INSTANT REACTION | Celtics vs Lakers Summer League

INSTANT REACTION | Celtics vs Lakers Summer League

[Music] Ball knocked loose. White five on it. This is twice now the Celtics have been first to the floor and they saw a save with Harford. Unbelievable. Boston first to the floor. So good. Brown fakes, fires up the three. Bang. Tatum dives on the floor. Everybody dives. And Brown with the flush. Blocked by Porzingis. He’s doing it all. Tatum spinning, driving Washington drives. Blocked by White. Oh, what a block from Derek White. [Music] Welcome in first to the floor. Instant reaction this time to the very latest chapter in the very historic Celtics Lakers rivalry. Ben Val here along with Jake Eisenberg. And Jake, the Jordan Walsh Show, Celtics beat the Lakers. How you doing, man? I’m good. I’m good. It’s good to see you. could be back in the win column and especially be back in the win column against LA Lakers. Yeah, Phil in the chat’s got it. Doesn’t matter if it’s preseason, summer league, regular season finals. Always great to beat LA. And honestly, shout out to Lakers fans. Bronny, they brought the juice. There was actually some atmosphere in this game when Bronny started to go on a little run in the third quarter there. It was um it was a really fun game, especially because the Celtics won. Some of our guys played well. One of our guys continued to not play well. But our main guy, Walshi, three summer leagues later, it’s about time, man. It’s about we’re finally here in the uh we’re like officially in the unironic Jordan Walsh enjoying era. I think like this was legitimately good. He seemed on track to be good pre- ejection in the previous game as well. And then we got the full 48 essentially of of Walshi in a highscoring game. 87 points was enough to get it done against the Lakers in uh in regulation. But I think for for instant reactions, I’m going to hang on here for the first half an hour or so. Then I got to get back to work. Jake’s going to stick around and do some uh additional uh news items. So make sure you stick around the whole time. Subscribe, hit that like button, subscribe to the Patreon. Spoon’s got some great like player tendency summer league deep dive stuff up there on Patreon which is awesome. Like real sicko [ __ ] Jake’s got his recent Tatum 3s unboxing which is good. I boxed up some memorabilia which after this show I’m actually going to go to the post office and actually post it down to Jake in Tasmania. That’s all on the Patreon. So make sure you subscribe as well. And all Patreon subscribers are now officially unofficial 2026 first of the four summer league trip. um donation people I suppose which is great. Looking forward to that a year from now. But I guess starting with the arrows game. Um Jake, do you want to kick us off? Who we going to start with first? It’s got to be our guy Walshy. That’s right. Stuck up, stuck down. I think Walsh still got a an arrow up last game despite the ejection which um led to maybe a little too much pearl clutching from some. I like to think that I rode the line just right there. But it was good to see him regret it. be like that was immature. I’m a more of a professional of that. And then followed up with a monster performance. Walshy coming in what 17 points, six for 11, six rebounds and assists, two steals, zero turnovers in an environment where turnovers are running a muk. Every summer league game is just turnover city. The Celtics had 16 today. The Lakers had 21. The Celtics having 16 is a miracle in in summer league, honestly. Yeah. Like, but no, dude. The thing that I’ve from game one in this little stretch here from Walsh that has been uh consistent and really positive has been him generating paint touches, him getting into the paint and into the teeth of the defense, compromising spots and either finishing, sometimes not finishing, but he’s got that 7 foot3 wingspan getting in. And today especially finishing over length, re-calibrating, finishing six or 11. We love to see it. And the shot, look, the shot is not perfect, but he’s definitely improved, I think, shooting wise to the point where I’m like, I think he can he can hit 35% of his open threes. And if he does that this upcoming season, if he shoots 33 34% from three, I think that would be a huge win on his development. And we can and we can build from there. Two arrows up, Ben. Two arrows up for Jordan Walsh. Dude, I’m right there with you. If I could give him more arrows up, I would. And and maybe it’s all relative to where No, I got to go two. I I was bluffing thinking that two was the max. Uh but it’s it’s two. Like obviously he could be better. Like you mentioned the shot looks good. The free throw could use some improvement. Just three of six from the line there. But I know it’s it’s low volume on the three, two or four from beyond the arc, but like it just looks good. It looks confident. It looks NBA ready. And he had one I think a pull up three early in the game from from like the the 45 degree angle like out on the wing there. He had a late corner three off a dime from Baylor Shyman who we’ll get to. Um, and then yeah, just the the decision-m, the quick attacking off the catch and like very quickly like getting into the paint as you said, finding the seams, getting into the teeth of the defense, and then the finishing package down low. Jake, he had like the del pump fake