- 16 hours ago
Willard and Dibs react to a large trade that sent Peyton Watson from the Nuggets to the Cavaliers and wonder how another big move (without action from the Warriors) makes Warriors fans feel.
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00:00We've got some breaking news to pass along out of the NBA.
00:03Okay.
00:03Also interesting.
00:04There has been a fairly significant trade that has just gone down.
00:09No, it did not involve the Golden State Warriors.
00:14Trades are hard.
00:15Yeah, here's what it did involve.
00:17The Cleveland Cavaliers, Denver Nuggets, and the Clippers
00:22have agreed on a three-team trade that will send Peyton Watson
00:27to the Cavaliers, Max Struess to the Los Angeles Clippers,
00:33and an unprotected 2031 Cavaliers first-round pick
00:39and a 2032 Kings second-rounder to the Nuggets.
00:46I can only imagine that the Kings pick had already been traded.
00:49That's why it is now under the control of another team.
00:53Other reports are saying this is eventually going to be a five-team deal,
00:56but there's probably just going to be smaller pieces on the sides.
00:59Watson gets a new four-year $88 million deal to join the Cavaliers.
01:05Also gets a player option and a trade kicker.
01:09So Watson gets his money.
01:12But again, this involves Cleveland, Denver, and the Clippers.
01:16Peyton Watson goes to the Cavs and gets a new four-year $88 million deal.
01:20Max Struess goes to L.A., and the 2031 Cavs first-rounder
01:27and a 2032 Kings second-rounder go to the Nuggets.
01:31I think clearly the Warriors-related question that comes out of this is,
01:35how does Nikola Jokic feel about this deal?
01:38Yeah, I wonder the long-term future for Nikola Jokic
01:43when you look at this deal.
01:44And so Denver gets a great first-round pick,
01:48which is going to be when Nikola Jokic is 33, four years from now,
01:52or actually more than, yeah, four years from now,
01:55will be when that pick actually lands.
01:57And so Denver's not completely stripping the thing down to its studs,
02:02but they're definitely trying to reshuffle things and move pieces around.
02:06I don't know if it is to give Jokic all the money he wants,
02:10but if you are Nikola Jokic,
02:11you're not looking at the roster right now in this moment and think,
02:14yeah, we got better.
02:15No, it's already not good enough.
02:17Right.
02:17And now it gets worse.
02:19So, yeah, I mean, again, I don't know where this goes.
02:23We're, like, if you looked at it like a parlay card,
02:26the idea of, for example, just to let's be fun for a second,
02:30Jokic joining the Golden State Warriors.
02:32He's the next big-time free agent,
02:34and the Warriors are going to have all of this cap space, right?
02:37Well, if the idea of Jokic joining the Warriors was a 10-team parlay,
02:42this is only the second game.
02:44That's kind of how I would view it.
02:45But it's, like, it's not good news for those who want to see Jokic stay in Denver.
02:52I have no idea where he would end up.
02:54I still think that he probably will end up in Denver.
02:58There's a lot of ways for this to go.
03:00But the Nuggets right now, clearly not good enough.
03:03And if you think about what they've been doing the last few years,
03:07it just reeks of stuff going on underneath the belly of it all
03:11that I don't really understand.
03:13You know, this is a team that fired their coach right before they were heading
03:16into the playoffs.
03:18And now here's a situation that unfolds with Peyton Watson
03:23that just dragged and dragged and dragged almost all the way to training camp.
03:28And now off he goes to the Cavs for four years, $88 million.
03:33The Cavaliers still have the James Harden thing sitting out there.
03:37They were hot after LeBron.
03:38Didn't get him.
03:40We would be remiss if we didn't bring up the name Jonathan Kaminga here also
03:44because I know that the Cavaliers were one of the teams reportedly looking at J.K.
03:49This certainly affects that and maybe gives us another,
03:52a little bit of a breadcrumb as to why Jonathan is still unsigned
03:57as we approach September here, which is shocking, quite frankly.
04:03But anyway, the next domino to fall, if you will, and a significant move.
04:10No doubt.
04:11And if you look at Denver's situation based on, you know, salary and just salary alone,
04:16you probably couldn't afford to keep Peyton Watson anyway
04:19because you've got the Joker who's making $59 million.
04:24Jamal Murray's making $50 million.
04:25Aaron Gordon's making almost $34 million.
04:28Cameron Johnson's making $23 million.
04:30And Christian Braun is starting a five-year deal worth $125 million.
