Speaker 1: The volume. All right, Well, good to Hoops Tonight. You're
Speaker 1: at the volume heavy Wednesday. Everybody up. All of you
Speaker 1: guys are having a great week. We are continuing our
Speaker 1: top ten in our player rankings today with number nine
Speaker 1: Jalen Brunson. We're gonna be doing a deep dive on
Speaker 1: Jalen what he does for this New York Knicks team.
Speaker 1: At the tail end of the show today, Denzel Washington
Speaker 1: came out and was pretty critical of the current state
Speaker 1: of sports media, and as you guys know, it followed
Speaker 1: me over the years. I'm bullish on the current state
Speaker 1: of sports media. I think it's been a better situation
Speaker 1: than we've ever had before, and so I have some
Speaker 1: comments on that as well. At the tail end of
Speaker 1: the show, you guys know the joke before we started.
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Speaker 1: Make sure you guys follow us there for content throughout
Speaker 1: the remainder of the season. And last but not least, if
Speaker 1: you disagree with any of these rankings in any way,
Speaker 1: shape or form, please go in the YouTube comments here
Speaker 1: right mail bag with a colon and then explain just
Speaker 1: in an elevator pitch why you disagree with the ranking,
Speaker 1: make a basketball case, and then on Fridays throughout the
Speaker 1: remainder of this list. We have plenty of time about
Speaker 1: another month or so over the course of this offseason
Speaker 1: where we'll be covering these guys. Drop your arguments and
Speaker 1: we'll get to them in our Friday mail bags throughout
Speaker 1: the remainder of this series. All right, let's talk some basketball.
Speaker 1: So for Jalen Brunson at number nine, this is his
Speaker 1: first appearance in the top ten since we started doing
Speaker 1: this Hoops Tonight Top twenty five list, which I believe
Speaker 1: this is our fourth time doing it if I remember correctly.
Speaker 1: Last year in review, for Jalen Brunson, sixty five games played,
Speaker 1: basically played in every game outside of a stretch late
Speaker 1: in the season after he sprained his ankle in a
Speaker 1: game against the Los Angeles Slikers, in a game where
Speaker 1: he was playing the best, some of the best basketball
Speaker 1: of his career in that stretch and was just absolutely
Speaker 1: torching the Lakers before he suffered that ankle injury. His
Speaker 1: averages this season twenty six points per game, three rebounds,
Speaker 1: and seven assists one stock per game on zero point
Speaker 1: nine steals per game. His percentages, he was forty nine
Speaker 1: percent from the field, thirty eight percent from three to
Speaker 1: eighty two percent from the line, a career high six
Speaker 1: point nine free throw attempts per game, fifty five percent
Speaker 1: in effective field goal percentage that's just field goal percentage
Speaker 1: weighted for threes, and then sixty one percent in true shooting.
Speaker 1: This was the first time in his career where he
Speaker 1: averaged over twenty points per game and over sixty percent
Speaker 1: true shooting, and that led to an award heavy season
Speaker 1: for Brunson. He finished tenth in MVP voting, He made
Speaker 1: the All Star team for the second consecutive year. He
Speaker 1: was selected second team All NBA, and he won the
Speaker 1: Clutch Player of the Year award. We're going to be
Speaker 1: talking a lot Jalen Brunson as a clutch player in
Speaker 1: today's show. He followed that up with a super impressive
Speaker 1: playoff run. He averaged twenty nine points, three rebounds, and
Speaker 1: seven assists. His efficiency took a small hit down to
Speaker 1: fifty eight percent. That's still very respectable for playoff scoring,
Speaker 1: and that's just a very impressive stat line any way
Speaker 1: you try to slice it. Similar to Donovan Mitchell, Jalen
Speaker 1: Brunson has established himself now after multiple years, as one
Speaker 1: of the statistical monsters of the NBA playoffs. In his
Speaker 1: three playoff runs since joining the Knicks, that's forty two games,
Speaker 1: Jalen Brunson has averaged thirty points, four rebounds, and seven
Speaker 1: assists per game on fifty seven percent true shooting. Again,
Speaker 1: one of the statistical monsters of the NBA playoffs. Let's
Speaker 1: start here with Jalen Brunson. Why do I have him
Speaker 1: ranked ahead of a guy like Donovan Mitchell, for example,
Speaker 1: or even some of the younger stars further down on
Speaker 1: the list, guys like Cade Cunningham. It comes down to
Speaker 1: exactly why I picked the Knicks to beat the Pistons
Speaker 1: in that playoff series last year. If you guys remember
Speaker 1: I predicted that it would be a tougher series, but
Speaker 1: I predicted that the Knicks would end up winning because
Speaker 1: of Jalen Brunson and his ability to be the superior
Speaker 1: game manager. This was the exact same reason why I
Speaker 1: picked Jalen Brunson and the Knicks to beat the Cleveland
Speaker 1: Cavaliers a few years back, because I believed in Jalen
Speaker 1: Brunson as a superior game manager. This is a concept
Speaker 1: that we've talked about a lot over the course of
Speaker 1: the last six months. The idea that in basketball games,
Speaker 1: your job as a point guard or as a primary
Speaker 1: initiator is not just to get to your thirty points,
Speaker 1: but to generate a ton of shots, sometimes fifty sixty
Speaker 1: seventy shots for your entire team for entire games. And
Speaker 1: that's not just points and assists either. Sometimes that's just
Speaker 1: creating an initial advantage that gets drove and kicked a
Speaker 1: few times into some sort of easy shot that may
Speaker 1: not manifest as an a This's this for a guy
Speaker 1: like Jalen Broun Center for your primary shot creator, but
Speaker 1: that is going to be berthed out of the initial
Speaker 1: advantage that he creates. You generate that first closeout that
Speaker 1: guy drives, it generates an even better spot up opportunity.
