New Lauri Markkanen trade rumors and Ace Bailey hype | Hoops Nerd Show

New Lauri Markkanen trade rumors and Ace Bailey hype | Hoops Nerd Show

The rumor mill is out on Lowry Markin. Let’s talk about it. And let’s also talk a little bit about Ace Bailey. I can’t keep it in. Let’s do it. It’s the Hoops Nerd Show. [Music] All right, guys. Like always, make sure you like the video, subscribe to the channel. We’re talking NBA and the Jazz and everything. All right, so I’ve been doing this a long time, guys, writing about the Jazz, talking about the Jazz, managing SLC Dunk, basically covering every rumor that ever comes out. And one thing I’ve learned about this, especially when I’ve had some sources in the past here and there, some pretty pretty cool ones, to be honest. Not as much now, but once in a while I’ll hear a thing or two. But anyways, I have learned kind of how this NBA thing works and I’m going to impart that knowledge onto you. So, what happens when one of these guys has a source? And the guys I’m talking about are Zack Low. These are the major national kind of reporters or commentators or whatever, you know, probably the Stephen A. Smiths, although I don’t know if he has really anyone at this point. Nobody likes Stephen A these days at all. Uh, but like Zack Low, Bill Simmons, Brian Winhorse, all these guys that give out the kind of these rumors and podcasts. I would um I would say that Shams is obviously at this point with Woge gone the most plugged in. I would love by the way myself, there’s some things I would love to learn like what thread Shams is on because Woge is the GOAT. He was the GOAT and he was like really the true confirmer of things. But anyways, Jake Fischer is another one too that you got to pay attention to. But Mark Stein as well. Sorry, I’m just listing off people, but those are like the reputable ones that you got to listen to. And Zack Low, Tim McMahon, who’s plugged in with the Jazz, and also Brian Windhorse have all three started talking about the Lowry Markin and trade. Zack Low went on to say in his most recent pot, well, not the most recent, the one before talking about the Jazz trade with John Collins that the Lowry Markin and trade has moved up. We know this is kind of um a reality that Lowry Markin is not interested in another year of being bad. I think the Lowry Markin trade is coming. He even talked about it in a Finnish interview I’ve heard. I I’ve got to go find that. But anyways, what happens when these guys get a source that talks to them about these things and lets them know things? It’s usually them talking to an anonymous whether it’s GM or agent or some sort of pipeline. I don’t know completely cuz I haven’t had someone tell me exactly who all of these different sources are and why would they? Because they’re sources. They’re going to keep them secret. Sorry. That’s how sources work. Otherwise, you don’t get more information in the future. Uh but anyways, when these guys talk, it’s because they hear something. And here I want to just like impart something that I’ve learned myself which helps me pay attention and kind of get a clear idea of what’s going on. When Zack Lowe or Bill Simmons or Tim McMahon or Ryan Rascilo or any of these guys that are really plugged in with some people say something, it’s because they’ve heard it. If they haven’t heard it from someone, it usually means that they’ll say something like, “This is just my own thought.” They’ll kind of give a uh like a disclaimer before they say it. But when Zach Low goes on his pod and says the Lowry Markin trade is going to move up and he says things like Lowry Markin is the most interesting trade mark trade target on the market, you pay attention to it. When Tim McMahon says the same thing, you need to pay attention to it. When Brian Winhorse says something very similar, Bill Simmons, it means they’re hearing these same things from the same places or at least the same thing that has gone through different places, but from a single source. It’s very clear that the Utah Jazz are were are willing to trade Lowry Markin. Uh I can’t remember if it was Zack Low or who said it. Um, but that I think it was Zack Low that just said if the Jazz could trade him, had Lowry Markin not had a bad season last season, which by the way, I’ve told all of you multiple times it was not good. It was not on purpose. Yeah, he tried some things, but he still shot the three really badly. Had he had a better season, he’d have been traded right now already. Lowry Markin shot 34% from three. And you know before we even go on but guys the trade is going to happen at some point. Sorry I’m just telling you the truth. I can understand why. In fact maybe we should talk about it. But uh two things. Let’s talk about Markin and his numbers. Was he being bad? And then let’s talk about uh should they trade Lowry Markin? Lowry Markin shot 34% from three last year. Everyone talked about Paul George not having a bad having a bad year. He shot 35 and everyone likes to say, you know, oh, he was it was a tanking year and well then why didn’t he shoot the ball well? Was he missing on purpose? Obviously not. This confirms that he was not. He did not shoot the ball well. And this is a very good reminder when you’re ever thinking about making a trade for a player. You do