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- [00:00]
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This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable Internet means everything for your business and even this podcast. That's why I trust Spectrum Business. They keep companies of all sizes connected with Internet, advanced wi, fi, phone, tv, mobile services plus 24. 7 US based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum business so visit spectrum.com business to learn more Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. This episode is brought to you by Firehouse Subs who just dropped a game changing sandwich? The French dip. Literally one of my favorite sandwiches slash subs. Roast beef, caramelized onions, melty cheese, little freshly toasted garlic butter roll and the warm savory au jus. I've been eating these forever since I was lived on the east coast in la. I think to me this versus the cheesesteak, the French dip, no contest, way better. And I think it's really because of the au jus. I don't know anybody who doesn't like au jus. An elite game day sub. Fun to order by the way, if you want it delivered because they usually put the au jus in the special little container you can pour it on. Knock yourself out. The French dip here for a limited time. I wish it was longer. Only at Firehouse Subs. Limited time at participating Firehouse subs restaurants while supplies last.
- [01:41]
Rob Mahoney
Hello and welcome to Group Chat. I am Rob Mahoney. That's Kyle Mann. Kyle, we're without Justin today. Who we should say is, you know, dealing with a T shirt cannon related injury. Do you want to send out any messages to our guy?
- [01:54]
Kyle Mann
I was asking him, I was like it was suspicious, you know, that I don't know what was, what was, what was laced on that T shirt. What kind of, you know, respiratory illness, maybe that was. They were taking him out. They heard some of his complaints about tanking. Follow the data is all I'm saying. I'm not trying to be too conspiratorial. Maybe we'll get an episode of. Wait a second about it. What do you feel? You feeling as conspiratorial about it as I am?
- [02:17]
Rob Mahoney
I think we need to know who was on the other end of that T shirt cannon, you know, we need to know who pulled the trigger. We got to check the footage, we got to check the logs, we got to check the security tape. I think there's a lot to uncover here.
- [02:27]
Kyle Mann
Yeah. Yeah.
- [02:28]
Rob Mahoney
But as. As anyone can probably tell, we are glad to have NBA basketball back tonight. Getting back into the flow of things certainly feels good at this stage of the season. Kyle. I'm I get a little antsy during these breaks. Even like a couple days off. I don't quite know what to do with myself. Are you feeling juiced and jazzed about the return of actual basketball into our lives again?
- [02:50]
Kyle Mann
Well, I just kind of come away from this feeling sorry for you, as often do, Rob, where I have college basketball, like a nice, comfy, just comforter that I can lay back on whenever I want to because college has been awesome this year and there's great games. There was no break. I was. I was over here just enjoying. Enjoying the wares.
- [03:10]
Rob Mahoney
I thought you were going to flex with like, you know, your full and complete life outside of basketball, but I don't know. It's just. You have other degenerate sports to dive into in the meantime.
- [03:18]
Kyle Mann
I have other things to. To dive into. You know, I just started reading the Stand by Stephen King. Been enjoying that. So. Yeah, I, I'm. I'm a dynamic person. I try to be when I can.
- [03:30]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah. Well, has it occupied a lot of your time to deal with? I know you lent Lamelo your camo Hummer and we saw everything that happened with that. Like, has. Has been dealing with the insurance problems
- [03:39]
Kyle Mann
been an issue for you, that Hummer? Somebody like, compiled a. A, like a series, like a highlight reel of Lamelo pulling out of the Hornets parking garage, which just. I don't know if it was one person doing at the same time. Every, like, noticing that because Lamo ran over the foot. Right? That was the first incident at the garage. I don't know if you ever hearing about that. But someone had the presence of mind to continue to record him every time he pulled out of the garage. And I was just really Lamelo. I don't think it's talked about enough how Lamelo's vibe is distinctly Jared Leto as the Joker. All of his aesthetic, like, it's, it's. It's no other iteration of the Joker. It's Jared Leto, heck damaged.
- [04:21]
Rob Mahoney
Or is it forehead tat damaged? I can't remember what Leto has going on.
- [04:24]
Kyle Mann
I'm not saying he went up to Steve Clifford and said, I'm not going to kill you. I'm just going to hurt you really bad with a couple of like, shock pads. But I'm not going to rule it out. But I'm just saying every car that he had pulling out of the garage was. Was 100% Jared Leto Joker. There was like a. There was like a bright purple metallic Bentley, you know, in this most recent one. All matter of Ferraris. I don't Know how to get into paint or whether he leases them or whatever. It's a fascinating world. But I'm sure he makes enough money to own nice cars. But that's the thing.
- [04:55]
Rob Mahoney
What else is a young man in Charlotte supposed to spend his money on?
- [04:58]
Kyle Mann
I don't know, man, but the Hummer. The Hummer was. I didn't know if people still did custom Hummers. It was. It was a nice breath of fresh air. I thought we were out of the. The custom Hummer era, but maybe we're not.
- [05:09]
Rob Mahoney
Well, everything that's old is new again. You know, all the trends are circling back. All the old news is new news. And today on the podcast, I think we're going to lean into that a little bit because we're going to be looking back ourselves at some of the biggest slash, most notable slash, in some cases, weirdest moves of last summer and see how they've aged, see how, you know, Kyle, we're feeling about them now and whether they would still kind of pass muster in terms of our own logic. Are. Are you feeling up for a look back?
- [05:34]
Kyle Mann
I'm always down to look back as somebody that, you know, we both laugh a lot about people our age. Our impulse, the Freudian impulse, Rob, to sort of look back. We're not looking back as far here, but we definitely want to kind of just do some relitigation of these moves, right? To see, you know, we know what you did last summer. And we're going to say, you know, just kind of discuss whether there's regret or if there's just steadfast continued belief with these moves.
- [06:00]
Rob Mahoney
Well, we are, as you say, Kyle, large children living in younger versions of ourselves. We're also naval gazers by default, so I think we're particularly equipped for this. I want to start with one of the biggest move just by volume in terms of the amount of, like, assets that went out the door. And that's the Orlando Magic's trade for Desmond Bain, which, if you'll recall, involved giving up the number 16 pick in last summer's draft that ended up being Young Hansen flipped to Portland. Plus three more unprotected firsts, a pick swap, Kentavious Caldwell Pope and Cole Anthony to get back Bane. How are you feeling about that particular move, and would you still do it, knowing everything we know now from Orlando's perspective?
- [06:41]
Kyle Mann
Well, first of all, I mean, I think you have to start at what was, you know, what were the stakes here? What were the terms? And young Hansen, I mean, we can just say MVP level, player I think we can just start there, right?
- [06:52]
Rob Mahoney
I mean, if Justin's not here, someone has to say it.
- [06:54]
Kyle Mann
We got to throw some change in the. In the jar for. For Justin kcp. Obviously, they saw him as a depreciating guy who. I don't know. Do you remember whenever that. Whenever Denver sent, you know, what was he free agent or was that a free agent?
- [07:09]
Rob Mahoney
He's a free agent. Yeah.
- [07:10]
Kyle Mann
Yeah. Whenever he left Denver to go to Orlando, you heard some murmurs from some outspoken Nuggets fans because the, you know, nobody's watching their team, a team as closely as the people nightly on league pass. And I did see some people being like, I hear everybody talking about kcp, but the idea of KCP is not the KCP now. And they were on that scent early. You know, we get to Orlando, for whatever reason, I think some of this can spin into. Is Orlando sort of a pit or Bermuda Triangle for basketball value? Because it's kind of starting to feel that way based on the way the team is built. Cole Anthony, another guy that just has bounced around, ended up getting waved by the Bucks, who we'll talk more about. And then, yeah, so I guess let's just. Where do you want to. You want to do just like the basketball fit? Start wherever you want to with Desmond Bain. What was your first impression? How we're. How we. And then leading to where we are now.
- [08:02]
Rob Mahoney
I certainly thought that this would work great. And we talked about it at the time in our preseason predictions and all that. Like, I was pretty high on the Magic and this version of this team. And I think even knowing what we know now, that architecture was worth, like, a good, honest try, hoping that everyone could stay healthy. Clearly they have not getting the kind of shooter they've never had in Bane, who started slow but has finally been kind of picking up and finding his stroke again and leveled out into a pretty interesting place for this team. Overall. The. The Magic aren't good. They're having kind of a disaster season, I think, in a lot of respects. But to me, Desmond Bain isn't really the problem there. And so then the question is just kind of like the value proposition, right? Like, how do you feel about getting a good player in the door that isn't fixing your team and giving up all of these picks in order to do it? And I'm okay with that bargain still. Even. Still, even with everything that's happened and we can go into kind of like the future of the Magic and what that might hold. But to me, Desmond Bane is an interesting part of this team. And an interesting part of a magic team that say, doesn't have one of Paolo, Ben Caro or Franz Vaughner on it, that takes a radically different shape, that if we're all being honest with ourselves, gets a lot less weird and a lot more conventional. And having a very straightforward two guard who does two guard things seems like something that version of the magic could honestly use.
