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Speaker 1: good hoops and I here at the volume heavy Monday,
Speaker 1: your buddy Hoba. If you guys had an incredible weekend,
Speaker 1: well we got a jam packshow for you today. We
Speaker 1: are finally turning our attention forward to the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four twenty twenty five NBA season, We're gonna do a
Speaker 1: bunch of season previews on twenty different NBA teams. As
Speaker 1: part of this series, we're gonna do a power ranking
Speaker 1: style and here at the start. In the beginning, we're
Speaker 1: gonna go three teams per day, and then starting next
Speaker 1: week we're gonna slow way down do one team per
Speaker 1: day as we get to our contender list. Today, we're
Speaker 1: gonna be starting with the San Antonio Spurs, the Los
Speaker 1: Angeles Clippers, and the Miami Heat. You guys know the drip.
Speaker 1: Before we get started, subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube
Speaker 1: channel so you don't miss any more of our videos.
Speaker 1: Follow me on Twitter at underscore JSNLTS. You guys don't
Speaker 1: miss you announcement, So forget about a podcast feed wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight. And then keep
Speaker 1: dropping mailbag questions in those YouTube comments so we can
Speaker 1: keep hitting them throughout the rest of the year. And
Speaker 1: then one last note before we get started, I'm currently
Speaker 1: in the process of moving my studio to a different
Speaker 1: room in the house. So and we're also going to
Speaker 1: do some updates, especially to the Two Suns podcast studio
Speaker 1: that I do with with my buddy Luke. That's going
Speaker 1: to be behind this. But we're doing a bunch of
Speaker 1: new furniture and a bunch of new stuff. So it's
Speaker 1: just gonna be a little bit construction zone over the
Speaker 1: course of the next couple of weeks, so bear with me.
Speaker 1: But it'll be nice to have some new digs for
Speaker 1: this season. It's also a little echoing in here, so
Speaker 1: I'm sorry about that, but we're gonna get some acoustic
Speaker 1: foam and stuff in here that should make that better
Speaker 1: in the long run. So as we turn our attention
Speaker 1: towards next season, I want to talk about a couple
Speaker 1: of different things. We're gonna cover twenty teams in this
Speaker 1: series in three different tiers, and the way I have
Speaker 1: these tiers listed out are the first tier that we're
Speaker 1: going to go through. Those are the nine teams that
Speaker 1: we're gonna hit this week. Those are good teams that
Speaker 1: need more firepower to truly contend for a title. So
Speaker 1: these are teams that have solid foundations, they have good players,
Speaker 1: but they just don't quite have enough juice to really
Speaker 1: realistically feel like they can win for playoffs series. These
Speaker 1: are trade candidates. These are teams where we can see
Speaker 1: if something might change over the course of the season,
Speaker 1: but at this point I view them as long shots
Speaker 1: to win the titles we're going to start in that tier.
Speaker 1: Our next tier, which we're going to start next week,
Speaker 1: is going to be that if things go right contenders.
Speaker 1: These are teams that have enough talent to compete for
Speaker 1: a title, but they have significant holes or significant question
Speaker 1: marks that make it almost as likely that they would
Speaker 1: lose in the first round as they would make a
Speaker 1: deep playoff runt. So these are teams that certainly have
Speaker 1: that upside, but the question marks are pretty substantial. I
Speaker 1: have seven of these teams. We're going to hit them
Speaker 1: one at a time starting next week, and then after
Speaker 1: we get through those seven teams, we're going to get
Speaker 1: to our bona fide top tier championship contenders. These are
Speaker 1: teams with a ton of talent, very little in the
Speaker 1: way of holes and weaknesses. Anything less than a conference
Speaker 1: finals appearances and a conference finals appearance for these teams
Speaker 1: would be deemed a massive failure. And I have four
Speaker 1: teams in that tier to start this year. You guys know,
Speaker 1: the drill during this season, like these, all these teams
Speaker 1: can jockey up and down based on how they're playing.
Speaker 1: I will add teams or remove teams from the top
Speaker 1: tier championship contenders or from the if things go right tier,
Speaker 1: based on how things go. We're gonna do power rankings,
Speaker 1: probably on Fridays, similar to what we did last year.
Speaker 1: But this is just kind of an initial baseline before
Speaker 1: we see any of these teams. These teams play, and
Speaker 1: there's likely to be lots of movement because, as you
Speaker 1: guys know, once the teams actually start playing, we tend
Speaker 1: to learn a lot more than we can just from
Speaker 1: simple roster roster changes as far as the tiers go.
Speaker 1: This first group, so this uh these first nine teams
Speaker 1: that I'm hitting this week on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. We're
Speaker 1: gonna be hitting them three teams at a time, So
Speaker 1: we won't go as far into depth with them as
Speaker 1: we do with the top eleven, but we still will
Speaker 1: talk about their seasons, there are changes that they made
Speaker 1: to the roster, and just expectations for them this year.
