Speaker 1: All right, So, um, as you can see, I officially
Speaker 1: have a microphone. I'm gonna be trying this Today's show,
Speaker 1: whatever you wanna call it, is gonna be above all else,
Speaker 1: kind of a guinea pig of sorts, because I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be trying a couple of different formats as I released this.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do the live video obviously what you guys
Speaker 1: are part of, and then I'm going to rerelease it,
Speaker 1: hopefully as a podcast. And this initial recording that I'm
Speaker 1: using is going to be my guinea pig for that. Um.
Speaker 1: But I'm also planning on covering some basketball stuff and
Speaker 1: going over what I've got planned for the next few
Speaker 1: months as we head into the off season. So uh,
Speaker 1: first and foremost, today I'm going to be doing I
Speaker 1: did a list of my potential top ten players in
Speaker 1: the NBA going into next season, and I listed the
Speaker 1: nine four sure names, meaning that there's one spot available
Speaker 1: for you know what, you might consider that last top
Speaker 1: ten player in the NBA. I know this kind of
Speaker 1: stuff seems silly, especially to the super super casual fans,
Speaker 1: but to me, I think it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: I think that you know, if you think of the
Speaker 1: NBA like a horse race that effectively pauses every offseason,
Speaker 1: and then when we start playing, everyone kind of jockeys
Speaker 1: for position as as they go up the NBA leader board.
Speaker 1: These kinds of conversations, to me, are what make this
Speaker 1: league so interesting. It's the only league league in all
Speaker 1: of sports, in my opinion, and all of team sports,
Speaker 1: where a single player can have such a huge impact
Speaker 1: on whether or not a team wins. And I think
Speaker 1: that talking about the proverbial horse race, so to speak,
Speaker 1: is what makes it so much fun. Um. And I
Speaker 1: think that it's a it's an honor to call yourself
Speaker 1: one of the ten best basketball players in the world.
Speaker 1: And I think it's a position that we shouldn't take
Speaker 1: very lightly. I think it's something that we should think
Speaker 1: hard about and uh, you know, pay additional and extra
Speaker 1: respect to those players who are considered in that tier
Speaker 1: of players. UM. And then also I plan on doing
Speaker 1: a little bit of Lebron and MJ stuff. I don't
Speaker 1: want to go too far into it. I talked about
Speaker 1: that that this morning, But the reality is is that
Speaker 1: so many people are so entrenched in their position on
Speaker 1: the Lebron MJ debate that it's effectively a giant waste
Speaker 1: of everyone's time, because I saw someone this morning say that, uh,
Speaker 1: someone who works in the media say that the uh,
Speaker 1: there is a gap in the career accomplishments of Lebron
Speaker 1: and Michael Jordan's and that gap, in and of itself
Speaker 1: standing alone, that gap is a Hall of Famer and
Speaker 1: in addition to being just absolutely not true. Um, it
Speaker 1: just goes to show you that people that are on
Speaker 1: that side of the debate are very well entrenched. And
Speaker 1: then you know, for me, as a guy who's a
Speaker 1: fan of Lebron, I didn't think before this title, I
Speaker 1: didn't think he had any case, any legitimate case at
Speaker 1: that um, as far as that goes to making that claim.
Speaker 1: And now I think that he does have a case.
Speaker 1: But it just goes to show you that even before
Speaker 1: this title, there were large groups of people who thought
Speaker 1: that Lebron was the runaway, you know, greatest basketball player
Speaker 1: of all time, which just goes to show you that
Speaker 1: everyone's very entrenched, and that makes it extremely discouraging to discuss.
Speaker 1: It makes it an uninteresting topic in my opinion. That said,
Speaker 1: what I do think is interesting is the actual cases themselves.
Speaker 1: If you are having that conversation with somebody who's being honest.
Speaker 1: If you're sitting at a bar with your friend and
Speaker 1: your friend is honestly having a you know, nuanced conversation
Speaker 1: with you about who the great greatest basketball player ever is,
Speaker 1: then those conversations and the cases for each player is
Speaker 1: are interesting in my opinion, and so I plan on
Speaker 1: doing something along those lines. And then a friend of
Speaker 1: mine named Tommy, who I think is perfect for this
Speaker 1: kind of thing because he is very, very on the
Speaker 1: opposite end of the spectrum from me. I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: him kind of jump on at some point in the
Speaker 1: future to provide the dissenting opinion and him and I
Speaker 1: can go back and forth and try to kind of
Speaker 1: make some headway in that regard. And then I plan
Speaker 1: on a couple of other fun things. I want to
Speaker 1: do some rehashes of NBA Finals series. I think the
Speaker 1: most fascinating thing in all of basketball is a seven
Speaker 1: game playoff series where coaches make adjustments, where players make adjustments,
Speaker 1: and over the course of time, the team that wins
Speaker 1: the chess match wins. And there are a lot of
Speaker 1: really classic playoff chess matches, particularly in the NBA Finals.
