Speaker 1: The volume. All right, we'll go to him tonight here
Speaker 1: at the volume Heavy Friday, everybody hope. Well, if you
Speaker 1: guys have had an incredible week, it is mailbag Day.
Speaker 1: We've got a lot of good stuff to get into
Speaker 1: from around the league, and as promised, we're recording this
Speaker 1: on Thursday. I wanted to give some quick thoughts on
Speaker 1: the Nugget Celtics game and the Bucks Warriors games from
Speaker 1: Wednesday night as well. We'll lead with that. Then we
Speaker 1: got about ten mailbag questions from throughout the week. Very
Speaker 1: excited to get into it with you guys. You guys
Speaker 1: know the job before we get started. To subscribe to
Speaker 1: our YouTube channels. You don't miss any any more of
Speaker 1: our videos like this video. That helps us a lot.
Speaker 1: And if you want to get questions into our future
Speaker 1: mail bags in our full episodes on YouTube inn YouTube
Speaker 1: comments right mail bag with the colon, write your question,
Speaker 1: we'll get to them on Fridays throughout the rest of
Speaker 1: the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So again,
Speaker 1: as promised, quick thoughts on those couple other games from Wednesday.
Speaker 1: One of the things important about our recording cadence, It's
Speaker 1: very important to me that we get our videos out
Speaker 1: early in the day. With our daily kind of cadence,
Speaker 1: you know, if you release a video in the afternoon
Speaker 1: like we used to do a few years ago, you know,
Speaker 1: there's games that are tipping off at four o'clock Pacific time,
Speaker 1: and it's just the cadence of the league is so fast.
Speaker 1: It's very important that I get our reaction videos out
Speaker 1: early in the morning. And it just is tough when
Speaker 1: you've got a night like Wednesday night, where there's quite
Speaker 1: literally a half dozen awesome games and I can't get
Speaker 1: to all of them. But I wanted to get to
Speaker 1: a couple more of these, So I figure to push
Speaker 1: him into our mailbag show for Friday, especially with how
Speaker 1: week the Thursday night slate was so Nuggets Celtics. We
Speaker 1: had talked about after the right after the Okach injury happened,
Speaker 1: that there was going to be a formula for the
Speaker 1: Nuggets to lean on if they wanted to win without Jokic,
Speaker 1: and I said it would be leaning heavily into defense
Speaker 1: and then Jamal Murray essentially trying to bring you home
Speaker 1: in crunch time as long as you can keep games close.
Speaker 1: And so I expected David Adelman to lean heavily or
Speaker 1: on more of his athletes to go smaller and to
Speaker 1: heavily emphasize in terms of his accountability the defensive end
Speaker 1: of the floor, because that's something they can control during
Speaker 1: this stretch without Nicola, and again once you get games close,
Speaker 1: Jamal Murray is an All Star, maybe even an All
Speaker 1: NBA candidate. He's the kind of guy who can pull
Speaker 1: you home in those sorts of instances. And we saw
Speaker 1: a very good example of that in the win in
Speaker 1: Toronto and then another one on Wednesday night in Boston
Speaker 1: against a red hot Boston Celtics offense. I cannot say
Speaker 1: enough about how good Zeke Nausey has been in these
Speaker 1: couple of wins. He was one of the heroes in
Speaker 1: that big win in Philly when even Jamal Murray was out.
Speaker 1: He was a hero again last night. He gave them
Speaker 1: the ability to stay kind of, you know, big and
Speaker 1: physically imposing in their small ball looks, but also keeping
Speaker 1: their switch ability, and that was really the story of
Speaker 1: the game against Boston. The Nuggets did a wonderful job
Speaker 1: of communicating and switching through Boston's actions, which prevented the
Speaker 1: easy catch and shoot threes that can come out of
Speaker 1: those screening actions allow guys to work easily downhill. In
Speaker 1: ball screens, you're gonna have to help. That's gonna create
Speaker 1: easy kickouts. If you don't switch guard guard screens and
Speaker 1: three man action out at the top of the key,
Speaker 1: guys are gonna slip out and get wide open threes.
Speaker 1: And especially in that fourth quarter run, I thought they
Speaker 1: just did an amazing job taking away any of the
Speaker 1: easy catch and shoot looks that Boston can generate in
Speaker 1: their offense, and then a lot of really high quality
Speaker 1: one on one possessions against Jalen Brown Jamal Murray held
Speaker 1: up a few times, you got like Peyton Watson stripping
Speaker 1: him on a steal, Zeke Naji coming over and blocking
Speaker 1: him at the rim. The Celtics did not get many
Speaker 1: quality looks in that fourth quarter. Again, that's a red
Speaker 1: hot Celtics offense. They had an offensive rating north of
Speaker 1: one twenty five over the last few weeks, and the
Speaker 1: Nuggets pretty much kept them under control, especially down the
Speaker 1: stretch of that game, and then late in the game
Speaker 1: on offense, just surgical shot creation from John Murray Jamal Murray,
Speaker 1: who again like he deserves consideration for all NBA. With
Speaker 1: the level that he's been playing at this season, he's
Speaker 1: just been completely amazing. They kept running him off of
Speaker 1: these like double wide pin downs out of the right corner,
Speaker 1: and essentially he was dragging Boston's bigs out to the
Speaker 1: perimeter as he was kind of coming off of that action.
