Optionality - NBA Free Agency Stalls on LeBron Decision

Welcome And The Word Optionality

Good afternoon, Wednesday. You know it's time for Front Runner Podcast Collective. We have more thoughts on the Jalen Brown trade to Philadelphia. We also are going to be talking about the Cleveland Cavaliers bet on a guy who is 6'2 and a $273 million bet, by the way. And LeBron to put a freeze on the rest of the NBA without saying a single word. Now, the word of the day or the word of the week is optionality. It's just a nicer word to say we can't afford both of you anymore. Boston has traded two years removed finals MVP for an older, more injury prone Paul Paul George. Y'all already know that. I am going to publicly say I was wrong about the Donovan Mitchell situation. I had this man walking out of Cleveland. Instead, he just signed a $273 million deal to stay. And somebody explained to me what the whiteboard meant was was what was going on with the whiteboard. Like what was going on, Rich Call. We need answers and we're going to try to give them to you. And I guess the last thing that we also need to talk about, if LeBron is all is frozen, that means Denver's optionality is also frozen. And with that, Draymond has opted out of his deal, right? And we're just awaiting what the king is going to do. Right now he's playing golf. So that's where we are. And we will get to all these topics as we get into the pod. Let's go. This is where we talk like friends, we argue like cousins, and we still walk out smarter than we came in. I am your host Vince, your occasional hoop therapist and absolute favorite bad influence when it comes to completely reckless NBA overreactions that low-key make perfect sense. We are setting the table. With actual verified receipts. Give you exact barbershop ammo you need to take into your group chats and completely nuking the argument. If you're an NBA sicko who wants more than highlight talk, if you want context, numbers, and a point of view, then this is your pod. This is FRPC, and let's

Celtics Press Conference Fallout

go. We're gonna start off with the uh with the press conference in Boston. I thought it was uh interesting to say the least. Brad Stevens said trading Jalen Brown cost him sleep, and for once, that's not you know just regular old PR speak. Ten years, six conference finals, uh two finals trips, a NBA championship, a finals MVP trophy, and the Celtics never missed the playoffs with him on the roster. Then Boston sent him to Philadelphia for Paul George and four picks. Optionality was the word that Stevens married himself to in Monday's press conference. This stripped the buzzword away from this one thing, money. You don't trade two years removed finals MVP for an oft-injured, six-year-old Paul George, unless the second apron is functioning as a de facto hard cap. And with that being said, I want to talk about that real quick. He said something very important in that um press conference. He talked about how Jalen Brown was a hell of a player. He talked also about how he couldn't have 70% of his cap tied into two guys, and this is where the second apron it was going to stop guys like Steve Balmer and now like Mark Walter and Joseph Lacup to not be able to just spin their way out of trouble. But the unforeseen circumstances in the in the kind of the byproduct of this is also you got guys who like Jalen Brown is a homegrown talent in Boston. They drafted him out of Cal. It was one of those situations where it they bet on the athletic traits, and they absolutely absolutely hit. It's one of those things where I as as now as somebody who works in a situation where I'm trying to scout these players and the ones that are coming into the draft, like the guys who came in this year. One of the things that I actually absolutely have taken myself out of is just scouting the athletic traits. You know, do you have actual basketball sk skill? And then now you have Jalen Brown, I'll be it, this was 10 years ago, so it's not like we've had a lot of Jalen Browns come into the league. But Boston was the one team to hit on this guy. And did they hit I mean immaculately? So, what does it all mean? Well, it means that Boston is gonna be seeing a lot of Jalen Brown, obviously in the future. Um Brown and Tatum uh couple years ago combined for 47% of the cap in the 2024 title season. And what Steven's saying, that number was trending towards 70% of the cap, such a high percentage for our usage tied to into two players. Brown was traded for financial architecture, not performance. His career high obviously in 2028.7 per points per game, 6.9 rebounds, 5.1 assists, uh with 56 wins, and he was sixth in MVP voting, second all-team NBA. These are things that you already know, but it was his best individual season of his career, and it came a year, uh, came a year, and then they moved him. You know, so this was his best year that he just had, and they moved him. So you can never say, well, we made our team better. You know, there was this there was this discussion in the well, I I applaud the Boston press. I applaud the Steve Buckley's of the world, the Dan Shaughnesses of the world for asking the hard questions. I think A. Shirach Blakely was in there, and a couple other cats that really are in tune with the with the goings-on in Boston. And they asked, hey, you traded Jalen Brown. How does this make your team better? And there was no answer for that. It was basically kept on going back to the word optionality. This gives us more optionality down the road. This doesn't make our team better now, but this makes our way, our pathway to a better team in the future easier. I don't know if any Boston fan wants to hear that. I don't know if anybody really wants to hear that. Cause here's the thing that you're giving up motor, character, adversity, response, all these things are what Brad Steven knows about Jalen Brown. He's the defining player of this era for the Boston Celtics, along with Jason Tatum. Any way you look at it, losing Brown is a talent decline. Framing it outright, like in a situation where you're saying, okay, well, it's cap math, it's not scouting, you can tell me all of those things. You can give me all the buzzwords you want. But at the end of the day, you're losing a really good player. Now, the analytics will tell you that Jalen Brown is inefficient. Brown's pick and roll ball handling turnover rate set at uh 60 68th to 83rd percentile, which basically is elite ball handling from 2019 to 2021. Then it slipped back towards uh 38th to 57th percentile from 22 on. Okay, so there's a there's a slippage there. So I'll say this again pick and roll ball handling turnover rate was

