Speaker 1: Welcome to this League Uncut in the rule.
Speaker 2: Of twenty four hour NBA news.
Speaker 3: This you lo, Chris Hans, It's time, works time, It's
Speaker 3: so time.
Speaker 2: This League uncut is underway in on fire. This should
Speaker 2: be a good one. Hello friends, Thursday afternoon.
Speaker 4: As Chris and I tape this latest edition of this
Speaker 4: League Uncut, the finals are over. The twenty twenty two
Speaker 4: to twenty three season is in the books. Trade season,
Speaker 4: or at least the chatter it generates, is already underway.
Speaker 4: The Denver Nuggets championship parade is raging right now as
Speaker 4: we speak, as we tape, and we will get to
Speaker 4: the Nuggets eventually.
Speaker 2: We will put a bow on their title run.
Speaker 4: The first championship in that franchise is forty seven season
Speaker 4: run in the NBA, and of course there were nine
Speaker 4: glorious seasons before that in the ABA. First title in
Speaker 4: more than fifty years for Denver. We will, I promise,
Speaker 4: get to that. But first we got to start with
Speaker 4: the trade chatter because it has been so aggressive already.
Speaker 2: You just say trade season.
Speaker 4: Do we gotta spell that with a s ZN like
Speaker 4: I tweeted out a couple of pieces before we started
Speaker 4: taping this I feel a little I feel a little
Speaker 4: too old to be saying trade season and spell it.
Speaker 1: S z N. If anybody can get away with it,
Speaker 1: that's forty five and older. You can.
Speaker 3: You can do that, so you get I.
Speaker 2: Don't even remember. I don't even remember forty.
Speaker 3: Five to Nice.
Speaker 2: That was a long that was It was almost a
Speaker 2: decade ago.
Speaker 3: Nice.
Speaker 4: Let's just jump right into it. Bradley Beal, I think
Speaker 4: the situation is more advanced than it's been described. I
Speaker 4: think the end is near. Bradley Beal, Damian Lillard, Draymond Green,
Speaker 4: all drafted in twenty ten twelve, with you.
Speaker 2: Donnis Haslam retiring.
Speaker 4: Now, those three are tied for the third longest tenure
Speaker 4: with one team. The only players who've been with their
Speaker 4: teams longer the Splash Brothers Stephen Curry drafted in two
Speaker 4: thousand and nine Klay Thompson drafted in twenty eleven. Those
Speaker 4: are the only two players with a longer longevity run
Speaker 4: than Bradley Beal in Washington, Damian Lillard in Portland, Draymond
Speaker 4: Green yet another Warrior at this point, you know, Dame Lillard.
Speaker 2: His name keeps coming up.
Speaker 4: We have no indication yet that there's any real real
Speaker 4: trade smoke there. But Bradley Beial to me, the trade
Speaker 4: smoke is very, very very legit.
Speaker 2: What do you see?
Speaker 1: I agree, I think you know, you look at that.
Speaker 1: There's new regime over there. There's a new general manager
Speaker 1: over there in charge of the basketball operations over there,
Speaker 1: Michael Winger. So you have to understand that when changes
Speaker 1: like that are made, oftentimes they want to establish a
Speaker 1: new team, establish a new identity, a new culture, and
Speaker 1: that often leads to personnel changes on the roster and
Speaker 1: Bradley Bial being the main stay there. The Wizards were
Speaker 1: not going anywhere. They haven't went anywhere in a while,
Speaker 1: and so if that's going to be the case, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it's obvious to look at some form of
Speaker 1: a rebuild and I think, well, that's not a thing.
Speaker 1: Bradley Bial doesn't want to be a part of rebuild.
Speaker 1: And thus why we're, you know, in the situation we
Speaker 1: are now. This is the realist that has ever been
Speaker 1: with Bradley Beal, and I think that's what needs to
Speaker 1: be relaid out there. Like we've heard of Bradley Beal
Speaker 1: talk over the last few years, linking him to the Lakers,
Speaker 1: or to the Miami He you know, that's been going
Speaker 1: on for the last three four years. This is as
Speaker 1: real as it's gotten. Let me know what you think,
Speaker 1: but Stein, I would be surprised if he's a member
Speaker 1: of the Wizards going into next season.
Speaker 3: Do you have that? Are you? Are you that? Do
Speaker 3: you just feel that strongly about it as well?
Speaker 2: I do?
Speaker 4: I agree with you because the crazy part about this, though,
Speaker 4: is Bradley Beal holds pretty much all the cards, which
Speaker 4: is makes this such a unique situation. I wish I
Speaker 4: could remember exactly how old I was when I first
Speaker 4: heard the term no trade clause, and it was I know,
Speaker 4: I was pretty young because in baseball, it was it
Speaker 4: was a thing, you know, I was.
Speaker 2: Baseball was my first love, you know.
Speaker 4: I want to say early by the early eighties, the
Speaker 4: prospect of the no trade clause in baseball was starting
Speaker 4: to get more prevalent. Like I said, I really should
Speaker 4: have researched this better. It might have even been late
Speaker 4: seventies in baseball. But in the NBA, I've written about
Speaker 4: this a bazillion times because I've always found this a
Speaker 4: pretty interesting subject. In the NBA, a no trade clause
Speaker 4: is so hard to come by. You have to have
Speaker 4: eight years of service time and four with the same team.
Speaker 4: But the wrinkle that makes it tough is it can
Speaker 4: only be in a new deal and most of the
Speaker 4: best players in the league they do extensions. They play
Speaker 4: out their rookie scale, play out their rookie scale deal,
Speaker 4: then they do a rookie scale extension. Then you know,
Speaker 4: they typically extend off of that. Like you have to
Speaker 4: get all the way to unrestricted free agency to get
Speaker 4: a no trade clause to add it into a new deal.
Speaker 4: And that's exactly what Bradley Beal did last summer. He
Speaker 4: went to unrestricted free agency and then sign that massive
Speaker 4: five year, two hundred and fifty one million dollar deal
Speaker 4: with the Wizards.
Speaker 2: And the Wizards they gave him a trade kicker fifteen percent, and.
