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Speaker 1: in there. We are at the end of our top
Speaker 1: twenty five players in the NBA list with number one today,
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Speaker 1: that is before we get started. You guys know the drill.
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Speaker 1: Hoops tonight. So number one, Mr Janni Santenna Kombo. Now,
Speaker 1: it took me a while to get to this point,
Speaker 1: as many Janni's fans will remind me. Um But like
Speaker 1: I told you guys so many times over the course
Speaker 1: of the last couple of years, especially those of you
Speaker 1: guys who have been listening since I was doing State
Speaker 1: of the Lakers back in the day, Um, but I'm
Speaker 1: slow to move people to the top. I'm a big
Speaker 1: believer in that's a position that we don't pontificate about.
Speaker 1: That's a position that you have a dominating grasp of
Speaker 1: It's It's not like it always drives me personally insane
Speaker 1: when I'm watching an NBA regular season and people are like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: Yokich is the best player in the world, and I
Speaker 1: want to be like, he's amazing. I I love Nicola Yokich.
Speaker 1: I know I love everything he brings to the table
Speaker 1: as a basketball player. But because he's killing everybody in March,
Speaker 1: we're gonna put him over the top of people who
Speaker 1: year in and year out are playing in June. Like
Speaker 1: that's disrespectful in my opinion. And it goes both ways.
Speaker 1: If Yokich ends up taking the top spot one day
Speaker 1: and he's there for three or four years, and some
Speaker 1: other young player comes onto the scene and is playing
Speaker 1: amazing and winning a regular season m v P and
Speaker 1: and you know, losing to a better team in the playoffs,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be hesitant to move that guy into Yokich's
Speaker 1: spot because I'm always the kind of player that is
Speaker 1: going to favor the people that have been there and
Speaker 1: done that time and time again. And I was very
Speaker 1: hesitant to move Janice ahead of the likes of lebron
Speaker 1: Um because of the fact that even though he had
Speaker 1: been showing us a great deal. It's different to do
Speaker 1: it once than it is to do it time and
Speaker 1: time again. And there was obviously some things that went
Speaker 1: Janice is way in that playoff run. In one I
Speaker 1: specifically was as a tint as it pertained to his
Speaker 1: playmaking ability in that Boston Celtics series. That was the
Speaker 1: final straw for me, him averaging over seven seven assists
Speaker 1: per game. Me watching the film and watching Boston Celtics
Speaker 1: defenders hesitate to offer help on Janice because they were
Speaker 1: worried he was gonna make passes, and that opening things
Speaker 1: up for him to get to the paint and make
Speaker 1: eight field goal attempts in the restricted area per game
Speaker 1: in this playoff run. That was what did it for me.
Speaker 1: I was seeing now multiple playoff runs in a row,
Speaker 1: one year that he won the title and this year
Speaker 1: where he lost but lost in spectacular fashion. That was
Speaker 1: demonstrating to me consistency that I hadn't seen from Janice
Speaker 1: in previous seasons. It was ugly in. It was ugly
Speaker 1: in there were reasons for us to be hesitant there.
Speaker 1: I wanted to see that wasn't a luke, and Janna
Speaker 1: showed that. So he's got my top spot now just
Speaker 1: for me personally, and he's gonna be there for a
Speaker 1: long time. It's gonna take a lot for me to
Speaker 1: see somebody to knock him off of that spot. I
Speaker 1: believe that his two way impact is substantially greater than
Speaker 1: any player in the NBA. I think he's on a
Speaker 1: tier by himself atop the league. And this is the
Speaker 1: first time I've said that about a player since Lebron
Speaker 1: almost ten years ago. We're talking like two thousand twelve.
