes you better now, you know, depending on how you feel about Chris Paul's performance. And he's been better lately. So is compared to when I first started thinking about this trade, it's no longer such a no brainer for them. He's been better lately, but even last night against the hawks. Here comes the one for 6 for two points performance. And those have been less frequent in the last ten days, ten games since he came back. The 22 points in ten assist games have been more frequent, but like until this year, Chris Paul never had the one O 6 game for two points. That was just never a thing. So it's weird that it's still happening. Yeah. And then obviously gets you a younger point guard that's more on the timeline of your other players. One thing I think that's changed that makes me think the sons should be very aggressive at this deadline is there was this period of time where the sun's not as explicitly as the warriors, but we're kind of pursuing that two timeline schedule, where we're winning right now on Chris Paul's timeline. But we're also, we also think we can contend down the road with this core led by Devin Booker Deandre ayton McHale bridges, maybe cam Johnson. And Eaton's stagnation, I guess, in terms of play and who knows how much of that is just being unhappy in Phoenix, not having the same kind of setup play from Chris Paul and with Devin Booker also being out of the lineup for such a long period of time. You know, who knows what those factors are. But I don't think you can look at it and say anymore that this core going forward is still a contender, even as Chris Paul agents out. And that's why I think you would have to be aggressive. Leading up to the deadline. So give me some give me give me some fake trades. Give me some plate. I have some too. The issue is, as with all these trades and I can't wait to talk about Portland because they're my other one of my other wild card your Pacific Northwest neighbors out there. If you're trading ayton as cute as it is that they seem to win every time they start bismack biyombo at center and that Chris Paul and Devin Booker could maybe make me into a rim running center somehow they're that good. You need to get a center back for Deandre ayton who's actually good and you can look at and say, we don't have to hold our nose starting this guy 50 times a season. Like you need a real center on your team that can play both ends of the court. That's one of the challenges and I'm interested to see how and if your fake trades answer that challenge. I mean not specifically because the one that I had involving 8 that is on ESPN dot com today and I think it's probably a good fair fake trade because I think both fan bases are probably unhappy about it is that is eaten to Toronto with two first round picks and a swap four Pascal siakam. I thought for sure it was gonna be in and obi. No, 'cause I mean, you can go more play 5 out lineups, you know, use a front court of siakam cam Johnson, bridges, switch everything. That to me is a really intriguing construction. So you still probably would need a center and would probably have to try to get one by trading Jay Crowder as part of that deal. But it wouldn't necessarily be a center that you'd be expecting to finish games. You can even throw Kim birch in there or something, but that it complicates the salary. Phoenix, of course, is what 15 million over the tax, right? So that they're going to be cognizant of that. And I think I screwed up my fake trade because I put Toronto into the tax by having them take back charge in addition to aid, but it's surely that's something we could resolve with a third team. Yeah, I was going to say, all of these trades, like I looked at Portland trades, Portland is $67,000 under the tax. They're a Tesla under the tax. And like a lot of my fake trades put them literally I have one that puts them $225,000 over the tax.
The Lowe Post
"kevin pelton" Discussed on The Lowe Post
"Thursday afternoon. One week from the NBA trade deadline, people like to trade deadline better than they like basketball, which is ironic because the players who are going to get traded are being traded to play basketball and all of the chatter in the last month has been when will the bulls decide what to do when will the raptors decide what to do? What will the Lakers decide to do with these hallowed first round picks and Russell Westbrook, 6 man of the year candidate Russell Westbrook, how are they really going to waste LeBron's prime? And I wanted to bring Kevin pelton on because you are one of the preeminent fake trade artists of the NBA, media sphere you have worked for an NBA team. You actually know how the salary cap rules work, which I think is valuable and you like even will catch a mistake that I make. Every once in a while, I wanted to go over with you some under the radar trade deadline wildcard teams. We all know the first domino could be Toronto and this and that and all the bulls and will they blow it up. I wanted to hit on some other interesting teams, but first I have a question to spring on here. Are you ready? I am ready. You did no prep for this. I want you to have a passionate answer. In 6 hours, the all star reserves will be announced. Who are you preemptively angry about getting left off one of the teams? Who is this snub that if this person is snubbed, it will actually be a snub that will infuriate you, Seattle kraken fan number one, Kevin pelton. So I think it's got to be one of the guys with injuries, basically, that we're going to look back on and say, wait, we really were that concerned over the fact that the guy this guy missed 15 games in the first half of the season. So it probably has to come from the Western Conference front court. I mean, the fan voting already took Zion out of the equation, but like if somehow, Anthony Davis didn't make it. That to me would be pretty infuriating. I don't know if you feel like that's a realistic possibility. Him not making it. I feel like it is a realistic possibility. I don't know how the coaches will vote. I don't know which coach is actually vote and who farms it out to their fourth assistant coaches and how many of those guys pay attention and all that. So Anthony Davis is your choice. Over Zion, over was I had made it over jaren Jackson junior yeah, jaren Jackson junior is tough because I feel like, you know, my philosophy on all stars tends to be much more let's pick the best players than let's pick who's having the best season. And I feel like so you can overcome if you're certainly first timers can deserve it and certainly players who have mistimed during the first half of the season can deserve it. If you have the combination of both of those, if you're playing at an all star level for the first time and this time, I feel like that's kind of the challenge. Yeah, to be clear, I brought up triple J, not because of the fake Reddit conspiracy, but because he has actually played fewer minutes than I think still Zion Williamson, if not, it's close. And definitely fewer than AD. What about I voted I voted for AD as a starter? So that's how strongly I feel about his case because in terms of the wins above replacement player metric that I have, he was still ahead of some of these guys who have played substantially more minutes. Even while he was sidelined leading up to that. I didn't know you were you were just part of the Lakers media propaganda propaganda machine. I think they're going to be some questions about whether I bite about later this podcast, but we'll get to that. What about Devin Booker falling into the same boat of we all know this guy's an all star, but he's only played a thousand minutes. You're more furious about Anthony Davis than Devin Booker. Yes, in part because one of the things I feel like has changed in the last few weeks since we started having this all star conversation is to me, Anthony Edwards is getting more to the point now where we might get to the end of the season. And if he doesn't make it, be like, how did this guy not make the all star team? There was a year where Steph didn't make it. Like early on in his breakout and ended up all NBA, right? Am I remembering that correctly? It would have had to have been 13. 1213. It's probably 1213 because that's the year they end up pushing the spurs in the second round of the playoffs and beating the nuggets in the first round of the playoffs and after that, it's just one great year after another. My answer to this question, I'm getting preemptively upset. Preemptively. I don't even know if I have reason to be upset, but I'm already priming myself to be angry that bam adebayo is left off the Eastern Conference team. What is your reaction to that? Should he be on it or am I irrational about driving the bandwagon? I am probably relatively lower on bam adebayo's candidacy even the Jimmy Butler on his own team. I mean, certainly deserves a lot of credit for carrying the offense the way that he has this period of time, but one of the things that I weigh heavily into this is it has never been easier for centers to put up good offensive statistics than it is in the league right now. I mean, you look at the east center debate and it claxton's role in it. And I think that's a good example where he's shooting 80% from the field. So the board to be a productive offensive center has never been as high in the NBA as it is right now. So I'm probably a little lower on bam's candidacy. Well, Nick claxton has Kevin Durant until recently in Kyrie Irving. Passing him the ball and Ben Simmons doing nothing but passing other people the ball and getting in people's way. Bam adebayo's out there with like sometimes Jimmy Butler and Tyler hero, but sometimes like even casual NBA fans would be like, these dudes play for the heat. This is the roster of a playoff team and bam has been the Iron Man all season long. The only concept of presence, so I'm gonna be angry. I would pick him over Jimmy Butler. I have them both on my personal 12 man all star team where I ignore the fan voting. But ignore the starters and just sort of start from scratch. I had them both in as reserves. So I think both are deserving Jimmy Butler just had no brain or like this guy is one of the 12 best players in the Eastern Conference. All right, well, we'll see. Is there anyone you're gonna be mad if they make it? No, I don't think they'd be when I would be mad if they made it. I thought by the way the guy you might say was tyrese Halliburton, but do we consider him a lock to spike? I will be shocked if he doesn't make it. Okay. I'm just assuming he's gonna make it. He's gonna be back relatively soon. I don't know if I can't remember if the timetable is soon enough to play in the All-Star Game, but that's the case where it's like, you just name him at all star so you can say I'm an all star, then you injury replace him with maybe bam adebayo. I don't know. Okay, trade deadline time. A week away. Chatter is picking up, still not super loud, out there. And I went through all the teams that we know of as sort of controlling the tenor of the trade deadline. But I wanted to zero in on some teams that I think are wildcards, not because wild cards because they could do lots of different things and lots of different directions and they haven't necessarily been like at the forefront of the trade conversations. Can I guide us and pick the first one?
