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Speaker 2: All right, welcome to hoops tonight here at the volume.
Speaker 1: Happy Wednesday, everybody, hopefull if you guys are having a
Speaker 1: great week. Quick show today, We're just gonna hit one game,
Speaker 1: the Warriors Kings game from last night. Then we're gonna
Speaker 1: do a deep dive on the Sacramento Kings, who have
Speaker 1: won eight of their last ten games on the strength
Speaker 1: of really good defense.
Speaker 2: Yes, you heard that correctly.
Speaker 1: It's been a while since we've said something like that
Speaker 1: about a Sacramento Kings team, right, But we're gonna do
Speaker 1: a deep, deep dive on the Sacramento Kings, and then
Speaker 1: I've got four mail back questions for the end of
Speaker 1: the show as well. Also, for those of you guys
Speaker 1: who did not know earlier, today, I did an hour
Speaker 1: and a half of additional analysis with the guys from
Speaker 1: nerd Sash here at the volume. Those of you guys
Speaker 1: who've been following this show for a while, No Carson
Speaker 1: and Logan, They've been on my show several times. I've
Speaker 1: been on their show several times. Go over to the
Speaker 1: Nerd Sash feed and like I said, there's an hour
Speaker 1: and a half of additional analysis. We talked lakers at
Speaker 1: the start. We did a deep dive on the Phoenix Suns.
Speaker 1: We did a deep dive on the Milwaukee Bucks. We
Speaker 1: ranked the top five guards from the twenty twenty draft.
Speaker 1: Talk a lot of Tyrese Halliburton and Tyrese Maxey and
Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards and LaMelo Ball and Desmond Baine, and we
Speaker 1: even went over some of the other guards that are
Speaker 1: at the tail end of that draft. We talked a
Speaker 1: lot about Nicola Jokic and the season that he's having
Speaker 1: this year. Just a ton of stuff with the Nerd
Speaker 1: Sash guys. Like I said, over an hour and a half.
Speaker 1: Highly encourage you guys that are fans of this show
Speaker 1: to go over to the nerdsh YouTube feed and click
Speaker 1: on that video. Support those guys. Subscribe to their channel
Speaker 1: as well. They do great content. We're gonna be having
Speaker 1: them on our show next week as well. But yeah,
Speaker 1: just Warriors, Kings, Kings, Deep Dive, and some mailbag stuff today,
Speaker 1: all other stuff around the league. Go over to the
Speaker 1: Nerd Sess feed to get that. You guys are the
Speaker 1: Joe Forore we get started to subscribe to our brand
Speaker 1: new YouTube channel. Scroll down and hit that subscribe button.
Speaker 1: It would mean a lot to me. And don't forget
Speaker 1: about our podcast feed. Wherever you get your podcasts under
Speaker 1: Hoops tonight, follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason lt.
Speaker 1: That's where I'm doing my film threads as well as
Speaker 1: show announcements. And then, last but not least, for whatever,
Speaker 1: don't forget about my mailbag questions. Drop mail back questions
Speaker 1: in the YouTube comments so that we can continue to
Speaker 1: hit those later on in the week. All right, let's
Speaker 1: talk some basketball. So Warriors come out looking great, Draymond's
Speaker 1: back go up twenty four, but then Gary Payton tore
Speaker 1: his calf muscle. As we just found out, he's gonna
Speaker 1: be out for a long time. Completely changed the dynamic
Speaker 1: of the game. That specifically, because that unit, that Steph
Speaker 1: Clay Wiggins with Gary Payton and Draymond, that was the
Speaker 1: unit that was playing such dominant basketball there towards the
Speaker 1: tail end of the second quarter. So Gary Payton goes out,
Speaker 1: Chris Paul hurts himself at the beginning of the game.
Speaker 1: I think it's just lower like soreness. I think he's
Speaker 1: gonna be fine. So you're getting a lot of Corey
Speaker 1: Joseph minutes in there. The bench unit in particular was
Speaker 1: having a hell of a time containing Malik Monk and
Speaker 1: Darren Fox and pick and roll, and then the Kings
Speaker 1: were blitzing Steph Curry, which again, like here's the thing.
Speaker 1: The Warriors have seen blitzes of Steph Curry a million times, right,
Speaker 1: But sometimes a quick, you know, scheme change like that
Speaker 1: can buy you a short period of time where they're
Speaker 1: out of rhythm while they're adjusting to the new scheme, right,
Speaker 1: And it's one of those things where like I'm a
Speaker 1: big fan of throwing curveballs like that, even if they're
Speaker 1: not necessarily long term solutions, just because they can buy
Speaker 1: you an opportunity to maybe make a couple of plays
Speaker 1: that can change the dynamic of the game. And that's
Speaker 1: basically what happened, you know, Like there was a quick
Speaker 1: seven zero run at the end of the first half,
Speaker 1: and they took over air in that third quarter, And
Speaker 1: a big part of it is just you threw them
Speaker 1: out of rhythm for just a minute by blitzing Steph Curry,
Speaker 1: and then from there you got going and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, you're confident. All of a sudden, you're flying
Speaker 1: around on defense, the perimeter defense in intensity picks up.
Speaker 1: Malik Bunk and Deer and Fox are now feeling great.
Speaker 1: They're getting downhill or getting to the rim. The game
Speaker 1: completely changes, right But despite all of that, the Warriors
Speaker 1: were still up by six on Curry free throws of
Speaker 1: the minute and thirty one seconds left. Kind of a
Speaker 1: weird call where Steph just went down and set a
Speaker 1: pin down and then just fell over on his face
Speaker 1: and got two free throws for it makes two free throws.
Speaker 1: Are up by six with one minute and thirty one
Speaker 1: seconds left, and then this was the remainder of the
Speaker 1: game from there. So again minute a half, two full possessions,
Speaker 1: six points, Malik Monk gets Steph Curry and pick and
Speaker 1: roll and Steph I clipped all these plays you could
Speaker 1: see in the thread that I put on my Twitter feed.
Speaker 1: But Steph is opened up way to Malik Monk's left
Speaker 1: hand side to try to get over the top with
Speaker 1: the screen. So when he's opened up this far a
Speaker 1: simple crossover move and his body is just going to
Speaker 1: be completely out of position to cross over, and so
Speaker 1: Monk hits him with the left to right Demona Sabonis
Speaker 1: flips the angle of the screen, so Steph just completely
Speaker 1: runs into the screen. Malike mun gets Downhill throws a
Speaker 1: whip pass across the court because he engages the low
Speaker 1: man in that case, whips pass across the court desash
Speaker 1: if Hissenkov. There's a rotation pass goes to the top
Speaker 1: of the key to Andrew Wiggins, and Steph after dying
Speaker 1: on the screen, did not make the additional rotation that
Speaker 1: was his rotation to the top of the key, just
Speaker 1: basically stopped playing on that possession, and Darren Fox got
Speaker 1: a wide open three on the left wing and he
Speaker 1: knocks it down on the other end of the floor,
Speaker 1: Draymond Green misses the three from the top of the key.
Speaker 1: Wiggins gets two back on an offensive rebound put back right.