Speaker 4: They gave him the no trade clause and it is
Speaker 4: the only full no trade clause on the NBA map.
Speaker 4: And because Ted leonsis blessed that last year, Bradley Beal
Speaker 4: and his agent Mark Bartostein they are in control of this.
Speaker 4: The Wizards cannot trade Bradley Beal unless he blesses it.
Speaker 2: And I think, as we've seen, because you know, you mentioned.
Speaker 4: You know, there was talk last year, will he try
Speaker 4: to go to the Lakers? Will he try to go
Speaker 4: to the Heat. You know, Bradley Beal has stuck with
Speaker 4: the Wizards his whole career.
Speaker 2: He's not just gonna go anywhere.
Speaker 4: He's not just gonna say yes to the deal Washington
Speaker 4: wants to make that might bring Washington back the most
Speaker 4: in terms of assets. By all accounts, Miami. That is
Speaker 4: the team that is most intriguing to Bradley Beal.
Speaker 2: Maybe others will emerge.
Speaker 4: As this process goes on farther, but at this point,
Speaker 4: it's not the Knicks. I don't think Boston or Philly.
Speaker 4: I don't think either one of those Eastern powers is
Speaker 4: even pursuing this. You know, Miami right now, that's the team.
Speaker 4: And because of that no trade clause, it really puts
Speaker 4: Washington in this brutal position of they're probably gonna and
Speaker 4: you know what, whether it's Miami or someone else, even
Speaker 4: if some other team emerges, Miami's going to have to
Speaker 4: consider trade proposals that they probably would not have considered
Speaker 4: because again.
Speaker 2: Bradley Beal is the ultimate decision maker here.
Speaker 1: I would throw Brooklyn in there as well as a
Speaker 1: team that interesting, I could potentially get in the mix
Speaker 1: if Bill. You know, that's again you talked on just
Speaker 1: how scarce it is for an NBA player to have
Speaker 1: that no trade clause. So that eliminates a lot of teams.
Speaker 1: So I know, like fans like to you know, they
Speaker 1: love rumors, they love rumors, they like nuggets, they like
Speaker 1: the details, they like to stay on top of how
Speaker 1: things are progressing. But with the Bill situation, we have
Speaker 1: that no trade clause, it's going to eliminate a lot
Speaker 1: of those potential rumors out there, and it's going it.
Speaker 3: Could be boring. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is something that's going to
Speaker 1: play out where he's linked to the Mavericks, he's linked
Speaker 1: to here, he's linked to here there. Those reports still
Speaker 1: may get out, but they might not hold validity because
Speaker 1: of the power that Bill holds in it. And so
Speaker 1: you know that that's one thing to be you know,
Speaker 1: but I expect over the course of over the weekend
Speaker 1: leading to next week, we'll see a few teams start
Speaker 1: emerging in the Bill sweepstakes. And then we'll we also
Speaker 1: here may start hearing about teams that Bill doesn't want
Speaker 1: to go to as well. That can very much happen.
Speaker 1: I remember when Anthony Davis was requested his trade in
Speaker 1: New Orleans and.
Speaker 3: He didn't have no trade clause. It wasn't like that, but.
Speaker 1: I reported it was probably a few weeks before the
Speaker 1: trade deadline. I reported that he had no interest in
Speaker 1: being traded to the Boston Celtics. Remember because at that
Speaker 1: time the Celtics were in place, and so a lot
Speaker 1: of times what that does when when the word gets
Speaker 1: out that a player is not interest interested, it messes
Speaker 1: up there and messed up their value, and then teams
Speaker 1: start to think, well, is it worth having a is
Speaker 1: it worth bringing a player like ad over because he
Speaker 1: may just bounce at the end of the year, Like
Speaker 1: it's it worth trading away all those assets for a
Speaker 1: year rental. We've seen what happened with Toronto Fadl semi
Speaker 1: worked out because they got a championship out.
Speaker 3: Of it with with Kawhi Leonard.
Speaker 1: But those are things you have to weigh, and those
Speaker 1: are the type of stories or developments that could come
Speaker 1: out of the process of us continuing to monitor Bradley
Speaker 1: Bill's situation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you said it, ad The hammer ad had was
Speaker 4: if I get traded somewhere, I don't want to go.
Speaker 4: I'm just going to leave in free agency at the
Speaker 4: first opportunity. But this hammer that Beal has really is
Speaker 4: the mightiest hammer you can have, because you know he
Speaker 4: can block the trade. It was the end of May
Speaker 4: when Washington struck the deal to hire Michael Winger to
Speaker 4: basically take over Monumental Sports. He has oversight of both
Speaker 4: the Wizards and the WNBA's mystics. And you know, from
Speaker 4: that point in rival front offices, this expectation has been
Speaker 4: building that a teardown was likely, that the Wizards were
Speaker 4: gonna go on this aggressive path to remake the roster,
Speaker 4: and obviously that starts with Bradley Beale. And look, I
Speaker 4: think in a perfect world, the Wizards would love to
Speaker 4: know that they could get draft picks and cap relief.
Speaker 4: But again, because Beale holds so much sway here with
Speaker 4: that no trade clause, it's gonna force the Wizards to
Speaker 4: look at proposals that they just nor they wouldn't even
Speaker 4: consider if they had more leverage and ability here. But
Speaker 4: it will make it a lot easier if it would
Speaker 4: be a lot easier if if Bradley Beal would tell
Speaker 4: us exactly where he is or isn't willing to go.
Speaker 4: But I'm gonna leave it to I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 4: leave it up to a reporter like Chris Haynes to
Speaker 4: get to the bottom of that, which I'm actually gonna
Speaker 4: I'm actually I'm not a betting man, but I'm gonna
Speaker 4: bet on Haynes to be among those who among those
Speaker 4: who very likely will figure out exactly where mister Beal does.
Speaker 2: And doesn't want to go.
