Speaker 1: Come on, you're listening to Heat Check from Trista Criek,
Speaker 1: Odyssey's official NBA podcast, find that wherever you get your
Speaker 1: podcasts and live all throughout free agency, Summer league, and beyond.
Speaker 1: So let's get into a little news around the NBA.
Speaker 1: Kadie my man Kevin Durant has gone completely dark, and
Speaker 1: in his absence, the Nets have become I don't know,
Speaker 1: the Nets have become a thirteen year old with NBA
Speaker 1: two K in franchise mode and they're just trying to
Speaker 1: swap one player for an entire team. They're also like
Speaker 1: who you experience all the time if you play fantasy
Speaker 1: football and you've got that one guy in the league
Speaker 1: who thinks that like he can trade you Alvin Kamara
Speaker 1: for like Matt Stafford and Josh Jacobs and Darren Wallers
Speaker 1: like my g no. Uh. The latest is that they
Speaker 1: tried to convince the Minnesota Timberwolves to give up Aunt
Speaker 1: Cat and four first round picks for Katie. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: what you so? What? Click? That's one of those Hey,
Speaker 1: what's up, Seana? It's uh a Rod and it's uh,
Speaker 1: who's run? Tim Conley? It's Tim? What's up? Uh? You
Speaker 1: won't excuse me? What click? That's like, that's an immediate
Speaker 1: go fuck yourself. So why would the Wolves or Kevin
Speaker 1: Durant sign off on that? Like? Why would Delo and
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant remix in this alternate universe where Katie was
Speaker 1: in assign a trade for d Loo who's also in
Speaker 1: a sign a trade? Like why would Kevin Durant want
Speaker 1: to play with Jaden McDaniels h d Loo? And like
Speaker 1: nas read, he wouldn't, like you wouldn't. It doesn't help
Speaker 1: anyone other than the Nets in this case. And first
Speaker 1: of all, if you get Nets, if you are the
Speaker 1: Nets and you get Karl Anthony Towns and Aunt Edwards
Speaker 1: for Kevin Durant, there are no picks being extreined exchanged,
Speaker 1: there is absolutely none. You get players. Aunt Edwards is
Speaker 1: probably Michael Jordan. Have the Nets ever seen him play?
Speaker 1: I don't know, because it sees the next Jordan. I'm
Speaker 1: not giving you baby Jordan for a thirty plus guy
Speaker 1: who probably doesn't want to play in Minnesota anyway. And
Speaker 1: Brian Windhorse hit it on the head when he said this,
Speaker 1: and I thought to myself, we got to talk about this.
Speaker 1: The market does not want to pay a super premium
Speaker 1: price for Kevin Durant because if he trade all away
Speaker 1: these top assets on your team begin him, he becomes
Speaker 1: then less valuable to you because you're no longer a
Speaker 1: contender and all of that is a golf and why
Speaker 1: we are in a stalemate right now, and you could
Speaker 1: have one for a while. And the latest now is
Speaker 1: also that there's no Kyrie trade until Kevin's trade. So
Speaker 1: Kai is going to just sit there and rot even
Speaker 1: though he's out in the in I want to say,
Speaker 1: he's in La, playing in the valley. In all these
Speaker 1: NBA leagues, he's chopping it up with all the stars.
Speaker 1: He's given them buckets, proven that he's one of the
Speaker 1: best scorers on Earth. And you know what, for the nets,
Speaker 1: that doesn't matter. And for Kevin, people want to know.
Speaker 1: Players are reaching out to him, agents are reaching out
Speaker 1: to him, Teams are reaching out to him, not answering,
Speaker 1: not answering calls, not answering texts, not answering emails, barely
Speaker 1: even responding to tweets, which we know he loves to do.
