Speaker 1: The Volume. All right, welcome to Hoops to night here
Speaker 1: at the Volume. Happy Sunday, everybody. I hope all of
Speaker 1: you guys are having an incredible weekend. I'm coming to
Speaker 1: you guys from Ennis, Montana on vacation. We were planning
Speaker 1: on not working, but I knew there was one thing
Speaker 1: that could happen that could potentially make us work while
Speaker 1: we're out here, and it was Bradley bial getting traded.
Speaker 1: And I was actually just joking with Ryan, our producer,
Speaker 1: and we were saying, if you got traded to Miami
Speaker 1: might not have been as big of a deal. But
Speaker 1: a trade to the Phoenix Suns that does not include
Speaker 1: DeAndre Ayton puts together most definitely the most talented top
Speaker 1: four in the NBA, Bradley Beal, Kevin Durant, Devin Booker,
Speaker 1: and DeAndre Ayton. From a sheer talent perspective, we'll go
Speaker 1: ahead to toe to toe with any group of four
Speaker 1: players probably that's played together in the history of the league.
Speaker 1: It's definitely gonna be an interesting group there, but it
Speaker 1: presents some basketball issues that they're gonna have to address.
Speaker 1: And so I just want to share a couple of
Speaker 1: quick thoughts on the move and how I think it's
Speaker 1: gonna impact the Suns this season. You guys know the
Speaker 1: drive before we get started. To subscribe to the Volumes
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Speaker 1: All right, So with Bradley Beal as a basketball player,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna go too deep into that again because
Speaker 1: we did that in kind of our trade when he
Speaker 1: first when the first report came down that it was
Speaker 1: kind of imminent that he would be traded. I did
Speaker 1: a deep dive into the basketball side of things. So
Speaker 1: if you want to see that, go a little bit
Speaker 1: further back on the Volumes YouTube feed and you'll find
Speaker 1: the video where we did that deep dive that said,
Speaker 1: quick synopsis, he's way better than people think he is.
Speaker 1: This is very common thing that happens in the NBA
Speaker 1: as soon as the guy signs a long term max
Speaker 1: contract and has a couple of seasons where the team
Speaker 1: isn't very good instantly starts to be viewed as a
Speaker 1: negative asset, which I don't understand a couple different reasons
Speaker 1: for that. First of all, it's a max contract, Like
Speaker 1: you can't just pay a max contract to Steph Curry
Speaker 1: and Janna Santana Kumpo and Nicole Jokic. Like, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of stars in the league, so just about every
Speaker 1: team in the league is good. If they have any
Speaker 1: intention of winning a championship's gonna have to pay a
Speaker 1: max contract to certain people. Not to mention the fact
Speaker 1: that in the long run, as a new TV deal
Speaker 1: gets signed, these numbers may not seem as intimidating as
Speaker 1: they seem at this particular moment in time. But just
Speaker 1: like with anything in life, you get what you pay for,
Speaker 1: and if you want a really good basketball player, he
Speaker 1: might be expensive. Bradley Beal is a very similar type
Speaker 1: of player to Devin Booker in the sense that he
Speaker 1: relies heavily on pull up jump shooting, but at the
Speaker 1: same time, like Devin Booker, he gets to the rim
Speaker 1: really well compared to a lot of the guards at
Speaker 1: his position. As a matter of fact, Kevin Durank gets
Speaker 1: to the rim a tiny fraction as often as Bradley
Speaker 1: Beal and Devin Booker do, so it kind of helps
Speaker 1: them with some of their rim pressure things. I do
Speaker 1: see some redundancies there. I've talked about this con before,
Speaker 1: but it's like diminishing returns. So when you have three
Speaker 1: really high level ball handlers like this, is there a
Speaker 1: point where the value of what the third ball handler
Speaker 1: brings to the table is lessened by the simple fact
Speaker 1: that you already have two players at the position who
Speaker 1: are better at what he does. Right. So I'll give
Speaker 1: you an example. If I have Devin Booker and Kevin
Speaker 1: Durant on a basketball team and those two guys are
Speaker 1: creating lots of defensive rotation situations where you've got a
Speaker 1: guy in a closeout situation, Devin Booker. Excuse me, Bradley
Speaker 1: Beal might be many times better than Kantavious Caldwell Pope
Speaker 1: at attacking a set defense, But in pure closeout situations,
Speaker 1: when it's just knocking down open threes or driving a
Speaker 1: close out making a play when the defense is already warped,
Speaker 1: how much better is a guy like Bradley Beal than
Speaker 1: a guy like Kantavius callwoll Pope really in that specific role.
Speaker 1: That's what I mean by the concept of diminishing returns.
Speaker 1: I think it's important to have multiple top tier shot creators.