- [09:18]
Kyle Mann
Yeah, there's a symptom disease thing going on here where, you know, I think that they were attacking, they brought him in and I don't think that Bane has necessarily cured the disease. What I was going to ask you, which is I think a little bit more deeper with their stars, which has been well documented. You know, people have wondered about Franz and Paulo together, Apollo by himself. Any iteration of their stars is like, is it going to work? Can it be calibrated? I was kind of wondering too though, like, you know, thinking back to the summer, what types of we were thinking about the hypothetical magic from the standpoint from the summer where we were sitting, we were like, this is what it's going to look like. What kind of shots did you think? Just like thinking about it on the court, what it was going to envisioning what it was going to look like. What kind of shots did you think he was going to bring to their offense and how did you think it was going to change? Because just speaking for myself, I think some of the miscalibration for me in the way I was thinking about Desmond Bane was kind of maybe thinking about 20, 21, 2022, Desmond Bain, where it was more of him flying off of down screens or you know, coming off of double, you know, staggereds, moving, you know, flares, whatever. It was more off ball movement, catch and shoot type stuff. Which to me I thought, you know, okay, that would add some a wrinkle to Orlando that would make them more difficult to deal with. But I kind of don't feel like that's a fair representation of who he has become in terms of how he is used as a player.
- [10:42]
Rob Mahoney
No, and I thought it would be a combination of some of that sort of off ball movement that you're describing and also like a decent dose of on ball pick and roll kind of facilitating second side playmaking for them, which they have needed to be clear. It was kind of like a way to square both of their biggest limitations. Like they needed the shooter, but they also needed someone who could handle the ball, who was a threat to pull up. Why not Desmond Bane? And that's how you talk yourself into giving up all these picks in the first place, but not only are they not running all that kind of action to set him up for for catch and shoots or off of curls, he's also just like become the kind of ever so slightly hesitant shooter. And some of this is I think maybe because he was struggling a little bit out of the gate to really convert from deep. But like I was hoping he would have the kind of season where just because of the way the teams packed the pain against the Magic, he would be averaging nine or ten three point attempts a game that he would be. I mean we're in a totally different universe.
- [11:35]
Kyle Mann
We've gone the other way.
- [11:36]
Rob Mahoney
Why do you.
- [11:37]
Kyle Mann
Why is that, do you think? Is it just their stagnation? It's interesting.
- [11:40]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah, I think some of it. If we want to talk about the off ball stuff, it's one thing when you have off ball movement with screens where the screener is then a threat to cut and roll, but because of the way that the pain is always so jammed up, you kind of can just shade harder towards Bane and take away some of those opportunities and live with everything else that you're giving up for like Mo Wagner, whoever's setting that screen, Wendell Carter, some of it is just. He has to be willing to take it more and that's easier said than done, right? Like when your offense is already kind of sloppy, already stuck in the mud asking a guy to pull the trigger early on, what is even in a best case scenario like a 38, 39% proposition. There's always like a mental part for, for even great shooters that's saying like maybe not now. We need to reset into our offense. Oh, we need to look for something simpler. There's never anything simple for the magic. And so the idea of taking like a long shot, higher risk opportunity for someone like Desmond Bain, I'm just not sure he's comfortable doing that in the way that even a shooter of his caliber should be comfortable doing that.
- [12:42]
Kyle Mann
What was the last successful team that had this kind of a lack of. I was just thinking about dribble shooters on this team. There's some catch at you guys that are respect. I mean De Silva's gotten to the point where he's pretty respectable. Trying to think of other guys on the floor. Richardson is, but he doesn't really play enough. Bane is. They don't really. He's really the only dribble shooter really that's capable on the team. So when you're talking about packing a
- [13:08]
Rob Mahoney
little bit, I think some.
- [13:10]
Kyle Mann
I Mean, he has to be low 30s, though. I can't imagine that he's. And I'm. I'm just trying to think of the last, like, successful team to. In order to do that. I come back to this a lot just because. Because of the, the horse, you know, John Hammond kind of that, that school of thought. How interesting and how parallel those two builds have been. It's like you kind of have to have.
- [13:31]
Rob Mahoney
You.
- [13:31]
Kyle Mann
You have to have a really, really special rim pressure talent at the center of that, like to the point where Giannis just could manufacture wide open threes for, for that roster build in a way that. I think another problem too is that the brain of this whole build has kind of. I don't know if pulled out is the right way to put it, but it just hasn't been in stasis enough. You know, Franz has been out of the lineup. Who's been hurt? You know, we hear Magic fans just being like, well, before, you know, all the criticism comes with that asterisk, which is availability. And the other thing too is just the Paolo not being Paolo. You know, it's just kind of like Bane has come in to be the supporting actor when the leading man isn't kind of there to anchor all the scenes. Right. And I kind of think that that's been the biggest thing that's undermined the Magic going the direction that we thought that they might go this year.
- [14:21]
Rob Mahoney
I think it's an enormous part of it. If you're gonna have this funky a construction, you need a lot of Runway to figure it out. And having all those guys in and out of the mix, Suggs included and Franz, we should say, is not just been out, but him rushing back and trying to return from that ankle injury, it seems like exacerbated the situation a little bit. Now he's due to be reevaluated another three weeks, and that's reevaluated in three weeks. Not to say he's going to be back by then. We might not see him, you know, until right before the playoffs, if that. And so. And that's if the Magic make the playoffs there. They just have not had an opportunity for any of this stuff to settle. And we're saying that now year over year over year, with multiples of these guys getting hurt almost every season in combinations, it just hasn't really panned out the way that anybody wanted. And you're right. As a result, like, they haven't had a chance to develop as a cohesive group. They've developed some individual like Franz is a better player now than he was two years ago, but is he better at playing off of Paolo Banchero now than he was two years ago? Is Paulo better in operating in these tight quarters that the Magic create for him on an every night basis? I wouldn't say that he is. And so when you don't have the chance to actually grow together, this is what happens to you. There's versions of the team that have, let's say, Bane and Franz out there together that work, and Bane and Paolo out there together that work. And certainly when you have Suggs involved, when Anthony Black is taking a leap, like all those guys can be incorporated in various ways. But all told, this is a mess of a roster. It doesn't really make sense in terms of competing in a modern way. And the big exception in terms of what you were talking about, Kyle, was like, how do you build a team that's successful without off the dribble shooters? The one shining example right now is the Detroit Pistons, who basically have one, maybe two of those guys, if you want to include, like Tobias Harris in that mix a little bit. But they do it because they're an elite defensive team and the Magic have been uninspired at best on defense over the course of this year, have just completely lost the edge that they used to play with. And so if that's going to be the reality of who you are on that side of the ball, you have to have some benefit from playing this big. And right now we just don't see any of it. And Bane is just kind of like lost in the mix of trying to accent or augment something that isn't really there to begin with.
- [16:30]
Kyle Mann
I was going to ask you what their offensive identity is because I don't feel like that's clear at all. And whenever you lack an offensive identity, I think that that purposelessness can just get guys feeling like they're expending a lot of energy that is going nowhere. It just feels like futile to a point. And whenever you're doing that, it's asking a human being to do that over time. It's just something that is. You're going to end up having this loss of return over time where guys are just like, we work so hard to just be an inefficient basketball team. And then you're asking them to be like, all right, well, our defensive identity, it's just, is going to be the thing that drives it. I kind of feel like that has been the circle cycle, whatever it is, of a frustration for the Magic to cause them to spin wheels. I don't know ultimately where this is going. It just kind of feels like this is going to hit a point where they're making a tough decision to have some kind of surgery on this, to choose a level of survival that they're. They're willing to live with. Right. Because I don't. It's hard to feel optimistic about the direction that it's going with their two stars, which I feel like is not Bane's fault, but it's at the center of it.
- [17:45]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah. I think especially if you're going into this season as a lot of us myself were included, thinking of Bane as if not like a finishing piece, at least one that will bring the room together a little bit. Hasn't happened now requires I think something more dramatic to probably happen this summer. I don't even know if we're going to see the healthy Magic get a chance in this. In these postseason at all to prove literally anything about the build of the team at this point. And if that's the case, the picks do seem steep. I like granted, I still think I would do it. I still think that version of the team deserved a shot. They haven't been healthy enough to. To actually put that into action on the court. But I'm cool with it because Bane can roll over and continue to be a factor for the team. If that weren't the case, if he only made sense for a Paolo Franz combination team, then, yeah, like that. That sunk cost would be pretty brutal at this point. But they really do need to figure out a style and whatever that style is. I feel confident that Desmond Bain, who's like at this point putting up 24 and 4 on reasonable percentages and we know what kind of shooter he can be, we know what kind of secondary creator he could be. That's just a useful guy to have around as you pivot. Frankly, like, that's a. That's a good piece to pencil in while you figure out what your team looks like without Paolo or without Franz or however they want to reimagine this thing.
