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Speaker 2: to night here at the volume, Happy Friday, everybody, hope
Speaker 2: all of you guys had an incredible week. Here's a
Speaker 2: quick breakdown of how the All Start Break is going
Speaker 2: to go today. We have the Nerd Sash guys going
Speaker 2: coming on. We're gonna do some big picture NBA questions.
Speaker 2: I got five of them. We're gonna hit some contenders.
Speaker 2: We're gonna talk about duos. We're gonna rank the duos
Speaker 2: around the NBA. We're gonna talk about the top three
Speaker 2: picks in last year's draft, a little bit of a
Speaker 2: rookie check in, something we haven't done yet this year.
Speaker 2: It's gonna be a lot of fun. And then next week,
Speaker 2: early in the week, I plan on having Sam Vassini
Speaker 2: on the show. We're gonna go contender by contender and
Speaker 2: do a deep dive on every single one of them,
Speaker 2: basically like a two thirds of the way through the
Speaker 2: season type of check in. And then we'll do one
Speaker 2: more Power Rankings video and one more mail bag before
Speaker 2: we go live on Thursday night after Warriors Lakers. So
Speaker 2: make sure in this video and in the any of
Speaker 2: the breakout clips and stuff that we released, drop as
Speaker 2: many mail back questions as you can because we'll get
Speaker 2: one more in before the end of the week. Next week,
Speaker 2: So with the Nerd, says guys Logan and Carson, We're
Speaker 2: going to start with a pic a big picture question
Speaker 2: about the Eastern Conference. So we're gonna start with you, Carson.
Speaker 2: So the Bucks are three and seven since dock Rivers
Speaker 2: took over. The Sixers are three and seven in their
Speaker 2: last ten games. Obviously, injuries have played a huge role there,
Speaker 2: the Miami Heat are basically all of their top tier
Speaker 2: athletes except for bam Adebayo, are currently hurt. The New
Speaker 2: York Knicks entire frontline is currently hurt. Literally, they're starting three,
Speaker 2: four and five are all out, and so they've been
Speaker 2: looking pretty rough as of late. The Pacers and Calves
Speaker 2: have like some exciting talent. Obviously, the Pacers haven't been
Speaker 2: able to really play that well under with Siakam in
Speaker 2: the lineup yet. I think a big part of that
Speaker 2: is Tyres Haliburton is still struggling to come back from
Speaker 2: his injury. Hasn't looked that good. But the Calves are
Speaker 2: winning a ton of games, but they don't really check
Speaker 2: a lot of boxes that you would expect to see
Speaker 2: among a traditional NBA contender. So here's my question for
Speaker 2: you guys this point, Is it a safe for bet
Speaker 2: to take the Celtics over the field in the Eastern Conference?
Speaker 3: I definitely think so, because this is a really overwhelmingly
Speaker 3: talented basketball team, and I legitimately believe that there is
Speaker 3: at least five like sub All Star caliber talents. Derek White,
Speaker 3: there was certainly a push room to make it at
Speaker 3: a stretch early in the year when you consider his
Speaker 3: incredible defensive value, his secondary playmaking, his pull up shooting,
Speaker 3: his cash and shooting like that's a top fifty guy
Speaker 3: in terms of winning impact, and then everybody else, I
Speaker 3: would just say stamped is an all star caliber talent.
Speaker 3: Like Drew hasn't had the offensive production this year, but
Speaker 3: he is doing so many unbelievable things defensively and KP
Speaker 3: I legitimately thought should have been there. He's the most
Speaker 3: efficient twenty point per game score in the league. He
Speaker 3: has been the second most effective rim protector in basketball
Speaker 3: in terms of the field goal percenters that he's holding
Speaker 3: opposing players to at the rim. So it's ridiculous like
Speaker 3: this is a regular season juggernaut and they are very
Speaker 3: much working their you know those conversations when we talk
Speaker 3: about the best regular season teams of the twenty first century.
Speaker 3: At the very least, we've seen so much more parody
Speaker 3: in the league in recent years in terms of teams
Speaker 3: not having those like utterly dominant regular seasons. And they
Speaker 3: could be the first sixty five win team since the
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen Rockets. They're eleventh all time in point differential
Speaker 3: per game. So I just don't want to undersell how
Speaker 3: great of a basketball team this is, and how I
Speaker 3: do think the Dynamics are at least a bit different
Speaker 3: from years past, on top of them just having even
Speaker 3: more overwhelming talent because of a guy like Christaps Porzingis
Speaker 3: because of now how truly overwhelming the offensive skill is
Speaker 3: the fact that everybody on the floor at all times
Speaker 3: is a high level shooter. So any drive and kick
Speaker 3: situation when you're forced to help somebody is going to
Speaker 3: be getting a good shot from deep. He is also
Speaker 3: the ultimate mismatch attacker. Like in the NBA, right now,
Speaker 3: Porzingis is averaging one point four points per post up.
Speaker 3: It's obscene. He can shoot over anybody at will. He's
Speaker 3: the most physical we've ever seen him, getting great position,
Speaker 3: and he's drawing fouls at an obscene rate because he's
Speaker 3: just got overwhelming physical advantages in a vast majority of
Speaker 3: those matchups. And that's the problem that teams are going
Speaker 3: to face defensively against Boston. It's really your weakest defender
Speaker 3: on the floor can be hunted by anyone at any time.
Speaker 3: They just have so many dudes who are so skilled
Speaker 3: offensively and also high end athletes physically imposing and then
Speaker 3: you consider the addition of a Drew Holliday, who brings
Speaker 3: a little bit more offensive punch certainly compared to like
Speaker 3: a Marcus Smart, and is defending at an even higher level,
Speaker 3: especially when you consider what he can do as a
Speaker 3: roamer when he can do guarding post players like the
Speaker 3: guy's just a freak. Derek White is significantly better than
Speaker 3: he's ever been. Jason Tatum is stronger, he's more willing
Speaker 3: to post up. And I know Jason that you and
Speaker 3: really we on your show have discussed often how he
Speaker 3: at times it still feels like lets defenses off the
Speaker 3: hook and should impose himself more physically and does rely
Speaker 3: too much on those pull up threes at a high volume,
Speaker 3: and that's killed them in the past. But he is
Speaker 3: at least a better version of himself. And introducing a
Speaker 3: guy like KP, I think, is somebody who can allow
Speaker 3: them to break some of those stretches where they are
Speaker 3: relying too much on pull up threes, one pass catch
Speaker 3: and shoot threes, because he really can find a mismatch
Speaker 3: at almost any time on the floor, and he is
Speaker 3: that interior scoring presence. And it's a small sample size,
Speaker 3: but in clutch situations. This year, he has been their
Speaker 3: number one score and he's done it with crazy efficiency.
Speaker 3: So I think this team is great. I still slightly
Speaker 3: prefer Denver because I think they have the best player
Speaker 3: on the floor by a lot, and I think that
Speaker 3: offensive formula is just gonna be effectively unstoppable for them.
Speaker 3: But if Jason Tatum played like a consistent superstar maybe
Speaker 3: top five player kind of guy, it would be tough
Speaker 3: for anybody to beat Boston and out East, there are
Speaker 3: some teams that have upside, but they just have a
Speaker 3: lot more questions. I love the Knicks, but for them
Speaker 3: to beat Boston, you would need Julius Randall to play
Speaker 3: at a sustained level that I just don't buy from him.
Speaker 3: He is like one of the great playoff droppers of
Speaker 3: the twenty first century. He has fallen apart in every
Speaker 3: individual playoff series that we've seen him in. And the
Speaker 3: Dynamics are different there because they have so much more
Speaker 3: spot up shooting. Their defensive personnel is so much better.
Speaker 3: But at the end of the day, with Randall in
Speaker 3: a volume roll like, you're gonna need him to deliver,
Speaker 3: and I just don't trust him. And then the Bucks
Speaker 3: you always have the upside because Dame and Giannis can
Speaker 3: go nuclear, but they would need to somehow figure out
Speaker 3: a way to guard this Boston team who has all
Speaker 3: of these skilled and yet big and strong and athletic
Speaker 3: ball handlers, And I just don't see that, like Pat
Speaker 3: Bev is your point of attack, defensive move at the deadline.
Speaker 3: You can't play a Dame and Pat Bev lineup against
Speaker 3: the Boston Celtics like you're just gonna get bullied. So ultimately,
Speaker 3: everybody else's flaws to me are just more significant. And
Speaker 3: this Boston team is crazy talented.
Speaker 1: They are crazy talented. They're big, they're physical, they're athletic
Speaker 1: all throughout the lineup, and like you mentioned, Carson two,
Speaker 1: they're all super skilled. I won't say that I haven't
Speaker 1: seen a darting five this talented in a long time,
Speaker 1: because I think it would be selling Denvers starting five
Speaker 1: last year really short. But this is a dominant group,
Speaker 1: and I think that the rest of the East is
Speaker 1: very flawed. I would take Boston out of the East,
Speaker 1: But Carson, I think you point to the fatal flaw
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna be that guy again. The one thing
Speaker 1: that does scare me about the playoffs is the fact
Speaker 1: that Boston is attempting nearly forty four percent of all
Speaker 1: their shots from deep, that's the most in the league.
Speaker 1: And they attempt just just below twenty nine percent of
Speaker 1: their shots at the rim. That's twenty seventh in the league. Right,
Speaker 1: So when we're talking about offensive dynamicism in the clutch,
Speaker 1: it's Boston does tend to settle a little bit. I
Speaker 1: think this year they are more well equipped to get
Speaker 1: rid of that fatal flaw because they have Christops, because
Speaker 1: they have a guy like Drew Holliday, Derek White, Jaylen Brown,
Speaker 1: Jason Tatum. These are all guys that, like you said, Carson,
Speaker 1: in hypothetical matchups against teams, they can kind of get.
Speaker 1: In theory, the Celtics are so dominant physically and athletically
Speaker 1: and have these advantages that they should be able to
Speaker 1: get whatever they want. But it's their tendency to go
Speaker 1: to those outside shots. But I do think this is
Speaker 1: a and if we're gonna predict Boston to finally break
Speaker 1: through and get through that ceiling, it's gonna be this
Speaker 1: year because of Christops, because I think he breaks uh,
Speaker 1: he can break up those Lulls. You said it perfectly.
Speaker 1: That's gonna be the biggest challenge for Boston to overcome.
Speaker 1: It has been the past two seasons, and I do
Speaker 1: think the East is just really far away.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: The Knicks are my favorite contender outside of them, but
Speaker 1: I just don't believe in Julius Randall enough for them
Speaker 1: to get it done. I still think that I want
Speaker 1: to see Boston's offense be a little more dynamic, but
Speaker 1: they're just too talented for me to bet against them.
Speaker 2: So I'm as So you're taking Boston over the field
Speaker 2: as well, Logan, Yes, I will. Okay, So I do
Speaker 2: as well. And you know, it's interesting. I'm more or
Speaker 2: less exactly where I was with Boston at the beginning
Speaker 2: of the season. Like I predicted before the season that
Speaker 2: they would be a much better regular season team than Milwaukee.
Speaker 2: I kind of saw some of these issues coming with Milwaukee.
Speaker 2: The issues have been bigger than I've expected, particularly as
Speaker 2: it pertains to Dame. Like Dame has shot below forty
Speaker 2: percent from the field in ten of his last fifteen games.
Speaker 2: How crazy is that? Yeah, Like it's become a safer
Speaker 2: bet than not that he's going to have a putrid
Speaker 2: shooting night on any given night that he goes out there.
Speaker 2: It's like it's like anytime you look at the box
Speaker 2: scores or you're looking through the nightly slight on the
Speaker 2: ESPN app and you click on a Bucks game, it's
Speaker 2: like you could bet it's going to be like five
Speaker 2: or seventeen per dame. Like, it's just like it's become
Speaker 2: the trend here over the course of this especially as
Speaker 2: of late, Like it's not one of those things where
Speaker 2: he's gaining rhythm and figuring it out with continuity. It's
Speaker 2: actually getting worse over time. But with the Celtics, I mean,
Speaker 2: obviously there are still some things there that are big
Speaker 2: question marks as it pertains to like just look at
Speaker 2: their most recent losses, Like all of their recent losses
Speaker 2: have involved going up against the upper level, upper echelon
Speaker 2: teams in the league and then their offense in particular
Speaker 2: falling Apart. That said, any sort of question mark that
Speaker 2: has risen from the Celtics this year pales in comparison
Speaker 2: to the question marks we've seen. The Bucks have defended
Speaker 2: a little bit better since Doc took over, but their
Speaker 2: offense has completely fallen apart. Obviously, I agree with you.
Speaker 2: Like Patrick Beverley, I think as far as the discounted
Speaker 2: options that were available at the deadline, I thought he
Speaker 2: was a good pick up. Yeah, and I think he
Speaker 2: gives them a certain look that they can go to.
Speaker 2: I think in particular matchups it'll be super valuable, like
Speaker 2: going against pretty much anybody that's guard centric, so like
Speaker 2: a team like New York, Like I'd love to have
Speaker 2: him to throw out of Jalen Brunson for extended stretches
Speaker 2: of a series and stuff like that. But I just
Speaker 2: think the question marks that have kind of materialized over
Speaker 2: the course of the season for Milwaukee greatly exceed that
Speaker 2: that we've seen from Boston. The Sixers, even if Embiid
Speaker 2: was healthy, I didn't really view them as a legitimate contender.
Speaker 2: I didn't think they had enough shot creation beyond Joel Embiid.
Speaker 2: Not to mention obviously, all the question marks surrounding Joel Embiid,
Speaker 2: like basically his success this year in large part has
Speaker 2: fallen on the jump shot, which is pretty much what
Speaker 2: the success was in his MVP season last year, and
Speaker 2: so that kind of raised some question marks as to
Speaker 2: whether or not that would translate to the next level
Speaker 2: the Miami Heat, you know, like in a weird way,
Speaker 2: like they have it. Even before Terry Roger hurt his leg,
Speaker 2: they weren't really getting much offensive production out of Terry
Speaker 2: Rozier to begin with. Their team that relies pretty heavily
Speaker 2: on guys like Duncan Robinson and Tyler Harrow to generate offense.
