Speaker 1: The volume.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, goo to hoops tonight, you're at the
Speaker 2: volume heavy Monday, everybody. Oh ball, If you guys had
Speaker 2: a great weekend. I'm back in my Tucson studio. We
Speaker 2: booked a couple of vacations this summer. We're going to
Speaker 2: Alaska in early August and then we're doing the Pacific
Speaker 2: Northwest and September, which we've done a few years in
Speaker 2: a row now. We love it up there, but we
Speaker 2: booked all of the flights out of Tucson, and we
Speaker 2: have three dogs, so we've been relying on some help
Speaker 2: to care for the.
Speaker 1: Dogs when we travel.
Speaker 2: So I'm gonna be like kind of hopping back and
Speaker 2: forth between the Tucson studio and the Denver studio over
Speaker 2: the course of August in early September, but then I'll
Speaker 2: officially be a full timer up there when we get
Speaker 2: into September. We are starting our player rankings today. The
Speaker 2: off season's basically done. We're waiting around on some warrior
Speaker 2: stuff and when that happens, we'll obviously react when the
Speaker 2: time comes. But it is the dead season of the NBA,
Speaker 2: and so this is a great time. This is the
Speaker 2: fourth year in a row and we have taken a
Speaker 2: dive into player rankings. We do the top twenty five
Speaker 2: players in the NBA. We go into extensive detail on
Speaker 2: each player, looking back at their last season, their strengths
Speaker 2: and weaknesses, what we can expect from them in the
Speaker 2: coming season. We get into rationale is why guys are
Speaker 2: ranked where they're ranked. We have a ton of fun
Speaker 2: with it. Over the course of the summer. We don't
Speaker 2: have Olympic basketball this year, is a little bit of
Speaker 2: a break. We might get a little bit of a
Speaker 2: EuroBasket as we get into late August, which I'm particularly
Speaker 2: excited about, especially on the heels of that Men's Health
Speaker 2: magazine article this morning talking about Luka doncis getting into
Speaker 2: great shape. I'm gonna have some more thoughts about that
Speaker 2: when we talk about Luca's allegedly pending extension, which we
Speaker 2: will get to at some point or over the course
Speaker 2: of the next week. But it's a pretty dead summer,
Speaker 2: so lots of time for us to get into our
Speaker 2: player rankings today. What I'm going to do is I'm
Speaker 2: going to dive into our rules so that everyone understands
Speaker 2: the criteria we use. It's something that is obviously an
Speaker 2: inexact science. It is like impossible to scientifically rank all
Speaker 2: of the players in the NBA because there's no such
Speaker 2: thing as a metric that accurately captures a basketball players impact,
Speaker 2: and so there's a lot of subjectivity involved. But we
Speaker 2: just do the best we can, and we try to
Speaker 2: stick to a set of rules, and so I'm gonna
Speaker 2: go over the specific rules that we use. I use
Speaker 2: different rules each of the first three seasons. Last year,
Speaker 2: I kind of settled on a specific format that I
Speaker 2: really like, and so for the first time, we're actually
Speaker 2: repeating that format coming into this year's rankings. I'm going
Speaker 2: to talk a little bit about some of the guys
Speaker 2: that didn't make the cut this year and why some
Speaker 2: specific guys who dropped out, why they dropped out, who
Speaker 2: my final cuts were. So we're gonna do a bunch
Speaker 2: of that kind of stuff right off of the top,
Speaker 2: and then we're gonna get into the first two players
Speaker 2: on the list today, so number twenty five and number
Speaker 2: twenty four, and then on Wednesday this week, we're gonna
Speaker 2: get into the next four players on the list, so
Speaker 2: six players total in the first couple of days of
Speaker 2: this week. You guys know, the jop before we get started.
Speaker 2: To subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you
Speaker 2: don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on
Speaker 2: Twitter at underscore jcnlt so you guys don't miss sho announcements.
Speaker 2: Don't forget about a podcast fee where you get your
Speaker 2: pocast under Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you
Speaker 2: leave a rating and a review on that front. Jackson's
Speaker 2: doing great work on our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram,
Speaker 2: Facebook and TikTok. Make sure you guys follow us over there.
Speaker 2: In the last but not least, keep dropping mail bag
Speaker 2: questions in the YouTube comments. So we're gonna change the
Speaker 2: way we do our mail bags over the course of
Speaker 2: the next couple of months. I want to try to
Speaker 2: gear them towards the player rankings as much as possible.
Speaker 2: That doesn't mean you can't ask any other mail back questions.
Speaker 2: You guys can ask whatever you want. But one of
Speaker 2: the things that's fun about this is there is a
Speaker 2: lot of debate. You can argue, we're gonna talk about
Speaker 2: it with our tiers, but with the way these guys
Speaker 2: line up in tiers, I don't see much of a
Speaker 2: gap between player five and player fourteen on this list,
Speaker 2: or player fifteen and the fortieth guy that didn't make
Speaker 2: the list. I don't see huge gaps there. You can
Speaker 2: argue players way up and down this list because how
Speaker 2: close these players are and how different they are in
Speaker 2: their archetypes and their specific value in different parts of
Speaker 2: the game of basketball. This is up for debate, right,
Speaker 2: So what I want you guys to do is, if
Speaker 2: you have a specific ranking that you disagree with, a
Speaker 2: player you think is underrated, a player you think is overrated,
Speaker 2: whatever it is in your mail bag question, make a
Speaker 2: quick elevator pitch as brief as possible, but make a
Speaker 2: basketball case for why you disagree with the player and
Speaker 2: where he's ranked on this list, And in our Friday
Speaker 2: mail bags, we'll just debate. I'll read out your guys'
Speaker 2: basketball case for why you feel differently, I'll explain whether
Speaker 2: or not I agree with something you're saying or I disagree.
