What is up Hardware Knoxers. I am Dan Valley, coming at you as always, fueled by caffeine, pop punk and lots and lots of this podcast hoops, hardware knocks in general, lots of fun also coming at you without my fantabulous co host add a promo this time or a guest because some plans fell through, but I felt like dropping a podcast a second one this week. Anyway, I know all of you are just waiting for two before we get started. Just want to remind, implore, beg, plead with everyone to continue rating, reviewing, and subscribing to us wherever you get your podcast. That is the best way to help us is to subscribe and download every episode. Also one of the best ways to help us, please head over to iTunes throw us that five star rating. Also write a review. Those help us out a ton in the charts. It doesn't matter if you use iTunes or not to listen to your pods. If you have access to it, we asked that you use it. 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At this point, I guess I'm going to relay a stat that I'll be watching for every single team the rest of the year, or just something to track. It could be early seizing noise. These are just numbers that I find interesting. They're not all supposed to be these, you know, big picture referendums or harboring jurors. Sometimes it might be the biggest problem identifying with the team. Sometime it might just not be the biggest problem. Spoiler alert, it won't be the biggest on court problem for the Phoenix Suns. It's just something that I find fascinating or I want to celebrate. But in other cases it will be or it'll just be something I'm noticing picking up on. If you like this podcast, which I will time stamp the ever living hell out of, maybe we'll make this sort of a you know, series that we do a couple of times throughout the season. Maybe we'll split up into the two pods. The goal here is I'm gonna try and not spend too long. I want to get you here out of here in a little bit over an hour. I say over an hour because we have to talk quickly. Maybe I'll go more in depth when when Adam and I record next. About the report that came from ESPN's Baxter Homes allegations of racism and misogyny within the Phoenix Suns inside Robert Sarver's seventeen year tenure as the primary proprietor whatever you want to call them there. This was the report that was reported on about coming out, because that's we hear about news before the news actually comes out. I still think it was fucked up that this story was scooped in that vein. I think it gave the Suns more time to prepare for it, even if they were or I say that, but even though Sarver was sort of tripping over himself. I recommend you just check out the report. I mean, there are the stories in there are just there. You were expecting just terrible, atrocious, no good, really bad, a moral fucked up shit, and it was just even worse after reading it. I'm not going to go through the specific events. They're all in there. They were awful. It sounds like there's been a toxic culture in there. These allegations need to be taken seriously. The NBA has launched an investigation into the Suns. Officially, we will see what comes in that players and the Suns players and Monty Lawers were asked about it before their win over the Houston Rockets on Thursday night or excuse me, money. Lawers was as before the players were axed after the general theme was that they want to wait for the investigation to unfold before they're going to comment any further. Devin Booker did note that Earl Watson, former Son's head coach, who is on the record in this story is one of his guys. He called them that he would consider him a trusted source. We know that Devin Booker and other players within Phoenix wanted Earl Watson as the head coach, and when you look at just the circumstances or the alleged circumstances under which Earl Watson was dismissed within this piece, just an absolute fucking disaster. And if even like ten percent of this stuff was true, and I'm not saying that less than that would be true or that it's only ten percent, it's pretty damning. I think what makes this difficult, And again, I don't want to spend too much time of this because it's important, but I've had enough of you know, the people that look like me, the white dudes just sort of opining on this. This seems different from what happened with the Clippers or even the Hawks in that these allegations too, as far as we know, they've not been on courting, and so it's not going to be as cut and dry for the NBA to make a decision here. I know a lot of people think that Robert Sarver will be forced to sell the team. It's gonna depend on one the how they determine how the validity of these allegations and how many are they going to be able to confirm it's just sources. In this case, I don't know if that hearsay is gonna impact whether he's forced out or not. My guests would be that he won't be unless the players on the Sun's take a stand sort of like what happened with the Clippers and Donald Sterling, because I do wonder if Donald Sterling would have been forced out had the Clippers just basically said like, we're not going to play for him, is what it came down to in that instance. I hate that the onus comes onto the players. Then in this respect, a lot of this stuff is predating their ten years there If you look at a Chris Paul, if you look at a Monty Williams and they've both or Monty Williams was he did say that nothing along these lines that Robert Sarver has been accused of. When you're looking at racist language, sexist behavior, he apparently pants someone that's a dude in his fifties, I guess was panting an employee, one of his employees at at a company event Montie Williams said that he, to the best of his knowledge, that stuff has knocked on on since he's joined the Suns over these past couple of years, so the owners should not fall on him or Chris Paul. At the same time, I just find it very hard to believe that the league is going to enforce or excuse me, force Robert Starver to sell the team based on this report when there's just no concrete proof. Even though this would be my next point. Backs from Home said of that ESPN spoke with over seventies sources for this story, and so I'd like people to consider that when you have a lot of people that look like myself that are coming out and saying this is not the Robert Starver. I know, I haven't known him to be racist. Cough cough Steve Kerr there, I think rex Cha Chapman said something on Twitter as well. So you have these males just you know, sort of commenting on this situation, which I mean, we're talking about women who you know, were verbally assaulted here, made to feel uncomfortable in their work environment like that's or if we're having you know, a white dude talking about Steve Curse like, I haven't found roberts Hover be racist. Okay, Like you're a white dude, would you experience racism on behalf of Rockert Server. No, you would fucking not. So that is super cringe worthy here. Let if you want, let's let the investigation play out to see what happens. That's fine, but we can't just pretend that seventy sources is this insignificant number. And there was also the report that there are employees who are willing to speak with the league during their investigation to corroborate these things as long as their employee status is protected. Because one of the complaints within this piece not complaints. One of the allegations within this piece is that human resources basically functioned as Robert Robert Starver's own personal police, and you had an HR representative sort of counseling employees off the record on what to do and advising or hoping that they would sue or threaten to sues that they would get some money. They're fired. This is just this report is it's groundbreaking in what it alleges and the extent to which it seems like it was reported. There's no way you can just dismiss it, and the move is not to just come out on Robert Sarver's behalf right now, let the investigation play out. That you're automatically jumping to the event to the defense of this guy. I'm not saying a bunch of people are, but there were just people on Twitter very easily or even within the piece, like you're kind of telling on yourself in that regard. You also had a son's partial like minority proprior to come out and release a statement. I got the email. A ton of other people got the email from Yama Nahafi, and I apologize I'm mispronouncing. I should have looked that up. But he said, I've been made aware of the allegations against Robert Sarver, the managing partner who runs the Phoenix Suns. The conduct he's alleged to have committed has stunned in Santamy and is and is unacceptable. So you have him coming out on the record and just saying that, like we that should just be the reaction where he's I guess not assuming guilt, like we're acknowledging this conduct is alleged, but we have to take this seriously. If ESPN was talking over seventy people. The final thing that I'm going to say on this, let's be we need to see what the league does, and they should be criticized or judged accordingly based on what their reaction is. Let's not be so quick to pat them on the back for acting swiftly or something. Robert Sarver has been in this position of power for nearly two decades. These stories have apparently been floating around for years. I'm sure it took a lot of courage for people to come and speak up now or over the course of these past few months with Baxter Homes. So I'm not saying that this necessarily all should have came out at once. People should have come forward sooner, because I think it's really hard to say that when you're dealing with actual victims in this case, like this isn't like you know, this isn't innocent stuff. This is real, derogatory shit that impacted these people's lives, and there are people that just wanted to get out of the organization altogether. I could imagine it would be be traumatizing, but there's been like this. It was not it wasn't even a poorly kept secret. It just wasn't a secret as to how toxic the word culture was in Phoenix, And if the league is only investing getting get now, like after what's happened in Dallas, what's happened in Atlanta, what happened with the Clippers, Like, they need to do a better job of I guess vetting these guys in the first place. However you feel about billionaires, I guess