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Speaker 1: welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by Fandel here at the volume.
Speaker 1: Happy Wednesday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are
Speaker 1: having a great week. So far. We are down to
Speaker 1: the final two players in our top twenty five list
Speaker 1: that we've been working on here for the last couple
Speaker 1: of weeks. We'll be doing number two today. You guys
Speaker 1: know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the
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Speaker 1: content that I produce on Twitter. And then, last but
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Speaker 1: we do release them in audio form wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. Under Hoops tonight. All right, number two another
Speaker 1: one of my favorite players in the league, Mr Steph Curry.
Speaker 1: This is gonna be a fun one. I've been looking
Speaker 1: forward to this a lot over the course of the summer.
Speaker 1: This guy just deserves to have a ton of praise
Speaker 1: heaped on him this summer for what he accomplished in
Speaker 1: this past year. An unassailable playoff run to wipe clean
Speaker 1: a rough couple of years, rough couple of years that
Speaker 1: weren't his fault in my opinion, A rough couple of
Speaker 1: years that all of his detractors used as an opportunity
Speaker 1: to pile dirt and prematurely berry Steph Curry when he
Speaker 1: very much had a lot left to say in his
Speaker 1: basketball career. As you know, the year after the two
Speaker 1: thousand nineteen finals, Kevin Durant leaves, Clay Thompson has a
Speaker 1: torn a c L, Steph Curry ends up breaking his hand,
Speaker 1: ends up missing the vast majority of that season. They
Speaker 1: missed the playoffs. Then the following year, it's kind of
Speaker 1: a weird, kind of like Bridge season, Clay still out,
Speaker 1: but Steph Andre are there and actually healthy. But there
Speaker 1: is also like this weird priority to play the younger players.
Speaker 1: Some of the role players that they picked, namely Camp
Speaker 1: Baysmore and Kelly Ubre ended up being bad fit spread
Speaker 1: Wanamaker two where they just struggled in the Golden State system,
Speaker 1: which is designed to generate four on three opportunities and
Speaker 1: you need smart players that are good at attacking closeouts
Speaker 1: and making reads to their teammates. Just a funky season
Speaker 1: where things didn't really come together and they missed the
Speaker 1: playoffs again, in my opinion, not because of Steph. I
Speaker 1: thought that was Steph's best regular season of his career
Speaker 1: when you factor in the way he was defended and
Speaker 1: the actual result of what he was doing on the
Speaker 1: offensive end. Of the floor. But even though Steph was
Speaker 1: the best I had ever seen him offensively, it wasn't enough.
Speaker 1: Why because basketball is a team sports, something that we
Speaker 1: talked about a ton over the course of the last week.
Speaker 1: So coming into this season, they finally signed some smarter
Speaker 1: role players, players that are a little bit more cerebral
Speaker 1: with the way that they play, especially when they're in space.
Speaker 1: Off of the attention that Steph Curry got, earners bringing
Speaker 1: back on Darragudala getting out of Porter Jr. Gary Payton second, who,
Speaker 1: as many of you guys may not know, when he
Speaker 1: was in junior college one a Player of the Year award,
Speaker 1: primarily for what he was doing as a playmaker. This
Speaker 1: is a guy that is gifted at putting the ball
Speaker 1: on the floor and making plays. First teammates, one of
Speaker 1: the unsung heroes of last year's playoff run. Just a
Speaker 1: smarter group of players, no longer prioritizing the young players
Speaker 1: unless Steve Kerr saw opportunities for them to fit in
Speaker 1: the rotation and small bursts, and the result was much better.
Speaker 1: They dominated from the start of the season, and then
Speaker 1: we got into a playoff run where a couple of
Speaker 1: things didn't go their way, Draymond Green recovering from a
Speaker 1: back injury, Clay Thompson not being what he was defensively
Speaker 1: before his injury, and then Steph Curry sprains his foot
Speaker 1: and misses a chunk of games right before the playoffs.
Speaker 1: Game one of the playoff series he gets Denver, ends
Speaker 1: up being his first game that he plays live in
Speaker 1: a very long time, comes off the inch and kicks
Speaker 1: off arguably the most dominant playoff front of his career
Speaker 1: when you factor in quality of competition as well as
Speaker 1: the supporting cast he had at his disposal. Andrew Wiggins,
Speaker 1: I thought was the best player on that roster not
Speaker 1: named Steph Curry. That's an unassailable championship run. Wipes clean
Speaker 1: so many of the stupid narratives that have followed step
Speaker 1: throughout his career, and I'm really happy for him that
Speaker 1: he had that moment. I'm I wanted to take a
Speaker 1: second here. I'm sure some of you Warriors fans have
Speaker 1: thought about this, specifically, Jason, Why aren't any other Warriors
Speaker 1: in the top twenty five. It's really not all that
Speaker 1: complicated to me. The talent at the top of the
Speaker 1: league is insanely deep and I would argue, right beneath
Speaker 1: where I started this list, which I think was the
Speaker 1: top twenty nine players in the list, You're gonna hit
Speaker 1: Draymond Green, You're gonna hit Jordan Pool, You're gonna hit
Speaker 1: Clay Thompson in pretty quick order there. This is an
Speaker 1: extremely smart team with a roster that's extremely well put together.
Speaker 1: They don't have top end talent outside of Steph, but
Speaker 1: extremely competent down the roster. They had a lot of
Speaker 1: wings that didn't even get into their rotation because how
Speaker 1: deep they were, Guys like Damian Lee, Guys like Andrea Gudala.
Speaker 1: For the most part during this playoff run, this was
Speaker 1: an extremely well put together roster. They just didn't have
Speaker 1: top end talent outside of step That's why I didn't
Speaker 1: have other guys that made it on this list. But
Speaker 1: Andrew Wiggins turned into a monstrous three and D player
Speaker 1: in that playoff run. Clay Thompson timely scoring Draymond Green
Speaker 1: every bit as Draymond greeny as he's ever been. But
Speaker 1: I just don't think those guys are at the same
Speaker 1: level of your Chris Paul's and Bradley Beals and guys
Speaker 1: that didn't quite make the cut for the top twenty five.
Speaker 1: So that's all that means. It's not disrespect to those guys.
