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Speaker 1: all right. Welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by FanDuel here
Speaker 1: at the volume. Happy Wednesday, everybody. I hope all of
Speaker 1: you guys are having a great week so far. We
Speaker 1: gotta packed show for you today, Today's mail bag Day.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be going over all of your questions and
Speaker 1: complaints and concerns about my top twenty five NBA players
Speaker 1: list that we worked on over the course of the
Speaker 1: last month. You guys know the drill before we get started.
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Speaker 1: Under Hoops tonight. All right, so here's the plan for today.
Speaker 1: Like I promised, what I would like to do, shout
Speaker 1: out two of you guys who took the time to
Speaker 1: explain with basketball why you disagreed with something on my list.
Speaker 1: Like one of my biggest pet peeves with these lists
Speaker 1: is people just yelling scream at each other and there's
Speaker 1: not a whole lot of constructive basketball discourse, and so
Speaker 1: I wanted to kind of promote that a little bit.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to shout out a couple of you guys.
Speaker 1: First off, of Mr Henry, thanks for comment thing Henry.
Speaker 1: I think Trey Young should be top twenty five he's
Speaker 1: such an unbelievable offensive engine in the regular season. I
Speaker 1: agree with your point that he is limited a little
Speaker 1: more in the playoffs, but I think that has a
Speaker 1: lot to do with surrounding talent. Not a single other
Speaker 1: guy on the team you can create really any sort
Speaker 1: of advantage at all. He basically is the entire Hawks offense.
Speaker 1: I don't think you are entirely unreasonable, though, since he
Speaker 1: is also one of the five worst defensive players in
Speaker 1: the league. Thank you, Henry first of all, and look,
Speaker 1: you're right man like. If you value the offensive engine
Speaker 1: is my huch as I do, which I really do.
Speaker 1: Then in theory, if you surround him with the right
Speaker 1: types of pieces and put him in a situation where
Speaker 1: he can really divert all his energy towards offense and
Speaker 1: you can cover for him on the defensive end of
Speaker 1: the floor, there is a scenario where he can be
Speaker 1: a lot more valuable than the people above him on
Speaker 1: this list. Now, as a totality, I still, especially on
Speaker 1: the offensive end with Trey, I think he's a little
Speaker 1: bit more limited, limited creating shots in a playoff situation
Speaker 1: where teams can scout him, they stay glued to him
Speaker 1: as he comes over the top of screens, Refs aren't
Speaker 1: giving him the foul calls anymore when he jumps back
Speaker 1: into people. And if you look into the numbers, he's
Speaker 1: really really weak finishing around the basket. So if you
Speaker 1: can funnel him off of his pick and rolls to
Speaker 1: the basket, he's gonna struggle to finish. So I find
Speaker 1: even some of his offensive engine stuff to be limited.
Speaker 1: But what you're saying, Henry is completely fair, and he
Speaker 1: certainly does have a case to be in the top
Speaker 1: twenty five. That's why I had that top twenty nine.
Speaker 1: The idea there was is there's twenty nine players, I'm
Speaker 1: picking twenty five. But hey, the gap between twenty nine
Speaker 1: and eleven is really not that big of a gap.
Speaker 1: The second one I wanted to shout out with Suleiman.
Speaker 1: I don't think Ingram should be ahead of Dame Jaw
Speaker 1: or Booker. Why even though Day missed out this season,
Speaker 1: he has been a beast. Jaw and d book were
Speaker 1: in the same m v P discussions at some point.
Speaker 1: All you had to say about b I was a
Speaker 1: six game playoff series in which he played. Well, you
Speaker 1: left joke at Yokich out of the top three because
Speaker 1: he hasn't done enough. The same case could be made
Speaker 1: for b I. He doesn't have enough material to be
Speaker 1: in the top twenty. Did he have a good six
Speaker 1: game run? Yes? Is it enough? No? So first of all,
Speaker 1: thank you, Suleiman. You're absolutely right. I I I never
Speaker 1: tried to hide the fact that I'm biased. I really
Speaker 1: like Brandon Ingram and I'm absolutely ranking him there based
Speaker 1: a lot on what I expect from him this season.
Speaker 1: The truth of the matter is is his defensive performance,
Speaker 1: especially in the last few years, hasn't been up to
Speaker 1: par for what his abilities are. And I have him
Speaker 1: up that high because I consider him to be an
Speaker 1: excellent wing defensive player, because I know he can be,
Speaker 1: and I know he was against Phoenix. And what you're
Speaker 1: saying is I'm being inconsistent with the way I've applied
Speaker 1: my criteria, and that's completely fair. So Henry and Suliman,
Speaker 1: thank you guys so much. Again with this kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: I'm much rather have you guys just get into my
Speaker 1: mentions and tell me why you disagree with stuff based
Speaker 1: on the basketball. All right, So we're going to bring
Speaker 1: my guy Carson on you guys. Remember Carson from when
Speaker 1: we were breaking down the games during the NBA playoffs.
Speaker 1: He's obviously gonna have a bone to pick with me
Speaker 1: about Mr Yokich down at number seven. We're gonna get
Speaker 1: all into into that, as well as a bunch of
Speaker 1: mail back questions from you guys. What's up, Carson, How
Speaker 1: you doing man? I'm great, Jason. It's incredible to be back,
Speaker 1: and I'm just sorry that it had to come under
Speaker 1: these circumstances by which you so actively disrespected Nikola Yokich.
Speaker 1: I think, to me, the point where things get indefensible
Speaker 1: in my eyes is when you put him below Jayson Tatum,
Speaker 1: when you have Tatum six in Yoki seven. Because philosophically,
Speaker 1: I totally understand your principle of valuing wings and perimeter
Speaker 1: initiators more than big. I understand the defensive liability element
Speaker 1: of it, the slow footedness, but I think that there's
Speaker 1: a big difference between an equivalent wing and an equivalent
Speaker 1: big and a big who is just way better at basketball,
Speaker 1: which is who what I think Yoka is compared to Tatum.