combination finish. He had um the nice slot cut into an Amari assist as well. Had the windmill slay. Maybe we’ll get to that real quick here. Oh, yeah. Clicks into some type of shot. Walsh going the other direction. Come on. Wash with the hammer. Okay, that was another windmill slam that I was looking for. Not the windmill slam. Not the windmill slam. But dude, like I’ve been waiting for so long for the breakaway windmill slam. We’ve literally been waiting three seasons. I think this is the first one that we’ve got. And you see the the height, the 67, the 7 foot3 wingspan, the athleticism. Yeah, man. We’re paddling back. We’re paddling back. There there there we found water on the island. Yeah, we’re going to have to come up with new new like analogies for the increased civilization and and structure infrastructure on Walshy Island because uh we’re really the stock is is rising. It was it was so good to see um and again like genuinely I think we’re in this sort of unironic Walshy enjoying territory. Really good to see two arrows up for Jordan Walsh. Baylor Shyman Jake I suspect might be arrows in the opposite direction. What’s what’s the take on on sugar man shy here? Sugarman shyman. He’s been using whatever what’s the the fake sugar that people put in their tea. Stevia. Stevia there. A lot of stevia shyman is what we’ve been getting in uh summer league. It’s tough, man. I like he’s making some good decisions at times kind of, you know, creating some opportunities. I had another six assists tonight. only had two turnovers, which again in summer league turnovers are just everywhere. Like no matter which way you turn, you’re getting hit in the face with a with a turnover. So to see him have, you know, another good assisted turnover game, they’re asking him to do a lot like despite him being a secondyear player, 25 years old, you know, it is a big ask of a guy with limited athleticism to be the focal point of the offense and try and crack the defense over and over again. So, I want to be, you know, empathetic, understanding of the tricky position that he does find himself in. On the other hand, two for 14. Some of the defense is kind of a mess. Kind of liked a couple of the rebounds. And some of the shots are tough. Some of the shots are tough because he’s making them tough. And that is just he seems predisposed to wanting to take feeling like it’s a good idea to take really tough shots despite not being a tough shot maker. He has a couple of those nice over-the-top, you know, uh floater scoop shots in in the paint that he’s made. Those are [ __ ] sick. But like, you also don’t want to have to make tough shots. That’s not a good thing to have to make tough shots. you want to be able to generate easier shots. And then he’s just missing wide open catch and shoot threes and they’re clanking off like every spot of the rim. We’re going to have to start calling him Lieutenant Dan cuz he ain’t got no legs. He really has no power like in his lower body. We’re talking about thick down low. Whatever the opposite of that is is the case for Ba Shyman. There’s just no lift. And you can see it in his jump shot. It’s all arms. It’s all wrist. It’s all in the upper body. And anyone who spent any time trying to learn how to shoot at any level, even just like down at the park by yourself, you know that it like all that power from a clean jump shot like comes from your lower body, comes from your legs, and there’s just none of that in the case of Shyman. Then you look at his shooting um stats from tonight two or 14. It’s like it’s unsurprising cuz everything looks laborious. Everything looks difficult. And then yes, his usage is not going to be this high even if he does see any significant playing time, which I I don’t think he will unless he has a really good training camp. Um I know there were some hopes for like maybe like um like lead play initiator in the in the second unit, but I just think that it’s not in his immediate future at all. um he’s just he has such a long way to go and part of that is going to be just hitting down open shots, knocking down open shots because with more talent on the court with him in the NBA theoretically probably going to get open looks but he doesn’t even look necessarily capable of converting on those either. So yeah, his usage isn’t going to be nearly as high. We talked about this last year. It’s so difficult to evaluate players through the lens of how they’ll look on an NBA court because they’re not playing the roles that they will play in the NBA with proper NBA talent around them. That’s the case for Walshi as well. Like he’s just not going to be that on ball. He’s not going to be the first, second, or even third option. It’s the same with Baylor Shyman. He’s just not going to get these same opportunities. So, it is hard to evaluate them in this scenario. That said, guys like Welshi and Baylor do have NBA experience. You do expect flashes. Finally saw something from Walshi these last couple of games. Just not seeing it from Bailey. He’s got a long way to go, man. Yeah. And man, he’s 25. And this comment from Z Gamer in the chat here. Can we get a refund and get flip? It I don’t We don’t know what happened with the Philippowski thing cuz he fell because because of alleged Mormon grooming and then ends up in Utah. How real is that story? How big of a reason was that for him actually falling? We’re