Speaker 1: And it's all essentially in Rich Clemban's hands now. So no, obviously,
Speaker 1: no Kevin Durant cameos in Summer League. It would appear
Speaker 1: haven't seen him, haven't heard about him. It would appear
Speaker 1: this is going to drag on for some time. WOJ
Speaker 1: thinks it's going to going all is going. WOG thinks
Speaker 1: it's going to go all the way up into a
Speaker 1: training camp. That would be gross. This has got the
Speaker 1: whole league on hold, and of course the trade could
Speaker 1: at any moment, so you got to keep those alerts
Speaker 1: on for that very reason. Moving on, let's move on
Speaker 1: brad Beal. Brad Bial signed his five year, two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty one million dollar extension with the Wizards. I
Speaker 1: gotta say for him, go get your money, my guy,
Speaker 1: you deserve it. Take those money and then just hang
Speaker 1: out in DC. And we know that he's loyal. But
Speaker 1: here's the kicker. Bradley Beal asked for and got a
Speaker 1: no trade clause in his contract. He's the only current
Speaker 1: player in the league with that in his contract. And
Speaker 1: Ted Lee oonsis the owner of the Wizards, owner of
Speaker 1: what is it monumental Monumental Sports, says that he does
Speaker 1: not want to be traded and we don't want to
Speaker 1: trade him. All that sounds nice. On Friday, July eight,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, will see how this goes. In July eighth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six, we'll see when he's thirty years old.
Speaker 1: Leons says he sees this as a partnership and now
Speaker 1: the Wizards can't don't bill for a boatload of picks
Speaker 1: without his say so, which is, you know, smart business
Speaker 1: for bal in the NBA. You can't end up in Sacramento,
Speaker 1: right like he is going to be able to pick
Speaker 1: his next destination when when he comes to grips with
Speaker 1: what we all know and Brock knows that he will
Speaker 1: never win anything in Washington. He will never make it
Speaker 1: past the first round. Again, I said it. And let's
Speaker 1: be clear about something here. This is no shade on
Speaker 1: Bradley Beal when I say this. But when he signed
Speaker 1: this extension super max, no trade clause, I'm all in,
Speaker 1: no player option. That was the moment that I knew
Speaker 1: Bradley Beal does not prioritize winning a championship. It's not
Speaker 1: He's not going to win a title in Washington. And
Speaker 1: any smart person can see this. The team is a mess.
Speaker 1: The team is so messy that there's not really much
Speaker 1: of a chance that they even will make the playoffs
Speaker 1: this year. Their idea of giving Beal pieces to help
Speaker 1: him was to sign Monty Morris, will or Monte Will
Speaker 1: Barton the lawn Wright junior. They drafted Johnny Davis, which means, folks,
Speaker 1: that this team has signed four guys who either have
Speaker 1: or currently play the shooting guard position, which is the
Speaker 1: exact same position that Bradley Beal plays. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, of course Morris and Wright can play the point.
Speaker 1: And basically what you're saying is that the Wizards added
Speaker 1: a pair of backup point guards Monty Morris at thirteen
Speaker 1: and four, right at four and two, and then basically said,
Speaker 1: Bradley Beal, you go ahead and carry the load. You
Speaker 1: go ahead and be the point guard. Make Johnny Davis
Speaker 1: the two. And we know that Bradley Beal is loyal,
Speaker 1: but we also know Bradley Beal is smart and signing
Speaker 1: with the Wizards right now with a baby on the
Speaker 1: way is a smart business move and it's a smart
Speaker 1: life move. It's just not the one that's going to
Speaker 1: give him a title. And that's facts, and that's okay.
Speaker 1: He'll be thirty four years old when his extension is finished,
Speaker 1: and so that's maybe when he decides to go chase
Speaker 1: a ring like everybody else. I don't hate it. He's
Speaker 1: creating this multi generational wealth and being loyal to a
Speaker 1: city that he loves, and I'm for that. But the
Speaker 1: cost of being loyal oftentimes is winning. Just asked Damian Lillard,
Speaker 1: who himself doubled down and took a two year, one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty two million dollars deal with the Blazers,
Speaker 1: how much money is that? Let me go to Mas
Speaker 1: School sixty sixty something million dollars a year. Well, if
Speaker 1: you're gonna lose which twenty nine teams every year, do,
Speaker 1: you might as well make sixty million dollars a year
Speaker 1: doing it. Let's move on to Donovan Mitchell, quick update
Speaker 1: him on him and the Utah Jazz. I don't have
Speaker 1: it today. I don't think I have it. Last we
Speaker 1: looked in on the Jazz Trader, Danny had leveraged Rudy
Speaker 1: Gobert for about one hundred first round picks from the Timberwolves.