Speaker 1: And there's a few key things I think they're. First
Speaker 1: of all, Yoka just not like any other big on
Speaker 1: the planet. You talk about how it's easier to deny
Speaker 1: big is their ability to initiate offense and a guy
Speaker 1: who can just bring the ball up the court, And
Speaker 1: of course that's true, but it's less true for Yoki
Speaker 1: than anybody else on the planet. I mean, he is
Speaker 1: to me the best offensive player alive, and he is
Speaker 1: as complete of an offensive engine as a big man
Speaker 1: without being a freak athlete can be. Like they run
Speaker 1: inverted pick and roll and he crushes people. You know,
Speaker 1: he runs off screens and he kills people. He's really
Speaker 1: improved as a cutter this year. He can bring the
Speaker 1: ball up the floor, he pushes in transition, and then
Speaker 1: of course you get all the post stuff. You get
Speaker 1: him as a role man, like he does everything. He
Speaker 1: scored more than to a in this year in the
Speaker 1: regular season and the playoffs, did so way more efficiently. Obviously,
Speaker 1: has way more of a playmaking impact, is a genius
Speaker 1: passer and pretty much always makes the best possible decisions,
Speaker 1: sees things on the basketball court that other people just
Speaker 1: don't see, locating cutters and shooters, and ultimately just elevated
Speaker 1: a team of journeyman where Aaron Gordon's the second best
Speaker 1: player on his basketball team to play as an elite
Speaker 1: team in terms of point differential when he was on
Speaker 1: the floor in an elite offense, whereas they were miserable
Speaker 1: without him, they were a better offense than the Celtics were.
Speaker 1: And I understand, I really do your anti exploitability take
Speaker 1: and like, why you would have Traim off your top
Speaker 1: twenty five, right, some of those fundamental glaring issues. Being
Speaker 1: one of the worst defenders in basketball period is a
Speaker 1: massive problem. The thing with me when I compare him
Speaker 1: to Tatum is that Tatum has glaring issues too. They
Speaker 1: don't always show up, but he still regresses into the
Speaker 1: bad shot selection. The guy shot thirty two on two's
Speaker 1: in the finals, Like, that's a tendency that still very
Speaker 1: much exists for him in the bad moments. He can
Speaker 1: still struggle to read doubles. You know, he was four
Speaker 1: plus turnovers the game in the playoffs and there were
Speaker 1: some really bad games there where. He's kind of the
Speaker 1: fundamental issue with the Celtics offense. So if it's Lebron,
Speaker 1: you know, this complete incredible offensive engine who can attack
Speaker 1: down hill, you can kill you with the jump shooting,
Speaker 1: genius playmaker who when he's engaged. You think, yes, good
Speaker 1: defender if it's you know, Janice right, unbelievable two way force.
Speaker 1: I can understand those arguments, but I just think when
Speaker 1: you're talking about offensive production and efficiency, we've never seen
Speaker 1: versus a player who is still legitimately flawed offensively in
Speaker 1: Jayson Tatum. It feels to me like it's a little
Speaker 1: bit too far in the direction of principle of you know,
Speaker 1: I value this kind of player versus these are who
Speaker 1: these two specific players actually are. So that's the real
Speaker 1: sticking point for me is once we get to Tatum,
Speaker 1: I I can't I can't have it. I can't have
Speaker 1: it without putting that hard that's very well put carson
Speaker 1: um with Tatum. Particularly to me, it was a payment
Speaker 1: of respect to what was a really impressive playoff run.
Speaker 1: You know how like we we sometimes with Lebron will
Speaker 1: do like the blind Lebron tests, Like if it wasn't
Speaker 1: Lebron that was averaging you know, seven and seven for
Speaker 1: two months on shooting from the field and thirty eight
Speaker 1: percent from three, or it's like some of his stretches
Speaker 1: during the regular season, if it wasn't Lebron, we would
Speaker 1: just be fawning over the guy for what he did, right.
Speaker 1: That's kind of the way I look at this the
Speaker 1: Jayson Tatums playoff run. Like if I told you that
Speaker 1: Jayson Tatum was the best player on a team that
Speaker 1: came two wins away from an NBA championship, that he
Speaker 1: was arguably the best perimeter defensive player in that entire
Speaker 1: playoff field and took on defensive assignments that were deeply
Speaker 1: impactful for his team, including basically shutting down Kevin Durant
Speaker 1: and single coverage UH in the first round of the
Speaker 1: playoffs and averaging you know, whatever, whatever it was. I
Speaker 1: had it all earlier, but like twenty seven in points
Speaker 1: per game on about just just under sixty percent true shooting,
Speaker 1: you know, while having eight games where had at least
Speaker 1: seven assists and his team goes eight no, or whatever
Speaker 1: whatever the numbers were. If I told you that a
Speaker 1: player did that and his name was Kawhi Leonard, you'd
Speaker 1: be like, oh, man, that's an all time great playoff
Speaker 1: run just barely came short. If I said Kevin Durant,
Speaker 1: you'd be like, all time great playoff run just barely
Speaker 1: came up short. Because it's Jason Tatum, we hyper focused
Speaker 1: on the flaws and we gola, Yeah, oh, he's just
Speaker 1: not ready yet. And the reality was as he had
Speaker 1: as dominant of a two way playoff runt as we
Speaker 1: see from Wings in the NBA, with an incredibly difficult
Speaker 1: pathway through a ton of really good teams. He dude
Speaker 1: his Game six in Milwaukee to send that series to
Speaker 1: Game seven, the way he executed Milwaukee on their home
Speaker 1: floor to send that game back, that series back to Boston,
Speaker 1: like he had a dominant playoff run. So it was
Speaker 1: kind of me paying an homage to death. Now, as
Speaker 1: far as the rankings in general go, I'll be honest
Speaker 1: with you, I cared a lot less about the numbers
Speaker 1: to speak, as I did about actually diving into the
Speaker 1: players and their skill sets, looking at their strengths and weaknesses.
