Speaker 1: The volume. All right, Well, good to hoops tonight, you're
Speaker 1: at the volume. Happy twosday everybody. Hope all of you
Speaker 1: guys are having a great start to your week. It
Speaker 1: feels good to be back from vacation. Have one last
Speaker 1: little getaway before we start the season. I went up
Speaker 1: to the Pacific Northwest again. I got to go to
Speaker 1: a place I've never been before. We went to Olympic
Speaker 1: National Park and I got to do My favorite highlight
Speaker 1: of the trip was the Hurricane Ridge hike, where you
Speaker 1: get to see like this crazy panorama. You see Mount
Speaker 1: Olympus and all of the rest of the Olympic Range,
Speaker 1: you see the Strait of Wundafuca, you see Victoria, see
Speaker 1: Port Angeles. And then we had a clear day so
Speaker 1: in the distance you could see Mount Baker, which was
Speaker 1: a volcano I've been trying to see for years and
Speaker 1: it's just always been covered by clouds or it's been
Speaker 1: you know, in front of some ridge that I couldn't
Speaker 1: see over something. So it was just like a really
Speaker 1: cool trip. Got to do some relaxing, spend some time
Speaker 1: with some friends that were up in the Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 1: Had some of my old friends from Tucson meet us
Speaker 1: up there. It was a great little getaway, but you
Speaker 1: can sense it. We are a week away from training camp.
Speaker 1: And in addition to being a week away from training camp,
Speaker 1: the Golden State Warriors only have nine basketball players on
Speaker 1: their roster right now, as the Jonathan Kaminga situation has
Speaker 1: stretched through this entire summer, and so I wanted to
Speaker 1: kind of touch base there and talk about some of
Speaker 1: the new intel that we got from Sam Sharania and
Speaker 1: just kind of give my take on where this situation
Speaker 1: is going at this point. And then at the tail
Speaker 1: end of the show today, I've got four mail bag questions.
Speaker 1: We're gonna do a couple of mini mail bags this week.
Speaker 1: You guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribe
Speaker 1: to Hoops and O YouTube channels. You don't miss any
Speaker 1: more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at Underscore
Speaker 1: JSNLT so you guys don't miss show announcements. So forget
Speaker 1: about a podcast feed. Wherever you get your podcast under
Speaker 1: Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a
Speaker 1: rating and a review on that front. Jackson's also doing
Speaker 1: incredible work on our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook,
Speaker 1: and TikTok. Make sure you guys follow us there, and then,
Speaker 1: last but not least, keep dropping mail bag questions in
Speaker 1: the YouTube comments and we'll get to them in our
Speaker 1: mail bags throughout the remainder of the season. All right,
Speaker 1: let's talk some basketball. So the stalemate continues. We're just
Speaker 1: one week away from the started training camp. The Warriors
Speaker 1: have just nine players on the roster for next season.
Speaker 1: Still a lot more exciting than what they were looking
Speaker 1: at last season, given that Jimmy Butler is now in
Speaker 1: the fold, and we saw a pretty extended stretch of
Speaker 1: successful basketball from Steph, Jimmy and Raymond to end the season.
Speaker 1: And theoretically there are a bunch of players guys like
Speaker 1: Al Horford and Seth Curry and d Anthony Melton who
Speaker 1: are most likely going to sign with Golden State. But
Speaker 1: they're all waiting around for this Jonathan Minga situation and
Speaker 1: nobody is blinking. Not a week ago, Shams Ronnie came
Speaker 1: out with the report talking about how the Warriors have
Speaker 1: raised their offer to essentially twenty five million per year
Speaker 1: for three years, with a team option on that third year,
Speaker 1: essentially coming up to the annual value that Josh Kitty
Speaker 1: got from Chicago, but obviously shorter term, less guaranteed money.