Speaker 1: Two thousand thirteen was the last time I saw a
Speaker 1: player like Lebron be significantly better than even the second
Speaker 1: best player in the league. I think he's got a
Speaker 1: strangle hold on that position. So I mean, I'm excited
Speaker 1: to dive into his game a little bit today. You know,
Speaker 1: Janice gets frequently portrayed as just a brute force monster,
Speaker 1: which he is um, but there is a lot of
Speaker 1: of of of detail to his athleticism that separates him
Speaker 1: from other great athletes around the league. I want to
Speaker 1: spend some time diving into that today as well. You
Speaker 1: guys know the drill strengths and weaknesses, biggest hopes, biggest fears,
Speaker 1: and biggest what if? So, Yannas in this regular season
Speaker 1: average thirty points, twelve rebounds, six assists, true shooting, that's outstanding. Uh,
Speaker 1: in this playoff run thirty two points, fourteen rebounds and
Speaker 1: seven assists on fifty true shooting. His efficiency tanked because
Speaker 1: of the Celtics series. Don't take that personally. Almost every
Speaker 1: player that ran into Boston, their efficiency tanked pretty much
Speaker 1: except for Steph and Jimmy Butler. Everybody else seemed to
Speaker 1: fall apart against that Boston defense, and a lot of
Speaker 1: what happened with Steph had to do with scheme and
Speaker 1: Jimmy Butler is an anomaly. None of the statistical things
Speaker 1: about him make any sense whatsoever. Um, but so, I'm
Speaker 1: not too concerned about jannass efficiency taking a dip. I
Speaker 1: thought the Boston Celtics series is. The Boston Celtics series
Speaker 1: is one of the most impressive losing efforts that have
Speaker 1: ever seen. So with Jannat's strength, you can't start anywhere
Speaker 1: other than the fact that he is an unstoppable athletic
Speaker 1: force on both ends of the floor. He led the
Speaker 1: league this year with six point six restricted area makes
Speaker 1: per game on scent shooting, he bumped that up to
Speaker 1: seven point eight restricted area makes on seventy in this
Speaker 1: playoff front against teams that were scheming against, deliberately trying
Speaker 1: with every bit of their personnel and attention on defense
Speaker 1: to stop him from getting to the paint, he was
Speaker 1: still getting there and scoring eight times per game on shooting.
Speaker 1: I was watching a bunch of film on him this morning,
Speaker 1: and I was aware of this in the Celtics series,
Speaker 1: but it was even more jarring to go back and look,
Speaker 1: It's amazing to me how wing defenders are useless against him.
Speaker 1: Wing defenders are one of the most valuable pieces that
Speaker 1: you could have on a basketball team in the modern
Speaker 1: NBA because of the way that the game is space
Speaker 1: stout in the need to contain ball handlers. Jayson Tatum
Speaker 1: and Jalen Brown are two of the best perimeter defenders
Speaker 1: in the game. I said in the Jayson Tatum segment
Speaker 1: that I think he is the best perimeter defender in
Speaker 1: the game. Those two guys had no chance against Janice
Speaker 1: in that playoff series. If they got switched on him,
Speaker 1: it was a basket. They were completely and utterly useless.
Speaker 1: Go to my Twitter feed, I grabbed a couple of
Speaker 1: examples to demonstrate it. But if you go to my
Speaker 1: Twitter feed and scroll down, you'll see some video clips
Speaker 1: that show Jannis getting Tatum and Brown on switches and
Speaker 1: then basically being tissue paper. The best perimeter defender in
Speaker 1: the league and another really high level perimeter defender tissue
Speaker 1: paper against nice. It's it's such a weird matchup problem.
Speaker 1: You have to guard him with the big but bigs
Speaker 1: are too slow. So the only bigs that you'll see
Speaker 1: perform okay against him are the very best defensive players
Speaker 1: in the league, and even taller guys like uh like
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis and Rudy Gobert. They struggle because of how low,
Speaker 1: how low Janice is center of gravity is and how
Speaker 1: easy it is for him to get around them. It's
Speaker 1: it's honestly funny that Al Horford does as well as
Speaker 1: he does in individual matchups against the honest and really
Speaker 1: all that has to do with is up here. He's
Speaker 1: a He's a very savvy defender. He's good at anticipating
Speaker 1: where you're gonna go. He's very big and strong, and
Speaker 1: he's laterally quick. He's good at beating you two spots. Honestly,
Speaker 1: the best type of defender you can throw at. Janice
Speaker 1: is a big, athletic forward that's very strong, and there's
Speaker 1: only a handful of guys like that in the entire league.
Speaker 1: We're talking like Lebron James. You know, maybe Kahi Leonard
Speaker 1: and I had some success in two thousand nineteen against
Speaker 1: the honest by going after his handle with his long arms.
Speaker 1: Janice is a hell of a lot better now than
Speaker 1: he was back in. I think that's why Grant Williams
Speaker 1: had some success. He's a barrel chested, big strong forward
Speaker 1: who has some lateral quickness and some good defensive instincts.
Speaker 1: And all of those guys I mentioned, including Al Horford
Speaker 1: and Grant Williams, they can hold their own for a
Speaker 1: handful of possessions, but they will eventually give way, and
Speaker 1: they did in that playoff series as it progressed. I
Speaker 1: think that if I was building a defender to guard Janice,
Speaker 1: it would be Lebron, and I'd love to see him
Speaker 1: get a chance to go against him in a playoff series.
Speaker 1: But I believe even someone the likes of Lebron James
Speaker 1: would eventually succumb to the physical onslaught of Janice. Obviously,
Speaker 1: Janice is ridiculous. Athleticism is part of what makes him
Speaker 1: the best defensive player in the world. We talked about
Speaker 1: this a lot with Steph Curry yesterday when I was
Speaker 1: talking about the difference between Steph and the other players
Speaker 1: at the top of the league. Steph is a very
Speaker 1: good defensive player, and if you put him in a system,
Speaker 1: he will be a productive defensive player. He's good at
Speaker 1: playing passing lanes. He's a good possession positional defender at
Speaker 1: sliding his feet contesting shots without fouling stuff is very good.
