Speaker 1: On this episode of the Heat Check Summer League is here.
Speaker 2: I am off to Vegas. By this time that you're
Speaker 2: listening to this, I will be touching down on the
Speaker 2: West Coast. I will report on the ground. Until then,
Speaker 2: I will drop this interview from Spotrax. Keith Smith, one
Speaker 2: of the smartest dudes in the game, actually dropped a
Speaker 2: ton of wisdom on the free agent market, just some
Speaker 2: of the things that I was curious about in terms
Speaker 2: of the Paul George deal and how that got done.
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna waste any more of my time, Anthony,
Speaker 2: so drop that motherfucking beat that should be the.
Speaker 3: Honest Tree is in charge.
Speaker 4: Everybody knows it. So I'm just glad to be here.
Speaker 4: We are about to walk into the show. Keith Smith
Speaker 4: Keith Covers, Keith Covers the NBA. He is the co
Speaker 4: host of the Front Office show. You can follow him
Speaker 4: on x at Keith Smith NBA. Keith, what's up, big dog?
Speaker 4: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: How we do it?
Speaker 1: Man?
Speaker 5: I'm doing well. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 4: Absolutely absolutely great to have you. Let's get into some
Speaker 4: get into some NBA free agency talk. Obviously we've got Clay,
Speaker 4: We've got CP three, we've got Paul George.
Speaker 3: If I ask you right.
Speaker 4: Now, the number one most impactful free agency move, the
Speaker 4: one that we're gonna be talking about after a title
Speaker 4: is handed out next offseason, and I ask you to
Speaker 4: narrow it down to one, who's that guy? What's that move?
Speaker 5: That'd probably have to be Paul George. It's hard to
Speaker 5: beat that one. He's the only Max player who change
Speaker 5: teams this offseason, So you know that's huge for Philadelphia.
Speaker 5: They're good. Of course, they're health issues. We're gonna find
Speaker 5: out because they got to be healthy, not not just
Speaker 5: throughout the regular season, but when it matters. They got
Speaker 5: to be healthy and pro mae in for their hopes June.
Speaker 5: So we'll see what happened there. But you know, the
Speaker 5: perfect fit between Max and and b. They did a
Speaker 5: nice job filling out the roster around that edition and
Speaker 5: getting good depths in, so you know Philadelphia is going
Speaker 5: to be a tough team. That was a really good
Speaker 5: pickup by them.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you saw it today, Keith, but
Speaker 1: before today, the chatter from all of the insiders was
Speaker 1: that Paul George wanted the full four years from LA
Speaker 1: and they weren't willing to give it to him, and
Speaker 1: they would go to the three years, But it turns out,
Speaker 1: according to Paul George, that they were offering just two years,
Speaker 1: and then when he said I'll take what quiet offer
Speaker 1: was offered three years one fifty three with the no
Speaker 1: trade clause. They bopped at that, and then the taste
Speaker 1: got sour. Are you surprised at the difference between what
Speaker 1: the perception was in terms of the deal and Paul
Speaker 1: George's side of it to what we're hearing now.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's totally tough, right because I'm sure the Clippers
Speaker 5: would tell a different variation of that story. I was
Speaker 5: told a lot of the same things everybody else was
Speaker 5: that he wanted four years, and then when he came down,
Speaker 5: he was insistent that he get a no trade clause,
Speaker 5: and it sounds like that was ultimately the thing that
Speaker 5: the Clippers were not going to give on. They were
Speaker 5: not going to give him a no trade clause at
Speaker 5: any point, and then at that point, I think that's
Speaker 5: where things kind of got a little sideways. And for
Speaker 5: Paul George, it helped knowing, Hey, I've got Philly out
Speaker 5: here who's willing to give me the full Max contract.
Speaker 5: They were willing to give me that fourth year in
Speaker 5: the playoffs, and they can't give him a no trade clause,
Speaker 5: but he doesn't really need one from them because they
Speaker 5: signed him. It's probably unlikely they're going to move him.
Speaker 5: So it's always a little tough, you know. It's you know,
Speaker 5: I love when the players are candid with us and
Speaker 5: tell us everything like that, but I also like to
Speaker 5: balance that out with this story from the other side too,
Speaker 5: And we'll see, maybe we'll get it at some point,
Speaker 5: but I think the Clippers at this point are just
Speaker 5: kind of saying, aren't time to move on? But we're
Speaker 5: headed in a different direction.
