Speaker 1: I want to talk about the CBA because there's not
Speaker 1: that many people who really understand it, and you working
Speaker 1: for SPoD Track, and you being around the league for
Speaker 1: as long as you are, you're the first person that
Speaker 1: came to mind. So thankfully we already had this interview schedule.
Speaker 1: When you took the time to absorb the main changes
Speaker 1: in the CBA, what was your first overall reaction.
Speaker 2: I think they made it so that the middle class
Speaker 2: of the league is going to have some significant advantages
Speaker 2: in acquiring players. They made it harder for the most
Speaker 2: expensive teams to acquire players, but they also gave them
Speaker 2: avenues to keep players that they already have. I think
Speaker 2: the problem with the so called hardcap was always going
Speaker 2: to be, Hey, if we're the Warriors, because that's the
Speaker 2: team everybody uses for as an example. We've drafted really
Speaker 2: well and developed really well, why should we get penalized
Speaker 2: and have to lose guys? And I think the NBA,
Speaker 2: basically along with the NBPA, said you know what, you're
Speaker 2: kind of right, but we still can't have you trading
Speaker 2: for everybody under the sun and signing a bunch of
Speaker 2: guys in that So we're going to put in some
Speaker 2: limitters on you that'll make it hard. And it's not
Speaker 2: just the Warriors. The Clippers are in that boat. There's
Speaker 2: a handful of other teams that'll probably be in that
Speaker 2: position over the next few years. But it's we're gonna
Speaker 2: make it harder on you to do get new players
Speaker 2: that don't come through the draft and through minimum signings
Speaker 2: and the like. And then for the middle class teams,
Speaker 2: we're gonna give you a whole bunch of ways that
Speaker 2: you can go get players that maybe you didn't have
Speaker 2: available to you in the past. So I think they're
Speaker 2: just trying to increase that parody around the league.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of people who think that this is
Speaker 1: a These are seismic changes that we're not going to
Speaker 1: really fully understand for years to come.
Speaker 3: In your opinion, how monumental is it?
Speaker 2: Pretty big. I think we're gonna see some teams. The
Speaker 2: kind of buzzword right now is what are the unintended consequences? Right?
Speaker 2: Because it's always you get into this stuff, you feel
Speaker 2: really good about where it is, and then one thing
Speaker 2: we know that these teams do, they hire really smart
Speaker 2: people who find ways to work around all the rules
Speaker 2: they put in place. It's a big part of it.
Speaker 2: I always say, you know, the CBA is a agreement to
Speaker 2: make it fair, and then it's people's jobs to find
Speaker 2: ways to work around that inherent fairness, to give themselves advantages,
Speaker 2: to find loopholes, all those things. So I think what's
Speaker 2: gonna happen is it is going to take years for
Speaker 2: this to fully play out, because it's not like one
Speaker 2: all these changes are coming in immediately next season. It's
Speaker 2: some of these things they've already said they're going to
Speaker 2: be phased in over a period of time. And I
Speaker 2: think that's fair to the teams because if we stick
Speaker 2: with that Warriors example, well they've already built the roster
Speaker 2: they've built. It's not necessarily fair to say, all right, hey,
Speaker 2: all the tools you have, you lose them all right now.
Speaker 2: Now you've got to kind of reset and restart right
Speaker 2: from square one. So I think we'll see some phasing
Speaker 2: into some of these changes. I think the other part
Speaker 2: of it, too is we got to see how teams
Speaker 2: react to these things, because teams are gonna make different
Speaker 2: decisions than they might have otherwise. We may see teams say,
Speaker 2: you know what, once we're up and over this second
Speaker 2: tax apron, which I think sounds silly, So I'm calling
Speaker 2: it the supertax because I think that sounds way cooler. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so once you're over the super tax, you're gonna be
Speaker 2: in a spot where, wow, you know, we really got
Speaker 2: to resign our own guys because we have no other
Speaker 2: way to get talent, or I think the other option
Speaker 2: is we're in a position where some teams are gonna say,
Speaker 2: all right, you know what, we gotta let player X
Speaker 2: go because we've got to get our books in order,
Speaker 2: and the only way is to start shutting some salary.
