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Speaker 2: All right, welcome to hoops tonight here at the Volume Ball.
Speaker 2: You guys had an incredible weekend. We are getting into
Speaker 2: our top five, the final tier of our player rankings
Speaker 2: today with number five and number four, and then everyone's
Speaker 2: really pissed off about how who I have at number five,
Speaker 2: So we're gonna be doing some mail bag questions centered
Speaker 2: around that and a little bit of debate in the
Speaker 2: tail end of the show. You guys know the Joe
Speaker 2: before we get started. Subscribe to Hoops Tonight YouTube channels.
Speaker 2: You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me
Speaker 2: on Twitter at underscore JCNLT so you guys don't miss
Speaker 2: show announcements. Don't forget about a podcast feed wherever you
Speaker 2: get you podcast owner Hoops Tonight, don't forget. It's also
Speaker 2: helpful if you leave your rating and a review on
Speaker 2: that front. And the last not out least, keep dropping
Speaker 2: mail bag questions in the comments. If you disagree with
Speaker 2: these rankings in any way, shape or form, leave your
Speaker 2: case for it in the comments and we'll debate it
Speaker 2: at the tail end of these shows. All right, let's
Speaker 2: talk some basketball. So as we head into the final
Speaker 2: tier of this list, I have this tier list. It's
Speaker 2: a little complicated because I have this tier titled parent
Speaker 2: MVP Candidates. I believe these five players will have at
Speaker 2: least two Top five MVP finishes in the next three seasons,
Speaker 2: which is something I don't think the rest of this
Speaker 2: list is gonna do. Everybody I have from six to eleven,
Speaker 2: I don't think you're gonna see multiple Top five MVP
Speaker 2: finishes in the next three seasons from that group of guys,
Speaker 2: But at the same time, I do see a drop
Speaker 2: off from number four to number five. So the guy
Speaker 2: I've had number five, which is Anthony Edwards, is kind
Speaker 2: of like a tweener for me because one of the
Speaker 2: many reasons we're going to get into it, but one
Speaker 2: of the reasons why I had anticize I had is
Speaker 2: because I do believe he's going to be a perennial
Speaker 2: MVP candidate, and the guys believe below him, I don't
Speaker 2: believe will be. But at the same time, I do
Speaker 2: think the guy that I have at number four, there's
Speaker 2: a little bit of a gap between him and Aunt
Speaker 2: at this point. So like, if you want to call
Speaker 2: it your top tier, super duperstar tier of players, that's
Speaker 2: going to be one through four, but my perennial MVP
Speaker 2: candidate tier is going to be one through five, which
Speaker 2: we're starting today with number five. We had a couple
Speaker 2: of people that were confused by the criteria, which I
Speaker 2: went over extensively in our first video, the one that
Speaker 2: had Kyrie Irving in it. It was number twenty five and
Speaker 2: number twenty four if you scroll back on the feed,
Speaker 2: I did like a ten to fifteen minute kind of
Speaker 2: explanation of how we do this. The way I see it,
Speaker 2: there are three different ways to rank players. You can
Speaker 2: rank players like just who's the best basketball player today?
Speaker 2: Like we got to play a basketball game right now,
Speaker 2: who are the best basketball players in the world. Everyone's healthy,
Speaker 2: everyone's at the top of their game, just who's the best.
Speaker 2: That's one way to look at it, right, But it's
Speaker 2: kind of an unrealistic way to look at it because
Speaker 2: you never get to wear a win Alari O'Brien by
Speaker 2: just playing a basketball game tomorrow. You win Alario O'Brien
Speaker 2: by going from October all the way to June. Right.
Speaker 2: The second way to look at it is bragging rights.
Speaker 2: This is what I did the last couple of years
Speaker 2: with my list. It was more of like a just
Speaker 2: a representation of who had the best season. Like it
Speaker 2: was more of like a wards kind of thing, like,
Speaker 2: let's give recognition to who played the best basketball in
Speaker 2: the last twelve months. Right, I've done this list. This
Speaker 2: is my third time doing this list since I got
Speaker 2: with the volume. The first two times we did it,
Speaker 2: that was kind of what it was. More like. It
Speaker 2: was more of like a bragging rights type of list, right,
Speaker 2: But that has flaws, right, because as soon as you
Speaker 2: pass out the Larry O'Brien Trophy in mid June, it's like,
Speaker 2: now we're starting over again. Now let's look forward. And
Speaker 2: so I have tweaked it to this third kind of format,
Speaker 2: which is what we're using this year, which is like,
Speaker 2: if we were just doing a draft of all the
Speaker 2: players in the NBA for a season that starts October
Speaker 2: first for training camp and goes all the way through
Speaker 2: mid June for the NBA Finals, who is the best
Speaker 2: player that brings me the most overall winning impact regular
Speaker 2: season kind of like durability and greatness combined with the
Speaker 2: playoff translatability, like how well their game translates to the playoffs.
Speaker 2: But also I have to build a team around them
Speaker 2: from scratch in this scenario, and so versatility plays a
Speaker 2: role at that point, and so all of those things
Speaker 2: are kind of wrapped up in like this theoretical basically
Speaker 2: like a theoretical fantasy draft, right for a season that
Speaker 2: involves everything from October to June. That's the way I'm
Speaker 2: looking at this particular list. So like, there are a
Speaker 2: lot of people that it's like no way, Anthony Edwards
Speaker 2: is top five, and it's like, okay, well, let's talk.
Speaker 2: Is he top five in bragging rights?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: He had a pretty impressive season last year, but I'd
Speaker 2: have to look at that again. Is he top five
Speaker 2: in a vacuum for like a game that starts tomorrow, Like, no,
Speaker 2: I'm taking other players over him. I've seen people be like,
Speaker 2: there's no way Aunt should be over Steph, and it's like, yeah, Like,
Speaker 2: if I have an NBA Finals game that I got
Speaker 2: to play tomorrow, I think I'd rather have Steph. You know,
Speaker 2: I'd rather have Lebron. There's a lot of guys that
Speaker 2: I would rather have right now, like even a guy
Speaker 2: like Jason Tatum, Like for a game that's tomorrow, I
Speaker 2: might just barely rather have Tatum. But that's not the
Speaker 2: purpose of this list. The purpose of this list is
Speaker 2: October to June, like kind of a fantasy draft kind
Speaker 2: of concept. I thought that was just kind of the
Speaker 2: way to best capture everything that you need from a
Speaker 2: player for an actual NBA season, because at the end
Speaker 2: of the day, that's what this is. This is an
Speaker 2: actual NBA season that's about to start. They're gonna hand
Speaker 2: out an actual Larry Larry O'Brien Trophy, And the way
Speaker 2: they're gonna hand it out is they're gonna give it
Speaker 2: to the team that wins four playoff series that are
Speaker 2: based off seating based on how they perform over an
Speaker 2: eighty two game sample. That's how you get the Larry
Speaker 2: O'Brien Trophy. And so that's the way I want to
Speaker 2: use a kind of like our format in terms of
Speaker 2: player rankings as we move forward, at least for this year.
Speaker 2: Who knows, maybe I'll have some massive change of heart
Speaker 2: by next year, but that's what we're looking at. So
Speaker 2: without any further ado. Number five Anthony Edwards last year
Speaker 2: seventy nine games play. This is back back seasons, playing
Speaker 2: seventy nine games, twenty five point six points per game.
Speaker 2: One of the things you'll notice too is ants leap
Speaker 2: kind of took place in the postseason run. So these
Speaker 2: regular season numbers are still really good, but relatively Podesta
Speaker 2: and compared to the way he performed in the postseason
Speaker 2: and the way that his peers performed in the postseason.
Speaker 2: But twenty six points per game, five point four rebounds
Speaker 2: per game, five point one assists per game, He's one
Speaker 2: of only seven players in the entire NBA last year
Speaker 2: to average at least twenty five to five and five
Speaker 2: in at least seventy games played, So in terms of
Speaker 2: just production over a long NBA season, he's in some
Speaker 2: rare company there, one point eight stocks per game. He
Speaker 2: finished seventh in MVP voting at age twenty two. The
Speaker 2: next guy I have on this list as a young
Speaker 2: guard Shay gild Alexander, and he didn't get his first
Speaker 2: MVP vote until he was twenty four, So that goes
Speaker 2: to show you, just like in terms of like how
Speaker 2: ahead of schedule Ant is now. Mind you, he's not
Speaker 2: a better team at age twenty two than Shay was,
Speaker 2: but he's had a lot of success earlier than most
Speaker 2: of his peers do. Right, shooting splits forty six percent
Speaker 2: from the field, thirty six percent from three to eighty
Speaker 2: four percent from the line. That comes out to fifty
Speaker 2: two percent in effective field goal percentage, but fifty eight
Speaker 2: percent in true shooting, which is totally respectable. He's increased
Speaker 2: his scoring volume and efficiency every season of his career
Speaker 2: to this point. He also just increased his assist total
Speaker 2: again every year of his career up to five point
Speaker 2: one as a career high, while dropping his turnovers year
Speaker 2: over year. He had a little stat to kind of
Speaker 2: demonstrate that he had twelve games with at least eight
Speaker 2: assists this year. That's double what he had in the
Speaker 2: previous season. He had only six shooting numbers per sentergy
Speaker 2: just zero point nine to four points per jump shot.
Speaker 2: Not a great jump shooting season, but again, it really
Speaker 2: seemed to take off in that postseason run. We'll get
Speaker 2: a little bit deeper into that here in a few minutes,
Speaker 2: and it was kind of he kind of had a
Speaker 2: similar type of season to Jason Tatum. He was really
Speaker 2: good off the catch one point one six points per
Speaker 2: jump shot when he was unguarded, one point five to
Speaker 2: eight points per catch and two jump shot. That's fifty
Speaker 2: three percent field goal percentage, seventy nine percent weighted for threes,
Speaker 2: which is insane, very very good off ball, catch and
Speaker 2: shoot type of player, but similar to Jayson Tatum, had
Speaker 2: a rough off the dribble regular season, just zero point
Speaker 2: eight eight points per shot off the dribble, just thirty
Speaker 2: five percent overall, just forty four percent weighted for threes.
Speaker 2: He also takes a lot of like jab step face
Speaker 2: up jump shots. He took one hundred and five of
Speaker 2: them this year and got zero point nine to five
Speaker 2: points per shot. I'm not even gonna get into the
Speaker 2: playoff numbers until we kind of look at that in
Speaker 2: totality here in a few minutes, shot forty four percent
Speaker 2: on floaters, about one and a half attempts per game,
Speaker 2: sixty three percent of the rim, which is awesome for
Speaker 2: a guard in really good volume. He made three point
Speaker 2: seven shots in the restricted area per game. That was
Speaker 2: the most in the league among guards or any players
Speaker 2: for that matter that are six five or smaller. And
Speaker 2: one of the things you got to remember there is
Speaker 2: that's with Rudy Gobert clogging everything up in the paint,
Speaker 2: and that's you know, that became a major issue in
Speaker 2: the Dallas series, which we're going to talk about in
Speaker 2: a little bit. But like for him to be basically
Speaker 2: the highest volume small guard or smaller NBA player in
Speaker 2: the anything below six five, six five or shorter, to
Speaker 2: be in the paint as much as he was given
Speaker 2: his circumstances, Like to have a guy that really can't
Speaker 2: catch and finish around the rim to kind of clog
Speaker 2: things up, allowing opposing teams to to really jank things
Speaker 2: up for their offense. Like I thought, that was really impressive.
