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Now, on with the show. With the first pick, the Washington Wizards select The Rich Eisen Show with guest host Tom Pellisero. God, I love that guy. Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. Today's guest, ESPN senior NBA writer Vincent Goodwill, two-time major champion Colin Morikawa, Super Bowl champion receiver Antonio Freeman.
And now, sitting in for Rich, it's Tom Pellisero. Welcome to a Rich Eyes and List edition of the Rich Eyes and Show. Tom Pellicero in the seat. Pleased to be in the studio with my boys. Hey, Rocket.
Hey, what up, man? Jason Feller. Hey, what up, Tom Peter? Shockingly know Mike Del Tufo and TJ Jefferson right here. What up, Thomas?
Part of a jam-packed show. Of it. If I do say so myself, last week of June.
Okay. We've got Kalamorikawa coming on, big changes in the PGA. In recent days, announced. Very curious to get the opinions of a two-time major champion on exactly what that's going to mean for the future of the PGA. We've got tons of NFL news I do have in my hand.
The power rankings. I don't do many power rankings on this show. Oh, it's Wednesday. Top 10 stories. Between now and September 9th, the start of the NFL season.
Top 10 storylines that'll get resolved over the next, not even 90 days. We're at like 77 days, maybe? Yeah. To football? Do some math.
77 makes sense. It kicks off on a Wednesday. Let's do some math. 11 times 7, 11 weeks away. I'm pretty sure that's right.
We're going to go with it. Vince Goodwill will be here as well. Tons of news. Out of the NBA over the past couple of days, and some fascinating stuff that I want to get into. From the draft last night.
77 days confirmed. 77 days. Yeah. I got there. It took a second.
I started at 90. I was like, that seems like too many. We don't want to count today at 76. Less than a month away, I believe 28 days until the first teams report to training camp. That's how close we are to NFL season.
We take your calls on that: 2844-204-Rich. Any NFL topics or anything else? You want to discuss? We'll get into Giannis plenty, I'm sure, when Vince is here a little bit. I'm very curious for his thoughts on how that impacts the East.
That part of the trade. is going to be maybe the single focal point. of media and fan attention. Between now and next June, and how does it work out? You don't make a trade for Yannis, if you don't think we immediately are.
The frontrunners in the Eastern Conference with Giannis. You don't think, you don't do that if you don't think we can win the NBA title. But on the other side last night of that trade, Something very interesting happened. And when you looked at it initially, of course, the frontline part of the story is they took this mishmash of role players from Miami and picks over Jalen Brown plus two first. Right.
That's it at its core form. You had two completely different trade packages on the table. Rather than taking, and we'll talk a little bit more about Jalen Brown in a second because Brad Stevens talked about him last night. Rather than taking a guy who's a 30-point game scorer in his prime, You take, again, a bunch of guys who certainly can fit. But aren't frontline types of players, and then a whole bunch of picks that you can build the roster up.
Giannis has never been a three-point threat, I think to say the least. He leads the league every year in two-point goals, right? But what they did last night in terms of the Post-Giannis era in Milwaukee. What that told me was... We are going all in now on shooting.
They were already one of the best three-point shooting teams in the NBA, in part because everybody comes down on Giannis, he kicks it out, and they get a lot of threes. But they trade for Tyler Harrow, who's a volume three-point shooter. Last night in the draft, they take... Braden Burry's out of Arizona at 10. Is that a pure shooter?
But it's yet another guard, a well-rounded one at that. But once again, somebody's going to be able to score from the perimeter. And then at 13, you take Nate Amond. Who, and I know, I don't follow college basketball as closely as probably certain people in this room do, but he lives up and down, right, at Tennessee. Right.
But he's 6'10. He can shoot from the outside. At his best, like the upper end comp that you see is Kevin Durant. I'm not going to sit here and comp him to a Hall of Famer. But think about that.
Milwaukee, which has won, has won an NBA title, basically with Giannis dominating. Inside the three-point line is now just going, we're just going to shoot all day. We know we can't replace Giannis. Let's just figure out a different way that we can try to win. And that seems like that's a core part of the philosophy going forward.
In an Eastern conference where we just saw the Knicks. Kind of bully people a little bit physically, where now you're going to have Giannis and Bam team meet up in Miami. And they're saying We'll try to outscore you. We'll try to outshoot you from the outside. I wonder if that's going to continue here.
But it certainly seems like in the post-Giannis era, they're pivoting into.
Something completely different. Yeah, bold strategy cotton. We'll see if it pays off. And the East is going to be in a situation next year. Look, TJ, Tyrus Halliburton's coming back.
And so Indiana, we know we're, what, a game away from winning the NBA championship two years ago. They're not going to win 19 games next year.
