Transcript of Emergency Pod! The Celtics Trade Jaylen Brown to the 76ers!

Coming up, didn't expect to be doing another Zach Lowe Show this week. Should have known better. The NBA, following an absolutely bonkers day of LeBron announcing his departure from the Lakers and Kawhi Leonard returning to Toronto, decided, how about we just one-up that?

How about that?

The Lakers started the morning with a flurry of moves highlighted by a massive gamble on Walker Kessler, That was pretty big. It's the Lakers, it's the glamor franchise in the league. Did they do it enough? Is this the whole team? They have no control over picks until when? What happened? Who got how much money? Quentin Grimes is involved. What's going on? Little blow in the day. Maybe you went to the grocery store, maybe you got a workout in, maybe you took a power nap, saw your family, and then boom, the Jaylen Brown saga suddenly ends with a shocking in-division trade sending Jaylen Brown to Philadelphia for Paul freaking George and two first-round picks and 2 second-round picks. An absolutely earth-shattering trade breaking up the most highly accomplished duo in the NBA probably over the last 10 years, Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum. Holy smokes. How bad busted it been inside Boston for that trade to be the trade that ends all this after the Giannis flirtation and everything else. Where was the rest of the league on this? Did they drop the ball or was this an actual proper evaluation of Jaylen Brown? This just happened.

Mo Tequila is here. We're shell-shocked and groggy. Team USA is playing Bosnia as we speak. The Zach Lowe Show is coming up. I hope it makes sense and you enjoy it. Welcome to an emergency edition of the Zach Lowe Show. Jaylen Brown. Celtics legend, Finals MVP, the superstar who carried the Jason Tatum-less Celtics to 56 wins in a 2-seed, half of a tandem that has defined a decade and a very profitable one of Boston Celtics basketball, has been traded rather suddenly and shockingly to in-division rival, recent playoff nemesis, the Philadelphia 76ers. For Paul George. Two first-round picks, a 2028 one that is like half-swapped, unprotected 2031, a couple of seconds, and that is the end of the Jays era in Boston. Mo Tequila is here to help us make sense of this. And Mo, let's zoom out and start here. The Celtics in the past 10 days have had 3 different pathways to go down. Number 1, do nothing. Keep Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum on your team. Keep every pick, every swap, every young player you got and go back to battle next season. Path 2, trade for Giannis Antetokounmpo using Jaylen Brown, probably 3 first round picks, Hugo Gonzalez.

You have Hugo, maybe Baylor Shireman, maybe not. They, they did not do that. We're assuming, by the way, that that's a, that was a real opportunity and that the Bucks owners weren't just gonna say, you know what, we actually want Miami's deal no matter what, cuz we don't want to be in a Giannis situation in 2 years with Jaylen Brown. But that path appears to have been available to the Celtics. And path 3, the one they chose, shopping Jaylen Brown around the league, finding out that his trade value because of his salary more than anything else. Yeah, maybe some suspicion, perhaps somewhat analytics-based, that he is a hair overrated as a player. And if he is a hair overrated, he's still a goddamn good player. Finding little trade value and settling, as I, as I warned just yesterday and then the day before, for a deal that was going to make Boston fans mad, a deal that was going to be centered around financially sort of resettling the future a little bit and maybe adding some draft equity, but one that would be unpalatable to Boston fans. They have chosen path 3. Mo Tequila, your initial reaction?

I mean, shocked. Like, it was one of those things where that's all you can get for Jaylen Brown is Paul George. On top of that, trading him to not just like a division rival, but your rival. Feels like for the most part, the team that just knocked you out of the playoffs after coming back down 3-1. And I think, you know, it's along those ways where it's like, wow, that's— it's— I, I was shocked at the price. And I understand the value of Brown goes down a little bit. I don't feel like the, the market was fully there for him, but it, it's still sort of jarring to see because Paul George, generally in my mind, I don't believe contracts are untradeable and this one proves it, but I felt like he was pretty untradeable. I felt like it would've been really tough to get off that contract and to receive something as good as Jaylen Brown back.