Speaker 1: I still think this team is extremely well put together
Speaker 1: and has a ton of talent. But Steph is the
Speaker 1: only top twenty five type of guy that was on
Speaker 1: that roster, and hey, that's what makes it an unassailable
Speaker 1: playoff run. That's why when we do all time rankings,
Speaker 1: he's gonna be pretty damn high on my list. I
Speaker 1: what he did with last year's roster was a sailable
Speaker 1: and it deserves to be celebrated. All right, let's get
Speaker 1: into some numbers. You guys know the drill here. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go through some numbers. I want to do a
Speaker 1: little bit more of a deep dive into steps slump
Speaker 1: this year because now in retrospect, it's super interesting. We're
Speaker 1: gonna be doing strengths, weaknesses, biggest hope's, biggest fears, and
Speaker 1: biggest what if at the end. All right, So this season,
Speaker 1: Steph average twenty six, five and six on six shooting
Speaker 1: hilarious because sixty percent true shooting is better than the
Speaker 1: vast majority of the guys on this list. But it's
Speaker 1: considered a down shooting year. For staff. But hey, that's
Speaker 1: the being graded on a curve. There are a couple
Speaker 1: of guys in the league that're great on a curve,
Speaker 1: Lebron Steph janice Kd. These guys you just get so statistically,
Speaker 1: are numb to what they do statistically that you see
Speaker 1: some anomally that just looks normal and it's considered a
Speaker 1: down season, right, So that sixty percent true shooting was
Speaker 1: down six percent from last season, just for a little perspective,
Speaker 1: and down seven percent from his unanimous MVP season. In
Speaker 1: the postseason that went up to twenty seven points per game,
Speaker 1: five rebounds, six assists on sixty one percent true shooting,
Speaker 1: and then in the finals in particular, thirty one points
Speaker 1: per game, six rebounds, five assists on sixty three percent
Speaker 1: true shooting. On the scoreboard, step was monumentally valuable in
Speaker 1: two In two hundred and twenty five minutes versus Boston,
Speaker 1: the Warriors were plus thirty five. In sixty three minutes
Speaker 1: without Steph, they were minus eleven. It was the defining
Speaker 1: run of Steph's career. We are going to spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time talking about that, especially when we get
Speaker 1: into the XS and O stuff from the NBA Finals
Speaker 1: because I thought it was a super interesting gamble from Boston,
Speaker 1: and Steph Curry made them pay in a big way.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get into strengths. So I think Steph
Speaker 1: Curry is the best offensive engine in basketball right now.
Speaker 1: I think Lebron's the best offensive engine of this era
Speaker 1: with a slight edge over Steph. But I think Steph
Speaker 1: is the best offensive engine right now with a slight
Speaker 1: edge over Lebron, and then shortly behind them, i'd have
Speaker 1: Luca and Yokich. Offensive engine is very different than what
Speaker 1: we get from a Kevin Durant or a Kawhi Leonard
Speaker 1: or Jason Tatum or guys along those lines. To me,
Speaker 1: an offensive engine is a player that you can count
Speaker 1: on to Let's just say, in a regular game, you're
Speaker 1: getting a hundred possessions just for the sake of making
Speaker 1: the math easy. You know, these tip of the spear
Speaker 1: type guys, you're Anthony davis Is, You're Kevin Durants, your
Speaker 1: Kawhi Leonards. They're not going to control the vast majority
Speaker 1: of those possessions, but for maybe thirty forty possessions, they're
Speaker 1: going to be really heavily involved. Your offensive engine types.
Speaker 1: They're almost responsible for every fieldical attempt that gets generated
Speaker 1: in one way or another, either directly through them scoring,
Speaker 1: directly through them creating a shot for their teammate off
Speaker 1: the dribble or as a decoy, just with the way
Speaker 1: that the defense is set up to handle what they
Speaker 1: do on a possession by possession basis. That's kind of
Speaker 1: what I define as an offensive engine. Obviously, every player
Speaker 1: is an offensive engine to some extent, but I do
Speaker 1: think there's a barrier between the steph Lebron, Luca Yogis
Speaker 1: pipes and the guys that are behind them, just in
Speaker 1: terms of how valuable they are to an offense generating
Speaker 1: quality looks. He's obviously the best shooter in basketball, best
Speaker 1: shooter of all time, and he's the best pull up
Speaker 1: three point shooter in basketball, best pull up three point
Speaker 1: shooter of all time. The best mid rain shooter in
Speaker 1: the league is Kevin Durant in my opinion, but the
Speaker 1: best pull up shooter by overall shot value when you
Speaker 1: weigh things like the three point shot that goes to
Speaker 1: steph Um Again, he had a down shooting year this year,
Speaker 1: and I want to get into that a little bit
Speaker 1: because I think It's interesting a lot of that had
Speaker 1: to do with integrating Jordan Pool into the system, a
Speaker 1: different type of player than he's used to playing with
Speaker 1: Clay Thompson being out of the lineup for a while,
Speaker 1: then coming back into the lineup and trying to get
Speaker 1: him reintegrated. Draymond Green missing a significant chunk of time,
Speaker 1: and as we know, Draymond Green is important, especially to
Speaker 1: a lot of the stuff that Steph Curry likes to
Speaker 1: do without the basketball. So in this season, he averaged
Speaker 1: two restricted area makes at that's okay for reguard one paint,
Speaker 1: non restricted area make at one, a range make on
Speaker 1: fifty four percent, and four point five threes made per
Speaker 1: game at thirty eight percent, Again down across the board
Speaker 1: from what you typically expect from Steph. Three point five
Speaker 1: made pull up jumpers per game at thirty nine percent.
Speaker 1: So what I wanted to do here was rip off
Speaker 1: his one numbers just to give you guys some perspective
Speaker 1: on how much better he had a shooting season last
Speaker 1: season or two seasons ago, I should say, just to
Speaker 1: give you some perspective on how strange this season was.
Speaker 1: So in he had two point seven restricted area makes
Speaker 1: on sixty five percent, considerably better in volume and performance.
Speaker 1: One point three paint non restricted area makes. That's one
Speaker 1: midrange make on forty eight percent up from this year,
Speaker 1: and then five point three three's made per game at
Speaker 1: forty two. Biggest differences in pull up shooting four point
Speaker 1: one pull up makes per game at forty two UM.
Speaker 1: So to give you an idea in terms of the
Speaker 1: shot value on his pull up shooting. So if you
Speaker 1: guys remember yesterday I did with k D his pull
Speaker 1: up shooting for the season, he was right around forty percent.
Speaker 1: I think his effective field goal percentage when you waited
Speaker 1: those for threes was about fifty two percent. In one season,
Speaker 1: steps effective field goal percentage on pull up jump shooting
Speaker 1: was fifty seven point three percent. That gives you an
Speaker 1: idea of just how much more valuable steps pull up
Speaker 1: pull up shooting is. In that season, he was three
Speaker 1: percent better than any pull up shooter that attempted at
Speaker 1: least five threes per game. Little trivia for you guys,
Speaker 1: who do you think was number two? It was Zach Levine.
