← The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
Hoops Tonight - NBA Week 1 Reaction: Spurs' Wemby top 2? + 76ers' VJ Edgecombe EXPLOSION, Clippers embarrassed
00:50:52
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- [00:00]
Jason
This is an Iheart podcast.
- [00:05]
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- [00:30]
Jason
Warning.
- [00:31]
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- [00:35]
Colin
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- [01:09]
Jason
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- [01:19]
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- [01:23]
Jason
Or the chips?
- [01:24]
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- [01:51]
Colin
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- [02:47]
Jason
All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at the Volume. Happy Friday, everybody. Hope all of you guys had a great first week. I'm very excited to get into our mailbag today. I got caught up on three more games from the Wednesday night slate. I swear my eyes are going to be square soon. I watched 10 of the first 16 NBA regular season games. It's been an absolute grind this week. We had three fun live shows over the last few nights, but I'm very excited to kind of bounce around and get to the stuff that we haven't talked about yet. We do have a handful of questions related to some of our regular teams that we cover often on the show, but we're going to be breaking down three games from Wednesday night slate. We're going to hit Raptors, Hawks. We're going to hit Clippers, Jazz. We're going to hit Sixers, Celtics. I've got questions from some other teams around the league, some big picture basketball kind of philosophy questions. All sorts of interesting stuff from you guys in today's mailbag. 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. Follow me on Twitter at_jason lt so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front. Jackson's doing great work on our social media feeds. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok. Make sure you guys follow us there. And last but not least, keep dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments again in our full episodes. Right, Mailbag colon, write your question. We're going to get to them mostly on Fridays, but about about once a week throughout the remainder of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So first question, shout out to Harry Weston. The question that allowed us to get to all of these games. Out of the other games on opening night, who surprised you the most? I think Charlotte and Toronto could have sneaky good seasons and VJ Edgecomb looks like the future in Philly. Also, what happened in Utah? I would argue VJ was the biggest surprise from that Wednesday night slate, but I thought that this question was a great opportunity for us to just quickly bounce through a couple of game reactions. I caught up on Raptors, Hawks, Clippers, Jazz and six or Celtics this morning. Just going to go ahead and give you guys my takeaways on all three of those games. So first of all, I haven't had the chance to watch Charlotte yet. Although I caught them in preseason, I thought they looked good in preseason. I'm generally not as high on Charlotte as some of my peers are just because I think they're kind of generally unserious and they have a very injury prone set of core players. But we will get to the Charlotte Hornets at some point in time down the line. Starting with Raptors Hawks I thought Toronto's size, length and athleticism in their starting lineup popped off the screen right away when you have Brandon Ingram and Scotty Barnes who are in addition to being two really big forwards. Barnes brings a strength and power element. Ingram brings a length element. Ingram is more of an over the top shooter. Barnes is more of a rim pressuring type of player. But both of them are pretty high level playmakers for the forward position. Jakob Hurdle, obviously a big strong center, kind of an underrated player in my opinion. And then RJ Barrett obviously one of the more athletic kind of two, three swing swing men out there at two through five. They're just very physically imposing and they came out with super impressive defensive intensity right from the jump and they it just was a carryover from what we saw from the tail end of last season. If you guys remember, they ran the floor insanely well in transition, kind of flipping the script on what Atlanta typically likes to do. Toronto had 43 transition points in this game. They had an offensive rating over 1:40 on their transition possessions. Just a combination of really poor Atlanta transition defense which we'll get to in a minute, and just how athletically imposing they can be when they're running the floor. And Brandon Ingram right out the gates came out super aggressive, scoring off of off ball action and on ball action, just curling around screens and getting into the middle of the floor. His scoring polish was immediately apparent and I think he's going to make life a lot easier for them on that end, especially when they get into crunch time which obviously they did not experience in this particular game. I thought R.J. barrett was fantastic. He hit some much needed threes early in the game to space the floor. Did a great job pressuring the rim. He obviously played really, really good defense as well. And the Raptors just went into Atlanta and smacked them. They had seven guys in double figures. Grady Dick had 20 off the bench. He had a bunch of jumpers from all sorts of ranges all over the floor. They were just 6 for 25 from 3 and yet they logged a 122 offensive rating and it was a combination to two things. Obviously, the transition pushes. When you have over 40 transition points in a game, that's a pretty unusual number to see there. That's a big way to boost your offensive rating. And then the second piece of it is when they got in the half court, they had a lot of really impressive ball and player movement. They got in and out of actions quickly. They ran a lot of actions on every possession. And one of the things that stood out to me is they do have more playmaking talent than you would think. Like, for all the limitations in terms of shooting talent, we've seen this before with teams like the Golden State Warriors. Now they weaponize shooting in the form of Steph and Buddy Healed now and Klay Thompson. In the past, they weaponize shooting to create that initial advantage. But from there they. They tend to have less shooting than most teams, but they just break you down with really crisp decision making and movement. Right. And obviously for Toronto, they don't have the threat of the shooting, so it'll be harder for them to break down elite defenses. But one of the things I thought they did really well was they just passed and moved in and out of their actions well and got a lot of really good looks at the rim. They had. I don't have the number directly in front of me. They had a million points in the paint in this game. That was a huge part of how they controlled the offensive end of the floor in this game. They had assists on two thirds of their baskets. Again, anything over 65% in assist