Biggest surprises from Round 1 of the 2025 NBA Draft 👏 | The Hoop Collective

Biggest surprises from Round 1 of the 2025 NBA Draft 👏 | The Hoop Collective

hello and welcome to the Hoop Collective podcast we talk about the NBA which we are doing just after midnight on Thursday morning just after the conclusion of the NBA draft at least the first round joining us from the Barlay Center where the all the action went down is Tim Bontmps
it’s too bad it wasn’t the end of the draft yeah tomorrow will be great second round i’ll be there you can watch it on ESPN uh joining us from the Dallas Mavericks practice facility I don’t know if they have a name for that facility or if that’s just what it’s called where Cooper Flag was drafted tonight is Ban McMahon
howdy partners i do believe there’s a title sponsor but I can’t think of it off the top of my head
all right I am in Bristol my annual one night only visit to Bristol for the draft and uh lovely i’m in the Jack one of the Jackson studios he just goes from studio to studio and this is one of his uh one of his spots um so I don’t know Bonmp’s um the the the what I’ll remember about this draft if you want my honest assessment was um Danny Wolf’s brother ugly crying at the end of the night
it’s a tough one
it’s one of my favorite moments oh my god I loved it uh and also Walter Clayton Jr.’s um daughter who stole the show um I just I just love the family shot i I honestly I can’t get enough i I wish there was a feed that we had of just the family we could just watch the families um but uh this draft was defined um by just a couple of picks in my view obviously there’ll be guys who over the next couple of years we’ll evaluate we’re not going to know tonight but uh Bontemps the the moment of this draft for me and and correct me if you think I’m wrong was when the Jazz decided to draft Ace Bailey that was the the key moment in the draft and the swing moment in the draft and you know we’ll see what happens with VJ VJ Edgecom and we can talk about that and we’ll see with some of the trades that were made in the draft but um to me I thought the Jazz sort of really nobody during the day as I was talking to executives there wasn’t a good feel for what the Jazz were going to do they take Ace Bailey
yeah i mean look the the first four picks of the draft were pretty set in stone without trades uh Cooper Flag was obviously going first to Dallas uh a pick that was faded apparently including in the lottery we’ll get to that quote later from Nico Harrison then Dylan Harper was going to go second to the San Antonio Spurs vj Edgecomb I think really ever since the Sixers got the third pick i always sort of expected he would be the selection there jonathan Cavon our guy had him mock there then Con Canpple the Duke guard was always Jonathan’s had him mocked to Charlotte for a while and the real intrigue around the league was what would Austin do with the fifth pick in the draft his first draft coming over from the Celtics you talked to people around the league the past few days at least for me i don’t know about you guys nobody knew what Utah was going to do with that pick and obviously there was a lot of intrigue around Ace Bailey who the general consensus around the league was after not having any workouts with any teams he’s the only American prospect who didn’t work out with anybody the widespread expectation was that he was hoping to get to the Washington Wizards at six and the Jazz never getting him in the building never getting a chance to look at him obviously played all these games last year for Ruckers decided to take him with the fifth pick that was a big swing by Austin A in his first draft obviously Ace Bailey is a pretty polarizing prospect he’s got a ton of upside he’s also raw he’s got a lot of work to do um with Will Hardy friend of the pod um but I think it’s a really good situation for him to land in it’s a place where there’s not going to be a lot of pressure on him they’re obviously going to have a lot of room for him to develop and grow he’s got a great coach great setup there but that certainly was a curveball at the top of the draft and it set off a chain reaction over the next 10 or 12 picks where there was a lot of picks that went away from the consensus and made for a fairly interesting middle of the draft even if there wasn’t any of the kind of veteran salary moves across the board that we really expected going into it
yeah and I get it from Utah’s perspective like okay you didn’t want to work out here you know it was pretty clear that he didn’t want to land in Utah but guess what you’re going to be with the Utah Jazz what are you going to do you’re not going to collect a check like you’re going to get there they’re going to put a lot of uh effort into his development there is going to be o I mean if the guy wants the ball in his hands a lot right away I think there’s certainly going to be that opportunity there and look man the Jazz are you know depending on how you want to define it a few years into a rebuild and they have not hit on a single high ceiling draft pick they’ve been in the lottery what is this is this their third straight year what maybe four whatever how many straight years they’ve been
twice at nine right and then this is for nine and 10 they got Taylor Hendricks they got uh Cody Williams Jaylen Williams brother right