Speaker 2: Play type data per Synergy nine hundred and ninety pick
Speaker 2: and roll. So he just barely missed our high volume
Speaker 2: list by ten reps. He would have ranked eighth on
Speaker 2: that list had he had those additional ten reps. One
Speaker 2: point zero six points per possession including passes. That's in
Speaker 2: the eightieth percentile. He ran four hundred and sixty nine
Speaker 2: ISOs for four hundred and sixty nine points. You guys
Speaker 2: can do the math on what that efficiency is. Ranked
Speaker 2: sixteenth out of twenty four players on our High volume list.
Speaker 2: Really good post up season though, one hundred and two
Speaker 2: post ups. One point one seven points per possession. That's
Speaker 2: in the eighty third percentile. When he likes his matchup,
Speaker 2: he'll just dribble the ball up the side of the floor,
Speaker 2: doesn't really matter, right side or left side. He definitely
Speaker 2: likes that lefts that right side of the floor. She
Speaker 2: can drible in his left hand for that right shoulder fade.
Speaker 2: That's like his preferred side. But he'll bring the ball
Speaker 2: off the floor and if he likes his matchup, he'll
Speaker 2: just wave everybody through and like like it'll it's so funny.
Speaker 2: You'll see go bare like come over sometimes, so like
Speaker 2: try to set a screen for him and it's like, dude,
Speaker 2: I'm posting up, like get the hell out of here,
Speaker 2: and he'll take that kind of cleared side and he'll
Speaker 2: just got to sit in that high hesitation. If he
Speaker 2: likes his separation going over his right shoulder, he loves
Speaker 2: to go to that right shoulder fade, but he can
Speaker 2: also fade over his left shoulder. He also see him
Speaker 2: to make aggressive moves with his left shoulder to go
Speaker 2: into more like hooks and floaters kinds of things. He'll
Speaker 2: draw some valves that way as well. But really really
Speaker 2: impressive post up season for a guard. That turned into
Speaker 2: a reliable direction for him to go in the postseason
Speaker 2: as well. Already at age twenty two, one of the
Speaker 2: most efficient high volume ball handlers in the league. Again
Speaker 2: fifteen hundred and sixty one reps for one six hundred
Speaker 2: and thirty five points in total including passes. That's all
Speaker 2: pick and rolls, ISOs and post ups, one point zero
Speaker 2: five points per possession on massive volume for a twenty
Speaker 2: two year old on a team that kind of can
Speaker 2: have some issues on the offensive end because of all
Speaker 2: of their defensive minded personnel. Like there's a lot of
Speaker 2: people comparing Tatum and Ant and we're gonna get a
Speaker 2: lot into that when we get into the mailbag, and
Speaker 2: it's like it's like it it's a little bit different
Speaker 2: playing with Drew Holliday, Derek White and Jalen Brown and
Speaker 2: Chris ops Porzingis and Al Horford, all guys that can
Speaker 2: play both ends of the floor at a high level
Speaker 2: than it is playing with Jade McDaniels who's a defensive specialist,
Speaker 2: Rudy Gobert who's a defensive specialist, Nikaile Alexander Walker who's
Speaker 2: a defensive specialist, Mike Conley who's an offensive specialist, and
Speaker 2: Karl Anthony Towns who's an offensive specialist. Like, it's a
Speaker 2: different it's a completely fundamentally different challenge to operate in
Speaker 2: that setting. And again with all those circumstances, with all
Speaker 2: those defensive minded personnel that most good teams are just
Speaker 2: comfortable conceding catches to both on the role for Rudy
Speaker 2: or on the perimeter for Jaden, Like to get in
Speaker 2: massive volume one point zero five points per possession. That's
Speaker 2: really impressive shot creation, and all of those numbers pale
Speaker 2: in comparison to the player that Anthony Edwards became when
Speaker 2: he got to the postseason. And to be clear, he
Speaker 2: has consistently become this guy in the postseason. And finished
Speaker 2: his last Western Conference Finals game at just twenty two
Speaker 2: years old. At that point he had played in twenty
Speaker 2: six career playoff games, and in twenty six career playoff games,
Speaker 2: he's averaging twenty eight points, six rebounds, and six assists
Speaker 2: on sixty percent of shooting. Twenty two years old, twenty
Speaker 2: six games under his belt at those averages, that's insane,
Speaker 2: And the most impressive part is he has consistently shot
Speaker 2: his jump shot, especially off the dribble, really well in
Speaker 2: the postseason. And that's really the fundamental kind of like
Speaker 2: genesis of what makes Aunt such an exciting player to
Speaker 2: build around. In terms of guards, I think you gotta
Speaker 2: go all the way back at like man, I don't.
Speaker 2: I can't. Like even with Dwayne Wade, he just wasn't
Speaker 2: the shooter that ant that ant is, But like true
Speaker 2: downhill force combined with elite pull up shooting as a
Speaker 2: counter that's just a really rare duo and you don't
Speaker 2: see it a lot in the NBA at all. It's
Speaker 2: it's why I really like players like Jayden or excuse me,
Speaker 2: like Jalen Williams for instance with Oklahoma City, when I
Speaker 2: see players that have like legitimate like guys are on
Speaker 2: the heels because they're worried about getting beat off the dribble,
Speaker 2: but at the same time, like he can just settle
Speaker 2: into that high hesitation pull up jump shot or a
Speaker 2: quick step back or quick dribble combination and hit it
Speaker 2: at a really high rate. Like that's super exciting and
Speaker 2: that's ant superpower. He's like the best at getting to
Speaker 2: the rim among players below sixty six, and he is
Speaker 2: an elite pull up shooter in the playoff setting. And again,
Speaker 2: like his jump shot is con it's continued to be
Speaker 2: deadly in a pretty large sample at this point. Like,
Speaker 2: first of all, he did it in the postseason before.
Speaker 2: He was one point one to five points per jump
Speaker 2: shot in twenty twenty two, one point zero two points
Speaker 2: per jump shot in twenty twenty three, including one point
Speaker 2: zero nine on pull ups, which is really good. This
Speaker 2: Western Conference Finals run one point one zero points per
Speaker 2: jump shot on volume, he took one hundred and eighty
Speaker 2: four jump shots in total, took one hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: one pull up jump shots, shot forty three percent on them,
Speaker 2: and shot so many threes that it amounted to one
Speaker 2: point zero eight points per pull up jump shot. That's
Speaker 2: like insane good. He also took fourteen face up jumpers,
Speaker 2: hit forty three percent of those, but because most of
Speaker 2: them were threes, it amounted to one point twenty nine
Speaker 2: points per shot attempt. Like he just deadly. And then
Speaker 2: he continued it into the Olympics. He took sixty nine
Speaker 2: jump shots with Team USA through the five exhibitions and
Speaker 2: Olympics and Olympics play made thirty of them. That's one
Speaker 2: point one four points per jump shot, one point one
Speaker 2: three points per pull up jump shot. That's insane. Five
Speaker 2: for nine on face up jump shots, four of which
Speaker 2: were threes, that amounts to one point five six points
Speaker 2: per shot. This is an extended run of deadly jump
Speaker 2: shooting from a player who's also arguably the best athlete
Speaker 2: in the league. And that was the real thing that
Speaker 2: stood out to me in uh in that playoff run
Speaker 2: was he proved to be basically unguardable one on one.
Speaker 2: Like he got one hundred and seventy nine post ups
Speaker 2: in ISOs including passes in the Western Conference Finals round
Speaker 2: that's strictly in the playoffs, and got one point zero
Speaker 2: nine points per possession including passes. That's insane, And like,
Speaker 2: I want to get a little bit further into that
Speaker 2: concept because he ended up running into some issues against Dallas,
Speaker 2: and we're gonna talk about that extensively here in a minute,
Speaker 2: but I want to get before we get to the
Speaker 2: that part, I want to talk about the defensive end.
Speaker 2: The defensive end is definitely a mixed back, clearly a
Speaker 2: result of energy usage in my opinion, Like he's a
Speaker 2: a plus ISO defender when you are like matched up
Speaker 2: with Ant one on one, that's just a problem. He's
Speaker 2: arguably the quickest lateral player, lateral movement guy in the league.
Speaker 2: Like he's he's gonna beat you to a spot. You're
Speaker 2: not gonna dribble around him. And he's built like a
Speaker 2: fire hydrant, so you're not going through him. He's got
Speaker 2: the athleticism to contest. So like you just you just
Speaker 2: don't even try to score on Ant and ISO unless
Speaker 2: you're like Yokic, right, like unless you're just way, way
Speaker 2: way bigger than him, right, because it's you're probably just
Speaker 2: gonna get ripped and he's gonna go down the other
Speaker 2: end and get a dunk. But he's mostly a bad
Speaker 2: screen navigator, to be clear. He can do it, and
Speaker 2: he can do it really well, but the good possessions
Speaker 2: are just too few and far and few and far between. Sorr,
Speaker 2: I'm butchering the expression there. He's a big target, Like,
Speaker 2: he's a big body, so he's a big target for
Speaker 2: guys to actually set screens on it. When he gets picked,
Speaker 2: he basically just dies on it. But to be clear,
Speaker 2: it is mostly an energy and effort thing. And the
Speaker 2: reason why we know that is you go go guys.
Speaker 2: I rewatched it and did a whole film session on
Speaker 2: it when we were in the postseason run, so you
Speaker 2: can actually find it if you go back into our feed.
Speaker 2: But during the Minnesota comeback in Game seven against Denver,
Speaker 2: Jamal Murray didn't score a single point and Anthony Edwards
Speaker 2: literally had him in jail, and like I think, I think,
Speaker 2: I think Ant ended up talking shit after the game
Speaker 2: saying he had him in handcuffs and he's right, like
Speaker 2: Jamal like straight up didn't score a single point. So like,
Speaker 2: and Ant's just on him, ball pressure, chasing him over
Speaker 2: the top of screens, getting deflections, like Ant was all
Speaker 2: over him, so we know it's there, like we know
Speaker 2: it's in there. But then he turned around in the
Speaker 2: series and did a really bad job agains Kyrie irving
Speaker 2: and many times looked lazy and was dying on screens.
Speaker 2: And I actually set called that out before the series.
