June 26, 2025 • 22 mins
On today’s episode, Jason discusses the recent flurry of trades around the NBA that have shaken up the Eastern Conference, why it feels like at least one team is trying to build their team in the same image as the reigning champion Oklahoma City Thunder, how a few forward thinking NBA Draft night moves by the Portland Trail Blazers and the Phoenix Suns could wind up paying off in a big way, and the Jazz’ controversial decision to draft Ace Bailey even though he explicitly said he didn’t want to play in Utah.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
This is straight Fire with Jason McIntyre.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
What is up? Straight Fire, fam, It's me Jason McIntyre.
Straight Fire for Thursday, June the twenty six The back
baby felt good to get a few days off. Not
to get too personal, but you know, my daughter plays
club volleyball and we just happened to have nationals in Arizona,
(00:34):
and I had a little business to take care of
out there in addition to the tournament. So a few
days off for good behavior, as they like to say,
and kind of dropped off the grid there for a
little bit, except updating the Graham with my daughter's volleyball highlights.
You know, I'm not Dad who's videotypic all the time,
and you know knows the coaches and the players, and
I get into it. This is what I do. I
(00:56):
get into basketball, I get into football. You get in
a fantasy in coaching my kids. I get in a
gambling I'm I'm pot committed. So it was fun and
now I'm back. Got back in time last night for
the draft. Kind of an anti climactic NBA draft. Obviously,
I everybody knew Cooper Flag was going first. That was
(01:18):
no surprise. I don't even think you could have bet
on it. It was probably lay ten thousand dollars to
win a dollar, maybe more. I don't know. It was
such a formality. There weren't a ton of surprises in
the draft. I actually was gonna spend some time talking
about the trades this week. So many wild things have
happened in the last what three days since the Kevin
(01:40):
Durant deal. By the way, by the bye, I should
also add that last Friday on the Herd, you know
we do tomorrow's headlines today, they were like, Jay, you
got to pick a spot for Kevin Durant and I
picked Houston. And I actually said, they're not going to
have to give up she Goon or Amen Thompson. It's
going to be Jalen Green and Parts. And it was
jailing Green and Parts. I mean, I know we did
(02:01):
a quick podcast on that in addition to the Thunder
winning the title, but I mean, that's such a heist
by Houston, oh my gosh. And there's been plenty of
moves since then. I mean, you had my guy Jordan
Poole getting shipped from Washington. That experiment is over, Oh
my gosh, very over. I have it in my note
(02:25):
section all the moves that were made no surprise to anybody,
But the Boston Celtics are dumping salary big time. The
Drew Holiday trade to Portland. I don't think he's gonna
play for Portland. My guess is he's gonna get rerouted.
They got to get Scoot Henderson in there unless they
think they can make a run at the playoffs and
then trade Holiday at the deadline to a contender. I
(02:52):
like the Anthony Simmons pick up I saw. Boston fans
are kind of geeked about. There's some numbers that say,
hey man, he's one of the best bucket getters in
the league, just nobody knew because he played in Portland,
which was a tire fire of the last couple of years.
But Holiday's not aging well. It's coming off a really
bad shooting season, the worst in like five six years
for him. And they also dumped Porzingis. I cannot believe
(03:13):
anybody took Porzingis. And listen, the Celtics are gonna be
just fine next year. They're not gonna be the top
three in the East. They're probably gonna hang around the
top four for a bit. But the reality is they
just they won't have the horses. I mean, I don't
think you guys realize, like Derek White's awesome, as like
(03:36):
your fourth best player behind Tatum Brown and Holiday. Well, now,
Derek White this season is gonna have to be your
second best player unless you think Anfredy Simon's can make
the leap. I mean they're looking right now starting line
up of Derek White, Anthorty Simons, Jalen Brown, George Niang
and Luke Cornett. That's not fifty five sixty wins, guys.
(04:00):
It's not Peyton Pritchard's still a really good six man.
I don't think Horford returns and they're gonna be young.
But this is what the second Apron does. Somehow the
Boston Celtics were able to dump two hundred million dollars
in tax payments with those two trades. That is staggering.
They will not they're not in the Second Apron anymore.
(04:20):
So it's basically like ownership is like, hey, make deals
to get us out of the Second Apron because we
know we're not winning the title next year. Let's save money.
And that is and that was done. I don't know
why other teams would pick up the phone unless they
think they could get something out of Boston. I don't.
I guess Portland thinks, hey, maybe we've got a shot
at sneaking into the playoffs and saving our jobs. I mean,
(04:43):
I guess you could say, Okay, Drew Holiday, it starts
a shooting guard next to Scoot Henderson. Well what about
Shadon Sharp who they drafted. You know, Denny Avdia had
a pretty good run. Do they still have Jeremy Grant?
They got young Chris Murray klingon eight, and they've just
got a lot of guys. I don't see them as
a playoff team, but hey, man, stranger things have happened.
