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The volume. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at the Volume. Happy Thursday everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great week so far. Got a jam packed show for you guys today. We're going to start to shift our coverage a little bit more towards the NBA trade deadline in the next couple of weeks. And so I've got a couple of pods planned, one today and then another one next week. They're going to focus on each conference in the NBA and some of the trade landscape there. So today we're going to be focusing in on the Eastern Conference. I've got going to be hitting on six or seven teams today, a bunch of different potential trade ideas within those teams. Just kind of working our way down through the standings. You guys know the joke before we get started, subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Make sure you like this video. That helps us a lot. And then last but not least, if you want to get questions into our weekly mailbag, which will be recording tomorrow, make sure you drop those questions into the YouTube comments underneath this video and underneath our other full episodes throughout the week. So if there's a trade that you had in mind within the Eastern Conference that you didn't hear me mention, or if you disagree with the trade that I pitch or anything along those lines, drop them in the comments underneath this video and we'll get into it in more detail tomorrow. All right, let's talk some basketball. So we're going to be working our way down through the top, starting with the Detroit Pistons, and for them, I think it's a pretty obvious need. It's scoring at the power forward spot. We talked about this with Tobias Harris the other day. This is a team that when they get scoring pop out of that position, they win and when they don't, they become much more vulnerable. I would also argue if they could get some help on the defensive glass here, that would be a plus. Just because this team can struggle on the defensive glass at times. As a team they're 18th in defensive rebound percentage and then some shooting at the position would be helpful too. Tobias can hit shots there, but he's very streaky, not a a super high percentage guy. So 26th in three pointers made as a team, 18th overall in three point percentage. So there's several different directions that could go to go in here depending on how much they want to spend. So like if you want to go super expensive like multiple draft picks and then have to tie up a large chunk of your cap sheet moving forward, you can go for a guy like Lori Mark. If you want to go super cheap and find like a big power forward that can shoot, that's not going to cost you much. You could find a guy like Rui Hachimura that the Lakers are looking to trade at this deadline or if you wanted to find a sweet spot in the middle. That's where I look at a guy like Michael Porter Jr. So my favorite trade would be the Michael Porter Jr. One. It'd be something like Tobias Harrison, some filler, probably someone like Paul Reed and a first round pick. Then if you're Brooklyn huge win because you got a first round pick trading for Michael Porter Jr. And you got another first round pick trading Michael Porter Jr. Right. Detroit would get Michael Porter Jr. In this case. MPJ's made 128 threes this year. That's the ninth most in the entire NBA. He shoots 40% on them overall, 44% when he's unguarded off the catch, 72% at the rim brings real movement shooting that can help as a release valve on offense. A second side guy that can come off of a screen and make reads as the defense reacts to him. And I think he's a very good help side defender like kind of like a secondary rim protector that can help when your bigs end up stepping out to the perimeter. Also a very good defensive rebounder. I think he'd be the perfect fit in this particular instance. Again if you wanted to say super cheap you could do something like Rui Hachimura for Karis Lavert and Javante Green. Rui's shooting 42% this year in catch and shoot threes 49 when he's wide open like Rui's opening that thing's going in and he would step in and immediately be the second best shooter on the team. So he'd help in that sense. The problem with Rui is he's not a great rebounder slash defender the way that Michael Porter Jr. Is. But that's why he'd be cheaper. Like you wouldn't have to give up any sort of draft compensation in that type of deal. And then obviously for the Lakers there you get some perimeter athleticism and a little bit of ball handling, both of which they could really use. An example of the super expensive version would be the Pistons get Lori Markin in the the Jazz would have to end up taking Tobias Harris and probably Isaiah Stewart in that case. And then I'm thinking you're spending probably at least two first round picks there considering you're not giving back any sort of talented young player and Detroit having to pay multiple of their talented young players for Lori doesn't make a ton of sense to me. So if you're going to go heavy on Salary filler. Then you got to go heavy on draft picks so that one could end up being really expensive. Now Lori's an incredible player, basically just a much better version of Michael Porter Jr. I think