What is crack lacing Fellows Thermonuclear A efforts. I am Dan Valley coming at
you with my certified fantabulous Thermonuclear AF co host, mister Grant Hughes. We
are starting our positional rankings, roll out some nice evergreen content for you post
trade deadline. We will get into criteria very quickly. But Grant also very
quickly. How the heck are you doing? I'm doing so well. I
have gone to sleep since we last recorded a podcast and woke up and that's
pretty much it. So not a lot has changed for me other than I'm
better arrested than I was when we last when we last talked. That's great.
I am very tired, and this was I tried to not do.
I first of all, I want to make clear this series was my idea,
and then I tried to get us to back out of it, and
you convince me that, like, no, let's do this, and so
I agonized over this way too much. And positions are we both kind of
don't subscribe to them. But it's also just a fun evergreen exercise to do,
and so I'll very quickly we'll note the criteria we use for each position.
Then we'll get into the differences of opinion where certain guys don't qualify.
We will note if for some reason, as an example, since this is
point guards, if I had SGA as a shooting guard and Grant has them
as a point guard. When we get to his name, we will both
note whether that player was somewhere else and then for my criteria, and I
know Grant used this same Here. We looked at stats, we looked at
we used our eye test what we've seen, We considered what happened this season.
We're also ranking these guys as if we want them for the rest of
the years. This is about this season alone. Whether it's a retrospective or
forward looking, it's right now. For the rest of this year, injuries
matters or jah Morant's not going to get into our top ten point guards because
especially if you're going to miss a bunch of time. And I looked at
now sorting positions, and this is why be where we differ. I used
cleaning the glass position data. I looked at dunks in threes, I looked
at their core lineups, and I looked at primary defensive matchups. And then
there were some instances where I fudged it because by my own eye test,
I thought, you know this and that that is how I approached it.
Though, Was there any differentiators or additions on top of how you approached it?
I just say that I think for me, I you know, I
consulted a lot of the same things you did to determine what position it made
sense to put each guy at. But I sort of was like looking for
reasons to put players where I sort of felt like they belonged. And so
like, if you know, Basketball Reference has a guy playing sixty percent of
his minutes at a position that I don't want to put him at. It's
like, as long as it's reasonable and it's not an absurd like Damian Lillard
will not be at center, for example, but like what two, three,
and four and even some one too, I'll just kind of like,
yeah, he could be either one, So I'm gonna put him here and
hopeful nobody will think there's too many stretch. I don't think there's any crazy
stretches at all, Like positions are so fungible, I almost feel like that's
the right way to do it. And and the and what's also I leaned
on like it was very hard if you were both on the same team,
and you're both considered centers. For instance, it was very hard for me
to consider you, like you have to be staggered a shit ton for me
to say you're both centers. Otherwise I'm going to put one of you in
Power Forward as an example, and just two Grant's point, these rankings will
invariably they might make some people angry. We're really not trying to be a
holes are inconsistent with our logic. We just thought it would be Look,
I was complaining to Grant before we have this was hard ranking these five positions,
and so like, I'm excited to go through it and see where we
differ. It is subjective, by the way, like that, yeah we
didn't just we didn't just you know, sort Z to a by uh you
know, EPM or whatever. Like that's not that'd be a lot less interesting
than than having a conversation. The other thing I want to say is that
in addition to thinking about these guys in the context of like the rest of
the regular season and then acknowledging like what they've done this season to this point,
that's a lot of it. But I also sort of can't can't not
think about like the playoffs as as like a you know, not necessarily a
tiebreaker, but like if I'm considering player A versus player B, and it's
sort of it's either been demonstrated that player B, while really good in the
regular season, has a bunch of playoff issues that come up that's going to
factor in, or if like hypothetically based on their games, because we don't
have proof of it yet, I might you know, put one player over
another just based on you know, oh, I think in the postseason this
weakness of his might be exploitable and this other guy doesn't have one of those,
so that might factor into the rankings for me in some places too.
The play it's kind of that's just more subjectivity in a lot of cases.
But you know, sorry, not sorry, Yeah, And I think honestly,
that was such a I think, comprehensive breakdown at least of how we
approached it. I'll cut this up and front it. At every single edition
of this we are with point guards though our top ten point guards? Grant,
would you like to go first? Should we start at number one?