04:34So Denver is kind of up against it financially.
04:37And so if you've got Peyton Watson and he needs that new money, and he does,
04:41I don't know if they could even afford to fit him into the picture.
04:46Man, it's only going to serve also, I think, for the Warrior fan base
04:50to still continue to feel left out.
04:53I mean, that's really what we're talking about here with the Warrior offseason.
04:56Like, why couldn't the Warriors have done this?
04:58Well, this doesn't even make any sense for the Warriors to be involved in something like this.
05:04But I do think with all of the PR efforts and the conversation that's gone on this offseason,
05:12I've sort of arrived at a spot where I understand why the Warriors feel the way they do
05:16and why fans feel the way they do.
05:19The Warriors are coming at this whole thing from a very logical standpoint.
05:23They're looking at this and they're trying to pitch to everybody two things.
05:28A, will you please trust us?
05:30We've done some really good things the last decade and a half.
05:33Will you please just trust us?
05:35And then secondly, they're trying to pitch the idea of,
05:40I know you wanted movement, but we're not doing movement just for the sake of movement.
05:45If you whittle down each maneuver that we made,
05:49the right thing to do was to kind of stand pat and hold on to our flexibility.
05:55You don't have to agree with that, but that's what the Warriors are trying to pitch.
05:59From a fan standpoint, there's no rationale to it at all.
06:03It's just we feel left out.
06:05It feels to a fan like there was a big party and they didn't get invited.
06:09Right, and they didn't even think to reach out and try to get that invite.
06:14They might have tried to get Giannis and they didn't,
06:17and Jalen Brown turned out he went somewhere,
06:20and the package that they got was something that Warrior fans think
06:23that you could have actually ponied up and gotten.
06:26I don't believe that because Paul George can play,
06:29and right now Jimmy Butler can't.
06:30So there was a little sense, I think, among fans of FOMO,
06:34the fear of missing out, and you are missing out.
06:36And so some of these deals that have happened,
06:38you feel like, you know, why couldn't we have been a part of it?
06:41And you're right about this particular one.
06:43It doesn't seem like Peyton Watson would have fit in what you're trying to do
06:47because he's getting, what, $25 million a year now in his new deal,
06:51and you can't afford to do that.
06:52You're already pressed up against it.
06:54Got one more roster spot, right?
06:56Right, yeah.
06:56One more roster spot?
06:57Two more.
06:58Two more.
06:59And Mike Dunleavy said the plan is to use them both,
07:01unlike last year when they went in with only 14 men
07:04because they're going to be without Butler and Moody
07:07for at least a big chunk of the season.
07:08Another piece of news really quick, this comes from Chris Haynes.
07:11He says the Denver Nuggets are pivoting
07:13and have their eyes directed on six-time all-star DeMar DeRozan.
07:18So it hasn't happened yet.
07:20He's still out there.
07:21But it looks like maybe DeRozan may ultimately be a Nugget
07:24after this trade gets finalized.
07:28Okay.
07:28There you go.
07:30I mean, keep on moving.
07:34Like, at the risk of just, I mean, come on.
07:40Give him a call.
07:42Get some makeup.
07:45Kaminga?
07:45Yeah.
07:46No chance.
07:47Of course not.
07:48But, like, I don't know what's going on with Kaminga.
07:52Make the case why you wouldn't, though.
07:54You wouldn't because he wouldn't,
07:56and you wouldn't because you wouldn't.
07:59I don't know that to be true.
08:00I don't think that the Warriors would.
08:03And, honestly, like, what would that look like?
08:06So you bring back Kaminga on the minimum,
08:09and then you just repeat the whole thing of,
08:12you're not going to play him.
08:13No.
08:14It's just, I don't know.
08:15Okay, listen, I'm being completely tongue-in-cheek.
08:18I'm being completely tongue-in-cheek.
08:21But I do bet that, A,
08:27if you really wanted to open your mind,
08:31I bet I could make a case that for both sides
08:35it would actually be a good thing.
08:37That you're right.
08:38They won't do it.
08:39They won't do it.
08:40The experience was too weird,
08:42and the egos and all of the things that go into it.
08:46So, like, I'm not, I'm being tongue-in-cheek.
08:48I just want to put that out.
08:50But I do think, A, I could make the case
08:52that if everything could,
08:54if you all really could put everything aside,
08:56I bet I could make a case that it would be good
08:58for both parties.