Speaker 1: But Steph can't like hit the athletic jets and shut
Speaker 1: down an offense by himself. Janice can do that. Janice
Speaker 1: can dominate basketball games as a defensive player, similar to
Speaker 1: Lebron James in the two thousand sixteen Finals. The defining
Speaker 1: moment of Janice's career is him blocking DeAndre Ayton on
Speaker 1: the at the rim on a possession where he wasn't
Speaker 1: even guarding Ayton. He was on Booker in a drop
Speaker 1: coverage and turned out of his contest to block DeAndre
Speaker 1: Aton at the rim. That swung an NBA Finals series.
Speaker 1: That's the level of impact that Janice can have as
Speaker 1: a defensive player. When he hits the Jets, shows up
Speaker 1: in rebounding dominant rebounder fourteen rebounds per game in the playoffs.
Speaker 1: That's ridiculous. You see him. He's playing over right now
Speaker 1: for Greece in the uh prepping for the World Cup,
Speaker 1: the Febo World Cup or World Championships, whatever they call it,
Speaker 1: and the dudes putting up straight Wilt Chain Emerland numbers
Speaker 1: like fifty and twenty and fifteen, just completely ridiculous stuff. Obviously,
Speaker 1: he's a great shot blocker as well. One of the
Speaker 1: biggest ways that I saw this manifest on film is
Speaker 1: when he's around the rim, teams just don't even try
Speaker 1: to go in there the for whatever reason. He just well,
Speaker 1: I know the reason he's so terrifying down there that
Speaker 1: people are just scared to even try to challenge him
Speaker 1: at the rim. Janice is athleticism in his ability to
Speaker 1: get to the rim and his ability to affect games
Speaker 1: on defenses. That on defense, that's his best skill, and
Speaker 1: there's not a single athlete in the league that can
Speaker 1: hang with him in that regard. He's turned himself into
Speaker 1: a serviceable mid range shooter. In the regular season, he
Speaker 1: shot on three attempts per game this year. That has
Speaker 1: not translated to the postseason. Over the course of the
Speaker 1: last couple of years, he also has added a decent
Speaker 1: little hook shot in the lane. Um, but he'll do
Speaker 1: this is a shot that you it's ironically it's the
Speaker 1: first post move you teach young basketball players, but for Janice,
Speaker 1: with his athleticism, it's a completely unguardable move. He'll have
Speaker 1: the ball in his right hand on the left block
Speaker 1: and he's going to power dribble, hit you in the chest,
Speaker 1: and then take a big step into the lane and
Speaker 1: just go high with his right hand. He'll protect the
Speaker 1: shot blocker with his left hand and he's gonna make
Speaker 1: a good percentage of those. He shot on three attempts
Speaker 1: per game inside the paint outside the restricted area. Once again,
Speaker 1: the problem there is it has not translated to the
Speaker 1: postseason yet. But we'll get to that when we get
Speaker 1: into his weaknesses. UM, Joannice has a relentless motor, and
Speaker 1: not like the Russell Westbrook, Oh I just yell and
Speaker 1: scream hard motor. He's got the I try hard on
Speaker 1: every single offensive and defensive possession motor. Kind of reminds
Speaker 1: me of old Lebron, or excuse me, young Lebron, like
Speaker 1: back in Cleveland before he went to Miami, and a
Speaker 1: little bit when he was in Miami where it was
Speaker 1: just seemingly like this endless ball of energy that no
Speaker 1: one could keep up with. When other teams would go
Speaker 1: through lulls where they'd stop trying hard, Lebron would be
Speaker 1: getting run out dunks and things along those lines. Compared
Speaker 1: to Lebron now and he can't be bothered to try
Speaker 1: on three out of four nights. But Janice doesn't have
Speaker 1: that issue. Janice is relentless in the in the manner
Speaker 1: in which he keeps coming at you, And that's why
Speaker 1: they can have a wear and tear effect on defensive
Speaker 1: players like Al Horford and Robert Williams. They're big and
Speaker 1: strong enough and mobile enough and smart enough as defenders
Speaker 1: that if you put them in a possession in front
Speaker 1: of you, honest, they can probably force him to shoot
Speaker 1: over the top. That's great. And they did it for
Speaker 1: a game, and then they did it for a second game,
Speaker 1: and then they did it for a third game, and
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden they weren't getting in front
Speaker 1: of honest, and then all of a sudden that that
Speaker 1: that effort was too much for them to match what
Speaker 1: Janice was bringing at them on a possession by possession basis.
