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Speaker 2: co slash hot. All right, well, good to hoobes tonight.
Speaker 2: You're at the volume heavy Saturday. Everybody hope all you
Speaker 2: guys are having a great weekend. We are here back
Speaker 2: at the Series XM studios at the Win in Las Vegas.
Speaker 1: Shout out to Series XM. They've taken amazing care of us.
Speaker 1: Riding solo.
Speaker 2: Today, we're going to talk a little bit about the
Speaker 2: Summer League debut of Dylan Harper. Got another look at
Speaker 2: Cooper Flag as well. I want to talk about Carter Bryant.
Speaker 2: I'm from Tucson, Arizona obviously, so I'm of you a fan,
Speaker 2: but I thought Carter has put on one heck of
Speaker 2: a demonstration of his defensive capability through his first couple
Speaker 2: Summer League games. We're going to talk a little bit
Speaker 2: about that, and then at the tail end of the
Speaker 2: show today, I want to talk a little bit about
Speaker 2: Reed Shepherd's Summer League debut. And we've done some deep
Speaker 2: evals of the contenders at the top of the Western
Speaker 2: Conference over the course of the last week, involving Denver
Speaker 2: and the Los Angeles Lakers. Obviously, we've covered Oklahoma City
Speaker 2: extensively on their path to the NBA title, but there's
Speaker 2: another team at the top of the West that many
Speaker 2: people view in that tier, and that is the Houston Rocket.
Speaker 2: So I want to talk a little bit about what
Speaker 2: their pathway looks like, how they stack up with the
Speaker 2: teams at the top of the Western Conference. You guys
Speaker 2: know the joke for we get started. Subscribed to the
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Speaker 2: Write your question in. We'll get to our mail bags
Speaker 2: once a week throughout the remainder of the season. All right,
Speaker 2: let's talk some basketball, so really fun. First impression of
Speaker 2: Dylan Harper. The first thing that flashed to me was
Speaker 2: his defensive potential. You're not really expecting that this is
Speaker 2: guy's famous for the dribble drive. He's a guy that's
Speaker 2: drawn a lot of comparisons to Shae Gildas Alexander as
Speaker 2: a bigger guard that can dribble through contact and can
Speaker 2: consistently get paint touches. But right out the gates, he
Speaker 2: was applying aggressive ball pressure, getting physical on the ball,
Speaker 2: getting deflections. He had a crazy block on Ryan Emharten
Speaker 2: transition where he elevated and swatted it away, just showing
Speaker 2: a lot of that defensive upside. I've always been a
Speaker 2: big believer that forward, aggressive, turnover forcing defenders fit well
Speaker 2: with rim protection. And so guys like Darren Fox, guys
Speaker 2: like Dylan Harper, I think they make a lot of
Speaker 2: sense in the context of a partnership with Victor wemen Yama,
Speaker 2: because forward aggression ball pressure that tends to give up
Speaker 2: dribble penetration. And if you're giving up dribble penetration, you
Speaker 2: need guys on the back line that can clean it up.
Speaker 2: And there may not be a better player in NBA
Speaker 2: history then Victor webmin Yama, who actually graced us with
Speaker 2: his presence in the arena today.
Speaker 1: It was funny when he was walking in.
Speaker 2: He actually was sitting in the seat and kicked his
Speaker 2: legs out as he was like relaxing, and his legs
Speaker 2: were on the court.
Speaker 1: During the game.
Speaker 2: And that's just a problem that Victor wemen Yama has
Speaker 2: that not many of us have. But that defensive potential
Speaker 2: was flashing. And that second piece of it, and I
Speaker 2: think this goes for both Cooper Flag and Dylan Harper,
Speaker 2: is the dribbling through contact. For Cooper manifested a lot
Speaker 2: through foul drawing which we'll talk about in a minute.
