The New Orleans Pelicans did WHAT??? | 2025 NBA Draft First Round Recap | Third Apron Podcast

The New Orleans Pelicans did WHAT??? | 2025 NBA Draft First Round Recap | Third Apron Podcast

welcome to another live Third Apron podcast i’m your host Yoscalin NBA salary cap analyst and we are going to be doing probably a little uh shorter version of what we normally do sometimes we go for like an hour and a half two hours probably keep this one a little short just recapping some of the moves that happened at the first round of the draft last night there were a couple significant ones not too many uh really only one trade involving players uh I’ve got a friend of the show Sam Quinn as usual joining me to discuss uh yeah I mean I think there’s one big trade we should start with uh that I think universally everyone’s feeling very like questionable about on the Pelican side u that’s probably putting in nicely
this is quality over quantity the top 10 last night got kind of dull i was kind of sitting around waiting like I was promised a Jaylen Brown trade i was promised this i was promised that not much happened and then Joe Dumar’s off the top rope with one of the most I I one of I’m just going to call it one of the most trades of all time i’m I I’m I was flabbergasted at this to pay an unprotected Actually let’s track back a little bit this trade starts during the finals because they trade Indiana’s 2026 first round pick before Tyrese Hallebert and Teresa’s Achilles for the number 23 pick this year and then they trade the number 23 pick and their own unprotected pick next year with Milwaukee swap rights attached to move up 10 spots and select Derek Queen who plays the same position and has the same weaknesses as Zion Williamson i’ll I’ll let you react to this first i have some conspiracies so I want to let you get your normal takes out first but I’ve got some thoughts i mean anytime you bring in Jordan Pool and you have a chance to bring in to move up to bring in a center who like you said has a lot of parallels to Zion don’t really have any one who can stop anyone other than Herb Jones yeah I think you got to go for it this year uh so they traded so the full trade they traded their 26 first round pick next year so when that trade got announced I was a little my brain just kind of like was a all over the place with stuff going on and I was also kind of confused because they have another the Pelicans traded a 27 pick to the Hawks from the Dyson Daniels trade that the Bucks it’s like the most the least favorable of the Pelicans and the Bucks so in the first hour I’m just like okay hold on which which pick did they trade is the Bucks do they have a stake in it because the Bucks are kind of uh they’re they’re they’re kind of like mixed in with both these picks that the Hawks now have so the Pelicans traded just in general they have one first round pick in 2026 it’s the most uh it’s it’s either theirs or the Bucks it’s they got the swap with the Bucks from the Drew Holiday trade back in 2020 and they traded it unprotected to the Hawks so they can move up 10 spots in last night’s draft there’s I don’t think there’s been a lot of uh analysts saying that the Pelicans may have just given up the first overall pick in next year’s draft and that’s not hyperbole because I don’t know where the Pelicans project they think they’ll be in the West next year i don’t think it’s going to be a playoff team in a very loaded West i don’t even know if they’re going to be they might barely be in the mix for a playin team if everything breaks right if they’re healthy um and the So think about it this way uh in 2017 the Sixers they uh were in the middle of their process and they were uh in the lottery again they were moving up and this is the Markeel Foltz uh Jason Tatum draft they ended up moving up or I don’t know if they No they didn’t move up they ended up getting the fifth pick they had a swap with the Kings and then that ended up being third so that pick got to third so then the Sixers got to do a swap so not only did the Pelicans give up potentially their own valuable first round pick I guess right now if I had to project if Giannis is staying the Pelicans pick was probably more val like it’s there might not be a swap in the end but the piss the Hawks got a first round pick next year that basically has two chances of jumping into the top four so that’s why there’s a very real possibility that they sent out the top pick in next year’s draft just to move up not only like it’s not like they moved up 10 spots to get a top five pick they moved up 10 spots to get a guy at the end of the lottery so that’s how potentially damaging this trade might be and a lot of people around the league like the universally just like “Oh my god I can’t believe they did this.”
Okay I’ve got a couple questions first is this the most valuable draft pick that’s ever been traded i’m going to say postion era i have one that I have above it but I’m curious if you can think of any others i haven’t really thought about it other than like obviously what comes to mind are the Nets in 2013 trading those future picks that ended up becoming Tatum and Brown so I would probably has the potential to do that certainly but
so what I mean here is though when the Nets traded those picks in 2013 there was the chance that they were very valuable but the Nets were good in that moment we didn’t know for sure they were going to jump up that much i’m talking about a pick in the moment where it’s like it’s not five years in the future it’s attached to a team right now that’s coming up is it the most valuable pick that’s ever been traded and I think off the top of my head it’s probably second with number one being the 2018 Nets pick but Cleveland was the one or Boston was the one trading that to Cleveland but that was after the Nets had picked in the top three in consecutive years the Pelicans weren’t quite that that bad they were the fourth worst team last year with everybody getting hurt but in a West that’s that deep you’d have to figure they’re probably not one of the top 10 teams right like we’ll see but they’re probably somewhere in that 1 to 10 mix but then you like you said you get the second set of ping pong balls if Milwaukee is in the lottery and look with Giannis they’re probably not going to be that bad but all it takes is like Giannis has a sprained MCL he’s out for six weeks and a team that we thought of as like maybe 500 suddenly becomes a 30- win team and in the last two years we’ve had two playin teams win the lottery so this is a really significant pick to trade when you factor all of that in i have it as the second best in the- moment pick I ever remember getting traded i’d have to go back and like really check and see if there were other ones um maybe the the Baron Davis pick that became Kyrie Irving would be another one but I can’t that was like at number eight so you know that was more of a big lottery jump but that’s another one that comes to mind so my next question we talked about the Jordan pool for CJ McCollum trade when it happened and we said “Oh this is a little bit curious because they’re taking on 40 million in extra money for the 26 27 season but they’re saving 5 million for next year are they getting something out of that is there some benefit?” Well when you factor in the cost of jumping up from 23 to 13 if they hadn’t made the Jordan pool trade they would have been above the luxury tax line so I now wonder if the Jordan pool trade was in part a tax dump for this trade that was coming after right like there’s still more time in the offseason they can still make more moves but I do wonder now how much of the pool from a column trade was literally just about them saving money this year to hell with the long-term consequences