So they're going to be back into the fold. You've got to think Washington is going to be better. If Anthony Davis does indeed stick around and is healthy, Trey Young staying, now they got DeBonza. They got suddenly a nice nucleus there. They're going to be better.
Not saying they're going to make the playoffs, but they're going to be better. Chicago should be better. Philly should be better. Boston, we'll see what they do. But you're leaving out a certain team that you cheer for there, Brockman.
I am. But they also have the third best best best. They were the eighth team out of your mouth right there. The Boston team. They also have the third best NBA title odds, which seems.
Kind of It's crazy. For now, here's Brad Stevens. Last night, after offering Jalen Brown, after the word comes out that Jalen Brown was a part of the trade offer. He is not traded on night one of the draft. Here's what Brad Stevens, the head of their basketball operations, had to say.
Jalen Brown's a big part of us. Like, you know, I'm not gonna I'm never gonna predict the future, but like every indication, everything that I think about is with over the past few years has been building around those guys. Right. And so obviously, you never know. But at the same time, I think the one thing I want to make very clear is how valued he's always been.
Like, and he's been amazing. He's been an amazing teammate, great person to be around. Um and you know whether that Run ends 10 years from now. When he retires, or before there's a lot to celebrate, and we have a great relationship and an open relationship. um where we talk about everything and um but I don't want to predict the future but This is our team.
The open relationship sounds like a bit of a Freudian slip. Maybe Jalen's going to start seeing other teams. At this point, it's hard to imagine, first of all, that Jalen Brown is made available, even for a trade for a multiple-time MVP. If there's not underlying issues here. Between the player and the club based upon his role, what the vision is.
And I also thought it was instructed there that Brad Stevens used the word valued. To me, if I'm using just my sports executive translator here, what I'm hearing with the how valued he is, how valued he's always been is you're not going to come in and make us a terrible offer. We're just going to give Jalen Brown away. We need to now against the odds with a player who may or may not want to be on the first plane out of Logan this morning. We need to figure out how we're going to resolve this in a way, whether it's now, whether it's at the trade deadline.
But Jalen Brown, the 10 years till he retires thing. That was great. I love that. I can't give gambling advice, as you know. Wouldn't ask for advice.
But I would not bet on Jalen Brown being there for the next 10 years, retiring as a Celtic. What? I would say between now and the trade deadline, probably in the next week. Seven in the rafters? No.
We find out something that's going to happen with Jalen Brown. There should be a market, regardless of what the reputation is for Jalen Brown and how much management goes into it. Hard to imagine that's anything other than Brad Stevens going. I kind of have had my leverage punctured here by everything playing out publicly and the player knowing everything in what was already a delicate situation. Let's see how they navigate this just again over the next week into free agency.
And then up until the start of training camp, and then all the way until February, when decisions will have to be made. Maybe they are Brockman, maybe they're right there in the east again. I mean, there's Brad Stevens was the executive of the year this season. Yeah, I have no reason to expect that they won't be in the mix because that's just what it's been with, you know, ever since the Brown and Tatum era has begun. Look, it stinks, but it's not something that Jalen hasn't dealt with before.
Like we said yesterday, TJ, you know. In the rumors for Anthony Davis, in the rumors for Kevin Durant. And he has bounced back each time and had phenomenal seasons. He's, you know, second team all NBA this year and was in the MVP conversation, you know, and the Celtics were the second seed in the East.
So I would expect him to be there at the end. A couple other things that jumped out at me last night: Kingston Flemings. Is your classic the pass rusher whose arms are an inch too short? Great name. Like he measured in at 6'2 and 5'8ths, I believe.
And they always say 6 and 258s barefoot. As in, like, were some guys wearing their shoes? No, but like, that was a little, that was like an inch shorter. And suddenly, a guy who is probably based on the testing stuff, and I've asked people that I know in the NBA about this, based on like the testing, his athletic profile, this is the best athlete in the draft. Oh, he's a little undersized, but the things he can do athletically are next level.
That's one I'll be watching just to see. Is this, you know, Elvis Dumerville? Area Of somebody, well, his arms are short.
Well, he's really, really good at his job. It's probably going to work out. This year's Ruben Bain. Ruben Bain? Another great example.
Ruben Bain had other stuff going on, but the arm length was the primary thing, right? This guy looked like he got a haircut for draft night, which I think is nice. Uh Memphis also. That's the other one. There was a lot going on.
with Memphis last night. They take Cameron Boozer at three, and we'll get to how some of those things played out in a second here. But then the multiple trades back. to amass five second round picks. If I'm a fan of an NBA team, The last thing.
That I want to hear is my team amassing second round picks. You know what a team is doing? when they acquire five second round picks in multiple trades on draft night. They are going to go out and they're going to draft a bunch of 18-year-old European dudes and hope against hope that one of them is Nikola Jokic. And if it is.