No, no, spin it the other way, Mo. It would cost you a pick to get off Paul George. So like the way to look at this trade from the Celtics perspective is one of the picks is for taking Paul George, which means you really only traded Jaylen Brown for another first round pick, a single first round pick and a couple of seconds. And yes, the ability to employ Paul George on your team who is still a very good player but who plays, you know, the last two seasons, half of each one and is aging fast and does nothing better than Jaylen Brown other than shoot threes, which is a very valuable skill for the Celtics. So he's a good player, undeniably a step back for Boston. And yes, that's part of why it's shocking, is that the Celtics went out after falling short of acquiring Giannis, which we will revisit, and said it's now untenable. We have to trade Jaylen Brown. It must be so toxic internally and must be just the atmosphere so negative and so broken that because ostensibly you would rather do nothing than do this. Yeah, the picks are nice. Again, one of them is for absorbing Paul George, who has only one fewer year left on his contract than Jaylen Brown at a huge amount of money.

It's about the one single year. That's the only financial relief you're really getting here. Doing nothing was clearly not an option and the market was clearly not here. And so they landed here. It's absolutely stunning. And the Celtics are definitely worse next season. I don't think there's any question about that because Jaylen Brown's better than Paul George. And Paul George is much more injury prone. Jaylen Brown is super durable and we'll see how good they are and we'll talk about the East in a minute. So they, they've taken a step back to take a step forward and the only way this becomes a win for Boston or a non-loss is all the onus is now on the next move. You passed up on Giannis, you, and, and maybe part of the reason you passed up on Giannis was both the assets that were gonna have to go out Miami's offer to convince Jimmy Haslam to do it. 3 firsts and another young player in Hugo Gonzalez plus Jaylen Brown. All your optionality, or a lot of it goes out the window. Then you re-sign Giannis and you're in a financial situation similar to what you're in now.

Clearly I think they wanted some financial relief and they got it here losing a year of big money. But the, the, the short-term step back is is, is relevant. The blowback from the fans is relevant. And just the lack of any blue chip asset at all coming back is shocking and speaks to the absence of any other suitor. Like, I'm, I think there's a way where this doesn't look as, here's the way this doesn't look as bad as it looks right now. The Celtics are a regular season wins machine. Let's just say they win 52 games again next year and they're in the top 6 and they're a successful playoff team. And then in a year, Paul George is an expiring contract, which Giannis was not gonna be and Jaylen Brown was not gonna be. Right. And you pile that on top of all these picks and you get the next guy to pair with Tatum and zoom back into championship contention. But there's a, there's a freaking canyon between there and here and they gotta build a bridge over the canyon.

I mean, that's the hardest part. Sometimes finding that second guy to pair with your young star at this point is the hardest part. And we also just have to recognize the fact Jason Tatum is still coming back from a torn Achilles. I know he came back incredibly early and it, you know, he had moments where he looked good. He had moments where he didn't, he didn't even finish the playoff series. Like there's, he's still coming back from a brutal injury. I, knock on wood, I believe he's going to come back and be, be fine, but it's still a long road with all of those injuries and everything. So now you've kind of put yourself in a tough position. You put a lot of pressure on Tatum to be ready and perform. And I think he, I think he will be, but it's still challenging. But finding the next star after this is also going to be very hard, right? Like, We have to remember how they got these guys. It was because they turned Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, the whole trade to Brooklyn to get all those draft picks. And that's how they ended up with these guys and creating that.

It was almost kind of a, not a stroke of luck, but it was a stroke of genius on Ainge's part to make this move. But it cost them a lot. And now you have to figure out how you're going to do that again. And it's hard to kind of predict what's going on and what the NBA is going to look like. A year or two from now in the picture. And assuming that, you know, Paul George can rehab his, his value in the next season, it gets really interesting and challenging for Boston in this regard where it's like, what do you do next is going to be everything. And I do like that they have the picks. They have, they have their picks obviously that they didn't send out. You know, does this mean they're going to try to make another run at Trey Murphy or Herb Jones or whoever and try to shore up their, their their wings and things like that.

It just—

I don't know where they go from here though, Zach. Like, I'm a little bit still sort of shell-shocked. Like, I'll be honest, I'm getting ready to move. I was packing up the car when I saw the trade and I go like, well, not doing anything today. This is the rest of my night. And I think that's where we're at. And I'm just looking at it, looking at the numbers and everything. I don't know what's going to happen with Boston because I'm very concerned about them for next season and then how they build going forward.