so that might play into this trade a little bit I would guess is going to play into something else because the other thing that the Pelicans did last night was bring in another guard they brought in two guards in the past 48 hours and Jordan Pool and Jeremiah Fears which kind we’ve already talked about on the last uh our last show about how the trade for Jordan Pool feels like the precursor to something else uh I mean maybe this is just part of it but I’m thinking are they going to do they potentially look to trade uh package some picks with Dejonte Murray try to get off his contract maybe bring in some more vets uh that can help now I was thinking a big man now that’s not such a need but they could still use another big uh who knows what how this front office feels about Eve me if they want to try to include him same thing Alvarado maybe uh now they because they have so many guards uh they have a new point guard rotation maybe he can be they’ll uh shop him around in whatever trade that might be so I I’m I’m keeping an eye on that because like if they’re going for it next year like they clearly are they’ve traded their first round pick next year i think now you kind of have to trade to Jonte Murray to try to like maximize this roster as much as possible because who you know he probably might not come until like middle of the season end like towards the end uh and they now have a new point guard rotation
okay but that being said if you’re starting Jeremiah Fears rookie point guards are usually bad right they’ll put up numbers but as far as they’re going to start pool
winning oh you’re starting pool at point guard
i think they’re starting pool at point guard fears off the bench cuz then you’re going to go Murphy Herb Zion and Ees I suppose is going to be or Queen at center i think that’s what they’re going for
that is a very very sketchy way to build a roster so we’ve got to dig into this piece by piece dejante Murray he’s criticized the organization and by the way justifiably so because things that he said publicly were things that had been said privately for a long time like even among cheap NBA teams the Pelicans are kind of in their own sphere the Jordan Hornets were kind of similar to this but the Hornets sold and they’re not like this anymore but like the degree to which that team is cheap when it comes to like offc court amenities and support staff and stuff it’s kind of well known around the league and DeJonte Murray made it public that said if you’re going to trade him that contract given the torn Achilles and how badly he played last year for them is kind of underwater i don’t know how many teams really want to trade for Dejonte Murray right now like I’m struggling do you have any teams in mind it would have to be a team that’s not really trying this year um like if the Bucks do trade Giannis um do they want are they okay with having another guy rehabbing an Achilles if they get enough assets to make it work as part of the return it’s that kind of thing just a team that’s already out of it uh but so I’m just I that’s just more speculation on my part i just figure like at this point they might want to try a little more to maximize this roster i I feel like they’ll still do something else but generally the the Pelicans like you mentioned not really valuing next year’s draft i suppose trading or at least not so much like caring too much about the value of the picks that they’re sending out for next year where we just went into length how next year’s pick they sent out could be could be a top four pick it has the more chances now to jump into the top four and the 20 that pick by the the Pacers they sent back i mean they did that trade and then 5 days later Tyrus Hallebert and Herz’s Achilles not that it’s going to be like a high pick as well but maybe instead of being something in like the mid20s what if it’s something like in the 15 to 20 range that’s what they gave up in doing that so just yeah the value proposition in this it’s just not good and the Hawks i mean let’s just look at like we we just went into talk about the
Hawks yosi stop i have way more to say about the Pelicans clear the lane so first thing we have to talk about is Derek Queen and Zion they’re not the same players because Derrick Queen is not the just nuclear athlete that Pete Zion is but they like function in a team in the same way as like either a four or a five who’s going to handle the ball a lot are they compatible i think the answer is no and there was a lot of chatter last night like this only really makes sense if you’re going to trade Zion and I wonder if a part of them was like we don’t mind giving away our pick next year because we’re going to trade Zion and get that draft capital back and I would just say if that’s the plan you guys are a lot more optimistic about Zion’s trade value than I am uh if you look at like the guys they’ve added Jeremiah Fear is not a three-point shooter derek Queen not a three-point shooter um Dejante Murray isn’t a three-point shooter when he’s healthy herb Jones not a three-point shooter you need shooting around Zion to maximize him because he’s at his best as a point forward what they’ve done is not it’s totally inongruous with building around Zion Williamson but if you trade Zion you’re kind of admitting that you’re going to be bad next year which begs the question of why you traded your pick so I don’t see any sort of coherent vision here by like at all i don’t know what the plan is you said something interesting that I lashed on to which was maybe they just don’t value next year’s draft you know what that reminds me of it’s another pick that I forgot i think 2011 12 I can’t remember the exact year when the Nets traded Gerald Wallace to the or the Blazers traded Gerald Wallace to the Nets and Billy King famously said “There were only three players in the draft that I like.” So the pick was top three protected well that pick was number six and it was Damen Lillard so that’s another sort of similar philosophy here where you might only value a certain number of guys in a draft or you might not think a draft is very good the number six the number seven the number eight pick in any draft is valuable there is the chance that you hit a home run like that that just isn’t as feasible if like either you don’t have a first round pick or you’re picking at 25 or whatever it is so colossally bad trade i have a couple more things I want to hit on here you mentioned Jose Alvarado i would be trying like crazy to trade for Jose Alvarado if I was another team only making 4 a.5 million this year and we just went through the TJ McConnell playoffs where we saw how valuable it is to have a super high energy backup point guard who sure can only play 16 18 20 minutes a game but is super valuable within those minutes i would imagine the smart teams and the capstrap teams are lining up around the block to try to trade for Joseé Alvarado right now i think Jose Alvarado might just be the best guard on that team at least on a per minute basis independent of salary so like I there were years where I think he should have won or should have been in the running for sixman of the year i think like a lot of smart teams should be lining up to try to trade for him and then I have one last thing and then I promise we can talk about other teams why were the Hawks the team that got to make this trade right look at the teams in the middle of the first round we’ll start at number nine with the