Speaker 1: And then, as I mentioned, we're these next two weeks,
Speaker 1: we're going to stay on our summer schedule. Of going
Speaker 1: three times a week, so we'll go Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
Speaker 1: We'll run breakout clips on the other days. But as
Speaker 1: soon as we start getting real basketball, which is October fourth,
Speaker 1: that following Monday, we're going to shift back to going
Speaker 1: five times a week, and you guys can count on
Speaker 1: getting a good mix of these kind of season previews
Speaker 1: as well as preseason game reactions before we head into
Speaker 1: the actual season. So one last thing before we get
Speaker 1: into the teams what are we looking for in a
Speaker 1: basketball team's ability to contend? I want to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit from the outside looking in at the entire
Speaker 1: league on just certain things that we talk about. These
Speaker 1: are going to be a lot of different concepts that
Speaker 1: I've talked extensively on the show before. We talked about
Speaker 1: it in our like what did we learn after the
Speaker 1: NBA Finals, We talked about it through the year. These
Speaker 1: are pretty consistent basketball ideologies that I have that I
Speaker 1: believe matter at the NBA level, And so I have
Speaker 1: five that I'm looking at with these teams as I
Speaker 1: start to evaluate them heading into the season. Number One,
Speaker 1: what's your overall depth of talent? It's an eighty two
Speaker 1: game regular season. You might have a key starter miss
Speaker 1: a month or two months. You might have two starters
Speaker 1: miss time. You could have a star miss a substantial
Speaker 1: amount of time. The overall amount of talent you have
Speaker 1: on your roster is what matters within the eighty two
Speaker 1: game season in terms of your ability to weather guys
Speaker 1: being in and out of the lineup. If you've got
Speaker 1: a core seven, that's awesome and you feel really good
Speaker 1: about your playoff chances. If you can get their healthy,
Speaker 1: but your back end of your roster isn't very good,
Speaker 1: then you could run into issues where you're going into
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks of hoops where you got four
Speaker 1: good players on your team and a bunch of guys
Speaker 1: that are kind of playing outside of what their pay
Speaker 1: grade is, right, and you could have issues. So depth
Speaker 1: of talent is something that we're going to be factoring
Speaker 1: in too. Advantage creation. Do you have high level offensive
Speaker 1: players that can create advantages? The simple kind of you
Speaker 1: know metaphor I used it to break this down is
Speaker 1: if we were playing King of the Court and I
Speaker 1: had let's just say, five average high school players playing
Speaker 1: King of the Court, and I had you standing as
Speaker 1: the defender locked in right on the guy to start
Speaker 1: the possession, they're going to score at a certain rate.
Speaker 1: But if I move that defender to the midline and
Speaker 1: I make him close out before that offensive player goes
Speaker 1: to try to do something, the score rate is going
Speaker 1: to skyrocket. At the high school level, but even at
Speaker 1: the pro level, it's gonna go up substantially. Guys are
Speaker 1: converting spot up possessions that's substantially higher rates against a closeout.
Speaker 1: Then guys are converting in ISO situations or even lesser
Speaker 1: quality spot up possessions where the defender doesn't get sucked
Speaker 1: as far into help. Right. So, having high level offensive players,
Speaker 1: your star power on offense, and they're ability to consistently
Speaker 1: generate advantages makes for easier basketball for your role players.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of NBA players that can play
Speaker 1: well with an advantage, but that can struggle when that
Speaker 1: advantage isn't there, and so that's a very important piece. Thirdly,
Speaker 1: aggregate offensive skill. When you have that advantage, and now
Speaker 1: we're playing driving kick basketball, do you have a group
Speaker 1: that can consistently pay it off? The two kind of
Speaker 1: like bookends of this example that I would give you guys,
Speaker 1: or take a look at like Boston and how anytime
Speaker 1: Jason Tatum would run a ghost screen with Derek White
Speaker 1: and get a little bit of an advantage for him,
Speaker 1: or beat Luka Dancic off the dribble and make that
Speaker 1: first kickout pass, it's just beautiful driving kick basketball because
Speaker 1: they have so much ball handling, shooting, and passing ability
Speaker 1: on the floor. Right. Juxtapose that with the Minnesota Timberwolves,
Speaker 1: who are consistently playing a lot of guys that struggle
Speaker 1: to dribble shooting, pass guys like Rudy Gobert, Jam McDaniels, Nikhil,
Speaker 1: Alexander Walker, Kyle Anderson. All of a sudden, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter that Anthony Edwards is getting double teamed almost every
Speaker 1: time he touches the ball because they can't capitalize on
Speaker 1: it on the weak side. And that was a Minnesota
Speaker 1: Timberwolves offense that struggled all year long and then struggled
Speaker 1: mightily when they ran into a tough matchup in the
Speaker 1: Western Conference finals. Right. So that aggregate offensive skill, the
Speaker 1: totality of your team's ability to capitalize on advantages is
Speaker 1: something that I'm going to be looking very closely at
Speaker 1: for what's your strong base defensive scheme, Like, what is
Speaker 1: the thing that you count on over the course of
Speaker 1: eighty two games to run defensively and that's gonna work
Speaker 1: against the majority of the opponents that you run, Like,
Speaker 1: do you have a good base drop coverage scheme? Do
Speaker 1: you have a good base high drop scheme? Do you
Speaker 1: have a good base you know, switching scheme that you
Speaker 1: use defensively? What's your like base defensive scheme. Is it
Speaker 1: something that's gonna work reasonably well enough over the eighty
Speaker 1: two games? And then lastly, defensive versatility. How vulnerable are
Speaker 1: you to certain types of offensive players? Can you defend
Speaker 1: certain ways? There are different ways, Like if you run
Speaker 1: into a specific matchup where it's really quick guards that
Speaker 1: space you out, but you don't have athletic guards and
Speaker 1: so you can't contain the basketball and so you're dead
Speaker 1: to rights in rotation all day. That was an issue
Speaker 1: that the Lakers had with the Sacramento Kings last year, right,
Speaker 1: the Oklahoma City Thunder and how they struggled against physical frontlines, right, Like,
Speaker 1: there are matchup things, matchup weaknesses that certain defenses can have,
Speaker 1: and if you don't have another look that you can
Speaker 1: go to to just make it so that there are
Speaker 1: less of those holes that could potentially get you beat.