Speaker 1: So I plan on doing some stuff uh around those
Speaker 1: just to just to kill time during this three month
Speaker 1: or so period that we have until the NBA season
Speaker 1: starts back up again. UH. And then as we get
Speaker 1: into the free agency period after the collective bargaining agreement
Speaker 1: that is amended to uh, you know, make up for
Speaker 1: the virus issues, and the Lakers actually start actively pursuing
Speaker 1: their offseason moves, I think there there will be some
Speaker 1: a lot of good content around that stuff. But so
Speaker 1: on that note, I want to get started with the uh,
Speaker 1: the honorable mention for these top ten players. So I
Speaker 1: think there are nine guys in the league that are
Speaker 1: definitively top ten players, guys that there is no coherent,
Speaker 1: legitimate argument for why they would not be top ten players,
Speaker 1: and in no particular order, because we will eventually get
Speaker 1: to this order. Those players, in my opinion, are Anthony Davis,
Speaker 1: Janice Antenna, Compo, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Lebron Kawhi, Leonard
Speaker 1: James Harden, Nicola Yokich, and Luca don Chich. Those nine players,
Speaker 1: if you argue for them outside of the top ten,
Speaker 1: I think you have to make some leaps into some
Speaker 1: discourse that I don't think is very honest, and you
Speaker 1: probably disliked the guy. I mean, I dislike Harden with
Speaker 1: a pretty fiery passion, and I can't even make a
Speaker 1: case for why he would not be in the top ten.
Speaker 1: So back a couple of days ago, I asked all
Speaker 1: of you guys to present to me what you thought
Speaker 1: were the players who were candidates for that final spot,
Speaker 1: and the most common names that I saw were Jimmy Butler,
Speaker 1: Paul George, Dame Lillard, CP three, Joe l Embiid, and
Speaker 1: Jayson Tatum. So the format for how I want to
Speaker 1: do this is I want to go to each player
Speaker 1: and just kind of quick recap how their season was
Speaker 1: last year, the things that I perceived to be their
Speaker 1: strengths and weaknesses, and just overall evaluating where I think
Speaker 1: they stand in the league after their most recent campaign.
Speaker 1: And then after all of that, I'll explain who I
Speaker 1: think is number one and why or who I think
Speaker 1: is number ten I should say and why. So I
Speaker 1: want to start with uh, Paul George, because this is
Speaker 1: gonna be the guy who has received the most slander
Speaker 1: coming into this playoff exit, and for good reasons. So
Speaker 1: we uh in the regular season, Paul George average twenty
Speaker 1: two points, six rebounds, and four assists. He was effective
Speaker 1: field goal percentage. I prefer to use effective field goal
Speaker 1: field goal percentage instead of true shooting percentage because effective
Speaker 1: field goal percentage factors shots that are actually taken in
Speaker 1: the flow of the game. One of the things that
Speaker 1: I think is foolish and inaccurate about true shooting percentage
Speaker 1: is it factors. A free throw is a normal field
Speaker 1: goal attempt, which two for lack of a better term,
Speaker 1: it's just not it's just not a real field goal attempt.
Speaker 1: A a attempt to draw free throws. While it is valuable,
Speaker 1: it is not equally valuable to a made or missed
Speaker 1: shot because it doesn't come in the flow of a game.
Speaker 1: Every free throw is a a it's something that stops
Speaker 1: the flow of the game. It can stop the rhythm.
Speaker 1: So for a for instance, a team that loves to
Speaker 1: play at a slow pace, free throws are good. For
Speaker 1: a team that likes to play at a high pace,
Speaker 1: free throws can actually hurt them and you I ironically
Speaker 1: saw that from the Lakers as that series progressed in
Speaker 1: the finals, as they got out and going in transition,
Speaker 1: which really opened things up for them. Particularly in Game six,
Speaker 1: they weren't getting to the free throw line, which was
Speaker 1: actually a good thing for them because it kept them
Speaker 1: in the flow of their offense. It kept things from
Speaker 1: slowing down too much for them, you know, whereas a
Speaker 1: you know, something like Lebron drawing three free throws in
Speaker 1: Game seven of the two thousand sixteen Finals was an
Speaker 1: example of a free free throw line trip that has
Speaker 1: a ton of value because it did bog down the
Speaker 1: game and it, you know, manufactured points. So, you know,
Speaker 1: true shooting percentage is always gonna favorite players who get
Speaker 1: to the free throw line a lot. And while I
Speaker 1: do think that's something that we should factor in, and
Speaker 1: it's something I did factor in with these players, it's
Speaker 1: I think the best and most accurate way to measure
Speaker 1: a player's efficiency is effective field goal percentage. It weighs,
Speaker 1: you know, because a three point shot made or missed
Speaker 1: absolutely carries more weight in the flow of a game,
Speaker 1: but is within the flow of a game, and so
Speaker 1: it's our field goal percentage waited for three point shots.
