The 2025 NBA Worst Contracts Draft With Joe House and Wosny Lambre

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Speaker 1 The annual NBA Worst Contracts Draft with House and WAS. It's next.
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Speaker 1 So I think this is the fifth year we've done it. Me and Big Woz and House, we draft the worst contracts in the league.
It sounds like a negative podcast.

Speaker 1 It's actually very positive because we have a lot of laughs. We have a great time talking about it.

Speaker 1 We're going to talk Warriors, Lakers at the top with House and Woz and then dive into the worst contracts of 2025 in the NBA. This is always a blast.
Can't wait. First our friends from Pro Jab.

Speaker 1 All right, we've been doing it every year since 1977. The worst NBA contracts draft, one of my favorite times of the year.
We always wait for the perfect week of the season.

Speaker 1 Far enough away from the playoffs, right after the trade deadline. Guys start getting sidelined, scratched, bodies start breaking down.

Speaker 1 Perfect time to do this.

Speaker 1 And we have a couple doozies at the top. House, just thinking back this decade, who was your favorite worst contract of the decade before the guys this year? It was probably the Ben Simmons, right?

Speaker 1 And he had all that money left. Was he number one or is somebody else? No, no, no, no.

Speaker 2 Nobody will ever rival Bradley Beal. We really should change the name of this.
Bradley Beal has a no trade clause.

Speaker 2 Like the impact of the Bradley Beal contract on the face of the league over the last, you know, seven or eight years, just unbelievable, mind-blowing, nearly.

Speaker 1 It was unbelievable to you as it was happening and the no trade pushed it over the top. Is there anybody else you would put, Waz? Would you put Simmons above that or no?

Speaker 1 Oh, Ben Ben Simmons, Bradley, Bill.

Speaker 1 I think those are the creme de la creme, specifically because Ben Simmons got a max contract and then never played.

Speaker 1 And when he did play, he didn't want to take layups. So, yeah, those two are the ones that immediately come to mind.
Obviously, there are legacy deals like John Wall out there.

Speaker 1 Like, there's a few other doozies,

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 1 there was the Westbrook one. I forgot.
Yeah, we had that Wall Westbrook trade combo.

Speaker 1 Simmons was five years for 177. And I think the last four was just complete regret by everybody who had him.
So

Speaker 1 we should mention, you know,

Speaker 1 we've been trying to stay positive on the pods with our Ringer NBA coverage. This is a decidedly negative podcast, but we have fun.
Hey, there's great contracts, great trades, great teams.

Speaker 1 The storylines are awesome right now. Houseweek, we haven't talked on the pod.
We have the Warriors and Lakers as legitimate contenders all of a sudden. It's unbelievable.

Speaker 2 Wonderful.

Speaker 1 The league feels like it's been supercharged over the last couple of weeks. We were like worried, oh my God, this is just going to be Cleveland, Boston, OKC, and literally nobody else.

Speaker 1 And now all of a sudden, Denver's in there. The Lakers, the Warriors, the Knicks are kind of lingering a little bit, but Woz

Speaker 1 super fun NBA season all of a sudden. Yeah, I mean, I think the Luca trade definitely took this thing into a whole different gear.

Speaker 1 Obviously, we spent a lot of time talking about what happened, why it happened, how it happened.

Speaker 1 But the actual basketball, to watch Luca kind of just pretty much automatically be embraced by the crowd at crypto, where he is just playing to the crowd and just straight up, he's in it.

Speaker 1 And it's kind of amazing that it's come together in nine freaking games this way. Yeah, it's well, it's even more amazing that some people were saying, I don't know.

Speaker 1 I don't know how those guys are going to play together. Two ball-dominant guys.
It's like, what?

Speaker 1 Two of the highest IQ guys we've had in the last 30 years at a basketball court. I'm pretty sure they'll figure it out.
It's been really fun to watch.

Speaker 2 And how I want to drop the first F-bomb of the, I mean, he's a force fucking multiplier.

Speaker 2 Like that dude, because of his basketball brain, and you put the two biggest basketball brains on the planet together. Yeah, I think they're going to figure it out.

Speaker 2 But think about where we were in the first third of the season.

Speaker 2 the uh criticism levied against the nba and we it was proper criticism are we really going to do this goddamn retirement tour thing with lebron and steph curry and kevin durant we have to watch all these shitty games with these shitty teams and now look where we are look where we are so

Speaker 1 yeah we have a celtic laker game saturday night that's you know other than that first cleveland okc game is probably the most fascinating game of the season and it's two guys that the celtics have real history with right?

Speaker 1 They played Luca in the finals last year, and then LeBron has been their biggest foil of the 21st century, both on the same team. They're so weird to watch just as a team now.
They have no center.

Speaker 1 They have no point guard. Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Jackson Hayes dropped 20 points in the first half.

Speaker 1 Long arm Jackson.

Speaker 1 But you watch them and you're like, I don't know why this is working, but it's working.

Speaker 1 And this is a team I would not want to see in a series when everything slows down and you have to play the same team every time for two weeks.

Speaker 1 And I just don't want to see these guys under any circumstances. And LeBron looks rejuvenated.
And by the way, LeBron started to look rejuvenated two weeks before this trade. I'm just flagging that.

Speaker 1 I'm just flagging that. Yeah, he's hopping his step for about two weeks earlier.

Speaker 2 Do you say the same thing about Steph? As soon as they acquired Jimmy Curry, he dropped a 56 on us. Like, hey, very message.

Speaker 1 Did you say Jimmy Curry? You've already had your first malapropism of the pod. I did say it.
Yeah, Jimmy Butler. whatever.
Jimmy Butler knows.

Speaker 1 That's the new duo, though. But no, LeBron seems to have a pep and a step.
He had a chase down block the other day where I'm just like, this guy's now back to chase down blocking people. I love that.

Speaker 1 They smartly decided that, no, Luca Donch is the point guard, the orchestrator, will just work around, I don't know, one of the three best players in the NBA. And they've been rewarded for that.

Speaker 1 And the JJ Reddick stuff is absolutely working.

Speaker 1 Every time the Lakers' social media account posts one of his post-game speeches, I know it's bullshit, but I'm bought in. I'm like, I'm ready to run through a wall for this guy.
It's amazing to watch

Speaker 1 what the Lakers have been doing. Yeah, it's very Dan Campbell Lions-ish.
So speeches he does. And you know, it's little stuff with him, like the

Speaker 1 pulling back Dalton Connect,

Speaker 1 right? Guy gets traded out of nowhere, goes to Charlotte, meets everybody on Charlotte. Trade gets rescinded.
It's like, ooh, hey, man, good to see you again.

Speaker 1 Have you been?

Speaker 1 Boy, this is awkward. And yet he's, he's, you know, inspiring them.
It's not like he's a huge part of the team, but he's one of their best nine guys. They kind of need him.

Speaker 1 I've been fascinated watching, and I've talked about this on the pod before, but watching LeBron, just like his fucking Terminator brain, recalculating how he should be used with Luca having the ball this much.

Speaker 1 And I think he immediately embraced, I don't need to actually use as much energy as I used to. This is actually really good for me.
Now I'm like picking my spots in short bursts.

Speaker 1 It's very similar to that first Miami season when Wade was awesome and he didn't know how to pick his spots that year, especially as we got in the playoffs.

Speaker 1 And now, you know, he's such a good three-point shooter. He wasn't in 2011.
Now he is.

Speaker 1 But then he's also figured out the defense rebounding. It's a really great team to watch right now.
And I'll say this: I know a lot of Laker fans, as does Waz,

Speaker 1 I can't even describe how euphoric euphoric they are. They went from like, this is a wrap.

Speaker 1 I don't like watching this team.

Speaker 1 I can't take another AD up and down. He's hurt.
He wants to play the four. LeBron's patting his stats.
He's not playing defense.

Speaker 1 This sucks. We're fucked for the decade to, in a flip, just like, it's like they inherited money from some aunt they never knew.
It's like, my aunt just gave me $10 million.

Speaker 1 I hadn't seen her in 12 years. That's the attitude.
they're going absolutely crazy house and i might have to move

Speaker 2 they deserve to be going crazy like that is the only rational response in the face of you know the most extraordinary irrational trade in the history maybe of professional sports i mean i guess that the sean watson

Speaker 1 rival it no it's at least basketball i think it's the craziest most indefensible trade we've had in basketball all of sports all of sports well because the other people alive and we said this when the trade happened, and I know I said this on this pod.

Speaker 1 This is the greatest thing you ever did for Luka Doncich. Yeah, we talked about this once when we did the trade deadline pod, like a week after.
It's like, well,

Speaker 1 yeah, maybe you were worried about some stuff, but you just did him the greatest favor you could have ever done them. You lit a fire.
This is a kick in the ass.

Speaker 1 Yeah, now he's going to have a comeback. And that's the other thing with LA: LA loves comeback stories.
LA loves like, oh, Ben Affleck.

Speaker 1 He's made Gone Baby gone. He's back.
He looked like he had hit rock rock bottom. Now he's putting his career back together.

Speaker 1 And this Luca's as great as he is, but he was a little bit of a comeback story. It's going to be fun to watch him get in better shape, embrace vegan food, embrace smoothies, embrace the VersaClimber,

Speaker 1 all this stuff. He's going to be vitamin D.

Speaker 1 He's going to be getting a Haley Bieber from Erdogan. Is that

Speaker 1 he needs a celebrity relationship soon? He's going to be playing all the hits. It's going to be great.

Speaker 1 Fellas, I don't want to see this team in a playoff series if I'm basically anybody. And I'm sure there's going to be ways as we keep watching them that you can solve some of their deficiencies.

Speaker 1 But right now, it's just, if you have two guys who are putting up 60 points a game, I just don't want to see a team like that. So that story has been great.
And then Golden State. Oh, excellent.

Speaker 1 The Jimmy thing is excellent. Can we officially say that worked out way better for them than getting KD?

Speaker 1 Because when we did the trade deadline, we were like, hmm, I don't know. What are we getting from Jimmy? And we were all bullish on the Jimmy part.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 I think now that we've watched it, the fact that he can give them this two-way defense stuff doesn't really necessarily need the ball.

Speaker 1 You don't get all of the up and down personality stuff that sadly KD brings to the table from time to time. We saw it the other night on TV.

Speaker 1 Wise would you?

Speaker 2 Wait, wait, wait, though. Like,

Speaker 2 Jimmy in Miami didn't cover himself in glory in terms of failing.

Speaker 1 I'm just talking season house.

Speaker 2 Happy Jimmy.

Speaker 1 We've seen Jimmy's teeth this season.

Speaker 2 He was bitch Jimmy for, you know, 45 to 60 days. Like, you really want to say, from an if you're comparing the emotional kind of component of it, I'm not sure that I'm willing to concede.

Speaker 2 I think KD, if he had been into it, would have arrived with the very best attitude.

Speaker 1 But I don't know if it's a superstar. I don't know if he was into it.
I do.