Speaker 1: And so essentially if the big ended up meeting him
Speaker 1: on a switch on the other side of the screen,
Speaker 1: he would, you know, like Luca Garza would show and
Speaker 1: Jamal Murray would just hit a quick little step back
Speaker 1: jumper on him, or if they brought two to the ball,
Speaker 1: so they're chasing and they have Luca up there. He
Speaker 1: was just hitting Zeke nausey over and over again rolling
Speaker 1: to the basket, and Zeke did a wonderful job throughout
Speaker 1: this game of finishing around the rim or drawing fouls
Speaker 1: on those rolls off of Jamal Murray. And then a
Speaker 1: couple of big plays late where Boston naturally, what's the
Speaker 1: progression there? If you're going to show on Jamal Murray
Speaker 1: at the level and you're going to tag the roller,
Speaker 1: what's the next progression? It's the kickouts to the three
Speaker 1: point line and a couple of big shots Jalen Pickett
Speaker 1: hits a little wonderable pull up off of one of
Speaker 1: those sequences, and then Jamal makes a beautiful skip pass
Speaker 1: to the left corner where Peyton Watson hit three that
Speaker 1: pushes the lead up to thirteen and essentially closes the
Speaker 1: deal from there. Just a really, really impressive win for
Speaker 1: the Nuggets. Now three wins without Nikola Jokics. The Warriors game,
Speaker 1: massive game for the Warriors half court offense. They posted
Speaker 1: a one to seventeen offensive rating and the half court
Speaker 1: according to Cleaning the Glass in that in that win
Speaker 1: against Milwaukee, I thought Steph did an awesome job of
Speaker 1: working the mid range in this game, especially with the
Speaker 1: way Milwaukee was kind of chasing him aggressively over the
Speaker 1: top of screens and essentially funneling him into the middle
Speaker 1: of the floor. They were spamming this play in the
Speaker 1: third quarter where they were basically running him off of
Speaker 1: a wide pin down out of the right corner, and
Speaker 1: he just kept curling right into that kind of right
Speaker 1: elbow extended area, and he'd hit a little float or
Speaker 1: bank shot, he'd did a little jump shot, he'd you know,
Speaker 1: draw foul in that space. Did a ton of damage there,
Speaker 1: a couple of their shooters are starting to get going.
Speaker 1: Moses Moody and d Anthony Melton in particular, both got
Speaker 1: hot from three in this game. I also thought the
Speaker 1: offensive glass was a massive factor. They only got eight
Speaker 1: offensive rebounds, but they scored on damn near every single
Speaker 1: one of them. There were twenty two to four second
Speaker 1: chance points advantage for Golden State. Little things like Steph
Speaker 1: missing a three off the top of the key, kind
Speaker 1: of coming off of a ball screen, and then offensive
Speaker 1: rebound kick out there it is another look from the
Speaker 1: left wing. He knocks it down, just turning misses into
Speaker 1: makes with their offensive rebounding. And then lastly, I thought
Speaker 1: Draymond got several key stops on an island against Giannis
Speaker 1: in the middle of the paint during that third quarter run.
Speaker 1: Draymond has been very good since his blow up with
Speaker 1: Steve Kerr where he left the court. I think that's
Speaker 1: the kind of thing where confrontation can be good because
Speaker 1: it's how you hold people accountable. And I think Draymond
Speaker 1: need a little bit of a wake up call, especially
Speaker 1: just with how sloppy he had been. And I think
Speaker 1: that blow up with Steve Kerr actually helped get him
Speaker 1: back on track. He's been very good as of Lake.
Speaker 1: I think the Warriors are gaining some real momentum. Al
Speaker 1: Horford looked great again in the Wednesday night game. If
Speaker 1: they can just stop losing games in the final seconds
Speaker 1: and horrifying fashion, I think they have real opportunity here
Speaker 1: to make a run in the second half of the season.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get into our mail bag. First question,
Speaker 1: This was an interesting one that I got the other day,
Speaker 1: and I think it's worth diving into. Jason, longtime fan
Speaker 1: of the show. Before the season, you said the Hawks
Speaker 1: would be a case study for your basketball philosophy and
Speaker 1: what their performance this year would either validate or invalidate
Speaker 1: your perspective. So my question is, at has Atlanta season
Speaker 1: so far changed your mind in anyway. This's a two
Speaker 1: part question, and I'm going to get to the first
Speaker 1: part first. So this is complicated because Atlanta season is
Speaker 1: really strange, because my belief in Atlanta stem from the
Speaker 1: idea that you would have this combination of rim protection
Speaker 1: with chrisps porzingis a depth of athletes around Chris Soops
Speaker 1: that would make it so Christops didn't have to come
Speaker 1: out to the perimeter, but that he could stay back
Speaker 1: and you'd have you know, Dyson Daniels and Nikhil Alexander
Speaker 1: Walker and Jalen Johnson and Zachary Rissasche and all these
Speaker 1: athletes and around him basically doing all the dirty works
Speaker 1: so that Trey Young can focus on setting the table
Speaker 1: as an advantage creator and chrisps Porzingis could function as
Speaker 1: like a switch beater slash rim protector. And there, frankly,
Speaker 1: have been a lot of things that have gone wrong.
Speaker 1: I think that you dig into the Porzingis piece. He
Speaker 1: hasn't been healthy. That fundamentally makes it so that you
Speaker 1: can't make as many mistakes on the perimeter because you
Speaker 1: don't have the level of rim protection that you have
Speaker 1: when chrisops Porzingis is sitting back like that. Right two,
Speaker 1: I don't think the Wings have been as good defensively
Speaker 1: as they've needed to be, particularly Zachary rissashean Jalen Johnson.
Speaker 1: I think the two of them have been actually pretty
Speaker 1: disappointing on defense this year. And so when you have
Speaker 1: a less effective group of perimeter defenders and the lack
Speaker 1: of rimp protection, that's been kind of doomed for their defense.
Speaker 1: They've had games like, especially without Trey Young, where they
Speaker 1: get up into the ball and they force a lot
Speaker 1: of turnovers and then they're just devastating in transition and
Speaker 1: they're doing a lot of work on the margins like that,
Speaker 1: and I think some of that has been some proof
Speaker 1: of concept, like the fact that they're above five hundred
Speaker 1: without Trey Young and with chrisops Porzingis being out as
Speaker 1: much as they've had as they've been is certainly something.
