Andrew talks about the latest roster move from the Pacers

Andrew talks about the latest roster move from the Pacers

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Our three rolls on. That was a red hot Chili
Peppers can't stop? How call ye? So I got my
dollar back? Got my dollar back. It's very difficult for me.
Here's the thing. I'll be honest. I listened to a
ton of music. I'm a music officionado. My problem is
is that my brain has compartmentalized. Okay. The way that

(00:21):
I look at it is I do a lot of
news talk. So I'm watching a ton of news. That
is one part of my brain sports talk. I have
to turn it on before we do the show. I
have to switch gears. It used to be really easy.
It's getting harder for me to turn the gears like that.
And then when you give me music trivia while I'm
also thinking about what the Milwaukee Bucks salary cap looks like,

(00:44):
it gets difficult. I'm not gonna lie. I was trying
to think. I was like, I know, I know the song?
Can I think? Yes? I did? Okay, Craig White Show
rolls on, Andrewsimile filling in on sports radio. I'm thirteen
hundred the zone and it is a NBA Free agency
day yesterday relatively a snoozefest. Today, however, things are actually happening,

(01:07):
one of those being the signing of a Miles Turner. Now,
Miles Turner has played his entire career in Indianapolis in Indiana,
playing for the Pacers. Now, Pacers weren't always his number one,
probably favorite group of people. The fan base tried to
trade him multiple multiple times. It seemed like every single season,

(01:29):
in the offseason, the regular season, the trade deadline, he
was talked about as a piece that could get moved.
This goes all the way back to Victor Oladipo and
Sibonis on the team. Like he was consistently a guy
who Pacers fans were trying to trade. He was in
the trade machine more than probably any other player. But
he liked Indianapolis. They go to the finals this year

(01:51):
and he averaged a pretty mediocre thirteen to five in
the finals. Now I made the case he was a
very good defense player, average almost two blocks a game
this season. He is a guy who is not you
don't shake a tree and a Miles turn and falls
out of it. He's not an easy replaceable guy. So
when I saw the news today that he was signing

(02:12):
a long term deal with the Milwaukee Bucks. After Brook
Lopez signed a deal with the Clippers. They were looking
for a center. I was surprised. Ironically, However, everybody else
in my life, my group chat of NBA fans, my
co workers, who are guys who keep up with the league,
everybody looked at me like I was the one that
was crazy because he said, well, Zimmel, he was constantly

(02:34):
on the trade block. Obviously the Pacers weren't in love
with him. If these rumors kept swirling about him and
he was the third best player on a team that
lost the finals, why does this surprise you? Well, it
surprises me because I thought that the Pacers were a
better run organization than this. You kind of tend to,
at least I tend to think of teams who start
putting it together as smart. You right, Okay, we make

(02:56):
a trade for Pascal Siakam, We hire Rick Carlisle, bring
in TJ. McCollough or I'm sorry, TJ McConnell. These are
all moves that good teams make. Bad teams let guys
who they've drafted and developed walk out the door for nothing,
and that's exactly what the Indiana Pacers did. Now, according

(03:17):
to reports, the Pacers did not want to get into
the luxury tax, not knowing what Tyres Halliburn would look
like coming off of this achilles injury, which is totally understandable.
I can get behind that thought process. Where I have
trouble with it is why you let somebody walk out
the door for nothing? If you didn't like Miles Turner,

(03:38):
If you thought that Miles Turner wasn't going to be
a good fit for you and you didn't want to
go into the luxury tax, that's fine, but you can
sign and trade him and get something back for him.
You don't let him walk out the door for nothing.
And that was really the point of contention that I had.
How do you let this type of thing happen? And
it does not help, however, that you were now letting

(03:59):
him walk to the Wawaukee Bucks, a team that you
beat in the first round of the playoffs. There's a
lot of bad blood between Indiana and Milwaukee fans. This
is not some sort of lovey dovey Kumbayah type of group.
These two teams don't like each other all right now.
It's not to the level of like Nix and Pacers
in the nineties, or Heat Nicks in the nineties, or
Bulls and Nicks in the nineties, or anybody versus the Knicks.

(04:20):
It seems like, right, it's not to that level, but
it is a big deal. It is a bad idea
to let somebody who helped you win that series walk
out the door for nothing and join Giannisata Takupo. I
don't like the idea that the Pacers are putting a
potential pause on everything until Haliburton comes back, are running
into next year with a star being Pascal Siakam, Like

(04:43):
that doesn't make sense to me. I know what Siakam is.
At this point in twenty nineteen, he was the second
best player on a championship team. Hats off, salute they
got the ring for Canada. I respect that, But once
Kawhi Leonard left Toronto and it was Siakam's team, those
teams weren't even good they the playoffs once. They missed
the playoffs twice with him at the helm as the
franchise's best player. That's not good enough for me. They

(05:07):
moved off of him, understandable. Now they are kind of runnerless.
They're in a weird position with RJ. Barron, Brandon Ingram
and Scottie Brooks. It doesn't make a ton of studdy Barnes.
It doesn't make a ton of sense what they're doing
over there. But Siakam in Indiana found another spot as
the second star on a team that could try to
win a title, and he looked very good in that spot.