Speaker 2: So we're gonna let him go. And you're gonna just
Speaker 2: see differences in you know, a roster building and those
Speaker 2: kind of things. I think drafting well, developing well, it's
Speaker 2: going to have more importance than it's maybe ever had
Speaker 2: in the league because having one cost control players is
Speaker 2: going to be huge in those things. But these, again
Speaker 2: are changes we're going to It's gonna take us probably
Speaker 2: three four years, right into the middle of this six
Speaker 2: to seven year agreement to really start to feel the
Speaker 2: full effect of It.
Speaker 1: Was reported that there were like hundreds of proposals throughout
Speaker 1: the time. What was the NBA itself, the league trying
Speaker 1: to achieve with these changes, and what was the NBPA
Speaker 1: trying to achieve with the changes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the good news is it seems like they went
Speaker 2: into this on roughly the same page with a lot
Speaker 2: of the stuff. The first big thing that they were
Speaker 2: really good with was the revenue split. That it's essentially
Speaker 2: a fifty to fifty split. It can range from forty
Speaker 2: nine to fifty one, but it's essentially fifty to fifty.
Speaker 2: Once you're good there, that makes everything else easier. I'm
Speaker 2: not gonna say it's easy, but it makes it easier.
Speaker 2: And I think you know they were. It's funny. I
Speaker 2: was told wrecked by someone involved, was yeah, the one
Speaker 2: and done role negotiation was like, NBA doesn't want this,
Speaker 2: NBPA doesn't really want this, so why is this a conversation? Well,
Speaker 2: neither one wanted to be the one to say like, hey,
Speaker 2: we don't want this, because then they look like the
Speaker 2: bad guy. But I think the NBA's main goal was
Speaker 2: let's increase some of this parody and let's make sure
Speaker 2: we are not getting into a world where, hey, if
Speaker 2: you're one of the most richest teams in the league
Speaker 2: for lack of a better term, and you are in
Speaker 2: a big market, you can just outspend everybody by a
Speaker 2: level that the playing field just is vast and separated.
Speaker 2: It starts to look a little bit like, yeah, we
Speaker 2: have a cap, but what difference does it make if
Speaker 2: you can just keep adding salary and keep adding salary.
Speaker 2: So I think that was their goal. I think the
Speaker 2: nbpa's goal was, all right, we can work with you
Speaker 2: within that, but what we want to do is if
Speaker 2: you're going to cap those top teams on how much
Speaker 2: they can spend, it can't be that that just goes away.
Speaker 2: We need to push it back into the market somewhere.
Speaker 2: Because their end goal is now with the addition of
Speaker 2: a third two way spot, they're gonna have up to
Speaker 2: five hundred and forty guys in the league at a time,
Speaker 2: and it's we're going to take care of five hundred
Speaker 2: plus players. It's not just about Lebron James and Steph
Speaker 2: Curry and the guys who make forty to fifty million
Speaker 2: a year. We got to take care of all the
Speaker 2: way down. And I think that's some of the stuff
Speaker 2: that they they they wanted, and I think in a
Speaker 2: lot of ways they came to some pretty good agreements
Speaker 2: on that stuff where it is all right, hey, we're
Speaker 2: gonna give here, but you give here, and that rebalances
Speaker 2: and we'll see how that rebalances the league. Ultimately.
