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It's a Great Time to be an NBA Player · Rosters to Rings Podcast

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Rosters to Rings. Alongside Ryan McDonough I am
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: fad Levine.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: We got an action packed show today.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: We're going to dive into the NBA Draft, the NBA
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Free agency, and we're going to touch on a few
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: baseball stories along the way. Ryan, if you would kick
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: us off by telling us some of your highlights.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: From the draft.
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so that the draft was pretty predictable at the top.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: The first two picks went as expected, with Cooper Flag
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: going number one overall to the Dallas Mavericks. They didn't
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: work out any other players, they didn't bring any other
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: players to Dallas, they did not have another pick in
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: the draft. So this was relatively easy, at least from
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: the Mavericks perspective. Now we'll see if history makes it
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: look easy. Cooper Flagg was number one player in his
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: high school class. He actually reclassified up. He's still just
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: eighteen years old, doesn't turn nineteen until the end of
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: the year, which makes it even more remarkable what he
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: did last year at Duke as a freshman, leading that
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: team to the four, winning just about every National Player
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: of the Year award. And as you know that sometimes
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: these young prospects come in they're so hyped it's virtually
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: impossible for the player to live up to that hype. Well,
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: Cooper Flagg not only lived up to it, he may
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: have exceeded the lofty expectations based on his one year
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: at Duke. So I think that was a pretty obvious
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: pick at number one, and then San Antonio at number two.
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: They attend to get lucky in the lottery. That happened
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: a couple of years ago with Victor woman Yama. Historically
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: it happened with David Robinson and Tim Duncan. This year,
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: they did not move all the way up, but moving
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: up to the number two pick slot, they got Dylan Harper.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: He's a son of longtime NBA star Ron Harper, a
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: point guard out of Rutgers. And the interesting thing there
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: that and something I'm still keeping my eye on, is
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: in season this past year, the Spurs made a big
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: aggressive trade with the Sacramento Kings to bring in tarn Fox,
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: the star point guard. They were not anticipating to have
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: the number two pick and being the Dylan Harper sweepstakes
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: when they made that move. So one of the things
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: I'm keeping an eye on. I think this will be
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: one of the themes we move forward in the offseason,
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: he is Darren Fox is on an expiring contract. He's
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: only got one year left, and he does obviously want
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: to get paid and extended. And then from the franchisees perspective,
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: you never want to let a player of that caliber
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: in his prime hit unrestricted free agency, especially given what
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: the Spurs just gave up to bring him to San Antonio.
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: So keep in my eye on that that because it's
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: not a perfect fit. As you know, sometimes it's easy
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: to say from a fan even media perspective, well they
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: have all that talent, it's great on paper, and it is,
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: but the reality of it, somebody is going to have
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: to sacrifice. Does that mean Fox gets less touches or
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: his role is diminished, or he's potentially even retraded, which
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: I do think is a possibility, albeit maybe a slim one.
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: Or does Dylan Harper as a number two pick in
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: the draft on a very young, talented team with Victor Wembanama,
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: Stefan Castle and others, does he come off the bench
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: which would be rare for a player of that caliber.
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: So those are a couple of the main things I'm
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: keeping an eye on that, especially as I look back
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: at the top two picks in this past year's draft, I.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Think you touch on something very important there, which is
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: we talked about in the last episode, the importance of
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: maybe taking the best player available, not always taking the
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: player that best fits your roster. But if you do that,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: you then have to sort it out later. You referenced
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: last week when we're talking the Phoenix Suns have a
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: little bit of an imbalanced roster. I think as we
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: go through our conversation about free agency, I'm guessing you're
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: going to touch on a few more rosters that seem
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: to your eye right now a little bit imbalanced. So
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: we had the draft, we're having free agency.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Maybe there's a trade session coming after this to balance
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: out some of these rosters.
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's usually the way it works in the NBA
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: is like free agency.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: It's the word free.
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: If you have money, if you have calf space, which
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: very few teams this year do. Brooklyn is really the
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: only team with significant calf space, or you have your exceptions,
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: the mid level exception, different ways to acquire players without
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: giving anything up. Teams obviously start there because if you
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: can improve your roster without giving anything up, that makes
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: logical sense where you should start. And then the market
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: does shift and turn a little bit to the trade game,
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: and that's where we are now. We're recording this show
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: just a few days into free agency, but the markets
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: move very quickly this year, and I think that's the
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: next thing teams we focused on. We'll touch on a
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: few of the bigger trades here in the show, but yeh,
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: as the money drives up quickly around the league as
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: far as available cap space and exceptions, and the available
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: players at the top of the lists come off the
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: board pretty quickly. That's going to be the theme for
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: the rest of the NBA offseason. Are there any more
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: significant trades on the heels of the draft and then
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: the start of free agency?
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: And you know, Ryan, it's really the same in Major
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: League Baseball that the free agent process takes a lot longer,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: and we'll touch on that in a minute. But you know,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: we would as general managers, we'd always rather spend our
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: owners money than spend our prospect capital. So we go
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: to the free agent market first, we find out that
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: the cost are too high, So then we go to
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: the trade market, find out those costs are too high.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: We boomerang right back to the free agent market, and
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: you kind of yo yo back and forth until you
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: find deals that you feel are equitable. One cut question
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: I had coming out of the draft was there was
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: a lot made the draft day trade between the Atlanta
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Hawks and the New Orleans Pelicans, and to a certain extent,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: it seemed like the prevailing sentiment was that the the
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Pelicans got panned for the deal and the Hawks were lauded.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: I just be curious, what was your take of it,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: and if you could take the listeners into the shoes
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: of Joe Dumars, the new senior decision maker for the Pelicans,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: how did they view that as a win for them?
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Good questions that.
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: So to recap the New Orleans Pelicans draft, they started
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: the night with the seventh pick. They drafted Jeremiah Fears,
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: a point guard from Oklahoma who I really like, very
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: fast with the ball in his hands, one of the
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: more explosive guards to come into the league in last
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: couple of years. He'll be, I think a fan favorite
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: and exciting to watch. But then they also had the
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: twenty three pick. They previously had Indiana's pick a year
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: from now thad and basically they swap picks. New Orleans
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: wanted another pick in this draft. As you mentioned, it's
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: a new front office in New Orleans led by Joe
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: Dumars Troy Weaver. The GM there was recently in Detroit.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: So anytime a new front office comes in, imagine this
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: is a case in MLB two, Generally the group wants
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: to be more aggressive and make a splash right away,
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: especially coming into a situation where Pelicans were twenty one
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: and sixty one last year, second to last in the
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: Western Conference, one of the worst records in the league.
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: As you know, it's really usually not a time you
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: just sit back and say, well, we'll see how this
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: plays out. There's a reason the previous group got fired
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: and you're in there. So New Orleans was extremely aggressive.
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: I do question the value proposition, Thad. More than anything,
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: I questioned the risk that the New Orleans Pelicans took
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: because they traded an unprotected first next year in the
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: twenty twenty six draft that actually is the better of
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: New Orleans pick or the Milwaukee Bucks pick. And that's
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: very risky, Thad, because in the lottery, especially since the
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: league about six years ago flatten the lottery odds, there's
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: more variance. It's not as slanted toward the teams of
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: the top winning the lottery, and we just saw the
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: results of that this year. Dallas, with a one point
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: eight percent chance, jumped up and got the number one pick.
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: San Antonio was not slotted second, and we were close
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: to it. I think they were slotted about eight that
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: they moved up to get the number two pick.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: So that is the risk.
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: And if you're in New Orleans, you're coming off a
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: twenty one and sixty one year, I think you have
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: to be worried about your downside and how long this
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: is going to take. So the thing I didn't like
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: about it was they're trying to kind of do two
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: things that are a little bit counter to each other.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: On the one hand, they're trying to develop their rookies,
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: Jeremiah Fears and then the guy that they jumped up
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: from twenty three to thirteen this year's draft to get
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: Derek Queen. They're trying to develop those guys, but that
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: those guys are eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old, and when
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: you're relying on players of that age and inexperience, you're
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: probably going to lose a lot more games, which makes
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: the pick value theoretically a lot higher next year, because
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: you know next year's lottery is only eleven months away
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: at this point. So that's the risk, and I think
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: there are times to take risks as a front office.
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: I want to get your perspective on this from the
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: MLB side, But in the NBA, one of the things
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: I think you absolutely can't do is risk having a
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: bad year or getting an unlucky bounce in lottery. I
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: guess unlucky in this case because you don't have the
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: pick and then another team gets to draft a great
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: player and build around that guy for the next five
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: or ten years. That's a risk you can't take. I
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: get it when teams trade unprotected picks if they're right
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: on the cusp of a championship and they think this
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: would be the piece that puts us over the top.
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: Right if OKC did it, or Indiana did it, to
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: the Boston Celtics, name a good team, New York, Minnesota
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: trade an unprotected pick, I think we say, Okay, they're
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: really going for it, and their downside here is probably
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: a pick around twenty, if not closer to thirty at
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: the end of the first round that I really don't
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: understand this one. Next year's draft is loaded at the top.