Speaker 1: So if you wanted to tell me you thought Yokich
Speaker 1: was about Tatum, that's fair. I put him up there
Speaker 1: as a payment of respect for what was a dominant
Speaker 1: playoff run. I'm always going to value that stuff more Yokich. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's the team's fault, but the reality of this situation
Speaker 1: is that he's facing back to back first round exits
Speaker 1: and in playoffs after out playing Nicola Yokich, he was
Speaker 1: outplayed by Anthony Davis. So the way that I look
Speaker 1: at it, for me, even though this is not an
Speaker 1: anti Yoki take, I don't dislike the player. He's actually
Speaker 1: one of my favorite young players in the league. I'm
Speaker 1: just going to wait to see him have consistent deep
Speaker 1: runs into the playoffs where he continues to produce the
Speaker 1: way that he's producing before I move him up that
Speaker 1: list in front of players that are making deep playoff runs.
Speaker 1: You know, uh Tatum has been to the conference finals before,
Speaker 1: He's been to the NBA Finals before. I just I'm
Speaker 1: giving him a little bit more credit there. Obviously, Yoki
Speaker 1: just had an Eastern Conference finals run as well. I
Speaker 1: really appreciated the way you broke down his game. His
Speaker 1: versatility is ridiculous. The two things that you hit on
Speaker 1: that are so under appreciated with your kitch is the
Speaker 1: transition stuff. His ability to start fast breaks by getting
Speaker 1: rebounds and hitting his wings running the floor. His ability
Speaker 1: to make those decisions and dribble if there's no passing
Speaker 1: option is what allows his guards and wings to run
Speaker 1: the floor as opposed to having to come back to
Speaker 1: get the basketball. That's a lot of value. And then secondly,
Speaker 1: those inverted ball screens. And this is such an interesting
Speaker 1: concept that a lot of people are seeing more frequently
Speaker 1: in the NBA because we have so many skilled big men.
Speaker 1: But when you invert the ball screen, you're turning a
Speaker 1: guard into a screen defender, and no guard knows how
Speaker 1: to defend a screen. Biggs will sit and drop coverage.
Speaker 1: In high school, they'll sit and drop coverage. In college,
Speaker 1: they'll sit and drop coverage. In the NBA. They've run ice,
Speaker 1: they've run level, They've run every single type of ball
Speaker 1: screen coverage that exists. That's what they do for a
Speaker 1: living every day. A guard does not. A guard does
Speaker 1: not know how to defend a ball screen. They have
Speaker 1: no idea what the print schools are. It doesn't make
Speaker 1: sense to use them in a drop because they're too small.
Speaker 1: So running these inverted ball screens where all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: Yoki is the ball handler and the guard is is
Speaker 1: the one that's defending the screen, it just it just
Speaker 1: throws all these teams in a loop. And Yokich that's
Speaker 1: what makes him an alien, and that's what makes him
Speaker 1: so unique. And I have that's my one thing I
Speaker 1: want to get across with this Yoki thing as a
Speaker 1: final little take here. I have the utmost respect for yokitch.
Speaker 1: I absolutely believe he's capable of being the best player
Speaker 1: in the league. But right now, his defensive limitations covering
Speaker 1: in space and in transition, and the fading of his
Speaker 1: perimeter jump shot for me, leave him out of that conversation.
Speaker 1: That's just that's just my two cents. I appreciate the
Speaker 1: hell out of his game, and I think you've laid
Speaker 1: that out really well, Carson. But that's just where my
Speaker 1: reasoning was at. If I can launch one final little
Speaker 1: mini defense the success stuff, he's so brutal because they
Speaker 1: did win a playoff series last year. It was against
Speaker 1: a no defense Portland's team. Oh I forgot about that.
Speaker 1: You're that's very important, guys. Clarification, Jason was wrong. They
Speaker 1: did not lose back to back first round series. Is
Speaker 1: that garbage? As Portland's team did lose to them, and
Speaker 1: his best perimeter initiator for that series was Monte Morris,
Speaker 1: And youn say what you want about Monte Morris, like
Speaker 1: he's a good basketball player, he's a good role player.
Speaker 1: But that's just an absurd talent deficit compared to teams
Speaker 1: that are contending. And meanwhile, individually, this year he was
Speaker 1: thirty one a game on sixtent try shooting in that series.
Speaker 1: Last year he was thirty twelve and five. Like he's
Speaker 1: doing his thing, He's killing people. He just has completely
Speaker 1: incomparable talent to the teams that are contending. So I
Speaker 1: will continue to defend him. I think, to me, he's
Speaker 1: certainly in that top three, and I think he's the
Speaker 1: best offensive player alive. So with that, somebody else seems
Speaker 1: to agree with me. We'll get to the mail back here.
Speaker 1: We've got lots of good replies from Twitter. This is
Speaker 1: from hef a At still out you. He says Yokus
Speaker 1: stamped is the best passing big ever. His secondary skill
Speaker 1: was scoring, but over the last years he's elevated as
Speaker 1: scoring volume and efficiency to match his primary skill of playmaking.
Speaker 1: He's also an elite rebounder on both ends. So is
Speaker 1: Yoke the best offensive player in the NBA? Jason, I
Speaker 1: don't think so, but it's largely because I have so
Speaker 1: much respect for what Lebron James and Steph Curry can do.
Speaker 1: Um I think Steph Curry has demonstrated that at length.
Speaker 1: I've gotten into detail on this and both of their
Speaker 1: deep dives that I did UH during our top lists.
Speaker 1: I won't go too far into it. With Yokich and
Speaker 1: with Luca, I think they enter into that conversation um
Speaker 1: and are very much like at a very similar level.
