Welcome to a special episode of Rosters to Rings where we break down the incredibly impactful trade between the Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys.

Micah Parsons heads to Green Bay, Kenny Clark and two first round picks come back to Dallas.

Let's discuss it here on Rosters to Rings.

Alongside Tom toe LESCo, I am Thad Levine.

We are ecstatic to be joined by Jeff skin Wade of the famous Ben and Skin Show.

In addition to being an accomplished media mogul and a well above average basketball player, Skin represents the heartbeat of the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex fan base.

No one is more knowledge of and passion for sports and greater Dallas than does Skin.

But I want to start the conversation here with Tom Bombshell dropped yesterday in the NFL.

Micah Parsons traded by the Dallas Cowboys to the Packers for Kenny Clark and two first round picks.

Give our listeners a a general manager's view of this deal?

What what does the value as you assess it?

Well?

First of mean where to start?

I mean, I just I just finished three hours on NFL Radio and all we talked about was the trade, how it affects Doles, how it to affects Green Bay, what went into it.

And this has been a huge story, and.

It's this one's so unique because there's so much different than the Hendrickson holdout in Cincinnati and the McLaurin holdout in Washington.

This one has just played out differently, not common.

And I guess the facts were kind of right in front of our eyes because obviously Michaeh he was not going to play on this contract.

That you could tell that was a fact.

The other fact was there was.

No communication between the Cowboys and his agent.

So if you add those together, I don't see how a deal could get done.

So what's the alternative.

It's going to have to be a trade.

And that's the route they went.

Now, they must have changed their minds at some point because it looked like, uh, they were trying to sign him way back in the spring and then through the summer, and that number was going to be big.

They knew that, and it seemed like they were fine with that.

That's how we're gonna build it.

You know, we're gonna put a lot of money into two or three into three players.

But at some point they changed their minds.

So, you know, the hard part is getting back true value for a player like his, with his ability and his youth.

It's hard to do.

But what they're gonna do is they're going to try and add the draft picks, add the cap space, and from green Bay standpoint, it's it's really interesting just because they've been building towards this for the last couple of years.

This hasn't just been like a couple of weeks where they look at it and they see, hey, there's a premier pass rusher.

Let's go after him.

They've been trying to acquire a veteran pass rusher for a long time.

But there they're GM.

Brian Goodikuantz has has kind of lined them up to do this right now.

They have a pretty young roster, they have a lot of players and Murkey contracts, so it gives them the flexibility when this game available because it's a big price tige this time of year and now a lot of teams are budgeted cash and cap wise to add a player of this magnitude, well, they were ready to do it.

So he's going to make a good defense even better, you know, I know, Dallas said, they'll be better without Mike.

I mean that's not reality right now.

I mean down the road, if some things happen with the money that they now have to spend in the draft picks, maybe you can say that.

But right now they're obviously not going to be as strong.

And it just is what it is.

But it's been a really interesting whole dynamic just because there aren't a whole lot of negotiations that don't have the agent involved, not that I've been a part of, unless the player doesn't have an agent.

So this was different than the Cowboys have done it different ways, And I'd love to hear from Skin too, because I know the Cowboys in the past.

They've done plenty of big deals with their own players, so they've done these before they negotiate with agents.

I just don't understand this was different for whatever reason.

And you know why was an agent part of this?

But they're agent's part of the other deals.

That's you know, from the outset looking in, I don't know, And I do this for a living, trying to handicap this.

Not really sure why that was the case, but that seemed like that was the case with this such.

And Skin I think let's circle back to that point in a second.

Just just give us the level set, like, what what is the the millions of diehard Dallas Cowboy fans?

How are they feeling today?

They feel triple gutted for a lot of reasons.

One as I think the fan base, you know, there's a difference.

The NFL is the biggest animal by far.

But you know, if you live in Dallas, you're a Mavericks fan and a Rangers fan, and you're a Cowboys fan and a Stars fan.

And so this is a sports fan base that is still reeling from the Luca trade.

And so you have the best player on your team for both franchises changed before they enter their prime or as they enter their prime.

And it seems to be for reasons that you, you know, whatever you want to project on it.