I guess we should have hashed that out or go from ten. We let
go at number one because it feels like that more because once you get to
like, I don't know, you're gonna know who's left off. In this
instance, I think it makes sense to go from one to teny okay,
why don't I get Do you want? Can I give you like my top
four because I feel like there's like a chunk there or is that going to
make it too hard for you to put names in? You can't go ahead
and you can give me your top four. I'll just take a little while
for the screen to refresh. I'll throw them all in at one. So
number one for me is shake Gil just Alexander. I had some thought about
it was really him or Luca I think for that spot, and maybe maybe
I don't know you didn't. But in some cases people might go off the
rails already and say, well, Luca's not really a one based on who
he has to guard, but he brings the ball up, he controls the
offense. That feels like a point guard to me. Then I have Steph
at three and Tyrese Haliburton at four, and that felt like the top chunk.
I don't know if that's a clear tier delineation to me because the guy
who I have at five, I think has played well enough of late that
he might belong in that level. But really like SGA, I think was
pretty clearly the top for me. He's he's you know, running away with
like box plus minus and vorp and all this other stuff. And I think
the other thing that distinguishes him from say Lucas Stephan Haliburton is that he's like
a plus plus defensive impact guy, and none of those other guys that I
considered for the top several spots at point guard rate that way. In fact,
like you know, Haliburton's a minus, Luca is like passable but does
damage because he has to guard you know, what's often like a tough position,
you know, a big three or a four or whatever. So I
felt pretty good about SGA at the top there, and and in fact,
like my top four, I feel strongly about I think that is the top
four point guards with Steph at three and Haliburton at four. If do you
have differences at that level or should we continue down or who would you like
to talk about? I guess I'll just throw it to you. So the
only thing I was that I did struggle because of his defensive role with what
to do with Shay a little bit, and you were the one that just
kind of after talking to you, I did have him at He's clear if
you're inn a treat as a point guard, to me, he's clearly won.
He's been really good on defense this year, and I've said this time
and again Oklahoma City does insulate him in ways that other players cannot be.
He's been by those standards even just really good and there have been just some
like tough matchups that he has really shouldered. So I've been impressed. I
have ultimately the same order as you, as people could see as I'm throwing
it up on the screen. It's what I struggled with here is and I
don't know that I have anything to add other than like, I think there'll
be some people that believe that Luca just needs to be there because of his
playoff track record, and we don't have that from SGA yet. I just
you can't watch this dude and think, I don't know, like, because
of what he does on defense, that's the lucas the better passer, the
better shooter. But like Shay's creation workload is on a similar vein. What
I actually struggled with here was what to sort of do with Halliburton when you're
looking at some of the other names that are gonna come and I actually might
like, I might include my fifth one here wheuse I'm curious as to where
you had him. But looking at like the he's such a good passer,
like he's such a transforming offensive player, but you mentioned the defensive concessions are
like at this point, you're making more of them with Hallie. It feels
like than Steph who's age thirty five. And so I worried about that a
little bit and how to factor it in. With that being said, I
had the same top four my number five guy who would have been higher if
I had him as a shooting guard, Devin Booker. Oh, interesting,
So I have him as a shooting guard, so he's not here for me,
But I I have no qualms with you putting him at the one.
I just like that. That's what this is about. It's it's kind of
the same, and it was would have been inconsistent logic for me to have
Sga as a shooting guard but not Booker, Like Booker's listed as the point
guard in a lot of the lineups too. On cleaning the glass and you
look at their core lineups like it's him, it's Beal, it's the Rant,
there's Eric Gordon, there's Grays and Allen, there's a big some,
there's a big Sometimes most of the time he's just your primary ball handler and
like driving your offense. And so in that case, like he's not functioning
like a shooting guard. To me, a shooting guard is more like Zach
Levine, who even if you classify him as a three or he is technically
the point guard in front lineups, he's never actually acting as that. And
I still think there's been a lot of people focusing and we talked about the
Suns' struggles in the fourth quarter to especially on wide open jumpers. They have
turnover issues at the NBA. NBA dot Com has this stat it's assists to
pass percentage adjusted, and it's effectively the percentage of passes by a player or
team that are assists, free throw assists, or secondary assists. And so
Booker routinely ranks among the players who have thrown at least fifteen hundred passes this
year. The only players with a higher who rank higher in this category or
Trey Young, Luca Tyre's Haliburton and Lebron and so like for Devin Booker to
once again stand out in this stat under point guard level passing volume where he
is throwing more passes this year because they actually have him as the point guard.
I had to put him at the point. I did struggle between him
and Halle, but how he's just been so transformative on the offensive end that
I think once you get into the playoffs, we haven't seen Halle there yet.
I get it if people just have Booker at four, I just I
get I get it if they even have him at three. Quite frankly,
I mean for me, like part so this was this was a case of
like what's your heart tell you? Like, Devin Booker is playing point guard.
