NBA Free Agency Winners: De’Andre Ayton to Lakers, Nuggets & Jokic upgrade + Mike Brown to Knicks

NBA Free Agency Winners: De’Andre Ayton to Lakers, Nuggets & Jokic upgrade + Mike Brown to Knicks

All right, welcome to Hoops tonight here at the volume. Happy Thursday, everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great end to your week. We got a jam-packed show for you guys today. DeAndre Eaton has signed with the Los Angeles Lakers. We talked a little bit on Monday about just some of the uh realities surrounding the circumstance and why it made sense for both of these teams. But today, I want to do a much deeper dive into DeAndre Aton’s game and how it’s going to fit with the Lakers on both ends of the floor. So, a full scouting report on DeAndre Aton as a basketball player on both ends of the floor. Lots of detail there. Give you Lakers fans a good idea of what you can expect from him this year. After that, for our course correction segment this week, we’re going to be covering the biggest winners in free agency. I have four teams that we’re going to be shouting out in that segment. After that, I’m going to do just a short mailbag as we go into the holiday weekend. Going to be talking about Damen Lillard and where he could potentially end up. uh Mike Brown as the new head coach of the New York Knicks. Talk a little bit about Luke Cornet in the San Antonio Spurs. And then we have a LeBron Lakers question at the tail end. You guys know the drill. Before we get started, subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don’t miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at_jasonlt so you guys don’t miss your announcements. Don’t forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight. It’s also super helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front. Jackson’s doing great work on our social media feeds, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok. Make sure you guys follow us there. And last but not least, if you want to get into these mailbags at the end of each week, drop your questions in the full episodes in the comments. Put mailbag and then colon. That helps me sort through them quickly. Drop your question and we’ll get to them at the end of each week until we get into next season. All right, let’s talk some basketball. So, we talked on Monday about how I thought this made sense for both sides in the Los Angeles Lakers deal. The Lakers were in desperate need of a center. They don’t have one that they trusted in the playoffs last year, and obviously there’s some urgency surrounding Luca and LeBron. The free agency options were all decent backups, but none of them were going to do well in a real starting role. DeAndre has had two franchises at this point, say good riddance to him, and he’s in desperate need of a very public and successful season to give himself any chance at another long-term deal. Well, as crazy as it sounds, even though he’s had his two NBA contracts, he’s only 26 years old and he’s way too talented of a guy to have this weak of a market in free agency. And so, he needs to rehab his image. Lakers desperately need a center. Even when it comes to Eightton and some of his off-c court stuff, which we’ll talk about in a little bit, this in theory should be the year where you get on his best behavior because he’s effectively in what amounts to a contract year that there’s that player option for next year. That’s basically just a safety net in case this goes really poorly for uh for Aton and the Lakers. But if he has a great season this year, he could potentially go into next year. And we’ve seen what the starting caliber center market is, guys. DeAndre has a great year. He could easily look at over a hundred million on a four-year deal somewhere else. That is like absolutely 100% achievable for DeAndre Aton if he goes into LA and has a great season. So, it’s a perfect match. The Lakers get a legitimate starting level talent to anchor the center position for them this year and DeAndre Aton gets to play with Luca Donuch who has the potential to help Eightton put together one of those career years on the offensive end of the floor. Now obviously the Lakers and Eightton’s camp agreed with that assessment. Now he’s a Laker. So let’s dig into some more of the basketball specifics about his fit on that team. We’re going to start with offense and we’re going to start with the good. He is just a absolute monster pick and roll player. There is no other way to characterize it. As we went over on Monday, he’s statistically been one of the highest volume and efficiency role men in the NBA for the entire 2020s. If you want to hear those numbers, again, I went over them in detail on Monday’s show. So, head over to our show from Monday and you’ll get to see those specific numbers. But it starts with screening. He doesn’t necessarily set the most physical screens in the world, but he’s very good at the timing and getting in and out of screens quickly. Reversing angles when the situation calls for it, running up and getting set like he’s going to screen, and then just jetting out. Like he’ll It’s It’s hilarious because he lacks the same verve in his pick and roll coverages on defense, which we’ll talk about in a minute. But on the offensive end, he gets in and out of screens quickly. And he will often get behind the screen defender simply just because he sprints out of screens and it it like pops off the screen when you’re watching film. He is a very very good pick and roll role man in the NBA. He creates a very large vertical spacing window and he has great hands. He averaged almost two dunks per game last year. That is going to be a great fit alongside Luca Donuch. He’s a legitimately good mid-range jump shooter. As a jump shooter at large, it doesn’t look good because he took a lot of threes last, not a lot, but he took almost 40 threes last year and he shot pretty poorly on them. But he was 55% last year on two-point jump shots on almost 74 attempts. So almost two attempts per game. By the way, that does not include postup fadeaway jump shots, which we’ll talk about in a minute. He’s not very good at those. But off the catch, in ball screens or in short range spacing situations around the elbows, he is a very good mid-range jump shooter. He also does a good job of reading the backline. So, he’ll roll hard if there’s a lane, but then he’ll short roll to the foul line when there’s