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: I won't go through the names, we'll do that on
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: another show. But there are four or five guys who
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: are really good, legitimate players, all in the mix to
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: be the number one pick, and so I just don't
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: understand why, if you're New Orleans you would take that
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: kind of risk. I will see how Derek Queen pans out,
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: but I think that's going to put a lot of
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: undue pressure on the franchise, especially they're two rookies, Fears
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: and Queen right away. Pretty much from day one, they're
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: going to be scrutinized because if they're having a bad year,
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: people are going to blame them, even though it wasn't
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: their decision to make this move.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: You know, I think every deal we ever make in
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: our careers has a risk reward analysis, you know, it
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: goes along with it, and it sounds like, in your
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: mind here the risk really doesn't, you know, compensate for
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: the reward that could be down down the road. It
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: seems like the risk is way too great here.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: And kudos to the Atlanta New front office there for
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: being able to pull this type of deal off. Ryan,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: what do you make of the Ace Bailey drama? And
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: is it much ado about nothing or is that something
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: as a general manager you find concerning if you were
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: picking high in the draft and he had not attended
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: your workout, had not you know, conversed with you your
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: funt office prior to the draft, how would you treat
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: a player like that coming into the draft.
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: Well, when I was on the team side, I obviously
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: didn't like these kind of tactics.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: Their agent driven right.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: The agents says, hey, we're only going to work out
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: for specific places, which happens fairly off in the NBA,
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: or we're not going to work out at all, which
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: seemingly was the case with Ace Bailey, which makes this
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: more extreme. Although there have been conflicting reports that one
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: report came up for the draft that he did hold
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: a private workout for the Washington Wizards had the six pick.
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: I don't know if that's true or not. Really, I
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: don't think it should matter that much, to be blunt,
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: because teams had thirty to forty games to evaluate Ace Bailey.
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: They watched him play in high school. He was a
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: known commodity. He's from Georgia. He played at Rutgers in
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: the Big Ten. They didn't have a great year, but
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: he was one of the most heavily scouted prospects, and
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: Rutgers was one of the two most heavily scouted teams
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: because they had two of the top five picks in
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey, along with Duke who had
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: three of the top ten picks. So basically you have
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: half of the top ten between two school stats. So
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: every team in the league had multiple evaluators rotating through
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: their practices, going to their games, talking to everybody on
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: staff together as much in as possible about Dylan Harper
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: and Ace Bailey. So I don't love the strategy. From
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: the agent perspective, it certainly was risky and I had
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: more concerns about it until he showed up in Salt Lake.
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: And once Ah Bailey showed up in Salt Lake, this
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: was this past weekend, just after the draft, there are
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: some wild rumors and speculation and maybe that's something we'll
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: get into on another show that how you manage that
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: from a team side, Because some National reporters saying, I
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: don't know if Ace Bailey is going to report to Utah,
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: is he going to try to force a trade. You know,
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: all these kind of things were swirling. And as soon
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: as he showed up in Utah and they had the
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: press conference, and he said, you know what, it's beautiful here.
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: I love it here. And the social media team for
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: the Jazz was clever. They got videos of him, you know,
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: getting off the plane and dapping everybody up and Duncan
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: putting his elbow through the rim. We said, oh, my gosh,
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: how athletic is this kid? You know, all of the
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: noise kind of quieted down. So I didn't love the process,
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: but I do think at the end of the day,
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: Ace Bailey is going to be fine. I think the
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: Jazz are actually the perfect situation for him because they're
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: going through a full blown rebuild. They have some young talent,
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: but they're looking for a centerpiece of that rebuild, and
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: that going to a team like that as opposed to
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: the Philadelphia seventy six ers, who have three veteran stars
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: in Joel mb Tyres, Maxi and Paul George, he's going
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: to get an opportunity to play through all his mistakes.
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: There's going to be no pressure on him. They have
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: a good development program in Utah, so I think whether
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: he liked it or not, whether he wanted to go
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: to Washington, stay on the East Coast, all the different
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: things we heard about as Bailey ending up with the
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: Utah Jazz was the perfect outcome for him, And now
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: that we're past the draft, I'm glad that he seems
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: to be fully committing to what the Jazz want him
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: to do.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Well.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: It's an interesting point you bring up. Ryan. We heard PJ.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Tucker talk last episode about how maybe the Toronto Raptors
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: weren't the best fit for him out of the draft,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: and now you're kind of suggesting Ace Bailey landing in Utah,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: place where he has little pressure on him, the team
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: has a little pressure on them, he has a chance
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: to really shine. Maybe exactly the right fit for him,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: despite the fact that he was technically angling to try
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: to go somewhere else.
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Ed, and I have a question for you. Does
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: this happen in Major League Baseball. It's a different animal.
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: We've talked about the draft, the difference between the draft.
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: We did that a few sho shows ago, with just
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: the volume of players in Major League Baseball and how
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: few players if you're the top decision maker, one of
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: the top guys. How few players you get to see
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: in person? Does this happen? Is there a Major League
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: Baseball equivalent of a player or I would guess his
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: agent in particular trying to steer him away from certain
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: franchises and maybe steer him toward one franchise in particular.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: So, you know, Ryan, this happened a lot more before
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: twenty twelve. Twenty twelve was when the CBA came out
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: and we started having what we're called kind of soft
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: slots per draft pick. So before that, you could literally
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: spend as much as you wanted per draft picked, inclusive
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: in which you could sign guys to major league contracts
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: out of the draft, which would allow you to really
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: give them a ton of money coming out of the draft.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: So we were kind of unlimited in terms of what
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: you could spend out of the draft. So what players
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: were doing at that time, you know, there are a
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: few examples I could think of off the top of
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: my head. Aaron Crow, Luke, Coachivar JD. Drew. They didn't
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: necessarily say they specifically wanted to go to a team,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: but what they did is they said they wanted a
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: specific dollar amount, and that kind of de facto steered
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: them to certain teams because there weren't teams that were
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: going to spend ten million dollars on a player out
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: of a draft. They were only a finite number of
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: teams that were going to do that, so they were
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: more governed by a demand of dollars than a demand
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: of a team.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: Per se.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: As you fast forward and kind of move forward in time,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: a few just to highlight that we're a little bit nuanced,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: I would say one specifically was was Anthony Volpi in
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: twenty nineteen. It was largely rumored that he grew up
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: in New York, he wanted to become a New York Yankee,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: he wanted to get drafted by them. He was clearly
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: a first round talent, and most teams did just steer
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: clear of him out of perception that he was just
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: not going to sign unless he was drafted by the Yankees.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: And it's just such a risk to take a player
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: with the first pick, you know, first round pick, because
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: you know, when you're we're looking at a high school kid,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: it takes five years to develop them. If you don't
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: start the clock now, you're really missing out. And if
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: you're not building from the bottom up in Major League Baseball,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: you're going to get beat. So most general managers weren't
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: really willing to sacrifice a first round pick. So Anthony
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Vaultpi ultimately slides into the New York Yankees, gets selected
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: by them, and has become a real star in the game.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Two other ones that just just a highlighted, which are
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: kind of a little bit nuanced. Kyler Murray was a
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: guy coming out of the draft who you know, is
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: coming out of your University of Oklahoma, really regarded as
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: a first round talent in the NFL and Major League Baseball.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: Oakland took a shot on him with the ninth pick
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: in that draft. They selected him. They thought he was
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: going to be an elite center fielder, and by all accounts,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: I think most scouts believed he would be. You know,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: that was a risk that they were willing to take
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: at nine because they thought he was just clearly the
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: best player on the board. Ultimately, they weren't able to
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: sign him. I think there was a little misinformation going
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: into that draft about his aptitude or his interest in
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: playing baseball relative to footballtimate only where he got drafted
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: by the Arizona Cardinals. He just couldn't pass up the opportunity,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: so ultimately he does not go play Major League baseball.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Similar with Russell Wilson. You know, famously, he went to
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: North Carolina State, starting quarterback there as a junior, he
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: gets drafted I believe he's twenty ten by the Colorado Rockies.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: You can at that time play one amateur sport and
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: play one professional sport, so he wouldn't have lost his eligibility.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: He approaches the head coach of NC State and says,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: I'd like to go work out with the with the
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Rockies this offseason. He basically tells him, if you do,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: when you come back, you may not have your scholarship.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: He doesn't really believe that that's the case. He comes back,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: it was the case. He goes on to finish his
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: career with the University of Wisconsin, and the rest is history.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: With Russell Wilson. So you don't see this quite as
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: often in baseball, I would say, but you do see it,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: you know a little bit more in basketball. And then Ryan,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: you know, we'd be remiss not to just at least
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: touch on. The two most renowned stories of this case
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: were probably Eli Manning and John Elway in the NFL
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: Draft and how they you don't pretty adamantly refuse to
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: sign with the teams at the top of the draft
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: in the name of ultimately angling themselves to what will
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: become two Hall of Fame careers with the Denver Broncos
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: and the New York Giants.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, two famous examples, famous names. It worked out pretty
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: well for both of those guys that we're gonna shift
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: gears a little bit coming back after this on Rosters
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: to Rings, we're going to get into NBA free agency.
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: It was seemingly going to be a quiet free agent period,
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: but it's never quite in the NBA. Even if on
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: paper looks like teams don't have cap space, there aren't
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: big names on the free agent board. Well, the trade
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: market went wild. We saw a crazy deal yesterday involving
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: Miles Turner, the Indiana Pacers, the Milwaukee Bucks, Damian Lillard
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: and Moore.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: That and I we'll get into.
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: All of that and more right here on Rosters to Rings.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to Rosters to Rings. I'm here with Ryan McDonough.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: We're going to tap into all sixteen years of his
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: expertise as we dive deep into the free agent market
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: in the NBA ran to do us a favor first,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: take us behind the scenes. The draft was just last week,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: free agency started this week. How much time do you
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: have to prepare? What does the war room look like,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: and what happens when the clock struck six East Coast
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: time on Monday.
