The Volume.
Hi, everybody, welcome in. Can't wait ten minutes twelve minutes away from Chris Mannox joining us member of the Volume sports and talk about all the NBA moves. I thought the Lakers did pretty well. Phoenix has built a bench pretty quickly, so we'll talk about that. I got a couple of things on my mind. First, happy Fourth of July weekend. I'm going to take Wednesday off from TV and radio work Monday and Tuesday and hang out with
some members of my family. My kids are getting older now, so I can't get them all for Fourth of July weekend, which is a bummer, but that's a part of you know, your kids growing up. So something that jumped out to me this weekend I watched people implode when Elon Musk
instituted a view limit on Twitter. I could not be the only person and I view myself as a political independent to moderate that was struck by the irony of Hollywood elites saying they were leaving Twitter the minute Elon Musk purchased it, and then complaining all weekend about view limits.
Which is it?
So many people hated Elon Musk. I'm leaving He's ruined it. And now you're complaining about view limits. Take a deep breath, go outside. One of the things that has really turned me off from Twitter is not Elon Musk. It's the outrage constantly about Elon Musk. I think the media does a really bad job of connecting often with the public. Only twenty three percent of Americans are on Twitter, and I think for the people who aren't, if they went on,
they'd be immediately turned off. It's just an outrage machine. Folks. Life is about limit, right. There's everything in our life speeding limits, term limits. I work in media, FCCS, limits on how many stations you can own. I love the state parks. I try to go to a state park every couple of years. Even they're not free. Twitter's a business. You have to buy an eighty dollars season pass. Now they'll have free days at state parks, but you got to pay to play, right. I mean, even our beaches
in the country, there are places they're not free. You got to pay to go to some beaches. So a media platform, you think it's going to be free forever.
No, it's not.
It has to be ads supported and subscription supported.
To some level.
It was losing money when Jack owned it, it's losing money. Now with Elon, he's got to figure out how to make it work. I guarantee in ninety nine percent of you are on Twitter more than you're on Netflix, they're not given that thing away for free. I remember when newspapers first went to a paywall, bug me out. Now they're all on it. I remember when I used to be able to watch a lot of things on media sites without being bombarded by ads.
Those days are over.
Hopefully all of you listening have a broad enough life that view limits won't ruin your Fourth of July weekend. So I'm going to talk to Chris Mannix about this. But Damian Lillard is not as easy to trade as people think. He has requested a trade from the Blazers. Small dynamic guards that don't defend, don't truly elevate others, and have a recent injury history, and a contract that's pretty ugly at the end of the deal are hard to move now. I think he works in Miami, but
that's because Bam and Jimmy Butler are excellent defenders. I think he works in Milwaukee. That's because Jannis and Drew Holliday are excellent defenders. But with Dame, he's given up buckets. He's small, and I think the league is finally coming to terms with dynamic guards don't necessarily make others better. Westbrook just signed a contract for eight mil.
That was it.
Dylan Brooks signed one for eighty mil. That's the reality of the league. Biggs with high skill level wings three and d Wings. And the other thing is the really smart gms in this league figure out that you find your star eventually and then you surround him with people who limit his weakness. Jokich not a great defender. The Nuggets go get Aaron Gordon from Orlando, a great defender. Steph the Warriors of Oways surrounded him, Peyton, Clay Thompson, Wiggins, Draymond,
andre Igwoodahl years ago with the elite defenders. If you look at Lebron as great as he is, when he went to Miami, pat Riley knew that Wade and Lebron were not elite three point shooters. What did they do? Ray Allen, Mike Miller, Shane Battier. That's why the Dallas Mavericks coupling Luca and Kyrie gobbling up a lot of the payroll is sort of mystifying long term. I would
not have signed Kyrie for a three year deal. He's ball centric, can't defend Luca's ball centric, can't defend its duplication. So you have to understand with Dame. I think the Utah situation's pretty interesting, and they have some draft picks and some young players to give Portland back. But if you bring in Dame, you have to own it. He's not going to give you seventy games, and he's not going to defend, and he's going to need the ball a lot. So that's why Miami and Milwaukee to me
really work. I'm not sure though Miami has enough to give Portland a sense they at least broke even on the trade. You know, I was thinking about Major League Baseball. I think we're going to have a remarkable football season, and I've said for years I think Major League Baseball should shorten their season to about one hundred and twenty games and early August and go seven weeks of playoffs
over by the third week of September. You play in warm weather all season, end in warm weather late October, early November, rain outs, cold, It's not how the game is supposed to be played. So, and there's another real estate reality is that when football starts, baseball shrinks. So you could own August and remember it's not until after Labor Day that first Thursday opens the season, but you would have Friday and Saturday before the NFL season's first weekend.
