Speaker 1: What is up, fellows, Siccos I am Dan Valley coming
at you with my one my old name, I certified
fantabulists co host mister Grant Hughes. It's a special day
around these parts because we are doing our first ever
under the Radar storylines draft now that we are.
Speaker 2: Almost a month into the NBA season, Grant, and.
Speaker 1: So this will give us an opportunity to one talk
about things that we do believe are flying under the
radar and also hit on some teams and players that
maybe we haven't been able to go in depth with
with each other just yet. Before we get started and
lay out how we're approaching this, Grant, how heck are
you doing?
Speaker 3: I just want to say you sound great and nobody
listening to this is going to care, But boy do
we have some audio issues in the lead up.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: We had audio issues in the previous podcast. Thank you
to everyone who listened to it. We believe they're fixed
now with the exception of.
Speaker 3: But we'll see, we'll see yeah, or we'll hear.
Speaker 1: I guess I wanted to ask you when we're approaching this,
and we'll alternate picks, how are you when you're saying, okay,
this is my first pick. Are you taking something that
you just think has flown under the radar the most
or that you believe is a combination of we're not
talking about it a ton, but this means a whole
bunch more than some of the other things we'll talk about.
Speaker 3: I would add a third component. Both of those things
are factors. Sorry, nope, I'm fighting the hypothetical. The third
component is I just want to talk about this because
I think it's interesting and hopefully that comes through. It's
the under the radar thing is always tricky because by definition,
if we're talking about it, it's on our radar. It's
just worth you know. So we're kind of saying this
is something that I think warrants a little more attention
than it's gotten. But then, of course, if you're a
fan of this team, you've absolutely paid attention to that
thing because it's it's on your radar, So take it
take it that way. Ultimately, it's just some thing I
think is interesting that I want to discuss with you,
and I'm not gonna apologize for that.
Speaker 1: So I approached it from something similar, but it was
more so I think that this matters, and it's not
being talked about enough. But I'm gonna wait the what's
the gravity of the impact this is going to have
for on this team or just on the rest of
the season, or maybe what we think about in some
cases just the landscape of the entire league. I don't
have anything else, though, Do you have anything else before
we dig in?
Speaker 3: I think we should get to it.
Speaker 1: I am an incredibly generous person. So I'm going to
give you the first pick in this draft.
Speaker 3: I'm going to select Dan uh. I don't know what's
a what's a label it exactly? But let's talk about
Draymond Green's agenda comments.
Speaker 1: By the time, I should have known you were going
to go there, but I didn't. I didn't think you
were gonna go there.
Speaker 3: Really, it's you, It's I want to talk about most Yeah,
why not? You have to draft for yourself. It's not
about winning it. The way you win it is to get.
Speaker 2: If you don't look out for you, who will.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you got to pick the things that matter to you.
It doesn't need to be the best, No, I think.
I think in a real way this was interesting. So
I if you're a Warriors fan, you're aware of this.
This was like way down the list. I think on
some ESPN, you know, if you're just clicking through the
news there, the Warriors get absolutely they've had terrible losses
this year, Indiana, Milwaukee, they've been terrible on the road.
They get just rocked by the thunder, which, like it
turns out, no shame because that just happens to everybody,
but it was a particular just drubbing. And then after
the fact, Dreymond Green says, I think everybody was committed
to winning back then, talking about the immediate aftermath of
the Jimmy Butler trade last year and doing that anyway possible.
Right now, it doesn't feel that way. Further, he said,
I think everyone has a personal agenda in this league,
but you have to make those personal agendas work within
the team confines. If it doesn't work, you kind of
got to get rid of your agenda or eventually this
is great, or eventually the agenda is the cause of
someone getting rid of you. Pretty solid, pretty solid wordsmithing
there in that article or in one of the articles
with those quotes. Anthony Slater, who's very close to the
Warriors of ESPN, mentions Brandon Pajemski and Jonathan kaminga by name,
does not mention any other players, and the reason he
mentions them one is because they were both removed from
the starting lineup the next game. But two, this is
the quote slater. Pajemski made a number of comments in
the lead up to the season about his long term
career ambitions, including a news conference answer to a question
about whether he wanted to be as great as Steph Curry.
The pull quote from that is Pajemski said he wants
to be better than him, which elicited some quote eye
rolls and continued references from several within the organization. You
can imagine everyone just giving him shit all the time
for oh, look here comes better than Steph. Look out.
You know, the context of that is not as bad
as it makes it sound less terrible. What the actual
quote was is Pajemski is I kind of asked, like
it's it's in the vein of you know, what makes
Curry great, or like what makes a great player? And
Pajemski's being complimentary talking about like how not everybody essentially
has the same drive as Steph and what it takes
to be that great, and he says I want to
be better than him. I think that's a tall task,
but I want to maximize my talent in the league
and get as much as I can, get as much
out of it as I can. Like pretty benign when
framed that way, just like maybe don't say you want
to be better than Steph on the Warriors. So the
agenda's thing with Kaminga has been a longstanding, you know,
issue of like he wants to be something other than
what the Warriors want him to be. That's the central
tension that produced the contract dispute and the lineup, you know,
shuffling him in and out of the starting five. I
was curious because watching the team this year, I don't
know if you maybe you can chime in here, it
never seemed to me like, oh my god, Pajemski's out
to get his numbers or oh Kaminga is really If anything,
Kaminga has embraced the team stuff more. He's rebounding this year,
he's you know, he's been assigned to the most dangerous
opposing matchup. Not saying he's done well in that job,
but he's embraced it. So I don't see anything on
the court that speaks to these guys are not of
taking a team first approach right, and you can look
at some of the data too, like you know the
the another poll quote was that the coaching staff has
sometimes had to remind certain players about their touch time
and about zero point five basketball. That was another very
obvious reference to Kaminga and Pajemski, who the stats do
show just are on the ball, take longer to make
decisions than the other non you know, Pat Spencer, Steph Curry,
those guys bring the ball up. They're going to be
having the higher dribble per touch stats, which they do
more touch time. Draymond Green has more touches than anyone,
but his dribbles per touch are like under two. Same
with Moses Moody and Will Richard, which is relevant because
those guys are getting starts now over Pajemski and Kaminga.
The point is the numbers aren't and the eye test
aren't showing Kminga and Pajemski being selfish. So Dan, what
I think this is is like more of a personality thing.
There's been reports throughout his career that Pajemski has a
pretty outsized amount of confidence and is not shy about
talking about how great he can be.
Speaker 1: Can I can I interject for a second, when you
have Joe lacub calling him a future All Star, it's
probably he's kind of inflating or enabling that type of mindset.
Speaker 3: Then good point. I think it exists in Pajemski just naturally.
But you're right, and to build on that. Who's been
a bigger Kaminga backer than Joe Lacub So in terms
of like enabling or empowering that kind of mindset, you know,
it applies to both of them. To me, this this
isn't about the on courts or like like outright selfishness
or personal agenda stuff. I think if you're critical of
Kminga and Pajemski, Kaminga again, like he's playing more, scoring
less this year, he started a bunch, has the highest
turnover rate of his career, lowest steel rate, He's rebounding more,
that's great. Pajemski's number is not that different really from
last season. I think their limitations are just that. I
think they're their limitations. I think, like the things these
guys have not been good at, quick decisions, spot up shooting,
like all this other stuff that are shortcomings that's not
born out of agenda stuff. It's born out of like
they're just not good at those things and that doesn't
fit with the team. And then layered on top of
that is I think the just kind of personalities may
be over confidence, maybe entitlement, call it what you want.
That's the issue I think the veterans have with these guys.
It's not selfishness per se. Does that resonate like because
to talk about it in terms of agendas it makes
it seem like these two guys are, you know, bad actors.
I don't think that's quite right. I think it's the
veterans actually just like don't like these guys that much,
and they don't care for their personalities and they're annoyed
by what they're not good at within the scheme of
how they want to play.
Speaker 1: Which I think it's easy to and this gets conflated
too much. Is when people don't like how a player
is playing, don't like their contract, don't like their style,
is it gets connected to their overall humanity to where
Jonathan Kamingo's just selfish because he wants to get paid
or he wants to be a star in this league,
but he's also just not good at Inherently, he's not
good at the read and react or the processing stuff. Yeah,
and by the way, there's I think what we also
under sell collectively is generational gaps in the NBA. It's
just look at the age difference between these guys. The
other thing I will say, too, is when you're looking
at on the court, it does seem like there might
be some just I didn't know enough, like plugged into
what Brandon Pajemski thinks of himself or maybe how he's
viewed around the Dubs. It felt like there was more
of that with Kaminga, but maybe just because he was
higher profile. When you look specifically on the court, I
kind of feel like Brandon Pajemski is good at a
lot of the things that the Dubs like to do.
He's just maddingly inconsistent. We say this about Kaminga, but
he was inconsistent for the first few years of his career.
While feels like playing his own brand of basketball, I
don't view and you've seen way more of Pajemski and
the Warriors than I have. I don't view him as
someone who is just forcing them to deviate from the
script unless it's because one he's too inconsistent or two
what I would say is they've kind of at points
needed him to be someone who he's not. And it's
just like similar with Jonathan Kaminga to where well, if
you want Jonathan Kamena to be more plug and play
than we saw at the beginning of this season, you're
gonna have to spell out to me how you plan
on making that happen. The final thing before I throw
it to you is just this isn't this I guess
comes back to the generational disconnect. But if there's this
inherent impatience because these guys Draymond Green, Steph Jimmy Butler
are kind of at the end of their primes, at
the end of their careers versus these guys who are
at the beginning and just when you look at the
roles both of them have had, but more so cominga
when there is just the inconsistency of how they're used
or they haven't been able to get the let's say,
the amount of runway or the freedom to fail. The
way that guys and maybe teams that don't have is
soaring expectations immediately when they come in. I don't want
to say that's done a disservice to them. I think
there's being in a winning culture like matters a great
deal to development. I think that this is just what
Draymond Green to me is saying. I'm not putting it
on anyone, but I don't know that I look at
these two youngsters specifically and say, well, like, yeah, they're
they're upending the Warriors somehow, and it's within their control
to stop it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's a really good way to frame it.
And I think maybe the what that really means is
the veterans who, by the way, like it's Curry has
been sick and missed a bunch of time and played
poorly at a couple other times because he just wasn't healthy.
He's had crazy turnover issues, Draymond has had of just some.
Speaker 2: Wild company dropped him because he's been terrible.
Speaker 3: Right, what's he gonna do? Is he gonna be okay?
Do you think? Uh?
Speaker 2: He?
Speaker 3: So it's not as if the Warrior struggles Oh, entirely
to Pajemski and cominga that's like, that's ridiculous, that's just
objectively untrue. What this feels like to me is the
veterans are frustrated, and I think the real source of
that frustration is that COMINGA and Pajemski specifically, and you
kind of as you said, can't do the cannot not,
will not, but like they they just not every player
can do everything right. There are player types, there are
strengths and weaknesses. They can't do the things that the
veterans really want them to do well enough. And I
think that's creating frustration, and it's combining with some personality
stuff and it's coming out as like an agenda driven thing.
Like again, I don't see any like outward now so far,
any outward like I'm I'm frustrated, I'm I want to
play this way. It's just like Pajemski is not a
quick decision maker. He You're right, he's been inconsistent. His
limitations are he cannot athletically beat players. He comes to
two foot jump stops and picks up his dribble like
just all the time and gets stuck, and possessions just
go there to die. Kaminga processes slowly, has terrible hands
like just there's they just have limitations, and I think
that's been frustrating. So I think maybe the thing to
and by contrast, Moses Moody and will Richard are just
role players. And you've never heard Steve Kerr or the
team say anything bad about either of them because they
just shoot threes and try to make quick decisions and
play defense to the best of their ability. And in
some ways, like because they don't have the appearance of
like he can do more like Coaminga and Pajemski do,
they're not quite held to the same standard. Like if
if Moody has a bad shooting night, it's like, ah,
well he tried. But if, like if Pojemski has a
bad shooting night or doesn't facilitate like they need him to,
it's like, ah, this guy terrible. You know. There they're
victims kind of of their own parent greater skill sets.
Speaker 1: And it's not to it's not to downplay what we've
seen since they've come in to the league from Quenton
Post and Will Richard, But when you're drafted in the fifties, right, like,
the expectation based on is just so inherently low that
anything you're doing, even a Pat Spencer's whoa like this
is great, he.
Speaker 3: Did anything that's awesome, right, Like Quenton Post has done
anything great. Will Richard same thing, But it does kind
of you know, it's easy to fall into the like, well,
here's the Warriors and these Vets again just stunting the
grow both of young players because they you got to
play a certain way there. It's not really true. It's
if you have a certain skill set and a certain
mentality and you know how quote unquote know how to play,
I think you're gonna be fine. And like Moody and
Richard and Post are good examples of that, albeit I
don't know none of them have the ceiling of Pajemski
or Kaminga, even though we're pretty low on those ceilings
now relative to where we were. I think the spin
it forward aspect that we probably got to get to
is like Kaminga was always going to be traded, and
now it seems much more likely that Pajemski might also,
you know, follow him out the door at the deadline
this year, just because the Warriors are turning away from
them already.