Speaker 2 Wasn't into it. Here's the other thing about

Speaker 1 Gohan Statehouse.

Speaker 2 If he did want to, is what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 If it had been in his brain that that was where he wanted to last she'd be my uncle i mean he didn't want to go to golden

Speaker 1 this is why i disagree with you house is when's the last time katie was happy somewhere

Speaker 2 uh

Speaker 1 2016 golden state 17 yeah 1617 golden state that was the last full half so like the guy's just been you know perpetually unhappy like everybody remembers that last year in golden state like people think this bootenhoser thing is like out of left field it's like go look at the last year in golden state Like, this guy was miserable.

Speaker 1 A lot of people described it as morose for an entire season for the best team in the league by far, right? Obviously, the Brooklyn thing blew up.

Speaker 1 And look, I've kind of defended what Jimmy did because it's just like, look, you guys don't want to pay me. After I've basically overachieved my entire tenure here, I'm blowing this thing up.

Speaker 1 Like, it was ugly, but he got the right outcome for himself and his career. He got his money in Golden State, and now he's on a team that I think is as scary as anyone.

Speaker 1 and it's specifically because they got jimmy butler uh the defense is taking another step and jimmy is just seamlessly fitting to the offense which i kind of thought would be the case because he played in a similar offense in miami around you know tyler hero and duncan robinson getting free on the three-point line now it's steph curry right it's crazy The other thing, it's so funny with basketball, how you can just add one guy and the entire team slides into place, right?

Speaker 1 Like now, Moody is kind of doing a Wiggins Wiggins impersonation defensively, and he was really good the other night in that

Speaker 1 Knicks game.

Speaker 1 Pods,

Speaker 1 who had the ball too much and they were almost using him as like a

Speaker 1 second playmaker because they didn't really have another choice. Now he just is who he is, which is a guy on the side who can hit some threes and rebound and play hard.

Speaker 1 And then Draymond doesn't have to worry about anything at all other than throwing entry passes to Jimmy or setting screens for Steph. And you fail, Russell and I talked about it Sunday.

Speaker 1 It's like you can see it's, it's like a different human being, Steph now. Steph had the weight of the world on his shoulders, just looked like he had played nine games in 10 nights every night.

Speaker 1 And now he's skipping around. That with the way he played at MSG, he's a little, he tweaked ankle, and he's just dancing and prancing the whole day, which was awesome.

Speaker 1 So, you know, it's funny because we talked. I don't know how many months ago about how this league was a prisoner of the LeBron Steph eras and they couldn't move on and create these new stars.

Speaker 1 So now, ironically, they might get these two. The thing to watch for me is, can Golden State get into the 4-5?

Speaker 1 Can they get OKC in round two? Because I want to get them earlier than later.

Speaker 1 And I think avoid that Lakers-Denver combo. Let those guys beat the hell out of each other.
And because

Speaker 1 those are going to be tough matchups for them. But if they can play OKC, I know OKC is excellent and they're a really good young team and they're having a great season.

Speaker 1 but Golden State OKC, they've already had awesome games. That's a team that I think Golden State feels like we can play with this team.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 And I just feel like if we end up, we could have a round two

Speaker 1 where we could have Celtics Knicks, we could have Lakers Denver,

Speaker 1 and we could have Golden State OKC. Those would be three of the four series.
And I don't even know.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And then it would be Cleveland against somebody crappy.

Speaker 1 Before we get to worse, and I'm sorry, it may be a tangential, but am I the only one who thinks Cleveland is clearly the favorite right now?

Speaker 1 You are 100,050 million percent the only one.

Speaker 1 And I'm not buying this reverse Jinx crap. I'm not reverse Jinx at any moment.
I don't

Speaker 1 think

Speaker 1 you're going to sniff this out.

Speaker 1 We knew you were going to do this reverse Jinx. Look, the Celtics went out to a 25-3 lead.
I think that's for a reason.

Speaker 1 I think they are just a nightmare matchup for Cleveland because they get Cleveland out of their base offense, which is ball movement, quick hitting, all of that stuff.

Speaker 1 The Celtics being so switch heavy, it's just like, no, like Garland, you got to beat somebody. You know, Donovan Mitchell, you got to prove that you're an all-NBA caliber shot creator, finisher.

Speaker 1 You got to beat somebody. You know, it's going to be Drew Holiday.
It's going to be Tatum. It's going to be Brown.
Like, they're going to force these guys to play in the one-on-one.

Speaker 1 And I think they're going to be fine. Like, honestly.

Speaker 2 It all depends on the health of the Celtics when those two teams get together. Yes.

Speaker 1 That will be it.

Speaker 2 That's the most important thing for that matchup.

Speaker 1 Two things. Health.

Speaker 1 I thought the Philly Super Bowl really fucked me up, pass.

Speaker 2 Well, you didn't have me on to help steer you, so

Speaker 1 no one to blame. You were doing no money on KC for that, Bill.
You were in New Orleans eating fried oysters.

Speaker 2 I could have jumped on the phone.

Speaker 1 No, I've had a lot of regrets and I've spent a lot of time thinking about what went wrong with my Super Bowl pick because my instincts are telling me, Philly, I've talked about this, but I do wonder sometimes if hunger is the most underrated

Speaker 1 noun in sports. And that's what worries me about Cleveland versus Boston.

Speaker 1 Boston plays hard. Tatum plays hard every night.
The team gives a shit. But Cleveland hasn't been there before.
And every guy in that team.

Speaker 1 When they play the Celtics, it will be the most important two weeks of their life. And the Celtics can't stay the same.
And there's that little edge of like game seven at home, Donovan Mitchell

Speaker 1 with like, holy shit, I could actually make the finals. This is, this is my moment right now.
The Celtics had that last year. Going back to back is really hard.

Speaker 1 The history of the NBA is like, this is the single hardest thing you can do in the NBA is win the second time in a row. And that's what worries me.
The health, what am I getting from Porzingis?

Speaker 1 What am I getting from Holiday? And then this Cleveland team that just can play everybody 30 minutes a game or less, they have incredible depth. They have a bench.
They have a huge lead.

Speaker 1 They're going to play somebody absolutely shitty in round one, right? Like truly shitty.

Speaker 1 Whoever that 8-9, that is going to be a shit team. They're going to get a sweep in that.
And they're just going to be fresh in round two. And that, you know, that's a real thing.

Speaker 1 So those are my concerns, house. Who would be the fourth seed in the east? I'm blanking.

Speaker 2 That would be. Indiana, Milwaukee.

Speaker 1 Indiana. So,

Speaker 1 I mean, Milwaukee's playing better in Indiana.

Speaker 1 Detroit's making a push, by the way.

Speaker 2 Let's not rule out Detroit.

Speaker 1 No, they had a tough loss last night. Why is this guy Schroeder has been really good on the Pistons? That was a sneaky trade.

Speaker 1 I don't know why Miami didn't want him, especially when Terry Rogier has died, as we're going to cover in the draft.

Speaker 1 He's an on-ball menace. He plays his ass off on defense.
Like, this guy really tries. He takes his matchup personal every single night.

Speaker 1 Obviously, he's a yapper and gets under the skin of every single one of his opponents.

Speaker 1 Sometimes he's on teammates too, but that's neither here nor there. I just think he's a gamer, man.

Speaker 1 And, you know, every now and again, he'll get you some buckets, blow-by guys, driving kick guy. He'll make his threes every night.
Like, I've always been a Schroeder guy. They played him.

Speaker 1 He came off the bench yesterday. Hardam went nuts yesterday.

Speaker 1 And Schroeder kind of took him in the fourth quarter and was just doing a whole bunch of German Schroeder things on him and just defending him full court and annoying him.

Speaker 1 And Hardam was getting better and better.

Speaker 1 i think that detroit team that detroit knicks series is going to be an absolute bitch for the knicks and i can't wait because they are going to be trying to get into fights try you know shoving matches get chippy they're going to try to work on towns they're going to try to hit brunson they have wise where do you we receive i talked about this sunday ron holland who's I think averaging an altercation every 10 minutes.

Speaker 1 Is he on your radar yet? Yeah. He's a little radar testy.
He's on my radar. Obviously, freaking Stewart Beef Stew.
Like, he's number one now. Pretty much ready to rumble no matter who the opponent is.

Speaker 1 The guy almost murdered LeBron James two years ago.

Speaker 1 But yeah, Ron Holland is fun. I like that he's, I like that they haven't been afraid to throw him on the deep end, man, and just let him sort of figure it out.

Speaker 1 I think coming into last year's draft, people saw him as like kind of the most, you know, sort of physically, athletically gifted of the bunch, if not, you know, the most skilled and crafty.

Speaker 1 But I like what I've seen from him so far.

Speaker 1 I like how Steph is coaching these guys up. I really do.
Yeah, I agree. I like how feisty they are.
Feisty team.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 We're going to take a break and then we're going to do the worst contracts draft. House, are you playing FanDuel 30 on 30?

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All right, it's time. The worst contracts draft.
I think this is our fifth one to the four or five, might be the fifth one.

Speaker 1 And the rules are as follows.

Speaker 1 We go in not snake fashion. We just go in a circle.

Speaker 1 I'll read the, you have to say the contract or I'll say it after you pick the guy. And the thing is, it's almost like reverse NBA trade value.

Speaker 1 The worst contract in the league, the one you wouldn't want the most, the most untradeable contract, the one that if you were a fan of the team, you would be like, oh my God.

Speaker 1 And there's one clear winner this year. We'll see if it goes.
House, did you want the first pick or you didn't? Because we have one wrinkle this year.

Speaker 1 Coaches and GMs are now eligible for the worst contracts draft.

Speaker 2 And if

Speaker 1 the coaches before, in the GM case, we don't even know what the contracts are, but you could still take a guy.

Speaker 1 Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter.
Anyway, house or Waz, one of you can have you want the first pick, Waz, or do you want it? I'll go first. It's all right, Waze.
It's all good. It's so obvious.

Speaker 1 It's almost like a ceremonial first pick in the sense that

Speaker 1 we all know what the outcome is going to be, and it's got to be Bradley Beal of the Feed Suns. Wow.
Wow.

Speaker 1 That was not who I had on my board.

Speaker 2 Why is I have him fourth?

Speaker 1 No shot. And And the reason why is we just went through this exercise.
The Suns were desperate to move this guy. They spent basically, they did all kinds of tactics.

Speaker 1 They tried to bench him to get him to remove his no trick. Like they

Speaker 1 tried everything

Speaker 1 to get this man off of their team. Like they had Jimmy Butler on hold, like ready to go, locked and loaded.
They were going to improve their roster. They called everyone.
It was not possible.

Speaker 1 This is an immovable. It's literally can't be moved.

Speaker 1 This is an interesting case because it actually is untradeable.

Speaker 1 So, from a worse contract, you can't trade it. I don't know.

Speaker 1 He's winning me over house.