Speaker 1: That's where janice Is relentless motor comes in. He's not
Speaker 1: going to be the one that settles first. He will
Speaker 1: occasionally take threes and things like that as a rest possession,
Speaker 1: but you bet your ass he's gonna try to knock
Speaker 1: you over. It's twenty or thirty times a gain, and
Speaker 1: if that amounts to two hundred times in a playoff series,
Speaker 1: chances are right around that eightieth or nine time, you're
Speaker 1: gonna get tired of getting in front of him, and
Speaker 1: he's gonna start going right around you. There's not a
Speaker 1: lot of skill set stuff for me to get into
Speaker 1: with Janice. Like I'm not gonna sit here and talk
Speaker 1: about Janice's fluidity like I did with Staff for Paul George.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna sit here and talk about the honest's
Speaker 1: shooting ability that way I have as so many players
Speaker 1: on this list, He's adding that kind of skill and
Speaker 1: who knows where that will end up towards the end
Speaker 1: of his career. But it really is purely physical dominance
Speaker 1: at this point. But there is a ton of detail
Speaker 1: in his physical dominance. There are a lot of big
Speaker 1: athletic people in the world, so why is it that
Speaker 1: Janice is as successful as he is in so many
Speaker 1: or not one he can handle the basketball. There are
Speaker 1: a lot of guards that lower levels of basketball. It
Speaker 1: can't dribble the way that Janice can't. That takes a
Speaker 1: great deal of work. That's what allows him to get
Speaker 1: to places where he can be a threat scoring the
Speaker 1: basketball without having to be set up by his teammates.
Speaker 1: Footwork is a huge deal. Footwork is one of the
Speaker 1: most underrated areas of athleticism. As many of you guys
Speaker 1: know who have listened to the show for a while,
Speaker 1: I coach high school basketball. Now. With my job, I
Speaker 1: primarily help in the mornings um in the partnership that
Speaker 1: I have with the head coach that runs the program.
Speaker 1: I go up there in the mornings and I train
Speaker 1: the kids. And when I'm working with them, I work
Speaker 1: on footwork a ton because I think it's very important
Speaker 1: for attacking closeouts, guards, navigating screens, things along those lines.
Speaker 1: There's a million different ways that footwork is used in
Speaker 1: the game of basketball. But you'll be surprised and how
Speaker 1: often like I'll be like, hey, we're gonna work on
Speaker 1: attacking clothes outs. We're gonna do a jab step here,
Speaker 1: You're going to fake a rip through a jab step.
Speaker 1: You're gonna take a dribble to the left and shoot
Speaker 1: a pull up jump shot, and they will travel every
Speaker 1: single time. And I'm not insulting the kids. That's just
Speaker 1: the reality of footwork. A jab step pull up going
Speaker 1: left without dragging your left foot on the jab step
Speaker 1: is extremely difficult footwork and a lot of people struggle
Speaker 1: with that. That's just one simple thing. That's one very
Speaker 1: basic piece of footwork that takes a great deal of
Speaker 1: effort and focus in repetition to get down. Now, imagine
Speaker 1: that for every one of Janice's moves, his euro steps,
Speaker 1: his spin moves. If you guys look at those Twitter
Speaker 1: clips that I've talked about with him destroying Jayson Tatum
Speaker 1: and Jalen Brown, it's a lot of spin moves. You know.
Speaker 1: Joannice has like even like a little bit of like
Speaker 1: a a chicken wing that he uses when he's trying
Speaker 1: to get around you on a hard drive to the basket,
Speaker 1: and he'll take an extremely long step and get his
Speaker 1: left elbow just barely around your shoulder. He doesn't do
Speaker 1: a dramatic one. If he does, he gets called for
Speaker 1: an offensive foul typically, But he'll just take that big
Speaker 1: step and he'll just slightly pin his elbow on you
Speaker 1: as he's going up to the rim, and he's right
Speaker 1: past you when he does that. There's a great deal
Speaker 1: of coordination to what Janice does with his athleticism. He
Speaker 1: had a game winner in Game three against Boston. If
Speaker 1: you guys remember it, series is tied at one. Milwaukee
Speaker 1: plays really well for the vast majority of Game three,
Speaker 1: but then Boston goes on a big run in the
Speaker 1: fourth quarter and ends up taking the lead. And at
Speaker 1: one point the Celtics are actually up one and Janice
Speaker 1: catches the ball and takes a hard dribble to the middle.
Speaker 1: He's being guarded by Grant Williams and takes a nasty
Speaker 1: euro step back to the left and Grant Williams is
Speaker 1: left in the dust and Johannice gets a layup again.
