00:00Brad Stevens sat up there for 45 minutes and answered questions from the media,
00:04who I thought did largely a very, very good job of holding everyone's feet to the fire there
00:09and forcing some admissions from Brad Stevens that I don't think he really was happy about having to say.
00:17I thought the time Chisholm did speak, it was very interesting,
00:22and almost I sort of joked in the beginning about how it would be funny
00:25if Chisholm got up there and was like,
00:27I didn't want to make this trade, I think this trade sucks too.
00:31I'm just like you, I'm a fan, I listen to my basketball people.
00:35That's kind of what he said.
00:36Yeah, he said, as the fan in me looked at this and went, what the hell is that?
00:39I'm paraphrasing a little bit, that's what he went with.
00:41My basketball people told me this was the way, so I said, okay, I'm not a basketball person,
00:45I'll listen to my basketball people.
00:46I was like, whoa, whoa, Bill, he's sitting right there.
00:51You don't have to, you know, like maybe throw him under the bus through a spokesman or something,
00:55you don't have to do it right there in front of him.
00:57I thought this guy next to me was out of his mind when he called me the first time around.
01:00Brutal, brutal stuff there.
01:03And we all now have a new word in the lexicon, and that word is optionality.
01:09We had, what was it with Sam Kennedy, parameters for Sam Kennedy?
01:12Alignment was a big one after the Devers deal.
01:14That's right, with Devers we needed alignment.
01:17We needed alignment, and they never had less after that deal, as a matter of fact.
01:20Some moves didn't get made because of certain parameters, and now the Celtics traded Jalen Brown with a large focus
01:33there on the optionality that this move would bring.
01:37In bringing in Paul George, the optionality there is that instead of losing that money in three years, you'll be
01:45losing it in two years, right?
01:46Yes.
01:47Assuming he opts in, which is a player option.
01:48I don't see why he wouldn't.
01:49What do you think?
01:50Someone else is going to pay him that?
01:51Of course he's going to opt in.
01:52So there's that.
01:55You don't get any real optionality or anything from the Paul George aspect of it, at least not until 2029
02:00or 28 or whatever.
02:02And then there's the draft picks.
02:04And he tried to really emphasize how these two draft picks, hey, you know, both of them could end up
02:10being something, which is basically all he could say.
02:13These are both two, you know, potential to be a valuable pick itself or a valuable trade asset somewhere down
02:20the road.
02:21The second round picks are just sweeteners and no one cares about that.
02:24He was pretty frank.
02:25I'll give him that.
02:25Like, he was pretty frank in all of this.
02:28I didn't feel like he was trying to sell us on anything.
02:30No.
02:31No, I'm with you.
02:32But I also think there were a couple of times where it definitely was, okay, he's saying this because he
02:38has to say something.
02:40It seemed like there were a couple of times it got to that point, even when there were follow-up
02:45questions.
02:46One other part of it that I thought was very interesting was how quickly he shot down the idea that
02:52Jason Tatum played a role in the decision.
02:54Yes.
02:54Very, very quickly doubled down and said, kind of made a blanket statement for his leadership style of, I don't
03:02talk to, what do you say?
03:02I don't talk to dudes about dudes or something.
03:05I don't talk to guys about other guys because I don't want them to play into it.
03:08Right.
03:08Do you believe that?
03:11I don't – I would find it hard to believe that there was zero conversation at all before this happened.
03:17It's not even necessarily – because, like, I could see there not being a formal sit-down, you know?
03:23Yeah.
03:23I could see that not happening.
03:25And also, I don't think he's asking for permission.
03:27Something got told to some – there's no way you're blindsiding your franchise player by trading your co-franchise player.
03:33Right.
03:33No shot.
03:34And also, it wouldn't have been blindsided anyway because everybody knew about the honest thing.
03:38Right.
03:38Like, that was right out on front street.
03:40Like, everybody knew about that.
03:41So, you know, he knew that Brown was being talked about.
03:47I think that if he – and again, I'm not blaming Jason Tatum for this because I don't think Jason
03:51Tatum – it's not his job.
03:52It's not his job to go out there and save the day for a guy who just got done telling
03:56everybody for the umpteenth time how it was his favorite season the year he didn't have to play with me.
04:00You know?
04:00So, I'd be like, bleep you.
04:01I'm not going to go out there and save you.
04:03Right.
04:03You know?
04:03Like, I don't think there's any reason why he should.
04:06I'm not even blaming him for this.
04:07But I do think that if after the Giannis debacle, he went to Brad and said, listen, Brad, you know,
04:12come on.
04:12I need my guy.
04:13Giannis would have been fine, but I need my guy.
04:15If we're going to win, I need to be with – we need to be together.
04:18Like, that's how it's always been.
04:19That's what I want.
04:20I'd feel uncomfortable if you moved on from him and brought in somebody.
04:23There's a million things he could have said.
04:24Absolutely, and that would align with Brad saying, I wasn't going to make this deal unless we thought we had
04:29the right package that we were getting in return, which came up at a certain point, which doesn't really –
04:35it doesn't completely jive with the whole 70% of the cap and usage being through those two players.
04:41I found it interesting that kind of – there was a couple different questions that mentioned the analytics conversation that
04:47we just had.
04:47And how – I think the timeline that got established was he – this wasn't really much of a thought,
04:54at least as he tried to dictate.
04:55This wasn't much of a thought, and then as we dove deeper into Jalen Brown's play, certain red flags started
05:02to shoot up in terms of what these numbers are saying about maybe his game or the fact that it's
05:06regressing in some capacity or how it looked when Jason Tatum came back.
05:11And so it became more of a reality the more they dove deeper into whatever numbers they're being presented.
05:16So it must have been a fascinating last month when you compare that kind of analysis with these conversations that
05:24may or may not have happened and disrespected Jalen.
05:28I was fascinated with how much Brad put his foot down on – I thought I did everything I did
05:34to communicate how I felt and where we were at and which teams were involved.
05:40And even to the point where he apologized if Jalen took that a different way.
Comments