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Speaker 1: All right, welcome to hoops tonight here at the Volume.
Speaker 1: Happy Monday, everybody. I hope all of you guys had
Speaker 1: an incredible weekend. We are live on AMPS. If you're
Speaker 1: watching on YouTube or listening on our podcast feeds, don't
Speaker 1: forget that AMP is the very first place that you
Speaker 1: guys can get these shows. Continuing our power rankings today
Speaker 1: with one of my favorite young teams in the league
Speaker 1: at number sixteen, the Minnesota Timberwolves. And then I've got
Speaker 1: a few male back questions for the end of the
Speaker 1: show as well. You guys are the jopefore we get started.
Speaker 1: Subscribe to our YouTube channel, follow me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Underscore Jason lt don't forget about our podcast feed at
Speaker 1: hoops tonight, and I need mail bag questions, so drop
Speaker 1: them in the YouTube comments. All right, let's talk some
Speaker 1: basketball so quick offseason recap for the Minnesota Timberwolves. They
Speaker 1: lost Jalen Nowell. He's actually still a free agent right now,
Speaker 1: believe it or not. Torian Prince is now a Laker.
Speaker 1: They lost Austin Reeves as well. In the draft. They
Speaker 1: added Leonard Miller in the early second round, a G
Speaker 1: League ignight prospect, big interesting forward prospect basically, but he's
Speaker 1: super raw, super young, not really good factor in the
Speaker 1: immediate future, but we'll see in the long run. They're
Speaker 1: also super thin that forward this season, so we might
Speaker 1: get to see a lot more Leonard Miller than you're
Speaker 1: probably expecting, just by virtue of the depth that they
Speaker 1: have at that position. They also signed Troy Brown Junior,
Speaker 1: a role player that I covered with the Lakers last year.
Speaker 1: Good defensive player, he competes and does his job. He's
Speaker 1: kind of like a league average athlete, So he's gonna
Speaker 1: compete and he's gonna have the ability to stay in
Speaker 1: front of most ball handlers. But when he runs into
Speaker 1: the really high end guys that are like bigger, stronger,
Speaker 1: faster than him. He can have some trouble that limits
Speaker 1: his defensive impact, but he's not gonna hurt you on
Speaker 1: that end, and you can at least bet on him
Speaker 1: playing his ass off every time he's on the floor.
Speaker 1: He's a little streaky as a shooter, but he did
Speaker 1: have mostly a good shooting season with the Lakers last year,
Speaker 1: but there were high highs and lows. Like he briefly
Speaker 1: before the end of the season it was like he
Speaker 1: couldn't miss for a while, and then at the end
Speaker 1: of the season he couldn't make anything and struggle shooting
Speaker 1: in the playoffs. So that's kind of like the nature
Speaker 1: of most role players. But he's not like a knockdown
Speaker 1: guy either. He finished the season at one point zero
Speaker 1: five points per possession in spot up situations, which is
Speaker 1: slightly above average. So you're gonna get quality bench play
Speaker 1: out of Troy Brown Junior. And that was kind of
Speaker 1: the thing with Troy. It was like when he was
Speaker 1: in the starting lineup because of the issues the Lakers
Speaker 1: had with personnel before the trade deadline, it wasn't great,
Speaker 1: but when he kind of got slotted properly as just
Speaker 1: a guy who would play off the bench in a
Speaker 1: limited role. Then he all of a sudden made all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, made a lot of sense. Right. He's
Speaker 1: also a former lottery pick, so he does have a
Speaker 1: good amount of confidence, and he's got a little bit
Speaker 1: of the off the dribble, you know, juice, whatever you
Speaker 1: want to call it. He can make some plays off
Speaker 1: the bounce, and he will surprise you sometimes with the
Speaker 1: plays that he's able to make. He's perfectly fine bench wing.
Speaker 1: They also signed Shake Milton, who played with the Philadelphia
Speaker 1: seventy six ers last year. He's a spot up shooter.
Speaker 1: Shot sixty three percent in effective field goal percentage on
Speaker 1: catch and shoot jump shots last year. He's not very
Speaker 1: good when you make him put the ball on the floor, though,
Speaker 1: and that's a big part of why he wasn't the
Speaker 1: best spot up player that he could have been. He
Speaker 1: actually was writing about a point per possession in spot
Speaker 1: up situations, five points per one hundred possessions behind where
Speaker 1: Troy Brown Junior was for perspective, despite being a better shooter, Remember,
Speaker 1: attacking closeouts is an important part of spot up situations.
Speaker 1: But he's a perfectly fine bench guard again, So a
Speaker 1: couple of decent bench players there chart right now at guard,
Speaker 1: they have Mike Conley, Anthony Edwards, shake Milton Mikhail. Alexander
Speaker 1: Walker is one of my favorite bench guards in the league.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about him a little bit more
Speaker 1: later in Jordan McLaughlin at forward, Kyle Anderson and Jade McDaniels,
Speaker 1: then Troy Brown Junior, Wendell Moore Junior and Josh Manott,
Speaker 1: and then the big Rudy go Bear Karl Anthony Towns
Speaker 1: and the return of Nas Reed, who was a big
Speaker 1: loss for the Timberwolves at the end of the season
Speaker 1: last year. Their starting lineup is almost certainly going to
Speaker 1: be Mike Conley, Anthony Edwards, Jade McDaniels, Carl Towns, and
Speaker 1: Rudy Gobar. Now, before we go any further, I want
Speaker 1: to talk about the cat situation for a minute because
Speaker 1: I've never been a fan of two big lineups. I
Speaker 1: think whatever benefits you get from them are offset by
Speaker 1: some of the limitations that come along with it, by
Speaker 1: limiting your foot speed, limiting your overall perimeter juice in
Speaker 1: terms of the kind of aggregate ability to attack closeouts
Speaker 1: and play driving kick basketball, and there's theoretically some upsides, right,
Speaker 1: like theoretically that will help you on the glass, but
Speaker 1: this was not a good rebounding team last year, and
Speaker 1: in the long run, I tend to think that two
Speaker 1: big lineups get exposed in a lot of different ways.
Speaker 1: And for the record, it didn't go well last year.
Speaker 1: They played with Rudy Gobert and Carl Towns on the
Speaker 1: floor at the same time for one thousand and ninety
Speaker 1: five possessions last year, and they had a zero point
Speaker 1: nine net rating, so they were barely positive. And we
Speaker 1: saw a large sample size of Rudy Gobert at the
Speaker 1: center without Cat with their great perimeter defenders, and they
Speaker 1: kicked everyone's ass. Like Kyle Anderson is one of the
Speaker 1: best defensive forwards in the league. It's just very versatile
Speaker 1: guys is kind of a like a really high IQ
Speaker 1: off ball player. He defends well on the ball. He's
Speaker 1: not going to be in your top tier perimeter defenders,
Speaker 1: but he's great playing passing lanes and in health defense.