Speaker 1: I believe it was out of time out. Out of
Speaker 1: a time out against the best half court defense of
Speaker 1: this era, where the coaches set up a plan to
Speaker 1: keep your honest from getting to the rim, and through
Speaker 1: coordination and footwork he was able to navigate around Grant
Speaker 1: Williams and get into the basket. The spin moves that
Speaker 1: he hits Jayson Tatum with and Jalen Brown. He gets
Speaker 1: that right foot in on the left side of Tatum
Speaker 1: and Brown so that he can pirouette around them and
Speaker 1: hit them with his left shoulder to get that separation
Speaker 1: to go to the rim. And he's so big and
Speaker 1: strong that on most of the possessions the wing will
Speaker 1: just get out of the way. They don't want to
Speaker 1: try to hold their ground because it's gonna hurt the
Speaker 1: bottom line. There is the reason why I say all
Speaker 1: of that is footwork is a lot harder than it looks.
Speaker 1: And when you see Janice looking remarkably coordinated and getting
Speaker 1: wherever he wants to with his athleticism, don't mistake that
Speaker 1: for just natural ability. Janice has a great deal of
Speaker 1: natural ability, but he has also worked extremely hard to
Speaker 1: become extremely coordinated to have very good footwork, and that's
Speaker 1: a huge part of why he is so effective on
Speaker 1: the offensive end of the court. I told you guys
Speaker 1: before I had the honest number one that the number
Speaker 1: one thing I was looking for was not top making,
Speaker 1: which we're gonna get to, but passing the basketball, because
Speaker 1: the reality is is what stops Janice from getting to
Speaker 1: the rim is not the defender. Typically, it's not like
Speaker 1: Janice has to shoot jump shots because he can't get
Speaker 1: by his man. He shoots jump shots to rest. Those
Speaker 1: are okay, I've I'm exhausted because I've been busting my
Speaker 1: ask four or five possessions in a row, and Al
Speaker 1: Horford's playing way off me. Why don't I take this three?
Speaker 1: That's that's what he's using the jump shot for. Those
Speaker 1: are rest possessions. The actual dynamic at play is can
Speaker 1: I get to the rim? And in single coverage he can,
Speaker 1: but eventually teams build a wall on him and make
Speaker 1: it so that, Okay, you're starting to treat Grant Williams
Speaker 1: like tissue paper. Let's put Marcus Smart on your left
Speaker 1: side and Jayson Tatum on your right side. Which way
Speaker 1: you're gonna drive? There's a defender waiting there. I always
Speaker 1: felt like the most important part of Janice's development was
Speaker 1: passing in the ability to get defenders away from that
Speaker 1: wall so that he could get back into single coverage
Speaker 1: to get to the rim and all of that was
Speaker 1: resolved for me. In the Celtics series. The average seven
Speaker 1: point one assists, which is better than Katie managed, and
Speaker 1: k D to that point had been a better playmaker
Speaker 1: in his career. You average seven point want to say this,
Speaker 1: his turnovers were high, but excuse me. His turnovers were high,
Speaker 1: but everybody's turnovers were high except for Stephan Jimmy Butler
Speaker 1: against Boston in that defense, when it really started to
Speaker 1: stand out to me in the film was the way
Speaker 1: that defenders started to think twice before offering help. There
Speaker 1: were several plays where then I have a clip of
Speaker 1: one of them on my Twitter feed where Janice is
Speaker 1: barreling down the rim and you see Marcus Smart like
Speaker 1: go like he's gonna go try to take the ball away,
Speaker 1: but then freak out and turn and run to the
Speaker 1: shooter in the corner, and similar places from Jayson Tatum.
Speaker 1: This is the thing that I talked about a lot
Speaker 1: with Lebron. One of the reasons why Lebron is so
Speaker 1: efficient is teams are terrified to send help to him,
Speaker 1: so he's frequently operating in single coverage. Now Janice isn't
Speaker 1: to that level yet, but he's making enough reads as
Speaker 1: a passer that he's starting to earn more single coverage opportunities. Now.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I will give some credits
Speaker 1: to my Buddenholzer here, they do make his reads easy.
Speaker 1: They either clear the side for him or they let
Speaker 1: him operate in the middle of the floor. There's always
Speaker 1: shooters in the corner. There's typically someone in the dunker spot,
Speaker 1: and if the shooters are in the corner and the
Speaker 1: defender ends up running out, they will cut back door.
