Jason Timpf reacts to several big moves from around the NBA including Isaiah Hartenstein joining Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Chet Holmgren, and the Oklahoma City Thunder. Why does Jason believe the addition of Hartenstein and Alex Caruso has moved OKC into his elite championship contenders tier? Later, Jason reacts to Chris Paul joining Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs as well as the New Orleans Pelicans trading with the Atlanta Hawks for Dejounte Murray to pair with Zion Williamson.
4:00 - Introduction
7:30 - Hartenstein to Thunder
25:30 - How Hartenstein fits with OKC
50:00 - Chris Paul to Spurs
55:00 - Dejounte Murray to Pelicans
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Slash Baseball, all right, welcome to Hoops Toight. You're at
the volume heavy Tuesday. Everybody. Oh Paul, you guys are
having a great start to your week while we're getting
part two of our free agency reaction today, we have
(01:56):
three major moves that I want to hit in today's show. ISAIAHRT,
I'm stigning to the Oklahoma City Thunder. We're gonna be
spending the majority of time of the time on that one.
I think it's a super interesting move that fundamentally changes
both the physical profile and the ceiling of the Oklahoma
City Thunder. So we're gonna talk about that in extensive detail.
After that, we're gonna get to Chris Paul headed to
the San Antonio Spurs, and after that a trade that
(02:17):
happened a few days ago, to Johntay Murray to the
New Orleans Pelicans. We're gonna get into all those details.
We are taking for July fourth, and we're trying to
get some time off for me and for our staff
over the weekend. So I tweeted out a question asking
for mail bag questions. I'm recording that today that will
be airing over the course of the next few days.
(02:38):
But unless something major happens, like if we get a
major trade, I'm gonna get a video out. But unless
something major happens, we're gonna be taking through Sunday off
to enjoy the holiday. But we're hitting the three other
big free agency and trade moves today. We'll have a
mail bag coming out tomorrow with some breakouts over the
rest of the week, and then we back with our
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(03:21):
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(03:42):
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I just remember that as a kid, that was just
something that was always so important to me. I love
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(05:09):
as I talked about over the those are you guys
who follow me on Twitter have seen me tweet about
it a few times, and I've talked about it on
the show once or twice before this. But like one
of the guys that I've viewed as like a really
interesting option for Oklahoma City going into this free agency
was Isaiah Hartenstein. I was worried about whether or not
they'd be able to make a move on him, just
simply because I know Hartenstein enjoyed his time playing for
(05:31):
the New York Knicks, and I would imagine that there
was a certain amount of money that if the gap
wasn't as big, he probably would have stayed, but it
just the Thunder were able to offer him just a
whole lot of money, close to thirty million annually for
the next three seasons. And you know, I want to
start We're going to talk about the contract details because
there's a flexibility element to this, because I'm pretty sure
(05:53):
the final year of this deal is unguaranteed, which will
line up with the Jalen Williams Rookie extension as well
as the chet Holmgren Rookie extension. So there's a flexibility
element to this. But I want to focus on the
basketball first and then we'll get into some of those details. So,
first of all, the Thunder had two major weaknesses in
(06:14):
the last season, and those of you guys who have
been following the show will have heard me talk about
this ad nauseum throughout the year, but interior physicality. They
were one of only four teams in the NBA that
gave up an offensive rebound on more than thirty percent
of their opponent's missus. They allowed seven point seven points
per game on putbacks, that was the second most in
(06:36):
the NBA. They allowed eight point eight points per game
on post ups including passes, which was the second most
in the NBA, this was a frontline that you could bully.
That was the first weakness. The second biggest weakness was experience, right,
and this year was a huge step forward for them.
They got two rounds worth of playoff experience for all
(06:56):
the guys in house. They lost in heartbreaking fashion, which
I think is actually beneficial to the development of a
basketball player. Like you were up by one off of
that ched Holmgren dunk in Game six on the road
with an opportunity to go home to win Game seven
and make it to the conference finals and shake Gelvis
Alexander fouls PJ. Washington in the left corner, which leads
(07:17):
to the series being over right. That's a heart wrenching
way to lose, right, And I always talk about like
there's a difference between loving basketball and hating losing, and
the greats are usually both. They're genuine fans of the game,
like they just love playing, they love working on their game,
they love tinkering with their craft, all that kind of stuff.
(07:39):
But then they also have this like psycho competitiveness, like
fear of losing or hatred of losing, And like to me,
there's a scar tissue that builds up when you take
those losses that actually motivates you in those situations. You
find yourself in a big game, in a big pivotal
playoff moment, and you think back to what happened when
(07:59):
you blew it last time. It leads to another level
of focus and intensity because you're terrified that it will
happen to you again. That kind of that's why there's
like a process to these teams getting to where they
want to go. That's why almost every all time great
team that you see has a really ugly loss early
on in the process, right, Like that's just kind of
(08:23):
like inherent in the process. The Nuggets made it to
the conference finals and lost to the Los Angeles Lakers, right,
but then they conquered them on their way to the title.
Last year. The Golden State Warriors in twenty sixteen lost
after winning seventy three games, even going before the twenty
fifteen title, the loss they suffered against the Clippers in
twenty fourteen, the loss that they suffered against the Spurs
(08:45):
in twenty thirteen, the Miami Heat losing to the Spurs,
or to the Dallas Mavericks in twenty eleven, that was
scar tissue that led to them bringing that level in
the future. Like there are almost always heartbreaking loss is
early on in the process. I've missed a big one there,
two thousand and eight Lakers painful loss before they win
(09:07):
two championships in a row. Look at all of the
painful losses for Dirk Novitski before he won in twenty eleven.
It's just kind of like part of that growth. It's
part of that process. And so everybody in that locker
room gets two more rounds worth of experience. You added.
Alex Caruso, a veteran of six playoff series. He's played
in thirty one playoff games. He started for the twenty
(09:27):
twenty Lakers in Game six of the twenty twenty NBA Finals.
Literally is one of the most you know, dependable type
of playoff role players that you could have. I think
that is a huge influx of experience. Hartenstein himself has
played a major role in four playoff series. In general,
as this team goes into next season, they are older,
(09:48):
they are wiser and more experienced. Right, That's not something
you can like really address through the roster as much
as just through just through getting through those wars. Because
even Cruzo and Hartenstein, the main guys who need that
experience are Shae Yielders, Alexander and Jalen Williams, who both
got a big dose of it last year. Now, from
(10:09):
the interior physicality standpoint, there were two routes that they
could go. They could get a big center to put
Chet at the four, or they could get a big
and athletic power forward to kind of anchor Chet at
the five. And each one of those routes had pros
and cons. Like going with the center, going the Hartenstein route,
the pros are you get a bigger look, which will
(10:29):
help against large front lines, right like against Denver Minnesota
teams that play really big front court players. You have
a bigger look there, right, It alleviates some of the
regular season wear and tear on chet Holmgren from having
to guard centers and deal with just bigger bodies underneath
the basket. It's cheaper, Like it's just easier to get
a center than a power forward. As I talked about
(10:50):
in our five Biggest Takeaways video after the Finals, I
think the big athletic forward is the most valuable archetype
in the league right now that you know Jason tam
type that Aaron Gordon type that Lebron James. Even. Part
of the reason why in his old age he's been
as successful as he is is he just plays an
incredibly important position in the NBA. It's why I'm excited
(11:12):
about a guy like Jonathan Minga for the Golden State Warriors.
It's why a guy like I think Jeremy Grant could
help a team next year in a big way. It's
why Lori marketIn I think brings a certain amount of
trade value around the league. There's just that specific position
is just becoming a very valuable position. The guy who's
big and strong enough to kind of sort of hang
with centers, but has the perimeter skill to function in
(11:35):
a five out offense. That is the key to that
kind of big power forward position. And so as a result,
it's just really expensive if the thunder wanted to go
out and get if they wanted to go out and
get Lori market In, talk about what at least five
or six picks right to get that deal done. Like
that's just it would have been incredibly expensive. They would
(11:55):
have had to turn around and extend Louri market In
probably somewhere in the neighborhood of like four years and
one hundred and sixty million dollars right, which fundamentally does
change the cap situation moving forward. As a basketball fan,
I'd be lying to you guys about it and say
that I wanted to see what that looks like, of course,
just to see Lori Markinen in that group. But it
was an expensive option to go that way the center position.
(12:17):
They were able to just go out and sign a
center to a short term deal in overpay a little bit,
because who cares, they can afford it on the cap
in the short term. That was just an easier option
for them to pull off while maintaining their long term flexibility.
The cons Chet has to be able to function as
a high level perimeter player. Now I don't want to
get into this yet. I want to save this for
(12:39):
a little bit later in the show. But this is
my one concern with going with the Isaiah Hartenstein type
of look. Chet when he's on the floor with Isaiah Hartenstein,
which won't be all the time, but when those two
guys are sharing the floor together, Chet now has to
function as a ball handling wing essentially, and we'll get
into some of the more of those details. We're going
to be using the place software today to demonstrate some
(13:01):
things for the thunder on both ends of the floor
with Chet and Isaiah Hartenstein. So we'll get more into that.
But that's one of the cons of going with the center.
It puts a lot of pressure on Chet's perimeter skill.
If you go power forward, the pros are spacing is
always a little bit easier when you have five three
point shooters on the floor, just is look at the
Boston Celtics, right. It puts less pressure on Chet's perimeter skills.
(13:24):
You would continue to be guarded by centers who are
primarily going to be operating in drop coverage. He's gonna
have picking pop looks, he's gonna be able to space
above the break while while his man sinks into the lane. There.
It's just less pressure on Chet's ball handling and playmaking ability. Right.
It provides more matchup versatility for when they run into
teams that really test their ability to contain the ball, right,
like if they ran into a in the West, a
(13:45):
team like the New Orleans Pelicans now that they have
de Jonte Marie Anzion Williamson, or like Sacramento is a
team like this, Teams like Boston and Indiana out of
the Eastern Conference teams that have a lot of dribble
drive speed that having that smaller look with at the
five and another athletic forward next to him just is
a little more resilient defensively in those types of situations.
(14:07):
But quick caveat, it's worth mentioning that most of the
top teams in the West don't bring that type of
dribble penetration, right Like Jamal Murray is not a dribble
drive type of guard. I know the Nuggets want Russell Westbrook,
which is something I saw yesterday, which it's kind of
funny to me that Lebron and Nikola Jokic could end
up making that same mistake. But the teams at the
(14:27):
top of the West are either like Denver where they
don't have great dribble penetration, Dallas who doesn't have great
drible penetration, or teams that have great dribble penetration but
have lots of non shooters for you to sink into
the lane on, or at least guys that you're willing
to live with shooting, like Minnesota and Memphis. John Moran
and Anthony Edwards are incredible drible drive guys. But that's
kind of the head of steak and you can really
pack the paint on them. They're not teams that have
(14:49):
like like bunches of guys that are going to be
slashing and challenging your perimeter defense. So there's no doubt
that having a forward next to chet gives you a
little bit more defensive versatility against dribble drive teams. But
they may not even have to deal with that until
they get to the finals anyway, just by virtue with
the of the way the Western Conference is laid out,
cons of going they're out of the forward. Like we
(15:10):
talked about earlier, getting a forward is super super expensive
and I don't need to go in any more details there.
