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But also on YouTube at youtube.com slash rich eisen show or wherever you download your favorite podcast. And it's been an interesting last two days heading into Super Bowl weekend. Trades that have shook the NBA or a trade that has shook shaken the NBA. That of course is Luka Doncic's 25 year old phenomenon of phenom heading to Los Angeles in exchange for Max Christie and Anthony Davis heading over to the Dallas Mavericks. Wow.
I mean, talking about blindsided. Yeah, that's and I'm gonna dig into that with a good friend who's been tied into the business. Vince Goodwill in today's show, but that one rocked the NBA, but also the sports world. I think what happened with this deal is it showed that ownership because of salary restrictions in the NBA. Are starting to evaluate what a supermax deal looks like, how it has a stranglehold somewhat on the building of their franchises. And it may be the trickle down effect here from the CBA, but a transition and how teams are going to be built in the future and how ownership views and values.
The supermax or the supermax player, quote unquote, and not to get lost in the shuffle. And we'll dig into this a little bit later, too, is the, I think, a quiet trade, a sleeper trade that's going to create wave shock waves in the Western Conference and SDN Fox to. The San Antonio Spurs and then, of course, Zach Levine and other big name gets to Sacramento. Wimby, the Aaron, the young core of San Antonio, depending on what Pop wants to do, coming back. Very interesting, very interesting times right now for a franchise that has a lot of pride championships under their belt.
Been down a little bit, but has a like Luca, a once in a lifetime generational player. Now they're starting to build the blocks around them. And then the last one is Chris Middleton heading over to Washington.
But Kyle Kuzma coming over and does he push the needle to kind of get Milwaukee over the edge to compete with Cleveland and Boston. But a very interesting week. We have a great show talking about a dive into not just a surface basketball part of what's already known and what's obvious.
But more important, we're going to dig into what I think people kind of lose sight on is the business of basketball and why deals like Luca and A.D. get done. I had to apologize to my man Vince Goodwill because I canceled a couple of times on some shows and, you know, we get busy doing things. But I'm glad you can join.
Just run it off a little thing. Host of the Good Word podcast, NBA writer, Sirius XM host, you covered, you know, the Detroit Pistons, the Chicago Bulls. Unfortunately, you're on Sundays, I think it is with Rick Mahorn.
I don't know how you get through that, even though that's my old head. And welcome to the show. But the real critical point is you from the D or you from Southfield? Which one? I'm from the D. I'm from the D. No, no, no, I'm from I'm from where you from? What side? West Side? East Side.
I'm from the East Side. Well, high school, because, you know, back in the Midwest, it's all about high school. I went to Cass. Oh, you went to Cass? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We went to Cass.
I liked you despite you being Ohio State Buckeye, because the fact that we beat y'all in the Midwest regional final, I think it was that rough. Right? Right. Over time, right? Yeah. And over time, you know, it's funny.
You were like the stockiest college student I'd ever seen in my life. That's how we do in Ohio. Listen, I grew up basically playing in Detroit. So I used to play over River Rouge. I played at Sandy Sanders. I played at St. Anne's Church on Sundays. Oh, wow.
Okay? But funny thing is, I couldn't play in the Saint. Why not? Because in Ohio, it was a rule, because it wasn't a sanctioned league.
Yeah. And if you played in it, you would be ruled ineligible. So I couldn't play. So I would just have to play at St. Anne's in the summers and stuff like that before the season starts. Small gym with Magic's Pitcher on the Chicago and Woodward, I think it is. Yeah, yeah.
And did that. And then I got family and people that live over Woodward, a seven mile Palmer Park area. Yeah, yeah.
Right by the golf course and everything. Yeah, I know exactly where you at, man. It's been a crazy week, huh? Past couple of days, huh?
I mean, I don't know what happened. I don't know if you heard that it was a big trade. It was Kyle Kuzma and Chris Middleton. That was the big trade. Getting under that second apron of the luxury tax. That's a big one, Jim. Hey, no, but serious business.
Okay, it's all about the Luca 80 trade. And not everybody has talked about it from different. And I want to kind of talk about it a little bit differently from the business side of it. And then we can basketball. But your initial thoughts when you first heard it.
I thought, I mean, like everybody else, I thought it was a joke. Right. I'm kind of set the scene.