- [19:02]
Kyle Mann
Yeah. You're mentioning the Pistons is an interesting comparison because is the difference that you just kind of have to have an elite heliocentric type guy because I had.
- [19:12]
Rob Mahoney
Or just someone who sees the floor like Kate does. Like they. They don't have that playmaker. They have a lot of guys who can kind of pass, but nobody who can really pass.
- [19:19]
Kyle Mann
Yeah, but. And the threat to score for that passer, too, is a big thing too, because it's Just like Paulo and Franz both have these sort of caveats that I think undermine how effective it is. And especially when you put them out there together and they're just kind of taking turns. It's like Kate is just, Kate is just on another level in that sense. So I don't know, can you, can you be. I think what we're seeing basically is we're seeing a helio sort of idea of a team that doesn't have quite the. It's not optimized to work.
- [19:50]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah, I mean, to me the spinning wheels is captured in the fact that like if, if you look into the, the mileage tracking data, which take it with a great grain of salt, like it's very contextual in terms of what that stuff actually means.
- [20:03]
Kyle Mann
You looked up their, their mileage tracking data.
- [20:05]
Rob Mahoney
Well, the one that I keep an eye on because of the spinning of wheels is like, how much is Paolo moving on offense? And he move, he covers as much ground on offense as basically any non movement shooter in the league. He has to constantly being called up to screen, being called up to screen, being called to cut. You have the ball now you have to half drive into a kick out. He's in a lot of action and a lot of stuff is happening. Some of that is because every Magic possession seems to go 23 seconds into the shot clock. So like just by the numbers, they're going to be spending a lot of time on offense. But it just speaks to the level of churn that's happening here where there isn't a helio level of simplicity, but there is a helio level of trade off in terms of the flow of the offense. Like it never feels like all of the pieces are connected. And so you have all of the downsides of that style of offense without the real payoffs of having, you know, the visionary creator at the helm.
- [20:55]
Kyle Mann
I thought we were seeing into the process of Rob Mahoney on the stats that you track, because I know I have my kind of like places I go to look for certain indicators if I think that they're there. One of the ones that I think which for as much criticism I think like for as young as Paolo is, I feel bad for him. Quite honest, quite honestly with you, because if you go and look at the things that people are saying about him, which is that, you know, pounding the ball, sticking on it, taking bad shots, things like that, I do think that he's made an effort because if you go and you look at touch time, that's one of the things whenever you hear those criticisms about a player I go and look for, which is him staying on the ball, lingering on the ball, and then points per possession or points per touch. So I was looking at guys past a certain volume. I think it was like 65 touches per game and guys who had the ball in their hands for at least two and a half seconds. And Paolo is not in the basement with some of the like uglier names on that list like he's doing. He's made an effort to change. Granted, he's not elite, so I don't know, it seems like maybe they have a lot to figure out. It's a mess, man. I honestly don't know if that I have the answer.
- [22:00]
Rob Mahoney
They do have a lot to figure out. How do you want to rubber stamp this thing? Would you, at this point, knowing everything we know now, give up the number 16 pick? 3 unprotected first a pick swap KCP and Cole Anthony for Desmond Bain. Are we, are we doing that today still?
- [22:15]
Kyle Mann
What were the ears on the unprotected firsts?
- [22:17]
Rob Mahoney
So the Magic are giving up their pick this year, 2026. Also their 2028, their 2021 swap, which I believe is top two protected, and their 2030 pick. So I mean, it's really their near term draft future.
- [22:29]
Kyle Mann
What's the, what's the dark timeline here? What do you think? I mean, let's say is, is there a pivot? I think that's the biggest fear, right, if you're an Orlando fan, that the, that there is no clean pivot. If we're assuming that they're going to do some kind of a pivot, I think you and I kind of agree that there's probably some kind of, some kind of a surgery is going to have to happen to make this work or maybe not. But what's the darkest timeline, do you think, for. For those picks for where they're standing right now?
- [22:56]
Rob Mahoney
Well, I think we're living the darkest timeline just about in terms of their play this season. Like this is as dark as it
- [23:02]
Kyle Mann
could get, you think?
- [23:03]
Rob Mahoney
I mean, I guess technically it can always get worse. Modern times have taught us that. But I think the good news is Paolo and Franz in particular, but also Jalen Suggs, also Anthony Black. Like, however radically you want to think about this roster, those are good, attractive players to a lot of teams. They might not get you the, the precise return you want in exactly the way you want it, but I do think if they decided to move on from any of those guys, that they would get something pretty nice in terms of reshaping their team in terms of getting back to or, or kind of moving on to a more conventional place. So I think it can get dark, clearly, in terms of anytime you're leveraged out that far into the future with picks, but this team is still set up to be pretty good for the near term future. And so so long as that is the case and so long as they continue to make moves, like to me the, maybe the worst timeline is the one in which they do absolutely nothing at all and take no lesson at all from this season. Like they need dramatic change. And I am saying that as somebody who, like, I'm one of the last people on this boat, you know, like I was, I was hoping and praying that this team would turn it around and they just have not. So I think we need to see something to justify their continued existence. Otherwise, need to see something pretty, pretty significant shift in the construction of it.
- [24:16]
Kyle Mann
Yeah, yeah, I think that's fair and it's interesting because you're talking about that that's what ends up happening with some of these teams. It's like, I don't, I like a lot of these individual pieces and I'm sure there are some really coveting eyes out there in the NBA, hoping that they get, you know, loosen up and start shopping a Jalen Suggs or a Franz or an Anthony Black. Because in a different context, those guys could be really, really high impact players. So I don't think the magic are sunk by any means. No, it's just there might be a painful step at some point to get where they want to go.
- [24:48]
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- [25:50]
Kyle Mann
Somewhere out there is a Chevy truck and the person who drives it. Well, that's a Chevy person. You probably know one, your buddy, your sister. Ones who always show up. They're the first to rise, the last to leave. They always have that little extra something and maybe you've got it too. Chevrolet together. Let's drive. Visit chevy.com trucks to explore the lineup.
- [26:18]
Rob Mahoney
Well, while we're talking painful steps and maybe some painful internal dynamics, depending on your view of the validity of various burner related rumors, I want to talk to you about Kevin Durant and the Houston Rockets. Let's flashback. It was like a massive seven team trade where the Rockets gave up Dylan Brooks, Jalen green, the number 10 pick which became Malawatch, and five second round picks for Kevin Durant. Not an overwhelming haul I don't think by any means, Kyle. But do you have any second thought, any doubt whatsoever from what we've seen of the Kevin Durant era in Houston that would lead you to believe the Rockets should or should not have done
- [26:56]
Kyle Mann
this for a productive Kevin Durant? In the, in the air, in the, in the tier of productivity and efficiency that he's in right now at this stage of his life. Has there ever been a better price for Kevin Durant as Kevin Durant not even really dipping in any sense, he's still one of the most lethal every which way you want to slice it. Yep, coming off of ball screens, catch and shoot, coming off of pin downs, no dribble isolation. Still one of the best isolation scores in the world. Has there been a better price at any point for Kevin Durant? I can't imagine that there has been.
- [27:29]
Rob Mahoney
Not for him or any player like him to the extent that anyone's ever been like him. I I think the for Dillon Brooks is having a really great season, a badass season. I think by many respects we knew what the Dylan Brooks version of the Rockets looked like and if you want to even include it, the Jalen Green version of the Rockets look like like they ran headfirst into a wall and needed something to really get them over the top offensively and to shoot over the top offensively. Kevin Durant was like a perfect prescription for a lot of their problems. And so I'm, I'm just not too loath to give up anything, any individual asset or player that the Rockets gave up and even collectively like a pile of second round picks and One first. And Dylan Brooks and Jalen Green, who they were trying to trade anyway, feels imminently reasonable to me. And I say that even knowing all of the stuff that comes with Kevin Durant, all of you know, the inevitable lull, the inevitable, like, body language concerns, and now we find ourselves into this weird burner controversy. And, and I want to say, like, I have no idea if the stuff that's floating around online is actually Kevin Durant. I have seen nothing even approaching proof that this is Kevin Durant, other than some people saying, doesn't it seem like it could be based on the fact that he is like a legendary shit poster and thus plausibly could be also an anonymous shit poster? And this is the one part of the Kevin Durant experience that can't be priced in when you're thinking about picks and players, is when he comes to your team reliably, he's going to do exactly what you said, Kyle, which is he's going to be one of the most, like, locked in isolation, one on one creators and scorers that we've ever seen. Also the volume around your team is going to crank up and it's going to be something predictable, it's going to be something unpredictable. He's just a guy who courts and I think enjoys in some respects, like a certain level of adversarial controversy. I don't think he particularly wanted this and frankly, the way he's dealt with it is wildly perplexing.
