Speaker 1: The Volume. All right, welcome to Hoops tonight here at
Speaker 1: the Volume. Happy Monday, everybody. I hope all of you
Speaker 1: guys had an incredible weekend. We are live on AMPS,
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Speaker 1: continuing our player rankings today with number five the reigning
Speaker 1: League MVP, Joel m beat probably as big a chasm
Speaker 1: between what his regular season dominance has looked like and
Speaker 1: his playoff success has looked like, which makes them very
Speaker 1: polarizing and very difficult to rank, But we're gonna get
Speaker 1: into all of the details of that today. You guys
Speaker 1: know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the
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Speaker 1: So Joel Embii, this guy moved around on my list
Speaker 1: more than any other guy in the different different variations
Speaker 1: of it. I've told you guys about this before, but
Speaker 1: when I made my list, when I first made the
Speaker 1: twenty five to one, I was really hesitant at the
Speaker 1: back end of the twenty five, like right in that
Speaker 1: like twenty four to twenty five spot, and I spent
Speaker 1: about two days kind of going back and forth about
Speaker 1: which guys I wanted to go with there. Once I
Speaker 1: kind of set that, though twenty five through eleven was
Speaker 1: pretty much set for me. I knew Devin Booker and
Speaker 1: Kawhi were gonna be at the bottom of my superstar tier,
Speaker 1: but from ten to one, even during the weeks the
Speaker 1: week when I was working on twenty five to eleven
Speaker 1: in our videos, I was so all over the place,
Speaker 1: and Embiid in particular, was one of the biggest guys
Speaker 1: that moved around. The very first version of this list
Speaker 1: that I made, I had him be down at ten,
Speaker 1: in large part because he's not my favorite player, probably
Speaker 1: the player that I dislike the most out of the
Speaker 1: top twelve superstars in the league. So I knew I
Speaker 1: was fighting a lot of negative bias on my end. Obviously,
Speaker 1: you guys know how I feel about the playoffs. But
Speaker 1: then I'd sit there and I'd be like, I'd remember
Speaker 1: this season, and I'd remember the competitiveness that he approached
Speaker 1: it with from start to finish, and while everyone else
Speaker 1: was kind of working their way through it, Embiid was
Speaker 1: just attacking everybody night in and night out. It seemed
Speaker 1: like he was hell bent on demonstrating to the world
Speaker 1: that he was the best basketball player, and honestly, within
Speaker 1: the regular season context, he did that as if you
Speaker 1: guys remember, I even at one point put him as
Speaker 1: I've always been a guy who viewed Yokic is better
Speaker 1: than Embiid. But there was a point there about two
Speaker 1: thirds through the season where I was like, man, em
Speaker 1: Bead's playing better than him. Right now, I think he
Speaker 1: might be better, And so I tried to remember what
Speaker 1: that was like. And so then I'd come back around
Speaker 1: and I'd have him a pie on the list, and
Speaker 1: then I'd sleep on it, and i'd wake up the
Speaker 1: next morning and I'd be like, noh, screw that. He
Speaker 1: doesn't deserve any higher than ten, And then like cause
Speaker 1: it was so polarizing because it's as big a difference,
Speaker 1: like I said in the intro, between what his peak
Speaker 1: is in regular season production and what his playoff success
Speaker 1: has actually been. In reality, that gap has been wider
Speaker 1: than any of these stars over the course of the
Speaker 1: last few years. I mean, he's kind of become the
Speaker 1: new James Harden in a lot of ways. James Harden
Speaker 1: has just diminished too much to really be in that conversation.
