(Have you talked to Chris?) Yes. He's been in LA. Came to our Iguodala meeting. We'll hold onto the exception, BAE through the season. Teams try too much to make everything perfect right in July. You don't need your best team July 4th. You need it on April 15th. I like to keep the powder dry. If we take an injury or something's not working, we'll make a move. ... Teams want to finish July 4th. It's smart to stay flexible. ... We have all our firsts '19 going forward, most of our seconds & international players we think can help. Staying flexible & being good is our theme. Sergio Llull like 45 now? I think he's my age. Madrid must be awesome. He's turned down some deals I cannot believe. We talk every year. We flirt every year. I think he'll play for us, maybe on the back end. He's maybe of the best guards ever in Europe. If he came in now, is he a 3rd guard? He'd be quality rotation player in the NBA, if not better. Maybe your owner needs to step it up a bit. Coach McHale & I did that. It's not an ownership thing. We only have the tools we have. Unless your Prokorov, you don't have any way to do some other things. His life is so great in Madrid that you now have this team that has a chance to win a title, he could come over & make as much money as he makes there & play in the best league. It's not attractive? It's attractive. I'm just telling you, Madrid must be awesome. I think he's getting married soon. You should e-mail him every week. I tweet at him. You hit almost rock bottom twice & rallied out of it. First time, you stockpiled all those picks, you go through summer of 2012 & then Harden comes in. Now you're a genius again. Last year, terrible Harden-Howard chemistry, this is it. D'Antoni comes in & now you have Chris Paul & James Harden. How worried were you? More worried first time or 2nd time? You missed one rock bottom in '09 when we had maybe our title team. That was when we thought Yao was done, knew McGrady was done. We don't do the rebuilding thing. ... We had to fight through it. I would say two years ago might have been worse, where we just made the WCF and then only won half our games the next year. That was worse. From Leslie to me to James, we were like that ****'s not happening again. We took heat for signing Ryan, Eric & Mike. Our owner was instrumental in that. He wanted to look at him hard. He got mad at me for not signing Mike immediately. I was doing my diligence. We were looking at Mike or a more young, upcoming coach. We knew Mike was the guy we wanted if we went veteran. We wanted to go back to being a destination in FA. That year hurt us for the premiere FA who's now on the best team in the league. We have a real shot otherwise. Our timing was off. The plan worked. We got back into contention. Did you worry at some point as the league evolved, everyone looking at the same data you're looking at? By 2013-14, there weren't a lot of old school teams anymore. ... By our analysis, we're the 4th best drafting team over the last 11 years. Draft is more efficient. FA, teams are being smarter about doing shorter deals. That's frozen up the market. Tanking is smart. We've never done it. If you're gonna be out of it, you should be looking hard at what Philly did. Teams may not go extreme Hinkie but they're being smarter about how to use cap space. It's harder but hey, that's the job. Interesting knowing you during the Hinkie time in Philadelphia. I was the only guy defending him. Houston Astros are benefiting now. Cubs did it. When we hit rock bottom after Yao/Tracy, I had a conversation with our owner & showed him the two paths. The Philly path is more reliable. There is the other path, which is the one we took. Be careful on contracts. Stockpile picks & pounce on a trade. You can wait a long time for a team to trade a guy like James Harden. Tank route, it's only 3-4 years. It's much more reliable & quicker. Pau, if we had gotten him, I still think we could have done the James trade. The reality is, it was Scola & Martin for Pau Gasol. We would have still had the same other pieces besides Martin. They're still letting only one team win. You still need luck. Either your high picks have to pan out or have to pounce on a trade. You're generally not signign a star. We did it twice with Dwight & Chris. When did you feel like big guys became less impactful? Last 3 years. I love big guys. Every GM has their soft spot for players. I have a soft spot for big guys who play tough. PJ Tucker, Chuck Hayes, Dwight Howard - I love guys who play big, strong & tough. That role is fading. Modern NBA center is like Clint Capela. That is the modern five. Everyone else has to shoot & defend. How does Nerlens go for 30 cents then? He was about to be a FA. ... Jonathan Isaac eventually a stretch five? Absolutely. Can you talk about other prospects? I thought he was most intriguing of the top six. I'll talk generally. If you can rim protect, rebound, can shoot threes, that's the super unique asset that maybe no one will have. That's why I was losing my mind when Phil considering trading Kristaps Porzingis. It's a very unique skill. You go to the playground, everyone is shooting threes. There will be a bumper crop coming. ... 