Cap Math Versus Basketball Value

in between 68th and 83rd percentile from years 2019 to 2021. Then it slipped from 38th to 57th percentile from 22 till now, present day. Boston learned leaned on him for more table setting uh and not just scoring, his uh efficient field goal percentage held steady. It was in the low to mid 50s the whole time. Now, if you want to talk about like his splits or what have you, we can do that. 55% of his career positionally, he was a small forward, 38%. He was a shooting guard, he really wasn't never a coin guard. He's a second-side initiator only, you know that and where he's going. That's what they're gonna ask him to do. He's paired with Tyrese Maxie now in Philadelphia. He's gonna be the lead guard. Obviously, he was third all NBA, shooting close closer to the rim, and more efficiently than the year before. All this means is that they got another stud to pair with another stud, and hopefully Jalen Brown's availability will kind of counteract what you're gonna lose with Embiid and his pending injury that he usually has during the season. So if you want to talk about more stats or like how lopsided this deal was, Paul George played 41 games in 2024 and 2025, and then he played 37 games in last year's uh tilt season tilt. Uh, so two thing two seasons with the Philadelphia 76ers, and he basically averaged less than 50 games a year. Um went healthy, he's an efficient type of dude. He shoots uh 53.6% efficiently uh efficient field goal percentage last season, but obviously it's the durability situation that is going to hold back Paul George. Now ground said Boston showed him a lack of respect once the trade talks went left. A real relationship was fractured, separate the front from the on card uh case and stuff like that. So basically, he said he felt disrespected. He said that he felt like the relationship went completely left once the Giannis trade was talked about and what have you. Now, Brad Stevens says that he talked to Jalen Brown before all of this happened, and now we're in this situation. Now, you want to talk about anything else when it comes to Jalen Brown in Brad Stevens? Stevens called him a force, and that's exactly the problem for projecting George into the squad. George can fall into a lower usage complimentary role in a way that Brown by nature was never going to accept. You can tell me that. That's the real stylistic swap being sold as a like-for-like trade. But you know, and I know that the Tatum Brown tandem might touch the ball close to evenly, but the inherent value in a Tatum possession over Brown's possession, that's the got in shot value, is arguably the real reason Boston kept Tatum and Moo Brown. The cap story and the value story point in the same direction. So the what they're saying, what what I'm saying through all of this, in layman's terms, and I think somebody can't remember who said this, but having two similar guys. Now I don't think they personally play the same type of game. I think Tatum shoots more threes and Brown shoots more long twos than anything else. I think that was the real reason why Brown was let go. They wanted to play a different style of basketball. I don't know if it's gonna still be the same style of basketball that was played the last three or four seasons with Joe Mazzula at the helm, but I do believe that what we're looking at right now is that they are pivoting, and I think they want to skew. They're not gonna skew younger this year because of Paul George, but I think at some point they want to skew younger. Uh, they want to get uh contracts that are more controllable, that are more reasonable for them, but they don't get that relief for another two years. So you can't tell me that this was a a right now issue. You can tell me that you're preparing for the future, and there's no Boston fan that I know of that really gives a rat's ass about what's gonna happen in two years. Here's the other point that I want to make to this. In your saving of money in two years, not right now, not this moment, not when the season starts, in two years, is that gonna ultimately cost you JC Tatum? How frustrated is this guy gonna be if for some reason he's the one who holds the keys to the castle, but he doesn't have any knights and he doesn't have any army to help him win the ultimate prize, which is the NBA championship. Now I will say this about Philly and Jalen Brown with Brown Maxie MB and now he's not a rookie going into his second year, VJ Edgecomb, who needs touches to develop still. That's a lot of miles to feed at one table. Nick Nurse will have to manage this with real finesse as or it will turn into a shot distribution problem by Thanksgiving. Boston didn't lose Jalen Brown because he stopped being great, they lost him because great got too expensive to stack twice, and optionality is just a nicer word for budget problem. Don't build a fully armed operational battle station and then act surprised when the budget office comes for it. You know, you you sit there and you and I'm gonna tell you right now, this is a Bill Chisholm situation, and his uh private equity group that that's behind him. Them dudes is crunching the numbers and saying, Hey, hey, we we gotta we gotta cut costs a little bit. We gotta figure this out. And I'm gonna tell you right now, it's gonna get real loud in Boston when the product on the court is going in a downward, you know, cycle. It will be a real problem. Optionality is a nicer word for we can't afford both of them anymore. That's what you should have just said, and you should have said that thanks to Bill Chisholm and Sixth Street, you know, private equity, this is where we are. Now, obviously, Brad Stevens would have lost his job job over something like that, and we don't want that to happen because you know here's the thing: we can judge Brad Stevens on his body of work. You can tell me that this trade was awful, and I would 100% agree with you. The problem is is that I don't think this came from Brad. I don't think this came from Stevens whatsoever. I think this was a absolute call from up top, and I don't care what Bill Chisholm tells me, he can tell me all of this stuff that this is a move towards winning down the road. This was a move to clear up your budgetary constraints for the next two seasons, you know what I'm saying? So this is something that you can tell your shareholders and your board of directors, hey, we're gonna make some cash at the end of this. So there is that. Now, you won't talk about some

