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Speaker 1: All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight. You're at the volume.
Speaker 1: Happy Friday, everybody'll ball. You guys had a great week.
Speaker 1: We are continuing our player rankings today with number seven
Speaker 1: as well as number six. Then we'll get into some
Speaker 1: of the arguments from the comments at the tail end
Speaker 1: of the show. You guys know the joke before we
Speaker 1: get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so
Speaker 1: you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me
Speaker 1: on Twitter at underscore Jason lt so you guys don't
Speaker 1: miss show announcement. Don't forget about a podcast feed wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcast on Hoops Tonight, don't forget it's helpful.
Speaker 1: V leave a rating and a review on that front.
Speaker 1: In the last, but not least, keep dropping mailbag questions
Speaker 1: in the YouTube comments. If you disagree with the ranking,
Speaker 1: make your case and we will include it in the mailbag,
Speaker 1: the mailbag segment that we do at the tail end
Speaker 1: of these shows. As we move forward with the list,
Speaker 1: all right, let's talk some basketball. Remember, as I have
Speaker 1: to kind of throw out as a disclaimer at the
Speaker 1: beginning of every single one of these videos, this is
Speaker 1: not a who's the best basketball player just right now
Speaker 1: for a game that's tomorrow or for a series that
Speaker 1: starts tomorrow. The entire premise of this list is if
Speaker 1: I had thirty GMS, I should say twenty five GMS.
Speaker 1: If I had twenty five GMS and we were drafting
Speaker 1: for a season that starts in October, meaning a training
Speaker 1: camp all the way through a potential NBA Finals series
Speaker 1: in June, who is the player that brings the most
Speaker 1: value within that context. So it's a combination of three factors.
Speaker 1: Your durability in the regular season as well as your
Speaker 1: motor in the regular season. So how hard you play
Speaker 1: on a night to night basis two, how well your
Speaker 1: game translates to the postseason, or you a playoff riser,
Speaker 1: a playoff dropper, or a guy who kind of stays
Speaker 1: at his level. And then three, how versatile are you?
Speaker 1: Because theoretically, if I picked you with my first pick,
Speaker 1: I would have to turn around twenty five picks later
Speaker 1: or thirty picks later or whatever, and I have to
Speaker 1: pick another player and another player until I got up
Speaker 1: to fifteen. And obviously whichever player I pick first has
Speaker 1: a direct impact on what I need for my second
Speaker 1: pick and my third pick and my fourth pick. A
Speaker 1: highly versatile player will give me lots of flexibility and
Speaker 1: who I can add around them. A very one dimensional
Speaker 1: player will give me not as much flexibility, and I'll
Speaker 1: have to be very deliberate about the types of players
Speaker 1: that I put around them. So, for instance, like if
Speaker 1: I have a very versatile player, and I might in
Speaker 1: my second pick, I might just take the most talented
Speaker 1: player available, Whereas if I had a limited player in
Speaker 1: terms of versatility and my second pick came around, I
Speaker 1: might have to pass on the most talented yeah, to
Speaker 1: find a guy that fits better with the specific style
Speaker 1: that he wants to play. So again, that's the criteria
Speaker 1: for this list. I just have to keep throwing it
Speaker 1: out just that we don't have any confusion in terms
Speaker 1: of like where these guys are ranked like, both of
Speaker 1: these guys today are guys that I would have lower
Speaker 1: on this list for a playoff series that starts tomorrow.
Speaker 1: But that's not how this particular list is working, all right,
Speaker 1: So without any further ado, Number seven Jason Tatum. Last
Speaker 1: year seventy four games, played twenty six point nine points
Speaker 1: per game, eight point one rebounds, four point nine assists,
Speaker 1: a slight dipping usage, he went down from a little
Speaker 1: over thirty two percent usage percentage to thirty point two percent.
Speaker 1: It's actually his lowest usage rate since twenty twenty, to
Speaker 1: be expected with the influx of Drew Holliday as well
Speaker 1: as Christops Porzingis and just Jalen Brown improving as a
Speaker 1: ball handler, so just a lot more sharing the load,
Speaker 1: so it makes sense that his usage would dip. He
Speaker 1: had a very specific offensive role on this team, which
Speaker 1: we'll get more into later. He had one point six
Speaker 1: stocks per game, shooting splits forty seven percent from the field,
Speaker 1: thirty eight percent from three, eighty three percent from the line,
Speaker 1: which amounts to fifty five percent in effective field goal
Speaker 1: percentage and sixty percent and true shooting percentage. For the
Speaker 1: first time in his career, he's had two seasons in
Speaker 1: a row over sixty percent true shooting. His shooting stats
Speaker 1: per Synergy, he got one point zero five points per
Speaker 1: jump shot, excellent off the catch, one point two to
Speaker 1: three points per shot when he's shooting off the catch,
Speaker 1: far more efficient when he's open, though, which I thought
Speaker 1: was interesting. One point four to three points per shot
Speaker 1: when he was unguarded versus one point one point one
Speaker 1: when he was guarded. Now that makes a lot of
Speaker 1: sense to me, because as we've talked a lot about,
Speaker 1: his shot has become very hitchy and like it's got
Speaker 1: a long load up and he really tucks that elbow
Speaker 1: in and it just kind of looks a little funky,
Speaker 1: and so like, if he's got lots of time to
Speaker 1: set that whole routine up, it's going to go in
Speaker 1: at a high rate. But anything disrupts that, whether it's
Speaker 1: an off the dribble jump shot or more of a
Speaker 1: contested jump shot, he tends to struggle. Shot just zero
Speaker 1: point nine to seven points per shot off the dribble. Again,
Speaker 1: this is that's the same number that Lebron had, right
Speaker 1: Lebron was also at zero point nine to seven. But
Speaker 1: there's a big difference. Lebron attempted three and a half
Speaker 1: per game. Tatum attempted seven and a half per game.
Speaker 1: And that's always been my big, my biggest complaint with Tatum.
Speaker 1: You got to take and make pull up jump shots
Speaker 1: as an on ball creator. It's an important coverage beater.
Speaker 1: And it's okay to be a mediocre pull up shooter
Speaker 1: when you do everything else that Tatum does right. You know,
Speaker 1: it obviously brings a ton of size to the table.
Speaker 1: It's better playmaker than most of his peers at his position,
Speaker 1: an extremely versatile defensive player. Like if he was also
Speaker 1: just a deadly pull up shooter, he'd be one of
Speaker 1: the best players in the league. Right, But like with
Speaker 1: that being the case, with you being a mediocre jump shooter,
Speaker 1: you want to use it primarily as a counter and
Speaker 1: coverage beater, right, like the way Lebron uses it. He's
Speaker 1: gonna put a few up every game just to keep
Speaker 1: the defense honest. But it's not something that makes up
Speaker 1: a large portion of his shot volume. For Jason Tatum,
Speaker 1: forty percent of his field goal attempts are pull up
Speaker 1: jump shots. And that's where I get critical of him
Speaker 1: because I just feel like if you just tweaked that
Speaker 1: a little bit, Like it doesn't mean you have to
Speaker 1: do it the way Lebron does. But let's say you
Speaker 1: cut it down from seven and a half to four
Speaker 1: and a half, and those additional three attempts were like
Speaker 1: more aggressive, more aggressive off the catch threes, or more
Speaker 1: bullyball towards the basket. That could be something that bumps
Speaker 1: his efficiency up from sixty percent true shooting to sixty
Speaker 1: two to sixty three percent true shooting and his scoring
Speaker 1: volume up, And that's that's one of those things that
Speaker 1: I'd like to see him address. But there's another version
Speaker 1: of this where Tatum is playing the long game and
Speaker 1: maybe he's betting on like now he's bad at it,
Speaker 1: but maybe five years from now, when he's in his
Speaker 1: early thirties, it's a huge part of his game and
Speaker 1: maybe that'll all work out and then that's what we'll
Speaker 1: look back at this as. But at this point in time,
Speaker 1: we're on a seven year run here where Tatum is
Speaker 1: going very high volume on pull up jump shots without
Speaker 1: making them above a point per shot, which I think
Speaker 1: is where I think you gotta be over a point
Speaker 1: per shot to be taking him as often as Tatum does.
Speaker 1: Did get one point zero five points per face up jumpers,
Speaker 1: so like jab step jumpers in ISO, he took one
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty five of them to last year, which
Speaker 1: is over two per game. I thought that was interesting.
