Atlanta Hawks: GM Onsi Saleh press conference, 2025 NBA Draft, $25 million trade exception, etc.

Atlanta Hawks: GM Onsi Saleh press conference, 2025 NBA Draft, $25 million trade exception, etc.

on today’s show the NBA draft is less than 48 hours away auntie Salet the new GM of the Hawks talk for the first time on Monday plus your bellback questions and more coming up you are Locked On Hawks your daily Atlanta Hawks podcast part of the Locked On podcast network your team every day hello friends welcome to episode 20005 of L on Hawks podcast i am your host Brad Rollman coming to you deep into the night here on a Monday evening into Tuesday and today’s podcast is brought by the folks at FanDuel Sportsbook and right now if you’re a new customer you get 150 in terms of dollars in bonus bets your first bet wins at FanDuel i also want to encourage you at the top of the show as I always do to make Locked On Hawks your first listen each and every day check us out and subscribe to the show anywhere you find your podcasts that includes Apple Spotify YouTube etc it’s been very busy the draft is almost here this is probably going to be our second to last episode before the draft itself arrives on Wednesday i’ll be doing a show Tuesday evening no matter what happens between now and then but in the meantime I do want to shout out to people that have been joining me throughout this process maybe I’ll do this tomorrow as well but in the meantime I have been joined by a lot of guests over the last two months or so leading up to the big day on Wednesday that includes Jonathan Washerman Ben Feifer Brian Schroeder Raphael Barlo Bryce Hendricks Will Rucker Leaf Tulene Richard Stamon plus visits that I have people that I have on on the show regularly who cover the Hawks but also keen eyes on the draft from Kevin Shannard Glenn Willis Tower Jones and Andrew Kelly as well lots of guests lots of listeners so I appreciate you checking out the podcast over the last two months and again it’s happen again tomorrow but in the meantime it’s kind of an interesting in between show so if you missed it I had a two-part episode on Friday night with Ben Feifer i had a two-part episode as well on Sunday that I dropped with my friend Tyler Jones all that was NBA draft heavy and that’s of course leading the conversation for everyone outside of Oklahoma City right now maybe Indiana is the draft and that’s going to be happening again wednesday evening is the big day the Hawks have two picks in the first 22 on Wednesday but today’s kind of the in between show and that we’re not all the way to the draft yet but we also have some mailback questions it’s also kind of an odd thing it’s like hard to plan there might be some news but there haven’t hasn’t been a ton of news so far but what what we do have on today’s podcast is the first ever press conference media availability from new Hawks general manager Anie Cleet we talked for about 20 minutes or so on Monday afternoon i posted that full audio by the way to the audio feeds of Lon Hawks i only have the audio so it’s not on YouTube because it was there was literally no video that I had captured but I would encourage the YouTube audience to subscribe and check out the audio podcast of this feed apple Spotify Overcast etc there check us out there subscribe listen to that podcast to get the full context on Auntie’s comments but I want to play some clips for you in this little conversation to kind of tee up what was said what I made of it all and that was definitely the lead story in Hawks Land on Monday was Auntie speaking and speaking about a lot of different things so first and foremost I want to play his opening statement literally his first public onrecord comments from AI since he joined the front office a year plus ago and the first by the way by anyone in the organization in basketball operations i know Steve Cudin talked a little bit on the radio but he’s the C he’s kind of the CEO on the business side this is the first basketball related comments by anyone with the Hawks on the record since Ledger Fields was fired about two months ago so here’s the open statement from AI first and foremost just wanted to thank the wrestler family Tony um just empowering me to build out our front office um I thought we had two tremendous additions and Bryson Graham and Peter Denwy it’s 30 plus years experience for us um amazing human beings culture ads so just thanking Tony for letting me build out this front office and empowering me to do that um just feel like we’re in a really good place organizationally feel like we’re a great place with our front office moving forward um just really excited to build with the Hawks now absolutely and uh it’s draft season now too so uh lot been going on we’ve had 80 plus players come through our program here and uh probably spoken or connected with at least 100 when you take into Chicago in the combine so we have we have some flexibility and some optionality but I really like our two picks at 13 and 22 i think we’re going to bring be able to add two quality players to that mix so really excited about the draft feel really prepared about it um looking forward to it it’s gonna be fun as you hear there he obviously talked about being empowered quite a bit by Tony Wrestler to build out the front office uh it was clear to me as a takeaway from today that Anie is speaking very authoratively when it comes to he is the kind of the buck stops here he’s making the decisions he’s the number one guy on on the flowchart right now in the organization he made that very clear that he also made the hires of the new guys that came in all that stuff also he was positive