Speaker 2: That to me is kind of makes them a long shot.
Speaker 2: Although I'll never right off the Miami Heat obviously, but
Speaker 2: I have the question marks there on the Knicks front,
Speaker 2: you know. You know, Carson, you were talking about Julius Randall.
Speaker 2: One of the big things that I look at with
Speaker 2: him is he's such a rhythm player, and like I
Speaker 2: almost feel terrible for him with his shoulder injury because
Speaker 2: once again he's gonna come back and have like fifteen
Speaker 2: games to get his legs underneath him before he gets
Speaker 2: into the postseason, and that specifically is the issue. Julius
Speaker 2: Randall's that guy that like, if he can play two
Speaker 2: consecutive months without getting hurt, he kind of like just
Speaker 2: gets in a groove where his touch is dialed in
Speaker 2: and he becomes really gifted. But like again, if you
Speaker 2: just zoom out from the Nicks. It's like, you need
Speaker 2: Ojan Andobe to come back and not have any more
Speaker 2: issues with his elbow. He didn't, they'd literally have to
Speaker 2: remove a foreign body from it. You know, You've got
Speaker 2: Julius Randall and his rhythm and inconsistencies, and then Mitchell Robinson.
Speaker 2: Will he come back or not. There's just a lot
Speaker 2: of question marks on that front. And so when you
Speaker 2: just simply break it down to odds, it just feels
Speaker 2: a hell of a lot more likely that Boston will
Speaker 2: win than any of these other stories even combined. And
Speaker 2: you know, I did a deep dive on the Celtics
Speaker 2: earlier this week talking about some of their spacing principles,
Speaker 2: and you know, I think there's a pretty clear line
Speaker 2: to some of their offensive issues being solved. Like, for instance,
Speaker 2: when they look to attack from the wings, in particular
Speaker 2: with an occupied corner, it seems to kind of bait
Speaker 2: specifically Tatum and Brown into really difficult pull up jump
Speaker 2: shots because they don't see driving lanes because guys are
Speaker 2: digging down into the lanes. And all the Celtic shooters
Speaker 2: are good shooters, but none of them are like unbelievable
Speaker 2: dead eye, like you cannot leave this guy open. Even
Speaker 2: for a second type of shooters, they all can be
Speaker 2: a little streaky, you know, like like Derek White, very
Speaker 2: good shooter, but he's not a professional shooter. You know.
Speaker 2: Drew Holliday, very good catch and shoot shooter, not a
Speaker 2: professional shooter, you know. Like that's where it gets these guys.
Speaker 2: You can kind of sit into driving lanes and close
Speaker 2: out and and kind of just play the numbers in
Speaker 2: a lot of ways. But you know, you put it simply, Carson, like,
Speaker 2: if he plays at a top five level, they're just
Speaker 2: going to win. That's the way I see it, like,
Speaker 2: because the one case is that a team like Denver
Speaker 2: or a team like the Clippers can just bring significantly
Speaker 2: more star power to bear in these sorts of situations,
Speaker 2: and as much as Tatum can close that gap, they
Speaker 2: just have so much more margin for error than the
Speaker 2: rest of these teams. And so, I mean, really, I
Speaker 2: guess this would be my last question for you guys
Speaker 2: before we move on. Do you think, with some of
Speaker 2: the implications of the second Apron, with the new CBA,
Speaker 2: and with the rise of some of these other teams
Speaker 2: around the league, do you view this particular playoff run
Speaker 2: as a as an urgent one for Boston. Does it
Speaker 2: feel like this is the one they have to win?
Speaker 3: That's an interesting question. I think that there are other
Speaker 3: teams that are in position to be good for the
Speaker 3: foreseeable future. I mean, Denver stands out as a team
Speaker 3: that pretty much has their fundamental core in place at
Speaker 3: least through this next season. But the Celtics at least
Speaker 3: basically have all their key guys under control through next year.
Speaker 3: So I would say it doesn't have to be this year,
Speaker 3: but the pressure continues to mount, like you can only
Speaker 3: be the most talented team in the league and not
Speaker 3: win the title. So many times Boston was the most
Speaker 3: talented team in the league last year, I would say,
Speaker 3: they didn't win the title, and then they got like
Speaker 3: significantly more talented. So in terms of is their window
Speaker 3: gonna close, no, I don't think so.
Speaker 2: But now they have.
Speaker 3: Implemented, right, a more veteran guy and Drew Holliday. He's
Speaker 3: thirty three years old, and so he is not necessarily
Speaker 3: going to retain his value for years upon years. KP
Speaker 3: is playing the best he ever has, and it's not
Speaker 3: that he's old, he's only twenty eight, but the injuries
Speaker 3: remain a concern, and hopefully it doesn't bite them this year,
Speaker 3: and hopefully it doesn't become like a truly inhibitive thing
Speaker 3: later down the line, but it could. So I wouldn't
Speaker 3: say that they have to do it this year, but
Speaker 3: I would say this year or next there's a lot
Speaker 3: of pressure on them to get it done one of
Speaker 3: those years.
Speaker 1: Another guy, a key rotation guy that's getting older too,
Speaker 1: is Al Horford, you know I mean, And I think
Speaker 1: that every year is a must win, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? But I think this year, specifically, with what
Speaker 1: you guys laid out about how specifically weak the Eastern
Speaker 1: Conference is, I think it has to be this year, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, this would be the biggest indictment and embarrassment
Speaker 1: that this team has ever suffered. And they've had bad
Speaker 1: playoff shortcomings against Miami and the ECF against the Warriors
Speaker 1: in the finals. Right, there is a huge on Boston's back,
Speaker 1: and I feel like it's gonna continue to grow unless
Speaker 1: they get it done this year. They do feel like
Speaker 1: the overwhelmingly most talented team. And yeah, I don't think
Speaker 1: the rest of the East is up to muster. Man.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I like the Knicks a lot, but
Speaker 1: there's too many moving parts there. I completely count out
Speaker 1: the Bucks. I think they have to not that they
Speaker 1: have to get it done, like you said, they're gonna
Speaker 1: have these guys next year, but I think this would
Speaker 1: be the most embarrassing way, Like if they don't get
Speaker 1: to the finals, you know what I mean, I think
Speaker 1: this would be the worst season for this Boston team
Speaker 1: in the past five years.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's a must win type of postseason opportunity,
Speaker 2: but I would just put it like that. It's an
Speaker 2: opportunity in the sense that, like Milwaukee kind of reminds
Speaker 2: me of Phoenix last year, where they're they're kind of
Speaker 2: dealing with some of the fallout of making a superstar
Speaker 2: trade in some of the holes that that can open
Speaker 2: up on your roster. The Knicks like they just feel
Speaker 2: like they're coming in a big way in the sense
Speaker 2: that like they're they're they're they're really well run. They've
Speaker 2: got just a lot of really good basketball players on
Speaker 2: their roster, and they have the means with which to
Speaker 2: make a superstar trade should something like that come available
Speaker 2: over the offseason. Like there's just a lot of really
Speaker 2: encouraging stuff coming out of New York obviously, like the
Speaker 2: the young talented teams around the Eastern Conference, whether it's
Speaker 2: Indiana or it's Cleveland, Orlando's another team I'd keep an
Speaker 2: eye on in the future as a team that could
Speaker 2: be a particularly could particularly be a pain in the
Speaker 2: ass in the playoffs, just with some of the physical
Speaker 2: advantages they bring to the to the table. So and
Speaker 2: then and then obviously out West, like it's just gonna
Speaker 2: be a bloodbath out there, especially with some of the
Speaker 2: older teams on the table, and like whoever comes out
Speaker 2: of the Western Conference is just gonna be in worse
Speaker 2: shape in terms of how much they've had to endure
Speaker 2: than whoever comes out of the East. And so I
Speaker 2: just I just view it as an opportunity. This feels
Speaker 2: like the year Tatum's twenty six are going to be
Speaker 2: twenty six, I think I think his birthday is very
Speaker 2: nat or either it just happened or it's gonna happen soon.
Speaker 2: So like to me, it's just it's the best opportunity
Speaker 2: that they're gonna have to go get this thing. And
Speaker 2: so I hope that, you know, for for Tatum's sake,
Speaker 2: that they can capitalize on it. All right, moving on
Speaker 2: our next question, we'll sorry with you, Logan. So the
Speaker 2: Warriors seem to be taking shaite, right. We know what
Speaker 2: the front line looks like. It's Wiggins, Kaminga and Draymond,
Speaker 2: although Steve kerr inexplicably at the end of the Jazz
Speaker 2: game last night played a three guard lineup as they
Speaker 2: got absolutely murdered on the offensive glass and nearly blew
Speaker 2: that game. But for the most part, it's been Wiggins,
Speaker 2: Kminga and Draymond in the front line. You know, obviously
Speaker 2: the backcourd it seems to be obviously is gonna start,
Speaker 2: but they can kind of go with Clay or Pazemski
Speaker 2: based on you know, the matchup or whether or not
Speaker 2: Clay's got to go in the way that he did
Speaker 2: last night. So we kind of a general feel of
Speaker 2: what the team looks like. We know Chris Paul is
Speaker 2: going to come back and add some more stability to
Speaker 2: the bench, and it's basically hopping into the Leicester Kenyona's men.
Speaker 2: This is what I'm expecting. But there's been some good
Speaker 2: and bad. The eight out of ten, their starting lineup
Speaker 2: has been very, very good, but they've just had an
Speaker 2: absolute nightmare of a time, particularly in the fourth quarter,
Speaker 2: particularly when games are close. And so I guess, let's
Speaker 2: just now that we've seen this, it's weird with the
Speaker 2: Warriors because all these other teams we kind of knew
Speaker 2: more about way earlier in the season, and like we're
Speaker 2: almost evaluating the Warriors from the perspective of like where
Speaker 2: we would normally evaluate a team at the end of November,
Speaker 2: because we're just like, Okay, we got like a good
Speaker 2: fifteen game sample size of like this group of guys
Speaker 2: playing a certain brand of basketball, And so I guess,
Speaker 2: let's zoom out for a second. How do we feel
Speaker 2: about the Warriors? Do you view them as like a
Speaker 2: traditional contender, just a really good playoff team or something
Speaker 2: less than that. Where are you at with the Warriors logan?
Speaker 1: Right outside of real contender status? I can't imagine a
Speaker 1: world where the Golden Eight Warriors win the NBA Finals.
Speaker 1: It's it's really hard for me to imagine. This last
Speaker 1: stretch has been very, very encouraging for the Warriors. Like
Speaker 1: they are undersized, but this is they're a super switchable,
Speaker 1: versatile lineup that's the most athletic they've been in a
Speaker 1: minute I've really liked the Dubs in transition, just the
Speaker 1: way they get up and down the floor with ease,
Speaker 1: Like you know, Draymond starting the break. Draymond is so
Speaker 1: great at just getting the ball out immediately. And they've
Speaker 1: got other athletes like if it's Wiggins connecting it to Kamingo,
Speaker 1: who's finishing, uh, you know, the fast break whoever. It is, like,
Speaker 1: they move really well up and down the floor. They're fast,
Speaker 1: they're athletic, and on offense, I mean, they really spread
Speaker 1: defenses out, you know. I think that's been a big
Speaker 1: key for me, is without Looney out there, you know,
Speaker 1: you don't have a I mean, Draymond's also been hitting
Speaker 1: threes an insane rate too, which I don't know if
Speaker 1: we can expect to keep up. You know, that's a
Speaker 1: big part of it too. All season, true, I'm crossing
Speaker 1: my fingers. Dra has been insane And so that's a
Speaker 1: big component is they are really spreading and stretching defense
Speaker 1: is out. It's it's really an optimized offense for virtually
Speaker 1: every lineup without Looney at the five. You know, if
Speaker 1: it's Dra at the five, if it's sar Rich, if
Speaker 1: it's tjd All of those guys are high IQ, good
Speaker 1: decision makers who can stretch the floor. And I mean
Speaker 1: you see it with a lot of the double screens
Speaker 1: at the top of the key, and the Warriors run
Speaker 1: so many different actions out of that. I love it
Speaker 1: where you know, if it's Kamingo on a back door cut,
Speaker 1: if it's Clay relocating, they just run so many actions
Speaker 1: out of that that it's really hard. You know, it
Speaker 1: keeps a defense on its heels because of how many
Speaker 1: different things they can do out of those sets. The
Speaker 1: one thing that scares me about the Doves, and it's
Speaker 1: really similar to Boston, Actually, three point shooting is still
Speaker 1: going to be the biggest variants in the biggest swing
Speaker 1: factor for the Duves. You know, this is still a
Speaker 1: very perimeter oriented team. And that's the thing that scares
Speaker 1: me the most about Golden State is the volatility of
Speaker 1: the three point shot. Forty percent of their shots are
Speaker 1: coming from three this season, that's the fifth highest percentage
Speaker 1: in the league, and just twenty seven percent of their
Speaker 1: shots come at the rim, that's the lowest percentage in
Speaker 1: the league. They just don't exert a ton of pressure
Speaker 1: on the rim. So what does that mean that means
Speaker 1: that Dray is gonna have to have a great shooting run,
Speaker 1: Wiggins is gonna have to have a great shooting run,
Speaker 1: Clay is gonna have to swing series, and on top
Speaker 1: of that, Kaminga is gonna have to play like a
Speaker 1: legit number two when those guys aren't at their best offensively. Like,
Speaker 1: I really like what Golden State's done, but just considering
Speaker 1: those factors, the fact that I think all of those
Speaker 1: guys are gonna have to reach a different level offensively
Speaker 1: and are gonna have to shoot the lights out, the
Speaker 1: fact that in a lot of these matchups, I think
Speaker 1: they're at a huge, massive athletic and physical disadvantage. Jason,
Speaker 1: you talk about the game the other night where they're
Speaker 1: getting out rebounded down the stretch. That scares me in
Speaker 1: any series against any team out West, you know, or
Speaker 1: the Dove's gonna be able to hang on the glass. Uh.