So the Giannis path is clearly the best of the three paths for immediate short-term contention for your title window for the next 2 years. That's the one because Portis, you get Portis and he's a useful bench player. You would still have the mid-level exception. Perhaps you would not use it on Mitchell Robinson, which is a great signing for Boston, but you could use it on a representative center that fits well with Giannis. So that chip is still there. And you lose Hugo, I bet they could have hung on to Shireman. And so your depth is a little worse, but not that much worse. Now, short term, that's short term. Long term, you get expensive and a little older real fast. Throw that path to the side. The do-nothing path, I think, is clearly better than what they just did because the team would be better in the short term. And you could, you could have traded Jaylen Brown for this in 4 months, in 6 months, in 8 months. I don't know why there was a rush. To take this deal because even if you think you have to trade him at some point, this isn't enough, I don't think.

And you could have opened it up to a team spirals a little bit at the beginning of the season and gives you a better return with more optionality. But you have to ask yourself, like, if this was the best they could do, here's just the list of teams that I think either flirted with it and didn't go there or just didn't go there at all. Charlotte, I don't think went in at all. Detroit, despite the Jalen Duren standoff that I think is full of sound and fury signifying nothing, didn't go there at all. Cleveland did not, like, I'm sure there was a, hey, Evan Mobley, yes, no, it was a quick no and that was it. Houston, to my knowledge, just was not in, period. Brooklyn, I think there was a little flirtation with the Michael Porter Jr. package that I had mentioned on previous podcasts and it died. Toronto, no. Clippers, no. Denver, I think it's just too seismic a move. Portland, I'm not convinced was ever really that in. I'm sure there were talks. I'm sure there were, I'm guessing there were talks and conversation. I don't think they were really that in.

Atlanta appears to just be doing other stuff and, and didn't have it in mind. New Orleans, I'm not sure ever really picked up the phone on anything. I'm not, I'm not entirely sure. Like there was, I, I, I don't think the, I, I think the league is underrating Jaylen Brown a little bit for sure at large. I think the salary is just really prohibitive and, and it's hard to trade guys making this amount of money who aren't clear top 5 to 8 players in the NBA. And I don't think Jaylen Brown is a top 5 to 8 player in the NBA. He's still awesome and this return is still, I think, a pretty crushing disappointment for Boston. And they just, again, the only spin is you kept your depth. You basically like net +5 first round picks if you consider it would've been -3 to get Giannis and now it's +2 to trade Jaylen Brown for Paul George. You better make something out of those and make it something out of them in the next 18 months or else this window is gonna close too. I'm just, I'm absolutely shocked. I'm shocked and like Paul George is good.

It, this is 10 years after he was a prime trade candidate for the Celtics involving Jaylen Brown. Like, I, I don't know what it, like, I, I think this is still gonna be a good team, but this is an undeniable step back. The return is disappointing and it just, I just don't understand why they had to make this trade. I think you could make an argument, Mo, you could, could probably convince me that this is better in the long term than just going to get Giannis at all costs. I would have, I actually, I would have a hard time quite getting there because Giannis is so good, but he's been injury prone too. I just feel like this is the worst, like the worst outcome possible of all of these paths.

This is the worst possible outcome. And like, I get it if people want to try to convince us of the long term, but this needed to be a win now move, really.

This is what I've been warning about for 5 podcasts is like, this move is going to come and it's going to be a move that is not going to satisfy anybody. It's going to be a step back now and it better be good later or it's going to be unpalatable to Celtics fans. And it just is. That's all there was.

And the whole, like, for me, my belief of the— I didn't think there was an ability to mend fences.

I feel like clearly the fence got lit on fire or taken away in a tornado. It's gone. There's no fence.

Well, I mean, like, once I feel like once they crossed the Rubicon where they made the official offer with Jaylen Brown, you know, in the offer for, for the Bucks, I think that became that, that's become an untenable situation. And even if he came back, I think eventually it slowly would have eaten away at that locker room one way or another, you know, bad game from this guy or whatnot and things like it would have just manifested itself in different ways and would have eventually led to a problem. But I still would have kept him if I knew this was my return. Like, it's, it's, I still would have found a way, you know, in that way. Okay. I have at least till the next trade deadline to figure this out. And somebody at the next trade deadline is going to be desperate to try to make the big move. I understand moving a contract that big is incredibly difficult. It's difficult in the regular season. It's difficult as we're seeing now, even in the offseason. I mean, ultimately the biggest winner besides Philly on this is the second apron. Right? Like, the cap and the way the CBA is set up, it's crushed the Celtics at this point, where if they had to kind of also make this move to create financial flexibility— not next, not this year, not— I mean, not this coming season and not the season after that, but later.

