点击查看原文：Kicking the Kornet’s nest in free agency
Kicking the Kornet’s nest in free agency
Columnist Mike Finger and Spurs beat reporters Jeff McDonald and Tom Orsborn discuss the Spurs free agency goals, the signing of Luke Kornet to be Victor Wembanyama’s backup and where it all puts the teams next season.
Suggested reading:
NBA changes Gregg Popovich’s record after long absence
Spurs rookie Dylan Harper’s Summer League debut delayed due to injury
Spurs lose fan-favorite Sandro Mamukelashvili to Toronto
Spurs land Boston big man Luke Kornet to back up Wemby
Here is the transcript of the podcast:
Host: From a highly secured network of top-secret locations across South Texas, this is the Spurs Insider, Free Agency Mania Edition. I’m your host Mike Finger, joined as always by Express News Spurs beat writers Jeff McDonald and Tom Orsborn.
We promised you a week ago after the draft, we’d be back to talk about all the wheeling and dealing and moving and shaking that the local cagers were going to make once the free agency window opened up on the evening of June 30th. And we’re recording this almost 48 hours later, and Jeff McDonald, what have you got to say about Luke Kornet?
Jeff: I’ll be honest, I have a lot to say about him, and this will be the Luke Kornet episode of the Spurs Insider.
Host: I think it should.
Jeff: I guess what? But we have we have we have some very sad news to address as well. We need to pour out.
Host: I wanted to wait on that, but.
Jeff: Some Flavor Flav flavored vodka. A whole glass. We need to pour it out for our friend Sandro Mamukelashvili who is no longer no longer with us. I mean, that doesn’t mean he’s dead. He’s just in Canada, which might as well be the same thing.
Host: This is this is this we might as well start here because this encapsulates everything about Sandro, about this podcast, about the dynamic between the people on this podcast. Jeff is making fun of it. He never after all the years of Sandro Mamukelashvili being on the team, he never learned how to pronounce the man’s last name even.
Jeff: I just learned how to spell it and now he’s gone.
Host: And you just never had the proper respect for the joy that he brought Tom and I and everyone around, including Flavor Flav who came to a Spurs game, including everyone in that locker room, including Greg Popovich, you know, the front office, the ball boys, the training staff, the fans. Jeff just mocked it all. And Tom and I had a true appreciation for Sandro and we’re going to miss him. And we’re happy for him that he’s going to get I think more run, more money than the Spurs are willing to pay him. You know, a better opportunity to show off his many skills with the Raptors in Toronto. But yeah, the Spurs have moved on. Tom, bring it to a serious.
Jeff: You think I’m being disingenuous, and I am not. I am being absolutely serious, and Tom can attest to this. We were in the media room out at the Vic yesterday because the beat writers were covering a Spurs Summer League practice. I realized that, you know, the columnists aren’t going to deign to show their face for that, but the two beat writers were out there. And that’s when the Mamou news broke. We were in the media room and it was a very it was very sad for all of us. We all were like, “Oh, no.” I’m not being disingenuous at all. He’s my favorite dude and we’re going to miss him a lot.
Host: Okay, that’s good to know.
Tom: First of all, I’m envious. Toronto’s a wonderful place. Wonderful place. So, I’m envious.
Tom: Yeah, Jeff showed an acceptable form of sadness yesterday, as did everyone else that was gathered. It was.
Jeff: It was a vigil.
Tom: It hurt, it hurt. We didn’t have much time to mourn though. We had we had interviews taking place shortly after the news broke. But yeah, I hate to see him go, man. What a great guy. And you know, personally, he was responsible for one of the best meals I had last season.
Host: That’s right.
Tom: A Christmas night trip to Cha Mama in the East Village in New York City. Me and my wife went there after Sandro had turned us on to it. He he took before the Spurs Christmas Day game, he took some teammates, some staffers, his brother, you know, girlfriends. They went to Cha Mama and had a hell of a great time. And when I went there with my wife, you know, the the staff there was singing his praises, saying he comes in all the time, leaves great tips.
Host: Georgian food.