Speaker 1: It just it seems like for me that a lot
Speaker 1: more needs to go right than to go wrong. And
Speaker 1: it scares me that in a rock fight, in one
Speaker 1: of these grimy games, you know, Golden State just goes
Speaker 1: cold from the three point line and their offense completely
Speaker 1: he disappears. You know what I mean. They don't have
Speaker 1: these like Carson, like you were saying with Christops in Boston,
Speaker 1: they don't have a guy that can really break up
Speaker 1: these It's Kuminga at this point. And that's just a
Speaker 1: lot of pressure to put on a young guy's shoulders.
Speaker 1: Like that to me, where I think everybody's gonna have
Speaker 1: to play beyond their means. You need Comena to play
Speaker 1: like a star. Yeah, they're just at major physical disadvantages
Speaker 1: and I think they're at a little overly reliant on
Speaker 1: the three point shot. I love the Warriors. It's I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be honest, guys. I love watching the Warriors play.
Speaker 1: They're one of my favorite teams to ever watch in
Speaker 1: basketball history, and I enjoy watching them on a night
Speaker 1: to night basis. It's gonna break my heart if they
Speaker 1: get knocked out in the playoffs, man, because it's gonna
Speaker 1: kind of feel like the end of an era. But
Speaker 1: I there's really no world in which I see Golden
Speaker 1: State hoisting the trophy at the at the end of this, Man,
Speaker 1: there's just too many factors that I think need to
Speaker 1: They're gonna need to go right in the playoffs.
Speaker 3: I agree, but I do think that they are really good.
Speaker 3: I think that they are a scary first round draw
Speaker 3: in the playoffs now in a way that they weren't
Speaker 3: a month ago. And I think that they are clearly
Speaker 3: now tapping into their ceiling as a basketball team. I
Speaker 3: think that they are unlocking that athleticism on the perimeter.
Speaker 3: I just don't think that Looney was playing at a
Speaker 3: level this year where you could justify giving him twenty
Speaker 3: something minutes a game starting him like you did last
Speaker 3: year's playoff run, when obviously he was awesome, especially on
Speaker 3: the glass. But now the spacing is so much better,
Speaker 3: as Logan mentioned, and that offensive congestion, having the sort
Speaker 3: of too big approach to just obvious non shooters with
Speaker 3: how Draymond was shooting the ball last year, really shrunk
Speaker 3: the floor for them. And I do still wonder in
Speaker 3: a playoff setting. There's no question that it's a better
Speaker 3: situation now, and really everybody on the floor can handle
Speaker 3: and everybody can knock down an open jumper. I still
Speaker 3: worry if Draymond sustains this level, if Kaminga sustains the
Speaker 3: necessary level as a three point shooter. Wiggans obviously has
Speaker 3: been super volatile this year, Like, those are guys who
Speaker 3: in the regular season you respect as floor spacers. In
Speaker 3: a playoff chess match, I worry a little bit about
Speaker 3: having a few guys who, yeah, can knock down those
Speaker 3: shots but consistently aren't necessarily great three point shooters. But overall,
Speaker 3: I just think it's so much better basketball Offensively. Draymond
Speaker 3: does unlock so much with his playmaking logan you mentioned
Speaker 3: pushing the tempo pods has been awesome there too. What
Speaker 3: Draymond does facilitating those split actions, like, it's just really
Speaker 3: pretty basketball. They look like the Warriors right now. They're
Speaker 3: doing their stuff, and when Draymond comes back, he changes
Speaker 3: a whole bunch of those dynamics. Not only does he
Speaker 3: allow them to play these sort of small ball looks
Speaker 3: because he's such a freak defensively, he really does do
Speaker 3: so much to unlock everything that this team can do
Speaker 3: in terms of the creativity away from the ball, and
Speaker 3: they've just been way better when he's on the floor.
Speaker 3: When he plays, they outscore opposing teams by six points
Speaker 3: four hundre posessions. They're legitimately a really good basketball team,
Speaker 3: and we're seeing that right now, particularly with the small
Speaker 3: ball lineup that has Pods in there with Clay, Curry, Wiggs,
Speaker 3: Kaminga and they've still been good. But when you put
Speaker 3: Pods in there instead of Clay, that is a plus
Speaker 3: twenty six net rating, not a huge stample size, but
Speaker 3: we've seen them legitimately run that lineup with good volume
Speaker 3: over this last ten plus game stretch with Ray at
Speaker 3: the five, and they're just killing people. So I think
Speaker 3: that if you are looking at a matchup against say
Speaker 3: the Clippers, as we saw a couple days ago, they
Speaker 3: easily could have won that game, or the Suns, who
Speaker 3: they did beat, like these teams who don't have these overwhelming,
Speaker 3: super physical, big front lines, then I think this team
Speaker 3: can run and gun, and I think that they can
Speaker 3: hold up defensively in those matchups, and I think that
Speaker 3: they give themselves the best shot at an upset where
Speaker 3: I get concerned about it. The reason I can't say
Speaker 3: that I could see them winning the title is that
Speaker 3: means you have to find a way to beat the
Speaker 3: Denver Nuggets, and the Denver Nuggets are going to be
Speaker 3: way way bigger than you, stronger than you, and still
Speaker 3: have this tremendous offensive skill, still have this unbelievable perimeter
Speaker 3: shot making, have all this continuity, have the best player
Speaker 3: on the floor, and that's a really tough mountain against
Speaker 3: the Clippers. Also, I think like you should play small
Speaker 3: against them. That gives you your best chance. But also
Speaker 3: they just have more of those star level shot creators,
Speaker 3: and that's what concerns me. Logan, you mentioned the reliance
Speaker 3: on the three. It's the Golden State Warriors. They've always
Speaker 3: been relying on the three. They're an outlier because they
Speaker 3: have the greatest shooter of all time and the second
Speaker 3: greatest shooter of all time. Like, that's not what concerns me.
Speaker 3: What concerns me is the lack of a second guy
Speaker 3: who can really threaten defenses with the ball in his hands.
Speaker 3: They don't have obviously what Kevin Durant did, but they
Speaker 3: also don't have Jordan Poole in twenty twenty two, who
Speaker 3: was awesome in that playoff run. They don't have a
Speaker 3: Klay Thompson who was more comfortable putting the ball on
Speaker 3: the floor, like at least was a capable athlete, right,
Speaker 3: And that, to me is the one thing that they
Speaker 3: had to find a way to acquire at the deadline.
Speaker 3: Kaminga of course brings you some of that on ball
Speaker 3: scoring with his mismatch attacking, but it's different. And I
Speaker 3: do worry a little bit about guys in playoff settings
Speaker 3: who are so specifically reliant on athletic tools and don't
Speaker 3: necessarily have that skilled shot making. So they are playing
Speaker 3: so much better. They have found the best version of themselves.
Speaker 3: But against like the best teams in the West, it's
Speaker 3: kind of the same thing where it's like, all right,
Speaker 3: can they hang physically and do they have that second
Speaker 3: star that all of these other teams are gonna have?
Speaker 3: And I'm still not convinced on those fronts.
Speaker 2: So I put the Warriors based on everything I've seen
Speaker 2: in this last month or so, basically right in the
Speaker 2: same tier with all of those teams that are below
Speaker 2: Denver and the Clippers, which is I think they're really
Speaker 2: good playoff teams that have big red flags. And you
Speaker 2: can say that about literally every team outside like whether
Speaker 2: it's the thunder just being kind of small and inexperienced,
Speaker 2: whether it's the Timberwolves having issues with late game offense
Speaker 2: and execution, whether it's the Suns with their lack of physicality.
Speaker 2: You know, we can go on and on down the list.
Speaker 2: They all have their issues, and so first there's a
Speaker 2: lot of good one eight of their last ten, the
Speaker 2: Steph Draymond Kmingo Wiggins line up up regardless of who
Speaker 2: it is at the two are plus sixteen net one
Speaker 2: twenty offensive rating. That's awesome, one oh four defensive rating.
Speaker 2: That's awesome. But they have in my opinion, three major issues,
Speaker 2: and these three issues are specifically bothering them at the
Speaker 2: end of games. Although there is some one of them
Speaker 2: in particular is kind of stretching into other elements of
Speaker 2: the game. So, first of all, on the offensive end
Speaker 2: of the floor, they incredibly they're incredibly dependent, specifically on
Speaker 2: Steph's shot making at the end of games. I went
Speaker 2: back this morning, even though I watched the games live,
Speaker 2: I just wanted to just look over the film a
Speaker 2: little bit closer at all the Warriors offensive possessions as
Speaker 2: they kind of blew things light against Utah and then
Speaker 2: as they blew things late against the Clippers, and it's
Speaker 2: just like it's Steph running around in circles until he
Speaker 2: can get a shot. That's literally what it is, and
Speaker 2: like when it goes in, it looks good and when
Speaker 2: it doesn't, they just don't really have another option. And
Speaker 2: like here's the thing. Steph throughout most of the season,
Speaker 2: with the exception of like these last two games have
Speaker 2: been a little bit on the rougher side, but like
Speaker 2: he's he's made a lot of those shots. But the
Speaker 2: problem is is even with Steph making almost fifty percent
Speaker 2: of his shots, you know, well over forty percent of
Speaker 2: his threes in these clutch situations over the last fifteen games,
Speaker 2: the Warriors have gone to crunch time eight of those
Speaker 2: fifteen games, and they have a one to h five
Speaker 2: offensive rating. So regardless of Steph making a good amount
Speaker 2: of these shots, it's not amounting to points on a
Speaker 2: per possession basis. And like one of the things I
Speaker 2: talked about, you had mentioned rock fight. I think it
Speaker 2: was Logan who had brought that up. When you get
Speaker 2: into these rock fights, like a lot of times those
Speaker 2: jumpers do miss because guys are just tired. And that
Speaker 2: that That's not to say Steph won't make some of them.
Speaker 2: He's the best shooter of all time. But like this
Speaker 2: is why, like you know, early in the season, we
Speaker 2: were preaching, like go get a Siakam because like he's
Speaker 2: a guy that can turn his back to the basket,
Speaker 2: bully his way close to the rim, and try to
Speaker 2: make something happen there. And like, honestly, like this is
Speaker 2: where I have some more Like both of you guys
Speaker 2: are really low on the Warriors as a championship contender.
Speaker 2: And don't get me wrong, I like I said, I
Speaker 2: put them in that tier below the Nuggets and the Clippers,
Speaker 2: but I think they have as good of a chance
Speaker 2: as any of those other teams. And the main reason
Speaker 2: why some of these problems are fixable, for instance, like
Speaker 2: throw some variety in there at the end of the games. Offensively,
Speaker 2: don't rely only on Steph. If you can find a
Speaker 2: way to give some of those possessions to Kaminga on
Speaker 2: post ups or Wiggins on ISOs, or even just running
Speaker 2: more of your motion stuff and getting the ball in
Speaker 2: Pajemski's hand, who's done a really nice job of kind
Speaker 2: of hoeing that line of aggression and keeping the ball movement.
Speaker 2: Like if you do something like that, you buy some
Speaker 2: more time for rest for Steph where he might be
Speaker 2: able to make more of those shots. The second big
Speaker 2: piece of it is the defensive end of the floor
Speaker 2: they have in those eight clutch games over the last fifteen,
Speaker 2: they have a one to thirty Dick's defensive rating. It
Speaker 2: has been a consistent issue this year, and that even
Speaker 2: extends to fourth quarters at large. Now again, I was like,
Speaker 2: let's go look at the tape. So I was looking
Speaker 2: at the tape specifically of the Clippers game, and I
Speaker 2: think a lot of it is fixable. This is not
Speaker 2: a group that has bad defensive personnel. Draymond Green is
Speaker 2: one of the very best back line anchors that you
Speaker 2: can have for defense in the NBA. Andrew Wiggins, Jonathan Kaminga,
Speaker 2: Gary Payton, Brandon Pitziemski. That is a good core of
Speaker 2: perimeter defenders. They are capable of being a much better
Speaker 2: defense than they have been. And one of the big
Speaker 2: things that I've noticed, and this is on Steve Kerr,
Speaker 2: they have been a little bit like the old Raptors
Speaker 2: teams under Nick Nurse, where they're just overly aggressive and
Speaker 2: unnecessarily overhelping the Norman Powell's left corner three, the one
Speaker 2: that bet Brandon Pitzemski ran over his head and then
Speaker 2: he kind of pumped baked and leaned in and shot.
Speaker 2: It was a possession where they basically for no particular
Speaker 2: reason at all, double teams Paul George on a pick
Speaker 2: and roll when they didn't really need to, and it
Speaker 2: left an easy skip pass because Pazemski had to tag
Speaker 2: the roller. There was a play where Norman Palell made
Speaker 2: a three in the right corner. This is the one
Speaker 2: where Draymond Green went flying past him and swiped over
Speaker 2: his head and missed and Norman Palall made the three.
Speaker 2: Jonathan Kaminga was guarding Russell Westbrook in the dunker spot
Speaker 2: and it was in a great position to help on
Speaker 2: James Harden's drive on Brandon Pazemski and Draymond Green vacated
Speaker 2: the strong side corner to overhelp and gave up an
Speaker 2: open three when he was not the right person to
Speaker 2: help there, and in general should not help out of
Speaker 2: the strong side corner, especially off of basically the best
Speaker 2: spot up shooter in basketball right now at is execution based.
Speaker 2: Steph Curry overhelped on a Russell Westbrook drive out of
Speaker 2: the right side corner. Like it's been a consistent issue,
Speaker 2: and then so I look at it as some fixable
Speaker 2: stuff on defense that's just execution. And then we talked
Speaker 2: about the Steph Curry focus on the offense late in
Speaker 2: the games, which I think has kind of led to
Speaker 2: some diminishing returns. And then, last, but not least, they
Speaker 2: are a dog shit rebounding team. Like it is a
Speaker 2: big problem now. They've been a good rebounding team for
Speaker 2: most of the season, in large part, like you mentioned, Carson,
Speaker 2: going with bigger lineups playing more of Kevon Looney. But
Speaker 2: this is a crazy stat. First of all, let's start
Speaker 2: big picture, Steph, Draymond Kmingo Wiggins. That main lineup, even
Speaker 2: with as dominant as they've been, only a sixty nine
Speaker 2: point eight percent defensive rebounding percentage. That's not good. Here's
Speaker 2: another crazy stat for you. In the Jazz and Clippers games,
Speaker 2: in crunch time seven minutes of crunch time, they gave
Speaker 2: up an offensive rebound on eighty seven point five percent
Speaker 2: of their opponent's misses in those two games. Think about
Speaker 2: how crazy that is. If you were watching the Get
Speaker 2: Jazz game and it felt like every single time they
Speaker 2: missed they tapped it out and got an offensive rebound,
Speaker 2: it's because they did. They finally got one stop at
Speaker 2: the end of the Clippers game. It was a James
Speaker 2: Harden step back three at the top of the key.