It's just it's the most valuable archetype in the league.
It's really hard to get, like we talked about earlier.
So the way I look at it, by going the
center route rather than going the power forward route, it
was a low risk way for Oklahoma City to beef
up their front line while also maintaining some flexibility for
(15:31):
the future. Now, again, as I mentioned, the initial reporting
is that I believe that final year is I believe
that final year is non guaranteed. So again, like they
can line up the cap sheet to where if they
need to clear heart and sign off the books when
they're signing JDub and Chet, they should be able to
do so. So that's that's where that flexibility piece comes from.
(15:54):
Whereas if they got a market in and they had
to extend in four years now, there's just some overlap there.
I could put them into some issues with the second apron.
So let's talk about the basketball fit though. So it's
not just that they picked a center. They picked Isaiah Hartenstein.
So where does Isaiah Hartenstein specifically fit within this team
on both ends of the floor. So the initial reporting
(16:15):
I've seen is that Oklahoma City does not intend to
start Isaiah Hartenstein. They intend for him to come off
the bench. But obviously he's going to play twenty five
to thirty minutes a night and will have a lot
of crossover with Chet Holmgren. Inevitably they will play together
quite a bit. So really it's about having multiple looks.
They'll have a small look right well, they'll have Shay
on the floor with Jay Dubb, Alex Crusoe, Loudort, Chet Holmgren.
(16:37):
There's a lot of perimeter speed there. Five guys who
can all defend multiple positions and can space the teams
out on the other end of the floor. That's their
small look now, without a real forward that will have.
It's a really small look, but that is a look
that they will have and it will work in most matchups.
It's really just some of the bigger teams that will
give them issues there. But then they'll also have a
(16:57):
big look where chet and Isaiah Hartenstein will share the
floor together.
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Speaker 2 (18:00):
What I want to start with, and I'm going to
go over as a quick monologue for our podcast audience
and then we'll go over to the clipboard. But defensively,
what I really like about having Hertenstein and Chet together
is it gives you the ability to put Sheet in
a position where he's the lowman rather than the guy
who's defending ball screens. When you have real length on
the back line, that buys you flexibility for the ball
(18:22):
screen defender to come higher up into actions more aggressive
on the ball because the lowman has has to be
in two places at once. The lowman the guy that's
on the back line when your screen defender is running
up to defend the ball screen. And again I'm going
to show visual example of this in a minute. He
is responsible for the role man coming down the lane
and for the man in the corner right. And so
(18:45):
there's a certain like stunting and recovering element. There's a
lot of like really hard closeouts. There's a lot of
ground coverage both vertically under the rim and in terms
of covering ground out to the corner that comes from
that position. And like going from a Josh Giddy in
that type of role or an undersized you know, a
(19:06):
guy who's not as big like a Jalen Williams or
Shake Kills as Alexander. Those guys did decently enough. It's
not like they're not capable of being the lowman, but
they just don't bring enough height or athleticism to that position.
And what that does is that puts a lot of
pressure on Chet when he's defending those ball screens to
make sure that he doesn't let the roleman get behind him,
because if he does, that puts a lot of pressure
(19:27):
on the back line of Oklahoma City's defense. When you
have Chet on the back line and Isaiah Hartenstein defending
the ball screen, you can have Isaiah Hartenstein be aggressive
out at the level attacking the ball handler because Chet
brings so much ground coverage and verticality to that lowman position.
So let's go over to the play software and we're
going to take a look in more detailed at what
(19:50):
I was talking about here. So I have a set
up here in a typical kind of like ball screen setup, right,
So this number three, the small forward is spacing out
above the break on this side. This guy's going to
be in position where you can dig down at the
nail potentially or stay home. He's going to be somewhere
in this range. Right, we have the strong side corner shooter.
This guy might be a little bit up the lane line,
(20:10):
but this guy is under pretty explicit instructions to not
overhelp in this particular situation. Out of the strong side corner.
We have the ball screen coming, and we have our
ball handler. Right. So in this case, let's imagine that
this is Chet and this is Josh Giddy. As the
ball screen comes in the event that they're icing, what
(20:32):
the main point of attack defender will do is play
this high side and force this ball handler to work
downhill this way, right. But what I want to look at,
I want to start with the ice and then we'll
look with our regular coverage after that. At that point,
Chet's responsibility is to basically be to cover both of
these guys as this ball handler is funneling back this
(20:53):
way and this guy's pressuring from behind. This guy's rolling
into this space. Right as he's rolling into this space.
If this is Josh Gitty, he is gonna have a
hard time bothering a lob pass here and a skip
pass to the corner. That's a lot of ground to
cover for Josh Gitty, and so as a result, he's
(21:13):
not gonna come up this high. And now Chet has
to drop a little bit further back to keep this
roll man behind in front of him. He can't let
the roll man behind him because if he does, that's
gonna put a lot of pressure on this lowman here right.
This guy's gonna keep working downhill. This guy's gonna keep
pressuring over the top. Chet's kind of working and playing
that middle ground. Right. But now imagine a situation where
(21:35):
it's Isaiah Hartenstein and Chet Holmgren is now the fore man.
In this case, if this guy is icing the ball
screen and trying to force him back towards the sideline,
he can come really high and aggressive because if this
five man gets behind him into the zone, Jet can
stand right here and provide a good vertical deterrent to
(21:56):
any sort of pass over the top. And if this
guy the ball, he throws a skip pass and it
gets over here to the foreman. Chet has the length
and athleticism to cover that ground and recover and while
he's closing out. While that ball is in the air,
Hartenstein can recover back into the lane and so again,
by virtue of having a real height, length speed advantage
(22:21):
at this foreman position, you can trust him to actually
be two places at once. Over here, by being aggressive
on the ball handler, you can get the ball out
of this guy's hands. Right Whereas if this is Josh
Gitty and Chet has to be a little bit more
cognizant of the roleman. Now this guy has some space
to operate in this part of the floor where he
(22:43):
can get to floaters mid range games. Maybe try to
bait Chet up and then hit this guy. Maybe Josh
Gitty's out of position, or maybe he's just not tall
enough to bother the rollman. Again, this was an area
where they struggled last year. So by virtue of having
Isaiah Hartenstein to add to that look, you give yourself
an aggressive pick and roll coverage because Chet can function
(23:04):
as the lowman in their defense in general. In general, like,
we've seen this type of setup work in a bunch
of different cases, right, Like, this is what the Nuggets did.
They put Nikola Jokic aggressive up in a high drop
because they trusted Aaron Gordon to be able to be
two places at once in the back line. The Milwaukee
(23:26):
Bucks for years did that with brook Lopez bring Lopez
into a higher drop coverage. We trust Giannis to be
able to be both places at once or even when
brook Lopez would deeper drop against specific matchups, Giannis was
just able to help off of that week side corner
and provide another layer of rim return deterrent, excuse me,
(23:47):
while also being able to recover out to that corner.
So again, having Chet at the four just gives you
an entirely different type of athlete at the lowman position
than what you had beforehand. On the offensive end of
the four, Isaiah Hartenstein becomes now instead of Chet, basically
your main screening folkrum in five out, and this is
something that Isaiah Hartenstein excels at quickly flowing from side
(24:10):
to side in ball screens. This is one of the
things I talked about with Dayron Sharp from the Denver Nuggets.
The Denver Nuggets just drafted like that. Quick ball reversal
is so important from the big man in five out
in terms of getting the ball from side to side.
The thread of the back door cut there's a lot
of like dribbling into dribble handoffs, right, Like Isaiah Hartenstein
(24:32):
will dribble at the guy who's coming at him, or
at the two guys who are running action that are
about to flow into him from there. He's supposed to
if there's a slip cut out of it, to hit that.
If the guy goes to set a screen and then
his man stays on the high side, he gets slip through.
Hartenstein's job is to hit that cut. If the guy
who's the primary, the guy who's supposed to be coming
off the dribble handoff, if he's being top locked, like
(24:55):
if his defender is just literally denying him the use
of the dribble handoff and he has to ba cut,
Isaiah Hartenstein has to make that read. If he dribbles
that way and nobody's open, it's his job to quickly
interpret that and reverse like like kind of do a
little half spin move switch ball handling hands, go the
other way and kind of signal to the two guys
on the opposite of the floor, Hey, I'm coming your
(25:16):
way now. There's a lot of decision making and playmaking
responsibility on the five man in ball screens or in
the in five out offense, and that is legitimately something
that Isaiah Hartenstein excels at. As a matter of fact, he
averaged four point three assists per thirty six minutes in
this last playoff runt, operating as that type of fulcrum
(25:37):
for the Knicks. And that was the next team that
didn't have a ton of ball and player movement by
virtue of the injuries that took place to them and
them leaning so much on Jaln Brunson. So let's go
back over to the play software and we're gonna I
want to demonstrate this concept for you guys. So we're
gonna set up in like a typical five out type
of setup. We'll get all of our defenders matched up here. Now, well,
(26:00):
most of this stuff will run and flow out of
like a transition push. So, like, imagine the three man
dribbled the ball up the floor in transition and the
five man's trailing. He's going to kick the ball back
to the five man. Now Hartenstein has the ball. Okay,
Hartenstein has the ball. Let's imagine this is Shake Gildas Alexander,
and let's imagine this is Jay dub Right. So let's
(26:20):
Just imagine like a basic five out motion concept like Chicago,
and all Chicago is is Hartenstein has the ball, Shay
is going to run down and set a pin down
just a screen for j Dub and Ja Dubb is
going to come off of that screen into a dribble
handoff with Isaiah Hartenstein. That is a basic Chicago action
(26:42):
that you will see a lot of times in like
semi transition after a quick push in five out offense.
This is five out kind of flow, right, So where
are the decisions that Hartenstein has to make As Hartenstein
has the ball and is dribbling this way as Shay
is setting the sc these guys are probably gonna try
(27:03):
to switch this screen. So let's say this guy stays
on the high side. But let's say this the guy
who's guarding j Dubb just lingers on Jadub as he's
coming off. Let's say he just lingers on Jadub for
a split second before this switch occurs and Shay slips it.
