Bobby Marks on Harden, Team USA, and the One Question Zach would ask Ben Simmons

Welcome to the low post podcast in September. It's been a while. Nothing happened. Well, something's kind of happened, but really nothing happened, James Harden. Still a sixer, still unhappy, repeating for emphasis that he will never play for a team with Daryl Mori involved again. Let me repeat that, Bobby Marks. I shall not will not ever play for a team with Daryl Mori again. Still a sixer, Damien Lillard, still a trailblazer that Miami Heat still waiting for the phone to ring, looking at the phone, looking for Joe Cronin's collar ID to come up. Nope, still, no, it's not him still not in TV. I say lost to Lithuania cares. We beat Italy today by a million points. We're in the semi finals. We're in the Olympics with what is I don't want to be rude about it, but kind of our B team, or B plus A minus team, the A team is laying in wait for Paris 2024. France, hosts of those Olympics in 2024, pooped right out of the group stage. Rudy Gobert, I think had like four points in the entire freaking thing. That wasn't great. They get Wim Banyama, though, and maybe Joel and Beade, who knows, I don't know. There's a lot to talk, oh, and Yannis. Yannis said some stuff, Bobby Marks. How are you? I'm good. It's the first week of September, better known as for those guys who's asked to be traded. Oh, my. I have three weeks and I have to come to training camp. That's what some people want to bring their kids back to school, or they've already brought their kids back to school. But for the Damian Lillard, James Hardin's other world, they're looking at the calendar, saying, oh, boy, media day is three weeks away, and I've got to go to training camp. Do you run into Jimmy Butler at all? Do you also open? No. The sheets were not in the same area where Jimmy Butler was. I didn't have the same access. You know, here's my tennis take. I like that the US Open Crowd is a little borish, okay? And I don't have any sympathy for the players who are like, oh, my God, there's so noisy and impolite. They don't know how to be proper tennis fans. Someone made a noise while I was trying to serve. How could I possibly execute my toss that I've done four million times with somebody burping in the crowd? I like the borish fans. Are you a borish fan? You make a little noise in there? Oh, I love it. We were on the grandstand watching Ben Shelton, who was the up and coming youngster, played mixed doubles and it felt like you were at a rock concert. It was tremendous. Like it was great. The atmosphere was great. You're going to the ash. It's a little bit more of a, you know, don't sit down until the point of, you know, the change of point. And so no, I'm not a, I'm not a, I'm not a heckler. I'm not a heckler, but I, I, I, I enjoy cheering on. Let's start with James Hardin, who while I was blissfully chilling out in Croatia called Darryl Mori a liar and vowed twice that he would never play for a team that Darryl Mori is involved with ever again. Of course, Darryl Mori is the president of the basketball operations of the Philadelphia 76ers and James Hardin is on the Philadelphia 76ers and it will have to report to Philadelphia 76ers training camp in a matter of weeks. The NBA then reopened an investigation into, or I guess, opened a second investigation into James Hardin's entanglement with the Philadelphia 76ers. And according to the reporting and what has now been made public, a, find James Hardin $100,000 for what the NBA deemed approaching the level of a public trade request and signaling that there was at least one type of team that he would never, ever go to. And this comes on the heels of course, the memo they sent about Damien Lillard's agents trying to dissuade teams that are not the Miami Heat from training for Damien Lillard. And then according to the reporting, the investigation, robust investigation found that James Hardin's source of anger, his motivation for calling Darryl Mori a liar, his motivation for his declaration that he will not play for Darryl Mori's team ever again, was based on a, the notion that he expected or was told that he would be traded very quickly after stunningly opting into his contract for $35 million on July 1st. And of course, has not been traded. And so that is where we are with James Hardin. I will just open the floor to you. Well, before I do that, people of course remember that James Hardin signed a 1 plus 1 with the Philadelphia 76ers in the offseason of 2022 and a number significantly lower than his max. I believe $12 million lower, Bobby, that just so happened to have given the 76ers the flexibility to sign PJ Tucker in Daniel House, former Rockets with James Hardin to contracts of various exception amounts. The NBA did investigate that whole series of events, docked to Sixers, two second-round draft picks, not pointedly, not for promising James Hardin any pot of gold at the end of that 1 plus 1 rainbow, but instead for negotiating early with PJ Tucker and Daniel House Jr. If the NBA's current slash recent investigation is indeed concluded with that $100,000 fine, it was never explicitly stated that that fine marked the end of the investigation, Bobby, but my educated assumption is that that was it. And there has still been no finding that the 76ers either in the 2022 offseason or during the 2022-23 season with James Hardin's opt-in opt-out looming made any sort of explicit agreement or promise to pay him any sort of maximum contract of any length or any kind of contract at all. And so that's where we are, unhappy James Hardin, I'll leave the floor open for you. What are your takeaways from this whole soap opera and or what do you expect to happen in the next plot twist of the soap opera? I would say that an investigation is never concluded. It's never finalized as far as, you know, as far as they can say he's been fined, I'm just going back to my dad. This is why I have asked the NBA pointedly, is it over? No, haven't gotten any clear in here. And here's why, and I'm going to go back to 2013 when I was in Brooklyn when we got investigated for Andre Kirlinco. And remember, Kirlinco had opted out of, I think it was like $10 million and we signed them for the tax middle level at that point, it was like three and when you have a Russian owner and a guy leaves $7 million on the table, you're going to get investigated, right? Like that's the reality of it. And I remember because I was the point person when the leaks sent the notice, they sent a letter, right? And I remember getting the letter saying we have found that the, you know, the Brooklyn nets have found no wrongdoing, they're not going to be fine. There's no draft pick penalties. However, this investigation is not, you know, this is not final. Like if we find any more information down the road, we will reopen the investigation. I have, I have been told that that we always reserve the right, something new comes across our desk to reopen an investigation, even into the same specific discrete topic that we already investigated. Yeah. You know, they were, you know, docked, you know, two second out picks a year ago and all of a sudden, like, let's say, you know, when James Hardin goes, you know, goes national and says that, you know, Dalmora is a liar, you know, the league is looking at it. What is he lying about, right? Was he lying about, was there a contract promised? Was there a trade? I think, you know, Hardin's belief is that certainly when he opted in that he was eventually going to be traded. I don't know any general manager that would tell a player, yes, we are going to trade you. And no matter what, like, you know, I'm sure there was a conversation where it was like, we will trade you if it benefits us, like, that's the conversation that you're going to have. And I think with, with, with James Hardin, and we've talked about it, I, you know, with that, with the withholding services closets and collective bargaining, that's something that's not new. Like, I don't, like, I saw a lot of people write about, like, oh my God, the new CBA, the new CBA's got all this bite in it that, you know, there's just claws in there and stuff like, no, that's something that was there. Well, you know, I was the first one to write about it. And I said in that story, this is not a new clause that's been in there for a long time. And the clause to, to, to be clear for people who may not remember or know about it is, if you are in the final year of your contract, which James Hardin is and pointedly Ben Simmons was not when that situation happened. And you withhold services from your team for 30 plus days withholds. Now, I'm not sure exactly when the clock on that starts. Maybe you know that team has the ability to block you from entering free agency, the, the following offseason, or signing with any team anywhere in any league on earth that pays you money to play basketball. So James Hardin is coming to camp. His representatives now know about that clause if they didn't before they probably did. He's coming to camp. The only question is at whatever level is he coming to camp? Yeah. What, you know, his agent has been on a record saying that, you know, that just he feels that James Hardin is going to have an MVP type year now. Yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm just going to come out and say, I don't see that one happening, Bobby. Don't see, don't see James Hardin having being in the top three of the MVP. Yeah. I agree with you. And I think the clock starts. I believe it starts on training camp. You know, once, you know, that's basically the first day of official business when training camp opens and I guess what it's late, late September here. I think it's, I think it's interesting with, with Hardin in that, you know, we talked about the withholding clause and that, you know, basically, both sides need each other. I really do. I mean, I think if, for Philadelphia, if they're going to move them or for Philadelphia to be competitive this year, they're going to need something of value of James Hardin, either himself or something that's coming back