This podcast episode is brought to you by Coors Light. These days, everything is go, go go. It's NonStop hustle all the time. Work, friends, family, expect you to be on twenty four seven. Well, sometimes you just need to reach for a Coors Light because it's made to chill. Coors Light is cold loggered, cold filtered, and cold package. It's as crisp and refreshing as the Colorado Rockies. He's literally made to chill. Coors Light is the one I choose when I need to unwind. So when you want to hit reset, reach for the beer that's made to chill. Get Coors Light and the new look delivered straight to your door with drizzling or Instacart. Celebrate responsibly. Coors Brewing Company, Golden Colorado. Hey, everyone is Lindsay Rhodes and I've got a new podcast, The NFL road Show, fun and kind of nerdy conversation about the NFL every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Got some amazing guests that are joining me. I'll be breaking the huddle with the top stories, previewing games. We'll get you set for the weekend fantasy with our Fantasy Friday episodes, and we'll answer some of your questions as well, So subscribe to the NFL Road Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. What is up part of my knocks listeners, I am Dan the Valley coming at you once more without my co host Adam Promo. I am once again though excited to continue our team look Ahead train. We're releasing this on a Sunday because we just want to get as many teams out as possible before the start of the season, and then we'll let the last few trickle out, probably sometime before the middle of January is out. We'll have those finished because we will have to gear more towards league wide coverage once there's meaningful basketball. But hey, we have like twenty one or twenty two of the team previews being pumped out and it spanned just a couple of weeks. I think that's pretty good. Today we're talking about one James Harden and then the Orlando Magic with Keith Smith. He covers the NBA all over the place. He's at Yahoo Sports, Real, GM Celtics Blog and host of the Front Office Show. Follow him on Twitter at Keith Smith NBA. If you're not already after him, we get to the Charlotte Hornets with Kanada Edwards. He is the co host of the Locked On Hornets podcast and also a writer for Dime up Rocks. Had a great conversation with both of them. Please make sure that you're checking it out before we get started, though, just my normal reminder to please, please please please subscribe to this podcast if you've not already, download the episodes, recommend us, help us, retweet promos, get the word out. This podcast is underrated and awesome. Take people's phone, subscribe them to this podcast. They'll thank you later maybe. And finally, whether you use iTunes or not, please head over to iTunes somehow, some way on someone else's phone, search Hardwin Knox, throw us that fire star rating and write a review. Those are the second best way to really help us out. After one subscribing and downloading these episodes out further delay though, Let's talk so James Harden trade information and Orlando Magic with Keith Smith, and then let's talk Charlotte Hornet's with Kanada Edwards. Keith, thank you so much for coming on the podcast to talk some hoops, specifically the Orlando Magic, but also some James Harden stuff with me I really appreciate it. First and foremost, though, how are you doing? Hey, thanks for having me. I appreciate that. You know, we're doing all right. Things are our little hectic. It's you know, it's Christmas, so we're trying to prep for that. We were just talking before we started how we both have puppies and that's a handful. And then on top of that, this little thing you know called the twenty twenty one season is starting in a matter of days, so you know, it's all coming together all at once. But you know, time stops for no man or waits for no man, or whatever that's saying is yeah, I will say I'm going to I know the NBA doesn't really have downtime anymore, even in a normal schedule. But after living through just the and working through like the spidided timeline that we just saw where it was the championship and then it was you know, there was like a second of a lull, but then it was the draft, and then free agency, and then training camps are open, then it's preseason, and now it's the regular season. I could deal without that level of truncated whirlwind. I could say that, yeah, I agree with that. Wholeheartedly. There's a there's been nothing good about about the way that came together other than it was kind of nice to have free agency essentially done in this period of about three or four days. But yeah, I don't I don't think you know, there was a you know all that uh you know much you know that we could could do about it, So, you know what, we're making the best of it. Yeah, And I don't mean to like actually legitimately complained, But this was the transactions were because they were so close together. Like, this was the off season where it was tough for me to keep track of certain players on certain teams, Like I like I forgot Trevor Rees was on the Thunder at one point. I think Trevor Riza probably forgot that he was on the Thunder at one point with how much he was moved. So that was the that was the thing that was hard to keep track of most for me, just because it was such a flurry. Yeah. I like to hope Trevor Reason just stayed in one place and then said tell me where I need to go at the end of the year. Yeah, he had the very luke ridden hour summer or that one off season where he was traded, Like, yeah, exactly before I start picking your brain about the Orlando Magic. I don't know if you've heard, but James Harden has been in the news a little bit lately, and I kind of wanted to, you know, as someone who was just so in tune with like the league behind the scenes and the CBA and all that. I first foremost wanted to ask you where you sort of land on his pushing the boundaries I would say of trade demands in advance of free agency, because this has been sort of like a gradual process where it was, oh, pree agency was happening a year before they were set to explore the open market. Then it was like kind of a year and a half, like Anthony Davis was pushing that limit. There was even Paul George, but like that stuff was different with the way that happened with the thunder. And now though you have James Harden two full seasons left on his deal before he can even explore free agency, really put to get out, and I'm wondering. My questions are, one, is this an issue that needs to be remedied, you know when they start talking about a new CBA, And then two insofar as it's a problem, like what can you even do to fix it? Yeah, and unless they go all the way to you know, a player demanding a trade becomes fineable, or that players know it's not trade eligible or something, I don't know how you fix it. I also am not entirely sure that we should fix it. I know that there is a belief out there, Hey, you signed a contract and honored it. But I also look at it from the other side too. The team signed that contract with the player, they don't honor it. If they want to trade them, yeah, they trade them. And I generally tend to believe in lifelate, like I root for the labor and not the management for sure. You know, it's just generally how I go. But it's not good, let's put it that way. You know, for a guy like James Harden with you know, two full seasons left and then a player option season after that, to be saying here, you know, a month out from the season or so or whenever that I'll started of I don't want to be on this team anymore and I want to be traded. This situation, I'm going to give him a little bit of leeway because the front office changed over, the coach left, one of his high profile teammates was traded. Another very good player, role player for them, was traded in a trade that was really kind of designed around bringing in a younger player in that so that part I understand, you know, where he would be coming from. I don't love it, though, because I kind of think it's it just sets a dangerous precedent, like like I'm gonna I'm gonna be the you know, impteenth person to say this, but Jannie just signed the Supermax. He's not trade eligible for a year, so there's no way anything's happening for this year. But that's all that, that's it, that's the restriction, and he decides at the end of this season, you know what, this isn't going the way I want. I don't want to be here. He can ask for a trade again, and that not again because he never did in the first place, but he can ask for a trade and that that doesn't necessarily sit right with me, And you know, you know, I should have caveated this before. I don't think that's anything honest is going to do. But yeah, I those things that I don't like it, But I just don't know how you fix it. Yeah, and that's what it is is. I would I fall in the camp of you, I'm going to root for the labor over management. And I think, you know, there's definitely I think there's the question of James Harden has to be tough to play alongside if you're a co star. I think that much has been proven. So there's a legitimate conversation that we had there. But there's also another common denominator when all these things started falling apart in Houston, and that would be Tilman for Tita. And I just feel like he's, you know, as much as he's trolled for conveniently not paying the luxury at tax in any of the seasons, even though I believe they're slated for it now. I'm sure something will happen where they're just not paying attacks this year. I feel like he's sort of flown under the radar a little bit too much in all this. You know, we know D'Antoni and Harden were close. We know Daryl Morey worships James Harden, and you know whether or not the Sixers are actually willing to trade Ben Simmons for him, and that's a separate discussion wor he clearly has interest in working with him again. So Harden can't be so unbearable that his former GM wants to actually give up assets to work with him again. And so that's where the discourse starts to get like uncomfortable for me too, is because yeah, there's I don't want to see this where players are not showing up to training camp and then it's their teammates that have to answer questions about it. And I do feel bad for Raphael Stone and Steven Silas, but it's not just Harden's fault that things are falling apart in Houston. And to your overarching point, I don't know how you would address it either. I think one of the most popular things has been you can incentivize and enable teams to spend more by not letting these supermax is actually count as such large percentages against the cap. But even that's resting then on, Okay, these organizations still have to spend, and we have to believe that players want to give them the opportunity to spend even more than Really, when you're paying one player that much money, whatever the percentage is, like, how much can you lower it where it would even make like a different for it to cat like the percentage that would acount against the cap. And so I just don't know that there's a perfect solution out there. I and it's I don't know that I would follow your camp two were like, this isn't really a problem aside from what like between ten and fifteen players in the league. But those just happen to be like the ten most ten to fifteen most important players in the league. And that's why it's probably worth at least trying to address. Yeah, exactly, that's it. You know, no one cares if the eighth man on a team is like, yo, hey, I want to go somewhere else, because it's like, alright, whatever, the eighth man, you know, that's great. You know we'll movie and well, you know, good luck to you in your new destination. It's because the guys we care about are the true superstars. They're the guys on the Max Steals, and they're the ones who are you know, chirping every once in a while, you know, And and I don't want to the other thing too, I think just gets painted as here goes the NBA again. You know, these guys are never content to you know, just be happy. You know, in one place they always want traded and it's like this happens. You know, maybe you know, one main superstar, you know, maybe once a year, but it's probably more like every two or three years. So let's you know, that's the other thing I like to say is let's not all get crazy about this. I know it happened with Anthony Davis and Paul George in the same summer, so that felt a little bit different. But you know before that, who was the last guy before them, that was a you know, main, you know, true guy who was like, get me out of here, I gotta go right away. Yo. I don't I don't know that there was Excuse me, I'm having the hiccups. I'm not. I'm not getting all worked up and clumped about this every but it's you know, it doesn't mean that much to me, but it is. You know, I do look at it and say, you know, I think it gets overblown a little bit, just how how often this happens. Twenty twenty has already reshaped how we work, and it's almost over. Businesses across the globe are challenged to be their most efficient, which means every higher is critical well, Indeed is here to help. Unlike other sites, Indeed gives you full control and payment flexibility over your higher You only pay for what you need. You can pause your account at any time, and there are no long term contracts. And now Indeed's new way of matching you with candidates instantly delivers a shortlist of quality candidates whose resumes on indeed matching your job criteria that you can contact the moment you sponsor a job making Indeed the only job site that can move as fast as you do. Right now, Indeed is offering our listeners a free seventy five dollars credit to boost your job post, which means more quality candidates will see it and fast. Try indeed out with a free seventy five dollars credit at indeed dot com slash blue wire. This is their best offer available anywhere. Go right now to Indeed dot Com. Slash blue wire offers valid through December thirty. First terms and conditions apply. Yeah, and there's like there's even like the Paul George situation and OKC, Like I thought that was actually good where he ended up at least signing another deal, and so I thought maybe that incentivized like teams and smaller markets to perhaps take more chances in trades. And I think we even saw that with Milwaukee they gave up I think we could all say way too much for Drew Holiday, but it was to keep the star that they have in place, and so how big of an issue like you can still appeal to players in that respect. I know George ended up leaving, but that was like sort of a perfect storm of circumstances where I kind of felt like that, okay s team had already run its course somehow with the russ PG pairing, and then you know Kauai hits free agency and his recruiting everybody under the moon to come with him to La. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And that's you know, when I get into those ones, I don't, you know, I don't I how do I put this? I you know, I get it. They're like, I kind of get what happened there, and I don't think the thunder would the way that worked out for them. They're exactly complaining, right, well, that's what went well for them. So that's the other thing, you know, I always look at it is superstars. You know, in general, it used to be superstars don't you know, they don't. They don't return the package you think that they will. But then when you go you go into but if you're you're go into more recent superstar trades, they have returned to pretty good packages. So that's where it kind of becomes all right, well, you know, if you can you get get into it pretty deep. What you can do there is you can say, all right, you know it's you know, I get it, and you know, then I can understand why a team like the thunder is you're happy to move Paul George or why the Rockets you know they're at least considering, you know, all right, well maybe we can't move uh, you know, James Harden as long as we get the massive package back that we want to return. Yeah, that's a good point too. It is, like you not a perfect situation if you're losing a really good player that you want to keep. But even like dating back to when Mellow forced his way out of Denver, like he had it narrowed down to a market of like it was two teams at the time, it seemed like Brooklyn and in New York, and they still ended up getting what was a nice haul for him and you look at the Pelicans with Davis and then you mentioned okay, see for you know, they essentially the best way I've seen it phrase is that Sam Presty figured out a way to trade Kawhi Leonard without ever having him on the Ross, just because of the Hall that he got for Paul George alone. So that's not I'm not trying to encourage that. Yeah, just let players like force their way out and they got a few years left on their deal. You know, I don't want to see Towns or Devin Booker trying to get out of their respective teams, and I definitely don't think Booker wants to. Now I'm not I'm just citing them as their contract examples, but teams do tend to like when is the last like star trade that a team got absolutely hosed on even when that player was really trying to narrow down the market. Maybe Cleveland with Kyrie, but he wasn't even narrowing down the market. That just seemed like they chose the wrong package. One by the way that was celebrated in real time, like oh you had the nets pick, like that was the crown jewel that everyone had wanted at the time. Yoh, yeah, you had the Nets pick, you had Jay Crowder who looked like he was going to be a really good player. You had Isaiah Thomas, who we didn't you know, know the full extent of his injury. So yeah, at the time, it was, well, the Calves just kind of, you know, reloaded for a guy who wasn't going to be there anymore. So, yeah, it's been a little while. I would say, you know, maybe the Carmelo Anthony trade didn't work out exactly the way the Nuggets hoped it would, but you know, now we're going we're going pretty far back, yo, and I in NBA terms, that might as well be ancient history. So so yeah, so I get it. You know, I get why, you know, I kind of you know, maybe you catch up on it. I you know, I get why these guys you'll ask for these things. I fully you'll understand that. I also understand when the teams are like, no, you have, you know, multiple years left. You know, we're not even gonna entertain this unless we get blown away with an offer. And that's that's you know, I kind of looked at it. In the end, that's everybody's right on every side. Yeah, and so with Harden, specifically, he has a list of four preferred teams, and I did find it hysterical that Milwaukee was apparently on that list for two reasons. One to name them after they traded away basically every single future asset that they have already was funny. And then two, he basically said that Jannis is only good at basketball because he's tall at once. So I found that could be funny. But I wanted to ask you if you saw any and it's kind of twofold, if you if you like any dark coorse suitors for him that are not of the four Miami, Brooklyn, Milwaukee, Philadelphia outside that, And the second part of that would be, do you think that teams that are off his list might be more emboldened to go after him at some point? Just because I think even if Harden's agreeing to, you know, to stay where he goes next long term, you're still only making this trade because of his next two maybe three years, That next contract he signs from a team perspective, good for him whatever he gets, but that next contract he signs is probably not going to age the best. And so whether you're the Nets or the Sixers, a team that he wants to go to, or a team that he wouldn't wants to go to. You're essentially making this trade in the vein of looking at the two year window alone anyway, And so I'm wondering if that could then emboldened teams that are not on his list to get involved in this thing at some point. Yeah, I think we could see that. And I think there's been this new willingness with GMS to get a guy, see if it'll work, and then if it doesn't, you flip him again in another trade. I think that's something that the teams are considering now that they never were, especially in this situation where he's got a couple of years left on his deal. So I'll give you I'll give you a couple of teams I like from each conference that I think, you know, and this is not a reporting thing. I'm just you know, I think should get involved. We're going to talk about one of them in a couple of minutes here in depth, the Orlando Magic. I would not be surprised at all if the Magic, you know, got involved, and