← The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
Hoops Tonight - Playoff superstar TIERS + how REAL is Atlanta Hawks win streak? | NBA Reaction
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- [00:00]
Host (Basketball Analyst)
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human this message is brought to you by Apple Card. Apple Card members can earn unlimited daily cash back on everyday purchases wherever they shop. This means you could be earning daily cash on just about anything, like a slice of pizza from your local pizza place or a latte from the corner coffee shop. Apply for Apple Card in the Wallet app to see your credit limit offer in minutes subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs bank usa, Salt Lake City Branch Terms and more at Apple this is Daniel Cormier
- [00:34]
Daniel Cormier
from the Daniel Cormier Show. This podcast is sponsored by Total Wireless, the official wireless partner of ufc. Power doesn't wait in the octagon or outside of it. You either make the move or you miss the moment. That's why you need a network that's just as powerful as you are. With Total Wireless, you get unlimited 5G data keeping you in the action from the walkouts to the knockouts. Now that's a total Power move. Make your total Power move today. Visit totalwireless.com or stop by your neighborhood Total Wireless Store. Additional terms apply. See total wireless.com for details.
- [01:09]
Public Investing Sponsor
Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures available at public.comDisclosures Life is
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- [02:55]
Host (Basketball Analyst)
All right. Welcome to Hoops Tonight here at the Volume Heavy Thursday, everybody. Hope all of you guys are having an incredible week. Have a jam packed show for you guys today. The Atlanta Hawks won for the 17th time in the last 19 games and got a couple of big ones as they beat the Celtics and then dominated the Magic in Orlando. We're going to do a little bit of a deep dive into the Atlanta Hawks and what's been driving their success as of late. Then at the tail end of the show, I really wanted to take time to dig into what the superstar slash star tears look like as we head into the postseason run. So again, strictly looking at players that will be a factor in this year's playoff run and where they kind of stand in the league as we head into that 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 post notifications. That helps us a lot. Last but not least, if you guys want to get mailbag questions in, make sure you drop them in our YouTube comments and we'll get to them in mailbags throughout the rest of the season. And yes, I did cut my hair. It's shocking, I know. Trust me, it's just as shocking for me as it is for you guys. Any of you people have ever grown out your hair before. It's. It comes with all of this other random bullshit you have to deal with every day. So like it's been. It's kind of like a lifestyle in a weird way and so feels very strange. It's. I. But I'm getting used to it. It's just, just take it one day at a time. Okay, guys, you're just as shocked as I am, but let's talk some basketball. Let's get into this Atlanta Hawks run again. They've won for the 17th time in the last 19 games. I had been a little skeptical during the run because they had played an exceptionally light schedule for the most part, but their last two wins have been super impressive. A big win at home over the Boston Celtics where they went up by 21 points in the fourth quarter and then followed last night by an absolute thrashing of the Magic in Orlando. The Celtics game. Big run to start the second half. First half was very back and forth in that second half. The important context here is that Boston was without their two best centers. But regardless of what centers Boston had available, they run a ton of a deep drop coverage. Regardless of whether it's Keita Lucovich or the guys who played in that particular game, like Luca Garza, for example, they run a ton of deep drop and they've generally made up for their lack of versatile bigs by just keeping them around the basket. Deep drop helping a lot when they're in off ball situations. It's a huge part of why Boston leads the league in opponent points in the paint. They're the only team in the league that allows fewer than 40 points in the paint per game. But that comes at the cost of them being pretty vulnerable to shooting fives. That's been something that's happened all season long and. And Yeka Kongu in that game just absolutely fried the Celtics over and over again. Popping out of ball screens, spacing to the corner. And it caused real problems for the Celtics as the Hawks went on their second half run and they defended extremely well. They held Pritchard and white to just 23 points on 26 shots. Jaylen Brown put up numbers, but he was horribly inefficient in that game. It's kind of like the opposite of the second half of that Thunder game where he was just forcing the issue on his drives over and over again. And there were some impressive ones in there because Jalen's so damn good at driving the basketball. There were a lot of bad forces at the rim. It was far from Jalen's best floor game. And give the Hawks credit, they made things tough on the guards and they did a great job swarming Jaylen Brown's drives. And we're going to talk about it when we start talking big picture. But their ball pressure goes a long way to making ball handlers uncomfortable, causing them to force the issue and rush things. That's one of the big values of ball pressure. Thought that was a really nice win against the Celtics. And then the Orlando game last night was interesting on several levels. Jalen Johnson continues to absolutely dominate the Palo Ban Caro matchup. It's a. In general, Atlanta is a tough matchup for Orlando because they can confront a lot of Orlando's size, but they're also faster. And when you can kind of like mitigate their ability to bully you, but then also just run circles around them. It can cause major problems in an individual matchup and specifically Paolo and Jalen. Paolo can't score in him one on one and Jalen can more effectively shoot over the top of him right now, which is getting him, which is allowing him to score over the top and get him out of position on drives where he can draw some fouls. The Magic also weren't switching with Wendell Carter Jr. And their ball screens and their handoffs, which is something they've done all season more than basically anyone, which is the I've talked about this. Like that's why Wendell Carter Jr. Leads the league in isolations. Defended. They usually switch with their five and they just weren't doing it against Atlanta. My guess is Jamal Mosley was trying to stay attached to and Yeka Kongu to prevent him from getting open threes, but I thought that was a nonsensical defensive game plan because switching is actually the best way to neutralize a popping big that basically forces you to attack in ISO rather than giving up easy little kickbacks and things like that. Or you run into this issue when you don't switch and you stay home. So like if Wendell Carter Jr. Is just basically gluing up to Anya Congu now you're asking your perimeter defenders to chase Atlanta's guards through two guys as they're trying to run through action. They're navigating around Wendell and Ana as they're trying to get back in front of Nikhil Alexander Walker, get back in front of of C.J. mcCollum and Nikhil Alexander. Walker in particular just fried the Magic in this game. 32 points on 16 shots. Not only did he kill in the action, just kind of circling around a congu as he was able to get downhill consistently, but also all that inverted stuff that Jalen Johnson runs where he has guard screened for him. Nikhil got Paolo Bunchero switched on him a lot and he was really doing damage to Paolo either just like catching him helping off too far in spot up situations or beating him off the dribble. Nikhil had like literally one of the nastiest spin moves I've ever seen attacking PA off the left wing. He drove to the right and did like a lot of spin moves will come in like two phases where there'll be like a pound dribble and it'll be kind of like a