Hello everyone, and welcome to the latest episode of Hardwood Knocks. This is
out. I'm from Will here with my fantastic co host Dan for Valley.
I'm excited for this episode because for the first time in like ten days,
I'm no longer sick and actually have my voice back. But unfortunately, it's
Dan's turn to be a little bit sick, so he's gonna power through this
and I'm hoping that you're feeling okay. Dan, how's it going? I
am. I feel very fortunate to feel the way that I do after testing
positive again. As the day we record this. Recording this on a Sunday
before Klay Thompson's return, you all probably won't be listening to it until Tuesday.
I tested positive again for COVID after quarantining for five days. But I'm
feeling relative to that fantastic. You know how much it takes for me to
skip workouts. I went three full days without working out. Saturday. At
night, I was like, I can't do this anymore. I'm going stir
crazy. I did a back workout. I've had better workouts, but I've
also had worse, so I'm happy. I have not done legs in a
week. Now, I normally you two leg workouts a week, but here
we are. I mean, I was lucky. One of my editors,
Brian Notch and I the Hymn forced me to take a second day off of
work this week after I tried to come back after a day. So again,
I'm sure people have had it way worse. I feel very fortunate.
I'm glad you're feeling better because you were sicker than I was for longer than
I was. Yeah, it was. It was not a fun ten days
test. I tested negative a couple of times, but I'm questioning the validity
of those tests considering the symptoms I had. But that was I'm good now,
Yeah, something like that. But you know it's not fake news.
Are the stats that we're going to be going over in this podcast. We've
already done the Eastern Conference edition, where we found one interesting maybe telling,
maybe not so telling, and just interesting stat for each and every Eastern Conference
team. It's it's Western Conference Day today, so we're gonna start off with
Dan with the Dallas Mavericks, and then alternate teams going alphabetically. I do
have one from Memphis, even though it's not mine because I couldn't so I'm
just overachieving on this episode. Wow, that's a bold statement to say before
you even relate a single one of your stats. As usual, I tried
to pick stuff they're more of like a theme. It's it's centralized around one
number, but they're more like a theme that's explainable. And I think this
time it was a little not harder, but the focus was. I made
even more of a point to be like, let me pick numbers that makes
sense relative to what the team has gone through this season, because we have
all these you know, ten day contracts, players in health and safety protocols
at this point. So that's how I keep finding it. I gravitate more
towards like player centric numbers for whatever reason, I just can't help myself.
So like I tended to want to like highlight a player from a team with
a few exceptions, whereas like my number is more about the team as a
whole. I've isolated back and forth. I tried to pick numbers that I
thought weren't as mainstream, like if I have Golden State, and like,
I really just want to reiterate that Draymond Green is shooting a career high not
only at the rim, but on twos that are outside the restricted area but
inside the paint, because I think that's been important to Oh my god,
that's been important to Golden State's offense at points. But it's like I feel
like that's known, like a Gary Payton his efficiency on cuts and after ball
screens. I feel like that's known. So I tried to go like against
the grain and stuff that you and I specifically haven't talked about. This one
might be an exception, but I feel like we need to reiterate that the
Mavericks still, their offense is just like not diverse or effective enough at all.
They rank My number for this I'm gonna try to remember is twenty eighth
they are or twenty eight excuse me. They ranked twenty eighth in location effective
field goal percentage, which is your expected field goal percentage relative to where your
shot locations are coming from. They are actually outperforming that to where I think
they're nineteenth in actual effective field goal percentage at this point, but they're just
not getting enough easy shots. They are twenty eighth in the frequency with which
they reached the rim. They are twenty eight in transition frequency as well.
Those two are definitely related. Their thirtieth in average offensive possession time overall,
that one's per impredictable and they're not like this lights out shooting team when it
comes to wide open jumpers. And so you're looking at an offense with or
without Donchitch really, because I think there was more pep in Dallas's step at
points when they were using all those ten day guys before, and I think
that sort of underscore the fact that they're not generating easy looks, and then
they're not necessarily making the most of the easy looks that they are generating.
And so to have an offense like this that's so reliant on when they're at
full strength, but Luca Donteche can do, and then what Jalen Brunson has
been doing, and he's really you know, even if you factor in Luca,
like Jalen Brunson is probably the best at putting actual pressure on the basket
from a ball handling perspective. On this team, they need someone who can
help improve that, which is why whenever we talk trade targets, I go
back to Eric Gordon. For them, they just need another they need that
type of guy, or they need a really a second star then, because
if you're gonna try and some on some of these tougher looks. You need
people who can actually make them, and like Tim Hardaway Junior is very much
with all the respected to Hardaway Junior. Not it spoiler alert, but we're
going to have more on Eric Gordon in a little bit once we get to
the Houston Rockets. But I do think as a follow up there, that
you're kidding yourself if you don't think this has something to do with the coach
too. It does, and it definitely does. But at the same time,
yes, I think they've gotten away from Luca too much when he's been
healthy. But you also could argue, you know, Jalen's Brunton's breakout,
does that happen under Rick Carlo? I will say the rim frequency, isn't
it already kind of happening under Rick Carlo? It was? And I'm just
so hesitant to give Jason Kid credit for anything. He's getting volumed by default
and his role has just changed substantially this year. I'm not going to give
Jason Kid credit for that. Fair I will say, though, the lack
of emphasis on getting out in transition and just the rim frequency in general,
those are problems that pre date Jason Kidd, and I think you can argue
if you have Luke on your team, maybe you can't use transsition frequency as
an accurate gauge, But it does show like some extra level of an offensive
gear and it'd be nice to even have that. When he's off the floor,
they play a little bit faster, and we saw that when he was
out for a while. But it's just and when Jalen Brunson is really the
primary ball handle at the helm, you might play faster. This offense is
just so it's blah, it's very vanilla still if you want to, that
might be the nicest way to put is that this is they're just not as
efficient as last year. And that probably comes back to did they take the
ball out of Lucas hands a little bit a little bit more often on too
high a scale when he actually is on the floor. Well, even if
we go beyond year over a year, if you look two years ago,
Dallas was obliterating every offensive rating known to man kind. So the fall from
that to the current lackluster offense without too many personnel changes of note, is
not good. I'm totally with you there, And I think another off season
and this falls on the front office, even though it's new. We're now
in the third straight off season where they didn't make any material changes to the
roster and the core now feels a little bit stale. It does, which
is hard to believe considering the level Porzingis has been playing at Christops. Porzingis,
like, I think you can make an All Star case for him this
year. It might be a little bit of a stretch, but he has
been that effective when he's been on the court. You can't make an All
Star case or Christops Perzinkis get out of here. No, I'm not letting.
I'm not. This is like Nicole Yokitch's defensive player of be your favorite
type kid from you right now? I know, I think you can make
a fringe case like as an injury replacement or something. If you expand to
the rosters to fifteen players, then you could you can make a case there.
He's been He's been good enough for it. If you expand the roster
eighteen players and insist that you have to like that, you have to go
buy front court and backcourt even least place still that bitter over the Knicks breakup.