I think that they should. Now the challenges do they have the pieces to throw back to Houston that they want. That seems to be a little bit more questionable, but you could said Aaron Gordon and Evin Fournier is the base of your package, and then you bring in Harden and that's now they go from being a team that's probably right around the play in in the Eastern Conference. So I think they're they're probably a playoff team with Harden because that's how good James Harden is. I think the Indiana Pacers could be really interesting. What if they said, you know, we're just not going to deal with the Oladipo situation. We'll move Oladipo, will move one of the two bigs, Turner, Sabonis, probably Turner. I wouldn't move Sabonis myself. Move Turner in Oladipo, and there's the base of our package. And we sent them and again they're they're probably a playoff team, but that takes them to the next level in the East. And then the last East team, Chicago. It just feels like Chicago's got something going on, and they've got the big expiring contract and auto porter that they could send out. They've got a couple of young guys they could put in the package. You know, they might convince Houston to be there, that all those teams that I mentioned have all their OWD picks. And then I really believe Houston wants to get him out of the conference, so I don't think they're gonna move him within the West, but in the West. Doesn't it feel like Denver could get involved and really push themselves from being right there to maybe putting themselves in the mix with the two LA teams as the favorites to come out, and they could you know, they could use Gary Harris and Will Barton as kind of the basis of your your package Portland, just because you know, we were contractually obligated if we cover the league to try to break up CJ and Dame very right. And then the last one, which I think is you know, just kind of fun and I think a lot of people will be like, wait, no way he would go there. Utah, I think could be interesting because you could send out Mike Conley, there's the vast majority of your salary matching, and then they've got a couple other interesting younger Ish guys, not super young, but if you sent them the Drew Holiday package of picks, here's every pick we can give you straight out with swaps with Conley and you know, Royce O'Neill, and you know, whatever else it is you want, will send that your way. And the only thing I will say is a lot of people like, he's not gonna want to play in Utah. Utah is about as close and a hop, skip and a jump away from Las Vegas as you can get. Thompson loves their zoos too, So there's the There's the other selling point is d I had not given a lot of thought to Utah. I've like the teams. It feels like they might just be like that one tangible asset short where it's like you could point to that young player as uh, the centerpiece a team that I've thought about, be curious to get your thoughts on. This would be what if the you know, I guess this would have to leak or would have to leak into the middle of the seasons when the Raptors have their full breadth of trade eligible guys. But if you had Powell, van Fleet and og and then I don't know how many picks and swaps it takes from there to do it, he would be really interesting to me. In Houston, Toronto, Toronto. You know what I would try to do. I was Toronto, I might even try to send Lowry instead of VanVleet. I think Houston would be far less interested in that, but I'd at least start there, just with Kyle. Lowry's getting older. You know, he's still a great player, but you know, getting older, he's you know, so I might start there. But yeah, that is interesting. I hadn't hadn't really thought too much about that one, but yeah, and it would take a little bit, you know what's Van Vleet's got another couple of weeks I think before he's trade eligible. But yeah, that is an interesting basis of a package. And that is the kind of move Massa you Jerry would make without even you know, worry about it at all. Right, he would go all in on a move like that, because that's the kind of thing he does. And then if Borden doesn't want to be there, he'll turn around and probably trade him for more than he gave up anyway. You know, that just seems to be his his moo. So yeah, I could see that one. That all of that said, I think it's gonna be Miami, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, you know, one of the teams that that's out there eventually. I think they'll get let's say a month into the season, let's you know, maybe around like MLK Day or so, when it's kind of this, uh, we've played ourselves in the shape we're still you know, we're a month in the season where you know, twelve and eight or whatever, and we're not a top two team in the conference. And one of those teams might talk themselves into all right, let's get it done, let's go get get hardened, and see where we go. Yeah, it seems like I'm one. I'm sure they're waiting on regardless of what's happening with Philly, like you just wait on if Ben Simmons might be on the table, like you just wait to see if Philly figures it out. But the odds are that one of those I'll say three, because Milwaukee's just that's a joke, Like like I would you even build something around Middleton and Deefenshen, Like, I just don't know what that becomes. So one of the other three teams, like maybe they start out somewhere aren't as good as they thought. Do you think is your expectation though, is that he will be moved before the trade deadline? This isn't going to be super like drawn out to the point where he's there the entire year in Houston. It actually isn't. I think if he's not moved within the next couple of days before the season starts, and it gets really hard to trade him because of how big his salary number is and what he's at just over forty one million, that gets hard to move unless you're sending a big contract back because otherwise you're talking two, three, or four guys. That's tough on both the team trading four Harden and the Rockets. The Rockets will have to clear rosters spots for all those guys. Right now, they have a whole bunch of guys who are set up on contracts that are pretty easily movable to get off of. They can wave guys for a minimum minute or for no hit in some circumstances, and they could really get there pretty easily to open up spots for three or four extra guys in a deal. Then on the other side, if you're like, let's say you're in the Nets and it's mid season. For all that durant Irving both looked fantastic, I think you still have to be somewhat cautious of you know them healthwise, just to be on the safe side. Now you're going to trade out all of your depth to bring in Harden, And yeah, you've got the best you know trio probably in the league at that point. But if anybody goes down now, you don't have anything left to replace them with, right, and that, you know, makes it really, really hard. So so that's why I think he's either going to get moved here in the next couple of days. I think this might drag in the next offseason. I hope it doesn't drag out, because I yeah, but I also hope that he's not traded before recording this on a Saturday. This is going to be published on Sunday. I hope he's not traded beforehand. And as someone who if if chaos is already happening, I roote for more chaos. I want him to go somewhere that's not on his list. That is my totally biased hope. I'm with you as well. I wanted to be some team for both for the sense of like, no, you don't get what you want, in the sense of I want some team to come out of nowhere and say you know what we're going for it. We're gonna, you know, push all the chips in and where we're going to make a run out and see where it goes. And hey, maybe that's the answer to this whole thing, is that if you see that Paul George didn't go to the initial team that he wanted, James Harden doesn't go to the initial team that he wanted. Yes, Anthony Davis went there on Bekauai, like Toronto wasn't on his initial list. Like you roll the dice by requesting if you're requesting a trade two or three years out from free agency, like there's no guarantee you're going to get to where you want anyway. So perhaps that's just the message that has then sent to the players which helps this thing again in so far as it's a problem, which neither of us seem to think that it's like a huge one, exactly. The weight is finally over. Football is back. You might not be at a game this year, but you can still be in on the action at bet online. Bet Online is going the extra mile to make sure you can get in on every possible chance to win this season, from game spreads and totals to team player and coaching props. That online gives you more options to wager on than anywhere else. You can get in on their season opening bonuses today and start off wagering on wins, Vision odds, the championship futures all day, every day. Head to bet online today and take advantage of all the great sign up bonuses. Don't forget to use promo code blue wire all one word at bet online dot ag. That's blue wire all one word bet online. You're online sports book experts. The Magic though, Yeah, let's jump into everybody's favorite topic there. I say, yeah, I say this when I record every single team pod, but I am fascinated by every single team. I'm fascinated by the Magic though, because like they're not fascinating Like I thought this was going to be more of after the Isaac injury. I thought this might have been like more of an off season of upheaval, and they kind of just you know, they tread water. And so I'm just curious as to what you gauge this team's direction to be. Are they really just trying to buy time like again this season until Jonathan Isaac comes back next year? Do you see like maybe this is like a seismic shift that takes place mid season. They by them doing nothing, they've somehow or most I should say, by them doing very little, they've confused me even further about their direction. Yeah, and you're not the only one. I've done several radio and podcast appearances or everybody's like, what is it? What are they doing? Yeah, because it kind of feels like they're not doing anything right in a sense. What I will say with the Magic is they went through after trading Dwight Howard, they went through a long period where they were they were never bad enough that you could feel like, man, here it is, here comes in the next superstar. You know, we're in the Anthony Davis sweepstakes, We're we're there for Zion. They were never that bad. They were also never good enough where it was like a yeah, they could, you know, maybe make the playoffs. They were always just kind of that that purgatory point of we're not bad, but we're not good, and we're just kind of black and in the challenge what happened here? Is it? Just to kind of catch all your listeners up, no one who lives in Orlando is really from here. Everybody moved here from somewhere else, So there's not this deep rooted attachment to the Magic, like there is a team like the Knicks, who they can't can and have been bad for decades and people are still you know, they still love them, right and they're still you know, all about the Knicks. No one's from here. So what happens with the Magic is they already face an uphill battle in the local market when the season starts, because of football season in a normal year, because college football is you know, getting down to it right there towards the end of the regular season. College football is king here in the state of Florida, followed closely by high school and then NFL football, So no one really cares about the Magic until Christmas, New Year's Ish, then the Orlando City soccer team, because nobody came here to Orlando with I'm super passionate about the you know, in my case moving here from from the Boston area, the New England Revolution. Man, I love them, I'm a diehard, Like that doesn't really exist on that level. So everybody kind of said, you know what, we only have the one pro team, the Magic. Now we've got the second one with Orlando City Soccer I'm going to throw myself into them and get really really into them. So by the time they start playing in March, everybody the Magic better be good or everybody's like, who really cares, it doesn't matter city has started. They'll carry us right into the next football season and off we go. So that gives the Magic about a two or three month window to matter. And if they don't matter, then you know, it's just they're They're off the radar entirely. And so what they did in the last couple of years by being playoff teams was they got people to care again. So that's why when people were like, they're not gonna have Isaac, why didn't they bottom out? Why didn't they start trading Vooche and trade Terrence Ross and moving Vinfornia and all this stuff. They don't want to go back to being bad again because I think they see what the remaining pieces that are left over or what they'd get back in trade for those guys. They're not going to be bad enough to fully bottom out. They're not gonna be able to go the Oklahoma City route necessarily and really tear it down to the studs. So they are looking at it as you know, if we can't get that bad, we might as well stay competitive, stay good, be in the playoff mix, and see where this group can go. There's not something too like though, like maybe trying to suck up being bad for one year in the land the type of player in the draft that would maybe draw more interest there. Or is it just so far you know, the detachment is so far gone that that's not even like a logic that could prevail at some point. No, there is. But I think they believe, and I don't think that they're necessarily wrong that unless you really moved Rukavic, Gordon, Ross Fournier, you know, every single veteran on the team in a trade and took back your only young players are really bad, you know, older players on bad contracts. I don't think they believe they can get bad enough to get down to that level. You know. I think they look at it as whatever we would get back combined with the guys we would keep. You know, Fults, Isaac is obviously hurt, but you know, Mark el Folds and some of the younger players like Chumo Kiki, Cole Anthony this year as a rookie Mobamba. Once he's back and going I think they feel like those guys combined with whatever we'd get in return, that's going to keep us just good enough that we're not going to be able to get into that mix, you know for a top you know, three or four pick in the draft. Now, whether that's right or wrong, who really knows, you know, because I think you know, you wouldn't know until you started making those kind of trades. And clearly right, we could jump on any one of the trade machines you like out there and start making, you know, trades that make the magic really horrible. But the question but calms you know, well, what do you get in return? The other thing is, I don't know how much value there guys really have in trade where you're going to take back probably questionable bad money. But is someone giving up really good prospects and picks for Nick Vutovich? I don't think so. Not with you know, three years and seventy two million dollars left on his contract. Evan Fournier that one maybe because he's an expiring deal. But Terrence Ross that's another three years. You know, he's probably somebody I could see them moving at the trade deadline. And then Aaron Gordon, his value is I talk to people around the league, it's just all over the place, right, So I think your challenge is what are you trading these guys for? You know, And the last thing that they can afford to do is just trade them just to get that money off the books, because that's not something that's gonna play real well. You know, people are gonna have to be the guard. What we got picks and we got this you know young guy. We can watching at least root forward and see what he turns into. And that that is, you know, that's the challenge. I just don't know that that package is come and pack their way. And one of the other things to this too. And as someone you know nationally, so someone like my self covering the league that's just choppering in here and there, like and looking at different things, we tend to over romanticize the rebuild and now that they have and I've yet to really adjust my thinking for the play in tournament existing like it's a little bit easier to stumble ass backwards in to a playoff spot inside the Eastern Conference now and so like that definitely supports their thinking. One of a part of their thinking it revolves around Markel faults, and I knew the consensus was that the Magic are way higher on him than anybody else any other team was around the league. But I saw that the Athletics Josh Robbins wrote that they just view him basically as their cornerstone of the future. Is that is that one accurate? Is that two? And more importantly, like smart a fair representation of what he's capable of. I know, you know, the big thing was he's shot fifty percent off Midrangers post All Star last year. That that's no joke. He definitely looked more comfortable, feels like he's going to be a disruptive defender across both guard spots for a good part of his career. But I just don't see personally, I just don't know that I see a path watching him play to building a good, too great offense around him. And if you're not going to have your offense go through him, I'm also not sure what his value then becomes on that side of the floor. Yeah, no, that's a great question. What would What I will say is nobody knows the Magic better than Josh does, So if Josh says it, there is definitely truth to it. What I will say is I think that there's levels to it. I think it's folks in Isaac yo are one one day for that team. I think they are yo day Are. You could put them in either warner and that's not how they would feel. Now. Is weird as this sounds in some ways, Isaac despite all of the miss time, is more of a known wanity. And then folds is you know, this is a guy who's never made it through a full season in his first three years, and now he's going to miss his entirety of his fourth season. But you know what he is. You know, he's a you know, all defense level guy, you know when he's healthy. But that's gonna be the last time I'll say that when he's healthy part because that's you know, I could say that. After everything I say about Jonathan Isaac, I should also say too, I'm not entirely rational. He's one of my favorite players in the league to watch because I think he's just an absolute destructive defensive force. I don't think there's a position he can't guard, at least in switches and they hold his own on. But and then offensively, we're the Jory's still out, you know, he's developing a little bit. He's he's got a pretty nice mid range jump shot. Is three pointer kind of comes and goes. Is off the dribble game, hasn't done too much, and he doesn't really do anything in the post, so he's kind of more of a complimentary guy. But he can be the guy you can build your defense around. But then Faults is still a work in progress, say in a you know, very you know, major way, despite the fact, you know. Now here's the thing too, he only just turned twenty two. I know he seems a little older because he's been It feels like he's been around for ever. It's been like a tale of six different careers. Yah. Yeah, and feel And it's funny because somebody said to me, doesn't it feel like sometimes like he's played for six teams versus just two? Yeah? Never said, yeah, you know, that is kind of true. You know, but I look at Folts and I think what the magic see is if you look at the leap he made last year and what was really his workie season. In a lot of ways, you can look at that and say, man, that's pretty good, you know for a guy who who hadn't played before. You know or played very much before. I can feel pretty good about that, and I think they are now looking at it as all right, this guy has enough size, he has enough ability where more and more teams are going to these two ball handler lineups to two guys. Think they look at it as he's a versatile guy because of his size. He's six four, he's got good length, he can slide over and be, you know, your two guard and like Cole Anthony of blossoming to being your your more, your your more traditional point guard type role. Because Faults can clearly hold his own. So I think that is why the team is so very high on him. But I would say Isaac is right there behind them. It's it is interesting when you talk to people with the team, they almost always mentioned the two of them in tandem, which is partially tied to being related to their the exact same horizon contract wise, you mentioned Cole Anthony. He