Hoops Tonight - Warriors Deep Dive: Is LeBron joining, Anthony Davis trade takes, Yaxel's upside, building w/ Steph

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The Herd with Colin Cowherd 49 min 2 speakers 5 chapters transcribed 2 months ago
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Sam Esfandiari 0:00
This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. The volume.
Jason Timpf 0:20
All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at The Volume. We are at the Sirius XM Studios at The Win in Las Vegas. We have a very special guest today. My good friend, Sam Isfandiari, my go-to guy for all things Warriors. Sam, earlier today, we heard from Rich Paul that the LeBron saga is fun for the fans as it drags out. And I'm in the content space, and it was fun for like a week or two. I'm no longer having fun. I'm ready to know what's going to happen. So as our representative of the Warriors fan base for Hoops Tonight, how are you feeling about this whole saga? How are Warriors fans feeling? Where are you at with the LeBron James thing?
Sam Esfandiari 1:00
So if I was to rank the possible scenarios, it goes one... you acquire the players you actually want to acquire. Two, you have hope you're going to acquire the players you want to acquire. Three, you don't get them and you're in the sunken place and everything is miserable. So the way I'm looking at it, given that the Warriors have, you know, kind of striked out more often than not, like the last four years, like I know they got Jimmy, but outside of Jimmy, it's been a lot of, That's too many picks. Oh, they don't want to trade them here. Oh, we can't afford them. The X, Y, Z. I'm looking at it through the lens of, look, we haven't heard no yet. So as long as I haven't heard a no, I'm in an okay place.
Sam Esfandiari 1:43
I can't speak for everyone, but I can't speak for me.
Jason Timpf 1:47
You know, it's interesting because I would argue the Warriors probably need LeBron more than all of these other teams in the sense that like Cleveland was a conference finalist. Wiggins, Bam, Giannis, Davion Mitchell. It's a pretty strong foundation in Miami, regardless of what happens.

How are Warriors fans reacting to the LeBron-to-Golden State rumor?

Jason Timpf 2:04
Minnesota is going to be fine. I mean, obviously they need a power forward, but... Denver's going to be fine. Golden State's in this weird predicament where if they pull off something and we're going to talk about Anthony Davis in a minute, but if they pull off something involving LeBron plus another player, it's the difference between them as currently constructed. We're going to get into the roster. There's exciting things. Yaks looks great in his first couple of summer league games, but they're looking at being a play in team if they don't pull something like this off. But at the same time, I also don't necessarily think they have another great option in the sense that other than like making an all-in trade around just Steph versus making an all-in trade around Steph and LeBron, there's a lot at stake here.
Jason Timpf 2:43
Do you guys feel that?
Sam Esfandiari 2:45
Yes, I'm 100% on the same page as you here. Like when you're describing those teams, you're leaving out kind of the obvious point, which is the Warriors have the potential to be a incredibly depressing story for the end of Steph's career. Look, if you told me three years ago they were going to try to acquire LeBron, I would say, I'm good. There's got to be a different route to go. It's actually not a disrespect thing. I just think, like, the rivalry is cool, and let's keep it separate, that sort of thing. Then the Olympics happened in 2024, which... I think everyone will agree was awesome. It was fun to watch. And then you have kind of the reality of where we're at with the Warriors, which is Jimmy Butler got injured.
Sam Esfandiari 3:32
The roster is subpar. They don't really have a lot of options. And Steph's 38 years old. He'll be 39 next season. So when I look at it through all those lens, even taking like the romanticism of how fun it would be for the two of them to play together. You're just not getting an opportunity to add an all-star caliber player. And let's be clear. LeBron is still an all-star caliber player. I could argue he's better, but at worst, he's an all-star caliber player. You do not get the opportunity to add a player of that caliber for the mid-level exception or below. Like... We're seeing this around the league. The Celtics just traded Jalen Brown, not because he was bad, but because he's too expensive.

What scenarios does Sam rank for Golden State landing LeBron?

Sam Esfandiari 4:14
And we're seeing more and more of that around the league where it's about value.

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