Speaker 1: The Volume. All right, welcome to Hoops tonight. You're at
Speaker 1: the volume. Happy Wednesday, everybody. I hope all of you
Speaker 1: guys are having a great week so far. We are
Speaker 1: live on AMPS, so if you're watching on YouTube or
Speaker 1: listening on the podcast feeds, don't forget that AMP is
Speaker 1: the very first place that you guys can get these shows.
Speaker 1: We are continuing our top twenty five players the last
Speaker 1: twenty five years today with number eight the NBA's Ragning
Speaker 1: Finals MVP Nikola Jokis. We also have a couple of
Speaker 1: mail bag questions we're gonna be hitting off the top.
Speaker 1: You guys are the joke before we get started. Subscribe
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Speaker 1: Jason lt so you guys don't miss any show announcements.
Speaker 1: And for whatever reason you miss one of these videos
Speaker 1: and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish,
Speaker 1: don't forget you can find them wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Under Hoops tonight. Also, we're doing mail bag questions over
Speaker 1: the next couple of weeks, So any questions about absolutely
Speaker 1: anything drop in the YouTube comments and we'll be hitting
Speaker 1: them at the top of the show before we get
Speaker 1: into each player on the list. Also, lastly, it may
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Speaker 1: let's talk some basketball. So we have technically three mail
Speaker 1: back questions, but two of them are the same, so
Speaker 1: we're gonna hit those here. At the top. The second
Speaker 1: one actually is gonna be kind of part of the
Speaker 1: Nicola Jokic things. We're gonna get going to get into
Speaker 1: Jokic pretty quickly. But our first question is from kJ
Speaker 1: the Great, how do you feel about what Noah Lyles
Speaker 1: said about the NBA World Championship thing? Has probably saw
Speaker 1: this on social media over the course of the last
Speaker 1: couple of days. Trackstar says, basically doesn't understand why NBA
Speaker 1: teams refer to themselves as world champions. So I think
Speaker 1: this debate is incredibly dumb. Why because I don't see
Speaker 1: many people refer to NBA teams as world champions. Technically,
Speaker 1: I've seen it be done before. You'll see it sometimes
Speaker 1: on broadcasts. Right, It's definitely a saying that has been used.
Speaker 1: But it's not like Americans who win the NBA Championship
Speaker 1: are walking around being like, I'm a world champion. I'm
Speaker 1: a world champion. No one refers to themselves like that.
Speaker 1: The vast majority of NBA players, the vast majority of
Speaker 1: NBA discourse, refers to it as the NBA Championship or
Speaker 1: winning the title, or winning the championship. You don't say,
Speaker 1: Steph is a four times I'm world champion. You say
Speaker 1: Steph is a four time champion, a four time NBA champion.
Speaker 1: So to me, it's like getting mad about a problem
Speaker 1: that doesn't actually exist. But I do want to push
Speaker 1: back on a couple of different talking points that I've heard,
Speaker 1: because I've heard a lot of people say that the
Speaker 1: NBA is a domestic league. I don't necessarily think that's true.
Speaker 1: I mean, technically it is, but the NBA is a
Speaker 1: global sport. Three of the top five players in the
Speaker 1: NBA right now per my player rankings, are not Americans.
Speaker 1: A good portion of you guys who listen to the
Speaker 1: show are not Americans. The NBA does have a very
Speaker 1: big global appeal. Obviously, it is a domestic league in
Speaker 1: the most literal sense of the word because that's where
Speaker 1: the franchises are located, but all of the best basketball
Speaker 1: players in the world end up there. There's a massive
Speaker 1: chasm between the NBA and the second best professional league.
Speaker 1: It functions essentially as the top professional league in the world,
Speaker 1: and it has a great global appeal. It's one of
Speaker 1: the big reasons why I'm an NBA optimist about the
Speaker 1: future for the NBA. Even though the NFL kicks the
Speaker 1: shit out of the NBA and the television ratings every year.
Speaker 1: It's because it is appealing around the globe, and I
Speaker 1: do foresee a future for the NBA where it is
Speaker 1: much more of a global sport than it actually is.