Speaker 2: Dylan did draw some fouls in the fourth quarter as
Speaker 2: the spur started to put some separation there, but for Dylan,
Speaker 2: it was just consistently getting into the paint. And this
Speaker 2: is that Shay Gildes Alexander esque chaining together of dribble combinations.
Speaker 2: Right like when you get into traffic, you make a move,
Speaker 2: the defender beats you to the spot, maybe he's plying
Speaker 2: some physicalities putting his hands on you. You got to be
Speaker 2: able to dribble through that contact and change direction and
Speaker 2: attack again, and then potentially even change direction and attack
Speaker 2: a third time. And that's one of the things that's
Speaker 2: made Shay such a gifted dribble penetrator in the NBA.
Speaker 2: There's a chasm between the amount of drives per game
Speaker 2: that Shae Gills Alexander puts together compared to other guards
Speaker 2: around the league. And that just comes from that downhill,
Speaker 2: that relentless downhill force, constantly changing direction and being able
Speaker 2: to control the basketball through that. And you saw that
Speaker 2: with Dylan. The protected dribbles right like that between the legs.
Speaker 2: Dribble is how you can protect the ball as you're
Speaker 2: dribbling in traffic so the ball doesn't get swiped away,
Speaker 2: and he showed.
Speaker 1: A lot of that. He drew some fouls.
Speaker 2: I just thought in general he was generating great offense,
Speaker 2: especially in that fourth quarter run. The Spurs defense held
Speaker 2: Dallas down most of the game, but in that fourth
Speaker 2: quarter they went on a little offensive run, blew the
Speaker 2: game open, and it got to the point where it
Speaker 2: was too much for Dallas to overcome. You had a
Speaker 2: really nice kickbackery to a lot of times when you're
Speaker 2: running ball screens, they will use the guy out of
Speaker 2: the weakside corner, out of the strong side corner to
Speaker 2: tag the roller. He had a ball screen coming off
Speaker 2: of the right wing where he got into the lane
Speaker 2: the shooter in the right corner. His man tagged the roller,
Speaker 2: and Dylan patiently pulled the ball out and pitched it
Speaker 2: back to the right corner. One of the things you
Speaker 2: notice a lot with NBA Summer League is poor decision making. Right,
Speaker 2: it's a lot of young basketball players, it's a lot
Speaker 2: of guys that are trying to make their imprint, the
Speaker 2: guys that are trying to get a spot in the league,
Speaker 2: and so that can come with the pressure of being
Speaker 2: aggressive and a lot of times it's the guys that
Speaker 2: can slow down and read the floor and not force
Speaker 2: the issue to have the most success. And Dylan, I thought,
Speaker 2: just similar to Cooper in the first game, just was patient,
Speaker 2: took what the defense gave him, made the kickouts that
Speaker 2: were there, didn't get into the middle of the floor
Speaker 2: without a plan, without an idea of what he was
Speaker 2: trying to accomplish. There's a pretty high floor for a
Speaker 2: basketball player who can guard the ball, but that can
Speaker 2: also get past the guy guarding the ball. It's such
Speaker 2: a simple concept. But if you apply ball pressure and
Speaker 2: make the opposing guard feel uncomfortable while also on the
Speaker 2: other end of the floor handling ball pressure and consistently
Speaker 2: getting into the paint, it's just such a strong foundation.
Speaker 2: And then from there there's all the ceiling raising stuff,
Speaker 2: the shot making. We saw him hitting off the dribble
Speaker 2: three It got wiped or wiped out by a legal
Speaker 2: screen call if I remember correctly, but showed some of
Speaker 2: that more high level upside.
Speaker 1: As a shot creater.
Speaker 2: That's going to be the ceiling right Like, whether or
Speaker 2: not Dylan can reach that all NBA level as a
Speaker 2: player is going to come down to his development as
Speaker 2: a jump shooter. And you know, one of the things
Speaker 2: with Dylan that's different than most on ball guards is
Speaker 2: he's a guy that typically on ball players, they struggle
Speaker 2: to shoot off the catch, but they're comfortable shooting off
Speaker 2: the dribble because throughout their entire youth basketball experience, they've
Speaker 2: been the guy who's had to dribble and get to
Speaker 2: their spots and they're not getting a ton of.
