Podcast Host (0:00)

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human new year.

Jason (0:05)

Same extra value meals at McDonald's. So now get two snack wraps plus fries and a medium soft drink for just $8 for a limited time only. Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska and California.

Podcast Host (0:18)

And for delivery, the Volum.

Jason (0:35)

All right, welcome to Hoops tonight here at the Volume Heavy Friday, everybody. Hope all of you guys have had an incredible week. It is mailbag day. We've got a lot of good stuff to get into from around the league and as promised, we're recording this on Thursday. I wanted to give some quick thoughts on the Nugget Celtics game and the Bucks warriors games from Wednesday night as well. We'll leave with that. And we got about 10 mailbag questions from throughout the week. Very excited to get into it with you guys. You guys know the Joe before we get started, subscribe to our YouTube channel so you don't miss any more. Any more of our videos like this video that helps us a lot. And if you want to get questions into our future mailbags in our full episodes on YouTube in the YouTube comments right mailbag with a colon, write your question. We'll get to them on Fridays throughout the rest of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So again, as promised, quick thoughts on those couple other games from Wednesday. One of the things important about our recording cadence, it's very important to me with that we get our videos out early in the day with our daily kind of cadence. You know, if you release a video in the afternoon like we used to do a few years ago, you know, there's games that are tipping off at 4 o' clock Pacific time. And it's just the cadence of the league is so fast. It's very important that I get g our reaction videos out early in the morning. And it just is tough when you've got a night like Wednesday night where there's quite literally a half dozen awesome games and I can't get to all of them. But I wanted to get to a couple more of these. So I figured we'd push them into our mailbag show for Friday, especially with how weak the Thursday night slate was. So Nuggets, Celtics, we had talked about after the right after the Yokage injury happened that there was going to be a formula for the Nuggets to lean on if they wanted to win without yic. And I said it would be leaning heavily into defense and then Jamal Murray essentially trying to bring you home in crunch time as long as you can keep Games close. And so I expected David Adelman to lean heavily on more of his athletes, to go smaller and to heavily emphasize in terms of his accountability, the defensive end of the floor. Cause that's something they can control during this stretch, which is without Nicola. And again, once you get games close, Jamal Murray is an all star, maybe even an all NBA candidate. He's the kind of guy who can pull you home in those sorts of instances. And we saw a very good example of that in the win in Toronto and then another one on Wednesday night in Boston against a red hot Boston Celtics offense. I cannot say enough about how good Zeke Najee has been in these couple of wins. He was one of the heroes in that big win in Philly when even Jamal Murray was out. He was a hero again last night. He gave them the ability to stay kind of, you know, big and physically imposing in their small ball looks, but also keeping their switchability. And that was really the story of the game against Boston. The Nuggets did a wonderful job of communicating and switching through Boston's actions, which prevented the easy catch and shoot threes that can come out of those screening actions. So if you allow guys to work easily downhill in ball screens, you're gonna have to help. That's gonna create easy kickouts. If you don't switch guard guard screens and three man action out at the top of the key guys are gonna slip out and get wide open threes. And especially in that fourth quarter run, I thought they just did an amazing job taking away any of the easy catch and shoot looks that Boston can generate in their offense. And then a lot of really high quality one on one possessions Against Jaylen Brown. Jamal Murray held up a few times and you got like Peyton Watson stripping him on a steal, Zeke Najee coming over and blocking him at the rim. The Celtics did not get many quality looks in that fourth quarter. Again, that's a red hot Celtics offense. They had a 1. They had an offensive rating north of 125 over the last few weeks. And the Nuggets pretty much kept them under control, especially down the stretch of that game. And then late in the game on offense, just surgical shot creation from John Jamal Murray, who again, like he deserves consideration for all NBA with the level that he's been playing at this season. He's just been completely amazing. They kept running him off of these like double wide pin downs out of the right corner. And essentially he was dragging Boston's bigs out to the perimeter as he was kind of coming off of that action. And so Essentially if the big ended up meeting him on a switch on the other side of the screen, he would, you know, like, like Luca Garza would show and Jamal Murray would just hit a quick little step back jumper on him. Or if they brought two to the ball. So they're chasing and they have Luka up there, he was just hitting Zeke Najee over and over again, rolling to the basket. And Zeke did a wonderful job throughout this game of finishing around the rim or drawing fouls on those rolls off of Jamal Murray. And then a couple of big plays late were Boston naturally. What's the progression there? If