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, like, okay, you want Kyrie, that's great,
Speaker 2: but like you know, Kyrie's really damn good, just like
Speaker 2: Jamal Murray. And if you don't bring Game seven intensity
Speaker 2: from the start like Kyrie, o'cok your ass. And guess
Speaker 2: what Kyrie cooked him in Game one right, So like that,
Speaker 2: like my guess is just like every other star of
Speaker 2: his ILK, which is like the supreme athlete archetype. I
Speaker 2: think Aunt eventually will become a great defender. I think
Speaker 2: the just his competitiveness, his hatred of losing that scar
Speaker 2: tissue that I always talked about, that like builds up
Speaker 2: on your psyche as a result of tough losses. I
Speaker 2: think Ant will become an elite defender, but it's worth
Speaker 2: mentioning at this point that he's kind of a mixed bag,
Speaker 2: Like it's a lot of good and it's a lot
Speaker 2: of bad eleidio defender, bad screen navigator and consistent effort
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. I think we're a little ways
Speaker 2: away from aunt being I think he's going to continue
Speaker 2: to take leaps every year, but we're still a ways
Speaker 2: from from where he needs to be on the defensive
Speaker 2: end of the four. Talking about the Dallas series, right, So,
Speaker 2: Ann had a pretty damn impressive playoff run offensively outside
Speaker 2: of a couple of stretches, and it really started to
Speaker 2: come to the surface at the tail end of the
Speaker 2: Denver series, and then Dallas kind of piggybacked off that
Speaker 2: game plan and kind of took it to a greater
Speaker 2: extent in the in that Western Conference Final series. And
Speaker 2: the main thing there was just bringing the bigs up
Speaker 2: to the level of the screen and really getting aggressive
Speaker 2: as Ant was coming off of ball screens to basically
Speaker 2: force him to get rid of the ball. And there's
Speaker 2: a bunch of different factors here. Some of this was
Speaker 2: like there, like Denver was running a little bit more
Speaker 2: passive coverages in the early part of the series, and
Speaker 2: Ant was able to get ahead of Steam, and after
Speaker 2: I got ahead of Steam, Jokicic just couldn't keep him
Speaker 2: from the rim, right But like, it's hard to get
Speaker 2: ahead of Steam to like to actually get your momentum
Speaker 2: going if that runway is taken away by you coming
Speaker 2: off the screen and just running into another defender right away.
Speaker 2: And so Dallas just took this to the next level.
Speaker 2: And we saw him struggle a little bit in that
Speaker 2: late portion, middle late portion of the Denver series, and
Speaker 2: like two Ant's credit, he made plays. He made some
Speaker 2: big plays in Game seven, he kind of cracked through,
Speaker 2: did just enough to win that series and get into
Speaker 2: the next series. But Dallas basically doubled down on that
Speaker 2: game plan guard guard screens. He was getting doubled a
Speaker 2: lot of the time in actual big man screens. Gafford
Speaker 2: and Lively were both coming way out and forcing Aunt
Speaker 2: to get rid of the basketball. And like it's two factors.
Speaker 2: Ant wasn't doing enough of a job trying to counter that.
Speaker 2: And I'm gonna get into some specific cent a minute,
Speaker 2: And the second factor of it was go bear, Like
Speaker 2: you're just running a lot of four on threes and
Speaker 2: there are four on threes with Jada McDaniels and Rudy
Speaker 2: Gobert on the floor and sometimes Nikile Alexander Walker on
Speaker 2: the floor and sometimes Kyle Anderson on the floor, and
Speaker 2: like those are just really limited offensive players specifically, go
Speaker 2: Bear is often the decision maker in those situations, Like you,
Speaker 2: like Dallas just knew they could get because what's the
Speaker 2: fear if you send your big up to the level
Speaker 2: of the screen, what you're scared of is their big
Speaker 2: getting behind because if he gets behind, you can throw
Speaker 2: it up to him. And all the really good role
Speaker 2: men in the league are gonna score that every single
Speaker 2: time or make a pass out of it every single time.
Speaker 2: And like Gobert will occasionally make a decent read in
Speaker 2: a four on three, but he's certainly not great at it,
Speaker 2: and he's definitely one of the worst pick and roll
Speaker 2: like catch and finish and traffic guys that we have
Speaker 2: in the league. And so it just it was one
Speaker 2: of those things where, like I thought it specifically with
Speaker 2: pick and roll, there wasn't a whole lot that Aunt
Speaker 2: could do. Now where I do get really critical of
Speaker 2: ant is it led to him being passive instead of
Speaker 2: like getting rid of the ball and then immediately trying
Speaker 2: to become a threat again to make something else happen,
Speaker 2: or hey, maybe don't attack with the ball screen anymore.
Speaker 2: Like one of the things that really bothered me about
Speaker 2: ants play in that specific series is he didn't look
Speaker 2: confident going against Derek Jones Junior. Now, Derek Jones Junior
Speaker 2: is a very good athlete, and so I understand why,
Speaker 2: Like it's not the same type of advantage as he
Speaker 2: had in earlier series, Like KCP is just way too small,
Speaker 2: not athletic enough to hang with him. Like Christian Brown
Speaker 2: was big and strong enough to kind of hang with Ant,
Speaker 2: and he had some good reps against Aunt. But Christian
Speaker 2: Brown also has his offensive limitations. And you know when
Speaker 2: you go from KCP to Christian Brown, you take some
Speaker 2: damage on the defense or on the offensive end, right
Speaker 2: if you're Denver. But Derek Jones Junior, like for as
Speaker 2: athletic as he is, and it was a lot bigger
Speaker 2: and stronger than him, And so I wanted to see
Speaker 2: Ant like do more of what he did in the
Speaker 2: regular season, like bring the ball up the right side
Speaker 2: of the floor, like clear the side and like just
Speaker 2: go to work against Derek Jones Junior, Like, get go
Speaker 2: to work and try to bring a second defender in
Speaker 2: a clear, straight up double team on a cleared side,
Speaker 2: see if you can't get some better opportunities there, rather
Speaker 2: than doing it in the ball screens where like it
Speaker 2: was really easy for Denver for Dallas, excuse me, to
Speaker 2: make him get rid of the ball and then just
Speaker 2: run really basic rotations on the weak side to make
Speaker 2: sure that it was like Jaden McDaniels trying to knock
Speaker 2: down a three or Rudy Gobaert trying to like catch
Speaker 2: and finish in traffic which wasn't working very well. Like
Speaker 2: that's really the main thing is, Like I think he
Speaker 2: only took something like thirty three shots in game one
Speaker 2: in game two of that series, and I think he
Speaker 2: only had like forty points if I remember correctly. Like
Speaker 2: that that was the real disappointing part was Ant faced
Speaker 2: an aggressive coverage that made him get rid of the ball,
Speaker 2: and so he was like fine, and he just got
Speaker 2: rid of the ball and then he backed off. Now
Speaker 2: I don't think people realize like he really did respond
Speaker 2: to that well over the last three games of the
Speaker 2: Western Conference Finals. Anthony Edwards averaged twenty eight points, nine rebounds,
Speaker 2: and eight assists. That's right back to like top tier
Speaker 2: superstar level production in those last three games of the series.
Speaker 2: But at that point I thought it was too late.
Speaker 2: They went down two on the road, and as we
Speaker 2: all know, Luca went in there in game in game
Speaker 2: five and just landed the executing blow in that first quarter,
Speaker 2: and then the series was basically over. But you know
Speaker 2: what really bothers me is that playoff run is discussed
Speaker 2: as though Ant got exposed, like so many people, it
Speaker 2: was so interesting to watch as a fan, as like,
Speaker 2: as we headed into that Western Conference final series, there
Speaker 2: was all this hype around Ant and it was like,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, rise of the next great superstar. This
Speaker 2: is gonna be crazy. And then like he had a
Speaker 2: couple of bad games in a series against a much
Speaker 2: more established superstar who is the second best player in
Speaker 2: the league in my opinion, in Luka Doncic and had
Speaker 2: some issues and it's like, okay, like I get it,
Speaker 2: he had some issues, but like everyone immediately jumped off
Speaker 2: the bandwagon and it's like it's not even close to ready,
Speaker 2: Like this guy's like got exposed and it's like did
Speaker 2: he get exposed because he had a couple of really
Speaker 2: bad games, and that sort of thing happens, like guess what,
Speaker 2: Like the majority of stars have bad playoff games and
Speaker 2: as we like kind of zoom out, it's like, okay, wait,
Speaker 2: he just played a sixteen game playoff run where he
Speaker 2: made it to the conference finals where he swept a
Speaker 2: team with Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, and Bradley Beal on it,
Speaker 2: where he eliminated the defending champs led by the best
Speaker 2: player in the world, where he like single handedly removed
Speaker 2: their second best player from the game in the second
Speaker 2: half during their run with what he could do on
Speaker 2: the defensive end. And he wrapped up his playoff run
Speaker 2: averaging twenty eight points, seven rebounds, and seven assists on
Speaker 2: sixty percent through shooting. And everyone's talking about how he's exposed,
Speaker 2: Like I don't get that. That's not being exposed. That's
Speaker 2: just a tiny taste of a dominant basketball player starting
Speaker 2: to realize his potential, which is literally astronomical. So and
Speaker 2: that takes us to the big question here, why do
Speaker 2: I have ant this high? And I have five reasons
Speaker 2: for you guys. I'll go through them quick and then
Speaker 2: we'll move on to our next player. Reason number one.
Speaker 2: It fits my tiers perfectly. I think Ant is a
Speaker 2: perennial MVP candidate. He averages so far in his four
Speaker 2: year NBA career seventy six games played per season. He
Speaker 2: played seventy nine games in each of the last two years,
Speaker 2: so he's basically the most available superstar in the league
Speaker 2: right now. I think he's gonna average somewhere around twenty
Speaker 2: eight six and six on sixty percent true shooting this year.
Speaker 2: I think he's gonna get there. I think he's gonna
Speaker 2: have I think he's going to translate that jump shooting
Speaker 2: to the regular season sample this year. His team is
Speaker 2: set up for regular seasons. Like they're not as talented
Speaker 2: as the as the Boston's and Denvers of the world,
Speaker 2: but like they're young, they're athletic, they're huge on the
Speaker 2: front line, and that's gonna keep in a lot of
Speaker 2: close games where he can push his team over the top.
Speaker 2: So I think they're gonna be a top four seed.
Speaker 2: He already finished seventh in MVP voting last year before
Speaker 2: he took his leap, so I think An's gonna finish
Speaker 2: top five in MVP voting, and I think he's gonna
Speaker 2: continue to do so for the next five years or so.
Speaker 2: So that was reason number one. He kind of fit
Speaker 2: my tiers perfectly as a perennial MVP candidate. Reason number two,
Speaker 2: he's a twenty three year old high motor athlete. Again,
Speaker 2: this is not about a series that starts tomorrow. Guys
Speaker 2: like Anthony Edwards and Jason Tatum, they're gonna be much
Speaker 2: closer to eleven on this list for a series that
Speaker 2: starts tomorrow. I think there are better guys. If like
Speaker 2: everyone's healthy and we're already there, there are guys that
Speaker 2: I would take over them. But both Jason Tatum and
Speaker 2: Anthony Edwards are safe bets to give you seventy five
Speaker 2: plus games of Superstar production this year, and the guys
Speaker 2: below them on this list are just not a safe
Speaker 2: bet for that, And so that was the second reason
Speaker 2: for me. He's available to play every night. He's a
Speaker 2: freaky athletic player, is gonna apply a ton of rim
Speaker 2: pressure and have bursts of defensive dominance mixed in with
Speaker 2: obviously his his sketchy defense. But all that other stuff
Speaker 2: is stuff that older guys struggle with over eighty two games,
Speaker 2: and I just I don't have to worry about that.