Huh, I'm not bitter at all. I don't think he looked what
player did he turned into? He turned into a non All Star, right,
fair enough? Fair enough. Let's move on to the Denver Nuggets,
though, and I am going to highlight Yokich again here with the number two
point eight. And the reason I'm doing that is because everyone knows how good
he is, and yet I'm not sure it's been made clear how good he
is. Because he is the reigning MVP, he should be in the MVP
conversation right now, and it still feels like the level at which he's playing
is flying a little bit below the radar. Because the Nuggets are struggling to
break free from an around five hundred record, the story has been more focused
on the personnel losses that they've had, whether it's Jamal Murray or Michael Porter
Junior. And then you throw in all of the COVID nineteen protocol stuff and
how many bodies they're having to cycle in and out of the lineup on a
daily basis, much like every other team, and it does feel like Yokich
hasn't quite gotten enough credit for being so ridiculously dominant. So I'm using five
thirty eight raptor based or metric here, and the difference between Yokich, who
is at nine point seven and Fred van Fleet, who is at number two
at six point eight, is two point eight points. That is as big
as the difference between van Fleet and number fifteen Mike Conley. He is that
far ahead of the field. Beyond that, only eleven players all of last
season topped the nine point seven war that Yokich has already registered. We're not
even at the All Star break and he already is submitting like a top twelve
most Valuable season relative to last year. He is on pace to obliterate his
league best finish from the twenty twenty twenty one campaign thanks to drastically improved defensive
metrics without an offensive drop off. He is playing the best basketball of his
career, just at a ridiculously historic level, and it is not getting the
love that it needs to get because the Nuggets have not performed up to that
same standard. I think he and I mentioned this on our mailbag podcas last
week. I think he's the MVP right now, and I think it might
be pretty decidedly. I'm I do think steth People's side is shooting percentage is
dropping a lot. I think he's firmly in it, and I don't think
that anything is etched in stone right now, but I think to me,
Jo Kids would be my MVP vote without second guessing it all that much at
this very moment in the RPR, the Rolling Player Rating MVP predictor that we
use at mbamath like he is head and shoulders above everyone else for first place,
and then there's a second tier that includes Steph and Lebron and Janis and
Durant, and then a third tier that has like Trey Young and Demarta Rosen
and Donovan Mitchell and all those guys. But statistically he is he is lapping
the field at this point, just absolutely lapping it, lapping at Statistically,
he's just he's had just mind melting statistical seasons over the past four years.
That war metric, he the difference between number one and number two is the
same as number two and number fifteen. Like, think about that. It's
it's it's mind blowing. Let's move on to the Golden State Warriors though,
and hat tip. I asked friend of the Pod, Jacob Borne, what
he wanted me to talk about and investigate further that could maybe catch you off
guard, and he said Golden State's rebounding. So I investigated Golden State's rebounding.
Golden State is eighth in defensive rebounding outside of garbage time. Their defensive
rebounding rate their last five years, though their ranks in the past five years
twenty twenty two, twenty one, twenty second, twenty nineteen, twenty twenty,
twenty fourth, twenty eighteen, two thousand, nineteen seventeen, twenty seventeen,
twenty eighteen, twenty ninth, and then two thousand and sixteen twenty seventeen,
twenty sixth. Golden State has not ranked in the top half of defensive
rebounding rate since two thousand thirteen two thousand fourteen, so their number is eight
for this, I'm trying to remember to do that. I will say this
is also what I found interesting. Two. Only the heat allow fewer putback
attempts per one hundred plays on the defensive end, so Golden State is set
in that metric. And the other thing otto Porter. They're statistically awash with
him when you look at their rebounding him being on the court, He's been
so good on the glass, I think even better than many who knew that
Otto Porter Junior was a good rebounder expected, and lineups with he and Draymond
Green have a seventy nine point eight defensive rebounding rate, which I don't like
making these comps, but that would lead the league by a mile, and
it ranks in the ninety six percentile of lineups with blogging at least ten possessions
overall. So their rebounding has been I think it's one of the things that
has not followed by the wayside. But you're focusing on Draymond Green's defensive Player
of the Year case. Everyone was focusing on Steph and shooting threes. You're
focusing on Jordan Pool's breakout, Gary Payton the second people want Andrew Wiggins to
make an All Star team. They're rebounding has sort of flown under the radar,
though they're still not playing especially big. They have Kamon Looney, Amania
be Elites a, Draymond Jta, Otto Porter Junior or Jonathan Kamika like those
are their main front line players. You know, Gary Payton and Steph are
above average remounders for their position, but they're not you know, so they're
not this huge team and I don't think they really upended their roster. And
anyway, if anything, you could argue without James Wiseman, that should be
the one area in which he would definitely help them. And for them to
be this good of a defensive rebounding team is truly impressive to me. I
would say the credit definitely falls to the Wings. I would think, like
Draymond and the Wings because Porter has made a big impact there, Peyton has
made a big impact. They're just the physicality ending possessions. But yeah,
I would not have expected a leap quite that substantial. What is Clay's return
going to do to that? Because he was never the best rebounding swing man.
Yeah, but like if he's taking is he's taking Damian Lee's minutes,
or if he's kinting in Andrew Wiggins, Wiggins doesn't rebound. So look,
and to the point about steps shooting percentages, if anyone cares, I was
just checking where Steph ranked in scoring gravity impact this season. It's still third
in the league. The mere concept of Steph and Curry Ray and no Jannis
and Yokich. So look, that's perpy Bell Index. It's just I don't
think in this whole shout Yokich. There's no one in the league who not
having the ball, just by virtue of being on the court has a bigger
offensive impact than Steph Curry probably in the history of basketball. I think it
was Anthony Doyle maybe who was saying this on Twitter the other day about how
we're quick to credit Steph for reinventing how basketball has played and having such a
monumental impact on the next generation, when it might actually be like Damian Lillard,
who is the more likely candidate, because as popular as Steff is,
no one can replicate the way that he produces his threes, Like those relocation
threes that he's so good at are just impossible to actually replicate. And it's
really guys like Damian Lillard, like Trey Young who are taking those pull up
threes from such long range with such frequency that are having the impact on the
up and comers, which I think is an interesting thing to think about,
just because Steph is unique, even among the unique players. Yeah, he
he's just he's one of one. He's just he's one of one. Uniqueness
is not is technically an either or concept. There aren't really degrees of uniqueness,
But if there were Steph would be the most unique. He is anomalous
times infinity. There you go, perfect, that's the stat. That's a
that's a great number. Are you ready to move on to Houston? Yeah?
So for Houston, my number is four. And that is both the
reason that they're going to get at least a first round pick for Eric Gordon
at the trade deadline and also the number of players who have played in at
least twenty games and are shooting better than forty percent on both catch and shoot
and pull up triples while taking more than two threes per game. So the
four are Eric Gordon obviously, Tyrese Haliburton, Desmond Bayane, and Devin Booker.
And I'm curious if any of those names are surprising to you. They're
not, because it kind of steps on the toes of a stat I use
later on. But I think he's still important, So please don't give into
the supporting cast of this stat too much, poor Vavore. Fair enough.
