← The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
Hoops Tonight - Cooper Flagg vs. Kon Knueppel: NBA Rookie of the Year DEEP DIVE | Mavericks x Hornets
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All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at the Volume. Happy Wednesday everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great week. As promised, we are continuing our midseason awards check in, focusing on Rookie of the Year today. I'm really going to be doing deep dives on Cooper. Flag in Con Cannipal. I want to talk about specifically why Cooper is such a big favorite to win Rookie of the Year. I think there's some debate there and I think it's okay to just admit that Khan's having an amazing season, even though it doesn't necessarily mean he can supersede Cooper there. I want to talk about that. Then we're going to actually dive into each of those individual players, how their games have translated to the NBA so far, where their areas of opportunity are, and what I expect their careers to look like in the long run. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Make sure you like this video and sign up for our video notifications so that you can stay up to speed throughout the season. And then, last but not least, if you guys want to get mailbag questions into our mailbags, drop them in our full episodes on YouTube in the comments and we'll get to them on Fridays throughout the remainder of the season. So Rookie of the Year Hard Rock Bet has pretty straightforward lines here. Cooper's a massive favorite at minus 700. Big drop to Con Cannipal at plus 3. 50, then a massive drop to VJ Edgecomb at plus 7500 and then an absolute chasm before you get to Derek Queen and cedric coward at plus 50,000 each. So what that means is Cooper's going to deservedly win it if he stays healthy. You're really just betting on injury luck there. And I saw Tim McMahon reported yesterday or the day before that Cooper's probably going to be back right away after the All Star break. So that mid foot sprain or whatever that he was dealing with he's already recovered from. So again, I think that's a big part of why Cooper is as big of a favorite as he is. The numbers are actually pretty close between Cooper Flag and Con Cannipal. Cooper flags averaging 20.7 rebounds and 4 assists on 56% true shooting. ConCan nipple 196 and 4. 4 on 65% true shooting. Jackson was telling me before we started recording today that he was editing some stuff for the club 520 guys and they were talking about how, you know, specifically the Hornet situation. He's around a lot of gunners and the team has been a little bit better and I think those are actually very valid points in defense of Con Knipple in his Rookie of the Year case. But there are two fundamental differences between their situations that still has me leaning towards Cooper. Again, like it to me, like Con Knippel is such a fascinating player. We're going to dive into him. I think he's incredible. I'm really starting to buy stock in this Hornets team. But it's just when it strictly comes to Rookie of the Year, I do think it's pretty straightforward that it's Cooper and I want to get into those reasons why. So the two main fundamental differences that I want to dig into is one Cooper Flag's already much more of an impact defender. We're going to talk about Con canipples defense when we get into that segment. He's primarily guarding an off ball shooter. He's doing pretty basic like kind of backside defense stuff, getting picked on a lot one on one just like every other white dude in the NBA. Has had some success in some situations, has had some issues in other situations. But I think overall Khan's going to be a fine defender and ultimately you're just trying to defend well enough in a team context to give your team a chance to win, which Khan can't. But what Khan is not is like an impact defender. A defender that can really change games because of the level of defensive talent that he brings to the equation. Cooper does have that ability. He is a game changing type of defender because of his length, because of his ability to play passing lanes, because of his ability to make help side rotations at the rim. He's just an actual like game impacting defensive player. Right. Even just at the simplest level, Cooper's averaging over twice as many stocks per game. So that's why I think there's a pretty substantial gain gap there between the level of defensive impact between the two. The second piece of it is specifically within this season. Cooper's had much more responsibility to break the defense down off the Dribble. He has 667 self creation possessions according to synergy, including passes. Those are pick and rolls. ISOs post ups. Kahn278. Now you're going to close that gap a little bit with some of the off ball action that they specifically run for Khan. But overall there is a much larger amount of responsibility on Cooper to break down the defense. It even reflects in drives per game. Cooper has been one of the better drivers of the basketball in the NBA this season. That is a way of penetrating and breaking down the defense. That is a level of responsibility that Cooper has that Con hasn't had. That doesn't necessarily mean that Khan couldn't handle that right. Like one of the reasons why Con Cannipple has a 65% true shooting percentage versus Cooper at 56 is that Knipple's playing with an advantage more as a guy who's a cog in the system rather than a guy that's responsible for breaking down the defense all of the time. Again, I think that efficiency is a feather in Khan's cap. I just think it's influenced a little bit by the self creation aspect overall. The two way aspect, the higher amount of offensive responsibility. Those to me are the completely legit reasons why Cooper should get the the award this season. There's also an upside element like Cooper has seven 30 point games. Khan has four. Cooper has a 42 point game and a 49 point game. Con is yet to score 40 in a game. So I even think just the like superstar level upside that we've seen between these two players, Cooper's just flashed more of that. So yeah, Khan's been incredible. An absolute smash hit. I