Speaker 1: The volume. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight. You're at
Speaker 1: the volume heavy Friday. Everybody helpful. You guys had a
Speaker 1: great week. We are finally bringing our player rankings list
Speaker 1: to an end today, hitting number one Nicole Jokic briefly
Speaker 1: off the top, and then we're going to get to
Speaker 1: your last batch of player rankings. Mail bag questions, You
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Speaker 1: the year. The last, but not least, we are going
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Speaker 1: right mail bag with a colent, write your question and
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Speaker 1: the rest of the year. All right, let's talk some basketball.
Speaker 1: So as mentioned, our player rankings list finally comes to
Speaker 1: an end today, and with this one, there's no debate,
Speaker 1: no lengthy argument to make, no need to pit him
Speaker 1: up against someone else. For the third straight year, Nikole
Speaker 1: Jokic has a stranglehold on the number one spot in
Speaker 1: the NBA. His last season in review, he played in
Speaker 1: seventy games. He's missed just seventy five games in his
Speaker 1: entire ten season long NBA career, meaning he's averaged over
Speaker 1: seventy four games played per season for a decade. Even
Speaker 1: when he missed time this year this most recent season,
Speaker 1: a good chunk of it centered around the birth of
Speaker 1: his child, not an injury. He has simply been one
Speaker 1: of the most reliable guys in the league for a decade,
Speaker 1: as averages twenty nine point six points per game that
Speaker 1: was a career high, twelve point seven rebounds per game,
Speaker 1: the second highest rebound average of his career, ten point
Speaker 1: two assists per game that was also a career high.
Speaker 1: So yes, that represented the first time in Jokic's career
Speaker 1: and just the third player in NBA history to average
Speaker 1: a triple double for an entire season. Two point four
Speaker 1: stocks per game that also tied a career high, fueled
Speaker 1: by a career high one point eight steals per game.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because I actually thought Jokic had a pretty
Speaker 1: brutal regular season on defense, But at the same time,
Speaker 1: I thought he's pretty damn good on defense in the playoffs,
Speaker 1: certainly better than he had been in the previous in
Speaker 1: the previous season. We'll talk more about Yokic's defense later.
Speaker 1: Fifty eight percent from the field, forty two percent from three.
Speaker 1: That was his best three point shooting season of his career.
Speaker 1: Right on the heels of a season where his three
Speaker 1: point shooting was kind of an issue, he rectified it
Speaker 1: and he became the best shooter he's ever been. Eighty
Speaker 1: percent from the foul line. That amounted to sixty three
Speaker 1: percent in effect field goal percentage and sixty six percent
Speaker 1: in true shooting, which was the second highest mark of
Speaker 1: his career behind that crazy twenty twenty three season. So
Speaker 1: to put it very simply, this was the best basketball
Speaker 1: Jokic had ever played. Now, okay, see, you won too
Speaker 1: many games too many more games than Denver in order
Speaker 1: for Yokic to have a real shot at MVP. But
Speaker 1: I thought Jokic was very clearly the best basketball player
Speaker 1: on the planet again last year, his fifth straight Top
Speaker 1: two MVP finish, his second straight first team All NBA selection.
Speaker 1: Should be five straight there. He just got kicked off
Speaker 1: on a technicality basically in twenty twenty three because of
Speaker 1: Joel Embiid, just to flaw on how the system works,
Speaker 1: play type data. We're just going to quickly go through
Speaker 1: this and then we'll get into some big picture stuff.
Speaker 1: One point one to three points per ball scream that
Speaker 1: he ran as the handler, so those inverted ball screens
Speaker 1: that was in the ninety second percent tile, one point
Speaker 1: zero eight points per possession on ISOs including passes that
Speaker 1: was in the eighty third percent tile, and then one
Speaker 1: point one six points per per cent on post ups,
Speaker 1: which is amazing for posterous volume two. Jokic generated eight
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty seven points on post ups last year
Speaker 1: including passes. That was three hundred and sixty three more
Speaker 1: than second place, which was Yiannis. So just by far
Speaker 1: the best post player in the entire game of basketball,
Speaker 1: all of his off ball metrics were insane. He converted
Speaker 1: spot ups at one point three to three points per possession.
Speaker 1: It's literally in the ninety six percententile. Out of the
Speaker 1: one hundred and seventy eight players to log at least
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty spot up opportunities last year, and
Speaker 1: again that includes a lot of guards and wings. He
Speaker 1: ranked fourth on that list in efficiency had of spot
Speaker 1: up situations. He converted rollman opportunities at one point twenty
Speaker 1: nine points per possession out of the ten role men
Speaker 1: to log at least two hundred reps. That ranked second.
Speaker 1: Jared Allen was the only guy above him, and as
Speaker 1: we all know, Jared Allen was consistently getting easier opportunities.
Speaker 1: Just a ridiculous regular season from nikolea Jokic, and he
Speaker 1: capped it all off with what I thought was in
Speaker 1: impressive playoff runt. Like the Nuggets looked dead in the
Speaker 1: water going into the postseason. I even picked them against
Speaker 1: the Clippers, as many folks did, because the Clippers looked
Speaker 1: great and the Nuggets looked terrible. Over the final third
Speaker 1: of the season, Aaron Gordon was banged up all year,
Speaker 1: Jamal Murray was banged up at the end of the year,
Speaker 1: the team was kind of splintering, they had just fired
Speaker 1: their coach, and Yogic galvinized them and got them to
Speaker 1: beat a very good Clippers team. And again, I like
Speaker 1: I had actually picked against Denver in that series. I
Speaker 1: thought the Clippers were gonna win, and Jokic just got
Speaker 1: his team back in shape in time to win a
Speaker 1: big series. And then that was a very good Oklahoma
Speaker 1: City team that was a substantial favorite, and he pushed
Speaker 1: them to the brink. And if it wasn't four, especially
Speaker 1: down the stretch of Game four and in Game five,
Speaker 1: if he just gets another couple of buckets from a
Speaker 1: couple of his teammates, they probably have a very good
Speaker 1: chance to win that series. And so I just was
Speaker 1: really impressed by Jokic start to finish, including the postseason
Speaker 1: last year, and then again really quickly I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about defense, Like I thought it was really impressive
Speaker 1: the way that he just kind of locked in using
Speaker 1: his IQ and active hands and stabilized the Denver defense
Speaker 1: that looked awful all season. And they did as good
Speaker 1: a job against Oklahoma City as you could possibly do.
Speaker 1: They did better against Oklahoma City than Minnesota did. They
Speaker 1: did about as good against Oklahoma City as Indiana did,
Speaker 1: even though Indiana matched up better in terms of quickness
Speaker 1: on the perimeter. I thought that Jokicic was far and
Speaker 1: away the best player in that Oklahoma City series in
Speaker 1: the second round. I just thought it was a really
Speaker 1: impressive campaign from the best basketball player alive. Now, the
Speaker 1: case for Jokics being the best player in the world
Speaker 1: is very simple. He may not be the highest volume
Speaker 1: score in the league statistically, although I believe he could
Speaker 1: be if he wanted to. It's just not really the
Speaker 1: way he's wired. Like Jekobs, Alexander took thirty shots per
Speaker 1: one hundred possessions last year. He was an extremely high
Speaker 1: volume shooter last year. If Jokics really approached the game
Speaker 1: in that way, he put up astronomical scoring totals too.