percentage to me is really strong. They started up over that to start the season again. They can't shoot the ball, but they have real strengths. They're big, they're athletic, they're great at defense. They run the floor and transition well. They're. And when they get in the half court, they have really nice playmaking talent. It's a good recipe for winning basketball games. Even if they're shooting will provide issues in certain matchups. Again, Atlanta was pretty disappointing, which we'll get into. Wasn't all bad for Atlanta. Jalen Johnson really impressed me with his passing ability. He lacks that perimeter polish. Like the jumper still isn't there. There's like some tight space ball handling stuff where he can still have some issues. But he pressures the rim well, both in transition and in the half court when he looks to drive. And then he's just got really natural feel for seeing the floor and seeing the openings that are generated when he pressures the rim. And I was impressed by a lot of his playmaking. Especially in the first half of that game. He kept them in the game despite Toronto outplaying them basically in every other matchup to start. But I was pretty disappointed in Atlanta for a group that has so many great athletes and some guys with some good defensive reputations, right. With Dyson Daniels and Nikhil Alexander Walker, I thought they were just super sloppy guarding the actions that Toronto was running in the half court. Like they botched switches constantly in this game. And you want to credit the Raptors for their movement, for their passing, and again, like you do that kind of stuff, it has the potential to lead to defense making mistakes. But I thought Atlanta looked like a team that has not been approaching the defensive end with much focus through training camp. I was definitely disappointed there. And then their transition defense was flat out abysmal, which is super strange for such an athletic team. They need to be a good transition defense. Nikhil Alexander Walker seems to have taken his new role in Atlanta as like a high volume ball handling role, which I think is a misallocation of what he does well. I think he's at his best when he's guarding the ball and then playing with an advantage, taking catch and shoot threes and using more of his ball handling ability, driving closeouts and playing when the defense is already compromised rather than attacking out front. Now he's going to have to do a certain amount of that because Atlanta's not as heavy on ball handling as Minnesota was. But I did think that his shot selection was a little questionable in this game. Atlanta just got outplayed from the jump, so not a good start from the Hawks. They need to have a better showing in night two. Clippers Jazz. This is one of the strangest opening night performances that I've ever seen. I have a ton of respect for the Clippers organization. I think they have one of the best coaches in the league. I think they have a well run front office that has a good feel for how to build a modern NBA team. And I think this roster in particular is built for regular season success. But holy shit did they come out flat and in the opening minutes. I primarily blame Kawhi Leonard and Evita Zubots for the initial run that Utah went on. Utah was basically just running Lori Markkanen and off of like down screens from Walker, Kessler and Kawhi and Zoo just defended it super poorly. Kawhi was applying little to no pressure or physicality on Mark in in his lock and trail. He was getting caught on screens and not getting out to him when he was shooting. When Mark would curl. He was just kind of lazily jogging behind. And then Zoo like was just essentially not helping. Kawhi on either side of the action wasn't showing up high when marketing would come off the screen wasn't helping when marketing would curl. But then also leaving Walker Kessler open because Kessler ended up hitting two threes early in the game, which shout out to Walker Kessler, I know in the game plan you're kind of gonna let him take that, right? But like if you're not gonna help on the curls and on the at the level stuff then you've gotta, you can't also just leave him wide open. You're basically just floating around out there. And so Kawhi and Zoo came out super flat defending those actions early and, and Markkanen and Kessler torch them. They take an early double digit lead. And then once the bench group started to work their way into the game it turnovers became a massive problem for the Clips. Like Yousef Nurkic comes in and just starts pressuring the high post entry on Zubots and, and Brook Lopez and forces a couple of turnovers right away that led into runouts. And the Clippers had like a half dozen of these super bizarre unforced turnovers where like the. You're just throwing the ball right to the other team or just throwing it out of bounds because the guy you're throwing it to is not paying attention. Just they literally looked like they were asleep and it was crazy. Cause the next thing you knew was the early third quarter and Ty Lou's calling a timeout cause the Clippers are down by 37 on the road in Utah. Like it was, it was just bizarre and Ty Lou took the blame and I'm sure the Clippers will bounce back with a win tonight, but it was pretty crazy. I'm not going to lie. They definitely did not look ready for the start of the season. I do want to credit Utah. Like they came out and played great basketball. They have a very good front court with Kessler and Markin and those are talented guys when they're healthy and on the floor. And they, you know, just a casual reminder that even with bad teams in the NBA, there's a lot of talent out there and if you come out and you bring a lackadaisical effort, I don't know that you can get away with it anymore night to night in the regular season. I mean, I rooted for the Lakers in a game that they lost to the Jazz last year. Like this is a, a bottom feeder that puts some really high level basketball players on the floor. I thought Keonte George was great all night. Bryce Sensible came in and torched them from three. Hit a couple of big ones in the late third quarter or late second quarter. Excuse me. That helped kind of blow the game open. Really nice debut for the Utah Jazz. High energy performance that kick the Clippers butt. Today's show is brought to you by our new presenting sponsor, Hard Rock Bet. The NBA is back, which means it's time to shoot your shot on Hard Rock bet, your home for hoops action all season long. Need a little help with your first bet? 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- [15:49]
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- [16:48]
Colin
This podcast is sponsored by PayPal. Okay, let's talk holiday shopping. When you want to make the most of your Money, head to PayPal's app before you check out. They give you the flexibility to pay in four no fees, no interest. And this is big. Bigger than the 12 foot snowman on your lawn right now. You can get 5% cash back when you pay later with PayPal. So whether it's the must have merch or for that signed jersey you've been eyeing, PayPal helps you make the most of your money this holiday. Save this offer in the PayPal app.