Speaker 1: Shot forty percent on floaters, albeit on low volume, and
Speaker 1: sixty three percent at the rim. Now that's a little
Speaker 1: like anything over sixty percent is good, but it's a
Speaker 1: little disappointing for a player as big and strong as
Speaker 1: he is. Like if you look at his peers around
Speaker 1: the league, like Lebron sixty seven percent, Kawhi seventy two percent,
Speaker 1: Luca seventy one percent, kd seventy two percent, Tatum sixty
Speaker 1: three percent, Obviously, I think he should be closer up
Speaker 1: into that sixty seven sixty eight percent. The main reason there,
Speaker 1: I think is he just is always sticking his arms
Speaker 1: out looking to draw fouls. When he's going up to
Speaker 1: the basket, he's losing all of his strength. It's a
Speaker 1: simple question of torqu right, Like if you're coming up
Speaker 1: through your power line, you can weather contact more, but
Speaker 1: if you have your arms out, there's just more torque
Speaker 1: there for the defender to pull on and you lose
Speaker 1: that momentum going up to the basket where you start
Speaker 1: to miss shots. Play type data one point one zero
Speaker 1: points per pick and roll, which is excellent. That's the
Speaker 1: eighty seventh percent tile on seven hundred and twenty six
Speaker 1: seven hundred and twenty six possessions. Mostly about his passing ability,
Speaker 1: which we're going to talk a lot about today. Like
Speaker 1: Tatum only shot forty two percent in ball screens and
Speaker 1: still got one point one points per pick and roll.
Speaker 1: And the main reason why is because he was the
Speaker 1: main entry point for Boston's driving kick attack. So the
Speaker 1: vast majority of Tatum's ball screens took place at the
Speaker 1: top of the key. It was interesting because I was
Speaker 1: watching a bunch of them this morning and they were
Speaker 1: all like right at the top of the key, right
Speaker 1: at the top of the key, and then I actually
Speaker 1: dug into the numbers on Synergy, eighty five percent of
Speaker 1: Tatum's ball screens are run directly from the top of
Speaker 1: the key. So he doesn't run left side pick and roll,
Speaker 1: he doesn't run right side pick and roll. He runs
Speaker 1: most of his pick and roll right in the middle
Speaker 1: of the floor. From there, it's usually either porzingis pick
Speaker 1: and pop or a ghost screen with one of the guards.
Speaker 1: Those are the two primary actions that he'll run. And
Speaker 1: obviously Horford could do the same thing that Porzingis does,
Speaker 1: But from there, Tatum's literally just waiting for a gap
Speaker 1: to generate as that defender lingers before that guy slips. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, let's imagine Tatum at the top of the
Speaker 1: key with the ball in his right hand. Okay, and
Speaker 1: let's pretend that we have, you know, a shooter on
Speaker 1: the right wing. Shoot her in the right corner, shoot
Speaker 1: her in the left corner, and Porzingis is gonna come
Speaker 1: set it for Tatum, and he's gonna slip to the
Speaker 1: left wing where there's a vacancy. So as he sets
Speaker 1: that screen, Tatum is gonna come off, and as he's
Speaker 1: coming off, in all likelihood, that defender is going to
Speaker 1: hedge or try to find an opportunity to step in
Speaker 1: and stop, to try to step in and stop Jason
Speaker 1: Tatum from turning the corner right. Same thing applies to
Speaker 1: a guard. Let's say Derek White sets the screen. As
Speaker 1: Derek White comes a screen on Tatum's right hand side,
Speaker 1: Derek White's defender is going to hedge to try to
Speaker 1: stop Tatum from turning the corner because again, if he
Speaker 1: doesn't hedge, Tatum's just going right downhill because that not
Speaker 1: gonna be able to fight through that screen to stop
Speaker 1: Jason Tatum with the full head of team. So as
Speaker 1: that screen is getting set and as that guy is
Speaker 1: showing on Tatum's right hand drive, every single time Porzingis
Speaker 1: or Derek White, whoever it is, can slip to that
Speaker 1: left wing and he's gonna be open for a second.
Speaker 1: That is an important part of how Boston's offense works.
Speaker 1: Boston's offense is not a Luca don chicic, you know, heliocentric.
Speaker 1: We're gonna dribble the ball across the floor slow, We're
Speaker 1: gonna cross half court at sixteen seconds. We're gonna get
Speaker 1: into a guard guard screen, and then we're gonna get
Speaker 1: to get a switch, and then we're gonna run a
Speaker 1: ball screen with like nine on the shot clock, and
Speaker 1: I'm either shooting or I'm throwing the lob, or I'm
Speaker 1: skipping to the corner, and that guy's shooting, he might
Speaker 1: have time to drive the close out. That's it. That's
Speaker 1: not how Boston's offense works. They want to get their
Speaker 1: spacing earlier in the clock. They want to get an
Speaker 1: initial advantage. In this case, Derek White's slipping to the
Speaker 1: left wing or porzingis slipping to the left wing, and
Speaker 1: then from there that guy is going to drive close
Speaker 1: out to try to draw additional defenders and make reads
Speaker 1: out of it. They want multiple drive in kicks in
Speaker 1: the same possession to get high quality shots. Right That's
Speaker 1: like how Boston's offense works. And to Tatum's credit, like
Speaker 1: even though he didn't shoot super well, especially in the postseason,
Speaker 1: but even though he's not like the kind of on
Speaker 1: ball score that some of his peers are at the
Speaker 1: top of the league, he's very deliberate about creating that
Speaker 1: initial advantage, which is specifically what Boston needs. Right Like,
Speaker 1: as soon as you get that initial advantage, it's just
Speaker 1: simple drive and kick basketball from there. But you've got
Speaker 1: to get that initial advantage. As we talked about over
Speaker 1: the last couple of years, when Boston was at their worst,
Speaker 1: it was when they would forego that to take early
Speaker 1: clock shots like dribbling up the floor into transition threes,
Speaker 1: quick early clock ISOs from Tatum or Jalen Brown, right Like,
Speaker 1: that was when they would kind of get out of
Speaker 1: their flow. Offensively, got to have that kind of stuff
Speaker 1: for late clock situations, but ideally for Boston's offense in
Speaker 1: the early part of the clock, they want to create
Speaker 1: that initial advantage, which is something that we saw a
Speaker 1: lot of from Tatum this particular year. Again, eighty seventh percentile,
Speaker 1: seven hundred and twenty six possessions. That's pretty big volume.
Speaker 1: That's not the high volume list over a thousand, but
Speaker 1: that's to be expected. He's playing with Drew, he's playing
Speaker 1: with Derek, he's playing with Jalen right, so like he's
Speaker 1: not gonna get as many reps, but that's just really
Speaker 1: really efficient shot creation within the context of what his
Speaker 1: team needs. Again, like a lot of times, obviously it's
Speaker 1: not as applicable for this list because this list is
Speaker 1: very much in a vacuum, But when we're actually in
Speaker 1: the season, what do I always tell you, guys, how
Speaker 1: good a basketball player is really only matters within the
Speaker 1: context of his team. So, like, is Jamal Murray as
Speaker 1: good of a two guard as some of the other
Speaker 1: two guards around the league. No, But within the context
Speaker 1: of Denver, his ability to hit pull up jump shots
Speaker 1: is profoundly valuable as a ceiling razor for that team.
Speaker 1: Same goes for Tatum. Can I pick Jason Tatum up
Speaker 1: and drop him in Dallas and have him be as
Speaker 1: good of a shot creator as Luka doncic Hell. No, right,
Speaker 1: But within the context of Boston, where you just need
Speaker 1: him to create that initial advantage so that their super
Speaker 1: talented off ball players can capitalize on that advantage through
Speaker 1: driving kick. He's actually one of the more valuable shot
Speaker 1: creators in the league, and so again doesn't apply as
Speaker 1: much to this list, but within the context of Boston,
Speaker 1: that's what makes Tatum so impactful. He's the key that
Speaker 1: unlocks their defense, and he's the guy that initially creates
Speaker 1: the advantage for them on the offensive end of the floor.
Speaker 1: In ISO one point zero seven points per possession on
Speaker 1: five hundred and ninety one possessions including passes, that's seventy
Speaker 1: ninth percentile. In our high volume list of the twenty
Speaker 1: four players to attempt at least two hundred and fifty,
Speaker 1: Tatum ranked tenth inefficiency, which is obviously very good. In
Speaker 1: that upper kind of upper half area. There post ups
Speaker 1: two hundred and thirty eight possessions two hundred and forty
Speaker 1: seven points one point zero four points per possession, slightly
Speaker 1: above average. That's in the fifty fourth percentile. Again, Tatum
Speaker 1: was a very efficient shot creator in the Boston offense
Speaker 1: for several reasons. One, he took eight threes a game,
Speaker 1: and as we talked about earlier, the off the catch
Speaker 1: ones he was hitting at a high rate. He also
Speaker 1: took seven free throws a game. So despite the fact
Speaker 1: that he took eight inefficient pull up jump shots a game,
Speaker 1: he still got to sixty percent true shooting because the
Speaker 1: rest of tatum shot diet outside of those pull up
Speaker 1: jump shots are more efficient shots catch and shoot threes,
Speaker 1: stuff that's more towards the rim. And that's why I
Speaker 1: keep saying, like, if he could somehow just take like
Speaker 1: literally go from seven and a half eight pull up
Speaker 1: jump shots a game to like four, then that's where
Speaker 1: he could just get up into that like true super
Speaker 1: duper star efficiency where he's getting thirty points a game
Speaker 1: on like sixty two sixty three percent true shooting, the
Speaker 1: way that his peers at the top of the league do.