traffic. And even on those short rolls, there are some of them where he’s very well set and it’s just an easy pocket pass and he rises up. There are some of these where he’s on the move. He’s rolling to the basket and he’s like popping like left, right with his footwork like a movement shooter and rising up from the elbow and it’s kind of a legitimately feathery touch that he has on that little mid-range jump shot. It’s a little flat, which is why it doesn’t go in when he shoots threes, but when he’s in that mid-range, it goes in at a high rate. He’s going to score a million points playing off of Luca Donuch pick and roll. Like, there’s no way around it. The only thing I’m a little bit worried about with pick and roll is when Luca gets blitzed. He’s not a great decision maker and he’s a little bit turnoverprone. So, that will probably be the biggest issue that the Lakers have to deal with in ball screens throughout the season is just if they look to start blitzing Luca. Um, I would be curious to see if the Lakers pivoted to situations like that where, oh, you’re blitzing Luca. Well, we’re just going to use LeBron as the screener and then put DeAndre Aon in the dunker spot and see if you can work off of that. They’re going to have to work out some stuff, but specifically in ball screens outside of blitzes where Aiden has to make decisions, I I just think he’s still one of the very best role men in the league and and it’s just going to be a very very impactful option alongside Luca Donuch. The bad on offense. We mentioned the turnoverprone short roll stuff on on blitzes. He’s never been able to put it together as a post player. There are times when it looks great. like he has really good physical tools obviously and then he’s got a nice jump hook. We talked about it yesterday. He was a very efficient jump hook shooter over the course of his career, but like on occasion you’ll see him, you know, post up Brook Lopez and just like bump him off with that left shoulder, get to that hook off of like a nice little spin move and you’ll be like, man, like he’s got the potential to be such a monster down there. but he’s constantly settling for super difficult like turnaround fadeaway jump shots out of the post or like face up jumpers out of the post. And while he’s a good jump shooter off the catch, he’s pretty bad on these postup jump shots. And so he it it craters his efficiency. And then you add in the turnovers, he’s extremely turnoverprone on post ups compared to some of his some of his peers. He doesn’t see the floor well. A little He’ll like freak out a little bit when he gets into traffic. So, as a matter of fact, Eightton was actually the least efficient post player in the entire NBA last year out of the 54 players that attempted at least 50 postups. Now, he was especially bad last year. He was like just over 7/10en of a point per possession. In previous years, he was better like in the 0.9 and change kind of range, but he was still below a point per possession for those same reasons, turnovers and taking a lot of those tough turnaround jump shots. the post is not going to be an area where I think he’s impactful for the Lakers as like a legitimate highvolume threat. He is going to have some success attacking against switches against smaller players. That’s going to be key. It’s not I’m not saying you don’t post upon. I’m just saying you don’t post upon unless he doesn’t unless he has an advantage, right? So, I he’s going to significantly raise the ceiling of this Lakers offense. The key will just be trimming the fat, keeping his post ups down to just quick duckins against pick and roll switches, keeping that volume down. And by the way, it it shouldn’t be a problem. He posted up last year for Portland six, excuse me, I should reverse this. In 2023 with the Suns, he posted up six times as many times as he did last year with the Blazers. So, his post-up volume has already been cratering. I don’t think that will be an issue. I think there will be issues with Aiden. I just don’t necessarily think it’ll be like, oh, he’s demanding the ball in the post too much, like he’s primed Dwight Howard or something like that. So, on the offensive end, I view it as nothing other than a substantial upgrade. On defense, nothing says summer like long days, clutch plays, and firing off a few bets on the game. All with DraftKings Sportsbook. As the season heats up, so do the bats. And DraftKings Sportsbook has you covered with live betting, home run props, odds boosts, and more. Whether you’re chasing dingers or jumping in Midame, there’s always action to be had. Never bet on baseball before? It’s easy. Just pick a guy to go yard. Hammer some live odds midame or just ride with your squad and hope for the best. No spreadsheets, just vibes and dingers. It’s been a fun major league season. Aaron Judge hitting all sorts of home runs. We got Showi Otani pitching again. My Dbacks are still kind of like struggling there in the NLS. It is it is what it is. But here’s something special for first- timers. New DraftKings customers. at $5 and get $150 in bonus bets instantly. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app and use code hoops. That’s code hoops. H O Ps for new customers to get $150 in bonus bets instantly when you bet just five bucks. Only on DraftKings, the crown is yours. The defensive tape with Aon from last year is mostly useless in the context of the Lakers because the Blazers almost exclusively used him in a very deep drop coverage. So, he was primarily just sitting back very upright, like not even really down in a defensive stance and just kind of like backpedaling and keeping the roller. He was classic no roller behind coverage. So, he’s keeping an eye on the roller. He generally would ignore the ball handler and just kind of get back to the roller as part of uh Portland’s defensive scheme. So, he gave up a lot of drop coverage shots, pull-up threes, floaters, things along those lines. He even gives up some stuff at the rim, which is what you don’t want to give up as a drop coverage big. That’s the entire point of drop coverage is to not give up stuff at the rim. But he’ll give up like layups to mediocre guards around the league in ball screens just simply because he’s so passive and so back on his heels in ball screens. There are a lot of examples of frustrating effort. I saw a play today against we watched a ton of film this morning on eight and