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00:17Let's welcome in Keith Smith, Spotrack Sports, and you can also hear him on the Front Office
00:23podcast.
00:24Keith, thank you so much for joining us.
00:25Really appreciate it, man.
00:27I appreciate it.
00:28Thank you for having me.
00:30Absolutely.
00:31Let's start with Jimmy Butler, and it's been reported a day or two ago that the prices
00:37dropped and there might be more teams bidding for his services.
00:42Where do you think he ends up?
00:43Jimmy Butler.
00:44Yeah, the history tells me most of these guys get to where they want to go, so I still would
00:52put the funds in the driver's seat, but it's so difficult because it just involves finding
00:57a home for Bradley Beal that he will approve of, so not sure that'll get there, but we've
01:02heard Milwaukee might be interested.
01:05There was some buzz a little earlier today that what if Sacramento wanted to try to get
01:09involved there.
01:10Now someone said that's not probably the direction it'll go.
01:13Maybe there's a surprise team or two that we haven't heard yet, but I do think he gets
01:18moved.
01:19I think we're too far down this road.
01:21I think too many things have been said and done now between the two parties, but where
01:26he's going to land, that part I'm still not sure of.
01:29Let me ask you this.
01:30There's a lot going on here at Warrior Land in regard to the future and what you do with
01:34Steph and Dre, and we know Curry's pretty much untouchable, but Draymond Green on the
01:40open market, we know he's injured right now, he should be back.
01:44What do you think the market is for a guy like Draymond Green if somehow the Warriors
01:48were to shop him?
01:49Boy, that's tough, but I think the challenge there is you have to acquire him knowing he's
01:55okay with it.
01:56Because if you're going to bring him in and there's no sense that he's all about it, then
02:02you might think things could get sideways on you there pretty quickly.
02:06So I think if you knew, all right, he's in, he's happy to be here, this is where he wants
02:11to be.
02:12I think I'd feel pretty comfortable giving the Warriors a first round pick for him going
02:16forward, especially if he was one of these teams that right on the edge of title contention
02:21and I think he puts me over the top.
02:23I'd feel very comfortable giving up a first round pick to get him, because we know what
02:26a game-changing defensive player he can still be.
02:30Keith Smith joining us on 95.7 The Game, he's a contributor at Spotrack, and you can also
02:34hear him on the Front Office Show podcast.
02:36All right, so the Warriors, my understanding is they're about $7 million or so over the
02:42luxury tax.
02:44And Bobby Marks suggested that they may just try to move a Gary Payton II or a Kevon Looney
02:50to get under the tax.
02:52That would obviously be disappointing to Warrior fans, because they think they're in on some
02:56other guys.
02:57But my question is this, what advantages would the Warriors get by getting under the luxury
03:03tax with that kind of move?
03:06Yeah, this would be all about, let's start resetting the tax repeater clock and all the
03:12things that go on with that, as well as, right now, this looks like it's going to be a record
03:18luxury tax disbursement to all the non-tax teams, and the Warriors have obviously been
03:22driving that money going out.
03:25Now this would be a chance, let's get some coming back in from an ownership standpoint.
03:29But from a roster building, you're mostly looking at, all right, let's reset the repeater
03:33clock.
03:35Let's get out from underneath the tax burden.
03:37They've already done well with that this summer by getting under the second apron, and that
03:43freed up the ability to make some of the moves they made in the offseason.
03:46But that's what it would be about.
03:49It's not going to get anybody all excited, right?
03:51Because fans are going to look at it and say, we didn't get a player, we didn't get anything
03:54out of this.
03:55But long-term, if that turns into, hey, we kind of cleaned things up a little bit here
03:59and we're going to jump back into our spending ways in the future, because we did that a
04:04couple years ago, then you're playing the long game there a little bit.
04:08Hey, Keith, we came in, and I'm a fan.