Speaker 1: The biggest part of it, though, as I mentioned, was
Speaker 1: just he has a really good understanding of his role
Speaker 1: in the Boston offense, creating that initial advantage with easy
Speaker 1: two man game or three man game, whether it's out
Speaker 1: of a horn set. But he just makes simple reads
Speaker 1: and he lets the talent do the rest. And so,
Speaker 1: as I said many times over the course of the
Speaker 1: year last year, Tatum in a weird way, was kind
Speaker 1: of the perfect star for that group, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. But I think obviously if you put Luke
Speaker 1: on the Celtics, they win the title. But like there's
Speaker 1: a there's a probably a little bit of a diminishing
Speaker 1: return by having a very ball dominant guy on a
Speaker 1: team that has that much ball handling, whereas Tatum's like
Speaker 1: to his credit, very real, very very willing to just
Speaker 1: do what the team needs him to do. Hey Tatum,
Speaker 1: we need you to score a lot. Okay, I can
Speaker 1: do that. Hey Tatum, we just need you to create
Speaker 1: the initial advantage. Okay, I can do that. Hey, Like
Speaker 1: Jalen Brown's got to going tonight and he's got this
Speaker 1: two man game thing going on with you know, Derek White,
Speaker 1: why don't you go just spot up this for the
Speaker 1: second half here and he'll do that. I mean, that
Speaker 1: was part of the discussion in the postseason run and
Speaker 1: Tatum had some really wise things that he said in
Speaker 1: postgame pressers where he's say things like I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: like try to hijack the game, pull on the rope
Speaker 1: when someone else has it, like in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: On a roster like this that has five, you know,
Speaker 1: thirty million dollars plus players, it just makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense to have a guy like Tatum leading the
Speaker 1: way on defense. It's interesting because, like, I don't think
Speaker 1: Tatum is an a plus at anything, but he's like
Speaker 1: a bee at everything right, and that extends to the
Speaker 1: defensive end of the floor, specifically with versatility, right like
Speaker 1: the is he in the top tier of perimeter defenders. No,
Speaker 1: it hasn't been really since that twenty twenty two season
Speaker 1: was the best I've seen him play on the ball.
Speaker 1: On defense, He's put on a little bit of weight,
Speaker 1: not as quick laterally as he used to be, right,
Speaker 1: but like he's still a very very good on ball
Speaker 1: defender who can guard guards and wings. Is Tatum like
Speaker 1: this freaky athletic, dominant back line defender. No, but like
Speaker 1: he can guard big, strong players, he can guard centers.
Speaker 1: That was a huge part of what made Boston's defense
Speaker 1: work as well as it did in the postseason. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: the main defensive scheme for Boston is they want to
Speaker 1: put Tatum on your center, and the main reason why
Speaker 1: is they're gonna put Jalen Brown on your best offensive
Speaker 1: initiator on the perimeter. That way, any one to five
Speaker 1: pick and roll or two five pick and roll, whoever
Speaker 1: your star is, any pick and roll with their center
Speaker 1: and their main ball handler, Tatum of Brown are just
Speaker 1: gonna switch. And that's another piece of Jalen Brown's defensive
Speaker 1: versatility that he can guard centers as well. Right. But
Speaker 1: then from there that gives Boston deflexibility to look over
Speaker 1: your roster and be like that, dude's the worst above
Speaker 1: the break shooter, So I'm gonna put our center on him.
Speaker 1: That way, If he goes and stands in the corner,
Speaker 1: it's an easy rotation. Right, Tatum's under the rim guarding
Speaker 1: the center, you're basically like the low man and you're
Speaker 1: a center. It's just an easier close out to get
Speaker 1: back out to the corner. And if they put him
Speaker 1: above the break, it's a longer close out. But that's
Speaker 1: your weakest above the break shooter. That was how Boston
Speaker 1: would pack the paint and cause massive problems for opposing offenses. Again,
Speaker 1: I've said this million times, but the best example of
Speaker 1: that was the Dallas series. It just like completely and
Speaker 1: utterly crippled Dallas's offense with that sort of adjustment. That's
Speaker 1: a versatility piece that Jason Tatum brings to the table. Again, Like,
Speaker 1: is he an a plus defensive rebounder, No, but he's
Speaker 1: a very very good defensive rebounder, right, And so like
Speaker 1: he just does a lot of things really well, and
Speaker 1: as a result of that, it just kind of allows
Speaker 1: you to plug and play him in all these different roles.
Speaker 1: And he's also six ' nine and he's also young
Speaker 1: enough to play with a lot of motor there is
Speaker 1: you know, we're gonna get more to this in a
Speaker 1: little bit, But like Tatum's floor is extraordinarily high compared
Speaker 1: to the other guys on this particular list. Now, the
Speaker 1: playoff run was bizarre, right, shot below fifty percent and
Speaker 1: sixteen of the nineteen games, So he shot above fifty
Speaker 1: percent just three times, and as in perspective, he did
Speaker 1: so nine times the previous year and nine times the
Speaker 1: year before that. So eighteen eighteen games over fifty percent
Speaker 1: shooting in the previous two playoff runs just three. Last year,
Speaker 1: maybe is shoot was the jump shot. He got to
Speaker 1: zero point eight zero points per shot, points per jumper,
Speaker 1: and last year's playoff run it was zero point nine
Speaker 1: to five. The year before that, one point zero eight
Speaker 1: the year before that, one point one zero the year
Speaker 1: before that. So we are on our fourth consecutive year
Speaker 1: of a steady downward trend in Tatum's playoff jump shooting.
Speaker 1: So I'm hoping that that's just a blip and then
Speaker 1: he's gonna crawl out of that. But that is a
Speaker 1: weird trend. Tatum took one hundred and seventy nine ISO
Speaker 1: jump shots either off the dribble, either off the dribble
Speaker 1: or in face up situations, made just forty nine of
Speaker 1: them in the playoff run. That's twenty seven percent. And like,
Speaker 1: here's the thing. Do I think that Jason Tatum settles
Speaker 1: for too many bad pull up jump shots? Yes, we've
Speaker 1: talked about that a lot in this show. But I
Speaker 1: also think that this is just a slump. I think
Speaker 1: it's just temporary. I think he'll eventually work his way
Speaker 1: through this issue, and I think he'll get back to
Speaker 1: form his touch is too good. Like, this isn't a
Speaker 1: guy that has bad touch who's gonna be a consistently
Speaker 1: bad shooter. This is a guy who's consistently a great touch,
Speaker 1: and he's just kind of in a weird kind of
Speaker 1: thing with his form where he's tweaking it a little
Speaker 1: too much and it's just a little he's just in
Speaker 1: a little bit of a funk. But like, especially after
Speaker 1: it reached a crescendo of embarrassing shooting in the Olympics,
Speaker 1: I think, if I remember correctly, he went oh for
Speaker 1: sixteen on jump shots in the Olympic qualifiers or excuse me,
Speaker 1: the Olympic exhibitions, as well as the actual Olympic tournament.
Speaker 1: So like it hit its z like the absolute peak
Speaker 1: of tatum slump in that Olympic run. I think he's
Speaker 1: gonna take a lot of time this summer to iron
Speaker 1: that out, and my guess is he comes into next
Speaker 1: year and shoots the ball pretty well, pretty quickly. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be surprised if there was a little lingering slump
Speaker 1: in the first like week of the season, but I
Speaker 1: would imagine by November that that Tatum will be back
Speaker 1: cooking on all gears in terms of his jump shot.
Speaker 1: In summary, tatum ceiling isn't nearly as high as his
Speaker 1: peers at the top of the league. As I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: he doesn't really have like a an A plus trade
Speaker 1: like every other guy is an A plus trade like
Speaker 1: Yokich is an A plus playmaker, a plus post scorre
Speaker 1: Luka Doncic a plus perimeter initiator right like Jannison, Tenna
Speaker 1: Koopo a plus athlete with a plus rim pressure, a
Speaker 1: plus defensive impacts, Shaye gillss Alexander like AA plus perimeter
Speaker 1: initiation right, Anthony Davis a plus defensive player. You know,
Speaker 1: all these guys have like A plus traits. Tatum didn't
Speaker 1: really have one of those. Like he he doesn't have
Speaker 1: an elite first step, and so he can't consistently get
Speaker 1: to the rim or finish there at a super high rate.
Speaker 1: He's a good passer, but he's not a great passer.
Speaker 1: He's a good shooter, but he's not a great shooter.