Speaker 1: That guy drives it, maybe hits a cutter, maybe hits
Speaker 1: a wide open shooter to end the sequence. The guy
Speaker 1: who isn't going to get any credit for that is
Speaker 1: the guy who's generated that first advantage when the reality
Speaker 1: is that second guy may not be as good at
Speaker 1: making an advantage without that first closeout coming out of him.
Speaker 1: And that's why that role of shot creation is so valuable.
Speaker 1: Just a simple stat to kind of demonstrate this relative
Speaker 1: to a guy like Donovan Mitchell, Jalen Brunson passed out
Speaker 1: of pick and roll almost nine hundred times this year.
Speaker 1: It was the fourth most in the entire NBA. For perspective,
Speaker 1: Donovan Mitchell did so five hundred and seventeen times. So
Speaker 1: there's a huge gap and the just the embracing of
Speaker 1: simple advantages. You know, there are some things that I
Speaker 1: think the Knicks need to improve on as a team
Speaker 1: on offense, I think they have another level they can
Speaker 1: get to with their personnel, especially in the playoffs. Like
Speaker 1: the Knicks were fifth in offensive rating in the regular
Speaker 1: season this year, but their offense took a pretty substantial
Speaker 1: dip in the postseason. They went down to it was
Speaker 1: like right under one hundred and thirteen in offensive rating,
Speaker 1: if I remember correctly. And part of the reason for
Speaker 1: that is like there wasn't enough variety added in around
Speaker 1: Jalen Brunson, so Jalen would wear down at times. I
Speaker 1: didn't think that Tom Tabadeau did enough of a job
Speaker 1: investing throughout the season on trying to come up with
Speaker 1: more reliable ways to initiate offense. Take for example, like
Speaker 1: Ogn and Obi posting up. They ran about one hundred
Speaker 1: Ogn and Ob post ups in the regular season, and
Speaker 1: that was an action that I wanted them to explore
Speaker 1: more in the postseason. But when you only ran it
Speaker 1: like a little over once a game in the regular season,
Speaker 1: it's not established enough to be something that you can
Speaker 1: really depend on. And if you maybe run two hundred
Speaker 1: post ups for Ogn and Obi in the regular season,
Speaker 1: or more actions where maybe an action that gets Og
Speaker 1: and O become downhill off of some sort of designed
Speaker 1: play to get him involved, or a three man action
Speaker 1: with bridges and Anenobe and cat involved, something that has
Speaker 1: Brunson where he can have about like ten to fifteen
Speaker 1: more possessions a game where he can just go stand
Speaker 1: in the corner instead of having to face ball pressure
Speaker 1: and create that initial advantage that could just prevent him
Speaker 1: from wearing down. And I did actually think that Brunson
Speaker 1: wore down a little bit over the tail end of
Speaker 1: that playoff run by Game six against Indiana. He looked
Speaker 1: like at themhard, kind of had him in cuffs, And
Speaker 1: a big part of that is just that he was
Speaker 1: so worn down at that point in the postseason. I
Speaker 1: don't blame that on Brunson. I think Brunson has done
Speaker 1: a really nice job as a game manager at you know,
Speaker 1: kind of embracing the easy stuff that's available throughout games.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about that more in a minute,
Speaker 1: But overall, I think that if you invest more in
Speaker 1: the regular season, I think this is going to be
Speaker 1: a big part of Mike Brown's job there. If you
Speaker 1: invest more in the regular season in establishing stuff so
Speaker 1: that it can become more reliable in the postseason, so
Speaker 1: that you have some more diversity, it'll prevent you from
Speaker 1: kind of tanking as an offense the way that they did.
Speaker 1: And again, it's not all ogn Andobi post ups, but
Speaker 1: it's just finding, you know, three or four other ways
Speaker 1: to initiate your offense, but actually running them hundreds and
Speaker 1: hundreds of times in the regular season so that they
Speaker 1: feel second nature. One of the things that I've noticed
Speaker 1: over the course of my first several years covering the
Speaker 1: NBA is that, like when you get into the postseason,
Speaker 1: a lot of the cute shit that you do in
Speaker 1: the regular season kind of stops working when you get
Speaker 1: to the postseason. Because if you if you run something
Speaker 1: fifty seventy five times, it can create some highlights and
Speaker 1: make an interesting talking point in a team specific podcast.
Speaker 1: But if it's not something that they're running hundreds of times,
Speaker 1: it's not going to be something that they count on
Speaker 1: that they can rely on when they get to the postseason.