was. You guys remember when we did our contender rankings last week? Kevin OConnor talked about on the show about how he wished the spurs would have taken con. Hard to disagree with him under the circumstances. Khan has just been that good. It's been like a resounding success. The kind of hit that can legitimately change the franchise's fortunes in a lot of ways. Like it's not all Con. Cause you know Brandon Miller has improved. Lamelo has been more healthy this year. There's been several things on the roster that have hit Moussa Diabate is a role man partner for these guys. The offensive rebounding between him and Ryan Kalkbrenner. There's a lot of really good stuff for the Hornets. But they were the 29th ranked offense last year and this year they're top 10. And Con Knipple is a big part of that. And when you hit on that kind of pick that, that, that can change your franchise's fortunes. Just none of that is enough for me to unseat Cooper for that Rookie of the Year award. Unless something crazy happens on the injury front, which again is what you're betting on there on Hard Rock Bet. Today's show is brought to you by our presenting sponsor, Hard Rock bet, the official sportsbook partner of the Miami Heat and the Orlando Magic. What's better than the sound of the ball on the hardwood, sneakers squeaking and the swish of the net winning on Hard Rock Bet, you're home for hoops action all season long. And if you want to score a major bucket, shoot your shot at the same game parlay, stack your picks on Hard Rock Bet and see your odds grow. But if you miss tip off, don't worry. 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On that note, let's take a look through these two rookies from a scouting standpoint and look at how they're progressing as pros, starting with Cooper Flag I think by far the most impressive surprise from Cooper's NBA debut has Been his ability to get into the paint, off the dribble and finish when he gets there. You guys know I don't cover the NBA draft as close as the guys who focus on it, but in draft circles, one of the concerns that you saw floating around with Cooper was his first step quickness and his ability to finish at the rim. Specifically, we saw some issues finishing with his left hand around the rim at times. At Duke, right. He had no issue at all breaking down defenses off the dribble. To this point as a rookie, he's been logging 12.3 drives per game. According to NBA.com that's the same volume, like in the same territory as guys like Austin, Reeves and Dear and Fox, who are known for being quality dribble drive guards and more than some famous drivers like Anthony Edwards and Russell Westbrook. So that's a super impressive number because he's only going to get better at that as he adds muscle mass so he can win those leverage battles again. Like, when you think about what getting dribble penetration comes down to, it comes down to a combination of things. It's a combination of, you know, ball control, the ability to chain together the dribble combinations that you need to get a defender out of position with. When you have a defender out of position there, I would add first step quickness to that too. So it's a combination of ball handling and first step quickness. But once you make your drive, it's a leverage battle. You're probably not going to just cleanly dust the dude off the dribble. You're going to do that every once in a while when you chain together a really nice move, but for the most part, you're going to have just a little bit of an angle and it's going to be a leverage battle. My shoulder versus your shoulder, who's going to be able to hold their ground versus win that battle, right? And as Cooper adds muscle mass, he'll get better at that. There's also like a angles and timing piece of this, like reading help defenders and understanding where the drive opportunities are. Those are all things that he's going to get better at. So, like for the concern coming into the NBA draft that he would have some issues beating people off the dribble and finishing at the rim. When he got there, he's been beating a ton of people off the dribble and he's only going to get so much better at it. And like another piece too. Like Dallas at percentage wise shoots pretty well in catch and shoot threes. But they make the fourth fewest catch and shoot threes per game. He's going to be on rosters at various points in his career. Who can space the floor a little bit better as well. Then there's the finishing when he gets there. Cooper has extremely strong rim finishing metrics for a rookie. 60% at the rim. He was 58% at Duke. And one of the big increases that's got him up to that 60% is he's been 3, 3% better, specifically at layups. So rim finishing that isn't a dunk. Now, the spacing is better at an NBA level, as we all know, but so is the talent, especially rim protection and perimeter defense talent. So, like, I overall still view that as an impressive number. Most importantly, 60% to me is a quality benchmark for pros, like, let alone evaluating a rookie. And he's already there. My guess is that in the long run, Cooper's going to be more in that like 65% territory at the rim. This is where I want to kind of take a look at Jason Tatum for a second, because this is the guy that Cooper is always compared to. Tatum was a better rim finisher than Cooper in college. He was 61% in his season at Duke. But it actually took him a little while to find his footing as a rim finisher in the Pros. He was 55% as a rookie in the NBA. And it took him literally to last year, which was his best season. It took him to last year to get up into that 65% territory again, that I view as both Tatum's potential, but also as Cooper's potential in the long run. So Cooper's a little ahead of schedule there. But again, what you're. If you're viewing Jason Tatum as the goal, and I think that's a compliment, Tatum last year, when he was at his healthiest, was, in my opinion, the fifth best basketball player in the world. I think if Cooper got to the fifth best basketball player in the world, that would be a big win in a league that's as talented at the top as this, this NBA. And I want to dig into some when we get into