Speaker 1: But then right after that possession on the left wing,
Speaker 1: Darren Fox straight iso of Andrew Wiggins just beats him
Speaker 1: off the dribble to the left straight line drive Loony's
Speaker 1: out of position. He ends up picking up a foul.
Speaker 1: Fox makes one out of two free throws. So now
Speaker 1: it's a four point game from there. Steph turns the
Speaker 1: ball over in the back court. This is everyone's fault.
Speaker 1: Steph makes a battery, not seeing the defender jump in
Speaker 1: the passing lane in front of Clay Thompson. But Andrew
Speaker 1: Wiggins and Kevon Looney are in the backcourt, and I
Speaker 1: should say in the front court, and as soon as
Speaker 1: they see that the Kings are trapping, they need to
Speaker 1: run up and make a target for themselves as a
Speaker 1: release valve for Steph. There is no release valve. If
Speaker 1: you look at the Kings. They jumped that Klay Thompson
Speaker 1: passing lane, but the other guys were denied. There was
Speaker 1: no other pass for Steph to make.
Speaker 2: He was trapped.
Speaker 1: Now just a simple matter of half court excuse me,
Speaker 1: execution in the details at the end of a basketball game, right,
Speaker 1: missing a rotation and then the whole team not being
Speaker 1: prepared for backcourt pressure, which you know is gonna come
Speaker 1: when you have a big lead in the final minute.
Speaker 1: That's the only way to win the game, force a turnover,
Speaker 1: try to make something happen in the ensuing chaos. Really
Speaker 1: nice pump fake side step three from an that gets
Speaker 1: it back to a one point game, and then Draymond
Speaker 1: Green turns it over on a back cut from Klay Thompson,
Speaker 1: a fake backcut. Again both of their faults. Draymond should
Speaker 1: not have thrown the pass in a really tight situation
Speaker 1: like that up one in the final minute unless it's
Speaker 1: very clearly open. But Klay Thompson. One of the most
Speaker 1: consistent messages I got from coaches in college was never
Speaker 1: fake a backcut. The reason why you never fake a
Speaker 1: backcut is because it's difficult to communicate with the ball handler.
Speaker 1: If you fake it, he's thinking you're running. Back Cuts
Speaker 1: are weird in the sense that you're pretty much throwing
Speaker 1: people open, right like if you wait for the cut
Speaker 1: or to actually get open. A lot of times the
Speaker 1: defense can react to that. So amos, you're always throwing
Speaker 1: people open on back cuts. You're never supposed to fake
Speaker 1: a backcut. So another execution error from Draymond Green and
Speaker 1: Klay Thompson leads to a turnover, and then on the
Speaker 1: other end, honestly I thought it was really nice defense
Speaker 1: from Andrew Wiggins against Malik Monk, cutting him off on
Speaker 1: his middle drive and forcing him to kind of reach
Speaker 1: back and shoot a wild shot over the top of
Speaker 1: a good contest from Andrew Wiggins, and he just made it.
Speaker 1: And then on the final possession, Steph Curry brings the
Speaker 1: ball up the floor and hunts a three point shot
Speaker 1: and Kevin Herder ends up aband Nam Lay Thompson on
Speaker 1: the right wing with three seconds left. I thought he
Speaker 1: had time to make the pass, didn't hit him. I mean,
Speaker 1: hard to get too upset about that, because at the
Speaker 1: end of those games, it's always like a tough call
Speaker 1: when you see how much time is left. It's really
Speaker 1: difficult to end that split second make a decision about
Speaker 1: whether or not there's enough time to make that pass.
Speaker 1: But I thought he could have. Did matter though, Steph
Speaker 1: took the deep three and he missed it. But it's
Speaker 1: funny because we have a tendency to overreact to singular,
Speaker 1: you know, possessions which can determine a basketball game, right,
Speaker 1: But a lot of times those singular possessions aren't reflective
Speaker 1: of a basketball team in the large scheme. Right, Like
Speaker 1: when I look at this particular game. I'm not worried
Speaker 1: about so much the late game stuff from the Warriors
Speaker 1: because it's just unusual, right, Like Steph Curry is the
Speaker 1: guy who usually carries you home, so you're not you know,
Speaker 1: there's no adjustment you need to make other than the
Speaker 1: fact that Steph's not going to do that next time, right.
Speaker 1: So it's more important for us to look in at
Speaker 1: the specific basketball things. And I do think that there
Speaker 1: are some specific basketball things that the Kings can do
Speaker 1: that give the Warriors some problems. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: a coincidence that they push the Warriors to seven last
Speaker 1: year with these specific issues. The Warriors have good wing defenders.
Speaker 1: They have a lot of bodies that are between six
Speaker 1: seven and six ' nine that can guard other wings right.
Speaker 1: Andrew Wiggins is one of the best in the league
Speaker 1: at it when he's right right. Moses Moody is a
Speaker 1: guy that can really slide his feet and contain on
Speaker 1: the perimeter. Jonathan Kaming is a guy if you give
Speaker 1: him a really focused on ball assignment, he can have
Speaker 1: some success there. Gary Payton, though, is pretty much the
Speaker 1: only guard on the team that is capable of holding
Speaker 1: his own against a good guard athlete. And one of
Speaker 1: the issues there is because they don't have great guards defensively,
Speaker 1: they're put in a lot of positions where they're in
Speaker 1: rotation and out of position, and so as a result,
Speaker 1: they foul a lot. They fouled a lot last night.
Speaker 1: And I know, look, Warriors fans are just like Lakers fans.
Speaker 1: They're entirely convinced that they are victims of bad officiating.
Speaker 1: And you guys know how I feel about that. In
Speaker 1: my opinion, blaming officiating is a loser mentality. It's completely
Speaker 1: ridiculous to think that this entire entity of officials is
Speaker 1: against your franchise when like, you have to understand that
Speaker 1: the people who are officials and I'm critical officials. We're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about officials later, but I'm critical officials of
Speaker 1: officials in the grand scheme of things and specific types
Speaker 1: of calls that they're calling around the league. But as
Speaker 1: an entity officials in the same way that we take
Speaker 1: our job seriously, all of us in all of our
Speaker 1: respective fields, they take their job seriously, and they're trying
Speaker 1: to be fair. Now or do they overinvolve themselves in games? Sure,
Speaker 1: but they're trying to be fair, and like the Warriors,
Speaker 1: they are twenty seventh and opponent free throws allowed per
Speaker 1: one hundred possessions this year they were twenty third. Last
Speaker 1: year when they won the title in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: they were twenty sixth. The year before that they were
Speaker 1: twenty nine. That's four consecutive years being a bottom ten team.
Speaker 1: When it comes to fouling shooters, it is a It
Speaker 1: is a Golden State Warriors fouling problem that starts at
Speaker 1: the point of attack. They are out of position too
Speaker 1: frequently defensively. That is the problem. When you hear Steve
Speaker 1: Kerr talk about the Warriors, what does he say. Does
Speaker 1: he say there's a reffing problem or does he say
Speaker 1: there's a fouling problem. He always says there is a
Speaker 1: fouling problem because that locker room is not full of losers.