Speaker 4: But it's it's funny how you said how much the
Speaker 4: people you know love these kind of stories. Today in
Speaker 4: Dallas we had huge news locally where Norm hitchkis, who
Speaker 4: is an absolute institution locally. He's been on Dallas radio
Speaker 4: for nearly fifty years. I mean, you know, he had
Speaker 4: the first morning show in Dallas in terms of sports,
Speaker 4: and one of the first in the country. I remember
Speaker 4: seeing him on ESPN Baseball broadcast before I moved to Dallas,
Speaker 4: and you know, I've lived here a quarter century now,
Speaker 4: and you know he's been on the radio that whole time.
Speaker 4: Just he's Norm Hitchkiss is a Dallas sports franchise. Onto
Speaker 4: his unto himself when I posted my congratulatory note to
Speaker 4: Norm after he announced his retirement. The first response on Twitter,
Speaker 4: when is your next pod discussing Mavericks trade in draft chatter?
Speaker 2: So that just tells.
Speaker 4: You nobody has time for Nobody has time for sentiment
Speaker 4: right now or anything else they want.
Speaker 2: They want the trade talk.
Speaker 1: And they are quick with it. It makes me believe
Speaker 1: that they got that in draft. So no matter what
Speaker 1: you tweet, you could have tweeted rest in peace to somebody.
Speaker 3: We don't care about that. Where's where's Chris Paul going?
Speaker 4: Don't even think about It's funny you brought him up too.
Speaker 4: I got a call from a team today. What do
Speaker 4: you know about Chris Paul? What is Haynes telling you
Speaker 4: about Chris Paul?
Speaker 2: I'm like, heyes.
Speaker 4: What Haines is telling me is what's on the pod.
Speaker 4: Everything we've said on the pod. That's what I listen
Speaker 4: to the pod. That's what I said.
Speaker 3: That's a good way to bring on me a star.
Speaker 3: That's a good way.
Speaker 2: It works.
Speaker 4: But try so Look, Bradley Beal, on one hand, you
Speaker 4: know that that it's a five year, two hundred and
Speaker 4: fifty one million dollar deal. So look, any team that's
Speaker 4: trading for him, you really have to do some serious
Speaker 4: numbers crunching to fit him in because in this new CBA.
Speaker 2: You know, that's really my question with.
Speaker 4: The Heat that Okay, maybe Bradley Beal is going to
Speaker 4: want to go to Miami, and maybe that's the direction
Speaker 4: this is going to go. But what kind of deal
Speaker 4: can the Heat assemble to bring in Bradley Beal as
Speaker 4: basically your third guy? Their two main guys are going
Speaker 4: to stay Jimmy and Bam. This is Jimmy's team and
Speaker 4: Bam out of Bio with the defense he plays that
Speaker 4: you know, the interior anchor that he is. I mean,
Speaker 4: that's the twosomewhere it all starts. If you're bringing in
Speaker 4: Bradley Beal at that number again in this new CBA,
Speaker 4: it's going to be really tough to put a balanced
Speaker 4: roster around three guys making that kind of money. So
Speaker 4: to me, I do wonder is this the direction that
Speaker 4: Miami really wants to go? And I think it is
Speaker 4: at this point, But I throw in the disclaimer that, okay,
Speaker 4: does someone else they like better than Bradley Beal become available?
Speaker 2: And the natural name to throw out is Dame.
Speaker 4: But again, as we speak as we're recording this on
Speaker 4: the afternoon of June fifteenth, Damian Lillard to this point
Speaker 4: is not in trade play for Miami or anyone else.
Speaker 4: So at this point, I do think Beal is at
Speaker 4: the top of Miami's list, but it is fluid. Things
Speaker 4: could change if Dame or someone else they.
Speaker 2: Like becomes available.
Speaker 4: All right, let's move to the first big potential underlying
Speaker 4: the word patental trade story that emerged.
Speaker 2: After the NBA Finals.
Speaker 4: We are as we're recording this, we're one week away
Speaker 4: from the NBA Draft on June twenty second. New Orleans
Speaker 4: interest in Scoot Henderson has become a significant talking point.
Speaker 4: A lot of people around the league are buzzing about this,
Speaker 4: and the reality is the Pelicans they have the fourteenth pick,
Speaker 4: and to make sure they have a shot at Scoot Henderson,
Speaker 4: they would need the number two pick because the Hornets,
Speaker 4: who hold number two, are still deliberating between Scoot Henderson
Speaker 4: and Brandon Miller, which one of those players would they draft.
Speaker 4: If the Hornets keep the pick, they've kind of kept
Speaker 4: the league off balance. Some days you hear it's going
Speaker 4: to be Scoot. Some days you hear it's going to
Speaker 4: be Miller. That's obviously by design. The Hornets are trying
Speaker 4: to keep teams off balance. But the talk is, and
Speaker 4: you know, I went into I went into this in
Speaker 4: depth with a story on Wednesday, and based on what
Speaker 4: I'm hearing, yes, the Pelicans are legitimately considering. Doesn't mean
Speaker 4: they would one hundred percent do it, but they are
Speaker 4: considering the prospect of trying to assemble a deal for
Speaker 4: Charlotte's number two pick that would feature Zion Williamson. And
Speaker 4: at first blush, you say.
Speaker 2: Wait a minute.
Speaker 4: For only four years removed from Zion going number one overall,
Speaker 4: New Orleans would actually seriously consider trading him. And again
Speaker 4: the word I'm hearing is yes, it's something that they
Speaker 4: are weighing. What do you see in the Fresno crystal
Speaker 4: ball here? Could you see New Orleans actually parting with
Speaker 4: Zion to get up to number two in the draft
Speaker 4: or number three? Lynn is the other kind of variable here.
Speaker 4: But if you trade for number three, you might not
Speaker 4: get Scoot. Charlotte might stay on too, might hold firm
Speaker 4: and take Scoot Henderson at number two. So look into
Speaker 4: your crystal ball. What do you see, mister Haynes.
Speaker 3: I think the only way.
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, as answer your first question, do
Speaker 1: I think they could move Zion, Yes, I do. Giants
Speaker 1: availability has been an issue, you know, there have been
Speaker 1: questions about how he has how he has attacked his
Speaker 1: several rehab stints. So you have that, and then you
Speaker 1: just have the urgency of the Pelicans. They're trying to win,
Speaker 1: They're trying to do something now. So you put all
Speaker 1: that out there that leads me to believe. Yes, I
Speaker 1: do agree that they would consider moving him now when
Speaker 1: it comes to moving up to try to get scooted
Speaker 1: unless Charlotte lets everybody knows that they're going with Brandon,
Speaker 1: which I.
