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for the ones who get it done. This

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is the Dan Labattoir show with

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the Stukas podcast. Today's

1:27

episode is sponsored by DraftKings. Stay tuned

1:29

because you'll hear more about DraftKings and

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all it has to offer throughout the

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show. DraftKings, the crown is yours. Not

1:37

enough fireworks, not enough

1:39

like salacious breaking news.

1:41

It's kind of been

1:43

a little yawn inducing,

1:45

Charlotte. All right. Did

1:47

you find it boring that Clay Thompson

1:49

went to the Dallas Mavericks? Because he

1:52

is sent in a

1:54

multi-team sign and trade to Dallas.

1:56

Three year, $50 million deal

1:58

with the player option. This

2:00

also sends Josh Green

2:02

to Charlotte. LeBron

2:05

reportedly called Clay at the start

2:07

of free agency and

2:09

L.A. reportedly offered a four year 80

2:12

million dollar deal. And,

2:15

you know, Golden State plans on retiring plays

2:17

number anyway, even though he's not sticking around

2:19

and posted this nice farewell of clay on

2:21

a boat, which felt pretty fitting, because I

2:24

feel like doesn't he like kayaks to work

2:26

and stuff? I mean, he doesn't

2:28

like kayak to work. He's got a boat. He drives

2:30

his boat. He's got a little captain's hat that he

2:32

wears when he drives his boat. Be interesting to see

2:34

how he gets that done in Dallas. They

2:36

don't really have a whole lot of water down

2:38

there, but I didn't find it interesting. I found

2:40

it sad, Charlotte. He's like inevitable,

2:43

but sad nonetheless. I

2:45

mean, you know, I've told

2:47

this story so many times over

2:49

the years, but. I

2:51

remember watching the 2020 finals on TV and

2:55

my child sits down next to me, so what do you

2:57

watch? So then be a finalism. My child stares at the

2:59

screen and says, where's Clay? Because

3:02

in my child's world that there was no

3:04

such thing as an NBA finals. They didn't

3:06

have Clay and Stephen Draymond and Kevin Durant

3:08

to some extent. Yeah. And so

3:11

that branding, that strong band

3:13

of the Golden State Warriors are this. Thing

3:17

that represented success and and the

3:19

eternal success and the people

3:22

most closely affiliated with it. Steph,

3:24

Clay and Dray. That

3:26

they're not together anymore. I

3:29

don't blame anybody. That's just how the world

3:32

works and that's how the league works. You

3:34

move on, you have to move on. But

3:37

it just there is something about it that's kind of like, man,

3:39

I'm kind of going to miss seeing those

3:41

guys all together again. Yeah, I

3:43

don't think it's going to feel real next year when or

3:46

until next year when we see them separated because

3:48

they are such an iconic trio.

3:51

I mean, to me, this this felt like

3:54

you know, at first I was like, why

3:56

couldn't they just figure out a way for Clay to stay

3:58

there? You know, last year he was talking about. how

4:00

he was fine coming off of the

4:02

bench. It was hard to accept that

4:04

he wasn't the player he used to

4:06

be, but he was OK with helping

4:08

the younger generation. He understood how that

4:10

role was important. But then he goes

4:12

to the Mavs. And to me, this

4:14

says like he is not willing to

4:16

accept or he still believes that he

4:18

could win another championship. That like this

4:20

is not if

4:23

the Warriors have reached a point where they think that

4:25

he's not the same clay and he won't deliver it

4:27

like clay is not there at all. Well,

4:30

I mean, I would say that what the

4:32

Warriors need, the version of clay that the

4:34

Warriors needed in order to compete for the

4:36

championship is a lot different from

4:39

the version that the Mavericks need. The

4:41

Mavericks have two very accomplished scores

4:43

in Kyrie Irving and Luca Dontchez.

4:46

They have a very good,

4:48

versatile defense that

4:51

they, you know, they've proven it and

4:53

they didn't just prove it in the regular

4:55

season after those deals, they didn't just prove it in

4:57

the playoffs. They proved it in NBA Finals against the

4:59

best offense that the sport has ever seen. Yeah.

5:02

So clay doesn't need to be

5:04

2016 clay. Golden

5:06

State kind of needs 2016 clay. They

5:08

don't. This old version of him was

5:11

not good enough, especially not for the money that

5:13

he was looking for from them. And there's

5:15

a report from Anthony Slater that clay told

5:17

Steph, do not exert your influence here.

5:20

I don't want them to pay me because you made them.