- [17:21]
Jason
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- [17:54]
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- [18:19]
Jason
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- [19:06]
Jason
Sixers, Celtics what a debut for VJ Edgecomb. 34 points and 7 rebounds looked like the perfect compliment to Tyrese Maxey. I've always loved the idea of like hyper athletic guys alongside skill guards in the backcourt. So like essentially a polish finesse type of guard. Even though Tyrese I think brings insane speed to the table, obviously, but that's why he's able to go for 40, right? He has the skill piece and then off of him. I want an athlete that can rebound, defend and can score with an advantage. And the key kind of storyline in the game defensively was that Boston was roaming off of EJ Edgecombe all night and then in his on ball reps they were going under his picks. Boston essentially dared VJ to beat them all night long and VJ just did. He got six unguarded catch and shoot threes and made three of them. He hit two off the dribble jump shots versus passive coverages. I thought he did a wonderful job of slashing in the half court when he had a chance. Like there was a play where Peyton Pritchard was nail helping off of. I think it was Tyrese on the right wing and Peyton Pritchard digs down into nail help. VJs just standing on the left wing. This is early in the game. Talk about those baked in driving lanes all the time, right when there's nail help. He's closing out on one of your shoulders. All you have to do is rip the other direction. You kind of have guaranteed dribble penetration right swing past a vj. He just ripped left immediately on the catch, got a dunk. He in a transition push, ended up catching Xavier Tillman in a cross match and the Sixers just spaced the floor. Nasty left to right crossover, went up and dunked it because he got there so fast that Boston's help was not able to to step over. He had some super dynamic transition plays. He caught a ridiculous lob in the second half. That was Thrown way behind him in traffic where he took off, off his right foot, caught it with two hands and dunked it from almost behind his head. In the first half, one of one of the plays that really got me excited for his potential. He had this nasty full speed euro step where he kind of like attacks in semi transition, gets a little bit of a downhill get, get some momentum going downhill and Jaylen Brown steps up to help at the rim and at full speed he like plants his right foot and euros back to the left for like a lefty soft finish off the glass. Just a ridiculously athletic play. And even on the shots he missed, I thought he got great separation. Like he was able to just get to these like really nice lift and rhythm little mid range pull ups that he just happened to miss because right now he's still not quite that polished and that stuff will come in time. And so that's why Vijay to me feels very safe as a bet to be an all star in this league because if he can stay healthy, the reports about his character and his work ethic are great. And he's just a transcendently athletic guard. And so what an exciting backcourt partner for Tyrese Maxey who was amazing in this game. His pull up three was dialed in. He ended up hitting three in a row in the second half. That closed a double digit Celtics lead. And all three of them were nasty. He had like three or four ridiculous like hard drive to the right into a pullback dribble, quick step back three where he was moving super fast, but if you like froze it like trimmed out the move before he's straight up and down on the pull up jump shot. Just a really impressive display of footwork and athleticism. He ended up going for 40 in this game. And then they just have all these forwards who just play hard off of them. Obviously Kelly Oubre, we all know he's been in that starting lineup for a little while now. He hit the biggest shot of the night, a little action off the right side where I thought Sam Houser made a poor defensive decision. He helped off the strong side corner when it was pretty unnecessary and so it was a little easy kick out. One of the. It's one of those things where in the moment you're like, okay, Kelly had been off from three for most of the game, but at the same time you stick to your defensive principles. Like Quentin Grimes was already wide open at the top of the key on this play in large part because his man was already helping. So it was just kind of like an unnecessary overhelp from Sam Houser and that pass back across your body to the top of the key to to Grimes is a much tougher pass to make than like a little five foot shovel pass to a wide open man in the corner. Kelly U hits that shot. It effectively amounted to the game winner because they were down two when he hit that shot. But I was also really impressed by Dominic Barlo and Jabari Walker. The two of them both just kind of crashing and cutting and running constantly and just wrecking havoc off the at the rim just by being big athletes off of the attention that was garnered by their guards. Honestly, the only disappointing thing if you were a 76ers fan was that Joel Embiid looked like an absolute shell of himself. Jackson and I were joking before we started recording. Like I don't think he made a single move towards the basket in that entire game. Every time he caught it was just kind of like a face up jumper. He had Jaylen Brown in a post up and like just spun over his left shoulder for a super difficult fade away. You could tell the lift isn't there. The the left shoulder fade away is a classic example. That's one of the toughest shots in basketball for a right handed player because you have to pivot and like square up in midair and he just didn't get close to enough lift and so he kind of just flung it up there and it didn't really have much of a chance to go in. Had some plays in help side at the he has a couple play. Like he had a block in transition in the second half where you're like whoa, that was kind of like a throwback little play. But like for the most part he didn't really seem very vertical or mobile around the basket and help on defense. He just kind of looked, he looked like his knees are shot. But let's hope that he's just working his way back and that he can continue to get better as the season progressed. It made me happy to see him out there playing, but it was definitely disappointing to see just the level of physical aggression that he had. But what a fun backcourt to root four. Now you have Quinn Grimes too. Like obviously he was there last year, but you have Quentin Grimes and Jared McCain as well. Like you have four really good guards. Grimes had a huge three late off the left wing, kind of a contested one when they really needed it. Jared McCain obviously will be back eventually when his thumb gets better. It's fun team for Sixers fans. I I would imagine that The Edgecomb stuff had to have been the antidote to the Joel Embiid frustrations on the Celtics front. They got stagnant late. They started spamming Jaylen Brown high. Jaylen Brown high post ups and he hit one of them. But there were some misses in there and it just kind of got stagnant. They got away from some of the stuff they were doing earlier in the game. They did control the majority of the game though, in large part because they do have a lot of talented perimeter players like Derek White, Peyton Pritchard, Jalen Brown and Anthony Simons. All had moments in the game