Speaker 1: But he's just wildly polarizing in that sense. And so
Speaker 1: when I think about the good with Embid, I'm incentivized
Speaker 1: to put him up higher, and when I think about
Speaker 1: the bad, I'm incentivized to put him lower. And so
Speaker 1: I was all over the place, and I'll give you,
Speaker 1: guys really quickly my cases for both. So my reasoning
Speaker 1: for putting him down at ten was, he's the biggest
Speaker 1: playoff underperformer from this era. His back to back seasons
Speaker 1: where he led the league in scoring and then couldn't
Speaker 1: crack twenty four points per game in the postseason, and
Speaker 1: then his defensive effectiveness goes down a level in the
Speaker 1: postseason as well. You guys might remember last year the
Speaker 1: Toronto Rafts kind of cooking him on the perimeter a
Speaker 1: little bit, and then this year in that Game seven
Speaker 1: against Boston, Jason Tatum just picking on him on switches,
Speaker 1: pulling him out to the perimeter and barbecuing him. So
Speaker 1: that was part of it. The second part of it
Speaker 1: is he's easily my least favorite player in that top twelve.
Speaker 1: Like I said earlier, I find the flopping that he
Speaker 1: does to just be completely embarrassing and really dangerous, and
Speaker 1: it's just something that I don't really like about Joel
Speaker 1: Embiid as a bassall players. That was kind of where
Speaker 1: I was leaning towards ten. The reasoning for five was
Speaker 1: I really think Joel went up a big level in
Speaker 1: this last season, his shot making was off the charts.
Speaker 1: We'll go over that here in a little bit when
Speaker 1: I go through his season recap. But they were un
Speaker 1: unfathomably good. He anchored one of the best defenses in
Speaker 1: the league. The Sixers actually finished eighth in defensive rating,
Speaker 1: but they were much much better with embat off the
Speaker 1: floor than off. There was a massive drop off like
Speaker 1: five six points per one hundred possessions when Embiid went
Speaker 1: to the bench defensively, and I thought, honestly, within the
Speaker 1: actual skill set stuff, I thought Embiid had figured out
Speaker 1: some stuff that would help him in the playoffs. He
Speaker 1: was quicker and more decisive in his post ups and ISOs,
Speaker 1: he was more aggressive to the basket. His overall field
Speaker 1: goal percentages were higher than they've been in a very
Speaker 1: very long time, or really ever in his career. And
Speaker 1: he had become a truly great mid range jump shooter.
Speaker 1: And if you guys remember, throughout the season, I kept
Speaker 1: saying that mid range jump shot is going to be
Speaker 1: the key to him being successful in the playoffs, and
Speaker 1: he was making them at a higher clip than he
Speaker 1: had ever had. We'll talk about what actually happened in
Speaker 1: a little bit but I ended up going with the
Speaker 1: ranking and beat at five instead of ranking him at ten.
Speaker 1: And there were three reasons for that. One, like I
Speaker 1: said earlier, really impressed by his overall competitiveness. He wanted
Speaker 1: to kick everyone's ass and he basically did. Did he
Speaker 1: really want to win MVP? Was he campaigning for it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's a lot easier said than done, and he
Speaker 1: actually went out and did it, and I thought he
Speaker 1: deserved MVP, especially with the way that Yannis and Jokic
Speaker 1: tailed off towards the end of the year. The second reason,
Speaker 1: I do think injuries have played a very big role
Speaker 1: in his playoff struggles, above and beyond the stuff that
Speaker 1: has to do with his actual approach and how that
Speaker 1: is limited in the playoffs, which we'll talk about in
Speaker 1: a little bit. Last year, if you guys remember, before
Speaker 1: he broke his face, he was pretty damn good in
Speaker 1: the Raptor series. Twenty six points and eleven rebounds per game,
Speaker 1: sixty two percent true shooting. Lit him on fire in
Speaker 1: the closeout game. If you remember, in Game three in Toronto,
Speaker 1: he hits the game winner, the buzzer to put him
Speaker 1: up three to zero. He was awesome in that series
Speaker 1: against a very very good Raptors team. I was crazy
Speaker 1: and stupid enough to pick the Raptors to win that series.
Speaker 1: So obviously, like there was a little bit of a
Speaker 1: level that he went up, and then he just was hurt.