I'll keep like if you think that all billionaires are immoral to have to get to that point, like whatever, I'm just saying, do a better job of vetting these guys in the first place, but then also kind of monitoring them moving forward. There needs to be a stricter standard to hold the he's you know, managing partners too, or just all sorts of minority or majority proprietors of these teams, governors, whatever you want to call them, so that this stuff, this stuff shouldn't be happening and it shouldn't be like kind of sort of known about and then we're only going to investigate it once. These just groundbreaking reports are released once every few years. At this point, it's not even a few years. How long ago was the Dallas thing? It was two and eighteen s about nineteen, less than a half a decade ago, easily, So that's just where I landed. We need to see how the investigation plays out, but it would not surprise me if this does not end with Robert Sarver being forced out again unless we start to see the players take action or maybe some of the other sons minority partners come in and kind of force his hand there and then sort of just to wrap this up, the worst thing that's going to happen to Robert Sarver and all this is he's forced to sell his team and make billions of dollars. That's just there's just something so so twisted up out that and so well obvious. To be monitoring this story. Definitely listen to people of color, to women on this situation. They're going to have the more important perspective on this, because that's going to be a demographic, a gender that's more directly impacted by by what's saying. So that's why I'm just cringing when you have all these dudes, specifically or especially white dudes just coming out and thinking this is not the Robert Server that I know, or he's not a racist. I just don't know why that's your first impulse from a explosive report that spoke with nearly one hundred people and feels like it's going to be fairly easily easily corroborated. What that's actually going to do in terms of consequences, we don't know. But this is a serious thing. These allegations are serious. Take them seriously, and let's try and all just watch what we're sent to. Just don't don't insert yourself into this story. If you don't, I'm not to even try to be a lecturer here. I don't want to insert myself. This isn't performative what we're doing. This field and needs to talk about it since it's going on. But yeah, I would recommend reading the report. I don't blame you if you can't stomach it, or if you want to vomit, if your eyes are gonna bleed. But this is just a nightmarish and I hope that there's a way, you know, moving just beyond the Suns, that the league can do a better job of not just reacting to these situations, to these cultures, to these allegations, but doing a better job of preventing them in the first place. Especially from building up again over the course of two decades. Kind of a terrible unnatural segue into basketball. But we're gonna get into real basketball gear. I'm going to dive right into the stat and they're kind of stats plural that I've knows fevery or eighteen, but there will be sort of an overarching one. Well, again, we'll go in alphabetical order. We'll begin with the Atlanta Hawks. What stands out to me for them, and this is coming from someone who picked them to finish second in the East at this point, could we get the Hawks to shoot more threes? Maybe the last year they were eighteenth in three point attempt rate and fifteenth in three point percentage and you know three point attemph rate, so you know just the percentage of their shots that are coming from three for anyone who's not familiar with that. This year they're twenty seventh in three point attempt rate and eighteenth and accuracy and three point shooting this thing, especially above the break this year has been down. So it's not like there have been this super just great outside shooting team, but it is a difference for them. They are minus seventy five on the year from beyond the arc. That's minus point eight point three three points per game. That's the third worst three point differential in the league, behind only the Oklahoma City Thunder and of course the Phoenix Suns. Where theirs seems more to have to do with cold shooting on their pop part plus really hot shooting on their opponents is part where there it feels like there's some luck there with the Hawks. When you dig really into the data, it does not feel like their opponents are getting super lucky on their their three point attempts. So I would like to see them just just take more. Let's move on to the Boston Celtics. This is how quick we're going to run through it. Boston is imploding. Apparently Marcus Smart wants the ball more on offense, even though his own shooting percentages won't support that. I think Boston, I don't think I'm just gonna at Boston needs to acquire a real floor general at this point. And it's you know, I guess easy to look back on, well, what if they had Ken, But now Kevin wasn't the player that they thought didn't have the impact they thought he was going to have. I don't know if he's going to be the floor general that we're talking about here. But Boston is twenty ninth in points scored per possession after an opponent makes a shot, So when they're just inbounding the ball to me, that signifies at its point nine four points per possession. This is per impredictable. Only Houston is worse in those situations. So that's per perspective talk about a team that could use someone other than a Kevin Colore Jr. Get them into their offense. He just really dig into the data with Boston too, and Jalen Brown and Jayson Tatum have been their only competent pick and roll ball handlers. They only have four players that have run at least ten pick and rolls this season Jalen Brown, Jason Tatum, Dennis Shrewder, and I think Marcus Smarts on there. So probably that Peyton Pritcher didn't make that cut runs looking on on NBA dot Com. But you combine that ranking twenty nine point score possession after an opponent makes a shot, with a bottom ten offensive rebounding rate, and then just bottom five in the frequency with which your shot attempts come at the rim. That's how you get to having a bottom ten offense right now. They're actually getting to the freason on line more than I would expect them too, for a team that doesn't put a ton of pressure on the rim. But that's just going to be something they either need to address or hope that Jason Tatum continues to not only starts making more shots, but continues to improve as a playmaker. I think he's a plus playmaker for his position. Even though it's just numbers are down this year, we also need guys to hit shots to rack up some assists. These are some random stats. Move on to the Brooklyn Nets. I don't want to say they're random. I'm not going to focus on James Harden or how hot Kevin Durant has been, or Joe Harris not being able to score from two, a couple of things that stood out. The Nets offense has just been average when you look at the point scored per possession. Some fun facts in this la Marcus alters just eighty one point nine percent on long twos. Those are twos from fourteen feet to the three point line. From cleaning the Glass eighteen of twenty two. I found that mind blowing. Now, Blake Griffin is shooting six of seventeen at the rim thirty five point three percent. Thirty five point three percent at the rim. He's not the same player. You could say, that's not a ton of frequency. About forty one percent of his shot attempts are coming at the rim. That's right in line with his average since twenty seventeen twenty eighteen. This would by far and away be a career low field goal percentage at the rim for him. It was previously fifty five percent, and he's only converted sixty percent up below sixty percent once it was that season, so every other year has been above sixty. There should be some normalization there. But man, talk about just the way that the complexion of Blake Griffin's athleticism and then just overall game has changed. Six or seventeen at the rim is pretty flipping terrible. Speaking of the rim, the Charlotte Hornets, they are this is more some of these I should have mentioned are going to be low hanging fruit. This is one of them. I'm just curious to see if they can reverse this trend, or if the Hornets are going to try and acquire a big at the deadline that would help them. They're thirtieth in field goal percentage allowed at the rim seventy point nine percent. That is incredibly high. They're also twenty seventh that opponent shooting percentage from float to range between four and fourteen feet opponents or shooting forty five point four percent from there. There could be some luck in both of these instances, but you have Mason Plumley really as you're only true big. He's allowing opponents to shoot sixty seven point three percent at the rim. He has contested more shots at the rim than anyone else on this team. Can you guess who is second? There's no one here with me. It's Kelly Ubrig Junior has contested the second more shots at the rim for this team. Of the sixty eight players in the league who have defended at least twenty five shots at the rim, Ubray is sixty seven and opponent field goal percentage is allowed at eighty one point five percent. That's an astronomical number. I'm not putting this on him, but has to do with the makeup of Charlotte's roster. They have been pretty good at defending the rim or opponents have been pretty crappy at hitting shots. However, you want to put it when Washington and Bridges are on the front line. I don't The sample sizes here just aren't used to begin with, and Washington has missed time already this season. They could try and go to just some units with Miles Bridges at the five. We've seen just a couple of those this year. I don't think the solution is going to be on their roster, and if you want to evade having they have a bottom five defense right now, something's gonna need to give here. I don't know if there's someone that they can will be available at the trade deadline that they can go out and acquire. And Newlands and the Well might be someone who could help this team, but the Knicks are also trying to win, so are they actually going to give him up? And I mean finding reserve being shouldn't be too hard, I think more