Speaker 1: There are a bunch of plays in this playoff run
Speaker 1: where Janice hit Pat Connaughton or Grayson Allen cutting along
Speaker 1: the backside for easy layups under the basket. Just because
Speaker 1: he's keeping his head up and paying attention to what's
Speaker 1: happening around him, they have simplified his attack. They get
Speaker 1: him in positions where he has an advantage, and they
Speaker 1: give him easy reads to make out of that. He's
Speaker 1: making the reads and teams are starting to get scared
Speaker 1: to help. That development is what put on top of
Speaker 1: the league for me. That was what originally I was
Speaker 1: concerned as to whether or not he had that ability,
Speaker 1: and for two seasons in a row, now he's demonstrated that,
Speaker 1: and I thought that Celtics series was the best playmaking
Speaker 1: that I've seen him flash against an elite defense in
Speaker 1: a high stakes situation. Lastly, on the on the strengths
Speaker 1: for your Honest, he's just a complete and total force
Speaker 1: of positive energy. It's infectious and the impact that it
Speaker 1: has on a locker room. What does that mean. It
Speaker 1: means he's an outstanding leader, and it means that is
Speaker 1: fun to root for, and it means that it's the
Speaker 1: perfect kind of guy for us to have as the
Speaker 1: face of the league. We're gonna talk a little bit
Speaker 1: more about this when we get to the Greatest Hopes.
Speaker 1: But one of the biggest reasons why I think it's
Speaker 1: good that Janice is heading on an all time trajectory
Speaker 1: is his story is so interesting, the definition of humble beginnings.
Speaker 1: It's very different from a Lebron James esque type type
Speaker 1: of story. Now, when it comes to those lists, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to factor that in. All I care about
Speaker 1: is the basketball. But it just makes Honest a fun
Speaker 1: guy to root for, and when he has success, it's
Speaker 1: a moment we can all appreciate. Rather than him being
Speaker 1: an unlikable prick that half of the world hates you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like it's not And I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that's Labron. I'm saying that a lot of people
Speaker 1: out there are like that. This is not Jannie. Jane
Speaker 1: is a fun guy to root for, Alright. His weaknesses,
Speaker 1: I've got one. He's unreliable scoring away from the rim,
Speaker 1: especially in the postseason. So in this playoff run, he
Speaker 1: was three for in the restricted area. That's outstanding, eight
Speaker 1: makes per game, that's ridiculous, But he was twenty three
Speaker 1: for seventy one in the paint outside the restricted area,
Speaker 1: only forty seven in the mid range, only over two
Speaker 1: from the corner, and nine for thirty eight from above
Speaker 1: the break, which is overall, he was four seven for
Speaker 1: one eight outside of the restricted area, which is only
Speaker 1: twenty nine point seven. Even in his championship year, the
Speaker 1: year the one the title the previous season, he was
Speaker 1: seventy three for two twelve outside the restricted area, which
Speaker 1: is thirty outside the paint. He was only in that
Speaker 1: playoff run. So every time he makes one, even though
Speaker 1: you're feeling helpless in those moments, it's not the reality
Speaker 1: of the result. He's going to miss. The vast majority
Speaker 1: of his shot attempts that art layups when he's in
Speaker 1: the playoffs. Now he's making more mid range jump shots
Speaker 1: in the mid range excuse me, in the regular season
Speaker 1: than he used to. Hopefully that eventually translates. Obviously, if
Speaker 1: he starts to figure this out, then everyone's screwed. But
Speaker 1: as of right now, that's his one big weakness. If
Speaker 1: you can keep him from getting to the rim, he
Speaker 1: will miss shots. But outside of that, there is no weakness.
Speaker 1: He's the best rim scorer in basketball. He's a better
Speaker 1: playmaker than most wings. Already. He had lots of turnovers
Speaker 1: versus Boston, but so did everybody basically except for Stephan Jimmy.
Speaker 1: Like I said, he has no defensive weaknesses. These are
Speaker 1: just rest possessions that he's not converting at a high
Speaker 1: rate right now. But if he does get to the
Speaker 1: point where he can convert those again, we're all screwed.
Speaker 1: The one other really nitpicky thing is that that specific
Speaker 1: dynamic of shooting over the top of the defense away
Speaker 1: from the rim has been somewhat of a problem in
Speaker 1: clutch situations in the postseason. He played eleven clutch minutes
Speaker 1: in this playoff run. Is either eleven or thirteen. I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna say eleven. You know, he played eleven clutch
Speaker 1: minutes in this In this postseason run, only made two
Speaker 1: field goals and had four turnovers, and his team lost
Speaker 1: those minutes. They think he's minus four and eleven minutes.
Speaker 1: Now Again, in the regular season, he's been a very
Speaker 1: good clutch player, but in that postseason setting, when teams
Speaker 1: are really dialed in and taking away the paint, he's
Speaker 1: not capable of making over the top. But even then
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter because they have Chris Middleton and he
Speaker 1: kind of feels that role for them, and that's what
Speaker 1: makes the Bucks so scary when they're healthy. Um, but
Speaker 1: that that that that again, if he starts consistently scoring
Speaker 1: over the top of defenses and is able to create
Speaker 1: shots for himself over the top of defenses and clutch situations,
Speaker 1: then it's over. Then we're then we'll be talking about
Speaker 1: one of the most dominant stars in league history. He's
Speaker 1: gonna rip off a ton of championships in a row
Speaker 1: and no one's gonna be able to do anything with him.