Speaker 1: It's not like super impressive, but it's something. And then
Speaker 1: the last piece of it, whenever Trey Young was available,
Speaker 1: they just as a team didn't defend, and Trey deserves
Speaker 1: some blame for that, but as a team, they didn't defend.
Speaker 1: And so you know, it's it's tricky because I would
Speaker 1: argue that my basketball philosophy, what you're referencing, specifically, the
Speaker 1: idea of having a bunch of athletes that can dribble,
Speaker 1: shoot and pass, that can get up into the ball,
Speaker 1: that can switch onto multiple multiple positions, that can run
Speaker 1: the floor and transition and generate advantages before you get
Speaker 1: into half court situations. All those things I still believe in.
Speaker 1: I just think the Atlanta Hawks have been have had
Speaker 1: several things go against them. Chris Hops being hurt, that's
Speaker 1: a huge factor. Jalen Johnson and Zachary Ussachet not being
Speaker 1: very good on defense. That's a big factor, right, And
Speaker 1: Trey Young being a combination of unhealthy and then one
Speaker 1: he has been healthy, the team not playing well. It's
Speaker 1: just been an unfortunate mix of events. So, like, I
Speaker 1: think where I would to your point, to your question,
Speaker 1: where I would have to, like more seriously consider the
Speaker 1: basketball basketball philosophy piece would be if Trey Young and
Speaker 1: krisops Porzingis had played in most of the games and
Speaker 1: the team was still below five hundred. I think that's
Speaker 1: where I'd have to take a bigger look at it.
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Speaker 1: and conditions Part two. When I've disagreed with you over
Speaker 1: the years, it usually comes down to the idea that
Speaker 1: I think you put too much value on the marginal
Speaker 1: advantage players have in surgical half court execution, and that
Speaker 1: you do so at the expense of general two way
Speaker 1: versatility and impact. So the second question is do you
Speaker 1: think there's any credence to the idea that you and
Speaker 1: or the general hoop community have undervalued two way versatility
Speaker 1: and impact. I have not changed my opinion on this
Speaker 1: at all. I think Nikola Jokic has clearly been head
Speaker 1: and shoulders better than the rest of the league, and
Speaker 1: he's your textbook half court surgeon type of dude who
Speaker 1: has defensive limitations, but that finds a way to compete
Speaker 1: defensively within a scheme alongside other smart, high IQ defenders.
Speaker 1: I think that for all of the talk we want
Speaker 1: to talk about with Luca and whether or not he
Speaker 1: can succeed at the highest highest levels of the NBA,
Speaker 1: that's all fair. You know what happened to him in
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty four finals against Boston. That's a completely
Speaker 1: fair criticism of Luka Doncicic. But the bottom line is
Speaker 1: they wake up today with the damn good record and
Speaker 1: at like what the fifth best record in the NBA,
Speaker 1: and a big part of that is because of how
Speaker 1: good their half court offense has been, especially in crunch time,
Speaker 1: and Luka Doncic has been the driving force behind that.
Speaker 1: And so I think the bigger point that you're making
Speaker 1: about the half court execution piece and set it aside,
Speaker 1: do we value general two way versatility and impact enough?
Speaker 1: I think that's a good question. I think that really
Speaker 1: comes down to more of the team concept, though, I
Speaker 1: think that if the ultimate not to be too reductive here,
Speaker 1: but the ultimate goal of a basketball team is to
Speaker 1: score more points than your opponent, right, and so on
Speaker 1: our very basic level, like if you're built the way
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City is and you're gonna get a shit ton
Speaker 1: of stops, I think you can have a team that's
Speaker 1: built less around refined offensive skill. If you have a
Speaker 1: team like the twenty twenty three Denver Nuggets who's built
Speaker 1: around refined offensive skill, I think you can get away
Speaker 1: with a little bit less in terms of defensive personnel. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: you're building a checklist. Like if you think of what
Speaker 1: happens on both ends of the floor as like a
Speaker 1: bunch of boxes you have to check, right, and the
Speaker 1: more boxes you check on both ends of the floor,
Speaker 1: the better team you are, right, And so if you
Speaker 1: have a player that can check a ton of boxes,
Speaker 1: that's certainly valuable. Right. So's take a guy like Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis for example, Like he can check the rim protection
Speaker 1: box and the defensive rebounding box, and then if you
Speaker 1: go to the offensive end of the four, you can
Speaker 1: check an offensive rebounding box. He can check a ball
Speaker 1: screen threat box where he has the ability to do
Speaker 1: damage in the short roll and as a vertical spacer.
Speaker 1: There's things he can check like that. But there's one
Speaker 1: giant box that he can't check, and that's like breaking
Speaker 1: down elite defense. When there's an elite defense in front
Speaker 1: of him, Anthony Davis ain't gonna be the guy that
Speaker 1: breaks down that defense. That's a pretty gaping flaw for
Speaker 1: a team that's trying to win a championship. When I'm
Speaker 1: building a roster and I have that guy. I have
Speaker 1: a guy that like this dude can break down elite
Speaker 1: defense at the highest level. Obviously, I feel like I
Speaker 1: can go around and find a guy that can get
Speaker 1: defensive rebounds. I can find a guy that can dunk
Speaker 1: a lob as he's rolling hard down the lane. I
Speaker 1: can find a guy that can protect the rim a
Speaker 1: little bit. I can find guys who can defend on
Speaker 1: the permitive. Those are easier to find than the dude
Speaker 1: who can break the defense down. Now, the last kind
Speaker 1: of thing I would say is to a guy like
Speaker 1: Jason Tatum. So coming into the season, I would have
Speaker 1: ranked him as the fifth best player in the NBA
Speaker 1: if not for his injury. Ideally, if you have a
Speaker 1: player that can anchor a defense the way that Jason
Speaker 1: Tatum can, that can anchor defensive glass the way that
Speaker 1: Jason Tatum can, that also brings some ability to break
Speaker 1: the defense down as an offensive player on the other
Speaker 1: end of the floor. There's a ton of value there,
Speaker 1: and I think that's a big part of why like
Speaker 1: Jason Tatum, despite not necessarily being the most efficient half
Speaker 1: court surgeon type of guy in the league, I was
Speaker 1: viewing him as a legitimate top tier superstar in this
Speaker 1: league before his injury because of his all around versatility.