The Lowe Post
"kevin pelton" Discussed on The Lowe Post
"With him, maybe this is the best outcome for all parties involved. Kevin pelton, what do you make of all this? Well, first off, I'm glad it happened after I was back from the summer league in Las Vegas. Firmly on home turf to write about this to write multiple pieces today. But yeah, I mean, I guess the question I have kind of after this whole process is done is we did a podcast on Halloween last year. I think it was, or maybe the deadline was November 1st last year because Halloween fell on a Sunday. And I said it was reasonable, I think we both agreed that it was reasonable for the sons to not necessarily give 8 in the 5 year max even coming off that great playoff run. But also I said that ultimately I would have done it because there's just too much potential downside in him going out and getting an offer sheet. And this one wasn't even as bad as you could have potentially signed. He wasn't able to get the two plus one that's the shortest. Although I guess the sun's kind of wanted to short off her. So maybe not as bad from their perspective, but was the win that they were hoping for at this point that he would just take the qualifying offer, it didn't sound like they were interested in trading Deandre Aiden right now, but you assumed that if they don't actually think he's worth the max that eventually there's going to result in a trade. And that might work out okay, but it's going to be a complicated few months here for Monty Williams before the suns are able to do that. So ayton kidnapped this appears to number one be an ironclad four year $133 million contract. No option in year four, no funniest no Brooklyn Nets Alan crabbe Otto Porter funny stuff built into it. It is just that even Gordon Hayward remember Gordon here, we got the Charlotte offer sheet that was the three plus one and that kind of set the stage for his eventual departure. From Utah years later. Number two, ayton can not be traded until January 15th and for not for a year without his consent, which would obviously, well, not obviously I shouldn't say obviously, which would for now take him out of any complicated Kevin Durant mega transaction. I was Bobby Mark said on television today and I have said repeatedly, I don't think the nets were super into getting Deandre ayton in any theoretical Kevin Durant trade. What they might have been super into is a three or four team trade in which Phoenix flips Deandre ayton for more stuff that they flip to Brooklyn in addition to all the other stuff they were going to flip to Brooklyn for Kevin Durant. That's off the board now. No Kevin Durant trade has happened. I have not really heard of much realistic momentum for any Kevin Durant trade. Which is making me kind of and this is probably exactly what the nets wants. So color me a sucker. It's making me kind of like, are they, are they actually just gonna do nothing and bring him and bring him back? But can you explain a little bit if there's any more to explain about the trickle down effects that this could have on the Durant landscape? Yeah, I mean, I think the other factor here is if you're looking at it from the sun's perspective in terms of luxury tax, matching this offer to Aidan puts them 16 million approximately above the luxury tax line with 14 players under contract. One of those jock landale is basically non guaranteed a small guarantee from the Dijon Murray trade. If you're not sending Deandre eating back in that deal, odds are you're sending three guys with much lower salaries and increasing your tax bill by trading for Kevin Durant, which surely is part of Phoenix's thinking in all of this, this was something that came up on the hoop collective with Brian windhorst as a part of their consideration and whether to match this Indiana offer shape. Because one of the interesting things about this is this has been presumed to be happening for days now at some point to hold up with the milk and Brockton trade had to get completed. That got done on Monday or Tuesday, I think, actually. And then there was a lot of saber rattling about when this was going to happen. And the fact that it took this long pretty strongly suggest to me, the pacers didn't want to actually make this offer sheet. They wanted to sign and trade for Deandre and because they suspected it was just going to get matched anyway. Yeah, I don't really understand. I mean, we'll get the backstory and I'll try to get some of the backstory in the next 48 hours. I don't really understand any of what you just said. So I tend to have that effect on people. No, but it seems like if the sun's didn't want eaten and don't value it and although they match this offer sheet, they appear to have done it as the last resort because even by Phoenix Suns Robert sarver standards, letting the number one overall pick who is a very important player on a finals team walk away for nothing is like borderline just sell the team or contract the franchise level malpractice. So that was never ever going to happen. But if this is their endgame, and if Indiana is like, no, we kind of like Deandre ayton, it just seems like something else could have happened here or should have happened here. Maybe the sons are just like, we don't even think miles Turner is that good. And in their defense, miles Turner has been available to some degree for like four years and he's still on the Indiana Pacers and I do think he is particularly for the Devin Booker Chris Paul team a meaningful downgrade from Deandre 8 in terms of the style of pick and roll game that he plays in his feel and his touch and his feel for the game and all that, but something sometimes you get these stories where even if you're inside the league, you're talking to people all day long and thinking about this stuff all day long, like Kevin, I had a dream about Colin Sexton two nights ago. I was in a parking garage in the dream. This is my brain. I was driving out of a parking garage waiting for the bar to go up so I could leave and I saw Colin Sexton's agent in the parking garage. And I was like, yo, man, what's happening with Colin Sexton? And he said, oh, we're don't report this yet, but we're signing a one year $22 million deal to stay with the cats. Like I remember the terms of the deal from my dream. So even given all of that reality going on in my brain, there's a story like this that comes along and there's just a big puzzle piece missing in the center of the story. This just feels strange to me. What's kind of like you need to step back for a moment and be like, okay, you've explained to me why Phoenix is doing what they're doing, but what Phoenix is doing. But why is Phoenix doing it? What's the endgame here? I think is the question that's unresolved, because again, if you, you know, maybe they were hoping that it would take the qualifying offer this summer and they'd have them for an additional year, probably be able to skirt the luxury tax at that point. Keep this group together and then kind of punt this situation to next off season. But if it's not that, then why weren't you looking more aggressively to trade him at last year's trade deadline? Why weren't you trying to find a sign in trade even though that's complicated by the hard cap issues that it creates? There had to be some more palatable alternative than keeping him around with both sides kind of knowing that this is eventually destined for a trade seemingly when he's out between when he's eligible in the deadline. I don't know what I'm missing. Clearly I'm missing some personal dynamic or some off court dynamic between 8 and the sons. I mean, obviously there's been some smoke here or there, the game 7 playing 17 minutes, they lose by 9000 points at home to Dallas. It described Monty Williams a terse Monte Williams as in the internal, that's internal. Something is going on because I think Deandre Hayden is really good and I think he's 23 years old going on 24 soon. I've said this before, I would bet on Deandre 8 and I said this in the context of the pistons before they drafted a center and sort of bowed out of this sweepstakes and used their cap space as a dumping grounds instead, which I think is fine for them.