Speaker 1: It's just me paying respect to the guys that have
Speaker 1: been there and done that. You know what you were
Speaker 1: saying with you is true. It was incredible against the
Speaker 1: Warriors this year. He was incredible last year through two
Speaker 1: rounds of the playoffs. I just it's it's one of
Speaker 1: those things where it's like I'm ready to see him
Speaker 1: do it on the next level, Like I I'm ready
Speaker 1: for Jamal murready come back, and hopefully for uh Michael
Speaker 1: Porter Jr. To get healthy, because I want to see
Speaker 1: Yoki do this with real steaks, where where he's asked
Speaker 1: to over the course of a seven game series, navigate
Speaker 1: the chess match and beat teams that have all world
Speaker 1: superstars on the other end and that can attack his weaknesses,
Speaker 1: but he can attack their weaknesses. I just want to
Speaker 1: see him play with real steaks. I have no doubt
Speaker 1: that he can be a dominant regular season basketball player.
Speaker 1: I have no doubt that he can beat teams like
Speaker 1: the Portland Trailblazers and put up big numbers while losing
Speaker 1: to better teams. I'm ready to see him beat better teams.
Speaker 1: I know it's his roster's fault. I'm a thousand percent
Speaker 1: aware of that. However, before I move him up this list,
Speaker 1: I want to see him get that good roster and
Speaker 1: get some WS under his belt so that he can
Speaker 1: earn that spot in the league. Yeah. I mean, this
Speaker 1: year is gonna be a fascinating opportunity because last time
Speaker 1: we saw healthy Nuggets it was a conference finals run,
Speaker 1: and we'll see what that looks like this year. Obviously,
Speaker 1: West is loaded, but I have my faith in YO
Speaker 1: have to put it all out there and that there's
Speaker 1: nothing more for me to say there. Okay, we've got
Speaker 1: another question here from at raid Romo. Based on your
Speaker 1: criteria size, playoff trans translatability, availability, defensive versatility, playmaking, three
Speaker 1: level scoring, shouldn't Andrew Wiggins be ranked higher than James
Speaker 1: Harden or perhaps who do you think is a better
Speaker 1: playoff player? So I had a hard time with this
Speaker 1: when I was doing my list, because you know, Golden
Speaker 1: State shouldn't be winning the championship without another top twenty
Speaker 1: five player in theory, but there's a huge difference between
Speaker 1: ranking basketball players in a vacuum versus evaluating and applying
Speaker 1: like a metric to account for a player's value in
Speaker 1: their specific system. Like Draymond is not a top twenty
Speaker 1: five basketball player in the world, but he is top
Speaker 1: twenty five in his impact within the Warriors system. And
Speaker 1: that's kind of the way that like to me, Comparing
Speaker 1: what James Harden has to do as the primary perimeter
Speaker 1: initiator for the Philadelphia seventy sixers to Andrew Wiggins and
Speaker 1: what he did for the Warriors is impossible because there's
Speaker 1: very little comparison there. You know, Andrew Wiggins was primarily
Speaker 1: a release valve. He would attack on possessions when he
Speaker 1: felt like he had a significant advantage or when Steph
Speaker 1: needed to take some rest. He was being guarded softly
Speaker 1: by every defense that he faced. Not a discredit to him,
Speaker 1: just the realities of him playing alongside Georgian Pool and
Speaker 1: Clay Thompson and Steph Curry. He's consistently in single coverage.
Speaker 1: He's not facing health defense. He's frequently attacking closeouts, meaning
Speaker 1: his defender is helping somewhere else on the floor, and
Speaker 1: then running out to Andrew Wiggins, where Andrew Wiggins is
Speaker 1: beating people off the dribble and then dunking on people.
Speaker 1: What Andrew Wiggins did in this playoff runt was deeply impactful,
Speaker 1: immensely valued. That goes without saying, but that's not the
Speaker 1: same as being as good at basketball as James Harden.
Speaker 1: And so for me, like, even though I think Andrew
Speaker 1: Wiggins was the second best player on that Warriors team,
Speaker 1: and that therefore means he had a top twenty five
Speaker 1: type of impact on that Warriors team. If I'm ranking
Speaker 1: basketball players, I'm gonna get to about at least thirty
Speaker 1: before I get to Andrew Wiggins. And and it's just
Speaker 1: it's more just differentiating between value in a system versus
Speaker 1: a player in a vacuum, if that makes sense. I
Speaker 1: think the tendency to try to sort of overrate Wiggins
Speaker 1: or throw him into a tier that he probably doesn't
Speaker 1: belong in is really interesting. And you addressed it in
Speaker 1: one of the videos when you were going through your
Speaker 1: top twenty five, and it made me think of I
Speaker 1: just read Thinking Basketball by Ben Taylor, which is a
Speaker 1: really good basketball book, and one of the things that
Speaker 1: he talks about is sort of the fallacy that we
Speaker 1: tend to overrate the impact of the loan superstar and
Speaker 1: if they don't have another like clear star level guy
Speaker 1: alongside them, then we can, you know, underrate the collective
Speaker 1: value of the team, or we can try to look
Speaker 1: and elevate somebody to that second star status. Because Andrew
Speaker 1: Wiggins is in the top twenty five player in basketball.
Speaker 1: He was really good and he did a lot of
Speaker 1: those winning things. But the Warriors were a great team
Speaker 1: and they won the title, so obviously people want to
Speaker 1: elevate that second star. But it's like, well, there's four
Speaker 1: other really high levels players alongside Steph, four five guys
Speaker 1: in total who you know, can be close to that
Speaker 1: top fifty. So in the aggregate, that's an elite basketball team.