Speaker 1: But I think he's the most reliable small sample score
Speaker 1: in the league, meaning like if you take away just
Speaker 1: oh full season points per game total volume, and you
Speaker 1: just focus in on like, hey, we got five minutes
Speaker 1: of basketball here, and we gotta win this game, and
Speaker 1: it's all gonna come down to these five you know this,
Speaker 1: these final fifteen possessions or so I don't think there's
Speaker 1: a better scorer in the league in terms of reliability
Speaker 1: in those situations strictly small sample Brute for scoring, his
Speaker 1: short range touch on floaters and hooks is literally unparalleled
Speaker 1: in the sport. He was sixty four percent on floaters
Speaker 1: last year, sixty one percent on hooks. He made one
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty of those floaters in hooks last year.
Speaker 1: That's insane volume, and like he's making damn near two
Speaker 1: thirds of them. It's variants proof. Short jump shots inside
Speaker 1: of seventeen feet he shot fifty five percent, He's forty
Speaker 1: seven percent on long twos outside of his seventeen feet,
Speaker 1: forty two on threes, and as we're going to talk about,
Speaker 1: much better if you take out the heats, he is
Speaker 1: the most variance proof and unstoppable single possession score in
Speaker 1: the entire sport while also being the best passer in
Speaker 1: the entire sport. So the result is you basically cannot
Speaker 1: stop him from getting a good shot for himself or
Speaker 1: a teammate. And that shows in a specific stat that
Speaker 1: I actually brought to the forefront last summer. But I
Speaker 1: want to go over what those numbers look like this
Speaker 1: year to demonstrate. So. In Synergy, they have a stat
Speaker 1: called score percentage, which simply just factors in, if we
Speaker 1: run this play, how likely are we to put points
Speaker 1: on the board. Essentially reliability of an action. If you
Speaker 1: ran a post up for Jokic last year, regardless of
Speaker 1: how you guarded it, if you shaded him, if you
Speaker 1: hard double teamed him, if you left him on an island,
Speaker 1: regardless of how you guarded it, it had a fifty
Speaker 1: four percent chance and resulting in points. That's a pretty
Speaker 1: name reliable play type. Throw the ball to Jokich, He's
Speaker 1: probably going to score or get someone a shot that
Speaker 1: they're going to make. If you ran an ISO for Jokich,
Speaker 1: it resulted in points fifty two percent of the time,
Speaker 1: regardless of how you guarded him. If you ran a
Speaker 1: ball screen for him where he's the handler and you're
Speaker 1: having a guard screen for him or Aaron Gordon screen
Speaker 1: for him, it had a fifty two percent chance of
Speaker 1: ending in points, regardless of how you defended it off
Speaker 1: the ball, if you left him open. He shot forty
Speaker 1: nine percent on pick and pop threes. He shot forty
Speaker 1: nine percent on spot up threes. The only reason his
Speaker 1: percentages fell to the low forties is because he missed
Speaker 1: like thirty heaves last year. Took a ton of them,
Speaker 1: like late shot clock bombs or half court shots. He
Speaker 1: was incredibly reliab. If you let him get a good
Speaker 1: look from three, he hit half of them. He is
Speaker 1: quite simply the best offensive player I've ever seen, a
Speaker 1: deadly variance proof on and off ball score while simultaneously
Speaker 1: being the best passer in basketball. He's even a monster
Speaker 1: on the margins. He had seventy five offensive rebound putbacks
Speaker 1: last year. That was the seventh most in the entire NBA.
Speaker 1: He was a dominant defensive rebounder. He had averaged the
Speaker 1: second most defensive rebounds per game in the entire NBA
Speaker 1: last year behind Giannis. We mentioned the career high in steels,
Speaker 1: just defensive playmaking. He just impacts the game in an
Speaker 1: absolute mountain of ways. I mentioned two weaknesses last summer
Speaker 1: that I said had kind of brought him a little
Speaker 1: bit closer to the pack. I said his three point
Speaker 1: shooting and his defense were the two things that were
Speaker 1: hurting him. He literally shot in the high forties on threes.
Speaker 1: When you removed heaves from the equation. He was one
Speaker 1: of the best picking pop bigs in the NBA. He
Speaker 1: was one of the best spot up players in the
Speaker 1: entire NBA if even if you include guards and wings,
Speaker 1: so you can go ahead and scratch that shooting weakness
Speaker 1: off the list. And again, while he had a brutal
Speaker 1: defensive regular season, which was a team wide issue, I
Speaker 1: thought he was really good in the playoffs. He still
Speaker 1: has some situational weaknesses, and they're worth mentioning here. They
Speaker 1: sound silly in the grand scheme of things, especially compared
Speaker 1: to some of the weaknesses for players further down this list.
Speaker 1: But if you put him up against a great pick
Speaker 1: and roll player, a guy that can really shoot and
Speaker 1: pull him out to the perimeter but can also pass
Speaker 1: out of it. So guys like Steph Curry, Luka Doncic,
Speaker 1: like those guys are going to give Jokic some issues
Speaker 1: on defense or yeah, like if they didn't blow up
Speaker 1: the Celtics and they stayed healthy and the Nuggets ran
Speaker 1: into that Celtics team in a series, they would have
Speaker 1: been able to space him out. It would have caused
Speaker 1: some problems. But Boston's not a threat anymore. And for
Speaker 1: any problems that Luca and Steph can cause for Jokic.
Speaker 1: He's going to cause a mountain of problems for them.
Speaker 1: On the other end of the floor. I would pick
Speaker 1: Denver to beat Golden State or LA if they were
Speaker 1: to meet in the playoffs this year, at least at
Speaker 1: this point, I actually think Jokich is a particularly solid
Speaker 1: defensive matchup for Oklahoma City. It's a matchup that allows
Speaker 1: him to use his size and IQ doesn't force him
Speaker 1: to cover as much ground out in space. It's a
Speaker 1: good matchup for him. Ironically, Like, if you really get
Speaker 1: dig into like the basketball specifics, a team like Cleveland
Speaker 1: is a team that could potentially cause some issues for
Speaker 1: Jokic with their speed and pull up shooting and all
Speaker 1: of the ability to space the floor that they have.
Speaker 1: But like, I actually think Jokic matches up pretty well
Speaker 1: against Oklahoma City. And no, he's not a perfect defensive player,
Speaker 1: but in a playoff context, I feel like he can
Speaker 1: do plenty well enough to counterbalance what is the best
Speaker 1: offensive player that I've ever seen on the other end
Speaker 1: of the floor. And coming into the season, I think
Speaker 1: this is the best roster that Jokic has ever had.
Speaker 1: They've anchored him with substantially more depth substantially more athleticism
Speaker 1: that should further allow Jokic to be more useful on defense.