Speaker 1: Right, So I was gonna ask to you what you
think the longer term implications are of this, and what
is it if you're trading both of those guys, what
are you targeting? Like, who is there a player that
you're trying to consolidate into is it. And by the way,
you're limited in that technically too. If you don't want
to touch your three veterans the money that you can
send out, you could still do some things, but you
can't do these four for one trades because then what's
left with your rotation?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean a lot depends on how much they
get I think specifically out of Moody and Richard, because
you might say, well, we need some more three and
D wings to just throw out there with the three
old guys, and you know that'll be good. But if
those two guys are solid in that respect, then you
are looking again. Secondary creation is just gonna forever be
a thing like someone who can do the stuff Pajemski can't,
or or that Kaminga can't. I don't know who that is.
That's not a star that's gonna cost one of your
costly vets, right Chris paps Porzingis has kind of gotten
bandied around. I don't know if the Hawks have any
interest in that, but sure that gives you kind of
another Al Horford esque option. I suppose that. So that way,
you're you got three floor spacing centers if you count
posts in there with Horford and KP Like, I don't
know what that trade looks like. I'm just more focused
right now on I think he's This is the closest
I felt like to the Warriors have seen enough of
both of these guys now to feel like not quite
gonna work here.
Speaker 1: He has not been necessarily great to start the year.
But are you still a Derek White guy?
Speaker 3: Always forever going to be a Derek White guy? If
you could get Derek White for comingo or pods, I'm
doing it.
Speaker 1: I think it's gonna take both and there'd be other
machinations and okay, but that would be my guess. Even
with what is he shooting. His two point percentage is
pretty low this year, but yeah, I think he's shooting
Derek White on drives this year at thirty seven percent.
Speaker 2: I would probably still.
Speaker 1: Do it, but I'm not giving Like if I was
the Warriors, I would have given.
Speaker 2: Up everything for Derek White in the off season. I
now I'm saying a little.
Speaker 1: So final question, well, it's two separate questions. Will Kaminga
be on the Warriors past the trade deadline?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Or nay?
Speaker 3: No? Can't be? I mean if he is not, I mean,
if he is it's because, like I mean, I just
there's just nobody wants him, which is hard for me
to believe. I think somebody's still gonna think at that
money with that team option, like why not.
Speaker 2: Well, Pods still be on the Warriors after the trade deadline?
Speaker 3: Yes, or I'm gonna say, I mean, obviously more likely
than Kaminga, but I'll put it at let's just call
it fifty. Can I get away with saying fifty to fifty,
which is like not what I would have said at
the start of the year. I would have said, like
eighty five.
Speaker 2: What would you put the team? What would you put
Kamingas at?
Speaker 3: There's like a ten percent chance he's still on the
team after the deadline?
Speaker 2: Wow, Okay, all right.
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Speaker 2: Let's get to our number two pick.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go with uh all right, I'm gonna
go with this grant the Nuggets bench is kind of
a big deal.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: They were impacted a little bit because they let the
Clippers make a fa come back. The other night during
Nikoliokich's double Nickel, I don't know if you saw any.
Speaker 2: That performance just mine, my god, pretty good. He's Nikoliokch.
Speaker 1: This is gonna be spicy, but I think that he's
pretty good at basketball. However, this is the deepest team
that the Nuggets have ever had. They are currently grant
they were number one before the Clippers game.
Speaker 2: That has now changed.
Speaker 1: They are third in bench differential per one hundred possessions
only Toronto and then of course Oklahoma City because they
just have everything.
Speaker 2: In front of them at the moment.
Speaker 1: The degree to which this matters if you go back
in look during kind of the prime Jokich years, they're
bench differentials. In twenty four to twenty five they were
twenty fourth. In twenty three to twenty four they were
twenty second. The title year they were twenty ninth. The
year before that they were twenty third. They have only
had a bench that ranks in the top half of
point differential three times since Nikola Jokic entered the league,
and they've only had it inside the top ten once,
never anything inside the top five. Now, what does help,
of course, is that the Nuggets play a ton of
minutes with a bunch of starters on the court. I
think they have the largest shit in the league of
at least three starters on the court at all times
that matters. But they were doing things like that in
previous years and it wasn't working. And the fact that
you now can look at and say I was wrong
about the Tim Hardaway Junior edition. They just needed his
volume and just short term memory. He's hitting them now,
but like he's not gonna shoot forty six percent from
three forever.
Speaker 2: He will miss them and just continue to take them.
Speaker 1: And where you can see Cam Johnson kind of hesitating
this year and missing a bunch of wide open threes,
as Nuggets fans will tell you, some of them have
been airballs. Tim Hardaway Juniors doesn't have that in his jeans.
Bruce Brown, just the familiarity with how the Nuggets want
to play offensively, even though the personnel around him has
shifted a little bit huge.
Speaker 2: Peyton Watson, I think this has been the best defensive
season of his career.
Speaker 1: Still up and down on the offensive end, but that
ends up being like just looking at this Nuggets team
and thinking, oh, they go eight reliable guys deep. When
is the last time that we even thought we could say, oh, nine,
Jonas found Chunis. I didn't even mention they are winning
or they had until the Clippers game.
Speaker 2: Won the minutes he played.
Speaker 1: Without Nikoli Jokic on the court, you don't need to
win those minutes, but to just have a heartbeat in
those non Nakolijokic minutes and just someone who you can
either run things through. He can do some basic spot
up stuff. And again I think part of this is
Jamal Murray had that hot start, been a little up
and down ever since his passing. Just in the non
Jokic minutes, He's averaging Morris's per one hundred possessions without Jokic,
I think than he ever has before. So having the
starters there to uplift some of these guys is a
huge deal. But at the same time, like we haven't
been able to say that the Nuggets go even seven
reliable guys deep excuse me, and roughly forever. And now
we can sit here and I think reasonably say a eight,
like you can stretch it to nine. But if you think, okay,
Peyton Watson, Peyton Watson, Tim Hardaway's Tim Hardaway. We don't
like their base lines might swing a little bit more
turbulently than everybody else is.
Speaker 2: Even if it's seven or eight.
Speaker 1: That's just massive, and it's it's massive on the workload
for Nicole Jokic more than anyone because there are going
to be I would argue fewer games like the one
against the Clippers to where they feel the need, okay,
we have to insert them back in the fourth quarter.
This lead is getting a little bit and that some
of that might have been they wanted him to go
for sixty, but he has never operated like that, So
I just can't imagine that that factored into it too heavily.
Speaker 3: I think. I think one of the funniest stats about
this is that Jokic's on off differential is still plus
twenty eight point five. Just like that's even for him,
that's pretty high, and that's working off of a higher
reserve baseline. Just absurd, I wonder. So I think I agree.
I mean, I definitely agree with you that it does
feel like there are more real players here down through eight,
maybe nine that are gonna at least get you those
break even minutes or slightly better without Yokic in the game,
and without starters in the game. Or generally do you
think in what way is this meaningful? Is it meaningful
in a seeding sense to where Okay, Denver might be
able to get one or two probably not one, maybe
two in the West and that gets you homecored up
through the conference finals up until the conference finals. Or
is it this matters because of the lineups they'll be
able to put in playoff games, Like, you know what,
it is a regular season thing. What's because the Nuggets
goals are what they are. They're trying to win a championship,
So what is what does the depth really mean? Assuming
it's real.
Speaker 2: Even if it's a regular season thing.
Speaker 1: I think that you're still like preserving Nikola Jokic specifically,
or maybe even Aaron Goon, Like you're ensuring that these
guys get more rest in games, maybe some of them.
When you're looking at a Jamal Murray, when you're looking
at and Aaron Gordon don't have to play.
Speaker 2: In as many regular season games.
Speaker 1: If you're looking at the type of lineups they can
throw out in the postseason, I think one of the
biggest deals would be let's just say that Cam Johnson
doesn't ever normalize I expect him to, but you could
toggle and say, right, well, we have Tim Hardaway Junior,
or we have Bruce Brown, or we have Peyton Watson.
And it goes the same with Christian Brown, whose offense okay,
like we know what he could do around the basket,
but his shooting is going to be all over the place.
There might be certain defensive matchups to where you say,
you know what, like Peyton Watson, he can get around
screens better. He's just slimmer than Christian Brown, so let's
throw him in there and try that. So to have
more option And now I'm naming players that were already
on the team, but Peyton Watson just giving you a
higher defensive default maybe than he did. That's the type
of stuff that's going to matter. But I think it
just gives them more optionality in the playoffs to where
we know three of these guys aren't going anywhere when
it matters most on the floor, Aaron Gordon, Jamal Murray
and Nikoleokich have to be in the game. And I
think that you could maybe even elevate Christian Brown into
that or at least come pretty close. But I think
now they have more ways to toggle with let's say
the final two, or even just the final spot in
some of their most important playoff lineups and the starting five.
They want it to be the default. It should still
be the default, and I expect that it will be
good enough to be the default. But in the event
it can't, in the event that there's a matchup where
they don't think that that's going to work, they just
have more choices at their disposal. And I think, by
the way, having Bruce Brown and this version of Peyton
Watson and I think it allows David Adaman to just
try different things defensively as well. And I'm still kind
of holding out hope, and look, this could matter in
the playoffs if you go in against maybe Houston or Okase.
I want to see more Yonis, Valentiunas and Nicoliokic together.
I just want to see it. I think they've played,
Like last time I checked, it was like one minute
and I haven't seen it.
Speaker 3: So Valentunis is averaging twenty five and fourteen per thirty six,
So when he's out there, it's not for a long time,
but like he's doing stuff, he impacts the game every
time he is in it.
Speaker 2: There's value in being able to do that.
Speaker 1: Too, by the way, because we talk about this a
lot with other players, where it's hard for them to
come in and get in a rhythm. But if Yonahs
Valentinas can come in and play twelve to fifteen minutes
a game in these shorter blips and still just be
yonas Valentunis or be effective, that's a that's a bigger
victory than it like, yeah, it'd be I guess if
you wanted to play him twenty plus minutes and that's
how he gets his groove.
Speaker 2: It's just you can't do that because you have yokicch.
Speaker 3: It's interesting that I guess with the exception of Cam Johnson,
because I thought Cam Johnson is like, oh, we're gonna
see the best version of him because Jokic, and that's
just what happens. But other than him, the Nuggets right
now are very much playing too preseason expectations where it's like, well,
Jokicic'll be great, he'll have to do a little less,
he'll be more efficient than ever, and the bench is
good now, and it's kind of like, yeah, that's that's
where we are. They've if you're feeling like you can't
figure out the season and like where did what's wrong
with Orlando? Oh, no, Atlanta, even though those have signed
sort of normalized. But like Denver's doing what we kind
of thought Denver would do, which is which is a
nice thing I have. I have a pick. Now we
got to talk about the weird experiment that is the
Houston Rockets. So I kind of started formulating this watching
the Rockets Bucks game. It's probably about a week ago now.
It was a truly bizarre, just thing to behold where
all of Houston's exploitable weaknesses got exploited effectively, and like
it's still kind of produced strengths, which is just. And
what I mean by that is so in the first
half of that game, which Houston ended up winning, it
felt like the Bucks were gonna run away with this.
Milwaukee's playing a ton of own against lineups, big lineups
for the Rockets that couldn't shoot. Reach Shepherd had some
nice moments. By the way, your guy Reach Shepherd's looking
pretty solid sometimes lately, I'm very excited for you to.
Speaker 2: Pick it rolls now.
Speaker 3: He has moments, he has stretches where it's like that
guy can do stuff so great recovery from I pronounced
them dead probably two weeks ago. So the Bucks, playing
a ton of zone because the Rockets can't shoot, turned
the Rockets over a billion times in the first half
of that game and got a bunch of runouts, and
the points off turnovers were way out of whack in
Milwaukee's favor. The problem is it's really hard to box
out in a zone. So in addition to the Rockets
being just hell bent on offensive rebounds all the time. Anyway,
if you zone them, which like theoretically you should, right
because Aman Thompson, if he shooter, Alprinshan gun shot it
better still, don't believe in him. Steven Adams never gonna
shoot it. Like Tari Easton's open in the corner. Great,
we won that defensive possession. Like just across the board,
Durant's not gonna shoot threes. So like the zone makes sense,
except you can't box them out. So Houston wins the
rebounding battle of that game fifty to twenty seven and
has twenty offensive rebounds. It's just like the thing you
should do against the Rockets plays into their hands in
another way that can lose you the game. So just
as like a study in extremes, the Rockets are fascinating
for some numbers. Obviously number one and offensive rebound rate
forty point six percent, which is the difference between Houston
and the number two Utah Jazz shout out Jazz, good
job Fellas an offensive rebounding rate is about the same
as the difference between Utah and the number sixteen team.
