Hello, everyone, and welcome to the latest episode of Heart. Was not
because this is Adam from Well Here. It's my fantastic and perpetually exhausted co
host Jan tra Valley. And the reason for the perpetual exhaustion, of course,
is because he's working so tirelessly to deliver everyone with such great envy day
content and going above and beyond on all fronts. So after that compliment to
kick things off, Dan, how's it going, I'm doing even better.
I told you I was very exhausted before this podcast. I'm inhaling caffeine right
now. But that compliment is it's my lifeblood at the moment, So thank
you so much. And I'm also it was game toward reinvigoration. So you
were also telling me before we started about how you were quote tweeting a bunch
of fuckheads on the NBA math account. We're adding you and so I've been
reading them and I'm actually I did not use those words. Just to be
clear, I'm the only one who like curses to like the stupid extent here
because I can't stop myself. I don't know why I'm like this anyway,
I'm just smiling reading some of these things made me even more happier. So
so how are you? I'm just you're literally fueling my existence at the moment.
How does that make you feel? It feels great, and you know
the thing is like I'm used to that though, like that's a pretty typical
state of existence here, so it's not new, but it still feels great.
Seth fair? I think that's more than fair. How are you?
On a on a relatively general level, I'm good, I'm good. I
got to go snowboarding yesterday. I'm so sore from all of that. That
is a tough activity if you haven't done it in like three years. Every
part of me, every part of me hurts right now. I can only
imagine I've snow tubed, but I've never done skiing or snowboard. I feel
like that's not quite as physically demanding, but it still sounds fun. Yeah
you fall still so, but yeah, I learned. I learned the danger
because I'm like still a relatively novice snowboarder. Like I can I can hold
my own and like make it down some of the like the Black Diamond runs,
but if there are moguls, I'm in big trouble. And apparently if
there's really deep powder. I'm also in trouble. So I was going down
like one run right under his stee lift and the ground just kind of like
went out from under me like a foot and a half of deep powder,
and I was like trying to wrench my way out of it, and like
could definitely feel my abs just stretching way too much as I'm like laying there
in agony with people passing above me and like laughing at me. It was
a great experience. Oddly enough, as we're recording this podcast or anyone's watching
on YouTube, I don't even see Adam's face. He's just shirtless with his
abs in front of the camera because they're so stredded after his snowboarding event.
All the ways. Subscribe to the Hardwoo Knocks YouTube channel. You know no
one wants to see that. Please do subscribe, rate and review Hardware Knocks
forever you get your podcast, YouTube, Spotify, iTunes, and if you
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us to use those numbers and make sure you're downloding every episode. How's that
for a nice little segue, Adam, You want to hear Mark talk about
Adam's abs. If you subscribe to Hardwood Knocks on YouTube and on every other
platform, I promise I won't show you my sorry excuse for apps. And
on top of that, because I also think that's a lie, I won't
guarantee anything on this podcast. We don't know what could happen if we record
late in that podcast, so don't hold yourself to that. We will start
a discord channel if we get multiple ratings off this episode, and we get
multiple ratings off pretty much every episode lately, so give us multiple ratings and
we'll start a discord channel, so you could stop. You know, I'm
having these great discussions in dms, and it's a DM that inspired the subject
of this entire podcast. We could have them as a group, you could
have them with each other, and so we're gonna do that anyway. But
just another incentive for you guys to rate, review and subscribe to us where
we get your podcasts. So before we get into the heart of this podcast,
which you can tell from the title, I do think we have to
note that it was announced by the NETS that Kevin Durant has a sprained left
MCL and they did not in the announcement really give a hint at a timetable.
They just decided to leak that to Woach and he said that if they're
optimistic, he could be back between four to six weeks, which would be
about February twenty fourth. I think I saw floating around out there. I
really quickly before I throw at you, I looked at their schedule. They
play a bunch of road games during this stretch, so it'll be Kyrie and
James Harden. But I think the two things to note before throwing it to
you is Kevin Durant sprained his left MCL with the Warriors, so this is
like this has happened before with him, which would leave me leave. They'll
be extra cautious. And if you're just interested in how the Nets affaired with
Kevin Durant off the floor of this season, there's still a plus five points
per one hundred possessions when James Harden plays without him. So I don't think
this sinks their season by any stretch. They've always just been a team that
if they're healthy by the playoffs. We have to see how this Kyrie irving
in constant play thing goes. But this is probably given what it could have
been. I suppose that they are worst. There are worst case scenarios,
I guess would be my thoughts on it. It's never good news when a
star player is injured, but I think this is like as close to good
news with an injury of this magnitude as you're going to find. Because James
Harden, maybe sneakily, maybe not so sneakily, has been playing much better
basketball of late, you know, kind of working himself into the periphery of
award conversations. Yet again, like the Basketball Reference VP award track, perhaps
the Basketball Reference model like actually has him in the top ten for MVP candidates,
as does the RPR predictor that we use at NBA Math. So giving
him a chance to continue that upward trajectory is a good thing. Giving Kyrie
Irving more touches as he reincorporates himself into the Brooklyn Nets Roca rotation on the
road is a good thing. And ultimately, like those three are talented enough
that there doesn't need to be that much of an integration period for the three
of them operating in conjunction. So as long as Durant can come back healthy
from this experience, it's going to be fine. They're twelve games above five
hundred as we're recording this, there the number two seed in the Eastern Conference,
trailing only the Chicago Bulls. Like that, this is not time to
even think about moving close to the case over the panic button now. Obviously,
we want Durant to be healthy, to be back in action as soon
as possible. He's recovered successfully from an achilles tear to play MVP caliber basketball.
He's going to be fine. I'm with you. And look, Kevin
Durant's MCL sacrificed itself so that they can get a low enough playoff seed that
Kyrie Irving can play in four games of every single playoff series. If you
go down the Galaxy brain thinking right there, you want to talk about the
MVP right now, Kevin Durant really just sacrificing himself on those levels. I
will say this made me think, and I kind of thought about with the
Kyrie Irving stuff and James Harden not signing his extension at some point, I
know you forced away at our Houston, but it seemed like you might have
preferred Philadelphia. You're looking at like Durant's injury history now is like what is
going to be the state of Is Kyrieving gonna be a part time player next
season? I'm assuming the mandates will be lifted eventually, but will they this
fun We might have like eight different variants by that point that are raging through
the United States. Oh, please, don't say that. I don't want
that to be don't speak it into existence. Take it back. Well,
like James Harden has to be looking at this in this situation, just really
it's probably a little bit more fragile than he signed up for. And I'm
just curious whether he's going to take more free agency meetings than we expect.
That Just it made me think about that. It's not fair. I wouldn't
predict it, but just between the Kyrie Irving part time availability and you know
Kevin Kevin Hamm was half the season last year, by the way, and
I know it was probably out of an abundance of precaution for the most part
when you look back at what happened to him. But you know, to
just foove your thought if anyone wanted just an incoherent, least bisy take from
this podcast, I do think that this is an interesting reinforcement of the one
knock against Brooklyn status as legitimate championship contenders because we know about these injury concerns.
Harden has dealt with plenty of them and has typically tended to wear down
later in seasons because of the high burden that he shoulders throughout a regular season
where he's a little more tired, it's a little more difficult for him to
get to the foul line to gain step ration on defenders in the playoffs.
We know about Kyrie Irving's injury history and now the fact that he can't play
home games, which may or may not change at any point in the future,
and we also know that Durant has gone through his fair share of injuries.