Speaker 1: And I do think that this Knicks roster has the
Speaker 1: type of, you know, aggregate ball handling talent to add
Speaker 1: a little bit more of that diversity, even just again
Speaker 1: something simple like not having Brunson face as much ball
Speaker 1: pressure as he faces over the course of games, just
Speaker 1: getting them into more situations where they can get the
Speaker 1: offense started in other ways. But compared to many of
Speaker 1: his small guard peers, I think Brunson is just better
Speaker 1: at being a point guard, like managing the flow of
Speaker 1: games and running a team while also hitting the absurd
Speaker 1: scoring tunnels. The title totals excuse me, and again it's
Speaker 1: worth mentioning that the Knicks had the fifth best offense
Speaker 1: in the NBA last year in the regular season. Despite
Speaker 1: some of those issues that I talked about earlier. The
Speaker 1: beautiful thing about Brunson's game management was his ability to
Speaker 1: strangle the game as it progressed further into it. So,
Speaker 1: for example, Jalen Brunson is a guy that we view
Speaker 1: as one of the best clutch players in the NBA
Speaker 1: Win's Clutch Player of the Year Award this year. We're
Speaker 1: gonna go over some of the numbers later, but it's
Speaker 1: not like Jalen Brunson was coming out the gates in
Speaker 1: first quarters and playing the same way. He was easing
Speaker 1: his way into games, taking advantage of more of those
Speaker 1: easy available reads throughout the first three quarters, letting the
Speaker 1: game kind of flow, and then he would hit the
Speaker 1: Jets down the stretch because he knew it was more
Speaker 1: realistic and more achievable for him to do it in
Speaker 1: a shorter burst, hyper efficiently to push his team over
Speaker 1: the top than it would be for him to try
Speaker 1: to strangle games from start to finish. So, for example,
Speaker 1: these are Jalen Brunson's usage rates from quarter to quarter
Speaker 1: throughout the game. In the first quarter twenty seven point
Speaker 1: eight percent. In the second quarter, twenty seven point seven
Speaker 1: percent in the third quarter, twenty six point eight percent
Speaker 1: in the fourth quarter, is usage rate would skyrocket to
Speaker 1: thirty four percent. This is the This is a perfect
Speaker 1: example of what I'm talking about when I say understanding
Speaker 1: the flow of basketball games. Jalen Brunson is one of
Speaker 1: the most surgical half court scorers that we have in
Speaker 1: our league. But he cannot just come out and play
Speaker 1: like that from the jump. He invests in the simple
Speaker 1: decision making throughout the first three quarters. Then he hits
Speaker 1: the Jets down the stretch and delivers the knockout punch.
Speaker 1: That's why he won Clutch Player of the Year award.
Speaker 1: He won. Excuse me, he made fifty two clutch field
Speaker 1: goals this year in the regular season that led the
Speaker 1: entire NBA. He shot fifty two percent on those clutch shots.
Speaker 1: He had twenty eight assists to just eight turnovers in
Speaker 1: clutch situations, and the Knicks as a team had a
Speaker 1: nineteen to twelve record in clutch games, which was the
Speaker 1: fifth best win percentage in clutch situations in the entire NBA,
Speaker 1: and then extended into the playoffs for once again, Brunson
Speaker 1: was a monster down the stretch of games. He made
Speaker 1: seventeen clutch shots, which led the playoff field, and his
Speaker 1: team went seven to four in clutch playoff games, which
Speaker 1: was the fourth best clutch win percentage of any playoff team.
Speaker 1: So let's now dive into Now we've gone over a
Speaker 1: bunch of the numbers, let's dive into the specifics of
Speaker 1: Jalen Brunson's skill set and how it manifests in various
Speaker 1: play types throughout the Knicks offense. So, first of all,
Speaker 1: he was an elite high volume pick and roll player.
Speaker 1: Last year, he ran sixteen hundred and thirty seven pick
Speaker 1: and roles including passes, generating seventeen hundred and seventy two points.
Speaker 1: That was one point zero eight points per possession, which
Speaker 1: is well above average. Out of the thirteen players to
Speaker 1: run at least a thousand pick and rolls last year,
Speaker 1: you ain'd sixth on that list, so firmly in that
Speaker 1: group of high volume, high efficiency pick and roll shot
Speaker 1: creators in the NBA started with excellent shot making. And
Speaker 1: again this is this is Brunson's calling card. Like if
Speaker 1: he was this and being a you know, a Luka
Speaker 1: Doncic level passer, he'd be one of the top three
Speaker 1: or four players in the game. But he is absolutely
Speaker 1: one of the very best scores and shot makers in
Speaker 1: the NBA. He starts with pull up three. So in
Speaker 1: pick and roll we kind of work through a progression, right,
Speaker 1: like if the guy dies on the screen, or if
Speaker 1: you can get him set up on the screen a
Speaker 1: certain way to get separation, there's a pull up three
Speaker 1: to be had there. If he chases you over the
Speaker 1: top and you get good screen on him, there's mid
Speaker 1: range scoring, right, there's pull up midi's, there's floaters, things
Speaker 1: along those lines. If the guy stays attached in funnels
Speaker 1: you towards the basket, there's closer range floaters, there's layups,
Speaker 1: and then of course, as the defense rea you, there's
Speaker 1: the playmaking piece out of it. That is the progression
Speaker 1: of pick and roll, starting with pull up threes, super
Speaker 1: high volume, one hundred and forty six of them in
Speaker 1: Pick and Roll last year. So this is strictly threes,
Speaker 1: pulling up out of pick and roll thirty eight percent,
Speaker 1: which is awesome. That's an incredible number. Watch the tape.
Speaker 1: He's just really good at setting up his man for
Speaker 1: screens ree screens before on the first screen, just again
Speaker 1: hiding like he's gonna go one way, setting up his
Speaker 1: body and his face. We're gonna talk a lot about
Speaker 1: his ball handling fakes later, but like him setting up
Speaker 1: his man like he's gonna go one way and then
Speaker 1: coming back the other way. Or if he plans on
Speaker 1: coming off of a screen this way, he might make
Speaker 1: an aggressive move that way to try to get the
Speaker 1: defender to cut him off that way, which then puts
Speaker 1: him in trail positions so that he can catch him
Speaker 1: on the screen. It's an art form getting your defender
Speaker 1: set up for the screen. It's every bit as important
Speaker 1: as the screener's job. You've got to get the defender
Speaker 1: into position where it's very easy to screen him. And
Speaker 1: so he would use that to get that initial separation,
Speaker 1: and he'd shoot thirty eight percent from three then deadly
Speaker 1: mid to short range scoring. He was fifty two percent
Speaker 1: on jump shots inside of seventeen feet, and he was
Speaker 1: fifty two percent on floaters all on over two hundred
Speaker 1: attempts in each category. That really, if you're asking, how
Speaker 1: is it that Jalen Brunson is such an effective crunch
Speaker 1: time score, it's that. It's we talk about this NonStop.