Speaker 2: Nobody boxed out Russell Westbrook. He got an offensive rebound.
Speaker 2: And again, if you look down the roster, if you
Speaker 2: look at Draymond Green, you look at John Kamika, you
Speaker 2: look at Andrew Wiggins, that's a lot of athleticism and
Speaker 2: long arms. They just have to do a better job.
Speaker 2: And so like some of it is like like you
Speaker 2: mentioned Carson, like there are gonna be certain matchups like
Speaker 2: Denver's just bigger and more athletic than them on the
Speaker 2: front line, even with those guys, and so there's gonna
Speaker 2: be some limitations in the bigger picture. But I do
Speaker 2: think some of this is fixable. There is some better
Speaker 2: offensive process. Can they beat the can they match some
Speaker 2: of the firepower that other teams can bring to the table. No,
Speaker 2: But I think I don't think there are a one
Speaker 2: to oh five offensive rating clutch team either. I think
Speaker 2: there's some room for improvement there defensively again not overhelping,
Speaker 2: and then as a team doing a better job rebounding.
Speaker 2: So again, they're just like any of these other teams.
Speaker 2: Their fate depends on their ability to address their weaknesses
Speaker 2: and reach their individual ceiling, and so I do put
Speaker 2: them in that tier. I just think there are a
Speaker 2: lot of things that have to go right. Are you guys,
Speaker 2: Let's go back to go back to you guys really quickly, Logan,
Speaker 2: what are you guys noticing in your time watching the
Speaker 2: late game off and stuff with the Warriors. Is it
Speaker 2: something that you think is fixable or are you more
Speaker 2: concerned about it?
Speaker 1: No, I definitely think it's fixable, and I think you
Speaker 1: make a great point of what the Warriors could be doing. Differently,
Speaker 1: Steph Curry has the weight to the world on his shoulders. Man,
Speaker 1: he's atlas. He is holding up this team in any
Speaker 1: scenario you talk about him running around, Jason, I thought
Speaker 1: about that game.
Speaker 2: I think it was.
Speaker 1: Double ot versus the Lakers. He scores that one bucket.
Speaker 1: The two games actually, the one against the Lakers and
Speaker 1: then the one against Phoenix. He literally drives on Anthony Davis,
Speaker 1: runs all the way to the hoop, dribbles back out
Speaker 1: to the right elbow, gives him a hesitation, and luckily
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis opens up the gate so Steph Curry can
Speaker 1: go in and get that lay up to tie the
Speaker 1: game up, sends it to Ot late in the game
Speaker 1: against the Suns, Bradley Beal bites on an inbounds pass
Speaker 1: and leaves Steph wide open for that deep, game winning three.
Speaker 1: He is the league game offense. I think he is
Speaker 1: a much better job of, like you said, alleviating the pressure,
Speaker 1: giving him a breather. I mean, if anybody, and I
Speaker 1: think they have guys that they can turn to. It's
Speaker 1: like you guys said, it's Wigans is not at the
Speaker 1: level he was during the run. They don't have a
Speaker 1: guy like Jordan Poole, but they have guys that they
Speaker 1: can rely on, like if it's kaminga being physical and
Speaker 1: just like you said, get touching the ball in the paint.
Speaker 1: It's not even about getting the shot down there. It's
Speaker 1: about creating the advantage, drawing the attention to the paint
Speaker 1: and that'll open up everything else with the team. And
Speaker 1: I think they should lean on Pods more too, like
Speaker 1: they have personnel. I think it is about execution. But
Speaker 1: STEP's a goat. But I don't think he can carry
Speaker 1: them single handedly through the playoffs in these big moments.
Speaker 1: It's just too much pressure on his shoulders. But I
Speaker 1: do think it's fixable. I think they have the personnel
Speaker 1: in place to make it happen.
Speaker 3: It's tough. I'm honestly not super confident about this team's
Speaker 3: clutch offense specifically, and this year they have had like
Speaker 3: a comedy of errors and of mind blowing losses. Obviously,
Speaker 3: they're twenty seventh and fourth quarter net rating like it's
Speaker 3: and the Pistons, that's who they're hanging around with. It's
Speaker 3: crazy some of the games they've lost late this year.
Speaker 3: So it's not that things are disastrous to that extent forever,
Speaker 3: but I do think this was a bad clutch offense.
Speaker 3: Last year they were twenty fourth in clutch offensive rating,
Speaker 3: and then out of sixteen playoff teams, they were thirteenth
Speaker 3: in clutch offensive rating. And the reality is, when you
Speaker 3: have one high level shot creator on your team, and
Speaker 3: that guy is particularly reliant on pull up jump shots,
Speaker 3: it's tough to manufacture a good clutch offense. Like there
Speaker 3: are ways to make the most out of the attention
Speaker 3: that Steph demands, but generally it's more like structured ato
Speaker 3: kind of stuff. You think about that clay game winner,
Speaker 3: where Steph is a super effective diversion. At the end
Speaker 3: of the day, though you're probably not gonna run a
Speaker 3: lot of actions where it's like, all right, can Steph
Speaker 3: get open away from the ball in these last ninety seconds,
Speaker 3: or maybe he draws a second defender that opens up
Speaker 3: something for somebody else. It's like, you're gonna probably mostly
Speaker 3: put the ball in Steph's hands and the defense is
Speaker 3: gonna know that, and he might have to take a
Speaker 3: tough pull up. So I'm not super optimistic about that
Speaker 3: because I really think when you don't have another guy
Speaker 3: who can threaten defenses with their shot creation, and I'm
Speaker 3: just not sure in clutch spots Kaminga is that guy,
Speaker 3: there's kind of a ceiling to what you can do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And again when it comes to the Kamingo Wigan stuff,
Speaker 2: the idea there would be you're not scoring right now anyway,
Speaker 2: running everything through Steph like it's yeah, and it's not,
Speaker 2: And it's not a Steph issue. It's just a simple
Speaker 2: matter of like like like Logan put it, You're you're
Speaker 2: at liss, You're doing everything, and it's just specifically when
Speaker 2: you're relying on pull up jump shooting, your legs come
Speaker 2: into the equation a lot more. Again, if we could
Speaker 2: just cut his usage down a little bit that could
Speaker 2: go a long way towards him being more efficient. And
Speaker 2: and then again just part of the issue too is like,
Speaker 2: because they lean so much into Steph, when another guy
Speaker 2: gets an opportunity to even like look at the rim
Speaker 2: that they won't they'll turn and look for Steph. Because
Speaker 2: it's like it's almost it's almost become like the it's
Speaker 2: like you better not like you better get that ball
Speaker 2: back to Steph. He's our one hope here. And it's like,
Speaker 2: I think in general, even though the Wiggans possessions might
Speaker 2: lead to some frustration and the Kaminga possessions might lead
Speaker 2: to some frustration, his jumper, by the way, is gone
Speaker 2: right off of the ledge after it was red hot
Speaker 2: there for a little while. Like that's one of those
Speaker 2: things where you are more unpredictable offensively. If we come
Speaker 2: out of the time out and it's like, well, are
Speaker 2: they gonna post up Kaminga, Are they gonna use Steph
Speaker 2: as a screener to try to get one of these
Speaker 2: guys downhill or are they gonna run this action for Steph?
Speaker 2: Whereas if it's like it's gonna be Steph, you know,
Speaker 2: and it's like okay, We're gonna switch the ball screen
Speaker 2: with put Anthony Davis on, and we'll live with the results.
Speaker 2: Like that's it just becomes it just becomes really predictable.
Speaker 2: All right, let's agree, go ahead.
Speaker 3: I think that that is absolutely correct, and I think
Speaker 3: that leads to marginal improvement. I'm just not sure that
Speaker 3: it solves the fundamental issue of Steph is the scariest
Speaker 3: guy on the floor by so far in all those situations.
Speaker 2: For sure, No one hundred percent agree Logan or not.
Speaker 2: We're gonna start with you, Carson, who do you believe
Speaker 2: in more the Thunder or the Timberwolves as a championship contender.
Speaker 3: This is a tough one, and we've had this conversation before.
Speaker 3: I think that OKC has a lot of advantages. I
Speaker 3: think that in this series, they pretty clearly have the
Speaker 3: best player on the floor. SGA is playing at an unbelievable,
Speaker 3: consistent superstar level. I think that they clearly have the
Speaker 3: higher level of overall offensive perimeter skill. When you just
Speaker 3: consider that they're going to play five out a whole
Speaker 3: lot of time, and so many dudes can handle. So
Speaker 3: many dudes are quit good athletes. The spacing is just
Speaker 3: clearly better, whereas Minnesota, although Kat is obviously super skilled big,
Speaker 3: they still are running these two big looks with a
Speaker 3: very conventional offensive five, and they are really just like
Speaker 3: a quick athletic team. I'm looking forward to seeing them
Speaker 3: with Gordon Hayward when he debuts after the All Star break,
Speaker 3: because to me, the biggest red flag about this team
Speaker 3: in the playoffs. Arguably at the very least, there's a
Speaker 3: couple other ones experience as we talked about strength, physicality
Speaker 3: in the front court, but particularly playing Josh Kitty twenty
Speaker 3: five minutes a game just doesn't do it for me.
Speaker 3: I think that when you have a guy who is
Speaker 3: not a plus athlete, not a plus touch shot maker,
Speaker 3: certainly not a plus defender, and then really struggles to
Speaker 3: knock down open catch and shoot jumpers like that guy's
Speaker 3: just gonna get played off the floor in a playoff series.
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter how snazzy, how sick of a passer
Speaker 3: he is. There's too many exploitable weaknesses there, particularly against Minnesota.
Speaker 3: We saw the Minnesota Simberwolves do what any Rudy Gobert
Speaker 3: Anchor defense loves to do more than anything in the world,
Speaker 3: which is park Rudy and the paint have him as
Speaker 3: a full time helper. Say let's put him on the
Speaker 3: weakest shooter on the team who can just sit in
Speaker 3: the corner, and Rudy doesn't have to guard that guy,
Speaker 3: And that's what they did against Josh Gitty. If it's
Speaker 3: Gordon Hayward, who brings all the same good traits, the playmaking,
Speaker 3: the ability to create in those driving kick situations, to
Speaker 3: handle out of pick and roll, he does all of that,
Speaker 3: but he's better in terms of the scoring on ball.
Speaker 3: And then he also will actually knock down forty percent
Speaker 3: of his catch and choot jumpers. So maybe seeing that
Speaker 3: realized changes my opinion on this, because I have concerns
Speaker 3: about Minnesota.
Speaker 2: Jason.
Speaker 3: Last time we were on with you, or maybe the
Speaker 3: time before that, you harped on Minnesota's clutch offense, and
Speaker 3: that has become more and more of a concern to
Speaker 3: me as of late. It really matters that you're a
Speaker 3: damn good half court offense if you want to make
Speaker 3: a deep playoff run, and they just aren't, and in
Speaker 3: the clutch in particular, they haven't been. But ultimately I
Speaker 3: still think they are a much more mature basketball team.
Speaker 3: In terms of playoff experience, they are much more physically mature.
Speaker 3: I mean, they are just so much stronger and more physical.
Speaker 3: I like the depth for both of these teams, so
Speaker 3: that's not necessarily a huge difference maker for me, and
Speaker 3: I really do believe that this defense is going to
Speaker 3: be elite regardless of the matchup. I wonder a little
Speaker 3: bit if like the Thunder could attack cat and space
Speaker 3: because they have so many quick guys who can handle
Speaker 3: the ball and they can run, and really those four
Speaker 3: perimeter players at all time lineups, and then chet at
Speaker 3: your five who are super skilled from the perimeter too.
Speaker 3: But you mentioned the Rock Fight, and it does feel
Speaker 3: like in those hyper physical environments, Minnesota still just fares
Speaker 3: a little bit better, and they've been there before. But
Speaker 3: I don't know, it's really close for me here because Okay,
Speaker 3: See is pretty clearly the better offensive team, and I
Speaker 3: don't necessarily see that changing, but I do think Minnesota
Speaker 3: can kind of grind people down with elite defense and
Speaker 3: then just enough of that half court shot making from
Speaker 3: from Att and Kat.
Speaker 1: It's very close between these teams, and Minnesota does scare
Speaker 1: me in some hypothetical matchups like five out against the Clippers,
Speaker 1: five out against the Warriors, five out against the thunder
Speaker 1: of Gordon Hayward, you know, is really effective in those lineups.
Speaker 1: Like I think that's the kind of way to beat
Speaker 1: Minnesota is to draw them out. But I do just
Speaker 1: have more confidence in Minnesota, and they've been really impressive
Speaker 1: and their last ten they're number one in net rating,
Speaker 1: they're number five offensive rating, number one in defensive rating,
Speaker 1: and they do just have physical advantages where like you know,
Speaker 1: in those scenarios offensively and in certain possessions, like the
Speaker 1: Warriors do scam me, but they're gonna crush them on
Speaker 1: the glass, like go bear seven to one, seven nine wingspan,
Speaker 1: Towns seven foot, seven to four wingspan. McDaniels is somewhere
Speaker 1: between six nine and six eleven within your seven foot wink.
Speaker 1: They're huge. Anthony Edwards is a tank, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. They're just they're big and physical, and I
Speaker 1: think their track record's kind of proven this regular season.