had a a ball screen against the Nuggets where Joic was the screener and he just like hugged up on Joic and like grabbed his hips and Strawther uh drove off the shoulder and Aton just literally pointed at the rim and yelled out, “Help him.” As Strawther just went down the lane and laid it in and everyone else was like, “What are you doing? You’re supposed to be defending the ball screen twoon two.” And you know how it is with Jokic. It’s like, yeah, he can shoot pick and pop jumpers, but you want to take away the layup before you deal with Joic on a pick and pop. It’s just lazy defense, right? There was a Jaden McDaniels play where he drove right at Eightton’s chest and Eightton did a good job going vertic vertical with his size and forced a miss and then Eightton hit the ground and just immediately entered chill mode and Jaden McDaniels hit the ground and just went right back up and got the offensive rebound and laid it in. There is upside, but there’s going to be a lot of frustration with Eightton and just random little bits of laziness. Like obviously, it’s hard for me to tell exactly what it’ll look like with the Lakers because I just don’t think JJ Reic is going to view DeAndre as a deep drop big, which we’ll talk about in a minute, but a lot of ugly stuff on tape last year with Portland. Just to put it very simply, Portland’s defense was five points better per 100 possessions last year when DeAndre was off the floor. He was a weak point in their defense last year, even though that team had some legitimate defensive upside at times throughout the season. Again, there is upside. He’ll make a big block in pick and roll where you’re like, man, this dude’s got crazy physical tools. Or he’ll make some recovery move where his foot speed shows or he’ll slide his feet on the perimeter. You’ll think he can do this, but it’s just few and far between, at least in the Portland tape. So, this is going to be a massive project for JJ Reic. The first step will be finding a scheme that works. I’m a little worried about him switching because he’s so passive just naturally as a basketball player on that end of the floor. There was a couple of plays in uh a game against Minnesota this year in crunch time late game in the fourth quarter where he gave up a couple of threes to Nas Reed. One on a switch where he kind of came out passively and Nas Reed was just like okay and just hit like a little in-n-out dribble. Got a got separation, hit a three and then after he hit that shot and the game is now tied in crunch time. big possession. They go back to the same action. They switch eight on to Nas Reed, but he just hit a three and he just kind of passively switched out where he’s like standing there, but he’s not getting out to contest. And Nas burned him again and hit a three over the top and you’re like, what are you doing, man? Like, you got to be paying attention. This is Nas Reed. He’s on a roll. He just hit a jumper in your face. You got to be pushing out a little bit further there. Uh now to his credit again in that same game there was another sequence late in the game where he switched defended Nas well and got a stop but it’s like that needs to be the attent the the level of attention to detail that’s earlier in that sequence not later in that sequence. Everyone knows what Nasreed wants to do. He’s got that quick release. He wants to take that above the break three. You got to be out there. So like switching I’m a little nervous about just because if you have passive switches he’s going to get burned over the top quite a bit. I think he could be a good high drop coverage player. What that means again is coming up to the level and then recovering back after the action and getting up to the level and then recovering back after the action. And I look at that as a potential scheme that could work for him because of what I was talking to talking about earlier involving his offensive work in ball screens. This dude gets in and out of ball screens quickly on offense. He is a good athlete who’s 26 years old. He is absolutely capable of riding that yo-yo in ball screens on defense. Getting up to the level, showing, getting back, waiting for the next action, getting up to the level, showing, and getting back. I think that’s something that could work. But now that’s requiring JJ Reic to get to embrace a certain level of defensive motor that he just hasn’t shown in recent years. So, it’s kind of like a a big question mark there for me. But, Aidton has a lot of natural talent and he has shown a high level of defensive competitiveness in some big playoff spots before like we’ve talked about over the course of this week. So, I don’t want to say he’ll be useless here. It’s just going to be an adventure on that side of the floor. It’s going to be a lot of ups and a lot of downs. And then, of course, there’s the off-c court stuff with Aon. He’s a bit injuryprone. He hasn’t played over 70 games since his rookie year. He hasn’t played over 60 games since he had a Sun jersey, a Suns jersey on. He’s super flaky. He’ll show up late or miss team events. Just generally shows a lack of unprofessionalism. The one potential upside there is this kind of feels like a fork in the road for DeAndre’s career. If he this up in LA, he’s staring down the barrel of veteran minimum contracts for the rest of his career and obviously substantially hurting his earnings potential and he could be out of the league within a few years. If he locks in, shows professionalism, puts up monster numbers alongside Luca Donuch, then this could be I’m signing a four-year $125 million deal or $120 million deal like some of the starting caliber centers that we have in the NBA. That’s the fork in the road here for DeAndre Aton, and it’s going to come down to what he does with his professionalism and with his oncourt play in the season. So in summation, it’s going to be a lot of good offset by some bad that mitigates his value. I think he’s going to be an off an offensive monster with Luca. I’m calling it right now. As long as he’s relatively healthy, my guess is he logs at least 20 games next year with at least 20 points just because he’s going to have so many opportunities on the role playing alongside Luca Donuch. We’ll have games this year where DeAndre Drayton has like 32 points and 15 rebounds and he looks like an all-star, but he’s going to be a mess on defense. That will undercut his value. There will