Speaker 1: In short, it's all an aggregate combination of all of
Speaker 1: these abilities. I just still think fundamentally the hardest trait
Speaker 1: to find in the NBA is can you break down
Speaker 1: elite defense? And that's why I look at that as
Speaker 1: such a valuable trait. As Oklahoma City leaves corner shooters open,
Speaker 1: sometimes they get rich, the teams get really hot. I
Speaker 1: know it's their identity, but I feel like, when Jordan
Speaker 1: Goodwin makes eight corner threes, maybe it's time to change
Speaker 1: it up. It's happened multiple times this season, and Diagnault
Speaker 1: sticks with the same scheme, so with Oklahoma City. And
Speaker 1: this is an important detail. When you're looking at margin hunting.
Speaker 1: For the most part, it's not just that specific margin
Speaker 1: in a vacuum that you're looking at. You're looking at
Speaker 1: how all of these things are intricate, intricately connected. So
Speaker 1: for example, if you are let's just take offensive rebounding
Speaker 1: for example, it used to be that the interpretation was
Speaker 1: if you crash the offensive glass, you make yourself vulnerable
Speaker 1: and transition defense. But then as teams started to look
Speaker 1: at it in a more refined way. They're like, well,
Speaker 1: if we crash the offensive glass from the corners and
Speaker 1: we just have them run to the elbows, just classic
Speaker 1: corner crash. When they run to the elbows, the long
Speaker 1: rebound is going to come up off from a miss
Speaker 1: three and they have a high opportunity to get it.
Speaker 1: If they don't get it, two things happen. One, those
Speaker 1: guys out of the corners are always already running, so
Speaker 1: they can take that momentum, oh we didn't get the ball,
Speaker 1: wheel back into transition defense. And two, if I crash
Speaker 1: to the elbow and I don't get the ball and
Speaker 1: on the primary point of attack defender, I can quick
Speaker 1: turn and pick up the basketball. Meaning like, let's say
Speaker 1: the other team's big gets the ball on a long
Speaker 1: rebound up around the elbow, and he dumps it to
Speaker 1: the point guard right around the block, and you're right
Speaker 1: there at the elbow. Didn't get the rebound, but you're
Speaker 1: right there to pick up the guard full court. And
Speaker 1: if you can pick up the guard and make him
Speaker 1: turn twice or make him pick up his dribble or
Speaker 1: something like that, or make him throw another backcourt pass,
Speaker 1: that slows the team down enough that it doesn't hurt
Speaker 1: you in transition. And so what teams have essentially realized is, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you offensive rebound, there are going to be times
Speaker 1: where you know, a very unfortunate rebound comes off and
Speaker 1: your floor balance is bad and a team gets a
Speaker 1: layup in transition. But like much of the time, you're
Speaker 1: either going to get the offensive rebound or you're already
Speaker 1: going to be in it kind of like inflicts a
Speaker 1: certain amount of like injects a certain amount of verve
Speaker 1: already in your team to where they're running, so they're
Speaker 1: kind of getting back better anyway. And three, we can
Speaker 1: apply ball pressure right away. So teams have basically figured
Speaker 1: out that the tradeoff of attacking the offensive glass is
Speaker 1: actually worth whatever small downside there is to transition defense. Similarly,
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City has trade offs in the way that they
Speaker 1: play defense. So again, think of it like on a
Speaker 1: really basic level from the standpoint of the negative. Okay,
Speaker 1: so the negative is the when they pick up with
Speaker 1: a ton of ball pressure and they play super physical
Speaker 1: and they attack the basketball, they commit a lot of fouls. Right,
Speaker 1: That's one of the things that they're going to do
Speaker 1: that's going to cause issues relative to most teams, they're
Speaker 1: going to foul. The second piece. They're better at that
Speaker 1: this year than they have been in recent years, but
Speaker 1: in other years they've had issues with fouling on the perimeter.
Speaker 1: The second piece of it is the the open corner threes. Right,
Speaker 1: So like if you're picking up the ball and you
Speaker 1: are attacking with ball pressure, and anytime a guy gets
Speaker 1: beat off the dribble, you're sending aggressive help, and every
Speaker 1: time they try to post up, you're sending double teams.
Speaker 1: And it's just this very forward, aggressive attack, attack, attack defense.
Speaker 1: You're gonna commit some fouls and you're gonna give up
Speaker 1: some corner threes. But the flip side of that is
Speaker 1: you're also going to get a good amount of opportunities
Speaker 1: to force turnovers. You're gonna get a good amount of
Speaker 1: opportunities to get out and transition off of those turnovers.
