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The Athletic NBA Daily

New Year Mailbag | Morning Shootaround

07 Jan 2026

Transcription

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

11.557 - 34.938 Dave DuFour

Hello and welcome to the NBA Daily. It's the morning shoot around. We're live on YouTube. I'm Dave DuFour here with Espera Henney. The show's presented by Amazon Prime. Thanks for joining us on YouTube or listening to our pod. We put this pod on the feed after the fact, but if you ever want to join us live, we love to take questions as we go. And if you haven't yet, join our Discord.

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35.058 - 46.652 Dave DuFour

Again, if you listen to the podcast, the link is in the show description. We took a bunch of questions from the Discord. And we will also take questions from the live chat. But before we get to the questions, S, how's it going?

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47.313 - 66.64 Es Baraheni

I'm good, man. I'm good vibing out. You know, we're kind of in the lulls of the NBA season, as we both know. January is it's sort of weird because it's also the time of the calendar that matters the most. Right. But it's also the time where most the conversation ends up being either trade related or

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66.62 - 84.51 Es Baraheni

or injury related or why is this team that was very good to start the year all of a sudden slumping related like it's just yeah it's kind of those are the three conversations that end up revolving but uh yeah i'm good otherwise man kind of trekking along until the uh the trade deadline comes along

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84.49 - 108.964 Dave DuFour

Yeah, we're almost at the halfway point, so we'll probably do our bigger check-ins next week. I feel like the first of the year, it's all trade talk. We've gotten past December 15th. We've gotten through the NBA Cup and Christmas Day. And We are a little under a week away from the January 15th deadline, so everyone is available for trade, essentially.

109.805 - 132.642 Dave DuFour

And I think we're probably pretty close to seeing our first deal happen. It feels like the Trey Young thing is just coming to a head. You've got His people working with, it seems like, maybe only the Wizards. Although Trey would like to go not the Wizards. Brooklyn, Minnesota. Minnesota reported that today, yeah.

132.943 - 153.006 Dave DuFour

Listen, I will say right now, I don't understand why you would choose Brooklyn over Washington. given what's the current state of the teams. I mean, it's pretty clear to me that anybody paying attention to the NBA. Yeah. The Washington Wizards are on the path to being decent, at least. I don't know if they're going to be good.

153.026 - 161.077 Es Baraheni

I think it's more fun to be in Williamsburg, you know, grab a beer in Brooklyn, you know, like one of those things.

Chapter 2: How are teams preparing for the NBA trade deadline?

161.257 - 164.642 Es Baraheni

Maybe he's a big IPA guy, you know, I don't know.

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164.702 - 173.507 Dave DuFour

Let me defend our nation's capital. One of our greatest cities. It's a walkable city. Look, I have a sister who lives there. Yes, absolutely. It's urban transit.

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173.928 - 174.169 Es Baraheni

Yep.

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174.189 - 180.107 Dave DuFour

We have beautiful parks and monuments and museums, you know, that celebrate our...

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180.222 - 205.285 Dave DuFour

rich history well i would say storied varied history um yeah it's a listen dc is a great place um but the wizards the thing about it is it's it's a more natural fit today than than it would be in brooklyn um they're also the wizards are a little bit closer to the hey we got to try to be competitive eventually timeline than the nets are right yeah and that's

205.265 - 224.79 Es Baraheni

The Nets are still they started this year, really, when it comes to drafting what five rookies that they had. And while we've both been impressed with their competitiveness, you know, and Jordy Fernandez is a very good coach. I think overall, the Wizards are kind of ready to take that next step, whatever that next step looks like. Are they trying to compete for a playing spot?

225.611 - 247.742 Es Baraheni

Are they they are going to get a lottery pick this year? And so you add another piece to the puzzle next to Alex Saar and Bilal Koulibaly and Keyshawn George, who we like a lot, Trey Johnson, another guy. Adding Trey to be an organizer makes a lot of sense for the Wizards as they take this next step. I saw someone – I can't remember who tweeted this, but I agree with them that –

247.722 - 260.52 Es Baraheni

If you're trying to win a championship tomorrow, you're probably not trading for Trey Young. But if you're trying to develop some young guys and get them to a certain point in their career, Trey might not be a bad idea for your team.

261.061 - 280.868 Dave DuFour

I mean, look, there's nothing wrong. Shot creation. Everybody's life gets easier, offensively at least, when you play with a guy like Trey. And the defense for the Wizards, I think that... It's going to be much better than it is right now. The guys are young and still figuring it out. But they've got some defensive talent. Like Bilal Koulibaly is very good on the wing.

Chapter 3: What are the implications of the January 15th trade deadline?