Speaker 1: He's just a really smart defensive player. Jade McDaniels might
Speaker 1: very well be the best perimeter defender in the league.
Speaker 1: He's certainly in that tier. If you're listing your top
Speaker 1: tier perimeter defenders, the very best the guys are in
Speaker 1: the conversation to be the best. He's in that list, right,
Speaker 1: and then Anthony Edwards. It's a commitment thing and it's
Speaker 1: an off ball IQ thing, but he has the potential
Speaker 1: to be one of the best perimeter defenders in the
Speaker 1: league and had many stretches last year where he was.
Speaker 1: When you put those three guys next to Kat or
Speaker 1: not Cat, excuse me, when you put those three guys
Speaker 1: next to Rudy Gobert, regardless of who the fifth guy was,
Speaker 1: they kicked everyone's ass on two and twenty four possessions
Speaker 1: last year plus ten point four net rating. That's a
Speaker 1: that is a clear demonstration of how easy it is
Speaker 1: to get stops in the NBA when you have great
Speaker 1: perimeter defenders of many different archetypes and an outstanding rim protector.
Speaker 1: When you combine those two things, you become incredibly difficult
Speaker 1: to beat, even if you do have offensive limitations, which
Speaker 1: they did. But Mike Conley was honestly a really nice
Speaker 1: fit with them when he came in at the trade
Speaker 1: deadline last year. And I mean, like we looked at
Speaker 1: Rudy Gobert in Utah, and a lot of people were
Speaker 1: talking about some of the limitations that Rudy Gobert had.
Speaker 1: But what did I always say? Those are of you
Speaker 1: guys who followed the show for this long, Like I
Speaker 1: it wasn't Rudy Gobert's fault. The Utah Jazz had a
Speaker 1: horrible core of perimeter defenders, and like, it's too much
Speaker 1: to ask to blame everything on the rim protector when
Speaker 1: nine times out of ten he's getting pulled out in rotation.
Speaker 1: You know, he'd help on the first guy, but then
Speaker 1: it's driving kick, driving kick, Rudy Goberar's not at the
Speaker 1: rim anymore, and they'd give up layups and wide open threes.
Speaker 1: In a lot of cases, it would just be drive
Speaker 1: Rudy Gobert, help kick out wide open three. And so
Speaker 1: at a certain point, like you got to look at
Speaker 1: the combination of the like everything that's happening on the
Speaker 1: defensive end of the floor. Rudy Gobert is an excellent
Speaker 1: rim protector, an excellent drop coverage big so put him
Speaker 1: alongside great perimeter defenders that can get over the top
Speaker 1: of the screen and funnel them to funnel the ball
Speaker 1: handlers towards Rudy. You're gonna get a lot of stops,
Speaker 1: and they did. Now we're gonna preview the team today
Speaker 1: as though Carl Towns is on the team and they're
Speaker 1: going to bring him back, and there they have all
Speaker 1: ready to this point, but they're gonna at least try,
Speaker 1: and there's a good reason to do that. They got
Speaker 1: a little bit of a sample size with Carl Town's
Speaker 1: coming into next season, or coming into the end of
Speaker 1: last season when Rudy go excuse me, when Carltown's came
Speaker 1: back from the calf injury. They got about one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty six possessions with Carl Towns and the starters
Speaker 1: I just mentioned, so Mike Conley, Anthony Edwards, with Jade McDaniels,
Speaker 1: Carl Towns and Rudy Gobert. That group of five guys
Speaker 1: played about a game and a half in terms of
Speaker 1: overall total volume. They played over a longer stretch, but
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty six possessions is about a game
Speaker 1: and a half. In that game and a half, they
Speaker 1: were amazing defensively one hundred point six defensive rating and
Speaker 1: a bad offensive rating one oh six point four, but
Speaker 1: still a plus five point eight net rating. So what
Speaker 1: that tells me is there's enough of like a little
Speaker 1: bit of an interesting kind of production stat there from
Speaker 1: the end of last season for at least them to
Speaker 1: be like, let's try this thing, right, But to be clear,
Speaker 1: I think that their best bet is to move Kat
Speaker 1: at the deadline or before then if a better opportunity
Speaker 1: presents itself. But for forward depth, because if you look
Speaker 1: at their depth chart, they're actually really deep. Right, Like
Speaker 1: we look at the guards, We've got Mike Conley and
Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards excellent guards, right shake Milton a good bench
Speaker 1: guard the kill. Alexander Walker is one of my favorite
Speaker 1: bench guards because he's like a really good spot up
Speaker 1: player and a really good point of attack defender. He's
Speaker 1: like the ideal off ball guard because he can take
Speaker 1: primary point of attack assignments and he can play off
Speaker 1: the ball knocking down shots and attacking closeouts. That's a
Speaker 1: great guard corp. And not even get to Jordan McLaughlin,
Speaker 1: who's a good guard prospect. So you've got five good
Speaker 1: guards right go to the bigs. You've got Rudy Gobert,
Speaker 1: Carl Towns and Nasri. That's three starting level NBA centers, right,
Speaker 1: But if I go to the forward position, it's Kyle
Speaker 1: Anderson and Jada McDaniels, a really good duo. But then
Speaker 1: it's a huge drop off to Troy Brown Junior and
Speaker 1: Wendell Moore. Right, So at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: they're they're kind of like a surplus of bigs and
Speaker 1: not enough forwards. And then there's the just the overall
Speaker 1: basketball concept of trying to make it work with two bigs.