Awesome winner, but there are way more of those who play three, four years over there, and you never hear from them again. It's a signal, and again. I appreciate that. All right, if you're going to take a shot, take five shots. These are lottery tickets, and you're hoping one of them has the right numbers.
But it's also a signal. We'd rather than having the sixteenth pick or the 17th pick. We'd kind of rather have five second rounders to be able to go out and just chuck some darts here and see if these young developmental guys, one of them becomes something that can help us probably two, three, four years down the line because it's a non-guaranteed contract because you can hold the guys' rights, it doesn't count against you. If I'm a Grizzly fan, if I'm Cameron Boozer. Sitting there watching this play out, I'm going.
I'm getting a little bit nervous here. That's everything that played out on the broadcast last night. That Drives me absolutely bananas. It's not about the broadcast itself, which, by the way, Star the broadcast by far. Lisa Salters couch interviews.
Not even close. Every pick gets taken. Come over there.
Some comedy. Look how many family members can we get in there on that couch. Also, can we get a bigger couch? These guys are all like. I think what would be fun would be if you kind of do some gaslighting on the audience, and over the course of the first round, you swap in smaller and smaller couches.
So the guys taken late sit down. You're like, how'd this guy not go earlier? He's huge. I think that would be a nice touch. But Lisa Salters is like a baseball closer.
Who's got two great pitches? It's not Mario and Rivera just throwing the same thing over and over again. You know, what are your emotions like right now? She's coming in with either: you led the conference in rebounding, besides being tall, what makes you a great rebounder? Or your entire family was chased from their homeland by violent warlords.
Half of them are dead. What's it like to go to Atlanta? You don't know which way she's going. And like the conversations that come out of that, because it is so disparate, are very fascinating and revealing in that moment on a really big stage. At least there's a legend.
I fully enjoy every single one of those every time. But there was another scene. But they had Cameron Boozer and his former AAU teammate. On the stage, they're interviewing them together with Kenny Smith. It's on the second stage, right?
And they pause him like mid-question, mid-answer. They're like, hold on, hold on. We got a teammate coming for you. And it's at the 16th pick. Where it's Bennett Sturtz.
And they're like, what do you think? Oh, I like that pick. I like that pick. Let's go. Not 20 seconds later, they go, We're just getting word.
Sturts has been traded. And he's like, Oh. Like, yeah, welcome to this. Yeah, I don't like that. How have we not fixed this?
I understand the rules are different, okay? In the NBA, That it is in the NFL. You can't trade guys in the NFL until they've signed contracts. NBA, you can trade the players. But, like, the cutoff, you can't trade the picks.
Okay. This has gone on for decades. That's because the NBA leagues start, the new league year starts to be a big deal. I'm aware there's cap considerations and everything else. But are you telling me?
Then after Kobe in the hornet's hat is the lasting image. Luca in a hawk's hat. At no point can we just step in and say, This is actually Hurting the drama. What's the best part of the NFL draft? Oh, we got a trade.
They're now on the clock. Yeah, it's great. This is literally like follow Sean's ex account and he'll tell you what teams guys are actually on. Yeah. There was another guy, the the 28th pick.
Where it was Jefferson, Joshua Jefferson. who is ostensibly taken by the Timberwolves. He's not invited to the draft. And Malika Andrews or whoever was narrating it say, Oh, this is one of the best parts. We love this.
The guy wasn't invited to the draft, but he came here anyway. He wanted the experience. He's coming down. He's hugging family members. His agent, he walks down.
And he puts on the Timberwolves hat. I don't care how far back you tilt that hat, it still has the wrong logo on it. You're a Brooklyn Net. What a weird thing.
Well, who did the Lakers take? And as he's walking up, he's like, I'm getting traded. I'm getting traded. The Knicks took him and they took him to draft. It happens every year.
Walking up to the podium, I'm getting traded. Adam Silver has done so many positive things for the NBA, being bold and doing things like, I mean, the NBA Cup, whether you like it or hate it, it was a way to make competitive basketball a little bit more competitive, a little more interesting in the middle of the season, which can otherwise kind of be the doldrums and is up against NFL playoffs and everything else. He's done a ton of smart stuff. Adam, if you're listening. I am just pleading with you.
And I know this is not. An original take. But please, can we figure out? Away. The gist once.
Address the issue and figure out: is there some way whether it's reorganizing? Working with the player associated, whatever the hurdles are. I'm not an expert on the NBA collective bargaining agreement. There has to be some way that the guy is on the stage without the wrong hat and the wrong logo projected behind the biggest moment of his life. And you have to go on social media to find out, yeah, he's not really on that team.