Speaker 1: It's been one of the main talking points we've used
Speaker 1: with respect to guys like Jokic, Shake Gildas, Alexander, Kevin Durant.
Speaker 1: If you have a shot that you can get to,
Speaker 1: a perimeter shot, meaning even if they pack the paint,
Speaker 1: you can still get to it, and if you can
Speaker 1: make it more than half the time, that is what
Speaker 1: drives elite crunch time scoring. And Jalen Brunson with the
Speaker 1: floater and with the jumper inside of seventeen feet was
Speaker 1: a healthy chunk over fifty percent on massive volume. That
Speaker 1: there's only a handful of guys in the entire league
Speaker 1: that can do that. Jalen Brunson's one of them. That's
Speaker 1: what makes him such reliable crunch time score. Then for
Speaker 1: a small guard, he's excellent at making layups. He was
Speaker 1: sixty percent this year on two hundred and seventy five
Speaker 1: layup attempts. That's a truly very impressive number for a
Speaker 1: small guard. And then Lastly, he has a gift for
Speaker 1: getting defenders out of position in drawing fouls. He uses
Speaker 1: a lot of what I would consider to be non
Speaker 1: basketball plays, low gathers, awkward shooting angles, awkward driving angles,
Speaker 1: things along those lines. But I'm gonna say what I
Speaker 1: always say about this sort of thing. I hate that shit,
Speaker 1: even on the team I root for. I hate when
Speaker 1: Luca does it. I hate when Austin Reeves does it.
Speaker 1: I think it's bad for the game. Ideally, within the
Speaker 1: next five to ten years, non basketball plays would be
Speaker 1: legislated out. But my beef with it centers around the NBA,
Speaker 1: not on the players. It's the NBA and their inability
Speaker 1: to stop rewarding players for it. As far as I'm concerned,
Speaker 1: the players are just competitors and they're looking for every
Speaker 1: single competitive edge they can get, and if the refs
Speaker 1: are going to give them points for doing these things,
Speaker 1: they're gonna view it as an opportunity to score more points,
Speaker 1: which is gonna give them an opportunity to win basketball game.
Speaker 1: So I don't blame the players for it. I hate it.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's fun to watch. They are inconsistencies
Speaker 1: there that drive me crazy. But I don't blame the players,
Speaker 1: I blame the league. The playmaking stuff with Brunson is
Speaker 1: mostly just about reacting to what the defense is giving him.
Speaker 1: I watch a bunch of Brunson pick and roll tape
Speaker 1: this morning, and there's very little of what we would
Speaker 1: consider to be highlight material. Like he'll throw the occasional
Speaker 1: no look back door pass to a guy as he
Speaker 1: looks off a help defender and hits a cutter, or
Speaker 1: he'll whip a cross court pass every once in a while.
Speaker 1: But you're not gonna see, you know, when you watch
Speaker 1: some of the higher level playmakers in our game, the
Speaker 1: two top tier playmakers, you're not gonna see five or
Speaker 1: six of these like beautiful anticipatory passers per game. Like
Speaker 1: he's more of a reactionary passer than he is an
Speaker 1: anticipatory passer. That said, he's a very good reactionary passer.
Speaker 1: He doesn't turn the ball over much for a guy
Speaker 1: who uses the ball as much as he does, and
Speaker 1: he's good at taking easy reads when they're available, which
Speaker 1: again is what game management is. That's all being a
Speaker 1: point guard is, fundamentally at an extraordinary level. It's that
Speaker 1: anticipatory passing, but at a fundamental level, it's just about
Speaker 1: taking what the defense gives you, over and over and
Speaker 1: over again. If he sees a guy digging down to
Speaker 1: the nail, he'll throw a swing pass to the opposite wing.
Speaker 1: If the screen defender sticks to him in a ball
Speaker 1: screen with Cat, he'll pitch it back to Kat in
Speaker 1: the pick and pop. If he gets into the lane
Speaker 1: and Og Andnobi's man steps in to help, he's gonna
Speaker 1: swing it out to the corner to Og so that
Speaker 1: he can attack. That level of playmaking is plenty to
Speaker 1: make Jalen Brunson one of the best pick and roll
Speaker 1: players in the league because he's such a gifted scorer.
Speaker 1: He's one of the very best scorers in the NBA,
Speaker 1: and he's got enough of that playmaking ability to make
Speaker 1: him one of the best pick and roll players in
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Speaker 1: Slash audio with Brunson in Pick and Roll was with blitzes.
Speaker 1: There were eight players in the NBA who faced at
Speaker 1: least fifty blitzes last year, according to Synergy. In Brunson's
Speaker 1: blitzes generated just zero point six y eight point possession,
Speaker 1: which was far and away the worst mark on that list.
Speaker 1: He was a little sped up in those situations, He
Speaker 1: was a little turnover prone. He turned the ball over
Speaker 1: about eighteen percent of the time in those situations, and
Speaker 1: Brunson kind of just struggled to get the ball out
Speaker 1: to the right guy with enough accuracy so that he
Speaker 1: can beat the defense. Like a lot of times, like
Speaker 1: a deflected pass or a pass that's a little off
Speaker 1: target will force the guy who has to go get
Speaker 1: it to like lunge or take steps away from the
Speaker 1: attack zone to go get the ball. Which then just
Speaker 1: gives the defense time to recover. And so as a team,
Speaker 1: the Knicks just weren't very good at handling that, but
Speaker 1: Brunson in particular struggled a little bit. It's not terribly
Speaker 1: uncommon to see some smaller players struggle with blitzes just
Speaker 1: because of all the length that they have to deal with.
