What is track lack and fellow thermony Here a effort high and damn valley coming
out. You went my certified van aapolist co host mister Grant. Here's we
are beginning the offseason grade Trek, starting with I thinked the Southeast Division.
We did not clear this before we really read into the podcast. This is
a terrible prep, even though we both put in a bunch of prep for
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Grant, how the heck are you doing so good? Dan? I'm
happy to as usual, Like I sort of forgot everything that happened in the
draft and free agency because it was so so long ago. So this is
always helpful for me and to get to talk to you and doing it is
Is it just a nice added bonus? Are you ready to carry the multiple
podcasts that we're recording today as I run on fumes congested fumes. Yeah,
feel like I'm adding a D to everything I say. Like internally, I
just feel being added to everything I say. Well, speaking of should we
start with the Atlanta Hawks in the Southeast Division, Yes, I wanted to
go over the criteria that we used. Really, I don't know if I
just threw random grades on there. See people get mad. C is considered
a passing average grade, and it's I don't know how many cs are ultimately
gonna goll out collectively. Don't get mad if your team gotta see and I
think I graded it relative to what I thought within reason, they could have
done, where it's okay if you don't like that. The Houston Rockets,
who are not going to appear in this podcast, signed fred van Fleet,
who what is the move that they missed out on by doing that? And
then the other thing I struggled with, and we mentioned this at the top,
is how do you handle teams that did fundamental things and made these organizational
decisions that we don't necessarily agree with. Where the Bulls, who will not
be on this podcast either, everything they did in a vacuum was kind of
solid, but you thought that they should have torn it down, like do
you ding them? Did you ding them in your grade for that? I
think for me, like part of what makes this tricky is that ultimately it
kind of comes down to how closely did what the team actually you know,
how closely did the team's decisions align with like what I would have done if
I were in charge, you know, which is that presupposes that I have
any idea what I'm doing and I know how to run an NBA team,
which is not the case. But like that's kind of the starting point,
right because you're just grading it against that that price is in all the well,
what could they have done, how much should they have paid this guy?
Should they have paid this guy at all? That's just you know,
you're basing it on like the overall NBA market and like what other players went
for and things like that. But it ultimately is just kind of like would
I have done this, you know how and how much does this deviate from
what I would have done where I in the position of the you know,
head decision maker. So like that's that's the big grain assault here, I
think for the grades. But yeah, it really it does for me and
encompasses like what were the team's opportunities, what's the team trying to do as
nearly as we can discern that, and then in terms of like are they
trying to get better? Are they tearing it down or are they trying to
make you know, a run from a playing team to the sixth seed or
whatever? Are they contending like, and then you try to minimize like how
much you think their direction is like good or bad or right or wrong,
and then kind of frame the decisions and grade based on like, well,
if that was the goal, how well did they you know, sort of
pursue it. That's kind of I mean, that's long winded it, but
that that's sort of how I went about it. But again, but like
you, a sea is not a bad grade. A sea is like this
is you know, not the meme. But like this is fine. You
you did, you did well. Nothing's on fire. Most likely nothing's on
fire if you got to see anything below that, like you might have some
issues. But yeah, I think I think we approached it pretty pretty similarly.
And unlike last year, we're not going to list off every transaction.
We're trying to talk about the big bullet points or someone. If we think
the other person forgot something, we will do that. And if you think
we forgot something, you're free to get at us. On on socials,
do you want to you want to start us off with the Southeast Atlanta Hawks.
Yeah, so just the basics here, uh, in no particular order.
Drafted Kobe Buffkin at fifteen, Traded John Collins finally mercifully to the Jazz
for Fruity Gay in a future second, which okay, we'll talk about that
some more trade exception they're not going to use. You can mentioned that.
This is why, this is why we need you to chime in, because
I did not put the trade exception on my some it's to be fair.
I think it's immaterial because they're not they're not going to use the twenty three
million dollars traded players. In some cases that would be material. That's a
big you know, that's that's not not for not for the Kings of we're
going to pay the tax, but not really right, We're going to pay
the tax, but not really uh s being of paying signed to Jean Tay
Murray to an extension four years. The range is like I think I'm looking
at it as like one hundred and fourteen million, but it can go a
little higher. There's a player option on the last year there they had.