Tom: Yeah, it was a Georgian, yeah, I’m sorry, Mike. Yeah, it was a Georgian restaurant.
Host: Like Zaxby’s?
Tom: Yeah, and it’s it’s it’s meat, cheese and bread. That’s that’s the extent of it.
Host: That is up my alley, brother.
Jeff: Yeah, I knew you were going to say that.
Tom: And and some great wine. So, yeah, but he great guy, man. It’s just all the way around just a wonderful guy to cover.
Jeff: Well, from what I hear from our compadres that cover the Celtics is we’re getting another kind of dude in Mr. Kornet. So, we can talk about him now if you’d like.
Host: Well, we could use the Sandro news to kind of shed light on the Spurs’ whole approach to free agency. And if you really want to break it down, we’ve learned a thing or two about what they’re prioritizing, what might be on the horizon. How they’re going to use what essentially boiled down to three open roster spots, which they had after the draft. The draft when they took two first-rounders, Carter Bryant and Dylan Harper, that gave them 12 contracts for next season, counting Julian Champagnie, which isn’t guaranteed, but which is one of the biggest bargains in the league. Of course, he’s going to come back. With three open spots and the money they had to use, if we want to really get into the weeds, was a mid-level exception, which was about $14 million a year. And they had the possible use of a bi-annual exception of around $5 million a year. And you figured you’re going to split those into three players maybe. Maybe one player and a couple of minimums. You knew that they needed a backup center. You knew that maybe they needed some shooting, a power forward type as well. What were they going to prioritize? I think listeners of the show last week remember that we mentioned Gershon Yabusele, a teammate of Victor Wembanyama’s on the French national team at the Olympics, a guy who had a pretty good year for the Philadelphia 76ers. That we thought that might have been a priority that the Spurs were going to go after. We also mentioned Brook Lopez, who is a guy who transformed his game from being a big lumbering guy who did all his work around the rim to be more of a three-point specialist. And we thought that that might be a target for the Spurs. I think in Jeff’s preview of free agency, he mentioned Luke Kornet as another possibility in the newspaper. And it turned out that the Spurs clearly prioritized a big man who does big man things. Not a Brook Lopez who went from the inside to out, but Luke Kornet. Jeff, I know you have a lot to say about him. He started his career kind of being a seven-footer who roamed around the three-point line. I don’t think he’s shot more than I mean he’s shot like 20 in the last three years combined. He is now a big man who protects the rim. Really, really good. The stats on his screen and roll numbers are darn near elite. I know it’s small sample size, but he’s a really he’s really good in the screen and roll game. Really good rebounder, like I said, really, really good rim protector. And this is a true center that the Spurs got. And by giving him four years and 40 million, that’s that’s their number one guy. And that basically meant that they weren’t going to be able to offer Yabusele what he ended up getting from the Knicks. And Jeff, I’ll just open it up. What do you think of the Spurs choosing this type of player, this specific player, to kind of be their marquee acquisition this July?
Jeff: It is very interesting, the point you just made that offensively, he’s done the opposite of what basically every other big man in the NBA in the last 10 years has done. Gone from being he was a decent three-point shooter, he hit in the mid-30s. And now just doesn’t take them. And by the way, playing for a Boston team that just shoots them like hot cakes.
Host: Yeah.
Jeff: Also funny. But yeah, he was over three from three-point range last year. Two years ago, he shot 100% though, he was one for one. But offensively, it’s it’s a throwback, an anachronism. He’s more like you say, a pick and roll player. But where he’s going to make his money, why the Spurs targeted him, why they’re bringing in this 29-year-old veteran center is so that when in those minutes when the great Victor Wembanyama is not on the floor, the interior defense, the Spurs interior defense does not fall off a cliff. They actually have another rim protector who can stop it from being just a complete layup line to the to the rim when Vic’s off the floor. I mean, last year we saw it. Number one, Victor only played in half the games. But the games he was in, when he’s on the floor, the Spurs have a top top 10 defense, top top eight defense, I believe it was. When he’s off the floor, it’s a disaster because the Spurs cannot keep anyone away from the rim without Victor Wembanyama around. And Luke Kornet, by the way, among among players who defended at least 200 this is this is a stat from our friend of the podcast that Paul Garcia, El Paso’s finest, put out there. But among players who defended at least 250 attempts at the rim last year, only three other players, not named Luke Kornet, limited opponents to a worse field goal percentage. One of them is on Luke Kornet’s new team. That’s Victor Wembanyama. The other two are Chet Holmgren and Daniel Gafford. So what you’re getting is elite rim protection to backup elite rim protection. And that’s why the Spurs went and drafted this guy to fill that very major glaring hole. And yes, there are lineups where Victor and Luke can probably play together, and you can have sort of a twin tower sort of approach. But I would expect the big benefit of this is is to have a really solid bench defender that is going to keep the thing afloat when Victor has to take a rest.