(05:27):
But now that Halliburton is out and you let Myles
Turner walk, you're in the same position the Raptors were in.
You have Siakim as your best player, and in the
Eastern Conference without a Jason Tatum and the Celtics are
trading pieces left and right, and with the Calves dealing
with injuries and the Knicks now have a head coach,
you kind of feel like the East is wide open

(05:49):
still that even with Halliburton being injured, if you keep
Miles Turner around, I'm not saying you're winning the title,
But an achilles injury is ten month injury. You can
get it back for the playoffs. And if you're a
playoff team, you're telling me that Halliburn on a seventh
seed or a sixth seed wouldn't be a scary team
to play. All you need to do then is at

(06:11):
a point guard to fill the gap, and there's plenty
of backup point guards who can start games for you.
It just doesn't make sense what the Pacers did. It's
not that I thought that Miles Turner was going to
be this world changing player for the Pacers. I just
don't like the idea that a guy who was drafted there,
loved playing there, walks out the door for nothing, and

(06:31):
now he joins the Milwaukee Bucks, who signed off on
paying out Damian Lillard's contract. It's one hundred million dollars contract.
He's coming off in a quilles injury. He's on the
end of his prime, and it pretty much ends it now.
He turns thirty five on July fifteenth. His prime is done.
Now he's going to be a spot up shooter and
a good backup point guard. At this point, he's not

(06:51):
going to be an All NBA caliber guy. But you
signed off on letting a guy who is a top
seventy five player all time leave franchise. And it looks
like Giannis isn't exactly thrilled by that conclusion. But I
like the move for the Bucks. I like the idea
that you add a guy like Turner and again you're
putting up next to Kyle Kuzma and Carrie Trent Junior.

(07:13):
The roster for the Bucks is not some sort of
world beating roster, but they also have Giannis. So if
you told me tomorrow that the Bucks are in the
Finals because of Yiannis, I'm not shocked. That seems like
a pretty good team. The East is wide open. The
seventy six Ers are coming back fully healthy, allegedly with
Joel Embiid and Paul George. We'll see if that actually
comes to fruition, but on paper it's a pretty good team.

(07:36):
The Knicks are bringing back their squad. They just signed
Jordan Clarkson, coming off the bench at thirty three years old.
He's a good score. Wouldn't shock me if the Knicks
are in that position either, trying to play for a title.
The East feels very open, So go make your moves,
Go set yourself up to try to go compete for
a title. The worst thing to happen for any of
these teams, I think, or for any of these players

(07:58):
who have signed contracts, would be if Giannis does get
traded from Milwaukee. If you're Miles Turner and you signed
a long term contract with Milwaukee and now they're in
a rebuild and Ye're in year ten. That to me
doesn't feel like the best spot to be in going forward.
But this Milwaukee Bucks organization, they're in a weird spot. Man.
They're in a very strange position because if you think

(08:20):
about the team that won the title in twenty twenty
one with Giannis and Drew Holliday and Chris Millton, most
of those guys are now gone. There's not a lot
of organizational integrity at this point with that roster and
with that team. And at this point, if you're looking
at Giannis to be the all time guy who's like, hey,
I'm sticking with the team and playing my whole career
in one spot, I have to bring up the fact

(08:42):
that the guys who did do that had organizational stability.
Everybody always talks about the Steph Curry's, the Tim Duncans,
the Dirk Devinsky's of the world, which is all very
fair to compare Giannis to at this point. All those
guys have championships, have MVPs or all time greats for
their organization. But the thing that the those three have
that Giannis doesn't have organizational stability From day one. When

(09:05):
Gianna Scott drafted in twenty thirteen. That is a turbulent franchise.
Got to remember, this is the franchise that traded for
Jason Kidd. Knowing everything we knew about Jason Kidd in Brooklyn,
they traded for Jake Kid and again, did it work?
Not really? He quote unlocked Gianness now maybe, but also
it might have just been a necessity. Hey, we don't

(09:27):
have any point guards. We need Gianness to bring the
ball up. And then it's turned into him being one
of the best point fowards of all time. Kind of
feels like dumb luck to me. He doesn't feel like
j Kid is doing a ton of deep basketball thinking here,
great basketball player, not a very good coach. This organization
is very turbulent. They moved off of guys who helped
win them titles, and they moved off of them very quickly.

(09:48):
They got rid of Drew Holliday, sent him to sent
him to the Portland Trailblazers. Guy who helped you win
a ring, you're essentially casting off. Okay, Chris Middleton, they
sent him to Washington. Guy who helped you win a title,
you're casting him off. This is not the organization that Derknavitsky,
Steph Curry or Tim Duncan had. This is the organization

(10:09):
that's kind of poorly run historically speaking, this is a
very turbulent franchise. So if you told me that Giannis
goes to the front office and says, hey, I went out,
it wouldn't shock me and it shouldn't upset you either.
You should be okay with him doing that, because it's
not a good spot for him to be in. He's
not in a position that these other guys, these all

(10:30):
time greats, these guys who didn't have to play for
other teams are in. He's in a position that he
got lucky to win his one ring with the organization
that he was drafted to. All Right, when we come back,
The Gambler, Jerry Jones has a new documentary on Netflix.
Will play you a little bit of the clip from
the teaser trailer, and we'll tell you if we're excited
to see it all. Coming up next to Craigway Show

(10:51):
rolls on Sports Radio AM thirteen hundred of the Zone