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Speaker 2: to Hosidai. You're at the volume. Happy Monday, everybody. Hope
Speaker 2: all of you guys had an incredible weekend. Well, we
Speaker 2: have made it to the Superstar tier of our player
Speaker 2: rankings that we do every single summer. These final eleven
Speaker 2: guys actually rank into two tiers. The top five guys
Speaker 2: I have listed as perennial MVP candidates, something I think
Speaker 2: the guys below are not capable of necessarily doing. And
Speaker 2: then the rest of them are superstars guys in five
Speaker 2: through eleven, superstars that can reach the level of perennial
Speaker 2: MVP candidate type of guys, but just can't maintain that level.
Speaker 2: But this is a very talented group of eleven players.
Speaker 2: It was painstakingly difficult to rank them. I am guaranteed
Speaker 2: no matter how I do this to piss a bunch
Speaker 2: of people off, but we're gonna go ahead and try
Speaker 2: it anyway. Today we are starting with number eleven and
Speaker 2: with number ten. You guys know the joke before we
Speaker 2: get started. Subscribe to the Hoops to Night YouTube channels.
Speaker 2: You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me
Speaker 2: on Twitter at underscore JCNLTS. You guys, don't miss you announcements.
Speaker 2: Don't forget about our podcast feed where you get your
Speaker 2: podcast on our Hoops Tonight. Don't forget it's helpful if
Speaker 2: you leave your rating in a review for us on
Speaker 2: that front. And the last, but not least, keepdropping mailbag
Speaker 2: questions in those YouTube comments. If you disagree with the ranking,
Speaker 2: break it down, tell me why. I especially appreciate it.
Speaker 2: If you make a basketball case and we'll get to
Speaker 2: it in the mail bag questions at the tail end
Speaker 2: of every single one of these videos. All right, let's
Speaker 2: talk some basketball. So here were the final eleven guys.
Speaker 2: This is in the order of where they appeared in
Speaker 2: the standing so as to not give anything away on
Speaker 2: the list, But our final eleven are Jason Tatum, shag Kil,
Speaker 2: just Alexander Nicole, Jokic, Anthony Edwards, Luka, Doncic, Giannis and
Speaker 2: Tennan Kumpo, Kevin Durant, Lebron James, Anthony Davis, Joel Embiid,
Speaker 2: and Steph Curry. So one of those guys has to
Speaker 2: be eleven. One of those guys Tatum, Shay, Jokic, Aunt,
Speaker 2: Luca Giannis, kd Lebron, ad Embiid, and Steph one of
Speaker 2: those guys literally has to be number eleven. That's just
Speaker 2: the virtue of how the league is stacked with talent
Speaker 2: at this point. So to be clear, when I go
Speaker 2: through number eleven in particular, this isn't like a well
Speaker 2: this guy isn't top ten anymore kind of thing. It's
Speaker 2: just the reality of how many great players we have
Speaker 2: in the league, and it's just where this person fell
Speaker 2: in the ranking. So if you're pissed off, just remember
Speaker 2: that everyone else would be too. If I ranked a
Speaker 2: different player from anybody else on that list at number eleven,
Speaker 2: it would be a revolt from that particular fan base.
Speaker 2: So it's just kind of the natural order of the
Speaker 2: way this kind of broke out. Remember the criteria, I'm
Speaker 2: including factors like regular season availability the motor like how
Speaker 2: consistently they play at the top of their game in
Speaker 2: the regular season, as well as playoff translatability like how
Speaker 2: well does their game translate to the intensity that you
Speaker 2: need in order to get through four rounds of the playoffs.
Speaker 2: This is very much in October through June type of ranking.
Speaker 2: If I had to start a team tomorrow and I
Speaker 2: needed someone to lead me through the entire thing from
Speaker 2: training camp to trophy, who am I going with? And
Speaker 2: so that kind of will give you, guys a little
Speaker 2: bit of an indicator on how I'm actually doing the list.
Speaker 2: And lastly, remember the reality. I look at the tiers
Speaker 2: as the main differentiators between players. I see little to
Speaker 2: no gap at all between number eleven on this list
Speaker 2: and number five on this list. I could see any
Speaker 2: of those players being ranked anywhere in that stretch, and
Speaker 2: it's defensible to me. So keep that in mind. This
Speaker 2: is not meant to signify some massive gap, but rather
Speaker 2: splitting hairs between transcendently great players. And so, without any
Speaker 2: further ado, number eleven, the guy that ended up being
Speaker 2: the impossible decision in this list, I put Joel Embiid. Now,
Speaker 2: before we go any further into Joelle's season. As we
Speaker 2: get into the top to eleven, it's going to be
Speaker 2: a lot of numbers like we did in the earlier
Speaker 2: parts of the list, but it's also going to be
Speaker 2: a lot of rationale. I'm gonna be talking a lot
Speaker 2: about why I have guys ranked where I have them ranked.
Speaker 2: So before we go into Joel's last season, let's talk
Speaker 2: about why I decided on Joel Embiid as the guy
Speaker 2: I was going to drop to eleven. So, as we know,
Speaker 2: after he pushed himself really hard in that twenty twenty
Speaker 2: three season to get MVP, he got hurt in the
Speaker 2: playoffs again and he looked bad again, and then he
Speaker 2: missed forty three games last year in the regular season
Speaker 2: before losing in the first rounds of the round of
Speaker 2: the playoffs. He filled the box score in the next series.
Speaker 2: He actually averaged thirty three points, eleven rebounds, and seven assists,
Speaker 2: but consistently wore down at the end of games, especially
Speaker 2: on the defensive end of the floor. But he also
Speaker 2: shot poorly. He shot just four for fourteen in clutch situations,
Speaker 2: including zero for four from three against the Knicks, and
Speaker 2: most importantly, he just couldn't get the job done his
Speaker 2: peers against the top of the league, or I should
Speaker 2: say his peers at the top of the league playing
Speaker 2: against that Knicks team that did not have Julius Randall
Speaker 2: that was dealing with injuries. I just think his peers
Speaker 2: at the top of the league would have been able
Speaker 2: to push their teams over the top, which is something
Speaker 2: that Embiid was not able to do. Now, Embiid was
Speaker 2: clearly hurt, his knee was all sorts of fucked up,
Speaker 2: but that's kind of the point in the reality of
Speaker 2: starting your franchise or building your franchise around a guy
Speaker 2: like Joel Embiid. So to be clear, I think Embiid,
Speaker 2: when he's one hundred percent healthy, is a better basketball
Speaker 2: player than several of the players that I have ranked
Speaker 2: above him in this list. But there are three reasons
Speaker 2: I decided to drop Embiid to eleven number one. Starting
Speaker 2: this year, and this is a list that is designed
Speaker 2: for this upcoming season. Starting this year, I expect the
Speaker 2: Sixers to heavily manage his regular season workload. He already
Speaker 2: has his MVP, so there's no sort of accolade that
Speaker 2: he's chasing, and he's shown consistently that under a heavy
Speaker 2: workload he will break down. I think you saw that
Speaker 2: in the what they did with the roster, not just
Speaker 2: bringing in an additional star like Paul George to handle
Speaker 2: in terms of firepower, but they also went out and
Speaker 2: got one of the best backup centers in the league
Speaker 2: and Andre Drummond. And I'm sure that was part of
Speaker 2: the appeal for Drummond, like, hey, dude, you might start
Speaker 2: thirty games this year, You're definitely gonna play a substantial
Speaker 2: minute load, and so that is that's literally, but the
Speaker 2: Sixers are telling you, we know we can't count on
Speaker 2: Embiid to be this like foundational piece over the course
Speaker 2: of a long regular season, so we need to bolster
Speaker 2: him over the course of the eighty two. That's something
Speaker 2: that has to get factored in when we're talking about
Speaker 2: ranking players in this list. Embiid is just not a
Speaker 2: guy that you can count on to play seventy seventy
Speaker 2: five games and be healthy for four rounds of the playoffs.
Speaker 2: That's something that has to be factored in. Number two.