slow motion spin. He just did like this whirling dervish lightning spin that just completely dusted Paolo. Paolo was very bad defensively in this one, but Nikhil completely toasted him with that spin move. It was able to get to the basket for the layup. It was completely disgusting. And Orlando just decomposed in this game. It was. It was over by halftime. So not only have The Hawks gone 17 and 2 in their last 19 games, but now they have a couple of dominant wins over a good team in Orlando and a great team in Boston to add some legitimacy to the run that they've been on. They've had the second best record in the league since February 22nd. They're 17 and 2. Only San Antonio has been better at 18 and 2. They're third in offense, second in defense, sixth in offensive rebounding, sixth and defensive rebounding. And they've been dominating the margins. They're leading the league in points off of turnovers in the span at 24 per game. That's a margin of plus 7.4 over their appointments, over their opponents in points off of Turnovers per game, plus 3.9 points per game in second chance points and plus 5.7 points per game in fast break points. Obviously there's some overlap there with the turnovers, but that's a lot of margin every single night, which is buying margin for their offense. We'll talk about their half court offense here. In just a second overall in offense, they have six guys averaging double figures each kind of doing it in their own way. Jaylen Johnson in the span, 21 points, nine rebounds and eight assists per game. We've talked over the course of the season that like my main concern with Jaylen, before I can really buy into him, big picture as a prospect is can he develop some form of reliable half court offensive initiation, a way to break the defense down when they aren't able to get out in transition. And it's really materializing in two ways. We've talked about the inverted action a lot this season. I won't dwell there too long, but that's one of the most common plays that we've seen around the league for big ball handlers, right? You just have guards go set screens. It inverts everything. So the guy who's guarding the bigger player suddenly has to navigate a screen, which is something that they're not comfortable with. And you're asking guards to function as helpers in screens, which they don't often do. And so it creates all sorts of openings where it's like, okay, if the guard hedges now, the. The guard setting the screen can easily slip out and create an open 3. Or with a guy like Dyson Daniels slipping into the middle of the floor for little floaters and stuff like that. Or if you switch suddenly you've got mismatches on both sides of the screen. And if you don't switch, if the guard stays home on the guard setting the screen, then all of a sudden, you know, Jalen can easily get downhill to his right hand. And, you know, this is something again we see all around the league. It kind of initiated originally with guys like LeBron and Giannis over the course of the last half decade. LeBron running a ton of inverted action with Austin Reeves, Giannis running a ton of inter inverted action with like Gary Trent and AJ Green. Obviously, Nicola Jokic is one of the main guys that we think of with inverted action with Jokic is a little more different because he's not a slasher. But we've seen so many of these big forwards that run inverted action as slashers because they, they're at their best when they get downhill. And, you know, guys like Jalen and LeBron and Giannis have elite playmaking ability. That's the big thing that's kind of held Paolo back is he's been unable to really turn that into a playmaking advantage for him. But that's an action that, that Jalen's been able to run effectively, that he's been able to mimic from some of the other big slashing forwards around the league. And the second piece of it is post scoring. Jalen's just got a lot better at like those little turnaround jump shots over either shoulder, the kind of getting into the defender's chest and drawing fouls. Like, Jalen's just gotten better as a post scorer, which has given him the ability to, again, like, we know his, his, like, fundamental strength that he's awesome at is he's just this great downhill athlete that can finish at the rim who also is a great passer, right? But like, again, if you run the inverted action and it leads to switches or in any situation where a defender's able to generally stay in front of Jalen, it's going to force him to score over the top. And he's just starting to develop a. A pretty well rounded post scoring game. Nikhil Alexander Walker has just been a revelation this season, testament to his work ethic. He's gone from being like a 3 and D guard to like a legitimately awesome scoring guard. It gets to the rim a ton five times per game. Again, for a guy with his usage, that's super impressive. He's Become a legitimate movement shooter. He's shooting 37% this year on threes, coming off of off ball screens in 48% on transition threes, which is a different type of movement. Three transition threes are a little easier because you tend to have your momentum going towards the basket, but it's still the same concept where you're running full speed and getting your feet set when you're on the move. And he's really improved as an improvisational score. So like stuff in the mid range, off the dribble, pull up, jump shot type stuff, counter moves, like that nasty spin move we talked about. That's all that like improvisational scoring. That is usually the difference between you being able to get to 15, 17 points in a game to like that 18 to 22 points in the game. For these like role player type scores, you've got to have some ability to score improvisationally. And the kills really started to add that to his game. CJ McCullough may not be the same CJ he was in Portland, but he brings a lot of the same refined skill guard stuff to the table that he's had in his entire career. And it's for a team that kind of needs a player who can do that stuff. If you take Trey Young out of the equation, obviously Trey Young is very much a heliocentric style of player, but you still need that kind of skill. You still need a guy who can run ball screens and make simple reads, but also be able to score. If the defense is running variations of drop where the onus is on the guard to score the basketball. And what C.J. does is C.J. brings that to the table, but in the flow of the offense without really strangling the basketball and disrupting rhythm for other players, which makes it really valuable for Atlanta. The Hawks play so fast in transition, but also in the half court, they run a lot of action side to side. They get a lot of attacks in on each possession. So having multiple guards on the floor at all times who can attack off of a screen, an off ball screen, or set a screen for Jalen Johnson, but be a threat slipping out of it in various ways, that's super valuable. And you got Congo's floor spacing. I can't say enough about this. Again, there's a huge difference between, between being a pick and pop big and a pick and pop big that teams refuse to leave open. Again, like we talked about, I really do believe Jamal Mosley just discarded his main defensive scheme because he was terrified of Ana last night. Today's show is brought to you by presenting sponsor Hard Rock Bet. Florida's sportsbook. The biggest weekend in college basketball is almost here. The round of four is set and a national champion is just days away from cutting down the net. Now's the time to step up your game with daily dance and boosts on Hard Rock Bet. You'll get a live profit boost and a parlay profit boost for the games. More ways to shoot your shot. More ways to cash in with boosted odds when the stakes are at their highest. In those heart stopping, zero on the clock moments we've all seen in the tournament, they still pay. On Hard Rock Bet. They're handing out a 25 bonus bet if a team you bet to win or cover hits a buzzer beater. Because when the lights are the brightest, every shot matters even more. 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T-Mobile Advertiser
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Host (Basketball Analyst)
Really? How's this?