The Lowe Post
"kevin pelton" Discussed on The Lowe Post
"And now, the low post. Welcome to holy crap the low post podcast free agency looked like it was gonna be maybe a little bit boring and then about an hour or some period of time before it started. The news broke that Kevin Durant, I don't know if this makes him a normal person or not a normal person or whatever has requested a trade from the Brooklyn Nets thus cementing the Kyrie Irving Kevin Durant and for part of the time James Harden and still Ben Simmons. One of the greatest flops in the history of sports one playoff series win in three seasons, 497 instances of melodrama ending, presumably with a trade request from Kevin Durant, which impacts the entire league, obviously woj reported earlier today that Kyrie Irving will probably either follow or lead Kyrie out the door once the nets figure out a way to make that happen. Lakers, we will get to that in a second. To help us just deal, deal with it all. Suss out all of it. Looking fresh as a daisy in Seattle, the guy who's writing all the free agency recaps for us made up some fake Kevin Durant trades today. I had to get my Kevin Durant traits out of the recycling bin that I did last week with Bobby marks and they're back and I even have more of them Kevin pelton, is there is there anything to take from this, I mean, everyone wants to do the Malika Andrews calls it the blame pie. What percentage of the pie of blame does Kyrie Irving get? What percentage of blame does Kevin Durant get for being a quote unquote not a leader? What about Sean marks? Oh my God, remember Steve mashes the coach. What about mister whammy? What about Joe's side? What about the basketball gods? Is there anything to take from just this being a complete disaster? I mean, I guess there is the question of the quote unquote super team era, which I think right off at your peril because we'll see where Kevin lands, it could be a new super tune. I think it very likely will be considered a super team wherever he goes. I do think there's an element where it's probably getting harder to build around three players with maximum salaries because the max salaries are just so high now relative to the salary cap that's one of the things that did change in the last CBA. But it probably has more to do with this specific combination of players and the combustibility. And the fact that look everything in the NBA is impermanent now. I mean, we'll talk about the hawks trade in a minute, but you're trading draft picks in 2027. How confident can you be that any player is currently on your roster is going to be there in 2027? This is a good cautionary note for today because when James Harden became available, I remember there was this, I don't know what the proper word for Parker sorry I screwed up there three, two, one. When James Harden became available in Houston, I just remember seeing a groundswell of, why would you even think about three picks in three swaps? It's James Harden. You're combining them with James Harden and you're combining it with Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. What are you gonna do? The Danny ainge thing where you don't trade Jalen Brown for Kawhi Leonard and Paul George Juba. Of course you throw all the picks in at all the swaps and I said, and I remember writing, look, it's a risk that you probably have to take and I do think for just a nice hot second there. Just for just for the briefest, the briefest hot second there they did have an unstoppable team. It's one of the reasons why this is just like, it's such a shocking story in part because they had it. They had the team they sought to build. It was that good it was unstoppable and that it all fall apart but I remember saying like you probably have to do it, but don't sit here and pretend like these things are risk free just because James Harden is much younger and Kevin Durant is much younger than Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce were the first time we saw this movie. They're never risk free and here we are a year later, all three guys are gonna be gone. Ben Simmons is going to be the human actual human embodiment of the John Travolta as Vincent Vega looking around the room meme from Pulp Fiction. And then that's are gonna have to dig out of a hole the size of the Grand Canyon for the second time in ten years. We'll talk about how the Durant trade will give them a head start and doing that. And the Houston Rockets who were also criticized not by me for not taking Ben Simmons as the centerpiece of a James Harden trade, I wrote at the time. I think the rockets made the right bet that betting against these picks or betting on these picks is better than thinking Ben Simmons could be the centerpiece of my next rebuilding team. The Houston Rockets are sitting there, Rafael stones got his foot up on the desk, smoking cigars, just signed just got the number one pick in the jar..
The Lowe Post
"kevin pelton" Discussed on The Lowe Post
"You combine those with the potential for TJ Warren to come back and upgrade them offensively, those are the reasons for optimism. I think the reasons for concern is, again, just the depth of the east. Even that break even point differential. That's tenth in the conference. And some of the teams behind them are Milwaukee, as we mentioned, who's going to inevitably get healthy Atlanta who is going to play better. And Charlotte, who I think has shown signs of head of Indian and the standings at this point has shown signs of the ability to play better than that. So there's just not until you get to Orlando and Detroit. There's not a lot of non competitive teams in the Eastern Conference because of the way that Cleveland has executed expectations. And that's going to make it harder for certainly to push into the top 6, but maybe even to push into that play and in the top ten. Warren really ties this team together in terms of being someone who is turned into a great spot up here in Phoenix at the beginning of his career, he was not a great spot up shooter. So he doesn't need the ball. And he wants the ball and remember the bubble TJ Warren was like, oh my God, it's Michael Jordan. But between brogden, who's shooting 28% on threes, levert, who's shooting 21% on threes. So bonus, those are three guys who need and want the ball. So to have a guy who's a threat as a spot up shooter, cut or all that. And then he becomes the backup for when one of the centers sits. And right now that is being occupied by Tory Craig, mostly, sometimes you see some more shape or set. Keelan Martin has given them some good minutes, but that's a shaky spot for them. He really ties their team together. His health and ability to be the TJ Warren we remember is going to be is going to be huge for them. And just offensively, these guys have their main guys just have to shoot better. But they're good players all over this team. I think they're going to hang around and hang around and hang around. I just don't it's a lot of guys who want the ball and the depth worries me a little. I just don't quite know it's going to take I think them some time to figure out exactly what they want to be offensive. I mean, they're 13. It's not like they're playing bad. This bonus is chucking a lot of threes now. They're trying to figure out a lot of stuff out and it just feels like again, you know it when you see it. You know it when a team has itself figured out the pacers don't feel like that to me. I'm glad that with war in at least we have some sort of a timeline talk of him and next month or potentially January because, you know, I'm still until I see him on the court. I probably am not ready to count him in at this point because of the fact that we've seen it take so long unfortunately for him to get back. But it's better than just, you know, undetermined some point in the future, ETA, I guess. Miles Turner, I mean, I knew he was having a good season. He's had a weird season where I think he took four shots last night against the Knicks where he's just sort of an afterthought. 14 a game, 14 points per game. 55% shooting, 43% on threes, 68% on twos. He's number one in blocks again an opponents are shooting 47.9% at the basket with Turner as the closest defender, which is just laughably amazing. Quite a season and it just depend yet depending on the night you see the pacers, it doesn't feel like he's having an impact, at least offensively that measures up to 14 points again, defensively, you feel him all the time. Part of it is that he's still just not comfortable with the ball in open space. He shows flashes here of improving as a one dribble decision maker quick hitting passer, but they're just flashes. He just doesn't look comfortable in that role. I just don't know what to make. We've been waiting on the Turner sabonis breakup for four years. Is it ever going to happen? Are they just fine? And by the way, KP for the second straight year, they're doing better with just Turner than with just sabonis. The gist of bonus minutes are bad, they were bad last year. And that's sort of a continuation of a trend. I just don't know when they're together they're playing great. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe I'm just trying to break them up and I shouldn't be. Yeah, I don't think that there's an urgency to break them up at this point. I mean, you know, maybe at some point the pesos need to do something else just for the sake of shaking things up for all the reasons you've outlined. But I don't know if that that's the place my mind would first go to is what to do. You mentioned his ability to handle the ball. I feel like the very first preseason game I watched may have involved the pacers and Turner made some move like that against a defender who was closing out and it was very exciting to see that. And then yeah, it just hasn't carried over whatsoever that I can tell so far during the regular season. But he actually figured pretty prominently, we did a similar exercise to the neo Wolfe one. I went through it with the pelicans in David Griffin's tenure. And to me, the number one thing is that they never have found that stretch 5 who can both protect their rim and shoot the three to play next to Zion, assuming Zion is on the court and Turner would have been the guy last off season. I would have called every day about can we find a way to get into this Boston Indiana sign and trade for Gordon Hayward and we end up with miles Turner because that would have been an awesome outcome for them in my opinion. Well, those two teams have talked a lot about miles Turner over the years. I don't know how far any of those talks have gotten, but that's also been reported. I mean, there's definitely been phone calls about that about that subject. It's too depressing to talk about the pelicans, honestly. But it's another interesting case related to the Portland one of you watch their team now and it's like, you know, Ingram is an outcome back for two games or one and one in those.