Speaker 1: So in his down year this year, he still had
Speaker 1: an effective field goal percentage of fifty two point five percent.
Speaker 1: So that's his down year. That was only a half
Speaker 1: of a present behind Trey Young for first place in
Speaker 1: the league sixteen players attempted at least eight threes per game.
Speaker 1: He still finished fourth in percentage this year. So down
Speaker 1: shooting year for step still was a fifty two percent
Speaker 1: effect Phogo percentage and was fourth out of the sixteen
Speaker 1: players who attempted at least eight three eight threes per game.
Speaker 1: That's just a ridiculous shooting slump. It's a lot different
Speaker 1: than my shooting slump when when I was in college
Speaker 1: back in the day. Um okay, So I wanted so
Speaker 1: that the actual shooting slump itself stretched from January three
Speaker 1: to March first, Okay, so about two months, a little
Speaker 1: over thirty games or something along those lines. Um. He
Speaker 1: It was crazy how poorly he performed, even on good
Speaker 1: shot quality. He shot thirty four percent on wide open
Speaker 1: threes during that stretch. Again, wide open threes defenders at
Speaker 1: least six ft away. Like, if Steph Curry is shooting
Speaker 1: thirty four percent on wide open threes, that's pretty damn
Speaker 1: flukey from the corner, which is where he's usually incredibly deadly,
Speaker 1: especially when he's moving without the basketball on pull up threes.
Speaker 1: So it's just a random stretch where nothing was going in,
Speaker 1: but it was extended. It was two months long. That's
Speaker 1: why I kept asking, like, man, what's going on with Steph?
Speaker 1: Like this is so usual compared to anything else that
Speaker 1: he did in the years before that, it was worth
Speaker 1: at least talking about, is worth thinking about, And like
Speaker 1: I said before that playoff run, we're going to find out.
Speaker 1: We're gonna find out if that was a slump or
Speaker 1: if it's a decline. And he proved resoundingly that it
Speaker 1: was just a slump, because not only was he from
Speaker 1: three before that stretch, and after that stretch, this was
Speaker 1: what he did in the NBA Finals seventy one percent
Speaker 1: in the restricted area, fifty nine percent in the mid range,
Speaker 1: and on twelve three point attempts per game. So he
Speaker 1: took any notion that there might be a slump there
Speaker 1: and just completely knocked it out of the park. It's
Speaker 1: just completely We can now simply look back at that
Speaker 1: as hey do remember that time in two for two
Speaker 1: months that Steff just couldn't make a shot and no
Speaker 1: one knew what happened, And then he was fine and
Speaker 1: one of finals, MVP that's the way we get to
Speaker 1: tell that story now, because Steph proved that that's all
Speaker 1: that that was. The finals were super interesting because, as
Speaker 1: you guys remember in the preview before that series, I
Speaker 1: was watching film from the regular season, and the Celtics
Speaker 1: utilize the drop coverage against the Warriors. Um not just
Speaker 1: on ball screens, but kind of a modified drop concept
Speaker 1: on off ball actions. So like if Steph was in
Speaker 1: the corner and someone said a pinned down for him,
Speaker 1: rather than having that screen be switched so that he
Speaker 1: doesn't have an opening, they would force the defender to
Speaker 1: chase him over the top of the screen and the
Speaker 1: big man like Robert Williams and or Al Horford would
Speaker 1: be back kind of by where the screener was. And
Speaker 1: in the regular season matchups, I'm watching Steph come flying
Speaker 1: off of these pin downs and he's getting wide open
Speaker 1: threes and coming off these ball screens, and he's getting
Speaker 1: pretty damn good looks at the three. And if you
Speaker 1: guys remember, in the season preview or a series preview,
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, that's a suicide mission. I sure hope
Speaker 1: they don't do that. And then they came out and
Speaker 1: they did that anyway, in the finals. Now, if you guys,
Speaker 1: remember with the hellio centric guys, when I was talking
Speaker 1: about like Luca or On or Yokich or things along
Speaker 1: those lines, I was talking about the conundrum that defenses
Speaker 1: face in terms of game planning, and you pretty much
Speaker 1: have two options. You can send the kitchen sink at
Speaker 1: the star to get the ball out of their hands
Speaker 1: and force teammates to make shots right, or you can
Speaker 1: stay home and try to bait them into playing isolation
Speaker 1: basketball even though they don't want to because they're primarily playmakers,
Speaker 1: and see if you can test their conditioning because obviously
Speaker 1: Luca Lebron, these kind of guys, they're gonna kill you
Speaker 1: in isolation, but maybe they won't be able to kill
Speaker 1: you for seven games doing it. That's the debate, right,
Speaker 1: and those teams will try to figure out which strategy
Speaker 1: works best for them based on their personnel. There's a
Speaker 1: similar kind of discussion when you're getting ready to face
Speaker 1: a Steph Curry lead team. The decision there is do
Speaker 1: we let Steff operate out of normal coverages and see
Speaker 1: if he can beat us shooting the basketball, or do
Speaker 1: we trap the hell out of him every time we
Speaker 1: get a chance and let the Warriors play four on
Speaker 1: three all series and see if they can beat us
Speaker 1: playing four on three. Now, I tend to go with
Speaker 1: the third option there. I tend to go with just
Speaker 1: switch everything and make Steph beat you in isolation um.
Speaker 1: But the Celtics ended up in the main reason there
Speaker 1: is it's just harder for Steff to score in isolation
Speaker 1: scenarios than it is coming off of screens when he's
Speaker 1: getting airspace. The airspace that he's getting off of that
Speaker 1: is higher quality airspace, more space, higher quality shots than
Speaker 1: it is for him when he has to hit a
Speaker 1: dribble combination to get separation before he can make the shot.
Speaker 1: But the Celtics opted for a drop coverage, and so
Speaker 1: what that meant was the defender was trying to chase
Speaker 1: step over the top of the screen and Robert Williams
Speaker 1: ral Horford would be a couple steps behind the three
Speaker 1: point line and they'd offer a late contest as Steff
Speaker 1: would come over the off of those threes. So they're contested.
Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong, they're difficult shots. But this is
Speaker 1: the best shooter of all time we're talking about here.
