September 23, 2025 • 27 mins
Jason reacts to the latest reporting from Shams Charania and The Athletic on the rift between Jonathan Kuminga and the Golden State Warriors, why Steph Curry and Jimmy Butler need a resolution to get training camp started, why the Dubs should trade JK to the Sacramento Kings for Malik Monk, and more. Then he answers mailbag questions on Nikola Jokic's all-time NBA rank, team building philosophies, and more.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. All right, Well, good to hoops tonight, you're
at the volume. Happy twosday everybody. Hope all of you
guys are having a great start to your week. It
feels good to be back from vacation. Have one last
(00:23):
little getaway before we start the season. I went up
to the Pacific Northwest again. I got to go to
a place I've never been before. We went to Olympic
National Park and I got to do My favorite highlight
of the trip was the Hurricane Ridge hike, where you
get to see like this crazy panorama. You see Mount
Olympus and all of the rest of the Olympic Range,
you see the Strait of Wundafuca, you see Victoria, see
(00:44):
Port Angeles. And then we had a clear day so
in the distance you could see Mount Baker, which was
a volcano I've been trying to see for years and
it's just always been covered by clouds or it's been
you know, in front of some ridge that I couldn't
see over something. So it was just like a really
cool trip. Got to do some relaxing, spend some time
with some friends that were up in the Pacific Northwest.
Had some of my old friends from Tucson meet us
(01:05):
up there. It was a great little getaway, but you
can sense it. We are a week away from training camp.
And in addition to being a week away from training camp,
the Golden State Warriors only have nine basketball players on
their roster right now, as the Jonathan Kaminga situation has
stretched through this entire summer, and so I wanted to
kind of touch base there and talk about some of
the new intel that we got from Sam Sharania and
(01:26):
just kind of give my take on where this situation
is going at this point. And then at the tail
end of the show today, I've got four mail bag questions.
We're gonna do a couple of mini mail bags this week.
You guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribe
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(01:49):
incredible work on our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook,
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last but not least, keep dropping mail bag questions in
the YouTube comments and we'll get to them in our
mail bags throughout the remainder of the season. All right,
let's talk some basketball. So the stalemate continues. We're just
one week away from the started training camp. The Warriors
have just nine players on the roster for next season.
(02:10):
Still a lot more exciting than what they were looking
at last season, given that Jimmy Butler is now in
the fold, and we saw a pretty extended stretch of
successful basketball from Steph, Jimmy and Raymond to end the season.
And theoretically there are a bunch of players guys like
Al Horford and Seth Curry and d Anthony Melton who
are most likely going to sign with Golden State. But
(02:31):
they're all waiting around for this Jonathan Minga situation and
nobody is blinking. Not a week ago, Shams Ronnie came
out with the report talking about how the Warriors have
raised their offer to essentially twenty five million per year
for three years, with a team option on that third year,
essentially coming up to the annual value that Josh Kitty
got from Chicago, but obviously shorter term, less guaranteed money.
(02:56):
Sean's reported that Kaminga's camp has basically told the Warriors
will take the if you just flip the team option
into a player option, basically adding twenty five million in
guaranteed money to the deal. Essentially, if he takes the
deal the Warriors are offering and he doesn't perform, either
for them or for whoever trades for him, there's a
version of this where the team declines the option and
(03:17):
he gets capped out at that fifty million, and he
could be looking at much smaller deals for the remainder
of his career. That's a potential risk that Kaminga would
be taking in that situation. Whereas for the Warriors, if
they give the player option at seventy five million guaranteed,
it suddenly becomes a more difficult contract to trade if
Jonathan Kaminga doesn't look good for the first half of
(03:37):
the season, and anybody who wants to trade for them
now has to consider the fact that they could be
paying twenty five million dollars for Jonathan Kaminga three seasons
from now. That could affect his value, and that essentially
is the sticking point, and Kaminga's camp is basically looking
at it saying like, hey, if Josh Gidty can get
twenty five million for four years, this is a fair
price for Jonathan. Now my feeling on like the value
(04:02):
of the contract is complicated. Do I want Jonathan Kaminga
on my team at twenty five million per year if
I'm trying to win the title this year? No, I
don't think he's in that phase of his career yet.
I don't think he's good enough in like a starring
role to justify the money, and I don't think he
(04:22):
can really focus his talents into a smaller role to
help a serious team win. Yet. Now, would I take
Jonathan Kaminga on my team for twenty five million a
year if I was in the middle of a rebuild
and I was like actively hunting for talent to build
around for the future, Yeah, I would. Let's take Josh
Gittty for example. I think Josh Getty's an intriguing player.
(04:45):
He's improved substantially as a three point shooter. I think
he's like a decent half court shot creator, just big
guard who can create advantages for his team. But I
also don't think that a team that's gonna pay Josh
Gitty twenty five million per year and to put the
ball in his hands essentially as a number one option
or number two option, I don't think that team's gonna
(05:06):
be competing for a title. I don't think Josh Gitty
has a ton of like untapped upside right like, I
don't think he's got the potential to become Luca Light
in five years. I don't. I don't think that's in
the cards for Josh Gitty. And so that's just too
much salary to tie up in a player who's at
his best with the ball in his hands, but just
(05:28):
not nearly as good as the other guys who will
have the ball in their hands around the league in
high volume. Last year, despite the flashes that he showed,
Josh Gutty was less than a point per possession including
passes in pick and roll in like over six hundred reps.