And the biggest knock against this Net squad is what happens if one of
those worst case scenarios comes true during the playoffs. Because if you do lose
any of those three in a postseason setting, you're not going to be an
overwhelming favorite. You're just not. And this is just a reinforcement that it
can happen. I guess the flip upside of that, or the flip side
of that would be you came like an inch away of beating the Bucks without
Kyrie Irving. It's literally a shoe size away. I will say, though,
and this is not Kyrie Irving at full strength and full availability is a
fantastic NBA player. I don't think you can lose Kevin Duran or James Harden
and have those same type of chances against the Bucks or agreed and even heat
for that. On the bright side, NETS fans get to watch Dayron Sharp
just body guys on nightly, but he might have just bodied someone while we're
talking about this. So the actual podcast, though, are you ready to
get into it? I'm excited for this one, but also a little scared
because it took me so long to think about this. I know you thought
a lot about it, so let's get into it. This hat tip to
Charles, who asked this in a DM. He wanted to be a mail
bad question, but I DM Charles and said this is going to be an
entire podcast because it was a fascinating question. He asked if we could rate
the top ten under twenty five NBA players in terms of their career outlook,
So not what's happening this season, just we're taking these guys as if we're
ranking these guys and we're going to have them for the rest of their career,
and Adam put a special spin on it, which I'll let him explain.
But the exercise itself was fascinating because I think I want to make it
clear while this is this is a click baity concept that I love the way
I took shots with some of the younger guys because I do think that this
type of exercise warrants it. So I'm not trying to be inflammatory by putting
a rookie from this season in number like place X is my point. I
just want to get out in front of that before anybody gets really mad and
calls any of the takes that follow hereafter agregious. This is agonizingly difficult.
I texted Dan at like eleven am this morning that I was losing sleep over
my rankings, you know, even though it was the middle of the day.
It's just it's impossible to narrow down the list of under twenty five players,
which we defined as players currently in or not yet to their age twenty
four seasons, just to have some consistency there. But it is so difficult
to narrow this down. I think I have twenty nine names written down as
like legitimate candidates for top ten spots or honorable mentioned spots. Dan has even
more. I think you ended up like ranking your like top fifty or something.
Did It seems like a huge number. But even at number fifty,
we're talking about high quality basketball players. Who was number fifty out of curiosity?
So this comes to the caveat that At some point I just stopped and
was just like, Okay, I don't even what am I doing right now,
but number fifty as of right now, because it went, it went
more than fifty d But my number fifty guys Obie Topping at the moment who
Knicks fans back? I take it back that it drives up way quicker than
number fifty. Yeah, and so Nick fans might disagree because a lot of
Knicks fans don't wouldn't trade Obi Topping for d Aaron Fox, which is bends
my brain. Let's not get into that, please, So do you want
to talk about I think we should clarify a lot of Knicks fans in Dan's
mentions, they weren't even in my mentions. It's just because I follow a
bunch of Knicks like people and it was retweeted onto my feed. They just
think that the Aaron Fox is bad, and I'm here to tell you this
has been one of the most disappointing seasons of the Aaron Fox's career. He
has still been better. If you could get this type of year from Emmanuel
Quickly like that is going to probably be a manual Quickly's peak, and I
don't think that he's ever going to be that level of good. So the
downhill pressure he sucks on defense this year, I'm gonna He's played a little
bit better lately, but I just want to let everybody know the armbox is
still good. Don't put me in a position where I have to start defending
all these Kings players aside from Rashawn Holmes and Tyres Alibert, and I'm exhausted.
So the twist that we're putting on this is we're going to treat it
as like a pseudo fantasy draft, where rather than just sharing our top ten,
we do want to alternate and use a snake draft order. So whoever
has the number one pick, the next person's going to get the number two
and three, and then person one gets four and five, so on and
so forth until we get through ten. And then we do want you to
tell us whose team you think has the better players. We're not considering positions,
we're not considering fit. We are solely looking to have the most long
term talent on our team. So to determine who goes first, I'm gonna
have Dan close his eyes and guess whether I'm holding up a one or two.
If he gets it correct, then he gets the number one pick.
If he doesn't, I get the number one pick. So go ahead and
close your eyes down. I was actually just gonna give you the number one
pick because this was your idea. Oh, we're doing this anyway for the
YouTube. Okay, eyes closed? All right? What number? What am
I picking? Between one and one or two? Two? All right?
You get the number one pick. I'm still holding it up so you can
verify. This is great because I post it. I'm posting the entire episode
of this on YouTube because there's no point in breaking it up into segments when
they're all entangled. Just so shout out to YouTuber's watching this right now.
So we're probably gonna forget the snake order at some point because we're doing this
on the fly. So here we go. Yeah, I'm gonna be trusting
you that you won't because I asked you how the fuck will I'll write down
some some notes here just to remember who has which pick, So this doesn't
count as the intro. By the way, I know we had a comment
and I've tried to focus on a short of the intros. This is criteria,
and we talked about Kevin Durant already, so please don't tell we have
like an eighteen minute intro. I'm gonna take I'm gonna take Luka Donte with
the number one pick. I think there's been some talk about whether others could
be better than him. There's been a lot of job Moran over Luca Dontech
like talk. Don't buy into it just because this has not been Luca's best
season, but he has had to uplift offenses that have such marginal talent where
you just don't have. You know, Kristaps Porzingis is your primary big isn't
a great roller, and so the manis wana player, separate roller with him?
He probably does. Luca definitely does impact the pace at which Dallas is
playing, but like they haven't had a legitimate, real secondary shot creator around
him. Jalen Brunson this season has been fantastic, but all in all the
seasons prior looking at the performances he's had in the playoffs against the Clippers,
the past two years, he has been He has been great, and this
is someone who remains transcendent at basketball. And when you look at the level
of difficulty on his shots, even when he's getting into the lane and stuff,
I still think for the most part, he's beyond compare to where there's
probably to me a fairly sizable gap between him and then what the number two
player on this list will be long term. And that's not insulted. I
just think he's he's that freaking good, and yes, this is If he
doesn't get any better from here, then yes, that would be disappointing.
But I don't know why this is his age twenty two season. I don't
know why we would just expect that, oh, this is as good as
Luca Dontch is ever gonna be. Luca was also number one on my draft
board. But I think the only part I disagree with is that there is
a big gap between him and everyone else, and I'm not quite sure about
sizable. Fairly sizable, I'll twist it, however, I need to hear.
I don't know how strongly I believe in that part now, just because
of the growth we've seen from the other primary contenders for the top spot,
coupled with the growth we haven't seen this season, where yes, he's in
his age twenty two season, and it is still one possible that his ceiling
is just unfathomable because we've never seen such a young player excel to such an
extent this early in a career. We don't know what kind of ceiling he
could push toward if he resumes that upward trajectory. But because there has been
that plateau in the season, albeit for reasons that could be beyond his control,
I just don't know that I have confidence as much confidence in the resumption
of that trajectory. That's fair. That's fairly size That's a fairly sizeable take.
Okay, I'll take it. But so I guess my top pick,
and this is probably the biggest debate I had internally was between two and three.