more of the defense stuff with, with Cooper. There are some other elements to Tatum's game that I think Cooper has to pick up on if he's going to become that level of player. But we'll get to there in a minute. Overall, Cooper's beaten a lot of people off the dribble. He's finishing at the rim already pretty well when he gets there. That strong that those are really strong numbers away from the rim. This is arguably the most important part for his development as a like half court surgeon, right? The guy that can run the offense in a clutch game late against elite defense. You have to have some kind of surgical, over the top efficient shot. And for me, as you guys know, I've always kind of gravitated towards short range shot making even more than mid range shot making and especially more than the pull up three point shooting. Why? Because historically we've seen the guys that can get close to. Again, like we talked about Shea as a mid range shooter. Shea takes a lot of short twos like inside of 17ft. Luka, a lot of short twos inside the 17ft. Luka, a LOT of floaters. We were talking about that in yesterday's pod, right? Like Luka's so good at those little push shots and floaters that are like five, seven, eight feet away from the basket. Nicola Jokic, that's literally the dynamic that drives him as one of the best one on one players which dictates the double teams that unlock his passing ability. If you let him go one on one, he's going to be able to get to a hooker floater that he can make at damn near 70%. Right? So like that short range shot making just in general is something that I gravitate to. It's one of my favorite parts of this budding Cooper flag offensive game. Coop is fantastic at these little hooks and floaters close to the rim. He's attempted 108 of them this year. So he's taken over two per game and he's made 58. That's 54%. Not Jokic territory, but super reliable. And again he's a rookie. He's going to be able to in big spots late in games already to make some sort of dribble move, pop up off the ground in that, you know, ten 12 foot area and make some sort of little short shot that he can hit at a pretty high percentage and he's only going to get better at that over time. He's also 43% on jump shots inside of 17ft, which is not bad, not great, but not bad. And when you combine it all together so all twos that are not at the rim but that are inside of 17ft, he's taken 228 and he's made 110. That's 48% on really high volume short range shooting as a rookie. I mean he's taken that. I mean we're talking about four, four And a half of them per game. That's like a huge chunk of of his shot profile. And then you also have all of these attempts at the rim. So overall, really, really impressive close range, close range scoring for him. And again, he's just going to get better at that in time. And it's important because it's the hardest shot to guard in basketball. Rim protection doesn't affect these kinds of shots because you're shooting over rim protection and most teams overplay the three for math's sake, right? So if you have a guy who can successfully operate in that zone, it can be a really reliable part of your offense, especially in late game, half court situations, especially when you get to the postseason. Read and react basketball. This is, as I've talked about, one of the most important parts of the game these days. And this was one of the original things that stood out to me about Cooper. Even when I started scouting him at Duke and summer league last year, he was so relentless at making simple reads. So you know, he's dry dribbling off of the right wing and a dude's digging down and nail help. No reason to mess around. Swing pass to the wing, go to work, right? Like all of the simple reads that you get in various basketball action. So driving a closeout, where does the help come from? Where's the next read in that chain, right? Same thing on cuts. When you, a lot of times when you cut or roll out of an action, you'll basically be the spearhead of a four on three. So that next read is pivotally important. He's very good at it. Simple stuff in action, right? Like he's been running a lot of these like inverted screens with Najee Marshall and Max Christie where he'll be dribbling at the top and Najee or Max will come up and either set a screen and slip or you know, just sprint by and you know, kind of tap the hip to kind of trigger some kind of switch and they slip out to the three point line. Cooper is dragging a lot of attention in those situations and he'll just pitch it back to the top of the key to Najee or to Max and they'll hit a shot up there, he'll make the corner kick when he's coming off of ball screens like he's, you know, it's, it's interesting because he's actually facing more at the level coverages than you'd think. This is something I've learned a lot about the NBA in the last couple of years. You'd think of at the level, coverage is primarily as a dynamic to address pull up shooting, right? Like, oh, I don't want this guy coming clean off the screen so that he can just rise up into a three. Well, we're also seeing it a lot on drivers and specifically because they're trying to take away the Runway. So like if you run any variation of drop coverage, even some like, like not necessarily a deeper drop, but a guy that's coming up kind of in between those two zones, if a guy turns the corner and he gets sprinting full speed, it's really difficult for the bigs to, to slide their feet in those situations. And you can give up, you know, a split or something along those lines where you're really screwed if you give up a split now, it's not a 4 on 3, it's a 5 on 3. Your defense is broken. You're probably going to give up a layup or a wide open three. And so by bringing bigs all the way up to the level, you can try to catch them before they turn the corner, right? So like that will unlock just the simple little over the top reads to the bigs or sometimes he'll drive at that guy and then they'll come over and tag the roller from the corner and he'll make the skip. He's had really good chemistry with Caleb Martin this year, both as a corner shooter and as a cutter out of the corner as well. And