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Speaker 1: dot com slash terms. All right, welcome to hoop tonight
Speaker 1: here at the volumeil of all. If you guys are
Speaker 1: having a great week so far, we are moving on
Speaker 1: with their player rankings. Today we have two more videos.
Speaker 1: Today we're hitting number three at number two. Tomorrow will
Speaker 1: be hit or Friday, I should say we'll be hitting
Speaker 1: number one. And the next week I have three different
Speaker 1: follow up videos that we're going to be doing from
Speaker 1: this list. I've got the guys from Nerd SESSH coming
Speaker 1: on and we're going to kind of debate the top eleven.
Speaker 1: If any of them have any disagreements with me, we're
Speaker 1: going to kind of get into that, and then we're
Speaker 1: going to have that bragging rights video I told you about,
Speaker 1: where we just talk about ranking the top end of
Speaker 1: the players strictly based on what they accomplished last year.
Speaker 1: And then I also wanted to hit the GM Survey.
Speaker 1: That's always a fun way to kind of get into
Speaker 1: some topics about the beginning of next season. So we'll
Speaker 1: do that as our three shows next week, and then
Speaker 1: after that we're getting into our season previews and we're
Speaker 1: going to just go team by team, power ranking style
Speaker 1: up the list, talking about their off seasons and what
Speaker 1: we expect them to do heading into next season. So
Speaker 1: that's basically our September, and then from there we're going
Speaker 1: to be covering actual real basketball games. Today, it was
Speaker 1: actually the first time this summer where I really started
Speaker 1: to miss NBA basketball. I always used to miss it
Speaker 1: a ton before I started to do this for a living,
Speaker 1: but obviously I just I put in so much work
Speaker 1: during the playoffs that like, I actually could kind of
Speaker 1: look forward to the break when we get into the summer.
Speaker 1: And just this morning, I just got that little bit
Speaker 1: of an itch of like I was watching some Synergy
Speaker 1: footage of Yannis scoring in ball screens, and I was like, man,
Speaker 1: I miss just watching NBA games, and so I'm really
Speaker 1: excited to get back into that. One month from today,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be like knee deep in training camp and
Speaker 1: like with actual regular season basketball games just two weeks
Speaker 1: away at that point. So I'm really really excited. But
Speaker 1: today number three and number two, and then I got
Speaker 1: a mail bag for the tail end of the show
Speaker 1: as well. You guys in the job before we get started,
Speaker 1: subscribed to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss
Speaker 1: any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter. I
Speaker 1: underscore jcnlts. You guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget
Speaker 1: about a podcast feed wherever you get your podcast on
Speaker 1: our Hoops Tonight. Don't forget it's also helpful. Fore leave
Speaker 1: it in a review on that front. And the last,
Speaker 1: not least, keep dropping mailbag questions in those YouTube comments
Speaker 1: so we can keep hitting them at the tail end
Speaker 1: of these rankings shows. Specifically, if you disagree with the
Speaker 1: ranking and you want to make a basketball case for
Speaker 1: why you disagree, drop it in those comments and we'll
Speaker 1: hit it at the tail end of these shows. All right,
Speaker 1: without any further ado, let's hit it. Number three. Janis
Speaker 1: on Tennecoompbo seventy three games played last year, finished fourth
Speaker 1: in MVP voting. This is actually a crazy stat. Janis's
Speaker 1: sixth consecutive season finishing in the top five of MVP voting,
Speaker 1: So talking about a perennial MVP candidate doesn't get more
Speaker 1: consistent than Yannis on that front. Thirty point four points
Speaker 1: per game, eleven point five rebounds per game, a career
Speaker 1: high six point five assists per game, while also dropping
Speaker 1: his turnovers from three point nine to three point four
Speaker 1: year over year, although obviously Dame helps on that front.
Speaker 1: He also got two point three stocks per game. Missed
Speaker 1: the All Defense team for the second consecutive year after
Speaker 1: making First Team All Defense four years in a row.
Speaker 1: Shooting splits, he shot sixty one percent from the field.
Speaker 1: That's a career high twenty seven percent from three sixty
Speaker 1: two percent in effective field goal percentage, which is also
Speaker 1: a career high and sixty five percent in true shooting percentage,
Speaker 1: which is also a career high. So adding Dame to
Speaker 1: the equation relieving Yanis of some of the lower percentage
Speaker 1: shots that he had to take, predictably led into a
Speaker 1: massive increase in his efficiency. His shooting stats per Sentergy
Speaker 1: zero point seven to two points per jump shot, and
Speaker 1: he's trending in the wrong direction. He was zero point
Speaker 1: seven to seven the year before that, zero point eight
Speaker 1: seven the year before that, and he's about to turn
Speaker 1: thirty this year. So I think we can go ahead
Speaker 1: and right off the whole gianis ever being a good
Speaker 1: jump shooter thing. He's just going in the wrong direction
Speaker 1: on that front, which is fine. As I've said, it's
Speaker 1: been way more about short range shot making like hook
Speaker 1: shots and stuff like that. We're gonna get more into
Speaker 1: that in a little bit, as well as his playmaking
Speaker 1: that are more important counters to his rim pressure than
Speaker 1: actually hitting jump shots. He took forty catch and shoot
Speaker 1: jump shots last year, only made ten of them. Thirty
Speaker 1: eight of those forty were completely unguarded as well, So
Speaker 1: it's it's just even when he's standing still with all day,
Speaker 1: he just can't knock those shots down. Did. He took
Speaker 1: two hundred and ninety two pull up jump shots, made
Speaker 1: thirty four percent of them, but they were mostly pull
Speaker 1: up twos, so that's only zero point eighty seven points
Speaker 1: per shot, which obviously is not very efficient on a
Speaker 1: pull up jump shot. Fifty three percent on floaters, but
Speaker 1: he only took seventeen all years. That's not really a
Speaker 1: part of his game. Forty two percent on hooks and
Speaker 1: he only took fifty seven of them all year. This
Speaker 1: is the shot that I've been begging on him to
Speaker 1: work a work on, just like a simple like post
Speaker 1: up on the left block with the ball in his
Speaker 1: right hand, like a drop step into the lane, just
Speaker 1: a little left shoulder hook over the top. I don't
Speaker 1: think anybody can guard it, and I think it's a
Speaker 1: shot he could actually get to the point where he
Speaker 1: hits fifty to fifty five percent of them if he
Speaker 1: put the work in. But for whatever reason, that just
Speaker 1: does not really come together as a shot for him,
Speaker 1: and specifically in the playoffs. I just view that as
Speaker 1: a shot that he could use, but it just hasn't
Speaker 1: really come together. But yeah, honest is still the most
Speaker 1: devastating attacking the rim in the league, and it's not close.
Speaker 1: Here are three stats to demonstrate that fact to you, guys.
Speaker 1: Yiannis made nine point one shots in the restricted area
Speaker 1: per game last year. Second place was Zion at six
Speaker 1: point nine, so by far the most made field goals
Speaker 1: in the restricted area in the league. Among the fifty
Speaker 1: nine players who attempted at least three shots in the
Speaker 1: restricted area per game, Jannis was third in field goal
Speaker 1: percentage in the restricted area at seventy seven point five percent.
Speaker 1: The only two guys that were ahead of him were
Speaker 1: Lively in Gafford, the two centers for Dallas, which are
Speaker 1: just getting spoon fed dunking opportunities on lobs and cuts,
Speaker 1: And so basically, out of fifty nine players that are
Speaker 1: high volume finishers around the rim, Giannis is the most
Speaker 1: efficient guy that's creating those opportunities, mostly for himself or
Speaker 1: at least partially for himself. Jannis finishes a lot on
Speaker 1: rolls and cuts, which we'll get into in a minute.
