#thisleague UNCUT: NBA Trade talk

Welcome to this League Uncut in the rule.

Of twenty four hour NBA news.

This you lo, Chris Hans, It's time, works time, It's so time.

This League uncut is underway in on fire. This should be a good one. Hello friends, Thursday afternoon.

As Chris and I tape this latest edition of this League Uncut, the finals are over. The twenty twenty two to twenty three season is in the books. Trade season, or at least the chatter it generates, is already underway. The Denver Nuggets championship parade is raging right now as we speak, as we tape, and we will get to the Nuggets eventually.

We will put a bow on their title run.

The first championship in that franchise is forty seven season run in the NBA, and of course there were nine glorious seasons before that in the ABA. First title in more than fifty years for Denver. We will, I promise, get to that. But first we got to start with the trade chatter because it has been so aggressive already.

You just say trade season.

Do we gotta spell that with a s ZN like I tweeted out a couple of pieces before we started taping this I feel a little I feel a little too old to be saying trade season and spell it.

S z N. If anybody can get away with it, that's forty five and older. You can.

You can do that, so you get I.

Don't even remember. I don't even remember forty.

Five to Nice.

That was a long that was It was almost a decade ago.

Nice.

Let's just jump right into it. Bradley Beal, I think the situation is more advanced than it's been described. I think the end is near. Bradley Beal, Damian Lillard, Draymond Green, all drafted in twenty ten twelve, with you.

Donnis Haslam retiring.

Now, those three are tied for the third longest tenure with one team. The only players who've been with their teams longer the Splash Brothers Stephen Curry drafted in two thousand and nine Klay Thompson drafted in twenty eleven. Those are the only two players with a longer longevity run than Bradley Beal in Washington, Damian Lillard in Portland, Draymond Green yet another Warrior at this point, you know, Dame Lillard.

His name keeps coming up.

We have no indication yet that there's any real real trade smoke there. But Bradley Beial to me, the trade smoke is very, very very legit.

What do you see?

I agree, I think you know, you look at that. There's new regime over there. There's a new general manager over there in charge of the basketball operations over there, Michael Winger. So you have to understand that when changes like that are made, oftentimes they want to establish a new team, establish a new identity, a new culture, and that often leads to personnel changes on the roster and Bradley Bial being the main stay there. The Wizards were

Do you have that? Are you? Are you that? Do you just feel that strongly about it as well?

I do?

I agree with you because the crazy part about this, though, is Bradley Beal holds pretty much all the cards, which is makes this such a unique situation. I wish I could remember exactly how old I was when I first heard the term no trade clause, and it was I know, I was pretty young because in baseball, it was it was a thing, you know, I was.

Baseball was my first love, you know.

I want to say early by the early eighties, the prospect of the no trade clause in baseball was starting to get more prevalent. Like I said, I really should have researched this better. It might have even been late seventies in baseball. But in the NBA, I've written about this a bazillion times because I've always found this a pretty interesting subject. In the NBA, a no trade clause is so hard to come by. You have to have eight years of service time and four with the same team.

And the Wizards they gave him a trade kicker fifteen percent, and.

They gave him the no trade clause and it is the only full no trade clause on the NBA map. And because Ted leonsis blessed that last year, Bradley Beal and his agent Mark Bartostein they are in control of this. The Wizards cannot trade Bradley Beal unless he blesses it.

And I think, as we've seen, because you know, you mentioned.

You know, there was talk last year, will he try to go to the Lakers? Will he try to go to the Heat. You know, Bradley Beal has stuck with the Wizards his whole career.

He's not just gonna go anywhere.

He's not just gonna say yes to the deal Washington wants to make that might bring Washington back the most in terms of assets. By all accounts, Miami. That is the team that is most intriguing to Bradley Beal.

Maybe others will emerge.

As this process goes on farther, but at this point, it's not the Knicks. I don't think Boston or Philly. I don't think either one of those Eastern powers is even pursuing this. You know, Miami right now, that's the team.

Bradley Beal is the ultimate decision maker here.

I would throw Brooklyn in there as well as a team that interesting, I could potentially get in the mix if Bill. You know, that's again you talked on just how scarce it is for an NBA player to have that no trade clause. So that eliminates a lot of teams. So I know, like fans like to you know, they love rumors, they love rumors, they like nuggets, they like the details, they like to stay on top of how

Could be boring. I don't know.

I don't know if this is something that's going to play out where he's linked to the Mavericks, he's linked to here, he's linked to here there. Those reports still may get out, but they might not hold validity because of the power that Bill holds in it. And so you know that that's one thing to be you know, but I expect over the course of over the weekend leading to next week, we'll see a few teams start

He didn't have no trade clause. It wasn't like that, but.