Speaker 1: The Oklahoma City Thunder generate twenty five points every single
Speaker 1: game off of turnovers. That's the most in the entire
Speaker 1: NBA by pretty wide margin. So the way they look
Speaker 1: at it is like, yeah, we're gonna give up some
Speaker 1: open threes. Yeah we're gonna commit some fouls, but in
Speaker 1: the aggregate, it unlocks this transition part of our offense,
Speaker 1: which takes me to the the specific dynamic with Oklahoma
Speaker 1: City offensively. We've seen Oklahoma City at various points over
Speaker 1: the course of the last few years and especially recently,
Speaker 1: but even in the playoffs last year, especially in the
Speaker 1: playoffs in two thousand and twenty four, if you guys remember,
Speaker 1: we have seen Oklahoma City go very cold in the
Speaker 1: half court on offense. So they want to drive as
Speaker 1: much of that transition avalanche type of attack as they can,
Speaker 1: and so it's all part of that trade off. They
Speaker 1: could give up fewer corner threes, they could commit fewer fouls,
Speaker 1: but then they wouldn't get out and transition as much,
Speaker 1: and they'd have to play more in the half court,
Speaker 1: which is not how they want to play offensively, and
Speaker 1: so that's essentially the trade off for them. Now to
Speaker 1: the point you're making about the Jordan Goodwin game, I
Speaker 1: think it just comes down to in a playoff series,
Speaker 1: if there is a clear advance, So like let's say
Speaker 1: that let's say they run into a team like Denver,
Speaker 1: and Denver just takes really good care of the basketball,
Speaker 1: never turns it over for whatever reason, and they're just
Speaker 1: moving it methodically through your defense and hitting corner three
Speaker 1: corner three corner three corner three, Cam Johnson, Aaron Gordon,
Speaker 1: Cam Johnson, Aaron Gordon, over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: Then yeah, you might have to tweak it and be like,
Speaker 1: we need to see Nicole Jokic score one on one
Speaker 1: against Isaiah Hartenstein a few more times. We need to
Speaker 1: see Jamal Murray score one on one against a big
Speaker 1: or against one of our smaller guards more times. They
Speaker 1: might have to make an adjustment in a series if
Speaker 1: it gets to that point, but in the large sample
Speaker 1: of the regular season, I think they want to lean
Speaker 1: on getting out in transition as much as possible. We'd
Speaker 1: love to hear your thoughts on what trade the Celtics
Speaker 1: should look for. Zubots is apparently not an asset the
Speaker 1: Clippers are willing to give up, and I've heard mixed
Speaker 1: things about the availability of Gafford Claxton. I think all
Speaker 1: these guys could be a great fit, but obviously not
Speaker 1: sure with the package the other teams would be looking
Speaker 1: for in return. Anforty Simons definitely carries some value and
Speaker 1: he could definitely be packaged with picks and some bench
Speaker 1: guys a Kowser or Shireman. Ideally in any of these trades,
Speaker 1: I would like to see the Seas keep Hugo Gonzalez
Speaker 1: and Jordan Wall, but not sure how realistic that is.
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts? So, I actually because I'm about
Speaker 1: to record here in about twenty minutes with a group
Speaker 1: of Lakers guys, and we're going to be talking about
Speaker 1: the specific dynamic of the center position because Deandreyton got
Speaker 1: his ass kicked by Victor women Yama in the game
Speaker 1: on Wednesday night, and so I've seen him just too
Speaker 1: often get his butt kicked by the higher level centers
Speaker 1: around the league, and I just don't think he's the
Speaker 1: guy for Luke a long term. So I've been looking
Speaker 1: around at the centers, and so I was like, who
Speaker 1: are the guys that could like realistically start at center
Speaker 1: around the league that are also somewhat realistically available for trade.
Speaker 1: And the list that I came up with was Demona Sabonis,
Speaker 1: Walker Kessler, Nikola Vusovich, Nick Claxton, Daniel Gafford, and Robert Williams. Now,
Speaker 1: where it gets tricky for the Celtics is you got
Speaker 1: to think about the salaries with Tatum on a MAX
Speaker 1: with Jalen Brown on a Max, and you're gonna have
Speaker 1: to pay, you know, like like you want to keep
Speaker 1: Derek White in the situation. You know, he makes a
Speaker 1: lot of money. You got a lot of money tied
Speaker 1: up in your perimeter guys. So ideally you want to
Speaker 1: try to find a center that gives you a useful look,
Speaker 1: but that also is a guy that you could theoretically
Speaker 1: have for a couple of years without spending too much money.
Speaker 1: And that's where it gets interesting because like you look
Speaker 1: at a guy like Walker Kessler, you trade for him,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to extend him. That could provide a
Speaker 1: money crunch for a team like the Celtics, right, Like
Speaker 1: Nick Claxton is a guy that financially is not gonna
Speaker 1: be cheaper, not gonna be cheap to keep around long term.
Speaker 1: That's where I start to look at like, Okay, what
Speaker 1: about a Daniel Gafford, what about a Nikola Vucevich? Right
Speaker 1: Like you've seen how Luca Garza is given some you know,
Speaker 1: kind of a unique look to the Celtics at the
Speaker 1: center position. As a guy who can space the floor
Speaker 1: a little bit. You know you already have Nimi Kita
Speaker 1: and Kate is actually pretty good. But Kate is a
Speaker 1: little one dimensional. He's more of like a drop coverage
Speaker 1: big a guy who does some ceiling inside and finishing,
Speaker 1: vertical spacing, that kind of that kind of stuff. So
Speaker 1: what if you had two different looks. You had this
Speaker 1: me Kada drop coverage, vertical spacing, rim protection look, and
Speaker 1: then you traded for a guy like Vucevich and you
Speaker 1: kept him around at a discounted deal, Like you go
Speaker 1: to vuc and you go, hey, dude, you've made a
Speaker 1: good amount of money in your career getting pretty old.
Speaker 1: What if you stick around with us for you know,
Speaker 1: two years on this like really heavily discounted deal and
Speaker 1: it's like Kada Vucevich, the two different looks that the
Speaker 1: Celtics go with that center. And one of the things
Speaker 1: with vouch is he gives you like a legitimate post
Speaker 1: up threat, like he can pick and pop and hit
Speaker 1: pick and pop threes and space the floor as a center.
Speaker 1: But he's also like a big physical dude download that
Speaker 1: could do some rebounding and can do a bunch of
Speaker 1: damage in the post. And so I think he'd be
Speaker 1: an interesting kind of way to look Robert Williams. It's
Speaker 1: the health issue. Daniel Gafford, there's a little bit of
Speaker 1: a money issue with him too, where I think he's,
Speaker 1: you know, potentially gonna want a longer term deal where
Speaker 1: he's making you ten to fifteen million a year. There's
Speaker 1: something to be said about finding somebody that gives you
Speaker 1: the best combination of production relative to the sound dollary
Speaker 1: under the situation that the Celtics are in. And that's
Speaker 1: why I was thinking the guy like Vusovich would be
Speaker 1: just kind of an interesting option for them to consider
Speaker 1: as a kind of like a two different looks alongside
Speaker 1: Nimi Keda. Today's show is brought to you by presenting
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Speaker 1: or Virginia. How much of good defense is physical gifts?