in a trade. The Hardin situation is interesting just because we've put a lot of, or Philadelphia, I guess, has put a lot of eggs in the basket of cap space, right? We've, we've, you know, there's no Tyrese Maxxie extension because his, his, his free agent hold next year is at $13 million and they want to preserve room. What's interesting and I kind of did a little research on is that Darryl Morey, their, the president of the Sixers is not known for building rosters with cap space. Like, it's just not there. I mean, he's signed Dwight Howard, Ryan Anderson, Ergordon. Those are the three players that he has signed here. He's had cap space three times during his career, including back in, back in Houston here. And I'm writing something for, I think, for next week and I said, like, what filled out the has to be careful is that based on what happens with, you know, maybe guys like Pascal, Siacum, guys who are extension eligible, they might, they might be staring at the three top free agents, might be players on their own roster with Maxxie, Harden, and Tobias Harris. Like, you have to be, you know, I know Drew Holiday and we'll talk about him down a road and, you know, LeBron's got a, you know, what the player option and there's some other players, OG and an OB guys like that, but that's what you have to be careful. What is that? They're relying on $65 million in cap space or seven, you know, whatever the number is going to be, to go into free agency next year. And I think if you're going to move Harden, you want to go out and maybe go out and get guys that are under contract, right? Like expirings really don't do anything for you here. And it's, but for Harden, and I agree with you, Harden's got to come into camp. And I think, you know, there's no benefit of, you know, for him to basically sit out and hold out because we've, we've talked about the financial ramification then, you know, then there's the imbete factor, right? I mean, that's the, you know, that's this thing that's going to hang over. I just don't see this being a, what do we call it, a gap year, a bridge year to 2024. I don't see Joe imbete sitting through, he's like, you know what, I've got four years left. We're, I'm okay being the sixth seed. I'm okay being a play in team. I'm okay with two added the last three years of complete chaos, Ben Simmons two years ago. Now James Harden, because just because he's in your one of the supermax, as you know, doesn't mean, doesn't mean anything. So on cap space, Darryl Mori has gone on record and said, you know, the NBA is entering a period where there are just not going to be good teams with capsules. There's just even, even the, you know, Tim Bontemps, a few weeks gone, the hoop collective, kind of urged in a scorching take, a singing my eyebrows through my phone take, said the Cavaliers should trade down of a Mitchell because he's never going to sign an extension there. And, and the sort of the other end of that, which I don't believe Tim said was, well, the nicks are lurking as another place that he has historically wanted to go. The nicks are probably not going to have cap space to sign down of a Mitchell. So Darryl Mori has said, we want to be the only good team with cap space. That's a powerful weapon for us to your point about taking guys back under contract. If they decline options on everyone, including like Paul Reed's non-guarantee, if they just wipe away that and find a home for Tucker somehow as an 11 million dollar player option, they can take back in a James Harden trade like 30 million dollars of salary. So let's say a Norman Powell who's 20 plus 20 30 might be a little much actually because Powell plus man together gets them out of a max contract slot, but maybe 25 million and still have enough for one max slot, they don't have two max slots as we've talked about the Philly two max slot thing is a myth. They're close ish, but close doesn't get you to two max slots. So we'll talk about the Clippers who are really the only team that I think has really been in this. I know that Howard Beck and others have stated that there may be two or three other teams that have been sniffing, investigating, and certainly if you talk to the Sixers, they have sort of a reason to say, oh no, there's a broad, frothy James Harden market out there. I really don't think there is. I think it's been mostly the Clippers. I'm sure other teams have checked in, but we'll get back to them. So on the Sixers side, I have a couple of thoughts. Number one, I think you just sort of indirectly nailed it. Part of the reason why this has to be so frustrating for Philadelphia and their fans, probably even more for their fans, is that I'm looking at the Eastern Conference right now. And yeah, you know, we had a three to lead against Boston and blew it. Yeah, our two best players, as they have generally done, underperformed in the biggest, biggest game again, particularly Harden who had two great playoff games and just stinkers all around that. Well, I'm looking at the East, I'm thinking, all right, Boston just sort of reoriented their entire roster around a big man who's missing the feeble world cup because of his planter for Shytis and he's always had foot injuries and leg injuries and stuff that he's got to deal with. We'll see how that goes. Boston's going to be awesome either way, right? As long as they have those two guys and they re-signed Jalen Brown and all that, they're going to be awesome, but like there's a little uncertainty there. Milwaukee, for all this Harden melodrama, the most important thing that happened this entire summer, was Yannis Atenta Cumpo coming out in the New York Times and essentially saying, I'm not signing my extension when I'm eligible, which is not, not really news. And I'm not signing it period. If I don't think this team is all in to win a championship and more importantly, in a realistic position to win a championship, now they were the number one seed last year. Yannis got hurt in the first game to playoff, stand up losing to Miami in horrific fashion four games to one despite Yannis coming back in the middle of the season. We're going to be in the inner circle of contenders this season after resigning Brooke Lopez, resigning pretty much everyone relevant middleton. Yannis is healthy after having knee surgery, I believe in the off season. But anytime a good team and especially a good team that has had a couple of disturbing playoff eliminations in the last around a championship run, right? Every other playoff elimination, two of them in particular had been disturbing. The Celtics won when middleton was hurt, they played great fun. Then they won the championship the year before that. A team with a coming off a playoff performance that makes you question, what happened here? Like where was the fortitude of this team? Why did it just totally melt down in fourth quarter after fourth quarter and freeze up and just glitch? Any time a team like that has something like what Yannis said, hang it over them, I get very, very nervous because that makes for a very pressurized season. A season where every three game losing streak is Armageddon where just the flap of the butterfly wings can cause chaos and so I'm feeling I'm looking at a world where like, hey, the two teams that were kind of better than us last year in the regular season at least, there's a world in which they're worse this year or shake year or more uncertain. Miami still doesn't have Damien Lillard, lost some guys off their team, gave Vincent Max Truce, et cetera. If we could just get our t*** together, yeah, we haven't made the conference finals in a million years and yeah, we've got some issues with big games but like, it's there for us. And you know what? They don't have their t*** together and do you know why they don't have their t*** together, Bobby? I don't really know why, but it's just every goddamn year with the Sixers. It's just constant. It's been 10 years of just chaos almost every off season. Last off season in 2022, ironically, the one they got docked draft picks for was a great off season, relatively copacetic. They made smart signings. Everything was good. They lined up their team blah, blah, blah. Other than that, it's just chaos all the time from Sam Hinky getting shoved out, maybe not provided enough support when he got the job anyway. Now we can quibble with a lot of the stuff that Sam did and how he did the job. But still, the Kalangelo era was kind of messy. There was like the Brett Brown is the GM into regnum and how involved are some of the owners. There was hiring dock rivers before hiring Darryl Mori. There was the, I mean, I don't want to say mismanagement, but there was a Jimmy Butler versus Brett Brown versus Ben Simmons thing that they decided to resolve by jettisoning the clearly most valuable of those three people in terms of building a championship level basketball team and getting out of Harvard and Josh Richardson in return, essentially. It's just been a mess constantly. The Simmons thing, now the hard thing, you know, we don't even have to get into faults and I hear Smith and all the stuff that has gone wrong. And I guess the question I would have, Bobby, is at what point do we start asking questions about the ownership of the sixers? Like for every other franchise, if they had experienced 10 years of this, people would be like, wait a second, who's actually running this? Like, where does the buck stop? If this were Mark Cuban and it has been Mark Cuban for more serious reasons than this, people would start asking questions about the owner. Why is there just never any talk about Josh Harris and Dave Litzer and all the other guys who are running and Michael Rubin, like, what was the Michael Rubin thing? Michael Rubin's owning the team, he's posting on Instagram with Hardin, now he doesn't own the team anymore. He's sold his interest in the team. Why is there never any talk about this? And by the way, they've won lots of games. I don't really think that that's a huge thing to be proud of because when you tank four seasons and draft one to four every year, in like eight