Host: That is huge. That is priority one. I appreciate you putting that out there. His his rim protection numbers are almost as good over like the last three years too. It’s not just a single year deal. He’s he’s top 10 over the past couple of seasons. But the other thing is, and this is interesting too, it’s not just a defense move. The Celtics net rating and again, we’re in the statistical weeds here, where some people’s eyes might be glazing over, including people on this podcast. But the Celtics were really good with Luke Kornet on the floor. And I think one reason if you want to get beyond his his raw numbers aren’t that great, like he’s averaging five points a game. It doesn’t seem like he fills up the box score in a traditional way. But I think one reason why he might be such a good fit on a good team is because you need when you have a team like the Celtics, which over the last couple of years, loaded with all-star types, with guys who are filling up the stat sheet in traditional ways, Tatum and Brown and on down the line. You need a guy just who’s willing to not need the ball and to and to screen and to offensive rebound. And it it sort of makes sense that the team would look better when you have a guy out there who’s just really good at what he does and focuses on that and allows the guys around him to do what they do. And I think that you’re right, Jeff, that the plan for this would be to be a backup and to be for Kornet to play the non-Wemby minutes. And that makes a lot of sense. But I think there’s some upside there to Luke Kornet playing with with with some of the Spurs’ better players and making them better.
Jeff: Yeah, of course. Of course.
Host: And you know, it’s And I’m not I’m not telling Jeff this. I’m kind of explaining that for everybody that this is not just a defensive specialist. It’s not just a necessarily a 15 to 18 minute a night kind of guy. I think there’s there’s more there. And there’s a reason why the Spurs made the obvious choice or not the obvious choice, but why the Spurs obviously made the choice to prioritize him over the other types of guys, bigger names that we thought that some out there thought might interest them. Kornet got more guaranteed money than Brook Lopez. Kornet got a lot more guaranteed money than Yabusele on down the line. The Spurs targeted this guy because they wanted him, not because they couldn’t get the other guys. And I think that’s significant.
Tom, what do you think?
Tom: Well, it continues what has amounted to an A-grade offseason for the Spurs. I mean, drafting Harper, drafting Carter Bryant, who they didn’t have to trade up to get. Um, you know, acquiring Kornet to fill a big, big need. So, it’s an A-grade offseason. Now, it could maybe slip just a bit if they don’t use the rest of their available funds to acquire someone that can help with shooting in free agency. But yeah, so far Brian Wright has done a pretty pretty darn good job in this offseason.
Host: That’s a you you never substitute taught or anything, did you? You never had any interest in being a teacher, Tom?
Tom: No, not really.
Host: Because what you’re saying here is.
Tom: I love I love teachers though. I love I love teachers, Mike.
Host: What you’re say because what you’re saying here is like there’s there’s that school of teachers giving out grades where everybody starts with an A and you have to lose points.
Tom: Yeah, yeah.
Host: And that’s that’s kind of what you’re saying. You’re starting with an A even though it’s incomplete. And there’s the other there’s the other school of thought that everyone starts with an F and you got to earn your way up to an A. Because it seems like that this is what you’re saying, that the A could slip if they don’t do enough with the rest.
Tom: And it’s not a big slip either. It’s not a big slip at all. I mean, come on. I mean what they’ve done so far has helped them get better for years to come, possibly.