Speaker 3: Don't think Charlotte should do. I don't think they will do.
Speaker 1: I think you keep that very close to the Vest
Speaker 1: to give yourself the opportunity to get the best deal possible,
Speaker 1: to get New Orleans to want to do a deal
Speaker 1: with you opposed to a deal with the Blazers at
Speaker 1: number three. And so I think from New Orleans standpoint,
Speaker 1: if they really want Scoop, they have to figure out
Speaker 1: a deal to get that second pick. And that's what
Speaker 1: I think Charlotte should hold close to the Vest and
Speaker 1: New Orleans that they've been looking for. They've been in
Speaker 1: need of a point guard. You know. CJ has been
Speaker 1: playing that position, but he's more of an off guard.
Speaker 3: And I don't know will that make New Orleans better?
Speaker 3: You know, Scoop. Look, I had to I was invited
Speaker 3: to Scoots.
Speaker 1: He had a personal workout in Atlanta last week, but
Speaker 1: I was covering. I was covering game three or Game
Speaker 1: four of the finals, and I couldn't make it. But
Speaker 1: just from the video footage I watched from a couple
Speaker 1: of his workouts, Man.
Speaker 3: The guy, I mean, body wise, he's NBA ready.
Speaker 1: You know, he's like he's really he's really a physical
Speaker 1: specimen already. And he's played in the G League and
Speaker 1: he's nineteen, and a lot of nineteen year olds are
Speaker 1: not ready day one of the NBA. But the fact
Speaker 1: that he's played against grown men already, I think that
Speaker 1: puts him a step above probably his his counterparts. So
Speaker 1: with that being said, if New Orleans really wants that,
Speaker 1: I think they gotta go. They got a trade for
Speaker 1: that number two pick. I don't think he can mess
Speaker 1: around and try to wait and hope that he falls
Speaker 1: number three and try to do some with Portland. I
Speaker 1: think that would be a catastrophic move.
Speaker 4: You've always been plugged into the Scoot Henderson camp. He's
Speaker 4: never going to admit it. They're never going to publicly say,
Speaker 4: but just if you were surmising, will use that word
Speaker 4: instead of speculating, would he be excited to land in
Speaker 4: New Orleans?
Speaker 2: You think that's something that would appeal to him?
Speaker 3: You know, I haven't.
Speaker 1: I haven't spoken with him since this had this had
Speaker 1: surface before it was just Charlotte New Orleans. And I
Speaker 1: know he's a big Dame fan, and you know, I
Speaker 1: think at some point Dame and Scoop might talk in
Speaker 1: the near future, but so yeah, I haven't. I haven't
Speaker 1: spoken to them, uh in recent days since this new
Speaker 1: surface about New Orleans. So I really I don't know
Speaker 1: how he feels about it.
Speaker 4: I guess so he's been He has been pretty outspoken
Speaker 4: about the Portland thing, hasn't he like he he wants to.
Speaker 2: He's convinced that he can he can become that.
Speaker 4: If he ended up with the Blazers, that he could
Speaker 4: play next to Dame and be an instant contributor.
Speaker 3: For sure.
Speaker 1: He wants he wants to play next to Dame. He
Speaker 1: wants to play the next Dame. So you know, Dame
Speaker 1: has a decision. You know, I know this is a
Speaker 1: scoot New Orleans topic, but you know, Dame kind of
Speaker 1: a nice segue into into what Dame is going to do.
Speaker 1: He has a decision to make. Is he going to
Speaker 1: be happy with the number three pick? The players also
Speaker 1: have believe that twenty third pick as well. So it's
Speaker 1: like Portland they can do a few things like if
Speaker 1: they keep the number three, if Dame feels good about
Speaker 1: the possibility of him and Scoop being able to work together,
Speaker 1: and he thinks that, you know, Scoop can take help
Speaker 1: take this team to the next level, then there's other
Speaker 1: packages that Portland could look into trading the number twenty
Speaker 1: three pick along with we've been hearing you know, Athrety
Speaker 1: Simon's name being available.
Speaker 3: Does Simons in the number twenty three get you.
Speaker 1: A good quality starter waterline all star player?
Speaker 3: Does it? I don't know.
Speaker 1: And so Portland has a lot They got a lot.
Speaker 3: Of decisions to weigh.
Speaker 1: But as it pertains the Scoop, you know, he believes
Speaker 1: he's ready day one, he believes he's prepared, he believes
Speaker 1: he's yeah, very confident he believes he's prepared more than
Speaker 1: anybody in this draft class. And so for New Orleans standpoint,
Speaker 1: that bodes well for them if they're able to make
Speaker 1: that happen.
Speaker 3: The thing is with Zion, so let's transition to Zion.
Speaker 3: Thing with Zion.
Speaker 1: One thing teams are telling me is that no doubt,
Speaker 1: when Zion is healthy, he's a specimen.
Speaker 3: He's unstoppable.
Speaker 1: You know, the sheer force that he provides in that
Speaker 1: painted area and on an office and end, he just
Speaker 1: overpowers everyone. But one thing teams want to see is
Speaker 1: his medicals. That is going to be very very important.
Speaker 1: Teams getting to look at his medicals and then deciding
Speaker 1: from there what to do. I don't know what those
Speaker 1: medicals look like. I don't know the story that that's
Speaker 1: going to tell. But if these trades talks pretended to Zion,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying the trade talks because it's just this
Speaker 1: is right now, is just New Orleans would consider. But
Speaker 1: if it gets really serious, teams are going to have
Speaker 1: to look at the medicals, and then from there. Once
Speaker 1: one team looks at the medicals, and if say, for example,
Speaker 1: say the medicals they're bad, They just do not look good.
Speaker 1: It's going to get out there, and then that's going
Speaker 1: to mess up the trade value for the Pelicans in
Speaker 1: general as it pertains to Zion Williamson. So that's that's
Speaker 1: like steps further down the road if we get to it.