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: That a lot of the preparation is done simultaneously. Because
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: this year's calendar was extremely condensed. We had Game seven
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: in the NBA Finals that ended just three days before
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: the draft started, a two day draft for only the
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: second time in NBA history. And then I believe they
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: are only three days between when the draft end and
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: then when free agency started, So as an executive, you're
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: simultaneously preparing for these different outcomes. One of the things
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: that NBA teams have discussed before is potentially flipping the
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: calendar thad to put free agency ahead of the draft.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: That has not happened yet. That would have to be
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: collectively bargains. But in terms of order of importance to
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: your franchise, especially in the short term, free agency is
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: a lot more important than drafting players who usually take
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: multiple years to develop and have an impact on winning
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: at the highest levels. That is a process, but the
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: way it is now that it's the finals end. Then
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: you have the draft, and then you have free agency,
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: so teams are preparing for both at the same time.
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: They did not have a lot of additional prep time
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: this year with the condensed nature of the calendar. One
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: change in the new Collective Bardiner Agreement, and we can
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: debate whether it's good or bad that, but is really
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: given an advantage to incumbent teams in free agency because basically,
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: now as soon as the finals end, teams are able
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: to negotiate with and talk to their own free agents
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: and try to agree on a contract. It usually can't
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: be executed then, but it can be agreed upon, so
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: you have the ability to essentially take a player off
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: the board in free agency. And the main reason for
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: that was to try to limit or eliminate tampering what
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: happened before, because you know, people actually teams have actually
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: waited till six o'clock Eastern on June thirty at the
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: official startup free agency at the deals were already done
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: that and teams, as you can imagine, got frustrated. That
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: was a situation where people who abided by the rules
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: and lived the rules to the letter of the law.
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: They were getting penalized because other teams were going to
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: the agents, going around them and negotiating deals with players
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: and taking them off the market essentially before they even
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: hit the open market. So the league wanted to get
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: rid of that. So I think it's on the one hand,
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: it's good for rewarding teams and giving teams a huge
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: advantage to be able to have days, if not weeks,
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: to negotiate with and sign their players. But that is
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: also a barometer that in free agency if six o'clock
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: Eastern time on June thirtieth comes and goes and you
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: have not agreed on a deal with your player. I'm
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: looking at Dorian Finney Smith with the LA Lakers who left,
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: he's on his way to Houston, and then shockingly over
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: the last day or so a Miles Turner with the
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: Indiana Pacers leaving Indiana and in the very controversial waven
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: stretch with Damian Lillard, which we'll get into here in
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: a minute. So it gives you an advantage that to
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: the incumbent team, But yet it is fast and furious
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: coming out of the gate, and we're recording the show
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: just a few days into free agency. Fact I think
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: free agency technically started less than forty eight hours ago
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: and basically all the cap space around the league or
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: most of its dried up. The big exceptions are gone.
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: The top players for the most part are off the board.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: Thad.
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: So in the NBA, free agency moves fast and furious,
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: which to me seems a little bit different than on
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: your side in Major League Baseball. It seems like a
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: more drawn out process.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: Glaciers move faster than we did on Major League Baseball side.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: So it was very similar. In one regard, which was
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: during after the World Series, there was a window of
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: time and it was usually five business days where the
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: incumbent team was the only team that could negotiate with
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: the free agent. During that time, other teams could express
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: interest to the agent, but not in terms of financial terms,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: just in terms of just general interests. So guys would
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: have a general sense of whether or not they would
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: have a market out there. But past that point we
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: would then be able to negotiate with all the field
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: and what would usually happen is, you know, so this
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: is late October early November is things would move exceptionally slowly.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: There were a few notable date times, which was about
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: a week before Christmas, you would see a lot of
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: guys signed, and I think that was in large regard
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: because when they were going home to see their families
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: and everyone inherently would ask them the question, so where
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: are you playing next year or where are you living?
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: They wanted to know the answer to that. So you'd
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: see an initial wave of guys kind of signing around there.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: The Winter meetings, which is usually early December, used to
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: be you'd see a few banner signings there, but that's
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: kind of come and gone.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: What agents have.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Learned is the longer they hold out, the more money
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: they tended to get, and so you'd see players out
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: in the market still well into spring training. And so
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: I just remember a few players of note. In my
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: last tenure here with the Minnesota Twins, we signed Lanceln,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Marwin Gonzalez, and then ultimately Carlos Korea, all three of
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: whom were pretty significant contributors on our team. We signed
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: all of those guys into spring training, so you know,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: your team's you're actually practicing, you're working out, and you're
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: signing players of significance at that late to date. It's
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: not great, honestly. You know, in baseball, we always admired
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: what you guys did in the NBA and just kind
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: of the feeding frenzy that happens right away. It's a
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: little frenetic. I think fans love it. It's something it
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: must watch TV for the fans. But then also from
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: a coaching standpoint and a developmental standpoint, it allows you
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: to build your team and build team chemistry when you're
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: dropping in star caliber players in the middle of spring training.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: While it's a big boost talent wise, it can be
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: very disruptive within the clubhouse. So I think it's pretty counterproductive,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: honestly in Major League Baseball, something that I think they
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: would really love to try to shore up if they could.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Having players hold out into spring training and sometimes into
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: the regular season is not great for the game of baseball.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: I can assure you that I ran you touched on it.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: I think we'd be remiss not to give you an
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: opportunity to really give you your breakdown to what happened
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: in Milwaukee. It seemed as if this was all governed
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: by a desire to really playcate to their best player, Janis,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: and understandably so, did they effectively do that. They ad
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Miles Turner, they resign a lot of their existing core players.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: But in so doing there's a significant casualty along the way,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: and that's Damian Lillard. Can you just give us what
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: is your assessment of all these moves in aggregate?
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: So to remind our listeners what happened a couple of
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: years ago, the Milwaukee Bucks made a big and aggressive
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: trade just a few years after winning the championship. They
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: sent out Drew Holliday and other pieces. Holiday was a
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: key contributor. He'll never be forgotten in Milwaukee for the
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: big plays he made fad the strip of Devin Booker,
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: the lob to Giannis in the finals en route to
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: the Bucks twenty twenty one championship. But Janis was getting
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: seemingly a little unhappy at the time. He was up
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: for a contract extension, So the Bucks wanted to make
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: an aggressive move in a splash, and they did, sending
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: Holiday and other pieces out and bringing in Damian Lillard.
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: Damian Lillard when he joined the Bucks, that kind of
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: triggered Yanis resigning a contract extension that which people around
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: the league are requesting at the time. This is going
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: back about two years or so now, so on paper,
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: it looked great, but as you know, on paper, it
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: doesn't always work out the way you'd hoped. The fit
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: wasn't ideal between those two guys for whatever reason. I
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: think in Portland, Dame Lillard had complete freedom.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: It was his team. He and CJ.
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: McCollum formed one of the best offensive back courts in
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: the league. And they really didn't have a significant big.
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: They had use of Nurkics and some guys to screen
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: and roll, but it was their show and their ball,
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: and the team was built around them. And just the
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: fit between those two guys Lillard and Yannis did not
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: work out as hoped, as evidenced by the loss in
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: the first round last year, and they never really made
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: any significant noise in the playoffs. So those two in Milwaukee.
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: But then the big factor that the reason we're having
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: this conversation is because in Game four of the first
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: round this past year, Damian Lillard blew out his achilles
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: tendon non contact injury. Fortunately, there's been a rash of
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: those in the NBA, Jason Tatum and Tyre Sallip Burton
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: to the other stars who have blown achilles as well,
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: and so now Milwaukee's looking a situation where Lillard's almost
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: certainly going to miss this entire upcoming season, the twenty
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: five to twenty six season, and then he only has
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: one year left on his deal. In fact, I believe
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: that was a player option, so theoretically could have opted
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: out and left. So that's one of his positions. You
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: never want to be in as an organization that. As
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: you know, sometimes you're dealing from a position of strength
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: and you have time and leveraging and be patient. This
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: wasn't the case of Milwaukee. They were desperate, and so
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: they did something that no team in NBA history has
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: ever done before. In fact, nobody's even done close to
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: what the Bucks just did. Damian Loward had two years,
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: one hundred and thirteen million dollars total on his contract
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: and they waived and stretched that, meaning they're going to
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: pay that whole salary, and they spread the salary cap
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: hit the one hundred and thirteen million out over five years,
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: which ironically, that is just below the minimum threshold in
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: the NBA you can only have fifteen percent of your
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: salary cap space be dead money. They call it money
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: of players who are no longer actively playing, just sitting
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: on your books. This is like fourteen points something percent.
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: It's just underneath it what they did with Dame Lillard
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: so really surprising. And one of the themes that and
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: I think you and I will continue to harp on
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: this on the show is just when you think you
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: have everything figured out in terms of the marketplace and
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: you know what teams can and can't do for a player.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: And I'm looking at this now from the Indiana side,
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: they had Miles Turner. I think they're sitting there saying, Okay, well,
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: Brooklyn's the only team of significant cap space, they're not
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: using it. We're just going to sit back and you know,
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: trying to negotiate a fair deal. But we have the
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: leverage here. Well, that leverage is you know, as a
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: relative term. Things can change very quickly because all it
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: takes is one team to do something desperate and aggressive
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: that we did not see coming. And that's exactly what
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: the Milwaukee Bucks did when they waved and stretched Damian
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: Lillard in order to free up the space to sign
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: Miles Turner.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: Ran.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: Do you think in this type of instance, was there
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: any trade market whatsoever for Damian Lillard in his current contract.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: I'm sure they exhausted that, but would there be any
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: team who would have acquired him prior to them waving him.