Speaker 1: It's full of winners, and they all have winner mentalities.
Speaker 1: And their winner mentality is we are in control of
Speaker 1: our own destiny on this front. If we do a
Speaker 1: better job, we will not foul. How did Looney get
Speaker 1: fouled on that get the foul on that final possession
Speaker 1: from Deerren Fox drive into the basket one of the
Speaker 1: late ones in the final minutes because Andrew Wiggins got
Speaker 1: absolutely toasted at the point of attack and it was
Speaker 1: a straight line drive downhill. Like there was another one
Speaker 1: on Dario Sartz that I disagree with it. And again,
Speaker 1: when you watch games, you're always going to be able
Speaker 1: to nitpick specific calls, like I saw calls, specific videos
Speaker 1: floating around on Twitter and what this is. This is
Speaker 1: what confirmation biases. There are dozens of bad calls in
Speaker 1: every single NBA game, So if you have convinced yourself
Speaker 1: that your team is a victim of poor officiating, you
Speaker 1: will be able to find clips. But I guarantee you
Speaker 1: there were Kings fans watching that game last night that
Speaker 1: were super pissed off when Steph Curry got two free
Speaker 1: throws to put him up one twenty one to one fifteen,
Speaker 1: setting a pin down screen and falling over onto his elbows.
Speaker 1: Like that's the point, Like it is you you're going
Speaker 1: if you want to go searching for bad calls, you'll
Speaker 1: find them. They happen in every single NBA game. They
Speaker 1: happen in every single crunch time of every single NBA game.
Speaker 1: You could argue a missed call plays a role in
Speaker 1: every single crunch time basketball game that ever takes place.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, that's just part
Speaker 1: of the game. And in the big picture, when you
Speaker 1: zoom out, there's a lot of miss calls, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of correct calls. They tend to pretty typically affect
Speaker 1: each team relatively evenly. On any given one night, you
Speaker 1: might get a rougher whistle or a better whistle, but
Speaker 1: that sort of thing evens out over the eighty two
Speaker 1: and you see clear data that demonstrates that the Warriors
Speaker 1: foul too much. It's a pretty significant problem. Now on
Speaker 1: the flip side of that, to give King's credit, this
Speaker 1: is what they're best at.
Speaker 2: They space you out.
Speaker 1: And they have two guys that everyone in the league
Speaker 1: struggles to keep in front off the dribble in Milik
Speaker 1: Monk and Deren Fox. Kings fans will remember after that series,
Speaker 1: that was my major takeaway was like, Wow, they have
Speaker 1: a real foundation here. Nobody can guard Dearon Fox and
Speaker 1: Malik Monk. Malik Monk final possession against one of the
Speaker 1: best perier defenders in the league gets to his spot,
Speaker 1: knocks out a shot. He was against pretty damn good defense,
Speaker 1: but he made a shot anyway, and Andrew Wiggins, I
Speaker 1: think struggles a little bit against some of the smaller,
Speaker 1: quicker guards. That's what's a little tough with this roster,
Speaker 1: which we're gonna talk about in a little bit. But
Speaker 1: like this is what this is what the Kings do,
Speaker 1: and they've specifically had a lot of success this year
Speaker 1: setting ball screens further away from the basket. This has
Speaker 1: been a pretty consistent counter that I've seen around the
Speaker 1: league for ball pressure. So think of it like this,
Speaker 1: like a lot of times you won't guard if he
Speaker 1: shooters that far away from the basket, right, And I
Speaker 1: would say Deern Fox, who's a good shooter at this point,
Speaker 1: he's shooting the ball pretty well this year, but like
Speaker 1: he's one of those guys that, like you'd rather give
Speaker 1: a pull up jump shot too, right. But the tricky
Speaker 1: part is is like a lot of coaches really want
Speaker 1: to apply ball pressure for obvious reasons. If you apply
Speaker 1: ball pressure, they can get teams to slowly get the
Speaker 1: ballycross half court, which cuts into their time of the
Speaker 1: shot clock. It's a good rhythm disruptor. In general, I
Speaker 1: think it serves to make ball handlers less comfortable, which
Speaker 1: can help you, you know, force them into lesser games
Speaker 1: because they're not as confident, not as comfortable, not as
Speaker 1: you know, free flowing as they're used to being. But
Speaker 1: one of the counters to that is if you apply
Speaker 1: ball pressure that far away from the basket and you
Speaker 1: set a ball screen there, put that on ball defender
Speaker 1: in a really bad, a really tough predicament. And the
Speaker 1: Kings have been killing teams with this, not just regular
Speaker 1: ball screens that far away from the basket, but they
Speaker 1: also run this like kinda they run it out of
Speaker 1: horns where they'll have like Harrison Barnes and Demanded Sabonis
Speaker 1: basically come up to Darren Fox right at the top
Speaker 1: of the key, but like extended out to like thirty
Speaker 1: thirty five feet and they'll just both screen the on
Speaker 1: ball defender and then Sabonis will roll downhill super hard
Speaker 1: and Harrison Barnes will pop out through the three point line.
Speaker 1: And they just absolutely killed teams with that as well.
Speaker 1: But like, this is the thing that this this particular team,
Speaker 1: this is the predicament they put you in. I always
Speaker 1: talking about. I was talking with the nerd SASH guys
Speaker 1: today when we were talking about the top Tier contenders,
Speaker 1: Like every team kind of has their identity, the stuff
Speaker 1: they're good at, this stuff they're bad at. I think
Speaker 1: Sabonis got exposed a little bit last year in the
Speaker 1: playoffs is a power player who struggles to bully good
Speaker 1: defenses on the front line. But it pretty clearly stood
Speaker 1: out that hold On they're actually capable of being better
Speaker 1: defensively on the point of attack than they were for
Speaker 1: most of the season. And they're actually really really difficult
Speaker 1: to guard when they're spread out because how easy it
Speaker 1: is for their guards to beat people downhill. And I
Speaker 1: think I think like coming out of that playoff front,
Speaker 1: if you guys remember I talked about how the two
Speaker 1: guards was an actual excellent foundation, but they had to
Speaker 1: find a way to get more stops than they were getting. Right,
Speaker 1: this is where I want to move into the King's
Speaker 1: deep dive a little bit, because again, if we look,
Speaker 1: Kings have won eight out of ten. The two they
Speaker 1: lost were to the Pelicans, and they got just absolutely
Speaker 1: sliced and diced by Zion Williamson in those games. And
Speaker 1: if you really look at their roster, that's like the
Speaker 1: one positional archetype that they're just not set up to handle, right,
Speaker 1: and Kings have some gaping flaws. That's why I don't
Speaker 1: consider them to be a top tier contender.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: But outside of those ten games, those two games, these
Speaker 1: are the other wins over that ten game stretch. They
Speaker 1: beat the Warriors last night, right, They went into Minnesota
Speaker 1: and blew out the Timberwolves. They were one of my
Speaker 1: top tier contenders. They went into Dallas blew out the Mavericks.