Speaker 1: It's a really clean and easy metric. So anyway, Paul
Speaker 1: George six and four on fifty affective field goal percentage.
Speaker 1: In the regular season, he played fewer than fifty games.
Speaker 1: He wasn't very available. The Clippers were thirty four and
Speaker 1: fourteen when he played, which was very good. When the
Speaker 1: Clippers had their guys this year, they did play well,
Speaker 1: they just didn't have their guys all the time. And
Speaker 1: then moving into the postseason, he had that really, really
Speaker 1: rough first round series against Dallas. He finished his postseason
Speaker 1: run with twenty six and four on forty percent effective
Speaker 1: field goal percentage. Now one of the things we've looked
Speaker 1: but like as far as Paul George's strengths. To start
Speaker 1: on the positive end, he has proven to be one
Speaker 1: of the best high volume three point shooters in the league.
Speaker 1: He's up there in that Stephan Clay category, guys who
Speaker 1: shoot over you know seven, they're so attempts in a
Speaker 1: game and they're shooting in the high thirties, low forties.
Speaker 1: Uh in their efficiency. He's he can do with it
Speaker 1: from the spot up, he can do it off the dribble.
Speaker 1: He is That is the absolute you know, bread and butter.
Speaker 1: If his game is off the dribble and catch and
Speaker 1: shoot three point shooting. But the flip side of that
Speaker 1: is he's not a very versatile score Paul George. While
Speaker 1: he can get into the mid range area, and while
Speaker 1: he can score at the rim, he's not great at either.
Speaker 1: And the reason why you see his playoff efficiency takes
Speaker 1: such a huge dip is because defense is over time
Speaker 1: know how to make Paul feel uncomfortable, which is a
Speaker 1: product of his lack of offensive versatility. And then the
Speaker 1: one other strength that Paul George provides something that separates
Speaker 1: him from his peers his defensive versatility. He can guard
Speaker 1: multiple positions. He's never gonna hurt you on the defensive
Speaker 1: end of the floor, uh, you know, as a playoff player.
Speaker 1: And then last, but not least, And this was his
Speaker 1: biggest weakness and the biggest reason why I think Paul
Speaker 1: George is not a top ten player and the reason
Speaker 1: why I will not be giving him that tenth spot
Speaker 1: his lack of confidence or moxie or whatever it is
Speaker 1: you want to call it. He's not an alpha. He's
Speaker 1: not wired in a way to where when he finds
Speaker 1: himself struggling, he views it as just a blip and
Speaker 1: not a trend. You know, a very confident player, when
Speaker 1: they miss shots, they view it as the blip, and
Speaker 1: they do whatever it takes to get out of that
Speaker 1: trend and to try to write the ship. Whereas a
Speaker 1: player that is not confident when they start to miss
Speaker 1: shots and gets in their head and they start to
Speaker 1: worry about whether or not, you know, they are even
Speaker 1: capable of getting out of whatever that rut is. You know.
Speaker 1: The greatest example I can think of is Lebron in
Speaker 1: this playoff run. He had a handful of really bad
Speaker 1: games against Denver and a really bad half in Game
Speaker 1: four against Miami, and in both cases he was able
Speaker 1: to rebound and play extremely well in the Miami series
Speaker 1: in the second half of that game, and then in
Speaker 1: in Game three against Ever when a d made the
Speaker 1: game winner. He came out in the rest of the
Speaker 1: series and shot from the three point line extremely well
Speaker 1: and from the mid range extremely well. So the a
Speaker 1: player that has the moxie and has the confidence when
Speaker 1: they struggle, they are far more likely to get out
Speaker 1: of that rut. And so Paul George is the really
Speaker 1: really bad combination of not very offensively versatile, which makes
Speaker 1: defenses kind of it gives defenses an advantage when it
Speaker 1: comes to trying to knock him off of his game,
Speaker 1: and then when he gets knocked off his game, he's
Speaker 1: far more likely to remain knocked off of his game
Speaker 1: than to bounce back. Alrighty, So next we have Dame Lillard.