So it's just like it's it's absurd how much more
the Rockets are successfully crashing the offensive glass. Steven Adams
has a huge amount to do with that biggest share
of the credit, but just collectively, that's kind of what's
working for the Rockets. We maybe knew that was coming
when they were gonna play so big. They're also number
twenty seven in turnovers. They turn the ball over like
all the time. So this creates this bizarre possession battle push,
push and pull, where yeah, we're gonna give you the ball,
but when we shoot it, we're also gonna get it again,
you know. So like the possession battle is always going
to be just unusual for them all season. They also
never foul their number one an opponent free throw rate.
The difference between them and Golden State at number two
is like three percent, which is just enormous. Their twenty
eighth in transition frequency. Opponents are eighth in transition frequency,
so the games are slow. It's just this is a
weird ass team and all the stuff that makes them
seem weak can be turned into strengths. So I just
I don't really have a point about this other than
Houston is unlike any team I could ever remember, And
I don't know, like, are we going to get into
the postseason and think, like, Okay, they just they turn
it over too much so they can't win, or it's
like it doesn't matter they turn it over so much
because they get a million offensive rebounds and that just
negates the giveaways and you can't zone them because they
can't shoot because they'll get more offensive rebound. I just
I don't know. We haven't really seen this before.
Speaker 1: Do you think I was going to ask this that
the way they're currently constructed it will be able to
work in the playoffs to where this style, especially on offense,
is going to hold up. And we've seen them make
some changes to where Okay, Josha Kogi is start now
and he's kind of just the extension of them playing
with another like he just has a big man skill
set on offense essentially.
Speaker 3: Right, I think it's most likely that we get into
it might not be a first round problem. Let's call
it the conference semifinals is when teams are good enough
at limiting the offensive rebounds to where the shooting limitations
and the turnovers make it so just they're like Houston's
effective field goal percentage is the worst of any team
in the playoffs, right, and like their offense is okay,
but not good enough because the second chance stuff isn't
sufficient to paper over the other issues. That's my guess.
But again, the extremity of the offensive rebounding is kind
of just like it makes me question that. But my gut,
don't you think like you can't have such an obvious
limitation and get real deep in the playoffs. That's where
I'm ultimately at. But like, I don't know, I've never
seen a team play like this, so there's not really
a good precedent for it.
Speaker 2: Well, what what would be the biggest concern?
Speaker 1: Is it just that you're thinking the offensive rebounding will
fall by the wayside in the playoff the teams.
Speaker 3: It's gonna go away. It'll be a strength, but it'll
be it'll be limited enough to where the other problems
become too big for the offensive rebounding to cover up that.
You know what I mean, Like if you if you
have these shooting and playmaking limitations, I think if once
you reach a level of the postseason where the quality
of opponent is high enough, they will exploit those and
make you lose. And that that for close. That's not
you know, maybe they rocket to make a trade and
suddenly they're not so reliant on those quirky things that
they're good at. But that's how this goes, right. I
think if you're trying to make a bet on it,
it's that Houston has a couple of weaknesses that good
teams are gonna figure out how to exploit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because even now they do have and this is
like one of the biggest Alpa and Shang Guon should
be on the MVP ballot type numbers would be their
seventh and first chance offense. So like they're doing all
this offensive rebound stuff. When you filter that out, there's
still seventh in offensive efficiency. A lot of that is
though the shit out of the ball from three, which
again is like you're getting zones.
Speaker 3: They're daring you to do that.
Speaker 1: And when you look at their starting lineup, just as
like a specific example, which is killed opponents, how many
above average shooters would you be prepared prepared to guarant
and it would be the same. It's the same answer
if Steven Adams was in the lineup, Just to be honest,
but it should be one find yourself now, Okay, if
we trust Alpa and Shang Gooon, it's two that's you know,
that's going to be if he At the same time, though,
if reads I would make this about Reed Shepherd, if
he continues to progress and gives you a curve ball
to where maybe you have to move away from some
of your base lineups in the playoffs. But if he's
just more seasoned, more ready, that might give them a
different type of offensive audible that would be. And like
him and Shangoon kind of have like a nice connection too,
So I this is it's weird that we were on
the fence of the Rockets as contenders this season without
a trade once Red van Fleet went down. But I
kind of buy the science experiment that we're seeing. Even
if I recognize everything you said is right to where
they're probably gonna have to find different ways to win
basketball games. We are should say, score the basketball in
the playoffs.
Speaker 3: I think, to their credit, this is the best you
can This is the right way to play with this
collection of players. Right, It's it's extreme, but it's you
have an extreme roster, so you've got to try different
stuff and you're gonna be subjected to like extreme defensive coverages.
And they've they've done the best they can. I think,
beaten expectations, certainly for dealing with what we sort of
maybe thought was coming, like all the zone and all
in the turnover issues and all that stuff. Like I think,
if anything, you definitely credit the Rockets for playing in
a way that makes the most sense for the players
they have, even if it means conceding like we're gonna
look pretty extreme.
Speaker 2: I'll take the next pick because it is my pick.
Speaker 1: I kind of want to talk about the Pistons, but
I feel like you'll talk about the Pistons, so I'm
gonna talk about Grant. The Phoenix Suns are they are?
They actually good? There is some noise to their performance
as we sit here. They are to eight and five
A seven four G five. They've had, per ESPN's BPI index,
the easiest schedule in the league. They've gotten to play
the Clippers three times. That's always that's that's good for teams.
There are some things about this roster. I thought they
would maybe play faster, But if you're gonna build everything
around Devin Booker, I probably just need to be resigned
to the fact that you're always gonna be a little
bit more deliberate with how you operate. Top ten in
offense and defense. The Spurs are the only team above
five hundred that they've beaten. I don't know that I
care just because you declared Reed Shepherd dead. I had
the Sun's doa entering this season, and now we're looking
at this. I wasn't I've never been a Mark Williams guy.
Mark Williams is turning me into a Mark Williams guy
this season. The teams are getting into the rim so
much less when he's on the court.
Speaker 2: He's actually like been on the perimeter.
Speaker 1: Okay, defensively, you don't have to do anything fancy with him.
On the offensive end, he's just going to be able
to clean up plays or finish at the basket.
Speaker 2: He's been an excellent fit.
Speaker 1: The fact that they're not this god awful rebounding team
when they just feel so small. They're eighth in offensive,
rebounding in sixth, like sixteenth in defense. I'm not great,
But when you haven't really gotten anything out of let'spect
that you're not playing malawatch Nick Richards not really playing
OsO Gadara hasn't been very good until his previous game.
Maybe he showed signs of light. Yeah, he's not very good,
and then he posts a plus fifty two in their
win over the Pacers.
Speaker 3: I was forever in on Igadaro, like he's you know what,
He's moved into the Gabe Vincent tier of like four
years ago, where I only ever see his good games,
and I'm just like, oh, he's great. He should play more.
Speaker 1: He's a smart player, and so you have hopeful there
there's like adepth to this team.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: Royce O'Neill, I think I've said this on the podcast before,
probably just one of the most underrated players in the
past decade to where it just comes in. He's gonna
knock down his threes, make the decisions you need, not
gonna cannibalize anything on offense, players role on defense.
Speaker 2: And then Grayson Allen is he's now.
Speaker 1: He's having one of those seasons where it's, oh, is
his contract now with Steel or it's like when he
was having the season, it's oh, the Suns have to
extend him. He's done great work from beyond the arc.
He's done excellent work on his drives. So like having
that as a funnel to your offense. This team, grant,
I don't look at them and say we have there's
so much time left in the season, but you're looking
at the performances that they're getting out of these plays.
Even just Ryan Dunn is gonna be their best shot
blocker they're starting five is kind of would you have expected.
So when you look at who they're starting right now,
would you've expected Ryan Dunn to have been in there?
Or do you think that O'Neil Booker, Alan Williams Brooks
always would have been your default at full strength.
Speaker 3: No, I think it would have made sense to try
Done and Brooks together. I think that was discussed right,
especially it was going to be Booker and Green in
the backboard and Green. But we should mention as like
basically not played because he had a hamstring, and then
he played and then he reaggravated it. Yeah, I mean
Alan is the one that I don't think anybody projected
as a starter because where would you fit him. But
other than Booker, he's just been like pretty obviously their
best player just because of this, not just the shooting.
The shooting's kind of a given with him, but the
volumes higher than it's ever been, and the inside the
arc game looks better on pace for a career high
and assists and just has more on ball stuff. Then
maybe he got an opportunity to show or are credit
him to probably for just realizing like, hey, we don't
have a point guard. I better like brush up on
my creation skills. He's been really great, I think the
most interesting thing to me. And I'm maybe I'm just
like telling on myself, but I really do think I
and probably a lot of people, let just the debacle
of ownership affect how we look at the group that
is gonna take the floor this season, right, because it's
almost like, well, if this like set of knuckleheads put
this personnel together, this personnel sucks. It has to, right
because everything that this ownership group and this management group
has done makes no sense. Like all they do is
hire Michigan State people. They can't figure out how to
make trades. They don't evaluate talent very well, like you've
really you've got to have Mark Williams, Is that like
I think we I think I just let the total
lack of faith in the organization make it so I
couldn't look at the collection of talent clearly. And that
even extended to like, oh, good, idea, let's go without
a point guard. I'm sure that'll go great. And it's like, well,
it's not a yeah, well, first of all, I saw
him come, and I think that extens of Jorde not
too It's like, well, so if Jordan not was hired
by these people's he's unqualified or like or you know
what I mean, like, and that's just objectively false. The
Sons are playing hard, they're moving the ball like they
take they're taking three like they're playing They're doing a
lot of the smart stuff that a good coach would
have you do. And I just didn't give enough of
a chance to any of that good stuff happening because
of Ishbia and because of the way that this team
has been run, so uh maya kolpa on that front. Also,
the schedule sucks and we'll probably walk back most of
this in two weeks.
Speaker 1: I will say after I give odd credit for moving
away from the and they've had scattershot availability getting back
to that starting line, I think real quick getting away
from Okay, they were trying done in there, and now
it's like now they're current starting five as an offensive
rating a one thirty one, and the sample size is
relative to this season is not all that small. Now
we have to see what it looks like when they're
going to go up against a tougher schedule. But if
you were gonna look at the Suns and even their
schedule through the first thirteen games of the season, would
you have given them an eight and five record, because
I would have given them that win.
Speaker 2: Over San Antonio.
Speaker 1: I would have given them either of those wins over
the Clippers, and honestly, I probably would have expected them
to lose.
Speaker 2: We weren't super high on Dallas relatives to the consensus
or the Pacers.
Speaker 1: We both hit their under but those two teams have
been way worse than a lot of people were expecting.
So who does to this day? You're right, though, we
probably let just the stain of the previous few seasons,
and it's kind of hard to take an organization seriously.
When one of the most emphatic rebukes that your owner,
Matt Ishbia gave is when he saw preseason predictions comes
out and said, yeah.
Speaker 2: Well they thought we were gonna be good last year,
so they.
Speaker 3: Know showed you. Yeah. How do you feel about Dylan
Brooks wearing sunglasses inside so often? Every time he's on
the bench, he's got sunglasses on. What are you your thoughts?
Speaker 1: I like this team right now, so I'm going to
allow it. They're kind of at the it's where I
was okay with Dylan Brooks's vibe, but early on in
that Grizzlies run before that, he just became grading.
Speaker 2: He's not grading on me with the sun Jet. But
as a.
Speaker 1: General rule, anyone who wears sunglasses indoor indoors, I feel
like they kind of suck as a human being.
Speaker 3: Is that I don't trust it. I don't trustrust it either. Yeah,
it's what are you hiding?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Costume?
Speaker 1: Or is it a bit like Jimmy Butler coming in EMO?
Then that's fine? But I don't with him.
Speaker 2: I think he does bits.
Speaker 3: I think Bill Dylan Brooks kind of is doing bits,
except like he's not in on him. So it's like,
so I don't I don't know. He's a fascinating character.
I don't support indoor sunglass wearing. I want to be
on the record.
Speaker 2: You're on the record, and I'm with you there.
Speaker 3: And I'm on the clock also, so I'm gonna you.
You chose you guess correctly. I would like to talk
about the Detroit Pistons paint nominance now, I.
Speaker 2: Could you at least call them by their name? The
first place Detroit.
Speaker 3: Pists the East leading. Is it not a eight nine
game winning streak or whatever? It is the unbeatable of
late Detroit Pistons. The kid Cunningham will shoot as often
as he needs to to win you the game. And like,
I don't want to get into that game. That was
just a wild I just I still can't process taking
that many shots and missing that many and still having
a positive positive plus minus when you do that.
Speaker 1: But that's my whole thing is people, First of all,
you want the housey on days of like when Kobe
went at it alone, and then we get I'm not
saying you specifically, you get it, and now you're complaining
about it.