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Host (Basketball Analyst)
No.
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Host (Basketball Analyst)
Hey, whoa, whoa.
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- [17:30]
Public Investing Sponsor
for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures available at public.comdisclosures this is
- [18:30]
Julian Edelman
Julian Edelman from Dudes on Dudes with Gronk and Jules. All right, real quick. Take a look at yourself right now.
- [18:36]
Daniel Cormier
Why?
- [18:37]
Host (Basketball Analyst)
What's wrong?
- [18:37]
Julian Edelman
Nothing's wrong. You look like a guy running on three hours of sleep and vibes.
- [18:42]
Host (Basketball Analyst)
Okay, yeah, I'm tired, kind of cranky and very thirsty.
- [18:46]
Julian Edelman
Congrats. Those are some of the potential signs of mild dehydration. And I bet your last bathroom break showed you another sign your body might be throwing you a penalty flag.
- [18:59]
Host (Basketball Analyst)
So what's the play?
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Julian Edelman
Call Liquid IV hydration. Hydration multiplier. One stick in water helps hydrate faster than water alone.
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Host (Basketball Analyst)
Okay, but where's the proof?
- [19:09]
Julian Edelman
Liquid IV's clinical studies. Not just a guy I know. Real science. Results you can trust.
- [19:18]
Host (Basketball Analyst)
Well, take a look at me now. Liquid IV is officially part of my daily hydration routine.
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- [19:44]
Host (Basketball Analyst)
And you know there are a lot of bigs in the league. Like if you think Celtics fans like Luka Garza, like, like there's a lot of. Or Vucevich I think falls into this group as well. As long as we're talking Celtics, there's bigs where it's like, oh, he's popping. Go ahead and take it, you'll make a third of them. Whatever. You might have a game where you go over four. If you happen to make your first two, maybe we'll react, but there's a whole lot of like just kind of letting pick and pot big shoot. And you know there's a big difference between shooting 37. 38% on completely unguarded, wide open threes versus shooting 37, 38% on high volume aggressive threes that are contested and where the defense is actually accounting for you. That's why three point percentage on its face isn't necessarily an the end all be all way to read that stat. There's, there's a lot of context there. Ana is very much like a legitimate, you have to guard him type of spacing five and that is just what creates a lot of space around the basket for offensive players that aren't as talented as the other offensive players around the league. It makes life easier for this Atlanta perimeter scoring corp. I want to include his offensive rebounding in there too. Dyson Daniels deserves a lot of credit for this, but as we mentioned, The Hawks are sixth in offensive rebound percentage in this 19 game span. And yet his ability to clean things up around the basket, Dyson as well, those create a lot of extra possessions for Atlanta. Dyson Daniels is kind of the perfect inverted screener for Jalen Johnson because he doesn't shoot the ball really well. Though he did hit a massive three in the Celtics game and it was hilarious listening to the Celtics broadcast because they were like legitimately like Flummox that Tyson hit that three at the top of the key towards the end of the third quarter. But he's, he could slip out of screens and he's actually very good there in the middle of the floor with his floater. He shoots over 50% on it and he's a very good offensive rebounder. So overall he brings offensive value. Despite being a guy that's a historically bad three point shooter this season. I thought those two wins against Orlando and Boston were also Jonathan Kaminga's two best games since joining the Hawks. Again, he's had big statistical performances over the course of his time there against bad teams. And certain contexts. But I thought those two games, especially given the quality of opponent, they were his best two games of the season. I thought he was very good defensively on against Boston. He held up in some switches against guys like Peyton. Pritchard made some good help side rotations around the basket was just generally very active and then he's just starting to find his spots in the offense in the half court. Obviously he's a great transition scorer, but the big one is he's able to slash off the wing effectively. He'll get, he'll get these situations where just the floor is spaced properly and he'll have the ball in the left wing and he can just quick hit a drive and try to get all the way to the basket where he can draw fouls and finish at the rim there. And he's been hitting 41% of his threes over this 19 game span, which has helped him stay useful in his off ball situation. So some po. The first time this season where I'm actually starting to see some sustained positive impact from Jonathan Kaminga on defense, it's not perfect. There's still the handful of times each game where you'll see Jalen Johnson or Jonathan Kaminga get back cut because they're just ball watching. Or times where their front line will get a little overwhelmed by some of the bigger, stronger players around the league, but they've really been solid. Their length on the weak side has really stood out to me in film sessions. So Atlanta does a lot of loading up on the strong side. I talked about this the last time we talked about the Hawks, but like they'll bring a congu up and basically like a, like a middle drop or like a catch hedge where he's not all the way up at the level but he's allowing the roller to get behind him and he kind of comes in situates himself like about 15ft away from the basket, just waiting for the guard to drive into him. And it creates this like little bit of indecision where the Hawks are loaded up to the strong side, but there's a lot of length between where the ball is and where it needs to get in order to beat the defense by flipping the side of the floor, by getting the ball across the floor. So like there will be times where the ball handler will force interior passes and a congu will get a lot of steals just with his length just kind of sitting in that like little soft catch hedge type of coverage. Right. Or a lot of possessions where it is Jalen Johnson or Zachary Rich Ashe or, or a Jonathan coming, I'd