Speaker 1: And he specifically struggles anything that's not like off the catch,
Speaker 1: So like it's just one of those things where like
Speaker 1: that that's gonna limit his ceiling in a lot of ways. Right,
Speaker 1: but his floor is probably the highest out of any
Speaker 1: player on this top eleven except for Jokis. Jokic is
Speaker 1: the one guy I think who especially because he's kind
Speaker 1: of a groundbound player to begin with that even when
Speaker 1: he gives somewhat inconsistent effort, his overall impact is just
Speaker 1: so high. But like other than Jokic, I think Tatum
Speaker 1: has the highest floor on this list. He consistently plays hard,
Speaker 1: especially on defense, and he's versatile enough to fill a
Speaker 1: variety of roles on both ends of the floor. Gives
Speaker 1: you a ton of flexibility when you're building a roster
Speaker 1: around him. He's a safe bet for at least twenty
Speaker 1: seven points per game on at least sixty percent true
Speaker 1: shooting because he takes a lot of threes and he
Speaker 1: gets to the foul line a lot, and like he
Speaker 1: takes in it takes and misses a bunch of bad
Speaker 1: shots and it just doesn't matter because he takes so
Speaker 1: many threes and because he has the ability to get
Speaker 1: to the fout line the way he does. And then,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned earlier, he's very willing to embrace different
Speaker 1: types of roles. Offensively being a volume score being an
Speaker 1: advantage creator, being more of like a spot up guy
Speaker 1: if he needs to write. So, like, here's the thing,
Speaker 1: when we get to May slash June and everyone is healthy,
Speaker 1: like Tatum's probably last out of these eleven guys, if
Speaker 1: not second to last, Like he's in that nine ten
Speaker 1: eleven area in terms of like everyone's healthy, the shit's
Speaker 1: on the line tomorrow. But other than Jokic, he's the
Speaker 1: guy who's most likely to get me to manj you,
Speaker 1: And that's an important part of this journey, especially when
Speaker 1: there are as many talentedly teams in the league. You
Speaker 1: can book him for seventy plus games. You can book
Speaker 1: him for twenty seven eight and five on sixty percent
Speaker 1: through shooting with elite versatile defense. Nobody else in this
Speaker 1: tier is as safe a bet in terms of pure
Speaker 1: availability and production. Even Yamis has become health question mark.
Speaker 1: Even the young guards like Shay or Ant, they can't
Speaker 1: impact the game defensively the way that Tatum does. That
Speaker 1: makes Tatum an excellent foundational piece despite his shortcomings. That's
Speaker 1: why I have him at number seven, Number six. Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis last year seventy six games played, twenty four point
Speaker 1: seven points per game, twelve point six rebounds per game
Speaker 1: that was third in the NBA behind Demana Sabonis and
Speaker 1: Rudy Gobert. Also had a career high since joining the
Speaker 1: Lakers three point five assists, a lot more opportunities for
Speaker 1: him to make plays as the Lakers shifted towards a
Speaker 1: five out offense. He did have one higher assist year
Speaker 1: in New Orleans, I think it was the year right
Speaker 1: before he left, but with the Lakers, especially with as
Speaker 1: much ball handling as the Lakers have, for him to
Speaker 1: get three and a half assists is actually really impressive.
Speaker 1: Two point one turnovers per game, and again, big part
Speaker 1: of it was the five out offense and him just
Speaker 1: having more opportunity to make plays there. Second piece of
Speaker 1: it is this was by far Anthony Davis's best post
Speaker 1: up season of his career, both as a score and
Speaker 1: as a passer. Also got three point five stocks per game,
Speaker 1: including finishing fourth in the league in blocks per game.
Speaker 1: His shooting splits fifty six percent from the field, twenty
Speaker 1: seven percent from three. Obviously, just has never been able
Speaker 1: to get that jump shot back to where it was
Speaker 1: in the bubble. Eighty two percent at the line mounts
Speaker 1: to fifty seven percent in effective field goal percentage and
Speaker 1: sixty two percent in true shooting percentage, similar to to Tatum,
Speaker 1: the first time in AD's career. First time in AD's
Speaker 1: career that he's had back to back seasons of at
Speaker 1: least sixty percent true shooting shooting stats per Synergy. As
Speaker 1: I mentioned, jump shot not great, zero point eight two
Speaker 1: points per jump shot, zero point eight to seven off
Speaker 1: the catch, zero point seven to seven off the dribble.
Speaker 1: Now he's aware of it. Really low volume. He only
Speaker 1: takes three and a half jump shots total every game.
Speaker 1: Has really leaned in this phase of his career into
Speaker 1: more short range scoring, which is something that I actually
Speaker 1: am a big believer in. This is something I've been
Speaker 1: begging Joel Embiid to do more of, and he's been
Speaker 1: excellent there. Fifty eight percent on hooks, fifty one percent
Speaker 1: on floaters, and seventy percent at the rim. Now how
Speaker 1: has Ad turned himself into such a useful short range score.
Speaker 1: It's a combination of two things. First, attacking out of
Speaker 1: the post in ISO right like and just think like
Speaker 1: what he did to Nikolea Jokicic in the first round,
Speaker 1: just against slower footed guys, just quick baseline moves to
Speaker 1: get to the other side of the rim for reverse layups.
Speaker 1: Really aggressive driving moves gets big guys out of position
Speaker 1: and gets to the foul line a lot that way,
Speaker 1: and then also just turning his back to the basket,
Speaker 1: he's got a nice little right shoulder fade and then
Speaker 1: he's got a nice little left shoulder hook that he's
Speaker 1: hitting at a very high percentage. Again, almost sixty percent.
Speaker 1: Now that's not quite like Nikola Jokic efficiency, but it's
Speaker 1: still really really good. Excuse me a shot. I think
Speaker 1: it was fifty eight percent on floaters and fifty one
Speaker 1: percent on hooks, but anyway, he was over fifty percent
Speaker 1: on both. But anyway, the other piece of it is
Speaker 1: scoring out of ball screens. Right, So, like I talk
Speaker 1: a lot about how with Joel Embiid, I talked a
Speaker 1: lot about how like scoring is. There's lots of different
Speaker 1: ways to score, right, Like, they're scoring as an initiator
Speaker 1: and then they're scoring in the flow of the offense.
Speaker 1: This is what we've always credited Kevin Durant for is
Speaker 1: he can do both so well that you can like
Speaker 1: plug KD into any system anywhere in the league. And
Speaker 1: he's just going to find a way to get his
Speaker 1: thirty efficiently without really bothering the flow, because he can
Speaker 1: score in the flow of the offense, meaning as multiple
Speaker 1: players are touching the ball and there's lots of player
Speaker 1: and ball movement, he can still score within that flow. Right.
Speaker 1: This is something where Ad does the majority of his scoring,
Speaker 1: and it's often looked at as a weakness for whatever reason.
Speaker 1: And we're going to do some talking later because like
Speaker 1: I think AD's scoring volume is completely flying under the
Speaker 1: radar for whatever reason when he's actually been like an
Speaker 1: incredibly dominant playoff score and like the reputation AD has
Speaker 1: offensively doesn't even make sense compared to what the production
Speaker 1: actually is. But eighties scoring primarily operates in the short
Speaker 1: range and primarily in the flow of the offense. Like again,
Speaker 1: shooting fifty eight percent on floaters. That's one of those
Speaker 1: things where when you're running five out offense and he's
Speaker 1: going to one side of the floor throwing a dribble handoff,
Speaker 1: thrown a pick rolling into the lane looking for the ball,
Speaker 1: didn't get it, Okay, run over set the next pick
Speaker 1: rolling into the lane, did he get the ball. He's
Speaker 1: the finisher in those plays right, and he can do
Speaker 1: it both ways, Like he can catch in the short roll,
Speaker 1: make that little floater over the top that he's been
Speaker 1: hitting at a really high percentage has a chance to
Speaker 1: roll all the way to the rim, Boom vertical spacing.
Speaker 1: He's one of the guys you can throw a massive
Speaker 1: target to above the rim and he can go and finish.
Speaker 1: That's super valuable scoring because it doesn't require you to
Speaker 1: run plays that are designed to give him the ball.
Speaker 1: It doesn't require you to force feed him, it doesn't
Speaker 1: require you to build his rhythm. Like he just can
Speaker 1: play alongside Austin Reeves, dil Lebron, all these other ball handlers.
Speaker 1: He's just a cog in that system. And he's just
Speaker 1: spitting out twenty five point nights, thirty point nights all
Speaker 1: the time. And that that's super valuable when you're trying
Speaker 1: to build a roster around a guy. Again, Like imagine
Speaker 1: I'm building a team and like I'm getting twenty five
Speaker 1: points a night, and I do not have to worry
Speaker 1: about whether or not Ad fits with my next pick.
Speaker 1: My next pick. It's like, is it a pick and
Speaker 1: roll guard, is it another wing? Whatever I want to do.
Speaker 1: AD is gonna fit seamlessly with that guy, which is
Speaker 1: a super useful piece of team building. Play type data
Speaker 1: one point one seven points per possession on the role,
Speaker 1: he shot fifty seven percent rolling to the basket. Anthony Davis,
Speaker 1: to continue on that point, we were just talking about
Speaker 1: made one hundred and sixty two field goals on the
Speaker 1: role last year. That was the second most in the
Speaker 1: entire NBA. Anybody want to guess who was number one?