- [29:25]
Kyle Mann
Allegedly.
- [29:26]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah, allegedly. Well, it was brought to him and he couldn't even bring himself to deny the fact that it was him in the first place.
- [29:33]
Kyle Mann
Have you ever had something happen where I guess this is exactly the same, but have you ever had someone get caught? Like, it just reminds me of. I'm more thinking of like accidental texts. Like someone sent like a text to the wrong number or the wrong group chat. Have you ever had that and then like confronted somebody about it or like, like the, the aftermath? I'll throw that to you first because I have one that happened to, to a group of my friends.
- [30:00]
Rob Mahoney
Oh my gosh. Yeah, it's a, it's a real peril. Especially when you have the exact kind of melted brains that we have where it's like I'm texting about somebody and I accidentally text it directly to them because my brain's like, oh, I'm. I'm talking about Kyle. I should totally text Kyle.
- [30:15]
Kyle Mann
I've double. Yeah, I've had that happen where, you know, I've had a lot of like, shit talking lessons in My life where I've paired that, you know, shit talking, I feel like, is a young man's game that I've tried to age out of. Don't do it anymore. There's really mostly just downside, you know, especially in writing. But. No, I mean, I've had that happen where, like, I'll double and triple check just to make sure, even if I'm saying something even mildly critical about something. No, I had, like, a group chat for one of my pickup groups one time, and this friend of ours sent. It wasn't shit talking, but he sent a text to the group chat that was very explicitly sexual.
- [30:52]
Rob Mahoney
Oh, no.
- [30:53]
Kyle Mann
Like, saying, like, very much like somebody sexting someone else.
- [30:58]
Rob Mahoney
Ray Allen in your group chat.
- [31:00]
Kyle Mann
It was I want to. Blank, blank, blank, blank, blank. And we. We all, you know, separately are just. Yeah, you know, a thousand exclamation points. And when we confronted this person about it, we were like, hey, what was that about? He just basically did the, like, shoulder shrug, didn't deny it or anything.
- [31:17]
Rob Mahoney
How could you.
- [31:19]
Kyle Mann
Yeah, we were. Well, we had suspicions about what? This. The nature of the text. We don't have to go into that. But anyway. No, it is kind of funny. I don't know.
- [31:29]
Rob Mahoney
Friend is doing a lot of work here, Kyle, I gotta say. We get it, guy.
- [31:36]
Kyle Mann
No, I'm just, like, thinking about Kevin Durant, the Kevin Durant experience at this point. I mean, you think about the hall, you think about the return, you think about the Rockets and their set of conditions. I mean, I know for a fact that that that was. When they saw the cost for Kevin Durant. They were like, we have to do this. I mean, I have pretty good confidence on that one. And not that it really took a source for that, but is this. Is the downside at this point just the. The extracurricular stuff that comes with Kevin? Because the roster itself, it's similar to the B. Like, Kevin isn't really. He's being overburdened, I think, for. For where he is in his career, for what. What their challenges are. They don't have Fred Van Vliet. Reed hasn't leveled up into the playmaker. I don't know necessarily that they expected him to be one. Shingun has his concerns. Is the extracurricular stuff the only kind of downside at this point?
- [32:24]
Rob Mahoney
I think it's the extracurricular stuff. I think it's the heightened expectations of the team, which, depending on how you look at it, are either an upside or a downside. But it does hold. Someone like Jabari Smith Jr. The subject of many of Kevin Durant's alleged messages to a certain standard, right? Like if he's not good right now, if he's not exactly what the Rockets need him to be, there's a spotlight on him in a different way just because you have brought in a superstar who is ready and able to win right now. So it just, you're asking different things of Ahmed Thompson and Tari Eason and you know, even Alper and Shangoon, who has evolved and stepped up and had an all star level season. But the ask is different when you're just competing at supposedly at a very high championship worthy level right now. And I think some of the frustrations for me in watching the Rockets have been they haven't shown a lot of growth in addressing some of their biggest limitations on offense over the course of the season and they haven't made any moves to address those things. And now the deadline is behind us and so what did they expect to happen here? You know, like that to me is part of the weight of bringing in someone like durant. It's not KD's fault that he's so good. He now makes your team have the thought that they should be a contender. But it is part of the reality
- [33:34]
Kyle Mann
of having him puts a little more pressure. This isn't the young guys who are scrappy against Golden State. This is like, okay, we brought in arguably the best score of all time. You said growth. I mean, do you think that this spins into kind of a conversation? I know that could, we could go on for a long time about. But I mean, I was talking with somebody about Amin Thompson and you know, his value. Zach and I talked a lot about him versus Brandon Miller. I was kind of like, that's closer for me than I even really thought of. I. He hit me with that in the moment. I was like, I. I mean, I still might lean Miller a little bit. Mainly because of this though. You're talking about the growth, you're talking about the Rockets, where they're going to go, the strain of them being a team that can create offense consistently. We know they can guard, we know all those things. It's like, do you ever see him in Thompson being like the core of an offense? Do you ever see him being like the primary driving force behind a productive offense? Because I initially believed in that. When he came into the league, I was like, I could see this. Yeah, I'm increasingly less confident about that. I don't think he's ever going to be a, you know, I just it's affected the way I think about his ceiling.
- [34:38]
Rob Mahoney
I think, I think that's totally fair. Look, on the one hand, 23 years old, sells a ton of basketball ahead of him. And we've seen guys, especially primary ball handlers, you know, make jumps when they figure out some particular aspect of the game. Like if he becomes not even the best shooter in the world, but has the sort of like mid range awakening that like a dejounte Murray had in the middle of his career.
- [35:02]
Kyle Mann
Mid range awakening. I love this.
- [35:04]
Rob Mahoney
Okay, like this. But that's kind of what he needs and so much of with him, to his reputation. Like there are guys who don't hit any of their pull up shots, but because they are thought of as scorers are guarded more seriously than I meant. Thompson is on the ball, whereas right now you can give him a cushion, you can give him space. And he's, he's pretty good at like, you know, finding little gaps and angles and wiggling his way through. And he's so explosive and just good enough with the floater in particular to kind of keep you honest. But is he ever going to drive a championship level offense doing that kind of stuff? I think we would need to see a lot more than he's flashed so far, to say the least. And I don't even think like the foundations of that game are there right now. To me, he's so much more interesting as the wild card component of an unconventional team. And that depends on your appetite to build around a player like that and construct your offense around them and how much you want the ball in his hands versus him cutting and facilitating and you know, finding other ways to contribute by just doing the things that no one else on the court can do.
- [36:03]
Kyle Mann
I think it's, I think the most likely or possible outcome for him that he can aim for is just sort of like a supercharged Iguodala body type. Yeah, I, I kind of feel like that's the most likely. But even Iguodala was more of a capable, competent shooter. I don't have the numbers, but early you have that point guard sensibility. I think in, in a crazy body type that could maybe cash. I mean, I know some of those really big threes that Iguodala hit in those finals. I was kind of like watching it. I don't know. His shot looks like it's like wiggling in the air as it's coming down. I feel like that's probably, that's probably the optimal version of him. The most successful archetype for An Ahman Thompson, I would think.
- [36:39]
Rob Mahoney
And that's one of the most successful winning archetypes basically of all time. Like, it's not, you know, it's not, it's not a top 10 pantheon player. And amen. Thompson has a world of talent that I think anyone who loves basketball would love to see him tap into and explore. But if that results in him just being a consummate winner in the way that Andre Iguodala turned out to be, that's a great outcome for his career. It's a. It's one that's shaped a little differently and that the Rockets would have to plan accordingly to find. If he's not going to be your Steph Curry, who is going to be your Steph Curry? Like, who is going to be the driver of your offense if not him? For now, it's Kevin Durant. And going into the future, I think it probably still will be Kevin Durant. There's like the two sides of my brain thing that happens with KD where it's like he's 37. You can't bank on this version of this guy showing up forever. But also he kind of has shown up forever at this point. And so he is in that LeBron class of like, they're just going to fall off when they fall off, and that might not be when you expect. And they've already defied every expectation and every age curve to this point. I think KD at minimum has another really high level year in him. And beyond that, everything is kind of gravy. And I guess that's where the Rockets find themselves is whatever Amen. Thompson's curve is whatever Alper and Shangoon's curve is. Kevin Durant is here to be the world's like, best and glitziest training wheels possible. If training wheels that also, you know, the wheels get a little squeaky now and again. That's just kind of part of the process.