include him as well. Where they're on the weak side and the skip passes come or the quick swing swing sequences come and those guys just can jump passing lanes that look open but actually aren't because you've got such a lanky athletic player that's kind of hawking those passing lanes. And they're getting again, they're getting most of their steals from their guards. Nikhil Alexander Walker and Dyson Daniels are leading the team in steals in the span they're getting about four between the two of them. Obviously a congu is getting a lot of steals, but they're getting another three steals a game just from those three forwards because of how active they've been on the weak side. And that again is feeding those margins that they keep winning. They're forcing turnovers to feed their transition attack in general, they're just a very scrappy, athletic team that has a lot of ball Hawks so meaning just guys who get a lot of 50, 50 balls. So that helps them get so many offensive rebounds. And then the pace they play at leads to a lot of opportunities in transition. Again, they're third, the third in the NBA in total transition scoring per game according to synergy at 29 points per game. We talked before the season about how I thought the Hawks kind of needed to be good in order to validate a lot of my core basketball beliefs. And it hasn't all been perfect over the course of the season, but it is finally starting to come together here over the course of this final third of the season. Like for instance, I talked a lot about the value of ball pressure making opponent ball handlers uncomfortable. Like I don't think it's a coincidence that Jaylen Brown had a rough game against Atlanta because they got up into him early and often and he approached that by attacking, attacking, attacking. And it caused him to rush, which caused him to lose some of his like floor game management type stuff that he showed to a super high level against Oklahoma City, for example, in that second Oklahoma City game. And again, sometimes you're going to apply ball pressure and guys will still play well, just like Jalen did in the Oklahoma City game. But your best chance to make an opposing star play one of his worst games is to make him uncomfortable. And you can lead to more of those kinds of nights by applying good ball pressure to the value of increasing transition possessions. Why? Because transition possessions are just more efficient than half court possessions by a wide margin. So for instance, the hawks, they have a 1:15. They have a 1:15 offensive writing in transition. The best half court offense in the league right now, Denver is giving you 106 points per 100 possessions. So even the the best half court offense in the league can't come close to a transition offense like what the Hawks bring to the table. The average half court offense, which is about where Atlanta lands, is about 97 points per 100 possessions. So you're getting like a legitimate 20% increase in value per possession when you push and transition. So if you push in transition, you score more. It's going to give you a value add over a large sample. That's something that I believe in and I wanted to see translate to wins that we're starting to see with Atlanta. 3 the value of just generally dominating the position, the possession battle in the margin. So like yeah, your half court offense might have a small deficit or a small advantage, whatever it is, versus your opponent, but your best chance to flip that dynamic, whatever it is, is to win on the margins. Like I talked about this with the Lakers early in the year, Lakers were an elite half court offense all year, but they couldn't win on the margins in any way. And so it wasn't enough for them to be able to compete with the best teams in the league. Ironically, the reason why the Lakers have been able to start winning it's one, their half court offense has gotten even better as Luke has gotten better and as they've gotten healthy. But two, they now they win the points off turnovers battle by a wide margin every night they're creating margins. You need to find some way to supplement the half court battle. And so if you can do it through points off of turnovers, if you could do it through second chance points, if you can do it just by pushing in transition, whatever you can do to generate margin or to generate more possessions, you increase your chances of winning basketball games. And the the Hawks are literally dominating all of those areas right now. And lastly, the value of having a depth of players down the roster who can all dribble, shoot and pass to a certain extent. Why? Because if you can create advantages then in advantage basketball you need guys who can capitalize on those advantages by either hitting an open three, driving a closeout, making that next decision in the line, or providing some form of other space finishing ability, whether it's Dyson Daniels little floaters around the basket, vertical spacing from your bigs, the ability to slash closeouts and get all the way to the rim, whatever it might be. And I liked this roster at the beginning of the year and I thought, oh, like Trey Young plus a bunch of guys who can like dribble, shoot and pass reasonably well out of advantages, they should be able to score and obviously we lose the Trey Young piece of it. This new roster is a very different look. So the key swing factor was will they be able to create enough advantages when they get stuck in the half court. And yes, in the big picture they've been a mediocre half court offense again. 