5:22

I want them to pay me because they want to pay

5:24

me. And the reality is they did not want

5:26

to pay him what he thought he was worth. So

5:28

he goes to go to Dallas and I

5:30

think he gives himself a chance to win

5:32

a fifth championship. That's yeah, that's for sure.

5:35

Now, how much of him they need.

5:39

That remains to be seen. But we know that

5:41

the one thing that they were lacking desperately in

5:43

those finals is someone who's just a bona fide,

5:46

respected three point threat to even if he's

5:49

struggling. I'm not going to help off of

5:51

him to load up on Luca or Kyrie.

5:54

And he has the experience. They did. They needed

5:56

that. They needed, you know, obviously they had Kyrie.

5:58

That didn't work out in terms of. the leadership

6:01

that I think that they needed in terms

6:03

of not getting all flustered. But

6:06

I mean, we have to move on. We have

6:08

to get to Paul George signing

6:10

with the Philadelphia 76ers. The

6:14

76ers also re-signed Tyrese Maxey. Paul

6:16

George has a four year, 212

6:18

million dollar contract. And

6:23

I don't know, this felt sort

6:26

of like what

6:28

we thought was gonna happen. I

6:30

mean, I wasn't shocked by this

6:32

either. I guess this wasn't that surprising to me either.

6:35

Well, Paul George, I don't

6:37

know if leading up to free

6:40

agency everyone had Philly on their bingo

6:42

card. I know we knew that Philly

6:44

had cleared out Max space. We

6:47

know they were gonna get aggressive out there because

6:49

they are more typically as an aggressive general manager.

6:51

Now, I talked to Jake Fisher from Yahoo

6:54

Sports and Jake told me that this

6:57

was Daryl Morey's plan all along going back to the

6:59

Harden deal. That I'm gonna send Harden to

7:01

the Clippers and then I'm going to

7:03

get all these expiring deals. And with my expiring

7:05

deals, I'm gonna clear the cap space to sign

7:08

Paul George away from them. Which

7:10

is quite diabolical if you think about it.

7:12

Yeah, well, I mean, at the time I was sort

7:15

of like, wait, okay, Daryl Morey is just gonna let

7:17

James Harden go to, like it felt

7:19

like there was another thing coming. And that thing

7:21

coming was that he was trying to ruin the

7:23

Clippers from the inside out is what you're telling

7:25

me. Yeah, but I think

7:28

also there's a combination of

7:30

his intention and also the Clippers coming

7:32

to the realization on their own that this

7:34

isn't working. And so

7:37

like when we look at what the Clippers did and especially when you

7:40

look at that statement they put out, they've

7:42

reached the points 10 years under Steve Ballmer.

7:45

And Steve Ballmer is trying to reach the point

7:47

where me being the richest owner, richer than the

7:49

next 15 owners combined. It's not

7:52

enough because this isn't a

7:54

financial issue. This is the rules of

7:56

engagement. Dictate, you cannot

7:58

spend your way out of it. And

8:01

the New off

10:01

a resume. Now you're telling me

10:03

this is going to get cured by adding

10:05

another guy whose health has been in question

10:07

and also has a so-so playoff resume. I

10:10

kind of find that a little bit hard

10:12

to swallow. So yeah, I'm with

10:15

you in a little skepticism like, all right,

10:17

Sixers, relax. But again, this is less to

10:19

do about what DraftKings thinks or what's going

10:21

to happen and more to do with what

10:23

people bet on these things are

10:26

saying with their money. Well, it's

10:28

also the Eastern Conference, right? You were

10:30

saying in our production meeting, you're like,

10:32

it's just open now. And I have

10:34

to say, like, if Paul George had

10:36

been on those Sixers, would

10:38

the Knicks have won last year? I don't know,

10:41

because even with the sort of hurt

10:43

and bead they got, they put up a

10:45

really good fight and then you have another

10:47

weapon there and it

10:50

starts to seem like maybe

10:52

they do have a pretty good shot of at least,

10:54

you know, doing well in the Eastern Conference. Yeah.

10:57

So you look at the East, it's Boston, and

10:59

then you take a step and then it's the

11:01

Knicks who we'll talk about in

11:03

a second, lost one of their

11:05

best players. It's Cleveland

11:09

who have a new coach and that's

11:11

going to help. But to what extent

11:13

it's Orlando who added KCP. But again,

11:15

is he going to fix all their

11:17

offensive woes? Not really. It's Milwaukee. God

11:20

knows what another year and full training camp

11:22

is going to do for them. Maybe it

11:24

does a lot. Maybe it doesn't do anything.