Speaker 1: But but the guys that are ahead of him are
Speaker 1: only scoring on cuts and rolls. Jannis is just as
Speaker 1: efficient as those guys on massive volume despite creating a
Speaker 1: lot of those opportunities for himself. He also had two
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty one dunks, which was the most in
Speaker 1: the entire NBA. So, as we mentioned, Jannis the most
Speaker 1: devastating downhill force in the NBA, in conjunction with him
Speaker 1: having his best passing season of his career, that's where
Speaker 1: he derives the majority of his offense. Now, as far
Speaker 1: as play types go, the majority of Giannis's offensive value
Speaker 1: comes on the margins. He made one hundred and ninety
Speaker 1: eight baskets in transition, that was the most in the NBA. Yeah,
Speaker 1: one point two to three points per transition push. So
Speaker 1: every Yannis transition push is worth a one to twenty
Speaker 1: three offensive rating. Now to keep it to give you
Speaker 1: guys some perspective, remember the Pacers when they were cooking
Speaker 1: with Greece with the before Halliburton heard his hamstring, they
Speaker 1: were at a one to twenty four offensive rating, I think,
Speaker 1: and they were the best offense in the league at
Speaker 1: that point. So basically, Yanni's transition push is still one
Speaker 1: of the most devastating and efficient play types in the NBA.
Speaker 1: And that's why defensively, you have to build that wall.
Speaker 1: When Yanna starts to get his head of steam. He
Speaker 1: made one hundred and eighteen baskets on cuts or dropoffs,
Speaker 1: that was the sixth most in the entire NBA. And
Speaker 1: he made seventy five baskets on rolls the rim in
Speaker 1: ball screens. For a perspective, this is a lot having
Speaker 1: to do with Dame. He only had forty five the
Speaker 1: previous year, so almost twice as many shots that he
Speaker 1: made on rolls to the rim in ball screens. As
Speaker 1: a virtue of bringing Dame into the equation, I expect
Speaker 1: that to get even better this next year. Is there
Speaker 1: are some pretty basic things that Milwaukee can do to
Speaker 1: make some adjustments in the way that they set up
Speaker 1: their pick and roll, which I think will work better.
Speaker 1: Specifically just more to the empty side so that Jannis
Speaker 1: has easier reads to make when he's rolling. There was
Speaker 1: some struggles there with the way that they ran their
Speaker 1: pick and roll last year that we've obviously gone over
Speaker 1: at length on this show. Made seventy four baskets on
Speaker 1: offensive rebounds, which is the ninth most in the entire NBA.
Speaker 1: So if you had those together on just offensive rebounds, cuts, rolls,
Speaker 1: and transitions, so all just like kind of on the
Speaker 1: margins of basketball, four hundred and sixty five total makes.
Speaker 1: So to give you an idea, fifty six percent of
Speaker 1: Giannis's total made baskets this year fell into those four categories,
Speaker 1: and so I wanted to give you guys some like
Speaker 1: an example as a comparison. So fifty six percent of
Speaker 1: Gianni's made baskets were offensive rebounds, cuts and rolls, or
Speaker 1: transition pushes. Right, So let's the closest that I could
Speaker 1: come up to as a guy like Lebron. And the
Speaker 1: reason why I looked at Lebron is one, he's a
Speaker 1: big forward who plays kind of the same position to
Speaker 1: a lot of transition pushes. Like to this is a
Speaker 1: crazy Lebron stat. So Jannis had one hundred and ninety
Speaker 1: eight made baskets in transition, Lebron had like one hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy five, which goes which is like crazy that
Speaker 1: a thirty nine year old was nearly as effective a
Speaker 1: transition weapons as Jannis was Just a completely insane stat.
Speaker 1: But Lebron's the second best player or the best player
Speaker 1: of all time in my opinion. So there you go.
Speaker 1: That's going to take a while for me to learn
Speaker 1: how to say that properly, But anyway, he had a
Speaker 1: big forward, a lot of transition pushes, does a lot
Speaker 1: of work functioning as a big like ever since the
Speaker 1: Lakers brought in Austin Reeves and D'Angelo Russell, Lebron will
Speaker 1: set a lot of ball screens similar to Giannis does,
Speaker 1: And so I thought that he was among Giannis is
Speaker 1: a unicorn and Lebron is not like Giannis. But among
Speaker 1: all the players in the league that play his position,
Speaker 1: Lebron's probably the closest in terms of like the way
Speaker 1: he functions in the Lakers offense transition pushes, functions as
Speaker 1: a big blah blah blah. Obviously, Lebron is so much
Speaker 1: more of like a surgical perimeter initiator than Yannis is.
Speaker 1: But he also just isn't the same athletic wrecking ball
Speaker 1: that Giannis is. Right, so they're not the same, But
Speaker 1: this is closest I can come up with. He made.
Speaker 1: Lebron made six hundred and eighty five field goals last year.
Speaker 1: Two hundred and ninety six of his field goals were
Speaker 1: transition cuts, rolls, or offensive rebounds, which was just forty
Speaker 1: three percent of his total made field goals. So to
Speaker 1: give you an idea, like a player that kind of
Speaker 1: plays a somewhat similar kind of role. Lebron about forty
Speaker 1: three percent of his baskets on the margin, Yannis at
Speaker 1: fifty six percent. So I just did that to try
Speaker 1: to give you guys some perspective on just how much
Speaker 1: Giannis relies on that basically just getting garbage baskets that
Speaker 1: are in transition or in cuts and rolls or offensive rebound. So,
Speaker 1: Yiannis is somewhat of an unusual superstar to rank on
Speaker 1: this list because he's actually a pretty limited half court
Speaker 1: shot creator, which we're going to get into in a minute.
Speaker 1: But he's pouring in thirty points per game on sixty
Speaker 1: five percent true shooting, So like, like, how do you
Speaker 1: factor that sort of thing in? He's like, we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about his offensive limitations, and this guy's one
Speaker 1: of the highest volume in efficiency scorers in the NBA,
Speaker 1: and so that's where it gets a little bit complicated.
Speaker 1: But in the half court, that's where we see some
Speaker 1: of Giannis's limitations. Actually had a pretty solid pick and
Speaker 1: roll season last year. He got one point zero seven
Speaker 1: points per possession including passes on four hundred and twenty six.
Speaker 1: The main thing there is he just got way better
Speaker 1: at identifying opportunities to get downhill in ball screens, and
Speaker 1: so it looked a little different, right, So like in
Speaker 1: four or five ball screens, meaning when Yannis was the
Speaker 1: four and he that brook Lopez set the pick for him,
Speaker 1: most teams would either switch it or run a drop coverage.
Speaker 1: And so if there's a drop coverage, the guy who's
Speaker 1: guarding Gianis has to be big and strong enough to
Speaker 1: guard Yanis, and so that guy is gonna struggle to
Speaker 1: get over the top of that screen. Now Giannis is
Speaker 1: going downhill at your center, and your center is gonna
Speaker 1: be probably a slow footed guy that you matched up
Speaker 1: with brook Lopez for obvious reasons, right, and Giannis will
Speaker 1: just swallow him around that guy and get all the
Speaker 1: way into the rim and lay it up, or you
Speaker 1: have to just completely pack the paint, which opens up
Speaker 1: those passing rereads. Right. But the guard guard screens are
Speaker 1: where I was actually most impressed by Giannis last year.
Speaker 1: And the main thing that I noticed is like most
Speaker 1: teams will have a hedge in that situation, right, So
Speaker 1: Giannis has the ball being guarded by a big Ford
Speaker 1: we're gonna have a guard come up and set the
Speaker 1: screen right, because you're trying to bring that guard into
Speaker 1: the action as Jannis comes off. The guard who's guarding
Speaker 1: the guard is almost always going to hedge in that
Speaker 1: case and come way outside, right, and the big man
Speaker 1: is going to be fighting over the top of that
Speaker 1: screen to try to get back in front of Yiannis.