So I'm gonna say that Gordon is taking two point nine catching shoot threes per
game and hitting forty five point nine percent of them, which is number eight
among players taking at least two per game. He's also taking two point one
pull up threes per game and hitting forty point eight percent of them, which
is number seven among players taking at least two per game. Houston has largely
struggled across the board. Gordon has not. He's been unbelievably good, which
is why he's a reasonable fit for basically any team looking for an upgrade at
the deadline. He is. I would be shocked if he is still with
the Rockets beyond February, and I would be even more shocked if he doesn't
bring back at least a first round pick for Houston. Yeah, there's I've
seen trades and I was talking with someone who covers the Rockets and they were
asking me about hypothetical trades, and I was just shocked at how little they
were willing to accept from him. And I would think, you need and
it will probably be contending teams that go after him, And so I'm thinking
in my mind, if it's a bottom seven pick in this year's draft,
like you probably need more than a first round pick, probably a first than
a second to get him, would be my guest. That would be my
guess, as well, his age, injury history, paying him nineteen plus
million, whatever it is, next year. I get the hesitance, but
I'm with you where I think it's the barrier for entry for Eric Gordon if
it's less than a first round pick. I will be surprised if they believe
him for less than that. And we can focus on the shooting too,
because that's where he's excelled so much. But that's by no means the full
extent of his game. He can put pressure on the rim, he's a
little bit feisty in the defensive end, he can rebound like, there's a
lot that he brings to that proverbial table beyond the shooting. It's just that
he is excelled to such an extent. The shooting is the easy, low
hanging fruit to highlight. I'm not too proud to pick the low hanging fruit
he's I think with him too, he's probably having the best passing season of
his career. Is that just a Is that natural improvement or just a matter
of volume. I don't know. But your point about the rim pressure that
I really just don't think is like gets talked about enough with him, is
thirty seven percent of his shots are coming at the rim this year. That
is his highest twenty thirteen twenty fourteen and among players who play position it's the
seventy eight percent tile. It's also not out of character what he hasn't been
alongside James Harden because they very much had him camping way out, because last
season he was in the seventy six percent tile. If you go back to
his days some with the Pelicans slash hornets when he was with the Clippers,
those rim numbers were there. No, he's not like this super explosive athletic
guy, but he is like Beefy in a good way. He's thick.
He is thick and he just gets through and he is fairly quick. So
when he's healthy, he's giving you, I would say, two levels of
scoring, which is really important in someone who if you want to call him
a role player, supporting cast member might be the kinder way to put it.
So I think maybe he I don't know what this trade deadline is gonna
hold, Not that we ever do, but just with everything that's going on
with the league, I don't know if that's gonna So many teams fancy themselves
close to the play in because they are, so is that going to make
a harder spots sellars or is all the you know, the changing rosters,
the revolving your availability. Does that make it less likely teams do whatever?
I don't know, but if you're a contender, so many of them by
the way, and I guess of offense isn't what you need. But like
Dallas is the team that immediately comes to mind, even if look Phoenix can
figure out a trade for him. They're so good, but they're dead last
in the frequency with your shots coming at the rim. They are talented enough
to where that doesn't matter, but you look at a playoff setting, some
of that kind of hurt them a little bit last year. He can really
elevate a team, and I hope we get to see him on a contender
or a team that's better than the Rockets before the year is over. So
like any other team, the Rockets went on that winning street for a second.
The Knicks didn't even have like a seven game winning streak. It's see
fair. The other thing about Gordon, and this is purely anecdotal. I
don't really have numbers to back this up, but it does feel like he
sets up at least a step beyond the three point arc, and there's value
to doing that. I think the best example is like peak Ryan Anderson,
where he was so comfortable setting up two feet beyond the arc. That stretches
out defenses just a little bit more and makes the gravitational pull that much more
impactful. Houston hasn't been able to capitalize on that, but a good team
will be able to, and Houston when they were good, did capitalize on
that in the past. The other thing is when you're starting from further out,
that's going to give him more room to get that downhill steam. If
he is attacking the basket, we are onto the Clippers. And if anyone's
watching this on YouTube, I have two screen set up, so I'm just
glancing at what I wrote about their stat four. This is a basic one,
but I have some granular stuff to with it. Their fourth in points
aloud per possession. I thought about focusing on their offense, but a team
that's missing Kawhi Leonard and Paul George now it's in the bottom five of points
scored per possession. How shocking is that it's not their fourth in points aloud
per possession this season? I think they've gotten lucky. Their fifth in opponent
field goal percentage at the rim and second in opponent field goal percentage from three.
I have been very impressed with their ball pressure and ability to contest shots
on the perimeter in general. Though they are the best team in the Western
Conference when it comes to allowing the smallest percentage of jumpers to go uncontested at
just a hair over eight team and their fourth overall in the league on that
and they've gotten lucky when you look at the opponent's efficiency in those situations,
but to not allow the high quality looks as often, especially from the perimeter
when you look at you know, on their interior they have to play small
up again with and you have Zubots, who's your best rim protector. That's
that's fine, but it's not like elite level there, and so having that
type of consistency on the perimeter independent of your two stars, by the way,
I think that's a pretty huge deal, and they could end up being
a problem for someone in the postseason, with or without Kauai, who it
sounds like he might come back this year. For that report, I think
it was from Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports. I still think if they don't
have Kawai, you probably need it'd be nice to have Eric Gordon on this
team. They just can't trade a first round pick. They do need that
extra offensive weapon up to really be a problem. But their defense, what
I'm getting at is legit. I'm not gonna I didn't go super detail and
say, oh, the people they're allowing to shoot threes, they're just it's
smart. Those are those are the right people that are taking them. No,
that's it's just that they are allowing basically the right kinds of shots.
And I do think that they are, you know, even when the shots
are are good, or they're not allowing as higher quality looks as other teams,
because they're getting contests in and I do think that matters in the grander
scheme of their perimeter defense, even if there is a set part now has
called it a lot of Jedi shooting defense involved there. I feel like the
Clippers have been one of the toughest teams to figure out because just in terms
of pure talent, they should be better than nineteen and twenty one, But
the metrics don't really suggest that they're. Their simple rating system, which looks
at strength of schedule and margin of victory or defeat, they're negative, like
they should not have a winning record, and I don't know. I have
trouble figuring this one out because the defense, like it passes the metrics test,
it passes the eye test, but the team just isn't winning games.
To be fair, it doesn't even pass some of the metrics tests, like
they're not all of them. Basically, think since Thanksgiving they've been the worst
defensive rebounding team in the league, and yet that's still coincides with them during
that's been having a top ten defense. So there's I totally get what you're
saying about this team, is there they'd be impossible to figure out anyway because
we haven't been able to see them at full strength. They didn't have a
box got to start the season, markus more seniors missed a ton of time.
They've been relying on them, your coffee, justice winslow. They've just
been all over the place. But even in the context of that, they're
just tough to figure out. Are you enjoying my Starbucks product placement throughout this
too? It's okay, I have a or I guess you can't see it
now. I have a bunch of amto energies behind me. Those those canisters.