Speaker 1: That's his only weakness. If he figures that out, it's over.
Speaker 1: There's there's nothing anybody's gonna be able to do all right,
Speaker 1: biggest hopes kind of like I said earlier, if he
Speaker 1: figures out that shot making peace, uh, then he is
Speaker 1: gonna have a dominant run and he's gonna enter the
Speaker 1: goat conversation and with his humble beginnings, that'd be a
Speaker 1: really cool story to have a player like that, a
Speaker 1: fifteen overall draft pick, to get into this position where
Speaker 1: he could be potentially on you know, top five basketball
Speaker 1: player of all time. That's remarkable and most importantly, and
Speaker 1: you know that this is just for me personally, I
Speaker 1: hope that Janice gets appreciated for his level of skill.
Speaker 1: You know, this is James Harden's fault with the whole
Speaker 1: running and dunking thing. But people underestimate how hard he
Speaker 1: had to work to get to the point where he
Speaker 1: could handle the basketball the way he does. People have
Speaker 1: underestimated the amount of work it took to get to
Speaker 1: the point where he could pass the basketball the way
Speaker 1: that he does like that. That's not easy, especially without
Speaker 1: having grown up playing the game like he got into
Speaker 1: the game so late. It typically takes decades to learn
Speaker 1: how to pass the basketball, which is why most of
Speaker 1: the best passers have been guards since they were kids.
Speaker 1: Johannice doesn't have that advantage, and he averaged seven point
Speaker 1: one assists against one of the best defenses I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: That can't just be running and dunking guy anymore. You
Speaker 1: have to acknowledge the skill there and then, like we
Speaker 1: talked about earlier, the footwork. Janice is not just a big,
Speaker 1: strong athlete. He is a remarkably coordinated, big strong athlete.
Speaker 1: He is a remarkably coordinated, big strong athlete that has
Speaker 1: spent an enormous amount of time and repetition turning himself
Speaker 1: into an athlete that's difficult to handle. There's a clip
Speaker 1: that I posted um from this semifinal series against Boston
Speaker 1: where Janice is dribbling at the top of the key
Speaker 1: and he kind of slowly navigates over to the left
Speaker 1: wing and gets a switch off of Horford onto Jelen
Speaker 1: Brown again. Jalen Brown a great perimeter defensive player in
Speaker 1: this league and one of the best athletes we have
Speaker 1: at the position in this league. Joannice doesn't in and
Speaker 1: out dribble and just drives left. It's not bullyball. He
Speaker 1: doesn't do the chicken wing thing. On Jalen. He doesn't
Speaker 1: elbow him in the chest, he doesn't run him over,
Speaker 1: he goes around him, and Jalon Brown has no chance.
Speaker 1: It's a straight up blowby, and Janice is hanging on
Speaker 1: the rim. That's coordination, that's foot speed, that's stuff that
Speaker 1: takes a whole lot of work. And I and my
Speaker 1: biggest hope for Janice is that people eventually give him
Speaker 1: the appropriate level of respect for the amount of work
Speaker 1: he's put in, not just his natural set of physical abilities.
Speaker 1: My biggest fear with the Honice is kind of like
Speaker 1: what happened to Lebron throughout his career, is that he
Speaker 1: never finds a consistent and reliable co star to take
Speaker 1: some of the weight off of his shoulders. Like Chris
Speaker 1: Middleton breaks down physically in this playoff run, he also
Speaker 1: has been somewhat inconsistent. Drew Holiday is like the model
Speaker 1: of inconsistency. Offensively best defensive guard in basketball, but on
Speaker 1: the offensive ent, he can be very hit or miss.
Speaker 1: Just ask Bucks fans. Kind of reminds me of the
Speaker 1: Bron thing, where it's like didn't have a reliable co
Speaker 1: star at all for the first seven years. Goes to Miami,
Speaker 1: and Dane Wade's great for a bait like one and
Speaker 1: a half seasons, but then he falls apart physically. Kyrie
Speaker 1: Irving falls apart physically, Kevin Love falls apart physically. Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis follows apart physically and can't be bothered to care.
Speaker 1: Ever since the bubble, Lebron has never had like a
Speaker 1: straight up dude in the trenches with him for like
Speaker 1: five years in a row. He's never had that. He's
Speaker 1: never had like a real partner in crime. And who knows,
Speaker 1: maybe Chris Middleton becomes that guy for Janice. But if
Speaker 1: he never gets that guy, if it's kind of like
Speaker 1: a combo of mixed results from Drew Holiday and Chris
Speaker 1: Middleton and he never gets another legit costar, he's not
Speaker 1: gonna win six titles because, like I've said on the
Speaker 1: show so many times, you don't win championships in the
Speaker 1: NBA consistently unless you have great basketball players around you.
