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Speaker 1: Slash b ball. All right, welcoon to Hoops Tonight here
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Speaker 1: Game Time today. What time is it? Game time? All right,
Speaker 1: let's talk some basketball. If only one possible trade can
Speaker 1: be made, what would be more essential for the Lakers?
Speaker 1: Prioritizing an athletic guard who can defend and create or
Speaker 1: a backup big who can defend. This has been the
Speaker 1: big question surrounding the Lakers coming into this year, and
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of talk about like, oh, should
Speaker 1: they go after Kessler Edwards? Should they go after Robert Williams?
Speaker 1: Should they be hunting a center that can anchor units
Speaker 1: when AD's off the floor and give them a better
Speaker 1: chance of contending when AD needs to sit out a game.
Speaker 1: And I totally understand that point of view. For the record,
Speaker 1: and I certainly would like to have a better backup
Speaker 1: center off option than Jackson Hayes. That said, I think
Speaker 1: by far the biggest issue with this roster is the
Speaker 1: lack of PERIMETERI athleticism, And we're talking about this with
Speaker 1: the Nerd Sash guys on Wednesday, if you guys remember,
Speaker 1: But it's been like one of the biggest lessons I've
Speaker 1: learned in the league over the last year or so,
Speaker 1: extending into the tail end of last year and this year,
Speaker 1: where it's like your ability to cover ground in rotation
Speaker 1: and cover ground in transition and get up into ball
Speaker 1: handlers with ball pressure is such an underrated part of
Speaker 1: today's game. I you know, just go look at the metrics,
Speaker 1: like these teams are playing in transition. Damn near twenty
Speaker 1: percent of the game at this point, like like one
Speaker 1: fifth of the basketball is being played in an up
Speaker 1: and down setting with guys flying around the floor in transition.
Speaker 1: You need speed, you need athleticism on the perimeter, you
Speaker 1: need guys that can guard the ball. And the Lakers,
Speaker 1: you know, when you look at their perimeter core, it's
Speaker 1: in terms of athletes, like they've got other perimeter players,
Speaker 1: but when you're looking at athletes, like guys that can
Speaker 1: really kind of cover ground. It's like Dalton connect who's
Speaker 1: a rookie and at this point hasn't been able to
Speaker 1: turn his his athleticism into really functional defense. Yet there's
Speaker 1: Gabe Vincent who can't put the ball in the basket
Speaker 1: for whatever reason. Like it's like he's one for four,
Speaker 1: one for five every single game. Max Christy, who I
Speaker 1: really think could be a useful three and D player
Speaker 1: if he ever embraced being a three and D player,
Speaker 1: but he's just convinced he's going to be more of
Speaker 1: an on ball creator. And I just think he's a
Speaker 1: really immature offensive player right now. So at this point,
Speaker 1: he's at this point you almost have to go a
Speaker 1: different direction just because he's been so bad to start
Speaker 1: the season. And Jared Vanderbilt, who's always hurt in Cam Reddish,
Speaker 1: who is a NBA journeyman who brings some functional athleticism
Speaker 1: but is so limited offensively that he becomes very difficult
Speaker 1: to play. So, like all of the perimeter athletes on
Speaker 1: the Lakers come with massive question marks when you look
Speaker 1: at their actual like playable rotation guys. It's Austin Reeves,
Speaker 1: you know, average to blow average athlete, D'Angelo Russell, below
Speaker 1: average athlete. Ruiy Hatchamurro is very big and definitely a
Speaker 1: decent athlete, but he's not what I would consider to
Speaker 1: be a fast player. Lebron James, who's fast when he
Speaker 1: wants to be, but he's forty years old and so
Speaker 1: going to be fast and the majority of the time.
Speaker 1: And ad who's fast for a center, but he's not
Speaker 1: going to be covering ground on the perimeter doing all
Speaker 1: the work that the Lakers need from their perimeter core.
Speaker 1: And so when you combine that being just such a
Speaker 1: big weakness on this Laker roster, which by the way,
Speaker 1: I've been complaining about this exact weakness on this exact
Speaker 1: roster for more than two years now. This has been
Speaker 1: the consistent thing that I've pointed to. They're not athletic
Speaker 1: enough at the guards. They're not athletic enough after the guards.
Speaker 1: Right after the Western Conference Finals appearance, I said going
Speaker 1: into the season, they need to make a d angel
Speaker 1: A Russell trade because they are not athletic enough in
Speaker 1: the backcourt. This is something I've been consistently tied in on,
Speaker 1: and it's only become exacerbated by the fact that my
Speaker 1: view of the game has shifted towards valuing that type
Speaker 1: of skill, or I should say that type of roster
Speaker 1: trade more than anything else. So given the option, if
Speaker 1: the Lakers could only make one trade, I would prefer
Speaker 1: them go find some functional perimeter athleticism. Same thing goes
Speaker 1: for that backup center spot. Where it's like when you're
Speaker 1: talking about backup center for a guy like Anthony Davis,
Speaker 1: who's gonna play a lot. Again, this is not Dallas
Speaker 1: where they're splitting their center minutes more closer to the middle, right,
Speaker 1: or a team like Golden State who's holding Draymond in
Speaker 1: the mid to high twenties in his minutes, right, Like
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis is gonna play thirty five minutes a game
Speaker 1: in the regular season in forty plus minutes a game
Speaker 1: in the playoffs. So like the benefit of having a
Speaker 1: really good backup center is real on the stretches of
Speaker 1: the game when AD's out and god forbid if you
Speaker 1: misses some time. But like in the idealized version of
Speaker 1: your team, that's a player and you're not using very often.
Speaker 1: And like again, maybe if you want to go huge,
Speaker 1: if you can find a caliber center that you can
Speaker 1: play next to Anthony Davis. That seems appealing on the
Speaker 1: defensive end. But here we are a little chunk into
Speaker 1: the season and Anthony Davis is still not shooting the
Speaker 1: three ball particularly well or particularly often, So like, I
Speaker 1: don't know that you can really get away with that
Speaker 1: unless Anthony Davis becomes a knockdown shooter, and he just
Speaker 1: hasn't been to this point. So like, ideally I'd like
Speaker 1: to have both, but if I could only have one,
Speaker 1: I would take an athletic guard who can defend and
Speaker 1: create over a backup center for the Lakers. Next question, Hey,
Speaker 1: Jason love your content. Turns out that the Nets have
Speaker 1: too many good role players and have become competent, which
Speaker 1: is bad because they need to be in the Cooper
Speaker 1: Flag stakes. What would be your thoughts on a Schroeder
Speaker 1: Dorian Finney Smith trade for d LO and another player
Speaker 1: to match contracts in a pick and a pick trade. So,
Speaker 1: Dorrian Finnehsmith is a guy that everybody should be looking at.
Speaker 1: Dennis Schroeder to me, is a really good player. I like,
Speaker 1: I've loved him when he was with the Lakers. I
Speaker 1: thought he defended hard. I thought he was super competitive.
Speaker 1: I thought he brought dribble penetration, which was really important. Like,
Speaker 1: is he a guy that you want you're starting five
Speaker 1: if you're a dead series championship team. No, But like
Speaker 1: I would think I would take him as a backup
Speaker 1: guard over many of the options that are around the NBA.
Speaker 1: I think Dorian Finney Smith is kind of a prototypical
Speaker 1: three and d wing. I think he's a guy that
Speaker 1: could help a lot of teams, even like a guy
Speaker 1: like Zira Williams is a guy that brings real functional
Speaker 1: athleticism to the perimeter that could be had for cheap
Speaker 1: And so like teams like Brooklyn other teams around the
Speaker 1: NBA that either like you're talking about them overperforming, but
Speaker 1: we got to look out for teams that underperform too
Speaker 1: over time that might look to decide to flip players.