A lot of people project ego onto this this sort of thing, and I think, you know, I'm not trying to be a sin a cool, grumpy guy, but we're on thirty years of this behavior from the Dallas Cowboys, So I'm emotionally speaking, I'm unfazed by it.

I you know, it's the problem is the logic with which the Cowboys use to do things.

They don't seem to have a philosophy.

They yank it all over the road.

Let me ask you, guys, and you know, name a superstar player the Cowboys drafted since Jerry Jones has been there that they didn't keep.

I don't think there's one.

You know.

I'm not going to sit here and say DeMarco Murray was a superstar.

He was a good running back.

I remember not being he went within the division.

And it didn't bust me up that they if you are a superstar, Jerry keeps you.

He may do this, you know, little routine that he does and say the things and love all the juice and all the talk about it, but they get the guy done.

You could have made an incredible argument, and we did on our sports talk show.

I didn't want to resign Ezekiel Elliott, not because I don't think he was a great player, but I personally never give a running back excuse me that second contract.

And I mean there's some guys like Saquon I get it, but they're so rare, and Ezekiel wasn't that guy.

He showed signs of, you know, starting to diminish a little bit.

So you don't do that with that position.

What you do is you franchise him, and if it upsets the apple cart, so be it.

But that's not how the Cowboys just don't have a good philosophy.

And this if you had told me right before the draft, we're gonna trade Micah Parsons, you I can understand that and you can make it make sense to me because you can't have two of the top seven highest paid non quarterbacks in the NFL and the highest paid quarterback in the NFL.

That stupid business.

So if you had done it going into the draft, when you can put a good deal together, I get it.

That's not what happened here.

This is ego and we've seen it play out year after year after year.

And I don't know if you guys watched it, but we all, just as our community, just watched this Netflix special, which is eight episodes of Jerry Jones's Flawed and his ego has drug fan bases through the mud for thirty years.

And it happened again.

This trade happened because Jerry insulted that agent, and guys, I know way more about the NBA than the NFL, and Tom I might be speaking out of turn here, but what I see in the NBA is when you upset the agent, he gets you out of there and he gets you where he wants you to be.

And Jerry took ridiculous shots at that agent, disrespect him.

And this isn't some third rate agent.

This is a big time guy with big time clients.

And you know who some of his biggest clients are.

They're in Green Bay, like Jordan Love.

And so you don't make a deal like this a week before the season starts because there's, like Tom said, there's so few teams that can do it.

This was an ego deal.

And now the ego you've gone to the edge of the cliff and Jerry's not going to back down as he's insulting everybody.

And you guys saw Tom, you say you saw how Mike was acting.

They they traded a generational pass rusher a week before the season because ego got in the way.

This is the kind of thing that drives Cowboys fans bonkers.

I tell you what, when you're introduced is having tremendous passion and knowledge.

That's how you deliver people in their company statement, That's how you deliver.

Hey, Tom, I want to I want to ask you, like a practical logistics question that Skin just touched upon, which is part of the challenge here building a team.

You know, in Bill Barnwell's article today at ESPN, he cited the fact that no team has had a winning season in which they're allocating fifty percent or more of their cap to three players.

Wow, cd Am, Dak Prescott, and now Micah Parsons.

Did they invest in the right guys?

It was my first question to you, and then Skin, I want to kick it back to you.

You kind of alluded to a lot of this, but why were they able to get to yes with the first two guys and not with Micah Parsons.

Well, first to go with Bill Barnwell does excellent stuff.

By the way, I wish I knew how many teams have had that that much cap.

I mean, it may only be a couple teams, So you know, I'd like to see like the the actual numbers with that.

But I'm not saying you can't do it.

I mean you have to draft really well, and you have to have a lot of players on your contract on your roster that are on rookie contracts, and that's that's can kind of get you that path where you can spend a lot on some other players if you have to pay your quarterback.

When I was with the Chargers, I knew once we paid Justin Herbert, we're we have to transition and have more younger players on offense and defense, and more rookie contracts because lower base salary, lower cap numbers.

We started that process before we signed him.

