Speaker 1: The Volume. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight. You're at
Speaker 1: the Volume. Happy Friday, everybody, I hope all if you
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Speaker 1: top twenty five players of the last twenty five years
Speaker 1: with number thirteen, twelve and eleven today, You guys know
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Speaker 1: but not least. Again, for those of you guys who
Speaker 1: missed it, yesterday, I did a preview of the Feeble
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Speaker 1: let's continue right along with number thirteen. Steve Nash, the
Speaker 1: last remaining player on our list who never won an
Speaker 1: NBA championship in his career. He was three time First
Speaker 1: team All NBA, seven time All NBA in total, He
Speaker 1: was the assistant Champion in the league five times, and
Speaker 1: he won back to back regular season MVP Awards in
Speaker 1: two thousand and five in two thousand and six, the
Speaker 1: only other Top twenty player other than Allen Iverson not
Speaker 1: to win an NBA championship. On this list, I put
Speaker 1: his prime down from two thousand and one to twenty twelve.
Speaker 1: Believe it or not, Steve Nash made an All Star
Speaker 1: team in twenty twelve. In that span, he averaged sixteen points,
Speaker 1: three rebounds, and nine assists on sixty one percent true shooting,
Speaker 1: and then in the playoffs during that span he averaged
Speaker 1: eighteen points, four rebounds, and ten assists on fifty nine
Speaker 1: percent true shooting. He always went up a level as
Speaker 1: a scorer in the postseason, in large part because teams
Speaker 1: would try to force him to score by staying home
Speaker 1: off the ball. As a matter of fact, he had
Speaker 1: nine to thirty point playoff games in his career, including
Speaker 1: a career high forty eight in a game against the
Speaker 1: Dallas Mavericks in two thousand and five, which was higher
Speaker 1: than any regular season scoring total he ever had in
Speaker 1: his career. As for his claim to fame. I think
Speaker 1: Steve Nash will be remembered for two main things. First,
Speaker 1: he basically invented pace in space basketball. The Sons played
Speaker 1: significantly faster than everyone else in the league. Even if
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily fast compared to today's basketball, it was
Speaker 1: significantly faster than anyone else in the league at the time.
Speaker 1: And obviously we think of Steve Nash as this incredible passer,
Speaker 1: right and we see that a lot in his pick
Speaker 1: and roll numbers, which we're going to get to in
Speaker 1: a little bit. But I thought Steve Nash's best trait
Speaker 1: as a pick and roll ball handler or ex just
Speaker 1: me as a point guard, I should say, was his
Speaker 1: willingness to throw the kick ahead pass. You know, we
Speaker 1: think of the you know, the point god Chris Paul as,
Speaker 1: you know, a guy who strangles the pace of games.
Speaker 1: He'd get the reboundary, he'd get the inbound pass on
Speaker 1: the baseline, he'd slowly bring the ball up on the
Speaker 1: ball up the floor, get guys to their spots, and
Speaker 1: then run a pick and roll. Right. Well, Steve Nash
Speaker 1: was the exact opposite of that. He just any single
Speaker 1: time that the security defensive rebound or inbounded. After a
Speaker 1: made basket, Steve immediately pushed the ball up the floor
Speaker 1: with pace, and if he saw anybody in a position
Speaker 1: to catch ahead of the floor, even if they weren't
Speaker 1: necessarily wide open ready standing for a shot or for
Speaker 1: a dunk, he'd throw it ahead. And there's a ton
Speaker 1: of value in kick ahead passes. Not only do you eventually,
Speaker 1: on several occasions, catch the defense slipping and you do
Speaker 1: get a wide open three or a dunk, but in
Speaker 1: addition to that, it keeps the defense unsettled from the start.
Speaker 1: So you can imagine made basket, turnover, a misshot, whatever
Speaker 1: it is. The defense is sprinting back in transition defense, right,
Speaker 1: but they're not actually back yet. Usually there's one guy
Speaker 1: at the basket, but there are guys that are trailing
Speaker 1: the play. Sometimes guys aren't matched up yet, And so
Speaker 1: when you throw a kick ahead pass, Let's say that
Speaker 1: Rajah Bell's run in the left wing and he's ahead of,
Speaker 1: you know, some of the guys, Like he's ahead of
Speaker 1: four of the five defensive players, even though he's not
Speaker 1: gonna be able run right to the rim for a
Speaker 1: dunk because that fifth guy is back there. If I
Speaker 1: pitch it ahead to Raja Bell, everyone on the defense turns,
Speaker 1: and when they turn, all of a sudden, the other
Speaker 1: four guys have opportunities to fill lanes and get open behind.