He's not flashing some serious, untapped, like all NBA ball
handler upside. So even if we think Josh Gitty might
(05:51):
be a better player than Jonathan Kminga right now, I
actually do think Jonathan Kaminga has real untapped upside I
don't think he's gonna be an All NBA player or anything.
That seems to be a long shot at this point,
but I do think he could make an All Star
team or two. In fact, like if I was stuck
in basketball purgatory the way the Chicago Bulls are, I
(06:15):
would rather be taking my chances with a guy like Kaminga.
Give him the ball a ton, you won't be as
good in the short term, but let's see how he
can develop. Let's see if he becomes a player that
can make an All Star team. He's got upside. I
think there's actually value there. So to be clear, like
if I was in a position where I was rebuilding,
I think that's a fair contract price for a guy
(06:38):
like Jonathan Kaminga. The problem is, there was no obvious
team this summer that had the cap space for Johnathan
Kaminga and had that type of role available, And the
Warriors don't have that type of role available. So now
the Warriors are in a buy. They either have to
risk signing Kaminga into that type of salary slot, or
(06:59):
they have to try rate him back and take similarly
flawed salary, and it appears that they're not willing to
do so. All we've all heard they don't want Malik Monk.
I like Malink. I think he'd be a good fit
in the Golden State system. Like they need scoring pop,
they need guys who can like really be dynamic coming
off of dribble handoffs. I think a guy like Malik
(07:19):
Monk could do that. But he's got another sixty million
dollars on his deal and the Warriors don't want to
take that on. And this is where I think the
Warriors need a little bit of a reality check. Even
if you signed Jonathan Kaminga to a team friendly deal,
like what's let's say that Kaminga accepted their first offer,
which the reports said were like two for forty, so
twenty million per for two years, and that's not even
(07:41):
the offer anymore. The line has moved. The line has
moved to two for fifty, essentially with that team option
on the back end. But like, even if he even
if you did sign him at two for forty, it's
not like Kaminga is gonna suddenly become some massively valuable
asset that's going to return a haul in a trade,
like a bunch of good players and picks. Kaminga on
(08:01):
his new deal, regardless of whether the Warriors signed him
to it or someone else signs him to it. It's
somewhat risky because it's going to be twenty plus million
with multiple years for a young player that right now
isn't very good, but that has a lot of upside,
that has talent. He's flawed, though, there is risk there
(08:22):
no matter what when you're taking a large salary slot
like yeah, So Malik Monk to me is just a
similar type of risk. It's a little different in the
sense that he's older and he's more of a known commodity.
But Malik Monk right now can do more for the
Warriors than Jonathan Kaminga can. So he's a risky contract
with real value in the immediate future, as opposed to
(08:46):
Jonathan Minga, who if you did happen to get on
a deal like that, is also going to tie up
your books for multiple years and has more risk. And
there's a version of this where he's not even in
your rotation when things matter. We know, we just saw
that last year when you threw him on the court
after Steph Curry got hurt. So essentially what I'm saying
is Kaminga's value is Kaminga's value right now? It's Malik
(09:11):
Monk and a protected first round pick. I don't think
that if you somehow signed Jonathan Kaminga to a team
friendly deal, like let's say you get him on that
deal that you're offering the two plus one with the
team option. I don't think he's suddenly going to pull
back some awesome young player and an unprotected first round pick.
(09:31):
I don't think he's going not unless you somehow manage
to rehab his value. And we just have such a
large sample size now of him being a clearly clunky
fit with the team. Like I've heard the Warriors want
Keegan Murray in the deal. Why would the Kings do that.
Keegan's a much better player than Jonathan Kaminga. That's a
(09:52):
different class of asset that you would be bringing back
in a deal like that. Your chance to turn Jonathan
Kamina into real asset return was two years ago, when
he was still on his rookie contract with multiple years remaining,
with more of an unknown regarding his upside, and you
(10:13):
were much more likely to get something like a really
good young player and a unprotected first round pick for
jk that time has passed. He's no longer a high
value asset. He's gonna be making twenty plus million in
the future. So my thing is, like I would have
just taken them Elik Monk deal. I think he addresses
(10:36):
a legitimate need with that scoring pop. He's already been
kind of functioning in a five out offense with a
passing folkrum big like Demanta Sabonis. You have a track
record as the Warriors of turning like mediocre defensive guards
into guys that can fill a role like I thought
Buddy Yield was fine defensively last year. Monk's a better
(11:00):
player than him. You have a specific need for more
dynamic play at the guard spot in your rotation. He
brings athleticism. I think he's a look. I rooted for
him when he was with the Lakers. The dude's competitive,
he plays hard. He's not perfect, He's got his flaws.
He's small on defense, he can be a little helter skelter,
(11:21):
and he can get out of position sometimes. But again,
you're bringing him into a much smarter organization than where
he's been in years past. And I get it. It's
a protected first round pick, and those aren't worth as
much as they used to be, but it's still a
positive asset. You're turning Kaminga into a player that can
(11:41):
help you in the short term. Yeah, Okay, Malik Monk's
got twenty million on the books. Three years from now,
who cares. You're most likely blowing the team up at
that point. This this feels like very much like a
two year window where you're trying to make this happen
and you get a positive asset in the form of
pick that you can then either package in the middle
(12:02):
of the season for an all in type of move
or you can hold for the future rebuild. I just
don't think they're gonna get more down the line. I
don't think there's some substantially better offer in February, So
you might as well go into camp with your roster set,
give him a league Monk, a chance to really learn
(12:24):
the system, give him a full training camp. But I mean,
all indications are that that deal is dead on the
Warriors front. They either want the pick protections removed or
they want a better player in, like a guy like
Keegan Murray. And so it just feels like the latest
(12:45):
example of the Warriors passing the buck on these young
players on the situation with these young players, which is
something they've been doing for years now in this era,
and it's just unfortunate because it just feels foolish for
everybody involved now. And honestly, like, even if the Warriors
do somehow, let's say they flip it to a player
option and you give Kaminga the three for seventy five,
(13:09):
it's just gonna be the exact same situation this year,
him being a clunky fit in and out of the rotation,
weak trade offers coming in return that involves some sort
of flawed player coming back and some sort of protected
draft asset. I think there's just a little bit of
a reality check that Golden State needs at this point.