Speaker 1: The Clippers are a team I could see. I would
Speaker 1: see teams targeting Terrence Man. I would see teams targeting
Speaker 1: Derek Jones Junior. Closer to the deadline. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of perimeter athleticism that is not playing for top tier
Speaker 1: championship contenders out there that can be had, and you
Speaker 1: just got to kind of kind of have to look
Speaker 1: around and wait for that right opportunity to pop up
Speaker 1: to me. I look at it as like Ruey is
Speaker 1: the more functional piece between him and de Lo. I
Speaker 1: think both of them have their issues. Ruey's played two
Speaker 1: playoff runs with the Lakers. I thought he was awesome
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three. I thought he was really bad
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four, albeit it is in one small
Speaker 1: series that was only five games long, right, So like,
Speaker 1: if I had to choose between those two guys, I
Speaker 1: prefer to keep RUI So like, I'm looking at a
Speaker 1: really athletic guard that can defend at the point of attack,
Speaker 1: fly around and transition slot. Austin Reeves properly is a backup,
Speaker 1: not a backup, but as a secondary perimeter defender, so
Speaker 1: that he's guarding the other team's second best player instead
Speaker 1: of best player. And then I think things kind of
Speaker 1: fall into order. So like, if the Clippers continue to struggle,
Speaker 1: Terrence Mann is a guy that I would love to
Speaker 1: have playing the two next to Austin Reeves if Bruce
Speaker 1: Brown could get healthy. He's like the perfect example of
Speaker 1: this type of archetype, like keeping an eye out for
Speaker 1: a really athletic two that has some strength to him,
Speaker 1: that is also a functional offensive player. That's the type
Speaker 1: of guy I'd be looking at. We'll see how it
Speaker 1: shapes out over time. You know, these trade markets that
Speaker 1: are so volatile and they shift all the time that
Speaker 1: it's really hard to zero in on one particular guy.
Speaker 1: But to me, it's like starting caliber between I'd say
Speaker 1: six to four at the lowest, but between sixty four
Speaker 1: and sixty six sixty seven at least two hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty pounds of like solid functional strength and a really
Speaker 1: good athlete who at least just knows how to play
Speaker 1: alongside other good basketball players. Is the type of guy
Speaker 1: I'd be looking for. I hate looking into this so much,
Speaker 1: but why did Paul George have the ball at the
Speaker 1: end of the Sixers game? With Maxie Ball watching? Also,
Speaker 1: are Joel Maxi and Paul George going to have to
Speaker 1: make the required sacrifices like oh wait Boston did to win?
Speaker 1: Second part is obviously yes, right, like all of them
Speaker 1: are going to have to And Bid can't play completely
Speaker 1: in a heliocentric manner because he's got to try to
Speaker 1: keep Paul George and Tyrese Maxi in Rhythm. You can't
Speaker 1: just let Tyres Maxian and Joel Embiid run two man
Speaker 1: game and turn Paul George into just solely Michael Porter Junior,
Speaker 1: because that's going to be a misallocation of resources. You
Speaker 1: gotta run action, you gotta keep everybody involved, and so
Speaker 1: certainly navigating that balance is going to be a big
Speaker 1: part of Philly's success. I watched the end of that game,
Speaker 1: the Sixers Suns game. That was just unbelievablecause Vin Durant
Speaker 1: just completely took over that game. I live in Tucson two,
Speaker 1: so it was like difficult for me to track down
Speaker 1: a stream of that game, but I was able to
Speaker 1: watch it. It's just all these stupid politics with these
Speaker 1: regional networks and how difficult it is to get there
Speaker 1: to get their games when you live inside that when
Speaker 1: you live in those particular areas anyway, the random soapbox.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to the end of that Sixers game,
Speaker 1: like I saw lots of people complaining like, oh, Paul
Speaker 1: George looked off Tyrese Maxey blah blah blah, and I
Speaker 1: get it. I think Tyres is a better player than
Speaker 1: Paul George, I ranked him above I ranked Tyree's in
Speaker 1: the top twenty five for me, and it did not
Speaker 1: rank Paul George right, Like, I am a big fan
Speaker 1: of Tyresse Maxey, big believer in who he is. That said, like,
Speaker 1: there is something to be said about like the big
Speaker 1: pull up shooter being sometimes as safer option in those
Speaker 1: late game situations. So for instance, let's just take the
Speaker 1: last two shots that both players took. So the last
Speaker 1: shot Paul George took was a pull up jump shot
Speaker 1: around the top of the key long two. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: agree with some of the criticisms like, Okay, I'd rather
Speaker 1: have Paul George take a three there. Yeah, I agree
Speaker 1: with you for the record, But it was a good
Speaker 1: look at a shot that Paul George definitely can make
Speaker 1: and he missed it. Tyrese Maxey's last shot, And again,
Speaker 1: a big difference there is he's a speed guard who's
Speaker 1: smaller and not as physically strong. So we talked about this,
Speaker 1: like it's like the Steph Curry versus Kevin Durant thing,
Speaker 1: Like you could argue Steph Curry's a better player, but
Speaker 1: if I'm in a singular possession and I need a
Speaker 1: guy to just get a shot. For the twenty seventeen Warriors,
Speaker 1: it's probably KD because KD can hit into a high
Speaker 1: hesitation and wait for the defender to buckle a little bit,
Speaker 1: and he can get a decent look at a pull
Speaker 1: up jump shot whenever he wants, whereas with Steph, like
Speaker 1: he can run around and make moves and do whatever
Speaker 1: he wants to do. But if like a really good
Speaker 1: defender stays attached, what Steph doesn't have is like that
Speaker 1: ability to get quick immediate separation for a shot off
Speaker 1: over the top right. Same goes for Tyrese Maxy. Like
Speaker 1: that floater that he took in the ball screen like
Speaker 1: it was not a good shot. It was heavily contested,
Speaker 1: it had almost no chance of going in. And it's
Speaker 1: That's not to say that Tyres or a guy like
Speaker 1: Steph is incapable of creating their own shot. Of course
Speaker 1: they are. But like I just say, I'm just saying
Speaker 1: it's defensible. I think it's defensible that Paul George was
Speaker 1: the better option for them to go in that specific
Speaker 1: situation before he takes a three. Also, Paul George didn't
Speaker 1: really have it going that game, like he was kind
Speaker 1: of out of rhythm. So like that's the other counterpoint is,
Speaker 1: like I would also understand if Tyres Macks he took
Speaker 1: over the offense at the tail end of the game
Speaker 1: because he's a better player, who's more in rhythm, who's
Speaker 1: been playing more lately and has his legs underneath him,
Speaker 1: is in better shape. Like I understand that too, But like,
Speaker 1: I just didn't think it was as egregious as some
Speaker 1: of the comments that I saw on Twitter, just simply
Speaker 1: because Paul George is six ' eight six ' nine,
Speaker 1: and he got a decent amount of separation and had
Speaker 1: a pretty clean look. He just missed it. And like,
Speaker 1: I think that those big, tall wings have that ability
Speaker 1: to on a spot just kind of rise and fire,
Speaker 1: and I'm always gonna view that as a as a
Speaker 1: as a viable option for late game offense. I mean,
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant's been straight up stealing games for the Phoenix
Speaker 1: Suns with that kind of shot making. What is your
Speaker 1: favorite offense to watch in the NBA? I thought about
Speaker 1: this one a lot, and there's a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's interesting because they're different, right, Like I really
Speaker 1: enjoy watching Boston's offense because they're the best driving kick team.
Speaker 1: So like there there's an ape. There's a visually appealing
Speaker 1: element to driving kick basketball when when guys get in
Speaker 1: the lane and make reads and it's like drive kick,
Speaker 1: drive kick, drive kick. Now we get a wide open
Speaker 1: shot making the extra pass with that that that like relentless,
Speaker 1: like rim pressure from guys driving the basket. I've really
Speaker 1: enjoyed watching Boston's offense over the course of the tail
Speaker 1: end of last year. In the beginning of this year,
Speaker 1: I really like watching Denver's offense for a completely different reason.