Speaker 2: With An, I don't have to worry like there's gonna
Speaker 2: be a game this year where I'm watching Lebron on
Speaker 2: a Tuesday in February, and I'm like, Lebron's straight up
Speaker 2: like just not trying, like that's going to happen, Whereas
Speaker 2: like with Ant, like that'll happen, but it'll be like
Speaker 2: maybe three or four times the entire season. Like he's young,
Speaker 2: He's got a ton of energy that brings a lot
Speaker 2: of value in the eighty two game sample reason number three.
Speaker 2: He has a proven playoff superpower. Already has a lightning
Speaker 2: quick first step that can beat just about anybody off
Speaker 2: the dribble, combined with a deadly pull up jumper. That's
Speaker 2: the push and pull right when you're a defensive player.
Speaker 2: Are you on your toes getting ready to contest or
Speaker 2: on your heels getting ready to retreat? And Ant's one
Speaker 2: of the rare guys that puts you in a position
Speaker 2: where you have to make decision there, and neither decision
Speaker 2: is a great decision. Most teams are going to back
Speaker 2: off and try to make Ant shoot. We have a
Speaker 2: pretty large sample size here now of Ant just being
Speaker 2: a flat out deadly pull up jump shooter, so that
Speaker 2: makes him basically impossible to guard one on one. Again,
Speaker 2: as we looked at his struggles, his struggles that he
Speaker 2: had in the postseason, they stemmed mainly from team related
Speaker 2: issues combined with his passivity. After Dallas like straight up
Speaker 2: double teamed him everywhere and Denver did the same thing,
Speaker 2: like they handled him with aggressive coverages. It wasn't like
Speaker 2: he'd like struggled to have success in a one on
Speaker 2: one setting. It's just he and it's his fault too,
Speaker 2: But him and the team couldn't solve the puzzle of
Speaker 2: the four on threes on the back end. When Ant
Speaker 2: would draw that second defender, that was a that's not
Speaker 2: just on Ant, It's also on Ant, but it's not
Speaker 2: just on Ant. Number four, he will, in all likelihood
Speaker 2: experience the largest individual improvement on this list other than
Speaker 2: maybe Wemby, by the time the playoffs come back around
Speaker 2: next April. Again, as I've mentioned many times, this list
Speaker 2: is not about a series that starts tomorrow. If you
Speaker 2: can get through the regular season in a position to succeed,
Speaker 2: which we know Aunt will, then it's about a playoff
Speaker 2: series that starts in April, that is seven and a
Speaker 2: half months away. That's a lot of time for Aunt
Speaker 2: to continue this path where he is improving exponentially. And
Speaker 2: then lastly, number five, he is already a proven playoff
Speaker 2: riser his last three regular seasons twenty four, five, and
Speaker 2: five on fifty seven percent through shooting, his last three
Speaker 2: postseasons twenty eight, six, and six on sixty percent through shooting. Now,
Speaker 2: for the record, this is relatively common in NBA history
Speaker 2: among the dominant athlete archetype, the guys that are like
Speaker 2: truly transcendently great athletes. The playoffs become more intense, more physical,
Speaker 2: right all of a sudden. That's where the supreme athletes
Speaker 2: can really flex their muscles and in many cases actually
Speaker 2: further the gap between them and their peers. And so
Speaker 2: that I don't think it's hard to figure out, Like
Speaker 2: his scoring volume and efficiency goes up, his rebounding goes up,
Speaker 2: his playmaking goes up. It's all just a product of
Speaker 2: the fact that he's a supreme athlete in a setting
Speaker 2: that is advantageous for supreme athletes. So to put it simply,
Speaker 2: he's one of the most available and productive regular season
Speaker 2: players in the NBA, who is a proven playoff riser
Speaker 2: and who's likely to be a substantially better player by
Speaker 2: the time we get to April. And when you factor that,
Speaker 2: I also view him as a perennial MVP candidate, which
Speaker 2: is literally the name of this tier, and it got
Speaker 2: the number five spot for me going into the season.
Speaker 2: Number four Shake Gildas Alexander. Speaking of perennial MVP candidates,
Speaker 2: he's coming off of back to back seasons with top
Speaker 2: five MVP finishes. Finished second last year, played seventy five games,
Speaker 2: thirty points per game, six rebounds, six assists per game,
Speaker 2: two point nine stocks per game. Only Daron Fox had
Speaker 2: more steals per game than Shay Gills of Alexander. Last year,
Speaker 2: Eshay was one of only three players in the entire
Speaker 2: NBA to average at least thirty points per game and
Speaker 2: at least six assists per game. You guys can guess
Speaker 2: who the other two are. Luka Doncic and Jannis Antennakumpo.
Speaker 2: Shooting splits fifty four percent from the field, thirty five
Speaker 2: percent from three to eighty seven percent from the line.
Speaker 2: That comes out to fifty seven percent effective field goal
Speaker 2: percentage waited for threes, sixty four percent waited for free throws.
Speaker 2: With true shooting percentage, only three players in the entire
Speaker 2: league last year had a usage rate of at least
Speaker 2: thirty percent, meaning they were of the the top tier
Speaker 2: of high usage players in the league, while also having
Speaker 2: a true shooting percentage of at least sixty two percent.
Speaker 2: Jannis and Joel Embid were the other two. So basically
Speaker 2: among guards, the only guy among primary perimeter players, the
Speaker 2: only guy that had was that efficient at that level
Speaker 2: of usage shooting numbers per Synergy one point zero three
Speaker 2: points per jump shot, one point zero five off the catch,
Speaker 2: only took seventy four off the catch jump shots all season.
Speaker 2: Was a little iffy of a spot up player. You know,
Speaker 2: Shay's so good in the other areas that it didn't
Speaker 2: play as much of a role for me. But in
Speaker 2: terms of versatility, Shay kind of tends a little closer
Speaker 2: to the Luka Doncics, Like I'm not sure he could
Speaker 2: play in like a a real equal opportunity type of system,
Speaker 2: not as bad as Luca, but he's kind of in
Speaker 2: that direction a little bit, And it just stems from
Speaker 2: the fact that he's like not a great off ball
Speaker 2: player at this point in his career. Now that said that,
Speaker 2: who knows what's gonna happen in the long run, Like
Speaker 2: Chet can get way better and Jalen Williams, you guys
Speaker 2: know how much I believe in him. So, like we're
Speaker 2: we're gonna learn more about Shay as an off ball
Speaker 2: player over the next couple years, and I'm just curious
Speaker 2: to see how that part of his game develops. But
Speaker 2: it's definitely not a strength of his right now. Interestingly enough,
Speaker 2: one point two to four points per shot when he
Speaker 2: was unguarded on catch and shoots, just zero point five
Speaker 2: to five when he was guarded. I thought that was
Speaker 2: interesting because he has a real set shot, kind of
Speaker 2: loaded the ground when he's in catch and shoot situation,
Speaker 2: so kind of makes some sense that he would struggle
Speaker 2: when he's contested. One point zero three points per shot
Speaker 2: off the dribble, though seven hundred and thirty attempts, which
Speaker 2: is insane volume. Forty seven percent in field goal percentage
Speaker 2: fifty two percent waited for threes. Only Kevin Durant and
Speaker 2: Devin Booker had to higher field goal percentage jump pull
Speaker 2: up jump shots among players to attempt at least five hundred,
Speaker 2: so that's some rare company that he's in there. And
Speaker 2: when you wait it for threes. Out of the sixteen
Speaker 2: players to attempt at least five hundred pullup jump shots,
Speaker 2: Shay finished sixth inefficiency, so one of the best pull
Speaker 2: up jump shooters in the league. He also got one
Speaker 2: point zero six points per face up jumper only took
Speaker 2: about like a little under one per game though, so
Speaker 2: not a huge part of his game, but he does
Speaker 2: occasionally do that. Fifty four percent on floaters, although only
Speaker 2: fifty nine attempts the season, and then sixty four percent
Speaker 2: at the rim, which is awesome for a guard and
Speaker 2: awesome volume two, he attempted six point three shot attempts
Speaker 2: in the restricted area per game, which is out standing.
Speaker 2: You know what's really fascinating to me about Shae with
Speaker 2: the way that he gets to the rim, because like
Speaker 2: Shay is different than a guy like Aunt, where like
Speaker 2: the way Ant gets to the rim is like he's
Speaker 2: just hitting the gap, like he just sees an opening
Speaker 2: and he shoots it, and he's so damn fast that
Speaker 2: there's just nothing you can do, right, so damn fast
Speaker 2: on him strong, you can't knock him off his line.
Speaker 2: Like it's very much a power rim pressure kind of concept.
Speaker 2: Shae gets to the rim a totally different way. It's
Speaker 2: all about a couple. It's a couple of different things
Speaker 2: that combine into like a very difficult player to guard
Speaker 2: in space. So like, first of all, it's the fear
Speaker 2: of the pull of jump shot. As we mentioned, among
Speaker 2: players to shoot at least five hundred, the only guys
Speaker 2: that actually hit a higher percentage of them on a
Speaker 2: field goal percentage basis are Katie and Devin Booker. So like,
Speaker 2: as you're guarding Shaye, you're constantly worried, as we talked
Speaker 2: about earlier about being on your toes or being on
Speaker 2: your heels, You're constantly worried on your toes that Shaye's
Speaker 2: about to rise into a pull of jump shot that
Speaker 2: keeps you off balance. That combined with a change of pace.
Speaker 2: Shay isn't particularly fast, but he changes his speed from
Speaker 2: stop to go to stop to go multiple times on
Speaker 2: the same drive, which will catch you as a defender
Speaker 2: in between steps or with where you step out of
Speaker 2: your stance just barely as you kind of like rise
Speaker 2: up to maybe contest a shot and then he'll shoot
Speaker 2: the gap and get around you protected dribble combinations. This
Speaker 2: is something that's always been really fascinating to me about Shay.