As Shay slips that screen, it's Isaiah Hartenstein's responsibility to
hit that bounce pass. He's got to be the guy
(27:25):
that makes that read. Right, Let's say that as Shae
Let's say that as Shay's going running down, this guy's
top locking him, and so Jdubb backcuts through, and as
he back cuts through, this guy clears, and then let's
say Shay then decides, okay, now I need to run
the dribble handoff. So now Shae comes up after JDub
(27:47):
cuts through to come off on the dribble handoff. Let's
say that his defender is top locking him. If he's
top locking him and refusing the use of it, he's
got a backcut. Isaiah Hartenstein is the guy that has
to make that read. He's the guy that has to
hit that bounce pass on time and on target. Let's say,
as I mentioned earlier, if the entire play falls apart,
(28:07):
so for whatever reason, these guys just do a really
good job switching and they As Shae goes to set
the screen, this guy stays on the inside position to
take away the cut. He quickly switches on to Shay.
As this guy tries to come off, he top locks him.
The entire play is butchered. Isaiah Hartenstein is the guy
has to go, oh shit, this is falling apart. Let
me dribble this way. He'll point at whoever the three
(28:29):
man is let's say it's Alex Crusoe or or Lou Dort,
and he's gonna be like, go set a pin down
for Chet. Then Chet, He's gonna pin down for Chet,
and then Chet's gonna come up. That's a decision that
Isaiah Hartenstein has to be able to make. And then
the last one that will hit is just the big
man ignoring him. So in the event that this guy,
(28:53):
the defender guarding Isaiah is just sagging way back in
the paint and we have our matchups pretty normal over here,
and this guy's coming down to set this pin down,
Isaiah Hartenstein might need to just attack this man. And
that was something you saw a bunch in the playoffs.
If you guys remember he did it to Joel Embiid too,
(29:14):
or like Embiid would just be playing center field and
just ignore Hartenstein and sag back into this painted area
and Hartenstein would just drive at him hard with his
left hand and get all the way to the rim.
Those are all the types of reads that your big
man needs to make in a five out offense. And
there's a whole other layer to it. When he's already
set the screen and now he's rolling into space. We've
(29:36):
talked about like him needing to score in the short role.
Like literally made sixty percent of his floaters in the
regular season last year, made sixty six percent of his
floaters in the playoffs last year, so like he can
score on the role as well. Like Isaiah Hartenstein, I
think in a lot of ways, represents kind of the
quint essential modern five out offensive big. He can set
(29:59):
good screen, he can make all of the reads, he
can make the back door passes, He quickly flows from
side to side. He can score when he's on the roll.
He can score when the center is ignoring him. He's
not going to put up massive box score numbers, but
he's just a really functional cog in that type of
five out system. And again, like I don't even worry
about him on the offensive end of the floor with
(30:21):
this unit. The only guy that I get concerned about
in terms of how the offense will function when Hartenstein's
on the floor is Chet Homegerd. And this is something
I mentioned earlier, but I want to get a little
bit deeper into it now. Going from being guarded by
centers who are slower footed, usually dropping in traditional coverages
(30:41):
on ball screens which allows him to pop free and
clear to the top of the key. When Chet space
is above to break his man, the center typically SAgs
way back into the lane. Going from that to that
guy guarding Hartenstein, and now Chet's being guarded by a
forward who is going to apply more ball pressure, who's
probably going to be quicker footed, at least as quick
(31:04):
footed as Chet. To a guy who's probably going to
switch most actions as opposed to dropping in most actions.
Going from that is going to put a lot more
difficulty or just challenge on Chet in his perimeter skills.
And so we're going to go over to the placeoff
where one more time, and I just want to kind
(31:25):
of demonstrate this concept. So again, if this is Chet,
we'll set up We'll just set up in like a
five out kind of ball screen kind of situation here
if this is Chet and Chet's guarding the ball screen,
and this team's going to ice the sideball screen. By
the way, the guys the reason why I keep talking
about icing, every single team in the NBA wants to
ice side ball screens. That's what they try to do.
Which all that is is this man instead of chasing
(31:48):
over the top and then funneling into the middle of
the floor, this man is actually going to stay way
on the high side of the screen and try to
force him back towards the sideline. There are times where
ball handlers in the NBA do get to the middle
of the floor, and I want to pretend like that
never happens. They'll just a lot of times like they'll
dribble down and then this guy will chase, and then
they'll use a retreat dribble which will get them back
(32:10):
onto that high side so they can get over. They
will get over, and when they do get over the
top of the screen, the same exact kind of coverage
principles apply. The only difference you'll see is sometimes if
the ball handler gets way over here, they may ask
this guy to be the low man. Once the ball
crosses that midline, this guy becomes the low man, as
opposed to on an ice when they funnel this way,
this guy is your low man. Right. So there are
(32:31):
some differences in the floor contruct but most teams are
going to try to ice that ball screen and funnel
him back towards the sideline. Right, So as he funnels
him towards the sideline, this guy's in his drop coverage,
he funnels towards the sideline he's chasing. Chet is gonna
pop right here and he's gonna be wide open, and
he's gonna have a slow footed center closing out at
(32:53):
him that he can cook off the dribble and make
stuff happen. That's gonna be Hartenstein. Now, now this this
is going to be Chet guarded by a Ford. So
now what's gonna end up happening is a lot of
times Chet's gonna have this guy on him ball pressuring
whenever he has the ball. When Chet goes to set
a screen. If Chet, like let's say Isaiah Hartenstein goes
(33:15):
down to the dunker spot and Jalen Williams calls for
a screen and Chet goes to set it, this is
probably just going to be a switch. They'll just switch
the ball screen and now Jadub will be going against
the Ford and Chet will be going against the two guard.
That's not going to be a drop or an ice
the way that you see in most of these ball
screen coverages when he's at the five. That so that
(33:37):
inherently is going to prevent some of those openings that
Chet gets in terms of clean catches on the perimeter.
The second piece of it is having to run action.
As we talked about earlier. Let's imagine Isaiah Hartenstein is
our ball handling Fulkrum right up here right, so he's
our fulk Crum, and we have Hartenstein getting ready to
(33:57):
run Chicago action. So Jadub run down. He sets a
pin screen or a pin down screen for Shae. Shae
comes off the dribble handoff. These two guys switch. Isaiah
Hartenstein goes to flow into it. These guys, let's say
they deny it, or let's just for the sake of
making it work, look kind of a different look than
we've already shown. Let's say Shae gets over the screen,
(34:18):
so Isai Hartenstein's that's a pick. Shae gets over the screen.
He comes down into this zone. Let's say this guy
offers Nail help. So there's just a lot of traffic
in here around Shae. Shae would make the kickout pass
over here to lou Dort, at which point lou Dort
would flow down into a dribble handoff where Chet would
(34:39):
come off. This guy would switch. Now lou Dohrt's defender
is guarding Chet on the ball, and as as shay
Kind of cycles through and Jalen cycles up, Hartenstein's going
to turn and go set the screen. So now Chet
is running action as the primary ball handler in five out.
Because of Isaiah Hartenstein being the five man, that is
(35:02):
going to put Chet in positions where he's going against
a quicker perimeter defender who's pressuring the ball and testing
the ability of his handle as he gets into the lane,
testing his ability to play, playmake as they come off
of those situations. So that, like I said, in terms
of the offensive end of the four going with two bigs,
I don't worry about Hartenstein at all. My only real
(35:22):
concern is will Chet be able to function offensively in
more of a perimeter role where the ball is in
his hands more to be clear, like in the long run,
I'm a big believer in Chet in what he can
do with the basketball in his hands, but I just
don't think he's quite ready for that yet. So I'm
really curious to see how he fares in that role
next year. And I do expect some lumps in the
(35:44):
regular season, especially when they go to those big looks,
but as long as they can figure that out over
the course of the eighty two and Chet makes enough
progress before they get to the postseason, that'll be a
viable look for them, and they will always have the
option of going back to their small ball look, which
is going to be better this year because you have
Alex Cruso instead of Josh Gitty. Under any circumstances, it's
a better look, and I expect them to be better
(36:05):
defensively immediately with Hartenstein on the floor alongside Shed, I
expect those big looks to be stifling on the defensive
end of the floor. So overall, love to fit, love
that it gives them more matchup versatility in the long
run by having a big look. I still think in
the law, I still think i'd prefer if they had
a forward look as well, where Chet has a big
(36:27):
forward next to him, just because I think that that
would give them a little bit more versatility, because I
think they've got like a really good small ball look
and a really good big look, but they don't have
anything that's kind of in between that's traditional. That is
something I'd like to see them address in the long run.
But Hartenstein gives you the ability to have at least
some of those benefits in the short term, and you
(36:49):
have the flexibility two years from now by virtue of
the way that deal is structured, so you can be
picky and you can be patient in the process of
trying to hunt down whoever that Foreman was lastly kind
of talking about the thunder and the big picture. I
think the addition of Crusoe and Hartenstein makes Oklahoma City
a top tier championship contender. I probably still have them
behind Boston and Denver by some small amount, at least
(37:09):
until we see these guys play. And there are some
other teams potentially Philly potentially, some other teams that make
a trade this summer. There are some other teams that
could be entering into that tier Minnesota and Dallas two
potentially as we kind of look into it. But I
definitely view Oklahoma City in that tier right now. They
just added two quality starting caliber players. They only had
(37:31):
four of those last year. Now they have six of them,
just like Boston does. So we'll actually rank our contenders
later in the summer. We usually do that, like middle September,
as we kind of get ready for training camp, we'll
rank our contenders. But I want to wait until all
of the signings and trades come through before we do
that just because there's just going to be a lot
of new information over the course of the next couple
(37:52):
of months. But I do at this point have Oklahoma
City in that top tier of contenders by virtue of
these two moves. I really wanted Hartenstein to the Thunder.
We got it. It's going to be a lot of fun,
(38:17):
all right. CP three to the Spurs. I love this
move because it accomplishes two things. It gives Victor weben
Yama a high level ball handler to make things easier
for him on offense. To give you an idea, Victor
only got two point five rollman possessions per game last year.
That's the same amount as Rudy Gobert, stonehands, Rudy Gobert
(38:37):
and with who doesn't play with passers right, And that's
half as many as the star bigs at the top
of the league, guys like Anthony Davis, guys like Joel Embiid,
because those guys play with high level ball handlers who
consistently set them up with those opportunities. Here's a crazy
stat for you, guys. Victor only logged two point two
cut possessions per game. Those are easy feeds around the
(38:58):
rim for quick finishes right, Trace Jackson Davis are the
Warriors who played less than seventeen minutes per game logged
more cut possessions per game than Victor Webbin Yama in
about half as many minutes. Guess who was the primary
guard for most of those Tray Jackson Davis minutes. Chris Paul. So, like,
(39:20):
is Chris Paul gonna make the Spurs into a championship contender?