So technically I don't even have to answer it now because they're both going
to be on my team, but I'll answer it anyway because I did end
up with John Morant in my second spot. What he's done for the Memphis
Grizzlies this season has been nothing short of astounding. We've there's a lot of
debate right now about where he belongs in the MVP discussion, and I think
that some of the negativity in that discussion stems from the fact that the Grizzlies
were so successful while he was out injured. But to exactly the discussion is
about where he fits into the MVP packing order, not whether he belongs in
it. It's already so clear what he brings to the Memphis organization, just
with the attitude on the court, with the production, with the ability to
get to the rim against absolutely any defender, with the athleticism that allows him
to put up these ridiculous highlight real blocks and transition where he pins the ball
to palfway up the backboard the top of the square with two hands than just
this superhero looking play that should not be physically possible. The pressure that he
puts on teams really on both ends of the floor right now, maybe not
necessarily defensively within the half court set, but certainly as a transition defender,
as a situational defender, and then as either a cutter or a primary ball
handler. He's warping other teams to fit what he wants to do right now.
You know, we can. We can talk about the magnitude of his
scoring volume, the quality of his passes, which are at a higher level
than they've been at any point in his career. But I think just the
amount of scheming that has to be done to account for him right now that
just doesn't even matter, has allowed for this transcendent growth where I did have
to think about whether I want a Jar or Luca as my number one.
I think it's I think it's fair to think about it, but I've given
the body of work that Luca has done with a less let's say, aggregative
with less aggregative talent around him. Has Luca ever had a teammate have as
good of a season as Desmond Baine is having right now, or as Jaren
Jackson Jr. It's just the supporting cast and something because you keep not wanting
to give Chris stops porzingis this season any credit like he has really good.
He's had higher peak moments than some of Jos's teammates, But it doesn't even
matter because the Grizzlies are just so much deeper than the Mavericks of Everest,
Like if we're talking about Baine vers Chris stops this season, Like, I
think that's a conversation. Who would you rather have long term Baine? Yeah,
there's absolutely, but not fair. So it wasn't It just wasn't a
hard decision for me to make. I'm open. I'm more open to the
idea I probably would have said. I mean, there are probably a few
there are a few players on the swift where you could say, if everything
hits right, Davey could be better than Don Chich. I do recognize that
I didn't have John Morant in that tier of player until this season because I
was just questions about any scoring at different levels. And I think he's even
proven. I was probably underrating him as a playmaker. Just he's one of
the He might be the single best decision maker after leaving his feet that the
NBA has who He was my number two as well, and we also we
had the same top three. So why don't you tell us who we did
have the same three? Yeah, my number three was Trey Young. And
the easy knock here is the defense or the lack thereof, which is a
legitimate qualm. It is why he is not number two here or even number
one, because his offense is that good, but his defense is that bad.
But we have to focus on just how good the offense is. And
you can try to knock Trey Young down a few pegs by pointing to the
lack of quality the Atlanta Hawks record, but that team has, much like
a lot of other organizations this season, has gone through so much turmoil in
terms of available personnel, in terms of cohesion, and beyond that, coaching
where it is no longer playing a system that is designed for its personnel on
a nightly basis, or so it seems. But Young has been impervious to
a lot of that as an individual performer because he is so ridiculously talented at
creating not just looks for himself, but also looks for his teammates. He
can score from anywhere on the court, which really doesn't feel even remotely hyperbolic
based on the number of logo threes he's let fly, based on the fact
that he's finishing exactly sixty percent of his attempts within three feet this season,
which is a new career high. He has taken the NBA rule changes in
stride because he was one of the primary perpetrators that led to those new foul
calling rules that were implemented this season, and he's adjusted in a beneficial way.
He's become a better interior score because he's looking to score rather than to
draw contact, and he's doing that while continuing to put defenders in one of
the NBA's toughest pickles to deal with. If Trey Young is driving with an
athletic rolling in alongside him, what is a defense supposed to do? Because
he can hit a floater, he can finish around the basket, he can
throw a great allue pass, he can throw a great law pass, he
can put it between defenders with a pocket pass like he has every single tool
in his arsenal and the most important set for an NBA half court offense.
He elevates everyone around him, even if that hasn't resulted in wins. And
while the defense is bad, we have to remember that point guard defense is
the least important of any type of defense in the NBA. So, yeah,
he's really bad at containing opposing point guards. Guess what, so are
a lot of other point guards. He doesn't have the personnel around him to
account for that. Right now, with Clint Capella either out of the lineup
or hobbled for much of the season. He hasn't had that reliable second line
of defense that he had last season in the year before that. But just
the sheer magnitude of the offensive burden he carries so successfully makes him an unquestioned
superstar who is still in the conversation to be the number one player in this
exercise. And I will back up everything you said looking at the scope of
his role, this is the most it's a combined stat. This is one
of the most absurd stats. It's definitely a volume thing. It speaks to
the severity of his role right now and the Hawks's dependence on Trey Young.
He is first in the entire NBA and assist thrown at the rim. And
yes, I know you play with John Collins like the compelling a little bit
of on Yaka Kongu. That's still flipping impressive. He is fifth in three
point assists this season, so he's in the top five of both of those.
This is also upsurd. When you look at the players who've generated the
most points off unassisted threes, he is first in that. When you look
at the players who've generated the most points of unassisted twos. He's third in
that. That is a mind melting number. And the fact that the Hawks
aren't worse is really just because of him. Like they would be, they
wouldn't be in a position to where we could think about to save their season
if Trey Young wasn't exactly this great. If you just chop it down ten
fifteen percent, the hawk we're probably talking about, the Hawks is just like
one of the all time one hit wonders right now or something wild along those
lines. So I echo everything you said, and I think you know insofar
as I do think this exercise was tough, but it felt like the top
three we're really easy to cobble together. Jaw, Luca and Say made that
really easy for me. The top three players not necessarily the top three order
because I don't feel great about having John Morant ahead of Trey Young. No,
I don't either, But I do think Jaw has shown since he's come
back from his left knees brain there's been a lot more defensive effort there,
and I don't I just don't know how much to like when you look at
Luca's defense, What would Luca look like on defense if he was as small
as Tray Young because Luca has not been one of these worst defenders. But
a lot of that has to do with like size and girth, and it's
how do you use I don't know how much credence I give to that just
because we can't change that fact. But I'm like, what, how good
would Trey Young be on defense if he had Luca's size? Like it's an
interesting thought exercise, but how much impact does it have? Well, I'm
just saying, how do we hold that against Trey Young? Where I feel
like a lot of his defensive stuff is physical limitations, although he is unless
you can find a place to stash him. I guess maybe it's semantics,
but to me, it's like, I don't hold that against Trey Young,
but you have to hold it against him in this exercise. Fair enough,
let me get to my player. This is number four and I'm still thinking
about changing this. As we said say this, I can't go with who
I think I want to go with just because I don't I factored in like
injuries to this because that's going to be part of the career. I'm gonna
go with LaMelo. I really do think he still needs to get so he
was number four in my list. I thought about changing him for players will
discuss now. He needs to get stronger, so that'll help him on defense
as a better finisher. I think he can already just as big enough to
disrupt certain possessions on defense when he is like in position and not being bodied
as much. So I have hope that of all the players we just talked
about, of these four my guests would be LaMelo ends up having the best
defensive career. Is what I'm getting at. What he's already been able to
shown is just like a shooter as a transcendent passer, I think that's someone
who's going to uplift guys even when he's not scoring. I think he's going
to be someone that other players really want to join up with and play with,
and I do think that's an important part of this. I understand that
there might be players that are going to have, you know, gaudier numbers,
but this could end up being someone who's a triple double machine, which
I don't know how much that actually matters because of how we wait rebounding.
Now, he's just he's so he's such a visionary on the offensive end,
and he can singlehandedly just dictate the pace of not his team, but the
entire game, because the Hornets want to play at warp speed. But like
Lamello in the half court is still absolutely terrifying. And there are certain players
that you can't say that about, where they're able to shift gears so seamlessly.
