Hey, Rosilo listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. The Ryan Rosilo show is presented by DraftKings. We're doing something a little extra today because we got a bunch of guests here in San Francisco for the Super Bowl, but of course we know the NBA trade deadline is just over 24 hours away and we had a massive headliner. James Harden going to Cleveland for Darius Garland, I'll give you my thoughts on what feels a bit like a reach or something to do to salvage this season for the calves. Super Bowl 60 deserves a sportsbook built for the moment. DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sportsmaning partner of Super Bowl 60 puts you right in the center of the biggest game of the year, anything can happen during the Super Bowl and DraftKings has your back with early exit. If your player goes down in the first half, you still get paid in cash when your bet settles. No bonus bets, no waiting. 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It's like, wait, Harden's not playing personal reasons. It's like, no, there could be a deal. There could be a deal with Cleveland for Darry's Garland. That's exactly what happened yesterday. The Cavs trading Garland and a second round are two the Clippers for James Harden. So there's a bunch of different things that I want to get into and try to figure out the motivation behind this. One is, okay, Garland clearly with the toe surgery on the left toe and then having the right toe hurt. He's been a diminished version of himself this season. There's a net rating number there where he's negative three per 100 possessions for a guy that's played that many minutes, which is a disastrous number. But he just turned 26. He's a two time all star. I like him. I like the area of Scarland, even with the flaws, because I think when he's cooking and he's shooting, like he's a really, really tough matchup. Even if we know that there's, you know, look, he's not a perfect player. There's very few perfect guys in this entire league. There is another part of this where the reports are saying that Donovan Mitchell wanted this to happen. I don't know if that means he wanted them to be different and to go for it because he has decisions to make this summer with his own extension. I don't know if his motivation behind this is that he wanted Garland out of there. It may not even be necessarily an anti Garland thing as much as it is. Hey, I'm pro harden, although as in the side, I am constantly amazed how many active NBA players are the worst general managers ever. Their desires on who they want to play with, not saying like Hardin's necessarily a bad fit, but just in general, it seems to happen all the time. You're like, you want Captain Playoff flame out to be the guy that changes what you're capable of doing in the playoffs because we all know the Cavs playoff stuff has been really, really disappointing. So there are rumblings that the Mitchell part of this is significant. There was also a report this morning on the athletic from a high ranking Cav source. Apparently you said Mitchell had nothing to do with it. Here's what I do know. Let's apply the common sense rule to this one. If Mitchell loved Garland, this doesn't happen. They clearly would have to go to Mitchell and be like, hey, we can do this. What do you think? I'm going to go with the ones that say, because it just sounds better to be like, oh, yeah, Mitchell didn't have anything to do with it. I'm going to go the other way with it. I don't know if it was nasty between him and Garland. I'm not saying that. I've never heard that, but from a basketball standpoint, it had to have been a preference for Mitchell. Mitchell also lose dealing with his own uncertainty moving forward as the Cavs are. I'm sorry, Cavs fans, because you don't want to hear this all over again, because you've already heard it going all the way back to 24, where every one of us was saying kind of the same thing, but it was never really specific, which is always a warning to me. It's like, all right, everybody seems to be on the same page in these gossipy NBA circles that Mitchell's going to want out of Cleveland, but nobody's ever saying anything necessarily specific about it. Boom, Loge Bomb right before the season starts at 24 Mitchell signs in extension, but it was a three year deal and it has the player option for 2728. So I'm sorry, Cavs fans, it's happening again. It's happening again, the uncertainty, because he's still young. He's still incredibly productive. He's obviously been one of the best players in the East all season long. So I can hear your annoyance as we talk about it, but yeah, I'm sorry, we're talking about it because we'll have to see, I don't even think Mitchell knows what he wants to do, right? He's got to see with this new team, this new version of it, how the hardened thing goes, how it goes in the playoffs, don't worry, we'll get to the hardened stuff here. But he could not sign the extension, he could just ride it out, he could opt out of the the player option of 27 and just become a free agent. So these are all the things that you're kind of juggling here, but I can't imagine Mitchell even knows because he's going to want to see see what this looks like, right? So maybe Cleveland knows exactly what's going to happen with Mitchell. I don't know that that's necessarily the case. Maybe Harden's motivation is just the extension that apparently the Clippers weren't going to give him, which would match his history. As you said, this is the fourth time Harden's asked for a trade since January of 21. You could say five overall, but that first one of the OTC, I'm completely on his side, they didn't want to pay him, he wanted his own team, he was right and he ended up becoming an MVP. So I don't know that anybody should fault him for that trade request, but Harden's likely still chasing the money that he turned down from Houston November of 2020 and then turned down that massive net extension. Once he went there and he's probably still chasing a little bit of the money where the whole Philly thing is really strange that he took a pay cut then didn't get the extension that he thought he was going to get. He called Darryl Mori a liar. If I wanted to run through the four trade demand since January of 21, I'd say the Houston one, not great, the Brooklyn one, I totally got it. He got sick of Kyrie was like, I don't think I'm going to want to be here. And the Philly one, although he did opt in, it's like, well, if you wanted your freedom, why