you're going to show on Jamal Murray at the level and you're going to tag the roller, what's the next progression? It's the kickouts to the three point line and couple of big shots. Jalen Pickett hits a little one dribble, pull up off of one of those sequences and then Jamal makes a beautiful skip pass to the left corner where Peyton Watson hits a three that pushes the lead up to 13 and essentially closes the deal from there. Just a really, really impressive win for the Nuggets. Now three wins without Nicola Jokic. The warriors game. Massive game for the warriors half court offense. They posted a 117 offensive rating in the half court. According to cleaning the glass in that, in that one against Milwaukee. I thought Steph did an awesome job of working the mid range in this game, especially with the way Milwaukee was kind of chasing him aggressively over the top of screens and essentially funneling him into the middle of the floor. They were spamming this play in the third quarter where they were basically running him off of a wide pin down out of the right corner and he just kept curling right into that kind of right elbow extended area. And he'd hit a little floater bank shot, he did a little jump shot. He, you know, draw a foul in that space. Did a ton of damage there. A couple of their shooters are starting to get going. Moses Moody and D. Anthony Melton in particular both got hot from three in this game. I also thought the offensive glass was a massive factor. They only got eight offensive rebounds, but they scored on damn near every single one of them. There was 22 to 4 second chance points advantage for Golden State. Little things like Steph missing a three off the top of the key, kind of coming off of a ball screen and then offensive rebound kick out. There it is, another look from the left wing. He knocks it down. Just turning misses into makes with their offensive rebounding. And then lastly, I thought Draymond got several key stops on an island against Giannis in the middle of the paint during that third quarter run. Draymond has been very good since his blow up with Steve Kerr where he left the court. I think that's the kind of thing where confrontation can be good because it's how you hold people accountable. And I think Draymond needed a little bit of a wake up call, especially just with how sloppy he had been. And I think that blow up with Steve Kerr actually helped get him back on track. He's been very good as of late. I think the warriors are gaining some real momentum. Al Horford looked great again in the Wednesday night game. If they can just stop losing games in the final seconds in horrifying fashion, I think they have real opportunity here to make a run in the second half of the season. All right, let's get into our mailbag. First question this was an interesting one that I got the other day and I think it's worth diving into. What's up? Jason, longtime fan of the show before the season, you said the Hawks would be a case study for your basketball philosophy and what their performance this year would either validate or invalidate your perspective. So my question is at Has Atlanta season so far changed your mind in any way? There's a two part question, but I'm going to get to the first part first. So this is complicated because Atlanta season is really strange because my belief in Atlanta stemmed from the idea that you would have this combination of rim protection with Chris Ops Porzingis, a depth of athletes around Chris Tops that would make it so Chris Ops didn't have to come out to the perimeter but that he could stay back and you'd have, you know, Dyson Daniels and Nikhil Alexander Walker and Jalen Johnson and Zachary Rish and all these athletes and all around him basically doing all the dirty work so that Trey Young can focus on setting the table as an advantage creator and Kristaps Porzingis could function as like a switch beater, slash rim protector. And there frankly have been a lot of things that have gone wrong. I think that you dig into the Porzingis piece, he hasn't been healthy. That fundamentally makes it so that you can't make as many mistakes on the perimeter because you don't have the level of rim protection that you have when Kristaps Porzingis is sitting back like that. Right. 2 I don't think the Wings have been as good defensively as they've needed to be, particularly Zachary Rise Ashe and Jalen Johnson. I Think the two of them have been actually pretty disappointing on defense this year. And so when you have a, a less effective group of perimeter defenders and the lack of rim protection, that's been kind of doom for their defense. They've had games like, especially without Trey Young where they get up into the ball and they force a lot of turnovers and then they're just devastating in transition and they're doing a lot of, of work on the margins like that. And I think some of that has been some proof of concept like the fact that they're above.500 without Trey Young and with Chris Os Porzingis being out as much as they've had as they've been is certainly something. It's not like super impressive, but it's something. And then the last piece of it, whenever Trey Young was available, they just as a team didn't defend and trade deserve some blame for that. But as a team, they didn't defend. And so, you know, it's, it's tricky because I would argue that my basketball philosophy, what you're referencing specifically the idea of having a bunch of athletes that can dribble, shoot and pass, that can get up into the ball, that can switch onto multiple, multiple positions, that can run the floor in transition and, and generate advantages before you get