it does seem like the magic this is. You know, everyone I think makes fun of their spacing and shooting every single year, but it's also like kind of a real thing. And is he going to play a role right away to maybe where we see him spend a bunch of time with faults and not not only that, but sort of have a you know, for lack of a better phrase, just like a really long rope of of of leeway to get shots up because he sort of feels like the you know, you have Terrence Ross obviously, but he feels like one of the other guys, or maybe the only other guy that can really come in and put pressure on defense is consistently from from beyond the arc and just just let her rip whenever he's in the game. And with the Magic having playoff aspirations, though, I'm wondering what sort of opportunity he actually gets as a rookie. Yeah, that's a great question, and I think it's going to be a big one. And I would not normally say that with Steve Clifford, but I think what Anthony has shown as his body as NBA ready, I think, you know, of course, being Greg Anthony's son, he knows what it takes to be physically ready to play in the league, and I think he clearly spent the downtime in the pre draft time, you know, working on that. I think he went through a lot at North Carolina. That team wasn't very good. They're spacing wasn't very good. He didn't have a lot of room to operate. I know he had some injuries that he played through. So I think you're seeing him in the preseason really kind of show he might be a little bit more NBA ready, which sounds weird for a twenty year old than you know normally what we see. And I think you are going to see him play a decent him on with folks because this Magic team desperately needs people who can create offense off the bouts because it is faults fortyer sometimes and that is it. There is not another guy on this roster outside of if Kole Anthony can do it. Do you feel comfortable with breaking a defense down and making a play? Aaron Gordon can do it on occasion if he's got the right patch up. But like Ross is a guy who's dependent on others getting him shots, Vukovich is relying on running sets and things like that. And then everybody else on the roster either spot up shooters or you know somebody like Michael Carter Williams, who I really like what he's becom but you don't want him doing too much offensively. So it really comes down to as long as Anthony can hold his own defensively and doesn't turn the ball over, I think he will play and play a lot for the Magic right out of the gate. And I think you're going to see a similar thing with Chumookeiki, who is last year's first round pick. I think he's gonna get on the floor quite a bit too, because again he's a guy who you can feel pretty good about taking a few dribbles and making something positive happen. And that's just in such short supply on this team. Yeah, he was. He clearly the other rookie I'm going to ask you about for them, what's chubokeky. Sorry, I'm jumping all over your outline here. Oh that's that just means that I love doing that. That's just more so that that's one mostly for me, And then I do feel bad when I send them the first time. Guess at how long they tend to be because I'm talking myself through everything within it. They're more so for my benefit. But yeah, Chobokeki, so you think that he's going to play an actual role because there again it comes back to the playoffs, But then he also misses off last year, So is there the element of you have to bring them along slowly, and then just also they have like bodies for days. I'm not I'm not saying they're necessarily the right bodies, but bodies for days across those two three four spots. Yeah, I do think he is gonna play. I think he faces a little bit more of an uphill battle than Ben and I Anthony does toward towards immediate minutes, because I think what's gonna happen with the Magic A. You know they're starting five, You're assuming everybody's ready. Is Vukovic, Gordon, n S, Fourney and folds Us is the first guy off the batch. Then you're gonna see Carter Williams come in and he's gonna play a lot. And I think they feel comfortable enough with him defending anybody one through three that they he that's in some ways one of the guys. Okki has to beat out for minutes there and Carter Williams, I know a lot of people don't watch The Magic. They've probably given up on him. He's adopted a little bit of that Tony Allen mindset of he can't really shoot, but he's going to defend the heck out of everybody. You put him on, and he can do just enough if you get him the ball all is you're you know, you know, swing swing, and he's you know, got a little bit of a lane in front of him. He can do enough to create something out of that. You know, he's still get that kind of points point guard skill in him. So I think that him adopting that has really in a lot of ways, it's you rejuvenated and saved his career that mindset, so they feel good about putting him in the game. Then it's gonna be a big It's gonna be Ken Birch or Mo Bamba one Bomba is ready to go. He's still working through some stuff. Then it's kind of the mixed bad guys because it becomes Gary Clark, Dwayne Bacon and chum o'kik if O'keiki can eventually prove he can defend, and he's not gonna follow because Steve Clifford doesn't play guys who follow him. They follow among the least of anybody in the entire team in league. Then he'll get on the floor and I think he'll beat those guys out eventually because again they'll they're gonna need guys who can put the ball on the floor and create offense. What does you mentioned Michael Carter Williams and the you know, they had some killer second units with him in the game last year. What do you view as like like sort of the spitting image of that this year, because I do think they have to, like the second units is gonna have to change a little bit if you're you know, want Cole Anthony in there obviously, and then chokes Factory again, we have Alfredoukamanu too, So what does sort of that like set, like that bench rotation look like. I think you mentioned that Ross will be the first one coming off the bench and then it'll be we assume mcw like who how do they flesh it out from there? Is Mobob going to definitely be the backup center once he's actually healthy or is ken Birch still going to factor into that Again, it's just they have so many different bodies on this team. Yeah, yeah, I think Birch has a chance to really win that job. And there are a lot of people who believe Birch is more conducive to winning right now because he doesn't really do anything that hurts you. But he clearly doesn't have the upside of bamba, right mo bamba? When he looks good, you're like, I see it. I see why this guy could be you know, this dominant force at the five. He can block shots, he can move his feet, he's got range, he can score inside. The problem is then he commits you know, four follows and ten minutes and he's on the bench, or he goes through these games, or he's out there for twenty minutes and you're like, did he do anything? Like I don't remember him being on that court, which is you know, if you're a big man and you don't, you're completely nondescript. That's that's not good. Right. You can kind of get away with that as a wing a little bit, I think, but as a big you better be doing something. So I think what you're gonna see early on is we know Isaac is out for the year. Alfred Gamino kind of the surprise of everybody. His training camp got started. We were told he wasn't going to be ready. Then we got an updated. It was either on the first or second day that he is out for He's out for a while. You know, they didn't put a time on on it. At another procedure on his knee, So I think those two guys are gonna be out for a while, Amina and Isaac. Then Bomba is making progress, is all we're kind of hearing. It sounds like he feels like he's more ready than the team does right now, so we'll see. I don't think he's going to be in the rotation at least, you know, for the early part. So that's a long way of answering your question to say Steve Clifford really only wants to play nine guys, think early on, because of the makeup of their roster, he's gonna have to go to ten and just play ten deep. So it'll be Ross, Carter Williams, Birch. I know those three are going to be in the rotation. Then I think Gary Clark. Then I think the tenth guy will be Cole Anthony, and then I think Bacon and O'kekei will get in there on the nights when somebody is out, at least initially, and I think there is the potential that as the season goes along, Okiki eventually slides in and kind of takes over a little bit of probably some of the Carter Williams minutes, you know, maybe some of Clark's minutes, maybe they go a little smaller on that. Backup, we're grouping. They're talking about playing big though with Burcha Vukovich together at times, which is something I, you know, don't fully grasp and understand, and I guess I need to see it to really see what that would look like in meaningful games. But I think that's the direction where we're going into because I think you're gonna see it be you know, kind of a flexible grouping once you get past those first few guys. What is once he's healthy by you know, the team standards, what is the path to having Mo Bamba you know, stay on the floor. You mentioned he's kind of nondescript, and that's in certain moments and that's probably like the perfect way to describe him. But he's like also, you know, is it just a matter of having a more NBA ready body or hitting the three more consistently or not fouling as much. And then to your point about him being non the script, like you could really not feel him being in the game and then look up and he just has like three fouls in the span of whatever minutes, and that just doesn't even make sense. So what is like the pathway to him actually like getting like having a consistent role in this rotation once he is healthy enough to do so. Yeah, you know, if he's given up his falls at the rim, the magic aren't gonna mind as much. It's the stupid ones when he's you know, twenty five thirty ft from the basket, you know, pressing up on a guy for no real reason. You know, when he reaches in and gets a dumb one. Those are the ones that kill him, you know, the two Clifford coaching that player by the way. Yeah, and that's not Yeah, that's not exactly the way he wants it done either, So that starts to become a problem. So I think, you know, well, clearly, I think what the path was here was I always say this as him and Nick Vukovich were supposed to be like ships passing in the night. Is Vukovich aged out, Bomba came in, and then Vukovich was either traded or became a backup. And I think the ideal would be to trade him, you know, get pieces and then Bomba slides in and he's you're starting five, and you're building a starting group that is, you know, the longest and maybe most athletic in the entire league. And I think they believe that's the way you can win. And if you look at what uh, Jeff Weltman and John Hammond have done, and there are other stops in Toronto Milwaukee specifically, clearly they believe in, you know, draft long athletes and then let them develop into something. You know. I think now the challenge with Bamba is every time he gets going, something happens. It's an injury or you know, in this this case, the last season he got COVID, which is, you know, really scary, and you know, it sounds like everything is good. He says, he feels really good. But I think the team is, you know, quite rightly being cautious with that. I think, you know, as everybody kind of says, there's still a lot we don't know about athletes coming back from COVID. So I think that they're they're just being very cautious with that. So but let's be optimistic and hopeful here. I think the hope is he takes over for Birch, you know, when he's ready to go, and that by the end of this season, you can feel better about if you have a trade that makes sense for Nikolovuchovic, you can move him and feel good about all right, Bomba paired with veteran center X then I'm we're good, right, We're we're solid for forty eight minutes at the five and go. I think there might be a little bit of belief that if Isaac, you know, bounces back and lost anything from this latest knee injury athletically, you know, maybe he starts to become more of a five and And I've been you know, begging, begging, begging for them to play him more at the five because I think he can just be absolutely devastating there. But that that is where I think, you know, they're looking from Obamba Ultimately, that's that's what they want to see out of him, and that's you know, I think how they hope this progresses forward. But the challenges it may not be at the end of this year. Now now it may be you know, another gear in, which is not the end of the world, but by that point now was looking for that second contract. Yeah, starts seeking a little bit messy. What also kind of complicated this too is the timing of everything. So he has the stress fractures left leg to in his rookie year, and then I think Vouch hits. That's that's Vouch's free agency summer too. It's like you kind of had to make the decision of you know, maybe they, like before then they'd make given more consideration to letting Vooch walk and just leaning into Obama. But if you you know, if he's coming off an injury and like you said, you don't know what his athleticism might look like after that, The timing of like Fouche's contract, like they were almost he didn't want to let good players walk away either. Sorry to interrupt you, but on top of it, you just made the playoffs for the first time, and forever that there was a sense of, you know, Vooch was an All Star. You know, can you let boot walk when he was an All Star? You made the playoffs, You took a game off the Raptors, and everybody get all excited for you know, a day there was like, holy crap, you know, Toronto's doing it again, and the Magic You're gonna you'll upset them and all that stuff, and then yeah, you add it all together and it became like mad, I can see why Booch got you know, eighty million or ninety million or whatever was over four years, all right, I kind of get why that contract happened, do you So? Do you view Eric Gordon's passing jump as real and something that they're going to milk even further this year? I think towards the like the second half of last season, he averaged like a crazy amount of potential assist He did some stuff like with his back to the basket, and it feels, you know, an anticipation of this. I've I haven't been watching too much preseason because I don't want it to influence a project I'm working on it Bleacher Report, But I like was watching stuff that he was doing. It feels like they're kind of getting him an even more pick and rolls now And so do they actually believe in that passing? And how are they Is that just how they're gonna use him from now on? If if it simultaneously feels like they use him differently every single year and never in the proper context of what his strengths are. Yes, provided his jumper comes back around now A little bit of an unknown thing that I don't think a lot of people know outside of the area he played through through a really bad ankle injured all season long. It just was not good for him. He heard it very early in the year and then just kept playing because he felt like like the team needs me, you know, they need me out there, and he just kept going through. And then by the time we get into the bubble, he kind of reheard it, and then it was just all right, this is not this is no longer worth it, you know, for you to be out here where you know, where are we going anyway? You know, just what we're going to deal with this. So I think it was that get overlooked a little bit and he didn't have the lift he usually has. Right, this is the guy who's one of the best you know, yeah, yes, he absolutely should be one of the best, uh you know athletes in the entire league. So I think what it is is you look at it, you know, with you know Aaron Gordon is I think they do want to put the ball in his hands a lot and see, yo, all right, what can happen? Because what what with his size, in his athletic ability, when he's feeling good, he sees the floor so well because you know, because he's six eight, six nine and guys just don't you know, guys aren't usually passers at that that height, you know, so he sees everything. So I think what it is is he is, you know, really able to see a lot of stuff. The magic you know, surprisingly for all that they don't have, you know, they don't have a three point sniper, They've got a bunch of guys who are pretty good shooters, you know, in general. You know, Vooch is a pretty good shooter. Forty eight shot really well last year. Folks can do some stuff in the mid range, you know, they think he's you know, his mid range percentages were way way up there. So I think Gordon can find stuff. The challenge is if his jumper is broke like it was last year, which I'm gonna chalk up to the injury teams are gonna If it's broke like that though now and it wasn't, the injury teams are gonna drop off him. They're gonna get into those passing lands and it's gonna make it a mess. So I think a lot of that depends on you're not catching anybody off guard anymore. You've got to get going yo to be how do I put that? You gotta be able to hit enough jumpers to keep people on us to open up those passing lanes, and that that's the thing I need to see out of him there. I just I don't know what to expect from his shot making anymore. And he even went through stretches last year. I was looking at his splits, but like he was shooting well on catching shoot threes, but then it would plummet. He's never you know, his pull up jumpers never really been trustworthy. But if you're going to leverage his playmaking from from face up spots specifically, you can get away with it if he's gonna be down low a little bit, But if you're gonna leverage it fro him, you'll bring the ball at the quarter, setting the offense up from above the break. You need him to have at least some semblance of a floor game to really leverage that threat. So I just don't He still fascinates me. And I know you said that his trade values or considered around the league just all over the place. Yeah, he still feels like he could be like a hyper valuable player, but probably just not on this team. Is just where I'm at at this point. Yeah, you know, I'm to the point where, yeah, I don't like when people throw well it's the magic don't develop anybody. I mean, that was true when he was first drafted, but now it's a whole new front office. It's been three different coaching staffs, Like like, we can't keep saying that because you can't say that and then say, man, they've really brought folks along pretty well, right, Like that's you know, those two things don't go hand in hand to me. But I do wonder if Aarron Gordon is one of those guys, if you know, and unfortunately in magic history, there's a lot of them where it's eventually his time just gonna run its course. They're gonna move on from him, and then wherever he goes next, he becomes a twenty and ten guy, and it's like, how did this happen? You know again, you know Victor Oladipo, and you know, you can just go down the list with guys after they left Orlando that feel, you know, like they broke out after they went. One thing that he does have to certainly do is with his athleticism and the way he can get up around the basket. He is pretty strong. He has to finish better. He misses too much stuff inside. He doesn't have any moves inside, but he should at this point, especially where he plays a lot at the three against a lot of teams, or they'll put a three on him, he should be able to take that guy down there, pin him, turn and finish over those guys, even finish through the bigs because he's strong enough, in athletic enough, and we just don't see that often enough out of him. Do the Magic still view Vooch as a super important part to their long term I think you could make the case easily, yes, just because there's not there's no certainty behind them. There's Birch, which is fine, but you don't know really what you have in Mobama at this point. At the same time, you know, let's say that they're not firmly in the playoff discussion, and I don't know how inch should they'd be in, like, you know, if they're in contention for ninth or tenth, like, do they view that as something they're gonna chase or not. He sort of seems like one of the two or three players that would be most mentioned in trade rumors. And then the flip side to that flip side would be, well, you know, teams aren't necessarily in the business of forking over