97 half court offensive rating. I think it ranked 17th in the NBA if I, if I remember what I looked at this morning. But because of the improvements from guys like Jalen Johnson and Nikhil Alexander Walker coupled with a congu becoming just a deadly floor spacer that's allowed them to play better in that phase of the game. In this 19 game span, they've had a lot of really good half court offense games. In fact, they've had 12 of those 19 games where they've been over a 100 offensive rating in the half court. So they are showing some real signs of progress in that phase of the game as well. It's definitely a very exciting time to be a Hawks fan. All right, I wanted to take some time to look at our superstar tiers today, specifically within the context of the playoffs. Meaning what are the guys around the league that are going to be factors in this playoff run and where do they stand in terms of those echelons of the NBA? Right. I always refer to the stars in the NBA like this. Are they a top tier superstar? Are they a second tier superstar? Are they just a third tier star in going on down the line? Right. So again, this is not intended today to be a player ranking like in a 1, 2, 3 sort of sense. These guys are going to be duking it out in this playoff run. That's when this is going to all get decided. And then when we get to the summertime, we'll do our best to place everyone in that ranking to the best of our ability. But I wanted to take some time today to kind of set the stage for this impending playoff showdown. Like I was looking at the calendar to take. Can you guys believe it? Next week is the last week of the NBA regular season. This 82 game grind that we go through every single year is finally reaching its end, literally a week from Sunday. So it's right around the corner. I wanted to take some time today to place everyone in those tiers before we get started with the NBA's second season. Starting with the top tier superstars. Again, these are the Guys who are capable of bringing overwhelming basketball impact on a nightly basis. If one of these guys has a game where they don't look impactful, it's like shocking and you wonder what kind of weirdness was involved. And it usually involves a injury or they're viciously ill or like just some sort of weirdness takes place. If these guys ever have like a really bad game, an average game for one of these guys brings an extremely high floor. Whether it's elite overwhelming scoring ability or overwhelming advantage creation or overwhelming defensive impact or maybe some combination of those three. I think we have a clear four guys going into the playoffs this year and then a pretty large gap after that. Like, I, I, I think we would all be in agreement on this list. Again, in no particular order. Shai, Luka, Jokic, and Victor Wemanyama. Shea bringing just that overwhelming scoring ability. Luka bringing a combination of overwhelming scoring ability and advantage creation. Jokic more of the advantage creation, but also some scoring. And then Victor Wembanyama. It's advantage creation via his ability to roll to the basket and draw defenders. But also he's possibly the most impactful defender in the history of the league. So like those guys, like on Shea's worst night, like if you dig into the numbers, because Shea functions so much at the rim, at the foul line and in the mid range, he's borderline impervious to a bad game because he's just not going to have nights where he can't hit shots. Like when he has nights like that really weird one against Chicago. It's exceptionally rare, right? And like it was rare not even in the shot result, but also in like the approach he takes. Ten threes. It almost felt like Shea was out there practicing. Like, we're not going to lose to the Bulls tonight. I might as well try to shoot myself out of this three point shooting slop. That's literally what it felt like when you were watching the film. Right? Luca is much more volatile as a scorer because he relies so much on his three point shot. That's been kind of the weird thing. Like I, I like his rim attempts have like steadily declined year over year. But he's countered that by becoming like a Steph Curry esque, like nuclear upside three point shooter. Obviously not the type of shooter that Steph is. I just mean he's added that kind of variance to his game where like if Luka hits seven or eight threes, he, he just, he's the best player in the world by a mile because he just brings this nuclear upside with his three point shooting, right? But I think Luka counters some of his like volatility as a scorer by being like a much better passer than a guy like Shay, right? So like he has a high floor in the sense where like even if he goes 3 for 13 from 3, he's going to get to the rim for like a couple of layups. He's going to make four or five little floaters and and mid range shots. He's going to get to the foul line seven or eight times. He's still going to end up with 33, 34 points and he's going to create a lot of advantages because he's such a gifted passer. Nicole Jokic, one of the most reliable night to night efficiency guys. He's not the volume scorer that Shea or Luca is, but he's literally the best passer in the league right now. One of the best passers in the history of basketball. And again, like we talked about with Victor, just incredibly high floor every night because he has such profound defensive impact and his gravity as a roller. And then like we've seen as of late with how aggressive he's been as a scorer, he seems to be going for 40 and 20 every single night. He has that upset. All these guys have upside, right? Like Shay can go for 40, Luca can go for 40, Jokic can go for 35, 15 and 15, and Wemby can go for 40 and 20. But their floors, because of Shay's reliability, because of Lucas playmaking, because of Jokic's playmaking and reliability, because of Wemby's defense, they don't have the floor drop out the way that you do when we get into the second tier of stars.
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Julian Edelman
Julian Edelman from Dudes on Dudes with Gronk and Jewels. All right, real quick. Take a look at yourself right now.
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Daniel Cormier
Why?
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Host (Basketball Analyst)
What's wrong?
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Julian Edelman
Nothing's wrong. You look like a guy running on three hours of sleep and vibes.
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Host (Basketball Analyst)
Okay, yeah, I'm tired, kind of cranky and very thirsty.
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Julian Edelman
Congrats. Those are some of the potential signs of mild dehydration. And I bet your last bathroom break showed you another sign your buddy might be throwing you a penalty flag.
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Host (Basketball Analyst)
So what's the play?
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Call Liquid IV Hydration Multiplier. One stick in water helps hydrate faster than water alone.
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Okay, but where's the proof?
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Julian Edelman
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Well, take a look at me now. Liquid IV is officially part of my daily hydration routine.