Speaker 2: It's sort of you have nostalgia until you witness it.
Speaker 1: But I just want to point out before you carry on,
because this is one of my pistons points. Kate's efficiency
is relatively gabaged, not good. The workload he is shouldering
in that game and overall is categorically insane. Shake Gilders,
Alexander and you know this player is coming. Tarren Shannon
Junior apparently are the only players that are getting more
of their buckets unassisted. This is just not having Dennish shrewd,
like going from Karaselfirs has been a little bit better lately,
but not having Jade and Ivy healthy there. I just
don't think people are appreciating, especially how banged up they are.
I'm not giving him a like, yes, there are players
who would be more efficient in this role. Like you
go from a guy who wasn't really taking self created threes,
so now that's basically all.
Speaker 2: He can take with this roster. That was my cake
cunning hit. I just find it. No, Yeah, I was.
Speaker 3: Being tongue in cheek. I mean, like I think, if any,
my main takeaway from that was like, that's a physical feat,
Like that's an incredible achievement that he was able to
do that. And I don't mean that like in a
negative like smart ass way. It's like that's amazing, and
that ties into like, yeah, we're gonna I'm not gonna
talk about Kaid that much just because I don't he's
been spectacular. I think he's you can point to some
of the efficiency stuff, but like I think he's better
now than he was last year and what was a
breakout year. I think he's doing what he has to
do on this team right now because of it's it's
shortcomings in the playmaking department. I think like he actually
has to do that, and so I'm not going to
dig him for inefficiency.
Speaker 1: Well, since we're just gonna wrap up, I just have
one question. This is I don't even expect a response.
How many primary ball handlers or primary offensive engines are
as good defensively as Kate Cunningham right now?
Speaker 3: Oh man, I mean, let's just go through the Like
Shay doesn't play quite the same position. Maybe kid's bigger
and so like the can do lowman stuff. Yeah, can
do lowman stuff for sure. Yeah, Luca, No, not close.
Like maybe you would a point it's like Tatum, like
healthy Tatum maybe would have been like Tatum. I think
healthy is a better defender, but I think Kid's probably
like capable of at least as much offensively. I don't know,
that's the only name that comes to mind, like all
the other like Anthony Edwards No, uh, steph No, Like
I don't know where we even how far down the
list we have to go. Am I missing somebody?
Speaker 1: I'm if he's there, has to be like he's in
the if we're there to do a rankings, if he's
lower than third, I would probably be pretty serp because
you're going it's just who else is there? There would
be Tatum who's not playing right now, right, and Shay
and I think maybe Edwards, But just like Kate Cunningham,
if you're if you're splitting hairs between them, it's well,
kay Cunningham is a better passer, which is looking at
who can carry his workload offensively and then do what
he's doing defensively.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's maybe two.
Speaker 1: Other guys that you would trust to do that, and
that might am I being overly generous there?
Speaker 2: That was just something I'd been thinking about.
Speaker 3: Like peak Jimmy Butler something like that, or I mean
even then, I don't know, right, Yeah, it's a short list.
Speaker 1: It's honestly, Tatum is probably the best comp just because
their game when you look at oh, we want more
from the rim to like you say the same stuff
about Kate. Kate is the better passer though, But yeah,
I'm just I think that needs to be This is
not a PSA to you, really, I'm just using I
think that also needs to be kind of factor. And
when we're looking at what's happening on the offensive end
as well.
Speaker 3: So when does the uh, when does he start getting
the label of the best two way player?
Speaker 1: You know what?
Speaker 3: I mean that we like to throw that out for
the guy that we all agree is not the best
player in the league, but but the best always just
the bit you know. Again, you can hear it on
the broadcast now, it's like, Doris, I think he's the
best two he's the best two way player in the league.
Is there anyone else in that? Like that's coming right
because just because that's how we'll have to discuss him.
Speaker 1: Don't you think they normally gravitate towards people in that
who are more inherently their raw efficiency is better on offense,
so that might keep him out of it.
Speaker 3: I don't know, it's just that's such a weird designation
though it only goes it never goes to the actual
best player in the league. But it's the one that
like is very good but also is very good on defense.
Like even like Jada gets a lot of like, oh,
that's such a phenomenal two way player.
Speaker 1: You know, when did we start was this? Was this
the Kawhi effect? Is that the first time?
Speaker 3: That's yeah, maybe that's yeah, right, because if he's not
gonna win MVP, we have to acknowledge he's the best
two way guy in the league. Yeah, we weren't.
Speaker 2: Gonna talk about k Cunningham.
Speaker 3: No, it's that's that's what this whole thing is. I
just want to talk about the Pistons points and the
paint stuff because it's it's bonkers. They score the most
points in the pay per game, and they allow the
fourth fewest. They are allowing bottom ten rimiteen frequency and accuracy.
When Isaiah Stewart is in the game, it gets impossible
to score around the basket. Opponents have an eleven point
one percent decline in rim accuracy when he plays. That's
a ninety third percentile figure among BIGS, and they lose
nine point three percent off of their attempt frequency, that's
a ninety ninth percentile. The Pistons also, this is this
is what I want from my Pistons. By the way,
they allow the highest opponent free throw rate in the league,
which means they foul all the time, which is just like, yeah,
that's that's what you gotta do. If you're a true
Pistons team, whether it's like nineteen ninety or two thousand
and four, you gotta be physical. And there they are that.
So I'm wondering as a result of this, like it
won just before I get to what I'm wondering, the
cad plus just dominate the rim is a recipe I'm
very much in favor of and I would like to
see more. I think that's really an interesting way for
them to play in much the same way as the Rockets, Like,
given the personnel they have, which is to say, lacking
a secondary creator that can really give you dynamic offense,
I think this is how the Pistons should play. Like
they kill it inside with Jalen, Duran and Stewart sometimes
together and kid like just does enough to create offense.
And that's that's the recipe I'm wondering Dan if between
this team between the rockets between like I don't know,
say the thunder who are not defined by three point shooting?
Are we like can not close the can we close
the not quite close the book on the patients base
three point era thing because some other teams are still
doing that to even crazier degrees. But like, is the
rim and the paint? Now? Are we back to where
like that's what we talk about when like, if you're
a good team, you have to dominate this area, or
at least if you're not a team with Steph Curry
and or like a Celtics level three point attempt to right,
is this where we're back to where we're gonna get rebounds,
We're gonna deny attempts and accuracy inside and that's gonna
get us really far if we can't do the other stuff.
Speaker 1: I think we might be back. But doesn't it feel
one This is definitely a response to some of the
team builds that squads were championing and still are to
some extent, But don't you also feel that there's just
I know, although I haven't heard much talk about the
NBA being too homogeneous now, but this also feels like
there's more variability just in the way teams are playing,
because even if you look at let's use Detroit and Houston,
who there's a lot of similar analogs there. Their offenses
don't let their defense, the way they're getting their offensive
rebounds don't necessarily always look the same. So yes, I
like offensive rebounding is back. That's been established over the
past few years, and we like the next market efficiency.
What you're saying about the rim stuff like, sure, that's up,
But it just feels like maybe it's because there are
quicker responses to things that are happening. It feels on
a night to night basis. For me, I just feel
like there's more variability in the waste because you look
at some teams the way they're pressing on defense, some
teams the Blazers deciding like we basically need to begin
possessions like past half court when we're righting the ball somehow,
it's there's so many different things happening. It makes I
will say, just selfishly because I only care about me,
it makes my job way harder.
Speaker 2: But it's also just I don't feel the.
Speaker 1: Experience is the same basically across like really any matchup anymore.
Speaker 3: I think it's it's exciting because all this stuff, all
these different styles, and I agree just like watch a
Heat game and or a Blazers game and then watch
like a Rockets game, and it's like, this is not
the same sport you know, for long stretches that these
two teams are playing. But like all of this stuff
is born out of some of it's copycat. Everyone cites
the Pacers and and the just how they how they
play it as as the impetus for like Memphis last year,
I guess, and and Miami and some other teams that
are playing similarly. But like everyone's just looking for exploitable
uh market inefficiencies and it turns out there's like there's
more than one. You know, you can depending on your personnel. Hey,
you know what, it would be insane if the Rockets
tried to play like the Heat, right or be it
would be insane if the Blazers tried to play like
the Pistol. Like there's just so I think teams are
obviously getting smarter, like on balance in terms of figuring
out what the market inefficiencies are and how can we
like not cheat but like exploit, like how do we
how do we maximize you know, these advantages, but then
the next step is like realizing what kind of personnel
you have and then choosing a particular inefficiency to try
to capitalize on. And that's just what makes for tons
of variety because no two rosters are the same, and
the smarter teams get about looking at like, all, right,
where are we gonna have some marginal gains or where
can we where can we game it just based on
who we have. That's like, that's pretty cool, and that's
that's creating I think maybe like I don't know, it's hyperbolic,
but like in terms of breadth of styles, I can't
remember the last time we had so many different like
just types of teams to try to analyze. And you're right,
it does make it harder to keep up with everybody.
Speaker 1: And something i'd been when you now that you ask
that question, you gave your response. So the Duran Stuart
minutes to bring us back to the Pistons one. The
Pistons are a plus twenty five in those minutes. Their
net rating is insane. You were mentioning the rim stuff.
The average team Grant takes thirty one point five percent
of their shots at the rim. The average team shoots
sixty seven point two percent at the rim when Duran
and Stuart are on the court, opponents are taking fifteen
point three percent of their shots that they rib and
they're shooting forty five.
Speaker 2: Point eight percent. That is nuts.
Speaker 1: But what I wanted to ask you, like, coming off
of that, do you get to a point where is
this deliberate when we're this is like more of an
NBA ride question, or does one kind of beget the
other to where, well, if we're gonna play Duran and
Stuart together as an example, or maybe they're looking at
it through the lens of well, if we were gonna
have Thompson and Durham together on the floor, let's just
throw out another non shooter in Isaiah Stewart and try
and do more to either one attack the rim on
the other side, or in the Pistons case, to wall
it off even more. Is it Do you think it's
more of a conscious decision to say, hey, we're because
it feels like if you're gonna go dual big or
once you have two non shooters on the floor, I
feel like I'm seeing more teams kind of decide like
why not just put a third NIGHTE like we're not
get a free responsor is a deliberate response to say
this is what we're going to try.
Speaker 3: I don't. Yeah, right, that's really interesting because normally you'd say, well,
if you're gonna have Duran alone, you you just you
can't even play Thompson like you have you are let alone,
Holland you gotta have you need shooters everywhere if you
have one nonspacer would be like conventional wisdom right over
the last however many years. I think you're right. I
think it's like, well, we can try to balance this
deficiency or we can just turn it into a strength
by making the other team have to play different guys
to compensate or to like account for what we're gonna do,
which is to just have more non spacing, offensive, rebounding,
physical forces in the game. That's really interesting again, and
there's no way to sort of vet this theory until
we get there. I wonder what happens in the playoffs
when you have more prepared, theoretically better smarter opponents that
we'll say, okay, you can put all these big guys
out there and sacrifice your spacing, we'll capitalize on it.
This way and make it so you can't get away
with it, or I mean it'll be case by case
probably right, because there will be teams that can, like
a Houston comes to mind as potentially, and maybe Detroit's
another that can just they don't care about conventional skill
set balance and they'll just force you know, who's going
to force who to adjust? That's always the classic playoff question.
Now we just have some more extremes to kind of
row into that mix.
Speaker 1: Now do we think you kind of mentioned this about
when we were talking about it with the Rockets. This
is that I don't trust their offense in a playoff
context yet. If Jay and Ivy comes back, maybe, but
there's just so many questions there is this as currently constructed.
Would you call the Pistons legitimate contenders in the East?
Are they one player short? Can you please explain to
the kids at home why no?
Speaker 2: They are not a good Anthony Davis trade destination. I've
seen them, I've seen them mentioned.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous entirely too much. I think we even mort and
I might have even brought them up in the Nico.
But as a I remember I hope I said let's
just keep it. They just don't make a ton, but
I've seen them mentioned as just I know they need
to make a move, but Anthony Davis is not a four.
It seems like they need more offensive generation alongside kid.
Whether you want that in the form of another guard
or is it a combo three to four. Lowry Markin
is the name that's gonna get mentioned to no end,
but I think I don't want to see them go
to all In. But they're good enough to wear. It's
I don't know what you call player X, the finishing piece,
but yeah, I could say they need to be fairly aggressive.
Speaker 2: It's fine to let this play out.
Speaker 1: Maybe you continue to get better and you're looking offensively
and it just maybe it all clicks in the playoffs,
but that would be the move is to you need
to go after someone who is going to improve your
offense both being able to play off caid and then
in some of those non CAD minutes which they're winning
right now, but not offensively.