Speaker 1 Not only can you not trade him, okay? And like, there was this sort of like, I did it. Well, Bradley Bill's still a, you know, a decent contributing play.

Speaker 1 Like the other night, the, you know, KB and Bud game, they completely took off after Bradley Bill's ass went to the bench. And then so he's getting 50 million this year, 53 million next year,

Speaker 1 and then 57. Well, he has got a player option.

Speaker 1 I wonder if he's going to take his player. Shams is reporting.
He's exercised it.

Speaker 1 His player option is 57 million in 26, 27, all while holding a no trade clause, which means he basically has the franchise by the barrel. Okay.

Speaker 1 To me, this is still, because of the two extra years, still the worst deal in the NBA. And I get it.
There's other guys here that I'm like, wow, this is tough. But Bradley Beal to me is the worst.
So

Speaker 2 I quite love it. And I'll just interject quickly.
I think it would be fine if we wanted to rename this worst contract.

Speaker 2 We just call it the Bradley Beal Memorial worst contract and just do it every year. Name this for Bradley Beale, like arguably one of the worst contracts in the history of bad contracts in the NBA.

Speaker 1 I would argue we should name it after andre blatch

Speaker 2 that was only 27 million dollars i know but they they gave him an extension and then amnestied him before the extension kicked in we're never going to top that that's never going to happen in the history of the league ever again i beg for them to do that with john wall when they gave john wall the the giant extension right that could be the john wall too the reason that beal deserves this top billing is because he set two franchises back a grand total of how many years It'll be at least 14 to 15 years.

Speaker 2 If you add up the number of years that Washington is going to take to recover and be competitive and how long it will be before Phoenix is competitive again, that's truly amazing.

Speaker 2 You got to give it up to Tommy Shepard for that one.

Speaker 1 Well, it's also funny that the way they got him was they, Chris Paul was an expiring, right? That they could have bought out after his next year.

Speaker 1 And then they had Aiton, who they wanted to get rid of, and they somehow turned that into Beale. And then another guy who's going to be in this worst contracts draft a little bit later.

Speaker 1 It was like they took two things where they actually would have had some flexibility, and now they're just stuck.

Speaker 1 I just want to mention

Speaker 1 his last two years, he's averaging 18 a game with 51, 40, 42, 82 percentage splits. And on paper, you could go to basketball reference in 50 years and be like, Ballybail wasn't that bad.

Speaker 1 This contract's devastating.

Speaker 1 When do you think his last season playing 61 games was?

Speaker 1 The house would know this way. Right before the extension, right before, like, you know, it was before the extension.
The 2018-19 season. There you go.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Wow. How many playoff games do you think he's played since he lost to the Celtics in the Kelly Olinic game?

Speaker 2 He definitely, Russell Westbrook single-handedly dragged the Wizards into the playoffs. So he played four games as they got their asses swept in that series.

Speaker 2 And then I don't know how many, has he played three, four games for the Suns?

Speaker 1 He's played 15 total. Okay.

Speaker 1 So they're not making it this year. So that'll be eight playoff games, 15 playoff games in eight years for Bradley.
Anyway, a stunning number one pick, but I kind of liked it. Bold.

Speaker 1 People tomorrow in the papers will be like, Big Watson bold with his first pick.

Speaker 1 And I got to say, going through this list,

Speaker 1 there's just not as many horrific

Speaker 1 contracts. Yeah,

Speaker 1 we have the same depth.

Speaker 1 Most of these contracts are like, eh, not that terrible. Some of them, you could be like, oh, it's kind of risky.

Speaker 1 But most of these deals, like, even if a guy is slightly overpaid, it's not a franchise killer the way this Bradley Beal thing is. And I'm sure, I'm pretty sure I know your next pick is going to be.

Speaker 1 But yeah, it's tough. How's your next pick?

Speaker 2 Well, this is, so I respect Woz because he's a traditionalist. He went with the OG here.

Speaker 2 This is an out of, slightly out of left field, but, you know,

Speaker 2 this, this guy changed. He altered the course of two franchises.

Speaker 2 Speaking of, you know, a five to 10 year recovery window for one franchise and another franchise that's going to enjoy, it should be, at least another decade of prosperity. It's, it's Nico Harrison.

Speaker 1 I mean, what Nico Harrison, I don't know how much money that man made.

Speaker 2 And I know that he is going to, I hope he's beefing up on the current offering of Nike sneakers or whatever, because that man is going to return to the sneaker business.

Speaker 2 He is, there is no franchise in the NBA that he can go to now. There are no more jobs for him in terms of a front office.
How do you tell your fan base?

Speaker 2 Yeah, well, even quietly, yeah, we brought him in because he's got this relate. No, you know, no, no.

Speaker 2 This is his last job in a front office and i keep looking for the definitive economic impact like nobody's done the soup to nuts of of how much money it will cost the dallas mavericks just over the next five years i think it's going to take much longer than that for them to properly recover because of what happened to uh kyrie but i it's very at the very very lowest conservative estimate it is a billion dollars it is a billion dollars in diminished value for that dallas franchise when you think about the impact on revenue from from attendance okay fine all of that is is getting walloped the revenue that they're going to get there and over the air uh you know in their local broadcast they don't have a a regional sports network that they're on they switched that how are they going to get advertisers to pay anything to what for people about jersey sales games right merchandise partners how do you how do you tell the what are you going to tell those people uh so on down the line you can go through six or seven or eight categories, the ways the team make money, the way that the teams have cash flow, walloped.

Speaker 2 Just take it right off. I think the ultimate economic impact is going to be between a billion and a half and two billion dollars.

Speaker 2 And think of how remarkable it is in this era, where in every sport, we look at them, we say the best investment that a rich person can make is in a professional sports franchise because no franchise ever goes down in value.

Speaker 1 This motherfucker, this is a big man.

Speaker 2 Look at the alchemy. He performed here.
He took the golden goose and turned it into a golden pile of shit.

Speaker 1 Magnificent.

Speaker 2 That is the worst contract in professional basketball.

Speaker 1 And we don't even know how much he makes, and he's number two in the worst contract draft. Yeah, I did something on my pod at the top on Tuesday, and I was thinking about it.

Speaker 1 Because remember like when LeBron left Cleveland the first time and they would do those franchise values every year. And last year he was on Cleveland.
They were like the number two team.

Speaker 1 And then a year later, they were like 28th. And it was just, they went from being like worth, I don't know, a billion point two to like being worth like 500 million.
This is 15 years ago.

Speaker 1 If Luca wins the title with the Lakers this year,

Speaker 1 you could argue Dallas might, they like this might be a, they have to move in the middle of the night and go somewhere else, like just break leases. Like, like, who is the guy in the Colts? Ursay?

Speaker 1 Yeah. They just moved to Baltimore in the middle of the night one night.

Speaker 1 It might be be a move in the middle of the night one night i don't know how they recover and and the way sports is consumed now with all these little kids get attached to players instead of teams and all these kids love luca i don't know how they come back

Speaker 1 like wow this might be like a death blow it's tough i gotta say i've been one of the biggest like look

Speaker 1 elements of wanting to move on from Luca were justifiable people in the media, right?

Speaker 1 Like there are elements to it where I'm like, I understand why a team would say, you you know what, man, this guy is going to be problematic after we give him $350 million.

Speaker 1 The bottom line is trading for AD just, it just, you just could, you just had to do something more or better than

Speaker 1 twice as much in the trade. And then, even then, I'm not sure.

Speaker 1 And then AD goes, it's just like the way he framed it in the media was about availability. Yeah.
AD goes down immediately the first game he plays. And now Tyree's gone.
Lottie's Latin's gone,

Speaker 1 did you see?

Speaker 1 Did you see kids thing? Did you see kids thing about he was he took real offense that people thought it was the uh increased workload that that hurt Kyrie's knee? And he's like, it was a fluke injury.

Speaker 1 It was like, dude,

Speaker 1 we've been following the NBA our whole lives. Like, this is Clay Thompson going down the 2019 finals because he was playing like crazy minutes and doing some crazy workload.

Speaker 1 And then all of a sudden, his leg blew out. Like, this is what happens in the league.
The more you put on these guys, the more likely it is they're going to break down, dumbass.

Speaker 1 I have a question.

Speaker 2 I have a serious question because that trade was immediately followed by the Lakers trying to acquire Mark Williams and then, for whatever reason, having cold feet about that.

Speaker 1 And the reason why when they backed out?

Speaker 1 When they shook out a trade and backed out, became the first team of 15 years to back out of a trade. It was a smart backout.

Speaker 1 It's a good backup. They used the physical.

Speaker 2 Dallas acquired a hurt player and then got him hurt. And somehow he passed the physical.
So I wouldn't

Speaker 1 say the better move would have been to back out of the trade because of the physical because of the reaction, but now you've lit a fire on DeLuca, which would have been a better outcome.

Speaker 2 You've also set open to the entire league the possibility that Luca's available. Let's see that auction.
Let's see how the rest of the league responds to that. Let's have a proper.

Speaker 2 I thought there was a possibility. I put it in the text threads within the first 12 hours that there was was a this crazy Machiavellian play.
I wish that that's what had come to pass.

Speaker 2 But what Dallas did is prove to all of us, they showed their ass in terms of their inability to run very basic downside cases. Like, here's the hope-for outcome.
Kyrie's awesome.

Speaker 2 AD's injury is behind him. We have all these giant guys.
We're going to be good. And we're going to really compete this year.
Then we have a window.

Speaker 2 But the downside case that any sensible, like rational business person would conduct is what happens if AD's injury is lingering or, you know, can't be overcome quickly.

Speaker 2 How does that impact, you know, the rest of the team? How does that impact directly Kyrie? What's our assessment of the injury risk to Kyrie going forward?

Speaker 2 Like what happened to Dallas is not extraordinary. It's the downside case.

Speaker 2 But now, now the rational basketball response, the only thing that would make sense and possibly win this, the fans back, They got to throw Nico into the bushes. They got to trade AD.

Speaker 1 Nico needs to move. I mean, why would he even want to stay in Dallas now? He should resign.
Great point. Here's the thing.

Speaker 1 I'll make a prediction because we saw this in 2011 when Cleveland miraculously won the lottery the year after LeBron left.

Speaker 1 I just think Dallas wins the lottery now. I'm going to bet on it.
No. I'm going to bet on it on FanDuel.
No. Yeah, I'm betting on it.
No way. Dallas wins the lottery.
No way. Yeah.

Speaker 1 This is absolutely not. We got safe basketball at Dallas.
Oh, they got Cooper Flag. Everything's okay.

Speaker 1 You don't like this idea, House? Like 101 odds?

Speaker 2 Well, I mean, gambling on it and it coming to pass are two different things.

Speaker 1 Of course, I gamble on it. Goes without saying, God, God, you took that.
You guys took that so seriously. I'm up.