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- [37:19]
Host (Basketball Analyst)
Second tier superstars, these are guys who on any given night are legitimately able to reach the level of the guys in the top tier. Like in any one game setting, they can look a Shay or a Luka or a Jokic or a Wimy in the eyes and they can outplay them head to head for like one game. That's what their ceiling is. But these are players that struggles to sustain that level for one reason or another. Maybe they're a younger player who is still in their development trajectory, so inconsistency is kind of just part of the deal. Maybe they're an older player whose body doesn't allow them to consistently meet that level just because of the natural stuff you deal with when you're in your late 30s, right? Maybe they're in the heart of their prime, but they've just been unable to rectify a flaw that just keeps rising to the surface. Whether it's like something with their floor game, something with their athleticism, some. Some piece of their game that's prevented them from taking that final leap. I think there are nine players in this tier right now. The two young guys that come to mind are Anthony Edwards and Cade Cunningham. With Cade, it's more associated with his three point shot and just overall his finishing. He can have games where he struggles to make layups and goes 2 for 11 from 3. But like when Cade has his 3 point shot going and when he's finishing at the rim, he's such a gifted basket attacker with such a physicality that he brings to the table, such a great passer, he's a capable two way player. When Cade's got all the phases of his game going, he literally looks like a version of Luka Doncic, right? So like Kate has that upside. Anthony Edwards, it's very much like he's also a little volatile because of his three point shot that he leans on and his floor game can go up and down. He can have games where he struggles to interpret more sophisticated defense and can go ice cold as he just struggles to solve a puzzle. But Anthony Edwards can have these games where he goes once again like 7 for 11 from 3 and you can't keep him from getting to the basket and he looks like prime Michael Jordan. So again, both of those guys have the nuclear upside of a top tier superstar. But as they work through their inconsistencies ant more just learning how to interpret defense and building some more balance in his shot profile. Kate Cunningham finishing at the rim and finishing from three, there's some turnover stuff with Cade two that he can deal with sometimes when those guys start to rectify those issues, I think they'll become top tier superstars. They just have to build that consistency, the old guys and again, it's literally just can their bodies hold up here. But Kawhi Leonard, Steph Curry and Joel Embiid, I, I, Joel Embiid has had stretches since he's come back or like four or five minute stretches where he looks far and away like the best player in the floor. It looks like Joel Embiid from a few years ago, right? Steph Curry, even when he's not scoring, is one of the most gifted offensive engines in the league. And when he can get to 30 points per game, he's every bit as impactful as an offensive player, as a Shay, as a Luka, as a Nicola Jokic. And Kawhi Leonard has arguably been the best player in the league over the course of the last three, four months. It's just a question of whether or not his body can hold up. So all three of those guys again have top tier superstar upside. But their age, their, their athleticism, their ability to hang physically is going to be the thing that keeps them in the second tier. And then lastly, these four guys are the in their prime, guys that struggle to reach that top tier for some sort of flaw they've been unable to conquer. So Jalen Brown, Jason Tatum, Donovan Mitchell and Jalen Brunson are the four guys they put here. Jalen Brown is floor game. He's got the nuclear athleticism to be a top tier superstar and he's got the skill set, the mid range pull up shooting, the ability to consistently get to the basket. He's a capable passer. With Jalen, it's all about approach. And again like when he has games like that second half against okc, he can look Shay Gilders Alexander in the eyes and be better than him for 24 minutes of basketball. But then he'll have games like the Atlanta game where he just gets rushed and just forces the ball over and over and over again into the teeth of the defense. And his missing layups and missing, just mixing in like random stupid three point shots that don't really make sense. With Jalen, it's always been a floor game thing. His ability to just like manage the large amount of possessions, like can he run an offense for 48 minutes consistently or 36 minutes, whatever his minute total is consistently. As a possession to possession shot creator Jason Tatum, it's always been a combination of the first step quickness and his pull up three point Shooting he just can. The jump shot has just never been able to get back to where it was a few years ago where it was like 1.1 points per shot. Instead it's always been about 1 point per shot. And he'll have games once again where he makes his pull up ISO threes and he looks like the best player in the world. But then he'll have games where he just can't make them. And he's never been the first step quickness guy to be able to consistently punish mismatches. But when Jason Tatum has everything going in his game, when he has the pull up three point shot going, when he's bringing all of his floor game to the table, is so gifted as a passer, his defensive versatility to be the ability to guard centers and anchor you as a defensive rebounding team and all the things that he brings to the table. His upside is that of a top tier superstar, just he's been unable to sustain it throughout his career. Donovan Mitchell, always a floor game thing. Once again you look at the box score and you're like oh my God, this guy's like 30 points per game on 60% true shooting in every playoff run. But for some reason it never amounts to team scoring. We talked about this a little bit with, with Carter Rodriguez in the, in the pod yesterday. Like you have to have a certain amount of like floor game to be able to actually run team offense and that's been something that Donovan has struggled with. But when he's got it going with this pull up three and he's getting to the basket and he can become completely unguardable and on any given night can outplay a top tier guy. Jalen Brunson. It's a fully well rounded, heliocentric approach. The ability to, to score at the rim in the mid range, to get to the foul line, the ability to score from three, the ability to play Mick, the ability to do all those things and then again in any one game sample he can match the impact of the top guys, but he's just so athletically limited that he struggles to sustain it on a game and game out basis like the top tier guys. So that's our top 13 going into this postseason run. Again, nine of our second tier guys in, four of our top tier guys moving into the third tier. And I have, I have 24 players in this tier. These are players that don't bring enough to the table in terms of overall impact as basketball players to actually reach the level of the top tier guys. But they still are Exceptional overall impact players compared to what we consider to be like a role player or even a really high level role player or even like a very, very flawed star. These are very good basketball players that don't have the upside of the top tier guys. So maybe they bring an elite skill to the table. Like maybe they're an elite score, maybe they're an elite defensive player that can anchor defense. Maybe they're