Obviously not, But he's just gonna allow them to function
more like a normal basketball team on offense. He's going
to generate those higher quality opportunities for Victor Webbin Yama
that most of his peers at the position get. And again, like,
the big thing is, in the long run, they are
eventually going to have a star ball handler next to
(39:41):
Victor and we don't know who it's gonna be, and
we'll talk about that in a minute, but he's eventually
going to play alongside this type of guy. Why not
let him get some reps learning how to do that
in the short term. While the second thing this accomplishes
maintaining flexibility. Because it's a one year deal, a lot of
the ball handlers that were available to the Spurs this
(40:02):
summer didn't make a lot of sense. De Jontay Murray
isn't good enough to be your primary ball handler. Trey
Young is good enough, but he comes with a lot
of other issues as we know, attitude issues, defense issues.
Donovan Mitchell just re upped in Cleveland, so he's not
an option. Darius Garland's kind of an interesting option in
terms of the fit, but I don't think he's good
enough to be the best ballhandler on a championship team.
Paul George was too old. Brandon Ingram isn't good enough either.
(40:25):
This is the summer for fringe stars to be hunted
by contenders, not for young teams to look for foundational pieces.
And so this, for instance, we just talked about the Thunder.
This is why the Thunder went for Hartenstein instead of
making some sort of other deal. They're probably looking at it, like,
you know, we don't view Lori markin In as a
guy on a max contract that is worth it in
(40:45):
the context of Jalen Williams and Shay we would rather
wait for a different type of player, right, So Hartenstein,
they have the cat flexibility to do it. That was
them kind of making the same type of decision that
the Spurs are talking about this. There weren't a lot
of foundation type of talent available this summer to try
to go after CP three. Gives the Spurs another year
(41:06):
to wait things out, and maybe Devin Vessel takes another
step forward. He had his best scoring volume in efficiency
year last year. Maybe he takes a step forward. It
looks like he could be that guy in the long
run Stefan Castle, who the Spurs drafted at the top
of the first round, Like, maybe he learns how to
shoot this year, and maybe that kind of turns into
a guy that the Spurs project as a ball handler,
or maybe a different a guy becomes available in the
(41:29):
trade market and the Spurs can jump in there and
try to make a move. And like, the one thing
is Victor is so talented already that he applies more
timeline pressure in the sense that like, you don't want
to wait five years to be good, because Victor could
be a top ten player literally next year, and there's
a certain pressure that comes with that. Right. But I
thought this was a savvy move by the Spurs. It
(41:50):
just again is going to give them that flexibility to
wait out a better ball handling option while giving them
a giving Victor at least a facsimile of that to
practice with for the season. And most importantly, it's gonna
make the Spurs more fun to watch. These Spurs were
like watching college basketball last year. Just the ball handling
capability was so low it made them really difficult to watch.
Victor women Yamo was the only saving grace of them
(42:10):
as a television product. Getting a CP three out there
and having them look more organized on offense will help
a lot. Last hit for today, Desonte Murray to the
New Orleans Pelicans. This move was all about rim pressure.
In my opinion, guy like CJ McCollum, you averaged nine
point nine drives per game last year for the Pelicans.
Dejonte by himself averaged fifteen point one. Deshonte attempts over
(42:34):
eight shots per game in the paint, and so this
kind of like we talked about earlier, is going to
go back to what we talked about after the playoffs
and that five biggest things. One of the things that
I took as one of my five biggest takeaways from
that playoff run was rim pressure is the most valuable
thing for shot quality, right, and there's a bunch of
different ways to get rim pressure. You can do it
(42:56):
in the post. You can do it, cutting, you can
do it crashing the offense of glass. You can do
it rolling in ball screens. There's a bunch of different ways,
but the most resilient way in the playoffs to do
it is dribble drive penetration. Right, the ability to beat
people off the dribble is the easiest way to generate
that type of rim pressure. And so in these situations,
(43:16):
like if you look at the Pelican, Zion Williamson was
really the only guy for them last year generated sustainable
rim pressure. Yonis did a bunch on the glass in
the post, but he was so matchup specific and like
incapable of being played against certain types of teams that
it didn't really add up to much in real tangible
value for the Pelicans. Right, Like Zion was the only
kind of dependable rim pressure they had. You guys watched
(43:38):
in that Lakers playing game just how damaging Zion can be,
just because it can beat people off the dribble. And
like even CJ and Brandon Ingram, they're like pull up
shooters who are like in ISO situations, mainly going to
step back or turn around jump shots. They both need
screens to get all the way to the rim, as
(44:00):
Jonte is a guy who can legit just beat the
man in front of him off the dribble, and that
is where he's going to bring the most value of
value for this team on the offensive end of the flour.
I like this move because when I think of like
the idealized version of the Pelicans in the long run,
I view them as a driving kick team. I look
at them as a team that should use de Jontay
Murray and Zion Williamson to break down the defense at
(44:22):
the start to get the defense in rotation, and then
these guys Trey Murphy is like a professional closeout attacker.
Herb Jones made a lot of progress this last year
as a closeout attacker. Like I even prefer CJ. McCollum
and Brandon Ingram operating with an advantage because of their
high level of skill and so like to me, this
is a move in the direction of the Pelicans being
more of a driving kick team, which I think is
(44:43):
going to be good for them in the long run.
And then they can layer their pull up shooting on
top of that. As we know CJ and Brandon Ingram
are pull up shooters, but there's not as much resilience
there you saw in the Thunder series. It's like those
pull up jumpers start to miss suddenly they both become
relatively ineffective basketball player, right, And so like there's more
resilience to drive and kick basketball than pull up three
(45:04):
point shooting. It's like the difference between the Suns and
the Boston Celtics, right, Like Boston was more diligent about driving,
Phoenix wanted to settle for a ton of pull up
jumpers and ended up being the death of them. Right.
So like, this to me is a good move in
that direction. But Dejonte also brings high level pull up
shooting as well. He shot forty five percent on pull
up jumpers last year fifty one percent when you weigh
it for threes one point zero two points per shot.
(45:26):
He was one of only nine players in the league
to attempt at least five hundred pull up jump shots
and to maintain an efficiency over one point per shot.
He's in a rare group of efficient pull up jump
shooters in the NBA. He also had the best catch
and shoot season of his career. He got one point
one seven points per catch and shoot jumper. He shot
forty six percent from the field, like just straight field
(45:48):
goal percentage on unguarded catch and shoot jump shots. So
if that's a trend and not a blip, then we're
talking about some real upside to this trade. And Dejonte's
got like real scoring pop. He was one of the
best ISO players in the league last year. He got
one point one points per possession out of ISOs including passes,
according to Synergy. That ranked sixth out of nineteen players
(46:09):
to run at least three hundred ISOs. Last year, he
had thirteen to thirty point games, He had four forty
point games, he had multiple game winners. He had at
least eight assists in twenty five games. Like, he's just
a damn good basketball player. And like again, part of
it is just Atlanta and their situation, and it's just
(46:29):
the lack of success, lack of team success that came
out of that situation. I think put Dejonte in a
position where he's discounted. But he's a player I was
a huge believer in. I really wanted him for the Lakers,
and so I'm really excited for Pelicans fans because I
think they got a good one here. He's also a
bit of an asshole, and I mean that in the
best way, Like you need to have that asshole streak
to be like an effective basketball player and knockdown, drag
(46:52):
out fights, and he's just that type of guy, and
I think Pelicans fans are really gonna like him. I
have two main concerns and they're the same concerns I
talked about when Dejonte was first being rumored for the
Lakers last year around the deadline. Just hasn't been very
good defensively since leaving San Antonio, but the capability is
obviously there. It's not like he lost his talent on
(47:12):
that end of the floor. It's just about commitment. Hasn't
done it since leaving San Antonio, where he was an
all defense guy. So he just needs to get that
piece back, and hopefully by virtue of just being on
a team that has this much talent and the Pelicans
have a ton of talent now, just by virtue of
being on that sort of team, I think that he'll
have more energy resources to devote to that end of
the floor. But that'll be a big piece. And then
(47:33):
the second piece of it is he struggles to make layups,
shot just fifty two point nine percent on layups last
year according to Synergy. That ranked thirty seventh out of
forty four players who attempted at least three hundred layups
last year. There's pros and cons to that, right, Missed
layups usually mean occupied rim protectors, right, So like, there
are opportunities for offensive rebounds that come from that. But
the Pelicans are not a good offensive rebounding team. They
(47:55):
were nineteenth in offensive rebound percentage last year and they
just lost two of their top three offensive rebus in
Larry Nance Junior and Yonis Valanciuna, So that isn't really
a value add for the Pelicans. The downside is missed layups,
specifically from guards, especially when they're driving from above the break.
That leads to bad floor balance, which can lead to
(48:17):
transition opportunities that just to put it simply, just imagine
two guards above the break. If one drives in and misses,
there's only one guard back, and that can lead to
some transition opportunities. With Russell Westbrook when he used to
miss layups, it was an overwhelmingly bad experience for the Lakers,
So like, really for and to be clear on tape,
it's mostly about decision making. Dejonte will just over penetrate,
(48:39):
sometimes drive into rim protectors and try impossible layups that
end up hurting his percentage. So really it's going to
be about just better rim decisions, better decisions about when
to drive, not over penetrating when the help is already there,
making sure you have a plan when you get on
the dribble into the lane, making better reads when you
get there in terms of kick out passes and drop
(49:00):
off passes. As long as he does those sorts of things,
he should be able to clean that up. But again,
those are the two things. Is he's got to recommit
on the defensive end, and he's got to be able
to make layups or at least better decisions when he
gets to the rim. I had a third there. Last
year's catching shoot season was a little bit of an
outlier for him. That needs to be a trend and
not a blip for him to continue to function as
(49:21):
part of the driving kick that the Pelicans are going
to try to build out overall. I like the deal
though Dyson Daniels is a really interesting young player, but
Dejonte is just a better player within the context of
trying to win right now, which I think the Pells
are trying to do. And I'm just generally really high
on Dejante. As I mentioned earlier, I wanted him for
the Pelicans, so I'm happy for Pelicans fans that they
get to root for him this season. All right, guys,
(49:43):
that is all I have for today. We're going to
be back tomorrow with a mail bag, probably have a
couple of mail bag breakouts over the course of the
time that we're off. I hope all of you guys
enjoy your holiday weekend and I will see you on Monday. Oh,
I'll see you on the mail bag, and then I
will see you after that. On Monday.
Speaker 1 (50:07):
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(01:34):
Slash Baseball, all right, welcome to Hoops Toight. You're at
the volume heavy Tuesday. Everybody. Oh Paul, you guys are
having a great start to your week while we're getting
part two of our free agency reaction today, we have
(01:56):
three major moves that I want to hit in today's show. ISAIAHRT,
I'm stigning to the Oklahoma City Thunder. We're gonna be
spending the majority of time of the time on that one.