Speaker 2: He'll sit in what I call a high hesitation, which
Speaker 2: is basically just the bridge move right. So like if
Speaker 2: I go through the legs and I end up in
Speaker 2: this in my left hand, and I hesitate in the
Speaker 2: high hesitation dribble, from there, I can rise up into
Speaker 2: a jump shot, I can cross back over, I can
Speaker 2: go behind the back, or I can push forward, or
Speaker 2: I can throw it in and out, like I can
Speaker 2: chain any dribble combination together from that high hesitation. The
Speaker 2: second piece of it is dribbling in contact. So like
Speaker 2: a lot of guys can dribble through cones, but then
Speaker 2: they run into physical defense and then they lose control
Speaker 2: of the basketball. That was one of the major issues
Speaker 2: with Jaylen Brown over the last few years in the
Speaker 2: postseason before this year where he kind of had a
Speaker 2: more successful season in that regard. Shake yildess. Alexander is
Speaker 2: constantly contacted you, He's got his shoulder on you, and
Speaker 2: he's dribbling and making those those changes of direction while
Speaker 2: dealing with contact, which is a rare ability and so
Speaker 2: what that all amounts to because he can get in
Speaker 2: that high hesitation and have you out of position because
Speaker 2: you're worried about that pull up jump shot, and because
Speaker 2: he can chain multiple changes of direction and multiple moves
Speaker 2: in the same dribble drive, and because he can handle
Speaker 2: the contact, he's basically just gonna dribble at you until
Speaker 2: you cut him off, and then he's gonna fake the
Speaker 2: pull up jump shot. Then he's gonna find a way
Speaker 2: to counter back the other way, and he's just gonna
Speaker 2: keep countering back and forth until you fuck up. And
Speaker 2: then once you fuck up, he's pasted you, and he's
Speaker 2: all the way at the rim. And when he gets
Speaker 2: to the rim, he's got such good size and length.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's sixty six with a six to eleven
Speaker 2: wingspan that he can just kind of finish in traffic
Speaker 2: and he gets good finishing angles there, right, and obviously
Speaker 2: benefits from the five out spacing and the chet homegun
Speaker 2: factor as well getting to the rim. But again, for
Speaker 2: a guy that doesn't necessarily have like peak athletic traits
Speaker 2: to get to the rim as often as he does
Speaker 2: is super impressive. And to me, it all is just
Speaker 2: like straight skill like fear of that pull up jump shot,
Speaker 2: always being able to daisy chain multiple dribble combinations together
Speaker 2: even in traffic, and also having that like ability to
Speaker 2: deal with contact, and when you piece all of that together,
Speaker 2: it just makes him really really damn hard to guard.
Speaker 2: Play type data pers energy pick and roll. Shaye was
Speaker 2: the second best high volume pick and roll player in
Speaker 2: the league last year, one point one to six points
Speaker 2: per possession including passes, that ranked second out of the
Speaker 2: fifteen players to log at least one thousand reps. He
Speaker 2: shot fifty four percent field goals on his own shot
Speaker 2: attempts in pick and roll, so I Shay shot anything
Speaker 2: and pick and roll had more than half more than
Speaker 2: half of them went in, which is insane as we know.
Speaker 2: Number one on that list was Tyreselliburton, but Shae second
Speaker 2: best pick and roll player in the league last year
Speaker 2: super impressive ISO one point one to two points per
Speaker 2: possession on six hundred and five fifty six reps. That
Speaker 2: is massive volume. Only Luka Doncic had more ISO reps
Speaker 2: and to be precise, eighty additional ones. So it goes
Speaker 2: to show you, like six hundred and fifty six for
Speaker 2: Shae feels insane, and Luca had eighty more ISOs than that.
Speaker 2: He was fourth on our high volume list out of
Speaker 2: the twenty four players to run at least two hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty ISOs. SHA's efficiency ranked fourth, and then also
Speaker 2: had a really interesting post up season similar to what
Speaker 2: we were talking about with Anthony Edwards. One hundred and
Speaker 2: forty four post ups FO one hundred and seventy points
Speaker 2: one point one point eight points per possession. That is
Speaker 2: in the eighty third percentile. So in total, for those
Speaker 2: of you guys who are doing the math, one eight
Speaker 2: hundred and ninety one possessions of half court shot creation
Speaker 2: that's all post ups, ISOs and pick and rolls, including
Speaker 2: passes one point one five points per possession. That's insane.
Speaker 2: I think Shay is the third best shot creator in
Speaker 2: the league right now. So when it comes strictly down
Speaker 2: to the concept of generating qualit shots for your team
Speaker 2: in the half court, only Luka Doncic and Nikola Jokic
Speaker 2: are better than Shay in my opinion at this point
Speaker 2: in time. And you can combine that with him being
Speaker 2: a really useful defensive player. He actually holds up pretty
Speaker 2: well on the ball though he doesn't log too many
Speaker 2: reps there. Oklahoma City has really really talented perimeter defensive personnel,
Speaker 2: so they can kind of keep him off of that
Speaker 2: type of role. Can be overpowered by some bigger forwards,
Speaker 2: for sure, that's to be expected by most guards, and
Speaker 2: he's a little on the thin side, but Shay is
Speaker 2: a super useful help side defender. He has really good
Speaker 2: length for the position, as we mentioned earlier sixty six,
Speaker 2: with a six to eleven wingspan. He's particularly good at
Speaker 2: swiping over the top of players as they gather in
Speaker 2: traffic and digging down. It's like he comes from off
Speaker 2: the ball, and he just gets a lot of deflections
Speaker 2: in blocks just using his length actually closer to the baseline,
Speaker 2: which is unique among guards. In situations where Shay ends
Speaker 2: up as the low man, meaning where he's the guy
Speaker 2: that's kind of in charge of the big man rolling
Speaker 2: to the basket as well as the corner, he gets
Speaker 2: a lot of deflection and makes a lot of plays,
Speaker 2: gets a lot of stops in those situations, probably better
Speaker 2: than most guards in the league, and certainly better than
Speaker 2: most of the star guards that are in the league.
Speaker 2: Shay has turned him into a legitimate two way player
Speaker 2: at this point, and that's what makes him a bona
Speaker 2: fide top tier superstar. He's a top three offensive engine
Speaker 2: in the league, a legit two way player who's a
Speaker 2: net positive on the defensive end of the flour. And
Speaker 2: he's durable and dependably great on a night to night
Speaker 2: basis in the regular season, which is obviously going to
Speaker 2: put you very high on a list like that. And
Speaker 2: I thought his first postseason run as a legit number
Speaker 2: one went pretty well all things considered. Average thirty point
Speaker 2: seven rebound, six assists, totally respectable, fifty eight percent true shooting.
Speaker 2: It's obviously down it ran into a couple of issues.
Speaker 2: He failed to reach his regular season free throw attempt
Speaker 2: average in six of the ten games. That's to be expected,
Speaker 2: you're going to get a tighter whistle. He had some
Speaker 2: games where it was like the regular season, he was
Speaker 2: getting every call, but several of the games where he
Speaker 2: wasn't getting the same whistle. He missed some driving kick reads.
Speaker 2: That was kind of a big problem for the entire
Speaker 2: Oclame City roster. But you can say that about basically
Speaker 2: every player in the league, aside from a small handful
Speaker 2: like the Jokich, Luca Lebron Tier, like those guys that
Speaker 2: are elite passers at the top of the league. They
Speaker 2: never miss a read. It's extremely rare that they'll miss
Speaker 2: a Reid, but pretty much everyone else misses Reid's on occasion.
Speaker 2: And so Shay ran into some of that. But it's
Speaker 2: not too hard to believe. And they had Dallas on
Speaker 2: the ropes, Like, had Shae not fouled PJ. Washington in
Speaker 2: the left corner of Game six, they probably get a
Speaker 2: Game seven at home, and they're probably favored to win
Speaker 2: that game. And now obviously Luca Game seven on the road.
Speaker 2: Anything can happen, but they're probably favored to win that game.
Speaker 2: So like, that's how close they were to being a
Speaker 2: Western Conference Finals team. And Shay had some real moments too,
Speaker 2: Like he had the game winner in Game one against
Speaker 2: New Orleans, that little and one he got to think
Speaker 2: it was against CJ. McCollum in the in the mid range.
Speaker 2: He had fifteen points in the final fourteen minutes of
Speaker 2: Game six against Dallas, just kept hitting tough pull up
Speaker 2: jumper after tough pull up jumper, the kind of big
Speaker 2: playoff moment you kind of imagined was Shae considering his
Speaker 2: skill set as you just imagined him hitting a ton
Speaker 2: of really tough pull of jumpers, and he did, and
Speaker 2: he had what could have been the game winning assists,
Speaker 2: a driving lob to chet Holmgren. But he just made
Speaker 2: that one mistake, just came one play short and ended
Speaker 2: up fouling PJ. Washington in the left corner, and they
Speaker 2: got eliminated in the second round. Now, I don't think
Speaker 2: Shaye will ever be what we'd consider to be a
Speaker 2: playoff riser the way that ant is just because he's
Speaker 2: so damn efficient in the regular season that it's actually
Speaker 2: kind of impossible to replicate in the playoffs, and also
Speaker 2: because he relies on the whistle a little bit. That said,
Speaker 2: I was really impressed by Shae, and I thought he
Speaker 2: held up better than it could have been. There are
Speaker 2: versions of that, the heliocentric, you know, foul grifting, pull
Speaker 2: up shooter. There are versions of that that doesn't translate
Speaker 2: well to the playoffs. But Shay has so much versatility
Speaker 2: in the way that he attacks. No two possessions look alike,
Speaker 2: so many different drible combinations, so many different spots on
Speaker 2: the floor where he can be a shot maker. That
Speaker 2: he and guys like Luca just have more resilience than
Speaker 2: the James Harden types where it's like all step back
Speaker 2: thor hees left hand drives and you know that's pretty
Speaker 2: much it, right, Like, there's definitely enough variety in there
Speaker 2: to keep some resiliency. So, in summary, Shay is a
Speaker 2: top three offensive engine. He is a reliable and dependably
Speaker 2: great regular season foundation. He's not the most versatile offensive player,
Speaker 2: as we talked about earlier. He struggles a bit off
Speaker 2: the ball, but not enough to move him down this
Speaker 2: list substantially, and I am curious to see how that
Speaker 2: develops over the next few years as his teammates get better.
Speaker 2: And to his credit, he is a versatile defensive player.
Speaker 2: I think you can find a bunch of useful defensive
Speaker 2: roles for him on many different types of rosters, which
Speaker 2: gives in this case a theoretical GM like myself in
Speaker 2: this theoretical draft, gives me some leeway in terms of
Speaker 2: the types of defensive looks that I can build around him.
Speaker 2: And then lastly, his games translate. His game translates well
Speaker 2: to the playoff setting, so that makes him a clear
Speaker 2: cut top tier superstar and currently the fourth best player
Speaker 2: in the NBA to start a full season with in
Speaker 2: my opinion. All right, let's get to the mailbag. Lots
Speaker 2: of people mad about Ant being this high, So let's
Speaker 2: get into some of your guys's comments. First, kind of
Speaker 2: a big picture one and then I really really good,
Speaker 2: well thought out basketball case I'm gonna read you, guys.