probably be some off-c court unprofessionalism even if he’s on his better behavior. That’s going to undercut his value. But to be very clear, that still nets out as substantially better than any center the Lakers have had in the last few years other than Anthony Davis. So, all in all, I think it’s a win for the Lakers and I’m at least excited to watch what DeAndre Aton looks like as a pick and roll partner with Luca. I think it could be very scary. I like view it to be very clear like with Aton as a role man, I view it as like a substantial ceiling razor for the Lakers offense. This is just a huge part of a pick and roll attack. If you look at a pick and roll attack as three-pronged, meaning there’s the on ball guy who has to bring a certain amount of scoring threat, and then you have the weak side guys that all have to bring a certain amount of scoring threat. The guy in the middle, the guy that makes it all work, is the scoring threat on the role. If that guy isn’t a substantial scoring threat, they don’t need to really tag rollers with that much intensity. If they don’t need to tag rollers with that much intensity, all the weak side scoring guys are not going to get nearly as many advantages off the catch. But if that guy’s a monster, now the defense has to make a very difficult decision. Okay, we’re going to get the ball out of Luca Donuch’s hands. So that means we can choose one of two things. We can either play the weak side or we can play the roller. and having Luke, having Austin Reeves on the weak side, having LeBron on the weak side, having Dalton Connect on the weak side, having Rui Hachimura on the weak side. If you give those guys awesome opportunities, they’re going to score. And if you stay glued to those guys, DeAndre Aton is going to dunk everything and make a bunch of these wideopen 15-footers at well over 50%. So, this is the missing cog in a deadly pick and roll attack. last year because of some of the difficulties that Jackson Hayes had finishing in traffic and all of his issues on the defensive end of the floor. They had to bail on that and basically get rid of that middle piece and play straight up five out drive and kick which basically only has two threats, right? The on ball guy and the people you’re spraying it out to on the perimeter. There’s a much more layered approach to this offense now with the ability to have a legitimate superstar level shot creator in pick and roll. one of the best scoring role men in the NBA and then all sorts of offensive talent on the weak side. I would be surprised if this Laker offense isn’t top five in the NBA next season. All right, welcome to Course Correction brought to you by Microsoft. Just like the star players and teams navigating performance hurdles, business decision makers today are are under immense pressure to get things right. They must rise to the occasion, turning challenges into opportunities. Microsoft empowers these visionaries with AI solutions, simplified cloud and data management, and trustworthy, responsible AI. And when you’re in the MBA, you have your own hurdles to face. In this segment, we will hire we will highlight the teams this week that have risen to the occasion when they are needed. Whatever challenge you’re facing, Microsoft empowers you with the expertise to say, bring it on. This week’s course correction segment, we’re covering the biggest winners of MBA free agency. We were originally thinking biggest winners and losers, but here’s the thing. If you really look at the biggest losers conversation, it’s complicated because I saw a report yesterday that the Kevin Durant trade could potentially be expanded to include five additional teams. The Warriors are probably going to do something in the trade market. The Lakers are probably going to do something in the trade market. There’s so many teams that still have things that they can do. This is so far from over that I don’t want to necessarily focus on the losers yet. We will do that at some point in the postseason, but today we’re just going to focus on the winners. The Denver Nuggets. After a couple of years of slippage in the Western Conference, the Nuggets have completely reloaded, trading Michael Porter Jr. for Cam Johnson, significantly upgrading their starting three spot and saving some salary, trading Dario Sarge for Yonas Valenunis, turning a useless backup center into a guy that gives them a better chance to win when Nicole Joic is off the floor. It also will help them maintain some scheme consistency. Jonas Valenunis is obviously a substantially lower level player than Nicole Joic, but there are some similarities in their play style, which I think will actually help. You know, the bench units for Denver over the years. We remember it was uh they generally went small and it usually turned into like the opponent would just switch against that group. And in those units, it’d be a lot of like we’re hunting mismatches with Aaron Gordon for postups and Jamal Murray is picking on bigs or a weaker perimeter defender and getting into his bag for like a mid-range pullup. I think that having a Yonas Valenunis will allow them to run some of the similar offensive concepts that they run when Joic is on the floor. And that scheme consistency could help them be more reliable in their bench groups. Signing Bruce Brown and Tim Hardaway Jr. that gives them two substantial bench upgrades. a guy in Bruce Brown who was proven to fit with Yokic in a championship context and a guy in Tim Hardaway Jr. who should theoretically fit really well as a movement shooter and a super aggressive uh spot-up player as well. Defense was also an issue for them in the regular season last year. Cam Johnson and Bruce Brown are legitimately upgrades on the defensive end of the floor. And like as we discussed on Tuesday, they both represent options on the perimeter. And this matters because over the years, Denver’s had to deploy Aaron Gordon in a lot of those situations. And every time you deploy a big forward out on the perimeter, it limits your backline defensively in terms of rim protection and defensive rebounding. Having Bruce Brown and Cam Johnson as like substantially better perimeter defenders than anybody that was on the roster last year, not named Christian Brown, that gives them a better opportunity to keep Aaron Gordon in a more realistic, not realistic, but in a better fit role for him as a backline defender. It also be