generally speaking about the team where they are right now which you expect of course he said they brought in 80 plus guys to work out in Atlanta that is not a surprise i’ve been saying the entire time i haven’t been chronicling like each and every workout and I haven’t been reporting those but my stance has basically been they’re going to work out everybody below a certain level because unless you’re a guaranteed top six pick everyone should be interested in Atlanta even guys deeper down without a second round pick i get it but you have to fill out summer league rosters and two-way slots and basically the range was very wide and also to kind of confirm that on this front so that’s one thing that was his first statements we’ll dig in a little bit more now as other comments again I’m not going to play the entire thing for you that is available in full on the audio on the audio feeds of Lon Hawks but honestly was asked about his philosophy as he kind of takes over the GM job here’s what I had to say about his philosophy overall just stepping into this role it’s comfortable in the sense that I was very fortunate to be in two organizations like the Spurs and Warriors um you know I got I hit the lottery when it came to learning from under from under RC Buford and Bob Myers and Pop and Steve Kerr so I got really lucky there but they they really helped me along and be prepared for this role and honestly just ready to roll with it and when it comes to the draft um I always pick the best player like that’s my philosophy i I don’t believe in picking for a position if there’s a guy that makes sense for us we’re going to take him um and always the best player that’s that’s the philosophy there so within that you can hear one interesting part about the draft and he I would say repeatedly today emphasized the his belief that taking the best player available in the draft is the way to go now that happened throughout it was not just this is probably the most clear one if you’ve listened to the show before or regularly you will know that I agree with this stance in the draft i know there’s a lot of back and forth right now and this is to be expected there’s always philosophical debates about the draft this is not anything new not everyone agrees with me on this one i get it honestly seems to be in line with what I think as well about like being best player available especially in the draft not drafting for need drafting for the best talent to each their own i think personally you get in trouble more drafting for position and for archetype than you do just finding the best talent overall so I like that answer not everybody did i saw some negative on social media i get it if you if you like that you’ll like it if you don’t you don’t but uh I personally believe that drafting best player available is the right way to go so he is on that later on I actually asked Anie a follow-up about whether there were extra any any traits that he wants to value in the draft and it was a short answer but I asked about the BPA comments basically he mentioned having multiple ways to impact winning as an emphasis for them so obviously one of the big themes is that Aussiey’s not going to be giving a lot of specifics and one thing I will say is that that’s very normal i people that listened to it were like well he didn’t really say anything yeah that’s kind of the nature of the beast when they front office person talking 40 days before the draft like it’s going to kind of be clo and dagger to some degree but that was notable to me in fact he he basically note commented a question that he got about the Hawks and whether they might play to still hire someone above him basically as a president of basketball operations basically he can’t answer that question like it’s not his decision he currently is number one on the org chart i’ve said now for a long time that I believe he’s going to be the number one guy at this point it would be very very strange to me and everyone that I’ve talked to if the Hawks now hired a president at some point in the next little while because the all of the prep has been done for the for the offseason you are rolling with this group an his two new lieutenants Kyle Corver etc like it’d be strange but obviously he can’t come out and say no unless Tony wrestler comes out and says no as far as whether to hire somebody else keep that in mind later on uh Reggie Chapman good friend of the podcast from 11 Alive and Tegna who also is a part of this podcast network he asked about the vision that Anie might have on players they want to bring into the organization here’s what he had to say about that man would also always talk about the ethos of the players players are going to bring in I think for you what is your vision of the type of players that you guys want part of your franchise and I guess it’s force building for yeah I think I think first and foremost like just appreciating Land Landry is a friend of mine and you know I wouldn’t be here without him so just appreciating his vision and what he brought to the table when it came to talking about Hawk’s DNA and things like that i I don’t really use terms like like that it’s more of the things that I look for or like in San Antonio we always had this the three things we we cared about most were character selfless pound the rock um here it’s it’s competitiveness toughness resilience and adaptability those are the things I look for with players all right yeah I kind of thought it was funny that he doesn’t really use the term Hawks DNA and kind of said that that way that he did i kind of laughed when that was happening um no shots at Landry whose I think repeatedly