Speaker 1: This is the best pull up three point shooter of
Speaker 1: all time. We're talking about here. This is a guy
Speaker 1: who has an incredibly quick release and is accustomed to shooting,
Speaker 1: particularly when he gets tiny little windows to shoot through.
Speaker 1: So Steph typically averages about nine pull up jump shot
Speaker 1: attempts per game typically in his career. In recent history,
Speaker 1: that went up to a thirteen per game against Boston.
Speaker 1: That's the way that that coverage dictated his shot profile.
Speaker 1: And he made forty eight percent of them. And when
Speaker 1: you wait for threes, it was a sixty three point
Speaker 1: effect effective fiegal percentage. That's that. That's how ridiculous that
Speaker 1: strategy was. The Celtics were daring the best shooter of
Speaker 1: all time and the best pull up three point shooter
Speaker 1: of all time to take pull up three point shots,
Speaker 1: and he did, and he made them, and the rest
Speaker 1: is history. You know, this is where steps releases super unique.
Speaker 1: You know, I talked to I talked about this a
Speaker 1: while back. I can't remember which player was specifically, but
Speaker 1: it was in this in this list that we were doing,
Speaker 1: and I talked about how there's like three different kinds
Speaker 1: of shot releases. There's like a standard catch and shoot
Speaker 1: release that most spot up shooters used where they shoot
Speaker 1: shortly before the apex of their shot. Then there's like
Speaker 1: your big scoring wings that typically shoot at the apex
Speaker 1: of the shot because they're trying to elevate over the
Speaker 1: top of people. That's typically a more athletic type of
Speaker 1: wing that does that kind of thing. And then there's
Speaker 1: like the Trey Young, Steph Curry, Dame Lillard thing where
Speaker 1: they're actually shooting close to the beginning of their jump
Speaker 1: and the idea is to get it off as quickly
Speaker 1: as possible rather than trying to elevate or hang in
Speaker 1: the air long enough for the defender to come down.
Speaker 1: Step in this particular case is this is where him
Speaker 1: uh pulling up coming off of ball screens that this
Speaker 1: is where his uh quick release becomes so valuable. So
Speaker 1: let's say Derek White's chasing stuff over the top of
Speaker 1: the screen and Robert Williams is going to be the
Speaker 1: one that's coming up and drop. He's in a drop,
Speaker 1: but he's gonna offer a late contest. Steph knows he
Speaker 1: can get a shot off there. It just has to
Speaker 1: be quick. He's gonna have a small window and he's
Speaker 1: gonna have to fire in that window. If he goes
Speaker 1: too soon, Derek White, maybe he isn't caught on the
Speaker 1: screen yet. If he goes to late, then maybe Robert
Speaker 1: Williams can bother the shot with his late contest. But
Speaker 1: Steph found that sweet spot in that pick and roll
Speaker 1: and then it just became practice shots for him, and
Speaker 1: that's why he made them attent clip. I thought it
Speaker 1: was a strategic mistake from Boston, and hey, they dared
Speaker 1: an all time grade NBA player to do something that
Speaker 1: he's all time great at and he made them pay. Um.
Speaker 1: The one last thing I wanted to hit on here
Speaker 1: with Steph's um scoring ability is his handle and his fluidity.
Speaker 1: This is something we talked about a lot, but like
Speaker 1: in order to translate good shooting ability to good pull
Speaker 1: up shooting ability, you also have to have a great
Speaker 1: handle and there has to be connectivity between the two.
Speaker 1: So obviously handling the basketball is important to get two
Speaker 1: spots off of dribble combinations, right, But if you're too
Speaker 1: rigid with your shot form and you get to your
Speaker 1: shot pocket every single time, then you're gonna struggle transitioning
Speaker 1: from your handle to your jump shot because there's gonna
Speaker 1: effectively be a hitch there. As you have to set
Speaker 1: yourself up into your jump shot. The fluidity is the
Speaker 1: transition between the two, and Steff is one of the
Speaker 1: best players in the league at this Specifically, he can
Speaker 1: flow out of a dribble combination into a shot so
Speaker 1: easily because there's a release actually starts out of the
Speaker 1: shooting pocket. So if he's in the shooting pocket, that's great,
Speaker 1: but he can also take it from out here. He
Speaker 1: could take it from out here, he could take it
Speaker 1: out of any dribble combination, he could take it off
Speaker 1: of any catch. That is what allows Steph to be
Speaker 1: such a dominant pull up jump shooter. There is fluidity
Speaker 1: between his handle and his jump shot. The two are
Speaker 1: always connected in a way that he can transition between
Speaker 1: the two at any time. UM. Steph averaged one point
Speaker 1: two points per possession and isolation, but he only attempted
Speaker 1: one point eight isolations per game. That's super low volume
Speaker 1: for some perspective. O. G N and Noby for the
Speaker 1: Toronto Raptors this year attempted more isolations per game. UM.
Speaker 1: This is just because Steph is really picky. Like, Steph
Speaker 1: knows that isolating is not his best ability because he's
Speaker 1: not the best type of athlete in the world, so
Speaker 1: he's very picky to wait for the right kind of matchup,
Speaker 1: typically against bigs. He did a lot of this in
Speaker 1: the finals when he would get Al Horford and Robert
Speaker 1: Williams on switches. When Steph gets a mismatch, particularly against
Speaker 1: a slow footed big, he's going to barbecue them, typically
Speaker 1: to the tune of one point two points per possession,
Speaker 1: which is insane. A lot of people would consider this
Speaker 1: a weakness, like, hey, steps not a great isolation player
Speaker 1: against other big you know, or other great perimeter defensive players.
Speaker 1: To me, I view it as a strength. Why would
Speaker 1: you play to your weakness. Why would you try to
Speaker 1: isolate wings and guards that are great defensively for no
Speaker 1: reason when you're an excellent off ball player and excellent
Speaker 1: pick and role player and excellent at isolating bigs. That's
Speaker 1: just good shot selection, is all that is. I do
Speaker 1: not view that as a weakness for step So, as
Speaker 1: promised from yesterday's show with Kevin durant Uh, we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about moving without the basketball, which is one of
Speaker 1: the most important skills for staff. If you guys remember
Speaker 1: when we talked about Dame Lillard. This is the biggest
Speaker 1: thing that separates the two of them. Dame Lillard is
Speaker 1: just about as effective with the basketball in his hands
Speaker 1: as Step, but there's a giant chasm between the two
Speaker 1: of them as players, and that's entirely made up by
Speaker 1: what Step does without the basketball moving and what he
Speaker 1: does defensively. The reason why moving without the basketball is
Speaker 1: so important is it's easier than dribbling. Do you guys
Speaker 1: remember what happened in the finals when the Celtics were
Speaker 1: running around like chickens with their heads cut off, dribbling
Speaker 1: the basketball into traffic and turning the basketball over when
Speaker 1: it's physical, when the refs are swallowing the whistle, it's
Speaker 1: tough to dribble through traffic. So one of the things
Speaker 1: that stuff is figured out is when he before, before
Speaker 1: he gets into trouble. If he gets rid of the basketball,
Speaker 1: he can run where he needs to go, and then
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter if if someone's reaching like crazy to
Speaker 1: try to knock the ball away, he doesn't actually have
Speaker 1: the basketball. And most importantly, moving without the basketball takes
Speaker 1: advantage of a very basic human instinct on basketball Defensively,
Speaker 1: what do you guys typically do when you're playing basketball?