Speaker 1: They're twenty and eleven on the road. They have the
Speaker 1: best record in the league versus teams that are above
Speaker 1: five hundred. Like, yeah, I do worry about this offense
Speaker 1: stalling out in a half court setting spacing issues because
Speaker 1: with Rudy Gobert, Karl Anthony Towns disappearing on a big stage.
Speaker 1: Right now, they're twentieth and clutch offensive rating one oh
Speaker 1: seven point nine. That's the fifth lowest of any current eight,
Speaker 1: top eight seed, any current playoff team that's in there.
Speaker 1: And okay, see that's not a problem. They have the
Speaker 1: number one half court offense in basketball. They have the
Speaker 1: number three much offensive rating this year, like okay, so
Speaker 1: he just doesn't have those offensive weaknesses Minnesota does. But
Speaker 1: I like their track record. I like their defense more.
Speaker 1: I like their continuity. And I don't know, man, I
Speaker 1: I kind of like the vibes of this team. I
Speaker 1: don't know, man, I like the I like the vibes
Speaker 1: in Minnesota right now, to say the least, you guys,
Speaker 1: did you guys see the shirt that Mike Conley was
Speaker 1: wearing the other night, the finchy shirt. I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: I like the I like the energy of Minnesota a lot.
Speaker 1: Is a bit of a cop out. Minnesota is huge,
Speaker 1: and that ultimately is the distinction to me. I believe
Speaker 1: in the defense. I believe in their physical and athletic
Speaker 1: and advantages in a grimy, nasty playoff environment where it's
Speaker 1: tough to get a bucket. I think Minnesota is is
Speaker 1: equipped to deal with those environments.
Speaker 2: So this is gonna come off as like, okay, C slander,
Speaker 2: which I don't intend it to, because here's the thing,
Speaker 2: I'm super super high on Oklahoma City in the big picture.
Speaker 2: I even love the Gordon Hayward pick up. I mean,
Speaker 2: to put it simple, He's just a way better basketball
Speaker 2: player than the Josh Giddy and so and so. You
Speaker 2: basically turned what was a weak fit guy in your
Speaker 2: best five into essentially a guy who's arguably perfect. Maybe
Speaker 2: not positionally, but at least in terms of like veteran
Speaker 2: guy who could do all the little things well in
Speaker 2: terms of like a connectivity type of piece. Like, I
Speaker 2: think it just makes a ton of sense. I also, like,
Speaker 2: I was literally thinking about this last night. This this
Speaker 2: thought hit me randomly because our next question we're going
Speaker 2: to be talking about Kendrick Perkins and his mythological superstar
Speaker 2: trade that he says is going to happen this summer.
Speaker 2: But I was thinking about this last night. I was like, man, like,
Speaker 2: what if the bucks just go up in flames in
Speaker 2: like a really ugly way. And then next year they
Speaker 2: tried again and it's just as bad. And then all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, the Bucks look around and they have
Speaker 2: no assets in a bunch of old role players. And
Speaker 2: then Yiannis goes like I want to out of here.
Speaker 2: You know who's getting them?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Oklahoma City is like they're they're throwing seven or eight
Speaker 2: first round picks at him, and and like that's literally
Speaker 2: the position they need so bad? Is that that power
Speaker 2: forward position, and like that that's where it could get really,
Speaker 2: really scary. And obviously, who knows, maybe jannest would prefer
Speaker 2: a bigger market, But like, I just look at it, like, man,
Speaker 2: I was thinking about that last night. I was like,
Speaker 2: oh god, that could be completely terrifying. But to put
Speaker 2: it simply within the lens of this season, I think
Speaker 2: the Timberwolves are a significantly better playoff threat. And I'm
Speaker 2: before I even go any further, I'm just gonna spit
Speaker 2: it back to you guys. Let's quit looking at this
Speaker 2: as Minnesota versus Oklahoma City, Carson. Which team has a
Speaker 2: better chance to beat Denver? Yeah? Minnesota, Like it's they
Speaker 2: they match up so much better physically. Like again, like
Speaker 2: I Oklahoma City has had some advantages in the regular
Speaker 2: season against Denver, but Denver has been kind of a
Speaker 2: mediocre regular Like they're going through another one of the
Speaker 2: those like kind of patches right now, or they could
Speaker 2: give a shit on any given night, and like guys
Speaker 2: are hurt, and like, I think Denver would eat Oklahoma
Speaker 2: City alive in a playoff series personally, Logan, would you
Speaker 2: take Minnesota or Oklahoma City against Denver?
Speaker 1: Oh? Easily Minnesota.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So like that, like, let's just stop beating around
Speaker 2: the bush here for a second. Like, like Carson you
Speaker 2: actually said earlier when we were talking about the Warriors,
Speaker 2: like everything has to be looked through the lens of
Speaker 2: how do we beat Denver? And I just don't. I
Speaker 2: just don't think Oklahoma City has anywhere near the physical
Speaker 2: presence they need to hang in that series for seven games.
Speaker 2: And I mean we literally just saw Minnesota, Like as
Speaker 2: much as the issues that they can have offensively at
Speaker 2: the end of games, they also have the ability to
Speaker 2: just completely lock up the other team lat in games.
Speaker 2: We literally just saw this against the Clippers the other night.
Speaker 2: And even with some of their half court offense stuff,
Speaker 2: there's a physical imposition to where it's like, oh, you
Speaker 2: finally get a stop at Rudy Gobert just tapped the
Speaker 2: ball out. They have another offensive rebound, they can have
Speaker 2: another go at it. There's a look at like there's
Speaker 2: a pretty consistent theme. I'll be it in only two series.
Speaker 2: But like Anthony Edwards, his athleticism just translates to a
Speaker 2: really really good NBA playoff player. I it just and
Speaker 2: then and then then there's always just the NBA history
Speaker 2: part like it, like it would you rather have the young, inexperienced,
Speaker 2: small team that has a ship ton of talent or
Speaker 2: the big, strong, veteran team that has a shit ton
Speaker 2: of talent, like like, let's just let's just let's just
Speaker 2: get down to the to the nitty gritty here. So
Speaker 2: like I I I think I think I would take
Speaker 2: Minnesota over them, And and to be clear, I'm not
Speaker 2: I am so high on Oklahoma City long term. I
Speaker 2: just think I think they're a really really good team
Speaker 2: that is that is lacking some specific things that I
Speaker 2: think are necessary to succeed in the NBA playoffs. Did
Speaker 2: you guys have any follow ups? There? Can we move
Speaker 2: on just real quick?
Speaker 3: I mean literally, nobody guards the nugget better than the
Speaker 3: Minnesota Timberwolves because they have the perfect formula of cat
Speaker 3: can hold up physically as a post defender with Jokis.
Speaker 3: That's not to say that he's gonna make them like
Speaker 3: actively uncomfortable, but he holds up better than like most
Speaker 3: teams number one post defense option, which then allows Gobert
Speaker 3: to disrupt things as help to disrupt all of those
Speaker 3: lobs and bounce passes to Aaron Gordon. They have the
Speaker 3: athletes on the perimeter, So I do think that that's
Speaker 3: ultimately what it comes down to. Like Jokic would take
Speaker 3: Okac's lunch every single possession. He literally said, like Chet,
Speaker 3: you need to get fatter, and that's very real for
Speaker 3: that specific matchup. So I agree definitely on that everything's
Speaker 3: gonna go through Denver. In Minnesota, it would still be
Speaker 3: a long shot, but they just have a better formula.
Speaker 2: Logan any follow ups, I completely agree.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just think that they the physical imposition.
Speaker 1: Minnesota is one of the most physical and athletic teams
Speaker 1: in the league. It's just it's gonna if there's one
Speaker 1: thing that's been proven to I mean that's gonna directly
Speaker 1: translate to good on playoff basketball, and I think they
Speaker 1: match up well physically against and any team that gonna
Speaker 1: run into too. And yeah, I wouldn't pick it, but
Speaker 1: I can definitely see Minnesota giving him giving him trouble.
Speaker 2: All Right. So I saw something on Twitter the other
Speaker 2: day from Kendrick Perkins talking about how he is not
Speaker 2: supposed to tell anybody, but there is a there is
Speaker 2: a star that's going to be a Los Angeles Laker
Speaker 2: after next year. I I am almost certain that he's
Speaker 2: referencing Trey Young. I had been hearing some stuff behind
Speaker 2: the scenes kind of hinting in this direction for a while.
Speaker 2: I had heard that Trey Young and Clutch are really
Speaker 2: really have no interest in Trey being in Atlanta for
Speaker 2: a rebuild or reboot or anything along those lines, obviously
Speaker 2: him being a Clutch client. It's a name that we've
Speaker 2: seen mentioned in reports in terms of guys that the
Speaker 2: Lakers would potentially be targeting. We even had a report
Speaker 2: that I saw, and I can't even remember who put
Speaker 2: this out there, but that the Hawk are considering rebuilding
Speaker 2: around Dejante Murray. And I was like, okay, yeah, like
Speaker 2: this is this is the clearly direction this is going
Speaker 2: so I have my thoughts as it pertains to the
Speaker 2: Lakers making a Tray Young trade this summer, and it's
Speaker 2: it's really this simple to me. If I'm Atlanta, I'm going, okay, cool,
Speaker 2: I want all three of your first round draft picks.
Speaker 2: I want Austin Reeves, I want Max Christy, and I
Speaker 2: want Jared Vanderbilt, basically every positive asset that the Lakers have.
Speaker 2: And I also think that you could see a team
Speaker 2: like a potentially a like a Utah getting involved, although
Speaker 2: like County George had a really nice game last night,
Speaker 2: so maybe they're they're higher on him in the long term,
Speaker 2: but like San Antonio is a team that I could
Speaker 2: see getting involved. And there are just a lot teams,
Speaker 2: a lot of teams that have more to offer, but
Speaker 2: you know how clutch can be in the way that
Speaker 2: they can kind of flex their muscles to try to
Speaker 2: get Trey in a certain spot. And so I think
Speaker 2: that if you went to LA, that's what the deal
Speaker 2: would look like. And maybe if you're lucky, Rob could
Speaker 2: fight to keep Vanderbilt in a deal like that, but
Speaker 2: it's hard to say. And so then I think about
Speaker 2: Trey Young, D'Angelo Russell, Lebron James at age forty and
Speaker 2: Anthony Davis, and I don't see that team as being
Speaker 2: really that much of a threat for the same reason
Speaker 2: this year's team has some issues the lack complete and
Speaker 2: total lack of two way perimeter talent. So from there,
Speaker 2: I look at it more as like a future move
Speaker 2: for the Lakers, like, hey, we need a post Lebron
Speaker 2: all star to partner with Anthony Davis to make sure
Speaker 2: that he's willing to stay and basically venture into this
Speaker 2: next era of NBA basketball. And even then, I don't
Speaker 2: necessarily like this idea for the Lakers based on the
Speaker 2: simple fact that I'm not sure that an Anthony Davis
Speaker 2: Trey Young duo is all that highly placed in the NBA,
Speaker 2: which puts us in a perfect situation to brank NBA duos.
Speaker 2: So here's what we're gonna do. Logan, you're gonna go first.
Speaker 2: I want you to give me your rundown ranked one
Speaker 2: through whatever of every NBA duo, ending with where you
Speaker 2: would put an Anthony Davis and Trey Young duo.
Speaker 1: I kind of like the thought of a Tree Young
Speaker 1: a d pairing. I would go Yo Kitchen Murray one.
Speaker 1: I would go KD D Book two, I'd go Kawhi
Speaker 1: and PG three. I think I'd go Stephen Draymond four,
Speaker 1: Jimmy and Bam five, Luca and Kyrie six, and then
Speaker 1: Trey and A D probably seven. Do you guys think
Speaker 1: I'm too high on them?
Speaker 2: I'm sorry?
Speaker 3: Did you say Jannison dam in there somewhere?
Speaker 2: Screw d?
Speaker 1: I don't know what you want me to say, Dude.
Speaker 3: That is the most absurd thing I've ever heard.
Speaker 2: I was, I was like, is this a mistake? Like,
Speaker 2: what's going on? I'm confused, dude.
Speaker 3: Mogan literally thinks that the Bucks are going to be
Speaker 3: the first team in the history they'll get demoted, They're
Speaker 3: going to institute the Premier League system and send them
Speaker 3: down to the G That isan, Dame.
Speaker 2: I'm high. I'm I'm a huge Steph fan too, but
Speaker 2: Stephan Draymond is not as also agreed, also agreed.
Speaker 3: Outside of that, Jimmy and Bam in a playoff setting,
Speaker 3: it's like they're capable of really good things. But I
Speaker 3: certainly think that ad Tray has higher upside. If you
Speaker 3: get like Ad who decides he wants to be aggressive offensively,
Speaker 3: and then we know that BAM's offense can wax and wane.
Speaker 3: Jimmy has consistently elevated his level, but I don't know how.
Speaker 3: I don't want to bet against it, ever, but it's like,
Speaker 3: we know what Trey can do caring an offense with
Speaker 3: just every single possession, I can get us a good
Speaker 3: shot out of pick and roll. So for my list,
Speaker 3: I agree with Jokich Murray, I agree with Katie Book,
Speaker 3: Johannison Dame I think is a no brainer. Then I
Speaker 3: think you start to get into the territory where you
Speaker 3: can kind of argue with theoretical tray and ad over anyone.
Speaker 3: I think that Luca and Kyrie are playing unbelievably well
Speaker 3: this year, and I think that of course Luca is
Speaker 3: having a historic season and is the best he's ever been,
Speaker 3: but Kyrie is all doing an awesome job of floating
Speaker 3: that offense in non Luca minutes, of complimenting Luca like
Speaker 3: just hyper efficient, crazy shot making, good playmaking all the
Speaker 3: things that he does. I also think embiid MAXI is
Speaker 3: at least on the fringes of these conversations because we
Speaker 3: kind of gotta see MAXI do it as that number
Speaker 3: two option as the number one perimeter guy in a
Speaker 3: playoff environment. But I do think that he's pretty awesome.
Speaker 3: I think he's a pretty legit efficient, twenty five point
Speaker 3: per game score improved playmaker who at least has more
Speaker 3: tools to defend at the point of attack than like
Speaker 3: a Trey Young. But those two are both pretty close.