Speaker 2: We'll kind of have those Friday mail bags be more
Speaker 2: geared towards debating these rankings. So make sure you guys
Speaker 2: drop your questions again under the full episodes right mail
Speaker 2: bag with a colon, explain why you disagree and we'll
Speaker 2: get to them in those Friday mail bags.
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk some basketball.
Speaker 2: So, like I mentioned earlier, we've treaked the criteria each
Speaker 2: of the first three years, but I really like the
Speaker 2: criteria we lose last year, so we're gonna run it
Speaker 2: back this year. Our criteria is actually very simple. Who
Speaker 2: is the best player to have on your team from
Speaker 2: the start of this coming training camp, so October twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five through the end of this year's coming playoff
Speaker 2: run in June of twenty twenty six. That's it. That's
Speaker 2: the criteria. Now, it implies several things, which we'll get into,
Speaker 2: but it's that simple. Who's the best guy to lead
Speaker 2: your team from the start of this coming season to
Speaker 2: the end of this coming season. So, first of all,
Speaker 2: we are looking forward, not backward, but we're obviously going
Speaker 2: to use the past to inform the future. This is
Speaker 2: not a list of just who had the best season
Speaker 2: last year. There are guys on this list, even near
Speaker 2: the top, who had better seasons than guys that will
Speaker 2: rank ahead of them in this list because I expect
Speaker 2: that dynamic to flip in this coming season. What else
Speaker 2: is valuable availability and night to night regular season impact
Speaker 2: is being weighed as a real factor here. Take just
Speaker 2: a random couple of players. Take Steph Curry and Anthony Edwards.
Speaker 2: If we're playing one single playoff game or one single
Speaker 2: playoff series that starts tomorrow and everyone's healthy, I think
Speaker 2: Steph's a better player than Anthony Edwards. I just think
Speaker 2: he's a better all around basketball player with the better
Speaker 2: understanding of how to win in like very very tough
Speaker 2: playoff environments. But Anthony Edwards plays seventy nine games every
Speaker 2: season like clockwork, and Steph literally just broke down against
Speaker 2: him in a second round series because Steph had to
Speaker 2: go pedal to the medal for three straight months to
Speaker 2: end the season, because this team was trying to claw
Speaker 2: their way out of the play in tournament, right, and
Speaker 2: because he's thirty seven years old, he's just a little
Speaker 2: bit more susceptible to breaking down right than a twenty
Speaker 2: three year old is. So when we're comparing those two guys,
Speaker 2: it's not just as simple as who is better. It's
Speaker 2: a combination of all those factors. Steph and him just
Speaker 2: being a better basketball player when he's healthy is going
Speaker 2: to weigh in Steph's favor. But Anthony Edwards and his
Speaker 2: youthful exuberance and energy and durability is going to weigh
Speaker 2: in Anthony Edwards's favor, and all of those factors put
Speaker 2: together is going to help place those players on this
Speaker 2: particular list. Also, guys like Jason Tatum, Damian Lillard, Tyrese Halliburton,
Speaker 2: guys who were all on this list last year, they're
Speaker 2: simply not on the list this year because they will
Speaker 2: not play, so they do not bring any value between
Speaker 2: the start of October twenty twenty five training camp and
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty six playoff runt, So they will be
Speaker 2: removed from the list for this year, and they will
Speaker 2: re enter the list next summer when we're discussing them
Speaker 2: as players that are going to play. That's just the
Speaker 2: rules of this particular list. It also opens up space
Speaker 2: on this list for new guys to enter, well for
Speaker 2: guys that used to be on the list to re
Speaker 2: enter the list. That's three spots that would typically be
Speaker 2: taken up by those guys that other guys will get
Speaker 2: to take up. But ultimately, the goal is to win
Speaker 2: an NBA championship. So it's not just night to night availability,
Speaker 2: it's the combination of everything. Night to night availability leadership,
Speaker 2: producing statistically at a high level throughout the season, and
Speaker 2: being able to thrive when everything shifts to playoff basketball,
Speaker 2: which as we all know, can be so very different,
Speaker 2: not just in one or two playoff games, but through
Speaker 2: in the end of a playoff series, when teams make
Speaker 2: adjustments and start to figure out your strengths and weaknesses,
Speaker 2: and the on ball defenders get a little bit more
Speaker 2: keyed in to your quirks and start to figure out
Speaker 2: how to guard you better.
Speaker 1: Or as you.
Speaker 2: Change from round to round and the circumstances around change,
Speaker 2: and it just gets harder for you to succeed the
Speaker 2: way you were earlier in that playoff runt. All of
Speaker 2: that stuff factors in. That's why I love this criteria.
Speaker 2: That's why I'm sticking with it. I think it accurately
Speaker 2: represents what the job is, which is to lead a
Speaker 2: basketball team from October through June and giving your team
Speaker 2: the best possible shot at the trophy. Last note, and
Speaker 2: I had to say this last year, and it's just
Speaker 2: important for people to understand. In terms of the way
Speaker 2: these rankings come together. I have the players separated into
Speaker 2: three tiers. There are top tier superstars. These are the
Speaker 2: guys who night to night play at the peak of
Speaker 2: modern basketball. Consistency is the expectation, it's the norm. Then
Speaker 2: the second tier guys, second tier secondary superstars. These are
Speaker 2: the guys who are capable on any given night of
Speaker 2: reaching the same level of the top guys in the league,
Speaker 2: but they struggle to maintain it. Whether it's because they're
Speaker 2: too old, or they've dealt with injury concerns over their careers,
Speaker 2: or just general youthful inconsistency from young players. You will
Speaker 2: see Ky Cunningham on certain nights look like he could
Speaker 2: be one of the best players in the world, but
Speaker 2: then he's susceptible to inconsistency because he's a young player.
Speaker 2: Right Those guys are still every bit as valuable on
Speaker 2: singular occasions, but they don't bring the night to night value.