Speaker 1: At at the rec center, up at the l A
Speaker 1: fitness or up at the twenty four hour fitness wherever
Speaker 1: it is that you play, you're guarding your man because
Speaker 1: he has the basketball. Let's say he drives to the
Speaker 1: left and you cut him off and he picks up
Speaker 1: his dribble and he passes it back out. What's the
Speaker 1: first thing you typically do? You relax because moving your
Speaker 1: feet when there's a ball handler attacking you, his hard
Speaker 1: and it's fatiguing, and you relax because that's your opportunity
Speaker 1: to gain energy for you to handle again, handle defensively again.
Speaker 1: Guess what step does. Steph knows that that's the perfect
Speaker 1: time to continue to move. His best given go player
Speaker 1: in the league. He's taking advantage of defenders instinctually relaxing
Speaker 1: when they think the job is done. The best example you, guys,
Speaker 1: that I could give to you guys of this is
Speaker 1: the classics Steph corner three play where he kind of
Speaker 1: drives into the paint, the defense kind of collapses around him,
Speaker 1: and there will be a release valve somewhere in the
Speaker 1: short corner, typically Draymond or Kivan Looney, someone like that.
Speaker 1: He will pass it to that short corner and not
Speaker 1: even consider stopping, can continue to sprint out following his
Speaker 1: pass to the corner, and then Draymond or Cavaloni will
Speaker 1: pass it between their legs back to step in the
Speaker 1: corner and he gets wide open looks out of that
Speaker 1: all the time. Why because when he drives into the
Speaker 1: paint and he gives up the basketball, it's human instinct
Speaker 1: for players to give up or to rely acts and
Speaker 1: to get out of their defensive stance. And if you
Speaker 1: do that for a split second, if you come up
Speaker 1: out of your stance, you lose your mobility. That's why
Speaker 1: I tell young players all the time, like when you
Speaker 1: pump fake, don't ever come out of your athletic stance
Speaker 1: and a pump fake, because even if you get the
Speaker 1: defender to jump, you're out of your stance and now
Speaker 1: you've got to get back down into your stance so
Speaker 1: you can explode. The same thing goes defensively. The second
Speaker 1: you stand up out of your defensive stance, you lose
Speaker 1: a second of mobility. And that's when Steph strikes. That's
Speaker 1: when he gets that little bit of separation, and he
Speaker 1: got such a quick release that there's not enough time
Speaker 1: for you to recover. I'm gonna talk a little bit
Speaker 1: more about moving without the basketball here in just a second.
Speaker 1: As we talked about steps playmaking, So Steph can pass
Speaker 1: the basketball. In two thousand fourteen and two thousand fifteen,
Speaker 1: those two seasons combined, he averaged eight point one assists
Speaker 1: per game. He hasn't come close to that since, but
Speaker 1: that's what he averaged back then. So Steph can be
Speaker 1: Dame Lillard. He can be a heliocentric playmate maker. He
Speaker 1: just doesn't want to be because he knows that he
Speaker 1: can have the same type of impact moving without the
Speaker 1: basketball as a decoy. One of the most common things
Speaker 1: that I've had you guys Steph fans throwing the comments
Speaker 1: over the course of the series is every time I
Speaker 1: bring up something like, hey, the top four playmakers in
Speaker 1: the league are Lebron, Luca Yokich, and Chris Paul and
Speaker 1: then there's kind of like a gap, and then you
Speaker 1: have your James Hardens and guys like that who are
Speaker 1: beneath him. Right, that's true, But it's also true what
Speaker 1: you guys have been saying that Steph belongs in that
Speaker 1: list too. Now I don't think he belongs in that list.
Speaker 1: As a playmaker in the sense that like an on
Speaker 1: ball passer, because he's a very good passer, but he's
Speaker 1: not the same level as your Lebron's and your Lucas
Speaker 1: and your Yoki is right, but he is equal in
Speaker 1: impact with his gravity. So an honorary fifth member of
Speaker 1: those top playmakers in the league is Steph. He just
Speaker 1: does it without the basketball. This is where STEP's gravity
Speaker 1: becomes a thing such a deadly shooter that teams panic
Speaker 1: chase him, and when defenders need to make quick decisions,
Speaker 1: if they see two options, they're gonna error towards Steph.
Speaker 1: This frequently leads to multiple defenders going with Steph as
Speaker 1: opposed to staying with their actual assignment, and in in a
Speaker 1: lot of cases they lose sight of their defensive scheme
Speaker 1: and they go off script and someone ends up wide open.
Speaker 1: That's every bit is impactful, as Lebron driving and kicking
Speaker 1: to a shooter, as Luca driving and kicking to a shooter,
Speaker 1: as Yo Kids posting up and throwing a beautiful cross
Speaker 1: court pass that hits Michael Porter Jr. Right in the
Speaker 1: in the shooting pocket. It's just as impactful, just without
Speaker 1: the passing. So again, do I think Steph is as
Speaker 1: good of a passer as Lebron and as Luca and
Speaker 1: Yokich and those guys. No, I don't, but he's every
Speaker 1: bit as impactful, more impactful as an offensive engine because
Speaker 1: what he does with his gravity, and this is where
Speaker 1: he's moving without the basketball becomes so important. It's not
Speaker 1: just so that he can generate open shots for himself,
Speaker 1: which he does. Steph's relentless in perpetual motion off the
Speaker 1: basketball is constantly warping the defense. And as he's constantly
Speaker 1: warping the defense, he is constantly creating four on three
Speaker 1: opportunities at a minimum, if not even more crazy opportunities,
Speaker 1: sometimes even one on o opportunities for easy dunks under
Speaker 1: the basket. This is where Golden State role players become
Speaker 1: so important. We talked about this a little bit earlier
Speaker 1: in the show. This is why it's not just about
Speaker 1: star power. It's about fit and players fitting with their scheme.