Raptors the Raptors need high upside swings i would much rather have this protect or this unprotected pick than Colin Murray Boils or whatever his name is i would rather have like the Blazers who are at 11 and move down the Bulls at 12 all of these teams this is like the entire middle class of the NBA munch together all of whom need a franchise player a star an upside swing every single one of them should have been trying to make this trade with the Pelicans so what I’m kind of wondering is did the Pelicans not call these teams like is that what happened here did they only try to jump up to 13 and like you know to get more conspiratorial about this I wonder if there was a part of them that was like “We want Derek Queen at a lower salary slot so we want to get him at 13 and not number nine.” So I I think I already have an answer for this i think Zack Low already answered it this morning on his podcast talking about how they uh they added Bryson Graham from uh the Pelicans for an office pretty late into like like you know by then Pelicans probably have done a lot of research and figuring out their draft board so could be a type of thing where he knew that’s who they wanted and the Hawks then that’s that’s that might be why the Hawks got to do this trade um you bring up the Gerald Wallace to uh Brooklyn trade i think that might actually be the most a very good like the most analogous trade i guess the Kyrie Irving one to Boston is probably closer since it’s a year ahead but it’s but yeah that one the Gerald Wall trade because that one was like at the trade deadline I think so we even had a even clearer picture of how that where that pick was going to land this one’s just I don’t think we’ve ever seen a pick with like this element of a of two of a swap that makes it more uh valuable that gives it a better chance of increasing one actually
the one remember the lay kings pick the pick that was like a Lakers pick that was top two protected but then it became an unprotected Kings pick but that was the one year the Kings came like 14th I can’t remember who it was number 14 that Boston had I can’t remember how they got it but in one tra oh that was the pick they got for moving down to Tatum
we call it the Lakings pick that was top three protected Lakers into unprotected kings was kind of similar but that wasn’t in the same year um so yeah that’s another really interesting one i might have to do the research and write this as a story the best draft picks that have ever been traded because this one is potentially very very high up there and now the Hawks I really like what they’ve done these past two days uh I like what they’ve I wrote about them a lot about on Third Apron how this is the most improved situation within like a year where after they traded for the Jonte Murray uh you know wasn’t really working out after that second year things were really not looking good for them and they do the trade where I liked it at the time where they brought in those two picks from the Pelicans and Dyson Daniels but they still had outgoing picks to the Spurs uh this coming the upcoming season which just conveyed into that 14th pick plus they still owe a swap next year to the Spurs and another unprotected one in 2027 uh you already mentioned that now those picks probably aren’t going to be that valuable given how wide open it is in the East but the Hawks they went ahead and they brought in Porzingis for a very low price uh they ended up getting Ace Newell at 23 who is a guy that they were rumored to want at 13 so really good value there clears up even more money for them to do whatever they want with their trade exception with their mid-level exception so they’re going to have a pretty nice bench i think they mainly need to get some some guards maybe they bring back Caris Levert but now they like they really turned this situation around they have potentially now a lottery pick next year like I mean not potentially they’re going to have a probably a lottery pick next year question is how high can it be top four so now they have one of the best trade assets in the league and they have a significant stake in the Bucks draft over these next two years they have because they have a the swap with the Bucks and they get the least favorable of Pelicans Bucks in 2027 uh so you know the Pelicans still have more of a stake with the Giannis with with the with the Bucks draft in the next two years but now the Hawks I’m not saying like they have a like a they’re like uh going to get Giannis or anything like that like they have the best package for him but just when you look at these factors they could get involved somehow whether it’s to get him or as a facilitator if Giannis ever becomes available
yeah I actually think like they are the stealth team for Giannis like if Giannis ever does become available Houston and San Antonio are obviously one and two but like they have a lot of good stuff to offer like if you build an offer around that Pelicans Bucks pick and the 27 Pelicans Bucks pick plus their own future picks and Jaylen Johnson and like maybe Reese or Dyson Daniels like that’s a pretty compelling package i would be pretty interested in that yeah so where they’re at right now you can correct me on the numbers they’re like 30 million below the tax right i mean here let me pull it up
so basically what I’m getting at is
Yep exactly
they’ll be able to do like two of the following three things resign Carris Levert use the non- taxpayer mid level or use part or a significant chunk of that $25 million Deonte Murray trade exception so basically you figure besides everybody that’s listed here now you’ll be able to add two pretty meaningful bench players as well that’s a really interesting team in the East that I could see getting a top four seed if everything goes right and then I wonder if you’re playing well is Trey Young maybe a little bit more open-minded about signing an extension at less than the max which if he does their future looks pretty interesting and then the last thing I do want to throw out before like about this Hawk situation in general
we had talked like around for years like not years but basically since the Spurs made the Dejonte Murray trade about how the Spurs had these really valuable picks from Atlanta from that trade and that was a really scary proposition to the rest of the NBA because if the Hawks had been bad and if they had had to like trade Trey Young and rebuild or something you were looking at a scenario where San Antonio with Webyama and everything else they would have had would have gotten these really valuable picks now like thankfully for the rest of the league the Hawks figure to be good enough over the next two years that they’re not handing San Antonio these premium assets so and by the way like we’ll talk about Phoenix as well i think the Rockets are in a little slightly similar boat now i think Phoenix’s picks are more valuable still but I think the Suns had a very nice day yesterday and those Houston picks that they have are a little bit more valuable now so this is something to keep in mind about future picks the circumstances of the team that owns them or originates them can change so quickly that the value of those picks changes really quickly which is why this Pelicans Bucks pick is so obscenely valuable because it’s only one year out the Pelicans don’t have that much time to improve their situation whereas when the Hawks traded for DeJonte Murray those picks were several years in the future and so much has changed since then yeah uh one other element about this is that they save about like two and a half going from