all this money and value for bigs, and he has, you know, including this season, three years and seventy two left. I don't think he's super overpaid, Like that's just not bad value for what he does. But it's also not the way you know, a lot of teams play like He's not going to necessarily be a focal point in all these different situations. So I'm having trouble, just like grappling with how one he necessarily fits long term, because it does feel like the Magic might soon be headed for just a wholesale facelift. But at the same time, it's like, well, where is he really supposed Like what are they supposed to do with him? Yeah? No, And that's totally fair day, And I get exactly where you're coming from with that, because it does feel a little like what are you Yeah, well, I mean, as a team around this guy. Now, he's really important to them because he is their best player. I think that's pretty clear, you know, to the way the roster's built. He's a guy who's been here the longest, so that has some real importance to the team as well. And I think there is you know, this thought around it as what you mentioned is, well, if we get rid of him, what are we behind him? Right yo? In your to your other point is what do you get back for him right now? Because I think the single biggest challenge with moving vootsch is he's owed seventy two million dollars over the next three years. Now it does decline, but not by enough where you're like, yeah, there it is. There's a steal. Yeah, you know, it goes from twenty six to twenty four to twenty two, you know, and now he is what is He just turned thirty, you know, a couple of months ago, so you know his age thirty season. Yeah, I think his game should age quite well. He's never been overly dependent on athleticism or you know, anything like that. He's very strong, he's you know, I don't think a lot of people know, but he's one of the best rebounders in the game because he's just he's got great hands, he is positioning is excellent, he's as he's extended his range. I think he is a valuable player. But the problem is, when ever anybody asked me about Boots trades. I'm like, sure, yeah, where do you see him as a great fit? Yeah, And everybody kind of goes through the list and I'm like, yeah, I don't know, and I'm like, there it is right. You know. I think if if, for whatever he's in Milwaukee wanted to move on from brook Lopez, I think he'd be awesome in the role they asked brook Lopez to play. But they're probably not moving brook Lopez from You'll get into the issue of like, well, how much of an upgrade is Voch Lopez and even is he won right, because Lopez has really become such a dominant defender. There was a point where you could have talked me into you know, I could see Brooklyn throwing some stuff together and you know, but that would be moving off DeAndre Jordan. They're not going to do that Toronto. There was a point where I thought that maybe made some sense, and maybe if they really wanted to pivot and say, all right, you know, we're we're not going to do anything big, but we're going to rebuild this team kind of on the fly and you know, try to get back in there with these smart role players. I think he could make some sense there, But that's about it. You know, as you kind of go through the Western Conference teams, there's not a whole bunch of teams or it makes sense that they would give up. And then that's the other thing. And because of his importance to the Magic, because it's not like if Mo Bamba was knocking on the door and it's like we got to free up the spot for him, then your return package doesn't need to be as good. Right you can really kind of say, Barret, I get it, Yo, Well let's just you know, go. But if the return package needs to be really good because you don't have anything else in place, well what are you looking at? I mean, people love pitching the Warriors idea. They don't want Andrew Wiggins back. It's not they're not going to do that, you know. And and I'm one of the you know, remaining people who's not in the Andrew Wiggins family who still thinks he couldn't still be good situation. Yeah, it's yeah. You know it's nice though, because I go to their family barbecues and we can talk each other into way. But you know that's the challenge, right is you know, where where do you want to go? And then you know and then invariably somebody's like, well the Kings, It's like, Yebevlad's not there anymore, you know, So you can't just pitch every you know, uh you know, uh, gosh a former Yugoslavian country player to to the Kings and assume that that's okay, right, it's yeah, and they're clearly looking to get younger around Fox too, exactly. Yeah, they're they're they're not going to do that either. So so yeah, that's where one way I think it becomes the magic a prib ride in this out for at least another year, maybe two, and then I think one he becomes he's twenty two million dollars in expiring, then it's very easy to see, all right, who needs a center. There'll be a number of contracts that you can trade one for one for that, and it'll make sense at that point, and I think, you know, then that's when you start to look for a trade there. But right now there's just there's nothing jumps out at me that makes sense for either side. Yeah. The only one I had really thought about was San Antonio, because it feels like if they just included literally any one of their young wings with with salary filler, it would it would make sense, but they I don't. They're like sort of the I don't want to say that they're the Magic of the East, but like they their direction is all over the place right now, like they're trying to straddle two timelines too. So I don't think they just resigned Yakam Purtle too when I think it was one of the better value contracts of the entire off season. I even did he even get Mason Plumbly money? He was, Yeah, basically the same, and you'll get give me Yakam Purtle for that salary. Danny Day, you know, I think he's actually okay. I think he can play some So yeah, that's that. Would you know what would be what would absolutely break the heart of Magic fan would be trade Voot to San Antonio and then he goes on to you know, win a title just twenty and ten in that run, because doesn't that It just feels like what would happen for the Spurs and kind of to the Magic if that deal ever came together. I don't mean to make you focus too much on trades, but I look at the three players that are most interesting to me where I feel like they could be moved as Terrence Ross because he has value everywhere just based off what he brings. Fournier, he has value everywhere. He's also in the last year of his deal. And then even Gordon like part of the thing with him is he's gonna want a third contract soon, like that's what they're coming up on for him. He has two years left on that deal. So if you sort of had a ranked the likelihood that those three players finished the team on a different season, how would that order shake out for you? I think forty would be the one I would say is most likely to be traded because he's in that last year of his contract. I don't know that the team necessarily wants to be the ones to pay him his next contract that I don't know that they see that as you know, something that really makes a lot of sense for them to do. So I could see him being moved. Ross. Like you said, at the every year at the trade deadline, every single contender is you know, what are you looking at? More shooting? You know? So of course Terence Ross fits literally everywhere in that situation. So I think what you would be looking at with Ross is all right, you know, let's go get him moved off to to another team, and and that you know, that could probably actually met you a couple you know, nice assets in that deal too, you know, a decent Maybe. I think you could get a protected first for Ross. I think a lottery protected first if a team was you know, if you're I'm just making this up, but if you're Philadelphia and you're like, this guy puts us over the top to really be a true contender. And I think their bench still needs some work, and let's face that that team can always use more shooting. Yeah, just the way they're constructed. I think I think that's a deal that you know, you could see them saying, you know, we'll give you a lot of protected first for him, and that you know would be something that would make some sense. And then the last guy, Gordon. I just think I think Gordon is probably a year away before we see him, you know, maybe moved, and it looks like he goes on to be something something else somewhere and just see, you know, it is what he really needed, kind of that breath of fresh air, you know on that and you know the one another thing, I'll see what the magic too is They tend to work pretty quietly. If you think about the Folds trade, that was never even a thought for anybody that that would would happen, you know, So, so I think if anything happens, it is it is more likely that this is gonna be something that kind of comes a little bit out of nowhere. Everybody's kind of like, go okay, and then their last piece for them kind of related to trading those three guys. A lot of that to me ties into what are you doing with Folks and Isaac? Because they're both extension eligible yep, So where are you going with this? So you're trying to my guesses, I believe they are trying to get them on team friendly extensions right now and they're not. That's not going to happen, So that's going to drag into next year and then then they're both restricted free agents, but they're clearly guys that the team wants to keep. So then it becomes how much are you paying for them? How much are you forced to pay them? You'll do some other team that you do. The Knicks with cap space and ready to maybe take a step forward next year, force you to you know, pay one of them. Does you know Cleveland or Dallas or one of these other teams that you know, those guys could really help. Do they come in and say, you know, hey, now here's a twenty million a year off or sheet and you've got to kind of stare at it in it before y'all before you imatchin it, right, So that's that's I think factors into you know, whatever their future is, it has to factor into the futures of those veteran guys around them. Yeah, that was a good point. I don't even know what I would pay Isaac at this point, just because of the Yeah, like I don't even know how they have to be so far apart on a number, like if they're talking you know, next year either because it's not like he's coming back in the middle of the season and you can already looks really good, you know, let's go. So, Yeah, my guess is the magic I said this on another appearance somewhere. I said, my guess is they're probably like twelve million a year. That's what we'll do. And I'm sure if you're Isaac, you're like get out of here, yeah for sure. And then Deppa comes all right, well, let's take it to a restrictive free agency. I guess and and see, and I think that's where if you're the Magic, you have to be a little bit nervous because a team I really like for him, like Dallas Joannice is off the board. Now, how is this going to have max cap space? They're not going to give it all to Isaac, clearly, But what if they said, hey, we've got thirty five million in space, we can give twenty million of it to Isaac because even if he's not exactly perfect, we've got enough talent to make it work without him. But with him, he changes a Now we're a title can if he gets back and is the defender he once was, and then if you're the Magic, now you're sitting there like do we match that? Do we let him go? Like? Like dad? That's the hard part of it. So that's why you know that. I mean, as I put it, this is why Jeff Weldman and John Hammond are getting paid an awful lot of money to make. Did you make that decision and the rest of us can just sit here, Nippick and whatever whatever decision they make. I would be absolutely paranoid if I was Dallas about paying both Christops and John Jonathan Isaac, but that would be the defensive fit and they already have if they keep richardson and then they have Dorian Finney Smith that all of a sudden becomes like a top tier defense. That's a yeah. And Luke, you know, then you just put Luca wherever right and you defend that guy and we're all going to help you for the rest of the time, and then you literally can create everything on offense and we're just here to finish. Just I look at him, McMahon, that is yeah, Yeah, that's getting pretty far out there, but yeah, that's the one I dream about sometimes. Other three players were just talking about too. It's interesting because I'm I think I'm highest on and most intrigued by him, but he's probably the hardest like fit to find, Like when you're looking at if they were to move him, like what teams might give up value. I know a lot of people like the fit in Minnesota, and I would agree, but like, what are you getting from Minnesota for Aaron Gordon? You know, I don't think you want Malik Beasley's deal as like the centerpiece in that and then really do with everything he's going through right now. Yeah, that doesn't fit you know what the magic are as an organization, So that's that's a challenge as well. The other two that stuck out to me just really quickly were Denver and Boston. Seems like I first of all, I wasn't like crazy. I don't think anyone was crazy about Boston's offseason, but I think to me like Aaron Gordon's a better answer defensively to a Jannis and a Bam than Tristan Thompson was going to be anyway, and so he interests me there. And then Denver just imagining him playing alongside Yokich sort of in that like Paul Millsaparrol, but just even more of a hybridom because Mills steps getting so much older. But then you still again run into the issue of okay, like Boston has like a hodgepodge of assets, like what does what does Orlando really want? Are they in love with any of their their young guards? And then there's of course the you know, salary matching is tough, like you don't want to have to take necessarily Tristan Thompson back in that deal and he's eligible to be moved to that. I think the benefit there those right. The Celtics have the trade exception, so you could him into that without having to do this. You know, you could maybe say, you know, hey, you guys want Robert Williams and Romeo Langford and you know three first round picks or you know, the protected pick or whatever it is. I think you could maybe get there that way just because of that, the existence of the trade exception, because you're not having a send back money necessary to match. I totally forgot about that trade exception. That is a good point, and they're not. I guess they can make that work. Like they far enough beneath the hard cap at the Yeah, because he's they have about twenty one million under the hardcap and Gordon's about eighteen. So that that that that does work. If not that I've looked at at a time or ten Yeah, Oh but yeah. The one that the one that I you know, I think I've probably pitched five million times over the last year two or three years is Gordon and Fournier for CJ. McCollum. But now I think Portland's done what they've done to beef up there forward line, so I don't think that's you know, as necessary of a move for them, But there was a point in time whereas like this just makes perfect sense, you know, for both of these teams. McCollum can come to Orlando, be the lead score, the lead guard, be kind of the face of the franchise, and then Dame gets two guys who really fit in well alongside him. And like I said earlier, you know, we're contractually obligated to break those two up whenever opportunity, you know, Knox. But but I've pitched that one a million times. Yeah, that would pre Roco, That would have made like a lot of sense. Yeah, Now with Covington and Jones Junior there and resigned Carmelo and Gary Chent Junior kind of blossomed. I think he can do some of the things Gordon can do defensively, just a you know, a little bit smaller, you know. Yeah, I just don't think there's that room now that that makes the sense it once did. This question is always loaded because everything in the NBA so matchup base. Now when it comes to lineups, but what do you think ends up being the most us or best closing lineup for this magic squad? I think it's rouch Gordon Ross forty and Folds. I think it's a you know, James Nis goes out, Ross comes in. Maybe if you need a defense, you go to Carter Williams in place a Ross, and you could do a little bit offense defense there. There's the potential if Cole Anthony really develops into a knockdown shooter, he could get those closing point guard minutes over folds. I just don't necessarily see it so that I think yo is as boring as it baby. I think that's what it is, is Rouch Gordon Ross forty eight folds. I'm hoping to answer to this one won't be boring? Is there a quirky lineup? You want to see them try it? Just like an offbeat combination that maybe even Steve Clifford would be totally against using and would immediately think of using that. You're you are hoping they test out at some point this season. Yeah, I have a whole bunch of them if Jonathan Isaac was healthy, but since he's mo, yeah, he does make this exercise significantly less fun. Yeah, yeah, because because with him you can put them kind of anywhere three through five and feel like, all right, it makes sense. You know, I'm just kind of plugging in pieces around him. I want to see them do some stuff with Ross, maybe Gary Clark at the four, because Clark showed some stuff as a shooter, and then you could do Ross, Clark, Vukovich, Foltz and Anthony because I think you've got just enough shooting to work around those two guys that you can open up the floor a little bit for them to be offensive creators. So I'd like to see them mix in a group like that. I would that's a really interesting one that I didn't even give some thoughts too. I would love to see them and I probably can't pay for this every year to move Gordon to the five for spurts and then like let's try to surround him with a combination of shooting and then like enough defense and be really small, and the four players I have would be Faults, Williams, Anthony, and then I'd probably put Ross in there as the other one that is so small. But it feels like between Faults and Williams, like maybe get enough positional defense and ball containment on the perimeter. And I really like the idea of Gordon as as a five. It just doesn't seem I mean, one they've clearly like gravitated him towards the completely opposite direction. But yeah, I'm I'm a sucker for for small ball units and he seems like, you know, one of the guys in the league where we talk about small ball fives all the time. But it feels like he would actually be able to anchor those units. Yeah, just word. You don't have a lot of rim protection there, but you do have good defenders that can keep guys in front of them. And then this is then my worried becomes you might be able to force missus, but can you corral the ball? Yeah? Yeah, I think that becomes your your kind of loan issue there, because for all of his gifts, Gordon's never really been that kind of you know, rebounder. I think we all think he could be. I think some of that is he's only ever really played with vouch is. You know, he's gobbling up so many of them, and I think Gordon has kind of they've almost kind of taken that approach of all right, you got it, I'm gonna get headed up the floor versus you know, kind of kind of crashing in there himselves. But yeah, you know, I would the challenges they are, they can meet a lot of times a boring team because of you know, you just kind of know what it's going to be. You know, there was points last season where I could tell you within thirty seconds to a minute their entire substitution pattern before the game even started. Wow, you know, unless there was follow trouble and like because you just knew, you know, all right, well, you know, Augustine's gonna come in for folks, you know, you know at the six minute mark, and they're gonna take one of Gordon or Isaac out and they're gonna put in Ross you know, for them, and then Fourtyer is gonna go out and then Fournio will come back. Like you just knew exactly what it was going to be. It was that rigid. And I think that can work when you're really, really good. I think we've seen that at a time. But when you're not, I think that's where the creativity could really you know, get in there. I just think, you know, a lot of that is a lot because you don't have you don't have Isaac's versatility, you don't have a me new just as that extra forward that you can put out there, because there are other forwards other than Clark are now