Donovan Mitchell Stays In Cleveland

cash. Let's talk about Donovan Mitchell. Donovan Mitchell had the leverage to wait another year and sign for $353 million next summer, but he gave the Cavaliers a break, and he signed this season, taking on a he signed a $273 million extension ext instead. And again, I was wrong. I was wrong on this one. I had the situation trending toward Mitchell asking out after two disappointing playoff runs that ended abruptly had me thinking the frustration was gonna build towards a trade request, not a nine-figure vote of confidence. So this raises two real questions. Does Donovan Mitchell know another domino is about to fall? Is LeBron landing in Cleveland? Or is this just a just a faith in Kobe Altman and Kenny Atkinson to build the right thing around him? So let's get into the numbers. My man signed a four-year extension for $273 million that does not kick in until the 2027-28 year. This includes a $75 million player option when Donovan Mitchell hits 34 years of age. He left a bigger extension on the table by not waiting. Mitchell in April on record, he said this organization that's willing to do anything for its players. Uh, it was direct, it was uh something that you sit there and you go, his verbiage has always said like he wanted to stay. This wasn't something like PR put in his head, this is something that you got from Donovan Mitchell himself. Now, what is the Cleveland Cavaliers getting with Donovan Donovan Mitchell? Well, they're getting a lot. I mean he is a almost a 27 point per game guy over five assists four and a half rebounds a game and one and a half steals a game on 46 well damn near 47% shooting across 264 games since the trade playoffs every year and now confirm the first true deep playoff run ever after LeBron you know saying betting on a smaller guarantee now versus a bigger one one year later is a differentiator between this situation this dude craves stability he also again must love where he's at in Cleveland this is a win for the front office of Cleveland this is a win for that uh for that franchise it's a win for the Cleveland fans because you your guy left money on the table. He left money on the table. Jokic didn't is not going to do this. Jokic is going to sign the contract next year, and he's gonna get the 353 million. Our guy left like 80 million on the table. So Donovan Mitchell should be uh applauded for his uh his virtue towards the Cleveland Cavaliers for this situation. Now, I will say this, he has been snake-bit in the playoffs. His Cleveland era, his Cleveland era playoff averages are still stellar, 27.3 points a game. He's shooting uh 52.1 uh effective field goal percentage, 2.6 turnovers, it beats his Utah era, not in points, but if you look at it, it's a little more efficient. He was averaged 28.3 points a game in Utah with an effective field goal percentage of five point uh 50.4, and he also averaged like a half a turnover more, so his efficiency and his ball handling have gone up in Cleveland. So what does this that basically tell you? That tells you two things. One, he's grown as a player, and two, he trusts his teammates, and his teammates have you know rewarded him with their with his trust. Now, this is what I also will say a full year of James Harden, another full season of both bigs and real continuity for once. Can this version of the Cleveland Cavaliers actually make the run that the Cleveland fans have been wanting? I'm still skeptical. Me, Vince Carter, host of Front Runner Podcast Collective, Cleveland, you can sing all your hate towards me. And the reason why I say that is it's not about the roster construction as it sits today, and it's not about Mitchell's game. The numbers above say it all. He's trending up, and I'm not just sold on the roster around him that's getting caught that's caught up yet. And the reason why I say that is I don't think I've had real high expectations for Evan Mobley, and I don't know if he'll ever be more assertive than he is now, and that really bothers me because I expected this dude to be Chris Bosch-esque, okay? Not Chris Bosch himself, but Chris Bosch-esque. And I just don't know if he'll ever get there, and I think if the Cavaliers want to go where they do want to go, kind of waiting on LeBron James seems to be something of a sticking point. And here's the one thing I will say if LeBron James is willing to go ahead and take that like that tertiary road of role, well, tertiary road of a role player in Cleveland, where he doesn't have to score 20 points a game, and whatever the case may be, and he can give some more effort on the defensive end, he's going to be an upgrade from Max Struce. Now, I'm worried about the spacing in Cleveland, you know, because Evan Mobley, even though he shoots threes, he doesn't shoot them at a volume that scares anybody to have to like really rotate out to him. So that's a problem, but we'll see. Every artist got the album where they finally sound like themselves. The one where the singles stop feeling like warmups. Cleveland is betting on last season's conference or conference final run and was Donovan Mitchell's version of that album. And they just signed him to make three more like it. I'm not fully bought in yet. It's whether the roster has the features to back him up. And here's the one thing I am going to say. I have my right to change my mind anytime I want on this particular situation because the sticking point, and we'll get to a little bit later. Go ahead and drink on that. I know I say that a lot, but we will get to a little bit later because we're going to talk about LeBron and what's going on with him. The tension. Here's the thing that I want to say about Donovan Mitchell. He's getting paid like he's already won a championship with this extension. This is a belief that there'll be a Larry O'Brien trophy in that building sometime in the near future. That is a big bet on Donovan Mitchell as a player, as a leader, and as a person. Now, do I think all of those three things have the capability of getting an NBA championship to Cleveland? 100% I do. My thing is this. What are you getting from James Harden and what are you getting from Evan Mowgli to help him achieve this goal? Because it will take those two guys, even if. Now LeBron comes, whole different story. We can talk about how that makeup of that roster looks then. But for right now, we just got to go off the roster that we have right now.

