Fallout From the LeBron Signing! Plus, Fake Curry Trades and Mets Corner!

The Zach Lowe Show

The episode dives into the fallout from LeBron James joining the Philadelphia 76ers, exploring the implications for teams like the Golden St

Key takeaways

• LeBron's move to the 76ers left Cleveland and Golden State in a tough spot, with the Warriors seemingly entering the end of their era.
• The 76ers' defensive concerns and the potential of Joel Embiid's role in the playoffs are discussed.

Main topics

• LeBron James' move to the 76ers and its impact on other teams
• The Golden State Warriors' missed opportunities and their future

Notable quotes

"I think the smarter move is don't sign a contract extension. He's eligible for one now, two years and a gazillion dollars, and do what LeBron did. Go into free agency and pick my team so that a team doesn't have to gut its roster to get me now."

Conclusion

The episode provides a comprehensive look at the NBA and MLB landscape

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Coming up on the Zach Lowe show, we've all had time to digest LeBron James, Philadelphia 76er, alongside Jalen Brown, Joe L&B, Tyrese Maxey, VJ, Edgecom. Now KATIVIUS CALDWELL-Pope has also joined them. It's time to sift through the teams that didn't get LeBron James, starting with the Golden State Warriors who appear to just be peering out toward the end of the Steph Curry era. They re-signed Draymond Green about 30 minutes ago to a one-year, 27.7 million. deal, exactly the deal that he opted out of. What went wrong for the Warriors? Are they actually dead? What were the missed opportunities around the way that were actually realistic? Because this is a little bit of a depressing end of career situation for Steph Curry as of now. Doesn't mean this is going to be this way all the time for the Warriors. We talk about that. And then their whole tier of the West is kind of interesting because after the top six, which we'll see if they're the same top six, Portland, John Morant, Phoenix did a lot of stuff over the summer. We'll talk about them. And then Denver is not in their tier. It's above their tier, but they're in a very sticky situation with Peyton Watson. They were in one with Spencer Jones. So we're kind of going around the West. LeBron, all of that. Moat tequila is here to talk about all of that. And then Sean Fennessey and I recorded a Mets Corner and we did it before Francisco Lindor hit two home runs and had a triple in a 14-3 win last night over the Braves. Keep Francisco Lindor. That's all coming up on the Zach Lowe show. Welcome to the Zach Lowe show. It's Tuesday afternoon. We've had some time now to sip through LeBron James, Philadelphia 76er. Let it sink in. It's a real thing. Jalen Brown is also a 76er or not a Celtic. Joel and Beat is still a 76er. Catavius Colwell Pope is going to be a 76er, a clutch reunion in Philadelphia. And it's time to sort through some of the collateral damage that LeBron's decision left in Cleveland, in Miami, and especially in Golden State where the Steph Curry era appears to be heading toward a whimper of an ending. Mo DiKiel, you know him, you love him, you used here to help us sort through all of it. How are you doing, bud? I'm doing great, Zach. I'm ready to roll right now. I'm just happy LeBron got it done before August, because that was my concern when we were going to go into August with it. We were not going to go into August with it. We did not go into August with it. It's still July. LeBron is a Sixer. And right before we went on this show today. Draymond Green re-signed a one year, $27.7 million deal with the Warriors, basically the same deal he opted out of to potentially give the Warriors to flexibility to sign LeBron James, which they were not able to do. And not unexpected. Draymond is still a very good player. One of the 10 to 12 best defensive players in the NBA. His offense has declined precipitously. His ability to be a real true playmaking hub has declined a bit with it. But still quite a good player on a team that is just, kind of a weird team. It's the first real move they've done other than drafting Yaxel Landabor who was awesome in Summer League. We'll talk more about the Warriors in a minute. Do you have any leftover Philadelphia? LeBron James thoughts, Moad to Kill? Yeah, I think you know, we're also focused on the offensive end that we're not really looking at the defensive end a little bit in Philly and how's that's all going to kind of slot itself out. You know, I know look, Jalen Brown's good defender. I think Edgecombe is going to be their point of attack guy. If They can keep him beat when he's on the floor near the rim, I think makes a big difference. But I do have concerns