Speaker 1: He had a broken face, which clearly affected him in
Speaker 1: that Miami Heat series, and then this year he just
Speaker 1: had a bad knee. And again that doesn't completely justify
Speaker 1: the struggles. We'll get into some of the specific things
Speaker 1: he does that hurts him in that stage, but that
Speaker 1: does help explain things a little bit. And last, but
Speaker 1: not least, and beats playoff struggles are still in the
Speaker 1: last two seasons twenty four points, ten rebounds per game,
Speaker 1: fifty eight percent true shooting with two blocks, So even
Speaker 1: his like diminished playoff version, is still a very very
Speaker 1: very good playoff basketball player. And then three, the last
Speaker 1: reason why I decided to go with em beat at five.
Speaker 1: Now that he has won himself an MVP, I think
Speaker 1: that Joel Embiid is going to start trying to pace
Speaker 1: himself through the regular season more. A big part of
Speaker 1: why he pushed himself so hard the last two years
Speaker 1: was his relentless pursuits of that pursuit of that MVP award,
Speaker 1: and so I think it's more likely than ever that
Speaker 1: he'll be healthy for the postseason in this year. So
Speaker 1: kind of insummation considering how close all these guys are,
Speaker 1: and that's been the theme of this entire list. But
Speaker 1: the gap between Luka Doncic at ten and the guy
Speaker 1: that I have tomorrow at four is extremely small. You
Speaker 1: could make a case for Luca at four. You can
Speaker 1: make a case for the other guy at ten. You
Speaker 1: can make a case for Embiad at five or ten.
Speaker 1: You could put Lebron fans still think he's top five, right,
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis said his very best might be better than
Speaker 1: all those guys. Man, that is worse. He's worse than
Speaker 1: all those guys. So the gap is incredibly small between
Speaker 1: all those guys, And as kind of like a tiebreaker
Speaker 1: for me, I wanted to reward Joel Embiid and give
Speaker 1: him credit for attacking the regular season the way he
Speaker 1: did the last couple of seasons, the improvements that he's made,
Speaker 1: becoming basically the best volume score in the league on
Speaker 1: incredible efficiency, and then winning the league MVP Award, which,
Speaker 1: even though it doesn't mean as much which as it
Speaker 1: used to I think, should still mean something so kind
Speaker 1: of like the tie went to the MVP is basically
Speaker 1: a very very short way to put it. As I
Speaker 1: put Joel Embiid at number five and be led the
Speaker 1: league in scoring for the second consecutive season. This is
Speaker 1: your little season recap here. Thirty three points, ten rebounds,
Speaker 1: and forces sixty six percent sure shooting, led the league
Speaker 1: in scoring and was off the charts efficient. You guys,
Speaker 1: remember the year James Harden averaged thirty six points per game.
Speaker 1: That was back in twenty nineteen. He did that on
Speaker 1: just sixty two percent turre shooting, which is also excellent.
Speaker 1: But that just goes to show you the gap in
Speaker 1: efficiency between the volume in efficiency between what Joel Embid
Speaker 1: accomplished this season in the recent big volume scoring seasons
Speaker 1: that we've had. It's arguably the most impressive scoring volume
Speaker 1: inefficiency season in this era of NBA basketball. And again,
Speaker 1: he was actually making shots. This was not just grifting
Speaker 1: fifty five percent on field goals. To give you some perspective,
Speaker 1: James Harden was forty four percent on field goals in
Speaker 1: that twenty nineteen season, was way more dependent on long
Speaker 1: distance shot result in that season. The shot making numbers
Speaker 1: across the board. Fifty four percent effective field goal percentage
Speaker 1: on catching shoot jumpers. That's awesome. Forty six percent effective
Speaker 1: field goal percentage on pull up jumpers. That's really good
Speaker 1: for a guard, but it's like off the charts good
Speaker 1: for a big fifty two percent on floaters, fifty eight
Speaker 1: percent on hooks, four point eight restricted area makes per
Speaker 1: game that was seventh in the entire NBA shot seventy
Speaker 1: five percent there so again not like the same level
Speaker 1: that Jokic was at the postseason this year, which again
Speaker 1: was like truly transcendent. We're going to get to that
Speaker 1: point when we get to Jokic, But considering the sheer
Speaker 1: volume of scoring that Joel Embiid was doing in this
Speaker 1: regular season, this was unbelievable efficiency across the board. The
Speaker 1: one week spot really was the three point line. He
Speaker 1: was just thirty three percent, but he was fifty six
Speaker 1: percent effective field goal percentage on unguarded catch and shoot jumpers,
Speaker 1: which I think qualifies him easily as a legitimate floor spacing.