(13:31):
All right, let's get to some mailback questions and then
we'll get out of here for today. Today's show is
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or Virginia. Simple question, what's the highest you could see
jokics climb all time? Such a tough guy to put
up against other all timers, particularly bigs, because of his
lack of rim protection as a center. Sometimes I feel
(15:18):
you're almost better off not judging him as a big,
But I truly think he finished his top ten all time.
Keep up the good work, Jason, love the show. Thank
you so much for the kind words. I think the
point you're making about him being viewed as a center
is very interesting because it's not so much that I
don't judge him as a big as it is that
I just judge him more as an offensive engine. Right Like,
(15:40):
for instance, when you're talking about Larry Bird all Time.
Larry Bird was a guy who certainly wasn't a bad
defensive player, but he was known for being the offensive
engine of the Boston Celtics. Whereas you look at the
centers in the all time list, the Chema lodged One's
Bill Russell. When you're looking at those guys, you're looking
(16:01):
at them as defensive fulcrums, which obviously Jokic is not.
But as we've talked about, like Steph Curry, for me,
ranks really high. I think he's the fifth best perimeter
player of all time, somewhere in the back half of
the top ten if you include centers. Steph is really
high for me. And that's not a guy that you're
anchoring a defense around. So like I see, Jokic is
fitting more than mold of Steph as like a guy
(16:23):
that you're putting on the list as one of the
great offensive players to ever play the game. I think
he's personally the best offensive player I've ever seen play
the game. The problem is with the top ten lists
or all time lists, is you're running into some insane resumes.
You talk about Lebron with four championships, Michael Jordan with
(16:45):
six championships. You talked about Kobe, Like when you start
to look at Kobe's resume, and I think he's just
become a profoundly underrated player over time. The dude's won
five titles and like, okay, yeah he won three. With Shaq,
he won two in a row. How many players in
NBA his have won multiple consecutive championships. That's a real
accomplishment on that resume. You look at Steph with with
(17:09):
his four championships, you look at Larry Bird with his three,
you look at Magic Johnson with his five. You're running
into these crazy lists. The Chema Lagoon in the middle
of the nineties, rips off back to back championships, looks
like the best player in the league a couple of
years in a row. It's just the resumes get so
insane that it feels like it's going to be tough
(17:29):
for Jokic to move too much higher. Now, do I
think that you have to look at it in terms
of just counting championships? Of course not. It's way more
complicated than that. The game of basketball is way more
complicated than that. But in order for Jokic to get
into that top ten and to really entrench himself there,
I think he's gonna have to win two more And like,
(17:50):
it's just feels like a pretty short window for the Nuggets,
right now, you'd have to win this year and probably
within the following two years after that, and that's just
a lot to ask, So, like, do I think he
has that potential? Certainly I could. Could I see universe
where Yokich wins the next two championships? Of course he can.
It's just really hard. The league is super deep, there's
all these young players coming up, there's so many good
(18:13):
teams right now. So it's just it feels to me
like a long shot that he actually gets into the
top ten because of the strength of the resumes that
he'll have to cross in order to get there. But
certainly it's a possibility. It's just you start looking up,
you start looking at the guys at the top of
that list, and it's just an insane set of talent
that accomplished a lot in this league. Next question more
(18:35):
of a philosophical one here, Jason. You obviously have a
pension for offensive gurus and orchestrators like Luka and Jokic
over high level scorers, and that's fine, but don't forget
the last two champions were led by players that were
distinctly not offensive hubs, but were excellent at what they did.
Shay and tatem And before Jokic and twenty three, and
both Giannis and Kawhi led their teams to championships also
without being offensive hubs. Could there be an actual ceiling
(18:57):
for teams which are led by do it all offensive hubs.
So here's the thing. When I'm talking about the foundational
player that you're building a team around, we're talking about
it within the context of starting from scratch. Ultimately, basketball
is a team sport, and as you start to look
(19:17):
through those situations, they were kind of roster abnormalities, right
Like Kawhi Entard won the title with the twenty nineteen
Raptors because they were a team that literally was ripping
off sixty win seasons with Demarta Rosen as their best player.
(19:39):
They successfully flip for Kawhi, and Kawhi is able to
push them over the top into winning the championship. That
is not starting with Kawhi and then building a championship
team around him. He was effectively a mercenary that became
the tip of the spear and helped them win the
title Oklahoma City. He has an insane amount of talent
(20:02):
because they were a beneficiary of one of the most
lopside in retrospect lopsided trades in NBA history. At the time,
obviously it felt normal, but as we look back, you
look at they got the better player in the trade
and an insane amount of draft assets that has allowed
them to pile up an insane amount of uniquely talented
players that you don't typically see on a roster. Shake
(20:25):
Gilders Alexander has pushed them over the top into being champions.
