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Speaker 1: Slash Baseball, All right, welcome to hoops tonight. You're at
Speaker 1: the volume. Happy Monday, everybody. Hope all you guys are
Speaker 1: having a great start to your week. Well, NBA free
Speaker 1: agency is here, and originally we were going to try
Speaker 1: to hit everything in kind of a free agency reaction today,
Speaker 1: but there is literally too much to get to, so
Speaker 1: we're gonna split this into two parts. Today. We're primarily
Speaker 1: gonna be focusing on Klay Thompson being traded as part
Speaker 1: of a signing trade to the Dallas Mavericks, what that
Speaker 1: means for both the Mavericks and the Golden State Warriors
Speaker 1: moving forward. And then Paul George signing a Max deal
Speaker 1: with the Philadelphia seventy six Ers, what that means for
Speaker 1: the Sixers coming into this next season as well as
Speaker 1: the Los Angeles Clippers. Tomorrow in part two, we're gonna
Speaker 1: get to Chris Paul to the Spurs, de Jontay Murray
Speaker 1: getting traded to the New Orleans Pelicans, and Isaiah Hartenstein
Speaker 1: to the Oklahoma City thunder all deals that are super
Speaker 1: super interesting. We probably will also have another, you know,
Speaker 1: two or three things to hit in tomorrow's show as well.
Speaker 1: So just focusing on the Warriors and the Mavericks and
Speaker 1: the Clippers in the Sixers in today's show. We'll get
Speaker 1: to the rest of the free agency moves in tomorrow's show.
Speaker 1: You guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribed
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Speaker 1: more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore
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Speaker 1: about a podcast feed where you get your podcast under
Speaker 1: Hoops Tonight and then keep dropping mail bag questions in
Speaker 1: the YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them throughout
Speaker 1: the rest of the summer. All right, let's talk some basketball.
Speaker 1: So when the first rumor started coming out that Klay
Speaker 1: Thompson was thinking about going to the Dallas Mavericks, I
Speaker 1: immediately hated it, to be honest, at first, I'm like,
Speaker 1: this doesn't make any sense. Like Klay Thompson came in
Speaker 1: this like ball and Player Movement five out flow where
Speaker 1: he was getting all these reps coming off of screens.
Speaker 1: To give you an idea of how often Clay works
Speaker 1: with an off ball screen, he took a shot off
Speaker 1: of an off ball screen four hundred and thirty times
Speaker 1: last year four thirty. Second place was Steph at two eighties.
Speaker 1: So Clay did one hundred and fifty more than Steph
Speaker 1: And then there were thirteen players who were between one
Speaker 1: hundred and one ninety nine. But literally there was nobody
Speaker 1: in the stratosphere of Klay Thompson in terms of volume
Speaker 1: coming off of screens as a scorer. So like it's
Speaker 1: just a very different type of offensive approach to what
Speaker 1: Dallas uses right like to give you guys an idea,
Speaker 1: Dallas through the second fewest passes per game in the
Speaker 1: NBA last year, and they were bottom five in assist percentage.
Speaker 1: This is not a ball in player movement team. So
Speaker 1: at first I hated it. I didn't like it for Dallas.
Speaker 1: I didn't like it for Clay. It didn't make a
Speaker 1: ton of sense I want to get a little bit.
Speaker 1: But then the big thing that kind of like changed
Speaker 1: my perspective on it was when the news of the
Speaker 1: Naji Marshall signing came down. So the Mavericks get Naji Marshall.
Speaker 1: Is this guard who played for the Pelicans, a guy
Speaker 1: I actually really like, a guy that has a ton
Speaker 1: of off the dribble pop. And then I look at
Speaker 1: the compared to most role player guards, I should say,
Speaker 1: for a non star, the guy can dribble and like
Speaker 1: kind of like shaken and get to his spot and
Speaker 1: kind of just make something out of nothing offensively better
Speaker 1: than most role player guards can write. And then I
Speaker 1: look at the math on the numbers and Derek Jones
Speaker 1: Junior goes to the Clippers for three years thirty million,
Speaker 1: so ten million a year, and Naji Marshall goes to
Speaker 1: the MAVs for three years twenty seven, so nine million
Speaker 1: a year, right, And so essentially what that means is
Speaker 1: that Dallas intentionally and purposefully chose Naji Marshall over Derek
Speaker 1: Jones Junior. Now, Derek Jones Junior just had an amazing
Speaker 1: playoff run as a point of attack defender. He was
Speaker 1: probably the best veteran minimum value last year in the league,
Speaker 1: so much so that he turned himself into an eight
Speaker 1: figure player, right, But he's a play finisher. He's a
Speaker 1: guy that can capitalize on advantages, but struggles to create
Speaker 1: or extend advantages. Naji Marshall is a guy that can
Speaker 1: create some advantages but is a very good advantage extender,
Speaker 1: which is a concept we're going to get to here
Speaker 1: in a couple of minutes. So when I saw that,
Speaker 1: I started to think a little bit here, and now
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I'm looking at it as a
Speaker 1: complete change in philosophy from what happened last year for
Speaker 1: Dallas on the offensive end of the floor. Like again,
Speaker 1: like when I look at what happened in the NBA Finals,
Speaker 1: it wasn't just a loss for Dallas, it was a
Speaker 1: loss in which their offense ceased to function. This was
Speaker 1: a team that was one of the best offenses in
Speaker 1: the league all season, and then when we got into
Speaker 1: the playoffs, they had successful, many successful moments, including against
Speaker 1: that really, really good Minnesota Timberwolves defense. They had an
Speaker 1: offensive rating over one hundred and eighteen. They could score,
Speaker 1: but Minnesota was running traditional coverages. They're putting their best
Speaker 1: perimeter defender on Luca, they were keeping their center on
Speaker 1: Dallas's centers. They ran you know, high drop with some
Speaker 1: backside help. It was all pretty standard, and so the
Speaker 1: reads that Luca had in terms of the lob as
Speaker 1: Gafford or Lively would be rolling to the basket or
Speaker 1: the skip pass to the weak side corner. All those
Speaker 1: things were pretty standard and normal. Boston didn't just shut
Speaker 1: down Dallas's offense. It completely ceased to function the way
Speaker 1: that it did in the regular season. They had just
Speaker 1: a one oh one point four offensive rating in the
Speaker 1: four losses against Boston. All of a sudden, their lob
Speaker 1: game that they had in ball screens was not there,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden. Just their basic spacing principles ended
Speaker 1: up with their worst above the break shooters above the break,
Speaker 1: and it all stemmed from a couple of basic game
Speaker 1: plan things from Boston. Boston put Jason Tatum their power
Speaker 1: forward on Dallas's center and just said we're gonna switch
Speaker 1: any ball screen with the center boom. Now, rollman possessions
Speaker 1: are gone. That's why you didn't see any lobs. Right,
Speaker 1: So now that guy has to stand in the dunker spot.