so this makes you second guests like their decision to not go harder after addressing this position in a in free agency when they were going to have capspace to work with. I think their off season by and large overall was just fine. But now you're in a situation where you desperately need someone anyone here, and you even they could go for the string defense trade like Miles Turner would be great for this team. But if you don't want to give up a ton of assets because you don't know if you're like this fringe contender already make real noise in the East. When you look at their offense, you might suggest that they are. Perhaps you don't want to make that type of a trade right now, in which case, you know, I guess, Look, you could probably find a reserve big somewhere. I'm just no one's well was just the first name throughout there. I don't know who else is. Like Dark Favors isn't going to help if somebody be readily available. I don't think you roll the dice m Obama in advance of restricted free agency. He's also been playing a lot of time with Mendel Kard Junior. I don't know how much Robin Lopez would help you, I promise him. Not just naming magic bigs here. I don't think Nurkics, even though he's pretty good hands on defense, that's not someone you look to target. He's coming up on free agency for them for them too, I don't you know you look at an alexland or Tristan Thomas, and those guys aren't gonna move the needle like doubt. Sacramento looks to move Rashaan Holmes this season, so there are Jaka Purtle would be interesting, but I just don't think that that someone who's going to elevate what they need most. Still something definitely to monitor there for them. Moving on to Chicago, this is Fundamarda. Rosen's team is on pace to be better on defense with him in the game for the first time since twenty fourteen twenty fifteen, and just the third time of his career. Chicago's defensive rating right now improves by twenty point five points per one hundred possessions when Rosen's on the court. That's clearly not a Derosian thing. He's played a bunch of minutes with at least two of Alex Caruso, Javonte Green, and Lonzo Ball on the court. You can throw Patrick Williams into there as well, the minutes with him and they have not been a ton But where you have Tony Bradley on the court instead of Boos, the Bulls have just straight killed teams in those stretches. Bradley has not been the most impactful player, but opponents are shooting just three or sixteen at the rim against him. I just found that fascinating because this entire Bull season is so bizarre because everyone expected them to be not just not great on defense, but pretty bad. And as I record, there's their fourth in points out per possession, fifth at forcing opponent turnovers, fifth an opponent affective field goal percentage. They don't even even fallotons. They're forcing all these turnovers with without failing. I'm curious to see whether it's sustainable. But traditionally, like Demartos and teams have been absolutely slaughtered when he's on the court defensively, and this is gonna be the first time twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen that they're not. I would expect the differential of normalize at least somewhat. But let's see if it sort of stays above water at all for the for the entire year, and that that really just goes to the whole ball's offense in general. And the other reason to note this is just like, yeah, Chicago's up to eighth in offensive efficiency overall when you look at their starting lineup. They had excuse me, when Patrick Williams was healthy, like that starting unit with ball, with the rows and with Zacolin and Boots, Like it's been really bad offensively so far this year. When you subb in Caruso for Patrick Williams, it does get a lot better. But this team was supposed to have an offensive identity, and right now, I mean we're eight games into the season, which is ten percent of the season. They have a better defense than they do offense. I'm just I know their schedule was light to start. I just don't think that's something anyone would have predicted. So I am definitely monitoring that Cleveland caval Here's low hanging fruit here, I would say, looking at the lowry marketing Evan Mobley, Jared Allen front court. They've played two hundred and eighty four possessions together the caps of a ninety seven point nine offensive rating, which is the ninth percentile during those reps, but a ninety nine point seven defensive rating, which would be the eighty ninth percentile. So they're still losing these minutes. Overall. I'm just curious whether the defense is sustainable. They're giving up a thirty six point two offensive rebounding rate when those three around the court I would argue, having looked at some of this, because I was just curious by that number was so high. It seems because you have Jared Allen and Evan Mobley just so capably switching one through five basically and contesting so many shots that they're just not around the rim and they need to be. Opponents are also shooting fifty five point eight percent the rim, which is absurdly low, and twenty nine point six percent from three when those three around the court. I would expect there to be some regression here, but I think for those like myself who really criticized the idea of having marketed as your your small forward, he's given you at least some energy on defense even when his offense hasn't been going, which has been quite often this year. So that's good. The lineup those three, when you play with Garland and Rubio, they've straight annihilated opponents. Again, terribly small sample size, but the offense has looked a lot better through those stretches. Something maybe Cleveland Watts considered going to more even when they're at full strength. I don't know, but I if they have a sub defensive rating with those three, with Mobil out and Marketing on the court in general all year. Kudos to Cleveland there, but you got to find a way for the offense to get nunched up, and I think it can. Larry Marketing is going to shoot better, and I just think, you know, you have Darius Garland, who's had some up and down moments, but I've actually really enjoyed watching him this year, especially his his passing. Colin Sexton should get a little bit better too, So there's a path clearly to being better on offense than sort of this Dungeon low offensive rating. It's just the defense I'm curious about. There has to be some luck caked into these opponents shooting percentages. The Dallas Mavericks fun fact, this is not a Christops porzingis stat how about that there's a Luca Dantes set. There's a lot we could focus on here, but something that I've sort of found fascinating it felt, esthetically, without digging the numbers, that they were going to Luca in the post, more like, not as a means to capitalize on mismatches, just to go to him in the post. So I looked it up. Last year, six point six percent of Luca's offensive touches came via post ups. He averaged one point zero nine points per possession in those situations eighty fourth percentile, Great grand wonderful. This year, eleven point seven percent of Lucas place have comes post ups. That's a that's a huge bump, you know, not nearly double really have come. The frequency with which he is post up is nearly doubled. And now he's averaging point seven seven points per possession. That's a twenty eighth percentile that we could go through the early caveat again and all that. I think at this point that should be self explanatory that that's the defaultiers. We realize it's still kind of early. If they're not using it as a means to capitalize on mismatches, I don't know why you need to do it. You're having Luca go in the post a lot of times against the other team's best defender, and so that just seems a little wonky to me. Something to keep an eye on, as is the rest of the Dallas Mavericks offense at large fun Factor four's back injury, Christas Perznkis was everying point five points per possession as post ups, and he was not posting up more often, but I would just get rid of those altogether. Dallas's offense major disappointment, filter out garbage time. Last year, they were eighth in points scored per possession per cleaning the glass. This year so far, they're twenty sixth through eight games, So that's you have a lot of stuff to watch there. The Denver Nuggets. How can we focus on anything other than Michael Porter Junior. If you want to focus on the bench, that's fine too, But I think what's going to speak more volumes about this team ceiling is not how all the reserves are playing on offense, but what can Michael Porter Jr. Do for you? And Jamal Murray's not healthy. Last year, twenty eight point three percent of his feel goal attempts were classified as open where the defender was between four and six feet away. He posted a sixty four point eight affect the field goal percentage combined efficiency for twos and threes. For anyone who might not know that, this year, thirty six point four percent of his attempts have come and been defined as open with a defender between four and six feet away. He's a forty one point seven effective field goal percentage. On those looks. That is a twenty three point one percentage point drop off there. This I'll to throw on a bonus. Michael Porter Junior's true shooting percentage this year with Nakole Yokich on the court forty four point one. It's bad. It gets worse when Yokich isn't on the court. It's at thirty four point two. His points per touch are just way down. I have to imagine he's going to figure it out because if you if you watch him, and even if you look at the data, yes, roles like not as simple, but it is still sort of streamline, and he's missing a lot of shots as we've just evidenced that he was hitting last year. I think he'll eventually come around. But if he doesn't, that's when you have to start asking questions. And in Denver, because your defense has been spectacular this year, but your offense without Yokich has just been a dumpster fire. He can't I mean, he is the hub through which you run everything. But he's playing a fewer minutes and head coach Michael Malone is talking about like worrying about overworking him, probably because his usage on the court is so high because he is so important to that offense. The Detroit Pistons, they might have one of