where they had big stretches on offense where they put some points up and kind of got into a little bit of a flow. An Fernie applied some more rim pressure than he did in preseason. He had a big semi transition dunk where he crossed his man up and went up off his right foot and dunked it with two hands. Yeah, the only thing that really stood out to me, they just, they just struggled to guard in large part because their front court is just so limited and that's a fast Sixers team. And so when you don't have rim protection behind them, it just puts your guards in a really tough spot. And man, that center rotation looked brutal. Xavier Tillman missed several threes that looked like they had no chance to go in right at the end of the game. Late off of a miss from Jalen Brown, he had a point blank range, little kind of touch floater hook thing that was like three feet from the basket that he left short. That was a huge miss in crunch time. Luca Garza couldn't hit a shot. Mimi Coida was probably the best guy that we saw last night. He put up a decent stat line, I should say on Wednesday, put up a decent stat line, but it was just jarring to see that core juxtaposed with what we saw last year from the Celtics from the center position. All right, let's start getting into our mailbag questions. Jason, I understand you're a Lakers fan and also a LeBron fan, but I believe that you have put too much stock into the stardom of Luka and have them ranked too high on your championship contenders list. To me, at most, they should be closer to the bottom of the puncher's chance tier behind teams like the Knicks, Clippers, T Wolves and Warriors. Those teams, while they have their flaws, are better constructed than the Lakers. And to me, it's foolish to be blinded by a potential all time great season by Luca turning into a deep playoff run. In the parody era of the NBA, I've yet to mention LeBron who is 40 year old star and can be a star on offense on any given night. But defensively he can be picked on when not going against star power, against power style offensive players and can be caught ball watching at times. And I feel like that combined with your other two best players in Luka and Reeves not being plus offenders is a recipe for another first round exit. So there's an interesting point you're making which I want to get into in a minute. I do disagree with some of the specifics. Like LeBron was one of the best ISO defenders in the league last year and had a stretch really for like 2/3 of the season where he was an all defense, defense level player. He got off to a rough start to the year. But like to me, LeBron, when he's healthy and especially in a role like this alongside Luca, where he doesn't have to do as much offensively, I think he's one of the most important defensive players on the Lakers. To be honest with you, I thought you saw the absence of him in a big way against the Warriors. He is a huge part of their ability to kind of like troll the backline off of Golden State's actions. And he's just one of the most attentive defenders and better communicators on the team. I mean he was second team all NBA last year. I don't know what it is. Like I, I get it, he has sciatica, he's out to start the year and, but like he just had two seasons where he played 70 games and made the All NBA team twice. I, I somehow he's still underrated. I don't know how that keeps happening. But, but like I'm, I don't think the lakers have a LeBron problem. Let's just, let's just put it that way. That said, like, I do agree with you that I'm the Lakers, I'm lower on than when I originally did my contenders video. So to be 100% transparent, we recorded our contender rankings in early October. I want to say it was like on October 2nd. Okay, so it was before I had seen them play any basketball. It was based on the fact that The Lakers won 50 games last year and they were the 3 seed. And looking at the improved version of the Lakers with like Luka Doncic being in better shape and them essentially adding three rotation level players for nothing and only losing Dorian Finney Smith, who by the way, I think Dorian's been very important over the years. But like, again, this was a team that couldn't even play a center against Minnesota. They get a guy like DeAndre who's very flawed but at least can play the position. You get a guy like Marcus Smart, who's a big upgrade over someone like Jordan Goodwin, for example. Like, that was what I, that was my rationale when I originally put that together. But I did a recording with the Nerd Sesh guys a couple weeks after that. It was like mid, mid October, like October 15th or 16th or so where I had seen them play in preseason a few times and I was pretty underwhelmed and I talked about how I was going to put a couple teams ahead of them. And right now I agree. Like, so I originally my contender rankings, if you remember, I had Denver, Oklahoma City, Cleveland, Minnesota, then I had the Lakers at 5 after what I've seen from preseason in camp. And by the way, this list is constantly going to shift throughout the season. My, my preliminary rankings in like early October. Those are essentially on paper rankings, but on paper means nothing when you throw the ball up in the air. And we're on the hardwood and we're playing basketball, right? So like we have a bunch more data now. We have training camps from all these teams. We have a handful of regular season games. The two teams I would clearly put above them now are Houston and Golden State. I think I'm inclined to put Golden State at that five spot, potentially even that four spot above Minnesota. I kind of have Minnesota, Golden State and Houston kind of vying and competing for that next spot behind Denver and Oklahoma City at this point. Again, that could change in a few weeks, but that's just where I'm at right now. But it's a long season and I expect a lot to change over the course of the year. The Lakers are playing bad basketball right now, but they have a lot that they can clean up and they have a bona fide top tier superstar at the top at like the peak of his powers. And LeBron James will eventually return to this team. I, I think it's certainly possible that he ends up getting traded or something or bought out or something like that. But I still think it's far more likely than not that he plays basketball for the Lakers until he retires. And so at some point, late October, or excuse me, late November, early December, he's going to return to this team. And he immediately addresses a lot of their biggest concerns in terms of just like size and physicality and basketball IQ and defensive communication on the back line. And all that kind of stuff. So like, I, I, they're going to have some, the Lakers are going to have something to say at some point. I have no idea what level they'll be, they'll be able to reach. Right now they look pretty mediocre and unathletic. So I'm dropping them to seventh behind Houston and Golden State, as well as the original four teams that I named Denver, Oklahoma City, Cleveland, Minnesota. After that point, like, I'm just not super high on the Knicks. I know they won their first game. I'm keeping an open mind with the new coaching staff. I want to see what they've got. But like, to me, the Knicks, if you literally just remove four wins against the Celtics in the second round, were incredibly underwhelming all season long last year. It's going to take a lot for me to kind of turn around my opinion on the