I reported it was probably a few weeks before the trade deadline. I reported that he had no interest in

Of it with with Kawhi Leonard.

But those are things you have to weigh, and those are the type of stories or developments that could come out of the process of us continuing to monitor Bradley Bill's situation.

Yeah, you said it, ad The hammer ad had was if I get traded somewhere, I don't want to go. I'm just going to leave in free agency at the first opportunity. But this hammer that Beal has really is the mightiest hammer you can have, because you know he can block the trade. It was the end of May when Washington struck the deal to hire Michael Winger to basically take over Monumental Sports. He has oversight of both

And doesn't want to go.

But it's it's funny how you said how much the people you know love these kind of stories. Today in Dallas we had huge news locally where Norm hitchkis, who is an absolute institution locally. He's been on Dallas radio for nearly fifty years. I mean, you know, he had the first morning show in Dallas in terms of sports,

So that just tells.

You nobody has time for Nobody has time for sentiment right now or anything else they want.

They want the trade talk.

And they are quick with it. It makes me believe that they got that in draft. So no matter what you tweet, you could have tweeted rest in peace to somebody.

We don't care about that. Where's where's Chris Paul going?

Don't even think about It's funny you brought him up too. I got a call from a team today. What do you know about Chris Paul? What is Haynes telling you about Chris Paul?

I'm like, heyes.

What Haines is telling me is what's on the pod. Everything we've said on the pod. That's what I listen to the pod. That's what I said.

That's a good way to bring on me a star. That's a good way.

It works.

But try so Look, Bradley Beal, on one hand, you know that that it's a five year, two hundred and fifty one million dollar deal. So look, any team that's trading for him, you really have to do some serious numbers crunching to fit him in because in this new CBA.

You know, that's really my question with.

The Heat that Okay, maybe Bradley Beal is going to want to go to Miami, and maybe that's the direction this is going to go. But what kind of deal can the Heat assemble to bring in Bradley Beal as basically your third guy? Their two main guys are going to stay Jimmy and Bam. This is Jimmy's team and Bam out of Bio with the defense he plays that you know, the interior anchor that he is. I mean,

And the natural name to throw out is Dame.

But again, as we speak as we're recording this on the afternoon of June fifteenth, Damian Lillard to this point is not in trade play for Miami or anyone else. So at this point, I do think Beal is at the top of Miami's list, but it is fluid. Things could change if Dame or someone else they.

Like becomes available.

All right, let's move to the first big potential underlying the word patental trade story that emerged.

After the NBA Finals.

We are as we're recording this, we're one week away from the NBA Draft on June twenty second. New Orleans interest in Scoot Henderson has become a significant talking point.

Wait a minute.

For only four years removed from Zion going number one overall, New Orleans would actually seriously consider trading him. And again the word I'm hearing is yes, it's something that they are weighing. What do you see in the Fresno crystal ball here? Could you see New Orleans actually parting with Zion to get up to number two in the draft or number three? Lynn is the other kind of variable here. But if you trade for number three, you might not

I think the only way.

Well, first of all, as answer your first question, do I think they could move Zion, Yes, I do. Giants availability has been an issue, you know, there have been questions about how he has how he has attacked his several rehab stints. So you have that, and then you just have the urgency of the Pelicans. They're trying to win, They're trying to do something now. So you put all

Don't think Charlotte should do. I don't think they will do.

I think you keep that very close to the Vest to give yourself the opportunity to get the best deal possible, to get New Orleans to want to do a deal with you opposed to a deal with the Blazers at number three. And so I think from New Orleans standpoint, if they really want Scoop, they have to figure out a deal to get that second pick. And that's what I think Charlotte should hold close to the Vest and New Orleans that they've been looking for. They've been in

And I don't know will that make New Orleans better? You know, Scoop. Look, I had to I was invited to Scoots.

He had a personal workout in Atlanta last week, but I was covering. I was covering game three or Game four of the finals, and I couldn't make it. But just from the video footage I watched from a couple of his workouts, Man.

The guy, I mean, body wise, he's NBA ready.

You know, he's like he's really he's really a physical specimen already. And he's played in the G League and he's nineteen, and a lot of nineteen year olds are not ready day one of the NBA. But the fact that he's played against grown men already, I think that puts him a step above probably his his counterparts. So with that being said, if New Orleans really wants that, I think they gotta go. They got a trade for

You've always been plugged into the Scoot Henderson camp. He's never going to admit it. They're never going to publicly say, but just if you were surmising, will use that word instead of speculating, would he be excited to land in New Orleans?