Speaker 2: He is a historically poor playoff performer. Now, again, a
Speaker 2: good percentage of that is health related, but it also
Speaker 2: comes down to other things, his reliance on his jump shot.
Speaker 2: Most of his big man peers in the league, which
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about more in a minute, they
Speaker 2: take a lot more short range shots close to the
Speaker 2: basket that Joel Embiid does, which makes them more reliable
Speaker 2: playoff players. That's something that he's had an issue with,
Speaker 2: his reliance on foulgrifting and how that can become an
Speaker 2: issue when you get into later rounds of the playoffs,
Speaker 2: and then last his struggles to read aggressive defensive coverages.
Speaker 2: Those things. Those are just on the offensive end too.
Speaker 2: That doesn't even get into his struggles to get up
Speaker 2: and down the floor and transition. Some of his limitations
Speaker 2: in terms of the defensive coverages that you can deploy
Speaker 2: him in. He has struggled historically in the playoffs. So
Speaker 2: not a guy that can really hold up over the
Speaker 2: course of the eighty two and a guy that when
Speaker 2: he gets to the postseason seems to play below his capability.
Speaker 2: Third with respect to trying to build a team around him,
Speaker 2: he's a very one dimensional player on both ends of
Speaker 2: the floor. On offense, as we saw in the Olympics,
Speaker 2: he really can't play read and react basketball among a
Speaker 2: bunch of high level players. He can't play in a
Speaker 2: ball in player movement style of offense. He's not good
Speaker 2: at making reads, which is a fundamental part of that
Speaker 2: style of five out offense. So as a GM, if
Speaker 2: you take Embiid, you basically have to play a very
Speaker 2: rudimentary run everything through him, a lot of ball screens
Speaker 2: and dribble handoffs where he's getting the ball at the
Speaker 2: elbow and catching and going to work. He is a
Speaker 2: high usage, kind of like heliocentric style of big. He
Speaker 2: struggles with quick ball and player movements, so there are
Speaker 2: some limitations in the types of rosters you can build
Speaker 2: around Embiid that don't exist for some of the players
Speaker 2: that he has higher on the list. And on defense,
Speaker 2: he is strictly a drop coverage big. He struggles consistently
Speaker 2: to get up to the level of ball screens or
Speaker 2: to switch out onto perimeter players. Even within the drop
Speaker 2: coverage he's very good at protecting the rim, but he's
Speaker 2: not very good at bothering players in that mid range area.
Speaker 2: He can also struggle to get up and down the
Speaker 2: floor in transition, so you have to surround him with
Speaker 2: a ton of length and speed and there's pretty much
Speaker 2: one defensive scheme that you can run around him, which
Speaker 2: is essentially just a deep drop coverage, and so that
Speaker 2: just kind of makes things difficult. Again, if he's healthy
Speaker 2: and you have the perfect set of circumstances around him,
Speaker 2: he will impact winning at a much higher level. I
Speaker 2: would argue that when he's healthy, he kind of scratches
Speaker 2: this surface of that top tier group of guys that
Speaker 2: we have. It's just that set of circumstances just never
Speaker 2: takes place for whatever reason, and so that just to
Speaker 2: me made him the guy that I had to drop.
Speaker 2: So to put it simply, he has one of the
Speaker 2: highest ceilings in the league as an individual basketball player,
Speaker 2: but he's also one of the most difficult players to
Speaker 2: build around because he needs a ton of regular season
Speaker 2: support as well as postseason support, and he requires a
Speaker 2: certain style of play on both ends, and so that
Speaker 2: lack of durability and versatility dropped him to number eleven
Speaker 2: for me. To Darryl Moury's credit, I think he's done
Speaker 2: a really nice job trying to build a roster to
Speaker 2: help Joel tons of regular season support like Andre Drummond
Speaker 2: at center, a second perimeter star to help eat up
Speaker 2: usage and tons of postseason support. That's the three star build.
Speaker 2: If Embiid's getting double teamed, it's just harder to do
Speaker 2: that with Paul George and Tyrese Maxi off the ball.
Speaker 2: If Embiid's just having a bad matchup or a bad night,
Speaker 2: which we know is something that can happen to him
Speaker 2: in the postseason, having that three star build can help.
Speaker 2: It can help make up for that. Both of his
Speaker 2: co stars too, This is a credit to Darryl Moray,
Speaker 2: are very comfortable playing off the ball. Tyres Maxi is
Speaker 2: one of the best, like on the cat shooters that
Speaker 2: we have in the league. Obviously, Paul George, I've talked
Speaker 2: about him in this context, is almost like a juiced
Speaker 2: up star version of Michael Porter Junior. He's Darryl Moray
Speaker 2: has done everything he can to accentuate Joel Embiid's strengths
Speaker 2: and to minimize his weaknesses, and so that's a difficult job,
Speaker 2: which is why I have him BEI down an eleven.
Speaker 2: But Darryl Moray has put him in position to be
Speaker 2: a guy that can contribute to winning at that top
Speaker 2: tier level, and I'm really interested to see if he
Speaker 2: can do that next year. Quickly going through his numbers
Speaker 2: from last year, thirty nine games played, thirty four point
Speaker 2: seven points per game, which is obviously obsurd, eleven rebounds,
Speaker 2: five point six assists. It's a career high for him.
Speaker 2: Also a career high three point eight turnovers. Nick Nurse
Speaker 2: did a pretty damn good job of simplifying his reads
Speaker 2: and making stuff easier for him in the post. We're
Speaker 2: gonna get more into that later when we start talking
Speaker 2: play types. Two point nine stocks per game. His shooting
Speaker 2: splits fifty three percent from the field, thirty nine percent
Speaker 2: from three, eighty eight percent from the line, which amounts
Speaker 2: to fifty six percent in effective field goal percentage, and
Speaker 2: thanks to twelve of free throw attempts per game, a
Speaker 2: blistering sixty four percent true shooting percentage. His shooting numbers
Speaker 2: percentergy one point per jump shot, flat, one point zero
Speaker 2: nine off the catch, excuse me, one point one to
Speaker 2: nine off the catch, which is very good. He shot
Speaker 2: fifty five percent on unguarded jump shots, seventy five percent
Speaker 2: when it's weighted for threes. Em Bid has become a
Speaker 2: very good three point shooter. And we saw this again
Speaker 2: even a little bit with Team USA, which has really
Speaker 2: helped him maintain some of his effectiveness as his body
Speaker 2: has started to break down now that he's into his thirties.
Speaker 2: I think that's a really interesting kind of developmental piece.
Speaker 2: We're going to talk about it more in a minute,
Speaker 2: but I think Embiid has over indexed towards perimeter skill
Speaker 2: development rather than interior skill development, which I think has
Speaker 2: hurt him. However, if he's gonna be limited physically, like
Speaker 2: if he's gonna be let's just say he never is
Speaker 2: able to maintain athleticism the way he was a couple
Speaker 2: of years ago. There's a version of this where that
Speaker 2: three point shooting could actually end up being very beneficial
Speaker 2: to kind of extend his start prime a little bit longer.
Speaker 2: Zero point eighty eight points per shot off the dribble,
Speaker 2: actually shot forty two percent in field goal percentage, though
Speaker 2: it's just because most of them are pull up twos.
Speaker 2: And then zero point nine to five points per face
Speaker 2: up jumper. Actually shot forty six percent on face up jumpers,
Speaker 2: which is a great number, but once again, almost all
Speaker 2: from the mid range. That's why the efficiency's a little lower.
Speaker 2: This is where I want to get into the skill development,
Speaker 2: so and beats shot sixty percent on floaters, but he
Speaker 2: only made twelve all year. He shot seventy four percent
Speaker 2: on hooks, but he only made fourteen of them all year.