Speaker 1: They went into Los Angeles and blew out the LAS
Speaker 1: that's one of my top tier contenders. Then they beat
Speaker 1: the Calves in the thunder at home. They've been probably
Speaker 1: the most impressive team in the league over the last
Speaker 1: two or three weeks.
Speaker 2: So like, this is not.
Speaker 1: This is this is a team that's playing basketball as well,
Speaker 1: if not better than anybody in the league right now.
Speaker 1: How how are they doing it? What I think is
Speaker 1: super fascinating is there only tenth in offense over the span,
Speaker 1: only tenth in offense over a span where they've been
Speaker 1: one of the best teams in the league eight out
Speaker 1: of ten wins. And the reason why is because they're defending.
Speaker 1: They're defending, and they're competing on the glass at a
Speaker 1: much higher level than they have in the regular season
Speaker 1: in the past. They are thirteenth in defensive rating over
Speaker 1: this ten game span. And before you go, oh, Jason,
Speaker 1: thirteenth is not anything. What were the teams they played?
Speaker 1: Look at the teams they played. They played a boatload
Speaker 1: of good playoff teams and had the thirteenth best defensive
Speaker 1: rating over that span. I don't think that's a coincidence.
Speaker 1: And the big thing that's standing out to me on
Speaker 1: tape is just commitment from the perimeter defenders. This is
Speaker 1: a team that has a lot of speed and length
Speaker 1: on the perimeter, and so when those guys do their job,
Speaker 1: it's an easier job for the interior players. Right they're
Speaker 1: actually doing a particularly great job of chasing teams off
Speaker 1: the three point line. I talk about this a lot
Speaker 1: in terms of defensive foundations.
Speaker 2: You need to be.
Speaker 1: Either really good at protecting the paint or really good
Speaker 1: at protecting the three point line, preferably both, and the
Speaker 1: top defenses in the league are usually good at both,
Speaker 1: but you need to be able to be really good
Speaker 1: at at least one of them. From a schematic standpoint, So,
Speaker 1: for instance, if you're a team that if you're a
Speaker 1: team that struggles at the point of attack. You can
Speaker 1: still defend the paint well by having a really strong
Speaker 1: help and recover system, but you're probably gonna give up
Speaker 1: a lot of backside threes. If you have a lot
Speaker 1: of perimeter speed and you struggle in terms of interior size,
Speaker 1: it actually makes sense to do what the Kings do
Speaker 1: and just chaotically chase everyone off the three point line,
Speaker 1: because that's your biggest advantage is perimeter speed. And so
Speaker 1: they're actually the third best team in the NBA over
Speaker 1: the last ten games at guarding the three point line.
Speaker 1: They're allowing just thirty one point one to three point
Speaker 1: attempts per one hundred possessions. That's insane. They're allowing just
Speaker 1: sixteen point eight wide open threes per game in the
Speaker 1: last ten games, that's the ninth best mark in the NBA.
Speaker 1: And then in addition to that, they're doing an amazing
Speaker 1: job cleaning up the defensive glass. They are grabbing seventy
Speaker 1: four percent of available defensive rebounds over this ten game stretch.
Speaker 1: That's third best in the NBA. So what I find
Speaker 1: is super fascinating about this win streak is like they're
Speaker 1: making it a pain in the butt for everybody in
Speaker 1: the details, and they've actually been good, not great offensively.
Speaker 1: That to me is a really strong indicator of like
Speaker 1: an identity shift within this team. But they're moving towards
Speaker 1: their strengths, which is we're fast as hell, so teams
Speaker 1: can't guard us on the perimeter, but we can flip
Speaker 1: that on them on the other end too, and we
Speaker 1: can chase them off the three point line and we
Speaker 1: can rotate, which is exactly what they did to slow
Speaker 1: down the Warriors last night. In addition to that, several
Speaker 1: key guys are playing well. Kevin Herder, he was broke
Speaker 1: to start the season, but he's up to forty four
Speaker 1: percent from three on eight attempts per game over this
Speaker 1: ten game span. On the season, he's shooting sixty six
Speaker 1: percent in effective field goal percentage on pull up jumpers,
Speaker 1: way up from last year. And then he's one of
Speaker 1: those guys too that's like doing a good job in
Speaker 1: the dirty work. He's winning a lot of contested rebound battles.
Speaker 1: He's making efforts on the perimeter. Defensively, I think Herder
Speaker 1: has been really good. Malik Monk is playing super well.
Speaker 1: He's just I tell you, I have as a Laker fan.
Speaker 1: I regret that we got him when we got him,
Speaker 1: because we had no opportunity in hell to maintain to
Speaker 1: keep him because of the situation with the salary cap
Speaker 1: and where they were at with the Russell Westbrook situation,
Speaker 1: and so it was inevitable that he was going to leave.
Speaker 2: And it just it's one of.
Speaker 1: Those things where man like he's literally exactly what the
Speaker 1: Lakers need right now in terms of offensive pop in
Speaker 1: dynamic scoring ability. Right so, Bonus has been incredible. Ten
Speaker 1: games span twenty one points, eleven rebounds, eight assists. He's
Speaker 1: also making almost forty percent of his catch and shoo
Speaker 1: jumpers this year, which is pretty significant considering teams basically
Speaker 1: just ignore him. Sasha vaz Aankov was awesome in this
Speaker 1: Warrior game. He's looking like a really smart addition. And
Speaker 1: then Dearon Fox is like flat out playing at a
Speaker 1: superstar level. He is going toe to toe with the
Speaker 1: best players in the league and beating them and confident
Speaker 1: and talking shit and having a good time. Like he's
Speaker 1: he's playing at an extremely high level right now. It's
Speaker 1: fifty four percent on floaters this year. The pull up
Speaker 1: shooting is up from last year. Again, Like, specifically, they're
Speaker 1: figuring out that these ball screens far away from the
Speaker 1: basket are just giving him too much ahead of steam.
Speaker 1: And when he gets ahead of steam, he has all
Speaker 1: the reads down and then he can stop short to
Speaker 1: make that floater and then he can get all the
Speaker 1: way to the basket. He's just one of those guys that,
Speaker 1: like right now, with the actions that they're running and
Speaker 1: getting him those advantages that far away from the basket,
Speaker 1: he's one of the hardest players in the league to
Speaker 1: guard right now. It's that that's classic combination. I always
Speaker 1: talk about a reliable pull up shooting with real downhill athleticism.
Speaker 1: But yeah, this is the version of the King that
Speaker 1: can make the Kings, that can make noise in the playoffs.
Speaker 1: Not last year's version. This version can make noise. Only
Speaker 1: tenth in offense over this winning this winning stretch, but
Speaker 1: thirteenth in defense, and they've been the third best defensive
Speaker 1: rebounding team.
Speaker 2: In the league.
Speaker 1: This is the way, this is the way, all right
Speaker 1: on the Warriors front. Now, important context here is that
Speaker 1: I am not mister overreact to regular season stuff guy.