Speaker 1: You're gonna see a lot of the bigger players handle
Speaker 1: it better. I always want like Kevin Duran often would
Speaker 1: be able to just outreach everybody over the top and
Speaker 1: just dump it off to the role man. Luca is
Speaker 1: really good at that as well. It's just kind of
Speaker 1: tough for smaller guards in that situation. Brunson was excellent
Speaker 1: one on one situations last year well, four hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty three ISOs and post ups four hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: nine points. That's one point zero nine points per possession,
Speaker 1: which is elite. Jalen Brunson has a truly remarkable gift
Speaker 1: for getting defenders out of position and forgetting separation on
Speaker 1: dribble drives. It's a combination of a couple of different things. One,
Speaker 1: he is very good in terms of his start stop quickness.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk a lot about you know, I've talked
Speaker 1: a lot about over the course of the last several years,
Speaker 1: the idea of like when it comes to guys like Luca,
Speaker 1: I think Shake Guil just Alexander kind of falls into
Speaker 1: this mix. To Jalen Brunson, guys they have like one
Speaker 1: defining athletic trait, right Like for Luca, it's that he's big.
Speaker 1: He's just so big as a ball handler that if
Speaker 1: he gets any angle on you, you're just done because he
Speaker 1: can just use that shoulder to shield you off. Shake
Speaker 1: Guild is Alexander. It's these like weird long steps that
Speaker 1: he can make. He has like really strong hamstrings, and
Speaker 1: he can just when he makes that first that he
Speaker 1: covers so much ground and it just kind of makes
Speaker 1: them really difficult to deal with athletically in that way.
Speaker 1: Jalen Brunson, it starts stop quickness. He does have a
Speaker 1: quick first step. That's the foundational trade. But none of
Speaker 1: those three guys are what we would consider to be
Speaker 1: like top tier athletes, right Like Shake Gilles, Alexander is
Speaker 1: far from an Anthony Edwards, Luka Doncic is far from
Speaker 1: a Lebron James and Jalen Brunson is far from a
Speaker 1: Derek Rose, But all three of those guys are profoundly
Speaker 1: impactful one on one players. Why is that It's because
Speaker 1: at their core they are incredibly fundamentally sound. These are
Speaker 1: the kinds of guys that actually makes the most sense
Speaker 1: for you to watch as a young basketball player and
Speaker 1: to try to emulate. For Shake Gil just Alexander, it's
Speaker 1: dribbling through contact and the ability to relentlessly chain together
Speaker 1: counter moves. We've talked about this, like every move is
Speaker 1: connected to a counter So a lot of times, even
Speaker 1: if you slide your feet right and you get in
Speaker 1: front of Shay, he's just going the other way and
Speaker 1: you gotta get in front of him again, and then
Speaker 1: he's gonna go the other way and he's gonna He's
Speaker 1: just he's so good at chaining together dribble combinations that
Speaker 1: like it's kind of just a perpetual motion that's impossible
Speaker 1: to stay in front of. You. Look at a guy
Speaker 1: like Luca. I think Luca and Jalen Brunson both kind
Speaker 1: of fit this mold where it's the incredible change of
Speaker 1: pace and the selling of moves. All change of paces
Speaker 1: is come to a complete stop and freeze the defender,
Speaker 1: then hit the jets. If you can change pace, you
Speaker 1: can get defenders to freeze. And if you can get
Speaker 1: defenders to freeze, you have an opportunity to beat them
Speaker 1: to a spot on offense. And then the second piece
Speaker 1: of it is that selling of every single part of
Speaker 1: every single move. Jalen Brunson. I was watching, you know,
Speaker 1: I was watching a ton of film of him this morning.
Speaker 1: It's amazing how many simple moves he'll use. He's not
Speaker 1: These guys aren't gonna do Kyrie Irving wicked ball handling.
Speaker 1: What they are gonna do is a very simple move,
Speaker 1: very well executed. Jalen Brunson will hit really hard in
Speaker 1: and out dribbles. He'll be sitting in that left hand
Speaker 1: and it's an in and out dribble where on the
Speaker 1: in and out when he turns his head, his hips,
Speaker 1: his shoulders, his eyes, everything is facing towards the left
Speaker 1: and then he brings it across. It's a very simple move.
Speaker 1: But if you sell it with your body and you
Speaker 1: sell it with your eyes, it's gonna work. If I'm
Speaker 1: staring right at you and I just go like that,
Speaker 1: if I just do an in and out dribble, it
Speaker 1: ain't gonna work. You're not gonna buy into that fake, right.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter if I do the most wicked side
Speaker 1: to side crossover of all time if I don't sell
Speaker 1: the move. Jalen Brunson's awesome at this one too. He'll
Speaker 1: sit with the ball high in his left hand and
Speaker 1: then he'll just cross over. It's like just a little
Speaker 1: snatch cross and he can cause a lot of problems
Speaker 1: in ball screens with that. When he sets up like
Speaker 1: he's gonna go to a ball screen, waits for the
Speaker 1: defender to get into position to chase over the top,
Speaker 1: and then he'll whip it across right as the defender
Speaker 1: buys into it. It's simple, it's fundamental. There's not a
Speaker 1: whole lot of like you know, jaw dropping highlight reel
Speaker 1: material there in terms of ball handling, but it's damn effective.