about that. Like you go look at the one he played in the next series. They put him out in space and it's a problem, right? And you have issues with what you have to deal with. And I think those are the questions I'll be very curious about. They're not a great rebounding team. So like how do they fix that? Where does that come along? Obviously, we know the depth issues with their backcourt, with their front court and how they deal with the size. but those are things I don't think has really been discussed as much. Because again, we always just focus on the offense. But I think that's something to really kind of keep an eye on. I talked about that exact thing earlier this week or over the weekend when I did. Whenever I record, I can't remember. It's summer. Just every day is a different day. I completely agree with you. I get why people are worried about the offense and how all these guys with 30 plus percent usage rates are going to mesh. I personally am not really worried about that just because minutes staggering slash guys missing games. slash Tyrese Maxi being a really great off ball player. I think Vijay Edgolm playing mostly off the ball is probably healthy for this stage of his career and he's going to learn so much playing with LeBron. I'm not worried too much. It'll be interesting. I'm not worried too much about it. The defense to me is a bigger potential. I want to say issue because I think there'll be a solid defensive team, but are they going to be a top eight, top 10 defensive team? I don't know. You mentioned Embed in the playoffs against the Knicks after his week of glory against the Celtics. should be noted that it was like post appendicitis, Joel Embed, along with chronic knee issues, although I don't know how serious those were in the playoffs, Joelle Embed. But look, I mean, that's the whole thing. Embed's the whole thing, unless it until there's a different starting center on the team, and I'm not convinced that that's even possible, even if the Sixers wished it were so, and I'm not sure that they do. Can they manage Joel Embed through, forget a regular season, multiple playoff rounds, And that could take many forms. As I've said before, it could take, hey, we're up too well. We're going to sit you in game three. It could be, you know, we just won seven game series. We're going to rest you in game one. It could take a lot of different forms. And now the team is talented enough that at least that might be a viable way to get through three playoff series. I'm not going to pick them to make the finals, but they are in the conversation. I think they have the second best finals odds in the East. But I agree with you that. The defense is a big question mark. KCP, no harm, no foul. I mean like a potential 3 and D guy off the bench who knows LeBron very well. Fine. Like put him next to Simons and Dean Wade and their backup fives, which is still, I think, kind of a weak spot. But, you know, fine. That's no harm, no foul. Yeah. I think that's, you know, it's I like the KCP pickup and the, in the opportunity, you know, getting him on the buyout market and and jumping in in that area. And again, we've seen what KCP can do when he plays with LeBron, when he plays with D'Angelo Russell. We've seen what it looks like when he doesn't. And that hasn't been very good. But hopefully they can kind of recreate that magic that he had when he was with the Lakers and teamed up with LeBron in the way he goes. You know, listen, the Simon's aspect of it, like I'm interested to see how that plays. And, you know, they're going to bring a lot of defensive utility off the bench. Like he's at KCP, Wade, and those guys, it just comes down to Embed. And it's also going to come down to Bona. It's going to come down to Huck 40, right, in terms of their backup positions and how they're able to hold up. They'd probably need to go try to find somebody else if they can at the center position because those guys are just generally backups at this point. And I don't feel like it's something that they should feel very comfortable going into for the night set when Embed doesn't play. And I know we've, you know, I think you even mentioned it on one of the podcasts. Like we are going to see LeBron play the five. So, you know, that's going to happen. But it's not something that's going to be long term. And that's going to be on the night he plays, LeBron is actually playing. So I think they still need to kind of figure that whole area out. There's still work to be done in Philly. But again, this is going to be an awesome sort of fun thing to watch. And I'm not, I'm with you. I'm not that worried about the offense event. They will figure it out. And the truth is, though, they all have to sacrifice