Speaker 2: That's our second tier superstars, our third tier stars. These
Speaker 2: are guys who are worth the max and near max
Speaker 2: contracts that they're on. They bring enough impact to justify
Speaker 2: the money, but they probably can't be the best player
Speaker 2: on a championship team. They need a lot of support
Speaker 2: and they probably need a better player than them in
Speaker 2: order to reach the promised Land. Within each of those tiers,
Speaker 2: the players are incredibly closely ranked. So for instance, the
Speaker 2: guy that I have on fourteen in this list could
Speaker 2: very easily be argued as high as five or vice versa,
Speaker 2: and everybody in that range can be argued anywhere in
Speaker 2: that range. Similarly, for the third tier spots, there are
Speaker 2: eleven players between fifteen and twenty five. I considered twenty
Speaker 2: six players for those eleven spots, which means there are
Speaker 2: fifteen guys who did not make this list that absolutely
Speaker 2: have an argument to potentially be as high as fifteen.
Speaker 2: John Moran didn't make my list, you could make a
Speaker 2: basketball case for him being as high as fifteenth on
Speaker 2: this list. So that what I'm trying to say is
Speaker 2: I totally understand if you guys disagree with the order.
Speaker 2: That's part of the fun of this. That's why it's
Speaker 2: a debate. That's why we're doing those mail bags at
Speaker 2: the end of the week where I want you guys
Speaker 2: to argue so that we can get into it a
Speaker 2: little bit. So again, literally, if you'd disagree with anything
Speaker 2: that we have in this list, write it in the
Speaker 2: mail bag, make an elevator, pitch a quick breakdown of
Speaker 2: why you disagree, and we'll get into it. That's the
Speaker 2: whole fun of this. It's supposed to be fun. If anything,
Speaker 2: this guy's will just this list will give you guys
Speaker 2: a better look at the way I see the game
Speaker 2: of basketball, just to help you guys understand why I
Speaker 2: rank players the way with the way I rank them,
Speaker 2: Why I value specific skill sets over others, and so
Speaker 2: on and so forth. Now, before we get started, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna list the fifteen guys who didn't make the list
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Speaker 2: and I'm gonna explain who the final cuts were, and
Speaker 2: again these are in no particular order. John Morant, Zion Williamson,
Speaker 2: Julius Randall, Demona Simonis, Alpern, Shangoon, Darius Garland, DeMar Derozen Brandon, Ingram,
Speaker 2: Zach Lavine, Franz Wagner, Tyler Harrow, Daron Fox, Tyrese Maxey,
Speaker 2: Karl Anthony Towns, and James Harden. Those are the guys
Speaker 2: that were in that list of twenty five players that
Speaker 2: I considered for the final or twenty six players that
Speaker 2: I considered for the final eleven spots. A couple of
Speaker 2: specifics that I want to get into, just four specific
Speaker 2: guys I want to briefly touch on. First of all,
Speaker 2: both the Aaron Fox and Tyrese Maxey were on this
Speaker 2: list last year in the twenties range, and they fell off.
Speaker 2: Both of them substantially declined as ump shooters and that
Speaker 2: ended up limiting their effectiveness. Taron Fox went from having
Speaker 2: a pretty good shooting season to being below thirty percent
Speaker 2: on catch and shoot jump shots this year. A Tyrese
Speaker 2: Maxi catch and shoot jump shot two years ago was
Speaker 2: worth one point three to one points down to one
Speaker 2: point zero five points in this last season. That's twenty
Speaker 2: six points per one hundred catch and shoot jump shots. Worse,
Speaker 2: the two things that made these guys clear top twenty
Speaker 2: five guys was their combination of elite downhill force with
Speaker 2: the jump shot to counter and the jump shot to
Speaker 2: play off the ball. And when their jumpers aren't as
Speaker 2: dialed in, they're simply not as effective. And so for
Speaker 2: those two guys, it was the decline in jump shooting
Speaker 2: that dropped them off the list our final two cuts.
Speaker 2: As you can imagine, when I started with that forty,
Speaker 2: I started pulling guys off, and eventually I got down
Speaker 2: to twenty seven out of the twenty five I needed
Speaker 2: to grab, or more like if you specifically with that
Speaker 2: final tier of eleven, and I was looking at thirteen
Speaker 2: players for the final tier of eleven, and I had
Speaker 2: to cut two guys. So the final two cuts ended
Speaker 2: up being James Harden in Karl Anthony Towns. So on
Speaker 2: the one hand, it's important to acknowledge I viewed both
Speaker 2: of those guys as top twenty seven players in the NBA,
Speaker 2: or above the other thirteen guys that I listed earlier.
Speaker 2: But The reason why I cut these two guys was
Speaker 2: specific to the playoffs. James Harden, again in his last
Speaker 2: two playoff losses this year, in Game five and Game
Speaker 2: seven against Denver, didn't even attempt ten shots in either game,
Speaker 2: totaled just eighteen points on five for seventeen shooting in
Speaker 2: two games combined, two must win games combined. Consistently, in
Speaker 2: James Harden's career, when his back is against the wall,
Speaker 2: he simply loses his mojo. It's not like he plays
Speaker 2: with his usual level of aggression and shots just don't fall,
Speaker 2: or he has a couple more turnovers than usual. He
Speaker 2: straight up loses everything that makes him James Harden in
Speaker 2: those big playoff games at the end of series. And
Speaker 2: it's happened so many times over the course of his
Speaker 2: career that it's something you literally have to plan for
Speaker 2: as an organization. I'm a big believer in James Harden
Speaker 2: and his value as a regular season offensive engine. We
Speaker 2: discussed this extensively already this summer with regards to the
Speaker 2: new contract that he signed. I even think his playoff
Speaker 2: struggles are a little bit more complicated. They're kind of
Speaker 2: geared towards the tail end of series big moments. He's
Speaker 2: had some monster playoff games over the last few years
Speaker 2: mixed in with excruciatingly bad, but he's had some awesome
Speaker 2: playoff games. He was great in Game six against them,
Speaker 2: for example, but those playoff limitations ended up making him
Speaker 2: one of the final cuts this year. Karl Anthony Towns,
Speaker 2: it's about the downright damaging lack of attention to detail
Speaker 2: on anything outside of his typical offensive game. I literally
Speaker 2: can't get the image out of my head from Game
Speaker 2: six against Indiana of him making poor pop role decisions
Speaker 2: like rolling into the lane when there's already multiple players
Speaker 2: in the dunker spot, or you know, crashing off the
Speaker 2: top of the key, crashing the offensive glass when he
Speaker 2: has get back responsibility. He was screaming off the tape
Speaker 2: in game six as one of the main reasons why
Speaker 2: they got blown off the floor against Indiana in game six,
Speaker 2: or on defense him just throwing some crazy hedge out
Speaker 2: thirty five feet from the rim when the guard hasn't
Speaker 2: even used the screen yet and the guard just simply
Speaker 2: rejects the screen and now Karl Anthony Towns is thirty
Speaker 2: five feet away from the rim being completely useless, while
Speaker 2: giving up a wide open layup or a wide open dunk.