Speaker 1: Now that the guy standing in the dunker spot, there's
Speaker 1: just not as much space underneath the basket as opposed
Speaker 1: to if he's rolling to the paint with the head
Speaker 1: of steam, where he has vertical spacing capability. Right now,
Speaker 1: it's like, we want to attack Horford. Well, Horford just
Speaker 1: switched on to Luca and did a pretty damn good
Speaker 1: job most of the series. Oh well, porzingis is out there.
Speaker 1: Let's attack porzingis.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: Now Derek Jones is popping above the break and he's
Speaker 1: not a good above the break shooter. PJ. Washington's popping
Speaker 1: above the break and he's not a good above the
Speaker 1: break shooter. And so essentially the four out brute force
Speaker 1: ballscreens spread attack just ceased to function. There were some
Speaker 1: other factors there, right, like Kyrie and Luca both had
Speaker 1: tough pull up jump shooting series. They took one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty two pull up jumpers between the two of
Speaker 1: them in the five games, and they got just one
Speaker 1: hundred and three points. So like there were some other
Speaker 1: factors there, but the main thing is schematically, their offense
Speaker 1: ceased to function. And again, like this is something I
Speaker 1: talked about after that series. It wasn't close, Like they
Speaker 1: trailed by over twenty in three of the losses and
Speaker 1: they trailed by fourteen in the other. So it's like
Speaker 1: they got their butt kicked in the finals. And so
Speaker 1: one of the things if you guys remember the show
Speaker 1: immediately after the finals, the next morning, I did an
Speaker 1: episode in which I talked about where Dallas needs to
Speaker 1: go from here, and I specifically said they need to
Speaker 1: find a way to incorporate more ball in player movement
Speaker 1: in their offense. They need to find a way to
Speaker 1: beef up the roster with ball handling and shooting and
Speaker 1: passing so that they can run more modern five out
Speaker 1: offensive concepts. That is where I suddenly came around on
Speaker 1: this deal. Now I'm a little bit worried for Clay's benefit.
Speaker 1: If the MAVs don't make these sorts of changes, because
Speaker 1: then he could end up being kind of a clunky
Speaker 1: offensive fit. But and like I saw a lot of
Speaker 1: MAVs fans go like, oh, this is an offense that
Speaker 1: generates a ton of catch and shoot threes. That's gonna
Speaker 1: be great for Clay, And it's like, yeah, he's gonna
Speaker 1: get some catch and shoot threes. But defensive game planning
Speaker 1: is gonna be geared towards leaving PJ. Washington open. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be geared towards leaving everyone else open. They're gonna
Speaker 1: stay glued up to Clay whenever they can. It's not
Speaker 1: like when Luca was driving in the finals, they were
Speaker 1: helping off of Kyrie Irving and leaving him wide open. No,
Speaker 1: they're good NBA defenses gear the ball to end up
Speaker 1: in the hands of your non shooters. And so while
Speaker 1: Clay will dictate more attention, and certainly they were be
Speaker 1: better space than if you have two mediocre shooters on
Speaker 1: the floor, Like if Derek Jones and PJ. Washington are
Speaker 1: on the floor, that's too bad above the break shooter.
Speaker 1: So having Clay out there will certainly help that situation.
Speaker 1: But make no mistake It's not like Clay's just gonna
Speaker 1: be getting left wide open on the left wing all
Speaker 1: season long. Teams are going to try to gear their
Speaker 1: defense towards making sure that ball ends up in PJ.
Speaker 1: Washington's hands for him to take jump shots right. And
Speaker 1: so from that standpoint, like I'm hoping that this Naji
Speaker 1: Marshall piece and this Klay Thompson piece, and maybe like
Speaker 1: a shift of Derek Lively permanently into the starting five,
Speaker 1: I view that as a substantial increase in the aggregate
Speaker 1: ball handling, shooting and passing ability of the roster and
Speaker 1: of the lineup. Right from there, that's where you open
Speaker 1: up the ability to have more five out concepts. Now,
Speaker 1: what does that mean? What does it mean to run
Speaker 1: more five out concepts? All that means is that you
Speaker 1: don't have the big man sitting in the dunker spot,
Speaker 1: and you don't have have like permanent corner three point shooters,
Speaker 1: and you're running ball screens into open space instead. There
Speaker 1: is complete and total like malleyability in terms of ball
Speaker 1: and player placement on the floor. So, for instance, let's
Speaker 1: say Derek Lively is at the top of the key
Speaker 1: and Luca has the ball and Let's say Kyrie Irving
Speaker 1: is in the right corner. Instead of just spacing the
Speaker 1: floor and running a ball screen, Luca might dribble into
Speaker 1: a dribble hand off with Kyrie. Then Kyrie might then
Speaker 1: come off of Derek Lively in a ball screen. He
Speaker 1: might draw in some nail help from Klay Thompson. He
Speaker 1: might swing the ball to Klay Thompson who will then
Speaker 1: run another ball screen with Derek Lively who comes over.