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: No, I'm sure they tried that first ad just because
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: he's on a max salary and makes fifty five million
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: a year, that money is guaranteed. The injury is significant
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: enough where you say, even if he does come back
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: late in this upcoming season, what's that going to look like?
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: How much he's gonna have left? And then he has
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: the player option as contracts, so he could theoretically opt out.
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: And then the other thing to be blunt is the
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: Milwaukee Bucks have not done a great job with their drafts.
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: They've already traded a bunch of picks to try to
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: build around Giannis. And that's one of the challenges in
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: the NBA, I think really probably cuts across sports to
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: MLB as well. When you're so aggressive trying to win
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: a championship and then keep that championship window open as
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: long as you can, it's easy to throw draft picks
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: and young players keep pushing more and more into the
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: center of the table. Well, sometimes you run out of
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: chips and you don't have a hand to play. So
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: I think there are certain teams that are asset rich,
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: like the OKC Thunder, the Houston Rockets, the San Antonio Spurs,
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: that if Lillard was on their roster, they probably would
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: have enough to incentivize a team to take it. That
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: Milwaukee's not one of those teams. I think they might
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: have the least amodel at young talent in the league.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: They still owe a bunch of future draft picks and swaps.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: So to answer your question, no, they tried that. First,
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: they could not do it, and then they shocked everybody
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: with what they've done because I mean, think about it
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: from an ownership financial perspective, eating over one hundred million
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: dollars in salary, they're paying Dami a little not to
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: play for the Bucks and having that on your salary
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: cap for the next five years, that that's going to
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: impack the franchise until about twenty thirty. So that's the
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: decision they just made. Is Miles Turner on his own
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: good enough? I don't think so. I think they still
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: have significant holes on the perimeter in the backcourt, but
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: clearly they're doing whatever they can to try to keep
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: Jannis Kubo happy. Keep in mind that one more year
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: this time next year, in twenty twenty six, Gianis is
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: eligible for a contract extension again, so Milwaukee continues to
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: be extremely aggressive to do everything they can to try
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: to keep him in a Bucks uniform.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: You know, Ryan, every front I've ever worked in, there's
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: one guy in the front office who says, Hey, as
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: bad as this contract is or this trade is, if
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: we win a World Series, no one will care. And
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: I would just say, looking at some of the betting
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: prognosticating sites, this move made the Milwaukee books, I think,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: the eighth highest favorite in the Eastern Conference to win
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: the Eastern Conference. So you know, sometimes we make these
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: moves and they're super short term, but it is with
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: the thought of mind that we're putting the team over
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: the top. It doesn't feel like in this case, per se,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: that was what was accomplished. What was accomplished maybe was
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: delaying yanis demanding a trade for one year or two
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: years at this point, but it sounds from your analysis
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: like that may not ultimately lead them to the promised
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: land that they were aspiring to get to, Which leads
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: me to my next question, which is Ryan, in these
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: types of deals, like how much are the owners involved
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: in your opinion, how much are the head coaches involved?
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: And then certainly I could share my perspective in Major
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: League Baseball, But how would you view that perspective in
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: the NBA.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: It all depends on the organization and obviously the owner's preference.
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: Does he want to be involved. I think some of
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: the old guard owners, Dad, the old school guys, are
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: less involved. I look at Mickey Arrison and his family
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: down in Miami. They've been doing it for a long time.
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: They have one of the best front offices and coaching
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: staffs in the business. They've had a lot of success historically,
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: so I think he doesn't completely stay out of it.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: For the most part.
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: He lets those guys do what they want to do.
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: The Indiana Pacers, Herb Simon has owned the team forever.
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: You know, the front office is excellent track record of
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: success in a smaller market. We saw what they just
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: did winning the Eastern Conference, getting to Game seven NBA
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: Finals with relatively low payroll thads. It's kind of a
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: model in terms of what they've done, and so some
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: you know, are less involved like that. But frankly, some
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: of the newer owners and more aggressive owners are more involved.
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: Even in the day to day basketball decision making. These
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: guys are paying record setting valuations for these teams. We
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: know that recently the Boston Celtics I have sold for
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: six point one billion dollars. The LA Lakers are selling
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: for ten billion dollars. So I think that that's changing
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: the game too. Anytime guys are pushing that much money in,
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: they want some semblance of influence and input, if not
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: complete control over the situation. So from my experience, and
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: I want to get your take on it. On you know,
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: if you and I won the lottery and we could
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: go buy a team, what we would do. I always
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: respected the owners who were involved when the decisions were
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: more important, especially financially that I think like this one
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: in Milwaukee in particular, a GM does not just go
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: out and eat one hundred and thirteen million dollars and
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: spread that money out in the salary cap over over
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: five years. Right, the GM head coach might not be
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: there five years from now. So that's one that I
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: think requires and should require significant ownership input and ultimately
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: approval to do it. But that I'm interested from your
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: perspective in Major League Baseball, how much does that happen?
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: And it is at the case too where owners get
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: more involved if you're thinking on taking back a large
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: contract in a trade or signing a player to a
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: large contract and free agency. Are they more involved in
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: that than, say, you know, the draft or something that
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: involves less money going out or taking on less money
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: in a trade.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: One thing that really jumped out to me about the
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: Milwaukee situation relative to the owner perspective is, you know,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: usually when you eat a contract like that, it's not
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: also a contract you yourself signed or that you acquired,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: which is in this case what what happened in Milwaukee.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: Usually you've inherited that deal by way of trade or
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: by way of your predecessor, and then you can just
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: kind of convince ownership to cut you know, what is
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: a sunk cost. But it's rare that the GM who
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: actually acquired that player and or signed him is the
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: one that is allowed to do that. So in baseball,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: one thing that is exceptionally common is every trade you make,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: every free agent signing, at some point you say to
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: the person you're negotiating, of course, this is pending ownership approval,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: and it's kind of a little bit of our get
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: out of jail free card. Sometimes you know that the
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: owner's already approved it, but it gives you the opportunity
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: at the last to make a slight adjustment if necessary,
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: even though you've kind of negotiated the deal in completion.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: But I just remember a few instances of significance in
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: my career relative to ownerships process. What one was, and
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: it ties back into a point you made earlier about
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: the Indiana Pacers and they thought they kind of had
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: leverage where they did they underestimated the market that could
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: be for Miles Turner. Well, we did that once when
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: I was in Texas. We had the opportunity to acquire
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: Josh Beckett from the Miami Marlins. Larry Binfest was the
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: GM at the time. He called us up and basically said,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: here's a deal that we're prepared to do. We took
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: it to ownership at that time. We honestly recommended that
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: we did the deal as was presented to us. But
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: as is the case in every negotiation, you assume that
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: you can, you can tweak it a little bit, you
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: can make it a slightly better for you. So we
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: went back to them and made a counter proposal, which
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: was not a significant drop in value, but it was
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: It was a marginal drop in value. Larry Binfast responded
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: to us immediately saying, you misunderstood me. We made you
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: the offer that we were prepared to do. We're going
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: to trade him to the Boston Red Sox this afternoon,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: and they did, and we then had to go back
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: and talk to ownership, who had already approved the deal
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: as it was presented to us, and explain why we
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: didn't get that deal done. I think that was a
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: significant lesson learned for us in our careers. Another one
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: that I can't mention names here, but I've had a
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: few friends who work for owners who will actually literally
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: go out and just negotiate deals on behalf of the
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: team and in the worst case scenario, I then called
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: my friend who was the GM and said, congratulations on
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: signing this player twitch He said, I had nothing to
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: do with it. And what's more than that, the owner
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: called me up afterwards and said, we're now twenty million
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: dollars over budget. You need to cut payroll elsewhere. And
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: he said, I'm not twenty million dollars over budget. I
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: think you're twenty million dollars over budget. But needless to say,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: that team didn't actually win too often, so the other
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: element I would say, just to touch on in baseball
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: is when I started my career, there was a pretty
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: pronounced division between church and state, between what happened in
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: the clubhouse and what happened in the front office. So
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: just generally speaking, the front office was responsible for acquiring
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: the talent that then the manager was responsible for deploying
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: to try to win games, and managers and front office
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: people maybe went out to dinner periodically, but they really
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: didn't get involved in each other's business. That really has
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: changed throughout my career. So now managers buy and large
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: are involved in the conversation of who we're acquiring for
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: them to deploy to put on the field, and the
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: general managers are involved in how those players are deployed.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: So there's a lot more synergies between managers and in
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: front office executives in baseball now. So I think it's
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: very rare that you would make a significant acquisition without
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: the consultation of your manager being involved, being on board
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: with the acquisition. It's not that they have the final vote,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: but they do have a prominent voice in that, at
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: least that's been my experience recently. Right, I think we
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: would be remiss not to go too much further in
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: the show without you just sharing who are some of
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: the big winners for you in free agency? Certainly on
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: the surface, it looks like Denver has done a ton.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: You mentioned Milwaukee already, maybe Atlanta, some other teams out
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: there that have really made some splashes so far. Who
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: are some of the big winners and some of the
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: teams that you may be concerned about talent that they've
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: lost through this process.
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: The first name that comes to mind when I think
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: of the biggest winners in free agencies so far are
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: the Houston Rockets that adding Kevin Durant the way they did.
