Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. All right, well, good to hoops tonight. You're
at the volume. Happy Monday, everybody, hopeful of you guys
are having a great start to your week. We are
continuing our player rankings today with number twenty through number
(00:25):
eighteams some really interesting young players in this version of
the NBA. We've got a guy who's the number two
for a team that just won the championship that we're
going to dig into. A couple of number ones on
a couple of teams that are very different archetypes of players.
We're going to break down the differences in those archetypes.
Why I have the guys ranked where I have them.
I want to talk about the ceilings of these potential
(00:47):
guys because I think there's a difference in the ceiling
between a couple of these number ones. Lots of interesting
stuff to get into today. You guys are the job
before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops to Not
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(01:08):
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guys follow us over there. In the last not least,
if you guys want to get mailbag questions in our
mail bags over the course of this player ranking series
are going to be kind of geared towards the player ranking.
So if there's any specific guy that you disagree with
where he's ranked too high, too low on the list,
off the list, whatever it is, give your elevator pitch,
tell us as concisely as possible why you disagree, and
(01:31):
we'll get to those in our mail bags on Fridays
throughout the remainder of the list. All right, let's talk
some basketball. Number twenty Jadub Jalen Williams. Last season in
review for Jadub played in sixty nine games, average twenty
two points, five rebounds, and five assists, all career highs
for Jadub in his third year in the NBA two
(01:53):
point three stocks per game. He was tenth in the
entire NBA and total steers steals last year, which again
is impressive considering he missed thirteen games. His efficiency marks,
he's forty eight percent from the field. This is where
it gets a little complicated because his shooting actually was down
across the board last year, but he was dealing with
a wrist that was so messed up it had to
(02:15):
be surgically repaired after the NBA Finals, So I'm sure
that played a substantial role in his shooting percentages Throughout
the year. He was forty eight percent from the field,
that was a career low for him, thirty seven percent
from three that was down six percent from the previous year,
seventy nine percent from the foul line also a career low,
fifty four percent in effective field goal percentage career low,
(02:37):
and fifty seven percent true shooting, which is a career low.
So product is several things. Again, the biggest part of
it was simply that he was injured. He had a
torn ligament and a shooting wrist, and he played a
huge chunk of the season in the entire playoff run
with that. As anybody knows who's played any basketball, your
wrist is arguably the most important part of your follow
through and an injury there would be problematic for anyone.
(02:59):
Anybody who's ever out with everybody who's ever played basketball
is at least at one point tweaked their shooting wrist.
And it is just not fun when you're trying to
shoot the basketball. And I'm sure that played a role,
but there are other factors. For instance, his usage rate skyrocketed.
In his first two years in the NBA, he was
about a twenty one percent usage percentage. Last year he
(03:19):
was at twenty eight percent, and that obviously, like any
massive increase in volume, is likely to come with a
drop inefficiency. There are some counterexamples. For instance, the next
guy on this list is a guy who upped his
usage and upped his efficiency, but it's typically pretty rare.
Anytime you experience a large increase in usage, you're typically
going to see a little bit of a drop in
(03:40):
efficiency because you're gonna have to take some tougher, more
difficult shots as more responsibility falls on you. Some specific
shots were failing him last year, which kind of hurt
his percentages. He went down on layups from fifty nine
percent to fifty four percent year over year, and then
on floaters, which again is another shot that's going to
be impacted by His ris went down from forty two
(04:01):
percent to thirty seven percent. But by far the biggest
piece was just his jump shot, which again I associate
at least partially with the wrist injury at Jalen Williams.
Jumper this year was worth zero point one two fewer
points per shot than last year, roughly twelve percent. Right,
(04:22):
that's a substantial dip year over year in his jump shooting.
So Jason, if he got worse year over year and
all of these bits of shot making, how did he
go from out of the list to into the top twenty. Well,
there are three reasons for that. One, his race is
now surgically repaired, and I expect him to jump back
(04:43):
up as a shot maker next year. Again, the entire
structure of this list, and this is the second piece
of it, is to project forward to next season, and
j dub has improved in every other way as a
basketball player, so I expect him to continue to get
better coming into this year. It's something I'm factoring in.
And then third, he really broke out over the second
half of his playoff run, and frankly over the second
(05:06):
you know, the second the second two rounds of that
four round sequence. He was one of the best players
in the league at that point. Over his last thirteen
playoff games, stretching from Game seven against Denver to him
hoisting up the trophy, he averaged twenty three points, six rebounds,
and four assists per game on fifty seven percent true shooting.
(05:27):
He had at least twenty four points in six of
those thirteen games. He had a thirty four point game
against the Wolves in the Conference finals, and he had
a forty point game in the NBA Finals. So like
he kind of figured a lot of his stuff out
over the tail end of that playoff run and was
playing arguably higher than where I have him ranked on
(05:48):
this list. He conquered a lot of his personal demons
at that point, played the best basketball of his career
when he needed to to get the trophy. So as
I project J. Dub Ford into this coming season, I
expect him to average around twenty four six and six.
I expect him to be right back over sixty percent
true shooting like he was each of the first two
(06:09):
seasons of his career, and I expect him to continue
to be the all defense level defender that he was
this last season twenty four six and six on sixty
percent true shooting and all defense. That's a top twenty
player in the NBA, and that's what I'm expecting out
of Jadub this coming season now looking at his play
type data, last year was the first time in Jadub's
(06:29):
career where he logged over one thousand self creation possessions
meaning pick and rolls, post ups, and ISOs. Previous seasons
he was below that, and he was above average in
efficiency despite the drop in his shot making. Again, these
numbers are despite him being basically unable to make jump shots,
less likely to make floaters and layups, which is obviously
(06:50):
going to nuke his percentages. He ran one and twenty
five pick and rolls, ISOs and post ups including passes,
and generated zero point nine to six points per possession,
which is slightly above average. Again, considering the wrist injury
and the shot making issues, I expect him to be
firmly over a point per possession at volume next year.