Speaker 2: I don't understand how a dude has one conference finals,
Speaker 2: has one playoff conference run, and e leap Frog's a
Speaker 2: dude that's been to five conference finals, two NBA Finals,
Speaker 2: and has a championship so far. Remember, this list is
Speaker 2: not about credit. Tatum has certainly had a more productive
Speaker 2: and celebrated NBA career so far. If we were using
Speaker 2: last year's criteria, where it was mostly about credit, Tatum
Speaker 2: is going to be well over Ant, right, But that's
Speaker 2: just not the way at this particular list works. I'm
Speaker 2: talking about guys to build a team around for this
Speaker 2: coming season. I'm saying that I like my chances to
Speaker 2: win the title building from scratch a little bit more
Speaker 2: with Ant than I do with Tatum. All that said,
Speaker 2: Ant made my perennial MVP candidate list, but I do
Speaker 2: view him a little bit. I view a gap between
Speaker 2: four and five, meaning like I view one through four
Speaker 2: as like the top tier superstars, and going from five
Speaker 2: to eleven, I think those guys are kind of bunched up.
Speaker 2: So I don't see much of a gap between five
Speaker 2: and eleven. So to be clear, I'm not saying I
Speaker 2: think Ant is much better than Tatum. I think he's
Speaker 2: barely better than Tatum, even though Tatum, even though Ant
Speaker 2: is all the way up at number five. We're gonna
Speaker 2: get into some of the basketball specifics in this next question.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I can't understand Ant over Tatum. Ant has
Speaker 2: the exact same key weakness that Tatum does less than
Speaker 2: elite efficiency as a jump shooter, but still shoots them
Speaker 2: at volume, but he has that weakness as a guard.
Speaker 2: Tatum was twenty six seven, eight and five on sixty
Speaker 2: percent through shooting last year turnover rate of eight point
Speaker 2: six percent, and it was twenty six five and five
Speaker 2: on fifty eight percent through shooting turnover rate of ten percent.
Speaker 2: So Tatum put up superior offensive numbers despite having lower
Speaker 2: usage than Ant does. And then defensively, as much as
Speaker 2: Ant is an elite perimeter defender, Tatum is unquestionably a
Speaker 2: higher impact defensive player overall. This is mainly because he
Speaker 2: offers legitimate secondary rim protection, which was exactly why the
Speaker 2: Celtics were able to successfully shut down some the same
Speaker 2: MAVs attack that the wolves vaunted defense couldn't figure out.
Speaker 2: Tatum's size and athleticism offers unique versatility when scheming on
Speaker 2: defense in general that Ant does not. But on top
Speaker 2: of all that, Tatum is likely the superior perimeter defender
Speaker 2: as well. Think about that game this year where SGA
Speaker 2: was cooking Derek White and Drew Holliday because they didn't
Speaker 2: have the length to stop him. Then Tatum switched on
Speaker 2: to him for the fourth quarter and shut off the faucet.
Speaker 2: Think about the Net series two years ago where Tatum
Speaker 2: clamped Durant and was getting legit blocks on his jumper.
Speaker 2: I highly doubt Anthony Edwards can contain longer perimeter stars
Speaker 2: like that at the same level Tatum can. It's just
Speaker 2: Tatum isn't asked to be on the perimeter night in
Speaker 2: and night out. The Celtics also had eight more wins
Speaker 2: in the regular season than the Wolves and took home
Speaker 2: the chip, so Tatum is a better player on both
Speaker 2: ends of the floor, higher efficiency, more experience in every aspect,
Speaker 2: plays as many games, more versatile for scheming on both
Speaker 2: ends because of his size and strength, and just coming
Speaker 2: off of a title which Ant has never won. How
Speaker 2: can Ant then be the better player to build around
Speaker 2: for twenty four to twenty five. You've admitted multiple times
Speaker 2: during Ant's hot streak last year that he was becoming
Speaker 2: one of your favorite players in the league. I think
Speaker 2: you've got to own up to a little bias coming
Speaker 2: into play here due to Ant being such a charismatic
Speaker 2: dog and a fun player to watch. Respect everything you
Speaker 2: do on this channel. My experience of the NBA has
Speaker 2: been much richer for listening to your content. That is
Speaker 2: probably the best comment that I've received in terms of
Speaker 2: like making a basketball case since I started doing this list.
Speaker 2: So I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to write that.
Speaker 2: I'll out that's a damn good case. You did a
Speaker 2: very good job. That's how you argue about basketball. You
Speaker 2: don't just call someone a jackass and say they're wrong.
Speaker 2: You tell them why. And I really appreciate you taking
Speaker 2: the time to do that. That's what makes this sort
Speaker 2: of thing fun. These are the kinds of debates that
Speaker 2: I love having. When I was a plane in college
Speaker 2: and we were done at practice and we were taking
Speaker 2: our shoes off and stuff, just sitting down on the
Speaker 2: sidelines talking shit, or on the bus or on the
Speaker 2: plane or at the restaurant or whatever. These are the
Speaker 2: kinds of conversations we would have. And you know, obviously
Speaker 2: we weren't as much into the statistical weeds as I
Speaker 2: am now, but that was the kind of conversations that
Speaker 2: we had, and that's what I enjoy doing as a
Speaker 2: basketball fan. Also, before we get to Aunt, one of
Speaker 2: the things that I thought was really fascinating is you
Speaker 2: talked about how Tatum's secondary rim protection is how they
Speaker 2: shut down the MAVs and specifically putting Tatum on the center,
Speaker 2: and you put that the Wolves vaunted defense couldn't figure
Speaker 2: it out. The reason why I'm singling this out first
Speaker 2: is I don't think it has anything to do with AUNT.
Speaker 2: I was really fascinated after that series, after watching the finals,
Speaker 2: that Minnesota didn't try, that Minnesota didn't try putting just
Speaker 2: like putting Gobart on PJ. Washington or on Derek Jones
Speaker 2: junior and letting someone like Cat guard the center. So
Speaker 2: that they But the thing is is Cat can't guard
Speaker 2: in space, so it have to be like Jayden. But
Speaker 2: then again, it's like I don't think I don't think
Speaker 2: Gafford and Gafford and Lively didn't get enough offensive rebounds
Speaker 2: in the finals, And I'd be curious to see, like
Speaker 2: if Jayden McDaniels was there, and you like just tried
Speaker 2: switching that maybe with a bigger look with Kyle Anderson
Speaker 2: on the floor, and you put like Kyle Anderson on Luca,
Speaker 2: or maybe Jaden on Luca and Kyle Anderson on the
Speaker 2: center and tried switching that with Gobert roaming off PJ. Washington.
Speaker 2: I'm just curious, Like, I'm not curious why we didn't
Speaker 2: see it, because it was kind of a new look.
Speaker 2: Like this concept of like putting your centers on opposing
Speaker 2: week above the breakshooters and guarding their center with a
Speaker 2: like a Ford that's still a relatively new NBA concept.
Speaker 2: And so give the credit to Joe Mizzoula for conceptualizing
Speaker 2: just a really good defensive game plan against Dallas. But
Speaker 2: there is some truth to the fact that you have
Speaker 2: to have a big forward like Tatum that can wrun
Speaker 2: guard centers and switch on to switch onto the ball
Speaker 2: handler in order for that look to make sense. But
Speaker 2: there's another side of that too, like you also have
Speaker 2: to have your on ball guy be big enough. Like
Speaker 2: it only works if Jalen Brown can also switch on
Speaker 2: to centers, because you're gonna switch that Lucas center pick
Speaker 2: and roll in that case. And so I know we're
Speaker 2: not talking about ant at this point, but like just
Speaker 2: strictly talking about defensive game planning, that is a really
Speaker 2: interesting point, Like that concept of putting your forward on
Speaker 2: the opposing center and putting your center on their weakest
Speaker 2: above the break shooter. I think we're gonna see a
Speaker 2: lot more of that in the NBA in the coming
Speaker 2: years because it's copycat league and Joe Mizula leaned hard
Speaker 2: into it most of the season too, Like you go
Speaker 2: back in the regular season, Tatum's guarding centers a lot,
Speaker 2: and so like, I think that it's gonna be just
Speaker 2: a really interesting concept to see over the next couple
Speaker 2: of years as more teams try to adapt that. But
Speaker 2: there is a personnel element to it that extends beyond
Speaker 2: one player. You have to have like a group of
Speaker 2: personnel that is capable of executing that type of coverage.
Speaker 2: On that note, let's get into your some of your points. One,
Speaker 2: you were talking about his regular season production. I've said
Speaker 2: in this episode, and obviously you wrote this comment before
Speaker 2: I wrote this episode, but ant Lee took place in
Speaker 2: the postseason runs. He just turned twenty three, So like,
Speaker 2: that's the way this is going to work. Is going
Speaker 2: to be much more of like a like Ant is
Speaker 2: at a different phase of his career where he's improving
Speaker 2: exponentially on a year over year basis right, And he's
Speaker 2: a different player now than he was in the regular season.
Speaker 2: He's been a flat out deadly shooter his entire postseason
Speaker 2: career and just had a really good summer shooting the
Speaker 2: basketball through both his playoff run and with Team USA.
Speaker 2: So like, I agree with you that last year in
Speaker 2: the regular season, Ant had the same issue as Tatum,
Speaker 2: which was high volume, inefficient pull up jump shooting. But
Speaker 2: Ant seems to be kicking that ish and shooting at
Speaker 2: a really high rate in a large sample size. And again,
Speaker 2: who knows what's gonna happen in the long run. Maybe
Speaker 2: ant will take a huge downturn in shooting, and maybe
Speaker 2: Tatum will take a huge upswing. But I am betting.
Speaker 2: I am saying that I believe Ant's jump shooting is real.
Speaker 2: He's also a great free throw shooter. He's got eighty
Speaker 2: four percent on free throws last year. That is always
Speaker 2: a strong indicator of shooting touch. And then lastly, he
Speaker 2: gets better looks than everyone else because his first step
Speaker 2: is so crazy it has everyone on their heels. So like,
Speaker 2: I think a big part of why he shoots so
Speaker 2: well is he just gets a lot of really good looks.