11:26

It's Miami who haven't done anything of note

11:28

other than draft a kid at 15th overall

11:31

and so on and so forth. On the conference, you're like, compare

11:34

and contrast to what Paul George had to deal with in

11:36

the West, right? Because there were some rumors

11:38

that you should go to Golden State, like to do what?

11:41

To fight the Thunder and the Wolves

11:43

and the Mavericks. And here come the

11:45

Rockets and here come the Spurs and

11:47

here come the Pelicans. If they're healthy

11:49

and they got De'Jaunte Merritt. That's a

11:51

headache every single night. But

11:54

you come to the East. It's

11:56

a little, it's a little freer and it's a

11:58

little freer in part. because of one of the

12:01

big deals that's happened. The Knicks

12:03

lost Isaiah Hartenstein. He

12:05

went to Oklahoma City. He signed

12:07

the three year, $57 million, excuse

12:09

me, $87 million deal with OKC. And

12:12

this was one of those things

12:14

where I told all my friends, the Knicks fans

12:16

in my group chat, I told Cousin

12:19

Proof, I told Elite, I told Zay,

12:21

all these guys. All that's cool

12:24

and well, like all these guys are friends,

12:26

the power of friendship like Charlotte said. But

12:29

friends have been going to make up

12:31

for $15 million more for

12:33

one last year worth of work. So that's

12:35

what he got. Can you explain

12:38

this? Because I've been surrounded by Knicks

12:40

fans who are saying 87 million doesn't

12:42

seem like

12:44

a crazy amount of money. Why couldn't the

12:46

Knicks just give him that? Can you tell

12:48

people why? Because it's a little confusing. Yeah,

12:52

so Hartenstein was an

12:54

early bird free agent. What that means is

12:56

if you've been with the team for

12:59

three years before your free agency,

13:01

you are full bird rights. It means they can

13:03

sign you for whatever, max

13:05

whatever they want, you're good. If

13:08

you've been with them for two years, you have

13:10

this thing called early bird rights. And

13:12

if you've been there for one year, you have this

13:14

thing called non bird rights. And each one of those

13:17

other two, non bird and early bird, they

13:19

can give you a raise, but

13:22

it's limited. For early bird, it's limited 175% of what you

13:24

made last year or

13:28

the median salary in

13:30

the league, whichever is larger.

13:33

In this case, 175% of what he made last year was larger because

13:36

he made about nine. So that gets him to

13:38

about 16 and some change. That means

13:40

the Knicks could offer him a deal that

13:43

starts at 16 and some change

13:45

with 8.5, excuse me, with

13:47

8% raises through the

13:49

life of four years. That comes out to $72

13:52

million over four years. Even

13:54

if they're like, oh, back up all the brain strokes

13:56

they could not do any, the only other way they

13:58

could have paid him more. is that

14:00

they cleared out money under the cap and they

14:02

signed him using cap space. Obviously, that's not an

14:04

option when you go out and trade for Mid-Health

14:07

Bridges and you give OGN an over $250 million.

14:10

Okay, well, our producers are writing ZZZZ, like

14:14

sleepy letters in the doc, but I wanted

14:16

to because I think Knicks fans are far

14:18

more concerned about this and don't understand what's

14:21

going on than people would think. But, you

14:23

know, let's see New York, let's go. The

14:26

only choice, yeah. Let me just

14:28

be clear. The only choice was Isaiah Hartenstein's. Do you want

14:30

to make a shit ton of money or do you want

14:32

to be the power of friendship? And surprise,

14:34

surprise, you want to make a lot

14:36

of money. I don't know. I

14:39

might choose friendship. For a better team,

14:41

by the way. Also play for a better team.

14:43

Okay, all right. Well, let's go to Cleveland because

14:45

Donovan Mitchell is staying with the Cavs. He signs

14:47

a three-year $150 million contract extension. And

14:52

the final year is a player option. So

14:54

he's potentially eligible for a five-year $380 million

14:56

deal in 2027. I

15:02

mean, people keep talking about Donovan Mitchell and

15:05

something that I think keeps getting lost is it's a 25-26 season

15:07

that he's a free agent. Like

15:10

all of this stuff is sort of

15:12

happening early. And I don't

15:15

know how easy Cleveland

15:17

fans should breathe because I don't know

15:19

how much this says about Mitchell's

15:21

long-term future in Cleveland. Am I right?

15:23

Am I wrong? So first

15:25

of all, for fear of the producers

15:28

hitting me with more Z's, we're diving

15:30

back into contract talk, right? So Donovan

15:32

Mitchell's existing deal had him under contract

15:34

this year. And then he

15:36

had a player option for next year. What

15:39

they did was they tore up that player

15:41

option year and they added

15:43

three more years in its place.