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: I think the potential availability of Giannis and Dinakombo is
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: overhanging the NBA to some extent, where teams who are
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: asset rich, like the San Antonio Spurs, OKC Thunder, maybe
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: to some extent, the Miami Heat, they're sitting back and
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: waiting because Giannis is a game changing player. He's a
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: generational talent, one of the top seventy five players in
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: NBA history, and still in his prime on a multi
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: year contract, So teams are waiting to see if he
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: will push his way out of Milwaukee. Doesn't look like
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: he's going to do that right now in this re
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: agent period. But certainly, how are the Bucks going to
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: do this year? You mentioned the betting. I'd have them
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: right there too on that kind of play in line,
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: which is, you know, six seven, eight nine in the
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: East somewhere there. I think this team's a long way
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: from being a championship contender. And Yannis, who's an extremely
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: loyal guy, as he realizes it's probably not going to
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: happen again as far as him winning a championship Milwaukee,
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: does he push his way out. So I bring that
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: up because Houston I think masterfully played their hands with
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: Phoenix and the Kevin Durant sweepstakes that you know, we
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: talk a lot about leverage and urgency in the show. Houston,
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: with a young team, just won fifty two games last year.
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: They were the second seed in the Western Conference. They
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: lost to a more experienced Golden State team in the
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: first round, and I think that really opened their eyes
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: to some extent. That is, you know, it's different in
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: Major League Baseball as well, but the NBA, the postseason
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: is a little bit different than the regular season, and
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: I think Houston throughout the regular season last year was
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: putting out there that you know, we're fine. We like
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: our young core. We don't want to give up any
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: young guys. Wish they should, which to some extent is true.
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: But then when you get in the playoffs and you
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: have to line up for seven games, and on the
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: other side they have Steph Curry, they have Draymond Green,
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: Jimmy Butler, three Hall of Famers, and you have a
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: lot of talent and depth, but you lose.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: Historically, you lose to the more experienced group.
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: So Houston, I think their biggest weakness last year was
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: getting buckets in the half court, and they got one
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: of the best at all time in that and Kevin
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: Durant that when your offense bogs down, the play breaks down,
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: Kevin Durant at six to eleven, you can throw them
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: the ball. He can just go go get a bucket.
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: He's still elite at that. So I really like that
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: piece of it. They bring in Kadi and they really
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: held on to their best young players. That's what I
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: liked about it. In fact, they also offset some money
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: because Jalen Green and Dylan Brooks who went back to
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: the Suns the contracts and the deal going to Phoenix.
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: That allowed them to do other things. So in free
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: agency so far, they brought in Dorian Finney Smith and
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: Clint Capella, so I really like their depth. I think
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: they might need one more guard. I look at some
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: of their younger wings, guys like Terry Easton and Cam Whitmore,
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: were probably a little bit block now given their front
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: court talent and depth, and I think they'll probably flip
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: one of those guys for ardor at least they should
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: think about that. But to me that they're the big winner.
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: The Houston Rockets number two seed in the West, with
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: a young core. They keep the best young players intact
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: and at Kevin Durant, and I think they'll push OKC
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: in the Western Conference this upcoming season. Ran you talked
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: a lot about Milwaukee and what they tried to do
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: to please Jannis. How has Denver done to try to
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: please Jokic? How would you assess their offseason so far?
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: Excellent?
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, another offseason winner for me, because I thought they
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: may have to choose that one of two things, either
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: salary dumping Michael Porter Junior's contract to get more flexibility
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: or attaching a number of assets to Porter's contract to
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: try to upgrade their roster. They kind of killed two
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: birds with one stone, so to speak, with the Denver
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: Nuggets and the Brooklyn Nets making a trade because Brooklyn
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: was the only team in the league with significant salary
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: cap space. For the first time in NBA history, a
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: team drafted five guys in the first round and is
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: going to have all five guys on the roster. That's
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: what Brooklyn just did in the draft. That's never happened
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: before that, And frankly, I was wrong doing these different
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: media appearances on TV radio and the pod. I didn't
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: think they were going to do that because nobody's ever
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: done it. And it's a thirty year roster on basically teenagers.
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: So if you're betting on Brooklyn next year, I think
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: it's gonna be a long season. So'll probably be in
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: the high lottery sweepstakes again. So with their cap space,
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: teams are looking at Brooklyn saying, how can we get
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: some of their talented veterans led by Cameron Johnson, shooter,
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: good defender, And the salaries are so important here that
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: because Cameron Johnson makes about seventeen million dollars less per
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: year than does Michael Porter Junior, and the Nuggets had
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: one of the most top heavy rosters in the league
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: in terms of the talent clustered at the top and
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: also the payroll. They essentially had four guys who were
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: on max or near max contracts, then a huge gap
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: to Zeke Naje. Their fifth highest paid player only made
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: about eight million, So it was very difficult with the
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: NBA's trade matching rules and salary matching rules to come
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: up with deals that worked. So I thought it was brilliant. Yes,
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: they did have to put a twin. He threw twenty
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: thirty two first future first in the package along with
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: Michael Porter Junior, but bringing back Cameron Johnson. He's a
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: perfect fit in my opinion, for their roster and also
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: that additional flexibility fad let them go out and get
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: Jonas Valanciunis from Sacramento. They've been searching for a backup
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: from Nikola Jokic at the center spot. The team is
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: really led points when Jokic has been off the court.
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: Now hopefully Valentiunis can hold the ford and they don't
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: need to win those minutes, to be honest with you,
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: they just need to be around. Even because Jokich is
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: so good, they usually win his minutes when he's on
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: the court. And then a couple really good free agent
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: veteran signings guys who I think they got on minimum
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: contracts with your steals. Bruce Brown, who won a championship
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: there a couple of years ago, was a key contributor.
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: And then Tim Hardaway Junior, a shooter from Detroit. So
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: that's one of the things for that that I think
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: guys like you and I really appreciate. It's not the
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: splashy moves necessarily, they get the headlines and are leading
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: the ticker on ESPN or whatever sometimes.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: That we'd lied. It's wow.
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: They got those guys for really good value and they
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: maximize the little flexibility they have. And I think to
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: me at Denver is up there with Houston, and this
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: would be a theme fad like the West is at
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: the top in particular is brutal. Yes, Okac looks dominant,
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: but what Houston did, what Denver did, what Minnesota did
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: re signing nas Reed and Julius Randall, the West is
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: loaded once again and will be a bloodbath, especially at
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: the top. It's not going to be easy even for
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: those teams to guarantee a slot in the top six
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: and avoid the play in tournament.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: Well, hey, listen on rosters to rings. Were willing to
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: play the long game. But it'll be very interesting to
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: watch Milwaukee and Denver juxtaposed against each other, both trying
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: to build a round a star player, both a little
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: bit compromise in terms of salary cap space, both want
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: about it very differently, and we'll see which team actually
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: did a better end. More to the point that you
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: were making earlier, Ryan, Denver was a better team last
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: year and is probably predicted to be an even better
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: team this year. So they did it a little bit
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: more thoughtfully, it seems, according to you. And also they
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: have better playoff odds to begin with. But this is
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: the age old debate in the front office, which is,
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: what should you do at the end of a wind
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: cycle to try to hang on tooth and nail to
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: try to win more one more season or two more
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: seasons and keep that window open. And how much of
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: your future are you willing to sacrifice in the name
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: of doing that. And it's it's exceptionally difficult to make
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: some of those decisions. And you know the reality is,
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: we don't sit in these seats forever, and so sometimes
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: the general manager is thinking along the lines of I've
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: got to try to hold on for dear life for
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: one more year, and whatever I do about sacrificing the
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: future isn't going to be my problem. It will be
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: the next guy's problem. You know, there's very rare that
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: these general managers survive, you know, multiple rebuilds, and so
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: that there's sometimes mixed emotions in the front office when
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: and mix, you know, directions relative to securing your job
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: and trying to win that one last and final season. Right,
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: I'm going to shift gears a little bit here. You've
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: spoken a number of times on the show about maybe
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: the way for the now is teams really building out
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: deep rosters. As we're looking we're so much more sophisticated
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: on load management across all sports. The depth of your
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: roster really truly matters. And so as much as you
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: lauded what OKC in Indianapolis had done and why they
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: ultimately got into the finals this year, I just would
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: like to ask your opinion on a team on the
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: other side of the spectrum, which is the Cleveland Cavaliers.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: They're spending one hundred and seventy five million dollars on
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: their top five highest paid players are they They were
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: exceptional team last year, but is that a formula for success?
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: Will they be able to build enough roster depth around
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: those five players to be able to withstand not only
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: the eighty two regular season game schedule, but also the
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: rigors of the playoffs.
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: I think the Cavs are a perfect example of the
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: difference in the NBA between the regular season and the playoffs,
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: because this was a dominant team last year. They won
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: sixty four games, ran away with the Eastern Conference, which
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: was surprising given the team that Boston had and the
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: year the Celtics had year four prior to that in
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: twenty twenty three twenty four, Celtics dominated the regular season
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: and the postseason en route to the twenty twenty four championship,
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: and Cleveland was much better than that in last of
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: this past regular season. So, but the playoffs are a
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: little different that and the Calves are a uniquely constructed
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: team because of the payroll you mentioned, actually similar to Denver,
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: who we were just talking about prior to the Michael
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: Porter junior trade. We have four players the top of
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: your roster who make most of your money, and you
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: know most of your talent is tied up in those
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: four guys and then less depth. And one of I
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: think the real time examples of that in Cleveland and
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: the financial crunch is Ty Jerome, who played a key role.
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: I was one of the sixth Man of the Year
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: candidates coming off the bench, really had a breakout year
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: last year in Cleveland. Well he's gone now, he's signing
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: with the Memphis Grizzlies. Cleveland could not afford to pay him,
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: and so I think one of the issues with the Calves.
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: They have a ton of talent, but they have two
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: smaller guards in Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland, and then
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: two biggs in Evan Mobley and Jared Allen, who were
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: probably traditionally centers at least a primary position in today's
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: NBA is center. That's a uniquely constructed team that his
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: teams are usually going with a bunch of wings. We
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: know the Celtics one, you know at the highest levels
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: a year ago, a team led by Jason Tatum, Jalen Brown.