Speaker 1: Clean catch and shoot looks.
Speaker 2: And Dylan was kind of different in that regard in
Speaker 2: college and that he was actually better off the catch
Speaker 2: than he was off the dribble because his release was
Speaker 2: a little drawn out. It's a little low down in
Speaker 2: front of his face, and so as he kind of
Speaker 2: sharpens those details, gets a little bit more of a
Speaker 2: crisp and fluid release, that will make things easier for
Speaker 2: him when he gets into the NBA level. Before we
Speaker 2: move on to Cooper, I wanted to shout out Carter
Speaker 2: Bryant real quick. Carter was one of the guys that
Speaker 2: the Spurs put an absolute defensive clinic together in their
Speaker 2: first two Summer League games. Just absolutely strangled the life
Speaker 2: out of the Philadelphia seventy six ers. The other night,
Speaker 2: did it again tonight to Dallas. Carter is a traditional
Speaker 2: small forward type of prospect in the sense that he's
Speaker 2: got great length and size for the position, but he's very,
Speaker 2: very quick laterally, which gives him the flexibility to guard
Speaker 2: a bunch of different types of players, and I think
Speaker 2: that's specifically exciting for San Antonio team. I didn't really
Speaker 2: have that type of player in their core rotation right now.
Speaker 2: They got a lot of guards, they got a lot
Speaker 2: of forwards. You know, obviously when Harrison Barnes was there,
Speaker 2: he was a slower forward. Jeremy Sohan has that ability
Speaker 2: to guard out on the perimeter, but I view him
Speaker 2: as more of like a four than a three defensively.
Speaker 2: I think Harder is going to bring that relentless ball
Speaker 2: pursuit and quickness to be able to be out on
Speaker 2: the perimeter, getting over the tops of screens and doing
Speaker 2: some of the tougher perimeter defense work. And I think
Speaker 2: that that's just a role that that team really needs,
Speaker 2: and that's going to be a really interesting thing to
Speaker 2: watch with San Antonio this year. Shout out to the
Speaker 2: Spurs Summer League team. They've put together a couple of
Speaker 2: really nice defensive performances to start the tournament. Cooper for
Speaker 2: all of the quality work that he did on Thursday
Speaker 2: and again, I thought he was a lot better than
Speaker 2: his box score showed in terms of just all the
Speaker 2: winning plays he was making on both ends of the floor.
Speaker 2: It was not an efficient scoring game for him, right.
Speaker 2: I think he had ten points. Who's five for twenty
Speaker 2: one from the field. He drew a lot of fouls,
Speaker 2: but they weren't shooting fouls. They were ball pressure fouls
Speaker 2: out in near half court. Really nice bounce back game
Speaker 2: from Cooper. From a scoring perspective. The Spurs, as we
Speaker 2: talked about, have done a defensive number to everyone they
Speaker 2: faced in this Summer League so far. That's not an
Speaker 2: easy team to put up thirty points on. That was
Speaker 2: a pretty legit scoring performance there. The Spurs were doing
Speaker 2: a lot more switching than the Lakers did on Thursday night.