assist to turnover ratio is always a big one. I look at in these situations and he's basically at a 2 to 1 and I think that's a strong sign because again he will continue to get so much better as he gains a larger understanding of NBA basketball. And he's right at about two turnovers per game, which given his usage I think is pretty solid, especially as a rookie who's being exposed to a lot of ball handling responsibility. On defense, it's all just about motorcycle competitiveness and the tools that he possesses. He is such a big frame. He gets so many steals just by having his arms up in a passing lane. This is like a fundamental thing, right? So like everyone that coaches basketball on a fundamental level, like there's, there's obviously very aggressive defenses and there are coaches that teach more aggressive like base schemes, but for the most part at every level, what do they teach you when you're one pass away? You want to be like not directly on the passing line because that can make you vulnerable to back cuts, but you want to be just off the passing line with your arm in the Passing line. Imagine a line, a perfect line between the passer and the receiver of the catch. Like if you're on the line, it's an easy back cut, right? You're just, you're out of position. But if you're just a step off the line and you have that kind of little bit of an open stance where you can see man and ball and you got your hand up into the passing lane, that's your like your base. Fundamental defensive positioning in a shell drill when you're one pass away. And it is crazy how many steals Cooper flag will get just because for him, that frame that he possesses in that passing lane just catches people off guard. He'll be a step off the passing lane so it'll look like it's open and then he'll just go like that and he's deflecting the ball and he's running the other way. You'll see that in some cross court passing situations too where he's kind of in that like weak side two on one type of situation. And he just gets a lot of steals because of his frame, because of his IQ and because he's always in the right spot. Then there's like this ball hawking thing, like a pursuit of the ball thing that really helps him on defense. Like he gets a lot of chase down blocks, gets a lot of loose balls where he's just kind of in the mix and just in the right spot and the ball will end up in his hand. A good amount of his steals will come that way too. And he's already per 36, averaging seven rebounds. I'd like to see that get a little higher. Like this is where we can get into another Jason Tatum comp. Like Cooper is a better rebounder than Tatum when Tatum was a rookie at this point like, like year for year. But Tatum has worked all the way up through adding muscle mass and just improving overall as a rebounder. The last three seasons he's averaging eight and a half rebounds per 36. I think that's a good target for Coop. He's already at seven, but if you can bump it up to that eight and a half. I think one of the main reasons that will be important not just be not just the actual rebounding piece, but also the muscle mass piece that has become one of the most dynamic kind of defensive looks that we've seen have success in the NBA this in the last few years is like if you have a forward who can guard centers and can also switch on to perimeter ball handlers, you can shut down an opponent's base. Pick and roll. Look and force them to run pick and roll that they don't prepare practice very often. So you can tuck your center on a weak side shooter or let's just say the power forward for the other team. And now all of a sudden that opposing ball handler is like, I don't want to go at Jason Tatum or in this case, Cooper, flag in a switch. So why don't I go bring the center into the action? But now they're running the action with a different screen partner than they typically run it with. It can be very non traditional. It can jank up the spacing. That was a big thing we saw in the Dallas series. Right. Like all Derrick Jones and PJ Washington are taking all these corner threes in the first few rounds because teams are defending Dallas traditionally, and the roll man is the center. Right. But then all of a sudden, Boston puts Tatum on your center, and now you're running your pick and rolls with PJ Washington and Derek Jones. What does that do? It puts them more as poppers, and when they're popping, they're popping above the break. Very different shot than those corner threes that they had been taking. They go cold. It was one of the biggest swing factors in that series. And so having Cooper develop into a bigger, stronger version of himself, that's a better rebounder, can help him get to that point where he's able to actually guard centers, which is the fundamental thing that can give defensive flexibility to Dallas moving forward. And I actually think he's got more potential than Tatum as a perimeter defender. I think he's quicker laterally, and I think he's just got a little bit more of that, like, natural perimeter defender DNA, if that makes sense. So, like, I, I, I think like, like it's a goal. He's got a long way to go again. Tatum, before he got hurt, was the fifth best player in the NBA. There's a ton of improvement he needs to get there. We're about to talk about the jump shot. That's a huge part of this. Like, Coop's got to get way better on the jump shot. Tatum came into the league as a good jump shooter, so there's like a, a different kind of level that he's got to get you there. But I'm more just focusing on Tatum as a defender and as a rebounder. I think that should be the goal that Cooper is chasing as he tries to reach his individual ceiling. All right, time to nitpick the jump shot 30.7% on all jump shots this year, just 0.85 points per attempt. If you break it down by type, he's 28% on catch and shoot threes this year. That's brutally bad when he's unguarded, like standing alone 11 for 48, which is below 20%. So like that's a scary one. He's got to get substantially better or just a little over 20%. Excuse me. That's one that he's really got to work on. That's, you know, inevitably next year Kyrie Irving will be healthy. And when Kyrie Irving is healthy, Coop's going to get a lot more catch and shoot looks. And the only way he's going to be able to pay those off is by improving as a catch and shoot player. He's been better off the dribble. 