and now this pick right and there’s not a guy who’s screaming like high upside uh of of their lottery pick so far so this is the guy that I think had the highest upside of that pick and it’s a it’s a boomer bust i mean he did not have a very impressive year of Ruggers but that size that athleticism you know the shot making ability like he does have big time big time scoring potential and outside of Larry Markin that’s just not something that they have on the uh on the Jazz roster right now so I get swinging big when you’re drafting fifth overall in Utah especially when they were the team with the worst record in the league and had very bad lottery luck and ended up with the fifth pick and they got a guy who all season long was projected to be in the top three like you know that if you would have said in January that the Jazz are going to end up with Ace Bailey they probably would have thought they were going to get the third pick in the draft so to get him at five here’s Utah got to feel good about the swing plus they got Walter Clayton Jr later in the draft who had a really nice season at Florida and I’m a big fan of and I think he’s got a chance to potentially be a Jaylen Brunson type guy maybe not as good as Jaylen Brunson but a guy who won an NCA title in college and you know came on and got drafted and he’s got a chance to I think immediately emerge as a guy with a big voice in Utah’s locker room
well that’s interesting i’m sorry it’s interesting also because they’ve drafted Keonte George and then Isaiah Collier in uh in in back-to-back first rounds but you know those guys are not Austin’s draft picks exactly right they drafted uh they really liked Walter Clayton because they drafted up three spots to get him paid three second round picks to swap 21 for 18 um there was some chatter as I talked to some teams today about Washington and Charlotte potentially swapping picks four and six um but the thing was is for Charlotte to do that they had to make sure Khan Canipple would be there at six that was their guy all along
and nobody knew what Utah was doing you know that’s during the day people were like “What’s Utah doing what’s people were asking me?” I’m like “I don’t know i wish I could tell you i don’t know.” So the the Jazz did a nice job of holding their cards close to the vest
um if if you know Washington had known that their their guy was Bailey maybe maybe they would have been aggressive to try to trade up in front of him i I’m not sure um you know Washington I’m I haven’t seen their quotes from anything yet but I’m sure they’ll say very nice things about Trey Johnson and you know he’s an excellent shooter and everybody can use shooting so um he was a guy that went right after um but uh um yeah so so we’ll see what they with Ace Bailey said all the right things you know he said he didn’t know that Utah would wanted him and it was a surprise to him but um
well when they asked you to work out that was showing interest Ace but yeah whatever dude hey he he got drafted by him if he’s goes there and he’s a pro then nobody’s going to end up caring about the kind of weird pre-draft process with him uh also after the draft just a few minutes ago our time here uh Austin Age was getting his press conference and he denied that the Jazz had had any discussions with the Celtics about um Jaylen Brown that was one of the
by the way that that just didn’t make any sense from the beginning to me well Jaylen Brown going to San Antonio for the rights to Dylan Harper and some San Antonio stuff i would not have done it but at least that like you could see why that would maybe have been a conversation um depending on how much you like Dylan Harper um you know I think the thing about Jaylen Brown and you know I am very skeptical that that they would trade him but if you’re coming up with a reason why they would break them up it’s the question about whether you can feel the competitive roster in 2025 or in the case of not getting Tatum back in 2026 with two guys that make combined over 110 million look if the Celtics were going to trade Jaylen Brown or Derek White they were going to have to get a ton back in a trade if they had gotten a ton back in a trade for either of them I think they’d have thought hard about it and potentially done it but it was going to have to be a really high bar and I you know I just didn’t Here’s two things I would say one there was a lot of chat as you mentioned about Utah that trade never made sense on either side two if you look at Brad Stevens history with the Celtics pretty much every trade he’s made has come out of left field and people haven’t seen it coming so if with with as much chatter as there was there was chatter too about San Antonio also I didn’t really think a lot of that either for the same reason that the Celtics have typically under him operated pretty quietly and gotten stuff done and with that much noise out there it felt like sort of typical pre-draft chatter and turned out that’s what it was
so let’s discuss the Pelicans draft so the Pelicans came into the night with the picks number seven and 23 um and yesterday we talked about on the pod uh dra traded for Jordan Pool traded CJ McCollum for Jordan Pool there’s some other guys in the in the drafting Kelly Oolen etc but basically that was the trade um so they they have the seventh pick there was some belief that they wanted to draft a big