Uh We'll talk NFL a little bit. The Brendan Saresby case, I want to spend some time on that. This has massive ramifications, and by the way, It's not over yet. Mm. There are still ins and outs to this entire situation.
Break down that in a little bit. But coming up after this, maybe Vince Goodwill. Maybe Vince Goodwill, senior NNBA writer for ESPN. Maybe he's got an idea. for how to get the right hat On the right guy.
We'll also talk to him about much more important things, including after the Giannis trade, who is the next star to get dealt? We'll ask him next on the Rich Eisen Show. The Rich Eisen Show Podcast. A bandwagon fan, the biggest insult in sports. But this summer, during the FIFA World Cup, it's an invitation, America.
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Now we're back. We're troubleshooting a little bit here with Vince. He is coming. They actually handed him the wrong hat. Vince Goodwill will be here momentarily.
Any other takeaways last night for you, Brockman, or TJ? Out of night won NBA draft. I agree with Adam. You said earlier about him liking the Bulls. I think the Bulls did a really good draft.
They should be happy, especially with. I've heard a lot of people say Caleb Williams between him and Peterson could be the best player in this draft.
So getting him. As a bonus, was that intentional? What? You just said Caleb Williams. Did I say Caleb Williams?
See, see, I don't think I did. Yesterday, I said Wilson, you made me, you got in my head just right now. I didn't even realize. Here are you saying Caleb Williams seated in TJ's brain. I literally talk about the issue with Caleb Wilson and Caleb Williams being in the same city.
Because literally on this card, it says Caleb Wilson.
So, yeah, that was you. You made me do that. Yeah, I'm going to start gaslighting you every opportunity I get just to see what's going to come out of your mouth. You really did get me with that one. I liked what the Thunder did too.
I thought that they got big. We see that. Check probably not a five. Probably more suited for the three, so that for them to get the big man out of Michigan probably made sense. And I also feel like that might be it for Harvard.
Keep taking big injury risk guys because you got like 72 first-round picks over five grand. You're going to have to deal with Wembinyama for the next 12 years.
So you got to get as much size as you can. Vincent Goodwill, ESPN NBA senior writer, one of my absolute favorites in the entire business with us right now. Tons to get into here, Bench. But I want to start with this. We were talking about this in the opening segment.
And I know this is not an original complaint, original argument. I appreciate it when we've talked about flopping in the past. You seem to be on the What do we need to do to fix the guys being handed the wrong hat and then finding out afterward that's not actually the team that took it? We took a step last night, y'all. We really did.
We took a big time step. And making sure that guys had the right hat on. Me, Brian Winhorse, Vanessa Richardson, Iman Shabbo were doing hoop streams, a three-hour live show. And what we got to see was a couple of players actually getting handed the right hat.
Now, you guys may not see it on TV. Once you go on stage, you get handed the wrong hat, Adam Silver hands it to you, you take a picture with all these sparkles on a hat that is not yours, and then maybe 10 seconds later or a minute later, you go and get the right hat. They put it on the board of who has the right trade, they announce the trade. It's a little bit of a weird thing just because league rules and all that type of stuff, but I'll tell you, funny story. We announced to a player last night that he was being traded to Memphis.
We thought he hit on the wrong hat. He on the Detroit Pistons hat, Kareem Lopez, who was picked 21st by Detroit, was going to be rerouted to Memphis. We kept asking him about Memphis. He was looking at us like we grew a third nostril. And then we discovered that he found out, just like we found out, that he was going to Memphis.
A memorable moment. It's probably somewhere on YouTube. But yeah, steps, but not quite there.
Well, this is what I don't understand. I know there's rules, right? It's the cadence of the league year. It's when you can trade players if they're under contract or not. It's about the cutoff of when you can trade the picks.
But this has gone on for decades, Vince. Kobe in the Hornet's hat. Everybody knows that image, Luca in the Hawks hat. Like, there has to be a way that you don't have on the main ESPN broadcast last night, Cameron Boozer being told, hey, hold on. We're about to draft you a teammate.
All right. They took Sturtz. What do you think? I love it. Hold on.
He's been traded. And that was it. Like, you literally have these motions. I know it's like, it's. This fun thing, and I'm sure certain NBA fans just are entertained by the chaos of it.
I just, I don't understand why we want these moments to exist. The drama in other drafts, namely the NFL draft, is like this team's now on the clock. Is there nothing? You're telling me there's nothing that Adam Silver can do to just say, let's work with the Players Association, whatever it is, the bylaws, and let's just make this smoother. Tom, when I'm the CEO of Common Sense, we're going to go back to that type of stuff because remember back in the day, Vince Carter and Anton Jameson, college teammates, get traded for each other on draft.