04:10We came into this season and we thought the Warriors were saying anything for Curry, but
04:13if you're watching the Warriors this season and Curry, Keith, he needs some offensive
04:17help.
04:18And I just, it's a thin line between get him the help and then sacrifice the future.
04:25But if I threw a name at you, like a 24-point scorer night, Zach Levine, if you're Joe Lakeup,
04:31wouldn't his talents kind of supersede, you know, worrying about the future and trying
04:36to make one last ditch effort with Steph and Draymond?
04:39Yeah, I would hope so.
04:41I think the way I've looked at it is, I don't know that you go all in on making moves for
04:48guys that are, yeah, maybe they take us into the eighth seed.
04:53But if you feel like, hey, these guys can get us up into maybe range to compete for
04:58the top six, or we feel like we're seventh, eighth, but we can make a real run at this
05:02thing from a lower seed, then sure.
05:05And Zach Levine, the guy who has played really, really well, he's been very healthy this year.
05:11He looks fully healthy.
05:12Moving forward, yeah, it's a big contract.
05:14But I would think, I feel like you kind of owe it to Stephen Curry and Draymond Green
05:19and Steve Kerr to do what you can to try to push things as far as you can with a couple
05:26more years left for this one.
05:29And you don't need to get silly about it where here's every pick and swap under the sun and
05:33every young player.
05:34But if you can find the right upgrade that can really help the rest of this season and
05:38in the next couple of seasons, I would certainly be interested in doing something like that.
05:43Keith Smith joining us on 95.7 The Game.
05:46Let me throw some names at you, and you tell me if you think they'll be moved or not.
05:50It sounds like Butler, you believe, will probably be moved at some point.
05:56What about Vucevic, Chicago?
05:58Yeah, I think there's a good chance we see him get moved just because the Bulls seem
06:04to be getting a little bit more reasonable, or what they're asking.
06:07I always say the trade deadline is like two scales.
06:10One team is saying, ah, we can't give it any more than a couple of seconds, and the other
06:14team is saying, no, we need at least two firsts, and then everybody comes to their senses a
06:18week or so off from the deadline and it's, all right, a single first and matching salary
06:23and everything.
06:24Yeah, let's go.
06:25So I think there's a good chance we see Vuce get moved.
06:27What about, let me just run down a couple guys real quick.
06:30Zion Williamson.
06:32I don't think he's going to get traded.
06:34I think you're going to have to kind of, you really come with a real offer, and I think
06:38the Pelicans are going to look at it and say, we've been this far down this path with this
06:41guy.
06:42Let's see what the rest of the season looks like, and then we can reevaluate in the off
06:45season if we need to.
06:46All right, I'll just throw Levine, Paul George, Brandon Ingram, and De'Aaron Fox.
06:53So I do think Fox will get moved.
06:55I think the timing of that report and everything that came out was very intentional.
06:59I hear of, let's get this done sooner rather than later, because I think he wants to get
07:03where he's going to get locked in an extension.
07:06I think we will see Brandon Ingram, I think they're going to do their best.
07:11I think they're going to continue to try.
07:13That might be one that takes all the way up to trade deadline day, but I think that could
07:17be a part of, if we start seeing the Jimmy Butler's move in and two, three other teams
07:22are involved, maybe you see Brandon Ingram as part of that if some of the salary starts
07:26moving around.
07:27The other two guys, Levine I'm not fully sold on, it's just a big number.
07:30It's a harder number to move, so we'll see.
07:33And then, now I'm forgetting who the other one you stamped on.
07:36Paul George.
07:37Paul George, yeah, I think that one too, same thing.
07:40Big contract, and I think Philly's going to say, eh, trading a guy right after we just
07:44signed him, even though everything's kind of gone sideways on us, let's see what we
07:48need to look like in the off-season.
07:50Speaking of the off-season, if the Warriors do stamp Pat Keith last year, it was Paul
07:54George and Mark It In, they were kind of the big fish.