Speaker 1: Right Like Nicole Jokic, the way that he can manipulate
Speaker 1: help side defense and generate openings first teammates is really
Speaker 1: fascinating to me. His passing connection with Aaron Gordon on
Speaker 1: the baseline is something that I've always found really fun
Speaker 1: to watch. I think tough shot making is fun. So
Speaker 1: guess what I do enjoy watching Jamal Murray hit tough
Speaker 1: step back jump shots. I do enjoy watching the Suns
Speaker 1: and watching Kevin Durant and Devin Booker just hit tough
Speaker 1: shot after tough shot. I've always as a basketball fan
Speaker 1: and is a guy who plays the game at a
Speaker 1: certain like I played in college, and I still play
Speaker 1: as an adult for fun all the time. I enjoy
Speaker 1: watching those things. But if I had to pick a
Speaker 1: single offense, I'd probably say the Golden State Warriors. And
Speaker 1: the main reason why is I find their five out
Speaker 1: ball in player movement to be the most visually appealing
Speaker 1: in the league. It's literally like a blender. There's nobody.
Speaker 1: Even with all the teams that run five out and
Speaker 1: all the teams that run some similar actions, there are
Speaker 1: teams that copy Warriors split action. Now. There are teams
Speaker 1: that copy a lot of the Warriors, like Chicago, you know,
Speaker 1: like drible handoff stuff with guys back cutting out of
Speaker 1: it and all the different things that the Warriors do.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of teams that are copying it, but
Speaker 1: nobody does it as often or as effectively as the
Speaker 1: Golden State Warriors do in terms of their ball and
Speaker 1: player movement. And it's just really fun to watch. And
Speaker 1: I'm really really excited to see it in the next
Speaker 1: couple of weeks too, because they've got some tougher matchups
Speaker 1: for them. On that note, or next question, what should
Speaker 1: we look for and the Warriors next three games to
Speaker 1: indicate they could be a serious team regardless of whether
Speaker 1: they win or lose. Keep it up. Not all Warriors
Speaker 1: fans think you're a hater. I appreciate the kind words.
Speaker 1: For the record, I always say this to you guys,
Speaker 1: but there are far more of you guys that are
Speaker 1: kind and who are willing to have discussion and are
Speaker 1: willing to appreciate the dynamic between like, hey, this is
Speaker 1: just my opinion, this is your opinion, let's talk about it.
Speaker 1: There are far more of you guys than the nasty,
Speaker 1: disrespectful people. And spend any time online as an adult
Speaker 1: and you find out pretty quickly there's lots of nasty,
Speaker 1: disrespectful people. So like I fortunately at this point, Fortunately,
Speaker 1: at this point, I'm getting close to three years into
Speaker 1: working with the volume, I've gotten pretty used to it,
Speaker 1: and I just kind of shake it off and move on.
Speaker 1: But I do always appreciate you guys that bring kindness
Speaker 1: and respect, because that's always the stuff that just keeps
Speaker 1: me going. So I sincerely appreciate it. So the Warriors
Speaker 1: heading into a tough little road trip here right the
Speaker 1: playing the celt tonight. Super excited to watch that game.
Speaker 1: They played the Calves, I believe and then who's the
Speaker 1: third team? Is that the Knicks, I think, But they're
Speaker 1: playing a couple of really tough road games at this
Speaker 1: point in the season. And I was actually talking about
Speaker 1: this with the Nerds the other day at Thunder. So
Speaker 1: it's at Celtics at Calves at Thunder than home for
Speaker 1: the MAVs. So I was talking about this with the
Speaker 1: Nerds on Wednesday. But like, I'm specifically really excited to
Speaker 1: watch their defense. So, like, we all know that the
Speaker 1: ceiling of the Warriors comes down to whether or not
Speaker 1: Steph can get back to a top ten, top five
Speaker 1: type of level, right, and who is their secondary shot creator,
Speaker 1: whether that's in house, like oh, suddenly Buddy Healed after
Speaker 1: six hundred games as a pro becomes an all star
Speaker 1: level shot creator, that that's our guy, or maybe Andrew
Speaker 1: Wiggins has a kind of a renaissance to what he
Speaker 1: was in twenty twenty two, right, like, or it's a
Speaker 1: trade that where they bring in a high powered star, right,
Speaker 1: whatever that is. We know that the ceiling of the
Speaker 1: Warriors is going to come down to Steph returning to
Speaker 1: superstar form, like super duper star form, and who's their
Speaker 1: number two, right, that's their ceiling, and I don't think
Speaker 1: we're gonna know that for a while. I don't expect
Speaker 1: Steph to play like the best player in the world
Speaker 1: tonight against Boston. I mean, maybe he will, but like
Speaker 1: I shouldn't even say against Boston in the next four
Speaker 1: game stretch, I don't expect Steph to just play like
Speaker 1: the best player in the world. He's just coming back
Speaker 1: from an injury. He played on a minute restriction in
Speaker 1: their last game. It would be absurd to expect him
Speaker 1: to go into these next four games and average thirty
Speaker 1: five points a game on seventy percent from shooting and
Speaker 1: just light the world on fire. Right, But I do
Speaker 1: think it's realistic that by the end of the season,
Speaker 1: at some time between now and the end of the season,
Speaker 1: after getting a bunch of games under his belt, when
Speaker 1: he gets into game shape and he's consistently playing thirty
Speaker 1: five minutes tonight, I think there's a chance that Steph
Speaker 1: could get back to that level. But we're probably not
Speaker 1: going to see it in these specific games tonight, right
Speaker 1: in this next week. So what can we learn in
Speaker 1: the next couple of games for the Warriors? How legit
Speaker 1: is this defense? What can this defense do. I talked
Speaker 1: about it with the Nerds. We argued about who is
Speaker 1: more likely to be a championship threat. The Cavs are
Speaker 1: the Warriors, and even though the ca have more talent,
Speaker 1: the reason why I picked the Warriors is the Warriors
Speaker 1: are super fast on the perimeter and can contain the
Speaker 1: ball pretty well. The Cavs still have some big entry points, right.
Speaker 1: They still have some guys in their life, like Darius
Speaker 1: Garland and Donovan Mitchell is still a generally weak defensive backcourt, right,
Speaker 1: Like you're whoever it is that they have at the three.
Speaker 1: There are guys that they can look to attack there.
Speaker 1: You know, Jared Allen's very good defensive anchor, but can
Speaker 1: he defend in space the way that Draymond Green can know? Right? So,
Speaker 1: Like there's a lot of like things with Cleveland where
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, they're great, they're interesting, they're gonna be uh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about them in a little bit, But like,
Speaker 1: do I think they can guard the Celtics, Like I
Speaker 1: don't know, right, Whereas Golden State they can put out
Speaker 1: lineups where it's like here's Andrew Wiggins, Here's you know,
Speaker 1: Brandon Pajemski, and Dean Anthony Melton with Draymond Green, and
Speaker 1: they're going to switch everything and fly around and contain
Speaker 1: the ball. And like, that's the part that I'm looking at,
Speaker 1: is like, can the Warriors defense really slow down the
Speaker 1: Celtics offense? Can it really slow down the Thunder offense.
Speaker 1: Those are the things that I'm looking at as areas
Speaker 1: for Golden State to show real potential, because again, the
Speaker 1: offensive end, like if you get if you get a
Speaker 1: couple of thirty point games out of step against the
Speaker 1: Celtics and the Thunder, you're getting away with Murder because
Speaker 1: he's just coming back from an injury. He's easing his
Speaker 1: way back into the game. So like I'm less worried
Speaker 1: about the offensive end, I'm more worried. I'm more interested
Speaker 1: in can the Warriors defense cause any real problems for
Speaker 1: the Celtics offense and for the Thunder offense. Those are
Speaker 1: the things that I'm going to be looking very closely
Speaker 1: at with the Warriors over the course of the next week.