Speaker 1: Sean's reported that Kaminga's camp has basically told the Warriors
Speaker 1: will take the if you just flip the team option
Speaker 1: into a player option, basically adding twenty five million in
Speaker 1: guaranteed money to the deal. Essentially, if he takes the
Speaker 1: deal the Warriors are offering and he doesn't perform, either
Speaker 1: for them or for whoever trades for him, there's a
Speaker 1: version of this where the team declines the option and
Speaker 1: he gets capped out at that fifty million, and he
Speaker 1: could be looking at much smaller deals for the remainder
Speaker 1: of his career. That's a potential risk that Kaminga would
Speaker 1: be taking in that situation. Whereas for the Warriors, if
Speaker 1: they give the player option at seventy five million guaranteed,
Speaker 1: it suddenly becomes a more difficult contract to trade if
Speaker 1: Jonathan Kaminga doesn't look good for the first half of
Speaker 1: the season, and anybody who wants to trade for them
Speaker 1: now has to consider the fact that they could be
Speaker 1: paying twenty five million dollars for Jonathan Kaminga three seasons
Speaker 1: from now. That could affect his value, and that essentially
Speaker 1: is the sticking point, and Kaminga's camp is basically looking
Speaker 1: at it saying like, hey, if Josh Gidty can get
Speaker 1: twenty five million for four years, this is a fair
Speaker 1: price for Jonathan. Now my feeling on like the value
Speaker 1: of the contract is complicated. Do I want Jonathan Kaminga
Speaker 1: on my team at twenty five million per year if
Speaker 1: I'm trying to win the title this year? No, I
Speaker 1: don't think he's in that phase of his career yet.
Speaker 1: I don't think he's good enough in like a starring
Speaker 1: role to justify the money, and I don't think he
Speaker 1: can really focus his talents into a smaller role to
Speaker 1: help a serious team win. Yet. Now, would I take
Speaker 1: Jonathan Kaminga on my team for twenty five million a
Speaker 1: year if I was in the middle of a rebuild
Speaker 1: and I was like actively hunting for talent to build
Speaker 1: around for the future, Yeah, I would. Let's take Josh
Speaker 1: Gittty for example. I think Josh Getty's an intriguing player.
Speaker 1: He's improved substantially as a three point shooter. I think
Speaker 1: he's like a decent half court shot creator, just big
Speaker 1: guard who can create advantages for his team. But I
Speaker 1: also don't think that a team that's gonna pay Josh
Speaker 1: Gitty twenty five million per year and to put the
Speaker 1: ball in his hands essentially as a number one option
Speaker 1: or number two option, I don't think that team's gonna
Speaker 1: be competing for a title. I don't think Josh Gitty
Speaker 1: has a ton of like untapped upside right like, I
Speaker 1: don't think he's got the potential to become Luca Light
Speaker 1: in five years. I don't. I don't think that's in
Speaker 1: the cards for Josh Gitty. And so that's just too
Speaker 1: much salary to tie up in a player who's at
Speaker 1: his best with the ball in his hands, but just
Speaker 1: not nearly as good as the other guys who will
Speaker 1: have the ball in their hands around the league in
Speaker 1: high volume. Last year, despite the flashes that he showed,
Speaker 1: Josh Gutty was less than a point per possession including
Speaker 1: passes in pick and roll in like over six hundred reps.
Speaker 1: He's not flashing some serious, untapped, like all NBA ball
Speaker 1: handler upside. So even if we think Josh Gitty might
Speaker 1: be a better player than Jonathan Kminga right now, I
Speaker 1: actually do think Jonathan Kaminga has real untapped upside I
Speaker 1: don't think he's gonna be an All NBA player or anything.
Speaker 1: That seems to be a long shot at this point,
Speaker 1: but I do think he could make an All Star
Speaker 1: team or two. In fact, like if I was stuck
Speaker 1: in basketball purgatory the way the Chicago Bulls are, I
Speaker 1: would rather be taking my chances with a guy like Kaminga.
Speaker 1: Give him the ball a ton, you won't be as
Speaker 1: good in the short term, but let's see how he
Speaker 1: can develop. Let's see if he becomes a player that
Speaker 1: can make an All Star team. He's got upside. I
Speaker 1: think there's actually value there. So to be clear, like
Speaker 1: if I was in a position where I was rebuilding,
Speaker 1: I think that's a fair contract price for a guy
Speaker 1: like Jonathan Kaminga. The problem is, there was no obvious
Speaker 1: team this summer that had the cap space for Johnathan
Speaker 1: Kaminga and had that type of role available, And the
Speaker 1: Warriors don't have that type of role available. So now
Speaker 1: the Warriors are in a buy. They either have to
Speaker 1: risk signing Kaminga into that type of salary slot, or
Speaker 1: they have to try rate him back and take similarly
Speaker 1: flawed salary, and it appears that they're not willing to
Speaker 1: do so. All we've all heard they don't want Malik Monk.