Speaker 1: And it's because of that simple, fundamental approach to change
Speaker 1: of pace into selling every single part of your moves
Speaker 1: and then from there and again, lastly, I just want
Speaker 1: to say, like that's why young players need to emulate them, Like,
Speaker 1: regardless of what level you're trying to play, if you're
Speaker 1: trying to play in high school, if you're trying to
Speaker 1: play in college, you're trying to play in the pros,
Speaker 1: relative to whatever level of natural ability you have. These
Speaker 1: are guys that are not considered to be top tier athletes,
Speaker 1: that are consistently making top tier athletes look stupid with
Speaker 1: what they can do on offense. These are things that
Speaker 1: all of you can learn. These are things where like
Speaker 1: if you're trying to just play point guard on your
Speaker 1: high school team and you're five eight and you're not
Speaker 1: overly quick, if you emphasize these fundamental things and skill development,
Speaker 1: even you can barbecue good athletes at the high school level.
Speaker 1: It's a little tougher as you go up and you
Speaker 1: need to have some trait that separates you in some way,
Speaker 1: shape or form. But at the at any level, and
Speaker 1: a mediocre athlete can be a damn effect a damned
Speaker 1: defective offensive player just by breeding these kind of fundamental
Speaker 1: approaches to your ball handling and footwork. From there, it's
Speaker 1: really the versatility of finishing moves. For Jalen, he isn't
Speaker 1: just like a like most small guards are like forward
Speaker 1: facing jump shooters, so they're gonna, you know, shoot out
Speaker 1: of a high hesitation. They might hit an in and
Speaker 1: out dribble. They might hit a side step one way
Speaker 1: or the other, but there's kind of like all forward
Speaker 1: facing moves. Right. One of the things that makes Jalen
Speaker 1: Brunson a really impactful shot maker is he can shoot
Speaker 1: over both shoulders, Like he can get into your body
Speaker 1: and bump you and then fade over his right shoulder
Speaker 1: or fade over his left shoulder. Most small guards can't
Speaker 1: do that. He can take you down to the post.
Speaker 1: Jalen Brunson can score out of the post. That's something
Speaker 1: that a lot of smaller guards won't look to do.
Speaker 1: He can shoot turnarounds. He can occasionally go to a
Speaker 1: little hook shot out of there that he can make.
Speaker 1: There is a diversity of shot making ability in and out,
Speaker 1: going right, in and out, going left side step, going
Speaker 1: right side step, going left, hard step back, turn around
Speaker 1: over his right shoulder, turn around over his left shoulder,
Speaker 1: one legged, fade away, hook shot over his right shoulder.
Speaker 1: He's got all of that in the bag, and so
Speaker 1: that allows him to kind of pick and choose the
Speaker 1: appropriate finishing move for the separation that he gets and
Speaker 1: for the type of defender that he's going after. And
Speaker 1: that kind of gives him just the versatility to be
Speaker 1: a super, super impactful scorer in this league. In a
Speaker 1: lot of ways, even though their games look different, Jalen
Speaker 1: Brunson reminds me of the Damian Lillard of this era.
Speaker 1: Clearly not one of the top tier stars in the league,
Speaker 1: but firmly in that second tier. A guy who has
Speaker 1: established himself as one of the best scorers in basketball,
Speaker 1: one of the best clutch players in basketball, and with
Speaker 1: enough development as a playmaker to be an excellent game manager.
Speaker 1: A guy who could clearly lead a championship offense if
Speaker 1: surrounded by enough talent. But I actually think Brunson has
Speaker 1: won additional leg up on a guy like a Damian
Speaker 1: Lillard in his era. To be clear, no one's gonna
Speaker 1: get up here and try to say that Jalen Brunson
Speaker 1: is a good defender and he cannot also be lazy
Speaker 1: sometimes in the regular season, which especially in the context
Speaker 1: of Karl Anthony Towns, can be damaging to a team's defense.
Speaker 1: But I do think that Jalen Brunson is the kind
Speaker 1: of guy that you can build a functional playoff defense
Speaker 1: around with the right personnel, And I do think that's
Speaker 1: a separator for him compared to many of the other
Speaker 1: small guards in NBA history, even a guy like Damian Lillard.
Speaker 1: As I've talked about a lot on this show, there
Speaker 1: are two different types of bad defenders. Guys who struggle
Speaker 1: physically in guys who struggle mentally. Now, if you're both,
Speaker 1: you're dead on arrival. But if you struggle physically, there's
Speaker 1: a certain amount of like I can prepare for that,
Speaker 1: I can game plan around your physical limitations. But mistake
Speaker 1: making breaks a game plan. Mistake making I can't prepare for.
Speaker 1: How do I plan If what I tell you to
Speaker 1: do in the game plan, I can't count on you
Speaker 1: to do. Jalen Brunson's gonna give up layups and slips
Speaker 1: on hedges sometimes when he's throwing a hedge, and yeah,
Speaker 1: when he's lazy. Sometimes he won't sprint fast enough out
Speaker 1: of a rotation. And sometimes those sorts of things can
Speaker 1: cause issues. But in a big spot, in a big
Speaker 1: playoff game, I feel like Jalen Brunson will at least
Speaker 1: stick to the game plan and do his job. That
Speaker 1: to me is the bare minimum of what you have
Speaker 1: to be to be able to build a functional playoff defense.
Speaker 1: Around somebody. Take like a guy like Karl Anthony Towns's
Speaker 1: account example, a guy who's very prone to mental mistakes,
Speaker 1: even a guy like Carol Town's on the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four Timberwolves an elite defense, Their defense posted a one
Speaker 1: twenty defensive rating in that playoff run when Gobert was
Speaker 1: off the floor and kat was on. Now, just that
Speaker 1: was with elite perimeter defenders next to him Jad McDaniels
Speaker 1: and Kyle Anderson, Nakil, Alexander Walker and Anthony Edwards. We
Speaker 1: were he was surrounded and anchored by elite athletes on
Speaker 1: the perimeter, and they could not get stops in the postseason.