The Lowe Post
"kevin pelton" Discussed on The Lowe Post
"Their offensive numbers are kind of below average, especially given that was the whole point of Kemba Walker and Evan fournier was to juice up this offense that just didn't have any ball handling reliability around Julius Randle until they would bring Derrick Rosen off the bench. And it's just not there are games when it's clicking like Kemba went off for like 20 in the first quarter against Charlotte, pull up threes galore. They're making a ton of pull up threes. 48 slowed down. But Randall is still playing a lot. And look, I have lived atop Julius Randle hill for 5 years now when there was nobody there with me, but Nate Jones and me on Julius Randle hill foraging for berries to stay alive. I love Julius Randle. He's still playing a lot of these minutes as if he does not have any surrounding talent on offense. His posts and isolations are down, but only by a tiny bit in terms of volume, they're down in efficiency by a whole lot. And I just feel like I kind of I know he can't roll to the rim as easily because Mitchell Robinson's there, although they would seem to have a nice high low potential when teams blitz fournier and Kemba. But I know the spacing isn't great for that. I just felt like I would see a little more variety in him lean into more of a role as even a ball handler with those guys screening for him and pick and roll, or the other way around. And I just see too much of the Julius Randle who bricked and bricked and bricked and breakthrough the Knicks out of the playoffs against the hawks. That's interesting because my Knicks starters offensive angst is actually more directed I would say towards RJ Barrett than Julius Randle where same same thing. You'd expect he's never played with this kind of shooting I probably ever in his life when you look at the Knicks teams he played on that duke team when he was there with super cramped. And you'd think that that would translate into better offensive efficiency and so far it just hasn't his numbers are pretty similar or down from last season in terms in that regard. It's one of those you know when you see it things. You know it when a grouping of players or even a full team just feels like, all right, we know how to play with each other. Everything's gonna flow, like decisions are made quickly. We have a consistent style and identity. This lineup does not have it. There are three minute periods where it looks great and four minute periods where it's stuck in mud. I don't worry about Barrett. I know he's in a shooting slump. I just, I think his three point shooting last year was real. He's young. He's gonna have ups and downs. When I watch him play and if I closed my eyes and ignored the result of the shot, I think he still looks fine to me. And I think the shooting will be, okay, you know who I just love watching. We'll be talking top and I do love watching the windmill dunks are ridiculous. Emmanuel quickly, I wish I were as confident about literally anything I do in my daily routine. If I were if I were as confident parallel parking in New York is a manual quickly as just shooting any shot that presents itself, I would be like squeezing into spots that are meant for a little mini hybrid cars. I'd be like, and now I pass, I'm a bad parallel Parker. I'm a below average parallel Parker. My wife would say bad. I pass by spots where she's like, there's plenty of space there. You're such a baby. I don't want to be stared at failing to parallel park by all the bison Emmanuel quickly would be like, oh, that's spaces for a motorcycle. Watch this. That guy is launching step back threes. He gets the crowd so amped up at MSG. He's so confident I love watching that kid play. See, I had this experience the other day, which is do you know anything to me is when the road is empty and the person waits for you to pull back to reverse into the spot instead of just going. Look, I don't need that kind of pressure here, okay? Although I feel like the backup camera has dramatically improved my self efficiency. When I met a restaurant outside and someone is trying to parallel park near the restaurant and they're failing, I'm like, don't look don't look at it. Don't look don't they're already, if they're already having a bad time. Don't stare. And then you stare and you're like, still you're on the curb. It's such a bad feeling. But George Costanza is the Emmanuel quickly of parallel parking, right? His line when he says there are things going something like, I'm doing things in here. You have no idea they're even going on. Like it's sitting that he's got some intangible part. Like Elaine can't even see some of the things he's like Nikola Jokić passing. Like you can't even see what's going on in his mind when he's parallel parking. Somehow this is supposed to be about the Knicks. I'm not worried about the Knicks. I think the next will be fine. I'm just watching, I mean, there are top ten offense. That's great. I'm watching the defense and if they can if they can rebound a little better if the three point shooting normalizes, by the way, for the second year in a row, their first lowest opponent shooting percentage at the rim, which was one of the things we wondered, could they duplicate that neurons? Well, it was barely played this year. They're just a really good rim defense team. Yeah, I mean, that maybe some Tim's Elk and me because that's not one that tends to fluctuate as much as opponent Judy on jump shot..
The Lowe Post
"kevin pelton" Discussed on The Lowe Post
"Actually only plus 6, but in limited minutes, but it's a dynamite offensive lineup. Holmes is really good. I just, the wing depth is what it is, the guard defense beyond davion Mitchell, who is just incredible is not good and before the season they look like a team that should be in the play and race and I don't see why anyone inside the kings would have expected much more than that. And they are on pace to indeed be that kind of team. I feel no angst about the Sacramento Kings. Yeah, my inks is pretty low. I mean, they just could use more good players. Terence Davis playing well would be very helpful and it's a problem that they have like 6 centers on the roster and the only one that they're effective with on the court is rashon Holmes. But again, disaster in the Alex lynch Tristan Thompson minutes are just a disaster. And again, all of this is pretty much what we expected going into the season. No reason to change our position much. Also, since he came up, we should say get well soon to Dave Yeager after he left the sixers. Yes. That news, I did not know about that. Reported and Dave did a podcast with woj that he's receiving cancer treatment for a rare form of head and neck cancer. I've talked with him a little over text the last couple of days and obviously we all wish Dave well and he did a great job with the kings. I mean, he had them rolling. Okay, and just to wrap, is the offense feel is interesting. Because you look at their shot selection, they're not getting great shots. They're not getting a ton of free throws. They're not protecting the ball in terms of limiting turnovers. Like I need an unusual, right? They're not doing anything great. They're just sort of pretty and they're not converting shots at a ridiculous rate. Oh, they're getting lucky. They're making a ton of threes. It's just sort of like they're okay at everything and it's added up to a pretty good offense. I'm not really sure how, but it's working. And now a message from discover about rewards, if you're a loyal credit card customer, you should be rewarded for your loyalty. Damn right, preferably with something that's useful, like cashback match, for instance, this government matches all the cash back you've earned at the end of your first year. Finally,.