I'm taking like two of my best friends were out or three of my best friends were out for like someone's birthday. And then we just come back and we're like, oh, watch the second half of Lakers Knicks. So then the tweet comes and I'm like, this has got to be a joke.
You're a couple of Bourbons in. You want to stick. You're like, this is not happening. Then you text a couple of people. You're like, oh, this is real. Like, this is all the way real. So initially the thought, Jim, was once it set in.
Right. The thought was, who did someone ask out? Did Luca quietly ask out? And this was Dallas's way of extracting as much as they could about it going public because you know, A.D. wasn't asking out of L.A. Like that really wasn't going to happen.
Then once you start talking to people and you see it settled a little bit. But my thought, Jim, was, oh, it's about this bread because he's up for this extension in a couple of years. And you notice, Jim, from being part of a union, just because it's money out there, just because they say it's money out there and TV deals coming in and salary cap is rising and everything else doesn't mean that people want to pay you. Right. You know what I'm saying?
Like look at that part. Luca's a max player, which he is top three player in the game and everything else. He's up for this supermax deal, five years, 250 plus million dollars, 70 million dollars a year.
And at a point. Dallas Mavericks ownership, I believe it was ownership, not Nico Harrison. You don't let a GM or a coach make a 500 million dollar decision or a billion dollar decision that probably works at a franchise just because you don't like his conditioning or just because you don't like exactly whatever. This was a business decision.
They did not want to pay him for whatever reason. And Nico Harrison had to go out there and get as much as he could without sounding the alarm because if he sounded the alarm, Jim, you know what happens? Oh, Dallas is trading Luca Doncic. Everybody put your hands in. And then Luca says, I'm only going to Team X.
Exactly that part. So once you once you tell me you're only going to Team X, even if it was the Lakers, that prevents the Lakers from actually having to put Anthony Davis on the table. Can you imagine the Lakers giving the Dallas Mavericks the poo poo platter of not LeBron, not A.D., maybe Austin Reeves, Dalton connect, maybe one of the statues outside of Staples or something like that.
And then you get Luca Doncic. But because of the way that it was done and executed quietly, you may not have liked the deal, but I felt like not you, Jim, but just you as people. But the way it was done, it seemed like it was done professionally, I guess, as the as best as you could say it. You know what I mean?
I got in. I don't think people like that Luca was blindsided by considering all that he meant to your organization. But from the standpoint of, oh, this is a business transaction. I kind of get it.
What is layered? OK, let's absolutely let's just break it down from where you're at. OK, from the basketball perspective, and you said there's been that they keep it quiet and Nico understood, too, that he had to get the best. So if you're trading a young Luca, you better get something that people can say.
I get it. It's maybe it's not a match for a match because of age with A.D., but it still keeps you in contention, at least for the next two years by a fire sale, getting rid of them. Now, yes, you get some draft picks, you get some, but you're not you probably won't get something to that caliber.
OK, the other part of it, too, is this the facade part to me of the culture, defense, the out of shape. Those are talking points, narratives that could have been addressed if they really wanted to sign Luca 350. They could have put Covenant and clauses in his deal that he had to adhere to in order to get all of his money, if that's what they really wanted to do. They could have protected themselves like New Orleans did with Zon exactly. They could have done all of that in that new deal, because I guarantee you Luca probably would have signed it anyway. When I first heard it and I thought about it. I said to myself, it's something else in place because I've been hearing some things before about maybe that Luca, Nico and Jake here were all on different pages, a certain way that Jake here may want to play, that they play more up temple.
And this is not taking anything away from Luca, but Luca had to play his way and that it was this disconnect maybe within the house as to why this is happening. And you know this, Vince, a trade like this doesn't go down in two or three days. This has been talked about, talked about, talked about, vetted. What if running scenarios? What's the initial reaction?
What's the long term, short, long term and short term effect? That's what we saw. So that part of it to me, when I heard it, I'm like, it's more, it's a bigger business deal to this. That's where I want to get to the ownership. Yeah.
Okay. For the Mavericks, which is the Adelson family. Miriam Adelson, I believe is worth 32 billion dollars, has casinos no longer in Vegas, but in I think China and maybe Japan, but overseas. The initial part of them, I think, coming to Dallas was they wanted ownership in Texas, right? They wanted the casino. Part of it, from what I've read and heard, was that American Airlines Arena was antiquated and that they needed a new arena.