just like an overwhelming physical presence. They're just too big for most players at their position or they're too big, strong and fast for, for any player at their position and they present matchup problems in a variety of ways. Or maybe, and we have plenty of these like non superstar shot creators, guys that can run offense in a variety of ways. Maybe they can run pick and roll really well, maybe they can beat switches really well. They're just like shot creators, but they can't do it at that like superstar level. First of all, the elite scores, I'm going to put Tyrese Maxi in here. Kevin Durant, Jamal Murray, and then I was on the fence. This is one of my on the fence guys. But I'm going to include Brandon Ingram in here specifically. Even though I think he's a level below those three guys. I'm including Brandon Ingram in here because the Raptors, I think are a spunky team and he's going to play a very important role in this postseason as a swing player for them who's looked good in the postseason in the past. So again, a clear level below Jamal, Kevin and Tyrese there, but a guy that I think as an elite scorer who can have a real impact in this year's postseason run. Again, Tyrese Maxey, it's the downhill speed mixed with the ability to shoot both off the dribble and off the move. Kevin Durant, it's just, you know, Kevin Durant, it's just the ability to consistently get to his spots and knock down jump shots over the top. Jamal Burry is essentially the guard version of Kevin Durant. A guy that he's going to get to his pull up jump shot and you basically just get go like this and pray that he misses, right? And all three of those guys this year have been able to score the ball effectively at volume and efficiently. Brandon Ingram less. So I'm just including him here mainly as a, as a reminder that that Raptors team is spunky and dangerous and he's arguably going to be their most important half court scorer as we go into this postseason run. Secondly, these are the, these are the high Level non superstar shot creators. These are those guys that in various ways can run offense for your team and can actually hit really high levels in that phase of the game. But they're inconsistent for one reason or another and they're never able to like reach the level of those top tier guys. Got a lot of guys in this group. Devin Booker obviously three level score, pretty good pick and roll playmaker, just lacks like the unbelievable shot making and athleticism to be like one of the top tier guys. Denny Avdia, a guy that pressures the rim relentlessly, can actually slow down and play with some pace in ball screens. Pretty good passer there for him. The big thing is his jump shot is incredibly unreliable, especially off the dribble. He's got a pretty bad hitch in it which causes him to struggle to get to it consistently. This is a guy who puts up a lot of Those like you know, 28, 8, 9 type of nights that you that kind of mimic some of the higher level guys around the league. James Harden, exact same thing. Another guy who can put up those stat lines to kind of mimic the higher level shot creators in the league, but a guy who can beat switches, who can run pick and roll at a high level. He's added three level scoring to his game since he left Houston. Can it pull up threes, can score from mid range, can get to the basket, can draw fouls, can play, make high level out of ball screens, can do it all. Austin Reeves, exact same set of things that I just talked about with James Harden. A guy that on any given night can go for 40, even 50 points that is pretty consistently for the Lakers in that like 20, 25 point per game range. A guy that can score from three both on and off the ball. A guy who can run ball screens at a really high level, a little bit more susceptible to switches than some of the other guys on this list, but a very very good ball screen player and a very good all around player that I think falls into this non superstar shot creator role. Jalen Johnson talked a lot about him earlier today. He's really developed as a shot creator more in the realm of inverted ball screens with guards as well as as a post up scorer. And he's a guy that can pressure the rim at a high level, has demonstrated some improvement as an over the top shooter and is a very good passer. Alper and Shangoon, this was a guy much better, much more fun guy to watch last year in terms of just the level he was reaching as a night tonight just dominant one on one score. It's been very up and down this year, but over the course of the last week and a half has really started to flash that superstar upside again. A guy that can bully a lot of the frontline players in the league who's got a good level of over the top scoring. His big thing is just touch. His touch can be a little iffy and he can have games where he really struggles to interpret defense and can struggle with double teams and struggle to pass in traffic. But Alperin, as a post player, he's kind of like the Nikola Jokic version of a non superstar shot creator Lamelo Ball. Again, he's a guy that doesn't statistically perform like the top level players in the league, but if you do any digging into the Hornets offense, their offense flows because of him. He's the initial advantage creator that allows guys like Con Knippel and Brandon Miller and Miles Bridges to get going as scores off of the advantages that he creates. We'd be foolish to not pretend he's not going to. He's going to play a big role in this postseason run in one shape or another because of how valuable he is as a shot creator for the Hornets. Darius Garland has been absolutely monstrous over the course of the last couple of weeks for the Clippers. He looks athletics, he his feet look like they're able to plant and move and change direction the way that they did for most of last season. He's able to break the defense down with his speed and he's got all of the shot making and playmaking to capitalize on his ability to beat people off the dribble. He's been shooting the three at an insane rate as a Clipper. Darius Garland's on this wrist on this list could very well be in an 81 matchup against OKC this year could be very important. Darren Fox and Steph Castle are two guards for the San Antonio Spurs. The two reasons the main reason why these two guys are so incredibly important to the spurs is they're both excellent cross court passers which as we've talked about Victor women. Yama has this extreme gift to draw attention as he's rolling to the basket, consistently drawing tags. The opening there is always the weak side corner. That's where the tag usually comes from. Both the Aaron Fox and Steph Castle can consistently get downhill in ball screens and from there make the valuable cross court passes to capitalize on the attention that Victor Wenyama draws. Now they have other different bits of value. Steph Castle's a much better lob passer, so he's got better lob chemistry with Victor de' Aaron Fox is a much more gifted like short to mid range scorer. Steph Castle's got more of a bully ball ability to get to the basket, but dear and Fox is very good at beating people off the dribble in switches so they both bring a variety of different kind of traits to the table, but I wanted to highlight that crosscourt passing. Then lastly on this list, J Dub Jaylen Williams from the Oklahoma City Thunder Again, it's been a injury played season for him, a very up and down season for him in terms of his rhythm, but we would all be foolish to pretend he's not going to play a massive role in this postseason run. I had him as a top 20 player coming into the season based on how well he attacked the basket over the final two rounds of last year's postseason