easier on Aaron Gordon’s body throughout the season, which may allow him to hold up better physically throughout the season. I was already a big believer in Denver’s core four and with these substantial upgrades, I’m now seriously considering the Denver Nuggets as my favorite to win the title next year. By the way, I view this as a value right now. All of our odds are provided by DraftKings. The Denver Nuggets right now are plus,00 to win the title. That is the fifth best odds in the NBA. I I would like that to me looks like a great value at this point because you’re getting the best player in the world. A team that last year already pushed Oklahoma City to the brink. They’re a great matchup specifically with Oklahoma City and they significantly addressed some of their biggest needs. Backup center, bench depth, upgraded that fifth starter. They I I would have if if I was placing odds I like right at this point in time I don’t see any reason why they should be anywhere lower than two behind the Oklahoma City Thunder. They seem to me like such a safe bet compared to some of these more volatile teams that we haven’t actually seen them play yet. Secondly, I have four teams today in our biggest winners. The Dallas Mavericks. Hard to imagine a scenario where a team could pivot off of a superstar trade faster than the Mavs have. Obviously, you get a superstar talent back in the trade in Anthony Davis. You get a starting caliber two guard in Max Christie in the deal. You also get a first round pick from the Lakers in the deal. You fortunately get the number one pick in the draft out of the lottery, which turns into Cooper Flag, who has the potential to be a monster defensive player next to Anthony Davis. And who knows what he’s going to be on the offensive end, but chances are he’ll be a very, very good player there as well. And you make a very savvy signing of D’Angelo Russell. you needed ball handling and you got a guy who fits perfectly alongside AD and the rest of the I think he just fits that roster really well at a team friendly number. I don’t really know what the Navs are yet and I would imagine they’ll make a trade still at this point with their gut glut of uh forward talent, but just simply an aggregate talent. Like if I was just saying which team has the most on paper talent in the league, the Mavs have one of the more talented rosters in the NBA right now if you really zoom out. So, I’m super excited to watch them next season. Three, the Atlanta Hawks in an Eastern Conference that’s there for the taking. They went for it. They made a couple of substantial upgrades. We’ve seen teams not do that. Cleveland has basically stood pat. They made a swap from Tai Jerome to Lonzo Ball. You get Larry Nance Jr. who’s a a good big man uh in their rotation on a discounted deal. But Cleveland is more or less talent-wise where they were last year. The Knicks have made some upgrades on their bench, which we’ll talk about in a minute, but they’re not exactly loading up. The Hawks are like, “We’re going for this thing. We’re going to try to make this happen.” They, you know, Christophs Porzingis had health issues in Boston, and that obviously will be the wild card here, but he’s a substantially more talented player than Clink Capella, and I still view him as a massive upgrade at the starting center spot. They’ve won the Nquille Alexander Walker sweep stakes. He’s one of my favorite three and D guards in the league who I think he’s like I don’t think ideally he’s not starting for you, but he is a quality playoff rotation piece. You get Jaylen Johnson back, another year of improvement for Zachary Reach, another year of improvement for Dyson Daniels. The Hawks are going to be a ton of fun this year. I mentioned this on the show on Tuesday. I think it’s a legitimate goal for them. They should be shooting for homecourt advantage in the first round of the playoffs. I think they should be looking for a top four seed. And then lastly, the Houston Rockets. Getting Kevin Durant, adding Clint Capella, adding Dorian Finny Smith, resigning many of their young players, including Jabari Smith Jr., maintaining their trove of draft compensation for future flexibility. They ended free agency, according to DraftKings, as the second favorite to win the title at plus 700. getting KD, increasing your depth, resigning your young talent. Hard to not consider the Houston Rockets as one of the big winners in free agency. That’s it for this week’s course correction. Remember, Microsoft’s AI solutions empower you to take bold steps and make informed decisions, sparking new ideas to help drive your business forward. With Microsoft as your trusted partner, you can navigate your journey with confidence, finding innovative solutions and reaching new possibilities. Visit microsoft.com/challengers to learn more. All right, guys. As promised, mini mailbag as we head into the weekend. First question, with the Damewave, could a team like the Nuggets sign him just for postseason help? So, obviously with the Achilles tear, there’s no way of knowing what it’s going to look like in terms of his recovery. There is a chance, we’ve seen it before, that he could come back in less than a year. I I would imagine that unless he’s feeling great, he would take the time he needs to get 100% healthy. But let’s evaluate just this theoretical scenario. Damen Lillard races through rehab, does a great job, his body heals quickly, and right around like right around the stretch run, like early April, he’s just ready to go. Okay, so that’s 11 months post surgery. Theoretically, this would be a situation where it’s not like he’s coming back to take on a starting point guard role in a dead serious like massive usage context. There’s no way he’s doing that this year. But a guy who could come off the bench for you in a playoff series and provide some better shot creation than many of the backup guards that are around the NBA, even on an uh surgically repaired Achilles. That’s an interesting cont uh concept, right? So, let’s talk about some teams that would make sense for Damen Lillard. I don’t actually love the Nuggets fit. I think that that Nuggets team is kind of like geared in a way where they have ways to run offense in various groups. I I think you see Jamal Murray in many cases lead the bench group when Nicole Joic is off the floor. I’m not saying it’s a bad fit for Dame, but I just see some less value there