So not saying you can't do it, but it does make it more difficult as you put your team together when you have, you know, three players making that much money, but if it's your franchise quarterback and a pass rusher and a receiver, at least you're paying the right people and they're paying their own, which is even better.

They know what they're getting, They drafted, they developed, and then that you want to pay your own.

And to jump in there, I think, and Tom brought it up.

You know, when you do pay Dak and we that's a discussion that happens in every city unless it's like no brainer.

Patrick Mahomes, you know, we had so many discussions on the radio, all right, how good is Dak?

And we usually settled in all right, he's probably somewhere between the eighth best quarterback and the fourteenth best quarterback, and if you have the right team around him, you can win.

You could make the argument two seasons ago.

You know, Dak got hurt last year, but two seasons ago he was MVP runner up, right, If he has the right guys around him, you can absolutely win a Super Bowl with that Prescott.

The problem is, and by the way, the Cowboys I believe have drafted pretty well the last five or six seasons, but there are two horrific first round misses and they both happen to be on the defensive line.

Taco Charlton Charlton.

Instead of drafting Watt, which you know every team's got, you could have taken this guy.

That's so be it.

Everybody in the league pasted on Tom Brady whatever.

Like, everyone has their misses that happens, but missing on Taco and then missing on Mazzie Smith when they absolutely are so thin at defensive tackle really really hurt this team.

If they had hit on even one of those guys.

You you know, to Tom's point, you look at it differently.

If you've got guys on rookie contracts that are filling those other holes, then you can be top heavy but the Cowboys weren't, and so you know, I look at it, and if you are going to put all that money in Dak, I think you have to give him one dynamic at least one dynamic weapon.

And then they made the Pickings deal, and let's see how that works out.

I mean, that's a mer curial guy.

You know, they're going to have to decide if they want to give that guy a contract at the end of this year.

But they are so thin, like they're thin at linebacker, they're thin at quarterback.

They paid Trayvon Diggs at the time when they signed Digs, I didn't have a problem with it, and then Diggs has been hurt ever since.

Right then they got lucky because Deron Bland can absolutely play.

So that's the nature of the game.

Sometimes you hit on some guys you didn't think they step up, and then sometimes you miss at the top.

But I go back to that just looking at the list that I saw today with Micah and Ceedee Lamb both on it, and then you know how much money is going towards Dak.

I just don't think the Cowboys have done well enough in other areas to justify that.

But again, nothing has changed since last February or March.

You knew that back then.

They were still trying to give Micah this deal a week ago.

Right Like, if my kid just said, oh yeah, I'll take whatever deal me and Jerry shook hands on before they shut my agent out, they would have paid all three of those guys that money.

They were going to do that.

So today to say, well, we got a thirty year old tackle that's coming off of an OK year and a couple of first round picks for a team with Super Bowl aspirations.

This is what we wanted.

That's disingenuous at best.

If they wanted that strategy, they would have employed that strategy three or four months ago and got it a significantly better deal.

This is just life of being a Dallas Cowboys fan.

And then you have to hear them sit up there on that podium and spend that BS and it's just it's nauseating.

And I'm again, I know I sound emotional right now you start talking about it, but I really am immune to this stuff at this point.

I expect this sort of thing from the Dallas Cowboys and I you know, the Packers are super contenders.

Again, the Packers have won Super Bowl since the Cowboys were even in an NFC championship game.

We're going on thirty years of this stuff.

Man, it's it's exhausting if you follow this franchise.

Yeah, it's it's it's remarkable to see from Afar and Tom.

I wonder if you could speak to this because one other thing that seems to be a pattern of behavior by the Cowboys is they wait till the last minute to sign these guys, and it seems as if they end up having to spend more money because of that strategy.

You know, Miles Garrett gets signed at the beginning of this offseason for forty million dollars a year, which obviously is a large sum of money.

If they were first to market in going to Parsons at that point, is it reasonable that they could have gotten that deal, because it seems interesting in the football world different from them.

Baseball just seems like whoever signs latest gets the most money.

It's less about who was actually the best player, and so it seems like there's a way be first to market, not last to market.

Why are they consistently last to market here on signing their players?