the worst offenses of all time, and I don't want to just continue ble laboring that point. So I have one that's a positive but also sort of a negative side. Bay leads the team and points per possession as the pick and roll ball handler right now. Good for Sadik Bay. He's a point nine one points per possession as the pick and roll ball handler. That's not really an astrology high mark, though, and so it speaks to the Pistons overall struggles Killian Hayes, I remained a believe you're in Killian Hayes, so I want to make that cleaner. He's shooting ever since his first two games of the season, where I think he was bagel, He's at like thirty eight percent or something like that from three hovering closer on more than three and a half tempts per game. When he gets into the lane, I feel like there's a patient guy there who once he sort of figures out his touch or not to rush his own shots, and that goes for some of the attempts he takes on the perimeter as well. I still feel like there's going to be a real NBA player there. However, this season so far, when you look at everyone who has taken at least twenty shots on drives, and there are eighty eight players who have done this, Killian Hayes ranks eighty eight in field goal percentage, so dead last, He's four of twenty one on drives. That's nineteen percent. Detroit's gonna need that number to go up. We saw some nice moments on Thursday night. I did watch part of the Piston Sixers game where him and Kid Cunningham looked good together, and there were some really nice Killian Hayes moments, especially in the first half. So I still have faith in Killing Hayes. But this Detroit offense is bad. Things are only gonna get worse if Kake Cunninghampston needs to figure out a shot. I know people have talked that he's like kind of tweaked his form and it looks a little jankie. When I was watching the Sixers game, I kind of thought the same thing, but I didn't watch enough of him in college to say that it changed. And I'm just wondering if I'm overthinking it. And when you're watching it in real time, I feel like it could be harder to sort of analyze the form there. So hopefully killing Hayes, who's shooting forty four percent at the rim this year, which is up from thirty nine percent last year for the Pistons sake improves as just a finisher and decision maker if it is any constellation, He's a sub nine percent turnover rate as the pick and roll ball handler. More low hanging fruit with the Golden State Warriors. So when Steph was off the court last year for a total of almost over two thousan two hundred possessions, gold and State at a minus eight point six net rating, a one hundred point eight offensive rating, and a one on nine five defensive rating. This year, in the one hundred and seventy two possessions he's been off the court, so super small sample size less than ten percent of the sample slash last season, the Warriors are actually a plus five point eight. They have a plus five point eight net rating. The offense is still not great ninety five point three offensive rating, but an eighty nine six defensive rating with opponent shooting a incredibly low forty six point three percent at the rim, which I imagine won't hold. I guess they have the personnel to better navigate the non Steff minutes defensively. I still look at this and say, like, you got to figure out a way to be more than one of the worst offensive teams of all. Don Steff is off the court, Jordan Pool probably not being staggered as much. He is a part of some of the most uses lineups without Steff, but when he's starting, it maybe gets a little bit harder to stagger with them, especially when Curs substitution patterns with Curry could be so rigid even when they're trailing in the fourth quarter. But moving on from there, another this is a This is just a random one that stumbling across Andre Gadala, who I thought was just finished, cooked, done whatever, as the highest net rating swing on the Warriors, because why fucking not. But the staff minutes are just stretches that you always have to be watching. I'm curious as to if that defense can hold all year, or is there a way that they can really nudge up the offense during that time. I think Clay, even though he's not known as a shock creator, just having him as on the floor as a space or organically nudges you in the right direction there, but again something to monitor. And as long as you're winning the staff minutes, it doesn't really matter by how and whether it's luck, whether it's pure skill, whatever. If you are winning the non steaf minutes, like you, you're putting yourself in a hell of a position. The Houston Rockets went through some front court pairings. I'm not the biggest fan of using Christian Wood is your day facto four. Another fun fact. Christian Wood, by the way, this is not the stat leads the league in point scored per iso possession. I think he's at one point four one as I record this, which that's absurdly high and definitely not going to stick. But the Wood Tights front court pairing, which is the most used one, has that minus eighteen point seven net rating in two hundred and sixty three possessions. If you're going to play at the four. I like the offensive partnership with Alpa and Shane Moon more just because of what he can do as a passer and putting the ball on the floor in addition to theoretically space in the floor. The Rockets of a plus six point one net rating in one hundred and fifty three possessions, three possessions with those two on the court. Again, incredibly small sample size, but we are talking about a team that's in the bottom five of net rating overall at minus eight point nine, so plus six point one across any sample size in the triple digits at this point in this season. It's just something worth exploring more, just to kind of that. I wanted to look at Wood playing center too, and there Halben minutes with that the Jay Shawn take christian Wood minutes when teacher four plus four point nine net rating and sixty one possessions. I like the look of Kenyan Martin Junior at the flour with Christian Wood. The math does not. There are minus three point six net rating in twenty eight possessions, but those are the four I looked at. So more of the story here, I think is more Christian Wood and Alperin Shane Gruen minutes, just because it's working in that numbers there. But I really just like the idea of tape would or maybe when Daniel House is healthier, if they if they let him play and would up front, there is something to explore. The Indieta pacers, they have and this will not come as a surprise to Pacers Twitter, and we talked about this from my main appearance on when Lockdown Pacers was slumming it one day. Indiana is the worst net rating in the third quarter of any team in the league, minus twenty seven point eight and it's just it's bad. So I broke it down by game and so through their first nine games, they have outscored an opponent in the third quarter. Once. It was Game eight in when they were at home versus San Antonio, game that they won. I believe they were plus four points in the third quarter against San Antonio. But the other eight games they've all been outscored. They were minus twenty points in their first game of the season against Charlotte in that third quarter, minus ten against Washington in the third quarter. At Game two, second out of a back to back against Miami, they were minus nine in that game in the third quarter. They were that a minus six in Game four, were against the Milwaukee Bucks, minus seven in Game five during the third quarter against Toronto, minus eight against Brooklyn in Game six, and minus two they almost played Toronto to a dead even heat in Game seven during the third plus four against San Antonio in the third game eight and then even the game they want against the Knicks on November third, their ninth game. They were a minus four during during that time, so there's been cold shooting for them in that third quarter. Malcolm Brogdon when he's been healthy, he's not played great there either. I'm thinking carousel Vert's return is going to help them through this process as well, and eventually hopefully t J. Warren perhaps just getting healthy in general with their backcourt rotation. But yeah, maybe there's some unluck some just you know, unlucky crap going on there. But we got to watch those any third quarters because as of right now, they're really biting them in the butt. On to the Los Angeles Clippers only end well. Pick and rolls are not a huge part of the Clippers offense to begin with, but their frequent and seen the pick and rolls is dropped without Kawhi Leonard that makes sense, and they didn't really add a true floor general. Only the Pistons pick and roll ball handlers are averaging fewer points per possession. The Pistons are at point six one, the Clippers are at point six six. Right now, they're they're picking roll ball handlers again not a huge part of their offense. They've actually had more of a slight uptick in ISOs without Kawhi Leonard. I don't I was good, bad, whatever you want to call it. Just three players on the Clippers are averaging two pick and roll possessions are more per game. Let's over Reggie Jackson and Paul George. Now you can't see this podcast. You're not reading something, so maybe cover your ears if you're if you don't want them to bleed. But Reggie Jackson Eric Bletsow so far combined to shoot nine of thirty eight out of the pick and roll. That's a whopping twenty three point seven percent. I didn't I should have calculated affective field goal percentage for them. That's my bad. But nine of thirty eight general the picking roll, no matter what shocks you're taking is that's not great. Bob. I think I'm concerned about the Clippers offense and general just because yes, you don't have Kauai. We don't know if he's gonna come back this season. Their half court offense or parts of this year was actually better than I expect. When they were hitting shots, we've seen to drop off in three point efficiency, but that's normalized a little bit over the past couple of games. What's going to happen when Mark because Morris is healthy that There are just so many questions here. But they are twenty second in point scored per possession right now overall, and I don't I'm not gonna say that's their ceiling. They could get hot, and certainly I'll play that, But like