Speaker 1: Or maybe that's PJ. Washington above the break, and you
Speaker 1: swing to PJ Washington and he dribbles down and hands
Speaker 1: it to Clay. Then Clay comes off PJ. Washington and
Speaker 1: off of Lively. Maybe the ball works its way back
Speaker 1: to Luca. But now Luca has the ball with six
Speaker 1: or seven seconds on the shot, and there's been multiple
Speaker 1: reversals of the ball. Every player in a Mavericks jersey
Speaker 1: has touched the ball, and the defense is no longer
Speaker 1: loaded up on the strong side. When you're running just
Speaker 1: brute force four out ball screens, the defense is loaded
Speaker 1: up on you, whereas when there's real ball and player
Speaker 1: movement side to side. Now who knows how many switches
Speaker 1: they've had, the defense might have switched one or two
Speaker 1: of those actions. The weak side defense, which might have
Speaker 1: been loaded up in a first action in a possession,
Speaker 1: might still be glued up to their players on the
Speaker 1: other side of the floor as you're getting to that
Speaker 1: third action. The main point of contention here is when
Speaker 1: you play the truly elite defenses in Minnesota, I think
Speaker 1: should have been better than they did. They just focused
Speaker 1: on traditional coverages. But like when you face a truly
Speaker 1: elite defense that throws legitimate game plan wrenches into things,
Speaker 1: you can't just expect to crack the defense on the
Speaker 1: first approach. You've got a little by little crack the
Speaker 1: defense until you until it finally breaks on the final action.
Speaker 1: To kind of simplify it down to a three part process,
Speaker 1: it's play. It's advantage creation, advantage extending, and play finishing.
Speaker 1: In the past, Dallas has primarily been a advantage creation
Speaker 1: and play finishing team. They skip that middle step. There's
Speaker 1: not multiple attacks in the same possession. It's usually Luca
Speaker 1: makes a move, draws multiple defenders and throws a kickout
Speaker 1: pass or a lob pass. That guy might shoot or
Speaker 1: drive the close out, but that's pretty much shit. That's
Speaker 1: the extent of what you might have seen. For the
Speaker 1: most part, for Dallas, I'm not gonna act like they
Speaker 1: didn't do anything. They ran some act they run guard
Speaker 1: screens early in possessions to get switches for Luca. They'd
Speaker 1: run some stack pick and roll where they backscreen for
Speaker 1: the role man's man as he's trying to get downhill
Speaker 1: into the lane. They would run double drag to try
Speaker 1: to complicate the switches at the top of the ball screen.
Speaker 1: But there was very little in the way of actual
Speaker 1: side to side flow. And that's where advantage extending comes
Speaker 1: into the picture, right, Because if you're a play finisher
Speaker 1: and Luca is only able to generate for you a
Speaker 1: little bit of an advantage because it's a truly elite
Speaker 1: defense with an excellent game plan, that play finisher is
Speaker 1: going to struggle to finish that play, which is pretty
Speaker 1: much exactly what happened to the Mavericks in the finals, right.
Speaker 1: But when you have more ball handling and shooting on
Speaker 1: the floor, that's where you have the advantage the ability
Speaker 1: to extend that advantage. So, for instance, if that ends
Speaker 1: up being a let's say a Klay Thompson and he
Speaker 1: throws a really good pump fake because he's Clay freaking Thompson,
Speaker 1: and the dude goes flying by him. And then Clay,
Speaker 1: who his entire life has learned how to weaponize his
Speaker 1: shooting ability to generate dribble penetration and playmaking opportunities, drives
Speaker 1: that close out and generates an even better opportunity on
Speaker 1: the weak side. And let's let's pretend that's PJ. Washington
Speaker 1: or an Aji Marshall, and that guy gets an even
Speaker 1: better opportunity. Like that's where you extend the advantage with
Speaker 1: that side to side flow, which in my opinion, is
Speaker 1: more resilient against something like what you might have seen
Speaker 1: against Boston. You can imagine a situation where if you
Speaker 1: actually ran three sides of action against Boston. Now Tatum
Speaker 1: probably isn't unlively anymore. He's probably been switched twice by
Speaker 1: the time the ball gets back to Luca on the
Speaker 1: on the right side of the floor after multiple interchanges.
Speaker 1: At this point, the rim protector for Boston's probably in
Speaker 1: a weird place. Tatum's probably, in a word, there's probably
Speaker 1: a guard guarding Luca, like there's gonna be something weird
Speaker 1: in Boston's configuration. By virtue of you adding those complications.
Speaker 1: And by the way, I'm not just picking on Dallas here.
Speaker 1: This is something that was one of my major takeaways
Speaker 1: from this last season. I've watched multiple of these brute
Speaker 1: force five out teams, the Lakers two years ago when
Speaker 1: they lost in the conference finals, the Mavericks last year,
Speaker 1: where that it just seems to have a certain ceiling
Speaker 1: in terms of the adjustment. Like the Lakers, their most
Speaker 1: important point of attack defender was Jared Vanderbilt. They couldn't
Speaker 1: play him because he couldn't knock down corner threes and
Speaker 1: in their offense because they were running four out that year,
Speaker 1: Jared Vanderbilt was just parking his ass in the corner
Speaker 1: all game and he couldn't do anything there, you know.
Speaker 1: But then all of a sudden last year, in the
Speaker 1: five out offense for the Lakers, before Vanderbilt got hurt,
Speaker 1: he was successful and having all these double figure scoring
Speaker 1: games because he was functioning as a dribble, handoff and
Speaker 1: roll guy. Right when there's ball in player movement, it
Speaker 1: makes it so much harder to ignore a non shooter.
Speaker 1: There's a resilience that you get from that type of
Speaker 1: ball and player movement. So one of the things that
Speaker 1: I said after that NBA Final series was I wanted
Speaker 1: to see the MAVs try to take a shift in
Speaker 1: offensive approach and philosophy towards five out ball in player movement.