Knicks. And then the Clippers literally went into Utah and got their asses beat. So I'm not like, I'm not about to jump onto to the Clippers bandwagon today of all days. Like, the Lakers have looked disappointing, but so have the Clippers. So we'll, we'll continue to kind of evaluate that over time. Like if two weeks from now, well, we're going to do power rankings. I'm going to talk about contender rankings when I make changes as we kind of work our way through the season. But yeah, like in early October, October 2nd, I had the Lakers at 5. I'm dropping them to 7 at this point with Houston and Golden State moving above them. Is there a world in which Jonathan Kaminga matures to a point where he doesn't get traded off the Warriors? Also, simply calling Steph the greatest shooter of all time doesn't do his greatness justice. He is one of the greatest scorers and greatest players, period. I completely agree. To me, Steph is the fifth greatest perimeter player of all time, just Behind Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Magic Johnson. I agree with you that kind of like, like defining his game as just elite shooting is a huge, you know, like disservice to what he's accomplished in this league. I think he's the best off ball mover in the history of the league. He's one of the most conditioned athletes in the league. I mean, the dude is putting a ton of work in his body. Do you guys remember when he hit that? I was watching the highlight again this morning. He had like a 37 footer last night to tie the game at 120 like it was literally a 37 footer off of a ball screen. And you know, he runs over. He kind of like signals to call the timeout to the Denver bench and then he runs over and he just flexes and you're like, holy shit. Like, Steph is jacked. Like, he is clearly worked a ton on his body, which is, by the way, has helped him to become a better, more useful defender and has helped him to handle off ball contact and just in general get open easier as the league has become more physical. Like I saw a bunch of times on opening night where he's like throwing swim moves on Gabe Vincent and getting open because he's just so damn strong now. He's like, he's legitimately much stronger than a guy like Gabe Vincent, right? So like he's put in a ton of work there. He's a very good passer. This is a guy who does a lot of his work off the ball. But if they ran like 2018 rockets offense or 2019 rockets offense where they just spammed Steph high picking rolls, spread with shooting, I think Steph could get up around 8, 9 assists per game easily. I think he's a high level passer in that regard. And then I think he's one of the best competitors of his era. Like, this is a guy that is, you know, wired in a way that drives him to a different extent than many of the players in this league. So I agree with you that kind of synthesizing him down to just a great shooter doesn't do him justice. To your question about Jonathan Kaminga, I absolutely think there's a world in which Jonathan Kaminga matures to a point where he doesn't get traded off the Warriors. I mean, anybody who's close to the warriors will tell you that even though there's a lot of people in their basketball operations that have been skeptical about him and his fit, Joe Lakob loves the guy. Like Joe Lacob is obsessed with John of the Kaminga and wants to keep him. And so if Jonathan Kaminga plays well enough over the course of the, you know, next three months or so, I think it's more likely than not that he doesn't get traded. I'm a big believer and let's not overreact to one game or two games under any circumstances. We talked about this after the Lakers game. Like both the Lakers and Denver are big, slow teams. When you're big and slow and you've got Steph Curry, you're going to cut them to pieces. In a lot of ways. But I've talked at, at length about how Steph in particular causes massive problems for Denver's pick and roll defense because Jokic is slow and he can just get to his spots whenever he wants to. That's not me trying to pour cold water on the Warriors. It just means I want to see them against some different types of matchups. Like when you're playing against really fast and athletic perimeter defenses, the job changes and suddenly those reads become like. Instead of having like this big of a window to make a read, it's more like this big of a window to make a read. Like everything just gets a little bit fake faster. Everything just gets a little bit more difficult to read and to process. And so those are the kinds of games where we're going to see a different challenge for Jonathan Kaminga. Right. But what we've seen early in the season is he's knocking down his catch and shoot threes, which is absolutely crucial. He's making good reads in the offense. He's being aggressive, but not too aggressive. Like he's, he's not completely shelving Jonathan Kaminga the scorer, but he is kind of refining it and being picky about when he's, when he's going and he's playing great defense. I thought he was a monster defensively down the stretch against Denver. So like, and he got cooked by Luca, but Lucas, Luca, right. So like, overall, like, he's off to a great start. But the warriors have played two teams that kind of like slot nicely into their, into their advantages. And by the. I'm not saying this retroactively. I said last year, after the first time the Lakers played the warriors with Luka Doncic, I was like, oh, the warriors are too fast for them. This is a bad matchup for the Lakers. I even said before the playoffs I was like, if the Lakers met the warriors in a playoff series, I'd be inclined to pick the Warriors. That was after they played in the regular season and they, I think they went into LA and beat them with Luca, LeBron and Austin. Right. And then I've said before the season, at length, that the kinds of teams that can upset Denver are teams that have really high level pick and roll players and that have speed. And I mentioned like Luka against Denver and I mentioned Steph against Denver in particular. Those are just matchups that I think are favorable for Golden State. That's a strength. Like, I think Denver is the championship favorite. So if you match up well against Denver, that's a huge feather in your cap if your goal is to win a championship. Like that means that like, let's say that Denver meets Oklahoma City in the second round for some reason and they eliminate Oklahoma City and then Golden State faces Denver in the conference finals all of a sudden like there's like a very significant window for Golden State to slip through there and win a title. Now Golden State did provide some issues for Oklahoma City last year. We talked about this in our OKC like who can beat Oklahoma City series? And like I think Jimmy and and and Horford and Draymond are just such high IQ defenders that they can cause some problems for Oklahoma City's offense. But what I specifically worry about the Oklahoma City matchup for Golden State is just they have all that speed and that's the kind of thing that I think could be a very different type of challenge for a Golden State team that does lack offensive firepower once you get off of Steph. So it's just, it's, I'm just curious to see it. Like the warriors have aced every test so far, but there are more tests down the line and as long as Jonathan Kaminga keeps performing well in those tests, he's going to be a warrior at the end of the season and he very well might be a warrior long term.