Speaker 1: That's something that can make you a stronger team. So again,
Speaker 1: overall depth of talent in order to weather the eighty
Speaker 1: two advantage creation, to give your lesser players easier opportunities
Speaker 1: aggregate offensive skill. How good are you at capitalizing on
Speaker 1: those opportunities. What's your base defensive scheme? And do you
Speaker 1: have the ability to tweak things defensively as you run
Speaker 1: into tougher matchups down the line in THEL So, those
Speaker 1: are the main kind of concepts that I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: looking at again. We're gonna be hitting three teams today,
Speaker 1: three on Wednesday, three on Friday, and then we'll hit
Speaker 1: into our top eleven contenders one at a time starting
Speaker 1: next Monday. So first and foremost number twenty, the San
Speaker 1: Antonio Spurs. Let's take a quick look at their off season.
Speaker 1: They lost Dominique Barlow, DeVante Graham, and Chatti Osman. They
Speaker 1: added Harrison Barnes BJ Boston from the Clippers, Malachi Flynn
Speaker 1: Chris Paul from the Golden State Warriors, and then in
Speaker 1: the draft Stefan Castle, a really interesting big guard out
Speaker 1: of Yukon. We covered him a lot during the draft,
Speaker 1: so you guys can go further back on our video
Speaker 1: feed to find some some more content surrounding Stefan Castle.
Speaker 1: Their depth chart going into the season. At guard, Chris Paul,
Speaker 1: Devin Vessel, Stefan Castle, Trey Jones, Malachi Branham, forward's Keldon Johnson,
Speaker 1: Harrison Barnes, Jeremy Sohan, Julian Champaigne and Sandro I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna butcher this, so please bear with me, Mamukelashvili, okay,
Speaker 1: and then at center, Victor Wembin Yama, Zach Collins, and
Speaker 1: Charles Bassi. As far as they're starters, my guess is
Speaker 1: they'll start Chris Paul and Devin Vassel together in the
Speaker 1: back court, and then I think you'll see Harrison Barnes
Speaker 1: and Jeremy Sohan at the three and four, with Victor
Speaker 1: Webman Yama at the five. I think that's a pretty
Speaker 1: straightforward starting group with the guys that they have. I
Speaker 1: think they've u Keldon Johnson Moore as a bench weapon.
Speaker 1: At this point. Let's talk a little bit about what
Speaker 1: they do on the defensive end and then we'll talk
Speaker 1: about the offense. So on the defensive end, they were
Speaker 1: pretty standard drop coverage team. At the tail end of
Speaker 1: the year when mamo Keloshphili was playing more, they were
Speaker 1: running some drop with him as well. They were actually
Speaker 1: dropping with both him and Wemby, but with Harrison Barnes
Speaker 1: and Jeremy Sohan. My guess is what they'll do is
Speaker 1: they'll switch two through four any actions that involve those
Speaker 1: three players, but then they'll hedge with CP three and
Speaker 1: any sort of guard screens where the guard is setting
Speaker 1: the screen, and then they'll drop with Victor Wembanyama And
Speaker 1: like even with CP three and Wemby in actions like
Speaker 1: that's as good at drop coverage big, you can partner
Speaker 1: with three to make it easier on him. He doesn't
Speaker 1: need to be completely attached all the time. Wimby's so
Speaker 1: good at bothering ball handlers in ball screens. I think
Speaker 1: that's kind of like a nice partnership there to make
Speaker 1: an achievable defensive role for Chris Paul. They ran a
Speaker 1: little bit of zone last year. They were twelve in
Speaker 1: zone frequency. They ran two hundred and twenty nine possessions.