Really art and I think you should be wrapping up baseball by then grab some momentum. But baseball this year is going to be really challenged to get playoff ratings. First of all, college football now has broader appeal. Michigan maybe the first or second best team in the country. USC will be a top five team in the country. LSU, Georgia, Bama obviously huge in the South, Ohio State, Notre Dame.
There's more breadth to college football this year. Denver West will be more engaged, and they really haven't been for the last ten to twelve years since Pete Carroll USC eroded, So you're going to get some Western viewers watching college football that haven't for about a decade. It's going to be a big year in college football ratings. Secondarily, the NFL is growing every year. It is a monster, and
more than ever, you've got really clever offensive coaches. So even when you get kind of marginal average quarterback tallent Tua as an example, you can elevate him significantly. We have about ten to twelve elite offenses in the NFL, and San Francisco doesn't have a great quarterback, but still I regard it as a top offense because of Kyle Shanahan and the personnel. So it's going to be a lot of points in the NFL. Early usually is in warm weather September. It's going to be a broad array
of major college football powers. USC and Texas appear to be back and in Major League baseball right now. Seven of the top teams in baseball first or second in their division are the Reds, the d Backs, Cleveland, Minnesota, Baltimore, and Tampa. Good luck to major League Baseball. Not a lot of household names. The Yankees this year can't hit. They're on base percentage is three to zho one. That's the same as the A's, and the A's are a
Triple A team. The Dodgers pitching is twenty second in ERA, so the Dodgers and Yankees are just not really special teams. The good news you can always watch the Cleveland Guardians in the playoffs. If they make it to watch future Yankees. So you're going to get a lot of non household names, non big brands in baseball in September and October, and I think we're going to have our best college football season and one of our more dynamic NFL seasons in a long time. Good luck to baseball.
The dust has settled Colin Cowhard on free agency in the NBA. More than two billion dollars has been earmarked for NBA players over the first forty eight hours of free agency. A predictable dizzying of activity over the first few days of free agency. I wouldn't say, though, there has been anything that I would call a significant surprise over the first few days. I mean, the battle for Fred van Vliet was kind of what I expected. Houston and Toronto going back and forth before the Rockets come
in with a massive offer. The Indiana Pacers made a bunch of moves around the fringes. Was there anything out there in the first couple of days that took you aback?
Yeah?
I thought the Dallas Mavericks were negotiating against themselves. I don't think that it was a market three years, one hundred and twenty six million. You know, it's funny. Mark Cuban does so many things I like. I find it to be a very odd franchise with their hirings, with
their signings. I said, when they got Luca, they you know, they looked for years to find kind of the right remedy for the weaknesses of Dirk, understanding what a straints were, and they finally found a chippy team, a defensive team, a veteran team, guys that fit around him, a lot of length because Dirk was never a great defender. And it's like, oh this works, not long term, it's not the Spurs, but it works. Luca's a ball poor defender.
I think there's a way to build around him, and that is now Eric Aaron Gordon's not on the market, Denver has him. But a player like that, players like that, gritty, tough defenders, guys that don't need the ball. Luca can control things. It's a little bit like a bigger version of James Harden. There was a way to build around James Harden. I always had this theory is that you find your star. The Warriors have done this, and then
you protect his weakness. You know, they look at Steph clay Can defend in his prime, Wiggins Draymond Iggy like they knew what he was. The example I've used is Iannis early, not much of a shooter, Middleton became valuable. They were hoping there was more in the tank for Joe Ingalls. Jay Crowder aged very quickly, but he was a three n D guy.