Speaker 2: So like Maxwell Lewis was struggling a little bit, Jordan
Speaker 2: Hall was struggling. Ryan Nemhart's a guy who capitalized on
Speaker 2: all the drop coverage looks that he was getting against
Speaker 2: La And again, when you're facing a drop coverage, all
Speaker 2: you got to do is go over the top of
Speaker 2: the screen, and there's kind of like this baked in
Speaker 2: dribble penetration that is actually being conceded as part of
Speaker 2: the coverage, and so there's room to operate in the
Speaker 2: middle of the floor for a guy who can show
Speaker 2: some mid to short range shot making.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: But then as soon as you bring switching into the equation,
Speaker 2: that baked in dribble penetration going over the top of
Speaker 2: the screen isn't there anymore. Suddenly it turns into can
Speaker 2: you get separation from elite athletes? It's just a much
Speaker 2: tougher job, right, And so, to Cooper's credit, in a
Speaker 2: matchup where a lot of guys were struggling to get loose,
Speaker 2: he was able to get to the basket, he was
Speaker 2: able to drop fouts. I think he's drawn like fifteen
Speaker 2: fouls through the first two games, which I think is
Speaker 2: a testament to his ability to dribble through contact without
Speaker 2: turning the basketball over. And when you're facing a physical
Speaker 2: defender is putting his hands on you, if you allow
Speaker 2: that to make you retreat, you're not going to get
Speaker 2: the call. But if you power through it, you actually
Speaker 2: force the official to make a call. You actually put
Speaker 2: the official in a position where there's too much contact
Speaker 2: and now he has to make a decision about whether
Speaker 2: or not he's going to let it go. And he
Speaker 2: just was attacking Carter over and over again in fighting
Speaker 2: through that contact, and he was drawing fouls. And I
Speaker 2: think that's a strong sign of his ball handling, but
Speaker 2: also his overall athleticism. In order to draw valves, you
Speaker 2: have to get defenders out of position, and that's something
Speaker 2: that he's done consistently through the first couple of games.
Speaker 2: And again a Carter Brian, a defender who's done a
Speaker 2: lot of damage to guys in the Summer League so far.
Speaker 2: I keep getting excited with Cooper about the potential with
Speaker 2: his jump shot. He hit a couple more. Three hit
Speaker 2: three threes tonight, a couple more on the catch. She
Speaker 2: hit a three at the top of the key in
Speaker 2: the first half in a possession where Carter was They
Speaker 2: were in a deeper drop coverage and Carter got caught
Speaker 2: on the screen, so he had a clean look off
Speaker 2: the dribble at the top of the key. He knocked
Speaker 2: it down. But the thing that I'm excited about were
Speaker 2: they dunks or the miss dunk as well. In the
Speaker 2: second half, both of them came off of the catch
Speaker 2: out of action with the defender sprinting at him. One
Speaker 2: of them, he was able to just kind of pump
Speaker 2: fake and then dip his right shoulder, And when he
Speaker 2: dipped his right shoulder, he's able to get just a
Speaker 2: tiny bit of an angle on the guy shot downhill,
Speaker 2: got a big dunk, and then on the miss dunk
Speaker 2: where he was up plenty high, he just missed it.
Speaker 2: But on the miss dunk very similarly, just caught its
Speaker 2: top of the key against the clothes out and just
Speaker 2: showed the ball just pump fake. Defender jumped out of
Speaker 2: his shoes. All of a sudden, he had a lane
Speaker 2: to go downhill. Cooper is so good at the read
Speaker 2: and react stuff. He's so good at like the fundamentals
Speaker 2: in terms of footwork and using those bodies shoulder fakes
Speaker 2: to get that initial advantage that he if he can
Speaker 2: add the jump shot to where he's a real threat
Speaker 2: there to where those shoulder fakes and head fakes get
Speaker 2: the defender out of position consistently, that's where he has
Speaker 2: real potential. Because again, as wealked about it, Summer League,
Speaker 2: everyone's playing super hard, everyone's playing for their NBA career.
Speaker 1: They're playing for.
Speaker 2: Their NBA livelihood, and so there's a lot of jumpiness,
Speaker 2: and you know, going for those types of fakes, you're
Speaker 2: going to face more discipline defenders in the NBA. They're
Speaker 2: going to be less willing to jump for those fakes.