Speaker 1: How much of it is effort? How much of it
Speaker 1: is knowledge? Could someone with very limited physical gifts become
Speaker 1: a good defender if he has good knowledge and hustle.
Speaker 1: Appreciate your show. You and your team clearly work your
Speaker 1: butts offt to create such polished content. Thank you, Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for the kind words, and thanks for
Speaker 1: shouting out the team. Jackson's literally just amazing. I just
Speaker 1: think he's the best in the world at what he does.
Speaker 1: So we talked about this concept within the idea of
Speaker 1: a team, but I would argue that the largest chunk
Speaker 1: of defense is the execution piece, meaning like always being
Speaker 1: in the right spot, having good instincts like There have
Speaker 1: been a lot of guys over the years that have
Speaker 1: been good perimeter defenders relative to their actual talent because
Speaker 1: they're good at anticipating. They can look at a guy
Speaker 1: and they can like kind of identify where his center
Speaker 1: of gravity is and they can kind of see where
Speaker 1: his body's shifting, or like they could pick up on
Speaker 1: physical cues, or maybe they watch a lot of film
Speaker 1: and they're just good at scouting like little tips on,
Speaker 1: you know, the way that a perimeter player kind of
Speaker 1: tips off what he's gonna do. And then it's just anticipation, right,
Speaker 1: Like it's all about angle. So like if if I'm
Speaker 1: defending a player who's faster than me, but if I
Speaker 1: take the right angle and I anticipate which way he's going,
Speaker 1: I can beat him to a spot, right, So like
Speaker 1: there is a very much an anticipatory position element to defense. Now,
Speaker 1: I would argue that you can't be terrible at either.
Speaker 1: So like if you're incredibly slow or if you're incredibly small,
Speaker 1: it's really difficult to overcome that no matter how disciplined
Speaker 1: you are. But let's say you're a mediocre athlete, like
Speaker 1: a mediocre size and speed guard, a mediocre size and
Speaker 1: speed forward, or a mediocre size and speed center. Let
Speaker 1: me just take like Jake la Ravia, for example, a
Speaker 1: guy that I root for on the Lakers. He's not
Speaker 1: exceptionally big for a forward. You know, he's like six seven, right,
Speaker 1: and he's strong, but he's not like jacked or anything.
Speaker 1: And like he's mobile, but he's not like super fast
Speaker 1: or anything. Like he's a little too small to be
Speaker 1: like a traditional power forward and a little too slow
Speaker 1: to be like a traditional small forward in terms of
Speaker 1: just his athletic profile. Right. But he's been one of
Speaker 1: the most useful defenders for the Lakers this year. Why
Speaker 1: because he has the kind of like bare minimum set
Speaker 1: of physical gifts you need, Like he's got enough size
Speaker 1: and mobility to be at least somewhat useful in terms
Speaker 1: of the trades he's working with. He's a high effort guy.
Speaker 1: That's the third piece of this that we haven't even
Speaker 1: talked about yet, Like you gotta be someone as motor
Speaker 1: you got to play really hard on that end of
Speaker 1: the floor. And then the third piece of it is
Speaker 1: he's got the positioning and anticipation elements down, and so
Speaker 1: he's just very good at kind of being in the
Speaker 1: right spot, following the defensive game plan, scouting the guy
Speaker 1: that he's guarding, and anticipating which direction he's going he's
Speaker 1: been especially good this year guarding some of the bigger
Speaker 1: forwards that look to attack off the dribble. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's definitely a combination of all of those things. But
Speaker 1: physical you kind of have to have all three. Like
Speaker 1: if you have great physical gifts and you've got the
Speaker 1: anticipation in positioning, but you got a shit motor and
Speaker 1: you don't play hard, that's a problem, right, Like that's
Speaker 1: some of the issue that we've seen with Lebron over
Speaker 1: the last few years, and it's just because he doesn't
Speaker 1: want to play hard for an eighty two game regular season, right,
Speaker 1: But like he certainly can, he certainly understands the game plan,
Speaker 1: and he can anticipate like crazy, and he's got still
Speaker 1: at his age, some pretty good physical gifts. But it's
Speaker 1: just like when Lebron's effort drops off, he dropped. But
Speaker 1: when the efforts there, you know, we saw Lebron look
Speaker 1: like an all defense guy in the middle of the
Speaker 1: season last year, right, Or like, if you have the
Speaker 1: motor and you have the anticipation in the in the
Speaker 1: game plan piece, but you're just super tiny or you're
Speaker 1: super slow, that's going to be a problem. And then
Speaker 1: you know, We've seen it with guys like Karl Anthony Towns. Like,
Speaker 1: I don't think Carl Anthony Towns is necessarily lazy. He's
Speaker 1: got decent physical gifts. He's like, he's a competitive dude.
Speaker 1: He just the anticipation and positioning piece of it is
Speaker 1: like absolute garbage with him, and it's a huge problem.
Speaker 1: So you can't be dreadfully weak in any area, but
Speaker 1: you don't necessarily have to be strong in all three areas. Hi, Jason,
Speaker 1: big fan of your form of content and your wisdom
Speaker 1: around the NBA. You suggested a mega trade of Michael
Speaker 1: Porter Junior and Nick Claxton to help catapult the Warriors
Speaker 1: to becoming more competitive. Within this suggestion, are you saying
Speaker 1: that Claxton would help the Warriors more than Draymond? Especially
Speaker 1: the mega trade you mentioned is swapping Claxton for Draymond.