Brunson’s Hidden Injury And Knicks Outlook

Speaking of the Eastern Conference and dominance, our guy Jalen Brunson, who just won a title, playing through a torn up left wrist on his shooting on his shooting hand, nobody knew up until the surgery that got confirmed after the parade. This dude averaged 28.4 a night through the run. He dropped 45 in the closeout game and walked away with the finals MVP with his hand quietly falling apart the whole time. Now he's doing it with one hand tied behind his back, literally. For the New York Knicks fans, who are still basking in the glow of the NBA championship after 53 years. His postseason splits by month tell the whole story. In April, he shot 52.4% effective field goal percentage with a 56.9 true shooting percentage. Then in May, he shot 54% effective field goal percentage and 60.8 true shooting percentage. A plus 17.8 with him on the floor. Then in June, finals month, effective field goal percentage craters to 47.4%. True shooting percentage drops to 53.6%. And the plus minus collapsed to one to uh a positive 1.6. Now here's the twist: his scoring average went up to a series high 32.6 in June. You know what I'm saying? He scored more and got less efficient at the same time with his team's margins shrinking around him. That's the box score fingerprint of a guy playing through a wrecked shooting hand. We got more stats for you that we, you know, we pulled his field goal percentage in these playoffs, was sitting at 47.2%, with the is a 58 percentile below his 2023 postseason peak of 52.7, which was 71st percentile. His three-coin stroke actually held up fine, 36.3%, which is 51st percentile mid-pack for his career. So this wasn't the shot being gone, it was specifically the contested shots at the rim, pressured looks, getting harder. That's consistent with his wrist issue, not a slump. This is the Rocky training montage in reverse. Rocky got months to get right before the fight. Brunson showed up every night for two months and manned up. And he just rolled through the Eastern Conference and then got to the NBA finals and just continued to come back on San Antonio. And this is what I want to say about that. Jalen Brunson and the Knicks reminded me a lot of the chick for the ring. What is it, Samira? She never sleeps. She never sleeps. And as much as San Antonio came out like a house on fire, it was never enough. It it didn't matter what lead you had, it was gone, it was gone by the end of the fourth quarter, baby. Because Brunson and the Knicks walked you down. Now, here's the other thing with him, and just just you know, again. I'm so impressed with Jalen Brunson in so many ways. The four-year averages are ridiculous. 26.3 points per game, 6.8 assists a game, back-to-back east final trips, and now a title. This isn't a one-series fluke, it's sustained four-year climb to a franchise great. And he did it the hardest part of it, very compromised. Now, the injury might have been a mystery, but what we're hearing from leave sources is they expect him to resume basketball activities late in the summer, and it shouldn't uh linger into camp. Pair that with the June dip, and Reed is clean. This is an is a basically an in-season injury he played through, not a chronic issue that's gonna build enough for years. The great thing about that is that Knicks fans, your boy will be back on the court as the season starts. That's what they are saying right now. We'll see. I believe that's listen, Brunson is a hard worker, he's a dedicated dude. He puts a lot of time into his um preparation to get ready for the season. He's a complete Iron Man, and uh I expect him to be back on the court post-haste. The Knicks ran it back with basically the same roster for a reason. Why break up the team that just won it all? And their best player being hurt. The real story isn't that Brunson gutted it out for the title. The June numbers prove it cost him something real down the stretch, which makes him fully healthy and Brunson next spring genuinely scary proposition for the rest of the East. So I'm gonna say this right now. The Knicks, I'm not saying they're gonna repeat. I think there are a lot of teams that are building up to to go ahead and and challenge them. But tell me a team that's better prepared for what they need to do. Cause I think that what we also saw is the emergence of of OG and Anobi. And I think that he played such a critical role, not just with the block. I mean the block was the block was special on the tip end was even more special. But when you needed him to step up and put some points on the board, and then continue to play the stellar defense that he normally plays, he did that. Now you lost Mitchell Robinson, you gained Andre Drummond. We'll see how much of a a downgrade that is, or or if it's kind of like a rock steady even situation. But as far as your core is concerned, it's the same. And it got another year of continuity, and now it has what we call NBA finals confidence. We got championship swagger, and we walking into this year. So good luck with that. Good luck with the East dealing with that.