But that is a unique roster situation. When I'm talking about,
like in Boston, sane thing, like they literally had five
players who on the open market would fetch north of
thirty million dollars a year. So yes, you can't. You
(20:45):
can win a championship with any archetype of player, but
if I'm starting from scratch in a vacuum, I want
to have it be a player that is easiest to
build around and for me if I am for me,
Like one of my overarching basketball philosophies is that offense
(21:07):
flows down from advantage creation. Defense flows down, and you
obviously need defensive talent, but defensive defense has a lot
to do with coaching. Defense has a lot to do
with buy in. Defense has a lot to do with
individual players from the start of the season, building connectivity
in their defensive rotations. We have seen so many examples
(21:28):
of teams with mediocre defensive talent win the title because
they came together, like the twenty sixteen Calves for example,
or the twenty twenty three Nuggets. We've seen that done.
But to me, offense flows down from advantage creation, and
so for me, if I'm starting from scratch, I think
(21:50):
it's easiest to build a championship level roster around a
top end offensive initiator. But that's just my basketball philosophy.
And again, like again, essentially, what I'm saying is like, yeah,
if we start looking at individual situations, like yeah, like
if the Toronto Raptors would have traded Demarta Rosen and
(22:12):
got back Luka Doncicic right now, I also think they
win the title. I literally said in our player rankings
that if you took this version of Luca, the one
we saw in EuroBasket and dropped it on last year's
thunder team, I think they win the title. And I
think they win it more easily, especially in the playoff runt.
So the point I'm trying to make is like, yeah,
(22:32):
we as we look at individual situations, and individual situations
that led to massive accumulations of talent. You can win
with any type of best player, but if I'm starting
from scratch in a vacuum, I believe it is easiest
to build a championship team around a supreme offensive engine,
because from there I have the flexibility to bring in
(22:54):
defensive players that play well with an advantage. Like a
lot of guys who can do jobs on defense but
struggle with offense. But the job is so easy for
them because they're playing with such insane advantages that they
become useful offensive players. I like my ability to build
(23:15):
around that type of player, versus if I have an
elite score, I now have to like figure out how
am I building the rest of the offense. Can I
play this flawed defensive player, this defensive minded player who
is flawed on offense. Can I play him alongside a
player that doesn't do a great job handling double teams
or that doesn't create a ton of advantages throughout the game.
(23:38):
I just think it's harder. By the way, I'm not
saying that there's some chasm. I'm not saying that like
it's offensive initiators and then everyone else sucks I'm just saying,
if I'm ranking the archetypes of players, I'm gonna go
with that advantage creating offensive engine type of offensive player.
Then probably the supreme two way score, then probably the
(23:58):
defensive anchor big you know, that Anthony Davis type of player.
It's one of the big kind of like paths for
Victor winn Minyama and his development. Is he going to
become a supreme scorer? Is he going to just be
this like defensive hub who never really becomes the elite
scorer that he needs to be. That's going to be
a big part of what helps Victor women Yama reach
(24:20):
his ultimate potential. But for me, if I'm starting from
scratch in a vacuum, I want that offensive engine archetype.
A couple questions surrounding the top ten lists that we
did last week, Hi, Jason Huges Fan since like twenty
twenty three, is so, I'm curious to see your reasoning
and picking Shaq's two thousand and one playoff run over
his two thousand playoff runt. I can see why the
two thousand and one plaoff run can be picked, but
in my opinion, the two thousand and one is better
(24:41):
to start, the workload was drastically different, which was mostly
due to Kobe really coming into his own during the
two thousand and one playoffs. The usage right between the
two runs is mostly the same, but that leans to
two thousand, when he was able to win the title
while Kobe wasn't as reliable yet as a co star.
There were a legitimate slugfest series that Shack and probably
only Shaq could have bailed them out of. And I
can get behind the two thousand and one playoff run
being the better all time team, but in terms of
(25:03):
individual dominance, I think the two thousand Shack was a
smidge better, even if we're nitpicking at the end of
the day. Also, Shaq was scoring Champ and regular season
MVP during two thousand, which is not as important to me,
but still our nice notches to have. Thank you if
you read this. So here's the deal. I agree with
everything that you're saying. I do think that Shack in
that year two thousand season was just more locked in
(25:24):
from start to finish and was a better player, but
we were just operating within confines of that list. For me,
it was the last twenty five seasons, so that was
gonna be from two thousand and one to twenty twenty five.
We had similar examples, Like when we were talking about
I kind of like Jerry rigged the system a little
bit to fit to fit the Reggie Miller Pacers in there,
(25:44):
because I wanted to include that year two thousand run
as a run where they were pretty close. But it
was like kind of breaking the rules a little bit
because I was going from two thousand and one to
twenty twenty five, So instead I highlighted the twenty fourteen
that came very close to beating the Pistons, right, So
like I was just kind of rating within those confines,
and to me, that two thousand and one team was
a reasonable way for me to capitalize on that within
(26:06):
the rules of the list. Last question, I had a
lot of people talking about how I forgot or didn't
have Kevin Garnett in my top Defenders list. It was
literally just accidental oversight I don't have. It wasn't like
I was trying to disrespect Kevin in any way. It's
just I'm piecing together five top ten lists and it's
just something slipped through the cracks. If you guys want
(26:27):
to hear my thoughts on KG and his defense and
his ceiling. I went over it pretty extensively in our
Top ten Peaks video, which Kevin Garnett did make on Monday.
So for all of you wondering why that happened, it
was literally just an accident on my part, just to
oversight something that slipped through the cracks. All right, guys,
it's all I have for today. There's always a sincerely
appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show.
(26:47):
We'll be back later this week with another one of
those live streams on playback, as well as a video
talking about the Los Angeles Clippers and some more mailbag questions.