The Lowe Post
"kevin pelton" Discussed on The Lowe Post
"Played better against Toronto. But as you noted, neither of those guys were on the court to finish that one. Nerc is nerc is one of those boy does it depend on the night when you catch him. There are nights this season where he's look like so slow and not super engaged and there are nights this season when when they blitzed them and he catches on the short roll and looks to score and doesn't hesitate and doesn't over things like damn it, and he's shooting 60% on twos, defensively some nights it looks good. Sometimes some nights he looks slow to your point about the Rococo thing. You know, there was a lot made when they got dance, which I think was a good trade that wolf. They played Covington Nancy nurkic together. That could really show up their defense. I don't think those three have played one second together this season. And I said before, before the season, I think it's just too slow. I think that lineup is just sort of like too slow and too creaky. So here's a weird stat for them. They're plus ten per 100 possessions when dame plays without CJ. And plus 5 when CJ plays without dame, they're losing the dame plus CJ minutes, even though they're starting 5 is just okay. It's plus four per 100 position. Remember that lineup last year will just blew the doors off the entire league. I think to reach their ceiling as a team, they need that lineup to be below the doors off the entire league good and it hasn't been. And then you look at like the on off numbers, I think there's reason to be kind of encouraged despite their record. Like I just read the when one guards on the floor and the other sits, that's been a weak spot for them in the past. That's been solid. They're getting killed when zeller plays, and they just don't have to play zeller if they don't want and they've leaned more in that direction. I just think when you look at the fundamentals of the steam offensively, they're getting a ton of threes, a ton of shots at the rim, defensively we should talk about probably how many shots at the rim and threes they're giving up. This scheme is not working to limit good opponent shots. But I look at this team, look, everyone wants to hate on the blazers. They're hemorrhaging, damn wasting dame's prime and there's the new OL Shea workplace investigation, which I know really not that much more about than has been publicly reported. There was the dame trade noise in the summer and there's like, oh my God, they haven't found the great number two for dame, CJ's just is what he is. I still think this is a good team. And when I look under the hood and look at their numbers, I'm like, I kinda still think they're pretty. Are they gonna win the west? Are they gonna make the Conference Finals? I would probably not, but I think they're a good team. Yeah, and I think that question of expectations has hung over them since the 2019 Conference Finals run. They have their ways to deem prime question is an interesting one because I think there's a sense that, okay, you've gotten all NBA first team guard. You should be consistently winning playoff series getting deep into the playoffs, but I just don't know if that's the reality of it. I mean, one thing I looked at a few years ago wrote about this in a piece about Anthony Davis during his first year with the Lakers is so if you take a look at the value of a given player and what that implies about the team's record, what's the relationship when you graph those two things? A player like who produces in my wins above replacement player metric, like dame has over the past 5 or 6 years here, that typically translates to about a 48 to 50 win team on average, which is mostly what the blazers have been during this era with the two exceptions of 2016 17 when they really mismanaged that off season. I think if you're going to be critical of the way that Neil will she has put players around Damian Lillard in his prime, that's the summer you look at. That's the cap spike bonanza Evan Turner, Myers Leonard Allen crab. I think are all that summer, right? Matching the Allen crab offer sheet. I don't even know, I don't even know where Alan crab is right now. And that's that summer. So you're getting at the point I want to talk about. So keep going. Yeah. And then 2019 20, which is when they had the injury to use of nurkic, where he didn't play it all until the seating games. Zach Collins got injured was said to be their starting power forward, got injured the third game of this season didn't come back until the seating games, either, and their signing Carmelo Anthony midseason to start at power forward for them, which is a very unusual situation. And that year, yeah, that was a legitimately wasted great Damian Lillard season, but I think it was almost largely because of the injuries. You know who enjoyed seeing Carmelo Anthony last night at Staples Center was demar Derozan. Every possession was, hey, where's Carmelo screen, mid range jumper in your face screen, mid range jumping your face? We're not talking about the bulls sake, is there ain't no angst in Chicago. In fact, I saw some bulls people after the game last night. They are very much in I'm trying to temper my optimism mode because it's a long season, but they really like what they're seeing. And I'll tell you this, I don't want to do too much on the bulls. Of all the teams I've seen in person this season, they are the one that's stood out as they look even more impressive in person than they do on a screen. Like you feel the frenetic activity of ball and Caruso on defense. It's just when you see it up close. So we sit courtside at Staples. You just feel how in the guys they are. You feel how fast they're playing how fast the decision making is, you watch them. There was not one second last night in that game. Not one second that you thought the Lakers were as good as the bulls. And the Lakers have Anthony Davis and Russell aspect. There was that one second where you thought these are evenly matched teams. Anyway, I don't even know what the hell we're talking about. Blazers. So that's what I was gonna ask you. So Neil osha has engendered such ill will among the fan base for many, many reasons culminating I think in the disastrous Chauncey billups press conference. And it's given in the dame trade angst has given rise to this while they're wasting his time. So I actually challenged you and I challenge other people because I think it's just a matter of fairness. What are the alternatives? When everyone yells in the screenshot, they didn't get a second story. They said, okay, what did Neil do wrong? What is the opportunity he had that he pissed away because of decision X Y and Z so you look back at that summer of 2016, absolutely that's a 100%. It blew up in their face. Now, they got out of it at minimal cost, I think a lot of those toxic deals they somehow offloaded at minimal costs. You look at that, the Covington trade two firsts for coming to I liked it at the time. It has not had the payoff that I imagined it would have. And somewhere in there, I guess if you pile up, well, bad contracts traded pics. And again, I liked the Covington trade at the time. I can't sit here and hit on. He's been okay for the meat just has to move the needle. Like I thought, somewhere in there is a general opportunity cost a missed opportunity to acquire an extra pick, which might have helped you make a trade. Somewhere in there, there's a missed opportunity cost for sure, but I have not really seen anyone articulate a better road map than this that is I mean you can sit down and do it. It's not hard. I mean, you could find trades theoretical trades, but it's harder than people think is all I'm saying, but there's generally there's definitely generally a broad opportunity cost over the last 5 years, but that just leaves you in a place of I don't know what road map B C and D word, they exist, but I just don't know what they were. Yeah, I mean, that summer of 2016, it was really, it seemed like they were perfectly positioned because, you know, this was the summer after Lamarcus Aldridge has gone to San Antonio. It seems like they're about to rebuild instead, that season, I think one of the best off seasons of all shows tenure, elf rook Aminu to a contract that aged really well that descended at Davis same thing, not quite as valuable players amino but a nice bench player for them over the course of that contract..
The Lowe Post
"kevin pelton" Discussed on The Lowe Post
"And now, the low post. Welcome to. The low post podcast live on a foggy Tuesday morning in Los Angeles, California. We're about a quarter of the way rapidly approaching the good old quarter pole of the NBA season and it's time to go through some teams who internally and among their fan base might be feeling a little angst, the little nervousness, a little unease about their recent level of play and I just want to say out front. No Celtics, 7 and 7, I did a Celtics episode with scalabrine last week, no pelicans, too depressing, no hawks covered that with genetic last week. No wolves because every time I talk about the wolves, something terrible happens to the Tim wolves and I don't want that to befall. Timberwolves fans, they're four and 9. It's not going great. Maybe Lakers, I'm sick of talking about the Lakers. Kind of sickle watching the Lakers without LeBron to be honest. So we're gonna go through a grab bag of angsty teams that I will list off in a minute and to help us go through it. A guy who I know is watching every team got multiple screens probably looking at all the numbers, Kevin pelton. How are you? Well, is a fan of a university that just fired their football coach in his second season. I know angsty teams, so I'm ready for this one. I assume that you dub, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know anything more than that, but good for them, I guess. I'm going to read the angsty teams. Are you ready? And I'm going to let you pick which angsty team you want to talk about. The Indiana Pacers, 6 and 9, the most average and aggressively not that interesting team in the NBA, beset by health issues every single night somebody's out. The Knicks rebounded last night with the win over those same pacers and old school 90s win 8 and 6, but had been slumping before that starters bad bench basically the Dream Team reincarnate. We'll talk about them. Utah, not expected to be here. Maybe they shouldn't be here, KP I'll let you decide they're 8 and 5 they've lost four to 5 Miami just spank them at home without Jimmy Butler. They play the sixers tonight. The blazers 7 and 8 weird team really fun win over the raptors at home last night in Portland. The grizzlies 7 and 7 with one of the worst point differentials in the league, but I'll tell you what's a good cure for the point differentials. The Houston Rockets turnover machine just just come to the when the rockets come to town. Poor Steven Silas, if I've learned into Steven silence on the street, I'm dragging him into the nearest bar and I'm buying him like 5 drinks. And then the kings, another team that got well last night against another terrible team the pistons, 6 and 8 rumblings published in the athletic yesterday that Luke Walton's job could be in jeopardy, which is, you know, not really enormously surprising breaking news. Kevin, I will let you lead. Which of these angsty teams would you like to start off with? Well, appropriately for me being in the Pacific Northwest and then being my semi home team. Let's start with the Portland Trail Blazers, even though the angst level is a little lower today than it was yesterday morning because of that thrilling win over the raptors. The fundamentals on Portland 7 and 8 6th in offense moved up four spots just last night with that win over a tenacious defensive team in Toronto. 24th in defense or maybe 21st I can't even read my own writing and I'm too lazy to look it up. Bad. Whatever it is, it's not good. They're point differential for the season is a minus one. So they are almost exactly what we would expect of a 500 team. KP, I can't figure out I'll see this. They looked horrible in preseason so horrible that the teams who played them in preseason, I would talk to people on those teams and they'd be like, oh my God, you gotta keep an eye on the blazers because this is like enormously disturbing. I'm not disturbed right now. I don't know whether I should feel encouraged. There are reasons I think to actually feel kind of encouraged about the blazers considering their record and how badly Damon's shot for most of the season. What's your temperature take on these guys? 'cause I haven't trouble. Yeah, I think what's odd about them is if you looked at a lot of what's happened ahead of the season, you'd be like, hey, that's great. You know, their defense is not is not good at this point as they adjust to this new more aggressive scheme under chauncy Phillips, but it's a whole heck of a lot better than last year when they were 29th. They've gotten really good play from their bench Anthony simons in a sear little to their recent first round picks have both taken a huge step forward in their development, little in particular, looks like he could be the answer at one of the forward spots long term for them. Big fan of what he's done the last two weeks. The way he's attacking closeouts he's like, you know what he has KP underrated NBA skill, good past fake. He'll catch the ball with the defense rotating fake the extra pass and then drive, and it works a lot. They close that game last night. I'm sure he'll talk about with little at the four and Nancy at the 5, which is a very interesting look. So keep going. Yeah, I mean, so the reason they're not playing well, then is primarily because Damian Lillard has shot the ball so poorly. He started to come out of it the last few games here. And I think that's encouraging, although clearly the abdominal is enough of an issue that they sat him down in that Denver game that they got blown out and Chauncey billups really lit into the team about their effort level afterwards. So because of the fact that I think people just expect, okay, dame's going to turn it around. The yanks level is mostly centered around the starting front court of Robert Covington and Yusuf nurkic, where billops kind of intimated after that Denver game, there were going to be some changes..