Speaker 1: And Giannis got really good at like opening up his
Speaker 1: hips like he was about to go off that screen
Speaker 1: and then whipping it back to the other side with
Speaker 1: the crossover. And now you're fucked because the guy guarding
Speaker 1: the ball is now engaged with the screener and trying
Speaker 1: to fight over the top, and the other defender is
Speaker 1: in a hedge, so he's all the way on the
Speaker 1: opposite side of the screen. And so Giannis was able
Speaker 1: to come just cleanly downhill off of those types of
Speaker 1: actions and get a ton of really good looks in
Speaker 1: the in the paint. So he personally shot sixty one
Speaker 1: percent on ball screens, got one point zero seven points
Speaker 1: per possession, which is actually really good but somewhat low
Speaker 1: volume though only four hundred and twenty six reps in
Speaker 1: ISO three hundred and sixty six points on three hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty six possessions including passes. You guys can do
Speaker 1: the math there. That ranks sixteenth out of twenty four
Speaker 1: players to attempt at least two hundred and fifty so
Speaker 1: on the lower end, in the lower third among high
Speaker 1: volume ISO players. And then four hundred and eleven post
Speaker 1: steps for four hundred and twenty three points one point
Speaker 1: zero three points per possession. That ranked tenth out of
Speaker 1: the eighteen players to attempt at least two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty post ups in our high volume post up list.
Speaker 1: So bottom third ISO player, high volume, bottom half post
Speaker 1: up player in the high volume list. So his total
Speaker 1: half court possessions two hundred and three possessions one two
Speaker 1: hundred and forty four points. That's one point zero three
Speaker 1: points per possession. That's basically the worst out of all
Speaker 1: the guys that are in this list. In that top eleven,
Speaker 1: even Anthony Edwards in his regular season numbers where he was,
Speaker 1: but that was before he took his leap in the
Speaker 1: postseason with substantially less offensive talent around him more of
Speaker 1: a defensive minded roster. Even Ant was more efficient. I like,
Speaker 1: I think a solid two or three percent more than
Speaker 1: Yannis was as a half court initiator. So that's really
Speaker 1: the only weakness with Yiannis, right, Like, we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about his defense here in a minute, and I still
Speaker 1: think he's top tier for defensive impact and versatility, especially
Speaker 1: in the postseason, which we'll get into more detail here
Speaker 1: in a minute. But the main downside with Giannis is
Speaker 1: that even though he's a statistical monster on offense, like
Speaker 1: thirty points per game on sixty five percent of shooting
Speaker 1: is like literally insane, but the reality is is that
Speaker 1: his style that a plus downhill rim pressure mixed with
Speaker 1: like average too slightly above average playmaking like b B
Speaker 1: plus playmaking that eventually runs into a ceiling when he
Speaker 1: hits the best defenses in the league, when the game
Speaker 1: slows down in the half court, like when he runs
Speaker 1: into a front court that is big and strong and
Speaker 1: fast enough to just keep away his easy rim opportunities,
Speaker 1: and then a defensive scheme that takes away some of
Speaker 1: his easier passing reads. Suddenly it becomes about making more
Speaker 1: advanced reads as a passer and about hitting shots over
Speaker 1: the top of really good defenders, and both of those
Speaker 1: things are weaknesses for Yiannis. His best go to over
Speaker 1: the top shot when he has to shoot over a
Speaker 1: defender is a left should hook, and he's only making
Speaker 1: that about forty two percent of the time right now,
Speaker 1: which is worth about zero point eighty four points per shot.
Speaker 1: And he's become a good passer, but he's he's not
Speaker 1: good enough to make up for the lack of that
Speaker 1: solid over the top shot. He's not a surgical passer,
Speaker 1: and so most of Giannis's playoff failures have come down
Speaker 1: to him ending up in close games late and just
Speaker 1: not really having a consistent way to attack and generate
Speaker 1: quality shots, Like even as recently as two years ago
Speaker 1: when he was playing against the Heat. We saw what
Speaker 1: happened in that series. It was Jimmy Butler going the
Speaker 1: other way and just surgically demolishing them with over the
Speaker 1: top shot making, while Jannis goes down in bricks a
Speaker 1: left shoulder hook over bam Adebayo because he can't cleanly
Speaker 1: beat him to the rim the way he can. Most
Speaker 1: of the lesser defenders that are in the league right now,
Speaker 1: for the purpose of the bucks, they have dame now,
Speaker 1: so that counters a lot of these specific issues. But
Speaker 1: for the purpose of this exercise, which again remember the
Speaker 1: criteria is we're drafting from scratch, and Dame is also
Speaker 1: in the top twenty five, so he'd get drafted by
Speaker 1: a different team, which means that as we're kind of
Speaker 1: like drafting among this like kind of a vacant list
Speaker 1: of teams with all of the league's players available, as
Speaker 1: we're drafting for this upcoming season, when I'm building around
Speaker 1: Yannis as my third overall pick, I've got to fill
Speaker 1: in that half court offensive initiation piece, and that's a
Speaker 1: challenging piece, especially when I'm gonna be circling back around
Speaker 1: with a guy who's outside of the top thirty in
Speaker 1: the NBA, and so it's a little challenging. Get to
Speaker 1: take it further, if I had the third overall pick,
Speaker 1: theoretically in a snake draft, I would have pick what
Speaker 1: what's that pick? Fifty seven or fifty eight, right, So
Speaker 1: like I'm gonna get the I'm gonna get Yanis, and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get the fifty eighth best player in the league,
Speaker 1: and is the fifty eighth best player in the league,
Speaker 1: gonna be someone that can help me address Giannis's limitations
Speaker 1: as a shot creator. That's just something that has to
Speaker 1: be factored in. And that's the main reason why I
Speaker 1: have him behind Luka Doncic and Nikola Jokic. And I've
Speaker 1: gone over this in more detail before, but like it's
Speaker 1: it's really this simple to me, Like, if I'm building
Speaker 1: from scratch, I think it's easier to take a limited
Speaker 1: defensive player and craft him a small defensive role while
Speaker 1: building a functional defense around him with role players than
Speaker 1: it is to do the opposite, which is to take
Speaker 1: a limited offensive player and plug him into a and
Speaker 1: somehow like account for his weaknesses with role players in scheme.
Speaker 1: On the offensive end, like elite high end offensive shot
Speaker 1: creation is a superpower that is impossible to replicate, whereas
Speaker 1: like elite team defense is something that I can do
Speaker 1: even with some limited offensive players. And so that's the
Speaker 1: main ethos for me that drives having a guy like
Speaker 1: Yannis behind guys like Luka Doncic and Nikola Jokic. As
Speaker 1: for the defensive end, Yiannis is an incredibly versatile frontline defender.
Speaker 1: You can use him in ball screens as like the
Speaker 1: screen defender. We've seen amazing reps of that. Specifically, if
Speaker 1: you guys remember in the twenty twenty one finals. That
Speaker 1: was like one of the big ways that Yannas swung
Speaker 1: that series late was just just being a devastating ball
Speaker 1: screen defender, being able to get up on the ball
Speaker 1: handler while also recovering back to the lob threat. Famously,
Speaker 1: he had that huge block on the DeAndre Ayton lob.
Speaker 1: I think that was in game four, see the game
Speaker 1: four game. No, he was in game five or six,
Speaker 1: I can't remember exactly which game it was of that series,
Speaker 1: but it's a very good ball screen defender, just an
Speaker 1: absolute devastating lowman. That's probably his best role. Meaning like
Speaker 1: if brook Lopez is on the screen and he's coming
Speaker 1: up to the level, Jannis has the roller brook Lopez's
Speaker 1: roller getting behind him, He's got to split the difference
Speaker 1: between the roleman and the guy in that week side corner.
Speaker 1: And there's few players in the league that are even
Speaker 1: close to as impactful as Giannis in terms of stepping
Speaker 1: up and bothering that role man in some way, shape
Speaker 1: or form. But also if the skip pass is made
Speaker 1: or if the roller makes the skip pass, being able
Speaker 1: to RecA to the corner. One of my favorite examples
Speaker 1: of that was a game against the Mavericks a few
Speaker 1: years back, where I watched Luka Doncicic deliberately bring Yiannis
Speaker 1: into the action in switches just so that he didn't
Speaker 1: have to use him as the low man had no
Speaker 1: interest in shooting over. Jiannis wasn't even trying, but was
Speaker 1: just making sure that the guy he was throwing the
Speaker 1: skip pass over was a different guy than Yannis because
Speaker 1: he was so scared of Yannis's ability to scared the
Speaker 1: wrong word, but because he was concerned about Yannis's ability
Speaker 1: to shut that action down. You can use him in
Speaker 1: a switching scheme. I don't think he's as great on
Speaker 1: the perimeter guarding some quicker players as some of the
Speaker 1: other big guys in the league, guys like Ad, guys
Speaker 1: like guys like even Gobert, even guys like Bam, but
Speaker 1: he's still really good at it. He's just not as
Speaker 1: good as some of the guys at the top of
Speaker 1: the league. But you can certainly use him in a
Speaker 1: switching scheme. And he's an elite defensive rebounders like so
Speaker 1: like with When you combine all that together, it just
Speaker 1: makes an incredible defensive foundation, and specifically that ability to
Speaker 1: be in two places at once is what unlocks aggressive coverages.