Pacers Quietly Build A Contender

Basically, Josh Hart is still gonna be a maniac. But I want to caution New York Dicks fans this way. There's a team that's lurking out there. Maybe a team that you forgot about. And that's the Indiana Pacers. Now the Indiana Pacers, they picked up Kelly O'gray during this uh free agency frenzy that we got going on. Uh two years, 16.5 million guaranteed to solve a problem that Chad Buchanan named out loud last week. No size on the wing. Ougre's 6'8, and he is a band scorer, he's a cutter, and which matters a lot when you have a healthy, healthy Tyrese Halliburton finally back from missing all of last year with a tornado Achilles. Also, my guy got shingles last year. It's been a hard year for our guy. Do not sleep on a team that also acquired Ivica Zubots during the trade deadline. Now, did it cost them a high drawdy uh a high draft lottery pick last year? Yes, it did. But you're getting Tyrese Halliburton healthy and Avisa Zubat healthy back into the lineup. Now, with everybody chasing LeBron and his sweepstakes, let me give you some things that I want to kind of give back to you as far as people who are trying to figure out what supremacy in the East is going to look like. Kelly Ugray Jr. last year was 14.1 points per game on a slash line of 46.7% field goal percentage, 36% three-point shooting percentage, and 76.6 percentage from the free throw line. 41 of his 50 games were starts. He played 31.5 minutes a night. This wasn't a bench cameo. This was a near full-time role. In Indiana, he's going to be a bench scorer. He's going to come off and he's going to play significantly less minutes than he did last year. But this his ability to slash and score and then stand out by the three-point line is going to be absolutely critical to the Pacers team. Now I will say his three-point percentage of 36% is a career high. That means his stroke is trending up. I like that feature. Over his 11-year career, he's played in 705 games. He's averaged 13.3 points a game. His field goal percentage is about 44%. His career three-point shooting is 32.7%. And he's very close to what his his free throw percentage is from last year. The reason why I'm telling you that is that a lot of things are trending up. And now also you're going to tell me that he's going to get better shots. The one thing that I will say about Kelly Ubre Jr. is this. He's played on some god-awful teams. He played on a pretty good team with Philadelphia last year. This year he's playing on an Indiana team that is getting Tyrese Halliburton back. And they'll have their full complement of players. Plus, they will also have the just bruising brute Avisa Zubots also in the mix. Now you want to talk about what he is, his positional size at 6'8, um for a wing. The league benchmark is 6'6, 211 pounds, and we got this dude at 6'8. He also is a cutter of the highest level, which will help Halliburton in live ball situations. We know what Halliburton's vision is like, and he stylistically fits the cutting frequency of the Indiana Pacers. Keep moving, keep moving at with pace. This is the type of thing that our guy, Rick Carlisle, loves to have. So he's getting, guess what? Our fame our most famous word of the week. Optionality. Now, what does this do for Jarrett Walker? This might be the end for our guy. I was I had high hopes for him coming out of Houston. It just never clicked, as far as that's concerned. Now, he did score 11.6 points per game because he actually got some run last year on 25.7 minutes. And he also chipped in with 41 starts. The last season was awful for Indiana. They just kept getting injured. People in and out of the lineup, no kick cohesiveness whatsoever. So I am really looking forward to seeing what they're going to look like this uh next offseason or next season. Also, the same thing for Ben Shepherd. He's going to lose some time off of this situation. This deal pushes Indiana 6.5.5 million dollars over the luxury tax. Uh 1 million below the first apron. Doesn't matter. Because at the end of the day, you are looking at a championship, you know, or bus type of team. This is why they let go of Miles Turner last year. But they replaced him with something even more awesome. Because when you get a Visa Zubots, now again, first round picks, all that very I can understand what we're talking about. But what a Visa Zoobots gives him is a physical presence in the lane. He's a decent, he's a good shot blocker. He's also going to be a good target for our guy, uh Tyrese Hatlenburton, and also. A visa Zubat sets bone crushing picks. Like these picks are going to be physical. My man is not out here playing games. He's out here to make sure that he gets Tyrese Halligan a real release cost to be able to get into the lane, put pressure on the paint, and then allow the defense to be able to collapse on him so then he can make a move to shoot it out, to shoot to kick it out to shooters who are sitting on the wing. So I am really high on what this team, uh, the roster construct is of this team. I am obviously even more thrilled that Tyree Talliburton is back, which is great. I'm gonna take a sip of coffee because my throat is about to close. Everybody's obsessing about LeBron where he lands. Meanwhile, Indiana quietly assembles a top-tier East roster without needing him. Zubats inside, Ubre in top and coming off the bench, McConnell with McConnell running the second unit and a healthy Tyrese Halleckburton to go in and then slot everybody back into their position again. So our guy, Nim Hard, not gonna have to shoot it as much, our guy Neesmith playing crazy defense, and Pascal Siakum being the bet being one of the better uh Robins to Tyrese's Batman that we have in the league. Again, to all the Eastern Conference teams out there, I understand that the Pacers weren't a factor last year. You can best believe they're gonna be a factor this year. Oh, and then they got also uh Larry Nance Jr. as a backup big, so we'll see what that looks like as well. You're not gonna need a lot from him, but just in case, another live body, not gonna ask him to do much, but damn.