So you combine the new arena with a casino with the largest untapped market there is where there's not legal sports gambling. That's Texas. You see where I'm going now, Chris.
Cavolti. Let me see. This is Chris. He wrote a, he wrote a great article. Let me, I'm going to pull it up for you.
You got to check this out. Okay. Okay. So it's Christopher Crutteville. He's an attorney out of Dallas. Okay. I'm a really known, he's a litigator, appellate lawyer, managing partner of a law firm. And he talked about the relationship with the Adelson family and Texas legislation regarding the casino and that legislation.
So I'm going to get into that, but what do you think from the ownership perspective? Again, this decision does not, it cannot be made singularly in a vacuum by Nico. No, it can't be.
No, no. Look, Rob Palenka yesterday. This is so today is Wednesday yesterday, which was Tuesday. They had me introductory press conference with Rob Palenka and Luca. And Rob said something really interesting.
Don't say really interesting, but he kind of just sort of let it slip. He said, this was a trade from GM to GM and owner to owner. And we naturally think it's coach is front office.
We think it's very like petty and linear. But when these franchises are worth an upwards of six, seven billion dollars, I think golden state is not worth $9 billion on the strength of Steph Curry's right hand. You know what I'm saying?
Like that's entire empires are built off of these things. So when you are making long term business decisions and you are saying we are okay with not paying Luca Doncic, a Slovenian superstar, international superstar in one of the biggest states, like there is something more to this. Like it makes too much sense to keep him on paper because he's so valuable to you for you to say, nah, because of basketball reasons, conditioning and everything else. Look, Jim, there are going to be basketball reasons, right? Oh, you can look at it in the finals. And you're like, man, did he have four files in game three of the finals and then tried to take the charge in the third quarter when JK kept him in the game?
And you know, it's stuff like that that makes you think, right? Yeah, you get the basketball reasons, but it's so much more. And Jim, I'm gonna tell you this. You brought the Zion Williamson contract. I wonder if this is like one of those things that from a bigger picture, our ownership groups going to say, not collude necessarily, but are they going to say the days of us just giving even to a top three player, we're just going to hand you $350 million because you've hit all the escalators for all NBA rookie of the year, everything else.
We're just going to give it to you. I don't know if that, you know, we're going to be more Zion Williamson, more Joel Embiid first level of his contract. The first max that Joel Embiid signed that had the weight clauses in there, the escalators in it and everything else.
I feel like we're going to have more contingencies and maybe Dallas just did not want to sign it. That's an a hundred. That cost Luca Doncic a hundred million dollars, a hundred million dollars. You know what rich people like more than money, Jim?
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Hyundai vehicles have won over 120 IIHS top safety awards from 2006 to 2024. But here's it and I'm glad you brought that up, too, because here's the thing you got to realize, too, from a from a purely from a business perspective. And again, the Adelson family is about business. OK, they make more money with the casinos in that business than the Mavericks will ever make, even when the value rises as a team and as a franchise. We're talking about billions of dollars.
So again, they're making this thing from more of a global perspective, short term, long term, short term. We can still compete. We can still have a really good chance of getting to the Western Conference Finals and getting to a championship. We still have to deal with the fact that if we were paid this 350, now we don't have flexibility to build out the team because you got to sign Kyrie in the following year. OK, and now you got to build 80s contract falls off the books. But, you know, that's that's later.
But if Luca was still there, he gobbles up this three fifty three forty five. You signed Kyrie. You're not going to have a lot of room left to be able to really resign and build it because the library is going to come up.
You got to build out this team. So I think owners are enough for for the Lakers. They get a discount because they can't sign Luca to the Supermats because they don't have his bird rights. They didn't draft them.
They don't drive it. So they got cap flexibility after LeBron falls off to really build for the future. So you got a short term play by Dallas, longer term play by L.A. Now, the business that I think was is what's going to happen with these owners.
I don't care how I pay up. I work with the Clippers, the richest owner in sports, one of the best owners in sports. He doesn't he doesn't want to go into the second apron. He doesn't want to go on a second apron. So the days of two to three mega superstars that are first team all NBA, like you said, I think we've turned the corner and teams are going to figure out, OK, I got my superstar.