I will see you guys then
The volume. All right, Well, good to hoops tonight, you're
at the volume. Happy twosday everybody. Hope all of you
guys are having a great start to your week. It
feels good to be back from vacation. Have one last
(00:23):
little getaway before we start the season. I went up
to the Pacific Northwest again. I got to go to
a place I've never been before. We went to Olympic
National Park and I got to do My favorite highlight
of the trip was the Hurricane Ridge hike, where you
get to see like this crazy panorama. You see Mount
Olympus and all of the rest of the Olympic Range,
you see the Strait of Wundafuca, you see Victoria, see
(00:44):
Port Angeles. And then we had a clear day so
in the distance you could see Mount Baker, which was
a volcano I've been trying to see for years and
it's just always been covered by clouds or it's been
you know, in front of some ridge that I couldn't
see over something. So it was just like a really
cool trip. Got to do some relaxing, spend some time
with some friends that were up in the Pacific Northwest.
Had some of my old friends from Tucson meet us
(01:05):
up there. It was a great little getaway, but you
can sense it. We are a week away from training camp.
And in addition to being a week away from training camp,
the Golden State Warriors only have nine basketball players on
their roster right now, as the Jonathan Kaminga situation has
stretched through this entire summer, and so I wanted to
kind of touch base there and talk about some of
the new intel that we got from Sam Sharania and
(01:26):
just kind of give my take on where this situation
is going at this point. And then at the tail
end of the show today, I've got four mail bag questions.
We're gonna do a couple of mini mail bags this week.
You guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribe
to Hoops and O YouTube channels. You don't miss any
more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at Underscore
JSNLT so you guys don't miss show announcements. So forget
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Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a
rating and a review on that front. Jackson's also doing
(01:49):
incredible work on our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook,
and TikTok. Make sure you guys follow us there, and then,
last but not least, keep dropping mail bag questions in
the YouTube comments and we'll get to them in our
mail bags throughout the remainder of the season. All right,
let's talk some basketball. So the stalemate continues. We're just
one week away from the started training camp. The Warriors
have just nine players on the roster for next season.
(02:10):
Still a lot more exciting than what they were looking
at last season, given that Jimmy Butler is now in
the fold, and we saw a pretty extended stretch of
successful basketball from Steph, Jimmy and Raymond to end the season.
And theoretically there are a bunch of players guys like
Al Horford and Seth Curry and d Anthony Melton who
are most likely going to sign with Golden State. But
(02:31):
they're all waiting around for this Jonathan Minga situation and
nobody is blinking. Not a week ago, Shams Ronnie came
out with the report talking about how the Warriors have
raised their offer to essentially twenty five million per year
for three years, with a team option on that third year,
essentially coming up to the annual value that Josh Kitty
got from Chicago, but obviously shorter term, less guaranteed money.
(02:56):
Sean's reported that Kaminga's camp has basically told the Warriors
will take the if you just flip the team option
into a player option, basically adding twenty five million in
guaranteed money to the deal. Essentially, if he takes the
deal the Warriors are offering and he doesn't perform, either
for them or for whoever trades for him, there's a
version of this where the team declines the option and
(03:17):
he gets capped out at that fifty million, and he
could be looking at much smaller deals for the remainder
of his career. That's a potential risk that Kaminga would
be taking in that situation. Whereas for the Warriors, if
they give the player option at seventy five million guaranteed,
it suddenly becomes a more difficult contract to trade if
Jonathan Kaminga doesn't look good for the first half of
(03:37):
the season, and anybody who wants to trade for them
now has to consider the fact that they could be
paying twenty five million dollars for Jonathan Kaminga three seasons
from now. That could affect his value, and that essentially
is the sticking point, and Kaminga's camp is basically looking
at it saying like, hey, if Josh Gidty can get
twenty five million for four years, this is a fair
price for Jonathan. Now my feeling on like the value
(04:02):
of the contract is complicated. Do I want Jonathan Kaminga
on my team at twenty five million per year if
I'm trying to win the title this year? No, I
don't think he's in that phase of his career yet.
I don't think he's good enough in like a starring
role to justify the money, and I don't think he
(04:22):
can really focus his talents into a smaller role to
help a serious team win. Yet. Now, would I take
Jonathan Kaminga on my team for twenty five million a
year if I was in the middle of a rebuild
and I was like actively hunting for talent to build
around for the future, Yeah, I would. Let's take Josh
Gittty for example. I think Josh Getty's an intriguing player.
(04:45):
He's improved substantially as a three point shooter. I think
he's like a decent half court shot creator, just big
guard who can create advantages for his team. But I
also don't think that a team that's gonna pay Josh
Gitty twenty five million per year and to put the
ball in his hands essentially as a number one option
or number two option, I don't think that team's gonna
(05:06):
be competing for a title. I don't think Josh Gitty
has a ton of like untapped upside right like, I
don't think he's got the potential to become Luca Light
in five years. I don't. I don't think that's in
the cards for Josh Gitty. And so that's just too
much salary to tie up in a player who's at
his best with the ball in his hands, but just
(05:28):
not nearly as good as the other guys who will
have the ball in their hands around the league in
high volume. Last year, despite the flashes that he showed,
Josh Gutty was less than a point per possession including
passes in pick and roll in like over six hundred reps.
He's not flashing some serious, untapped, like all NBA ball
handler upside. So even if we think Josh Gitty might
(05:51):
be a better player than Jonathan Kminga right now, I
actually do think Jonathan Kaminga has real untapped upside I
don't think he's gonna be an All NBA player or anything.
