Latest / Kenny For Real / James Harden Traded For Darius Garland
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Hey, man, the deadline itself, the trade dead line itself
- 0:04Speaker 1: may not be great because we getting hit us.
- 0:06Speaker 2: Right now, it is official.
- 0:08Speaker 1: James Harden has been traded for Darius Guard in the
- 0:11Speaker 1: second round pick.
- 0:12Speaker 2: It is done. We heard about this.
- 0:14Speaker 1: Chris Mannis had at first yesterday about them being in
- 0:17Speaker 1: deep conversations about a swap between these two point guards.
- 0:20Speaker 1: Twenty four hours later, the deal is officially done. Deis
- 0:23Speaker 1: Garlett and the second round pick going to the to
- 0:26Speaker 1: the Clippers for this, And.
- 0:27Speaker 2: My, oh, mind is just this is just one of
- 0:31Speaker 2: them once.
- 0:32Speaker 1: This is a rare trade where both teams in it
- 0:35Speaker 1: are actively trying to compete, but they're swapping two players
- 0:40Speaker 1: that play the same position.
- 0:41Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
- 0:42Speaker 1: This ain't like, oh, we got too many point guards,
- 0:43Speaker 1: we go trade one of the point guards for a center.
- 0:46Speaker 1: This is a all star caliber point guard for an
- 0:49Speaker 1: all star caliber point.
- 0:50Speaker 2: Guard, swap them up. So this is just a rare,
- 0:53Speaker 2: rare thing.
- 0:54Speaker 1: Man.
- 0:55Speaker 2: First off, I want to give.
- 0:57Speaker 1: My flowers to James Harden, not just because he's a
- 1:01Speaker 1: great player, but the one thing James knows well is
- 1:04Speaker 1: how to give us, the people at home, the content creators,
- 1:07Speaker 1: the people that write articles the people that do all
- 1:09Speaker 1: this stuff.
- 1:09Speaker 2: He knows how to give us content, whether it.
- 1:12Speaker 1: Be him dropping sixty point triper doubles or him request
- 1:15Speaker 1: the trade or requestion the trade or requestion the trade
- 1:19Speaker 1: or request the trade. Did I get him all? Did
- 1:21Speaker 1: I get him all? He always give us content? And
- 1:23Speaker 1: I admire one thing about James Harden And I promise
- 1:25Speaker 1: you this is not a shot of my boy y,
- 1:27Speaker 1: but that's my boy's well.
- 1:28Speaker 2: But it's something.
- 1:32Speaker 1: Something I admire about straight up just saying when you
- 1:34Speaker 1: don't want to play somewhere, straight up saying trade me, no,
- 1:38Speaker 1: I'm not coming.
- 1:38Speaker 2: To work tomorrow, give me on my next team.
- 1:41Speaker 1: While we have a guy like y'alli says one foot into,
- 1:42Speaker 1: one foot out, James has always been able to say, like,
- 1:45Speaker 1: I don't care about my public perception of anything. If
- 1:47Speaker 1: I don't want to play here, I don't want to
- 1:49Speaker 1: play here. And there's something admirable about that. And he
- 1:51Speaker 1: we found out twenty four hours ago and he's already
- 1:53Speaker 1: in his new team, you know, So shout out to
- 1:55Speaker 1: him for that. This is such an interesting trade for
- 1:58Speaker 1: multiple multiple reasons. But the first thing I thought of
- 2:01Speaker 1: when all of this happened was something that Joey Land
- 2:05Speaker 1: tweeted about in twenty fourteen. So twenty fourteen, twenty twenty four,
- 2:08Speaker 1: this is before the season even started.
- 2:10Speaker 2: This from James Harden about why he resigned the Clippers.
- 2:12Speaker 2: I'm home.
- 2:13Speaker 1: I don't want to go anywhere else out not even
- 2:15Speaker 1: two years, ladies going. I want to leave a legacy.
- 2:18Speaker 1: A lot of outsiders and people that are analysts don't
- 2:20Speaker 1: have expectise for us. I was one of those people
- 2:22Speaker 1: going into the twenty twenty four to twenty twenty five season.
