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Good morning, sweet world, and welcome to the No Dunks podcast on the Athletic Network. Wednesday, February 5th. I'm Jay Skeet. And alongside me, as always. We got Tasme-E. Hello. Hello, Tassie. We got the bearded one, Trey Kirby. Hey, yo. Hey, yo. We got the International Man of Mystery taking it to the Max, Lee Ellis. Friend.

And last but not least, making the magic happen is J.D. Hello. There he is, and here we are on a Wednesday. Happy hump day. Follow us on social media, Twitter, and Instagram, at No Dunks Inc. Follow us on Facebook at Facebook.com slash No Dunks Inc. Well, I guess it's official. We're now on Facebook. And email us your NBA questions and comments to no dunks at theathletic.com.

We'll be stepping on the beach a little later. I guess it's official. We're now on Facebook. And email us your NBA questions and comments to no dunks at theathletic.com.

We'll be stepping on the beach a little later today, so you still got a few hours to get those questions in for that show.

But keep them coming all week long. We're stepping on the beach every single week.

But we start here on a Wednesday with a little southern lawyer.

We got all sales a trade.

We do indeed. We got a big trade happening Tuesday night, late Tuesday night.

Four team, 12 player deal. So we can tackle this by each team here, I think. The Rockets, let me set the scene for you. The Rockets get Robert Covington, Jordan Bell, and a 2024 second round pick by way of the Warriors. The Hawks get Clint Capella and Nenei. The wolves get Malik Beasley, Juanjo, Hernan Gomez, Evan Turner, Jared Vanderbilt, and a lottery protected 20-20-round pick. That's by way of the Nets. And the Nuggets, yes, the Nuggets are the fourth team in the mix here. They get Gerald Green, Bates Jop, Shabazz Napier, Noah Vonle, and a 2020 first-round pick by way of the Rockets. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. Where do you want to start? Which team do you want to start

with in what they got or what they gave up? Let's start with the juicy rockets. Everybody

wants to hate them. What are they doing? No center? I hate them. It is weird. PJ Tucker is

technically going to be their center. Robert Covington is their tallest player. He's going to be 6-8, but they're going to be running out, James Harden, Russell Westbroke, Robert Covington, PJ, PJ, and Daniel House probably for now. They're going to get killed by Anthony Davis and Nikola Yokic when it comes to playing them. They'll probably get somebody here in the next 24 hours before.

But on the offensive end, it's going to be interesting.

Five guys out beyond the three-point line, stretch it out.

And I think it's going to help James Harden get into the lane and score.

And Russell Westbrook, especially because he's not a three-point shooter, get into the lane and score.

So it's going to help them offensively. And Clint Capella wasn't a big piece for them offensively. It's weird to say that, but they were 30th in plays finished using pick and roll. That according to Synergy Sports and the great Kevin O'Connor. On the defense event is the scary part. What are you going to do? Yeah, I guess that's not the concern of Daryl Morey right now. Sweet. He's like, let's see if we can just score 150 points a game. And if the other team can match us, that's good for them. But you wonder, of course, how much of this deal was made because they wanted to move on from Capella versus a directive from the ownership to say, we need to shed some salary. Right, which they did in this process. They did. And that certainly to me seems to be more overriding factor than thinking that Capella can't help them because they need him. I think they need him. Maybe so, but I think that the Rockets still in Covington are getting the best player that was traded in this entire deal.

So they're shaving money off their cap, which is surely good for their owner. And they're getting the best guy. So this is no doubt a win for the Rockets. And honestly, I think Jordan Bello do all right playing with Mike Dan Tony. Welcome to the rejuvenation machine. That guy got Earl Clark paid. if he goes and he's willing to be a switchy defender and just roll to the rim and catch some alley-oops, there was hype about Jordan Bell becoming the next Draymond Green back when he was playing with the Golden State Warriors. It was a big deal that the Bulls traded him for cash considerations. All of that has gone into the past, but he's a solid player who's played in big games. I think he'll be helpful at least sopping up minutes.

You can't just have all 6-6 guys and 1 6'8 guys, so at least, I don't know, Jordan Bell's what, 6'5? A giant amongst men, but I think he'll be helpful. I think he'll be a good player in Dan Tony's system. This is fascinating, this like pushing all their chips in on this idea of just going smallball.

I mean, it makes it exciting.

You were saying it on the other podcast, Das. It's like, all right, this is unique. Let's see if it can work in, you know, potentially three or four playoffs series. They've done well so far. I mean, in the regular season here, when there's been no Capella. They're 4 and oh recently in this past week where he's not out there and they're leaning into that and they've got a really good record overall even when Capella is not playing. And they're good when he's on the bench and they're actually better at kicking the other team's butt because teams are definitely caught off guard. Nobody else does it. But it's different in the postseason. That's for sure. That'll

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