The Hawks had a complicated multi team trade where they got a bunch of guys
tight Ty Washingtons, Mangaruba. Ultimately they ended up with Patty Mills. Basically
is what you need to know from all that and unless like that's that's West
Matthews. They signed for the minimum. Anything I missed there that you would
you know, label as noteworthy. You kind of directed us towards sort some
of the like broader issues that we should probably discuss about the Hawks, like
what's the plan, how how willing are they to spend and like where do
they where do they think there they are in the East, and did they
do enough to you know, get there. We know they botched the John
Collins situation, and this was all done in service for the most part,
getting out Even if you think John Collins is deals in that negative, which
is fair to believe at this point, as much as we have conviction that
he is still a good basketball player, this was all done in service or
just ducking the tax, and that always rubs me the wrong way. Now,
are they good enough to pay the tax? I don't know. I
do think they hit a home run with the Jon Murray extension. However,
because of that extension, you're now sort of rolling these same problems in the
next offseason where it's all right with Trey and Murray making a little bit more,
and we have Bargdanovitch on the books, and we have we have Clint
Cappela, and there's gonna be DeAndre Hunter too, And what's gonna happen with
some of these guys who are are extension ledible that will be thinking about their
next deals. This feels like a team that's going to be straddling the luxury
tax line, trying to play that game a little too long. And it
feels like I look at this roster and believe so all they've kind of done,
is kicked the can and next summer we'll be talking about, oh did
they dump Clint Capella because like they have on Yaka Kungu coming up. I
that all aside. I'm not the whole John they boxed the John Collins situation.
I don't if you want to look at the the TPE is like this
massive win for them to if they want to make an acquisition at the beginning
of next summer. Maybe not, it probably won't be this season. Sure,
I don't think that they are any better right than they were at the
start of this asset. And you really have to believe that Kobe Buffkin is
gonna come in and be great, and I do like his abilities to finish
her at the rim. Where does he fit in to this guard rotation?
Just so you have Trey Young and de Jontay Murray and a Bardanovitch. So
I was thoroughly unimpressed with their offseason. I don't know what moves they've left
on the table, but for them to identify that their biggest goal was to
not get better, but to upkeep their books. If I'm a fan,
it's just really disappointed because they didn't even chase upgrades and then the final thing
I'll say is this the maybe saving grace is they've been linked to Pascal Siakam,
and so it seems like they're willing to give up Adrian Griffin, AJ
Griffin, excuse me, and DeAndre Hunter and stuff to get Siakam. Maybe
that would change the context of the grade, although it would be you know,
they would be sacrificing a lot of floor spacing there for a team that
has to work on its outside shop profile already. How much so the John
Collins thing is interesting to me because you know, that was his market value
turned out to be at the time they decided to trade him, or at
the time they decided you know, they were able to or had to not
very good Like Rudy Gay in a second, that's that's not great. How
much do you hold the fact that like Collins was even on the team long
enough for his value to decline to that point against the Hawks for this offseason,
because you know what I mean, like, there was a time where
probably they could have traded him for a first or more than that, and
they didn't. And this will come up in a lot of other teams too.
It's you know, did the did the move they made with Collins this
you know, this past month, like that's that's not a good move,
but it looks way worse because of what theoretically they could have traded him for.
I just don't know how to kind of weigh that. So I wonder
how you think about it. I think because we're talking, at least to
some extent about a previous front office regime that decided to marginalize him with some
of the talent that was coming in. I don't know how much you hold
it against them, but this front office definitely had a strong voice during the
middle of the season, and so to not move John Collins at the trade
deadline and then settle for this where it was a salary dumb like it was,
it was just a straight salary dumb for them. I feel like that's
a pretty big with on there, and they didn't have as much time,
but they had the same information that Travish Lank was working with for all these
years, and they just the Hawks kept putting people on top of him in
the offensive pecking order, which has never made sense. Yeah you want to
get to the grade for this team, Yeah, where'd you end up?