How do I build up my team and my roster to stay under this apron to still be competitive? And if I have to move off of somebody, I'll move off of somebody in order to keep my competitive advantage. Am I far off on that?
No, you're not. Here's the you know, it's not forcing ownership to make decisions, Jimmy, right? It's forcing players to make decisions when players are in free agency, because once, let's just say a player, I'm not I'm not saying it just it's an example, but just because his name has been in my text message is because I've been trying to figure out if he's getting traded. Let's say Brandon Ingram has signed a max deal and you as a comparable player are saying I'm better than him. It's not how much he makes. It's the fact that he's a max player.
You're going to max me out because you maxed him out. Now it's going to be a little more a little more negotiation, a little bit more. Once you put that max label out there, Jimmy, and I understood it was implemented after the 99 lockout, the 98 lockout and you want to keep you know, that was after the Shaq big deal that was at the Michael Jordan's 2-1 year deals, that's the Kevin Garnett deal. You wanted to suppress salaries, but what wound up happening was that became a target. So it was no longer about negotiation.
It was here's the president. That's number I'm getting because it is a max deal and I am a quote unquote max player now because the money has gotten so exorbitant. You can't just say max player anymore in a team is going to say, OK, fine, we're going to max you out because he was maxed out somewhere else. Now players are going to have to make decisions and saying, OK, I'm playing with Luka Doncic or I'm playing with Victor Winbenyama or I'm playing with one of these one a top tier will forever get paid as long as he is the guy I have to decide, do I want to be a max player and get paid that somewhere else or do I take 25 percent less?
I'm just a number, maybe 10 percent, maybe 15 percent. Will I take less? Will they offer me less because they don't have room to play with? Like we look at like I said before, the TV deals that have come in, NBC, Amazon, like the usual partners. And we're saying the cap is going to rise. You're absolutely right.
The cap is going to rise. The problem is with the aprons and the lack of exceptions in room and flexibility, there's fewer mechanisms for you to actually get the money. You're just looking at it and saying, oh, it's money out there, go get it.
But how unless you are a top three player, a top four player, even in Luka Doncic's case, a top five player, it did not guarantee that you are going to get this money. And sometimes, Jimmy, there's nothing you can do about it. This may very well be the backlash of, quote unquote, player empowerment.
I don't know if it should be, but that's what it feels like. Yeah, it's one of those things, too, Vince, where I think owners are looking at it from the perspective of the money is getting out of control. How do I control the finances of the team now? Players are going to have to look at it, too, because, again, this all has to be negotiated. Look, one of the things that owners really want to push is for non guaranteed contract. OK, they've been trying to do that for years.
When I was in the union, I was a VP back in the day. They want to get rid of it. But what they've done, if you pay attention and you've been around this, it's OK. We can't get rid of non guaranteed money. But what we did, we cut down the years before you can sign a 10 year deal.
Like when C. Webb signed his 10 year deal, right? Yeah. Yeah. They cut it down to what? Six.
OK. But then they cut it down to five for your your your your home team. And then if you move as a free agent is four.
But then they've done this, too. A lot of teams got away with this with smarter, more of your marginal players, a one in one with the team option. Bruce Brown, when he went to Indiana on paper, it was a forty five million dollar contract, but only one year was guaranteed. The other one was a team option on the back end, I believe. Jack Londell went from Phoenix to Houston, signed a four year, 32 million dollar deal, but only the first year was guaranteed. So their window to pay now has been shortened on on on the books.
It may say 32, but it's not because it's not it's not guaranteed. It's a year to year. And when people see numbers on Twitter or whatever, you're making 32 million.
I'm almost becoming more NFL like. And then the agents push that the agents say, look what I got my client. Mm hmm.
Yep. But that's not really the narrative on a lot of it. No, because in the NFL, there's the signing bonuses. And because of the nature of how devastating the injuries are and the number of players, the system is a little bit different in the NBA. The specialization of this, it's only 300 players in the league or whatever it is like, this is the greatest 300 players in the world.
Everybody's trying to get to the show. So which means if you are here, you are trying to do theoretically everything you can to stay here, to lock in your place, to lock in your money, to lock in even opportunity of the franchise you're with. You even going back to the draft. The draft has changed where you used to be able to sign a guy. And it happened with the case of Big Dog and with Chris Webber. That's why Chris wound up leaving Golden Staff this rookie year and going to Washington, because there was an out after that. They started having basically these capped contracts where if you drafted number one, you're getting this, you're drafted number five, you're getting this.