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: We know the Knicks tried to match that and had
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: a lot of success in doing so, bringing in ogn
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: and Ob mckel bridges. They Cleveland Cavaliers really don't have
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: a guy like that. It's smaller guards and then Biggs
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: in the front line, like seven footers in the front line.
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: So I think at some point they will have to
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: balance their roster out. My guess is it's not going
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: to be Evan Mobley. I think he's a young star
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: in the front court, you know, defensive player of the year, versatile,
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: He's I.
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: Think the last guy they would trade.
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: They're going to build around him, and then Donovan Mitchell
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: probably secondarily will be off the market. So I keep
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: an eye on Jared Allen potentially going out at some point,
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: or in particular Darius Garland. Now Garland has a toe injury,
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: and it's difficult to trade players in that situation. But
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: that's it's a tough thing that I want to get
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: your perspective on it. In MLB, I've always thought it's
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: easier when the team is going through a rebuild or
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: when you need to make a lot of moves to
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: be aggressive. I think one of the harder things is
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: when you feel like you're right there on the verge
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: of championship contention to make a seismic move, because you
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: never want to be the guy who dismantled the sixty
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: four win team and then has it goes sideways or worse,
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: it goes down. You just made a bad move and
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: you set your team back. So it'd be interested to
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: get your perspective. In Major League Baseball, when you're right
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: at the precipice of championship contending, are those deals sometimes
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: harder to pull the trigger on.
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, I'm harkening back to what you said
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: about Houston. Houston was the second best team in the
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: Western Conference and then they miss in the first round
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: of the playoffs, and they've gotten really aggressive this offseason.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: I always felt that the best time to make a
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: significant move was when you were prohibitive favorites to win
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: your division. It's not the best time to do it
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: when the move only puts you into playoff contention. Because
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: I think there's a finite of those moves you can make.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: I think those are finishing moves ideally, some are foundational,
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: some are ones that you know you could build around
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: for the future. But oftentimes in baseball, those last moves
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: were the guy you were acquiring who maybe was the
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: veteran talent who was not necessarily in his prime, but
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: it was a piece to put you over the top.
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: It wasn't necessarily the move you were making to think, Okay,
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: this guy can help us for the next five years,
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: but maybe he could help us for the next five months.
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: And so I always felt the time to do that
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: was when you were a prohibitive consideration for the playoffs.
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: Projected to win your division, you're going to play home
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: playoff games. Now, this guy really helps you win once
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: you get there. And that was vital with regards to
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: the payroll distribution. You know, when you're not in the
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: playoffs in Major League Baseball, the playoffs go a long time,
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: just like as it does in the NBA. You have
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: a lot of time to really think about how you
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: can improve your team. And so we did a study
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: back in the day, and what we found was that
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: when Major League Baseball teams spent over fifty two percent
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: of their payroll on their top five highest paid players,
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: there was almost no instance of a team winning in
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: the playoffs and sustaining winning. That these top heavy rosters
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: in baseball just didn't work. Where you had superstar players
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: and then kind of more average level players who were
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: panning out the rest of the roster. The first team
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: ironically to figure this out, I think was the Atlanta Braves,
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: and they ultimately went on this exceptional run, and it
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: started after they traded their two time MVP Dale Murphy,
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: who just at that time represented too high a percentage
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: of their payroll. But then a lot of teams followed suit.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: The Minnesota Twins traded Chuck Nabloc, Mark McGuire was traded
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: by the Oakland Athletics. At the time, those guys were
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: some of the most productive players on their team, but
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: they just didn't line up from a payroll standpoint anymore
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: on their club's relative to the production they were making.
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: So some teams are still kind of minred in that
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: for a long time. The Anaheim Angels, where they had
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: Mike Trout, Shoheo Tani, and Anthony Rendon, which at different
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: years were three of the best players in the American League,
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: but the rest of their roster wasn't up to standards.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: They had Vernon Wells during that time as well, you know,
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: give or take, and so they had these exceptional stars
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: at the top, but the rest of the roster just
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: didn't pan out. In the game of baseball, where your
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: best players are getting three, four or five played appearances,
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: your pitchers are pitching once every fifth day. They just
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: don't make enough of an impact to singularly carry your team.
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: You have to build balanced rosters, and I think that's
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: something we saw in baseball, where you know, there's this
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: kind of notion in basketball, if you have two or
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: three stars, they can really carry your team. It doesn't
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: tend to play out that way in baseball. You really
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: have to have depth because there's going to be injuries
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: along the way. There's going to be attrition, there's going
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: to be guys who don't perform as well as you expected.
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: If your next level of talent can't step in and compete,
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: you're going to get exposed at some point during the
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: course of the regular season. At least that's been my
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: experience when looking at a Major league baseball for sure.
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you know, teams will look for the
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: weak link in the NBA, and that's one of the themes.
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: I think Golden State masterfully did it, led by Steve Kerr,
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: the ball movement, player movement. Yes, Steph Curry, Klay Thompson,
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: and Draymond Green got the attention, as they should. Those
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: guys are going to the Hall of Fame, but they
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: did a great job to during that run with their depth,
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: guys like Andrew bogot Leandro Barbosa, David West, Sehn Livingstone.
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: I could go on, but they were rock solid. And
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: I think we just saw the recent example of that
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: maybe iteration two point zero in the finals with OKC
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: in Indiana, and I contrast that with some recent kind
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: of historical failures if I'm being honest, in Brooklyn Kevin Durant,
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: Kyrie Irving, James Harden, then ironically again in Phoenix involving
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: Kevin Durant, Devin Brooker, Bradley Beal, and then recently Philadelphia.
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: We'll see how it works out, but the early returns
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: are for Joel embiid Tyres Maxi, Paul George, that three
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: star model are not very good in the NBA.
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: Because of what you just said.
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: If you have too much of your talent and payroll
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: really at the top of your roster, your depth stinks,
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: and then you're really not able to overcome any kind
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: of adversity in the NBA as far as injuries, foul trouble,
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: or just underperformance from one of your stars, and then
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: your role players tend to get picked on and you
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: have weaker links in the chain. The ball movement, player
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: movement I think is so good now in the NBA
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: that if you have a weak defender or a couple
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: guys who can't shoot offensively in a playoff series in particular,
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: teams will just game plan for that and they'll attack
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: your weaknesses and then not guard your guys who can't shoot,
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: and it really makes it virtually impossible for your stars
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: to operate. So I think, yeah, that is a theme
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: across sports, and as teams get more sophisticated that I
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: think that trend will continue where it's a little more balanced.
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, at the end of the day, stars,
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: having a star or two at the top of your
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: roster in the NBA will always win. The real question
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: now is do we need to pay that third star
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: the max or near the max or spread it out
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: a little bit? And I think, frankly that was a
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: consideration for Indiana with Miles Turner. He did not play
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: great in the finals. He was good up through the
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: Eastern Conference finals, struggled against OKC. They said, well, we're
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: a smaller market team. Do we want to pay this guy,
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: you know? Close to with Tyre's Halliburton and Pascal Siakamar
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: Stars get or just run the risk that you know
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: there is a point where you got to draw the
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: line in the sand and move on. We talked about
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: how Milwaukee surprised some people, but for Indiana, they're going
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: to get criticized and I understand that that, but it
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: wasn't an obvious thing. It wasn't like Indiana screwed up.
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: I think there is a chance we look back on
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: the deal Milwaukee just gave Miles Turner a year or
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: two from now and say, what were the Bucks thinking?
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: The Pacers are smart to let him go at that price.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: Well, John Hart, who was one of my mentors, he
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: was the architect of the dominant Cleveland Indians run than
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: Indians now guardian and one of the things he always
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: said is don't let a star set on you. And
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: kind of when you do the research in baseball, I'll
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: be curious run your take on how this translates in
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: basketball is, by and large, you should be buying years
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: thirty and younger for players. You should also be selling
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: years thirty one years of age and older. And so
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: one of the risks you have here is this perception
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: that you need to retain the same players year over year.
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: And what John taught us, when you're building a rosters,
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: you want as many stars on your team next year
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: as or were this year. It just doesn't have to
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: be the same stars. And that sometimes is unpopular in
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: the marketplace. But the best gms, I think, aren't really
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: in it for their own reputation and Q rating. They're
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: in it to try to win, and so we're trying
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: to put the best teams we can on the field.
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: It doesn't mean we're always retaining the same players. Sometimes
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: the biggest mistakes you can make is signing that second
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: contract to the player because he was such a value
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: in the first contract, but in practice he was such
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: a value because he was playing in his prime, and
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: we captured years twenty five through age thirty. Now all
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: of a sudden to double down, and I think Miles
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: Turner is entering that age frame. I don't know. Obviously,
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: some of the best players in the NBA are older,
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: so maybe it doesn't translate quite the same in the NBA,
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: But in Major League Baseball, the big mistake you can
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: make is a perception that you have to continue to
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: retain all the exact same players to appease the fans.
• 55:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Miles Turner was an Indiana Pacer for ten years,
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: one of the longest ten yured players, not only in
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: recent Pacers history, but in the NBA. Very few players
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: last a decade with one franchise. But that this sounds cold,
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: but from a front office perspective, that really shouldn't matter
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: that much. All that really matters, in my opinion, is
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: what are the next three or four years going to
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: look like? Because you know, you don't get paid for
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: historical performance. This is not a lifetime achievement award. And look,
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: if Miles Turner were dominant in the NBA Finals or
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: even solid in the NBA Finals, I don't think we'd
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: be having this conversation. In fact, the Indiana Pacers might
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: be holding the Lariobrian Trophy right now as the NBA champions.