Speaker 2: And this has been my main point of contention with
Speaker 2: Embiid in his development over the course of his career,
Speaker 2: and I think it's the main reason why he's not
Speaker 2: become a more reliable playoff player. The hooks in the floaters,
Speaker 2: they are what I would call short range scoring. All
Speaker 2: of the jump shots you take are more like mid
Speaker 2: range scoring. Right. The short range scoring is what has
Speaker 2: made guys like Nicola Jokic and Anthony Davis such great
Speaker 2: playoff players. As we talked about earlier, Joel Embiid made
Speaker 2: only twenty six floaters and hooks, Anthony Davis made ninety
Speaker 2: seven of them. Nicola Jokic made two hundred and thirty
Speaker 2: nine of them. They are just far more reliable and
Speaker 2: less susceptible to variants than jump shots. You're gonna make
Speaker 2: your hook shots, You're gonna make your short floaters. There
Speaker 2: are gonna be nights with your mid range shot where
Speaker 2: you're just not on and you're gonna go two for ten.
Speaker 2: You're never gonna go two for ten on hooks and floaters.
Speaker 2: They're too close to the basket. It's too easy to
Speaker 2: get your rhythm down there. Not to mention, in ball screens,
Speaker 2: that's where they're getting their catches. Yokicchen eight roll further
Speaker 2: into the lane and they take more floaters in the role.
Speaker 2: Embiid is always short rolling to that foul line area
Speaker 2: so that he can catch an iso. And so essentially
Speaker 2: Ady and Jokic have made themselves more you know, capable
Speaker 2: of playing alongside other players because they can be just
Speaker 2: finishers as role men rather than embiads. Catching on the
Speaker 2: role almost as like another area of where he's initiating
Speaker 2: the offense. Like he's catching. It's like, oh, great pick
Speaker 2: and roll, MAXI hit Embiid, he's right there at the
Speaker 2: foul Okay, here comes the jab step pump fake, jab
Speaker 2: step pump fake. It's like now we're back to just
Speaker 2: Embiid working there. And so in addition to the lack
Speaker 2: of efficiency, there's just more flow and making quicker decisions
Speaker 2: off of the catch in ball screens, which have made
Speaker 2: jokicen Ad into such deadly role men. Again, like indeed,
Speaker 2: Embiid can make those jumpers, and he'll have games where
Speaker 2: it's like, oh my god, he's just not missing that
Speaker 2: fifteen footer. It's just there's a lot more variance in
Speaker 2: that regard. I would love to see Embiid add more
Speaker 2: of a bully ball close range game. I also think
Speaker 2: it would just make him be able to use his
Speaker 2: physical tools better. He's bigger and stronger than most people,
Speaker 2: and like as you saw from the percentages, he certainly
Speaker 2: can make them at the rim. Joel Embiid shot just
Speaker 2: sixty four percent last year. Nicole Jokic and Ad were
Speaker 2: both at seventy percent PERCENTERGY, so that's really the main issue.
Speaker 2: Embiid is indexing towards the perimeter. With the skill development,
Speaker 2: Ady and Jokic are still functionally bigs. Ad will take
Speaker 2: his fair share of ISO jump shots. Jokic will certainly
Speaker 2: take some late clock jump ISO jumpers in the mid range.
Speaker 2: He'll certainly take some pick and pop threes, but those
Speaker 2: are purely supplementary parts of their game, whereas everything they
Speaker 2: do on the interior is something that can pretty much
Speaker 2: depend on on a night to night basis. Obviously, Yokic
Speaker 2: to a much greater extent than Ad, But I have
Speaker 2: Ad over Embiid in this regard for a similar reason.
Speaker 2: As far as around the rim, he's always just throwing
Speaker 2: up bullshit, trying to draw fouls and falling on the
Speaker 2: ground instead of just going up strong and finishing through contact.
Speaker 2: And again that's a substantial dip in percentage. Sixty four
Speaker 2: percent for a guy with Embiid's size and strength is
Speaker 2: just not good. You gotta be up around seventy percent,
Speaker 2: like Jokic and Ad are. But like that's the ironic
Speaker 2: thing is like I would say Embiid is the best
Speaker 2: perimeter scorer of the group by far. Like if it
Speaker 2: was like king of the court starting from the top
Speaker 2: of the key to drible limit, I'd give me Ad
Speaker 2: over Mbid and Ad. Excuse me, give me Embiid over
Speaker 2: Ad and Jokic any day of the week. But in
Speaker 2: terms of everything that a big guy needs to do
Speaker 2: for a basketball team, that's where Ad and Yokic have
Speaker 2: the edge. Running the floor, winning physical rebound battles. Remember
Speaker 2: when Embid was getting his ass kicked on the glass
Speaker 2: against Serbia in the fourth quarter. Short range scoring in
Speaker 2: ball screens, short range scoring against switches, finished around the rim,
Speaker 2: All of those things are actually more important to the
Speaker 2: center position than perimeter scoring, and they're all areas where
Speaker 2: MB could stand to improve significantly. Play type data from
Speaker 2: Synergy he only ran twenty seven inverted ball screens all year,
Speaker 2: but he did pretty well. He got thirty four points
Speaker 2: out of them including passes, which is one point twenty
Speaker 2: six points per possession. Two hundred and ninety seven ISOs
Speaker 2: for three hundred and twenty one points. That was one
Speaker 2: point zero eight points per possession, or the eighty first percentile.
Speaker 2: That ranked eighth out of twenty four players to run
Speaker 2: at least two hundred and fifty, so he's one of
Speaker 2: the better ISO players in the league. Last year, post
Speaker 2: ups three hundred and eighteen reps for three hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty one points. That's one point zero one point one
Speaker 2: zero points per possession. That ranked fourth out of eighteen
Speaker 2: players to run at least two hundred fifty, So he's
Speaker 2: one of the best ISO and post up guys in
Speaker 2: the league last year. The adjustments that I was talking
Speaker 2: about with Nick Nurse that led to more assists from
Speaker 2: Joel Embiid last year. The two main things that I
Speaker 2: noticed better distribution of his touches in the Embiid ran
Speaker 2: the majority of his post ups from the left block.
Speaker 2: He actually ran over fifty percent of his post ups
Speaker 2: from the left block. And one of the issues you
Speaker 2: have with that specific situation is Embid loves to face
Speaker 2: up and then rip through to the right, and so
Speaker 2: as a result, he's catching on the left block, he's
Speaker 2: turning and facing and when he rips through, he's ripping
Speaker 2: through and ending up in all of that traffic. Well,
Speaker 2: last year there was a significant shift to more balance,
Speaker 2: a lot more touches from the right block, a lot
Speaker 2: more touches from the middle of the floor as well
Speaker 2: as matter of fact, if I remember correctly, about as
Speaker 2: many post touches from the middle of the floor as
Speaker 2: he did the entire previous season, despite playing in like
Speaker 2: half as many games. And with that respect, there's a
Speaker 2: couple different things. One from that right block when he
Speaker 2: wants to rip through towards the baseline, it's just less
Speaker 2: crowded over there. And then two, especially from the middle
Speaker 2: of the floor, that's actually the area where it's hardest
Speaker 2: to double team and Embiid again, we saw an increase
Speaker 2: in turnovers, which is to be expected because that's actually
Speaker 2: one of the hardest places to pass out of. But
Speaker 2: from that spot on the floor is when you can
Speaker 2: make defenses pay for doubling. And we saw a substantial
Speaker 2: increase in Embiid's passing ability last year. One of the
Speaker 2: other things, the second piece that I noticed from Nick
Speaker 2: Nurse was just always keeping usually tyres maaxy, but always
Speaker 2: an excellent above the break shooter that was one pass away.
Speaker 2: Ad has a similar problem, but like Embiid when he
Speaker 2: gets double teams kind of just wants to get rid
Speaker 2: of the ball to the first outlet, like he's more
Speaker 2: interested in just getting rid of it without turning it
Speaker 2: over rather than making the kill pass that beats the
Speaker 2: double team, right. And so one of the things there
Speaker 2: is like if you just make it so that the
Speaker 2: guy who's throwing that post entry pass and is standing
Speaker 2: on the wing, you know, ten fifteen feet away, is
Speaker 2: a guy who's a deadly above the break shooter, especially
Speaker 2: one they could shoot a little behind the line, like
Speaker 2: in that twenty five to twenty eight foot kind of range.