Speaker 1: This is why Russell Westbrook didn't fit with Lebron James, right.
Speaker 1: It's not just about your overall talent. It's about your
Speaker 1: ability as a unit to fill all the responsibilities that
Speaker 1: a basketball team has to fill in the previous season,
Speaker 1: Golden State targeted some discounted players like Kelly h Bray,
Speaker 1: like Camp bays Moore that struggled with decision making. And
Speaker 1: so even though you know, like camp Baysemore shot over
Speaker 1: from three that season, like you think, oh, like that's
Speaker 1: a good fit, right, No, because the Golden State system
Speaker 1: doesn't depend on shooting nearly as much as it does
Speaker 1: on playmaking and ball handling from their role players and
Speaker 1: basketball like you, that's the huge inverse and difference between
Speaker 1: the Luca lebron Yokich led systems and the Staph led system.
Speaker 1: Those guys are content on collapsing things in the paint
Speaker 1: and they need shooters to make plays. The openings in
Speaker 1: the Golden State system are around the basket, and so
Speaker 1: what you need are players that can run quick four
Speaker 1: on three's, quick three on two's, quick two on ones
Speaker 1: without turning the basketball over and getting layups and dunks
Speaker 1: excuse me, around the rim and making that transition last
Speaker 1: year to this year and putting smarter, more high i
Speaker 1: Q players into those spots that was a huge part
Speaker 1: of white Golden State was so much more successful. And
Speaker 1: it's a it's a concept um that I find super
Speaker 1: fascinating about Golden State because it makes them so different
Speaker 1: from the other teams around the league. Two other things
Speaker 1: that I want to talk about with Steff with strengths. First,
Speaker 1: his defense. So the story here is early in his career,
Speaker 1: Steff was a bad defensive player, not a big shock.
Speaker 1: He was an outstanding offensive player, and he doesn't have
Speaker 1: great physical tools. Those two are gonna pretty frequently combined
Speaker 1: to making a bad defensive player. But to his credit,
Speaker 1: him and Clay Thompson two thousand fourteen, I believe for
Speaker 1: the FIBA World Cup if I remember correctly, or the
Speaker 1: Feeble World Championships, whatever they call it, both Clay and
Speaker 1: Steph we're struggling defensively in camp and there was talk
Speaker 1: that they wouldn't be able to be in the rotation
Speaker 1: during that World Cup team unless they figured out things
Speaker 1: on the defensive end. That was the summer where both
Speaker 1: of those eyes embraced it up here, which is step one.
Speaker 1: Take on the work. Understand that resources have to be
Speaker 1: devoted in that direction for you to become a great
Speaker 1: defensive player. Now for Clay Thompson, he actually became one
Speaker 1: of the best defensive wings in the league. Why is
Speaker 1: that because he's laterally quick and he's got good size,
Speaker 1: and so he actually became an all defense like impact
Speaker 1: defensive player. Steph Curry didn't have the physical tools to
Speaker 1: do that, but he did become an above average defensive player.
Speaker 1: Helps that he's a little bit bigger and stronger than
Speaker 1: most of the guards around the league. Like he's six
Speaker 1: ft three, He's got a good amount of muscle mass
Speaker 1: that's going to help him be a good positional defender
Speaker 1: even against some bigger wings. But now is He's never
Speaker 1: gonna be an impact defensive player. We'll talk about that
Speaker 1: a little bit more when we get to his weaknesses.
Speaker 1: But him converting the small guard prototype, which is almost
Speaker 1: always a bad defensive player, into an above average defensive
Speaker 1: player is one of the most underrated and most important
Speaker 1: things that allow out the Golden State dynasty to exist.
Speaker 1: Just that one thing. If he had just let that slip,
Speaker 1: if he just didn't care about that, this might all
Speaker 1: not have come together. And and that's a credit to
Speaker 1: Steph and just how important the defensive end of the
Speaker 1: floor is. And the last, but not least steps leadership.
Speaker 1: I think step is the best leader in basketball. You know,
Speaker 1: I talked about how Lebron is the best guy I'd
Speaker 1: want if I had a really good team that had
Speaker 1: championship aspirations and all that and so on and so forth.
Speaker 1: But regardless of circumstance, great team, good team, bad team,
Speaker 1: horrible team, whatever it is, I can't think of a
Speaker 1: better guy than Steph Curry. There is no passive aggressiveness,
Speaker 1: there is no bad body language. He knows how to
Speaker 1: handle young players, he knows how to handle veteran players,
Speaker 1: veteran players like Andreago Dolla worships the ground that he
Speaker 1: walks on. He's coachable. You can ask him to put
Speaker 1: in the hard work and do things that other stars
Speaker 1: don't want to do around this league. He's great at
Speaker 1: managing personalities. You could not pick a better player to
Speaker 1: put into this position, and he demonstrated that over the
Speaker 1: course of the last three a few years, in a
Speaker 1: bunch of different circumstances, you know, two thousand sixteen, embracing
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant, making him feel like he was on common
Speaker 1: ground with him, even if other ex external factors ended
Speaker 1: up eventually getting to kd weathering the storm in when
Speaker 1: things weren't going his way. There was no pouting. There
Speaker 1: He didn't make a scene, he didn't bring wine to
Speaker 1: the bench. He was he was a rock and I
Speaker 1: think that's a lot of credit to him. And it's
Speaker 1: funny because it's not it's he's not soft like the
Speaker 1: dudes a psychopath. One of my favorite Twitter accounts, friend
Speaker 1: of mine uh goes by Bobby Flabin, big Warriors fan.
Speaker 1: He calls him Bundy, like the serial killer. And that's
Speaker 1: kind of the way I see Steph two. The dude
Speaker 1: is a complete in total psychopath who wants to snatch
Speaker 1: your heart out when he's outwardly focusing his energy on
Speaker 1: the opponent. Internally, he's as steady and sound and and
Speaker 1: never too high, never too low type of person that
Speaker 1: you could have in that spot. And and that's a
Speaker 1: huge credit to him. Like I've always said, you could
Speaker 1: not pick a better foundational piece for an extended dynasty
Speaker 1: like a Spurs or like a Warriors than a guy
Speaker 1: like him, because of how steady he is on the
Speaker 1: lows and the highs. And that's why I've compared him
Speaker 1: to Tim Duncan. He's a better version of Tim Duncan alright,
Speaker 1: moving on the steps weaknesses. So there's only two because
Speaker 1: that's how well rounded stuff is. Now one of them
Speaker 1: is pretty significant. I'll go with the light, the small one. First.