something. And that's just what it's going to be. And they're all going to sacrifice usage. All their usage is all going to take a dip. Nobody's going to all of a sudden usage climb in this situation. But they got to figure out what they can do offensively. I think this is a great opportunity for Nick Nurse to get really creative on the offensive end. I know, you know, nobody likes talking about. certain offensive philosophies, but this is a team that can run some triangle offense and get some good stuff out of it. This team can have a lot of movement with what they do. They can run a multi-layered offense, you know, with an action on the strong side, with the pin down on the weak side or some other stuff going on with so many high IQ players. Like, I'm pretty excited to see how that kind of plays itself out. I think just, and they can run. They can run like hell in transition. Everybody but Embiid is built to play that way. Look, I'm, I, this is, I think, the most. fun LeBron outcome. I think it's reasonable for him to have concluded that if he didn't want to go to Denver for whatever reason, and it doesn't appear that was ever realistic, and he didn't want to go be Danny Glover and lethal weapon, I'm too old for this shit in Minnesota, and it appears he did not, then I think this is a reasonable place to land if his priority is, I want to try to actually win. I want to win into May and June and chase a fifth ring, not that he's ring chasing. He's not of already addressed that. Go ahead. Can I jump it? Everybody should be ring chasing. That's the point. I don't, I don't, all 30 teams are chasing a trophy. All the players should be chasing the rings. Like I don't, I don't get bad with these guys that are ring chasing. Maybe if it's, I'm not going to play and I'm going to sit at the end of the bench and just want to get the championship ring. Sure. But like, he's going to play. He's going to be a big part of it. Like I don't, I don't, I hate the phrase. The only places that would have been. and like, oh, really, our San Antonio in Oklahoma City, and he was never going to those places. I think Cleveland would have been equally viable as Philadelphia, perhaps even, Bill and I vehemently disagree on this. He wrote the Cavs off completely because of the Hardin, LeBron, Mitchell, fit. And I get that. It's not the most attractive three-man on-ball machine, particularly with Hardin's dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble tendencies. But the double big thing of Mowgli and Allen is interesting. It's in the east, not in the West where you're probably going to have to beat both of those juggernauts. to get to the finals. But here are some things that having had a few days now to sift through all this, here are some things that I'm pretty certain of. The hardened and not Darius Garland thing was a pretty significant obstacle for the Cavs. If they have never made the Hardin trade, I think they have a much better chance of getting LeBron. I don't know if they get him because maybe he just wanted to do something new. That's in keeping with his career. And that's not to say they shouldn't have made that trade. they were trying to go all in for this season and they didn't trust Garland's health. And they had good reason not to. The Jalen Brown trade, I don't think the Sixers get LeBron James without Jalen Brown. I think that that seems like common sense as of now, 72, 96 hours later. It just can't be overstated that the Celtics not only traded Jalen Brown to the Sixers and let them get off Paul George, but also enabled them to get LeBron James. And I don't know where he goes if Jalen Brown is not a Sixer. Now, link to that are the Warriors, which we will get back to. And linked to the Warriors also is the Anthony Davis variable. You know, the reporting on this has been all over the place. I've seen people say, well, you know, did they try to get the Warriors or whatever team to get Anthony Davis or would it have helped? Here's where I come down. I think, yeah, it would have helped. I don't know if it would have swung it. And I feel pretty confident saying no one was really told. if you get Anthony Davis, LeBron is coming to your team or likely to come to your team. I don't think it got anywhere near that direct. And some teams got absolutely no communication about any player, whether it was Anthony Davis or Kyrie Irving. And so the number one thing, and I keep saying this, and it's the least sexy thing to say, no one knew anything. All the teams, everybody I talked to, everyone who was in it on the periphery of it, was like, I don't know, we don't know. And that included, should we get this player or that player, No one had a clue until he made his decision. The Sixers