Speaker 1: There's also this massive sample size of no Carl Towns,
Speaker 1: and you're actually really good with Rudy Gobert at the
Speaker 1: center with all these perimeter defenders. You know, I look
Speaker 1: at the long run for this team in terms of
Speaker 1: offensive creation, and I look at this as a Anthony
Speaker 1: Edwards led bona fide superstar team. And we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about Anthony Edwards later, but he's ascending right before our
Speaker 1: eyes into true superstardom. Not only did he play amazing
Speaker 1: in that last playoff run, but I mean one series,
Speaker 1: but then he also shockingly became the best player on
Speaker 1: tm USA, Like he was the best player on tm USA. Now,
Speaker 1: it wasn't a shock to me if you guys, remember
Speaker 1: I did my player rankings before Team USA and Anthony
Speaker 1: Edwards was my highest ranked player out of all the
Speaker 1: Team USA guy, so I expected it to be the
Speaker 1: best player. But like I'm one of the like, I'm
Speaker 1: higher on Anthony Edwards than most people in my player
Speaker 1: rankings list. When I had him at fifteen, a lot
Speaker 1: of people complained, And I'm not saying I'm right. I'm
Speaker 1: saying I'm just I'm in a spectrum of opinion on
Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards. I'm higher on him than most. And he
Speaker 1: went in there and alpha dogged all those guys. That
Speaker 1: team was built to be a Jalen Brunson and Brandon
Speaker 1: Ingram team, and he alpha dogged Brandon Ingram out of
Speaker 1: the rotation because he couldn't play off the ball. So
Speaker 1: like Anthony Edwards is ascending, he is the fulk crum
Speaker 1: of this offense in the future. Mike Conley can help
Speaker 1: for a year or two while he's developing Jade McDaniels,
Speaker 1: so we're gonna talk about later. He's got some offensive
Speaker 1: pot that he demonstrated last year. I look at this
Speaker 1: as a defensive minded team centered around an excellent rim protector,
Speaker 1: and outstanding perimeter defenders with a downhill threat, and in
Speaker 1: that situation, I want more perimeter players. I want more
Speaker 1: perimeter talent. Carl Towns can play on the perimeter, we
Speaker 1: know that, but it's not the same as having a
Speaker 1: real guard out there that can keep a driving kick
Speaker 1: system moving as we know. And the truth is Carl
Speaker 1: Anthony Towns spot up numbers are not as good as
Speaker 1: you would think. So I look at it in the
Speaker 1: long run as an Anthony Edwards led team, and I
Speaker 1: think Carl Towns is your best vehicle to bring in
Speaker 1: the role players that could supplement that. Not this year,
Speaker 1: but in the next three to four years. I believe
Speaker 1: the Minnesota Timberwolves can contend for championships. That's how high
Speaker 1: I view Anthony Edwards in the context of an elite
Speaker 1: playoff defense. And so I think Carltown's eventually needs to
Speaker 1: be moved. But again, we're gonna proceed as though Carl
Speaker 1: Towns for the sake of this video, We're gonna proceed
Speaker 1: as though Carltown's remains with the team, because he certainly
Speaker 1: will probably at least through the deadline or so, and
Speaker 1: maybe even through the end of the season. If things
Speaker 1: go well. So when I looked at the I went
Speaker 1: back and I watched a full game this morning between
Speaker 1: the Timberwolves and the New Orleans Pelicans, one of the
Speaker 1: few games last year where we got our existing five right,
Speaker 1: Conley Edwards, McDaniel's cat and Gobar. And in that particular game,
Speaker 1: their defense was really impressive and they ended up they
Speaker 1: came back and won in the fourth quarter. But the
Speaker 1: offense was a little bit clunky because for the most part,
Speaker 1: Carltowns does just spot up except for a handful of possessions.
Speaker 1: Will they throw it to him on the block for
Speaker 1: a post up and a handful of possessions, will the
Speaker 1: throw to him at the elbow at the free throw
Speaker 1: line for a face up. He's mostly playing off the ball,
Speaker 1: which is again, that's redundancy, that's a waste of what
Speaker 1: he's actually capable of. Carl Towns is it belongs in
Speaker 1: a system where he's the sole big. And for the record,
Speaker 1: and like this is something I'm gonna say in defense
Speaker 1: of Carltowns. When the Timberwolves played with Carl Towns this
Speaker 1: year and no go Bear or he was the big,
Speaker 1: they were good plus four net rating in about a
Speaker 1: thousand possessions if I remember correctly. That's good. Carl Towns
Speaker 1: is a very good basketball player. But when I look
Speaker 1: at this particular team and their long term ceiling, I
Speaker 1: look at it as a Rudy Gobert anchored for out
Speaker 1: one end system, and so that's kind of the direction
Speaker 1: I'd like to see them go. But again, it's a
Speaker 1: little clunky. It's a lot of it's a lot of
Speaker 1: like spreading the floor and having him just spot up
Speaker 1: and then the occasional post touch. He's being underutilized in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways. And you got to remember too,
Speaker 1: for Carl Towns, he's coming back from an injury, and
Speaker 1: I don't think he wanted to rock the boat all
Speaker 1: that much. Carl in spot up situations last year just
Speaker 1: one point zero five points per possession. That's fifty seventh percentile.
Speaker 1: That's okay. That's a slightly above average spot up player.
Speaker 1: So he's not doing as good out there as a
Speaker 1: better role playing forward would do who was an experienced
Speaker 1: spot up player. Right, six percent effecive fieldgal percentage on
Speaker 1: catching shoot jumpers. That's good. It's good, but it's not great, right,
Speaker 1: And like that's kind of the angle that I'm going
Speaker 1: at there. But let's stop talking about shipping catoff for
Speaker 1: a second. I'm sure timber Wolves fans are getting annoyed
Speaker 1: with me at this point. For the full season, Let's
Speaker 1: look at the full season. Last year, the Wolves were
Speaker 1: twenty third in offensive raiding. Biggest thing that hurt them
Speaker 1: was their ISO efficiency. They ran eight hundred and nine
Speaker 1: ISOs last year, which was the thirteenth most in the league,
Speaker 1: but they converted them only at zero point ninety five
Speaker 1: points per possession, which was the twentieth best in the league.
Speaker 1: And the biggest culprit here is Anthony Edwards. And again, like,
Speaker 1: I'm not being critical here because Ant's young and he's
Speaker 1: learning how to play the game. But what if I
Speaker 1: told you what Anthony Edwards was, or I asked you
Speaker 1: guys to tell me what Anthony Edwards was as a
Speaker 1: basketball player, Like, describe him to me what he's great at.
Speaker 1: What would you guys tell me. You'd say he's, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the best athletes in the league. You'd say
Speaker 1: he's a huge, strong guard that can bully people downhill.