He's not a point guard to me. So that's like, again,
that's just a totally I don't have a whole lot of like statistical basis for
that justification. The other thing that that feels wrong about having him for me
at point guard is like he's fifth. He's gonna be way higher than that
when I rank him and shooting guard, and I think, like that just
feels more right to me. But yet, like again, he is playing
point guard for them, So I and like will continue to so even with
Beale, and so it's like I thought there might be more of a dichotomy
there once, but it's like Beal's been really and kudos to Bill for trying
to people been hard on him. He's tried to fit into the larger context.
It hasn't always looked great. He's had some really big games. So
it's like that was also the thing that sold it is seeing them post like
having their best players available, Like no, he's just he's a fields for
me personally, just like I'm ignoring too much functionally of how this sounds operate
if I call him a shooting guard, right, yeah, I think that's
right, especially if you're focused on this year, which we said at the
outset we were, So my number five is Jalen Brunson. Ooh, I
had as I struggled with him over like each of the next three or four
guys. Really he could have been five through ten for me, could be
in a lot of different orders at the point. But I just think,
like when you stack them up against I feel like I'm giving away who the
rest of these guys I have are, Like he's he's at the top,
or he's tied at the top of the next five guys in scoring. He's
got the highest field goal and three point percentage. You could argue his role
is at least as important as anybody else's and he has like more help now
and it makes the roster makes more sense now, but it's still like it's
a little clunkier and a little you know, it's a heat for him.
He's got a lot to do. He's got the best advanced the catch all
metrics BORP and box plus minus. I think he's probably tops in EPM among
the guys left to be considered, and yes he is, so I just
you know, I didn't think I was gonna end up here with with Jalen
Brunson at five, but I feel good about it now looking at the other
guys, I'm sort of stacking him up against uh, so I'm gonna I
think you're I'm actually like saying ooh, when we actually only different but one
spot on him. So I'll throw up my my six and seven here.
Uh, I have Harden at six and then I have Jalen bruns in at
seven, and there's this. I have nothing to add on the Jalen bruns
in front except to you that he's one of the most efficient off the dribble
three point shooters, and it's not because of a lack of volume that this
league is seen right now, that's a that was not like this super efficient
part of his game in Dallas. And so we're not even two seasons removed
from last year in Dallas. And that's the type of player he's become.
Uh, he will fight on defense, even though he could be certainly attacked
too. With Harden, though, this is just that you have a case.
I mean, there is a case to be made. Who is the
best passer in the league. James Harden might be it. I think Luca's
there. I think Harden belongs in the conversation. Haliburton is there, Jokic.
I mean, when you're talking about of these names specifically, it's like
I might have Luca in front of him as a passer. But what I
really value about Harden too is some of the metrics and just the per game
numbers don't love him as much. But he's just fitting into this larger environment
with the Clippers, and so he doesn't he doesn't feel as ball dominant since
he's been traded to LA And then what he's been able to do to make
life so much easier on Kui and Paul George at certain points, and just
the step back three continuing to fall at absurd clips, He's still you know,
you factor in. While I'm not putting him this high because he requested
a trade, I do think there's probably no bones about it. To me
that he is a point guard. Was like, this is just he's graduated
from the shooting guard discussion. I don't know how many years ago. I
still feel like he's not under rated, but undervalued because he is very high
maintenance. But like we kind of went through the same thing last year where
I don't know if we had him on all NBA, like he wasn't even
we at least honorable mentioned him, and people just seem to pass over him
so easily. So a couple of reasons Harden was among those I considered he
didn't make my list. One because I think, and this is ironic,
because we're sort of he deserves praise for sort of reducing his role. His
usage rate is the lowest it's been since he was in Oklahoma City, but
his true shooting percentage is the highest it's been since he was in Oklahoma City,
So he definitely has like made that trade off by necessity he physically can't
do he can't play like he used to play. But just you know,
so while we can praise him for that, I think it should hurt him
here because his role on the Clippers just isn't as big as like literally anybody
else here that I considered for point guard. But you know, if we're
prizing efficiency, then like, yeah, this is about as efficient as he's
ever been. So I get it. For me. Six was dearon Fox
and seven is Dame Lillard Fox. I think could have been five pretty easily
over Brunson. He's just like he's just one of the best guards in the
league. Like he's an awesome crush time player gets the line. Uh has
it continue to improve as a three point shooter? Is to me so clearly
the reason the Kings are as good as they are. Even though I think
he people tend to like split the credit between him and Sabonis, the on
off numbers do not support that position. It is very much you know,
Fox and no Sabonis works. Sabonis and no Fox this year does not work.