probably never going to know the real answer to that. But the fact that he got picked the posi the the pick after Baylor and when we clearly could see coming down the road the need for a big man as we sit here today with a big man rotation of Luca Gaza, Nemia Kada, Xavier Tilman and Amari Williams and Philip Philipowski has just been kicking everyone’s butt summer league. like this dude’s going to be a really good offensive player if he is not already one of the better offensive big men coming into this season. The defense is a is still a bit of a mess for Philipki. And so like when you think about what does that guy look like in a winning context, big men that are elite offensive players but awful defenders, they can cap you. Uh Kyle Anthony Towns comes to mind, but like and Philipk’s not on the same, you know, stratosphere as Towns is as an offensive player, but he will have value in the NBA. And having a big man that can score, shoot, we know the value of that on the offensive end. And that hurts right now to know that there’s a couple other guys like Oso Gdaro, who I haven’t been a big fan of. He’s been good in summer league. Jaylen Wells, obviously, just a bunch of guys. It’s like, man, we we’re desperate for talent. to backfill the Jays and Derek White here. And again, summer league not going to write Baylor off and he’s going to get his opportunities this season to play the role that he’s supposed to around the uh the Payton Pritchard Heliocentric offense that we’re excited to watch. But uh yeah, I two arrows down, one arrow down, I don’t know, two down. It’s two down for me. It has to be relative to expectations again like we’ve said with Walshie and he’s just falling well and truly short of him, I think. And I think maybe somewhat unfairly some people anoint Shyman with like he’s Brad Stevens first first round pick and Brad Stevens is a genius and therefore he must be incredible even though he was like literally the last pick of the first round. Um and it’s just you know it just hasn’t come to fruition yet and I think that just alone is falling short of a lot of people’s expectations. So um you know depending on our intentions around lottery positioning this year he may see a lot of that that usage that we saw especially in the second half of the season when our you know some of those initial chapters have been written in that book but uh for now I can’t see him really contributing to anything other than intentional losing. I’m sorry to say. Well, this again and this is this is the win-win potentially of the season and I’m excited for when we try and break down what the rotation looks like as as we now we got one more summer league game left and we’re going to be edging into the true wilderness of the of the off season. Like if Baylor is really bad and he’s been giving real minutes then that’s kind of good as well because we’ll be losing more games. But uh I Yeah, I think at minimum an arrow down. He’s two for 14. Yeah, it’s two it’s two arrows down. He made two shots for each arrow that you get down. He did make he did make a big shot late off a Hugo pass and everybody was like, “Dude, we love the play from Hugo from Hugo. You have to make the shot.” And uh we make it. Jimmy J is blaming the Celtics for ruining Baylor Shyman. Baylor Shyman, help yourself. Help yourself. Please do. Yeah, at a minimum, please help yourself. Be better. Uh but look, long long way to go. He could have a good camp. Could have a good preseason. We could do a total 180. Ugo Gonzalez. Gonzo. I’ve got him down here as Ugo thick down low Gonzalez. Um I my like elevator pitch is good instincts mixed in with just some classic being 19, which I think is is the case. Like you can see the instincts, you can see the feel for the game, and then you can see just like the the rawness and the youth and the Yeah. I mean that that’s basically it. That said, he had a better game, stronger performance in this one as I stumbled for the box score. I won’t bother with the stats. Like I think he had 10 points in the first half, which was a good showing and looked better defensively as well and just a better allaround game. Jake. Yeah, love it from Ugo. Yeah, we in the playback earlier, we were, you know, dissecting the dimensions of various uh NBA players out there and Ugo, I’m like, he’s at the free throw line. He doesn’t have a ton of upper body size and for him to be 220, dude just must be thick down low. Evidently, that’s just an objective fact at this point. He uh I like him, man. I like him. He He wants He wants to be good and he wants to win really badly. I love the mentality. I have a I really hope Pton Pritchard takes him under his wing. And it’s crazy to say that at this point, but Pton Pritchard’s a a vet. Payton Pritchard has been in the league now, I think this will be his fifth season, maybe his sixth season even. 2020 was his first. He’s like 28, 29. He’s uh Yeah, I think he’s 27 currently, but yeah, going on 28 then. Yeah, but he came in I could be wrong, but like he’s played a bunch in the NBA now, and I’m excited to see him show some of these young guys his work habits. pitcher currently 27 years old, turns 28 in January, and has played five seasons. His sixth season as a Boston Celtic coming up. That’s crazy how time flies. But like the way that Ugo clearly wants to be good, the way that he talks about how um I want to look