what Derek Queen’s salary at 13th would be to this uh Newell getting 3.3 at the 23rd pick it is so yeah now they’re at now they get even more flexibility so you can basic yeah let’s say Levert gets like a little less in the mid level and they have to go like around full mid-level to bring in an Alexander Walker type then you still have enough room to do one more minimum guy and stay right below the tax so I I really like the way this bench is coming together for the Hawks i would and now and it’s so interesting now how so much has changed where the past two years a lot of discussion of can the Hawks really have like have a successful team with Trey as their best player and making as much money as he is i still a lot of analysts believe he’ll take less than the max in an extension i think he will uh as well so when I think the conversation will change significantly when instead of making like the full max maybe he’s making like a couple percentage points below it uh so just a wonderful situation for Atlanta like think about where they were a year ago right before the Dyson Daniels trade and look now like I couldn’t have imagined uh they would be in such a good position right now um yeah let’s move on to the Suns so yesterday they traded Well first of all I guess we might as well talk about what happened first they have the 10th pick uh Kan Malawak falls to them they select them did the the the Mark Williams trade was that announced right before the selection or I know it was like right around the same time
yeah I think it was right there in the moment and I think the two hand in hand make a lot of sense to me right like Malawatch is kind of raw you don’t figure he’s going to come in right away and be a starting caliber player he’s going to get there eventually and his upside is really really significant but Mark Williams can step in and be the short-term starter however I look at what Dallas did in 24 when they made the finals when they kind of didn’t have a starting center they had two co-enters where it was Daniel Gaffford and Dererick Lively where Gaffford would start but Lively would play a little bit more but if one of them got into foul trouble you could reverse that or if you had to align lineups for whatever reason i think this is a trend that a lot of teams are starting to pick up on atlanta doing it with Porzingis and a Kongwoo portland now with Klingan and Yang the guy they just drafted at 16 i think a lot of teams have recognized that as long as you can control costs it makes more sense unless you have one of the top five six seven centers in the NBA to have two of them because you’re going to be able to get better per minute production if they’re playing 24 minutes instead of if they’re playing 32 because playing center is just a really exhausting position at that size so I think the logic here is going to be number one Malwatch and Mark Williams do very different things right mark Williams is much more of an offense centric player i think he does have good defensive tools but that hasn’t manifested yet keep in mind PJ Washington didn’t defend in Charlotte either and then he gets to Dallas and he’s fine i think maybe there’s something in the water in Charlotte that’s making that happen uh I think you can get Mark Williams on a reasonable extension because of all of the injury issues so if you have Mark Williams at like a reasonable price and then you have Malawatch on a rookie deal for four years you can kind of say that you’ve set your center rotation for decent money with two pretty interesting players for the foreseeable future i feel very good about that and then the last thing I’ll say is that with Mark Williams’s injury history you don’t want him playing traditional starter minutes anyway so now you can pair him with another guy you hope will be a starting caliber player keep his minutes down maybe prevent him from playing back to backs and that’s your best chance at keeping him healthy so I think this trade makes a lot of sense for them on a lot of levels i thought they had a very good day yesterday okay so I agree yeah this seems very Mavsy in a way the way they’re going about loading up on the center rotation uh just so interesting that the this is like their third trade with the Hornets within the last seven months I think uh just going through all their centers so looking forward to seeing what they end up doing later together great just great news for Mark Williams where like he went from having like a great situation with the Lakers going to play next to Luca the Lakers gave up their last and a valuable first round pick to bring him in in so he was going to get a big contract they would have had no choice but to extend him this summer on something very lucrative to getting not traded there basically publicly red flagged for whatever medical issues he might have and it’s just a very uncertain future that may have cost him a lot of earnings now he goes to a Suns situation yeah not as great as the Lakers but same kind of deal where the Suns gave up enough value where they kind of have to extend them so I figure he’ll have made back a lot of the whatever lost earnings he may have may have happened from this whole situation uh he’ll be extension eligible this off season and I expect he’ll probably get a pretty nice deal because not only did this I I agree that as far as what the value the Suns gave up it’s it’s not that much uh trading a late first last night in a what’s going to be probably a late first in 2029 because it’s a lesser of three teams but my issue with it and I think this is where we’re going to have disagreement is that they this was the last few picks they could trade and I don’t think they got meaningfully better i don’t think they’re going to be in the playing tournament i mean maybe they will be but I don’t think they’re getting to the playoffs so this goes down to where do you make this trade anyways because it’s good value versus does it even make sense to shoot your last bullets on this for a trade that might only make you a percent a couple percentage points better so I understand uh I understand wanting to just improve as much as possible but I just think where they are they’re just better off keeping these picks you’ll see these might have been their last bullets but they were nerf bullets right they were the number 29 pick literally the second worst pick a first round pick can be and that three-way protected lesser of uh Cleveland Minnesota and I was Utah the third team um that’s going to be probably late in the first round as well i don’t know what they were doing with those picks that was all that interesting and I look at this and I say given how dire their situation is I would rather roll the dice on a very high risk but very high reward player than just keep those guys and like get to the deadline and make another Royce O’Neal type trade they needed upside on this roster and that was the way that they saw that they could get it i’m totally fine with that i think the two first round picks on Charlotte’s end that’s like mostly for the press release right where it’s like “Oh no see we rebounded from the rescended Lakers trade we got two whole first round picks.” Not really they got two pretty They got about as bad as you can get with two first round picks so I totally get this from Phoenix’s perspective for Mark Williams i do think he will get an extension because Phoenix has no real incentive not to extend him because there’s no foreseeable future in which they like have cap space and can take advantage of his low capold no like they’re just going to be an over the cap probably