Speaker 1: I was middle of the pack. The numbers are interesting
Speaker 1: because they finished twenty first in defense with a one
Speaker 1: fifteen point six defensive rating, but they were one eleven
Speaker 1: point two and Wemby was on the floor, which is
Speaker 1: really good. So like for perspective, the Miami Heat, who
Speaker 1: were also going to talk about today, they were fifth
Speaker 1: in defense last year at a one to eleven point
Speaker 1: five defensive rating, So Wemby at won eleven point two
Speaker 1: when he was on the floor basically was an elite defense.
Speaker 1: He just only played twenty nine minutes and they just
Speaker 1: got absolutely thrashed every time he was off the floor,
Speaker 1: So that's why their defensive rating wasn't very good. My
Speaker 1: guess is Victor's minutes will go up this year. He
Speaker 1: played what twenty nine something last year. My guess is
Speaker 1: he's up around thirty three minutes per game this year.
Speaker 1: With Chris Paul and here and Barnes just two savvy
Speaker 1: veterans who've been in the league for a long time,
Speaker 1: I think that'll help with consistency of effort and communication
Speaker 1: on the defensive end. So I think it's reasonable to
Speaker 1: think that the Spurs could move into that like fifteen
Speaker 1: range defensively, maybe as high as ten, but in that
Speaker 1: ten to fifteen range I think is an achievable goal
Speaker 1: for them defensively this year. Now the offensive side of
Speaker 1: the floor is where things I think are going to
Speaker 1: shift in a big way for the Spurs, Like adding
Speaker 1: CP three just fundamentally alters their style. Right, because last
Speaker 1: year this was a heavy ball in player movement team.
Speaker 1: They were seventh and passes made per game, they were
Speaker 1: second in assists per game, a lot of like standard
Speaker 1: five out stuff, a lot of Victor Weman Yama kind
Speaker 1: of operating is at the elbow, running dribble handoffs, looking
Speaker 1: to turn and score. It was much more equal opportunity
Speaker 1: on offense. And they also ran in transition a ton
Speaker 1: ran in transition a ton A lot of ball and
Speaker 1: player movement, not as much pick and roll. Right, They
Speaker 1: were sixteenth pick and roll frequency, second in transition frequency.
Speaker 1: I expect those numbers to change with Chris Paul. I
Speaker 1: expect the pace of play to drop in them to
Speaker 1: be a little bit more methodical, and I expect them
Speaker 1: to be a higher frequency pick and roll team. And
Speaker 1: one of the main things that I'm looking for, I
Speaker 1: want to see Victor Webbin Yama give more opportunities to
Speaker 1: score on the role rather than constantly having to operate
Speaker 1: with the ball in his hands. And the guy that
Speaker 1: I look at here, Guys that I look at here
Speaker 1: as examples are guys like Anthony Davis and NICOLEA. Jokic.
Speaker 1: So like, as we know, NICOLEA. Jokic is this devastating
Speaker 1: post up weapon, this devastating five out folkrum on offense. Right.
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis less so in those regards, but similar in
Speaker 1: the sense that he's a screening fom for the Lakers
Speaker 1: and their guards. But he's also a guy that you
Speaker 1: can run through the post. He had his best postseason,
Speaker 1: a post up season of his career. Right. But what
Speaker 1: drives a lot of the success for both Jokic and
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis as offensive players is they can catching the
Speaker 1: pocket around ten to fifteen feet from good passers that
Speaker 1: are setting them up and those the players who have
Speaker 1: the ball in this case Austin Reeves and d Loo
Speaker 1: or Lebron for the Lakers or you know, Jamal Murray
Speaker 1: for the Nuggets. Those offensive players are high powered enough
Speaker 1: that they pull things towards them enough that the pocket
Speaker 1: is nice and open there for yo kitchen ad to
Speaker 1: get a lot of these like easy floaters and quick
Speaker 1: catch like maybe an ISO move, but like a quick
Speaker 1: ISO move when the defender who's the screen defender is
Speaker 1: out of position rather than squared up with them right.
Speaker 1: Kind of a similar context to what we were talking about
Speaker 1: earlier when we were talking about King of the Court
Speaker 1: right and so Yo Kitchen ad supplement their offense with
Speaker 1: all these really high quality role touches. Victor Wiminnyama last
Speaker 1: year was sixteenth in role volume, so there were fifteen
Speaker 1: bigs who got more opportunities to score on the role.
Speaker 1: He only had one hundred and seventy six possessions all year.
Speaker 1: It's like a little over two a game. So like
Speaker 1: I want to I just want to see Victor get
Speaker 1: more of those opportunities. Like Rudy Gobaer had more catches
Speaker 1: and opportunities to score on the role than Victor wenbin
Speaker 1: Yama did last year. I'd like to see that number
Speaker 1: go from that one to seventy six, closer to two
Speaker 1: point fifty, maybe even three hundred for Wemby, that I
Speaker 1: think is something that CP three can help him with.
