In this extended clip from the "Best of Colin Cowherd" podcast, hosts Nick Wright and Colin Cowherd dissect a series of hot NBA topics. They start by constructing a hypothetical blockbuster trade that would send Anthony Davis and Russell Westbrook to the Lakers in exchange for Kyrie Irving and Ben Simmons, weighing contract expirations, luxury‑tax implications, and each player’s on‑court value. The conversation then pivots to a statistical deep‑dive: LeBron James’ historically poor three‑point shooting season, Kyrie Irving’s health and free‑agency leverage, and the perceived decline of Anthony Davis versus Kyrie’s continued elite finishing. Wright and Cowherd map out the leverage landscape for the Nets, Knicks, Clippers, and Blazers, concluding that the Nets lack real bargaining power with an unsigned Kyrie. The dialogue shifts when a clip of Draymond Green is played, in which Green challenges Wright’s past criticism of Andrew Wiggins, demanding that Wright “stand on” his statements. Wright defends his role as a media personality who makes bold, sometimes wrong, predictions, acknowledging his miss on Wiggins but arguing that his commentary is part of the job. He also laments how his past take has been mis‑characterized as a lone dissenting voice, noting the broader consensus that the Wiggins trade was initially viewed as a bust. Cowherd adds his own track record of hits and misses on player evaluations. Throughout, the hosts blend conversational banter with analytical reasoning, offering a window into how NBA media personalities evaluate trades, player performance, and their own credibility. Key takeaways: 1. Trade proposals are evaluated through contract status, luxury‑tax impact, and player value, not just headline names. 2. Advanced metrics (e.g., LeBron’s 18% three‑point rate) are used to argue player decline or resilience. 3. Leverage in NBA trades is fluid; teams with cap‑space or unsigned stars hold more power. 4. Media figures are held accountable for past predictions, and they openly discuss the fallout of missed calls. 5. The Wiggins trade narrative evolved from a perceived bust to a championship‑winning piece, illustrating how hindsight reshapes trade assessments.
Chapters
Hold on, let me ask you this. Wait, wait, let me ask you this. You said forget Westbrook. Now you want to get true wacky town. Okay, I give you AD and Russ and you give me Kyrie and Ben.
Take it in a second.
That I would do. Because that— it's like, if you— now you are— as, as flawed as Ben is, he's far more valuable than Russ, no question about it. And if you're the Nets, that's the cost, the taxes. And by the way, you've never seen Ben Simmons play, and the Russ contract is expiring. That, if I'm the Lakers, that one I do. Oh, that's an interesting one. I—
How about this one?
And I think the contracts work Oh, that one, that would be one of the biggest NBA trades ever.
Okay, so I said this in the preamble to you. LeBron has a history. He even bailed on D-Wade once he was physically vulnerable. Kyrie is not declining, had his best 3-point shooting year ever. AD is, look it up, peaked 3 to 4 years ago. His field goal percentage, his points, he had a terrible shooting year.
LeBron— Shot 18% from 3. I don't know how it wasn't a bigger story. 18%, which is impossibly bad. It was, it was in the discussion for the worst 3-point shooting year by any player ever. But go ahead.
So Kyrie's not a declining player. LeBron plays 2 more games, he wins the NBA scoring title. He's declining in availability. He is not declining in the ability to get baskets. LeBron knows LeBron gets the most out of everybody. Kyrie acknowledged, "We broke up, my bad, I was immature." So LeBron has bailed on his best friend, D-Wade. Remember D-Wade at the end? He would struggle. He needed like 4 days rest for his right knee.
Yeah.
Chris Bosh, great player, great guy, good friend, had health issues. LeBron will bail on a friend if he feels they're declining. Kyrie's not available, but he's not declining. He is still the best small finisher in the sport.
It is a fascinating one, Colin. I— listen, I have been— I've been talking since December. At first it was a little tongue-in-cheek, a little serious, when it looked— when the Nets weren't playing Kyrie at all, when it looked like they were going to get zero games out of him. And we knew he had this contract coming up and the Russ thing clearly wasn't working. I said in December, Russ for Kyrie. I was like, you guys, people can say that sounds ridiculous, but if you're going to get zero games out of him and then he's going to walk, he's worth zero. At least see if Russ reunited with Kevin Durant. This was when they still had Harden. Keep in mind, you know what I mean? You— the Nets had Harden and KD. I was like, it might be worth a try if you're Brooklyn. And then it just seems to be more and more slow momentum towards a Kyrie and LeBron reunion. It does seem like that, because now I do understand that here— and here is where the Nets have to be careful, because this is not a situation like Uh, Ben Simmons asking out with 4 years left on his deal. This is not an Anthony Davis asking out even with 1 year left on his deal. This is a player who can be a free agent in Kyrie Irving right now. So if the Nets are like, we're not gonna make the— help you out and send you to the Lakers, he can opt out, be a free agent, and sign anywhere he wants. And I know people are like, oh, only the bad teams have cap space, man. The Lakers can't clear up the cap space without trading Russ, but other teams can clear up cap space. The Clippers could find a way to get Kyrie Irving quickly.