Speaker 3: I think if you sort of let it ride as
the Pistons and you don't go out and try to
find the secondary creator you might want or a market
in type to space the floor, you're really putting all
your eggs in the Jalen Durham basket because him as
a short role passer and is like it's like a
sneakily more dangerous isolating against opposing bigs and setting teammates
up kind of threat. You're really relying on him a lot,
and to a lesser extent ivy once he's healthy. But
because that's what teams will do, right, they'll put two
on the ball when Kate has it forced it out
of his hands, the outlet will probably be Duran and
he'll be going downhill, hopefully in a four on three.
And it's like, how many players can Jalen Duran make
against a playoff defense? Over and over and over? I mean,
he better than he'll do better than most, right, Like
he's he's has real chops in that role. Can you
win a Can you make a conference finals doing that?
I don't. That's that's hard for me to believe. Maybe
maybe the answer is yes, if you can sustain all
of your other like crazy dominant traits, you know, the
paint stuff, the rim protection. But on balance, that's that's
a lot to put on his plate, right. Guess hey,
Jalen Duran, you have to save our offense in a
playoffs three like, that's that's pretty tough.
Speaker 1: They're also built weird in the sense that I know
they have the Tobias Harris salary, but if we were
to say, should they be a Michael Porter junior team,
because if he came in here, he probably should a
trillion percent from three. I'm not gonna be you a
ton of creation. But you only want to get there
using salary. You don't like that's not a player you're
and so to get there using salaries?
Speaker 2: It are you giving up both Tobias Harrison.
Speaker 1: Who you're not getting up as a stewart you're gonna
give with Carris Lavert and that you have Duncan Robinson?
Speaker 2: Is that is that worth it?
Speaker 1: So they're almost if they're gonna make a move, they
could make smaller moves. I want to be clear, but
it almost has to be kind of in under the
radar move to keep a theme with this podcast draft
or oh they really the Pistons really went for it
like they would be. I don't know what's going on
in Memphis, and it seems like they're more married to
him than anybody else. Believe they'd be a fun Jaron
Jackson Junior team he became available.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know. I like the Stewart and
Duran combos so much that I just give me one,
give me healthy Jade and Ivy that picks up exactly
where he left off last year. That that'd be the
best case. You don't have to give anything up. He
just joins the team. Uh, to give me someone that
can do what Ivy's supposed to do, but better like
in that I need the secondary guy, ideally at the
other backcourt spot, I think, to really make to shore
up that weakness, I think, and take something off kid's plate.
Speaker 1: What about Peyton Pritchard if you get him from the Celtics,
that'd be an interesting one, right, I.
Speaker 3: Mean, man, just you you throw him thirty feet from
the basket too, and just be like, guess what we're
We're gonna dominate the room and you have to space
out to guard this guy because he will shoot it
from here.
Speaker 2: It's my pick now, right mm hmm.
Speaker 1: We're gonna go talk about your Portland Trailblazers.
Speaker 2: I'm giving you the Portland Trailblazers. You're welcome. We've we
already talked about on this podcast. How fast.
Speaker 1: That they like to play to speed with which they're
playing is insane, but I don't necessarily want to focus
on that to begin. They are not afraid to play small,
and I would argue that they might even prefer it.
Speaker 2: At this point.
Speaker 1: They have played Grant and thirty six possessions on the
season as we record this, nearly one quarter of those
possessions have come without a center on the floor. And
when your centers are young Huntson not really playing young
handsom sorry I'm mispronounced his name, Donovan Klingon, Robert Lee
the third and what brief. It's not like you don't
have centers that you, in theory want to play. I
think because you have Drew Holliday, Danny Avia, Tamani Kamara,
Jeremy Grant, it's almost forcing them to like those are
we just named how many of their best players and
we don't really with Scoot Henderson injured and Damian Lillard injured,
we don't have that traditional guard We're gonna lean in
to all of like this non center looks and it's
a non point guard.
Speaker 2: Look their lineup.
Speaker 1: Their most used lineup in this situation has been Avdia Holiday,
Sharp Kamara Jeremy Grant. That lineup, I just want to say,
as fun as hell. Every time I've seen it. Eighty
seven lineups Grant have locked at least twenty five minutes
on the season. The offensive rating of those five is
the fourth highest, and it's at one forty two point one.
That is insanity. Their average first chance offensive possession is
eleven point nine to nine seconds long. That would rank
first in the NBA, and I think Portland's either second
or third overall. That would rank first in the NBA
by a light year. They are so fast. They've even
sprinkled in some Chris Murray for shade and sharp in
that type of a lineup. I love it, and it might,
you know, lead to some questions about Robert Williams the
third and some of the minutes we've seen very good.
You still kind of have hope like donovin Clinton, Fine,
we could get into well if this is their best
version of themselves as this lineup, Yeah, it's kind of cool,
but what does that say about their big man rotation?
I don't really care. I just love it like they
are for neetic Jeremy Grant having a good year. Drew
Holliday's giving them some steadiness. They could look some of
their That game against the Magic was won an acid
trip down the stretch where Paalo bank Caro made like
eight trillion mistakes and a couple had a couple of
heroics too. You look at them sometimes offensively and say, yeah,
they really need someone other than Drew Holliday or Dennyafia
to organize this.
Speaker 2: But they are.
Speaker 1: Fun, they're frenetic, they're they're they're fast, furious, and they're
kind of good. I don't know where they're gonna land
in the larger landscape of the West. They're kind of
just floating around just above five hundred. But when you
look at Okay, Damian Lower was never going to play
this season, but you look at an injury to Scoot,
you look at some of the moments that Shade Sharp
has had this year.
Speaker 2: To be in the top.
Speaker 1: Eight in the Western Conference this far into it like
that's I would call that an accomplishment. And to be
just six and three against the Western Conference overall also
kind of another big deal.
Speaker 3: I think this is just a perfect kind of next
team to talk about because it's it's a it's an
example of what we were we spent most of the
time on Detroit discussing of this team has a style
it wants to play, and it's making a choice to
play the players that fit into that style. And it's
not like I guess it's based on the numbers that
you through out there and I have you know, some
others like they're plus I have it. I think this
might be a day old. I don't know if it
accounts for their last game. They're plus twenty six point
six with Grant in clinging spot as a starter there
or not a starter but like the other but they're
plus two point six with Holiday, Sharp, Kamara Avdia and Clinging.
And the differences are what you'd expect, like the offensive efficiency,
the pace off the charts with Grant at center, with Clinging,
but that smaller, faster group. They don't defend the room.
Their defense overall is not very good and they give
up a ton of offensive rebounds. You put Clinging in there,
you get what you expect. They do defend the rim,
the defense is pretty good and they get a bunch
of offensive rebounds. They play slower like there are a
lot of situations where I guess you'd call it conventional
wisdom or this like a preference for like balance would
have the Blazers going most of the time with that
clinging group, right, because it's like, well, we've got our
bases covered here, right, But putting Grant in there and
playing without a center allows them to kind of do
the stuff they want to do stylistically, which is be
fast and disruptive and run and not really offensive, rebound
or defend the room. So well, I think it's just
cool that they're choosing that one a lot, you know,
and and this is a total like what's the Paul
rud meme of like who you look look at us now?
Because what was the whole thing about Portland is like
they have too many centers? They just with DeAndre and
Robert clinging, like you can't wreath, you can't play all
these guys together. And now they're just like, we still
have too many and we just have decided that we
don't always like to play one, which is like, that's great,
I think. I think again it's an example of like
there's no one way to do this, and the Blazers
are like choosing their way in very often.
Speaker 1: They've been a lot more fun than I because we
always talk about the team as they just have a
lot of dudes and they can be a good watch,
but the way they're playing now is just they've been
way more of an enjoyable watch. Even when things are
going wrong for me, then I just could have bet
on and there. I still don't have a great feel
for like what is the endgame or what is the
direction here? But it's just so fun that you kind
of have to live in the moment with it.
Speaker 2: And there's the shade.
Speaker 1: Sharp extension that's probably gonna end up being more team
friendly than not. You have a lot of these guys
under contract. I've seen a lot of people say sell
high on Jeremy Grant.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: What that even looks like at this but I don't
think a team is gonna come in and give you
a ton for Jeremy Grant right now. I'm sort of
I'm not too I'm probably guilty of not living in
the moment enough. When we go look at teams, you're
always kind of looking, well, what is next? Do we
talk about the Pistons to where it's do they need
to do anything else to uphold what they're doing right now?
The Blazers are the quintessential. Just just enjoy this, right,
Like we don't like the Scoot stuff, the Damian Liller stuff.
What's gonna happen with this team there's some of their
older guys. Is that you're gonna want to get more
out of clinging offensively for sure at some point, and
we have to see what young Hansm's gonna look like
in a more extensive role.
Speaker 2: You would think, I don't care. I'm just gonna enjoy this, right.
Speaker 1: Like the fact that like Chris and maybe it just
kind of comes along, like Chris Murray not really a
factor for the first two seasons of his career and
then just like coming in they have they're playing him
a little bit more.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: This is a really fun team, and the fact that
their substance to it, I think is even cooler.
Speaker 3: Do you think I'll get the year wrong? But like,
do you think twenty seventeen called the Blazers and say, like, hey,
you know Jeremy Grant, he's really good as a small
ball center. You're not gonna believe it because all the
stuff in between now and the future will suggest he's
like a primary scoring option. Just try it. Trust us
and the Blazers are like, okay, like, hey, look, Jeremy
Grant's a really good small ball center. The Thunder could
have told you that. Maybe the like who else, the
Nuggets maybe could have told you that. It wasn't twenty seventeen.
I'm gonna have to look that up at some point.
How long ago it was that, like that was Jeremy
Grant's role.
Speaker 2: Or we all wanted to see him and more of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that was the thing he did for at
least a year. I'm sure that's mostly. Sure, that's right,
let's move on.
Speaker 2: Good.
Speaker 1: Well, I was gonna say really quickly, do you think
that this is something this trend is something that holds
or is sustainable, not even the results, but just leaning
that And we're talking about twenty five percent of their possessions,
but twenty five percent of your possessions with no center on.
Speaker 2: The court's a big deal.
Speaker 3: Do you see that holding for them specifically? Yeah? Yeah,
why not? It's working Like it's the best way for
them to win at the moment. I think like maybe
they're actually no, I think I think it is sustainable
because I like their perimeter defenders so much that that's
the type of group that can coupled with the pace,
can help you just get away with not having a
big guy out there. I think I think that's very
I mean, what I would love to see is more
of them against the teams that play completely opposite styles.
Like let's get a Houston Portland game. That'd be fun.
Speaker 2: Who do you think it?
Speaker 3: Just Moore? I bet Portland does. I think you just
like if they if the Rockets are getting seventy percent
of offensive rebounds, like you're gonna have to do something.
Speaker 2: I hope Tiago Splitter won't do that.
Speaker 1: I hope he'll just be obstinate and he'll either play
with only one big or no biggs all. Could you
imagine if you do get an Adam Shangun Smith, Durant
Thomson lineup versus the Placers small pall lineup would be
so insane.
Speaker 3: I can't I would watch that game. I'll tell you that,
all right. I would like to next select the Charlotte Hornets.
U unbelievable, all those like, we'll get to it. The
rookies have been awesome, uh they And it's deeply ironic
that I'm choosing this category and the rookie that I
was like, you know, who's gonna be good Liam McNeely,
And he's the fourth best rookie on the team.
Speaker 2: He has decidedly not been good.
Speaker 3: No, I was wrong there so far. Yeah, everybody else
in their first year has been really good. So we're
talking chiefly about Conkinipple basically as advertised plus right, like
the shooting super legit on movement shooter, not just like
he'll catch it and make it on a standstill. He
understands how to drift to space, where to be to
create passing angles so he can get catch and shoot stuff.
He moves great off the ball to create you know,
like kind of Duncan robinsony, type of old school Duncan
Robinson kind of attempts and as good as a driver
despite not being that athlete. Like he's just he's what
we your highest expectations would have been, I think for Nipple.
So he's delivering Ryan Kulkrinner. Okay, So I guess Charlotte's
biggest weakness is not a center and rim protection because
between him and diabate, right, but yeah, it's just like
all right, well he's gonna shoot eighty percent and get
two blocks a game. We're good. Like that's that's sufficient, right,
It's lead. Now, Charlotte's not a good team, but it's
not like the Pelicans, for example, that center situation is
playing out how we expected. The Hornets are not in
that same tier in terms of just totally bereft of
options because of Calprinner. Seon James is probably the one
I'm most skeptical of because he leads the league in
three point shooting at like just under sixty percent. But
good defender has started i think like six times in
eleven games so far, and he's if he's gonna make threes,
he's gonna play just because of his energy and his defense. So, like,
I just is Charlotte despite LaMelo missing more time with
an ankle and Brandon Miller having the shoulder. Like I
don't know, everything we keep seeing from Charlotte is like
kind of trust this this management group. I think they
kind of understand what they're doing. It's just these little
hits up and down. They keep stacking them up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Colin Sexton has been good too. That was a
great pick up for them. And the other thing I'll
add is so just Calkbrenner excellent hands on the defensive
end as well. Opponents are shooting nine point two percentage
points worse when challenged by him inside six feet and
the see on James thing, the efficiency isn't gonna hold.