Speaker 1: I just have seen too many examples over the years
Speaker 1: of teams that dominate the regular season and then struggle
Speaker 1: in the playoffs. And I see teams that struggle all
Speaker 1: year in the regular season and then beat dominant regular
Speaker 1: season teams. I mean, we literally saw this with the
Speaker 1: Warriors last year, with the Lakers last year, with the
Speaker 1: Miami Heat last year. It's a thing right now, it's
Speaker 1: I want to be careful with this because also if
Speaker 1: we go back through NBA history, it's typically a all
Speaker 1: time great player on a team that is dominating the
Speaker 1: regular season that wins the title. Right, if we go back,
Speaker 1: it's like it's last year, it's from day one. The NuGet,
Speaker 1: like the Nuggets are the one seed. Nuggets were the
Speaker 1: one seed, they won the title. Yoki is an all
Speaker 1: time great player.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Twenty twenty two, the Warriors ended up finishing with the
Speaker 1: three seed, but I think they started fifteen to one.
Speaker 1: They were the one seed basically most of the season
Speaker 1: until injuries struck. And remember Steph ended up missing the
Speaker 1: tail end of the season with that foot sprain, which
Speaker 1: directly affected them in the standings. But the Warriors were
Speaker 1: a team that dominated the regular season that year for
Speaker 1: the most part. Twenty twenty one, we have the Milwaukee
Speaker 1: Bucks one seed dominated the regular season that year. Twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: the Lakers one seed dominated the regular season that year.
Speaker 1: If you go back through NBA history, it's that combination
Speaker 1: dominate regular season with a like an all time great,
Speaker 1: like pantheon type of basketball player. Right, So I always
Speaker 1: have to be I have to balance the reality of
Speaker 1: Like I don't think the regular season is that important
Speaker 1: as it pertains to playoff success, but at the highest
Speaker 1: levels in terms of like hoisting the trophy, it's typically
Speaker 1: a good indicator for you to be dominating the regular season, right.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't even say a good indicator. It's a vital
Speaker 1: indicator in a lot of cases. But we have seen
Speaker 1: teams get very close without that, And so that's the thing.
Speaker 2: Like, I think the Warriors are very far.
Speaker 1: They're a very long way away from being like a
Speaker 1: championship favorite type of team. But I still it's gonna
Speaker 1: take so much for me to get to the point
Speaker 1: where I don't think this team is capable, where I
Speaker 1: don't put them on that tier. And there's a couple
Speaker 1: of specific things that I keep looking at, Like even
Speaker 1: forget about the big picture for a second, let's just
Speaker 1: look at last night. You're blowing them out until Gary
Speaker 1: Payton got hurt. Gary Payton with Andrew Wiggins, Steph Curry,
Speaker 1: Clay Thompson, and Dremont Green was dominating that basketball game.
Speaker 1: Corey Joseph had to play big fourth quarter minutes, he
Speaker 1: shout a pull up jump shot on Alik Mounk got
Speaker 1: absolutely stuffed, which led to a runout dunk from Alik
Speaker 1: Monk on the other end of the floor, or yeah,
Speaker 1: from Alak Monk on the other end of the floor, Like,
Speaker 1: that's a huge swing in that game. That doesn't happen
Speaker 1: if Chris Paul's out there, and if it's a playoff game,
Speaker 1: he's probably out there. If I remember, if I'm familiar
Speaker 1: enough with the situation, I believe Chris Paul was just
Speaker 1: dealing with soreness and was just playing it safe. And
Speaker 1: despite all of that, despite everything I just said, you
Speaker 1: still win that game if you don't make several crucial
Speaker 1: mistakes at the end, most of which came from your
Speaker 1: best players in Steph Curry and Draymond Green. Like, and
Speaker 1: it's a road game in Sacramento against the team that's
Speaker 1: arguably the best team in the league over the last
Speaker 1: three weeks. Who's been blowing everybody out, including two top
Speaker 1: tier contenders on my list over the last couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: Like that was a tough game to win anyway. The
Speaker 1: Kings were favored despite the fact that the Warriors have
Speaker 1: dominated that matchup forever. So, like, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: overreact to that game. Do I think the Warriors need
Speaker 1: to make a trade at some point, Yes, especially now
Speaker 1: that the the Gary Payton injury has come down, right,
Speaker 1: But like I've been telling I've been telling Warriors fans
Speaker 1: that I think they need to make a trade to
Speaker 1: upgrade that forward spot that's between Andrew Wiggins and Draymond Green.
Speaker 1: I've been saying that forever. I was saying that during
Speaker 1: the championship season, if you guys remember, I literally was saying, like,
Speaker 1: you will have more margin for air if you make
Speaker 1: that trade. And then I had to apologize to the
Speaker 1: Warriors front office and ownership after the season because they
Speaker 1: ended up not needing it. Right, But like like that,
Speaker 1: my take on this stuff is always like increase your
Speaker 1: odds where you have an opportunity, push your chips in.
Speaker 1: That's always my point of view. Now they literally have
Speaker 1: to because of the Gary Payton. But even if Gary
Speaker 1: Payton it did not get hurt. And even if the
Speaker 1: Warriors were ten and five right now, you know, or
Speaker 1: something way over five hundred, I still would be sitting
Speaker 1: here saying like, yeah, they should probably make a trade
Speaker 1: because they have some personnel weaknesses and they are things
Speaker 1: that they need to upgrade. They need more speed, they
Speaker 1: need more athleticism. Ideally, in my opinion, Andrew Wiggins is
Speaker 1: on the up and up. This is the thing.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of upside here. Guys.
Speaker 1: They have played the toughest schedule in the league. They
Speaker 1: have a fifty five percent opponent win percentage by far
Speaker 1: the highest in the league. They have the fourth easiest
Speaker 1: remaining schedule as a result, that's a big that's a
Speaker 1: big positive thing to look forward to. Right There are
Speaker 1: gonna be a lot of easy games on the schedule
Speaker 1: in the future. Andrew Wiggins is waking up two massive
Speaker 1: scoring out bursts in his last four games.
Speaker 2: So is Clay.
Speaker 1: Clay had zero twenty point games in the first fourteen
Speaker 1: games of the season. He's had three in the last four.
Speaker 1: That's a great sign. Moses Moody, who's going to be
Speaker 1: playing a lot now that Gary Payton's out. He looked
Speaker 1: great last night in that fourth quarter, I would have
Speaker 1: closed with him over Kavon Loney and then Draymond Green's
Speaker 1: jump shot. He' shooting sixty four percent effecive field goal
Speaker 1: percentage on jump shots this year. That like, and he's
Speaker 1: barely played. Like even when you're looking at the record,
Speaker 1: it's like, how should we evaluate the Warriors. Should we
Speaker 1: evaluate them with Draymond or without Draymond, Because if we're
Speaker 1: evaluating this chunk of games, it's been mostly without Draymond.
Speaker 1: That's the fact, right, So all of that stuff, to
Speaker 1: me is trending in the positive direction. But even with
Speaker 1: all of that, even if they were sitting at a
Speaker 1: much better record right now, I would still be recommending
Speaker 1: a trade to upgrade specific roster groups because I've said this.
Speaker 1: I said this with the Nerd Sash guys.
Speaker 2: Today.
Speaker 1: I have my top tier contenders, and right now I
Speaker 1: have them listed at the Nuggets at one, Celtics at two, Bucks,
Speaker 1: at three, Lakers, Suns, Wolves, Warriors is where I'm at.
