Orlando Magic acquire Desmond Bane from Memphis Grizzlies in BLOCKBUSTER trade

Orlando Magic acquire Desmond Bane from Memphis Grizzlies in BLOCKBUSTER trade

We’ve got breaking news out of the NBA, where the Orlando Magic have acquired Desmond Bane from the Memphis Grizzlies in a blockbuster trade. That’s according to ESPN. Now, in return, Memphis will receive Kentavious Caldwell Pope Cole Anthony for unprotected first round picks and a first round swap. As you take a look at the full deal there in the details. Bane spent the first five years of his career in Memphis, averaging just over 19 points, six rebounds and three assists per game, so he’ll now join a magic team that’s looking to make its way back to the conference finals for the first time since 2010. For much more on this blockbuster deal in trade, let’s go ahead and welcome in Tim Doyle and John Gonzalez for more. Gentlemen, great to see you. Initial reaction to this seems like a lot. Let’s go ahead and start here with did the magic overpay for Desmond Bane here? I think we all know how terrible they were in shooting. That’s obviously a huge need for them. Dead last in threes last season. But is this a fair deal Tim Doyle I think it’s a perfect fit John I’m interested to hear what you have to say. But he’s in the prime of his career, which I always like. I don’t love paying guys that are 32, 33, 26 years old as of this trade. So he’s still hitting the prime of his career. But Jordan, you said it best. The worst three point shooting team in the entire NBA was the Orlando Magic at 31%. And you bring in a veteran presence who’s tough on defense. But more importantly, over the course of his career, John has shot over 40% from three. I’ve loved this Orlando Magic team for the last three years now. Last season, they battled injuries with Paulo and Franz both banged up. But they need guys that can ultimately space the floor. He’s in the prime of his career. He is a perfect complementary third or fourth best player. I think this is an amazing fit for Orlando. Yeah, multiple things can be true at once here. Jordan. Tim’s absolutely right from a fit perspective. Desmond Bane is perfect for the Orlando Magic because they do need shooting. They do need scoring. Everybody knows how offensively challenged they’ve been. And also Jamal Mosley is going to love this dude because he plays defense at the other end of the floor. And Jeff Weltman he’s been everybody’s sort of been waiting for the magic to take a big swing here. I’m just a little surprised while we’re talking about two things being true at the same time that the big swing was on Desmond Bane because, ooh, that’s a spicy, spicy price tag, right? I mean, like, you’re giving up four first round picks and a pick swap for Desmond Bane. You’re telling me you couldn’t do better than Desmond Bane on that? I mean, look, look, I think this is a. Situation where Zach Kleiman, there’s a lot of questions in Memphis about which way Memphis was going to go, because there’s been rumors about John Morant. There’s been rumors about what’s going to happen with triple J in his new contract. We know that they fired their head coach, Taylor Jenkins, and brought in Thomas solo. Okay, all of a sudden it’s like, are they rebuilding on the fly? What are they doing? I think when the magic come to them with this offer for Desmond Bane, you go. Yes. Thank you very much. We will take this. That Phoenix pick in 2026 is very tasty. And then I guess the magic thinking is the unprotected picks in 2028 and 2030, along with the lightly protected 2029 swaps, aren’t going to matter if they’re good, but what if they’re not, right? I mean, there’s a lot of things can change, so I like it in a vacuum on paper. For the magic. It makes sense from a basketball perspective. But boy, from a team building perspective, not so sure about it for the magic. Love it for the Grizzlies. Yeah a great point. And I think we’re all on the same page here. Great fit. Fills a huge need but a very hefty price tag there for Desmond Bane John coming right back to you on this. How much better does this actually make? The magic you mentioned over 40% from from three Tim for Desmond Bane that is. But how much closer are they to being an actual contender. All right. So from a basketball perspective, Jeff Altman decided, hey, let’s take a swing here. Desmond Bane is a good fit. He plays at both ends of the floor. We’ve already talked about how offensively challenged they are. There are very good defensive team. They’re number three in defensive rating last year. The Eastern Conference is up for grabs next year right. You had the number one team the Cleveland Cavaliers. They get bounced out in the second round. And also Darius Garland is having surgery. The Boston Celtics the previous defending champions no Jayson Tatum for the year. And also Jaylen Brown just had surgery. And they have to unplug one of likely Kristaps Porzingis or Jrue Holiday because of their cap constraints. Go down the roster. You get to the Knicks. The Knicks are still looking for a head coach. And who knows what that looks like next year. The Indiana Pacers are going to be right there. Congrats to the Indiana Pacers on doing more with less. But then you get to the bucks. The bucks are you know Giannis right now says that he doesn’t want to go anywhere. But that could change. This is early June. And you’re not going to have Dame Lillard because he blew out his Achilles. And on and on and on down the lineup in the Eastern Conference down the standings I like the Detroit Pistons as an ascending team. But the magic are probably the only other team that you look like are maybe with the Raptors, depending on if you squint and like you like what they’ve done, Masai Ujiri has done there. Yeah, I think the magic this does make the magic better. The Eastern Conference is in flux, but I don’t know that this takes them from, hey, you’re in the playoff mix to an Eastern Conference contender. I think it puts them in the top four. I’ll take it a step further, I do. I think that they were really close heading into last year and then last year just a ton of injuries. You remember two years ago doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo. They took Cleveland to like, an amazing seven game series. And what the Cavs do last year the best record in the Eastern Conference. Unfortunately they had injuries in the postseason. That’s what the magic had in the regular season. To John’s point, I think the East is totally up for grab. If you’re a magic fan, Jordan, you have two superstars young superstars, stars, whatever you want to call