I need some caffeine, and so I'm just shamelessly, you know,
putting this on the screen. Maybe they'll pay us, all right, maybe,
yet out let's say I don't Starbucks, alredy up and pay us.
Optimum Nutrition already up and pay us product placement here? Do you want to
take us to the Lakers? Lakers? My number is forty three. That
is the percentage chance that five eight yellow forecast gives the Lakers of making the
playoffs. So as we record, they're twenty one and nineteen. They're in
sixth place in the West, and it feels like they're starting to gain some
positive momentum where Lebron James is just playing phenomenal offensive basketball. Russell Westbrook's decision
making has been a little bit better. They've kind of coalesced in Anthony Davis's
absence. Some of the role players are starting to contribute a little bit more.
Are we that confident in them? Yet? Their Their last win against
a team that currently has a winning record was their overtime victory against the Dallas
Mavericks on December fifteenth. For the season, they're five and nine against above
five hundred teams, in sixteen and ten against below five hundred teams per Basketball
Reference, only the Bucks have played an easier schedule and the Lakers SRS.
Their Simple Rating System score is number twenty one overall and number ten in the
West. To me, like that forty three percent chance feels fairly accurate given
the strength of the middle class in the Western Conference and the lack of confidence
I have in the Lakers being able to sustain this positive uptick, given the
toll that it has to be taking on a thirty seven year old Lebron James.
So my question to you is over or under forty three over? Yep.
Yeah, I just we've just because of the Lebron factor. There's that
they've gotten better play from Russ having Monk go off when he has, and
they're gonna get once Anthony Davis comes back better. And I keep coming back
to the fact that they have annihilated opponents when eighties at the five and Lebron
and Westbrook around the court, and now that they've sort of unlocked the Lebron
at the five combinations, think about how much better center play they get in
some when it's Anthony Davis and Lebron playing being able to stagger them that way.
See I'm with you. I think subjectively, I would probably put it
at like fifty five to sixty percent. But this is not a lock.
And I think there's some perception that now that they're above five hundred and moving
in the right direction, that, yeah, like the Lakers are absolutely going
to make the playoffs in the West. I wouldn't go that far yet,
because they're one injury away. They're one negative stretch away from not looking like
that team at all. Yes, I guess if that's how you frame it.
But like so many teams now are one injury away. You could say
that about the Warriors, you could say that about the Sun's Booker or Paul
going out. But I'm not even talking about the injury that you have in
mind, which is a Lebron James injury. You're to get an injury,
Yeah, I think if there's a Monk injury, if there's a Westbrook injury,
if Kendrick Nunn can't return and they still have such thin depth, if
Mellow gets hurt, that this team does not have the pieces to pick up
the slack there. I guess. I'm just I look at the rest of
the West and it's very interesting, but it's so unimpressive in the sense that
the locks are Phoenis, Golden State in Utah. I don't even know you
can call Memphis a lock because they're so good right now, like they are
the least established of the Buns BarreR locks. Who is the who are the
locks? After that? Would you run them the lock for a play in?
You would call them a lock? Yes? Absolutely? Okay, absolutely,
all right, at least we're inching closer there. Yeah, I mean,
for sure. The reason I picked that it is just because I need
to push back a little bit against the emerging narrative that the Lakers have figured
it out and are suddenly a legitimate threat in the West. Maybe they'll get
there, but as it stands right now, like again, they haven't beaten
on above five hundred teams since December fifteenth, for recording this on Sunday,
January ninth. That's a long stretch. And granted, you can only play
who you can play because they're on your schedule, and they've won four or
five games in a row at this point, but they're beating up on subpar,
injured teams right now, and I just I think we need to push
back against the idea that everything is Hunky Dorry and Lakerland right now. That's
I don't is anyone portraying it isn't being hunky Dory? Feel like we're starting
to see a little bit of it on the Twitter verse. I don't.
I guess we must have different, very different timeline then, But I think
it's fair to categorize them as a team to be concerned about. I'm just
less concerned than I was a few weeks ago, which is saying something giving
Well, I think I think that number has risen significantly too. Like a
few weeks ago it was down in the twenties. I believe, Oh it
was. I didn't even realize forgot that load of them. Yeah, I
think. So let's go to the Memphis Grizzlies. My number is five.
There are sixty five players in the league who've used at least fifty IO possessions
this season. John Moran is fifth in points per possession in those situations.
I dug a little bit deeper into this too. Per b Ball Index,
he is looking at only players who've played five hundred and more minutes this year,
which is a ship ton of players if anyone cares. He is eighth
in isolation impact per seventy five possessions and looking at his scoring gravity, which
bball Index uses playmaking ability calculated with the same gravity data that they will reference
in the perimeter shooting sections. So mid range rim at even three points,
so it's taking into all levels of scoring. An account with the scoring gravity
data is essentially what I'm getting at. He is seventh in scoring gravity impact.
He's having a hell of an offensive year, unlike anything we've seen from
him, doing everything he's always done, plus other stuff. When you look
at what he's been able to do from the perimeter, specifically, he's a
three point shooter and just doing everything better even if he's done it already.
This guy is fantastic. I think he's If the Grizzlies keep this up,
and this is John Morant for the entire year, he's gonna crack top some
of the top five. He's gonna crack the top five of certain MVP ballots,
and I can't say he's undeserving. It would take an awful lot for
him to get into the Yoki Steph Joannis KD tier for me. But I
don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that John Morant finishes ahead of a
DeMar Derozen in MVP voting this season, how many point guards would you take
before John morand right now, Steph? Obviously Steph, I'd probably take Trey
Chris Paul just for this season or like just for this season. For the
remainder of this season, you could, You don't. On one hand,
I think right I think we're starting to get to that point where it's like
he's he's firmly in that top five mix. Desmon Vane might have been stretching
it a little bit when he said that he's the best point guard in the
world or should be in that conversation. I don't know that we're there yet
or we're getting clips. Yeah, I mean, he's not that far off,
Like I don't know that. I don't know that there's like a real
case for him to be better than Trey or Steph. And I think that's
what makes it tough. But could you make it consider it? Luca and
Lebron point guards like a center, so Lebron's officially out of that. Lebron's
like a Lebron's point guard and a center at the same time, though,
Luca, Yeah, that would be would be another fair one to note.