Speaker 3: And then to me, you have to have Trey and
Speaker 3: AD because I think that they do complement each other's
Speaker 3: games pretty well. I think that you would probably get
Speaker 3: the best version of AD playing with Trey, just because
Speaker 3: he's never played with a guy who spoon feeds him
Speaker 3: looks like that out of pick and roll, Like Lebron
Speaker 3: has never run pick and roll at that sort of
Speaker 3: volume with the Lakers.
Speaker 2: Like because they just switch it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because they switch it. Whereas now you're going to
Speaker 3: be looking at teams in drop and Trey's just gonna
Speaker 3: toast them and he's gonna hit those lobs AD all
Speaker 3: game and it's gonna be really easy for him offensively
Speaker 3: and then defensively, eighty is the best defender on the
Speaker 3: planet still to me, and so he can hide Tray's
Speaker 3: issues better than a whole lot of other teams. And
Speaker 3: I want to be clear Trey does still have issues
Speaker 3: just because we've seen like the whole Trey Young is
Speaker 3: a good defender narrative brewing. I don't know if you've
Speaker 3: seen that, Jason, but it's a real hot topic these days,
Speaker 3: and I think that we have a real struggle collectively
Speaker 3: between separating improved from good. Trey Young is an improved
Speaker 3: defender who is playing with more effort, who is making
Speaker 3: more plays with his hands. All of that is fair.
Speaker 3: He is still six foot one, one hundred and sixty
Speaker 3: pounds with a negative wingspan, a six to two wing span,
Speaker 3: like he's one of the most physically limited NBA athletes,
Speaker 3: and so he's never going to be able to be
Speaker 3: a plus defender in his career. But eighty as a
Speaker 3: back line guy would do a lot to cover that up.
Speaker 2: So I like it. I think it's fringe top five.
Speaker 2: So there's obvious basketball fit stuff, the simple fact that
Speaker 2: Ad and Trey you're gonna have to guard in some
Speaker 2: sort of traditional pick and roll coverage. If you switch that,
Speaker 2: you're going to get a lot of bad results on
Speaker 2: both ends. Offensively, I think it would be a match
Speaker 2: made in having. Defensively, again, if you had to construct
Speaker 2: a defense around Trey it would require someone the likes
Speaker 2: of Anthony Davis on the back line. I'm not sitting
Speaker 2: here and pretending like it wouldn't be a very successful
Speaker 2: duo in the league. My thing is, like, basically what
Speaker 2: I'm pitching here is when you start to look around
Speaker 2: at the other duos around the league, and then also
Speaker 2: the timeline stuff, Like Anthony Davis is, you know, like
Speaker 2: he by the time this trade takes place, he could
Speaker 2: be what thirty one, thirty two years old, So like
Speaker 2: we're getting in is a guy with some injury history.
Speaker 2: And so the question is whether or not because I
Speaker 2: have heard things like Donovan Mitchell has some interest in
Speaker 2: playing in a big market one day, you know, like
Speaker 2: there's some other guards around the league that are in
Speaker 2: smaller markets playing really good basketball that maybe in a
Speaker 2: few years would be more interested in playing in a
Speaker 2: bigger market. The question is whether or not the Lakers
Speaker 2: should wait for a bigger fish. And then when you
Speaker 2: really look at it, it's like, are you gonna have
Speaker 2: issues on offense with an Austin Dilo backcourt? Probably not so,
Speaker 2: at least not in the regular season. And so that's
Speaker 2: where I kind of look at it as an opportunity
Speaker 2: to wait. Now my list, I have Jokich Murray number one.
Speaker 2: I actually put dam Jannis too. I did this bit
Speaker 2: on my show yesterday, but I actually would pick you
Speaker 2: Honest to win MVP this year. I think he's been
Speaker 2: the best regular season player in the league. Not by
Speaker 2: some large margin over Jokics, but by some very small margin.
Speaker 2: Why Paul George, I think is clearly better than Anthony Davison,
Speaker 2: Trey Young, like the way you put it as perfect Carson,
Speaker 2: these are guys you could argue, but I but like
Speaker 2: like Tatum and Brown, Like that's Tatum is like probably
Speaker 2: right around the same level as Anthony Davis. And you know,
Speaker 2: Jalen Brown for all of his flaws, like that, like
Speaker 2: is a guy that's relatively close to a Trey Young.
Speaker 2: He's in that same conversation. Jimmy and Bam is who
Speaker 2: I had at five, Kevin Durant, Devin Booker at six.
Speaker 2: I think that's a group that you could argue at
Speaker 2: an ad Tray is better, but I would personally rather
Speaker 2: have Katie and Devin Booker. I personally think Luca is
Speaker 2: better than Anthony Davis. And in terms of the playoff context,
Speaker 2: I'd rather have Kyrie as my number two than Trey personally,
Speaker 2: just because especially in that the like kind of supplementary,
Speaker 2: supplementary kind of playmaking role, like the way he's partnered
Speaker 2: with Luca. Again, we got to look at it's kind
Speaker 2: of like the Jokich Murray thing, Like, it doesn't really
Speaker 2: matter how good Murray is stacked up to the other guards.
Speaker 2: It's how valuable he is to the Nuggets, And the
Speaker 2: two of those guys are more valuable than all of
Speaker 2: these other groups. Like a Luca Kyrie duo, in my opinion,
Speaker 2: as a better basketball duo than a Trey Young Anthony
Speaker 2: Davis duo. I even put Embiid Maxie over that group.
Speaker 2: I think Joel Embiid has the potential to be a
Speaker 2: wrecking ball that destroys everyone in the NBA playoffs. I
Speaker 2: don't think Anthony Davis has that potential, So like that
Speaker 2: to me is the swing factor. I do think Trey
Speaker 2: Young is better than Tyre's Maxie right now, but who
Speaker 2: knows in a few years, you know what I mean. So, like,
Speaker 2: as far as I'm concerned, I would probably take those
Speaker 2: eight duos over Anthony Davis and Trey Young, And so
Speaker 2: from that standpoint, especially given the Lakers and the way
Speaker 2: that they're consistently a group that is at the top
Speaker 2: of the list for stars when they're just gruntled and
Speaker 2: want to get out, I would lean. I would lean
Speaker 2: towards passing on Trey and waiting on a bigger fish. So,
Speaker 2: now that we've discussed the duos, given those lists, would you,
Speaker 2: if you were the general manager of the Lakers, would
Speaker 2: you target Trey as the next guy to partner with
Speaker 2: Anthony Davis? Or would you hang tight and wait for
Speaker 2: something better to develop.
Speaker 1: I just want to say this. When the Bucks get
Speaker 1: bounced in the first round, I'm gonna come right back
Speaker 1: to this. I'm gonna come right back to this.
Speaker 2: All right, man.
Speaker 3: When the Indiana Pacers beat the Bucks, as you've prophesied,
Speaker 3: and Dame spish fifteen on ten percent from the field
Speaker 3: and Doc calls a timeout they don't have in the
Speaker 3: last thirty seconds to lose possession and give the other
Speaker 3: team a free throw. Yeah, and I give you reason
Speaker 3: forgets how to dribble it. Yeah, Johanna starts taking logo threes.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: If it's Indiana, I definitely wouldn't pick that I do
Speaker 1: think the Bucks are cooked. I would do it, actually,
Speaker 1: and I think that Trey and Ad would have great chemistries.
Speaker 1: Carson mentioned like Trey's an exceptional passer out of pick
Speaker 1: and rolls. I just think about the in between game,
Speaker 1: the floaters, the pull up, like. I think these are
Speaker 1: two guys that really compliment each other and would work together.
Speaker 1: And I think the crucial point of this is to
Speaker 1: just not waste whatever time you have left of Lebron James.
Speaker 1: And I think this is probably their biggest need. I
Speaker 1: don't think the roster is there, and I wouldn't the
Speaker 1: Lakers to knock off the Nuggets or to make a
Speaker 1: finals run. I think they need bigger, more athletic, two
Speaker 1: way guys, point blank period. But I also think they
Speaker 1: need another secondary shot creator, another guy from the perimeter
Speaker 1: that can carry this offense. They can open up things
Speaker 1: for them. And that's the biggest thing to me is
Speaker 1: just whatever time we have left of Lebron James. You
Speaker 1: have to maximize that. And I'm not saying that it
Speaker 1: fully opens the championship window. We don't have a gust
Speaker 1: coming through here, but there's a breeze, there's a little
Speaker 1: bit of breeze with that championship window that I buy
Speaker 1: into enough with tray Lebron and Ad and it's La man.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a reason that we always theorize these
Speaker 1: big superstar trades to La Los Angeles makes stuff happen.
Speaker 1: They make trades, they make crazy deals. So it's not
Speaker 1: impossible that one offseason we could see a dramatic, crazy
Speaker 1: roster overhaul or turn around that makes the Lakers legit.
Speaker 1: I probably wouldn't predict it because I think I put
Speaker 1: the cart before the horse this season by taking the
Speaker 1: Lakers in my championship favorite early this year.
Speaker 2: Not over yet. There's a breeze there too.
Speaker 1: Look, it's kind of stuffy in here, fellas. I don't
Speaker 1: know about y'all. If they get Trey, I kind of
Speaker 1: like the I like the championship window breeze that I
Speaker 1: would get with that trio, I would pull the trigger, man.
Speaker 1: I mean, what what bigger is Donovan Mitchell? Mitchell the
Speaker 1: bigger fish, And I understand going for Donovan Mitchell, But
Speaker 1: I just here's my thing. If Trey Young became available,
Speaker 1: I would jump at the opportunity to go and get him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's really the question for me, is would I
Speaker 3: rather have Trey or Donovan Mitchell in this particular situation.
Speaker 3: And it's sort of tough because I almost feel like,
Speaker 3: for the last year or two of Lebron, I would
Speaker 3: rather have Donovan just for a couple reasons, Like I
Speaker 3: think that Trey is the better manufacturer of team offense
Speaker 3: single handedly, but you know that Donovan Mitchell like can
Speaker 3: be your number one option for long stretches. We've seen
Speaker 3: the playmaking from him this year has been very legit
Speaker 3: and then and he is more of a guy who's
Speaker 3: willing to give you catch and shoot attempts at like
Speaker 3: a higher volume, and he doesn't singularly dominate the ball
Speaker 3: in that same way in.
Speaker 2: Defense season of his career.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and he's I mean, right, a much better athlete
Speaker 3: who maybe isn't like that much taller, but he's got
Speaker 3: a six to nine wingspan, longer, more athletic, has played
Speaker 3: within like a really good team defense. He has some
Speaker 3: of that discipline, and Trey has never played on a
Speaker 3: good team defense in his life. So for those reasons,
Speaker 3: I like Mitchell more for that immediate window. Long term, though,
Speaker 3: if I'm thinking just specifically about how those guys compliment ad.
Speaker 3: I really do love the offensive fit between Trey and Ad,
Speaker 3: So I think it's honestly gonna depend on, like, if
Speaker 3: either of those two are available, I would probably take
Speaker 3: the one who's available. If they're both available, then I
Speaker 3: think I leaned on of a Mitchell. But to me,
Speaker 3: either way, you need to add that star guard creator
Speaker 3: and it's gonna be imperfect either way, but it's gonna
Speaker 3: make you a more serious contender because you need that
Speaker 3: sort of offensive pop and guy who can carry the
Speaker 3: load when Lebron just isn't gonna do that for a
Speaker 3: full thirty six minutes at forty years old.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would in the context of like a bridge
Speaker 2: move that gives you a better chance to win next
Speaker 2: year with Lebron while also having a person to partner
Speaker 2: with Anthony Davis. It's Donovan Mitchell every single time. For me,
Speaker 2: I'd much rather have him. I think you could build
Speaker 2: with Donovan Mitchell. I think you could build a like
Speaker 2: a legitimate championship defense him and Anthony Davis with a
Speaker 2: you know, if you could maintain a Jared Vander built
Speaker 2: in a deal like that, Like, I think there's enough
Speaker 2: athleticism on the perimeter between a guy like Donovan and
Speaker 2: a guy like Jared to kind of make that functional
Speaker 2: in a big way. But I do think the Lakers
Speaker 2: are starting to get to the point where, like, if
Speaker 2: you're starting to make decisions this summer based on the
Speaker 2: Lebron version of the team, that gets tricky because he's
Speaker 2: going to be forty next year. I think I think
Speaker 2: it's you know, last summer it was very much like, hey,
Speaker 2: we need to give it one last shot with Lebron.
Speaker 2: We got to try to do something, and by the way,
Speaker 2: they didn't not, but like, there is a case to
Speaker 2: be made that we're officially encroaching on that territory now
Speaker 2: where it's like, what are we gonna do when this
Speaker 2: guy does, you know, either fall off significantly or experience
Speaker 2: an old guy injury that takes him out for a
Speaker 2: season or whatever. It is like, what are we going
Speaker 2: to do? And that is where I would not like
Speaker 2: a Trey Young trade if I was running the Lakers,
Speaker 2: would be like keeping Austin, keeping all of these young players, Ruie,
Speaker 2: Jared Vanderbilt, retain D'Angelo Russell, and just be this really fun.
Speaker 2: Basically the team you saw in Utah the other night,
Speaker 2: like a really fun team with a bunch of offensive
Speaker 2: talent around Anthony Davis, and just wait and wait and
Speaker 2: wait until a legitimate top ten player becomes available that
Speaker 2: you can jump on, and within a couple more seasons,
Speaker 2: you'll have a couple more picks. And that would just
Speaker 2: be the direction that I would go if I was
Speaker 2: running the Lakers. If Donovan Mitchell comes available this summer,
Speaker 2: pounce on him. If it's Trey Young, I'd wait and
Speaker 2: see if if a bigger fish comes available. All right,
Speaker 2: before we get out of here, we're gonna have to
Speaker 2: go somewhat quickly here. I want to just do a
Speaker 2: quick little round the table on each of the top
Speaker 2: three picks in last year's draft. So we'll start with you,
Speaker 2: Carson Victor Webbin Yama. Are you higher or lower on
Speaker 2: him than you were when he was drafted?