Speaker 1: They have a legit backup center to anchors, and again,
Speaker 1: I think they match up well with Oklahoma City. Hell,
Speaker 1: they pushed them to seven just last year. A couple
Speaker 1: shots go different in Game five or in Game four,
Speaker 1: they win that series. So in addition to me picking
Speaker 1: Jokic is the best player in the world this season,
Speaker 1: I can tell you guys right now that Denver is
Speaker 1: my preseason pick to win the title. I think they're
Speaker 1: going to be the best playoff team this year. I
Speaker 1: may not get the one seed, but I think they're
Speaker 1: going to be up there. And I like they got
Speaker 1: the best player in the world or the best team
Speaker 1: he's ever had, and I'm going to take those odds
Speaker 1: against all of the other flaws that are presented further
Speaker 1: down the list of contenders. Big shout out to Nikola
Speaker 1: Jokich three straight years at number one on this list,
Speaker 1: first player since Lebron James to have the league in
Speaker 1: a stranglehold like this. We are extremely excited to announce
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Speaker 1: and Virginia. All right, let's get into our mail bag
Speaker 1: before we get out of here today. You've been very
Speaker 1: forthcoming about your process going into this ranking, which I appreciate.
Speaker 1: It really helps to know that the list has gone
Speaker 1: through multiple drafts and that you spent multiple nights sleeping
Speaker 1: on it. That said, I was wondering what your general
Speaker 1: view on rankings is in more of a broad scope.
Speaker 1: Do you watch other people's rankings, and if so, how
Speaker 1: seriously do you take them? I tend to treat it
Speaker 1: all as a fun way to engage with the game,
Speaker 1: and it always baffles me to see people get so
Speaker 1: heated over the rankings. Thank you and love the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for the kind words and for
Speaker 1: supporting this show. Honestly, like I don't particularly care about,
Speaker 1: like INDI visually ranking players in the sense that, like
Speaker 1: I don't get too worked up about the lists and
Speaker 1: where other people have people ranked. I think it's a
Speaker 1: fun thought exercise. So for instance, like I like doing
Speaker 1: this once a summer just to like zoom out and
Speaker 1: take a look at the league. And one of the
Speaker 1: things you guys will notice is, like the vast majority
Speaker 1: of people who do lists will just share their lists,
Speaker 1: and they might have like a little blurb that they
Speaker 1: put underneath their ranking. But like, as you guys know,
Speaker 1: we went into incredible detail on all of these players.
Speaker 1: Like my primary purpose of this list is to zoom
Speaker 1: out and take a look at where all these guys land,
Speaker 1: and just my opinions, you guys can get a view
Speaker 1: of where I see things and where I see the game.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean it has to be where you see
Speaker 1: the game. But most importantly, regardless of how you feel
Speaker 1: about the rankings with each guy, it's like kind of
Speaker 1: like a performance review, so to speak. Not that I'm
Speaker 1: these guys boss or anything, but the point is is,
Speaker 1: like it's my opportunity to like dig back into the number,
Speaker 1: dig back into the film, take a look at a
Speaker 1: basketball player and be like, where's this dude at right now?
Speaker 1: And that kind of helps me If I do that
Speaker 1: every summer, it helps me just have a really firm
Speaker 1: grasp on the individual trajectories of each player. This guy's
Speaker 1: going up, this guy's going down, this guy's stagnating. Here's why.
Speaker 1: Here are the numbers that show that. Here are the
Speaker 1: things that I'm noticing on tape. Here's what Yiannis is
Speaker 1: doing differently than he did in years past as a playmaker.
Speaker 1: You know, here's where Lebron is struggling compared to when
Speaker 1: he was in his prime. Like those, I learn a
Speaker 1: ton from these lists. Like the ranking is the ranking.
Speaker 1: I throw the ranking together, like you mentioned in the
Speaker 1: first week, right like, I sleep on it several times
Speaker 1: and I reorganize things. But once I settle on a ranking,
Speaker 1: it effectively turns into a month long research project. It's
Speaker 1: a research project where I spend an enormous amount of
Speaker 1: time researching these players, and even though I've watched them
Speaker 1: all season. It allows me to really just dive into
Speaker 1: one particular player, look at both ends of the floor,
Speaker 1: look at what he accomplished last season, where his areas
Speaker 1: of opportunity are where for young players their development trajectory
Speaker 1: needs to go. It's it's essentially a research project. And
Speaker 1: so yeah, like I'm not gonna like when the ESPN
Speaker 1: player rankings come out. I don't really get all worked
Speaker 1: up about it. I do this for you guys and
Speaker 1: for me. I do it for you guys so that
Speaker 1: you guys can see kind of where I have each
Speaker 1: of these players ranked as just kind of like a
Speaker 1: big picture snapshot of the NBA, and then I do
Speaker 1: it for me as a research project to learn about
Speaker 1: where these players are in more detail. It's just an
Speaker 1: opportunity in the summertime to take advantage of all the
Speaker 1: time that we have there. Hi, Jason, you say that
Speaker 1: Shay doesn't have best in the world potentially. I got
Speaker 1: a lot of questions surrounding Shay, A lot of people
Speaker 1: who were comparing him to prime MJ, people who were
Speaker 1: saying that he does have potential to be the best player.
Speaker 1: And there were a lot of thunder fans that were
Speaker 1: unhappy with that particular conversation. And I am recording this
Speaker 1: mail bag before our Shay Luca video releases. Which comes
Speaker 1: out next week on Wednesday, or I should say two
Speaker 1: days ago, but I am recording this in advance, so
Speaker 1: I haven't seen those questions, and I'm sure there's going
Speaker 1: to be a ton of thunder fans that are super
Speaker 1: pissed off that I have Luca ahead of him, and
Speaker 1: that are super pissed off that I said he doesn't
Speaker 1: have best player in the world potential. So this question
Speaker 1: kind of falls into that lens, and it allowed me
Speaker 1: to hit a bunch of those points. The rest of
Speaker 1: the question, I don't understand what else he needs to do.
Speaker 1: He outplayed Anton Jokic this year in the playoffs, he
Speaker 1: outplayed Luca. Last year he carried the offense on a
Speaker 1: limited offensive team and took them to sixty eight wins
Speaker 1: in a championship. Okay sees offensive system does not require
Speaker 1: him to have high assist numbers on like Denver with
Speaker 1: Jokich in LA with Luca, he impacts the game in
Speaker 1: different ways. He averaged thirty three points on thirty four
Speaker 1: minutes per game with great efficiency. I understand Yokic above him,
Speaker 1: but with Sga already arguably the best player in the world,
Speaker 1: love the show, so I couple I want to just
Speaker 1: start by disagreeing with a couple of specific things that
Speaker 1: you said. You said he outplayed Ant this last season.
Speaker 1: I agree. I thought that he badly outplayed Ant in
Speaker 1: that series, but Ant is not a top tier superstar.
Speaker 1: You said he outplayed Yokich this year in the playoffs.
Speaker 1: I thoroughly disagree. I thought Jokich was the best player
Speaker 1: in that series. You said he outplayed Luca last year.
Speaker 1: I also thoroughly disagree there, and I think this is
Speaker 1: where before I get back into the Luca Shay piece,
Speaker 1: I want to look at the other comment you said.