(05:04):
And then you get into the draft, and I definitely
like the Boston pick of Hugo Gonzalez there late in
the first I don't know if he plays this year,
but it seems like they're gonna have an opportunity to
have him play. Like Celtics are gonna be good. But folks,
the East is gonna be so different.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Now.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Now, the team to watch coming out of this draft,
and we'll get back to Cooper Flag in a second.
The team to watch is the Washington Wizards. My guy,
fran Friscilla, who We tried to have on before the draft.
I just it was just too busy. We're gonna have
him on probably next week. The Wizards just crushed it.
I mean, Brooklyn had a million picks, so they definitely
crushed it. But the Wizards pick up Trey Johnson, the
(05:44):
kid from Texas, who I think it if you go
to Vegas this summer. I just put a put a
Rookie of the Year bet on Trey Johnson. I know
everybody's gonna bet Flag, and that's fine. Flag's probably not
gonna start now. Maybe he could be the sixth man
and win and win the title, but I don't know
that he's going to start. You know, forty fifty games,
Trey Johnson probably walks into the starting lineup and by
(06:07):
the All Star break is one of the leading scorers
on the Wizards. I mean, they are gutting everyone. It's
it's funny they're getting I don't want to say toxic
because I don't want these guys getting upset. And I
feel kind of bad they're getting rid of me. First guys,
Kyle Kuzbah at the deadline, goodbye. Let's bring in Chris Middleton,
(06:29):
a veteran Jordan pool this offseason. Goodbye, let's bring in
a veteran CJ. McCollum. So now you're looking at like
the young kid, Bub Carrington, CJ. McCollum, and you've got
Alex Sar, Kula Bobby. They've got a lot of young
players and then a mix of like McCollum, Broggden Middleton
(06:52):
like veterans who can help them clean up to the
locker room. I don't think the Wizards are a playoff
team or even a play in team in the East. Oh,
also Marcus Smart should be. But I do think that
they probably two years from now, could be a playoff
team in the East, just simply as these guys grow,
like Alex Sar actually did some things last year. I
know people laugh because like Alex Sar, who the hell
(07:12):
is a.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
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listen live.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Oh by the way, side note, Alex Star one of
these guys, who's you know? Listen? The guy went number
two in twenty twenty four and probably would not have
gone top three or four this year. Like he's a
nice player, but I mean, come on, the run of
European guys at the top of the draft ended with
(07:46):
a thud because the first one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
eleven first eleven players were played college basketball. Now a
couple of them, obviously, Demon going to the nets. He's
from Russia, Maleuk from Duke is from South Sudan, Edgecomb
(08:09):
from the Bahamas. But these aren't Europeans who nobody knows.
Everybody knows Edgecombe, everybody knows the Duke kid, the b
Yu kid. Like a bit of a changing of the guard.
And by the way, the first eight picks were all freshmen,
so like the familiarity is going to be there with
some of these guys. Now. Obviously the two Rutgers guys
who will get to they didn't even make the NCAA tournament,
(08:32):
so we can't get too geeked about them. But it
was an interesting draft, I thought, because some of these teams,
like I think Washington adding Trey Johnson. I like the guy,
and Freddy Frischell has been hyping him and I trust
his word a lot. And then I think we're Walter
Clayton junior end up. Oh, No, he ended up with
the Utah Jazz, which was nice but a bit of
(08:52):
an overpay. It just feels like Washington is doing that
thing that Okase did. Hey man, we got to just
clean house, get rid of everybody, get what we can do,
and start the process over. And Washington seems to be
doing that now. Brooklyn also had a fascinating draft. I
(09:12):
don't know if you guys notice, but like they ended
up with five first round picks. That's just insane. I mean,
I don't know how that's possible, but they just decided, hey,
it's time for us now. I did see that they're
going to have about no, no, the Wizards are going
to have one hundred million in cap space. So is
there a world to go back to the Wizard real
(09:34):
quick where they kind of figure out, hey, this is
the path we want to go. We want to try
to build, like okay, see, and let's bring in Let's
obviously you add like a Caruso or a Hertenstein at
the end when you think you're ready to finish things.
But do you go out and add like a legitimate
veteran to this group or do you just say, you
know what, we just want to build around the edges,
(09:56):
and we think we've got a young nucleus that could
rise up and actually do something. The Wizards are clearly,
if you were, years away from being like a real factor,
but for sure Washington is at least on the right path.