Speaker 1: You'd tell me he's got all this defensive tent, he's
Speaker 1: got an alpha dog mentality. What you wouldn't tell me
Speaker 1: is he's a dead eye pull up jump shooter, right,
Speaker 1: Like he takes a lot of them, But you wouldn't
Speaker 1: tell me like, oh, An, it's just the just a
Speaker 1: dead eye pull up jump shooter. No, he's not, but
Speaker 1: he takes a ton of them. To give you an idea,
Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards took six hundred and three pull up jump
Speaker 1: shots last year. Only three players in the entire NBA
Speaker 1: took more, Demarto Rosen, Luka Doncicz and Diaron Fox. The
Speaker 1: difference is is Damar made almost half of them, Luka
Speaker 1: Doncicz made almost forty percent of them, Deeron Fox made
Speaker 1: forty two percent of them. Anthony Edwards made thirty five
Speaker 1: percent of them. So he's a high, high volume pull
Speaker 1: up jump shooter, but not particularly efficient at least in
Speaker 1: the regular season. He's been very efficient with this pull
Speaker 1: u jump shot in the playoffs, which we'll get to
Speaker 1: in a minute. But I think that was a big
Speaker 1: factor in the efficiency for this particular Timberwolves team from
Speaker 1: last season not doing particularly well. There were fifteen players
Speaker 1: in the entire NBA last year who at least three
Speaker 1: hundred ISOs. Anthony Edwards ranked fourteenth out of fifteen players
Speaker 1: in efficiency because he settled for too many jump shots
Speaker 1: and he missed too many of them as a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, and this is kind of a perfect comp
Speaker 1: You guys want to know who fifteenth on that list
Speaker 1: was Lebron James. Lebron James was the worst high volume
Speaker 1: ISO player in the league last year. Why because Lebron James,
Speaker 1: who has been a very good pull up jump shooter
Speaker 1: for the last half decade, couldn't make a damn pull
Speaker 1: up jump shot last year. He was atrocious last year
Speaker 1: and he was settling for a lot of them. Just
Speaker 1: go ask Laker fans what they thought about Lebron's jump
Speaker 1: shot last year and you'll understand pretty quickly what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about. ISO guys like Anton Lebron, who run a
Speaker 1: lot of them and settle for a lot of jump
Speaker 1: shots but aren't making them, are going to suffer in
Speaker 1: their efficiency, and that's why they both finished towards the bottom.
Speaker 1: I do like Anthony Edwards's pull up jumper. It's a
Speaker 1: really nice counter to his driving attack. He gets great
Speaker 1: looks because guys are on their heels. I don't want
Speaker 1: him to stop taking them, but just maybe not six
Speaker 1: hundred of them, right, If that's four hundred and on
Speaker 1: the other two hundred possessions, he's a little bit more
Speaker 1: downhill aggressive. Maybe that ends up being something that upticks
Speaker 1: his efficiency where it should be. And again, the settling
Speaker 1: for jumpers is a classic young guy problem. It's a
Speaker 1: young guy problem and it's an old guy problem. People
Speaker 1: in the prime of their careers don't do it that much, right,
Speaker 1: Young guys because they don't know any better. Old guys
Speaker 1: because they're old. But it is gonna eventually have to
Speaker 1: learn that that Like, he's doing the defensive favor when
Speaker 1: he's taking six hundred pull up jump shots in a season,
Speaker 1: but he did shoot really well in the postseason, and
Speaker 1: I think that's that's kind of what I see in
Speaker 1: the long run. What I see in the long run
Speaker 1: is like a good pull up jump shooter who uses
Speaker 1: it as a counter to a devastating downhill attack. He
Speaker 1: was fifty five percent an effective field goal percentage in
Speaker 1: last year's postseason, the year before that fifty seven percent,
Speaker 1: So his career an excellent pull up jump shooter in
Speaker 1: the postseason, and he's coming off of an excellent performance
Speaker 1: in team with Team USA, nineteen points per game in
Speaker 1: all thirteen games including the exhibitions, fifty seven percent true shooting.
Speaker 1: He made forty nine percent field goal percentage on his
Speaker 1: pull up jumper, so he made almost half of them
Speaker 1: fifty nine percent waited for threes. Now, remember Steph was
Speaker 1: the only pull up jump shooter in the league at
Speaker 1: volume last year to shoot over sixty percent in effective
Speaker 1: field goal percentage, and it was at fifty nine percent
Speaker 1: with Team USA. So he is riding a hot streak
Speaker 1: with pull up jump shooting. If that translates, then then
Speaker 1: we're talking about, you know, a guy who's the top
Speaker 1: tier superstars. So and then it's not exactly shocking at
Speaker 1: all why he elevated himself with that Team USA group,
Speaker 1: But it's really interesting to see that development piece. I
Speaker 1: just wanted to see him tone it back in terms
Speaker 1: of shot selection a little bit. He ran ninety pick
Speaker 1: and rolls with Team USA, scoring one hundred and twelve
Speaker 1: points one point twenty four points per possession. As off
Speaker 1: the charts, a point a quarter per possession and pick
Speaker 1: and roll is insane. He's making a leap. Like I
Speaker 1: said earlier, right in front of our eyes and superstardom.
Speaker 1: And again, like when I talk about, you know, the
Speaker 1: Timberwolves in their long term ceiling, like you gotta remember
Speaker 1: this was a bad offense last year because they're just
Speaker 1: letting Like I watched I was watching that Timberwolves Pelicans
Speaker 1: game this morning, and Ant took four pull up threes
Speaker 1: in the first like three and a half minutes of
Speaker 1: the game, like, and no one's complaining at him, Like
Speaker 1: his teammates are letting him there. The entire Timberwolves organization
Speaker 1: believes in Aunt so much that they're letting him work
Speaker 1: through his mistakes, which is great for his development. But
Speaker 1: obviously last year that was gonna hurt their offensive rating
Speaker 1: because you have a young guard who's learning how to
Speaker 1: play on the fly, right, But in the long run,
Speaker 1: that's gonna pay dividends. And I think this year is
Speaker 1: going to be the year where the Timberwolves feel most
Speaker 1: serious about their chances, and in that event, I think
Speaker 1: Ant is going to make those strides and I think
Speaker 1: the offense is going to improve as a result. Let's
Speaker 1: take a brief look at two of their other primary
Speaker 1: shot creators and then another guy that I think could
Speaker 1: become one this year. So Mike Conley ended up being
Speaker 1: a perfect fit alongside Anthony Edwards. Why because he's a
Speaker 1: deadly spot up player one point one to one points
Speaker 1: per possession and spot up situations. Mike Conley had a
Speaker 1: seventy percent effective field goal percentage in a Timberwolves jersey
Speaker 1: on catch and shoot jump shots. That's outrageous. Seventy seven
Speaker 1: percent when he was unguarded. You just can't leave Mike
Speaker 1: Conley open. That's a high value add next to a
Speaker 1: guy like Anthony Edwards at such a downhill force. Right,
Speaker 1: he already had good existing pick and roll chemistry with
Speaker 1: Rudy Gobert. Rudy Gobert just sets really good screens and
Speaker 1: helps you get separation. And Mike Conley's actually one of
Speaker 1: the best pull up three point shooters in the league.
