You're tuned into Heat Check with trist Quick.
On this episode of the Heat Check, We've got an interview with Yahoo senior NBA reporter and friend of show, Jake Fisher. He gives us some really good info on how the trade deadline went down, how the nets KD Kyrie Harden arrow will be looked at over time, why the Toronto Raptors were never going to make a move at the deadline except for to be a buyer.
Who is going to tank moving.
Forward this NBA season, and much much more like to get into Nick, So do me a favor and drop that generic ass beat.
Let's just felt like the trade deadline as a whole, because I felt like, to a degree it was like one of the more dramatic trade deadlines, and then outside of the two real pieces of shot and all, there wasn't really anything of note.
Yeah, I mean that's kind of what we with inside information were kind of saying for a while, right that, like there wasn't a lot of like starting level players that were actually going to move teams. And then the Kyrie Urbing thing obviously throw a giant monkey wrench in the entire trade landscape. But just like with Kevin Durant requesting the trade like an hour before free agency started.
Like those two situations kind of happened in a vacuum outside of everything else, Like forre agency started at six o'clock on June thirtieth, even though KD, you know, asked out, and you know, the wheels still spun, the world still moved on. And like the fact that Kyrie's trade happened to Dallas, like he requested them on Friday, so it was six days before the deadline, and then he was
already dealt by Sunday. I mean, the reporting has been pretty clear since that KD requested his deal out of Brooklyn on Monday, but the Nets, they weren't willing to discuss it with anybody. He wanted to go to Phoenix. He's wanted to go to Phoenix all along. So the other twenty eight teams kind of operated as we were expecting, which was pretty much Toronto dangling players and having a lot of calls around the league. But they didn't make
any selling type moves. They were interested in Naka Purtle, like we had known about since you last trade deadline when they were registering interest there.
And there's a lot of activity.
I mean I wrote today, yeaho's seventy one second round picks got traded between January first and the deadline. The other past four years, the most was thirty two second round picks traded because there just weren't a lot of players out there that were actually worthy of first round picks. And I think that's illustrative of the level of talent that was actually on the market.
To when did it become clear to everybody was in the know that Phoenix was like the only place.
I mean, I didn't know for certain until the deal happened, but when Kyrie's stuff dropped on Friday, everyone around the league said, well, just just like just like my Twitter feed, just like yours, the timeline was going off, what does this mean for KD?
Is KD next?
And the impression that everyone got, and especially by everyone, I mean like rival teams inquiring and especially after Brooklyn's return for Kyrie was Spencer Dinwiddie, Dori and Phinney Smith first and a couple of seconds, I believe that was a win now move, right like that was a move just like they did throughout the summer with going and get Royce O'Neil and resigning Claxton, TJ. Warren and other
things to try to build a contender around KD. So, I mean, the thought was still prevalent of well, if he does if I mean he's he's changed his mind left and right.
That's that's kind of been his mo.
So the thought kind of prevailed, well, he could still do that before Thursday, he could decide it turns out he did it on Monday, right, And at that point in time, it was a holdover thing that everyone around the situation believed that if he was leaving Brooklyn, and even why he requested a trade originally from Brooklyn was the thought that that Phoenix could happen, that Phoenix was there,
he could play with Devin Booker, Chris Paul. So it just kind of felt like an inevitability if this came around. I mean, Memphis definitely lobbed an offer. Let's say, I don't know the specifics, but I know it was definitely all their picks and they're willing to trade anybody not named John Dylan Brooks and Jared Jackson Junior. But he wanted to go to Phoenix and that was the only thing that was going to happen. So I didn't know,
like I said, until you know when's did it. When the trade went down, it was like I mean, I remember saying on the radio on Tuesday night in Philly at WIP and my family because I'm from the area, was like listening to my brother, so like, oh, like you called Katie the Phoenix on Tuesday night, I didn't. I just like I had an understanding if he was going to get moved, the overwhelming likelihood was to the Sun, so that's where he wanted to go.
And then the second thing that you mentioned earlier too, was like that Toronto was just going to dangle everyone. How close do you think they actually were to ever selling the parts that they were dangling.
So I don't have that definitive answer, but what I can say is that they were telling rival teams. And only the reason I don't have that definitive answers I'm on the phone right and like you're hearing stuff. At the end of the day, the job is to tell the public what you believe to be true based off of.
The information that you hear.
A lot of times you're hearing, you know, falsehoods or things that are a little bit misleading. To try to paint a certain picture, and it's your job to or it's my job to try to sift through all that and come and bring like the clearest picture I can. Right So with that, like Toronto was telling other teams starting at the showcase, like, we don't know what we're gonna do. We're gonna take out until the final minutes
of the deadline. We're gonna have this long like eight game road trip or whatever it was, six games something like that, all throughout the West Coast before they came back that Sunday night before the deadline, and they were gonna regroup on Monday and figure out what the direction they wanted to go and sure Fred van Vliet's contract he could be a free agent this summer if he
opts out. Gary Trent can opt out. Ojiananobi's guaranteed to be unrestricted for agent in twenty four because he can't buy CBA limitations get more than one hundred and twenty percent salary increase, which is well below his market value, being that he's eighteen ninety million that our player right now.
But they were telling.