Speaker 1: People are very split down the middle on this. I
Speaker 1: put out a clip on the internet. Would you rather
Speaker 1: spend thirty million dollars on Christian Wood. We talked about
Speaker 1: this on the podcast, obviously, Christian Wood and Javeail thirty
Speaker 1: million or Rudy Gobert and cat At one hundred million,
Speaker 1: and people were very mad. People told me to get
Speaker 1: into the kitchen. People told me to never watch basketball again.
Speaker 1: People told me that I should just focus on the
Speaker 1: women's side of the game. It's just one of those
Speaker 1: scenarios where this was more controversial folks than I even thought,
Speaker 1: at least thought least. The Wolves are committed to doing
Speaker 1: something to try to win now, and that for a
Speaker 1: lot of folks who have never seen the Wolves do
Speaker 1: a damn thing, is very exciting. This team could be
Speaker 1: very fun, even though it's a wing driven league. As
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant would say, and you've got two centers now
Speaker 1: that make a hundred million. I don't want to talk
Speaker 1: about that, though. What I do want to talk about
Speaker 1: is what the Jazz are doing given this end of things,
Speaker 1: and what they're going to do moving forward. Q that
Speaker 1: Brian Windhorse dramatic reading what is going on in Utah.
Speaker 1: It turns out, according to Brian Winhorse, what is happening
Speaker 1: in Utah is nothing. Yet they're the only team in
Speaker 1: the NBA who hasn't signed anyone in free agency, not
Speaker 1: one single person, not a single soul. All they've done
Speaker 1: is just trade things, trade Roy O'Neill, trade Rudy Gobert,
Speaker 1: and accumulated to first round picks. And that, my friends,
Speaker 1: probably not a sign of encouragement to my man, Donovan Mitchell.
Speaker 1: Probably not good news if you're a Jazz fan and
Speaker 1: you think then maybe they're building around them, because that's
Speaker 1: what they keep saying, We're building around Donovan. We don't
Speaker 1: want them to go. And then other reports are coming
Speaker 1: out saying that Donovan Mitchell is concerned with the moves
Speaker 1: that this team is making. Facts. I get that, and
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm making a hot take or saying
Speaker 1: a hot take to say Donovan Mitchell is probably not
Speaker 1: long for the Utah Jazz. This team's in rebuild mode.
Speaker 1: They just are not admitting it yet because they think
Speaker 1: they're getting an All Star Game in Utah, which they
Speaker 1: may or may not have, and they need to have
Speaker 1: one player that's an All Star the one year that
Speaker 1: they go to that trash as city or the fan
Speaker 1: base will probably riot probably bring their tiki torches out.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, the All Star game is two weeks though
Speaker 1: before the trade deadline this year coincidence, I don't think so.
Speaker 1: I don't think so. So if you're in New York,
Speaker 1: you play the waiting game. I mean New York, not Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: Other than Sam Presty and OKC. We talked about this before,
Speaker 1: there's not really any other team that has as many
Speaker 1: first round picks as the next, especially expendable ones. They
Speaker 1: have eight tradable first round picks in the next handful
Speaker 1: of years, so unless they do something panicky or dumb,
Speaker 1: they're going to be in a really good position to
Speaker 1: add Donovan to this team. And a backcourt of Mitchell
Speaker 1: and Brunson is pretty intriguing. It's definitely better than a
Speaker 1: backcourt of Mike Conley Jr. And Donovan Mitchell, but truthfully,
Speaker 1: Mike Coley in his prime probably better than Jalen Bondson.
Speaker 1: Not gonna lie. Wendy says that the Jazz are not
Speaker 1: talking to anyone about a trade right now for Donovan,
Speaker 1: and I think that makes sense only if they're planning
Speaker 1: on holy onto him for the short term, because building
Speaker 1: around him makes no damn sense. And what we know
Speaker 1: about Danny Age is this, he is not afraid to,
Speaker 1: and he seems too light to blow out let's h