08:59And one thing that I will say,
09:02wouldn't it stand to reason that Jonathan's a different person now?
09:07Would look at things differently.
09:08How about that?
09:09Not a different person.
09:10I don't know Jonathan.
09:11Is he a different player, though, is the thing.
09:13Wouldn't it make sense that Jonathan
09:15would view all of this through a different lens now?
09:19You would figure, I mean,
09:20not that he needed to be humbled.
09:22I don't think that he did.
09:23But this has been very humbling
09:25to go from where he was
09:28trying to get a contract with the Warriors,
09:29and you wait until the very, very end,
09:32and you get a one plus one,
09:33and then you get dealt,
09:34and then you go to Atlanta,
09:36and they don't pick up your option,
09:37and you're thinking,
09:38okay, I'll go out there and get free agent dollars.
09:41I'll get $20 million a year somewhere,
09:43and here we are in mid-August,
09:45getting close to late August,
09:46and he hasn't gotten an offer
09:48that he's wanted to accept,
09:49and we heard talk of maybe it'd be the Lakers,
09:52and it'd be $10 million a year,
09:53and that was either there or not there,
09:56and now as we sit,
09:57it seems like any offer that he would get
10:00is going to be less than $10 million a year,
10:03less than Quentin Post money.
10:04You would think, yeah,
10:05and the Lakers are embroiled in their own mess.
10:07I don't know what the hell all is going on
10:09in Los Angeles right now
10:10with all these Mark Walter things,
10:12but that's neither here nor there.
10:14I guess that would be my curiosity.
10:17That would be my curiosity.
10:18I would love to know
10:19because we were all so uber-focused on it,
10:24and everybody had their sides
10:26and their arguments related to Jonathan Kaminga,
10:29and Joe Lacob even said on that TK appearance
10:32not too long ago,
10:34we didn't handle some things right,
10:35and he didn't handle some things right,
10:37and I think everybody can comfortably move on with that,
10:40but don't you think that,
10:42A, joining the Atlanta Hawks,
10:44which is filled with, you know,
10:49much younger players who are not mentors,
10:52who have not achieved a lot.
10:55You saw the way C.J. McCollum talked about him.
10:58So Jonathan experiences that
11:00and then gets kind of tossed aside by the organization.
11:05They opt out of his contract
11:07and then don't show really any interest
11:10in bringing him back at all.
11:12So you used the word humbled.
11:13I don't want to say that his ego was out of whack
11:17or whatever,
11:17but that's what I'm betting.
11:20I bet that the entire experience
11:22might have adjusted a little bit
11:25on how he views the league,
11:28himself,
11:29the experience he had with the Warriors,
11:31I would bet that it has.
11:33I would agree with you,
11:34but that doesn't mean that he's going to come here
11:36on a minimum and be the kind of player
11:39that they want him to be.
11:41It doesn't mean that at all.
11:42I think that the biggest issue
11:43with Jonathan Kaminga as a Warrior
11:46was the way he played
11:48did not jibe with the way
11:49that they wanted him to play.
11:51Now, can he suddenly come in and be that guy?
11:54Absolutely.
11:54There were times that Kaminga played great
11:57and he played well in the way
11:58that the Warriors wanted him to play,
12:00but I think, by and large,
12:02the player that Jonathan Kaminga is
12:04doesn't really fit with what the Warriors
12:06are looking for in that spot.
12:07You could have him mentor Yaxel.
12:09Sure.
12:10Yeah, because that would work out great.
12:13Yeah.
12:13He's the same age, basically.
12:14And Kaminga might be a tiny bit older.
12:16I think he's younger.
12:18Isn't Yaxel?
12:19Yaxel is either 24 or he's about to be.
12:22Right?
12:23Who's younger, Jonathan or Yaxel?
12:27Jonathan is 23.
12:29Oh, he's turning 24 October 6.
12:31When does Yaxel turn 24?
12:35It's close.
12:36Yeah, you might be right.
12:37He might be just a smidge.
12:40Ooh, he turns.
12:42No, Yaxel's like a week older.
12:44Yeah, there you go.
12:46So who's going to mentor whom?
12:48Whom, by the way.
12:50Yeah.
12:51I never understood who and whom.
12:52Yeah, we've been through this.
12:53I know.
12:54We're not going to get to it again.
12:54No, I don't want to know.
12:56Yeah.
12:57I just want to say who.
12:59That's fine.
12:59I just have removed whom from the story.
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