Speaker 3: Tough to believe, but I think that I'm a little
Speaker 3: bit higher, and he was universally acknowledged the best prospect
Speaker 3: that we've seen in the last two decades. I think
Speaker 3: that he is the best rookie that we have seen
Speaker 3: this century, since the guys coming straight out of high
Speaker 3: school into one and done era where we weren't getting
Speaker 3: finished products. We weren't getting twenty two year old grown
Speaker 3: men like Tim Duncan anymore. I think that he's the
Speaker 3: best that we've seen, and on a per minute and
Speaker 3: per possession basis, what he's been doing offensively since moving
Speaker 3: to center is ridiculous. He's scoring twenty seven and a
Speaker 3: half points per seventy five possessions, which is a pretty
Speaker 3: good estimate of like what a star player should be
Speaker 3: playing in a normal game. He's just only been giving
Speaker 3: you twenty seven minutes a night, so he's outscoring like
Speaker 3: every other rookie that we've seen this century. He's doing
Speaker 3: it with legitimately good efficiency now over fifty nine percent
Speaker 3: true shooting, and he's just transformed. He took a full
Speaker 3: on lead mid season to where now playing at the
Speaker 3: five is just better for him because the spacing is
Speaker 3: better in his situation that was really rough offensively still
Speaker 3: rough because of the guard play, but now he does
Speaker 3: also have Trey Jones who is just more capable of
Speaker 3: setting him up, so he's getting some more of those
Speaker 3: manufactured looks around the rim where he is a physical
Speaker 3: outlier like we haven't seen in sixty years. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Put the ball up there and he'll finish it. He's
Speaker 3: the best transition scoring big in basketball. More outlier athleticism there,
Speaker 3: He to me, has been more decisive and assertive attacking
Speaker 3: the rim and a bit more comfortable with NBA physicality.
Speaker 3: He's shooting way better, Like he's just playing like a
Speaker 3: bona fide star right now and he's barely twenty years old.
Speaker 3: And he's the best defensive rookie that we've seen this century.
Speaker 3: That to me is the separator between him and any
Speaker 3: other candidate that you could have in that conversation. He's
Speaker 3: averaging six per seventy five possessions Like, he's far and
Speaker 3: away leading the league in steels and blocks combined in
Speaker 3: twenty seven minutes per game. He just has physical tools
Speaker 3: We've never seen seven to four with an eight foot
Speaker 3: wingspan and can also move this fluidly and has these
Speaker 3: sort of instincts and IQ at this age, it's unbelievable.
Speaker 3: He recks games defensively in ways that like you almost
Speaker 3: can't conceive of until you see it in the NBA,
Speaker 3: Like you can't really conceive that a physical outlier to
Speaker 3: the extent that Wenby's can actually exist and blending that
Speaker 3: with basketball skill. He's been playmaking better. He's everything that
Speaker 3: we expected, and I think even a little bit more.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the skill, the physical ability, the IQ. I couldn't
Speaker 1: believe it. Like Carson said, I mean, he's the most
Speaker 1: highly touted guy we've seen since Lebron, and I think
Speaker 1: he's even better than we expected. He's I said this
Speaker 1: on the show, our last show, and Carson laughed at me,
Speaker 1: like he's a baller. And what I meant by that
Speaker 1: is just he's focused on the game. He is all
Speaker 1: about some and that's my favorite type of players, the
Speaker 1: Joe Burrows of the world, the guys that are getting
Speaker 1: to bed early. They're focused on their craft. They're focused
Speaker 1: on the game, and it really is you can talk
Speaker 1: about the skill when you can talk about the physical
Speaker 1: imposition in the traits. His IQ is off the freaking charts. Man,
Speaker 1: The way he sees the floor is insane. And I
Speaker 1: think if we opened up the conversation to other guys
Speaker 1: like I do. Think Carson did a great video, a
Speaker 1: great breakdown on Victor and why he's the best rookie
Speaker 1: this century on our YouTube channel. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: you could expand that conversation. We're gonna do an all
Speaker 1: time rookie draft later, and I'm really intrigued to see
Speaker 1: where Wemby goes. I mean, I think you could make
Speaker 1: the case that Victor is, you know, one of the
Speaker 1: best rookies in NBA history, point blank period.
Speaker 2: Dude.
Speaker 1: It is ridiculous. And yeah, he's exceeded my really lofty
Speaker 1: expectations too. Man, He's one of the best rookies ever.
Speaker 2: I think, Yeah, I'm hiring him as well. And it's
Speaker 2: really the simple to me, Like I didn't expect him
Speaker 2: to fight be this impactful at the NBA level this quickly.
Speaker 2: Like I like Wenby, I think the ceiling is more
Speaker 2: or less exactly where it was when we talked about
Speaker 2: him all summer long. We knew he had this type
Speaker 2: of potential. I just didn't think it would happen this quickly.
Speaker 2: I mean, like you had mentioned Carson, he literally underwent
Speaker 2: a leap in the middle of the season. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: you know you had one of the things that stands
Speaker 2: out to me because I'm trying to get some some
Speaker 2: more time with the Dallas Mavericks in the film sessions,
Speaker 2: because I'm going to try to hit them early next week,
Speaker 2: and I was watching the Maverick Spurs game from the
Speaker 2: other day and like, his first shift was fucking outrageous,
Speaker 2: for lack of a better term, like and you know,
Speaker 2: there's one guy that I can remember having this type
Speaker 2: of athletic impact as a rookie in it's Lebron, and
Speaker 2: even at a lower level, but similar in the sense
Speaker 2: that like, because Jannis had this two in like twenty eighteen,
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen, but he didn't have it early in his career.
Speaker 2: But where like when you watch an NBA game that
Speaker 2: has twenty eighteen Yannis in it, or rookie Lebron or
Speaker 2: rookie Victor wembin Yama, it looks different than other NBA
Speaker 2: games because there's an athlete on the floor that doesn't
Speaker 2: even resemble any of the other athletes that are in
Speaker 2: the league. And you actually see established NBA players be
Speaker 2: like flustered by some of the things that they run into.
Speaker 2: You know, with Giannis and Lebron, it was like the transition,
Speaker 2: like holy shit, he caught it with three dudes in
Speaker 2: front of him and somehow, just with a live dribble,
Speaker 2: just raced past all of them and dunked it. Or oh,
Speaker 2: I threw this pass to the wing and they jumped
Speaker 2: this passing lane and they just shot like a canon
Speaker 2: the other way and transition for a dunk or whatever.
Speaker 2: It is like they just had this like like crazy
Speaker 2: combination of straight line speed and power to do it.
Speaker 2: But Victor just does it with the absurd link and
Speaker 2: and that's what it is for him. Is like every
Speaker 2: time I'm watching a game with Victor win min Yama,
Speaker 2: it just you can tell there's like an initial phase
Speaker 2: of every single one of these games, because a lot
Speaker 2: of these Spurs games have looked like that MAVs game has,
Speaker 2: where like in the first shift, the other team is
Speaker 2: just completely shell shocked because they don't know how to
Speaker 2: handle what Victor does. And then finally they kind of
Speaker 2: settled down and they were like, oh, yeah, we're way
Speaker 2: better than this team, and they kind of figured it
Speaker 2: out and they go along the way. But like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's just he he has a truly a truly unprecedented
Speaker 2: physical profile that other teams don't know how to handle.
Speaker 2: And it's and to me that has impacted winning at
Speaker 2: the NBA level level much faster than I expected. Logan,
Speaker 2: you're first on Brandon Miller.
Speaker 1: I was really high on Brandon Miller coming into the draft.
Speaker 1: I wanted the Hornets to take him second. Overall, I'm high.
Speaker 2: We all did right. Yeah, yeah, I believe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Brandon has also exceeded my expectations. Like, first of all,
Speaker 1: he's an all time shooter. I think the way he
Speaker 1: shoots off movement at these different speeds, at the different distances.
Speaker 1: And one thing that sticks out two is his foot placement,
Speaker 1: Like it doesn't really matter where Brandon's feet are. Again,
Speaker 1: from any distance, he can just put it up and
Speaker 1: he's just got such a buttery smooth stroke. Man' that's
Speaker 1: the term that I use with Brandon Miller. Man butter smooth.
Speaker 1: He just has a smoothness and a fluidity to his game.
Speaker 1: It's really elegant and beautiful and beyond his years, something
Speaker 1: that you don't really see with rookies. He's a great athlete.
Speaker 1: He is a great defender. He's a good defender now,
Speaker 1: but I think he's gonna be great as it goes
Speaker 1: along in terms of positioning on ball, off ball as
Speaker 1: a help side guy. He's got great length and physical
Speaker 1: tools too. Like, Brandon's everything to me, and he's got
Speaker 1: an advanced handle in IQ. I think Brandon is the
Speaker 1: building block cards And I know put a poll out
Speaker 1: on our YouTube and on Twitter as well, who would
Speaker 1: you rather build around through the Hornets, Lamello or Brandon Miller.
Speaker 1: For me, it's wholeheartedly Brandon Miller, and I think it's
Speaker 1: kind of got lost in the shuffle, you know. I
Speaker 1: feel bad for guys like Brandon Miller, for guys like
Speaker 1: Chet Holmgren, because they're in a rookie class of Victor
Speaker 1: Win Boniamas, and we're also enamored with him that he
Speaker 1: can kind of get lost in the shuffle a little bit.
Speaker 1: Brandon's also one of the most advanced rookies that I've
Speaker 1: seen this century in terms of winning and winning impact
Speaker 1: and in terms of versatility. I think Brandon's a future superstar.
Speaker 3: I love Brandon Miller, and I would say that with him,
Speaker 3: I'm probably a little bit higher too, Like he looks
Speaker 3: pretty darn similar to what I expected. And it's funny.
Speaker 3: Like the hilarious quote from Brandon Miller was when he
Speaker 3: said over the offseason that Paul George was his goat,
Speaker 3: but like, my god, he's got so much Paul George
Speaker 3: in him, Like there's a little bit of a different
Speaker 3: level of athleticism with PG. But when you're talking about
Speaker 3: six nine dudes who just have like seely smooth handles,
Speaker 3: crazy comfortable pull up shooters, the ability to excel both
Speaker 3: on and off the ball, to defend multiple positions, it's
Speaker 3: like there's a lot of the same stuff in there.
Speaker 3: And I think that he's just in an archetype that
Speaker 3: really translates to winning anywhere. And Jason, I remember when
Speaker 3: you came on our draft show with Colin two and
Speaker 3: we were talking about the number two pick. We were
Speaker 3: all in agreement that it should be Brandon, and one
Speaker 3: of the things that you pointed out is that the
Speaker 3: archetype of hyperathletic downhill guard like Scoot Henderson is one
Speaker 3: that people often become enamored with but doesn't always translate
Speaker 3: to like winning at the highest level. Whereas this versatile
Speaker 3: wing like a Brandon Miller, two way shot creator, off
Speaker 3: ball shot maker with some playmaking chops like that guy
Speaker 3: is always going to have a spot as a star.
Speaker 2: And I thought that that was very true.
Speaker 3: I also think that Miller was just a slightly better
Speaker 3: prospect and a better fit alongside LaMelo, but he's delivering
Speaker 3: his last ten games, he's averaging twenty three point eight
Speaker 3: points per game on forty eight forty two eighty nine splits.
Speaker 3: And I agree that his pure shot making is unbelievable,
Speaker 3: but the other things that stand out to me, he
Speaker 3: really does have a rare handle for a guy at
Speaker 3: this size, at this age, and his feel and pace
Speaker 3: out of pick and roll is pretty exceptional, Like he
Speaker 3: will trap people on his back, he's got the hostage
Speaker 3: dribble down, he can get to the flowida arrange, but
Speaker 3: he can also playmake out of those situations. And it's
Speaker 3: just very atypical, especially from a guy who does have
Speaker 3: that sort of scoring skill. Wing playmaking development generally is
Speaker 3: something that takes several years, and guys come into the
Speaker 3: league much more score first, and then they realize, Okay,
Speaker 3: to be the best offensive player, I need to weaponize
Speaker 3: my defensive attention to create for others. And I think
Speaker 3: that Brandon's already on a very good trajectory there, and defensively,
Speaker 3: he's in Charlotte, so you can only be so good.
Speaker 3: Like I would say he's been a good defender. He's
Speaker 3: a rookie in Charlotte, But I think you see that
Speaker 3: he cares more than the other guys. I think you
Speaker 3: see that he has all the tools. He's super mobile,
Speaker 3: he guarded oftentimes the opposing team's lead guard at Alabama,
Speaker 3: but then he was also this impactful rebound and secondary
Speaker 3: rim protector. The guy's just a stud. I think he's
Speaker 3: going to be an all NBA kind of guy. I
Speaker 3: don't know that he'll be like superstar top five player,
Speaker 3: just because again, like a PG does have that athletic
Speaker 3: advantage over him, Brandon doesn't have a great first step
Speaker 3: and he's slight, so getting to the rim for him
Speaker 3: was an issue in college and it remains an issue
Speaker 3: in the league. I think he's outside the top one
Speaker 3: point fifty in the league in terms of restricted area
Speaker 3: makes per game. That's the one thing. But he is
Speaker 3: like a dream number two on a contending team to
Speaker 3: me for years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think him or Scoot really have like
Speaker 2: top five player in the league potential, which is you
Speaker 2: know that that would be the one thing that could
Speaker 2: have made that more complicated in terms of the two
Speaker 2: archetypes in whether or not you take one at two
Speaker 2: or at three. I've noticed the same thing in terms
Speaker 2: of like the first step in just his overall physical
Speaker 2: strength and like ability to get to his spots. I
Speaker 2: think you see that in Iso in particular when he
Speaker 2: tries to beat people straight up. But like it's extreme.