It's like minus six is a net rating in that in the ladder construction
there. So uh after that, I'll just I'll just give you my eight,
nine, ten, just to knock this out. So Lillard seven,
Jamal Murray eight, that one. It's harder to make the statistical case for
him, but I think you have to consider. Yeah, I mean,
not that his numbers are bad, Like I mean, we can, I
can pull him up and you know, it's like twenty one four and almost
you know, six and a half assists on you know, almost forty percent
shooting just a hair under like that's legit. I think he's got more size
than anybody else I considered here, even though defensively that's not like where he's
made his money. But I've also seen him succeed at the highest level,
and that's not really true of anybody else that I've considered for the for the
rest of the top ten. So that did it for me and MAXI nine,
Trey ten, and like ten could have gone. I've got like five
other guys that you could talk me into for ten. I really initially didn't
want to put Trey on there because of the defensive concerns and the sort of
struggles of his teams over the last couple of years, so I'll I have
some I don't want to get into the others I considered until you finish out
your list. Here, I see you have Fox at eight, no issue
there. We're really actually very close. But you throwing Booker in there,
I think changed it a little bit. But that just be curious who that
knocks off for you. So I'll preface it with this. Murray is my
number eleven right now. I just the so he is very good. I'm
like, this is you know, we're quippling and you start to split hairs
when you're looking at you know, this level of whatever. But there's just
the element of he's both underappreciated because of what Nikoliokic does, but he's also
optimized because of what Nikoliochic does. And I struggle to reconcile that with this
overall value. We didn't even when I did my all star reactions, I
kind of forgot to mention him in as an honorable mention. He certainly deserved
to be an honorable mention. So I have like, basically I have your
list after that, except they were all bumped one down. So I have
Fox at eight, which is just you could he has a case over Brunton
and Harden. I'm just gonna be honest with like, the only players that
I think fox the only players I would say like it's my top five,
and that's because I'm considered Bookery and port Card. Those are the ones that
I won't necessarily listen to counter arguments again like four, I mean, I'll
listen, but it's just gonna take a lot to sway me. What was
ended up being tough was my last spot here. So having dame at number
nine again, these guys are just bumped. I had Trey at ten,
which bumped off Maxi as well, so I initially had Maxi when I was
treating Sga as a shooting guard at one point. I just Trey has become
underrated and he I'm kind of I'm not done. I understand the defensive discourse,
but we're like in season two point five or at least one point five
of him trying harder and he is a tough fit. But you know who's
also a tough fit, like it's Luca. It can be hardened at points,
and I don't know how much of the blame falls on him for not
adapting or revolving his play style enough or is it like now that Quinn Snyder's
there, it's almost like, all right, this isn't Nate McMillan or Lloyd
Pierce. Some of it has to go on Trey Young and so that matters.
Then you look at some of just the line up data for Atlanta this
year, it's not great for him, But like this dude in terms of
setting guys up at the rim or for corner threes, like there's him in
Uka are just in classes of their own at this point there. And so
his playmaking to me is just it has become a little undervalued in my in
my opinion, and so he was I felt like he needed to be included.
And with Maxi so him he was Actually so I should reframe. I
had Tyre's Maxi and then Jamal Murray as my first cuts. Darius Garland is
there as well, he just hasn't if he would have played more the season,
and even then he was struggling. Please by the way, Darius Garland,
just take more threes. I beg you please. So uh uh.
With Murray, he's probably the he's well he's not. Probably he's the better
passer than Maxie. What concerns me about Maxie's ultimate ceiling is does he have
any sort of wiggle room as a playmaker to do something beyond like I need
my speed to kind of capitalize off of it, and it's not necessarily need
a head of steam, but like, he's not someone who has the lateral
playmaking element or the breakdown the defense with his handle playmaking element. Jamal Murray
has that, Dame has that, Tray has that, Fox has that,
Bruntson has that, and so I'm just curious as to sounds like I'm dumping
all over MAXI he was gonna get a max contract in restricted free agency this
year, he might make all NBA for all I know. He was just
him. He was tough, and so was Murray. But those were my
I think those two were clearly my toughest cuts. And I will say if
he had played more, and I'm prepared to die on this hill and I
just don't think people are watching this team, LaMelo ball would be on this
list for me. Yeah, I think the injury made it easier. Same
with Jaws, just like, well, we don't have to if we're doing
this, and you know, next year there's every possibility both those guys will
be in the top ten. But yeah, that Lamela Ball. I'm trying
to think, Oh you said Garland Harden was like my hardest cut from this.