Speaker 1: So again, like, yeah, I agree in principle with the
Speaker 1: idea that referring to them as world champions as a
Speaker 1: domestic league is not necessarily semantically correct. I also think
Speaker 1: it's important to acknowledge the NBA for what it is,
Speaker 1: which is a global professional sports league that appeals around
Speaker 1: the globe, that draws all the best players in the world,
Speaker 1: and for a sport in basketball that is very much
Speaker 1: a global game. And so I think that people are
Speaker 1: minimizing the NBA if they just simply refer to it
Speaker 1: as a domestic league, because I don't necessarily think that's true.
Speaker 1: All Right, we have two other mailbag questions that are
Speaker 1: very related to each other and also very related to
Speaker 1: today's player that we're ranking, Nicola Yoki. So we're gonna
Speaker 1: read the questions first and then we'll actually answer the
Speaker 1: question when we get further down the list. From Shabola,
Speaker 1: way do you the NBA has gone too far in
Speaker 1: the emphasis on skill players, for example, shooting from three
Speaker 1: as opposed to slashing, rim running and post play. And
Speaker 1: then secondly from Rowie to don. I understand you prefer
Speaker 1: to rank perimeter players separately from centers, but it just
Speaker 1: comes down to impact on winning. If you are a GM,
Speaker 1: who are you drafting first, Kobe or Duncan, Shack or
Speaker 1: Steph which player has the greatest impact on winning? Stop
Speaker 1: copping out by wanting two different lists. Rowe from the
Speaker 1: top rope. We're gonna talk about Nicola Jokic because in
Speaker 1: the early part of that segment, I have some stuff
Speaker 1: that I think is gonna help us answer both of
Speaker 1: those questions. So table that basically what I'm looking at
Speaker 1: there is why do I rank biggs and perimeter players separately?
Speaker 1: And is there a case to be made that the
Speaker 1: league is leaning too heavily into skill and not into
Speaker 1: size and strength and trying to physically impose your will
Speaker 1: on a basketball game. We're gonna get to that in
Speaker 1: a little bit. To start, though, Number eight and our
Speaker 1: top twenty five players the last twenty five years are
Speaker 1: raigning finals MVP Nicola Jokics, ez Accolades Best Player on
Speaker 1: a championship team in twenty twenty three, three time first
Speaker 1: Team All NBA, five time All NBA overall, back to
Speaker 1: back regular season MVPs in twenty twenty one, in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, and then he won the NBA Finals MVP
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three, really quick. For those people who
Speaker 1: wonder why have Giannis and Jokic so high even though
Speaker 1: they're so early in their careers and guys behind them
Speaker 1: that have these longer resumes, because Jannis and Jokic both
Speaker 1: had a definitive claim to be the best player in
Speaker 1: the world at one point in time, which when I
Speaker 1: get to guys like Dirk and KG, I'm just not
Speaker 1: sure that they ever had that type of case. Right, So,
Speaker 1: even though they have longer resumes with more sustained success,
Speaker 1: and even though they are champions, I think that Jannis
Speaker 1: and Jokic reached a higher echelon in terms of the
Speaker 1: way they were measured against their peers than those guys did.
Speaker 1: So that's why I have them as high as I do.
Speaker 1: Nikola Jokic's claim to fame, in my opinion, is he's
Speaker 1: the first center to be able to anchor a championship
Speaker 1: team in the modern era. So one of the big
Speaker 1: reasons why I value perimeterive players over centers typically this era,
Speaker 1: and one of the reasons why I rank them differently
Speaker 1: is I fundamentally view them as different positions. I would
Speaker 1: make it akin to a quarterback versus a running back, right,
Speaker 1: And maybe that's not a perfect example, but the point
Speaker 1: is is they fundamentally operate so differently within the offense
Speaker 1: that it doesn't make sense to compare a running back
Speaker 1: with a quarterback. The responsibilities on a basketball court that
Speaker 1: are fulfilled by a center are incredibly different than the
Speaker 1: responsibilities that are fulfilled by perimeter players. Largely, a perimeter
Speaker 1: player can bring the ball in from the back court
Speaker 1: and get to where he wants to on the floor
Speaker 1: without needing someone to feed him the basketball in a
Speaker 1: specific spot. Nikola Jokic is actually uniquely one of the
Speaker 1: few centers in NBA history who doesn't really need to
Speaker 1: be set up in his spots in order to be effective.