Speaker 2: I have to dig into it. But like, I can't
Speaker 2: remember a player walking into the league and being this
Speaker 2: good of a pull up shooter as a rookie, Like
Speaker 2: I don't. I can't even think of a guy off
Speaker 2: the top of my head that's in the same conversation,
Speaker 2: he's already one of the best pull up jump shooters
Speaker 2: in the league. There are sixty six players that have
Speaker 2: attempted at least one hundred and fifty. He's nineteenth on
Speaker 2: that list in efficiency and over a point per possession
Speaker 2: at one point zero three. Like, it's just there aren't
Speaker 2: that many guys in the league, regardless of age, that
Speaker 2: are are like efficient pull up jump shooters, and he's
Speaker 2: doing it as a rookie. It's extremely rare. Carson, you
Speaker 2: mentioned the pick and roll kind of like feel I
Speaker 2: that like, and Logan you mentioned the footwork. The handle
Speaker 2: and footwork stuff has been what's most impressive to me,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, one of the most important parts of
Speaker 2: really dynamic scoring in the NBA is the ability to
Speaker 2: get to a pull up jumper out of many, many
Speaker 2: different kinds of footwork and dribble combinations. And that's the
Speaker 2: thing is, like none of these look alike he's doing.
Speaker 2: He can do it. He can square up in mid air,
Speaker 2: he can do it off a step back, you can
Speaker 2: do it off a side step. He can. He's got that.
Speaker 2: Like one of the ones that he has that's really
Speaker 2: nasty is he's got that like really aggressive dribble in
Speaker 2: one direction and then just rise up and then while
Speaker 2: the defender's doing the defensive slide, he's already getting up
Speaker 2: into his shot. He like, there's some really really high
Speaker 2: level stuff there. There was a play at the end
Speaker 2: of the Pacers game Crunch Time Possession, where he ran
Speaker 2: a ball screen and the pacer switched it and he
Speaker 2: ended up with Miles Turner in a straight iso at
Speaker 2: the top of the key, and he like dusted him
Speaker 2: with a dribble move to a pull up jumper at
Speaker 2: the elbow where Miles Turner just wasn't even in the
Speaker 2: frame anymore when he rose up, and I was like
Speaker 2: that was disgusting, and like again, that's you know, it's funny.
Speaker 2: He's been better as like a mid range shooter than
Speaker 2: anything else in these pull up situations, which a lot
Speaker 2: of times people look at as a downside, but like
Speaker 2: in my opinion, those are often the best that you
Speaker 2: can get in rock fights, and so having a guy
Speaker 2: that can that feels comfortable rising and firing at a
Speaker 2: different combinations in footwork at fifteen feet is just super
Speaker 2: super valuable. He's also been one of the best plus
Speaker 2: minus guys. They're five points better per one hundred possessions
Speaker 2: when he's on versus one. He's off all right, Carson,
Speaker 2: really really quickly before we get out of here, Scoot
Speaker 2: Henderson higher or lower than you were after the draft.
Speaker 3: I'm a little bit lower on Scoot, And really that
Speaker 3: to me just boils down to I thought that he's
Speaker 3: insane athleticism, like the combination of first step and really
Speaker 3: being a strong guard and having this balance, Like I
Speaker 3: thought that he would just have a little bit more
Speaker 3: easy offense on the back of that, and he hasn't. Really.
Speaker 3: I think that he's a guy who settled for a
Speaker 3: lot of tough jumpers and wasn't a very good jump
Speaker 3: shooter for Ignite, Like he has these stretches where he
Speaker 3: really gets in a rhythm from mid range, but he's
Speaker 3: erratic even there, and then from three he was a
Speaker 3: poor shooter for Ignite, and he's like thirty one percent
Speaker 3: this year, and at the rim, I think you've seen
Speaker 3: that he can't physically dominate against NBA guys immediately like
Speaker 3: he could those younger or just lower level athletes that
Speaker 3: he was facing. So he's shooting fifty one percent inside
Speaker 3: of three feet, so it's just been like a sort
Speaker 3: of erratic, rocky start for him. The efficiency numbers will
Speaker 3: look awful. I think that to some extent, like we
Speaker 3: have moved the goalpost too far for guards, where we've
Speaker 3: had some guards in recent years who are like really
Speaker 3: immediately ready to produce at least with good volume and
Speaker 3: like respectable efficiency, like what Trey and Luca did in
Speaker 3: the same class, what Jaw did. That's not normal Normally
Speaker 3: rookie guards are super inefficient, they're super turnover prone, like
Speaker 3: and maybe they make some improvements mid season and anything
Speaker 3: that Scoot has taken some strides as of late, so
Speaker 3: I still see a really athletic guard who I think
Speaker 3: plays with some good pace out of pick and roll himself,
Speaker 3: who has playmaking chops, who I think, if he wants
Speaker 3: to be, can be a plus defender. But he's certainly
Speaker 3: further behind on the trajectory compared to a guy like Brandon,
Speaker 3: who it's like, yep, he's delivered everything and even a
Speaker 3: little bit more than I expected. Scoot, It's like, I
Speaker 3: still see all the tools, but in terms of production,
Speaker 3: he obviously hasn't delivered this year.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty aligned with Carson here. I had slightly higher
Speaker 1: expectations out of the draft. I have been a little disappointed,
Speaker 1: but I think Scoot has legitimately gotten better during the season,
Speaker 1: and I think it's important to contextualize. I know that
Speaker 1: Brandon's not in a winning situation either. This year for
Speaker 1: Portland kind of is hey, Scoot, go out there and
Speaker 1: show us what you can do. Man, You know what
Speaker 1: I mean? This is really a year for him to
Speaker 1: just get reps and to get better. That being said,
Speaker 1: you know, I think his jump shot was a question
Speaker 1: mark heading into the draft. It doesn't look busted, it
Speaker 1: doesn't look ugly. I like the shots that he generates.
Speaker 1: I think that Scoot can tend to get off balance
Speaker 1: a little bit, a little bit with his pull up jumpers,
Speaker 1: and I think he needs to work on that, but
Speaker 1: you know, like mechanically, it doesn't look busted, it doesn't
Speaker 1: look ugly. And I did think, like you said, Carson,
Speaker 1: I did think he was gonna be able to physically
Speaker 1: impose himself a little more with his athletic traits. But
Speaker 1: the thing that I really like is his change of
Speaker 1: pace and his ability to hunt space when he gets
Speaker 1: a screen, like, Scoop is really good at finding the
Speaker 1: open area and just navigating and getting into the lane right.
Speaker 1: And so for that, to me, that's really encouraging. It's
Speaker 1: going to take time. More of these tough shots are
Speaker 1: gonna fall, He's going to produce better looks, he's gonna
Speaker 1: develop better feel for the game, and that's ultimately it
Speaker 1: for me. I really like the way that Scoop navigates
Speaker 1: the half court as a ball handler. He's really good
Speaker 1: at hunting space, and while he hasn't been crazy dominant athletically,
Speaker 1: when he catches defender's flat footed, damn, Scoop can just
Speaker 1: blow by somebody and get into the lane. So I'm
Speaker 1: a little lower on Scoop, but I really do think
Speaker 1: that he's going to be a. I think Scoot's going
Speaker 1: to be a really good player one day. I just
Speaker 1: think it may take a little bit longer for him
Speaker 1: to get there.
Speaker 2: I'm a lot higher on him than I was a
Speaker 2: couple months ago, I'll tell you that much. I was
Speaker 2: really really disappointed the start of the season. The one big,
Speaker 2: you know, kind of silver lining early on was it
Speaker 2: was clear, kind of similar to what we talked about
Speaker 2: the Anthony Edwards, that he can get to his spots,
Speaker 2: like in terms of his athleticism, it is difficult for
Speaker 2: guys to really bump him off his line and get
Speaker 2: him away from from where he wants to get on
Speaker 2: the floor. But the shooting was just so bad early
Speaker 2: in the year. But there have been some really encouraging
Speaker 2: trends there, Like he's made twenty five pull up threes
Speaker 2: this year at thirty five percent. That's not bad. That's
Speaker 2: over a point per possession. He's an eighty two percent
Speaker 2: free throw shooter, that typically, you know, kind of bodes
Speaker 2: well in terms of a player's you know, touch. He's
Speaker 2: actually been a pretty good pick and roll shot creator
Speaker 2: this year's zero point nine to eight points per possession.
Speaker 2: That's really not bad for a for a young guard
Speaker 2: like him, and he's shown some higher level passing shops
Speaker 2: than I think a lot of us were expecting. And
Speaker 2: I think again, one of the things that I I
Speaker 2: think is important to acknowledge here too is Portland's kind
Speaker 2: of a weird team in the sense that he's not
Speaker 2: really getting handed the keys and like, hey, go lead
Speaker 2: this bad team for eighty two games, like the Blazers
Speaker 2: were like putting him out there with a bunch of
Speaker 2: guys who like to get buckets, like like DeAndre and
Speaker 2: he loves to take his little face up jump shots
Speaker 2: and have his post touches. Jeremy Grant like it in
Speaker 2: his in his dream world, would be a twenty point
Speaker 2: per game guy on a bad team.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Anthony Simons is like literally a more, a more further
Speaker 2: along in his career version of like a high usage
Speaker 2: guard like Malcolm Brogden has been a guy that they've
Speaker 2: leaned on in crunch time a lot of situations, like
Speaker 2: they they they have not just straight up given Scoot
Speaker 2: the keys and been like, hey, go go get these reps,
Speaker 2: and so I do. I think here's the thing. I
Speaker 2: my opinion of Scoot Scoots like ceiling hasn't changed at all.
Speaker 2: But yeah, this season has definitely been a little bit disappointing,
Speaker 2: just in the way that it's gone down. That said,
Speaker 2: I do think Brandon Miller at number two is the
Speaker 2: right choice, and I think Charlotte is satisfied with their
Speaker 2: decision there. All right, guys, we've gone for about an
Speaker 2: hour and a half, so I think it's about time
Speaker 2: to call it. God blessed Paul, our producers probably getting
Speaker 2: frustrated by the scenes. Thank you all for supporting the show.
Speaker 2: Before we get out of here. Actually, Logan and Carson,
Speaker 2: thank you guys for donating your time today always means
Speaker 2: a lot to me. Can you guys shout out some
Speaker 2: of the work you've been doing lately.
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course. Well, first of all, thank you for
Speaker 3: having us. I don't know if I would call it
Speaker 3: a donation. It's more fun than that. But yeah, so
Speaker 3: you can find all of our stuff at the nerd
Speaker 3: Sasha YouTube channel. Logan mentioned Actually, I specifically have done
Speaker 3: video breakdowns on two of the guys that we just
Speaker 3: talked about, going more in depth, like ten twelve minute
Speaker 3: video film breakdowns on both Wemby and Brandon Millers. So
Speaker 3: we're doing that. We also have all of our full
Speaker 3: shows over there with video talking now all MBA, but
Speaker 3: we do NFL stuff when that is in season, and
Speaker 3: then we do some trivia con on our YouTube channel
Speaker 3: and also across social media, TikTok at Nerd Sash, Instagram
Speaker 3: is the same, and Twitter is a Nerd underscore Sash.
Speaker 2: I am a huge basketball fan and I could not
Speaker 2: possibly care less about the All Star Weekend? Do you
Speaker 2: guys give a shit at all?
Speaker 3: I agree, I think All Star Weekend is not in
Speaker 3: a good place. But then I think about it and
Speaker 3: I compare it to where like the Pro Bowl is at,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, you know, things could be worse because
Speaker 3: I literally haven't watched a second of the Pro Bowl
Speaker 3: in a decade because they're playing flag football, like they're
Speaker 3: not even playing the sport.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, go ahead, logan.
Speaker 1: There's just been very few things. It's disheartening as a
Speaker 1: football fan to watch the Pro Bowl fall as far
Speaker 1: as it has. Man, last Pro Bowl I enjoyed was
Speaker 1: when they played it on Madden. So yeah, at least, yeah,
Speaker 1: at least the All Star Game hasn't dipped that low man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's crazy because like if Paul texts me the
Speaker 2: other day. He's like, Hey, I need you to record
Speaker 2: a video, like a forty five second video, like with
Speaker 2: your picks for like who's gonna win the three point content?
Speaker 2: And like I did it, but it's like we have
Speaker 2: done no other All Star content, and I have no
Speaker 2: intention of doing any other All Star content. Like, like
Speaker 2: I thought the dead giveaway was when they did the
Speaker 2: elam ending and they got like two really good games
Speaker 2: out of it. The Lebron won like fadeaway game and
Speaker 2: then the one where Anthony Davis won on the free
Speaker 2: throws and Giannis was like, you know, the blocking Lebron,
Speaker 2: Lebron is ripping Yiannis. That's they got a couple of
Speaker 2: good games out of it. And then they quit on
Speaker 2: the elam ending too, and they started playing how did
Speaker 2: they do that? I I well, but to the league's defense,
Speaker 2: the last couple ones were bad though. Yeah, but like
Speaker 2: I think I put it on the players. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I guess.
Speaker 3: But like the two best All Star games that we
Speaker 3: had gotten since that one. I can't remember exactly the year,
Speaker 3: but there was that one really fourth quarter when Kobe
Speaker 3: was still in there. Maybe it was like twenty twelve
Speaker 3: or something. But then outside of that, it's like, we
Speaker 3: got two good All Star Games and they were both
Speaker 3: with the elam ending.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it got bad.
Speaker 3: But I just think they need to be decisive, like
Speaker 3: they're changing everything up now. We're back to East West,
Speaker 3: which I'm good with. But then why did we do
Speaker 3: drafts for a half decade? Why did we do the
Speaker 3: elam ending for a few years and then abandon it.
Speaker 3: It's just all it's weird, it's too inconsistent. They don't
Speaker 3: know what they're doing. But yeah, it's not great. I'm
Speaker 3: not very excited how.
Speaker 2: Carson Carson's take how the league has managed the All
Speaker 2: Star Game the way Darvin ham has managed the Lakers.
Speaker 2: All right, guys, that is all we have for today.
Speaker 2: Like I said, we appreciate you guys supporting the show.
Speaker 2: We're gonna take the rest of the weekend off and
Speaker 2: we'll be back next week with some contender talk with
Speaker 2: Sam Messini, some power rankings, and a mail back. Make
Speaker 2: sure you get those mail back questions
Speaker 1: In the volume.