didn't have a clue until he made his decision. And so those are just some thoughts. Are you ready to discuss the Warriors, Mo? Yes, I am ready. But I do want to nominate Brad Stevens for executive of the year for building this Philadelphia 76ers team. Hey, look, we're going to get to Brad Stevens in a second. And this conversation, if the Celtics start to season 20 and five, and I don't, like, the Celtics are going to win. They're over under, I think, is 50 and a half. I'm just going to prep you. Like the conversation is going to be able, if they're 20 and 5 and the Sixers, and Bede's hurt and Jalen Brown's cranky and they're 18 and 12, like the conversation is going to shift a little bit. Yeah, for sure. And it can go the other way as well. But I think that's going to be that that's part of the dynamic of what you have as a GM. And I was just being a little bit trying to be a little bit funny with the Stevens comment. The Warriors are unquestionably the biggest losers of the LeBron saga because this team has done essentially nothing in the offseason except kill the draft, apparently, although we'll see. They'll re-sign, poor Zingis, fine. We'll see how many games he can play. They've now re-signed Draymond Green. Fine. He should finish his career warrior. I hope that he does. Jimmy Butler is going to miss a huge portion of the season. And again, like, you should not just assume that when he comes back, he's going to be Jimmy Butler. He's coming off an ACLTA. We'll see what he is. Moses Moody is going to miss a huge chunk of the season. They're over-under, I believe, is set at 39 and a half. Vegas thinks this is a sub 500 team. And it just seems like they have left Steph Curry in the lurch. And there has been just a lot of screaming and yelling about how the Warriors failing Curry Bill went in on them hard yesterday. And I don't disagree that clearly having arrived here, the path from 2022 title, which by the way, they deserve a shit ton of credit for and we'll get there to here is disappointing. and there are probably some missed opportunities along the way. I just want people to tell me what is the actual missed opportunity that you see that is realistic that would have put this team in position to win the title now or in one of the previous couple of seasons? Because I think a lot of this comes down to not now and not 2025. 2024 was the finals appearance and the title that was kind of up for grabs if the Warriors had found something in the interim between 2020. in 2024. Everything after that, you're driving uphill against the wind, against the thunder, and now the spurs, but still, would it be nice if the current Warriors were not 39 and a half over under and kind of depressing? Absolutely. So here's where Jalen Brown comes in. Because, you know, a lot of the Warriors' criticism in the last 48 hours has been focused on, well, why didn't you get Jalen Brown? Because if you had gotten Jalen Brown, you could have had LeBron James. And maybe, maybe, but here's the thing, Mo. Shams reported this yesterday. that the Warriors in the Celtics briefly talked about G.L. and Brown at the trade deadline. Did you see this? Yeah. And that the price would have been four-ish first-round draft assets. And the Warriors decided he's not worth it. The trade that just occurred for Jalen Brown and the negotiations around it would suggest that the Warriors are in the consensus in saying that Jalen Brown is not worth it. Now, Mo, you would say, why not revisit it now when the price might be lower and you're only bidding against the Sixers. I think one of the things that's being overlooked is that the centerpiece salary in that trade is attached to a player who is injured and is going to miss a huge portion of the season. The Celtics don't want, the Celtics are trying to win games. They don't want Jimmy Butler out till January, February, whatever it is, and then a percentage of himself after that. And as a result, they're going to ask for more picks than the Sixers attached to get off of Paul George, I would think. So those are just sort of some of the Jalen Brown slash LeBron realities. And even if you got Jalen Brown and LeBron, Ethan Sherwood Strauss, what a great piece about this today on his substack. Are you actually good enough to win the West? You're still super old and you're relying on a player in Jalen Brown who doesn't appear to be a great fit with the way the Warriors typically play to the point that he got famously left off Team USA with Steve Kerr as the head coach. Do you have any thoughts on Jalen Brown? on words before I move on with my spiel? No, I think it was really, I think it's a really important point to note that the Celtics to get a player that's going to theoretically