Speaker 1: Can the Warriors still be title contenders if they just
Speaker 1: traded for MPJ and kept Draymond with a starting five
Speaker 1: of Curry, Mountain Butler, Michael Porter Junior, and Green be
Speaker 1: a title contender? Thank you love your content. So it's
Speaker 1: a couple of things. So one the reason why I
Speaker 1: kind of like talked about structuring it that way is
Speaker 1: Michael Porter Junior just has a really large salary, and
Speaker 1: so by having Draymond in there, it just kind of
Speaker 1: makes it easier to feasibly piece the rest of it together.
Speaker 1: That said, like getting just MPJA would still be a
Speaker 1: huge win for the Warriors. The reason why I was
Speaker 1: looking at Claxton specifically is I find him to be
Speaker 1: both a good fit defensively within the Warrior's scheme, because
Speaker 1: the Warriors do a bunch of different schemes defensively and
Speaker 1: they do do a decent amount of switching with their bigs.
Speaker 1: And then the second piece of it is I've seen
Speaker 1: as a matchup thing teams like San Antonio and Oklahoma City,
Speaker 1: the two top teams in the Western Conference. I've seen
Speaker 1: both of them struggle with rim protection at times, and
Speaker 1: so it's one of those things where even though Draymond's
Speaker 1: a very good defensive player, what he doesn't necessarily provide
Speaker 1: is that vertical rim protection. And so I just thought
Speaker 1: Nick Clackson would provide an element to the Warriors defense
Speaker 1: that they basically haven't haven't had since, like Andrew Boguet
Speaker 1: was healthy. So I just thought it was worth considering
Speaker 1: as an option. But to your point, if they just
Speaker 1: got Michael Porter Junior, I'd still view that as a
Speaker 1: huge boost for the Warriors. Three more, I was on
Speaker 1: Twitter and someone suggested that the Lakers offense is smoother
Speaker 1: when Lebron is running it as he looks to create
Speaker 1: then score, as opposed to Luca as more heliocentric in approach.
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on this and which approach do
Speaker 1: you think is better for the Lakers offense. So this
Speaker 1: is a general idea that I just disagree with, the
Speaker 1: idea that like you have to play one way to win,
Speaker 1: or that multiple ball handlers can't play together well. Like
Speaker 1: I don't think that lebron Is style. I don't think
Speaker 1: Lebron's style is better than Luca's necessarily based on what
Speaker 1: happened in the last few weeks, I just thought Luca
Speaker 1: wasn't playing well. Like Luca's been every bit as heliocentric
Speaker 1: in that game against the Spurs, or the second half
Speaker 1: against the Pelicans, or the second half against Grizzlies on Sunday.
Speaker 1: He's been every bit as heliocentric as he was in
Speaker 1: all the other games. He just wanted to turn the
Speaker 1: ball over the I want to cut Lucas slack for
Speaker 1: the turnovers and myss threes, specifically against the Spurs, because
Speaker 1: without Luca, or without Lebron and aust And available, he
Speaker 1: basically had no choice but to bump his usage way up,
Speaker 1: and that means he had to say yes a lot
Speaker 1: more to situations that he might otherwise say no, meaning like, oh,
Speaker 1: high risk pass. When Lebron and Austin are healthy, you
Speaker 1: move it around and let one of them attack, But
Speaker 1: when no one else can do shit with the basketball, like,
Speaker 1: he almost has to take that high risk pass. Similarly,
Speaker 1: bad threes when when Lebron and Austin are out there,
Speaker 1: don't take the bad three, move the ball around if
Speaker 1: you get cut off off the dribble, but when Lebron
Speaker 1: and Austin are out, he kind of has to take
Speaker 1: the bad three, right. So, like, I'm not too critical
Speaker 1: of the turnovers and the misshots in that particular Spurs game,
Speaker 1: but overall, I thought Luca's shot creation was ridiculous in
Speaker 1: that Spurs game, and in the second half of the
Speaker 1: Pelicans game, and in the second half of the Grizzlies game,
Speaker 1: even though he was heliocentric and so I don't think
Speaker 1: Luca needs to play more like Lebron. I just think
Speaker 1: Luca needs to play like the best version of Luca,
Speaker 1: and Lebron needs to keep playing like the best version
Speaker 1: of Lebron. I actually had a little bit of a
Speaker 1: debate with my buddy Demon. He pitched this idea that
Speaker 1: when Austin comes back, maybe Luca or Lebron should stay
Speaker 1: kind of as the second option. That kind of clashes
Speaker 1: with my core basketball believe I generally believe you can
Speaker 1: have three guys all kind of working in unison as
Speaker 1: long as they're all trusting each other, and I think
Speaker 1: all three of them can put up massive point totals.
Speaker 1: I don't think you're confined toabbing two ball handlers, especially
Speaker 1: when you've got guys like Lebron and Austin who can
Speaker 1: run action together and they can both be involved, even
Speaker 1: though maybe Austin has the ball for five minutes or
Speaker 1: Lebron has the ball for five minutes. Hey, Jason, I've
Speaker 1: always been a huge Jokich fan and still think he's
Speaker 1: clearly the best player in the league. But does a
Speaker 1: performance like the win over Philly missing four or five starters,
Speaker 1: plus what we're seeing from MPG this year off the
Speaker 1: Nuggets make you ever so slightly think that maybe we
Speaker 1: are marginally overrating Yokic's impact and have been underplaying his teammates.
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily think so, but I'm interested to hear
Speaker 1: your thoughts. It's as simple as diminishing returns thing why
Speaker 1: a player like MPJA has been broken out since leaving.
Speaker 1: So the MPJA thing is complicated to me. I never
Speaker 1: thought MPJ was a bad player. I just thought MPJ
Speaker 1: a four, and the Nuggets already had a starting four,
Speaker 1: and as the league had tilted in recent seasons to
Speaker 1: more speed on the perimeter, I don't think you can
Speaker 1: play at Michael Porter Junior Aaron Gordon nicolea Jokic frontline
Speaker 1: against a team like Oklahoma City. I think you're too slow.