Speaker 1: You mentioned some of the other moves that the Sixers
Speaker 1: made to round out the roster. I thought the one
Speaker 1: that was like very low key under the radar was
Speaker 1: Caleb Martin. He turned down a big bag from Miami
Speaker 1: and is getting quite a lot less to go to
Speaker 1: sit in the Sixers. Was that a matter of him
Speaker 1: kind of underestimate or overestimating his value or did he
Speaker 1: really just want to go to a place with a
Speaker 1: better fit.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's a really good question because he played such
Speaker 5: a big role in Miami. But they've got a lot
Speaker 5: of forwards on that team with Haimi Hawka is coming
Speaker 5: into to play here, and then you've got you know,
Speaker 5: Nikolai Jovich, who they're playing quite a bit. You still
Speaker 5: have Jimmy Butler there, Josh Richardson, who can even play
Speaker 5: up at times, is coming back healthy next year. So
Speaker 5: there's just a lot going on, you know, with that
Speaker 5: Miami team. And I wonder if he was like, all right, hey,
Speaker 5: let me see if something else is bigger out there.
Speaker 5: But money came off the board very fast this summer.
Speaker 5: There were very few teams that were willing to kind
Speaker 5: of go all in on free agent moves that they
Speaker 5: were more gonna take this it around kind of approach
Speaker 5: like Orlando did with KCP and then resigning a whole
Speaker 5: bunch of their guys. And we're still gonna see, you know,
Speaker 5: what Utah and Detroit are doing. But my guest is
Speaker 5: Caleb Martin ultimately decided, all right, maybe I'm not going
Speaker 5: to get that money from Miami, but I still want
Speaker 5: to be in a good situation on a team where
Speaker 5: I can compete and try to win. So I'm gonna
Speaker 5: head off to Philadelphia. And he's still got a pretty
Speaker 5: nice contract In the end, Keith I wanted.
Speaker 4: To talk a bit about the Demarta Rosen trade. He
Speaker 4: goes out to Sacramento, they end up sending Harrison Barnes out.
Speaker 4: Chris Duarte gets moved in that trade as well. I'm
Speaker 4: not a huge believer in this trade. Like I like
Speaker 4: Demarta Rosen, I just don't think he's the big name
Speaker 4: he's that key guy. I think he's a question mark defensively,
Speaker 4: and considering he's not a big three point guy and
Speaker 4: you just traded your best one in Harrison Barnes, I'm
Speaker 4: kind of worried about where this leaves Sacramento. Why were
Speaker 4: the Kings ultimately the team that ended up with Demarta Rosen.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think the Kings have hit a point where
Speaker 5: their feeling was, if we have Demos to Sabonis anchoring
Speaker 5: our defense, we're never gonna probably be more than an
Speaker 5: average defense in the league. It's just too hard that way.
Speaker 5: So I think now they're looking at it in a
Speaker 5: sense of, you know what, let's go after being a
Speaker 5: great offensive team. Now the fifth a little weird, we'll see,
Speaker 5: but imagine on the nights when Malik Monk is out
Speaker 5: there with Fox sa Bonis to Rosen keik It Murray
Speaker 5: is now your fifth option like on those nights. That's
Speaker 5: one of the best fifth options offensively in the entire NBA.
Speaker 5: So that that is, you know, really really good work
Speaker 5: by the Kings there. So we'll see. My guess is
Speaker 5: they're just going to try to play entertaining basketball, outscore
Speaker 5: a whole bunch of people, and you know, try to
Speaker 5: win games that way, because defensively gave up somebody. It's
Speaker 5: not like Harrison Barnes was lifting them to being, you know,
Speaker 5: a great defense anyway, And I like Harrison Barnes quite
Speaker 5: a bit. I think he'll help the Spurs as they
Speaker 5: try to mature that roster a little bit here moving
Speaker 5: into one Binyama second season. But yeah, I don't mind
Speaker 5: it for the Kings. It's a weird kind of move,
Speaker 5: but sometimes weird works out, and I.
Speaker 1: Know the Kings Keith are looking to make some other
Speaker 1: moves and maybe add one more piece. There's been rumors
Speaker 1: around Brandon Ingram, There's been rumors around Kyle Kuzma. Sam
Speaker 1: Vaccini today said that he thinks that a better fit
Speaker 1: would be a player like Isaiah Stewart in the front court,
Speaker 1: maybe a little beefier, no pun intended, maybe a little
Speaker 1: bit more physical. Who do you think that player that
Speaker 1: could round out that roster might be.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think the Ingram and Kuzma sauce is all
Speaker 5: over after getting DeRose, and they're just there's not really
Speaker 5: a way to make that work in a way that
Speaker 5: makes sense for the Kings. Use your big trade chip
Speaker 5: in Barnes to get that one. But Stuart's a guy
Speaker 5: they could go get. He makes about half what those
Speaker 5: other guys make, so that's the guy they could go get.
