Trade Deadline Day 3 with Bobby Marks
Update: 2024-02-07
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ESPN’s Front-Office Insider Bobby Marks joins The Woj Pod for Day 3 of NBA Trade deadline with the latest on NBA trade season – including the Sixers, the Warriors, Lakers AND Bobby remembering some old deadlines in his Nets days with Dwight Howard and Jason Kidd.
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Transcript
00:00:00
(upbeat music)
00:00:02
Hey everybody, welcome into another edition of the Woj Pod Trade Deadline Week style.
00:00:10
Our third installment, day three of the Trade Deadline Week with no trades.
00:00:15
Bobby, of course here with Bobby Marks, our front office insider, 11.52 a.m.
00:00:21
for Bobby and I here in, 11.52 p.m.
00:00:23
Excuse me, for Bobby and I here in Bristol, we've been here since about 7 a.m.
00:00:27
this morning, 1150 phone calls later today.
00:00:31
Lot of stuff starting to move.
00:00:34
Some, hey, I think we might get this done tonight.
00:00:36
Nope, it's going into tomorrow.
00:00:37
Had a lot of that, but still no trades, Bobby, as we almost cross midnight into Wednesday morning.
00:00:45
And I will say in the words of one very highly respected league executive, a top level GM, who declared, I'd never heard him quite put it this way.
00:00:55
He said, we have no deal Tuesday, bulls Wednesday, and toy gun Thursday.
00:01:01
So Bobby, we're about to head into bulls Wednesday.
00:01:05
Welcome.
00:01:06
I feel like for all those, probably not the young audience that listen, they probably never watch the movies.
00:01:12
Bill Murray and Groundhog Day, when you wake up and it's the same day.
00:01:16
But the beauty of a deadline is that we'll get to Thursday and we'll get more, we'll get deals here.
00:01:22
You look at last year's, last year's track record, there was 15 trades, the week of deadline.
00:01:28
And certainly let off by Kyrie Irving.
00:01:31
I think we got a little bit spoiled with the Ciacum and Anonobi trades that have happened already.
00:01:38
And there's been four regular season trades when you include that James Harden trade.
00:01:43
And I think teams react when there's a deadline.
00:01:46
And probably not that marquee guy that who's unhappy right now will be moved by Thursday at three.
00:01:55
But there'll be some deals here.
00:01:57
Yeah, we don't have that big trade demand yet.
00:02:00
It's a little late if you're going to-- if you're a player out there thinking of making a big trade demand, you might want to do it by the morning.
00:02:06
Players also should notice if you're traveling tomorrow and you're going on a road trip and you see your GM get on the plane, he's probably going on the trip so that he's not leaving the head coach staff to tell you you've been traded or one of your teammates have been traded.
00:02:22
So if you see your GM coming, you know that there's probably a guy or two or three who might be on his way out.
00:02:27
You know, it's funny.
00:02:28
And for those teams that are home and you're practicing, and you don't see your GMs in the gym watching, that's not a good sign either.
00:02:38
I remember when Derek Favre's had been in so many trade rumors back in 2010.
00:02:44
We had just drafted him and he was right off the bat.
00:02:46
He was in Carmel Anthony trade rumors.
00:02:48
And I just got to the point they weren't rumors.
00:02:50
No, they were trade talks.
00:02:52
He was in trade talks.
00:02:53
No, I still have the binder of the trade proposals.
00:02:55
And I remember going down there and eventually we got to the point where like, you know what, I'm not going to go down a practice anymore because he would look at you like, is it time?
00:03:03
Is it time for me to pack up my stuff and head out of here?
00:03:09
What was the worst all the trade deadlines?
00:03:12
I covered a bunch of them.
00:03:14
You guys were always in the middle of in Brooklyn while New Jersey, Newark, and then Brooklyn.
00:03:19
You guys were always in zany scenarios.
00:03:21
It was the nets.
00:03:22
What was the most like when you get to this time of year, Bobby, and he just say, I got PTSD from that one.
00:03:28
Which one is it?
00:03:29
I think I know which one it is.
00:03:30
You know, we were talking before we started the Dwight.
00:03:33
I mean, I'll give you two.
00:03:34
Let's start with Dwight in 2011, 12.