Speaker 1: You can't build a functional defensive scheme around a defender
Speaker 1: who's prone to too many mental mistakes. Jalen Brunston can
Speaker 1: be lazy sometimes, especially in the regular season, and he
Speaker 1: certainly has his physical limitations, but he competes and he
Speaker 1: will execute his part of the game plan and which
Speaker 1: I think makes him at least a higher floor defender
Speaker 1: than many of his small guard peers in recent eras.
Speaker 1: And again, like I'm not trying to say that Jalen's
Speaker 1: a good defender. I'm just saying he's a more functional
Speaker 1: playoff defender than many of his peers. In recent years,
Speaker 1: Jalen Brunton has become one of the best offensive players
Speaker 1: in the game today. He's an elite scorer who becomes
Speaker 1: absolutely deadly in crunch time. He's a willing passer and
Speaker 1: game manager, and with enough of an attention to detail
Speaker 1: to at least make him workable on the defensive end
Speaker 1: of the floor. So he comes in at number nine
Speaker 1: on this year's list. All right, before we get out
Speaker 1: of here today, Denzel Washington had a hell of a
Speaker 1: quote the other day, went on I can't remember which
Speaker 1: show he went on, as something on ESPN. He said,
Speaker 1: everyone everybody's got an opinion. In fact, we live in
Speaker 1: a world of opinionaires. They're all on the shows, a
Speaker 1: bunch of the guys a couple that have played, but
Speaker 1: most of them who haven't, who have an opinion about
Speaker 1: what something should be when they haven't done it. Those
Speaker 1: who can do, those who can't talk about those who can,
Speaker 1: those who have know what they're talking about. Those who
Speaker 1: haven't don't period. That's how I feel about that. This
Speaker 1: is one of my biggest pet peeves about the way
Speaker 1: athletes in particular act when it comes to the media. Obviously,
Speaker 1: Denzel is not an athlete, but this is a take
Speaker 1: that we've seen many athletes pair over the years. First
Speaker 1: and foremost, I despise the gatekeeping element of this. I
Speaker 1: love basketball so much and the game has been very
Speaker 1: good to me. It paid for my college, It helped
Speaker 1: me see much of the United States at a young age.
Speaker 1: It helped me to enjoy some of the greatest experiences
Speaker 1: of my life. Like I, every once in a while,
Speaker 1: you just sit down and reminisce and I think about, like,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe a huge dunk that I had in
Speaker 1: a big spot, or a clutch shot that I hit,
Speaker 1: or you know, a hot streak where I could miss
Speaker 1: for a little while. You think about those moments, and
Speaker 1: there are literally some of the coolest moments of my life.
Speaker 1: I think about, you know, when you get a big
Speaker 1: dunk on the road, like a real dunk that shocks
Speaker 1: everybody and you hear that sound go through the arena's.
Speaker 1: I could never describe it to you, guys. It's just
Speaker 1: one of the coolest feelings that you could ever experience
Speaker 1: as a human. And I think about it all the time.
Speaker 1: I miss it. I miss playing in those environments and
Speaker 1: getting to experience those things. The game of basketball has
Speaker 1: been very, very good to me. But I'm not selfish
Speaker 1: enough or closed minded enough to think that I'm the
Speaker 1: only guy who loves basketball or girl who loves basketball
Speaker 1: out there, or that you have to have played the
Speaker 1: game to love basketball. That makes no sense. I'm super lucky.
Speaker 1: I was born into a six to six frame. I've
Speaker 1: got a six to ten wingspan and a good amount
Speaker 1: of natural athletic ability. I also worked very hard, and
Speaker 1: I'm proud of the player that I've become over the years,
Speaker 1: especially as an adult. But I also know that I'm
Speaker 1: very lucky. There are people out there who love the
Speaker 1: game every bit as much as I do, but that
Speaker 1: didn't get the opportunity to pursue it the way that
Speaker 1: I did. Who am I to say that that person
Speaker 1: isn't allowed to love the game, or to watch the game,
Speaker 1: or to study the game, or to talk about the game,
Speaker 1: or to write about the game. I have learned so
Speaker 1: much over the years from people who have never played
Speaker 1: the game. In many cases, for those people, their love
Speaker 1: of the game in the absence of being able to
Speaker 1: play it manifests in what it takes to pour their
Speaker 1: heart and soul into the study of the game. It's
Speaker 1: all about perspective. Everyone has unique perspective. Yes, a current
Speaker 1: or former NBA player can provide a certain perspective on
Speaker 1: the game that we could never provide. Even a guy
Speaker 1: like me who played but didn't play at the NBA level,
Speaker 1: I can't provide some of the perspective that current or
Speaker 1: former NBA players can provide. But we each have our
Speaker 1: own unique angle, and that angle manifests out of our
Speaker 1: love for the game. Mine will include some references to
Speaker 1: my playing experience, but guys, like if you ask me,
Speaker 1: my playing experience is actually a very small portion of
Speaker 1: what I would think this show kind of comes out of.
Speaker 1: I think it mostly comes out of a love for
Speaker 1: the game and studying the game. I know a hell
Speaker 1: of a lot more about basketball now than I did
Speaker 1: the last time I suit it up in a college
Speaker 1: basketball uniform. Maybe there's a man or a woman out
Speaker 1: there who provides unique analytical perspective that comes from a
Speaker 1: high level understanding of advanced statistics. There are lots of
Speaker 1: guys out there, lots of girls out there that haven't played,
Speaker 1: but make us all smarter about the game. Maybe there's
Speaker 1: a man or a woman out there who's excellent with
Speaker 1: advanced schematics. I look at guys like cranzeus mc basketball
Speaker 1: covers the Lakers does an incredibly good job of giving
Speaker 1: us a detailed understanding of actions, encounters on both ends
Speaker 1: of the floor or half court hoops. He's a college
Speaker 1: coach who will post entire playbooks of NBA teams for
Speaker 1: us to study. That's an immense value. There are men
Speaker 1: and women who provide excellent basketball perspective on fundamentals and
Speaker 1: can explain complicated things on a granular level for fans.