I think it's a super interesting move that fundamentally changes
both the physical profile and the ceiling of the Oklahoma
City Thunder. So we're gonna talk about that in extensive detail.
After that, we're gonna get to Chris Paul headed to
the San Antonio Spurs, and after that a trade that
(02:17):
happened a few days ago, to Johntay Murray to the
New Orleans Pelicans. We're gonna get into all those details.
We are taking for July fourth, and we're trying to
get some time off for me and for our staff
over the weekend. So I tweeted out a question asking
for mail bag questions. I'm recording that today that will
be airing over the course of the next few days.
(02:38):
But unless something major happens, like if we get a
major trade, I'm gonna get a video out. But unless
something major happens, we're gonna be taking through Sunday off
to enjoy the holiday. But we're hitting the three other
big free agency and trade moves today. We'll have a
mail bag coming out tomorrow with some breakouts over the
rest of the week, and then we back with our
normal schedule starting on Monday. You guys are the drill
before we get started. Subscribe to Hoops Tonight Tube channels.
(03:00):
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mail bag questions in those YouTube comments so we can
keep hitting them throughout the rest of the summer. And then,
last but not least, it's baseball season. We are in
the swing of it, and there's nothing like getting out
to a major League baseball ballpark, having a day out
(03:21):
with some friends and family, having some good food, having
some beer, whatever it is you like to enjoy at
the baseball game. This was something we used to do
as a family when I was growing up. We would
all load up and we'd drive up to Phoenix and
we'd go see Arizona Diamondbacks game. And thankfully they had
a cover over Chase feel that you could air condition
that place. Because obviously this place that we're in the
(03:42):
mix of it right now here in Tucson, it's like
one hundred every single day for the foreseeable future. But
I just remember that as a kid, that was just
something that was always so important to me. I love
baseball season. The Dbacks making their World Series run last
year kind of reinvigorated my love for the game. But
you guys got to get out this summer to see
a Major League baseball game, and this is where game
time comes into the picture. They're an amazing ticket buying experience.
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I had a great experience with them earlier this year
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They have all in pricing, so you know exactly what
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a good view of the seat within the app, so
you know what you're getting for your money. It's not convoluted.
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They have special deals like flash deals and zone deals.
I've always been really interested in the zone deals, where
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you get extra savings that way. So take the guesswork
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out of buying Major League Baseball tickets with game Time.
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Hoops for twenty dollars off. Download Game Time today, last
minute tickets loess price guaranteed. All right, let's talk some basketball. So,
(05:09):
as I talked about over the those are you guys
who follow me on Twitter have seen me tweet about
it a few times, and I've talked about it on
the show once or twice before this. But like one
of the guys that I've viewed as like a really
interesting option for Oklahoma City going into this free agency
was Isaiah Hartenstein. I was worried about whether or not
they'd be able to make a move on him, just
simply because I know Hartenstein enjoyed his time playing for
(05:31):
the New York Knicks, and I would imagine that there
was a certain amount of money that if the gap
wasn't as big, he probably would have stayed, but it
just the Thunder were able to offer him just a
whole lot of money, close to thirty million annually for
the next three seasons. And you know, I want to
start We're going to talk about the contract details because
there's a flexibility element to this, because I'm pretty sure
(05:53):
the final year of this deal is unguaranteed, which will
line up with the Jalen Williams Rookie extension as well
as the chet Holmgren Rookie extension. So there's a flexibility
element to this. But I want to focus on the
basketball first and then we'll get into some of those details. So,
first of all, the Thunder had two major weaknesses in
(06:14):
the last season, and those of you guys who have
been following the show will have heard me talk about
this ad nauseum throughout the year, but interior physicality. They
were one of only four teams in the NBA that
gave up an offensive rebound on more than thirty percent
of their opponent's missus. They allowed seven point seven points
per game on putbacks, that was the second most in
(06:36):
the NBA. They allowed eight point eight points per game
on post ups including passes, which was the second most
in the NBA, this was a frontline that you could bully.
That was the first weakness. The second biggest weakness was experience, right,
and this year was a huge step forward for them.
They got two rounds worth of playoff experience for all
(06:56):
the guys in house. They lost in heartbreaking fashion, which
I think is actually beneficial to the development of a
basketball player. Like you were up by one off of
that ched Holmgren dunk in Game six on the road
with an opportunity to go home to win Game seven
and make it to the conference finals and shake Gelvis
Alexander fouls PJ. Washington in the left corner, which leads
(07:17):
to the series being over right. That's a heart wrenching
way to lose, right, And I always talk about like
there's a difference between loving basketball and hating losing, and
the greats are usually both. They're genuine fans of the game,
like they just love playing, they love working on their game,
they love tinkering with their craft, all that kind of stuff.
(07:39):
But then they also have this like psycho competitiveness, like
fear of losing or hatred of losing, And like to me,
there's a scar tissue that builds up when you take
those losses that actually motivates you in those situations. You
find yourself in a big game, in a big pivotal
playoff moment, and you think back to what happened when
(07:59):
you blew it last time. It leads to another level
of focus and intensity because you're terrified that it will
happen to you again. That kind of that's why there's
like a process to these teams getting to where they
want to go. That's why almost every all time great
team that you see has a really ugly loss early
on in the process, right, Like that's just kind of
(08:23):
like inherent in the process. The Nuggets made it to
the conference finals and lost to the Los Angeles Lakers, right,
but then they conquered them on their way to the title.
Last year. The Golden State Warriors in twenty sixteen lost
after winning seventy three games, even going before the twenty
fifteen title, the loss they suffered against the Clippers in
twenty fourteen, the loss that they suffered against the Spurs
(08:45):
in twenty thirteen, the Miami Heat losing to the Spurs,
or to the Dallas Mavericks in twenty eleven, that was
scar tissue that led to them bringing that level in
the future. Like there are almost always heartbreaking loss is
early on in the process. I've missed a big one there,
two thousand and eight Lakers painful loss before they win
(09:07):
two championships in a row. Look at all of the
painful losses for Dirk Novitski before he won in twenty eleven.
It's just kind of like part of that growth. It's
part of that process. And so everybody in that locker
room gets two more rounds worth of experience. You added.
Alex Caruso, a veteran of six playoff series. He's played
in thirty one playoff games. He started for the twenty
(09:27):
twenty Lakers in Game six of the twenty twenty NBA Finals.
Literally is one of the most you know, dependable type
of playoff role players that you could have. I think
that is a huge influx of experience. Hartenstein himself has
played a major role in four playoff series. In general,
as this team goes into next season, they are older,
(09:48):
they are wiser and more experienced. Right, That's not something
you can like really address through the roster as much
as just through just through getting through those wars. Because
even Cruzo and Hartenstein, the main guys who need that
experience are Shae Yielders, Alexander and Jalen Williams, who both
got a big dose of it last year. Now, from
(10:09):
the interior physicality standpoint, there were two routes that they
could go. They could get a big center to put
Chet at the four, or they could get a big
and athletic power forward to kind of anchor Chet at
the five. And each one of those routes had pros
and cons. Like going with the center, going the Hartenstein route,
the pros are you get a bigger look, which will
(10:29):
help against large front lines, right like against Denver Minnesota
teams that play really big front court players. You have
a bigger look there, right, It alleviates some of the
regular season wear and tear on chet Holmgren from having
to guard centers and deal with just bigger bodies underneath
the basket. It's cheaper, Like it's just easier to get
a center than a power forward. As I talked about
(10:50):
in our five Biggest Takeaways video after the Finals, I
think the big athletic forward is the most valuable archetype
in the league right now that you know Jason tam
type that Aaron Gordon type that Lebron James. Even. Part
of the reason why in his old age he's been
as successful as he is is he just plays an
incredibly important position in the NBA. It's why I'm excited
(11:12):
about a guy like Jonathan Minga for the Golden State Warriors.
It's why a guy like I think Jeremy Grant could
help a team next year in a big way. It's
why Lori marketIn I think brings a certain amount of
trade value around the league. There's just that specific position
is just becoming a very valuable position. The guy who's
big and strong enough to kind of sort of hang
with centers, but has the perimeter skill to function in
(11:35):
a five out offense. That is the key to that
kind of big power forward position. And so as a result,
it's just really expensive if the thunder wanted to go
out and get if they wanted to go out and
get Lori market In, talk about what at least five
or six picks right to get that deal done. Like
that's just it would have been incredibly expensive. They would
(11:55):
have had to turn around and extend Louri market In
probably somewhere in the neighborhood of like four years and
one hundred and sixty million dollars right, which fundamentally does
change the cap situation moving forward. As a basketball fan,
I'd be lying to you guys about it and say
that I wanted to see what that looks like, of course,
just to see Lori Markinen in that group. But it
was an expensive option to go that way the center position.
(12:17):
They were able to just go out and sign a
center to a short term deal in overpay a little bit,
because who cares, they can afford it on the cap
in the short term. That was just an easier option
for them to pull off while maintaining their long term flexibility.
The cons Chet has to be able to function as
a high level perimeter player. Now I don't want to
get into this yet. I want to save this for
(12:39):
a little bit later in the show. But this is
my one concern with going with the Isaiah Hartenstein type
of look. Chet when he's on the floor with Isaiah Hartenstein,
which won't be all the time, but when those two
guys are sharing the floor together, Chet now has to
function as a ball handling wing essentially, and we'll get
into some of the more of those details. We're going
to be using the place software today to demonstrate some
(13:01):
things for the thunder on both ends of the floor
with Chet and Isaiah Hartenstein. So we'll get more into that.
But that's one of the cons of going with the center.
It puts a lot of pressure on Chet's perimeter skill.
If you go power forward, the pros are spacing is
always a little bit easier when you have five three
point shooters on the floor, just is look at the
Boston Celtics, right. It puts less pressure on Chet's perimeter skills.
(13:24):
You would continue to be guarded by centers who are
primarily going to be operating in drop coverage. He's gonna
have picking pop looks, he's gonna be able to space
above the break while while his man sinks into the lane. There.
It's just less pressure on Chet's ball handling and playmaking ability. Right.
It provides more matchup versatility for when they run into
teams that really test their ability to contain the ball, right,
like if they ran into a in the West, a
(13:45):
team like the New Orleans Pelicans now that they have
de Jonte Marie Anzion Williamson, or like Sacramento is a
team like this, Teams like Boston and Indiana out of
the Eastern Conference teams that have a lot of dribble
drive speed that having that smaller look with at the
five and another athletic forward next to him just is
a little more resilient defensively in those types of situations.
