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Speaker 1: to him tonight here at the volume heavy Tuesday.
Speaker 2: Everybody hopeful.
Speaker 1: If you guys have had a great start to your week.
Speaker 1: Got a quick show today? We recorded over an hour
Speaker 1: with Carter Rodriguez from the Chasetown Podcast, a deep dive
Speaker 1: on the Undefeated twelve and oh Cleveland Cavaliers earlier this morning.
Speaker 1: That's going to be air airing tomorrow morning on our
Speaker 1: feed and then tonight we're going live after the final
Speaker 1: buzzer of MAVs Warriors on YouTube, which I'm very excited about.
Speaker 1: But I have a tiny little window of time here
Speaker 1: in the mid morning, and I wanted to get a
Speaker 1: show out for today, but to do something quick, I
Speaker 1: thought it'd be fun.
Speaker 2: To take a quick peek at the MVP ladder.
Speaker 1: Right, So we're, you know, roughly one eighth of the
Speaker 1: way through the season, right, twelve thirteen percent of the
Speaker 1: way through the season. This obviously is not the time
Speaker 1: when you're going to make any sort of final decision
Speaker 1: about the MVP race, but it's a nice time to
Speaker 1: take a look at the early chunk of the season
Speaker 1: and see who's impacting their team the most. So we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about my current top five in the
Speaker 1: MVP race, and then we'll get out of here for
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Speaker 1: Game time today? What time is it? Game time?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 1: Nice quick show today, starting our MVP ladder with number five.
Speaker 1: I was kind of on the fence here before last night.
Speaker 1: I probably would have leaned towards Anthony Edwards. But shake
Speaker 1: KOs Alexander a big breakout game against the Cleveland against
Speaker 1: the Los Angeles Clippers last night, got that pull up
Speaker 1: three point shot going. He is now up to twenty
Speaker 1: eight six and seven on the season on sixty two
Speaker 1: percent true shooting. Again, early in the season, it was
Speaker 1: a little bit clunky as he was working on that
Speaker 1: three point shot. He's taking over five off the dribble
Speaker 1: threes per game so far this season, when he was
Speaker 1: at just two point six last year, and again it
Speaker 1: was a little bit sloppy, but he hit four of
Speaker 1: them against the Clippers last night and that led to
Speaker 1: his career high forty five points. Again, like, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of upside to perimeter shooting outside the three point
Speaker 1: line when you're good at getting yourself open and if
Speaker 1: you're not willing to take those pull up threes when
Speaker 1: a defender is sitting back to try to contain your
Speaker 1: drive or chasing you over the top of a screen.
Speaker 1: In a ball screen, you're giving up an opportunity to
Speaker 1: get an efficient shot up if you're capable of knocking
Speaker 1: that shot down. And again, like when you talk about
Speaker 1: real volume scoring, like career high type stuff, consistently getting
Speaker 1: into the high thirties into the forties, that's where that
Speaker 1: three point shot becomes a real ceiling razor for you.
Speaker 1: Right Like, it's not gonna be there every single game.
Speaker 1: You're gonna games where reshoot four of them and you
Speaker 1: go one for four. But you're also gonna have games
Speaker 1: where reshoot seven or eight of them and you make
Speaker 1: five or six. And like on those kinds of nights,
Speaker 1: that's when you can have truly explosive scoring. But if
Speaker 1: you operate entirely from the mid range and around the basket,
Speaker 1: just because of how much congestion there is down there
Speaker 1: and because of the value of those shots, it's harder
Speaker 1: to hit like the really high point totals. And so again,
Speaker 1: it was an investment. I thought even in the early
Speaker 1: part of the season, the Thunder knew like, especially with
Speaker 1: some of the lighter schedule they were playing at the
Speaker 1: very beginning of the season, like it just made sense
Speaker 1: for him to get the lumps out, be willing to
Speaker 1: miss some shots as you try to add that to
Speaker 1: his game, and that could be something that ends up
Speaker 1: being a big tool for him down the line. He's
Speaker 1: also been the best ISO player in the league this year.
Speaker 1: He's ran one hundred and eight ISOs at one point
Speaker 1: two to two points per possession including passes. That's the
Speaker 1: highest among the three players in the league to run
Speaker 1: at least one hundred ISOs to this point in the season,
Speaker 1: and when you drop into fifty ISOs, we have thirteen
Speaker 1: players and he still ranks fourth in efficiency on that lift.