I'm trying to think of it. If we're forgetting anyone egregious, I don't
don't. Fante Morris right, totally forgot about That's my bad, frankiokinaka about
him. But yeah, I mean he's this season. Yeah he's because in
a normal year you probably you probably wonder about Dame. But definitely even though
Dame has been mining games out right now, they're probably gonna shut him down,
so you certainly want them instead of Dame. Yep, I think that's
fair. My follow up stat for Memphis, though, is one hundred five
point seven seven one, and that is Memphis's current score in NBA maps Rolling
Team Rating, which looks at the last twenty games and accounts for strength of
schedule, a margin victory and all that. That is the top score in
the history of this franchise. That's pretty good. It sounds like these Yeah,
yep, I thought that was notable enough that I had to include it
here. I think I'll allow it. I don't like when you, you
know, step in my territory. You know how possessive I am and micro
managerial that I am, But I'll out at this time. Well, I'm
gonna move on to the Timberwolves seen just so you don't get too frustrated speaking
of teams that I can't figure out. I'm so glad you had to take
right right, and I might have gone an easier route here too. My
number is thirteen, and I wanted, much like with Yokich, I wanted
to take a second just to appreciate how fucking good Carl Anthony Towns is at
basketball. I think with Anthony Edwards ascending, he's drawn a little bit more
attention. There's also just more attention paid to the Wolves as a whole,
because they're currently on pace to make the playoffs for the second time since two
thousand and four. But Towns, you know, I've said it before and
I'll say it again, like he is a generational talent as an offensive center,
and because he's not a defensive stalwart, because he's missed time, because
he hasn't been on highly competitive teams, I just don't think he gets enough
credit for being just this unbelievably talented. You can make a case that he
is one of the count them on one hand, best offensive centers of all
time, just in terms of his pure skill set. So right now,
Towns is averaging twenty four point one points, nine point three rebounds, and
three point six three point six assists while slashing fifty one point forty one point
seven eighty two point seven. Where thirteen comes into the equation is He is
currently on pace to become the thirteenth player in league history to average at least
twenty four points while taking more than five threes per game with a sixty plus
tree shooting percentage. The twelve who have already done it James Harden, Kevin
Durant, Steph Curry, Kyrie Irving, Zach Lavine, Kawhi Leonard, Damian
Lillard, Devin Booker, Lebron, James Glenn, Rice Pagestroyakovich, and Boston
Celtics Isaiah Thomas. Do you see any other centers in that group? Like
again, aside from like current season Lebron, but this is twenty sixteen,
seventeen Lebron who joined that group like this is It is totally unprecedented for a
center to be this good as a volume scorer and floor stretcher. You know,
we have guys like Kristops Porzingis who takes threes but doesn't make them,
Joel embiid follows and falls into that category as well. Sorry who says that
after saying there needs to be in all star case, let me play both
sides of the fence. Yoki you know, Yokis plays out on the perimeter,
draws attention to the perimeter, and does take some threes, but not
quite to the extent the Towns does. Just if you watch him play,
the shot making ability that he has as a catch and shoot guy, playing
off the bounce, you know, controlling offense from the top of the key.
Players his size are not supposed to be able to do that, to
the point that they never have. There has not been anybody like him before,
and that gets glossed over too frequently. I don't. I think it's
just because he's in the wilderness in Minnesota, and maybe not so much this
year, but they just whenever a player doesn't make the playoffs for a long
time and then the one year he did, your Jimmy Butler, there we
the assumption nationally, or when you zoom out, or the laziest you know,
presumption would be it's on his fault. It's like the Zaquavine stuff in
Chicago for so long right there with you, let's go to the Pelicans.
I can't use my Herb Jones one that I teased a few podcasts ago because
I actually use it on the last podcast, and like I said, I
didn't want to double dip. So if you want to know the bonkers herb
Jones stat that I came up with, go to the last Mailbag podcast when
you recorded at four am because you couldn't sleep. Yeah, it was actually
almost six in the morning. I started research again like four am, and
I was like, Okay, I'll record this when I get up and just
release it and say what the hell? I still couldn't like I was done.
I was like, let me just record this. So yeah, when
you publish that, when I was like, why didn't you ask me to
join this one? And then I'm glad that you didn't message me at what
would have been like two am my time. It probably would have been good
if you were on it, just because my voice sounded like gravel on gravel.
I've been there because I was so sick. I know you've been there,
but like not like me talking for fifty seven minutes straight or whatever.
It was probably wasn't the best the best experience for everybody, thanks for all
those questions. Though I did, I was in such a COVID written state,
I really nothing. War was my heart more than when I get dms
from people with mail bad questions because they're not responding to the solicitation, They're
just asking. And I have like I think four or five built up over
the past week. I will get We will get to them next time,
I promise, and hopefully it won't be a solo mail at that time.
However, the Pelicans, my number is one, can't be the number of
games at Zion's played because that's still zero. Yes, so they are first
in the league in half court offensive rebounding percentage, and I wanted to dig
a little deeper into that number. So Ever, since they started the season
three and sixteen, as we're recording this, you're actually over five hundred at
eleven and nine, they are still not surprisingly first in half court offensive rebounding
percentage. During that stretch, they are also first in the percentage of plays
for which that accounts for their entire offense. They are so reliant on cleaning
up their own missus. They are also during that time. As my light
goes out here and I'll plump that back and in a second. They are
also first in the plays second chance plays that they're generating permiss on offense.
They are fifth in the total points per one hundred misses that they have that
they are generating. However, they're not super efficient in those situations. Still,
they have been above the break three point shooting. When it's a second
chance opportunity, they're shooting almost forty percent. That's great, it's like fifth
in the league. They're like bottom ten and nearly every other thing. Their
effective field goal percentage on the second chance opportunities is not that high. Zion
probably helps them a ton there with his finishing and they'll have a higher percentage
of their putbacks going in. But I found it interesting that it's not surprising
that a team that has you wantus found and hunting is good at offensive rebounding.
But they've been pretty reliant on it even during this stretch of success.
They are also second in the league, if you want to random stat here,
in the percentage of offensive rebounds they grab after missing a long mid range
jumper. And so I guess while having bread at Ingram on your team and
even a Debonte Gram a little bit like that helps you out, So it's
a deep cut there. My immediate follow up question, and I don't know
if you have easy access to that, is what does their transition defense look
like? Because in modern NBA basketball, we've seen that there's so much of
a trade off between crashing the offensive glass and getting back to play transition defense,
and most coaches have moved away from the former in favor of the ladder
unless you have just a really ridiculously talented offensive rebounder. So is that coming
at the expensive transition defense or is this a strength that isn't impacting the team
elsewhere. When you're looking at their transition defense, and this is during the
stretch that they've been above five, they actually the best transition defense in the
league. So that's working nicely. Third, when you break it down to
points per play, that's that's amazing, Like that's that is not supposed to
happen. That could not be more anomalous. They are twenty first in defense
overhaul though during this stretch, so that part's not great, but it's it's
New Orleans, Like we couldn't have expected too many positives here. They've been
quietly like just Josh Smart in Ingram's passing. DeVante Graham has hit some some
big shots, shown his found tunises well when he was in the lineup.
I don't even know if he's returning again. The league is all over the
place. It's so hard. No one should feel bad for me or you.