00:03:39
That was the year of the lockout.
00:03:41
The trade deadline was in March.
00:03:44
You know, the Dwight talk started right after the lockout was lifted.
00:03:49
And we thought we had a deal.
00:03:50
We thought we had a deal to the point where-- Because there were definitely no talks going on during the lockout.
00:03:55
Because that would have been legal.
00:03:56
That would have been, yeah.
00:03:57
That would have been illegal.
00:03:57
David Stern would have frowned upon that.
00:04:00
Well, and the thing with Dwight was that he had an option-- he had a player option for the following year.
00:04:05
And-- Would you got bullied into on the flight for me one day?
00:04:08
Yeah, we actually, Dan Fagan, rest in peace, had sent Dwight's cousin with him to-- I think they were in Denver to make sure he did not opt into his contract for next year,
00:04:18
which he did.
00:04:19
And that cabosh, that cabosh, the trade rate-- So I remember calling Dan Fagan at about when we found out Dwight had opted in.
00:04:29
He was on a flight.
00:04:29
JJ Reddick will tell you the story.
00:04:31
He was on the flight.
00:04:32
And the team all got to him.
00:04:33
And he agreed to opt in.
00:04:36
And now they couldn't do the-- Right?
00:04:39
Yeah.
00:04:40
And I remember Fagan wasn't there.
00:04:42
He was at his house, I believe, an assman.
00:04:45
Because I remember I called and woke him up.
00:04:47
And he said, what?
00:04:48
And he didn't know what had happened yet.
00:04:51
And I said, Dan, I think you need to check on it.
00:04:52
I think he just opted in.
00:04:54
And I remember him like, I could hear him rustling out of bed and then-- And sure enough, Dwight had opted in and-- Well, the beauty of that was that we had three months later gone out and got Joe Johnson in a trade and basically,
00:05:08
we thought all our capital, draft capital was gone.
00:05:11
And Rob Hennegan, who was there a GM at the time, called us like if they let us go, what do you guys still do, Dwight?
00:05:18
And we didn't have anything less.
00:05:19
And real quick, the other one was the Jason Kitt trade in Dallas in 2008.
00:05:25
Because there were so many different scenarios there like, what happened?
00:05:28
There was two things that happened.
00:05:29
One, Jerry Stack, I was originally part of the deal.
00:05:31
And then Stack comes out and says, well, I'm going to get traded.
00:05:34
And I'm just going to get waved.
00:05:36
And I'm going to go back to Dallas.
00:05:37
And that raised the red flag automatically with the league.
00:05:40
And the rule basically came in because of that.
00:05:43
And the league told you you couldn't put Stackhouse in a trade, right?
00:05:46
That is correct.
00:05:46
And then the other thing was, you know, Devin George had-- he had veto power on the trade because he had signed a one-year deal and he wouldn't approve the trade.
00:05:57
So I think we had somebody basically camped out his house in the suburbs of Dallas wanting to him to sign the paperwork.
00:06:05
So what happened was, so both those guys come out and we're thinking, wait a minute, we're like $5 million short.
00:06:10
Who could we find?
00:06:12
And it was Keith Van Horn who hadn't played basketball for about three years.
00:06:16
We roped him in to be part of the sign in trade.
00:06:19
The league approved it.
00:06:21
Keith sat in our media room for three days.
00:06:26
The NBA would come over and check to see if he was working out.
00:06:29
We would have him go on the treadmill.
00:06:31
And now, in that rule, there's a rule now that if a player does not finish on your roster at the end of the season, he can't be involved in the signing.
00:06:38
How much money did Van Horn make from doing that?
00:06:40
At least $5 million.
00:06:42
And he'd basically been retired for about two years.
00:06:46
We made a lot of-- I mean, between him and Keith Bogan and a lot of people money.
00:06:50
Keith Bogan's was basically out of the league.
00:06:52
You needed his contract to do the Kevin Garnett Paul Pierce trade.
00:06:57
And what did he make?
00:06:58
He got like a little over five.
00:07:00
He still gives me a big hug when I see him.
00:07:03
You should.
00:07:04
Well, 2024 NBA trade deadline, Bobby.
00:07:09
Let's start here.