right, it felt like this team had you know, eight power forwards for a number of years, and now it feels like they've got Gordon and maybe kind of Gary Clark and that's it. You know, they don't have fives that can really credibly play there, and they don't really have threes that you can easily see sliding up to play the four either. I think, you know, o'kiki, maybe Yo could do a little bit of that, but I think, you know, he's got a long way to go. And I think we saw them try some of that with James Ennis and it just wasn't good. So I don't think we're going to see that again. See if James Ennis can rediscover his three point shot. Too huge for them, Yeah, because he was really bad when it once the magic on him. I think it was the worst he's ever shot in his career. Yeah it was. I remember looking at it. It was absurdly low. Yeah, it was in the twenties if I remember right. And I'm sure their spacing doesn't help, but like that, there was something else like a miss there, Like, so, what's a realistic wind total and east finish for this team? They're over under I was actually surprised was this low. It's thirty one point five and I can't think in terms of seventy two games, So that is the equivalent of a thirty six win season. That seems to imply that either their floor is constructed is a lot lower than the magic estimate, or that, like the projections the odds makers, I got whatever goes into it is baking in like some sort of a talent sale. So which way would you lean, Like, do you see them just hitting the over? Would you expect that this is the season they make some shakeups in the in the middle of the year. Where do you sort of lean with where this team will finish. I think I've got them a little over. I've got them at thirty three wins. I mean I've got them right in that tenth range, you know, somewhere between eight and tenth in the East. So they'll be in the play in mex Is my guess. I don't think. I kind of look at the East as there are seven kind of locks in the Eastern Conference. Of course, one of those seven the wheels will fall off right, everything will go wrong and they won't be good. But right now I look at it as there's seven locks, there's three. I don't know, well, what's the opposite of a lock? But non locks Detroit, even in New York, I think you're completely out. And then I think Charlotte, I'm on the fence because we don't know what's going to really come on. Gordon Hayward here with this broken hand. If he misses time, then I'm worried about that. If he's in there, I think he thinks Chicago, Charlotte, Orlando, Atlanta, Washington eight through twelve. You can almost tell me any order, and I'm like, all right, I can see that there. I think Washington and Atlanta are probably a little bit better than the other three. Then I think Orlando squarely in the right, in the middle of that grouping, and I think they're maybe the ones I feel most confident about what they are. I don't think that they're going to be very bad. I also don't think they'll be very good. And I don't think they think their floor is somewhat high unless they do a full scale sell off. And I also think they're but I think they're ceiling is extremely low as well. Yeah, and they're of the like a lot of those teams that are in the mix for those final couple spots like the Magic or at least still kind of built to get stops. And you can't really say that about Washington. I wouldn't say that about Charlotte, definitely shouldn't say that about then. I couldn't even say that about the Hawks, like you would need like Hunter and Reddish. And I get like they could build some interesting defensive units, but they're basically pivoted away from like all their interesting defensive youth. I mean, Doune's there too, so but so and I think that, you know, defense in the regular season wins games, which is why the Magic have been like such a staple in the middle of the conference rather than the bottom. And you know what, And I make this point a lot, and I apologize. I think I've said it already a couple of times here. What I'm gonna say it again, They don't ever follow. So just the fact that they don't follow people, they don't give up three points ever. You know, they're kind of consistently in there just you know, good defensively yo, under Steve Clifford, because there you just don't get those free points off of them. You know, they've been you know in the lower I want to say lower third and probably even better than that. And uh, you know, free throws allowed just because they don't. Now on the flip side, you never you catch me maybe other than especially with Isaac out. Every once in a while Gordon gets one of those weak side blocks where he sends it, you know, five rows into the stands and everybody gets all excited, but you get very few of those. They're just good positional defenders who are solid. They do that, they turn, they block out their man, they get their stop and they go. They just don't commit fouls, you know, at any kind of rate where you know, it's pretty rare that a magic game is you know, the other teams in the Bonus with you know, seventy minutes to go and you're like, here we go, this is going to be one of those you know, forty five minute long quarters because we're gonna shoot a million free throws. That just never happens. Yeah. That's why the roles for Bomba once he's healthy and Cole Anthony this season are so interesting to me because Steve Cliff's thing has always been don't foul, which Bomba is going to foul? And then don't turn the ball over too and like it's just a rookie guard with Colante. I think you could assume that they would be turnover issues and that be a roller coaster. Is there anything I did not ask you about these Orlando Magic that you would like to touch upon before I let you go? I mean we didn't get in and do like a full scale breakdown of Dwayne Bacon's game, But that's okay. I don't think you know, I don't think anybody cares, so no, I'm just being a wise guy with that. No, man, I think you know they are what they are right right? This team is you know, they're they're they're the Magic. I guess is the best way to put it. I don't don't have any other better way to put it than that. I think that's just what they are, and you feel like, all right there, they're you know, they're not going to be horrible, they're not going to be really good, but you're also probably not tuning in to you'll watch them on a night tonight basis because there's just not a lot exciting here. I think they're one of those teams when I'm watching them, I'm going to try to be like, hey, Kole, Anthony and Fulter on the floor together, you know, and try to get you know, three or four people who at least flip over on lead pass and you'll watch it. But yeah, I think, you know, this is probably going to be a lot more of the same. And then I think we're, you know, another year away from some real evaluation of our what do we do with this roster going forward? And you know where where we headed because I think I think there are definitely decisions to be made and the self reflection can work both ways with this team, looking at how they're built, right, Like I think the assumption would be, oh that they would strip it down and start over, but like they're also like kind of built. If they wanted to go all in on a win now player, like they can do that. I don't know if they have the you mentioned them in the James Harden sweepstakes looking at other potential offers that would it feels like them winning that would be dependent on the rest of the market. But like, if there's another player like who's just not on the top ten, top fifteen level that becomes available, they really could push their chips. And I don't know that i'd advocate for it, but I don't think that they're tethered to well we have to stay in the middle or start over, like they do have a path to try and double down. Well, they're the ones that that I see, you could really throw Oh gosh, what is it gonna you could? You could really see them, you know, convincing them. Let's get in on Harden. You know, let's just see what happens. And that is you know, that's what we're gonna really push and we're gonna try, you know, well, we're gonna try, you know, a big home run swing here and see what we can do. And I just don't think, yo, I don't think that's the way it'll go because I don't think that's the guy they want to have there right now, especially as we have, you know, with what it would cost them. But he's a guy that I would you know, I would you love to see them, you know, make that kind of swing. I would be there for it. And Harden feels like a you know Florida man, James Harden. I would be here for him. Well, I tell I tell people all the time, James Harden favorite off the court diversion just down the road in Tampa there there's lots of it. There's not as much here here, and you know Orlando of the nightlife clubs that he enjoys. But but just down the road in Tampa can get all the film he wants. Yeah, you could take in a Raptors game and then get all get all the filth that he want. That's why Raptors aren't trading for him, because they won't be able to get them to games on time. Oh as long as by the way, you're talking about I'm getting people more eyes on the Magic on League Pass, since you're clearly gonna be watching more the Magic than me any alert to if they ever do put Aaron Gordon at the five, that would be very much appreciate it. I'll try to remember that. Don't don't hold your breath responsible if you do, because I don't think you're gonna see it. I'm gonna hold out hope that it happens. Hold out hope, but don't be disappointed when you don't get it. If you guys are not following Keith on Twitter already, I don't know what the hell you're doing. Remedy that immediately at Keith Smith MBA spelled exactly as it sounds. He covers the NBA for Yahoo Sports, Real GM Celtics Blog to the Front Office Show. He wears many hats, and he wears them extremely well. And again he's a fantastic follow on Twitter at Keith Smith NBA. Keith, thank you for giving me so much of your time. I really appreciate it. Had a lot of fun and rest assured I will definitely be bothering you again sometime in the future. It was no bother, but I appreciate it. Thanks for having me, Kannada. Welcome back to the Hardwin Knox podcasts. First and foremost, congratulations on the Hornet's not ending up with Obie Toppin, whom I told you about for a very long time after we last talked a few months back, So kudos there ending up with a Melball instead. And equally important, though, how are you doing, man? Everything's cool in the Gang Man. We're recording this, I get to talk basketball, Dan, and in despite that, we having Howard Cosell Muhammad Ali relationship. Dan. So therefore, like whenever we used to have these talks, they end up being better than people seem to expect from either one of us, and I don't understand why, but therefore, but these are always fun. These are great, and so I'm looking forward to talking basketball man definitely. Yeah. Look, the Hornets had a super interesting off season, and there I was probably most intrigued by their draft. Obviously, I think a lot of people thought that they were going to just end up with James Wiseman as a third pick. That was the assumption for so long, and then all of a sudden it ends up being Lamello. So just even before having your impressions of him and just what you've thought about his game so far, I know there's been very little preseason basketball, but still, were you at all like surprised that he was still there at number three? Was that the guy that you identified it that you were hoping that would actually fall to Charlotte if they were staying at number three? Yeah? Absolutely absolutely. He was the guy for me. He was the guy that you hoped, like I was hoping that Minnesota was going to overthink it and say, we already have a D'Angelo Russell, why put him further off ball. I'm glad they overthought it. I'm supremely happy that Golden State overthought it because I thought that James Wiseman would absolutely be the pick I am. I am legitimately surprised. I thought he was. I thought LaMelo was the best guy in the class because he's a guy that at six seven sixty eight can get to the rim whenever he wants, and, as we're seeing now, can make things easier for other people. He was a guy I wanted, and if it wasn't going to be him, it was going to be someone like, oh yeah, And unfortunately for him and why, he ended up sliding a little bit further than I expected him to. He ended up hurting himself again working on for the draft, and now he's not he's not expected back anytime soon. But LaMelo was the guy. LaMelo always was a guy for me. I did find it interesting that I think it was the Charlotte Observer had the report that he just wasn't interviewing well, and I was like, well, this just seems like there might be a certain team in Charlotte that's kind of hoping that he gets to number three at that point. But what were your what have been your impression so far of LaMelo's game. I think he's, you know, from what little I've been on mostly a preseason basketball black out as we record this because I don't want it to influence a project I'm working on right now. But from what I've seen of him, like the passing is clearly transcendent. But I'm wondering what else you've noticed about his game, what you like, what your actual concern is for him going into his rookie season. And my actually the biggest question, and I'm assuming the answer is yes, but is he going to have like the the leeway to really explore himself and plumb the depth of both his skill sets and just you know, make a bunch of mistakes and play through it. The answer is that. The answer that first the last question absolutely is yes. My impressions of him, he's been better. He's been a better pastor than advertised. Because we've always heard about these guys that are just these awesome playmakers and they end up doing some pass that just it's kind of like he ends up making those passes that you don't necessarily see, like their advanced chess moves. They're the move prior to the move that takes the rook that's what he's doing right now, or sometimes he just takes the rook The biggest beneficiary of a guy like that has been Miles Bridges, and Miles Bridges looked a lot better with Malamelo Ball. There's a lot of guys that have looked a lot better with LaMelo Ball and Dan. Since you haven't seen too much of the preseason, this is I can tell you this and you can appreciate this because you've seen you've seen enough basketball or no. This man has made Bismack Biambo qualified. He makes him look like a qualified finisher in the post. That's how good he's been. So Orlando is about to give him sixty four million dollars next summer. Is what you're saying exactly exactly, Like, the only thing that you worry about with a guy like LaMelo Ball is that you wonder if the shot selection, which has been dicey at times, is going to take over. That's the only thing I actually kind of worry about. But I don't worry about the outside shot because the Orlando game kind of I was going to, but then he starts hitting corner threes, and then he starts getting into a rhythm and then he goes from there. I really do like his game. I don't think he's going to be this massive bus. At minimum, he's what Sean Livingstone was for those Warriors, and that's a vital, crucial cog in a title team. At minimum, that's his floor. So I don't ever worry about LaMelo ball developing. It's just what's he going to develop too? And how long is that jump shot potentially going to hold him back into being one of the top twenty players in the league. That's about it. Do you see him being because he certainly has the size to do it, do you see him like turning into someone who's going to be super disruptive on defense where I think you look at Alonzo can do in New Orleans, where he can get positionally get you three spots worth of defense really and LaMelo I think he's even bigger if I'm not mistaken. And the other question I had of that is do you see him being like a like, how do you see him working off the ball, particularly if you know the stroke isn't there, Like do you trust him to be able to work off of DeVante Graham or even you know, to a lesser extent, while Gordon Hayward of course, and then just another ball handler in general, I honestly disruptive on defense. That was the other thing. And Africa, thank you for bringing up defense. Defensively, he's not as bad as everybody seems to think he is. Everybody got and this is something that I think people get kind of and this is just a personal thing, but I think people kind of get enamored or use like certain clips against people to say, oh, he's not that interesting. Defense is set in the third and not recognizing that these are seventeen year old kids knowing they're going to be in the league. Right. This is one of those situations where you're having guys that are talking about, oh, I can't wait to get to the leg again. I might gives the league. I gotta work as hard as It's not a Grant Riller situation, unfortunately, and we'll get to Grant Riller. But I do believe, I honestly do believe that he was bored because they're defensive instincts stuff that he's doing off ball. Now, granted, on ball defense, he's got a long way to go, but off ball defense, the kid is a savant and he's doing stuff and he's helping delay actions and he hasn't really gotten into the defensive scheme James Brego really wants to do just yet I don't. Again, I'm not gonna say he can't be disruptive. I wouldn't expect it this year. I'm not even expect it next year. But I mean, rookies and sophomores are just historically they don't have most of them overwhelmingly so don't have positive impacts on defense. No, exactly, But I see it like there's tape where you see him flashing in on some on a mismatch, and there are things that he does that tells me that he gets it. I'm not sure he's gonna be Lonzo, but I'm not sure that he's going to be le Angelo Bad on defense. That's what I would tell you. Le Angelo bad is that's like I don't even know. That should never have been considered his worst case outcome Former Detroit Piston Leangelo Ball exactly, Former Detroit Piston Leangelo Ball. And again I might as well curb that because I never know. Le Angelo might end up on the Greensboro Swarm for all I know. So Grant Riller, which I'm obligated to ask about him because my co host is obsessed with Grant Riller, but also because he ends up being just from where he was projected. And I know this draft is all over place. Some people had him as like a late first round prospect, early second round. It's whe the Hornet's got him is kind of interesting. I'm curious if you've dug into his game at all and what you might like or not like about him. I did, like, I didn't really look at him at all before the draft, and I did some like look at some of what he did in college before we did this podcast, and I feel like his shooting is just going to be all over the place. I think he could probably do, you know, some like he can beat some guys with the ball in his hands, like if he's briggling it up in transition. He feels like he could be a slippery player when he's off the ball. But I also this is me being a million miles away from the situation. I just don't really see like a path at least this season when you look at the personnel in Charlotte's maybe him playing a ton of minutes or having a huge impact. And then I don't even know. I was trying to find out if anything about his knee injury. I couldn't take up anything on that, and so I was curious too if like whether that was considered like serious or just more of a precautionary thing that they were resting him for. I would tell you that you can tell Adam that Grant Roller is going to be fine in Charlotte for the long For the long term. I don't think they expected him to contribute this year. He's one of those guys. It's similar to a Jayleen McDaniels now who's having a really good season right now. He's one of those guys. We're going to stick him in Greensboro. He's going to learn the system, he's going to learn how to be an NBA pro, and he's going to learn with a guy named Nick Freedman, who I think I've mentioned on this podcast before, who's their developmental coach and who has turned now turned around Devonte Graham and you will understand the name of Jalen McDaniel. This year, I think you're gonna under there are gonna be some guys, and I think Grant Riller I liken him more to a Jeremy Lynn. And I'm not talking about Lynn sanity Lynn where he was just exploding everywhere and scoring on everybody, and then you had like there will be no Riller Mania. Maybe from