And, and we've talked about the financial flexibilities and, and the things that they're going to have to do and the maneuvers they have to make. But this is just a brutal blow, I think, for Boston in the short term. And I think it sucks because this was a team that you felt Hey, like if everything was going right, we're going to be contenders. And now you just look at it going, this team's not a contender next season. They got significantly older when you look at Paul George for Jaylen Brown in age, add Mike Conley signing with them. I love the Mitchell Robinson signing, although I do worry also about his availability. Like there's a, there are going to be challenges within this roster for next season just in terms of who's available on a night-to-night basis.

I think the only real way to read all of this taken together is that they did not have an appetite, enough of one to take on Giannis' salary for better or worse. And what they really wanted was a little bit of financial breathing room and flexibility down the line and as little of a short-term hit as possible. And I'm not sure they accomplished that at all. So here's where we are now with the Celtics starting 5. Let's just, I mean, who knows, right? But let's just map it out. Peyton Pritchard, Derek White. I know Peyton Pritchard went back to a bench role this year. Just, just go with me. Peyton Pritchard, Derek White, Jason Tatum, Paul George, Mitchell Robinson. It's a good lineup off the bench. We still have Hugo, Shireman, Hauser, Walsh. Mike Conley's here. Cade is gonna be here. Ron Harper Jr.'s here. Luka Garza's here. They got all their depth and they got a bunch of picks. I bet they'll win a fair number of regular season games. It's tempting to say that, you know, this was a 2 seed last year with Jaylen Brown and without Jason Tatum. Now it's Jason Tatum and no Jaylen Brown, but Paul George in his place and a much better starting center.

You know, you mentioned that they're not contenders now. I think getting exposed the way they did in the playoffs by Philly broke the Celtics. Yeah. And then like ran off with the wreckage basically. And I think the Celtics looked in the mirror and said, okay, we maybe are at least somewhat the version of ourselves that the skeptics saw before last season. Like just not a good team, but not a great team. Maybe that 56 wins was fool's gold. Let's be realistic about ourselves and take a step back a little bit. But I can't believe that this was necessarily the step back. So that'll be a good team. Here's the thing about the Eastern Conference right now. There are 8 teams, at least 8, who if you ask them right now, they would say, oh, we're a top 6 team. 8 is greater than 6, Mo.

Yes.

You're, you're— so if you want to like ink, if you're a Celtics optimist, and again, I think this team's gonna win a lot of regular season games and you want to say, oh, we're still gonna be a top 6 team. Here are Detroit, New York, Cleveland, Boston, Miami, Toronto, Philadelphia now has to be in the conversation. In Indiana. Remember Indiana? Yeah. The team that was within a whisker of the championship. That's 8. And we haven't even, you know, Toronto just got Kawhi, Miami just got Giannis. They're, they're in the 8 I mentioned. We haven't even mentioned Orlando who probably is like, hey, what, what, what are we? We, we can be a top 16 team. Didn't get to Atlanta. And then there's a bit of a drop off. But like, it's gonna be hard to be a top 16 in the East next year for Boston. It's possible. It might even be likely. I'm curious to see what the over-under is, but it's not, It's not going to be easy. And I just can't believe Paul George is where this landed. I really, I'm like, and I love, I've loved Paul George's career. I love him as a player, but this is 36-year-old Paul George has played 78 games, I think, in the last 2 seasons.

That's the thing that's most amazing. It's, you know, it, we should have known better. It seems like it's always a team that comes out of nowhere in these types of situations. And that's sort of what happened, but I just would've never fathomed also just Boston making the trade with Philly. And it, I know rivals and things like that, and we kind of get lost with that, but it just seems weird to me that that's where they went. And now they're going to see him 4 times next season. They're going to see Jaylen Brown 4 times next year. I'm calling my shot now. This is the Christmas Day game. Jaylen Brown's first return to Boston.