Speaker 1: This is actually an insane stat and this player had
Speaker 1: ninety additional made field goals. I'll give you guys a
Speaker 1: couple seconds, but it's not who you're thinking it is.
Speaker 1: Nikola Vucevich from the Chicago Bulls had two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty something made field goals in the role, but still
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis second most in the entire league, more than
Speaker 1: twice as many as Embid. Embid had like seventy something
Speaker 1: and ad had one hundred and sixty two. And again,
Speaker 1: that's the point I was trying to make when we
Speaker 1: were talking about Embiid at number eleven. It's the point
Speaker 1: I'm trying to make today. Scoring within the flow of
Speaker 1: the offense has a ton of value. Scoring in a
Speaker 1: heliocentric manner also has a ton of value, but they
Speaker 1: both have a lot of value, and the ability to
Speaker 1: score with others gives flexibility to your team building process.
Speaker 1: One hundred and seven offensive rebound putbacks that was the
Speaker 1: second most in the entire NBA. Rudy Gobert was number
Speaker 1: one with one hundred and ten. So again, just garbage
Speaker 1: time buckets, he's just given you. He's given you more
Speaker 1: than one additional bucket a night, just on a missed
Speaker 1: shot that someone else misses. He's just grabbing and putting
Speaker 1: it back into the basket. But he also had a
Speaker 1: very good individual shot creation season. It was the best
Speaker 1: of Anthony Davis's career, and this is a big part
Speaker 1: of why I put him higher on this list. He's
Speaker 1: doing both despite the fact that you don't really need
Speaker 1: him to within what most teams would use ad as right,
Speaker 1: he got one point zero four points per ISO that's
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty four reps for one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty nine points that was seventieth percentile, and then one
Speaker 1: point zero nine points per post up four hundred and
Speaker 1: forty three reps for four hundred and eighty three points
Speaker 1: That ranked six out of the eighteen players to run
Speaker 1: at least two hundred and fifty, so he was one
Speaker 1: of the upper third high volume post up players in
Speaker 1: the entire league, as well as being a seventieth percentile
Speaker 1: ISO score as well. He brings a really nice mix
Speaker 1: of on ball creation in the flow, finishing garbage buckets
Speaker 1: like drop offs, and offensive rebound put backs. So here's
Speaker 1: the thing I disagree with the idea or the assertion
Speaker 1: that Ad is a limited offensive player. Can he be
Speaker 1: the offensive engine the way some of his peers can know,
Speaker 1: but those guys also can't be a defensive foundation the
Speaker 1: way that he Ad can. Right, Like, the offensive engine
Speaker 1: types are your Jokic, you'r Luka, your che Jiosus Alexander,
Speaker 1: You're like even Lebron James a little bit at this
Speaker 1: point in his career, Tyrese Haliburton. There are a bunch
Speaker 1: of these guys that are like they're just every single
Speaker 1: possession they're going up the floor, getting your defensive rotation
Speaker 1: and going None of those guys are in the same
Speaker 1: stratosphere as a defensive foundation as Anthony Davis. Even Joel Embii,
Speaker 1: who I would consider to be an offensive engine, is
Speaker 1: not in the same stratosphere as Anthony Davis as a
Speaker 1: defensive player, and so like again, like you gotta play
Speaker 1: both sides of that coin. And despite that, eighty is
Speaker 1: nineteenth in the league in scoring. He was one of
Speaker 1: only three players in the entire NBA last year to
Speaker 1: average at least twenty four points on at least fifty
Speaker 1: five percent shooting from the field. It was him, Giannis
Speaker 1: and Jokic. And again, as I mentioned earlier, I specifically
Speaker 1: loved the idea of a guy who can give me
Speaker 1: twenty five points a game while also primarily running the
Speaker 1: offense through a different player. That's a real asset with
Speaker 1: team building. And then eighty consistently takes his scoring to
Speaker 1: another level in the postseason, but he did so in
Speaker 1: a big way against Denver. Twenty eight points per game,
Speaker 1: sixty three percent true shooting. He ran thirty four post
Speaker 1: ups in ISOs for forty points one point one eight
Speaker 1: points per possession. That is outstanding, And you guys remember
Speaker 1: every one of those. That was when he was just
Speaker 1: consistently one on one, just frying Nikola Jokic on an
Speaker 1: island to the point where Mike Malone had to literally
Speaker 1: switch him off and all of that while being one
Speaker 1: of the very being the very best defensive player in
Speaker 1: the world in my opinion, and one of the top
Speaker 1: three rebounders in the world. And eighty specifically has a
Speaker 1: level of defensive versatility that most of his peers don't have.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of rim protectors that can't defend
Speaker 1: in multiple coverages. Eighty is an outstanding drop coverage big
Speaker 1: way back at the rim, high drop coverage big coming
Speaker 1: up to the level blitzing. He's got the length to
Speaker 1: be bothersome there and he can switch onto any type
Speaker 1: of player. He's got great foot speed to contain, and
Speaker 1: he is great length to contest. Now, the one defensive
Speaker 1: weakness that Anthony Davis has is he can struggle with
Speaker 1: groundbound power bigs. Right, These are guys like Sabonis or Yokic,
Speaker 1: guys that are like lower to the ground and you
Speaker 1: strength to dislodge AD from his base to create separation
Speaker 1: to finish. But here's the thing. The guys in the
Speaker 1: league that are big and strong enough to handle those
Speaker 1: types of offensive players aren't capable of doing anything else
Speaker 1: that AD can do defensively, Like he wouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to switch or to move up to the level and
Speaker 1: back quickly, or do any of those things he does
Speaker 1: defensively if he had a different body type where he
Speaker 1: was big and strong enough to with stan Joel the
Speaker 1: the big power guys like Embiid or Jokic or Sabonis,
Speaker 1: right and like, and here's the thing, Like Embiid is
Speaker 1: the guy I keep talking about, is like the guy
Speaker 1: who can guard Jokic, And I watched Jokic go through
Speaker 1: him easily in the Olympics. So like, I think, I
Speaker 1: think that that's a being a little nitpicky, and it's
Speaker 1: a big part of why I think Ad is still
Speaker 1: the best player defensively in the world. Ad is so
Speaker 1: dominant on defense that in the twenty twenty three series
Speaker 1: against Golden State, every single adjustment made by either team
Speaker 1: had to do with Ad. Golden State was trying their
Speaker 1: best to keep him away from the rim and out
Speaker 1: of the action that they were running with Steph in ballscreens,
Speaker 1: and the Lakers were doing everything they good to keep
Speaker 1: him in the action. It was crazy how much he
Speaker 1: was the folkrum of every adjustment in that particular series.
Speaker 1: So most of you guys disagree that I have Ad
Speaker 1: this high. So I want to just kind of break
Speaker 1: down why in a quick synopsis, why I have Ad
Speaker 1: so high. One, He's a top five defensive foundation for
Speaker 1: the regular season. Doesn't give consistent effort the way guys
Speaker 1: like go Bear do. But then again, guys like Gobert
Speaker 1: don't have near the offensive responsibility. And even with that
Speaker 1: somewhat inconsistent defensive effort, AD is still a top five
Speaker 1: regular season defensive foundation. He was first team All Defense
Speaker 1: this year and he was fourth in Defensive Player of
Speaker 1: the Year voting. That's pretty straightforward evidence of that he's
Speaker 1: the best defender in the world when he needs to
Speaker 1: be in big moments in regular season games, are big
Speaker 1: stretches in regular season games, and then also in the playoffs.
Speaker 1: He is the best defensive weapon that we have in
Speaker 1: the league. I think wemb will overtake him in the
Speaker 1: next year or two, but I think AD still has
Speaker 1: that spot as of right now. Three. Ad has been
Speaker 1: very available as of late. He has a reputation among
Speaker 1: some people aren't paying attention as being a guy who's
Speaker 1: always hurt. He's been available in one hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: eight of the lakers last one hundred and thirty seven
Speaker 1: basketball games, including twenty one consecutive playoff games. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one to twenty twenty two rough years for
Speaker 1: AD in terms of availability, but he's been consistently available
Speaker 1: since then four. He is one of the rare players
Speaker 1: in the league who actually goes up a level in
Speaker 1: the playoffs consistently in his career. His numbers have been
Speaker 1: better in both points and rebounds from the regular season
Speaker 1: to the postseason. Last year, he averaged twenty eight points
Speaker 1: and sixteen rebounds on sixty seven percent for shooting. Here's
Speaker 1: a basic stat to explain the chasm between the perception
Speaker 1: of who AD is a playoff player in the reality.
Speaker 1: Most of you guys probably don't know this, but Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis has played in sixty playoff games. Embiid has played
Speaker 1: in fifty nine, so they've played in basically the same
Speaker 1: amount of playoff games. Who do you think has more
Speaker 1: thirty point playoff games between those two guys? You probably
Speaker 1: think it's EMBIID, No AD does. AD has twenty three
Speaker 1: thirty point games and beat has twenty one. Who do
Speaker 1: you think has more forty point playoff games between those
Speaker 1: two guys? You probably think embiat Nope, it's ad eighty
Speaker 1: has three forty point playoff games and bid has two.