he'd make the Pistons amazing, but he's just so expensive. I mean, he's making $53 million in that 2028, 2029 campaign. And then again, you're going to have to give up a lot more in the way of young players and draft compensation. In that case, he would just severely limit your flexibility as the years go by and you have to start like extending all of those younger players. So The Michael Porter Jr. For trade is my favorite for Detroit because it's a legit talent play that really raises your ceiling, that addresses some specific needs that you have. But you also have a lot more flexibility with what to do with him in the long run. So for instance, he has $40 million non guaranteed on his contract next season. You can just guarantee that or you can use it as leverage to try to work out a longer term extension with Michael Porter Jr. But it's probably going to come in at a, at a number much smaller than that $50 million number that you're gonna have to pay a guy like Lori Markin in. So that's why I think Michael Porter Jr. Makes the most sense. But they do have options there. I think that specific position, that jump shooting forward is one of the deeper classes in, in this particular trade class. It's just there's not a lot of perimeter defense in that group. But dudes who can like rebound that have good size and strength, that can knock down threes in various different ways and attack a little bit of mismatch type of stuff one on one. There's actually several good options in this class. The Boston Celtics, this team needs frontline size. They were a bottom 10 defensive rebounding team so far this season. I think that they could use like a big switchy forward or like a, you know, kind of like a forward center hybrid that's kind of bigger and stronger or just a big strong center. Strength and rebounding are going to be key here, but without sacrificing too much in the way of their offensive spacing, there's also the added complication of money. So for instance, it doesn't make sense to trade for a player if you're Boston that you're going to have to resign and keep on the books for 20 plus million a season year after year because of the realities of their cap sheet. Boston in the 202829 season has Tatum, Brown and White on the books for $167 million. Just those three players. So that takes like the foundational, more expensive centers essentially off the table. So you're not going to go for like a guy like Sabonis or a guy like Claxton. I know that there were Celtics fans that wanted if it's a Zubots, for example, like those guys are just going to be too expensive under their circumstances. So here are a couple of examples. I have three options for a type of big either forward, center, hybrid or center that I think could help the Celtics. One, and I've talked about this guy on the show before, but Nicola Vucevich, he's on an expiring so you could resign him on a discounted deal. You could probably get him around three years, 30 million after this season. He's 35 years old so he's not going to go fetch some massive like I would be shocked if someone went and offered Vucevich three years 90 million. You know what I mean? Like that, that kind of feels off the table for me. So like I think you might be able to get him at a discount. I think he would personally love the opportunity to continue tend and he brings that power, strength, rebounding, jump shooting and also that matchup attacking in the post. I, I look at him as essentially like what Al Horford was for them without the defensive versatility. Obviously he's going to come with issues defensively, but that's a big part of why you can get him for cheap and why you can extend him for cheap. But again, like the, the thing that's nice with the Vucevic is you still have a Nemi Keda as like a traditional rim protecting, vertical spacing type of option as an alternative if there's a matchup where you're struggling to get stops with Vucevic on the floor. But he's an option that I really like for them. Couple other guys that I really like for the spot. Jalen Smith out of Chicago, very good rebounder, can shoot the ball a little bit. He gets him up eight attempts from three per 36 minutes this season. 35%. That seems like a lower percentage, but he's 45% when he's spotting up. So when he's standing still he's, he's been knocking it down at a really high rate. Where he struggles is like when he's running up the floor in transition or when he's popping out of ball screens. Anything that involves a little bit of movement but he's lower volume on those. I think that he would still be very useful offensively. And then Daron Sharp out of Brooklyn is another guy. Doesn't bring the shooting, but he brings the size and the physicality and the rebounding. Vuce of its trade would be pretty simple. You'd basically just trade Anthony Simons for Vucevich. You give or take some amount of draft compensation. I don't know. I don't think Boston would have to pay anything in that case. If anything you could work out a three team deal that reroutes Simons to a team that needs some ball handling and shooting and maybe even get some draft compensation back if you're Boston in that case. But honestly what you're targeting there is Vuch's expiring because then you can resign him to some team friendly deal after