The volume, from the football playoffs to college and pro basketball to the rush of hockey. What a time to be a sports fan. It's all happening and you can get in on all the action of the sports you love at Draft Kings Sports Book. With so many sports, every day is game day at DraftKings, that means unlimited opportunities to place your first bet, and DraftKings makes it easy. How easy? Try betting on something simple like picking a team to win. Go to the Draft Kings Sports Book app, pick your team and place your bet. The NBA Championship ods are starting to get tight. Boston Celtics are still the favorite at plus two to forty five, but Yoklahoma City thunder right on their heels at plus two fifty five. And to help you get started, here something special for all new customers. Bet five dollars to get two hundred dollars in bonus bets instantly. Download the Draft Kings Sports Book app and use code hoops. It's code hoops h oops for new customers to get two hundred dollars in bonus bets instantly when you bet just five bucks DraftKings. The crown is yours. Gambling problem called one Day hundred Gambler New York call eight seven seven eight hope end why or text hope en y to four to six seven three six nine and Connecticut help is available for problem gambling Call eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot org. Please play responsibly on behalf of Boothill Casino and Resort in Kansas twenty one plus. Age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction Voyden, Ontario, New customers only. Bonus bets expire one hundred and sixty eight hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see DKNG dot co slash audio. All right, welcome to tonight. You're at the volume heavy Wednesday, everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great week. We are continuing our trade deadline series today hitting three more teams. We're gonna hit the Phoenix Suns as well as the Los Angeles Lakers and the Houston Rockets. We did a pack of three teams last week. We covered the Bucks, the Warriors, and the Nuggets. We're gonna be hitting throughout the next two weeks. Just these little kind of like three team sets where we kind of talked about what they should do as they come up on the trade deadline. You guys have the job before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops to Night YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter and underscore jcnlts. You guys don't miss announcements forget about podcast fore you whereverach podcast on our Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if we leave a rating and a review on that front. We also have brand new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We're releasing content throughout the year. Make sure you guys follow us there, and the last but not least, keep dropping mail bag questions in the YouTube comments so that we can get to them in our Friday mailbags throughout the rest of the year. All right, let's talk some basketball. So starting with the Phoenix Suns. What if we got Jimmy Butler over there? This is a trade that's been widely reported, a trade that Phoenix would very much like to do. They conducted a trade yesterday with Utah Jazz where they turned an unprotected first into three first round picks, a nice little symbolic gesture that demonstrates the gap in value between a unprotected first and a protected first that has less potential to net you a high level talent. Right, So the Suns get their three first round picks, which should give them some more flexibility. Who knows what they have to send over to Miami. Maybe it ends up being two of them, and then you can attach another one to use off nurkics to try to bring something in. But we're going to zoom in specifically on Jimmy Butler for this specific segment. So the way that a trade like this would work is it would be Bradley Beal for Jimmy Butler, and probably a minimum contract could be Alec Burks could be a couple other guys, but a minimum contract coming back. But the gist of the deal would be Bradley Beal for Jimmy Butler. Jimmy slots perfectly into the Ryan Dunn spot in the starting lineup. I look at Ryan Dunn in a similar way to the way I look at Max Christy for the Lakers, and for the record, not comparing them as players, they're very different. I think Ryan's much better defensively at this point in his career and Max is much better offensively at this point in his career. But I think they both project in the big picture at their specific position groups to be two way role players, guys that you can eventually depend on to take on a substantial defensive role while also being a useful offensive player. I think they have similar like kind of like long term trajectories in that respect, right, But they both are playing on teams that have the ultimate like win now pressure, right, and ideally you don't want to rely on them in your best five man groups. I was watching the Cavs Suns game earlier this morning, and it's like, it's a couple of wide open corner threes from Ryan Done that miss. This year, he's making about a third of his wide open catch and shoot opportunities, And so it's one of those things where like you want Ryan Done to get reps. Him starting has been fine for his overall gaining experience journey, right, but at the end of the day, like, ideally, you don't want to depend on him in a big spot. Same goes with the Lakers for a guy like Max Christie, Right, So, like Jimmy Butler gives you this rock solid veteran presence with real superstar upside that slots into that role in the starting lineup, but still leaves you with plenty of minutes available for Ryan Done off the bench to make sure that he continues to get the reps that he needs to grow. The starting lineup after that sort of deal would look like Tys Jones at the point, Devin Booker, Jimmy Butler, Kevin Durant with Nick Richards. So immediately you get a more shoe in fit in terms of a star that can actually play alongside Devin Booker and Kevin Durant without too much redundancy or without an inability to take on dirty work. Right, Jimmy Butler can take the same sort of defensive assignments that Ryan Dunn took, and when he's really locked in, I think he can do nearly as well as a guy like Ryan dunnef not a little bit better when he's really locked in. I don't think you'll get that level of effort consistently in the regular season, but Jimmy is a playoff weapon defensively, is a real asset to have in the bag, and he gives you a really good combination of both off ball talent and on ball talent on the offensive end of the floor. He's a guy who can set screens for guys like Devin Booker and KD and roll out of it and make plays when Kevin Durant's throwing the ball over the top, when they get blitzed or things along those lines, or if they switch. He's got the ability to punish Smith's He's been hitting unguarded catch and shoot jump shots at over a fifty percent clip in the last few years, albeit at low volume, so like he's not a guy you can just leave wide open. He's a very good cutter, and then he also is a very very good on ball player. He is a much much better on ball player than a guy like Bradley Beal. He's bigger, he's stronger, he's a better playmaker. He's a real switch beater. His last playoff run in twenty twenty three, he ran over five hundred pick and rolls, ISOs and post ups in that playoff run and was well over a point per possession in all three play types, including passes. He's just a massive talent upgrade and the kind of guy that immediately makes the Suns a much more physically imposing group, especially with the Nick Richards' upgrade at the center spot, and it's been a little bit of like mixed results with Nick in the early going. Just absolutely dominated in his first appearance, just benefiting on all the attention that the stars were gathering, but had some moments against Jared Allen where he looked really physically overmatched and didn't get as many of those high quality role man opportunities. But still I think he's a center upgrade compared to what they had in house, So like you're changing the physical in position of the group. Just to put it really simply, going from Bradley Beal, Kevin Durant, use Off Nurkic to Jimmy Butler, Kevin Durant, Nick Richards, It's just a completely different type of physical imposition that you bring to the table as a team. I think his ability to attack in a different way than Devin Booker and Kevin Durant will be really useful. The