Speaker 1: And these signings, the Clay signing trade and the Naji
Speaker 1: Marshall a deal, they are both significant moves in that direction.
Speaker 1: One of the main reasons to why I want this,
Speaker 1: not just for the Mavericks but for Clay is there's
Speaker 1: a diminishing return on spot up shooting. Klay Thompson is
Speaker 1: not just a shooter. He's a movement shooter. Like we
Speaker 1: talked about earlier, four hundred and thirty reps last year
Speaker 1: second place with steph two eighty. There were only thirteen
Speaker 1: players that ran over one hundred, and all those guys
Speaker 1: were under two hundred. That like, it's it's kind of
Speaker 1: a unique thing he does. He shot forty three percent
Speaker 1: coming off of screens, waited for threes fifty seven percent.
Speaker 1: He got one point one to zero points per shot
Speaker 1: coming off of screens, Like he was a legitimate offensive
Speaker 1: threat in those situations. He's also a pretty solid playmaker
Speaker 1: in those situations. In his time in Golden State. He
Speaker 1: got good at hitting the pocket like he'd hit Tray
Speaker 1: Jackson Davis if his man showed on the handoff, he'd
Speaker 1: hit him slipping to the basket. He showed some uh
Speaker 1: some ability to read the low man and make skip
Speaker 1: passes to the weak side corner. Like if you just
Speaker 1: have Clay take standstill above the break threes, you're diminishing
Speaker 1: what he brings to the table. For example, Clay shot
Speaker 1: thirty eight percent on guarded ketch and shoot threes last year.
Speaker 1: He shot forty percent on unguarded ketch and shoot threes
Speaker 1: last year. It's not like there's not this idea that
Speaker 1: like Clay's I think Clay's the second best shooter ever. Right,
Speaker 1: It's not like Clay's gonna shoot seventy five percent on
Speaker 1: wide open threes. That's not how basketball works. What makes
Speaker 1: Clay the best shoot There's a variance. Variance is baked
Speaker 1: into shooting. The best shooters in the world are like
Speaker 1: in that forty five to fifty percent range, high volume, right,
Speaker 1: like the very best in the world. That all the
Speaker 1: really good ones are maybe in that forty to forty
Speaker 1: five range. There's nobody out there that's just shooting seventy
Speaker 1: percent from three. So, for example, if you just had
Speaker 1: a professional standstill shooter out there who's not worth seventeen
Speaker 1: to eighteen million a year, but a guy who's just
Speaker 1: a veteran minimum guy who can knock down, catch and
Speaker 1: shoot threes, he can approximate what Klay Thompson would do
Speaker 1: if he was standing on the wing in Dallas's offense.
Speaker 1: In order to really get the value out of what
Speaker 1: Klay Thompson brings in that contract, you need him to
Speaker 1: have the ball occasionally, not just occasionally, but consistently in
Speaker 1: the flow of the offense coming off of those screens.
Speaker 1: And so again, like to be clear, I hate this deal.
Speaker 1: If Dallas plays the same way they did last year,
Speaker 1: I think you'll get a diminished return on what Klay
Speaker 1: Thompson brings to the table. You obviously took a hit
Speaker 1: in terms of defensive personnel. You're gonna run into the
Speaker 1: same issues when you get into to a matchup in
Speaker 1: the NBA Finals, right with Boston if you were lucky
Speaker 1: to get there again. But I love this deal if
Speaker 1: it's an acknowledgment of the reality of what Dallas needs
Speaker 1: to do to become a more resilient playoff offense, which is,
Speaker 1: if they use Klay Thompson with the ball in his
Speaker 1: hands as part of a five out flow going from
Speaker 1: side to side, if Naji Marshall is just another wave
Speaker 1: of that coming off the bench, If Derek Lively, who
Speaker 1: I think has the potential to be a really good
Speaker 1: five out fulcrum at the center position, then I love
Speaker 1: the deal. And so again, most of this just comes
Speaker 1: down to the type of basketball that Dallas wants to
Speaker 1: play next year, and I'll be really really interested to
Speaker 1: see what their offense looks like as we get into
Speaker 1: the start of next season. Let's take a look at
Speaker 1: the like I just really quickly before we move on
Speaker 1: to the warrior side of this, Like, let's just look
Speaker 1: at the Mavericks top seven players right now. Much is
Speaker 1: Kyrie Irving, PJ Washington. PJ showed a considerable amount off
Speaker 1: the dribble pop in the in the playoff run, Derek Lively,
Speaker 1: Klay Thompson, Naji Marshall, Daniel Gafford in that top seven,
Speaker 1: there's just so much more ball handling and shooting than
Speaker 1: they had last year. So I really like that deal
Speaker 1: in the context of that type of shift like even
Speaker 1: like Dante Exim is on a non guaranteed deal right now,
Speaker 1: we'll see if if they end up keeping him. But like,
Speaker 1: do you guys remember in the in the uh it
Speaker 1: happened in the finals where like the MAVs would have
Speaker 1: Dante Exum run like inverted ball screens with Luca, where
Speaker 1: Luca would set the screen, but Luca's man would not
Speaker 1: want to leave Luca, so he wouldn't hedge, So Dante
Speaker 1: would just get right downhill into the lane. He had
Speaker 1: a big dunk that way. If you guys remember, Like,
Speaker 1: that's that's the advantage of having a player that can
Speaker 1: dribble next to Luca, because Luca brings that kind of
Speaker 1: attention to the table, right, and so like I really
Speaker 1: like that that fit, you know, I like the idea
Speaker 1: of again, when we include Naji Marshall off the bench,
Speaker 1: when we clued Dante Exum off the bench, there's just
Speaker 1: a lot of there's a lot of capability there to
Speaker 1: reach another level. Jaydon Hardy as well, like there's just
Speaker 1: a lot of capability within the context of the roster
Speaker 1: now to have a higher ceiling. Offensively, the biggest question
Speaker 1: is going to be can they defend with this group
Speaker 1: because again, Derek Jones was very important to their defense
Speaker 1: last year. Now PJ. Washington slides into that primary point
Speaker 1: of attack role instead of like a secondary point of
Speaker 1: attack role. Klay Thompson is probably going to have to
Speaker 1: guard a perimeter player with some skill, and he struggled
Speaker 1: in that area last year, So it's gonna be a
Speaker 1: little bit of a test of their defense. But again,
Speaker 1: I'm a big believer in that you can coach up
Speaker 1: and scheme up a somewhat effective defense, but if they
Speaker 1: can reach another level offensively with this addition of offensive skill,
Speaker 1: it could be more than enough to make up for
Speaker 1: that gap.