How about this? He, he's like 5 days removed from saying all of this stuff is turning me into a monster. This, this is a whole different level of stuff. This is your own team dealing you to the team that just eliminated you in the playoffs, arguably their second most storied rival behind the Lakers. For Paul George, who was good last year but also was suspended for a huge amount of time and has been just like a giant disappointment in Philadelphia. And a couple of picks. If Jaylen Brown was becoming a monster before this deal, he's becoming like Godzilla plus King Kong plus Mothra right now. And you know he's coming for blood the first time they play. He is going to try to dunk on someone within it. And this is one of the most violent dunkers in the league already. That is going to be absolute must-see TV. Let's take a quick break and talk a little bit more about the other angles of this.

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Trade.

Would you rather have just gone all in for Giannis, even if it took 3 first-round picks and Hugo? Is that where we've ended up here, Mo?

I kind of think that's where they, they would have been better off in, in the long run. I think there would have been an appetite maybe to bring— you'd be able to hopefully get some vet minimum guys or whatnot and things. But I think that's where I probably would have gone with it. You wouldn't have spent, you know, so much to get Mitchell Robinson. You would have been able to reallocate that. You were talking about, you know, different center that would fit the need. But I think that's kind of where I would have gone. And my only thing too, Zach, is like, if you were going to enter the Giannis sweepstakes, you needed to enter with the attitude of we're going to try to win it. I think in that sense, and we might be, and you said it in the beginning, you might be right. Haslam might have looked at it and said, no, I want the Miami package again. We don't want to be down this road 2 years from now. Jalen Brown. They still might have lost in that sense. But if you were going to make the offer, you kind of had to go all— go in to make the offer to try to actually beat Miami's offer instead of just saying, nah, this is our offer and that's it.

And we're not willing to give up anything else. And if that was the case, then they needed to immediately fly to wherever Jalen Brown was and immediately start working on building the fence because the fence was gone. And you had to rebuild the fence then at that point. And I think, I still think it would've been maybe a little bit difficult, but you needed to start right away and you needed to kill any possible rumor after that of you're going to actually trade, you're, you're, you're gonna start shopping him now.

By the way, apologies to the Charlotte Hornets who I forgot when I was listing all the East teams that are chasing a top 6 spot next season. Yeah. Because I, my brain is addled and we're doing this like pretty instantly. I mentioned the first 8 and then I said Orlando, Atlanta, Charlotte should be right in there too. Like that's 11 teams chasing 6 top 6 seeds and the 10 play-in spots. Like the East is, and then you have the drop-off to Milwaukee, Chicago, Brooklyn, Washington. Well, who the hell knows what Washington is gonna be like? Hell, that's gonna be a different, let's talk a little bit about Philly. I, I think I would actually rather have done nothing than the other 2. I think nothing is a perfectly fine thing for the Celtics to have done. This is, this is not like, if you're like, we're selling high on Jaylen Brown after a career year and given his salary and all the, the, the Twitch stuff, if that annoys you, This is not selling high. I mean, this is selling. This is just selling. It's not selling high. It's just selling.

Can I ask you a question? When you say you'd rather done nothing, like not enter the Janis Sweepstakes at all, because that would have been my choice if that was the case.

Yeah. Because you know it's going to get out and you know that there's going to be ramifications. No, I think you have to enter it. And, and maybe, maybe I'd have to really think harder if I think winning it is. I think winning it is maybe better than this, but, but it's I think that path is more thorny, risky, and limiting in the medium-term future than maybe fans who are just giddy when they see a superstar's name might realize. Speaking of superstars, Philadelphia, look, I mean, they have to be taken seriously now.

Yeah.

Here, here's their starting 5. Maxey, Edgecomb, Jaylen Brown, Dean Wade, baby Dean Wade, and Joel Embiid. And the bench is, it needs to be filled out. They signed Huck Forte as a backup 5. They have Bona, they have Justin Edwards, they have LeBaron Phylon who they just drafted. Dalein Terry is still here. I'm probably forgetting someone. Let me look at their depth chart. Jabari Walker, Dom Barlow, those guys are still here. The bench needs to be filled out a little bit. They have not, they, I believe they have the biannual exception still left in minimums. They use the mid-level, I think, on Dean Wade. Most of it.

I believe so.