Sun's offense has been falling apart in their losses in the last month. In their eight losses, they've posted a one to ZH three point nine offensive rating. It's just not resilient enough. The Cavs game, for instance, it's tie twenty seven to twenty seven. Late first quarter, they didn't score for three and a half minutes, zero points. For three and a half minutes, they gave up a nine to zero run. Right it's fifty nine to forty eight. At one point, they didn't score for two and a half minutes as they gave up an eleven zero run. It was eighty two sixty eight in the late third quarter, only a fourteen point game, very much still in reach. They scored two points over the next six minutes and completely lost control of the game. There's a certain amount of like the Devin Booker and Kevin Durant can go through these stretches where they get a little sloppy with the ball and they start missing jump shots and the offense can fall apart, or when the talent off of the attention they garner is unable to capitalize and their offense can fall apart. Jimmy Butler has a more resilient offensive approach. He can attack from the post like we talked about, but as a bully ball player rather than as a shot maker, which is more resilient. He's not going to be as dependent on make and miss when it comes to the jump shooting side of things. He's also much better at getting to the foul line than both Kevin Durant Devin Booker, but much much better than Bradley Beal is. And again, you're just turning You're just turning Bradley Beal into a much better offensive player while also being a much better defensive player. It's just a massive talent upgrade. And when the Suns are trapped in the situation that they're trapped in, they don't really have a ton of flexibility. This is the kind of aggressive move that they could make that has real upside for them within this season. I think he's just a much better player who's a much better fit than Bradley Beal with this group. I think it's the kind of move that the Suns should seriously consider. Number Two, how would I revamp the Lakers? So obviously I prefer a guy like Brandon Ingram. I just don't think that's going to happen under the circumstances. So I was trying to come up with the deal out there that best addresses the three biggest weaknesses that the Lakers have outside of trying to pursue a high level, star level offensive player. Okay, if we remove that from the equation. So take Brandon Ingram out, take Zach Lavine out, take any of those big name star type of players. How would I go about revamping the Lakers? And I came up with two deals. One I would call it the Utah Jazz. I'd offer them Gabe Vincent and Jared Vanderbilt for Colin Sexton and Water Kessler. In order to make the deal work, I think you'd have to remove the protections from the pick that you got back in the de Lo trade, and I think you probably have to add another first round pick that is lightly protected. Okay, so effectively, if you account removing the protections, that's roughly worth Again, if look at the Sun's trade, the Suns Jazz trade is a clear demonstration an unprotected first round pick, it's worth quite a bit more than protected first round draft compensation. So removing protections also amounts to a form of draft compensation. Right, So, like you get removing protections and adding a first round pick, and you're getting back Colin Sexton and Walker Kessler. Then I would separately call up the Toronto Raptors and I'd offer them Ruey Hachimura, Jalen Hoods, Schafino and Cam Reddish with the other first round pick, because remember, they have two first round picks to trade for Bruce Brown and Jonathan Magbo for either deal. If they had to, they could include additional second round draft compensation if the negotiations get tougher, but I think they have the draft compensation to make both of the those deals happen. Those two deals successfully addressed the three biggest weaknesses that the Lakers have with their roster at this point, separate from anything having to do with star talent. The three biggest weaknesses were one, the backup center position, where they just have an inability to maintain a really high floor when Anthony Davis is off the floor. They've been getting killed all season long in the eighty off minutes. They've had some success in games where like they won a game recently when Anthony Davis sat, but like for the most part in recent Lakers history, they've struggled when Anthony Davis has been out. So a rock solid backup center would go a long way towards one, giving you a higher floor and giving you maybe a more legitimate two big look, which we'll talk about in a minute. Two, they need a higher floor option at the two guard spot. Right. I talked about this earlier with Ryan Dunn with respect to the Suns. You want Ryan Dunn getting his reps, you want Max Christy getting his reps. I have big belief in those two players in the long term, But for either the Suns or the Lakers to be depending on those guys in their final five, like in the five that they would go down with in a big playoff series, I think is a mistake. That's not to say that you won't find yourself in a position where a Ryan Dunner, a Max Christie is feeling good in a big playoff game and you end up riding him out, But you just don't want to be in a position where Max is, you know, two turnovers and two bad miss threes in the first quarter of a pivotal playoff game and he's your best option at the two because he's freaking out a little bit under the stress and pressure of the moment. Right. Totally expectable for a young player. There's just too many examples in NBA history of young players struggling when they get into that setting. So a higher floor option at the two guard spot I view as an important upgrade for the Lakers, and then lastly, backup ball handling. Ever since the D'Angelo Russell trade, the you know, the Lakers have been in this predicament where once you get past Austin and Lebron, who's your next best ball handler. It's Gabe Vincent. Right. It's just not a lot of talent in terms of perimeter ball handling because you sent d Low out in that trade for Dorian Finney Smith, who plays a very different type of position. Right, So if you don't get a star, the three holes they needed to patch were backup center, an upgrade at the starting two guard spot, and backup ball handling. Just somebody that can handle the basketball and take on a higher usage roll on the offensive end of the floor. I think those two deals accomplish that by bringing in Colin Sexton, who is a legitimate guard ball handler that can take on usage, and getting a Bruce Brown, who is, in my opinion, a starting caliber two guard in this league if he's the fifth best player in your lineup, which he would be in that case. And then three a backup center in the form of Walker Kessler. So here's what you'd be left with if the roster and all the dust settled, you would have a rock solid core five Austin, Bruce Brown, Dorian Finney Smith, Lebron James and Anthony Davis. And for the record, you could start Max if you wanted to keep him in the starting lineup and keep him getting reps and just close games with Bruce, if that's what it came down to, but just for the sake of laying out the roster, because I think Bruce right at this second is a better player than Max, even though Max will obviously have the ability to pass him in the long run. Austin Bruce, Doran Phinney, Smith, Lebron and AD that is a good core five. I like that as a core five that can the Lakers could go down within a playoff series because Bruce and Dorian are guys that have the ability to function within a five man group offensively while both being really useful defensive players at their position while bringing different abilities to the table. I think Bruce is better guarding guards. I think Dorian Finney Smith is better guarding forward, so it's kind of like a natural, kind of like pairing between the two of them. But at the same time, Dorian can slide his feet a little bit. Bruce can bang with the larger players on the floor as well a little bit, right, So like there's some switchability there as well. And then you've got your Austin Lebron Anthony Davis and it depends on those three guys to carry things offensively. But that was gonna be the case regardless if your goal was to win the championship, you were gonna need Lebron ad In Austin to a play great. Right, then you'd have depth at key position