You think that's something that would appeal to him?

You know, I haven't.

I haven't spoken with him since this had this had surface before it was just Charlotte New Orleans. And I know he's a big Dame fan, and you know, I think at some point Dame and Scoop might talk in the near future, but so yeah, I haven't. I haven't spoken to them, uh in recent days since this new surface about New Orleans. So I really I don't know how he feels about it.

I guess so he's been He has been pretty outspoken about the Portland thing, hasn't he like he he wants to.

He's convinced that he can he can become that.

If he ended up with the Blazers, that he could play next to Dame and be an instant contributor.

For sure.

He wants he wants to play next to Dame. He wants to play the next Dame. So you know, Dame has a decision. You know, I know this is a scoot New Orleans topic, but you know, Dame kind of a nice segue into into what Dame is going to do. He has a decision to make. Is he going to be happy with the number three pick? The players also

Does Simons in the number twenty three get you.

A good quality starter waterline all star player?

Does it? I don't know.

And so Portland has a lot They got a lot.

Of decisions to weigh.

But as it pertains the Scoop, you know, he believes he's ready day one, he believes he's prepared, he believes he's yeah, very confident he believes he's prepared more than anybody in this draft class. And so for New Orleans standpoint, that bodes well for them if they're able to make that happen.

The thing is with Zion, so let's transition to Zion. Thing with Zion.

One thing teams are telling me is that no doubt, when Zion is healthy, he's a specimen.

He's unstoppable.

You know, the sheer force that he provides in that painted area and on an office and end, he just overpowers everyone. But one thing teams want to see is his medicals. That is going to be very very important. Teams getting to look at his medicals and then deciding from there what to do. I don't know what those medicals look like. I don't know the story that that's going to tell. But if these trades talks pretended to Zion, I'm not saying the trade talks because it's just this

Yeah, look, I get the question.

So many of my readers on my substack have been asking me to try to gauge Zion's value, and it's really hard to do that because, yes, you know, like you said, you just look at the pure numbers. When Zion's on the floor, he averages twenty six on nearly sixty one percent shooting from the field. I mean, you can't be more efficient offensively than he is.

You know, his rebounding, to me, that's.

Always been an area that he needs to, you know, deliver more. That's an area where he can certainly improve. But we also saw in New Orleans early this season when he was rolling and the Pelicans were rolling that you know, he can play make too, So I mean, he has considerable offensive gifts. But then there's just no way to get around the fact he's only played in one hundred and fourteen out of three hundred eight possible regular season games.

There's just no way to dodge that.

And the two main things I can add the reason why this is a consideration for New Orleans, why they are weighing the prospect of trading Zion Williamson after just four years together. You know, as one trusted league observer put it to me, there is a rising level of exasperation within the Pells organization about those availability issues, about the way he.

Has approached the game. But the other thing, and this is this is just as significant.

It really appears that if the Pels were forced to consider trading Zion or trading Brandon Ingram, they're much more apt to trade Zion at this point that Ingram has reached a level in that organization where he is considered the safer from a trade when looking at those two guys. So those are two significant developments. And look, we've spent

I think that speaks to what.

Kind of off season in terms of player movement we are likely in for. It is not a stellar free agent class. Spending money for free agency is very limited. It's only a few teams that have significant cap space, and they're not contending teams. So I don't know what

Or wherever you get your pods. Please do that for us.

But this episode, it must be it must be said. We're doing this with a serious hat tip to the Denver Nuggets, the NBA's new champions, first time champions. The last time we did a pod, it was with the series score at three to one, a very very unsightly Game five, Miami mucked the game up, mucked with an m just as they would have wanted to, made it ugly, made it messy. Denver still finds a way, finishes the

It was all a ruse.

They mowed through the postseason sixteen and four, and critics will say, yeah, you know, they didn't play a top three seed, which has never happened in the you know, in the in the sixteen team playoff era, and this was year forty of that playoff era, and somehow they didn't play a number one seed along the way. But you know, this was a this was a season I

And Miami.

We can't look at them as your usual number eight after what they did to fifty eight win Milwaukee and fifty seven win Boston. So you know, downgrade the Nuggets championship if you want because you think they didn't see enough powerhouses on the way. But come on, man, Nikola Jokic age twenty eight, first player in NBA Playoff history to lead all players total points, six hundred, total rebounds, two hundred and sixty nine total assists one hundred and ninety.