Speaker 2: When you have that, those are easy kickout passes for
Speaker 2: Embiid that he can knock down or that that he
Speaker 2: can make the redconsistently and that shooter can knock down
Speaker 2: and I thought that was a big part of the
Speaker 2: increased bit of assist volume that we saw from him. Again,
Speaker 2: Embid may have his limitations, but when he's healthy, he's
Speaker 2: a force to be reckoned with. And Darryl Moore is
Speaker 2: surrounded him with a ton of talent, very specifically with
Speaker 2: talent that helps address embads specific weaknesses. But the reality
Speaker 2: is that he's a harder player to build a championship
Speaker 2: level roster around than the guys that I have above
Speaker 2: him because of his issues that extend all the way
Speaker 2: from October to June. So I have him at eleven
Speaker 2: on this list.
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Speaker 2: Number ten Steph Current. This is another guy that I
Speaker 2: really struggled with where to rank on this list, and
Speaker 2: the main reason is that, aside from those last two
Speaker 2: games at the end of the Olympics, Steph has been
Speaker 2: in an extended slump. His numbers were down across the
Speaker 2: board last year from the previous year. His points were down,
Speaker 2: his rebounds were down, his assists were down, his steals
Speaker 2: were down, his blocks were down, his field goal percentage
Speaker 2: was down, his three point percentage was down, like substantially
Speaker 2: across the board. He really struggled to end the year.
Speaker 2: From February twenty third to the end of the season,
Speaker 2: Steph played in twenty three games, averaged just twenty two
Speaker 2: point seven ten points per game, four point eight rebounds,
Speaker 2: five point two assists, just forty one point nine percent
Speaker 2: from the field, and just thirty seven point five percent
Speaker 2: from three, which is solid by NBA standards, but for Steph,
Speaker 2: that's not the three point percentage you expect to see
Speaker 2: for him. So for basically the last third of the season,
Speaker 2: forget about shooting slump. Steph just wasn't even playing at
Speaker 2: a superstar level anymore. One last stat to drive this
Speaker 2: home twenty twenty one, which was the last time that
Speaker 2: Steph played a truly great regular season. It was the
Speaker 2: last time he finished top five in MVP. He had
Speaker 2: twenty six games where he scored at least thirty five points.
Speaker 2: Last year he had just eleven games where he scored
Speaker 2: at least thirty five points, despite the fact that he
Speaker 2: played in eleven more games than he played in the
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one season. All you have to do is
Speaker 2: go look at my YouTube comments, especially on the Brunson video,
Speaker 2: the Mitchell video, or the John Mourant video. A lot
Speaker 2: of those fan bases, all those fan bases think their
Speaker 2: guy is better than Steph at this point, and I disagree.
Speaker 2: A lot of people don't think Steph's at a top
Speaker 2: ten player playing at a top ten level anymore. I disagree.
Speaker 2: So here are the three reasons that I think Steph
Speaker 2: is still a top ten player in the NBA, and
Speaker 2: then I think he is poised for a bounce back
Speaker 2: season this year. Number one, Steph has by far the
Speaker 2: most limited supporting cast out of anybody in the Superstar tier.
Speaker 2: He does not have a legitimate secondary ball handler. His
Speaker 2: best option there is probably Brandon Pazemski, who I think
Speaker 2: will probably start this year, and he's a fine young player,
Speaker 2: but you'd prefer him as your third or fourth best
Speaker 2: ball handler. And obviously you prefer somebody a little more
Speaker 2: experienced to give in the age group that Steph Curry
Speaker 2: and Raymond Green are playing from right, And even with
Speaker 2: Chris Paul last year, between the injuries and just his
Speaker 2: limited ability at this phase in his career, Steph just
Speaker 2: hasn't been surrounded by a secondary ball handler. This puts
Speaker 2: a ton of pressure on Steph to create absolutely everything,
Speaker 2: and I thought he wore down over the course of
Speaker 2: the season as a result. I thought that was directly
Speaker 2: responsible for the slump that he faced towards the end.
Speaker 2: Some of the most aggressive defensive coverages I've ever seen
Speaker 2: thrown at Steph because everyone just knew throw the kitchen
Speaker 2: sink at Steph and they don't have the talent on
Speaker 2: the backside to make you pay, and I thought that
Speaker 2: was a big part of why his efficiency in his
Speaker 2: volume took a hit. The rest of the roster was
Speaker 2: a plethora of wings that were either super inconsistent like
Speaker 2: Andrew Wiggins or super young raw you know, flawed wings
Speaker 2: like Jonathan Kaminga and Moses Moody, who both could be
Speaker 2: very good players in the long run, but they're basically
Speaker 2: kids by NBA standards. Right. Tray Jackson Davis a really
Speaker 2: nice pickup for the front court, but Kevon Loonie kind
Speaker 2: of lost a step last year and they're still very
Speaker 2: much on the undersize side of things in that front court. Right.
Speaker 2: Basketball is a team sport, and it is hard to
Speaker 2: win games in the modern NBA with the way that
Speaker 2: this roster is built, which is why we've all been
Speaker 2: begging for them to make a more aggressive deal, which
Speaker 2: they haven't been able to do at this point. But
Speaker 2: the point is the first reason I think that Steph
Speaker 2: is still top ten is that I believe if he
Speaker 2: were given a supporting cast like the Knicks, for instance,
Speaker 2: I think he'd return to that superstar level basically immediately
Speaker 2: and I mentioned this in the Brunson mail bag. I said,
Speaker 2: if the Knicks traded bruns And for Steph straight up today,
Speaker 2: that the Knicks title odds with Skyrocket. I think that
Speaker 2: that's a strong indicator of the way that Vegas at least,
Speaker 2: and I think that we all feel about Steph Curry,
Speaker 2: which is he's just kind of in a bad situation
Speaker 2: right now, But that doesn't necessarily mean that he's not
Speaker 2: the same basketball player that we knew he was capable
Speaker 2: of being. Number two. We've seen Steph enter into what
Speaker 2: looks like an extended slump before only to bounce back
Speaker 2: in a huge way. He had a very similar extended
Speaker 2: slump at the end of the twenty twenty two season.
Speaker 2: He averaged just twenty three points per game, just like
Speaker 2: this year, over a thirty one game span a little
Speaker 2: bit longer than this year, with similarly low percentages by
Speaker 2: Steph standards. The field goal percentage was a little higher,
Speaker 2: but the three point percentage was a little lower, and
Speaker 2: then he ripped off a classic Steph c playoff run
Speaker 2: and won the title. So like, it's just too soon
Speaker 2: to write Steph off over shooting slump, because we've literally
Speaker 2: seen him bounce back from one before. Now, the main
Speaker 2: difference is that twenty twenty two roster was a championship
Speaker 2: level roster and this one is not. But they did
Speaker 2: get a little bit better with some of their role
Speaker 2: player signings, and they do have a trade to make,
Speaker 2: which I want to get to in a little bit.
Speaker 2: But the simple fact is that just because Steph was
Speaker 2: in his slump doesn't necessarily mean that it's over for him.