Brooklyn I like to think did a pretty damn good
job in the draft. Now it's very easy when you
have five picks. They got the kid Danny Wolf, who
(10:18):
went to I think Yale and then Michigan. Then they
got Ben Suraff late in the first also Jewish kid
who's really really tough. I saw somebody compared him to
a left handed D'Angelo Russell. Interesting. And then they drafted
two foreign players. Well, one of them is Demon who
(10:40):
played at BYU, but he plays like a European and
then Nolan Troue, the guard from France. So they're envisioning
Hey man, you know what, We've got a lot of
young guys, but we will take our time building this
this year. They'll take their lumps, they're gonna stink, and
they will end up, you know, moving on from the
Cam Johnson and Nick Claxton's of the world, and they're
(11:03):
gonna usher in their new era. So we're seeing like
this changing of the guard at the bottom end the
top of the leak. That's the most interesting thing to
me about the NBA right now. It's that transition year.
Everybody's kind of worried about it. You guys remember when Peyton,
Manning and Brady had so many great duels and then
they were ending, and they're like, who's gonna take the mantle?
Who's gonna be the next quarterback? Oh, the league's gonna
(11:24):
be just devastated. Well, obviously, the league's gonna be devastated,
but somebody else always shows up. There's always some guy
who's gotten next. Patrick Mahomes clearly has next, right, we
got that, he's got the Super Bowls already. But here
comes Josh Allen and here comes Lamar Jackson, and those
three kind of have this weird Josh Allen versus Patrick
(11:47):
Mahomes thing that's relegit, and Lamar Jackson versu. Patrick Mahomes,
which is also legit. So you got those three in
the NFC that have kind of taken the torch from
Brady Mahomes. It doesn't have an over night. It takes
a couple of years. Now the league is trying to
figure out well, like KD. They barely got anything for
him in a trade. Lebron maybe has a year or
(12:08):
two left, right, and then you've got Steph Curry aging
and the Warriors trying to make a run. Once those
three guys are done, I mean, I would say with
twenty twenty eight, they're probably done, right, Is that fair
to say? Like at that point, the league must have
its next generation of bankable stars. I mean, I'm sorry
(12:31):
for putting Durant in the KD, in the Curry Lebron class,
but the league needs to find their next group. And like,
I don't know that it's Yannis Devin Booker. I don't
know what's this guys. I know people love SGA. I
don't personally think it's SGA. I don't know that he's
gonna have a ten year run. I mean I saw
(12:52):
some of these figures. If they sign Sga, Chet and
j Dubb, they're gonna be making insane amounts of money,
Like I'm talking absurd levels that are gonna make your
brain break. And so teams are trying to build like
OKAC because that they're gonna have three guys, and we
(13:13):
established like two weeks ago that that's not really a
thing anymore. But okay, C's gonna try it. And you
know why they can do it. They've got like fourteen
draft picks over the next like six years, so they
if they lose Wiggins or Isaiah Joe, they can easily replenish.
They're in. They're in a unique spot that's really really impressive,
(13:33):
and I think everybody's kind of sort of trying to
mimic what Okac did, and it seems like Brooklyn and
Washington are two that really are on the right path.
One that I don't necessarily think is is the Phoenix Suns.
So they end up during the draft trading for Mark Williams,
(13:56):
the big guy that the Lakers tried to get right,
and within moments of the trade for Mark Williams, they
end up drafting the big kid from Duke Malyiach And
you're like, wait a minute, why are they drafting a
center and at the same time trading for a center.
(14:17):
And I know everybody's like, oh, that's too many big guys.
You don't need it. They're over over correcting for lack
of defense. I don't know that that's necessarily true. We're
in a weird age now where in the NBA, you
start collecting assets to later flip them, which is kind
of the OKC model. They took a shot on Paul
(14:38):
George to pair him with Russell Wilson, Russell Westbrook, and
they legitimately thought, Okay, we've got something here, but they
quickly realized when Donovan Mitchell kicked their ass in the playoffs,
we don't. But Paul George, Holy cow, he's still a
really good player. He's a good asset. So good players,
even though you don't think you can win anything, that
are coveted by other teams, suddenly become really good assets.
(15:01):
And that's why I think Portland jumped. Hey, nobody wants
Drew Holiday. Let's get into Drew Holiday business. Somebody will
want him come deadline time. Hey man, Cleveland Cavaliers don't
have their wing defender. You know what, shit, we're on
pace for sixty wins again. This is ours. This is
our year to get back to the finals without Lebron.
(15:24):
You know what, Let's do. I don't know. Let's do
Jared Allen and Okoro who whatever it is. And we'll
give up a couple first, or not a couple first,
but we'll give up whatever we need. To to get Drew Holiday.