Speaker 1: You said Oklahoma City's offensive system does not require him
Speaker 1: to have high assist numbers, unlike Denver with Jokich, in
Speaker 1: LA with Luca. That I fundamentally disagree with. They're not
Speaker 1: putting up massive assist numbers while Shay's not because of
Speaker 1: the offensive system. They're doing it because Jokiic and Luca
Speaker 1: are just better offensive players than Shay, who are much
Speaker 1: better at running a team offense and are much better
Speaker 1: at setting those dudes up with quality opportunities. I just
Speaker 1: think they're better. I think Shae and his kind of
Speaker 1: tendency to have games where he goes rogue and forces
Speaker 1: the issue a lot earlier, actually hurts his team and
Speaker 1: hurts his rhythm, hurts his the rhythm of his teammates.
Speaker 1: To be clear, we're splitting hairs here. I think Shane's
Speaker 1: the third best player in the world. So I'm not
Speaker 1: over here trying to say Shae's a bum. But if
Speaker 1: you're asking me why I have Luca in Jokich above
Speaker 1: the above Shay, I think both of those guys are like,
Speaker 1: clearly and discernibly better offensive players than Shae, even the
Speaker 1: scoring piece, like oh, he averaged thirty three points per game.
Speaker 1: He had this prime MJ scoring type of season literally
Speaker 1: just one season prior, when Luca was healthy, he had
Speaker 1: a better scoring season than Shae. He had crazier totals.
Speaker 1: He had like a seventy three point game this season.
Speaker 1: That season he averaged like thirty four points per game
Speaker 1: while also being in my opinion, the second best overall
Speaker 1: offensive engine in the game with his ability to create
Speaker 1: advantages for his teammates. Like, I just don't think Shae's
Speaker 1: as good offensively as just his simple points per game metric,
Speaker 1: would you lead you to believe? And again, the shot
Speaker 1: totals are insane. He literally averaged thirty shot attempts per
Speaker 1: one hundred possessions last year. It's like a he just
Speaker 1: was shooting a ton and scoring a ton. And by
Speaker 1: the way, I think Shay is a transcendently great score
Speaker 1: I just don't think he's a transcendently great offensive player overall,
Speaker 1: the way that Luca is and the way that jokiches
Speaker 1: even to a greater extent, The question is can Shae
Speaker 1: become that type of offensive engine. And throughout NBA history,
Speaker 1: this is the unique thing, and it's just kind of tricky,
Speaker 1: like you kind of have to be born with that trait.
Speaker 1: I've seen players become better at it, and they become
Speaker 1: more consistent making the reads, they become more consistent game managers.
Speaker 1: I think Damian Lillard is a good example of this
Speaker 1: kind of guy who like kind of maximized his individual
Speaker 1: potential as a playmaker. But to be very clear, there
Speaker 1: is still a gigantic chasm between that type of guy
Speaker 1: and the relentless advantage creating deadly defense, beating passers that
Speaker 1: you run into at the top of the league that
Speaker 1: it's like they've just been born with it, Like Lebron
Speaker 1: James in his prime, Chris Paul, you know, Trey Young
Speaker 1: I think fits into this category the Nikola Jokic, Luka
Speaker 1: Doncic types, And when you're looking at a guy like
Speaker 1: to me, Jokic and Luca are both every bit as
Speaker 1: talented as scorers as Shay. They may not lean into
Speaker 1: it as much, and they may not shoot as many shots,
Speaker 1: and they may not hit as many totals, although Luka
Speaker 1: we've literally seen him do it. But I think if
Speaker 1: Jokic was like, oh I have I have a fifty
Speaker 1: million dollar incentive next year to average thirty five points
Speaker 1: per game, I think Jokic could average thirty five points
Speaker 1: per game like that. Like like, I think Shay is
Speaker 1: a score first player who's really fucking good at it.
Speaker 1: But I think Luka and Jokic are overall better offensive players.
Speaker 1: So the question is if Shay's not going to progress
Speaker 1: to become this like Grease the Wheels offensive engine that's
Speaker 1: an unbelievable playmaker, where else can he make that improvement?
Speaker 1: And like I do think that Shay is a good
Speaker 1: defensive player, I think it's absurd that he got Defensive
Speaker 1: Player of the Year votes like that to me is
Speaker 1: crazy talk. I think that some of the talk about
Speaker 1: him being like an elite like top end defensive player
Speaker 1: is crazy talk. But I think he's a good defender.
Speaker 1: He's a good playmaker, a defensive playmaker, like he can
Speaker 1: jump passing lanes, play the ball well. He's a good
Speaker 1: like help side guy at the ramis got good length,
Speaker 1: he can block shots. But Shay doesn't have either the
Speaker 1: bandwidth because of his offensive load or honestly, the athletic
Speaker 1: traits to be the transcendently great defensive player. He would
Speaker 1: need to become the best player in the world. So, like,
Speaker 1: let's look at the guy by the way, I have
Speaker 1: a question. I have a question later on where someone
Speaker 1: talks about how they're skeptical that Ant can ever become
Speaker 1: that elite defensive player too. I agree, like, and we'll
Speaker 1: get to that more in a minute. As a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, let me go to that real quick and
Speaker 1: then we'll come back to that. We'll come back to
Speaker 1: the Shaye piece this question. I take the bet that
Speaker 1: Ant never becomes an all defensive guy. One, his offensive
Speaker 1: role is too big to compete with the defensive specialists
Speaker 1: around the league, and two he struggles with more than
Speaker 1: just ball screens personally. He's not great off ball, I agree,
Speaker 1: and I think his size limits him next to guys
Speaker 1: like Dyson Daniels and Asar Thompson, Timanti Kamara, Jduve, etc.
Speaker 1: So for the record, I agree, like I would bet
Speaker 1: on Ant not becoming the all defense guy, and I
Speaker 1: would bet on Ant not becoming the best player in
Speaker 1: the world. I am just saying he has that potential.
Speaker 1: The point you're making, the point about his offensive role
Speaker 1: is what I think, Like, that's why I think he
Speaker 1: won't get there. It's because his offensive role is too big,
Speaker 1: and I just don't think he'll ever dedicate the necessary resources.
Speaker 1: That second piece I disagree with, Like, you're right, he's
Speaker 1: pretty bad off ball right now, and he's pretty bad
Speaker 1: at navigating screens. But I think he can be great
Speaker 1: at all of those things. The thing with his size,
Speaker 1: and there's this kind of theory, and this is this
Speaker 1: is not new. This is a theory that's existed in
Speaker 1: the world of basketball for a while, which is like,
Speaker 1: can guys be so big that they have a hard
Speaker 1: time navigating screens? And I do think that that's true
Speaker 1: for upright players, players that have high centers of gravity,
Speaker 1: But Ant, I think is a guy who could blow
Speaker 1: up screens. I think if Aunt really put in the
Speaker 1: work and wanted to be he could be a guy
Speaker 1: that was unscreenable because of how fast he is, because
Speaker 1: how good his footwork is, and because of his strength
Speaker 1: and his shoulders. He can blow screens up as he's
Speaker 1: going through those actions and really become a guy that
Speaker 1: big guys don't even want to screen. So like I
Speaker 1: do think Ant has the potential to become a transcendently
Speaker 1: great defensive player and a transcendently great score I just
Speaker 1: think it's more likely that he becomes a transcendently great scorer,
Speaker 1: but probably not as great on defense as he needs
Speaker 1: to be, which means I think I think Shay's clearly
Speaker 1: better than it now. But I think the most likely
Speaker 1: scenario is Ant and Shay are more or less neck
Speaker 1: and neck for the rest of their careers, and I
Speaker 1: don't think either of them ever actually end up threatening
Speaker 1: that best player in the world conversation. I think Ant
Speaker 1: has that potential, to be clear because of his athletic traits.
