Brian Windhorst reveals Paul George could request a trade from Los Angeles Clippers this summer

Brian Windhorst reveals Paul George could request a trade from Los Angeles Clippers this summer

all right it’s free agency season uh free agency and draft we’ll be talking more about the draft as we get into next week um want start focusing on free agency and some teams doing some work here um I am want to focus right now on the Paul George situation which will probably be the big a big headline I’m not going to assume anything about what players may all of a sudden become available that we aren’t talking about now but um Paul George is certainly the most fascinating free agent um the Clippers are allowed to negotiate with him now and sign him or agree to an extension uh or a new contract he could he could sign up for 5 years actually can he sign for five because I think he runs into age 38 whatever it is he could do a deal with the Clippers right now but he hasn’t which isn’t a surprised because he has been able to do with deal with the clippers for months and hasn’t gotten it done and what I am interested in um about Paul George is that it seems pretty obvious that is going to get at least one big offer probably more but unless Jo embiid was really just messing around like he he pretty much said we’re gonna offer this guy a contract which is what you’d expect um and if the Clippers know that Paul George is getting a Max contract offer from anywhere especially a place like Philly where he could walk in and he you know he he was on his podcast this week um and he said something interesting actually kind of two things interesting he said and I’m paraphrasing chasing a championship isn’t necessarily the number one thing he wants to be on a contender but chasing a championship isn’t necessarily the most important thing and then he specifically pointed out that fit would be important well Philadelphia is a championship Contender if they sign him and the fit as their top Wing player who can play with the ball without alongside Maxi does make sense so let me ask you this B temps if Philly is sitting there with the money to offer him a Max with a spot and a and and that fits those criteria why are the Clippers not matching that offer to make sure he doesn’t get to free agency well I mean there’s a couple reasons you could think of right one is when they signed Kawhi Leonard to this contract back in January whenever it was and we sign to a three-year deal for $150 million basically we talked about at the time that set a precedent that and McMahon has been the one beating this drama especially not only is it not Max dollars not Max years and so if you’re Paul George and by the way it’s sort of Forgotten because he’s had a Hall of Fame career that you were in the building when this guy had a catastrophic leg injury and God he’s totally recovered from it and has been an incredible player again for years like one of the one of the more remarkable things in in recent memory that he came back from that it’s been fine so if you’re Paul George and you can get a 4year deal for20 and some million dollars and an extra $60 million than what kawhai got probably I mean I would I would want the extra $60 million personally if it was me um and but if you’re the Clippers like we’ve talked about not only is there a precedent there with the with the kawhai thing there’s also this second apron looming over everything and the Clippers very clearly wanted to try to stay out of the second apron to reset St real quick y I’ve had some some fans of the Pod admonish me because they’re tired they don’t I know that this won’t be all of our listeners they don’t understand the word apron and the concept of the second apron so at the start here could one of us try in very basic terms to explain the apron I’ll explain it I’ll explain it right now so there’s the salary cap right where you go up to a number you go under the C like the Sixers are way under the cap right so you can spend up to the salary cap to sign players if you’re under the cap then there’s the first luxury tax line which between the salary cap and the luxury tax there’s a gap I will look up the exact number but it’s around 10 or 15 million this year where it might be even more than that where you can um all right so for this coming season the salary cap is $141 million the luxury tax line is $171 million so you have $30 million to spend where you’re over the T over the cap like the Indiana Pacers for example they signed Pascal seak and we’ll talk about that later they’re going to be over the salary cap this year but they’ll be under the luxury tax you can operate in that space then that’s where most spaces that’s where most teams live most teams live above the this year I think there were 11 yeah I think this year there were 11 tax paying teams I think eight somewhere between like eight and 10 or 11 few than that go on might have been fewer than that but uh so there’s a $30 million gap there so then over the luxury tax there’s there’s a first apron which is about $7 million over and a second apron which is $18 million over now fans in the past have heard about teams being hard capped where you can only go a certain amount over that’s always what the first apron has been it’s been six or 7even million over the luxury tax line once you go over the first apron you lose the ability to have some make some moves in the offseason the second apron is one of the new things that the league put in in the CBA once you go over the second apron which again is about $18 million over the luxury tax $189 million this year once you go over that second apron you can’t sign anybody for more than the minimum who’s on another team no exceptions at all you can’t put together multiple players it’s called