not I mean, you take it into account, but you do not pay someone based off of past performance. You pay them based off of what you expect them to be. Utah when they had Lowry Markin in last offseason and I was begging them to make the trade. It would have made last off season much easier. Although I will say who knows if we have Austin A if we don’t and I’m becoming a big fan of Austin H. But Lowry Markin’s value was at peak last off season and multiple teams calling and interested. The Spurs, the Warriors, all of these teams and Lowry Markin doesn’t get traded. We have local beat writers keeping their good graces with certain sources and we know that different sources are for different people. Smug about that contract and everyone was angry at me for, you know, being honest and saying we should trade this guy. This is not a good idea. And now this off season, there’s two things that went badly. One, Lowry Markin had a bad year. And by the way, if you go back to his numbers from his whole career, that’s not out of the question with what he’s done in the past. And guess what? Utah probably got pretty lucky with how healthy he has been because there have been a lot of injury concerns with him in the past. I remember one of the goals for him those first two years with Utah was just to stay healthy. So Utah gave max level money at that time to Lowry Markin and then what happens shoots 34% from three can’t be traded now. Now it worked out because Utah was able to get um Ace Bailey which is incredible but they still had to trade Lowry Markin. So, everyone who says that you can just lose games with Lowry Markin was wrong. They were wrong. They said that the Utah Jazz could lose as much just as many games with Jordan Clarkson and Colin Ston and John Collins. Well, John Collins played 40 games last year. That was a lie. I knew it was a lie. A lot of people out there said it was I Well, not a lot. A lot of people had that opinion. It was wrong. Sorry. Got got fooled by jazz propaganda once again. Sorry. Uh, but those who actually follow the game and watch it and have, you know, covered this league for a long time would have told you this is dumb. And guess what? They had to rest Lowry Markin multiple games just to lose enough. And it was vital. It mattered. It was important because Utah ended up with Ace Bailey because they lost those games. So resting John Collins for 42 games and Ryan Smith getting a fine for $100,000. All worth it. All of it worth it. So they could get Ace Bailey, but now Utah finds themselves in a serious in similar situation and honestly a serious situation with Lowry’s contract because who can they trade it to? That was the second issue with with giving him that freaking contract is now the CBA is much tighter and we saw that this offseason. Not a lot of big time moves and not a lot of big-time signings. teams are hardcapped and like we’ve talked about in other videos, the NBA right now is probably stricter than the NFL because at least in the NFL they can just cut guys. Not in the NBA, it’s all guaranteed. In the NFL, it’s like partial guaranteed contracts and things like that. So, if things go badly, you can just cut someone. Not the NBA. You give a four-year contract to Lowry Markin and he shoots 34% from three, who is supposedly a great three-point shooter, you’re stuck. And so that’s where the Jazz find themselves. And so what we’ve seen the Jazz do, they have traded John Collins, they have traded Colin Ston, and they have traded Jordan Clarkson or waved Jordan Clarkson to clear space because of what happened last year. Right? So the other thing we’ve got to consider is that not only that, but you’ve got to think about players of what they’re going to do, not what they’ve done. When you see Lowry Markin and he and he uh and he has like two good seasons when he’s had also a history of stuff in the past, you’ve got to think, well, what is Larry Markin going to do? Utah, I don’t know. It was just an it was not a good idea. And now teams are going to think that way. They’re not going to think like, “What has he done in the past 2 3 years ago?” They’re not going to say, “Well, he was an all-star 2 years ago.” They’re going to say, “What are you doing now?” And what are you going to do for me next season? Because the last thing you did was shoot 34% from three. And that’s why that’s the reality of Lowry Markin right now. Just to be honest, guys, he shot 34% from three. If you go to the advanced analytics, his defensive numbers are not good. And people have the absolute audacity in the comments to tell me that they want to build around Lowry Markin. No. And Utah doesn’t want to do that either. Lowry Markin is a good player when he’s playing well, but he is a third option on a really good team. Okay? And that’s who the Jazz need to trade him to. But like I’ve talked about now, this contract in the CBA is extremely restrictive. So Utah only has a few options to move him. So it’s not only the fact that he did not play very well last year, it’s also the contract situation is extremely difficult. So someone really has to want Lowry Markin. So that trade idea I gave yesterday and people can say no all they want. But guess what? You know why you can pro you probably look at trading for like Kaminga to trade Lowry Markin? Because