years, you should win a lot of it. Like the minimum is like being a good team, which they've been. So that's one of my questions, I don't, it's kind of a black box ownership. Why are we the guy just bought the commanders? Well, and that's the thing is now how invested right now, you're a lot of your attention is going to probably go to that Washington team and listen, anytime you go through two out of the last three years, two of your best, you know, outside of MBE, basically they've wanted out. You've gone through, you've gone through Brett Brown, Doc Rivers, now you're on to Nick Nurse here. You know, you went from a team that was a choir Leonard, you know, buzzer beater to the Eastern Conference Finals to a team now that we are questioning as far as what this team will look like. You're from now and none of us, none of us know. And I think, as you said, like that's the hesitancy, like they can go out and move hard in, right? You can go out and move in private for three expirings in a draft pick here. There's some like heartened controls, so many different variables here that if you're the ownership group, I think you do have to look yourself in the mirror. I think if you're Daryl, you have to look at yourself in the mirror, like what have I, you know, what, like, what has gone wrong here because it's been, you know, really, as you said, like post hardened trade and was at February of 22 up until, I guess this past offseason, it's, there was a calm, right? There was a somewhat of a calm here, and you're, you know, a game away from, from the Eastern Conference Finals. And now back, we're back to chaos, right? Like we're back to, like, like, I think this is, I think this is more chaotic right now than I think it was prior to what, then two years ago, Ben Simmons. And I really, the stakes are everything. The stakes are the whole era of the Drew Holiday trade on the 2013 draft until today. That's the stakes because that trade kickstarted everything that has led to an MVP center taking you as far as he's taking you, which is not as far as he wants to go and is the team wants to go. If they mess the hardened thing up, or if hardened messes the hardened thing up, or the basketball gods punish everybody by messing the hardened thing up, it could all be over. And all of that losing and all of the team building could end up with all the number one picks you forgot out to shoot, gone, other places that the high pick who really worked out may be requesting a trade to another place. And you be in a right back where you started 10 years ago without having made a conference finals and having to watch your beloved homegrown superstar center who you embraced embraced the town. And I don't think wants to be traded out of Philadelphia. Now that said, again, like I've been saying for months, like keep an eye on it. This is the situation to talk about is Joe LNB. I think in his heart of hearts, he'd love to win in Philly, just like Damian Lillard would have loved to live in with win in Portland. It doesn't always work out that way. And like you, you might, the whole thing is at stake and you might have to end up watching that dude play for team X, Y and Z in the Eastern Conference in the end years of his prime. That's what's at stake. Well, and we're sitting here in early September, like a month from now or two months from now, when Camp starts and we get into the regular season in Philadelphia, let's say is three and seven. There's a lot different sitting here in early September on a Tuesday, Wednesday morning here. Like then he gets, then that gets, that gets real here. And I just think like the whole cap space thing is like I love talking about, but it's full school. I mean, how many teams, I know Durant going to Golden State and that was certainly because of the spike. But how many teams Denver, when you look at Milwaukee, you know, teams have one championships here. You know, certainly that Toronto team, you know, the Lakers and the Bubbles was different. You know, they did get a LeBron with cap space, but I guess Brooklyn, you know, Brooklyn getting Durant Irving that year is that, that's, so that's like hitting the lottery. Like that does not happen here. The heat, the heat, yeah, the heat back in 2000, you know, 10 in that turn into two championships certainly. Um, but like they go out and say, you know what, we're going to go, we're have 65, 70 million dollars. And we're going to get two guys, we're going to get three guys here like that. If you're relying on that, man, like, well, I think it's a look in fairness to Darryl and the six, I think it's a little different. If in the door, you have an MVP and a second cornerstone player in Maxi, and I don't think they're off base to believe that Maxi has another big level to hit and could be a cornerstone kind of play. I don't know what that means. I don't know. All NBA seems like a lot, but if you told me, made a few all star games, a couple of all star games, I could see that. I don't think, and I, and in fairness, dude, I feel like I don't think they have a choice, right? Like I don't think they have a choice to go to the cap space game, just based on how their roster is built when you look at the two guys with Maxi and Embed, and then everyone else will be a free agent. Like if your intent is to bring to buy his hair spec, then that's fine. If your intent was to bring back James Hardenback, that's fine. But if your intent isn't, then you have to go out and look what's available outside of those two players. The irony is, you just said if your intent is to bring James Hardenback, and this is what I wanted to go back to. The idea that the NBA's investigation finds that maybe because James says this in the investigation, I don't know the particulars of it, we're not privy to that. Finds that the source of James Harden's rage, the source of the motivation for being so mad at Daryl to come out and publicly shame him that way, is that he hasn't been traded since opting in on July 1 or June 30, whatever data was. That just doesn't pass the smell test. That's just, it just does not pass the smell test. He opted in and was already mad. The reporting when he opted in, well, he said it was, has likely played his last game for the Philadelphia 76ers. He was already mad. He was mad before he even had a chance to not get traded quickly. Which raises the question of like, okay, what's he mad about? And so what he's obviously mad about is he did not get a contract offer that he expected to get at the time he expected to get it. What does that mean? I don't know the particulars of what that means. It could just mean the very simple thing of, you know, he wanted to negotiate early. He wanted the Sixers to negotiate early before the bell rang. They didn't having been dinged for doing so the year before. They didn't maybe out of worry that whatever negotiating they would have done with James Harden, the Rockets, who were looming as a threat all season, theoretical or real, who knows would have trumped that offer. I don't know. The Sixers obviously have been, you know, the first in being investigation found no evidence that there was any kind of promise of max deal here, years here, whatever, any deal at all. But clearly, the idea that he's mad because he hasn't been traded, that that's really the source of the anger. That does not pass the smell test to me. Does it pass the smell test to you? No, I mean, I think what he's mad at about is that he declined a $47, $47 million contract, you know, and opted out and took $14 million less for them to go out and sign PJ Tucker and Daniel House, what the thought was that he, if he played at a high level this year and he certainly had a good year that he would be rewarded with a long term lucrative contract here. And I think they were going to offer him what a good something good and big. I don't know if it would have been as long as he would have wanted or as much as he would have wanted. But there was going to be something on July, when at first, whatever it was, what in what's ironic is that if this was a year from now, we probably are not talking about this situation because under this new collective bargaining agreement, starting next year, you can start negotiating with your own free agents once the NBA finals are over. So what happened with Philadelphia was that they're basically in a holding pattern like everyone else until June 30th, right? So and they based on them getting dinged last year and getting investigated with Tampa and they said, you know what, we're going to go buy the book here, right? Like we are waiting. You know what, James, if you opt out, we're going to we're going to negotiate a new, you know, something new. And his his thought was that what is that new? You didn't know what that number was and that was the hesitancy of becoming a free agent. That's why he took the, you know, secured, you know, whatever that $35 million, and also, it clearly he's had his eye on the clippers, both as a place to end up next season and a place that may be the most lucrative place for him long term. And there was no way he got signed and traded to the clippers because the clippers are so far through the second apron or whatever that they can't do that. So this was his one way to try to get to the clippers. The other thing Bob, I'm sorry, I interrupted you. What else were you going to say? No, that was it. That's all that. No, just about the rule, the rule change, you know, the rule change would have given him that, you know, that 12 day window to get something to get something done if this was a year from now. You know what I never really got a satisfactory answer to? Like what happened in Brooklyn? Like if I'm the net, I'm rooting for, I'm rooting for like a water gate level investigation of everything. Like what happened? Why did he want to go to Philly all of a sudden? Was it really just Kyrie being unavailable? The vaccination thing, everything being a mess? Like that, I feel like I never really got his satisfactory answer to like, was it really just, you know, I mean, Philly's interest in him was well known