said nice things about they are friends they work together of course um but I I think it’s pretty clear that Aussie is not going to be talking in the same kind of fashion i think Landry is a little bit more corporate speaky um whereas honestly a little bit more plain also like his general volume level was very low as you maybe can hear from here but especially if you saw some of the videos making the rounds today ozie’s not a high talker he’s not like an excitable talker he’s very matterof fact and kind of you know button up in that way but um that’s kind of a good indication of what he just said there as you heard about the vision that they want to kind of you know check the boxes of and the traits and all that fun stuff at this point in time all right there is more to come when it comes to sound from anie and what he had to say on Monday but first work our partners on today’s podcast is brought to you by Monarch Money we’ve all done this in the past I’m sure but at times I looked at my bank account wonder actually all my money happens to go between dining out and online shopping and entertainment it’s easy to lose track sometimes that’s where Monarch Money comes in for you monarch Money is your personal CFO giving you full visibility and control over your finances and at Monarch Money they’re not just a budgeting app it’s a complete financial command center you actually track all of your accounts your investments that you’re spending in one place you can stop just managing your money and start building wealth instead when I started using Monarch I was actually spending a ton of money on little things like food or whatever else in my life just one example but now I budget smarter and I save more all the time with Monarch money instead of juggling multiple apps you can actually 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question as you’ll hear in a second that was about Quinn Snyder so it’s actually two questions and two answers and here is talking about Trey and then Quinn between now or when he officially became the general manager to whether Trey gets traded ressigned re-uped or just stays with this team that will always be a topic of conversation till something definitive happens as it stands right now I see how do you feel about him and the future of this franchise with Trey Young yeah we’re we’re locked in with Trey and we talked last year next season we’re just locked into next season ready to move forward and be the best team that we could possibly be moving forward and I think a lot of his leadership from last season went um probably unnoticed to the common eye like the way that he helped develop our young guys and make them better was significant so I mean just continuing on with that and hopefully um just making our team better what’s your relationship with Q uh the collaboration the discussion how do you guys form that partnership oh Q and I have a great partnership it’s um he is you know whenever I talk about roster stuff draft you know looking into what’s next for the roster and the team um I always take his input without without question um at the end of the day though it’s always going to be my decision on whatever we do with our roster so you get the idea there not a ton of specifics about much of anything that’s a theme again of this entire conversation but he did say that they are quote locked in with Trey didn’t shy away from that obviously he was not like giving the glowing like we’re going to extend Trey for sure people are asking follow us about that like what do you mean by this obviously like there’s a negotiation that’s about to happen or actually can happen now with Trey and the Hawks there’s always a little bit of interesting stuff there messaging no one wants to give up their leverage but it seems like Auntie was pretty upbeat about Trey throughout which I thought was kind of my takeaway and then predictably positive about Quinn while also stating again in that answer that the final decisions are Auntie like he did not shy away from that you know with Landry everything was collaborative process and look Auntie would tell you and did say today like you still want a collaborative process but he did not make any ifs or buts like he’s the final decision now obviously when you have an owner the owner can be the final decision he can overrule at any point but honestly was very clear like he’s the number one guy his decisions his building and that’ll be interesting to kind of monitor in the coming days and the last bit of audio here not a ton of like player specific conversations for my probably on purpose if I had to guess with the current roster but I got a question about size that I wanted to pass along to you in the answer to that i’m curious when you have a big who is kind of looked at as undersized and you have a point guard who is looked at as undersized how important is it to bring in size to to your team with the draft picks and with free agency yeah it’s it’s a good question again like I think there are ways that you could build a team that you don’t need traditional types of things um in the sense of like we do have some long athletic guys out there uh which is really interesting for our our defense and our play style moving forward um yeah when we get to that point in our season and we we’ll address some things there but I feel really good about a lot of our group moving forward we are a very young group that is still developing and I think that’s important to realize here um but really excited for Enka really excited for this is one where I think you kind of hear what you want to hear um I thought it was a good question from Caleb