aggregating players you can’t aggregate put multiple players together to make a trade you can’t make the trade that the Bucks did for Drew holiday can’t make the trade the Celtics did for Drew holiday or for Dam Lillard Celtics trade for Drew holiday the Suns trade for Bradley Beal you can’t make any of those trades anymore because you can’t put players together got to be a one for one deal um so and there’s other rules too other restrictions on but that those are the various things that have put in place the league is still adjusting to these new rules and for fans at home what they should think of is this second apron which this year is $189 million that’s going to be a deao hard cap for most of the NBA and if you’re going to go over that second apron you’re going to lose all these abilities to improve your team you’ve got to be a team like the Celtics or Denver or one of these teams that thinks they can win the title because then it’s worth it to potentially go into the T into that second apron and lose all these things and your draft pick Frozen in the future and all this other stuff that we’ve talked about at different points and if you’re not that good then it doesn’t make sense to do that and that I think is really ultimately where it comes down to with the Clippers is if the Clippers truly believe they were a championship level team I think you’d see them pay Paul George and pay all these guys and go all in and do all this stuff but they’ve got an aging roster without a lot of flexibility going forward and Paul George and kawh Leonard have not proven to be be good enough and healthy enough to get this team to the Conference Finals and Beyond which to me is The Benchmark for being a championship level team and so by their actions again actions over words right the actions of the Clippers would signify that maybe they’ll pay Paul George when the rubber hits the road and they they don’t want to go into the toilet bowl with a bad team or a mediocre team but the toilet bowl being they dome which is full of toilets um but they’re if they don’t go if they don’t get Paul George done or he signs a Max somewhere else I think we all agree that the most likely outcome for Paul George if he got a Max from his Clippers he would stay so if he does end up signing somewhere else you think it’s because he doesn’t get a max if he doesn’t get a Max it’s because Clippers don’t believe it’s worth it to go into the second a to keep them okay so eight teams paid luxury tax according to the great Bobby marks including obviously the Clippers who pay the second highest Bill these are unofficial payments from from B $142.4 million now so just to be clear the salary cap for next year is 141 million yes the Clippers just paid 142 mon so they had like a whole other team just in luxury tax uh the the Golden State played paid 176.832 made it out of the first round and that is the Celtics and who are currently celebrating championship and the Denver who obviously were the uh defending Champions but look I think for the Clippers and and for Paul George it really is as much about the years as the money and you know PG is clearly saying hey you didn’t set a precedent with Kawhi Leonard you did not set a precedent by him accepting a three-year deal you agreed to a contract with Kawai and the negotiations with Paul George are a total separate entity they were a package deal coming in they are not a package deal right now if they were PG would have agreed to his extension the same time that kawhai did agree to his that didn’t happen he’s going to have options uh it sounds certain that Philadelphia would be an option he has a player option if if he you know he could play hard ball and yes yeah I’m gonna go over that next okay my point is his options aren’t just half space teams we saw how Chris Paul left the Clippers when he used the power of we’ll go a second hold on one second is it possible that the Clippers are just trying to call a bluff if it you know Paul George is from Los Angeles this he’s playing in Los Angeles they are offering him a huge contract it’s just less than the max years um I don’t know how much money they’re offering but let’s just say it’s probably about what kawhai was offering identical to the kawh deal I think that’s are they just trying to call his bluff I mean I don’t know if it’s calling a bluff so much as it I mean I think that’s sort of semantics right I think ultimately what it comes down to is if you have a guy like Paul George on your team and he leaves your team and you don’t offer him all that you could to keep them it says that you don’t think your team is worth going to the mattresses to keep it like that’s keep it together that that to me is what it says well and and they’re clearly worried about not just second apron but committing to essentially being in the second apron for the you know for the Long Haul and in their later 30s and you’re like you’re paying these guys 50 some odd you know almost $60 million a year and for a team that in the five years those guys have been there together has made the Conference Finals one time and Ka Leonard didn’t play in it and obviously that is in large part because of their health issues now do you expect their health issues to magically disappear as they approach their mid-30s that would be strange assumption we haven’t said the name James Harden yet yeah James Harden is a free agent now before I get into that let me just go over the player option thing Paul George has a player option in his contract this is relevant for the for the what Chris uh what Chris Paul did as McMahon just said uh he could pick up that player option which is 409 just under 49 million and 48 488 then be traded so in other words obviously the the Sixers and the magic have come up because