um but uh
well the the the talk was they wanted to draft Derek Queen it was known around the league that Troy Weaver who is from the DMV was a big fan of Derek Queen who
Troy Weaver is their number two to Joe Dumars just to be clear
correct used to be the Pistons GM has been with the Thunder um their I don’t think he’s their senior vice president of basketball operations something like that um so that was that was what Yes as Jackson chimes in he recruited Carmelo Anthony to Syracuse um he was that was the the belief was that they liked him and there was some thought even as the seventh pick was on the board tonight that they would draft Derek Queen seventh overall
yeah and instead they gave up potentially an even higher pick in next year’s draft to do it
well I thought Brian was going to talk about the seventh pick i was sitting just stared at me no the so seventh pick they draft Jeremiah Fears who
who’s a very explosive guard out of Oklahoma got got pretty high upside
it’s a it’s a big time upside swing extremely young one of these kids who reclassified he’s a one and done you know you’re not going to look at his numbers from U and be real impressed just honestly like he was an inefficient shoot first guard but you know there’s some talent there um again it’s it’s an upside swing uh honestly kind of profiles pretty similarly I I think to to Jordan Pool who they just traded for um and then I mean honestly man they better be right on Derek Wayne because they gave up the 23rd pick and then to move up 10 spots they gave up unprotected the best of their pick or Milwaukeee’s next year and like fellas I don’t know how you can look at New Orleans right now and look around the Western Conference right now DeJonte Murray’s all at least most of next season and sit there and and assess that and think that it’s going to be anything but likely a single-digit lottery pick
i mean look it’s it’s a hell of a it’s a hell of a first day running a draft for AI Salah and the Hawks i mean they get earlier this week they make the Porzingis deal which we talked about pretty good value play for them they use a 22nd pick to get off Terrence Man and get Chris Porzingis tonight they draft Ace Newell at 23 who’s a pretty interesting young player he was projected to potentially go a good amount higher than that with the pick they got in that trade and they get an extremely high value pick next year uh obviously we’ll see what happens with Milwaukee but there’s certainly some downside potential with that Bucks pick and upside potential in terms of it being in the lottery and yeah there were there was a lot of comments flooding into my phone about that trade and about the upside Atlanta got in it like look people thought that the nobody really thought the Detroit Pistons pick was going to convey this year and that the Pistons pick was going to be 17th who knows maybe the Pelicans will have a great year maybe the Bucks will have a great year and it’ll be worse but it’s a pretty good chance that the Hawks are getting a better pick than 13 next year in the draft while keeping a pick in this year’s draft to move back i mean it’s pretty pretty awesome work all around and like you said Derek Queen it better be good because that’s a hell of a price to pay to get them
yeah so the Celtics um sorry the Hawks had two pretty good days in terms of value you know what they gave up to get um Porzingis um was pretty good um I also want to talk about what happened with the 11th pick but but by by the way the there I think the the Suns probably felt pretty good depending on what you felt about combat Malia watch um there seemed to be
a weird it was a weird night for the Suns
okay so
I I get it they felt like hey we’ve stunk at center for you know honestly since they gave up Aton who they didn’t want to go forward with and now they’ve got a you know they’ve got at least center depth and with really high upside uh with Maywok and uh and honestly there’s still some upside there with with Mark Williams
okay so yeah so what
I don’t know so here so let me just Okay so that the 10th pick the Suns drafted Kan Malu watch who I’m not sure i I wasn’t obsessively reading mock drafts i don’t know how many I I think a lot of mock drafts had him going before 10
um
he was so Yeah that was probably the bottom end of his range for sure be
before the draft Gavon I saw an interview with Gavone and Gavon said if the Suns could get Maluatch at 10 it would be a great night for them um but and I you guys know I am not going to sit here and pretend that I can evaluate players however
he is a Brian Discovery though he is a Brian Discovery
you know whatever i hope for the best
south Sudan i hope for the best for him i’m not you know convinced he’s going to the Hall of Fame but um he’s very much still a developmental player
sure he he he’s a big he’s a big sevenfooter like long and big shoulder like a big big frame some athleticism hands but he’s a project yeah i mean he’s not going to come in and and be your starting center from day one
no mark Williams will be
right so I know I saw people were like acting like this was just hold on before you say anything but I think I think people were acting like this was the