Speaker 1: But like, I think there's a little bit of a
Speaker 1: gap between the top three and the bottom four. I
Speaker 1: think once you go a nugget Celtics. I think there's
Speaker 1: even a little gap between Celtic Bucks, and then there's
Speaker 1: a little gap and then it's Lakers and the rest
Speaker 1: of the group. All of those teams in the in
Speaker 1: that lower level, in my opinion, are a trade away
Speaker 1: from being in that tier. With all those guys you
Speaker 1: just now are in a more serious predicament because Gary
Speaker 1: Payton's out, I'd be looking at guys like Jeremy Grant.
Speaker 1: I'd be looking at guys at like Lori Markinen. I mean,
Speaker 1: who knows. Maybe if the you know, the Hawks are
Speaker 1: having a lot of success with Jalen Johnson and Sadiq
Speaker 1: bays On in a contract year, maybe you can get
Speaker 1: Maybe you can I don't know, who knows if they're
Speaker 1: preferring DeAndre Hunter or Sadik bay in the long run,
Speaker 1: but maybe you can steal one of their wings. I
Speaker 1: don't know you but they need a big forward that's
Speaker 1: bigger than Wiggins, that's a good athlete in a plus
Speaker 1: offensive player that they can slot between Andrew Wiggins and
Speaker 1: Draymond Green. That is the one thing, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: that will push this team over the top, like way
Speaker 1: over the top, and so like you're that close, you're
Speaker 1: still within striking distance. You need to make a deal.
Speaker 1: So to the Lakers, the Lakers entire championship potential this
Speaker 1: year comes to to what D'angela Russell trade they make
Speaker 1: the Bucks. In my opinion, their entire championship potential this
Speaker 1: year comes down to whether or not they can upgrade
Speaker 1: them Elik Beasley position. Right, Like, all of this stuff
Speaker 1: is normal for teams that are at the top of
Speaker 1: the league. The difference is is the Warriors have had
Speaker 1: bad injury luck. They've had bad suspension luck. Obviously with
Speaker 1: Draymond Green. They I mean Draymond had the injury and
Speaker 1: the suspension, so he's barely played. You know, Steph Curry
Speaker 1: randomly missed two games and you ended up losing both
Speaker 1: of them. Klay Thompson was playing like shit, Andrew Wiggins
Speaker 1: was playing like shit, and you played the.
Speaker 2: Hardest schedule in the league. So of course you're you're gonna.
Speaker 1: Look up and be like, oh man, we're a couple
Speaker 1: games under five hundred. That's not that's not to me
Speaker 1: some sort of of death sentence.
Speaker 2: It's just not.
Speaker 1: I still believe, you know, Klay Thompson after the game
Speaker 1: last night was like, I still believe this group can
Speaker 1: do special things. I one hundred percent agree your core
Speaker 1: guys Draymond Wiggins, Klay Staff, they are they are what
Speaker 1: you need at those position groups. You just need an
Speaker 1: upgrade at that four spot.
Speaker 2: You need Like.
Speaker 1: We've learned this in the Lakers series last year, but
Speaker 1: against the teams are starting to figure out that with
Speaker 1: Draymond Green and Cavan Luoni on the floor, there's just
Speaker 1: not enough offense and so they find ways to guard.
Speaker 1: And I mean you saw that again at the end
Speaker 1: of that Kings game last night when Steph was really
Speaker 1: struggling to get any openings right. So, like, at a
Speaker 1: certain point, a plus offensive player who's also big and
Speaker 1: a great athlete at that four spot literally fixes all
Speaker 1: their problems. It's something that I that I that I
Speaker 1: think this hit this season hinges on at this point.
Speaker 1: But no I've seen I saw a Warriors fan say
Speaker 1: something along the lines of like everyone's up to be
Speaker 1: traded except for Steph, And I'm like, what, Like, why
Speaker 1: would you blow the team up over less than a
Speaker 1: fourth of the season with the type of luck you've
Speaker 1: had in the schedule you've played. I just don't get it,
Speaker 1: but again, like I'm not there are certain things that
Speaker 1: people listen to the show should know about me. I'm
Speaker 1: not the guy to go to if you want to
Speaker 1: hear me bitch and moan about the refs in terms
Speaker 1: of like, uh, I will bitch and moan about the refs,
Speaker 1: but not about specific teams. I'll bitch about him in
Speaker 1: the big picture. And I'm not the guy to come
Speaker 1: to if you want to have me overreact to regular
Speaker 1: season results. I'm just not that guy. Like I have
Speaker 1: just seen too much in the regular season in huge
Speaker 1: sample sizes to feel differently in that regard. All right,
Speaker 1: let's move on to the mailbag. Hey, Jason, I'm curious
Speaker 1: about Starver's role player growth. Take Stephan Clay for instance.
Speaker 1: Lifelong Warriors fan, excuse me. Every year, as Steph loses
Speaker 1: some quickness, the league adapts to his game plan, and
Speaker 1: his need for elite ball handling ramps up. In the playoffs,
Speaker 1: he seems to add exactly the thing to keep him
Speaker 1: effective strength elite ball handling, pick and roll mastery, et cetera.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, Clay loses some of his athleticism
Speaker 1: and he seems to degrade as a player. The loss
Speaker 1: of his step makes him a less effective defender, and
Speaker 1: he doesn't seem to have the same separation he used
Speaker 1: to get that made his hot streaks unstoppable. But he
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to add pieces to make up for these losses.
Speaker 1: Is there some difference in what's asked of stars and
Speaker 1: role players that leads the former to adapt and grow
Speaker 1: and the latter to stagnate in the grade? Really good question.
Speaker 1: I you know, I have another question later on. I'll
Speaker 1: just read you the question real quick. It's the third
Speaker 1: mail back question. Why has Anthony Davis's jump shot regressed
Speaker 1: so much? Is the third question? And this is what
Speaker 1: I would say. When you're talking about the real all
Speaker 1: time greats, and I'm talking Stephan lebron right, I have
Speaker 1: both of them in my top five perimeter players of
Speaker 1: all time. And you're talking Jokic, You're talking you know,
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant, You're talking these these like all these like
Speaker 1: top twenty all time players. If you start to compare
Speaker 1: them to anybody else you're going to, it's just a
Speaker 1: ridiculous standard. And what I mean by that is like,
Speaker 1: imagine the level of psychotic competitiveness. It takes to be
Speaker 1: as good as these guys are to where like specifically Steph,
Speaker 1: Lebron and Jokic, those three guys are the three most inevitable,
Speaker 1: unstoppable offensive, playoff offensive players that I've seen in my lifetime,
Speaker 1: and they like when they were at their best, specifically
Speaker 1: when Lebron is at his best, he's older now, but
Speaker 1: like Stephan Jokic are still there. It's like they have
Speaker 1: patched every single hole in their offense and have made
Speaker 1: it so that there is no coverage that works, there's
Speaker 1: no personal type of defender that works. There's no nothing
Speaker 1: that works. It took psychotic competitiveness to get to that point.