Speaker 1: Big play type data super deadly in ISO and post
Speaker 1: up situations, one point one to six points per ISO
Speaker 1: on huge volume. Among the twenty five players to log
Speaker 1: at least two hundred and fifty ISOs this year, Joel
Speaker 1: Embiid ranked second in efficiency, shot over fifty percent in
Speaker 1: shots out of ISO situations. He was also one point
Speaker 1: one to eight points per post up Among the twenty
Speaker 1: players to run at least two hundred post ups. Last year,
Speaker 1: Embiad ranked third inefficiency, shot fifty four percent on field
Speaker 1: goals out of the post. The main driving force between
Speaker 1: Embiad's ISO and POST success is just that deadly shot
Speaker 1: there in that ten to fifteen foot range that he
Speaker 1: can hit off of a jab step off the catch
Speaker 1: off of a quick one or two dribble combination. And
Speaker 1: then also he's very good at ripping through the baseline
Speaker 1: and using his size and a power dribble to dislodge
Speaker 1: the big who tries to close him off from the
Speaker 1: baseline to get back underneath the basket and make a
Speaker 1: little shot off the glass or dunk. It's that classic
Speaker 1: push and pull. Where as the defender guarding Joel Embiid
Speaker 1: you have to worry about the shot and the drive,
Speaker 1: and quite frankly, there's just not a lot of bigs
Speaker 1: in the league that are used to guarding players like that,
Speaker 1: because there just aren't that many bigs in the league
Speaker 1: that have a really dependable jump shot that make him
Speaker 1: have to be guarded at that specific spot on the floor.
Speaker 1: Joel Ebid was also the very best role man in
Speaker 1: the NBA last year. He totaled five hundred and forty
Speaker 1: one points on role possessions, which was one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty points more than second place in the league. Who
Speaker 1: wants to take a guess as to who was second
Speaker 1: in the league. If you guessed Nikola Vucevich, you were correct.
Speaker 1: He was effected both rolling and popping on the role.
Speaker 1: He's just so damn big that when he would catch
Speaker 1: with his momentum going towards the basket, you basically couldn't
Speaker 1: stop him without fouling. He shot sixty eight percent on
Speaker 1: rolls to the basket, the short roll to the foul
Speaker 1: and this was kind of like the bread and butter
Speaker 1: of the Harden and Bad two man game. If Harden
Speaker 1: was kind of going more laterally and the big was
Speaker 1: up high, it was more of like a pocket pass
Speaker 1: to the foul line. If Harden actually got downhill a
Speaker 1: little bit, it was more of like a pop back
Speaker 1: to the foul line. But that was basically one of
Speaker 1: the really efficient ways for the Sixers to set up
Speaker 1: Joel Embiid for quick face up ISOs at the foul
Speaker 1: line before the defense could really get set and he
Speaker 1: was just deadly shooting in those situations. Joel Ebiad shot
Speaker 1: a fifty seven percent effective field goal percentage on jumpers
Speaker 1: in those pick and pop situations. Think about that, So
Speaker 1: like you had to close out at him, which is
Speaker 1: what opened up everything else as he was ripping through
Speaker 1: to the basket. That was just a deadly action for
Speaker 1: the Sixers all year long, that Joel Embiid short roll
Speaker 1: slash pop to the top of the key where he
Speaker 1: could run a quick ISO. But injury or not, Embiid's
Speaker 1: effectiveness went down a huge level in the playoffs. Again,
Speaker 1: his post up and ISO efficiency dropped from one point
Speaker 1: one to seven points per possession in the regular season
Speaker 1: to just one point zero two points per possession in
Speaker 1: the postseason. Now again still over a point per possession. So,
Speaker 1: like I was talking about earlier, even the diminished version
Speaker 1: of Embid is still a very good playoff basketball player
Speaker 1: over a point for over a point per possession and
Speaker 1: play types in the postseason, in the half court against
Speaker 1: the set defense with everyone looking at you, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: is still very, very valuable. But the biggest driver for
Speaker 1: why he had issues and why there was that big,
Speaker 1: you know, fifteen point per one hundred possession drop off,
Speaker 1: was his jumper just completely failed him. I talked all
Speaker 1: season about whether or not he'd be able to make
Speaker 1: those jumpers when he got to the postseason, and he
Speaker 1: just didn't. Now, was it probably the injury most likely? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I talk about this all the time on the show.