by that time. Obviously, they were a candidate to trade for him before the nets did, the nets swooped in and got him. I would just want to, I just felt like that it's ancient history now. The nets are incredibly well set up, considering the disadvantageous position they appeared to be in, getting off of their three foundational stars, the greatest team that never was. So it's all ancient history there. I felt like I just never, there's a lot of noise and I felt like I never got a real answer to it. Well, and it's funny because it wasn't like that was at 21, 22 season, like Harden was tremendous. I remember those Christmas games. I think it was the Lakers and Clippers. I mean, he basically, when Kyrie was out in Durant, I think might have been injured, like he basically carried that team. So what happened from like January 1 to, so it was a month to, to all of a sudden for him thinking, you know what, I'm not going to sign an extension and there's too much chaos here. I want out like what like who poisoned, it's basically who poisoned the well, right? Like who got him thinking that this was not going to be the place to be? Now I have heard to come back to present times that, you know, obviously, if he reports the camp, everyone's going to be watching, like is this going to be a situation where he's low fin, he's unhappy, he's paliting, he's undermining the team. I have heard that his relationships with his teammates remain good. He likes playing with M.B. Although there's obviously been this push and pull of like, do I get to play Harden Ball or do I have to play set up M.B. Ball? What's the right balance? I've heard, I think the reporting that his initial meetings with Nick and Earths went well is legit. Like there are parts of that organization that he likes. So be very interesting to see and you mentioned the Clippers and, you know, the Clippers have two first round picks to trade. They have Terrence Mann to trade and they have Norm Powell and then they have a bunch of expiring contracts that frankly don't really help the Sixers that much. I'm sorry. Apologies to Robert Covington and Marcus Morris. They're two, three years ago. They were a nice plug and play role players around the Joel M.B. That the two or three years later, they were on the fringes slash out of Tyler's rotation. Last year, maybe they'll get back in it this year, Robert Covington talked to my buddy Law Murray about that a couple weeks ago about how he's going to have a comeback kind of a season. If I had to guess based on history and what Darryl Moria said publicly, I would bet that Darryl Moria values those two first round picks, especially if they're unprotected, higher than Terrence Mann or Norm Powell, even though he can take one of those guys and still have Max Caproom this summer. Just because his whole thing is what gets me the star and I think just as when he traded Kyle Lowry for a first round pick way back with the Rockets in pursuit of the star that became James Hardin, his thought was a very juicy draft pick is more valuable on the trade market than an okay to good player and Terrence Mann is an okay to good player. I think that's actually selling Terrence Mann short. I think he's going to be really good and would fit well with the Sixers. But my point is if the Clippers were to put both first round picks in with man without man, even without maybe. I think there's a deal somewhere, I think there's a two team deal that exists that the Sixers would do. I don't think the two teams have been anywhere close to any of that kind of deal. Which is why I think the only play I see for the Sixers here is bring him to camp, hope the better angels of his nature take over if that's even a possible thing. He plays pretty well and the Clippers and some other teams with high expectations sputter over their first 20 games and get desperate and then we'll get the offer that we need. That seems to be the off ramp here, unless I'm missing something. No, I think if it's Clippers, I think if you're looking at them is James Hardin worth two first round picks. And I think for them, who else out there, who's going to be another disgruntled guy out there? So if we use both, we've got nothing left, we're basically we're tapped out. It's going to be interesting. What happens in Chicago with De Mar de Rosen, for example? Who's extension eligible now, right? He's extension eligible now for I think 170 is the most he's going to be a free agent next off season. If you're looking at that situation, does the Mar de Rosen fit better than James Hardin with this group here at maybe a little bit less of a cost, you know, who knows what the hard number will be next year here. And I think going down the two first round pick route is like, you know, this is kind of who we are again, right? We kind of started to restore our draft equity a little bit post post Paul George trade. And both those guys, you know, George and Leonard could be, you know, of course, free agents because they've got player options here. Do we have to keep a little bit in that, you know, that powder still dry as far as, you know, not moving both? Because as you said, like if they put both, if they would ever put both on the table, I think there was, there is a deal, you know, certainly to be, to be made. Well, I think the clippers, it's very simple. You have to ask yourself a question. Do we still think we're good enough? And I think reasonably the answer has to be no. I just think you can't count on koal and Leonard and Paul George being healthy together long enough, sustainably enough. And at the right times, and yeah, you can go through the Western conference and say, you know, who are we terrified of, even the nuggets lost the two most important players off their bench arguably, two of the three anyway. But you know, everyone in the West is good. And it's one thing to say there is no juggernaut that were terrified. We can't beat this team forward. Seven, even Phoenix, like if you're the clippers optimist, you can say, we pushed them pretty hard without either of our stars in the first round of the playoffs, harder than they expected anyway. But like the goal when you trade all the picks and shaggy old dogs enter and all the swaps and everything and have a payroll the way it's been is not to win one playoff series is to win three or four. I believe they've won three combined in the entirety of the koal and Leonard, Paul George Ira and and just like they're just never healthy at the same time when it matters. And so you either have to be content with being not good enough and keeping the draft picks in the young player stockpile where it is now and just being a pretty good team who maybe you get a real lucky health wise and then do whatever you do or you're not content because you're moving into a new arena, you've invested so much in these guys, you only have so many trade chips to invest further into this team the way it is. And you make a move for Hardin or somebody else, I think Hardin fits better than DeRosen to dance your question just because of his playmaking. But that's the question the clippers face and I think we're far, I think that like I don't really think that there's been a whole lot of dialogue really for the last couple of months between these two teams. No, I mean, and I think it goes back to like once we start playing real games and the standings start to dictate and there's a sense of desperation or if there's a sense of like, you know what, we are James Hardin away from, you know, in, you know, knock on wood if Kauai and Paul stay healthy and it costs us Terrence Mann, you know, maybe it doesn't, you know, on, on September, you know, whatever, it doesn't cost you Terrence Mann, but on February 1st, it does because we feel like we are a championship team. Terrence Mann is going to be a free agent in the summer of 2025 and, you know, you know, we're going to take the risk on, you know, going about doing that. 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Get walls that are as tough as your team and hold up under game time pressure with bare premium plus interior paint, whether you show your team spirit or keep it neutral boring, upgrade your game time with bare and the home depot, how doers get more done. Is there been anything on Dave? No, you know, Dave's interesting, I think, you know, there's been no conversations. It's been very quiet certainly from the Miami front. I think there's only way we hear more about Dave is if Dave makes it messy and I don't think Damien Lillard right now is willing to make it messy in Portland. I've heard, no, again, I was away for a while, but I've been back for a bit now, making calls and catching up with people. I've heard there's been nothing. I mean, like, no meaningful dialogue at all and more pointedly, and I know Brian Winhorse did something about this while I was on break, I just don't think there's been another team. I just don't, if there is, I don't know about it and that could very well be the case, I may not know, but I have not heard of any other team that has really dove head long or even halfway into the Damien Lillard sweepstakes, which is not really even a sweepstakes. If it's only one team and the team is not talking to the other team, there's no sweepstakes. If you heard of any other, no, none, none, I mean, you know, certainly, we talked to Philadelphia and they've been pretty steadfast, that Max, he's not involved, you know, it's interesting. Tim Bontum's Kevin Pelton, myself, Andre Snellings, I have a piece coming out in the near future where we just kind of look at different teams and different scenarios and, you know, like you can run through them all, you can run through Toronto and some of these other teams here, but there's really nothing like, you know, like everything has like a, like let's just like hypothetical, like Toronto says, you know what? We want Dane, but in we're willing to trade OG, I'm just throwing it out there. Like, well, what does that do for, you know, for Portland, where, you know, you're basically going to have to, you're going to have to max them, you