- [38:05]
Kyle Mann
Yeah, he, he was brought in to sort of be the. All right. Our clunky possession. I'm. I'm the easy button that we can push. If that's. I don't, I don't know that he was necessarily brought in to be the load bearing, you know, wall for the, for the house. Like, I mean, ideally, ideally these guys were going to make these leaps. I don't know, hopefully we'll see it. Hopefully we'll see a men make that, make that jump. I don't know that we're going to really see much. I think Jabari is just kind of in Tupperware for. I think this is who Jabari is for the next however many years. Yeah. Which, you know, okay, that's fine. But, yeah, at the end of the day, if we're talking about wood versus wooden, I told for the Internet. I think you all will enjoy this. I got to share with Rob the. The wood. We don't know what. What country it's of origin. It's from the. The guy being wrestled down and saying wood. I don't think this is like a. A shameful wood at all. I think this is. I would do it again if I were the Rockets. I think it makes sense. There's just kind of all the other pieces. I don't think that it's his fault that those things aren't. Aren't kind of working out the way that we thought they might.
- [39:09]
Rob Mahoney
I would do it again in a heartbeat. I just. I kind of wish the Rockets had a better sense of who they were and wanted to be post Fred Van Fleet injury. Like that was the vision of the team that they wanted. But once he's out for the season, I. I wish they would have leaned into the Wood more. I wish they would have leaned into the Kevin Durant era a little more than they have, but we'll see how they do. You know, there's still a little bit of regular season left for them, I guess. IME Udoka theoretically could get this team playing a slightly different way, though that's not really his want. Typically would do again, 99 times out of a hundred, where it leads them, I guess we'll find out. One that I suspect we both would not do. Kyle, I would like to talk to you about Miles Turner and the Milwaukee Bucks and specifically the Bucks stretch Damian Lillard to sign Turner to $107 million contract over four years. This was honestly like, For. For as much as we talk about Luca and. And the kind of like, bomb that went off with that particular trade, and it was unprecedented, this is also unprecedented in its way. This is one of the most shocking moves in NBA history because no one has leveraged the stretch in quite this fashion. Is there any logic to you that would lead you to want the Bucks to do this exact thing again, knowing what we know now?
- [40:27]
Kyle Mann
I don't really. The Lillard situation, you said it's unprecedented. It's like, I'm of a few minds about this where I'm like, I don't blame. You want the Bucks to do everything. The worst situation that you can have with when you have a superstar like Giannis is A team not laying it all on the line. The Bucks have repeatedly and, you know, maybe their judgment about how they've managed their assets and the way that they've gone about it, you know, the Drew thing, the, you know, the Dame thing, maybe it was a big swing and if you have a superstar like a, Like a Giannis, you. You want a team that is willing to make big swings. The stretching him out, though, it's unprecedented because it was just kind of unprecedented bad luck. You know, you got a guy, Dame, who's still competitive. Granted, the, the Dame Giannis tandem, even though the Achilles injury did derail it, it didn't really. It was never really fully rolling derail it.
- [41:21]
Rob Mahoney
It nuked it, right. Like, I mean, any chance that it had of survival was gone at that point.
- [41:26]
Kyle Mann
But let's say the injury doesn't happen. I mean, we. There were some issues there. It's like, you know, Dame is leaning pretty heavily towards scoring in ball screen. I think that's what people were kind of envisioning was like these two guys playing two man together. Just imagine the utopia, the basketball utopia that's going to spring up around that Giannis. Not really. That's not the life that he lives. Giannis likes to have the ball in his hand. So those guys together were just kind of like, you know, it wasn't flowing together. So. But in terms of the, the move itself, I mean, I guess you kind of look at the stakes there and you just wonder, like, is Mile the ultimate question? Is Miles the thing that comes after a move like that? You know what, what? Because I think that was a surprising. Because you hear the oh my God, like, headline Dame Lillard Stress, and you're like, okay, well, for what? And then you're like, Miles Turner. I don't know. It reminds. It's just kind of. It's a. It's a fairly anticlimactic next space from. From a. From a move like that, right? I mean, what would have been the best answer to you?
- [42:29]
Rob Mahoney
Well, I, I think it just was a radical level of risk to take on for a player who's like, best case scenario is like, okay, that was okay, right? That was a pretty good addition, right? The best case blue AT sky version of Miles Turner with this team is he is helpful to the Milwaukee Bucks, but he was never going to be a star for them. And part of the problem with this construction with wave, like waving and stretching Dame, in the first place is you now have not just the Turner contract in and of itself, which, as we says, four years, $107 million, a decent amount of money for Miles Turner, but now you are basically paying the equivalent of a max of like a superstar slot salary because of how much money you ate to get rid of Dame in the first place. Not a reasonable expectation to put on Miles Turner. Not a no. And here's the thing is like I'm with you that you want to see, especially if you are a Bucks fan, you want to see the team move heaven and earth. Do everything possible to keep Giannis, to make the team as competitive as it can be while he is here willing to sign up to play for the Bucks. You also don't get to pick who is on the market when you are at your most desperate. Right. Like when that moment comes, this is who's on, this is who's a free agent, this is who teams are willing to trade. If you look back at the free agent class in particular, it's not like there are a bunch of just like shining examples of exactly the kinds of players the Bucks needed. That said, you do get to choose at what point you stop being desperate. And I don't know that Jan is staying with the Bucks. We don't need to like fully re litigate and re litigate and relitigate the honest stuff as we have done over and over the season. But I don't know that it's done a lot of good for anybody involved for him to stick around as long as he has. And so if the options are, maybe accept the fate that is coming and get ahead of it as a like, as opposed to overspending on Miles Turner, who has been fine in the way that Miles Turner is traditionally fine, I think I would still default to the former. Like I, I, as much as I would want to see the Bucks try to keep this thing together as long as it could, I think it was already done.
- [44:31]
Kyle Mann
I mean, you can kind of see some of the thinking in terms of they lose Brook Lopez, the idea of a stretch big who's also a rim protector next to Giannis, that makes sense. You think about Miles.
- [44:40]
Rob Mahoney
I do want to qualify on that too. Like Miles this season is hitting as many threes as Brook did in his most productive Buck seasons, and Giannis 2:2. Miles Turner is like one of his most successful passing combinations so far. So it's like it's not like this isn't working to an extent. And when those guys play together, the Bucks have been a really good team, but Giannis has not been around to play together with Miles Turner that much.
- [45:04]
Kyle Mann
Yeah, to to continue in the, the. What you're saying there. I mean, I looked it up. Giannis and Turner on the floor together in about 590 minutes, pushing 600. They're plus 9.2 on the floor together. So that idea in a vacuum of them as a combo and then, you know, talking about him shooting threes too. Miles has shot the ball pretty well. He. Nearly 40% at a decent volume on pick and pops and you know, and then. But the problem is he's not the sort of like pliable piece. The issue has been guards throughout the Bucks tenure. I mean, like, Giannis has been good enough to sort of like paste over those things. The fact that you have him, he takes up some of the ball handler reps. Drew was, Drew was good enough. The defensive stuff, you know, their identity, I think it, it, it leveled out. The net result was them as a dominant defensive team who could score the ball. Middleton did a lot of handling there too, but the, the issue is who else is handling the ball. Now you've got Turner, you've got Giannis out there. The most common five man lineup with Giannis and with Miles is Ryan Ronald, Ryan Rollins, Kevin Porter Jr. And A.J. green. That's just not good enough. And I think that's, at the end of the day, I mean, that's, that's been the ultimate thing, is that they got this piece in, in place, but they just haven't been able to put the, they haven't been able to surround those two.
- [46:21]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah.
- [46:22]
Kyle Mann
With, with the appropriate talent.
- [46:24]
Rob Mahoney
And that's the tough part of this. Like, if the context had been slightly different, if the Bucks had a little more in house in terms of ball handling already, then I think you could feel better about the Miles Turner edition. I think the tough part to swallow, if you're a Bucs fan in particular, is like, this is the good phase of this, right? The part where Giannis is on the team and Miles Turner is supporting Giannis, like, that's the good part. It's also tough to buy in on this idea of what the Bucks did originally because Miles Turner, without Giannis, either for a rebuilding team or like a reimagined, very middling team, is not a very exciting prospect. That's not a particularly useful version of Miles to have around. And so this is gonna get worse over time, the longer this goes on. If and when Giannis moves on from Milwaukee, I, I would feel and I would, I would honestly be more willing to entertain the idea of, like, I would do this again if Giannis were more or not. If Giannis. If Miles Turner were more like a Desmond Bain kind of piece. Right. In the sense that we were talking about, like, he could be an important part of the next version of the Bucks. I just don't really see that for Miles at all. And that. That's where it becomes the toughest pill of all to swallow, is you took all this risk, you paid all this money, you stretched Dame, you used your opportunity cost on Miles in particular to get to this exact place, and it's going to go downhill from here.
- [47:41]
Kyle Mann
Yeah, I mean, well, look at it from. I mean, we were talking about. It kind of is tough to imagine from all sides. I mean, if you're the Pacers, do you do this again? Do you? Because it was a little inexplicable coming off of a finals run where you were like, well, we can just straight up run this back. Odd choice, really, from Miles standpoint, was he going to be able to get the same amount of money from Indiana? I guess that's the question. Is it just a money question because the Pacers projected to kind of come back and be what they are this year?