back on this and know that I did everything in my power to give myself the best possible NBA career. Like that’s that’s a pretty serious existential comment from a 19-year-old. and you see him out there. He misses a free throw today and he had the the missed free throws in the in the first game as well and he talked about how it’s unacceptable and he misses the first one or what he made two missed his third one and he’s just at the free throw line just so mad at himself. It kind of reminds me of Derek White in that Derek White when he makes mistakes is so upset with himself. Anytime Derek White misses a free throw and makes a second, he just has like the headshake as he back trots back the other way. So, I’m excited to see Ugo be taken under the win by Pton by Payton Pritchard. Like one-on-one battles between Pritchard and Ugo, I think would be so much fun cuz Ugo would like strikes me as a guy that’s like, I’m not leaving the practice facility until I win one game. And Pton is like, well, you you’re you’re literally never leaving. You’ll be here for the rest of your life. until we draw blood. Yeah, just don’t hurt each other, please. But yeah, like a good examples like he’s a precocious 19-year-old hooper. And a good example of that is like his defensive positioning I thought was really good. He had some decent defensive rotations as well. But then one-on-one, like even against Bronny James, he kind of got like forced off his line a little bit and allowed Bronny to get down to the hoop. So like there’s some physical attributes that need developing, but the mental attributes seem to be there. The canvas is there. We’ve just got to paint it now. Jake, who do you want to get to next? I was just say like the Yeah, he’s just so like jumpy. He He’s like guard wing Robert Williams right now. He wants to He wants to just be aggressive and show his motor off so much. But two offensive rebounds today. Three offensive rebounds in the previous game for Ugo. That’s That’s real. The the offensive rebounding punch of Pritchard and Ugo Gonzalez going to be awesome. Uh that’s right. Apologies, Ugo. I I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. Uh, who do we want to go next? Uh, how about your boy Amari Williams? I know you’re wrestling. You’re wrestling with Amari and I know we all we all wanted to like Amari. So, where are you? It’s like a really nice fast car that like just doesn’t hold the road and therefore is not practical is is kind of where I’m getting at. And what I mean is like I get the passing upside. Like those are some really nice like secondary additional attributes to have with your big man. I think I’ve said all this before, but like you kind of need to begin your life as an NBA big with those like foundational attributes, which is defending around the rim, like putting some pressure on the rim offensively. Like just being a [ __ ] big presence. Like if there’s one age-old skill set in the NBA, it’s like that of your like quintessential NBA big. This goes back to like I don’t know, Robert Parish, Bill Russell, like you just you kind of need to be big and like a bit of a deterrent at the rim. And I don’t think he’s that at all. we were talking about in the playback. He’s actually seven feet tall. He doesn’t look like that. He doesn’t play like that to me. He looks and feels like he’s 6’9. And the great thing, I know we’ve seen the the Robert Williams comps. And the great thing about like his passing and his flashiness on that side is that it was peppered on top of the foundational like, you know, my wingspan is insane and I’m going to like deter you coming into the paint and attacking the rim. And Amari just doesn’t seem to do that. So, like he’s kind of shortcut straight to the Robert Williams passing side of a game without actually starting with that, you know, essential rim deterrent game, which bothers me. Yeah, you would like to see the biggest guy on the court play a little bit more like the biggest guy on the court. I think that’s that’s totally fair. There’s some Rich Phillips in the chat is hates Amari Williams and I think I don’t hate anyone. I think uh he is he is the 46th overall pick in the draft and the skill set is absolutely tantalizing with the size and the passing and the ability to handle the ball. Totally get that. But yeah, I still think the drop defense is actually pretty good. I thought that he positionally is help is corelling guys, making guys, you know, forcing guys to take jumpers by letting the point of attack defender get over the screen and recover. Uh had six rebounds today. I was asking for more rebounds. Uh no, no one in this game had more except for Kenneth Loftton. So, uh that’s only seven. So, seven rebounds for Kenneth Loftton, six for Amari. But yeah, he’s just floating a little bit out there. And then he had a stretch where it felt as if Amari decided it’s time for me to actually do something. And then he went way too far in the other direction and was just missing reads and under the rim pump faking and ends the game three for 10. And for a guy that’s that big and taking all of his shots close to the rim, that’s obviously terrible. And that was one of the big knocks on him coming out of the coming into the draft was he’s got bad touch. He struggles around the rim. He also leads himself into taking more difficult shots where he should be going through guys. He