Speaker 1 I don't know how he's still on the board. It's very reminiscent of the 2014 NBA draft when he fell to three.

Speaker 1 Vince Carter was half man, half amazing. He's half man, half available.
He's Joel Embiid. Yeah.
Five years, $299.5 million left

Speaker 1 by the end of this season, because he's been scratched for the rest of the season. 452 games played, 440 games missed.
It's a very sad story. I don't mean to sound so excited talking about it.

Speaker 1 I'm just excited he was still on the board.

Speaker 1 I'm just going to read through his injuries, guys.

Speaker 1 In college, stress fracture in his lower back, missed March madness.

Speaker 1 Right before the draft,

Speaker 1 stress fracture, navicular bone in his foot, 2014. Rebroke the same thing, 2015.
Left meniscus tear, 2017, fractured orbital bone, 18. Finger surgery, 2020.
Right meniscus tear, 2021.

Speaker 1 So we tore meniscus in both legs. Torn ligaments, right thumb, 22.
Fractured same orbital bone, 22.

Speaker 1 Right torn lateral meniscus, 23. There's two different meniscuses, I guess, in his right knee, tore both of them.
Bell's palsy, 24. And then this year,

Speaker 1 they don't, they're not even telling us what the injury is. It's just left knee swelling management that now he's out.

Speaker 1 And what's weird is the left knee was the one that's only been operated on once, unless they're not telling us about one.

Speaker 1 And then the right knee, which isn't even the one that's having all the swelling, has two operations, four years left.

Speaker 1 It's,

Speaker 1 there's no way out of this. And we've seen with the big centers, like once you keep breaking down like this, there's really no path back.
And maybe if there's a path, it's 50, 60 games.

Speaker 1 Brutal contract-wise. Why did they do the extension?

Speaker 1 Will we ever figure this out? Why did they do it? I think they did it because it's like before he went down last year, he was basically averaging 35 points.

Speaker 1 He was having the best scoring season since Michael Jordan, literally, in like 1988, 1988, right? And so, the idea being like, look, when this guy was on the floor for us, he was amazing.

Speaker 1 And, you know, even in his limited capacity against the Knicks, he was pretty good.

Speaker 1 And so the idea is like, oh, he's going to get back to that form before he went down midway through the season.

Speaker 1 I think the problem for me and what makes this a justifiable pick is that, you know, guys go down and it's like, all right, he's got an ACL. He's got a PCL.
He's got a broken phibia.

Speaker 1 He's got whatever, ankle, whatever.

Speaker 1 This is the problem. This is the procedure we're going to do.
This is how long it's going to take for him to come back. It's going to be fine.

Speaker 1 They can't even tell us what is wrong with his knee and what they're going to do. People are throwing out micro fracture surgery.
Do they even still do that?

Speaker 1 Dude, that's how dumbfounded they are by

Speaker 1 what they can do to address the problem in his knee. And it feels like there's nothing left to fix.
Yeah, but why? Because

Speaker 1 they said, so they do the extension, but then bond temps writes that piece right before the season starts about how philly finally has their plan to peak in the playoffs and embi says i'm never playing back-to-backs again for the rest of my career that would have been my extension red flag call me nuts to just add the three million three years and 170 million to a contract i'm already worried about house what from what you saw from embed in the olympics would you have given him an extension under any circumstances can you remind me you did this outstanding podcast with the executive producer of White Lotus, David David Bernad.

Speaker 1 Bernad.

Speaker 2 And he described this phenomenon. He said, one of the best pieces of advice he ever got was from, I can't remember who the famous person was that gave him this advice.

Speaker 2 It had to do with, you know, you get inside of, was it the monkey cage? What was it? It was inside. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 You, you can't, you can't get used to the smell of shit.

Speaker 2 You grow so acclimated to the smell of the shit that you cannot identify that there's a bad thing, that you're in a bad environment situation.

Speaker 2 So for me, the problem with the Sixers goes all the way back to what I will forever argue was an ill-advised and ill-conceived return to the playoffs by Embiid. He wasn't ready.
He wasn't healthy.

Speaker 2 We know this. Waz is right.

Speaker 2 He had a 50-point game in the first game in Philadelphia. I went up there and watched it.
It was awesome.

Speaker 2 But he also had many dramatic moments where he went down on the floor and stayed on the floor for several minutes and then went to the locker room and then came back. That whole situation.

Speaker 2 of him coming back to the playoffs and playing in under the highest leverage situation in the shape that he was in with his knee in the condition it was in.

Speaker 2 And then you go from that to the Olympics, which are barely six weeks later. And even less than that when you consider the training.

Speaker 2 And the USA team says, look, it's on the player to make the decision about the player's health. And what we saw from him looked like a competent Joel Embiid.
Now,

Speaker 2 he had some impact on the health.

Speaker 1 He didn't look as explosive. No, they used his size really well, but you could tell he wasn't 100%.
Right, right.

Speaker 2 And so we come off of that. And that's the moment when the extension is given after the Olympics.

Speaker 2 And Windhorse had a great story this week about some of the decision making and some, oh, they went, you know, the Sixers talked to every single knee specialist in the world and got

Speaker 1 that's a red flag.

Speaker 2 They wanted the assurance. The problem with the extension is what the fuck was the rush? Like,

Speaker 2 how about him just play the season, see what happens?

Speaker 2 Now, Maury said the quote that Windhorse attributed attributed to him was like, we didn't want to arrive in the summer of 25 and have the uncertainty, the potential chaos of him going somewhere else.

Speaker 2 And my question is, why the fuck not?

Speaker 1 Why not? He would have been 32 and had played 60% of the games in his career.

Speaker 1 Listen, I've known Daryl a long time. I think if there's a flaw with him, I think he wants to be liked by players.
And we saw that when the Harden thing fell sideways.

Speaker 1 And I just think he likes Embiid and wanted to take care of him and chose to see it as a glass half full versus a glass half empty thing. And I think the owners like Embiid too.

Speaker 1 And ultimately, like that was what was so funny about last week when they're leaking out, like, this was Daryl's fault. Daryl did this.
It's like the owner makes the decision that you stop.

Speaker 1 It's that one person is signing that extension, and one person is asking all the questions and getting all the answers for it. But

Speaker 1 it's a devastating, devastating conversation. I just understand.

Speaker 1 Let's just say, presumably, he plays three more years on this knee. In 28, 29, he's going to be owed basically $70 million.

Speaker 1 That's tough.

Speaker 1 We don't.

Speaker 1 There might be some insurance wrinkles with this. That's right.
Because we found out more info about Zion's contract

Speaker 1 as the months came out. And there might be some wrinkles with this, but as of yet, we have not heard of any.

Speaker 1 And this just seems like a straight $300 million for a guy who doesn't seem like he's going to be able to play that much. In his age, 30, what'll that be? 30, 31 next year.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 If we were gambling on this before, like,

Speaker 2 what do you think is more likely? He retires in the next two years or he makes it to that third year of that contract?

Speaker 1 Oh, he's going to make it to the third year. Yeah, he's making it.
He's retiring. We have not seen the only person we've seen retire is Andrew Luck.
Yeah. Like just walk away from money.

Speaker 1 And that was seemed like a more like, I don't want to put my body through this anymore. Okay.
He's not going to retire before his contract is up. He can't.
His accountant will not allow it.

Speaker 2 Okay. Yeah, he can't.
So 20 games a season out of him for the Sixers.

Speaker 1 Hey, it is whatever I got to do to make it to the finish line. And listen, look, I think Joellen Bede is a bit of a tragic figure.

Speaker 1 A lot of a tragic figure. I mean, everybody likes him.
It's

Speaker 1 wanted really badly. It's just his body just straight up has not cooperated.
And that sucks. But at the end of the day, he's going to to have like $600 million in career earnings.

Speaker 1 I don't feel that bad for the guy, you know?

Speaker 1 Right. Well,

Speaker 1 House and I are old enough to remember doing this dance with Bill Walton way, way, way back when

Speaker 1 Yao Ming, Greg Odin,

Speaker 1 Ralph Sampson. There's been a lot of big dudes that their bodies couldn't hold up because

Speaker 1 just fundamentally, it's really hard for a seven foot three person to run up and down a basketball for nine months a year and jump up and down and land on things.

Speaker 1 You're playing with fire. All right, we're going to take one more break and then we'll do the rest.
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Waz is up. There's one big kahuna still left on the board.

Speaker 1 This is the last obvious, this is just horrible contract, in my opinion, left in the league. There's ones, there's other ones that are like, all right, this is pretty bad, but this is like horrific.

Speaker 1 And it's Joe Ellen Bead's teammate, Paul George.

Speaker 1 I actually thought these two could be one-two in the drafts. No, easily.
I think so. I think you can make arguments for both.

Speaker 2 We are in the situation with this worst contract draft where we have one guy who costs his team like a billion and a half dollars and another guy that costs his team $500 million.

Speaker 2 And both of those franchises are looking at a decade of pure effing misery coming up.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Amazing.
So Paul George is four years, 211.6,

Speaker 1 three years after this one. Yep.

Speaker 1 Player option in 27, 28 for 56 mil.

Speaker 1 Probably opting into that one. I couldn't figure out a way to look this up because I'm not smart enough.
But when somebody drops six points a game,

Speaker 1 just fundamentally, when somebody goes from 22 to 16 and they played, they're like year 12 or later,

Speaker 1 it usually doesn't come back. I remember talking about this with Jermaine O'Neal 20 years ago when you go from being a 24-10 guy or a 22-11 guy, and now you're like a 15 and 9 guy,

Speaker 1 it doesn't come back. And that would be my fear with Paul George.
And I don't, they said like something's wrong with his finger, but it doesn't explain the lack of explosiveness.

Speaker 1 So bad, and this is the thing: I think we got to give cut Daryl a break here a little bit in the sense that last year on the Clippers, Paul George was an all-NBA performer.

Speaker 1 He was his Clippers on-off numbers with Paul George on of both offense and defense. He was their best player last year.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 um he was a bona fide star nba player last year and he's coming to the 70s um 76ers environment just turned into a pumpkin like i don't think we could have foreseen this this well we could have foreseen bad house this is one of those way we see this in sports sometimes the you had to do it but you didn't feel awesome about it as you're doing it signings we we had this argument in october when we were doing the over under pod me you and rascillo and i'm the only one that that chose the over for Philadelphia.

Speaker 2 I own it, but I did understand the thesis. I understood all of the moves that Philadelphia made in their offseason.
It was a gamble.

Speaker 2 It was an all-in, all the chips to the center of the table gamble where that Philadelphia team on paper, as we entered the season, looked like it had the potential to compete.

Speaker 2 I'm not saying beat, but compete with Boston. Boston is the standard.
How can we get put guys around Joel and Biade? The whole thing revolves around Joel Embiid's health.

Speaker 2 That is, you know, obviously the biggest part of the gamble. But the other side of the gamble is that Paul George will show up.