Speaker 1: It's one of the best ways to keep the defense
Speaker 1: from getting set. Throw that kick ahead pass. It's kind
Speaker 1: of a lost art in the NBA. The only guy
Speaker 1: really who you know consistently does it as a point
Speaker 1: guard in this era really that I can think of
Speaker 1: is Lonzo Ball, and he's been injured for a while.
Speaker 1: It's something that Lebron James has been very good at
Speaker 1: in his career, throwing kick ahead passes when guys are
Speaker 1: up the floor, when you see opportunities to push the
Speaker 1: ball up the floor and transition ahead of defensive players.
Speaker 1: Even if it doesn't necessarily immediately generate a shot, it
Speaker 1: usually gets and causes even more chaos in the defense,
Speaker 1: which can which can create openings. Now you'd see guys
Speaker 1: in situations like that too. Specifically, Raja Bell was gunning
Speaker 1: for jump shots in that particular situation. There's the real
Speaker 1: difference between because you know, I talked about Jason Kidd
Speaker 1: being the best fast break player of the early two thousands. Well,
Speaker 1: Steve Kid kind of excuse me, Steve Nash kind of
Speaker 1: took that mantle away from him, right, But the way
Speaker 1: that the Suns played fast break basketball was actually very
Speaker 1: different from the way that the New Jersey Nets played
Speaker 1: fast break basketball. The New Jersey Nets were more athletic,
Speaker 1: and they were constantly running to the rim, right, whereas
Speaker 1: the Suns in a lot of cases would run for
Speaker 1: jump shots. And as a matter of fact, they took
Speaker 1: more jump shots than anybody in the league over that span.
Speaker 1: They led the leagues. They led the entire NBA in
Speaker 1: jump shots attempted three years in a row from two
Speaker 1: thousand and five, two thousand and six and two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven. So when Steve Nash came, they immediately massively
Speaker 1: increased their pace. They hunted jump shots, including in transition,
Speaker 1: they played faster than everybody. That was kind of like,
Speaker 1: I think the first thing that Steve Nash will get
Speaker 1: remembered for kind of inventing pace in space basketball, particularly
Speaker 1: as it pertains to hunting jump shots. The second thing
Speaker 1: that I think Steve Nash will be remembered for is
Speaker 1: I think he was the most accurate shooter of his
Speaker 1: particular era. So not only did he have four seasons
Speaker 1: in his career where he finished fifty to forty ninety,
Speaker 1: meaning he shot at least fifty percent from the field,
Speaker 1: forty percent from three to ninety percent from the free
Speaker 1: throw line, but he also was consistently at the very
Speaker 1: top of the league in field goal percentage on jump
Speaker 1: shots overall. So I'm gonna read you guys some numbers.
Speaker 1: This is where Steve Nash finished relative to the entire
Speaker 1: NBA in field goal percentage on jump shots among players
Speaker 1: who attempted at least five hundred jump shots during the season,
Speaker 1: so all high volume jump shooters in field goal percentage
Speaker 1: two thousand and five, Steve Nash finished second in field
Speaker 1: goal percentage with at least five hundred jump shots two
Speaker 1: thousand and six, fourth two thousand and seven to third,
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, first, two thousand and nine, first,
Speaker 1: twenty ten, second, twenty eleven, fourth, And if you go
Speaker 1: through those lists, there's a bunch of random guys that
Speaker 1: ended up in high spots on that list. Because in
Speaker 1: any given season, it got I can get hot, feel
Speaker 1: good with his jump shot for eighty two games and
Speaker 1: shoot a good percentage, but every single year, Steve Nash
Speaker 1: was at or near the top of that list, and
Speaker 1: that was what it was like watching him. If you
Speaker 1: saw Steve Nash load up a jump shot and he
Speaker 1: had his feet set like you just felt like that
Speaker 1: thing was going in his archetype. He was bigger than
Speaker 1: you'd think. He was a legit six foot three. He
Speaker 1: was constantly in motion. He was very rarely just pounding
Speaker 1: the ball in one spot on the floor even when
Speaker 1: you watched him. Obviously we talked about those kick ahead
Speaker 1: pases that we were talking about, but every time he
Speaker 1: got rid of the basketball, he was always cutting and
Speaker 1: running through and moving. Every time he was keeping alive,
Speaker 1: dribble alive for ten fifteen dribbles at a time. He
Speaker 1: was moving. We all remember those plays where Steve Nash
Speaker 1: would like dribble along the baseline and get underneath the basket,
Speaker 1: but instead of shooting, because he'd see a rim protector
Speaker 1: chasing him, he would just dribble it all the way back. Also,
Speaker 1: sometimes he would just dribble and circles around the floor
Speaker 1: until somebody broke open and he'd hit them. And he
Speaker 1: always hit the guy when he broke open. He was
Speaker 1: by far the best pick and roll ball handler in
Speaker 1: the league. During the mid two thousands, there were fourteen
Speaker 1: players who ran at least five hundred pick and rolls.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and five, Nash finished first at one
Speaker 1: point one to two points per possession. Gilbertorenaz was second
Speaker 1: at one point two points per possession, so he was
Speaker 1: literally a full tenth of a point per possession better
Speaker 1: than everybody else in the league. In that particular season,
Speaker 1: twenty three players ran at least five hundred pick and rolls.