should be just getting to the rim, being bigger, trying to dunk on guy, dunk on guys. So, I can understand being frustrated with him, but I like the Flashes, but he’s a 46th overall pick. And I do think that I do think that his game, a guy that wants to like read the game, set screens, pass, uh, wants to process the game, this environment, this summer league for the the first half of this game, it no the whole Celtics team and the Lakers team, no one could like successfully run a halfcourt set. Like, is someone going to just set a screen? The Lakers are in zone. they couldn’t do anything and he so Amari is trying to process the game and find guys but it’s like you know it’s it’s like trying to use your computer that’s six years seven years old and it’s been infected with like Russian malware after you tried to download um download uh you know Kanye’s dark twisted fantasy album off of Lime Wire like uh back before back before Yeah, those those were those were better times for all of us, especially Kanye. Um, but yeah, your computer can get [ __ ] up and and that was what it felt like Amari was doing at times today, just like trying to find stuff and was like, “Fuck it. I’m just command queuing. I’m closing everything. I’m force quitting. I’m holding I’m holding the off button on my computer and just closing everything and booting this thing up and just forcing my way to the rim.” And it didn’t go didn’t go well. Yeah. Time to reformat reformat that hard drive, Amari. Try again. Uh yeah. Oh man, I had I had some analogy there that was I was about to chime in with it. It’s just completely apparently I’ve now reformatted my brain as well. So uh maybe we should move on to uh Kenneth Twinkle Toes Loftton. We’re going to give him a camp deal. Kenny Cornrose. He uh dude, he has like 180ed my my heart since joining the Celtic summer league squad cuz that first game was comically selfish of him just you know we’ve got the tape up on uh I think Boon’s Twitter just ridiculous fast break selfishness like total unwillingness to get rid of the ball and just wanted the oneman showcase since then he’s like totally turned it around there was some like cornhub offensive hub vibes in this game today the dude owns his Ace. Uh, I think he was being called Big Big Baby in the chat as well. Baby Shack. Maybe. Baby Shack. Sure. Um, just a total turnaround and like I don’t know, he probably realistically won’t end up on an NBA roster, but he’s definitely trending in the right direction. Um, so as far as I don’t know, giving him arrows, I think I think he earns an arrow up in this one. Oh. Oh, yeah. Arrow way up. Maybe two arrows up. Honestly, I thought he was great tonight. I thought he was Kenneth Loftton is terrible. Shout out Matthew Jensen. Uh yeah, dude. I thought I thought Loftton was good. He He gets on the boards. He’s a good rebounder. Like he’s really difficult to move obviously given uh the thick He’s not just thick down low. This man is thick in every place that’s possible to be thick. He’s uh man the skill set is it is really interesting skill set. Like he’s clearly very like he can handle the ball. He’s got good passing uh skills. He can shoot it. I uh from the game one where it was a complete disaster where he came in thinking he was a Chinese league MVP, which he is, and tried to play like that. Playing he’s he still has the Green Goblin on his shoulder though. Every possession is he’s fighting himself to just like go immediately into his bag and he’s like, “Okay, I’ll pass it.” Scream hand off. And then the ball finds you again, Kenny. Get down low. bully uh Daltton Connect. I don’t know if he’s uh eligible for a two-way. I don’t think he is cuz he’s been around for more than four years. Is that right? I think that’s how it works. Yeah, I would definitely rather give Loftton and Kendall Brown if we get to him the two-way over Max Sugar. Uh would you rather have Xavier Tilman or would you rather have Kenneth Loftton Jr.? That is a that is a hot tamalei. Uh I I still believe I’m like we talked about the infrastructure on Walshi Island. I am like on the the tip of the sinking Titanic with a with a white flag and like a flare waiting for a helicopter rescue alone on on Tilman wreckage, we’ll call it. Um waiting for rescue. And I just think I don’t know, can we get those knees right? because there were some glimpses with Tilman. I think I still believe in the the healthy glimpses of Tilman above Kenneth Loftton, but I don’t know. I could I could easily be convinced. I kind of I man Summer League just is so bad for me in my flip-flopping tendencies. Like I get a piece of new information in anything in my life and I’m like, well, sold that’s that’s how I feel now. And the most recent thing, the further we get away from game one for Kenneth Loftton, the more I’m like, all right, are we are we back? Are we are we dribble pass shoot? Is this just thicker, cooler Luca Gaza potentially? I just I just don’t know if Tilman’s body works. So, I think just for the simple fact, I think that this guy might be healthy. The problem is you have to move Tilman. You can’t cut Tilman. Well, you can, but but his money would be dead on your on your cap and when you’re so close to the second apron, then you’re obviously not going to do that. So, uh I don’t know, maybe you bring him to camp, maybe someone trade for Xavier Tilman for some reason. Uh