Speaker 1: It's not like they get old and they would accept it.
Speaker 1: That same psychotic competitiveness kicks in that causes them to
Speaker 1: evolve and adapt and like a lot of times, we
Speaker 1: forget that, there's levels to that even within the NBA.
Speaker 1: Like they're four hundred and fifty NBA players, Do you
Speaker 1: think all four hundred and fifty of them are psychotic competitors. No,
Speaker 1: there's levels to it. Like Clay and Anthony Davis, for instance,
Speaker 1: those are guys that are very, very competitive and they're
Speaker 1: winners and they're foxhole guys, and they're tough, and they're
Speaker 1: good leaders, and they're good teammates and they're all of
Speaker 1: those things. But like, like the gap, there's still a
Speaker 1: gap there between those guys and what those all time great,
Speaker 1: pantheon type of guys do. And so, like I think
Speaker 1: a lot of times it's what I what I'm saying
Speaker 1: is with that specific Steph Clay dynamic, I wouldn't focus
Speaker 1: so much on on on what Clay is doing and
Speaker 1: what he's not doing, and more just put the appreciation
Speaker 1: on Steph for what he is, which is an outlier
Speaker 1: in NBA history, one of the all time greats, like
Speaker 1: four hundred and fifty players in the league.
Speaker 2: Over what is this the.
Speaker 1: Like, I mean, it's been like seven or eight decades
Speaker 1: of NBA basketball now, so I mean we're talking thousands
Speaker 1: and thousands and thousands and thousands of players and then
Speaker 1: there's like these fifteen to twenty guys that are just
Speaker 1: at another level. And so I don't think it's realistic
Speaker 1: to expect the other guys to be wired the way
Speaker 1: that those guys are. Why for the same reason where
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, Tom Brady can do all the
Speaker 1: podcasts he wants, and he can tell the young quarterbacks like, hey,
Speaker 1: you gotta do this, you gotta do that, like this
Speaker 1: is your professional blah blah. No, most of them are
Speaker 1: going to work as hard as Tom Brady.
Speaker 2: They just won't. They won't because Tom Brady is a psychopath,
Speaker 2: which is why he has seven Super Bowls. Right.
Speaker 1: So, like a lot of this time, a lot of
Speaker 1: these situations, we just kind of have to acknowledge the
Speaker 1: stars for what they are, which is outliers in the
Speaker 1: human experience. I had a bunch of people I didn't
Speaker 1: pick a specific question, but I had at least like
Speaker 1: six or seven people bitching and moaning in the comments
Speaker 1: that I didn't have the Suns in my Power rankings
Speaker 1: last on Monday. Okay, So I wanted to address that
Speaker 1: real quick. It's really simple. There were a lot of
Speaker 1: teams that I considered in that top ten. There's like,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of really good teams in the league.
Speaker 1: There's like, I don't know, the top off top of
Speaker 1: my head, there's like seventeen or eighteen teams that have
Speaker 1: like legitimate cases to be top ten, right based on
Speaker 1: their records. The Suns have played made by far the
Speaker 1: easiest schedule in the league. They're like the opposite of
Speaker 1: the Warriors. When Devin Booker made that game winner against
Speaker 1: the Knicks the other night, that was just the second
Speaker 1: time this season that the Suns beat a team that
Speaker 1: was five hundred or better. These are the other teams
Speaker 1: in the league that have two or fewer wins against
Speaker 1: teams that are five hundred are better. The Knicks, who
Speaker 1: are the team that the Sun's beating that game, The Jazz,
Speaker 1: the Hornets, the Blazers, the Bulls, the Grizzlies, the Wizards,
Speaker 1: the Pistons. So I'm just gonna be honest with you.
Speaker 1: This has absolutely nothing to do with what the Sons
Speaker 1: are capable of in the big picture. I'm excited when
Speaker 1: the Suns finally start playing real teams for us to
Speaker 1: talk about what they're capable of. But to this point,
Speaker 1: they've had a cupcake schedule. They've beat every bad team
Speaker 1: they've played for the most part, except for that one
Speaker 1: crazy game against the Spurs, right, and then they every
Speaker 1: time they've gone up against a good team, they've lost,
Speaker 1: except for the Knicks game, right, and then the Warriors.
Speaker 1: I think there's one other I can't remember what the
Speaker 1: other win was. But like they've struggled, struggled to beat
Speaker 1: winning teams. They're two and four in the sixth game,
Speaker 1: the small sample size we have of them playing winning teams,
Speaker 1: they're two and four. Like even the Lakers, who have
Speaker 1: had their issues against winning teams, they've won five games
Speaker 1: against winning teams, so like they've won five games and
Speaker 1: they beat the Suns twice. So like, if you're expecting
Speaker 1: me to bump the Lakers down for a Suns team
Speaker 1: because they've won more regular season win or two more
Speaker 1: regular season wins when they haven't played anybody, Like, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna do that. And if I was gonna bump
Speaker 1: the Lakers for somebody else, it'd beat they're like three
Speaker 1: or four other teams I would have picked before the Suns.
Speaker 1: And like, again, it's a long season, guys, Like they
Speaker 1: everybody plays eighty two games. Everybody plays the good teams eventually,
Speaker 1: So like if the Suns get to that point and
Speaker 1: they're still winning and Brad Beil comes back, and you know,
Speaker 1: everyone's out there and they're healthy and they're playing good basketball,
Speaker 1: they're gonna win games and then they'll be in my
Speaker 1: power rankings. I have no interest in in I have
Speaker 1: no interest in like personal vendettas against any team. That's
Speaker 1: just not the case. I'm gonna call out who I
Speaker 1: think is playing the best right now. For instance, Like,
Speaker 1: the one of the big reasons why I'm not all
Speaker 1: that intense on the Warriors right now is guess who
Speaker 1: was fourth in my power rankings on Monday. The Sacramento Kings.
Speaker 1: I think they're awesome, And so a road game against
Speaker 1: the Sacramento Kings is gonna be a really tough one
Speaker 1: to win, right So, Like, but yeah, like I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be doing the power rankings every single Monday moving forward,
Speaker 1: and I'm when it comes to teams that have similar records,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be looking at the quality of the opponents
Speaker 1: they've want played a heavy emphasis on the previous week,
Speaker 1: because I want it to be reflective of the u
Speaker 1: of the who's playing the best basketball right now? Right
Speaker 1: and that, Yeah, like that's gonna be a tiebreaker for me,
Speaker 1: Like what is your like what kind of wins are
Speaker 1: you putting up at this point? As I've said, like
Speaker 1: one of the people said in the comments are like
Speaker 1: they've won seven games in a row, Like how could
Speaker 1: you ignore that, and I want to be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they won seven games in a row against bad teams.
Speaker 1: What do I What do I say are the driving
Speaker 1: forces between bad stretches and good stretches. Nobody goes and
Speaker 1: wins a bunch of games in a row against good teams,
Speaker 1: even the Kings, who kind of did dropped two against
Speaker 1: the Pelicans, Right, That's the point. Whenever you actually play
Speaker 1: seven or eight tough games in a row, the good
Speaker 1: teams go like five and three and the okay teams
Speaker 1: go like three and five, right, Like that, that's what happens.