Speaker 1: But energy transfer any sort of jump shot, especially on
Speaker 1: any sort of movement, even if it's a jab step,
Speaker 1: even if it's just a simple dribble combination, any sort
Speaker 1: of jumper off of movement is about transferring energy from
Speaker 1: the floor from your feet up, through your knees, through
Speaker 1: your hips, through your back, through your arms through the shot.
Speaker 1: And if there's a disruption in that power line, it
Speaker 1: throws off the entire muscle memory of it. And so
Speaker 1: if he wasn't getting the same amount of lift out
Speaker 1: of his knee because his knee was hurt and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, puts more of the onus on the wrist,
Speaker 1: which is a different muscle memory than he's been working
Speaker 1: on all season. I do think that did have a
Speaker 1: factor to play in what happened to Joel Embiid in
Speaker 1: his jump shot. But the numbers, guys, they were not pretty.
Speaker 1: Joel embiid effective field goal percentage on jump shots in
Speaker 1: this postseason twenty nine point seven percent effective field goal
Speaker 1: percentage that's weighted for threes at is twenty percent below
Speaker 1: his regular season efficiency on those shots. To give you
Speaker 1: an idea just how bad that affected him, on how
Speaker 1: significantly that affected him. If he just hit his normal
Speaker 1: percentages on jumpers in this postseason, he'd been up at
Speaker 1: twenty six points per game in that playoff run, and
Speaker 1: his volume was way down because he lost confidence in
Speaker 1: the shot. During the regular season, he took about nine
Speaker 1: jumpers per game this year in the postseason, he took
Speaker 1: barely over six. So he took about fifty percent fewer,
Speaker 1: about thirty three percent fewer jump shots during the playoffs,
Speaker 1: just because he didn't trust it anymore. So the jumper
Speaker 1: failing was the big reason why his scoring went down.
Speaker 1: There was also a slight decrease in free throw attempts,
Speaker 1: but that's always going to happen to everybody, went from
Speaker 1: like I think, almost twelve to about nine. Defensively, same
Speaker 1: issue that plagued him at time in the Times in
Speaker 1: the Toronto series, like I talked about just inability to
Speaker 1: guard quicker wings on the perimeter. All I'll say about
Speaker 1: that is that's certainly an issue, but it's not what
Speaker 1: I want to dwell on because it's not something he
Speaker 1: has control over. He's just with his body type, He's
Speaker 1: never gonna be able to guard quick wings on the perimeter.