the season. You get a starting center for the next three seasons that fits the season the system really well. You and you still have your kind of K look as a different look, plus your small ball looks. Jalen Smith, this one would be a little bit more complicated with the salaries. It'd be something like Anthony Simons and Chris Boucher and you'd get back Jalen Smith, Isaac Koro and Dale and Terry. Jalen Smith has $9 million on his contract this year and 9.4 next year. I think that's a perfectly fine type of contract for Boston to absorb in this case Dale and Terry's in the last year of his deal. So you can extend him or you can let him walk if you want to. And then Isaac Coro has another year on his deal at 12 million after this season. But he's an athlete and I think he'd be incredibly easy to dump if you want to. Like I can say for 100% certain that if you called up the Lakers and asked for Gabe Vincent's expiring contract for Isaacoro, they take it in a heartbeat. And then all of a sudden all that money falls off of your books. And most importantly, I just think Jalen Smith would be really fun for the Celtics. Again, just a spacing big that can also really rebound, that can also be retained long term at a discount. That to me just kind of checks a lot of boxes. For a team like Boston, the Knicks. This one's really tough. It's really difficult to come up with trades that make sense for the Knicks for a variety of reasons. One, I think they only have one tradable first and it's this kind of funky top eight protected pick from the Wizards that will most likely convert into two second round picks. And in general, it's just hard to make trades with the way their roster is put together. Like they have all these massive salaries at the top of their cap sheet, right, like og, an obi, Mikhail Bridges, Jalen Brunson. But they're vitally important to the team's construct. You're not trading any of those three guys. Cat is such a massive contract that it's difficult to find any trades that actually makes sense for both sides. Where a team would be like, yeah, sure, we'll take on Cats behemoth of a contract for this incredibly flawed player. Like it's just going to be hard to find anything that makes sense there. Josh Hart is kind of in that sweet spot where he's making around 20 million, but he's in many ways the heart and soul of the team. I mean like it's just difficult to find a real value add to the team. Like a type of player that comes back for Josh Hart that you can justify the improvement for what you'd be sacrificing in terms of team chemistry and just how important he is to the roster. And Josh is having a great season. He's shooting 40% from three this year. And then after you get after Josh Hart, it's just a bunch of really small salaries and if you start training smaller salaries without draft compensation, it's just not going to bring back any sort of real needle moving type of player. So if I had to come up with just a random example for a Knicks trade, it'd be like calling up Phoenix and offering Gershon Yabuseli plus a second round pick for a guy like Nick Richards. If you just wanted to have a different option that you can play as a backup big. But I don't see anything big and splashy for New York from this deadline. It just seems really difficult to find trades that make sense for them. Toronto is another team that has that I have a difficulty finding some trades for. They also have several massive contracts at the top and then very small contracts. Like it's a. It's difficult when your roster set up that way to find trades when you don't have those kind of middling salaries and that like 10 to 25 million range. It's hard to send out one of your major rotation pieces like RJ Barrett, for example. He's been injured for chunks of this season but like when he's been healthy he's been very good and, and has. Has helped the Raptors a lot. And so it's difficult to find trades that make sense where you're getting back some real pop in an RJ Barrett trade, for example, like Brandon Ingram, Scotty Barnes, Yaka Purdel, it's Emmanuel Quickley. It's hard to find like trades that make sense sending those guys out. But the team does need some shooting their bottom 10 and three point volume, their bottom five and three point percentage. So ideally just like this puts you in that class of like the smaller contract wings that can shoot. So basically they need to be looking for a better version of some of the RJ Barrett replacements that they've tried this year during the minutes when RJ Barrett's been out like a Jacoby Walter for for example, right? So like this, in this department I'm looking somewhere along the lines of like Keon Ellis or Aya Dasunmo, right? So like Keon is on the last year of his deal making 2.3 million. So it'd basically just be any minimum contract plus a pick to get a guy like Keon, but then you have to also resign him after the season. Dsumo is a little tougher to match at 7.5 million, but he's also a better shooter specifically and Dsunmu has actually been a sneaky good ball handler this year. He's run a lot of pick and roll successfully. So those are the kinds of guys that I'd be looking at if I was Toronto. Today's show is brought to you by a presenting sponsor, Hard Rock bet, the official sportsbook partner of the Miami Heat and the Orlando Magic. 