know, he's a potential free agent next year. So that's what you have to be comfortable with. And I think at the end of the day, what Miami has to offer, whether it be hero in Yolvich and Yackez, their first round picked this year. Yolvich playing well for Sir, really, really in the world cup, really well. And two first round picks are pickswops. I think that's, that's the best out there. And I think if you're Portland, you have to come to a realization like, you know, what, the two young players and draft picks is going to be better than what you will get. Like that's like on July 1st, man, it's probably a sea level offer, but, you know, come closer to the start of camp. Like that's going to be as good. And are you willing to hold on to Damien Lillard into the season for a guy who's missed a ton of games? You know, certainly some of that is due to them shutting him down. But there is that injury concern, you know, for players 33 years old. I mean, like, I mean, the value and, and for Miami, you're thinking, who we, who we actually bidding against, like, we're not, we're not bidding against anybody here. Why are we going to overpay, you know, over what I mean is overpay is that all of a sudden we're thinking, but you know what, we're going to put Kayle Martin in the, all of a sudden, we're going to call Oklahoma City and, you know, manipulate that draft pick that's, oh, you know, well, we're going to now be have three picks available to us because we're going to do something with that protection that's on there. But you're about to come back. There's been, you know, it's, there's been nothing at all here. I mean, it's, it's very different than I think, you know, what happened last off season with Kevin Durant and then both side, it came out and their press release. And middle of August saying that we're going to, I forgot about that press release. It had the KD 35 boardroom logo and the net's logo on it. Oh, man, that thing should go into Hall of Fame. That thing that, remember, I used to say that there should be like a Hall of Fame oddity's wing or like a wing of absurdity. That press conference should be there. That press release rather should be there somewhere. Yeah, so it's, it's a, it's a little bit different than, it's certainly a lot different than that here, but, um, but you know, Dame, Dame did that interview with Mark Spears, um, you know, on, on, on, on, on, and he was, you know, like, he wasn't, you know, he was very polite, I would say, Durant, but he said, I don't, I don't want to talk about Portland. Like, I don't want to, I don't, I'm not talking about Portland here. So I was not a lot of upside to him making public comments about the there isn't because the league has already investigated and certainly with Aaron Goodwin and whether he was telling teams, he wouldn't be traded here. I always believe that Damien Lillard will report. Like I'm not, I'm, you know, maybe I'm foolish, but I'm, if there's not a deal in, uh, at the end of September, which I don't think there will be, I think Damien Lillard will, uh, I think he'll be in training camp and, and hopefully there's eventually something gets figured out here. Yeah, I mean, I don't want to rehash everything, but we've gone through the teams that made any kind of theoretical sense. And, you know, the three team trade with the Sixers, the Clippers and the Blazers, let's leave that aside. But like, I never thought Boston, uh, for Jalen Brown, anyway, was made any sense really. I didn't, I always said that was it, was it almost a non-starter? Is there a Boston deal without that? I don't, Boston hasn't been active in this. New York people bring up Stephen A brings up all the time and I've just said, I, Jalen Brunson is pretty good. Like, I'm not, I'm not upending the apple cart of draft picks that I've carefully cobbled together for another point, Carlos, who's 33 years old. I'm just not, that's not the guy. He's a very good player. He'd help my team in a short term. Maybe you could convince yourself like the East is openish enough that it's almost, almost worth it, but I'm, I'm holding my cards if I'm, yeah, I mean, what you want is, is that like Brooklyn gets off to a great start. Like, that's what you want. Like, you know, and we'll talk World Cup in the wild. But like, you know, Bridgespin was awesome. Like, you know, in the Italy game, like, you want, you got teed up for taunting their bench after yet another pre-pointer, what I don't get off, well, of course, you're, but man, I missed the days when coaches got dressed up because those Italians look, they look nice. I know you're shaking your head over here. They had those nice, they're moni suits on there. No, I just, I'm, there's, there, there is, there is going on within the league. A, a, a, a, a, a, a coup, a pushback, a movement among a very vocal and passionate minority to bring the suits back to the sidelines. I am on team casual. I think they found the right balance of like uniformity with casual looks official enough, but look, some people like to look nice. I don't, I don't like to look nice. I like to, I like to look like a schlub. So I'm, I may be, yeah, but McHale Bridge is playing great. I think, I had this tattoo up before. I think he's shooting like 68% or something in, let me bring it up now, because I have it here. He is, his, his McHale Bridge is shooting 63%, 74% on twos and 50% on threes for team USA. It's a second leading score on the team, actually. Yeah. So if you're, if you're, if you're Portland and, and you want Brooklyn to be like the three seed, come closer to the trade deadline, like they, you want them being up there in the top four where they said, you know what? We weren't willing to do Damien Lillard in July. Now we are. Now we're willing to give up whatever the four first round picks and whatever the player, Dinh Witty and whatever filler to get that. And so that's, that's like kind of what, you know, that would be the mindset of teams that weren't in the Lillard chase or, I guess, none of the, you know, outside of Miami that you want teams to play well, thinking that they are, you know, one player closer to winning a championship. Yeah, I have in my notes here. Brooklyn has always been the wild card to me in this because they have everything you would need and, and Dame has publicly kind of lusted after bridges as a teammate that he would, along with Bam out of bio, that he would like to play with. My sense, and I've said this before is, I think the nets would have a pretty robust internal debate about whether Dame is the guy to go for it with or look, we just went through all this organizational trauma and we've actually come out the other side in pretty decent position. Can we just chill and see what we have? Maybe buy it our time for a player who's a little younger. I think there are definitely people with the New Yorkers issue with lean that direction. And they've been linked as a potential third team in Dame trades, right? Like a place where hero can go here and even go back to hero. Like if I was, if I was Portland, and now we, we talked at length about draft picks, like I would be fine with taking hero back in a deal. And like if it's, you know, if it makes it less one, you know, if it's only two first round picks and three first runs and then figure out like what are heroes, simons, like maybe you pivot off one of those two guys eventually later here. Like I don't think it's a, it's a, um, a deal breaker that, um, you have Anthony Simons on your roster with three years left on his contract. And you're getting another guy like Tyler, hero back in a, you know, a guard who's got four years left. Like do, you know, do it and then kind of figure it out later. You mentioned Toronto. I think there was, I think Portland and Toronto had some very vague and like preliminary is probably not the right word, but just like the kind of dialogue you have with every team at the draft. I think they had at the draft, but I don't think that was about Dame going to Toronto. I think it was about something else related, maybe, maybe like a way Portland could have restocked around Dame. But that never really went anywhere serious. And I don't see Toronto necessarily as a Dame fit, particularly they owe that pick to San Antonio. That's protected for several years out because of the portal. Well, yeah, that, I mean, that's the other thing. Like if you're going to drop, if you're like, if you ever were in a Dame conversation, like you want to trade more draft picks for him and then all of a sudden and like, Siacum leaves next year and you'd be like, uh, oh, I got Damien Lillard for $200 million left on his, you know, on his deal. Toronto, by the way, now you got me going on a bunch of sides. Well, Toronto is, they're like, they're my ultimate wild card. Like they're like, you mentioned, you mentioned training camp and like, all these teams, like what will happen in training camp? Toronto strikes me as a place where if like, and this is not based on any intel, this is just my personal speculation to be clear. Yeah, I would not be surprised. If sometime in the next six weeks, something interesting happened in Toronto because the Siacum stuff is kind of died down, but his situation contractually remains the same. OGN and OB is going to be a free agent and the, the little, like every, every year around this time I do a deep dive on all 30 rosters just for myself, do it by position draft capital. It just helps me get ready for the season. I did Toronto's the other day and I was like, well, I forgot the Gary Trent opt-in and then all this reporting that came right after that, like an extension was coming. And I was like, wait, that, that never happened. Like the Gary Trent extension never happened. Is it still happening? I poked around on that a little bit. Just a lot of balls in the air for, for the raptors and maybe nothing happens. Maybe they just go through the season as is and play it out. But you know, there's a lot of stuff, it's a lot of stuff. Well, you didn't even mention the one thing and you were out of the country during this is the