Speaker 1: Should the MAVs stick with this starting five or should
Speaker 1: they try Clay on the bench for more defense in
Speaker 1: the starting lineup. I think they should keep play with
Speaker 1: the starters I don't think there's anybody on the bench
Speaker 1: that actually is like a truly deserving starting caliber player
Speaker 1: to slide into that spot. Also, I still think the
Speaker 1: MAVs have their issues. They're slow on the perimeter. They
Speaker 1: they're like the Pacers game is a perfect examble. They
Speaker 1: kind of just got run around, right, Like they just
Speaker 1: ran circles around them all night. But they're still top
Speaker 1: ten defense. They have a very high defensive floor. Why
Speaker 1: because they have lots of rim protection. Right. Rim protection
Speaker 1: is a is a basic concept that gives you a
Speaker 1: high defensive floor. They're playing forty eight minutes plus of legitimate,
Speaker 1: like defensive talent in the front court. So like they
Speaker 1: have a really high floor. So my thing is like
Speaker 1: lean into Kyrie, Clay and Luca and just try to
Speaker 1: be the best offensive team that you can within that concept.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's a version of this MAVs team
Speaker 1: that is like this incredibly stifling perimeter defense. Anyway, I
Speaker 1: talked about this with the nerds the other day, but
Speaker 1: like I think if you were ranking the fastest perimeter
Speaker 1: players on the team in terms of like real wing athletes,
Speaker 1: like Derek Jones was number one, and like you're probably
Speaker 1: putting a guy like Josh Green was really fast. Josh
Speaker 1: Green had speed, right, So this is not the same
Speaker 1: type of raw us. So I would lean into them
Speaker 1: being a big front line that can defend and protect
Speaker 1: the rim, and just being the best possible offense that
Speaker 1: you can possibly be, which will come in time as
Speaker 1: you learn how to incorporate Clay, as you learn how
Speaker 1: to incorporate all this additional ball handling, as Luca gets
Speaker 1: back into shape and reaches the form of Luca that
Speaker 1: we all know that he's capable of being. So I
Speaker 1: would not tweak the starting lineup, at least not on
Speaker 1: the perimeter. I mean, we could all talk about whether
Speaker 1: or not Lively should start over Gafford in the big picture,
Speaker 1: but that's a different debate. I would not move Clay
Speaker 1: to the bench. Why does nobody in the NBA media
Speaker 1: remember what happened in May? By the time October comes,
Speaker 1: everyone thinks the Cavs are a top three team When
Speaker 1: they started last season nine to one, then got throttled
Speaker 1: by physicality in the playoffs, same team, same small backcourt,
Speaker 1: can kun by the second week of May, so they
Speaker 1: are a different team in several different ways. Because of
Speaker 1: the way they're playing. They're playing substantially faster than they
Speaker 1: did last year. They're doing a lot more switching on defense,
Speaker 1: which is allowing them to force more turnovers, which is
Speaker 1: allowing them to get out and transition even more. And
Speaker 1: they've tweaked their offense approach considerably with the increased usage
Speaker 1: of Evan Mobley, who's doing a lot more work on
Speaker 1: the ball, running inverted ball screens, looking to drive, looking
Speaker 1: to shoot more. They're they're different in some of those ways. However,
Speaker 1: I agree that the roster in and of itself kind
Speaker 1: of is what it is. And my specific issue with
Speaker 1: the Cavs is they don't match up well with Boston
Speaker 1: and their ability to really spread them out and the
Speaker 1: ability to guard Cleveland's guards and make life difficult on
Speaker 1: them and to wear them down, and so like I
Speaker 1: agree that I'll be surprised if they're, you know, still
Speaker 1: playing basketball in late May. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: guys like I think it's completely fair and reasonable for
Speaker 1: us to I think it's completely fair and reasonable for
Speaker 1: us to acknowledge when teams are playing really well to
Speaker 1: start the season. NBA history tells us that championship teams
Speaker 1: do attack the season from start to finish. We also
Speaker 1: never know what can happen in the long run, Like,
Speaker 1: guys like sometimes, but like what if Evan Mobley just
Speaker 1: continues to develop him by the end of the season,
Speaker 1: he's a sixty percent through shooting twenty plus point per game, right, Like,
Speaker 1: we don't know how this is going to go in
Speaker 1: the big picture. And so again, like we're just watching trends.
Speaker 1: And as I said at the end of our last
Speaker 1: mail bag, you know, I had a question that was
Speaker 1: like why, like why do we always pretend like the
Speaker 1: regular season matters when it doesn't. It's like, guys, this
Speaker 1: is the job, Like the NBA media that you're referencing,
Speaker 1: their job is to watch their early season games and
Speaker 1: have an opinion. It'd be pretty boring if we all
Speaker 1: just came on here every day and we were like, yeah,
Speaker 1: none of this matters, see you guys in April, right
Speaker 1: like that, there's no fun in that. The fun is
Speaker 1: let's try to learn about these teams. And so when
Speaker 1: a Calves team starts seven to zero, let's talk about
Speaker 1: what they're doing differently, let's talk about what they're good at.
Speaker 1: And yeah, like I'm not about to move them into
Speaker 1: my top tier of contenders. I actually dropped two teams
Speaker 1: off my top tier of contenders in the Nerd SATs
Speaker 1: Show on Wednesday, Like, I'm going to wait to get
Speaker 1: more data before i make any sort of big sweeping
Speaker 1: declaration about the Calves, but I think it's okay for
Speaker 1: us to acknowledge that they're off to a really good start.
Speaker 1: Has the NBA game leaned too heavily into an offense
Speaker 1: oriented basketball game emphasis on the three ball? And if so,
Speaker 1: are there any changes you would make for defenses so
Speaker 1: we can see balanced game slash product that mimics the playoffs.
Speaker 1: So there's been this whole debate around the idea of
Speaker 1: three point shooting. I've talked about it a little bit
Speaker 1: on the show. My main kind of point of view
Speaker 1: is essentially that like, it doesn't really matter what the
Speaker 1: final shot is, it matters the quality of the basketball. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, Boston takes a ton of threes. I do
Speaker 1: enjoy watching Boston because they play a really fun brand
Speaker 1: of drive and kick basketball. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: teams out there that just shoot bad threes for the
Speaker 1: sake of getting their three point volume up, and that
Speaker 1: is ugly right. There are teams that don't take any
Speaker 1: threes where it's pretty right. There are teams that don't
Speaker 1: take many threes where it can get ugly sometimes too.
Speaker 1: It all just depends on whether or not you're playing
Speaker 1: quality basketball. Now. As far as like the leaning too
Speaker 1: much on the offensive end of the floor, I am
Speaker 1: of the opinion that with how spread out the floor
Speaker 1: has got, with how talented and skilled these offensive players are,
Speaker 1: I do think we need to give defensive players more
Speaker 1: leeway to be more physical and dribble drive situations. So
Speaker 1: like some of these calls where like a dude is
Speaker 1: very slight out of position and there's a slight bump
Speaker 1: and we end up getting a foul call, I disagree
Speaker 1: with that. Some of the hand checking and physicality I
Speaker 1: wish they would let go a little bit more frequently.
Speaker 1: By the way, none of this stuff is like by
Speaker 1: the rule book. Hand checking happens on every single possession
Speaker 1: that goes uncalled. It's just a question of like how
Speaker 1: often it does get called. But like I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: within that realm of discretion, I would allow more physicality
Speaker 1: from the defensive player because I think it would allow
Speaker 1: them to contain drives more and just give the defensive
Speaker 1: fighting chance. There are way too many games that just
Speaker 1: turn into like neither defense can guard the other, and
Speaker 1: that I think becomes ugly basketball pretty quickly. Do you
Speaker 1: have an issue with Wemby's shot distribution so far? Eight
Speaker 1: point seven to two point attempts at fifty nine percent,
Speaker 1: seven point one three point attempts at twenty two percent.
Speaker 1: Seems hard for him to get opportunities closer to the basket.
Speaker 1: His teams have been sticking smaller stout guys on him
Speaker 1: that he can't eat with a live dribble. What would
Speaker 1: you change? So this is actually a very similar concept
Speaker 1: to something we talked about on the show earlier this
Speaker 1: last week. But this is a team that basically every
Speaker 1: uh This is a strategy that basically every team in
Speaker 1: the league has been deploying against Wemby, which is like
Speaker 1: guard him with the wing right. We just saw with
Speaker 1: the thunder right, it was like Steady died of, like
Speaker 1: Jalen Williams guarding him, Alex Crusoe guarding him, like just
Speaker 1: guarding him with small, stout guys that can get up
Speaker 1: underneath him because they can beat him to spots and
Speaker 1: prevent him from driving. I uh, a couple of different
Speaker 1: things as far as the three point shot goes. I
Speaker 1: think I said the same thing about Anthony Edwards, Like
Speaker 1: I don't care if ant's taking, you know, eleven, twelve,
Speaker 1: thirteen three point shots a game if he's making forty
Speaker 1: four forty five percent of them, right, Like, that's a
Speaker 1: debate that you have if he starts missing a lot.