And I'm saying all this about LaMelo knowing that I think he has so
much room to grow, which is why I was I don't even think the
word is brazen here. I don't think this is like a brash selection.
But that's why I was relatively comfortable throwing him into that top five conversation when
there are so many options to put here. I think this season, in
particular, we're starting to see more of that preternatural vision show up on the
defensive end as well, where even as a rookie he was a threat to
produce steels, but it felt like that was more a byproduct of excessive gambling,
and this year it's more a byproduct of him having really quick hands and
really quick instincts and having a better read on what the opposition is doing.
He like I think the highlight sequence against the Orlando Magic the other night,
where he made a three, celebrated it from the left wing, ran back,
then from the same wing on the other side, he deflected a pass,
stole the ball, went between the legs him through an alley to Miles
Purchase like that was a sequence that I saw everywhere on Twitter because of the
book end place and because of the sheer audacity to go between the legs in
a relatively close game. But the anticipation that led to that steel and fast
break opportunity in the first place got completely glossed over, where even if it
looks like a simple play, to have a read on what the offense is
doing and be able to anticipate the pass and make contact with the ball in
a way that leads to a breakout opportunity, that's impressive for a second year
player who is not primarily known for his defense, And to me, it
helps justify this pick. I had LaMelo at nine, so he was within
my top ten. I didn't have him quite this high, but I do
think if you believe in that defensive growth, that this is totally justifiable.
I'm also sort of just banking on we see a better version of looking at
how even Trey and Jah have grown as finishers, and I do recognize that
both of them were a lot better finishing than LaMelo is. Right now,
when we're talking about this stage, that stage of their careers, I'm saying
like it's years and years ago. They're just like a year and two years
ahead of him, respectively or whatever. Maybe trays three at this point.
No, he's only two years right, whos he is flash married with substance,
And maybe I am overweighting like the pageantry of his game. Am I
becoming one of the first people. But I'm banking on the fact that we're
going to see someone who gets better as a score when he's going downhill and
is just among the trees. And also I think he's going to be you
know, we'll talk, let's see who you name first, but like,
there's a chance he could be the most impactful defender among the players that are
in the top five or whatever. So I don't I forget who you can
have fit. But that's it. You don't get to find out until you've
made your choice at number five. Oh I'm five, So I'm gonna let
you know right now that will not be the most impactful defender in the top
five because Bam Adebayo is fifth for me. I thought about putting him lower
because I don't know that Bam is wired to dominate in the same vein as
other players on the offensive side of the ball, and I would question if
you ever have to run your offense entirely through him when you have a Kyle
Lowry, a Jimmy Butler, a Tyler Hero. There are stuff that you
can do with Bam, and he's going to run fast breaks. I think
the context of his roles a lot different if you remove talent from that.
You could say that about a lot of other guys, but I don't view
him as a Don chich Morant young even LaMelo, who could eventually or right
now prop up an entire offense that he said he is one of the best
passing big men in the league, the fact that he can lead fast breaks,
the fact that you can run things through him in the half court,
on top of the fact that he is one like one of, if not
the most matchup proof big in the league. And it depends on how you
define big. Jannis exists. Yes, I'm very full aware of that.
I thought that I was comfortable doing this. He's also shown like he's older
he's this is age twenty four seasons, so he just barely early. He
made the cut for us just by that. We're talking about someone who's,
you know, an established All Star at this point too, which made me
comfortable putting him ahead of guys i'd injury questions about, or we're talking about
younger players with even less experience. So this, to me might have actually
been my bigger dice roll than the little mellow one. I still don't dig
with that for what it's worth, I will say though, we also I
can say all these things about him in the offense and how he looked before
this season in the non Jimmy Butler minutes. We don't know what the show
looks like if it's Bams to run, because it's never been that, just
in full and maybe it never needs to be like that because of the way
that big big men are viewed. But he's just he's grown a lot on
that side of the floor too, when you look at how much better he
navigates the half court without the ball from now to like the first two years
of his career, fantastic. And then there's he does have like the little
mid range game, not to the point where I'd be like, this is
Kevin Durant Chris Paul level lethal, But that is an option there now and
it wasn't two years ago. So this is someone who has improved a great
deal. And maybe he's someone then that would be left off a lot of
other people's top ten. But I envisioned not He was a pretty insofar as
I considered other guys at this part. He was one of the guys I
looked at right away and knew that he was going to be in my top
ten, and he checked it at number five. He also was number five
for me. I've said it before. I think in the preseason before this
season that there are only a select few number of players who I think have
a realistic shot to be viewed as the best player in basketball in the next
few seasons, and I would include bam Adebayo in that group. A lot
has to go right. I don't think it's particularly likely, but I do
see a somewhat realistic path to that happening, because on offense, he can
completely control a game without even attempting to score. The screens that he sets,
the passing that he brings from the five fluidity with which he operates away
from the ball in a way that draws defensive attention even if he's not ever
going to touch the basketball. And then you throw on top of that the
scoring ability, where we do see the skill and finesse to score on the
interior, the athleticism to finish over the top of other players, the shooting
ability to start increasing his shooting range more and more and stretching out of defense.
And that's before we even mentioned the defense, where he is a defensive
Player of the Year caliber stopper who fits perfectly into the modern variety of basketball
because he can reasonably switch to cover a player of any kind of role.
He is the complete package, even if he is not a guy that's going
to score thirty points a game, but just the diversity of the ways he
can impact a game positively, I think there's a legitimate chance, even if
it isn't a likely chance, that he could be the best basketball player in
the world three years from now. Yeah. I mean, if you just
look at the physical tools that he has, so if you can envision him
incorporating that and other stuff, there's I remember you saying that, and I
thought it was I think that's still fairly spicy but it's not like, you
know, it's not the dumbest thing you've ever said. This isn't he wouldn't
be the best player in the league, you know, if there were eighteen
injury replacements. First, like, that's not what Adam is saying here,
so I and the other thing is just like this isn't really what you said.
But the two things I marvel at with him, I don't like Biggs
aren't supposed to have feet as quick as he does slab or like that's not
that shouldn't be a thing. And I'm trying to think, maybe this isn't
hot because I don't even think there's another big man that comes to mind for
me. Is there anyone aside from yokich as a big man. Let's say
a four or five or whatever that's throws like better lead passes than bam Adebayo
Right now, if you want to get really spicy, you could say say
like Changon. That would be I mean, he's Jangoon has been good.
He was in my top fifty if anybody cared about he did not come anywhere
near the top ten, but he wasn't my top fIF I guess that,
But that would be I think it's Bam. Then if that's the first name
that came to your mind, I was like, that's not usual. I
get the worthwhile ranking when you're looking at Biggs and like even talented passing Biggs,
because I'm trying to think of like any centers or like even I mean,
like Mason Plumley, like guys like that who are good passers, like
legitimately good passers and triple double threats, but none who incorporate that while being
so damn good in every other area. It's not Assan white Side. That's
constellation anym we know for it is not Hassan white Side, who is number
six for you. The number six pick is the number four player on my
board, and that is Evan Mobley. I view Mobley a lot like I
view Bam, just as a guy who can reasonably impact the game in every
single area, and we're already seeing that. As a rookie on a competitive
Cleveland Cavaliers team were at the time of recording this, He's averaging fifteen points,
eight rebounds, two point seven assists, point eight steals, one point
seven blocks, only one point nine turnovers per game. He's making more than
half the shots he's showing some flashes of three point shooting ability. He can
get to the free throw line, and he's also another game changing defender who
can stifle out almost any set within the half court. If you switch him
on to an attack guard, he can stick with him. If he finds
himself in the post against a physical big, he can stick with him.