With them? So the Hawks were five hundred last year. They to me,
they did not get better. You said this, so it's a D
plus and I think it's probably it could be lower if not for the Murray
extension, which is, you know, that's not a it's not an insignificant
amount of money, but I think it's it's less than I didn't think a
Murray extension was realistic, and we've talked about this a little bit. So
to get it done, and get it done at a number that you know
is at least reasonable and might actually be like an objectively good deal like value
wise, that bumps them up from what could have been a D or you
know, a D minus even I think to me, yeah, I went
with a D plus as well. I wanted to go lower, but I
like, I think the Buffkin pick was reasonable because I like him. I
just don't know his path to succeeding in Atlanta, which sort of muddied it
for me. But I really like the Jante Murray session. Like like you
said, I did not expect that to happen. I just assumed he was
going to hit the open market. Yeah, Wichard, bring us to the
Boston or not. The Charlotte Hornets staying in the division. The big notes
for them, drafted Brandon Miller at number two, drafted Nick Smith Junior at
number twenty seven. They Miles Bridges signed his qualifying offer. He'll now be
at unrestricted free agent next summer, and he has an implicit no trade clause.
His bird rights will not transfer if they decided to trade him. They
did trade number thirty four, number thirty nine for number thirty one James Naji,
and they signed the mellow. Despite the reporting on this, it's a
five year, two hundred and five point nine million dollars extension. There are
no player options, and there is language that can bring the total value to
thirty five percent of the cap, but it is not worth thirty percent of
the cap right off the bat, as was initially reported. The other notes
on them is sort of what's yet to be done. Kelly Ubray Junior remains
unsigned, and then PJ. Washington RFA he remains unsigned. And then in
so far as this matters, I don't think it can, but it's a
note. Michael Jordan sold the team to Gave Plotkin and Rick Stall for about
three billion dollars, so he is no longer the majority owner of the Charlotte
Hornets, any sort of prevailing themes for you coming off of their offseason.
I don't know about prevailing. I mean, it's kind of disappointing, I
guess is the word that comes to mind. I do think. I think
the sale of the team is a you know, ownership is such a big
deal, and what we know from the last you know, several years is
that Michael Jordan as an owner has not presided over a team that has won
a lot of games or made a lot of decisions that people around the league
would say, oh, you know, they really got like look what they
did there. There's not a lot of praise I don't think for sort of
any managerial aspect of the Hornets for as long as he's been in charge.
So I think that's a real positive potentially, even though you don't have any
idea about the willingness of the new ownership Rick no on gay Plot can I
forget if you mentioned them to spend or like who they're going to bring in
to make decisions. That's all kind of up in the air. But when
you know that the status quo is as bad as it is, like almost
any change feels like an upgrade. Just by default, So that's about the
only and I think just tracking back up through some of the real big points,
I'm okay with the LaMelo extension. I just don't know what else they
were going to do there. It seemed like that was just going to be
the going rate. And he's been an All Star, he hasn't had much
around him, you know, supporting talent wise, so it's hard to be
sure this is a great deal. And I think the other problem is he
will probably continue to not have a lot around him in terms of supporting talent,
so you might get one or two years into this and still really not
be sure that that was worth it. But you're kind of stuck with that,
so no problem there. Drafting this is super risky and stupid because rookies
in the draft is who knows what's going to happen. We won't get answers
forever. But I think drafting Brandon Miller at two is a massive mistake.
I think Scott Henderson was the pick there. I don't care if LaMelo is
on the team and you've committed to him with this level of years and dollars,
so I won't get to the grade yet, but I'm disappointed in like
the main move, which was the draft. Disappointed that this team does not
project to be like much. I guess they'll be better because Bridges will be
back and LaMelo maybe will be healthy, but like not in a meaningful way.
So this kind of left me pretty empty their offseason. The Miller thing,
again is just that that's just there's people. The knock on him is
there's not superstar upside, and I think Scott Henderson just like he's got superstar
superstar upside, like falling out of his pockets, like he's just it's everywhere.
I think that's the biggest thing to dig them for at this point.
I think the LaMelo extensions fine. It's probably a win for the team that
they didn't get a player option in or that Romelo didn't get a player option
excuse me. And you're gonna be happy to pay him the full boat if
he qualifies for the thirty five percent max, because that means he's everything that
you need him to be. I also, you know the Miles Bridges stuff.
He has ten games left to serve on his suspension for pleading no contest
to Helpy domestic violence charges. I don't know what from the just the strictly
basketball perspective, as callous as that sounds, to make that transition, I
don't actually know what else they were supposed to do with him. How do
you pay him real money after he wasn't with your team in the previous year.
And so I don't know that I actually could fault them for not having
Miles Bridges on a long term deal. And now they're are we's going to
be a UFA and they can't really get value for about the trade market.