Speaker 1: He can get to wherever he needs to get because
Speaker 1: he is that nimble, because he sees the floor that well,
Speaker 1: because he dribbles the ball that well. But we did
Speaker 1: have an era where big men ruled the league, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about that right now. MJ was kind
Speaker 1: of like this weird perimeter player dominance in an era
Speaker 1: ruled by centers. Like if you look at the nineties,
Speaker 1: it's like Patrick ew and Karl Malone, Hu Kimolajouan, David
Speaker 1: Robinson to Kemy Matumbo. Into the early two thousands, Tim Duncan, Shack,
Speaker 1: Kevin Garnett, derk Nonvinski. These big guys ruled the league
Speaker 1: during those eras. As a matter of fact, we had
Speaker 1: a championship team anchored by a power forwarder center in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four with a Kimo LaJuan, nineteen ninety five
Speaker 1: with the Kima Ladjuan, nineteen ninety nine with Tim Duncan,
Speaker 1: two thousand with Shaq, two thousand and two with Shack,
Speaker 1: two thousand and three with Duncan, two thousand and five
Speaker 1: with Duncan, two thousand and seven with Duncan, in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight with Kevin Garnett. In a fifteen year span,
Speaker 1: the team that hoisted the trophy was anchored by the
Speaker 1: best player being a big man ten times in fifteen years.
Speaker 1: So in that era, the center was the most valuable
Speaker 1: archetype of player, and you saw that in the results.
Speaker 1: But then the league changed. The league got smaller, the
Speaker 1: league got faster. There's a lot more pace to the game,
Speaker 1: there's a lot more spacing the floor and having to
Speaker 1: cover a lot of ground, and as a result, slower
Speaker 1: plotting players started to have a lot less success in
Speaker 1: the NBA, and you saw that in that following era
Speaker 1: after that two thousand and nine best player on the
Speaker 1: Champions team Kobe twenty ten, Kobe twenty eleven, Dirk, there's
Speaker 1: your outlier, twenty twelve, Lebron, twenty thirteen, Lebron, twenty fourteen Duncan,
Speaker 1: But again he wasn't really a superstar player at that point.
Speaker 1: Tony Parker and Kawhi leond are equally or were similarly
Speaker 1: important to that team twenty fifteen, Steph Curry, twenty sixteen, Lebron,
Speaker 1: James twenty seventeen, KD twenty eighteen, KD twenty nineteen, Kawhi
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, Lebron, twenty twenty one, Yannis, who I consider
Speaker 1: to be a perimeter player in twenty twenty two, Steph Right,
Speaker 1: So we had a fourteen year span or only twice
Speaker 1: did we see a big man anchor a championship team,
Speaker 1: and the dark Noviski team in twenty eleven was anchored
Speaker 1: by Tyson Chandler as an athletic center who fits more
Speaker 1: of a modern center role mold right, and dark Novitski
Speaker 1: effectively was just an isolation scorer on that team, a
Speaker 1: post up score. He was a tip of a spear,
Speaker 1: and then in twenty fourteen dunk In. The gap between
Speaker 1: him and the other players on his team was remarkably small.