And we're still not seeing him fully tap into his arsenal because this is a
big seven footer who moves kind of like Kevin Durant at times with just that
fluidity, that grace, and he hasn't yet understood how he can harness his
size and his physicality on the offensive end. And when that happens, the
sky is going to be the limit for him. As a score. He's
another guy who I'm not sure I know what his ceiling is going to be,
because he could legitimately be a thirty point a game scorer who is also
in the defensive Player of the Year race, and that still might be selling
him short because he's just that good. I don't know where I would go
in the Rookie of the Year race right now between him and Scotty Barnes,
but I do have Mobley as my number one long term outlook from this class
with room to spare. I just I think he is that good and then
some yeah, he'll probably end up sewing up Rookie of the Year. I
think just because as the Raptors get healthier, like we've seen Scotty Barnes play
a little bit differently on offense, which is ultimately the best version. He's
also not totally healthy with the natnanitis. So Evan Mobley was number nine on
my list. I do have I want to compliment him first because he has
done such a good job on offense still when he cannot be your primary big
because that's Jared Allen's role. So like him ducking in from the corners,
knowing how to move without the ball. He's shooting over fifty percent on hook
shots this year, like he showing the moves in the post. He's shown
the ability to put the ball off the dribball. I think I just struggled
to envision what he'll look like in a higher volume role, especially if you're
going to continue to use him like this. Is he ever going to have
that opportunity. Maybe I'm not being inventive enough, just because this is someone
who is fewer than fifty games into his NBA career, and so I fully
recognize that. And the thing you mentioned about the Kevin Durant fluidity, even
if people think that's over the top, Like this is someone who is moving
better with the ball in his hands. It feels like than Kevin Garnett did.
I wasn't old enough to remember like prime Kevin Garnett when they were using
him as a three, So maybe I'm off there, Like that is the
level of quickness and just dexterity, feels like he has the ball in his
hands, and so that's someone who can turn into an offensive lightning rod in
addition to being defensive Player of the Year caliber. Like that's what you would
have to put his outlook near right now, just based off an all defensive
threat right now, which isn't supposed to happen for much less a rookie big
man. So I that was the one that was tough for me. It
was I went back and forth on Evan Mobley. I think if i'm I
might just have a lack of vision for him on offense though, and that
might be a flaw of I might be, you know, just I haven't
seen the way the Cavaliers are playing this season like you're running it through Darius
Garland of Jared Allen being the primary community in the fact that Molby's been able
to show things when he can't be your primary big all the time on offense,
and just I mean even the way he's a good passer too. And
the other thing is is like the way he communicates on offense is really effective.
It seems like as well when you watch the calf So look, if
you made the top ten of this list, I'm just gonna say that should
be a compliment. But also the other reason he's here is because ultimately I
am I do think someone else in the draft class is going to have a
better career. Still, Evan Mobley's fantastic. It wouldn't shock me if he
ends up being like way better than I'm even giving him credit for Right now.
I'm so high on him that I was probably closer to moving him into
the top three than out of the top four. What you have to take
swit, Like I said, you probably should take swings like that in this
exercise, because would you have him trying to think of like John Morant would
be a perfect example, is where would he have landed in this exercise during
his rookie season as good as John Morand was, and look where he is
now. Probably not the play. Yeah, yeah, so I do think
it's worth or at least swings along those lines are warranted. I feel like
the other thing with MOBILEI before I move on to my number seven pick,
is I feel like you could tune into any ten minute stretch of Mobile playing
basketball and come away with the impression that he's the game changing force who's going
to be relevant in award conversations forever. And I don't know how frequently you
can do that with a rookie because there are such high highs and such low
lows. The lows for him just haven't been sustained. There's never been a
full game where it looks like he's totally overmatched. Maybe he's struggling with his
shot, maybe he's struggling to check one specific matchup, but he's finding a
way to contribute positively every time he's on the court. Which how many rookies
can you say that about? Probably more than I would expect this season,
to be honest with you, But that's not you could generally say about rookies.
Yeah, for sure, this year's class is weird because there is so
much talent said at four, right, I did have Mobile at four,
it's funny, and I had him at nine, and then you had the
mellow at nine. Coact like we kind of just flip flap those but anyway,
please carry on. Number seven was probably my numbers. So this is
the seventh pick, but he was number six on my big board here.
I think he was the single hardest player to rank because he hasn't played a
minute this season and at Zion Williamson. It's easy to forget about him right
now because it feels like the only time he's in the news is either alleged
discontent with the New Orleans Pelicans or an injury update that pushes his timetable further
back. This guy doesn't turn twenty two until July, and before all of
this foot trouble, he was coming off a season where in sixty one games
he averaged twenty seven point seven point two rebounds three point seven assists. He
was starting to tap into some whatever position you want to call him, but
with a point tacked on to the front of it, role where he was
the primary ballhandler and pick and roll situations in transition, and it was unstoppable
because defenses could not keep him away from the basket no matter what they did,
and he was starting to show a better grasp of passing out of that
situation as well, where he was just this unstoppable offensive force who very much
seemed like he was going to be a yearly factor in the MVP conversation.
And now all of a sudden, we're talking about a guy who isn't yet
twenty two and is dealing with some chronic injury issues, maybe with some motivation
issues. We've all seen the stories about how he may have fallen asleep during
New Orleans team meetings, how he may already want out and forcing his way
to a different organization, how he has shown up out of shape and hasn't
kept himself in that peak physical condition that he needs to be in in order
to dominate. So how do you square those factors together so to meet This
was the point in the draft where, following Evan Mobley and bam on a
bio for me, I was willing to take that flyer because this pick could
age terribly where he might not be a relevant NBA player for too long.
If these injuries and trends continue like he has not gotten on the floor this
season, and it's not the first time he's dealt with a major injury.
But if he does, even at fifty percent, he is a dominant force
the likes of which we have not really seen because there is no comparison for
him. There is no comparison for his frame, which is approximated at ginormous
in every way and high flying athletic ability and skill. He could very well
be number one on this list if he's healthy, and if he stays healthy
and if he's motivated, and he could also be out of the top fifty.
So I'm willing to take that chance here. He's kind of like if
early era Lakers Shack could run your offense from the point of attack, might
be the best way to find him, because which is unfathomable just because he's
like two thousand one Lakers Shack might be the most dominant player in NBA history.
Yeah, because he wasn't. He's clearly not as chiseled as Orlando Magic
error Shacks. I'm not eracing that shock. You want go back and watch
Orlando Magic Shack highlights. He was usually in the brake sometimes too. That's
fair too. So man, is he a shorter version of or he's thicker
than that though, which is why I compared in the Lakers one. My
Zion is thicker than a shack. But yeah, I had him, so
he was your number six guy. He was my number six guy, and
I'm drafting him a number seven he was. He was my number six guys
well, And I think, look, the other thing you could factor into
is, even if he's not injured, what does the late middle to late
stages of his career then look like, because there have been people who floated.
Since he's such an anomaly and his game is prided on this just like
galactic unnatural burst, could he peter out sort of quit like similar to the
not I don't want to, but like Andre Drummond, think about how like
shortened his prime became and I don't he was. They're not the same players,
but their games were so tried it on physical tools. My pushback there
would be that it felt more like the NBA moved beyond Drummonds skill set,
just like looking at him, it just feels like he can't move the same
ways. But anyway, regardless though, because of what Zion is doing.