compared to some other um potential units around the league. So, I put together six teams. These are the six teams that I think would be fun fits for Damen Lillard as like a just, oh, I’m I’m here for the playoffs as a backup guard who’s going to play 15 minutes a night. the Dallas Mavericks, a team that’s desperately in need of ball handling and like if they’re in a situation where Kyrie Irving is just not ready to come back this season, Damen Lillard could be a guy who steps in and plays some bench ball handling role for the Dallas Mavericks in a postseason context. The Golden State Warriors, this is a team that Jimmy Butler has come in and helped a lot in terms of secondary shot creation. and it has certainly allowed them to have some more flexibility when Steph is off the floor and obviously a great defensive playmaker. Jimmy I think the Jimmy fit with Golden State has been a resounding success so far. Um but they still struggle a little bit with creating shots outside of the context of Steph Curry. Damen Lillard would be a really interesting fit to come into Golden State and play a small role off the bench for them in a postseason context. Cleveland Cavaliers. This is a team once again that we talked about when we were talking about the LeBron trade in the postseason. Darius Garland has just really struggled to create shots. And so Donovan Mitchell has had to basically revert back to heliocentric ball to keep the offense a float at times. You lose Tai Jerome. Alonzo Ball is a good backup guard. He’s just a very different backup guard and what he’s not is like some supreme shot creator. Damen Lillard could fit a role there as a bench guard for them. The Detroit Pistons, they signed Carris Levert as a replacement for Dennis Schroeder. And Caris is a good player, but similarly, they’re a team that could use some shot creation beyond Kade Cunningham. Damen would be a nice fit there. The Houston Rockets, they’re still light on ball handling. Um, on that roster, they’re obviously uh they retain Fred Van Vleet. You bring in Kevin Durant, that really helps. Shangon can help, but they don’t really have a guy off the bench unless Reed Shepard can develop into it. They don’t really have a guy off the bench that can come in and consistently provide higher level ball handling for them. Dame would be a great fit in Houston. Last, the Minnesota Timberwolves. This is a team that once they go to their bench, similarly has a little bit of a de lack of depth in ball handling. You lose Nquille Alexander Walker who used to run some second side action for them. I like the idea of a highlevel skill guard playing alongside Anthony Edwards that can set him up with some more offball opportunities as well. Minnesota would be a fun destination for Dame. Again, I think the far more likely scenario is that Dame doesn’t play a minute in the NBA this year and that he ends up coming back next year. And that’s going to be a completely different discussion because now we’re talking about a healthy Dame that’s had 18 months to recover and that’s got a full training camp to join a team probably in a starting role. But in the short term, those are the teams that I think would be fun for like a late postseason edition. Jason, what can Mike Brown do to help the Knicks? So, as we heard yesterday, Mike Brown will be the new head coach of the New York Knicks. a wellrespected defensive coach who keeps getting opportunities in the NBA based on that respect. Now, it’s worth mentioning that Sacramento, for the most part, was not a very good defense underneath Mike Brown. But it’s complicated. They didn’t just lack talent defensively at the center position. Their entire front court was weak in defensive talent. Wasn’t just Sabonis. And by the way, I’d argue Sabonis is still a better defender than someone like Carl Anthony Towns, but he has some similarities in terms of some foot speed weaknesses and some verticality. Uh like he just doesn’t have as much of a vertical deterrent as some other centers around the league. But it wasn’t just Sabonis. Like the the Kings just did not have a legit athlete at the forward position to cover Sabonis as a backline defender. The Knicks present similar roster issues at the center position, but they have legitimate size and athleticism and length at the forward position, which should give them a stronger foundation to work with. Essentially, when we talk about like ball screen coverages, there’s like a a bracket on the backside as well. We talk about the bracket in the form of the ball handle, the guy guarding the ball and the guy coming up to the level as the big. But on the back line, there’s a similar bracket. the more ground that this big can cover, the the less that the backline defender needs to do. The less ground that the big can cover, the more that the backline defender needs to do, right? So like if Carl Anthony Towns is at at the level big, it’s easier to build a backline with an OG and an Obi with the male Bridges as like athleticism on the off the ball, Josh Hart as well to help structure a more resilient defense. So, I do think Mike has a little bit more to work with in New York in terms of defensive talent relative to what he had in Sacramento. But what I talked about after the season in terms of whether or not Mike Brown’s going to work out with the Knicks, it’s all about cleaning up their fundamentals. There are certain realities, right? Like Cat and Brunson have their defensive weaknesses and they will make mistakes and they will compromise their defense. There’s no way around that. But there are some pieces of lowhanging fruit, some fixable mistakes that can raise the level of this defense. Mainly getting rid of those easy transition opportunities that we saw in the Pacer series because of bad floor balance. Like doesn’t matter if you have bad defensive talent or if you have good defensive talent. If you have five dudes below the foul line when the shot goes up, you’re probably going to give up a transition opportunity the other way. So having basic floor spacing principles to where there’s always two guys above the break so that you’re set up for transition defense. That’ll go a long way. Some of the avoidable errors like Cat showing way too high on ball screens or committing to one side of a ball screen before the ball handler even has. Like he gets rejected more than any other big I’ve seen in the league where he’ll sprint