they have Max cap space um but if he would want to go to another team for example like the New York Knicks maybe even the old team that he helped build into this Contender now the city yeah Thunder have $33 million in cap space I think it’s in the low 30s and so that would make it easier to make any transaction but he could say to the Clippers all right I’m walking out the door and signing with Philly this is what happened with Chris Paul and please correct me if I get any detail wrong McMahon Chris Paul had a player option in his contract he wanted to go be with the Houston Rockets the Rockets were ready to create cap space to sign him he said to the Clipper Clippers trade me I’m gonna opt into my contract trade me to the Rockets or otherwise I’m walking out and signing yeah you’re leaving me you’re leaving me one way or I’m leaving one way or the other do you want to get value and return if so I’ll opt in and you trade me yes and so that’s what that’s what they did and they had a couple of decent players it was not uh Pat Bev Lou Williams uh Montes harell I mean honestly it was a decent return given the team ended up making the playoffs with those guys okay so um that option is out there so Paul George could do that um and as a side piece on the Knicks the reason that the Knicks makes sense is that the Knicks could make a deal with any team um because they have some expiring contract money plus the draft picks and if you’re the Knicks and you’re thinking about how you’re going to beat the Celtics you got to keep OG anobi and if you could acquire a player like Paul George I’m not saying Paul George but if you got a player like Paul George I would say if you can acquire Paul George it’d be pretty okay so if you had Paul George and O anobi uh Jaylen Brunson uh Donnie Devan chenzo Dante dvan chenzo I was gonna say Donnie name there he could he looks like he could be a Donnie um does he looks like Donnie wallberg what do you want me to say um a younger Donnie Wahlberg um so uh you know like I’m not mentioning several guys who could be in that trade okay but um Jaylen Brunson like you know you want to start with the with a way to deal with Jaylen Brown and and uh Jason Tatum how about I offer up oan noi and Paul George you know that’s Paul George Paul George is a uh an Allstar who would fit with any team everybody in the league wants 6 foot n highly versatile two-way wings and I would you know he is 34 and you’re you’re a little squeamish about a guy who’s had a history of injury problems signing him to a $200 million contract but because that’s what he would want he would want to be an assurance that he’d getting an extension at some point but if you’re a team that’s trying to win today he’s the best free agent on the market by a significant amount right I just want to point MCM said he plays the the number one premium position in the league two-way Elite Wing player just because you don’t have quote unquote cap space doesn’t mean you might not be able to get your hands on Paul George and by the way there could be other teams that he says I want to be traded to but New York is an interesting one um all right who he represented by what agency uh I seem to recall it’s three letters um and that there might be a couple ties to New York okay just checking um all right now let me just go backwards to James Harden James Harden is also an unrestricted free agent he also I think would interest in staying with the clippers but if Paul George leaves let’s say he goes and signs with let’s say he doesn’t like the contract he’s like I’m gonna go sign with the magic or the 76ers or the Pistons whatever uh what do the Clippers do about James Harden and that’s interesting let me say this okay if the Clippers said goodbye to Paul George without a trade just goodbye in free agency thank you for your time and then said goodbye to James Harden thank you for your time they’d be a cap space team the tune of about $40 million and they could probably create I mean if they said goodbye to their other free agents if they said goodbye to Russ Westbrook for example um and they could probably create a little bit more money if they wanted to um now the top free agent is Paul George you know that the guy you’d want CPAs to sign is Paul George I’m not sure I’m not saying is what the Clippers would prefer but we’re talking about a team that’s that paid $140 million in tax and did not get out of the first round that Avenue exists for the Clippers if they say goodbye to those two players and that’s not an easy decision these are these are high level players those are not going to replace and they’re high level players who they have massive investments in that have yet to be paid off in terms of the draft Capital that’s fine that they gave up to get them that’s that’s it’s tough man that that’s tough uh Paul George very clearly will be a market um I do wonder if he really wants to leave a franchise that kind of floats under the radar and jump into a pressure cooker like you would in Philadelphia like you would certainly in New York I actually don’t think New York would be a pressure cooker at all really I think no I don’t think at all I think Philly would be massive pressure because the world everybody in New York is so happy with where the Knicks are at that if Paul George number one free AG on the market shows up on the Knicks and they keep oan and Obi and they keep this team together now maybe after next year it would be a different story but next year would be a season long party you don’t think would you don’t think there would so youi eat get back s and l to more see on foreign spe spee speech speech for speech com it foreign for spe speech spe

Brian Windhorst reveals Paul George could request a trade from Los Angeles Clippers this summer