Do you trust him to have more craft? And I think he would need
an outside game like this can't I don't want to. I don't want to
say he's the big It seems reductive to be like, is this going to
be a tale of Russell Westbrook or something? But just like, if he
doesn't have the physical explosive advantage, what does that player look like? All
of that being said, this is someone right now flying up and down the
court and can finish in a variety of ways and can also just run your
offense in the half court, as we saw with New Orleans through the latter
half, latter two thirds whatever it was of last season. And so his
ceiling on this is is one. He might also have a lower floor than
where we both put him, which was at number six. So he might
have the highest variance of outcomes. And let's say the non rookie is just
because they're so tough to but he has a high variant outcome, he could
This is someone who could just be one of the most dominant players of all
time, though if he stays healthy that is not that's not even close to
a stretch. To say the other point, I think we need to make
here is that we haven't mentioned his defense to this point because it hasn't really
existed much. So that's a legitimate knock against him beyond the injury and motivation
concerns. But he's already been so valuable even while being a total negative on
defense, a total non factor on defense. What if that changes because he
has the physical profile where you can carve out a serious and substantial, impactful
defensive role for him. Yeah, even if he just did stuff like remembering
where or stop flying asleep on corner three point shooters, that would just help
make a big difference. So we both had him in the same spot,
and he was the number seven pick. So my number seven ranked player who
was going eighth overall is Jason Tatum. And I thought longer about this than
I initially believed I had to. He is having a down year, but
let me contextualize this down year. His down year is still average twenty five
point five points, three point eight assists, shooting forty seven point six percent
on twos, and we all hate his two point selection shot slash for the
most part, and thirty two point seven percent on threes is by far and
away the lowest mark of his career, and when you're looking at someone who
his first four seasons shot thirty nine point six percent from downtown, I'm gonna
go ahead and call this an outlier just in the wrong direction. His shot
difficulty is at once necessary and also self inflicted, because when you look at
the tough mid Rangers or even sign him, the way he bails out of
his drives some when he really does get to the rim, though, you
start to envision him being like this five top ten player in the league.
He will He has a perpetual All NBA case over the past few years.
And whether if you don't think that he can ever be your best playmaker,
I probably think we're at the point where it's just we need to assume that
we can say that about a lot of the other guys that are going to
appear in this list, beam Adebayo being one, I don't think he should
be the person who's necessarily running your offense. So if you still have someone
who can be your number two passer in addition or your number one score,
who can funnel the offense through and crunch time, who can hit again,
I know this season's been different, but can hit these just wildly difficult side
step threes more consistently to this point than Luca doncich has. By the way,
when you're looking at his step the different variations of the shop, you
get the gist there. And he's also I don't know if it's I don't
know if I should call him underrated on defense or is he just like slept
On on defense. He's good on defense, and it's not someone that you
would trust to lock down the other team's best player one on one. When
you're the Celtics, specifically, you're going to give that responsibility to Marcus Smart.
You're more likely to give it to a Jalen Brown. I still think
Jayson Tatmum is probably one of the best off ball defenders in the league,
and on a different team maybe he'd be saddled with more responsibility and show things
that we haven't seen from him yet. And just knowing like he is the
archetype of player you want six eight, play the two, three or four
like just essentially positionless at those spots. I feel like we've now veered too
much towards yet. I want to say, right flat, I think this
is the best way his season he's probably been. I think there's like this
Raptors Celtics rivally on Twitter. I think Pascal Siakam this season has been better
than Jayson Tatum this season. But when we're talking long term, I think
Jayson Tatum is still going to regularly be one of the most valuable players in
the league, perennial All MBA case and like if that's if that doesn't put
you in the top ten of this exercise because even looking at my number,
I won't spoil him, but my number eleven guy, my number twelve guy,
my number thirteen guy, I wouldn't say that about any of them.
I wouldn't come host to say they'll be a perennial All NBA candidate. It's
amazing how much we're in lockstep in this exercise because Tatum was also my number
seven and we did not sink on these beforehand. I think what's changed my
perception of Tatum this season is I'm not sure how much I believe in like
the MVP conversation ceiling for him at this point. But if this is the
floor for him, it's a pretty damn good floor because he is still in
the All Star mix. While having an aberration of a poor shooting season,
because he's still playing high quality defense, as you mentioned, particularly in off
ball situations, and given this roster construction in Boston, where the Celtics themselves
have admitted that they are often operating without much shooting on the court, it
shouldn't be surprising that he's been the subject of so much defensive attention that it's
making it harder for him to score efficiently as he has in past seasons.
I think, you know, we we've talked about Zion, We've talked about
Mobili, We've talked about dam Adabaio and Lamello Paul. I think Tatum is
a safer bet to have more All Star appearances than those guys because they have
more variants than he's going to have. I think all of them have higher
ceilings than him at this point, which is why they went earlier in this
exercise. But Tatum is as weird as it is to say about him now.
He is the high floor lower ceiling selection in this exercise, and this
is a totally valid spot for him to go. And the other thing.
But I will say about his passing, I do think it's probably a little
bit better than advertised. Over the past two years I think he's showing the
ability and a half court to make more complicated passes. And one of the
bigger differences this year is Boston not hitting shots. If you want to get
into the quality of his passes this season, I'm not dug dug deep enough
into that, but he's averaging eight point five potential assists per game against eight
point one eight point one this year versus eight point five last year in locks.
The big difference here, Teammates shot fifty point nine percent off his passes
last year. They're shooting forty three point six percent this season. How responsible
is that for him? I have not How responsible is he for that,
if at all, I haven't dug into it, but that is a huge
drop, and so I think it's easily explained away by the personnel and the
system. You know, we knew that Brad Stevens was a high end coach.
Emaudoca hasn't shown the same creativity drawing up sets that maximize Boston's personnel,
and some of the leading personnel have not been available. You know, Jaylen
Brown has not always been on the court with Jason Tatum this season, and
there are a lot of options off the bench who are score first, but
only off the bounce kind of scorers. So I think it's easy to explain
away this as a byproduct of what's around him. The other thing I'll say
is this is just to the Ebadoca point. Just watching there's like two Celtics
crunch tine games or something I was watching, and then you have Grant Williams
and Josh Richardson. But I think it probably been there two best shooters this
season from beyond the art. Both of them are on the bench. It's
like, we need to give we I'm not a Selfistan Clint Way, the
selfist, need to give Jason Tatum and just in general their half court offense
more room to breathe. And they don't have enough knockdown shooters to do that,
and they're not really playing the ones that they have in the moment.
I know you have players in theory you're supposed to better, but at some
point it has to become about like the dynamics of how your offense is being
run right there with you. You also have the nine pick. Though I
have the nine pick. He is my a ranked player on this This is
my swing. This is my biggest wing I have Scottie Barnes. I think
he's going to be the best player from his draft class. Watching him with
the Raptors this season, he has shown brilliant hints of doing pretty much everything.
When he experiments with taking jumpers off the dribble, No, they're not
going into a high clip. He is. I think he's already even you
look at his three point percentage, but you kind of look at some of
the splits this season. He's going to be an okay three point shooter off
the catch. His ability to make passes right now, both on them and
from standstills, His ability to use his body to get through the lane and
to navigate traffic, he probably is gonna I shouldn't say probably. I think
he's gonna end up having a much better handle than a Pascal Siakam type Biggish
whatever player. I do know they play different roles, but they're pretty close
in size. It's just not as loose, and I think you see more
of a tightness and a craftness there when you're looking at the way he dribbles.