Speaker 1: So that's just kind of what that makes me think of,
Speaker 1: because you see it over and over again with people
Speaker 1: trying to put Wiggins into that conversation. But of course
Speaker 1: I agree with you. I mean, in the star basketball
Speaker 1: player role, who can do more to elevate, who can
Speaker 1: do more to create offense? All these things. It's clearly
Speaker 1: James Harden and we have another hard and related question
Speaker 1: here really quickly before you move on, because I wanted
Speaker 1: to shout this out because I didn't get a chance
Speaker 1: to in the top twenty five list, and I should
Speaker 1: have done it just a minute ago. Um, the job
Speaker 1: that Andrew Wiggins did guarding Luca don Chitch and Jayson
Speaker 1: Tatum was such an incredibly valuable thing to the Warrior's
Speaker 1: ability to win those two playoffs series. Um, I expected
Speaker 1: Luca to have a lot more success against Andrew Wiggins
Speaker 1: than he did. It's a testament to his improvements as
Speaker 1: a wing defender over the course of the last couple
Speaker 1: of years. And then he basically was the only guy
Speaker 1: in this playoff run who made Jayson Tatum consistently uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: So I would say that, you know, I had said
Speaker 1: earlier that I think Jayson Tatum is potentially the best
Speaker 1: perimeter defender in the league. I think Andrew Wiggins has
Speaker 1: firmly entered that conversation, and that's a and that's a
Speaker 1: ton of credit to hit like to go back to
Speaker 1: back through Luca and Tatum. The way that he did
Speaker 1: is beyond impressive and he deserves a ton of credit
Speaker 1: for that. Wow. I mean that's a pretty remarkable claim
Speaker 1: just given what he was for his entire time in Minnesota,
Speaker 1: you know, just such an overwhelming disappointment on that end,
Speaker 1: so consistently disengaged. Okay, So, as I said, we have
Speaker 1: another hard related question here, this one from Kyle's takes.
Speaker 1: He says, what's up, Jason, just finished watching your Steph
Speaker 1: Curry video. Just wanted to ask, what's the difference when
Speaker 1: you say great offensive engine versus a helio centric player?
Speaker 1: Just for clarification's sake for you, is Houston Harden a
Speaker 1: great offensive engine or a heliocentric player? So I look
Speaker 1: at it as kind of like a ven diagram type
Speaker 1: of concept, like, um, that there's some overlap there. So
Speaker 1: to me, heliocentric means that you're initiating every possession with
Speaker 1: the live dribble, uh, bringing the ball up the floor
Speaker 1: and making every single decision, right, where whereas an offensive
Speaker 1: engine more has to do with a player that is
Speaker 1: responsible for creating shots for the vast majority of the
Speaker 1: possessions of the game rather than just a play finisher. Right. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, Anthony Davis is like a play finisher. An
Speaker 1: offensive engine is more like a Lebron James, who you know,
Speaker 1: for two thirds of the possessions of the game, he's
Speaker 1: either creating a shot off the dribble himself for himself,
Speaker 1: creating a shot off the dribble for someone else. He's
Speaker 1: a decoy as a screener. He's moving without the back
Speaker 1: like he's doing all these different things to create shots.
Speaker 1: And you know, the Steph curries another great example of that.
Speaker 1: That offensive engine piece has to do with your possession
Speaker 1: by possession role, which is to create shots for your team.
Speaker 1: Helio Centric has to do with the way you are
Speaker 1: doing it. So Steph is not heliocentric because he does
Speaker 1: so much work without the basketball. You know yr Kich
Speaker 1: for instances, he there's some heliocentrism to him, but not
Speaker 1: a ton because he will act as a screener so
Speaker 1: so frequently for his ball handlers, the James Harden, Luca
Speaker 1: don Chich, Lebron James is really the best of this group.
Speaker 1: But that that I bring the ball up the floor
Speaker 1: every possession and I make all the decisions, that to
Speaker 1: me is helio centric basketball. It's like more of the
Speaker 1: method versus the role and there is absolutely some overlap there.
Speaker 1: As far as James Harden goes, he is both. He's
Speaker 1: a heliocentric offensive engine. He's just to climbed so much
Speaker 1: as a player over the course of the last couple
Speaker 1: of years that he's not really in those conversations with
Speaker 1: the best players in the league. I will say this, though,
Speaker 1: I made a prediction that I thought that he would
Speaker 1: have learned his lesson after these last two injury played
Speaker 1: seasons and the intel the social media post, it appears
Speaker 1: that Hardened looks like he's in better shape than he's
Speaker 1: been in a long time. I can't take that to
Speaker 1: the bank. He's got to do it during the eight
Speaker 1: two game regular season, but it looks like he I
Speaker 1: may have been on the right track there. It looks
Speaker 1: like Harden is starting to get into some better shape
Speaker 1: and it's also doing some post work in his pickup runs,
Speaker 1: which is interesting as well. Yeah, you were definitely early
Speaker 1: on the Hardened comeback year wagon, but that narrative is
Speaker 1: definitely starting and that would be a lot of fun
Speaker 1: because obviously, I mean that just takes Philly to a
Speaker 1: different level and extremely talented team. If he's you know,
Speaker 1: top fifteen kind of player, James Harden. So one of
Speaker 1: the issues that we saw with your list that a
Speaker 1: lot of people talked about was saying that Kevin Durant
Speaker 1: at number three was too high, having him above Lebron,
Speaker 1: having him above Yokich, particularly given his playoff let down
Speaker 1: against the Celtics and what was obviously a pretty brutal series.
Speaker 1: So what's your response to that, Jason, and how do
Speaker 1: you defend and explain that placement of Katie. To me,
Speaker 1: it was the way he failed against Boston. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm never I'm never going to rewrite a players entire
Speaker 1: basketball resume over one week of basketball, which is what
Speaker 1: that first round series against Boston was. It was one
Speaker 1: week of basketball. When you look into the film, he
Speaker 1: was getting all of the same Katie shots he always gets,
Speaker 1: and he just wasn't making This is a player who
Speaker 1: made half of his pull up jump shots this year.