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Speaker 1: On the Warriors front. First of all, it's the end
Speaker 1: of an era. Six conference titles, four NBA titles spotified
Speaker 1: top tier contender, and seven of those ten years. The
Speaker 1: other years for all kind of injury related with exception
Speaker 1: of last year, which kind of felt like the first
Speaker 1: year of the decline. But it's just kind of sad
Speaker 1: to see the Trio broken up. But it's just the
Speaker 1: reality of the Second Apron rules. I'm going to list
Speaker 1: these again when we talked Paul George, but just give
Speaker 1: you guys a really quick breakdown. If you are in
Speaker 1: the Second Apron, you have no access to the mid
Speaker 1: level exception, which means you cannot sign a player above
Speaker 1: the cap unless it's a veteran minimum contract. You cannot
Speaker 1: take on additional money in trades, you have to trade
Speaker 1: out more money. You cannot aggregate salaries in trades, so
Speaker 1: if you see a player that makes twenty million and
Speaker 1: you want to trade two ten million dollars players to
Speaker 1: get there, can't do it. You cannot use cash in
Speaker 1: trades to help kind of facilitate that the money balance.
Speaker 1: You cannot buy second round draft picks. Remember when the
Speaker 1: Warriors bought that second round draft pick for Jordan Bell.
Speaker 1: Can't do that anymore. You can't use trade exceptions to
Speaker 1: match salary. You can't use your own free agents and
Speaker 1: sign in trades. If you stay in the second apron
Speaker 1: multiple years, it affects your ability to use first round
Speaker 1: pai and future trades like it is incredibly punitive to
Speaker 1: be in that zone. And so I think the reality
Speaker 1: was is the Warriors are just trying to get out
Speaker 1: of that second aprin. Well, lacub is trying to quickly
Speaker 1: relieve himself of the salary crunch that he was in
Speaker 1: last season. Right now, he quickly pivoted. They just signed
Speaker 1: ded Anthony Melton to the non taxpayer mid level exception,
Speaker 1: a contract that they would not have been able to
Speaker 1: sign unless they let Clay go. And I love d
Speaker 1: Anthony Melton for the record, I thought it was a
Speaker 1: really nice pickup. And we're going to talk about him
Speaker 1: in just a second. But make no mistake, this was
Speaker 1: a cost saving move in general from Golden State, not
Speaker 1: just the Klay Thompson piece, but letting Clay waiving Chris
Speaker 1: Paul so that you didn't have to pay his thirty
Speaker 1: million dollars salary next year. Right, So you lose all
Speaker 1: that salary, which helps you in terms of the tax
Speaker 1: but obviously you lose the ability to use Chris Paul
Speaker 1: as a vehicle to bring in another player in a trade,
Speaker 1: and you lose Lay Thompson, who is an important kind
Speaker 1: of like structural piece of your team. Right now, here's
Speaker 1: the deal with d Anthony Melton. I think he is
Speaker 1: like the next best thing to KCP in terms of
Speaker 1: like he's just a rock solid NBA starter, good athlete,
Speaker 1: good perimeter defender, can guard up and down a little bit,
Speaker 1: He's a good rebounder, can shoot an attack close out.
Speaker 1: It's just like a consummate professional, rock solid NBA starter. Like,
Speaker 1: if you've got enough talent in terms of your stars,
Speaker 1: you're never going to be worried about what d Anthony
Speaker 1: Melton is or isn't doing for your team, provided that
Speaker 1: he's healthy. Obviously, he was hurt much of last year.
Speaker 1: So within the context of helping Steph and accentuating him
Speaker 1: as a backcourt partner, love the d Anthony Meltin fit.
Speaker 1: But if they aren't willing or able to trade for
Speaker 1: a legitimate secondary shot creator, they're just still in a
Speaker 1: lot of trouble in this upcoming season. This team missed
Speaker 1: the playoffs last year in a field that allowed ten
Speaker 1: teams in in the Western Conference, So like I'm hoping
Speaker 1: that this is in the context of some sort of
Speaker 1: other move I had heard. There was some reporting that
Speaker 1: the Warriors had an offer on the table from Chicago
Speaker 1: asking for Wiggins and Chris Paul for Zack Lavine, and
Speaker 1: the Warriors turned it down. Now, for obvious reasons, lacob
Speaker 1: was trying to get out of that second apron, right,
Speaker 1: But like, zach Lavine is a guy that you know,
Speaker 1: even for all his flaws, you know, that's why he's
Speaker 1: available for Chris Paul and Andrew Wiggins. You're not in
Speaker 1: the market for the more expensive stars, right, So, like
Speaker 1: zach Lvine could have at least been an option to
Speaker 1: provide some real shock creation and an influx of talent,
Speaker 1: and the Warriors just said no, thank you. So I
Speaker 1: hope they have something else up their sleeves, because I
Speaker 1: think Steph's gonna have a bounce back year next year.
Speaker 1: It'd be a damn shame to ask him to grind
Speaker 1: through another rebuild. I shouldn't say another, but a rebuild
Speaker 1: out of a sense of loyalty to the franchise when
Speaker 1: he has superstar years left in him. It's a waste.