Speaker 1: So Dame Lillard regular season numbers thirty points a game,
Speaker 1: four rebounds a game, eight assists per game, fifty six
Speaker 1: percent effective field goal percentage. This was primarily a product
Speaker 1: of the fact that he shot from the three point
Speaker 1: line on high volume. But then in the postseason against
Speaker 1: now mind you, this was against that amazing Laker defense,
Speaker 1: he was twenty four four and four on effective field
Speaker 1: goal percentage. Dames strengths are what you would guess. He's
Speaker 1: a great spot up shooter and a grade off the
Speaker 1: dribble shooter, which means at all times he's uh, he
Speaker 1: requires the defense's attention even when he doesn't have the ball,
Speaker 1: and then he's great at playmaking. We saw this a
Speaker 1: lot from Portland's In the Bubble, where it got to
Speaker 1: the point where Dame was shooting so well that he
Speaker 1: was getting trapped on every single pick and roll up
Speaker 1: and down the floor, and then he was really good
Speaker 1: at making that quick drop off to the short roll
Speaker 1: man who was usually Nurkic and giving his teammates the
Speaker 1: advantage to make plays off of him. But his biggest
Speaker 1: weakness right now, and I've talked a lot about this,
Speaker 1: the big thing that separates Dame from Steph is his
Speaker 1: ability to work off the ball. It's to maintain offensive versatility.
Speaker 1: So for instance, what Day did by drawing doubles off
Speaker 1: of those trapped pick and rolls and dropping the ball
Speaker 1: to Nurkics on the short roll, that's the exact same
Speaker 1: thing that Steph Curry does. And what Dame does as
Speaker 1: a high volume three point shooter who shoots at a
Speaker 1: high percentage both off the ball and on the ball,
Speaker 1: That's exactly what Steph does. But the one thing that
Speaker 1: Steph doesn't do that or excuse me, that Steph does
Speaker 1: do that Dame does not do is continue to work
Speaker 1: after he's given up the ball. And that is what
Speaker 1: allowed an elite defense like the Lakers to completely shut
Speaker 1: Portlands down. Like I said, Dame goes down to twenty four,
Speaker 1: four and four on affective field goal percentage because an
Speaker 1: elite defense is not gonna let you continually run the
Speaker 1: same thing if you want to, if you think you're
Speaker 1: gonna be able to continue to to come off of
Speaker 1: a pick and roll, draw trap, drop it off to Nurkics,
Speaker 1: and let Nurkics play four on three. That's gonna work
Speaker 1: a lot. But then what's gonna happen is a really
Speaker 1: elite defense. It's especially a defense that rotates as well
Speaker 1: as the Lakers do. They're gonna be great in that recovery,
Speaker 1: and they're eventually gonna get really good at playing four
Speaker 1: on three, especially when the guy who's giving up the
Speaker 1: ball off of the pick and roll is not willing
Speaker 1: to stay engaged and involved in the play off the ball.
Speaker 1: And so that's one of those things where you know,
Speaker 1: if I'm Dame, the number one area of improving, there's
Speaker 1: he's already so good at everything else. He's actually better
Speaker 1: than Steff at some of his At the rim stuff,
Speaker 1: he's a bit quicker, he can hit those straight line
Speaker 1: when the openings in the defense are there, he can
Speaker 1: hit those straight line drives a lot better. And then
Speaker 1: he's he's extremely athletic, a lot more athletic than Steff.
Speaker 1: Stuff is better in the mid range, and he's got
Speaker 1: better finishing moves around the basket, like floaters and scoop
Speaker 1: shots and so on and so forth. But Dame has
Speaker 1: the ability of his athleticism makes up for that gap,
Speaker 1: the giant gap. The difference between Dame being you know,
Speaker 1: in that ten to fifteen range and where Steph is
Speaker 1: in the in the top range of the league. Is
Speaker 1: that a bill lead to work off the ball. And
Speaker 1: then obviously Dame has a defensive weakness. I'm not as
Speaker 1: as you know, I don't punish defensive weaknesses as much
Speaker 1: as long as players learned to be not negative defenders.
Speaker 1: This is something that we've seen so much from guys
Speaker 1: like Steph and Uh. Trying to think of another good
Speaker 1: example at the top of the le Kevin Durant is
Speaker 1: a good example to you know, Kevin Durant and Steff
Speaker 1: are not great defensive players there. You know, Kevin Durant
Speaker 1: should be, but he just never cared enough. But neither
Speaker 1: of them are actively hurting their team. And that's the
Speaker 1: next step for guys like Yo Kitchen, Dame and Uh
Speaker 1: and Uh don Chitch is finding a way to not
Speaker 1: be a gaping hole in your defense. Al right. Next
Speaker 1: is Jimmy Butler. So Jimmy Butler regular season twenty points
Speaker 1: seven rebounds, six assists, forty seven percent effective vehical percentage. Really,
Speaker 1: by any measure, just not a very good offensive. Regular
Speaker 1: season playoffs twenty two points a game, seven or excuse me,
Speaker 1: seven rebound and six assists effective field goal percentage. Jimmy
Speaker 1: Butler's strengths are what you would expect. He is a
Speaker 1: the definition of a a Swiss army knife. He is
Speaker 1: the definition of a poor man's version of Lebron James.