up to the right side of the screen and the ball handler is like, “All right, I’m just going to go the other way.” And then when he crosses over there’s nobody there and he’ll go all the way downhill. Cleaning up some of the like basic fundamental stuff with cat and ball screens that is avoidable. Deepening the rotation so that you can keep your starters minutes down so that fatigue doesn’t cause laziness within that roster. Jordan Clarkson is an upgrade over campaign. Gorchan Yabuselli is a guy that will provide some front court depth. They’ve added some of those pieces. Mike Brown just needs to actually make use of them in a way that Tom Tibido did not. And then adding aggression for defense to transition. Couple things. One, I thought the Knicks were at their best last year when they were forcing turnovers and getting out in transition. We saw that a lot even in some of their big runs that they had in the in the Celtics series, if you guys remember, just like OG and Male flying around in passing lanes, forcing turnovers, getting out in transition. The uh the second piece of it is that when you have weaker defensive players like Cat and and Jaylen Brunson, sometimes like just running traditional coverages that concede openings will just lead to really comfortable basketball for the opponent. So like if I know all I got to do is bring Brunson into the action, he’s going to hedge. So once he hedges, that effectively leaves two on the ball for a minute. I just pitch it over to his defender who’s or his offensive his assignment, excuse me, as he’s slipping out. And then he’s going to have a fouron three and he’s going to drive. That’s really comfortable offense, right? But like if you attack the ball at least like it’s like we’re putting two on the ball anyway. We’re bringing cat in this high drop anyway. They’re already leaving all these openings. Why not attack the ball and try to force some more looping passes, some deflections, some of that kind of stuff to try to breed more of those transition opportunities, try to add a little bit more of a defense to transition element for this team. The Knicks just need to get more of the lowhanging fruit in basketball. And Mike Brown is certainly a capable coach to improve the team in that regard. What do you think of Luke Cornett to the Spurs to help Wemby? Is his contract too risky for a 30-year-old? 41 million at four years. So, I I didn’t think of it as that risky considering I view Cornet as like if you were looking at like different tiers of players around the league. There’s like your starting caliber players and then there’s like your backups, but then there’s always like a middle tier which is like this guy could start and if he started for us we’d be fine, but like ideally he’s not our like day one starter for 82 games, right? And to me, Luke Cornet fits into that mold. And when you really start to look at it from an expense standpoint and it’s like, okay, we have backup centers back like legitimate just backup centers going for like mid-level exception money or veteran minimum money. 10 million a year really isn’t that crazy for a guy that could spot start for you at times. And then also, if you look at the way that the salary cap is going to continue to go up in future years, like 10 million is just not that big of a number. I don’t view that as a problematic contract um at all for San Antonio. I look at it as kind of a hedge on Wemby’s availability because Cornet can start for them at times. Uh an opportunity for them to explore Victor Wemanyama more as a forward alongside a like a two big type of look. I look at Luke Cornet as a really really useful player on a costcontrol deal. He’s 30 years old. That’s right in the heart of his prime. I think it was a good move. move. I think it’s a move that makes the Spurs a better basketball team and I’m excited to watch him in that fit. Last question. Jason, huge fan of your work if you are LeBron. And the best outcome this year roster-wise for the Lakers is signing Aton while losing Dorian Finny Smith. This was in the Monday video, by the way. Um, but Aiden did end up signing with the Lakers, so it’s still relevant. And then a couple of moves on the margins. Would you prefer to stay on the Lakers or swap with Jimmy and go to Golden State? Who’s going to defend the dirty work on a Luca Austin Reeves, Ruy, LeBron, DeAndre Aton starting five? Conversely, can’t tell if Golden State’s roster offers a higher ceiling for LeBron next season. It’s the cleanest trade by far for LBJ, but it’s also messy for LeBron’s legacy. But I think the last couple games of the Minnesota series last year, LeBron knew the Lakers had no shot, and I’m not sure if they can improve much at all this year, so maybe he thinks him and Steph with Kerr in the movement offense offers a better ceiling. They would have something to do at center, though. Can Aiden go to Golden State? Obviously, Aiden’s not going to Golden State. He’s going to the Lakers. All right, so let’s zoom out from this for a second. Couple of things. I uh I agree with you that the Luca Austin Reeves, Ruie Hachimura, LeBron James, DeAndre Eaton starting five is at this point there’s not a single professional defender in that group. And I will not take the Lakers seriously as a championship contender unless they can turn Ruie Hatchimura into a player that is of the ilk of like an Andrew Wiggins, a freaky athlete, primary point of attack defender that’s also a useful offensive player with what they do. So, I do think that there are some serious limitations there. But, it’s worth mentioning as we look around the league, those same limitations exist elsewhere. I view the Lakers right now as like a second tier contender. I view the Warriors right now as a second tier contender. If LeBron were to swap with Jimmy Butler, I think it makes the Warriors better, but I don’t think it makes the Warriors a top tier contender. They still have issues on that roster. I don’t get me wrong, I’d love to watch it. I as a basketball fan, I can’t think of a more fun basketball fit than LeBron and Steph. Would love to watch it. I just don’t think it makes sense for LeBron to go anywhere unless it’s like this obvious dead serious we’re favored to win the title if we go there. And even some of the options out east like Cleveland for instance or New York, they are options that are more appealing in the sense that the Eastern Conference is