07:57If they stamp Pat, who would be some big fish that would be available this summer?
08:02Yeah, that's kind of a little bit of the issue.
08:05This is a pretty weak free agent class, and part of what you're seeing here is the Brooklyn
08:10Nets and Washington Wizards are the only two teams that project to have caps, and yeah,
08:17probably the Nets will have mats, and then the Wizards are just going to be probably
08:21in the $30 million range, because they're just such a weak free agent class.
08:24There's a lot of good role players potentially available out there, guys like Malcolm Brogdon
08:30could be available, a handful of players in that kind of range, we'll see what happens
08:34with Chris Middleton and Bobby Portis, Jimmy Butler could still put himself out on the
08:40market, we don't really know there, but the extensions have become so lucrative for these
08:45guys, and so many of these guys just want to lock in money when they can right away
08:49that it's pretty rare that anybody of note hits the market right now, that'll swing back
08:54eventually, that'll come back around, but for now, that's kind of the world we're living
08:59in.
09:00What do you think the Warriors are going to do?
09:01This summer?
09:02I think it'll...
09:03Let's go deadline first, yeah.
09:04Okay, yeah, the deadline, I do think they're going to be active, I don't know that we're
09:12going to see it just be a straight salary dump to get out of the tax, I think they can
09:16do that while making other moves, that's probably something, I think they're going to poke around
09:22a handful of these guys that are available to see what they can do, there they've got
09:25a couple of expiring contracts that they can work with, it's really important to note
09:29Dennis Schroeder can be put into a trade next Wednesday or Thursday with outgoing salary,
09:35that's a rule that was changed in this new CBA, so they'd be able to do that if they
09:40wanted to, so they can get to 30, 40 million in matching salary and get in on just about
09:45anybody comes available, the question will be do they need to give up any of the kids,
09:49do they need to put draft picks in there, and then this summer I expect it to be similar
09:53to like it was this year, but the good thing in the summer time is your options expand
09:58because you have expanded rosters, the Nets will be sitting on cafe, the Wizards will
10:02be sitting on cafe, you just have a lot more teams that can act as facilitators and help
10:06you make a big move.
10:07Hey Keith, you had mentioned the news dropping yesterday and I'm still shocked out of Sacramento
10:12and De'Aaron Fox, you think there's going to be a lot of suitors around the corner because
10:16that's kind of weird, they fired the coach, they're playing good ball, but my goodness,
10:21I feel like he's got to be at the top of a lot of teams' list.
10:25Yeah, I've heard at least 10, 11, 12 teams that are very interested in seeing what it
10:31would take, and that's beyond just a courtesy call of, hey let's throw a stupid offer at
10:36you, you say no, then we can leak that we tried to make the trade, which is that's part
10:41of the game this time of year, but I think there are teams legitimately interested, and
10:46there's not the sense where, in the past, we've heard these guys say, I want to get
10:51to X team, and then that causes other teams to be, alright, we're backing off.
10:56I think teams already want to go to San Antonio, but he's not saying it's San Antonio or bus,
11:02so what that turns into is, hey, let's see what this looks like, maybe we can make a
11:06real run at it, maybe we can really try here to do something, and I think that's one of
11:11the things that's kind of changing things up a little bit here and makes that market
11:15a little wider, and I think that was intentional on Fox's part, unlike Butler and Miami, where
11:20it feels like those two sides, there's a lot of acrimony, they don't like each other, they're
11:23ready for a divorce, it feels like Fox and the Kings have kind of reached that point
11:27where, this just isn't happening, it's not working, let's go our separate ways, but let's
11:31do it in a way where we both benefit from this, and I think that's kind of where we're
11:35at, and that generally leads to a more productive trade environment.
11:38Wow, Keith, great stuff, really appreciate it, and enjoy the next week in a day, it's
11:44going to be a lot of fun.
11:46I appreciate it, thank you again for having me.