Speaker 1: In the end, Draymond was very upset. He tweeted that
Speaker 1: the players got screwed. He said, I don't understand how
Speaker 1: we are the driving labor of this entire system and
Speaker 1: we end up, you know, getting the short end of
Speaker 1: the stick. What do you think if you had to guess,
Speaker 1: because I'm sure you know, there's a lot of things
Speaker 1: that he could have issue with. What do you think
Speaker 1: is there any one thing or a couple of things
Speaker 1: that would make him feel this way or have other
Speaker 1: players feel this way?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's a few things with that. I
Speaker 2: think the first was that was probably an immediate reaction
Speaker 2: because the first handful of things that came out were, Wow,
Speaker 2: this doesn't look great for the players. It was kind
Speaker 2: of that was like the Saturday reporting. When we got
Speaker 2: into Sundays reporting, it was like, wa, wait a minute,
Speaker 2: they can invest in NBA teams and WNBA teams. They're
Speaker 2: broadening what they can be corporate partners on and those
Speaker 2: sort of things, and then when you saw a lot
Speaker 2: of those changes, like, all right, this makes a lot
Speaker 2: more sense. I don't presume to know what details Draymond
Speaker 2: Green had and didn't have. I can tell you I
Speaker 2: know I've talked to people on both the player side
Speaker 2: and the team side. They don't have all the details
Speaker 2: yet because this is kind of agreed to in principle
Speaker 2: and they're still hammering stuff out. That's why we don't
Speaker 2: have the Elite full term sheet. And it's like every
Speaker 2: two hours we're getting like, here's another detail, because it's
Speaker 2: kind of all right, we finish it and go. So
Speaker 2: I'm guessing it was probably a bit of an overreaction
Speaker 2: to the immediate reporting on it. And I think there's
Speaker 2: also a a this was personal to him because in
Speaker 2: a lot of ways you could call some of those
Speaker 2: immediate measures like the Warriors measures of like, hey, we
Speaker 2: can't have another Warriors come along, right, And it's funny because,
Speaker 2: and I keep using him as an example, even in
Speaker 2: the last couple of years, the Clippers have outspent everybody.
Speaker 2: So I think what we run into in this situation
Speaker 2: with these guys is they run into a spot where
Speaker 2: it is, hey, like we want to you know, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna spout off, but it's because this is hurting me
Speaker 2: and my team and if I resign here, like we're
Speaker 2: not going to be able to go sign other guys
Speaker 2: and all these sorts of things. So I kind of
Speaker 2: get where he's coming from, because I think in a sense,
Speaker 2: he's just trying to take care of him himself and
Speaker 2: the guys he's most immediate with.
Speaker 3: Right now, do you think that the league does not
Speaker 3: want dynasties, It's.
Speaker 2: A good question. I think they welcome dynasties. Like kind
Speaker 2: of what the Warriors have been, which is the core
Speaker 2: of the team was drafted, They were developed by them.
Speaker 2: They kind of came and grew up together and came
Speaker 2: into prominence together, and then they've made really smart moves
Speaker 2: around those guys to kind of supplement them. But if
Speaker 2: you look at their main guys, because everybody has a
Speaker 2: and then I don't mean to denigrate like Dante DiVincenzo
Speaker 2: and the Jamichael Green, but every team has guys like that, right,
Speaker 2: a guy they signed with the middle level exception, a
Speaker 2: guy they signed on a minimum contract. But if you're
Speaker 2: the Warriors, other than Andrew Wiggins, which was shrewd salary
Speaker 2: slot management by all right, Hey, Kevin Durantz going to Brooklyn, Hey,
Speaker 2: why don't we make that a sign and trade, double
Speaker 2: sign and trade where we get D'Angel Russell and we
Speaker 2: preserved that thirty million salary slot, and then it was
Speaker 2: all right, now we're gonna move him on to get
Speaker 2: Andrew Wiggins. But outside Andrew Wiggins, every single guy in
Speaker 2: their rotation they drafted, and they developed Curry, Thompson, Green, Looney, Pool, Kaminga.
Speaker 2: Those are their own draft picks. So I think the
Speaker 2: league is in a spot where if you do it
Speaker 2: that way, and I don't I hate to say any
Speaker 2: way of building a roster is the right way. I
Speaker 2: think there's a million right ways, and there's definitely some
Speaker 2: wrong ways for sure, But if you build it in
Speaker 2: that way, we're gonna give you the ability you can
Speaker 2: keep it together, keep paying all those guys because we're
Speaker 2: not restricting you on paying those guys, and just keep going.