Yeah. I think Tony Jones just reported at The Athletic that they will be in pursuit of one LeBron James. Should be noted that Mike Ganzey, the former Cavaliers GM, not only just pulled Dean Wade outta Cleveland, but is very familiar with LeBron James and has a relationship with him. Obviously, I don't know how they get him. I don't know what the money is. I don't know the mechanics. If you can add LeBron James to that group and start him over Dean Wade and put Dean Wade to the bench, that becomes a real team. I just, here's the thing that's just unending. Joel Embiid is never going to be healthy for a full season and probably not for a full playoff run. It happened again this year and I just think as good as Maxey and Brown and Edgecomb are together, let's park LeBron to the side and assume he goes somewhere else because the, you know, the field has a better chance than the Sixers. It's just like it amounts to the same thing it amounted to this year, which is you might get 10 days in the playoffs of, hey, this is the team we envisioned.

Holy shit, it's good. We just knocked out a 2 seed and then it all goes to hell again. And I admire them for taking a shot. Just literally yesterday I joked about how I don't think about the Sixers that much as an offseason team because I just think they're in Embiid and Paul George jail. Well, they just escaped Paul George jail and Jaylen Brown's contract runs the exact same length as Joel Embiid's contract. It's a natural reset timetable. I like them going for it. I just, I have a hard, I, I, it's unimaginable to me that Embiid will be healthy enough for them to make a real legit title run at any time. But I mean, if the cost is one extra year of salary and 7 years younger and way better in the NBA player hierarchy and 2 picks, you lose some optionality, you still have some Clippers draft assets to backstop it. I think it's like a, it's, it's beyond a no-brainer. It's a, Mike Ganzie can't even fucking believe that, that this trade is actually being executed and called into the league office.

Yeah, I think it's a massive win for them. I think this is one of those things where you look at where you're at, you got everything you said, you got significantly younger, you got the best player in the trade as well in the process. I think, you know, when you look at the way they're set up too, you just got better defensively and that's not, just naturally, Paul George isn't the defender that Brown is. And what Brown just did this whole, this whole past season was amazing. And now you add that with Tyrese Maxey taking the leap. Like, the thing about the Sixers that was so beautiful this season was they made the transition from an Embiid team to a Tyrese Maxey team. And now really, I look at them as Maxey, Brown, Edgecomb, in any however order. And then Embiid is What you get from him is the, the cherry on top. It does hurt them with their depth, their size. They got to start figuring out all that as they go through, but that's a great starting point.

It doesn't even hurt their depth. They traded one player for one player.

Just in general, the lack of depth they had anyways, but just like, that's a great starting point to be at, right? I just talked about how hard it is for Boston to find the next guy. They just found their guy. Off of a contract that most of us thought was untradeable.

By the way, we mentioned Mitchell Robinson, great signing for the Celtics regardless. Hurts the Knicks. And yeah, the East is a little bit of a cluster right now with teams getting better, getting, getting worse, doing weird things, doing crazy things. The Knicks still sit at the top, but that's a real hole that they're gonna have to fill somehow and a real weapon that they just like, Mitchell Robinson was a hugely valuable part of their team and just did stuff that is really hard to find. Propped up their offense all by himself with his offensive rebounding and was, became a really great defensive center in the paint. And I, it hurts them even if it's only 12, 13 minutes a game or when KAT's in foul trouble, 20 minutes a game, it hurts them. They're gonna have to figure it out. But now he's on the Celtics. Look, for the Sixers, I just, home run, no notes. I don't know, is there anything else we didn't hit on this trade? I mean, this is intended to be like a short podcast and I feel like we've hit pretty much anything except like, I just can't believe, I, I just feel like the Celtics panicked and acted too fast and I just can't believe no one else in the league stepped up to try to beat this.

And I get the concerns about Jaylen Brown's salary. I get the general perception around the league that he's a little bit overrated. I get it. I just can't believe this is the trade. I, I remain in shock. In shock even as I understand again the financial flexibility and trade flexibility that Boston has gained here and the long game that they're playing and how this could look very different in 24 months than it looks today. I get all of that. I still am just sitting here in disbelief that this is the trade.

And the other thing too for me, just like kind of my, like, why couldn't they just take in a breath and doesn't even, they could have made this trade July 30th, you know, or, or whatnot. Like, that's, that's more kind of, if you didn't like the offers that were coming in, just wait a little bit. Let free agency play out. Somebody's going to strike out. Somebody's going to want to do something, you know. I think they didn't even have to carry this into next season, but they could have carried this further into free agency and just waited it out a little bit. I don't know what the upside was for making this trade on July 1st. And I think that's kind of my, my big question. Why not just take a break? Couldn't have made it at the end of the month, like just wait this thing out and see where you're at. Nobody was trading for Paul George. You weren't gonna have to worry about losing, you know, Philly as an option in that scenario. I think that, that might have been something maybe a little bit more prudent. I do think they panicked a bit and reacted a little bit too quickly.