Speaker 1: So if you've got a guy that in a ball
Speaker 1: screen can guard the ball handler but also recover to
Speaker 1: the lob, or a guy that as the lowman can recover,
Speaker 1: or that can shut down the lob threat but also
Speaker 1: recover to the corner. That makes it so that you
Speaker 1: can give up a four on three without having to
Speaker 1: worry about actually giving up an open shot. Right. What
Speaker 1: that means is you can put two on the ball.
Speaker 1: That's an amazing bit of flexibility. Right, Like in a
Speaker 1: low man situation, you can have Brooke come way out
Speaker 1: to the level of the screen because Giannis is one
Speaker 1: of the best in the world at being two places
Speaker 1: at once on that back line. And then as far
Speaker 1: as the ball handler goes in ball screens, if Yiannis
Speaker 1: is in the action as the screen defender, his ability
Speaker 1: to split the difference between those two guys makes it
Speaker 1: so that you don't have to use your lowman. You
Speaker 1: can keep your lowman in the corner at least closer
Speaker 1: to the corner, which allows you to kind of keep
Speaker 1: your defense out of rotation. It's a huge value. Like
Speaker 1: when you're building a a team from scratch. You can't
Speaker 1: do much better than Janis Santana Kumpo as a defensive foundation.
Speaker 1: But as I said, the reason why that does it
Speaker 1: because that's the inevitable question, right Jason. If Giannis is
Speaker 1: a much better defensive foundation than Luka Jokic, why is
Speaker 1: any above them. That's where we get into that bit.
Speaker 1: I was just talking to you guys about as it
Speaker 1: pertains to building an offense around a limited offensive player
Speaker 1: versus building a defense around a limited defensive player. One
Speaker 1: other issue with janis that is somewhat concerning. He's starting
Speaker 1: to encounter some more health issues, specifically with his knee,
Speaker 1: which is scary and a crazy stat To demonstrate this
Speaker 1: to you guys, Giannis has been available to play in
Speaker 1: just three of Milwaukee's last eleven playoff games, and he
Speaker 1: played just eleven minutes in one of those games. So
Speaker 1: he's played in basically two and a half playoff games
Speaker 1: total in the last twenty seven months. That's sketchy, that's
Speaker 1: a little bit concerning. He's also in his last five
Speaker 1: years averaging only sixty five regular season games played, so
Speaker 1: Yiannis is no longer what I would consider to be
Speaker 1: like a sure thing. In terms of availability, like he's
Speaker 1: closer to Ad than he is to Joki in terms
Speaker 1: of like actual being actually being ready to play all
Speaker 1: of the time. And so I think that that's become
Speaker 1: an interesting little curveball to throw in here. But in summer,
Speaker 1: Yiannis is a rock solid foundation to build around. He's
Speaker 1: one of the top five defensive players in the world,
Speaker 1: with an abundance of different ways to use him, which
Speaker 1: obviously helps for roster building. And you can just book
Speaker 1: him for thirty points per game on sixty plus ture
Speaker 1: shooting every single year, and that is incredibly steady production
Speaker 1: that you can take and build around, and it makes
Speaker 1: for an easier job for the GM. But his weakness
Speaker 1: as a half court shot creator and that strange availability
Speaker 1: issue that I just talked about, excuse me, put him
Speaker 1: behind the top two guys for the time being. Number
Speaker 1: two Luca don Chic seventy games played thirty three point
Speaker 1: nine points per game, that was our scoring champion last year,
Speaker 1: most in the NBA, nine point two rebounds per game,
Speaker 1: nine point eight assists per game that was third in
Speaker 1: the NBA behind Trey Young and Tyrese Haliburton. He got
Speaker 1: one point nine stocks per game one point four steals
Speaker 1: per game, did some really solid work as a weak
Speaker 1: side defender, playing passing lanes like Luca. Did take significant
Speaker 1: strides as an off ball defender this year. Most of
Speaker 1: his defensive issues were on the ball, particularly in switches,
Speaker 1: which we'll get into more later. His shooting splits forty
Speaker 1: eight point seven percent from the field, thirty eight point
Speaker 1: two percent from three on ten point six attempts. That
Speaker 1: was the major revelation last year, massive increase in three
Speaker 1: point volume in efficiency, had a step back three going
Speaker 1: like never before. I think he shot thirty eight percent
Speaker 1: on step back threes during the regular season last year,
Speaker 1: seventy nine percent in free throws, fifty seven percent in
Speaker 1: field goal percent effective field goal percentage, and just under
Speaker 1: sixty two percent in true shooting. The shooting stats perc
Speaker 1: energy one point zero eight points per jump shot, one
Speaker 1: point one two points per catch and shoot jump shot shot,
Speaker 1: forty eight percent field goals when he was unguarded. That
Speaker 1: was a really useful thing, alongside Kyrie Irving seventy two
Speaker 1: percent in catch and shoot unguarded jump shots. When you
Speaker 1: count for threes, that's when you weigh it for threes.
Speaker 1: Luca was the best pull up jump shooter in all
Speaker 1: of basketball last year. He got one point zero nine
Speaker 1: points per shot. Among the sixteen players in the NBA
Speaker 1: to attempt at least five hundred, Luca was first. He
Speaker 1: also made the most in the league at three hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty eight, so the highest volume and efficiency pulled
Speaker 1: up jump shooter in the league last year. That's a
Speaker 1: really impressive stat. He got one point zero six points
Speaker 1: per face up jumper took about two per game last year,
Speaker 1: so that was a really effective shot for him. And
Speaker 1: then his go too shot in ball screens fifty five
Speaker 1: percent on floaters, he made eighty three of them. The
Speaker 1: deadly move. He just come over the top of the screen,
Speaker 1: put the defender and jail on his backside, kind of
Speaker 1: work his way up that right lane line, and then
Speaker 1: just shoot that little floater into lane. He can just
Speaker 1: make it at such a high rate. And then he
Speaker 1: shot seventy one percent at the rim. But he doesn't
Speaker 1: get there a ton. He had two point nine makes
Speaker 1: in the restricted area per game, less than you'd hope
Speaker 1: for a big Ford, but at the same time, kind
Speaker 1: of somewhat what you'd expect for a guy who's not
Speaker 1: necessarily a great athlete. I want to dive some more
Speaker 1: into Luca, like putting defenders in jail in the way
Speaker 1: that he scores. Here at a minute, when we get
Speaker 1: done with their play type data. So playtype data, this
Speaker 1: is Luca's claim to fame. Right, fifteen hundred ball screens
Speaker 1: including passes for sixteen hundred and fifty six points. That's
Speaker 1: one point one zero points per possession. That ranked fifth
Speaker 1: out of the fifteen players to log at least a
Speaker 1: thousand reps this year. He ran the most ISOs in
Speaker 1: the league, with seven hundred and thirty six, eighty more
Speaker 1: than the second person on that list, which was Shay
Speaker 1: Gil Just Alexander still got one point zero nine points
Speaker 1: per possession. That was seventh out of the twenty four
Speaker 1: players to run at least two hundred fifty and then
Speaker 1: he ran two hundred and thirty three post ups for
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty points including passes. That's one point
Speaker 1: zero seven points per possession. That's in the sixty fourth percentile.
Speaker 1: So if you total those all together, Luca ran two
Speaker 1: four hundred and sixty nine possessions of half court shot creation.
Speaker 1: That's more than twice as much as Gianni's just for
Speaker 1: some perspective, one point one zero points per possession including passes.