That seems to be a long shot at this point,
but I do think he could make an All Star
team or two. In fact, like if I was stuck
in basketball purgatory the way the Chicago Bulls are, I
(06:15):
would rather be taking my chances with a guy like Kaminga.
Give him the ball a ton, you won't be as
good in the short term, but let's see how he
can develop. Let's see if he becomes a player that
can make an All Star team. He's got upside. I
think there's actually value there. So to be clear, like
if I was in a position where I was rebuilding,
I think that's a fair contract price for a guy
(06:38):
like Jonathan Kaminga. The problem is, there was no obvious
team this summer that had the cap space for Johnathan
Kaminga and had that type of role available, And the
Warriors don't have that type of role available. So now
the Warriors are in a buy. They either have to
risk signing Kaminga into that type of salary slot, or
(06:59):
they have to try rate him back and take similarly
flawed salary, and it appears that they're not willing to
do so. All we've all heard they don't want Malik Monk.
I like Malink. I think he'd be a good fit
in the Golden State system. Like they need scoring pop,
they need guys who can like really be dynamic coming
off of dribble handoffs. I think a guy like Malik
(07:19):
Monk could do that. But he's got another sixty million
dollars on his deal and the Warriors don't want to
take that on. And this is where I think the
Warriors need a little bit of a reality check. Even
if you signed Jonathan Kaminga to a team friendly deal,
like what's let's say that Kaminga accepted their first offer,
which the reports said were like two for forty, so
twenty million per for two years, and that's not even
(07:41):
the offer anymore. The line has moved. The line has
moved to two for fifty, essentially with that team option
on the back end. But like, even if he even
if you did sign him at two for forty, it's
not like Kaminga is gonna suddenly become some massively valuable
asset that's going to return a haul in a trade,
like a bunch of good players and picks. Kaminga on
(08:01):
his new deal, regardless of whether the Warriors signed him
to it or someone else signs him to it. It's
somewhat risky because it's going to be twenty plus million
with multiple years for a young player that right now
isn't very good, but that has a lot of upside,
that has talent. He's flawed, though, there is risk there
(08:22):
no matter what when you're taking a large salary slot
like yeah, So Malik Monk to me is just a
similar type of risk. It's a little different in the
sense that he's older and he's more of a known commodity.
But Malik Monk right now can do more for the
Warriors than Jonathan Kaminga can. So he's a risky contract
with real value in the immediate future, as opposed to
(08:46):
Jonathan Minga, who if you did happen to get on
a deal like that, is also going to tie up
your books for multiple years and has more risk. And
there's a version of this where he's not even in
your rotation when things matter. We know, we just saw
that last year when you threw him on the court
after Steph Curry got hurt. So essentially what I'm saying
is Kaminga's value is Kaminga's value right now? It's Malik
(09:11):
Monk and a protected first round pick. I don't think
that if you somehow signed Jonathan Kaminga to a team
friendly deal, like let's say you get him on that
deal that you're offering the two plus one with the
team option. I don't think he's suddenly going to pull
back some awesome young player and an unprotected first round pick.
(09:31):
I don't think he's going not unless you somehow manage
to rehab his value. And we just have such a
large sample size now of him being a clearly clunky
fit with the team. Like I've heard the Warriors want
Keegan Murray in the deal. Why would the Kings do that.
Keegan's a much better player than Jonathan Kaminga. That's a
(09:52):
different class of asset that you would be bringing back
in a deal like that. Your chance to turn Jonathan
Kamina into real asset return was two years ago, when
he was still on his rookie contract with multiple years remaining,
with more of an unknown regarding his upside, and you
(10:13):
were much more likely to get something like a really
good young player and a unprotected first round pick for
jk that time has passed. He's no longer a high
value asset. He's gonna be making twenty plus million in
the future. So my thing is, like I would have
just taken them Elik Monk deal. I think he addresses
(10:36):
a legitimate need with that scoring pop. He's already been
kind of functioning in a five out offense with a
passing folkrum big like Demanta Sabonis. You have a track
record as the Warriors of turning like mediocre defensive guards
into guys that can fill a role like I thought
Buddy Yield was fine defensively last year. Monk's a better
(11:00):
player than him. You have a specific need for more
dynamic play at the guard spot in your rotation. He
brings athleticism. I think he's a look. I rooted for
him when he was with the Lakers. The dude's competitive,
he plays hard. He's not perfect, He's got his flaws.
He's small on defense, he can be a little helter skelter,
(11:21):
and he can get out of position sometimes. But again,
you're bringing him into a much smarter organization than where
he's been in years past. And I get it. It's
a protected first round pick, and those aren't worth as
much as they used to be, but it's still a
positive asset. You're turning Kaminga into a player that can
(11:41):
help you in the short term. Yeah, Okay, Malik Monk's
got twenty million on the books. Three years from now,
who cares. You're most likely blowing the team up at
that point. This this feels like very much like a
two year window where you're trying to make this happen
and you get a positive asset in the form of
pick that you can then either package in the middle
(12:02):
of the season for an all in type of move
or you can hold for the future rebuild. I just
don't think they're gonna get more down the line. I
don't think there's some substantially better offer in February, So
you might as well go into camp with your roster set,
give him a league Monk, a chance to really learn
(12:24):
the system, give him a full training camp. But I mean,
all indications are that that deal is dead on the
Warriors front. They either want the pick protections removed or
they want a better player in, like a guy like
Keegan Murray. And so it just feels like the latest
(12:45):
example of the Warriors passing the buck on these young
players on the situation with these young players, which is
something they've been doing for years now in this era,
and it's just unfortunate because it just feels foolish for
everybody involved now. And honestly, like, even if the Warriors
do somehow, let's say they flip it to a player
option and you give Kaminga the three for seventy five,
(13:09):
it's just gonna be the exact same situation this year,
him being a clunky fit in and out of the rotation,
weak trade offers coming in return that involves some sort
of flawed player coming back and some sort of protected
draft asset. I think there's just a little bit of
a reality check that Golden State needs at this point.