Okay, this, we have a holiday weekend coming up. We have next week to, to settle in and do more stuff. So I don't want to do the full thing now. I just wanna do a few minutes on the other major thing that happened today is that before lunch on East Coast time, the Los Angeles Lakers had a completely brand new team highlighted by a massive sign and trade for Utah for Walker Kessler, who is making 4 years, $130 million total, $32 and change a year.. And in exchange, Utah got 2 unprotected Lakers first-round picks and a couple swaps. And the Lakers have, I think, no control minus 1 swap of any first-round draft asset through 2033. They then filled out the roster with Colin Sexton on, let me bring it all up so I get it exactly right. 2 years, $19 million. Mamou, 3, 4 years with a player option, about $12.5 million a year. Quentin Grimes, 4 years, $60 million. And obviously Austin Reeves is brought back. Mo, you're at, well, you know what? I'll go first. I, and again, we'll do the full Lakers autopsy next week. Here is my initial reaction to these moves.

They look like a team that has next to no chance to beat the Thunder and the Spurs in a playoff series in the next 2 to 3 years. And almost no outs at all to change their team other than maybe trading Austin Reeves in a year or two when this doesn't work. I'm not like, I don't think the moves are like horrendously bad. The Lakers were trapped in a situation of use it or lose it cap space and a superstar who is a year away from potentially, you know, trying to exert a lot of pressure or able to exert even more pressure and they needed a center. This is an unbelievable reach for Walker Kessler, who I think is good, but is for this amount of money being paid like a proven all-star center. Is not a proven all-star center. I think he will look very good with Luka. His rim defense is legit. He's gotta improve as a screen setter and a rim runner, but I think there's something there. The rest of it is like Sexton's an interesting bench guy. Grimes is an interesting bench guy. Like I don't even know who the other two starters on the team are other than Reeves, Luka, and Kessler.

And then it's like the bench or the, the, the combination of the fourth and fifth starter and the bench is like Sexton, Grimes. Is Mamou the starting power forward, the guy who could barely play? In the, in the first round of the playoffs. Jared Vanderbilt is still here. Ayton is here as a backup center. Carr, they just drafted. Like they'll be good because Luka is that good and Reeves is a really good second banana. And I think Kessler will fit well. I'm not saying Lakers are gonna be bad, they're gonna be good. I just look at them like, I don't know how that is supposed to compete it for like a Western Conference championship now. In 2 years, in 3 years, like, and LaRavia is still here somewhere. Maybe he's one of the starters. And, and just no, to, to have that be the roster and be completely tapped out of cap space and draft picks going forward is like a little bit, I was taken aback. Maybe I'm just grossly underestimating the team, but that's my reaction.

It's a little bit nerve-wracking when you, when we talk about the no outs. You know, they don't control any of their draft picks for the next 7 years, right? Like it's, or it's something like that. Or they can't make any trades, trade any draft picks for the next 7 years. You're right about the no-outs situation. I'm a little bit higher on it though, just because I think this is a team that makes more sense around Luka.

No question. There's no question about that.

And, and, and in losing LeBron, I think they had to kind of retool everything and, and figure out how this works. I, I'm with you in that I don't think they, they have a chance now to beat the Thunder or the Spurs or on that level in that regard. I just also don't know what's out there that would have been. I think in the long run, I think we'll see a situation where Reaves goes out to bring somebody else in, in the, in the long run. But I think that's 2 or 3 years down the road. I just think this is a team that makes more sense, though, with the pieces. I like Mamou. I know struggled in the playoffs and whatnot, but I think the ability to spread the floor— I think he starts at the power forward area. You know, Kessler, he barely played last season, but the year before showed a little more 3-point shooting in terms of averaging about 1.5 threes a game. And things like that. But obviously having the rim rolling and then the rim protection from him goes a long way. I do worry about their perimeter defense still.