run. Your textbook non superstar shot creator is going to be very impactful in this postseason run. Athletic Mismatches these are guys that aren't necessarily functioning as super high level, well rounded shot creators for one reason or another, but they are so big, strong, athletic, whatever it is they bring to the table, they are complete mismatches that will play massive roles in this postseason run. 1. LeBron James again shifting away from shot creation in the Cavs game he took just eight shots. Not to say that he can't do that, but as we're looking at LeBron in this postseason run, he's very much an athletic mismatch. He's a guy that's going to be doing a ton of work as a low man, defensive rotation kind of guy, defensive playmaker on the weak side, a guy who's anchoring the Lakers as a defensive rebounder, the literal best transition scorer in the league, which is insane for a 41 year old and doing a ton of damage as an off ball scorer. Screening and rolling to the basket for guys like Austin Reeves, attacking closeouts off of guys like Luka. We talked about his ability to consistently hit vertical spacing windows driving closeouts which has given him value when his jump shot hasn't been as good as it's been in years past. LeBron James is one of those athletic mismatches as a third tier star. Paolo Bonchero kind of lands in that shot creator kind of mold, but he's just, he's just to me is so much more of just a physical mismatch because he doesn't pass the ball very well and he's not a good over the top scorer. So Paolo kind of lands between those two areas, but I'm looking at him as an athletic mismatch in the sense that you can say what you want about Paulo. I was disappointed again in him watching the Jalen Johnson. His performance against Jalen Johnson last night, he can be a maddening player to watch. But it's like you end up in a first round series with Orlando. It's like Palo's still bigger and faster and stronger than anybody you have guarding him. So he's a physical mismatch. Julius Randall, same kind of thing. Inconsistent up and down, can function as a playmaker for the, for the Wolves. At times maddeningly inconsistent, but once again you end up in a first round series and it's like, can this dude guard Julius Randall? Oh crap, he's too big, he's too fast, he's too strong. He's a physical mismatch. Karl Anthony Towns, definitely that. Whether it's on the offensive glass, whether it's him being too fast for bigs, too big for smalls, his ability to space the floor, he is just at his position, a huge size mismatch and quickness mismatch compared quicker than bigs, bigger than smalls. He's a big athletic mismatch. And then lastly, Jalen Duran, just an absolute monster as a finisher on the role, as a guy who can rack closeouts when he catches in the middle of the floor. As a guy who can do damage as an offensive rebounder, he's just an absolute physical load to handle underneath the basket. Then lastly, defensive anchors. And again, each of these guys actually averages over 15 points per game and has some offensive utility, but their primary value to their team is to anchor the defensive end of the floor. I think we have four guys in this tier. Dame Adebayo, Chet Holmgren, Scotty Barnes and Evan Mobley. Bam. Again, just the your classic defensive anchor that is able to switch out onto the perimeter at an extremely high level, which gives them a ton of scheme versatility. Not the best like rim protector, drop coverage guy, but he is very good at that and he's maybe the one of the top three or four switching bigs in the entire NBA. So he just brings an enormous amount of defensive versatility there. Chad Holmgren, just a monster rim protector that also brings the ability to switch. Chad's had an awesome season. A very underrated season is very, very important to what Oklahoma City does. And Scotty Barnes, he's got a case for defensive player of the year. Probably going to make first team all defense. Scotty Barnes has been an absolute monster this year. Is just a rangy athlete on the backline, just once again functioning in a variety of different ways. The ability to deploy him on the perimeter against a variety of different types of guys. His ability to protect the basket to defensive rebound. Scotty is just a monster defensive weapon. Same goes for Evan Mobley. He kind of falls into that Scotty Barnes mold as a guy that like is kind of a Swiss army knife on the defensive end that can be deployed on the perimeter, that can be deployed at the basket. That brings a lot of different traits to the table. And each of those guys in their own way contributes offensively, whether it's Bama Tobayo and Chet Holmgren spacing the floor. Evan, the spacing has been a little frustrating, but he can bring some matchup attacking, can run a little inverted action. Scotty Barnes has really improved as an isolation and post up scorer this year. Just more physically aggressive to the basketball, which has allowed him to become more dependable there, which has unlocked some of his playmaking talent. So they each bring some offensive skill to the table. But again, their primary value is to anchor a defense. So Those are the 37 guys in those top three tiers that I'm looking at as we head into this postseason run. Again, four top tier guys, nine second tier guys, 24 in that third tier. I thought it was a way to kind of just set the stage as we prepare for the showdown in this year's postseason run. All right, guys, that's all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. The schedule for the rest of the week is pretty simple. We're going live after Lakers Thunder tonight, so come hang out on YouTube as we prepare for our playoff workflow by doing one of our classic live shows. We're also going to take some mailbag questions at the tail end of the show and then we'll run that mailbag again on Friday morning. All right, guys, that's all we have. I will see you guys tonight. What's up, cousin?
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Julian Edelman
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Host (Basketball Analyst)
Everyone has free phones. But when I switched to T mobile
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- [56:42]
Toyota Advertiser
You know how it's never really about where you're going, it's about who you're going with. The right people can turn any drive into a great memory. That's something Toyota really believes. They design vehicles around real life and real people.
- [56:54]
T-Mobile Advertiser
People.
- [56:54]
Toyota Advertiser
The ones who make plans happen and bring everyone together inside. Everything's built with passengers in mind. Comfortable seating, smart layouts, and space that actually works so everyone can relax and enjoy the ride. There's room for the people, room for the stuff, and room for the moments that happen along the way. Because when people are the destination, your ride is important. Learn more@toyota.com and find the vehicle that fits your people.
- [57:18]
Daniel Cormier
This is Daniel Cormier from the Daniel Cormier Show. This podcast is sponsored by Total Wireless, the official wireless partner of ufc. Power doesn't wait in the octagon or outside of it. You either make the move or you miss the moment. That's why you need a network that's just as powerful as you are. With Total Wireless, you get unlimited 5G data keeping you in the action from the walkouts to the knockouts. Now that's a total power move. Make your total power move today. Visit totalwireless.com or stop by your neighborhood Total Wireless Store. Additional terms apply. See totalwireless.com for details.
- [57:53]
Host (Basketball Analyst)
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.