Yeah.
The Knicks could easily clear up the cap space to sign him outright. And if you're the Nets, can you— if, if Kyrie goes to you and says, I want you to find a way to trade me to Team X, And if you don't, I am opting out and I am not asking for a trade anywhere. I am signing with the Knicks. Can you deal with that if you're the Nets, of losing Kyrie Irving to the fucking Knicks across the bridge for nothing? I don't think you can. Yeah. So I don't think the Nets have leverage the way most people think they do. The Blazers have leverage. I don't know if they would use it if Dame were to, because Dame's been such a good citizen and such a great teammate. But he's under contract, right? The Lakers have leverage with Anthony Davis. He's under contract. The Nets have no leverage with Kyrie because he's not under contract if he opts out, and that's immediate.
It's interesting.
Interesting.
Okay, so let's pivot. So Draymond Green called Nick out. I wanna run the piece of video we have. We'll start with this. Let's roll the tape on Draymond Green. Very popular podcast that happens to be on this network, The Volume.
Go ahead. Nick Wright comes out and say, "Steph Curry, that's it. He'll never see the Finals again. Andrew Wiggins, 3 years, $95 million left on his deal. Why would they go do that worst trade?" And blah, blah, blah. I hope you willing to stand on that word, brother. Stand on that. And tell us why you thought that. Tell us why you thought that. Tell us why this whole series you've been yapping, yapping, and then all of a sudden you wanna switch to the Dubs. Tell us why. 'Cause what's in question is your basketball knowledge.
Okay, Nick, it is interesting because obviously I defend Draymond. I thought he was so good in the last couple games of the series. He was so Draymond. He was such a catalyst. Um, I always argued that the great teams have always had players who know exactly what they are. Manu Ginobili came off the bench. He would have started for 27 teams. He knew exactly what he was. Um, Pippen knew exactly what he was. So did Ron Harper. Harper averaged 20 a game for the Clippers when he came over, but that's what they needed from him. The great teams have these players that could score more, that could do more. Now, Draymond's not a great scorer, but I've always felt he is the bouncer at the nightclub and that he controls his emotions more than people think he does, and that his job is to be a more skilled Rodman. He's trying to be annoying. Yeah, of course. And I really think— I think it really, really works because when he goes to more skilled players and disrupts them, like he did with Jaylen Brown, I thought it was incredibly important. So that's why I argue guys like Draymond historically have immense value.
All that's true. So I want to— there's a lot of stuff here I want to address. I'm gonna do it in reverse order. Everything you said is true. It is also true that through 4 Finals games, he was having arguably the worst Finals of any future Hall of Famer ever. Draymond Green, his finals is fine through 4 games. The first game was by Basketball Reference's game score metric, the worst playoff game of his life. His second game was, he, I thought he was actually kind of good. That was a game where he was totally unhinged insane in it. The third game was the worst game of his life by that same metric. His fourth game He was so bad his mother called him out on Twitter, and his coach benched him. Game 5, he was really good in the first half. In the second half, he had 4 fouls, fouled out, took 0 shots. And then in Game 6, he was excellent. There's an— he was excellent. He was on both ends of the court. That's Draymond. That's a fair reading of Draymond Green's NBA Finals. Okay. Yeah. That's the Finals. Now we go, you know, we, we open up the aperture, as my buddy Kevin Wilds would say. Draymond Green's one of the— he called himself the greatest defensive player ever. That's nonsense. Is he one of the 3 greatest defensive players of his era? Without a doubt. Is he a future Hall of Famer? Without a doubt. Is he, in my opinion, more important than Klay Thompson has been in this Warriors dynastic run? It is close, but yes, because I think you can find in this league a shooter more easily than you can find a guy who's going to do all the little shit Draymond does on offense. The offense has gone away this year, but he used to— I mean, he scored 32 in Game 7 of the Finals. Dude had 32, 15, and 9 in— or 10 and 9 in Game 7 of the Finals that they lost to LeBron. He used to be able to score the basketball, um, and his passing is great, and he's a good, at times great defender. Now, there was a 3-year stretch where he was the most devastating defender in basketball. He won one Defensive Player of the Year, finished second the 2 other years to Kawhi Leonard. I came on your show before I even had my own show and said Draymond was the best defender in basketball. So all that's true about his career, right? He is not the rebounder Rodman was, but he is a better offensive player than Rodman was. Modern Rodman is a great comp, right?