Speaker 1: I just want to supplement again, Like we know what
Speaker 1: Wemby's upside is, but the more we can kind of
Speaker 1: like get him easier opportunities to kind of supplement his offense.
Speaker 1: That's what can lead to some really high efficiency in
Speaker 1: volume scoring seasons. I think floor spacing is going to
Speaker 1: be a big thing for this team, and I think
Speaker 1: both Chris Paul and Harrison Barnes help in a big
Speaker 1: way there. So as a team, the Spurs were twenty seventh,
Speaker 1: so fourth worst in the league converting spot up possessions
Speaker 1: at zero point nine to eight points per possession. Harrison
Speaker 1: Barnes was a seventieth percentile spot up guy last year
Speaker 1: at one point one zero points per possession. Chris Paul
Speaker 1: was an eighty sixth percentile spot up guy at one
Speaker 1: point one point eight points spot up possession. Both of
Speaker 1: them shot over forty five percent field goal percentage on
Speaker 1: unguarded catch and shoot jump shots, so you just have
Speaker 1: a much higher level set of off ball offensive players
Speaker 1: too in situations where Wemby's operating with the Rocks. So
Speaker 1: in summary, I think it's a substantial increase in shooting
Speaker 1: and ball handling, which obviously were two major weaknesses last year. Obviously,
Speaker 1: Wenby has another year of experience. We saw how well
Speaker 1: he played at the tail end of the year which
Speaker 1: I'll give you guys that stat that I gave you
Speaker 1: the other day again here in a minute. But then
Speaker 1: he even had an impressive competitive run with Foeba so
Speaker 1: at the Olympics. So here's one last crazy stat to
Speaker 1: kind of set the stage for the Spurs this season.
Speaker 1: In the final forty five games of the year last year,
Speaker 1: which again that's more than half the year, the Spurs
Speaker 1: were plus twenty eight when Victor Wmenyamo was on the floor,
Speaker 1: and they were minus two to oh two with him off.
Speaker 1: That's raw plus minus. So like, they were positive for
Speaker 1: more than half the season with Victor Wembenyama on the floor,
Speaker 1: and then they were massively negative, and that was with
Speaker 1: a really weak roster. You're giving him a lot of
Speaker 1: a veteran kind of like help this season. Obviously he's
Speaker 1: a better player now than he was last year. So
Speaker 1: a lot to be really optimistic about as a Spurs fan.
Speaker 1: Now as we know there's thirteen teams trying to win
Speaker 1: in the Western Conference, Teams like Houston they're trying to win,
Speaker 1: teams like Memphis, they're going to be right back in
Speaker 1: the mix. They weren't in the mix last year. San
Speaker 1: Antonio's trying to win, and so will they get into
Speaker 1: the play in We'll see they'll be fighting in that range.
Speaker 1: My guess is they'll be in that eight to twelve range,
Speaker 1: and whether or not they actually get in is going
Speaker 1: to come down to just how dominant Victor wembin Yama
Speaker 1: is in his second season. All Right, Number nineteen The
Speaker 1: Los Angeles Clippers quick recap of their offseason. They lost
Speaker 1: bj Boston, Mussa, Diabate, Paul George, Mason, plum Lee, Daniel Tye,
Speaker 1: and Russell Westbrook. They added Mo Bamba. He's a stretch five,
Speaker 1: really good above the break shooter, but kind of a
Speaker 1: mixed bag everywhere else. Nick Batoum was one of my
Speaker 1: favorite three and D guys in the League's really good
Speaker 1: mobility and length to defend guards. Chris Dunn one of
Speaker 1: the best guard defenders in the league. Derek Jones a
Speaker 1: guy who just had a phenomenal postseason run as a
Speaker 1: perimeter defender. You can kind of pick up the theme here,
Speaker 1: a lot of good perimeter defenders in Los Angeles playing
Speaker 1: for the Clippers. We're gonna get more in that in
Speaker 1: a minute. And then Kevin Porter Junior, although the league
Speaker 1: is apparently restarting an investigation into his domestic violence issue,
Speaker 1: so we'll see if he actually ends up playing, but
Speaker 1: he's on the roster as well. Their depth chart going
Speaker 1: into next year James Harden, Norman Palll, Terrence Man, Bones Highland,
Speaker 1: Chris Dunn, Josh Primo and Kevin Porter Junior at guard
Speaker 1: at Ford, Kawhi Leonard, PJ Tucker, Derek Jones Junior, Nick
Speaker 1: patom A Mere Coffee, and Kobe Brown, and then at
Speaker 1: center of y Kazubas, Kai Jones and Mobama. My guess
Speaker 1: is that their starting lineup is almost certainly going to
Speaker 1: include James Harden, Terrence Man, Kawhi Leonard, it A, Vikazubach.