Speaker 2: He is just so undisciplined outside of his offensive game
Speaker 2: that it massively undercuts his offensive production. And again it's
Speaker 2: a shame because he is he is a great offensive player,
Speaker 2: and that separates him from even players above this list.
Speaker 2: As an offensive player, he was eighth in playoff scoring
Speaker 2: this year among players who played at least ten games
Speaker 2: fifty nine percent true shooting. He made third team All
Speaker 2: NBA this year for his regular season production. But again,
Speaker 2: as we mentioned in the criteria, the idea like one
Speaker 2: of the things when we're talking about getting through from
Speaker 2: October all the way through June, one of the important
Speaker 2: details is like, are you good enough on defense that
Speaker 2: we can at least run a functional defensive scheme with
Speaker 2: you on the floor. Can we scale up our defense
Speaker 2: to where it needs to get. One of the things
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about when we get to the
Speaker 2: first player on our list is I view two different
Speaker 2: kinds of bad defenders in the NBA. There's bad defenders
Speaker 2: that have their athletic limitations. They're small, they're slow, whatever
Speaker 2: it might be. But they understand defense. They know where
Speaker 2: to be, they understand how to fill a role in
Speaker 2: his scheme. They can kind of see things coming, They
Speaker 2: have good defensive instincts. These are the guys that can
Speaker 2: scale up their defense in the postseason context, even with
Speaker 2: their athletic limitations. Then there are bad defenders who like
Speaker 2: straight up don't understand defense. It's less about athleticism. And
Speaker 2: there are great athletes that fall into this category, but
Speaker 2: they don't know where to be. They have poor instincts,
Speaker 2: They make poor help recover to situations, leaving a shooter
Speaker 2: when they shouldn't, not helping when they should, missing basic
Speaker 2: details like box outs and corner crashes, or excuse me,
Speaker 2: a crackdown rebounding from the wing. To try to help
Speaker 2: your bigs when they're engaged in box outs like they're
Speaker 2: just they're undisciplined in the details. That is a kind
Speaker 2: of defense that you cannot scale up with in the postseason.
Speaker 2: If anything, it gets further exposed. And Kat falls into
Speaker 2: that second category of bad defender, and that for me
Speaker 2: was what ended up keeping him out of this list,
Speaker 2: making him one of the final cuts. But again it's
Speaker 2: important for me to acknowledge both hard and and cat
Speaker 2: I had at twenty six and twenty seven in this list.
Speaker 2: So on that note, let's get started again. Two players today,
Speaker 2: number twenty five and number twenty four. Number twenty five
Speaker 2: Jamal Murray, a player that was as high as number
Speaker 2: sixteen two years ago after they won the title, when
Speaker 2: he averaged a preposterous stat line on the way to
Speaker 2: hoisting the trophy, and then actually dropping out of the
Speaker 2: list last year after a brutal shooting performance outside of
Speaker 2: a couple of game winners in his playoff run last season.
Speaker 2: In review for Jamal Murray, you played in sixty seven games,
Speaker 2: averaged twenty one points, four rebounds, and six assists, one
Speaker 2: point nine stocks. He's one of those guys who falls
Speaker 2: into that set, that first category of like players that
Speaker 2: has some athletic limitations, but that he understands defense. We're
Speaker 2: going to get into that more later, but he is
Speaker 2: a good defensive playmaker. His one point four steals per
Speaker 2: game is the same as guys like Amn Thompson and
Speaker 2: Jimmy Butler. He's a good defensive playmaker. His efficiency, he
Speaker 2: was forty seven percent from the field last year, thirty
Speaker 2: nine percent from three, eighty nine percent from the line,
Speaker 2: fifty four percent in effective field goal percentage. That's field
Speaker 2: goals waited for weighted for threes, and then fifty eight
Speaker 2: percent true shooting, which waits his ability to get to
Speaker 2: the foul line. His playtype data we're going to get
Speaker 2: into this. This is data for throughout this entire list.
Speaker 2: This data is from Synergy and it's specifically about how
Speaker 2: efficient each player is out of certain types of action.
Speaker 2: So pick and rolls, for examples, ISOs post ups, attacking
Speaker 2: closeouts for our big guy scoring out a role man
Speaker 2: touches things along those lines right in pick and roll.
Speaker 2: Jamal ran eight hundred and fifty seven pick and rolls
Speaker 2: last year, and he got one point zero nine points
Speaker 2: per possession including passes. That's in the eighty fifth percent
Speaker 2: tile out of the twenty three players to run at
Speaker 2: least eight hundred pick and rolls last year. His one
Speaker 2: point zero nine points per possession ranked sixth on that list.
Speaker 2: Jamal is the quintessential modern NBA pick and roll player
Speaker 2: because he can make all of the shots and all
Speaker 2: of the reads out of every conceivable situation that he
Speaker 2: would run into playing pick and roll with Nikole Jokich. So,
Speaker 2: for instance, you duck under a pick against Jamal in
Speaker 2: a ball screen, or if you die on the pick
Speaker 2: and you let him get a clean look. He shot
Speaker 2: over forty percent on off the dribble threes last year.