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to give fans a little peek inside
Speaker 1: how these things work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I get the question.
Speaker 4: So many of my readers on my substack have been
Speaker 4: asking me to try to gauge Zion's value, and it's
Speaker 4: really hard to do that because, yes, you know, like
Speaker 4: you said, you just look at the pure numbers. When
Speaker 4: Zion's on the floor, he averages twenty six on nearly
Speaker 4: sixty one percent shooting from the field. I mean, you
Speaker 4: can't be more efficient offensively than he is.
Speaker 2: You know, his rebounding, to me, that's.
Speaker 4: Always been an area that he needs to, you know,
Speaker 4: deliver more. That's an area where he can certainly improve.
Speaker 4: But we also saw in New Orleans early this season
Speaker 4: when he was rolling and the Pelicans were rolling that
Speaker 4: you know, he can play make too, So I mean,
Speaker 4: he has considerable offensive gifts. But then there's just no
Speaker 4: way to get around the fact he's only played in
Speaker 4: one hundred and fourteen out of three hundred eight possible
Speaker 4: regular season games.
Speaker 2: There's just no way to dodge that.
Speaker 4: And the two main things I can add the reason
Speaker 4: why this is a consideration for New Orleans, why they
Speaker 4: are weighing the prospect of trading Zion Williamson after just
Speaker 4: four years together. You know, as one trusted league observer
Speaker 4: put it to me, there is a rising level of
Speaker 4: exasperation within the Pells organization about those availability issues, about
Speaker 4: the way he.
Speaker 2: Has approached the game. But the other thing, and this
Speaker 2: is this is just as significant.
Speaker 4: It really appears that if the Pels were forced to
Speaker 4: consider trading Zion or trading Brandon Ingram, they're much more
Speaker 4: apt to trade Zion at this point that Ingram has
Speaker 4: reached a level in that organization where he is considered
Speaker 4: the safer from a trade when looking at those two guys.
Speaker 4: So those are two significant developments. And look, we've spent
Speaker 4: the first half hour of this pod. You know, the
Speaker 4: season has been over for minutes, and again the championship
Speaker 4: parade is going on as we're recording this, and already
Speaker 4: Zion Williamson Bradley Beal in potential trades.
Speaker 2: I think that speaks to what.
Speaker 4: Kind of off season in terms of player movement we
Speaker 4: are likely in for. It is not a stellar free
Speaker 4: agent class. Spending money for free agency is very limited.
Speaker 4: It's only a few teams that have significant cap space,
Speaker 4: and they're not contending teams. So I don't know what
Speaker 4: we're gonna get in terms of free agent fireworks. But
Speaker 4: the prospect of trades connected to next week's draft, right
Speaker 4: after next week's draft, before the NBA calendar year moves
Speaker 4: to twenty twenty three to twenty four, and even in July, trades, trades, trades,
Speaker 4: I think we're going to see a fair few, so
Speaker 4: buckle up for that. Lastly, mister Haynes, I think we
Speaker 4: need to dedicate this edition of This League Uncut and friends.
Speaker 4: As always, remember please rate, review, and subscribe to the
Speaker 4: show via Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 2: Or wherever you get your pods. Please do that for us.
Speaker 4: But this episode, it must be it must be said.
Speaker 4: We're doing this with a serious hat tip to the
Speaker 4: Denver Nuggets, the NBA's new champions, first time champions. The
Speaker 4: last time we did a pod, it was with the
Speaker 4: series score at three to one, a very very unsightly
Speaker 4: Game five, Miami mucked the game up, mucked with an
Speaker 4: m just as they would have wanted to, made it ugly,
Speaker 4: made it messy. Denver still finds a way, finishes the
Speaker 4: series off. Nikola Jokic NBA Finals MVP in an eleven
Speaker 4: zero runaway in that vote no MVP debate in the finals,
Speaker 4: and man, all I can say is, you tricked us, Denver.
Speaker 4: You tricked me. That seven and ten finished to the
Speaker 4: regular season. I paid way too much attention to it.
Speaker 4: It made me question whether the Nuggets were truly ready
Speaker 4: for a playoff run.
Speaker 2: It was all a ruse.
Speaker 4: They mowed through the postseason sixteen and four, and critics
Speaker 4: will say, yeah, you know, they didn't play a top
Speaker 4: three seed, which has never happened in the you know,
Speaker 4: in the in the sixteen team playoff era, and this
Speaker 4: was year forty of that playoff era, and somehow they
Speaker 4: didn't play a number one seed along the way. But
Speaker 4: you know, this was a this was a season I
Speaker 4: think you got to somewhat throw the seedings out. The
Speaker 4: Lakers made it to the conference finals as a number seven,
Speaker 4: but they were not a number seven, and they took
Speaker 4: out the defending champion Warriors to get to the West Finals.
Speaker 2: And Miami.
Speaker 4: We can't look at them as your usual number eight
Speaker 4: after what they did to fifty eight win Milwaukee and
Speaker 4: fifty seven win Boston. So you know, downgrade the Nuggets
Speaker 4: championship if you want because you think they didn't see
Speaker 4: enough powerhouses on the way. But come on, man, Nikola
Speaker 4: Jokic age twenty eight, first player in NBA Playoff history
Speaker 4: to lead all players total points, six hundred, total rebounds,
Speaker 4: two hundred and sixty nine total assists one hundred and ninety.
Speaker 4: Incredible coronation for the Nuggets, and they shut a lot
Speaker 4: of people up. And again, as we're taping this, the
Speaker 4: parade is going on, and I'm seeing tweets while we
Speaker 4: record about wow Jokic with some curse action.
Speaker 2: Here, Nikola Jokic said to the.
Speaker 4: Roar of five hundred thousand plus fans in Denver, this
Speaker 4: is a tweet from our buddy Mark Spears.
Speaker 2: Quote.
Speaker 4: I told them I didn't want to stay for the parade,
Speaker 4: but I bleeping want to stay for the parade.
Speaker 2: This is the best. This is amazing. So there you go.