00:07:10
Dwight Howard.
00:07:13
Joel M.
00:07:14
B.
00:07:14
at another all NBA center.
00:07:16
He had his procedure earlier today on that left knee.
00:07:22
It's going to be several weeks.
00:07:24
There is-- I don't know if optimism is the word, but there's a belief that they can get him back here.
00:07:32
This all goes well, that they can get him back before the season is over.
00:07:37
How much time is left?
00:07:38
And Philly, that'll be the question.
00:07:39
What he looks like when he comes back, how quickly he could be back at a top level.
00:07:45
Those are all questions.
00:07:47
And there's a lot of risk in this.
00:07:50
But Philadelphia remains a buyer and remains a buyer in this trade deadline market.
00:07:58
They're out there trying to do two things.
00:08:01
One, when Joel M.
00:08:02
B.
00:08:02
comes back, assuming he comes back and he's healthy enough to play, that they have a team around him that can make a run.
00:08:10
And can they make a deal or deals here at the trade deadline?
00:08:13
I think they're confident and Philly, they're going to do something.
00:08:17
Can they get a deal or deals that allow them to not just bottom out here without him?
00:08:23
And they want to stay in the top six, stay out of the play, and-- I mean, that's, of course, you do.
00:08:29
I don't know if that's going to be possible.
00:08:31
There are three games up on six place right now.
00:08:34
And then there's another valley from six place to seventh.
00:08:37
It's not inconceivable.
00:08:39
And they may find a rhythm here without them.
00:08:41
I think it's been startling to their-- it's startled their system to be without them.
00:08:46
And they played poorly.
00:08:47
I think they can still play better.
00:08:50
And I still think there's, again, deals for them to make.
00:08:53
And again, this is an organization that-- they have this window with Joel M.
00:08:58
B.
00:08:58
Dan.
00:08:59
They're not conceding that the window was closed for this year.
00:09:03
And they're going to see what they can rustle up here at the deadline.
00:09:07
And they hope they can get M.
00:09:08
B.
00:09:09
back and get this train back on the tracks.
00:09:11
You know, you look at Daryl's track records.
00:09:15
Second, most trades during the regular season, only behind San Presti in Oklahoma City.
00:09:20
So there is that aggressiveness there.
00:09:23
Certainly, the James Harden trade from a few years ago when they traded Ben Simmons out.
00:09:31
I've said all along, Tim Bontumps and I wrote about it in December.
00:09:35
It's kind of like, how do you hedge your bet?
00:09:37
You never had that feeling that Philly was going to go all in because you wanted to keep some of the assets and some of the flexibility when they get to the summer.
00:09:46
And we can say, you know, what the free agent class is not great and free agents don't leave except for maybe like, Jan Brunson and Fred Van Vley.
00:09:55
But it doesn't, you don't, you don't add just by a free agency.
00:09:59
You go, you know, you can go by the trade market here who becomes available.
00:10:03
And I think how do you kind of thread the needle in Philadelphia where you're trying to keep some of those first round picks?
00:10:09
You've got three that gets to five.
00:10:12
Maybe it costs you a first round pick to go out and get a player and then also still have that flexibility to go out and do a deal.
00:10:20
Whether being free agency or trade and then keep some of your own free agents, whether it's a player like Anthony Melton, we'll see what happens with Tobias Harris, some of those other players there.
00:10:32
There's a lot more activity and there's been a lot more, you know, teams starting to get into position to make trades and looking at,
00:10:43
you know, as you got through today and into tonight and talking to teams, they start to see maybe what the real options are.
00:10:50
And you start to make choices about what you prefer, what you could still tweak to get exactly what you might want or realize you're not going to get what you want.
00:11:00
I think Atlanta is in that situation with the Jante Murray.
00:11:04
What can we get for him?
00:11:05
Is it worth doing?
00:11:07
And there, I think going through that process and I've seen what can we get?
00:11:13
I don't know that they're going to get more than one pick for him.
00:11:16
I'm not sure that that's going to happen.
00:11:18
I don't know that that's out there right now and if it's, is it going to be a good player in a pick or is it going to be an expiring in a pick?
00:11:26
It may not be much more than that.
00:11:27
And so I think that's the calculus that they're trying to figure out.