this, I think at this point I've officially seen enough of the Clippers to say that I'd be shocked if they're a lee average. Let's say, I'll say if they're higher than fourteen, they're better in point score possession. At the end of the season, I'll be pretty fairly substantially surprised. Was that for an endorsement despite being three and four. By the way, they still have a positive net rating because their defense has been by and large fantastic. I've really just been impressed with how much better Terrence Man has gotten on that side of the floor. So see, it's not all doom and gloom around these parts. The Los Angeles Lakers coming off they're loss to Oklahoma City on Thursday, I mean, my god, this is the Lakers have played the NBA's easiest schedule to date, yet they have the thirteenth best record, a bottom fifteen net rating, have blown twenty six and nineteen point leads respectively against the Thunder, and now they won't have Lebron James for a bit as he recovers from his abdominal strain rectus abdominus. Whatever it was reported as that was, it was just a super hilarious way to say it, even if it was technically correct. Now that was not the stat That's just not an encouraging start to the season. I think personally, the best argument that could be made in favor of the Russell Westbrook trade is that he elevates buster floor and ceiling during the non Lebron minutes and games. Russ has played two hundred and two minutes without Lebron after that loss to Okay. See. The Lakers have been outscored by eight points in that stress. That's not huge. There are minus one point nine net rating when Russ and ad play without Lebron, and the offense both half court and overfalls lege average during that time. I guess that's fine. The defense has been has been rough during those stretches. That should surprise no one. You need to be better than that, because otherwise I don't see the advantage of trying to shoehorn this awkward fit between Lebron and Russ. You gave it wasn't even look Russ was a plus six in that game against the Thunder that they lost, but one he hurt them down the stretch. But also acquiring him just fundamentally changed the makeup of their team. You got rid of two of your most important defenders in KCP and even Kyle Kuzmo, who just became again solid positionally there, and then you let Alex Crusoe walk, another one of your five most important offenders. You got rid of your three of your five most important defenders from last year's team, surrounding them with either questionable defenders or just role players aging role players whatever. In general, you really up to the variance in your performance. We could look at the injuries they've dealt with to date, including Lebron's absence. We can all say, hey, they haven't Attendrick none yet, town Horton Tucker yet, or Trevor Reason if you've If you're saying that Trevor Rees is thirty six, he's thirty six. Can Horntuck is only twenty and then I mean Kendrick None is Kendrick Nune. I do think he'll help their offense quite a bit. But like the fact that you're saying that is concerning, Oh, they haven't had Kendrick None yet, Like that's Kendrick does not going to be the player that pushes them over the top and make you feel good about the championship. Stock I was a clown, I think for picking their over here. Russ over the past couple of years has tended to get better as the season has worn on. The minutes in Washington without Peel still weren't good, but he did play better last year. And then even in Houston, they eventually got rid of playing a big altogether. Where Los Angeles is attempting to play two bigs at once, and sometimes one of those biggs is DeAndre Jordan for some reason, there are different challenges that pose there. This is the stretch that matters most though, because to me, this is why you would have Russell westbrook Is for these lebron absences, whether it's maintenance out of preer precaution or legitimate injury that you're concerned about. The Memphis Grizzlies one of the most watchable teams in basketball. They did not make the top of my League Pass rankings, but they clearly should have, even if my heart breaks a little bit for jar and Jacks j There are so many different ways I could go here. I wanted to focus on Desmond Baine, but we've actually talked a lot about him on this podcast. We've also talked a lot about John Morant's improvement where you just sort of look at his shooting efficiency upticks from I mean, like like everywhere at this point, just a more of a multi level threat than he has ever been since entering the NBA, And so some of the things to look at here. This is not a huge part of his game, these one on one situations, but I do think it sort of illustrates, like how much more dangerous he's gotten. Among everyone who has finished at least twenty ISO possessions this season, John Morant needs everyone in point score per possession at one point three seven. Again, small part of his game, I'll be it slightly larger than last year, accounting for twelve point four percent of his plays. Katie is second at this point at one point at one point three six, point score per possession in isolation just a wildly high number, even for eight games into the season. John Morant is shooting sixty seven percent at the rim, that's a career high. Shooting fifty three percent between four and fifteen feet, that's a career highs only streeting twelve percent on long mid range jumpers, but like those are not those account for five percent of the shots, I think, or something negligible. And then he's shooting. He's shooting. I think he's only taking like, yeah, three or five on corner threes. He's at thirty five percent on above the break three is twelve or thirty four, career high, thirty eight percent from three overall, if those numbers sustain, and the biggest outlier seems like the short mid range game, that the floater game, even though he's always sort of had that. Like this is in every level score right now. This isn't just a budding star. This is someone making the mega star turn, the all NBA stap will turn. It's been a joy to watch, and I think they need him to play like this. Even when you have Bane and even Melton shooting so well. Jaren Jackson Junior just has not given you a ton, and then the Grizzlies defense has been I mean pretty much dogshit, and John Moran is is a part of that. But man, what he's doing on offense is just an incredible so far the Miami he I wanted to do. They're confusing. Their offense is seventh in the league, and I was just trying to I don't necessarily understand it, and we are prone to these substantive swings of this early year, and you go from game to game. They are thirtieth in the share of their shots that come at the rim, twenty ninth in the share of their shots that comes above the break threes, and they're shooting under thirty percent on corner threes right now. Yet they have a top seven offense after even after that loss to Boston on Thursday. It helps that their third in free throw attempt rate and offensive rebounding percentage. They're also this is I guess the main one, but and this is a team that does not play especially huge put They're sixth in put back plays created per one hundred mission missus sixth, and their fourth in points per play in those situations, And so I think it helps that you have a PJ. Tucker type, even Mark Markith Morris type that are going to box out even if you're not always going to see the grab rebounds. Having Kyle Lowry there just just really helps too. So something to monitor there. But I think you want to get to a point where you're seeing them. I don't know if they need to reach the rim more just because of how pure of a brute force Jimmy Butler is. I want to see them take more above the breakthroughs like they have the personnel to do it there with Kyle Lowry or you're gonna need to hit more of their corner threes but still have a top seven offense. And so if it's working, it's working. But I'm gonna be looking at sort of the the putback situation for them, and look, I mean when you sort of compare that to them last year when you looked at how their offense was was generated, like they weren't this super elite team in that area, I don't believe. And I should have pulled those numbers before recording this, but that's just this could be an outlier to date. But again, Miami's offense just it's had some really high highs that was on the start, they were cold from three, and then all of a sudden they were making a ton of their threes, and then they weren't as great against Boston. But yeah, I mean so looking at this, I did just pull it up. They were twenty ninth in plays created per one hundred missus last year, and then they were just twenty ninth in points per per miss So this is it's not like this. I don't say this wholesale change, but they are doing a better job of cleaning up their missus or turning those into opportunities and actually converting on them than they were last year. And that plus their free throw teenth rade has been just a great crux for their offense because I don't I don't know if we've seen the peak of it yet, but I also think you look at this team and think, Okay, yeah, Duncan Robinson should shoot better. Maybe markis more is should a little bit better. I'm talking specifically from beyond the art, but we know that we've already seen Jimmy Butler's negligible three point volume crater and accuracy. He was above thirty seven percent. Now he's like at eighteen or twenty three percent. Excuse me. So you do look at this team and think, yeah, there could be some touching go stuff going on from beyond the arc, and so this almost needs to sustain. In my mind, if they want to be a top ten offense, it might not even matter because their defense is just going to be such a freaking healthscape or opponents to deal with that, They're still going to be a really good team. I think it's been clear thus far that if everyone stays healthy, we all collectively or most of us, probably underestimated what they were going to be able to do. The Minnesota Timberwolves, A lot's been made of their seventh ranked defense. They continue to force turnovers at astounding rates, or I should say that opponents are committing turnovers at astounding rates. They are first an opponent turnover rate. Opponents are turning in the ball over nineteen point nine