Speaker 1: In a Timberwolves jersey, fifty seven percent effective field goal
Speaker 1: percentage on pull up jump shots. That's awesome. As a
Speaker 1: result of that, one point one six points per possession
Speaker 1: and pick and roll with the Wolves on decent sample
Speaker 1: over two hundred possessions, that's ninety fourth percentile. So Mike
Speaker 1: Conley was like the perfect guard slot alongside Anthony Edwards
Speaker 1: Carl Towns last year, still a good post up shot creator.
Speaker 1: He ran one hundred and fourteen post ups for one
Speaker 1: point one to one points per possession that was in
Speaker 1: the seventy first percentile. Good hook shot was the foundation there,
Speaker 1: and then he passed the ball well, made forty nine
Speaker 1: percent of his hook shots and made the right reads
Speaker 1: when teams doubled him. Was not great Naiso last year,
Speaker 1: zero point eight nine points per possession. A lot of
Speaker 1: ripthroughs to the right, dudes sliding with him and staying
Speaker 1: in front, and him settling for this like really tough
Speaker 1: floaters over the top, which he only made about forty
Speaker 1: percent of the time, which is not a super efficient shot.
Speaker 1: So the face up games not where it needs to be.
Speaker 1: But he's still a good post up player. The guy
Speaker 1: I want to take a closer look at his Jade McDaniels.
Speaker 1: He is on the short list of guys, like we
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, that is considered in the Conversation for best
Speaker 1: perimeter defender in the world. Right, that's what we think
Speaker 1: of Jade McDaniels as But he actually showed a decent
Speaker 1: amount of offensive pop last year. Averaged a career high
Speaker 1: twelve points per game, a career high sixty one percent
Speaker 1: TRU shooting. He ran only it's really low volume for
Speaker 1: the record, but we learned from this and a lot
Speaker 1: of interesting stuff on tape. He only ran sixty two
Speaker 1: pick and rolls last year and those led to sixty
Speaker 1: five points. That's one point zero five points per possession.
Speaker 1: That's solid about once a game you could throw Jade
Speaker 1: McDaniel's the ball and he could get you a point
Speaker 1: right per possession. That's value there, And a big part
Speaker 1: of it is, like it's a couple of different things.
Speaker 1: First of all, perimeter defenders. He's getting your third best
Speaker 1: perimeter defender, so probably a guy who doesn't navigate screens
Speaker 1: super well, so he gets good separation, loves to drive left.
Speaker 1: And then what he does is he gets into your
Speaker 1: body with these long steps and gathers early, and then
Speaker 1: he takes like these like fallaway shots, like these like
Speaker 1: short fallaway, one footed shots, but they're not like one
Speaker 1: foot fade aways from fifteen feet. He's taken them from
Speaker 1: like seven eight feet away from the basket, and he
Speaker 1: can make them. As a matter of fact, he had
Speaker 1: a fifty one percent effective field goal percentage on pull
Speaker 1: up jumpers last year on one hundred in one of them.
Speaker 1: That's decent volume. That's not nothing. Again, that's more than
Speaker 1: once a game. He also was really good in spot
Speaker 1: up situations fifty nine percent effective field goal percentage on
Speaker 1: catch and shoot jump shot sixty two percent when unguarded.
Speaker 1: So a good spot up player and actually kind of
Speaker 1: like a sneaky good rim finisher is like he'll get
Speaker 1: these dunks in traffic that you're not expecting where he
Speaker 1: just kind of jumps over everybody and finishes shot well
Speaker 1: at the rim. Last year, him continuing to make those
Speaker 1: strides on the offensive end of the floor, alongside Anthony
Speaker 1: Edwards with what he's capable of as a defensive player,
Speaker 1: That's what I look at as like the triumvirate of
Speaker 1: the Timberwolves future. Anthony Edwards a superstar, Jade McDaniels is
Speaker 1: like the Scottie pipp into him, and then Rudy Gobert
Speaker 1: is the defensive anchor and the guy who can set
Speaker 1: good ball screens. Those three together, I think are a
Speaker 1: really really interesting foundation in the long run. On the
Speaker 1: defensive end, the Timberwolves finished tenth in defensive rating, but
Speaker 1: they were seventh and half court defense. According to Cleaning
Speaker 1: the Glass, that's really impressive. Middle of the pack and
Speaker 1: transition defense for both French frequency and efficiency. Not as
Speaker 1: effective in the paint as you would think, but for
Speaker 1: a specific reason, and I want to dive into this
Speaker 1: concept a little bit. So they allowed forty nine point
Speaker 1: seven points in the paint per one hundred possessions, which
Speaker 1: was fifteenth in the NBA. Obviously you expect that to
Speaker 1: be higher with Rudy Gobert. Right. They give up eighteen
Speaker 1: point three restricted area makes per game, which was the
Speaker 1: ninth most in the NBA, but on those shots, teams
Speaker 1: only shot sixty five point six percent, which was the
Speaker 1: eleventh best in the NBA. This was a schematic approach
Speaker 1: from the Timberwolves that I thought was really interesting, and
Speaker 1: you noticed it in ISO and in pick and roll situations.
Speaker 1: So in pick and roll they prioritize keeping Rudy Gobert
Speaker 1: as close to the role man as possible. They trusted
Speaker 1: their point of attack defenders to get over the top
Speaker 1: of screens and force the ball handler into tough shots.
Speaker 1: In driving kick situations, you guys might remember a game
Speaker 1: last year where where Kyle Anderson was bitching and moaning
Speaker 1: at Anthony Edwards and Rudy Gobert for overhelping on drives
Speaker 1: and actually cost him this particular game. I think it
Speaker 1: was an overtime loss if I remember correctly, but both
Speaker 1: Rudy Gobert and Anthony Edwards. I think it was against
Speaker 1: the Brooklyn Nets. They toasted off a game giving up
Speaker 1: wide open threes by overhelping. But this is a concept
Speaker 1: that is important, Like obsession with shutting down the paint
Speaker 1: made so much more sense years ago than it does now,
Speaker 1: because when you're obsessed with shutting down the paint, you
Speaker 1: give good looks to NBA players in the year twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three. NBA players in the year twenty twenty three
Speaker 1: are knocking those things down, and so it actually is
Speaker 1: better to give up driving lanes, enforce contested layups or
Speaker 1: contested short range shots in the paint, trusting them to
Speaker 1: miss more than half of them, which is less than
Speaker 1: a point for possession, rather than giving up these wide
Speaker 1: open catch and shoot shots on the perimeter while you're
Speaker 1: getting torched. Right and like, that was an approach for
Speaker 1: the Timberwolves all season. Trust your perimeter defenders, Rudy stay
Speaker 1: with the role man whenever you can, unless you absolutely
Speaker 1: have to. Oh, if Kyle Anderson, someone's driving on Kyle
Speaker 1: Anderson and he's on his hip and he's got an
Speaker 1: angle to go to the basket, but Kyle's gonna get
Speaker 1: a contest, just let him do it. If he finishes
Speaker 1: a tough scooping lay up high off the glass over
Speaker 1: Kyle Anderson, great shot, nice shot, two points for you.