But I wonder what might actually do him in more
is that's just someone who's reluctant to even take a shot.
Speaker 2: It really feels like there was.
Speaker 3: The one seventeen of twenty nine, so he's not like
firing them off.
Speaker 2: I don't remember who they were playing.
Speaker 1: There was one game where he didn't get his first
field goal attempt until he was in minute twenty four
or something, and it's the defensive energy is just absurd,
and the way that you could move him around and
you look at the kind of the guard of the
people that he has guarded this season, But you're gonna
need something out of him on offense.
Speaker 2: As of right now, he's gonna just be hyper efficient,
only take five shots a game, and hey, like more
power to him. I don't know, Grant this is. I
think you can trust the front office to believe they're
gonna make the right decision.
Speaker 1: But there and we're gonna talk about this in a
future episode more at length. But they're also kind of
at a disadvantage to where in theory, your two most
important players in the building are not playing right now
and have not played a ton of time together, So
how do you evaluate these guys in that context? But
what I will say, so kan k Nipple been on
fire since LaMelo ball has been out, but all the
stuff that you mentioned, it's almost like they run the
offense through him without him being ball dominant. And so
that's just someone who's going to fit alongside everyone. He's
just the assists. He get a lot of swing passes,
he could throw some sprays on his drives, and the
fact that he is this quick decision maker or even
when his buckets that require dribbles just don't feel like
they're taking a ton of time, and he can do
some stuff like get to the mid range. I just
look at him as LaMelo and Brandon Miller, just Brandon Miller,
just LaMelo. It doesn't matter. He is going to fit.
Speaker 3: He's purely added. He's that kind of offensive player so far,
just like it's there's never a situation where it's like, well,
Canipple's out there, so it's gonna mean that this guy
doesn't get to do x it'. That's just he's not
that way. I think that's that's how I view it.
Speaker 1: And even Seon James, he doesn't want to do anything
on offense, and so that's almost a pure additive.
Speaker 2: And Calbrenner is he just wants to catch the ball.
Speaker 1: Around the basket and finish that way for the most
It's why he's shooting a trillion percent from the floor.
Speaker 2: So the fact that.
Speaker 1: These guys I don't think need to be marquee developmental
projects or like they don't need top billing when they're
on the court, that lends itself to I would say,
easy transition for Charlotte. And by the way, the other
number I just wanted to throw out there though, is
that these three rookies that we're talking about, Canipple, Sion James,
and Calbrenner, eighty five percent of their minutes together have
come without LaMelo ball and the Hornets have a plus
eleven net rating in those minutes without being thirty six
percent from three one to twenty, offensive rating sixty percent
on twos. But that's that's nothing like absolutely bonker. That's good,
don't get me wrong, and entirely not sustainable. But you're
winning minutes with three rookies on the court and you're
quote unquote to ten pole players not being alongside though.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I get what you're saying. Who needs LaMelo?
I feel like you don't have to say it out loud,
but I understand that's what you mean.
Speaker 1: Me noted LaMelo. Balls kept Nick damn for a long time.
Then it's my pick now, right, Yeah, let's go. We
haven't talked about this team yet this season. Noah Clowney
grant kind of a bright spot for the Nets. Would
also like to shout out Nicolas Claxton drives her back, baby,
Those are off the back for the Nets. If you
look at Noah Clowney's numbers, they're not pretty. The efficiency
is not there. He's shooting like he's a coin toss
at the rim. His threes aren't really falling. He is, though.
You put the ball in his hands and you get
him going downhill, he could make some things happen. He's
shooting five of nine from Florida range right now. He's
gotten stronger and he's gotten a lot better at drawing
contact when he's going downhill. He's getting fouled on twenty
four point two percent of his drives among one hundred
and seventy three players who have finished as many drives
as him. That is the second highest foul rate. Would
you care to guess who has the highest foul rate?
And I will give you the hint of we've already
talked about him.
Speaker 2: Is it just Shay, it's Jailen Duran.
Speaker 1: Oh, I've I've never felt more. I've never felt more
like Jalen Durrant seems to be doing a bet. This
is not a Jailen Durance segment, but just reading the
room of when he can put the ball. He's always
kind of had the short role intrigue, but it's if
you want to put the ball on the deck. I've
never been more comfortable, which is turn making me uncomfortable.
Speaker 3: I know he's validating all of the over the over
the years, the occasional like you know, I think he's
got more as a passer like Ohud, you see the
pass like they're just the little glimpses of Duran as
a facilitator or like a decision maker maybe is the
better better term. Yep, he's doing it.
Speaker 1: Back to Clowny Clowney. Clowney can do some of that
decision making on drives. And he is over fifty percent
shooting on drives. He's thrown some really nice spraasists out
of the drives too.
Speaker 2: The key for him I look at his.
Speaker 1: Three point shot and I just feel like this is
going to be someone who could get to thirty six
percent or something. If you're gonna add the strength going
downhill in the ability to maybe drawouts and hit your
free throws. I think that's a really useful offensive player.
Whether you view him as he's kind of the in
between big or he's if you want it, can he
be a smaller ball five? My real question, and to
be clear, there are still questions on offense, My real
question is I have zero idea what he's supposed to.
Speaker 2: Be able to do defensively right at this point, because
it's not going to be as a rim protector.
Speaker 1: The strength has not really helped him hold up against
individual assignments at really any level of the floor. He
also needs to like that is someone who could stand
to do better job of getting back in transition. He
could also he's committing when he's in transition. Offensively, he's
committing turnovers thirty five percent of the time. Not great either,
just so raw, but there's enough flashes on the offensive end,
and we're evaluating him against the rest of the nets.
To where bright spots have been, there's been like a few, but.
Speaker 2: Not a ton.
Speaker 1: Just something I'm putting opinion in with Noah Clowney. I
wouldn't call this a breakout necessarily because I think a
breakout will require way more offensive efficiency than we've seen.
But I'm just wondering, can the added strength make him
a better individual defender, could just even help him become
a better finisher at the rim. Those are kind of
the things I'll be tracking in addition to I'd like
to see the three point clip come up.
Speaker 2: And that's the one of the three things I talked about.
I think that's the one I'm most confident in him
being able to improve.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I would say that, like, the overall
numbers are not not good, Like thirty three percent from
the field is assist to turnovers pretty close to one
to one. That said, recently, he's been better at least
fifteen plus points in four of the last five. I
think he's made multiple threes in four of the last five.
So you know, the counter would be like, well, somebody
has to do something volume wise on the nets, But
I take I agree with you. He's been a source
of intrigue, like going on three years now, and like
I think we talked to Lucas Kaplan. He pointed out
that like kind of had a lost season because had
an injury, didn't really have an off season, just kind
of couldn't hit the ground running, and it made it
seem like, well, development stagnated. I guess we can not
saying any of us said this, or certainly Lucas didn't,
but like close a book on that one. You know,
we thought maybe there was something there and there's not.
I still think there's something there. And I think the
core question that you pointed out is right of like
there was a time when we would have just said,
can he be a small ball five defensively? If no, Okay,
we're done here. I think there's maybe more room for
him to have, like a to fit somewhere. If he's
not capable of defending as a five, which I don't,
it doesn't seem to me like he is. There's you
can we've gotten to the point now where teams are
smart enough to figure out how to use someone like
him defensively. If the gains are there on offense, like
if the shot does fall, he can be a four
and you can figure out what to do defensively. He
doesn't have to be a.
Speaker 1: Center because of his limitations, though it makes him it's
gonna make him harder to evaluate in a vacuum, but
it's harder to come to a sweeping conclusion about him
in this situation, specifically when you're looking at this next team,
because it could cut both ways to where it's well.
If he had some better facilitators around him, if the
defensive infrastructure overall was better, maybe he can find a
role there. You could also say, would he actually have
this type of a role or freedom on a better
team that had a better offensive ecosystem, that had a
better defensive infrastructure.
Speaker 2: We don't know, but I'm just intrigued.
Speaker 1: I think he's probably the player aside from Jegor Joeman
that's intrigued me the most on the netide. I mean,
I love Nick Klass and Nick Claxton drives her back
by the way. There's just he's like shooting a million
percent on them that you could go double check that
I believe I'm accurate.
Speaker 2: So some fun stuff for the Nets.
Speaker 3: I don't speaking of I do enjoy on Spurs broadcast
when whenever Harrison Barnes shoots, Sean Elliott calls him mister
on and it'll like as he's saying it, it'll flash
the graphic of like he's two for four or it's
it's really good for a laugh. Uh, he is shooting
like fifty percent. But so I got one more pick.
I think I would like to discuss Jeremiah Fears just
in general. He is a player for the New Orleans Pelicans.
And before you say, who are they, Uh, they are
an NBA basketball team. Nominally, there's been some version actually
gonna continue to be a team of New Orleans. Fears
is an eye test guy, Uh for the most part.
And I think we were both kind of I know
I was, and I think you were there with me,
like pretty early on maybe it was summer league, definitely
preseason into early minutes this year of like that guy
can kind of get any place he wants.
Speaker 1: Uh, he's after Just I don't want to say I
was out on him coming out of the draft.
Speaker 3: I was out on him in theory two. Yeah, yeah,
you know, just no, go ahead, I we share the
same I was just because you were.
Speaker 1: Saying that we were in on him, And I just
want to make clear, Yes, summer league and preseason kind
of turned me on him, but I wasn't a Jeremiah
of years confidence man, like I thought.
Speaker 3: I wonder if we watched more college basketball, how what
we would have thought? Because I wonder if the if
the stuff that pops now would have been obvious even
in college. Probably, But I mean, but then the concerns
are still there. Right, he's small. He's like we were
kind of collectively getting pretty out on small guards more increasingly,
I would say, the collect the NBA CONACENTI we I guess,
not just you and I. We don't like him. We're
questioning Darius Garland's value these days. And that's independent of
the toe because it's like, well, he's pretty small. I'm
making fun of myself because I.
Speaker 2: Do what's he supposed to do against Houston and Detroit?
That's how I do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you just can't see all the angles.
There's no way for him to be successful. So but
but fears just this, the sheer, speed, the quickness, the handle.
He really like, I don't know who I would even
compare him to like as far as he's kind of
feels throwbacky in that, like he just gets to the
paint when he wants to against a defender that's set
and ready to guard him, which is extremely rare. He's
not a good shooter, he's got a bunch of turnover issues,
but ninety fifth percentile in rim frequency at his position,
gets over a third of his shots are at the rim,
and he for that kind of volume being mid pack
and finishing efficiency at the rim, which he is, makes
sixty four percent of his shots for his position, that's
fifty third percentile. That's really good. And that's like, that's
what you're building off of with him, is is if
he can compromise a defense that way at that that
frequently and that and be at least a credible threat
to finish, you can like, okay, then then you can't
allow the pelicans to be spaced. Then you can't allow
shooters to be out there, because eventually he's going to
become a good enough passer to more of them if
you get him a decent role man like who knows
right like that that's not all there in his game yet,
but just as a baseline thing, I think his ability
to get where he wants to is kind of a
signature skill, and it's like it's pretty hopeless in New Orleans,
but that's something where Okay, we got that. We got
a guy that can do that, and that's a start.
Speaker 1: And his efficiency at the rim was pretty high. And
then Zion Williamson gets injured and just losing that type
of draw in the minutes that he was going to
play with him. And the other thing too, is the
quality of the looks that he is getting are they
could be really hard.
Speaker 3: And that's partly because of his size, right, Like he
just isn't finishing. Sigh for anybody, who else are.
Speaker 1: You worried about on New Orleans especially right now? Trey
Murphy and then the list kind of ends there. I mean,
Derek Lean when he's on the court, but that's not
going to do anything to pull guys away from Jeremiah Fears.
He is the only rookies Grant who've taken more contested
two pointers this season.
Speaker 2: Are I'm actually laughing, Dylan Harper.
Speaker 1: This is per game and he hasn't played in a
ton of games, so you can almost throw him out.
Cooper Flag and then Ryan Kalkbrenner of course, the efficiency thing.
Jeremi Vieers is shooting over fifty three percent on contested
two pointers, and we all have concerns about the perimeter thing.
He's at thirty seven percent on almost three catch and
shoot three point attempts per game.
Speaker 2: That's not bad.
Speaker 1: If that number could hold or come up a little bit,
it's gonna open things up for his ability to get
inside the paint. What I would point to, just to
echo what you said, the frequency is what I'm looking
at the most here, because it looks like I think
he's going to be a good finisher in this league.