Johnson of 929 the game there um he did say that they’re excited about a Kong which you of course hear there um he gave an answer that I think appreciated like it kind of downplays the narrative that you have to have a certain thing it size and whatever i think that you want to have positional size he did say in that answer like having big athletic forwards makes it easier and that is true one thing that one reason I have been probably a little bit higher on a Kong Woo as the center is that I think he’s good but also another one is that the Hawks have the ability to build out around him with someone like Jaylen someone like Zack who’s legitimately 610 playing the three even Dyson as a big physical player add more of those guys kind of get more into that and then obviously was uh quite positive about Trey and all his answers today as I already mentioned so other than that there was a summer league question that he kind of declined to name players i know people wanted to hear about summer league and players i love that too it’s been cloak and dagger obviously with everything um he’s going to wait until their final determinations about after the draft so people keep asking me i don’t have definitive answers for you um what I will say is that anyone they draft barring injury you expect to be there playing in summer league and then there’s a bunch of may i would say Risha is a possibility prod up for the whole week but maybe for a game or two uh Kobe Buffkin is a maybe don Barlo is a maybe dayon Plouden I would say is a maybe even Nicole Jurasic who’s not under contract right now but was the draft pick last year in the second round is a maybe so they could have five six seven eight roster guys they could have two roster guys we just don’t know what the philosophy is going to be and honestly declined to kind of give anything else on that so overall I would say there was a lot of emphasis on flexibility and optionality i kind of made fun of like if you’re doing like the bingo card or today like the drinking game um honestly like to likes to receive questions by saying good question kind of a reset things he used optionality a lot um it was a very cordial epic conversation for sure um for example Lauren Williams with the AJC in front of the podcast asked about whether the focus was staying put at 13 and 22 in the draft and honestly said in the answer that the key is optionality so like he’s not going to commit to anything and I’ll say this now like everyone who was responding with the fact that this like kind of a blah press conference with not a ton of information yes but I would also say I’ve attended a lot of these pre-draft conversations and by that I mean like the week of the draft with Travis Schlank you know with Mike Benhoer back in the day Danny Ferry back in the day um and then Landry Fields this is probably the situation in which you would expect him to say the least a pre-draft availability is not a time to get a bunch of like actionable intel on player stuff because you haven’t begun the offseason yet and even if you were you don’t want to tip your hand and on the draft I mean I joked about it today but he’s not going to come out and say “We like this prospect this prospect.” He’s not going to talk about prospects like he’s not going to happen so you were always a little bit of this uncertainty in the discussions today and part of that again is that what I would say is it would be different if this was not his first time talking to the media that’s why it was covered the way that it was but like no GM is going to talk about prospects a ton right before the draft and this is in the weeds but the Braves were on the road today and why I say that is you get all the local TV people who are much more like general interest than they are about like diehard Hawks coverage and that’s not a negative comment but like honestly was asked a lot about like spending time in Atlanta and his backstory and that’s interesting stuff to learn about Aussie for sure but like it might have been kind of different if it was like the usual Hawks media crew that like just cover the team like me and Kevin and Lauren and Jamila etc so it’s just a different tone when it’s that’s kind of it becomes an intro press conference versus like an actual basketball conversation so it’s just different again listen to the entire thing on the audio feeds of this podcast but overall I thought a handled it well there’s a lot more to talk about once you can start actually seeing moves and decisions etc but in the meantime we’re kind of just checking the box he’s now spoken and then by the way he will be speak he’ll be speaking again Wednesday after the first round and we’ll see what the Hawks do between now and then all right more to come on the podcast including some other questions from you the listener after a word from our partners today is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook silver Sports are now in full swing whether they’re all about baseball under the lights golf on the greens or highix soccer action FanDuel is the best way to make every game even more exciting if you’re already following the action 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or visit fandle.com/lockedon to get started all right and to pivot away from anie a little bit here a really a reminder more than anything else but a kind of a key date it was today actually Monday June 23rd teams are now allowed to negotiate with their own free agents and their own players who are extension eligible whether it be rookie extensions or veteran extensions and guys who are eligible as of July 6th so that means basically the day after the