I think they were picked into four and five together. We saw them exchange their hats. On live television. The same thing with Penny Hardaway and Chris Weber. The trade was announced to everyone, and the guys changed their hats.
For whatever reason, some of these trades can't be consummated until July 6th when the new league year begins and everything else. But we all know the difference in time. Luka Doncic with an Atlanta. Hawks hat on. Can you imagine one day, Luka Doncic, Magic City Monday?
You know, I mean, could he have been an Atlanta Hawk for maybe one day and then going on to Magic City and then going to be a Dallas Maverick? I mean, a Los Angeles Laker or whatever team he plays for now, all that stuff. It would have been fun. I was about to say, you could just hand him a Lakers hat and just kind of cut out the middleman, skipped over all those years, gone straight ahead. Biggest storyline out of night one.
Obviously, the Giannis trade happens a day in advance, but you're watching the draft unfold last night. What was the biggest storyline to you? One and two. Like, I don't know how much how it played on TV, but usually, y'all, we know who number one is. If we don't know it going into draft night, we know it pretty much three or four days before.
There was so much consternation around A.J. DeBonsa and Darren Peterson, and nobody really knew up until maybe the last five minutes. I got a text from a team who was trying to get into the top five saying they're going to go with AJ. And usually, that's not the case. Those two guys are going to be inextricably linked.
to their careers for the rest of their career. Did the Washington Wizards make the right choice? Did Darren Peterson tank his own draft stock by what he did throughout the regular season with the injuries, with the Korea team? Maybe did he want to play? Did he not want to play?
But from a talent standpoint, nobody was denying his talent. And usually guys that talented go number one. But this is a generational draft.
So maybe this is something that winds up working out for the best for the Wizards. Utah gets a point guard, shooting guard. The point guards that go into this, you see Keaton Wagler, Mike Hel Brown. Darius A Cup Jr., those three guys going right behind each other, they're going to be linked. To me, that is the biggest stuff to come out of day one or night one of the draft.
You talked to a ton of people around the NBA, Vince, between those two top picks. Was it split? Would you find 50-50? You poll 10 GMs. Were you finding five and five, or how would you compare those two guys?
Tom, let's just say I did like 25, right? And it's not an exact number, but it would be 13 and 12. And no one was truly set. It wasn't like, man, I love AJ and I hate Darren Peterson. It was, you know what?
I really like AJ, but I'm not sure about Darren Peterson. I'm not sure if he's going to be able to come in and play and work and dedicate himself to this team atmosphere. There were a couple of people who were saying, you know what? This guy's an introvert. He says he's anti-shoot social.
Do you want that guy being the face of your franchise? I think that is a little unfair just because that goes at a person's, that goes at a person's tendencies, not at their moral character, their moral fiber, but it is something that teams were considering. When you have a generational draft like this, and people are comparing this to 1996, like you said, with Kobe Bryan and Stefan Marlberry, Allen Iverson, Steve Nash, Marcus Cambie, all those guys, and then the 2003 draft with LeBron and Wade and Bosch and all those guys, you're going to have a player that comes out of nowhere, or you're going to have a guy, maybe number Before and Caleb Wilson that turns out to be the best player out of all of these. That was something I got. A lot of people were saying, Caleb Wilson, I may not take him first, but I'm definitely afraid that he's going to be the best player out of this draft class by the time it's all said and done.
So, we're talking about a generational draft, and you're comparing it to 30 years ago and one of the best drafts we ever saw in NBA history. Where is the wave point here? In other words, all right, you're getting generational talent, blue chip. At some point, there's a dip. At some point, there's a cutoff.
Where was this in your mind and based on the people you talked to in the NBA? I felt like Tommy cut off at like four because you heard no conversation. And usually, Tommy, you know this from being around the NFL: if you got a pick that's gold, you're not letting that go. If you know you're getting your franchise quarterback, you ain't trading it for nothing. Once you start hearing about, okay, hey, can a team get into the top five with the fifth pick?
Can a team get into seven or eight? You know, those types of conversations, that's when you know that the talent disparity starts to begin. Not that those guys can't be franchise players in their own right, but there is a dip between Boozer and Waggler and all those guys. And that's where Boozer went third, Caleb Wilson went fourth. But from Wilson to Waggler, from four to five, not that Waggler can't be a Tyrese Halliburton type of player, not that Darius Afecup Jr.
cannot turn into a Jalen Brunson type, even though Jalen Brunson seems to be one of one. But it seems to be four quote-unquote franchise can't miss players. And then the guys that can be really, really good players probably. All-stars, and then everything else becomes a crapshoot after that. But I'll tell you something interesting, Tom.
I was asking executives. If Cooper flags in this draft, where does he go? Number one. No doubts.