whole, and this hasn't been resolved yet. Is this stuff with the Knicks? The lawsuit that I'm, you know, like I was, you know, when that happened, I was like the most popular man in Toronto. And I had people calling me, hey, can you talk? I'm like, well, I don't know what I can talk about here. I mean, like I, it is what it is, right? Like, you know, when you're bringing, when you hire somebody and you leave a company, usually, you know, you can, you're not really bringing the flash drive of thousands of plays on the one hand. Yes. Okay. And I've read the complaint and I've read the news around it and all that. I haven't logged into my, you know, court stuff to see if there's been any follow-up. I don't think there has been yet. That was the one. So on the other, on the one hand, it's, it sounds like, oh my god, a lawsuit. And like, those cloak and dagger until flash drives, dates of importance and all that. And then he'd look at like what is alleged to have been given to the raptors. And it's like plays on synergy and like some game plants. I was like, I could get that. Like, that's not, like, that's not that interesting. But who knows what the hell will happen. The other thing you mentioned, Ben Simmons and Mark Spears did a great interview with Ben Simmons on Escape, one of the first big public interviews, Ben Simmons is given in a long time. And he talked about how he feels healthy now. And, you know, what taking Ben Simmons at his word, I do think, and I've been guilty of it too, the health issues that he talks about, I think have been not given the level of serious consideration that, again, taking him at his word that they deserve. Because he's talking about how he couldn't jump off his knee, couldn't put any pressure on it, he couldn't get any elevation. He's obviously had back issues. He's told the story about how he couldn't get up to stairs one day. And I think in the rush, and I've been guilty of it too, to not really, I wouldn't say I've ever ridiculed Ben Simmons, others have, but just sort of nitpick his game, possession by possession game after game perk is like he doesn't have the dog. And I might, I do think we kind of skirt over those injuries in a way that we wouldn't for other players. On the other hand, there's one question that I would ask Ben Simmons, just one. And then I would want, and I won't ever interview him probably in a big sit down situation because this would be the first question I'd ask him is, are you afraid to get fouled? Or do you think you can make half your free throws? That's the only question that I don't like. It's if he's healthier, that's awesome. If he feels like he's going to be a point guard again, which, by the way, is interesting, is he going to start for the nets? If he starts is who is who's coming out of the start? If I had the backup, I haven't, I haven't come off the bench. I would guess he's expecting to start based on his public comments. Is that mean, didn't Woody's coming off the bench? Is Finney Smith coming off the bench, who's coming off the bench? That's great. But if he, because he talked about how like I'm not going to be the dribble handoff guy, that's not who I am. I'm a point guard. I'm doing this and I'm doing that. Awesome. Like if you think you can do that, he even talked about extending his rent. And every time he talks about jumpshooting, I just want to put that one to bet. So we don't want to hear that. I don't want to see the videos from the Sixers practice facility. If you shoot in threes, I don't care. It never happens. Never happens. Fine. But if you think you're going to have a great year, that's awesome. The one question that I want to hear in the only one that matters is, are you afraid to get fouled? Because if he's afraid to get fouled, nothing else matters. It's your, do you become an offensive zero again? And defensively, he's really, really good. But Ben Simmons at the five doesn't work. He's too small. He doesn't rebound enough. He's not a rim protector leg dream on to do that full time. And Simmons plus Clackston died on the vine last year because of spacing issues. So I just thought that interview was interesting. You have any other takeaways from that? I thought that was it. I thought the most interesting thing is that he came out and said that he's just started playing two on two. I thought that part, I thought that was pretty interesting. That part of it, you know, like we haven't seen him and, you know, certainly were still in the offseason, you know, like he has not been playing. He's not been, I don't know, cleared the play five on five. And that he's been playing a lot of two on two. I think that that that was the probably the most, I don't, you know, whatever he says about dominating, I don't really care. But that part was interesting to me. Yeah, I would settle for just shooting 70% of the free throw line dominating. We can, we can leave to the side. Yep. Team USA in Manila right now has made the semi-finals of the people World Cup. We've already qualified for the Olympics. Our Olympic team will look at least a little different than the team that is trying to win the World Cup. I actually quite like this team. I've been texting with some of the people that are over there about, I like the construction of it. I think the starting five, whichever one knows it's kind of been shaky. I think it's a little short on playmaking. And that's why the team seems to come to life whenever Haliburton. Yeah, he's coming. And he did in the Italy game, you know, I think it was a 10-8 and Haliburton came, you know, I think they switched lineups and Haliburton came in and gave him a really, a really nice boost, you know, to that group. Yeah, if there are two like bridges has been awesome and was awesome today. If I'm a Pacer's fan, Haliburton's only averaging nine a game, but he's, you know, he's blowing away everybody and assists and he's shooting the hell out of it from everywhere. If I'm a Pacer's fan, I'm so excited by how Haliburton looks. Now he's, teams go at him a little bit on defense, but his on-ball screen navigation defense is just so, so he gets hung up, but he's working. And he's working hard on switches because when Ban Carrows in the game at the five, or even when Jaren Jackson was in the game, which he's never in the game, because he has two fouls, two minutes in every game. Sometimes we were, we started switching more against Lithuania, tried to take them out of their pick and roll game. Lithuania beat us by shooting 14 and 25 and three. I say we, I get into we mode, talk about Team USA. My wife doesn't like that, by the way. When I start dropping us and we for Team USA, it doesn't go over great. I probably wouldn't go over well at the dinner table. Can you believe we didn't, we shot, you know, 10 to 17, and she's probably looking at you like, what are you talking about? I also was doing that. We watched a lot of women's world cup on. I did that too, because my daughter is, my daughter is super into it. When they missed the, because I was awake my wife was sleeping and I was so mad after penalty kicks and I said to her, my wife, can you believe we didn't make two out? And she's like, who's we? Like, why don't you become a soccer fan? I still, I still can't believe that whole shoot up, by the way. I still don't, I still don't understand like how the ball went in. I guess it went in or went in enough. By the way, all of them had bad ass moment. And I haven't watched enough soccer to know how common or uncommon this is. When the goalies come up to take penalty kicks, it happened in another game too. I can't remember whose team it was that had to go. It was really as goalie maybe came up and made a penalty and it was in, uh, interval and it was in Miami. Is that messy, messy steam? Yeah, I believe there was, there was a shoot out and the goalie for Miami was kicking. That's bad ass. That's bad ass when the goalie gets up and I'm like, all right, I got to do this. I got to give, give me a break from the most high stress part of my, my, my whole career. I'm going to just make a penalty kick now. Is it an offensive player? Let me show you how it's done. I don't know. Oh, we, we, I'd be thrilled. It's a five hour Pacer's fan and I know and has, has, you know, he's missed some passes here there, both on the ball and some, some extra passes where he could ping it around. If I'm a wolf fan, I just absolutely love how he's playing. Like he is so physically dominant. Teams are not even going under screens against him anymore because they have enough respect for his jumper and the FIFA three is a little shorter. He looks smooth. His jump shot looks, he's only shooting 33% from three, but he's taken a lot. They look good. The long two is reliable. I think he's defending really, really hard on the ball. He tried to bring us back against Lithuania, pressuring everybody off the ball. He guarded Vuchavitch for a little while against Montenegro when we tried to, we, what team you always say tried to use during Jackson, Junior as a rover instead of the guy guarding Vuchavitch. He was to, I, if I'm a wolf fan, I'm like, look, go bear did not to put it politely. Did not have a good world cup. That trade is going to go down as a disaster, but towns looked good for the DR and ant looks like so much like the guy that I'm beyond excited. The team is, is, look, I know every, whenever team I say loses, there's this like, oh my God, they lost. They're five and one with an average scoring margin of plus 25. It hasn't been a murderous row of opponents. And if we played Germany, we were playing the winner of Germany Latvia in the next round. Germany has beaten the doors off of almost everyone. And Germany probably should have beaten the United States in that pre, whatever that pre-qual fire. And I think they kind of had a little bit of a deer in the headlights in the fourth quarter. And they are, so that's going to be, yeah, which is not easy. So we're, we're going to, the semi-finals are not going to be easy by any means. Like that'll be a good game. But five and one with that scoring margin, like that's kind of