Well, first of all, and then Micah ca and this is the way I think it went.

I'm not so sure.

Mike and his agent wanted to be first.

So hey, let's let's let all these guys sign and then when they're all done, then we'll know where the ceiling is and then we'll go.

So I'm not going to hold the Cowboys to to that.

Now that the Dak Prescott cedde Lamb, that could be different.

Now there's different philosophies on being first to market.

So like Bill Pulling is a Hall of fame gm okay, Joe Banner really could be a Hall of fame gm okay.

They both did it different ways, different philosophies.

Both can work.

Joe Banner would sign everybody early, okay, so you had a smaller body of work on the player.

Now, with a Micah Parsons, you kind of know what he's going to be, but not every player is like that.

So but your smaller body of work, you make a decision to put to invest money in the player, so you know there's some there's some misfactor there.

Bill Pulling was different.

He wanted a full body of work on the player before he decided to make a big investment.

Some of that was you know, we were a cash to cap team, and if you put a big amount of money into a player and it doesn't pan out, boy, that's a lot less money we have to spend somewhere else.

Now, if your team that can spend cash over cap, you can make some missus here or there and you can kind of buy your way out it for a little bit.

But again, two different philosophies both can work.

Dallas has been more the bill philosophy that they want a bigger body of work.

Sometimes.

I mean sometimes maybe the agent just doesn't want to get going early.

So but obviously, yes, the earlier you can sign a player who's a known player for you, the better because it'll give you more flexibility.

I mean, we just saw with the pass rushers where it started, where it ended.

I mean, it goes by fast and almost every free agent we ever signed.

You do the deal and you're kind of clenching your teeth.

Boy, it seems like more than we really wanted to do.

And less than twelve months later, you look at your own dealer like, oh, this is a good deal.

Look at all the.

Guys that already passed them.

Boy, we got a great deal, great value.

So yeah, doing the deals early.

There's positive negatives to everything.

Obviously, do a deal early and the player gets hurt.

Okay, now you're not getting your return on it.

You do it too good, a deal too early and the player wants to come back to the table a lot earlier, and you're losing all your value there.

It doesn't mean you have to do a new deal with the player.

But but you know, so Dallas has done it their way.

But I think in this Micah one, I'm not so sure the agent didn't didn't say, Hey, look, my guy is an All Pro player, he's young, and we're gonna wait for these other guys to go and when they're done, then what we'll talk after that?

Go ahead?

Well, I was gonna say, uh, from all the things here in the media circles, Tom's exactly right on that.

The one caveat there is that it was Micah that always wanted to be a Dallas cowboy and loved having the star on his helmet.

And from the way some of the reports are, if they're accurate, they could have gotten Micah done a year and a half ago because Micah was chomping at the bit, and this is probably why Jerry was so comfortable just dealing with Micah and thought he got a deal done and he was like no, no, no, no, no, we don't get down like that, and and that's fine.

The response should not be to say, I don't even know what what's his name's name is?

And you know, it's like, there's a way to handle things that don't go your way, and Jerry just doesn't handle anything well that doesn't go his way, and then he makes it personal and then we get the situation that we get.

I think the way Tom laid it out is exactly right.

But ultimately, the agent works for the player, and if the player really wants to be somewhere, you can get something something done.

I also like what Tom says.

I'm a big believer in this, and I think this sizes back to the Cowboys.

There are multiple ways to go about something and be successful.

There's not just one way.

And I love this all the time, Like when a team kind of emerges with a new trend and there was like, oh, well that's the way to win, and so much talk in the NBA, for example, has been about three point shooting, for example, and I would say, okay, well, now all the defenses are adjusting to three point shooting.

So, man, that mid range shot is going to be open for teams if it becomes a high percentage shot if a guy knocks it down.

You know, analytics are based on what's already happened.

Those numbers can change as your strategies change over time, and then the numbers are going to change, right.

There's going to be things that the game adapts and evolves as someone sets a new trend and then you counter that trend.

The problem I have with how the Cowboys have done it.

I think you can say their strategy is to draft and sign their own, and they do do that.

And if you look at the guys the Cowboys signed earlier, it's usually guys that give them deals because they really want to be there.