over the tax team for the foreseeable future it makes sense to lock him in now while that injury risk is still very present in his mind and maybe you can get him lower where like for the Lakers he was going to get starter money we were talking 2530 million a year depending on how the year ended maybe Phoenix could get him at like mid-level money or a little longer and maybe that’s a shorter deal so he has more upside to get back into free agency we’ll see i think that’ll probably be a relatively teamfriendly contract that they get him to sign and then as far as what they’re going to be next year I would say like let’s see how the offseason plays out i think they’re kind of in a situation where their cap flexibility is such a mess that they can kind of afford to take on good players even if the contracts aren’t great so like we know they have a million shooting guards right grayson Allen is the one that comes to mind that they’re absolutely going to trade could you trade Grayson Allen for like a similarly overpaid but useful player at Power Forward then the roster starts to make a little bit more sense right there have been all these rumors about a Bradley Beal buyout if you can get Bradley Beal to like give you the mid-level exception and then you use the mid-level exception to like get a point guard or get another defender I don’t think that they’re like a contender by any means but I think they’re now at the point where like if you told me they went 500 and snuck into the back end of the playin I’d buy that sure why not well so let’s look at the roster because the thing is now that they shot their last bullets I don’t think they’re really gonna have that much they’re going to have a harder time just trading some of these guys i think like they could probably get positive value for Dylan Brooks but like we discussed Dylan Brooks
exactly i think they need him they He’s the only guy who can like stop anyone on the perimeter um and one trade like for example yeah I was trying to look into I was I’ve been looking more into point guard you you said power forward like who like who would say no to Grayson Allen for Bogdon Bdonovich yeah Bogdan’s not a point guard but has a little more uh ball handling facilitation like that actually worked for the Suns given their second apron restriction so that’s how I could find like could they have enough seconds to convince the Pacers to give them TJ McConnell i don’t know if the Pacers want to go that direction so now they’re going to have a much harder time just trying to trade some of these mid-level guys uh not only to get the upgrades they need but to even save money so cuz they could have just uh declined Mitzich and wave Cody Martin who that that’s still up in the air he’s got a June 30th guarantee date and if they done those things they’d be out very close to the second apron now I’m going to guess that they’re probably going to look to try to trade Cody Martin or even guarantee him just so they can have the flexibility for a future trade in which case they’re going to have still a ridiculously expensive roster which brings me then well they got to save some money somehow the Bradley Beal potential buyout uh so I went through it where on third apron a couple months ago I wrote what if he gave back the mid-level type uh you know which is roughly 25% of his remaining money so that means he’s going to has a mid-level offer out there in which case they do that they got these extra second round picks available you could actually finish just below the second apron well I’m guessing they want to roster most of these second round picks give them the rookie minimum
they traded a few right didn’t they trade like the last two and move up am I
They traded futures uh from what I understand
so now they could do up to 3 seconds so uh I would definitely keep an eye on if that’s something that could end up happening uh but I mean I’m just still not inspired where I don’t like if it depends like how do you define a successful season if it is what you say trying to sneak into the playin maybe secure a playoff spot at the end okay that this everything they did might do that um it’s just such a fall going from where they were two years ago trading for Kevin Durant with these championship aspirations to now just trying to field a compet a mildly competitive team like this was the major downside when they did the Kevin Durant trade two years ago when they traded every well it’s mostly the Bradley Beiel trade that really I think uh torpedoed them to this situation uh but then you know the Aiden trade uh letting go Chris Paul in the process like this is the worst case scenario where now they’re just chasing some sort of relevancy well yeah but I mean they weren’t going to Rome wasn’t built in a day right they weren’t going to rebuild this entire team in one off season this was going to take time i think getting back up to basic respectability does have value for them in the short term because then you can kind of start to talk yourself into if we get the next move right maybe we go from 500 to like 46 wins right it’s a slow and steady wins the race thing i don’t think it’s feasible to be like there was any move they could have made this off season that could have gotten them back into the championship picture i’ll throw out a couple of trades for them with for point guards you mentioned Dejante Murray uh what would they have to aggregate to get him would be like Grayson Royce O’Neal i think that could Well they got to get below the aprons first
right but like if they would to get below if they bought out Beal for example then could they do Royce O’Neal and Grayson Allen for Dejonte Murray
no that wouldn’t work but I actually did think like could the Pelicans be interested in Jaylen Green like if would what what if the Suns can get a first what if the Pelicans trade another first or some other valuable pieces like Alvarado Hawkins that could still they’re like cheap enough that they make the trade work is that worth it for the Suns to take on Murray then he’ll eventually come back and you’ve got some other more valuable backhard pieces off the bench so the thing about Green is that there’s only like a 10% chance that he hits but if he hits he saves you right because he’s that talented he’s that athletic and I think they’re kind of holding on to this hope of like our path out of hoping for 500 seasons is that Jaylen Green lives up to the number two pick hype and in this new situation becomes the player that everybody thought he was going to be i would have a very hard time trading him if I were the Suns like I know there were all these rumors like oh they want to redirect him in the Durant trade they don’t want him him and Malawatch are the two guys where it’s like there’s enough hope there that they could be a lot better than their acquisition price suggests that I would be pretty skeptical to trade them if it’s for like somebody like Dejonte Murray so they couldn’t aggregate multiple guys if they were getting below this like I guess you bring in a third team to avoid the take in more money hard cap like
well then you could probably just attach Nick Richards and you’re there based on what they propose