Speaker 2: That's where if he can add the threat of the
Speaker 2: jump shot, that's where you can get more of that
Speaker 2: baked in dribble penetration. I think he's cleaned up his
Speaker 2: release quite a bit. Remember, he used to have a
Speaker 2: little bit of a hitch and his elbow would get
Speaker 2: a little bit out to the side. It's much more
Speaker 2: fluid now. He's able to get to it out of
Speaker 2: more dribble combinations quicker and in a way that just
Speaker 2: looks more smooth and easy for him. So if he
Speaker 2: can add the actual touch put it into the basket consistently,
Speaker 2: I think there's a ton of upside there. I'm just
Speaker 2: super excited to watch him play in a winning context
Speaker 2: right away. Not very often do we get to see
Speaker 2: a real super star type of prospect go into a
Speaker 2: situation where they're not carrying a bunch of, you know,
Speaker 2: younger players in a rebuilding context. He's going to have
Speaker 2: a long an immediate instead of a long runway of
Speaker 2: bad basketball. He's going to step into a winning context
Speaker 2: right away, and that's really exciting for us as fans.
Speaker 2: Let's talk a little Houston Rockets lean to start with
Speaker 2: Reach Sheepherd. Really fun first game in Vegas. Twenty eight points,
Speaker 2: eight rebounds in, four assists, seven stocks, four steals in
Speaker 2: three blocks in a single summer league game for a
Speaker 2: guard is frankly outrageous. He was super aggressive. He took
Speaker 2: twenty five shots, showed a variety of shot making hesitation threes,
Speaker 2: snatched back threes off of hard, a dribble like a dribble,
Speaker 2: drive off of some ball pressure. Hit a super tough
Speaker 2: left shoulder fade away in the lane in the first
Speaker 2: half where he drove left and then just hard pivoted
Speaker 2: over his left shoulder, knocked down the shot. He hit
Speaker 2: some tough scoop shots in the lane. He pushed his
Speaker 2: three point shot further out. He end hit like a
Speaker 2: thirty footer when he got hot in the second half
Speaker 2: out above the break on the left side. Just really
Speaker 2: showing some of that shot making piece from a bunch
Speaker 2: of different angles and a bunch of different dribble combinations
Speaker 2: and a bunch of different spots on the floor. Again,
Speaker 2: the seven stocks just getting into passing lanes. Really good
Speaker 2: at stripping drivers and cutters down low right around the basket,
Speaker 2: which is what you got to do when you obviously
Speaker 2: don't have that vertical size, but just a super feisty
Speaker 2: guard with good hands that can do a lot of damage.
Speaker 2: Raphaelstone has specifically come out and said this, but his
Speaker 2: development is super important to Houston's short term goals and
Speaker 2: their long term goals. Stone came out and said and
Speaker 2: specifically said, Reid is going to have to be really
Speaker 2: good for us. We've penciled him in for a big role.
Speaker 2: Remember we talked about the ball handling shortage for Houston
Speaker 2: right after the Kevin Durant trade. This was a team
Speaker 2: we talked about like, this was a team that would
Speaker 2: have made sense for a guy like Tyas Jones in
Speaker 2: the same way that Tis Jones made no sense for
Speaker 2: Phoenix because Phoenix had a glut of ball handling and
Speaker 2: a deficit in like physical defense and rebounding ties Jones
Speaker 2: you experience, it's diminishing returns there, right, But in a
Speaker 2: context like Houston or Orlando, who ended up signing Ties Jones.
Speaker 2: There's an absence of ball handling and refined offensive skill.
Speaker 2: You get to experience more of the upside from having
Speaker 2: Tiest Jones on your team. But they didn't sign Ties Jones.
Speaker 2: They're allowing Read Shepherd the opportunity to fill this role.
Speaker 2: And I actually really like this approach from Raphaelstone of
Speaker 2: allowing Read that runway because like Houston has a large
Speaker 2: margin for air in the regular season, right like they're young,
Speaker 2: they're athletic, they're super deep. We already saw that exact
Speaker 2: same combination last year get the second seed in the
Speaker 2: Western Conference. So even if Reed Shepherd comes in in
Speaker 2: that backup guard role and struggles, and you know, it
Speaker 2: becomes abundantly clear during that time that they need to
Speaker 2: upgrade that position. It's not like they're gonna slip way
Speaker 2: down in the standings and be in some predicament where
Speaker 2: the season is lost because they didn't sign a backup guard.