Speaker 1: He's loose with the basketball, doesn't take great care of
Speaker 1: the basketball. He gets a little bit cute with his
Speaker 1: drible combination sometimes and we'll try some ballsy passes and
Speaker 1: things like that in in in high leverage situations, and
Speaker 1: it's burned stuff before see the two thousands sixteen finals.
Speaker 1: This manifests mostly when he's handling traps, and his size
Speaker 1: can be a little bit of an issue here. He's
Speaker 1: very good at navigating traps in the aggregate, but he
Speaker 1: is prone to some turnovers in that situation just because
Speaker 1: of his lack of size. That's a small weakness. This
Speaker 1: is STEP's only other weaknesses and it's a big one,
Speaker 1: and it's the reason why he's not number one on
Speaker 1: this list, and it's the reason why he may never
Speaker 1: have been number one um. But it's again it has
Speaker 1: to be addressed here. So Steph is not capable of
Speaker 1: leaving a physical imprint on the game on either end
Speaker 1: of the floor. So in isolation situations, he needs a
Speaker 1: quickness mismatch. He needs to get a big on a
Speaker 1: switch in order to consistently generate good shots. Yes he
Speaker 1: can cook wins. Yes he can score against Kauai, Yes
Speaker 1: he can score against Katie. Yes he can score against
Speaker 1: all the best perimeter defenders in the league. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying he can't, but it's harder for him to do
Speaker 1: that than the other big like Lebron, Katie Kawai, Luca Jannest.
Speaker 1: Those guys still feel like they can consistently get quality
Speaker 1: shots against each other in individual matchups because of their
Speaker 1: physical tools. Steph typically needs to get big guys on
Speaker 1: switches to become a highly effective ISO player. To his credit,
Speaker 1: that's why he doesn't mess around with ISOs that often.
Speaker 1: That's why he's a super low volume isolation player compared
Speaker 1: to his peers around the league. He's very selective with
Speaker 1: the way he does that. That's the only way it
Speaker 1: impacts offensively. The physical imprint thing is really on the
Speaker 1: defensive end of the floor, so his ceiling, with his
Speaker 1: effort and focus on the defensive end of the floor
Speaker 1: is above average. He can never be a better defender
Speaker 1: than what he is right now, which is serviceable in
Speaker 1: a good defensive scheme. Guys like Janice Kevin Durant Lebron
Speaker 1: more so and his prime, but Lebron in general, Kawhi Leonard.
Speaker 1: They are capable of dominating games defensively. They are impact
Speaker 1: defensive players. They can swing outcomes with what they do defensively,
Speaker 1: which is something that step cannot do. This is the
Speaker 1: biggest reason why I have Janice ahead of Steph number
Speaker 1: one on this list. Janice is deeply impactful on the
Speaker 1: defensive end of the floor. He can erase well run
Speaker 1: offenses by himself. I gave the example of Luca having
Speaker 1: to pull him into isolation defense because he was blowing
Speaker 1: everything up with his help on the back end. You
Speaker 1: guys probably remember playing Finals A very famous playing Janice's
Speaker 1: career drop coverage against Devin Booker and DeAndre Ayton. Or
Speaker 1: he's up high enough to dissuade Devin Booker from taking
Speaker 1: the shot and force him to throw a lot, but
Speaker 1: still turn and recover any race eight and at the rim.
Speaker 1: That is using his physical tools to dominate a basketball
Speaker 1: game on the defensive end of the floor, even on
Speaker 1: offense when when his shots not falling, when things are
Speaker 1: not going his way offensively, Janice can bulldoze his way
Speaker 1: to thirty five points a game because of his physical tools.
Speaker 1: That's it. That that those that's the only weakness I
Speaker 1: can really hammer home with Steph. And it's a credit
Speaker 1: to him because all of those other guys at the
Speaker 1: top of the list were capable of inflicting their physicality
Speaker 1: on the game in a way that it was literally
Speaker 1: a huge chunk of their impact on winning. And Steph
Speaker 1: without those tools is gonna be extremely high on my
Speaker 1: all time rankings because of how good he is in
Speaker 1: everything else. So it's a credit to Steph. But that
Speaker 1: is the difference between him and Lebron when he was
Speaker 1: at his peak, or him and Janice when he was
Speaker 1: at his peak, is those guys can just think about
Speaker 1: all the defensive moment it's of Lebron's career. You know
Speaker 1: what he did defensively to the Spurs in the two
Speaker 1: thousand thirteen finals, what he did defensively to the Warriors
Speaker 1: in two thousand sixteen eracing but probably would have amounted
Speaker 1: to the game winning layup from Montrea Guadala. And again,
Speaker 1: like Steph has overcome this to get where he's gotten.
Speaker 1: But that's the one big red flag with him, that's
Speaker 1: the one big weakness on offense. He can't inflict his physicality,
Speaker 1: and on defense, he can't inflict his physicality. All right,
Speaker 1: moving on to greatest hopes, So it's hard to hope
Speaker 1: for more. I mean, his career is unassailable. Now, there
Speaker 1: was kind of a little bit of a question mark,
Speaker 1: an unfair one in my opinion, but there was a
Speaker 1: little bit of question mark about whether or not he'd
Speaker 1: be able to carry a team. He resolved that this
Speaker 1: year resoundingly. Andrew Wiggins is your best player, and you
Speaker 1: win a champion your best teammate, and you win a championship,
Speaker 1: you're in a select few. You're in some select company. There.
Speaker 1: What becomes really interesting for Steph is his goat case.
Speaker 1: Now this is not relevant now, but let's say, for
Speaker 1: the sake of argument, that the Warriors win two additional titles. Okay,
Speaker 1: he's not going to have the long, extended success that
Speaker 1: Lebron has. He's not going to have the short, unrelenting
Speaker 1: dominance that Michael Jordan had. But what he could have
Speaker 1: is a better version of Tim Duncan's career, an extended
Speaker 1: window of a dynasty where maybe he was never the
Speaker 1: best player in the world, but he was always right
Speaker 1: there in his consistent success over that span in the
Speaker 1: example that he set for his organization led to a
Speaker 1: lot of success. Now, again, this is all in the
Speaker 1: eye of the beholder. Lebron fans will be like, I'd
Speaker 1: rather have twenty years of this. MJ fans are like, dude,
Speaker 1: six titles in eight years, that's dominance, That's what I want.