or you could do it it’s just it would be complicated and you’d need a third team and then the other one again this is going to come down to how much appetite do you have for medical risk i don’t know would the Wizards have any interest in Grayson Allen for Marcus Smart like do you trust Marcus Smart to come back it’s like now you have Marcus Smart and Dylan Brooks you’ve got a little bit of a defensive foundation he’s been on winning teams before it was not good in Memphis i won’t pretend that it was he’s kind of a mess on offense but you hope that with Devin Booker that would be less of an issue i don’t know if Washington would want to take on Grace Allen’s contract but they have so much cap space coming that I do think there’s value in just like we’re developing young guys we got to have another knockdown shooter around them cory Kispert kind of does that too but never hurts to have two of those guys like just make their life a little bit easier give them more room to work with that’s another one that I kind of thought of
yeah i mean I also was thinking before yesterday before they traded for Mark Williams that if there was any semblance of a Bradley Peele trade left it was probably to Washington where maybe you can get like Middleton and Smart but now that they traded those future picks I don’t see why Washington would do that so that’s just another reason why I bring up what it’s good to bring up the Bradley Beal buyout situation because even if he was amendable to uh to waving the no trade clause even just to get it to a situation like the Wizards where that could also likely end up in a buyout I think that opport that that ship is sailed now they they literally don’t have I I don’t know how they could put together a trade that even gets another team remotely interested in taking Beal’s contract at this point
yeah i just don’t think it was worth it to give up that stuff to get off them my opinion is just keep Beal but if you’re going to buy him out do it in such a way that you unlock the mid level and the way you’re talking about this is like we’re get we’re effectively getting rid of Beal and replacing him with another guy at his position where the overall outlay when you factor in the dead money on Beal is like we’re paying $50 million for a mid-level exception point guard or forward or something and that’s an overpay but at least it makes more sense for our roster than Beal does so again you’re doing this to like get back to 500 and like find your footing as an organization again before you start thinking about the more ambitious stuff any other dominoes anything that happened yesterday that now piques your interest in terms of what other trades could come next
yeah I I’m looking at a couple of teams where I feel like there are now some log jams philly with Jared McCain VJ Edgecomb and Quinton Grimes at shooting guard is really interesting to me i think you could get a ton for Jared McCain if you put him out there but I think it’s more likely that Philly just says with Maxi we have these three really good young guards let’s like let this play out organically and see what happens but Quinton Grimes going into restricted free agency I would have to imagine that he’s getable in a signin trade philly’s not just going to lose the asset but I have to wonder like could he be somebody that goes into that Atlanta um trade exception where he could be their backup guard he’s more defensively inclined than Caris Levert is obviously a better shooter but he showed more creation stuff in Philly that’s something that comes to mind i think there would be a lot of interest in Quinton Grimes he was very very good for Philly down the stretch and then the other one that kind of you know some alarm bells rang off was Portland now has five centers with DeAndre Aton Robert Williams Donovan Klingan Dwap Breath and now Hansen Yang uh I I’m I’m never going to figure out how to pronounce that or which order I’m supposed to say it in um
Yang first
what yang first so it’s Yang Hansen
i think it’s like Yang Hansen you gota be a little
Yang Hansen got it okay um DeAndre Aton always made sense as a trade candidate it’s just so hard for a team to bring in the 35 millionish salary i think where where I think this could very easily go is the Lakers like have tried on Walker Kesler and they’ve tried on other like you know very high-end centers that would cost their first round pick and swaps and Daltton Connect by the way we we skipped past this but I think Dalton Connect for Eve Mi makes sense as a fake trade now because the Pelicans are so light on shooting and they just took a center so that’s something I’m just going to throw out there but could the Lakers look at Aton and be like “We are the team more than any other that really values draft pedigree and talent and we think about fit later could we just trade Portland our expiring contracts bring in Aton and see if LeBron can turn him back into the guy that he was in 2021 when they made the finals?” That strikes me as something the Lakers in particular could do and then Robert Williams I have to imagine at 13 million or so would be of interest to a fair number of teams just as like a high upside backup center where if it doesn’t work out 13 million isn’t such a crippling number that you feel really bad about it so Portland Centers are the other teams or is the other situation I’m really watching either of those really stand out to you well first I want to talk about that Atlanta Grimes situation that you threw out there because I really like that the Hawks now have two first round picks in next year’s draft one you know one’s the Pelicans one which they’re going to keep uh but then they have one that is uh swapped with the Spurs which uh could probably be something in the late teens early 20s so if you’re the Sixers you’re going to bring back Quinn and Grimes it’s going to cost like you know around the full mid level maybe a little bit higher uh it’ll probably put them right up against the second apron if they don’t reduce salary elsewhere now that you have this crowded back court uh with Maxi McCain you just selected BJ Edgecom i do think I’m sure they’re open to the possibility of sign and trading Grimes where you know all they they they signed Caleb Martin in free agency on a very uh nice contract and that’s all it really cost to get Quinn Grime so that’d be a nice piece of business to get like a first round pick uh a future first round pick for him um
the other thing you could do then is use your mid-level to resign which they can’t do if they’re paying Grimes and they’re pushed up against the second yeah that would get and it give them that as well a little more spending flexibility with their mid level
so I think as far as Portland and Aiden yeah Lakers scream as a team for Aiden right now makes a lot of sense that 35 million is a little tough to match i don’t know if we’ve discussed it on the show i know we’ve discussed it privately that I think for the Lakers that makes a lot more sense if they don’t have to do the 100% match where uh maybe LeBron takes a little sh a little payroll a salary reduction where then they can get to the money with basically like uh Vincent Maxi and Shake Milton I think and then you have enough space where you could maybe use the mid level after i think that would make it more sensible for the Lakers the thing is I don’t think Portland wants any of those players and they might not even want the pick either i think a 13 would definitely need to be involved where the Blazers get somebody they want because like we’ve discussed with the holiday trade and a lot of the other moves the Blazers have done they don’t and it’s kind of contradictory because they just made a trade with the Grizzlies where they got a future first round pick uh in 2028 that Magic pick they just seem to want like certain players that that that that you know fits right now whatever they’re going for so that’s the challenge can you find another team that gets Portland what they want
well let me