Speaker 2: They're so good in terms of their their floor as
Speaker 2: a young athletic defense that they can afford to make
Speaker 2: some mistakes at that backup guard spot. And so what's
Speaker 2: perfect is you have the best of both worlds. The
Speaker 2: best case scenario is he fills that role admirably and
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, you got yourself a great basketball
Speaker 2: team and a young player that can fill that role
Speaker 2: for a long time, and you've got yourself a great
Speaker 2: option there. But if he struggles, the worst case is
Speaker 2: he still gets lots of valuable reps that will help
Speaker 2: him become a better basketball player, and now you have
Speaker 2: a knowledge and understanding of what your team needs. Okay,
Speaker 2: we tried to read for forty games as our backup guard.
Speaker 2: It's not quite working, but I'm glad he got the reps.
Speaker 2: We have lots of draft compensation, We have salaries that
Speaker 2: we can package together to go find a veteran, experienced,
Speaker 2: more steady, more consistent ball handler. They don't need that
Speaker 2: guy in October. They're not in that situation. They do
Speaker 2: need that guy for the players. Might as well see
Speaker 2: if Reed can do it, and if not, you can
Speaker 2: kind of pivot from there. But I want to zoom
Speaker 2: in on Houston for a minute, because they're rightfully being
Speaker 2: penciled in as one of the top three teams in
Speaker 2: the Western Conference. I think that's clear if you look
Speaker 2: at the West. To me, it's you know, you have Denver, Houston,
Speaker 2: and Oklahoma City in that top tier in some order,
Speaker 2: and then I think there's a little drop off and
Speaker 2: then you run into that second tier in the West
Speaker 2: is where you're getting the Clippers, the Minnesota Timberwolves, the
Speaker 2: Los Angeles Lakers. We'll see if a team like San
Speaker 2: Antonio can get into that mix this year. We'll see
Speaker 2: if a team like Memphis can bounce back this year.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of different potential teams in that tier.
Speaker 2: I think that's more or less that middle tier is
Speaker 2: going to be Clippers, Lakers, and Timberwolves, right and so
Speaker 2: when we look at that group in the West, we
Speaker 2: kind of know what most of these teams are. We
Speaker 2: know what the Clippers are going to be that got
Speaker 2: healthy to the postseason last year and ended up not
Speaker 2: being enough to beat Denver. We more or less know
Speaker 2: what the Lakers are going to be. We got a
Speaker 2: good look at that last year. Denver obviously upgraded a
Speaker 2: starting position and added depth, but they're more or less
Speaker 2: the same. You know, a continuous group that's been playing
Speaker 2: for the last several years. Oklahoma City we've just covered
Speaker 2: in depth winning the title, so we know a lot
Speaker 2: about what those teams are. With Houston, they kind of
Speaker 2: have a wide range of potential outcomes because they're fundamentally
Speaker 2: different basketball team. With Kevin Durant, they're going to play
Speaker 2: a different style on offense. This is a team that
Speaker 2: ran a lot of their down the stretch go to
Speaker 2: action when things got tough in the playoffs last year,
Speaker 2: was that inverted ballscreen with shangoon at the top of
Speaker 2: the key. Fred Van Vliet would set the screen, he'd
Speaker 2: slip out of it, and they would just play that
Speaker 2: two man game at the top of the key, and
Speaker 2: it worked a little bit, but eventually they got to
Speaker 2: a point where Gary Payton and Draymond Green just refused
Speaker 2: to allow the switch and they stayed attached and Draymond