(14:07):
But quick caveat, it's worth mentioning that most of the
top teams in the West don't bring that type of
dribble penetration, right Like Jamal Murray is not a dribble
drive type of guard. I know the Nuggets want Russell Westbrook,
which is something I saw yesterday, which it's kind of
funny to me that Lebron and Nikola Jokic could end
up making that same mistake. But the teams at the
(14:27):
top of the West are either like Denver where they
don't have great dribble penetration, Dallas who doesn't have great
drible penetration, or teams that have great dribble penetration but
have lots of non shooters for you to sink into
the lane on, or at least guys that you're willing
to live with shooting, like Minnesota and Memphis. John Moran
and Anthony Edwards are incredible drible drive guys. But that's
kind of the head of steak and you can really
pack the paint on them. They're not teams that have
(14:49):
like like bunches of guys that are going to be
slashing and challenging your perimeter defense. So there's no doubt
that having a forward next to chet gives you a
little bit more defensive versatility against dribble drive teams. But
they may not even have to deal with that until
they get to the finals anyway, just by virtue with
the of the way the Western Conference is laid out,
cons of going they're out of the forward. Like we
(15:10):
talked about earlier, getting a forward is super super expensive
and I don't need to go in any more details there.
It's just it's the most valuable archetype in the league.
It's really hard to get, like we talked about earlier.
So the way I look at it, by going the
center route rather than going the power forward route, it
was a low risk way for Oklahoma City to beef
up their front line while also maintaining some flexibility for
(15:31):
the future. Now, again, as I mentioned, the initial reporting
is that I believe that final year is I believe
that final year is non guaranteed. So again, like they
can line up the cap sheet to where if they
need to clear heart and sign off the books when
they're signing JDub and Chet, they should be able to
do so. So that's that's where that flexibility piece comes from.
(15:54):
Whereas if they got a market in and they had
to extend in four years now, there's just some overlap there.
I could put them into some issues with the second apron.
So let's talk about the basketball fit though. So it's
not just that they picked a center. They picked Isaiah Hartenstein.
So where does Isaiah Hartenstein specifically fit within this team
on both ends of the floor. So the initial reporting
(16:15):
I've seen is that Oklahoma City does not intend to
start Isaiah Hartenstein. They intend for him to come off
the bench. But obviously he's going to play twenty five
to thirty minutes a night and will have a lot
of crossover with Chet Holmgren. Inevitably they will play together
quite a bit. So really it's about having multiple looks.
They'll have a small look right well, they'll have Shay
on the floor with Jay Dubb, Alex Crusoe, Loudort, Chet Holmgren.
(16:37):
There's a lot of perimeter speed there. Five guys who
can all defend multiple positions and can space the teams
out on the other end of the floor. That's their
small look now, without a real forward that will have.
It's a really small look, but that is a look
that they will have and it will work in most matchups.
It's really just some of the bigger teams that will
give them issues there. But then they'll also have a
(16:57):
big look where chet and Isaiah Hartenstein will share the
floor together.
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Speaker 2 (18:00):
What I want to start with, and I'm going to
go over as a quick monologue for our podcast audience
and then we'll go over to the clipboard. But defensively,
what I really like about having Hertenstein and Chet together
is it gives you the ability to put Sheet in
a position where he's the lowman rather than the guy
who's defending ball screens. When you have real length on
the back line, that buys you flexibility for the ball
(18:22):
screen defender to come higher up into actions more aggressive
on the ball because the lowman has has to be
in two places at once. The lowman the guy that's
on the back line when your screen defender is running
up to defend the ball screen. And again I'm going
to show visual example of this in a minute. He
is responsible for the role man coming down the lane
and for the man in the corner right. And so
(18:45):
there's a certain like stunting and recovering element. There's a
lot of like really hard closeouts. There's a lot of
ground coverage both vertically under the rim and in terms
of covering ground out to the corner that comes from
that position. And like going from a Josh Giddy in
that type of role or an undersized you know, a
(19:06):
guy who's not as big like a Jalen Williams or
Shake Kills as Alexander. Those guys did decently enough. It's
not like they're not capable of being the lowman, but
they just don't bring enough height or athleticism to that position.
And what that does is that puts a lot of
pressure on Chet when he's defending those ball screens to
make sure that he doesn't let the roleman get behind him,
because if he does, that puts a lot of pressure
(19:27):
on the back line of Oklahoma City's defense. When you
have Chet on the back line and Isaiah Hartenstein defending
the ball screen, you can have Isaiah Hartenstein be aggressive
out at the level attacking the ball handler because Chet
brings so much ground coverage and verticality to that lowman position.
So let's go over to the play software and we're
going to take a look in more detailed at what
(19:50):
I was talking about here. So I have a set
up here in a typical kind of like ball screen setup, right,
So this number three, the small forward is spacing out
above the break on this side. This guy's going to
be in position where you can dig down at the
nail potentially or stay home. He's going to be somewhere
in this range. Right, we have the strong side corner shooter.
This guy might be a little bit up the lane line,
(20:10):
but this guy is under pretty explicit instructions to not
overhelp in this particular situation. Out of the strong side corner.
We have the ball screen coming, and we have our
ball handler. Right. So in this case, let's imagine that
this is Chet and this is Josh Giddy. As the
ball screen comes in the event that they're icing, what
(20:32):
the main point of attack defender will do is play
this high side and force this ball handler to work
downhill this way, right. But what I want to look at,
I want to start with the ice and then we'll
look with our regular coverage after that. At that point,
Chet's responsibility is to basically be to cover both of
these guys as this ball handler is funneling back this
(20:53):
way and this guy's pressuring from behind. This guy's rolling
into this space. Right as he's rolling into this space.
If this is Josh Gitty, he is gonna have a
hard time bothering a lob pass here and a skip
pass to the corner. That's a lot of ground to
cover for Josh Gitty, and so as a result, he's
(21:13):
not gonna come up this high. And now Chet has
to drop a little bit further back to keep this
roll man behind in front of him. He can't let
the roll man behind him because if he does, that's
gonna put a lot of pressure on this lowman here right.
This guy's gonna keep working downhill. This guy's gonna keep
pressuring over the top. Chet's kind of working and playing
that middle ground. Right. But now imagine a situation where
(21:35):
it's Isaiah Hartenstein and Chet Holmgren is now the fore man.
In this case, if this guy is icing the ball
screen and trying to force him back towards the sideline,
he can come really high and aggressive because if this
five man gets behind him into the zone, Jet can
stand right here and provide a good vertical deterrent to
(21:56):
any sort of pass over the top. And if this
guy the ball, he throws a skip pass and it
gets over here to the foreman. Chet has the length
and athleticism to cover that ground and recover and while
he's closing out. While that ball is in the air,
Hartenstein can recover back into the lane and so again,
by virtue of having a real height, length speed advantage
(22:21):
at this foreman position, you can trust him to actually
be two places at once. Over here, by being aggressive
on the ball handler, you can get the ball out
of this guy's hands. Right Whereas if this is Josh
Gitty and Chet has to be a little bit more
cognizant of the roleman. Now this guy has some space
to operate in this part of the floor where he
(22:43):
can get to floaters mid range games. Maybe try to
bait Chet up and then hit this guy. Maybe Josh
Gitty's out of position, or maybe he's just not tall
enough to bother the rollman. Again, this was an area
where they struggled last year. So by virtue of having
Isaiah Hartenstein to add to that look, you give yourself
an aggressive pick and roll coverage because Chet can function
(23:04):
as the lowman in their defense in general. In general, like,
we've seen this type of setup work in a bunch
of different cases, right, Like, this is what the Nuggets did.
They put Nikola Jokic aggressive up in a high drop
because they trusted Aaron Gordon to be able to be
two places at once in the back line. The Milwaukee
(23:26):
Bucks for years did that with brook Lopez bring Lopez
into a higher drop coverage. We trust Giannis to be
able to be both places at once or even when
brook Lopez would deeper drop against specific matchups, Giannis was
just able to help off of that week side corner
and provide another layer of rim return deterrent, excuse me,
(23:47):
while also being able to recover out to that corner.
So again, having Chet at the four just gives you
an entirely different type of athlete at the lowman position
than what you had beforehand. On the offensive end of
the four, Isaiah Hartenstein becomes now instead of Chet, basically
your main screening folkrum in five out, and this is
something that Isaiah Hartenstein excels at quickly flowing from side
(24:10):
to side in ball screens. This is one of the
things I talked about with Dayron Sharp from the Denver Nuggets.
The Denver Nuggets just drafted like that. Quick ball reversal
is so important from the big man in five out
in terms of getting the ball from side to side.
The thread of the back door cut there's a lot
of like dribbling into dribble handoffs, right, Like Isaiah Hartenstein
(24:32):
will dribble at the guy who's coming at him, or
at the two guys who are running action that are
about to flow into him from there. He's supposed to
if there's a slip cut out of it, to hit that.
If the guy goes to set a screen and then
his man stays on the high side, he gets slip through.
Hartenstein's job is to hit that cut. If the guy
who's the primary, the guy who's supposed to be coming
off the dribble handoff, if he's being top locked, like
(24:55):
if his defender is just literally denying him the use
of the dribble handoff and he has to ba cut,
Isaiah Hartenstein has to make that read. If he dribbles
that way and nobody's open, it's his job to quickly
interpret that and reverse like like kind of do a
little half spin move switch ball handling hands, go the
other way and kind of signal to the two guys
on the opposite of the floor, Hey, I'm coming your
(25:16):
way now. There's a lot of decision making and playmaking
responsibility on the five man in ball screens or in
the in five out offense, and that is legitimately something
that Isaiah Hartenstein excels at. As a matter of fact, he
averaged four point three assists per thirty six minutes in
this last playoff runt, operating as that type of fulcrum
(25:37):
for the Knicks. And that was the next team that
didn't have a ton of ball and player movement by
virtue of the injuries that took place to them and
them leaning so much on Jaln Brunson. So let's go
back over to the play software and we're gonna I
want to demonstrate this concept for you guys. So we're
gonna set up in like a typical five out type
of setup. We'll get all of our defenders matched up here. Now, well,
(26:00):
most of this stuff will run and flow out of
like a transition push. So, like, imagine the three man
dribbled the ball up the floor in transition and the
five man's trailing. He's going to kick the ball back
to the five man. Now Hartenstein has the ball. Okay,
Hartenstein has the ball. Let's imagine this is Shake Gildas Alexander,
and let's imagine this is Jay dub Right. So let's
(26:20):
Just imagine like a basic five out motion concept like Chicago,
and all Chicago is is Hartenstein has the ball, Shay
is going to run down and set a pin down
just a screen for j Dub and Ja Dubb is
going to come off of that screen into a dribble
handoff with Isaiah Hartenstein. That is a basic Chicago action
(26:42):
that you will see a lot of times in like
semi transition after a quick push in five out offense.