Like that's worked out well for the Cowboys, but all of their big time players do come down to the very end here.

But the thing that I get frustrated with is there is not a definable philosophy that the Cowboys have.

Even if that philosophy quote unquote evolves or changes, that's good, that's smart.

You don't want to be stuck in one way, But man, they yank it all over the damn road and that's why.

And maybe I'm reading too much into this series.

It's Jerry Jones, the gambler, and everything is shoot from your hip and woo, I was lucky in Oil.

I'm gonna get lucky again.

And I just I know that from when you know, me and Ben spent a lot of time around you and JD and AJ and the guys and having conversation.

You guys had a plan and you also had alternate plans for if your plan didn't work.

You guys, whether it was gonna work or not, you had a philosophy and a strategy and you built that and you went for it.

I'm so enamored with what Sam Presty has done in Oklahoma City and a small market because I kind of know a little bit about how he views things.

It may not work, but it is a strategy and thought has gone into that.

And I get so frustrated with the Cowboys because I think that Jerry doesn't allow them to have a consistent strategy that's well thought out.

Everything is about the sizzle and the deal and all that stuff, and it's just not a way to have a winning team, as evidence in a league where everyone takes a turn going to the championship game.

They can't seem to get in line.

It's it's maddening.

It's been referenced a few times on the show here, and I just want to say, in Major League Baseball, if you negotiate directly with a player, you're going to lose your job.

Like so, it's fascinating to me that one of the undercurrents of this story is that Jerry not only was negotiating directly, but also seemingly was outraged and was not going to allow the agent to participate.

Shifting gears for a second here, back to Jerry, I just don't real quickly.

So just with so we don't have or we the NFL doesn't have that rule.

I mean, the agent has to be certified.

He can't negotiate with a non certified agent.

But there's no rule you can't negotiate directly with the player.

I've never done it.

Well, we did it once because the player didn't have an agent.

But yeah, they're not circumventing the CBA by talking directly to the player.

But usually the player to say, look, you know, call my agent and look the especially in this contract, Mike is paying his agent a lot of money for guidance consultation on these contracts.

His agent has done this hundreds thousands of times before.

He does it for a living.

The player doesn't do this for a living, so he should want to use an agent, and he was.

But but yeah, there was Dallas in doing anything that was against the CBA by talking directly to the player.

It's remarkable.

I mean, in baseball, just fundamentally, for this very reason, you have to work with the representative because it's assumed that they have more knowledge in the space and will represent the player better than the player at ken himself.

Not to rub a little lemon juice in the old wound here, but I'm going to read a few quotes from Jerry Jones that I love your reaction and quoting here.

This was a move to get us successful in the playoffs.

This was a move to be better on defense.

Obviously we didn't think it was the best interest of our organization, not only the future, but right now this season as well.

This gives us a chance to be a better team period.

How do you think the average fan is responding to that?

I think I think the average fan Jerry's one of those guys when you're around him.

It's fun to be around him.

But I think even the average fan is tired of his BS, right, and so these sorts of things they just ring hollow.

And theoretically what he said is accurate, So then do it when you can get a much better deal.

Three months ago.

Nothing's changed.

They haven't been able to stop the run the entire time.

Micah Parsons was there racking up this incredible you know, pass rush rate and uh, you know, getting these sacks and you know you have to double sometimes triple team him.

They've never been able to stop to run this entire time.

So they knew this.

So in theory, what Jerry's saying is accurate.

It's just after the fact.

BS, they would have aggressively addressed it months ago, and so it's like they got cornered into the deal, and this is how they spin it.

And that's what I think drives all the fans crazy because we have this long track record of this sort of behavior.

And again, man in the press conference yesterday, Jerry Jones told a story that he has told a hundred times about a contract dealing with Michael Irvin, in which he said something clever about the city of El Paso, and Michael threw up his hands.

He's like, I can't deal with you, Jerry, You're the best, and then going over and signs the deal.

So we're talking about something that happened in the mid nineties, and that that's what he's sitting up on the stage talking about.

He's talking, he's referencing, Well, you know, I've done a million deals, and it's and it's it's maddening that we're still stuck in that time warp.