Speaker 1: The Oklahoma City Thunder offense has fallen apart every time
Speaker 1: he's left the floor. There's sixteen points per one hundred
Speaker 1: possessions worse on offense when he is off the floor.
Speaker 1: The Thunder off to a nine and two start. Challenge
Speaker 1: is going to get more difficult from here. With chet
Speaker 1: Holmgren being out starting small ball groups a lot of
Speaker 1: small lineups, It's going to be even harder for Shay
Speaker 1: over the course of the next few months. But at
Speaker 1: this point in the season, I have him at fifth
Speaker 1: in our MVP Ladder number four, Jason Tatum. This was
Speaker 1: a surprise for me. I did not think of him
Speaker 1: as a guy that would kind of crack into the
Speaker 1: top five of the MVP voting this year. If you
Speaker 1: guys remember before the season, I kind of thought of
Speaker 1: this as a spot for Ant. Tatum has been better
Speaker 1: than Ant to start this season, my pretty wide margin.
Speaker 1: Thirty one points per game, eight rebounds, five assists, sixty
Speaker 1: two percent true shooting. He's third in the league in
Speaker 1: scoring overall scoring volume at this point. Tweaked his shot
Speaker 1: profile a little bit, really doubled down on the analytic
Speaker 1: analytically smart approach to scoring volume, so really increased his
Speaker 1: three point rate and really has been working hard to
Speaker 1: get to the line. Fifty seven percent of his shot
Speaker 1: attempts this year have been from three. That was forty
Speaker 1: three percent last year. So a fourteen percent increase in
Speaker 1: the percentage of his shots that come from three point
Speaker 1: line from the three point line. And then the free
Speaker 1: throw rate is insane. So like again, free throw rate
Speaker 1: is usually factored in at are calculated as the number
Speaker 1: of free throw attempts who take per field goal attempt,
Speaker 1: and so in ISO situations, Tatum is getting zero point
Speaker 1: four to one foul shots per field goal attempt. That's insane.
Speaker 1: In post up situations, he's getting zero point five to
Speaker 1: six free throw attempts per field goal attempt. He's getting
Speaker 1: fouled on twenty two percent of his post ups. That
Speaker 1: is completely outrageous. Like that is more than one out
Speaker 1: of every five times he catches the ball in the block,
Speaker 1: he's going to the foul line. And so the result
Speaker 1: of that, by virtue of increasing his three point volume,
Speaker 1: by virtue of working a lot harder to get to
Speaker 1: the line, and some of the stuff that he's been
Speaker 1: working on over the last few years in terms of grifting,
Speaker 1: which again, when it comes to the grifting, like I
Speaker 1: root for the Lakers, I've got Anthony Davis, who's a grifter.
Speaker 1: I've got Austin Reeves who's a grifter. Like I'm I'm
Speaker 1: not anti grifting, I'm anti grifting. With the league and
Speaker 1: with officials, I want them to solve that problem. As
Speaker 1: far as the players go, you're just a competitor and
Speaker 1: you're trying to win, and quite frankly, you're an idiot
Speaker 1: if you don't take advantage of the rules that are
Speaker 1: available to you. Like you know, there's a conversation going
Speaker 1: around the league of whether or not they need to
Speaker 1: do something to fight three point volume, and there's a
Speaker 1: conversation to have about that. I don't think the Celtics
Speaker 1: really are the problem because they play pretty basketball, But
Speaker 1: there are a lot of teams out there taking a
Speaker 1: lot of really stupid threes, and then it's ugly to watch.