otherwise I really like Aiden to Lakers at this point because I mean there’s not like we’ve seen now uh I mean Favors could I mean not Favors uh Gafford he’s still technically in play uh but Mark Williams not really in play anymore uh Walker Kesler I doubt at this point so yeah that might be one of their best options at this point
yeah um I mean my my question there like I don’t think they’re that interested in Nick Claxton as I understand it walker Kesler the price seems to just be too high i’ll throw out another construction on Aton let’s say you’re the Lakers would you put Ruie Hachima in that trade and the reason I bring it up is that if you did Hachima Vincent and Cleba who are all expirings you save around $5 million and that way if you ask LeBron to take a pay cut to give you the full mid level you’re asking him to take a smaller one and he’s maybe a little bit more amendable to that as for Portland they need shooting so badly in light of the Simons for Holiday Trade and then they don’t draft somebody who can shoot they draft another center would they be interested in Hachima as like maybe not a replacement for Jeremy Grant because I don’t know if they’re gonna be able to move Jeremy Grant but like somebody in that mold as like a forward who can shoot a little bit he’s young enough that you could talk yourself into keeping him longer term eighton as a Lakers target fascinates me because you could probably get him without giving up picks right like I don’t know what the construction is but I don’t think you have to put the 2031 pick on the table the upside of DeAndre Aton I think 2021 DeAndre Aton was better than any center that they have been linked to right he in that year they made the finals was better than Walker Kesler has ever been thus far better than Nick Claxton has ever been thus far better than Gafford he was a true maxle player and I know we like to laugh at the Suns but remember it wasn’t the Suns who gave him that max contract it was the Pacers the smart brilliant asset like conscious Pacers who wanted to dump Miles Turner to give him the max that was legitimate deandre Aton was seemingly worth that at that time so much of it is about attitude so much of it is about like how committed are you to doing the dirty work which he has not been in Portland well I would just say look at LeBron James’ history of kind of turning knuckleheads into you know the best versions of themselves dwight Howard with the Lakers was an example of that j.r smith in Cleveland Chris Anderson in Miami lebron has a pretty rich history of taking talented but like kind of messy players and turning them into the players you want them to be if I were the Lakers I would look at Eightton and say if we’re not giving up picks for him and he’s on an expiring so there’s no real risk attached if we can pull that off then we can hold on to our picks for future stuff and just take the home run swing and if it doesn’t work we wash our hands of the situation and say “Well at least we didn’t give up all of our draft equity to get Walker Kesler.” So I do think it makes sense i think the Ruie version is probably the one that makes the most sense to me
i wouldn’t I personally wouldn’t feel motivated to trade Ruie for Aiden i’d want to keep every core guy from the team last year uh I I just mainly because I who else is trading for Aiden uh I don’t really see another team even like trying to get him at his number uh so if I’m the Lakers I would probably hold I’d probably hold this firm line try to get a third team involved keep your pick maybe you can get something done with connect and swaps uh where maybe the swaps go to a different team the Blazers get someone they want you mentioned that the Blazers could use another shooter i mean Golden Connect right there uh so because of that it’s very possible we don’t see any deal uh but just I just look around the league i don’t know what the appetite is for Aiden in which I think the Lakers should probably hold a hard line i think there’s a meaningful chance much stronger than I did maybe a week or two ago that all the Lakers do at center is sign somebody for the tax mid level sign another minimum and kind of just call it a day i would be very disappointed if that’s what they did that to me is tantamount to wasting a LeBron season and I don’t know how many of those you have left unless you like have something really interesting lined up for that 2031 pick on like the wing where like there were some Andrew Wiggins rumblings rumblings yesterday i am personally not as high on him for the Lakers i think the logic is that he is better at defending guards than Dorian Finny Smith is i there is some truth to that what I would say is that Andrew Wiggins is 30 and guys at that size defending guards into their 30s there’s a pretty spotty history of that so I maybe wouldn’t bet on that as a long-term solution and certainly not one that I would like put the 2031 pick on the table for if you’re just trading expiring money if it’s just like Ruie and Vincent for Wiggins yeah I say you go for it i don’t mind having that player option for Wiggins in 26 assuming Jiren Jackson extends and you don’t need to have that cap space anymore you’re talking about the 2031 pick i I would not do that for Wiggins
i think that’s the element that for that not a lot of people discuss that that’s the Lakers basically punting their 2026 flexibility cuz Wiggins in all likelihood at this point i guess he’s going to pick that up or wants to extend off that so I like think about what the Heat are doing they’re trying to maximize 26 space so if they can come out of this with Ruie to be the stop gap forward for next year who’s expiring I don’t think they really like get much worse if at all and then the he have their their powder dry to make a splash at 2026 if anyone’s available which I mean we’ll find out in the coming weeks based on who signs extensions or not if there even is going to be uh a free agency market at that level um one at I do think though the Lakers and Blazers at a at a minimum they just seem like trade partners with the uh Blazers having five centers like I wouldn’t be surprised if at the minimum it’s we see something simple like dooop wreath for shake Milton something like that
or even Gabe Vincent for Robert Williams or something like because Gabe Vincent could probably help Portland a little bit as like a fourth guard that’s I think there’s something there that being said the Lakers and Blazers have negotiated several times in the past and I don’t think they’ve ever actually made a deal i don’t know that they’re like the eager trade partners that like Rob has a few teams that he does trade with frequently like the Wizards are one the Hornets were one before the Mark Williams thing um I would say that’s kind of a not great maybe trading relationship they tried on Jeremy Grant several times and they never got close
so I that’d be the one hiccup that I would have but they are very very logical trade partners i do want to touch on the 26th thing though i have no clue at this point how valuable 2026 cap space is going to be because we’re still waiting on this Jiren Jackson extension they have not yet cleared the space for it and by the way moving up a couple spots that cost them what was it like a million or so a million and a half like that
two million cap space yeah