The Lowe Post
"kevin pelton" Discussed on The Lowe Post
"Story, Kevin pelton, I went to my off season, I have this big running document during free agency and the draft where I update salaries and I have all this I estimated 16 a year for Kevin herter. So I almost got it on the nose. The hawks are, you know, they've extended capella like 21 22 a year. Collins has got paid, like 25 a year, Trey obviously got the max, hunters coming next, reddish is coming next. Here's 16 for herder. Bogdanovich is still here for at least one more year. And then as a player option in 23, 24, 18 a pop. What do you think of this one? Red velvet, kayvon, so I think first of all, I don't like that as a nickname. Column Kevin. But I think it's an interesting transition because I think the Memphis is in some ways where Atlanta was a year ago in terms of a lot of these young guys on rookie contracts and promising players. We haven't yet coalesced and put it all together. They've been better, certainly the grizzlies have than the hawks had before last season. The hawks then went and used all of their flexibility to add a bunch of veterans to this group and accelerate the process. We booked on Gallinari and capella before that. Memphis it seems like is going to use it to try to make things as smooth as possible in the future by we're going to take on bad salary now. We're going to start Jackson's salary high. But in a few years, we're going to have zayer Williams on a rookie contract. This Lakers pick on a rookie contract. And Jackson's salary lower. So they're trying to mitigate the problem that Atlanta is now facing, which is, okay, it's great that we've got all this talent. How do we keep everybody without paying and exorbitant luxury tax bill that's not going to be realistic probably in either of those markets? And so that herder at 16 million, I think is probably right about the right price point where this contract is still tradable if we decide that Deandre hunter and cam reddish are our wings of the future at some point. It's still good money for him for somebody who is opposed to 8 and what we talked about earlier has not made very much money on his rookie contract thus far. So I think I liked it all around. I like it. I like Kevin herder. Everything I just said about wings applies to Kevin herder. He's young. He can really shoot check. He's a good playmaker, secondary playmaker check. I think defensively he's pretty solid. He fights already as long as he's a good rebounder for his position. I love watching him rebound. I think he's like that same 85% theory. People are going to overreact and say game 7 against the sixers. That's what got him paid. He torched Seth curry. I'm sure that helped. I'm sure that was brought up in the I'm sure the deck. That's what we call these things out the deck of the presentation by his agent included. When did we start doing that? Anyway, the deck probably had game 7 in it. And I just think Kevin Hart is really good. The cap's gonna keep going up. At worst it's a tradable contract at best it's a really good contrary. I have to tell you the hawks, they had to max out TRE young, they did. He deserves it. Collins, capella, and now herder, to get them this far, not that any of them were going to be max players with John Collins wanted to be. To get them this far below the max, you're approaching a point that depending on what happens with hunter and reddish. That's 6 guys total that we've now named that you might be able to keep 5 instead of four depending on your willingness to go like 10 million over the tax. 12 million over the tax. Maybe you have no willingness to do that. You certainly don't want to play the repeater text. That's something to consider down the line. But it's not like completely untenable to keep 5 of those guys and other thing that could make it untenable is if Deandre hunter comes out this year and lights the NBA on fire, and he showed signs of doing everything we just said about Mikael bridges. He showed signs of being like, I can even do more than that. I can post up, I can run pick and roll. I can pull those people on switches. I can do lots of everything. If he becomes a guy that people look at as, well, that's a 25 to $30 million player. Then my whole thing blows up. But I think I just think Kevin heard is good. And this is what you pay for good two way wings. Yeah, and they're in a situation where 2023 24 when reddish and hunter or on new deals and bogdanovic is in the last year of his contract. Capella is in this new extension. That could get a little tricky, but they can probably avoid the tax next season 22 23. And you've got a long time to figure out what's going to happen between now in 2023, 24. I mean, if all these guys are worth that kind of money on extensions, that's a problem, but it's a good problem to have. On the flip side, they are they are as many people have noted the fact that all of these contracts are good and expensive, and they own all their picks. They are sitting there in sneaky prime position they're not brought up a lot of times as the team that can trade for a star and part of that is because they don't need some of the start. Some of the stars that have been bandied about. I mean, there's no need from the traded trade for Damien Lillard, even though that would be spectacular to watch. Even Beal, I don't love, I don't really look at this Steve is like there are Bradley Beal away from being super interesting. He would help, but they got a lot of good guards and wings. But they're just sitting there in case something happens. Like, carling through these towns becomes available, case whatever. They're sitting there with lots and lots of stuff. Really like, Travis schlank in this ownership kind of bit by bit, just this is a good team with a good, it's a good team that's good now, expensive now and still has a good future ahead of it. That's a hard place to get to, and that's where they are. Yeah, it's interesting because a year ago now literally a year ago because free agency hadn't happened at this point. They were this team coming off of these lottery seasons, hadn't been to the playoffs in extended period of time. Lloyd pierce was giving playoff guarantees and it seemed like, oh, they could go either direction and everything has broken perfectly for them elastin since they moved on from white pairs. I'm still on my wing thing. I should have also mentioned Justin holiday. Justin holiday's good in making like $6 million a year. Is he 85% of my killers? You might be. But you know the players I always think of, by the way, when I think of the missing 15%, the wing players specifically that I always think of are when Portland would get to the playoffs every single year. Like, oh, Portland are pretty good. Look at their lineup data. It's not a Damian Lillard, but Columbo. And then they'd get to the playoffs and Maurice harkless in alpha rug amino would be at the three and the four, and every defense would be like, yeah, you guys go ahead, like we're not even. We didn't guard you that carefully in a regular season. We didn't really think about it much. It's playoff time. I'm gonna maybe sit literally sit in the paint on my ass and you can shoot all the threes you want and they could ever make enough to make teams pay like those are the guys I always think about, oh, that's where the missing 15% is right there. Yeah, I mean, I think to go back to bridges, the thing is you just don't have to worry about that position for the suns as long as he stays healthy. And that is a very valuable thing to have. Can we talk about the other bridges miles bridges, there was very little chatter in Charlotte that he was going to get extended..