Speaker 1: I don't think either of them has the potential to
Speaker 1: be a transcendently great playmaker, but Ant has the potential
Speaker 1: on defense. I just think it's more likely than not
Speaker 1: that he doesn't get there now. So the question is
Speaker 1: what about when Luca or what about when Jokic declines?
Speaker 1: Like if Jokic declines, can Shay become that guy? And
Speaker 1: I just I think it's more likely that it's a Luca.
Speaker 1: I think it's more likely that it's a Victor wem
Speaker 1: Minyama because Luca transcendently great, scores every bit as good
Speaker 1: a score as Shaye, if not a little better, and
Speaker 1: he's a substantially better passer, playmaker, offensive engine. Like, I
Speaker 1: think he's going to stay above Shae for the most
Speaker 1: part in his career too, the Victor women Yama piece, Like,
Speaker 1: I think he's going to be a guy who averages
Speaker 1: twenty eight thirty points per game on sixty plus percent
Speaker 1: for shooting, while also being the defensive player of the
Speaker 1: year perennially, year in and year out. That's a guy
Speaker 1: that's a better basketball player than Shake Gildas Alexander. That's
Speaker 1: a guy that's a better basketball player than the most
Speaker 1: likely and eventual version of Anthony Edwards. So like again,
Speaker 1: like to me, I think where people got confused is
Speaker 1: like I don't necessarily expect Ant to become better than
Speaker 1: Shae and to enter into that best player in the
Speaker 1: world conversation. It's just I think Ant does have this
Speaker 1: like freaky athletic potential that could theoretically manifest in the
Speaker 1: most devastating two way player at the guard position in
Speaker 1: the league. Which I don't think Shaye has the ability
Speaker 1: to be the most devastating two way player at the
Speaker 1: guard position in the league. I don't think that's something
Speaker 1: that's in his potential, don't. I don't think he has
Speaker 1: the athletic gifts or the size and strength to necessarily
Speaker 1: be that guy. But like again, like this is okay, guys,
Speaker 1: like there are people like do you understand, Like Kevin
Speaker 1: Durant more or less was in that top tier but
Speaker 1: never became the best guy. Steph might have done it
Speaker 1: for one year in twenty twenty two. I think he
Speaker 1: did do it for one year in twenty twenty two. Like,
Speaker 1: if Shan ends up being a guy who's the second, third,
Speaker 1: fourth best player in the league for seven eight years,
Speaker 1: he's gonna be remembered with the likes of Steph Curry
Speaker 1: and Kevin Durant. It's it's just it's a very, very
Speaker 1: different conversation when you get into like this dude's the
Speaker 1: best basketball player on planet Earth. That's the conversation that
Speaker 1: Jokic just had in his stranglehold for three straight years,
Speaker 1: and like that requires you to be transcendently great at
Speaker 1: at least two things. You go back to twenty twenty
Speaker 1: two when it was Steph he is one of the
Speaker 1: great advantage creators in the NBA. Still to this day,
Speaker 1: you can put a bunch of random dudes with him
Speaker 1: and he's a one twenty offensive rating. And back in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, he was still the guy who could
Speaker 1: be the volume elite transcendently great score. If you think
Speaker 1: it's Giannis in twenty twenty one, like transcendently great def
Speaker 1: defensive player, transcendently great scorer. At that point in time,
Speaker 1: he had figured some things out, especially at the foul line.
Speaker 1: Lebron transcendently great playmaker, transcendently great score and one of
Speaker 1: the elite defensive players in the league. That's why he's
Speaker 1: in the goat conversation. Like you go back before that
Speaker 1: to Kobe Bryant, it's same thing. Transcendently great defensive player
Speaker 1: in his prime, transcendently great score. Like there's a very like,
Speaker 1: when you get into that conversation best player on the planet,
Speaker 1: it's an extremely high standard that you're looking to hit,
Speaker 1: and I get it, Like this all gets convoluted because
Speaker 1: he hoisted the trophy and like I had comments that were, like,
Speaker 1: Shay just had the best scoring season since MJ. He
Speaker 1: won the scoring title, he won MVP, he won finals, MVP.
Speaker 1: I'm not hating on the season. There's a remarkable accomplishment season.
Speaker 1: But Oklahoma City had the best roster, and in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways, it was Shay's game management that became
Speaker 1: an issue at various points in the playoffs, which is
Speaker 1: why they got pushed to seven games by inferior basketball
Speaker 1: teams this year. The reason Oklahoma City won the title
Speaker 1: is they have the best defense of this era. Their
Speaker 1: defense is so damn good it literally forced Nicole Jokic
Speaker 1: into the first like stretch of mediocre basketball from him
Speaker 1: that we've literally ever seen. That defense caused players to
Speaker 1: piss down their leg Jaron Jackson completely decomposed, Julius Randall
Speaker 1: completely decomposed. That was an all time great defense that
Speaker 1: the third best player in the world ended up being
Speaker 1: enough offense for them to win. That's the way I
Speaker 1: look at it, and again, like I just am talking,
Speaker 1: we are splitting hairs among the best players in the world.
Speaker 1: I ranked Shaye above Yannis this year. You know how
Speaker 1: hard it is to be above Giannis Antennacumpo as a
Speaker 1: basketball player. I have a ton of respect for Shade.
Speaker 1: Like I had another comment, someone said, like, you just
Speaker 1: don't like Shae because of the aesthetics. I don't necessarily
Speaker 1: like lucas aesthetics, the flopping, the grifting. He's not a
Speaker 1: vertical player. He's not a guy that has like a
Speaker 1: ton of fluidity in his jump shot. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like a set shot. Like Luca is not a player
Speaker 1: that I love aesthetically. I think he can pound the
Speaker 1: air out of the basketball sometimes, something that I don't
Speaker 1: necessarily love watching on television. I understand. I will be
Speaker 1: fourthright with you guys and tell you how I feel
Speaker 1: about a player. Yeah, Shay's not my favorite player. Joel
Speaker 1: Embiid wasn't my favorite player, but I can promise you
Speaker 1: that I will try like hell to rank them fairly
Speaker 1: in that context. To me, Luca is above Shay because
Speaker 1: he is every bit the score in a much better playmaker,
Speaker 1: offensive engine same goes for Nikola Jokic. That's why I
Speaker 1: have Shaye in third place. The reason why I don't
Speaker 1: think he can become the best player in the world
Speaker 1: is because we have other guys in his age group,
Speaker 1: Luca who's transcendently great at two things, scoring and playmaking,
Speaker 1: Wemby who's going to be transcendently great at two things
Speaker 1: scoring in defense, and Jokic, who still literally just had
Speaker 1: the best season of his career. So, like, I think
Speaker 1: it's more likely that Shay is a perennial first team
Speaker 1: All NBA, top tier superstar guy that just never cracks
Speaker 1: that number one spot. And while Ant does have that potential,
Speaker 1: I agree with you, thunder fans. I think it's more
Speaker 1: likely than not that Ant doesn't become that he just
Speaker 1: eventually catches up to Shay and those two dudes kind
Speaker 1: of battle for the best two guard in the league spot.