00:11:32
I think the Lakers remain active trying to be involved.
00:11:36
I think Bruce Brown, they're one of the teams.
00:11:39
There's a bunch of teams with Toronto on Bruce Brown, Bobby and I think, they're, Toronto's taking their time.
00:11:47
They're waiting to see what exactly the best among them can be.
00:11:53
It is not inconceivable that Toronto can take Bruce Brown.
00:11:57
Having that team option on his contract, right, has value for them again at the draft.
00:12:02
They don't have to do it this week.
00:12:05
I think ideally they will.
00:12:07
I think he's a player, veteran player who I think probably chance to go be on a contender versus this rebuilding young team.
00:12:14
So a lot of that stuff is still in motion, but the Angelo Russell playing the way he's played over the last several weeks.
00:12:21
I think it's changed the view of it in LA that I'm not saying that it's not impossible for them to trade the Angelo Russell.
00:12:29
I think it is far less likely.
00:12:32
And the idea anymore that you have to incentivize the Angelo Russell deal or incentivize putting him in a deal because he's got that guaranteed money next year.
00:12:42
I don't think that's how the Lakers are looking to incentivize moving on from the Angelo Russell.
00:12:47
He's become, he's playing his best basketball as a Laker over these last few weeks.
00:12:51
So they've got to decide if we put him in a deal, does that deal really make us much better, somebody that much better than him right now?
00:12:59
That's available.
00:13:00
And so that's all the stuff.
00:13:01
I still think maybe there's something for the Lakers to do around the edges.
00:13:04
This just shows something, but I'm not, you know, if it's not Bruce Brown, if it's not Murray, I'm not sure there's a big one out there for him.
00:13:15
Well, and here's the challenge with making trades during the regular season with a deadline compared to the off season here.
00:13:23
And a lot of things are reactionary.
00:13:24
Like in Toronto, it's not reactionary because they kind of know what direction they're going with when you do the quick, get quickly and RJ Barrett here and you're in your rebuilding slash retooling, but you look at some of the teams like,
00:13:36
you know, Atlanta has played pretty good basketball, lost against the clips, but I had one three in a row against good teams.
00:13:43
And then you look at a team like Chicago, you know, certainly what was Zach Levine out with the injury has had a great win, Tuesday night against Minnesota in overtime.
00:13:53
You've got guys like Andre Drummond, who goes for 16 and 16 rebounds.
00:13:57
He's a free agent.
00:13:59
You have DeMar de Rosen, who goes for 24 and is having a good year.
00:14:03
He's a free agent.
00:14:05
They're sitting in that 910 hole.
00:14:08
Do they think they can keep this together and make up ground or do you kind of look out for what's the best interest moving forward?
00:14:16
And then you say to yourself, what, you know, for guy like the Rosen, okay, if we don't move him, are we going to lose him for nothing?
00:14:22
Is there teams out there with cap space out there some, you know, cap space teams are more of those rebuilding teams that we do a signing trade?
00:14:29
And that's where the the in season deals are harder because a lot of it's reactionary off.
00:14:34
What just happened the night before?
00:14:35
I think the bulls all along.
00:14:38
It's not been about necessarily getting a bunch of picks.
00:14:40
I think they want to get good players back.
00:14:42
And I think that's hard to do.
00:14:43
I don't the guys they have.
00:14:45
I don't know that they're going to get a package there.
00:14:48
You know, you look at what Toronto did with OG and a nobody.
00:14:51
They got, you know, two very, you know, starting level players and the manual quickly at RJ Barrett.
00:14:57
Uh, I don't know that that's available to the bulls.
00:15:00
It certainly isn't with the rose in his age and his contract situation.
00:15:04
And Alex Caruso has tremendous value.
00:15:06
That guy impacts winning.
00:15:08
He impacts winning.
00:15:10
But if you're trading for him and you're a good team, you, maybe you, you want to get picks.
00:15:15
You don't want to trade rotation players or starting level players.
00:15:18
And I think that's the quandary there about whether they're going to find, I do think they're talking, but the bulls haven't necessarily shown inclination to,
00:15:30
they want to stay competitive.
00:15:33
They don't, they're not looking to bottom out.