Speaker 2: So don't think they're against dynasties. I think what they
Speaker 2: don't want to see is they all, right, hey, we
Speaker 2: loaded up in two years, and then we kept adding,
Speaker 2: kept adding, kept adding, and then all of a sudden
Speaker 2: it's you know, we've outspent everybody by you know, one
Speaker 2: hundred million dollars, and you know, we're we're just kind
Speaker 2: of I think they don't like the Clippers kind of
Speaker 2: run of let's just keep replacing and then all right, hey,
Speaker 2: this guy makes twenty five we're gonna turn him into
Speaker 2: a thirty five million dollar player, and those kind of things.
Speaker 2: I think that's where it gets really messy for the league,
Speaker 2: and the league doesn't like that kind of team building
Speaker 2: because then it just looks like the rich get richer.
Speaker 3: Can you explain how it fundamentally changes how trades are made,
Speaker 3: kind of in the technical way.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So from the details we know right now, the
Speaker 2: kind of normal everyday trade between two teams that are
Speaker 2: well under the tax or maybe just at the tax line,
Speaker 2: that'll pretty much stay the same. You'll have a little
Speaker 2: bit of a range where you can work in. You
Speaker 2: might be able to trade a twenty million dollar guy
Speaker 2: and bring in somebody who makes twenty five million, and
Speaker 2: that's kind of the range it's always been in. But
Speaker 2: for these so called super tax teams, the big thing
Speaker 2: is they can't take on any additional money in trades.
Speaker 2: If all the reporting proves to be accurate. So what's
Speaker 2: going to happen for them is if I want to
Speaker 2: trade a twenty million dollar player, I can only bring
Speaker 2: in twenty million or less in salary. I don't have
Speaker 2: that ability to go get somebody else. And that's just
Speaker 2: gonna make things a little bit difficult on them. Now,
Speaker 2: I mentioned before, smart teams are gonna find workarounds, They're
Speaker 2: going to do things. What we may see end up
Speaker 2: happening is, Okay, that guy who's on a roster makes
Speaker 2: twenty million, we're going to re sign him for thirty million.
Speaker 2: Mostly so now we have a thirty million dollar trade
Speaker 2: chip and we can go get that twenty five million
Speaker 2: dollar player or a thirty million dollar player that wouldn't
Speaker 2: be available to us prior. So that's the kind of
Speaker 2: roster maneuvering I think you're gonna see from some of
Speaker 2: those teams. It's gonna become a lot more about salary
Speaker 2: slots than essentially the players that are filling them. And
Speaker 2: that's a sometimes even me, mister salary gap, is like,
Speaker 2: that's a I feel gross thinking of it that way,
Speaker 2: because it's like there's still human beings and there's still players.
Speaker 2: But at the end of the day, I don't feel
Speaker 2: too gross because that guy's gonna make twenty five or
Speaker 2: thirty million. So you know what kind of is what
Speaker 2: it is you sign up for that much money, you're
Speaker 2: probably signing up to maybe be traded.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what blockbuster trades for those who you know, maybe
Speaker 1: don't know happened recently that would not be allowed in
Speaker 1: this new CBA.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there were there's a handful. So the immediate
Speaker 2: ones that come to mind this year are Kevin Durant
Speaker 2: in Kyrie Irving because both of those teams, Phoenix and
Speaker 2: Dallas would be you know, over the super tax or
Speaker 2: into the supertax, and in that position, they would not
Speaker 2: have been able to take on money, which both of
Speaker 2: them did in their trades to get those guys another Uh,
Speaker 2: you know, if we go back, James Harden to Brooklyn
Speaker 2: is one even one from this summer. A team that's
Speaker 2: not necessarily super expensive, like Malcolm Brogden to the Celtics
Speaker 2: is another one that might not have happened. So I
Speaker 2: think we're in a position where, yeah, a handful of
Speaker 2: these these trades may not have happened that have happened
Speaker 2: otherwise anything that was even something as kind of low key,
Speaker 2: low end, that nice move, but no one really cares
Speaker 2: about it. Like even like Mike Mescala to the Celtics
Speaker 2: right before the trade deadline kind of buzzed was they
Speaker 2: brought him in with sending no salary out the other
Speaker 2: way and even in or sending very littles out the
Speaker 2: other way and brought him in by an exception, and
Speaker 2: that becomes a one where wouldn't have been able to happen,
Speaker 2: even a small minor deal like that that was, hey
Speaker 2: we're gonna add some bench dep for a playoff run.