Here, Nikola Jokic said to the.

Roar of five hundred thousand plus fans in Denver, this is a tweet from our buddy Mark Spears.

Quote.

I told them I didn't want to stay for the parade, but I bleeping want to stay for the parade.

This is the best. This is amazing. So there you go. Loves parades. Michael Malone's been talking smack all day.

Long, rightfully, so rightfully, so I told you start our last part.

I said, listen, we're going to the next pot.

We're gonna we're gonna be congratulating the Dinner Nuggets, congratulating Joker on winning Finals MVP, and you know they're gonna wrap it up in five, and they did. I didn't see anything left in Miami covering that series. I felt like the Miami Heat they emptied their clip, as small as a clip that they were dealing with.

It was empty. They'd have nothing left.

And Denver was just too much depth, too much talent, and Miami Heat worked hard, they worked their butts off, and that's probably one of the most hard hardest working teams in the league, especially the most hardest working team in the playoffs, and I think that got them to this point. But at the end of the day, when you're the two last two teams standing, it's going to take hard work and it's going to take some talent and depth, and they just didn't have the latter two

All you can do is play the opponent that you're giving.

You know that that opponent they had a path, They had to get through some obstacles to get to that point.

I think it's weak to try to devalue the Nuggets championship. They are champions.

They were the best team. They were the best team in the regular season all season long. They respected the course of the regular season. They were not about all this low management stuff.

They went in and they had.

A plan and they executed, and so I applaud them. They were a fun team to watch. I hope people got got a chance to really see how valuable the Kolaki is. You know, that is a He's a great, great player that you should already have amongst the top centers of all time already. I'm gonna let you say something, but I want to ask you about later about the all time great sinners. And I want to see if you agree with me or not. This is a conversation I was having with my brother a few days ago.

When you really look at it, The signals were there, and again, I you know, I put myself high on the list when they wobbled at the end of the regular season seven to ten finish, I did start to ask those questions again about these guys.

But the truth is, you.

Know, they took sole possession a first place in the way on January seventeenth. They never relinquished it, So they basically were the top seed in the West for three months before the playoffs started, and that enabled them to you know, that certainly contributed to that kind of wobble at the end. They maybe lost some focus because they knew they had the West wrapped up, but they mowed through the four teams in front of them. I really

At worst, finish them off in six.

If Miami does any of that, any one of those three options, the Heat can go to Denver early before the finals, get acclimated to the altitude, give themselves a better foothold in the series. They still won Game two as it is, but yeah, I mean the only game they won they shot nearly forty nine percent from three the four games they lost, they were sub thirty five percent from three in all four defeats. So the Nuggets earned every bit of this championship. Jokic was great, Murray

Again, they tried to show they were.

They gave us a lot of hits for three months before the playoffs, and we just didn't want to see him. And you know, now we'll see in this wild offseason who can close the gap because Denver, Okay, Bruce Brown, they're in danger of not being able to re sign him. But you know already you're hearing people kind of compare it to the Bobby Porter situation. Will Bruce Brown elect to stay with the Nuggets for possibly less money.

Than he could make on the open market.

Because he loves the situation so much, just like Bobby Ports did in staying with the Bucks after they won it all. But you know, most likely Brown would be the only key departure from that team. So there's a lot of work for a lot of teams.

To do in the West just to close the gap.

So man is it going to be a wild and crazy and busy offseason, these nests again.

You know, maybe I hope I'm not jinxing it with all this hype.

I really hope I'm not, But I don't think I am. I think we are going to see many, many, many trades.

Stan question I have for you, now go for it already.

We're just talking about what Nikola Jokis has done to this point, and then you know what we think he's going to continue to do for however many.

Years as of now, has he corracked your all time top six center category?

Has he coracked it? So?

The five ahead of him are Kareem Russell, Wilt Shack.

Who am I leaving out?

I put a lodge one in there? Yep, that's five.

I'll put it like this. He's absolutely an all time great to me. And the only reason you could even say that he wouldn't be is because he's only won one title. You know, he's won for one in the finals. Let's see how many titles he ends up with. But you know what I feel even stronger about is it really bothered me that he wasn't in the top seventy five. I mean, he to me, I was not an official voter on the top seventy five, but to me, even at that point, he should have been a top seventy

But there's no question. I mean, this guy is an all.

Time great and he has nothing to prove to nobody at this point.

Okay, STEI, I maybe taking another I maybe taking it to a controversial place, but we do that here in this league, and this this is a podcast we could believe if we could erase it if we want to. So let's act now and worry about the consequences later. All right, Stey Bill Russell? What the greatest winners of all time? Why is he a top five sinner of all time? Take winning out of it.