Speaker 1: In two hundred and six, Nash finished first at one
Speaker 1: point one points per possession. He was first out of
Speaker 1: twenty five guys in two thousand and seven, so first
Speaker 1: place three years in a row, second place out of
Speaker 1: twenty six players in two thousand and eight. Anybody want
Speaker 1: to guess who was second, Ziito turk Glue. We talked
Speaker 1: a little bit about that when we talked about Dwight
Speaker 1: Howard yesterday and how everyone remembers the Orlando Magic as
Speaker 1: being like a Dwight Howard post up team, but they
Speaker 1: were actually the biggest, the highest volume pick and roll
Speaker 1: team in the league in two thousand and nine. In particular,
Speaker 1: he was third. Nash was third out of thirty two
Speaker 1: players to run at least five hundred pick and rolls
Speaker 1: inefficiency in two thousand and nine, back to first out
Speaker 1: of forty two players in twoenty ten, second out of
Speaker 1: forty one players in twenty eleven, and first out of
Speaker 1: thirty five players in twenty twelve. So over an eight
Speaker 1: season span from two thousand and five to twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: he was first place in the league high volume pick
Speaker 1: and roll efficiency five of those eight seasons, and he
Speaker 1: was top three in the other three seasons, so easily
Speaker 1: the best pick and roll player of that era. He
Speaker 1: was also a good ISO player. He'd like to pick
Speaker 1: on bigs on switches. A lot of you guys might
Speaker 1: remember key moments in like a series against the Spurs
Speaker 1: or the MAVs, or like he pulled Dirk Noaviski out
Speaker 1: to the perimeter and just kind of toast him off
Speaker 1: the dribble for a layup, or if he played too
Speaker 1: far off, he'd hit a pull up jump shot. Did
Speaker 1: similar things to Tim Duncans sometimes in switches, But he
Speaker 1: kind of reminded me of Chauncey Billups in that regard,
Speaker 1: like it's very heavy to the left hand, Like he
Speaker 1: went to the left about seventy percent of the time,
Speaker 1: and it was just a simple give and take. It's
Speaker 1: I'm either going to take this pull up jump shot
Speaker 1: if you're too far, or I'm going right by you
Speaker 1: if you are up too close into my space. One
Speaker 1: of the things that was kind of kind of cool
Speaker 1: with Steve Nash two is he always used his right hand,
Speaker 1: So like when he was on the right side, he
Speaker 1: go right hand, but when he would drive on his
Speaker 1: left hand rather than left side, instead of like switching
Speaker 1: to his left hand and like shielding with his right arm,
Speaker 1: he kind of positioned his body between the rim protector
Speaker 1: and kind of extend way out in front of him
Speaker 1: and make like a low, right handed scoop shot off
Speaker 1: the glass. Lots of young guards in that time tried
Speaker 1: to copy that. Finish Steve Nash's crowning achievement. He went
Speaker 1: back to back MVPs in two thousand and five in
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, although unfortunately they lost in the
Speaker 1: conference finals both times. The biggest one if of Steve
Speaker 1: Nash's career what if the two thousand and seven series
Speaker 1: with the Spurs had gone differently. This is an interesting
Speaker 1: one because, first of all, the Suns lose this really
Speaker 1: tight Game one, and there's this weird play where like
Speaker 1: Steve Nash closes out on Tony Parker on the right
Speaker 1: wing and he bunks heads with him and he gets
Speaker 1: this big gash along his nose and it just will
Speaker 1: not stop bleeding, and he ended up actually having to
Speaker 1: sit on the bench during several pivotal offensive possessions at
Speaker 1: the end of that game. And they lost in a
Speaker 1: very very close game. And so that's kind of the
Speaker 1: first what if in that specific series. And then, as
Speaker 1: you guys know, the Sons go on to win two
Speaker 1: of the next three games, including winning Game four in
Speaker 1: San Antonio, and unfortunately, in Game five at home, we
Speaker 1: have the brawl, the shove into the scorers table, people
Speaker 1: leaving the benches. Amari Stodemeyer, the second best player on
Speaker 1: the Suns, gets suspended for the pivotal Game five and
Speaker 1: they end up losing Game five. Actually, excuse me, the
Speaker 1: shove into the scorers table happened during the Sun's big
Speaker 1: Game four win. Stottamayer had to sit out Game five,
Speaker 1: and so the Sons ended up losing at home in
Speaker 1: a pivotal Game five with their second best player not
Speaker 1: able to play, and then they ended up losing in
Speaker 1: Game six in San Antonio. So again, if you look
Speaker 1: at like, what if Nash doesn't bust is no open
Speaker 1: and what if Stottomeyer doesn't get suspended for Game five?