them guys that get you 25 a game in the NBA in Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner. If you’re a magic fan, you’re going to love this. They’re trying. At least they bring in Desmond Bane. He’s the prime of his career. You see his numbers. He’s like super reliable. He’s a great team guy. Did they pay too much for him? Absolutely. But if you’re a magic fan, you’re like, man, we’re actually trying to push all in. And with Florida with no state income tax, I think it becomes a desirable place. If midway through the season you see the magic are, I don’t know, 32 and nine if they want to like go all in and go get somebody. So this is what you want to see from a team like Orlando. Like they drafted. Well they have two stars. They’re starting to push all in right now to try to win. Right now I think they’re going to be one of the top four best teams in the East. All right. So if you’re Orlando Magic fan you got to be thrilled. Meanwhile for Memphis if you’re Memphis Grizzlies fan are you happy with the haul Tim that they got for Desmond Bane. Well now like you got to start taking a look in the mirror. Who are you going to be. And I have loved the Grizzlies ever since I saw John Moran play his freshman year at Murray State. I thought they should have been drafted number one over Zion, but John’s been a handful away from the court. And I think that’s translated into the locker room, which is translated on the court. You know, your best player has to be the leader, has to be unselfish, has to be putting in the extra work, has to be that example to everybody else. And I think John has fallen short in some of those categories. I still think he’s an amazing talent. But John, they’re definitely at the crossroads of if they don’t make a splash or make a run next year, maybe they look in the mirror. I don’t think it’s breaking up now, but it could be breaking up pretty soon. Yeah, it’s going to be really interesting to see what Zach Kleiman does with this thing, because he’s obviously unafraid to make some moves, right? I mean, he fires Taylor Jenkins right at the end of the season, brings in his guy Tomas, and then all of a sudden now you get this haul for Desmond Bane. You can’t turn that down. But what are you going to do with John and Triple J. And Tim’s right. There’s been some issues with your off the court. On the court there’s been some issues with your right availability. The problem with John is what makes him so good also makes him frequently unavailable. And that is he plays 100 miles an hour. He’s Mr. Kool-Aid man. He runs through every brick wall and goes, oh yeah, well, that’s great to watch. It’s super fun, right? But it also makes him unavailable. And it has led to, you know, him missing huge chunks of seasons because of various injuries last year. This past season, he missed a whole ton for a bunch of different malady. So now all of a sudden, like, there’s been these rumors, are they maybe going to move on from him? What could they even get for him? And then triple J, who I like, Jaren Jackson Jr had an outstanding season. I thought he probably should have made all NBA. He just missed the cut. So that changes his contract issues. He made all defense. But now the question is what extension number do they land on for him if any. Or does he want to move on. So there’s a whole bunch of moving pieces here. Now for Zach Kleiman. It’s going to be really interesting to see whether or not he tries to reboot this thing on the fly. And he keeps John and Triple J, or if all of a sudden they’re moving on to and this whole thing becomes a rebuild. Rebuild out of nowhere. Yeah. To that point, let’s follow up there. John. What do you think the Grizzlies should do using this, these picks for a rebuild or maybe flipping them for some veterans to try and turn themselves into a contender? Yeah. It’s really it’s a tough one here Jordan. Because don’t forget before they moved on from Taylor Jenkins, there was a big chunk of the season last year. Even with John missing so much time last year where they were as high as the number two seed in a loaded Western Conference, now the wheels came off of it as the season went on, and obviously they fired their head coach, and then they get absolutely pounded by Oklahoma City in the first round. And it’s really tough to parse here. I think probably like with this big haul, I’d be more inclined to get triple J done and then find out if I have some suitors for John Morant, because they do have some interesting pieces beyond those two guys. They’ve got Santi Aldama and, you know, now all of a sudden they’ve got some injury issues. But I do think that they’ve got a deep bench. They played ten deep last year. But it’s yeah, it’s a big, big decision for Zach Kleiman. So this is why you get paid that money to be president of basketball operations. You can go. He’s got optionality. But I don’t know that that makes his job any easier. Yeah I think you need to move the picks and get a closer. That’s actually been their biggest problem is late in a game. They don’t have a DeMar DeRozan type player. And I’m just using him as an example because over the last few years I thought they would go out and make a guy like that go get him. And Desmond Bane is a really nice player. He’s not a closer. And Jaren Jackson Jr does so many great things on the court well, but he’s not one of those guys you just give the ball to and you say go out there and score. John can do it. But everyone knows John is the only guy who could do it. So if you go get another veteran wing who you can just throw the ball to, and then they can go get a really tough basket in the playoffs. I love this move for Memphis. You build, you are able to move guys. They need other closers because they’re pretty close. They were in like the top three all year in the Western Conference. So I would move it and go get a wing closer. Cole Anthony is a great bench guy and their bench is really solid, but I think they need like a wing 20 point a game score. If they can go get someone like that who’s just a pure bucket, I think that would be a great fit for them. All right, we’ll wait and see what the Memphis Grizzlies do. Safe to say though, they have some options. Gentlemen, great to see you here on CBS sports HQ. With the breaking news out of the NBA, the Orlando Magic have acquired Desmond Bane from the Memphis Grizzlies in this blockbuster trade that they will have much more on on the Beyond the Arc

John Gonzalez and Tim Doyle join CBS Sports HQ to react to Desmond Bane being acquired by the Orlando Magic.

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