into half court situations. All those things I still believe in. I just think the Atlanta Hawks have been, have had several things go against them. Chris Ops being hurt, that's a huge factor. Jalen Johnson and Zachary Russell not being very good on defense, that's a big factor. Right. And Trey Young being a combination of unhealthy and then when he has been healthy, the team not playing well, it's just been an unfortunate mix of events. So like, I think where I would, to your point, to your question, where I would have to like more seriously consider the basketball, basketball philosophy piece would be if Trey Young and Chris Ops Porzingis had played in most of the games and the team was still below.500. I think that's where I'd have to take a bigger look at it. I'm so excited to tell you guys about our new partnership with Viori. Those of you guys who are familiar with Vuori have noticed that I wear it on the show almost every day and have done so for years. It's become a major workhorse for me and there's two reasons for that. I got started with Vuori because of their durability. I used to wear these clothes on the show that I'd wash a few times and they degrade into something that wasn't anywhere near as nice as what I had originally bought. I have items from Vuori that I've washed like 50 times that still look every bit as nice as when I bought them years ago. That's the type of quality you're getting with Vuori. And then there's incredible versatility. These are items that I can wear on the show. I can wear on a date night with my wife. I can wear running errands on a Saturday. I can wear when I'm going to play pickup basketball. Whether it's the Sunday performance short or the stratotech tank top that I can wear when I'm hooping. They have an item for any sort of situation. Vuoria is an investment in your happiness. For our listeners. They're offering 20% off your first purchase. Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet. And@vuori.comhoops that's V U O R I.comh O-O-P s exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. Not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase, but enjoy free shipping on any US orders over $75 in free returns. Go to vuori.comhoops and discover the versatility of Vuori Clothing exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. Part 2 When I've disagreed with you over the years, it usually comes down to the idea that I think you put too much value on the marginal advantage players have in surgical half court execution and that you do so at the expense of general two way versatility and impact. So the second question is, do you think there's any credence to the idea that you and or the general hoop community have undervalued two way versatility and impact? I have not changed my opinion on this at all. I I think Nicole Jokic has clearly been head and shoulders better than the rest of the league and he's your textbook half court surgeon type of dude who has defensive limitations but that finds a way to compete defensively within a scheme alongside other smart high IQ defenders. I think that for all of the talk we want to talk about with Luca and whether or not he can succeed at the highest highest levels of the NBA, that's all fair. You know what happened to him in the 2024 finals against Boston? That's a completely fair criticism of Luka Doncic. But the bottom line is they wake up today with a damn good record and like what, the fifth best record in the NBA and a Big part of that is because of how good their half court offense has been, especially in crunch time. And Luka Doncic has been the driving force behind that. And so I think the, the bigger point that you're making about let's take the half court execution piece and set it aside. Do we value general two way versatility and impact enough? I think that's a good question. I think that really comes down to more the team concept though. I think that if the ultimate, not to be too reductive here, but the ultimate goal of a basketball team is to score more points than your opponent, right? And so on a very basic level, like if you're built the way Oklahoma City is and you're going to get a shit ton of stops, I think you can have a team that's built less around refined offensive skills. If you have a team like the 2023 Denver Nuggets, who's built around refined offensive skill, I think you can get away with a little bit less in terms of defensive personnel. Ultimately you're building a checklist. Like if you think of what happens on both ends of the floor as like a bunch of boxes you have to check, right? And the more boxes you check on both ends of the floor, the better team you are, right? And so if you have a player that can check a ton of boxes, that's certainly valuable, right? So like, let's just take a guy like Anthony Davis, for example. Like he can check the rim protection box and the defensive rebounding box. And then if you go to the offensive end of the floor, you can check an offensive rebounding box. He can check a ball screen threat box where he has the ability to do damage in the short roll. And as a vertical spacer, there's things he can check like that. But there's one giant box that he can't check. And that's like breaking down elite defense when there's an elite defense in front of him. Anthony Davis ain't going to be the guy that breaks down that defense. That's a pretty gaping flaw for a team that's trying to win a championship. When I'm building a roster and I have that guy, I have a guy that like this dude can break down elite defense at the highest level. Obviously I feel like I can go around and find a guy that can get defensive rebounds. I