Sam Amick

And that was where people, I think, had a reasonable argument to say,

Well, this is, you know, unfair competitive balance.

This is not that.

This is just incredible management by Sam Presti and his front office staff to a degree where they are really the only team in the NBA that, again, through their own merit, has a cheat code in relation to this current salary cap situation.

situation and the CBA and the way that the league works right now, everybody else is, you know, it picks her at a premium, having a hard time, you know, figuring out the aprons and the thunder, knowing that inevitably they will lose some of their, uh, if not their core guys and their role players because of the finances that they have this incredible, uh, you know, a hall of draft picks waiting in the, in the wing.

And like you said to the idea that

I mean, you're talking about potentially three first-round picks with Clippers, Sixers, and Jazz next year coming their way, depending on how the standings fall.

It's unfair, but again, this is not the type of unfair where they got gifted anything.

They did this.

Again, it might, you know, you can call it stuck or you can call it like extending their runway or their timeline.

Dallas is a good example.

In my backyard, I'll use the Kings as a good example.

I'm really curious to see what they do because if they felt closer to being competitive, then maybe they're willing to, you know, move one of their core guys, whether it's Tamada Sabonis or Zach Levine with a pick attached to get, you know, like Levine, for example, like he's very hard to move.

Well, they have zero interest in attaching a pick because they need to think about their future.

And you have to like, again, you have to think about a longer timeline.

I think a world exists where a player like that.

And this example applies to a lot of teams where, all right, we have two high price years left.

with this particular player?

Are we going to be desperate to get him off our books and compromise some of our other kind of building tools in the process?

Or will we be very patient and just let him come off the books naturally after next season?