Speaker 1: Do the Suns win that series? I don't know, but
Speaker 1: they certainly have a much better chance, right And do
Speaker 1: they beat the Jazz in the conference finals? Probably they
Speaker 1: would have been favored. Do they beat the Calves in
Speaker 1: the finals? Definitely? That Caves team wasn't very good. So
Speaker 1: I mean, we're talking about a game of inches here
Speaker 1: that kept Steve Nash away from potentially being a champion
Speaker 1: in US. Looking back at his career, very very differently,
Speaker 1: all right. Number twelve Kawhi Leonard best player on a
Speaker 1: championship team in twenty nineteen. He was a role player
Speaker 1: on a championship team in twenty fourteen with the Spurs,
Speaker 1: three time first Team All NBA, five time All NBA Overall,
Speaker 1: seven time All Defense, and two time Defensive Player of
Speaker 1: the Year, and he also led the league in steals
Speaker 1: in twenty fifteen. He also is a two time NBA
Speaker 1: Finals MVP in twenty fourteen. In twenty nineteen, although I
Speaker 1: personally don't think he should have gotten the twenty fourteen one.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about that in a little bit. I put
Speaker 1: his prime down as twenty sixteen. To the president and
Speaker 1: everything before that, he was more of a role player,
Speaker 1: really became a primary shot creator in twenty sixteen. During
Speaker 1: that span, he averaged twenty five point seven rebounds and
Speaker 1: for assists on sixty one percent true shooting. In the playoffs,
Speaker 1: always one of the best playoff performers of his era,
Speaker 1: twenty nine points eight rebounds and for assists on sixty
Speaker 1: three percent true shooting. Kawis claimed to fame. In my
Speaker 1: opinion is he kind of carried the mantle of Kobe
Speaker 1: Bryant as like the next in his era, the best
Speaker 1: like two way score like when it purely came down
Speaker 1: to getting a bucket for yourself or stopping the other
Speaker 1: team's best player from getting a bucket for himself. Nobody
Speaker 1: in the league was better than Kawhi during his particular era. Now, obviously,
Speaker 1: the game of basketball is way more complicated than just
Speaker 1: those two situations, and that's why there are players that
Speaker 1: are better players than Kawhi in his era. I never
Speaker 1: thought Kawhi was the best player in the league because
Speaker 1: of those complications that I'm referring to. But when we
Speaker 1: simplify the game of basketball down to just those two things,
Speaker 1: nobody was better at it than Kawhi Leonard. His archetype.
Speaker 1: He was kind of like the way I would just
Speaker 1: break down Kawhi Leonard to someone who had never seen
Speaker 1: him before, as I'd say, he's kind of like a bigger, stronger,
Speaker 1: but more ground bound version of Michael Jordan. He plays
Speaker 1: kind of like an old school two guard, a heavy
Speaker 1: diet of pull up jump shots in the mid range
Speaker 1: off the balance in I own and pick and roll,
Speaker 1: and then just a ridiculous back to the basket game
Speaker 1: with super reliable fadeaway jump shots over both shoulders and
Speaker 1: all of that, like you know, footwork that you became
Speaker 1: accustomed to seeing from the best two guards in the
Speaker 1: league during the late nineties in the early two thousands.
Speaker 1: He does have more of a power style than some
Speaker 1: of those more athleticism based two guards right like Kobe
Speaker 1: and mj were more rise and fire guys that used
Speaker 1: their athleticism to get over the top of the defense.