(13:31):
All right, let's get to some mailback questions and then
we'll get out of here for today. Today's show is
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or Virginia. Simple question, what's the highest you could see
jokics climb all time? Such a tough guy to put
up against other all timers, particularly bigs, because of his
lack of rim protection as a center. Sometimes I feel
(15:18):
you're almost better off not judging him as a big,
But I truly think he finished his top ten all time.
Keep up the good work, Jason, love the show. Thank
you so much for the kind words. I think the
point you're making about him being viewed as a center
is very interesting because it's not so much that I
don't judge him as a big as it is that
I just judge him more as an offensive engine. Right Like,
(15:40):
for instance, when you're talking about Larry Bird all Time.
Larry Bird was a guy who certainly wasn't a bad
defensive player, but he was known for being the offensive
engine of the Boston Celtics. Whereas you look at the
centers in the all time list, the Chema lodged One's
Bill Russell. When you're looking at those guys, you're looking
(16:01):
at them as defensive fulcrums, which obviously Jokic is not.
But as we've talked about, like Steph Curry, for me,
ranks really high. I think he's the fifth best perimeter
player of all time, somewhere in the back half of
the top ten if you include centers. Steph is really
high for me. And that's not a guy that you're
anchoring a defense around. So like I see, Jokic is
fitting more than mold of Steph as like a guy
(16:23):
that you're putting on the list as one of the
great offensive players to ever play the game. I think
he's personally the best offensive player I've ever seen play
the game. The problem is with the top ten lists
or all time lists, is you're running into some insane resumes.
You talk about Lebron with four championships, Michael Jordan with
(16:45):
six championships. You talked about Kobe, Like when you start
to look at Kobe's resume, and I think he's just
become a profoundly underrated player over time. The dude's won
five titles and like, okay, yeah he won three. With Shaq,
he won two in a row. How many players in
NBA his have won multiple consecutive championships. That's a real
accomplishment on that resume. You look at Steph with with
(17:09):
his four championships, you look at Larry Bird with his three,
you look at Magic Johnson with his five. You're running
into these crazy lists. The Chema Lagoon in the middle
of the nineties, rips off back to back championships, looks
like the best player in the league a couple of
years in a row. It's just the resumes get so
insane that it feels like it's going to be tough
(17:29):
for Jokic to move too much higher. Now, do I
think that you have to look at it in terms
of just counting championships? Of course not. It's way more
complicated than that. The game of basketball is way more
complicated than that. But in order for Jokic to get
into that top ten and to really entrench himself there,
I think he's gonna have to win two more And like,
(17:50):
it's just feels like a pretty short window for the Nuggets,
right now, you'd have to win this year and probably
within the following two years after that, and that's just
a lot to ask, So, like, do I think he
has that potential? Certainly I could. Could I see universe
where Yokich wins the next two championships? Of course he can.
It's just really hard. The league is super deep, there's
all these young players coming up, there's so many good
(18:13):
teams right now. So it's just it feels to me
like a long shot that he actually gets into the
top ten because of the strength of the resumes that
he'll have to cross in order to get there. But
certainly it's a possibility. It's just you start looking up,
you start looking at the guys at the top of
that list, and it's just an insane set of talent
that accomplished a lot in this league. Next question more
(18:35):
of a philosophical one here, Jason. You obviously have a
pension for offensive gurus and orchestrators like Luka and Jokic
over high level scorers, and that's fine, but don't forget
the last two champions were led by players that were
distinctly not offensive hubs, but were excellent at what they did.
Shay and tatem And before Jokic and twenty three, and
both Giannis and Kawhi led their teams to championships also
without being offensive hubs. Could there be an actual ceiling
(18:57):
for teams which are led by do it all offensive hubs.
So here's the thing. When I'm talking about the foundational
player that you're building a team around, we're talking about
it within the context of starting from scratch. Ultimately, basketball
is a team sport, and as you start to look
(19:17):
through those situations, they were kind of roster abnormalities, right
Like Kawhi Entard won the title with the twenty nineteen
Raptors because they were a team that literally was ripping
off sixty win seasons with Demarta Rosen as their best player.
(19:39):
They successfully flip for Kawhi, and Kawhi is able to
push them over the top into winning the championship. That
is not starting with Kawhi and then building a championship
team around him. He was effectively a mercenary that became
the tip of the spear and helped them win the
title Oklahoma City. He has an insane amount of talent
(20:02):
because they were a beneficiary of one of the most
lopside in retrospect lopsided trades in NBA history. At the time,
obviously it felt normal, but as we look back, you
look at they got the better player in the trade
and an insane amount of draft assets that has allowed
them to pile up an insane amount of uniquely talented
players that you don't typically see on a roster. Shake
(20:25):
Gilders Alexander has pushed them over the top into being champions.