Host: Still a hole in terms of three-point shooting. Jeff, do you expect that to be addressed or are those last two spots which are available going to be third-string fill in the margins, you know, a third-string center Bismack Biyombo type of player to just provide some insurance or do you expect a true difference maker to be added with the rest of what the Spurs have to do this offseason?
Jeff: I mean, I think they’ll definitely look at it, but what’s the most they have for for one contract? 5.1 million?
Host: Five, yeah.
Jeff: Now there’s also the trade market. You could do some swinging stuff that way. But probably because with 5.1 million, you know, the names you’re you’re the names you’re going to chase are probably names that are I can’t even come up with right now. Like some of the names we looked at before before or we talked about before free agency started, like oh, maybe they could get Luke Kennard. Well, he went for $11 million. Maybe Duncan Robinson. Well, he went for $12 million a year. And so you’re going to have to look a tier below that on a team where if you look at it, the Spurs have 10 players that could play right now. Like they have 10 solid solid top 10. Those 10 aren’t going to play like you usually play eight, you know. So you’re asking.
Host: Not counting Carter Bryant, you got a 10 and then you got Carter Bryant winning a wing is probably 11.
Jeff: Those 10 aren’t going to play, like you usually play eight, you know. So you’re asking.
Host: Teams play you can play 10 now. I think you can play. I think 10 guys are going to be playing a lot.
Jeff: You’re asking a guy, a shooter to come in for 5.1 million with a very limited role. Like the the pool of players you’re going to be pulling from is going to be pretty small if you go that route. Now, if you want to like you mentioned, if you want to try to figure out some way to swing a trade, a lot of ways that makes a lot more sense to me. You get a better player and you move someone that opens up playing time for the new player coming in. I mean, so to answer your question, I would I would expect them to to look at that in every way, shape or form because everyone knows they need shooting. It did surprise me this week when I was putting together my free agency preview that the Spurs actually ranked seventh in the league in three-pointers made last year. So that that surprised me. The percentage was bottom third still, but even that’s been on the rise. So it’s definitely a need. Like I’m not going to sit here and argue that it’s not a need, but I think it’s clear that the big man was more of a need. And now they’re going to try to patch the rest of it together with what they got.
Host: And having looked at those three-point numbers like you did, Jeff, did anything stick out to you in terms of this player already on the roster is going to be or at least has the potential to be a lot better next year? I mean, some of these guys have kind of settled, the water has reached its own level. We kind of know what they are. Is there room for improvement from a younger-ish player on the Spurs roster where some of that three-point percentage improvement could come from?
Jeff: Sure. Like you’ve got.
Host: Jeremy Sochan?
Jeff: You’ve got I mean you’ve got you’ve got I mean, this may not be the answer people want to hear, but you’ve got a guy like Stephon Castle whose percentage was so bad last year that it it could improve markedly this year. You know, or I I think Victor Wembanyama can be a better three-point shooter. I think a lot of his issues to start last season. He started last season in a horrible three-point slump. I think many of his issues to start last season was just shot selection. And once he figured out where to get better three-pointed, he was on a pretty good groove before he went down. So, I think there are I I’m not going to sit here and say this roster is is awesome as is, competing for a championship, it’s got all the three-point shooting it needs. That’s obviously not the case. But there are some guys that can be better. Um, one thing you might worry about is like Harrison Barnes had the best three-point shooting season of his career and is he due for some slippage? Just natural slippage. So, what do your gains you make with other players? Do you lose it there? I don’t know.
Host: Yeah. Um, I think that if you look at just the games that Da’Aaron Fox was around for, he’s shot 27% from three-point range as a Spur. I think that probably gets better. He’s not elite, but he’s he’s better than 27.4. I think that Stephon Castle will be better than 28.5. Um, Harrison Barnes, like you said, might be worse than 43.3. There was like a there was a video going around on the internet where it looked like a Jeremy Sochan impersonator was making like seven three-pointers in a row at some workout in some gym something. Did you see that?
Jeff: Yeah, it was at Clark. I think it was AI.
Host: Oh, was it was that at Clark?
Jeff: Yeah, I think it was AI though.