Speaker 1: It is a team sport. And so my biggest fear
Speaker 1: with Janice is that he has some of that Lebron
Speaker 1: type dynamic where he just never quite has consistent help
Speaker 1: um in the form of of a star that cares
Speaker 1: as much as he does, and that is capable of
Speaker 1: producing consistently. All right, this is a fun one biggest
Speaker 1: what if of Janice's career. So two thousand thirteen NBA Draft,
Speaker 1: Janice goes fifteen. I guess who had the number one
Speaker 1: pick in that draft? The Cleveland Cavaliers, if you might remember,
Speaker 1: they took Anthony Bennett, who has been out of the
Speaker 1: NBA for a very long time. That was a bad
Speaker 1: draft or weak draft relative to other drafts around. Anthony
Speaker 1: Bennett went number one, Victor Oladipo when number two trivia time,
Speaker 1: who do you guys think? What number three that year?
Speaker 1: Role player for the Golden State Warriors, Otto Porter Jr.
Speaker 1: So again weak draft, They're the honest. Film was weird.
Speaker 1: He's playing in these games where it kind of looked
Speaker 1: like he was playing against rec league players, you know,
Speaker 1: so it's really hard to tell if he's dominating because
Speaker 1: he's great, or if he's dominating because he's playing rec
Speaker 1: league level players, right, and that led to the hesitancy.
Speaker 1: He's also very skinny and super super raw, and so
Speaker 1: we fell down to fifteen. But there was no player
Speaker 1: that was a home run pick in that draft. And
Speaker 1: if maybe the film was a little bit better. And
Speaker 1: if there was a little bit more of a tantalizing
Speaker 1: aspect to Janice at that point in two thousand thirteen,
Speaker 1: maybe the Calves take him number one, and then we'd
Speaker 1: end up with Lebron and Janice together in Cleveland just
Speaker 1: destroying the world. Like basically, like, imagine the Lebron Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis partnership is so good, Imagine the Lebron Joannas partnership
Speaker 1: with how much better Janice is than Anthony Davis. It
Speaker 1: just would have been completely ridiculous. Um. Anyway, insummation this
Speaker 1: this list has been a ton of fun. I've I've
Speaker 1: been always I've always liked the idea of of player rankings,
Speaker 1: not not even so much from the standpoint of the numbers,
Speaker 1: because that's so subjective, but just the skill analysis, the
Speaker 1: diving into the differences between the players, the way they play,
Speaker 1: their approach to the game on a possession by possession basis,
Speaker 1: the difference in their skill sets. I've always been fascinated
Speaker 1: with that, but I've never had the time with my
Speaker 1: other jobs to really dive into it the way that
Speaker 1: I did this year, and so actually having the time
Speaker 1: this year to just wake up every day and dive
Speaker 1: into these guys skill sets and and and watch a
Speaker 1: ton of film and do This series has been a
Speaker 1: ton of fun. I know not everybody has agreed. I
Speaker 1: know every single pick that I've had people have had
Speaker 1: issues with. You're not gonna agree with my player analysis
Speaker 1: for everybody too. I had strength and weaknesses for everybody.
Speaker 1: If you're mad that I talked about one of your
Speaker 1: player's weaknesses, I hate to break it to you. There's
Speaker 1: not a player on this list that I didn't talk
Speaker 1: about weaknesses for. And you know, this channel is not
Speaker 1: a propaganda channel. If you wanna, If you're a Steph
Speaker 1: fan and you want to only hear great things about Steph,
Speaker 1: I highly recommend you go find a show where they
Speaker 1: propagandize that stuff. That's not what you're gonna get here.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk basketball. We're gonna talk to good that
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk to bad and and it's it's gonna
Speaker 1: be basketball focused and and uh, I really sincerely appreciate
Speaker 1: you guys um supporting the show, supporting this series. This
Speaker 1: has been fun. I've I'm not entirely sure what the
Speaker 1: schedule is moving forward. We'll probably take a couple of
Speaker 1: days off now, um, but we will eventually do some
Speaker 1: all time stuff, which we gotta approach now that Steff
Speaker 1: has one another title, we gotta figure out where he
Speaker 1: lands and all of this. And then, if I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 1: we are less than two months away from the season starting,
Speaker 1: So we're gonna probably have a Kevin Durant trade that
Speaker 1: we're gonna break down. We're gonna probably have a Russa
Speaker 1: Westbrook trade that we're gonna break down. We're gonna do
Speaker 1: season previews for all the important teams around the league,
Speaker 1: and then before you know it, it's going to be
Speaker 1: back to what it was last year, five nights a
Speaker 1: week of us breaking down NBA basketball games, which I
Speaker 1: very much am looking forward to. Alright, guys, I sincerely
Speaker 1: appreciate your support and I'll see you in a few days.
Speaker 1: The volume