For a while.
So you generally find your stars. He's next level at something, Yo, kitch it something. But they all have holes. Lebron was not a great shooter, either was d Wade. So what did Riley do? Ray Allen, Mike Miller, Battier. He got guys who could hit threes. Dallas once again will go into a season as the league arguably, I mean defense really now plays I think a really crucial role. Even Denver played really pretty good defense for a team we didn't view as an elite defensive team, and Dallas is
going against the grain with an offensive team. Again, I love Cuban. I don't get moves here, do you.
I get the desire to bring Kyrie Irving back, And I think Dallas is probably patting itself on the back by saying we got Kyrie Irving on a three year deal. Kyrie Irving wanted a four year deal or a five year deal. We got him on a three year deal.
They didn't have any options here. You know, bringing Kyrie Irving back was both the only way to keep them competitive in an increasingly competitive Western Conference and to at least temporarily stave off you know, the Luka doncic what are we doing here conversation, because without Kyrie Irving, you know, that conversation would have happened, probably sooner rather than later.
It may still happen, you know, to your point, this doesn't solve a lot of problems that the Mavericks have, especially defensively, but at least it kind of pushes that conversation down the line. Use the phrase, you know, bidding against themselves, and that's exactly what Dallas was doing here. This contract tells me that the tactical pr campaign that Kyrie Irving and his agents have waged over the last couple of months worked. You know.
The first sort of salvo was Kyrie.
Leaking it out there that he was going to have a conversation with Lebron James about playing in Dallas, which was ridiculous on the surface for starters. Lebron wasn't a free agent and isn't a free agent, and he's never expressed any desire to play anywhere outside of Los Angeles. But that was Kyrie's messaging to the Mavericks that, Hey, you've historically been a team that has struggled to recruit free agents. I'm your guy. I can bring in free agents.
I can bring guys to Dallas that never would have considered going there before.
That was his way of doing that.
And then there's all the nonsense about meetings, like you're meeting with the Phoenix Suns for what exactly.
Everyone with you know, a.
Pair of eyeballs and ears, knows that Kyrie is all about the top dollar, right Like, the reason Kyrie is not a Brooklyn net right now is because he saw the writing on the wall. He saw a Brooklyn team that was sped up with all of his antics and was not going to offer him the kind of long term deal he wanted free agency, the idea that he was going to take some kind of short money to play where in Phoenix. In Miami, he's going to take
the mid level exception from the Lakers. I mean, these were ludicrous suggestions, but the reality is getting a three year, one hundred and twenty six million dollar contract, which is all guarantee player option in that third year. If he wants it, he can pick it up. I don't know that to me. Colin says that Kyrie's game, whatever it was, it worked.
I will say I think most moves in free agency are incremental, but I thought the Lakers had a series of good incremental moves. I thought, Gabe Vincent, if you can shoot and you play with Lebron, you'll get looks. They retained the two guys I would absolutely retained Ruleian Reeves. They got D'Angelo Russell for two years only, meaning you can move that in the year, and he does provide perimeter shooting. They moved off guys that I mean, let's not get ourselves. Lonnie Walker had a good game or
maybe a half. Jackson Hayes I also thought was a nice acquisition. I think with Anthony Davis, because he's more he's a great defensive player. They become very reliant on him as a defensive player. And Jackson Hayes they needed another big, athletic body and that's what he is. He's had some trouble off the floor, but he's a big, talented, athletic body. So I thought Vincent and Hayes were nice pickups. I don't know a ton about Prince, but I thought
they moved off the right people. I also thought they got Austin Reeves for a pretty good number. That was one of the I thought that was one of the shrewder deals because I like him. You know, you can become a hater in this league if you criticize a player. I like him, and I think he'll be a sixteen and a half point four as sist guy. But he's not an elite shooter, not an elite point guard. He's a decent defender. He initiates contract tact. Lebron likes playing
with him. The number he got is a reasonable number, So I think they made a series of incremental moves Chris. But you know what, you can get a lot better by inches. It doesn't all have to be feet and meters here, and I thought the Lakers came out of the weekend. Are a better basketball team, a clearer basketball team? Your thoughts?