Speaker 1: Literally of his pull up jump shots went in this
Speaker 1: year on a huge volume. I think it was over
Speaker 1: six hundred attempts, and then we get into this Boston
Speaker 1: Celtics series and only makes about a third of them.
Speaker 1: It's it's a maker misleague boss, and kind of had
Speaker 1: his number, he lost his confidence in his rhythm a
Speaker 1: little bit. I did not see any sort of massive
Speaker 1: physical decline or inability to get to the types of
Speaker 1: shots that he likes to get. So to me, it's like,
Speaker 1: it really is this simple. He had a bad series,
Speaker 1: and I get it. With recency bias, we have a
Speaker 1: tendency to cling to that sort of thing and have
Speaker 1: a hard time kind of like contextualizing it. But again,
Speaker 1: what happened one year prior, less than one year prior,
Speaker 1: because of the way that the season started late, like
Speaker 1: less than one year prior. He was the same Katie
Speaker 1: that we all know, the one that is as unguardable
Speaker 1: of an isolation player that there is in basketball, which
Speaker 1: effectively makes him an antidote for any type of playoff defense.
Speaker 1: And the Milwaukee Bucks did everything right in that series
Speaker 1: and still came literally this close to losing to an
Speaker 1: underman next team because of what Kevin Durant can do
Speaker 1: scoring the basketball regardless of the defense that he's facing.
Speaker 1: That's Kevin Durant. I know that's Kevin Durant because that's
Speaker 1: what Kevin Durant has in his entire career, with exception
Speaker 1: of a handful of bad series. He had a bad
Speaker 1: series against the Memphis Grizzlies, he had a bad series
Speaker 1: against the Golden State Warriors, and he had a bad
Speaker 1: series against the Boston Celtics. Those three have been mixed
Speaker 1: around a ton of really impressive playoff performances. He is
Speaker 1: a pull up jump shooter, so he's going to have
Speaker 1: stretches where he doesn't shoot well. That's a natural side
Speaker 1: effect of that archetype. On Monday, I did a whole
Speaker 1: video about that, about the superstar archetypes, and I talked
Speaker 1: about how these big scoring wings they're a little susceptible
Speaker 1: to their shot going cold. It happened to Kawhi Leonard
Speaker 1: against the Denver Nuggets in the bubble, if you guys remember.
Speaker 1: So it's just kind of a part of the downside
Speaker 1: with that archetype. But the upside is still there. He
Speaker 1: still is an unguardable isolation player who can be a
Speaker 1: dominant rim protector when he's engaged defensively. To me, don't
Speaker 1: ignore all of that just because he had a bad
Speaker 1: week of basketball. I could not agree with you more.
Speaker 1: And just some more stats to provide context of that.
Speaker 1: You talk about the resume. This was his first playoff
Speaker 1: run under sixty true shooting, which is an elite mark
Speaker 1: since he wasn't. Okay, see, it's his first playoff rum
Speaker 1: not scoring twenty eight or more points per game since
Speaker 1: his first ever appearance when he was twenty one years old.
Speaker 1: And I mean, you know, the raw production was still there.
Speaker 1: It was just the turnovers and it was the inefficiency.
Speaker 1: But I completely agree with you, of course. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's as perfect a pull up jump shooter as there is.
Speaker 1: He's to me a top two score of the basketball
Speaker 1: of all time. Like the reactionary stuff of it all
Speaker 1: is ridiculous. And one playoff ago was one of his
Speaker 1: most outstanding individual performances ever where he put up thirty
Speaker 1: four game in that run, and we know what he
Speaker 1: did pushing Milwaukee has a score and a playmaker, So
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody's seen skill regression since then. Nothing
Speaker 1: changed with him during the regular season. He had a
Speaker 1: really bad matchup in a really bad series and that's that.
Speaker 1: So his regular season numbers were insane, Like yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: he's gotten better as a playmaker. He had a career
Speaker 1: season there. He had his high scoring season in almost
Speaker 1: a decade. On mind blowing efficiency, and nothing that he's
Speaker 1: doing there is not replicable. I mean, he's as unguardable
Speaker 1: of a player as there is because you talk about
Speaker 1: what the pull up jump shooting mold. When you're deadly
Speaker 1: accurate in your seven ft tall and you have the
Speaker 1: handle that he does, like, it's really really hard to
Speaker 1: take that away. So I agree with you. I think
Speaker 1: it's clearly an outlier performance, and I think that people
Speaker 1: generally have been overly reactionary to that as this kind
Speaker 1: of the tendency with all things. But it's like you said,
Speaker 1: it's a week, it's four games, it's not even you know,
Speaker 1: a normal full series. But we did see, of course,
Speaker 1: Jayson Tatum and that Celtics defense overall give him some
Speaker 1: fits and make some things tough, and I matchup applying
Speaker 1: some pretty intense pressure causing him to lose the handle,
Speaker 1: the turnovers increase. We've talked about Tatum a bit already,
Speaker 1: and Jason, you're obviously a big advocate of his and
Speaker 1: what he did in that run. We have a quote
Speaker 1: from Matt Dubois two on Twitter. Could you see Tatum
Speaker 1: taking that leap into the top three to five guys
Speaker 1: by the other next season, Jason, it's possible. The problem
Speaker 1: is is the guys that are ahead of him are
Speaker 1: very good as well as the guys that are rising
Speaker 1: with him are very good. Like, it's hard for me
Speaker 1: to imagine him passing Luca, you know what I mean, Like,
Speaker 1: it's hard for me to It's It's like Steph Curry
Speaker 1: is still very much at the top of his game.
Speaker 1: Lebron is going to be fading out of this picture.