39% on pull up twos. I'm going to talk about it a minute. He's taken too many long twos. 32% on pull up threes. Again. The big thing here, I want to see him trim down on the number of long twos that he's taking. He's taken 61 twos outside of 17ft. So more than once, once per game. That's the worst shot in basketball for anyone. And the kinds of guys that you're seeing taking those shots are usually really good shooters. There are a handful of counter examples like Shaden Sharp takes too many of them and he's not a very good, you know, long to pull up shooter. Michael Porter Jr. Takes a lot of long twos and he's sneaky, not very good at them. So like when it gets to that specific shot, I'd like to see him just trim that out. Like Kevin Durant has taken 70 of them, but he's hitting 51% because he's one of the best shooters in the NBA. There's no reason for Cooper to be taking nearly that many super long twos. I would have that be solely when you're up against the shot clock. Again. The main difference between Jason Tatum and Cooper Flagg at this point is the jump shot piece. Now, when you look at Jason Tatum, ironically, he came into the league as a better jump shooter. But that's been one of the most frustrating things over the last five years is his super streakiness as a jump shooter. He'll go through stretches where for a couple of weeks he's hitting 48% of his threes and he's hitting all of his step backs and oh my God, this guy looks amazing. But then he'll have a stretch where he goes ice cold and he shoots 28% from three for a couple of weeks. And in the aggregate, Tatum's been right around a point per jump shot, which is pretty mediocre, right? Like Cooper's got a long way to go to get to where Tatum was. But Tatum never really fully fulfilled his potential as a jump shooter. That's where Cooper's got some potential to even be better than him if he can chain together the, the interior defensive piece of Jason Tatum. And then you add the perimeter defensive potential that Cooper has. Tatum's a good perimeter defender, but I think Cooper can be even better there. And then Cooper's a better driver. Cooper's a very gifted driver of the basketball. If he can supersede Tatum as a jump shooter, that's where he could enter into some conversations that even Tatum has never entered into. Long way to get there, but that's the type of potential that Cooper has. Overall, I think he's exceeded expectations this year. Kind of in the middle of a mini leap right now too. In his last six games, 32, 8 and 4 on 53% from the field, 46% from 3 and 84% from the the line. So we could even be looking at a guy that's going to go up a level down the tail end of the season. Last thing I'll say here about Cooper, I remember saying Vicini, as you guys know, Sami, good friend of mine, he comes on the show every year, multiple times and he's in my opinion the very best NBA draft guy out there. And Sam, he gives out these like level grades for his prospects. And I remember he gave a Level 1 grade to Cooper and he had told me privately, he's like, I don't give this grade very often. And I he was standing on business when it came to Cooper. He thought he was that level of prospect. And I think Cooper has demonstrated that upside this season so far. Khan Knipple Khan represents a combination of two archetypes of players that I think are deeply valuable in the modern NBA. The dynamic movement shooter and the big bodied playmaker type. He's kind of both of those mixed into one player. The dynamic movement shooting is what creates a coverage dynamic that breaks most modern defenses. It forces you to lock and trail and stay attached. It's when you get into switching with defenders, that's when mistake switching with shooters, that's when mistakes get made, right? That's when you have guys botching switches or there can be a switch interchange gap. Like this guy peels off of me and the next guy's coming to guard me. But there's a gap in there. If you hit me, I can hit a shot, right? Like, there's all sorts of issues that come from switching. And so a lot of times you want to do a traditional lock and trail coverage. You want to have a guy that's like, you stay glued to this guy's damn hip the entire time he's on the floor, right? And so when he's locking and trailing, then it becomes a read for the big. If he stays attached, the big can stay back in a drop coverage. If there's separation, then the big has to show at the level. But the only way you can unlock those coverages and those coverages are the pathway to like, broken defense, right? Like, a defender in trail position can lead to a lot of dribble penetration because if he's chasing you, then he's just going to let you curl. And now you're going downhill. And if they come up to the level with their big, that sparks the four on threes, which can lead to all sorts of layups, dunks, and wide open threes. But you have to be a truly great shooter to dictate those types of of coverages. I'd even add two on the ball type of situations which, like, I was, you know, digging into the film today, like Khan is seeing a ton of two on the ball coverages where like he's coming off of guard, guard ghost screens and getting trapped or like trapped on pick and rolls. Like he's seeing a lot of those like aggressive two on the ball type situations. And he's got some turnover issues there, which we'll talk about in a little bit. But like, he is shooting the ball so damn well that he is dictating a lot of these super aggressive coverages. Here are his big picture jump shooting stats. 43% on all jump shots. 1.21 points per attempt. That's outstanding. Thanks to him making 183 threes already this season at 43%. Breakdown by type. 41% on catch and shoot threes. 48% on off the dribble threes. That's insane. 