It's just so hard to cover the league at a league wide scale right
now. It's just it's so difficult. I think I can't remember if it
was you and friend of the podcast, Jacob barn or just Jacob that I
was kind of griping about this too. But usually at this point in the
season, with all the different NBA math graphics that I produce on a daily
and weekly basis, like I have most of the faces cut out to make
those. But this season it's like every morning it's like, oh, gotta
find headshots for six more players who made their season debuts this time around,
Like I have them prepped for Klay Thompson and guys we expect to make their
debuts. But when we're just signing players off the streets, it's like,
seriously, like another morning where I have to like grab a different computer and
cut those out and email them to myselves and throw them into tableau. It's
just talking, I mean, talk about an insignificant complaint, but it has
made my life harder too. Hopefully this settles down because of what that says
also about the state of COVID in the league will be Yeah, and look,
shout out to the guys who have kept the league up and running by
signing all these ten day contracts. I'm not a big fan of saying,
oh, they're getting this opportunity, willn't otherwise have. It's true, but
you're also just using glorified temp workers to meet your more lucrative bottom line that
they're not necessary. They're not it's not even necessarily. They're not sharing in
to the extent that all these players under guaranteed contracts are. And yes,
someone like Land Stevenson, very questionable, if terrible human being, still was
able to earn a permanent contract with the Pacers. Yeah, there are situations
like that. It looks like West Matthews wind up doing the same with Milwaukee,
but he didn't even signed. I think they just signed do non guarantee
deal at one point. Still, my whole point is just that shout out
to those guys they've kept the league running. As Chris Paul said, and
that's not an overstatement. Oklahoma City Thunder my number is nine. So I
looked at two different like deep dive passing metrics. Here, one is potential
assists per thirty six minutes and the other is field goal percentage on passes that
would lead to assists. So I'm basically just calculating that by looking at actual
assists versus potential assists, because by definition, potential assists are are passes that
would have led to assists had the shop and made. So if you look
at the actual made shots versus the potential made ones, there's your field goal
percentage on passes that would lead to assists. So among the eighty players who
have played at least five hundred minutes and recorded at least two hundred potential assists,
Josh Giddy ranks twenty first and potential assists for thirty six minutes at thirteen
point seven and fifteenth in field goal percentage on passes that would lead to assists
fifty four point six percent. And that last one is particularly impressive because he's
playing for a Thunder team that ranks dead last in field goal percentage. So
like if I had had the time to dive even deeper, like the relative
boost that his passing is providing is even more substantial. But even with that
raw number, he's at number fifteen, the only other players in the top
twenty five for both of those stats. There are eight others hence nine being
the stat here, Chris Paul, Trey Young, Dejante Murray, Russell Westbrook,
LaMelo Ball, Nikola Yokich, John Morant, and Damian Lillard. Josh
Giddy is with those eight players in that class. Those are some great names
to be compared with. He has had a phenomenal rookie season. We've gotten
to celebrate the fact that he became the youngest player in league history to have
a triple double, but he has burst onto the scene as this potential centerpiece
for the Thunder. He is that good as a passer, the reads that
he makes, the split second decisions that he makes, it already feels like
the game has slowed down, which doesn't typically happen for point guards in the
NBA, even if they have international experience, until their second or third season.
And it makes me wonder just how good his passing is going to be
two years from now. I think a lot of it's going to rest on
can he elevate his own offensive aggression, because I think that's going to be
absorted in leveraging those Did you happen to look at how many of those potential
assists his team is actually converting and like how that is? Like, what
are they shooting off of Josh Giddy passes this season? It's not something I've
Yeah, that's that's the field goal percentage on the passes that would lead to
assess they're shooting fifty six percent on that. So that's fifteenth among the qualified
players, which is again with a team that is dead last in field goal
percentage in general. Yeah, that's just super impressive. Then, just who
have underscored what you said? I have a follow up? Okay, see
sad that's not really related to that, but it's something I stumbled upon in
my research for this pod. Darius Baisley is second. Maybe I'm misremembering.
He's definitely the top five in blocked three point shots. Not his that are
getting blocked, but three point shots that he has blocked. I am marginally
surprised that he is still on the roster. He's been too good defensively to
get off the roster and that's not even because so bad offensively though, you're
what is you? Yeah? What do you want poku to get some All
Star votes? Though still I was like, okay, moving, moving right
along to Phoenix the one to I'm mostly just I'm mostly disappointed that I spent
too much draft capital on Darius Baisley in a fantasy league. Yeah, because
of that, you need checked those emotions at the door fair enough. The
Phoenix Suns, my number is There are a bunch of different ways I go
with this, but my number is one for them. Again, after using
this for the Pelicans, among every player in the league who's attempting at least
three off the dribble three pointers per game, Devin Booker ranks first in his
conversion rate on those shots forty two point one percent. That is by far
and away a career high for him. His previous career high was thirty six
point four percent in two seventeen twenty eighteen. That also happens to be the
only other time that he shot better than thirty three point eight percent on off
the dribble threes in a season. This seems sort of basic for Phoenix,
but I think a lot of stuff is Some people focus on their shot profile.
We even talked about they don't get to the rim, but they don't.
They just don't need to, at least not during the regular season.
Cam Johnson has been spectacular over the past few weeks and the esthetics on his
jumper are an affords as so just go watch him take Kim Johnson take jumpers,
make or miss. I'm telling you it's gonna it's gonna rev your engine.
I wanted to go with this because I think that that efficiency is such
a It's one of the reasons why you don't need to get to the room
if your Phoenix, because you always had the threat of Devin Booker off the
dribble to leverage. But he's been hitting his three's overall, looking at catch
and shoot, just as efficiency on threes this year has been such a huge
deal. But you're gonna shoot forty two point one percent on He has almost
one hundred off the dribble three pointers so far this season. That's going to
be monstrous for them when you're looking at their their postseason trajectory. Should they
not be able to acquire someone who helps add pressure to the rim, just
a version of Devin Booker even when you've watched him play, I would hazard
that he's just one of those guys you would estimate his career three point percentage
or any given with the exception of this year, any given single season three
point percentage, you're going to estimate it as being much higher than it actually
was because the shot, the aesthetics on his shot just look so good too,
and to see it come together so nicely for him this season, have
now just having off the dribble three pointer in his arsenal to be able to
hit the pull up even if they're not the most complicated off the dribble jumpers.
Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't. After watching footage on them.
Devin Booker spectacular and he's added this sort of layer to his offensive game,
and he deserves to be an All Star and probably would make my All NBA
ballot At this point, I believe how many All Stars is Phoenix going to
have? Two? I don't really know where your third one is coming from
me unless you think eight and is going to Cray. I mean, if
you're giving a spot to Porzingis, then you're not though. That's why make
that clear. No one should be giving a spot to Christaps Porzingis, So
you still think too though you don't think it, and they'll get in.
I'd be pretty shocked if I guess. I'm trying to think of just the
front court players that would be Quis out, Anthony Davis is out, when
Paul George have played enough, I don't think it's going to be close.
I could see him getting in as like an injury or COVID replacement. No,
enough, we get No, I'm not doing injury or COVID replacement right
now. Is he making the first iteration of the All Star ballot? Is?
Probably not? Probably not. But I mean, you know, I've
talked about this a b jillion times how I want the star rosters to expand.
So I like giving credit to the guys who might eventually get in,
even if they're not featured on that first selection. Are you gonna pick Mellow
in case they do a thing where they give you like the you know,
Ada boy career achievement spot. I hope not. I hate that so that
one year against I was so against that. It's not it's not a legacy.
It shouldn't be a legacy achievement. It's supposed to be this season.
Yes, but you're also working outside the confines of the roster count at the
moment, so absolutely the strictures within which you work remain puzzling and very inconsistent.
I'll take it. Do you want to take Speaking of taking, do
you want to take us to the Portland Trailblazers. Yeah, Portland Trailblazers.