be playing on opening night, you know, and Paul George, who should be healthy enough and ready to go. And the word you're getting with Jimmy Butler is somebody that you might get in March. And you talked about it earlier. We don't know what he's going to look like at this point. And beyond that, we've also, he's been played with injuries for the past few years. Like it's difficult to kind of envision that we're going to give up Jalen Brown in this situation. For a player, we're going to get in March and we're not quite sure what he's going to look like. As much as we want to joke about Paul George and everything, he was pretty solid for them, for the Sixers last season apart from the – When available. But I think also in the playoff series against the Celtics, he was really good. And I think that is something that kind of you sort of look into going like, all right, there's still something there. Is he worth the contract? Probably not, right? Like, he's overpaid at that point. And, you know, he has a player option for next season. I almost positive he'll pick that up. But I think, you know, what you're looking at is just they have a piece there where it's, hey, we can go out and win games right now and not take that far of a drop off of what we were from last season when everybody written us off and we went out and won 54 games. You know, I think that's going to be the thing. And then you add in Mitchell Robinson, you're looking at where. they're at. You're kind of saying like, hey, man, like the Celtics aren't just sitting there going, hey, okay, we're going to trade Jalen Brown and suck next season. So they're trying to go for it. Here, that's a, Jimmy Butler being injured is an important, you know, post whatever day he got injured reality for the Warriors in these trade talks. They do have, I think, three and a half first round picks that they can trade. So they're not pick weak. They have a lot of picks and those picks have some value because of the age of their roster. You could say a 20 and the new lottery rules. Those are valuable picks. The other realities are, number one, the big salaries involved ever since they traded Wiggins for Jimmy Butler, a master stroke, by the way, that had everyone drooling over how good this team was going into the previous season. And at the end of the last end of two seasons ago, the salaries have always been attached to either injured players like Jimmy Butler or franchise legends who are hard to trade. It's hard to just trade Draymond Green. And, you know, it's just, it's just not an easy thing to do. This is what Ethan really nailed. All of this really comes down to. If you think the Warriors just blew this and missed opportunities, it's not that they are being too precious, I think, with the assets that they have and too reticent to take risks at the expense of the post-steff future, which they are trying to protect. That's true. It's that Jordan Poole, James Wiseman, Jonathan Kaminga, and Moses Moody amounted to little to no trade value. And they tried to trade the number two pick before they even used it on James. and they couldn't find someone that they liked or a good fit. And then all of that blew up in their faces. They probably, they did wait too long to trade comminga. The sheen was off. But they also really likes Cominga and their owner really liked Cominga. They mismanaged that. I'm not sure that's changing their life. And that's really what it comes down to. They did not have those picks. And it's their fault. They made the picks. They could have had Franz Wagner. Alper and Schengum was really high on their draft where they didn't pick him because they had picked Wiseman the year before or two years before, whatever it was. And those picks just didn't have an value for them. And so you look at the mode, like, I'm going to go through like the what ifs along the way. You ready? And I'm going to miss some because there's been a lot. Like they could have tried to get Kauai Leonard this past summer. Okay. Like he's old. He's in he's currently not on, he's in limbo. He's literally an NBA limbo. They tried to get Paul George in when he was, had the player option with the clippers that ended up opting out and signing with the Sixers. That was a very complicated potential three-team transaction when no one, none of the other, not three-team, three entity, Clippers, Paul George, Warriors, where all of the entities had different sort of incentives and visions of what the deal would look like. And Paul George Mack's salary player for the Sixers did not work out great until it did work out fine via Jalen Brown. They tried to get Lowry marketing and the Jazz demanded everything to the point that it was really kind of a non-starter. The