Speaker 1: I like Malink. I think he'd be a good fit
Speaker 1: in the Golden State system. Like they need scoring pop,
Speaker 1: they need guys who can like really be dynamic coming
Speaker 1: off of dribble handoffs. I think a guy like Malik
Speaker 1: Monk could do that. But he's got another sixty million
Speaker 1: dollars on his deal and the Warriors don't want to
Speaker 1: take that on. And this is where I think the
Speaker 1: Warriors need a little bit of a reality check. Even
Speaker 1: if you signed Jonathan Kaminga to a team friendly deal,
Speaker 1: like what's let's say that Kaminga accepted their first offer,
Speaker 1: which the reports said were like two for forty, so
Speaker 1: twenty million per for two years, and that's not even
Speaker 1: the offer anymore. The line has moved. The line has
Speaker 1: moved to two for fifty, essentially with that team option
Speaker 1: on the back end. But like, even if he even
Speaker 1: if you did sign him at two for forty, it's
Speaker 1: not like Kaminga is gonna suddenly become some massively valuable
Speaker 1: asset that's going to return a haul in a trade,
Speaker 1: like a bunch of good players and picks. Kaminga on
Speaker 1: his new deal, regardless of whether the Warriors signed him
Speaker 1: to it or someone else signs him to it. It's
Speaker 1: somewhat risky because it's going to be twenty plus million
Speaker 1: with multiple years for a young player that right now
Speaker 1: isn't very good, but that has a lot of upside,
Speaker 1: that has talent. He's flawed, though, there is risk there
Speaker 1: no matter what when you're taking a large salary slot
Speaker 1: like yeah, So Malik Monk to me is just a
Speaker 1: similar type of risk. It's a little different in the
Speaker 1: sense that he's older and he's more of a known commodity.
Speaker 1: But Malik Monk right now can do more for the
Speaker 1: Warriors than Jonathan Kaminga can. So he's a risky contract
Speaker 1: with real value in the immediate future, as opposed to
Speaker 1: Jonathan Minga, who if you did happen to get on
Speaker 1: a deal like that, is also going to tie up
Speaker 1: your books for multiple years and has more risk. And
Speaker 1: there's a version of this where he's not even in
Speaker 1: your rotation when things matter. We know, we just saw
Speaker 1: that last year when you threw him on the court
Speaker 1: after Steph Curry got hurt. So essentially what I'm saying
Speaker 1: is Kaminga's value is Kaminga's value right now? It's Malik
Speaker 1: Monk and a protected first round pick. I don't think
Speaker 1: that if you somehow signed Jonathan Kaminga to a team
Speaker 1: friendly deal, like let's say you get him on that
Speaker 1: deal that you're offering the two plus one with the
Speaker 1: team option. I don't think he's suddenly going to pull
Speaker 1: back some awesome young player and an unprotected first round pick.
Speaker 1: I don't think he's going not unless you somehow manage
Speaker 1: to rehab his value. And we just have such a
Speaker 1: large sample size now of him being a clearly clunky
Speaker 1: fit with the team. Like I've heard the Warriors want
Speaker 1: Keegan Murray in the deal. Why would the Kings do that.