Speaker 1: Like if we fast forward a couple months and he's
Speaker 1: still at twelve attempts a game, but he's shooting thirty
Speaker 1: six percent on threes, and yeah, we probably should have
Speaker 1: a conversation about how he should cut that number from
Speaker 1: twelve down to eight, right. Same thing goes with Wemby,
Speaker 1: Like he's shooting really poorly seven attempts a game, twenty
Speaker 1: two percent. It's not good. But I also like it's
Speaker 1: November sixth guys, Like I would say, like, if we
Speaker 1: get to December and he's still taking seven threes a
Speaker 1: game and his percentage is still in the low twenties,
Speaker 1: then there's a conversation to be had. But if he
Speaker 1: wants to try to build that out, I respect it.
Speaker 1: I think like it's scary to think about what Wenby
Speaker 1: could be like if he was a high volume, efficient
Speaker 1: three point shooter in addition to whatever whatever else he
Speaker 1: does as far as like handling the smaller stout defenders,
Speaker 1: that to me is on his own individual skill development.
Speaker 1: I talked a lot in our last discussion about this
Speaker 1: about Dirk Mimitski and the work he did one fighting
Speaker 1: for position, two being really tight with the basketball, not
Speaker 1: exposing it so guys couldn't swipe it away, and then
Speaker 1: three being able to get to his shooting pocket efficiently
Speaker 1: from a kind of like strong tucked position so that
Speaker 1: he can deal with ball pressure and shoot over the
Speaker 1: top relatively easily. Dirk was also really good at like
Speaker 1: leveraging shoulder angles for quick spinoffs and rip throughs and
Speaker 1: stuff like that to get triple penetration. Dealing with the
Speaker 1: defenders he's dealing with. That is all about the That
Speaker 1: is all about the individual development of Victor wemban Yama.
Speaker 1: Part of it, too, is like if they're gonna if
Speaker 1: teams are going to put a a wing on Victor,
Speaker 1: they're probably going to put their center on Jeremy Sohan. Right,
Speaker 1: Jeremy zhn is a thumb injury is gonna be out
Speaker 1: for a little bit, but like you got to put
Speaker 1: together lineup groupings where teams can't afford to put their
Speaker 1: center on someone else that's on the front office. Right
Speaker 1: in terms of action, it's tough because like when they
Speaker 1: put a small on Victor, they're gonna switch ball screens
Speaker 1: and that's gonna make it tougher for you to to
Speaker 1: actually like get Victor wemen Yama the role opportunities that
Speaker 1: he wants. But like that's the truth is, like he's
Speaker 1: if he's skinny and can guys can get up underneath
Speaker 1: him and beat him to spots, it's gonna be difficult
Speaker 1: for him to get dribble penetration. So a lot of
Speaker 1: it's gonna come down to his own skill development. This
Speaker 1: one's a personal one. Was the transition from hooping professionally
Speaker 1: overseas to coaching slash talking hoops hard. What was the
Speaker 1: most difficult adjustment to it? So, first of all, I
Speaker 1: technically never actually made it overseas to hoop. I tried to,
Speaker 1: and I signed a deal with a league called the Uba,
Speaker 1: which was in India, and they paid me for I
Speaker 1: think two weeks of work, and then the league folded
Speaker 1: because of some sort of like international incident involving the
Speaker 1: Indian players. I don't I don't remember some of the details,
Speaker 1: but at that point I made a personal decision. At
Speaker 1: that point, my you know, I had a wife and
Speaker 1: two dogs, and we owned a home and we were
Speaker 1: very established in Tucson. My wife works for a local
Speaker 1: business here in town. So like, it just got to
Speaker 1: the point where I was like, you know what, I'm
Speaker 1: just going to focus on moving on with my life.
Speaker 1: And that's when I got into real estate. And I
Speaker 1: use real estate as like the flexible job with which
Speaker 1: I could pursue sports media. But I played in college
Speaker 1: and obviously, as you know, I was at least trying
Speaker 1: to play overseas, right so the you know, it was interesting.
Speaker 1: I was actually thinking about this the other day when
Speaker 1: there was a question asked to Kevin Durant about his
Speaker 1: role in that Starting five show and why he wanted
Speaker 1: to do it, and he talked about how he wanted
Speaker 1: to do it because he wanted young basketball players to
Speaker 1: see the pros and cons of playing in the NBA.
Speaker 1: And I thought it was really fascinating when he said that,
Speaker 1: because the hardest adjustment for me, by far going from
Speaker 1: playing in college and playing against pros, because like during
Speaker 1: that time, I was like working out with and working
Speaker 1: against pros all the time, And still to this day,
Speaker 1: when the pros come back into town, I work out
Speaker 1: with them. When the all the college players come back
Speaker 1: into town in the summer, I work out with them.
Speaker 1: So those are the opportunities I get to still play
Speaker 1: with those players. But like, going from that to playing
Speaker 1: pick up basketball is an incredibly frustrating experience in terms
Speaker 1: of like the competitive engagement. So like, very rarely now
Speaker 1: do I find myself in a basketball game where like
Speaker 1: I'm really feeling the adrenaline in the challenge of the moment,
Speaker 1: where I feel like I'm going against other really high
Speaker 1: level players. The game has a certain level of competence
Speaker 1: in terms of like people knowing how to play at
Speaker 1: a high level, and I really like get to get
Speaker 1: my competitive basketball juice is flowing. It happens very rarely now.
Speaker 1: The occasional men's league game. I play in a league
Speaker 1: here in Tucson where there are a handful of really
Speaker 1: good teams and there's the occasional game there where I
Speaker 1: get the competitive urge. Money tournaments. I play in about
Speaker 1: two of those a year, I get those kind of
Speaker 1: like competitive juices flowing. Then over the summer when the
Speaker 1: college and pro kids come back and we play a
Speaker 1: little bit of a pickup in the summer, there are moments,
Speaker 1: but the vast majority of the time I go to
Speaker 1: play basketball, I feel very unfulfilled because I'm playing against
Speaker 1: like I'm just not playing against super good competition, and
Speaker 1: so it breeds laziness and me because I'm not really
Speaker 1: playing all that hard. By far, the most frustrating part is,
Speaker 1: like you, guys, those of you, guys who have played
Speaker 1: basketball at any real level, will know, like there's a
Speaker 1: flow that is supposed to take place in a basketball
Speaker 1: game when everybody knows what they're doing, meaning like guys
Speaker 1: who whenever everyone knows like when to cut, when to screen,
Speaker 1: when to throw an extra swing pass, when to relocate
Speaker 1: when the spacing is off, how to do basic things
Speaker 1: on defense, how to do basic things in transition when
Speaker 1: you are playing with a group of players like a
Speaker 1: pickup game and there's four or five dudes on the
Speaker 1: floor that like don't know how to play it like
Speaker 1: dips below a certain It dips below like a certain
Speaker 1: like mandatory minimum amount of understanding of the game, and
Speaker 1: then the game turns into shit and I end up
Speaker 1: I end up being like I leave straight up depressed
Speaker 1: sometimes from those types of games, But thankfully I get
Speaker 1: I get enough good basketball days a year where I
Speaker 1: still I still my love for the game is still engaged,
Speaker 1: and I still feel challenged. Just on Sunday, a buddy
Speaker 1: of mine, Daniel Kanorke, who is, in my opinion, the
Speaker 1: best player that I've ever played against in the Tucson
Speaker 1: area of all of the players that I've run into
Speaker 1: over the years who are like kind of local guys,
Speaker 1: He's like, he's a very good friend of mine. Have
Speaker 1: also comp competed with him a lot. I've played in
Speaker 1: money tournaments with him, but like every time him and
Speaker 1: I go against each other, it just brings me back
Speaker 1: to that level. And so like I left Sunday feeling
Speaker 1: very thankful that I still get to have moments like
Speaker 1: that when I play. When I play the game, but
Speaker 1: like that is by far the hardest part of the
Speaker 1: transition going from playing at any sort of real level
Speaker 1: in basketball to the post basketball life. Is you still
Speaker 1: love the game, you still want to play, You're still
Speaker 1: super competitive. A guy like me, I'm still thirty three.