Speaker 1: But even Kevin Durant probably has another solid three or
Speaker 1: four years at the top of his game. Janice has
Speaker 1: a strangle hold on that number one spot. So if
Speaker 1: you really start to think about it, we're looking at
Speaker 1: We're looking at uh, Steph, Janice, k d Luca at
Speaker 1: a minimum. But could Tatum crack into that five spot. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: it's all on the table, Katie. You know, Katie could
Speaker 1: decline Lebron's declining he um uh. The thing with you,
Speaker 1: the with Tatum. That's gonna be interesting to watch as
Speaker 1: his playmaking this particular playoff run was very up up
Speaker 1: and down for him in that regard, which is not
Speaker 1: exactly that big of a shock. He kind of was
Speaker 1: your textbook play finishing scoring wing who has been refashioned
Speaker 1: into more of a point forward type of archetype where
Speaker 1: he's making more decisions, and so you can tell when
Speaker 1: he's in that frame of mind and he's actively looking
Speaker 1: to pass the basketball and make plays for his teammates,
Speaker 1: everything is well oiled. And the numbers showed that. Just look.
Speaker 1: Just go to Basketball Reference and look at this Celtics
Speaker 1: playoff run and sort for Tatum's assists from highest so
Speaker 1: lois and see what happens with the wins and losses
Speaker 1: as a result of that. And you could see the
Speaker 1: opposite side of that. In all of those ugly Boston
Speaker 1: Celtics losses, it was almost like Tatum's approach shifted. He
Speaker 1: would drive into traffic instead of viewing the traffic as
Speaker 1: an opportunity for him to hit an open teammate on
Speaker 1: the week side of the floor. He was less willing
Speaker 1: to make. You know, look, one of the most important
Speaker 1: things for a primary initiator is to just at the
Speaker 1: ball reversed like you don't have to every single time,
Speaker 1: get into the paint and kick it out like it
Speaker 1: might be as simple as you just coming off of
Speaker 1: a ball screen, getting a help defender to commit a
Speaker 1: little bit swing pass and then go relocate. Like little
Speaker 1: stuff like that can do. It can do a lot
Speaker 1: to get a defense into rotation. And one of the
Speaker 1: things you'll notice with the best players of that ilk,
Speaker 1: the Lebron's and the Lucas of the world, the big
Speaker 1: point forwards is they have dozens of possessions every game
Speaker 1: where they just do that, just little simple things to
Speaker 1: kind of get the offense oiled and moving, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. And and so if Tatum figures that
Speaker 1: out to where his fame of mind stays in the
Speaker 1: right place, where he's more active as a playmaker, then
Speaker 1: he absolutely enters into that group. Because now we're talking
Speaker 1: about a guy who can efficiently score points a game,
Speaker 1: who is capable of putting up seven assists a night,
Speaker 1: and who was one of the best perimeter defenders in basketball,
Speaker 1: and that that's basically Kevin Durant. So I don't see
Speaker 1: any reason why he can't enter into that conversation. He
Speaker 1: just needs some guys to decline, and then he needs
Speaker 1: to become more consistent as a playmaker. I think regardless.
Speaker 1: I mean, what's undeniable with all of this is just
Speaker 1: the insane talent in the league. I mean, you go
Speaker 1: ten deep and you're still looking at clear superstar caliber players.
Speaker 1: I mean, you had Quiet ten right, and part of
Speaker 1: that is obviously health available what he's done lately. But regardless,
Speaker 1: Kawhi Leonard, you know, three years ago led like an
Speaker 1: all time playoff run and hasn't like really regressed as
Speaker 1: a basketball player since then. He just hasn't been healthy.
Speaker 1: So take whoever you want out of that list, you know,
Speaker 1: and be at eight, yok which at seven, like it's
Speaker 1: just crazy, crazy basketball talent. Okay. So we've got a
Speaker 1: little bit more pushedback here from del A o Do
Speaker 1: on Twitter, who says Lebron should be the second best
Speaker 1: player behind the honest because you switched out Lebron and
Speaker 1: any player, he would accomplish more than that player and
Speaker 1: they would do less than Lebron did with the Lakers.
Speaker 1: The only exception to that is Janice. What do you
Speaker 1: think about that, Jason? So obviously the bane of my
Speaker 1: existence is Steph fans and Lebron fans, which is positively
Speaker 1: hilarious to me because they are literally my two favorite players.
Speaker 1: Lebron is my favorite player in the world and Steff
Speaker 1: is my second favorite player in the world. But because
Speaker 1: I don't literally worship the ground they walk on, and
Speaker 1: because I because I take my job seriously as someone
Speaker 1: who's who's analyzes the game and it's supposed to be
Speaker 1: fair and unbiased. Even though I have my biases, I
Speaker 1: try to fight them as much as I can. Like it.
Speaker 1: It just I deal with this all the time where
Speaker 1: it's like, I'll I have a forty five minute video
Speaker 1: on YouTube where forty four minutes of it it's just
Speaker 1: ME talking about how amazing Steff was, and there's just
Speaker 1: droves of Steph fans that are disappointed because I didn't
Speaker 1: actually say he was perfect, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And it's like, and that's one of those things, like,
Speaker 1: here's the thing, Lebron fans. If I had a playoff
Speaker 1: series tomorrow and I was certain that Lebron James was
Speaker 1: healthy and the teams were evenly matched, there's a decent
Speaker 1: chance that I would think really hard about taking Lebron
Speaker 1: number one because of that specific scenario and how devastating
Speaker 1: I know he can be in that in a seven
Speaker 1: game series when he has chances to make adjustments and
Speaker 1: to where on people physically and stuff. Here's the problem
Speaker 1: that's that's not how basketball works. There's eighty two games
Speaker 1: and then you have to win four playoffs series. The
Speaker 1: reality of the situation is Lebron James just played the
Speaker 1: worst defensive season of his entire career, and it was
Speaker 1: directly a one of the things that was responsible for
Speaker 1: that team being such an inconsistent effort team and such
Speaker 1: an atrocious defensive team. I can't, in in my right
Speaker 1: mind be like he's above Steph the dude who, even
Speaker 1: though he's not as impactful on the defensive end as
Speaker 1: Lebron when he's engaged, he at least tried on defense
Speaker 1: all season long. He said a tone for his team
Speaker 1: which resonated down the roster and led to a perennially
Speaker 1: bad offensive defensive player and Andrew Wiggins to have one
Speaker 1: of the most dominant defensive playoff runs we've seen from
Speaker 1: a wing. That what, I can't in my right mind
Speaker 1: lift Lebron above guys who had better seasons. But yeah,
Speaker 1: if I if I had a series tomorrow, I might
Speaker 1: take him. But that's not what this question was. And
Speaker 1: you know, Lebron fans, they have such a blind spot
Speaker 1: for this stuff, and it's crazy to me, like it's
Speaker 1: just it's like his effort was downright embarrassing on a
Speaker 1: lot of nights this year. On a lot of nights,
Speaker 1: I I can't be like, oh, he's the best player
Speaker 1: in the world. It's just disrespectful to people who are
Speaker 1: trying harder, let alone that are that accomplished more this year.