So I didn't factor that in too much. And even the PJ. Washington
delay, I don't know what necessarily the weight is. What's the number being
tossed around. That's there's a level of incompleteness to their off season, But
I think that the meat and potatoes of their off season was making the decision
to choose brand and mill Or over Scoot Henderson, who might be a better
fit. But when you're at that position to the draft, when you're at
this position to your development, you don't go with the better depth chart fit.
You go with the player who has higher upside, and that Scoot.
And so I was pretty harsh on them. I gave them a D for
my grade because I'm that big of a believer that Scoot Henderson is going to
be this generational point guard for it. Like if you told me right now,
I could have John Morand or Scoot Henderson, Like I'm gonna go with
Scoot Henderson. That's how much of a believer. And so there's very much
eye of the beholder stuff going on here, and I don't I want to
make it clear the free agency process any trades. I don't think they missed
out on anything. I don't think they whipped on anything in the free agency
market yet. But the fact that the PJ. Washington stuff is still floating
around out there and they're playing either playing hardball or what are they waiting for?
Here? Are they exploring side in trade scenarios that we haven't heard about.
I just it's a D because they're so unfinished. And I think the
big thing here for me is that Grede a loan is basically you should have
went with Scoot. Yeah. I don't have a lot different to say other
than I originally had it as a D minus than when you said D,
and I switched it to a D as I was thinking about the ownership thing,
which is a positive, and then I went back to D minus because
you said D just to be different from you, So we're very much in
the same in the same range there, So D minus for me, I
would just go I will say, this will be and we'll eventually do our
It'll probably later, since I'm gonna try and take some time off in a
little bit. It'll be fascinating to go back and look at how this team
does in our regrades next offseason. I mean, it's very That's that's the
thing. That's the risk, right is like maybe Brandon Miller is just really
good right away and and Scoot struggles a little bit, Like this is the
thing. This is probably the well we've only done two but for quite a
while, this is gonna be the grade that I'm gonna feel like least comfortable
about because it's based on like such an unknown, which is the quality of
a rookie drafted one spot after another. Just like we're not gonna it's it's
risky, all right, Miami Heat, that's our next team in this division.
The basics here. Drafted Heimahawk as junior at number eighteen. Treated Victor
Oladipo to the Thunder for a couple of future seconds salary dump essentially lost Max
Strews to the Calves structured as a sign and trade for a future second lost.
Gave Vincent to the Lakers for was like three and three for thirty three
basically or three for thirty two, So lost two starters there. Kevin Love
is back two years just under eight million with a player option, got Josh
Richardson for the minimum and Thomas Bryant for the minimum notably. And then we
just don't know what's going to happen with the Damian the Lord stuff. So
this this we've said a little bit of incompleteness for the Hornets, but like
this entire thing is incomplete for the Heat right now, because if they get
Dame then everything changes. But that that's where they are now. That I
miss anything there or anything that you want to you want to hit on as
like, uh, you know, just jump right into you know what you
think the big issues are for this offseason. You mentioned gay Vincent left for
three years and thirty three, right, I didn't hear that one. Yeah,
yeah, I mean this is it's it's a level of incomplete but as
of right now, so yes, there's an incomplete A TV D. Let's
see how that Damian Lillard stuff goes here. And I don't want to spoil
the plots much, but how do you give this team anything more than a
D minus right now? Like I like Kimie Hawks a lot, but they
cut costs by looking at what they did with and that's fine. Oldip was
probably not gonna play the way that package was structured. Though. By the
way, it's just like, oh, they gave up twenty nine and thirty
second round picks. It's like, are you paying an advanced fee on adjusting
the protections on that first round pick that's owed? Okay see with the Damian
Lillard trade goes through just because the value that okay see got for Davis Bertad's
taking on his money is like, I think it's worse than the value they
got for taking on not like the one guaranteed year of Victor Oladipo to get
those distant seconds. And so I just you lost two players who were monster
parts of your playoff rotation. You can say that Duncan Robinson's offensive renaissance during
the postseason helps you offset Max Strus's departure. You're not a team that was
like an exceptional floors basing team to begin with, even though you're shooting,
did kind of take up towards the end of the year. And Max Shrews
is a better defender than Nuncan Robinson. So you've put strain on that part
of your rotation. Now you've also put strain on probably your offense and then
your defense by like, Okay, gave Vinson is gone and there's Kyle Lowry's
there. He's getting older. Tyler Hero is gonna be healthy. You haven't
alleviated I would say the burden on Jimmy Butler and bam Adebio at all defensively,
let alone when we're looking at offensive creation. That's still the fact that
they have Tyler Hero. That doesn't bug me as much. And I think
Kyle Lowry kind of in turn it on, but like he wasn't this train
wreck for all of last season. The Josh Chrichardson deal that was actually probably
my favorite part of their offseason. I can't believe they got him for the
minimum. I just I look at this team. They were a playing team
to begin with. They had to strike lightning in a bottle, and good
for them, they clearly there. We joke about it but they are hashtag
built different. When you get to the postseason, that's all great. You
still need to eat innings in the regular season, and you weren't good enough
to win the title this year. That was very much clear when you went
up against the Nuggets. Again, it's an incomplete but you've bet a lot
on the idea that this player who is not yours yet is going to be
yours soon. And the money that they let these guys leave for was money
they could have paid, and it was eminently reasonable from a team perspective.