Speaker 1: That's a massive volume, obviously, but like the efficiency is
Speaker 1: obviously crazy, one point one zero points per possession. But
Speaker 1: I don't think people realize how crazy that that straight
Speaker 1: up total number of possessions is almost twenty five hundred
Speaker 1: pick and rolls, ISOs and post ups. That is that
Speaker 1: that's a one man offense the likes of which we
Speaker 1: haven't seen since James Harden, and without the playoff limitations
Speaker 1: that James Harden has because lucas so much more versatile offensively.
Speaker 1: So what is the secret what makes Luca such a
Speaker 1: deadly half court shot creator? And to me, it comes
Speaker 1: down to the size and strength that allows him to
Speaker 1: get to his spots, combined with the footwork to make
Speaker 1: sure he's getting there efficiently in terms of movement, and
Speaker 1: then the playmaking is attached to it. So I want
Speaker 1: you to think give it from a very basic standpoint.
Speaker 1: When Luca is faced up with the defender one on one,
Speaker 1: even though he's not particularly quick, his ability to change
Speaker 1: direction by selling moves is what allows him to beat
Speaker 1: people off the dribble. Luca I've said this a lot
Speaker 1: to my young players, the ones that I train in
Speaker 1: high school. They when you're learning how to dribble, it's
Speaker 1: less about making big, sweeping crossover dribbles and more about
Speaker 1: when you were facing to the right, where your eyes
Speaker 1: to the right, where your shoulders to the right, or
Speaker 1: your hips to the right, did you look like you
Speaker 1: were going to go to the right before you brought
Speaker 1: the ball back to the left, Because that matters way
Speaker 1: more than how nifty your actual ball ball handling move is.
Speaker 1: It's about selling a change of direction right, and Luca
Speaker 1: is the best at this in my opinion. Luca will
Speaker 1: hit multiple dribble combinations and if you watch him, he
Speaker 1: will literally in slow motion. He will sell every single
Speaker 1: part of every single move with every part of his body.
Speaker 1: I think he's an excellent player to watch if you're
Speaker 1: a young basketball player out there in terms of just
Speaker 1: learning how to disguise your moves better. So that's piece
Speaker 1: number one. Then there's the size and strength piece. So
Speaker 1: one of the things that Luca does that kills everyone
Speaker 1: is putting a defender in jail. So think of it
Speaker 1: like this, If you go underneath the ball screen, Lucas
Speaker 1: just gonna hit a pull up three. Right. He shot
Speaker 1: thirty eight percent ou on him last year. That's one
Speaker 1: point one four points per shot. Just not a good idea.
Speaker 1: He can't go under the ball screen on Luca, so
Speaker 1: you have to chase him over the top. Now, as
Speaker 1: soon as you chase him over the top, here's the
Speaker 1: ball screen, right, Lucas coming off shoulder to shoulder with
Speaker 1: that screener. So if he comes off shoulder to shoulder,
Speaker 1: there's no gap in there for you to beat him
Speaker 1: around and get in front of him. Right, So now
Speaker 1: you're behind him. But then what Luca does instead, Like
Speaker 1: like guys like Anthony Edwards and other downhill athletes, they'll
Speaker 1: come off shoulder to shoulder and then they'll attack immediately.
Speaker 1: And that's because that's their advantage. Their biggest advantage is
Speaker 1: just trying to get downhill with real force and speed. Right,
Speaker 1: Lucas not a downhill force and speed guy. So what
Speaker 1: he does is as soon as he comes off that
Speaker 1: ball screen, and this is what he did to Jada
Speaker 1: McDaniels the entire Western Conference finals. Now Jada McDaniels is
Speaker 1: behind him, and Luca is just so much bigger and
Speaker 1: stronger than him. He's basically doing a reverse post up.
Speaker 1: So like in a post up, Luca is gonna be
Speaker 1: backing a guy like Jada McDaniels down right and using
Speaker 1: power dribbles to get closer and closer to the rim.
Speaker 1: He's doing the opposite in those ball screens. He's coming
Speaker 1: off the ball screens and Jayden is behind him, and
Speaker 1: he's taking slow dribbles forward while also sealing with his
Speaker 1: backside and his shoulders to make sure Jaden stays behind him.
Speaker 1: From there, he's just gonna work downhill while reading the
Speaker 1: screen defender. So in this case, Go Bear right and
Speaker 1: all he's doing is he's sitting there and he's reading
Speaker 1: Gobart as he's got Jaden trapped on his backside. He's
Speaker 1: getting downhill. If Go Bear steps up, boom lob pass
Speaker 1: to Lively or Gafford. If Go Bear steps up and
Speaker 1: you know someone like a Karl Anthony Towns like steps
Speaker 1: over and checks the roll man, that's when he's throwing
Speaker 1: that looping skip pass over the top to the weak
Speaker 1: side corner. And then if Gobert stays back and the
Speaker 1: lowman cat stays back, he's just gonna keep working with
Speaker 1: Jaden on his backside until he gets about seven eight
Speaker 1: feet from the basket, and that's where he's gonna take
Speaker 1: that little floater that he's hitting at damn near fifty
Speaker 1: five percent right now. And so that's really what makes
Speaker 1: him so devastating is there's not really a coverage that
Speaker 1: you can use against him if you blitz him. They
Speaker 1: have such wonderful four out spacing that it's gonna be
Speaker 1: Derek Lively catching on the roll with two options in
Speaker 1: the corner, and there's only going to be two guys
Speaker 1: to guard those three guys, right because Lively's man is
Speaker 1: on Luca now, So all you have is a read
Speaker 1: in the corner or read in the corner, or you
Speaker 1: as the role man going downhill. If they don't tag him,
Speaker 1: he's dunking. If they do tag him, he's throwing an
Speaker 1: easy swing pass out to the corner. That's one of
Speaker 1: the for all of the downsides of four out spacing,
Speaker 1: one of the upsides of four out spacing is it
Speaker 1: it's like really set up easy for reads out of
Speaker 1: a blitz because it's so spread out and the reads
Speaker 1: are just very simple. As Luca comes off the screen
Speaker 1: and gets the double he's gonna throw it to Lively
Speaker 1: over the top, and Lively just has a simple three
Speaker 1: on two to make at that point because Kyrie's above
Speaker 1: the break on the left wing and he's probably not
Speaker 1: going to get helped off of it, and if he does,
Speaker 1: it's just an extra pass out of the corner. So
Speaker 1: you really can't blitz. They're gonna score to high right there.
Speaker 1: If you duck under picks, he's hitting thirty eight percent
Speaker 1: of off the dribble threes. If you chase over the top,
Speaker 1: he's gonna get you trapped in trail position and work
Speaker 1: downhill until he can make a read. And then if
Speaker 1: you do switch, he's a deadly io and post up thread.