Speaker 1: It really just comes down to who you're going to
Speaker 1: play at the three, and I look at two options there,
Speaker 1: either Nick Patum or Derek Jones. Derek Jones I think
Speaker 1: is a little bit better and more versatile defensively, I
Speaker 1: think Nick Patum is a better shooter and close out attacker.
Speaker 1: So it's going to really just be about, you know,
Speaker 1: if Kawhi Leonard's just really really damn healthy and Terrence
Speaker 1: Man is kicking ass at the point of attack, maybe
Speaker 1: Tyler leans more towards shooting and close out attacking at
Speaker 1: that position. But if they're struggling on defense, or if
Speaker 1: they want to keep Kawhi off ball as much as
Speaker 1: possible to save his legs, maybe they end up going
Speaker 1: with Derek Jones. We also never know with this kind
Speaker 1: of thing how much agent relationship played a role in
Speaker 1: terms of the contract, So it's very possible that there
Speaker 1: was a promise to play like like Derek Jones under
Speaker 1: the impression he's supposed to start per kind of the
Speaker 1: negotiation surrounding his contracts. So we'll see, but my guess
Speaker 1: is it'll be bitwo more Derek Jones playing at the three.
Speaker 1: We know on defense they will run drop coverage with Zubox,
Speaker 1: but they their preferred scheme under Tylus they want to switch,
Speaker 1: especially late game situations. That's what they just kind of
Speaker 1: go to as their as their kind of foundation. Defensively,
Speaker 1: they're really really athletic on the perimeter, not at the
Speaker 1: forward position like the big forwards, but like guys who
Speaker 1: are going to be guarding opposing twos and threes. You're
Speaker 1: not going to find many better defensive cores than what
Speaker 1: the Clippers have Terrence Man really good, Chris Donn really good,
Speaker 1: Derek Jones really good, Nick Batoom really good. They're gonna
Speaker 1: get after the basketball, They're gonna defend well at the
Speaker 1: point of attack, and that I think is going to
Speaker 1: allow them to be competitive over the course of the
Speaker 1: regular season. And that really is my main takeaway on
Speaker 1: the Clippers heading into this year. I think this is
Speaker 1: going to be a really good regular season team. They're
Speaker 1: younger and more athletic than you'd think, Like their shot
Speaker 1: creators are older, like James Harden's older, obviously, Kawhi Leonards older,
Speaker 1: Norman Powell as like a close out attacker shooter. He's older,
Speaker 1: he's thirty one now. PJ. Tucker's obviously really old. But
Speaker 1: all the other guys, all the other role players are
Speaker 1: relatively young, you know, Like there's a lot of guys
Speaker 1: in their mid to late twenties that are really good
Speaker 1: athletes on this roster. And when you combine that with
Speaker 1: I still think, you know, we have our question marks
Speaker 1: surrounding Kawhi and James Harden in the playoffs, right, Like,
Speaker 1: will James Harden be able to get separation and get
Speaker 1: to his shot against an elite defense, for multiple rounds. Like,
Speaker 1: we know how that story goes, well, Kawhi Leonards, knee
Speaker 1: hold up, we know how that story goes. However, James
Speaker 1: Harden is still one of the best regular season offensive
Speaker 1: engines in the league. He averaged seventeen points, five rebounds
Speaker 1: in nine assists a game last year. You know how
Speaker 1: many players averaged at least sixteen points and eight assists
Speaker 1: in the entire NBA last year ten ten guys, and
Speaker 1: Harden was one of them, while playing alongside two other
Speaker 1: bald domin it stars. Right, So, like, really impressive season there.
Speaker 1: Shot creation numbers were incredible. He's an eighty seventh percentile
Speaker 1: pick and roll player, eighty sixth percentile ISO player, both
Speaker 1: right around one point one points per possession, which is
Speaker 1: really good. So, like, I can count on James Harden
Speaker 1: as long as he's healthy and on the floor to
Speaker 1: be a really good regular season shot creator. That's gonna
Speaker 1: help you set a high floor for the offensive end
Speaker 1: of the floor. Right, Kawhi Leonard, we know he has
Speaker 1: his health issues, but aside from the year he missed
Speaker 1: the entire season, he plays fifty games at least, Like
Speaker 1: you're probably gonna get fifty games from Kawhi at about
Speaker 1: near MVP level, right. So, like with those two guys
Speaker 1: kind of raising the offensive floor and just all of
Speaker 1: the quick, feisty perimeter defenders that they have, I think
Speaker 1: that's just gonna lead to a high regular season output.
Speaker 1: And so again, whatever whatever your issues are with this
Speaker 1: team in the postseason, they they're gonna be a good
Speaker 1: regular season team in my opinion. They have depth of
Speaker 1: talent we've talked about. They've got shot creation as far
Speaker 1: as aggregate offensive skill that other these pieces that we
Speaker 1: talked about at the beginning of the show. Without Paul George,
Speaker 1: I'm a little worried about their shooting, but not so
Speaker 1: much with their like main players. It's more of a
Speaker 1: depth thing. I think, like if guys missed time in
Speaker 1: the regular season, they could be a little bit light
Speaker 1: on shooting. But then there's also multiple ways to provide spacing,
Speaker 1: like you can you can provide spacing driving closeouts too.