I still think that's going to be a large concern because there isn't anybody. Yeah, there isn't anybody. I think that's where I'm kind of a little bit worried. But I think for the situ— for what was available to them, I think this was the move they had to make. And I think part of it too was selling Luka on the vision of like, this is the plan. This is what we're going with. I also trust Mark Walters, who, you know, owns the Dodgers. He's competitive as hell, is going to spend to put a winner out there. I know it's different in Major League Baseball versus the NBA and the restrictions the second apron brings and everything that comes with it. But I think they're better off now than where they were, you know, a week ago, or once they found out LeBron's not going to be there. They at least have an understanding of This is our team. This is the vision. This is how we move forward. Now let's just see if they can execute in some way.

I mean, they were a pretty goddamn good team last year when they had LeBron, Reeves, and Luka. And I look, I mean, we could sit here and say whose choice really is it that LeBron is not a Laker now? Is it LeBron's choice? Is it the Lakers' choice? They don't appear to have really made him an offer. What would the offer have had to have been financially to convince him to come back, and how much would that have chipped away at their flexibility? So it's hard to sort of envision what that roster is versus what this roster is, but it, it's not like they were struggling with LeBron. This is gonna be a good team. It does fit better around Luka. And to your point, you're, what you're essentially asking me is what are the other paths, right? Like what else could they have done assuming that Luka kind of had them over a barrel, which he does. And that's a fair point. What I would respond to is I think you just go shorter on the deals for Grimes and Mamu and the Kessler one. I don't know. I'd have to really go back and try to think of a team making this big of a bet on a player who has proven so little in, in like big scope terms in the NBA.

There's not a huge sample sample of Walker Kessler playing really well. I mean, he's good. He was a Rookie of the Year candidate and all that. He's good. He's clearly good. There's just not a huge sample of him playing really well in games that actually matter for a team that's trying to win, let alone good enough to make $32.5 million a year. Like, how many centers are making more than Walker Kessler right now? It's a really short list. And, and the two unprotected picks, which could be, you know, something goes haywire with Luka. All of a sudden Utah, I think that's a great, I think Utah made out like a bandit in that trade. They have to figure out the center position. They've got Nurkic back, they've got Jaxson Hayes back, but I think they can now kind of play a little bit straddling two timelines pretty effectively. Pretty good now, pretty good setup for later for the next move. Opens up maybe a starting spot, maybe not. We'll see what happens with Ace Bailey if he still comes off the bench and all that. But I just, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna spend the weekend watching Walker Kessler film.

Specifically rim-running film, refresh my memory, look at some numbers, gonna look a little bit more about how the rotation could shake out with Grimes and Sexton and who plays what role and sort of try to get a little bit better of what the vision is. But on its face, I just think given what they gave up, this is not a good enough team. But that's, I will, I reserve the right to change my mind. Mo, any final thoughts?

No, I just want to echo the, Utah did make out like a bandit. They didn't want to pay Walker Kessler that much money, obviously. And then they come back with these picks and now they have a vault ready to go when they want to go, when they figure out what the team is and when they, when they see their whole team as a, you know, on the floor next season and figure out where the holes are, they have the ammunition to go build up and go, you know, go get the guys they want. I think it's going to be pretty interesting to see for Utah. Like, they did come out really great on this. I'm, I'm just excited to see what this looks like. And I think also the other element is Luka's one of those point guards that's going to make your, your center look better than he actually is as well.

Right. And he's an amazing— Walker Kessler is one of the 3 or 4 best offensive rebounders in the NBA. And that's another massively important skill for all this sort of like, they, we could call them Kobe assists if you want. Like Luka gets in the lane on the pick and roll, misses, Austin reads, and you're gonna miss some of those twos. But the roller's gonna be open to put him back in and he's real good at that. And his rim defense is legitimately special. So I get the bet. It's just a huge, huge, huge bet. Okay, Mo, this time I mean it. You're not hearing from me again until the holiday weekend is over. Thank you to Mo Tequila for scrambling amid a move to come on the podcast. Thank you, bud. You could always catch him on a Double Dribble Podcast on Twitch, on Bleacher Report, on the Offsides Network. All that. Thank you to Mo. Thank you to Jonathan, Mike, and Billy on production for scrambling late today. And thank you all for listening to and/or watching the Zach Lowe Show. I mean it. We'll be back after the holiday weekend. NBA, chill the eff out.

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