Speaker 1: I'm a better player now than I ever have been
Speaker 1: in my entire life. I'm many times better at basketball
Speaker 1: now than I was when I was playing in college.
Speaker 1: And it just feels like a waste. It just feels
Speaker 1: it just feels useless, right, and so like that's the
Speaker 1: part that gets frustrating. But there's a flip side to that,
Speaker 1: And this is the interesting part that I was thinking
Speaker 1: about with Kevin Durant. So like, when I look back
Speaker 1: at my college career, like, yes, I was competitively engaged.
Speaker 1: Yes I was challenged. Yes there was a lot of
Speaker 1: upside in that department. But let's be clear, it is
Speaker 1: not the same as playing truly care free basketball. When
Speaker 1: I was in Juco. I remember my second year, I
Speaker 1: was one of only two players on the roster that
Speaker 1: got a full ride scholarship, meaning they paid for my lodging,
Speaker 1: they paid for my books, they paid for my tuition,
Speaker 1: they paid for all my meals. Like I got the
Speaker 1: full deal. Right in Juco, that's somewhat rare, and there
Speaker 1: was only two guys on the team that got it.
Speaker 1: But I went to that school coming off of a
Speaker 1: foot injury that happened over the summer and when I
Speaker 1: had the foot injury, I put on a bunch of
Speaker 1: weight in muscle because I just lifted weights all summer
Speaker 1: to try to be useful and productive while I was
Speaker 1: while I was injured. And so when I showed up
Speaker 1: to the school, I was a little heavier, it was
Speaker 1: a little slower, and I was still working my way
Speaker 1: back into basketball shape. And I one of the big
Speaker 1: things was like I didn't trust my foot, so like,
Speaker 1: even though it was healthy, I didn't like really trust
Speaker 1: it to plant. And at that time I was playing
Speaker 1: around two hundred and twenty five pounds. I was like
Speaker 1: a big, heavy dude. So like, if I didn't if
Speaker 1: I didn't feel comfortable planting my foot, like I just
Speaker 1: wasn't the athlete that I needed to be. And so
Speaker 1: I really struggled at the start of the season. And
Speaker 1: there was a there was a two game stretch in
Speaker 1: the first like five games of non conference play where
Speaker 1: after a bad game, I got called into the coach's
Speaker 1: office and the coach was this Brazilian dude, total hard
Speaker 1: ass in a good way, like it just he just
Speaker 1: was a tough dude, but he was a no nonsense
Speaker 1: kind of guy, and he was like, what the heck
Speaker 1: man gave you a full ride scholarship and you're not
Speaker 1: doing shit for me. Like now, he was more delicate
Speaker 1: about it, but like that was basically what he said.
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, like and by the way,
Speaker 1: he benched me for didn't bench me completely, but took
Speaker 1: me out of the starting lineup for two games as
Speaker 1: like a as like an attempt to try to like
Speaker 1: wake me up and get me going. And it was
Speaker 1: so interesting because like everything was fine, Like I eventually
Speaker 1: just got my legs back underneath me, and that ended
Speaker 1: up actually being my best season in college and I
Speaker 1: ended up making the all conference team when we got
Speaker 1: to conference play. But like after that, after that meeting,
Speaker 1: every day I went to practice, I felt pressure and stress.
Speaker 1: Every time I was in the game and I was
Speaker 1: taking a shot, I felt pressure and stress, right, because
Speaker 1: like there's responsibility, there's expectation that comes from this coaching
Speaker 1: staff decided to invest some of their hard they're hard
Speaker 1: to find scholarship funds on me, right, and so like
Speaker 1: I felt pressure, I felt expectation. The year after that,
Speaker 1: I went from being a consistent double figure scorer type
Speaker 1: of guy in Juco to playing at an AIA team
Speaker 1: that had really good guards, like all American guards, and
Speaker 1: they just needed me to defend and to rebound and
Speaker 1: to take wide open corner threes. And so my role
Speaker 1: completely changed again. And when that happened, it was a challenge.
Speaker 1: I remember, like in the early part of the season,
Speaker 1: like every day going to practice and going to games,
Speaker 1: like how what am I supposed to do? What am
Speaker 1: I not supposed to do? I was getting called into
Speaker 1: the coach's office to get to talk about like what
Speaker 1: shots they wanted me to take versus what shots they
Speaker 1: didn't want me to take, because obviously in Juco, I
Speaker 1: was more of a scorer, so I needed to have
Speaker 1: like my shot diet like kind of reconfigured around more
Speaker 1: of like a role player type of role. And it
Speaker 1: was there were dark times, like there were times when
Speaker 1: like when I when I wasn't playing well where it
Speaker 1: was frustrating, right, and like that that's kind of like
Speaker 1: the point that I'm getting at. I vividly remember when
Speaker 1: I was done playing in college and I came home.
Speaker 1: I remember going to play pick up and feeling free,
Speaker 1: like feeling this like the pressure had disappeared and the
Speaker 1: expectation had disappeared, and like if I decided to jog
Speaker 1: back on defense on a specific possession, it wasn't the
Speaker 1: end of the world. If I decided if I took
Speaker 1: a bad shot every once in a while, it wasn't
Speaker 1: the end of the world. If I turned the ball over,
Speaker 1: it wasn't the end of the world. And so for
Speaker 1: the record, I loved playing in college and I love
Speaker 1: pressure and expectation in basketball. It drives me competitively. I
Speaker 1: would take that into a heartbeat, Okay, like I love
Speaker 1: what I do for a living. If I was not married,
Speaker 1: I would have tried more to play overseas, and I
Speaker 1: would have tried to I would have been playing overseas
Speaker 1: till I was forty. That's how much I love the game.
Speaker 1: But I do think there's some legitimacy to the stuff
Speaker 1: that Kevin Durant's talking about, where it's like basketball when
Speaker 1: it's your job is different than basketball when it's just
Speaker 1: for fun, And there is some reality to that, and
Speaker 1: I do think it's fascinating. But like I said, the
Speaker 1: flip side of that is, like I also have a
Speaker 1: really hard time even though I don't have pressure, and
Speaker 1: even though I get to have fun playing the game.
Speaker 1: I want the way I want to play. It's just
Speaker 1: really hard for me to find really good basketball players,
Speaker 1: even in a city like Tucson that has over a
Speaker 1: million people, And so it's just it's kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: That's a very very long answer to your question there.
Speaker 1: But it's not very often that I get to talk
Speaker 1: about my personal relationship with the game. So I do
Speaker 1: appreciate the question, and hopefully that answers what you were
Speaker 1: specifically asking. How would you rank the current iteration of
Speaker 1: the Clippers if they added Kuzma plus Kawhi getting healthy.
Speaker 1: I think the middle of the pack in the Western
Speaker 1: Conference is pretty mediocre. I shouldn't say mediocre because they're
Speaker 1: all good teams, but mediocre with relation to each other.
Speaker 1: And so if Kawhi can get healthy, I think this
Speaker 1: current Clippers team was at center with James Harden as
Speaker 1: the backup shot creator, with all of the depth of perimeter,
Speaker 1: speed and talent that they have, I think right now
Speaker 1: they're just as good as anybody else in the Western Conference.
Speaker 1: It's not Oklahoma City. As long as Kawhi Leonard can
Speaker 1: get healthy and get back to form, and so again
Speaker 1: that's a big question mark surrounding Kawhi. An addition of
Speaker 1: Kyle Kuzma would certainly be very interesting. It'd be kind
Speaker 1: of like a lesser version of Karl Anthony Towns for
Speaker 1: this team, in the sense that he would function mostly
Speaker 1: as an off ball scorer, not an on ball scorer.