Clippers Recast Life After Kawhi

Now, let's talk about the Clippers real quick, shall we? As you know, Kawhi Leonard is back in Toronto. The aspiration cap circumvention grueling is still hanging out there unresolved. The Clippers are turning the page whether they're fully ready to or not. What they got back in retiring, Brandon Ingram is a very good player, but he is not Kawhi, he's never impacted winning anywhere close to his predecessor, and for someone as long as Ingram, you think he would cause havoc on the defensive end. We have not seen that part of Ingram's game really since his like rookie season with the Lakers. Now, let's give you some stats that kind of hold hold this all to be true. Over the last seven years, Leonard's Clippers numbers are ridiculous. When he's in the lineup, they have a winning percentage of 65.6% without him, they're 48.4%. Obviously, they are better with him than without him. Tyloo's Clippers 11 out of 13 head-to-head. He averaged 22 points per game while shooting 51.4% shooting. And but his first season in Toronto and his last season in Toronto, the Clippers held him to 30 30 37 points on 31 shots. That is bad efficiency over two games. His assist to turnover ratio was six to eight. Not great. Small cycle size, right? Here's the thing that I want to everybody to understand. Ingram has posted a defensive box plus minus for every season he has played in this league in a negative situation. Okay? He has never had a positive defensive box plus minus in his entire career. His career steal percentage is 1.1. Well below plus defender wing norms for a player his size. This is exactly the number that I was worried about. His length has never translated into this defensive disruption at all. It's not one year blip. This is his entire career. Both of Ingram's last two teams defending better with him off the floor than with him on it. And the Clippers will have to hide him. Um, and here's the best card. He was on a team last year with uh Colin Mark Murray Boy Boyles. Uh say that three times fast. Colin Murray Boyles, Scotty Barnes, RJ Barrett, who's I would say a at least a break-even type of defender. Actually, he was more of a plus defender last year. And now you're telling me that Brandon Ingram is going to have like assignments where he's going to be guarding like Kevin Durant, Luca Doncic, maybe. You know what I'm saying? Like he's gonna have to guard Lori Marketing. Oh, don't forget the three terrors that are on San Antonio of Stefan Castle, Devin Vassell, Dylan Harper. I mean, this is going to be hard for our guy, Brandon Ingram. Because he's gonna have to average like 32 to 36 minutes a game. That means that he's gonna be on the quarter lot. And if he's on the quarter lot, guess what? Teams are gonna seek him out. Now, what the Clippers are losing with Leonard, Leonard posted positive deep defensive box plus or minus every season on record. So he was he was plus 0.9 plus 0.6 plus 0.6 plus 0.6. He averaged his career average is plus one point eight with a career steals percentage of 2.7, nearly a full point above his 2025-2026 usage similar level. Next to Ingram's negative 0.7 career average defensive box plus minus. And I understand that the salaries might have matched and what have you. But I am re I mean, I'm not saying they would have gave you Colin Murray Boyle. I'm not saying that. But I think I would have asked for something else. I think I would have, I don't know what I would have asked for, but we will see. Also, here's the other thing. You got Darius Garland on that team, and I love Darius Garland. I think he's a really good player. The problem is that he is six foot one, and him being six foot one, he is going to be absolutely hunted. And if you don't have somebody who is defensive minded on the wing, which we have been waiting for Brandon Ingram to show us this his entire career, and he has not, you're gonna have some issues on the defensive end. That's just what it's gonna be. Now, where Ingram is very valuable, he shoots 47.1% from the mid-range on 5.4 attempts, which is top three in the in League Y. He shoots 52.2% on corner threes. He doesn't get to the rim a lot, personally. He averages 52 games across eight seasons before this last past season, where he played in a lot more games as far as that's concerned. I don't it's a downgrade. For sure. You don't have a center to really speak of. But can he replace some of the productivity that Kawhi left? Yes. 100%. Are you getting Keaton Waggler and uh Darius Garland in the backcourt? And will that help? Maybe a little bit, yes. But you still don't have the type of center you need to be uh the the rim protector because Brooke Lopez is old. Now he might still be decently effective at the rim, but you know what helps is having strong defensive wings that can help keep dudes out of the paint. Just saying. Every long running show has a moment where the lead actor leaves and the studio recasts the role. Same name, on the call sheet, completely different show. That's the Clippers right now. Ingram can hit every line Leonard used to hit on offense, but the show DNA was the two-way force that LA was scary in the playoff series. Because that's one thing that we always thought of is that with Kawhi, we had no idea what the upside of the Clippers were. Now he's walked out the door, went back to Toronto, and the numbers say his midseason replace or his uh his his replacement this year, say there's gonna be a gap. Tyron Lewis not directing the same series anymore. He's directing a spin-off, and the front court is still an okay casting call because they're gonna need some listen. Derek Jones Jr. is going to be vital. Okay, he is going to be vital to help that defense because Keaton Waggler is a rookie. Darius Garland is small and is going to be hunted on pick and roll um actions, and then Brandon Ingram is not obviously Kawhi Leonard. And we still don't know what Wayne Brooke Lopez is going to be officially super old and can't play anymore. Right now he's still okay, but we'll see how this works out this year. Because he is the sands in the hourglass are ticking on our guy. So we're gonna get to the LeBron situation. Yeah, sir. I told you we were.