Speaker 1: Kawhi Leonard was more of a power guy. He's winning
Speaker 1: ground battles. He's bumping you off of your base to
Speaker 1: get separation, generating that separation on the ground rather than
Speaker 1: in the air. So that that kind of like gave
Speaker 1: him this unique quality where because he's so damn big
Speaker 1: and strong, he plays more of a three to four
Speaker 1: because of who who he can guard defensively and then
Speaker 1: offensively kind of fills more of the role of like
Speaker 1: a two guard, right. And you know, as we say
Speaker 1: all the time, like you your position in basketball has
Speaker 1: more to do with who you can guard rather than
Speaker 1: what you can do offensively. And that allowed Kawhi a
Speaker 1: ton of versatility that made him easy to build around
Speaker 1: on any team. For instance, like on a Toronto Raptors team,
Speaker 1: he can play a smaller position next to Pascal Siakam
Speaker 1: and Sergebaka or Marc Gasol, right because of what he's
Speaker 1: capable of defensively, being able to slot up to twos.
Speaker 1: But then in a Clippers lineup, you can put him
Speaker 1: at power forward and it works. It's one of the
Speaker 1: unique kind of things that makes him versatile. He has
Speaker 1: absolutely mastered shot making at the NBA level this year
Speaker 1: with the Clippers. He's just peaking right now. Fifty nine
Speaker 1: percent effective field goal percentage on catch and shoe jumpers,
Speaker 1: fifty six percent effective field goal percentage on pull up jumpers,
Speaker 1: forty six percent on floaters, sixty percent on hooks. He's
Speaker 1: also made significant strides as a passer. I won't go
Speaker 1: too far into it because we did it in our
Speaker 1: player rankings, but he basically turned his biggest weakness as
Speaker 1: a basketball player, the ability to pass, into something where
Speaker 1: now he's kind of on par with his peers, and
Speaker 1: that's allowed him to get well over a point per
Speaker 1: possession and pick and roll ISO and post up situations,
Speaker 1: and he's turned into a legitimate top tier shot creator
Speaker 1: in this league. Kawhi's crowning achievements. Early in his career,
Speaker 1: he was a role player with the Spurs, a cog
Speaker 1: in an offensive system ran by better offensive players more
Speaker 1: of a defensive focus right, But then he became a
Speaker 1: star level shot creator with the Spurs in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: But unfortunately, over the next three seasons, by virtue of
Speaker 1: some limitations on the roster and also some injuries, he
Speaker 1: never actually won a title with the Spurs, But finally
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen, messaiyu Jiri takes a big risk in
Speaker 1: trades for Kawhi Leonard and he goes to the Raptors
Speaker 1: and he finds himself in a perfect situation to hide
Speaker 1: his flaws and accentuate his strengths. He played a lot
Speaker 1: alongside high level passers like Fred van Vliet and Kyle Lowry,
Speaker 1: who could do more of the managing of the offense,
Speaker 1: so that didn't put that on Kawi's plate. He had
Speaker 1: elite back line help to help weaponize Kawi's point of
Speaker 1: attack defense, which can be so valuable. He got to
Speaker 1: be the tip of a spear, which is kind of
Speaker 1: what you need for this archetype of player when you're
Speaker 1: primarily a two way scorer, a guy who gets buckets
Speaker 1: and gets stops like you have to be surrounded by
Speaker 1: a certain type of player or players around you that
Speaker 1: can allow you to just be the tip of the spear.
Speaker 1: And that's what the Rappers, a Raptor Raptors allowed him
Speaker 1: to do, and that you know, so he ends up
Speaker 1: being the closer for that Raptors team, pushes them over
Speaker 1: the top and also helped that Lebron was out of
Speaker 1: the conference at that point, and Kawhi wins his first
Speaker 1: legitimate Finals MVP. So I want to talk about the
Speaker 1: finals MVPs for a second, not just Kawi's because I
Speaker 1: think this applies to twenty fifteen as well, But the
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen and twenty fifteen finals MVPs to me were
Speaker 1: great examples of like the media just box score watching
Speaker 1: and buying into like stupid narratives rather than paying attention
Speaker 1: to what a basketball team is doing. And there were
Speaker 1: two primary drivers of that. So like you see Kawhi
Speaker 1: Leonard average eighteen points per game in the NBA Finals
Speaker 1: because of just openings that were generated by better offensive
Speaker 1: players on his team. Or you see Andre Gudala what
Speaker 1: I think Igudala averaged like twenty in the twenty fifteen
Speaker 1: finals if I remember correctly, same type of thing, like
Speaker 1: Steph Curry's getting blitzed thirty feet from the basket and
Speaker 1: Andre Goudala is shooting wide open corner threes and everyone's like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, look at how valuable Andre Gudala is.