Speaker 1: He is both offensively versatile and defensively versatile. He can
Speaker 1: create shots, he can make plays for his teammates. He
Speaker 1: can score out of the post. He can score from
Speaker 1: the three point line. He can score at the basket,
Speaker 1: he can score off the dribble in the midrange. He
Speaker 1: can do all of those things. His biggest weakness is
Speaker 1: that he's not great at anything. There's nothing that Jimmy
Speaker 1: Butler does that when a defense or an offense keys
Speaker 1: in on him, that that makes that that specific area
Speaker 1: of his game can overcome whatever someone's throwing at it,
Speaker 1: even on the defensive end. As great of a defensive
Speaker 1: player as Jimmy is, he's a little small. He's six
Speaker 1: ft seven, and so you know when Lebron really wanted
Speaker 1: to bully him. There was nothing that Jimmy Butler could
Speaker 1: do with him, and so from that standpoint, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if there's really an area Jimmy so developed in
Speaker 1: his game at this point, He's had such an advanced
Speaker 1: stage of his career, I'm not really sure there's an
Speaker 1: opportunity for him to improve any of that. But you know,
Speaker 1: like you know, Jimmy Butler gained a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of clout in the uh uh in the bubble
Speaker 1: from those handful of NBA Finals games where he put
Speaker 1: up monster numbers, and then he had a lot of
Speaker 1: you know, big time late game plays, particularly against Milwaukee
Speaker 1: and Boston, which, by the way, veteran players make big
Speaker 1: time late game plays. That's what Region Rondo did in
Speaker 1: the in the finals as well. Like guys who've been
Speaker 1: around for a while, they just know how to make
Speaker 1: plays at the end of games that will help your
Speaker 1: team win games. But outside of those two games, the
Speaker 1: thirty five point triple double in Game five of the
Speaker 1: Finals and the forty point triple double in Game three
Speaker 1: of the Finals, Jimmy Butler was the same guy he
Speaker 1: was in the regular season, a twenty point of game
Speaker 1: guy right around forty seven percent effected field goal percentage.
Speaker 1: The Lakers laid two big fat eggs on the defensive
Speaker 1: end of the ball in the finals, and it massively
Speaker 1: inflated the way we perceived Jimmy Butler. I do not
Speaker 1: think Jimmy Butler is one of the ten best players
Speaker 1: in the league. And the reason why is because of
Speaker 1: the fact that he's not great at anything. And while
Speaker 1: we did see, like you guys gotta remember, coming into
Speaker 1: that NBA Finals, no one was picking uh, No one
Speaker 1: was picking Jimmy Butler as the best player on the heat.
Speaker 1: Everyone was thinking it was bam at a Bio or
Speaker 1: that it was you know, uh, Gore and Dragic. He
Speaker 1: became perceived as their alpha. He became perceived as their
Speaker 1: best player because of a handful of really really great
Speaker 1: outlier performances. And that's not to say that Jimmy doesn't
Speaker 1: deserve credit for that. He certainly does. But when I'm
Speaker 1: project thing forward, when I'm talking about who the ten
Speaker 1: best players in the league are, I just think there's
Speaker 1: a better option for that ten spot, and we'll get
Speaker 1: to who that is in just a minute. So next
Speaker 1: is CP three. CP three eighteen, five and seven in
Speaker 1: the regular season on affect a field goal percentage one
Speaker 1: seven and five in the postseason affective field goal percentage.
Speaker 1: Uh CP three's biggest strength this his ability to control
Speaker 1: the pace of a game. He is the one guy
Speaker 1: outside of Lebron James in the entire league that I
Speaker 1: feel like, just by the way that he dribbles the
Speaker 1: basketball and makes decisions coming up and down the floor,
Speaker 1: can actively change the flow of a game. He It
Speaker 1: is a d n a thing. It's not something anybody
Speaker 1: can be taught. It's not something anybody can learn. It's
Speaker 1: simply just what you are as a basketball player and
Speaker 1: the way you were born. And that is his biggest strength,
Speaker 1: his playmaking and ability to control the pace of a
Speaker 1: game to his roster, whether it's going fast when the
Speaker 1: game dictates that he needs to go fast, or whether
Speaker 1: it's going incredibly slow when the game dictates that it
Speaker 1: needs to go slow. Um, and then he's good in
Speaker 1: isolation when you get Chris Paul in a mismatch against
Speaker 1: a big or we even saw him do it against
Speaker 1: Robert Covington in the Houston series, or p J. Tucker
Speaker 1: or Jeff Green. Uh CP three is incredibly good at
Speaker 1: finding what opening there is an isolation offense to get
Speaker 1: a quality shot off. My biggest issue with CP three
Speaker 1: has to do with his size and the fact that
Speaker 1: when teams really, really, really really clamped down on him,
Speaker 1: he has a physical limitation that makes it difficult for
Speaker 1: him to generate quality shots, and this in turn has
Speaker 1: caused one of the weirdest phenomenons that I've seen since
Speaker 1: I've been following basketball, which is a guy with the
Speaker 1: clutch gene who makes a lot of clutch mistakes. See
Speaker 1: P three is wired like a guy who is not
Speaker 1: afraid of the moment. He famously said that he's built different.