Speaker 1: Keegan's a much better player than Jonathan Kaminga. That's a
Speaker 1: different class of asset that you would be bringing back
Speaker 1: in a deal like that. Your chance to turn Jonathan
Speaker 1: Kamina into real asset return was two years ago, when
Speaker 1: he was still on his rookie contract with multiple years remaining,
Speaker 1: with more of an unknown regarding his upside, and you
Speaker 1: were much more likely to get something like a really
Speaker 1: good young player and a unprotected first round pick for
Speaker 1: jk that time has passed. He's no longer a high
Speaker 1: value asset. He's gonna be making twenty plus million in
Speaker 1: the future. So my thing is, like I would have
Speaker 1: just taken them Elik Monk deal. I think he addresses
Speaker 1: a legitimate need with that scoring pop. He's already been
Speaker 1: kind of functioning in a five out offense with a
Speaker 1: passing folkrum big like Demanta Sabonis. You have a track
Speaker 1: record as the Warriors of turning like mediocre defensive guards
Speaker 1: into guys that can fill a role like I thought
Speaker 1: Buddy Yield was fine defensively last year. Monk's a better
Speaker 1: player than him. You have a specific need for more
Speaker 1: dynamic play at the guard spot in your rotation. He
Speaker 1: brings athleticism. I think he's a look. I rooted for
Speaker 1: him when he was with the Lakers. The dude's competitive,
Speaker 1: he plays hard. He's not perfect, He's got his flaws.
Speaker 1: He's small on defense, he can be a little helter skelter,
Speaker 1: and he can get out of position sometimes. But again,
Speaker 1: you're bringing him into a much smarter organization than where
Speaker 1: he's been in years past. And I get it. It's
Speaker 1: a protected first round pick, and those aren't worth as
Speaker 1: much as they used to be, but it's still a
Speaker 1: positive asset. You're turning Kaminga into a player that can
Speaker 1: help you in the short term. Yeah, Okay, Malik Monk's
Speaker 1: got twenty million on the books. Three years from now,
Speaker 1: who cares. You're most likely blowing the team up at
Speaker 1: that point. This this feels like very much like a
Speaker 1: two year window where you're trying to make this happen
Speaker 1: and you get a positive asset in the form of
Speaker 1: pick that you can then either package in the middle
Speaker 1: of the season for an all in type of move
Speaker 1: or you can hold for the future rebuild. I just
Speaker 1: don't think they're gonna get more down the line. I
Speaker 1: don't think there's some substantially better offer in February, So
Speaker 1: you might as well go into camp with your roster set,
Speaker 1: give him a league Monk, a chance to really learn
Speaker 1: the system, give him a full training camp. But I mean,
Speaker 1: all indications are that that deal is dead on the
Speaker 1: Warriors front. They either want the pick protections removed or
Speaker 1: they want a better player in, like a guy like
Speaker 1: Keegan Murray. And so it just feels like the latest
Speaker 1: example of the Warriors passing the buck on these young
Speaker 1: players on the situation with these young players, which is
Speaker 1: something they've been doing for years now in this era,
Speaker 1: and it's just unfortunate because it just feels foolish for
Speaker 1: everybody involved now. And honestly, like, even if the Warriors
Speaker 1: do somehow, let's say they flip it to a player
Speaker 1: option and you give Kaminga the three for seventy five,
Speaker 1: it's just gonna be the exact same situation this year,
Speaker 1: him being a clunky fit in and out of the rotation,
Speaker 1: weak trade offers coming in return that involves some sort
Speaker 1: of flawed player coming back and some sort of protected
Speaker 1: draft asset. I think there's just a little bit of
Speaker 1: a reality check that Golden State needs at this point.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get to some mailback questions and then
Speaker 1: we'll get out of here for today. Today's show is
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Speaker 1: or Virginia. Simple question, what's the highest you could see
Speaker 1: jokics climb all time? Such a tough guy to put
Speaker 1: up against other all timers, particularly bigs, because of his
Speaker 1: lack of rim protection as a center. Sometimes I feel
Speaker 1: you're almost better off not judging him as a big,
Speaker 1: But I truly think he finished his top ten all time.
Speaker 1: Keep up the good work, Jason, love the show. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for the kind words. I think the
Speaker 1: point you're making about him being viewed as a center
Speaker 1: is very interesting because it's not so much that I
Speaker 1: don't judge him as a big as it is that
Speaker 1: I just judge him more as an offensive engine. Right Like,
Speaker 1: for instance, when you're talking about Larry Bird all Time.
Speaker 1: Larry Bird was a guy who certainly wasn't a bad
Speaker 1: defensive player, but he was known for being the offensive
Speaker 1: engine of the Boston Celtics. Whereas you look at the
Speaker 1: centers in the all time list, the Chema lodged One's
Speaker 1: Bill Russell. When you're looking at those guys, you're looking
Speaker 1: at them as defensive fulcrums, which obviously Jokic is not.
