Ice Trae is here to stay

Bryson Akins runs a solo emergency pod to discuss the new Trae Young contract, along with inside information on the draft and the plan for Anthony Davis now. 

Transcript

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Welcome back to another episode of All Wizards Talk. I'm your co-host Bryson Akins. Today we do not have Henry Brown with us. He is stuck at work. So it's just going to be me. You only got me today. Deal with it. Run from it, dread from it. It's going to happen from time to time. You're going to have episodes with Only Henry as well. And especially when we try to get this pod going up again. Now that we're almost done with this custody battle with Spotify getting our RSS feed from them. We're almost there. And it's going to be weekly content. We're be getting you guys a lot of videos. Alright. Today, this is kind of something that we I didn't have planned, at least, because I was not expecting so much news for the Washington Wizards today. Of course, we had the Trey Young signing, some other trade rumors coming out. What are they going to do with the picks? Some other stuff that they could potentially do. So I'm going to go ahead and try to like break it down for you guys all in today's video or podcast episode. And so just to start off with the biggest thing that happened today was the Trey Young contract extension or resigning, whatever you want to call it. It is for four years and $212 million. So this is a lot more money than what was anticipated. All right. Annually, each year, it is, you know, if you want to just break it up, like, you know, $212 divided by four, it is roughly $13 million more per year than what was projected by guys like Mark Stein and other people. Um, where it was going to be everyone's saying three years, $120 million, $40 million a year, that would have been a good deal. However, it seems like, you know, from people that have been reporting it online, like Greg Finberg, Friend of the Pod, it seems like teams like Chicago and Brooklyn wanted to get involved in the Trey Young sweepstakes. And that basically drove up the price. And there are a few reasons for this. There are a few reasons that his price kind of went up like it did. The first is the fact that he was a free agent. If you see a guy on the market who is a good point guard, he's a good player, he's a good fit for your team, you're a rebuilding team, he can fill up some salary, sell some seats, and help, you know, develop some young guys while he's with your squad, why not go get him? So teams like Brooklyn and Chicago that need a guard like that, it makes sense to go after him and target him. And of course, if you can offer him the max and you are able to offer him the max and not, you know, don't have to worry about contract extensions or anything like that in the future, you're gonna do that. So basically turn into like, look, Trey, we really want you on this team. We do. So we understand other teams have offered you the max, and the 212 million over four years is the max that he could have gotten from other teams. Now, he could have signed for what I believe is 287 million over four years or five years, I believe, with the Wizards, which you know that basically they're saving seven or not, I don't know the exact number, it's 70 something, I think, is what it is, a million that they could have ended up saving, and they ended up doing that. And so that's the good part about it, where like, hey, he did end up saving some money because of that, and he wanted to stay in DC. It's just the fact that you had teams like Chicago and Brooklyn who had this cap space to go after him and give them this deal where it's like, look, we don't want to run the chance of him leaving. So we're gonna go ahead and offer him the same deal since he wants to be in DC so that so bad. Okay. The second part is the fact that, you know, with the new lottery reform system, you don't want to be in that relegation zone. You don't want to be one of these bottom three teams in the NBA, because then you have less odds of getting the first overall pick and more punishments for being one of the worst teams in the league. You want to be in this, like, it's weird, you want to be in like that four through ten range of worst teams in the league, because then you have like an 8% chance at the first overall pick, still got good odds for that, still gonna get a good lottery pick. So it's not that you know big of a deal. It's not the end of the world. And so signing guys like Trey Young when you're doing a rebuild is great for your team as he's gonna at least keep you you know close to that play-in race or be in the play-in, which is still gonna get you a chance at a lottery pick as well. Um, and with the new system, it's still a lottery pick, but I'm talking like traditional top 14 lottery pick here. Like he's still gonna keep you in that range. Good chance of still getting first overall. He's gonna be competitive, he's gonna help you develop, guys, like I mentioned, and keep you out of that relegation zone, still giving you the best odds at getting the first overall pick while also potentially turning him into a future first or two in the future. So that's also another reason why he was getting so much kind of you know offers uh you know in free agency is because of this new lottery form. If this new lottery system didn't exist, I would bet a lot of money that a lot of teams would not have gone after him and it still would have been a three-year, $120 million deal. Maybe they do four and it's $180, still very, very good deal. Um, now it's not the end of the world