45% on off the dribble twos, which is okay off of movement. This is where the real value is again, like spot up threes and movement threes carry two very different types of value. Because spot up threes, there's like a pretty high floor around the NBA. Like there every team has a guy that you're like, you know, if he gets open, he's probably not going to make it. But like for most teams, like most of their role players, if they're standing butt naked in the corner, they're going to make, you know, somewhere between 35 and 40% of them. And the best shooters will make a higher percentage. But like the difference in outcome on a spot up three based on talent, you know, jump shooting talent is much, much, much, much, much smaller than the difference in result that you're going to see in shooting talent on movement threes. Right. And so that's in movement. Threes are the kinds of threes that are going to dictate certain types of coverages. Right. Like how do you guard a spot up shooter? Just don't leave them. Like it's pretty simple. How do you guard a movement shooter? Much more complicated situation. So off of movement is where the real value is for Khan. Out of his 183 made threes, only 76 of them have come in spot up situations. Not a big surprise. You're not going to leave Khan open and spot up situations very often. But so that means we're literally looking at 107 threes that are in some sort of movement. He's made 34 in transition. Those are different types of movement threes. You're sprinting to the corner, you're trailing the play above the break, right? He's made 15 as the ball handler in pick and roll. He shot 52% on those two. Talk about dictating aggressive coverages. If you let Khan settle into a pull up three and a ball screen because you go under or because the big sets a big screen and the big, the defensive big is too far back. He's hitting over 50% of them. You can't do that. That's over 1.5 points per shot. That's going to get you beat, right? He's hitting 25. He's hit 25 on 52%. Slipping out of inverted ball screens. He'll do this a lot with Lamelo ball where he'll run up, set the little slip and then he'll run out. Sometimes they'll add like a, a sometimes they'll add like a flare screen to this where they'll have like Lamellos there. Con will come up and set the screen, slip out of it and then run off of a flare from Musa Diabate. And that's just like super difficult to guard. It's, it's so funny. I was playing pickup on Sunday. I played this private run here in Denver on, on Sunday mornings and it's just a bunch of really smart players that have played at various levels. And so it's just a really like, kind of like it's the closest thing to like real basketball that you'll see from pickup just because you have a lot of smart players who know how to play. And I was actually guarding a shooter in a sequence that ended up being a slip out of a ball screen into a flare. And I was guarding the original ball handler. And I switched onto the guard who was slipping out of the screen and just got rocked by a flare screen that I just didn't even see because it's like happening so fast. There's like a guy that's slipping that you're switching onto, but then there's this other screen that's coming. And if you're not like communicating through the whole thing, I just get absolutely rocked. The big who's guarding the other bigs not up at the level. So he shakes free for three at the top of the key. It actually ended up getting us beat in that game. And like, that's the kind of action that can be extremely difficult to guard. But again, you got to have a guy who can hit threes slipping out of action. Cons literally hitting 52% of those specific threes slipping out of screens as the screener. The only real knock on his movement shooting is coming out of dribble handoffs and pin downs. Those have been the statistically worst jump shots that he's taken. He's taken 84 of those specifically, and he's made 26. That's just 31%. Now what's the difference between slipping out of a guard guard screen, hitting a three out of some sort of inverted or, excuse me, out of some sort of traditional ball screen or transition3.3, usually that means someone's not attached to you. So like, if you're slipping out of a guard guard screen, if you're taking a three there, that typically means that two lingered on lamello ball for a second. So yeah, you're still moving and having to get your feet set. So there's like a footwork element that's similar, but you're typically open on that kind of shot, right? A transition 3. You're typically open on that kind of shot. You're trailing the play, the defense isn't set, you're open, right? Even pick and roll ball screens or ball screen types of shots. Like a lot of times you're only taking that because you don't want to just like take a pull up three all the Damn time early in the clock. Usually you're taking that because you're very open, like a botched coverage. This guy went under. Or the big is just way too far back when you're running some sort of like, movement three play. So, like Khan starting in the corner and he's sprinting off of a gerbil handoff or off of some sort of wide pin down, he's probably seeing a lock and trail there. When he's seeing a lock and trail there, there's back pressure, which is fundamentally different than slipping out of a ghost screen, right? You slip out of a ghost screen, you're wide open. You slip, you run off of a DHO or off of a wide pin down, there's a guy running behind and going like this over the top and kind of distracting you from behind as you're trying to shoot. You're also going to see, you know, it's a similar to pick and roll, where you're going to see the big either at the level or not. But there's an attached lock and trail defender that's back pressuring on those attempts. You're going to see less of that on transition threes, slipping out of ghost screens, pick and rolls a little different. And that's what we'll talk about. Like, that's. If you're looking for something that bodes well for Khan on these types of shots, it's that he has shot well out of pick and roll. But again, 26 for 84 on those specific shots. There's going to be a physical development piece to this. Like, how do you counter that? It's a physical thing. So, like getting separation before the dribble handoff or before the wide pin down, that's like physically getting into your