can find a guy that can dunk a lob as he's rolling hard down the lane. I can find a guy that can protect the rim a little bit. I can find guys who can defend on the permanent, those are easier to find than the dude who can break the defense down. Now the last kind of thing I would say is to a guy like Jason Tatum. So coming into the season, I would have ranked him as the fifth best player in the NBA if not for his injury. Ideally, if you have a player that can anchor a defense the way that Jason Tatum can, that can anchor defensive glass the way that Jason Tatum can, that also brings some ability to break the defense down. As an offensive player on the other end of the floor. There's a ton of value there and I think that's a big part of why, like Jason Tatum, despite not necessarily being the most efficient, you know, half court surgeon type of guy in the league, I was viewing him as a legitimate top tier superstar in this league before his injury because of his all around versatility. In short, it's all a aggregate combination of all of these abilities. I just still think fundamentally the hardest trait to find in the NBA is can you break down elite defense. And that's why I look at that as such a valuable trait. As Oklahoma City leaves corner shooters open, sometimes they get, teams get really hot. I know it's their identity, but I feel like when Jordan Goodwin makes eight corner threes, maybe it's time to change it up. It's happened multiple times this season and Dagnault sticks with the same scheme. So with Oklahoma City, and this is an important detail, when you're looking at margin hunting, for the most part, it's not just that specific margin in a vacuum that you're looking at. You're looking at how all of these things are intricate, intricately connected. So for example, if you are, let's just take offensive rebounding for example. It used to be that the, the interpretation was if you crash the offensive glass, you make yourself vulnerable in transition defense. But then as teams started to look at it in a more refined way, they're like, well, if we crash the offensive glass from the corners and we just have them run to the elbows, just classic corner crash. When they run to the elbows, the long rebound is going to come off from a missed three and they have a high opportunity to get it. If they don't get it, two things happen. One, those guys out of the corners are always already running so they can take that momentum. Oh, we didn't get the ball wheel back into transition defense. And two, if I crash to the elbow and I don't get the ball and I'm the primary point of attack defender, I can quick turn and pick up the basketball Meaning like let's say the other team's big gets the ball on a long rebound up around the elbow and he dumps it to the point guard right around the block and you're right there at the elbow, didn't get the rebound, but you're right there to pick up the guard full court. And if you can pick up the guard and make him turn twice or make him pick up his dribble or something like that, or make him throw another backcourt pass, that slows the team down enough that it doesn't hurt you in transition. And so what teams have essentially realized is, yeah, if you offensive rebound, there are going to be times where you know, a very unfortunate rebound comes off and your floor balance is bad and a team gets a layup in transition. But much like much of the time you're either going to get the offensive rebound or you're already going to be in a. It kind of like inflicts a certain amount of, like injects a certain amount of verve already in your team to where they're running. So they're kind of getting back better anyway. And three, we can apply ball pressure right away. So teams have basically figured out that the trade off of attacking the offensive glass is actually worth whatever small downside there is to transition defense. Similarly, Oklahoma City has trade offs in the way that they play defense. So again, think of it like on a really basic level from the standpoint of the negative. Okay, so the negative is the, when they pick up with a ton of ball pressure and they play super physical and they attack the basketball, they commit a lot of fouls, right? That's one of the things that they're going to do that's going to cause issues relative to most teams. They're going to foul the second piece. They're better at that this year than they have been in recent years. But in other years they've had issues with fouling on the perimeter. The second piece of it is the open corner threes, right? So like if you're picking up the ball and you are attacking with ball pressure and anytime a guy gets beat off the dribble, you're sending aggressive help and every time they try to post up, you're sending double teams and it's just this very forward aggressive attack, attack, attack defense, you're going to commit some fouls and you're going to give up some corner threes. But the flip side of that is you're also going to get a, a good amount of opportunities to force turnovers. You're going to get a good amount of opportunities to get out in transition off of those turnovers. The Oklahoma City Thunder generate 25 points every single game off of turnovers. That's the most in the entire NBA by pretty wide margin. So the way they look at it is like, yeah, we're going to give up some open threes, yeah, we're going to commit some fouls. But in the aggregate, it unlocks this transition part of our offense, which takes me to the, the, the specific dynamic with Oklahoma City. Offensively, we've seen Oklahoma City at various points over the course of the last few years and especially