- [48:11]
Rob Mahoney
That.
- [48:11]
Kyle Mann
That would be kind of my question. At the core of it is like, is, was it just Miles wasn't going to come back regardless? Was it the Pacers weren't willing to pay him? I don't. I'm. I'm fuzzy on remembering what the motivating force was there.
- [48:24]
Rob Mahoney
So miles is getting 25 million this season, and it goes up and up from there. The reporting at the time was that the Pacers offers didn't even hit 20 a season, and they were an even shorter deal with this. And Turner eventually end up getting a player option with the Bucs, too. So he has even more control, even more money, and that's like not an insignificant sum of cash that he has will total over the four years of this deal. That said, I think with the Pacers, he had a chance to be a part of a really special ongoing team that is already remembered fondly and I think will be remembered fondly with continued playoff success. As it stands, he's already kind of been upstaged by the fact that they have acquired a better center. And who's. Who's to say what. What's ahead for Indiana? Like, that was a very charmed run that they just went on. You can't take anything as a guarantee that they're going to get back to the Finals. But I think the Iviza Zubots era is going to go pretty well for them. And that's maybe the hardest part of this in its entirety is I'm with you that, like these paychecks have not always been there for Miles Turner. I don't blame him for jumping up the opportunity. Plus the chance to play with Giannis, whatever that may look like, for however long that is, is not nothing. At the same time, like you were a part of something that's really, really hard to replicate and that if you are Miles, you've been waiting your entire career in Indiana to this point to find and you finally got it. And yes, maybe the Pacers were shortchanging you in negotiations. Also, you didn't exactly cover yourself in glory in the Finals, and you had moments in the playoffs that exposed some of your limitations for what that model of the team would be. So I, it's hard to blame anyone who takes the paycheck. I just kind of wish it had turned out differently for basically everybody.
- [50:01]
Kyle Mann
Yeah, I mean, the, the just Kumbaya basketball fan to me wishes we could have seen them just run it back, but honestly, I feel like the Pacers probably offered him a more realistic vision of what his value actually is. Because you're talking about the end of the season. You know, those numbers are great. These pick and pop numbers I'm talking about are great. But if you can't make them in that situation, man, if he makes a few more of those open pick and pop threes that he had against okc, might be looking at a different timeline here, honestly. And, and I kind of, and I, I feel like the fact that the Bucks overpaid, I, I don't blame him for going for the money, but I kind of feel like the Pacers did the appropriate thing. I don't begrudge them for offering. I don't think that they made some hang hand wringing mistake because I think that's probably closer to what his value is.
- [50:46]
Rob Mahoney
Honestly, it's probably true. I think we would like to believe that we are the version of Miles Turner that would go back to the Pacers, but in our heart of hearts, a lot of us are probably the Miles Turner who signs up to play for the bucks for 25 to 30 million dollars a year. Who, who can really blame him for that? One that I'm very curious how we'll land on though, is I want to revisit the Nuggets trade of Michael Porter Jr. For Cam Johnson and we should say the 2032 first round unprotected pick that the Nuggets also gave up in that deal. We've Talked a lot about Michael Porter Jr. On this pod and our appreciation of the season he's having. Has that swayed you, Kyle, and your understanding of this trade and whether the Nuggets should have done this or, if given the opportunity, would do it again?
- [51:29]
Kyle Mann
I was trying to think back at a time in my life, for a time in my life when I had. When I had, like, a product or something that had a ton of features that were exciting, and I was like, oh, this thing has so many capabilities, but it was a little more expensive and really within the wheelhouse of the things that I do. Music was, like, the only thing that I can think of.
- [51:48]
Rob Mahoney
Sounds like a Zune to me, to be honest with you.
- [51:51]
Kyle Mann
Did you say that knowing I was a Zune guy?
- [51:54]
Rob Mahoney
Were you a Zune guy?
- [51:55]
Kyle Mann
Oh, yeah. Zune's great. This is one of history's great blunders. Is that the zoo? I'm a Zune apologist all day long. The Zune was fantastic. It had a huge screen. Did you ever hold a Zune in your hands, Rob?
- [52:06]
Rob Mahoney
No, I never did. Maybe that was my problem.
- [52:08]
Kyle Mann
It had a 16 by 9 screen and it had, like 720 video. I could put movies on there. It was.
- [52:14]
Rob Mahoney
You still could.
- [52:15]
Kyle Mann
Fantastic.
- [52:15]
Rob Mahoney
Why not use one now?
- [52:17]
Kyle Mann
Yeah, me and. Me and Rocket from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The only two Zune believers out there still. Mine was brown, too. Anyway, I was trying to think, though, about, like, something basically what Denver did. They were like, okay. We know, because it's. The retrospective here of this is really difficult because you go and you see mpj, you know, you know, blossom and spread his feathers out, and we see a lot more brilliant colors that. That were not necessary in Denver. You know, Jokic was just like, no, I need this simple version of this. And it's a lot cheaper, too. If you look at, you know, this year, next year, MPJ, he's making 38 million this year, and he's going to make 40 million next year. And then the looming thing is that, you know, he's going to be a unrestricted free agent. What is that number going to look like? Cam. Cam Johnson. We're looking at what MPJ provided for Denver, and we're like, okay, you know, you're. You're coming off of screens. You're a cutter. They're similar in size. Cam is a little older than him. I don't think he's as athletic a finisher as. As Porter is in. In. In space. He's not as much of a, like, I'm not open. I can make a tough shot. I think that's a separator between them. But they probably were banking on like, okay, Cam's a smart player. This was the, these were the conversations that we were having when around when this happened. We were like, we were probably a little too hard on Porter, I think, in terms of what he was capable of because people were like, you know, Cam's. Cam's so clever. He's gonna just. He's gonna do things that MPJ didn't. I think we maybe over indexed a little bit on that in terms of like, you don't know what you had until it was gone kind of a thing. Granted, I never had Porter, but I just think.
- [53:52]
Rob Mahoney
But we gotta throw on it all the same.
- [53:54]
Kyle Mann
Like, people were a little hard on Porter. I think when he left there.
- [53:57]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah, yeah. I think that was the default thinking at the time is not just, oh, this is a move that saves all the salary that you're talking about, where Cam Johnson's making like a little more than half of what Porter makes over the next two years. It was thinking about these two guys as players and talking about them as if they were equivalent when they're not. And some of that is, I think you nailed it in the, in like the difficulty of the shot making. And the difference between this is a guy who can nail open threes and this is a guy who creates open threes out of semi contested situations in Porter and everything he's become in addition to that with the Nets. And this is my, like, big variable in thinking about this trade in particular is, is this version of Michael Porter Jr would it have even been possible with the Nuggets with the season that they've had? Because there's been a lot of opportunity for Denver because everyone has gotten hurt. Right. Aaron Gordon's been out for a significant amount of time. Jokic has obviously missed a significant amount of time. Christian Brown has been out of the lineup for long stretches and now is just kind of like working his way back in. Peyton Watson, in addition, If Michael Porter Jr. Had been there and had been able to soak up those, that usage on those nights in those lineups where like Jamal Murray was having to do so much as it was, would we have seen flashes of this guy, do you think? Or is there something about the circumstances of playing a role on a higher stakes team that makes it hard to just like pop out when the moment calls for it?
- [55:19]
Kyle Mann
I think his self belief made it, you know, the imminent threat of him just expanding into the sort of de facto primary option in any given situation. MPJ's confidence is so high, he just. Any. Any moment where Jokic wasn't there to fill that space or Murray wasn't, like Porter was going to do it. I think the surprising thing has just been I think we all kind of expected it to expand too much and just be out of control and consume everything sort of the what I'm trying to think of, like an invasive species like kudzu is really bad. Do you guys have kudzu down in Texas?
- [55:56]
Rob Mahoney
Tell me about kudzu. What's going on?
- [55:59]
Kyle Mann
I feel like any Asian species or African species when we're just soft over here. I feel like any species that comes from Asia or Africa have, you know, if you never noticed this, like, snakehead fish.
- [56:10]
Rob Mahoney
I'm not the botanist.
- [56:11]
Kyle Mann
You are, you know, boa constrictors, killer kudzu. I'm just like. I don't know, I'm just thinking of things that can't wait.
- [56:18]
Rob Mahoney
Is kudzu a plant or an animal?
- [56:20]
Kyle Mann
It's a plant.
- [56:21]
Rob Mahoney
Okay. Just want to make total clear, like what we are talking about here. What kind of plant is it?
- [56:27]
Kyle Mann
It's like a vine, like grow. It just covers everything in a way. In a way that it's invasive. It like gets out of control. This is yet another one where I know people are going to back me up because I believe you got kudzu growing in your yard or whatever it is, hit us up.
- [56:40]
Rob Mahoney
But I think there are two states of being, which is you either don't know about kudzu or your whole life is dominated by kudzu. Really the only ways to exist.