groups. So Austin has a clear backup in Colin Sexton after that type of trade, Bruce Brown and Max Christy with regardless of depending on which one you end up starting with, one of those guys is a clear backup for the other. Right. Now, backup forwards, it gets a little finn there, right, you'd have Dalton Connect Jonathan Magbo coming back in the Raptors deal. Just a kind of a young athletic forward. It does some things well does He has a lot of weaknesses, but he can just be a depth piece for you at the forward spot. Christian Wood if he can come back healthy, and then Bruce Brown. I think there's a case to be made that Like, that's another upside to the Bruce Brown trade is like, if you need to find more minutes from him, I think he can play a little bit at the small forward, which can keep Max's minutes up, but supplements you in terms of depth at the forward position. But again, the whole point of this trade is that you're swapping forward depth to anchor your core five and for a rock solid backups. When you have a rock solid backup center, a guy like a Walker Kessler, it anchors you physically in a way that allows you to be smaller at other positions. Remember, like Walker's just like one of the most physically imposing players in this league. He at this point in time is leading the league in offensive rebounds per game at four point three offensive rebounds per game, and he's second in the league in blocks behind Victor wembin Yama despite playing less than thirty minutes per game in both of those categories. Right, So, like a really big, physical player that creates an easier physical responsibility down the roster. Right, So, like, yes, there's you're trading to address those weaknesses. You're creating a new thin spot in terms of forward depth. But I look at it more in terms of playoff rotation. In regular season rotation, right in the playoffs you can scale up minutes. Do I think that the Lakers would have an eight man rotation that could all be reliable? Libel is a hard word, but like, at least be playable playoff players. Austin Bruce, Dorian Finney Smith, Lebron, A D, Colin Sexton, Max Christy, Walker Kessler. That's your eight guys right there. You got a wing, a guard in a center off the bench. You could see so like in the playoffs, you can see a playoff rotation take shape. You start the game. Let's say let's say you start with Max. You start Austin, Max, Dorian Lebron, and a D. When Lebron checks out, you can have a Lebron off group that's like Austin Bruce, Dorian Finney Smith, and then a two big look with Anthony Davis and Walker Kesler. When Ad comes off the floor, you can see a Lebron led group that has Walker Kessler with Lebron at the four, with Bruce Brown at the three, Max Christy at the two, and Colin Sexton at the one. You can see how they can piece together lineups where even your your ad off group with Lebron and a guy like Walker Kessler. That's a really big front line. Bruce plays bigger than he is at the three. You're going against bench groups with that lineup two, so like you can kind of see a playoff rotation that makes sense. And then there's still a closing five there, which is like, oh, it's a big spot. We're on the road at ok See, it's game two. It's ninety five ninety five with five minutes left in the fourth quarter and we're down one zero, but we have a chance to steal home court advantage. Here. You have a guy like Bruce Brown that you can go to in the closing group that is a higher floor veteran experienced playoff player that's won a championship that you can slide into that spot. But then in the regular season you have depth options. Like that's the upside to getting a guy like Magboback because he's a guy that can play some ford minutes in the regular season. Christian Wood when he gets healthy, can play forward minutes in the regular season, even next to a guy like Walker Kessler. Dalton Connect is a guy that can play minutes in the regular season that can carry you through those stretches. You just have more a better playoff upside in my opinion because of that rock solid core five and a big look. That is an important flexibility for specific matchups in the playoffs. Like, let's I want to like kind of take a little bit of a step back, and I want to zoom out and I want to look at what this move really creates for the Lakers in terms of their playoff upside. Right, So, like we can all acknowledge that this team isn't winning anything unless Lebron, James, Austin, Reeves, and Anthony Davis are all playing at a super high level on offense. It goes without saying we just have to acknowledge that, right, we kind of removed the possibility of a superstar trade. Once you take that out of the equation, It's like, if this team's going anywhere, Lebron, Austin, and Ady have to reach a certain level offensively. I think they can. As recently as last year in the playoffs in that first round series against Denver, I thought they were playing at that level. It was the surrounding talent around them that let them down. They struggled tracking shooters, they struggled rebounding. There were a bunch of like specific issues with role players. That's where I really liked the idea of Bruce Brown. He will embrace a bench roll, meaning if you want to start Max, you still have that option. He's a monster rebounder for his size. It gets seven rebounds per thirty six minutes so far the season. He's averaging six point one rebounds per thirty six minutes in his career, so at his size, a very good rebounder. He's good at defending opposing guards, but he has some switchability. He's actually hit five out of ten on guard to catch and shoot jump shots so far this year. Again that's a low sample size, but he's a I think a guy that can be functional on the offensive end of the floor. So you're bringing back a playoff rotation piece in Bruce Brown for a guy in Ruey Ho. Chamurro really struggled in the Nuggets series last year, so it's kind of a swapping a less reliable playoff player for a more reliable playoff player. Walker Kessler, though, is the option where I see a real upside in terms of playoff optionality. Right, So when you look at the playoffs, and you look at the types of teams that have massive front lines, whether it's the Nuggets with Aaron Gordon and Nicola jokicch with Michael Porter Junior, or it's the Clippers just with how big zoo botches right and what Kawhi Leonard can do, the Grizzlies who run a lot of two big looks, the Timberwolves who run a lot of two big looks. There are specific teams that you're run into in the playoffs where you might have to match up with size in physicality. Some of those teams have centers that Anthony Davis has struggled with straight up. Anthony Davis has struggled with Zoobot straight up, He's struggled with with nikolea Jokic straight up right. So like, by having a bigger look, by having the ability to put together frontlines of Lebron James, Anthony Davis, and Walker Kessler together, you at least give yourself an option in those settings to match physicality for physicality. You may be better off going small, but at least you'll have that optionality. An example that I would give you is like, do you remember when the Lakers tried putting Ruey Hachi Mura on Nikola Jokic, and Jokic has dealt with the center guarding Aaron Gordon before, and he's dealt with that well. So I want to sit here and pretend like it's some sort of magic fix for how to deal with the Denver Nuggets. But Jokich was just too good at shoving Ruey Hachimura wherever he wanted to get to and just scoring on right, if you try Walker Kessler in that spot and Walker Kessler is on Jokich, he's gonna have a better opportunity to fight Yokich off of spots with Anthony Davis and help on the back line. It's a look. It's about having a look. But Walker Kessler also provides that optionality in the regular season, right, like the ability to rest Anthony Davis. Walker Kesler can be a starting center in this league. He immediately gives you a better floor in the regular season when you rest ad, which brings me to the final piece of this. There's a real regular season upside, especially when you factor in the Colin Sexton edition. So Colin Sexton is a guy that can step into a high usage roll. He gives you a better chance to win if you give Austin Reeves a night off or if you give Lebron James a night off. So if I look at these two deals in the short term, in the regular season, we need to get to April mid April