Don’t say anything the Wolves drafting Ricky Rubio and Johnny Flynn and back-to-back picks like um they were like “Wait a minute why would you draft a center you just traded for one.” They they made the you know Shams broke the news within minutes of them drafting it
i I don’t have a problem with them going out and acquiring a center
um I have a Well Bon Tims doesn’t like Mark Williams okay we got it
okay let me finish it
let me finish
no that’s not really it either
we can debate about whether or not Mark Williams was worth two first round picks because that’s what they paid for him now granted one of the picks was the 29th pick in this draft
and they anticipate the other one would be late too but who knows it’s 2020
they also they also have barely any assets like that that’s the thing it’s like you trade you like Mlock’s a good swing at 10 like he’s a he’s a high upside swing that’s fine like that’s a good look at the future to do that to then turn around and trade for Mark Williams on top of it for all the other problems they have with their roster i I don’t know it just for all the things the Suns need to do now look maybe this is some recognition that the Suns just aren’t maybe they’ve realized they are what they are but for as limited a resource they as they have I thought it was curious that they used all of them on two centers and now they they’re more or less out picks and I don’t know they they have a weird team and they made a trade for a center with Charlotte actually last year and Nick Richards so they’ve got great They traded a bunch of picks they traded a bunch of picks on that trade too
yeah they’ve got great depth at center and great depth at shooting guard their their centers and their shooting guards can play threeon-ree
i mean that’s the thing they could have just had Nick to your point Brian if you don’t feel like Malawak can start right away you could have just started Nick Richards like and not invested these other assets in another center it’s not that Mark Williams stinks i just the price is just it’s an odd move to make at the same time both of those trades for everything else they’ve got going on they still don’t have a point guard they still have hardly any front court depth to Tim’s point they have a ton of shooting guards they have to try to move some of them i I don’t know it was weird
brian Gregory um he’s he’s not allowed to talk about the KD trade yet I guess
mhm
well I was laughing because our our guy Joe Gar tweeted “We should be hearing from Brian Gregory here shortly not sure how much he’ll be able to talk about the Katy trade Jaylen Green Dylan Brooks Kum Malawak or Mark Williams though since none of those deals are official yet i was like what is he going to talk about the Sun coming up
i noticed I’m not sure if the league stuff they have going on i’m not sure if the league gave him a break because I did notice that in the photos after the initial photos that Malach was wearing a Sun’s hat like he Well they’ve changed the rules this year I think and so they just started they they just started basically the second the pick was made he the next time he’d come back up he’d say uh this this trade happened and they would immediately switch it to the new team instead of in the past where you would like pretend the whole day that it was the old team so I do think that the whole circuit they did he did it with some stuff
well they they let well Brian Gregory talked about Mali watch even though that Durant trade isn’t done so I don’t know if he was given permission to do it or whatever well the league that’s what I mean the league announced all those traded picks so you could talk about them
okay okay so we’ll see about that but you know we’ll see if Mark Williams passes his physical i guess that should be some drama um but he didn’t talk about that okay all right the 11th pick there was some interesting things that happened there that pick was originally uh belonged um by the Trailblazers now we talked about yesterday we were a little surprised that the Trailblazers traded in in their situation they did that they traded for Drew Holiday um so when I heard that the Blazers made a deal with Memphis I was like I wonder what’s in this draft in this trade because Memphis has you know the Desmond Bane trade was you know going backwards a little bit whatever you know um a pickbased trade and you know we talked about Portland maybe they’re like you know trying to level up and you know trying to make it a little bit more attractive for Drew Holiday to be there and I was like did they did they acquire a did the Trailblazers acquire like some veteran players or player for for this pick i was certainly I was on the edge of my seat to see that and then I and then it became clear that it was just a pick trade
and they were they were swapping picks with the Grizzlies who were at 16 and then I you know was interested because the Grizzlies their front office uh Zack Kimman and his staff have a history of doing very well on and on draft night they don’t bat a thousand they’ve had guys that haven’t worked out but they’ve had some really good guys worked out especially guys they’ve traded up for they also have a history of being very aggressive about players they like
yeah well Zire Williams being a notable exception when Trey Murphy was that pick but yes
well they traded up on draft night to get him too
did they trade up for Jake Laravia i can’t