Speaker 2: And I thought that the last two Team USA games
Speaker 2: were a huge step in the right direction. He didn't
Speaker 2: just break out of his slump. He exploded out of
Speaker 2: his slump in those two games. And about his high
Speaker 2: stakes of the situation, as you can imagine, he looked
Speaker 2: incredibly confident. He even looked relieved at times when he
Speaker 2: hit that three coming off with a curl from the
Speaker 2: screen from embiid on that left wing, that the one
Speaker 2: that put USA up eighty seven eighty six. I think
Speaker 2: with about three minutes left in the fourth quarter, he
Speaker 2: like ran down the floor with like a double fizz
Speaker 2: bump like scream because you could just tell it's like
Speaker 2: he's been working so hard and it's like he finally
Speaker 2: broke out when it really mattered right. I also generally
Speaker 2: think that playing with Tmosa is a great launching pad
Speaker 2: to start an NBA season from. And Steph is particularly
Speaker 2: motivated because he needs to demonstrate to the Warriors front
Speaker 2: office that they are worth investing in, and so I
Speaker 2: expect him to come out and just attack the start
Speaker 2: of the season next year. And then, lastly, the third
Speaker 2: reason why I think Steph is still top ten. We've
Speaker 2: seen how slight tweaks in Golden State's role players can
Speaker 2: vault them up to another level. From twenty twenty one
Speaker 2: to twenty twenty two is roughly the same core. Steph
Speaker 2: was even a better player in twenty twenty one, that
Speaker 2: was his last truly great regular season. But they just
Speaker 2: made a couple of tweaks, going from Kent Baysmore, Kelly
Speaker 2: u Bray and Brad Wanamaker to Namanya bi elitza Otto
Speaker 2: Porter junior, and just getting Klay Thompson back. Just those
Speaker 2: tweaks took them from a playing team all the way
Speaker 2: to winning the title. Kyle Anderson, Buddy Yield, and the
Speaker 2: Anthony Melton all fit Golden State system very well. Kyle
Speaker 2: Anderson and the Anthony Melton in particular, really fit their
Speaker 2: defensive system, especially, and they have a trade to make. Now,
Speaker 2: do I think they're going to go all the way
Speaker 2: into contention the way they did in twenty twenty two. No,
Speaker 2: But I do think, especially if they make that type
Speaker 2: of trade that we've been talking about, that they'll be
Speaker 2: in that middle tier of the West, which is a
Speaker 2: hell of a lot better than missing the playoffs the
Speaker 2: way they did last year. So, in summary, a lot
Speaker 2: of people are kicking Steph when he's down and pretending
Speaker 2: it's over for him, when the reality is that the
Speaker 2: Warriors just didn't have a good basketball team last year,
Speaker 2: and I think they have a chance to be better
Speaker 2: this year. I think Steph will be better this year,
Speaker 2: and if they make the right trade, they could potentially
Speaker 2: make some noise. And again, like you gotta think a
Speaker 2: lot about what makes Steph great in particular, like beyond
Speaker 2: the actual scoring ability, and this is something I talked
Speaker 2: about a lot with Timosa. I thought Steph was still
Speaker 2: providing quite a bit of positive impact even when he
Speaker 2: wasn't shooting well because people guard Steph like he's Steph Curry.
Speaker 2: Now what that means is as he's running off of
Speaker 2: that wide pin down. He will sometimes drag two players
Speaker 2: with them as they miscommunicate a switch and error on
Speaker 2: the side of getting Steph Curry. All of that is
Speaker 2: about creating openings for guys. Those openings have to be
Speaker 2: capitalized on. They're not all dunks. We've all seen the dunks, right,
Speaker 2: Like we've all seen Steph run off of a baseline
Speaker 2: screen where the guy who sets the pick slips to
Speaker 2: the rim and Draymond hits him and it's just an
Speaker 2: easy dunk, right. He's a million of those over the
Speaker 2: course of Steph's career. Those easy ones are great, but
Speaker 2: it's less about that, and it's more about converting small advantages.
Speaker 2: When Steph is being guarded like that. There are all
Speaker 2: sorts of small advantages that appear on the floor, and
Speaker 2: high level basketball players can capitalize on those small advantages,
Speaker 2: grow them into bigger advantages, and then finish the plays.
Speaker 2: But you have to have the talent to make up
Speaker 2: for that. And so that's the thing is like when
Speaker 2: it comes to Steph, there's just nobody that's guarded the
Speaker 2: way that he's guarded as he's running down the floor
Speaker 2: around screens and stuff like that, regardless of what his
Speaker 2: actual shooting percentages are, so he is one of the
Speaker 2: guys that specifically benefits from having surrounding talent that can
Speaker 2: capitalize on those openings, and he just hasn't had access
Speaker 2: to that in the last season. So before we move
Speaker 2: on to our mailbag, our just quick grip through of
Speaker 2: Steph's numbers from last year. Seventy four games played, twenty
Speaker 2: six point four points per game, four point five rebounds
Speaker 2: per game, five point one assists, one point one stocks.
Speaker 2: He definitely is starting to show a little bit of
Speaker 2: a decline on the defensive end of the four shooting
Speaker 2: splits forty five percent from the field, forty one percent
Speaker 2: from three, ninety two percent from the line, which amounts
Speaker 2: to fifty seven percent in effective field goal percentage and
Speaker 2: sixty two percent in true shooting percentage. Shooting numbers perc
Speaker 2: energy one point one six points per jump shot, one
Speaker 2: point three to one points per catch and shoot jump shot,
Speaker 2: which is obviously absurd, one point zero five points per
Speaker 2: pull up jump shot, a little down from some of
Speaker 2: his previous seasons. Forty four percent on floaters, a little
Speaker 2: over one attempt per game, sixty percent at the rim,
Speaker 2: which is like incredible for a ball guards surrounded by
Speaker 2: the poor shooting, or that that golden state surrounds him with.
Speaker 2: That's what's crazy. Steph sixty percent at the rim, Joel
Speaker 2: embiids sixty four percent at the rim. Like that goes
Speaker 2: to show you kind of what I was talking about
Speaker 2: earlier with embiid playtype data perc Entergy Pick and Roll
Speaker 2: barely missed our high volume list. He ran nine hundred
Speaker 2: and seventy nine reps, but he got one and twenty
Speaker 2: five points, which is one point zero five points per possession.
Speaker 2: That would have ranked had he got those extra twenty
Speaker 2: one reps, that would have ranked tenth on that list
Speaker 2: of twenty five players had he hit that one thousand
Speaker 2: of rep mark. But that also amounted to the seventy
Speaker 2: seventh percentile. Percentergy ISO numbers lastly, one point zero six
Speaker 2: points per possession one hundred and sixty seven reps. That's
Speaker 2: in the seventy sixth percentile. I'm rooting for Steph this year.
Speaker 2: Is my second favorite player of all time, behind Lebron.
Speaker 2: I think people are writing him off too soon. Like
Speaker 2: I talked about earlier, I've personally been wrong about him before.
Speaker 2: I was talking a lot at the end of the
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one season about like this is weird, like
Speaker 2: what's going on here?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 2: I never actually he said he was declining, but I
Speaker 2: was a little worried, and I'm so glad that he
Speaker 2: proved me wrong, and I'm hoping that he proves me
Speaker 2: wrong or proves all of us wrong again as we
Speaker 2: head into this upcoming season. All right, guys, let's get
Speaker 2: into that mailbag. Love the content, Jason. I just want
Speaker 2: to point out how incredible it is that Steph Curry
Speaker 2: has an argument of being a top ten player ever
Speaker 2: if he's not already there with a height of six
Speaker 2: to two in a game like basketball, the fact that
Speaker 2: he has done more winning with less size and weight
Speaker 2: than any other player is truly remarkable, and I think
Speaker 2: it needs to be talked about more. I totally agree,
Speaker 2: And to take it further, I think he's easily one
Speaker 2: of the ten best players ever. And I have him
Speaker 2: as the fifth best perimeter player ever, which is crazy
Speaker 2: because both of those lists are dominated by guys. Even
Speaker 2: the perimeter player lists are dominated by guys with crazy
Speaker 2: physical gifts. The guards are six six for the forty
Speaker 2: inch vertical, the wings are six ' eight six ' nine.
Speaker 2: You know, guys like Lebron or super super strong, or
Speaker 2: like guys are super fast, like there, he just is
Speaker 2: the one outlier on that list. And that's kind of
Speaker 2: how I refer to this is the best way that
Speaker 2: I could put it. When I see other small players,
Speaker 2: I talk about Steph as the exception that proves the rule.
Speaker 2: Like just because Steph did it, didn't mean everyone else,
Speaker 2: can you know what I mean? That's how different a
Speaker 2: guy like Steph is than other guys that would frequently
Speaker 2: get lumped in with him that aren't necessarily at that level,
Speaker 2: guys like Damian Lillard for instance, right, even guys who
Speaker 2: were great athletes like remember when Russell Westbrook got compared
Speaker 2: to Steph a lot in that like twenty fifteen twenty
Speaker 2: sixteen stretch, Like, Steph just was consistently a more winning
Speaker 2: player than all of them despite not having the tools
Speaker 2: that they had. Regarding Luca putting on weight, there's a
Speaker 2: bit of a trade off. Yes, by adding weight, he's
Speaker 2: lost some speed and quickness. However, it's allowed him to
Speaker 2: be a much better post player, where he's been able
Speaker 2: to be quite efficient and generate high quality offense for
Speaker 2: his team, wouldn't you agree. His best run also came
Speaker 2: last year, when he was bigger than he was in
Speaker 2: the bubble. However, this time the MAVs put the right
Speaker 2: pieces around him and it led to a finals run.