15:45

So he's got this year, he's

15:47

got next year, the first year of

15:49

this new extension. He's got the year

15:52

after that. And then the last

15:54

year of that is a player option.

15:56

So in essence, all we did was

15:59

guarantee two more years. this year as

16:01

opposed to having just this year.

16:03

Meaning it's a little security.

16:06

It's not, oh, he's here forever. I'm

16:08

glad we got past that. Ultimately,

16:11

this comes down to really, do

16:14

they want to continue with Donovan Mitchell and

16:16

give up on Darius Garland? Or

16:19

do they want to stick with Darius Garland

16:21

and move Donovan Mitchell because he might be

16:23

a flight risk down the line? I

16:26

suspect they're giving Kenny Atkinson, the new head coach,

16:28

time to kind of evaluate the roster and see

16:30

what he thinks and what he likes before they

16:32

make a rash decision. But this gives

16:34

them a little breathing room. It takes away some of the

16:36

urgency of we gotta do something right now, but

16:39

it has not removed that specter of, hey, I

16:41

don't know if the Donovan Mitchell and Cleveland experiment

16:43

is gonna work long-term. Okay, all

16:45

right. I feel

16:47

like there's a little bit more urgency on this one,

16:49

which is Chris Paul to the Spurs. I mean, I

16:52

was a little surprised by this, not that he was

16:54

released by the Warriors. We sort of saw that coming.

16:57

He has signed in San Antonio for one

17:00

year with an 11 million

17:02

plus contract. And so,

17:05

oh gosh, whenever our

17:07

producers just say, read the script, I get

17:09

a little nervous, but they say, I guess

17:11

that means this scene isn't based on real

17:13

life. I

17:15

wanna win, I wanna win, I wanna

17:17

f***ing win. What

17:20

my ring, man? What

17:22

my f***ing ring, yo? I

17:24

wanna check, I wanna check, I wanna f***ing

17:27

check. I want my

17:29

11 million, yo. I

17:31

should've seen that coming. I really should've

17:33

seen that coming. So, I mean, is

17:36

Chris Paul giving up a ring to

17:38

take more money than he would've gotten?

17:41

I mean, $11 million gets you a lot of zales,

17:43

I guess. Yeah, zales?

17:45

I mean, look, zales, yeah. It's a

17:47

jewelry store at the mall, they sell rings. No,

17:51

you've never heard of zales? Damn it. No,

17:54

more of an every kiss begins with K, girl,

17:56

myself. Every kiss begins with K. Brilliant

17:58

marketing slogan. don't talk about it, because it's

18:01

K, the letter, but also K, jewelers. Oh

18:03

yeah, that's right. Every kiss does begin with K and

18:06

also K-A-Y. Yeah,

18:09

come on now. You think those Spurs

18:11

are gonna win a championship? No. Today,

18:14

this year? No. No one thinks that. Not even

18:16

Chris Paul. No, he's going because

18:18

of two reasons, right? Number one

18:20

is, and again, shout out

18:22

to Jake Fisher, who brought this up to

18:24

me. Agents say that once

18:26

an older player takes minimum, he never comes

18:29

back from minimum land, or very rarely. So

18:31

when you're dealing with a guy who's at the end of his career, you

18:35

kind of try to postpone

18:38

taking minimum as

18:40

much as possible. Got it. Right?

18:43

So this maintains that he's not a minimum player.

18:45

11 million dollars. Hey, I'm still a multi-million, I'm

18:47

still an eight-figure player in this league. But

18:50

then also he gets to go play for San Antonio and play with

18:52

an incredible talent, and Victor Wambenjama,

18:54

and he's gonna help them because he's helped

18:56

every single team he's ever joined, other than

18:58

the Warriors. Like in the first year of

19:00

Chris Paul, you could look at every team

19:02

he's played for in the NBA. They were

19:04

always markedly better than they were the year

19:06

before. Yeah. And so he

19:09

comes in, he gets to make them

19:11

better, he gets to make Wambenjama better,

19:13

and as a result, someone

19:15

out there is gonna say, huh, maybe Chris

19:17

Paul's the missing link to my thing, and

19:19

I'll pay him a premium, rather than saying,

19:21

hey, Chris Paul, you want a ring? Come

19:23

take these pennies, bro. Well,

19:26

I mean, I think now is a good time

19:28

to have a little announcement. I wanted to save

19:30

it for the end of the A-block. Wick

19:33

Grouseback is putting

19:35

the Celtics up for sale. I

19:38

wanna shout out everybody who texted me about

19:40

this, because it got me thinking, actually, you

19:42

know, Oddball's been great, but

19:44

I'm actually, I'm gonna be leaving to

19:47

purchase the Celtics. I've made them an

19:49

offer. They're thinking it

19:51

over. Charlotte, I do

19:53

wanna warn you, I'm

19:55

not gonna, you know, pocket check

19:58

you, or try to audit your final.