My number is fifty five point eight. That is the league worst effective field
goal percentage allowed by the Portland Trailblazers. This team's defensive rebounding has been pretty
good. They fell too frequently their number twenty one and free throws per field
goal attempt. They can't stop players from scoring, hence that lead worst affective
field goal percentage. They rarely first forced turnovers their number twenty an opponent turnover
percentage. It's basically a continuation and in some ways an amplification of last year's
defensive struggles, which wasn't supposed to happen given the slight personnel changes and the
coaching changes to Chauncey Billups. This team is just a defensive disaster and it's
not going to get any better anytime soon. And I think it's worth highlighting
just how bad it's been particularly in that we cannot possibly get the right players
to take contested shots department. I think the other thing too, and this
is from Christian Narshu also, he works for a b ball in next I've
sighted them a few times now on this pod. The Blazers have the most
aggressive pick and roll defensive coverage in the league. The issue with that is
they do not have the personnel to have that type of pick and roll coverage,
which is why when Terry stof there, you would predominantly see them play
drop with Nurkicch and Nurkitch is really suffering the brunt of that. There are
are a hundred or excuse me, there are seventy players who've contested at least
one hundred and ten shots at the rim this season. He has one of
the five worst marks allowed at the basket seventy point four percent on the season.
The only players with worst marks allowed, none of them are bigs or
primary considered primary rim protectors. Harrison Barnes and Anti Edwards James Harden are the
only players in front of him. I've statistically been a better rim protector than
use of marriage this season. That's that's less than ideal. I would say,
but it's also in no way surprising because this team just doesn't have a
defensive identity and whatever it tries to do, it doesn't have the personnel to
do. It's yeah, they and it's it's it's not funny. But I
will say I like the acquisitions of Norman Powell, Larry Nance Jr. Robert
Covington's separately. I mentioned this on our last podcast, though I don't want
to spend a ton of time on it. When you look back at a
lot of the stuff that Neil O'Shea did, the failure to make the actual
blockbuster move is what feels like it did this or of the Blazers in because
even when they got to the conference finals, knew they weren't going to get
out of there. It was very clearly a cap on a CJ. Dame
backcourt being the folcram of everything you do. If you weren't able to get
that third star at the wings or a real star big man without giving up
CJ. McCom, you probably should have looked much sooner into moving CJ.
McCollum. It's the callous view. And the Blazers assembled a lot of good
teams still, but that is going to end up being the fatal flaw of
the Damian Lillard. Ever, I think it's pretty clear. I'm right there
with you. I think the idea was always that if they were going to
make a run, it was going to be because Dame went nuclear, which
he has done for significant stretches in key situations, but the idea of him
doing that for every single round of the playoffs was always unrealistic. The Sacramento
Kings, so I looked at I wanted to. I think people have been
too low on d Aaron Fox this season. He's not been great, especially
on defense, and they've also changed his offensive role at bit. But I
saw going around Twitter the other day that Nick Sands wouldn't trade Emmanuel quickly for
Daron Fox, which was just kind of like a GTFO moment for me.
So I looked at Biball Indexes Finishing Score, which seeks This is further website
which seeks to capture how well a player scores at the rim on the attempts
they have once there, and doing so while capturing and adjusting for variables that
may impact performance such as spacing if they were creating their own shot, the
location of shots, etc. Etc. Daron Fox is third in Bball Index's
overall finishing score. He's also this is among everyone who's played at least five
hundred minutes. He's also he also has the lowest shot quality at the rim
of anyone within that category. Some of that seems self inflicted when you look
at his takeoff points, his decision making. But the fact that he can
still have such a high finishing score while generating such a low quality looks at
the rim. I think it's a testament to what happens when he does put
pressure on the basket. There are things to littlebout with his game. His
assist percentage has never been lower on drives, YadA, YadA, YadA.
He's still shooting sixty four percent at the rim this season. I still think
this is someone who is a fringe All Star. I wouldn't put him in
the All Star conversation this year, but maybe if they expanned the rosters to
twenty five players, Darren Fox would make it. But when you're just looking
at the numbers he's putting up and still being able to finish like this,
If this is his down year, that's a really good basketball player. I
am curious see what the Kings do from here, and we do need to
see more from just Daron Fox overall. He's not hitting the step back jumpers
at his high clip as he was last season. A shot selection from the
perimeter just remains super iffy, and they it seems like Sarcomon was trying to
streamline his role where Tyrese Haliburton is going to be the engine a lot of
the time, trying to play make and that can be a problem because Daron
Fox is still not this threat off the ball, but he remains a pretty
good, too awesome finisher. I'm actually a little surprised you didn't go to
the Tyrese Haliburton direction. That's what I was expecting, given how much we
both loved him going into last year's draft and what he's done during the most
recent portion of this season, where he went from as a rookie being that
guy who could capably fill every single kind of role for the Sacramento Kings,
as you just put it, you know, starting to become part of the
engine of the Kings, and in recent weeks taking over more as a featured
score and being really efficient while doing so. The jump that he's already making
a year two is so substantial that I was just surprised you went the Fox
route, even if he does deserve that love. I just I feel like
you gave Tyrius Alibert and more responsibility and he's responding, he's been great.
It's just I guess me. I guess I was past the point of people
thinking that Tyris Haliburton wasn't like a spectacular pick at number twelve, But you
go, I could have went with Rashaun Holmes flip shots, just because that
percentage remains absurdly high, even though everyone knows that that's what he's good at.
Maybe he just like highlighted his contract or something and like how cheap it
was, something that hasn't ever been and then said this would have been original,
but said that the Charlot Horne I should have been fined in draft pick
for allowing him to sign that contract with absolutely never said that before, not
once on this podcast. Right there with you, san Antonio Spurs, my
number is five. That is Dejante Murray's jersey number. And I just want
to give him some love here because I think the Spurs overall struggles have sort
of masked the attention that he should be getting for the improvement he's made this
year. He's averaging eighteen point two points, eight point three rebounds, eight
point nine assists, just two point five turnovers per game, albeit without the
most efficient shooting. According to the NBA math rpr MVP predictor, which factors
in the lack of team success, Murray is at number thirty this season.