Speaker 1: Looking forward in the next era of the NBA, is
Speaker 1: there any argument that supports an optimistic Warriors season that
Speaker 1: would not also work for the Mavericks. Both of injury
Speaker 1: prone players leading the team's offense, both have incredible depth
Speaker 1: and can put out fourteen competent players during the season,
Speaker 1: and both have a defensive floor that is relatively high.
Speaker 1: I understand that the Warriors offense is better, but Butler
Speaker 1: is an aging, injury prone player who does not value
Speaker 1: the regular season but is very necessary for their success,
Speaker 1: while the Mavericks have excuse me, a young core of
Speaker 1: hungry players looking to get back into contention. I don't
Speaker 1: see how someone could have the Warriors higher than the
Speaker 1: MAVs when both teams have injury history, but the MAVs
Speaker 1: are significantly younger. This is a regular season, by the way,
Speaker 1: and not the playoffs. I won't argue against Steph in
Speaker 1: the playoffs. That's truly I think. Honestly, I disagree with you.
Speaker 1: Like I wouldn't be surprised if the MAVs ended up
Speaker 1: above Golden State in the regular season. If Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: comes back, and like I talk about Luca having a
Speaker 1: revenge season, I think it's very possible that Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: has a revenge season. He's had a long time to
Speaker 1: rest and to get in shape. He's probably pissed off
Speaker 1: if he got traded. I wouldn't be surprised if we
Speaker 1: have an awesome season out of Anthony Davis. They have
Speaker 1: an incredible depth of defensive talent. It's just simple about
Speaker 1: simply about the offensive end of the floor. That's where
Speaker 1: that could become an issue. But in the regular season,
Speaker 1: I think defense matters more. When you get to the postseason,
Speaker 1: you gotta have both. But in the regular season, as
Speaker 1: we've seen with teams like Houston, if you get enough stops,
Speaker 1: you can just exist in transition and score enough points
Speaker 1: to win games. And so I wouldn't be surprised if
Speaker 1: the MAVs and it up at a higher seed at
Speaker 1: the end of the season. But the real thing is
Speaker 1: is neither Kyrie nor Anthony Davis are like really truly
Speaker 1: great offensive players overall. Running a team like we saw
Speaker 1: what prime Kyrie looked like leading the Celtics. Like Steph
Speaker 1: Curry even at age thirty seven, you just put him
Speaker 1: out there with some dudes and you get a one
Speaker 1: to twenty offensive rating because of his ability to fly
Speaker 1: around and draw two to the ball consistently. So like
Speaker 1: to me, I would view the Warriors as a more
Speaker 1: dangerous playoff team because they're probably still going to be
Speaker 1: great on defense with Draymond and Jimmy and especially if
Speaker 1: Al Horford gets picked up and Steph Curry is still
Speaker 1: just a way better offensive player than anybody wearing a
Speaker 1: Dallas Mavericks jersey. Two more quick ones. Can you explain
Speaker 1: pissel action? How works and what are the advantages and disadvantages?
Speaker 1: I love this question. We don't get a ton of
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff, but if you guys ever want
Speaker 1: to dive into these concepts. I always find these very fascinating,
Speaker 1: so I'd love to get into them. All you have
Speaker 1: to do is continue to drop them in the mail
Speaker 1: back question. Pistol is essentially a handoff that flows into
Speaker 1: a ball screen. I've seen variations of this action called
Speaker 1: a bunch of different things. You'll see it called Chicago
Speaker 1: in the NBA. You'll see it called zoom in the NBA. Pistol, right,
Speaker 1: pistol generally, let's set up the floor first and go
Speaker 1: from there. Just imagine a big that's kind of hanging
Speaker 1: out around the top of the key. You've got two
Speaker 1: players spacing on the weak side, so corner wing on
Speaker 1: the weak side, but let's focus on the strong side.
Speaker 1: You got a big that's somewhere around the top of
Speaker 1: the key, and you got a guy in the corner
Speaker 1: and the guy in the corner is the guy we're
Speaker 1: trying to get the ball to. I'm the point guard
Speaker 1: bringing the ball up the floor. And if in a
Speaker 1: pistol action, generally speaking, I'm just gonna dribble into the
Speaker 1: corner and hand off the ball to the guy coming
Speaker 1: out of the corner, and that is going to flow
Speaker 1: into the big man at the top of the key
Speaker 1: coming over to set a screen. So it's essentially a
Speaker 1: dribble handoff into a ball screen. Right. That's usually called
Speaker 1: pistol zoom or Chicago. It's the same principle, it just
Speaker 1: looks a little different. You'll dump the ball to the
Speaker 1: big and instead of the guard going in dribble hand offing,
Speaker 1: the big will go in dribble handoff and the guard
Speaker 1: will just set a screen first. So in either case,
Speaker 1: regardless of how you set it up, the guard is
Speaker 1: gonna come off of two screens, a guard screen first
Speaker 1: and a big screen second. And whether or not he
Speaker 1: gets the dribble hand off from the guard or the
Speaker 1: dribble handoff from the big, it's still more or less
Speaker 1: creates the same basketball dynamic. And again, I never get
Speaker 1: too hung up on the names of actions because they
Speaker 1: tend to differ from team to team. Like even just
Speaker 1: when I was playing in college, we had the same
Speaker 1: defensive actions or defensive coverages or offensive actions that would
Speaker 1: just have different names depending on the team that I
Speaker 1: was playing for. And I've seen similar when I've been
Speaker 1: covering the NBA over the last several years. But that
Speaker 1: word Chicago zoom pistol, all those actions more or less
Speaker 1: mean the same thing. The guard is coming out of
Speaker 1: the corner off of a dribble hand off either from
Speaker 1: the big or the guard, but it's a double stagger
Speaker 1: from the guard and from the big, and from there
Speaker 1: it just creates It's a three man action, right, you
Speaker 1: have three players involved in the action, and it just
Speaker 1: forces the guys to make a bunch of decisions. Right. So, like,
Speaker 1: let's say that the guy guardless, because we know the
Speaker 1: target of the possession, the guy we're trying to get
Speaker 1: the ball to, is in the corner. Let's say that
Speaker 1: the defense decides to lock and trail, meaning the guy
Speaker 1: guarding the man in the corner just prepares to chase
Speaker 1: him over the top of those screens. Well, if he
Speaker 1: chases him over the top of those screens, you've got
Speaker 1: two chances to screen him. If you hit him right,
Speaker 1: he's going to come off the other side of that
Speaker 1: screen and he's gonna have an opening to potentially shoot.
Speaker 1: If he stays attached, he's still going to be in
Speaker 1: trail positions, so he should be able to curl around
Speaker 1: the big and get downhill into the paint regardless of
Speaker 1: what the regardless of what the guard does coming off
Speaker 1: of that action, the defensive big has to make a decision.
Speaker 1: He's either got to be up to contest the shot
Speaker 1: or he's got to be back preparing to contain the
Speaker 1: ball if it comes at him. And so if it's defended.