This is five out kind of flow, right, So where
are the decisions that Hartenstein has to make As Hartenstein
has the ball and is dribbling this way as Shay
is setting the sc these guys are probably gonna try
(27:03):
to switch this screen. So let's say this guy stays
on the high side. But let's say this the guy
who's guarding j Dubb just lingers on Jadub as he's
coming off. Let's say he just lingers on Jadub for
a split second before this switch occurs and Shay slips it.
As Shay slips that screen, it's Isaiah Hartenstein's responsibility to
hit that bounce pass. He's got to be the guy
(27:25):
that makes that read. Right, Let's say that as Shae
Let's say that as Shay's going running down, this guy's
top locking him, and so Jdubb backcuts through, and as
he back cuts through, this guy clears, and then let's
say Shay then decides, okay, now I need to run
the dribble handoff. So now Shae comes up after JDub
(27:47):
cuts through to come off on the dribble handoff. Let's
say that his defender is top locking him. If he's
top locking him and refusing the use of it, he's
got a backcut. Isaiah Hartenstein is the guy that has
to make that read. He's the guy that has to
hit that bounce pass on time and on target. Let's say,
as I mentioned earlier, if the entire play falls apart,
(28:07):
so for whatever reason, these guys just do a really
good job switching and they As Shae goes to set
the screen, this guy stays on the inside position to
take away the cut. He quickly switches on to Shay.
As this guy tries to come off, he top locks him.
The entire play is butchered. Isaiah Hartenstein is the guy
has to go, oh shit, this is falling apart. Let
me dribble this way. He'll point at whoever the three
(28:29):
man is let's say it's Alex Crusoe or or Lou Dort,
and he's gonna be like, go set a pin down
for Chet. Then Chet, He's gonna pin down for Chet,
and then Chet's gonna come up. That's a decision that
Isaiah Hartenstein has to be able to make. And then
the last one that will hit is just the big
man ignoring him. So in the event that this guy,
(28:53):
the defender guarding Isaiah is just sagging way back in
the paint and we have our matchups pretty normal over here,
and this guy's coming down to set this pin down,
Isaiah Hartenstein might need to just attack this man. And
that was something you saw a bunch in the playoffs.
If you guys remember he did it to Joel Embiid too,
(29:14):
or like Embiid would just be playing center field and
just ignore Hartenstein and sag back into this painted area
and Hartenstein would just drive at him hard with his
left hand and get all the way to the rim.
Those are all the types of reads that your big
man needs to make in a five out offense. And
there's a whole other layer to it. When he's already
set the screen and now he's rolling into space. We've
(29:36):
talked about like him needing to score in the short role.
Like literally made sixty percent of his floaters in the
regular season last year, made sixty six percent of his
floaters in the playoffs last year, so like he can
score on the role as well. Like Isaiah Hartenstein, I
think in a lot of ways, represents kind of the
quint essential modern five out offensive big. He can set
(29:59):
good screen, he can make all of the reads, he
can make the back door passes, He quickly flows from
side to side. He can score when he's on the roll.
He can score when the center is ignoring him. He's
not going to put up massive box score numbers, but
he's just a really functional cog in that type of
five out system. And again, like I don't even worry
about him on the offensive end of the floor with
(30:21):
this unit. The only guy that I get concerned about
in terms of how the offense will function when Hartenstein's
on the floor is Chet Homegerd. And this is something
I mentioned earlier, but I want to get a little
bit deeper into it now. Going from being guarded by
centers who are slower footed, usually dropping in traditional coverages
(30:41):
on ball screens which allows him to pop free and
clear to the top of the key. When Chet space
is above to break his man, the center typically SAgs
way back into the lane. Going from that to that
guy guarding Hartenstein, and now Chet's being guarded by a
forward who is going to apply more ball pressure, who's
probably going to be quicker footed, at least as quick
(31:04):
footed as Chet. To a guy who's probably going to
switch most actions as opposed to dropping in most actions.
Going from that is going to put a lot more
difficulty or just challenge on Chet in his perimeter skills.
And so we're going to go over to the placeoff
where one more time, and I just want to kind
(31:25):
of demonstrate this concept. So again, if this is Chet,
we'll set up We'll just set up in like a
five out kind of ball screen kind of situation here
if this is Chet and Chet's guarding the ball screen,
and this team's going to ice the sideball screen. By
the way, the guys the reason why I keep talking
about icing, every single team in the NBA wants to
ice side ball screens. That's what they try to do.
Which all that is is this man instead of chasing
(31:48):
over the top and then funneling into the middle of
the floor, this man is actually going to stay way
on the high side of the screen and try to
force him back towards the sideline. There are times where
ball handlers in the NBA do get to the middle
of the floor, and I want to pretend like that
never happens. They'll just a lot of times like they'll
dribble down and then this guy will chase, and then
they'll use a retreat dribble which will get them back
(32:10):
onto that high side so they can get over. They
will get over, and when they do get over the
top of the screen, the same exact kind of coverage
principles apply. The only difference you'll see is sometimes if
the ball handler gets way over here, they may ask
this guy to be the low man. Once the ball
crosses that midline, this guy becomes the low man, as
opposed to on an ice when they funnel this way,
this guy is your low man. Right. So there are
(32:31):
some differences in the floor contruct but most teams are
going to try to ice that ball screen and funnel
him back towards the sideline. Right, So as he funnels
him towards the sideline, this guy's in his drop coverage,
he funnels towards the sideline he's chasing. Chet is gonna
pop right here and he's gonna be wide open, and
he's gonna have a slow footed center closing out at
(32:53):
him that he can cook off the dribble and make
stuff happen. That's gonna be Hartenstein. Now, now this this
is going to be Chet guarded by a Ford. So
now what's gonna end up happening is a lot of
times Chet's gonna have this guy on him ball pressuring
whenever he has the ball. When Chet goes to set
a screen. If Chet, like let's say Isaiah Hartenstein goes
(33:15):
down to the dunker spot and Jalen Williams calls for
a screen and Chet goes to set it, this is
probably just going to be a switch. They'll just switch
the ball screen and now Jadub will be going against
the Ford and Chet will be going against the two guard.
That's not going to be a drop or an ice
the way that you see in most of these ball
screen coverages when he's at the five. That so that
(33:37):
inherently is going to prevent some of those openings that
Chet gets in terms of clean catches on the perimeter.
The second piece of it is having to run action.
As we talked about earlier. Let's imagine Isaiah Hartenstein is
our ball handling Fulkrum right up here right, so he's
our fulk Crum, and we have Hartenstein getting ready to
(33:57):
run Chicago action. So Jadub run down. He sets a
pin screen or a pin down screen for Shae. Shae
comes off the dribble handoff. These two guys switch. Isaiah
Hartenstein goes to flow into it. These guys, let's say
they deny it, or let's just for the sake of
making it work, look kind of a different look than
we've already shown. Let's say Shae gets over the screen,
(34:18):
so Isai Hartenstein's that's a pick. Shae gets over the screen.
He comes down into this zone. Let's say this guy
offers Nail help. So there's just a lot of traffic
in here around Shae. Shae would make the kickout pass
over here to lou Dort, at which point lou Dort
would flow down into a dribble handoff where Chet would
(34:39):
come off. This guy would switch. Now lou Dohrt's defender
is guarding Chet on the ball, and as as shay
Kind of cycles through and Jalen cycles up, Hartenstein's going
to turn and go set the screen. So now Chet
is running action as the primary ball handler in five out.
Because of Isaiah Hartenstein being the five man, that is
(35:02):
going to put Chet in positions where he's going against
a quicker perimeter defender who's pressuring the ball and testing
the ability of his handle as he gets into the lane,
testing his ability to play, playmake as they come off
of those situations. So that, like I said, in terms
of the offensive end of the four going with two bigs,
I don't worry about Hartenstein at all. My only real
(35:22):
concern is will Chet be able to function offensively in
more of a perimeter role where the ball is in
his hands more to be clear, like in the long run,
I'm a big believer in Chet in what he can
do with the basketball in his hands, but I just
don't think he's quite ready for that yet. So I'm
really curious to see how he fares in that role
next year. And I do expect some lumps in the
(35:44):
regular season, especially when they go to those big looks,
but as long as they can figure that out over
the course of the eighty two and Chet makes enough
progress before they get to the postseason, that'll be a
viable look for them, and they will always have the
option of going back to their small ball look, which
is going to be better this year because you have
Alex Cruso instead of Josh Gitty. Under any circumstances, it's
a better look, and I expect them to be better
(36:05):
defensively immediately with Hartenstein on the floor alongside Shed, I
expect those big looks to be stifling on the defensive
end of the floor. So overall, love to fit, love
that it gives them more matchup versatility in the long
run by having a big look. I still think in
the law, I still think i'd prefer if they had
a forward look as well, where Chet has a big
(36:27):
forward next to him, just because I think that that
would give them a little bit more versatility, because I
think they've got like a really good small ball look
and a really good big look, but they don't have
anything that's kind of in between that's traditional. That is
something I'd like to see them address in the long run.
But Hartenstein gives you the ability to have at least
some of those benefits in the short term, and you
(36:49):
have the flexibility two years from now by virtue of
the way that deal is structured, so you can be
picky and you can be patient in the process of
trying to hunt down whoever that Foreman was lastly kind
of talking about the thunder and the big picture. I
think the addition of Crusoe and Hartenstein makes Oklahoma City
a top tier championship contender. I probably still have them
behind Boston and Denver by some small amount, at least
(37:09):
until we see these guys play. And there are some
other teams potentially Philly potentially, some other teams that make
a trade this summer. There are some other teams that
could be entering into that tier Minnesota and Dallas two
potentially as we kind of look into it. But I
definitely view Oklahoma City in that tier right now. They
just added two quality starting caliber players. They only had
(37:31):
four of those last year. Now they have six of them,
just like Boston does. So we'll actually rank our contenders
later in the summer. We usually do that, like middle September,
as we kind of get ready for training camp, we'll
rank our contenders. But I want to wait until all
of the signings and trades come through before we do
that just because there's just going to be a lot
of new information over the course of the next couple
(37:52):
of months. But I do at this point have Oklahoma
City in that top tier of contenders by virtue of
these two moves. I really wanted Hartenstein to the Thunder.
We got it. It's going to be a lot of fun,
(38:17):
all right. CP three to the Spurs. I love this
move because it accomplishes two things. It gives Victor weben
Yama a high level ball handler to make things easier
for him on offense. To give you an idea, Victor
only got two point five rollman possessions per game last year.
That's the same amount as Rudy Gobert, stonehands, Rudy Gobert
(38:37):
and with who doesn't play with passers right, And that's
half as many as the star bigs at the top
of the league, guys like Anthony Davis, guys like Joel Embiid,
because those guys play with high level ball handlers who
consistently set them up with those opportunities. Here's a crazy
stat for you, guys. Victor only logged two point two
cut possessions per game. Those are easy feeds around the
(38:58):
rim for quick finishes right, Trace Jackson Davis are the
Warriors who played less than seventeen minutes per game logged
more cut possessions per game than Victor Webbin Yama in
about half as many minutes. Guess who was the primary
guard for most of those Tray Jackson Davis minutes. Chris Paul. So, like,
(39:20):
is Chris Paul gonna make the Spurs into a championship contender?