with Lebron and AD and Austin ready to go. I needs a night off, Lebron needs a night off, Anthony Davis needs a night off. Colin Sexton and Walker Kessler give you a substantially better option to win on those nights when you're giving guys a night off. Fast forward to the postseason. Bruce Brown gives you a clear closing five when the shit hits the fan, and Walker Kessler gives you a big look that you can use against some of the massive frontlines around the NBA. So again, it anchors the core three, Austin, Lebron and AD with the best possible group of role player talent that you can within the short term, because this might be your last best chance to win a title, and right now it looks like a very very slim chance. Right this might be your last chance that anchors those three with solid role player talent that puts the outcome of the season in Lebron Ad in Austin's hands. It's on them to figure it out at that point. I think that's the responsibility that the front office has here, is that least put the out come in their hands, and with the giant holes in role player talent, it doesn't really feel like it's in their hands. This is a way to appease that now. I would rather have had this sort of deal done last year when Lebron and Ad looked like better players, but better late than never. I suppose number three are third trade of the day. What if the Houston Rockets got Zach Levine, The way this deal would look is Fred van Vliet for Zach Levine. Straight up, It shouldn't take much of anything in the terms of draft in the way of draft compensation, just simply because Fred van Vliet has one fewer a year on his deal. But even if the Rockets did have to include some draft compensation, they just have so like I think they have ten first round draft picks between now and twenty thirty one, so they could throw in some secon around draft compensation, or maybe a heavily protected first or something like that if that's what they wanted to do to make something like this happen. But I've talked all this year about how the Rockets have a shot creation problem. I think they're a bit closer to legit championship contention than people realize. They're so big and physical on the perimeter, and that's just such an important part of playoff basketball. Pressuring the ball, being physical, rebounding, all those sorts of things are what carries you when you get into the postseason and things get really ugly and physical. The Rockets are the third best defense in the league. They are the very best rebounding team in the league. All of that translates to the upper levels of competition. They're eleven and four this year against teams that are in the top ten in point differential. That ranks just second in the league to the Cleveland Cavaliers. They have the second best record in basketball against the top ten teams in the league. They're top five in both offense and defensive efficiency in those situations. There's a lot of upside, but there's one big downside. Their offense has had a tendency to break, especially in clutch situations. They are twenty fifth in fourth quarter offensive rating and eighteenth in clutch offensive rating. They've dropped nine games in the clutch this year, and in those nine losses, they've had just a ninety four offensive rating in clutch time in those games. There's been a pretty consistent through line with their offense between the success of Fred van Vliet and Jalen Green and whether or not they can win games. When Jalen Green scores thirty or more points this year, they're undefeated. I think he has eight thirty point games this year. Just look back through their recent losses. When they lost to Detroit, Fred van Vliet and Jalen Green thirty nine total points on thirty six shots. The loss of Sacramento, Fred van Vliet didn't play, although that was more of a shootout between those two teams. The loss of the Boston Celtics, fred van Vliet only had eight points. The lost to Miami, fred Van Vliet and Jalen Green combined for thirty five points and thirty seven shots. You guys get the point. This is an elite, physical, playoff built roster, but they have shaky perimeter shot creators, especially when things show slow down at the end of games. A Zach Lavine trade accomplishes two very important goals for the Rockets One. It capitalizes on the short term opportunity while also maintaining the long term flexibility. In the short term, Zach is just a much better offensive player than Fred van Vliet. Fred is averaging fifteen points per game on below forty percent from the field field goal percentage fifty two percent true shooting. Zach Lavine has thirteen thirty point games this year. That is four more than Fred and Jalen have had combined. This season. Fred's had won, Jalen's had eight, Zach Levin's had thirteen. He's averaging twenty four points per game on sixty four percent true shooting. How many players in the league this year do you think there are better? Averaging at least twenty four points per game on at least fifty percent from the field and at least forty percent from three pretty low parameters. Twenty four points per game fifty to forty. There's three guys in the entire league, Nicole Jokich, Karl Anthony Towns, and Zach Lavine. He is the type of offensive threat that could give this group, this elite defensive and rebounding group, real championship upside, especially in the context of how well Jalen Green's been playing as of late. He's averaging twenty nine points per game on fifty two percent from the field forty nine percent from three to ninety two percent from the line in his last nine games. Give Zach and Jalen that type of group of athletes that defend in that rebound and you have some real upside in the short term, the same upside that we've seen manifest in this regular season as they've been beating a lot of really good teams this year. So I really like it as a short term gamble, but in the long run, you're still staying committed to the long term potential of this group. You're not trading Jalen Green, who's been playing great. I talked about him the other day. Like Jalen Green, to me, represents the kind of player that's really difficult to give up on as like a bigger freaky athlete show creator. There's this thing where like these small freaking athlete guards that have a certain ceiling when they get into the NBA. But when you're like Jalen Green, like when you're over six ' four and you're freaky athletic like that, it just comes with another layer of the ability to get free from elite NBA defenders. And that's really the thing that I noticed when I watch it. When things get really tight, Jalen Green can get to his spots, and he's got the ability to make shots, as he's demonstrated in this recent stretch right and throughout the season from time to time. Right. So, I like Jalen Green as a guy that the Rockets should continue to take a bet on, But you're giving up a guy in Fred van Vliet that does not fit into the long term potential of this group. Now, I've heard some talk behind the scenes from people that think that it's more likely that Houston tries to re up with Fred at a discounted deal something in that like twenty million dollar range for a certain number of years, and maybe that's the direction they decide to go. I think that's just as punting on this season. What I like about the type of a deal that exactly deal does for you is, yes, you take on one additional year of salary over what the Fred van Vliet deal has, but you might be able to first of all, you might be able to negotiate a similar type of extension with him that you could with Fred van Vliet. And then secondly, you're not giving up any sort of big picture asset that's going to alter the long term potential of this team. So you're not including one of your really nice young players like a Men Thompson, You're not including massive amounts of first round draft compensation. You still have the flexibility to make a home run trade for somebody like Kevin Durant or something like that down the line. Hell, you might be able to use Zach Lavine's salary to pull that off if you end up in that position. It is an instant upgrade that gives you the ability to win in the context of this season while maintaining the big picture flexibility you have as a team that has a ton of potential, a team that's the second seed in the West, with a ton of talent and a ton of draft picks in the hopper ready to go in the time incomes. I like that as a deal that capitalizes on the short term potential while maintaining the long term flexibility. All right, guys, that's all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show. We'll be back tomorrow with some really good game reaction content, several really interesting NBA games on tonight. The Celtics are on the road in Los Angeles against the Clippers. I think the Warriors are on the road in Sacramento against the Kings. I want to say it's Calves Rockets is another one that we got. Like, there's a lot of really good games, So we're going to switch back towards game reaction content tomorrow. But that's all I have for you, guys. Appreciate it. I'll see you tomorrow the volume. What's up guys? As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. They would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take a second and leave a rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.