Speaker 1: But as we've talked about, like Steph Curry, for me,
Speaker 1: ranks really high. I think he's the fifth best perimeter
Speaker 1: player of all time, somewhere in the back half of
Speaker 1: the top ten if you include centers. Steph is really
Speaker 1: high for me. And that's not a guy that you're
Speaker 1: anchoring a defense around. So like I see, Jokic is
Speaker 1: fitting more than mold of Steph as like a guy
Speaker 1: that you're putting on the list as one of the
Speaker 1: great offensive players to ever play the game. I think
Speaker 1: he's personally the best offensive player I've ever seen play
Speaker 1: the game. The problem is with the top ten lists
Speaker 1: or all time lists, is you're running into some insane resumes.
Speaker 1: You talk about Lebron with four championships, Michael Jordan with
Speaker 1: six championships. You talked about Kobe, Like when you start
Speaker 1: to look at Kobe's resume, and I think he's just
Speaker 1: become a profoundly underrated player over time. The dude's won
Speaker 1: five titles and like, okay, yeah he won three. With Shaq,
Speaker 1: he won two in a row. How many players in
Speaker 1: NBA his have won multiple consecutive championships. That's a real
Speaker 1: accomplishment on that resume. You look at Steph with with
Speaker 1: his four championships, you look at Larry Bird with his three,
Speaker 1: you look at Magic Johnson with his five. You're running
Speaker 1: into these crazy lists. The Chema Lagoon in the middle
Speaker 1: of the nineties, rips off back to back championships, looks
Speaker 1: like the best player in the league a couple of
Speaker 1: years in a row. It's just the resumes get so
Speaker 1: insane that it feels like it's going to be tough
Speaker 1: for Jokic to move too much higher. Now, do I
Speaker 1: think that you have to look at it in terms
Speaker 1: of just counting championships? Of course not. It's way more
Speaker 1: complicated than that. The game of basketball is way more
Speaker 1: complicated than that. But in order for Jokic to get
Speaker 1: into that top ten and to really entrench himself there,
Speaker 1: I think he's gonna have to win two more And like,
Speaker 1: it's just feels like a pretty short window for the Nuggets,
Speaker 1: right now, you'd have to win this year and probably
Speaker 1: within the following two years after that, and that's just
Speaker 1: a lot to ask, So, like, do I think he
Speaker 1: has that potential? Certainly I could. Could I see universe
Speaker 1: where Yokich wins the next two championships? Of course he can.
Speaker 1: It's just really hard. The league is super deep, there's
Speaker 1: all these young players coming up, there's so many good
Speaker 1: teams right now. So it's just it feels to me
Speaker 1: like a long shot that he actually gets into the
Speaker 1: top ten because of the strength of the resumes that
Speaker 1: he'll have to cross in order to get there. But
Speaker 1: certainly it's a possibility. It's just you start looking up,
Speaker 1: you start looking at the guys at the top of
Speaker 1: that list, and it's just an insane set of talent
Speaker 1: that accomplished a lot in this league. Next question more
Speaker 1: of a philosophical one here, Jason. You obviously have a
Speaker 1: pension for offensive gurus and orchestrators like Luka and Jokic
Speaker 1: over high level scorers, and that's fine, but don't forget
Speaker 1: the last two champions were led by players that were
Speaker 1: distinctly not offensive hubs, but were excellent at what they did.
Speaker 1: Shay and tatem And before Jokic and twenty three, and
Speaker 1: both Giannis and Kawhi led their teams to championships also
Speaker 1: without being offensive hubs. Could there be an actual ceiling
Speaker 1: for teams which are led by do it all offensive hubs.
Speaker 1: So here's the thing. When I'm talking about the foundational
Speaker 1: player that you're building a team around, we're talking about
Speaker 1: it within the context of starting from scratch. Ultimately, basketball
Speaker 1: is a team sport, and as you start to look
Speaker 1: through those situations, they were kind of roster abnormalities, right
Speaker 1: Like Kawhi Entard won the title with the twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: Raptors because they were a team that literally was ripping
Speaker 1: off sixty win seasons with Demarta Rosen as their best player.