defender and creating that initial separation by like kind of pushing off, but not in a way that gets you an offensive foul. So, like kind of walking into him and giving him that shoulder and then cutting off, getting just those little extra bits of separation before you come off the screen. And then there's a lift element that's it's. It's very much a more athletic shot to sprint into a shot off of a wide pin down or off of a dribble handoff. We talked about this. With the gap between 2015 Steph and 2016 Steph, there's a leg strength element that can manifest in a huge improvement in jump shooting, which I think we'll see from Khan over the years. And again, pick and roll in particular is an example of him hitting that type of shot. The footwork is similar. Like if I settle into a three off of a pick and roll, it's typically on the move. A right left if I'm going left and a left right if I'm going right. And that's the exact same footwork if I'm running off of a DHO or if I'm running off of a wide pin down. And so I do think he'll eventually figure that piece out. Those are the toughest shots that any movement shooter will take. 31% right now probably needs to get into the high 30s there in order to make those actions a little bit more productive. Again, the shooting ability creates all sorts of havoc for opposing defenses. He's similar to Cooper in that he's very good at making simple reads. Like oh, you show at the level. Here's the pocket pass. Like oh, I'm curling and the big is kind of focused on me and the rollers getting behind, they're tagging him. Let me make that skip to the corner right. Or like I'm curling around the action and instead of showing at the level, they're showing with nail help. Okay, here's a swing pass off to the wing. He's very good at those simple reads. There's also a lot of positivity that comes from those actions. In terms of offensive rebounding. We've talked about this a lot with the Hornets in recent weeks. You show at the level, not just Khan, but with Brandon Miller or with Lamelo Ball. That means the roller can get behind. If the roller can get behind, he has inside position for offensive rebounding. That's a huge part of why Charlotte's been so good on the offensive glass. And again, this overall value goes so much deeper than the made threes because of those advantages. The advantage that creates with the roller getting behind or hitting the pocket pass or making that skip pass, those are advantages that can lead to a lot of spot up opportunities. Spot up opportunities are the most efficient play type that's not at the rim in the NBA, right? Cause it's usually just a catch and shoot three for a guy who's going to hit it at a pretty high percentage. So there's all sorts of trickle down effects there, the offensive rebounding and it shows in the numbers. Again, this was the 29th ranked offense in the NBA last year. Now they're top 10. Not all con, but I do think he plays a huge role in that success. Time to get nitpicky. He turns the ball over more than Cooper even though he's on the ball less. You guys saw this in the Atlanta and Houston games recently, for example, he had some issues with traps. This is something that we've actually seen a lot with con where when you're that good of a shooter, you're going to see some traps. It's one of those things where like they're trying to take a skill that you're great at, jump shooting and remove it from the equation and take a skill that you're not necessarily great at, which is like handling aggressive ball pressure and making you essentially address and face that specific skill. Right. And so when you're seeing these traps, you're seeing a lot of examples of him turning the ball over against that aggressive pressure that he sees there. The main thing I want to see here is him learn how to use his size better again. The second piece of this archetype is that he's actually really big. Big. He's got. And he's got such a wide frame that I think he will, you know, as he builds out his NBA body, this is a guy is going to be a damn tank when he's, you know, 27 years old. And so that is where that is one of the best ways to handle pressure is to basically protect the basketball with your size. There are a lot of guys around the NBA, I mean, even Steph has struggled with this at times where like he can turn the ball over against traps because he doesn't have a size element that he can lean on to help him in those situations. I've seen this with Austin Reeves with the Lakers, but like, Luka can handle ball pressure really well because he's so damn good at just using his size. Protect the basketball. Stick your hips out, stick your ass out. Find a way to shield yourself so that you can dribble the basketball. And those are the kinds of things that Cooper will learn over the years to get better at that. Specifically the defensive end, he's primarily tucked on a catch and shoot guy. So most of his in the flow reps on defense are basic. Off ball reps help recover, box out. The one thing I've seen with the boxing out and again, he's a solid rebounder. 6.2 rebounds per 36. He's scrappy, he's got a high motor, he's got good size. The one thing I've seen some on occasion this season is like he will sometimes over index on boxing out and not necessarily pursuing the basketball. And sometimes he'll give up an offensive rebound where like the shot will go up and he'll Turn and face the guy and like get into like almost like looking like an offensive lineman and he'll set up for a box out. But the dude who's coming at him has a good angle on seeing where the ball's going. And then like he'll just make a quick move and just kind of whip around him and go beat him to the basketball. So like I think there's a little bit of like a turn and look identify, you know, then turn and identify the basketball and go get the basketball. Those are things that I just think he'll get a little bit better at. I'm being super nitpicky here. I think he's generally a good rebounder. The one thing that you'll see on defense is he'll get picked on on switches. But this is super typical. This happens to every other white guy in the NBA, including even good defenders. Like I've