Speaker 2: I don't think Luca being as slim as he was
Speaker 2: in the Bubble is best for him, as he lose
Speaker 2: that strength advantage he has against other guards, which I
Speaker 2: believe is worth losing some speed, as he's proven even
Speaker 2: at a higher weight he can function as an adequate
Speaker 2: defender if engaged. Love showing the content. Nice to have
Speaker 2: someone like you in the space of lots of talking
Speaker 2: heads looking for clicks. Thank you for supporting the show.
Speaker 2: I really appreciate it. So a couple things. There was
Speaker 2: a video that was going around of Luca's game winner
Speaker 2: against the Clippers in the Bubble in twenty twenty, and
Speaker 2: he looked like really thin compared to the way he
Speaker 2: looks now now. A couple of things. I do agree
Speaker 2: that there's an advantage that comes from being bigger and stronger.
Speaker 2: That's just a fact. And I'm sure there are some
Speaker 2: situations now where Luca is able to bully some players
Speaker 2: that maybe he didn't used to. Be able to. However,
Speaker 2: Luca was still bullying guys back then, and I'm not
Speaker 2: saying that he needs to just go get skinny. Ideally,
Speaker 2: there's a version of this where he's in peak shape
Speaker 2: and he has the same amount of weight maybe that
Speaker 2: he has now, but it's more functional because it makes
Speaker 2: him mobile because it's muscle instead of body fat. That's
Speaker 2: what we're all talking about. And like, I mean, I
Speaker 2: think there's another question about Luca later on if I
Speaker 2: remember correctly, and we'll get to it here in a minute,
Speaker 2: but like, that's really the thing that I think resonates
Speaker 2: with everybody when they're watching. It's not just that he's
Speaker 2: struggling on defense. It's that he's struggling on defense and
Speaker 2: he looks kind of chubby. That's where it has like
Speaker 2: a bad optic element to it. Hey, Jason, as I mentioned,
Speaker 2: great list so far, but this is another part of
Speaker 2: the ranking that's interesting. I understand the availability part with
Speaker 2: Jimmy over Kawhi, but Jimmy's availability is on the decline,
Speaker 2: as you noted, while his actual game is on the
Speaker 2: decline too, Kawhi is still a superior player in a
Speaker 2: vacuum on both ends. And his game age is better.
Speaker 2: Can you give a bit more of a basketball reason
Speaker 2: why he's over Jimmy? Splitting hairs? But I just believe
Speaker 2: Kawhi is and will continue to be a better player
Speaker 2: in a vacuum this season. Keep up the great work.
Speaker 2: I'm assuming you mean that Jimmy's over him, But it's
Speaker 2: a couple of things. Jimmy is availability issues, but nowhere
Speaker 2: near to the extent that Kawhi has. I pulled the
Speaker 2: numbers yesterday, but I want to say since going to
Speaker 2: the Heat, Jimmy's averaged I think fifty eight games played,
Speaker 2: and then I want to say Kawhi is like around
Speaker 2: like forty three games played since the bubble. So, like
Speaker 2: the availability issues, they both have had issues, but Kawhi
Speaker 2: issues have been far more substantial. Jimmy Butler has had
Speaker 2: some playoff issues, right, like he missed this playoff series
Speaker 2: this year. However, it was kind of a flukey type
Speaker 2: of injury. It wasn't like a ware and tarringer. He
Speaker 2: was like a flukey type of injury. But then he's
Speaker 2: also had incidences like remember in twenty twenty two when
Speaker 2: he had like a couple of really bad games in
Speaker 2: the Conference Finals because his knee was hurt, Like Jimmy's
Speaker 2: always banged up and has issues, but it's just a
Speaker 2: completely different level than what Kawhi has been dealing with.
Speaker 2: I agree for the record that Kawi is a much
Speaker 2: better player when he's healthy. The only reason I put
Speaker 2: Jimmy Butler over him is I just think Jimmy's more
Speaker 2: available and more reliable. But again, as we've discussed, it's
Speaker 2: splitting hairs. It's impossible to kind of account for all
Speaker 2: that properly. I kind of intended on using that twelve
Speaker 2: thirteen Jimmy Kawhi tier as like a gap tier, just
Speaker 2: because I view both of them as kind of outliers
Speaker 2: compared to some of the other guys on this list.
Speaker 2: Do you think Chris hops Porzingis would be a top
Speaker 2: twenty five player if he could stay healthy for an
Speaker 2: entire season. He was incredibly impactful on the floor, as
Speaker 2: evident by Game one of the NBA Finals. That first
Speaker 2: half run in Game one was incredible, just everything, the
Speaker 2: pick and pop three is, the rim protection, the beating
Speaker 2: switches at the high post, that like it was everything,
Speaker 2: And so I would agree, I think it's certainly possible.
Speaker 2: I mean, he definitely would have made my preliminary risk
Speaker 2: if he was a preliminary list, if he was consistently healthy,
Speaker 2: which he just hasn't been. Maybe he'll maybe he'll be
Speaker 2: more lucky on that end next year, and then we'll
Speaker 2: get to have that conversation in a more serious context. Jason,
Speaker 2: I really wish you would stop saying the twenty twenty
Speaker 2: two Celtics team was the most talented team in the league.
Speaker 2: They weren't even favored in the first round of the playoffs.
Speaker 2: They were not favored in the finals either. Marcus Smart
Speaker 2: was the third best player and had Grant Williams as
Speaker 2: a starter. Robert Williams was massively injured as well. Other
Speaker 2: than that, love the content, so it certainly wasn't by
Speaker 2: as big of a margin as it was this year.
Speaker 2: But I still think they were the best, like I
Speaker 2: think this year's Celtics are. Last year, I should say,
Speaker 2: were more talented than everybody in the league by a
Speaker 2: wide margin. I thought in twenty twenty two they were
Speaker 2: the most talented in the league by a small margin,
Speaker 2: and it was kind of a similarly built top five,
Speaker 2: like it was a younger Al Horford. As you're shooting
Speaker 2: five right. Then you had Marcus Martin Derek White as
Speaker 2: your like two way guys, right, and then you had
Speaker 2: Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum, which, by the way, it
Speaker 2: was a much better version of Jason Tatum at that point.
Speaker 2: Like Jason Tatum was a very good playoff player for
Speaker 2: the first three rounds of that playoff run, he was
Speaker 2: a much lesser version of himself, especially on the offensive end.
Speaker 2: In this past season. They also had a big look
Speaker 2: with Robert Williams is very different than chrisops porzingis, but
Speaker 2: they had that as a big look. Now, again, I
Speaker 2: don't think it was by a wide margin, but I
Speaker 2: do think that Celtics team was the most talented team
Speaker 2: in the league. I want this to be a two
Speaker 2: parter though, and we can get back to this on
Speaker 2: Wednesday if you want to leave another mailbag response, but
Speaker 2: who would you have ranked, Like, which team do you
Speaker 2: think was more talented than the twenty twenty two Celtics.
Speaker 2: Let me know in the comments. We can get into
Speaker 2: that on Wednesday. Hey, Jason, you were by far my
Speaker 2: favorite NBA YouTuber, probably the best basketball mind in the media.