with how much he signed. I understand a lot of people are going to be very stressed about what the long-term future looks like for Trey Young, specifically when it comes to contract extensions. Here's the good thing it's not really going to affect contract extensions for at least two to three seasons. It just isn't. The only guy that's really like you know worried about contra you know extending their contract this summer is Bilal Klobali. And if we're being honest, Bilal isn't making, you know, over 20 million a year, and he hasn't really shown why he should make over 20 million a year as a defensive-minded player who needs to drastically improve on offense. Okay, so it's one of those things where like maybe you see a Denny Avdia type extension for Bilal Kulabali. Maybe that's what you end up seeing there. Where let's say it's four years, 50 million each year, that comes out to four years, 60 million. Realistically, it's probably gonna be like four years 70 million, which turns out to be 17.5, I believe. If my math's not if my math's correct, I'm not sure. I'd somewhere in that range, I know that for sure. And so that's a pretty good deal. You have plenty of cap for that. They're still under the lack luxury tax right now with this Trey Young uh contract here. So it's not the end of the world whatsoever for that, you know, in in those regards. Then the 2024 rookie class um or the 2024 draft class extensions coming up. You have Bub Carrington, Keyshawn George, Alex Tsar. Right now, the only guy who is like at the moment secured he can get a max contract is Alex Tsar. And that is, you know, if he makes an all-defensive team, I believe, then it goes up to 30%. If he doesn't and stays at 25% of the cap, which is very, very manageable. It is so that's the biggest thing is focus on seeing if Alex Tarr makes an all-defensive team in the future, stuff like that, to really see what he's going to look like for an extension going forward uh forward. If he doesn't make an all-defensive team, like I said, 25% of the salary cap, very, very manageable. That'd be awesome to see. If he does, it would be eligible up to 30% of the salary cap for an extension. Keyshawn George is one of these like in-between guys because we don't know what it's going to look like post-draft with him. Um, if he'd even be starting on this team going forward, or if that would be Trey Johnson starting at the two, and you have Keyshawn off the bench, or maybe they take Darren Peterson and it's Keyshawn at the three, but maybe they want to go below a three for a little bit more defense and have Keyshawn's offensive ability off the bench. Who knows? There's there's really no telling. And so Keyshawn's kind of in this weird spot to where, you know, he could still potentially average 15-5 and five a game, but he could move to the bench and end up averaging only 10, 3, and 3. Well, you don't spend a max contract on someone with those kinds of numbers. You end up giving him like 13% of the cap to 15%, which is very, very manageable. That's very team friendly, and you can live with that. All right. And then you have Bub Carrington where he still has a lot to prove. At the moment, I would only give him around 15, uh, at most 15% of the cap as well. Realistically, he's probably like, you know, 8% to 10%, somewhere in that range. He just has to really improve in a lot of aspects of his game, the assist to turnover ratio, um, his mid-range shot, he has to improve, finishing around the rim, and a little bit get a little bit better as a defender as well. Improve on that stuff, and you can be a guy making 15% of the salary cap as well. Nothing more though. And so that's the biggest thing where like people are worried about that. Right now, how it's projected with the salary cap. I did the math with the current contracts that they have. There's no telling how it's gonna look for the future either. What kind of players are gonna be on this team, what kind of contracts they have, other players' extensions as well, such as like Will Riley, since you know he's not on this on like your standard rookie deal to where uh I can go ahead and pull up the exact contract format. I think he actually is eligible for an extension same times around uh Alex Tsar and other guys as well. Uh, if I pull this up real quick, Will Riley. Um no, it's the same timeline. I'm just getting my stuff mixed up, it's just team options. Um, so that doesn't really matter. But going forward, let's say Anthony Davis isn't on this team, you free up all that cap space, but you have the current contracts that you currently do have. You they would have around 95 million dollars in cap space to extend those three guys in 2024, and that's not even going into the luxury tax or aprons. In second apron space, they would have like 150 million for that. That is the equivalent of three max contracts for rookie extensions, maybe even regular players that have made a few all-star games as well. So the money for the 2024 class is not the issue, it comes into the 2025 class and how Trey Johnson and Will Riley really start to develop and play. That's that's the biggest concern, okay, because that is also the last year um of Trey Young's contract as well, or like guaranteed money, and then that player option that comes in at uh 56, almost 57 million dollars as well. So that's where things get a little bit tricky when you're looking at it. Um, is that 2025 draft class? What happens there? Well, you could you might hope that Trey Johnson declines. Um, maybe when I say decline, declines as player option, you can resign them to a more team-friendly deal. Who knows? Even