Speaker 2: So to put it simply, like, I think Ant is
Speaker 2: a more useful offensive player in a vacuum because he's
Speaker 2: a substantially better athlete with a much quicker first step,
Speaker 2: who's also a better shooter both off the catch and
Speaker 2: off the dribble. So he's giving me more rim pressure
Speaker 2: and more jump shooting to counter it. So, like building
Speaker 2: from scratch as a GM, I think that's easier for
Speaker 2: me to work with. Now let's get into Tatum a
Speaker 2: little bit. Tatum is definitely a better place, but he's
Speaker 2: not an elite passer either. He's just better than Ant,
Speaker 2: and that carries a lot of value in the Celtics roster,
Speaker 2: where they're surrounded by all these really good players, Right,
Speaker 2: but this list implies I'm not getting Tatum, Jylen Brown,
Speaker 2: Derek White, Drew Holliday, Chrisops, Porzingis, and Al Horford, like
Speaker 2: I'm likely getting in this scenario where we're drafting, chances
Speaker 2: are all the teams are gonna be relatively even with talent,
Speaker 2: and so chances are instead of Tatum playing with five
Speaker 2: other great two AA players, He's probably gonna play with
Speaker 2: maybe like one really great two A player and probably
Speaker 2: like two offensive specialists and then probably like two defensive specialists. Right, Like,
Speaker 2: it's gonna be much more of like a mix of
Speaker 2: different types of talent, which at that point, Tatum's lack
Speaker 2: of offensive high end becomes more of a problem and
Speaker 2: his playmaking becomes less valuable in that specific regard. And
Speaker 2: that's really the thing is, like Tatum is kind of
Speaker 2: hard to build around from ratch because he's kind of
Speaker 2: like a B minus to B plus on everything when
Speaker 2: it comes to the offensive end of the floor. Right, Like,
Speaker 2: his durability on offense is impressive. He's always available, and
Speaker 2: he shoots enough threes and gets to the foul line
Speaker 2: enough that he can maintain efficiency and volume. That's why
Speaker 2: he's always going to be like twenty seven points per game,
Speaker 2: sixty per century shooting, twenty seven points per game, sixty
Speaker 2: per century shooting, but he doesn't have an elite first step.
Speaker 2: He's got good size for the position, but he's not
Speaker 2: like physically dominant on offense the way guys like Kawhi
Speaker 2: Leonard or Lebron James are. He's a good shooter, like
Speaker 2: I genuinely think he's a good shooter, is just in
Speaker 2: a bad slump, like I've said that many times. But
Speaker 2: he's certainly not a great shooter. And he's a good passer,
Speaker 2: but he's certainly not a great passer. So like, he
Speaker 2: doesn't really have an A plus offensive trade, and so
Speaker 2: like when I have Aunt, where I have this real
Speaker 2: A plus offensive trade, which is like among players below
Speaker 2: six to six, he's the best at getting to the rim.
Speaker 2: Definitely gets to the ring more than Tatum despite significantly
Speaker 2: inferior spacing, And when I combine that with him also
Speaker 2: being a much better jump shooting threat, I just think
Speaker 2: that that top end ability is something that I can
Speaker 2: build around easier as a kind of a vacuum draft
Speaker 2: sort of situation where I'm not going to have like
Speaker 2: massive talent advantages the way that Tatum does. Within Boston.
Speaker 2: I do think Tatum is a better defensive player. You
Speaker 2: broke it down at length. We went into it a
Speaker 2: little bit earlier, but I do expect that gap to
Speaker 2: continue to shrink as the years go by. Again, as
Speaker 2: we know, Ant does have all world defensive potential that
Speaker 2: we do see in spurts, like we saw with Jamal
Speaker 2: Murray in Game seven, but it's definitely too inconsistent at
Speaker 2: this point. I also definitely agree with you that Tatum
Speaker 2: is much more versatile defensively. I can do more with him,
Speaker 2: I can plug him into different types of roles. So
Speaker 2: if you were making the case for Tatum over Ant,
Speaker 2: like if I, like, if you were making a list
Speaker 2: and you had Tatum at five and Aunt at seven,
Speaker 2: then that would be the angle I would take. Like,
Speaker 2: that defensive angle is the one that makes a lot
Speaker 2: of sense to me, and you're making in a really
Speaker 2: good case. Comparing the Celtics to the Wolves is pointless
Speaker 2: in my opinion. One the record is thrown off a
Speaker 2: little bit by the fact that the Western Conference just
Speaker 2: was significantly more talented. I can't remember that the stat
Speaker 2: off the top of my head. But the West kicked
Speaker 2: the shit out of the Eastern Conference and head to
Speaker 2: head matchups this year, and then the Celtics just had
Speaker 2: a lot more talent. Like again, like Datum was surrounded
Speaker 2: by five legitimate two way players. If you want to
Speaker 2: say Porzingis is in Horford are somewhat one dimensional defensive
Speaker 2: league because Horford's not as big and Porzingis can't garden
Speaker 2: space as well, I'll give you that. But at least
Speaker 2: four awesome two way players around him, right, so like
Speaker 2: or at least three, i should say, between Jalen Brown,
Speaker 2: Drew holiday In, Derek White. Most teams in the league
Speaker 2: don't have that type of two way talent. Like that's
Speaker 2: like the other team that does is like is like
Speaker 2: Oklahoma City, right, and that's the team that you're looking at.
Speaker 2: But most teams don't have that luxury. And most teams
Speaker 2: don't have the luxury of like every guy can shoot well,
Speaker 2: pass well and defend well. That's that's really you know,
Speaker 2: And like to put it simply, like if you put
Speaker 2: Anthony Edwards on that Celtics team, he's getting he's getting
Speaker 2: to the rim a dozen times a game, or you're
Speaker 2: gonna have to double him every time at the rim,
Speaker 2: where he's gonna generate a bunch of driving kick opportunities
Speaker 2: like Anthony Edwards with real true five out spacing where
Speaker 2: everyone can shoot, would be a terrifying thing to deal
Speaker 2: with for any defense. And like that's the thing when
Speaker 2: you look at that Wolves roster, like they had elite
Speaker 2: defensive personnel. That's a good roster, really big on the
Speaker 2: front line, some really interesting talented players, but everyone's got flaws, right,
Speaker 2: Like everyone there. It's like Mike Conley is a really
Speaker 2: interesting offensive player to help kind of grease the wheels
Speaker 2: and run pick and roll with Rudy Gobert and to
Speaker 2: spot up shoot and to hit his textbook, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of famous right handed floater that he makes. And
Speaker 2: Karl Anthony Towns is gonna have his games where he
Speaker 2: gets twenty six points and the But like neither of
Speaker 2: those guys are are truly useful defensive players. And Jade
Speaker 2: McDaniels might be the best perimeter defender in the league.
Speaker 2: It's it's I don't necessarily think i'd pick him, but
Speaker 2: he's in the top tier, you know, And Rudy Gobert
Speaker 2: is not that He's certainly in the top tier of
Speaker 2: defensive players in the league, is in the top five
Speaker 2: of all all around defensive talent in the league. But
Speaker 2: both of those guys have some real limitations on the
Speaker 2: offensive end of the floor. Like you're the concept that
Speaker 2: the Celtics. The thing of it just simply through this lens,
Speaker 2: Like the game plan for Dallas against Dallas, for Boston
Speaker 2: was to concede wide open above the break threes to
Speaker 2: if he shooters like Derek Jones or PJ. Washington, if
Speaker 2: you tried that against Boston, they would light you on
Speaker 2: fire because all of them can shoot so well. So
Speaker 2: like again, like I again, I still tat him at seven.
Speaker 2: You guys know how much I valuate him in his
Speaker 2: defensive versatility and how well he fits in with that group.
Speaker 2: But like guys, that Celtics roster is like other than
Speaker 2: like true superstar laiden rosters like the twenty seventeen Warriors,
Speaker 2: or like the twenty thirteen heat or like the Onekers,
Speaker 2: like aside from the teams that just have insane top
Speaker 2: end talent, like that's that's damn near a perfect roster
Speaker 2: that Brad Stevens is put together, and it makes basketball
Speaker 2: a lot easier for guys like Tatum than it does
Speaker 2: for other guys around the league. The last bit, I
Speaker 2: will freely admit that I, as a fan of basketball,
Speaker 2: like ant more than I like Jason Tatum. He's quickly
Speaker 2: becoming one of my favorite players. That's just, that's just,
Speaker 2: that's just I'm just being honest with you. It's just
Speaker 2: it's I don't go into it with the preconceived notion.
Speaker 2: I watch the games and there are certain players that
Speaker 2: I really like from certain players that I don't like
Speaker 2: as much. It's all just normal. It's the same way
Speaker 2: you guys feel when you watch You guys probably just
Speaker 2: have different players that you like or dislike, right. But
Speaker 2: to be clear, I try very hard to fight my
Speaker 2: biases on these lists, and you kind of just have
Speaker 2: to take my word for it that I'm being objective.
Speaker 2: I understand that some of you guys don't believe me,
Speaker 2: and then I'll never be able to change your mind.
Speaker 2: But I really am trying. I really am trying the
Speaker 2: best I can to be objective. But to be clear,
Speaker 2: that comment was the best and most well thought one,
Speaker 2: well thought out one that I've seen since we started
Speaker 2: this list. So I really appreciate you taking the time
Speaker 2: to write that down, Hey, Jason, love the show. In
Speaker 2: the ranking segment, Tatum should be way higher, specifically over Shay.
Speaker 2: He's the most versatile player in the league right now.
Speaker 2: During this playoff run, he was the primary offensive initiator
Speaker 2: while drawing the toughest defensive assignment. He finished the playoff
Speaker 2: run leading his team in points, rebounds, assists against Bam
Speaker 2: Mobley and double teams from Indiana and Dallas. On defense,
Speaker 2: he can guard one through five and through everyone's offensive
Speaker 2: game plan. Off by guarding centers against Dallas specifically, he
Speaker 2: shut down the lob threat completely. His shooting slump was brutal,
Speaker 2: but he still contributed at the highest level. Shay is
Speaker 2: a more efficient scorer, but that's really it. He takes
Speaker 2: the fourth assignment on defense and can operate can only
Speaker 2: operate with the ball in his hands. It seems like
Speaker 2: your ranking is a lot on projection, but Shay is
Speaker 2: only a year younger than Tatum and the bodies of
Speaker 2: work aren't comparable. Tatum has won more playoff series than
Speaker 2: Shay has won playoff games. That's a crazy stat. He's
Speaker 2: gone toe to toe with Giannis Embiid, Butler, Durant, Curry, Lebron,
Speaker 2: and Luca in huge games and come out on top consistently.
Speaker 2: Shay's best playoff run was a second round exit, and
Speaker 2: the only series he's won was against the Pelicans team
Speaker 2: without Zion. His team is poised to have a lot
Speaker 2: of success in these next few years. But if Boston
Speaker 2: beating the finals, I'll take Tatum's experience and resume every time.
Speaker 2: So I'm not going to get into some of the
Speaker 2: specifics with Tatum because I just did that with the
Speaker 2: previous comment, But to really simply respond, I think Shay
Speaker 2: is in like a completely different stratosphere than Tatum as
Speaker 2: an offensive player, specifically as an offensive engine while also
Speaker 2: being a legitimately good two way player. So to be honest,
Speaker 2: I never even considered Tatum to be over SGA. I
Speaker 2: just never gave that a real Look. What's wild is
Speaker 2: you said Aunt over Tatum mid playoff run, then you
Speaker 2: came back after he was eliminated and said you were
Speaker 2: caught in the moment and that Tatum is better right now,
Speaker 2: but you wouldn't be surprised if Aunt passes him even
Speaker 2: next season. Then Boston wins a ring and now Ant
Speaker 2: is back over Tatum. You do realize Ant hasn't done
Speaker 2: anything Tatum hasn't already done even when he was Aunt's age.