LeBron’s Silence Locks Up Free Agency

So LeBron James obviously still hasn't kicked the team yet. We're still waiting. The world is waiting. He left the Lakers a couple weeks ago. Told them, hey, we we're not coming back before the Lakers could tell them we don't want you back. Um athlet the the athletic beat writers are checking in with all their sources. Shout out to the athletic, because you know I read them a lot. The man has an entire NBA free agency in gridlock. Denver clearly needs to make moves and hasn't. The Lakers now are starting to announce some of their signings because what they're doing is saying we can't wait. We can't wait on this. We gotta figure some stuff out. They renounced him yesterday so they can go ahead and start signing some of their guys. But Gold State is also waiting. Philadelphia is waiting. New York is waiting. Yeah, that's a real story right there. So, while all this is going on, Giannis obviously has made his situation official. And now here's the other thing with that. Giannis almost had a heart attack in the car yesterday or a couple days ago when there was a fake report of LeBron going to the Cleveland Cavaliers. He he started to freak out. Like he thinks that he has a chance in Miami to get him as well. I don't think so, but we'll get to that momentarily. Now, around the league, we are sitting here waiting on a guy who is 41 and who's going to be 42 in this season. This is year 24 for LeBron James. And to think that this man has this type of leverage at this point in his career, that's a testament to how he still is playing the game and how badly these franchises want him. So, where do we go from here? Let's tell you where we are. Okay, Denver can only afford the 3.9 veteran minimal. Miami, Philly are also near that same situation. The real, every real contender, LeBron's looking at a serious pay cut relative to his value. This isn't market, it's a legacy tour with a discount sticker. Now, Jokic told reporters in Belgrade he plans to re-sign with the Denver Nuggets long term, removing is this even real timeline a risk for LeBron if he picks the Nuggets. Listen, our guy Jokic doesn't care whether LeBron's coming, not coming, gonna play for the Monsters, going to play for the Holland Glow Trotters, is he gonna join the WNBA? He doesn't care. All Jokic cares about is two things. One, his horses. Two, I'm getting paid $353 million when I sign on the dotted line this time next year. That's what our guy Jokic is talking about. Alright. Minnesota still is opening up or keeping open up rocture spots to keep LeBron on their altar where he is going to pick them. Philly fit case leans on the open power forward spot and the mutual respect with Maxie and the King. But their own Greek writer says it's probably not enough to make Philadelphia the favorite, even with Jalen Brown already at it. What do you get in LeGron? Well, he's gonna miss some games. Okay, he missed 22 last year. He played 60. Now, he's still a brawler. 20.9 points per game. He shot 51.5% field goal percentage. He had an effective field goal percentage of 55.7. He averaged 7.2 assists a game on three turnovers. So he was a 2.1. He was a 2 to 1 turnover ratio. Actually, it was more like 2.4 to 1 turnover ratio. He had an all-star nod. He didn't have any MVP votes, nor all NBA votes for the first time in ages. The scoring is down significantly, but that's because his role changed in Los Angeles last year. His assists towards his career were not that far off. He had 7.2 assists versus his career average of 7.4. His turnovers were actually down. He only averaged 3.3 turnovers a game to his career of 3.5. So as far as ball handling, distribution of the ball, all good signs there. Isn't just a recruiting angle, it's the most accurate description of what LeBron's tape already looks like. That's the thing. LeBron begrudgingly played the third option role in Los Angeles. Now, when the when the Lakers needed him in the playoffs, guess what? He reverted back to the number one option because Luca and Austin Reeves were hurt in that first round series. With that being said, if you go to Philadelphia, you are playing a role, my guy, because you got Maxie, you got Jalen Brown, you got Joel MB, so you are like the fourth member of the four tops. You know what I'm saying? Like you are that guy. Is that going to be enough for you? Now, if you go to Cleveland with what we talked about earlier with Evan Mobley, the playoff struggles of James Harden, does LeBron James play a more significant role in Cleveland than he would any other place? Right? So we got Philly looking at him. We got the Knicks looking at him. If he was playing for the Knicks, he's definitely not going to be the first or second option there. With Carl Anthony Towns and Jalen Brunson in the building and a title already won. In Miami, he's going to be the third option there. Because you got Giannis and Bam. Denver. If they keep Murray, if they keep Jamal Murray, you know, he is going to be the third option there. Oh, by the way, Peyton Watson is still there, too. Not saying that Peyton Watson is going to be that guy, but at the end of the day, who the hell knows? At Golden State, that's the only other team to me where he could be like a secondary role player. So what I mean by that is that Steph is still going to hold the keys to the castle there, obviously. But Jimmy Butler's not going to be there at least until the second half of the season, if not longer down the road. So to me, it's Golden State and Cleveland are the two favorites for LeBron James. Do I think Cleveland is going to get him? I don't think LeBron wants to have on his legacy that I played for four different teams. For me to go back to Cleveland, where I grew up, right? I played my first seven seasons in the league in Cleveland. We, you know, we got to the finals, got destroyed, whatever the case may be. Um, I came back, won a title here. Now I can come back and finish out my career in Cleveland. Storybook shit, all of that. You know what I'm talking about. It's gonna be magical. That's all well and good. But I will say this Rich Paul out here making content about his on Max Kellerman and his podcast with a whiteboard. Yo, I mean he got all these teams up there. He got like conspiracy theories and where's Bigfoot and what is actually going on in Area 51 and all of this other stuff. But at the end of the day, the one thing I think LeBron wants is the capability of being like a real decision maker on the court. Right? Ball in his hands. What does Steph do very well? Play off the ball. He's going to have a better scoring Draymond Green on the court with him in LeBron James. Now, what is Donovan Mitchell really good at? Playing off ball. Yeah, I can play on ball. I can play off ball. But if you have a bully like LeBron James barreling down the paint area and then kicking it out to Devon to Donovan Mitchell and or James Harden or whatever the case may be, that is going to be better, easier for everybody involved. And also it does the thing that matters most to LeBron. I have the capability of being a real difference maker on a team that has a chance to win. Gold State can give him the luxury of being a ball handling decision maker, but I don't know if it necessarily gives him the um the opportunity to win. No shade to my folks in the back. But I think you know and I know that LeBron probably wants a chance to win. I can't believe that we're here. I can't believe that in year 24 or going into year 24 with half the leaks transition uh transaction frozen. Draymond Green literally opting out of his guaranteed money on a hunch. And everybody going to Vegas, you know what I'm saying? Trying to get any morsel of information. When will the king make his announcement? I don't know. But I do know this. The Lakers have renounced his rights. Meaning like he can go anywhere he wants. They did not help him get a higher salary, which means that he's gonna be playing for the veteran minimal more likely than not. I think that Draymond can go ahead and resign with the Golden State Warriors because I think he's going home to Cleveland.