I don’t remember that
all right well anyway they had some So they trade up to tra Cedric Coward um who was a trendy um pick he he played I think at three different colleges
he started off at a D3
went to Eastern Washington was really good there transferred to Washington State the Eastern Washington coach who was kind enough to send me a free uh a free shirt when I was in my gear collecting phase um went to Washington State coward went with him had a shoulder injury only played six games got in the transfer portal signed with Duke but uh stayed in the draft and now he’s with the Memphis Grizzlies but 65 and change seven like two wingspan you know long athletic 3 and D type this is the guy who you know kind of profiles is the kind of guy they want to put around Jaw and Jiren Jackson Jr and uh you know they they really had similar you know kind of profiles a little bit similarly to um God why am I blanking on my guy’s name who’s going to be their starter took Marcus Smart’s job was a
Wells Jaylen Wells thank you who uh
also from Washington State
also from Washington State after starting off at a D2 so you know kind of similar uh stories there and you know they want these long athletic really good defensive wings around these guys and clearly targeted Cedric Coward and moved up to get him and gave up one of the 28 first uh one of the the 2028 first they got in that package for uh Desmond Bane from Orlando
i know that Memphis I mean obviously they traded up for him but Memphis was excited about that i mean they they thought they needed another big wing after that trade and I mean they’re certainly hopeful that he can be that kind of player for them
we’ll see what happens with him i wish him a great career okay the 16th pick that they got that that was switched the Grizzlies um had the 16th pick traded up for 11 so that meant the Blazers drafted at six at 16 and then we had truly one of the moments of the draft um because um the Grizzlies drafted I is it not Hansen Yang why does it say Yang Hansen in all these places yeah there’s some confusion on which is the first name and which is the last name i’ve seen it i’ve seen it both ways so
all right i think it’s Hansen Yang and if I’m wrong feel free to chastise me
our our system has it as Yang Hansen okay so it’s one or the other
anyway he’s a 7 foot one
let’s just go one name we’re going to call him Yank
okay he’s a 7 foot one uh prospect from China now I have to say there was probably quite a few people in the NBA this is the It’s been Has there been a first round i haven’t looked at our notes has there been a first round Chinese pick since you know Yei Yang Leon i don’t I don’t know
um it’s been a long time since there’s been a first round Chinese pick okay
do you want me to just read Jeremy Woo’s uh analysis of it cuz it’s
Yeah go ahead
it’s hard to imagine a more surprising pick coming in the first round the Trailblazers moved back from 11 and took a huge swing on Hansen he’s arguably the most gifted Chinese prospect to come along in some time but also a player nobody around the NBA was readily expecting to go this high in the draft yang is a gifted offensive player plus passer for his position who was one of the standouts at the NBA combine playing his way into the early second round of our projections but for him to hear his name called this early by a team that already has a young center in Donovan Klingan is a fascinating decision by Portland the fit question doesn’t make a ton of sense at face value point of the fact that the players must be major believers of Yang’s ability and their ability to develop him how this move plays out be one of the draft’s most fascinating long-term subplots my favorite moment of the draft was I was standing with Kirk Burgerer one of the uh lawyers from the union watching the draft and Bowen one of our great producers who runs our international group hustled over to the cameras and had them point up into the stands because uh he was sitting halfway up the stands because he was not supposed he was not in the green room he was not expected to be drafted he just happened to be there and everybody was like “Where’s the camera going?” And it was pointing up to this sevenfooter in the crowd and completely out of left field pick and I was dumbfounded by the Blazers doing this i mean to go from trading for Drew Holiday on Monday to drafting a project center when they drafted a center with the seventh overall pick in last year’s draft and by the way they still have DeAndre Aton on the team
and Robert Williams
and Robert Williams i I give up on what Portland is doing
well that’s not going to matter because I don’t think this guy’s going to play that much this year but
I mean I it’s it’s it’s So they made a real aggressive expensive win now move with Drew Holiday and then they drafted a project in the first round i mean I guess I don’t know it’s fine to draft a project but there was just a real surprise that he was drafted this high so
this high he’s a he’s a center on a team that’s already got a long-term you would think long-term answer at center i mean Don Mclling had a when he was able to get on the court especially the second half of the year like I think he’s going to be a good player yeah i mean that’s a that was a wild boof completely
was interesting
certainly was