Obviously not, But he's just gonna allow them to function
more like a normal basketball team on offense. He's going
to generate those higher quality opportunities for Victor Webbin Yama
that most of his peers at the position get. And again, like,
the big thing is, in the long run, they are
eventually going to have a star ball handler next to
(39:41):
Victor and we don't know who it's gonna be, and
we'll talk about that in a minute, but he's eventually
going to play alongside this type of guy. Why not
let him get some reps learning how to do that
in the short term. While the second thing this accomplishes
maintaining flexibility. Because it's a one year deal, a lot of
the ball handlers that were available to the Spurs this
(40:02):
summer didn't make a lot of sense. De Jontay Murray
isn't good enough to be your primary ball handler. Trey
Young is good enough, but he comes with a lot
of other issues as we know, attitude issues, defense issues.
Donovan Mitchell just re upped in Cleveland, so he's not
an option. Darius Garland's kind of an interesting option in
terms of the fit, but I don't think he's good
enough to be the best ballhandler on a championship team.
Paul George was too old. Brandon Ingram isn't good enough either.
(40:25):
This is the summer for fringe stars to be hunted
by contenders, not for young teams to look for foundational pieces.
And so this, for instance, we just talked about the Thunder.
This is why the Thunder went for Hartenstein instead of
making some sort of other deal. They're probably looking at it, like,
you know, we don't view Lori markin In as a
guy on a max contract that is worth it in
(40:45):
the context of Jalen Williams and Shay we would rather
wait for a different type of player, right, So Hartenstein,
they have the cat flexibility to do it. That was
them kind of making the same type of decision that
the Spurs are talking about this. There weren't a lot
of foundation type of talent available this summer to try
to go after CP three. Gives the Spurs another year
(41:06):
to wait things out, and maybe Devin Vessel takes another
step forward. He had his best scoring volume in efficiency
year last year. Maybe he takes a step forward. It
looks like he could be that guy in the long
run Stefan Castle, who the Spurs drafted at the top
of the first round, Like, maybe he learns how to
shoot this year, and maybe that kind of turns into
a guy that the Spurs project as a ball handler,
or maybe a different a guy becomes available in the
(41:29):
trade market and the Spurs can jump in there and
try to make a move. And like, the one thing
is Victor is so talented already that he applies more
timeline pressure in the sense that like, you don't want
to wait five years to be good, because Victor could
be a top ten player literally next year, and there's
a certain pressure that comes with that. Right. But I
thought this was a savvy move by the Spurs. It
(41:50):
just again is going to give them that flexibility to
wait out a better ball handling option while giving them
a giving Victor at least a facsimile of that to
practice with for the season. And most importantly, it's gonna
make the Spurs more fun to watch. These Spurs were
like watching college basketball last year. Just the ball handling
capability was so low it made them really difficult to watch.
Victor women Yamo was the only saving grace of them
(42:10):
as a television product. Getting a CP three out there
and having them look more organized on offense will help
a lot. Last hit for today, Desonte Murray to the
New Orleans Pelicans. This move was all about rim pressure.
In my opinion, guy like CJ McCollum, you averaged nine
point nine drives per game last year for the Pelicans.
Dejonte by himself averaged fifteen point one. Deshonte attempts over
(42:34):
eight shots per game in the paint, and so this
kind of like we talked about earlier, is going to
go back to what we talked about after the playoffs
and that five biggest things. One of the things that
I took as one of my five biggest takeaways from
that playoff run was rim pressure is the most valuable
thing for shot quality, right, and there's a bunch of
different ways to get rim pressure. You can do it
(42:56):
in the post. You can do it, cutting, you can
do it crashing the offense of glass. You can do
it rolling in ball screens. There's a bunch of different ways,
but the most resilient way in the playoffs to do
it is dribble drive penetration. Right, the ability to beat
people off the dribble is the easiest way to generate
that type of rim pressure. And so in these situations,
(43:16):
like if you look at the Pelican, Zion Williamson was
really the only guy for them last year generated sustainable
rim pressure. Yonis did a bunch on the glass in
the post, but he was so matchup specific and like
incapable of being played against certain types of teams that
it didn't really add up to much in real tangible
value for the Pelicans. Right, Like Zion was the only
kind of dependable rim pressure they had. You guys watched
(43:38):
in that Lakers playing game just how damaging Zion can be,
just because it can beat people off the dribble. And
like even CJ and Brandon Ingram, they're like pull up
shooters who are like in ISO situations, mainly going to
step back or turn around jump shots. They both need
screens to get all the way to the rim, as
(44:00):
Jonte is a guy who can legit just beat the
man in front of him off the dribble, and that
is where he's going to bring the most value of
value for this team on the offensive end of the flour.
I like this move because when I think of like
the idealized version of the Pelicans in the long run,
I view them as a driving kick team. I look
at them as a team that should use de Jontay
Murray and Zion Williamson to break down the defense at
(44:22):
the start to get the defense in rotation, and then
these guys Trey Murphy is like a professional closeout attacker.
Herb Jones made a lot of progress this last year
as a closeout attacker. Like I even prefer CJ. McCollum
and Brandon Ingram operating with an advantage because of their
high level of skill and so like to me, this
is a move in the direction of the Pelicans being
more of a driving kick team, which I think is
(44:43):
going to be good for them in the long run.
And then they can layer their pull up shooting on
top of that. As we know CJ and Brandon Ingram
are pull up shooters, but there's not as much resilience
there you saw in the Thunder series. It's like those
pull up jumpers start to miss suddenly they both become
relatively ineffective basketball player, right, And so like there's more
resilience to drive and kick basketball than pull up three
(45:04):
point shooting. It's like the difference between the Suns and
the Boston Celtics, right, Like Boston was more diligent about driving,
Phoenix wanted to settle for a ton of pull up
jumpers and ended up being the death of them. Right.
So like, this to me is a good move in
that direction. But Dejonte also brings high level pull up
shooting as well. He shot forty five percent on pull
up jumpers last year fifty one percent when you weigh
it for threes one point zero two points per shot.
(45:26):
He was one of only nine players in the league
to attempt at least five hundred pull up jump shots
and to maintain an efficiency over one point per shot.
He's in a rare group of efficient pull up jump
shooters in the NBA. He also had the best catch
and shoot season of his career. He got one point
one seven points per catch and shoot jumper. He shot
forty six percent from the field, like just straight field
(45:48):
goal percentage on unguarded catch and shoot jump shots. So
if that's a trend and not a blip, then we're
talking about some real upside to this trade. And Dejonte's
got like real scoring pop. He was one of the
best ISO players in the league last year. He got
one point one points per possession out of ISOs including passes,
according to Synergy. That ranked sixth out of nineteen players
(46:09):
to run at least three hundred ISOs. Last year, he
had thirteen to thirty point games, He had four forty
point games, he had multiple game winners. He had at
least eight assists in twenty five games. Like, he's just
a damn good basketball player. And like again, part of
it is just Atlanta and their situation, and it's just
(46:29):
the lack of success, lack of team success that came
out of that situation. I think put Dejonte in a
position where he's discounted. But he's a player I was
a huge believer in. I really wanted him for the Lakers,
and so I'm really excited for Pelicans fans because I
think they got a good one here. He's also a
bit of an asshole, and I mean that in the
best way, Like you need to have that asshole streak
to be like an effective basketball player and knockdown, drag
(46:52):
out fights, and he's just that type of guy, and
I think Pelicans fans are really gonna like him. I
have two main concerns and they're the same concerns I
talked about when Dejonte was first being rumored for the
Lakers last year around the deadline. Just hasn't been very
good defensively since leaving San Antonio, but the capability is
obviously there. It's not like he lost his talent on
(47:12):
that end of the floor. It's just about commitment. Hasn't
done it since leaving San Antonio, where he was an
all defense guy. So he just needs to get that
piece back, and hopefully by virtue of just being on
a team that has this much talent and the Pelicans
have a ton of talent now, just by virtue of
being on that sort of team, I think that he'll
have more energy resources to devote to that end of
the floor. But that'll be a big piece. And then
(47:33):
the second piece of it is he struggles to make layups,
shot just fifty two point nine percent on layups last
year according to Synergy. That ranked thirty seventh out of
forty four players who attempted at least three hundred layups
last year. There's pros and cons to that, right, Missed
layups usually mean occupied rim protectors, right, So like, there
are opportunities for offensive rebounds that come from that. But
the Pelicans are not a good offensive rebounding team. They
(47:55):
were nineteenth in offensive rebound percentage last year and they
just lost two of their top three offensive rebus in
Larry Nance Junior and Yonis Valanciuna, So that isn't really
a value add for the Pelicans. The downside is missed layups,
specifically from guards, especially when they're driving from above the break.
That leads to bad floor balance, which can lead to
(48:17):
transition opportunities that just to put it simply, just imagine
two guards above the break. If one drives in and misses,
there's only one guard back, and that can lead to
some transition opportunities. With Russell Westbrook when he used to
miss layups, it was an overwhelmingly bad experience for the Lakers,
So like, really for and to be clear on tape,
it's mostly about decision making. Dejonte will just over penetrate,
(48:39):
sometimes drive into rim protectors and try impossible layups that
end up hurting his percentage. So really it's going to
be about just better rim decisions, better decisions about when
to drive, not over penetrating when the help is already there,
making sure you have a plan when you get on
the dribble into the lane, making better reads when you
get there in terms of kick out passes and drop
(49:00):
off passes. As long as he does those sorts of things,
he should be able to clean that up. But again,
those are the two things. Is he's got to recommit
on the defensive end, and he's got to be able
to make layups or at least better decisions when he
gets to the rim. I had a third there. Last
year's catching shoot season was a little bit of an
outlier for him. That needs to be a trend and
not a blip for him to continue to function as
(49:21):
part of the driving kick that the Pelicans are going
to try to build out overall. I like the deal
though Dyson Daniels is a really interesting young player, but
Dejonte is just a better player within the context of
trying to win right now, which I think the Pells
are trying to do. And I'm just generally really high
on Dejante. As I mentioned earlier, I wanted him for
the Pelicans, so I'm happy for Pelicans fans that they
get to root for him this season. All right, guys,
(49:43):
that is all I have for today. We're going to
be back tomorrow with a mail bag, probably have a
couple of mail bag breakouts over the course of the
time that we're off. I hope all of you guys
enjoy your holiday weekend and I will see you on Monday. Oh,
I'll see you on the mail bag, and then I
will see you after that. On Monday.
Speaker 1 (50:07):
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