There's no negotiation in it. After your third year, the team is going to make a decision. After your fourth year, you're going to go into a restricted free agency.
If you don't have some level of, you know what I'm saying? If you haven't reached an extension beforehand. And all that leads to is the itchiness of players trying to get out after that second deal, because you're locked into your rookie deal. You're by and large locked into the next deal because nobody leaves after your extension. So what has created has been, Jim, this system where players feel like, oh, after seven years, I can sign for 25 to 30 percent of the salary cap and I should be able to go where I want to go. The teams are looking at this, saying we are trying to build around you while we have you. And it's better for us to keep your wages suppressed while you're young, because, hey, you're still going to play and you're not going to be sort of incentivized to sit, as in some cases, you know what I mean? And we can do other things with veteran players to sign them to money on existing deals while we have you at a reasonable number. Like it's almost like the system is cratering a little bit in the players. Unfortunately for the players, they had a lot of disgruntledness and to their CBA because they hired someone who was not adept at dealing with real negotiations.
She seemed like she was adept at getting in front of that damn camera. You know what I mean? The nuts and bolts of it. Because right now, OKC is going to have to deal with that. Yeah. And they've handled everything well. And they're going to have to sell off players and draft pictures they've gotten because you can't draft everybody.
And you can't pay everybody that's currently, you know, that's coming up. So I'm going to bring it back to you a little bit, because I want to talk about the other traits, too. But the effects now that we're moving forward, we talked about we know it's more of a business deal.
We won't know what that is. I always say follow the money. The initial reaction is everybody's coming on and blah. I tend to be one, especially in business, in this game that I've been in 20 plus years. I'm not surprised by a lot of things. I was surprised by that. But once I dug into it and thought about all the information I got, maybe from 80s perspective of not wanting to play center, maybe not seeing eye to eye with J.J., I can understand stuff. And the Luca thing on that side with J. Kidd, Nico, I can understand that. Two things. Luca, L.A., has to resign. It's not a guarantee. The Lakers are going to have to sell him on that, how they're going to build out the roster.
The flip side of this is what I hate. A lot of vitriol is geared towards A.D. and Dallas and their fans. And I hope that's not the case because it's not A.D. Don't take it out on A.D. because you're upset at the Mavericks. OK?
And that's what concerns me a little bit is the reaction which they should have. You know, I formed myself as a young man in Dallas. And you played there.
Yeah, you know that market. And I understand the passion for, especially with Luca, they connected with him and got him to the finals, all of that. But don't take that frustration out on A.D. when he gets there and plays. Because I can already see it. If A.D. gets hurt or has a bad game, the press, the fans, all of them. And it's not him.
It's not him. So the business side of it, I say this and maybe you can chime in on the back end of this. There's a play here. We saw Caleb Martin get down there. OK, they made sure that China got another big forward 3 and D guy that can play. They're competing for a championship now.
To me, the bigger plays are still being shifted in this long term for L.A., short term for Dallas. As a business owner, you're always going that extra mile to pursue your passions. So you deserve partners who can help you go further with premium benefits and rewards. The American Express Business Platinum card offers world class business and travel benefits so you can get more for your business wherever it takes you. With the Amex Business Platinum card, you can earn one point five times membership rewards points on select business purchases, and you can get complimentary access to more than 1400 airport lounges worldwide, including the Centurion Lounge, so you can keep running your business while you're on the go. See how the Amex Business Platinum card gives business owners like you the tools and rewards to do more of what you love.
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Join AMAC and become part of a movement that stands for you, your family and your future. Here's the crazy thing because you are a broadcaster for the Clippers. The Clippers are the perfect example of we've played for now, we can play for later, but later doesn't have to mean five years down the line, right? Later in the NBA, we've traditionally thought of rebuilds and being a contending team as five year windows, right?
Now, because of all the player movement, Jim, it's like two to three. It takes two to three years to rebuild. Look at Oklahoma City. Once they lost Russ and Paul George, they had two or three back. Two bad years. And then boom, it's like, wait, they in the play in.