Speaker 1: But if Rudy steps over and gives up a dunk,
Speaker 1: that's not good. Or you help out of the strong
Speaker 1: side corner and you give or help out of the
Speaker 1: weakside corner one of the two and you give up
Speaker 1: a wide open three, not a good job, right, So,
Speaker 1: I think I think the Timberwolves actually have a really
Speaker 1: smart modern approach to defense, and I think it's a
Speaker 1: big part of why they were so successful. Perimeter defenders
Speaker 1: are are the equivalent of rim protection in the modern NBA,
Speaker 1: containing ball handlers will protect the pain for you, And
Speaker 1: it was a really smart approach. They did a really
Speaker 1: nice job preventing teams from getting good looks at three.
Speaker 1: They allowed just thirty two point five three point attempts
Speaker 1: per one hundred possessions. That was the fifth best mark
Speaker 1: in the entire NBA. As a matter of fact, they
Speaker 1: actually got bad luck. Teams shot thirty seven percent from three.
Speaker 1: That was the twenty fourth worst mark in the NBA.
Speaker 1: So team shot really well against them. Now in a
Speaker 1: large sample size, they don't like blaming luck. They're probably
Speaker 1: leaving the wrong shooters open. That probably is a little
Speaker 1: too much of like overhelping it the wrong time, right,
Speaker 1: But that was a significant factor in their defense not
Speaker 1: being where it should have been because they finished tenth
Speaker 1: in defense. I don't think they were the tenth best
Speaker 1: defense in terms of what they were capable of. I
Speaker 1: think they were as capable of it. They were capable
Speaker 1: of being a top five defense. So clearly there was
Speaker 1: some stuff that got lost in there. Another big part
Speaker 1: of it was rebounding. They were twenty seventh in rebound percentage.
Speaker 1: They gave up three putbacks per game last year, which
Speaker 1: was the eighth most in the NBA. And then lastly
Speaker 1: was turnovers they gave up. But they had fifteen turnovers
Speaker 1: per one hundred possessions last year. That was the sixth
Speaker 1: most in the NBA. So turning the basketball over that's
Speaker 1: going to always compromise your defense by giving ups of
Speaker 1: like runouts the other way. And the Timberwolves were a
Speaker 1: very good transition defense off of steels last year. They
Speaker 1: were middle of the pack in general, but off of
Speaker 1: steels they did a really good job of sprinting back.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, I remember correctly, they might
Speaker 1: have been best in defense off of steels according to
Speaker 1: Cleaning the Glass. But even the best off of steels
Speaker 1: is a really high offensive rating and much higher than
Speaker 1: your defensive rating are, then you would hold their offensive
Speaker 1: rating to in a static half court situation. So turning
Speaker 1: the basketball over too much, that's going to cause problems.
Speaker 1: Giving up too many offensive rebound put backs, that's going
Speaker 1: to cause problems. And then you hope that you hope
Speaker 1: that maybe that thirty seven percent three point shooting was luck.
Speaker 1: Your rebound better, You take better care of the basketball team,
Speaker 1: shoot more normal next year. Now you got yourself top
Speaker 1: five defense. And again those numbers are for the full season.
Speaker 1: When they had Anthony Edwards, Jad McDaniels and Kyle Anderson
Speaker 1: next to Rudy Gobert, they were absolutely stifling, like devastatingly
Speaker 1: good on defense. So regardless of whatever they decide to do,
Speaker 1: with kat all four of those guys are still on
Speaker 1: the roster. That punch will always be in their back pocket.
Speaker 1: If they end up in a certain matchup and they
Speaker 1: need defense, they can bench cat and play their perimeter
Speaker 1: guys next to Mike Conley and they have a really
Speaker 1: good chance to win games that way. So to tie
Speaker 1: it all together as a prediction, the West is a
Speaker 1: total shit show, so picking the order of seeding is impossible.
Speaker 1: Like for the record, I think the Wolves are gonna
Speaker 1: be a lot better this year than they were last year.
Speaker 1: Here's the problem. The MAVs are gonna be a lot
Speaker 1: better than they were last year. Full training camp with
Speaker 1: Kyrie and Luka Doncic, and they added good front court
Speaker 1: players to help with the dirty work. That's gonna help them.
Speaker 1: The Kings are gonna be a little bit worse than
Speaker 1: they were last year in my opinion, but they were
Speaker 1: a three seed last year. The Thunder they're adding Chet
Speaker 1: Holmgren and all their guys are a year older. They're
Speaker 1: going to be much better than they were last year.
Speaker 1: The Clippers, if Kawhi Leonard and Paul George are healthy
Speaker 1: all year, they're better than last year. Right. The Warriors
Speaker 1: they added Chris Paul, you know they like. I just
Speaker 1: think in general, in terms of chemistry, getting Jordan Poole
Speaker 1: out of the picture, they'll probably be better next year
Speaker 1: because they remember they couldn't win on the road because
Speaker 1: they all hated each other. Or I shouldn't say they
Speaker 1: all hated each other, but the schism that was going
Speaker 1: on between Jordan Pool and some of the other young
Speaker 1: guys and the older guys that affected things. I think
Speaker 1: the Warriors are going to be more focused and be
Speaker 1: better this year than they were last year. The Suns
Speaker 1: and Lakers are both just more talented than last year.
Speaker 1: Both of them added more role players and they were
Speaker 1: already really good. And the Nuggets are the defending champs.