Speaker 1: But as long as the three point shot is the
Speaker 1: way that it is, and as long as it's worth
Speaker 1: fifty percent more per make than a two, then you
Speaker 1: should be taking advantage of it as long as you
Speaker 1: can make them. And he's been shooting the ball so
Speaker 1: well off the catch this year. He's over one point
Speaker 1: two points per jump shot in off the catch situations
Speaker 1: and as a result, he's having the highest scoring volume
Speaker 1: and efficiency season of his career. He's also been a
Speaker 1: super high efficiency ISO guy just like Shay. He's second
Speaker 1: to Shay on that one hundred ISOs list. He's had
Speaker 1: one hundred and thirteen points including passes on one hundred
Speaker 1: and one possessions. He's one of the most versatile defenders
Speaker 1: in the league that can be deployed in so many
Speaker 1: different ways. The Celtics are better on both ends when
Speaker 1: he's on versus one he's off. Now, it's not as
Speaker 1: big of a gap as you see with some of
Speaker 1: the other MVP candidates, but that's to be expected. The
Speaker 1: Celtics are the most talented roster in the league, but
Speaker 1: they have been better with Tatum on the floor on
Speaker 1: both sides of the ball. He's having the best season
Speaker 1: of his career. Can't say enough about how good Jason
Speaker 1: Tatum has been to start the year. Number Three Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis Thirty one points per game, ten rebounds, three assists
Speaker 1: per game, sixty six percent true shooting in over two
Speaker 1: blocks per game. Eighty percent of what makes the Lakers great?
Speaker 1: All right, even I should't say Greg because I don't
Speaker 1: think the Lakers are great, but eighty percent of what
Speaker 1: makes the Lakers a good team is Anthony Davis. The
Speaker 1: Lakers are fifth in offense, and he leads them in
Speaker 1: scoring by a mile. They've been the fourth most efficient
Speaker 1: pick and roll team in the league because of AD's
Speaker 1: threat on the role. AD is personally shooting sixty two
Speaker 1: percent on touches on the role. In ball screens, he's
Speaker 1: getting one point four to one points per roleman touch.
Speaker 1: That is completely outrageous. He's generating over a point per
Speaker 1: possession in ISO and post up situations. They're doing a
Speaker 1: lot of work with him in the middle of the floor,
Speaker 1: isolating other centers from other teams. He's shooting sixty percent
Speaker 1: on hooks and floaters this year. Again, that's not Jokic territory,
Speaker 1: but that's close. He's been unbelievable and none of that
Speaker 1: even comes close to the carry job he's doing on
Speaker 1: the defensive end of the floor. The Lakers are the
Speaker 1: twelfth best half court defense in the league and there
Speaker 1: isn't a single player other than Anthony Davis that isn't
Speaker 1: having a bad defensive season. He is single handedly anchoring
Speaker 1: a respectful, respectable, above average half court defense by himself.
Speaker 1: That is the type of carry job that he is doing.
Speaker 1: The Lakers are six and three when he plays. He
Speaker 1: sat out for a game in Memphis, and the Grizzlies
Speaker 1: without Marcus Martin Desmond Bine beat the shit out of
Speaker 1: the Lakers. They depend on him in every single way.
Speaker 1: It is a carry job. He is constantly cleaning up
Speaker 1: mistakes on defense, cleaning up mistakes on the glass, providing
Speaker 1: the offensive firepower that they need. It's a carry job.
Speaker 1: He deserves a ton of credit here in the early
Speaker 1: going of this season, carrying a Lakers roster that has
Speaker 1: some pretty significant athleticism weaknesses on the perimeter. Number two
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant twenty eight points, seven rebounds, and three assists
Speaker 1: here in the early going of the season. Sixty seven
Speaker 1: percent true shooting. That's fifty five percent from the field,
Speaker 1: forty three percent from three to eighty four percent from
Speaker 1: the line of ridiculous shooting splits. He's also getting one
Speaker 1: point four blocks per game, which is the most he's
Speaker 1: had per game since he was in Golden State. I
Speaker 1: think he's having the best defensive season he's had since
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen. Guy and the team at being two places
Speaker 1: at once, and he is consistently rotating out to the perimeter,
Speaker 1: chasing guys off the line, getting back protecting the rim.
Speaker 1: He has been deployed on ball in a lot of
Speaker 1: situations when there are specific matchups that the Suns have
Speaker 1: been having trouble with. He is one of their best
Speaker 1: defensive rebounders, especially in contested defensive rebound situations. And none
Speaker 1: of that comes close to the fact that he's just
Speaker 1: straight up stealing games in clutch situations he's having He's
Speaker 1: been the best clutch player in the league in my opinion,
Speaker 1: this year. He is thirty five clutch points already here
Speaker 1: through just over ten percent of the season. The Suns
Speaker 1: are seven to zero in clutch games that KD plays in.