Share The Pod And Final Message

Alright, so we talked our talk. We emptied our clip. That's what we do here at FRPC. Now, do us one favor. Share this episode with one person in your group. You know, let them know, hey, Frontrunner Podcast Collective dropped another pod. It had a lot of jewels in there, had a lot of gems in there that you're gonna need to pick up because we're trying to ride this NBA offseason till the wheels fall off. Now, you can check up on us on X, which is at FrontrunnerPC or at socially underscore FRPC. Uh our Instagram page is at frontrunnerpc. And also check us out on YouTube because we will probably have polls up there, we will have clips up there, we're gonna have the pod and video form up there in the next couple days for show for show. So keep that in mind as well. And you can get that through FRPC Vince, or you can just put in the little search engine Frontrunner Podcast Collective, and that will also get you to the pay window. Now, before we get up out of here, what I want to say is this the best part of you is still you, not your win-loss record, not your timeline, nor your algorithm, just you. Now remember to surround yourself with people who actually give you light, the ones who bring you insight, the joy, and the real accountability. That's your max deal. Appreciate them out loud and do not hesitate. Do not wait till later that nobody has promised you. We're a hoop family. We're gonna get loud, we're gonna be wrong sometimes. Hell, I was wrong on the Donovan Mitchell thing. But we're gonna come back and we're gonna own it like I did on the Donovan Mitchell thing. But we always respect your brain because anyone can yell a take. Very few can actually defend a thought. So until next episode, keep your mind sharp, your heart open, and your circle tight. Protect your peace like cap space and never waste it on bad basketball or bad energy. I'm Vince, this is Front Runner Podcast Collective, and we are out.