20:00

finances, but beyond whatever it costs

20:02

you to buy the Celtics They

20:05

just locked into a ton of new money Tatum

20:08

with the biggest contract of all time. I'm

20:11

not sure just one more time That's a

20:13

hundred fifty million dollars over five-year extension Derek

20:16

white signed a four-year a hundred twenty six million

20:18

dollar extension Of course the Jalen Brown extension is

20:20

kicking in now where he makes up

20:22

to three hundred four million dollars holiday

20:24

in Porzingis They both signed big extensions

20:28

Hmm you are going to be

20:30

in for a big ass Like

20:34

check that you got to cut every year and this

20:36

is for a team that was bought for 360 million

20:38

dollars in 2002 a Pittance

20:42

a pittance in today's sports landscape.

20:45

Yeah, look, I mean I hear you but I

20:47

have all of the loose change in my car

20:49

I have a can-do

20:51

attitude I have a mom

20:53

who would be great at player development

20:55

and you know, I'll find the 4.5.

20:59

Nine nine nine nine nine billion somewhere else

21:01

it it's if you dream it you can

21:04

do it What's the

21:06

first thing you would do as owner of the

21:08

Celtic? I? Would

21:10

make sure that if they give out t-shirts that

21:13

all of them are always green I don't want

21:15

any of those black t-shirts. I don't want any

21:17

of the white ones every t-shirt that they give

21:19

away will be green What's the

21:21

second thing you do as the owner of the Celtic free

21:24

dining for media members? Always

21:27

but especially during the finals. Yes.

21:29

All right. All right, cool stick around. We'll be right

21:31

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Welcome back to Oddball. I mean

22:56

I forgot I have one more thing

22:58

that I will do as the owner

23:00

of the Celtics once they accept my

23:02

offer which is absolutely no media at

23:04

all. I don't trust anybody. I

23:07

we are the the me I

23:09

will be out of the content game.

23:11

I will be excommunicated from the content

23:13

community. I mean once I own the

23:15

Celtics we just got done giving us

23:17

free meals. Now is that

23:19

we're banned. Yeah. I'm

23:21

not. I'm not. No more

23:23

engagement farming for me. No way. My

23:25

my home my my rate my

23:28

site Scott site. I

23:31

anyway I'm not a farmer. We have to play a

23:34

game. Well I'm speaking. Which you are.

23:36

Yeah. What you just described as getting rid

23:38

of all the tools of communism and just yeah.

23:41

What I mean I'm buying a team for four point eight

23:43

billion. Nobody should have that much money. Speaking

23:46

of championship hopes we're going to do a little

23:48

heat check. I mean we will tell you how

23:51

much we think teams have heated up their championships

23:53

hopes in this offseason. First

23:55

up the Knicks. Take it away.

26:00

They go after every ball, even

26:02

in like random January games. And that's

26:04

the stuff that matters. And Oklahoma City

26:06

is already so good. And now they

26:09

have slightly older guys they're adding. I

26:12

almost might just bet on them to win it all. And

26:15

to be honest with you, like even their young

26:17

guys are getting older and more experienced, right? So

26:19

Jayden Williams is gonna be better next year. Shay

26:22

Gill, this Alexander is gonna be better. Chet Holmgren

26:24

is gonna be better. They

26:26

are taking massive steps. This

26:29

is, I think your favorite in

26:31

the Western Conference, particularly after the

26:33

Nuggets, Salts, Contavious, Caldwell, Pope. That

26:36

really took a lot of shine off of them.

26:39

Big time, big time. 76ers.

26:42

You wanna do the sixers really quick? We

26:45

got like 20 seconds. Put it in like

26:47

the cold, like medium cold. Next to the

26:49

Knicks, next to the Knicks. Yeah,

26:52

no. Hey, Kyle, not Kyle Lowry,

26:55

Eric Gordon and Andre Drummond don't impress me. You

26:57

gotta fill out a roster now. Go

26:59

get me some players, not some

27:02

guys. Hey, by the way, Michael Jordan's DePoi

27:04

in 1988. Okay, that's all the time

27:06

we have for our ball. Thank you so much

27:08

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