Speaker 2 The thing that the Sixers had done successfully in the two seasons leading up to this season is in those chunks of time that Embiid was missing, they could tread water and they were able to tread water through the players that they had.

Speaker 2 Paul George was supposed to be the tread water character, but that dude showed up. I will never, this will always be Paul George for me.

Speaker 2 And I hope when he gets into the Hall of Fame that they put this picture up as part of the montage for his legacy. Him putting his mouth on his wife's titty on spring break, you know,

Speaker 2 right before the all-star.

Speaker 2 The players that aren't involved with the all-star game are off on their version of having a break. And that man has the goal to put on his Instagram his mouth on his wife's titty.

Speaker 1 That will forever be the Paul George moment for me.

Speaker 2 I'll always think of him under his his

Speaker 1 ankles. That's it.
That's it. Well, next year is year 16 for him in the NBA.

Speaker 1 Wow. The year after that will be year 17.
And then the last year of this contract will be year 18. Not feeling great about it.
And he's another one that's had some

Speaker 1 physical stuff, right? He's got the rod in his leg and all kinds of things. Well, House, you're up.
And the

Speaker 1 there's, I think there's one prime time guy left here, but we'll see if you take him.

Speaker 2 Oh, interesting. Because now I'm officially kind of you feel like the draft is dropped?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm having a hard time. We're ready to drop.
I think there's one good one left, but let's see.

Speaker 1 We can do house is already round two, and house is already like flummoxed and can't figure out who to pick.

Speaker 2 No, I'm not flummoxed. I know who I want to put in here.
And, you know,

Speaker 2 I'm prepared to take all of the slings and arrows. It's Scotty Barnes.
I don't like the Scotty Barnes extension. I don't like it one bit.

Speaker 2 This is the thing, right?

Speaker 2 And the reason why I'm putting him in at this moment, I know what I'm going to take from from Toronto, the bullets I'm about to take from, from the Raptors, but somebody prove to me that he is not Zach Levine.

Speaker 2 Somebody prove to me that he is not Trey Young. The problem with paying a guy that's not ready to be the leader of the team.
And look, you can say he's been hurt. Well, yes, he's been hurt.

Speaker 2 He's only into the fourth year of his NBA career. I don't want guys that are missing chunks of time the way that Scotty Barnes is missing time.

Speaker 1 Now, if you're a bad guy, wait, can we give the contract? Because he's on the last year of his rookie deal, which is 10 million.

Speaker 1 Next year, we're kicking in five years, 224.

Speaker 1 So you're not a fan. Well,

Speaker 2 it's his worst year shooting percentage-wise of his entire career.

Speaker 1 I've been saying this for a while, and the Toronto fans get mad.

Speaker 1 I'm not against Scotty Barnes becoming potentially a guy, but they've been, he's been treated from day one like he's a future franchise guy.

Speaker 1 Remember, he wasn't in the KD trade. Yeah, and I got yelled at a few years ago because I implied that he wasn't the next Kawhi Leonard.

Speaker 1 People thought I was insane and kept saying, look at his rookie stats compared to Kawhi's. I'm like, guys, like, this is not.

Speaker 1 I think Scotty Barnes is a really good player. Me too.
I don't think he's anybody's idea.

Speaker 1 I think he's a good player. I don't think he's anybody's idea of a number one option.

Speaker 1 I around the right circumstance where he would be de-emphasized and just kind of just solely allowed to focus on his strengths and not, you know, firing up threes on a regular basis.

Speaker 1 Controlling the ball at the end of the game.

Speaker 1 It's that Iguadala Philly situation, right? Where it's like, all right, you're not really a number one guy, but if you're a number three guy on an awesome team, you might be awesome.

Speaker 2 Tell me when he will make his first all-NBA team.

Speaker 1 Hey, he made the all-star team last year house he's an NBA all-star all-star so he's knocking on the door theoretically on all NBA great theory I've never been the biggest Scotty Barnes person

Speaker 1 but I don't see his contract as like

Speaker 1 you know some kind of death knell to Toronto's future I think some of the team building they've you know taken the the actions they've taken in that direction i think are highly problematic um but i don't think scotty Barnes is like some horribly overpowered.

Speaker 1 I love it.

Speaker 1 House has replaced Trump as the number one enemy of Canada. I love it.

Speaker 2 I put them where I put them because we've seen this song and dance before.

Speaker 1 It's good. And you warned us about Bradley Beal.
You've warned us about guys in the past. Scotty Barnes averaging 28 and 6.

Speaker 1 He's shooting 27% from three. And the team loses

Speaker 2 the worst shooting percentage.

Speaker 1 So here's what I compare Scotty Barnes to. I compare it to the deal that Wiggins got off of his rookie extension, where Glenn Taylor said that,

Speaker 1 well, Andrew Wiggins promised me that he was going to work his ass off in the offseason. And so I gave him the max contract extension.

Speaker 1 Like, he hasn't put it on the court that he's worked at, but he promised me. He gave me his word.
I think if Scott, I think I look at his deal like that.

Speaker 1 Like, you look at the talent, the way they drafted him, the idea that they're just not going to give him, you know, a max extension, I think would have been problematic for their management.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, in a few years, can Scotty Barnes be the finishing piece, even at a slightly inflated or an inflate or vastly inflated, according to Joe Howe's contract?

Speaker 1 Could he be, help a winner like elevate their situation the way Wiggins did for the Warriors? I think he could potentially. That's why I'm not so, so down.
When he's a fourth banana.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 I'll keep my eye on it.

Speaker 1 A $50 million fourth banana. There you go.

Speaker 1 Amen. I just came back from the grocery store.
it's not that far far off i'll tell you how much

Speaker 1 he he turns 24 in august

Speaker 1 listen they need him to be a number one guy if they're going to pay him that kind of money

Speaker 1 i agree

Speaker 1 i like the pick you used history

Speaker 1 some i think this young guy might be a max guy so i'm giving him a max when there's no actual evidence he's a max guy and look at his stats and his basketball reference page is really good we have seen this go wrong many times i like the wiggin seat too well guys i feel like i've already won the draft.

Speaker 1 I got Joellen Biade with the third pick.

Speaker 1 Kawhi Leonard's still on the board. I don't know.
What are you guys doing?

Speaker 1 Kawhi Leonard, three years, $149 million. He's played 20 games this season.
He's played 249 games in six years for the Clippers. He's played 15 playoff games.

Speaker 1 What is he? Kyle Ripken Jr. all of a sudden? What is happening? You know what's so funny, Bill, is that when

Speaker 1 I looked at Kawhi's Kawhi's contract, but I looked at it next to Paul George's and I was like, yeah, that's so bad.

Speaker 1 And plus, like, he's been playing so well recently. I'm like, ah, but you're right, though.
It is.

Speaker 1 I watched last night, and it's like, there's Kawhi during a timeout wearing a, you know, a jogging suit. It's like, I guess he's not playing.
He just straight up does not play.

Speaker 1 And that's when you never know if he's going to play. You go to a Clipper game.
It's like, oh, Kawhi's warming up. He's going to play.
This is great.

Speaker 2 I'll confess, I might have a little softer view on Kawhi because at the end of the day, I think that

Speaker 2 everything the Clippers have done with him has been part of the wildly successful arrival of the Intuit Center. I think what Ballmer did was try and create a credible product.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 2 Not an incredible product, a credible product. And the way that he did that was he used Kawhi as the vehicle.
It has been a gross overpay from really the

Speaker 2 ever since he arrived from the Raptors. Each of the two extensions were gross overpays.

Speaker 2 But for the purposes of what the Clippers are trying, the identity that they're, you know, they want to be relevant and the risk of him, you know, not being available was kind of worth it.

Speaker 1 The risk. It's the fact of him not being available.
So

Speaker 1 the case for this contract, they had a really fun Lakers game a couple nights ago.

Speaker 1 And Kawhi played 40 minutes, 13 for 23, 33 points, 10 rebounds, and looked like he was every bit as good as he looks better than Paul George. And that's why he did it.
Now,

Speaker 1 if you saw a tweet tomorrow and it's like Kawhi Leonard has been shut down for the next three weeks, wouldn't be surprised at all. And that's why for $50 million a year.
That's fair.

Speaker 1 I got to put him on there. 249 games in six years for the Clippers is nuts.
Waz, you're up.

Speaker 1 My next contract is like this. I feel like this contract goes under the radar because this franchise is just known for ineptitude, basically.

Speaker 1 But it doesn't get talked about enough. And to me,

Speaker 1 this contract just signals like everything this franchise is about. And it's Patrick Williams of the Bulls.
I had him on my list.

Speaker 2 Interesting.

Speaker 1 Like, this dude is going to make $18 million per year until 2029.

Speaker 1 And like, he's never been good. He's not good now.
And like, what, there was no reason to do this. Like, they who are they competing against? Five years, 90 million for Patrick Williams.

Speaker 1 He's like a ninth man. This guy has been theoretic.
It's like, oh, look at the body in the 3nd D, and it's just never, ever materialized. And it's just what the Bulls do.
Nothing they've done.

Speaker 1 Aside from finally,

Speaker 1 thankfully, moving on from Zach Levine makes any sense whatsoever. But are we even sure that they're even going down the rebuilding

Speaker 1 path? We don't even know if that's the case, man. But, like, the Patrick, as soon as they inked this, it was like, what are they doing? Like, why would you do this?

Speaker 1 The Bulls are your guy in your fantasy league, your friend that you haven't talked to in 12 years who doesn't really make any moves.

Speaker 1 And then every once in a while will spend $58 in the free agent auction. You're like, oh, there he is.
It's like, he's trying to finish sixth place.

Speaker 1 What's this guy doing? He just likes being in the league. He likes being on the email threads.
They're embarrassing. I had Patrick Williams, too.

Speaker 1 He's 26 minutes a game somehow this season, averaging 37%

Speaker 1 from on field goals house. And I've never, I just don't get it.
When I watch them, he doesn't really jump out of the TV. There seems like there's 20 guys like him.
I don't know why you would pay him.

Speaker 1 I think five years from 50 would have been kind of a

Speaker 1 dude for the season. He's shooting 37.5%.

Speaker 1 He can't shoot from the field, guys. He's six foot eight.

Speaker 1 How's your out? This is crazy.

Speaker 2 It's time to have the Terry Roger.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, man. Well, my dude, welcome.

Speaker 2 Welcome.

Speaker 1 Now it's two years, $51.5 million left for Terry Rogier.

Speaker 2 On the face of it, $25 million

Speaker 2 for a shooting guard that's capable of being a prolific scorer.

Speaker 2 It's okay.

Speaker 2 The problem is, we have a sizzle reel from this season.

Speaker 2 Shows him

Speaker 2 actively undermining the ability of the Miami Heat to win basketball games.

Speaker 1 It looks like he's completely lost his ability to play basketball because

Speaker 1 I looked up when they made the trade last year because I remember thinking, like,

Speaker 1 oh, getting Terry Rogier for what they gave up like a first for him. I would much rather do that than give all the shit you had to give up for Dame Loward, which included Tyler Hero, right?