Speaker 5: My thing is, though I've been told Detroit doesn't really
Speaker 5: want to move him, they're very happy to have him
Speaker 5: right now. That's the team that's kind of thinned up
Speaker 5: front behind Jalen Duran at the moment, and so they're
Speaker 5: seemingly pretty content with having Isaiah Stewart back and letting
Speaker 5: him kind of, you know, work. I think they're planning
Speaker 5: for now with Tobias Harris sign is to move Stewart
Speaker 5: back to a bench role where he really excelled playing
Speaker 5: in that role. But he'll move to the bench, but
Speaker 5: he's still going to get twenty five thirty minutes the
Speaker 5: night because right now it's Jalen during Isaiah Stewart and
Speaker 5: not much else up from for the Pistons as far
Speaker 5: as big men go. So I don't know what Detroit
Speaker 5: would need to move him. They might need something kind
Speaker 5: of really good back. And the Kings after making this
Speaker 5: trade are a little bit out of stuff because they still,
Speaker 5: you know, a pick to Sacramento from a previous trade.
Speaker 5: They have a pick swap out there now with the
Speaker 5: Spurs as a result of the Spurs helping him make
Speaker 5: this trade. So I'm not sure that that's where it goes.
Speaker 5: I think Sacramento might be resign a couple guys and
Speaker 5: finish it out that way.
Speaker 4: Keith Smith covers the NBA for spow Track. He is
Speaker 4: also the host of the Front Office show. I'm glad
Speaker 4: we brought up brandon Ingram there. I'm kind of curious
Speaker 4: as to what's going on with the Pelicans going into
Speaker 4: free age. And see, there was all the talk that
Speaker 4: brandon Ingram was getting moved. They were looking the Pelicans
Speaker 4: to dump that salary and move on. They've had a
Speaker 4: couple of moves. Brandon Ingram still a Pelican, and not
Speaker 4: only still a Pelican, but I really haven't heard anything
Speaker 4: about bibing on the move. How the Pelicans reverse course
Speaker 4: to hang on to the guy. Is it just that
Speaker 4: nobody's interested in brandon Ingram? What's kind of the smoke
Speaker 4: around him right now.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they're still willing to move him if they can
Speaker 5: find the right trade, but they're certainly not looking at
Speaker 5: salary dump him. They're not looking to just give him away.
Speaker 5: They're not going to give up any kind of assets.
Speaker 5: So they're not in that kind of position with brandon Ingram.
Speaker 5: What the Pelicans ran into a little bit though, was
Speaker 5: teams don't want to necessarily give up a lot for
Speaker 5: Ingram because it's a big contract to take on. And
Speaker 5: then you're in a position he's a free agent, so
Speaker 5: you have to pay him next year if that's where
Speaker 5: it wants to go. And that's why this is taken
Speaker 5: a while. But you know, there were some rumors Utah
Speaker 5: might be interested, and there's some matches there that could
Speaker 5: make sense, especially if Utah decided, you know what, we
Speaker 5: are going to kind of go for it a little
Speaker 5: bit this year. We will try to win. Maybe they'll
Speaker 5: keep marketing. They could add Ingram, and they could move
Speaker 5: out somebody like John Collins in a trade like that
Speaker 5: and try to go in a direction that way. So
Speaker 5: we'll see, you know, kind of how that comes together.
Speaker 5: But I think right now New Orleans is just they're
Speaker 5: looking for front courts eyes. They added Daniel Tykes today,
Speaker 5: but he it's him and Eves Missy who are the
Speaker 5: only two centers on that roster, and Zion Williamson's the
Speaker 5: only other real rotation big so they've got to add
Speaker 5: depth desperately upfront. So we'll see, you know, kind of
Speaker 5: how that comes together right now. But if they're gonna
Speaker 5: do it, it's probably gonna involve a Brandon an Ingram
Speaker 5: trade or maybe less likely this CJ. McCollum trade to
Speaker 5: get there.
Speaker 1: I wasn't gonna ask you this, but I wanted to
Speaker 1: get your thoughts on our tourist, Karnisovus as a GM
Speaker 1: and he was really lauded well from his time in
Speaker 1: Denver and all the things that they did to build
Speaker 1: the Nuggets into a champion right and now I wonder
Speaker 1: based on some of the decisions he's made for the Bulls,
Speaker 1: moving off of De Rozan too late, still not you know,
Speaker 1: paying Zach Lavine and now having to add a first
Speaker 1: round pick probably to get rid of him the Voots
Speaker 1: trade of course, as you know, living in Orlando being
Speaker 1: kind of a disaster. Like, what's your thoughts on ak
Speaker 1: And is it just the ownership is stifling him or
Speaker 1: is he maybe not as good as people thought he was?