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We're gonna hit the Phoenix Suns as well as the Los Angeles Lakers and the Houston Rockets. We did a pack of three teams last week. We covered the Bucks, the Warriors, and the Nuggets. We're gonna be hitting throughout the next two weeks. Just these little kind of like three team sets where we kind of talked about what they should do as they come up on the trade deadline. You guys have the job before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops to Night YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter and underscore jcnlts. You guys don't miss announcements forget about podcast fore you whereverach podcast on our Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if we leave a rating and a review on that front. We also have brand new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We're releasing content throughout the year. Make sure you guys follow us there, and the last but not least, keep dropping mail bag questions in the YouTube comments so that we can get to them in our Friday mailbags throughout the rest of the year. All right, let's talk some basketball. So starting with the Phoenix Suns. What if we got Jimmy Butler over there? This is a trade that's been widely reported, a trade that Phoenix would very much like to do. They conducted a trade yesterday with Utah Jazz where they turned an unprotected first into three first round picks, a nice little symbolic gesture that demonstrates the gap in value between a unprotected first and a protected first that has less potential to net you a high level talent. Right, So the Suns get their three first round picks, which should give them some more flexibility. Who knows what they have to send over to Miami. Maybe it ends up being two of them, and then you can attach another one to use off nurkics to try to bring something in. But we're going to zoom in specifically on Jimmy Butler for this specific segment. So the way that a trade like this would work is it would be Bradley Beal for Jimmy Butler, and probably a minimum contract could be Alec Burks could be a couple other guys, but a minimum contract coming back. But the gist of the deal would be Bradley Beal for Jimmy Butler. Jimmy slots perfectly into the Ryan Dunn spot in the starting lineup. I look at Ryan Dunn in a similar way to the way I look at Max Christy for the Lakers, and for the record, not comparing them as players, they're very different. I think Ryan's much better defensively at this point in his career and Max is much better offensively at this point in his career. But I think they both project in the big picture at their specific position groups to be two way role players, guys that you can eventually depend on to take on a substantial defensive role while also being a useful offensive player. I think they have similar like kind of like long term trajectories in that respect, right, But they both are playing on teams that have the ultimate like win now pressure, right, and ideally you don't want to rely on them in your best five man groups. I was watching the Cavs Suns game earlier this morning, and it's like, it's a couple of wide open corner threes from Ryan Done that miss. This year, he's making about a third of his wide open catch and shoot opportunities, And so it's one of those things where like you want Ryan Done to get reps. Him starting has been fine for his overall gaining experience journey, right, but at the end of the day, like, ideally, you don't want to depend on him in a big spot. Same goes with the Lakers for a guy like Max Christie, Right, So, like Jimmy Butler gives you this rock solid veteran presence with real superstar upside that slots into that role in the starting lineup, but still leaves you with plenty of minutes available for Ryan Done off the bench to make sure that he continues to get the reps that he needs to grow. The starting lineup after that sort of deal would look like Tys Jones at the point, Devin Booker, Jimmy Butler, Kevin Durant with Nick Richards. So immediately you get a more shoe in fit in terms of a star that can actually play alongside Devin Booker and Kevin Durant without too much redundancy or without an inability to take on dirty work. Right, Jimmy Butler can take the same sort of defensive assignments that Ryan Dunn took, and when he's really locked in, I think he can do nearly as well as a guy like Ryan dunnef not a little bit better when he's really locked in. I don't think you'll get that level of effort consistently in the regular season, but Jimmy is a playoff weapon defensively, is a real asset to have in the bag, and he gives you a really good combination of both off ball talent and on ball talent on the offensive end of the floor. He's a guy who can set screens for guys like Devin Booker and KD and roll out of it and make plays when Kevin Durant's throwing the ball over the top, when they get blitzed or things along those lines, or if they switch. He's got the ability to punish Smith's He's been hitting unguarded catch and shoot jump shots at over a fifty percent clip in the last few years, albeit at low volume, so like he's not a guy you can just leave wide open. He's a very good cutter, and then he also is a very very good on ball player. He is a much much better on ball player than a guy like Bradley Beal. He's bigger, he's stronger, he's a better playmaker. He's a real switch beater. His last playoff run in twenty twenty three, he ran over five hundred pick and rolls, ISOs and post ups in that playoff run and was well over a point per possession in all three play types, including passes. He's just a massive talent upgrade and the kind of guy that immediately makes the Suns a much more physically imposing group, especially with the Nick Richards' upgrade at the center spot, and it's been a little bit of like mixed results with Nick in the early going. Just absolutely dominated in his first appearance, just benefiting on all the attention that the stars were gathering, but had some moments against Jared Allen where he looked really physically overmatched and didn't get as many of those high quality role man opportunities. But still I think he's a center upgrade compared to what they had in house, So like you're changing the physical in position of the group. Just to put it really simply, going from Bradley Beal, Kevin Durant, use Off Nurkic to Jimmy Butler, Kevin Durant, Nick Richards, It's just a completely different type of physical imposition that you bring to the table as a team. I think his ability to attack in a different way than Devin Booker and Kevin Durant will be really useful. The Sun's offense has been falling apart in their losses in the last month. In their eight losses, they've posted a one to ZH three point nine offensive rating. It's just not resilient enough. The Cavs game, for instance, it's tie twenty seven to twenty seven. Late first quarter, they didn't score for three and a half minutes, zero points. For three and a half minutes, they gave up a nine to zero run. Right it's fifty nine to forty eight. At one point, they didn't score for two and a half minutes as they gave up an eleven zero run. It was eighty two sixty eight in the late third quarter, only a fourteen point game, very much still in reach. They scored two points over the next six minutes and completely lost control of the game. There's a certain amount of like the Devin Booker and Kevin Durant can go through these stretches where they get a little sloppy with the ball and they start missing jump shots