And if you ever put let's say league average or
better spacing around him, it'll just pop. The fact that
he's able to get to the basket as often as
he has on this specific Pelicans team when you look
at the personnel that's just around him, just something I'm
kind of earmarking. I don't know what it's really gonna
mean for I don't know what this team looks like
tomorrow quite frankly, let alone next season, but to have
this guy being able to do that, if at some
point you do move on from aigh On Williamson or
you do hit the reset button. There is someone who
and we've seen it with Queen two, but like generating
offense is not going to be contingent upon anyone else.
But he doesn't need player X or archetype X around
him to do what like the one thing he's dominant
at or his most marketable skill getting to the rim.
It just scales to whatever situation or roster context that
we see.
Speaker 3: I think we talk a lot about like a signet,
like a carrying skill, and then if we get more exaggerated,
it's like he has a superpower. Like if it's a
you know, a guy that's gonna shoot forty one percent
from three or whatever, it's like Fears has one. Like
he really does look like he has one of those.
And you know that's that doesn't mean he's gonna be
a great player, but it means he's gonna be great
at something, and and most guys aren't. So like, if
you're trying to build these, he's got he's got one
of those.
Speaker 1: My final pick, I'm gonna go with the New York's
Knicks offense is actually trash grant, it sucks.
Speaker 2: It's gross.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to talk about the offense for one
I'm willing to donate my ankle to the cause of
Jalen Brunson, So if he needs it, just hit me up.
Speaker 2: I'm willing to give it to you.
Speaker 1: But also we get, and including myself, a lot of
people just get ahead of their skis when the Knicks
are rolling.
Speaker 2: They're beaten up on some bad teams.
Speaker 1: Their offense has been borderline offul against real defensive competition.
They've only played three top ten defenses, and the Orlando
Magic aren't one of them. I know that Magic had
been noisy on defense this year, but you look at
that team and you know there's a level that they
can get to. They played the Calves, they won that game,
but their offense was in the thirtieth percentile. They then
played the Celtics, they were in the forty third percentile
of offensive efficiency for that game. Then against the Heat,
they were in the thirteenth percentile of offen's efficiency. And
then that latest Magic game where Jalen Brunson got injured,
the offense was in the twenty seven percentile. The things
that I'm clocking here, and I think what it's also
just important to note is they're still trying to learn
a new defensive system, a new I mean a new
everything system under Mike Brown, and so that's not going
to just be there's going to be hiccups immediately. And
some guys I think have found their groove quicker than others,
Michal Bridges being the best example of someone who's just
come in and it works. Even though Gianninoby to some extent,
they're still uncomfortably relying on Jalen Brunson. And you can
see it against teams that are able to bring big
bodies or pressure onto their ball handlers. He's the only
one that knows how to handle it. And then they revert.
We saw it against the Magic maybe earlier than a lot,
but we see it against We've just seen it multiple
times this season where they revert to everything has to
go through Jalen Brunson.
Speaker 2: He's on the ball. We're not moving the ball.
Speaker 1: We're not trying to get guys going downhill as much
or moving Jalen Brunton off the ball as often. That's
something that they're either going to need to like what
is the balance or do they just revert to when
things are sloggy because you can't trust Karl Anthony Town
and even if you do. The Magic game is another
YOUD example. His post touches have basically been halved. They
should probably be halved again because like the guy just
doesn't pass enough out of those out of drives and
mcal Bridges at this point has been their second best facilitator.
And I found myself wondering during games when they're at
full strength, is it time to just go McHale Bridges
at point guard because they've treated Deuce McBride basically is
that almost by default, where no, he's not doing their
traditional backup point guard things, but you're not playing him
with the starters a ton, which is my other note
here that the numbers on that lineup is all over
the place, but grant over the past five games, the
Deuce plus starters lineup that everybody wanted to see has
played a total of like thirty two seconds. There have
been three games where they didn't log a single second.
I think against the Magic they logged fourteen seconds or
eight seconds or whatever it was. That's a roster construction challenge,
I think more than anything, because who are you your
first sub? If Mitchell Robinson's not playing, Mike Brown is
more in cline to start Landry Shammon at this point
or the first sub is going to be Landry Shamman
for Mitchell Robinson and Landry Shammon has been fine, but
I don't know if the Knicks are doing Mike Brown
has experimented, but I don't know if they're doing enough
to get to their best stuff, and they might just
be holding out hope for I would say a version
of Karl Anthony Towns that is going to be consistent
enough that I would call it atypical for Karl Anthony
Towns at this point of his career, and just something. Look,
the three point volume is there, the ball movement is there.
They're playing faster at points, but they're honestly, there's still
one of the when you look at where their shots
are coming from or how long their average offensive possession
times are lasting, they're one of the slowest teams when
it comes to their first chance offensive pace. I just
don't know if that type of speed that Mike Brown
traditionally wants to play with, I don't know if you
can get it out of this roster. The second unit, sure,
but when you're looking at the way that Jalen Brunson
is used to playing the way that Karl Anthony Towns is.
I mean him like running down the floor is like
how long that can take? That's not a huge problem.
I think this offense is gonna end being really good.
But to this point, what did we say about them
last year that their top five offense overall felt incredibly flimsy.
Right at this point, I feel more confident in their
offense than I did last season, but we are not
at a point where you could just say, oh, this
is definitely working for the Knicks. They need to be
tested a little bit more, and I still think that
there are things they could do with some of the
lineups they're running to be better.
Speaker 3: So do you think that because there is there are
indicators that you know, Brunson's time off the ball, the
shareff shots that he's not creating for himself, bridges on
ball time, they up ticking handoff frequency. There are these
indicators that stuff is different. I'm not saying you're not
acknowledging those. Do you think the fix, if one, is necessary,
or maybe the progress needs to come in the form
of just more of those differences, like you know, even
less time on the ball for brunts and more bridges
on ball, you know, more Mike Brown stuff, just higher
rates of that or is there something like tactical like that. Okay,
these these changes actually aren't sufficient even if there are
more of them or like a higher volume of these changes,
there needs to be like something different has to happen,
and maybe that's a lineup thing, Like you see the
difference I'm trying to get.
Speaker 1: At, right, I ultimately think that it's probably not I
would like to see more of Deuce with the starters,
but I recognize if you're do like if it's a
lineup thing, he's not what he's doing is I feel
like his impact has maybe felt even more defensively because
he's their best point of attack defender make life easier
on Ogan and Obe and and McHale bridges. What I
ultimately think this comes down to is like even like
the Mitchell Robinson version of the start like it's been
pretty good. I look at this as a personnel problem
to where it's they could change a bunch of things
where I kind of get Jalen Brunson's inclination when he
has deviated from what they're trying to do, and one
I think he's done a better job of fitting into
it than even maybe he's received credit for on a
national scale, but they don't. This isn't just about them
not having a backup point guard. It's really cool to
see those high moments from Karl Anthony Towns or to
see what mckel bridges has done this year. Unless you
trust that one of those guys can actually be the
anchor of your offense. When Jalen Brunson is off the
ball against the league defenses, or just off the floor
in general in the regular season, they will ultimately be fine.
We know what they can do with some of their
secondary units. When you get to the playoffs, that's when
I would still have questions. And that's look sure, those
questions aren't going to be answered even if the Knicks
have the best offense in the league this year. Just
we have to see once we get to the playoffs.
But I find myself wondering more if this team is
really good.
Speaker 2: Mike Brown might be able to optimize it.
Speaker 1: I just wonder if offensively it's going to be enough
to be an optimal offense in the playoffs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would like you to just tell twenty fifteen
Dan that these are the things you're bothered about with
the Knicks and just see what he would say.
Speaker 1: It's look, there are great problems to have, but you're
also you're all in. You fire the coach tried away
all the picks. I don't know what other moves you're
supposed to make. I will continue to bang the Justin
champennee drum. I think that that's something that they or
also if MEMS is gonna tear it down, I'm kind
of in love with Cam Spencer at the moment, So
if any of those teams want to throw.
Speaker 2: Those players this way.
Speaker 1: But joke to Jalen Brunson absence, I it's not I
don't like calling these things a blessing in disguise.
Speaker 2: But now you're gonna test.
Speaker 1: This quote unquote depth which another easan flying under the
rainar By the ways, Gershon Yabuseli has been absolutely awful
for most of the year. Jordan Clarks had never been
more efficient, though, So who who's that coming? I certainly didn't,
But it's well, you play Tyler Kohlik and maybe we'll
have some of the answers by the time this goes live.
I'm sure are we gonna get to something like there's
been even why not just throw Josh Hart play as
fast as you can. There's no other There's no Michale Bridges,
no Jalen Brunson on the court, like, and he's just
kind of your day facto. Sure, try more of that.
We just haven't seen a ton of it. Now you're
gonna be forced to do that. But I wasn't even
I do find it practice. It's gonna play more minutes
than it did under TIBs because it's hard not to.
But I wanted to see more of deuce plus the starters,
and you know, I want a deuce to start.
Speaker 2: I get why they're not doing that. They haven't.
Speaker 1: They haven't been going to it and deuce the game
against the mat like he wasn't very good.
Speaker 2: But it's that lineup. I think it just hasn't got
enough time. It has the potentially be.
Speaker 1: Really really special, and I think it's their most important lineup.
But I I do ultimately think, and maybe I'll be wrong.
This is gonna come down to being a personnel thing
more than Oh, is there a lineup change or a
stylistic shift that they could still make?
Speaker 2: Got it? Stat padding is back. We've got a few
fun ideas this time. You are free too for anyone listening.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to start sending guests of players back in,
we'll do maybe like one or two each time, rather
than spending like full length episodes on them. We know
our discord members love it, so hey join our discord. Grant,
what do we got cooking? First up though, for stat padding.
Speaker 3: Well, Nico Harrison, as you may have heard, is cook
in Dallas, and that leads to some fallout. The next
decision seems to be will Anthony The next question, will
Anthony Davis be traded? If so, where to good news?
We have some ideas to throw back and forth. Would
you like to toss out the first potential Anthony Davis trade?
Speaker 2: I would absolutely love to. Who says no?
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis addition, Anthony Davis for Paul George, Jared McCain
and a first round pick.
Speaker 3: Anthony Davis says yes because he gets to play power
forward next to Joel Embiid and he loves.
Speaker 2: That caught a center with the way that dwevel beat available.
Speaker 3: All right, that's true, but you can at least tell
you could tell him that, look, there's a center here
you will not have to bang around with fives. Uh
does Dallas. Dallas kind of might like Jared McCain in
a first round pick. I don't know how Dallas is
gonna feel about Paul George. Is Paul George the sticking
point in an Anthony Davis trade?
Speaker 2: It's a good question.
Speaker 3: He probably is.
Speaker 2: I think Dallas ends upsetting note of this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I probably agree with that. Next trade,
Anthony Davis to the Memphis Grizzlies for Ja Moran, Brandon Clark,
and Jalen Wells. Who says no to that one?
Speaker 1: I think that Dallas should be the team to say no,
but I believe it would probably be Memphis is the
team to say no.
Speaker 2: Here, what do you They're still all in on Jomran.
Speaker 1: You are getting older going from John Moran and John
Wells to a d but ad Jaron Jackson Junior and
Cedric Coward is one heck of a front line.
Speaker 3: Kind of fun and John Morant fills an obvious need.
If you don't believe Kyrie Irving is going to be
coming back for Dallas and really playing like Kyrie Irving.
And guess what, Cooper Flagg doesn't have to play point
guard anymore, which kind of hasn't been lately, but still
that's fun.
Speaker 1: Next, speaking of speaking of Cooper Flag not having to
play point guard anymore. Andy Davis for d Aaron Fox
and Kelly Olynnock, who says.
Speaker 3: No, Wow, I mean Davis and Wemby up front? You
got Dylan Harper and Steph Castle. I mean, I don't know.
I don't think does. I don't think san Antonio says
no here? Does Dallas? Is Dallas the one that says no? Here?
I think Dallas says no.
Speaker 1: I feel think I feel like san Antonio will be
the one to say no because they have Blue, Cornette
and Wemby. They could play all three of them at
the same time and that'd.
Speaker 2: Be pretty fun.
Speaker 1: I think san Antonio says no. Dear Fox is younger
and historically more durable. I think san Antonio says no.
Speaker 3: So glad I get to present this one to you.
Anthony Davis to the New York Knicks for Carl Anthony
Town straight up challenge trade who says no.
Speaker 1: It's the Knicks right, They say no, just based off
Anthony Davis's own durability. And I think for what Mike
Brown wants to do, shooting a bunch of threes. That's
I know carltw's never takes enough threes, but he's better
offensively than Anthony Davis and Mike Brown is very much
geared towards optimizing the offense.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I hear Anthony Davis has been working
on his three pointer over the offseason. Sorry, that was
twenty sixteen that I heard that, and then every year
after it. Give me the last one.
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis for Kobe White, Kevin Herder, Nicolo Vucevic and
two first round picks.