Speaker 1: But I think that there's real value there playing off
Speaker 1: of a guy like James Harden, someone who's like really
Speaker 1: aggressive and spot up situations, both shooting threes and driving
Speaker 1: closeouts and things like that. Hi, Jason, I've always wondered,
Speaker 1: what's the one thing that separates rotation players in garbage
Speaker 1: time guys. Is it one single thing or can it
Speaker 1: be multitude of things? This came to mind as Jalen
Speaker 1: hu Chafino, who's barely played and probably won't get another opportunity.
Speaker 1: So I think about this all the time. If you
Speaker 1: are not incredible at doing things with the basketball, meaning
Speaker 1: like creating shots for yourself and for others, then you
Speaker 1: have to be incredible at everything else. And when I
Speaker 1: say everything else, I mean all the little things defending
Speaker 1: on the perimeter, defending off the ball, running your lane
Speaker 1: and transition offense and transition defense, knowing what to do
Speaker 1: when you're off the ball in terms of spacing and
Speaker 1: screening and things like that, being able to make a
Speaker 1: wide open catch and shoot three, being able to make
Speaker 1: a quick decision driving a close out, all of the
Speaker 1: if you really break it down on with these NBA teams,
Speaker 1: there are guys who run action and there are guys
Speaker 1: who don't, and the majority of the guys on the
Speaker 1: team don't run action, and so it does come down
Speaker 1: to with those groups, like actually being able to succeed
Speaker 1: in a small role by doing these small things that
Speaker 1: help a team win basketball games. And so like rotation players,
Speaker 1: I would just put I would just describe that as
Speaker 1: any NBA player that is capable of like doing a
Speaker 1: little bit of guarding on the ball, a little bit
Speaker 1: of guarding off the ball, a little bit of rebounding,
Speaker 1: a little bit of spot up shooting, a little bit
Speaker 1: of close out attacking like that, Like those are that
Speaker 1: those guys that are just rock solid and all those
Speaker 1: little things will have an easier time getting a foothold
Speaker 1: in the NBA than a mediocre ball handler will, because
Speaker 1: mediocre ball handler is a dime a dozen. Remember Alonzo
Speaker 1: Trier that like everyone's like, oh, why is an Alonzo
Speaker 1: Trier in the NBA. It's not because he's not a
Speaker 1: good basketball player. He's a great basketball player, but Alonzo
Speaker 1: Trier is a among the NBA ranks, a mediocre ball handler,
Speaker 1: and so if he's not elite at the point of attack, defensively,
Speaker 1: elite off the ball, defensively, elite rebounding, like then then
Speaker 1: he's gonna have a hard time finding a foothold, right
Speaker 1: But they're you know, like that, that's the thing, Like
Speaker 1: there's they're gonna take a Quinton Grimes, a guy who's
Speaker 1: maybe not as shifty, maybe not as as you know,
Speaker 1: natural of a score, but that can still do a
Speaker 1: lot of that shit. But that's a damn bulldog and
Speaker 1: can guard the hell out of the basketball, right like that.
Speaker 1: I've always found that sort of thing interesting. My take,
Speaker 1: my hot take of the year was that Charlotte was
Speaker 1: going to be better than the Heat. Can we get
Speaker 1: your take on Charlotte if they can still complete for
Speaker 1: a plan or if injuries in roster talent is not
Speaker 1: there yet? So LaMelo has been awesome to start the
Speaker 1: year twenty nine points, five rebounds, six assists, sixty one
Speaker 1: percent for shooting. He's been a super efficient, super high
Speaker 1: volume ball pick and role player. He's running like damn
Speaker 1: near twenty ball screens a game, shooting the ball really
Speaker 1: by shooting forty eight percent field goals out of ball screens.
Speaker 1: And then he's also getting one point three points per
Speaker 1: pull up jump shot. He's been really gifted at finding
Speaker 1: opportunities in angles to get three point shots off off
Speaker 1: the bounce, and he's been making them. Trey Mann has
Speaker 1: been hooping. He's become one of my favorite players to
Speaker 1: watch in the league. They have six players averaging double figures.
Speaker 1: The thing with Charlotte is their dead lasting defense and
Speaker 1: their third to last in defensive rebounding. So if you
Speaker 1: can't guard and you can't actually grab the ball when
Speaker 1: they miss, like you're just putting yourself at a huge
Speaker 1: disadvantage every single night. And that's why I don't think
Speaker 1: the Hornets will make any noise in the playoffs at
Speaker 1: this point, or I should say that they won't superseed
Speaker 1: the Miami Heat four quick ones or three quick ones
Speaker 1: and then a longer one. Hi, Jason, do you think
Speaker 1: that the chances are that the Bucks blow up this
Speaker 1: team by the trade deadline? I know it's very early
Speaker 1: in the season. But even if they turn it around,
Speaker 1: I just don't see the Bucks being a real contender
Speaker 1: with this roster and coaching staff. I think it's a
Speaker 1: very real chance that they blow things up, right, Like,
Speaker 1: I think there's a good chance that they end up
Speaker 1: two and eight after ten games. I think they'll beat
Speaker 1: the Jazz, but I think that I think they play
Speaker 1: the Nicks and Celtics after that. Those are probably a
Speaker 1: couple of losses, right, And so I think they're probably
Speaker 1: gonna be sitting at two and eight. And if they
Speaker 1: don't they if they aren't active participants in their own survival,
Speaker 1: if they don't dig out of this hole, and if
Speaker 1: they find themselves, you know, fifteen and twenty five after
Speaker 1: forty games, there's a really good chance that you end
Speaker 1: up trading everybody, right, because at that point, it's like,
Speaker 1: if you're just bad and you're not close, then there's
Speaker 1: no point investing in an older Damian Lillard at that point, right,
Speaker 1: And if you can't quickly put a contending roster around Giannis,
Speaker 1: he's gonna request to trade anyway. And there are guys
Speaker 1: on that roster that are valuable to other teams around
Speaker 1: the league, like Brook Lopez is a guy that would
Speaker 1: be valuable to some other teams around the league. I
Speaker 1: know he would. There's a lot of teams that are
Speaker 1: looking for a center. Hell yeah, one that could shoot
Speaker 1: the ball a little bit, right, Like, I mean, I
Speaker 1: even think that a guy like Chris Middleton would have
Speaker 1: some trade value if he could get healthy for a
Speaker 1: a decent amount of time. So, like, there's a very
Speaker 1: real chance that this goes south and they're completely blown
Speaker 1: up before the end of the season, but there's also
Speaker 1: a real chance that they figure it out. The blueprint
Speaker 1: is the twenty twenty three Lakers, right they started two
Speaker 1: to ten. The twenty twenty three Lakers started to and
Speaker 1: ten with Lebron and ad combining to only miss three
Speaker 1: games in that stretch. Like that's as bleak as it gets, right,
Speaker 1: That team made the Western Conference finals, right, So it's
Speaker 1: like you can turn it around, and especially in that
Speaker 1: Eastern Conference where there's only two teams over five hundred
Speaker 1: right now, and if you look at the standings, they're
Speaker 1: not really all that far out of the in the
Speaker 1: mix because everyone else has been so mediocre. So like
Speaker 1: there's a very real chance to figure it out as well.
Speaker 1: And I think we gotta make sure that we quantify
Speaker 1: that if Giannis becomes available, will the Thunder just say
Speaker 1: fit and include Chet and Jalen Williams in a deal.
Speaker 1: I'm getting to the point with Chet where I think
Speaker 1: he might be untradeable. Like I like, he's if you
Speaker 1: were listing the players that have played better than him
Speaker 1: the season, and it's not very long, like maybe fifteen guys.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, and he's only in his second full
Speaker 1: year playing in the NBA. I don't know that I
Speaker 1: would trade jet A Chet even if it was forre
Speaker 1: You honest, who is your pick to win the NBA Cup?
Speaker 1: Do you think winning the NBA Cup affects the winning
Speaker 1: team at all for the rest of the year. I
Speaker 1: think Boston is the right pick. I think that they're
Speaker 1: the best team playing the best basketball right now. The
Speaker 1: Thunder I think also. I think Boston and Thunder, just
Speaker 1: like I would say for the championship, they're the two
Speaker 1: best basketball teams. I think both. I think Boston, in particular,
Speaker 1: because of their reliance on three point shooting, has some
Speaker 1: vulnerability in a single elimination format, but they're also so
Speaker 1: good defensively that they can kind of level that out.