And this is someone who's already made just a bunch of high level plays
on the defensive end. Who is gonna if he's not your best defender,
He's at least someone that you could move up and down the assignment spectrum without
worrying about him torpedoing your defense or looking overmatch. And I'm saying this about
someone that I don't know that he's mastered any one thing this season, but
his finishing is like his finishing in between, like from further away from the
basket than I would have thought, is much better than I would have expected.
But this might just be one of the single best all round players in
the NBA one day, and it was hard for me to leave him off
the top ten by doing that, and so he ended up. You know,
I have him higher than Evin Mobley because I do think when I watched
the way he plays, I think he winds up having a substantially bigger role
on the offensive end one day than a Nevin Mobley does. We'll see whether
I'm right or wrong. But Scotty Barnes, he has a real chance as
of right now to beat Devin Mobley. Is Rookie of the Year based off
what I've seen of the Raptors lately, and this is the best version of
themselves because Scottie Barnes is still new looking at their personnel, I think Evin
Mobley probably has a better chance overall, but like I am seeing so much
brilliant high end flashes from every area of Scottie Barnes's game, where no,
he's not the dominant defender that Mobiley is right now, but he's also doing
things on offense in general that Mobiley either is an allowed to do or can't
do at the moment. And it was just tough for me to not make
this little dice roll. And I don't even think it's like an egregious dice
roll, because I'm sure you have him in your top twelve or thirteen.
I didn't rank beyond ten. I do have Scottie Barnes as one of my
five leading honorable mentions, but I did not rank within that group that said
he would have to be at lead. The highest he could be for me
would be number twelve, because I do have him with the third highest ceiling
in this draft class behind Evan Mobley for obvious reasons since I've gone over them
and Kaid Cunningham, who has not been as good as Scottie Barnes that is
beyond debate during their rookie seasons. But I just I see the intelligence that
Cunningham plays with as a primary ball handler, the angles he's already taking,
the passing ability that he has, the smoothness to his game, and I
still have him a little bit ahead in that long term conversation. So Kaid
Cunningham is another one of my five leading honorable mentions, and since he would
be just ahead of Barnes for me, Barnes at best here would be number
twelve. But again, like, that's not an insult to him, because
I fully agree with everything you just said, and his potential is unbelievable and
Toronto has a true gem in him and will for a long time to come,
and he very reasonably could be included as he is here in one of
the ten featured spots. So I in no way disagree or hate on this
pick, even if he's not in my top ten. I like it more
so to you. Putting Evan Mobley at number four this early is what I
didn't swing. Yeah, that's a swing. So I'll close it out with
the number ten pick here, and I'm gonna go with Shay Gil just Alexander,
because I think we sometimes forget about players in his situation where he is
so obviously a game changing force. He really benefited from the year spent alongside
Chris Paul where the game was just able to slow down for him. He
was able he learned how to manipulate defenses to his advantage. He has every
skill in the book. He's not having the greatest season right now, but
that's such a testament to the lack of quality around him, because the Thunder
are just shamelessly giving so much run to so many young players and seeing what
they have, you know, as as good as someone like Josh Giddy is,
who I did have listed, though not in my leading Honorable Men,
as a player who deserves some consideration, there's there's still there's still some up
and down nature to his game, and they're trying to find out what they
have in Pokashevski and so many other young guys, and still seeing if Darius
Basley deserves more run and lou Dort has, you know, warts of his
own. So for guiltis Alexander to be shouldering the load of a clear number
one with that around him, it's understandable that his shooting percentages has suffered,
that he's turning the ball over a little more frequently, and that shouldn't take
away from the fact that he is a potential MVP threat down the road as
the Thunder put better pieces around him, or he's playing basketball in a different
location. He is. He is that good, and I know how much
you love him too, so I know that you're not going to hate on
this pick at all. He was my note. He was actually listened at
number eight for me, so I'm as a general manager of this fake team
that doesn't even have to play together, I'm thrilled to get him at number
ten. He was your eighth, number eight guy. He was number eight
for me, so he's my number eleven guy. He just missed the top
ten. And I recognize we you know, I'm on the same page with
you with what he's done on offense and this season specifically, like you can't
measure you just can't measure him in raw efficiency because of the difficulty inherent of
his role. But then also just like his higher quality looks are like probably
just so much lower quality than a lot of the other guys. I haven't
seen it from him on defense since his rookie year, really, and I
don't know if that was because he was on a good Clipper team, and
maybe he was it was easier for that. I don't want to say cover
up, like I don't remember him being. The past two years have been
a little bit disappointing. From watching him defensively, I thought, this is
gonna be someone who could defend from like the point of attack and basically go
up against one through three's, and I just haven't seen it. Is he
doing too much on offense? Is he just not as good? He's just
stiffer on defense than I thought he was gonna be after watching him really as
a rookie when he was with Clippers. That I remember, and that's why
I nudged him out because I was trying to split hairs somewhere. But he
is. He's clearly in the top ten consideration and he by the way,
the only reason he was bumped out is because we did not sink while we
were doing their list. I didn't have in my top ten. Obviously.
I know it's not on my top fifty because I forgot about him since he
hasn't played this season. That was a narrow that Adam caught, and I
caught that he left Michael Porter Junior off his Spoilerler Michael Porter didn't even come
close to the top ten of my list. I am though about injury red
flags, My fucking god. So I do want to run through because we
were each going to have a player who was in our top ten but has
not been brought up to this point. So I want to run through who
that is for me, my leading honorable mentions, and then just the other
names that I considered, which is a long list and still not a complete
list, because I think that there are so many players who belong in this
conversation that we have to at least mention their names and give them some love.
So do you want me to run through mine and then you can go
through yours? Yeah. So my number ten was Anthony Edwards. Just the
growth that he's already shown from the beginning of his career. He's obviously a
gifted scorer with just jaw dropping athleticism, but the growth that he's shown as
an off ball mover, as a shooter, as a passer, as a
defender who has a little bit more situational awareness than he did early in his
rookie year. The talent is so clearly there, and I think if he
was given the opportunity to be a true number one on a team without Karl
Anthony Towns, without D'Angelo Russell. The numbers he put up this early in
his career would be unfathomable. So I wanted to give him the love of
being in the top ten. And I thought he was gonna end up on
my team because I thought we were gonna be in total lockstep for the top
ten. But he, I guess, goes undrafted here and I was gonna
say, let me, I should say where he was online was twelve,
right behind Shay. I just I think I'm waiting to see like or methodicalness
from him on offense and like part of the then particularly explosives, part of
his charm. And then my number ten guy was was Kade who I put
him there and didn't slingshot him above a Mobley Barnes because I do question whether
he's ever going to be a dominant player in every one area, but I
think he's been. If people haven't watched enough of the Pistons or Kade this
year, Kate Cunningham has been really, really good and he's one I don't
want to wish this upon Mobley or Barns, but he's like one. If
they miss a couple of weeks here, he might enter the Rookie of the
Year, that's how good he's been. And he might finish third on the
ballot as it is. I know Shane Goon and Franz Wagner and Christa Wardey
exist, but Ky Cunningham is going to get a lot of top three consideration
for sure. My other honorable mentions, aside from Scotty Barnes and Kate Cunningham,
who we've already talked about, Darius Garland. I'm not quite sure what
the ceiling looks like, how much he's going to evolve beyond the player he
is right now, but the passing acumen, the additional scoring ability we're seeing
this season made him a legitimate threat to enter my top ten. I don't
want to forget about Jamal Murray because he does still qualify from an age perspective
here. He hasn't returned from his torn acl for the Denver Nuggets yet,
but just a seminal scoring talent with so much offensive swagger who elevates the Nuggets
to another level because of his well rounded offensive ability. And then Tyrese Haliburton
was the other of my leading honorable mentions the all around game. We saw
that as a rookie. This year, we're seeing him flash more spurts of
excellence as a lead ball handler who is initiating offense. I didn't really know
if he had that kind of juice to his game. He does. He
is going to be in the All Star conversation in the Western Conference even without
injury replacements in perpetuity one hundred percent deserves some consideration here. And then the
other names that I had written down, and I'll give the caveat that I
did not write every name that I gave any consideration to, like Jalen Green
and Jalen Suggs, Franz Wagner, rookies who we just haven't seen enough from.