Speaker 1: So I think shifting from Michael Porter Junior to Cam
Speaker 1: was more just trading a starting four for a starting three.
Speaker 1: It was a roster balancing, starting lineup balancing type of
Speaker 1: move for them. I thoroughly expected Michael Porter Junior to
Speaker 1: go into Brooklyn and put up scoring numbers this year.
Speaker 1: Maybe not quite to this extent, but I'd always thought
Speaker 1: that he was a guy that could go get buckets.
Speaker 1: I generally hate this specific idea that like, in order
Speaker 1: for a player to be recognized as successful, the team
Speaker 1: has to suck without him. You'll notice when I would
Speaker 1: talk about Jokiic as the best player in the world,
Speaker 1: or when I would talk about Jokich is the best
Speaker 1: offensive player ever, I never mentioned his on off. That's
Speaker 1: not really the angle I go with. Basketball is a
Speaker 1: team sport. No one wins a championship unless they have
Speaker 1: excellent supporting talent, whether it's a great head coach or
Speaker 1: a great secondary star or an awesome depth of role
Speaker 1: player talent. Like and we've seen it every which way
Speaker 1: over the course of the years, different constructs of teams.
Speaker 1: But this idea that SuperStar's going to win titles by
Speaker 1: their own is just flat out stupid. It's just never
Speaker 1: how it works. Jokic was the best player in the
Speaker 1: world last year, he was overwhelmed by Oklahoma City in
Speaker 1: the second round. Lebron was the best player in the
Speaker 1: world by a mile. In twenty eighteen. He didn't even
Speaker 1: stand a chance in the finals against Golden State, Like
Speaker 1: there is, This is a team sport. Ultimately, now, the
Speaker 1: Nuggets having success without NICOLEA Jokic this year. I think
Speaker 1: it comes down to fundamentally, this team being on a
Speaker 1: fucking mission, like this Nuggets team wants to win the title,
Speaker 1: and there is a level of commitment from the top
Speaker 1: down of the roster from day one of training camp
Speaker 1: that has allowed this team to sustain success in various
Speaker 1: different looks, whether it's when they were healthy at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the year, to Gordon and Christian Brown being
Speaker 1: out to now Jokic being out, they have just found
Speaker 1: a way over and over again. There have been a
Speaker 1: lot of key guys that have stepped up. Jalen Pickett
Speaker 1: has been awesome stepping up with the injuries. Peyton Watson
Speaker 1: has been awesome stepping up with the injuries. Look at
Speaker 1: Zeke Nagi these last couple of games. So like, I
Speaker 1: just think it's a testament to the type of team
Speaker 1: this Denver Nuggets team is and it should be a
Speaker 1: big part of why people believe in them as a
Speaker 1: threat to win the championship this year. All right, lastly,
Speaker 1: Timberwolves fan here, I'm curious what you think about Julius
Speaker 1: Randall's bullyball and the sustainability of it come playoff time.
Speaker 1: I'm obviously interested in whether or not this team, as
Speaker 1: presently constructed can win a championship. I tend to lean
Speaker 1: towards now a factor that I think doesn't really get
Speaker 1: talked about as much as the way Randall scores. I
Speaker 1: know he did his thing against the old Man Lakers
Speaker 1: with no centers and the Steph Lest Warriors last year,
Speaker 1: but it seems like once the t Wolves inevitably meet
Speaker 1: a team that can match their physicality, Randall's scoring is
Speaker 1: bound to fall apart. So I actually think Julius Randall's
Speaker 1: ability as a big forward to attack size mismatches and
Speaker 1: do a good mix of scoring and playmaking is a
Speaker 1: huge playoff asset. My main concern with Randall is more
Speaker 1: like what happened in the Bad Game. So if you
Speaker 1: look at the Oklahoma City games, he had a couple
Speaker 1: of games where he put up numbers, but then he
Speaker 1: had a couple of games where it almost looked like
Speaker 1: he quit. It almost looked like when things weren't going
Speaker 1: as way, he like completely disengaged. Stop being aggressive, Stop
Speaker 1: focusing on the details. My issues with Randal are not
Speaker 1: necessarily his style, it's just his mentality. I would like
Speaker 1: to see Julius Randall, like on the nights where maybe
Speaker 1: he has a couple of turnovers early, or he misses
Speaker 1: a couple of shots early, or he finds himself in
Speaker 1: the middle of the second quarter with doing everything and
Speaker 1: he's two for nine, you know, with six points. Like
Speaker 1: I'd prefer to see those nights and in him doing
Speaker 1: everything in his power to try to find a way
Speaker 1: to win the damn game rather than pouting and standing
Speaker 1: around at the three point line and shooting catch and
Speaker 1: shoot threes two or three times the rest of the night.
Speaker 1: He had a couple of these games against Oka see
Speaker 1: where I felt like he kind of like mentally gave
Speaker 1: in to the circumstances. That's really the main thing that
Speaker 1: I'd like to see him work on. I'm actually really
Speaker 1: high on the timber Wolves. I think Anthony Edwards is
Speaker 1: the best version of himself that he's ever been. I
Speaker 1: think the supporting offensive talent with the rise of Julius Randall,
Speaker 1: excuse me, the rise of Jaden McDaniels, Rudigobert being a
Speaker 1: better offensive player than he's been in recent years, and
Speaker 1: they have shown the defensive ceiling, especially in these last
Speaker 1: few weeks. I am if the Timberwolves can keep this
Speaker 1: up over the next over the next you know, three
Speaker 1: weeks or so, I'm going to put them in my
Speaker 1: top tier of contenders in our next Contender rankings. All right, guys,
Speaker 1: It's all I have for today is always to sincerely
Speaker 1: appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show.
Speaker 1: I hope all of you guys have a wonderful weekend,
Speaker 1: and I'll see you guys on Money.