J. Kyle Mann

even though they are conservationists in terms of trees, they didn't mind cutting down perhaps the hottest team in the NBA in order to, at the very least, turn the page to something else like some of these other tankers are doing.

Was it funny?

No, I think this is the ballsiest move that I can remember probably on both sides in a very long time because in the Clippers, you have a team actually getting out in front of the inevitable decline and actually hitting the button sooner than later when we've seen so many teams basically wait, wait, wait until John Morant just doesn't have any value.

Here, they just got ahead of it.

They got rid of Harden and followed it up immediately with Zuboff, which I thought was very smart of them.

We'll see how Kawhi thinks about that.

I mean, he's playing his best basketball of his career, but...

I guess to Rob's earlier point, like there's still a long way to go between where they are in sixth place in the West.

So that makes sense.

The Pacers doing this and basically leaving it up to the lottery gods or just like how much they're going to now tank over the second half of the season is unlike anything I've seen before.

On the one hand, they could end up with Zubac, who I think is a great fit alongside a healthy Halliburton team.

Yeah.

Just,

just from like a starting point.

But if they then still tank, end up with the top three pick, they could add an AJ to Bonta to all of this.

And so on lottery night, this could basically be like a dynasty or not is really hanging in the balance.

Yeah, Sam Presti always moves in silence.

I think we did a piece last year or two years ago on The Ringer about what activity level each GM has had historically at the deadline.

Presti, historically, one of the people that sits on his hands and just waits for the offseason and then does his business there.

They did get Jared McCain, which is different, but we'll talk about that later on.