Speaker 2: You cannot go under or die on the pick against
Speaker 2: Jamal if you get over the top, but you're separated
Speaker 2: at all because you get caught a little bit on
Speaker 2: the pick, or he just shed you with a move
Speaker 2: that sets you up for the pick. He can score
Speaker 2: effectively in the mid range. He's forty six percent on
Speaker 2: mid range pull out twos, and he's just as efficient
Speaker 2: outside as seventeen feet as he is inside of seventeen feet.
Speaker 2: A very good mid range jump shooter, forty three percent
Speaker 2: on floaters, so he can make the shots in the
Speaker 2: short to mid range that you get if you run
Speaker 2: into the pick. And then he finishes at the rim
Speaker 2: better than most guards. He was sixty percent at the
Speaker 2: rim last year. Five attempts per game. That's really good.
Speaker 2: And then he's an underrated playmaker out of action. He's
Speaker 2: averaged six point two assists per game in the three
Speaker 2: seasons since his knee injury, at roughly a three to
Speaker 2: one assist The turnover ratio not an offensive engine like
Speaker 2: some of the other guys we will discuss on this list,
Speaker 2: but he can make the reads. But most importantly, and
Speaker 2: this is the separator from Jamal, for Jamal from many
Speaker 2: of the other players, even some guys that are above
Speaker 2: him on this list. In the event of a switch
Speaker 2: or a situation that calls for one on one, he
Speaker 2: is still one of the very best one on one
Speaker 2: players in the NBA. He ran two hundred and five
Speaker 2: fifty ISOs and post ups last year including passes, and
Speaker 2: generated two hundred and sixty five points out of them.
Speaker 2: That's one point zero six point per possession, which is
Speaker 2: very good for one on one play, specifically with ISOs.
Speaker 2: His one point zero four points per possession including passes
Speaker 2: ranked thirteenth out of the fifty two players to run
Speaker 2: at least one hundred and fifty ISOs last year, ahead
Speaker 2: of big names like Steph Curry, Lebron James, Jason Tatum,
Speaker 2: Donovan Mitchell. He is remarkably gifted at getting separation with
Speaker 2: dribble combinations. In footwork, he can shoot step backs and
Speaker 2: side steps and turn around jump shots over both shoulders.
Speaker 2: He can get wherever he wants to on the floor,
Speaker 2: get separation from defenders, and his shot making ability is incredible,
Speaker 2: and so that's what makes him such an incredible two
Speaker 2: man game partner with Nikola JOKICCH Jokic is an excellent
Speaker 2: screener and he has great role man gravity. Right guys
Speaker 2: gravitate towards him on the roll, so he gets good
Speaker 2: separation in ball screens and in those situations forty percent
Speaker 2: on pull up threes, forty six percent on pull up twos,
Speaker 2: forty three percent on floaters, sixty percent at the rim.
Speaker 2: He's very efficient making any shot that he might need
Speaker 2: to make coming off of action with Nikola JOKICCH. But
Speaker 2: then if you switch, he's going to be able to
Speaker 2: burn a big man or to post up a small
Speaker 2: He's got the versatility as a one on one player
Speaker 2: to fulfill the other side of the two man game
Speaker 2: equation with Nikola Jokic. That is the separator. That's what
Speaker 2: makes him so uniquely impactful alongside NIKOLEA. Jokic relative to
Speaker 2: his like in a vacuum type of value, he doesn't
Speaker 2: really have a weakness on offense. If you leave him
Speaker 2: wide open, he's a great catch and shoot player. He's
Speaker 2: forty one point four percent on unguarded catch and shoot
Speaker 2: jump shot. Last year, he can drive a close out.
Speaker 2: He finishes extremely well on cuts for a guard. He
Speaker 2: shoots seventy one percent on cuts because he's a good
Speaker 2: rim finisher. In the playoffs, he had his late his
Speaker 2: like ups and downs. This is worth mentioning with Jamal,
Speaker 2: but one of the things that's kind of prevented his
Speaker 2: up and down shot making In terms of postseason consistency,
Speaker 2: He's been so good late in games that it undoes
Speaker 2: most of the damage from that kind of inconsistent shooting.
Speaker 2: He's hit in the last three playoff runs sixteen clut shots,
Speaker 2: including multiple buzzer beaters. He is one of the most
Speaker 2: dependable late game shot makers in the NBA, which gives
Speaker 2: him a ton of postseason utility. Now he has his downsides,
Speaker 2: Jamal can be a very frustrating player because of his lows.
Speaker 2: He's notorious for coming into training camp out of shape
Speaker 2: and then playing his way into shape. His seasons tend
Speaker 2: to take on this repetitive flow where he gets in
Speaker 2: shape and plays really well in the middle portion of
Speaker 2: the season, but then his body starts to break down.
Speaker 2: He's had to miss a decent chunk of time right
Speaker 2: before the postseason in each of the last two years,
Speaker 2: those injuries end up then disrupting his rhythm and preventing
Speaker 2: him from getting to that level of consistency. Again, if
Speaker 2: you look during the title run, he averaged twenty six
Speaker 2: point six rebounds and seven assists on fifty nine percent
Speaker 2: true shooting. He's shown it before that for four playoff
Speaker 2: rounds he can be a reliable score. He just hasn't
Speaker 2: been able to replicate the necessary conditioning in that conditioning
Speaker 2: is directly related to you being able to sustain certain
Speaker 2: little bang up injuries that you might get over the
Speaker 2: course of the year. The stuff with defense with Jamal
Speaker 2: I'm less concerned with. Again, like we talked about earlier,
Speaker 2: there are two different kinds of bad defenders. Guys who
Speaker 2: just straight up don't understand defense and are constantly in
Speaker 2: the wrong place. These are mistake makers. They incessantly make mistakes,
Speaker 2: and it makes them impossible to bring or build a
Speaker 2: good defense around. Then there's the guys that are limited
Speaker 2: athletes and because of their offensive focus, they might have
Speaker 2: a lot of like laziness in the regular season, or
Speaker 2: it's less about them not understanding where to be, but
Speaker 2: them just being like bah, fuck it, We'll try it
Speaker 2: again on the next possession, or we'll do it at
Speaker 2: the end of the game when we need to. Right,
Speaker 2: there are a lot of guys who fall into that category.