So he is above the level of everybody in this draft. Even if you're talking, I do the same type of experiment with the NFL.
Okay, you take Fernando Mendoza and put him in the Caleb Williams, Jaden Daniels, Drake May class, and you get different answers on that. That's where, I mean, the context of these drafts is always important in terms of, all right, these are blue chip players, but are they the blue plus? Are they the ones who are the actual franchise turners? It's something you're saying, there's four of these guys. DeBonsa ends up being a number one.
And now I look at this and say, okay, you add DeBonsa to Trey Young. You have this sort of arms race happening right now in the East based on the Giannis trade and then the way the first round played out last night. We got tons more to go. We got more trades. We got more free agency.
How do you look at the way this stacks up right now in that? Tom, I'm so fascinated. I want the regular season to begin, not tomorrow, because I want to rest. I want some sleep. But I can't wait for the regular season to begin, like even without knowing what happens with free agency.
We always say this, and I feel like NFL says it as well. The teams at the top got better. How many times do we say Team X got better today? And you think everybody got better. You think Oklahoma City got better.
You know, like you, you think that. But Miami, we know that they get generationally different with Giannis Anto de Cumpo. New York might be the only team that stays static, but they're the champions coming off of a generational playoff run. They don't need to change much. They just need to fine-tune everything that they did.
Did Boston get better last night? You know, like taking Chris Sanak, like those guys may not be able to contribute immediately, but when you look at the Eastern Conference, we're going to handicap it. New York is clearly in the top tier. Detroit, from a regular season standpoint, still in the top tier. Boston, probably still in the top tier.
Let's see what happens with Jalen Brown. And the Miami Heat top tier because they just got Giannis onto the Kumpo. And we know that the Miami Heat are really, really good at finding high-value, low-cost players. And the number one thing you can find in the NBA, the number one commodity that you can always find is shooting. And that's what the Miami Heat need.
And I think they're going to go find that. And this is before, like you said, trades, free agency, any other roster shake-ups that's bound to happen over the next few weeks. Vincent Goodwill, ESPN Senior NBA writer, is our guest. If you're the Knicks, and you briefly mentioned it there that they're still in the top heap, James Dolan wasted no time redrawing the ire of Knicks fans by immediately saying, Hey, we're not going to go to the second apron regarding, you know, and that's on top of the things at the parade and everything else here. But if you're a Knicks fan and you're watching this last night saying, Hey, maybe we can add one more piece and say, you see, trade down out of the first round.
Don't take the guaranteed contract, stay below the second apron. What should your reaction be as a Knicks fan? If I'm a Knicks fan, I'm still basking in the glow of June. Like, I'm worried about the rest of that stuff later. You know, I've been waiting 53 years.
Like, we talked to Spike Lee last night on the broadcast. He still had a glow, an orange glow about him.
Now, maybe that's because he's wearing an orange jacket, which is pretty when you're wearing an orange jacket and it's all over and you're, you know, spike's height. That's an interesting wardrobe pussy, but that's where the Knicks fans are right now. But from a basketball standpoint, the one thing you don't want to do is get caught lagging behind. You know that once you become the champions, you become the standard. You become the team that everybody starts to chase in some way, knowing we got to beat this team.
If we got to beat the Knicks, we got to beat them with bigs, we got to beat them with wings, we got to beat them with at least clutch guard play. And you want to be able to add to that because you can't just stay static. And facing the fact that they could lose Mitchell Robinson in Fourier agency if James Dolan holds true to his word. Nobody wants to hear that. The Knicks had an up-and-down regular season, right?
53 wins, which was. Really good, pretty good. But when you blow through the playoffs, you also want to see what happens when this whole team is back for a full season, second season with Mike Brown. Everybody's fascinated with their roles, satisfied with their roles, if that is indeed the case. And you want to see if what you did in the playoffs can translate to the regular season.
If you can go after history, if you can be a team that repeats in a way that we have not seen since the Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Golden State Warriors. That's what you are, I won't say frustrated by, but you're a bit concerned by if James Dolan sticks to his, I'm not going into the second apron edict. My thing is, y'all, I live in New York. All I see is Nick t-shirts. Don't they got enough revenue?
Yeah, hey, he's wearing the same jacket in that photo I think that you saw Spike wearing on your show last night. And Spike, arguably with season tickets for like the past 40 years, may have put more money into the Knicks than James Dolan over that time. Let's talk about the Celtics because there were a lot of people. Who believed, rightly or wrongly, that was going to be the destination for Giannis. And that was going to be a franchise-altering move.
It would have sent Jalen Brown in two first-round picks to Milwaukee.
Now, not only do you not have Giannis, you have a guy in Jalen Brown who probably already had a lot of questions about the direction of things prior to any of this.