Speaker 1: So we didn't have for a fourteen year span, we
Speaker 1: didn't have a single physically dominant big man lead a
Speaker 1: team to a championship. And you guys know how I
Speaker 1: evaluate the game of basketball. I'd responded to new information right,
Speaker 1: and so like you guys, notice I had last year
Speaker 1: in my player rankings, I had Jokic at seven and
Speaker 1: mb to eight. That's why, because I was looking at
Speaker 1: modern NBA history, a decade and a half sample where
Speaker 1: big guys just didn't win. They just didn't. The perimeter
Speaker 1: players won, and the league had shifted through pace and
Speaker 1: through spacing, drive and kick, tons of movement required by
Speaker 1: the players on the floor had shifted towards perimeter players
Speaker 1: and having a guy who could initiate your offense from
Speaker 1: a perimeter at a higher level than all of his
Speaker 1: peers was actually the best way to go about winning championships.
Speaker 1: I do fundamentally see those two archetypes as different, and
Speaker 1: so I like, for me personally, that's why I rank
Speaker 1: them differently. Now to mister Rowie, the guy who laid
Speaker 1: down the criticism there, I agree with your larger point,
Speaker 1: which is who contributes most to winning, like it shouldn't
Speaker 1: matter what position, And you're right, and there are football
Speaker 1: teams in NFL history where the running back contributed more
Speaker 1: to winning than their quarterback did. But in this particular era,
Speaker 1: it's extremely rare for a big man to have impact
Speaker 1: on winning the way that big men did during the
Speaker 1: decade and a half prior. But that's what makes Yok
Speaker 1: it's so interesting. He literally reversed that trend by dominating
Speaker 1: regular seasons for a few years and then proving that
Speaker 1: a slower footed center could succeed in an NBA championship. Right, So,
Speaker 1: like as we look at NBA history, there are these partitions,
Speaker 1: there are eras as the game has changed, and so
Speaker 1: I do think that those two archetypes do matter and
Speaker 1: we have seen as the NBA has shifted different archetypes,
Speaker 1: rule different eras in this era. Right now, I tend
Speaker 1: to lean towards perimeter players. Maybe Jokic ends up being
Speaker 1: the blip. Maybe he ends up being a trend. We
Speaker 1: don't know. Now, I would argue personally that Jokic's unique
Speaker 1: capabilities as a perimeter player are what allowed him to
Speaker 1: be the first center to reverse that trend. How did
Speaker 1: Yokic dominate this playoff run by being completely unguardable offensively?
Speaker 1: How is he completely unguardable offensively by basically being the
Speaker 1: offensive folkrum of the team in two man games, starting
Speaker 1: from the perimeter with Jamal Murray and by making plays
Speaker 1: out of the post. But in many cases he's bringing
Speaker 1: the ball up the floor. In many cases, he's the
Speaker 1: one making most of the decisions. It's not like dumping
Speaker 1: the ball down to Tim Duncan on the block. It's
Speaker 1: fundamentally different. He operates functionally like a point guard for
Speaker 1: the team. And so I would argue it's more Nikola
Speaker 1: Jokic's ability to do both to be a perimeter player
Speaker 1: and be the center that has allowed him to break
Speaker 1: that mold. And I do think the league is going
Speaker 1: to continue to favor perimeter players, including perimeter players like
Speaker 1: Jokic as we kind of move into the future here
Speaker 1: now to the second mail back question, the idea that
Speaker 1: you know, are we leaning too heavily on skill? The
Speaker 1: reality is is it doesn't matter whether or not you're
Speaker 1: a skilled team or a physical, physically imposing team, or
Speaker 1: some combination of the both. It's how good are you
Speaker 1: at them. We think about the the statement styles make
Speaker 1: fights right, which essentially means like matchups matter right. But
Speaker 1: to me, I've always looked at it differently. It's not
Speaker 1: about the styles that make the fights, it's which style
Speaker 1: wins the fight. If a big strong team plays an
Speaker 1: overly skilled team, but the overly skilled team is more skilled,
Speaker 1: then the big strong team is good at being big,
Speaker 1: then the skilled team will win. But if the big
Speaker 1: strong team is better at physically imposing their will on games,
Speaker 1: then the skilled team is capable of using their skill
Speaker 1: to impose their will on games, then the big team
Speaker 1: is going to win. And we've seen that recent NBA history.