- 2:24Speaker 1: Go back and watching this chinnel. I had them as
- 2:26Speaker 1: the twelfth seed in the Western Conference. They won fifty games, right,
- 2:29Speaker 1: and the most of that fifty games is on the
- 2:31Speaker 1: back of this man right here, because Kawhy only played
- 2:33Speaker 1: thirty seven of those games. And this man raised rolls
- 2:36Speaker 1: himself to the occasion and was great. But we have
- 2:39Speaker 1: high expectise for ourselves. Meani visually, I never missed the
- 2:42Speaker 1: playoffs in my career. And guess what, James, the streak
- 2:44Speaker 1: is still alive. And you stay with the Clippers, you
- 2:48Speaker 1: probably had to win a good playing game two. Now
- 2:50Speaker 1: you go to Cleve League, sit back and guarantee that
- 2:54Speaker 1: that playoff streak stays alive, and that's pretty dupe. But
- 2:59Speaker 1: this overall, just optically is a very very weird trad
- 3:04Speaker 1: And I'm gonna start off from the Calves perspective, because man,
- 3:11Speaker 1: before the season. So so let's look at this history
- 3:14Speaker 1: of them having this core forward, the core four of
- 3:15Speaker 1: Dono Minchew, Darius Garland, Evan Mobley, and Jared Allen. Their
- 3:18Speaker 1: first year in the playoffs, they lose in the first round.
- 3:20Speaker 1: Everybody knows that's the lights to bright series from Jared
- 3:23Speaker 1: Allen against the Knicks. Second round, they tanked the last
- 3:26Speaker 1: game in the season to match up against a young
- 3:28Speaker 1: Orlando Magic team and that team took them to seven
- 3:30Speaker 1: and they won, and then they lost in the second round.
- 3:32Speaker 1: Last year, they blow past their first round matchup and
- 3:35Speaker 1: lost in the second round as well, but not even
- 3:36Speaker 1: just lost. Those last two series that they lost, they
- 3:39Speaker 1: got speked. Part of that is because of injury, for sure,
- 3:42Speaker 1: and part of that is because they just looked out
- 3:43Speaker 1: matching a lot of different ways. So coming into this season,
- 3:46Speaker 1: it was almost unanimous across every single podcast that talks NBA,
- 3:50Speaker 1: every single content creator that said, hey man, last year
- 3:53Speaker 1: was the first year coach with Kenny Akinson. Y'all didn't
- 3:55Speaker 1: go far into the playoffs. WHI y'all won sixty games.
- 3:58Speaker 1: But if if you go into the twenty five twenty
- 4:01Speaker 1: twenty six season and you disappoint again and I mean
- 4:03Speaker 1: don't make a conference finals, I mean don't make an
- 4:05Speaker 1: NBA finals, then something's gonna have to shake with that
- 4:07Speaker 1: core forward. Now, I didn't think that was gonna happen
- 4:09Speaker 1: even before we got to the playoffs, but I can
- 4:12Speaker 1: understand the rationalization from the front office because DG to PG.
- 4:17Speaker 2: Can't stay healthy right now.
- 4:19Speaker 1: Last year in the postseason he dealt with I think
- 4:20Speaker 1: it was turf toe something toe related, which is unfortunate.
- 4:25Speaker 2: And then this year there is.
- 4:26Speaker 1: Times in this year for Darius Garland where I'm talking
- 4:29Speaker 1: in a singular game where let's say, in the first quarter,
- 4:33Speaker 1: Darius Garland like the normal version of himself, no ifens
- 4:36Speaker 1: and butts about it. He looked like the guy that
- 4:37Speaker 1: was just an All star last season. And then we
- 4:39Speaker 1: get to the second quarter and he's laboring around, he's limping,
- 4:42Speaker 1: and you could tell that something happened with that toe.
- 4:44Speaker 1: He reaggravated that toe and then he got injured again,
- 4:47Speaker 1: but this time it's the other foot. It's a tony
- 4:49Speaker 1: other foot. So like I can understand from the cast
- 4:52Speaker 1: respective and recognize.
- 4:53Speaker 2: Him oh uh oh anyway, and recognize is be hitting me?
- 5:00Speaker 1: But this ain't too being board, I can understand that
- 5:03Speaker 1: from their perspective, recognizing that Darius Garland just may not
- 5:06Speaker 1: ever be one hundred percent for us in the playoffs.