Speaker 1: They successfully flip for Kawhi, and Kawhi is able to
Speaker 1: push them over the top into winning the championship. That
Speaker 1: is not starting with Kawhi and then building a championship
Speaker 1: team around him. He was effectively a mercenary that became
Speaker 1: the tip of the spear and helped them win the
Speaker 1: title Oklahoma City. He has an insane amount of talent
Speaker 1: because they were a beneficiary of one of the most
Speaker 1: lopside in retrospect lopsided trades in NBA history. At the time,
Speaker 1: obviously it felt normal, but as we look back, you
Speaker 1: look at they got the better player in the trade
Speaker 1: and an insane amount of draft assets that has allowed
Speaker 1: them to pile up an insane amount of uniquely talented
Speaker 1: players that you don't typically see on a roster. Shake
Speaker 1: Gilders Alexander has pushed them over the top into being champions.
Speaker 1: But that is a unique roster situation. When I'm talking about,
Speaker 1: like in Boston, sane thing, like they literally had five
Speaker 1: players who on the open market would fetch north of
Speaker 1: thirty million dollars a year. So yes, you can't. You
Speaker 1: can win a championship with any archetype of player, but
Speaker 1: if I'm starting from scratch in a vacuum, I want
Speaker 1: to have it be a player that is easiest to
Speaker 1: build around and for me if I am for me,
Speaker 1: Like one of my overarching basketball philosophies is that offense
Speaker 1: flows down from advantage creation. Defense flows down, and you
Speaker 1: obviously need defensive talent, but defensive defense has a lot
Speaker 1: to do with coaching. Defense has a lot to do
Speaker 1: with buy in. Defense has a lot to do with
Speaker 1: individual players from the start of the season, building connectivity
Speaker 1: in their defensive rotations. We have seen so many examples
Speaker 1: of teams with mediocre defensive talent win the title because
Speaker 1: they came together, like the twenty sixteen Calves for example,
Speaker 1: or the twenty twenty three Nuggets. We've seen that done.
Speaker 1: But to me, offense flows down from advantage creation, and
Speaker 1: so for me, if I'm starting from scratch, I think
Speaker 1: it's easiest to build a championship level roster around a
Speaker 1: top end offensive initiator. But that's just my basketball philosophy.
Speaker 1: And again, like again, essentially, what I'm saying is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: if we start looking at individual situations, like yeah, like
Speaker 1: if the Toronto Raptors would have traded Demarta Rosen and
Speaker 1: got back Luka Doncicic right now, I also think they
Speaker 1: win the title. I literally said in our player rankings
Speaker 1: that if you took this version of Luca, the one
Speaker 1: we saw in EuroBasket and dropped it on last year's
Speaker 1: thunder team, I think they win the title. And I
Speaker 1: think they win it more easily, especially in the playoff runt.
Speaker 1: So the point I'm trying to make is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we as we look at individual situations, and individual situations
Speaker 1: that led to massive accumulations of talent. You can win
Speaker 1: with any type of best player, but if I'm starting
Speaker 1: from scratch in a vacuum, I believe it is easiest
Speaker 1: to build a championship team around a supreme offensive engine,
Speaker 1: because from there I have the flexibility to bring in
Speaker 1: defensive players that play well with an advantage. Like a
Speaker 1: lot of guys who can do jobs on defense but
Speaker 1: struggle with offense. But the job is so easy for
Speaker 1: them because they're playing with such insane advantages that they
Speaker 1: become useful offensive players. I like my ability to build
Speaker 1: around that type of player, versus if I have an
Speaker 1: elite score, I now have to like figure out how
Speaker 1: am I building the rest of the offense. Can I
Speaker 1: play this flawed defensive player, this defensive minded player who
Speaker 1: is flawed on offense. Can I play him alongside a
Speaker 1: player that doesn't do a great job handling double teams
Speaker 1: or that doesn't create a ton of advantages throughout the game.
Speaker 1: I just think it's harder. By the way, I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that there's some chasm. I'm not saying that like
Speaker 1: it's offensive initiators and then everyone else sucks I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: if I'm ranking the archetypes of players, I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: with that advantage creating offensive engine type of offensive player.