recently, but even in the playoffs last year, especially in the playoffs in 2024, if you guys remember, we have seen Oklahoma City go very cold in the half court on offense, so they want to drive as much of that transition avalanche type of attack as they can. And so it's all part of that trade off. They, they could give up fewer corner threes, they could commit fewer fouls, but then they wouldn't get out and transition as much and they'd have to play more in the half court, which is not how they want to play offensively. And so that's essentially the trade off for them. Now to the point you're making about the Jordan Goodwin game, I think it just comes down to in a playoff series, if there is a clear. So like, let's say that, let's say they run into a team like Denver and Denver just takes really good care of the basketball, never turns it over for whatever reason and they're just moving it methodically through your defense and hitting corner 3, corner 3, corner 3, corner three. Cam Johnson, Aaron Gordon, Cam Johnson, Aaron Gordon over and over and over again. Then yeah, you might have to tweak it and be like, we need to see Nicole Jokic score one on one against Isaiah Hartenstein a few more times. We need to see Jamal Murray score one on one against a big or against one of our smaller guards more times. They might have to make an adjustment in a series if it gets to that point. But in the large sample of the regular season, I think they want to lean on getting out in transition as much as possible. We'd love to hear your thoughts on what trade the Celtics should look for. Zubots is apparently not an asset the Clippers are willing to give up. And I've heard mixed things about the availability of Gafford Claxton. I think all these guys could be a great fit, but obviously not sure what the package the other teams would be looking for in return and for the Simons definitely carries some value and he could definitely be packaged with picks and some bench guys like Hauser or Shireman. Ideally in any of these trades I would like to see the C's keep Hugo Gonzalez and Jordan Walsh, but not sure how realistic that is. What are your thoughts? So I actually, because I'm about to record here in about 20 minutes with a group of Lakers guys and we're going to be talking about the specific dynamic of the center position because DeAndre got his ass kicked by, by Victor Womenyama in the game on Wednesday night. And so I've seen him just too often get his butt kicked by the higher level centers around the league and I just don't think he's the guy for Luka long term. So I've been looking around at the centers and so I was like, who are the guys that could like realistically start at center around the league that are also somewhat realistically available for trade? And the list that I came up with was the Monica Sabonis, Walker Kessler, Nicola Vucevich, Nick Claxton, Daniel Gafford and Robert Williams. Now where it gets tricky for the Celtics is you got to think about the salaries with Tatum on a max, with Jalen Brown on a max. And you're going to have to pay, you know, like, like you want to keep Derek White in the situation. You know, he makes a lot of money, you got a lot of money tied up in your perimeter guys. So ideally you want to try to find a center that gives you a useful look, but that also is a guy that you could theoretically have for a couple years without spending too much money. And that's where it gets interesting because like you look at a guy like Walker Kessler, you trade for him, you're going to have to extend him. That could provide a money crunch for a team like the Celtics, right? Like Nick Claxton is a guy that financially is not going to be cheaper, not going to be cheap to keep around long term. That's where I start to look at like, okay, what about a Daniel Gafford? What about a Nicola Vucevich, right? Like you've seen how Luka Garza is given some, you know, kind of a unique look to the Celtics at the center position as a guy who can space the floor a little bit. You know, you already have Nimi Keda and Kate is actually pretty good, but Kate is a little one dimensional. He's more of like a drop coverage big, a guy who does some ceiling inside and finishing vertical Spacing, that kind of, that kind of stuff. So what if you had two different looks, you had this Nimi Keda drop coverage, vertical spacing, rim protection look. And then you traded for a guy like Vucevich and you kept him around at a discounted deal. Like you go to Vuch and you go, hey, dude, you've made a good amount of money in your career. You're getting pretty old. What if you stick around with us for, you know, two years on this like really heavily discounted deal and it's like Kada Vucevich, the two different looks that the Celtics go with, that center. And one of the things with Vuch is he gives you like a legitimate post up threat. Like he can pick and pop and hit, pick and pop, threes and space the floor as a center, but he's also like a big physical dude down low that could do some rebounding and can do a bunch of damage in the post. And so I think he'd be an interesting kind of way to look. The Robert Williams, it's the health issue. Daniel Gafford, there's a little bit of a money issue with him too where I think he's, you know, potentially going to want a, a, a longer term deal where he's making, you know, 10, 15 million a year. There's something to be said about finding somebody that gives you the best combination of production relative to the salary under the situation that the Celtics are in. And that's why I was thinking the guy like Vucevich would be just kind of an interesting option for them