but like dude, dude just looked so dead uh to me at uh yeah, points throughout last season. So, I would probably take Loftton right now. Now, I don’t think I don’t really know if it’s an option if he had if you can’t give him a two-way. And JD Davidson’s contract like I’m not I don’t think that there’ll be enough room to give a guy a minimum and still stay under the second apron. It doesn’t really matter, I guess, at the end of the day. Uh yeah, it could just be the the salary of it all that is the deciding point there. Like we need to still cut money, I believe, at this point to get under the second apron. So that alone might be a reason not to sign Kenny Loftton, like because there’s just kind of no reason to, I guess, unless you think you’re going to develop him into something worth keeping around as far as a trade asset down the line or something worth having around when Tatum returns. I don’t think either of those things um will eventuate, but I still think it’s an arrow up for Are you going two? Oh, I think one. We’ll go one. We’ll go one. One arrow up. Um we got to backtrack. I keep moving on before we give arrows. So, are we going a sideways arrows for arrow for Amari? I gave him an arrow up on my official tweet and I don’t know, maybe I’m regretting it. This happens in the moment as we talk this out more. But, um, 46th overall pick, probably side arrow. Can’t go arrow up. It’s It’s uh, it’s probably fair. What do you think? Yeah, I think neutral arrow. What about Ugo as well? I’m going a slight upward arrow as well. Power up for sure. Power up for sure on Ugo. Uh, arrow down. Multiple arrows down. Max sugar. He kind of stabilized later in the game, but like I’ I like that’s what I give his two-way to someone else. To me. Just give it to someone else. Yeah. The arrow is pointing back out at me from the screen as in get up and get outside and stop watching Max play basketball because it’s just like, all right, cool. like you know you had the opportunity to come in and play well you didn’t like sorry like maybe you’re better than what you’ve shown us but all you’ve shown us is complete shite and it’s time to move on from the max sher experience which nickname wise the big schul dog like tough the shogunator aka the shminator from American pilot we had we had some good good things in the works there but unfortunately uh it’s not going to happen that’s the biggest disappointment for sure is the the nickname potential was immense with the sugar uh yeah one for six. He had four assists. I thought he did settle in a little bit, but yeah, tough times. Um Miles Norris, I I continued to be intrigued. Uh missed more shots than I would like for him tonight. One for six from three, but um he’s active and he’s tall and he’s long and I definitely want to give him a two-way. Yeah, Chuck Norris, 11 attempts, baby. We’re getting him up. Love to see it. Uh yeah, I mean he’s uh you know I’ve always hung my hat on dimensions and he is dimensionally very gifted and I think we’ve seen flashes. I’m going in arrow up for Miles Norris. I know we sort of we position this segment as the arrows down but uh I think he’s showing enough where he he kind of looks like he can be like competent in like a deep bench role player scenario for an NBA team or at least at at camp. Like at least he advances to the next level which would be a camp deal or a two-way. So, it’s an arrow up for me. Yep. Arrow up for the Nos dog. Um, another guy I love I love Kendall Brown. I would give I would absolutely give him a two-way over Sugar. He’s got great feel, really nice finishing around the rim. The He’s shooting 100% from three in summer league. He doesn’t typically really He doesn’t really shoot, but wide open. He shot them both. They went in. Nothing but the bottom. So, uh, I like I like Kendall Brown. Strong, sturdy, solid defender. I like the way that he moves off the ball. Really solid and still only 22 if I’m not mistaken. So, I would definitely give him uh a two-way over Sugar. Yes, he’s 22 and Sugar, I believe, is older than him. So, I know Brian Stevens is a um a shooting merchant. can’t draft guys that don’t shoot, but give me give me Kendall Brown, man. I uh I really like him. Kendall Brown over Xavier Tilman. Oh, no question. Give me guys that can run up and down the court. We do that full podcast sometime in the off season. X or X X overX. Uh but I feel that’s going to end badly for for our friend Xavier Tilman. But um anything else from a from a stock report perspective? I got to hop off and and get back to work, Jake. I know you’re going to hang out and talk some more Celtics and league stuff, but uh anything else on the summer league? Well, I got two two arrows down for Shane, I think. Um I’m not sure if it’s it’s even possible to do two arrows down because he was already pretty low. I got two arrows up for Kendall Brown. I love him. I love him. Uh but no, I think that that’ll do us um stockwatch wise, unless you got anything got anything else. We’ll we’ll do a cumulative stock uh portfolio review once uh summer league uh has, you know, ended. But still got one more game. One more game. Consolation game. I’m guessing that will be on Sunday uh America time and Monday Australia time would be my guess. But uh I don’t know. Okay. And there’s no chance of making the the playoffs or the semi-finals or however they structure it in the summer