Speaker 1 So when they traded for him last year, he played 30 Charlotte games, 23.2 points a game,

Speaker 1 36% from three,

Speaker 1 and was playing awesome and was like crunch time.

Speaker 1 He was a good player. I thought Miami made a great pickup.
Yeah. This year, his stats are almost half.
He's 11.8 points a game. He's shooting 40%.
He's shooting 29% from three.

Speaker 1 And I test-wise, he might be the worst rotation guy in the league.

Speaker 1 And I don't know what happened. And there's lots of theories floating around, not hard to find, but it really seems like

Speaker 1 whatever, there might be a scandal with him, there might not with some of this betting thing, but it really seems like it sent him into an absolute tailspin.

Speaker 1 But they keep playing him as the part I don't get, House.

Speaker 2 I wonder, you know, we can theorize about stuff that doesn't take us into uncomfortable territory. No team in the NBA

Speaker 2 has

Speaker 2 more double-digit leads that they've coughed up in the fourth quarter than the Miami Heat.

Speaker 2 And I on the Ringer Gambling podcast just this past Monday said one of my favorite betting strategies over the last couple of weeks and will be until the end of the season is to find situations where Miami has a lead going into the fourth quarter and watching them cough it up.

Speaker 2 They down the stretch in the last six minutes of the game have no apparent game plan to do anything. It's ISO to hero.
But Rogier's contribution to that, and again, who knows?

Speaker 2 I wonder if they quietly went to him and were like, dude, we're really not trying to make the playoffs.

Speaker 1 Well, so

Speaker 1 they're the seventh seed right now, 29 and 32.

Speaker 1 Orlando's 29 and 34. Atlanta is 28 and 34.
So they could fall to the ninth seed pretty easily if they wanted to.

Speaker 1 Shocking.

Speaker 1 They are a bottom half of the league from a talent standpoint. The weirdest thing to me

Speaker 1 that I think helps your theory house is why they didn't want Schroeder. Why don't they want him?

Speaker 2 Great point.

Speaker 1 Like they actively try to to not keep him in the trade. It's like that guy actually would have been a really fun heat that would have helped you.
And now instead you're playing Terry Rogier.

Speaker 1 I don't, I've never seen somebody who is not past this prime, right? He was,

Speaker 1 he's, I think he was, I'm going to say he's 30. I've never seen somebody crater.

Speaker 1 He's 31 on St. Patrick's Day.
I've never seen somebody crater. where last year you're watching going, man, Terry Roger, could he make the all-star team?

Speaker 1 To this guy is now the worst worst rotation guy in the league good pick house um i feel really bad with my next pick doesn't make me feel good i almost want to take a shower after um he's somebody i did not like for a long time and he really won me back over the last couple years i really respect him i really feel bad for him i feel for him and this is way too soon but i have to take kyrie irving um

Speaker 1 He only has two years left at 84.9 million. He's not playing this year, and I don't think he's playing next year.

Speaker 1 Wait, is this for the extension that Nico Harrison is going to eventually give him this summer?

Speaker 1 Well, regardless, he's if he caught this is this these Kyrie, the ACL injury, when it happens at this point of the season, it's usually a season and next season is done. We saw it with Jamal Murray.

Speaker 1 In football, you can come back in less than a year. In basketball, it doesn't seem like you can.
So basically, he's not going to play again on this contract.

Speaker 1 And I feel bad, but I don't see a worse contract left than two years, 84.9 for a guy who can't play. So not his fault.

Speaker 1 Tough. It's tough.
And again,

Speaker 1 I think Dallas was good. They were basically going to be over a barrel this summer and have

Speaker 1 given him a max extension for four years, which would have been kind of insane. With a lot of scary history for

Speaker 1 out of that. And so maybe that'll be a mitigating factor in the next deal.
But yeah, he's not playing next year.

Speaker 1 Wait, you're saying that a team owned by Patrick Dumont, who just traded the most popular guy in the history of the franchise since Dirk Dewitsky, and then, and then talked all kinds of leaky shit about him after they traded him, would do something shady?

Speaker 1 It's tough. He said he wanted them to exhibit the work habits of one Shaquille O'Neal.
That was, yeah, that was tough.

Speaker 1 Am I up now? You're up now. Go ahead.

Speaker 1 And let's actually, let's take one more break and then you're

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Speaker 1 Let's go speed round from now on. Waz, you're up.
Who do you got?

Speaker 1 This is kind of easy for me, to be honest. And it's Brandon Ingram,

Speaker 1 another guy who nobody, they tried to trade this guy for two straight years.

Speaker 1 Basically, David Griffin was like, bro, we're not paying you a penny over your current salary. Like, it's not going to happen.

Speaker 1 They fought and they fought.

Speaker 1 Nobody would take this guy. Golden State needed a forward.
It wouldn't take. It was like, no, thank you.
Everybody said, no, thank you.

Speaker 1 And then, of course, like the Raptors, for reasons I still don't understand, traded for the guy, gave him the extension, three years, $140 million.

Speaker 1 And then, you know, right after, my guy Jake Fisher is like, yo, they're probably going to trade RJ Barrett next summer. Like, what was the point of this? I don't get it.

Speaker 1 He's not a fit next to Scotty Barnes. He never plays any defense

Speaker 1 despite, you know, the physical tools and the profile. He's always just been a kind of like, give me the ball, let me cook, and not going to elevate a single thing around me.

Speaker 1 Hates taking spot up threes.

Speaker 1 I don't understand the trade. I don't understand this deal.

Speaker 1 I don't understand what Masai Yujiri has done basically since 2019.

Speaker 1 To be fair, it's three years, $120 million extension. $120.
Sorry. And it's still awful because that's $40 million a year for a guy that

Speaker 1 New Orleans could not trade for a solid year as an expiring contract.

Speaker 2 I love it because it's a confession about how they feel about Scotty Barnes. So it's wonderful.
It feels like it validates.

Speaker 1 Oh, it's a win for House.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it feels like an extra win for me.

Speaker 1 Also, I love putting a worse contract on here that hasn't officially kicked in yet.

Speaker 1 Kudos to everybody in this. It's on its way.

Speaker 1 Musayu Harry, who remember there was that moment when it was like, could the Knicks just turn over the entire franchise to him? Is this guy the next, see the next guy?

Speaker 1 And he did a great job with the Raptors in the 2010s, but holy shit, the last five years. I disagree with basically everything they've done.
I just don't understand it. House, you're up.

Speaker 2 This one, I understand the controversy surrounding it. I have to, though, put a bright light on Jamal Murray because it is

Speaker 1 an enormous.

Speaker 2 an enormous, enormous contract for a guy. Remember where we are with him in terms of his injury situation and his execution.

Speaker 2 Our recency bias will tell us this guy is a mad killer when he's healthy, but the dude's only been healthy for about six weeks now. And I adore him next to Joker.

Speaker 2 I want to be very plain about this, very clear. I love the contribution of Jamal Murray to the Denver Nuggets.
I'm very excited to see how this playoff shakes out, but his injury history,

Speaker 2 what he does to

Speaker 2 that franchise, what he does to that franchise when he can't play,

Speaker 2 it ruins an all-time historical figure in The Joker. It takes so much off the table with the Joker.
So when you're staring at, it says five years, $243 million.

Speaker 2 That's a big, that's a big gamble.

Speaker 2 That's all I want to say.

Speaker 1 That's a big gamble. First of of all, classic house, backhanded compliment, talks about what Great Fitty is, then complaints about the contract.
The extension was four years for 207.8.

Speaker 1 That kicks in starting next year. I'm personally fine with it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I had him. I had him way later in the draft play.
I had him way later in the draft.

Speaker 1 You have to pay the money.

Speaker 1 He definitely made my list, but it's like, you're the Nuggets. This guy's been a part of the greatest team in the history of your franchise.
You drafted the guy. They love the guy.

Speaker 1 If the Nuggets make another finals runner, two, I think this is completely justified to keep the era going and all that. But I'm not going to lie, House.

Speaker 1 Some of these Jamal Murray box scores to start the season, definitely my eyebrow was raised for a while. The performance with Team Canada in the goddamn Olympics, that was scary stuff for me.

Speaker 1 But as of lately, he's dropping 50 on guys. He's looking strong.
I love it. I'm feeling more confident, but it's scary when you think about his injury history.

Speaker 1 I think House has moved into the clear number one spot for a guy who's going to take the most shit online from this draft, and I can't wait for it.

Speaker 1 I'm going to redo the salary years for my pick. Yet another great pick.
I feel like I'm dominating the draft now.

Speaker 1 $43.827,587 this year. So almost $44 million this year.

Speaker 1 Three-year extension kicking in for $109.5 million next three years.

Speaker 1 That's right. The Stifled Tower himself,

Speaker 1 Rudy Gobert.

Speaker 2 I had him circled.

Speaker 1 So they had,

Speaker 1 this is a really interesting one.

Speaker 1 They had him at 43.8 this year and 46.6 next year. And they thought they would get all smart.
They're like, hey, Rudy, let's wipe out that player option for the 46.6.

Speaker 1 And we'll give you the three years 109.

Speaker 1 And then we'll turn Carl Anthony Towns into Definzo Julius Randall.

Speaker 1 And it's a reallocation of money. It's going to be great.

Speaker 1 So, Rudy Gobert, who is having the worst statistical season he's had,

Speaker 1 is it fair to say he is unplayable

Speaker 1 in a Lakers series, an OKC series, and a Golden State series?

Speaker 1 I don't think so. I don't think that's a fair characterization.

Speaker 1 Look, you think he sees the court in a Lakers series? You think he sees a a fourth quarter? Yes. In a Lakers series with Luca and LeBron in the game.
Yes. 100%.

Speaker 1 I do know.

Speaker 1 I think

Speaker 1 Rudy was the anchor of by far the league's best defense last year.

Speaker 1 He was key to beating Joker in the playoffs. He was.
I mean, it was a trio, but Rudy played a major part in sort of like keeping Joker contained.

Speaker 1 They win that in a dogfight, you know, seven-game series.

Speaker 1 And then he got played out the court by Luca Donch and the Knicksers.

Speaker 1 They justify it by saying, look, $35 million, that's probably the going rate for starting centers.

Speaker 1 This guy's always been an Iron Man in terms of playing, takes his, you know, his conditioning and his body really super seriously to stay on the court.

Speaker 1 I understand the pick, Bill. But wow,

Speaker 1 that's not why they did it. I would be fine if that's why they did it.
They did it because of the money, because they are worried about how much money they're paying.

Speaker 1 They didn't want to pay Towns what he was paying. And they looked at it as like, we can get off this Randall deal hopefully next year because he'll have an awesome season for us.