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Sometimes at&t business Wireless connecting changes everything Looking at the Cleveland Cavaliers, another team that could really use some help on the defensive glass, but I think it's more of a depth thing than a core lineup thing. Like so, for example, like this development of Jaylon Tyson popping the way that he's been popping here in his second season. It's resolved most of my concerns for them at the three, because you also have Max Truce eventually coming back into this situation, right? Jaylon Tyson rebounds the hell out of the basketball. He's just shy of eight rebounds per 36 minutes and he shoots the hell out of it. He can guard like he's just Jaylon Tyson is just everything that they need at that three spot and unfortunately we barely seen it in terms of sample size. But him at the three alongside the core four guys has been amazing in 72 possessions. And again, that's a very small sample. That's like less than 3/4 of a basketball game. But in that small sample, they've been unbelievable on offense, unbelievable on defense, unbelievable on the offensive glass, unbelievable on the defensive glass, actually. Plus 43 net. So 43 points per 100 possessions, albeit in that small sample for the core four plus Jalen Tyson. So I don't think this group has stands to gain a ton by looking to upgrade that specific spot when all four of their core four guys are healthy. So for them, I'm looking at more of like a marginal upgrade somewhere, probably along that backup center spot. So, like, if you could turn Thomas Bryant, for example, if you just call Brooklyn and you offer Thomas Bryant in a second round pick for a guy like D Ron Sharp, like a bigger, more physical, higher floor option at that backup center spot than a Thomas Bryant, Thomas Bryant's gonna have games where he goes out there and he shoots the ball really well and it looks great. But more often than not, that's not been the case. And the Cavs have not been very good this year with Thomas Bryant on the floor. So bringing in a guy like Day Ron Sharp would just be a marginal upgrade to that backup center spot. But again, like, I think the idea of them making some of some sort of ultra aggressive trade for a three doesn't make a ton of sense. And then after that, then you start getting into like the fundamental reorienting of the roster. Like, yeah, like, could they get into the Giannis sweepstakes if they wanted to include a guy like Evan Mobley? Like, yeah, they could. But it's like now we're talking about fundamentally altering the entire identity of this team. Like, if you start thinking about trading a Darius Garland, if you start thinking about trading a Jarrett Allen, and now it's just a very, very different conversation about completely reorienting the team. But if you still believe in the Cavs and you still believe in what, what this team is capable of when they're fully healthy, which we keep seeing that data every time they have been healthy, they've looked really good, They've just struggled to stay healthy. And here we are again watching Donovan Mitchell try to carry the team without Darius Garland. It's just difficult to watch, right? So, like, it just depends on how you feel. If you believe in the healthy core, very slight tweaks, like something like turning Thomas Bryant into Darren Sharp. If you want to go big, like, you know, it's, it's. I'm not the biggest Evan Mobley believer in the world, although he started to show some signs of, of gaining some rhythm on offense this season. But, like, if for me, like, if I could turn a guy like Evan Mobley into Giannis, I personally would do it. I think that the east is wide open enough and I think doing something big and splashy like that could end up rewarding you with a finals appearance or even a chance to compete for a championship. But those are just so that we don't know if Giannis is going to be available at this deadline. We don't know if he's even interested in playing for Cleveland. There's all these like different kind of variables there that make that sort of thing really difficult to, to work out. All right, three more teams that I want to get into today. First, the Miami Heat. So obviously we've seen reports that they, that there's some mutual interest between John Morant in the Heat. I think there's a lot of like basketball synergy there in the sense that you have this Miami Heat team that is kind of devoid of high end offensive talent, like true defense breaking offensive talent. Like they've got a lot of guys that are capable of doing things on offense, but it's either inconsistent based on just how well they shoot on a night to night basis, or it's inconsistent based on matchups and whether or not they're able to get the types of favorable matchups they need to succeed within their system, which relies a lot on one on one dribble penetration. Right? Like you catch the Heat on the right night. Jaime Hakaz looks absolutely amazing. Norman Powell looks absolutely amazing. Bam's hitting threes and looks like an all NBA player. And like there's all these different variations of the Heat that look great, but there's nothing there that's like consistently amazing on a night in, night out basis, regardless