Speaker 2: Loves parades. Michael Malone's been talking smack all day.
Speaker 1: Long, rightfully, so rightfully, so I told you start our
Speaker 1: last part.
Speaker 3: I said, listen, we're going to the next pot.
Speaker 1: We're gonna we're gonna be congratulating the Dinner Nuggets, congratulating
Speaker 1: Joker on winning Finals MVP, and you know they're gonna
Speaker 1: wrap it up in five, and they did. I didn't
Speaker 1: see anything left in Miami covering that series. I felt
Speaker 1: like the Miami Heat they emptied their clip, as small
Speaker 1: as a clip that they were dealing with.
Speaker 3: It was empty. They'd have nothing left.
Speaker 1: And Denver was just too much depth, too much talent,
Speaker 1: and Miami Heat worked hard, they worked their butts off,
Speaker 1: and that's probably one of the most hard hardest working
Speaker 1: teams in the league, especially the most hardest working team
Speaker 1: in the playoffs, and I think that got them to
Speaker 1: this point. But at the end of the day, when
Speaker 1: you're the two last two teams standing, it's going to
Speaker 1: take hard work and it's going to take some talent
Speaker 1: and depth, and they just didn't have the latter two
Speaker 1: to be able to extend this series out. And so
Speaker 1: Denver Nuggets, may you credit them. I've been seeing like
Speaker 1: people try to discredit the Nuggets run or diminished or
Speaker 1: the value the competition they had or to run.
Speaker 3: All you can do is play the opponent that you're giving.
Speaker 1: You know that that opponent they had a path, They
Speaker 1: had to get through some obstacles to get to that point.
Speaker 3: I think it's weak to try to devalue the Nuggets championship.
Speaker 3: They are champions.
Speaker 1: They were the best team. They were the best team
Speaker 1: in the regular season all season long. They respected the
Speaker 1: course of the regular season. They were not about all
Speaker 1: this low management stuff.
Speaker 3: They went in and they had.
Speaker 1: A plan and they executed, and so I applaud them.
Speaker 1: They were a fun team to watch. I hope people
Speaker 1: got got a chance to really see how valuable the
Speaker 1: Kolaki is. You know, that is a He's a great,
Speaker 1: great player that you should already have amongst the top
Speaker 1: centers of all time already. I'm gonna let you say something,
Speaker 1: but I want to ask you about later about the
Speaker 1: all time great sinners. And I want to see if
Speaker 1: you agree with me or not. This is a conversation
Speaker 1: I was having with my brother a few days ago.
Speaker 1: But what do you think about the dinner Nuggets run?
Speaker 4: When you really look at it, The signals were there,
Speaker 4: and again, I you know, I put myself high on
Speaker 4: the list when they wobbled at the end of the
Speaker 4: regular season seven to ten finish, I did start to
Speaker 4: ask those questions again about these guys.
Speaker 2: But the truth is, you.
Speaker 4: Know, they took sole possession a first place in the
Speaker 4: way on January seventeenth. They never relinquished it, So they
Speaker 4: basically were the top seed in the West for three
Speaker 4: months before the playoffs started, and that enabled them to
Speaker 4: you know, that certainly contributed to that kind of wobble
Speaker 4: at the end. They maybe lost some focus because they
Speaker 4: knew they had the West wrapped up, but they mowed
Speaker 4: through the four teams in front of them. I really
Speaker 4: feel like Miami the crusher for them. What any chance
Speaker 4: they had of winning the finals was lost when they
Speaker 4: got dragged to seven games by Boston. You go up
Speaker 4: three to zero on Boston, Finish them off in four,
Speaker 4: finish them off in five.
Speaker 2: At worst, finish them off in six.
Speaker 4: If Miami does any of that, any one of those
Speaker 4: three options, the Heat can go to Denver early before
Speaker 4: the finals, get acclimated to the altitude, give themselves a
Speaker 4: better foothold in the series. They still won Game two
Speaker 4: as it is, but yeah, I mean the only game
Speaker 4: they won they shot nearly forty nine percent from three
Speaker 4: the four games they lost, they were sub thirty five
Speaker 4: percent from three in all four defeats. So the Nuggets
Speaker 4: earned every bit of this championship. Jokic was great, Murray
Speaker 4: was great, all the others were great. I mean, they
Speaker 4: had the best team and were trying to tell us that.
Speaker 2: Again, they tried to show they were.
Speaker 4: They gave us a lot of hits for three months
Speaker 4: before the playoffs, and we just didn't want to see him.
Speaker 4: And you know, now we'll see in this wild offseason
Speaker 4: who can close the gap because Denver, Okay, Bruce Brown,
Speaker 4: they're in danger of not being able to re sign him.
Speaker 4: But you know already you're hearing people kind of compare
Speaker 4: it to the Bobby Porter situation. Will Bruce Brown elect
Speaker 4: to stay with the Nuggets for possibly less money.
Speaker 2: Than he could make on the open market.
Speaker 4: Because he loves the situation so much, just like Bobby
Speaker 4: Ports did in staying with the Bucks after they won
Speaker 4: it all. But you know, most likely Brown would be
Speaker 4: the only key departure from that team. So there's a
Speaker 4: lot of work for a lot of teams.
Speaker 2: To do in the West just to close the gap.
Speaker 4: So man is it going to be a wild and
Speaker 4: crazy and busy offseason, these nests again.
Speaker 2: You know, maybe I hope I'm not jinxing it with
Speaker 2: all this hype.
Speaker 4: I really hope I'm not, But I don't think I am.
Speaker 4: I think we are going to see many, many, many trades.
Speaker 3: Stan question I have for you, now go for it already.
Speaker 1: We're just talking about what Nikola Jokis has done to
Speaker 1: this point, and then you know what we think he's
Speaker 1: going to continue to do for however many.
Speaker 5: Years as of now, has he corracked your all time
Speaker 5: top six center category?
Speaker 3: Has he coracked it? So?
Speaker 4: The five ahead of him are Kareem Russell, Wilt Shack.
Speaker 2: Who am I leaving out?
Speaker 3: I put a lodge one in there? Yep, that's five.