- 5:09Speaker 1: And if we don't have Darius Garland, our chances of
- 5:11Speaker 1: winning the East is pretty damn low. So let's replace
- 5:14Speaker 1: him with another guy who Say what you want about
- 5:16Speaker 1: James Harden's play out performances, because it's been a lot
- 5:18Speaker 1: of bulls in there that brother plays. He's always available,
- 5:22Speaker 1: always available, So that's it. But like it hurts, I'm
- 5:28Speaker 1: sure it hurts from the Cavs fans perspective because obviously
- 5:30Speaker 1: DGDPG has been this entire career and James Harden's twenty
- 5:35Speaker 1: six Dere's Garland is, I mean, James Harden's thirty six
- 5:40Speaker 1: Deer's Garland's twenty six. You traded a twenty six yard
- 5:43Speaker 1: guy again, albeit having injury history and so on. The
- 5:45Speaker 1: two time alls are twenty six for somebody ten years
- 5:48Speaker 1: older than them, right, say what you want about the
- 5:51Speaker 1: core four of the Calves. Even if they went into
- 5:53Speaker 1: the season and they and they and they sucked in
- 5:57Speaker 1: the postseason they got eliminated, and they decided to bring
- 5:59Speaker 1: all of those guys, there would be a little percentage
- 6:01Speaker 1: you in the back of your brain and say, well,
- 6:03Speaker 1: it's cool they all still under other than they all
- 6:05Speaker 1: still under thirty years old. But now you can't really
- 6:08Speaker 1: say that with this core because James Harden's thirty six,
- 6:10Speaker 1: and James Harden has aged gracefully so far, even right
- 6:13Speaker 1: now with the age of thirty six, is averaging twenty
- 6:14Speaker 1: five points per game. But it shortens the potential window
- 6:17Speaker 1: because we don't know what he'll look like at thirty
- 6:19Speaker 1: eight or thirty nine, which is like when he's thirty eight,
- 6:22Speaker 1: thirty nine, what Evan Mobley might be with twenty five
- 6:25Speaker 1: twenty six, you know, Like, so it changes a lot
- 6:28Speaker 1: about the timeline and all.
- 6:30Speaker 2: And maybe that doesn't matter.
- 6:31Speaker 1: To them, right, because there was also a point we're
- 6:33Speaker 1: talking about rumors at this point that Donald Mitchell was
- 6:36Speaker 1: not ready to sign this extension, right, so how could
- 6:39Speaker 1: we make Donde happy? Because like Jalen Tyson said, and
- 6:43Speaker 1: he took the statement back. This is his city right now.
- 6:45Speaker 1: How do we keep him happy? Well, we put him
- 6:48Speaker 1: next to a guy that we know is gonna play
- 6:50Speaker 1: and maybe help us potentially go in the conference finals.
- 6:52Speaker 2: Wrong, that's where it's at.
- 6:54Speaker 1: I can't say that I love it, but I can
- 6:58Speaker 1: maybe understand it.
- 7:00Speaker 2: I can maybe understand it.
- 7:02Speaker 1: They already made the trades earlier when they gave up
- 7:04Speaker 1: DeAndre Hunter for Dennis Shrewder and Keyan Nalls. I like
- 7:06Speaker 1: that trade from their perspective, and I'm assuming that they
- 7:09Speaker 1: have another trade lined up where they're dumping Lonzo Ball's contract.
- 7:14Speaker 1: But I'm just I'm just kind of speculating. It just
- 7:16Speaker 1: feels like Lonzo should be the odd man out around here.
- 7:20Speaker 1: So we will see, like ooh, Dovin Mitchell and James
- 7:26Speaker 1: Hardener Adidas athletes right.
- 7:29Speaker 3: Something now.
- 7:30Speaker 1: But also again, we don't know for sure, right Everybody
- 7:33Speaker 1: speculating about what costs James Harden and the Clippers to
- 7:37Speaker 1: break apart, a lot of people speculating that we all
- 7:39Speaker 1: knew that the front office and the ownership of the
- 7:42Speaker 1: Clippers basically said that at twenty twenty seven, we want
- 7:45Speaker 1: our books to be cleaned so we can restart and
- 7:47Speaker 1: we can go out and go get They keep saying
- 7:50Speaker 1: about Jokis, but Yoki.