percent of their possessions, including twenty four point three percent of their pick and roll possessions when looking specifically at the ball handlers, and then eighteen percent of their ISO possessions. Both of those are the highest martin the leagues. So the Timberwolves lead the league an opponent turnover percentage on pick and roll ball handlers and isolations. Is that going to hold. I think their defense overall is going to regress to a different normal opponents. So far as shooting twenty nine percent and above the break threes, I know, above the break three point shooting is down so far relative to last year. The average this season is thirty three point nine percent, So twenty nine percent is still a fairly huge outlier there. So yeah, something to modern Minnesota continues to be this elite defensively all years though. I mean absolutely kudos to them, And when you watch them defend, I think Andy Edwards has definitely been more alert that you can say the same about Karl Anthony Towns. Jade mckennells is just super. It's just really good. I don't know what I'm gonna say, but just so sound on defensive end. I don't look at them. They could be active. I just don't look at them as a top tier defensive team. But again, if you're gonna be able to force or get opponents to commit turnovers at these clips, you're going to be in somewhat good shape. The Bucks, I don't know what to focus on the Bucks. Here's the real stat that freaking matters, Brook Loo, Pais, Drew Holiday and Dante deevin Genzo, how combined to play seventy one minutes this season. Chris Middleton's now out with COVID nineteen. I can't read into their slow start beyond that, However, they are shooting thirty point nine percent on wide open threes this year. That's the second worst mark in the league. They hit forty point nine percent on those same looks last year, which ranked seventh. And so again, if you have a healthy Drew and Broglopez and even Dona gi Vincenzo once he actually plays this season, I know he hasn't played. That was just sort of the point, do we come into seventy one minutes that should go up. But I mean, damn this. I didn't want to include it because there hasn't been enough of a sample and they don't commit a ton of turnovers. But the Bucks are allowing this super predictable point eight seven points per possession after they commit a turnover. Hell, yes, that would be my one like comment on that. That's just that's an outrageously low number. The Spurs are second, by the way in that category. That's not their stat at point nine four points allowed possession after committing a turnover the New Orleans Pelicans. I don't know what to make of this team without Zion. I do think he helps them quite a bit. I still thought they'd be better than this without him when you look at the you know, I don't they might get worse defensively somehow they are. I believe their bottom five still right now. That was the last time I check. Didn't even look at their defense, but because it was, they're Yeah, they're twenty seventh and points cloud per possession, but they're twenty seventh and offense twenty ninth and half court offensive efficiency. I just thought that they could be better than that without Zion. I guess not. They really need him to put pressure on the rim, which I guess makes sense when you sort of look at their guard rotation. They are dead last in accuracy around the rim at fifty seven point two percent. DeVante Graham's never been a great finisher around the rim. Thomas Edermanski just doesn't even have like a real role on this team. It feels like I do feel as if while the Kiel Alexander Walker in Fury can be that player, he's so inconsistent, and I still just feel like he excuse me, he suffers from bailing out early on a lot of his drives, and so you just don't have that organic player. It's even sort of the same story with Brandon Ingram. That's someone who's gonna prefer to get get to his in between spots, and he's been really good for the Pelicans when he's been healthy. I'm just saying they need that raw, raw rim pressure presence. And it's not even really you want to found valichoots for them either. If you're looking for like a conventional rollman, yeah you can match do. It's like a lot of his work is going to come in the post there. Kyra Lewis Junior not that guy either. Also not getting a ton of minutes. He is averaging more minutes per game than Saturansky at this point he was appeared and I think he's appeared in only four games this season. Should have brought that up. But they need Zion back in a big way. He's two to three weeks away from having a timetable, is basically what it sounds like. So things might get worse before they get better. They should get better because I'm assuming they won't be without Brandon Ingram until the end of time there as he deals with his hip injury. But yeah, this is a team that's worse than I would have expected on offense even without Zion Williamson the New York Knicks. So let's start this with the caveat that last year's most used starting five, and it balanced around quite a bit, was a minus four point four points pernound prossessions and they just had a stellar bench. That's the case again this year. Their bench is second in point differential perne hundre possessions right now, behind only Utah. However, the starting five of Kemba, Evan Fournier, RJ. Barrett, Julius Reynold and Mitchell Robinson has played three hundred and forty possessions. That's the second most used lineup in the entire league Pro Cleaning Glass, behind only Denver's starting five. The knicks is starting five that was posting a minus ten point four net rating. Of the eleven lineups in the league that have logged at least one hundred and eighty five possessions, they're one of only two with a negative net rating. Phoenix Is starting five is the other team that's starting five has gone through it. They struggled last year in the season, and they struggled again this year to start the season again. The knicks'es bench is so good that maybe this doesn't matter the root cause here they've been fine an offense. I wouldn't say elite, but they have a one twenty one point two defensive rating when they're on the court. Will that get better for the nixt starting five, I question it. Opponents are shooting forty percent from three, that should normalize. They did get lucky as a three point defense last year to some extent. Opponents ross shooting sixty six point three percent at the rim against this lineup, So maybe there is room for room in there, But I just don't know by how much. Julius Randall's like an okay to good defender. Now, RJ. Barrett's a really good defender. Mitchell Robinson is really good as well. But you have Kemba and Fournier at the one and the two. Even if Kemba tries like he's gonna be able to be screened pretty easily and teams will go after him, and then I'm just curious as to whether they have enough guys in that lineup that are going to be adept at attacking mismatches at the other end for this unit to become a net positive as the season goes on. Looking at talent, I don't think their minds ten point four net rating bad and we're dealing with such a small sample size here. I think they've been out scored by like eight points in total during their time on the court, So it's not like or it was eighteen, whatever it was. But this is something to monitor. You don't want to be that reliant on your bench, even if you do have depth to spare. I don't know what the change would be, to be honest with you, if you wanted to make a tweak, but this would definitely be something to consider it. I'm looking more at closing games. How are you gonna change how you do that? And I think there's been some you know, there have been mainstays, and they're they're dealing with so few crunch time sample sizes with them. That's the stupid won to say. But I'm just curious as to how this lineup progresses or if it even sticks at this point, because you want to start games stronger than they have been even though they've blown quite a bit a few leads. They just have such a strong bench, even with Emmanuel quickly struggling. Maybe maybe they're just okay doing this route the Oklahoma City Thunder I tweeted this, shaking Saxander's shooting fifty two point two percent on step back threes. That's twelve of twenty three and that seems low. I also know that it's early, but just for some perspective, he made fifteen step back threes all of last year and hit him at the twenty nine per four percent clip. He played in barely half the season because the Thunder shut him down with them that Planter or Fasciat injury. But the fact that he has played, like play thirty five fewer games so far this season what event number is, and has already hit just three fewer step back threes. Wow, he is so good just the side steps, like going to his right, just absolutely and I are the Lakers also hit a logo three in that game on Thursday, talk about a flex and like having the green light sixteen seconds left on the shot clock, a minute and twenty left in the game. The Thunder are ahead by three, so naturally you might want to slow it down. Shay's like, no, throws it up from the logo, it's in, by the way, and they win the game. Also, if you care, he leads the league in the share of his possessions that come in isolation. Thirty six point eight percent of his possessions are coming offense possessions coming in isolation. Right now, that's not really surprising when you just look at the talent on and Thunder roster. You know, if you like Josh Giddy's passing, he's not providing enough of it to Shay for Shay to do anything other than basically create for himself all the damn time. The Orlando Magic. This one is still I've been tracking this all season, and this is with the numbers that you're about to see are with regression caked in from their latest loss. Orlando starting five of Cole Anthony, Jalen Suggs, Franz Wagner, Mobama, and Wonde car Junior have played two hundred and twenty six possessions together, through which they have a one or seven point five offensive rating like whatever around average, and in ninety three eight defensive rating for a net rating of thirteen point eight, which is, which is great in case anyone's wondering, and they're shooting collectively forty one point five percent on above the break threes, and so like, this is an