Wait, they got, they cooking here. That's the way that the system is made now for the great teams. You're not going to be able to hold onto your players as long. So you better max out when you got that window.
And if you're bad, you have enough mechanisms to get better quickly. So when I look at Dallas, I understand why Nico said, don't give me these draft picks. That's going to help another coach, another set of players, another GM. Cause I won't be gone by that point.
Cause I won't be able to feel the contending team in the meantime. I got a 32 year old Kyrie Irving of what? 34 year old Clay Thompson, the Gaffers, the PJ Washington.
Those guys are ready to cook. Now you got Derek Lively, who is mature beyond his years, a 20 year old, but still mature and ready to play at that team. Went to the NBA finals last year. You're trying to get back just because you traded Luca doesn't mean you're done competing. So when you go get an Anthony Davis who has played his best basketball, the last two seasons where he's played 92% of games and people don't know his position, where people are first impressions.
Once we make a decision about you, it does not matter what you've done later. You know what I mean? But the receipts on Anthony Davis has shown one of the best two way bigs in basketball. One of the most versatile bigs and basketball. He just happened to be put in the body bag by Nicola Jokic. My bad y'all newsflash. Everybody gets put in a body bag by Nicola Jokic.
If that's your biggest sin, then we all in trouble here. So when I look at the Lakers on the other side, I tell you this part two, Jimmy, this is the thing that I found curious. For the first time in LeBron James's career, he's a master at leverage, a master at seeing a play before it comes. He didn't see this play coming. So now for the first time in his career, a franchise has to consider someone else's wishes and needs before they consider his.
You said it. The Lakers, the job of Luca Doncic is just beginning. They have to they have to convince him and court him and hope that he signs a long term extension in these next two years, which may very well be the last two years of LeBron James's career. And if LeBron is not cool with that, they can't placate him. He's 40 years old. Luca Doncic is 25. You don't trade an Anthony Davis for another headliner if you don't plan on making the headliner your team for the next decade.
Great points, bro. It's it. And that's why I said it's you have to be able to see through all of the noise, understand the business side of this.
The swap doesn't make sense player wise because you got a young, transitional once in a generation player for an older player that's still balling. Mm hmm. But you only got so much left in the tank. So that I agree. Does it make unless it was so bad in Dallas that you had to do it?
But that that I don't think it was that bad. But right. Business side of it is where I say just pay attention to not just but everything that's going on around with the Mavericks ownership. OK, and where it's going. And then now what it makes sense later on is these moves like this.
And this is just just being around it. Not supposed to make a lot of sense today. Because it's a plan in place for down the line and then it comes together. The long game for I think for the Mavericks and the long game for the Lakers of the Lakers. Always been a franchise, especially when Dr. Bus took over that name on the back of the jersey. Always got to have a superstar, even if they're aging out like a Karl Malone, a Gary Payton, a Mitch Richmond.
It didn't matter. You got the White Howard. You got to have a star. So who better now? A European star that you haven't had with the Lakers that now attracts a whole different market.
OK, that's a great in L.A. That's a great it's a whole different market. You're you listen, Luca is going to be on. All the stuff internationally, all the Christmas game, I don't care what's going on.
Christmas Day games, that's all the prime time events. They're already watching them now with the Mavericks. Now he's with the Lakers intelligent.
You can say what you want about Rob Polinka. But right here for the few and we don't know, maybe they win and they don't. I don't know.
We cannot predict what's going to. But I'll tell you one thing, having Luca from an international perspective on your team in the second biggest market here, but New York, it's a global economy now, global economy, bro. I'll tell you this. I was born in eighty four. But since nineteen seventy five, the Lakers have gone a grand total of seven seasons without a bona fide headliner on their roster. Some teams have never had a headliner on their roster at that time, and they've gone a grand total of seven seasons. That's the years that Magic Johnson was out with HIV. The year between the two year, the three years between Kobe Bryant retiring and LeBron James coming, those were the only years that the Lakers were not must see TV and they were still even then living off the global brand that they that Magic had built, the Kareem had built. And then later on Shaq and Kobe.
Now they're going to be going into a different level of global economy where Luca Doncic sells tickets. He sells jerseys. And you pair him with the Laker brand. You pair him with like when you looked above his head, Jim, yesterday at the Lakers facility, all the championship trophies were shined up.