But that is a unique roster situation. When I'm talking about,
like in Boston, sane thing, like they literally had five
players who on the open market would fetch north of
thirty million dollars a year. So yes, you can't. You
(20:45):
can win a championship with any archetype of player, but
if I'm starting from scratch in a vacuum, I want
to have it be a player that is easiest to
build around and for me if I am for me,
Like one of my overarching basketball philosophies is that offense
(21:07):
flows down from advantage creation. Defense flows down, and you
obviously need defensive talent, but defensive defense has a lot
to do with coaching. Defense has a lot to do
with buy in. Defense has a lot to do with
individual players from the start of the season, building connectivity
in their defensive rotations. We have seen so many examples
(21:28):
of teams with mediocre defensive talent win the title because
they came together, like the twenty sixteen Calves for example,
or the twenty twenty three Nuggets. We've seen that done.
But to me, offense flows down from advantage creation, and
so for me, if I'm starting from scratch, I think
(21:50):
it's easiest to build a championship level roster around a
top end offensive initiator. But that's just my basketball philosophy.
And again, like again, essentially, what I'm saying is like, yeah,
if we start looking at individual situations, like yeah, like
if the Toronto Raptors would have traded Demarta Rosen and
(22:12):
got back Luka Doncicic right now, I also think they
win the title. I literally said in our player rankings
that if you took this version of Luca, the one
we saw in EuroBasket and dropped it on last year's
thunder team, I think they win the title. And I
think they win it more easily, especially in the playoff runt.
So the point I'm trying to make is like, yeah,
(22:32):
we as we look at individual situations, and individual situations
that led to massive accumulations of talent. You can win
with any type of best player, but if I'm starting
from scratch in a vacuum, I believe it is easiest
to build a championship team around a supreme offensive engine,
because from there I have the flexibility to bring in
(22:54):
defensive players that play well with an advantage. Like a
lot of guys who can do jobs on defense but
struggle with offense. But the job is so easy for
them because they're playing with such insane advantages that they
become useful offensive players. I like my ability to build
(23:15):
around that type of player, versus if I have an
elite score, I now have to like figure out how
am I building the rest of the offense. Can I
play this flawed defensive player, this defensive minded player who
is flawed on offense. Can I play him alongside a
player that doesn't do a great job handling double teams
or that doesn't create a ton of advantages throughout the game.
(23:38):
I just think it's harder. By the way, I'm not
saying that there's some chasm. I'm not saying that like
it's offensive initiators and then everyone else sucks I'm just saying,
if I'm ranking the archetypes of players, I'm gonna go
with that advantage creating offensive engine type of offensive player.
Then probably the supreme two way score, then probably the
(23:58):
defensive anchor big you know, that Anthony Davis type of player.
It's one of the big kind of like paths for
Victor winn Minyama and his development. Is he going to
become a supreme scorer? Is he going to just be
this like defensive hub who never really becomes the elite
scorer that he needs to be. That's going to be
a big part of what helps Victor women Yama reach
(24:20):
his ultimate potential. But for me, if I'm starting from
scratch in a vacuum, I want that offensive engine archetype.
A couple questions surrounding the top ten lists that we
did last week, Hi, Jason Huges Fan since like twenty
twenty three, is so, I'm curious to see your reasoning
and picking Shaq's two thousand and one playoff run over
his two thousand playoff runt. I can see why the
two thousand and one plaoff run can be picked, but
in my opinion, the two thousand and one is better
(24:41):
to start, the workload was drastically different, which was mostly
due to Kobe really coming into his own during the
two thousand and one playoffs. The usage right between the
two runs is mostly the same, but that leans to
two thousand, when he was able to win the title
while Kobe wasn't as reliable yet as a co star.
There were a legitimate slugfest series that Shack and probably
only Shaq could have bailed them out of. And I
can get behind the two thousand and one playoff run
being the better all time team, but in terms of
(25:03):
individual dominance, I think the two thousand Shack was a
smidge better, even if we're nitpicking at the end of
the day. Also, Shaq was scoring Champ and regular season
MVP during two thousand, which is not as important to me,
but still our nice notches to have. Thank you if
you read this. So here's the deal. I agree with
everything that you're saying. I do think that Shack in
that year two thousand season was just more locked in
(25:24):
from start to finish and was a better player, but
we were just operating within confines of that list. For me,
it was the last twenty five seasons, so that was
gonna be from two thousand and one to twenty twenty five.
We had similar examples, Like when we were talking about
I kind of like Jerry rigged the system a little
bit to fit to fit the Reggie Miller Pacers in there,
(25:44):
because I wanted to include that year two thousand run
as a run where they were pretty close. But it
was like kind of breaking the rules a little bit
because I was going from two thousand and one to
twenty twenty five, So instead I highlighted the twenty fourteen
that came very close to beating the Pistons, right, So
like I was just kind of rating within those confines,
and to me, that two thousand and one team was
a reasonable way for me to capitalize on that within
(26:06):
the rules of the list. Last question, I had a
lot of people talking about how I forgot or didn't
have Kevin Garnett in my top Defenders list. It was
literally just accidental oversight I don't have. It wasn't like
I was trying to disrespect Kevin in any way. It's
just I'm piecing together five top ten lists and it's
just something slipped through the cracks. If you guys want
(26:27):
to hear my thoughts on KG and his defense and
his ceiling. I went over it pretty extensively in our
Top ten Peaks video, which Kevin Garnett did make on Monday.
So for all of you wondering why that happened, it
was literally just an accident on my part, just to
oversight something that slipped through the cracks. All right, guys,
it's all I have for today. There's always a sincerely
appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show.
(26:47):
We'll be back later this week with another one of
those live streams on playback, as well as a video
talking about the Los Angeles Clippers and some more mailbag questions.
I will see you guys then
Host
Jason Timpf
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