Speaker 1: If that makes sense. I think that's very well put.
Speaker 1: And I think that there will always be the the
Speaker 1: Lebron people who really cannot be reasoned with. It's like
Speaker 1: you said, Lebron and Steph, it's kind of some of
Speaker 1: the culture, and uh, you're doing your best to cut
Speaker 1: through a Jason. I think we can all appreciate that.
Speaker 1: I think we can. And you know, sure sometimes you're
Speaker 1: a little harder on Nikola yokers than I would like.
Speaker 1: It's always grounded in very sound basketball logic, and you know,
Speaker 1: point out legitimate flaws in his game, and so even
Speaker 1: I can live with that, you know, all right, last
Speaker 1: thing here, obviously you went through he shouted out in
Speaker 1: that first video a couple of guys who were among
Speaker 1: the first off, who is the player who was not
Speaker 1: on your top twenty five list this year but you
Speaker 1: expect to be on their next year? Oh, man, that's
Speaker 1: such a good question. Man. This could go a bunch
Speaker 1: of different directions. Um. You could look at rookies right like,
Speaker 1: I'm super high on Jade and Ivy. I could see
Speaker 1: him really quickly becoming one of the most unguardable two
Speaker 1: guards that we have in the league. Um, Palo's ability
Speaker 1: to score the basketball super interesting. But those guys are
Speaker 1: so young and they're so unpolished in the details of
Speaker 1: their game would probably be unfair. Um Man, this is
Speaker 1: a tough one. I would say that the guy it
Speaker 1: I could see potentially venturing back into that list as
Speaker 1: a guy like Bradley Beale. Um. This is a guy
Speaker 1: that has ability at a similar level to Devin Booker.
Speaker 1: He's just nowhere nears committed on the defensive end of
Speaker 1: the floor, and he's been floundering in mediocrity with a
Speaker 1: with a team with the Washington Wizards who actually put
Speaker 1: some quality role players around him this year, and then
Speaker 1: he got hurt. But you could see a version of
Speaker 1: this story where he gets healthy and the Wizards have
Speaker 1: quality role players around him and he has a better
Speaker 1: season where he averages twenty seven points a game and
Speaker 1: makes a playoff team and then you have to put
Speaker 1: him onto that list. But man, this is top This
Speaker 1: is a this is a really tough question. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: genuinely curious to hear what your opinion this, Carson, Well,
Speaker 1: I think Beal is a great choice. I think he's
Speaker 1: kind of the first guy who jumped out of me
Speaker 1: because you know, his last two primarily healthy seasons before
Speaker 1: this one, he was thirty plus a game. He's progressed
Speaker 1: as a playmaker. Like you said, I mean, I've always
Speaker 1: thought that he and Book are the two most versatile
Speaker 1: scoring two guards who we have. Book maybe sets himself
Speaker 1: a part of it with the post game, but outside
Speaker 1: of that, Bradley Bell can do everything pretty much as
Speaker 1: a scoring guard. I was thinking about the ascent of
Speaker 1: some young guys too, and I don't think we can
Speaker 1: expect it of any incoming rookies this year because that's
Speaker 1: a huge leap to take. But I was thinking about
Speaker 1: some guys from last year's class. I was thinking about
Speaker 1: Evan Mobili potentially if he progressed a bit offensively, if
Speaker 1: the perimeter shop becomes more reliable, if he becomes a
Speaker 1: bit more assertive, because defensively, you know, he's at that
Speaker 1: all defense level, and he's a good offensive basketball player
Speaker 1: with a really strong foundation. But it's insane how much
Speaker 1: talent there is. I mean, you know, I'm Scott that
Speaker 1: rocky class. It could literally be you know, I don't
Speaker 1: think Jalen Green can get there quite yet, but Kade
Speaker 1: I could see totally, you know, having a twenty plus
Speaker 1: seven point per game, reasonably efficient season where he's a
Speaker 1: plus defender. It's just a monster class. So top twenty
Speaker 1: five that early, with how talented the league is right now,
Speaker 1: is a lot to ask. But if anybody's gonna do it,
Speaker 1: I think it's going to be that batch of guys.
Speaker 1: But I think deal is a very good one. As
Speaker 1: far as established guys who would expect to return. The
Speaker 1: last name that I'd like to throw out there is
Speaker 1: Zion Williamson. Oh absolutely. If he has a season where
Speaker 1: he averages, you know, twenty eight points a game on
Speaker 1: six shooting or something something ridiculous shooting like it's and
Speaker 1: he's such a matchup problem to that kind of automatically
Speaker 1: puts him on that list. The Pelicans are gonna be
Speaker 1: a really interesting team to watch this year, and if
Speaker 1: they stay healthy, they'll they'll they'll be really interesting. Is
Speaker 1: that it for the mail bag? Is that all our questions?
Speaker 1: That's all we got, all right, everybody has always We
Speaker 1: sincerely appreciate your support, and we will see you in
Speaker 1: a couple of days. The volume