If the All Stars were chosen by this metric alone, which they shouldn't be,
and they expanded the roster, and they expanded the roster, but even
without a roster expansion, he would be the first injury replacement in the Western
Conference, which I think puts into I had that. I swear I had
that ritching down even before our conversations. That was so unbelievably on breath,
Go Ahead. There's a theme for this podcast, No No, But I
think like just the fact that he's at number thirty with the team's success or
lack there of working against him, the fact that he would be the first
injury replacement in the Western Conference by this metric, it speaks volumes about how
much his stock should be rising, Like this is a guy who I think
should at least be in the mix for one of the thirty best players in
basketball right now. He's not going to feature in that conversation as much because
the Spurs haven't been able to excel. They've had so many different lineup combinations,
probably more so than even the team's most affected by the pandemic. As
they try to bring in new younger players try to figure out what they have,
they go to work without like a truly established veteran star, and he's
becoming that guy where the game has clearly slowed down for him. The passing
strides that he's made in the half court set in particular are phenomenal. He
just it feels like he has a better understanding of how to be the engine
that makes the Spurs offense at least attempt to go. He's been great this
season. I think he could still harp on. He probably could be more
efficient as a scorer, but to have the just that level to his game,
and I don't think at this point we just have to figure he'll never
be that guy. Maybe it's different, but I sort of wonder if he
would be a lot better if he got to play a role independent of Derek
White totally. And I'm just those two players just seem like there's too much
overlap in both their skills, like their strengths and their weaknesses, that they
might be better off in higher not just having their minutes staggered, but just
untethered one another complete name. We saw San Antonio basically try and do that
until this season, which is why I think that maybe Derek White should be
on the chopping box, not just because I want there to be an active
trade deadline going into this season. You and I had an argument about which
team had the fewest future All Stars on the roster, and the Spurs were
my pick, like even beyond the Orlando Magic, the Houston Rockets, the
Oklahoma City Thunder, because I really didn't think that anyone on this roster had
that kind of upside, like when you're leading candidates where Derek White, john
Ty Murray, and Kelton Johnson. That's enough said right there. But I
do think that Murray has worked himself into that conversation where the Spurs pretty clearly
have one guy who most likely will represent the Western Conference at some point in
his career. My follow up stat for the Spurs is up teenth, and
that is the amount of wiggle that there is in Josh Primo's game when he
has the ball in his hands. So you've got a time's infinity and an
upteenth in there, and I like the numbers you're thrown out here. I
appreciate that my numbers some advanced mathematics. This one's gonna be super advanced,
this number. So trying to stay with me for the Jazz. The Utah
Jazz finish us off with this podcast. Twenty three. That is Royce O'Neil's
jersey number. They back to back jersey numbers. They remained so reliant on
him defensively going up against the opposition's best player that at this point it's almost
criminal that that's how reliant they are on him. So he guards the number
one option on the other team according to the usage rate thirty two point three
percent of the time. The next player on the Jazz that ranked second in
this metric is Joe Ingles at twenty point four. Makes sense him coming off
the bench. Whatever that gap, though nearly a twelve percentage point gap,
is the third largest in the NBA from the player on a team that spends
the most time guarding the number one option to the second to the person that
spends the second most time the only players in front of him? Can you
guess either one of him? Absolutely not, I think you could guess one
of them. I gave you Lou dort in Okay. See, I don't
think that surprised you. This one got me. But then you think about
the roster and you're like, okay, Gary Harris in Orlando. Hm,
I think I would be surprised by that one, just because it feels like
Orlando had so many young pieces that it would be sparamenting and trying to figure
out who has the defensive chops. But it's also like who aside from get
like, it's not I don't have an answer, So they might actually be
the most logical pick because they spread out after him. It's although, But
the other thing that I found interesting is so when you look at his average
guarded usage rate, it's like twenty two something for Royce O'Neill. The gap
between him and second place is basically three percentage points, which seems small.
That's actually the largest gap between one and two in the NBA and a single
team. So this is just like when he's not guarding the number one option,
it's probably because he's on number two or you're never gonna basically see him
like he never has the opportunity to catch a beat, is what I'm getting
at, because whether it's wings guards, you're talking point of attack, you're
talking some movement shooters, he's had to cover like the whole positional archetypical spectrum
here, and kudos to him. I don't know that he's as good defensively
this season as he was last year, but just the scope of his role,
like I said, it's criminal. And that's why I think that the
Jazz really need to swing for the fences on a trade here this season if
it costs you Joe Angles, who's been I don't want to say low key
awful this season, but he's not been. He had a nice stretch,
but he just has not been great for them before going in health and safety
protocols, but I would be looking to trade Angles or Clarkson. I'm not
training boat on Moodanovitch. He's just I saw some stuff flowing around about that.
Is he expendable to the offense, Maybe because Utah's offense is fucking thermonuclear,
But you have a six foot seven inch wing who's averaging over seventeen points
per game on better than sixty true shooting. Let's keep get rid of that
that guy. Would you say that Royce O'Neill is the best player who's ever
won number twenty three in the NBA. Yeah, he has to be right,
No, nobody thinks so. I think so. My follow up number
for Utah's zero, and that is the number of people, despite Utah's history
in the last few years of flaming out in the playoffs. Zero is the
number of people who should be believing that this team can't win a championship.
I will say, left alone, they can win a title, but they
are the team where it feels like they need a move if they want to.
When you look at the five teams to be they are most likely to
win the title Milwaukee, Brooklyn, Golden State, Phoenix. You taught they
are the team of that bunch I think needs a move the most, and
I don't think I don't think it needs to be a large scale move.
I've seen people it's a periphery depth piece that can just provide a little bit
more defensive juice so that O'Neill doesn't have to do this, And I would
say you probably might even need I think the issue with them is that if
you're they're so deep that if you're let's say you're able to trans for Tory
Craig, which you could, and he makes sense, He's probably not consistently
cracking the top nine of your playoff rotation. So what they need to do
is find a player that would do that. And Josh Richardson has been the
name that I've come back to for them. I think they are to me,
they are Josh Richardson away for maybe being the title favorite is basically I
wouldn't put them. I don't know if i'd put them over Phoenix or Golden
State in Milwaukee necessarily, if they traded for Josh Richardson right here, right
now, I would pick them over Brooklyn. I'd probably picked them over Brooklyn
right now. So maybe that's not that's bisy, but they're that type of
a player away from really just entering the does this team deserve to be not
a title contender but the title favorite discussion, And right now, I think
that's really reserved for those top four teams, and I'm not I kind of
have Brooklyn out of there, to be honest with you, where I look
at Milwaukee there with you in the makes and Golden State. I think Utah
has the chance with a Josh Richardson size move to enter that discourse. I
might end up having them be my absolute favorite, even if they don't make
a Josh Richardson size move. And I've I've picked them in the playoffs each
of the last few years just because I do ultimately believe in what this organization
has been doing, especially as Donovan Mitchell has more time in that featured role
in high stake situations. There have just been some unlucky factors, like there
have been key injuries to them in the playoffs each of the last few years.
They did run into a bad matchup three years ago that Rudy Gobert wasn't
as effective against, and unfortunately that's still being held against him to this day.
Even if it shouldn't be like this, this offense this season, as
you put it, just thermonuclear, and that still might be selling it short
because it's been so explosive and so consistently explosive. And by the way,
if you're looking to simplify the Royce O'Neil defensive workload, he is among every
player that's logged at least five hundred minutes this year, he's ninth in matchup
difficulty in the league. That's that's super. Can you guess who's first?
I'm gonna go with door it again? He is in front of him,
but he is also third. Hit me with it. Matisse Tibel is first.
Fair enough. I think it's easier to get there when he's played seven
hundred and twenty two minutes and you're looking at Royce O'Neill, who is at
as we record this almost over eleven hundred. So but yeah, Royce O'Neill,
the Jazz need you, but they also need to give you some help.
That's twenty three in league history. That'll do it for us, and
I'll wrap up the one stat to know about every NBA team this season.
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