2016, the big cap spending spree. Now, the cap went backwards. Now you have all these teams screwed. It's chaos. Why didn't people know? Cleveland & Golden State mowing through the playoffs...that was a big factor. ... It hurt because players now compare salaries & don't understand why this guy is getting this & that guy is getting that. ... I have to deal with the repercussions. One of the players who just went to Philly got $23M and Chris Paul is like I'm making $24M! It's hard for them to process. The reality is not good. Part of the strategy of getting Eric & Ryan on good deals for the team was in that market last year, let's get the preimer guys quick, pay a little more because the next tier was people paying $10M-$15M for guys who should be making $3M-$5M at best. ... I've heard players getting $30M wanting to fire their agents. That's insane right? One big moment in my career early on, welcome to the job, maybe two years in, was when I offered a $137M max to Chris Bosh. He was gonna line his bird cage with the paper. For him, he had many teams courting him so it was just another $137M. It was very eye-opening. 14-15 when you thought you had Chris Bosh. If that team had been healthy, I thought we would have maybe been the best team in the league. That was pre-super teams. Josh Smith/Corey Brewer game the greatest sports moment of your life? Yeah, no doubt. James had been on the bench. Kevin was gonna bring him back but the group was rolling. This was a great moment for Coach McHale. I would be the worst coach ever. I'd be insane on the sidelines. I appreciate Coach McHale at that moment. Brewer, Smith, Terrence Jones, we had collective career 29% 3pt shooters make about 7 threes. It wasn't that we came back from 17 down. We went up 9 with like 2 minutes to go. Never gonna talk about that game with Chris Paul I guess. We haven't talked about it. That wasn't part of the recruiting pitch. Now that you say it, I'd enjoy getting his perspective. ... The thing that struck me was how much the town hates the Clippers. (Rebuilding) Competitiveness of our owner, me, James...we also felt like Houston is town where...they're coming back to the 'Stros now but you could barely get 500 people there then. We felt like if we went through that in Houston, you'd might lose a generation of fans. We felt like we went the right way. Your home court advantage could be better. We have great fans. ...
Doesn't really make sense. Ryan Kelly becomes fully guaranteed on July 7. Uthoff is partially guaranteed on July 30. Unclear on the guys with team options -- Zay Taylor, Quarterman, and Shawn Long, but some of them should have partial guarantees once the season begins as well.
wonderful podcast. Tons better than when other GMs do podcast where you don't hear anything useful except PR talk.
He talked about unicorns and didn't mention Zhou Qi?! It's time to brush up on your Chinese mythology and read about the qilin 麒麟. Zhou Qi...lin? Coincidence? Joe Unicorn > Joe Camel
Why triple cheese burger podcasting instead of signing players? No wonda we missed out on George and will miss out on Lerbron
Rocket Mortgage by Quicken Loans and Dan Gilbert conversation, though... Something still going on there with Daryl talking about Dan's money?
Anybody else notice he said Game 6 "wasnt part of the recruiting pitch" to Chris Paul? Ummm, considering Chris Paul never actually made it to free agency, there never should have been a recruiting pitch. Careful there, Daryl.
Sergio is 29..... Scola always wanted to come over, was held back and arrived at age 27. Why not get Sergio Rodriguez?
And capela needs to be in the gym practicing free throws instead of chilling in shang hai. Dantoni should be in his room drawing up plays like a mad scientist instead of accepting coach of the year awards. Le$ should be making $$$$ instead of creepy laughing
So per that interview, we would have had a real shot of signing Durant if Howard didn't cause us to **** the bed? Makes me dislike him even more now...