Teams like, we don't know what we're gonna do, And they were telling teams we might be buyers. So to me, like I'm looking at reading all these te leaves and operating at the thirty first front office and trying to figure out what these teams are going to do because they don't know what they're gonna do. All that stuff I just said to you never signaled a team that
was really going to sell. And it signaled a team just like they did with Kyle Larry in twenty one, they were going to talk and talk and see what the market was looking like and then probably the result would really come in the summer. So that at a certain point was really what I expected to be the case. I didn't know, I didn't like, I didn't wake up on Thursday confident, but I fully believed that they were going to go after Yaka Perle and the rest was
kind of undetermined. And it seems like even though there's a finality to it right now, I mean it's late February already, like juven's pretty close. So we'll see what happens come this offseason, especially if they don't continue to rise up the East. They're still I mean, there are ways away from getting out of the play in tournament, which is you know, obviously not where they want to be when they've got all these guys will who are up for thirty million dollars paydays coming up?
Yeah, you know, I thought that that to myself. I was sitting in the lawn in Arizona and right before this, you know, on Super Bowl Week, and I was like, do we really actually believe these guys are gonna do anything? Like I they really gonna move og Ananoby when he's under team control for another Yearine change Like it just doesn't. It never felt like a MASSI move, like a full fire sale, you know what I mean. So I think
you're I think you're right. It is interesting that they didn't do anything really at all except for you know, purchase Yaga Purtle former play.
In fairness like they can say no one met her asking Christ like the Pacers offered three first right the Pacers picks, I believe, one's almost Cleveland, one's Milwaukee, Like those aren't those aren't great first round picks that they're their late twenties. The Grizzlies offering a bunch of picks. The Grizzlies are gonna they're projecting to be a top five record team in the league, like they have been for the next half decade, like how pick is.
Going to be?
So I can understand, you know that the Rappers thinking, well, we did a good job of drawing up this interest to get the quantity of first rounders, but the quality isn't what we're looking for. That could be a fair counter argument. But I don't know, three first round picks, no matter where they land for a player that I don't know. I don't know if OGM was ever going
to be more than what he is in Toronto. That's also, you know, why would a team give up so so, so much more than what we just stated because they wanted to pick from everything I've heard the Rappers wanted to picks and players and the player when that that's let's say it's Memphis or in Indiana, but Memphis probably it's greater stakes for them being that they're they're at the top of this, uh you know echelon here? Are they going to just willingly mortgage all that stuff?
To be right?
In the situation Toronto is where he can be an unrestricted for agent with no guarantees to re sign in twenty four that's a lot that's a big price to pay.
Yeah, and it's not that much cheaper than say, like a Donovan Mitchell or you know, it's it's more than a Kyrie Irving at this stage, it's just slightly cheaper than Kevin Durant. Just feels like the drop off from like a A list player to let's be honest, like probably a B minus player, but a really good wing defender. It's like Toronto's very Danny Angish when it comes to
getting what they want. So, I guess, how do you think the trades actually fit into the rest of the season, Like, do you think anything really makes an impact outside of Katie and Kyrie to their respective destinations.
I do.
I mean, I think the Clippers got better and they're going to end up being just a talkable team until their season ends because Kwi and Paul George are so good when healthy and active, and that has not been the case consistently, right, and people love to talk about they're the big poster argument against you know, load management and whatnot. But and this is also like the fourth
year of this expensive iteration. And you know, they were across the aisle of the k D Kyrie experiment in Brooklyn, like those tandems came together the exact same offseason in July twenty nineteen, So like one potential super team dynasty already crumbled, Like is the time running out on this iteration in LA where there was already talk around the league back when they made that Western Conference Finals run against the Suns in twenty twenty one of like if
they didn't make it that far, what was going to happen up top?
Like there's I'm not I'm not here to.
Say that, Like I know definitively that there's hot seats in LA, but like this conventional wisdom would suggest he paid all this money to put together this you know contender, that maybe they don't make it to the Western Conference Finals more than once in a four year window like that be below expectations, Right, So they got better with Eric Gordon and Mason Plumley, And I really do like
Bones Island. I know there's been some you know, personality stuff that's come up in Denver, but I mean he's a damn good players in the second year of the rookie deal.
That's a pretty good, you know gamble.
I think from LA, the Nuggets got better with Thomas Bryant and Reddy Jackson's the nice buyout signing Golden State, getting Gary Payton the second back, Like I don't think he's a world changer, but you at least turn James Wiseman, who's was not going to play for them this year, into someone who was a really valuable or tation piece for them.
I mean the Lakers got a lot better.
Obviously they're starting five to pull the doors off the Pelicans without Zion, but the other night, so I mean, the whole conference, I think outside of Portland really got better. Your Blazers, like they didn't exactly buy to move.
This thing forward here, Trista, what what's going on?
It doesn't feel like it. No, they got it for Trump pick that is only lottery protected, so that will convey I think this year they're gonna need to figure something out, right like Jeremy Grant, whether he ends up
getting a deal done this summer, I don't know. I saw something earlier today that I forget who was writing it, that in order to keep Dame really supported that most likely they would have to sign, or they would most likely have to trade Anthony Simon's and Shade and Sharp, which I very much disagree about trading Shade and Sharp but it just doesn't feel like their philosophy is much different than neiel' shase was outside of just finding more
athletic dudes. I think Neil Shan would have been fine with Cam Reddish, Like I think neil'sha would have been fine with Jeremy Grant, Like maybe he doesn't, maybe he doesn't draft Shade and Sharp, maybe he ends up with like I don't know, some white guy from Gonzaga that's not Chet Holmgren, but like, I don't know that this is a defensive first team really, and to me, it doesn't feel like they're doing Dame any favors. Mhm