Really, I've thought since January of this past season, Rob Polenka has made a pretty strong case that he's operating as one.
Of the best executives in basketball.
From the Ruy Hashimor deal to where we are now, the Lakers have been built correctly. You know, whatever they were doing before the accumulation of stars, going big, getting Russell Westbrook, none of that seemed to make any sense. But from the Hashimor deal to the DiAngelo Russell deal to everything we saw in free agency, the Lakers have had success after success. And look all the guys they brought in. You know, Torrian Prince, thirty eight percent three
point shooter, versatile three and D guy. He'll work in that system. I think he'll be a better version and a more playable version of Lonnie Walker in that system. Gabe Vincent starter on an NBA Finals team, reliable guy, good contract, getting Austin Reeves back, as you said, on that team friendly contract. It did surprise me, Colin, to see that there wasn't a team out there.
Just looking to screw the Lakers over.
Like the Lakers they were telegraphing to anyone that would listen that they were going to match that, you know, mythical four year, one hundred million dollar contract. In a way, it surprised me that San Antonio, with all that cap room, that They didn't say, you know what, We're gonna give Austin Reeves four years one hundred million dollars just to kind of screw with the Lakers a little bit. But nobody did, and the Lakers get him back on a
tremendous deal, the D'Angelo Russell deal. I mean, how many months ago were we talking about, Oh God, well, the Lakers give D'Angelo Russell a close to max level deal.
They got him for two years in a song. It's incredible.
So I thought the Lakers had an enormously successful first few days of the off season. On top of that, the guys we just talked about, they're all tradable, right, They all have digestible contracts for teams that could be looking to offload a superstar down the line. So if the Lakers in the next year eighteen months decide to go that direction where they want to add another piece of that.
Puzzle, they can do it. They can do it.
They've preserved some of their future draft capital, and they've got these digestible contracts that can be moved that could bring another star to the mix. I was a huge fan of what the Lakers did in the first.
Couple of days.
I think, and I've said this with Austin Reeves. I like him, but I do think what concerns people about him, so giving him like a max money deal. I don't see a lot of max qualities. He's not a max ballhandler, max shooter, max twitchy, max size. He's an older young player because he played in college forever. He's like a seventies throwback. So I think you see this sometimes in the NFL where Mac Jones comes in quarterback of the Patriot.
It's out of Alabama, and he's pretty darn close to his ceiling, has a very redeemable rookie year, and that's kind of what he is. I do think after two years and ten points a game, I think Austin Reeves has another jump. But I don't think it's twenty two points a game. I think it's sixteen and a half. And I think you know, to Austin Reeves credit, he likes playing with Lebron. Lebron gets in the ball. Austin knows he's a good ball handler. He's not a pure point.
Lebron can take that out of his hands. I think Austin and I wish more players realize this. This is a good fit for him. It's a really nice fit. And let's be honest, for a kid that's undrafted, it's like being an undrafted tight end and you end up with the Dallas Cowboys and Dack's throwing you Football's like, it's a damn good situation for him, and there's not a ton of pressure, like he's the you know, on some nights he's the second second best player, but he's
mostly the third best player on a good team. So I thought the league spoke that we like him. He's maybe a tad closer to his ceiling than people think. Now, the Dame situation's interesting, and this sports cyclical. You and I grew up back to the basket centers. Then it became Jordan Kobe Wings took over the league. You know, small ball had its run, and I still think it can be effective if you have multiple three point shooters. Sometimes teams are fooled into thinking they do the Warriors did,
Houston for a while did. The league now tends to be more European, highly skilled bigs, wing defenders very important. Dame is not as traitable as everybody thinks. Everybody's consumed. What do the Blazers get back. Well, here's what you get with Dame a tiny guard, two years of injuries, highly expensive late in the contract, and a huge defensive liability. I like him with Miami and Milwaukee because Chris, they can surround with excellent defenders. He doesn't work in a
lot of places like people love Utah. Can they surround him with enough defenders? And the end of that contract, Chris, it's punitive, like if he's banged up two three years into this, that is a lead weight in year three. I think it's a harder contract. I think he's a harder player to move than people think.