Speaker 1: We've got the Warriors teams from like twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, they were not physically imposing team, but they
Speaker 1: won with skill, and then they defended at an extremely
Speaker 1: high level, but not in terms of physicality but just
Speaker 1: work and rotations and guys like Klay Thompson and Steph
Speaker 1: Curry committing to the defensive end and containing at the
Speaker 1: point of attack. They weren't bullying teams. But then we
Speaker 1: go into this era where big teams kind of rule, right,
Speaker 1: Like the twenty twenty Lakers were huge, the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: one Bucks were huge, the twenty twenty three Nuggets were huge.
Speaker 1: But when you have this random team in there in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two with the Warriors that was relatively small
Speaker 1: and killed teams with high level skill. So like, the
Speaker 1: reality is is the question is not whether or not
Speaker 1: a team is leaning into the wrong thing. It's you
Speaker 1: should lean into what you're good at. Like, if you're
Speaker 1: a team that has a ton of size, lean into
Speaker 1: that as your archetype. If you have a team that
Speaker 1: has a lot of skill, lean into that as your archetype.
Speaker 1: And if you are an extremely skilled team, I believe
Speaker 1: you can win with skill. And if you are an
Speaker 1: extremely big, physically imposing team, I think you can win
Speaker 1: with that. So hopefully that answers that particular question. Now.
Speaker 1: Nikole Yokic's archetype six to eleven center with seven to
Speaker 1: three wingspan, two hundred and eighty four pounds, big dude,
Speaker 1: super nimble, has some of the best footwork I've ever
Speaker 1: seen from a big man in terms of just being
Speaker 1: sharp with his pivot foot and not traveling, getting to
Speaker 1: his spots without getting bumped off of his base, outrageous
Speaker 1: hand eye coordination. I actually think it's safe to say
Speaker 1: at this point that no big man has ever demonstrated
Speaker 1: better touch on short range push shots, floaters, and hook
Speaker 1: shots than Nikole Jokic has. He's one of two players
Speaker 1: in the NBA that I currently consider to be unguardable.
Speaker 1: There isn't a single NBA center that has demonstrated the
Speaker 1: ability to consistently make Yokic look uncomfortable in single coverage.
Speaker 1: Even guys like Rudy Gobert and Raymond Green and Anthony Davis.
Speaker 1: They might get a block every once in a while
Speaker 1: or steal every once in a while. They might make
Speaker 1: some plays, but in a large sample size, Jokic is
Speaker 1: going to get comfortable in single coverage against those guys.
Speaker 1: So if you leave Nikol Jokic in single coverage, he's
Speaker 1: gonna score two out of three times in two man
Speaker 1: game if you stay glued up to Jokic. He's such
Speaker 1: a damn good screener that Jamal Murray's gonna come off
Speaker 1: and get a wide open pull up jump shot. If
Speaker 1: you guard it in a traditional drop coverage, you're going
Speaker 1: to give up a pocket pass to Nikole Jokic and
Speaker 1: he's gonna make that floater two out of three times.
Speaker 1: So you have to send multiple defenders against him. In
Speaker 1: post up situations. You have to guard pick and rolls
Speaker 1: three on two, and he happens to be one of
Speaker 1: the best passers in the league with outstanding shooting on
Speaker 1: the back end to make you pay consistently. He is
Speaker 1: fundamentally unguardable. There is no answer. You have to either
Speaker 1: choose to get killed in two on two and one
Speaker 1: on one coverage or to leave his teammates open and
Speaker 1: let him beat you from three. The only way is
Speaker 1: to try to outscore him them by punishing Jokic on
Speaker 1: the other end for his slow footedness. Right, But the
Speaker 1: problem is is he's worked really, really hard in his
Speaker 1: career to kind of mitigate those issues, like he what
Speaker 1: are the things that I've talked about this on the
Speaker 1: show before, but like, why do I think slow footage
Speaker 1: centers struggle in the NBA? Transition pace, getting up and
Speaker 1: down the floor, guarding in space when teams space you
Speaker 1: out Right, those are the two big reasons that I
Speaker 1: had that big men struggle typically in the modern NBA.