Speaker 2: Jamal falls into that category. And in that category, these
Speaker 2: are guys that have high IQ, that do understand defense,
Speaker 2: do know where to be, do know when to rotate,
Speaker 2: when not to, how to fulfill a role in a defense.
Speaker 2: Those guys can scale up their defense when they need to.
Speaker 2: And it's absolutely worth mentioning that the Nuggets have been
Speaker 2: able to scale up their defense to where they need
Speaker 2: to get in the playoffs, winning the title in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three. Last year, they did about as good a
Speaker 2: job guarding Oklahoma City as anybody in that playoff run
Speaker 2: because of their intelligence, their overall cumulative intelligence on the
Speaker 2: defensive end of the floor. And Jamal Murray was part
Speaker 2: of that. And he's a good defensive playmaker. But the
Speaker 2: conditioning stuff is real and it obviously comes with inconsistency
Speaker 2: that has hurt his team at times over the years.
Speaker 2: That's what prevents Jamal from reaching his potential again. I've
Speaker 2: had him as high as number sixteen on this list
Speaker 2: two summers ago. After they won the title. He is
Speaker 2: capable of getting back to that level if he can
Speaker 2: work on those conditioning details and maximize his talent over
Speaker 2: the course of an entire season. For all to talk about,
Speaker 2: you know, Nikole Jochitz never playing with an All Star
Speaker 2: or an All NBA player, we all know.
Speaker 1: That Jamal Murray can get to that level.
Speaker 2: Maybe not All NBA, but he certainly can get to
Speaker 2: that All Star level as one of the top, you know,
Speaker 2: sixteen to twenty five players in the NBA. He just
Speaker 2: has to maximize through his conditioning to start seasons. But
Speaker 2: even in his current state as a basketball player, he's
Speaker 2: one of the most valuable players in the league, especially
Speaker 2: in his very specific role alongside Nikole Yokic, which is
Speaker 2: his ability to score and playmake out of every conceivable situation,
Speaker 2: including switches. It's truly unique. There's not a lot of guards,
Speaker 2: including the next guy we're going to discuss on this list,
Speaker 2: that have that level of versatility, and it's what allows
Speaker 2: Jamal to come in at number twenty five on this
Speaker 2: year's list. Number twenty four Tray Young. Last season in review,
Speaker 2: he played in seventy six games, average twenty four points,
Speaker 2: three rebounds and twelve assists, one point four stocks. Decent
Speaker 2: steels guy. Over the course of the last couple seasons,
Speaker 2: his efficiency forty one percent from the field, thirty four
Speaker 2: percent from three eighty eight percent from the foul line
Speaker 2: represents forty nine percent an effective field goal percentage fifty
Speaker 2: seven percent in true shooting. This is a lot having
Speaker 2: to do with his throw rate. He's a high free
Speaker 2: throw rate, and he shoots the ball well when he
Speaker 2: gets to the foul line. That allows him to have
Speaker 2: a high true shooting percentage relative to his actual ability
Speaker 2: to put the ball in the basket. Play type data
Speaker 2: consistently one of the highest volume pick and roll players
Speaker 2: in the NBA. He ran over two thousand pick and
Speaker 2: rolls last year including passes. For perspective, when I've done
Speaker 2: the high volume pick and roll list each summer, I
Speaker 2: typically have the cutoff at one thousand. He's ran over
Speaker 2: two thousand. Shake Gilges Alexander ran the second most last year,
Speaker 2: fourteen hundred and ten, so a massive gap in pick
Speaker 2: and roll volume between Trey and the rest of the league.
Speaker 2: Trey ran two thousand and seventy eight pick and rolls
Speaker 2: last year, generating twenty two hundred points. It's one point
Speaker 2: zero six points per possession. That's very good on the
Speaker 2: high volume list. Out of the thirteen players to run
Speaker 2: at least one thousand pick and rolls, his one point
Speaker 2: zero six points per possession ranked eight. Now, before we
Speaker 2: go any further, I want to shout out Tyres Haliburton
Speaker 2: and Damian Lillard here. Those two guys actually came in
Speaker 2: at number one and number two on this list as
Speaker 2: the most efficient pick and role players in the NBA,
Speaker 2: but obviously they didn't make the list this year because
Speaker 2: of their Achilles tears. I want to particularly draw attention
Speaker 2: to Tyrese Halliburton. He ran over fifteen hundred pick and
Speaker 2: rolls last year, including the playoffs, and got one point
Speaker 2: one to three points per possession, which was far and
Speaker 2: away number one in the NBA and total efficiency. I've
Speaker 2: talked a lot about Tyrese Haliburton's kind of like offensive
Speaker 2: engine capabilities and just how uniquely valuable it is in
Speaker 2: the modern NBA that he can constantly set guys up
Speaker 2: with advantages, and I just wanted to shine a light
Speaker 2: on Tyree's for a second, because, like again, including the postseason,
Speaker 2: massive volume over fifteen hundred pick and rolls. His efficiency
Speaker 2: was three points better per one hundred possessions than anyone
Speaker 2: else in the NBA. Just one of the very best
Speaker 2: offensive engines in the sport. I just wanted to take
Speaker 2: a minute to shout out Tyre Saliburton. With Trey, it's
Speaker 2: important to acknowledge he's playing with less offensive talent than
Speaker 2: many of the high volume pick and roll guys in
Speaker 2: the league. The Hawks ranked eighteenth in spot of efficiency.