- [38:51]
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Jason
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Jason
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- [42:10]
Jason
Next question. You mentioned last season's Lakers team handling the warriors better due to Anthony Davis being able to roam slash protect the rim, allowing the perimeter defenders to overplay the three point line. Looking towards the season, which playoff teams would give Golden State the most trouble and conversely, teams who Golden State fans should hope to be matchup in May. So again, this, this is just really quick follow up to what we were just talking about. I think the teams in particular that worry me for Golden State are really fast and athletic perimeter teams that are also high iq. So like for instance, one of the things that always worried me about Minnesota is Minnesota has a lot of Guys that despite being good defenders can lose their attentiveness off ball and they can lose track of guys like Steph. This was something that happened in the regular season in Minnesota Golden State matchups and it was why Golden State I think in a lot of ways presented problems for Minnesota when they were healthy last year. That series was kind of like a coin flip to me if both teams were healthy. But Golden State presents a lot of problems with them because Minnesota struggles to track off ball shooters. But specifically Oklahoma City is a team that I have my eye on. Oklahoma City provides that combination of high IQ speed that's not going to lose track of Steph and they're not going to botch as many switches as other teams. And they have rim protection and Chet Holmgren to roam around the basket. They're going to present some problems. Another team I think is the Clippers. They have some really high level perimeter defenders and Chris Dunn and Derrick Jones Jr that can chase Steph around while also having high IQ off ball defenders and some rim protection with Zoo. We saw that in the late regular season game last year. So like there are teams that I think present a different challenge for Golden State and I am just curious to see what they look like when they run into those teams. But I do think Golden State matches up well with a team like the Lakers. I do think Golden State matches up really well with a team like Denver and then Minnesota just because of their lack of off ball attentiveness. Do you think there's a chance the spurs don't have to trade to win the chip next season? Or in any other. Or in other words, what is the lowest limit that has to happen for the spurs to do to not just be one of the contenders but to really see that it could happen. Like Oklahoma City in game one last season in game one of the regular season. That was when Oklahoma City went into Denver and kicked Denver's ass, if you guys remember. So here's the thing. I'm going to say the same thing that I was talking about with Golden State. It was very encouraging for showing for the Spurs. You don't even have de' Aaron Fox and yet all your young guards play pretty well. Your defense just utterly demolishes Dallas Victor women. Yama is hooping his ass off. Steph Castle's throwing lives in transition and damn near getting a 20 point triple double. There's a lot of upside with what you saw from that one particular matchup, but it was a team that I think was a good matchup for San Antonio Right. Like, Dallas is super light on shooting and ball handling that allows Victor Wembanyama to roam the paint really well right on the other end of the floor. Like we talked about that night. I think Victor can kind of cook any bigger player in the league because they're all too big to be able to move with him, but they're all not big enough to actually bother him because he's so damn tall. So like, I, I think there will be different challenges with San Antonio. Like Oklahoma City is a classic example where they're going to be smaller, quicker up underneath you and it's going to be a lot more about processing and shooting. And you know, this is a San Antonio team that's light on shooting. Right. So I think like it's, it's ridiculous to overreact to one game against a heavily flawed Dallas Mavericks roster, but we'll just continue to watch them and see how they develop. Yes, if Steph Castle and Devin Vassell and Dylan Harper and all these guys just Blossom and Deer and Fox is a big bounce back season that's closer to two years ago rather than last year, then yeah, they might not need to make a trade and they might be able to just kind of naturally improve internally and make a run for the championship at some point in the next couple of years. But I think it's more likely than not that over the course of this season their limitations in shooting and just youthful inconsistency lead them to want to bring veteran shooting in and just a little bit more of like a solid kind of like higher floor option at some of their position groups. Now the thing is, is Victor is. Is messing up timeline stuff because Victor very well might be just a legitimate top tier superstar this year. It seems likely at this point after what we saw on opening night. And so if Victor is going to be that guy, all of a sudden you're in your championship window now. And so it kind of changes your calculus when you're building the team. So it's just something to keep an eye on. We're going to go quick through these last ones here. How do you unlock Bam's offense if you're spo. I think Bam kind of is what he is at this point as an offensive player. He is a guy that struggles to make anything that's not a dunk and like that just. Yes, he's improved as like a standstill three point shooter, but he's not a really high level jump shooter by any stretch of the imagination. He struggles with hooks, he struggles with floaters he struggles with layups. Bam. Similar to Anthony Davis, although AD has done a lot better in terms of his short range shot making like his hooks and his floaters, but similar like Bam to an even greater extent. Just has never added the offensive polish necessary to be a super high level offensive player. To me he kind of is what he is at this point. He's a five out big. He's a guy that can play on the perimeter as a screener dribble, handoff guy that makes good decisions with the basketball, sets good screens and rolls hard to the rim and he's good at hitting back cutters. Like that to me is just kind of his, his destiny as an NBA player at this point. What kind of season do you think Klay Thompson is about to have? It feels like he has completely faded out of media discussions. Well, he's just not the same player he used to be. I don't think Clay is going to be a super prominent player in NBA media discussions because Clay is now at this point, you know, not one of the 10 or 15 best two guards in the league anymore. So one of the things that's going to be tricky with Clay is he's the one dead serious shooter on the team and so he's going to be accounted for in the in the game plan. Like opponents are going to put their most attentive, best lock and trail defender on Clay and they're going to account for a mall game and just dare everyone else to shoot. He's not a guy that's going to put the ball on the floor and create offense for himself at this point. And the lack of playmaking talent on the roster is leading him to be like even when he does get left open, whether it's transition chaos or offensive rebound chaos, like they don't always get the ball to