Speaker 1: Let's say that the guy chases over the top and
Speaker 1: the guy gets downhill and he attacks, in all likelihood
Speaker 1: the big is gonna have to step up to help
Speaker 1: on that drive. That leaves your big the offensive big
Speaker 1: open to either pop out or to roll into space
Speaker 1: off of that. But there's all sorts of reads that
Speaker 1: can be made out of it. Let's say that the
Speaker 1: guards decide to switch, so they go run that first
Speaker 1: dribble handoff and those two guards decide to switch. Well,
Speaker 1: the second guard who's taking the guy coming out of
Speaker 1: the corner is now highly susceptible to a screen because
Speaker 1: he was just guarding a ball handler going in the
Speaker 1: opposite direction. His shoulders are probably turned, his hips are
Speaker 1: probably turned. The BIG's gonna have an easier chance to
Speaker 1: hit him. If he hits him, he can come off
Speaker 1: and shoot, or force the big to step up and
Speaker 1: drop it off to the big. There's also overplays, right,
Speaker 1: so like when we pistol was actually our our main
Speaker 1: five out motion when my first year coaching, when I
Speaker 1: was coaching high school and two son is like five
Speaker 1: years ago, and the way we ran it, it was
Speaker 1: like you were encouraged if you were the ball handler
Speaker 1: and you're bringing the ball up to dribble hand off
Speaker 1: with the guy out of the corner, if your man
Speaker 1: wasn't paying attention and the dude was locking and trailing,
Speaker 1: you could fake the hand off and just try to
Speaker 1: turn the corner and get all the way to the basket.
Speaker 1: And it's a five out concept, so the help defense
Speaker 1: might be looser. You might have an opportunity for a layup.
Speaker 1: Let's say they top lock, so the guy in the
Speaker 1: corner is overplaying the defensive guy in the corner is
Speaker 1: overplaying the offensive guy in the corner and forcing him
Speaker 1: to backcut. Well, there are reads there, right, like especially
Speaker 1: out of Zoom or Chicago. You throw the ball to
Speaker 1: the Big, you go to set it, he's top locking,
Speaker 1: he backcuts. Guys like Draymond have been killing teams with
Speaker 1: like passes, in back cuts, out of overplays, out of
Speaker 1: that sort of thing throughout their entire careers, right, So, like,
Speaker 1: it's essentially just a three man action that flows into
Speaker 1: a dribble handoff with the guard out of the corner,
Speaker 1: coming off of the Big at the top of the key,
Speaker 1: and that screen usually gets set a little bit further
Speaker 1: towards the sideline. The Big just usually starts at the
Speaker 1: top of the key, but he'll set it closer to
Speaker 1: the elbow extended, and then there's a lot of room
Speaker 1: in the middle of the floor for that guy to
Speaker 1: attack downhill and just force the defense to react. Like
Speaker 1: what if the big stays home, but the two helpers
Speaker 1: on the weak side step over, Well, that's a pitch
Speaker 1: out for three or an opportunity to drive a close
Speaker 1: out right Chicago Zoom pistol. It's one of my favorite
Speaker 1: early offense actions because has really good natural flow to it,
Speaker 1: especially pistol. So like say you're playing pick up with
Speaker 1: your buddies or in your men's league, such an easy
Speaker 1: action to run to just get an easy advantage. Have
Speaker 1: your big run the floor to the top of the key.
Speaker 1: Have your point guard just run up the floor and
Speaker 1: dribble hand off to the guy in the corner, and
Speaker 1: have him come off a ball screen. It is super easy.
Speaker 1: It has this very natural flow to it, and you
Speaker 1: just play basketball off of it. He gets into the
Speaker 1: paint and the guy helps and you kick it to
Speaker 1: the wing. Once you have an advantage, once you have
Speaker 1: any advantage, there's no reason to plays anymore. There's no
Speaker 1: reason to run a set. You just play basketball. The
Speaker 1: entire purpose of running a set is to either get
Speaker 1: a or to get a guy and open catch at
Speaker 1: the three point line with the defender sprinting out at him.
Speaker 1: Once you've done that, you've done the job. He chases
Speaker 1: him too hard off the line, he's gonna drive. Now
Speaker 1: it's a five on four. You can wait for the
Speaker 1: defense to react the key. There is the spacing, right,
Speaker 1: so like once you get into the middle of the floor,
Speaker 1: you can kind of imagine it, right. So like, let's
Speaker 1: say that I come off of that dribble handoff and
Speaker 1: I get into the middle of the floor and I
Speaker 1: swing to the left wing. Because I didn't have an
Speaker 1: opportunity to score, it's very important that I cycle back
Speaker 1: through to that strong side corner and the guy that
Speaker 1: was in the corner cycles up. You want to make
Speaker 1: sure you maintain your spacing within the action, otherwise guys
Speaker 1: can get in each other's way. But like, essentially, you
Speaker 1: run action to get an advantage. And once you have
Speaker 1: an advantage, as long as you're spacing is set up properly,
Speaker 1: you just play basketball. And so those are the two
Speaker 1: keys to running successful offense. It's action that generates advantage
Speaker 1: in spacing once you have your advantage. If you have
Speaker 1: those two things figured out, it's talent will show through
Speaker 1: as guys get those advantages and capitalize on them. Again,
Speaker 1: love that stuff. Anything like that, You guys are welcome
Speaker 1: to dropping the questions and we'll get into it, Hi, Jason,
Speaker 1: love your show. More of an operating business question. How
Speaker 1: substantial of a drop off do you see in views
Speaker 1: when the NBA is on versus when it's off, And
Speaker 1: how much do you try to include Steph Lebron jokicch
Speaker 1: Lakers or Warriors when you're picking mailbag questions and just
Speaker 1: content in general. So we obviously do see a drop
Speaker 1: off in the summer. That's natural, like it actually the
Speaker 1: our numbers, our numbers are up year over year consistently
Speaker 1: thanks to you guys. You guys have done an amazing
Speaker 1: job supporting the show. But that's in like the big picture,
Speaker 1: it's not a linear growth like it always kind of
Speaker 1: looks like this, and there are several peaks and valleys
Speaker 1: throughout the season, right, So let's start with the summer.
Speaker 1: There's usually a peak during free agency, and then there's
Speaker 1: a lull after free agency when things really slow down.
Speaker 1: Then there's a peak at the start of the season.
Speaker 1: Our numbers are usually really good in October, but then
Speaker 1: you get into November and December and things kind of
Speaker 1: like slow down a little bit. The NFL becomes a
Speaker 1: bigger part of the deal. We did have a peak,
Speaker 1: another peak in December two years ago because of the
Speaker 1: n season tournament, and the Lakers are a massive brand,
Speaker 1: so we hit some really big numbers during that time.
Speaker 1: Bucks Thunder not as big a brands. We covered that game,
Speaker 1: but it you know, obviously didn't hit the same quite
Speaker 1: a number. We had a little bit of a lull there.
Speaker 1: You get into trade deadline, huge peak, right, you get
Speaker 1: a peak because you have new players changing teams, and
Speaker 1: then for a few weeks after that, everyone's really curious
Speaker 1: about how the new teams look. Right, But then once
Speaker 1: you get into late March, it slows down again because
Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, now we're in the stretch run. A
Speaker 1: lot of the good teams are resting players, you know,
Speaker 1: there's tanking teams that are barely even playing their guys. Like,
Speaker 1: there can be a little lull there. Then you get
Speaker 1: into the postseason and it peaks again, right. But like,
Speaker 1: even within this year's postseason, there's like the market thing.