Speaker 2: Grant. Who says no, Chicago or Dallas?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 3: Chicago's says no because Dallas says yes to this immediately
to first, Kobe White's your point guard. You can re
sign him. Vouch comes off the books. Kevin Herder, I
don't know, he's gonna space better than Klay Thompson. You
got the pieces there.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: I think Chicago says no as well, although this might
be the one where you could see both teams doing
it because the Bulls are the bulls.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then everyone would hate it, which is how
you know it's a good trade.
Speaker 1: Next up, Grant, We're going to build the all NBA
disappointment team, A starting five and a sixth man, you
get to go.
Speaker 2: First with the pick. Who are you taking?
Speaker 3: All right, I'm gonna start us out real hot, and
I want to preface this by saying that this is
a disappointment relative to expectations, and I am going to
nominate Cooper Flag, who I think is going to be
a great NBA player. However, he is not running away
with Rookie of the Year. Part of that's because there
are some other very good rookies. Part of that's because
he was set up to fail in a stupid Dallas
lineup that made him play point guard. You can't say
Cooper Flag has delivered on expectations. Not his fault, but
we're not sitting here talking about well, Dallas is in
great shape no matter what. He just hasn't played like
we would have hoped. And again, not his fault, but
Cooper Flagg is not has disappointed in my eyes.
Speaker 2: That's a bold one. My next pick.
Speaker 1: I think this should have been the first pick because
I believe he's probably been the single most disappointing player
in the NBA. John Morant, I don't care about the
suspension or the pouting, although I absolutely do, still can't shoot,
not having the same intended impact on the offense that
he's supposed to still not a good defender, and it's
just a bummer because this was someone who was considered
face of the league material just a couple of years ago.
And if you're at the Grizzlies, maybe we should have Honestly,
it feels like the Grizzlies saw this coming because they
ended up trading Desmond Bane at a time when you
could have said, oh, yeah, they're just sort of reorienting
so they could be lean around John Morant. That makes
absolutely zero sense. It was an admission that this era
has underachieved, and John Morant continues to underachieve.
Speaker 2: So I'm taking him with pick number two.
Speaker 3: Do you think it's hurting Ja Morant's defense, which was
already not great, that he's just standing straight up and
not moving. Does that Does that help?
Speaker 2: Obviously it might be helping it at this point. So, uh,
you said it, straight up.
Speaker 3: Said you said the name, and I have a short
attention span. Desmond Baine has not single handedly solved the
Orlando Magics offense. I think that was always a little
bit of too big of an ask. But his three
point a temper rate is down from Memphis, and it's
way below his career average, and it's way way below
his career high and he's shooting like four and a
half threes. What's going on? What like this is partly
I mean, actually, let's be honest, this is mostly Orlando's
system's fault that is just not allowing him, not using
him in a way that would address your spacing issues.
I know the Magic's offense has been a little better lately.
I just think it's wildly disappointing that Desmond Bain has
not come in and fired off like twelve threes game,
because that was the whole idea. Let's space the offense out.
Let's use him to unlock the lane for all of
our giant forwards that can dribble. What's going on here?
This is the Orlando situation disappoints me, and Desmond Baine
is a symbol of that.
Speaker 1: Do you think he's been the biggest disappointment of that
or is it more so how they're using him? And
is it also on us for thinking he was going
to solve basically everything for them when he's not. One
of their biggest problems was we need an offensive organizer
which they still clearly do.
Speaker 3: All of the above, just like, shoot twice as many
threes and you wouldn't be on this list. And that's
that's mostly Orlando's fault, not I'm sure Desmond Bain would
love to shoot ten twelve threes a game. It's just
not happening.
Speaker 1: My next pick, biggest disappointment. I don't like going here
because he is currently dealing with some knee stuff. But
Joelle Embiid, I don't know what I was expecting the
ramp up to look like. And he's had some refreshing moments,
but just not someone who's going to overpower his way
to the basket anymore. It's good that he's learning how
to play off of VJ. Edgecomb and Tyrese Maxi, but
just the idea of Joe Embiid not being the central
nervous system of everything Philly is doing and that being
the right call for Philly to make.
Speaker 2: It's just unsettling. Isn't moving the same on defense. It's
more so of a bummer.
Speaker 1: But I kind of hoped that, oh, if he's going
to play in small or burse like he was, that
we could hope for our higher Joelle Embiid peak than
we have seen so far.
Speaker 3: I'll round it out here. This pains me to do it,
but we have to.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: Klay Thompson, one of the greatest shooters of all time,
lost his starting job on a team that desperately needed spacing.
He just wasn't providing it. He's under thirty percent from three,
he's thirty five. He's had catastrophic injuries. It's incredible that
he had as good of a late prime as he did.
But like, what he provides is what Dallas needed and
he just hasn't hasn't brought it. So huge bummer, but
Klay Thompson has not met expectations.
Speaker 2: Our sixth man is going to be Cameron Johnson. I
think it.
Speaker 1: He's better defensively than MPJ was for them, but he
right now just and not hit a wide open three.
Speaker 2: Sub thirty percent on wide open threes.
Speaker 1: We've seen some air balls on wide open threes. And
it's probably good for the Nuggets that they've been able
to be as good as they are without.
Speaker 2: Him playing up to his current level.
Speaker 1: But that was build as this game changing addition, and
he hasn't really been that to them thus far. And
if they're bench or some of the role players weren't
playing so well off the bench. For them, I'd be
curious to see if there was a bigger impact on
their offense.
Speaker 2: With Cam Johnson playing the way that he.
Speaker 3: Has deeply annoyed because he's ruining my two part theory
of leave Jokic get bad, join Jokic get good has
not happened.
Speaker 2: So is he the first player to join you aside
from use of Nurkic.
Speaker 3: Of course he's He's patient zero. He's patient zero for
the debunking the Jokic two part theory.
Speaker 2: Do you want to build the all NBA breakout team next?
Speaker 3: I think that's a much more positive endeavor. Let's do that.
Do I get the first pick? That's fun. I think
I'm gonna go. Jalen Durant, scoring up around nineteen points
a game, is suddenly like a legitimate secondary creator as
a roleman and ISO like attacker. His passing has been
more consistent, and a lot of this is Isaiah Stewart,
but Jillan duran is part of just the best in
the paint team on both ends in the league, so
a pretty spectacular step forward for him.
Speaker 1: I'm going to take with my first pick Alprin Shangun.
He's already been an All Star. But what we're looking
at is all NBA back of the ballot, MVP type
stuff from him, nerve center of Houston's offense, which has
actually been pretty efficient, even though it's not always pretty.
He is averaging twenty two points, shooting over forty percent
from three, grabbing a ton of rebounds, averaging over seven assists.
It has been amazing to watch him work amid would
is still less than ideal spacing when you look at
Houston's most played lineups.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go with Austin Reeves. I mean, had the
fifty pointer, had the game winner, a bunch of double
digit assist stuff, missed a little bit of time. But
now we're talking about, like, well, how many Max years
do the Lakers have to give him to beat the
market in free agency? When he opts out that was
not a conversation we were having prior to the season.
And uh just has played at an all NBA level
for long stretches of this early season, certainly at an
all Star level. Just the on ball creation has leveled up.
He just looks like a guy you could actually run
your whole offense through if you wanted to. And he's
positioned to be like the number two option, so a
pretty spectacular leap for him.
Speaker 1: My next pick, I'll go with Tyrese Maxi. We don't
care about positions here in case anyone's wondering.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 1: Over thirty two points a game, over forty four percent
from three on nine attempts per game. He now looks
like someone you could run your entire offense through as well.
Over eight assists, has the you know some inside the
arc noise to begin the season, but has the floater
going he is again, we're talking about someone who's already
on a max contract, recognized as a star or fringe star,
and he's making what feels like an all NBA leap
right now. And the Sixers, despite not having Paul George,
despite Joel Embiid being banged up, not playing like Joel Embiid,
they've still been competent. And that's mostly because of Tyree's
Maxi going nuclear.
Speaker 3: I'm so excited. I got to mention this player, Jima
Hawkes Junior, who kind of felt like last year was
the end of him as a rotation player. Now the
Miami Heat are doing a lot of things. Well, I'm
not sure almost any of them work quite as effectively
if Hawkes is not barreling up the floor on the
ball all the time, by the way, running into you
and either spraying a pass out or scoring at the rim.
Still not a great shooter, and maybe that gets like
gamed against or schemed against, but he's been just overpowering
as an offensive on ball threat, like seventeen to seven
and five as we record this, he's just like, didn't
save that. It's excessive to say he saved his career,
but he's like one of the biggest reasons the Heat
have been an incredibly exciting story this season.
Speaker 1: My final pick going to Denny Afia probably would have
been involved in this exercise last season. But if you're
going to come in from last season and now average
over twenty six points and five, round five is his
per game while upping your three point percentage, while shooting
better on two pointers, while running the entire Blazers all
when you look at the injuries, playing super fast, giving
them really good defense, especially in some of their more
positionless lineups.
Speaker 2: As of right now.
Speaker 1: If we were to do all star teams today and
the wacky setup that Adam Silver has concocted he's probably
making one in the Western Conference, which is that's insane.
What do you want to move on to?
Speaker 2: Next? Grant? Are you ready for some trivia?
Speaker 3: Let's hit it so.
Speaker 2: I have two sets that we're gonna talk.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk scoring here, Grant, which NBA player has
the higher career scoring high?
Speaker 2: Luka Doncic or Donovan Mitchell.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna say, ooh, doest Luca have like a I'm
gonna say, Luca.
Speaker 2: He does seventy three points to Donovan Mitchell seventy one? Oh?
Speaker 3: I forgot Mitchell had a seventy one. I knew Luca
had a seventy.
Speaker 2: In there, Giannis attend to koopo or Joel Embiid?
Speaker 3: Hmmm, well did the Pacers steal the game ball when
Joel Embiid said his career high, I'm gonna go Yannis.
Speaker 1: That is incorrect. Joel Embiid had seventy. Giannis hoops out
at sixty four. John Morant or Zion Williams, John Morant
or Zion Williamson, HM, no number.
Speaker 3: Jumps to mind right away for this one. I'm gonna
go with jaw just because he's played a little more.
Speaker 2: That is correct. Fifty two is his career high.
Speaker 1: Zion forty three underwhelming? Shake, Gilgess, Alexander or Clay Thompson.
Speaker 3: Oh, what is Shae? I don't know what Shae. I'm
gonna go Clay.
Speaker 2: It is Clay sixty. And then Shae had a double
nickel which he dropped this past year.
Speaker 3: Guarantee you Shaye dribbled more.
Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards or Trey Young. I'll say Aunt that is incorrect.
Anthony Edwards fifty three, Trey Young fifty six. You should
have known that one. Lamello ball or Kid Cunningham.
Speaker 3: I'll say Caid.
Speaker 2: That is incorrect.
Speaker 1: Caid's career high as forty six, Lamello's fifty. Forgot that
final one. Austin Reeves or Jalen Williams J dubb I don't.
Speaker 3: Think Jadab's got fit. I have to say Reeves.
Speaker 2: You are correct.
Speaker 1: Reeves had his fifty one burger this season. Jay Dubbs
topped out at forty one.
Speaker 2: Last one for you.
Speaker 1: Six active NBA players have multiple sixty point games.
Speaker 2: Can you name all of them? I will give you
three strikes.
Speaker 3: Steph that is correct. One Damian Lillard. Correct, that's two
multiple sixties. I mean Kevin Durant incorrect, strike one, greatest
score of all time. Come on, let's see who else
has got multiple sixties. I'll say embiid that is incorrect.
Speaker 2: Strike two.
Speaker 3: Oh no, we are not going to get to any
of these. You might have to give me a hint
so I don't strike out after just two correct guesses.
Fight your most natural impulses, fight my most natural impulses.
Speaker 2: What does that even mean?
Speaker 3: I don't I don't know what my natural impulses are.
Speaker 2: Uh, that's you're missing. Here's your hint. You're missing a
very obvious place.
Speaker 3: Okay, is it Lebron incorrect?
Speaker 1: Straight three? Honestly I'm ashamed. Here's man, here's the here's
the full list. James Harden five sixty point games. Okay,
you got Damian Lillard, he's had four, Steph had two.
These other three players also had to Devid Booker, Luka,
Doncic and Karl Anthony Towns was so was?
Speaker 3: What was the fight? My natural instincts thought you were
gonna go with Lebron, which you did and you didn't.
But he's he's a passer Dan, He's not a scorer
was a natural instinct score.
Speaker 1: Apparently, I'm two of six. I expected you to get
I didn't think you were gonna get Towns.
Speaker 2: I thought maybe you.
Speaker 1: I thought you would get hardened for sure, and I
thought you would have gotten Doncic just because you previously
knew he had the seventy three points.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So the important part is I was two for two
and then I stopped trying. I think, let's should we
frame it that way?
Speaker 2: Let's go with that. Yeah, let's go with that. Do
we do it? Do you have any doubts or are
you ready to take us out of here?
Speaker 3: Good draft, good content, good discussions. I think that is
going to cover it though. Thanks everybody for listening, for watching.
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