him. So I just don't really see him as a guy that's going to have too much of an impact at this phase in his career. Hi Jason, My brother and I watch basketball like junkies and have had this hypothesis that the game is evolving at a rate where the skill level will soon turn basketball into a punish league. Essentially, I believe that the majority of the smallest defensive lapses, like a bad hedge or a slow rotation will be the most important margins for successful teams. I wanted your thoughts on that. I love the show and your team's contributions to the game. I love much love from Brooklyn. So first of all, thanks for supporting the show and for the kind words. What you're talking about is something that I'm a huge believer in the idea of essentially like capitalizing on the small advantages that occur in actions. Whether it's like you said, like a, a guy hedges for too long and the guy who slips out of it's wide open at the three point line or this team is slow in rotation, so if we just move the ball around, we're going to get open shots. I think it's a little bit more complicated in the sense that like those kinds of advantages happen on almost every possession somewhere. It's a lot of, a lot of it has to do with playmaking talent. Like you talk about punish, as in punishing mistakes. In order to punish mistakes you need two things. You need a, a high IQ player with the ball that will find that mistake and hit the pass and hit the opening. And then you need to a guy that's actually going to make the defense pay in that opening. Whether it's hitting a catch and shoot shot, racking a closeout and getting all the way to the rim, or racking a closeout, getting to the middle of the floor and making the next read in that chain, essentially it's going to be about reading and reacting. It's a copycat league. There's going to be a lot of basketball operations professionals and coaching professionals that are going to look at teams like Indiana. We talked about how last night, I think Indiana, irrespective of talent, plays the best basketball in the NBA because of all the things that you specifically are mentioning. So all these entities around the league are going to watch that. They're going to go like, we need to do this. Why do you think you're hearing every, every fucking team in training camp like we want to run more, we want to run more. You want to know why? Because running works. And so they want to be better basketball teams. And so they know that that's a way to improve their basketball team. And so essentially everyone's going to start hunting these things. More transition pushes more action in the half court, which is going to generate those kinds of small defensive lapses like you're talking about. From there it's going to be reading and reacting and play, finishing, hitting those gaps with passes, making the right decision against the advantage, and then finishing the play by hitting shots. Can you see Jaden McDaniels turn into a number two for Ant? No, I don't really see that in his future. I see him as being a guy that can do some weak side scoring forward stuff, you know, hitting threes, driving closeouts, doing damage on the glass when he's being ignored, I don't see him as a legitimate number two. The kind of player that I keep coming back to for ant is like a skill guard. I know it'll never happen, but like Austin Reeves is an example of a player that I think would be a beautiful fit alongside Anthony Edwards. Kind of like a skill finesse guard that's good at getting to the foul line, that has like high level mid range scoring chops that, that just in general is like a finesse like offensive engine type of player. Off of Ant, like that's the kind of guy that I look at is like a legit number two off of a skill guard alongside ants like bulky athleticism and rim pressure. Right. But I really like Jaden. I think he looks great. I think the jump shot is real. I just think once you start talking about number twos, I think they just need to be a little bit more refined in terms of their offensive skill. Four more quick ones as you continue to gain more and more success in the niche of basketball. Content Analysis will there ever be a time where you take your talents to covering the NFL as well? I have your post notifications on for X and I love your football takes when you have them. Keep up the great work. So I love the NFL. I've loved it since I was a kid. The, the long and short of it is, is that like every year right about now when the NBA regular season starts, it's really hard for me to just give it the attention. Right. Like there was a game on last night I was working so I wasn't going to watch it. Right. And same thing goes for Sunday. There are times where like, you know, it's Sunday and it's like, okay, I want to sit down and watch. But then it'll be like, well, there were some games on the Friday night and Saturday night slate that I need to get caught up on. And so I'll just get my laptop out and I'll watching film and you know, it kind of takes me back to the, the kind of like that, that like cliche that LeBron uses. It's that keep the main thing, the main thing like I, I don't want to sit there and start talking about the NFL if I haven't put in the necessary work. What I, I like what allows me to cover the game the way that I do is that I put an enormous amount of work into watching NBA games and learning about how the NBA works on both ends of the floor and talking to smart NBA people. And so it's one of those things where I I don't want to like take resources from that department and dedicate them to the NFL and have my NBA work suffer. And so is there a version of this in the future where maybe I'm doing it? I'm not going to say never, but in the short term I think it's far more likely than not that I just stay in my wheelhouse and cover the NBA. With the Bucks shooting so many threes, I feel like we I'm a fan. LOL. Lead the team in lead the NBA in 3 point attempts and we can come out of the East. You see the vision. I did not see Milwaukee versus Washington. That was one of the games that I did not watch the first for the through the first few games. But we saw this last season towards the end of the year, steady diet of Giannis on the ball, a lot of guard screens surrounding him with a ton of shooting and Giannis just kind of playing driving kick like get to the basket and finish, draw foul or spray out to a shooter, right? As far as leaning into three point attempts, like again, like when you're not good compared to the best teams in the league, you want to apply as much variance as possible, right? So it makes sense for the Bucks to be a team that takes a lot of threes and that gives up a lot of threes because essentially if they protect the rim and they force the other team to shoot, they might go cold. And if you shoot a ton of threes, you might get hot and you're going to win on the nights when you get hot from three and the other team doesn't. But ultimately it comes down to quality. I don't believe in inflating your three point attempts just for the sake of inflating your three point attempts. A bad three point shot isn't worth three points, it's worth zero points. You you want to generate the highest available shot quality in any situation. A lot of it'll be game plan dependent too, depending on how your opponent is guarding things. But if the Bucks end up generating a ton of threes with shooting off of Giannis, I think it's a smart approach to increase