395.679 - 401.125 Es Baraheni

They haven't been healthy. Why do you think it hasn't worked out the way we thought it would have been for the Hawks?

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401.145 - 425.255 Dave DuFour

Well, I think part of it is they haven't been healthy. But the other part of it is, you know, Trey is not exactly a guy who elevates his teammates all that much, to be honest with you. And I know the assist numbers are high. So wouldn't that be against the Wizards, you know? Okay, but the idea, I guess, is you bring him into your system, you try it out. He will create looks for other people.

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425.575 - 445.88 Dave DuFour

He wants to be the pass-to-assist guy all the time. But he will not play off the ball. And so for the wizards, they probably just need a guy to come eat up, you know, Hey, come, come eat up 70% of the possessions for us and create looks for these other guys and help organize the offense and teach them how to play basketball. Basically.

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446.561 - 457.976 Dave DuFour

I mean, I don't know if this is a great move or not, you know, once, once it happens, I'm just thinking on the books, this is such a low risk gamble. Right. Sure. Yeah.

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458.297 - 460.62 Es Baraheni

Cause he's a talented player. Yeah. Yeah.

Chapter 4: Why is Trae Young's potential trade significant?

460.769 - 474.592 Es Baraheni

It's one of those interesting things because every player that's potentially available at the trade deadline, nobody really wants. It's that meme where it's like, perfect players don't get traded.

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475.313 - 484.05 Dave DuFour

That's true. They just don't. I mean, even Luka Doncic, and you can look at him right now, I can make the argument that Nico is not a perfect player.

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484.131 - 508.533 Es Baraheni

Yeah. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. I, it's just funny to me because it's Trey young, Anthony Davis, LaMelo ball, maybe DeMontis bonus, Jonathan Kaminga. It's like all these guys who are sort of the, um, Outside of Kaminga, they're like this bottom tier of star that are very difficult to build around. It's like, of course, every star.

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508.653 - 525.893 Dave DuFour

That's the thing. It's like star contracts, I think, and star player are a different thing. A star player, I don't know if we can call Trey Young that. He has a name that we know, and I know he's been an all-star. Is he that right now? I'm just not sure. Stars win games, man.

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525.873 - 540.22 Dave DuFour

yeah like anthony edwards is a star i like that's the guy i want taking a shot i i just don't know if if we can do that with trey but this is a good segue to our first uh listener question from the discord thor our guy thor who is always hanging out with us on the live stream

541.246 - 558.363 Dave DuFour

Besides Atlanta about to trade for maybe Trey Young and Giannis being on the market potentially, although I don't think Giannis is getting traded. I think that's over. Yeah, I didn't mention him. I have a buck's sake. We'll talk about it. It doesn't seem like he's going to get traded. What are some minor moves that you'd like to see some of the top teams make?

559.084 - 584.075 Dave DuFour

And I actually want to specify this question a little bit here for you, S. The contenders, right? The five or six teams at the top. What can they do? What moves? I mean, I think Denver, when they get healthy with this newly found depth, I don't know that they need to add necessarily, maybe another shooter. But what do you see any of these teams doing, if anything?

584.095 - 604.99 Es Baraheni

So for the contenders, the lot of contenders, there's like different things that they can add, right? I'm going to bunch the top three teams in the Eastern Conference, the Pistons, the Celtics, and the Knicks. In the West, I'm going to do the Thunder, the Spurs, and the Nuggets. Those are the only three teams. All due respect to the Lakers, who are currently the three seed, by the way.

605.01 - 611.685 Es Baraheni

We're in agreement here that the Lakers are not contenders, right?

Chapter 5: What minor moves could top NBA teams make before the deadline?

2069.614 - 2070.035 Dave DuFour

That's it.

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2070.175 - 2091.319 Es Baraheni

If that goes away, I would lean no. Yeah, but I think that probably doesn't end up going away. Maybe it does. Who knows? But this season, he has a good chance because there's no Tatum. A bunch of guys are not eligible. There's actually an opportunity for him to end up sneaking in there because of that type of stuff. Yeah, who knows?

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2091.822 - 2110.436 Dave DuFour

Awesome. Well, if you were here with us on YouTube, thank you so much for hanging out. If you haven't joined the discord, please do. We're having fun. We've been watching games there together. Obviously, a lot of just discussion about stuff happening in the NBA. And please leave us a five star review wherever you listen to this podcast, because I think it's important.

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2110.636 - 2122.808 Dave DuFour

I see the I see the good ones and I ignore the bad ones. So just leave good ones. Anyway, thanks to S for hanging out. Thank you guys for listening. I'm Dave DuFour, and this has been NBA Daily Morning Shootaround.

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