I think that the market won't be wide, but the market that will be there for him will be clawing over itself.
To get him.
And that includes Miami, Philadelphia, the New York Knicks. I think at least those Brooklyn, at least those four teams will be just throwing, you know, stuffing their offers with sweeteners to get the attention of the Portland Trailblazers. I do want to before I kind of give you know, my take on where who should go after him, where he should go. I have been disappointed in how the Blazers have handled all this, Like every public statement that
Joe Cronin makes. It just makes him seem like he's mystified that Damian Lillard wouldn't want to be in Portland, and he's mystified why anyone would believe that the Blazers can't assemble a contender. What the Blazers did in the first few days of free agency was give Jeremy Grant one of the worst contracts that were handed out during free agency. A twenty nine year old good player just gets in excess of thirty million dollars per year. That is going to be any They do that knowing full
well that wasn't going to satisfy Damian Lillard. That Blazers team last year was largely healthy. Like you know, I think Grant played sixty plus games. Lillard was in that mix. You subtract the games that they punted towards the end of the season for the crux of that season. Yeah,
that was a healthy Blazers team. And somehow the idea pops in the head of Joe Cronin that giving Jeremy Grant five years to one hundred and sixty million dollars is going to placate Damian Lillard and make him think that this this this team has what it takes to succeed.
I just didn't understand that. And now it just strikes me Colin that the Blazers are kind of going out of their way to pick a fight with Lillard, whether it's to say, you know, we were committed to building around Dame, but hey, he wants to go somewhere else, we'll do our best to make sure that happens, and then to and look, Lillard kind of started this by putting it out there that he wanted to be in Miami, but then the Blazers countering by, you know, effectively saying
we're going to look around the league and do what's best for us, which they should. I just don't like it feels like an unnecessary fight to pick.
You know, you're both both sides are adults.
They could have gotten in a room and said, look, you're not going to win anything with me. You're building around Scoot Henderson, who could be the next meet you've got Shaden Sharp. Let's just use my value to keep pushing you in that direction and I'll find a contender. It just feels like it's become adversarial when it didn't have to be now, the team that needs to go all in for Lillard is the Philadelphia seventy six ers, because the Philadelphia seventy six Ers are in that Damian
Lillard success window, that success bubble. They've got three years now of probably peak Joel mb who's I believe going to turn thirty during this season. They've got to find a way to maximize it. They've got an asset in James Harden that the Clippers badly want. They've got draft capital in the form of those future Sons pick, which I can tell you are as appetizing as any future
draft picks to teams across the NBA. I mean, there is a widespread belief that three years from now the Sons could cratering like they could be just in a rough spot, and those draft picks and pick swaps have enormous value. If I'm the seventy six Ers, I Am going all out to construct some kind of three team deal that sends James Harden to the Clippers, brings Damian Lillard to Philly, and the Blazers. Maybe they get Tyrese Maxey, who maybe they don't need right now because they've got
a surplus of smallish guards. But you take the asset and you get a boatload of draft picks, both from the Clippers and the Sixers. Sometimes there's just a deal Colin that's so obvious that you wonder why it hasn't happened already.
This to me feels like one of them.
This to me feels like the kind of deal that makes sense for everybody. The Clippers get their playmaker, the Sixers get Lillard and Embiid paired together. Those are two winners, you know, two win it all cost types of guys, And the Blazers get their package of young players in draft picks they can build around for years to come. That to me is a deal that all three sides need to be talking about right now.
I want to talk Phoenix Suns for a second, because I think a lot of it. Bradley Beal's got many good years left, so does Ayton, and so does Booker. A lot of it just hinges. And they cobbled together a bench. They went and got Eric Gordon, so they cobbled together a little bit of a bench. He got nice little player. He's an older player, but a nice player. It really comes down to Katie's health. If you can
get sixty games from him. So I am very much in on Phoenix because three of their players don't have a long injury history. I like the coach. I think he'll get Vogel will get the most. And I also think bench play in the playoffs can be a tad over rated. Boston didn't have a if you look at Denver didn't have a great bench this year. There have been teams like the Laker Bubble team that did have a very good bench, and the Warrior team a couple
of years ago had a pretty good bench. But there's been other teams that have won the title that didn't have a great bench. What they had was some mix of size shooting, and I think that. I think if you have three elite players and a fourth who will be very good under this coach, it's a fairly dynamic team.