Speaker 1: When we got to the final four, we had three
Speaker 1: of the final four markets. We're small markets, and so
Speaker 1: our numbers took a little bit of a dip across
Speaker 1: the board when you get into those final two playoff rounds. Right. So, like,
Speaker 1: there's natural peaks and valleys that exist throughout the season
Speaker 1: based on the natural peaks of the season. But to me,
Speaker 1: the natural peaks are the trade the free agency period
Speaker 1: in early July, the first month of the season in
Speaker 1: October the trade deadline in the NBA playoffs. Those are
Speaker 1: like the four peaks that we ride throughout the season.
Speaker 1: As far as like the strategy of including our big markets,
Speaker 1: I have like a very simple kind of ideology about
Speaker 1: this kind of thing. I want to cover the whole league,
Speaker 1: but I want to do it within reason because this
Speaker 1: is a business. So I'm not going to spend like
Speaker 1: an entire week covering the Hornets and the Pistons and
Speaker 1: a bunch of teams that are Pistons are actually a
Speaker 1: bad example now because the Pistons are good, but years
Speaker 1: ago when the Pistons were bad. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: just sit there and cover a bunch of bad teams
Speaker 1: because that would be bad for the performance of this show.
Speaker 1: It would be bad for the future of everything I'm
Speaker 1: trying to build here, right, So, like my general idea
Speaker 1: is I try to in every episode have at least
Speaker 1: one of our larger fan bases represented. We have several
Speaker 1: larger fan bases. The Celtics are a big one for us,
Speaker 1: The Mavericks, Nuggets like teams that make long playoff runs.
Speaker 1: Because we cover them so intensively during the playoffs. We
Speaker 1: tend to build a fan base there. Denver's one of
Speaker 1: our bigger fan bases. The Knicks are one of our
Speaker 1: bigger ones. We hit a bunch of big numbers with
Speaker 1: the Indiana Pacers last year. You have like your seven
Speaker 1: or eight bigger market slash more engaged fan bases, and
Speaker 1: I always try to get at least one of those
Speaker 1: in a full episode, and we're usually gonna lead with it.
Speaker 1: That's the business, right, I'm gonna market the full episode
Speaker 1: around that, but we're always gonna have three or four segments,
Speaker 1: and in those segments behind, that's where we get into
Speaker 1: the rest of the league. And so one of the
Speaker 1: big things that I fought for in earlier this year,
Speaker 1: and one of the things that Jackson's done an amazing
Speaker 1: job of, is if we cover a team in any way,
Speaker 1: shape or form with a full segment on the show,
Speaker 1: it's getting its own breakout clip. And we're also sorting
Speaker 1: them by teams. So if you go into our playlists
Speaker 1: under playlist, there's a playlist for every single team in
Speaker 1: the NBA manifested there. So, like, if you're a Bulls fan,
Speaker 1: you know, obviously the Bulls are a lower tier team
Speaker 1: in the Eastern Conference, so We're not going to cover
Speaker 1: them as often, but I usually cover them a few
Speaker 1: times a year, and when we do, it'll drop in
Speaker 1: the Chicago Bulls folder. If you are a Nuggets fan,
Speaker 1: we're gonna hit you more often. If you go to
Speaker 1: the playlist and you click on Denver Nuggets, every time
Speaker 1: I cover the Nuggets, there will be a video that
Speaker 1: is represented there. It's very important to me that the
Speaker 1: channel is organized in a way that, yeah, we're gonna
Speaker 1: have our full episodes be branded usually around one of
Speaker 1: our bigger markets or a bigger fan base is not
Speaker 1: necessarily even a big market. Some of our smaller markets
Speaker 1: have very engaged fan bases that we lean into. Right
Speaker 1: I expect Victor Wiman Yama and the Spurs to be
Speaker 1: kind of one of those markets in the next couple
Speaker 1: of years. No one views San Antonio as a massive market,
Speaker 1: but there are a lot of Spurs fans that are
Speaker 1: ravenous for Spurs content, and so we're gonna work. That's
Speaker 1: gonna be a fan base that we continue to build out.
Speaker 1: But for me, the cutoff is like unserious teams, like
Speaker 1: we're gonna hit the top twenty twenty three teams in
Speaker 1: the league, the teams that are actually trying to win.
Speaker 1: But I'm not gonna waste a bunch of time watching
Speaker 1: a ton of footage in the middle of the season
Speaker 1: on one of the bottom six or seven teams in
Speaker 1: the league, except for occasionally evaluating rookies, right like, oh,
Speaker 1: this guy got drafted. Let's check in on Brandon Miller
Speaker 1: and see how he's doing, like that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: But our general our general layout is we're gonna lead
Speaker 1: shows with bigger markets, bigger things, because that's just smart business.
Speaker 1: But we are gonna cover the rest of the league
Speaker 1: diligently in subsequent segments. And I have fought for the
Speaker 1: way we build our production plan around you guys, making
Speaker 1: sure that you get a full breakout clip for every
Speaker 1: single team that I cover. So the thing that got
Speaker 1: frustrating for me in the past was, like I hated
Speaker 1: it when like I would cover the sh Cogo Bulls
Speaker 1: for like eleven minutes, or I would cover the New
Speaker 1: Orleans Pelicans for fifteen minutes, but it would be tucked
Speaker 1: at the end of a show and it wouldn't get
Speaker 1: marketed at all, Like wouldn't be in the thumbnail, and
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be in the title and we wouldn't have
Speaker 1: a breakout clip, and I'd be like, I just put
Speaker 1: in all that work covering that team and it's not
Speaker 1: actually showing up on the channel. We got to make
Speaker 1: sure that everyone can actually see this stuff, and so
Speaker 1: we've been doing that. Jackson has like completely transformed the
Speaker 1: production flow of the show for the better. I'm sure
Speaker 1: you guys have noticed. Ever since Jackson came in in February,
Speaker 1: he's done an amazing job of just of just bringing
Speaker 1: us to like a more well rounded production approach that
Speaker 1: you guys will see. But yeah, essentially, it's a business.
Speaker 1: You got to hit big markets, you got to hit
Speaker 1: big names. But I try to do it within the
Speaker 1: context of covering the league at large, and we primarily
Speaker 1: focus on the serious teams right in that like top twenty,
Speaker 1: top twenty three, twenty four teams, depending on how many
Speaker 1: teams are tanking in any given season. This season in
Speaker 1: the Eastern Conference, once you get off that top you know,
Speaker 1: six or seven teams, there's a lot of bad teams
Speaker 1: in the Eastern Conference, and so that's gonna be tricky
Speaker 1: this year and we'll see how it goes. But but
Speaker 1: again that uh, that's just kind of more or less
Speaker 1: a little look behind the curtain as to how we
Speaker 1: structure our production. All right, guys, it's all I have
Speaker 1: for today. I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us.
Speaker 1: I'm stoked that we made it through the player rankings
Speaker 1: list again this year. Thank you guys so much for
Speaker 1: your comments and for your support. We will have list
Speaker 1: week next week. I'll see you guys then.