- 7:51Speaker 2: Just said, I'm staying in Denver. What the fuck are
- 7:54Speaker 2: I'm talking about?
- 7:56Speaker 1: But with them having their books claim in twenty twenty seven,
- 7:59Speaker 1: that means that James Harden, who's not eligible for an
- 8:01Speaker 1: extension right now but eventually becomes an eligible for extension, he's.
- 8:04Speaker 2: A node man out.
- 8:05Speaker 1: And maybe the writing was on the wall from James recognizing, Oh,
- 8:07Speaker 1: they don't even want me here in twenty twenty seven.
- 8:09Speaker 2: I'm busting my ass to maybe make a plan. Why
- 8:12Speaker 2: am I going through all of this? You know? So
- 8:14Speaker 2: get me out of here.
- 8:16Speaker 3: But they traded him away for Darius Garland, who all
- 8:18Speaker 3: of the greatness, was the two time All Star and when.
- 8:21Speaker 2: He looks good, he looks really good.
- 8:22Speaker 1: He has not looked good more times than he's looked
- 8:25Speaker 1: bad this season, and he's actively dealing with an injury.
- 8:28Speaker 2: I just googled it.
- 8:29Speaker 1: Nobody has the timeline as of right now, and the
- 8:31Speaker 1: James Harden on off numbers.
- 8:33Speaker 2: Are staggering for the Clippers.
- 8:36Speaker 1: So how can they survive if Darius Garland is not
- 8:40Speaker 1: ready to hoop anytime soon. Right, they are what seventeen
- 8:43Speaker 1: and four in their last twenty one games. They been
- 8:46Speaker 1: rolling a lot of that again James and of course
- 8:48Speaker 1: Kawhileon and like Kawai, congratulations on your all star appearents.
- 8:51Speaker 1: Again Kawhi, we fall for you. But if they don't
- 8:54Speaker 1: have a point guard, Zubot's production goes down, and overall
- 8:58Speaker 1: the team doesn't do anything better because again, James Harden's
- 9:02Speaker 1: one of the greatest floor raizers ever, so they don't
- 9:06Speaker 1: have that, and they may not even have Derius Garland healthy.
- 9:08Speaker 1: So what does that mean for the Clippers. Let me
- 9:10Speaker 1: quickly look at the NBA standings, right because I know
- 9:12Speaker 1: they're playing team as of right now, but how much so?
- 9:15Speaker 2: They're at the ninth seed right now, with half a.
- 9:17Speaker 1: Game above the Blazers, who are also trying to win,
- 9:20Speaker 1: but they're on a five game losing streak. The Grizzes
- 9:22Speaker 1: just sold Jared Jackson Junior, the Jaskis Paul Jeronjaxons, so like,
- 9:25Speaker 1: they're probably pretty safe as far as being a playing team,
- 9:28Speaker 1: but the playing team at this rate, you still have
- 9:30Speaker 1: to win two games to get in, so, like, you know,
- 9:33Speaker 1: who's really happy about this? Goddamn Sam Presty Dere's Garland
- 9:37Speaker 1: may not be ready to play for a little bit
- 9:39Speaker 1: of time. They might rattle off for a couple losses because
- 9:41Speaker 1: they just played against the seventy six ers the other
- 9:43Speaker 1: night without James Harden to got they asked spanked by
- 9:45Speaker 1: Jojo Sam Presse's like, yeah, early in the season, everybody
- 9:49Speaker 1: was saying that we weren't going we were gonna get
- 9:51Speaker 1: a top something to pick. But they might just get
- 9:53Speaker 1: another lottery pick because the Clippers would have to win two.
- 9:56Speaker 2: Games to actually make the postseason.
- 9:58Speaker 1: If they didn't, if I would love to trade a
- 10:01Speaker 1: ton more from the Clippers' perspective, if they straight up
- 10:05Speaker 1: told us, yeah, we kind of concede in this this season,
- 10:09Speaker 1: and they.
- 10:09Speaker 2: May tell us that if they make more trades.