Speaker 2: They were a bottom half catch and shoot team. They
Speaker 2: generated more roleman touches than anyone in the league, but
Speaker 2: they were very mediocre at finishing them. This is not
Speaker 2: a team that surrounds Trey Young with super high level
Speaker 2: offensive talent. Trey was a remarkable offensive engine for a
Speaker 2: group of pretty young and pretty flawed offensive players. Yet
Speaker 2: they still had a one point fifteen point two offensive
Speaker 2: rating when he was on the floor last year that
Speaker 2: would crack the top ten among teams in the NBA.
Speaker 2: Their offense cratered to eight points worse per one hundred
Speaker 2: possessions when he was off the floor. For Trey, he
Speaker 2: falls into that category of relentless advantage creation concept we've
Speaker 2: discussed with respect to James Harden, you know, Nikola Jokic,
Speaker 2: Luka Doncic, Tyrese Halliburton. This idea of these players that
Speaker 2: just set up their teammates with a massive volume of
Speaker 2: possessions where they have the ball with the player sprinting
Speaker 2: at them rather than the player standing directly in front
Speaker 2: of them, and that manifests with easier opportunities that even
Speaker 2: flawed basketball players can capitalize on. Trey is a relentless
Speaker 2: advantage creator. It is that rather than versatility that he
Speaker 2: brings to the table. A guy like Jamal brings that
Speaker 2: versatility the ISO play, the ability to beat switches, things
Speaker 2: along those lines. For Trey, it's the singular talent of
Speaker 2: advantage creation. Trey Jung is not.
Speaker 1: A very good ISO player.
Speaker 2: He shot just thirty percent from the field last year
Speaker 2: from the field out of ISO to zero point eight
Speaker 2: points per possession. He wasn't good including passes either. He's
Speaker 2: not an ISO player. He's not nearly the tough shot
Speaker 2: maker that Jamal Murray is. He doesn't get to the
Speaker 2: rim a ton. He misses more than half the time
Speaker 2: when he gets there, so he is vulnerable to switching schemes.
Speaker 2: That's the big offensive weakness. For a guy like Treyo.
Speaker 2: But he provides a reasonable vacsimile of what Tyrese Haliburton
Speaker 2: brings to the table as a lead guard. Excellent transition passing,
Speaker 2: kick ahead passes that unlocks the athletes on this Hawks roster.
Speaker 2: I'm specifically super excited to see a full season of
Speaker 2: a healthy Jalen Johnson and Zachary Risasche running the wings.
Speaker 2: Those are two of the best floor runners in the NBA.
Speaker 2: Obviously more athletic depth with Dyson Daniels and Nikhil Alexander Walker.
Speaker 2: Trey is relentless with kick ahead passes. That is going
Speaker 2: to be a super high value add for the Hawks
Speaker 2: this year. That is what I mean when I say
Speaker 2: like that reasonable facts of what Tyre's Halliburton brings to
Speaker 2: the table. But he's also the quintessential pick and role
Speaker 2: player against against like traditional coverages, Like if you're chasing
Speaker 2: Trey over the top of screens instead of switching, He's
Speaker 2: got everything you need to succeed there. He's a good
Speaker 2: drop coverage scorer, like with his pull up three point
Speaker 2: shitt And this is a perfect example of the difference
Speaker 2: between him and Iso versus at a ball screen so
Speaker 2: envision a pull up three, so and off the dribble
Speaker 2: three in a ball screen, it's probably going to be
Speaker 2: because you dribbled off the screen and.
Speaker 1: The guy got hit. Because he got hit, big.
Speaker 2: Man's too far back, there's an opening for him to
Speaker 2: settle into a pull up three.
Speaker 1: A pull up three out of ISO.
Speaker 2: The defender is squared up with him and he has
Speaker 2: to make some kind of move to get separation. A
Speaker 2: side step, a step back, something along those lines, maybe
Speaker 2: a hesitation, dribble, pulling the ball further away from the basket,
Speaker 2: whatever he needs to do to get that pull up
Speaker 2: three off. Very different type of shot. Trey Young was
Speaker 2: below twenty percent on pull up three's out of ISO
Speaker 2: last year. He was thirty seven percent on pull up
Speaker 2: threes out of pick and roll. That is a perfect
Speaker 2: example of that dynamic that I'm talking about. The same
Speaker 2: thing goes with two point shooting. What does a two
Speaker 2: point jump shot look like, or two point shot of
Speaker 2: any kind look like out of a ball screen. It's
Speaker 2: a floater because the guard got caught on the screen
Speaker 2: and the bigs too far back, or a little mid
Speaker 2: range pull up, something along those lines. They are open
Speaker 2: shots that are being conceded in the action, whereas a
Speaker 2: two point shot out of ISO that's more of I've
Speaker 2: got to get separation from an on ball defender. Trey
Speaker 2: Jung shot thirty six percent on twos out of ISO
Speaker 2: last year, forty six percent on twos out of ball screens.
Speaker 2: That's kind of the dynamic with Trey. That's what makes
Speaker 2: him so susceptible to switching schemes. That's why their front
Speaker 2: office went out to go get a guy like Chris
Speaker 2: tops porzingis to help give him an ability to have
Speaker 2: some resilience against pick and roll switching, but against traditional coverages.
Speaker 2: He scores the ball plenty well enough to unlock his
Speaker 2: greatest strength, which is that he's one of the great
Speaker 2: passers in the NBA. He's incredibly gifted in ball screens
Speaker 2: at looking off back line defenders with no look passes
Speaker 2: that open up angles for bounce passes and lobs to
Speaker 2: biggs that are on the roll or cutting along the baseline.
Speaker 2: He can make skip passes to the corner with either hand.
Speaker 2: He's a great left handed passer. That ability to relentlessly
Speaker 2: create advantages for his teammates is what puts him into
Speaker 2: that special category of elite offensive engines in the NBA.