But there was a comment about two weeks ago from Kad that was just so strange to me, and he talked about what inspirational players Kyrie and James Harden were and I thought, wow, now was that just for social media? Like I like Katie a lot, but he veers into odd sometimes when when you look at Phoenix and do you view it as combustible. I don't, but sometimes Katie getting into Twitter battles and these comments about stuff, I'm like, do you fear the combustibility of Phoenix.
I don't fear the combustibility as much as the chemistry. Maybe not working on the floor, and maybe those two are cousins to each other, but I think that's a team that will you know, Brooklyn, you know, towards the end of course, James Harden and Kyrie were not seeing eye to eye. I don't see it being that type of situation, but the injuries do worry me. Kevin, of course, has his history. But Bradley Beal, I mean it's almost career long with Bradley Beal where he has been dealing
with something one way or the other. Early on, it was the foot injury which he got pasted and what became a durable guy. But he had risk surgery about a year and a half ago. He battled multiple hamstring injuries last season. He's someone I'm worried about getting to that kind of sixty sixty five game threshold, you know, for this team.
Booker's fine.
The other the other unknown to me is how how well can Frank Vogel get through to DeAndre eight. Can Frank vogue get Ayton back to being the guy who accepted being a ten to fourteen shot per game player, who anchored a top ten defense during their time at that the elite level when they went to the finals, when they won sixty four games.
Ken, Frank Vogel, get him back to that.
I think he's uniquely equipped because he's a coach that can say, look, my teams, especially defensively, have been built around great biggs. You go back to Indiana Roy Hibbert. What was Roy Hibbert before Frank Vogel took over. Royebert's career took off in the aftermath of Frank Vogel becoming the head coach there in Los Angeles, Ad Dwight Howard, the bigs they played with out there, Frank Vogel can say, just trust me. I will find a way to get you your shots. I will find a way to make
you part of the offense. And there's reason to believe that he can be that guy. So that I think is going to be a big key. Ken Frank Vogel get through to DeAndre Aid and make him happy and make him productive for that.
Team this season.
I want to pivot to this. I got into a discussion with a friend who works in Portland, small market, and I said, the upside to a big market franchise, it's often more attractive to the players, right, Like the stars want to go to the big market, not okay.
See.
And secondarily, big markets are more willing to move off players and take a big swing because it's not the only game in town. Everybody's seeking championships. In Boston they don't care you get to the playoffs. And in Portland for years they were terrified to move off you know CJ. McCollum and Dame because they were pretty good and it's the only big game in town and they were terrified by it. Yet Boston moves off the soul of that team, Marcus Smart, because eh, getting to the finals is the
only you know, that's what we're seeking. So I love that premise that big market teams will just take bigger swings. I mean, moving off Marcus Smart is certainly as could be as punitive potentially in that back court as moving off CJ. McCullum would have been right, but Boston would do it. Here's my concern with Boston. Smart was a great locker room guy. Porzingis is not a culture center. He has injuries, He's becoming a bounce around.
The league guy.
Do you worry at all Tatum's not a dominant, relentless presence that some negativity with Porzingis and his personality could now seep in and Marcus Smart would not be there to call him on it.
Yeah, I think that's a real concern. I do think over the last couple of years, and I've been around that locker room a lot and know that team pretty well, they've had some of their younger guys step up and be more assertive in that locker room. I think Jason Tatum last season was more assertive. Jalen Brown has become increasingly asserted. Al Horford, the elder statesman on that team, has been a pretty strong presence in that locker room.