Speaker 1: You know that he wants this moment, that a lot
Speaker 1: of guys don't want this moment, and he's right. Chris
Speaker 1: Paul is one of those guys who genuinely is comfortable
Speaker 1: in those moments, but randomly he's not. And he has
Speaker 1: a lot of moments in his playoff career where when
Speaker 1: the chips got down and things got a little crazy
Speaker 1: that he kind of just spazzes out and makes an
Speaker 1: uncharacteristic mistake, And after doing it often in his career,
Speaker 1: he did it again. In my opinion, in Game seven
Speaker 1: of that Houston Rockets series. So p J. Tucker attacks
Speaker 1: the close out, makes a little floater, puts the Rockets
Speaker 1: up one, and they dropped a final play for Chris Paul.
Speaker 1: Chris Paul is dribbling along the right wing and has
Speaker 1: Robert Covington on him, a player that he has torched
Speaker 1: in isolation multiple times in this series, particularly from the
Speaker 1: three point line, and he just he looks visibly uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, takes a bunch of really like
Speaker 1: funky dribbles right into Robert Covington like dribbles into the
Speaker 1: help I can't remember who it was in the right corner.
Speaker 1: I think it was um. Uh, I think it was
Speaker 1: the guard. I'm blinking on his name now all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, but um, he's not open in the corner
Speaker 1: and there's a help defender over there. I can't remember
Speaker 1: exactly who it is. It might have been, Um, it
Speaker 1: might have been Jeff Green. And he throws a pass
Speaker 1: that's not there because it's not open because he's in
Speaker 1: your classic help side defense where his right hand is
Speaker 1: up in the passing lane. The pass gets deflected. Uh,
Speaker 1: the young guard. I'm blinking on his name again, Shake
Speaker 1: gil Just Alexander's who it was? Shake guil Just Alexander
Speaker 1: has to like scramble to get the tipped pass and
Speaker 1: throws that looping cross court pass to Dort which he
Speaker 1: gets blocked on. So essentially like as you're as I'm saying,
Speaker 1: they're like. Through that entire series and up until that moment,
Speaker 1: he was the man, he was the alf fun but
Speaker 1: once again, in a really weird and bizarre way, he
Speaker 1: randomly lost all of that confidence and fell apart at
Speaker 1: the end of a game and made, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: uh it took. He made a mistake that cost his
Speaker 1: team a chance to win that series. Next is Joe
Speaker 1: LMB Joel Embiid twenty three, twelve and three in the
Speaker 1: regular season, fifty one percent affective field goal percentage in
Speaker 1: the playoffs, thirty twelve and one, one assist on affective
Speaker 1: field goal percentage. So Joel Embiad has a slew of strengths.
Speaker 1: He's one of the most talented players in the league,
Speaker 1: and he's incredibly gifted at drawing fouls. He gets to
Speaker 1: the free throw line better than any young player you'll
Speaker 1: ever see. That's usually a veteran thing Joe ell Embiad
Speaker 1: has the the gene of the ability to manipulate refs
Speaker 1: and get fouls. He's a great one on one post score.
Speaker 1: If you get him downlow against just about anybody except
Speaker 1: for Al Horford, he can find openings in a defense
Speaker 1: um and then he's uh. He provides elite rim protection,
Speaker 1: so as long as an offense can't scheme him out
Speaker 1: of the paint, he will absolutely shut down the pain.