And it's good to know what Tom said.

I didn't realize that you could quote unquote negotiate with the player.

But you know, it doesn't really matter because if the deal is not done, okay, how do we how do we get it done?

If you want to be here and we want you here, how do we get this done?

And the answer is to not pretend like you don't know the agent's name and go insult him on a Michael Irban podcast.

That's not the way to get the deal done.

Tom.

One last question for you.

I'm just curious from our general manager's perspective, it seems to me like these deals are extremely difficult to make period.

But additionally, because you really there are three parties involved because there's a sign and trade effectively going on here, or a sign right after the trade, so it's the two teams and the player.

So part of what the Packers are giving up in this deal is signing Micah to a very lucrative contract, but that contract has no value to the Cowboys.

Similarly, when the Cowboys are getting draft picks back by definition by giving them Micah Parsons, they're devaluing those draft picks because now they should be better.

So there's some kind of wonkiness in my opinion of like how you value these things, which I imagine is why these are really tough deals to make, because when the Green Bay Packers are saying, hey, listen, part of what we're giving up here is this exceptionally large contract, and the Cowboys say, well, that doesn't do us any good and we're still looking for value elsewhere, like how much does the does those things kind of complicate these types of.

Deals, Well, I wouldn't want to hear the other team complaining because you know they're part of this trade and they're they're trading for an all pro players, So you have to give up something, and you better give up a lot.

But typically when there's draft picks involved, or draft picks and players for the trade involved plus a contract, you always want to hammer out the compensation as far as what the trade parameters are going to be first.

I would never want to let the other team start negotiating with the player first.

They get that done, and then now you start to lose some leverage because now the player knows, hey, look, I got this deal done with Green Bay for whatever.

It's going to be forty five million a year.

We got to make this deal, and they start losing a little bit of leverage.

So it was always, hey, let's get the parameters done first, and we nail those down, okay, and have a verbal agreement on that.

Now you can talk to the agent.

But you know, this is a it's a difficult deal to do just because the contract is a contract.

But what's the right compensation.

Going back to the Cowboys and two first round draft picks and a and a proven player, it sounds good, you know those two draft picks.

You know, best case scenario, you get you know, a starter, maybe two starters, maybe you get a pro bowler, and you get them for four years at below market prices.

But The reality of it is, the draft is it's a little bit like lottery.

Take us.

Now, the higher you pick that you have a better chance.

But fifty five percent of players in the first round sign a second contract with that club.

Okay, very few actually become All pros.

So you're getting two first round draft picks, but I'll tell you you'll hit on one.

And the Cowboys have drafted pretty well, so they have a chance to get on both.

Okay, but is one of them going to be at a premier position and an All Pro player?

Well, that's hard to say.

So you look at some of the trades in the past of teams that decide, all right, we don't want to pay this player, but we'll just draft as replacement.

Well, Tennessee's send Aj Brown to Philly, Okay, we'll just draft Trailing Burks as his replacement in the first round.

Didn't work Okay, San Francisco is same thing with the Forrest Buckner.

We're gonna pay some other players, will trade him to the Colts, and we'll draft his replacement.

Javon Kinlaw didn't work out, So you can't just guarantee that, Hey, we're trading parsons, but we now we'll have two Pro Bowl players to take his place.

Maybe that happens, but the odds say that's that's gonna be a little bit low.

So, like Skin said earlier, if this was done in March and April, you just have more teams competing, more teams are budget at that point, cash and cap wise to do a deal, and then that kind of will increase your compensation back because you'd have a lot of teams competing for Micha Parsons.

It wouldn't be just one.

But you do it now, it's just less people involved.

When there's less people involved, you can't get you lose some leverage, you don't have as much coming back.

Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more, Tom.

I always felt like you look at these deals and is is this the best deal you can make or is the best deal you can make right now?

Or with some other qualifiers.

And when you're trading elite players, you never want there to be a qualifier.

You never want there to be a drag on the value of the trade.

And you guys know more about the NFL in this market than I do, but it just feels like there was a drag here.

Skin.

My last question for you.