Speaker 2: So I understand that this can be confusing, And I
Speaker 2: kind of talked about this a little bit earlier in
Speaker 2: the show. But like talking about who better is all
Speaker 2: about what criteria we're using. Like if I was just
Speaker 2: sitting here and I was like, I was like, well,
Speaker 2: I think that Lebron's better than Tatum, Like what do
Speaker 2: you mean, like for tomorrow, Like, because like, yeah, I
Speaker 2: probably agree, but like for starting a season tomorrow, like
Speaker 2: a full season, it's a completely different conversation, right, Like
Speaker 2: when someone says who's better at basketball, it's usually one
Speaker 2: of three things, right, Like, it's of which I went
Speaker 2: over at the beginning of the show, best for a
Speaker 2: gamer series or starts tomorrow, best for an entire season
Speaker 2: from start to finish, or the bragging rights piece, right Like,
Speaker 2: that's the the bragging rights piece is tough, Right, That's
Speaker 2: what a lot of Celtics fans are playing right now.
Speaker 2: That's what a lot of the people have been done
Speaker 2: doing in these comments, like Tatum just won the title,
Speaker 2: Why isn't he higher. Okay, So that's bragging rights. You're saying,
Speaker 2: regardless of what all the team circumstances and other things
Speaker 2: going on are, Tatum has the trophy. Therefore he should
Speaker 2: be number one. That's bragging rights. Right. For a game
Speaker 2: that starts tomorrow, totally different conversation. Best for an entire
Speaker 2: season that goes from start to finish, totally different conversation.
Speaker 2: Adding the modifier that we're doing a whole draft from scratch,
Speaker 2: that's a different conversation, right, And so like, yeah, at
Speaker 2: the moment when Ant lost, and I'll even extend it
Speaker 2: to today, if I had to start a playoff series
Speaker 2: two tomorrow, I'm giving Tatum a slight edge over Ant.
Speaker 2: And that's with me giving him grace because of his
Speaker 2: poor jump shooting, Like that's me thinking that he would
Speaker 2: shoot better if he was like the number one option
Speaker 2: on the team and everything was falling through him, which,
Speaker 2: by the way, he just did in the playoffs and
Speaker 2: didn't shoot very well. But giving him that grace, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'd give Tatum a slight edge over Ant right now.
Speaker 2: But I think that by next April, Ant's gonna pass him.
Speaker 2: And I also think that Ant in the regular season
Speaker 2: is a really useful offensive engine. And I think specifically,
Speaker 2: if I was building a roster from scratch, Ant's a
Speaker 2: plus offensive trait, which is elite downhill athlet um combined
Speaker 2: with his pull up shooting, which has been far more
Speaker 2: deadly than Jason Tatum, especially as of late. I want
Speaker 2: Aunt and so again, that's where these conversations get a
Speaker 2: little bit tougher. Bragging rights. Yeah it's Tatum best for
Speaker 2: a game tomorrow. Yeah it's Tatum. But that's not the
Speaker 2: purpose of this particular list. And that's why I broke
Speaker 2: down the criteria at the beginning. That's why I've re
Speaker 2: emphasized and gone over the criteria like thirty five times
Speaker 2: over the course of this list, because I think that's
Speaker 2: where most of the gap in our perspective has come from.
Speaker 2: Two more eighty Shay and Aunt over Tatum is hilarious.
Speaker 2: Only one of those players has proven that they can
Speaker 2: be the best player on a team and win a championship. Tatum,
Speaker 2: being a team player and all about winning while taking
Speaker 2: a hit to his counting stats is exactly why he'd
Speaker 2: be the perfect player to build around. He's already shown
Speaker 2: he can average thirty in a season dude just played
Speaker 2: point guard on offense and guarded the other team center
Speaker 2: on defense. So first of all, like this is where
Speaker 2: it gets triggy with the bragging rights thing, and this
Speaker 2: is why I don't do bragging rights anymore. We do
Speaker 2: bagging rights. I'm gonna do a video, so like after
Speaker 2: this week, next week Monday, I'm gonna do one video
Speaker 2: where I rank like the top five bragging rights guys
Speaker 2: from last year. But so we're gonna do it. But
Speaker 2: like for the purpose of this list, I don't like
Speaker 2: to do that anymore. I think that that we made
Speaker 2: some mistakes, and one of the biggest mistakes was last
Speaker 2: year I had Luca at ten because he missed the playoffs,
Speaker 2: so for bragging rights I had to have him lower.
Speaker 2: But then like he went and kicked everyone's ass this
Speaker 2: year and got all the way to the playoffs or
Speaker 2: all the way to the finals. So like that's where
Speaker 2: that that type of list has a certain amount of
Speaker 2: flaw to it. Right, Let's put it this way, this
Speaker 2: is why the bragging rights thing is silly. Tatum won
Speaker 2: the trophy and he just played the worst playoff basketball
Speaker 2: of his prime by far, Like he was in close
Speaker 2: to as good as he was in twenty twenty two
Speaker 2: when he lost. So that's what's kind of ridiculous, like
Speaker 2: to put it. Here's another angle for it, like you
Speaker 2: know who else won a title and didn't win finals?
Speaker 2: MVP Anthony Davis. Anthony Davis's two way play in the
Speaker 2: twenty twenty playoffs was infinitely more than Jason Tatum. He's
Speaker 2: better than Tatum on both ends of the floor in
Speaker 2: that playoff run by a wide margin. So that's why
Speaker 2: I don't I think just pointing to this particular playoff
Speaker 2: run and them winning the trophy is just a weak
Speaker 2: case to put Tatum over people over people. For last question,
Speaker 2: why can't the Lakers make the playoffs outright with two
Speaker 2: top ten players? That's weird. I get versions of this
Speaker 2: question all the time. It's really as simple. The Lakers
Speaker 2: were a hell of a lot better than their record
Speaker 2: would lead you to believe, because they had one bad
Speaker 2: stretch over about three weeks in late December and early January.
Speaker 2: They were one of the best teams in the league
Speaker 2: to start the year, and they were one of the
Speaker 2: best teams in the league to end the year. Also,
Speaker 2: the Western Conference is super super deep, with talent. We
Speaker 2: actually just look through the Western Conference standings, there's just
Speaker 2: not much of a gap in that middle portion. All
Speaker 2: of them are just kind of jammed up on each other,
Speaker 2: like there's just more good teams in the West. When
Speaker 2: there are more good teams in the West, it's going
Speaker 2: to be more competitive. It's going to be harder to
Speaker 2: jockey for playoff positioning, it's going to be harder to
Speaker 2: put up bigger win totals. That's just to be expected.
Speaker 2: The West, head to head, kicked the shit out of
Speaker 2: the Eastern Conference this year. Even Boston, for as good
Speaker 2: as they were, they were just three and five in
Speaker 2: their eight matchups against the top four seeds in the
Speaker 2: Western Conference. The Western Conference was just an entirely different battle.
Speaker 2: Other little known fact, like if you take out that
Speaker 2: three and ten stretch, the Lakers just looked like an
Speaker 2: awesome team. Like again, awesome to start the year, won
Speaker 2: the n season Tournament. From January seventh on, they were
Speaker 2: like one of the top four records in the league.
Speaker 2: I can't remember exactly off the top of my head,
Speaker 2: I'll pull it up in a minute, but like they
Speaker 2: were one of the top records in the league. They
Speaker 2: they had seventeen wins according to Cleaning the Glass against
Speaker 2: teams that were in the top ten in point differential,
Speaker 2: would the only team that had that many wins other
Speaker 2: than the Lakers was Boston, So that like the Lakers,
Speaker 2: and then they went and played the defending champs and
Speaker 2: outplayed them the majority of the series. They just got
Speaker 2: gamed by Jamal Murray twice, which ended up costing them
Speaker 2: the series. Like they they went blow blow with the
Speaker 2: team that hoisted the trophy last year. So like again,
Speaker 2: like were the like. I didn't think the Lakers were
Speaker 2: a top tier championship contender. I had I had Denver one,
Speaker 2: and I had Boston two, and then I had a gap,
Speaker 2: and then I had everyone else, and I think I
Speaker 2: had the Lakers sixth. I had him like fifth or sixth.
Speaker 2: So no, I don't think the Lakers were gonna win
Speaker 2: the title. I don't think the Lakers were gonna beat Boston.
Speaker 2: I didn't think the Lakers were gonna be Denver. I
Speaker 2: picked them to lose that series. But I do think
Speaker 2: the Lakers were a hell of a lot better than
Speaker 2: their uh uh than their than their uh position in
Speaker 2: the standings would lead you to believe and quite frankly
Speaker 2: like for Lebron and AD to be what I considered
Speaker 2: to be the sixth best team in the league. Uh
Speaker 2: to be the sixth sixth best team in the league
Speaker 2: with Lebron and Ad on the roster, that goes to
Speaker 2: show you they overcame a lot. That was with the
Speaker 2: limitation of Darvin Ham as the coach, that was with
Speaker 2: the lack of two way role players. Like, honestly, I
Speaker 2: thought Lebron and Ad did more than pulling the and
Speaker 2: like when people say, like, why didn't they make the
Speaker 2: playoffs outright, despite the fact that Lebron and Ad are
Speaker 2: top ten players, and it's like, did you watch them play?
Speaker 2: They were awesome every night. They were literally awesome all
Speaker 2: the time. And the issue was some rotation stuff in
Speaker 2: the middle of the season. And then the fact that
Speaker 2: they literally do not have like their starting five is
Speaker 2: Austin Reeves, d Low and Rui good players, but it's
Speaker 2: poorly balanced. There's nobody in None of those guys are
Speaker 2: above average defensive players. That's the problem. And so like
Speaker 2: they were constantly trying to overcome that. But by the way,
Speaker 2: I pulled up the number over their final forty six
Speaker 2: games of the year, which was from January seventh on,
Speaker 2: they were thirty and sixteen. That was the fourth best
Speaker 2: record in the league. Like, that was more than half
Speaker 2: the season sample size. They were one of the best
Speaker 2: offenses in the league. So, like a lot of people
Speaker 2: like to be clear, Like if you were under the
Speaker 2: impression that the Lakers were a bad basketball team, that's
Speaker 2: just not accurate. That's just not accurate to what was
Speaker 2: actually happening last year. Were they a top tier championship contender. No,
Speaker 2: but they were firmly in the mix in that next
Speaker 2: group that was below. All right, guys, that is all
Speaker 2: I have for today is always sincerely appreciate you for
Speaker 2: sporting the show. Don't forget to argue and tell me
Speaker 2: how I'm wrong in the comments. Make a basketball case.
Speaker 2: You have a much higher chance of getting picked in
Speaker 2: the comments. We'll be back on Wednesday with number three
Speaker 2: and number two. I'll see you guys.
Speaker 1: Then the volume the NFL season's right around the corner.
Speaker 1: We'll be breaking down all the off season storylines on
Speaker 1: the Colin Cowherd podcast. My best takes guests like my
Speaker 1: buddy Nick Wright. Check out the Colin Coward Podcast Part
Speaker 1: of the Volume Network available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts.