Speaker 1: The Volume. All right, welcome to tonight here at the Volume.
Speaker 1: Happy Monday, everybody. I hope all of you guys had
Speaker 1: an incredible weekend. We are live on AMPS, so if
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Speaker 1: don't forget that AMP is the very first place that
Speaker 1: you guys can get these shows.
Speaker 2: We are going to be.
Speaker 1: Starting our annual player rankings today, the top twenty five
Speaker 1: players in the league. We're gonna be hitting twenty five
Speaker 1: through twenty two today. Then we're gonna do three more
Speaker 1: guys on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday this week, and two
Speaker 1: on Friday, and then ten through one over the course
Speaker 1: of the next two weeks. You guys know the joke
Speaker 1: before we get started. Subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel
Speaker 1: so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow
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Speaker 1: find them wherever you get your podcast. Under Hoops tonight,
Speaker 1: all right, let's talk some basketball. So my personal criteria
Speaker 1: is gonna look at your overall winning impact on both
Speaker 1: ends of the floor. We're not just gonna be looking
Speaker 1: at box score stats. We're gonna be looking at the
Speaker 1: various ways that players can impact winning in every single
Speaker 1: facet of the game. There's a particular player on today's
Speaker 1: list that does not have a very impressive statistical set
Speaker 1: of numbers to look at from this season. As a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, there are gonna be guys who don't
Speaker 1: make the list entirely that have more impressive stat lines
Speaker 1: throughout the season. But I thought this player was monumentally
Speaker 1: important for his team on both ends of the floor
Speaker 1: on the way to a deep run in the playoffs
Speaker 1: that came very close to winning an NBA championship. And
Speaker 1: so that's the kind of thing we're gonna be looking at,
Speaker 1: overall winning impact on both ends of the floor. Secondly, specifically,
Speaker 1: how your game translates to.
Speaker 2: The playoff setting.
Speaker 1: Obviously, there's value in the regular season, and there are
Speaker 1: guys on this list that even missed the playoffs last year,
Speaker 1: but we know that they bring a certain amount of
Speaker 1: value that is important to basketball team during a regular season.
Speaker 1: That is certainly part of it. But at the end,
Speaker 1: of the day. The reason why we do all of
Speaker 1: this is for a crack at the Larry O'Brian Trophy.
Speaker 1: And in order to win the Lario brian Trophy, you
Speaker 1: have to win sixteen games in late April, May and June,
Speaker 1: and so your game needs to be able to translate
Speaker 1: into that setting where it's more physical, where there's more scouting,
Speaker 1: where the crowds become more intense, where the pressure rises
Speaker 1: up a notch and everything becomes harder. The guys that
Speaker 1: thrive on that level, in my opinion, will always be
Speaker 1: more valuable than the guys that don't, and the last
Speaker 1: but not least team success. Again, at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, we play the games to win, and we
Speaker 1: played to win games on the way to that Larry
Speaker 1: O'Brian trophy. So I will be giving preferential treatment in
Speaker 1: this list to guys that made longer playoff runs or
Speaker 1: at least made the playoffs or won in some capacity
Speaker 1: in the playoffs, compared to guys that did not either
Speaker 1: have that much success in the playoffs or that missed
Speaker 1: the playoffs entirely. So that's basically the criteria overall winning
Speaker 1: impact on both ends of the floor. How your game
Speaker 1: translates to the playoffs, and did you lead to team success?
Speaker 1: All right, let's start with number twenty five, a guy
Speaker 1: who missed this list last year, but in his perpetual
Speaker 1: ability to get his team to the postseason and to
Speaker 1: give himself a fighting chance even in a matchup that
Speaker 1: I didn't think they had much of a chance against
Speaker 1: the Boston Celtics, this guy crawled into the list as
Speaker 1: a couple of other guys have backed out from last year.
Speaker 1: Trey Young a little quick season recap. In the regular season,
Speaker 1: he played seventy three games, so it was very available.
Speaker 1: Averaged twenty six points and ten assists per game on
Speaker 1: fifty seven percent true shooting. Both of his scoring volume
Speaker 1: and efficiency were down from last year by just to touch.
Speaker 1: In the playoffs, they lost in six games to the
Speaker 1: Boston Celtics, he averaged twenty nine to four and ten
Speaker 1: on fifty two percent true shooting, so a little dip
Speaker 1: in a few but he did get crazy hot in
Speaker 1: the fourth quarter of Game five. He had sixteen points
Speaker 1: in the quarter, including a bunch of threes down the
Speaker 1: stretch and the game winner to stretch that to a
Speaker 1: sixth game. But then in game six with the Hawks
Speaker 1: up by three with six minutes left, he went really cold,
Speaker 1: missed his last five shots in Boston won by eight.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of a quick recap of what tray
Speaker 1: Young season was like. He was as like an overview
Speaker 1: of what he does as a basketball player. He was
Speaker 1: the highest volume pick and roll player in the league
Speaker 1: last year by a mile. They ran one seven and
Speaker 1: twenty six Tray Young pick and rolls, which was three
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty more than second place on that list,
Speaker 1: which was Luka Doncic at a little over thirteen hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy five I think, or thirteen hundred and seventy four,
Speaker 1: So not even in the same stratosphere as anybody in
Speaker 1: the league. When it comes to just Trey Young comes
Speaker 1: down the floor and runs pick and roll every single
Speaker 1: trip down the floor. His strength in that setting is
Speaker 1: his passing ability. We think lot about Trey Young hitting
Speaker 1: crazy step back threes or floaters in the lane, and
Speaker 1: those are certainly things that he's capable of, but scoring
Speaker 1: is not his strength. The Hawks were much better when
Speaker 1: he passed out of pick and roll than when he shot.
Speaker 1: He passed out of pick and roll almost half the
Speaker 1: time about forty seven percent of the time, to be exact,
Speaker 1: and that was when he was most deadly. The Hawks
Speaker 1: scored one point nine points per possession in pick and
Speaker 1: roll when Trey Young passed the basketball. He specifically has
Speaker 1: an eye for his lob threats, whether that's out of
Speaker 1: the dunker spot or screening and rolling hard to the basket,
Speaker 1: and Landa constantly had guys like Clint Cappella and John
Speaker 1: Collins who could rise up over the top of the
Speaker 1: defense and catch passes above the rim and finish, and
Speaker 1: Trey was just great at hitting those guys. They averaged
Speaker 1: one point three to six points per possession when Trey
Speaker 1: passed to the rollman in pick and roll, that's incredible,
Speaker 1: and one point six points per possession when he was
Speaker 1: hitting cutters along the baseline. So the bread and butter
Speaker 1: for Trey and his success in pick and roll is
Speaker 1: his ability to manipulate the back line defender and to
Speaker 1: find openings for his dunkers at the rim. Overall, he
Speaker 1: scored just one point zero five points per possession in
Speaker 1: pick and roll, which is good, not great, and that's
Speaker 1: because when he would try to shoot out of pick
Speaker 1: and roll, they scored just zero point nine to four
Speaker 1: points per possession, and the reason why is he's not
Speaker 1: particularly great at actually making shots. He was thirty five
Speaker 1: point eight percent on pull up jumpers, which is below
Speaker 1: average for most pull up shooting guards high volume ones.
Speaker 1: At least thirty seven percent on catch and shoot jumpers,
Speaker 1: again good, not great. Forty seven point seven percent at
Speaker 1: the rim. This is actually crazy. There were seventy one
Speaker 1: players last year that attempted I'm trying to find the
Speaker 1: exact number. Seventy one players attempted at least three hundred
Speaker 1: shots at the rim last year. Trace forty seven point
Speaker 1: seven percent ranked seventieth out of seventy one players. So
Speaker 1: he's literally one of the worst rim finishers in the league.
Speaker 1: And the one thing he's great at making in pick
Speaker 1: and roll is his floater. He makes about half of
Speaker 1: them on massive volume, three hundred and eighty attempts last year.
Speaker 1: But all of the other stuff, the pull up jump shot,
Speaker 1: the catch and shoot jump shots, the shots at the
Speaker 1: rim just not as good as his peers there. And
Speaker 1: so it's ironic because the Trey Young kind of has
Speaker 1: a reputation as being a scoring guard, but his best
Speaker 1: strength is passing the basketball. I think part of the
Speaker 1: reason for that is he's a little repetitive. Almost every
Speaker 1: ball screen comes from the top of the key. Almost
Speaker 1: every single time he uses the ball screen. He doesn't
Speaker 1: have good balance between rejecting the screen or using it.
Speaker 1: Using it, he uses the screen about almost eighty percent
Speaker 1: of the time. And then obviously with Trey Young, the
Speaker 1: book is out on him. If you can chase him
Speaker 1: off that three point line and funnel him into the basket,
Speaker 1: he will miss shots. It might amid all that congestion
Speaker 1: around the rim. I think that's part of why his
Speaker 1: scoring efficiency isn't where it needs to be, but that
Speaker 1: playmaking efficiency brings everything up to where it is a
Speaker 1: dependable offensive engine. In the NBA, there were but that
Speaker 1: one went zero five points possession. Just to give you
Speaker 1: an idea fifteen players logged at least one thousand pick
Speaker 1: and rolls last year and Trey Young ranked ninth, So
Speaker 1: out of the super high volume pick and roll guys,
Speaker 1: Trey was kind of in that bottom half. Luka Doncic,
Speaker 1: Damian Lillard, Donovan Mitchell, James Harden, Jalen Brunson, DeMar Derozen,
Speaker 1: Chris Paul and Tyrese Haliburton all were more efficient than
Speaker 1: Trey Young in high volume pick and roll situation, same
Speaker 1: type of thing in ISO. Not very efficient when he
Speaker 1: tried to score the basketball zero point nine to four
Speaker 1: points per possession, but when he passed out of ISO
Speaker 1: one point three to one points per possession. I was
Speaker 1: watching a bunch of Trey Young ISOs this morning. He's
Speaker 1: at his best when he's manipulating that back line defender,
Speaker 1: same thing as the pick and roll concept. All he's
Speaker 1: doing is making some sort of quick move to get
Speaker 1: into some gap in the defense. Again in that ISO situation,
Speaker 1: getting that rim protector to just take his eyes and
Speaker 1: kind of lose focus for split second off ball. That's
Speaker 1: when he's throwing the lob or that's when he's throwing
Speaker 1: that bounce pass for the dunk. I actually curious without
Speaker 1: John Collins there this year because of the fact that
Speaker 1: you can't really play a congu and capel at the
Speaker 1: same time. I'm kind of curious to see how they're
Speaker 1: going to build that front court around him, because he
Speaker 1: does need those lob threats. That's somebody that he's something
Speaker 1: that he's constantly trying to use when he's on the floor.
Speaker 1: So his strengths, he's one of the best passers in
Speaker 1: the league. He's great at manipulating defenses to find openings
Speaker 1: around the rim for dunkers, and he's capable of making
Speaker 1: enough shots to keep the defense honest. Over a point
Speaker 1: per possession in both pick and roll and ISO at
Speaker 1: massive volume automatically makes you an above average offensive engine
Speaker 1: in the NBA, and to Tray's credit, he was able
Speaker 1: to maintain that into the playoffs this year. He was
Speaker 1: over a point per possession in pick and roll in
Speaker 1: ISO in the playoffs against Boston, and that was a
Speaker 1: big part of why they pushed a super talented Celtics
Speaker 1: team to six games. His shot making took a little
Speaker 1: bit of a step back. He only shot forty percent
Speaker 1: in the Celtics series, but his playmaking actually went up
Speaker 1: a level as he picked Boston's defense apart. His weakness
Speaker 1: is he's not nearly as good as his as his
Speaker 1: peers at actually making shots. He's an inefficient pull up
Speaker 1: jump shooter, one of the worst rim finishers in the league.
Speaker 1: Like we talked about earlier, he's a little too repetitive
Speaker 1: impredictable with his attacks. So I'd like to see him
Speaker 1: add more off ball stuff, and then he's the worst
Speaker 1: defensive player in the league at his position, although the
Speaker 1: Hawks have gotten pretty good at covering for him over
Speaker 1: the year. So when you have one of the best
Speaker 1: offensive engines in the league, a top five scoring guard
Speaker 1: or top five passing guard in the league, in a
Speaker 1: top fifteen a scoring a guy in the league, to
Speaker 1: be down at twenty five, that's a product of the
Speaker 1: fact that he struggles so much defensively, and he struggles
Speaker 1: so much to actually put the ball in the basket efficiently.
Speaker 1: But I was on the fence between four guys for
Speaker 1: this twenty five spot. It was either going to be
Speaker 1: John Morant, Bradley Beale, James Harden, or Trey Young. I
Speaker 1: actually tweeted this out as a poll, and most of
Speaker 1: you guys leaned towards John Morant, but I went with
Speaker 1: Trey because I think he has the best combination of
Speaker 1: current ability. I'm a little bit down on John Morant
Speaker 1: in general right now. I didn't think he played particularly
Speaker 1: well in the Lakers series, and then obviously all the
Speaker 1: off cour immaturity stuff is starting to hurt the team.
Speaker 1: But Trey Young also has the playoff pedigree just two
Speaker 1: years ago, leading his team to a conference finals. So
Speaker 1: I decided to give the nod to Trey Young at
Speaker 1: twenty five all right, number twenty four BAM at a
Speaker 1: bio season recap. In the regular season, he played seventy
Speaker 1: five games avers twenty points, nine rebounds on three assists
Speaker 1: on fifty nine percent true shooting. That was a career
Speaker 1: high for him in scoring volume, and the playoffs took
Speaker 1: a little bit of a dip eighteen points per game,
Speaker 1: ten rebounds, four assists, fifty three percent true shooting, lost
Speaker 1: a little bit of his touch around the rim in particular,
Speaker 1: as that playoff run progressed. They lost in five to
Speaker 1: the Denver Nuggets in the NBA Finals. And this is
Speaker 1: the one that I was referencing at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the show. This is the guy that you look at
Speaker 1: the numbers and it's like eighteen, ten and four and
Speaker 1: we're considering him to be the twenty fourth best player
Speaker 1: in the league. I understand why that can be a
Speaker 1: little confusing, But again, if you watched Miami Heat this
Speaker 1: year and you look at the way that they were
Speaker 1: beating teams, a large part on the strength of Eric Spolstrow.
Speaker 1: In all of the curve balls he was throwing against
Speaker 1: every team. In terms of mixing up defensive coverages, going
Speaker 1: to zone as often as he did, the ability for
Speaker 1: Bam at a bio to both switch and to work
Speaker 1: and drop coverage. I believe Bam is the most versatile
Speaker 1: defender in the NBA right now. Not necessarily the best defender.
Speaker 1: I think that guy's ahead of him on this list,
Speaker 1: but I do think he is the most versatile defender
Speaker 1: in the NBA right now. And what he did as
Speaker 1: a versatile defender for Miami unlocked a lot of the
Speaker 1: things that they were capable of doing to throw other
Speaker 1: teams out of rhythm, and that's why I have him
Speaker 1: so high on this list. Again, I don't think he's
Speaker 1: the best rim protector in the world. That's Anthony Davis.
Speaker 1: I don't think he's the biggest or strongest guy at
Speaker 1: his position. That's either Jokic or Embiid right. And he's
Speaker 1: not the best perimeter defender in the world, but he's
Speaker 1: really damn good at all of those things. He is
Speaker 1: an excellent rim protector. He can bang with bigger bodies,
Speaker 1: and he can switch out onto the perimeter with some
Speaker 1: of the best players in the world, and so being
Speaker 1: that great at all of those individual things allows Eric
Speaker 1: Spolser to be like, Hey, you're gonna guard Giannis this series. Okay,
Speaker 1: now it's the Knicks. Now we're gonna have you, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: mixing in drop coverages and switches, and the same thing
Speaker 1: down the line against Boston and against Denver. The flexibility
Speaker 1: they had to use Bam in all these different coverages, Like, hey, like,
Speaker 1: we're gonna run a two three zone. The only way
Speaker 1: that's gonna work is if your big man is super
Speaker 1: active getting in and out of the paint to avoid
Speaker 1: the defense of three second call and securing all the
Speaker 1: defensive rebounds that he needs to secure. It's an extremely
Speaker 1: difficult job. That's why so many teams don't run zone
Speaker 1: in the NBA. But it works because of Bam. BAM
Speaker 1: allowed them to run zone and to run it effectively.
Speaker 1: BAM allowed them to switch and to switch effectively. Bam
Speaker 1: allowed them to run drop coverage and run it effectively.
Speaker 1: He unlocks everything that they do on the defensive end
Speaker 1: of the floor. And again, he may not be the
Speaker 1: best defender in the world, but that versatility uniquely brings
Speaker 1: a ton of winning impact to Miami on the offensive
Speaker 1: end of the floor, a career high twenty points per
Speaker 1: game this season, over a points per possession in both
Speaker 1: post ups and ISOs. The main thing that kind of
Speaker 1: drove that was he was really good from the left block,
Speaker 1: getting to like a short jump shot over his left
Speaker 1: shoulder or a short hook shot over his left shoulder.
Speaker 1: He's actually shot forty four percent on his little short
Speaker 1: mid range pull up jump shot during the regular season,
Speaker 1: but in the playoffs that efficiency tanked. He made less
Speaker 1: than sixty percent of his shots at the rim. He
Speaker 1: only made thirty percent of his pull up jump shots.
Speaker 1: And you could probably tell Heat fans in particular, we'll
Speaker 1: remember this, But Bam, it just felt like he missed
Speaker 1: a lot of bunnies, whether it was in the short
Speaker 1: roll or whether it was in post ups against ISOs
Speaker 1: or offensive rebound put backs. He just missed a lot
Speaker 1: of shots that he normally makes during the course of
Speaker 1: the regular season, and that ended up being an issue
Speaker 1: for the Heat, especially as they would cool off offensively
Speaker 1: from time to time. Now, one thing I want to
Speaker 1: say in BAM's defense, because we're gonna get to this
Speaker 1: when we talk about Anthony Davis at a later date.
Speaker 1: But when you had that much on your plate defensively
Speaker 1: VI actually in the postseason, it wears on your legs,
Speaker 1: and so there's another level of conditioning and accuracy you
Speaker 1: need as an offensive player for your game to translate
Speaker 1: when you're that fatigued. And I think that's the next
Speaker 1: level for Bam. It's just getting to the point where
Speaker 1: he can bring all of the defensive versatility that he
Speaker 1: brings in the postseason while adding in the offensive reliability
Speaker 1: that he brought during the regular season. But despite him
Speaker 1: not necessarily shooting particularly well, I thought he had a
Speaker 1: lot of offensive impact this year. His passing ability unlocked
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff for Miami. Obviously, only four assists
Speaker 1: per game, but I thought particularly in the short role,
Speaker 1: when multiple defenders would be drawn to somebody like Gave
Speaker 1: Vincent or Kyle Lowry or to Jimmy Butler, he was
Speaker 1: catching and making that hockey assist pass to the shooter
Speaker 1: on the weak side. A lot of those hot shooting
Speaker 1: nights for Miami. The fulcrum of it all was Bam
Speaker 1: at a bio and his ability to pass out of
Speaker 1: the middle of the floor. He also was a really,
Speaker 1: really good offensive rebounder. In this playoff run, he average
Speaker 1: three offensive rebounds per game. Did a lot of damage
Speaker 1: to Al Horford in particular in that series, just throwing
Speaker 1: him around like a rag doll getting to offensive rebounds.
Speaker 1: His overwhelming athleticism at the position is just such a
Speaker 1: huge weapon in the postseason, so his strengths. He's top
Speaker 1: tier versaal defender, a good screener and passer, making him
Speaker 1: a great connective piece for an offense. He was a
Speaker 1: capable post scorer. He actually was over a point per
Speaker 1: possession in the post in this postseason run as well,
Speaker 1: a dominant rebounder ten rebounds a game, three offensive rebounds
Speaker 1: a game, and an excellent foundational big that makes every
Speaker 1: other thing that your basketball team needs to do easier.
Speaker 1: That's why we have to look beyond the box score.
Speaker 1: If you're the Miami Heat, if you're Eric Spolsure, you're
Speaker 1: going into a playoff series and you're game planning. Having
Speaker 1: bam Adebayo there to take a lot of the more
Speaker 1: difficult assignments just makes everything easier for you as a
Speaker 1: basketball team. I don't think it's a coincidence that we
Speaker 1: see duos like bam and Abio and Jimmy Butler, or
Speaker 1: Lebron James and Anthony Davis at least back in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: The versions of these two where they specialize in dirty
Speaker 1: work and things on the defensive end as well, those
Speaker 1: guys are just easier to build around and they make
Speaker 1: easier roles for the role players around them. For weaknesses,
Speaker 1: I just put struggling to make the leap into a
Speaker 1: more reliable offensive player in the postseason. That's again, fatigue
Speaker 1: is always going to be a factor with how well
Speaker 1: he has to defend for what that team needs from
Speaker 1: him defensively. But getting back to the point where he's
Speaker 1: at twenty points per game on close to sixty percent
Speaker 1: true shooting like he is in the regular season in
Speaker 1: the postseason, that's the difference between where he is right
Speaker 1: now and being like a perennial All NBA guy. So
Speaker 1: there for the taking for BAM. He just needs to
Speaker 1: keep making that progress, all right. Number twenty three Donovan
Speaker 1: Mitchell career high in both scoring volume and efficiency this
Speaker 1: year twenty eight points per game, sixty one percent true shooting,
Speaker 1: although just four rebounds and four assists. Remember that list,
Speaker 1: I told you guys are the fifteen high volume pick
Speaker 1: and roll shot creator the guys who're at least one thousand.
Speaker 1: Donovan Mitchell finished third on that list, scoring one point
Speaker 1: one points per possession including passes in pick and roll.
Speaker 1: Really driven by his ability to score. It's the exact
Speaker 1: opposite of the tray young thing where he can't put
Speaker 1: the ball in the basket, but he's a great passer.
Speaker 2: Donovan Mitchell.
Speaker 1: Mitchell is an extremely limited playmaker as a little bit
Speaker 1: of tunnel vision, struggles with game management. We'll get to
Speaker 1: that in a minute, but when it comes to putting
Speaker 1: the ball in the basket, there aren't many guys better
Speaker 1: than him. He was thirty nine percent on pull up
Speaker 1: threes this year. That's an outstanding number, forty eight percent
Speaker 1: on pull up twos that's a really good number, fifty
Speaker 1: six percent on floaters that's an outstanding number, and sixty
Speaker 1: two percent at the rim, which if you're a guard,
Speaker 1: anything over sixty percent is excellent. So he's just deadly
Speaker 1: putting the ball in the basket. That was the driving
Speaker 1: force for most of his success in pick and roll
Speaker 1: this year, but in the playoffs he fell off in
Speaker 1: a big way. Twenty three points per game on fifty
Speaker 1: two percent true shooting. In particular, his pull up three
Speaker 1: fell apart. He was just six for thirty against the
Speaker 1: Knicks on pull up threes. It's kind of a weird
Speaker 1: trend because Donovan Mitchell used to be one of the
Speaker 1: most reliable playoff scorers in the league. In his first
Speaker 1: four playoff runs, he averaged twenty nine points per game
Speaker 1: on fifty seven percent true shooting, which is insane for
Speaker 1: a young scoring guard. Last two playoff runs, twenty five
Speaker 1: points per game on fifty one percent true shooting. Now,
Speaker 1: a lot of that has to do with the situation
Speaker 1: last year that Jazz team was kind of combusting in.
Speaker 2: A lot of ways. This year, the Cavs, with.
Speaker 1: Their inability to have a reliable spot up shooter in
Speaker 1: either corner, it just made it really hard for them
Speaker 1: to score out of pick and roll. But you have
Speaker 1: to acknowledge the fact that him leaning so heavily on
Speaker 1: pick and roll is a limitation there. We'll get to
Speaker 1: that just a minute. To me, a lot of this
Speaker 1: has to do is just the inconsistencies that we see
Speaker 1: from players who rely really heavily on pull up jump shooting.
Speaker 1: We talked about this with Kevin Durant fifty five percent
Speaker 1: on pull up jump shots the last two regular seasons,
Speaker 1: and then he just can't make him at the same
Speaker 1: rate when he gets to the postseason. But we've seen
Speaker 1: him have other postseason runs, like in twenty twenty one
Speaker 1: where he's making all of his pull up jump shots, right,
Speaker 1: So like it's just it's it's a finny pull up
Speaker 1: jump shots are are It's a very important skill in
Speaker 1: the NBA, but it's one of the most inconsistent. It's
Speaker 1: like sometimes they go in, sometimes they don't. This year
Speaker 1: for Phoenix, it was like like Devin Booker couldn't miss him,
Speaker 1: but Kevin Durant was missing him, you know, And who
Speaker 1: knows if next year if it's the opposite, Right, it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily about them getting better or worse at it.
Speaker 1: It's just a very volatile skill. And Donovan Mitchell is
Speaker 1: one of those guys that just takes a ton of
Speaker 1: pull up jump shots and so guess what, sometimes you're
Speaker 1: gonna make twelve for thirty and sometimes you're gonna go
Speaker 1: six for thirty. And against the Knicks this year he
Speaker 1: went six for thirty. But again, I do think that
Speaker 1: the the limitations of their off ball scoring played a
Speaker 1: role in that because you know, here's the thing, the
Speaker 1: Knicks also had a limitation in off ball scoring. But
Speaker 1: I picked the Knicks to win that series because I
Speaker 1: told you guys, I thought Jalen. Jalen Brunston was a
Speaker 1: slightly better player overall, even though he wasn't as good
Speaker 1: of like a top end talented score as Donovan Mitchell,
Speaker 1: I thought he was a much better game manager. Now
Speaker 1: what does that mean. It means managing the flow of
Speaker 1: the game, making sure that your team gets the right
Speaker 1: shot on every single possession, being very deliberate to get
Speaker 1: the right advantages, whereas with Donovan Mitchell it can be
Speaker 1: a little bit flying by the seat of his pants.
Speaker 1: Sometimes a lot of times he's just coming down the
Speaker 1: floor calling for a ball screen, jacking up a shot.
Speaker 2: And you would see stretches.
Speaker 1: In that Knick series where Jalen Brunson's methodically working down
Speaker 1: to get a good shot. Donovan Mitchell would, you know,
Speaker 1: over penetrate and transition and miss so or take a
Speaker 1: bad shot in pick and roll and miss, And so
Speaker 1: that decision making process ended up being something that heavily
Speaker 1: favored Jalen Brunson. It's a very important thing in the postseason,
Speaker 1: and I actually believe he proved himself to be the
Speaker 1: better player as I predicted he would before the series.
Speaker 1: A big part of it is versatility, though, like for
Speaker 1: Donovan Mitchell, almost everything he does right now is look
Speaker 1: to score out of pick and roll. Not a great
Speaker 1: passer out of pick and roll isolation. He's somewhat low volume,
Speaker 1: although he has some success there, doesn't have a post game.
Speaker 1: I think you ran one post up all season long.
Speaker 1: Jalen Brunson has won during the regular season, ran almost
Speaker 1: twice as many ISOs and post ups as Donovan Mitchell.
Speaker 1: He's got this whole other side to his game. He
Speaker 1: can run pick and roll and yeah, if you go
Speaker 1: underneath the screen, he's gonna knock down pull up jump shot.
Speaker 1: You go over the top, he's gonna work his way downhill.
Speaker 1: But he'll also be like, oh, like you got cheddy
Speaker 1: Osman on the court, We're gonna run a guard guard
Speaker 1: screen and get cheddy Osman switched on to me and
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna hit him with a series of dribbles
Speaker 1: into a little short step back jump shot that I'm
Speaker 1: gonna make two thirds of the time because of how
Speaker 1: much separation I'm getting, Like Donovan Mitchell struggles with that
Speaker 1: part of the game. Again, if you're not a dominant
Speaker 1: defensive player and you're not a dominant playmaker, you've got
Speaker 1: to find a way to score efficiently consistently. And if
Speaker 1: you rely too heavily on one thing in this case
Speaker 1: pull up, jump shooting and pick and roll, you can
Speaker 1: run into some limitations when you go cold. But having
Speaker 1: other punches, Donovan Mitchell's a big straw guard. Adding a
Speaker 1: post up game so that you can do a little
Speaker 1: bit of what Jalen Brunson did during this postseason run,
Speaker 1: that would help a lot. Adding a looking to score
Speaker 1: more in switches, clearing the side, do what Jimmy Butler
Speaker 1: did with the heat, get the matchup you want, clear
Speaker 1: the side, beat your man off the dribble, and play
Speaker 1: driving kick basketball from there, that methodical, more surgical part
Speaker 1: of the game is the next area of improvement for
Speaker 1: Donovan Mitchell. So in summary, top five scoring guard in
Speaker 1: the league, I would say, if you're looking at small
Speaker 1: guards to get a bucket, I'd say Steph Damon Kyrie
Speaker 1: are the only three guys I'd take over him, so
Speaker 1: he's the fourth best SMALLT scoring guard in the league.
Speaker 1: He's also hyper efficient, although he hasn't been in the
Speaker 1: last two playoff runs. But he's a bit one dimensional
Speaker 1: as a score and he does almost all of his
Speaker 1: work out of pick and roll, so he needs to
Speaker 1: add some either like either an off ball element like
Speaker 1: what Steph Curry does, or more of a physical element
Speaker 1: in terms of posting or isoing specific matchups and adding
Speaker 1: some of that half court surgery the table. Again, he's
Speaker 1: not a great playmaker or defender, so consistency with his
Speaker 1: scoring is an absolute must all right. Number twenty two
Speaker 1: Dearon Fox, another new entry into the list. Regular season
Speaker 1: twenty five points, four rebound, six assists on sixty percent
Speaker 1: true shooting, just a deadly mix of paint scoring and
Speaker 1: a reliable pull up jump shot. He averaged twelve point
Speaker 1: two points in the paint per game this year, which
Speaker 1: was third in the league among guards. Only Shake Gill,
Speaker 1: Just Alexander and John Morant were guards that were ahead
Speaker 1: of him in paint scoring. Super reliable short jump shot
Speaker 1: and floater. He shot forty six percent on pull up
Speaker 1: jump shots inside the three point line and fifty four
Speaker 1: percent on floaters. Combining that with his ridiculous rim finishing,
Speaker 1: he was seventy two percent at the rim in the
Speaker 1: regular season.
Speaker 2: Which is just like off the charge. Good for a guard.
Speaker 1: That mixed into him being a very, very reliable score
Speaker 1: especially in crunch time. And you know, it was interesting
Speaker 1: because it translated at a really high level to the playoffs.
Speaker 1: You Know, it's funny because a lot of times I
Speaker 1: talked about how clutch basketball is the closest replication of
Speaker 1: playoff basketball. Why because it's high pressure usually there they
Speaker 1: teams will start switching everything at that point, so your
Speaker 1: sets will stop working, and then it's like a lot
Speaker 1: of physicality, the rest swallow the whistle, right, It kind
Speaker 1: of replicates the playoff environment in an end of game environment.
Speaker 1: And so I don't think it's a coincidence that Dearon
Speaker 1: Fox as good as he was in crunch time during
Speaker 1: this regular season, that he ended up having as successful
Speaker 1: a playoff run as he did. He ended up going
Speaker 1: up a level in scoring volume at twenty seven points
Speaker 1: per game, five rebounds and eight assists, fifty two percent
Speaker 1: true shooting. His efficiency went down a little bit. The
Speaker 1: big one there was at the rim He was seventy
Speaker 1: two percent at the rim in the regular season, but
Speaker 1: forty nine percent against Golden State. They just put their
Speaker 1: best athletes on him as a lot of Andrew Wiggins,
Speaker 1: a lot of Gary Payton, with Raymond Green and caval
Speaker 1: On Loney just waiting at the under the basket. That's
Speaker 1: that high level playoff scouting that he's gonna have to
Speaker 1: work his way around. But again for his first playoff run,
Speaker 1: I was incredibly impressed just by his ability to get
Speaker 1: to his spots, his ability to consistently beat people off
Speaker 1: the dribble. His playmaking has been a revelation eight assists
Speaker 1: per game in this postseason run. But he actually was
Speaker 1: really good during the regular season one point six points
Speaker 1: per possession when he passed out of pick and roll.
Speaker 1: This year one point two to six points per possession
Speaker 1: when he passed out of ISO. Just a really good
Speaker 1: driven kick player. Went back and watched a bunch of
Speaker 1: tape today. Just doesn't over complicate things, beats guys off
Speaker 1: the dribble, finds the help defender, kick out pass to
Speaker 1: the guy on the wing or underneath the basket for
Speaker 1: a dunk. He just is a really underrated passer. For
Speaker 1: a guy that gets so much attention as a score.
Speaker 1: But you can always tell right away when you watch
Speaker 1: playoff basketball if a player has a skill or a
Speaker 1: trait that translates to that level. And almost immediately you
Speaker 1: could tell watching dearon Fox, this dude can play in
Speaker 1: the playoffs. He's too quick, These dudes can't guard him,
Speaker 1: and he's got enough touch to make the show over
Speaker 1: the top that he needs to make. I thought it
Speaker 1: was a really impressive first playoff run for him. In summary,
Speaker 1: he was the primary engine for the best offense in
Speaker 1: the NBA this season. He's a dribble drive guard that
Speaker 1: no one can keep in front, that has a reliable
Speaker 1: jump shot to keep people honest. He's a good playmaker
Speaker 1: and a good point of attack defender. That was another
Speaker 1: thing that stood out to me in the Warriors series.
Speaker 1: He was one of their best options to put on
Speaker 1: the Warriors perimeter players. Obviously there's an engagement factor there,
Speaker 1: and sometimes he conserves energy and takes possessions off, but
Speaker 1: he's a very capable point of attack defender. And I
Speaker 1: thought overall he had a more impactful playoff series than
Speaker 1: Donovan Mitchell, and I think right now he's a slightly
Speaker 1: better player overall. And that's why I have Dearn Fox
Speaker 1: at twenty two, just so you guys know, like I
Speaker 1: have this all kind of split up into tears, and
Speaker 1: I'll tell you guys when we get to the next tier.
Speaker 1: But there are there's not really much of a gap
Speaker 1: between these guys. Like you'll notice when I get to
Speaker 1: the top of this list, number eleven is not that
Speaker 1: much worse than number four, Like it's tiniest of margin.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, number eleven kind of outplayed
Speaker 1: number four a little bit. It's a little hint for
Speaker 1: you guys, see if you can figure that out. But like,
Speaker 1: there's just not a big gap. The league is stacked
Speaker 1: with talent, you know. The gap between number twelve and
Speaker 1: the guys that I went over today is this small.
Speaker 1: And so when it comes to kind of like hand
Speaker 1: ringing over which particular number, just keep that in mind.
Speaker 1: If I have a player that is on the list
Speaker 1: at a specific number that you disagree with, it's probably
Speaker 1: not because we have that different of an opinion of
Speaker 1: that player. It's just where he landed in my particular list,
Speaker 1: where everything is super closed. It's like these criticisms like
Speaker 1: I'm offering, you know, criticisms of these players, but that's
Speaker 1: all relative. These are the twenty five best basketball players
Speaker 1: on the planet. These guys are incredible, you know, so like,
Speaker 1: let's not overthink that side of things. This is a
Speaker 1: fun exercise for the offseason, and at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, all of these guys are incredible. These were
Speaker 1: the list of guys that I considered that did not
Speaker 1: make the list. Bradley Beal, John Morant, although John Morant
Speaker 1: was the toughest one for me, but again, like I said,
Speaker 1: I went off of what I thought was a rough
Speaker 1: series in the Lakers series and just the immaturity off
Speaker 1: the court which is starting to hurt his team. James Harden,
Speaker 1: the playoff decline was too much to look past this year.
Speaker 1: I was rooting for him last year, but the decline
Speaker 1: has just been too substantial. Lori Markinen, first time I
Speaker 1: kind of considered him. Damnure a fifty to forty ninety
Speaker 1: guy on high volume scoring. Julius Raynel made an All
Speaker 1: NBA team this year, but I thought his playoff struggles
Speaker 1: although he was hurt or just a little too much.
Speaker 1: DeMar De Rosen obviously missing the playoffs, Zach Lavine missing
Speaker 1: the playoffs, Pascal Siakam missing the playoffs, Zion Williamson availability,
Speaker 1: Carl Town's inconsistency was what dropped him for me. Tyres
Speaker 1: Halliburton's kind of entering into that conversation but needs to
Speaker 1: have some playoff moments. McHale bridges another guy entering into
Speaker 1: those conversations. And then Drew Holliday I thought had a
Speaker 1: really good season this year, someone that I considered for
Speaker 1: that spot as well. Again, all those guys, that's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen,
Speaker 1: fourteen players, So that means one of those guys would
Speaker 1: have ranked thirty nine for me. Like, that's just how
Speaker 1: crazy the league is. Imagine, let's say that it's Drew
Speaker 1: Holiday is thirty nine, the thirty ninth best player in
Speaker 1: the league. Drew Holiday is a hell of a lot
Speaker 1: better than the guy who would have been the thirty
Speaker 1: ninth best player in the league back in two thousand
Speaker 1: and five.
Speaker 2: So that just goes to show you where we're at
Speaker 2: as a.
Speaker 1: League in terms of overall talent, and it makes it
Speaker 1: a lot of fun to cover on a daily basis.
Speaker 2: All right, guys, that is all I have for today.
Speaker 1: We will be back tomorrow with number twenty one, twenty
Speaker 1: and nineteen as always, I sincerely appreciate you guys supporting
Speaker 1: the show and I'll see you tomorrow. The volume