Speaker 1: He's damn near one point one points per io and
Speaker 1: post ups. So like there's just not really like a
Speaker 1: defensive scheme that you can throw at him that will
Speaker 1: shut him down. Like even in the Boston series, like
Speaker 1: it specifically came down to Boston tilting those attempts towards
Speaker 1: above the break threes for limited shooters, but that was
Speaker 1: more about the roster, like to be clear, Like if
Speaker 1: you put Luca in Boston in Jason Tatum spot and
Speaker 1: he runs the exact same ball screen sequence with Chris
Speaker 1: hops Porzingis, and it's always Derek White or Drew Holliday
Speaker 1: or Jalen Brown that's catching above the break threes out
Speaker 1: of that, like those are gonna all of a sudden
Speaker 1: be great shots that Luca's demonstrating. So like there's another
Speaker 1: conversation to have about roster building and like whether or
Speaker 1: not some of the offensive limitations of those guys that
Speaker 1: created the elite Dallas defense that if there's like a
Speaker 1: give and take that comes with that. But in terms
Speaker 1: of just strictly in a vacuum, if I'm building a
Speaker 1: roster from scratch, Luca is the best perimeter initiator in
Speaker 1: the league right now, and and there's no coverage that
Speaker 1: works against him, and it creates these small, easy opportunities
Speaker 1: for your offensive players, which like it's like there's a
Speaker 1: lack of versatility with Luca, right Like with Luca, I
Speaker 1: kind of have to play four out and I kind
Speaker 1: of have to be heliocentric. Luca is not exactly Remember
Speaker 1: those stats that I read to you with uh with
Speaker 1: Yannis about Remember those stats I read to you about
Speaker 1: Giannis about the percentage of his buckets that came as
Speaker 1: a play finisher, So fifty six percent of Yannis's buckets
Speaker 1: came as a plate play play finisher. Sixty five percent
Speaker 1: of Luca's made baskets came directly out of post ups,
Speaker 1: ISOs and pick and rolls as the shooter. So like
Speaker 1: that there is there's some truth to the fact that,
Speaker 1: like he has some limitations in terms of the way
Speaker 1: you can build around him. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: I can flip that around and be like, Okay, there's
Speaker 1: only one way to build, but it's pretty simple, Like,
Speaker 1: give me a secondary shot creator that can run the
Speaker 1: offense when Luca's on the bench, and run the offense
Speaker 1: when Luca needs a possession off and then I need
Speaker 1: a couple of guys who can screen and roll hard
Speaker 1: to the rim as like vertical spacers. And then I
Speaker 1: just need three and D guys. I need guys that
Speaker 1: can guard and go stand in the corner and just
Speaker 1: make really simple reads and so like there's a lack
Speaker 1: of versatility. But the flip side is like his method
Speaker 1: is a proven method. Give me an elite defense and
Speaker 1: a legit secondary shot creator with Luca, and I have
Speaker 1: a really good chance to win the title. And that's
Speaker 1: the main reason why I have him up at number
Speaker 1: two on this list. He this was the first Finals
Speaker 1: run of Luca's career. He averaged twenty nine points, ten rebounds,
Speaker 1: and eight assists on fifty six percent and true shooting.
Speaker 1: Struggled a bit with efficiency, that's a six percent drop
Speaker 1: in true shooting. But he also was a bit banged up.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to get into that right now, though,
Speaker 1: we'll get into that later when we're talking about his weaknesses.
Speaker 1: But he had several big moments. He went crazy in
Speaker 1: the fourth quarter against against the Clippers in Game two,
Speaker 1: if you remember, that's when he hit the pair of
Speaker 1: step back threes and assisted a couple more in that stretch.
Speaker 1: He made the raid to PJ Washington in Game six
Speaker 1: against the thunder that got the that essentially ended up
Speaker 1: winning the series for Dallas. He hit the game winner
Speaker 1: over Rudy Gobert in Game two against Minnesota, and they
Speaker 1: also had that crazy scoring burst in the first quarter
Speaker 1: of a Game five against Minnesota that basically executed the
Speaker 1: Timberwolves at that point. So like, really really impressive playoffrun,
Speaker 1: although he did run into some issues in the finals.
Speaker 1: We'll get more into that in a minute. Basically proved
Speaker 1: though to that point that I was making that if
Speaker 1: you give Luca an elite defense and a secondary shot creator,
Speaker 1: you just have a really good chance to win the title.
Speaker 1: And that's a strong foundation to build off now weaknesses.
Speaker 1: Everything for Luke in terms of untapped potential comes down
Speaker 1: to his physical conditioning. There are two primary reasons that
Speaker 1: are areas I should say where he runs into issues
Speaker 1: with his physical conditioning fatigue and on ball defense. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about fatigue first, Luca pretty consistently wore down at
Speaker 1: the end of playoff games this year. He shot just
Speaker 1: six for seventeen in clutch situations in the finals run.
Speaker 1: I think that's like right around thirty five percent, and
Speaker 1: he shot just two for eight from three in clutch
Speaker 1: situations again, anytime the game was within five with less
Speaker 1: than five minutes left. Luca's efficiency tanked as he struggled
Speaker 1: to get separation and lyft on his jump shot. He
Speaker 1: also shot just three for twenty four from three over
Speaker 1: the final three games of the NBA Finals, And like
Speaker 1: most of that to me, especially on the eye test
Speaker 1: as you're watching, he's just not getting the same amount
Speaker 1: of lift in separation that he needs to get. Now,
Speaker 1: obviously there's a health element to that. Will get more
Speaker 1: into that here in just a minute. The second thing,
Speaker 1: the second area where we see Luca's lack of conditioning
Speaker 1: manifest is on the defensive end. And I thought he
Speaker 1: had the most embarrassingly bad defensive performance I've ever seen
Speaker 1: in the finals against Boston. They were routinely putting him
Speaker 1: in action and beating him off the dribble to get
Speaker 1: their defense into rotation. And from there, obviously you're dead
Speaker 1: against Boston because they have so much shooting in ball handling. Now,
Speaker 1: the conversation around Luke on the defensive end is complicated
Speaker 1: because there's on the ball and then there's off the ball, right,
Speaker 1: the off ball situation like playing passing lanes and like
Speaker 1: reading the ball handler. He's actually been very very good.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't say very very good, but he's been useful, right,
Speaker 1: And he has some big plays like that. You guys
Speaker 1: remember the big steal on the lob pass against Minnesota
Speaker 1: where he baited Mike Conley into not taking the floater,
Speaker 1: but then like stepped back and got the steal on
Speaker 1: the lob pass. Like that's him understanding reading the ball
Speaker 1: handler and baiting and making a defensive play like he's
Speaker 1: actually become a useful off ball player but on the ball,
Speaker 1: which we primarily saw against the Clippers and Celtics. And
Speaker 1: that's there's some truth to the match part of this, right,
Speaker 1: Like certain teams are space you out and attack matchup teams,
Speaker 1: and other teams are kind of like running a different
Speaker 1: type of offensive style, right, And so the Clippers and
Speaker 1: Celtics are both like drive and kick teams, and so
Speaker 1: they were hunting matchups. And one of the unique things
Speaker 1: about Luca is like, usually when you're trying to save
Speaker 1: a on ball defender that can't guard, you want to
Speaker 1: do a hedge and recover scheme. We see this a
Speaker 1: ton with guards, right, Like Steph Curry's been doing this
Speaker 1: with the Warriors forever. Oh, you're trying to pick on
Speaker 1: Steph in a switch. All he's gonna do is as
Speaker 1: you're coming off that like, as you're coming off the
Speaker 1: screen this side, he's gonna throw a hedge to force
Speaker 1: you to take a negative dribble away from the basket,
Speaker 1: and then he's going to recover to the screener because
Speaker 1: as that screener sets the screen he's slipping out of
Speaker 1: it to the three point line. So the hedge is here,
Speaker 1: and this guy's running all the way over here to
Speaker 1: shoot right. So Steph will throw the hedge and then
Speaker 1: he'll sprint back to the shooter right. Well, Luca is
Speaker 1: so slow footed that you can't hedge with him. If
Speaker 1: he he hedges out here and that guy slips to
Speaker 1: the three point line, he's just gonna be wide open
Speaker 1: because lukea is not the kind of guy that can
Speaker 1: throw a hedge and then sprint back out on a closeout.