Adam, maybe from Adam maybe that, But in terms of like and just in terms of what Riller can do, I think he's going to stick. I just don't think it'll be this year, so I wouldn't worry about it. The knee and jury is something that I didn't notice up until I saw the games, the box score, the official box score from the Orlando game on Thursday. They've been really super quiet about that, so I don't know if it's serious. I don't know what it is, but at this point I wouldn't worry about Grant Riller if he I think he's going to be a player for the Charlotte Hornets. It's just not going to be this year now, and that's completely okay for right now. The other rookie on the Stars that really intrigues me is Vernon carry Jr. U. There are but there are a few teams that are really high on him, and the Nick specifically traded up with the intention of getting him only to see Charlotte then take him watching him. I don't I want to do have any impressions of his game. He feels like an oddity to me, like where he looks like a big and is built like a big, but he feels like he's like a below the rim wing. Am I just completely off base there. You're not completely wrong. You're not completely wrong. They gave him the most The Charlotte Hornets drafted him and then gave him the most guaranteed money of any second rounder this year. They did that with a purpose. It was a four year deal. I truly believe they see something in him. He's another guy that I would not be surprised if you don't see a single minute for him in this regular season. I would not be surprised if he goes to Greensboro wherever the G League is, and gets a full year seasoning and then he comes out next year. It's either again, it's either him or Thriller that comes out of the Greensboro system to be ready to be an NBA prospect. So I see what they see in him. I wonder if they're gonna have to continue to work on his footwork on defense. His footworker on offense is awesome, and he's a face up guy and low key the EYBL during the e YBL season, and the only reason I know is because I was doing research on it. He gave Wiseman buckets and you watch that tape and it's like, Okay, I see exactly what he was doing. Unfortunately, he was miscast at Duke as a big man. Stop me if you've heard that before, by the way. But the other thing is just I really do believe that he's going to be their guy. I understand why they picked him there. I personally wouldn't have, but they ended up getting Riller later in the draft, so I'm okay with it. I see what they were going for, and there's him, and then there's another guy, Nick Richards, who I think has got a longer way to go. But I see what they were trying to do. They were trying to get bigs in here for the future. They weren't meant to matter this year. They still have Cody Zeller, they still have Bismack Biyombo, And if LaMelo is going to make both those guys look good and get those guys paid because they're both one essentially on one year deals, then hey, makes it kind of makes sense. So I'm here for what they're going to do in terms of big man development going forward, and as long as Running Carry just continues the path of what Greensboro has done for a lot of people, he should be just fine. I think this will anger at him. I like him a lot better than I like Grant Thriller, and I think it's just because guys with size who have a floor game, like a face up floor game on offense, those are just gonna pique my attention more. I don't see it. And again I'm probably shin deep, like that's as high as I went into Vernon Carry research, so I'm not going to claim to be an expert here. I don't know that I see it on defense though, and we get caught up in positions, but I just don't know what's going to end up being best for him to defend. And I don't like. You mentioned his footwork, and I look at him, just didn't. He didn't seem quick enough to keep up with like maybe these more explosive fours or anything. But then I'm like, well, is he going to be someone who kind of is able to even hold up against fives? Because yeah, he kind of has the size to do that, So I really would worry about him there, but just looking at what he's able to do on offense, he's the one that interests me more of the non LaMelo rookies that they have right now. No, he does. He interest meant me as well. But the one the one thing that I do know, and this is something I got from a friend of mine that was covered that covers Duge up there before the draft, he was working on his footwork defensively, like that was one of the end points of emphasis. Is that he got a trainer and started working on his footwork. Lost thirty pounds between the end of the college season and the draft. So I'm not worried about it because if it's a nutrition thing and he's working on defense, is defensive footwork, I think he can do just enough. I know that they're probably whoever they were going to draft, and I think this is the other thing whoever they were going to draft from a big man perspective, because I know that the Horns were enamored, like they didn't expect LaMelo ball to be there, but they ended up they wanted Wiseman, and if they had to pick between LaMelo and Wiseman, they would have picked Wiseman. I do believe that whoever they were going to draft big man wise, if it was including James Wiseman, was going to have to be one of those guys that you're just gonna they were gonna have to coach footwork into, defend the footwork into, and to be better at defending the switch, because I know Brego for a fact, loves switching on every pick and roll and blitzing every pick and roll if they have to, and going from recovery. The big man part was always going to be a weakness. So I think working with a guy like Vernon Carry, you can teach a lot more and be a little bit more stricter than it had you drafted a guy like James Wiseman to do that as well. So one, I feel like I deserve like a hypothetical fist bump for waiting a few minutes to ask you about Gordon Hayward, and you too, I want to I want to clarify my stance before I throw it to you, because I was surprised at how much shit I caught for what I said about Gordon Hayward a meet like somewhat semi immediately after his contract was signed, and I will once say, I appreciate that people listening to our shar A Hornets takes on this podcast so shout out. And I am not like even like the heated people in my dms like they were. I appreciate them caring enough to be that angry, and I honestly do I don't have a problem with Gordon Hayward, the player on the Hornets in Timeline, or the way he plays. I viewed it just as a mishandling of assets because you end up waving and stretching Batum, who's now on your books for an additional two years, albeit at a smaller number. And I know cap space is not as important in Charlotte, and I wasn't under the guys that they were gonna win twenty one free agency or anything like that. I just when you're overpaying a player relative to what his market was going to be, going that extra length of we are going to wave and stretch Nick Patum, if that's where that's where it went off the rails. For me, I wouldn't have paid Gordon Hayward the money in a vacuum had they just flat out been able to do it at that moment in time. However, that's where it became verging on, if not absolutely indefensible, that decision making there. So I was curious as to where you land on this. I understand where you were coming from. I really really really understand where you were coming from when you had the take, and which is why you never heard from me on it, because I thought it was a fair take and because I had that same initially, I had that same reaction to it. Where I differ on this is and this is something that we again sometimes we do from a national perspective, from a local perspective sometimes is we don't seem to understand the human aspect of it that you actually have to at least show that you're trying. And that's the big thing. Like you got to remember that this team let Kemba Walker basically go for nothing and or better or let them go and let them go at or got Terry Rogier in return, who's also been better than advertised. He had a really good year. Lassieason. I still the Keema Walker stuff, and that was part of my Gordon Hayward take, Like that's I'm never gonna like, I'm never gonna defend that. But Tarry Rosie had a really good season last year. But you also have to show the young guys, the Miles Bridges Is, the Mamlique Monks, the guys that you want to keep, that you're actually trying, because one thing I think we're forgetting is that no one wants to be a part of an experiment in a rebuild, No, especially when the CBA is what it is right now, where these players are probably giving up anywhere up to ten percent in escrow and probably not going to see that. So if you're going to lose money, you're going to want to go to a winning product. And the big thing that I think we all forgot is that the Charlotte Hornets have no credibility in the league, and they don't have any credibility within their own building with some of those players. And I think the Gordon Hayward thing was necessary to buy at least buy some credibility to say, hey guys, hey, rest of the league, we are actually trying. We have to do this because when you have a Montrese Harold and you offer him legitimately from anywhere from what I heard, anywhere from fifteen to eighteen million a year and he says, nah, I'm good I'm just gonna go play for the Lakers. Like when that happens, you gotta do something. When Harry Giles goes and takes the league minimum with Portland instead of probably taking a four or five million dollar deal with the Hornets, you gotta, like, you have to do something because no one thinks you're legitimate. And how much is legitimacy gonna cost In this case, it's forty million dollars a year to say, hey, guys, we're trying. We're not going to be the franchise that we used to be, and we're going to at least attempt to win and show that you can develop and win, and at the same time by relevance around the league because they're going to be more games on TV because of one LaMelo to Gordon Hayward. So I just how much legit the seat is Gordon Hayward add to that though, And my other thing would be, as you mentioned, development, I think that might be like a bigger argument in their favor, like to prove that they can take, you know, with Jalen McDaniels, like if they could fast forward and that's not gonna happen overnight. If you jump, you know ahead a year or two from now, and Jayleen McDaniels is even better, like that's a Anyva DeVante Graham, like those should be more impactful success stories. So and I don't view Gordon Hayward is the guy that says, oh, hey, we're trying, Like I just don't view it in those terms. And I also would say, if you were going to try to send that message, it's probably more difficult to do after the would happened with the Kemba Walker stuff. I would argue, I think people are going to remember that before they remember that you overpaid Gordon Hayward. And I think, and I know nationally we always tend to over romanticize rebuilt and say, well, they should just be as bad as possible. This kind of felt like the year to do that because I don't think arenas are ever going to be full at any point during the season. Gordon Hayward's not putting butts and seats anyway, Like maybe he'll put a few more, but I don't think he's that type of a draw. And so looking ahead of the twenty twenty one class, it's like, why not just be just be bad this year and then you can try and do something like this, I will acknowledge one of the counterpoints, and I'm sure you have many. Would just be like, Gordon Hayward's not uplifting your team to the point where they're so good that they're falling out of you know, contention of a top whatever pick you want to say, like I would say between five and eight. Like I would still put them in that range at least odds wise, because the lottery's wild now. So I recognize that. And if you're going to give as long as you're giving Lamello adequate influence over the offense, because he's a rookie that's gonna lent itself to being organically but entertainingly bad, So I understand it might be over hyping that aspect. This just did not feel like the summer to do what they did. I would agree with you, But when you start going back through the press conferences, especially early in the season, Gordon Hayward was a target of this, of this team regardless, So he was going to get overpaid. He was going to get that thirty million a year from the Hornets regardless. He was going to get it. And I agree that they're not gonna it's not gonna be very competitive. But at the same time, one, I don't think how pop you get how popular that Gordon Hayward was going to be in this town, specifically Charlotte. He was going to move jerseys and he was going to get guys out there. That's that's an indictment on whatever you want to say about Charlotte, and I understand what I'm saying about that. At the same time, I think the best possible scenario for the Hornets, and this is something I really do believe is going to happen. They get to the ten seed, they get to the play in play in tournament, and then they get knocked out, but they show that they've at least gotten to a national point. I really do think people needed to understand that this team is at least some semi serious. I don't think they're that good of a team. And also, at the same time, you can't be outright bad. Cleveland's tried that for two years straight right now and where and the highest pick they've gotten is what five. Like at this point, it's better to be competitive and bad and then risk risk your life to the lottery gods, then be outright bad and then end up picking fifth or six and not getting the star that you're actually looking for. So I understand that it's a bad, bad draw. But at the same time, I think this team is figuring out that it's better to be competitive and bad than just outright bad, and I think that's how you gain the system. And in in other terms, I do believe that this this new lottery system is going to influence guys that you can't be outright bad. It's not going to help you so until you realize that you're competitive and bad, and I don't think the nix of winning that lesson yet you're not going to be picking in the top three. So I never thought of it as a means of highlighting like the team in a way where it's, oh, if there are more people who take the hornets seriously because they're slightly better than they thought, that's a way to would accentuate like the stuff that they've done in the house with their development. So that's that's super interesting to me. I will, how I will eat some grow too if they're going to be in the plan. I just didn't expect that from them, So that would be something that if you get there, I don't know what the value necessarily is of that, but it would exceed my expectations. I still I don't know that anyone's going to ever talk me into this overall, and I think part of it might just be I don't know what the you know, the final two years of this deal are gonna look like, you know, if the first two years they have a chance to be I wouldn't say, like he'll coordinate, it will be worth it, but I'd be curious to see what the last two years look like, just given the and I know some of them have been mostly like freaking unrelated injuries, but just the sheer number of injuries and set packs that he's had over the past three years, I get. I don't think this deal ends well, but I don't think the Betune deal was gonna end well. And I don't think I ever expected I expected he traded the year. I don't expect this to go. I don't think, like, when we go back and look at the history of these big contracts, how many of them have quote unquote ended well? Like very few? Right, Yeah, No, that's a great point, Like none of these generally end well. They end up stretched or wave or the best case scenario a salary dump at the end of the year. They don't end amicably, So I don't know why we expect it in this case as well. So until like I guess where we're at with these big contracts is you're not really going to have these really great contracts to end well. And I don't think, like I think, I do agree with you that there's going to be those two guys those first two years that're gonna be awesome. The third year is going to be mild, and then the fourth year if he's if he does decently, then okay, that's great, and then he goes on his way back to Utah to retire or something like that, or he reopts here, he loves it here, and he reopts. I just don't think at this point with what he does, like he's here to accelerate the growth curve of a DeVante Graham. He's going to be here to accelerate. He's going to be here too, I would say, accelerate the growth curve of a Lamella ball. He's going to do a lot of this stuff that helps a lot of the other younger guys and raises the expectations for them in that locker room to say, hey, this is how we do this is how you do that, and not necessarily be the vocal leader, but be the quiet leader, be the guy that they need that to show them how to work, how to expect, and how to win. And granted, Gordon's seen that only from a third banana fourth banana standpoint for a decent part of it. But at the same time, I think that still matters to say, hey, I've been around winning organizations, this is how you do this, this is how you do that. And from a player standpoint, I do believe that experience. Experience is invaluable at times. And that's where the one thing that I actually do like about it is he seems like the idea of him feels like a good fit for Lamello, DeVante Graham, just other guys on this roster might be handling the ball because he's gonna take pressure away from them and like people, yeah, the defense is at some point gonna, if not right away, gonna focus more on LaMelo. But Hayward's like that safety valve where no, he would First of all, he was never a guy who put a ton of pressure on the rim and he's like in space, he's just not the same as he was before that first devastating leg injury, which is fine, but in between game is so good. He can hit, catch and shoot threes. He's a good passer. And so I'm wondering if that if you agree like that sort of, I don't want to just boil it down to attention, but like having that other outlet on offense in the half court, if that ends up helping LaMelo ball a great deal through like you know, let's say the first two years of his career. Oh, absolutely, it'll help him a lot. The one guy, I think it helps him, but I also think it helps a guy like Terry Rogier who has familiarity with him. And I also think it helps a DeVante Graham, who at the end of the day is still the starting point guard for this team. I don't think LaMelo is going to start this year unless there's injury. I don't. I think with LaMelo, as much as we like him, I think we had the pump the brakes because DeVante was playing at it close to an at least all star level at the first half of the last season, and granted he exploded onto the scene scene, and then once teams started getting tape on him and started figuring how to slow him down, they got a little bit better at it. But I think DeVante Grant, when we have these conversations about LaMelo ball necessarily exploding and starting, I would tell you to pump your brakes and tell you wait till March before we have a conversation about him legitimately taking over. I would also tell you that when we have these conversations about what Gordon Hayward does, Gordon Hayward's going to help a lot of guys out. I do believe Gordon Hayward, like the biggest beneficiary to meet for him might be at PJ. Washington, who in a pick and pop game can roll game that's kind of hard to defend, and especially if you have a guy like DeVante Graham is at release valve to hit a deep three, which he did pretty well. So I would say Gordon Hayward helps just being that off ball creator. He's actualized what Nick Batun was supposed to be for this team, and that's the way the best way I would tell you that because I would expect eighteen five and like shooting like probably forty thirty seven. If he got that from Gordon Hayward in the first year, I think you'll be okay. Does the off season that they have where you're you are adding Hayward who can handle the ball, you draft the metal, obviously you have Grant Riller. Does it say anything about the future of Devonte Graham is going to be a free agent, or even just Ty Rozier who has two years left on his deal, or even just a molekue Monk, because it does feel a little bit crowded sort of in that area, and Heyward's not in the backcourt, and maybe you can get some three minutes from LaMelo in certain