of the type of matchup that they, that they're facing. And so having a guy like John Morant who has this singular gift of the ability to beat people off the dribble, which again we saw in this system at the start of last season, lead to quite a few wins, even if it wasn't necessarily the most statistically impressive. John Morant stretch and Ja individually prefers to play pick and roll, but I don't think he's really, it's kind of in a little bit of a beggars can't be choosers situation here where like he needs to find a place that'll take him and that will actually give him an opportunity to continue to develop into the player he's capable of being. And so that's why I think like Miami, you know, would have some leverage to be able to look at John and be like, hey, welcome. But hey, you're playing in this system. But at its core, the idea of Job bringing the ball up the floor and beating his first defender off the dribble to kind of get things started offense is something that I think makes a lot of sense. Now, Miami does have two tradable firsts. I get why they would not want to include a first round pick in a situation for a guy like John Morant, specifically because of A potential Giannis trade down the line or a different type of star trade. There's also some concern and we've heard that like Memphis for example, would not be interested in taking Tyler Harrow's salary back in this case. And so it's like if you have to dump salary as part of the process to get job, then you have to start including draft compensation. And that's where it gets complicated. And you know you want to keep as many of your first as you can for a theoretical Giannis trade. So I actually came up with a crazy little three teamer here for you because I know the Lakers really want Andrew Wiggins. So what have you used Andrew Wiggins essentially as the salary piece to bring back a guy like John Morant. So a kind of idea of a structure for this trade is the Heat would get John Morant, they would get Maxi Cleba's expiring from the Lakers. So that's just an expiring contract, a contract that's going to come off your books after the season. And then you'd get Dalton connect alleged shooting prospect that hasn't really been able to make shots. I, he has a lot of talent. It just hasn't really come to fruition. It's kind of, I'm kind of out on the guy. Most of the league is out on the guy, but he makes $4 million. And so like you could, you could, you know, get rid of him if you wanted to after the season. In this case, the Heat would also get the Lakers 2031 first round pick. So they'd get a first round pick. In this case the Grizzlies, they would get Rui Hachimura and they'd get Gabe Vincent from the Lakers. Just another expiring and then they'd either get two second round picks from the Heat or maybe the, the Heat would reroute that Lakers first to the Grizzlies if they got stingy. It just kind of depends on what the Grizzlies are asking for in terms of the price for John Moran. But like preferably if you're the Heat, you want to keep that Lakers first because then you have three tradable firsts for an eventual Giannis trade. And you can, you know, if you can convince Memphis to get rid of Job or two second round picks, then you can maintain that third first. But worst case scenario you could also reroute that first. In this case, the Lakers would get Scotty Pippen Jr. From the Grizzlies, Andrew Wiggins from the Heat as well as Davion Mitchell. And so then John Morant basically just slots into that starting point guard spot there at there in Miami. And so in that case, like the Grizzlies get some draft compensation for John Morant, they have a shooting four that can give them a little bit of size in some different looks alongside Jaren Jackson potentially there's and they get off a job. Most importantly, the Lakers get their Andrew Wiggins that they want so bad. The Heat end up getting John Morant and again it just is really fighting over draft compensation there. But that's going to be the trick if it's not the Lakers, some other kind of third team to reroute a Tyler Harrow or you know, maybe someone else wants an Andrew Wiggins and you can use Andrew Wiggins as a salary filler there. But it just gets a little tricky. If the Grizzlies aren't going to take back like Terry Rozier's contract and they're not going to take back Tyler Harrow's contract, but those are your best vehicles with which to achieve getting John Morant, then you're going to have to start to get a little creative with, with involving other teams. The Orlando Magic so this is actually my favorite Klay Thompson team. I think that Orlando has such a specific need for reliable catch and shoot shooting on the wing and they have so much athleticism and size to support an anchor, a guy like Clay. They love to run inverted ball screens where they have Franz or Paulo catch a screen from one of their guards kind of slipping out of it. You Klay Thompson's just amazing at that specific thing. And Clay's just been in a lot of big games. He's just a kind of guy that if you injected him into a locker room like this, he could work wonders for just having everybody feel more comfortable and confident in big game settings. I just think he's the kind of guy that like wouldn't cost much, but that could