Speaker 2: was able to get the stops he needed to get
Speaker 2: on Alburn Shangun and they ended up losing. Right, Kevin
Speaker 2: Durant's going to come in and just add a very
Speaker 2: different action that they're going to run in those situations
Speaker 2: and give them a lot more variety that they can
Speaker 2: go to in those spots on the defensive end. I'm
Speaker 2: a huge believer in a men Thompson. I think he's
Speaker 2: one of the best defensive prospects to ever grace the league,
Speaker 2: but he doesn't have that like big frame that Dylan
Speaker 2: Brooks had, and Dylan Brooks gave them a great option
Speaker 2: for some of the bigger forwards in the Western Conference,
Speaker 2: guys like Lebron Luka, Doncic, Kawhi Leon or Jimmy Butler,
Speaker 2: Julius Randall. There's a bunch of those types of dudes
Speaker 2: that Amen Thompson might be too small for right So
Speaker 2: they're a different team in that sense, But at the
Speaker 2: same time, they never really had a rim protecting presence
Speaker 2: before Kevin Durant, And like, if we look back the
Speaker 2: last time Kevin Durant played on, you know, a championship
Speaker 2: quality team going back to Golden State, he functioned a
Speaker 2: lot as a back end rim protector for them. We've
Speaker 2: talked a lot about this concept with Shanggoon. When you
Speaker 2: have bigs like Shanggoon and you can't protect the rim,
Speaker 2: you run into these tough situations where you're either running
Speaker 2: like a deeper drop coverage with him and you're getting
Speaker 2: picked a part in the mid range, or the guy's
Speaker 2: getting downhill and Shanguon's not protecting the rim. Or you
Speaker 2: bring shanguon out to the level and he's attacking the ball,
Speaker 2: but now you're giving up these four on threes and
Speaker 2: you don't have any rim protecting presence on the back line,
Speaker 2: and that can cause problems. Right, Kevin Durant gives you
Speaker 2: a solution to that problem, which is you can now
Speaker 2: bring shangu up to the level to be aggressive on
Speaker 2: the ball handler, knowing that you have a rangey long
Speaker 2: athlete on the backside that can cover ground both at
Speaker 2: the rim and out to the perimeter. Kevin Durant also
Speaker 2: has switch ability to get out onto perimeter players.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So they're a very different defense and a very different
Speaker 2: offense than they were last year. So as we look,
Speaker 2: we know what Oklahoma City is. There's this elite turnover
Speaker 2: forcing offense that can get out in transition.
Speaker 1: And then on offense, we.
Speaker 2: Know that they're going to lean a lot on Shake
Speaker 2: Gills with Alexander Dribbil penetration.
Speaker 1: Right. Denver, we know what Denver is.
Speaker 2: They're probably the most reliable playoff offense in the NBA
Speaker 2: right now. But you add to it, they have a
Speaker 2: very smart schematic approach on defense and they have a
Speaker 2: lot of high IQ defenders, and so they actually defend
Speaker 2: better than you would expect for a team that puts
Speaker 2: weak regular season defensive metrics up and that doesn't necessarily
Speaker 2: have a ton of high level defensive personnel. But they're
Speaker 2: just really smart. They're always in the right spots. They
Speaker 2: actually got more stops against Oklahoma City than everybody this
Speaker 2: last playoff run other than Indiana, and even then it
Speaker 2: would influenced a lot by that Game six where Indiana
Speaker 2: really strangled Oklahoma City. So, like we know what Denver
Speaker 2: is with Houston, I want to be clear, Kevin Durant
Speaker 2: doesn't come in and just turn them into an elite,
Speaker 2: well oiled machine on offense.
Speaker 1: It's not that easy.