They deserve merit even if I didn't list them here, because I still
have to mention Jaren Jackson Junior. And these are not in order, Jaren
Jackson Junior, Dear and Fox, DeAndre, Aden, Desmond, Bane,
Tyler, Hero, Brandon Ingram, John Collins, Jared Allen, o g
Na Noby, Miles Bridges, Lonzo Ball, Josh Giddy, R. J.
Barrett, and Michael Porter Junior. Just there's so much under twenty five
talent in the NBA, which is why this whole exercise was such an agonizingly
difficult one, because like, I feel terrible that Dear and Fox, that
DeAndre Ayden, maybe even Tyler Hero aren't even in my honorable mentions. I'm
gonna I don't feel terrible about anything. There's talent, and these are rankings.
I know a lot of people do tears, and maybe those are fine,
but like you would have to cut off people from it in general,
I don't feel bad about this at all. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong.
I'm trying to give honest opinions here, though, So we did we
differ that. I don't feel bad about my list at all. It was
hard and it made me want to play, and it's just way more heartless
than me. Yeah, that that too, we had. I can't do
that because I don't have any hair left. So there's another difference. I
was good, he actually did you actually did pull your hair out? That's
why. Yeah, I wanted to interject, but forgot to. I think
we had the same top fifteen players because I had Shay at number eleven,
Edwards at twelve, Jamal Murray at thirteen, Darius Garland at fourteen and Tyres
halbertn at fifteen. Og was the toughest player lead out of the top fifteen.
For me, I think we've now seen with It's cool that he can
hit like these like slow, deliberate off the dribble threes. But the Raptors
are clearly going to be best when he is their third or fourth option,
when they don't need to do a bunch of complicated stuff on offense. So
I might be out on the idea that like og Ana Noby can do a
lot more on offense and that's not look I I have him at sixteen,
so like I have him ahead of the Aaron Fox right now, who I'm
in love with, and Fox was actually much lower than that. But so
yeah, there's just there's a lot of talent. Like I said, I
don't feel bad about the way the list shook out. I did include one
of the I don't know if you mentioned Jonathan Cominga, I think is a
name that needs to be put him here because he's just and the other one
is like James Wiseman, I need and give a little bit of consideration too,
which is kind of never even crossed my mind until he said his name
right now he was on my top sixty names or whatever it was. But
I also didn't like at that point, I wasn't going I ranked them,
but I was ranking them as I went along, So I probably forgot some
people point though, Like I think, if we do this next year,
which I maybe we should, and I have my spreadsheet saved with both of
our rankings, so we can take a look at how our top fifteen basically
shook out, I could see him as being a name that's like in here
that wouldn't even be close to here right now because he just hasn't have enough
playing time. And I think, you know, Michael Porter Junior might be
there too, because he's the type of person that if he was healthy and
it's just like exploding. And look, even if the Aaron Fox was playing
like where he was last, well, he'll he'll graduated from He's probably in
the top ten if that's the case, right, he won't be next season
because that'll be his age twenty five season, but this will be fun to
revisit. And so they're all I mean, like you could I have Gary
Trent Junior's sucking on here like Desmond Vane. We didn't talk about there.
There's just why you're Austin right, And Denny Avvia like that's someone that I
could just see, like, I don't know if he'll get to the I
could see him entering the periphery of it, like my top fifteen. So
there's I'm currently pulling an Adam with all star selections right now. I'm saying
top fifteen. I went top fifteen deep in the rankings here, so let's
run. Let me run through these really quickly, and then I'll name which
five I ended up with. So I can't time stamp if people just want
to skip to see what our teams were. But my top fifteen in this
exact order were Luca Jah, Trey LaMelo, bam Zion, Jason Tatum,
Scottie Barnes, Evan Mobley, Kaide Cunningham, Shaye Gilges, Alexander Anthony Edwards,
Jamal Murray, Darius Garland, and Tyrese Haliburton. My team in this
draft ended up being Luca LaMelo, Ball bam Adebayo, Jason Tatum, Scottie
Barnes. And I'm gonna be honest, we didn't draft for fit. That's
like not that's like a fair roster like you think you fits a little better
than mine if we were including that, I actually don't have my top fifteen
ridden out anymore because I was deleting them as your top fifteen. Okay,
go for it. So you had Luca one, Jaw two, Trey three,
Your fourth was Evan Mobley, Your fifth was Bamata Bio, six was
Zion Williamson, seven was Jason Tatum, eight was Shay Gilgist Alexander, your
nine was LaMelo Ball and your ten was Anthony Edwards. Was for you,
Wow, you love Kay Conningham off your list? Yeah, he was my
number one among the honorable mentions, and I wanted so badly to get him
in there, but I could not elevate him over Edwards because ultimately Edwards has
shown it and Cunningham hasn't yet. It's been an up and down rookie season
and even the ops have not matched what Everwards has done yet. And this
is you didn't rank them, but you had the same like you had kid
in there, your Jamal Murray, Darius Garland, Tyrese Haliburton, and Scott
Barnes Gotty Barnes. So we had the same top fifth team, which actually
really funny because I think you could have made a case or at least like
another five or six names to be different. It is fascinated that it were
worked out that way. But my team ended up being John Moran, Trey
Young, Evan Mobley, Zion Williamson, and Shay Gil Shay Gil just Alexander.
And if you think that SGA could play the three, then this might
work too. Yeah. I mean, look the way that Evan Mobley has
played this season, I won't rule anything out. He could play with Zion,
That's fine, just go ahead and do it. So sure, this
was when we want we do want to run a poll on this. We're
gonna wait a few days just to not spoil it too much for people.
But we're gonna have to be careful how we frame the poll question because fit
didn't matter, current level doesn't matter except how it informs us about the future.
So I can see like, we're gonna have to be careful here so
we don't get any any votes. They are like, yeah, like we
add up drafted three point guards. Yeah, you could also just if you
finish off your top fifteen list with those five players, we could just ask
who had the better top fift team ranking. Maybe they were so similar that
it would be negligible with the fact that they're all the same, but I
was gonna say they're all the same players, so it would work. You're
gonna have to figure out how to frame this because I didn't even understand the
point of the draft aspect of this exercise, so that's going to fall on
you. Yeah, just something different, that's the whole point. This was
fun, though. If you've made it this far and you have not rate,
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I'm at dan FA Valley FA v A L. Until next time, we
leave you the shout out to the one, the only. He did make
the top sixteen on my list. He was the first honorable mention outside of
the top fifteen. Frankielkeenam