Come on, you're listening to Heat Check from Trista Criek, Odyssey's official NBA podcast, find that wherever you get your podcasts and live all throughout free agency, Summer league, and beyond. So let's get into a little news around the NBA. Kadie my man Kevin Durant has gone completely dark, and in his absence, the Nets have become I don't know, the Nets have become a thirteen year old with NBA two K in franchise mode and they're just trying to
swap one player for an entire team. They're also like who you experience all the time if you play fantasy football and you've got that one guy in the league who thinks that like he can trade you Alvin Kamara for like Matt Stafford and Josh Jacobs and Darren Wallers like my g no. Uh. The latest is that they tried to convince the Minnesota Timberwolves to give up Aunt Cat and four first round picks for Katie. I'm sorry, what you so? What? Click? That's one of those Hey,
what's up, Seana? It's uh a Rod and it's uh, who's run? Tim Conley? It's Tim? What's up? Uh? You won't excuse me? What click? That's like, that's an immediate go fuck yourself. So why would the Wolves or Kevin Durant sign off on that? Like? Why would Delo and Kevin Durant remix in this alternate universe where Katie was in assign a trade for d Loo who's also in a sign a trade? Like why would Kevin Durant want to play with Jaden McDaniels h d Loo? And like
nas read, he wouldn't, like you wouldn't. It doesn't help anyone other than the Nets in this case. And first of all, if you get Nets, if you are the Nets and you get Karl Anthony Towns and Aunt Edwards for Kevin Durant, there are no picks being extreined exchanged, there is absolutely none. You get players. Aunt Edwards is probably Michael Jordan. Have the Nets ever seen him play? I don't know, because it sees the next Jordan. I'm not giving you baby Jordan for a thirty plus guy
who probably doesn't want to play in Minnesota anyway. And Brian Windhorse hit it on the head when he said this, and I thought to myself, we got to talk about this. The market does not want to pay a super premium price for Kevin Durant because if he trade all away these top assets on your team begin him, he becomes then less valuable to you because you're no longer a contender and all of that is a golf and why we are in a stalemate right now, and you could
have one for a while. And the latest now is also that there's no Kyrie trade until Kevin's trade. So Kai is going to just sit there and rot even though he's out in the in I want to say, he's in La, playing in the valley. In all these NBA leagues, he's chopping it up with all the stars. He's given them buckets, proven that he's one of the best scorers on Earth. And you know what, for the nets, that doesn't matter. And for Kevin, people want to know.
Players are reaching out to him, agents are reaching out to him, Teams are reaching out to him, not answering, not answering calls, not answering texts, not answering emails, barely even responding to tweets, which we know he loves to do. And it's all essentially in Rich Clemban's hands now. So no, obviously, no Kevin Durant cameos in Summer League. It would appear haven't seen him, haven't heard about him. It would appear this is going to drag on for some time. WOJ
thinks it's going to going all is going. WOG thinks it's going to go all the way up into a training camp. That would be gross. This has got the whole league on hold, and of course the trade could at any moment, so you got to keep those alerts on for that very reason. Moving on, let's move on brad Beal. Brad Bial signed his five year, two hundred and fifty one million dollar extension with the Wizards. I gotta say for him, go get your money, my guy,
you deserve it. Take those money and then just hang out in DC. And we know that he's loyal. But here's the kicker. Bradley Beal asked for and got a no trade clause in his contract. He's the only current player in the league with that in his contract. And Ted Lee oonsis the owner of the Wizards, owner of what is it monumental Monumental Sports, says that he does not want to be traded and we don't want to trade him. All that sounds nice. On Friday, July eight,
twenty twenty two, will see how this goes. In July eighth, twenty twenty six, we'll see when he's thirty years old. Leons says he sees this as a partnership and now the Wizards can't don't bill for a boatload of picks without his say so, which is, you know, smart business for bal in the NBA. You can't end up in Sacramento, right like he is going to be able to pick his next destination when when he comes to grips with what we all know and Brock knows that he will
never win anything in Washington. He will never make it past the first round. Again, I said it. And let's be clear about something here. This is no shade on Bradley Beal when I say this. But when he signed this extension super max, no trade clause, I'm all in, no player option. That was the moment that I knew Bradley Beal does not prioritize winning a championship. It's not He's not going to win a title in Washington. And any smart person can see this. The team is a mess.