and the offense can fall apart, or when the talent off of the attention they garner is unable to capitalize and their offense can fall apart. Jimmy Butler has a more resilient offensive approach. He can attack from the post like we talked about, but as a bully ball player rather than as a shot maker, which is more resilient. He's not going to be as dependent on make and miss when it comes to the jump shooting side of things. He's also much better at getting to the foul line than both Kevin Durant Devin Booker, but much much better than Bradley Beal is. And again, you're just turning You're just turning Bradley Beal into a much better offensive player while also being a much better defensive player. It's just a massive talent upgrade. And when the Suns are trapped in the situation that they're trapped in, they don't really have a ton of flexibility. This is the kind of aggressive move that they could make that has real upside for them within this season. I think he's just a much better player who's a much better fit than Bradley Beal with this group. I think it's the kind of move that the Suns should seriously consider. Number Two, how would I revamp the Lakers? So obviously I prefer a guy like Brandon Ingram. I just don't think that's going to happen under the circumstances. So I was trying to come up with the deal out there that best addresses the three biggest weaknesses that the Lakers have outside of trying to pursue a high level, star level offensive player. Okay, if we remove that from the equation. So take Brandon Ingram out, take Zach Lavine out, take any of those big name star type of players. How would I go about revamping the Lakers? And I came up with two deals. One I would call it the Utah Jazz. I'd offer them Gabe Vincent and Jared Vanderbilt for Colin Sexton and Water Kessler. In order to make the deal work, I think you'd have to remove the protections from the pick that you got back in the de Lo trade, and I think you probably have to add another first round pick that is lightly protected. Okay, so effectively, if you account removing the protections, that's roughly worth Again, if look at the Sun's trade, the Suns Jazz trade is a clear demonstration an unprotected first round pick, it's worth quite a bit more than protected first round draft compensation. So removing protections also amounts to a form of draft compensation. Right, So, like you get removing protections and adding a first round pick, and you're getting back Colin Sexton and Walker Kessler. Then I would separately call up the Toronto Raptors and I'd offer them Ruey Hachimura, Jalen Hoods, Schafino and Cam Reddish with the other first round pick, because remember, they have two first round picks to trade for Bruce Brown and Jonathan Magbo for either deal. If they had to, they could include additional second round draft compensation if the negotiations get tougher, but I think they have the draft compensation to make both of the those deals happen. Those two deals successfully addressed the three biggest weaknesses that the Lakers have with their roster at this point, separate from anything having to do with star talent. The three biggest weaknesses were one, the backup center position, where they just have an inability to maintain a really high floor when Anthony Davis is off the floor. They've been getting killed all season long in the eighty off minutes. They've had some success in games where like they won a game recently when Anthony Davis sat, but like for the most part in recent Lakers history, they've struggled when Anthony Davis has been out. So a rock solid backup center would go a long way towards one, giving you a higher floor and giving you maybe a more legitimate two big look, which we'll talk about in a minute. Two, they need a higher floor option at the two guard spot. Right. I talked about this earlier with Ryan Dunn with respect to the Suns. You want Ryan Dunn getting his reps, you want Max Christy getting his reps. I have big belief in those two players in the long term, But for either the Suns or the Lakers to be depending on those guys in their final five, like in the five that they would go down with in a big playoff series, I think is a mistake. That's not to say that you won't find yourself in a position where a Ryan Dunner, a Max Christie is feeling good in a big playoff game and you end up riding him out, But you just don't want to be in a position where Max is, you know, two turnovers and two bad miss threes in the first quarter of a pivotal playoff game and he's your best option at the two because he's freaking out a little bit under the stress and pressure of the moment. Right. Totally expectable for a young player. There's just too many examples in NBA history of young players struggling when they get into that setting. So a higher floor option at the two guard spot I view as an important upgrade for the Lakers, and then lastly, backup ball handling. Ever since the D'Angelo Russell trade, the you know, the Lakers have been in this predicament where once you get past Austin and Lebron, who's your next best ball handler. It's Gabe Vincent. Right. It's just not a lot of talent in terms of perimeter ball handling because you sent d Low out in that trade for Dorian Finney Smith, who plays a very different type of position. Right, So if you don't get a star, the three holes they needed to patch were backup center, an upgrade at the starting two guard spot, and backup ball handling. Just somebody that can handle the basketball and take on a higher usage roll on the offensive end of the floor. I think those two deals accomplish that by bringing in Colin Sexton, who is a legitimate guard ball handler that can take on usage, and getting a Bruce Brown, who is, in my opinion, a starting caliber two guard in this league if he's the fifth best player in your lineup, which he would be in that case. And then three a backup center in the form of Walker Kessler. So here's what you'd be left with if the roster and all the dust settled, you would have a rock solid core five Austin, Bruce Brown, Dorian Finney Smith, Lebron James and Anthony Davis. And for the record, you could start Max if you wanted to keep him in the starting lineup and keep him getting reps and just close games with Bruce, if that's what it came down to, but just for the sake of laying out the roster, because I think Bruce right at this second is a better player than Max, even though Max will obviously have the ability to pass him in the long run. Austin Bruce, Doran Phinney, Smith, Lebron and AD that is a good core five. I like that as a core five that can the Lakers could go down within a playoff series because Bruce and Dorian are guys that have the ability to function within a five man group offensively while both being really useful defensive players at their position while bringing different abilities to the table. I think Bruce is better guarding guards. I think Dorian Finney Smith is better guarding forward, so it's kind of like a natural, kind of like pairing between the two of them. But at the same time, Dorian can slide his feet a little bit. Bruce can bang with the larger players on the floor as well a little bit, right, So like there's some switchability there as well. And then you've got your Austin Lebron Anthony Davis and it depends on those three guys to carry things offensively. But that was gonna be the case regardless if your goal was to win the championship, you were gonna need Lebron ad In Austin to a play great. Right, then you'd have depth at key position groups. So Austin has a clear backup in Colin Sexton after that type of trade, Bruce Brown and Max Christy with regardless of depending on which one you end up starting with, one of those guys is a clear backup for the other. Right. Now, backup forwards, it gets a little finn there, right, you'd have Dalton Connect Jonathan Magbo coming back in the Raptors deal. Just a kind of a young athletic forward. It does some things well does He has a lot of weaknesses, but he can just be a depth piece for you at the forward spot. Christian Wood if he can come back healthy, and then Bruce Brown. I think there's a case to be made that Like, that's another upside to the Bruce Brown trade is like, if you need to find more minutes from him, I think he can play a little bit at the small forward, which can keep Max's minutes up, but supplements you in terms of depth at the forward position. But again, the whole point