so they’re getting further away from the cap space they need for Jiren Jackson not closer they could change that at any moment but I’m I’m really watching that dear Fox is in this weird situation in San Antonio where they have his replacement lined up now in Dylan Harper they didn’t think that was going to be the case when they made the Fox trade at the deadline so is Fox maybe a little bit more available not outright as a free agent but like is he now a trade candidate i think the answer to that is probably no just because I look you never like this is very subjective team to team i think generally front offices do not want to piss off Rich Paul and Rich Paul suck his neck out for you to get De’Arren Fox to San Antonio he worked with you to lower that price if you trade Fox now you might never do business with Clutch again so that’s kind of a risky situation to be in trey Young we’ve talked about we don’t know if he’s going to want a Max extension if he wants the full Max and the Hawks don’t is he in play somewhere so like you could talk me into 2026 being a pretty interesting free agent summer or you could talk me into 2026 being a dead free agent summer and you’ve kind of heard some rumblings of some teams already saying we’d rather save our space for 2027 but that’s kind of what you hear every year lately right where it’s like no no you don’t understand it’s two summers from now that’s when free agency is coming back and it hasn’t yet so I guess that’s something we’ll see play out over this off season
yeah and you said “Well could it be an interesting free agency?” I mean who are the interesting players that we know for sure will hit free agency there’s Austin Reeves who declined his backs extension um I would probably put Kobe White in that uh territory as well he’s eligible for the same $87 million extension that Reeves declined miguel Bridges is one I’m really monitoring i hate
Can we talk about the fake trade we talked about last night
yeah go ahead male Bridges and Mitchell Robinson for Jiren Jackson Jr who says no i mean I think if the I think the Grizzlies would just want to I don’t know if if you’re trading Jiren I don’t think it makes that much sense to bring in Mikuel because then you’re really taking a step back so I would think they want to reroute those pieces to a third team get more picks some interesting young players
but but value-wise I think we’re there so I mean I we both I think were in the mindset after the Desmond Bane trade that Memphis should take a step back and like maybe not all out tank but say you were to trade Jiren for picks and keep Jarant the West is so good that you could keep Jaw still win 30 games get a high pick next year and then reinvest i do think it’s worth pointing out that the Grizzlies did offer four first round picks for Male Bridges when he went from Phoenix to Brooklyn so they are clearly interested in him as an organization maybe drafting Cedric Coward limits that but they have been looking for that big wing forever mitchell Robinson would be kind of a nice backup center for them to have they have a lot of organizational belief in Edy like they really think he’s going to be like their franchise center having a guy behind him who’s like I mean they can’t play together but like you can limit Ed’s minutes you can limit both of their minutes frankly and then I think the the only reason you do that the reason I think we bring this up is again they haven’t cleared the cap space for that Jiren Jackson renegotiation extension if any part of them is worried about giving him that much money and I think the reason you’d be worried more than anything is the medical that this is a way for them to get out of that get two players that they would presumably like and kind of reorient their their salary sheet a little bit because Jackson on his next deal is going to be at the max it’s going to start at like 50 plus male is going to be in the 30s on his max extension so you’re thinking instead of having a $50 million power forward we’re going to have a 35 to $40 million small forward we think we can solve power forward some other way that’s why I think it might make sense like you’d still be a win now team you’d just be thinking male Bridges is he never misses games we don’t have that worry about paying him longterm that we would with Jackson and then we can trade some of that stuff we got for Desmond Bane for another guy like maybe the power forward to put next to Bridges that’s why that trade makes some sense to me i think until Jiren Jackson actually signs on the dotted line I’m going to speculate a little bit about a possible trade
no I I think that’s fair i don’t I’m definitely thinking about I’ve got in the back of my mind like this these coming few days like if anything the draft seemed like a an opportune time for the Grizzlies to make that salary dump necessary cuz now they got to clear like 10 million I think so we were looking at something like Kchar and maybe some of the minimum i mean probably Cole Anthony is the way to go but
you could get him into somebody’s mid-level like I would imagine somebody would be interested in that
we’ll see that’s at this point that’s probably the the easiest way if you can trade Cole Anthony just bring back like a minimum guy i think that gets you right there so no it’s it’s fair and maybe you’re right because as far as the Grizzlies they did trade a future first round pick to move up five spots in the draft i mean like and and not just like like you know one three years in the f in the future like that’s not nothing sure a lot of people already want to pencil that magic pick as being something in the late 20s and clearly the Grizzlies might already be there uh but we’ve seen now yeah with the Pelicans trade uh this trade that seemed like the price to move up uh significantly in the draft yesterday and we’ll see maybe the Grizzlies want to parlay some of these extra picks they got in with the Bane return to get some players that can put them back in the playoff mix because my thinking was they’re going to take kind of a step back just this year uh because then they could have like two lottery picks but maybe they’ll maybe they’re maybe you’re right maybe they’ll accelerate it a little bit sam uh anything you looking at i mean I mean I just might as well wrap it up though bud any closing thoughts
um I think we covered just about anything the only thing I was going to say is there’s quietly a little bit of competition now for dumping decent players into mid-level exceptions because we assume Boston is trying to do that with Sam Hower so like there aren’t that many non- tax mid-levels going around right now especially since some teams want to use them in free agency some want to use them in like productive trades not cap trades
so keep an eye out for that but yeah just read cbsports.com all my stuff is going to be there you know we’re just waiting for stuff to happen at this point second round starts in two hours and follow Sam on Twitter Sam Quinn CBS make sure you’re following me on Twitter and Blue Skylin i am going to be I’ve been doing instant salary cap analysis on each transaction with some nice graphics to show where teams are what the restrictions are if any uh best time of year to follow me make sure to subscribe to Third Apron wherever you get your podcast and the newsletter and you know we’ll see uh depending on what happens if the if it calls for it Sam and I will be back in it to discuss whatever big uh developments happen we’ll see you guys soon

Sam Quinn of CBS Sports joins the show to discuss some of the bold moves made in the first round of the 2025 draft:

The Pelicans trading a likely lottery pick in 2026 to the Hawks
The Suns emptying their last remaining assets for Mark Williams
and more

You can follow Sam on:
Twitter: https://x.com/SamQuinnCBS

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