Speaker 2: Let's go back to the Jamal Murray example. Jamal Murray
Speaker 2: can credibly make the reads. He can reach a certain
Speaker 2: floor as a playmaker that can allow him to run
Speaker 2: a bench group or to be a reasonably good lead
Speaker 2: ball handler right ball, could never come close to leading
Speaker 2: a team like this Hawks team to the offensive heights
Speaker 2: that Trey Young has lifted them to. It's not something
Speaker 2: he's capable of doing because he's not the relentless advantage
Speaker 2: hunter and creator that Trey Young is. Conversely, if the
Speaker 2: roles were reversed and Trey was in Denver, he wouldn't
Speaker 2: be as successful with Jokic as Jamal Murray is. Jokic
Speaker 2: doesn't need Trey's relentless advantage creation. He's a relentless advantage
Speaker 2: creator himself. There's a redundancy there, diminishing return, and Trey
Speaker 2: isn't nearly as gifted as a tough shot maker. So
Speaker 2: Trey's vulnerability to switching would be a ceiling lowering effect
Speaker 2: in that Denver Nuggets offense in a way that Jamal
Speaker 2: is not. That's why I always talk about your specific
Speaker 2: value relative to your specific situation. Basketball is more art
Speaker 2: than science in that particular way. My belief in the
Speaker 2: Hawks as a team this year lies in the unique
Speaker 2: way that Trey Young accentuates this particular group.
Speaker 1: The roster is.
Speaker 2: Chock full of talented young athletes, but none of them
Speaker 2: are particularly good at all at breaking down a set defense.
Speaker 2: They will not be able to score when Trey Young
Speaker 2: is off the floor, but each of the players on
Speaker 2: that roster can score if they have an advantage given
Speaker 2: to them. Zachary Resasche and Jalen Johnson are two of
Speaker 2: the best transition floor running wings in the league. They
Speaker 2: can score effectively there. Both of them are improving as
Speaker 2: spot up jump shooters and his close out attackers. The
Speaker 2: Keil Alexander Walker is an excellent catch and shoot player
Speaker 2: and has a little bit of close out attacking of
Speaker 2: his own. Dyson Daniels is super raw, but has some
Speaker 2: tools and has good touch in the short range and
Speaker 2: a lot of things that will allow him to score
Speaker 2: with openings. And Yakakongu can score on the role. And
Speaker 2: Chris Porzingis should again help them be able to deal
Speaker 2: with Trey's biggest offensive weakness, which is his vulnerability to
Speaker 2: switching in Washington three years ago one point one to
Speaker 2: three points per posed up including passes. First year in
Speaker 2: Boston one point three to one, last year in Boston
Speaker 2: one point two to three. He is a reliable efficient
Speaker 2: on an island post up player, especially against advantages that
Speaker 2: come out of switches, which teams will inevitably deploy because
Speaker 2: that's the best way to kind of contend with what
Speaker 2: Trey Young does.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: On the defensive end, I think Trey falls into the
Speaker 2: high IQ player that has good defensive instincts and knows
Speaker 2: where to be. He's just especially lazy and especially limited
Speaker 2: as an athlete, and that puts him at the very
Speaker 2: bottom of that type of defensive player. Most famously recently
Speaker 2: his putrid effort at the end of that play in
Speaker 2: game against Miami where he's just kind of floating around
Speaker 2: and watching the heat grab multiple offensive rebounds that ends
Speaker 2: in a dagger by Davion Mitchell along the left wing right,
Speaker 2: although it's worth mentioning the game is basically how to
Speaker 2: reach at that point, but he does understand defense, he
Speaker 2: does know where to be, and I have seen him
Speaker 2: at various points over the course of the last few
Speaker 2: years be a serviceable defender for short stretches. He's a
Speaker 2: quick guard, he can cover ground in rotation, and like
Speaker 2: we mentioned earlier, he does understand where to be. But
Speaker 2: his limitations are so loud because of his lack of
Speaker 2: physical tools, and so that kind of prevents him from
Speaker 2: getting to the same level of the other great offensive
Speaker 2: engines in the NBA, like Tyres Halliburton, for instance, like
Speaker 2: is in that category, but is much more active, more consistently,
Speaker 2: and has like legitimate length, so he can be a
Speaker 2: defensive playmaker in a way that Trey Young can't be,
Speaker 2: so that prevents him from getting higher on the Like.
Speaker 2: You guys know how much I value offensive advantage creation,
Speaker 2: and Trey has always been like on the outside looking
Speaker 2: in on this list or barely cracking this list, in
Speaker 2: large part because those defensive shortcomings are so loud with
Speaker 2: his physical limitations. But I still think advantage creation is
Speaker 2: one of the most valuable traits for an NBA player
Speaker 2: to have, and Trey brings it in spades, and I'm
Speaker 2: especially excited to see him play with this young and
Speaker 2: deep Hawks team this year. So he comes in at
Speaker 2: twenty four on this year's player rankings list. All right, guys,
Speaker 2: this is all I have for today. As I mentioned,
Speaker 2: we are going to have four more on Wednesday. Then
Speaker 2: we'll go three at a time through till we get
Speaker 2: to the top ten, and then we're going one out
Speaker 2: of time through the top ten. We're going to mail
Speaker 2: bags on Fridays throughout the way. We're going to stretch
Speaker 2: this out. There's no reason to rush. We got lots
Speaker 2: of time to kill before we get into September and
Speaker 2: we start our season previews. So again, anything you disagree
Speaker 2: with a player I didn't have on the list that
Speaker 2: you think should have been ranked, a player that I
Speaker 2: listed to day that you think is too high or
Speaker 2: too low, whatever it might be, drop it in the
Speaker 2: mailbag questions. Provide a brief like kind of concise elevator
Speaker 2: pitch for why you feel that that ranking should be different,
Speaker 2: and we will get to them in our mailbags throughout
Speaker 2: the remainder of this list. Again, I appreciate you guys
Speaker 2: for rocking with us in sport and show. Now see
Speaker 2: you guys on Wednesday,