talked about this before, like Austin Reeves for example is a guy that like generally I view as an above average defender. But he's going to get picked on a lot because not only is he that classic white dude that NBA players like to pick on, but also because he's a skill guard. And what's the one, the number one type of defensive target around the NBA? The skill guard. That's why teams are always it's either the slow footed big or the skill guard. Those are the two kinds of guys that defenses are constantly looking to target. That's kind of just part of the game as we dig into it. He actually holds up pretty well on ISOs, like on dribble drives from the perimeter. He's defended 57 of those this year and he's allowed just 47 points, 0.83 points per possession. That's the 69th percentile. It really just comes down to he's pretty good at giving space and reading which angle you're trying to take as the driver and beating to the spot in absorbing contact. Like he got a stop against Donovan Mitchell in the Cavs game where Donovan drove and spun over his left shoulder and like con just did his job, beating him to the spot, forcing him to make something over the top he ended up missing. It's a shot he can make, but that's positional defense. It's less about making a guy uncomfortable and more about making him take one of the tougher shots that he is capable of taking and making, right? So like he's actually done pretty well in those situations where he's been vulnerable is actually duck ins. So he's Been attacked by bigger forwards quite a bit this year. We saw in the Pistons game, we saw Tobias Harris go after him a couple times, including for the game icing basket when they were up by four isos. Him on the right block ends up hitting like a little jump shot over the top. We saw Luka Doncic go after him in the post quite a bit in the Laker game. He'll get ducked in by a center every now and again. Like that's one thing that he struggled with. He's given up 28 made baskets in 43 post defense possessions. So really bad on that front specifically. Really though, he should be better at that because he's big. And this is not the skill guard like an Austin Reeves or a Jalen Brunson, where he just has no chance to hold his ground against a power attack like Khan's big. And so really you just gotta learn how to attack and hold like hold his ground and attack the base like that's. When you're going up against larger defenders, the best thing you can do is fight them off of position or, excuse me, larger offensive players. You want to fight them off positions, you want to get them to start their attacks as far away from the basket as possible and then you're not going to bother them up top. These guys are bigger than you. They're not going to bother, you're not going to cause any sort of discomfort up top. But what you can do is you can disrupt the base. All these guys work on short range shots. Right hooks over their left shoulder, fade aways over the right shoulder, some sort of over the top type of shot that they're looking to use in that sort of situation. If they can't just bury you right under the basket, Right? So in those situations, if you let them get into their footwork, they practice this shit too much, they're going to make the shot. But if you can disrupt the footwork, if you can disrupt the base, it throws off their routine. Now it's not like they're in the gym shooting by themselves. Now all of a sudden they're not getting as much lift. When they don't get as much lift, that puts more like emphasis on the top of the shot. Now that looks different than when they're shooting in the gym by themselves. You can force some misses there. And so Khan's got the natural frame to be better at that. He just needs to figure it out over the coming years. Again, attacking the base so that he can hold up better against larger offensive players. Overall, not really an Impact defender like we talked about earlier. But he is a guy that I think can very much be a functioning part of an elite defense and he has. Charlotte's been a very good defense over the course of the last month or so and he's been a part of that. Again, it's size, it's just iq being in the right spot, understanding what his role is defensively holding up reasonably well and well in one on ones, at least on dribble drives. And then defensive rebounding is a legit value add for any sort of of defensive player. We've talked about that. It's a very, it was one of the most important parts of defense. Very simply, teams around the NBA are collecting somewhere between 25% and a third of their own misses. You know, that's going to influence offensive ratings. If you can limit that, that's every bit as good as like if you give up a couple of buckets and one on ones but you secure two or three defensive rebounds that another player doesn't, that kind of offsets a little bit. There's real value there. And so overall I think he's fine as a, you know, fourth or fifth best defender in a lineup. He's just not the impact defender that a guy like Cooper Flag is. All right guys, that's all I have for today. That was fun. I really enjoyed digging into Cooper and Khan today. Two really, really high level players at the top of last year's draft will kind of periodically check in on these guys throughout the rest of the season. I do want to talk a little bit about Cedric Coward and I do want to talk a little bit about VJ Edgecombe just on a different day. Just wanted to focus on these two particular guys today. Tomorrow we're going to be focusing on the top of this upcoming draft. I really want to do kind of a similar type of breakdown on AJ DebonSA and on Darren Peterson and we'll see what I decide when I dig into it more tomorrow. But like my gut is telling me, Darren at number one. I want to get into those reasons why tomorrow. And then again we have our mailbag on Friday and then we'll be back to game reactions and our typical power rankings and all that fun stuff that we usually have in our routine when we get back on Monday. All right, guys, that's all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. We will see you tomorrow morning. This is an I heart podcast. Guaranteed human.