league. No, because they changed it to only four teams make the semi. Like there’s only two semi-finals and there’s one, two, three, four, five, six teams that are 4 and0 right now, right? Okay. Yeah. All right, I got to bounce. I’ll leave you to it. I look forward to listening to the rest of the pod later. Shout out folks in the chat. You’re in good hands with Jake. Much better hands than you would be with me. Uh, I’ll catch you guys later. Peace. Peace, Ben. All right, here we go. the e the evil overlord Ben is gone. We can get crazy now. No, I miss you. Ben, uh good to see you. Good to see everybody in the chat. I thought we just hit a couple of newsy things. Uh Bassie is interestingly had a threeame summer league contract and then had a prior uh commitment and I don’t even think that it’s clear if whether or not that was a basketball commitment or just a life commitment. So, I don’t think that we know why he couldn’t keep playing outside of he had that three-game contract and that obviously ended crazy three-game summer league contract. Shout out Charles Bassie for trying to work his way back into the NBA through a couple of injuries. Um, but yeah, so I don’t know what that means for him on the training camp roster. Maybe Bassie gets an offer from somebody else like he’s clearly a fringe guy. I I like the I like the flashes. I would definitely like to see him get a training camp invite and see if they can maneuver around the salary and the roster somehow to maybe replace Tilman with Bassie. I don’t know if that’s going to like if you’re able to give someone a top 55 second round pick to take on Tilman, great. But I just it feels like we’re kind of stuck in that spot. But yeah, I don’t I don’t I don’t think Bassie can take the third two-way. Um yeah, so that’s unfortunate. But um the other bigger news of the day, Damen Lillard not going to be a Boston Celtic, which for me was a bit disappointing. I was excited for the uh for the Achilles Bros, the rehab boys over the next season and just, you know, get him on a veterans minimum high upside. He recovers really nicely from this Achilles and he gives you this legit pick and roll like elite elite shooter off the bench type of guy. Had a really cheap contract would have been nice. Alas, dame going back to Portland for a three uh three year 42 million. So that’s, if my math’s correct here, $14 million annual average salary, which the Celtics were obviously never going to be offering to a 36, 37 year old coming off an Achilles. Uh they don’t have the capability to offer that to anybody right now anyway. So I I and a no trade clause is crazy. Uh I don’t really get it for Portland. I guess for them it’s a good way similarly to the Celtics whether it’s like a high upside flyer. You’re just paying a lot more for it. The difference is the Blazers roster is stacked full of cheap contracts because they’re all young guys. It’s like Drew Holiday and Dillard. Like I’ll pull up Spot Trek right now but I can’t. and Denny Avdia makes a little bit, but he’s on one of the best contracts in the NBA. Like they uh they can afford to take on someone like Jeremy Grant. Jeremy Grant and Drew Holiday make the most on their team. Um like they have they’re currently $17 million away from the luxury tax. And so that this takes them to $3 million away from the luxury tax. So that makes that makes sense for them. And then the following season they’re actually 85 million away from the luxury tax before they start to pay uh a couple of guys. Shane Sharp Robert Williams unrestricted free agent after this season. Bring him home, boys. Bring him home. But yeah, kind of disappointing. I was excited for the potential of what Damen Lillard could look like in uh in green. But uh it’s also kind of a cool story for Dame to go back home and he can mentor some of these young guys. Hopefully it’s just not really sad where he does come back from the Achilles and he’s a complete shell of himself. The difference is that Poland team is probably not going to be expected to do a whole lot even next season just because with the West being so insanely deep like this. The problem with the with the Blazers right now is they just don’t have who’s the star, who’s going to be the guy that takes them from fun, fringy, playin, playoff team once their young guys get a bit better to okay, we can actually make a push for home court. We can make a top six seed. Is it Young Hansen? That’s like who’s most likely to be a star. Denny Havia took a legit leap into fringe all-star territory last season, but do I see him as a legit star that like bumps you up into that range? Probably not. Love him. Incredible contract. Sel should trade for him if they can. But Shaden Sharp has starry flashes. love Kamar, but yeah, they just don’t have a guy on the roster that ticks that star box except for Young Hansen, who looks [ __ ] good in summer league. Can’t lie. Um the Chinese Joker. No joke, man. He is He’s been fun to watch. I’m hoping that’s who the Celtics play in their last consolation summer league game just cuz uh a lot of guys a lot of the you know higher picks are starting to you know filter out of summer league at this point. So, if we can get a Young Hans and Jordan Walsh duel, that’ll be fun for sure. But yeah, Dame, not a Celtic because it was too expensive. And now Bradley Beal officially bought out uh the Suns are gonna