Speaker 1: So I think I go with Boston. Does it affect
Speaker 1: a winning team? I thought in the moment, I remember
Speaker 1: actually talks about this. I want to say the night,
Speaker 1: either the morning after or the night of. But I
Speaker 1: was worried as the Lakers were hoisting the trophy in
Speaker 1: the N Season Tournament last year, I was like, I
Speaker 1: was like, I hope that they don't just immediately relax
Speaker 1: after this, And it was literally then. It was right
Speaker 1: after the N Season Tournament that they lost three out.
Speaker 1: They lost ten out of thirteen games. They completely fell
Speaker 1: apart right away because, like they it was like a
Speaker 1: sense of accomplishment in the middle of a season when
Speaker 1: the other twenty nine teams did not have the sense
Speaker 1: of accomplishment, and for a team that already struggled with
Speaker 1: motivating itself, that ended up being a real problem. I
Speaker 1: think a team like Oklahoma City in Boston, though, I
Speaker 1: think they're professional enough and I think they're talented enough
Speaker 1: to be able to overcome that last question. I thought
Speaker 1: this was really interesting. Why are offenses in general slowly
Speaker 1: moving on from pick and roll over the last couple
Speaker 1: of years. I had to look it up because I
Speaker 1: wasn't sure this was a real thing. Here's a stat
Speaker 1: to prove this though. Teams to run pick and roll
Speaker 1: over on over thirty five percent of their possessions. Okay,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, twelve teams ran pick and roll in
Speaker 1: over thirty five percent of their possessions. Twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: ten teams, twenty twenty three, six teams. Last year twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four, only five teams in the NBA ran pick
Speaker 1: and rolling over thirty five percent of their possession. So
Speaker 1: there is a clear shift away from ball screens in
Speaker 1: the NBA. What's causing that? I think it's a combination
Speaker 1: of a bunch of factors. Right, it's always super complicated. One,
Speaker 1: there's a lot more dribble handoff stuff as part of
Speaker 1: five out Right, Like, there's one of the most common
Speaker 1: places you'll see in the NBA Chicago action or zoom action,
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it, which is basically just
Speaker 1: big man at the top of the key, ball handler
Speaker 1: in the opposite in the right corner or left corner,
Speaker 1: whatever it is. Let's call it the right corner, and
Speaker 1: then another guard who can do something with the basketball
Speaker 1: that is setting the first screen and basically that guy
Speaker 1: screens down and the big comes over for a dribble handoff,
Speaker 1: and the guy comes out of the corner and gets
Speaker 1: the handoff and goes to work. Right. That functions as
Speaker 1: a ball screen, but it's not going to be logged
Speaker 1: as a ball screen. It's going to be logged as
Speaker 1: a dribble handoff. But it functions the same way because
Speaker 1: the guy guarding the ball, the guy coming out of
Speaker 1: the corner is probably going to lock and trail, and
Speaker 1: that's going to get him into trail, and then it's
Speaker 1: going to function more or less like a ball screen. Right.
Speaker 1: But one of the things we've been seeing all over
Speaker 1: the place in the NBA is teams are trying to
Speaker 1: deny the use of ball screens as much as possible.
Speaker 1: Right on the side of the floor, they are icing
Speaker 1: ball screens, meaning that they're taking their defender way up
Speaker 1: to the screen side and forcing them to reject and
Speaker 1: go back towards the sideline. Situations like Chicago and Zoom,
Speaker 1: like I just broke down a lot of times on
Speaker 1: the defender of the guard in the corner is just
Speaker 1: top blocking and forcing that guy to back cut right,
Speaker 1: which is in turn, in many cases forcing the other
Speaker 1: guy to turn around and then come off of the
Speaker 1: dribble handoff, right, even that guy is in many cases
Speaker 1: top locked and forced to backcut. Now the big has
Speaker 1: to turn around and look for action on the other
Speaker 1: side of the floor. Right, That's really the thing, if I,
Speaker 1: if I had to come up with a reason why
Speaker 1: beyond the some of the shifts to five out, NBA
Speaker 1: team has got pretty good at guarding ball screens, like
Speaker 1: it like as is always the case, right, Like everyone
Speaker 1: had like different strategies. Like you go back to the
Speaker 1: late twenty tens, was a lot of hedging. Bigs were hedging.
Speaker 1: They were coming way out to stop the drive and
Speaker 1: then sprinting back into the lane. Right. Then there was
Speaker 1: a lot of like guards going under right, guards ducking
Speaker 1: underpicks and meeting the guard on the opposite side of
Speaker 1: the screen. And then when Steph Curry came in, everyone
Speaker 1: kind of had to readjust that. Then Dame started doing it.
Speaker 1: Then everyone started shooting these off the dribble threes, and
Speaker 1: then they kind of crafted this new system. And now
Speaker 1: the most common ball screen coverage that you'll see in
Speaker 1: the NBA right now is you have the on ball
Speaker 1: defender chase over the top of the screen. On any
Speaker 1: high ball screen side ball screens, they're icing right, which
Speaker 1: means they're forcing him towards the sideline and rejecting the screen.
Speaker 1: But anything up in the middle of the floor, you're
Speaker 1: chasing over the top. You're bringing the big up to
Speaker 1: the level, and you're tagging from the weak side. That
Speaker 1: is the way the vast majority of teams are defending
Speaker 1: in the NBA. Then what they do is with that
Speaker 1: week side two on one, they have the defender kind
Speaker 1: of split the difference between the two and they rotate
Speaker 1: out of it right. And so that has kind of
Speaker 1: become the set way to defend ball screens all around
Speaker 1: the NBA. And what's becoming clear is like that's actually
Speaker 1: one of the easier to guard actions in the league.
Speaker 1: And so I think you're seeing a lot more off
Speaker 1: ball action, a lot more big at the top of
Speaker 1: the key, with guys cutting and playing off the ball
Speaker 1: off of him, right, You're seeing a lot You're just
Speaker 1: in general, we've the post up kind of died in
Speaker 1: the NBA for a while. That has been a big
Speaker 1: return with guys like Nikola Jokic, with guys like alprin
Speaker 1: shangun with guys like Joel Embiid, with guys like Anthony Davis. Right,
Speaker 1: all the switching that you see in the NBA. Now,
Speaker 1: that's another thing too, another big part of why there's
Speaker 1: not as much pick and roll. There's a lot more switching.
Speaker 1: Where there's more switching, that's gonna lead to more ISO
Speaker 1: and post ups, right, Like, there's a lot more of
Speaker 1: like Pascal Siakam posting up a small after a switch
Speaker 1: in a ball screen. Right. So, like, again, I just
Speaker 1: got presented this today. I'm not trying to pretend like
Speaker 1: I know the answer, but if you guys are curious,
Speaker 1: my guess. My guess is it's a combination of like
Speaker 1: shifting to more five out concepts, a lot more switching,
Speaker 1: neutralizing some pick and roll entered pick and roll coverages,
Speaker 1: reaching the point where they're actually doing a pretty decent
Speaker 1: job guarding it. At this point, it's always going to
Speaker 1: be a huge part of the game. There's still you know,
Speaker 1: the vast majority of teams are still running it roughly
Speaker 1: a third of the time, so it's still a huge
Speaker 1: part of the game. But it definitely is tweaking down
Speaker 1: a little bit, which I do think is fascinating, so
Speaker 1: very good question. All right, guys, that is all I
Speaker 1: have for today. Is always, I sincerely appreciate you guys
Speaker 1: for supporting me and supporting the show. I hope you
Speaker 1: all have an amazing weekend. We'll see you on Monday
Speaker 1: for some power rankings the volume. What's up guys? As always,
Speaker 1: I appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight.
Speaker 1: It would actually be really helpful for us if you
Speaker 1: guys would take a second and leave a rating and
Speaker 1: a review. As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us,
Speaker 1: but if you could take a minute to do that,
Speaker 1: I'd really appreciate it.