offense that's not even really super elite statisically right now, but shooting that well on above the break threes. You also haven't gotten like Jalen Suggs is strug Hold to start the season been very up and down. Wagner has been good, Bomba has been solid at points, same with Wendel Carter Junior. Col Anthony has just been absolutely molten at points this year. Just not a lineup I would have expected to really work. And I'm not a fan of the Boa went Noel Carter Junior fit in theory. I didn't think Wagner could play the three for long stretches. He's been better on defense than I expected. There's more of like a I say it, there's more of a fuck you to his game than it appears. He's good at sort of creating separation with his shoulder or going through guys. That. Of course, you have his shooting, and he knows how to move without the ball as well too. I'm just curious see whether this lineup I would imagine it doesn't. Let's see if this lineup remains one of the most effective, high volume lineups in basketball, because hey, that's what it is right now? Where to focus on Philly? So much about their season is asked backwards. Some of the offensive numbers are very encouraging, but then you watch their games and you get discouraged dealing with him. Beats hell if he did play on Thursday night and then went over the Pistons, though, but it took him a lot of pull away from the Pistons. Let's just focus on Seth Curry, who was burst in a volcano. One hundred and three players this season have attempted at least twenty off the dribble jumpers. Seth Curry leads this group an effective field goal percentage at sixty five point four. He's also shooting sixty four point seven percent on his drives. For anybody that cares, you could pretty much find whatever offenses but a disappoint it's going to favor Seth Curry just lava hot on actual literal well fire to start this season sixty five point four percent effective sixty five point four effective field goal percentage on pull jumpers. That is brain bending. To me, I am curious just because by virtue of the volume, if he keeps this up for like another week or two, there has to be some does he deserve to be in the most improved player conversation. I know he's older than we typically like the goal, and he's not someone you look at and say, hey, he's going to make the star turn because he is. He's thirty one, But just by virtue of the volume and having to rely more on the pull up jumper, I will say just I don't know, you can't rely on him too much defensively, although I don't think he's as bad as some people think. I would also say that, like, you just can't trust him to run the offense kind of looking at how uncomfortable he is making passes, certain passes in the half court that could work against him. But the dude is having himself a season, and his efficiency on pull up jumpers helped illustrate that. Better than everything. There were so much negative things I could focus on them with the Phoenix suns on the court, forget about off the court. We already talked about the Robert Sarver stuff. I decided to focus on something that was just a little bit more interesting slash mostly positive. This part is not positive, but Michael Bridges leads this team in points per touch at point four to two. Not super high there. Its touches overall are slightly up. They've actually dropped over the past couple of games. So just a dude who remains hyper efficient, and you can just look at that when you break down his play type data. There have been six one hundred and sixteen players to finish at least fifteen transition because sessions, Michael Bridges ranked sixth in affective field goal percentage in transition eighty five point seven affect a field goal percentage in transition. Is anyone wondering who ranks number one and affect a field goal percentage in transition? It's Seth Curry at one hundred and six point three percent affect a field goal percentage in transition. He's shooting thirteen of sixteen in transition right now, A good chunk of those have been threes, and he's drawing shooting fouls on ten point five percent of his transition possessions at the moment, and is scored on just seventy nine percent of his transition pers It's just that two points per transition possession right now for se Seth Curry, maybe that should have been the stat but that just feels like blatantly not sustainable, even though transition is like eighteen point nine points eighteen point nine percent of the possessions he's using again, Seth Curry birthed in a volcano, which I guess makes some sense knowing who his brother is in Seth Curry. Michael Burge is also eight of ten of cuts so far. And this is pretty incredible too. Twenty six of twenty nine at the rim for eighty nine point seven percent. Eighty nine point seven percent at the rim is really really good. That's shooting about what LaMarcus Aldrich is shooting on long twos this year. That's still wild more low hanging through it. As we get to the Portland trail Blazers. Damian Millard shooting like it has to be. He picked up for a couple of games and then dropped back off. He's at twenty three point four percent from three this year. He shot three of fourteen on catch and shoot triples. That's twenty one point four percent, and fourteen of sixty two on poll up triples. Twenty two point six percent. There, his fifty three point three percent clip inside three feet will be the third lowest of his career and the absolute lowest since his sophomore season in twenty thirteen twenty fourteen. The Blazers have a top five offense anyway, but will sustain if he's shooting like this? I would say no, because I would assume Norman Powell is going to cool off it at some point. He's been really good for them this year. Dame tweeted four games at this point, it's a long with that, but four games does not erase basically a decade of general incandescence. I'm totally with him. We aren't getting to a point though where now Sorry for the Blazers specifically, rate games into the season, ten percent of the season's gone so far. Again, you're fifth in point score pro possession, so maybe it doesn't matter. But if your defense is still going to hover around the bottom five inefficiency, yeah, you still need molten hot Dame, and I also just in general, even if you can stick right here and your record normalizes and more so meets with your net rating, that you have positive net rating at the moment of fifteenth in the league talk about overwhelmingly average. If you just want to maintain a top five offense, I think you're gonna need Damian Lillard to shoot better all season than twenty three something percent from from deep. And that's definitely gonna be something to monitor because if he just has a season like it, where's this? I can't imagine it again eight games, So let's move on from it. But are those are numbers to monitor? It's not just the three point stuff, it's just finishing. If he's getting to the rim more often too, he's just not finished there as well, So something definitely worth worth watching. The King's more negativity here. Darn Fox came out of his funk a little bit and the Kings is Wednesday night victory and talked to media for the first time in a few games. I believe he is just having himself not a great start to the season. His shot selections still just remains all sorts of off. He's turning the ball over a lot, his handle needs to get better, like he just and maybe it's you know, exacerbated right now because he's going through his slump, but his decision making like it just looks like he can't even hold on to the ball. So even just making all these bad passes which he has made, but it feels like he can't hold on to the ball. Seventy five players have finished at least fifty drives. Daron Fox's turnover eight eleven point four ranks sixty ninth among those seventy five players. That is high. He's also shooting under forty one percent on those drives to boot for anyone who cares, he's up to sixty two point five percent at the foul line by far and away career or low. Right now, he's gone from taking nine point eight free throws per one hundred possessions last year to six point five with four percent few of the shots coming at the rim. That's it's a drop off, But is it enough to I guess, plus the officiating to justify that it does? Of the King's games I've watched, Karen Fox feels too focused on trying to get calls that he's not getting it. Needs to kind of pull his head out of that sphere. And then the final thing here is and look, this has been a career long battle for him as pull up jumper, but he had an operable step back three last year, so I wanted to watch the progress of his pull up jumper. Ninety players have attemted at least twenty five pull up jumpers this season. Karen Fox is a thirty two effective field goal percentage, which ranks eighty six out of those ninety players. Okay, this one was fun. We knew the Spurst. We're gonna be a little bit more frenetic than they were in years past this season. But they are first, pretty predictable. First, just out of Golden State. In average time per possession. That is bonkers. That is absolutely completely bonkers, and this is out of character for that. If you look at their ranks in average possession time the past decade essentially last year, twenty first, nineteen, twenty fifteen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty fourth, seventeen eighteen, dead last sixteen, seventeen, twenty five, fifteen, sixteen, twenty seven, fourteen, fifteen, eighteen thirteen, fourteenth, eleventh, and then the last time they were in the top ten was twenty twelve. Twenty thirteen, they rank tenth, and average possession time their first right now, Hell yeah, Spurs. The offense isn't always pretty. Lennie Walker has been efficient as hell this year. But this team is it's it's like frisky, it's frantic there. I have enjoyed what I've seen of the Spurs this season, even though the end result is just not always good. It's like Dejean t Mary's having a good season, but you still wanted to be more efficient. Even though he's having a good season. Looks like he has more quality control over the offense. They need another creator for sure, but again, they're playing this fast and that just might be their ticket in part among other things like and they're still there playing pretty good defense this year. They've