to consider as a kind of like a two different looks alongside Nimi Keda. Today's show is brought to you by presenting sponsor Hard Rock Bet, the official sportsbook partner of the Miami Heat and the Orlando Magic. When it's cold outside, that's when you know the hardwood is heating up. Between the NBA and college, there's basketball on every night. And every night is a shot to build a same game parlay and score a major bucket on Hard Rock Bet your home for hoops action all season long. And if you ever miss tip off of that big game, don't worry. Hard Rock Bet lets you live bet all game long from the first bucket to the final buzzer so you're never too late to find a winner or grab a player pop that you had circled. If you haven't tried your first bet on Hard Rock Bet, there's still time for you to get $150 in bonus bets. If you win, just place a $5 bet and if it hits, you get not only your winnings, but also an extra $150 in bonus bets. Plus, the hard rock Bet offers new promos every single day. So whenever you're listening, just open the app and check out what you've got. Any day of the week, download the Hard Rock Bet app and make your first deposit today. Payable and bonus bets, not a cash offer. Offered by the Seminole Tribe of Florida in Florida. Offered by Seminole hard Rock Digital LLC in all other states. Must be 21 plus and physically present in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee or Virginia to play. Terms and conditions apply. Concerned about gambling in Florida? Call--83-IN INDIANA. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call 1-800-9 with it gambling problem, call 1-800- gambler in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee or Virginia. How much of good defense is physical gifts? How much of it is effort? How much of it is knowledge? Could someone with very limited physical gifts become a good defender if he has good knowledge and hustle? Appreciate your show. You and your team clearly work your butts off to create such polished content. Thank you. Thank you so much for the kind words and thanks for shouting out the team. Jackson's literally just amazing. I just think he's the best in the world at what he does. So we talked about this concept within the idea of a team, but I would argue that the largest chunk of defense is the execution piece, meaning, like, always being in the right spot, having good instincts. Like, there have been a lot of guys over the years that have been good perimeter defenders relative to their actual talent because they're good at anticipating. They can look at a guy and they can, like, kind of identify where his center of gravity is and they can kind of see where his body's shifting. Or, like, they could pick up on physical cues. Or maybe they watch a lot of film and they're just good at scouting. Like, little tips on, you know, the way that a, a perimeter player kind of tips off what he's going to do, and then it's just anticipation, right? Like, it's all about angles. So, like, if, if I'm defending a player who's faster than me, but if I take the right angle and I anticipate which way he's going, I can beat him to a spot, right? So, like, there is a very much an anticipatory positioning element to defense. Now, I would argue that you can't be terrible at either. So, like, if you're incredibly slow or if you're incredibly small, it's really difficult to overcome that, no matter how disciplined you are. But let's say you're a mediocre athlete. Like a mediocre size and speed guard. A mediocre size and speed forward, or a mediocre size and speed center. Let me just take like Jake Laravia, for example, a guy that I root for on the Lakers. He's not exceptionally big for a forward. You know, he's like six, seven, right? And he's strong, but he's not like jacked or anything. And like, he's mobile, but he's not like super fast or anything. Like, he's a little too small to be like a traditional power forward and a little too slow to be like a traditional small forward in terms of just his athletic profile. Right? But he's been one of the most useful defenders for the Lakers this year. Why? Because he has the kind of like, bare minimum set of physical gifts you need. Like, he's got enough size and mobility to be at least somewhat useful in terms of the traits he's working with. He's a high effort guy. That's the third piece of this that we haven't even talked about yet. Like, you got to be someone that has motor. You got to play really hard on that end of the flight floor. And then the third piece of it is he's got the positioning and anticipation elements down. And so he's just very good at kind of being in the right spot, following the defensive game plan, scouting the guy that he's guarding and anticipating which direction he's going. He's been especially good this year guarding some of the, like, bigger forwards that look to attack off the dribble. But yeah, it's definitely a combination of all of those things. But physical, you. You kind of have to have all three. Like, if you have great physical gifts and you've got the anticipation and positioning, but you got a shit motor and you don't play hard, that's a problem. Right? Like, that's some of the issue that we've seen with LeBron over the last few years. And it's just because he doesn't want to play hard for an 82 game regular season. Right? But, like, he certainly can. He certainly understands the game plan and he can anticipate like crazy. And he's got, still, at his age, some pretty good physical gifts. But it's just like when LeBron's effort drops off, he drops off. But when the efforts there, you know, we saw LeBron look like an all defense guy