Speaker 1: But there will be a case for Steph and the
Speaker 1: case will be dynasty Bedrock, Dynasty Foundation, and he was
Speaker 1: literally the core piece that made everything work for arguably
Speaker 1: the best dynasty and the most talented era in NBA history.
Speaker 1: That will be his case. Greatest fears. My greatest fear
Speaker 1: for Steff is that he doesn't get an opportunity to
Speaker 1: win that fifth and sixth title because of Golden State
Speaker 1: betting their future on some iffy prospects. So as we
Speaker 1: go down the line, Jordan Pool had a really good
Speaker 1: season last year, But I kind of think Jordan Pool
Speaker 1: has a ceiling of being a fringe All Star. He's
Speaker 1: very bad defensively right now compared to most of the
Speaker 1: players that are above him in league standing. Although he
Speaker 1: was functional from time to time for Golden State, and
Speaker 1: he's not again impactful enough with his physicality offensively to
Speaker 1: become more efficient, much more efficient than he is right now.
Speaker 1: I think that's a safe bet for Jordan Pool is
Speaker 1: he'll get He'll make a few All Star teams for
Speaker 1: Golden State. Jonathan Cominga has tantalizing potential, but he also
Speaker 1: could be the lesser version of Jeff Green idding Moses
Speaker 1: Moody is a role player. And then James Wiseman. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he could beat Kevin Garnett, but he also could be
Speaker 1: something a hell of a lot less than that. Now,
Speaker 1: that all might pan out fine, because if Comingo becomes
Speaker 1: a dominant two way wing and Jordan Pool is a
Speaker 1: fringe All Star and James Wiseman becomes KG Light, the
Speaker 1: Warriors are gonna be really good. They'll be fine. But
Speaker 1: there's a there's a lot of uh, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of iffiness there. It could go either way, and if
Speaker 1: that goes south, the Warriors could be in a situation
Speaker 1: where they have a lot of money on the books
Speaker 1: without a lot of talent. The second thing that scares
Speaker 1: me is Clay and Draymond's bodies. A Obviously, with the
Speaker 1: back to back catastrophic injuries, Draymond has been having back
Speaker 1: stuff recently. If those guys age fast, that could be
Speaker 1: another thing that closes this window early, so hopefully for
Speaker 1: Steph's sake. Um, those two things don't happen alright, biggest
Speaker 1: what if in Steph's career? So this is an interesting one.
Speaker 1: There's and there's a bunch of them, just like with
Speaker 1: all these other players, like, oh, what if you know,
Speaker 1: Draymond Green doesn't get suspended? What if, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: what if Kevin Durant never comes to Golden State. There's
Speaker 1: a bunch of what IF's, right. The one that I
Speaker 1: was thinking of is what if Golden State gave up
Speaker 1: on his ankles? From what I understand, and of course
Speaker 1: there's conflicting reporting with all of this stuff, but from
Speaker 1: what I understand, there was a decision point for the
Speaker 1: Warriors where they were trying to decide whether to stick
Speaker 1: with Monte Ellis or to lean into Steph Curry moving forward,
Speaker 1: and cooler heads prevailed and they decided to go with
Speaker 1: Steph Curry. They made him the four year, forty four
Speaker 1: million dollar offer or whatever it was, and the rest
Speaker 1: is history. But there's a version of that story where
Speaker 1: they go his ankles are shot, this guy is never
Speaker 1: gonna amount to anything. Let's ship him off and maybe
Speaker 1: he ends up in a lesser organization without the level
Speaker 1: of competency that Joe Lake of and uh and the
Speaker 1: rest of the Warriors front office, Bob Myers and Steve
Speaker 1: Kerr and all them. He ended up doing great over there,
Speaker 1: but there could have been a lesser version of that
Speaker 1: story where he would have struggled to overcome the incompetence.
Speaker 1: Unthankful that didn't happen. Why, because I think the Golden
Speaker 1: State model is really important to the future of the NBA.
Speaker 1: I don't know what the specifics are. Kevin Durant was
Speaker 1: on Twitter shooting this down yesterday. Who the hell knows
Speaker 1: what he if he knows or not what the deal
Speaker 1: is um, but there's gonna be something in my opinion,
Speaker 1: that happens in the next CBA negotiations that tries to
Speaker 1: limit some player movement. And I need that to happen
Speaker 1: for the health of the league because Golden State has
Speaker 1: demonstrated to us the value in that building a loyal
Speaker 1: fan base over the course of a decade that will
Speaker 1: ride or die with these guys because they're in the
Speaker 1: same jersey year in and year out. The continuity in
Speaker 1: the way that that leads to higher quality basketball because
Speaker 1: the players have a ton of experience playing with each
Speaker 1: other and you're directly seeing that amount to enormous revenue.
Speaker 1: As boss Man calling Coward laid out for us in
Speaker 1: the finals when he said that the Warriors make I
Speaker 1: think he said something like crazy like seven million in
Speaker 1: revenue a year. That's the value in the Golden State model.
Speaker 1: And that doesn't happen without Steph. And so I'm glad
Speaker 1: that that what if didn't go that way, and I'm
Speaker 1: thankful that the Golden State Warriors bet on him and
Speaker 1: it was a bet that paid off. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: have step at number two. You know, it's it's a
Speaker 1: little bit it's a little bit funky because I I'm
Speaker 1: one of those guys that, like, man, when you're the best,
Speaker 1: when you're the best player on the team that wins
Speaker 1: the championship and you're a bona fide top tier superstar,
Speaker 1: there's a tendency to want to put him at number one.
Speaker 1: I know I've done that with Lebron over the years,
Speaker 1: but typically that's when there's not a player like Janice
Speaker 1: and that's what makes you honest. So interesting. It's just
Speaker 1: like prime Lebron from two thousand twelve to two thousand
Speaker 1: and twenty, where it's like, man, I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: there's anybody at his level, and we're gonna get into
Speaker 1: a lot deeper into Honest tomorrow. Um, but I don't
Speaker 1: think it's to be clear to Steph fans out there.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's disrespectful to Steph to say he's
Speaker 1: behind you. Honice Janice is a freak of nature. We're
Speaker 1: gonna get into his game tomorrow. It's a step being
Speaker 1: number two at this phase two, especially after what happened
Speaker 1: in the previous two years, is an amazing accomplishment. I
Speaker 1: enjoyed diving into his game and it's gonna be fun
Speaker 1: getting into Honest tomorrow. The volume