Speaker 1: And Tim Connelly was truly the architect of Denver.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the truth priorized somewhere in the middle there. I
Speaker 5: think the Bulls owners have made it really hard to
Speaker 5: build sustainable winners there because they they have everybody right
Speaker 5: now is so much into hard caps and first Apron
Speaker 5: and second Apron and all these other things. For years,
Speaker 5: the Bulls owners have basically put a false hard cap
Speaker 5: of the luxury tax on the team building and have
Speaker 5: more or less said we're not going to pay the tax.
Speaker 5: So this is, you know, this is what you can do.
Speaker 5: If you can make the work in under the tax line. Great,
Speaker 5: If you can't, just try to put together a playoff team,
Speaker 5: you know, we we chase, you know, selling out the
Speaker 5: building every night, being semi competitive, and and then it's
Speaker 5: on the baseball season for the ownership. So it's been
Speaker 5: really tough for various Bulls folks, and that's why they're
Speaker 5: kind of stuck here in this spot where right now.
Speaker 5: I like some of the moves that they've made, as
Speaker 5: far as I don't mind the Josh Getty return for
Speaker 5: Alex Cruso, even if maybe you could have got back
Speaker 5: more later. I think the Jalen Smith signing was really
Speaker 5: good because he fits if they're rebuilding or if they're
Speaker 5: going for it. Uh, but they're right now, this is
Speaker 5: a weird roster. It's just before you all called, I
Speaker 5: was looking at their roster to really see, all right,
Speaker 5: who's gonna start? What does this look like? And it's
Speaker 5: just kind of messy because it feels like we're pulling
Speaker 5: this team in about three different directions of all right,
Speaker 5: these guys are, you know, fit for contenders, these guys
Speaker 5: are fit for tasing the you know, playing tournament, then
Speaker 5: these guys should be you're getting twenty five thirty minutes
Speaker 5: a night playing in a rebuilding situation, So I don't
Speaker 5: know if they're done or not. And for Cornel Silvis,
Speaker 5: it becomes it all falls back on him. He's the one,
Speaker 5: even if ownership is putting these limits on him, He's
Speaker 5: got to make it work. He's got to build a
Speaker 5: functional team, and he hasn't been able to do that.
Speaker 5: I know we had those great few months when Lonzo
Speaker 5: ball Derozen first got there and they had Levine and
Speaker 5: everything was really going well for them, but that's all
Speaker 5: it's then it was those first few months and then
Speaker 5: they never able to get that magic back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Keith, you mentioned the Jalen Smith signing, which
Speaker 1: I love as well. But if they don't sign Jalen Smith,
Speaker 1: then they have the ability to take back the Harrison
Speaker 1: Barnes contract, get that twenty thirty one swap, and then
Speaker 1: maybe move Harrison Barnes down the road. I do want
Speaker 1: to get your thoughts on if there's anybody on this
Speaker 1: roster that you would build around, or is everybody expendable.
Speaker 5: Everybody should be expendable, because no one has shown the
Speaker 5: ability to be like kind of a foundational franchise peace.
Speaker 5: I know they took a lot of grief for the
Speaker 5: Patrick Williams contract. I don't mind it that eighteen million
Speaker 5: a year is going to be barely above the mid
Speaker 5: level by the time that contract finishes out. I think
Speaker 5: Patrick Williams, we're gonna find out canny scale or is
Speaker 5: he just going to kind of be the like poor
Speaker 5: Man's Virgin of Harrison Barnes, which is he's okay and
Speaker 5: everybody likes kind of having him around, but he never
Speaker 5: gets that much better. So we'll see how that comes together.
Speaker 5: And then the closest thing beyond that would be Modus Brousellis.
Speaker 5: But we have no idea. He's a rookie and you know,
Speaker 5: we don't know how good he'll be or not. But
Speaker 5: right now I think, yeah, they should be pretty much
Speaker 5: open to just about anything.
Speaker 4: Keith Smith covers the NBA for Spow Track. He is
Speaker 4: also a contributor for the NBA front off. The show
Speaker 4: joins us here on bet MG and tonight Keith my Man,
Speaker 4: great stuff, Bud, thank you very much. We appreciate it.
Speaker 5: Partner, I appreciate it. Thank you so much for having
Speaker 5: me