Speaker 1: I just listed what's at one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
Speaker 1: eight teams. So like, even though I think the Wolves
Speaker 1: are gonna be better than last year, theoretically everybody else
Speaker 1: is too. So it's hard for me to be like, oh,
Speaker 1: they're gonna be a five seed, because it's it's just
Speaker 1: who are they jump in? Right? So if I had
Speaker 1: to make a prediction right now, even though I do
Speaker 1: think the Wolves will be better, the West is gonna
Speaker 1: be a blood Bath. They're gonna be right around five
Speaker 1: hundred and they're gonna be in the plane again. But
Speaker 1: they're gonna be more dangerous this year than they were
Speaker 1: last year in my opinion. But that's just the nature
Speaker 1: of the NBA Theta these days. That's not a shot
Speaker 1: at the Timberwolves or anything like that. All right, guys,
Speaker 1: I have three mail back questions for you before we
Speaker 1: get out of here tonight. First one, obviously, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of luck involved, but there are. But are there
Speaker 1: any common traits you see among stars that can stay
Speaker 1: healthy year over year, Like for a guy like Jokich,
Speaker 1: is there something in his build that gives him that edge.
Speaker 1: I do not think there's any rhyme or reason to
Speaker 1: injury luck. I literally think it's luck, like I've been
Speaker 1: told my whole life, and I still firmly believe that
Speaker 1: working on leg strength is the best way to prevent
Speaker 1: lower body injuries, like just having a really solid base
Speaker 1: because that's how you absorb impact when you land right.
Speaker 1: But Jamal Murray has a legendary leg strength program, like
Speaker 1: absolutely legendary, and that guy towards ACL like, go look
Speaker 1: up stories about what Jamal Murray's dad had him do
Speaker 1: to build like strength. That dude works harder on your legs,
Speaker 1: on his legs than probably anybody listening to this video.
Speaker 1: That dude's insane towards ACL. Everyone says Biggs get hurt
Speaker 1: all the time, but Nikole Jokicic is like the iron Man.
Speaker 1: You know. Everyone says freaky athletes that jump super high
Speaker 1: will get hurt. No, Lebron was a freaky athlete, maybe
Speaker 1: the freakiest athlete of all time, and didn't get hurt
Speaker 1: until he got old. So I don't really think there
Speaker 1: is a rhyme or reason to it. I think it's
Speaker 1: just luck, and I wish I had a better explanation
Speaker 1: than that. But that's that's pretty much how I feel
Speaker 1: about it right now. Next mail back question from Michael
Speaker 1: Why do certain fans believe that point of attack defense
Speaker 1: doesn't matter in the modern NBA? In regards to Steph Curry,
Speaker 1: some people downplay the importance of point of attack defense
Speaker 1: wise that, I do think people value point of attack defense.
Speaker 1: I do think the matchup attacking thing is a little
Speaker 1: overplayed because a couple of different things you need point
Speaker 1: of attack defense in terms of a person who can
Speaker 1: fulfill that role, but it doesn't necessarily have to be Steph.
Speaker 1: Just like, for instance, if I've got two wings on
Speaker 1: my roster and one of them is Lebron who's older
Speaker 1: and wants to rest, Like I can have Jared Vanderbilt,
Speaker 1: who's theoretically playing the four, I can have him chase
Speaker 1: around on the perimeter and have Lebron play the low man.
Speaker 1: You can find responsibilities on the floor for lesser defenders,
Speaker 1: and like you'll you'll see that with the Warriors, like
Speaker 1: if he's if Steph is on the floor with Gary Payton,
Speaker 1: they're gonna have Gary Payton run the point of attack
Speaker 1: defense and probably have Steph Garden off ball shooter. Right,
Speaker 1: That's just that's the way that they usually set these
Speaker 1: sorts of things up. Now, matchup attacking is the downside, right, Okay, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's a playoff series. Uh, you run a couple of
Speaker 1: screening actions, get a switch. Now we're posting up so
Speaker 1: and so on the block. There is value in that
Speaker 1: for an offense, but I actually think it has more
Speaker 1: to do with the other end of the floor. Like
Speaker 1: when the Lakers relentlessly attacked Steph. I think it was
Speaker 1: a big strategy to try to fatigue him, Like I
Speaker 1: think they were trying to wear him out so that
Speaker 1: he'd misshots, and he did. But why did that work.
Speaker 1: That worked because Jordan pull and Klay Thompson fell apart.
Speaker 1: So Steph literally had to do everything and he couldn't
Speaker 1: because the Lakers were attacking him relentlessly on the other
Speaker 1: end of the floor. The truth is that attacking a
Speaker 1: player stagnates you. If you spend an entire game matchup attacking,
Speaker 1: that's really stagnant offense. The ball's not moving, it's a
Speaker 1: lot of iso, a lot of post up you don't
Speaker 1: actually want to. That's bad for your offense in the
Speaker 1: long run. Like generally speaking, if they're if they're just attacking,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, let's say let's say for this particular team,
Speaker 1: Like let's say that they're just attacking Mike Conley every time,
Speaker 1: I'd be like, go ahead, you're gonna stagnate your offense.
Speaker 1: You're becoming predictable. Mike Conley's gonna figure out how to
Speaker 1: get more stops in the long run will help and rotate.
Speaker 1: But if you only have one offensive option, then they
Speaker 1: can attack and fatigue. Let's look at the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: two Warriors. Jordan Poole played much better in that playoff run,
Speaker 1: Steph had more offensive support, Andrew Wiggins played better in
Speaker 1: that playoff run. So as a result, attacking Steph was
Speaker 1: a fool's errand it's gonna stagnate it your offense and
Speaker 1: cause problems, and he doesn't need to do everything. On
Speaker 1: the other end, go look at the game logs for
Speaker 1: the Warriors two years ago and look through the points.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of games in there where Steph
Speaker 1: was just a cog in the system. And that's because
Speaker 1: that team was better, played better. And so if you
Speaker 1: would have attacked Steph, you never would have fatigued him
Speaker 1: because he's one of the most conditioned athletes in the
Speaker 1: league and he didn't need to do everything that year.
Speaker 1: So I think some of that stuff is overplayed. Like
Speaker 1: as long as you have point of attack defense in
Speaker 1: the line up, as long as you have help defense
Speaker 1: in the lineup, as long as you have rim protection
Speaker 1: in the lineup, you're gonna get stops even if you
Speaker 1: have a weak defender in that group. It's like, it's
Speaker 1: just it's it's that That's a perfect example of why
Speaker 1: basketball is an art and out a science. It's so
Speaker 1: much more complicated than it looks like on the surface.