That's the missing piece for us. We need that dynamic
defender next to Donovan Mitchell and Garland can shift to
a six man role where he gets buckets.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app search FSR to
listen live.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
There's a world where Phoenix went after Mark Williams. They
do need rim protection on the inside, but they saw
the Lakers go after him, and everybody knows these rim
running centers are valuable. Nick Klaxton's of the world Clint
Cappella back in five years ago, why don't we just
go grab him if we can? And I think Phoenix
(16:20):
did a good job of that. Now. I don't love
the Liam McNeely pick. I did not see it with
that guy obviously. You know he went to Yukon and
was a big time high school baller. I didn't see
it I personally, and this is not a knock against
you know, white wing players, but like Kanka Nipple, that
guy looked fricking phenomenal at Duke next to two other
(16:44):
top ten picks. I mean, Duke had three guys go
in the top ten. Yeah, Ca Nipple looked really really
good next to them. How's he gonna look next to
LaMelo Ball who doesn't pass the basketball. So I'm fascinated
by all this team building and what goes into it
and the moves that are made. I mean, I'm not
(17:06):
gonna sit here and do winners losers. If you want to,
just Cooper flag winner, Dallas, congrats they won. And you know,
so many other teams. Golden State, I don't think they
had a pick. Denver didn't have a pick. You go downline,
Cleveland didn't. A lot of teams did not have a pick.
Indiana traded theirs Houston. So many teams did not have
(17:27):
a pick. And it's essentially you want to see who
has a pick. It's the haves and sorry, it's the
have nots. And the teams that have something like are
contending they don't have a pick because they trade a
with their picks. It's a weird NBA. There's definitely like
a big shift and I guess one A couple other
(17:48):
fun interesting facts I saw So Rutgers had two guys
drafted in the top five. They had never had a
top five pick before okay, and then one of them
is Ace Bailey. And I'm sure you guys read this story.
I read it over the last couple of days. It
(18:10):
was in the Star Ledger newspaper in Jersey. So the
big story leading up to the draft was, well, Ace
Bailey doesn't want to work out for anymore. Okay, Well,
who's he working out with? Who's his trainer? What's going on?
So this story gets into it. His trainer is a
guy from Newark who back in the day was a
really good basketball player and he had a son, Sharif Cooper,
(18:31):
who you guys might know. He went to Auburn. He
was a bucket geter, but a selfish player, and now
he's bouncing around Europe making money. He's a bucket But
the dad, his Charif Cooper's dad, is the guy training
Ace Bailey. And of course the reporter finds oh Sharif
Cooper had a machine gun and UZI charges about twenty
(18:52):
years ago and in the nineties he was charged with
attempted murder and possession with intent to distribute cocaine. Did
six months in prison for the drugs. The weapons stuff
was dismissed, and you know, he doesn't crush the guy hate.
We all have a past, but that's the guy you're
working with, and all of a sudden he's telling you, now,
you don't work out for anybody. Apparently he did not
(19:15):
want to go to Utah, did not work out for them,
and Danny Ainge said, Effitt, we're taking him anyway. The story,
you know, is interesting. It's a bit of a roll
of the dice with Utah. But you're betting on Hey,
you know what, this guy's kind of freaking good and
maybe we just get him in a system and he
(19:37):
starts to fall in line. If he doesn't, we try
to flip him and you know, maybe somebody's interested in
a six seven wing. That's kind of Paul Georgish. I
thought that was one of the more interesting picks. It's
a big risk for Utah. Now. I did see that
they also traded for Walter Clayton Junior, who I like
a lot, the kid from Florida who was a hero
(19:58):
of the NCAA tournament. That guy was a freck and baller.
How is he gonna fit in Utah? Like, I don't know.
I don't know that the Jazz have a bunch of
a game plan there like, what does LORI marketing stay?
Is he part of the plan? I have no idea.
We'll see if the Walter Clayton thing works with him
(20:20):
in the backboard. I personally like Clayton. I don't know
if Bailey's more of a three. He doesn't have a shot.
I don't think to be a two. But it's it's
a bit of a risk. Like can you imagine your
you apply for a job, but you don't want to interview.
They want to fly you out. No, I don't want
to I don't want to go meet and and then
you get the job. Anyway, Like, how does that work?
(20:44):
I'm investing. I don't know low eight figures in you
with your rookie contract and you don't have the courtesy
to come and interview me. I you won't come and visit?
Work out? I know nothing, Like all I know is
what I've read and what scouts say, and I like
(21:06):
what I just it feels like a random thing. I
personally wouldn't have done it, but obviously the Jazz have
way way way more intel than I do. After day
two of the draft, so yeah, which is today, we
will Yeah, maybe Friday, I'll do a new Top eight
in each heading into free agency, which is a week
(21:29):
away and probably gonna get super interesting, given I don't
think all the deals are done. You look around and
there aren't a ton of big names left. Uh. Fred
VanVleet is staying in Houston, which was a big, big,
big win for them. They I think Houston's in a
great shape. And yeah, like I'm waiting for some of
(21:54):
these other like dominoes to fall and nothing yet, but
they kept durant things done. Let's see if Giannis is
quietly anything happening behind the scenes. But I definitely will
have some new playoff teams in the East. West not
so sure yet. And I just want to remind people
who are hating on the Lakers they were third in
(22:16):
the West. Okay, we'll just end it on a high note.