so weak that LeBron would just have a better chance to make it to the finals. But I don’t view any of them as like he gets there and they’re just like automatically right there with Oklahoma City going to win the title. LeBron’s only chance to do that was to opt out and to go sign somewhere on the mid-level exception. And he just wasn’t going to do that for all of the reasons that he’s given over the years involving him not taking a discount. But ultimately, as I look at the situation, for all those things you talked about with Luca and Austin and Ruie and LeBron and DeAndre Aton and some of their defensive shortcomings, for all of those issues, I still think that group has just about the same chance to win the title as a Golden State if LeBron went there as some of these maybe a little better in the East just simply because they could get out of the conference easier, but they’re still going to have to face somebody from the West, probably a Denver or an OKC or Houston and those three teams are still going to be better than this uh than uh than those teams out in the Eastern Conference would be with LeBron on him. So, with that being the case, he lives in Los Angeles. His family’s here. I just don’t see LeBron uprooting his family unless it’s just such or uprooting himself, I should say, his his whole routine unless there’s just this shoein obvious bit. And like look, we went over I went over what, four LeBron options in the Monday show, and they’d be fun. I’m not going to sit here and pretend like I wouldn’t enjoy covering a LeBron Warrior season or a LeBron Cavs season or a LeBron Knicks season, but I just the reason why I never saw it as that likely and the reason why I said in that video that I would just be surprised if LeBron wasn’t a Laker again, is because the Lakers situation is nearly as good still, even with the flaws and he gets to stay home and and and kind of ride things out in his current comfort and and routine. And again, I I do think the Lakers have an outside chance of entering into a higher level of contention if they can flip Ruie Hachimura into a starting caliber legitimate upgrade at the three. Like if Andrew Wiggins get in there and it’s Luca Donuch, Austin Reeves, Andrew Wiggins, LeBron James, DeAndre Aton, that’s a lot of talent. And now I kind of view them as more like in the in between tier one and tier two, like either at the very bottom of tier one or at the very top of tier two. So, I I think for LeBron, it still makes sense to stick with the Lakers, even though it’s been frustrating. And Rob Pelinka’s, you know, just uh around for the last several years and just kind of prevented any sort of like substantial commitment to trying to win in LeBron’s tail end of his prime. And here we are and now the situation is entirely different because of Luca and now they can’t go allin. I you know I I’ll say this as the last thing before we leave in terms of the Lakers and strategy. Like I don’t think the Lakers should be mortgaging their future to try to win around LeBron James. That would be stupid. You got Luca Donuch. He’s going to be 27 next year. You’ve got to be more prudent with your approach. But I still think you owe it to LeBron and Luca Donuch and his competitiveness to try to maximize the short term as well. So Jason, how do you do that? Well, you just need to go for assets that don’t lose as much value. So, for instance, trading a bunch of second round draft picks for Dorian Finny Smith. Obviously, that trade was made before the Luca Donuch trade. You’re trading for a older role player on the tail end of his prime. That’s going to lead to a massive uh uh downturn in assets, right? And by the way, the Lakers ended up losing Dorian Finny Smith for nothing. But even if they kept Dorian Finny Smith, he would have declined quickly over the course of the next few years and it would have been a depreciating asset. It would it would have led to an eventual decline in talent on the roster. Right. With the Lakers moving forward, I do think you should consider trading Dalton Connect, trading that first round pick if it brings back a player who is a legitimate core piece alongside Luca Donuch who’s in his mid to late 20s because then it’s like, okay, we gave up a first round pick. We gave up a first round talent in Dalton, but what we got back is a player that we can use for four to five years and he’s going to still be in his prime during all that time. And then still at age 31, he’ll be that generation’s Dorian Finny Smith. He can be the guy that they look to move for some sort of asset return at that point in time. If they can get a starting caliber talent that’s no older than like 30, then that makes sense because there’s still some long-term value in the asset. You just can’t trade the first round pick in Dalton Connect for like Paul George from the 76ers. That would be stupid because now you’re giving up assets for a player that’s going to quickly depreciate and you’re going to have such a huge net negative in your total roster talent available, right? But if you can move assets for other assets that will retain their value, that is something you can do that helps capitalize on the LeBron James era while still allowing for long-term flexibility surrounding Luca Donuch. All right, guys. That’s all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. We’re going to take the holiday weekend off, so all of you all uh spend some time with your family and relax. And we will be back on Monday. We have a very busy week next week for summer league. I’m headed out to Vegas with Jackson. We’re going Thursday through Sunday. So hopefully you guys will stop by and uh see us at some point while we’re in Vegas. I’ll keep, you know, show announcements and stuff on Twitter in terms of just letting you know, letting you guys know where we’re at uh during the week and when we’re releasing content. Busy week next week. We’ll see you guys on Monday.

Jason reacts to the Los Angeles Lakers signing center Deandre Ayton to pair with Luka Doncic and LeBron James. Then he gives his winners of NBA free agency including Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets for adding Cam Johnson and Bruce Brown, Nico Harrison’s Dallas Mavericks for adding D’Angelo Russell, the Atlanta Hawks, the Houston Rockets for trading for Kevin Durant, and New York Knicks for getting Mike Brown.

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