Speaker 1: Why was Steph getting attacked a narrative in this series
Speaker 1: this year? But why did Why didn't the MAVs have
Speaker 1: any success with it? Luca is the best matchup attacker
Speaker 1: in the league, right, Why didn't he have any success
Speaker 1: with it? Because they didn't need Steph to score thirty
Speaker 1: five to have any chance of winning. The Warriors literally
Speaker 1: needed Steph to score thirty five to have any chance
Speaker 1: of beating the Lakers in any game. So like and
Speaker 1: like and again like another. It's mostly the same rosters,
Speaker 1: the same top seven guys. That's the other crazy part
Speaker 1: about it. Like it was the same guys that were
Speaker 1: a lesser basketball team this year. But that's the intricacy
Speaker 1: of the organism of a basketball team. One thing gets
Speaker 1: a little bit off and then it falls apart. One
Speaker 1: guy's in a little bit of a funk, suddenly more
Speaker 1: responsibilities than another guy. It falls apart. Andrew Wiggins not
Speaker 1: in as good a rhythm because he took an absence
Speaker 1: from the team, and it can fall apart that way.
Speaker 1: Klay Thompson best perimeter initiation, you know, half court shot,
Speaker 1: creation season I've ever seen from him in terms of
Speaker 1: like filling the void when Steph was out making plays
Speaker 1: in the half court and then he got into the
Speaker 1: playoffs and couldn't make anything, Like, what are the odds
Speaker 1: of that? Like, I don't have an explanation for that.
Speaker 1: He just he got into a funk. Those of you
Speaker 1: guys who've played basketball for a really long time will
Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about. Sometimes you're playing really well
Speaker 1: and then sometimes you have a week or two where
Speaker 1: you're just not playing very well. And like you can
Speaker 1: be a relentless worker and like be in the weight
Speaker 1: room and be in the gym working on your shot
Speaker 1: and be like, man, I gotta get out of this funk,
Speaker 1: and then you go play the next day and you
Speaker 1: suck again compared to what you're hoping. Like that's this
Speaker 1: game is so complicated. It is so detailed and intricate,
Speaker 1: Like it's not something that is that simple. But to
Speaker 1: answer the question, you know, to kind of tie it
Speaker 1: all together, point of attack defense does matter? Steph Curry
Speaker 1: getting attacked in the Lakers series had a lot more
Speaker 1: to do with other issues on the Warriors roster than
Speaker 1: Steph itself. The best example of that is that the
Speaker 1: Mavericks had absolutely no luck attacking Steph the previous year.
Speaker 1: All right, last one, This s mailback question is from Chile.
Speaker 1: Why is it that we see less and less players
Speaker 1: like Rondo's CP three, Steve Nash and Jason Kidd point
Speaker 1: guards with tremendous IQ that can navigate games for you?
Speaker 1: So I don't know. I don't think anybody in particular
Speaker 1: is to blame for this. But the reality is is
Speaker 1: that we had a bunch of guards come into the
Speaker 1: league that were more heliocentric shot creators. So back in
Speaker 1: the day, your stars didn't bring the ball up the floor,
Speaker 1: and so you needed a guard who would bring the
Speaker 1: ball up the floor and set up your stars. But
Speaker 1: then in the modern NBA we've discovered no, you don't
Speaker 1: really need to do that. So now a lot of
Speaker 1: guys are becoming point guards that in a different era
Speaker 1: would not have been a point guard, Like James Harden
Speaker 1: is effectively a point guard. He calls himself a two guard,
Speaker 1: but he's basically a point guard. But he's his six '
Speaker 1: five two guard build right like Russell Westbrook fifteen years
Speaker 1: ago would have been a two guard in the modern NBA,
Speaker 1: he's a point guard because he's one of your best players.
Speaker 1: You want the ball in his hands, and you're gonna
Speaker 1: run a lot of spread, pick and roll in ISO.
Speaker 1: Like you guys can kind of get what I'm going
Speaker 1: out here. The league has transitioned, and we've seen all
Speaker 1: these other guards doing it. Damian Lillard scoring guard, Steph Curry,
Speaker 1: you know, scoring guard, although he does it off the ball,
Speaker 1: Russell Westbrook scoring guard. All these guys are putting up
Speaker 1: thirty points a game. And so what do you think
Speaker 1: all the young guards are gonna do? All the young
Speaker 1: guards are gonna want to play like these guys, and
Speaker 1: so you're gonna see more and more of that. And
Speaker 1: for the record, like the whole I'll take raise on
Speaker 1: Rondo for an example, that archetype is not as valuable
Speaker 1: now as it used to be because he's a bad
Speaker 1: off ball player. And by the way, when Rondo was
Speaker 1: a champion with the Lakers, he made like forty percent
Speaker 1: of his catch in two threes, Like it's something he
Speaker 1: couldn't do earlier in his career. But like you're the
Speaker 1: the non scoring threat, look to make a play first
Speaker 1: type of guard doesn't have as much value in the
Speaker 1: modern NBA as it did fifteen years ago. And that's
Speaker 1: that's not a that's not a shot at those guys.
Speaker 1: It's just the way the game has changed nowadays. It's
Speaker 1: like you have to be a threat to score if
Speaker 1: you have the ball in your hand, like a real threat.
Speaker 1: All of the best perimeter initiators in the league are
Speaker 1: over twenty five points a game. It's extremely rare to
Speaker 1: see a guy who's like, really in the conversation with
Speaker 1: the best players in the league, who only averages twenty
Speaker 1: three points per game, right, like Jokich is a freak.
Speaker 1: But it's because he plays with so many good off
Speaker 1: ball players that he kind of acts more as a distributor.
Speaker 1: And what did he do the previous year. He averaged
Speaker 1: thirty points game when he didn't have those guys. So
Speaker 1: you get the point. Like, but the game, it's just
Speaker 1: a product of the game changing. But I don't think
Speaker 1: we're gonna see too many like setup guards in the
Speaker 1: in the future. I just don't think the league calls
Speaker 1: for that specific skill set anymore the way that it
Speaker 1: did in the past when they needed to navigate these
Speaker 1: congested half court environments and the other part of it, too,
Speaker 1: is like think about the way the post players have changed.
Speaker 1: Like you go back twenty five years ago, and it's
Speaker 1: like you've got Shack and you've got a Chemolodge one,
Speaker 1: and you've got Karl Malone and you've got you know,
Speaker 1: Patrick Ewing, and like there's just you can go on
Speaker 1: and on and on. There's like a million post up bigs.
Speaker 1: Who's gonna feed them the basketball? Right? Like, but now
Speaker 1: it's like I don't need a guy who can feed
Speaker 1: the post. I need a guy who can run, pick
Speaker 1: and roll. I don't need a guy who can feed
Speaker 1: the post. I need a guy who can beat a
Speaker 1: center on a switch. So I think I think it's
Speaker 1: just the nature of the way the game has changed. Guys.
Speaker 1: It's all I have for today. I hope you have
Speaker 1: an amazing weekend. We will be back on Monday with
Speaker 1: number fifteen. The Volume