And again I wanted to give them an F just because you just made the
finals and now there's like this huge pullback. But I actually like him hockeys,
and I really think I don't know how much you can wait. This
be like Josh Richardson at the minimum is one of the best signings of the
summer. Yeah, I think that's all fair. I did give him an
F, but it's F slash incomplete just because if Damian Lillard is on this
roster and it doesn't cost you anybody that you really project to be a huge
rotation piece other than I guess Tyler Hero. Actually, I mean, I
don't know how high I don't know how about this as a thought exercise,
say they get Damian Lillard for the rumored package, which is they get a
bunch of picks to get other they move Hero for another pick, and then
that's the package. You give up, Yovitch, you give up who else
is going? I can't even remember what the what the parameters are like if
if they get Damian Lillard in a packt you know, for what is the
basic idea of what we think that trade will eventually look like? Where are
we are? We? Are we at a B? Are we at an
A? Are we? Because the team is? I mean you've bled if
you so theoretically you add Lillard, you've lost Vincent Strus and Hero probably right,
I mean Almoll definitely those You're not getting the other two back and Hero
seems to have to go to a third team to get this done. You're
definitely better on the top end. But man like Josh Richardson agree great signing.
Suddenly Josh Richardson is like really important for the right Like he's does he
I don't know if he starts, but he's gonna play. He's in their
top eight for sure, and that's I don't know that's that's that's tough.
I doubt what I guess. What I'm saying is if you get Dame,
I'm not sure you get an A for the offseason still, you know,
because like you could have. I mean, in theory, there was nothing
stopping you from keeping these guys and then turning around and training for Dave.
This was this was a cost cutting maneuver. That's why they for the most
part, I would imagine let those guys go. That's why you paid to
get rid of Victor Oladipo, is that you wanted the flexibility. What are
they What do we have about relative to the to the tax next season?
I should look at that, But like that was just a severe cost cutting
maneuver by their part. And maybe it all works out because you have Dame.
But there so there were they seven minute seven million into the tax.
I think it looks like are by looking at the wrong season, I got
a thirty four million over the cap team salary of one seventy with the tax
line at one sixty five point two. So yeah, they're five five million
plus into the tax based on what I'm looking at. So they didn't want
to pay a high tax bill for this team, which is that's their prerogative.
I just that's a fair question. I didn't even think of that.
Is what happens if and when they do pull off the Damian Millar trade.
Maybe a lot of it goes into are you not giving up as many picks
or swaps as we're talking about, or are you keeping him hockeys? Perhaps?