of this trade is that you're swapping forward depth to anchor your core five and for a rock solid backups. When you have a rock solid backup center, a guy like a Walker Kessler, it anchors you physically in a way that allows you to be smaller at other positions. Remember, like Walker's just like one of the most physically imposing players in this league. He at this point in time is leading the league in offensive rebounds per game at four point three offensive rebounds per game, and he's second in the league in blocks behind Victor wembin Yama despite playing less than thirty minutes per game in both of those categories. Right, So, like a really big, physical player that creates an easier physical responsibility down the roster. Right, So, like, yes, there's you're trading to address those weaknesses. You're creating a new thin spot in terms of forward depth. But I look at it more in terms of playoff rotation. In regular season rotation, right in the playoffs you can scale up minutes. Do I think that the Lakers would have an eight man rotation that could all be reliable? Libel is a hard word, but like, at least be playable playoff players. Austin Bruce, Dorian Finney Smith, Lebron, A D, Colin Sexton, Max Christy, Walker Kessler. That's your eight guys right there. You got a wing, a guard in a center off the bench. You could see so like in the playoffs, you can see a playoff rotation take shape. You start the game. Let's say let's say you start with Max. You start Austin, Max, Dorian Lebron, and a D. When Lebron checks out, you can have a Lebron off group that's like Austin Bruce, Dorian Finney Smith, and then a two big look with Anthony Davis and Walker Kesler. When Ad comes off the floor, you can see a Lebron led group that has Walker Kessler with Lebron at the four, with Bruce Brown at the three, Max Christy at the two, and Colin Sexton at the one. You can see how they can piece together lineups where even your your ad off group with Lebron and a guy like Walker Kessler. That's a really big front line. Bruce plays bigger than he is at the three. You're going against bench groups with that lineup two, so like you can kind of see a playoff rotation that makes sense. And then there's still a closing five there, which is like, oh, it's a big spot. We're on the road at ok See, it's game two. It's ninety five ninety five with five minutes left in the fourth quarter and we're down one zero, but we have a chance to steal home court advantage. Here. You have a guy like Bruce Brown that you can go to in the closing group that is a higher floor veteran experienced playoff player that's won a championship that you can slide into that spot. But then in the regular season you have depth options. Like that's the upside to getting a guy like Magboback because he's a guy that can play some ford minutes in the regular season. Christian Wood when he gets healthy, can play forward minutes in the regular season, even next to a guy like Walker Kessler. Dalton Connect is a guy that can play minutes in the regular season that can carry you through those stretches. You just have more a better playoff upside in my opinion because of that rock solid core five and a big look. That is an important flexibility for specific matchups in the playoffs. Like, let's I want to like kind of take a little bit of a step back, and I want to zoom out and I want to look at what this move really creates for the Lakers in terms of their playoff upside. Right, So, like we can all acknowledge that this team isn't winning anything unless Lebron, James, Austin, Reeves, and Anthony Davis are all playing at a super high level on offense. It goes without saying we just have to acknowledge that, right, we kind of removed the possibility of a superstar trade. Once you take that out of the equation, It's like, if this team's going anywhere, Lebron, Austin, and Ady have to reach a certain level offensively. I think they can. As recently as last year in the playoffs in that first round series against Denver, I thought they were playing at that level. It was the surrounding talent around them that let them down. They struggled tracking shooters, they struggled rebounding. There were a bunch of like specific issues with role players. That's where I really liked the idea of Bruce Brown. He will embrace a bench roll, meaning if you want to start Max, you still have that option. He's a monster rebounder for his size. It gets seven rebounds per thirty six minutes so far the season. He's averaging six point one rebounds per thirty six minutes in his career, so at his size, a very good rebounder. He's good at defending opposing guards, but he has some switchability. He's actually hit five out of ten on guard to catch and shoot jump shots so far this year. Again that's a low sample size, but he's a I think a guy that can be functional on the offensive end of the floor. So you're bringing back a playoff rotation piece in Bruce Brown for a guy in Ruey Ho. Chamurro really struggled in the Nuggets series last year, so it's kind of a swapping a less reliable playoff player for a more reliable playoff player. Walker Kessler, though, is the option where I see a real upside in terms of playoff optionality. Right, So when you look at the playoffs, and you look at the types of teams that have massive front lines, whether it's the Nuggets with Aaron Gordon and Nicola jokicch with Michael Porter Junior, or it's the Clippers just with how big zoo botches right and what Kawhi Leonard can do, the Grizzlies who run a lot of two big looks, the Timberwolves who run a lot of two big looks. There are specific teams that you're run into in the playoffs where you might have to match up with size in physicality. Some of those teams have centers that Anthony Davis has struggled with straight up. Anthony Davis has struggled with Zoobot straight up, He's struggled with with nikolea Jokic straight up right. So like, by having a bigger look, by having the ability to put together frontlines of Lebron James, Anthony Davis, and Walker Kessler together, you at least give yourself an option in those settings to match physicality for physicality. You may be better off going small, but at least you'll have that optionality. An example that I would give you is like, do you remember when the Lakers tried putting Ruey Hachi Mura on Nikola Jokic, and Jokic has dealt with the center guarding Aaron Gordon before, and he's dealt with that well. So I want to sit here and pretend like it's some sort of magic fix for how to deal with the Denver Nuggets. But Jokich was just too good at shoving Ruey Hachimura wherever he wanted to get to and just scoring on right, if you try Walker Kessler in that spot and Walker Kessler is on Jokich, he's gonna have a better opportunity to fight Yokich off of spots with Anthony Davis and help on the back line. It's a look. It's about having a look. But Walker Kessler also provides that optionality in the regular season, right, like the ability to rest Anthony Davis. Walker Kesler can be a starting center in this league. He immediately gives you a better floor in the regular season when you rest ad, which brings me to the final piece of this. There's a real regular season upside, especially when you factor in the Colin Sexton edition. So Colin Sexton is a guy that can step into a high usage roll. He gives you a better chance to win if you give Austin Reeves a night off or if you give Lebron James a night off. So if I look at these two deals in the short term, in the regular season, we need to get to April mid April with Lebron and AD and Austin ready to go. I needs a night off, Lebron needs a night off, Anthony Davis needs a night off. Colin Sexton and Walker Kessler give you a substantially better option to win on those nights when you're giving guys a night off. Fast forward to the postseason. Bruce Brown gives you a clear closing five when the shit hits the fan, and Walker Kessler gives you a big look that you can use against some of the massive frontlines around the NBA. So again, it anchors the core three, Austin, Lebron and AD with the best possible group of role player talent that you can within the short term, because this might be your last best chance to win a title, and right now it looks like a very very slim chance. Right this might be your last chance that anchors those three with solid role player talent that puts the outcome of the season in Lebron Ad in Austin's hands. It's on them to figure