potentially do a lot for this particular Orlando Magic team. And so the deal would be pretty simple to construct. It would be like Jonathan Isaac plus a minimum. So something like no appenda or something along those lines. I don't think you'd have to include draft compensation. It would more so just be a favorite for Dallas to allow Klay Thompson to go play somewhere where he could compete for a title. And once again just I just imagine a scenario where like you could have, you know, lineups on the floor where you have Desmond Bain, Clay Thompson, Franz Paulo and Wendell Carter Jr. And it's just a Lot more shooting than that than Orlando's ever had in that specific instance. And because of the ability that Desmond Bain has to guard on the perimeter and they do have other guards that can go with their. Anthony Black can still play, you know, start and close games, but Clay can anchor those lineups. When Anthony Black is off the floor, Clay can give them an option to have more shooting in more of their lineups in different spots during the game. The Bucks, this is, this is, I want to kind of start big picture surrounding Giannis because the Bucks end up getting absolutely annihilated by the Thunder last night. And it was embarrassing from the start. Like, I think at one point in the first quarter they had seven turnovers and three made field goals. There were possessions where they couldn't even get the ball across half court without turning it over. Like just little basic things like, you know, A.J. green's curling around the screen and a pass gets thrown a little bit behind him and AJ Mitchell stealing it going the other way. And like AJ Mitchell, by the way, was absolutely amazing in this game. And him just explained. Exploding into a reliable offensive weapon for Oklahoma City has just been such a godsend for them with how bad the injury stuff has been with J Dub and just how inconsistent he was when he was available. But Oklahoma City just goes into Milwaukee and wrecks them in the opening quarter. They were up 40 to 18. I think at one point in that game they just crushed him right out the gates. And Giannis talked after the game about how like no one's playing hard and everyone's playing selfishly and everyone's just kind of looking out for themselves. And it got pretty negative and pretty dark coming from Giannis in that game. And so to be clear, before we get into any of these ideas that I have, I think the Bucks should just trade Giannis any of these other deals that I'm looking at here, because what I'm looking at is offensive creation. Like I'm looking at some sort of high upside ball handler that could come in and maybe just add enough juice to this team to get them to buy back in to where they start actually playing hard every night. And maybe they have some punchers chance puncher's chance to make some sort of run in the Eastern Conference. But like any sort of ball handler that you bring in, it interferes with the development of a guy like Ryan Rollins, who I actually really like. And I would argue that, you know, just in general, having Kevin Porter Jr. Kind of come back into the picture and the way that this team has just completely tuned Doc Rivers out and started playing bad basketball. All of that already is bad for Ryan Rollins. His development, like, Ryan Rollins needs to be playing in a. Like, a serious environment where he has a real opportunity to grow into the player he's capable of being, which we saw flashes of early in the season. And so I think you. There's some reality to Milwaukee, to Milwaukee situation, where it's like, if you acknowledge reality and you move Giannis, you open the door to Fire Dock Rivers, get a new, young head coach in there that has the opportunity to kind of build a new culture and a new environment. You can get rid of all of the players on the roster that you don't like for one reason or another in terms of their influence on the culture. And. And you can start to build something, and you can really get quite a bit back for Giannis in that process. And so I. I just think this is a disaster. And I know it sucks for Bucks fans because this isn't how you wanted it to end. To end, and no one ever wants it to end. But, like, the more you drag this out, the nastier it gets. The. Each passing year, even, like Giannis's own trade value diminishes. You're not competing for anything right now, and you're actually stifling the development of your own young players. And you actually have some guys on this team, like, I really like A.J. green. I really like Ryan Rollins. If you could, like, if you could, you know, make a trade and bring back a guy like an Evan Mobley in a. In a deal with Cleveland, or if you could bring back, you know, someone, a couple of, like, real talented young pieces from Miami, whether it ends up being a, you know, Jaime Hawkes, or it ends up being a Kale Ware or something along those lines, just something that resets your environment so that you can actually start to take the steps towards what the next iteration of the Bucks will be, instead of just kind of hanging in this purgatory and obviously get a bunch of draft picks, draft picks that you can use to continue to. To head in that direction. But for the sake of this kind of exercise, the kinds of guys that you're