Host: Yeah. No, I mean to be completely serious, like he’s working on his shot. We talked to him at an event he did a month ago or so, a few weeks ago. He is working on his shot. He’s taking that hitch out. Look good in those videos, but I’ve heard this from countless players every year about all the work they put in in the summer. You see the videos that look awesome. Sometimes it shows up on the court and sometimes it doesn’t. And so I would like to reserve judgment until you see it happening on the court in games that matter.
Host: I agree. No disrespect intended. But he’s he’s 30% until he proves otherwise, like he said, under the lights. It would be huge if he could get to 35. That’s that makes him such a more effective player in so many ways. And makes the team so much better because defenders have to guard him there. I’m not sure they have to guard him there if he continues to make 30.
Jeff: I had someone tell me, um, and this is sort of the unbridled optimism time of the year right after the draft. But like if things pan out, Carter Bryant could be the best shooter on the team right now.
Host: Well, that says two things.
Jeff: He’s he’s yeah, exactly.
Host: It says something about Carter Bryant. It says something about the team that he’s going into. Exactly.
Jeff: Exactly. And I think we maybe you guys can correct me if I’m wrong. We think Carter Bryant’s probably starts in the G League mostly for the first year?
Host: Tom’s the G League expert. That season doesn’t start right away, right?
Jeff: Right. That’s what I mean. But once it starts.
Host: But once it starts. We’ll see we’ll see how he fits in before the G League starts. And maybe maybe there are some minutes there for him. The skill that does not need a whole lot of NBA repetitions to be able to get on the court is to defend the dog out of somebody. And if he can defend people.
Jeff: Right.
Host: Like there might be a place for him. Now for learning the whole team defense, learning all the ins and outs and all that type of stuff, that might take some time. But if he steps in right away and can prove that he can defend people and make an open three-point shot, maybe that’s the type of player that can get some early run.
Tom: We talked to Mike Boice about that yesterday. And, yeah, he he said that the emphasis with Carter is on defense. And then Carter echoed that saying, you know, it’s the quickest way for him to get on the court. And, yeah, no, back to the three-point shooting, I don’t think we mentioned Champagnie. He was at 37% last year. He could be better.
Host: I think that’s probably who he is. 37%'s pretty good.
Tom: I think he could be better. I think he could be better.
Host: 37% is pretty good. The the ones that they need the obvious holes are like Castle at 28 and Sochan at 30 and even Fox at 27. Those numbers need to go up. And if they do go up, then you’ll see a team-wide improvement. But yeah, like I guess this is just a convoluted way of saying that if they don’t add that Luke Kennard type of player on the free agent market, there’s a way for them to not be quite as bad from three-point range as they were. Ineffective.
Jeff: The other point I’ve been making about this is like people need to not look at this as the finished product roster. Whatever comes out of this offseason. Just because the Spurs are rolling this out here and going, “All right, we’re competing for championships now.” There’s still going to be holes. There’s still going to be deficiencies. If they don’t address the three-point shooting need completely this summer, that’s okay. If they don’t address it in season at the trade deadline, that’s okay. I think that’s probably what they will look at next summer. Use that big mid-level exception instead of now that you’ve got Luke Kornet, you’ve got your your front court stabilized. You can go next summer and look at look at to spend on the Luke Kennard of next summer, whoever that might be. I think people still need to realize this is not a team that’s that’s expecting to compete for a championship this year. And so it’s going to not have a roster that’s championship-worthy. I think the expectation to compete for a playoff spot are absolutely in line. And I think this team has the roster to do that even if they make not one other move this this offseason.
Host: By the way, like competing I agree competing for a playoff spot absolutely should be the expectation. It’s still really freaking hard in the Western Conference to get in. Like look at just look up and down the.
Jeff: This is another game we played yesterday for Summer League, yeah.