Speaker 4: I'll put it like this. He's absolutely an all time
Speaker 4: great to me. And the only reason you could even
Speaker 4: say that he wouldn't be is because he's only won
Speaker 4: one title. You know, he's won for one in the finals.
Speaker 4: Let's see how many titles he ends up with. But
Speaker 4: you know what I feel even stronger about is it
Speaker 4: really bothered me that he wasn't in the top seventy five.
Speaker 4: I mean, he to me, I was not an official
Speaker 4: voter on the top seventy five, but to me, even
Speaker 4: at that point, he should have been a top seventy
Speaker 4: five player. And you know, he has a tru tremendous
Speaker 4: chance to ultimately crack the top five. You know, I
Speaker 4: guess we consider dunking a power for it rather than
Speaker 4: a center.
Speaker 2: But there's no question. I mean, this guy is an all.
Speaker 4: Time great and he has nothing to prove to nobody
Speaker 4: at this point.
Speaker 1: Okay, STEI, I maybe taking another I maybe taking it
Speaker 1: to a controversial place, but we do that here in
Speaker 1: this league, and this this is a podcast we could
Speaker 1: believe if we could erase it if we want to.
Speaker 1: So let's act now and worry about the consequences later.
Speaker 1: All right, Stey Bill Russell? What the greatest winners of
Speaker 1: all time? Why is he a top five sinner of
Speaker 1: all time? Take winning out of it.
Speaker 4: I think defensively, he was such a game changer that
Speaker 4: he would you know, offensively, you know, all those centers
Speaker 4: you named have better offensive credentials. But it's not just
Speaker 4: the winning with Russell, it is the defense. Block Shots
Speaker 4: weren't even a thing when he played, or when Wilt played,
Speaker 4: so It's like, we don't really have the raw statistical
Speaker 4: data to tell us how great these guys are, and
Speaker 4: we don't have the footage. This has always been one
Speaker 4: of my major, major complaints and laments about being an
Speaker 4: NBA fan and trying to be an NBA historian. Baseball
Speaker 4: was my first love. That was the first sport I
Speaker 4: was really introduced to. And what but like even at
Speaker 4: a young age, like you know, you're not even ten
Speaker 4: years old, and you know about Babe Ruth and lou
Speaker 4: Gerrig and Ty Cobb and Bob Gibson and on and on.
Speaker 4: You know, I mean, I could name a zillion guys.
Speaker 4: You learn these stories as a baseball fan when you're
Speaker 4: so young. But in basketball, pardon me if I've told
Speaker 4: this story before, but it's important. I feel like, you know,
Speaker 4: I can't tell it enough. When I started covering the
Speaker 4: LA Clippers halfway through the ninety four season, Elgin Baylor
Speaker 4: was the general manager of the Clippers, and I remember
Speaker 4: the first extended conversation I had with Elgin and I said,
Speaker 4: I can't believe I've never really.
Speaker 2: Seen footage of you playing. You know.
Speaker 4: He retired during that amazing Lakers early in that amazing
Speaker 4: Lakers season when they won thirty three games in a
Speaker 4: row and won the title in seventy one seventy two.
Speaker 4: So I was only two or three. I never got
Speaker 4: to see Elgin Baylor play. And when I told the
Speaker 4: Clippers that a team official with the Clippers actually went
Speaker 4: to the league and paid NBA Entertainment to make like
Speaker 4: a forty five minute VHS tape of Elgin highlights. And
Speaker 4: I didn't get to keep the tape. I don't have
Speaker 4: it anymore, but they let me borrow it and watch it,
Speaker 4: which was so cool to see just what was in
Speaker 4: the vault at the league. Because again, this stuff, it's
Speaker 4: we don't we do. It's such a bad job with
Speaker 4: NBA history. So like Bill Russell Wilt like, we've seen nothing,
Speaker 4: you know, my age or your age, We've seen nothing
Speaker 4: from what these.
Speaker 2: Guys could really do.
Speaker 4: So the number of rings Bill Russell has, you just
Speaker 4: you cannot diminish it.
Speaker 2: You know, I love a cheme too.
Speaker 4: I would say if Jok isn't there already, that he
Speaker 4: will pass a keem. But I see a lot of
Speaker 4: our contemporaries they rate a cheme higher than I do.
Speaker 4: So again it's also Iya the Beholder stuff too.
Speaker 1: We have to remember Hakm was first of all, probably
Speaker 1: had the best foot work it that of a big
Speaker 1: forget big, just best footwork period as a basketball player.
Speaker 1: Even still to this day, I don't know, I don't
Speaker 1: see anybody who has the pivots like Hakm did, Kobe,
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan, they were, they were close. But the thing
Speaker 1: about Hakim he was dominant offensively, but he was dominant
Speaker 1: deficively too. I still, uh, you know, I still got
Speaker 1: ha Keen higher than Joker right now. But back to
Speaker 1: Bill Russell Stein, you know the King Baby Tumble was
Speaker 1: just defense. Alonzo Morning earlier, his earlier in his years
Speaker 1: was a two way player, then transition to just being
Speaker 1: a defensive player. But for a center, Bill Russell, I believe,
Speaker 1: I mean, look this up because I want I want
Speaker 1: to have it accurately. You know, the big man position.
Speaker 1: Usually for centers, they average a field goal percentage career
Speaker 1: of fifty or higher. Do you know what Bill Russell's
Speaker 1: field goal percentage is for his career?
Speaker 2: Not off the top of my head, hit me.
Speaker 1: His field goal percentage for his career is, drum roll,
Speaker 1: forty four percent from the field. Bill Russell was sixteen
Speaker 1: sixty ten center, which you know that was that was
Speaker 1: center size back those days. That does like that doesn't
Speaker 1: do anything.
Speaker 2: No, it doesn't change.
Speaker 4: It doesn't change my feeling one ounce, because I think
Speaker 4: field goal percentages were generally way lower.
Speaker 2: In those days than they are now.
Speaker 1: But but not just he was just not just that.
Speaker 4: Justin Kubatko, who does a wonderful substack called Statitudes. Justin
Speaker 4: is one of my favorite NBA historians and researchers and
Speaker 4: just fantastic with the numbers in the history of the game.