Speaker 1: He's too good to be wasted on a rebuilding roster
Speaker 1: that can't contend in the Western Conference. And like Steph's
Speaker 1: not the kind of guy he would ask for a trade.
Speaker 1: So I really really hope that Golden State and their
Speaker 1: decision makers Jo Laka and Mike den Levy, I hope
Speaker 1: that they snap out of it, and I hope they
Speaker 1: do something aggressive because I just I really don't want
Speaker 1: to watch Steph Curry play meaningless basketball next year. And
Speaker 1: Anthony Melton is a good player and a really nice pickup,
Speaker 1: and they're gonna have a certain amount of talent. But
Speaker 1: as good as Jonathan Minga can be, he's not there yet.
Speaker 1: As good as the other young players on that roster
Speaker 1: can be, they aren't there yet. This team does not
Speaker 1: have enough firepower, and I hope they have a plan
Speaker 1: to address that before we get to training camp. All right,
Speaker 1: Paul George to the Sixers, it's all in type of
Speaker 1: move with the goal of giving Joel Embiid the firepower
Speaker 1: he needs to contend in the Eastern Conference, especially within
Speaker 1: some of the kind of pressures around in that situation
Speaker 1: after they've had a bunch of disappointing seasons in a row.
Speaker 1: So let's start with the good before we get into
Speaker 1: some of the other stuff. The basketball fit is seamless.
Speaker 1: Paul George was one of the most efficient shot creators
Speaker 1: in the NBA last year. During the regular season, he
Speaker 1: ran five hundred and seventeen pick and rolls that led
Speaker 1: to five hundred eighty points. It's one point one to
Speaker 1: two points per possession. Out of sixty players ran at
Speaker 1: least five hundred pick and rolls per s energy including passes,
Speaker 1: he ranked fifth out of sixty inefficiency, so one of
Speaker 1: the best pick and roll players in the league. Three
Speaker 1: hundred and forty one points on three hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: two ISOs. That's one point zero six points per possession.
Speaker 1: That ranks tenth out of nineteen players to run at
Speaker 1: least three hundred, so more middle of the pack there,
Speaker 1: but one thirty seven points on one hundred and fifteen
Speaker 1: post ups including passes one point one to nine points
Speaker 1: per possession. That was fourth out of forty eight players
Speaker 1: to run at least one hundred post ups last year.
Speaker 1: So really really impactful regular season shot creator had a
Speaker 1: tough playoff run, which we'll get to in a minute,
Speaker 1: but like an immediate influx of shot creation ability, right
Speaker 1: He's never played with the screen and roll man that
Speaker 1: has the type of gravity that Joel Embiid does, especially
Speaker 1: when you consider most teams are not gonna want to
Speaker 1: switch that action. Any player that's big enough to handle
Speaker 1: Joel and bid will not be quick enough to handle
Speaker 1: Paul George and vice versa. So like, I don't think
Speaker 1: you're gonna see switching there. PG. If there's a weakness
Speaker 1: with him right now, it's that he can't really like
Speaker 1: beat people off the dribble the way he used to. Like,
Speaker 1: he only had ten made field goals at the rim
Speaker 1: in that six game series against the Dallas Mavericks, so
Speaker 1: like you need him to have a good screener so
Speaker 1: that he can kind of methodically operate in the mid range.
Speaker 1: I actually kind of like that as a change up
Speaker 1: to Tyrese MAXI too, because Tyres Maxey is like all
Speaker 1: downhill speed and pull up threes downhill speed, pull up
Speaker 1: threes right, and MAXI brings some movement shooting as well.
Speaker 1: So like I like Paul George is just kind of
Speaker 1: like a different kind of pace to attack with with
Speaker 1: Joel Embiid. And then again, like when we look at
Speaker 1: what happened last year, it's like a lot of like
Speaker 1: minutes where it's like Maxi and Embiid with you know,
Speaker 1: Batoom Ubra and Harris right, and like there just wasn't
Speaker 1: enough firepower offensively out of that threesome and Tobias Harris
Speaker 1: was just just had a really really tough last couple
Speaker 1: of years there in Philly, And so like upgrading that
Speaker 1: to a legitimate threat, like Paul George, I'm a big
Speaker 1: believer in like whatever you think about Paul George, like,
Speaker 1: don't overthink things, like this is a team that was
Speaker 1: giving the Knicks fits by with that janky ass kind
Speaker 1: of fit with all those those flawed wings, and then
Speaker 1: max and Embiid, you just upgraded one of them into
Speaker 1: one of the top twenty five players in the league. So, like,
Speaker 1: don't overthink it. Paul George is gonna make things way
Speaker 1: easier for the Sixers, especially on the offensive end of
Speaker 1: the four. Again, the main question mark is going to
Speaker 1: be how much resilience is there for him in the playoffs,
Speaker 1: Like he had a rough series against Dallas. I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna get into the details right now. We'll get into
Speaker 1: it when we talk to Clippers, But like the advantage
Speaker 1: is is, hopefully he's your third best player. You're hoping
Speaker 1: for Philly's sake, that Max and Embiid kind of bring
Speaker 1: enough of that firepower that Paul George. Because here's the
Speaker 1: thing with Paul George. Paul George is a professional tough
Speaker 1: shot maker. It's one of the things that makes him
Speaker 1: so inconsistent. He takes an actively hunts really tough step
Speaker 1: back pull up jump shots, right, and so as a
Speaker 1: result of that, he can go really cold some games,
Speaker 1: and he can go really hot some games.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: You have the margin for error to deal with that
Speaker 1: on a team that already has Tyree Smax and Joel Embiid.
Speaker 1: So even with some of the flaws that Paul George
Speaker 1: brings to the table, I still I'm like, don't overthink it.