So I think it's something they can overcome. I think they've got enough voices in that locker room that they can deal with the loss of Smart. In fact, I think the loss of Smart is more significant on the court than it is off and I understand why they did this deal. Colin. You know this goes back to the trade deadline in this past February, when the Celtics were all in on Yaka Pertl. They wanted Yaka Perle in San Antonio. The asking price from the Spurs was
two first round draft picks. They had two offers on the table. One was from Toronto with a first round pick and filler, one was from Boston first round pick and filler without that second first round pick. The Spurs say, well, the Raptor's pick is going to be better, so we're going to take the Raptors offer. The Celtics pivoted and they kept Luke Cornett and they added Mike Muscala, two guys that turned out to be unplayable in the postseason.
So they went into this offseason knowing that with Al Horford about to turn or just turn thirty seven years old, with Robert Williams historically unhealthy, and with Grant Williams his status for the long term still unknown, they had to add somebody reliable, and Porzingis, at least this past season, was reliable. It's abundantly clear that the Celtics wanted to give up Malcolm Brogden in that transaction, but Brogden's forearm injury is clearly something that is a cause for concern.
So I understand that.
It's a long way of saying I understand why they did it, But you know Brogden, who has been an injury prone player for the entirety of his career.
If you know, the.
Celtics are saying all the right things right now about that arm, I got to be honest. Some of the rumblings I'm hearing is that that arm may not be the kind of thing that you give it a few weeks off and it's going to be fine for next season. I would have serious concern about Malcolm Brogden going into next season. And if Brogden is not able to give you the kind of durability he had during the regular season last year, what are you looking at right now?
Their rotation is Derek White, it's Peyton Pritchard, and it's Sam Hauser. Two of those three guys were not part of the postseason rotation. So not only are you still finish up front, because as we talk, I don't know what's going to happen with Grant Williams if he's back, if he's signed and traded. I don't know what's going to happen with that situation. But you are looking at a backcourt where Derek White might be your only reliable option.
That to me is scary. I see a lot of takes out there about how the Celtics are better in the aftermath of this deal a month from now. That might be true if they bring Grant Williams back, if they swing another deal to get a reliable backcourt player, that could turn out to be accurate. But right now, I think the Celtics are a worst version of the team that they were last year.
Well remember last year they were great and blowouts, They thump people all the time. They were about a five hundred team in close games, and sometimes that offense got jammed up. So I saw Porzingis as a he'll on jam it. Just go to the big eight feet in moves, well slashes, He'll get you unjammed. Offensively, if Brown and Tatum get into these kind of weird you know, these Rubik's cube and they can't quite figure it out, and you take it over, and Brown's more aggressive, and so
I do think they it makes sense. William's you're bubble wrapping essentially for the playoffs. Horford is just older and less dynamic, and I do think he does get you a bucket, gets you unjammed, which the Celtics did a lot of those close games. We were all going, why is Marcus Smart taking the shots? But I think your point is championships may not run through the point guard position. But boy, you watch close games and half court games. If you don't have a facilitator, you know the guy.
One of the teams that really did well just for an individual player was Washington getting Jones, who nobody watches, but I know I think Memphis because Jaws plus you know, if you look at Jaws net rating, he's going to be on for twenty five games. Marcus is not a true facilitator. Nobody has talked about Tias Jones, and I'm like, did Washington snare for a song one of the better players that moved?
I think call it on that. Memphis needed to do two things this offseason.
One was to find a plug and play point guard for the time that John Moranda is out, and the other was to replace Dylan Brooks like they needed a wing defender.
And Marcus Smart can do both those things.
Remember the last trade deadline, they were offering three or four first round picks to Brooklyn to get Michale bridges out of there to Toronto to try to extract O Giana Noobi like they were after that wing defender last year, in part because they knew this was coming with Dylan Brooks potentially parting ways with them.
Marcus gives them a little bit of both.
He's not the pure playmaker that Tias Jones is, but he has light years better defensively and gives them a guy that can guard three, sometimes four positions out there at a pretty high level.
All right, Chris Mannix, great stuff back and forth, keep our eyes on Dame as always, Buddy. I know this weekend you've been busy with some personal stuff. All good, Very happy for you, Love that we're resigning you at the Volume. You've been tremendous for us, and have a great next few holiday days off.
Love being back calling, and I always appreciate catching up with you and looking forward to what's next the Volume