Speaker 1: Derek Jones Junior last year had a season where the
Speaker 1: shooting was somewhat inconsistent, but he was really good at
Speaker 1: like driving the slot, so like he'd catch on the wing.
Speaker 1: And again, there are a lot of like these baked
Speaker 1: in driving lanes in basketball, right, Like, if you're on
Speaker 1: the left wing and the balls on the right wing,
Speaker 1: and your defender's kind of towards the midline, and James
Speaker 1: Harden just throws a swing pass to Derek Jones and
Speaker 1: he immediately catches and rips to the left. There's a
Speaker 1: baked in driving lane there because his defender is sitting
Speaker 1: on his right shoulder like in the lane and closing
Speaker 1: out that way, And so Derek Jones provided spacing that way.
Speaker 1: So like, I'm not super worried about it, but I
Speaker 1: wouldn't say it's a strength on this team. They have
Speaker 1: a strong base defensive scheme, and the one knock I
Speaker 1: really have on them is their defensive versatility. This has
Speaker 1: been a consistent issue for the Clippers over the years.
Speaker 1: Whenever they do end up going switching, teams start to
Speaker 1: hunt their centers. When they start to go small, They're
Speaker 1: not nearly big enough in terms of the overall aggregate
Speaker 1: side of their lineup. So like, I'm not a big
Speaker 1: fan of the defensive versatility this unit, but that's more
Speaker 1: of a playoff issue anyway. So not a perfect team
Speaker 1: by any stretch. But like, without Paul George. There's not
Speaker 1: really a championship ceiling there, but I think they have
Speaker 1: a really strong regular season foundation, and I actually think
Speaker 1: they have a solid chance, even as a team that
Speaker 1: doesn't really have a chance to win the title, I
Speaker 1: think they have a solid chance to like stay out
Speaker 1: of the play in. Like if you told me the
Speaker 1: Clippers finished with the five seed this year, I would
Speaker 1: not be shocked, just with the sheer amount of regular
Speaker 1: season kind of engine, type of talent that they have.
Speaker 1: All Right, last team for today, number eighteen, the Miami
Speaker 1: Heat a team and that is more or less the
Speaker 1: same type of team they've been for the last few years.
Speaker 1: But we're going to talk about him a little bit.
Speaker 1: Off season recap. They lost Caleb Martin, they lost Patty Mills,
Speaker 1: Orlando Robinson, and Delon Wright. They added Alec Burks, who
Speaker 1: just came off of a nice little bench run with
Speaker 1: the New York Knicks in the postseason, Josh Christopher kalel Ware,
Speaker 1: a super athletic stretch five out of Indiana. And then
Speaker 1: just even though these guys may not play a lot
Speaker 1: this year, I want to shout out a couple of
Speaker 1: Arizona guys. I'm a Tucson guy So Pella Larson and
Speaker 1: Kashaw Johnson, two guys I really liked watching with Arizona,
Speaker 1: are on the team at least for training camp. Depth
Speaker 1: chart at guard Tyler Harrow, Terry Rozier, Josh Richardson, Alec Burks,
Speaker 1: Pella Larson at for Jimmy Butler, Duncan Robinson, Heywood high Smith,
Speaker 1: Jim Hawkes Junior. Shout out Jime. We did that interview
Speaker 1: earlier this summer. Nikola, Jovic, Keishaw Johnson, bam Out of Bayome,
Speaker 1: Kevin Love, kellel Ware and Thomas Bryant are your centers.
Speaker 1: So hard to know what to make of this team
Speaker 1: after last year. On the one hand, Jimmy gets hurt, right,
Speaker 1: so you can't take too much from the playoff run,
Speaker 1: and they stole a game in Boston classic Miami heat
Speaker 1: fashion right, just grind it out. But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: according to Cleaning the Glass, their core four guys Terry Rogier,
Speaker 1: Tyler Harrow, Jimmy Butler, and Bamata Byle. They played together
Speaker 1: two hundred and forty one possessions last years are roughly
Speaker 1: two and a half games two games ish in two
Speaker 1: hundred and forty one possessions. They got outscored by two
Speaker 1: point one points per one hundred possessions. According to Cleaning
Speaker 1: the Glass. That's bad on both ends if you remove
Speaker 1: Terry Rozier from the equation because he obviously came at
Speaker 1: a trade deadline deal. The Terry the uh Tyler, Harrow,
Speaker 1: Jimmy Butler bam At a bio trio played nine hundred
Speaker 1: and ninety three possessions and they were just plus three
Speaker 1: point eight net per one hundred posessions, which is fine,
Speaker 1: but it's not in the same stratosphere as the other
Speaker 1: cores around the conference, like the Knicks Jalen Brunson, Isaiah Hartenstein,
Speaker 1: og and ob eight hundred and seven nine possessions plus
Speaker 1: twenty seven net, plus twenty seven points per one hundred possessions.