Speaker 1: He's capable of doing what we saw Anthony Davis do
Speaker 1: in Game six of the Finals, which is, if I
Speaker 1: don't have to guard the guy who's guarding me, I
Speaker 1: can camp in the paint and I can absolutely shut
Speaker 1: down the paint. His weakness is he's not a consistent
Speaker 1: perimeter shooter, but he relies on the perimeter shot often
Speaker 1: and uh, he's not very defensively versatile. So if you
Speaker 1: get him out of the if you can somehow scheme
Speaker 1: him out of the paint, he cannot impact the game
Speaker 1: as well as he can when he can stay inside
Speaker 1: the paint. Joe Labat's biggest weakness, in my opinion, the
Speaker 1: thing that will hold him back until further notice, is
Speaker 1: his ability to read defenses and make plays out of
Speaker 1: double teams. Think about what happened in that series you
Speaker 1: lose Ben Simmons. You know, Tobias Harris is just not
Speaker 1: an alpha. He's not a guy who can create for
Speaker 1: your offense often, so you're resorting to posting up Joe
Speaker 1: l Embiid, you know, and trying to create plays. And
Speaker 1: the reason why, um, the reason why Philly went away
Speaker 1: from posting up Joel was because he wasn't handling the
Speaker 1: double teams. Well, think about how hard it is in
Speaker 1: a situation or you're the best player on your team
Speaker 1: by a mile, to only end up with one assist.
Speaker 1: It's damn near and possible considering the amount of defensive
Speaker 1: attention that's being thrown his way. And it just goes
Speaker 1: to show you that he struggles with the basic concept
Speaker 1: of embracing the double team, letting them get closer to him,
Speaker 1: and being willing to turn the ball over, you know,
Speaker 1: accepting the risk that comes with letting the defense collapse
Speaker 1: on you, accepting the risk of the turnover to create
Speaker 1: openings for your teammates that they to create, you know,
Speaker 1: because in fear NBA players don't make mistakes when they're
Speaker 1: left wide open. They will inevitably eventually have success, and
Speaker 1: it just was unfortunate in that series that that Joel
Speaker 1: never embraced that he got his thirty points a game.
Speaker 1: You know, he put up his thirty and twelve. He
Speaker 1: can look himself in the mirror, I guess, and pretend
Speaker 1: like it wasn't his fault, But the reality is, as
Speaker 1: a player of his talent against a team like that
Speaker 1: that's really not that great, he should have been able
Speaker 1: to succeed to a higher level than he did, especially
Speaker 1: against the Boston team that never really provided much interior resistance.
Speaker 1: So last but not least is Jayson Tatum, and this
Speaker 1: is the player that I picked as the tenth best
Speaker 1: player in the league. In the regular season, he averaged
Speaker 1: twenty three, seven and three on fifty effective field goal percentage,
Speaker 1: and in the postseason the average ten and five on
Speaker 1: effective field goal percentage. His strengths are three point shooting,
Speaker 1: off the dribble and off the catch three level scoring.
Speaker 1: He can score effectively with his back to the basket
Speaker 1: from that ten to fifteen foot range, and off the
Speaker 1: dribble in that fifteen ft range, he can score at
Speaker 1: the basket. He's gotten a lot better at drawing fouls,
Speaker 1: and he can score off the dribble and pick and roll.
Speaker 1: He's he's he's a master of side step threes, which
Speaker 1: is a really good efficient way of turning um, you know,
Speaker 1: a defensive aggressive an aggressive defender that's going to chase
Speaker 1: you off the line. It's a very effective and efficient
Speaker 1: way of turning that into a three point shot instead
Speaker 1: of Along to his weaknesses, though he's not a great
Speaker 1: decision maker, he's still struggling at feeling games out and
Speaker 1: understanding when and where to be aggressive his uh shot selection.
Speaker 1: This is a classic case, you know, you know, for instance,
Speaker 1: I've talked about this with Lebron. Lebron is really good
Speaker 1: at taking what we would consider settle shots, him settling
Speaker 1: for long jump shots over the defense. He's really good
Speaker 1: at taking those shots when he's specifically using it for rest.
Speaker 1: So for instance, middle of the fourth quarter, teams on
Speaker 1: a run, his team is on a run, he's recently
Speaker 1: got to the basket a couple of times, either drawing fouls,
Speaker 1: making shots at the rim, or kicking the shooters, and
Speaker 1: it's a late shot clock situation or whatever reason, the
Speaker 1: defense was in his face, and you know, there's only
Speaker 1: six seconds left on the shot clock. He'll take a
Speaker 1: long three when the defender goes underneath the screen because
Speaker 1: he knows it's a low, it's a it's a it's
Speaker 1: not a very strenuous shot for him, and it's effectively
Speaker 1: him saving energy. But you're not going to see him
Speaker 1: take that shot in moments like pivotal moments of the
Speaker 1: game where the team desperately needs a higher quality shot.