Speaker 1: He's averaging twenty points a game. And then there was
Speaker 1: a whole regarding Lebron thing, which was completely ridiculous because
Speaker 1: Lebron just lit Kawhi on fire in the twenty fourteen Finals,
Speaker 1: he averaged twenty eight points per game on sixty eight
Speaker 1: percent true shooting. Sixty eight percent true shooting, did very
Speaker 1: little to really truly bother Lebron James in that series,
Speaker 1: but it became the narrative, right and then the Andrea
Speaker 1: Gudala series in twenty fifteen, same sort of thing. Everyone's like,
Speaker 1: he guarded Lebron, he held him to forty percent shooting,
Speaker 1: but it's like, literally Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving were out,
Speaker 1: they're guarding Lebron with five man groups with all eyes
Speaker 1: on him because he's playing with guys like j R.
Speaker 1: Smith was really the only legitimate NBA starter playing alongside
Speaker 1: Lebron James in that finals, because there was a lot
Speaker 1: of guys in that lineup that had to play because
Speaker 1: of injuries that probably wouldn't have cracked starting lineups elsewhere
Speaker 1: in the league. And so it just was a silly
Speaker 1: narrative when the truth of the matter was is Steph
Speaker 1: Curry was far and away the best player on the
Speaker 1: Warriors and he deserved to win Finals MVP when his
Speaker 1: Warriors team won an NBA championship. And the same thing
Speaker 1: goes in twenty fourteen. These are some crazy stats for you.
Speaker 1: So Kawhi in the twenty fourteen playoff run only ran
Speaker 1: one hundred and eighteen self creation possessions, that's pick and rolls,
Speaker 1: ISOs and post ups only ran one hundred and eighteen.
Speaker 1: Tony Parker ran four hundred and thirty nine. Okay, Manu
Speaker 1: Jeno ran two hundred and ninety. Tim Duncan himself old
Speaker 1: Tim Duncan ran one hundred and twenty five, which is
Speaker 1: seven more than Kawhi Leonards. So like, yeah, he averaged
Speaker 1: eighteen points a game, played extremely well in the finals.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to undercut how well he played. He
Speaker 1: did star in his role, but he wasn't the best
Speaker 1: player on that team. It was either Tony Parker or
Speaker 1: Tim Duncan. And this is why I'm a big advocate
Speaker 1: of the like getting rid of the finals MVP award
Speaker 1: and making it more of the championship MVP, the award
Speaker 1: you give to the player who deserves the most credit
Speaker 1: for leading that team to an NBA championship. That way
Speaker 1: you can filter through the crap right. That way you
Speaker 1: can look at it and be like, oh, Kawhi Leonard
Speaker 1: only averaged thirteen points per game through the first three
Speaker 1: rounds of the playoffs. So maybe he's not the best
Speaker 1: player on the Spurs. It's probably Tony Parker or Tim
Speaker 1: Duncan who was awesome during that entire playoff run and
Speaker 1: outscored Kawhi Leonard during that entire playoff run. It's just
Speaker 1: it's so silly how that works, because you end up
Speaker 1: zooming in on just this small sample size of games,
Speaker 1: and you have all these media reporters who can't look
Speaker 1: at past the damn box score long enough to understand
Speaker 1: how that basketball team is operating. Like it's I love
Speaker 1: Anddrake Guodala. He's a guy who played at the University
Speaker 1: of Arizona. The dude's a legend here in Tucson. I'm
Speaker 1: a big fan of him in general. I think he's
Speaker 1: one of the best perimeter defenders of this decade, one
Speaker 1: of the best role players of this decade. Huge and
Speaker 1: Drake Guodala fan. Giving him the twenty fifteen Finals MVP
Speaker 1: is one of the most absurd mistakes the media has
Speaker 1: ever made in the history of the NBA. Like, literally,
Speaker 1: the dude was shooting wide open spot up shots and
Speaker 1: catching wide open dunks along the baseline because the Cavs
Speaker 1: were throwing the damn kitchen sink at Steph Curry. It
Speaker 1: was completely absurd that we have to reevaluate how we
Speaker 1: do this stuff. Tony Parker ran the offense for the
Speaker 1: Spurs in twenty fourteen. Kawhi was really really good in
Speaker 1: his role in won five game series. Not nearly as
Speaker 1: valuable as Tim Duncan or Tony Parker was to that team.
Speaker 1: It's ridiculous that they gave him a Finals MVP, but
Speaker 1: again that's kind of a side tangent. He very very
Speaker 1: very much deserved the twenty nineteen Finals MVP. So what's
Speaker 1: the biggest what if of Kawhi Leonard's career. What if
Speaker 1: his knee had held up during the twenty twenty one playoffs.