finals the finals ended yesterday now they’re eligible and for the Hawks that means the Hawks can now legally talk to and negotiate with a lot of a lot of players with different kinds of situations so their own free agents that includes Caris Levert Larry Nash Jr Click Capella Garrison Matthews that doesn’t mean they’re going to talk to all those guys but they now can and especially with Caris that’s a big one for the Hawks also the extension eligible players that’s of course headlined by Trey that’s the big one by a lot but also they’re allowed to talk extension if they want to with Mo Gay is extension eligible and so is George Nang again not expecting that necessarily but it’s possibility and then the other one that’s kind of a wrinkle is Dyson Daniels on his rookie scale extension now you can’t sign anything with anyone until the moratorum ends in July the exception to that would be if they were to come to a contract extension with Capella or Matthews they’re actually allowed to do that right now for the next six days not expecting that to happen so just putting on a radar because it’s a lot of business the Hawks have to do i know the draft is the biggest thing right now but they have a lot of business to handle between now and the start of the season draft picks for agents team building mid-level exceptions extensions all that stuff the biggest ones probably urgencywise are Trey and then Carris Levert because Carris will be hitting the market in a week and we’ll see how that all goes obviously Dice’s extension is a big deal as well but the majority of rookie extension guys don’t actually happen until October some do but most of the time they wait till the end jaylen was a late one anaka was a late one hunter back in the day was a late one like they tend to wait other than the no-brainer like Trey signed his in July but everybody else it seems like waited a while so anyway that’s the lay of the land on that question from Owl on Twitter who says it’s nerdy but do you foresee the Hawks using the TPE and potentially the MLE to add to the roster how would you how would using these resources affect bringing back Levert so earlier this summer I did a whole segment about the cap and the tax so I won’t do that whole thing now but it is certainly at least possible the Hawks could add a player with the trade exception which is the TPE referenced by Al there and then also sign someone to the mid level the trade exception came back up this week in a way that I wasn’t going to react to a ton because I I’ve covered it a lot already this summer nothing’s new on that front but um Mark Stein and Jake Fischer reported that the Hawks are actively exploring ways to use that i would echo that i’ve said it before on the show as well but basically for everybody that’s missed this so far Atlanta can they don’t have to they can add a player in a trade that makes up makes up to $25.2 million without actually having to match salary in that deal that is a potential weapon they can add a $20 million player for the cost of nothing as far as matching salary obviously you can also take a bad contract on or whatever like that there’s there’s ways to use that that’s useful and I would say they don’t often get used but they certainly can get used if the Hawks keep everyone they currently have under contract and also make two draft picks they’ll have like 155 million on the books that’s like 33ish million below the tax line uh honestly made a comment today about having license to pay the tax and I was asked about this my response right now is that yes he’s going to say that basically any GM you’re not going to get on get into a microphone and immediately say “My owner won’t let me pay the tax.” Like that’s not going to happen if you don’t remember this Landry said the same thing multiple times and they didn’t pay the tax so saying that you have the license to go over the tax line this a does not mean you actually do have that license and b does not mean you’re actually going to do it so that’s an ownership decision when it comes to tax keep that in mind that is an ownership level decision but just answer that question quickly so I’m still operating like staying under the tax is likely not definite but likely and that means the Hawks have some restraints they do have optionality to use Auntie’s term and they can if they wanted to navigate it use a trade exception and also use the MLE levert’s a wrinkle here they don’t have to use an exception for him they have his bird right they can just sign him whoever they want to but there are some give and takes like you got you got Terrence Mann’s money out there there’s back and forth um I will say I believe still that it is relatively likely that LeVvert stays not definite but I think that’s likely to happen if I had to guess right now so if that happens they they got to get creative but the answer is yes you can use all these tools together um I’m not sure if they will but it’s a reminder that while it was kind of funny to hear the word optionality so much they actually do have optionality they have a lot of very manageable contracts they have a young roster that’s pretty cheap right now they have exactly one contract on the entire books that I think is like a shaky deal and it’s Terrence man that could change if they give Trey a max like that becomes that could become a shaky contract same with Dyson like if you overlay Dyson that’s possible but for now they have one commitment it’s like kind of unwieldy and Terrence man everybody else is on a good deal so that gives you a lot of functionality plus you have two picks and uh trades etc etc all right question from Evan who