Sam Amick

And Cleveland wants the Clippers to attach a first.

uh if they're gonna take james back the funny part of that to me is i do get it from an age and timeline standpoint um but it is funny and it like in the here and now you know i had plugged this trade into the espn trade machine which i like to call the the john hollinger trade machine yeah

And it spits out the analysis of, you know, wins going up or down, right?

And it had the Clippers going down by 11 wins, you know, swapping Harden for Garland.

So you can see where the rub is between the two teams.

And we'll see if anybody else gets involved.

Last thought, I know I've given you a lot, but it's just...

A guy, it'll be interesting to see what happens because if James is still trying to get anything remotely close to max money going forward, as we're seeing with John Moran, as we're seeing with Trey Young, guys like that, there's going to be a chilled market no matter how well he is played.

So I think his messaging right now matters a lot, like what expectations he has going forward contract-wise are going to play into this thing here.

Yes.

Let me ask you.

There's some stuff behind the scenes real quick, Dave.

I don't think he'd mind me sharing this.

Our buddy, Law Murray, who

obviously covers the Clippers and other things for the athletic.

He made a point when we chatted last night that, like, James has an amazing knack when times are not good in his current situation.

Oh, yeah.

He finds that blood in the water.

Yeah, like, you know, it's like you don't apply leverage to your current place until you have something somewhere else.

So to your point, it does feel like there's some grease having been put on that situation in Cleveland a little bit.