in the middle of the season last year, Right. Or like if you have the motor and you have the anticipation in the. In the game plan piece, but you're just super tiny or you're super slow, that's going to be a problem. And then, you know, we've seen it with guys like Carl Anthony Towns. Like, I don't think Carl Anthony Towns is necessarily lazy. He's got decent physical gifts. He's like, he's a competitive dude. He just. The anticipation and positioning piece of it is like absolute garbage with him and it's a huge problem. So you can't be dreadfully weak in any area, but you don't necessarily have to be strong in all three areas. Hi Jason, big fan of your form of content and your wisdom around the NBA. You suggested a mega trade of Michael Porter Jr. And Nick Claxton to help catapult the warriors to becoming more competitive. Within the suggestion, are you saying that Claxton would help the warriors more. More than Draymond especially? The mega trade you mentioned is swapping Claxton for Draymond. Can the warriors still be title contenders if they just traded for MPJ and kept Draymond? Would a starting five of Curry, Mountain, Butler, Michael Porter Jr. And Green be a title contender? Thank you. Love your content. So it's a couple of things. So one, the reason why I kind of like talked about structuring it that way is Michael Porter Jr. Just has a really large salary. And so by having Draymond in there, it just kind of makes it easier to feasibly piece the rest of it together. That said, like, getting just MPJ would still be a huge win for the Warriors. The reason why I was looking at Claxton specifically is I find him to be both a good fit defensively within the warriors scheme because the warriors do a bunch of different schemes defensively and they do do a decent amount of switching with their bigs. And then the second piece of it is I've seen as a matchup thing, teams like San Antonio and Oklahoma City, the two top teams in the Western Conference, I've seen both of them struggle with rim protection at times. And so it's one of those things where even though Draymond's a very good defensive player, what he doesn't necessarily provide is that vertical rim protection. And so I just thought Nick Claxton would provide an element to the warriors defense that they basically haven't said haven't had since, like Andrew Bogut was healthy. So I just thought it was Worth considering as an option. But to your point, if they just got Michael Porter Jr. I'd still view that as a huge boost for the warriors. Three more I was on Twitter and someone suggested that the Lakers offense is smoother when LeBron is running it as he looks to create then score as opposed to Luka as more heliocentric in approach. What are your thoughts on this and which approach do you think is better for the Lakers offense? So this is a general idea that I just disagree with. The idea that like you have to play one way to win or that multiple ball handlers can't play together well. Like, I don't think that LeBron is style. I don't think LeBron's style is better than Lucas necessarily based on what happened in the last few weeks. I just thought Luca wasn't playing well. Like, Luka's been every bit as heliocentric in that game against the spurs or the second half against the Pelicans or the second half against Grizzlies on Sunday. He's been every bit as heliocentric as he was in all the other games he's been. He just one turned the ball over as I want to cut Luka slack for the turnovers and missed threes, specifically against the spurs, because without luka or without LeBron and Austin available, he basically had no choice but to bump his usage way up. And that means he had to say yes a lot more to situations that he might otherwise say no. Meaning like, ooh, high risk pass. When LeBron and Austin are healthy, you move it around and let one of them attack. But when no one else can do shit with the basketball, like he almost has to take that high risk pass. Similarly, bad threes when Luke, when LeBron and Austin are out there, don't take the bad 3. Move the ball around if you get cut off, off the dribble. But when LeBron and Austin are out, he kind of has to take the bad three, right? So like I'm not too critical of the turnovers and the missed shots in that particular spurs game, but overall I thought Luca's shot creation was ridiculous in that spurs game and in the second half of the Pelicans game and in the second half of the Grizzlies game, even though he was heliocentric. And so I don't think Luka needs to play more like LeBron. I just think Luca needs to play like the best version of Luca and LeBron needs to keep playing like the best version of LeBron. I actually had a little bit of a debate with my buddy Damon. He pitched this idea that when Austin comes back, Maybe Luke or LeBron should stay kind of as the second option. That kind of clashes with my core basketball belief. I generally believe you can have three guys all kind of working in unison as long as they're all trusting each other, and I think all three of them can put up massive point totals. I don't think you're confined to having two ball handlers, especially when you got guys like LeBron and Austin who can run action together and they can both be involved. Even though maybe Austin has the ball for five minutes or LeBron has the ball for five minutes. Hey Jason, I've always been a huge Jokic fan and still think he's clearly the best player in the league, but does a performance like the win over Philly, missing four or five starters plus what we're seeing from MPJ this year off the Nuggets make you ever so slightly think that maybe we are marginally overrating