yeah um okay was there any other you know I think there’s so I think there’s um again I’m not you guys know that I don’t analyze the I don’t have the bandwidth to analyze these guys i the the the people that I was with tonight the numbers on the board guys uh here in Bristol um they were very excited about the Spurs getting Carter Bryant um the defensive three and well I guess he’s 3 and D wing out of Arizona um and felt um that was really quality for them that that pick that they got it with was a Hawks pick
um that they got for De Jonte Murray but they thought that um Carter Bryant uh was good value alongside Dylan Harper i don’t know i haven’t asked enough of people yet but um I like that pick for them i mean Carter Bryant should be a nice fit long term with Victor Wmanyama and and Darren Fox and the other pieces the Spurs have he fits pretty well as another 3 and D wing colin Murray Boils going to Toronto was interesting he was a super highly rated uh analytics guy big time you know some comparisons to Draymond Green um some questions about his shooting but and obviously it’s ironic he’s going to Toronto because they have a lot of questions about shooting across the board but he’s got a chance to be an impact defensive player he’s an interesting fit we talked about the Clayton pick earlier i mean um mentioned the Ace Newell pick that I liked for um Atlanta getting him a 23 uh Kasparus Jaconeius who played at Illinois was supposed to be a lottery pick he ends up falling to 20 not sure
bontim just want to show off that he could pronounce that name
oh I I did I asked several people to figure out how to say it today because I didn’t know but um he was projected to go as high as maybe 10 or 11 or so but he’d end up getting him at 20 um
okay let’s talk about the Nets well I was just going to say the other super interesting thing in the draft was the Nets came into the day with five first round picks and the the big question was what are the Nets going to do like the two questions this morning were what is Utah doing at five and what are the Nets doing because the Nets had these five picks eight and then 19 and four three picks in the 20s and was were they going to take five picks they were indicating in the morning they might take all five players people thought they’d probably try to move up in some form and they end up taking five guys and they were sort of all over the place with the picks that they made so
I have to say it’s such an outlandish thing to do to draft five first round picks and keep all of them that I don’t even know how to react
i just tell you this you’re not going to want to see the Long Island Nets in the G-League next year i mean
I think all those guys going to be playing for the new for the Brooklyn Nets because they are just about I mean Ben Sif I mean I guess maybe he might stay over but um they uh they had a roster that was pretty devoid of long-term pieces anyway and I suspect they’re all going to be playing for Jordi Fernandez and the Nets next season well and maybe two of them will turn up to be allstars i don’t know i have just never I this strategy is so unusual uh I I don’t even know what to make i maybe it’s mad genius maybe it’s insane like I don’t I don’t know um you know historically picks in the mid to late 20s are not that desirable because you have to guarantee them two years and almost everybody you’re going to take for at least three mhm
and if you draft a guy in the high30s you don’t have to pay him as much you don’t have to guarantee him as long picks in the late 20s are usually not that valuable but they were very happy to have all these picks in the 20s um so I I’m you know and and there was the Kings traded in the the not surprisingly the Thunder had two picks tonight and they traded one of them they traded one of them to the Kings because they can’t take you know all these players on
they have a they have a full 15man roster so they drafted Sorber from Georgetown who I think he’s also represented by Bill Duffy’s agency the same group that represents Jaylen Williams and Chad Homegrren they were pretty excited tonight they had four picks in the top 15 um with Sor being the 15th one he could be an interesting long-term fit next to Chad could potentially replace Isaiah Hartenstein but
well that you know that that’s the thing like the Thunder aren’t sure they’re going to be able to keep their role players in another two years and one of the first guys up that they’re going to have to worry about is Hartinstein but that’s a discussion for a different day
well but I just mean like they he’ll probably spend the year with the blue and he could maybe be in their rotation the year after that but they had this second pick in the second in the first round at 24 there was a lot of chatter that maybe Oklahoma City would move up in the draft to go get somebody um they wind up staying at 15 and then they do this trade with Sacramento where Sacramento gives up a um a top 16 protected pick in 2027 that becomes seconds if it doesn’t convey
forget about Oklahoma City for a second my point is that there were teams trying to move in to the 20s and the Nets still held all of them that’s my point well they had a pretty empty roster so now they have a roster full of first round picks
okay
i would have done it this way but that you know if there was a team that could roster five first round picks it’s this Nets team