Host: Every every team, like there for the Spurs to make the top 10, not necessarily the playoffs, just the play-in. You’re going to need either like a Sacramento to take a step back. And Sacramento’s not terrible. Sacramento’s still got some guys. Memphis to take a step back. And Memphis traded Desmond Bane, but they still have some guys. Golden State still has Steph Curry and Jimmy Butler and Draymond Green for crying out loud. Like they’re not as deep as they used to be. But those are the types of teams that would have to drop below 10 for the Spurs to make the play-in. And that’s no guarantee there.
Jeff: We mentioned this every year. There’s always a team that gets hurt, that just where everything falls apart. Like the Pelicans have in recent years. There’s always a team that kind of drops out and the Spurs should be poised to move in when that team falls. But it’s not guaranteed that you’re top eight or even top 10.
Host: You played this we played this game again. We had a long time waiting for Summer League practice to open up yesterday. So we played this game too. With another friend of the podcast, the great Don Harris. And then I said, what do you think the expectation should be for next year if they don’t make another move? Well, they’ll win 40 games. Oh, yeah, sure. They’ll win they’ll win 40. Well, 40 wins last year gets you 10th place in the West. By one game. Don said, actually, I think they could be five or six games over over 500, like easy. Okay. So you’re saying they could win 47 games. Yeah, 47 games. All right. Last year 47 games gets you ninth. It gets you ninth by a lot, but like eighth place Memphis had 48 wins last year. So still with with that kind of improvement, you know, based on last year’s standings.
Host: 47 wins gets you another lottery pick.
Jeff: Yeah, you’re still in the play-in. Having to fight your way out of that. So, I mean, well, we can we can do this more in October and September, but it does feel like we may be in the spot where the Spurs are going to be much improved over last season and still like, I don’t know about the playoffs or not.
Host: Related to that, and this this sort of plays into the Spurs’ restraint this offseason. Patience if you will. When you look at Houston, I understand the impulse of certain fans who have suffered through a lot in recent years watching the Spurs play and have been waiting for the longest period in many Spurs fans’ lives of waiting for the competitive window to open again. I understand the feeling of antsy-ness and to see what Houston has done this offseason where they’ve really said, “Our time is now.” And we have all these long-term players and we’re going to build for the future, but we’re going to start getting some guys who can help us right now. And I understand why some Spurs fans are saying, “Hey, that should be us and we should start doing that too.” But in a way this almost makes it make more sense for the Spurs to show restraint because let these teams that are playing for now do that now while you kind of wait it out. You wait out the time for Oklahoma City’s roster to get really, really expensive, which it’s about to get. You wait out the time where Houston kind of has to pay the piper for going in on Kevin Durant and Dorian Finney-Smith and some of the veterans that they’ve added, Capela and Adams. I think Houston’s doing a great job of team building and I think they’re going to be a force for a long time. But they’re moving their window up. The Spurs are keeping their window in the same position, if that makes sense. And I think that’s the right approach if you’re the Spurs. You still want to you still want to target I’ve said it many times like 2027 through 2032. That’s when you think you’re going to be the class of the conference. And you shouldn’t feel compelled to keep up with Houston, who had a really, really good offseason. Don’t get me wrong. I think they they’re going to be a force. But I don’t I don’t think you speed up because other teams are speeding up. I think in some ways you do the opposite. Does that make sense to anybody?
Jeff: Yes, Houston won 52 games last year and was second place in the West, so that’s the time you want to you want to go all in or or close to all in. Now, that said, they won 52 games and were second in the West, but they were also 16 games behind the Thunder, you know, with 52 wins. But I think I think when the time comes where the Spurs are winning 52 games and are right there near the top of the conference, I think that’s where you’ll see them make those Durant-like moves, you know.
Host: And I mean there there’s going to be if there’s if there’s hope for what I mentioned earlier, that 2027 to into the next decade reign, you’re starting to see the other teams that we can pencil into the playoffs this year, without any doubt, the Denver Nuggets got better this offseason. Golden State has Curry and Butler, like I mentioned, they’re probably going to be there. Those are the types of teams that are going to they’re approaching sort of a cliff. And more power to them for maximizing what they’ve done so far. Great job by the Nuggets to add some help for Jokic this offseason. I think the Warriors still have some hope to maybe make one more run and they should be trying to make one more run. But 2027, 2028, that’s when they’re going to start paying for those moves and that’s when there will be opportunity for the Spurs not just to move past them, but to be up towards that OKC Houston type level. I’m not sure what the how the Lakers fit into this. This is not a Lakers podcast, but that’s sort of fascinating what’s going on there with their two timelines. I think it’s just the the point here is I I think the Spurs are going about this the right way, even then if a podcast about Luke Kornet isn’t the sexiest offseason podcast in the NBA this week.