But yeah, I would say, based on the package that we think
it would take to get them, I think you could elevate them to like
a B plus. Maybe you can't just give them a flatta for that though,
I don't think they can get there. Do we want to move on
to the Orlando Magic? Yes? Cliff notes on them, They drafted Anthony
Black att number six. They drafted Jet Howard at number eleven. They traded
number thirty six Andre Jackson Junior to Milwaukee for cash in a twenty thirty second
rounder. They signed Joe Ingles to a two year twenty two million dollar contract
that'll be a team option on year two. And they resigned Moe Wagner to
a fully guaranteed two year, sixteen million dollar contract. They also did,
as far as anybody cares, they waved. They waved bull Bull's got punched
to everyone except Phoenix Suns fans, What are you thinking coming out of their
off season? Grant again, like we've just been killing these teams. But
I don't. I don't love Anthony Black at six. I don't love Jed
Howard at eleven. I think this is a harder one for me, though,
because the counter I'm not giving this team a good grade. I'll just
say that the counter is like what should they have done? Or like what
opportunities were there that they didn't pursue? And that's a harder question to answer,
So I'll concede that this is a little I don't know, maybe I'm
asking too much, but this was a team that had to me, and
we've harped on this forever, like pretty clear needs you need shooting from some
of your guards. Anthony Black does not do that. Jet Howard I think
can. But I mean again, like he was the number eleven pick,
how much is he going to play? Almost certainly he's going to be like
a net negative contributor to winning. And this is a team the magic I
think that we both believe, just based on the talent that's already in place,
should definitely be like in the playoff mix. I think we both expect
them to get better. Tell me if you disagree. So I just I
was uninspired by almost everything they did. You can talk yourself into Ingles being
someone that may make sense as like a pick and roll operator that will make
open threes. I'm not sure, you know, that's just not the same
thing as finding like where were they on VanVleet. You know, maybe that
just they just weren't going to get there with the with the salary. But
they don't need a point guard, even though they drafted one. They they
need they all they need is someone like six five or under that can make
an open shot. That would be that would be my uh my advice.
So I'll I guess i'll I'll just say this is another D for me.
I just don't think a team that had every reason to try to get better
in very obvious areas, I just don't think you can reward them for not
doing that. So if if Black, you know, streamlines a shot,
and he's obviously super talented at like basically everything else, but if he comes
comes along more quickly than I expect or of Howard is just like a knockdown
guy, then maybe that changes, but as of now, the Magic just
to me, it did not get meaningfully better. And I think, you
know, they were one of the teams that had the opportunity to do that
because they did there was you know, time there where they had cap space
and there were not a lot of teams with that, and they had pretty
clear needs and they didn't they didn't use that space to fill them. Maybe
I'm gone soft. I went with a c here. I actually really like
Anthony Black. I hate his fit in Orlando, But as I talked about
with Charlotte in the in an attempt to be semi consistent, is are the
Magic at the point where they should be drafting for fit at that point?
I mean, who was the pick? I actually really like Taylor Hendricks,
maybe even more than Anthony Black. You already have all these other forwards,
but I've gone with Taylor Hendricks. If I'm them, I would have considered
it. But I think he Black has the higher upside as someone who profiles
as this ball handler and look shooting. You can get it later and you
can surround him with shooting. And you do have Mark kel Faults going into
the final year of his deal. You only know what the future is gonna
hold col Anthony. I think he's extension knowledgeable this summer, so I'm open
to the idea that maybe it works. So you don't have a lot of
wing size players on this team, like true wing size players, and Black
is one you could mix and max some of those positions and what he's gonna
bring for you defensively to a team that was basically they were like eleventh in
points thought per possession for most of last season. When you filter out garbage
time, that's a big deal. I don't know how much better the offense
gets with Jet Howard. Right away, I will say I would have went
with Grady Dick. I was just gonna ask you that, like, why
not Grady Dick there? When you're shooting needs are so pronounced that I consider
going C minus D because I actually thought, get the shooter that has some
size there. I even thought about, is this a team? And I
don't know if I'm kind of letting what we saw from summer league color this
from me? Is this a team that should have if they wanted to go
to guard route like Cason Wallace would have made a lot of sense here,
but he didn't have a great summer league performance and if you wanted someone with
more size. I don't know what they missed out on, so it's like
it's based purely off the draft. They did nothing. I don't think to
move their needles substantially, at least in the immediate term. Long term,
I'm open to this idea that, Wow, Anthony Black would be really good.
They'll surround him Frauds and Pala Bay Carol with a bunch of shooting.
Or is it even a matter of those three players Wendell carter Ye, who's
probably about a plush shooter at his position, throw one more shooter on the
court, Withever. That lineup is just going to hum. It's not gonna
be faults. It's not gonna be Gary Harris in that instance. So maybe
it's jale and Suggs who develops as a shooter. They did not inspire me
this offseason, but I don't think they missed out on anything, and I
like the idea of Look, Joe Eagles won't lease space the floor. He's
probably overrated as a picket role player at this point. He will turn the
ball over a lot in those situations. But it's a one year deal and
even though I saw some people were just like nepotism of under He got sixteen
million guaranteed. He was really useful for them for a lot of last season.