says “What is more likely drafting a successful backup point guard to rival Kobe Buffkin and signing a good backup veteran center or drafting a successful backup center and then signing a good backup veteran point guard.” So one thing I’ll say is that it does not have to be either way nor did he say this but like he just asked the question which one’s more likely so I’ll answer that question but it doesn’t have to be exactly this way either way i would also say not to relitigate what I said earlier about Anie’s draft philosophy but I would not be going in to say to the draft trying to plug a hole specifically unless I like the pro the prospects there and also I’ll say this a lot probably tomorrow and the next day rookies are not very good so you you don’t want to bank always on a rookie filling a specific role as a rookie that matters to me if you’re trying to win games but as far as more big picture answer to the question I think for me the more likely and for me the more practical route are actually the same here looking at the board i think the more likely route is to draft the backup center who become successful in that role and then go the more veteran route at the point guard spot now you can do the other way i’m not saying you can’t but part of that’s the way this draft breaks down i think the Hawks have a very realistic path to a center at 13 or 22 at 13 you’re looking at probably you know maybe if um Queen fell or Malawak fell but even more more practically someone like Baron J or Sorber um or even at 22 I think it’s possible that Baron J or Sorber falls there plus then you throw in the mix guys like Ryan Culbrrener Maxim Reno Hansen Yang um you know Asa Newell is not really a pure center but certainly could check this box like there are a lot of options in their relative range when it comes to quoteunquote backup center and that means that it’s more likely to happen because they have kind of two chances at that at guard there’s really only one guy I could see in the backup point guard role at 13 and it’s um it’s Yakosonus from Illinois who I think is probably going to be gone but could fall there later on maybe you get into like Walter Clayton or Nolan Trayori like there are guys that you could draft a backup point guard but I think if you look at both this class how I view it how the league views it how the Hawks might operate the uh somewhat loose ties to drafting a big in this class I would say the more likely scenario is to draft a center and then also kind of go and plug that hole at backup point guard more practically but look I’ll say this one more time even if they draft a center they still might have to sign another one because if it’s Baron Jay who’s pretty raw at this point in time or you’re taking a project like a Henson Yang or something like that like there’s no guarantee that that that guy’s playable for you and sending a guard like if you draft Nolan Trayora who’s a 19year-old and you and you think he’s gonna be be like playing big minutes as a rookie like I think you’re might be a mistake on that so lots of moving parts but that’s the answer i’ll say it’s more likely and probably practical to go that route but uh uncertainty there uh before we sign off I will be doing a podcast on Tuesday evening no matter what and I’ll give my like final draft thoughts like guys I like um scenarios any intel that comes up between now and then i will talk about hypotheticals um there’s there’s questions that I might answer tomorrow if I have the time to do that about like impact on the league like for instance the 10th pick changed hands yesterday in the Kevin Durant trade how does that impact the Hawks we’ll get into that a little bit like that’s another suitor that’s could be in in line for a front court piece in Phoenix could be looking for Derek Queen or Malawatch any of that stuff like there’s some uncertainty for sure and there’s always going to be if you’re picking 13 there is inherent uncertainty because stuff will either follow to you or not whether the Hawks trade up I know an was very comfortable in his answer staying at 13 and 22 but to be very clear that does not mean it’s definitely going to stay there like that being comfortable is one thing but you can still trade up trade down trade out any of the any of the following lots of options on the board we’ll get into all of that stuff tomorrow night in advance plus of course a full breakdown of Wednesday night’s activities and anything Thursday later on in the week in the summer league etc so if you’re new listener thanks for being here and if you’re a recurring listener I really appreciate you checking us out again today please subscribe to Lock on Hawks anywhere you find your podcasts we are on Apple Spotify and Overcast plus we are on YouTube so please like this video as you’re watching it and be sure to tell your friends about the podcast ratings and reviews appreciated also follow the show on Twitterx at Loton Hawks i am there at BT Roland i’m also on Blue Sky BT Roland and you can follow also follow my nonpodcast coverage of the Hawks at patreon.com/btoland all right everybody we are almost there less than two days away until the NBA draft and we’ll see everybody next time

Brad Rowland (@BTRowland) hosts Episode 2005 of the Locked on Hawks podcast. Topics include Atlanta Hawks general manager Onsi Saleh speaking to the media for the first time, audio and takeaways from Saleh’s comments, Atlanta’s $25 million trade exception, the shifting Eastern Conference landscape, and the 2025 NBA Draft.

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FanDuel
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