Jeff: I mean, from their perspective, they have their core, they have their core of stars that they’re building around, and their number one star that they’re building around. And so taking a couple of offseasons to now fill in the blanks with a Luke Kornet, with something next summer that’s that’s going to move the needle. That’s that seems a smart way to do it to me.
Tom: Back.
Tom: Real quick, back to our rookie class. Another thing that stood out yesterday about Carter Bryant. He’s he’s got some big mitts. You know, as as our late colleague Tim Griffin used to say, he’s got a poor man’s version of Kawhi Leonard’s hands.
Host: His body is his body is Kawhi-like when he first came in.
Tom: Yeah. And they were really impressed, you know, and this was on a scouting report, just the way he moves, you know, he doesn’t let guys turn the corner on him. And, you know, we talked, Jeff and I talked to him yesterday about Sean Elliott, what it was like, you know, being on that campus where Sean is a god and then coming here where Sean is, you know, in his 25th year.
Host: We just asked those questions for the benefit of Sean.
Jeff: Yeah, yeah.
Host: Yeah. But there’s there’s comparison.
Jeff: People might forget, but, you know, for the first portion of his career, he was a heck of a defender.
Tom: Oh, yeah, the ninja. Yeah. And Carter Bryant’s certainly in that mold. And, also I just wanted to say real quick, I made a mistake. Cha Mama is in Chelsea, not the East Village.
Host: Oh, I went to.
Tom: Gave the wrong location.
Host: I was in the car. I was in the car driving there and I went the wrong location.
Tom: In case you’re going in New York City this summer.
Host: And to our excellent producer Moni Bach. I think we have to start over. I think I think because Tom messed that up, we need to stop and just re-record the whole thing.
Tom: I corrected it.
Host: Because Tom got that wrong. Well, that’s good to know.
Jeff: Anyway, but one more thing on Carter one more one last last thing on Carter Bryant. I think there’s kind of a timeline a way of thinking where he spends this year kind of in the G League, maybe just kind of on the fringes of playing time in the NBA. Gets better next summer and he’s really one of your big additions to next year’s roster. All of a sudden he’s a guy that’s he’s your shooter that you’ve added, you know, so.
Host: On that note of watching him progress, Jeff and Tom both will be able to get some first-hand looks at Carter Bryant.
Jeff: I only get to see Carter. I only get to see Carter. Dylan’s.
Host: Well yeah.
Jeff: At Las Vegas.
Host: That’s what I wanted to get into. We’re going to be back on a two-week schedule on the podcast here. We’ll see you in two weeks. And on that podcast, we’ll be discussing some Summer League. Jeff will be in San Francisco. Tom will be in Vegas. Real quick before we go, anything to look forward to for the people watching Summer League from afar over the next couple of weeks?
Jeff: I mean, like I said, I get to see Carter Bryant. I get the first crack at him. Dylan Harper. I don’t know if we’ve actually mentioned it on this podcast, but he’s been ruled out for the San Francisco portion of the proceedings with a minor groin issue, which by the way, I saw a video of him doing one-on-one workouts at Summer League practice. The groin issue must be pretty minor or they wouldn’t have him doing anything. But he’s not allowed to do on-court work right now. So I’m going to get to see Carter Bryant. Um, looking forward to that just to see what he’s got. As Tom mentioned, everyone told us yesterday, you know, from the coaching staff to Carter himself that we’re going to see him defend the heck out of people in San Francisco. So I’m looking forward to seeing if he can live up to that promise.
Host: And then maybe some Dylan Harper in Vegas. Tom will be there for that. We will discuss it all in a couple of weeks. Until we see you again, take care of each other and keep it real.
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