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: He wasn't very good, So I think that combined with
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: you know, the salary, combined with Tyres Halliburton having a
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: blown achilles and missing next year. If you're the Pacers,
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: there was a line that they drew in the sands.
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: They probably thought nobody would cross it. But if Milwaukee
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: crossed it, sure it's a blow in the short term,
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: but long term, that front office is very savvy and
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: they're good at doing exactly what you're talking about with
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: John Hart in the in the Cliff and Indians that
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: they're They're very good at finding the next guy and saying, Okay,
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: we're not going to look backward, to look forward. Let's
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: value in the next guy and structure the contracts appropriately.
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: Kevin Pritchard, Chad Buchanan a company and the Pacers front
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: office or some of the best executives in the league
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: doing exactly that.
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: You know, it would be fascinating when we look five
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: years down the road the butterfly effect of Damian Lillard,
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: Jason Tatum, and Halliburn all having achilles issues in the
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: same conference, and all the moves that were made or
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: were not made as a result of those three injuries,
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: it seems significant. One last guy I wanted to ask
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: you about Ryan with regards for free agency, Jared Zack Jackson,
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: who seems like a star player for the Memphis Grizzlies,
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: signs you know, quietly a five year, two hundred and
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: forty million dollar deal that jumped out to me, so
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: I looked it up. That average annual salary is forty
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: eight million. That would make him the twenty third highest
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: paid NBA player in terms of average annual salary. It
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: would make him the third highest Major League Baseball player paid,
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: behind only Shohei Otani and Juan Soda. That just goes
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: to show kind of the disparity and pay. So I
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: want you to getive us a little taste. How important
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: is Jaron Jackson to the Memphis Grizzlies. How does it
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: hit you that he'd be the third highest paid baseball
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: player relative to the twenty third highest paid NBA player.
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: I say, generally speaking, fad, there's never been a time
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: to be a great or even a very good NBA player.
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: We know what the new national media deals look like
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: ESPN with Amazon and NBC coming in that starts a
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: year from now, starts twenty twenty six. So the money
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: coming into the NBA is astronomical, and it's reflected in
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: the franchise values, and you know, there's a more complicated
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: version of it, but essentially the money that comes in
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: is split fifty to fifty between the players on the
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: one side and the owners on the other side. So yeah,
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: it's a great time to be an NBA star. And
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: Jared Jackson Junior is a good two way player. It's
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: amazing he's only twenty five years old that but he's
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: been in the league seven years. Talented defender was in
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: the mix for Defensive Player of the Year. And I'm
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: glad you asked the question when we did, because it
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: ties into what we were just talking about with the
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: three star model and the Memphis Grizzlies, as a smaller
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: market team, they decided they could not pay their three
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: best players, John Morant, Jaron Jackson Junior, and Desmond Bane.
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: So a big part of the reason they traded Desmond
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: Bane to the Orlando Magic was to create additional flexibility
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: to make sure they locked in Jaron Jackson Junior. And
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: so Memphis is doing what's called the renegotiation and extension THAD,
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: where essentially you create salary cap space, and you use
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: the salary cap space to renegotiate your player's contract up
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: and then you extend it out as far as the years.
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: Because one of the challenges you run into, and this
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: is kind of a quirk in the collective bargain agreement
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: in the NBA, but if a player outperforms his current contract,
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: it can be tough to resign him. It can be
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: tough to resign them because I'll give you a current
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: example and a team that's going through this right now
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: are the LA Lakers with Austin Reeves. Austin Reeves making
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: about thirteen fourteen million a year that he's going to
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: make a lot more than that next year as a
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: free agent. So essentially, the Lakers, who do not have
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: the ability to create cap space to renegotiate and extends
• 59:58
  Speaker 3: because of the presence of main Lebron James and Luka Donsich,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: They're they're kind of stuck right right now. They're in
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: a tough situation and Austin Reeves is likely to be
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: an unrestricted free agent next summer and they might have
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: to get in a bidding war to try to chase him.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: Memphis didn't want to do that with Jared Jackson Junior,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: so they were creative made the move, which is tough
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: because trading desnt Bang is going to make their team
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: worse in the short term. But they think the two
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: star model that we were just discussing with Indiana and others,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: they're going to build around Jahn Morant Jared Jackson Jr.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: Have more flexibility and more depth. So I understand it.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: But then the kicker is that as we do the show,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: just last night, it came out that Jared Jackson Jr.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: Has a significant turf toe injury that's going to require
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: surge decrey. So you know, two hundred and forty million
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: is great, but from the team perspective and ownership perspective,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: he's saying, well, wait a minute, you know when do
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: this injury occur? And I'm not suggesting anything on toward
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: here with that, but it's not ideal the timing of it.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: This guy's, you know, signing a two hundred and forty
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 3: million dollar contract and he says, oh, by the way,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: I have surgery, I'm probably not going to be ready
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 3: for training camp and the start of next season.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: I think you're illuminating too. It's just it's so tough
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: for these windows are so small, you know, to succeed
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: when you have players that are affordable, then all of
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: a sudden, before you blink your eyes, these guys start
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: start making maximum level salaries, which means then you have
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: to make these tough decisions a little bit more accelerated
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: than you hoped to. So you've built these championship caliber rosters,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: but that you can't afford them and so that you
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: have to make moves. Well, this segues perfectly into our
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: listener question of the week come from a gentleman by
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: the name of twins Nowher wants to dive a little
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: bit deeper into the CBAS and the NBA in Major
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: League Baseball. Stay tuned after the break, we'll get to
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: that question.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: Welcome back to Rosters, to Rings everyone, Ryan McDonough joined
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: as always by Thad Levine and that one of my
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: favorite parts about doing the pod with you is getting
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: feedback and hearing questions from our listener, and one this
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: week I thought was really interesting. It's actually a two
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: part question, half of it directed for you and then
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: half of it redirected back towards meet that. So let's
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: start with your piece of it. This comes from one
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: of our listeners called twins Knower. I imagine he's a
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: big fan of your stat if he goes by twins
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: Knower and he's listening to the pod and asking questions,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: So we really appreciate that. But his question, that is,
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: what are the possibilities of a salary cap in Major
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: League Baseball?
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm a little concerned about all that he knows
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: about us, but we'll try to stay above board here.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to cite an article that was written
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: recently in The Athletic by Evan Drelich, in which he
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: interviewed Commissioner Rob Manford of Major League Baseball. Rob sited
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: a few facts that I think are worth noting here
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: and trying to respond to twins Knower's question. In two
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: thousand and two, Rob said that the owners spent about
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: sixty three percent of their revenues on player salaries. As
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: you fast forward to twenty twenty five in the season,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: they're spending only forty seven percent of their revenues on
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: player salary, so there's been a little bit of a dip.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: There's an opportunity for the players to make more money.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: We spent the whole previous segment talking about how advantageous
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: the CBA right now is in the NBA, how there's
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: more of a revenue share between the players and the
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: owners that's not existing as much in Major League Baseball.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: So I think there's an opportunity for real correction. A
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: few other statistics of note. Rob reference that the top
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: ten percent of the players are earning seventy two percent
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: of the overall salary. One thing that I always felt
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: was a little surprising and collective bargaining is it appears
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: to me that the Union prevails on this concept of
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: the trickle down economics, where you're forever trying to preserve
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: the up or earning potential of the players, when in practice,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: what we're seeing is this is just a real erosion
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: of the middle class. Such as it is, there are
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: more players who are making either more than ten million
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: dollars or less than one million dollars then there are
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: making one to ten million dollars. So bear with us,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: Like we understand that's not middle class in normal worlds,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: but in terms of professional baseball, it just shows that
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: there's a bit of an erosion. So for every superstar
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: players are signing, they're signing seven to eight guys making
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: the major league minimum just to balance their payrolls. Another
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: thing just to keep in mind in terms of the
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: disparity in the league. Right now twenty twenty five, the
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: Dodgers have the highest payroll. It's about three hundred and
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: thirty six million dollars. The Marlins have the thirtieth highest payroll.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: Also there is the lowest at sixty seven million, So
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: that's a difference about two hundred and sixty nine million dollars, which,
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: believe it or not, represents the entire Philadelphia Phillies roster salary,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: which and they are the fourth highest paid team, so
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: the difference between the first and last team is the
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: fourth highest payroll, which is pretty remarkable. And the other
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: thing just to note here, Ryan is in the last
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: thirty years, no team in the bottom fifteen payrolls has
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: won a World Series.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: I think that's.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: Concerning to the Commissioner of Baseball. So as much as
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: fans say we all loved last year's World Series, when
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: the Dodgers and the Yankees are playing two major markets,
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: in practice they need to know that the smaller and
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: mid sized markets have a chance to win.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: Right now.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: They have a chance to make the playoffs. We celebrate
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: every time Tampa, Cleveland, Minnesota, Milwaukee to name a few,
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: make the playoffs, but in practice those teams aren't really
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: advancing too far in the playoffs. Occasionally they make the
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: World Series. Tampa's done it recently, Cleveland's done it relatively recently,
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: but they're not prevailing once they get there. So one
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: thing just to consider as I try to more formally
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: address twins Knower's question is I think sometimes when we
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: think of a salary cap, people get fixated on the
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: suppression of salaries on the top end. I would challenge
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: people to look at building the salaries from the bottom end.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: So if the disparity in payrolls three hundred and thirty
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: six million to sixty nine million, if you just asked
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: every major league team to spend at the median salary