Speaker 1: Then probably the supreme two way score, then probably the
Speaker 1: defensive anchor big you know, that Anthony Davis type of player.
Speaker 1: It's one of the big kind of like paths for
Speaker 1: Victor winn Minyama and his development. Is he going to
Speaker 1: become a supreme scorer? Is he going to just be
Speaker 1: this like defensive hub who never really becomes the elite
Speaker 1: scorer that he needs to be. That's going to be
Speaker 1: a big part of what helps Victor women Yama reach
Speaker 1: his ultimate potential. But for me, if I'm starting from
Speaker 1: scratch in a vacuum, I want that offensive engine archetype.
Speaker 1: A couple questions surrounding the top ten lists that we
Speaker 1: did last week, Hi, Jason Huges Fan since like twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, is so, I'm curious to see your reasoning
Speaker 1: and picking Shaq's two thousand and one playoff run over
Speaker 1: his two thousand playoff runt. I can see why the
Speaker 1: two thousand and one plaoff run can be picked, but
Speaker 1: in my opinion, the two thousand and one is better
Speaker 1: to start, the workload was drastically different, which was mostly
Speaker 1: due to Kobe really coming into his own during the
Speaker 1: two thousand and one playoffs. The usage right between the
Speaker 1: two runs is mostly the same, but that leans to
Speaker 1: two thousand, when he was able to win the title
Speaker 1: while Kobe wasn't as reliable yet as a co star.
Speaker 1: There were a legitimate slugfest series that Shack and probably
Speaker 1: only Shaq could have bailed them out of. And I
Speaker 1: can get behind the two thousand and one playoff run
Speaker 1: being the better all time team, but in terms of
Speaker 1: individual dominance, I think the two thousand Shack was a
Speaker 1: smidge better, even if we're nitpicking at the end of
Speaker 1: the day. Also, Shaq was scoring Champ and regular season
Speaker 1: MVP during two thousand, which is not as important to me,
Speaker 1: but still our nice notches to have. Thank you if
Speaker 1: you read this. So here's the deal. I agree with
Speaker 1: everything that you're saying. I do think that Shack in
Speaker 1: that year two thousand season was just more locked in
Speaker 1: from start to finish and was a better player, but
Speaker 1: we were just operating within confines of that list. For me,
Speaker 1: it was the last twenty five seasons, so that was
Speaker 1: gonna be from two thousand and one to twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: We had similar examples, Like when we were talking about
Speaker 1: I kind of like Jerry rigged the system a little
Speaker 1: bit to fit to fit the Reggie Miller Pacers in there,
Speaker 1: because I wanted to include that year two thousand run
Speaker 1: as a run where they were pretty close. But it
Speaker 1: was like kind of breaking the rules a little bit
Speaker 1: because I was going from two thousand and one to
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, So instead I highlighted the twenty fourteen
Speaker 1: that came very close to beating the Pistons, right, So
Speaker 1: like I was just kind of rating within those confines,
Speaker 1: and to me, that two thousand and one team was
Speaker 1: a reasonable way for me to capitalize on that within
Speaker 1: the rules of the list. Last question, I had a
Speaker 1: lot of people talking about how I forgot or didn't
Speaker 1: have Kevin Garnett in my top Defenders list. It was
Speaker 1: literally just accidental oversight I don't have. It wasn't like
Speaker 1: I was trying to disrespect Kevin in any way. It's
Speaker 1: just I'm piecing together five top ten lists and it's
Speaker 1: just something slipped through the cracks. If you guys want
Speaker 1: to hear my thoughts on KG and his defense and
Speaker 1: his ceiling. I went over it pretty extensively in our
Speaker 1: Top ten Peaks video, which Kevin Garnett did make on Monday.
Speaker 1: So for all of you wondering why that happened, it
Speaker 1: was literally just an accident on my part, just to
Speaker 1: oversight something that slipped through the cracks. All right, guys,
Speaker 1: it's all I have for today. There's always a sincerely
Speaker 1: appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show.
Speaker 1: We'll be back later this week with another one of
Speaker 1: those live streams on playback, as well as a video
Speaker 1: talking about the Los Angeles Clippers and some more mailbag questions.
Speaker 1: I will see you guys then