Speaker 1: Guess who else can't do that, Nicole Jokis, and he's
Speaker 1: the best player in the world. So to me, it's
Speaker 1: more about him rounding out his strengths so that they're
Speaker 1: dependable in the playoffs, not worrying so much about his
Speaker 1: weaknesses that are that he's never going to be able
Speaker 1: to address. But the reality is, as we look back
Speaker 1: on this phase of Joel Embid's career, the playoff struggles
Speaker 1: are becoming a significant part of Joelle's story. Unfortunately, it's
Speaker 1: just a reality. He's a full three point two points
Speaker 1: per game lower than the playoffs compared to his regular
Speaker 1: season production, and a full three point two percent lower
Speaker 1: in true shooting percentage. You know, it kind of reminds
Speaker 1: me of the gap we talked about in shooting percentages
Speaker 1: in the Jimmy Butler video. If you guys go back
Speaker 1: to our number nine Jimmy Butler video. I did like
Speaker 1: a ten minute segment on just why I use different
Speaker 1: shooting percentages, why I use them in different specific conversations,
Speaker 1: and what they mean. And one of the things I
Speaker 1: talked about is players that have an extremely large gap
Speaker 1: between their true shooting percentage and their field goal percentage
Speaker 1: tend to have more significant variance in the playoffs. Why
Speaker 1: because that means inherently that they rely more on long
Speaker 1: distance jump shooting and on getting a favorable whistle from
Speaker 1: the officials. Joel Embiid has an eleven percent gap this
Speaker 1: regular season between his field goal percentage and his true
Speaker 1: shooting percentage. That means he does rely on long distance
Speaker 1: shot result in free throw attempts even more than what
Speaker 1: his percentages demonstrate because he relies on a lot of
Speaker 1: mid range jump shots, which failed him in this playoff run.
Speaker 1: So it's one of those things where like just in general,
Speaker 1: as long as he relies on his jump shot as
Speaker 1: much as he does, if he's not gonna make him.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be a problem. So he either needs to
Speaker 1: get to the point where he can make that shot
Speaker 1: in the playoffs consistently, or he needs to reconfigure his
Speaker 1: shot profile to more of a power game that he
Speaker 1: can rely on in that stage. Obviously, playmaking continues to
Speaker 1: be an issue for Joel Ebid. He just really struggles
Speaker 1: to handle aggressive defensive schemes. He's okay with really basic
Speaker 1: double team. So like if he's on the left block
Speaker 1: and he's facing the basket with the ball in his
Speaker 1: right hand, and the double comes towards his face. This
Speaker 1: is something I noticed all season last year. If the
Speaker 1: double come towards it comes towards his face, he sees
Speaker 1: it coming, he sees the raid, he makes the read.
Speaker 1: But any sort of convoluted defensive approach, whether that's a
Speaker 1: double that comes from behind him on the baseline, whether
Speaker 1: that is a you know, a stunt, somebody just reaching
Speaker 1: in and then recovering really quick, playing in the gaps,
Speaker 1: Guys trying to bait him into a pass that isn't
Speaker 1: really there. One of the big ones he all season
Speaker 1: two is anytime he turned his back, So like if
Speaker 1: you made a counter move, a behind the back dribble,
Speaker 1: a spin move of any kind. The guy who's behind
Speaker 1: him would jump in and try to take the ball away.
Speaker 1: The Celtics in particular were really good at taking advantage
Speaker 1: of Joel and b when he would turn his back.
Speaker 1: He just really really struggles with all of that stuff,
Speaker 1: and it's bad to a level that I think goes
Speaker 1: above and beyond what people even are aware of. Here's
Speaker 1: a crazy stat for you. Joel Embiid in his career
Speaker 1: has forty five more turnovers than assists in the playoffs.
Speaker 1: Forty five more turnovers than assists in the playoffs. But
Speaker 1: as is the case with most players, that when it
Speaker 1: comes to playmaking, that's something you're born with. It's not
Speaker 1: something you can really develop. You can get a little
Speaker 1: better at it over time, and there are a couple
Speaker 1: of outliers, guys like Kawhi Leonard, but for the most part,
Speaker 1: it's like it's a natural gift. Do you either have
Speaker 1: it or you don't. And there are peers in the
Speaker 1: NBA that struggle with it that still have success. Anthony Davis,
Speaker 1: for instance, has nearly as many playoff turnovers as assists.