The numbers were on the wall. It almost feels like, oh, yeah, this is what the Lakers do. They trade for Kareem. Shaq comes in free agency. Kobe comes in the trade will comes in. They they don't draft, guys. They take yours.
Oh, man. A real quick before we get out of here, two things. One, I just want your thoughts real quick on the Darren Fox trade to San Antonio.
What that does for the acceleration process of wouldn't be short term and long term. Hey, they got a problem. We got problems. The league has a problem. We got problems. It's like like hand 50 cents in the club for the first time. You're like, buckle up.
We got a problem. That's what that is. Because now you have someone. Victor is a mature beyond his years guy. But now you have someone that he can that can give him the ball in the spaces that can run with him, that he can start a fast break with all on his own. And that speeds up everything the Spurs get going. And they didn't have to really give up young players with it. Right. You kept your Keldon Johnsons and guys like that.
That's a show of hands. Yeah, you kept all your guys that can be viewed as trade chips when you when you are really ready to really, really, really compete. So what do you think?
So that I think shifts. And it may be where we see them being more competitive, depending on also what's the pop factor to what's going to happen this year. You know, with pop and what he chooses to do, because as a godfather behind Pat Roddy, you can do whatever he wants. But that's going to be an interesting dynamic, too, with I think they'll be very competitive this year because of the year. But as you like you said, Victor, another year of maturing the cell show and those guys maturing more next year, they're going to be a beast. The last piece does the Kuzma to Milwaukee for Middleton move the needle enough for Milwaukee to really be a threat like we thought they would be if Chris Middleton was healthy to Boston and Cleveland, too.
It doesn't move the needle, but what it does is it eliminates the floor bottoming out. If Chris Middleton gets hurt, you know what I mean? Like it's one of those things where where the ceiling isn't as high where you know you're going to get if Milton is right. You're going to get the shot making. You're going to get the smart play. You're going to get the best defense that he could play at this stage of his of his life and where his body is. But if he's not healthy, then you don't have a second side player that you can swing the ball to and it just leaves you with nothing. Go look at those wings that they got.
God bless them. But they're not guys who can go and create their own shot. If the Giannis Dame pick and roll doesn't work, Kuzma is good enough to catch and shoot attack the, you know, attack the close out a guy like that. If Giannis and Dame ain't right, Jimmy, it don't matter what happened. They losing to Boston and losing to Cleveland and losing to New York. They'll lose to anybody if those two guys aren't right. But if they are right, you got a fighting chance and now you got a bigger wing that I think that can enable Giannis to play small ball center in some cases, too.
So it gave you a little more versatility, even if it's not a veteran guy in a traditional sense that we think of. Listen, man, we got the back half of the season. Really, we already passed a halfway point, but also our break.
And then let's at the end of the season, when we start to really get into that, the fine playoff makes play and game circle back, of course, and kind of see where we're at, you know, based off this conversation and what's happening in the league. I'm looking forward to it, man. Appreciate you, man. All right, bro. Appreciate you all the way from the D, even though you're in L.A. right now.
I love Miss Sunshine, baby. All right, man. I appreciate you, brother. I appreciate you all, man.
Again, great conversation today. Just want to remind you today is Wednesday, February the 5th. We're recording this early because of Super Bowl and everything going on.
But did want to remind you that tomorrow, February 6 at 3 p.m., is the trade deadline. And before I get out of here, got to give you my Super Bowl prediction, of course, which is going to be tough. I just it's hard for me to bet against Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid. And I love the story of Jalen Hurts and Saquon Barkley and what they've done this year and Saquon bidding for that MVP and the kind of redemption for him in New York, but also redemption for Jalen Hurts. But it's something about kind of like Bill Belichick being able to dial into a team's best asset. And he kind of takes that away. I kind of see that.
So I'm thinking twenty seven, twenty four. Kansas City comes down to it and Kansas City may have the ball at the end. And they take it home for three in a row. I wouldn't be mad if Philly gets it.
I'm a Steeler fan, but I think it's Kansas City, but I could be wrong. I've been wrong plenty of times, but it's going to be a great one. I'll be out having cigars, smoking some cigars and having some great times with friends. And I wish you the same. So thanks again for joining us. We'll see you next week. Look. The Benny Show sees it in all of its glory. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.