he’s a developing player. You can give him a one-year and then a secondyear option or something like that and you get off bad money from Lowry Markin. You might that like that Kaminga trade to me if they do better than that it’s a miracle guys. It’s a miracle. They are not going to get all these picks for for Lowry Markin that people think they just No one was trading picks this off season. Everyone gave a hard time to the the the Jazz for giving a second round pick for Colin Ston. Oh, no. They got it right back in the Collins trade. But like Cam Johnson, who had been talked about in rumors all year last year, they got one first round pick for him to and what they had to do was take on bad money of Michael Porter Jr. That was a pretty good pick that they got, but that was one first round pick. And guess what? Cam Johnson, you could argue, has more value right now than Lowry Markin because he’s making something like 18 million or whatever it is. And Lowry Markin makes 46 million give or take and you have to make those salaries match. So when someone in the comments tells me, “Oh, Kaminga, 42 million for Kaminga.” Well, yeah, you kind of have to because there’s no other way for Golden State to trade for him because just a reminder, if you are over the apron, you can’t trade multiple players. So, even if like I don’t like I had and I some of you in the comments, you know, talked about Moody and Kaminga and that’s not a bad idea. I don’t think they can because you can’t combine players when you’re in the second apron. So, it’s like one player and that’s why it was a bad move and all the smuggness and stuff. Well, you know what? Not being that smug. Now, it was bad. All right. So, Markin shot 34% from three last year. They have to give him time because Zack Low, Tim McMahon, and all of these guys have talked about it and said the literal same thing that he needs to build his trade value. And it was said that if he raised if he had played well last year, he would be traded right away anyway. That’s going to happen, guys. I’m sorry. I mean, Lowry Markin is still relatively young, but he is in the middle of his prime. Utah is a building team. They just are. And they are going to build around Ace Bailey. They are going to build around the player they get next year. And that’s what that team is going to be. And hopefully, you know, one of these other guys hits, maybe Taylor Hendricks hits and and some of these other guys they’ve already drafted. I hope one of them does. If not, it’s okay. They’ll keep drafting. They’ll keep building and they’re going to try to keep cap space. That was the other element of that Kaminga thing is you can still manufacture cap space with something like that. If Utah wins the lottery next year and brings on Darren Peterson, Cam Boozer, AJ Debonsa, and you have Bailey Debonsa or one of those three and Cap space, then guess what? You don’t necessarily have to worry about the draft all that much anymore. You’re basically the Boston Celtics when they got Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown. You can then start making deals to improve and fit in and get things that you need. Like Utah, if they had their two stars right now, they could have gone out and got Miles Turner, a stretch center that can spread the floor or go out and get like the next the best player available on the market. You know, like two years ago was Pascal Siaka. Maybe you go out and get someone like that. You know what I mean? So, Utah has to do this right. But it does mean that Lowry Markin probably has to go and they’ve got to find a suitor. But they’ve put themselves in a tough spot with that contract. It was bad. All right. So, speaking of Ace Bailey, guys, it’s been two summer league games. I’m really trying to fight the urge to overreact and I cannot wait to watch him play tomorrow. Who knows when this goes when you watch this. Maybe Ace Bailey has a terrible game. Maybe he has a great game. I don’t know. But I’m pretty excited about what I saw in two games from Salt Lake City Summer League. And it’s not even necessarily the numbers, although the numbers are exciting, but what I wrote about in the postgame because I had to write a recap. I didn’t get to do a recap video. Sorry. So, here’s my recap thoughts from the last game. Ace Bailey wasn’t even featured in either of those games. Both those games he had like Bryce Sensah, who by the way isn’t going to Las Vegas, so we might get a big old taste of Ace Bailey. Oh, I cannot wait. Um, but you know, you had Bryce Sensib with the ball. You had Isaiah Collier refusing to move the ball around. He did a little bit better in the second game, which was good, but still just super super selfish play. And, you know, despite all that, Ace Bailey had impressive plays. And the impressive plays in the first game were pretty similar to the ones in the second game. The second game, he just was making really good moves. And honestly, he was making unselfish plays. He had three assists. He had multiple rebounds. He had four offensive rebounds. And some of those led like three of them were dunks, put backs. And what makes me excited about that and makes me think that this has a chance, you know, and who knows, it’s two summer league games. But what it makes me think is that you’ve got