Speaker 1: When you rip off a bunch of wins. It's usually
Speaker 1: easy schedule, healthy roster. When you drop a bunch of games,
Speaker 1: it's usually guys down with injury playing a tougher schedule.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So we got to like kind of sift through some
Speaker 1: of that data, especially when we have this many good teams,
Speaker 1: because we're splitting hairs in all these cases. The Sons
Speaker 1: are still in my list of top tier contenders. So
Speaker 1: I'm not over here saying that they can't win. Of course,
Speaker 1: I'm saying they can win. Now, if you're looking for
Speaker 1: a more basketball analysis surrounding the Suns and specific things
Speaker 1: I've noticed. Go over to the nerd sessh Feed did
Speaker 1: an hour and a half with them today, talked tons
Speaker 1: of suns specific issues that I'm worried about.
Speaker 2: Third mail back.
Speaker 1: Question, why has Anthony Davis's jump shout regressed so much?
Speaker 1: In your opinion, I've thought a lot about this. I've
Speaker 1: heard people say muscle, I've heard people say injuries, blah
Speaker 1: blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: To me, the big one.
Speaker 1: Is is the time he takes off every off season.
Speaker 1: From what I've heard, the dude takes two months off
Speaker 1: every single off season at the beginning of the summer.
Speaker 1: And I'm a big believer that, like, specifically when it
Speaker 1: comes to jump shooting, it's very rhythm based. It is
Speaker 1: like tinkering, and like it's one thing to take a
Speaker 1: week or two off, it's one thing to take a vacation.
Speaker 1: But like, even when you're taking time off, you should
Speaker 1: be working on your jump shot in my opinion, and
Speaker 1: I think I think the people that are truly great
Speaker 1: transcendent jump shooters around the league are all obsessive about it,
Speaker 1: and they work about they work on it. You know,
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, I'm gonna take an easy week, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna give my.
Speaker 2: Legs a break. Those dudes are still.
Speaker 1: Shooting three four times that week like that, Like it's
Speaker 1: it's such an important part of like polishing and in
Speaker 1: tinkering with your with your form and tinkering with your
Speaker 1: muscle memory and just it's like a perfectionist attitude, right,
Speaker 1: And like Anthony Davis is one of those guys that like, like,
Speaker 1: I don't think he necessarily views his jump shot is
Speaker 1: that important to his game, which I would disagree, but
Speaker 1: that's clearly the way he feels. Watch the way he's shooting.
Speaker 1: But it becomes a problem right when he's hit missing
Speaker 1: every pick and pop jump shot that he takes, and
Speaker 1: he's when he's catching those little short you know, pocket
Speaker 1: passes around twelve to fifteen feet, he's missing those jumpers.
Speaker 1: It's a problem. And like, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: this is where I'm saying, like, don't hold him to
Speaker 1: the Lebron James Steph Curry standard in terms of competitiveness
Speaker 1: and obsessive work, because that's just silly. Anthony Davis is
Speaker 1: not that guy, right, Like he's something below that, right,
Speaker 1: And so I've just kind of grown to accept it.
Speaker 1: At this point rooting for the Lakers. Last question, what
Speaker 1: can the NBA do about the rules so that we
Speaker 1: don't have so many games with seventy plus free throws?
Speaker 1: Having the game stop every minute for foul and some
Speaker 1: free throws is just unwatchable.
Speaker 2: Totally agree.
Speaker 1: I think it's a huge problem in the league right now.
Speaker 1: In terms of fixing it, it really is this simple
Speaker 1: to me. I would you know how like the standard
Speaker 1: of proof idea, right, So, like if you're being accused
Speaker 1: of something in court, different places around the world, there's
Speaker 1: a different standard of proof, right, And essentially it's like
Speaker 1: a moving goalpost, and like they inform the jury like, hey,
Speaker 1: this is the standard of proof, Like they need to
Speaker 1: demonstrate within this realm of possibility that there was guilt.
Speaker 1: And depending on the country, depending on the political system,
Speaker 1: depending on the legal system, there's this goal line that
Speaker 1: they have to reach, right, and then the jury will
Speaker 1: make a call from there, or the judge will make
Speaker 1: a call from there. Right. Well, Like that's kind of
Speaker 1: the way I look at it. With officiating right now,
Speaker 1: they are calling defensive fouls on a whim way too frequently,
Speaker 1: and so as a result, you're seeing dozens of calls
Speaker 1: every single night where it's like, what, like, nothing even
Speaker 1: happened there. Specifically, the one that's killing me is like
Speaker 1: the hard dribble move to one direction, dude slides his feet,
Speaker 1: takes a little bit of contact in the chest, and
Speaker 1: the dude just throws the ball up and he gets
Speaker 1: two free throws. Like that's driving me insane at this point.
Speaker 1: So what I would do is I would raise the
Speaker 1: standard of proof to where it's like, you do not
Speaker 1: blow the whistle unless it is very clearly a foul
Speaker 1: because above and beyond what it should be considered fair
Speaker 1: for defense, they're obsessed with scoring for the television product.
Speaker 1: I would argue that freedom of movement, or I should say,
Speaker 1: the stoppages of play are more important than the freedom
Speaker 1: of movement. They want freedom of movement. So the games
Speaker 1: high flying and exciting and all this cool shit's happening,
Speaker 1: but in the process, it's a terrible watch because dudes
Speaker 1: are going to the line all the time. And again
Speaker 1: this is where the competitiveness comes in. We have these
Speaker 1: competitors that are doing everything they can to win these games, right,
Speaker 1: and so of course they're taking advantages of the advantage
Speaker 1: of the rules. Right, if you drop the standard to
Speaker 1: where the ref does not call the foul unless they
Speaker 1: are one thousand percent certain that a physical altercation took
Speaker 1: place that disrupted that a player's ability to, you know,
Speaker 1: to make the shot in a significant manner, essentially like
Speaker 1: moving the margin a little bit. I believe that yes,
Speaker 1: there would be a lot more uncalled fouls, and yes
Speaker 1: there'd be some offensive players that get pissed off, and
Speaker 1: yes there'd be some more lower scoring games, but the
Speaker 1: actual television product would be better because it would flow
Speaker 1: on TV and you wouldn't be going to the line
Speaker 1: every five seconds. I think it's a huge problem in
Speaker 1: the NBA. I think I think it's like one of
Speaker 1: the biggest ones standing in the way of the NBA's
Speaker 1: long term success. Then he shortened the regular season and
Speaker 1: they need to fix the officiating. I think those two
Speaker 1: particular things with how good the league is right now
Speaker 1: from a talent standpoint, the nd season tournament has been hit,
Speaker 1: the playing tournament's been a hit. If they can fix
Speaker 1: those issues, If they could fix specifically the officiating in
Speaker 1: the length of the regular season, I think the league
Speaker 1: could explode around the globe at that point, all right, guys,
Speaker 1: that is all I have for today.
Speaker 2: We'll be back.
Speaker 1: Tomorrow with more instant reactions.
Speaker 2: I will see you guys.
Speaker 1: Then the volume