Speaker 1: But as we look closer at it, like Yo Kitsch
Speaker 1: is actually one of the best transition bigs in the league.
Speaker 1: The dude just sprints every time he has, every time
Speaker 1: he needs to, and he's he the fastest sprinter in
Speaker 1: the world. No, but when he sprints consistently, he's gonna
Speaker 1: mitigate most of the transition damage that you could do.
Speaker 1: And I'd even take it a step further. Yo Kitch's
Speaker 1: transition sprinting is actually starting to cause problems for his
Speaker 1: for the people he's going against who don't run the floor,
Speaker 1: which is a lot of the bigs in the NBA.
Speaker 1: And then they've just found a way to guard with
Speaker 1: him and pick and roll. They were like, Hey, if
Speaker 1: we're gonna use you at the level of the screen,
Speaker 1: you got to active hands so that you can make
Speaker 1: things a little more difficult to pass out of, so
Speaker 1: that we can have a better chance to rotate on
Speaker 1: the back end. Right, That's what he's done. He's worked
Speaker 1: really hard to be an active high pick and roll
Speaker 1: defender with his hands, getting hands on pocket passes, deflecting
Speaker 1: or making harder skip passes. He's turned himself into an
Speaker 1: average defensive player, which is mitigated damage done on that end,
Speaker 1: which has made it so that his offensive gifts can
Speaker 1: rise to the surface, right, and so now it's even
Speaker 1: harder than ever to try to outscore them on the
Speaker 1: other end of the floor. Crowning achievement for Nikola Jokiz
Speaker 1: was winning the twenty twenty three NBA Championship. Averaged thirty
Speaker 1: points fourteen rebounds in tennis sists on sixty three percent
Speaker 1: tru shooting, made two threes per game on forty six
Speaker 1: percent shooting. Again, this was a perimeter player. Guys is
Speaker 1: a perimeter player functionally operating as a center. He lit
Speaker 1: up Rudy Gobert in the first round, lit up DeAndre
Speaker 1: eight and in the second round, lit up Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: in the third round, lit up bam Adebayo in the
Speaker 1: fourth round. Legitimately, three of the top five defenders at
Speaker 1: his position, and none of them could do anything to
Speaker 1: stop him. And the Nuggets never even felt like they
Speaker 1: were remotely were remotely in danger. Even when Phoenix got
Speaker 1: it to two to two, you just knew they were
Speaker 1: gonna get their ass kicked in five and six, and
Speaker 1: they did. He left absolutely no doubt. Not only did
Speaker 1: he clearly demonstrate that he's the best basketball player alive,
Speaker 1: he reversed too seemingly unbreakable NBA trends. One again, a
Speaker 1: fourteen year span where we did not have like a legitimate,
Speaker 1: bonafide superstar center leading a team to an NBA championship
Speaker 1: fourteen years in a row. He broke that trend. And
Speaker 1: then it had literally been decades since a non defending
Speaker 1: champion who wasn't a top ten defense won an NBA championship,
Speaker 1: and he broke that trend as well. So not only
Speaker 1: is he the best player in the world, but he's
Speaker 1: shattering what our established norms are in the NBA. The
Speaker 1: biggest one if Nikola Jokic's career, in my opinion, is
Speaker 1: what if Jamal Murray did not tear his ACL in
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty one season. Jokic was playing at a
Speaker 1: similar level in those two years and just didn't have
Speaker 1: the talent necessary to push teams over the top. Twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, in particular, was a wide open year. That's
Speaker 1: a year they could have got it. Twenty twenty two
Speaker 1: they were super competitive with the Warriors, obviously, just lacked
Speaker 1: that top end talent, especially in late game situations. It's
Speaker 1: very possible that we could be a lot further along
Speaker 1: in the Jokic further along in the Jokic train, had
Speaker 1: he had some better luck with his teammate in his
Speaker 1: acl All right, guys, that is all I have for today.
Speaker 1: We will be back tomorrow with number seven. As always.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you guys, and we will see you then.
Speaker 1: The volume