a player that even if he’s not being featured, he has got so much physical talent. He is beating the other team and not even be having plays run for him. I mean, he had how many times where like he got it the ball in the low post or how many times did they run a curl like one or maybe two curls in game one? He got that same curl play in game two and a few other small plays. Otherwise, it was offensive rebounds. It was the big time block in that first game. It was him defending going over curls in P&Rs. His physical talent and size and length and athleticism and honestly his work ethic and competitiveness is impressive and we might be looking at our at a really nice player. Let’s hope that he does well in s in in Las Vegas and everything goes great, you know, knock on wood. But I was impressed. It’s been a while since Utah has had a player that would be physically dominant or just imposing with his physical tools like Ace Bailey was. And those players tend to succeed, especially the ones with competitiveness, work ethic, and all the intel out there is saying that he’s got it. So, if he and he had three assists, like he wasn’t perfect. I don’t think he’s James Harden moving the ball around, but he made nice plays. He made a nice pass to a cutter. He showed signs at Ruckers the last half of the season. His assist number, his assist rate went up consistently at Ruckers. Everyone talked about like everyone in draft Twitter and the Draft O Sphere would talk and talk and talk about his handle and his handle does need to get better. Although it looked a lot better to me than the way people talked about it. They talked about it was like freaking Bob Koozie doing this like he couldn’t even dribble. No, he was like he looked pretty good. He’s got to work on holding the ball when he drives to the basket, but like honestly, he’s been pretty solid. There’s going to be teams that really test him and this season’s going to be great for him to just develop that handle and work on it. But what happens when that gets solid, you know, or at least he figures out how to play without having to use it too much? I guess the co the goal for Bailey would be that he just gets the ball a lot so he can just run plays and be a playmaker and run the pick and roll and make reads and things like that. Like what if he becomes a great read player with space? He has a chance to be really really good guys. And if Utah does this right and gets a star next to him, you’re looking at a I don’t even want to say it’s the D word. Should I say it? Dynasty. If Utah like hits with Bailey and hits in this upcoming draft and then some of these picks they’re getting for other players and let’s say you trade Lowry Markin and that turns into something nice that fits the timeline. My goodness, it’s pretty exciting stuff. And you know I like I don’t want to toot my own horn with the Kaminga trade. We’ll see what happens. But you know those are the type of players Utah is drafting. Those are the types of players Utah needs. Like Kaminga is big, long, strong, athletic, and he’s got some nasty to him. Ace Bailey looks like he’s the same way. Big, long, athletic, defensive player. Uh, let’s say Cody Williams figures things out. Big, long, athletic, defense first player. Uh, Utah is just stacking the deck. Taylor Hendris, big, long, athletic, strong player. And these guys can shoot the ball if you if you get I don’t know, guys. I I liked the idea and maybe it probably doesn’t happen. Who knows what happens. But one thing that I am a little frustrated with with Markin is the shot was not falling and he doesn’t defend at a high level. He just doesn’t. And one thing we’ve learned from these playoffs is you have to defend at a high level to win games. And that’s what’s exciting about Bailey is he can. He’s showing that he’s got the ability to be that player Utah needs. It’s pretty exciting stuff. Really exciting. Probably the best small forward since Gordon Hayward, right in Utah. Like pure small forward since Gordon Hayward. Uh probably more talented to be honest. And probably a better defensive player. Not probably. Has a chance. Well, very much so. I mean, we’ll see how it goes. But man, it’s looking pretty good. And then you’re talking back to like Adrien Danley and players like that. So, really exciting stuff, guys. Um, that’s all I got tonight. There were those were just the few thoughts that I had. I wanted to talk about the rumors and I wanted to talk about Ace Bailey. I’m excited. I think he has a chance to be so special if he works hard, if he develops, if the Jazz do things right. They’ve got to clear the deck still. Still, uh, we’ll see what happens. Guys, like always, like the video, subscribe to the channel. A huge shout out to all the Allstars. I will be here tomorrow night postgame. We’ll talk about Ace Bailey.

MULTIPLE reporters have talked about the Lauri Markkanen trade possibilities in light of what the Utah Jazz have done with Jordan Clarkson, John Collins, and Collin Sexton. Now with Ace Bailey looking like the prospect people hoped, Utah has to make sure that Bailey has everything he needs to become a star. Utah is in a great position to build into something incredible and they just have to make the moves to do it.

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