Do you know what's ridiculous that just Drew Holliday is not here. That's
the other name for me, and Van Vliet is a little quite a ways
further down. But I thought he warranted a mention, just because I want
to be exhaustive. I'm trying to make sure we don't forget, at least
to honorable mention guys that had like to death. Yeah I had. The
only other two I included on this list were Kay Cunningham and D'Angelo Russell.
Mostly that's like recency bias. Though you're trolling me with that, I really
because and people will hear and see this eventually. Because shooting guard and small
forward ended up being so tough for me. I tried to figure out ways
to make Kate a small forward. I was I couldn't do it. Yeah,
he might have been shoehorned off that list anyway. So I'll recap my
top ten very quickly, and I'll give you like my two or three biggest
what I consider snubs. I have Shay Gilgers, Alexander at one, Luka,
Doncic at two, Steph at three, Tyre's Haliburton at four, Devin
Booker at five, James Harden at six, Jalen Brunson at seven, Darren
Fox at eight, Dame at nine, and Trey at ten. And my,
I'll say my four toughest touch is because I really love him is Lamello,
Darius Garland, Jamal Murray and Tyres Maxey. Okay, so for me,
I've got Sga at one, Luca two, Steph three, Haliburton four,
Jalen Brunson at five, Deer and Fox six, Dame at seven,
Jamal Murray at eight, Tyrese Maxi nine, Trey Young ten and then my,
you know, guys, I thought pretty hard about but didn't quite make
it hardened holiday Jah was an injury one that was easier, and Garland and
really you could throw LaMelo in there too, as like, well, it's
just we don't have to think about it this year because of the miss time
I was gonna ask you, is that whether they're already on the list or
your toughst cuts, like what's the name that if we fast forward two or
three years, it wouldn't shock you if they were just skyrocketing up this list,
and you could say scoot if you really wanted to, but I don't.
I'm too scared. I think I think probably probably Morant or Ball I
think would have the most sort of like likelihood of really climbing. But this
isn't you know, other than Steph. This is and Dame not an old
old guy list really, so I mean this could have some you know,
at least the top five could have some staying power. You just made me
sad because it's like, if we did this in another two or three years,
is Steph even on it. I mean, he shouldn't be, because
he'll be like thirty eight. If he might be still playing, there's I
wouldn't. I wouldn't rule it out. Yeah, you know it used to
be. If we'd had this conversation last year, we might have just had
Steph one. Right. It's like it is it is interesting that I didn't
even like Steph was not a consideration at one for me. And that's the
first time you would have been able to say that for like ten years almost
you know, he was before I came to Jesus with SGAH and his positional
thing, not his actual value. I had him he was two, and
I didn't quite like overthink it there is this season though Halle and Booker both
have cases over him. Probably, Yeah, I think that's fair, And
I mean really like Brunson just statistically and like Brunson's team is better. His
role is as big as a role gets on a team like That's you could
make a case. I wouldn't know how. I mean, there's stats that
measure this, and he'll just rank in number one in all of them.
But I don't know how to reconcile, just like I still have never seen
defenses react to someone who is so far away from the ball or moving away
from a primary action that I just and I don't know how to rationalize that.
But that's someone I just want to watch Steph on every has the ball,
doesn't have the ball, never touches it. I just want to watch
Steph. Yeah, I agree. You want to take us out here.
These are meant to be for anyone who's like, why aren't these eight hours
long? These are our bite sized podcasts. Well, Grant and I take
a little bit of a break, Yeah, because here's a bite sized outro.
Thanks for checking in with us. Let us know where what you agree
with disagree with. I feel like like I have to remind people to let
us know what they disagree with. That's that's the name of the game,
people. And I want to interrupt and say I appreciate all the support that
we do get, but people are so much apt to point out things they
disagree with or will actually us and like actually compliment our Yeah, like we
had compliments for Oh, thank you for engaging or thank you for doing these
guests players, and I appreciate every single one of them. I love,
I love all support wet on Discord, but like it's very rare that and
it will happen in Discord for the most part, but it's like very rare.
We'll be like, wow, this is like great, Like thanks for
putting in the effort. Guys were good digs and this is not subject matter
that's gonna incite any more of that than usual. I'm just gonna start calling
you randomly and just complimenting you to to just kind of keep things on uneven
keel uh if just wait till we get to center, if you want to
get angry at me specifically, so you don't have to apologize to Jared Allen
all over again or is it just domas at that point? Yes, and
yes and yes. Uh, thanks everybody for listening, for watching. Uh,
let's see you threw me on tilt with your with your make sure you
tell your friends, tell your enemies. Follow us on all the socials,
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like on YouTube, all that good stuff. We'll close here as always
the Bay shout out to the one only Frank Nilakina in an apology to Jared Allen