Now it's all publicly out there that he was part of. Where do the Celtics go from here and what do they do with Brown?
Well, my colleague Brian Windhorst likes to say that the Celtics have made a decision that they cannot beat the New York Knicks. And if you cannot beat the New York Knicks as president and constituted, then you have to make changes. I'm not sure if they've made that necessarily declaration, but I will say this. If you're Jalen Brown and you're a finals MVP, Tom, and you've also carried your team to 60 wins in what was termed a gap year, and the first thing that you hear after blowing that series against the 76ers, yes, they blew the series. It was ugly.
Nobody looks good in that, but it was one series. If you blow that series and the first thing you hear is, man, we love to trade you for Giannis onto the Kumpo, that wouldn't make me feel good. But you know the one thing, Tom, that soothes hurt feelings? Cold hard cash. And the Boston Celtics could offer Jalen Brown a two-year, $140 million contract in a couple of weeks.
Now, that's $70 million a year. That's a lot of money to tie up the Celtics' cap. You already got Jason Tatum making around $60 million a year. Do the Celtics want to tie up their cap to make Jalen Brown feel good? Do they believe that Jalen Brown is worth that money in the new economic NBA where we see a lot of teams making financial trades?
If that's the case, Does Jalen Brown go to them and say, okay, you haven't offered me this money that you can offer me. You dangled me out here in trades. I'm feeling unappreciated. How about we just part ways and you find me a place where I can go be my best self? I feel like it could be trending that way if all of those questions are not answered to Jalen Brown's liking.
Bubble gum is used to stop a sinking boat a lot like money is used to try to help unhappy players in these situations. We saw Miles Garrett got a long-term excitement with the Browns last year because they wouldn't trade him. What's the next best thing? All right, I'll take the money now. And then a year later, still not happy.
We're moving on to the Rams. It doesn't solve all problems. Definitely solves some. Let's talk about the Timberles who have their own money issues to deal with, hence the salary dump. It's not the only reason, but it was a pure salary dump.
You get rid of Julius Randall to move down in the draft. They now have that trade exception. I don't know if they actually use it. They also can use the mid-level exception, get like a role player. What do they do for a team that's been there repeatedly and gone to the Western Conference?
Conference finals a couple of times and been in the playoffs again this year. If Anne's not hurt, who knows where that goes? What do they do from here to try to build this thing once again around Anne? They better do something. And I don't think that Anthony Edwards is necessarily like itching to get out.
I don't ascribe to that. But you can't sit And stay in Pat in this NBA. You go from being in the Western Conference finals to being knocked out in the second round. And you know, Oklahoma City isn't going anywhere. You know that San Antonio isn't going anywhere.
And you're banking on, to your point, Nas Reed, who everybody loves, Jay McDaniels, who everybody loves, taking that next step with increased playing time and responsibility. Don't forget this: Dante DiVincenzo will be out for almost all of next year with that Achilles injury. That really hurts them.
Now, they did.
Now, you wind up bringing in and keeping retaining your own guys, but impact players is what wins in the Western Conference. And like you said, a $33 million trade exception, $15 million full mid-level exception. You've got to do something with that. With the trade exception, here's the key rules, guys. You cannot break it up.
You cannot go and sign a $15 million player and then another $15 million player or $18, whatever it is to make the money match into the trade exception. It is a one-for-one thing. You can only absorb a Up to $33 million player into that trade exception, and then it dissolves after one year to the date, which means they kind of have to use it only in a trade exception or a sign-in trade, and then you have the full mid-level of 15 million.
So I think they have options to play with. Tim Connolly is pretty damn creative and pretty damn bold. But think about this, Tom. You traded Carl Anthony Townes for Julius Randle. You traded Julius Randall.
For a trade exception. Carl Anthony Townsend got a ringed. You got a trade exception. That doesn't look good. There is absolutely no doubt.
There's nobody better. Vincent Goodwill, thanks a lot for coming on the show again, man. That was awesome. Appreciate you guys. All right.
Night two of the NBA draft across ESPN platforms kicking off tonight. Round two: the Grizzlies can start using all those picks that we'll see in five years when they come back from Slovenia, what they get out of it. Let's dig in after this on a guy who not being drafted. At least not right now. Brendan Soursby.
The case is not over, but right now he's a man without a place to play football. I'll explain why and where it goes next. The Rich Eisen Show, the podcast. Rich Eisen here. You can always tell when something big is happening in a city.
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Welcome back to the Rich Eisen Show. Tom Philicero sitting in for Rich. Great NBA conversation with Vince Goodwill on the front end of this thing. There was another, with the NBA draft ongoing here, there was other draft news yesterday about a draft that will not exist. The NFL's supplemental draft.