- 10:10Speaker 1: If you see Zuba's name come out of nowhere, if
- 10:12Speaker 1: you see John Collins's name, if you see Kauwahi Leonard's
- 10:15Speaker 1: name come out of nowhere, then that kind of lets
- 10:17Speaker 1: us know. But in my opinion, I think they're going
- 10:18Speaker 1: to continue to buy, not buy, I'm sorry, continue to
- 10:20Speaker 1: try to compete because they don't really have an incentive
- 10:22Speaker 1: to sell those pieces unless the draft capital that you
- 10:24Speaker 1: could get for those dudes just succeeds anything, right, even
- 10:27Speaker 1: if you don't have your own first round pick, So
- 10:28Speaker 1: it's a lot I would like this a lot better
- 10:30Speaker 1: if you had your own pick, because there's God and
- 10:32Speaker 1: count of cheer and get his toe healthy and you
- 10:34Speaker 1: have to worry about winning or anything like that. But
- 10:36Speaker 1: they kind of you know what I'm saying. If there's
- 10:40Speaker 1: God come back from his toe injuries and look like
- 10:42Speaker 1: the normal version of himself. I like this for the
- 10:44Speaker 1: future of the Clippers. Again, this a twenty six year
- 10:47Speaker 1: old only what the thirty year of his contracts, so
- 10:48Speaker 1: maybe a few years on top of this left with
- 10:51Speaker 1: LA and he feels like he might go to LA's
- 10:53Speaker 1: and be like, oh yeah, this like this mine. People
- 10:55Speaker 1: usually go to LA and love living in La. Right,
- 11:00Speaker 1: But not having that pick and looking at the piece
- 11:03Speaker 1: around from Kawhi and Zoo and all of these guys,
- 11:06Speaker 1: I guess I don't.
- 11:06Speaker 2: I don't love it too much from the Clippers.
- 11:10Speaker 1: But it might have been the best you could get
- 11:12Speaker 1: for God, Like James Hardener, right, think about those other
- 11:14Speaker 1: teams that would somewhat interested. What could before Minnesota decide
- 11:17Speaker 1: to do their thing and maybe go after gianas what
- 11:19Speaker 1: could Minnesota given you that would be more valuable than
- 11:22Speaker 1: a twenty six year old two time All Star? And
- 11:24Speaker 1: maybe maybe I'm using that two time All Star thing
- 11:26Speaker 1: very very loosely. Right. Technically he is a two time
- 11:29Speaker 1: All Star, but some people may argue that maybe his
- 11:31Speaker 1: on court impact isn't as great as those that two
- 11:33Speaker 1: time All Star thing.
- 11:35Speaker 2: I don't want to say that about my boy DG,
- 11:38Speaker 2: but it's, man, I wonder like.
- 11:43Speaker 1: Because what I said on the pod, because we did
- 11:46Speaker 1: we did a little something where we did like a
- 11:47Speaker 1: little circle of all of the different rumors and there
- 11:51Speaker 1: was a ton of Calves rooms And again we're talking
- 11:53Speaker 1: about rumors more than anything, and rumors don't.
- 11:55Speaker 2: Mean nothing until they turn into actuality.
- 11:57Speaker 1: But part of the room is like, hey, they're still
- 11:59Speaker 1: in on Gianni's be They called about Anthony Davis.
- 12:02Speaker 2: See they're trying to.
- 12:03Speaker 1: Do this, and it turned into what looked like desperation
- 12:06Speaker 1: from the Calves. Again, it will know sooner rather than
- 12:09Speaker 1: later if that's the case, but I'm afraid of desperation
- 12:13Speaker 1: moves and getting ten years older could potentially be looked
- 12:17Speaker 1: at as something of a desperation move, you know, and
- 12:20Speaker 1: as a front office and then from a team you
- 12:23Speaker 1: don't want to move in desperation. How many times has
- 12:27Speaker 1: a team moved in desperation and it's worked out?
- 12:31Speaker 2: And it scares me, bro It scares me about it all.
- 12:36Speaker 1: The more I think about it, the more I like
- 12:38Speaker 1: it for the Clippers, because sometimes what is.
- 12:41Speaker 2: It the sunken cost fallacy? Right? Is am I using it? Right?