Speaker 1: That's just a quick look at scoring, and eighty's doing
Speaker 1: that while the offense is being run through different players.
Speaker 1: Embiid is being force sped the ball in these playoff
Speaker 1: settings and is not producing at the same level that
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis does. Anthony Davis is one of the most
Speaker 1: dominant and impactful playoff players in the league, and he
Speaker 1: had a rough series against Jokic two years ago in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, and he had some health issues and
Speaker 1: I think that has caused people to just completely underrate
Speaker 1: the guy. And then, lastly, the last piece piece, number
Speaker 1: five versatility. Unlike a guy like Embiid, AD can play
Speaker 1: in a variety of styles and schemes on both ends
Speaker 1: of the floor. Do you want to run five four
Speaker 1: out like the MAVs and just spam high ball screens
Speaker 1: with a space four eighty is excellent for that. Do
Speaker 1: you want to play out of the post and run
Speaker 1: off ball action kind of like the Warriors do well.
Speaker 1: Aight is one of the best post players in the league.
Speaker 1: Do you want to play five out with a ton
Speaker 1: of ball in player movement? Aight is awesome at that too.
Speaker 1: We just saw that last year he had one of
Speaker 1: the best offensive seasons of his career. What about the
Speaker 1: defensive end. You want to run deep drop coverage because
Speaker 1: you have excellent point of attack guys, he's your guy.
Speaker 1: You want to run high drop because you can struggle
Speaker 1: at the point of attack. Eighty's your guy. Does a
Speaker 1: lot of that with the Lakers. Right. Do you want
Speaker 1: to have a blitz look or like a zone look, well,
Speaker 1: Ad can do both really well. Do you want to
Speaker 1: have a switching look? Eighty is one of the best
Speaker 1: switching defenders in the world, So he fits the criteria
Speaker 1: from my list very well. I will concede that his
Speaker 1: weakest category is that regular season availability piece, but he's
Speaker 1: been available in the regular season over the past year
Speaker 1: and a half and so like in the first area,
Speaker 1: which is like regular season availability and impact, Ady's been
Speaker 1: strong in that area as of late. The second category,
Speaker 1: playoff translatability. I think he's one of the best playoff
Speaker 1: performers in the league, and he's uniquely one of the
Speaker 1: guys who actually goes up a level in that setting.
Speaker 1: Game becomes more physical, more rock fights. Ad is more
Speaker 1: valuable and then the third piece versatility, as if I
Speaker 1: draft Anthony Davis, the world is completely open to me
Speaker 1: in terms of players that I can draft with that
Speaker 1: second pick, whereas whereas I have some limitations if I
Speaker 1: pick some different players. He is a highly versatile player
Speaker 1: who is easy for a GM to build around. That
Speaker 1: just puts him in a really, really good spot in
Speaker 1: terms of how he could be valued in this context.
Speaker 1: Last note, I'm curious as to why AD is one
Speaker 1: of the most underrated players in the league, and I
Speaker 1: think it's pretty simple. One, he's somewhat non traditional, right
Speaker 1: He's a defensive star right where that's his primary impact,
Speaker 1: and people think he's a bad offensive player. But hopefully
Speaker 1: after today we can put that myth to rest. Two,
Speaker 1: people don't really like the Lakers, which I get. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of Lakers fans and a lot of Lakers
Speaker 1: media coverage. I totally understand why some people get sick
Speaker 1: of that. And then, lastly, because the Lakers don't have
Speaker 1: good role players. They don't have guys who can play
Speaker 1: both ends of the floor outside of Lebron and Ad,
Speaker 1: and so as a result, the team just is kind
Speaker 1: of mediocre, Like they're not a top tier contender. They're
Speaker 1: in that second tier of teams, and as a result
Speaker 1: of that, they like don't get the respect, especially with
Speaker 1: the team that has both Lebron James and Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: on the team. And so I understand that that's like
Speaker 1: the reason, but I'm hoping that over the course of time,
Speaker 1: people gain a little bit more respect for what ad
Speaker 1: brings to the table. And I think the Olympics were
Speaker 1: another great example of that, especially on the versatility front.
Speaker 1: Just what he did trying to fit in alongside everyone else.
Speaker 1: All right, bailback, I agree with ninety percent of your takes,
Speaker 1: but ANT is simply too high on this list. Recency
Speaker 1: bias kills media members and fans so much. So I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna get too far into it because Ant is
Speaker 1: next for me at number five. So we're gonna do
Speaker 1: a lot of talking about it in the next video,
Speaker 1: but I'll do a really quick synopsis of it. First
Speaker 1: of all, Aunt just came off of a Western Conference
Speaker 1: Finals run where he averaged twenty eight, seven and seven
Speaker 1: on sixty percent trough shooting. In the process, he swept
Speaker 1: a KD super team and eliminated the defending champs, including
Speaker 1: in game seven, completely shutting down Jamal Murray in the
Speaker 1: second half of Game seven. Like, that's an insane playoff run.
Speaker 1: And if, like literally, if any of the guys that
Speaker 1: we have in the top four had that same playoff run,
Speaker 1: everyone would be like, Oh, this is what superstars do.
Speaker 1: But for some reason, with Ant it's getting overshadowed. And
Speaker 1: I think the main reason why is because he ran
Speaker 1: into Luca and he really struggled, and there were a
Speaker 1: couple of different factors there. I think Luca's aura had
Speaker 1: an impact, right, Like we've seen that before, right, Like
Speaker 1: Jason Tatum awesome. The entire twenty twenty two playoff run
Speaker 1: ran into Steph had a bad series, right, Steph when
Speaker 1: he was younger, like, you'd be really good playoff player,
Speaker 1: and then he run into like twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: Steph wasn't very good when he ran into Lebron. There
Speaker 1: was like a little bit of a struggle there for
Speaker 1: Steph to get to the point where he was competing
Speaker 1: at Lebron's level in those series in twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: the playoff, the Playing Game in twenty twenty one, the
Speaker 1: series in twenty twenty three, Steph was much more at
Speaker 1: Lebron's level, but in twenty fifteen to twenty sixteen, Lebron
Speaker 1: just not played him. And like even Lebron in his
Speaker 1: early part of his careers, like in his career, like
Speaker 1: he'd run into that Celtics team and he would struggle.
Speaker 1: He run into the Spurs team and struggle under the
Speaker 1: aura of guys like KG Paul Pierre's, Tony Parker, Tim Duncan.
Speaker 1: That's like a typical thing that we see happen with
Speaker 1: young stars. And so had an iffy series in the
Speaker 1: Western Conference finals against Luka Doncic, who we all agree
Speaker 1: is like one of the top two or three players
Speaker 1: in the league, Like even Bucks fans will have him third, right, So, like, like,
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, that whole playoff run just got swept away,
Speaker 1: even though he was like literally fucking incredible for the
Speaker 1: first two rounds, right like, And so I think that's
Speaker 1: a little ridiculous, to be clear, A lot of this
Speaker 1: has to do with quite the criteria of my list.
Speaker 1: If everyone was healthy and I had a playoff series
Speaker 1: starting tomorrow, Aunt would be lower, he'd be in the
Speaker 1: nine to ten to eleven range. But the playoff series
Speaker 1: doesn't start tomorrow. In this scenario, his first playoff game
Speaker 1: would be like nine months from now, and he'd have
Speaker 1: another eighty plus games of experience before then. And so
Speaker 1: like that to me, Like, I actually think I'm projecting
Speaker 1: Aunt is going to be a top five player this year.
Speaker 1: But the main reason why, like as I mentioned, I
Speaker 1: didn't see much of a gap between five and eleven
Speaker 1: in this list. So if you told me you had
Speaker 1: an Aunt, if you in the comments are like, I
Speaker 1: think Ant's number eleven, I'd be like, cool, got it,
Speaker 1: I have beat at eleven. I don't have much of
Speaker 1: a gap at all between Ant and MB. That's not
Speaker 1: the way this list is meant to be organized. These
Speaker 1: guys are splitting hairs, right. However, what did I say
Speaker 1: the tiers were called bottom tier was like best players
Speaker 1: that can't be the best player in a championship team.
Speaker 1: That second tier was worst players that can be the
Speaker 1: best player in a championship team. The tier that we
Speaker 1: just finished today or finishing Yeah, the tier that we
Speaker 1: just finished today is like superstars that aren't perennial MVP candidates.