Speaker 2: That's very, very nice of you to say, do you
Speaker 2: think that Max Christie at Austin Reeves, d Lo, Gabe
Speaker 2: Vincent can be a sufficient backcourt if Max Christi can
Speaker 2: contribute to some of the defensive and athletic worries, especially
Speaker 2: if Vanderbilt is healthy this season. I think healthy Gabe
Speaker 2: and Van do with Max Christie kind of in just
Speaker 2: like a larger role. I think that certainly would help
Speaker 2: them in the regular season context, just simply because like
Speaker 2: you're eating innings over eighty two games, and like Gabe
Speaker 2: was out most of the year, Jared Vanderbilt was out
Speaker 2: most of the year. Max Christy was on the fringe
Speaker 2: of the rotation for lesser players most of the year,
Speaker 2: and so by kind of infusing that into the roster,
Speaker 2: that will certainly help. But none of those guys are
Speaker 2: what I would consider to be like rock solid two
Speaker 2: way starters, right like and rock solid two way starters.
Speaker 2: These are the guys that you see on these championship
Speaker 2: championship teams. Guys like Derek White, Guys like Kentavious Caldwell
Speaker 2: Pope on that Nuggets team, Guys like Aaron Gordon going
Speaker 2: back to the Warriors, like what Andrew Wiggins was before
Speaker 2: he declined, right, Like, those are what I would consider
Speaker 2: to be rock solid starters. Klay Thompson circa twenty twenty
Speaker 2: two was kind of a rock solid starter. Going back
Speaker 2: to twenty twenty one, a guy like Brook Lopez rock
Speaker 2: solid starter. The Lakers just don't have that outside of
Speaker 2: Austin Reeves, Lebron James, and Anthony Davis. And so even
Speaker 2: though Gabe and Van do and Max Christy supplements specific
Speaker 2: needs in terms of perimeter defense, they have other issues
Speaker 2: that they bring to the table. Right. Gabe is and
Speaker 2: is kind of a streaky shooter. Jared Vanderbilt's a very
Speaker 2: limited offensive player, right. Max Chrissy is very very young
Speaker 2: and struggles when he puts the ball on the floor
Speaker 2: to make decisions, right. And so there's a lack of
Speaker 2: reliability on a consistent basis with those guys, which prevents
Speaker 2: them from being like rock solid starters. But I think
Speaker 2: you can get away with a Jared Vanderbilt or a
Speaker 2: Gabe or even a Max starting in a playoff run
Speaker 2: as long as you get a third star, like if
Speaker 2: it was Austin Lebron ad some other star and then
Speaker 2: you had a limited fifth starter. That's one thing. But
Speaker 2: if they can't get like a rock solid star, then
Speaker 2: I think you need two rock solid starters between Austin,
Speaker 2: Lebron and Ad. Does that make sense? So like, if
Speaker 2: I'm seeing Gabe or Van Dos start playoff games for
Speaker 2: the Lakers, I'm hoping that there's a star in there
Speaker 2: somewhere that they went after, because otherwise I don't think
Speaker 2: they have what they need in that starting lineup. But
Speaker 2: thank you for the kind words and for supporting the show.
Speaker 2: I do sincerely appreciate your guys' support. And as you
Speaker 2: guys all know, there's plenty of negativity, especially every time
Speaker 2: player rankings come around, and so you guys always outweigh
Speaker 2: that many times over. Jason, the MAVs defense wasn't the
Speaker 2: issue in the finals. I'd argue that their defense actually
Speaker 2: held up pretty well. It was the offense that totally collapsed.
Speaker 2: Luca had a bad defensive performance in the finals. That
Speaker 2: much is true, but his defense has only improved year
Speaker 2: over year, and as you pointed out, Boston is incredibly
Speaker 2: unique in being able to attack in that department. Luca,
Speaker 2: being a liability on defense really only showed up in
Speaker 2: the finals, and he was still the best player on
Speaker 2: the court while his co star and supporting cast totally
Speaker 2: flat lined. And while it's not an excuse, but people
Speaker 2: are still not even taking into account his banged up
Speaker 2: knees slashed playing through injury while carrying the level of
Speaker 2: offensive load. The criticism of Luca's defense is definitely warranted,
Speaker 2: but in my opinion, it's gone overboard, and this is
Speaker 2: the continuation of what we were talking about earlier. I
Speaker 2: think the main reason that people are pointing to is
Speaker 2: that it has something to do with his conditioning, Like
Speaker 2: he looks like someone who doesn't care about being in
Speaker 2: peak shape. So then when he gets hurt, people are
Speaker 2: going to associate it with the fact that he's not
Speaker 2: in peak shape, and so then that kind of puts
Speaker 2: a different optic around Like the optics around it are
Speaker 2: just different, right. I agree that Boston is a bad matchup,
Speaker 2: and I do think Luca is capable of holding up
Speaker 2: defensively in the majority of matchups, which is why I
Speaker 2: still have him extremely high on this list. For the record,
Speaker 2: when I was ranking Luca on this list, the Boston
Speaker 2: series didn't have any sort of negative impact on it
Speaker 2: for me. But we'll get in more. We'll get more
Speaker 2: into that when we get to Luca, which will not
Speaker 2: be until next week. That's how high he is up
Speaker 2: on this list. This is a very good question from
Speaker 2: one of you guys. What is your personal definition of
Speaker 2: clutch and what does a player need in order to
Speaker 2: be clutch? So I'd say that there's I'd say it's okay,
Speaker 2: this is the uh uh, I'm missing the second half
Speaker 2: of your question here. Here it is. I'd say there's
Speaker 2: two main categories. Playing in a clutch game and having
Speaker 2: a clutch moment with the truly great players demonstrating both
Speaker 2: time and time again as examples, if I need to
Speaker 2: choose a point guard to come through in a really
Speaker 2: important game, I'd pick Steph Curry. But if I needed
Speaker 2: to put a guard on the court to hit a
Speaker 2: game tying shot or a game winning shot, I'd want Kyrie.
Speaker 2: So this is a super interesting question. Clutch to me
Speaker 2: is about so many different things. Everyone wants to focus
Speaker 2: on shot making, right, like this is the Michael Jordan
Speaker 2: three two one at the buzzer type of shot. Right
Speaker 2: we saw Kobe Bryant was the next face of this
Speaker 2: type of thing. Kevin Durant is the face of this
Speaker 2: kind of thing now along with guys like Kyrie Irving right,
Speaker 2: But to me, clutch is so much more complicated than that.
Speaker 2: There's decision making with the ball right, not taking a
Speaker 2: tough shot if you don't have to, making the right
Speaker 2: reads when the defense is throwing multiple defenders at a star,
Speaker 2: not turning the basketball over, gameplay, and discipline. This is
Speaker 2: mainly on the defensive end of the floor. So like
Speaker 2: avoiding mistakes like losing a shooter when you're playing off
Speaker 2: the ball, doing the wrong thing in a coverage, like
Speaker 2: if the coverage asks you to go over the screen
Speaker 2: and you go under the screen and the guy hits
Speaker 2: the three in a big time moment, you didn't do
Speaker 2: your job within the scheme right, missing a box out
Speaker 2: like that was the big thing I was talking about
Speaker 2: with Joel Embiiden that in that game against Serbia, It's like, oh,
Speaker 2: Embiid hit these three straight shots and they were huge shots,
Speaker 2: and I'm not trying to take that away. Those were
Speaker 2: huge feathers in his cap for that game. But then
Speaker 2: he would go right down to the other end and
Speaker 2: not do his job on the defensive glass. Like That's
Speaker 2: also part of clutch basketball, like doing your job and
Speaker 2: not making mistakes is important because in the large sample
Speaker 2: you can weather mistakes, but in the small sample, mistakes
Speaker 2: can kill you. And then clutch defense like remember when
Speaker 2: Giannis was like single handedly shutting down the Sun's pick
Speaker 2: and roll at the end of the twenty twenty one finals,
Speaker 2: or like Lebron his ability to switch onto guards like
Speaker 2: when he switched on to Jamal Murray and the twenty
Speaker 2: twenty Western Conference Finals, or when he switched on to
Speaker 2: Derreck Rose the twenty eleven Eastern Conference Finals like that is.