- 12:45Speaker 2: They're like, yeah, we don't have our own first round
- 12:47Speaker 2: pick the season. We shouldn't.
- 12:48Speaker 1: We shouldn't be sad about it. It's already it's gone.
- 12:50Speaker 1: It's not ours anymore. So we did get younger today,
- 12:53Speaker 1: and the.
- 12:54Speaker 2: Twenty six year old guy is pretty good when he plays,
- 12:56Speaker 2: you know so, And.
- 12:58Speaker 1: James Harden literally requests the truck, So, like, think about
- 13:00Speaker 1: the lack of leverage you really have traditionally with.
- 13:03Speaker 2: A player requests a trade. You traded a thirty six
- 13:06Speaker 2: year old guy who won it out by Thursday.
- 13:09Speaker 1: By the way, you had forty eight hours to put
- 13:11Speaker 1: some shit together and you walked out with an Also,
- 13:15Speaker 1: look at it from that perspective, it ain't that bad,
- 13:17Speaker 1: even if that means you are giving up a top
- 13:18Speaker 1: pick to the OKC Thunder later in this year's draft.
- 13:21Speaker 1: But I keep looking at the East and I'm thinking
- 13:25Speaker 1: about thinking about James being on the team, and thinking,
- 13:30Speaker 1: you know.
- 13:32Speaker 3: I, it's one of those trades, man, it is one
- 13:36Speaker 3: of those trades. I don't like potentially moving in desperation,
- 13:40Speaker 3: But if the competition don't look amazing, why not swing
- 13:44Speaker 3: a little bit.
- 13:46Speaker 2: I mean Darius Garland, he just couldn't stay healthy.
- 13:49Speaker 1: And though he had become just a guy that was
- 13:51Speaker 1: beloved in Cleveland, not staying healthy is just.
- 13:57Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know.
- 13:58Speaker 1: Also in the back of my mind and thinking, I
- 14:01Speaker 1: think I mentioned this earlier, like what if Zuo, what.
- 14:03Speaker 3: About Kawhi Leonard being on the market and what that connect?
- 14:08Speaker 3: Because Kawhi is having such an amazing season.
- 14:10Speaker 1: Obviously you're always waiting for that shoe to drop of
- 14:12Speaker 1: him getting injured in all, but if you made Kawhi available,
- 14:15Speaker 1: let me look at the standings. I love by the way,
- 14:18Speaker 1: I've been wanting the Pistons to do something, and they did.
- 14:21Speaker 1: They got Kevin heard it earlier, but like him on
- 14:24Speaker 1: the Pistons would be absolutely nuts. That's where you put
- 14:26Speaker 1: some of the chips in but like the Pistons will
- 14:28Speaker 1: probably be be interested in him.
- 14:32Speaker 2: Oh, the seventy six ers, like some Paul George Noise.
- 14:35Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.
- 14:37Speaker 1: As always, these are my initial reactions to all the trades.
- 14:40Speaker 1: I usually go deeper on the podcast, which is a want.
- 14:43Speaker 1: We shooting one on Thursday, so I will have forty
- 14:45Speaker 1: eight hours to think things through a little bit more.
- 14:48Speaker 1: But if I'm great in this, M If I'm great
- 14:52Speaker 1: in this, I actually don't know. I feel like this
- 14:54Speaker 1: whole video.
- 14:55Speaker 3: I've kind of talked to myself one way and they'd
- 14:57Speaker 3: be like, actually, nah. From the Halves, the fact that
- 15:01Speaker 3: they're moving a little bit of desperation, even if it
- 15:04Speaker 3: make them better this season, scares me.
- 15:06Speaker 1: So i'm gonna say. I'm gonna say C plus does
- 15:11Speaker 1: that feel fair? And then from the Clippers, even though
- 15:15Speaker 1: they're objectively worse today, they.
- 15:18Speaker 2: Might it might work out long term. Can I just
- 15:21Speaker 2: go F for everybody? Maybe it's better to go F
- 15:23Speaker 2: for everybody, F for everybody?
- 15:25Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, cool? Everybody lost his trade or everybody
- 15:28Speaker 1: want this trade? You let me know in the common section,
- 15:30Speaker 1: I don't know