Joe Smith

Mm-hmm.

Uh, but, you know, if the Clippers had known that they weren't gonna have a chance to a- appeal to the system, right? 'Cause the Joe Smith thing, all right, they try to avoid the contract, whatever.

They go into this whole arbitration with the union.

The Wolves fight it.

Yeah

...

Joe Smith," you know? So.

Yeah.

Choo-Choo Coleman is the catcher, and Bob Miller is the pitcher.

Number 23, Joe Smith.

Number 25, Frank Thomas.

Jesse Bunches is the umpire at the plate.

easily 10 years, right? With the amount of draft pick capital they're losing, the amount of free agents that won't go there in light of the loss of these draft picks.

It's really just going to decimate the franchise similar to how it decimated the Timberwolves years ago in the wake of the Joe Smith controversy.

But, you know, the one that, equally gained, right, is Kawhi.

Kawhi is the one that had money in his pocket at the end of the day.

But if what is in the report is true, this does seem to show At best, if you're a bomber, a lack of institutional control.

And at worst, people doing your bidding, they're doing exactly what you told them to do was to circumvent the cap.

So, yeah, my spider sense is that if we're going back to like the Golden State Warriors and Joe Smith, former first overall pick for the Warriors, obviously now it was a Timberwolves contract.

The NBA showed leniency.

Yeah.

Because that was, like, the Joe Smith thing, like, going back and reliving that, the two picks that were removed from the ultimate five-pick punishment only happened after everybody admitted they did the bad thing.

Right.

Right? Because that...

Joe Smith fought it at first, and it took a couple of months, and eventually it was ruled in favor of the league, and then at that point, if you're the Timberwolves, you have no choice but to admit culpability, and then you get your picks back.

Well, I also think if you're Balmer, the reason you're so irked by this is...

And, you know, I think, I don't know that we have this, well, again, like all the reporting, it's like, what's the smoking gun? It seems like this is the way it played out.

You'll say, oh, you'll really like this programme.

Joe Smith, actually, from Big Finish, Joe Smith, from a few years back on the podcast, he's often... messaging me and saying, I've just seen this, I think you'll really like

it.

I value that far more because I respect my friends' opinions and I respect the fact that they know me to know that I would like something.

So.

Do you think that Adam Silver, by chance, is saying to Steve Ballmer, yeah, you're going to submit a trade to us? You think we're going to approve that trade and you're going to get two picks back? You think that I wasn't thinking about the fact that when I took five picks away from you that you thought you were getting two picks back through a Kawhi Leonard trade? And the truth is, the real punishment was a three-pick punishment like Joe Smith.

So you were, in fact, Joe Smith.

Do you think that Adam Silver had all that in his head when he doled out the punishment based on Wachtell's investigative report and what we did at PTFO? Hmm, question.

Do you think it would be a good time for Adam Silver to say to Steve Ballmer, just FYI, I'm not approving the trade unless you agree to not sue.

And that's sort of what I'm trying to like, get to hear some sort of settlement.

Because basically, if you really think about it, like as in, does the punishment fit the crime sort of thing.

And I mean, like, if it's like, I don't know if it's just based on the Joe Smith thing or what exactly it is.

Again, it's five first round draft picks off the hands of the Clippers.

That's the Joe Smith

thing.

It's a $30 million fine.

Not so close.

Let's try Joe in Huntington Beach.

Hi there, Joe.

Hey there, good afternoon.

Good

afternoon.

Good afternoon, Joe.

Okay, I got two things.