it in 2023. It's kind of what you expect for team USA without, you know, I don't know, 10 of the 25 best NBA players. I don't, whatever, eight of the 25 best NBA players, you know, I think NBA, Nebraska was a little bit different than South America. I should say American NBA players. Obviously, many of the best NBA players are not American and thus play for other teams. Yeah. And it's like, you know, United States gets judged by the Olympics at the end of the day. Really, as far as winning a gold medal compare, it's different than soccer where the world, I think the World Cup is more, you know, certainly the dominant of the two stages here. They qualify for the Olympics as well as Canada did. I think that's the goal. I think that was certainly winning a goal in the World Cup. So one of them, but I think getting to the, you know, where you don't have to go through the qualifying rounds next, next year. And the other thing I've liked about Aunt, Aunt and Josh Hart, who's starting, I love Josh Hart, but nobody is guarding him on the perimeter and he's not making enough threes to, he's taking one, three a game to make them pay for it. But him and Aunt and Bridges, the level of off-ball movement that's happening and you expect it from Bridges and you expect it from Hart, you don't necessarily expect it from Anthony Edwards when Jalen Brunson is around the show. He's making a lot of little subtle cuts along the baseline and also just kind of lifting up on the perimeter from like the wing to the top of the arc and the attention he drew doing, doing that today against Italy during a Jalen Brunson pick and roll, got Josh Hart, a back cut layup, I just like Aunt is kind of rounding out his game. All this, the scoring gets all the attention. He had 35 against Lithuania, almost single-handedly got us back into the lead, got us within four. It's the rounding out of his game has been interesting to me. Even like a guy like Brandon Ingram, who's really struggled, he's been kind of vocally unhappy at times about his role. I feel like he's still playing the right way and not really forcing and not hunting points. And I got to tell you, his numbers aren't going to blow you away because he's coming off the bench. I love what Ben Carroll has been doing as a back up five, as sometimes the four are playing next to Bobby Porter. So even Walker Kessler, he just looks so explosive, so fast and so confident. Like when he's the center and they give him the ball at the top of the arc and let him kind of run the offense real briefly and he does his fake handoff drive, whatever, he looks like awesome. No, I agree. I mean, I think the Italian game, I think there was certainly a purpose and that second unit that was with Ben Carroll and Hal Burton. I think they were certainly, they were certainly, you know, difference makers here. I think it's going to be interesting, you know, and this will be a conversation for next year as far as who stays. And it's just a matter of what, what of the NBA elite are going to want to play in Spain because it's in France. I mean, because it's hard for me to see, like, Jaron Jackson on this team, it really is. I mean, it's, it's, you know, guys like that. And I think that will be the interesting thing as far as for next year. I thought Jaron Jackson got off to an okay start in the World Cup. Defensively, you can see how scared people are of him, just as they are in the NBA. I mean, guys are guy, when he's the drop man in pick and roll are on ball defender. So the guy guarding the ball handler has gotten a lot of steals by dipping back into the passing lane from the ball handler to Jaron Jackson's guy rolling to the rim, dipping into that passing lane much earlier than you'd see in the NBA because that player, that defender knows the guy with the ball does not want to shoot over Jaron Jackson Jr. And he's going to pass it and they've gotten steals because of that. But he's just fouled too much. He has been on the court and is rebounding. He just hasn't done a good job protecting the glass. And it's not even just because he's chasing block shots, which he does. Sometimes there were a couple of times against Italy where he just didn't, he did nothing. He didn't, he didn't try to block a shot and he didn't box out and kind of got overpowered. Like that just hasn't been good enough. And frankly, I kind of thought his pick in pop three, particularly with the shorter line, would be a little bit of a weapon at least or something that defenses would have to be concerned about. He's just not, he's not shooting very many of them and defenses do not care at all. And he hasn't made very many. No, we saw, well, I think we saw a lot more in the pre qualifying games. We haven't seen really anything from that, you know, Doran, you know, at least he's made two or three. He's two or seven from three in group play and certainly in the in the quarters. Haliburton 14 of 25 on threes just to show that dude is a show. He's a showman. Pacers are going to be fun this year with just running and gunning. Oh, be top in. I think I think people are getting a little head of their skis on just the sort of talent that they have. Like they'll be okay, but they're going to be, they're going to be fun to watch. And obviously Austin Reeves has been in international sensation, although it was interesting to see Lithuania kind of beat the hell out. Well, they and Italy tried doing the same thing. They did. They did. They tried going after him again, too. And it, you know, Italy is, you know, certainly smaller, smaller group. And, but yeah, that that's going to be interesting with, if, if the United States gets Germany as far as if they, you know, targeting, you know, Austin Reeves. And by the way, I don't mean to disrespect Latvia. Latvia has been really good. They beat, I believe they just beat Serbia, right? No, they didn't, they didn't make Serbia a group play. They beat somebody good in group play. And obviously they ended France with, with just a relic and come from behind fourth quarter win. They're playing really, really well on paper. They're just not as good as Germany. And on the other side of the bracket looms Serbia versus the winner of Slovenia and Canada. So a lot of the heavyweights, despite Spain being out in France being out, are still here. And so the World Cup, which is happening a whole world away, is about to get very interesting for people who haven't tuned in. Like US will have whether it's semi finals and finals or semi finals and consolation game are going to have two really good games. To finish out this tournament. Any other team USA thoughts? No, I mean, I don't have anything. Well, you know, I think I think it's a very easy team to root for. I think Grand Hill did a really good job putting this group together. You know, they went out after they lost the Lithuanian. Everyone's like, win them and why, you know, why didn't they address their, you know, they, you know, they certainly got out rebounded and, you know, the lack of bigs was there. And I was thinking like, well, who, what bigs out there were there to select from? Like what American bigs were, you know, you know, you know, the imbeid situation is still kind of hanging over. You know, hanging over as far as what happens next year here. But I just didn't, I didn't, I think they did as best as they could. No, this is an interesting thought exercise. American centers, like, like there, like, well, I mean, there's Anthony Davis, right? But he's a guy like that is not going to play of the stature is not going to play in this tournament, particularly with his injury, his injury history. No, you're looking at like Jared Allen, Nick Claxton, right guys like that. I probably looked at Jared Allen. I don't know how seriously he was there. Well, the lat was either for a qualifying was, oh, he was there for the World Cup, right? I maybe last time. Yes, he was, I think, in BAM out of bio, yeah, would, would help on the glass. That's enough. That's one. Yeah, it'd be interesting. I mean, Dremond, if he wants to play the Olympics, I think we'll get, get some, some look. Yeah, Walker Kessler is not playing much. Towns is playing for the Dominican. Um, yeah, it's a good, that's, it's an interesting question. Brook Lopez would help with size and I'm glad he's old though. Brook Lopez is old. Got paid a lot of money, man. Two years, $48 million for Brook Lopez. Good for him. Good for him. Rocket still, still salty about. Not getting Brook Lopez. Do you have any, before we go, do you have it? One of the hot, so there were a couple of hot takes in the last 72 to 96 hours that I haven't addressed. One was Rich Paul saying on Gilbert Arena's podcast, Gilles Arena, that LeBron had it tougher than Michael Jordan because of the 24 seven news landscape. I'm just going to steer right around that one because I don't, I don't particularly care, um, to be honest with you, who had it, quote, unquote, tougher. And why, um, the one that got a lot of traction that I didn't expect was when Noah Liles, the track star, when at, um, NBA players, or I guess, I guess American professional sports leagues for referring to their championship teams as world champions, the champions of the world. When did you beat the world? Do you just beat your league? Do you have any hot, do you have any, that got a lot of like, I didn't expect that to be a thing. That was kind of fun. Oh, the brothers of the NBA banded together and I saw it was a Devon Booker and KD and there was a list of them here. Um, listen, I don't have the numbers in front of me. I guess what we could say, 150 out of the 450 players are from other countries. Right. So this is not a strictly American league where it's all American players here. Um, so this is a world type league here. Um, I think if you sent Denver over to play it, maybe reality Madrid or I don't, I mean, that's how we get, I guess that's how we determine it. Right. We send. Well, I was going to say, when are you allowed to be world champions? So, so is the feeble world cup world champions? I guess your world champions, if you win the Olympics, are you