it out at that point. I think that's the responsibility that the front office has here, is that least put the out come in their hands, and with the giant holes in role player talent, it doesn't really feel like it's in their hands. This is a way to appease that now. I would rather have had this sort of deal done last year when Lebron and Ad looked like better players, but better late than never. I suppose number three are third trade of the day. What if the Houston Rockets got Zach Levine, The way this deal would look is Fred van Vliet for Zach Levine. Straight up, It shouldn't take much of anything in the terms of draft in the way of draft compensation, just simply because Fred van Vliet has one fewer a year on his deal. But even if the Rockets did have to include some draft compensation, they just have so like I think they have ten first round draft picks between now and twenty thirty one, so they could throw in some secon around draft compensation, or maybe a heavily protected first or something like that if that's what they wanted to do to make something like this happen. But I've talked all this year about how the Rockets have a shot creation problem. I think they're a bit closer to legit championship contention than people realize. They're so big and physical on the perimeter, and that's just such an important part of playoff basketball. Pressuring the ball, being physical, rebounding, all those sorts of things are what carries you when you get into the postseason and things get really ugly and physical. The Rockets are the third best defense in the league. They are the very best rebounding team in the league. All of that translates to the upper levels of competition. They're eleven and four this year against teams that are in the top ten in point differential. That ranks just second in the league to the Cleveland Cavaliers. They have the second best record in basketball against the top ten teams in the league. They're top five in both offense and defensive efficiency in those situations. There's a lot of upside, but there's one big downside. Their offense has had a tendency to break, especially in clutch situations. They are twenty fifth in fourth quarter offensive rating and eighteenth in clutch offensive rating. They've dropped nine games in the clutch this year, and in those nine losses, they've had just a ninety four offensive rating in clutch time in those games. There's been a pretty consistent through line with their offense between the success of Fred van Vliet and Jalen Green and whether or not they can win games. When Jalen Green scores thirty or more points this year, they're undefeated. I think he has eight thirty point games this year. Just look back through their recent losses. When they lost to Detroit, Fred van Vliet and Jalen Green thirty nine total points on thirty six shots. The loss of Sacramento, Fred van Vliet didn't play, although that was more of a shootout between those two teams. The loss of the Boston Celtics, fred van Vliet only had eight points. The lost to Miami, fred Van Vliet and Jalen Green combined for thirty five points and thirty seven shots. You guys get the point. This is an elite, physical, playoff built roster, but they have shaky perimeter shot creators, especially when things show slow down at the end of games. A Zach Lavine trade accomplishes two very important goals for the Rockets One. It capitalizes on the short term opportunity while also maintaining the long term flexibility. In the short term, Zach is just a much better offensive player than Fred van Vliet. Fred is averaging fifteen points per game on below forty percent from the field field goal percentage fifty two percent true shooting. Zach Lavine has thirteen thirty point games this year. That is four more than Fred and Jalen have had combined. This season. Fred's had won, Jalen's had eight, Zach Levin's had thirteen. He's averaging twenty four points per game on sixty four percent true shooting. How many players in the league this year do you think there are better? Averaging at least twenty four points per game on at least fifty percent from the field and at least forty percent from three pretty low parameters. Twenty four points per game fifty to forty. There's three guys in the entire league, Nicole Jokich, Karl Anthony Towns, and Zach Lavine. He is the type of offensive threat that could give this group, this elite defensive and rebounding group, real championship upside, especially in the context of how well Jalen Green's been playing as of late. He's averaging twenty nine points per game on fifty two percent from the field forty nine percent from three to ninety two percent from the line in his last nine games. Give Zach and Jalen that type of group of athletes that defend in that rebound and you have some real upside in the short term, the same upside that we've seen manifest in this regular season as they've been beating a lot of really good teams this year. So I really like it as a short term gamble, but in the long run, you're still staying committed to the long term potential of this group. You're not trading Jalen Green, who's been playing great. I talked about him the other day. Like Jalen Green, to me, represents the kind of player that's really difficult to give up on as like a bigger freaky athlete show creator. There's this thing where like these small freaking athlete guards that have a certain ceiling when they get into the NBA. But when you're like Jalen Green, like when you're over six ' four and you're freaky athletic like that, it just comes with another layer of the ability to get free from elite NBA defenders. And that's really the thing that I noticed when I watch it. When things get really tight, Jalen Green can get to his spots, and he's got the ability to make shots, as he's demonstrated in this recent stretch right and throughout the season from time to time. Right. So, I like Jalen Green as a guy that the Rockets should continue to take a bet on, But you're giving up a guy in Fred van Vliet that does not fit into the long term potential of this group. Now, I've heard some talk behind the scenes from people that think that it's more likely that Houston tries to re up with Fred at a discounted deal something in that like twenty million dollar range for a certain number of years, and maybe that's the direction they decide to go. I think that's just as punting on this season. What I like about the type of a deal that exactly deal does for you is, yes, you take on one additional year of salary over what the Fred van Vliet deal has, but you might be able to first of all, you might be able to negotiate a similar type of extension with him that you could with Fred van Vliet. And then secondly, you're not giving up any sort of big picture asset that's going to alter the long term potential of this team. So you're not including one of your really nice young players like a Men Thompson, You're not including massive amounts of first round draft compensation. You still have the flexibility to make a home run trade for somebody like Kevin Durant or something like that down the line. Hell, you might be able to use Zach Lavine's salary to pull that off if you end up in that position. It is an instant upgrade that gives you the ability to win in the context of this season while maintaining the big picture flexibility you have as a team that has a ton of potential, a team that's the second seed in the West, with a ton of talent and a ton of draft picks in the hopper ready to go in the time incomes. I like that as a deal that capitalizes on the short term potential while maintaining the long term flexibility. All right, guys, that's all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show. We'll be back tomorrow with some really good game reaction content, several really interesting NBA games on tonight. The Celtics are on the road in Los Angeles against the Clippers. I think the Warriors are on the road in Sacramento against the Kings. I want to say it's Calves Rockets is another one that we got. Like, there's a lot of really good games, So we're going to switch back towards game reaction content tomorrow. But that's all I have for you, guys. Appreciate it. I'll see you tomorrow the volume. What's up guys? As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. They would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take a second and leave a rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.