Speaker 1: I think Pete Zais covers the Lakers as an example
Speaker 1: of this type of guy. I learned so much about
Speaker 1: how modern NBA fundamentals work from Pete. Zach Lowe on
Speaker 1: a national scale as an example of this kind of guy.
Speaker 1: There are men and women who do an excellent job
Speaker 1: covering the league from the standpoint of reporting. Mark Stein
Speaker 1: is an incredible example. I highly recommend all of you
Speaker 1: guys subscribe to Mark Stein's substack. It's an excellent way
Speaker 1: to just get kind of like a regular newsletter where
Speaker 1: you can stay up to speed on what's happening around
Speaker 1: the NBA. It's not just disrespectful or inappropriate to discount
Speaker 1: these people just because they haven't played in the NBA.
Speaker 1: It's also frankly stupid. You're an idiot if you don't
Speaker 1: think someone like Kaitlyn Cooper, who does a phenomenal job
Speaker 1: covering the Indiana Pacers, You're an idiot. If you don't
Speaker 1: think Kaitlyn Cooper can teach you something about NBA basketball,
Speaker 1: you are limiting your own ability to learn at that point.
Speaker 1: And frankly, while there are many current and former NBA
Speaker 1: players who are doing great work, I want to emphasize
Speaker 1: that there are many who do great work, there are
Speaker 1: also many current and former players who are doing shitty work,
Speaker 1: doing very little prep and just getting on camera and
Speaker 1: talking shit. Literally everything that Denzel was criticizing I've seen
Speaker 1: professional athletes do in the media. Yeah, Jason, but what
Speaker 1: about the talking heads? Even those people carry great value.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, Bill Simmons is one of the great
Speaker 1: storytellers who covers the NBA. I don't agree with everything
Speaker 1: Bill says, but he's so important to the NBA media
Speaker 1: landscape with his ability to add like historical aura to
Speaker 1: each season. He brings like a certain drama element that
Speaker 1: I think is actually important. It's part of like how
Speaker 1: we all fell in love with the game as kids.
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny you get to be older and
Speaker 1: you focus on that stuff a little less, But like
Speaker 1: that is the stuff that gets you to romanticize basketball,
Speaker 1: to romanticize the NBA and love it so much when
Speaker 1: you're younger. That's important. Colin Coward his ability to tie
Speaker 1: things to day to day life in a way that
Speaker 1: we can all relate to. Still to this day, I
Speaker 1: regularly a few times a week listen to Colin Coward's
Speaker 1: opening monologue on The Herd. It's easy to listen to.
Speaker 1: I can relate it to my everyday life, and you
Speaker 1: can just feel his passion and love for it pouring
Speaker 1: out of it. These people don't put up big numbers
Speaker 1: by accident. They capture people's attention with their perspective that
Speaker 1: flows out of their love for what they do. So
Speaker 1: I totally disagree with Denzel's perspective here. I think sports
Speaker 1: media is in a better place than ever before. It's
Speaker 1: more of a meritocracy than ever before. Any single one
Speaker 1: of you who has valuable perspective, can buy inexpensive equipment,
Speaker 1: record content, post a YouTube or to social media, and
Speaker 1: if you capture pe pople's attention, you'll get a natural
Speaker 1: push from the algorithm, and you will build an audience,
Speaker 1: and you will have success that has made it so
Speaker 1: that there is more to choose from than ever before.
Speaker 1: For instance, Stephen A. Smith is not my cup of tea.
Speaker 1: I have a remarkable respect for him as a talent.
Speaker 1: I think he's a legend, but I don't personally enjoy
Speaker 1: his content. I don't have to watch Stephen A. Smith
Speaker 1: like I literally don't ever have to watch him. If
Speaker 1: I don't want to, I can pick whatever I want.
Speaker 1: If you're in the mood for deeply analytical content, it's
Speaker 1: out there. If you're in the mood for something analytical
Speaker 1: but more easily digestible, it's out there. If you're into storytelling,
Speaker 1: it's out there. If you're into the historian element, the drama,
Speaker 1: the intro, it's out there. The reporting it's out there.
Speaker 1: And guess what, if you want to listen to a
Speaker 1: former player who can offer their unique perspective from having
Speaker 1: played in the NBA, you can find that out there too.
Speaker 1: So let's stop gatekeeping basketball, and let's stop gatekeeping whatever
Speaker 1: sport it is you love. I don't own the rights
Speaker 1: to love basketball. Neither does Kevin Durant, Neither does Draymond Green,
Speaker 1: neither does Kaitlin Cooper or Zach Low. If you love
Speaker 1: it and you put in the work and you have
Speaker 1: something of value to offer, I encourage all of that
Speaker 1: from flooding our marketplace. The more there is, the better
Speaker 1: it is for all of us. You all have every
Speaker 1: right to love the game, and if you love it
Speaker 1: enough to want to talk about it, you should go
Speaker 1: after it. And I think attempts to stifle those folks,
Speaker 1: or belittle those folks, or gatekeep those folks is incredibly
Speaker 1: lame to me. All Right, guys, that's all I have
Speaker 1: for today. As always, as sincerely appreciate you guys for
Speaker 1: supporting me and supporting the show. We will be back
Speaker 1: on Friday with our next mailbag. I will see you
Speaker 1: guys day