I think that's a tick overpaid. But if you want this team to
eventually make this wing, you need some of these salaries that you can stack
together. And if you want to look at it through that vein, nothing
they did inspired me, and I'm so curious to see how Anthony Black fits
in right off the bat. I just don't think they did anything damning.
If there was a move where it was, oh, Fred VanVleet would have
gone to the Magic for X. Like I, this is not the team
that I would have said, give Fred VanVleet the two year max because they
didn't have that cap space available. They would have had to create it,
and so no one within the numbers that they had. Of consequence, seems
like they were going to go there. Yeah, that's fair. You're you're
making me want to move this up. I'm gonna move it up to a
D plus. You've sold me, so you're at a D plus marking these
down. We're trying to hold ourselves accountable this time next year, all right,
As a favor to you since you're sick, I would all do the
Washington Wizards summary here because there's a lot going on. If we're ready to
move on here. Yes, it's also your turn to be fair. I
appreciated I said Dan as a favor to you. We're gonna leave it as
that. Not that I forgot already what order we're going in. Okay,
busy offseason for the Wizards. I guess you'd start with they fired Tommy Shepherds
and they changed the top decision makers. It's always tricky to gauge. This
is a little easier for me than judging like what an ownership change means,
but it's still kind of like what what does this really suggest? Although the
Wizards definitely started acting very differently once they had a new person making decisions,
Michael Winger is that man. So Bradley Bill gone to the Suns for four
first round swaps, six second Chris Paul Andry Shammont, and some cash.
Paul then flipped to the Warriors for Jordan Pool, Patrick Baldwin, junior,
Ryan Rawlins, and a like joke of a twenty thirty first round pick that
has the top twenty protections that one of the worst first round picks to be
acquired in Like, what's I'm trying to remember what was the last top twenty
protected first round pick that was traded. I'm terrible or remembering this stuff,
but it's there can't have been many that were like less valuable. I put
them in my trade articles all the time, and I'm like, let's just
top twenty two protect this to make it seem like it's a real I don't
remember the last one that was So if anyone remembers, get at us,
because well, because this can't roll over because it's so far in the future,
so if it doesn't convey, it turns into seconds or just goes away.
So like the Hornets had that top eighteen protected one at one point,
but I think that kept rolling over and the picks were, like other protections
were loosened a little bit. So this is exceedingly worse. Also, a
twenty seven second round pick, which is I think probably objectively a more valuable
asset somehow than a top twenty first round from twenty thirty also traded. Chris
aps porzingis essentially got back Tias Jones, uh den't Old Gallinari and Mike Muscala
and then number thirty five pick. Then traded Monte Morris to Detroit for a
twenty twenty seven second rounder. Love that on Detroit side. We'll talk about
that at some point. UH drafted Bilal Coolabali, sold number fifty seven to
the Warriors for two million dollars. That's a good piece of business. UH
resigned Kyle Kuzma to a four year deal that I'm calling ninety million, just
because it seems like some of the escalators and other incentives can move it higher.
But it's it's at least going to be ninety So very busy offseason for
the Wizards. Revamp the entire team, change directions. UH much overdue,
but finally did it. I love this offseason for them. Did I miss
anything? Do you feel differently? Is there? Does the Kuzma contract bother
you? If that's the only like negative thing you could really point to.
I think, in my opinion, if they have the negative? Did we
have the Monte Morris trade in there? They did so much for a twenty
twenty seven second to the pick. I thought they sold a little low on
him, and I know they have some really nice size traded player exceptions floating
around now. They created a nine point four one for Monte Morris, they
created a twelve point four million dollars one for Persingius. They got a I
think like a five and a half million dollars one or something out of Bradley
Beal trade. I just thought Monte Morris, I know, Wizards fans didn't
really like him, like I thought he would be worth more than just like
this second round pick. So I thought they sold a little low. The
Kuzma deal is fine. It's four for ninety with twelve million dollars in incentives
that could bring it up to one oh two. He is not. Is
Kyle Kuzma on this team past the February trade deadline? No, And that's
why it's kind of fine for me because the numbers totally tradeable and he's still
had a We talk all the time about asset preservation like this is this to
me? Is what that is? Like? They can definitely move him.