Speaker 4: Before the finals, he went back and did a piece.
Speaker 4: You know, the final NBA Finals MVP didn't start until
Speaker 4: I believe nineteen sixty nine, so there were many many
Speaker 4: years that the NBA didn't even do a Finals MVP.
Speaker 4: Justin did a piece and went back and awarded the
Speaker 4: finals that the mythical Finals MVP, who his numbers said
Speaker 4: should have won the award all those years that the
Speaker 4: league didn't hand out a Finals MVP trophy, and by
Speaker 4: Justin's very unofficial count, but I take it as pretty
Speaker 4: reliable that Russell would have won the Finals MVP six times.
Speaker 4: So there's a reason why the Finals MVP Trophy is
Speaker 4: now named the Bill Russell NBA Finals MVP Trophy because
Speaker 4: the man was an undeniable.
Speaker 2: Winner, game changer. And you know what, for me, whenever I.
Speaker 4: Think about top ten, top five, top twenty, whatever it is,
Speaker 4: I do think the off court stuff does matter. And
Speaker 4: his impact on a social scale was so tremendous. I
Speaker 4: do think that factors in, even though it's not an
Speaker 4: on court things. It's like it's like Alan Iverson. You know,
Speaker 4: we could really analyze Alan Iverson's efficiency and we can
Speaker 4: theoretically grade him down as an all time great because
Speaker 4: of efficiency issues. But the cultural impact that Alan Iverson had,
Speaker 4: to me, that is worth bonus points. He never won
Speaker 4: a championship, he got the phil he got Philly to
Speaker 4: one finals, but his popularity and cultural impact, I do
Speaker 4: factor that in when I'm assessing Alan Iverson's career resume,
Speaker 4: and I think with Bill Russell, it's got a factor in.
Speaker 1: Also, I'm not even gonna argue with you, because this
Speaker 1: is Bill Russell we're talking about. You can never win
Speaker 1: a situation, You could never win an argument if people
Speaker 1: perceive you to be diminishing Bill Russell's legacy at all.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna leave it there, but that I remember,
Speaker 1: I remember when I found that stat out was.
Speaker 3: Like forty from the field sixteen center.
Speaker 4: Well, you know what's funny, because it's that you bring
Speaker 4: that up, because when I did my I was not
Speaker 4: a voter on the top seventy five, and I actually
Speaker 4: regret it now. Like in my New York Times years,
Speaker 4: I was at the Times for three and a half years.
Speaker 4: At the Times, we were not allowed to vote on
Speaker 4: anything official with the league because the Times philosophy was
Speaker 4: we cover the story, we don't participate in making the news.
Speaker 4: And so when I started my own sub stack in
Speaker 4: July of twenty twenty one, I'm coming up on my
Speaker 4: two year anniversary here, I adopted the same policy and
Speaker 4: I basically said, I'm gonna I'm no longer going to
Speaker 4: vote on any NBA awards. The league asked me to
Speaker 4: come back and be a voter, I said no, I'm
Speaker 4: not going to do it. But when they asked me
Speaker 4: to do top seventy five, I said no, and I
Speaker 4: really regretted it because I do love the history of
Speaker 4: the game, and that is one vote that I really
Speaker 4: do now wish I had broken my own rule. To
Speaker 4: be a part of, and my seventy five ended up
Speaker 4: being very different from the ultimate seventy five. I remember
Speaker 4: I left off Dolph Shase, who was one of the
Speaker 4: initial greats in the league in the very very pre
Speaker 4: Russell stages of the NBA. And I had some very
Speaker 4: prominent NBA historians come at me and just crush me
Speaker 4: for saying, how could you not have dolphshes in your
Speaker 4: top seventy five? And I omitted Dolph Shase in large
Speaker 4: part because I did look at his field goal percentage,
Speaker 4: and I'm pretty sure his career field goal.
Speaker 2: Percentage is sub forty.
Speaker 4: So that's why I say, in those days, even big
Speaker 4: men didn't you know, there were no zions converting at
Speaker 4: sixty percent in the early days of the NBA.
Speaker 2: So maybe I was too hard on Dolph Shase.
Speaker 4: And now that's kind of entering my thinking here when
Speaker 4: you bring up mister Russell's field goal percentage.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's why.
Speaker 1: That's why I'm glad I'm speaking to an NBA historian,
Speaker 1: somebody who's coverly way further than you know, way earlier
Speaker 1: than I was, So I'll respect it.
Speaker 2: Respect all right, everybody that was not that was not
Speaker 2: a Laane.
Speaker 4: I expected us to go on Trade Talk Thursday, But
Speaker 4: there you go. We'ved in some history, we'ved in some
Speaker 4: Denver Nuggets championship celebrations. But yes, at the forefront, Bradley
Speaker 4: Beal is this It is Washington finally going to trade him? Well,
Speaker 4: the Pelicans actually trade Zion Williamson in connection with.
Speaker 2: The NBA Draft. Major, major questions to ponder.
Speaker 4: Chris and I will be back with you soon, and
Speaker 4: by the next time we get together for one of
Speaker 4: these there will no doubt.
Speaker 2: Be tons more.
Speaker 4: Transactional discussion to get into because the transaction game has
Speaker 4: fully taken over from the games themselves. For the next
Speaker 4: two three weeks at least, Summer League isn't too far
Speaker 4: in the distance. Chris Haynes and I will both be
Speaker 4: in Las Vegas. We got a surprise in Vegas that
Speaker 4: we're working on. Can't reveal it yet, but I promise
Speaker 4: it will not disappoint. That does it for this edition
Speaker 4: of This League Uncut Friends again, Please rate, review, subscribe
Speaker 4: to the pod so the gems that mister Haynes loves
Speaker 4: to reveal on this show comes straight.
Speaker 2: To your phone. That does it? Back again? Soon everybody
Speaker 2: enjoy all the transaction of talk out and that'll do
Speaker 2: it for us. See you next time. This league uncut
Speaker 2: it is and iHeartRadio production Chris Haynes and Mark stime
Speaker 1: I