Speaker 2: Another element of being clutched is if you're just a
Speaker 2: defensive weapon that can be deployed that shuts down in
Speaker 2: action at the end of games. So like io ball
Speaker 2: is important, there are a lot of times where you'd
Speaker 2: need someone to take and make tough shots. They are
Speaker 2: an important part of clutch basketball. But simplifying clutch basketball
Speaker 2: down to just ioball is a mistake in my opinion,
Speaker 2: I don't understand how Kawhi, who hasn't played in forever,
Speaker 2: is far ahead of John Moran, while prime Jaw is
Speaker 2: nothing close to prime Kauai. I think the metric for
Speaker 2: ranking should be consistent as you said in one of
Speaker 2: your mail bag responses. Availability as is as important as
Speaker 2: ability Right now, I'd pick Jalen Brown, Devin Booker, and
Speaker 2: Jalen Brunson ahead of Kawhi no offense. And again the
Speaker 2: main thing for me here is Kawhi and Jimmy Butler
Speaker 2: were just kind of in like a separate tier, like
Speaker 2: I put him both at twelve and thirteen as like deliberately,
Speaker 2: as like a gap tier. But the reality is, as
Speaker 2: far as Jah goes is, jaw has had similar availability
Speaker 2: issues and never has shown anything close to the same
Speaker 2: stratosphere of playoff dominance as Kawhi Leonard did. Last question, Hey, Jason,
Speaker 2: just wondering what you think of all the discourse surrounding
Speaker 2: Steve Kerr lately. A ton of people on Twitter were
Speaker 2: trashing him during the Olympics for his lineup decisions and
Speaker 2: that vitriy all sort of started in Foba last year.
Speaker 2: I think he did a perfectly fine job in Paris.
Speaker 2: Tatum wasn't playing well and Steph just needed to get
Speaker 2: into a groove. Even before those last two games were
Speaker 2: Stephan one nuclear, he was still demanding a ton of
Speaker 2: defensive attention, so his gravity had tremendous value. Do you
Speaker 2: think Kerr was deserving of the FOBA and Olympics head
Speaker 2: coaching positions And what mistakes, if any, do you think
Speaker 2: he made. Which coach in the league other than Spoe
Speaker 2: is objectively better than him. So there's a huge difference
Speaker 2: between mistakes and disagreements. Coaches have philosophies and a lot
Speaker 2: of times they're trying to inflict those philosophies on to
Speaker 2: whatever their roster is now. For instance, Steve Kerr tends
Speaker 2: to solve problems with ball handling and guard play, so
Speaker 2: he went with a lot of three guard lineups with Timosa,
Speaker 2: despite the fact that he had an excellent core of forwards.
Speaker 2: That's not necessarily a mistake. It's just not necessarily what
Speaker 2: I would do. But that's just because Kerr's basketball philosophy
Speaker 2: is different than mine, right, And so that's the thing.
Speaker 2: Like Steve Kerr, there's there was multiple pathways from when
Speaker 2: the roster was built to the gold medal. There was
Speaker 2: different ways to get there, different styles, different you know, rotations,
Speaker 2: different offensive schemes they could have run, different defensive schemes
Speaker 2: they could have run. They could have done so many
Speaker 2: different things, right, Like we were talking before, like I wanted.
Speaker 2: I was originally thinking Tatum would start. I was originally thinking, like,
Speaker 2: oh Steph, Tatum, lebron Katie a d and just switch
Speaker 2: everything right. Like, And here's the thing, I could have
Speaker 2: coached Tmosa if I'm not saying I'm not qualified to
Speaker 2: coach Tmosa, but if I happened to be just given
Speaker 2: that job for whatever damn reason, and I decided that
Speaker 2: that was how I was gonna do it, and I
Speaker 2: was gonna let it and beat an Aunt, you know,
Speaker 2: just take over the bench group, just letting them cook
Speaker 2: on an island, and we ran more drop coverage with
Speaker 2: that group. And I'm not gonna get into all the things,
Speaker 2: but if I like built my own scheme, it would
Speaker 2: look different than what Steve Kerr did, and it's very
Speaker 2: possible that we could have still won the title. That
Speaker 2: wouldn't mean that I was right and Steve Kerr was wrong,
Speaker 2: or that Steve Kurz right and I was wrong. Like
Speaker 2: That's the main thing is like a lot of times
Speaker 2: we see a coach doing something and we just call
Speaker 2: it wrong or we call it mistake instead of just
Speaker 2: different philosophy. There are times where it's wrong, like when
Speaker 2: Darvin ham is playing Torrian Prince as the starter with
Speaker 2: the Lakers when he just simply has better basketball players
Speaker 2: available behind him, and it's actively causing them to lose
Speaker 2: games as they go three to ten over a thirteen
Speaker 2: game stretch. That's different team to say won every damn game.
Speaker 2: And were there things that The main two things that
Speaker 2: I disagreed with is I thought he went a little
Speaker 2: small a few too many three guard lineups. And then
Speaker 2: I thought the way that he used Tatum was a
Speaker 2: problem because specifically with Tatum, I thought it was a
Speaker 2: confidence thing, and I thought it could have been beneficial
Speaker 2: to lean more into Tatum early and hope that he
Speaker 2: got out of it in time for the Metal Round games.
Speaker 2: But Steve Kerr made a different decision. He's like, Tatum
Speaker 2: doesn't have it, I'm gonna use him very sparingly. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna focus on these guys. And it worked. And so
Speaker 2: that's the thing. Like I would imagine that if I
Speaker 2: was coaching a basketball team in any sort of national context,
Speaker 2: there would be a lot of people who would disagree
Speaker 2: with things that I would do, and there would be
Speaker 2: things potentially where I was wrong, where it's like all
Speaker 2: the data says this, all the obvious eye test stuff
Speaker 2: says this, and I'm still doing this stupid ass thing.
Speaker 2: That's one thing, but there are a lot of things
Speaker 2: in basketball where it's like you could do this, or
Speaker 2: you could do this, and this scheme might work, or
Speaker 2: this scheme might work. Like member Boston in the twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two finals, they're like running a ton of drop
Speaker 2: coverage against Steph Curry, and there was a moment through
Speaker 2: three games where you're like, it's kind of working, like
Speaker 2: Steph's not hitting enough shots to torch it. Like he's
Speaker 2: hitting some shots, but he's not hitting enough shots, and like,
Speaker 2: I guess the idea is you're keeping your defense out
Speaker 2: of rotation, so maybe this is working. And then Game
Speaker 2: four happens and Steph Curry lights your drop coverage on
Speaker 2: fire and you lose the finals, and then all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, it's not working. And so a lot of
Speaker 2: times we end up playing the results, like what if
Speaker 2: Tmusa doesn't come back to win that game against Serbia.
Speaker 2: Now everyone calls Steve Kerrn idiot, and that's just kind
Speaker 2: of the the reality of the job being the head
Speaker 2: coach of a you know, five plus billion dollar franchise
Speaker 2: in America, which comes with a ton of pressure. It's
Speaker 2: not an easy job. And that's the thing, Like I
Speaker 2: Steve Kerr did some things that if I had been
Speaker 2: coaching the team, I would have done differently. That doesn't
Speaker 2: make him wrong. It's just his specific basketball philosophy. And
Speaker 2: he won the damn Trophy or the gold Medal, I
Speaker 2: should say, which is all that matters. I think Steve
Speaker 2: Kurr is the second best coach in the league behind
Speaker 2: Eric Spolstra. Uh. And that's the thing, Like there are
Speaker 2: talked to Heat fans, talk to Heat fans. I've seen
Speaker 2: Heat fans complain about Spolstra because they disagree with something
Speaker 2: he does with his basketball philosophy. And that's just kind
Speaker 2: of the reaction of the way that that job kind
Speaker 2: of just leads to a lot of criticism, right, it's
Speaker 2: kind of unavoidable. All right, guys, That is all I
Speaker 2: have for today is always as sincerely appreciate you first
Speaker 2: supporting the show. We'll be back on Wednesday with number
Speaker 2: nine and number eight. I will see you guys. Then
Speaker 2: the volume the NFL season's right around the corner. We'll
Speaker 2: be breaking down all the off season storylines on the
Speaker 2: Colin Cowherd podcast, my Best Takes, guests like my buddy
Speaker 2: Nick Wright. Check out the Colin Coward podcast, part of
Speaker 2: the Volume network, available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you
Speaker 2: get your podcasts.