Speaker 1: That's one of the things that from a shot a
Speaker 1: shot selection standpoint that Lebron has figured out. You know,
Speaker 1: Jayson Tatum struggles with the basic concept of understanding that
Speaker 1: you know, just because you can get a shot doesn't
Speaker 1: mean you should take it in that moment. And you
Speaker 1: know he has a tendency to take extremely tough shots
Speaker 1: out of the flow of the offense when there are
Speaker 1: easier shots that he's capable of in that given moment,
Speaker 1: Like especially on that Boston team, you would see Kemba
Speaker 1: and Jaylen Brown be aggressive and the ball would eventually
Speaker 1: make it's a way around a Tatum, and Tatum would
Speaker 1: have fresh leg because he hasn't taken a shot in
Speaker 1: a few possessions, and he would go to some ridiculously
Speaker 1: tough step back instead of using his fresh legs to
Speaker 1: go to his more dependable moves at the rim, or
Speaker 1: getting using his size to get closer to the basket,
Speaker 1: so that instead of a you know, a side step
Speaker 1: eighteen foot over a contest, it's a ten foot over
Speaker 1: a defender that's shorter than him at a higher release point.
Speaker 1: You know, the like it's a It's a classic case
Speaker 1: of of just experience and repetition that will eventually fix
Speaker 1: that flaw. And one of the biggest things that I
Speaker 1: look for in a situation like this. This happened to
Speaker 1: Steph Curry in two thousand fifteen. Steph Curry in two
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen in the regular season was a twenty three
Speaker 1: point a game guy, but in the postseason those numbers
Speaker 1: went way up, and then immediately as the season has
Speaker 1: started in two thousand sixteen, he just took off right
Speaker 1: where he left off in two thousand fifteen in the
Speaker 1: playoffs or two in the two thousand fifteen playoffs. Similar
Speaker 1: thing happened with Tatum this year. Twenty three point of
Speaker 1: game guy in the regular season, kind of feeling things
Speaker 1: out on his team in this weird role that he
Speaker 1: has along a lot of alongside a lot of ball
Speaker 1: handling players, and then all of a sudden, he's uh
Speaker 1: point game in the postseason and still let fifty effective
Speaker 1: field goal percentage. So from that standpoint, I expect him
Speaker 1: to kind of pick up right where he left off
Speaker 1: next season and be that tenth best player in the league.
Speaker 1: And then I, you know, I talk a lot about
Speaker 1: how I stick to. I stick to kind of overarching
Speaker 1: themes of basketball that I've always believed in, which is
Speaker 1: that the most the most valuable skills in all of
Speaker 1: basketball our defensive versatility, elite playmaking, an elite three level scoring.
Speaker 1: And if you look at all of these six guys,
Speaker 1: none of them are good at all three. But Tatum
Speaker 1: is the one guy who's good at two of them.
Speaker 1: He's elite in terms of his defensive versatility and eas
Speaker 1: elite as a three level score And in my opinion,
Speaker 1: those two that feels two of those three boxes. As
Speaker 1: we get into the higher ranked players, you know, from
Speaker 1: one to nine, we're going to run into a lot
Speaker 1: of guys who are grade at all three. But for
Speaker 1: the tenth best player in the league, to separate yourself
Speaker 1: from guys like Jimmy Butler, who's not really great at anything.
Speaker 1: From Paul George, who's not an alpha you know, like
Speaker 1: Jayson Tatum literally will try to dunk on you to
Speaker 1: end a playoff game, as he showed he will try
Speaker 1: to dunk on you if you're Lebron James in game
Speaker 1: seven of an Eastern Conference Finals playoff series. Jason Tatum
Speaker 1: has that confidence that Paul George doesn't have. You know,
Speaker 1: Damian Lillard does not bring the defensive versatility. You know,
Speaker 1: CP three does not have the size and that ability
Speaker 1: to create shots at an elite level late in playoff games.
Speaker 1: And Joe l Embiid just literally has no idea how
Speaker 1: to handle a double team and he lacks the defensive
Speaker 1: versatility to guard outside of the paint. So for me,
Speaker 1: Jayson Tatum clearly separates himself from those guys. It's a
Speaker 1: tough decision. This is a deep this is a deeper
Speaker 1: league than we've seen pretty much since the since the
Speaker 1: late eighties. So it's not a slight against any of
Speaker 1: these guys, but I think Jayson Tatum has a clear
Speaker 1: case for that number ten spot as of right now. Anyway,
Speaker 1: thank you to you guys for listening. Like I said,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to re release this as a podcast.
Speaker 1: We will see how that goes. This is effectively going
Speaker 1: to be a guinea pig of sorts. And then I'm
Speaker 1: going to early next week release my one through nine
Speaker 1: list and go through why I've ranked those players in
Speaker 1: that one through nine range, and then I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: Tommy on to talk Lebron and Michael Jordan's stuff and
Speaker 1: to talk uh his interpretation of the top ten players
Speaker 1: in the league as well. So thank you guys so
Speaker 1: much for listening, and I sincerely appreciate your support and
Speaker 1: I will let you know next time I'm coming on
Speaker 1: three