Jokic's impact and have been underplaying his teammates? I don't necessarily think so, but I'm interested to hear your thoughts. It's as simple as diminishing returns thing why a player like MPJ has been broken out since leaving so the MPJ thing is complicated to me. I never thought MPJ was a bad player, I just thought MPJ was a four and the Nuggets already had a starting four. And as the league had tilted in recent seasons to more speed on the perimeter, I I don't think you can play a Michael Porter Jr. Aaron Gordon, Nicole Jokic frontline against a team like Oklahoma City. I think you're too slow. So I think shifting from Michael Porter Jr. To Cam was more just trading a starting four for a starting three. It was a roster balancing, starting lineup balancing type of move for them. I thoroughly expected Michael Porter Jr. To go into Brooklyn and put up scoring numbers this year. Maybe not quite to this extent, but I'd always thought that he was a guy that could go get buckets. I generally hate this specific idea that like in order for a player to be recognized as successful, the team has to suck without him. You'll notice when I would talk about Jokic as the best player in the world, or when I would talk about Jokic as the best offensive player ever, I never mentioned his on off. That's not really the angle I go with. Basketball's a team sport. No one wins a championship unless they have excellent supporting talent, whether it's a great head coach or a great Secondary star or an awesome depth of role player talent. Like, and we've seen it every which way over the course of the years. Different constructs of teams. But this idea that superstars go and win titles by their own is just flat out stupid. It's just never how it works. Jokic was the best player in the world last year. He was overwhelmed by Oklahoma city in the second round. LeBron was the best player in the world by a mile in 2018. He didn't even stand a chance in the finals against Golden State. Like there is. This is a team sport. Ultimately. Now the Nuggets having success without Nikola Jokic this year. I think it comes down to fundamentally this team being on a fucking mission. Like this Nuggets team wants to win the title. And there is a level of commitment from the top down of the roster from day one of training camp that has allowed this team to sustain success in various different looks. Whether it's when they were healthy at the beginning of the year to Gordon and Christian Brown being out, to now, Jokic being out, they have just found a way over and over again. There have been a lot of key guys that have stepped up. Jalen Pickett has been awesome stepping up with the injuries. Peyton Watson has been awesome stepping up with the injuries. Look at Zeke Najee these last couple of games. So like, I just think it's a testament to the type of team this Denver Nuggets team is and it should be a big part of why people believe in them as a threat to win the championship this year. All right, lastly, Timberwolves fan here. I'm curious what you think about Julius Randle's volleyball and the sustainability of it come playoff time. I'm obviously interested in whether or not this team as presently constructed can win a championship. I tend to lean towards no. A factor that I think doesn't really get talked about as much as the way Randall scores. I know he did his thing against the old man Lakers with no centers and the Steph less Warriors last year, but it seems like once the T Wolves inevitably meet a team that can match their physicality, Randall's scoring is bound to fall apart. So I actually think Julius Randle's ability as a big forward to attack size mismatches and do a good mix of scoring and playmaking is a huge playoff asset. My main concern with Randall is more like what happened in the bad game. So if you look at the Oklahoma City games, he had a couple of games where he put up numbers, but then he had a couple of games where it almost looked like he quit. It almost looked like when things weren't going his way, he like completely disengaged. Stop being aggressive. Stop focusing on the details. My issues with Randall are not necessarily his style, it's just his mentality. I would like to see Julius Randle like on the nights where maybe he has a couple of turnovers earlier, he misses a couple of shots early or he finds himself in the middle of the second quarter with ain't doing everything and he's two for nine, you know, with six points. Like I'd prefer to see those nights end in him doing everything in his power to try to find a way to win the damn game rather than pouting and standing around at the three point line and shooting catch and shoot threes two or three times the rest of the night. He had a couple of these games against OKC where I felt like he kind of like mentally gave in to the circumstances. That's really the main thing that I'd like to see him work on. I'm actually really high on the Timberwolves. I think Anthony Edwards is the best version of himself that he's ever been. I think the supporting offensive talent. With the rise of Julius Randall, excuse me, the rise of Jaden McDaniels, Rudy Goberry being a better offensive player than he's been in recent years and they have shown the defensive ceiling, especially in these last few weeks. I am, if, if the Timberwolves can keep this up over the next, over the next, you know, three weeks or so, I'm going to put them in my top tier of consensus contenders in our next contender rankings. All right, guys, that's all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. I hope all of you guys have a wonderful weekend and I will see you guys on Monday.