Speaker 1: Kawhi was hooping his ass off in that twenty twenty
Speaker 1: one playoff run. For those of you guys you remember,
Speaker 1: he averaged thirty points, eight rebounds, and four assists on
Speaker 1: sixty eight percent true shooting, which is off the charts.
Speaker 1: He had a couple of ridiculous donks. He had a
Speaker 1: dunk in the Jazz series where right left just went
Speaker 1: down and just dunked on everybody. He looked amazing, but
Speaker 1: then he partially tore his ACL and missed the rest
Speaker 1: of the playoffs. Paul George finishes off the one seed Jazz.
Speaker 1: The one seed Jazz finishes them off, and then gets
Speaker 1: two games off the Suns in the Conference finals without Kawhi.
Speaker 1: So you can imagine how much better that team potentially
Speaker 1: could have been in the conference finals and then potentially
Speaker 1: in an NBA Finals series against the Bucks had Kawhi
Speaker 1: Leonards stayed healthy. And if you start to look at
Speaker 1: it as three champion ships with two legitimate finals MVPs,
Speaker 1: that's where you know, Kawhi could have entered into some
Speaker 1: conversations like, hey, is he above Kevin Durant in this era?
Speaker 1: You know, that's an interesting conversation there. But we didn't
Speaker 1: get to see that because once again Kahi Leonard got hurt,
Speaker 1: which has become a recurring theme towards the end of
Speaker 1: his career. Number eleven last guy for today, Kevin Garnett,
Speaker 1: first player to be drafted out of high school since
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five, the best player on a championship team
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight. Now, Paul Pierce was was
Speaker 1: close to KG on that team and was definitely the
Speaker 1: closer on that team in terms of shot making and
Speaker 1: obviously like in that, like that's different than the twenty
Speaker 1: fourteen or twenty fifteen finals MVPs, Like those were role
Speaker 1: players that stole Finals MVPs from stars who deserved it, right,
Speaker 1: Like Tony Parker was, you know, like consensus one of
Speaker 1: the top ten to fifteen players in the league in
Speaker 1: those years. He was coming off of back to back
Speaker 1: second team All NBA selections. Like it just it's totally
Speaker 1: different than a role player, right, you know, Steph Curry
Speaker 1: was the MVP of the league and twenty fifteen it
Speaker 1: was very clearly the best player. Those were different. Paul
Speaker 1: Pierce and Kevin Garnett were at a very similar level
Speaker 1: and they were both stars. So Paul Pierce winning the
Speaker 1: MVP Finals MVP in two thousand and eight is not
Speaker 1: something that concerns me, and frankly I thought he deserved it.
Speaker 1: But KG, I do think was the best player on
Speaker 1: that team in terms of overall winning impact. Four time
Speaker 1: First Team All NBA, nine time All NBA Overall, two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight Defensive Player of the Year, twelve time
Speaker 1: All Defense Team including nine time First Team All Defense.
Speaker 1: He was the rebounding champion in the league four times,
Speaker 1: and he was the MVP of the regular season in
Speaker 1: two thousand and four. I put down his prime from
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven to twenty thirteen. That's one hell of
Speaker 1: a long prime. That's seventeen years. Guess what. He made
Speaker 1: an All Star team in both of those seasons, in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven and twenty thirteen. This extends to before
Speaker 1: our nineteen ninety nine cutoff point, to be clear, but
Speaker 1: I wanted to try to capture kg's whole career, and
Speaker 1: we're only talking about two years there. During the regular season,
Speaker 1: in that span, he averaged twenty points, eleven rebounds and
Speaker 1: four assists on fifty five percent through shooting. In the playoffs,
Speaker 1: nineteen points eleven rebounds in four assists on fifty two
Speaker 1: percent true shooting. Kg's claymon the fame is. I thought
Speaker 1: he was one of the very best defensive players of
Speaker 1: his era. It's hard to say. This era was just
Speaker 1: so stacked with defensive talent. Like most people will tell you,
Speaker 1: as Ben Wallace was the best defender of this era,
Speaker 1: A lot of people will tell you it was Tim Duncan.
Speaker 1: A lot of people will tell you it was Kevin Garnett.
Speaker 1: They're all very different in the way they played, too.
Speaker 1: Like Kevin Garnett was like much more of like a
Speaker 1: active mobile defender that was kind of all over the floor,
Speaker 1: got a lot of steals and things like that. Tim
Speaker 1: Duncan was more of like a traditional rim protector, hanging
Speaker 1: back towards the rim. Ben Wallace was like a complete
Speaker 1: alien and didn't resemble anything else that we saw in
Speaker 1: basketball over that span, right, So they're all very different.