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: payroll salary, which is one hundred and fifty eight million,
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: that's not the average. The average is one to seventy
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: so the median, and then allowed teams to spend twenty
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: five percent more so up to about two hundred million.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: And so now the disparity would be one fifty eight
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: to two hundred million. There would be one hundred and
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: ninety eight more million dollars spent on players per year
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: in Major League Baseball. So a potential solution I could
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: would consider is the unit get scared off by the
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: notion of a salary cap, maybe focus more on what
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: the salary floor should be, the payroll floor should be,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: and if we raise the payroll floor high enough there's
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: actually a lot more money in the game, even if
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: we do suppress the earning at the top end. Ryan
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: shifting to the second half of the question that twins
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: Noer wanted to ask, which was effectively, in your opinion,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: how much of the new CBA in the NBA affects
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: free agency so far, whether it be unattended or intended
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: based upon the negotiations.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that I'll get to that just in a minute.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: But I want to piggyback on what you just said
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 3: about Major League Baseball because what you mentioned is as
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: far as bringing the floor up, that's exactly what the
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 3: NBA has done now in the new Collective Baring Agreement.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: In the NBA, you need.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 3: To spend ninety percent of the salary cap before opening night,
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: because it was happening before that as teams would go
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 3: into the season and with a ton of cap space,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: they wouldn't use it to sign players. They'd use it
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 3: as a dumping grounds when other teams wanted to unload
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: bad contracts with assets attached to either draft picks or
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 3: young players. You can't do that anymore, and so I
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: agree with the band it's not necessarily bringing the ceiling down.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 3: Although the NBA has done that to some extent, and
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: I'll get into that here in a minute, but it's
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 3: also bringing the floor up and having teams operate in
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: the middle in a tighter range where the salaries are
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: more balanced, and I think the results are pretty pronounced
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 3: in the NBA. For the first time in the history
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: of the league. We've had seven different champions in the
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 3: past seven years. And if the number of teams who
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 3: were in the next next year win it, you know,
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 3: if say Houston wins it or somebody like that, we
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 3: get Minnesota, we get have an eight different champion in
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 3: eight years.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: So that's what the NBA has done.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: To answer your question about creator Twinsnower's question about free
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 3: agency in the NBA and how it's impacting it, Yeah,
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 3: clearly teams are being stifled from you know, building super
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 3: teams so to speak, and the rich are not continuing
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 3: to get richer. It is no longer just a financial
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 3: decision as far as should we keep spending up into
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: the stratosphere, which Joe lakeb and the Golden State Warriors
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: did with a lot of success. They won four championships.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 3: They've been probably the best team in the NBA over
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 3: the last decade plus. Even Steve Balmer, one of the
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 3: wealthiest men in the world, wealthiest owner in American pro
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 3: sports with the Clippers, they'd spend and it was just
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 3: a financial penalty that in the past, and he had
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 3: an owner who was willing to write the checks. What
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: a luxury, What an advantage for your front office. Now
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 3: with the new Collective Borning Agreement, there are basketball penalties
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 3: as well. So the short list you have frozen draft
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 3: picks in the future that you cannot trade. In fact,
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 3: if you're a repeater tax team, if you're in the
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 3: tax so many years in a row, you're picking get frozen.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: You can't trade it.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: And then if you don't get out of the taxad,
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 3: it automatically goes to the end of the first round
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 3: in the future. That's a new rule in the Collective
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 3: Barding Agreement. There are also rules about not being able
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 3: to use your exceptions like the mid level exception and
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 3: other exceptions. You can't use trader plated exception to absorb salary.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 3: And also in some circumstances, if you're in the second apron,
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 3: the highest spending tier, you can't take back one dollar
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 3: more than you send out in trade. So what this
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: is doing is making the middle you know, pretty robust
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 3: in the NBA, where there's more parody, there's more balance,
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 3: and one of the things I'm happy to see that
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: because you know, one of the concerns among players and
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: agents in particular, was is the middle class going to
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 3: get squeezed? Are the middle class players going to get squeezed?
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 3: And I think we found that with the non tax
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: payer mid level, which is the biggest mid level exception
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 3: that's available. Not every team has access to it, but
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 3: the teams that do that's a fourteen million a year salary,
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 3: which I believe it or not, that's the average player salary.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: In the NBA right now, you know.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 3: So teams are using that, and they're also doing creative
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 3: sign and trades and things like that. So business is
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: booming in the NBA. It's there's never been a better
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 3: time to be an NBA player, And I think if
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 3: you like dynasties, this probably isn't the time for you.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 3: I think the era of you know, teams winning say
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 3: four championships in six or seven years, I think those
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 3: days are gone.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: And I know how it looks in OKAC right now
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: with that.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 3: But what I'm telling you is when they extend Jalen
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 3: Williams and Chedd Holmgren, which I think they're likely to
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 3: do this year, they'll have plenty of flexibility. And then
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 3: starting even a year from now this time next year,
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 3: they're going to have some tough decisions about their roster
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 3: in the payroll because that's how punitive it is for
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 3: the highest spenders. So yeah, if you like parody and balance,
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 3: and if you're in a small or mid market in
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 3: the NBA like Indiana or Oka, see, I think you
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 3: like it. If you love the dynasties where it was
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 3: Golden State on the one hand, and whoever Lebron James
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 3: played for on the other side, or Celtics Lakers, you
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 3: probably don't like it. Because even if you build a
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 3: championship team fed, you're probably going to have to deconstruct
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 3: it pretty quickly because it gets so expensive. We're seeing
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 3: that right now, frankly in real time with the Boston
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 3: Celtics loading Drew Holliday and christaphe Porzingis as they try
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 3: to bring their payroll down with Jason Tatum out of lineup.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 3: So the next Celtics team, whenever Tatum is healthy, is
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 3: going to look very different than the one who just
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 3: toisted Larry O'Brian trophy a little over a year ago.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: You know, Ryan, I think you're illuminating some things that
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: are so different in the NBA in Major League Baseball,
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: and I would have to think Major League Baseball is
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: looking at the NBA as a potential model to follow.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: Some of the challenges in addition to the ones that
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: are on the surface, is the fact that you know,
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: in the NBA there's more shared revenue relative to national
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: TV deals, whereas in Major League Baseball they're still trying
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: to navigate some of those choppy waters, and some of
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: the major markets just have such exceptionally higher deals in
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: terms of their actual annual television deals. You know, the
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: disparity between what the Dodgers have on the top end,
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: which is in the order of three hundred million dollars
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: in revenue, versus a team in the mid range with
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: like Minnesota, which is sort of fifty million dollars, and
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: that's before there are RSN blew up, and now their
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: revenues is much less than that. So that's a significant problem.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: And what that leads to is not only is the
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: commissioner negotiating against the union's interest, but it's also negotiating
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: against the upper tier of the payrolls interests, because why
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: would the Dodgers want a homogenize payroll. Why would the
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: Yankees and Red Sox and the Cubs when right now
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: they have a massive advantage competitively over these teams. They
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: look the same numbers and say, hey, these the halves
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: have won the last thirty World Series. Why would we
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: want to level that playing field? And then the last
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: component that you see is there just seems to be
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: more contention between the union and Major League Baseball and
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: the Commissioner's office relative to the NBA. And so the
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: NBA is motivated to market their players and have their
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: players support the league because more revenue generates more money
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: for the players. As the split is maintained in Major
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: League Baseball, they're not seeing that same benefit. So you
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: don't see as many Major League Baseball players being promoted
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: by the league. They're not the face of the league
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: quite as prominently as you see in the NBA because
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: they're not necessarily on the same side of the ledger
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: trying to drive revenues. It creates major problems. So it's
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: going to be very interesting to track this next collective
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: bargaining agreement in baseball. It feels like major changes need
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: to take place. It feels like the NBA is a
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: blueprint to follow. It'll be interesting to see if they
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: ultimately do that.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 3: As a fan, I hope they do because I like
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 3: the parody. I like the balance, and I like teams
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 3: having a chance, especially the smaller and mid market teams
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 3: if they're well run and well operate at that. I
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 3: love having them having a chance to compete at the
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 3: highest levels. I think that's been great for the business
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 3: in the NBA and the NFL, and frankly, I think
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 3: that's a reason that I look at franchise valuations. Obviously
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 3: NFL's at the very top of the pyramid, NBA's approaching,
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 3: and then there's a huge gap to Major League Baseball.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 3: Just in my opinion as someone who now works in
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 3: the media, but as a fan of MLB, I think
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 3: more parody would help lift the values, maybe get them
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 3: closer to that NBA level. Because now I think the
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 3: collective baring agreement and potential lockout that you mentioned in
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 3: Major League Baseball, combined with the regional sports networks, the
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 3: ballet Diamond Sinclair deal was a disaster. I think those
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 3: are really depressing the value of franchise in Major League Baseball,
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 3: and that overhang obviously trickles down to business, the player
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 3: contracts and all of that. At that I enjoyed it
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 3: as always. We'll be back again next week. Keep the
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 3: listener questions coming. Next week, we'll talk about Mike Brown,
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 3: new head coach of the New York Knicks. We'll get
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 3: into the NBA Summer League that's become a huge event
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 3: in the desert, the Major League Baseball All Star Games
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 3: coming up, and then Thad's wheelhouse, the Major League Baseball
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 3: trade deadline less than a month away. He is Dad Levine.
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 3: I am Ryan McDonough. Thanks for listening to Rosters to Ranks.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: Please join me host Bad Levine, Ryan McDonough and other
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: general managers every week for Roster Serrings on Apple, Spotify,
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.