00:15:35
No, you're, you're trying to, you know, kind of, as I said, head your bet in the middle where you're not, you know, just building it with just draft picks alone.
00:15:42
And I think, you know, you can point to what's going on in Golden State, too.
00:15:46
You know, it's interesting.
00:15:47
You know, a team that's out of the play and, you know, you're hearing a lot about, you know, Clay Thompson, you know, should Golden State move him.
00:15:54
What do you do with Clay Thompson?
00:15:55
You know, got, you know, and I think it's easy for the fan out there to say, like, you know, hey, he's on, you know, it's break up to Dynasties on the last year of his contract.
00:16:04
We just need to move forward.
00:16:07
But man, when you win four championships, there's a loyalty factor.
00:16:10
And there's a loyalty factor, especially when, if you're going to do something, you have Steph Curry signing off on it.
00:16:16
And just Steph Curry, want to be the guy that traded one of his best friends and part of that dynasty.
00:16:22
And that's something that likely gets addressed in the off season here.
00:16:25
I think there's bigger, I think there's bigger things to figure out in Golden State.
00:16:29
It's not Clay Thompson.
00:16:30
It's, you know, what do you do with Andrew Wiggins?
00:16:32
Is there a taker for him?
00:16:33
Can you clear up some of your finances?
00:16:35
What happens with Chris Paul down the road here?
00:16:38
Yeah.
00:16:39
I think there's absolutely been some conversations on Andrew Wiggins.
00:16:42
It's a lot of money left on his deal.
00:16:46
And what exactly, I do think this with Golden State.
00:16:51
I do not believe there is a mandate right now from ownership that they just have to get money off.
00:16:57
Guys, I don't want to, I don't sense it all that it is Joe LeCub in ownership saying I don't want to, I don't want to dislodge your tax bill with this team that's not terribly competitive.
00:17:11
So like, let's get off as much money as we can.
00:17:14
They might get off money because it might, I think it would make, I think if they do it, it's because they think it makes sense on how they want to retool the roster.
00:17:23
And so I think that gives them some leeway here to see a little like, they're not just, don't think there's certainly going to like incentive eyes getting off anybody's contract.
00:17:34
So we'll see what happens here in the last 48 hours.
00:17:39
But I think Golden State, most of their really hard decisions are probably coming, I think almost all of them are coming in the off season.
00:17:47
I don't think they're coming in the next two days.
00:17:49
No, I mean, listen, your tax bill is your tax bill right now.
00:17:53
I mean, they're, they got an $185 million tax bill on a $200 million plus, you're not going to shave $100 million off.
00:18:00
That's, that's the reality of it now.
00:18:01
The beauty of these new rules is that teams got to spend up to 90% of the salary cap.
00:18:06
So you get into the off season and teams 30, 40 million dollars in a cap and maybe Andrew Wiggins looks appealing to them.
00:18:13
Maybe Chris Paul has got that non-guaranteed.
00:18:16
So there's, there's ways for you, you have a longer runway when you get into the off season if you want to start, you know, cutting costs a little bit.
00:18:25
Bobby, we will be back at it early tomorrow morning.
00:18:29
I think when we do this pod 24 hours from now or maybe 25, 26, maybe it's one in the morning tomorrow because stuff's happening.
00:18:37
I do not believe we will have another goose egg tomorrow.
00:18:40
I do think there's a few things that are kind of, you know, they're not all big, but they're there.
00:18:47
Um, and so I think we'll have some action on Wednesday and just to review, again, and the words of very respected,
00:18:57
legal executive, no deal Tuesday, both Wednesday, toy gun Thursday.
00:19:03
Welcome to bullsh*t Wednesday.
00:19:07
We'll catch you guys tomorrow.
00:19:08
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Wohch pod, a special thanks, of course, to Bobby Marks, our front office insider, trade deadline week, installment number three coming tomorrow is at number four coming tomorrow,
00:19:23
but four.
00:19:23
So look out for that tomorrow.
00:19:25
Be sure to also listen to the Adam Schaefter podcast and my good friend, Adam Schaefter, we'll be back in about 24 hours.
00:19:33
Have a great deadline Wednesday.
00:19:35
[Music]
00:19:45
[Music]
00:19:55