Speaker 1: What's my top tier perennial MVP candidates. I think Anthony
Speaker 1: Edwards is going to be a top five MVP candidate
Speaker 1: each of the next five years. He just finished seventh
Speaker 1: in MVP last year, and he wasn't as good in
Speaker 1: the regular season as he was in the postseason. If
Speaker 1: Ant played the way he did in the postseason in
Speaker 1: the regular season, he would have probably finished second or
Speaker 1: third in MVP. That's the thing. It's the cutoff. The
Speaker 1: tier cutoff was perennial MVP candidates. That automatically put Ant
Speaker 1: in at number five for me, because that's the way
Speaker 1: my tears worked. Now, here's the thing. Let's talk about it.
Speaker 1: Out of all those players, So Aunt, Ad, Tatum, lebron
Speaker 1: kd Steph, Embiid, Right, I get that, right? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: think so. So that's our seven guys, let's talk about him.
Speaker 1: Is Embiid gonna win be an MVP candidate next year?
Speaker 1: I don't think so because of load management, right, Anthony Davis,
Speaker 1: I think he has a shot, but I don't think
Speaker 1: the Lakers are good enough and Ad. One of the
Speaker 1: issues is he doesn't play as hard consistently in the
Speaker 1: regular season as some of his piers, So I don't
Speaker 1: think Ad would get it. Is it? Jason Tatum. I
Speaker 1: don't think he's good enough, and I don't think his
Speaker 1: team is good enough. Tatum has just one top five
Speaker 1: MVP finish in his entire career. Is a KD No,
Speaker 1: he's too old, Lebron knows too old. Steph no's too old.
Speaker 1: So that that's really it, Like, of all those guys,
Speaker 1: who's most most likely to be a top five MVP
Speaker 1: candidate each of the next five years, it's obviously I
Speaker 1: think he'll finish third or fourth in MVP next year.
Speaker 1: So like for me, like that just was the cutoff.
Speaker 1: Was ants a perennially perennial MVP candidate Now, within the
Speaker 1: context of the totality of the criteria, I want to
Speaker 1: wait to break that down until we get to the
Speaker 1: show on Monday, and we will go into detail. Because
Speaker 1: the other thing too, is like he's a freaky athlete
Speaker 1: and he plays super hard. He played seventy nine games
Speaker 1: last year and seventy nine games a year before that,
Speaker 1: so like you can book edwards for eighty games and
Speaker 1: an MVP level production. That's a huge value add. And
Speaker 1: then the guy that everyone thinks is a bad playoff player,
Speaker 1: the guy that I'm ranking like nine ten to eleven
Speaker 1: in terms of like for a series that start tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Just averaged twenty eight seven and seven on sixty percent
Speaker 1: tru shooting in a Western Conference Finals run. So like,
Speaker 1: I get it. I know people are lower on ANT
Speaker 1: than I am, and I to be clear, I'm not
Speaker 1: basing this on last year. I am projecting. I think
Speaker 1: ANT is going to be the fifth best foundational piece
Speaker 1: of a franchise for an entire season this coming year.
Speaker 1: That's the way that that is supposed to work. But again,
Speaker 1: we'll get much more into that as we head into
Speaker 1: next week. I think there should be something said about
Speaker 1: players like Giannis, ad and Tatum, who are elite defenders
Speaker 1: but also managed to put up twenty five to thirty
Speaker 1: points per game while being the focal points of their
Speaker 1: respective teams offenses. Yes, their offense may be inconsistent at
Speaker 1: times and not as flashy, but aside from a few
Speaker 1: brutal series, they've been always elite two way playoff performers.
Speaker 1: Totally agree, and by the way, that's why I have
Speaker 1: all those guys ahead of the older guys like Katie
Speaker 1: Lebron and Steph even though those guys are better for
Speaker 1: a playoff series. It's all about like just overall two
Speaker 1: way impact over an eighty two game context. It's just
Speaker 1: a comment I'm gonna read. I don't have any response,
Speaker 1: but it's just a comment that I thought made an
Speaker 1: interesting point about Tatum. I've got to say I appreciate
Speaker 1: hearing all the Tatum defending. I've always loved the show,
Speaker 1: but as a Celtics fan, there have been a few
Speaker 1: times where I was really disappointed with how often you
Speaker 1: pointed out his flaws and how rarely you give him
Speaker 1: credit for what he did right. Don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: in no way a saying that pointing out Tatum's flaws
Speaker 1: wasn't all unwarranted. He does have flaws, and I'll be
Speaker 1: the first one to tell you night tonight. Tatum can
Speaker 1: look like one of the best players in the league,
Speaker 1: and then other days he can have days where he
Speaker 1: smokes four or five easy layups. But even on those
Speaker 1: off nights, he finds ways to impact the game in
Speaker 1: big ways. However, over the course of this last postseason,
Speaker 1: I was very encouraged by Tatum because even with a
Speaker 1: massive shooting slump he was in, he was impacting the
Speaker 1: game in every other way. He intentionally got switches on too.
Speaker 1: Luca drove right past him, forcing someone to come help,
Speaker 1: leading to wide up and kickout passes. I just wanted
Speaker 1: to take time to give you credit for being upfront
Speaker 1: and unbiased. Even when you've said you don't necessarily love
Speaker 1: Tatum's game from time to time, you still give him
Speaker 1: his credit and came to his defense against players. Those
Speaker 1: of us who have watched on the channel for a
Speaker 1: long time know you love and root for so I
Speaker 1: just wanted to be sure you know, as a basketball
Speaker 1: fan that I appreciate the objectivity. And as I said
Speaker 1: in the comment on the last video, he was absolutely right.
Speaker 1: There's one thing we can all agree on. It's about
Speaker 1: the basketball. Love the show. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: the kind words in the sport. And I totally agree
Speaker 1: about your breakdown of Tatum and the way that he
Speaker 1: is discussed. And I know that I've been a little
Speaker 1: too negative with him over the course of the last year.
Speaker 1: The big thing is like, and I was actually tweeting
Speaker 1: about this this morning, like it's interesting, he's a twenty
Speaker 1: six year old superstar, like in the heart of his prime,
Speaker 1: who's in like a massive slump, like a like he
Speaker 1: went from having everything we just talked about in the
Speaker 1: playoffs to like like going oh for sixteen on jump
Speaker 1: shots in the Olympics and getting benched. Like it's just interesting.
Speaker 1: It's an interesting story, and that's why we've been talking
Speaker 1: about it a lot, and like there's something to be
Speaker 1: said about, like consistent success is boring, right, and that's
Speaker 1: something I try to fight against, but it's kind of
Speaker 1: natural that it comes out, and I just have to
Speaker 1: do better job. Ad is a proven number two guy.
Speaker 1: How can he be above Braun when bron leads them
Speaker 1: in all the high leverage moments, runs the offense and
Speaker 1: still outscores Ad per game in the regular season in playoffs.
Speaker 1: First of all, Ady could absolutely win on his own
Speaker 1: with the right roster. I mean we just saw Tatum win.
Speaker 1: I think the Celtics would still win the title if
Speaker 1: they had Ad. I actually think they'd be a little
Speaker 1: better with Ad than if they had Tatum. The main
Speaker 1: reason why is I think if you gave me Jaylen Brown,
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis, Derek White, Drew Holliday, Like, if you gave
Speaker 1: me that type of defensive foundation, I think they'd be
Speaker 1: the best. I think they'd be one of the greatest
Speaker 1: defenses of all time, and then the second piece of
Speaker 1: it is Katie and Steph. You can't, like I understand
Speaker 1: for MVP purposes, Like I don't think Ad is gonna
Speaker 1: win an MVP because he plays next to Lebron, But like,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean AD's not still a top tier superstar.
Speaker 1: Like Kad and Steph played together for years, that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that neither of them get to be called a
Speaker 1: superstar just because they play alongside another one, Like I
Speaker 1: don't like again, like that to me shouldn't matter again,
Speaker 1: like that, it was a different thing in Golden State too,
Speaker 1: because they didn't just have Katie and Steph. They also
Speaker 1: had Clay, They also had Draamond, they also had on
Speaker 1: drag woodall. Like that team was ridiculous. But I don't
Speaker 1: necessarily think for the sake of this type of list
Speaker 1: you would punish a D. Like, for instance, in that
Speaker 1: era that Katie and Steph were playing together, I thought
Speaker 1: they were the second and third best players in the league.
Speaker 1: I like, even though they were playing together, I thought
Speaker 1: it was Lebron, Steph KD Like they were still right there.
Speaker 1: Just so staggering that after twenty years, this guy is
Speaker 1: still an all NBA performers talking about Lebron, I've never
Speaker 1: seen anything like it. And over fifty years following the league,
Speaker 1: players like Kareem had incredible longevity, but none of them
Speaker 1: were playing at this level at the end of their careers.
Speaker 1: Got to be one of the strongest, the strongest reasons
Speaker 1: to think of Lebron as the greatest ever. Jordan may
Speaker 1: have had the greatest peak ever, but he was a
Speaker 1: shell of himself when he retired. What we were watching
Speaker 1: is nearly a miracle. I totally agree, And that's Lebron's case.