variance to give them more of an upset threat. Big fan of the show and have learned a ton about the game from your channel. So thank you for what you do. Thank you for the kind words and for the support. My question is simple. Do you think it's insane to think that Wemby genuinely might be the best player alive right now? And what would need to happen for that to be the consensus in your opinion. Thanks again. This kind of takes me to like, the Kobe LeBron debate in the late 2000s. If you guys remember, it's very possible that we're looking at this thing in like three weeks and WEMBY's averaging 35, 14 and 6 with like five blocks or some insane shit like that. And then all of us are like, oh my gosh, is one be the best player in the league. Similarly, LeBron in the late 2000s was just a wrecking ball is winning 60 games with weak rosters and putting up absurd stat lines and. And crazy highlights every single night. But, like, when it came to slow down playoff basketball against the best teams in the league, Kobe was still better than him in the late 2000s. No surprise. LeBron was in his early to mid 20s. Kobe was in his early 30s and was more refined at that point. And he had a lot more experience. Right. So like the becoming the best player in the NBA, becoming the best player in the world is a playoff game. It is very much about solving the puzzle of four elite opponents in two months, having to beat them four times out of seven when all the game planning is geared around your weaknesses. So it's one of those things where, like, there's nothing Wemby could do in the regular season that would convince me that he's the best player in the world. That is an honor that I personally wouldn't consider him for unless he was doing it in the playoffs. And, you know, carrying his team to, like, it's not even so much like he has to win the title necessarily. Although that is the ultimate kind of like, you know, signal that you've arrived on that front. But to me, it's more just like him thriving in the playoffs and being a dominant playoff player and like, not experiencing a drop off from regular season production to playoff production. When he can tie those two things together, which obviously we haven't even seen that yet, that's when I would start to consider him to be the best player alive. Last question. Jason, I enjoy your content. Keep up the good work. Fist bump. I want to ask, as a Thunder fan, I'm starting to worry about Chet. Obviously we want him to stay healthy and be careful for those bumps he's absorbing. But we're, but we're also worried about how his offensive skill will only show in flashes, while other times he just can become a non factor, especially in the clutch. What do you think he should be working on to stay more consistent? So I get tricky with this kind of thing. I feel like it's really hard for big, lanky dudes that aren't super polished, like Kevin Durant, for example, to be ball handlers in, like, physical late game environments. Especially, like, I think it's one thing when you're big and strong like Jokic or LeBron or Luca, when you, when you have, like, real strength, you can thrive in that physicality and get to your spot still. But like, a lot of the thinner players, especially when they're not super polished, they can get kind of dislodged and beat up a little bit in those situations. And so I don't really ever see Chet as being like the guy that you're just gonna run the offense through and crunch time. Not unless he becomes a dramatically better jump shooter, which he just hasn't been to this point in his career. But I'm still super high on Chet. Like, I think he's still one of the most underrated defensive players in the league. He's a huge part of what they did defensively in last year's playoff run. I do want to see him improve as a catch and shoot jump shooter. Like, he's got to start beating nail help with those above the break threes off of the right and left wing. But like, yeah, like, I, I think. I'm not gonna say I, I've learned this lesson with Shay. I don't want to put a ceiling on anybody. So I don't want to sit here and pretend as though Chad is incapable of becoming a guy that can become a high usage player in crunch time. But right now he's too thin and too. And lacks the polish necessary to be that kind of guy outside of spurts, especially early in games and in regular season context. But the main thing for me is, like, if he gets to the point where he's like a few 40% knock down, you know, above the break three point shooter when he's open, that'll be plenty. Offensively, that's all, that's all the Thunder need from him. He does enough damage as a cutter along the baseline and as an offensive rebounder and with what he does defensively. And he can provide little pops of scoring throughout the game off the dribble, obviously inconsistently, but he can do that. To me, the. The main, like, kind of barrier between where he is right now and like, making the Thunder unbeatable is like, he's got to get to the point where he can hit 40% of his unguarded catch and shoot threes above the break. 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 be back on Monday. Enjoy your weekend. Lots of basketball to get into when we get to Monday. I will see you guys then.
- [59:58]
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- [60:32]
Jason
Hey, what's up?
- [60:33]
Mario Lopez
It's Mario Lopez. Back to school is an exciting time, but it can also be overwhelming and kids may feel isolated, a vulnerability that human traffickers can exploit. Human trafficking doesn't always look like what you expect. Everyday moments can become opportunities for someone with bad intentions. Whether you're a parent, teacher, coach or neighbor. Check in, ask questions, stay connected. Blue Campaign is a national awareness initiative that provides resources to help recognize suspected instances of human trafficking. Learn the signs and how to report@dhs.gov.
- [61:08]
Lego Star Wars Advertiser
Blue Campaign does anything go better than Lego and Star Wars? I don't think so. Kids will love becoming a part of the galactic action while playing out their favorite adventures like with Jango Fett's Starship. I mean they this Lego set is fantastic. It features a detailed recreation of Jango Fett's starship with four stud shooters, a seismic charge dropping function, and wings that rotate with gravity. Plus it has three Jango Fett with two blasters and a jetpack, Young Boba Fett and Llama Su. Perfect for endless play. Now for the big fans, there's Jango Fett's Firespray class Starship from the Ultimate Collection series. Packed with details and surprises for fans, this large scale set is perfect for anyone hunting for a mindful building escape. Plus you end up with a fantastic display piece. You can build this while your little ones build the kid set. You'll be like Jango and Boba building an adventure shop. Now for Star wars lego sets on lego.com or in lego retail stores.
- [62:10]
Mario Lopez
Big deposits deserve big rewards. Kraken is offering up to 2% back on crypto and cash deposits made this October. Deposit $1,000 or more and watch your reward grow as the Kraken community deposits reach 500 million. Opt in through the app and start stacking. Get Kraken in the App Store or Google Play Store today. Not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss and is offered to US customers through PayWord Interactive, Inc. Terms apply.
- [62:40]
Jason
This is an iHeart podcast.