Not happening. According to the league, they informed the clubs, they informed Brendan Sourceby and his agent. They're just simply not going to hold one. After you petitioned the league to get into the supplemental draft, this is crazy. Where are you on the one to ten scale of like, whoa, I can't believe we're not having one of these?
So the legal rationale. for the NFL is is pretty straightforward. It says in the collective bargaining agreement. that players whose eligibility changes. are eligible for the supplemental draft.
if the NFL chooses to hold one. In other words, it is at the sole discretion of the NFL Do we even want to have a supplemental draft? This is the extremely rare, if not first time ever, where someone applied. And they did not hold the supplemental draft. There's a lot of history here that I think people don't entirely understand with the supplemental draft.
You have the April draft, of course, or the draft that has been in April for a long time. Under years ago, they could have up to two supplemental drafts in a year. There were times that that process was manipulated.
Someone just wouldn't hand in their paperwork in time for the regular draft because they didn't like the team that they would go to. And then they would hand the paperwork in after the draft. There were times where the second supplemental draft was right before the NFL season began in September. which created this whole sideshow That overshadowed the games about to begin.
So here's what it boils down to. from everything that I've been able to glean, my understanding is The NFL looked at this case, and I think that a lot of people at this point have seen the letter that the attorneys for the NFL sent to Brendan Soursby, laying out all the reasons that they were not going to accept his petition to be in a supplemental draft this year and not hold the supplemental draft at all. You know, essentially, for the NFL's perspective, yes. This is a very complicated situation with Sourceby. And you have allegations of gambling.
He has admitted to broadly. gambling and having a compulsion. Went and got, I believe, five weeks of treatment for it. Came back. And then you know the story from there.
Tried to get back into the NCAA. NCAA ruled against him, sued, got an injunction to play. Then there was an uproar from within the Big 12 at other schools. Texas Tech didn't really have the stomach to keep going on this thing. The clock was ticking to the supplemental draft deadline, application deadline, which was Monday.
So he said, all right, withdraw the lawsuit, apply for the supplemental draft. They did that last week. The NFL looked at this and yes, even if they could unpack everything and run this full investigation and reports of whether or not he violates laws, is there a potential additional fallout? Which is not the first time the NFL has dealt with that. Kayshawn Booty had a very complicated case.
He was already in the league. There's been other integrity of the game issues. Jim Harbaugh was involved in one in Michigan. He was already at the Chargers before the show cause came down. This is the first time you had a decision of.
Do we hold a supplemental draft attached to one of these things? But even if the NFL had been able to quickly run through all of this, the determination that they came to In essence was It's not in the NFL's best interest to hold a supplemental draft. And that's where their rationale stops. You would have training camps opening. At the same time, Sourceby Who, if he's going through an entire pro-day process and he's part of the supplemental draft, you're going to have tons of coverage about it.
It's going to be right up against players returning to work. It would create a sideshow the NFL didn't think was advantageous to them. And again, under the language of the CBA. They have the right to say, we're doing it or we're not. The argument back.
And I posted the statement yesterday from the office of Jeffrey Kessler, who has fought the NFL thousands of times over decades on a variety of different issues. Basically said, the NFL told us, here's the process. If you fill this out, you're good. We filled it out, we gave them the information, and we were not good. We asked them do you need anything else?
They said they did not. And now they're saying he didn't. Provide enough. And then we find out the kid finds out at the same time. The young man finds out at the same time the media does.
That He's not in the supplemental draft.
So now the decisions that have to be reached here. are Between Jeffrey Kessler, the NFL PA, which he has worked with a lot, and Brendan Soursby and his agent Ron Slavin, they all have to come to the conclusion: all right. Do we now Go after them, and if so, on what grounds? Yeah, Sorzby's not in the NFLPA right now. He's not, but the NFL PA has also traditionally defended the rights of players in the pre-draft process.
Okay. And so, yes, is it awkward that you're defending a player who's going to come in and take one of your members' jobs? Sure. But they have also taken the position that you can't enforce things from a long time ago that shouldn't actually impact your availability to play. And so The union, though, they need a legal justification, though, to challenge it.
They got to decide: are we going to spend even more money?
Sorsby is spent. Like the whole argument of, well, he's getting off, it's in the NFL's letter.
Well, he's getting off, he's avoiding any consequences.
Sourceby spent over a million dollars in legal fees. He's lost millions of dollars in NIL, lost his money from Texas Tech. And also walks in the NFL now with a scarlet letter on his chest and is the gambling guy and is going to be heckled and gonna be scrutinized on like anybody else in the NFL. He's paid a significant price. Does he now want to go into federal court?
and extend this. and fight win or lose. That's part of what they got to figure out. The Rich Eisen Show Podcast. Mm-hmm.