The Lowe Post
"kevin pelton" Discussed on The Lowe Post
"Your taxpayer mid level exception on someone else. That sort of thing. Because they're eventually going to be sacrifices even if the suns are willing to pay the luxury tax. There's a limit to that. By the way, a couple wing contracts I wanted to highlight javon Carter three years 11 and a half million. That's got a chance to be really good contract, but then he's 6 one. Like he's not a three and D player like Mikhail bridges is a three and D player, even though he, the guy he can be up, he can really die up. Dorian Finney Smith is on a ridiculous three year $12 million contract. He's gonna get paid this summer if he has a good year. So that value will disappear. Sneaky good contract that I don't think got enough love even though they won the championship. Pat Connaughton three years 16 million. I don't know, I'd have to sit down and watch film of him defensively obviously his three point shot his oscillated up and down pretty wildly and I don't think he's sort of guarded with the respect of a good three point shooter. That's a good contract. He's a good all around player, like it's hard to sneak those deals in under the radar, but they do exist, and his content 85% of Mikhail bridges maybe, I don't know. Those are just one style. This podcast is sponsored by better help online therapy, the best way to think about therapy is through a bunch of analogies. We get annual check offs and go to the gym to maintain physical wellness and prevent injury and disease. We do chores regularly some of us do to avoid a giant mess of a house. We're going to therapy is like all of the above. It's routine maintenance for your mental and emotional wellness to prevent bigger issues down the road. Therapy doesn't mean something's wrong with you. Means you're investing in yourself to keep your mind healthy better help is customized online.
The Lowe Post
"kevin pelton" Discussed on The Lowe Post
"Is a huge amount. And this is the player archetype that always inspires this sort of cold calculated discussion of what could we find 85% of his production at the minimum. Could we find 90% of his production for one third of the price? I went through all the wing contracts, the veteran wing contracts in the league this morning. Just to sort of retest that theory, there's no question that Mikael bridges is way over market for a three and D player. Okay, there are circumstances supporting why that should be the case. And we could talk about that. I love Mikkel bridges. But just what do you think of that sort of general theory and when you go through contracts, what do you see in regards to it? I do think that there is an element of regret sometimes in teams that pass on this type of player. And then they end up going to great lengths. So Philly is actually the example of this probably because they draft Matisse will move up in the draft to make sure that they can get him. The year after they trade away Michael bridges, hoping that he can be this kind of player. And I think machiste, I think we agree is a better defensive player than Michael bridges. But this title is a better defensive player than I just then anyone basically anyone I don't know that he's a human being the way he moves around the floor. I think there's something suspicious, frankly that the league might want to investigate. I love having been able to watch Matisse title at Utah for four years, being able to share this with NBA aficionados like yourself, where it was kind of just limited to a smaller group of us back when he was in college. But there's still chasing after this. You see the teams that let Dani green keep trying to acquire Danny Green type players after that. So I think it's reasonable to reset and rethink our expectations for this market. And then the other thing is mikhil bridges is still young enough that I think you can add a little bit of playmaking attack hard close as that sort of thing that does separate himself from that 80% that James Ennis who is going to be strictly make open three is not as capable of doing anything with the ball in his hands. Yeah, when you look at the contracts like I did for the three and D guys around the league, bridges can make the most of any of them. That's not disputable. And you test out the theory of could I get 90% of him for much less money? Because in a salary cap league, these are the questions they sucked are uncomfortable. You have to ask them, what you find is you're really, there are certain types of players. There's like the undrafted second round guys that maybe you get a steal of a contract for a couple of years. And then they get paid if they're good. They get paid. We'll talk about that. And lump those guys in with the minimum guys. And we can go through all the minimum guys. And the minimum guys are just like a prayer. Like you're just praying that one out of ten chance you'll get 85% of McIlroy's in this particular season. It's just a prayer. Then you have a class of players who either because they're on their second contracts and have already proven something, they make 8 to 12. That's your Reggie Bullock, Jeremy lamb, Taylor Horton Tucker, Luke canard, Alec Burks. We can go there. There's a whole crew of these guys in their salary range. And what you find is those guys usually have a big hole in their game, whether it's they can't do anything off the dribble. There are defensive liability. They're three points shot is unreliable. They're making ten instead of 18 for a reason. And then sometimes you get lucky and you get like a Dorian Finney Smith where you really have them on a bargain contract for four or 5 years combined his first and second contracts. That's pretty rare. You end up having to choose between just the wing and a prayer of a minimum guy or an 8 to $12 million guy. And sometimes those are just like total black holes of regret like jetty Osman has just not worked out in Cleveland. He's making 8 or 9 million a year. This is my long way of saying that I don't I think the 85% theory you feel that ten or 15% so much more in the playoffs. It's an entirely different game. And whatever hole that is that encompasses that 15%, becomes so exposed in the postseason and even more exposed a deeper you get. Mikael bridges has no holes in his game. None. For what he is. You're not gonna ask him to run a pick and roll. I think he ran a 111 pick and rolls last year. That's roughly one a game considering how far the sun's played, right? But as a three and D guy, and I agree with you, I think one of the reasons I'm optimistic about this deal is he showed he's got a little more juice pump go catch, drive, pull up for a mid ranger, get to the rim a little bit more, shot the three well, like he's got a little bit more juice and I think having already showed that, he's probably got even more coming. What do you have to adjust your 15 a game? If you told me averages 19 a game this year, I wouldn't be surprised. If you tell me average is 19 a game with half an assist or one assist more because he's advanced as a playmaker, more comfortable off the dribble, not gonna be surprised. So I think I think this is a totally fine deal. It is a lot for a three and D guy, but I think he is pretty close to an archetypal perfect 3D guy. Yeah, it was Danny Green for a long period of time. And now I think it probably is going to be. He's never a Danny Green has never been able to do anything off the dribble like Mikhail bridges could already do. Every Danny Green dribble is like an a misadventure waiting to happen. And also I love Danny Green, very, very slow. I think the real sign that you'll know that he's that guy is when every player coming into the draft gets compared to him. That's the indication that you're the archetype, right? Yeah. And I think bridges has a chance to become such a perfect three and D player that he almost can't be the archetype because he's an unreachable archetype because it's not realistic for someone to have that kind of ceiling. Now we'll see if the three pointer regresses a little bit, but I'm a mikail bridge's believer. I think he's an absolutely monstrous defensive player. And I don't mind this deal at all. The sham at one, the sham at one surprised me a little bit, even though Monty Williams loves sham it had him in Philly was a big reason they went and got him. Four years 43, you can say, well, it's about the mid level exception, like that's probably his market if he has a good season. I guess I get it. I just really don't get the rush to do that because it's unclear to me how much he's gonna play for Phoenix. Every team he goes to Philly Brooklyn clippers, et cetera, et cetera the idea of Landry shamit ends up being more interesting than the actual player of lantern. I'm still interested in the idea that I can really shoot you can shoot off movement. You can handle a little bit. The defensive limitations are, I think he's actually a little bit better defensive player than people give him credit for. But for some reason, he just doesn't play very much when it matters, and it surprised me a little bit. That's all. Yeah, I think the same thing. I mean, I'm not allowed to invoke the name of the Milwaukee Bucks guard who signed a similar but shorter extension today. But similar players where I think you have that question of on a team that's this good. And especially now a team that in both of these cases, perhaps more so in Milwaukee's case, has luxury tax concerns, are you willing to commit this? And what is it going to cost you down the road? Because you're not willing to use your taxpayer mid level exception on someone else. That sort of thing. Because they're eventually going to be sacrifices even if the suns are willing to pay the luxury tax. There's a limit to that. By the way, a couple wing contracts I wanted to highlight javon Carter three years 11 and a half million. That's got a chance to be really good contract, but then he's 6 one..
Chad Ford's NBA Big Board
What Makes a Rookie of the Year?