- [56:47]
Kyle Mann
And we're all barreling towards. Towards the. The latter one. I think from what. It's pretty scary, Rob, but I think we were all afraid that Porter was going to be basketball kudzu and he was just going to like, fill it up in a way where we're just like, what? We can't even. What are we running? MPJ shooting again? What? He's not. I think we all kind of expected him to occupy the space in a negative way. And he's been really, really efficient in a way, granted. You know, that. That. That's UFA contract is coming up here.
- [57:14]
Rob Mahoney
They.
- [57:14]
Kyle Mann
They didn't have a choice, man. They weren't going to be able to pay all the people that. That they needed to pay at the end of the day. So I think it makes sense. You think they could have paid him, like, the amount of money that he's going to want after next season.
- [57:26]
Rob Mahoney
I mean, the bottom line is NBA owners and team governors can basically do what they set their wallets to in a lot of cases. And so if the variable is like, are you willing to pay for it? That's a very different question for the cronkies. You know, like that mustache is not going to wax itself.
- [57:41]
Kyle Mann
We got all this mustache wax we gotta pay for, man. It's expensive.
- [57:45]
Rob Mahoney
Apparently. It's very important there. But you're right that this is kind of what they were staring down is the version of the Nuggets that existed. And are you willing to pay the highest dollar for it? And are you willing to pay for all the potential and talent that Michael Porter Jr. Has that say, a Cam Johnson who's a very good player, can't quite tap into? Like, is that worth getting even deeper into the tax. Deeper into the aprons? And the route that they've chosen instead was we're going to pare back. We're not even going to be an apron team this year. Like we're just going to be a normal over the cap team in terms of the way we operate and we're going to preserve flexibility for the sake of improving the team in other ways. It's not even really the short term. Like, here's Tim Hardaway Jr. Here's Jonas Valanchunas. That's not really what it's about. It seemed like the idea was to make further moves down the line and the move that it seems like they're going to have to make instead is Peyton Watson is now like so prohibitively good that you cannot let that guy walk out the door. And all of the flexibility that I think was aspirational in trading Michael Porter Jr. In the first place to me has to be used to resign Peyton Watson like that. That is the like the no brainer outcome at this point. And so then you're really looking at this version of Peyton that we've seen on the court this season, plus Cam Johnson as kind of a trade off for Michael Porter Jr. But even then those two guys are going to probably be more expensive in concert than MPJ would have been.
- [59:06]
Kyle Mann
That's interesting because. Well, I was thinking back about Porter. I mean, I think we've seen the championship version of Michael Porter Jr. I don't know that his.
- [59:16]
Rob Mahoney
We literally have seen it.
- [59:18]
Kyle Mann
Well, no, I mean, I'm just saying I think that's the only version, I don't, I don't think where there's another version of him and you think about is Cam going to be there long term? I mean, probably not, but if, if we're looking at Peyton Watson, I'm with you. He's revealed himself to be, you know, Calvin Booth talked a big game about him sort of replicating what Tim Conley did. Popped off and I think he was right. He ended up being right about that one. So no, that's. That's kind of where I am. And you look at like the availability has been interesting. I know we've like fretted a whole lot. Cam's only played 10 fewer games, 400 fewer minutes, and he just came back. So I know the temptation is to feel like with the injuries is to. And to look at your, your ex, their glow up and how good everything's gone over there. Ultimately, I think the flexibility of Cam and Peyton is going to be a little more tenable than what, you know, dumping tons of money into the Future Michael Porter Jr. And banking on whether or not there's another championship version of him. I think they made the right move. I was curious to think, to ask you though, is it. You said it's 2030 that pick for. Do we still think Jokic is out there and you know, hobbling around, you know, playing at an MVP level in 2030, what's that pick gonna look like?
- [60:38]
Rob Mahoney
So it's actually 2032, to which I think there's almost no chance that y is hobbling out there, not just at an MVP level, but at an active NBA level. I think I would be shocked if he's still running it out there at that point.
- [60:51]
Kyle Mann
Do we think Jokic, if we could convince him to play longer, do you think Adam Silver would be willing to let him play in a horse drawn cart? Do you think that he would agree to that? Could we figure something out like some rubber shoes for the horse?
- [61:04]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah, you.
- [61:05]
Kyle Mann
You can play another five years, Nicola. You get. You can play in a card. Would you. I would sign up for that. I think that. I think so.
- [61:11]
Rob Mahoney
At least to get up and down the court, you know, it's just, it's just like on the sideline and he has to run over to it to get back in transition every time mush. And all of a sudden you're back. Like I, I think it could work for everybody or at minimum when he's like grandfathered in literally to an all star game that he probably doesn't deserve to be in at that point, in the way that all of our legends are, like, let him play in the horse drawn carriage in the All Star game.
- [61:32]
Kyle Mann
Yeah, it reminds me of donkey basketball. That was like a. That was like a. I know I keep written sorry, but I. I could see yoke.
- [61:39]
Rob Mahoney
What is donkey basketball? This can't be real.
- [61:43]
Kyle Mann
This is a total Google, this one. This was like a 90s fundraiser thing where people would ride donkeys. I think animal cruelty has probably. PETA has rightfully put an end to that, but people would ride donkeys. People probably were hurt and deserved it, I would imagine. Did you find it okay?
- [61:58]
Rob Mahoney
I'm finding pictures like we are talking literal donkeys in little. It appears they do have little shoes on. On indoor basketball courts.
- [62:07]
Kyle Mann
I derailed us so much. I'm sorry.
- [62:10]
Rob Mahoney
I mean, have you. Because I think this is what our podcast should be about. Why do more people, including, not know about donkey basketball?
- [62:17]
Kyle Mann
I remember it as a fundraiser when I was a kid and I remember like, you know, the black and white picture in the local paper, the Spencer magnet where I grew up. But yeah, and I remember seeing it and being like, that's the most insane thing I've ever seen in my life. And it just gets more insane as time goes by. But anyway, I would. I would pay extra money to see YIC ride around in a cart and, you know, fling a skip past because I wouldn't put it past him.
- [62:40]
Rob Mahoney
So, yeah, at this point, I think we got to skip the cart and he just has to go horseback on a very small miniature pony and could work great for everyone in 2032. I hope we're all still here at that point. I think what's most fascinating to me about this overall situation with the trade exchange is if we had had this conversation in mid December, I think the answer might be very different. I think by then I would say maybe they really should have kept Michael Porter Jr. And it's been the emergence of Peyton Watson that's changed the math because otherwise, if they had kept Michael Porter Jr. And given Christian Brown his $125 million extension, then there would have been like an either or scenario with one of those guys. Anyway, I would think if you want to resign Watson and maybe if you have Michael Porter Jr. Peyton Watson doesn't have this kind of season ultimately. Right. So there's like, there is an opportunity cost with that stuff too, where that's part of the trade off. So as it is, I think I still rubber stamp that I would do this if I were the Nuggets. Given everything that we know, December Rob, I think, would have been on the other side of this thing.
- [63:41]
Kyle Mann
Yeah, I'm with you.
- [63:43]
Rob Mahoney
Let's hit one more.
- [63:45]
Kyle Mann
I think we hit the biggies here. I mean, we have some funny ones here that we were sort of joking about doing. The Lakers signing Ayton. I feel like I'm going to go ahead and just say that. Stay with the, stay with the theme of regret for the Ayton arc. Do you have any quick comments on that one?
- [64:00]
Rob Mahoney
I think that one I actually would do again, just because the non Ayton version of the Lakers is one in which Jackson Hayes is playing way, way too much and Maxi Klebo wasn't even available for a start of the season. So I think the key is he is disappointed in the way that he always disappoints in every one of his stops. But sometimes you just sign guys knowing that their job is to, like, get us through 35 games of the season in one piece before everything just falls to shit. And that's kind of what it's been for DeAndre. Would their situation have been materially better if they just didn't sign him?
- [64:36]
Kyle Mann
No, I, I think, yeah, the options were pretty, considering what it took to get him and what he was going to offer.
- [64:44]
Rob Mahoney
Like they could have traded for Nick Richards, I guess, like that. That's kind of the alternatives we're talking about.
- [64:49]
Kyle Mann
Yeah. And don't, don't besmirch Nick Richards. Do we want to do a pool from a column? That was the other one we had written down here. Go ahead, clear out. ISO. Go, Rob.
- [64:57]
Rob Mahoney
Well, I, I, we, we simply can't talk about the Derek Queen trade. That one's been asked and answered too many times off the board as far as these reconsiderations go. This one, though, when The Pelicans traded CJ McCollum and technically Kelly Olenek for Jordan Poole and Sadiq Bay, another one that's just ripe for reevaluation as the season has gone on because inexplicably, improbably, Kyle Sadiq Bay has become the best player involved in this trade. So everything we thought we knew about, like, oh, why would you possibly trade CJ McCollum, who is a better player than Jordan Poole, on an expiring contract for Jordan Pool, has turned into. Did they just pull off the fleecing of the century by getting Sadiq Bay, who's on one of the most affordable deals in the entire league right now?