You kind of alluded to this earlier and for the listeners to know Skin has like a PhD in the NBA, So I'm going to link it back in here is what is the state of the Dallas Fort Worth fan base right now?

Like, on the positive side, the Rangers win the World Series in twenty twenty three, you got Cooper Flag in the first round, but you've also lost Micah Parsons and Luka Doncic.

It seems like there's a lot of highs and lows.

There's a lot of heartbreak mixed in there.

When the dust settles, how are they feeling?

I think right now the fan base is completely battered.

And I think, you know, the NFL is so crazy because so much of it's going to come down to injuries and what players get injured.

I mean, I think you know, with relatively good health, the Cowboys are going to be in an eight or nine win team, and with some bad health then you're looking at a five or six win team, and that's not going to make anybody in the fan base feel good.

I think.

I actually, if you look at trading Luca and how lucky they got with Cooper Flag, I actually really like the Mavericks team if Kyrie Irving is healthy and Kyrie Irving ain't healthy, so they don't have enough shooting and they don't have enough playmaking.

But they have a chance to be a top three defensive team in the league.

I wholeheartedly believe that.

I know the way Jason Kid coaches, and if he's willing to put Anthony Davis and Derek Lively the second and PJ.

Washington Junior, who's their best primter defender, and also six seven with long arms out there with Cooper Flag, that is a dominant defensive team.

But they don't have enough shooting and they don't have enough playmaking for the modern NBA.

So I think the fan base is not going to get to feel that because Kyrie's not coming back until February, your March, and when he does come back, maybe he's seventy five percent or eighty percent.

I really think if their health turns around, they got a chance to be incredible next season, right But when you've been watching Luka Doncic drag you to the finals, for a fan, that's not going to feel good for them.

The franchise was saved with the Cooper Flag pick.

I mean, I just I was watching that lottery and man, because we had dealt with so much.

I mean, the Kyrie Irving injury was devastating.

You guys, know, when you have a star and he gets hurt, it's devastating.

And Kyrie literally just put the team on his back and was doing amazing things.

And there's all this baggage that came with Kyrie before he arrived.

And let me just tell you, guys, he has been wonderful.

And I was from being from afar, not knowing him personally, I was scared because of what you read and what you see, I have not seen any of that.

He's been amazing to work with.

He's been a leader.

You know.

I think the Mavericks got the benefit of getting him after he went through all of that hell and was drugged through the media, mud and all that stuff in Boston and Brooklyn.

And I'm not absolving him of any of his own doing, but it seems like he had emerged from that in a wonderful place and then he gets a pretty catastrophic injury.

Right.

And so if you watched one half of Anthony Davis and Kyrie Irving together when they played the Rockets, they looked like an elite team, and then Anthony Davis gets hurt.

So it's a long way of saying that this fan base has been drugged through the mud, the emotional mud, and I don't know that they're gonna get the immediate dividends to pull him out of it.

I think that the fall and the in January February time is going to be a lot of hits to him, and it's gonna be the Cowboys and the Mavericks happening at the same time.

And who knows what happens with the Rangers.

Man, they got a lot of injuries, and boy, the Bats didn't come to get So it feels like a dark time for the fan base who can never see the you know, past the immediate problems.

I think that things will turn around with relative health, but it's going to be five or six months down the road before anybody sees that, Hey.

Coop Cooper flag this year.

Okay, arch Manning next year, and we'll forget all about this, that this all happened.

I will be fine, Tom, Thank you for promising me that I heard it right here on this podcast.

Guaranteed me that's gonna happen.

But Yeah, that would be that would be nice.

And then you have this dragantic contract with Dak and everyone yelling that they want the rookie to play.

Always got to look at the balance side.

I think you've inspired us to do a show on all the conspiracy theories around the draft lottery and frozen enflopes and sticky sticky ping pong balls, because no franchise needed the number one pick more than the Dallas man Well, I want to thank you, guys, both the tremendous wisdom of the general manager here from Tom, and the exceptional passion and the knowledge of the fan base from you Skin.

Thank you guys for joining us.

Please join me host bad Levine, Ryan McDonough and other general managers every week for Roster Syringes on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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