"I did some research looking into what really makes a rookie of the year and really three things really came stood out to me. One is opportunity right. You have to actually have minutes significant minutes in a significant role on your team. And if you look over the last couple of years for the rookie of the year race you're going to see that at twenty seven minutes a game seems to be the the threshold that we're looking at for players right now. Two thousand nineteen. It was twenty seven. Point eight doesn't eighteen was thirty minutes a game. And so the first thing that we're we're scouring is is this player going to get significant like starter minutes and a great role on their teams very difficult to crack rookie of the year. No matter how talented you are without those minutes the second key metric is really points per game so in two thousand eighteen. The top three scored. I think sixteen point three points per game two dozen nineteen top three vote-getters for rookie of the year had fifteen point. Three points a game. Twenty twenty was only thirteen points. A game But that was in part because thirty points a game was the third highest gray mark for any rookie about season. And so if you look at the past eight years the winner is was in the top three and usually the top two and scorn for rookies of the year. So not only. Is it going to be minutes but the opportunity to actually score the basketball and does the player have the ability to be a big time scored sort of the next thing that we're gonna look at at it also found that If you go back and sort of look at some of the work that kevin pelton is done at espn Fr- almost every season. The combined averages of points rebounds assists per game when you add those averages together. That's the player that's going to win the ward and then finally You know look when you're looking at rookie of the year. You're not actually talking about the player. That's gonna be the best player in five years if you go back and look at past winters. That's often just not the case. It's it's the player that's can have the most opportunity. I'm to really hit those metrics of scoring Minutes per game and then the sort of combined stats together. That's going to win work the year. And so that's going to change to me. The draft order a little bit about who we're going to handicap again for rookie of the
The Lowe Post
"kevin pelton" Discussed on The Lowe Post
"Qualities including dwight howard. Just running over the last night in game seven. That was a fun. That was a fun like to irritants just colliding in the stupidest way possible and then trae doing push. Ups push ups push ups are bad ass. I am very pro doing pushups particularly when you're the little guy in the collision it's definitely. I don't know that there's much better way to resolve it like you're not going to go away like flexing necessarily but that's a way for you to show your strength. I suppose get trays. Take a ton of floaters to your point. Yeah and i. I am hopeful. You mentioned your offense in this series. I think it's going to be interesting because he was carrying such a heavy load in terms of minutes and defensive assignments and it's not get easier in defensive assignments in this series. But maybe the minutes won't be as severe and maybe that helps him get going as a shooter. Well that is my second. Biggest question is who does trae on guard. Because if they start this. If milwaukee starts the same jumbo lineup with tougher jaanus and lopez. Which i guess but we can talk about whether that's a decision maker. Not but maybe they'll start fours whatever coniston lineup. No matter who they start you can put capella on jaanus. Which is a matchup will see a lot or you can put collins on yanni's we'll see both we're gonna see a lot of people on. Yeah so let's just say they start cappella and goddess collins on brook lopez. Which is the alignment that they used a lot in the regular season. Cappelli honest is a fun. A fun match up to then you put if they continue to start herder bogdonovich tb. I guess you put her in bogdonovich on the combination of middleton in holiday that you hide trae young on pj tucker. We just saw them hide the net tied. James harden pj tucker. Is that where we ended up seeing trae young because in pre playoffs pre bucks with the jumble lineup trae young was on whoever. The leftover guy was even kenzo. Like that's how they set it up. I'm i if. I had to guess. I think they will. If if that's the lineup. The buck star. I think they will put on. Pj tucker and then just say you want involve me. You gotta have pj tucker at the center of your offense. And we'll take trade off so one of the reasons to go back to how milwaukee has been able to win two rounds without shooting the ball well and often the perimeter. A lot of that has been offensive rebounding. Which has been a big difference from this year's team last year's team it was clearly one of the adjustments. They made in the wake of that miami series and i think it was something we talked about before. The series is an area that they needed to win. And then you know. I'm not gonna. There was a key offensive. Rebound i guess it was at before the durant shot in overtime or in regulation but they excited my boy bruce brown just all over the offensive glass in game seven. This was a milwaukee in one. And i was like if that saves their season offensive. Rebound that would be kind of a fitting testament to the changes. They magna ultimately. It was a defensive stop. It said their season. Not that play. But i is so if that ends up being the matchups i think you send. Pj tucker to the offensive glass and pizza. I think pj tucker will send himself to the offense and in the process. Send trae young with like a well-timed hip checker new flying out of bounce because pj tucker loves offensive rebounding and particularly loves the baseline offensive rebound. He loves just uses big but knocking people out of the way and get offense runs on the baseline and you absolutely nailed it. If trae young is hiding there. And i still think is at might be what i would do. If i were date mcmillan i would say okay. Offensive rebounds we'll have to gang rebound with cappella and collins coming in to help us out. We'll we'll take that chance. If it means trae gets to hide on top rb what where would you put him. Which put him on holla. I mean what are my choices. I don't have great choices. Yeah i mean. One thing i do expect is the bucks. Offense should probably be a little less one on one centric than it was against brooklyn. It couldn't be more if i don't know if i could watch the games but dramatically less i think we're gonna see more to men actions and that becomes interesting is well and should i take the let me. Just take notes to man actions. You're going to be emailed train over that shoe man actions okay. They did run a fair. They ran a lot of the oddest screener. Pick and roll. So i'm being a little facetious but whatever. Yeah i mean. They got a huge bucket on that one in. I guess that was late in regulation that the end of game. Seven is all run together for me at this point. But peter tucker is not gonna be the guy initiating so that's the other advantage of putting trae young on him. I think what's more interesting for the hawks in terms of defensive lineups is you mentioned assuming they stick with bogdonovich hers. The starting wings. Do you think they can do that. Against chris middleton i. I wonder whether solomon hill comes back into the lineup. At least to start this series. Well mr hill looms as an interest i mean. I can't believe i'm saying this sullivan hill looms as a potentially interesting piece in this series because they also used him as a backup janas defender quite a bit And they've used them. He was a c. Started the beginning of the the philly series before they said. We need more shooting on the floor. We're getting killed in your minutes The hill collins. Cappella combo is minus. Twenty in forty minutes for the play offs. I actually think you know. This certainly isn't a defensive but actually think they found something with gallon. Ari collins capella against philly. Philly obviously plays a very big starting five with simmons harris in bead tucker janas lopez is similar. I don't know that they'll start gallon..
Open Floor
NBA Rumors: Latest on Bradley Beal Trade Talks
"You'd be okay with it. Because I still feel like smart wizards fans and observers value him. More highly than he appears right now because it's clear that like innovate cume beals a better player than he's showing this season. Right. Yeah. I agree. Particularly if you have another star in place Beal can be great complementary piece, and he would work next to Cam by let me tell you something. I don't want more of it Williams or Nick petunia and a mid first round pick for Bradley Beal, no offense, Charlotte, but my personal bar is a little bit higher than that. But to be a hundred percent, honest, I think that the reason you had to trade deal is because if you're if you're trading one of those guys you're leaving the players left behind shorthanded to ever really do anything that matters in the east. And so if you trade wall if you trade auto and say, all right, we're going to build around Beal Bradley Beal's already midway through his prime, and it's hard to suddenly find pieces that are. Going to like make him a viable contender. And so ultimately, you're going to have to just start from scratch, if you if you do any of this stuff, and so Bill my standards are like I would take two first round picks from the Hornets. I would take two I from from any team that's trying to grab him. Or if a team like the Lakers are not going to trade Brandon Ingram, but I would I would want at least one intriguing young player on top of a pick from another team. And God knows what Ernie Grunfeld will actually negotiate. But that would be my hope. Nice. I've got another super depression question for you. So my buddy, Kevin pelton ESPN ranked basically all the wizards players by trade, value and hilariously. He had John wall as eight out of ten. And number nine was Dwight Howard and number ten was yon maheen me. And I'm actually wondering did he overate wall? Is there a possibility that wall should should've been tenth like in other words, of course, he's a much better player than maheen me. But his contract is significantly worse than me. He'd me with a lot more risk sort of longer
The Jump
ESPN's Basketball Power Index on Warriors and Celtics
"ESPN's VP irate. He's release have the Celtics with the second best percentages to both make the finals at nearly forty percent and to win the NBA championship had eighteen percent. Only behind of course, then champion warriors, Chris are the Celtics. Now the biggest threat to the wars. This will come off as a completely Homer opinions. I cover, but I absolutely feel that way. And what I think is interesting is that we only saw them healthy for such a short glimpse last season and not just five minutes in the regular season where they actually look very good out of the gate. Their offense looked really Chris, but during training camp, you just saw there was supposed to be this time where we're going to take awhile for all to come together.