Speaker 1 He'll go into free agency. Guess what? Julius Randall will be opting into the $32 million next year.
So they didn't get out of that contract. DiFincenzo, they're going to lose.

Speaker 1 And now they're stuck with Rudy for three more years.

Speaker 1 And I don't know, man. They're going to lose Nas Reed now.
Nas Reed is gone.

Speaker 1 Like, he's done. He's leaving.
They can't keep him house. There's no chance they keep him.
He is going to New Orleans. He'll go to Brooklyn.
He could go to your Washington Wizards.

Speaker 1 He's going to be making $35 million a year next year and it will not be in Minnesota.

Speaker 2 I think that Minnesota is going to find a way to keep him.

Speaker 1 I think that there's some bet off dinner right now. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Dinner. That's great.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Dinner bet.
I mean, he will not be on Minnesota next year. It's not happening.

Speaker 1 He's not happening.

Speaker 2 Well, look, I mean, you just went through. They moved cat.
Nobody had that on their radar for money-saving purposes. I think they understand the value.
We'll see it in the playoffs.

Speaker 2 I think the Nasreed is going to make such a compelling case over the course of these playoffs.

Speaker 2 If Minnesota goes anywhere, honest to God, my favorite matchup of the entire first round is Oklahoma City, Minnesota. I pray to God that we get that as our opening round

Speaker 1 in that thing.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 the toll it's going to take on Oklahoma City sets up that matchup against potentially golden state in the second god it's so juicy but to go back to the point around nas reed and rudy gobert if the gobert extension was for the purposes of uh you know does it make them more palatable as a trade asset

Speaker 2 but they have to do something to keep nas reed and i think nas reed will stay with minnesota what do you think wes

Speaker 1 I think Rudy's going to stick around.

Speaker 1 The idea that they had a three-center rotation last year is just an anomaly like you can't keep three centers who are basically paid their market value on your roster when all of them are basically kind of starter caliber so i don't know i think they figure out how to do how to make the nas read thing works i just i'm just not as disgusted by the rudy deal and i guess i've kind of become a rudy convert man i just think a lot of how he does gets a little bit underrated i can't believe it he's expensive but i'm gonna be texting you guys when he's sitting on the bench in the fourth quarter of a Lakers series, watching LeBron Luca run pick and rolls.

Speaker 1 Uh, Waz, you're up.

Speaker 1 By the way, Julius Randle, still available. Another one, I take no joy from this, but DeJounte Murray.
Um,

Speaker 1 after this year, he's got three years at about 32 per

Speaker 1 um, coming off of an Achilles injury, and it's just it's tough. You tear your Achilles at guard, and you're like, one of your main strengths is basically your athleticism, your shiftiness.

Speaker 1 I'm not seeing it for him. And the deal is tough.

Speaker 1 I think this is going to end up being a bad deal for New Orleans, man. Four for a 114 for him.
I mean, it could be worse. They could have traded Dyson Daniels.
Oh, wait.

Speaker 1 House, you're up.

Speaker 2 It's mandatory if we're doing a worse contract draft. We've mentioned his name once, but he has to officially be a selection.
It is Ben Simmons. Ben Simmons has to be

Speaker 1 the Ben Simmons buyout? You're just seeing him anyway.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you can't have a draft and talk about bad contracts. Rossillo sent a hilarious text this week watching him on the Clippers,

Speaker 2 just making an observation around what seemed to be Ben Simmons' instincts for passing the ball.

Speaker 2 Some of like, it was just hard to really thread the needle in terms of what he was trying to accomplish, where the ball was going.

Speaker 2 It's an honorary pick for Ben Simmons for me at this stage.

Speaker 1 I like it.

Speaker 1 You know, I'm upset that Patrick Williams is gone because this is right where I thought I was going to be able to get him, but

Speaker 1 he's not on the list anymore.

Speaker 1 I got to do Emmanuel quickly. We got to go back to the Raptors.
Wow. Unbelievable.

Speaker 1 Got to do it one more time. He's in the first year of a deal that pays him five years, $162.5 million.
And I kind of like Emmanuel quickly. Like he's 38% from three.

Speaker 1 He's instant offense off the bench. But his destiny on any good team,

Speaker 1 on an actual good team, would be a sixth or seventh man, a bench scorer, instant offense. That's how you would want to ideally use him.

Speaker 1 And you don't pay $30 plus million dollars a year for a guy like that. You pay like...

Speaker 1 $14 million a year. You pay the Celtics are playing Peyton Pritchard $7 million a year.
Well,

Speaker 1 he's on the opposite of a bad contract. That's an amazing contract they got for Peyton Pritchard right now.
Right, right. If we were doing the best contracts, that's one of those things.

Speaker 1 I just, it's just too much money. If it was five for 100, I'd be like, all right, I guess.
But when you're talking about

Speaker 1 that much, and now you're basically locked into Barnes and Ingram and Quickly as your three expensive guys, where the fuck are you going at that point?

Speaker 1 What do you think is going happen we you're gonna win 38 games like what i i just i honestly do not understand what toronto is doing anyway waziro up

Speaker 1 uh

Speaker 1 this is pretty easy for me and it sucks but it's grant williams

Speaker 1 this guy has three for 41 yeah still and he's just not an nba player anymore straight up doesn't play just just he's just done he's well he he blew out his knee but you're saying next year

Speaker 1 Next year,

Speaker 1 even when he was playing and he was getting ticked this season, it was pretty disastrous.

Speaker 1 This was another, he was another Nico Harrison sort of unearthing.

Speaker 1 Just never, never panned out.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 Grant Williams, I think he's done. All right.

Speaker 1 House?

Speaker 2 Am I allowed to do a combo deal? Because these guys, to me, fit the exact same profile, and they are also in this gamble phase.

Speaker 1 Why would you be able to take two picks in the same pick? I don't understand. Okay.

Speaker 2 All right. Then I'll choose Zion because

Speaker 2 you can imagine who the foil would be, who the other guy's name is, would I say, but I won't say it. He could still be a viable pick.
You know, we need proof that Zion can play basketball.

Speaker 1 I didn't know where to put him on the board because he's technically has four for 163 left, but they have all these different outs for games played, for weight, weighing him.

Speaker 1 And it seems like a movable contract. I also think teams would have traded for it in February if they had put it out there.
And I don't think they, I know teams kick the tires on it. I'm positive.

Speaker 1 And I think New Orleans was like, no, we need, but maybe this summer we could see something. He's looking

Speaker 1 for these games, though. I did too.
I want it to work.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Well, I need a wet guy.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 this is very similar to what I just laid out with the manual quickly. Grayson Allen at four years, 70 million

Speaker 1 to basically be my ninth man.

Speaker 1 Like, yeah, he's shooting 43% from three.

Speaker 1 He's Sam Hauser. He's in that kind of level of like

Speaker 1 those white dudes the Cavs have. There's a bunch of these guys.
And guess what? None of them are making $17, $18 million a year. They're all making like three.
They're making four. They're making two.

Speaker 1 They're making, oh man, we found this guy in the waiver wire. They're not making this.
So congratulations, Matt Ishbia. You did it again.

Speaker 2 I mean, he's making Austin Reeves money.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's crazy. He's making more than Austin Reeves.
He's making more than Austin Reeves. That's crazy.
He's nowhere near.

Speaker 1 I'm glad you brought up Austin Reeves because fuck the Spurs again for not making an offer that summer. I said it that whole month and everybody's like,

Speaker 1 why are you just saying this? Because you want the Lakers to lose him. It's like, no, I'm saying because Austin Reeves is good, and he should have gone.

Speaker 1 Now, that's somebody, if he got a quickly deal, I would have been like, All right, a little high, but I would do it. Waz, who do you have?

Speaker 1 I don't, I don't want to draw the ire of this fan base, but for me, it's the bonus, the bonus. I'm sorry, I love when you do this.

Speaker 1 You do this every year, this guy

Speaker 1 every year. Like, I think the team's limitations are based on their commitment to this dude playing center, where just like straight up, you cannot guard the paint.

Speaker 1 Shouts to Doug Christie, he's changed up the game plan to make it just straight up. Everybody just packs the paint, and we allow teams to shoot threes now.
That's it.

Speaker 1 We cannot guard the paint with Demon Sabonis at center.

Speaker 1 And they just committed to it, and I get it. He gets rebounds.
He's a great guy. I get it, all of that.
But like, this guy is just not

Speaker 1 worth what they're paying him to me. So they're paying him four for 186.

Speaker 1 It's year one of the new extension. Listen, he's

Speaker 1 another team and you've identified Sabonis as somebody you want. Why? Why do you want him at that number?

Speaker 1 Because I want to win 43 games. Okay, thank you.

Speaker 1 I think there's a world where you could build an awesome team around him, but I think it's really hard.

Speaker 1 Like, you really have to put a lot of thought into every other player in that roster because he does have some limitations, but you're right.

Speaker 1 He's like the center version of Ben Simmons would have panned out.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 Every year, Sabotis just takes strays. He really does.

Speaker 1 What do you have, House?

Speaker 2 I'm going back to an old favorite of mine.

Speaker 2 This guy is near the end of his career, doing a very distinguished job of helping a franchise, you know, with a tremendous talent, you know, try and see the best outcome. This is Damian Lillard time.

Speaker 1 Damian Lillard.

Speaker 1 He's playing well lately. Wow, I agree.

Speaker 1 Three for $161 for Dame Lillard.

Speaker 2 The problem is the amount that's left on this contract at his age and the history in the NBA of guards with his profile being effective. It's just really the end of the year thing.

Speaker 2 I said up front that I'm glad that he's playing well because I'm glad for Milwaukee to be good.

Speaker 2 I'm pissed at Milwaukee.

Speaker 1 And our guy, Doc. Doc's going to get to play golf at Bel Air with Doc.
We got to go. We're saying nice things about him.

Speaker 1 Now you pissed off another fan base.

Speaker 2 Well, I don't think so because he's doing what he's all that he can do.

Speaker 1 My guy.

Speaker 1 161 is a gulp. And wait for the playoffs.
That's all.

Speaker 1 You can regret this in the playoffs.

Speaker 2 I'm trying to put it in the right category.

Speaker 2 He's going to be good. Milwaukee.
I'm pissed at Milwaukee. I honestly think the Portis drug thing was a bummer, but if I don't think they should have traded.

Speaker 2 I know that they needed

Speaker 2 some

Speaker 2 cap savings and that Kuzma is a live body, but I will tell you, come playoff time without any reservation or hesitation.

Speaker 2 A moment will come and Kyle Kuzma will have the effing ball at that moment and it is going to go badly. It's going Chris Middleton, I trust.
Kyle Kuzma, I do not. Best of luck to the Bucs.

Speaker 1 For my next pick.

Speaker 1 First of all, House has won the draft for pissing off the most fan bases. He locked it up two rounds of being pissed.
Oh, yeah. Don't be mad.
The game fancy.

Speaker 1 I can't believe this guy's still available. Three years, 66 million.