Speaker 1: That's why the Booker Kevin Durant pairing makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense on the surface. Once you get to that
Speaker 1: third guy, though, I really start to look at what
Speaker 1: are you good at that doesn't involve having the basketball
Speaker 1: in your hands? And that's gonna be the big challenge
Speaker 1: for this big three, for Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, and
Speaker 1: for Bradley beal Is. Even though they managed to keep
Speaker 1: Deandratan in the deal, chances are, like you're gonna have
Speaker 1: to fill out the rest of the roster with veteran
Speaker 1: minimum contracts. And like we talked about in our ten
Speaker 1: Characteristics of Champions video, every recent NBA champion's got highly paid,
Speaker 1: highly qualified role players down the roster, and this Sun's
Speaker 1: team is not going to have that. It's gonna be
Speaker 1: a lot of veteran minimum contracts. Maybe, if they're lucky,
Speaker 1: they can poach a really good forward on the mid
Speaker 1: level exception to help them on the wing. But what
Speaker 1: that means is you're gonna have a lot of guys
Speaker 1: on the team that aren't necessarily great at anything, and
Speaker 1: that's gonna put a lot of pressure on guys like
Speaker 1: Devin Booker, Bradley Beal, and Kevin Durant to take on
Speaker 1: duties that go beyond their ball handling. So if the
Speaker 1: question is, hey, Jason, can this big four work, the
Speaker 1: answer is yes. As long as Kevin Durant plays like
Speaker 1: an all defense player, as long as Bradley Beal and
Speaker 1: Devin Booker bring enough to the defensive table to make
Speaker 1: up for some of the inability to surround them with
Speaker 1: higher quality role players, It's gonna be a lot of
Speaker 1: pressure on those guys to be great in those areas.
Speaker 1: That said, this is a very competitive group. Devin Booker
Speaker 1: in particular, is very competitive. Bradley Beal, I know a
Speaker 1: lot of people are down on him, but I've seen
Speaker 1: enough high leverage basketball from him, especially in playoff situations,
Speaker 1: to know that he's a gamer and he's gonna fight
Speaker 1: in those situations. So I definitely think it can work.
Speaker 1: That's just gonna be the delineation right there. If they
Speaker 1: try to play the same way they've been playing at
Speaker 1: all their previous destinations, it will fail. If all three
Speaker 1: of them embrace the dirty work to another level, it
Speaker 1: will succeed. That's gonna be the your entire payroll is
Speaker 1: taken up by four stars. Those stars better do the
Speaker 1: dirty work. They got to do what Bam and Jimmy
Speaker 1: Butler do. They got to do what Lebron James and
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis did in twenty twenty. They've got to do
Speaker 1: what Giannison, Tannakoopo and Drew Holliday did in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: or even like that Warriors group where you've got a
Speaker 1: bunch of different archetypes of players and only one supreme
Speaker 1: ball handler, but they're all stars in their roles in
Speaker 1: different ways. So that's going to be the challenge. Definitely
Speaker 1: need to try to use that mid level exception slot
Speaker 1: to track down a good small forward that they can
Speaker 1: put out there, an athlete that can help them in
Speaker 1: those specific areas of the game. And then all three
Speaker 1: of them on the offensive end are going to have
Speaker 1: to really work on being active off the ball to
Speaker 1: maintain rhythm. Rhythm is gonna be the biggest challenge when
Speaker 1: you have three guys that work off the dribble and
Speaker 1: high pick and roll a lot, and are looking for
Speaker 1: pull up jump shots and things along those lines. It's
Speaker 1: going to disrupt their rhythm as they divide their usage,
Speaker 1: and so having one of them in particular, potentially dive
Speaker 1: into more of an off ball roll could help Kevin Durant,
Speaker 1: guy who's had a lot of success in off ball
Speaker 1: situations in his career. But then you run into the
Speaker 1: problem where if you put him off ball, then you're
Speaker 1: not getting the high end benefits of him being on
Speaker 1: the ball. So I'm really curious to see how it
Speaker 1: all comes together. I will do a deeper dive into
Speaker 1: this trade in all of the ensuing details when I
Speaker 1: get back into town, but I just wanted to give
Speaker 1: my initial two cents. I really don't understand why Washington
Speaker 1: did this. I feel like that there was probably a
Speaker 1: better opportunity out there if they were more patient, maybe
Speaker 1: try to get some more bidders involved, But it's always
Speaker 1: complicated when there's a no trade clause. There may or
Speaker 1: may not have been some nepotism at play, with the
Speaker 1: agent for Bradley Beal and his son being highly involved
Speaker 1: in the basketball operations for the Phoenix Suns, So who
Speaker 1: the hell knows what's going on with all that, But
Speaker 1: if this trade gets finalized and goes through, it's the
Speaker 1: most talented top four in the league and one of
Speaker 1: the most talented top fours of all time, and it's
Speaker 1: going to be really really interest staying dynamic from there.
Speaker 1: All right, guys, that is all I have for today.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna enjoy the rest of this trip and I'll
Speaker 1: see you guys for the NBA Draft and some other
Speaker 1: stuff next Thursday. The volume