Okay.
Yeah. Now to what Draymond said about me. I, unlike, here's one of the reasons you and I get along, Colin, in addition to the many things we, you know, that we have in common, here is maybe one of the most important. We are two of the only members of the media that understand what's good for the goose and good for the gander. We make our living making bold proclamations, talking a little bit of shit, taking a little time, at times pointed jabs, and trying to, trying to literally predict the future. You don't do the predict the future stuff as much as I do, but you do some of it. Everything about picking a game or a champion is predicting the future, which by the way, not possible. You can have informed speculation, and you and I understand that occasionally we're gonna have big swings and crush it over the fence, and occasionally not only are we gonna miss the ball, bat's gonna fly out of our hand and hit the old lady in the front row, and people are gonna bring that shit up for a couple years, and you gotta take it. My Andrew Wiggins take that has gone international at this point. I was getting tweets in Hebrew. It was on— it was on K-pop TikTok. Okay, it has gone international for being a bad take. I was wrong. Draymond said— so this is my issue with what Draymond said. Draymond said, I hope you stand on it. I— if I were to ask, talk to Draymond, I would say, what do you mean by stand on it? Like, do you mean by admit I said it? Like, not say that's a deepfake. Okay, I will stand on that. Are you saying I hope you still believe that? Of course I don't still believe that. I was wrong. Like, Andrew Wiggins played better than I expected him to. I said they wouldn't ever make the finals. They just won the championship. So I can't stand on that part of the take. It lit— what I said wouldn't happen did happen. So I just missed on it, and that, that happens. The only frustration I have is not directed at Draymond Green, because Draymond is new media. And by the way, Draymond, I'm not sure where they teach new media classes, but if you're going to be in new media, you should probably get some of the stuff right. Like when you say, oh, and now you want to switch your pick to the Warriors. No, my friend, it was actually worse than that. I picked the Warriors, then I switched my pick to Boston. So I was wrong. But you were wrong in your new media about what I was wrong about.
Okay.
But here is what is frustrating to me. My colleagues, not like Wilds Brew, but like general colleagues, sports media, who have shared that 2-and-a-half-year-old Andrew Wiggins clip. When you know how I know that's an old clip? Because I don't have hair and I'm in the studio. It's been 2 and a half fucking years since I've been in the studio and I, since I had a shaved head. So it's an old clip. But folks pretending that what I said there wasn't mostly consensus opinion really irks me. Andrew Wiggins was considered a huge miss and the worst contract in sports. Now, the Warriors, to their credit, saw something I didn't. That's why Bob Myers makes the big bucks. Yeah. But the idea that I was the only person criticizing the Andrew Wiggins trade is so ahistorical.
Porzingis, Kevin Durant, Brandon Ingram, all legs, slashers, hit the floor, get hurt a lot. I was wrong on KD. You know I love him as a player. I think it's fun that sometimes I'm absolutely overwhelmingly wrong. Of course, I was right on the Warriors in 6, Steph is the MVP. I told you Johnny Manziel would be a bust, so would JaMarcus Russell. Jameis Winston was overdrafted, so was Baker Mayfield and Josh Rosen. No reason to talk about those hits though, is there?
No.
So Gronk retired, we think, sort of, kind of, absolutely, we're not sure. Even as agent Drew Rosenhaus said, if Tom Brady calls, he'll listen. I worked with Gronk briefly at Fox, and generally I have a pretty good idea of what people are like before they enter a building. Um, Gronk was surprisingly serious off-air, incredibly candid, and one of the things that was so clear about Gronk off the air I'm not sure I've ever met a professional athlete that had that kind of contagious personality. He is virtually impossible not to like. I could say that about 3 people maybe in my life. You put Gronk in a room, men, women, old, young, doesn't matter. Gronk is maybe the most likable professional athlete I've ever met. He's more serious than you think. He's more of a thinker than you think. And though I worked with him briefly, fascinating guy from an incredible family. There's been 5 great tight ends in my life. Kellen Winslow, Shannon Sharpe, Tony Gonzalez, Gronk, and Travis Kelce. Those are the 5 best tight ends in my life.