spots, but it does kind of feel like at least one of those guys is going to end up being the odd man out in the short term, and I don't think it would be Devonte in a vacuum, But I'm curious if you would view the Hornets is considering like he and LaMelo. Is that like a long term foundation for them or is there a chance, just given that Devonte Graham is going to get paid, that the next offseason that he becomes a trade candidate or someone that they could even just let walk in free agency. I've been trying to do the math on who gets left out for the better part of since since basically LaMelo was drafted, because it feels like there's an odd man out. I don't believe it's Maligue Monk because I believe much cup Check when he says he's still one of the most talented guys on the roster, and I do believe they plan on figuring out what Maligue Monk can be. I don't think it's demonte Gram because again, DeVante Gram is probably the biggest shining example of what they've done with Greensboro and development. I don't think it's Terry Rogier because and I've made this joke and I kind of some semi believe this. James Brigo figured out what to do with Terry Rogier better than Brad Stevens has, and that's something that we don't talk about enough. I really do wonder at this point who's the odd guy out. My guess is because the way he's looked thus far in preseason, Terry Rogier doesn't stay to the trade deadline, and that's not a fault of his own. I do believe that Terry Rogier has played really really well. I just think that there's gonna be a team call that comes calling, maybe a Milwaukee I don't know, that's going to need that off ball scoring that Terry Rogier brings and just a guy that is just not afraid. And I do believe Terry Rochier is on his way out, but it'll be no through all fault of his own. And I don't and I want to say this, I don't want to trade him, I really don't, but I think there's going to be a team that's going to offer a pick. And the fact that he's only on the books for a year and a half at eighteen, which is starting to seem like accurate, accurate value for the guy. I kind of like, I said, I kind of like him. I kind of like him. But I don't think Terry rofi is gonna here be here in long term, and I think the Horns will be poorer for it, but they're gonna need to open up those minutes. Yeah, i'd say his money, I would still peg on the higher end. But if he's gonna hit forty six percent of his catch and shoot threes and just be super plug and play on the offensive end and give you some you know, a semblance of like really motor and activity on defense. I would think that, I don't know how big of a commodity he becomes the trade deadline, but I would think, I don't I don't even know that I would predict that he would get moved. I'm actually surprised that he would be your pick. I really honestly thought it would be monk or even grand before then, just because maybe they were nervous about the money he's going to command in free agency. Having been the team that over pay Gordon Hayward, There's going to be more teams with money next season. So the only it only takes one team mantras more like, well, there might be three teams that are willing to pay him that type of deal. So that's interesting that you think it'll be Rosier. I would agree with you that his money is not like the detriment it was painted as by any stretch at the time of the Kemba Walker sign and trade. Here's the here's the thing, Dan, here's the question I would actually ask you, would you rather have Rogier at eighteen or Rubio at thirteen? I would rather have Rubio at thirteen, just looking at I think with his playmaking and what he does for defense, but I get the shooting aspect is tough, Like that's it. I would have to think about it for more than a half second that I gave you there, like that's the thing, that's that's what, because I really do believe that was the option. And I think when we talked about this initially, like the names that were brought up that I had heard were literally a Manual Moodier, that was the guy that was supposed to be the Kember replacement night and to end up with a guy like Terry Rogier instead, you did kind of well. I mean, Mitch Kupcheck has done Matt Mitch cup Check outside of the Gordon Hayward thing, which was clearly a Michael thing, has managed to keep Michael at bay, so that matters. That matters to keep your ownership group away from the checkbook when it comes to free agent time, that stuff matters. Go ask the Knicks, and I hate the clown on the Knicks, but the Knicks are clearly one of the teams that does this a lot. Like if your GM can keep the ownership group out of the way as much as possible, then that matters. I mean, and and granted that could go the other way because look at Sacramento. Sacramento again, Vivid Rent the dvay has stayed away, but unfortunately he hired Vody what he did. So, I mean, there's got to be that balance, and so far, I'm not saying the Hornets have that balance, but I'm saying it's headed that. I really do believe it's headed that way right now. And considering that the Knicks can make me look stupid and pup that I'm not not the Knicks, the Horns canna make me look stupid in public on this move, I like, I like the way they're going. I just I don't think it'll be DeVante because I think if they send DeVante packing, remember how we talk about messages to the locker room, I think it also also sends a bad message. Yes, let's give Gordon Hayward all this money and then someone who's just more homegrown piece out. Yeah. Yeah, Like, I don't think you can do that and not have that come back and bite you. And I know that for a fact. There were really sour feelings about how the Keba Kemba Walker departure happened. We've had Mama Walker talk about this publicly about how bad this ended. So I do think that DeVante, you, they're gonna have to pay a guy, and I do think it's gonna end up being I do kind of believe it's gonna end up being DeVante. And we'll see when it comes to Miles. Because Miles is I think like extension eligible starting next year, so that matters too. But to your Miles Bridges point, he's someone who, for some reason, I believe has always been in the league one year longer than he's actually been in the league. I had him on like my extension alibile list for this upcoming off season, only to then realize that he's only been in the league for two years. What are your expectations for him this season? It does seem like he's going to play more for unless I'm wrong there, and that's definitely better suited for him. I think he's you know, when you look at if for those power drives that he could do, he feels like more of a mismatch there. But how do you like that defensively? What do you kind of just view for him in his role on this team moving forward? I honestly see him as like this. This offseason, this preseason has shown me that this guy is a power for like he's done all the dirty work, and he's never really done all the dirty work like taking charges again. Be basically, he doesn't have to guard the best player on on offensively more. And I think he's realizing his role now. Granted PJ. Washington has been better, and they're going to try this small ball lineup that I absolutely loathe, which is PJ Washington, Miles Bridges, Heyward Rogier and Devonte Graham. They're going to score a whole bunch of points. They're also going to give up a whole bunch of points as well. I kind of I worry about that. I worry about that that kind of matchup and everything else like that. But I am one of those guys that believe that that Miles Bridges has a future on his roster. I do worry that PJ is kind of in the way, But from what we've seen thus far, he's become a much better defender, much better team defender. He's become. He's getting to hit more than the just left corner three, and I think he's going to be a guy that you're going to say. I'm not gonna say he's gonna be m IP, but I wouldn't be surprised if he got m IP consideration because I do think him, him and LaMelo. I think LaMelo is going to unlock something in mild Bridges this year, and that's where this really gets interesting going forward for him. You kind of already touched on this, But what are your thoughts concerns general impressions of you know, the PJ Washington at the five lineups? Do you see any sort of path to those groups working on defense? Is though they got annihilated in the you know, it was a small sample size last year that he was playing center and the rebounding was terrible. Does that at least get any easier that now, if you know, if you have a healthy Hayward, if you have you know, LaMelo is a good rebounder for his position, or you kind of already hinted that, like you're not the biggest fan of those lineups in general. I'm not because I still think that rebounding matters, and people have told me rebounding doesn't matter nearly as much as you could think. It only costs you so much so many more points. But if you can score on offense, then it negates it. And I don't necessarily agree with that, because if you're giving up consistent rebounds twice three times a game, where that it's like a demoralized you give up that demoralizing offensive rebound that matters, and especially with a team that's confidence for all intents and purposes right now, is kind of fragile. So I don't think it's a good idea. I'm not the biggest fan of it. Maybe they convince me of it, both from what I've seen and from what the numbers have seen. I'm not the biggest fan and the best the biggest indictment of this, and maybe PJ. Washington's rebounding. I remember watching him get boxed out by five nine Isaiah Thomas, and I love Isaiah Thomas, but when Isaiah Thomas beat you to a board like that's that's something that I can't necessarily forgive or forget. Dan, you understand where I'm coming from, right, Yeah, there's there's an element of unforgivable embarrassment of game boxed out by someone who's five nine. Yeah, Like I can't do it like you're supposed to be the big man. You're supposed to grab the board, and then you get boxed out by by No, that can't happen, man, that can't And unfortunately for him, like that's the indelible mark and unfortunate. And he's the guy if you're if you're gonna ask me, who's the guy that possibly takes a step back but tries more things like whose efficiency takes a dip, it's PJ Washington because he's got to do He's gotten entirely too much on his plate. And unfortunately, I don't think that the backups. I don't think the help that's gonna come to maybe force him back into the four spot is coming anytime soon. And unfortunately, when we start talking about people that get squeezed out, there's gonna be a legitimate discussion. I'm not sure if it's gonna be this year and next year where you're gonna have to make a decision do you keep Miles or do you keep PJ? Do you keep Miles or do you keep PJ? And at some point they're gonna have to make that decision, and I don't know how you make that decision, especially if Miles takes off and you don't see like kind of having Hayward and even Lamello. There is streamlining Pj's offensive role even further, just because he seems like such a comfy fit for them. Last year it was a lot more plug and play than I thought he was going to be. Again, I'm not like super into college basketball. Will take that impression with a grain of salt. Then, even just like kind of the you know, the finesse he kind of had with the ball in his hands too, it felt like he would be the one that they'd be higher on in the aggregate than than even Miles Bridges. The one aspect where you do worry about is that when PJ. Washington has to put the ball on the deck, that's where he gets kind of dicey for him, where that's where Miles has the advantage as a small ball. For Miles can put that put the ball on the deck and play make he's done it before he's done it. Consistently in preseason this year, I like what he does off the That's the only aspect where I could say Miles has a clear advantage. If PJ does that, then hey, we have a whole different type of stew that we're cooking here. Well, until he does that, that's probably the one aspect where Miles has an advantage, or a guy like Jayleen McDaniels, who can play the three and the four has an advantage like those are the type of plays that he's missing from his game right now. And if he gets those, and granted they're gonna you're gonna have to be willing to suffer through a lot of turnovers to get to that point where he's more comfortable putting the ball on the deck. But if he gets there, that's I'm not gonna say he's a All NBA talent, but he's one of the better four or fives in the league if he can put put the ball in the deck and playmate a little bit better. Is there room for Cody Martin, Klen Martin and Joleen McDaniels all in the rotation? And if not, who would be the ottoman out? I think I can safely say it won't be Jaylen McDaniels looking at all he projects to do for them. But is there a room for all three of them to get minutes on this team? No? No, there isn't. I don't believe. And this is where it gets interesting because I think Cody Martin is a rotation guy on this team. I believe Jaalen McDaniel is a rotation guy on this team. I don't see a way for Caleb Martin to make significant headway, especially over a guy like Malague Monk who can do a few more things a little bit better. Caleb Martin feels like trade feller. And I don't know, and I hate to say it that way, but he feels like trade filler because if you've paid attention to the Mitch cup Check era, he's never really made an in season trade. This year, with fourteen guys on the active roster and intentionally left open spot and four million dollars, this year feels like the year where they make that in season trade. What it's four I don't know, but I do not, Randalls, what you're getting at, isn't it? I hope not. I'm just kidding there, Hope. I gotta start throwing that into the you know, it's into the ether because something's gonna happened to the next They already ended up with Obie Topping instead of Tyrese Haliburton, And now I'm now I'm trolling you with Julius Randall. They're probably Dan. You see, this is your fault. You were hoping Haliburton was going to drop to you, and you talk to me about Obie Topping all this time, and then here you go, and then they pick Obie Topping over Tyrese Haliburton, which didn't make a look of sense. And now you're starting a Manuel Quickly at the point guard spot, which I will say, Emmanuel Quickly looks really good, but yes, I Haliburton is like, I will die for Tyrese Haliburton. So I was very disappointed. Yeah, And I mean you have old friend Michael kid Gilchrists up there who's getting a roster spot clearly. I mean I don't know when it comes to just this team. There are a lot of guys, and we've already talked about especially the guard depth on this team. There are a lot of guys that need homes and need consistent minutes. Malik Monk isn't one among them. Caleb Martin, who I think is an NBA players among them. But right for right now, the way this team is built, the strength is at the guards. You have guys that can be and are I would call them rotational pieces on championship teams. I do believe that about Devonte Graham, even if, even if I'm not certain he is a start, his best role is at a start as a starting point guard for a championship team. I think he's going to be really, really good. I do worry about again. Terry Rosier has had a great season in Charlotte and he'll probably figures to have another good one because he's come into this. He's come into this short preseason, guns a blazing and looks super efficient while doing so. I would again, LaMelo is going to get minutes because he's the number three pick and he's just uber special right now. Cody Martin brings something different because Cody Martin defends and can hit threes now at a decent clip. I'm not saying a great clip. I'm saying decent. If you give him an open three, he will hit it right now. That's something that you couldn't say about him last year. Jalen McDaniel gives you something different because he's six ten and he can guard three, four and maybe a little bit of five depending on who the five is. He and also he's a guy that hits again, hits threes when we start talking about folks that aren't going to be as good and the guy that you worry about is Caleb Martin and that when it comes to that, he's just a little bit like And the thing is you have to make the decision between him or Maligue Monk of who's going to get the remaining minutes, And for right now, I would take Moligue Monk. It's close. It's closer than I'd like to admit, but I would take Malik Monk. Is so of the looking so looking at Molik Monk and let's say Cody Martin and Jelen McDaniels, is I think I'm most intrigued by McDaniels long term? Is that? Is that accurate? You kind of they're just like, yeah, it was. I think I might have been at Cody towards the end of last season just because I felt like his game was more well rounded. But the three point shot from McDaniels feels real. And there's always like a play or three of the games that I've seen in Charlotte where he just does something where it's like, you know what, PJ. Washington wouldn't have gotten that offensive rebound or just anything along those lines. Then, as you mentioned the three point shot, and I think that's real, Like that seems pretty clearly just the way he's he's taking them, and even some of the preseason stuff that I watched of him, it's just like it feels so fluid now, and so if you're able to just buy into that, it feels like he should probably be the most tantalizing player long term he all of the three. If you told me I had to buy stock on Jaylen McDaniel, Cody Martin, M League Monk's Jayleen McDaniel, and I would be surprised to say that. I think Cody Martin is. I don't want to call him Trayvon Graham because Travion Graham's done really really well for himself in those leagues by being undrafted. I really really, really really like Jalen McDaniels game because he's six ten, and he shoots threes, and he defends decently. He has brain lapses at times on defense, but those can be ironed out with more playing time and film. Jalen McDaniels actualize. And you were talking about a guy that fully gets it, is a guy that plays in this league for decade for at least a decade, if not a little bit longer. Because six ten shoots threes and defends. Those guys get paid no matter what. They generally get paid a lot of money right down the line. So if you're gonna tell me by buying into the future, it's Jalen McDaniels was not close there. I am to make this clear, and I always got to this play. I am super pro players getting paid. But Charlotte has the way they've structured the contracts of every single one of these guys put themselves in a position where they don't have to choose right away if they don't want to. Just because Jalen McDaniels has he's under team control. If they want for three more seasons, including this one, and they have two seasons of both Cody and Caleb Martin and then they kind of, you know, they did that same thing. It's guaranteed money, but it's such small money. But you look at like Burning Carrey Jr. You know, four years of just straight team control if they want it. So I will say that from a team perspective, I want players to get paid. I'll make that clear. From a team perspective, though they've given themselves like just a ton of optionality and potentially like bargain bin deals to offset that that albatross right now at the top of the roster. And that's the thing, I'm not sure it's an albatross because, like like I'll continue to say, I don't think this ends will Hateward in Charlotte. I don't believe that. I do believe that. I think the three years where you're paying that extra ten million, because if you wanted to get rid of Nick Batoum's contract, I think those three years are going to be on the books. And if that's the case and that's just one bad year, then you're looking at one year. I like I said, I don't think that the Hayward contract is going to be as bad as people think, because I don't think they're going to be as big of a player next year. Four guys, and if they do acquire somebody, that may be the year they acquire someone via trade because I don't think that. And also we're talking about this like this team cannot couldn't go go to the playing game, get rocked, come out and end up with the top three to five pick because of it. I made this joke with someone I was talking to off Amy recording a podcast that the funniest outcome of all this is Heyward having a really good season and then Charlotte sending him to Indiana for the package that the Celtics turned