Speaker 1: He's shooting twelve for nineteen from the field, and there
Speaker 1: are specific plays that he's made where he's straight up
Speaker 1: turned losses into wins. They were going to lose to
Speaker 1: Philly and he through purely through late game shot making
Speaker 1: and defensive execution, beat the Sixers. Then that Clippers game
Speaker 1: on Opening Night, straight up would have lost that game
Speaker 1: if he did not hit a right shoulder fade away
Speaker 1: over a double team that sent the game to overtime
Speaker 1: before they out executed them in the ot period, like
Speaker 1: he has straight up turned losses into wins. To put
Speaker 1: it simply, Kevin Durant has been the primary driving force
Speaker 1: behind a Suns team that was holding the number one
Speaker 1: seed in the Western Conference before he got hurt. He's
Speaker 1: playing some of the best basketball of his career. It's
Speaker 1: a comfort thing too, when you watch him in these
Speaker 1: late game situations. He just looks like he's so incredibly
Speaker 1: secure and who he is as a player in what
Speaker 1: he wants to do when he's on the floor. He
Speaker 1: has complete command of things. He is, at least on
Speaker 1: the mental and skill side of the game, is absolutely peaking,
Speaker 1: and there's enough athletic ability there for him to be,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, the second best player in the league
Speaker 1: in the early going this season, and the number one
Speaker 1: Nikola Jokich. Thirty points per game, fourteen rebounds and twelve assists.
Speaker 1: That's completely preposterous. Sixty seven percent for shooting, that's completely preposterous.
Speaker 1: He's running fifteen post ups per game. No one else
Speaker 1: in the league is running more than seven. He's getting
Speaker 1: one point on five points per possession including pass out
Speaker 1: of post ups. If you took the six players that
Speaker 1: have run at least fifty post ups this year, and again,
Speaker 1: he's run one hundred and fifty. If you take the
Speaker 1: six players to run fifty, only Pascal Siakam has been
Speaker 1: more efficient on a per possession basis, and again he's
Speaker 1: doing it a third of the time. He's been the
Speaker 1: best post up player in the league by a mile.
Speaker 1: He's the jump shot has been a complete revelation. He's
Speaker 1: getting one point five to three points per jump shot.
Speaker 1: That has allowed him to pop in ball screens now
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, He's converting role man possessions at
Speaker 1: one point three to five points per possession, which is
Speaker 1: way up from last year. Spot up situations, he's converting
Speaker 1: at one point four to four points per possession, that
Speaker 1: is way up since last year. The Nuggets are over
Speaker 1: forty points better per one hundred possessions when he's on
Speaker 1: the floor versus off. I think it's clear that he's
Speaker 1: the best player in the league. I think the gap
Speaker 1: between him and the second best player in the league
Speaker 1: right now is the largest it's been since Lebron James
Speaker 1: was the best player in the league in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 2: He is lapping everybody.
Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever seen a more clear cut
Speaker 1: MVP favorite through ten twelve games in my time covering
Speaker 1: the league. He has built such a wide gap in
Speaker 1: such a short period of time because no one's playing
Speaker 1: at the level he's playing. He is basically single handedly
Speaker 1: taking an injury ravaged Nuggets roster with a bunch of
Speaker 1: guys that are playing below their potential at least in
Speaker 1: the core guys. They've got young guys that are stepping up.
Speaker 1: But again they're stepping up because Nicole Jokic is so
Speaker 1: damn good. He can craft these tiny rolls that they
Speaker 1: can thrive in. I can't, I literally can't say enough
Speaker 1: he's playing. The ceiling he's at right now is the
Speaker 1: highest I've seen since Lebron James. It's unbelievable. It's a
Speaker 1: pleasure to watch, and I cannot believe how quickly he
Speaker 1: turned around this Nugget season when it looked like it
Speaker 1: was headed towards disaster. Out the gates. With the way
Speaker 1: some of these guys are playing, it's been unbelievable. I
Speaker 1: think he's a clear cut number one right now. All right, guys,
Speaker 1: that is all I have for today. As always, as
Speaker 1: sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. I will
Speaker 1: be back tonight live on YouTube after the final buzzer
Speaker 1: of MAVs Warriors. I will see you guys then the volume.
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