Speaker 2: Offense takes continuity, and that team still has a deficit
Speaker 2: of ball handling, that team still has a deficit of shooting,
Speaker 2: even with Dorian Finney Smith. I don't think it's necessarily
Speaker 2: gonna be like just smooth sailing on offense. I think
Speaker 2: it's gonna be tough for I think they're gonna have
Speaker 2: to figure out ways to use Kevin Durant. I think
Speaker 2: they're gonna have to lean into more what Kevin Durant
Speaker 2: was in Brooklyn, which was more of like a high
Speaker 2: pick and roll ball handler rather than like an off
Speaker 2: ball scorer playing off the catch more like he did
Speaker 2: in Phoenix. I'd like if you guys remember he was
Speaker 2: super high volume in pick and roll in Brooklyn and
Speaker 2: he had a year there. I think it was twenty
Speaker 2: twenty one. He did a year there where Kevin Durant
Speaker 2: ball screen including passes was over a one to twenty
Speaker 2: offensive rating because he was just consistently drawing that second
Speaker 2: defender so tall you can see over the top and
Speaker 2: easily drop it over the top to the role man,
Speaker 2: and then they're playing four on three out of it
Speaker 2: with great spacing. And because James Harden was on that team,
Speaker 2: Kyrie Irving was on that team, they just had a
Speaker 2: lot offensive skill off the ball. Now again, it will
Speaker 2: be a little more clunky with Houston, it's a lot
Speaker 2: of young raw athletes. But I think I like the
Speaker 2: idea of using a men Thompson in the short role
Speaker 2: playing off of Kevin Durant coming out of high ball screens.
Speaker 2: Shan Gun too is a guy that can score in
Speaker 2: the middle of the floor and play make out of
Speaker 2: the middle of the floor. I like giving him more
Speaker 2: opportunities there off of Kevin Durant as a ball handler,
Speaker 2: their ceiling on offense is going to be a work
Speaker 2: in progress, and it may be something that they don't
Speaker 2: achieve until close to the playoffs. Are potentially even in
Speaker 2: the playoffs, or if they get beat. If someone asked
Speaker 2: me how to shoot, like Houston loses in the playoffs
Speaker 2: this year, how does it happen? I think it actually
Speaker 2: happens because their offense bogs down, right, But how can
Speaker 2: they separate themselves from Denver? How can they separate themselves
Speaker 2: from Oklahoma City. It's the defensive end of the floor.
Speaker 2: If they can get to that point where kd has
Speaker 2: a throwback all defense type of season like he did
Speaker 2: in twenty seventeen with Golden State, where he's protecting the rim,
Speaker 2: he's doing defensive rebounding, he's doing all that stuff on
Speaker 2: the back line, and they have that depth of perimeter
Speaker 2: defense talent that they have. That's where they have some upside.
Speaker 2: And so for me, I look at Houston as more
Speaker 2: the same kind of like defensive juggernaut that they were
Speaker 2: last year. Kevin Durant, if he can just provide a
Speaker 2: little more advantaged creation, rescue possessions like three four seconds
Speaker 2: on the shot clock. He's just a way better option
Speaker 2: than anybody Houston had last year. Clutch situations no more
Speaker 2: Fred van Vliet, Alpern shanggun two man game, a little
Speaker 2: bit more of Kevin Durant, Fred Van Vliet two man game,
Speaker 2: Kevin Durant, Alpern shangun two man game. I think that's
Speaker 2: just a more reliable action there. It's like dragging teams
Speaker 2: down into the mud, getting into close games, and then
Speaker 2: in those close games just executing better because you have
Speaker 2: Kevin Durant on the team. And I would argue, out
Speaker 2: of all these teams in the West, they're the team
Speaker 2: that has the widest range of possible outcomes because they
Speaker 2: are fundamentally different on both ends of the four. With KD,
Speaker 2: We're gonna be tracking it NonStop throughout the year. It's
Speaker 2: going to be a team we covered very closely this year.
Speaker 2: But I'm very, very excited to watch Kevin Durant and
Speaker 2: Houston Rockets play basketball. All right, guys, that is all
Speaker 2: we have for today is always as sincerely appreciate you
Speaker 2: guys for supporting us and supporting the show. Shout out
Speaker 2: again to the guys at Series XM for taking care
Speaker 2: of us here at the win.
Speaker 1: We will see you guys next week. What's up guys.
Speaker 2: As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
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