Speaker 1: It kind of depends who you ask, but those three
Speaker 1: guys were basically the best defenders of that era. The
Speaker 1: biggest debate of this era is whether or not Kevin
Speaker 1: Garnett or Dirk is the second best power forward of
Speaker 1: all time behind Tim Duncan and I tend to our
Speaker 1: second best power forward of that era, I should say,
Speaker 1: behind Tim Duncan. I tend to lean slightly towards Dirk.
Speaker 1: As you guys can probably tell from the list his archetype.
Speaker 1: He had very similar frame to Anthony Davis, who six
Speaker 1: to eleven with a seven to five wingspan, just like
Speaker 1: a terodactyl on defense, just all over passing, lanes. He
Speaker 1: was one of the best post players in the league.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and five, out of forty three players
Speaker 1: to run at least two hundred post ups, Scarnett ranked
Speaker 1: second out of forty three players with one point zero
Speaker 1: two points per possession. He was fifth out of forty
Speaker 1: five players in two thousand and six, and then he
Speaker 1: was first out of forty players in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 1: Just a super super deadly post up player. Very very
Speaker 1: good mid range jump shot. Those of you guys who
Speaker 1: remember Kevin Garnett, like there were two main jump shots
Speaker 1: that he was kind of famous for. It was just
Speaker 1: a really good hard jab step jump shot. He had
Speaker 1: a good release that was almost like back behind his head,
Speaker 1: so it was really difficult to contest. And then he
Speaker 1: had this turnaround fade away that he would take and uh,
Speaker 1: primarily over his right shoulder, but like he would like
Speaker 1: kind of like go into his high hesitation and then
Speaker 1: he would do like this triple like shoulder shimmy before
Speaker 1: he would go into his fade away, and like every
Speaker 1: kid tried to copy that in the post. You'll just remember,
Speaker 1: like you get into the high hesitation and then it
Speaker 1: was like a shimmy and then he'd either out of
Speaker 1: the shimmy, he'd either go left or he'd go right.
Speaker 1: But he was better shooting that like kind of turn
Speaker 1: around fade away over his right shoulder. Also had a
Speaker 1: deadly accurate hook shot that he made about sixty percent
Speaker 1: of the time, knockdown, catch and shoot jumpers pretty well
Speaker 1: in that fifteen to twenty foot range. He was about
Speaker 1: forty percent for the during the prime of his career,
Speaker 1: which at the time was a legitimate pick and pop threat,
Speaker 1: just a super valuable anchor for a basketball team on
Speaker 1: both ends of the floor. The ability to build around
Speaker 1: him defensively, and then he didn't really start to really
Speaker 1: operate and pick and roll as much until he got
Speaker 1: to the Celtics, but he did a lot of that.
Speaker 1: There just a guy that could fill so many holes
Speaker 1: for a basketball team, which is why he was so
Speaker 1: valuable in a winning concept. His crowning achievement, he was
Speaker 1: the best player on the two thousand and eight Celtics
Speaker 1: when they won the championship. He was also third in
Speaker 1: MVP voting that year. Led the Celtics to a sixty
Speaker 1: six teen record, averaged eighteen and thirteen with two point
Speaker 1: seven blocks per game in the two thousand and eight
Speaker 1: NBA Finals as the Celtics eliminated the Lakers in the
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight Finals, and we got to hear
Speaker 1: Kevin Garnett yell out anything is possible at the top
Speaker 1: of his lungs in a rather iconic NBA moment. Biggest
Speaker 1: what if of Kevin Garnett's career? What if he didn't
Speaker 1: get hurt? We said this already in the Paul Pier's section,
Speaker 1: but what if he didn't get hurt in the two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine season. Again, the Celtics started twenty seven
Speaker 1: to two that year in their title defense, and if
Speaker 1: KG had stayed healthy, they probably win the title that year.
Speaker 1: They were better. They kicked the Lakers as in Game six,
Speaker 1: won by almost forty We're kicking everyone's ass to start
Speaker 1: the season. They were the best team in the league
Speaker 1: and their best player got hurt. And so it's interesting
Speaker 1: to think about how that could have gone because now
Speaker 1: you're looking at potentially a two time best player on
Speaker 1: a championship team. All right, guys, that is all we
Speaker 1: have for today. We're going to be continuing next week
Speaker 1: with ten through ten through six and then five through
Speaker 1: one the following week. I'm gonna slow way down on
Speaker 1: these because we're just doing one player per day. We'll
Speaker 1: dive into a lot more of the individual stories in
Speaker 1: their careers. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys, and
Speaker 1: I will see you on Monday. I hope you have a
Speaker 1: great weekend. The volume