Speaker 1 Contabious Caldwell Pope

Speaker 1 goes to Orlando. Rough year and all that.
Leaves Denver. Christian Brown comes in and is immediately like twice as good as he was.
Goes to Orlando.

Speaker 1 Twice he's good. Come on, man.
Hear the stats. 60 games.

Speaker 1 8.6 points, 2.1 rebounds, 1.8 assists. Congratulations on all that.
31% from three. Yeah.

Speaker 1 he's rocking the uh 9.0 p r

Speaker 1 not and brought in to do

Speaker 1 and uh he's playing 30 minutes a game and you could argue of anyone playing 30 minutes or more a game

Speaker 1 he might be the least useful player and i know there's good devant look he's a good defensive player there's metrics but great locker room guy great locker room guy all that but i promise you they were looking for more than what he's given them this year with this contract so he is my pick wows who do you have ah man now i'm starting to get into guys that I really actually like as players.

Speaker 1 That's part of the draft. This is tough.
I think the Jalen Green deal is a tough one. Just the up and down, inconsistent nature of his game, man.
Two weeks, he's up. Three weeks, he's down.

Speaker 1 Well, can we get the deal? One for 12. Yes.
And then next year, three for 105 as an extension, which with a play

Speaker 1 at the end of it. And by the way, good content for us because he's going to be in 58% of the fake trades we make in June.
Yeah, when we try to get them a superstar.

Speaker 1 And when we get to Jayman Booker, and we try to, it's like, well, Jalen Green will be in it.

Speaker 1 And I think the ultimate indictment of Jalen Green and the deal is that Fred Van Vliet goes down and the offense just goes into the tank because they don't have a creator who can effectively get them into decent offense.

Speaker 1 And it's like, Jalen Green, like, you're right here. Like, you should be stepping up here.

Speaker 1 He cannot create anything for anybody else. That would be the

Speaker 1 criticism. And I like, I really like Jalen Green.
Yeah,

Speaker 1 there was a moment last year when it really feeled like it all came together and I have not seen it. Was waiting.
House, you're up.

Speaker 2 I can't believe this guy is still available, to be honest with you. And I'll take the criticism for some of my earlier picks, but Andrew Wiggins is still on the board.

Speaker 1 Look at this size. Look at this man's contract.

Speaker 2 And please tell me the next time that you think that he is going to play 60 games in an NBA season. Please, please tell me the next time you think that that's going to happen.

Speaker 2 He's at 49 games right now. He played 49 games last season.
He is living off of a contract that was a reward for helping the Golden State Warriors find out.

Speaker 1 Second best guy in the world.

Speaker 2 Totally reasonable.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 You always forget to say the contract. Three years, $85 million.

Speaker 1 Two counts this year. That's a lot.

Speaker 2 It's a lot of money left for a guy that looks like he's.

Speaker 2 lost some interest.

Speaker 2 And his interest in basketball has always been kind of an open question, except for the championship year.

Speaker 1 Everyone's getting groggy. We're nearing the end of the draft, and I haven't really pissed off a fan base yet.

Speaker 1 And I also haven't made Woz laugh hysterically with a pick yet. And I think this is going to be it.
It's the most controversial pick of the late rounds. I got to do it.
Four years, $163 million.

Speaker 1 John Morant.

Speaker 1 Stop it. Get the hell out of here.

Speaker 1 Listen, it's the end of the draft.

Speaker 1 I'm just trying to get value. I'm just trying to get value why doesn't he play why doesn't he play there this was preserving his body for the postseason folks chill what's wrong now

Speaker 1 what's going on

Speaker 2 when i asked for permission to combine players i wanted to do zion and ja together because to me they fit the same kind of like when is ja going to be able like if the idea with him over his entire career will be to preserve him for the playoffs Then, what does that do for your team?

Speaker 2 You're paying.

Speaker 1 He's 25. What are we preserving him for? He should be playing every game.

Speaker 2 He can't.

Speaker 2 There's no proof that he can.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 this year,

Speaker 1 he's played 38 games this year. He played nine games last year.
He plays 29.4 minutes a game. He doesn't even play 30 minutes a game.
I'm conserving him. And there's very good.

Speaker 1 Keep gloves bubble wrapping him. And now yesterday he didn't play well.
And he's like, I don't know if my shoulder is going to be good the rest of the year.

Speaker 1 so now I have a fundamental shoulder issue on top of all the other baggage. Like, look,

Speaker 1 there's 10 teams that are paying him that contract without blinking. I'm just flagging it.
We're near the end of the draft.

Speaker 1 The contract, the numbers are pretty high for somebody who doesn't seem like he's going to play all the time.

Speaker 1 Okay, not mad at it. Who do you got, Wes?

Speaker 1 This hurts me because he's one of my favorite players in the league, but it's OG Ananobi. Oh,

Speaker 1 that guy. I was wondering when he'd go.
Five for 212.

Speaker 1 It's a huge deal with a guy who has an extensive injury history, especially muscle injuries, which tend to happen with a lot of overusage. Which

Speaker 1 news flash, he plays with Tom Thibodeau.

Speaker 1 Asked Luel Dang about that.

Speaker 1 Love OG. I love watching OG play.
I love his approach to the game, but this is so much money for a guy who doesn't create his own shot ever. He's not some great distributor.

Speaker 1 It's like, man, this is a lot.

Speaker 1 And he's a very good defender, but I will also say that Tatum and Brown aren't exactly quaking in their boots when they see him. And that was one of the reasons they did that thing.
I'm with you.

Speaker 1 He's for the injury issues with him that always are lingering. 212 is a scary number.
House, I'll give you one more pick.

Speaker 2 Thank you.

Speaker 2 And I want to say this name so we can have a quick conversation about him. I'm going to draw a distinction between him him and Scotty Barnes.
I'm taking LaMelo Ball here.

Speaker 2 And the distinction that I want to make is: see, this is when the draft gets great.

Speaker 1 Shout Brain and Lamello Ball.

Speaker 1 I love it.

Speaker 2 But here's the distinction. I think LaMelo Ball could definitely make an all-NBA team.
And it could be like right around the corner. It's just not going to be in Charlotte.

Speaker 2 And I don't really quibble with Charlotte paying him this contract. I think it is commensurate with his talent.
But his talent, he is a loser. He's a serial loser.

Speaker 1 I mean, a loser of games, not an actual game. A loser of games.

Speaker 2 Correct. Correct.
There is no proof to the contrary. He's never played basketball in a situation, a serious situation where his team has been a winning game.

Speaker 1 Where his team has been high-fiving and shaking hands and celebration after games.

Speaker 1 It's a unique experience for him.

Speaker 2 We're missing the winning component. Now.

Speaker 1 Good win. I can't believe we won seven games in a row.
It's never been said.

Speaker 2 With his talent, if he can stay healthy, another guy who who can, you know, we keep seeing this, these nagging ankles here and there.

Speaker 2 But his talent is such that if he was with the right situation, with the right coach, this would be an incredible contract potentially, because I think he is supremely talented and I like his swag.

Speaker 2 It just needs to be redirected. So in this circumstance, with this team, tough one.
I like it. I don't think it's bad money, but you know what? I'll take his career over Scotty Barnes.

Speaker 2 And everybody from Toronto can go ahead and send me poop sandwiches. I'm fine with it.

Speaker 1 I'll recap the draft before I make the last pick.

Speaker 1 Woz took Bradley Beal to kick us off. House took Nico Harrison.
I took Joelle Embiid.

Speaker 1 And then I went Paul George, Scotty Barnes, Kawhi Leonard, Patrick Williams, Terry Rogere, Kyrie Irving. I felt bad about that one.
Brandon Ingram, Jamal Murray, Rudy Gobert,

Speaker 1 DeJante Murray, Ben Simmons, just in Emeritus just has to be picked anyway. There's 10 million bucks.
House just

Speaker 1 on the board. I took a manual quickly.
Then Grant Williams, Zion Williamson, Grayson Allen, Damantis Sabonis, Dame Loward, Contabius Caldwell Pope, Jalen Green, Andrew Wiggins, John Morant,

Speaker 1 OJ Ananobi, Lamello Ball, and the last pick of the draft.

Speaker 1 Only because he has to, another guy, he's like Ben Simmons. He has to be in their house.
He's so excited. Zach Levine, three for 141.
We got to have him. We can't

Speaker 1 Zach was outside the door knocking, like, hey, contract!

Speaker 1 There was a worst contract party. That's right.
I'm one of them.

Speaker 1 Hey, anybody home?

Speaker 1 Um, okay.

Speaker 1 I mean, the case for that, even though he's had a really good year, is um, the bulls traded him and didn't even get

Speaker 1 enough back, they got a hill of beans. They just got bad contracts for motherfucking back, literally a hill of beans.

Speaker 1 So, uh, apologies to the following people for not getting picked: Julius Randall, two for 64. Jimmy Butler, three for 159.
Chris Middleton on House is Wizards, two for 61.

Speaker 1 Zach Collins, two for 35.7.

Speaker 1 Part of that Zach Construction is still happening. How is he not in our draft? Yeah, he should be.
Zach Collins definitely should be. Kevin Herder, two for 35.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Terrence Mann, one for 11 this year, and then kicks in three for 47.

Speaker 1 Lori Markinen, five for 237.

Speaker 1 I did look at him for the last couple of rounds.

Speaker 1 I almost took him over John Morant. Gary Harris, two for 15.
Just had to put it in there, principal, but he healed four for 38. Can't believe he didn't get drafted.

Speaker 1 Teams are trying to sign him as an undrafted free agent for the draft right now.

Speaker 1 Drew Holiday, four for 134. Trew Holiday.

Speaker 1 And another guy that's kind of like a fucked up finger. That I thought about this Bam Matabayo.

Speaker 1 He's having a horrible season. Everybody thought this was going to be a breakout year, particularly on offense.
That just straight up has not happened.

Speaker 1 He's got a sterling reputation amongst people in our profession, so he won't get killed in like the media, but like he's been a disappointment. Well,

Speaker 1 we've hit the end.

Speaker 1 I had a wonderful time. Me too.
It was the worst contracts draft. My favorite part is that everyone's going to be the maddest at house.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 1 I feel like

Speaker 1 maybe the Memphis fans come after me a tiny bit. Waz, who's coming coming after you? Probably Sacramento.
Definitely Sacramento. Oh, Sabonis.
Yeah, the Sabonis hive coming at you.

Speaker 1 This was a blast, though. Thanks to Saruti and thanks to Kyle.
Thanks to Kahal. As always, you can watch this as a video podcast on Spotify.

Speaker 1 I don't know why you would because you just finished the podcast, but it's also going to be available on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel.

Speaker 1 You can listen to House on Fairway Rolling and on the Ringer Gambling Show. You can listen to Waz on Groove Chat

Speaker 1 with Mahoney and Barrier on the Ringer NBA show. Great to see you, fellas.
Thank you.

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