All right, we are back Friday. I think what we'll
have tomorrow is a really good interview with someone who
wrote a book on Caitlin Clark. That's my guess. Talk
to you then,
This is straight Fire with Jason McIntyre.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
What is up? Straight Fire, fam, It's me Jason McIntyre.
Straight Fire for Thursday, June the twenty six The back
baby felt good to get a few days off. Not
to get too personal, but you know, my daughter plays
club volleyball and we just happened to have nationals in Arizona,
(00:34):
and I had a little business to take care of
out there in addition to the tournament. So a few
days off for good behavior, as they like to say,
and kind of dropped off the grid there for a
little bit, except updating the Graham with my daughter's volleyball highlights.
You know, I'm not Dad who's videotypic all the time,
and you know knows the coaches and the players, and
I get into it. This is what I do. I
(00:56):
get into basketball, I get into football. You get in
a fantasy in coaching my kids. I get in a
gambling I'm I'm pot committed. So it was fun and
now I'm back. Got back in time last night for
the draft. Kind of an anti climactic NBA draft. Obviously,
I everybody knew Cooper Flag was going first. That was
(01:18):
no surprise. I don't even think you could have bet
on it. It was probably lay ten thousand dollars to
win a dollar, maybe more. I don't know. It was
such a formality. There weren't a ton of surprises in
the draft. I actually was gonna spend some time talking
about the trades this week. So many wild things have
happened in the last what three days since the Kevin
(01:40):
Durant deal. By the way, by the bye, I should
also add that last Friday on the Herd, you know
we do tomorrow's headlines today, they were like, Jay, you
got to pick a spot for Kevin Durant and I
picked Houston. And I actually said, they're not going to
have to give up she Goon or Amen Thompson. It's
going to be Jalen Green and Parts. And it was
jailing Green and Parts. I mean, I know we did
(02:01):
a quick podcast on that in addition to the Thunder
winning the title, but I mean, that's such a heist
by Houston, oh my gosh. And there's been plenty of
moves since then. I mean, you had my guy Jordan
Poole getting shipped from Washington. That experiment is over, Oh
my gosh, very over. I have it in my note
(02:25):
section all the moves that were made no surprise to anybody,
But the Boston Celtics are dumping salary big time. The
Drew Holiday trade to Portland. I don't think he's gonna
play for Portland. My guess is he's gonna get rerouted.
They got to get Scoot Henderson in there unless they
think they can make a run at the playoffs and
then trade Holiday at the deadline to a contender. I
(02:52):
like the Anthony Simmons pick up I saw. Boston fans
are kind of geeked about. There's some numbers that say,
hey man, he's one of the best bucket getters in
the league, just nobody knew because he played in Portland,
which was a tire fire of the last couple of years.
But Holiday's not aging well. It's coming off a really
bad shooting season, the worst in like five six years
for him. And they also dumped Porzingis. I cannot believe
(03:13):
anybody took Porzingis. And listen, the Celtics are gonna be
just fine next year. They're not gonna be the top
three in the East. They're probably gonna hang around the
top four for a bit. But the reality is they
just they won't have the horses. I mean, I don't
think you guys realize, like Derek White's awesome, as like
(03:36):
your fourth best player behind Tatum Brown and Holiday. Well, now,
Derek White this season is gonna have to be your
second best player unless you think Anfredy Simon's can make
the leap. I mean they're looking right now starting line
up of Derek White, Anthorty Simons, Jalen Brown, George Niang
and Luke Cornett. That's not fifty five sixty wins, guys.
(04:00):
It's not Peyton Pritchard's still a really good six man.
I don't think Horford returns and they're gonna be young.
But this is what the second Apron does. Somehow the
Boston Celtics were able to dump two hundred million dollars
in tax payments with those two trades. That is staggering.
They will not they're not in the Second Apron anymore.
(04:20):
So it's basically like ownership is like, hey, make deals
to get us out of the Second Apron because we
know we're not winning the title next year. Let's save money.
And that is and that was done. I don't know
why other teams would pick up the phone unless they
think they could get something out of Boston. I don't.
I guess Portland thinks, hey, maybe we've got a shot
at sneaking into the playoffs and saving our jobs. I mean,
(04:43):
I guess you could say, Okay, Drew Holiday, it starts
a shooting guard next to Scoot Henderson. Well what about
Shadon Sharp who they drafted. You know, Denny Avdia had
a pretty good run. Do they still have Jeremy Grant?
They got young Chris Murray klingon eight, and they've just
got a lot of guys. I don't see them as
a playoff team, but hey, man, stranger things have happened.
(05:04):
And then you get into the draft, and I definitely
like the Boston pick of Hugo Gonzalez there late in
the first I don't know if he plays this year,
but it seems like they're gonna have an opportunity to
have him play. Like Celtics are gonna be good. But folks,
the East is gonna be so different.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Now.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Now, the team to watch coming out of this draft,
and we'll get back to Cooper Flag in a second.