Speaker 2: You wouldn't have been able to do those things. And
Speaker 2: those are the things where we're going to see teams
Speaker 2: have to have a different strategy on moving forward.
Speaker 1: So I don't want to be one of those people
Speaker 1: who puts on a tinfoil hat. But this is the
Speaker 1: first thing that came to mind as you said that Kyrie,
Speaker 1: vice president of the NBPA. Is there any chance that
Speaker 1: that factored in this new CBA factored in to Kyrie
Speaker 1: seeing the writing on the wall and saying, this is
Speaker 1: kind of my shot to get to another team, and
Speaker 1: therefore as well as Kevin if those both of those
Speaker 1: trades weren't going to be possible moving forward.
Speaker 2: Maybe I don't know how deep they were into the
Speaker 2: negotiations at that point that all that went down. And
Speaker 2: I tend to like anytime I think I have Kyrie
Speaker 2: kind of pegged, I realize I'm completely wrong and I
Speaker 2: don't know anything about the guy. That means, you know,
Speaker 2: one of the more confusing players in the league too
Speaker 2: to me. And I don't even necessarily mean that in
Speaker 2: a bad way. I just you know, he's just there's
Speaker 2: things I just don't understand with him. So it's it's
Speaker 2: certainly possible. I think we you know, he may have
Speaker 2: been like, hey, there, you know, what I know through
Speaker 2: negotiations is they're tightening things up. They're going to make
Speaker 2: it harder on us to figure things out. But I
Speaker 2: think we're in a position where, yeah, it's probably one
Speaker 2: of those things where it's this just was kind of
Speaker 2: an offshoot, and I don't know how much he cared
Speaker 2: about that. I think it was much more other reasons
Speaker 2: where he's like, hey, this nets thing's going nowhere. I
Speaker 2: can't get to the Lakers right now, but I still
Speaker 2: want to get out of here and then I'll figure
Speaker 2: out my next move after that.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the ramifications though, because it feels like
Speaker 1: it's the death of super teams to an degree.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's gonna be very hard to put together a
Speaker 2: super team on the fly because and it's already kind
Speaker 2: of hard anyway with some of the things that have
Speaker 2: happened with the cap and the like. But it's really
Speaker 2: I think now your super teams are going to be more.
Speaker 2: Let's use Oklahoma City as an example. They've drafted really well.
Speaker 2: They've got a bunch of really good young players, and
Speaker 2: they've got flexibility while they're still a quote unquote cheaper
Speaker 2: team roster wise, to add a bunch more talent in
Speaker 2: as they kind of build this thing up, and then
Speaker 2: what happens is they'll be able to build all the
Speaker 2: way up to becoming potentially one of these super tax teams.
Speaker 2: And that's how you'll build your super team. Is you
Speaker 2: draft well, you develop well, you add talent while you're cheap,
Speaker 2: and now you've got your eight nine to ten man
Speaker 2: roster filled out with a bunch of really good players.
Speaker 2: A little bit of moves you can make here and
Speaker 2: there around that, but that's how you'll build your team up.