then, so let's say Alex Tsar signs for 25% of the cap, which would be like 40 million. Okay, that that's probably what it would be 40 million dollars. Okay, so out of your 95 million that one season, now you have 55 left. Let's say Keyshawn signs for 25, all of a sudden you have 30. Let's say Bub Carrington signs for a similar deal to like what I mentioned with Denny Avnia, Bolo Kobali, 17.5. Now you have what 8.5 left if my math's not, you know, if my math's not wrong here. Um, and then going into the aprons, you have almost 60 million, you know, roughly 60 million of cap space to kind of play with. At the moment, Trey Johnson is not a max kind of player, he just isn't. And going forward, it's the same situation as Keyshawn George. Is he a starter? Is he coming off the bench? We don't really know. That's going to determine a lot about what kind of contract he's going to get for the future as well and what kind of money he's going to get. Um, same with Will Riley. What do you do with Will Riley going forward? So it's stuff like that where you kind of look at it and be like, man, what do we do with this money? Maybe you move off a player as well. Maybe you don't extend Bub Carrington. Maybe you don't, and you trade him, and it's like, look, really, we got to move on from Bub. It's not really working out as we thought we would. We got to do this, okay? So there are some ways to get around if you if Trey Young um picks up that player option and you need all that money for your 2025 guys, there are ways to get around it. Okay. The biggest thing is that no matter what, this contract is not affecting whatever extension comes into play for whoever is the first overall pick. And going into that, just real quick, from what I have heard personally from a few of my sources, and then all other people out in the world as well, online like Mark Stein, guys from ESPN like Winhorse, Schams, everyone else, it's sounding like AJ is the pick, which would be fantastic. I think he has the highest, you know, like ceiling in this class, but he also has the lowest floor to be to where like he could be, you know, like a third option on the team, role player kind of guy, but he could also have this potential of being a top five player in the NBA. Um, and so you can also take Darren Peterson. There's still like the you know very slim possibility that they do that, that that's their decision. A lot can change in the next few hours, uh, depending on what happens there. So, really interesting to see what's going on there. But this Trey Young contract, even though it sounds like a large number, it's not as bad as it looks. It's not. Like you can be worried about the financial stuff. I get that. It's really not going to affect much for the players' extensions. Now, if Anthony Davis gets extended, and we'll talk about him a little bit later in this episode as well, then you got to have a little bit of questions like, okay, what are we doing as a front office here if Anthony Davis does get extended? Then the other question that you have with this Trey Young extension, I see a lot of people asking is what is the fit? What's you know exactly going on here? How can you expect players to develop if Trey Young is such a ball dominant guard, especially if the Wizards do go on the route? What it seems like with AJ DeBonsa, who is a ball dominant player. Well, in the first year, you kind of have AJ develop these off ball habits because be like, look, we want you to eventually be the first option guy. We got to understand that your first year in the in the NBA, it is very hard to be that kind of player. It is. So use this year to get used to the NBA level of play, this you know, pace, the speed, everything like that. Develop some offball habits because just having offball traits and you know tactics that you'd have in your back pocket is going to make you a fantastic basketball player in general and can lead to a lot of easy buckets if on-ball work isn't going as well as you thought, or if you're getting double teamed when you do have the ball in your hand. So stuff like that, it's gonna be really well for him. Then that second year, you go into a 1A, 1B type of situation where it's like, look, whoever's on, we're gonna have them be like the number one guy. And then that way it's also one of those situations where you know, neither Trey Young or AJ Avance could get doubled. Because if you double one of them, the other guy's gonna be wide open, they'll give you 30. So you have to pick your points and be like, let's just hope we can guard up one-on-one. And that's gonna leave a lot of guys open and get to some easy looks for guys like Trey Johnson, Alex Sarr, Bilal off the bench, Keyshawn George, uh, you know, I think I mentioned Trey Johnson already. Guys like that, it's gonna lead to a lot of open and easy looks for them in that situation. Then year three is when you want Edgabanza to be this 28, 7 and 7 player for your team. That your year three, that's a goal where it's like, look, this is his emergence as a top 10 player in the NBA. He is our number one option. He is a guy that's gonna lead us to an NBA championship. Trey Young, thank you for everything. He's got to move on to the second option role here and be a better shooter for us, and then start the offense, user pick and rolls, get AJ the ball with 15 seconds left, let him go to work. Stuff like that. So the play style and stuff, don't worry about it too much because eventually Trey Young will kind of fade out of being the number one guy. It just takes time for players, especially you know, rookies, to get kind of used to being a number