The team to watch is the Washington Wizards. My guy,
fran Friscilla, who We tried to have on before the draft.
I just it was just too busy. We're gonna have
him on probably next week. The Wizards just crushed it.
I mean, Brooklyn had a million picks, so they definitely
crushed it. But the Wizards pick up Trey Johnson, the
(05:44):
kid from Texas, who I think it if you go
to Vegas this summer. I just put a put a
Rookie of the Year bet on Trey Johnson. I know
everybody's gonna bet Flag, and that's fine. Flag's probably not
gonna start now. Maybe he could be the sixth man
and win and win the title, but I don't know
that he's going to start. You know, forty fifty games,
Trey Johnson probably walks into the starting lineup and by
(06:07):
the All Star break is one of the leading scorers
on the Wizards. I mean, they are gutting everyone. It's
it's funny they're getting I don't want to say toxic
because I don't want these guys getting upset. And I
feel kind of bad they're getting rid of me. First guys,
Kyle Kuzbah at the deadline, goodbye. Let's bring in Chris Middleton,
(06:29):
a veteran Jordan pool this offseason. Goodbye, let's bring in
a veteran CJ. McCollum. So now you're looking at like
the young kid, Bub Carrington, CJ. McCollum, and you've got
Alex Sar, Kula Bobby. They've got a lot of young
players and then a mix of like McCollum, Broggden Middleton
(06:52):
like veterans who can help them clean up to the
locker room. I don't think the Wizards are a playoff
team or even a play in team in the East. Oh,
also Marcus Smart should be. But I do think that
they probably two years from now, could be a playoff
team in the East, just simply as these guys grow,
like Alex Sar actually did some things last year. I
know people laugh because like Alex Sar, who the hell
(07:12):
is a.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
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Speaker 2 (07:25):
Oh by the way, side note, Alex Star one of
these guys, who's you know? Listen? The guy went number
two in twenty twenty four and probably would not have
gone top three or four this year. Like he's a
nice player, but I mean, come on, the run of
European guys at the top of the draft ended with
(07:46):
a thud because the first one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
eleven first eleven players were played college basketball. Now a
couple of them, obviously, Demon going to the nets. He's
from Russia, Maleuk from Duke is from South Sudan, Edgecomb
(08:09):
from the Bahamas. But these aren't Europeans who nobody knows.
Everybody knows Edgecombe, everybody knows the Duke kid, the b
Yu kid. Like a bit of a changing of the guard.
And by the way, the first eight picks were all freshmen,
so like the familiarity is going to be there with
some of these guys. Now. Obviously the two Rutgers guys
who will get to they didn't even make the NCAA tournament,
(08:32):
so we can't get too geeked about them. But it
was an interesting draft, I thought, because some of these teams,
like I think Washington adding Trey Johnson. I like the guy,
and Freddy Frischell has been hyping him and I trust
his word a lot. And then I think we're Walter
Clayton junior end up. Oh, No, he ended up with
the Utah Jazz, which was nice but a bit of
(08:52):
an overpay. It just feels like Washington is doing that
thing that Okase did. Hey man, we got to just
clean house, get rid of everybody, get what we can do,
and start the process over. And Washington seems to be
doing that now. Brooklyn also had a fascinating draft. I
(09:12):
don't know if you guys notice, but like they ended
up with five first round picks. That's just insane. I mean,
I don't know how that's possible, but they just decided, hey,
it's time for us now. I did see that they're
going to have about no, no, the Wizards are going
to have one hundred million in cap space. So is
there a world to go back to the Wizard real
(09:34):
quick where they kind of figure out, hey, this is
the path we want to go. We want to try
to build, like okay, see, and let's bring in Let's
obviously you add like a Caruso or a Hertenstein at
the end when you think you're ready to finish things.
But do you go out and add like a legitimate
veteran to this group or do you just say, you
know what, we just want to build around the edges,
(09:56):
and we think we've got a young nucleus that could
rise up and actually do something. The Wizards are clearly,
if you were, years away from being like a real factor,
but for sure Washington is at least on the right path.
Brooklyn I like to think did a pretty damn good
job in the draft. Now it's very easy when you
have five picks. They got the kid Danny Wolf, who
(10:18):
went to I think Yale and then Michigan. Then they
got Ben Suraff late in the first also Jewish kid
who's really really tough. I saw somebody compared him to
a left handed D'Angelo Russell. Interesting. And then they drafted
two foreign players. Well, one of them is Demon who
(10:40):
played at BYU, but he plays like a European and
then Nolan Troue, the guard from France. So they're envisioning
Hey man, you know what, We've got a lot of
young guys, but we will take our time building this
this year. They'll take their lumps, they're gonna stink, and
they will end up, you know, moving on from the
Cam Johnson and Nick Claxton's of the world, and they're
(11:03):
gonna usher in their new era. So we're seeing like
this changing of the guard at the bottom end the
top of the leak. That's the most interesting thing to
me about the NBA right now. It's that transition year.