yeah well I mean listen they’re cheap labor for a few years maybe they’ll pile them all together and trade them for a star in 18 months what do I know
also perhaps they will help them be in position to draft a star next season also that’s also my point i think they’re going to be uh I think they’ll be very helpful on that front
can we talking about the Nets can I ask what do you think they’re doing with Cam Thomas i would assume Cam Thomas winds up being ressigned um he’s a restricted free for agent this summer i would not be very excited about paying Cam Thomas he’s a pretty divisive player um he obviously had he obviously can really score it i’m sure he wants a good amount of money he’s rep by Alex Aratzus from Octagon now he’s changed agents a couple times um I’ll be curious to see what they do i would not be rushing to give him a huge contract and it wouldn’t stun me um if he stays on the qualifying offer or if he he takes his qualifying
yeah that that’s what I Well maybe not even the qualifying offer but maybe like a a short deal very short deal
that could be something i don’t I wouldn’t expect it to be the same amount of money but if it’s something along the lines of what happened with Jaylen Green couple year deal um to give him some money but I Yeah I don’t I don’t know i mean right now the Nets only have um a couple guys on the books for next summer they have a ton of cap space uh in the summer of 26 and that’s why they still have Nick Claxton and Cam Johnson on the team two guys that wouldn’t stun me if they ended up elsewhere at some point in the next 12 months well and they have a ton of cap space right now and it’s not like there’s a whole lot else out there in terms of cap space and certainly seems likely that they will u rent some of that cap space out and try to collect some more assets
so McMahon I have two things for you before we wrap up
great one well first off I appreciate ESPN every time the um Nets made a pick we showed the the uh draft room at the Nets facility and they were all clapping every single
They were happy with everyone
every pick they were clapping uh maybe it was on a loop i don’t I wasn’t watching close enough imagine if they went to him and they looked mad imagine if they went to him and like the tables were turned over and there were papers on the floor and there were two guys fighting um uh Okay first off I have a question mcmahon when they showed the Mavericks draft room tonight they had name tags they had placards for all their people there
that’s normal very helpful
that’s a normal thing
it is okay uh the second thing is uh I heard that there was a lot of booing of N they drafted Cooper Fleck
well no so here’s the deal they had and I wasn’t there i was the mass draft rooms at the practice facility the little postdraft press conferences here but they had a deal at the arena and people went over there so there there’s like 5,000 fans and you know some folks from the broadcast team were kind of MCing the thing and Mark Aguire the only previous number one overall pick in franchise history actually teared up um kind of a reconciliation type of moment um but they showed I I think they showed like they flashed to our broadcast and it showed Nico and a Fire Nico chant broke out
well they didn’t know it was Nico but there’s a placard right in front of him
oh yeah and that that reminded him but listen and it’s interesting uh and and Nico was asked about the angst that’s been uh I would say
let me read your tweet first this cuz we need to talk about this
hold on well let’s talk about the Fire Nico thing i was curious if the Cooper flag era beginning would kind of ease the public angst directed at Nico the public venom um this is an indication it probably will not but I’m just telling you like during Cooper Flags like NBA debut are there going to be fire Nico chance like I don’t know man i really don’t know um Nico was asked uh about that and he basically said something along the lines of uh he hopes so and just mentioned something about how you know people seem to be really excited about uh this number one overall pick um but again there’s not a whole lot of folks that I can win popularity contests with in the city of Dallas um but Nico’s one I like my odds against still what we need to we need to read this tweet from
Nico Harrison on the Mavs winning the lottery and the right to draft Cooper flag despite 1.8% odds quote “Fortune favors the bold so exciting things fell our way.” Are we seriously trying to say that by trading Anthony Davis a quote bold move it was a bold move for Anthony Davis for Luca bold move i’ll give you that that because of that you were handed Cooper flag is this really what we’re trying to
This sounds like exactly what he’s saying
i mean
I mean makes perfect sense to me
this is this is ridiculous the amount of people I’ve had to say to over the past couple of months that the NBA draft lottery is not rigged which by the way it’s not rigged this guy getting up here and going “Oh yeah well this is this is exactly how it was meant to be we did trade our start guard blew his knee out we end up with the number one pick it’s all exactly how it’s supposed to be i mean
yeah the Kyrie Irving knee injury undercuts their uh fortune favors the Bulls