one option. So AJ's just gonna need a year or two to kind of get used to that, and that's kind of perfect with how the deal is set up. Moving on to the draft, real quick. Like I mentioned, all signs are pointing towards AJ DeBonsa being the first overall pick for the Washington Wizards. I it looks like there's no chance that it's gonna be Cameron Boozer either. Looks like it's just between DeBonsa and Peterson, with a lot of you know people close to me saying that it's AJ DeBonsa, a lot of people online that are analysts, reporters as well, like I mentioned, Stein, Schams, Winhorse, all these guys mentioning like, yeah, it is AJ Dubonsa. AJ DeBonsa is the first overall pick. That's what it is. And so that's what it's looking like. It's the question of can they get back into the first round? And that's just extremely difficult, as with the Giannis trade that just happened recently as well. Number 13 is off the table. What are the picks that they could go get now? You got 11 from the Warriors. You can do an Anthony Davis and two second-round draft picks uh for pick number 11 and Jimmy Butler. Since Jimmy Butler is not going to play, you give him Anthony Davis, you just get this draft pick in return. Boom, you take uh Adimara, Morris Johnson, Yaxel Lindenborg, if he's still up on the board there as well. A lot of options at 11. 12, very similar situation. Instead, what you do is you trade Justin Champagne and as many second round picks as it takes to get 12 or 17. One of those two picks from the Thunder, do that. Similar situation with the Charlotte Hornets who own 14 and 18. So those are the three teams I'd be looking at for the Wizards to trade back into the first round with to go get another prospect if they really want to this draft, which it seems like they would want to with how loaded it is and just their track record of always bringing in multiple rookies in the first round and making these draft night trades. I would be like I mentioned, I'd be looking at pick 11, 12, 14, 17, and 18. If the Wizards are going to be making a trade, those are just the more, you know, most feasible trades that can happen, the most possible trades, just with all the kind of assets that they have, salary matching stuff, what they can give up, what those teams would want, especially with the Thunder, who are going to be making some you know depth changes. They could really benefit from having a role player on a vet minimum that can provide them 15 minutes a night. Whereas the Wizards, playing time is just gonna get really tough to kind of buy and actually earn here. And Justin Champagne, similar to what happened with Aaron Wiggins in the Oklahoma City Thunder, Aaron Wiggins was crucial to their championship run. He loses a lot of minutes all of a sudden, instead of being worth a first rounder that you could have done at the trade deadline or the previous summer, you only get two second round picks for him. You don't want the same thing to happen with Justin Champagne, especially next season, with how tough it is going to be buying minutes, especially with a team trying to make the playoffs. Last piece of information is Anthony Davis. What is going to go on here? There was talks that, you know, for a time being, and this was before the Trey Young extension, that look, maybe Anthony Davis buys in, Trey Young takes his friendly deal, Anthony Davis takes his friendly deal. Boom, you have a good two player surrounding your first overall pick here. You have a squad, go win a ring. Now with the Trey Young extension, I would put your eyes back on seeing that Anthony Davis is going to be traded. Just how it looks, how it feels, how it you know seems, Anthony Davis is going to be traded. One way or another, he will. Alright? And excuse me while I do that with my mouth getting a little bit dry here. It's just like it just seems so likely at this right now. And like I mentioned, it can be a Golden State Warriors trade for Jimmy Butler and pick 11 while you trade two second-round picks, one this year and one in 2028, along with Anthony Davis. The Warriors get some size that they're going to need there. And it's not like Jimmy Butler is going to play. Jimmy Butler's an expiring contract, so that's going to free up some cash space that you can then just use that money continuously. Like, okay, just little one-year deals worth $10 million. Boom, they're done. Maybe you flip them as well for uh picks in the future as well. Who knows? There are a lot of multiple situations that you can go with Anthony Davis. Uh Jake Fisher did report today, uh, and I'll pull it up as well, that there is one specific team that is waiting with arms wide open for Anthony Davis. There is one specific team. If I can just find it, that would be awesome to kind of show you guys what exactly he said. Finding it here. It was on Duck Central for a minute. The Portland Trailblazers. His camp, Anthony Davis' camp, is seeking a max extension. This doesn't seem likely the Wizards are gonna do that. So he's a trade candidate now. Portland is waiting with arms wide open. That's what it looks like. But that's all I have for you guys. Short, quick recap of everything that happened today. Um, I'll see you guys in the next one. Thank you guys for bearing in with just me today. We need to get this update out. Uh, Henry was at work, he couldn't get off for that uh for this video. You know, we all get it, that happens sometimes. It's gonna happen with me a few times when I have work and I can't record, and Henry will have to go on out too. Um, thank you guys for tuning in as always, and we'll see you guys in the next one. Peace.