looking at, if you're Milwaukee, if you're trying to try to maximize this version with Giannis, again, is a distressed ball handler. So a ball handler that won't cost you much. The favorite guy that I have when I look at the landscape is actually an Forney Simons. I think that whoever Anthony Simons gets traded to by the Celtics because The Celtics are going to trade Anthony in pursuit of a big and some financial flexibility in the future. So let's say for instance that Boston trades and for the Simons to Chicago for Jalen Smith, which is one of my favorite kind of Celtics oriented deals. We talked about it earlier. In that case I would then call Chicago and try to get an Forney Simons. And Forney Simons is the type of guy that really high level pull up three point shooter, a guy that especially in the last month and a half or so is really starting to pop for Boston. Like so much so that it's made Boston at least think about not trading him, even though the answer is that they obviously have to. And Forney Simons is a guy I really like. DeMar DeRozan is another option they could look at. I don't love the fit there, but again, it's just a distressed ball handler, Kobe White, you'd have to extend him, but he's the kind of guy too that just kind of fits that mold of the pull up shooting, kind of speedy, bigger guard. And then there's also Tyler Harrow who's distressed and you could get him for almost nothing. Like I think you could probably call them an offer like Kyle Kuzma and Cole Anthony for Tyler Harrow if you want. And one of the things with Tyler Harrow is like I do think he would have some natural two man game chemistry with Giannis. So it's at least an option there. Really good pull up shooter, a guy that if he's allowed to work in drop coverage, which you basically would have to with a Giannis matchup because you don't want to give up switches to him. I think that he could have some success there. It's like it's hard to find a Tyler hero team that makes sense but it's got to be a situation like this where you're kind of desperate and you have to make something of an aggressive move that has some upside. So again, like I think Milwaukee should trade Giannis. My favorite option for them if they do try to keep Giannis is to target the team that gets an Fernie Simons from the Celtics and see if you can't get an Fernie in there. All right guys, that's all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show again. We appreciate we will have another version of this that focuses more on the Western Conference coming out next week. Tomorrow we're going to have some game reaction. There's fun slate tonight, some big national TV games. So we'll have game reaction tomorrow with the second half of the show being kind of a mini mailbag, and then we'll be done for the weekend again, as always, I appreciate you guys for rocking with us. We will see you tomorrow morning. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.
The Herd with Colin Cowherd — January 24, 2026
Host: [Unnamed in transcript]
Podcast: iHeartPodcasts and The Volume
This episode zeroes in on the rapidly approaching NBA trade deadline, focusing exclusively on the Eastern Conference’s playoff contenders. The host systematically explores the most pressing needs for top teams, offers actionable trade ideas, and delves into major storylines—most notably, the uncertain future of Giannis Antetokounmpo and the spiraling Milwaukee Bucks. Listeners can expect a practical breakdown of potential deals, honest assessments of team outlooks, and candid takes from a passionate basketball mind.
Summary: The host favors Michael Porter Jr. as the ideal balance of cost and fit.
Summary: Vucevic is the favorite due to expiring status and fit, but Smith is intriguing for long-term, discounted size and shooting.
On Detroit:
“MPJ’s made 128 threes this year. That’s the ninth most in the entire NBA. He shoots 40%... 44% unguarded... 72% at the rim... and he’s a very good help side defender.” (03:44)
On Boston’s Constraints:
“Boston in the 2028-29 season has Tatum, Brown and White on the books for $167 million. Just those three players.” (08:48)
On Knicks Inactivity:
“Josh Hart is kind of in that sweet spot where he’s making around $20 million, but he’s in many ways the heart and soul of the team. I mean… it’s just difficult to find… a player that comes back for Josh Hart that you can justify the improvement...” (14:48)
On Giannis Situation:
“…I just think this is a disaster. And I know it sucks for Bucks fans because this isn’t how you wanted it to end… But, like, the more you drag this out, the nastier it gets.” (36:24)
On Miami Keeping Picks:
“…if you can convince Memphis to get rid of Ja for two second round picks, then you can maintain that third first. But worst-case scenario, you could also reroute that [Lakers] first.” (27:15)
This episode deftly outlines the trade deadline chessboard for Eastern Conference teams—balancing immediate needs, financial realities, and the ever-present specter of superstar movement. The main throughline: while bold trades can re-shape a playoff run, for some teams (especially the Bucks with Giannis and the Pistons at power forward), the cost and timing will define legacies. For others, sometimes the best move is a marginal upgrade—or no move at all.