and AD got hurt literally two and a half quarters into his debut it was like the half season from hell but the half season from hell did result in them falling ass backwards into a generational talent now
that part is true okay but what do you want is not It was It was a cringy comment it was but what he wanted to go to say like “Holy crap I got bailed out.” But
not not say not say that I made this trade and so therefore we were gifted Gooper flagged that’s not what you say
so here here was the
say anything else to that here here’s the stuff about uh the fan venom let me ask with everything the organization has been through over the last few months and the frustration from the fans how much do you see the addition of Cooper Flag to the organization helping try to get that goodwill back with the Dallas Mavericks fans he said “Yeah I think it’s been great i mean I’ve seen the fans react to that since the number one pick and it feels like they’re feeling really good and optimistic about the future.” And someone said “Piggybacking off that are you hopeful optimistic that by drafting Cooper some of the anger that had been directed at you personally will subside now?” He said “I’m hoping so.” Uh uh no I’m assuming so a little bit maybe so listen like I I
listen
I don’t know that Nico’s going to be sitting in his seat again i think he’ll probably be in the tunnel he’s not gonna be popular but at a certain point do you gotta kind of flip the page and they’re gonna sell a lot of those number 32 jerseys
yeah that was good i like that i like that they they announced they put out the press release 5 seconds after he got drafted announcing he had was picking number 32 or wearing number 32
and they unveiled the jersey at the draft which I liked and they unveiled the jersey at the arena and had them for sale i
a whole bunch of people walked out with those things
i like it
and again like hey man the Luca trade we’ve gone over it a thousand times i think it was flawed decision i think it was an insane decision but he ain’t coming back to Dallas it’s done you’re getting Cooper flag in here um it’s a team that’s going to have a chance to be competitive next year and it it it really bails them out long term if this kid is what everybody thinks he is it really bails them out of what would have been a dark dark time after this uh little mini window closes all right well there’s more draft coming tomorrow there also should be there’s there’s definitely some active trade talks that weren’t involving picks and um we’ll see you know we was chasing a few today i think we’re going to see some more player movement before the end of the week um especially once the it clears that there’s not going to be picks involved in some of these uh trades i I don’t think there’s any like you know mega stars being traded but I I don’t know but there’s definitely some more action coming so we’ll we’ll keep an eye on it and we’ll talk about it all right thank you to Jackson our producer who also helped produce tonight’s show here in Bristol thank you to McMahon thank you to Bonte oh one more thing
oh I don’t know i don’t know if it’ll be in time for people who are listening to this pod but tomorrow okay
tomorrow we have a very special edition of First Take with McMahon and Bontemps
yeah the TWT edition this is gonna be spectacular well they said
I’m telling you
they said Wendy’s Wendy’s Bolton
there’s gonna be all sorts of things to to discuss on the show
yeah this is like a two for one trade it’s like Luca Luca is leaving and uh I’m Anthony Davis and Bon Tims is Max Christie coming in to replace him
listen listen this is awesome i love it i hope you guys enjoy it um make us at the Hoop Collective who know about your ridiculous nature the two of you make us proud
i don’t think it’s Bontim’s debut it’s mine
no I I know but it’s not so much I know Bontam has been on it’s more about you guys doing it together
yeah that’s the down
i uh It’s going to be great i I’m looking very much looking forward to it it’s a great time in the schedule add after the draft before free agency you guys are going to have topics um you know don’t do anything to embarrass us but definitely make us proud
have I ever embarrassed you you embarrassed yourself a few times don’t be afraid to show them who you are i say that with all the right all the right uh meaning
thanks coach
uh I’m your cheerleader i’m not your coach uh
every cheerleader I had was a lot better looking all right thank you to Bon Temps thank you to McMahon thank you for listening and watching the Hoop Collective talk to you next week
adios amigos

Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN’s Tim Bontemps and Tim MacMahon to react to Round 1 of the 2025 NBA Draft, including an interesting move by Utah with Ace Bailey, some surprising moves from the Pelicans and Blazers, the Nets’ record pick total, what to make of the strangest decisions of the night and more.

0:00 Intro
1:04 Favorite moments of draft night
1:37 Utah’s bold move with Ace Bailey
10:28 Interesting draft from Pelicans
14:54 Suns get two centers
20:38 Intrigue with Portland’s draft
28:22 Other draft picks of note
30:05 Nets’ unique draft approach
35:51 Interesting reception from Mavs’ fans
42:22 A big debut for our duo

Vegas Summer League Live Show Link: https://hooplive.eventbrite.com

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