Speaker 1: That makes it so he pretty much has to switch
Speaker 1: and from there, like, there are some good possessions to
Speaker 1: his credit. He had some big stops against Paul George
Speaker 1: in the first round series in ISO. However, Paul George
Speaker 1: is a pull up shooting wing who attempted who made
Speaker 1: just one point nine shots in the restricted area per
Speaker 1: game last year. He's a guy who basically doesn't drive
Speaker 1: to the basket right. And when he ran into real
Speaker 1: driving guards and wings against Boston, he had serious issues
Speaker 1: and he was giving blowbys up to everybody right, and
Speaker 1: that was the main issue. And like that I think
Speaker 1: does come down to his conditioning, just like the just
Speaker 1: like the tailing off at the tail end of games
Speaker 1: like we saw in the postseason run. Now I heard
Speaker 1: three main excuses from MAVs fans for the stuff with
Speaker 1: Luca's health and his defense. The first one i'd hear
Speaker 1: would be his job is to get beat off the
Speaker 1: dribble and to funnel guys into rim protection. That's literally
Speaker 1: not a thing. It's actually one of the most absurd
Speaker 1: excuses I've ever heard. Yes, coaching staffs will set up
Speaker 1: their weakest perimeter defenders with lots of backside help in
Speaker 1: case they do get beat, but they still have a
Speaker 1: job to try to flatten out drives as much as possible,
Speaker 1: meaning instead of giving up a straight line drive, you
Speaker 1: need to flatten them out and make them go laterally
Speaker 1: as much as possible. And Luca just didn't do a
Speaker 1: good job of that. And Jason Kidd, the head coach
Speaker 1: of his team, specifically called Luca out in the playoff
Speaker 1: run for not defending well enough, which is something he
Speaker 1: wouldn't do if he was, you know, schematically being asked
Speaker 1: to give up blowbys like that's completely absurd. The second
Speaker 1: big excuse I heard from Mavms fans was he was injured,
Speaker 1: Yes he was, but he also looked chunky and out
Speaker 1: of shape most of the last few seasons. Those things
Speaker 1: are directly related. Like, if Luca was in keeik physical
Speaker 1: condition like most of his peers are, he'd be less
Speaker 1: susceptible to injuries. That's just to fact. And then the
Speaker 1: third excuse, if Luca was in better shape, he'd be
Speaker 1: smaller and he wouldn't be able to bully guys the
Speaker 1: way that he does. And that's based on the fact
Speaker 1: that Luca's been getting bigger each year, not smaller, right, Like,
Speaker 1: Luca's not losing weight, he's actually putting weight on, right,
Speaker 1: And the counterexamples to that are like, if you look
Speaker 1: up video of him in the bubble cooking the clippers,
Speaker 1: he looks small and thin and quick. If you look
Speaker 1: up that video that was going around of him as
Speaker 1: a rookie having all those dunks, he looks small in
Speaker 1: thin and quick and so like, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: like uh uh, there's a lot of like focus on
Speaker 1: him being bigger and stronger than everybody. But here's the thing.
Speaker 1: First of all, if he trimmed his body fat and
Speaker 1: replaced that with functional muscle mass, he would be big
Speaker 1: and strong enough to bully people while also being mobile
Speaker 1: enough and conditioned enough to defend and to stay strong
Speaker 1: late into games. So like, that's the thing. Is like,
Speaker 1: that's not a valid excuse in my opinion. And then
Speaker 1: there's a bonus excuse, which I've heard from a lot
Speaker 1: of people, which is like, this is just this is
Speaker 1: just what happens when you get older, you put on weight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: regular dudes who are not professional athletes get a little
Speaker 1: dowe in their mid twenties. That's a thing, but that's
Speaker 1: not a thing for professional athletes. Luca's twenty five years old.
Speaker 1: He should be in the best shape of his life,
Speaker 1: and he's just not. He's and he's seeing some diminishing
Speaker 1: returns there. It feels silly to say because he's the
Speaker 1: second best basketball player in the world, but it's all
Speaker 1: about unfulfilled potential. Luca is already the second best player
Speaker 1: in the world, despite not putting in the work behind
Speaker 1: the scenes that he needs to directify those issues. I
Speaker 1: think Luca could literally rule this league, like run this
Speaker 1: damn league the way the all time greats do if
Speaker 1: he pushed himself to the next level in terms of
Speaker 1: his physical conditioning. I think it's valid criticism. So in summary,
Speaker 1: Luca has some shortcomings. He doesn't take as good a
Speaker 1: care of body as he needs to, he's not super versatile,
Speaker 1: there aren't many defensive roles he can fill, and he
Speaker 1: kind of is stuck in four out one in helio
Speaker 1: centric offense at this point, so building around him does
Speaker 1: kind of require you to go one specific direction on
Speaker 1: both ends of the floor. But he is such a
Speaker 1: profoundly gifted offensive initiator that building a championship contender around
Speaker 1: him is easier than it is for almost every other
Speaker 1: player in the league. You just need a handful of
Speaker 1: things secondary JACQ creator to run the offense when Luca's
Speaker 1: off the floor and when he needs a break, rim
Speaker 1: running screener, and then three and D play finishers guys
Speaker 1: that they don't have to initiate offense. They don't have
Speaker 1: to run action, they don't have to make reads. All
Speaker 1: they have to do is guard on the other end
Speaker 1: of the floor and go stand in the corner until
Speaker 1: Lucas Spoon feeds you threes, and just like that, you're
Speaker 1: automatically one of the top seven or eight teams in
Speaker 1: the league, which gives you a good chance to win
Speaker 1: the title. So to put it simply, I like my
Speaker 1: chances to win a title building from scratch around Luca
Speaker 1: this year, more than any player in the league except
Speaker 1: for Nicola Jokitch, which is why I've put him at
Speaker 1: number two. All right, let's get to the mail bag
Speaker 1: and then we'll get out of here for the day.
Speaker 1: Out of just sheer curiosity, Say Tatum almost completely shuts
Speaker 1: off the stupid pull up threes and just spends the
Speaker 1: entire season attacking the rim while improving his net three
Speaker 1: point percentage to close to close to his catch and
Speaker 1: shoot one of about thirty nine point six percent. Say
Speaker 1: he becomes a thirty eight percent three point shooter and
Speaker 1: a like a fifty to fifty two percent overall shooter.
Speaker 1: Where would you say he'd ran a rank at that point?
Speaker 1: Because if the projection is ant is awful in the
Speaker 1: wait hold on, because if the projection is ant, is
Speaker 1: somehow going to magically do that when we haven't seen
Speaker 1: it apart from short bursts in the playoffs. Remember Aunt
Speaker 1: was awful in the Western Conference finals, whereas Tatum legitimately
Speaker 1: could get to that point if he eliminates some of
Speaker 1: the Kobe shots from his game. I think, to me,
Speaker 1: it makes more sense to have Tatum above him, not
Speaker 1: saying you'll ever actually do that, but if we were
Speaker 1: to make the effort, he probably could get to that
Speaker 1: elite offensive engine status. So it's tricky because you can't
Speaker 1: completely stop taking pull up threes because you got to
Speaker 1: take certain amount of him to keep the defense honest. Right.
Speaker 1: The best example I use is Lebron, Right, Like, Tatum
Speaker 1: takes about seven and a half pull up jump shots
Speaker 1: in a game. Lebron takes about three and a half.
Speaker 1: Lebron's like he's only getting like zero point nine to
Speaker 1: seven points per possession, which is like solid but not great.
Speaker 1: But it's like that's not the purpose. He's not doing
Speaker 1: that to like drive his offense. He's using as it
Speaker 1: as a counter to keep the defense honest. Right, That's
Speaker 1: what I want Tatum to get down to, is like
Speaker 1: right around that three to four pull up jump shot
Speaker 1: attempts per game. But if he did that, he would
Speaker 1: become more efficient, especially in the postseason. Here's a real
Speaker 1: basic stat to demonstrate this to you, guys. Jason Tatum
Speaker 1: has never had a playoff run over fifty nine percent
Speaker 1: true shooting, which by the way, Anthony Edwards just did.
Speaker 1: But his peers at the ford position have all done
Speaker 1: it pretty consistently. Lebron has done it seven times, KD
Speaker 1: has done it seven times, Kawhi has done it nine times.
Speaker 1: Tatum's done it bagel times in seven playoff runs. And
Speaker 1: that comes down to the fact that he's not getting
Speaker 1: enough of the high value efficient shots closer to the rim.
Speaker 1: So like if Jason Tatum took four pull up jump
Speaker 1: shots a game less than he usually did and directed
Speaker 1: those all towards post up attempts, drives additional things that
Speaker 1: kind of drive more efficient shot shot types. I do
Speaker 1: think he could enter into a higher echelon of efficiency
Speaker 1: in the postseason, but I don't think he'll ever enter
Speaker 1: the ranks of like the great offensive engines, just simply
Speaker 1: because he doesn't have an A plus offensive skill, Like
Speaker 1: he's just pretty good at everything, but he's not great
Speaker 1: at anything on the offensive ends. So what that means
Speaker 1: is he'll inevitably run into an elite defense that can
Speaker 1: stop him from getting to his spots consistently. And then
Speaker 1: when that happens, that's where his efficiency can run into
Speaker 1: some issues. Compared to the regular season. Just to mention,
Speaker 1: Jason Tatum is a career eighty four percent free throw shooter,
Speaker 1: never shot below eighty one percent in a season. Just
Speaker 1: thought it was worth bringing up in reference to Ant's
Speaker 1: best fe throw shooting season in the connection with overall shooting.