Olympic champions or world champions? I, I guess if you win, you know, I guess it has to be that if you win the world cup, you're determined world camps or the Olympics, um, not the, uh, not, not the NBA because it's, you know, that's infiltrated by a lot of non-Americans and NBA champions. But they, but that, but that got these guys going, that got them going. You'll be surprised to know that I don't really have a lot of emotion to give this one. I thought it was kind of funny, uh, I think NBA champions is, is fine. If it's going to really annoy people around the world and I don't know that every team does it, right? I don't, I, I think actually if we looked banner by banner, like team by team, I do think some NBA teams, their banners say NBA champions and others say world champions. Do any say worlds champions? Like that was always a grammatical debate that I would have with buddies where world champions are the worlds champion. When you're in crypto in, uh, in November, Zacklow, when you have to look up in the, uh, the banners and see, they might actually say world champions. I have a feeling the, uh, the LA Lakers, uh, I, I don't, I don't care. I mean, if you're the, if you're the, if you're the NBA champion, you are the best professional basketball team in the world. Yeah. So if you want to say world champions, fine, NBA champion to me suffices, I just don't know what you're supposed to say when you are allowed to say world champion. They're like our, is the feeble world cupwinner? Is the world champion of this year and the needle? I don't, I don't, I just thought it was kind of funny that these guys, that everybody got very fired up about, about a semantics issue. It was, it was good for, um, late August banter. It certainly was. Is there anything we should have talked about with Yannis? I mean, I know we talked about it as comments being important in the extension and, I think there's a lot of, I mean, I won't go along and says, listen, he's extension eligible, starting September 22nd. Um, we all agreed that there was no reason for him to sign it. It's a three year extension. I have it at 169. I know people have reported at 173. No, who cares? Um, at the end of the day, he's not signing the extension because in reality, it's only two years of new money, right? When you look at the opt in number, the opt in numbers basically being replaced by another, like a $2 million more in size. So it's, it's two million, two, uh, two years more. I think next year will be more interesting based on because of technically, he'll be going into the last year was contract. I think the biggest thing with Yannis is what's going to happen in late February with Drew holiday. I think that because that is when Drew holiday is extension eligible without an extension, he goes into free agency in 2024 is probably the top him. And, you know, certainly some of the restricted guys, Tyrese Maxx, he won them as top, as a top point guard here. I think that is going to be interesting to what happens with him. But the article, um, that was in a New York Times, it's just interesting based on, you know, the, not the extension part, but the other comments, right? Like as far as what this team will be looked at, look, look like, um, because the reality of it, it is an older team. You know, you, you brought back Chris Middleton, you brought back Brooklyn Lopez. Uh, yeah, I thought, you know, did a nice job with, you know, with their, with their bench, um, you know, certainly guys like Malik Beasley, they, they, you know, we're able to sign for the minimum and they brought in, um, and they reached signed Crowder and they still, Bobby Portis, guys like that here, um, point guard depth is, I would say probably questionable, um, there. And I would go so far, say non-existent. Yeah. Um, which is you could argue who cares? Right. Because through holiday is kind of a point guard. Chris Middleton is often a point forward. Yeah. To me, that's the story of the team is Middleton's got to be back to being Middleton played well in the playoffs, but he's got to be. Yeah. When they go and get stuff, we can hand him the ball and feel good. And Yannis is point Yannis sometimes too. Yeah. I mean, so I, you know, I, I, I, if you're Milwaukee, I wouldn't get caught up that he's not signing it. I didn't get you, I would, I, as you, we've talked about, like you pay attention to where you have a rookie coach in Adrian Griffin. I mean, that's the reality of it. Um, where you on a self-pick, yeah, where you are during the year. And I think how the holiday, possible extension in late February, I think you circled that, um, and you just kind of, it's a, it's kind of like a day by day world as far as the temperature of, uh, of, of, of Yannis. And also, whether holiday resigns, it extends in February or not, how these guys perform in the playoffs, cause Drew holiday offensively in the playoffs, even the year they won the title, was shaky. And the lat, the years around that has not been good enough for his grade to see a defensively. And part of that is he's guarding the best guys and explaining so much in doing that. Yeah. And we saw the team just fall on its face of so many times last year against Miami. And yeah, you can tell me, Yannis was hurt. The team still was up by 2015, 16 in these games in these fourth quarters. It could not do anything offensively. Um, so we'll see. All right, Bobby marks. We got, oh, Bobby marks, we didn't get to it because it's not, it, it won't come out to, I think next week, um, we're, we're going to this NFL period here. But we've got a big Supermax article coming out. Um, I, I think in next, uh, next week, uh, what is it? The week of the 12th, I think we could 11th where, listen, this year's historic, man, like this is, I haven't seen it that this top heavy of potential guys. We've got eight guys potentially could be Supermax eligible based on if they are in all NBA, um, this upcoming year. And it certainly starts with Luca, um, who could sign in 2025, um, if Luke is healthy, he's making all of you in, in Shae Guilders, Alexander's another player because he had made it this, this past year. So that would be two years in a row. Um, and then you're looking at Darren Fox. And Jamal Murray and Bam at a bio, Brandon Ingram, Pascal, Siacum, I think is interesting, you know, certainly, um, and Darren Jackson based on defensive player of the year. I think what's going to be interesting, Zach is what happens at some of those players, the Bams, the Jackson, Siacums will be impacted by a positionless voting. I mean, that's the reality of it here where there's no, you know, there's no center for, for Bam at a bio where he might have to rely on winning like defensive player of the year, which is, which is part of that, part of the criteria. Well, they also may, I was talking to someone about this, um, kind of more on the player side. They also may be helped by the 65 game minimum threshold, because that is going to take some of the older players out of it due to rest. Did you're like one ankle sprained away from you rest eight games, your injured eight game, you're out. Yeah. And a lot of these younger guys who maybe don't have the rest games built in are, are going to maybe be elevated in part, because that Jamal Murray, I believe, is extension eligible now. Right. He's three for one 44 up until October, October 23rd, um, so is, um, you know, Donovan Mitchell, which I don't see that happening either in, um, in Cleveland and you're right. I mean, the rest factor is the game's criteria, um, because some of the older players, it doesn't matter to them, right? They've already hit the 10 years of service. There's all NBA type. It's basically just the honor of being named all NBA. Like, I don't think LeBron is gunning for 65 games. No, it doesn't matter. It does. You know, there's, there's not an added bonus except that it's part of you. It's added to your resume now. You mentioned Luka would not sign till 2025. Yeah. So Luka and, and Gilders, Alexander, it's kind of like the, I guess we call it the Jason Tatum rule where they will meet the criteria, but they'll only have six years of service. So you have to have seven years of service, but they'll still be eligible the following year because they will have hit it two out of three years here. No matter what happens. Yeah. No matter what happens. And, yeah. And so for those who hit it, you then that extension kicks in after the expiration of your current deals. You can sign it the moment you're eligible, but it gets tacked onto the guaranteed seasons on your return. Yeah. Total of six years, including what's left. Well, guys, there's some interesting kind of like Darren Fox, did he make it last year? Yeah. He made it, right? I voted for him, I think. Like, Luka could be probably knows where these numbers. Luka's going to be probably the first $80 million guy. Look, if Luka's of all those guys, if Luka's healthy, he's making all NBA. Like he's just, he's just going to have the numbers. He's going to be enormously central to his team success. If he's healthy, he's pretty much a lock. If SGA puts up numbers like that again and say, healthy, he's going to be a borderline lock. I had him first team last year. Some feels like a long shot that may be helped by the 65 game thing. Bam. Look, man, center. It's like it's Yoke and B take two out of the three spots if they made the 65 game mark. And so that leaves one spot. And it's, well, no, because it's positionless, right? Oh, that's right. Yeah. So that's the whole, like I say, with bam, it might be defensive player of the year. Oh, boy. All right. We're getting ahead of ourselves. Bobby marks. We got a lot to talk about. We got a lot of time to do it. We will have you back soon. It's good to see you, enjoy New York City. And maybe the next time we talk, someone will have been traded to somewhere where there will be happier. I thought when is a morning because I'm flying home, so I think you're going to be safe. I think you're going to be safe. I think you're going to be safe. Bobby marks everybody. Thank you, sir. Exactly. Yeah.