- [65:42]
Kyle Mann
Dumars Weaver, they just, you know, for all the grief, they know ball, man, they know real Hoopers and they saw Sadiq Bass sitting there, who at times looked like One of the most miserable people in the league. I mean, he came in as this, this archetype of, okay, this guy's a 6 foot 8 spot up shooter, can knock it down. Multipositional, good playing defense. And then he just, I don't know, he went into this valley of misery where he disappeared, didn't he? For a while there where we were just like, God, is this. We were wrong about this. I guess they just saw maybe. I mean, well, we did Weaver in initially. Draft Bay in Detroit, I believe. I didn't do that conspiracy board, so maybe that could be a thing. I mean, I'm joking about it, but honestly, that might be what happened. He. He was like, I know this asset and took a risk on it. It ended up being right.
- [66:29]
Rob Mahoney
The only thing better than having someone believe in you the way that Troy Weaver clearly believes in Sadiq Bay is them turning out to be right about you all along. And you just thrive and pop together. And this is where this situation becomes complicated too, though, because for any other team in any other circumstance, getting Sadiq Bay is an unqualified win. Right? Just like that's a good player that you weren't expecting to have traded, brought in as like an almost an afterthought of this deal, at least in the way that it was considered at the time on a great contract. But their team is so bad and Sadig Bay doesn't change how bad they are. And he's going to be due for a lot more money at the end of next season at the. At the conclusion of that very affordable contract. And so if the Pelicans were the kind of team that would jump on those opportunities and say, trade Sadiq Bay to a contender next year at the deadline, if I believed honestly that they would do that, this is. This was a great turn of events for them. If not, isn't it just continuing their path into that valley of sadness that you talked about. The Sadiq Bay was in, except franchise wide, they are now in a valley of sadness and will continue to be whether Sadiq Bay is with them or not.
- [67:36]
Kyle Mann
The Pelicans, you and I and our producer, Isaiah Blakely were talking about this off air. The Pelicans are one of the. It doesn't make sense that they would be in such a valley of sadness because it's the biggest disparity between you turn them on. And Isaiah said this, and I agree with him. You turn on the Pelicans on a nightly basis and you look at the individual pieces, it's like it's similar to the magic. But like, they seem to have more pieces that should work together.
- [68:02]
Rob Mahoney
It should be better.
- [68:03]
Kyle Mann
And it doesn't work where, you know, you look and you're like, wow, Trey Murphy. Yeah, like him, Zion at times looks like one of the most unstoppable players in the league. You're looking at Derek Queen, you're looking at Jeremiah Fears, you're looking at the resurgence of Sadiq Bay. On and on and on and on. And we were joking about this that like, it's the most inexplicable this should work and it doesn't thing. And it got me, it got us talking about like movies with good cast. Now, granted, I'm not comparing Zion Williamson to like a Brad Pitt or whatever it is like some of these level actors, but we were, we were trying to come up and this is where we want to toss this to the, the group chat listeners out there, if you're willing to do this, let us know of casts that on paper. We're like, okay, this is going to be, this should work. This will be good. And then it just doesn't. And we were kind of rattling off, I mean, the counselor was one in 2013. Cormac McCarthy story. You know, you got Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, you got Javier Bardem returning, you got Penelope Cruz all you could. Did you have one that you were going to throw out? Like a movie with a cast that should work well.
- [69:06]
Rob Mahoney
The historical one, although it was like a famously just absolutely cursed production Bonfire, the Vanities with Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith, Morgan Freeman, like that should be a historical all time banger. And it's just an absolute mess. The recent one though, that I felt like this movie is not just well cast, but so for me, and it just like is completely flat. Is this movie See How They Run? Are you familiar with See How They Run, Kyle?
- [69:32]
Kyle Mann
I didn't see that one. How recent is that? Who's in it?
- [69:34]
Rob Mahoney
Couple. Just a couple of years back, murder mystery starring a buddy cop, Sam Rockwell, Saoirse Ronan. And I'm like, okay, that is, that is as tailored to me and promising as a movie could possibly be. In support, you have Adrien Brody, you have David Ayalowo, you have Harris Dickinson, an early Harris Dickinson performance. And let me tell you, this movie is just preposterously juiceless. I don't understand how it happened, but clearly the pelicans took some notes.
- [70:00]
Kyle Mann
Yeah, man, Sam Rockwell, I like it. Preposterously juiceless. I enjoy that. That's a good one. Maybe that's the title for this episode? I hope not, but I hope not too. Hit us up. But it's not right for us to compare this Pelicans cast to some. I don't know. I don't want to give them too much credit, but it should work and it doesn't. It's tough.
- [70:18]
Rob Mahoney
At minimum, it's a lot of players that we kind of like individually that don't really work together and don't really make sense together. And not only have they not, like, clicked in a way that would lead to meaningful basketball, there's just no element of their team that is additive to the other parts of it. And so that's why I look at someone like Sadiq Bey, who is doing great in a. In a very small vacuum for the Pelicans and has been just an amazing go to scorer in a way that I never thought we would ever see him be. And I wonder to what end that would be the case. So do. Do you think, if you are the Wizards, do you regret trading Sadiq Bay in this kind of move? If you are the Pelicans, is there a part of you that, like, did this fully, fully win you over? The idea of, like, I have to take two years of Jordan Pool, but I get two years of Sadiq Bay?
- [71:05]
Kyle Mann
You must really, really love Sadiq Bay if you're the Pelicans. To, to. To take the chance with pool. I mean, the fact that they have fears now, it's complicating the pool. The. The whole pool thing. Set it to the side. I think that the big regret here has to be with Washington, that they just didn't properly value Bay. Of course, granted, how could they have seen they wouldn't have traded him? I don't think if, if they knew they were going to have this version. This version of Bay helps their personnel that they have in a way. I don't know this one, this one just feels like I don't really know who it. Who there is to blame on this one other than. Other than the. Am I wrong? I don't know. This. This is probably the toughest one we've talked about because it's like, am I moving heaven, heaven and earth to get Sadiq Bay? I just kind of think you throw your hands up at the end of the day if you're the wizard, like we missed on that one. Yeah.
- [71:52]
Rob Mahoney
And I think if you're the Pelicans, like, if I were running the Pelicans, I would do this trade. If the Pelicans are running the Pelicans, I'm not sure that I would. And so some of that is because I don't trust them to capitalize on everything that Sadiq Bay is and could be in the trade market. And frankly, this is a team that's like low key, quite expensive already. And CJ McCollum's contract expiring versus Jordan Pools just sitting there collecting DNP CDs. That's a pretty meaningful difference for this group.
- [72:18]
Kyle Mann
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I guess that hits it. I mean, are we ever going to have another chance to. To talk about Retro Rick on this show?
- [72:26]
Rob Mahoney
Rob, do you want to talk about Retro Rick on this show?
- [72:30]
Kyle Mann
I just think people should kind of get an insight into some of the. I send Rob links to this nostalgic channel where this guy basically hunts video games. Is the Shout Out Retro Rick. You think that guy's an NBA fan? There's would be like one of the all time, like random ass.
- [72:46]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah, I fully believe that he, he owns, as many people do in that line of work, like a vintage Grant Hill sprite T shirt in the same way that you and I would want it. But I want that.
- [72:57]
Kyle Mann
Is that a thing?
- [72:58]
Rob Mahoney
Those videos that you're sending me though are the like video game equivalent of naming some guys. It's just like, let's find this old super Nintendo cartridge that, that for no discernible reason is now $450. And thus has become my own personal holy grail.
- [73:13]
Kyle Mann
450 would be a walk in the park. I watched the one where he was trying to find that one NES cartridge and he was like, it's $50,000. And then he thought about it. He sincerely thought about it. I was like, I can't go into why. Anyway, you know what?
- [73:29]
Rob Mahoney
On the rubber stamping, would not, would not spend $50,000.
- [73:34]
Kyle Mann
I'll put that towards Julian's college fund. So anyway, no. Shout out Retro Rick.
- [73:38]
Rob Mahoney
Shout out to Retro Rick. Shout out to you, Kyle. Shout out to our guy, Justin Ferrier, who we hope will be back with us for the next podcast on Monday. Thank you to Isaiah Blakely. Thank you to Victoria Valencia. Thank you to Ben Cruz. Come on back next time. And we will be talking more about the NBA. I think more in the present tense for next week. But we cannot help but live in the past now and again. See you next time.
- [74:13]
Kyle Mann
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Kyle Mann
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Kyle Mann
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- [74:31]
Rob Mahoney
So if you've been living in the
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Kyle Mann
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- [74:39]
Rob Mahoney
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