Speaker 1: For the record, I've said this many times. I think
Speaker 1: Tatum is a good shooter who's just in a slump.
Speaker 1: Do I think he's a good pull up shooter. No,
Speaker 1: but there are some reasons there. I think the main
Speaker 1: reason for Tatum not being a good pull up shooter
Speaker 1: is he has a really long mechanical gather, Like he
Speaker 1: really tucks that elbow and gets the ball up underneath
Speaker 1: before he rises up, and that just stops fluidity and
Speaker 1: stops energy transfer. Like, really good pull up shooters are
Speaker 1: usually super fluid and there's no hitch and they have
Speaker 1: a quick gather, which Tatum just doesn't have. So like,
Speaker 1: do I think Tatum will ever be a great pull
Speaker 1: up shooter at volume? Probably not. I think he'll have
Speaker 1: good seasons and good playoff runs over the course of
Speaker 1: his career because he just works so hard on it,
Speaker 1: But I don't think it'll be something that ever becomes
Speaker 1: a consistent foundational skill for him. But I do think
Speaker 1: he's a very good shooter. He's just in a shooting
Speaker 1: slump right now and he will eventually get out of it.
Speaker 1: I think the idea of ant getting exposed comes from
Speaker 1: him finally playing a team with good rim protection and
Speaker 1: not doing well. Teams are going to exploit that. Again, Guys,
Speaker 1: he averaged twenty five nine to eight in the conference finals,
Speaker 1: so like, it's not like he like completely fell flat
Speaker 1: on his ass. He really struggled in the first two games,
Speaker 1: and then I want to say, he was like, what
Speaker 1: was he like twenty eight, ten and eight or something
Speaker 1: in the final three games of that series, Like he
Speaker 1: was still putting up crazy numbers, and like, rim protection
Speaker 1: certainly makes things tougher for everybody, Like elite rim protection
Speaker 1: has historically won in the NBA for a long time, right,
Speaker 1: Like that goes without saying, especially with already Gobert on
Speaker 1: the floor. But that was only part of the issue.
Speaker 1: The major issue was actually not about rim protection. It
Speaker 1: was more about just getting the ball out of Anthony
Speaker 1: Edwards's hands, and that started at the tail end of
Speaker 1: the Denver series when they started getting really aggressive with
Speaker 1: Jokic up to the level of the screen, bringing two
Speaker 1: defenders on ant in ball screens and then go Bear
Speaker 1: and Nikil, Alexander Walker and Jade McDaniels and Kyle Anderson
Speaker 1: and some of their limited offensive players not being able
Speaker 1: to convert those four on threes. That was the real
Speaker 1: issue that was hurting Minnesota as much as anything else.
Speaker 1: My main criticism with Ant is in the first two
Speaker 1: game of that series, in particular, he just was really
Speaker 1: passive when Dallas was forcing the ball out of his hands.
Speaker 1: People are too focused on how high Ant is. They
Speaker 1: are completely ignoring how fucking high Shade is as well,
Speaker 1: relative to his accomplishments or lack thereof. Remember, guys, this
Speaker 1: list is not about accomplishments at all whatsoever. It is
Speaker 1: entirely about projection for this coming October through June. All
Speaker 1: of these people complaining in the comments about your Anthony
Speaker 1: Edwards ranking, but you dropped the video ten minutes ago.
Speaker 1: They didn't watch anything you said. This is a super
Speaker 1: common thing that I see on the show. People just
Speaker 1: complain for the sake of complaining. They don't actually ever
Speaker 1: hear me out and what I have to say. But
Speaker 1: for the record, like, that's kind of an inherent part
Speaker 1: of this business. I've experienced that ever since I started
Speaker 1: podcasting or even just talking about basketball on Twitter. Like
Speaker 1: there's good faith debating, and then there's bad faith debating.
Speaker 1: There are people that are like, hey, I disagree with you,
Speaker 1: here's why, and then there's the fuck you, you asshole, you're wrong.
Speaker 1: Like that's an eternal part of this business that will
Speaker 1: never go away. No matter how much work I put in,
Speaker 1: no matter how much I defend my stances, no matter
Speaker 1: how open minded I try to be, no matter how
Speaker 1: unbiased I try to be, there will always be angry
Speaker 1: people yelling in the comments. It's just kind of a
Speaker 1: natural part of this job. It just comes with the territory.
Speaker 1: Tatum has been and is already a perennial MVP candidate.
Speaker 1: He has one top five MVP finish in seven seasons.
Speaker 1: Right now, DraftKings has Anthony Edwards at plus twelve hundred
Speaker 1: to win MVP and they have Tatum at plus eighteen
Speaker 1: hundred to win MVP. So I mean, that's pretty strong
Speaker 1: indicator that Tatum's just not in that group of guys
Speaker 1: that we would consider to be perennial MVP candidates. There
Speaker 1: are zero things that Aunt does better than Jason Tatum
Speaker 1: on a basketball court. Zero. I'm saving this video and
Speaker 1: coming back in next June. Two things. Ant is substantially
Speaker 1: quicker with his first step and is a better pull
Speaker 1: up shooter. Those are two very simple things on offense
Speaker 1: that he's better than Tatum. I don't have to get
Speaker 1: any further into it. Second piece, I also think Tatum
Speaker 1: will be playing in June, and I think Ant probably
Speaker 1: won't because the Celtics have the most talent in the
Speaker 1: league by far, and the Wolves have a roster with
Speaker 1: several limits. I'm worried with Gobert that they'll ever be
Speaker 1: able to win at the highest levels because he just
Speaker 1: clogs things up for their offense. Last question, how do
Speaker 1: you think Minnesota and OKC would fare? This is a
Speaker 1: really interesting question. How do you think Minnesota and OKAC
Speaker 1: would fare if they switched superstars for the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four to twenty twenty five season in playoffs? Ant with
Speaker 1: more spacing and SGA with a more experienced cast. Weirdly enough,
Speaker 1: I actually think both teams would be better. And this
Speaker 1: is a super interesting kind of like thought exercise with basketball.
Speaker 1: Ant is a downhill driving force, so putting him in
Speaker 1: real five out spacing would unlock that in a major way.
Speaker 1: Do you Timberwolves because they have such limited offensive personnel
Speaker 1: like guys on the floor like Jaden and like we
Speaker 1: talked about so many times, those guys actually make it
Speaker 1: so that you have to be more surgical on offense.
Speaker 1: So like I look at it like this, Ant in
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City would be more valuable because of the spacing,
Speaker 1: and Shay in Minnesota alongside that elite defense would be
Speaker 1: more value well because he could be the surgical offensive
Speaker 1: player to create something out of nothing in bad spacing situation.
Speaker 1: So like ironically, like I did give you swat both
Speaker 1: of them, I think Minnesota and Oklahoma City both get better,
Speaker 1: which is a really interesting basketball concept. All right, guys,
Speaker 1: that is all I have for today. Is always a
Speaker 1: sincerely appreciate you for supporting the show. If you're a
Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings fan, I did a reaction with
Speaker 1: my buddy Luke on the first three episode of Rings
Speaker 1: of Power. You can find that we're on YouTube under
Speaker 1: two Sons Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast under
Speaker 1: two Sons podcast And then tomorrow will be recording a
Speaker 1: reaction to the episode four as well, so make sure
Speaker 1: you guys check that out again. We'll be back on
Speaker 1: Friday with number one on this list, and the next
Speaker 1: week we have some fun stuff before we get into
Speaker 1: our season previews. Again. I appreciate you guys for supporting
Speaker 1: the show and for rocking with me, and I'll see
Speaker 1: you guys in a couple of days the volume What's
Speaker 1: Up guys? As always, I appreciate you for listening to
Speaker 1: and supporting OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful
Speaker 1: for us if you guys would take a second and
Speaker 1: leave a rating and a review. As always, I appreciate
Speaker 1: you guys supporting us, but if you could take a
Speaker 1: minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.