Janus thing is interesting because I'm not really sure what happened when they used to be just hot and heavy on Janus and then you didn't hear their name much in the last iteration of it. And I think it's probably because they were just outgunned. I don't think they could have really competed all that well with, again, like, Draymond Green or injured Jimmy Butler as the salary filler is just like not that attractive to the Milwaukee Pucks. Here are the ones that are interesting to me. Carl Anthony Towns ahead of when the Knicks traded for him. The athletic reported at the time that the Warriors had sniffed around him and just couldn't have a package that fit what the wolves needed. And it would have had to involve Andrew Wiggins. Wiggins' salary. Wiggins has played for the wolves already. That didn't end well. That was an interesting name for me. They tried to get Kevin Durant, by the way. And Kevin Durant was like, no, thank you. Please don't trade for me. The Towns one is interesting. The other, like, if you want to look at realistic and well-timed ones, in 2023, slash going into winter 2024, trade deadline, 2024, they looked at the Raptors guys, O'GN and Obie and Pascal Siakum. And if you're looking for like a realistic what if that doesn't completely handicap the Warriors post step and was doable, it looks something like you trade a decent amount of stuff for O'GN and Oby, perfect fit, exactly the way. we've just seen. And you have enough left over for like another medium size move for another top 45 player who fits the way you play. I don't know who that would have been. Like just imagine Drew Holiday or Derek White or just like someone in that vein of players. And then you're talking, are there alternate universes where they nail every transaction on the way to that? Even, even whiffing in the draft like they did. Maybe it's easy to say that now. And by the way, They do deserve a ton of credit for turning Durant into DeLo into Wiggins and a championship. And then Wiggins into Butler and a team that looked pretty fearsome for a while with Jimmy Butler. So I think a lot of the Warriors' criticism is a little, the Warriors' front office criticism is a little bit too loud and kind of also looking in the wrong places. To me, it all boils down to the draft picks that didn't hit well. And not that Moody is like a whiff. He's a fine player. it just didn't hit well. It's Wiseman. It comes back to Wivesman. You needed a double or a triple and Moody's a single. Like at the end of the day, in terms of looking at it in that regard. But it's the draft picks that are the problem. And it's picking Kaminga and then Wagner going the next pick, right? Like that's probably a perfect sort of fit in where they go and how that kind of works out. And it changes their trajectory of the team. The Wiseman won, first off, And Bill did the redraft. He sure did. You know, for 2020, which was an incredibly weird draft. As somebody that's been part of the draft process, I couldn't imagine, you know, we're only going to do one on-oh workouts. The guy has to wear a mask. We're going to do interviews just over Zoom. And there's just so many different weird sort of things that went through the whole process, even into just evaluating these guys. Like I kind of, like, yeah, maybe you should have taken. and lamello over Wiseman. Like that's such a wild draft that I kind of say, all right, like, that was strange. And when you look at that whole draft, there were a lot of wists in there. So I kind of a little bit, forgive them a bit on the Wiseman one. For me, it's the Kaminga Wagner one that really kind of changes everything for me. Shengoon would have been a great, would have been a really nice pickup. And I think the mistake is, well, we have Weissman. And then two years later saying we have We have Weisman. we can't take Shengun. No, just take the guy you like and figure it out from there. And if Wiseman, if you got to move Wiseman, you got to move Wiseman. But I think that's sort of the mistakes that they made. But in terms of the other stuff, like, yeah, they, part of being able to trade for a guy is the other side has to agree to the trade. It has to make sense, right? Like, I was fully committed. Like, they should have gotten Lari Markening, except Utah was asking for pretty much the Golden Gave Bridge. By the way, Lary Marketing still on the Utah Jazz. So no one was able to trade for Lauerie Markening, not one team. So there was, you know, so they were, Danny Aange was trying to fleece the Warriors. And they just said the price was too high. Okay, like that's Jerry, actually, speaking of the jazz, like Jaron Jackson Jr. is another name who it took three firsts and, you know, Desmond Bain