Speaker 1: The Celtics Jalen Brown, Jason Tatum, Derek White twenty seven
Speaker 1: hundred and ten possessions plus nine points per one hundred
Speaker 1: possessions net. That's really really good. The Bucks Giannis Dame
Speaker 1: Chris Middleton sixteen hundred possessions plus sixteen nets. So like
Speaker 1: the top teams in the conference, when they have their
Speaker 1: main guys on the floor, they kick ass. The Miami
Speaker 1: Heat don't just another random middle of the pack Eastern
Speaker 1: Conference team like the Cleveland Cavaliers Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland,
Speaker 1: and Jared Allen eleven hundred and ninety possessions plus four
Speaker 1: point one net per one hundred possessions. So like even
Speaker 1: the Calves, who are just kind of a random middle
Speaker 1: of the pack standard team in the Eastern Conference, they don't.
Speaker 1: Even the Miami Heat can't, even with their core, match
Speaker 1: that level of production, which is major league concerning. Right,
Speaker 1: Jimmy just wasn't as good as he was last year.
Speaker 1: Bam does continue to make small strides as an offensive player,
Speaker 1: but he's still nowhere near as good as as he
Speaker 1: needs to be to be a real driver of high
Speaker 1: level offense. Right, Tyler Harrow is a pull up jump
Speaker 1: shooter who isn't particularly good at hitting pull up jump shots.
Speaker 1: He shot below forty percent on him last year, got
Speaker 1: to zero point nine to eight points per shot. Like,
Speaker 1: if you're a professional pull up jump shooter, you need
Speaker 1: to be over a point per shot. Tyler Harrow's not there.
Speaker 1: So the core just isn't as effective as it used
Speaker 1: to be. A little bit of a decline from Jimmy
Speaker 1: the other guy's not really havn't enough. We'll see what
Speaker 1: a full training camp with Terry Rozier can kind of
Speaker 1: do for them. Maybe it loosens things up for them
Speaker 1: on the offensive end. And I'm excited to see Bam
Speaker 1: maybe with some more two big looks. If kelll Ware
Speaker 1: and his ability to shoot and protect the rim kind
Speaker 1: of translate, you could see a version of the two
Speaker 1: of them playing together, which saw what that looks like,
Speaker 1: a much crazier version of it alongside Anthony Davis with
Speaker 1: Team USA. Right, But like we'll get I'm excited. There's
Speaker 1: some things that I'm really looking forward to seeing with Miami,
Speaker 1: but nothing that really drives for me a change in
Speaker 1: opinion of what this team is capable of. I wonder
Speaker 1: if they're a candidate for an aggressive and risky deal,
Speaker 1: like I have a talent ad type of deal, So
Speaker 1: like if someone like Zach Lavine or Brandon Ingram or
Speaker 1: Julius Randall got off to a good start, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be surprised if the Heat tried to make some sort
Speaker 1: of aggressive move like that. But there's not really much
Speaker 1: to get into with Miami. They're more or less the
Speaker 1: same basketball team that they've been for a few years now.
Speaker 1: The one real piece of optimism, like if I was
Speaker 1: trying to like talk myself into a more aggressive Miami take,
Speaker 1: what I'd say is last year they were fifth in defense,
Speaker 1: and now you're getting a full training camp to try
Speaker 1: to incorporate Terry Rose year, which will hopefully add more
Speaker 1: offensive upside. And then the last piece of optimism is
Speaker 1: Jimmy Butler. He had a bad year last year down
Speaker 1: the board, his numbers were down, he got hurt, missed
Speaker 1: the playoffs, and he's also more or less in a
Speaker 1: contract year, right, so like, maybe you just get this big,
Speaker 1: like fuck you bounce back season from Jimmy Butler, and
Speaker 1: maybe that could turn things around. But it's just it's tough.
Speaker 1: And the other thing is is the rest of the
Speaker 1: East is rapidly improving, right, Like, the Magic will be
Speaker 1: better this year than they were last year. The Pacers
Speaker 1: will be better this year than they were last year.
Speaker 1: The seventy six ers will be better this year than
Speaker 1: they were last year. So honestly, the mind Heat looked
Speaker 1: like a playing team to me again, but obviously they
Speaker 1: have the upside of a potential trade if they decide
Speaker 1: to get aggressive at some point during the season, but
Speaker 1: right now I have them at eighteen in my power rankings.
Speaker 1: All right, guys, that is all I have for Day one.
Speaker 1: We'll be back on Wednesday with three more teams. As always,
Speaker 1: I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show, and
Speaker 1: I'll see you guys then the volume. What's up guys?
Speaker 1: As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
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