Speaker 1: Don't overthink it. Paul George makes the Sixers way better
Speaker 1: overnight go on DraftKings. They're now the second favorite to
Speaker 1: win the title, behind the Boston Celtics, a distant second favorite,
Speaker 1: but they're still of all the teams you can bet
Speaker 1: on to win the title, the only team that has
Speaker 1: better odds is the Boston Celtics. So like, that is
Speaker 1: the advantage of bringing in the firepower that Paul George
Speaker 1: brings the situation. One other concern would be age. Like,
Speaker 1: if the Sixers make it to a second round series
Speaker 1: next year, Paul George will be thirty five years old
Speaker 1: at the time that series tips off, in the first
Speaker 1: year of his four year deal, So like, obviously there's
Speaker 1: gonna be some risk in the long run with that deal.
Speaker 1: But you know, at the end of the day, you
Speaker 1: had to do something thing to give firepower to Joel Embiid.
Speaker 1: Paul George really was the best option available to them
Speaker 1: in free agency, and they got them. So it's hard
Speaker 1: to refer to it as anything other than a win.
Speaker 1: Moving forward, presumably you're gonna get Kelly Ubray at the
Speaker 1: four right, you need to find an athletic to guard
Speaker 1: who can guard at the point of attack. That's gonna
Speaker 1: be the interesting piece for them to try to track down.
Speaker 1: Here in the coming days, a lot of veteran minimum
Speaker 1: contracts are going to be in the running here. That's
Speaker 1: the one thing that gets tough when you have three
Speaker 1: max level players, you got to fill out the roster
Speaker 1: with veteran minimums, and there are flaws that come with that,
Speaker 1: and so we'll see. The difficult job is going to
Speaker 1: be for Daryl Morey here to try to find value
Speaker 1: in that market. Who's the next Derek Jones junior this year?
Speaker 1: Who's the next guy that someone can find at a
Speaker 1: relatively discounted rate to anchor the point of attack defense role.
Speaker 1: And that's where Philly's gonna have an advantage because it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: veteran minimum, but we're the team that has the second
Speaker 1: best odds to win the title. That's gonna help you
Speaker 1: in some of those conversations. Right, They're just gonna need health.
Speaker 1: None of this matters if Joel Embi can't be Joel embiid.
Speaker 1: He has to be the best player in the world
Speaker 1: for this team to get where it wants to go.
Speaker 1: Make no mistake, the addition of Paul George and Tyrese
Speaker 1: Maxi does not give the Sixers a substantial talent advantage
Speaker 1: over Boston. Boston just signed Derek White today for a
Speaker 1: deal over thirty million a year. They have five players
Speaker 1: that make over thirty million per year. They are still
Speaker 1: more talented than the Philadelphia seventy six Ers right now,
Speaker 1: and the only thing that can rectify that situation is
Speaker 1: Joel Embiid. He has to play like the best player
Speaker 1: in the world. He has to outplay Tatum, unlike Tatum
Speaker 1: out playing Embiid like he did in Game seven two
Speaker 1: years ago, and beiad has to win those battles in
Speaker 1: order for this team to get where they want to go.
Speaker 1: This is where I like another signing that the Sixers
Speaker 1: had earlier this summer or two days ago. They get
Speaker 1: Andre Drummond. Now, this is a really, really nice move
Speaker 1: because not only is it a backup center option, but
Speaker 1: if you need to hold Embiid to fifty games, if
Speaker 1: you need to try to keep his game total down
Speaker 1: to no more than three times a week, or whatever
Speaker 1: it is that you need to do, hold him out
Speaker 1: of every back to back, hold him out of a
Speaker 1: random road trip here there. That's a quick road trip,
Speaker 1: like whatever it is you need to do to withstand
Speaker 1: Joel Embiid's rest schedule. That's where Andre Drummond comes in
Speaker 1: as a legitimate starting caliber center that can help in
Speaker 1: those situations. So again, like Paul George has his Wartz,
Speaker 1: that's why the Clippers let him go. It's obviously not
Speaker 1: the best possible player that you could conceive of to
Speaker 1: fit alongside Tyresmaxe and Joel Embiid, but he's who was available.
Speaker 1: He was the best option overnight made the Sixers the
Speaker 1: second favorite on DraftKings to win the title. Don't overthink it.
Speaker 1: The Sixers are gonna be fun to watch next year.
Speaker 1: Put me on to the Clippers again. Just the reality
Speaker 1: of the second apron rules. For the sake of the
Speaker 1: people that might see this in a breakout clip, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna list the the kind of ramifications of being in
Speaker 1: that second apron. No access to the mid level exceptions.
Speaker 1: You cannot sign players for anything other than the veteran
Speaker 1: minimum contract. You can't take on additional money in trades.
Speaker 1: It used to be you could go over a certain percentage.
Speaker 1: You can't do that now. Can't aggregate salaries in trades.
Speaker 1: You can't so like you can't partner to ten million
Speaker 1: dollar contracts trade for twenty million dollar guy. Can't use
Speaker 1: cash and trades to make up for a gap. Can't
Speaker 1: buy second round draft picks. A lot of second round
Speaker 1: draft picks. You just throw two or three million bucks
Speaker 1: get a second round pick. Can't do that anymore in
Speaker 1: the second apron. Can't use trade exceptions, can't use your
Speaker 1: own free agents and sign and trades. They're all these
Speaker 1: restrictions that come from being in that second apron, And
Speaker 1: it's just clear that Steve Vallmer doesn't want to operate
Speaker 1: like that, and like again, like it's a profoundly restrictive
Speaker 1: zone to be in. And there's like pretty much one
Speaker 1: team that you see that's in that situation where it
Speaker 1: kind of makes some sense, and that's the Boston Celtics.
Speaker 1: They signed Derek White to this four year, one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty six million dollar deal. But it's like they
Speaker 1: don't really have to need to like improve the roster
Speaker 1: over the summer, right, Like Boston's got their five as
Speaker 1: long as those five guys are as long as four
Speaker 1: of those five guys are healthy, they're still the best
Speaker 1: team in the league. So like they don't need to go.