Speaker 2: I think the days of teams, Hey, we're clearing the deck, right,
Speaker 2: We're going all the way down to barely any salary
Speaker 2: on the books, and we're going to go get three
Speaker 2: max free agents. I think what we've seen, and I
Speaker 2: think it's a lesson the Lakers have taught teams over
Speaker 2: the last couple of years, is we don't hit on
Speaker 2: the exact right three guys and then nail all of
Speaker 2: your minimum signings after that, because that's essentially all you
Speaker 2: have left. You're gonna struggle because if those guys miss
Speaker 2: times or miss games rather all of a sudden, you're
Speaker 2: in a spot where you can't win because you're rolling
Speaker 2: out guys who are you know, fringe NBA players for
Speaker 2: you know, twenty five thirty forty minutes a night in
Speaker 2: too many of these games. So I think that's kind
Speaker 2: of gone by the wayside already. But I think even
Speaker 2: more so, it's gonna be draft develop ad talent while
Speaker 2: you're a cheaper team, and that's how you build up to,
Speaker 2: you know, the next kind of dynastic type teams.
Speaker 1: What about players that are going to be super Max
Speaker 1: eligible and may not be exactly in love with their
Speaker 1: current situation. It feels like it's a lot more difficult
Speaker 1: for them to be able to get to another team
Speaker 1: or force themselves to another team, given how this new
Speaker 1: CBA is operating.
Speaker 3: Do you think that this is one.
Speaker 1: Of those situations where star players will end up signing
Speaker 1: shorter term deals so that they can figure out where
Speaker 1: they want to be in free agency.
Speaker 2: That's a good question. This is where I tend to
Speaker 2: lean to the history of things, whereas when you put
Speaker 2: the most possible money in front of a player, they
Speaker 2: almost always take it and right wrong or indifferent, and
Speaker 2: I tend to be a little bit more indifferent on it.
Speaker 2: I don't mind when a player takes a max contract
Speaker 2: and then turns and says two years in, I don't
Speaker 2: really want to be here. Trade me. And why I'm
Speaker 2: indifferent about it is teams do it all the time.
Speaker 2: Teams sign guys and then they're a here into a deal,
Speaker 2: They're like, it's not really working out. We're going to
Speaker 2: move them, and I don't know why. Collectively, as media
Speaker 2: and fans of the NBA, we've decided that's okay. But
Speaker 2: when a player tries to do it, it's like, hey,
Speaker 2: you signed a contract, so did the team. You know,
Speaker 2: I also wouldn't have had a problem if the NBA,
Speaker 2: and there's been no reporting of this in the new
Speaker 2: CBA yet. We'll see if it's something that comes out
Speaker 2: later put in more restrictions round and trade, whereas, hey,
Speaker 2: you signed a super Max, you're not trade eligible for
Speaker 2: three seasons of it, and you've got to play out
Speaker 2: more than half of that contract. Maybe that isn't there.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I know that was one of the
Speaker 2: you said earlier. There were hundreds of proposals. I know
Speaker 2: for sure that was one of them that was on
Speaker 2: the table. But to answer your question is I tend
Speaker 2: to think when players really want to be somewhere, they'll
Speaker 2: make it happen, especially if that team really wants them
Speaker 2: to be there. There's ways to make it happen. One
Speaker 2: of the cool changes that they got rid of, but
Speaker 2: that came out just in the last couple of days,
Speaker 2: is the restrictions on how many designated players. Those are
Speaker 2: tend to be like the Supermax guys. It used to
Speaker 2: be you can only have like two of one type
Speaker 2: on your team and two of another type, and only
Speaker 2: one could be acquired via trade. They've eliminated all that,
Speaker 2: so they basically said, hey, you want to get you know,
Speaker 2: ten super Max guys somehow on your team, good good luck,
Speaker 2: and now we're gonna limit you because you're gonna be
Speaker 2: able to pay you know more and add more talent
Speaker 2: around them, but you'll go nuts. So I think we'll
Speaker 2: still see guys. I think if anything causes short term contracts,
Speaker 2: it's gonna be Every player knows the meteorite steals coming,
Speaker 2: and what may come out of that is all right,
Speaker 2: We're going into a position where I'm better off signing
Speaker 2: a two or three year deal here re signing in
Speaker 2: the summer twenty twenty five. Even though they put caps
Speaker 2: smoothing in, so we're not going to see one of
Speaker 2: these twenty sixteen cap spikes like we saw previous. So
Speaker 2: I think that changes things a little bit there, But
Speaker 2: we may see some guys play that kind of game.