did you opt in? Well, you didn't want to lose that salary because you're already on the hook for all this other money you lost. I think there's a cycle here with Harden. Now, maybe he's about every last dollar now, but he might be about every last dollar because he still feels like he's chasing back some of this stuff. So if he's saying to the Clippers, like if you keep talking about this 27 off season and having all this cap space and being a desirable destination for the next guys, which is a really flawed approach because it's just you can look at the 27 free agents down and get excited. That's a ways away, folks. All right. So a lot can change and who the available free agents are even a sign. But if they didn't want to do any kind of extension on Harden and this team had turned it around, too hard and scredit because he's been so much better this year, kept them above water when they were a disaster in the beginning of the year. The best basketball maybe that we've seen from any team since mid-December. I mean, they've just been cooking here for a while. And so I had nothing to do with winning whatsoever. He wanted an extension of the Clippers we're going to give him. And that is his history is that even when he turns down the extension, you can't argue about every last dollar. I think he's trying to make up for some of that stuff. So this one is just wild. It's just a very different demand because it seemed like everything was fine and they'd figured some stuff out. Harden did not go into self-pank mode like he did that was disgusting with Houston. Gross with Brooklyn. They're like, oh, okay. So you do really, you want out of here so bad, you're like, you look like a shaven points. Philly, he just went on the warpath and the Philly one, like I've always taken Harden's side on that. The counting stats of the Harden this year, terrific 28 or excuse me, 25, 8 and 5. The three point shooting has been really good the last couple of years between 35 and 38% where there was a slight dip for a little while. We were like, why is this shooting down? And most importantly, the 8 and a half free throw attempts per game. It's the highest in four years. So he's getting back to the line. So maybe on the Cleveland side of this, it was just, hey, we're really disappointing to start 25, 26. The Garland thing has been a mess. If we bring in Harden, it's going to make Mitchell's life a little bit easier because he doesn't have to be on the ball all the time. With Harden, the Lobs to Mowley and Allen are going to be terrific. But then again, whether it works in the regular season or not, the Harden off ball stuff, which I think shows itself more dramatically in the playoffs, it's just not existing because we all know this. When Harden gets into the playoffs, he becomes a completely different person. Something happens to him. He has the largest drop off of any great player of this era. I can't talk about the history of the NBA, but he's in the conversation. It needs to be studied. I hope when he's like, older, he sits down, maybe on a couch and does a documentary where he's like, this is what happened. Because it can be the little basketball stuff where it's like in different rotations defensively. Oh no, I'm not getting the whistle tonight. So now I don't know what to do. And then, hey, once I don't have the ball, you guys don't expect me to do anything, right? Like set a screen or cut or rebound or any of that stuff. I'm just going to stand out here. Right. You realize that. Like once Mitchell has the ball and some curl, I now will not do anything. I think you can do a ton of stuff in the regular season with his approach. I think the playoffs that approach gets exposed quite a bit. So betting on that, if you're Cleveland, like he's probably going to have like a couple 40 point games, they might win more games. They'll feel steadier because you're replacing Garland who's not even playing right now with Harden, the 2526 version of Harden, who's been really good. You're plugging that right in. The team is going to be better. And so I don't know if there's some run through the regular season that changes Mitchell's thoughts and what the long term thing could be. I can't imagine Harden would accept this kind of trade or be like, I'm cool here unless there's already some kind of understanding that he's going to get a couple more years of money to make up for some of the money that he's lost. But this is one of those deals where it's like all the things that I've laid out, I understand all the different angles. But if you're running a basketball team and you watch James Harden the playoffs and go, I want that. And that's what the Cavs just did. Maybe they know Garland's more hurt than I realized. Maybe I like Garland a little bit too much. Again, the numbers for the net rating stuff was disastrous this year, but I don't know that's necessarily who he is. There's some Garland numbers. Again, we've already covered the pretty terrible three point stuff terrible this season. I always like to look at markets as I finished this up here because one of the numbers or one of the trades that I always like looking back at is DeAngelo Russell the trade deadline. It's just three years ago, right February 23. DeAngelo Russell is on Minnesota. They wanted to get him away from Ant. They couldn't wait to get him off of that team. And that's kind of the DeAngelo Russell experience. The Lakers of course want him because it's a little name ran. Hey, man, he can shoot it from three. He's got some playmaking. He's really nice in the pick and roll. We can do all these things with him. And there's a bunch of other moving parts in this Minnesota Utah and Lakers trade that happen with DeAngelo Russell. But even DeAngelo Russell who wasn't necessarily anybody's favorite, there was still with the picks moving around and some of the contract stuff. There was enough there for Minnesota to be able to get back Alexander Walker and Conley. And I realize Conley's not with the team now this week, but Conley was important of them during these playoff runs. And Alexander Walker's terrific. Alexander Walker's only two years younger than DeAngelo Russell. The idea that a few years ago, that's what the market was for a player where going back, you're like, imagine anyone going like, hey, can we give you Alexander Walker for DeAngelo Russell and how fast the maps would say yes. The shifts on the by-low sell high stuff with these players, they can be dramatic. And I can't help but think