The team is so messy that there's not really much of a chance that they even will make the playoffs this year. Their idea of giving Beal pieces to help him was to sign Monty Morris, will or Monte Will Barton the lawn Wright junior. They drafted Johnny Davis, which means, folks, that this team has signed four guys who either have or currently play the shooting guard position, which is the exact same position that Bradley Beal plays. I don't know.
I mean, of course Morris and Wright can play the point. And basically what you're saying is that the Wizards added a pair of backup point guards Monty Morris at thirteen and four, right at four and two, and then basically said, Bradley Beal, you go ahead and carry the load. You go ahead and be the point guard. Make Johnny Davis
the two. And we know that Bradley Beal is loyal, but we also know Bradley Beal is smart and signing with the Wizards right now with a baby on the way is a smart business move and it's a smart life move. It's just not the one that's going to give him a title. And that's facts, and that's okay. He'll be thirty four years old when his extension is finished, and so that's maybe when he decides to go chase
a ring like everybody else. I don't hate it. He's creating this multi generational wealth and being loyal to a city that he loves, and I'm for that. But the cost of being loyal oftentimes is winning. Just asked Damian Lillard, who himself doubled down and took a two year, one hundred and twenty two million dollars deal with the Blazers, how much money is that? Let me go to Mas
School sixty sixty something million dollars a year. Well, if you're gonna lose which twenty nine teams every year, do, you might as well make sixty million dollars a year doing it. Let's move on to Donovan Mitchell, quick update him on him and the Utah Jazz. I don't have it today. I don't think I have it. Last we looked in on the Jazz Trader, Danny had leveraged Rudy Gobert for about one hundred first round picks from the Timberwolves. People are very split down the middle on this. I
put out a clip on the internet. Would you rather spend thirty million dollars on Christian Wood. We talked about this on the podcast, obviously, Christian Wood and Javeail thirty million or Rudy Gobert and cat At one hundred million, and people were very mad. People told me to get into the kitchen. People told me to never watch basketball again. People told me that I should just focus on the
women's side of the game. It's just one of those scenarios where this was more controversial folks than I even thought, at least thought least. The Wolves are committed to doing something to try to win now, and that for a lot of folks who have never seen the Wolves do a damn thing, is very exciting. This team could be very fun, even though it's a wing driven league. As Kevin Durant would say, and you've got two centers now that make a hundred million. I don't want to talk
about that, though. What I do want to talk about is what the Jazz are doing given this end of things, and what they're going to do moving forward. Q that Brian Windhorse dramatic reading what is going on in Utah. It turns out, according to Brian Winhorse, what is happening in Utah is nothing. Yet they're the only team in the NBA who hasn't signed anyone in free agency, not one single person, not a single soul. All they've done is just trade things, trade Roy O'Neill, trade Rudy Gobert,
and accumulated to first round picks. And that, my friends, probably not a sign of encouragement to my man, Donovan Mitchell. Probably not good news if you're a Jazz fan and you think then maybe they're building around them, because that's what they keep saying, We're building around Donovan. We don't want them to go. And then other reports are coming out saying that Donovan Mitchell is concerned with the moves
that this team is making. Facts. I get that, and I don't think I'm making a hot take or saying a hot take to say Donovan Mitchell is probably not long for the Utah Jazz. This team's in rebuild mode. They just are not admitting it yet because they think they're getting an All Star Game in Utah, which they may or may not have, and they need to have one player that's an All Star the one year that they go to that trash as city or the fan base will probably riot probably bring their tiki torches out.
Oh yes, the All Star game is two weeks though before the trade deadline this year coincidence, I don't think so. I don't think so. So if you're in New York, you play the waiting game. I mean New York, not Brooklyn. Other than Sam Presty and OKC. We talked about this before, there's not really any other team that has as many
first round picks as the next, especially expendable ones. They have eight tradable first round picks in the next handful of years, so unless they do something panicky or dumb, they're going to be in a really good position to add Donovan to this team. And a backcourt of Mitchell and Brunson is pretty intriguing. It's definitely better than a backcourt of Mike Conley Jr. And Donovan Mitchell, but truthfully, Mike Coley in his prime probably better than Jalen Bondson.
Not gonna lie. Wendy says that the Jazz are not talking to anyone about a trade right now for Donovan, and I think that makes sense only if they're planning on holy onto him for the short term, because building around him makes no damn sense. And what we know about Danny Age is this, he is not afraid to, and he seems too light to blow out let's h