You get a first for Kuzma like at that number, I think pretty easily.
So I loved even down to swinging on Balah Kolabali. Whereas hey,
here in the emfaty of your rebot, go with the he's raw on offense,
which he showed them real flashes in Summer League. And if he hits
like he might be your north star, he might be. I don't know
that you could have said that about Jaris Walker or Taylor Hendrix was still the
board at that point. So I applaud basically everything they did. And I
know some people were taken aback by how little they got for Bradley Beal,
sending him to a team that had no first round picks to offer. That's
on Tommy Sheppard and Ted Leonsis to be clear who was ragging about that no
trade class for Bradley Beal. That's what forced their hand to make the decision
to go this route. There was real value in there, and I think
some of the stuff we could quibble over did they give up too little Vermonte?
Like did they get too little Vermonte? Morris? Okay, even porzingis
that last front office held on to him for too long, like you just
weren't in the I don't know who was gonna pay him this summer if he
had opted out, It's like maybe they could have played hardball a little bit
more there. But if you don't view him as part of your program,
and then there weren't better offers out there. But I could say I could
you couldn't wonder, Okay, well, why didn't they kind of play a
little bit more difficult there, like why was he just given up so readily
for such a low price point? I guess you could also say, as
someone who is not high on Jordan Pool, would you've been better off just
with Chris Paul's expiring contract? You want the bite at the apple of Jordan
Pool for a fake first round pick, Caledo. If the Warriors can made
that first round pick pole teams, we'll be happy because it means that the
Warriors are still good all the way out. Then then the Wizards get this
extra first round pick. So I went with a B plus for what they
did, just because there were some minor quibbles that I had, But this
was a I could even be talked into an A minus. This was a
caps oft fan pastic season for the Wizards because of what it just says about
what they're doing, and that's finally rebuilding, doing something other than angling.
For you know, the seventh or eighth or ninth best record in the Eastern
Conference, and that's a that's a big deal. Yeah, so I did
one thing I did neglect to mention they hired Will Dawkins as general manager.
So this is just like, this is like an okay, see minded front
office just up and down, which I think is pretty pretty clearly a good
thing to be in terms of how you're gonna run your team. So this
is an a minus for me, and that is I don't have any any
quibble with your point about like, yeah, that seems like a little bit
you know, light for a return for Monte Morris. You know there were
there were like moves they could have made sooner, but again that's not on
this offseason. It's just like, well, yeah, to be clear,
that didn't factor to buy No, it was I would have just been like
while at Monte, I don't care how many guards I have. Let Monte
horse roll into the season and see if someone else gets desperate. And I
think this will shock nobody. I think I think it's worth it to take
a crack at Pool just because even though that contract might be whatever, over
SGA forever right forever, he you know, he'll be better in Washington than
he was in Golden State. I'm pretty confident of that I don't know if
that's the same thing as saying he's a winning player all of a sudden,
especially like he's gonna cook this year, like he is going to have a
lot of time on the ball and that'll bring to the four all the good
and bad of the whole Jordan Pool experience. So it's an A minus for
me just because the macro stuff, like, oh my god, finally we're
like operating in a rational way. We're mimicking what smart teams have been doing
forever and we're not just you know, obsessed with mediocrity and really what's been
like sub mediocrity and paying through the nose for it. So it's an a
minus because I think they just got the big stuff right, and like none
of the trades they made were perfect, Like you know, there's there's room
to criticize all of them, but they made the trades so that that that
does it for me for them, gets them there. So I got a
whole bunch of like d's and terrible grades and the Wizards come out with an
A minus for me in this division. Or did you have any issues with
the Kuzma contractors because you asked me about it before No, I was just
curious because it does. I mean, it's the only the only guy they
brought back really and and it wasn't cheap. But I think I'm not the
biggest Kuzma fan, but I think that's a totally reasonable number for what he
is and what his value as a trade chip would be, which is how
how I view him, because like is, he's very much at which one
of these things doesn't belong if you just line up their roster, he doesn't.
He's not going to be on this team for very long. We did
the Southeast and under forty minutes. I don't feel like every division is going
to be that efficient for us. But do you want to take us out
of here? Yeah? Seems unlikely. As as always think everybody who listen,
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But then, last, last, but certainly not least, apologies to Jaredan