Everybody's kind of worried about it. You guys remember when Peyton,
Manning and Brady had so many great duels and then
they were ending, and they're like, who's gonna take the mantle?
Who's gonna be the next quarterback? Oh, the league's gonna
(11:24):
be just devastated. Well, obviously, the league's gonna be devastated,
but somebody else always shows up. There's always some guy
who's gotten next. Patrick Mahomes clearly has next, right, we
got that, he's got the Super Bowls already. But here
comes Josh Allen and here comes Lamar Jackson, and those
three kind of have this weird Josh Allen versus Patrick
(11:47):
Mahomes thing that's relegit, and Lamar Jackson versu. Patrick Mahomes,
which is also legit. So you got those three in
the NFC that have kind of taken the torch from
Brady Mahomes. It doesn't have an over night. It takes
a couple of years. Now the league is trying to
figure out well, like KD. They barely got anything for
him in a trade. Lebron maybe has a year or
(12:08):
two left, right, and then you've got Steph Curry aging
and the Warriors trying to make a run. Once those
three guys are done, I mean, I would say with
twenty twenty eight, they're probably done, right, Is that fair
to say? Like at that point, the league must have
its next generation of bankable stars. I mean, I'm sorry
(12:31):
for putting Durant in the KD, in the Curry Lebron class,
but the league needs to find their next group. And like,
I don't know that it's Yannis Devin Booker. I don't
know what's this guys. I know people love SGA. I
don't personally think it's SGA. I don't know that he's
gonna have a ten year run. I mean I saw
(12:52):
some of these figures. If they sign Sga, Chet and
j Dubb, they're gonna be making insane amounts of money,
Like I'm talking absurd levels that are gonna make your
brain break. And so teams are trying to build like
OKAC because that they're gonna have three guys, and we
(13:13):
established like two weeks ago that that's not really a
thing anymore. But okay, C's gonna try it. And you
know why they can do it. They've got like fourteen
draft picks over the next like six years, so they
if they lose Wiggins or Isaiah Joe, they can easily replenish.
They're in. They're in a unique spot that's really really impressive,
(13:33):
and I think everybody's kind of sort of trying to
mimic what Okac did, and it seems like Brooklyn and
Washington are two that really are on the right path.
One that I don't necessarily think is is the Phoenix Suns.
So they end up during the draft trading for Mark Williams,
(13:56):
the big guy that the Lakers tried to get right,
and within moments of the trade for Mark Williams, they
end up drafting the big kid from Duke Malyiach And
you're like, wait a minute, why are they drafting a
center and at the same time trading for a center.
(14:17):
And I know everybody's like, oh, that's too many big guys.
You don't need it. They're over over correcting for lack
of defense. I don't know that that's necessarily true. We're
in a weird age now where in the NBA, you
start collecting assets to later flip them, which is kind
of the OKC model. They took a shot on Paul
(14:38):
George to pair him with Russell Wilson, Russell Westbrook, and
they legitimately thought, Okay, we've got something here, but they
quickly realized when Donovan Mitchell kicked their ass in the playoffs,
we don't. But Paul George, Holy cow, he's still a
really good player. He's a good asset. So good players,
even though you don't think you can win anything, that
are coveted by other teams, suddenly become really good assets.
(15:01):
And that's why I think Portland jumped. Hey, nobody wants
Drew Holiday. Let's get into Drew Holiday business. Somebody will
want him come deadline time. Hey man, Cleveland Cavaliers don't
have their wing defender. You know what, shit, we're on
pace for sixty wins again. This is ours. This is
our year to get back to the finals without Lebron.
(15:24):
You know what, Let's do. I don't know. Let's do
Jared Allen and Okoro who whatever it is. And we'll
give up a couple first, or not a couple first,
but we'll give up whatever we need. To to get Drew Holiday.
That's the missing piece for us. We need that dynamic
defender next to Donovan Mitchell and Garland can shift to
a six man role where he gets buckets.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app search FSR to
listen live.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
There's a world where Phoenix went after Mark Williams. They
do need rim protection on the inside, but they saw
the Lakers go after him, and everybody knows these rim
running centers are valuable. Nick Klaxton's of the world Clint
Cappella back in five years ago, why don't we just
go grab him if we can? And I think Phoenix
(16:20):
did a good job of that. Now. I don't love
the Liam McNeely pick. I did not see it with
that guy obviously. You know he went to Yukon and
was a big time high school baller. I didn't see
it I personally, and this is not a knock against
you know, white wing players, but like Kanka Nipple, that
guy looked fricking phenomenal at Duke next to two other
(16:44):
top ten picks. I mean, Duke had three guys go
in the top ten. Yeah, Ca Nipple looked really really
good next to them. How's he gonna look next to
LaMelo Ball who doesn't pass the basketball. So I'm fascinated
by all this team building and what goes into it
and the moves that are made. I mean, I'm not
(17:06):
gonna sit here and do winners losers. If you want to,
just Cooper flag winner, Dallas, congrats they won. And you know,
so many other teams. Golden State, I don't think they
had a pick. Denver didn't have a pick. You go downline,
Cleveland didn't. A lot of teams did not have a pick.