Speaker 1: So to me, again like I talked about earlier, Like
Speaker 1: with the defense thing, it's less about him be figuring
Speaker 1: that out and just making sure his strengths actually come
Speaker 1: to the table in that setting. Because if Joel Embiid
Speaker 1: is thirty plus points per game on outrageous efficiency and
Speaker 1: one point two points per possession on play types in
Speaker 1: the postseason, no one's going to care if he gets
Speaker 1: beat off the dribble a few times per game, and
Speaker 1: no one's going to care if he turns the ball
Speaker 1: over three or four times a game. But as soon
Speaker 1: as the scoring goes down from thirty plus points per
Speaker 1: game to twenty four and the efficiency craters and the
Speaker 1: play type efficiency craters, suddenly the inability to guard on
Speaker 1: the perimeter and the issues that he has turning the
Speaker 1: basketball over become a bigger problem. So really, that to
Speaker 1: me is the direction he needs to go really work
Speaker 1: on refining his strengths to the point where they work
Speaker 1: in the playoffs. So what can Joellen be do to
Speaker 1: reverse the trend of his playoff decline? I put down
Speaker 1: three things. One flopping, you're not getting the calls not
Speaker 1: in the playoffs. Your free throws go down in that setting,
Speaker 1: really the only time you're getting calls in the playoffs
Speaker 1: are when people actually value and most of those times
Speaker 1: you're not actually flopping, So it's a waste. It's a
Speaker 1: waste of your energy. It's completely embarrassing to watch. It's
Speaker 1: not a good look to see the biggest player on
Speaker 1: the floor just like literally throwing himself down on the ground.
Speaker 1: It's embarrassing. And then lastly, it's dangerous, not just for
Speaker 1: Joel Embid flopping and landing on parts of his body,
Speaker 1: but running into other people. I mean, like again, I
Speaker 1: don't think he did it on purpose, but there was
Speaker 1: a Joel embiid flop that led to Danny Green tearing
Speaker 1: up his knee. It's a dangerous thing for a player
Speaker 1: that large to be falling all over the floor. Number Two,
Speaker 1: he needs to develop the power game to the point
Speaker 1: where he can audible away from the jump shot to
Speaker 1: a power game when his jump shot fails him. But lastly,
Speaker 1: he needs to figure out the conditioning and health to
Speaker 1: get to the point where his jump shot actually translates
Speaker 1: to the playoffs. I think it's a combination of him
Speaker 1: getting banged up in the increase in physicality that causes
Speaker 1: his jump shot efficiency to tank. So he's got to
Speaker 1: figure out a way to navigate the regular season and
Speaker 1: make it to April healthy. And he's got to figure
Speaker 1: out a way to improve his conditioning so that he
Speaker 1: can handle that increased physicality when he gets to that point.
Speaker 1: The touch is there. He's a great shooter. The numbers
Speaker 1: are too good. If you go back and look, he's
Speaker 1: got like three seasons in the last four where he's
Speaker 1: over forty seven percent effective field goal percentage in jump shots.
Speaker 1: This season fifty four percent. There was a season I
Speaker 1: think three or four years ago where he was fifty
Speaker 1: two percent. He's a very good jump shooter. He just
Speaker 1: has to figure out a way to get it to
Speaker 1: translate to the playoffs. So in summery. Joel Embiid, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, has been one of the three best regular
Speaker 1: season players in the league over the course of this
Speaker 1: particular decade. He's been the best volume score in the
Speaker 1: league for about three years now. He does it on
Speaker 1: an incredibly efficient clip, and he's an excellent rim protector
Speaker 1: anchoring an excellent defense. That makes him, like I said before,
Speaker 1: one of the three best regular season players of the
Speaker 1: twenty twenties. But some combination of his injury luck and
Speaker 1: his offensive approach have led to him having a significant
Speaker 1: redunction of reduction and effectiveness when he gets to the postseason.
Speaker 1: It's got to figure that out. If he does, if
Speaker 1: he learns how to manage the grind of the NBA
Speaker 1: season and he gets to the point where he can
Speaker 1: play at his peak in the postseason, I think he
Speaker 1: is capable of challenging Nikola Jokic as the best player
Speaker 1: in the league. That is the type of talent that
Speaker 1: he has. His ceiling is that high. We've seen it
Speaker 1: time and time again in the regular season. He's just
Speaker 1: got to figure out how to get it to translate.
Speaker 1: All right, guys, that is all I have for today.
Speaker 1: We'll be back tomorrow with number four. As always, I
Speaker 1: sincerely appreciate you guys, and I will see you that
Speaker 1: the volume