I think defensively, he was such a game changer that he would you know, offensively, you know, all those centers you named have better offensive credentials. But it's not just the winning with Russell, it is the defense. Block Shots weren't even a thing when he played, or when Wilt played, so It's like, we don't really have the raw statistical data to tell us how great these guys are, and we don't have the footage. This has always been one of my major, major complaints and laments about being an

Seen footage of you playing. You know.

He retired during that amazing Lakers early in that amazing Lakers season when they won thirty three games in a row and won the title in seventy one seventy two. So I was only two or three. I never got to see Elgin Baylor play. And when I told the Clippers that a team official with the Clippers actually went to the league and paid NBA Entertainment to make like a forty five minute VHS tape of Elgin highlights. And

Guys could really do.

So the number of rings Bill Russell has, you just you cannot diminish it.

You know, I love a cheme too.

I would say if Jok isn't there already, that he will pass a keem. But I see a lot of our contemporaries they rate a cheme higher than I do. So again it's also Iya the Beholder stuff too.

We have to remember Hakm was first of all, probably had the best foot work it that of a big forget big, just best footwork period as a basketball player. Even still to this day, I don't know, I don't see anybody who has the pivots like Hakm did, Kobe, Michael Jordan, they were, they were close. But the thing about Hakim he was dominant offensively, but he was dominant deficively too. I still, uh, you know, I still got

Not off the top of my head, hit me.

His field goal percentage for his career is, drum roll, forty four percent from the field. Bill Russell was sixteen sixty ten center, which you know that was that was center size back those days. That does like that doesn't do anything.

No, it doesn't change.

It doesn't change my feeling one ounce, because I think field goal percentages were generally way lower.

In those days than they are now.

But but not just he was just not just that.

Justin Kubatko, who does a wonderful substack called Statitudes. Justin is one of my favorite NBA historians and researchers and just fantastic with the numbers in the history of the game. Before the finals, he went back and did a piece. You know, the final NBA Finals MVP didn't start until I believe nineteen sixty nine, so there were many many years that the NBA didn't even do a Finals MVP.

Winner, game changer. And you know what, for me, whenever I.

Think about top ten, top five, top twenty, whatever it is, I do think the off court stuff does matter. And his impact on a social scale was so tremendous. I do think that factors in, even though it's not an on court things. It's like it's like Alan Iverson. You know, we could really analyze Alan Iverson's efficiency and we can theoretically grade him down as an all time great because of efficiency issues. But the cultural impact that Alan Iverson had,

Also, I'm not even gonna argue with you, because this is Bill Russell we're talking about. You can never win a situation, You could never win an argument if people perceive you to be diminishing Bill Russell's legacy at all. So I'm gonna leave it there, but that I remember, I remember when I found that stat out was.

Like forty from the field sixteen center.

Well, you know what's funny, because it's that you bring that up, because when I did my I was not a voter on the top seventy five, and I actually regret it now. Like in my New York Times years, I was at the Times for three and a half years. At the Times, we were not allowed to vote on anything official with the league because the Times philosophy was we cover the story, we don't participate in making the news.

Percentage is sub forty.

So that's why I say, in those days, even big men didn't you know, there were no zions converting at sixty percent in the early days of the NBA.

So maybe I was too hard on Dolph Shase.

And now that's kind of entering my thinking here when you bring up mister Russell's field goal percentage.

Okay, that's why.

That's why I'm glad I'm speaking to an NBA historian, somebody who's coverly way further than you know, way earlier than I was, So I'll respect it.

Respect all right, everybody that was not that was not a Laane.

I expected us to go on Trade Talk Thursday, But there you go. We'ved in some history, we'ved in some Denver Nuggets championship celebrations. But yes, at the forefront, Bradley Beal is this It is Washington finally going to trade him? Well, the Pelicans actually trade Zion Williamson in connection with.

The NBA Draft. Major, major questions to ponder.

Chris and I will be back with you soon, and by the next time we get together for one of these there will no doubt.

Be tons more.

Transactional discussion to get into because the transaction game has fully taken over from the games themselves. For the next two three weeks at least, Summer League isn't too far in the distance. Chris Haynes and I will both be in Las Vegas. We got a surprise in Vegas that we're working on. Can't reveal it yet, but I promise

To your phone. That does it? Back again? Soon everybody enjoy all the transaction of talk out and that'll do it for us. See you next time. This league uncut it is and iHeartRadio production Chris Haynes and Mark stime

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