like in a year you're going to be going, I can't believe the clippers get rid of older James Harden who was mad again and ended up with Garland, even if I'll admit there's some stuff that probably isn't good enough to be the best player on a great team. But this feels a little desperate from Cleveland. We started the day by taping about the hardened trade and we didn't have all the trades that we're going to get to because we got a lot of football that we're doing out here as well. However, as we were taping that Julian Edelman stopped by breaking news, the Anthony Davis was traded for the mass to the wizard. So the deal itself, not the haul you would hope for Anthony Davis the year after you traded him for Luca. You would probably not trade Luca for this package, it is the point. But the deal is this, sorry to bring it up again, but the Maser going to get Chris Middleton, AJ Johnson, who's that crazy super athletic guy that was on the box for a little while. Malik Ibrahim, who's been some time with the Spurs, maybe has a chance to be a rotational guy in Marvin Bagley, the third who actually was playing a little bit for the wizards. On the other side, the wizards are getting jade and hearty if you want to talk about athletes, one of the most athletic players that I think I've ever scutted for the draft and then G. Angel LaRussell, who's not even playing for him anymore, who wasn't really in the rotation, I should say for Dallas and Dante Aksum. So a lot of contract stuff. Now the picks themselves are the important part because there's two first rounders, but it's the thunders 26 first rounder this year, which is probably not going to be a great pick. And then the 30 protected first rounder that they have from the warriors, which I think that one's protected one through 20 and then there's some second round picks in here as well. So three second rounders. So that is not a great haul for Anthony Davis for a player that's incredibly injured for a player that's injured so much historically that there was questions about whether or not he was even going to use an extension. And then there was that weird story on the rich Paul side of things where it was like some ultimatum that the Mavs had a week to figure out a trade for AD with a week before the deadline, which then it was kind of shot down. So at least we knew this. We knew that if AD wasn't going to get the extension, which is going to be harder for ownership to get behind because he's just chronically injured. And then the way we think about these players when they have these injuries versus like the stretchwear. This is why whenever this happens like Anthony Davis is healthy and playing really good basketball for a month, it's like, oh man, his value might be higher. Now the value should be like an average of what it is between when it's at its lowest, which feels like kind of right now. And then the perceived highest. There's just not a lot of teams that we're going to be in the business to want to give Anthony Davis this kind of extension, but there were rumors about teams in the East being like, if this is kind of the pricing on this stuff, there's probably a way to figure out together to put together some kind of deal. We don't feel like we're giving up assets. We're completely going to regret in a couple years, which honestly, every player and the way these picks are are slotted. I don't even know if there's a chance for the Wizards to look back on this and go, and although we have massive regret about this asset that we moved in the Anthony Davis thing like, this is a really, really low price. But there was probably some teams going like, what if we do get him healthy though? Like what if he's hate like ready to go healthy in April in May? Could that change the fortunes of some of these other teams like Atlanta was kicking the tires on it for a while? There was some Toronto versions of this that I heard that it wasn't really a huge price and outgoing players held some of the players that Toronto have. They'd probably be psyched and move on from some of those contracts. So with Washington though, this tells me a couple things. One is clearly there had to have been some kind of mandate for this front office to go into 26, 27 with a much better outlook. I've talked about this roster a lot, SARS improvement, Kishan's improvement, Trey Johnson getting real excited about what he could be. I still like Bob and Belal even though they sort of both do one thing with the other guy. I can't do. There's a lot of players that you're like, okay, maybe there's a chance. Like because some of these teams rebuild and after two years of drafting, three years of drafting, you're like, I don't know if they have anybody that I'm excited about. I'd say the Wizards have like two or three chances at it. But whatever this draft pick is going to be this year, which it likely will be a pretty good pick because of their record and because of this draft, them just saying, hey, we're going to draft this guy in 26 and then we've got all these young guys and then we're just going to be bad again one more year. Like it sounded as if ownership was probably like, I don't think we're good for this. I don't think we're good on this deal. What it sounds like ownership is good on is probably giving contract extensions to the players that they were trading for. So clearly whatever the trade-young discussion was on bringing him in. One, he wasn't going to play so they could keep losing games, which is perfect for Anthony Davis too. It's like, hey, do you want to come here and not play games so that we can still make sure we get a higher draft pick and 80s like sign me up. So you've now added oddly two players that the price in it probably being way lower than the fans would ever expect that weren't getting contract extensions from their teams at the time, Atlanta and Dallas going to a new team or it felt like maybe generally there were some impatience that motivated these moves and then perhaps the understanding that the extensions would be worked out. So that's what I take from all of this stuff. No issue with the price whatsoever. It sucks for Dallas. This whole Dallas thing is sucked for like a year. I'd be a little scared to pay all these guys. But now they'll be at least on paper if healthy they feel like they're adding like, hey, what if this works out as opposed to we're just going to be a tanking team in 26, 27, which it sounds like a lot of people in Washington were not going to have the patience for.