down, where it was basically a McDermott Turner in a first round pick. I said, that would be the most hysterical outcome of this entire thing. I wouldn't be surprised if as ends up happening. Well, I legitimately would not be surprised if that ends up happening, because that's the kind of thing that would happen. And I'm I know the Miles Turner isn't that good has gone around social media, But if you told me that we ended up with Miles Turner and another guy that can space the floor and put PJ in his proper position and then solidly put Miles Bridges as your super sub six Man of the Year. I like that team, especially when it adds a Cody Martin who then starts and then let's LaMelo get more time and you have a top seven of DeVante Gram, Terry Rosier, DeVante Terry Rose, your Cody Martin PJ. Washington, Miles Turner, LaMelo Ball, Miles Bridges. I like that seven going forward at least, and not necessarily as a competitive Oh, they're going to make the playoffs, but as a competitive oh, let's do this, and let's go let's be a top ten seed in the East and go play in the playing game and get some get people excited about this team for the first time in a long time. You bring up a fantastic point. The Miles Turner discourse has gotten out of control, and I don't ever want to oversimplify things, but it feels like unlocking him is really just a matter of where he's standing in volume, where it's like, hey, don't dribble inside the arc and take along too, or don't hover in long two range where you don't have the ball and just just fire away from three. And I think Nate Yorkrin might bring that out in him. But that's just a that's an out of side. I didn't mean to ask you this. The fractured finger on hayward shooting hand. Is there any impression of like, how you know serious that is? That? Is it just going to be a pain tolerance thing where they don't expect him to miss too much time to start the year. Will he miss I don't. I don't expect them to miss time. I don't. I expect him to play on the twenty third Quine honestly opening game against Cleveland. I'd expect him to play. I think. I think the one thing is I would watch his shooting numbers. I would watch the shooting numbers because it's a fractured pinky pinky on on his on a shooting hand. I would watch the shooting numbers. But outside of that, I think he's going to play. There's you kind of already mentioned that you expect Terry Rose the year to be gone by the deadline? Is there an element of that with U? And it can't be the same element, But Cody'szeller's in a contract year. Their center position kind of dictates that they need him. But just because he's in a contract here, if he's healthy, I feel like he's a name that's going to pop up in a lot of mid season scenarios. Can I I'm glad I have this to I'm glad I have your platform to say this right now. But I need people to understand that this that Cody's Eeller is not going to be a buyout candidate. He's a trade candidate at best, and if they don't trade him, they're probably going to keep him and sign him to a more market appropriate deal. I just don't see any of the centers have being being bought out unless Run and Carry makes steps. I don't see Cody'seller being treated unless a guy like Running Carry or Nick Richards makes a step towards it, or the small lineup actually dictates that, hey, we might have to go with this lineup a little bit more for right now. I don't see it right now because Biz and I said this unlocked on Horne is the other day bisin Cody. Right now, we're necessary quote unquote evils like you have to have them there because unfortunately that you need defense and rebounding. And the one thing that Cody's Eller and Bismac beyond the book give you right now are our defense and rebounding. So until that no longer becomes a case and someone else on the roster can do that, or they can add someone that can do that on the roster, this is not going to be a situation where you can necessarily deal with Cody's Ller unless you're not trying to win anymore. And if you're not trying to win anymore, that contradicts exactly what you've been doing since the beginning of this off season. So that's why I don't see it happening unless Cody comes to the team asked for a buyout, and even then I don't see that happening. That's that's how much I really do believe he's either going to be on this team or if they trade him, is because someone else has come up and developed in a way that we didn't expect. I didn't even know that people were identifying him as a potential buyout candidate. That would be even if he went to ask the team for it, that just be seems like that's too valuable to just let's like to take, you know, get a few dollars back and just let him go sign with another team. I know his salary is, first of all, it's not astronomical, but I know people don't want to pay bigs fifteen million dollars a year. But that still feels even if it's a situation where they're running countered or what they wanted to do and they're moving him for like worse money, long term because it's attached to an asset like that would still be an option. And so I didn't even know that that was being floated around that Cody Zeller would become a buyout candidate. I've heard, I've seen rumblings about it, and I'm just like, I sit back and I laugh because I know it's not happening. So what do you think ends up being in a situation, you know, close game, they're they're trying to win. What ends up being the best or most used closing unit for this squad? All right, let's see Graham, Rosier, heyword and then it's a combination of and this is and I think there's going to be a closing offense and a closing defensive lineup. And I do think it's going to be among these six guys. It's going to be Rosier, Graham, Hayward, probably Washington Bridges, Zeller and some combination in the last three Washington Bridgesell are going to be a combination of offense defense. Who's got it working that wet night. That's going to be your closing lineup. I don't see LaMelo closing games yet because you do not trust the I don't trust the jump shot to be consistent just yet. But I do think that I do think that that's going to be your six, and I think the seventh is LaMelo, and that depends on how much they choose don't want they want to open up everything in terms of Okay, everybody's actualized, everybody's a threat. LaMelo is going to find the open guy and then possible bury you. So I think I think it's those guys. I don't because and I hate to say that I'm pumping the brake telling people pump the brakes on LaMelo. He's not ready yet, because these are the type of things that I end up being generally very very wrong about. But I want to understand. I want people to understand he can be the rookie of the year and he doesn't have to close games just yet. It's coming, but I don't think it's there just yet. Is there like a less obvious or quirk your lineup you're hoping they try out at any point this season? Mm Rosier, LaMelo, McDaniels, Bridges, Zeller. Okay, I like that lineup because I think that's gonna have much more three point shooting. You're gonna have a lot more you have guys that can attack the rim and it at I think that that kind of lineup when you play Rosier off ball is the type of lineup that spreads the floor just enough for LaMelo to really do damage and gives him a really good pick. Two good really two really good pick and roll players that can finish at the rim. Well, one finishes at the rim, but one is a really good pick and roll big in Cody Zeller. I want, I kind of want to see that one what they consider doing McDaniels Bridges, Heyward Graham and then either Rosier or Ball. No, no, because I think it still runs into the same problems that you do with PJ. Is that I don't think McDaniels is big enough to be a center yet it's close, Like I think that's a year or two away. I think that's another year of an NBA strength training program, and I think that's that's a little bit further away than we think. And unfortunately, I don't see Miles Bridges as a small ball center anytime soon, and I don't think the organization does there. Yeah, that would it would have to fallow to McDaniels there. And so if you don't think that he's ready for that. Could it be any worse than using PJ. Washington at center though? Yes, yes, yes, because again, where I think that that small ball lineup with Peter Watson grabs every third rebound the lot the chances of that happening with McDaniels goes to every fifth rebound. So if you're giving up four offensive rebound per possession, that's a bad that's a bad number no matter what. Okay, So what's a real What are some realistic expectations for this team this season? The you know, win total where they finish in the East, just as a note they're over under, is currently at twenty seven point five last time I checked, which is the equivalent for people who cannot think in terms of seventy two games like myself, is the equivalent of a thirty one win season. How would you lean on that number? Had it been twenty five twenty six, I would probably give them the over I do wonder the thing that I worry about with this team particularly is that that nine month layoff and only having two weeks of organized basketball activity in nine months, and then coming into a season and then going against the Raptors and looking extremely extremely extremely rusty and seeing the difference in communication on defense, especially that matters. So I expect them as they're like integrating new parts, that they're going to start slow. I can see this being a second half of the schedule team. I can also see this team. I can see, like I said, I see this team starting off slow and then basically being a house of fire come that second half of the schedule. I would say under, but I am so I'm like clenching my fists nerves about how far how much I say the under because I can easily see this team being a top ten team, and I can easily see this team catching guys like catching teams like Indiana or Atlanta, Washington even too, just sleeping and being a team that's like, hey, did you know the Hornets are in ninth? Oh wow, I didn't really understand. I didn't really get that. But and just catching people sleeping, I can see this team being that. But I also can see this team having a lot of young guys, especially a lot of guys would let like three years or less of surface time, and this being a very very very slow process. I went under as well. I was probably more confident than you are I just can't. And part of the reason was I can't figure out what they're gonna be defensively. Like I can talk myself and to them being a sleeper defensive team, but I can also talk myself to them being absolutely awful on that side of the floor. No, no, no, no. Defensively, I don't trust them. I do not trust them at all. I do not trust them at all when it comes to a as a defensive team. I think this team is going to be a lot of teams on offense. I think there. I think as LaMelo grows, I think he's going to be he's going to help them score a lot more points and make things a lot easier. And I do think he rebounds this position exceptionally well for his size, So I do see a lot of that in there. I do. Like I just I say under, I'm not very confident in it because I think they're just going to score points in bunches at times, and then they'll go cold and they'll continue to score points and bunches, and it's going to be a team that competes every night, and with a seventy seventy two game season and the depth that they have, I think there's going to be a lot of different combinations to make sure that things stay fresh. And if you're a team that's tired and relies on a lot of veterans, they're going to catch you. And that's why I think if it's gonna be under, it's going to be close. Is there anything I have not asked you about that you would like to discuss about this Hornets team. I'm surprised you didn't go a do you think that LaMelo is going to be the Rookie of the Year this year? I am surprised at knowing that you did not ask me about that. I do, but I and the thing is like, in terms of LaMelo, I think he's going to be great. I think that he's again, along with the rest of this team being a second half team, I do kind of wonder if this team, if a good second half of the scheduled campaign, is going to be strong enough, especially with this rookie class that no one seems to really love like that, if that's going to be enough to carry him to Rookie of the Year. I do think he's gonna be Rookie of the Year. And as I will continually say, stop underrating Terry Rochier, and I think like I think, I think that's the thing. Terry Rogier has been really really good for this team, and I think he's been he's shown to be a really clutch player, and he's shown to be a very very very good player outside of the Bret Bret Stevens Boston Guard system. So I would just point out that the Terry Rochier hype train is real and I can see him. Like I said, I like him. I want to see him in Chrol. I can see him get dealt. At the same time, LaMelo's Rookie of the Year stock feels almost implicit. I guess if they bring him along more slowly than you'd expect. But he does seem, especially of the top rookies, that he should be guaranteed the most volume and influence over an offense. I am. I have steadily talked myself into going with Tyrise Haliburton for Rookie of the Year, though you wait, wait, hold, hold, Holy Dan, you're trusting the Sacramento Kings to do something right, look but fair. But I feel like Tyris Haliburton is one of those players that is going to end up being so good that the team can't even screw him up. And I think what's also encouraging by the Kings is this feels like it looks like they're going to be committed stripping it down and so that his role is only gonna, you know, grow augment as the season goes on, and I even think they're gonna be willing to try Buddy Fox and Haliburton at the same time. And he's one of the rookies that I identify as you know, I don't I won't say positive, but you look at him on defense and say, WHOA, like he's kind of ahead of the curve of where he should be. I don't know that I would definitely bet against what LaMelo's volume is going to be on offense. Like I said, it feels like hit LaMelo's rookie of a year of victory is almost implied by volume. And that's not even that's not like not to demean him. It seems like he's going to be really good. I just don't how I can't quit Haliburton, as I keep saying on this podcast, now, you can't know you can't if you can't quit Haliburton, Like I'll give you a name that I just continually come back to because I'm surprised about how good he is despite that the fact that he's add a whole bunch of international experience. I can't keep coming like I keep coming back to Maladon. Oh okay, okay, Like that's the guy that if you're telling me, it's not gonna be LaMelo, it's going to be someone like Theo Maladon who's gonna have a whole bunch of opportunities to to Gilgi Alexander and Al Horford and just basically he's going to end up showing out and Sam Prescy's gonna make us all look bad yet again. And that's without the millions of the first round picks that he's got. Yeah, they I mean they have like they have a ton of like guards. So I don't know how their rotation is gonna shake out, but they're if they're gonna try and like really plumb the depths of how bad they could be, Like why not just give him like some offensive license. So that's that is not someone I considered when I was doing the Thunder podcast, Like one of the players that was identified as like, oh, sleeper could be really good for this team. By Olivia Punschall. Who I was talking to was Tail Maladone, and so I'm interested he would kind of like role he ends up playing for them. But that's a that's an interesting pick from you. I like it. Yeah, well, look again, I don't just focus on the Hornets. I do again. I'm a lead secret League pass addict. I know there are meetings for this. I choose not to go. But is it really a secret that you're a league past addict. I feel like if anyone follows you on Twitter, they could they could tell, yeah, yeah, you're you're you're right, You're right about that. You make a very very good point. But yeah, But like Maladone, like the other thing is I secretly really love this rookie class. I think it was unfairly panned. I think people studied entirely too long on this draft through through no fault of their own, because we waited almost six months in between where the draft actually happens and what it so I understand completely. At the same time, I think this draft class is going to be better than people think, and I also think that the stars there are going to be serious stars. I hope LaMelo is one of them. But I can see a scenario where this team, this draft ends up giving you a couple of all NBA guys and it's going to be like, can you remember when everyone was crapping on this draft? Because I do, and that'll be one of the things. I think this draft is better than people think. I think it's deeper than people think. And when we have these conversations about draft better one of the better draft classes. I don't think this is gonna be like where we talk about the honest c J. McCollum draft where no one was good in the top ten picks. Really, but I do think that this is a draft class that people are going to come back and say, hey, that was deeper than we thought it was. Yeah, I think that everyone just got caught up and it didn't feel like they were There was a ton of superstar prospects at the top, but it feels like there's very clear Even some of the players that I'm not super high on, it feels like there's a very clear path to them sticking in the NBA for a very long time. Yeah. Yeah, there are a lot of NBA prospects on this team, and I really do love them. I really do love this class, I really do. I just hope verty carry pans out because of not and you could have had Isaiah Joe and added another shooter to this, to this roster. I'm not gonna be upset. I'm not gonna be happy. Kanada, thank you so much. This was great. I always love picking your brain about the Charlotte Hornets and hoops at large. If you guys are not following Kanada on Twitter, what are you even doing at this point? Follow him immediately. He's at not a describe. That's at na ta thh E s c R I b E. He's co host of the Locked On Hornets podcast and a writer for Dime up Rocks. Again. Follow him on Twitter at not a describe as always, Nada, This was fantastic and I think you know by now that I will definitely be pestering you again down the line. Man. Look again, you know I like talking ball about you, and now that you can no longer talk troll me about Obi Topping, yeah, we got more conversation. Now we can absolutely have more conversations. All as I could say is that was the single worst possible outcome. Was not only the Hornet's not ending up with topping. But the knicks and the topping that was the best part, because you know what, and I didn't even think about it until it happened that that, oh wait, this is dad's worst nightmare, right, and you know it was even worse about it. And so I got like super sick around the draft, to the point that I actually had to call out of Bleacher Report that night, and luckily they were very nice about it. But I couldn't. I couldn't move, like that's how sick I was. And so I missed the first part of the draft, and so I woke up to find out that they took like Toppin. I had passed out, and so it wasn't even like I wasn't even watching it live. I just woke up and that was like the first thing that jumped out was that they had Toppin, and I was like, oh, and look, he might be fine, but the fact that I had one trolled you about him and two fallen in love with Haliburton. And then Devin Vassell was the other guy where I thought people might have led a mutiny if he was taken in that spot, but I actually I think he's going to be one of the guys who's really good out of this class. So it was it was just a perfect storm of you know, karmic retribution, I think for me trolling you for so long about the topic. Yes, yes, it was. It was perfect retribution. Perfect And you know what, the universe saved you that day. That the universe saved you that day because I had you seen that live, being as sick as it was, it might have the shock might have killed you. And look, the other thing is the horner to the reason they don't have vern Carry Jr. Either, who's like sort of intriguing. And so that's like just too many too many doses of me me being given mine on draft night apparently. But yeah, thank you so much, Connaught. I will talk to you soon. This was great as always, really appreciate the time, absolutely mad I talk to you sim