been close to the league average on defense, but they've done a good job like even getting back and keeping up with opponents. Something has to give. You need to be above average in one offense or defense have a real shot. And they're two and six to start, I think even if they're gonna stay this bad, like this is clearly going to be a team that should still be modestly entertaining the Toronto Raptors. This might be low hanging fruit too. If you wanted Delano Banton's that he's the only player on this team shooting better than fifty percent on drives. They need Siakam back from his left shoulder injury that he had surgery on. I think it was a torn left labram. Did he report? I can't remember who it's from, so I apologize maybe, which is a team announcement that he's expected to be back sometimes in the next two weeks. Toronto's half court offense really needs him. It was like sort of floating around a good area for a while, but it's dropped off even amid they're a winning streak. They're twenty fifth in point score points scored per one hundred half court plays. They just need some to put like more pressure on the defense. It's not you know, it's not a Scottie Barnes that's going to do that. It's not a Fred Van Fleet. His game can stall out before the basket. Siakam was going to give them their best chance at that. And no, I don't think he's the perfect solution. But I also think he's become underrated in NBA Twitter circles, whatever, let's call it, because he just hasn't shot well from three for a couple of seasons. And it's really he put together a great year last year while he was healthy and really up to his percentage on drives. I thought his spins to nowhere, but he in spins to somewhere, and he looked a little bit more comfortable in that role. Again, probably still someone that you can fluster, who knows what it'll look like, and he hasn't played basketball in so long. But the Raptors team is. I said that they would finish top five in the East this year. I think was my prediction for this podcast. I'll stand by it because I'm stubborn and I don't like backing out of things. This yearly, they're now six and three on a five game winning streak. They have the sixth best defense in the league d'Or eighteenth, and offensive efficiency overall twenty ninth, and affected field goal percentage. I think Siakam just won't wind up helping them there a ton, and so they stay healthy once they get him back, and should he stay healthy with everyone and just be even just to be the player he was last season where he just wasn't the most reliable guy. If you want attacking the basket, and certainly not from the outside, their stealing becomes exponentially higher, and there's someone who can party crash. A lot of discussions in the East and throw some teams the overall hierarchy for a world. The Utah Jazz was right along. This is they got the Rudy gobert Is off the court last year. Let me start again for the eighteenth time. If they won the Rudy Gobertts, they were a plus one point nine points per one hundred possessions. If they had a one fifty nine defensive rating, opponent shot sixty six percent at the rim. This year so far, we're only talking about a two hundred and forty seven possession sample size. The Jazz have a plus nineteen point nineteen net rating without Gobert and the ninety seven point one defensive rating. I think it's on Whiteside's helped them out as just a presence around the rim a lot more than people expected. Opponents are shooting fifty eight eight point three percent at the ram versus sixty six point six percent at the rim when Goberts off the court from last year. That's a big difference. Maybe it climbs up a little bit, but it feels like they're better built to navigate those defensive minutes without Rudy Gobert. Also noteworthy, while people talk about how Rudy Gobert gets played off the court in the playoffs, talk about disinformation. The Jazz were murdered without Colbert in the playoffs last year minus ten point nine rating when he was off the court, with a one thirty point seven defensive rating. A smaller sample size, but that just becomes important. Is you need to upkeep those minutes. And yeah, there might be certain matchups where it's more problematic for Gobert than normal, but I still think it it will more still come down to the defense that's in front of him. They feel still one more athletic or just laterally quick defender short of being something you kind of need. Dona Minchon will be that guy, even though he still just hasn't been great on defense. I do think it helps them for their regular season dominance at least and then definitely once they get to the playoffs that their defense feels better built to navigate Rudy Gobert's absence, and that's important. You're always going to be better with him. He's a three time Defensive Player of the Year. That being said, you're a team that's been I mean even when you look at them on offense, like aside from down to Mitchell, no one's really built to cook mismatches, so you don't necessarily have that conventional element. And then defensively, I guess maybe you don't have the option to downsize. I'm not even saying that, like we haven't seen him go small this year, when maybe part of that is because rude gay excuse me as miss time, but regardless, but you don't have athletic wing defenders or enough of them, and so like that can compromise your defense and certain instances. So you just need to be able to control and tread water in other different areas. Winning the non go bear minutes on defense is absolutely huge for this team, is my overall point there. Finally, let's move on to the Washington Wizards. I've been pleasantly surprised by by their defense. They are twelve in points allowed per possession this scening this season. That's per clean in the glass and it's outside of garbage time. You can talk about what luck goes into that. When we're so early into the season. They are allowing opponents to shoot almost sixty nine percent at the rim, so it's not like they're getting lucky there. Opponents have also shot under thirty percent on above the break three, so there's definitely a little bit of luck kicked into there. But overall, when you look at this team, what was really surprised me is they are second in points allowed perne hundred plays off of live rebounds, so they're missing a shot, they're they're getting back there. They're also just in all transition. They're third in points allowed per one hundred place in transition, so they've done a nice job of that as well. I think Denny Abby has been better defensively for this year for them. Broby Bee has probably been in touch better. I think having a spencer dim what he helps Daniel Gafford, who's going to get back, certainly helps him. How Will Netto has been a monster for them this season at both ends of the floor. To be honest with you, I'm curious to see whether that could sustain. And I know that they're not you know, they're not defending a ton of the time in these situations off of you know, live rebounds or in transition. They've actually done a better job of disswaiting teams from getting in a transition, which might speak to them why they're so good defensively in the first place, but you also go over to im predictable. They're seventh in points allowed per possession after making their own shot, and so like, this isn't just there are too many categories subssections where it seems like the Wizards are kind of performing up to snuff or better for it to be an entire fluke. Are Are they a top twelve defensive team on the season? Will they get better or worse once once Ruey Hachimura comes back? I honestly don't know, And then yeah, there has to be like the what level of luck is caked in there? They've struggled offensively with the Dinwoody, Beal, Calbo Pope KU's mcgafford lineup, but they've a that group has a ninety five defensive rating. Opponents are shooting under twenty nine percent again on above the break threes there and only sixty point six percent at the rim. And this way they're showing thirteen point three percent against that lineup on short mid rangers that four to fifteen foot range. There probably is some you know, fortuitous stuff happening here that will redress to a mean, but Washington might be better than this squad that I feel like on this podcast. I mean, we assume they would just be average ish, maybe a little bit better. If they're going to be that good defensively, I would argue that they have room to improve on the offensive side of the floor. That's not a spicy take at all. There's seventeenth and points slot per possession, twenty first effect, the field goal percentage didn't when he's not the most efficient player, but he can get the line. Bradley Beal, He's going to probably string together some some better nights. So there, this could be a team that just poses more of a problem for the Eastern Conference in general if that offense picks up, because I think apparently, I guess their defensive ceiling is just way higher than anyone of us expected. And so what happens if you're in a situation where Bradley Beals shooting better than twenty four point five percent from three, or Kyle Kuzma shooting better than the thirty one point four percent from three, more, Dennyovity is better than twenty nine point four percent. So if some of those three balls stop start falling, Davis Poton's at thirty three point three percent from three and so a lot of those are numbers that you could see climbing herold netto at twenty percent, I don't know, but he's at Herold left has been fantastic for the Wizards this season at any rate that does it. That's one stat or a collection of stat for each MBA team. Then I'm watching until the end of the season or at least moving forward. Just stuff that I've noticed. Now, hope you enjoyed this one. If you've stuck with me this long, please please pretty please with sugar on top rate review and subscribe to this podcast wherever you're getting it if you're a first time listener, instead of throwing us that permanent subscription. We're not normally those numbers heavy like we do. Try and get into the details of the actual game. We were in mail bags and everything. Just listen to religious listeners know all about it. Until next time, though, leave it to shout out to one the only Dallas Maverick's secret weapon, Frank Neil Kina