Indiana traded theirs Houston. So many teams did not have
(17:27):
a pick. And it's essentially you want to see who
has a pick. It's the haves and sorry, it's the
have nots. And the teams that have something like are
contending they don't have a pick because they trade a
with their picks. It's a weird NBA. There's definitely like
a big shift and I guess one A couple other
(17:48):
fun interesting facts I saw So Rutgers had two guys
drafted in the top five. They had never had a
top five pick before okay, and then one of them
is Ace Bailey. And I'm sure you guys read this story.
I read it over the last couple of days. It
(18:10):
was in the Star Ledger newspaper in Jersey. So the
big story leading up to the draft was, well, Ace
Bailey doesn't want to work out for anymore. Okay, Well,
who's he working out with? Who's his trainer? What's going on?
So this story gets into it. His trainer is a
guy from Newark who back in the day was a
really good basketball player and he had a son, Sharif Cooper,
(18:31):
who you guys might know. He went to Auburn. He
was a bucket geter, but a selfish player, and now
he's bouncing around Europe making money. He's a bucket But
the dad, his Charif Cooper's dad, is the guy training
Ace Bailey. And of course the reporter finds oh Sharif
Cooper had a machine gun and UZI charges about twenty
(18:52):
years ago and in the nineties he was charged with
attempted murder and possession with intent to distribute cocaine. Did
six months in prison for the drugs. The weapons stuff
was dismissed, and you know, he doesn't crush the guy hate.
We all have a past, but that's the guy you're
working with, and all of a sudden he's telling you, now,
you don't work out for anybody. Apparently he did not
(19:15):
want to go to Utah, did not work out for them,
and Danny Ainge said, Effitt, we're taking him anyway. The story,
you know, is interesting. It's a bit of a roll
of the dice with Utah. But you're betting on Hey,
you know what, this guy's kind of freaking good and
maybe we just get him in a system and he
(19:37):
starts to fall in line. If he doesn't, we try
to flip him and you know, maybe somebody's interested in
a six seven wing. That's kind of Paul Georgish. I
thought that was one of the more interesting picks. It's
a big risk for Utah. Now. I did see that
they also traded for Walter Clayton Junior, who I like
a lot, the kid from Florida who was a hero
(19:58):
of the NCAA tournament. That guy was a freck and baller.
How is he gonna fit in Utah? Like, I don't know.
I don't know that the Jazz have a bunch of
a game plan there like, what does LORI marketing stay?
Is he part of the plan? I have no idea.
We'll see if the Walter Clayton thing works with him
(20:20):
in the backboard. I personally like Clayton. I don't know
if Bailey's more of a three. He doesn't have a shot.
I don't think to be a two. But it's it's
a bit of a risk. Like can you imagine your
you apply for a job, but you don't want to interview.
They want to fly you out. No, I don't want
to I don't want to go meet and and then
you get the job. Anyway, Like, how does that work?
(20:44):
I'm investing. I don't know low eight figures in you
with your rookie contract and you don't have the courtesy
to come and interview me. I you won't come and visit?
Work out? I know nothing, Like all I know is
what I've read and what scouts say, and I like
(21:06):
what I just it feels like a random thing. I
personally wouldn't have done it, but obviously the Jazz have
way way way more intel than I do. After day
two of the draft, so yeah, which is today, we
will Yeah, maybe Friday, I'll do a new Top eight
in each heading into free agency, which is a week
(21:29):
away and probably gonna get super interesting, given I don't
think all the deals are done. You look around and
there aren't a ton of big names left. Uh. Fred
VanVleet is staying in Houston, which was a big, big,
big win for them. They I think Houston's in a
great shape. And yeah, like I'm waiting for some of
(21:54):
these other like dominoes to fall and nothing yet, but
they kept durant things done. Let's see if Giannis is
quietly anything happening behind the scenes. But I definitely will
have some new playoff teams in the East. West not
so sure yet. And I just want to remind people
who are hating on the Lakers they were third in
(22:16):
the West. Okay, we'll just end it on a high note.
All right, we are back Friday. I think what we'll
have tomorrow is a really good interview with someone who
wrote a book on Caitlin Clark. That's my guess. Talk
to you then,
Host
Jason McIntyre
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