Pick 'n Pops: Open doors, damning evidence, and heaves

Every week I gather some thoughts about the Celtics, the NBA, and beyond and dump them here. Because I'm about to pursue my dream of becoming a rock and roll drummer with a band called "Spinal Tap" that has an opening.

- An Atlanta radio host asked Jaylen Brown if he’d ever play for the hometown Hawks. Jaylen’s answer was “you never know.”

This is such a Jaylen answer. He knows the business, so he knows anything can happen. But more so, this will get him a little attention in Atlanta. After all, it’s nice to feel wanted. 

- The tenor of this space will change significantly if Brad Stevens trades Brown for Trae Young. I’ll just put that out there right now.

- It looks like Anfernee Simons is sticking around for a little while. The Celtics are starting to include him in their social media posts, so I don’t think he’s moving any time soon. 

I’ll admit, I haven't really thought much of how he’ll impact the team because I didn’t expect him to be here on opening night. I think that has to change now. 

- We haven't talked much about Josh Minott either. I’m curious to see what he’s going to be for the Celtics? Maybe he’ll step into the role of maniacal energy guy off the bench? The Celtics need one of those. 

- They need more bigs, but Charles Bassey just signed an Exhibit 10 deal with Atlanta. That will allow them to cut him and stash him on their G League team, but that doesn’t prevent another team from plucking him away.

That kind of contract should be all we need to know about how the league feels about him. He was available to a lot of teams who could use a big, but no one gave him a standard deal. The Spurs chose to pay Luke Kornet rather than keep him. 

- Let’s put the Kawhi Leonard timeline in order of occurrence, rather than in order of reporting. 

• Leonard’s camp requests from Toronto (reported by Bruce Arthur) a no-show endorsement deal and ownership equity as a side deal. He is turned down. 

• Leonard signs with the Clippers.

• Steve Ballmer invests $50 million in Aspiration

• Leonard gets a four-year, $28 million no-show endorsement deal (reported by Pablo Torre) and a four-year, $20 million stock deal (reported on BSJ) with Aspiration. 

• Aspiration hits financial trouble, has trouble paying salaries, and is approaching bankruptcy.

• Clippers limited partner Dennis J. Wong, a college roommate of Ballmer’s and father of an Aspiration employee, makes a $2 million investment. 

• Aspiration pays Leonard $1.75 million, a payment that was late at the time of Wong’s investment. 

We’re supposed to believe all of this is a coincidence? 

- On the power to punish the Clippers, Adam Silver said, “My powers are very broad. Full range of financial penalties — draft picks, suspensions, et cetera. I have very broad powers in these situations."

I expect the penalties here to be pretty bad. This won’t be the Joe Smith/Minnesota-level penalty because in that situation, there was actual documentation that amounted to a smoking gun. They won’t find that here, but they won’t need to. 

- People keep talking about voiding Leonard’s deal as a punishment for the Clippers. I think that's wrong. I think the Clippers would be thrilled to have $50 million off the books next season.

If the league really wants to punish them, they’d force Leonard to extend for three more seasons at the max. 

- A source within Aspiration has characterized the Leonard camp as persistent in their requests for payment. I can 100% see someone in Aspiration asking for a way to get Leonard’s folks off their back. 

I also like to picture their requests for payment like Fat Tony asking Marge for the pretzel money. 

Yep, this is me using a Simpsons clip to highlight a piece of investigative reporting. 

I’ll start writing my Hall of Fame speech when I’m done with this. 

- Never has Adam Silver been more of a lawyer when he said this of the NBA salary cap and the concept of owners trying to save money: 

“We pay out 51 percent — as we’re fond of saying, not a penny more or a penny less. The money has to get distributed to the players in this league. There’s no way to, so-called, save money. The money is 100 percent being paid out, as you began by saying, and the players are well paid under the system because the pie is expanding. That was the goal with more competition, and that’s working.”

He’s just being obtuse. 

Silver knows damn well that different teams have different payrolls and some are less than others. The league has a salary floor rule to set a minimum amount to pay a roster, and that is $15 million below the salary cap. 

So tell me, then, how there's “no way” to save money if the league had to put rules in because teams were trying to save too much money. 

- It’s sad that the new heave rule, which makes missed heaves at the end of quarters a team miss instead of a personal one that impacts shooting percentage, had to be implemented. But I don’t care. Whatever it takes to get those heaves a-heavin’. 

The NBA needs to warn people on the baselines or else we’re going to see someone take a 50-foot bomb off the schnoz because they were scrolling through Instagram to see how many people liked their selfie at the game instead of paying attention. 

- Listen to Derrick White’s answer about Mazzulla Ball and the 3-point attempts. 

I hope people understand. Coaches and players have explained that it’s more than just coming down and jacking up 3-pointers. I’ve tried to explain it, too. 

Why is it that people don’t want to believe all of these people explaining what the offense really has been? 

- It doesn’t matter. The Celtics will have no choice but to change their offense this season. They don’t have the same kind of shooting, so they’ll have to figure something else out.

- The Locked On Podcast Network released its first annual Top 100 NBA players list. Here’s where the Celtics landed: 

10: Jayson Tatum

21: Jaylen Brown

37: Derrick White

96: Payton Pritchard

99: Anfernee Simons

I think every Celtic was ranked around five players too low, at least. 

- Jaylen is really taking playing for Joe Mazzulla seriously

- I left this out of my column yesterday, but the league needs to eliminate blackout rules. They don’t make any sense. 

- Josh Giddey’s restricted free agency is finally over after he signed a four-year, $100 million deal with the Bulls. I have no idea why that took so long, but I’m glad it’s done. Now Jonathan Kuminga can sign his qualifying offer, Al Horford can finally sign with Golden State, and we can be done with it.

- Media day is in two weeks. I’ve never needed basketball back more than I do right now. 

- This week’s AI-generated image is just a selfie. 

- The Clippers saga is one of the biggest stories in sports right now, and it could go down as one of the biggest team scandals in NBA history. So for uncovering one of the biggest scoops we’ve seen in a while, and solidifying himself as the new face of sports investigative journalism, I’m declaring Pablo Torre to be having the Best Week Ever!

- Here’s my latest podcast, if you’re bored.