Speaker 1: As I've said, like, it is similar kind of framework
Speaker 1: we've crafted this list as like if you were starting
Speaker 1: a season that starts in October. My goat case list
Speaker 1: is like if I was starting a career, like if
Speaker 1: I was launching a franchise, Like if we had all
Speaker 1: thirty franchises starting from scratch and it wasn't just one season,
Speaker 1: but we were playing out those players' careers, I would
Speaker 1: want Lebron as the number one pick because I'm getting
Speaker 1: we're about to have his twenty second straight year of
Speaker 1: like all star level production, and you know, like what
Speaker 1: nineteenth twenty straight year of all NBA level production like that,
Speaker 1: just that gives me as a GM a lot of
Speaker 1: leeway to make mistakes, to figure out what works to
Speaker 1: you know, as we talk about, there's all these other things,
Speaker 1: like sometimes Katie and Steph join each other and they're
Speaker 1: just gonna be really hard to beat. Sometimes your co
Speaker 1: stars get hurt, right, like Kyrie and Kevin love right,
Speaker 1: Like sometimes you your star gets hurt, right, Like, There's
Speaker 1: all these different things that can happen, and so what
Speaker 1: you're really looking for is shots at the table, right
Speaker 1: Like if it's like it's like if we were playing roulette,
Speaker 1: if I but I was placing your bets for you,
Speaker 1: if I gave you just one bet, like you only
Speaker 1: have a you know, slightly below fifty percent chance of winning, right,
Speaker 1: But like if I have if I gave you five chances,
Speaker 1: like you're you're just you're gonna win at like one
Speaker 1: or two of them at least, right, And that's that's
Speaker 1: kind of the way I look at it in terms
Speaker 1: of that goat debate, Like if I have twenty plus
Speaker 1: years of all NBA level production from Lebron, like that
Speaker 1: just gives me a really good chance to win more titles.
Speaker 1: Than the other players that have come in NBA history.
Speaker 1: I'm not a huge Lebron fan, but what's the argument
Speaker 1: for Ad over him or Steph or Durant or Embiid
Speaker 1: Guys that lead their teams and are that and are
Speaker 1: the number one options each night. And we've seen Ad
Speaker 1: lead teams and wasn't very successful although he was healthy
Speaker 1: last season twenty one and twenty two cost of Lakers
Speaker 1: by his injuries. We take Lebron off that team, they're
Speaker 1: worse than you took Ad off of it, same as
Speaker 1: if we switched Steph with Ad. The Lakers are good
Speaker 1: and the Warriors are worse. Between injuries and inconsistently inconsistency offensively,
Speaker 1: How do you have Ad over guys like KD, Curry, Lebron,
Speaker 1: and Embiid? If your take is defense, I would personally
Speaker 1: take an offensive juggernaut over a guy that is inconsistent
Speaker 1: on offense but a defensive anchor. Thanks keep up the
Speaker 1: good work, Thank you for supporting the show. You'll notice
Speaker 1: I have the offensive engines over him. I have you know,
Speaker 1: Shay over him, I have Luca over him, I have
Speaker 1: Jokich over him. The only offensive engines I have below
Speaker 1: him are guys like Embiid or Steph who's Steph's old
Speaker 1: and is showing some signs of decline and Embiid is
Speaker 1: constantly hurt. But I agree that like the offensive engine
Speaker 1: types are over AD, but like AD is a much
Speaker 1: more impactful regular season player than Lebron in my opinion,
Speaker 1: Like if Lebron' sat out a regular season game, you
Speaker 1: felt like Austin di Lo and AD had a good
Speaker 1: chance to win. But if AD was out and they
Speaker 1: were playing somebody decent, it was like automatic loss. That's
Speaker 1: what it felt like as a fan watching. And I
Speaker 1: can't remember the exact numbers, but they're like something like
Speaker 1: three and seven over the last ten games that AD missed,
Speaker 1: so like they pretty consistently lose when he's out. Like
Speaker 1: I again, I'm not gonna put him over the offensive
Speaker 1: engine types at the top of the league, but an
Speaker 1: overall impact, especially with what he brings defensively, I just
Speaker 1: have him above the guys that we have below. And
Speaker 1: I went extensively about that in the earlier part of
Speaker 1: this show. Anthony Edwards and Jason Tatum are not better
Speaker 1: than Lebron Steph for KD again totally agree. Series starts tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Give me Lebron Steph for KD. That's not how it works, though.
Speaker 1: Format of this list is October to June. I need
Speaker 1: to survive the regular season. AT's gonna play seventy nine games.
Speaker 1: Tatum's gonna play seventy four games. They're both gonna put
Speaker 1: up CRAI production, you know, Lebron, Stephan, Katie. They might
Speaker 1: play seventy games. They might also play fifty games. They
Speaker 1: might impact winning at a superstar level for thirty of
Speaker 1: those games and at a star level for another thirty
Speaker 1: of those games, whereas like Jason Tatum are just like
Speaker 1: they're athletic wrecking balls that are gonna play like just
Speaker 1: impact winning a ton over the course of eighty two games.
Speaker 1: Two more questions for the mailback. How much of Lebron's
Speaker 1: effort do you think is laziness and how much is
Speaker 1: necessary coasting or does it not matter? Lack of effort
Speaker 1: is lack of effort either way, that's really it's going
Speaker 1: to be a bit of both. But we've seen what
Speaker 1: happens when Lebron exerts too much throughout the whole game.
Speaker 1: He gets gassed and can't affect the game as much
Speaker 1: in second halves. Love the show. Keep up the great work.
Speaker 1: I think it's one hundred percent necessary coasting. Lebron is
Speaker 1: just too much of a winner in his career to
Speaker 1: be lazy, but he's coasting to try to conserve energy.
Speaker 1: The problem is the Lakers' roster isn't as good as
Speaker 1: you'd like it to be to be able to actually
Speaker 1: allow him to coast the way that he does. Last question, Jason,
Speaker 1: thank you for taking the time to make these videos
Speaker 1: and to read this comment. I want to play a
Speaker 1: little devil's advocate for my guy now that we are
Speaker 1: at the top of the list, and in my opinion,
Speaker 1: he does not belong in this tier. From all of
Speaker 1: the playoff teams last year, only one team did not
Speaker 1: have a top twenty five player on your list. I'm
Speaker 1: sure you know I'm talking about the Orlando Magic. I
Speaker 1: know you had him at twenty six or twenty seven.
Speaker 1: But there are players on the list that are at
Speaker 1: best number two on their team, and some other players
Speaker 1: that have yet to accomplish anything in the NBA. If
Speaker 1: we are basing this list on the upcoming year's potential,
Speaker 1: I find it hard to believe that Palamoncaro is not
Speaker 1: a top twenty five player in the NBA. Thanks, thank
Speaker 1: you again for the time and keep up the great content. Will.
Speaker 1: I'm almost certain he'll be in it next year. He
Speaker 1: was just on the fringe for me. Don't forget. I
Speaker 1: don't see much separation in that bottom tier. So from eighteen,
Speaker 1: which I think was bam all the way to forty five,
Speaker 1: I kind of all have him in a similar grouping.
Speaker 1: Like I think you could make a case for Paul
Speaker 1: George to be on this list. You can make a
Speaker 1: case for James Harden to be on this list. You
Speaker 1: can make a case for Trey Young to be on
Speaker 1: this list. You can make a case for Palamonkaro to
Speaker 1: be on this list. A bunch of different guys that
Speaker 1: we can look at there. I'm a huge fan of
Speaker 1: Palo that he had incredibly impressive first round playoff series.
Speaker 1: The Magic are going to be a team we cover
Speaker 1: very closely this year. But yeah, he just didn't just
Speaker 1: barely miss the cut for me in this year, And
Speaker 1: the main reason why is like, I don't think he's
Speaker 1: good enough as a number one yet to really get
Speaker 1: his team that close. The jump shooting and kind of
Speaker 1: just overall half court decision making piece just has a
Speaker 1: long way to go. But I'm a huge believer in Palo.
Speaker 1: Like I remember, we got in a big debate me
Speaker 1: and Sam Vessini and he's he's a big Franz Wagner guy,
Speaker 1: and I'm a big Palo guy. And like that's kind
Speaker 1: of where him and I disagree, is like he thinks
Speaker 1: Franz is going to be the best player in the
Speaker 1: long run. I think Palo is going to be really
Speaker 1: excited to see how that all shakes out though, especially
Speaker 1: now that we add KCP into the mix as a
Speaker 1: real veteran two guard. All right, guys, that's all I
Speaker 1: have for today and for the weekend. We'll be back.
Speaker 1: We will be back starting with number five and number
Speaker 1: four next Monday. As always, I appreciate you guys, and
Speaker 1: we will see you then. The Volume the NFL seasons
Speaker 1: right around the corner, will be breaking down all the
Speaker 1: off season storylines on the Collin Cowherd podcast, my best
Speaker 1: takes guests like my buddy Nick Wright. Check out the
Speaker 1: Callin Coward podcast, part of the Volume network, available on Apple, Spotify,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.