have dead cap of 19 million on their uh books now for the next what is it four or five years which means they’re essentially paying Deon Booker and Bradley Beal like $95 million. That team is so [ __ ] man. Um but congratulations to Beal. He gets his wish. He gets paid a shitload of money. He gave Phoenix fans a peace sign on his Instagram post. No heartfelt message. You got to be just sick to your stomach if you’re a Suns fan. On one hand, I guess maybe you’re happy that this era is just over. Like get these guys off my [ __ ] team. They like clearly this was not working. Let’s move on. So from that perspective, maybe they’re they’re happy to be done with this era, but they are just devoid of depth. high. I mean, Booker is a awesome player, but that contract is now he’s probably a negative value contract in my opinion. Like, you don’t want to be paying guys that aren’t top five guys super max contracts. So, uh that’s tough for them. On the other hand, I love I love this Clippers roster. I love this Clippers roster. It does feel very clippersy though to bring in a late career star. You know, it looks really good on paper. How healthy is he going to be? Uh he continues to put up really good scoring numbers without impacting the wins and losses of these basketball games. Very Zack Leavini. Like you can just set your watch Bradley Beal 15 to 20 points a game probably and 60% true shooting. Um but like they’re really deep now. They they go like 10 deep of really really solid players. And so you go like I think I think Bill maybe comes off the bench as like their sixth man guy. Maybe you start him if it um is a like a like a politics thing. But I also think the Clippers have the coaching cache and the star cache on that roster with Tailoo and Jeff Van Gundy and Harden and and Kawawaii to where it’s like we’re going to we were a really good team last year. We’re not going to cowtowwow to Bradley Borg who just got bought out, right? So you go Harden, Kawawaii, Zubarts, Derek Jones Jr. and Chris Dunn as their starting five. That was really good last season because they were a top five defense even with Kawhai playing like a quarter of the season. James Harden’s incredibly durable. Zubart’s played all 82 games last season. Done. Derek Jones Jr. like they’re going to have a really high floor because of those guys. And then and then Batum still doing it. Brook Lopez really nice signing as your backup big. I really like now that you bring in Beal and you and you lose Norolan Pal, you bring in John Collins. So you lose Pal, you bring in Collins and Beal. That’s a massive net win. Like this team, dude. Bdonovic looked a little washed now, but now you know you’re not relying on him to do too much. They got um they got they got a lot going on. Trade Nang to the Clippers. They don’t need Niang. They have Bogdanovic. He’s like their Nang. I guess Nyang is more of like a 34 as opposed to like a two, but they don’t need Niang. They are they are deep. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, like 11 guys deep. They feel comfortable with Kobe Brown. I’m still a believer. Yeah, man. This uh this Clippers team, I don’t think they can win the title because they are relying on Kawhi Leonard to be like really [ __ ] good. Um, why would you want to trade Niang and picks for Bogdanovic? Bogdanovich is basically just short Niang more creation, but like Bogdanovich is a 33. He’s older than Niang. He looked kind of washed last year. That makes no sense to me. Um, the Celtics are not going to be attaching picks for someone like Bogdanovich who’s on his way out of the NBA. But this Clippers team, they can’t win the title, I don’t think. But can they give the Thunder? That’s kind of my my my tier one would probably do an episode of this. Like my hate watch tier one Lakers Nicks easy with a bullet next season, but then I would really prefer if the Thunder didn’t win the title. Can the Clippers play the Thunder really tough? Another seven game series in round one? Can they upset them in round one before they fall apart physically? I in the range of in the range of outcomes potentially. But yeah, just want to hit a couple of those news things as well because I don’t think we’ll pod now and we don’t really know when the other game is. So, um, but yeah, I think that’ll do it for us today. Celtics back in the wing column. Jon Walsh, we’re back looking like an NBA player. But yeah, man. Uh, it’s fun summer league. Don’t get too upset if uh Amari Williams or Ba Shan didn’t live up to your expectations. Remember the rules of summer league. Your guys play well, it means they’re a star. They don’t play well, doesn’t matter. It’s just summer league. Always important to remember that these summer league uh shows, podcasts, experiences, it’s just all all fun. Even though I’ve gone a little bit over the top probably on my Baylor Sherman hate, but I would really like to see him make a couple shots. That would be nice. All right, everybody. It’s good to see you all. Make sure you like the video. Just move that mouse over there. would appreciate it a lot. All right, till next time. Go Celtics. [Music]

Can the Celtics somehow get themselves into the NBA Summer League Playoffs? Whatever happens, we’ll be LIVE immediately after the final buzzer to react to the Jordan Walsh vs Bronny James showdown.

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