Speaker 1: Everything for the Boston is a luxury. The Clipper situation
Speaker 1: is totally different now. They had a dominant stretch this year.
Speaker 1: They had a stretch where they look better than the Celtics.
Speaker 1: From November seventeenth to February fifth, the Clippers were thirty
Speaker 1: one to eight. That was the best record in the
Speaker 1: league over that span by a wide margin. They had
Speaker 1: a five percent better win percentage than the Celtics did
Speaker 1: over that span. That's almost half a season. They're first
Speaker 1: in offense, they were eleventh in defense. They were kicking
Speaker 1: everybody's butt. So the counterpoint of view here would be
Speaker 1: we were a bona fide top tier championship contender and
Speaker 1: our superstar got hurt. Why don't we run it back
Speaker 1: and see if we have better luck, right, And that
Speaker 1: would be the case for retaining Paul George and going
Speaker 1: into the second apron. But here's the more realistic point
Speaker 1: of view. That same superstar who was unable to go
Speaker 1: this year has been unable to go for consecutive postseasons.
Speaker 1: He's either been completely hurt and missed it entirely or
Speaker 1: three times he made it into the playoffs. Twice he
Speaker 1: made it into the playoffs healthy, played, looked great, then
Speaker 1: got hurt. Another time he came into the playoffs hurt,
Speaker 1: tried to play, ended up staying hurt. Right, it's four
Speaker 1: years in a row. In addition to that, Paul George
Speaker 1: looked pretty underwhelming in the MAVs series. He shot just
Speaker 1: fourteen for forty three on pull up jumpers, he shot
Speaker 1: below fifty percent on layups, He made just ten shots
Speaker 1: at the rim in total over a six game series.
Speaker 1: He was their highest usage rate player. He had a
Speaker 1: higher usage rates than James Harden out of any Clipper starter,
Speaker 1: and he didn't even average twenty points a game in
Speaker 1: that series. So when they needed him to step up
Speaker 1: and play like a superstar, he did not reach that level.
Speaker 1: And so, while it's hard to stomach as a Clippers
Speaker 1: fan losing a player like Paul George and effectively losing
Speaker 1: your championship ceiling, Paul George is gonna be thirty five
Speaker 1: years old in the playoffs. Last year, we just talked
Speaker 1: about how much he struggled. Kawhi Leonard has all of
Speaker 1: these issues. It looked like a small likelihood that everyone
Speaker 1: would stay healthy again. So the Clippers are looking at
Speaker 1: the situation and they're saying, we're going to have to
Speaker 1: tweak the roster. We're going to have to make moves,
Speaker 1: We're going to have to aggregate salaries, We're going to
Speaker 1: have to do all of these things to try to
Speaker 1: feel a competitive roster going into the future. The only
Speaker 1: way to have that flexibility is if they let Paul
Speaker 1: George go, and so they had to. So the question
Speaker 1: is where do the Clippers go from here? Resigning James
Speaker 1: Harden was really smart. He's still one of the best
Speaker 1: regular season offensive engines in the league. Whatever you think
Speaker 1: about him in the playoffs, he's still a very good
Speaker 1: regular season offensive engine. Even if Kawhi misses time again,
Speaker 1: he can help the Clippers as they go into this
Speaker 1: new arena. He can help the Clippers still field a
Speaker 1: respectable basketball team in that new arena. And most importantly,
Speaker 1: he's still a very tradable contract thirty five million a year,
Speaker 1: only two years. No one's taking on some sort of
Speaker 1: long term commitment. It's not like you can make you
Speaker 1: can trade two mid level salaries to make that fit. Right.
Speaker 1: If the Clips decide to pivot to a full rebuild
Speaker 1: halfway through next season or next summer, James Harden will
Speaker 1: fetch a couple of picks or a couple of good
Speaker 1: young players so that you had to pick one of them.
Speaker 1: I think James Harden will have more trade value. So
Speaker 1: in terms of asset management, keeping Harden at two years
Speaker 1: for thirty five was a better deal than signing Paul
Speaker 1: George to four years two hundred. You have much harder
Speaker 1: contracted trade right. This maintains their flexibility. That Derek Jones
Speaker 1: junior fit makes a ton of sense in the short term.
Speaker 1: He's an excellent point of attack to demonstrated that the
Speaker 1: postseason last year. He's a solid closeout attacker. He's a
Speaker 1: good play finisher. Play finishers play well alongside James Harden
Speaker 1: because James Harden spoon feeds you those opportunities, right and
Speaker 1: like in this particular situation as well, he is another
Speaker 1: tradable asset. He has an achievable low salary. He has
Speaker 1: a position that everyone's looking for. Everyone wants the guy
Speaker 1: who can guard the other team's best player. That's something
Speaker 1: Dare Jones can do, and so like, Look, if Kawhi
Speaker 1: is healthy next year and plays like an MVP. They're
Speaker 1: gonna be a respectable team fighting in the middle of
Speaker 1: the Western Conference. I don't think they have a championship ceiling,
Speaker 1: but they'll be fighting if Kawhi gets hurt and they
Speaker 1: decide they want to pivot to rebuild. You just signed
Speaker 1: two really good trade assets that you can turn around
Speaker 1: and flip to try to spark that rebuild process. Right, So,
Speaker 1: like I liked it for the Clippers, it's not it's
Speaker 1: not a fun move, but it's it's a it's a
Speaker 1: demonstration of self awareness and a first step towards the
Speaker 1: next phase of this franchise. With some flexibility in different directions,
Speaker 1: they can go then go soft rebuilding and go hard rebuild.
Speaker 1: They have some flexibility now that would not have existed
Speaker 1: had they resigned Paul George. So I like to move
Speaker 1: all right, guys, that's all I have for today. As
Speaker 1: I said, We're going to get into the rest of
Speaker 1: the free agency stuff tomorrow. As always, I sincerely appreciate
Speaker 1: you guys for supporting the show. We will see you guys.
Speaker 2: Then the volume