In his shot creation somewhere around one point oh one
(07:12):
to one point oh two at about like you know,
somewhere about twelve hundred to fourteen hundred play types there, So,
like I think Jdub's going to be a very impactful
shot creator in this league. We're going to talk about
it a little bit in a minute as we compare
him to Jaln Brown, who we covered in our video
last week on Wednesday. But there's a level of like
playmaking and just general floor awareness that Jadub has for
(07:34):
a third year player on the wing that is really
really rare. In the playoffs last year, Jadub demonstrated a
remarkable ability to get all the way to the rim.
He attempted shots at the rim seven times per game,
which was the tenth highest mark out of the entire
playoff field, regardless of how many rounds your team played,
(07:58):
so including teams who lost in the first round like
the Milwaukee Bucks, the only players who played at least
three rounds and attempted more shots at the rim per
game than Jadub were Karl, Anthony Towns, and Anthony Edwards.
That's it now Again. That obviously doesn't account for drawing
fouls for guys like Shay Gilders Alexander, But even if
you just look at drives among all players to play
(08:21):
at least ten playoff games last year, Jadubb had the
fourth most drives per game, only Shay, Jalen Brunson and
Anthony Edwards drove the basketball more. It's a legit problem
for defenses. He brings like real downhill power on his drives.
He had a lot of success in semi transition in
(08:42):
this playoff run where he would kind of like get
going up the floor as the defense you know, it's
not really a full transition possession, but before the defense
is really set, and then he would just take that
power dribble and get into the lane and drop his
right shoulder and then just power through the guy and
get all the way to the rim. He was doing
a ton of damage that way. This is a big
part of why I have Jalen Williams above a guy
(09:03):
like Jalen Brown next year. Jalen Brown is a very
similar archetype of player right two way athletic wing. Theoretically,
he's far more experienced right but I think JB will
be better next year at the three key things that
define that small forward position. One. I think JDub is
better at getting to the rim. He was better at
(09:24):
getting to the rim last year in less space, So
as he continues to improve, I expect him And as
you know, we're gonna talk. We talked about it with
Jalen Brown on Wednesday. Jalen Brown's got a lot of
miles on his body. I don't expect him to get
more athletic in the coming seasons, so I think Jadub's
better at getting to the rim. I think jd will
be a better jump shooter next year. Reminder, the previous year,
(09:46):
JDub was good for one point one points per pull
up jump shot on over three hundred attempts. Jdubb was
one of the very best pull up shooters in the
entire NBA the year before last. I think JDub will
be a better jump shooter than Jalen Brown next season.
And lastly, I think Jdubb has already shown himself before
(10:08):
this point to be a better passer than Jaylen Brown
despite the lack of experience, and I think that gap
will continue to grow. He's just a more natural playmaker.
I do think Jalen Brown is a slightly better on
ball defender. Like if I had to deploy a single
guy on the opposing team's best player for a playoff series,
I think Jalen Brown is better there, but I think
(10:28):
Jadubb is nearly as good and is actually a better
overall team defender. I just think j Dubb is a
slightly better basketball player right now than Jalen Brown, and
I think that gap will continue to grow next year
and will continue to grow in the coming year. So
that's why I have JDub over Jylen Brown. The keys
for Jdub's development Obviously, getting a shot making ability back,
(10:51):
a healthy rists, and a good summer in the gym
will go a long way to fixing that. He still
makes a few poor decisions at the rim. This kind
of came to the surface in the series against Dallas
two years ago, but continued to be an issue in
this playoff run. He shot below fifty percent on layups
in this playoff run, similar issues to what shake Gil
(11:12):
justs Alexander was dealing with. I thought both of those
guys just kind of went through extended stretches of the
playoff run where they didn't trust their teammates on some
of their kickout reads. And even though jadeb is a
more natural playmaker, he still was just kind of getting
a little bit of tunnel vision on some of his
drives over the last couple of playoff runs. That's something
that I think will go a long way, Like layup percentage,
(11:33):
is like a combination of obviously your athleticism, but a
big part of layup percentage is just decision making, just
not taking stupid contested layups because contested layups they have
potential to serve a purpose for offensive rebounding if you
can engage a rim protector, but they also include the
risk of floor balance issues when you come screaming down
the lane and miss a layup. They could go the
(11:55):
other way and transition, Like, just making a few better
decisions on those drives would go a long way to
helping his layup efficiency. Again, he can see the reads,
he just needs to get into the habit of making them.
And then lastly, the consistency element. This is with all
young players, like guys like I have. The next two
guys on this list are guys that I think that
their respective fan bases will be very very like disappointed
(12:23):
with where I have them ranked. And one of my
big kind of general philosophies with young players is that
they're just they have a lot of fat in their games.
They have a lot of like mistake making that undercuts
their success, and so it's really easy to look at
their upside and all their potential and be like, oh
my god, this is what they can do. But it's
not until they trim the fat and get more consistent
(12:44):
on the good stuff that they can actually enter the
levels of impact and you know, influence on the NBA
landscape that the top ten players in this league have.
And when we look at the consistency with jadub like
when Jadubbs scored the ball well the thunder just one,
they were fourteen and two in the playoffs. When jaydub
(13:05):
scored at least eighteen points, they were just two and
five in the playoffs when he failed to score eighteen points.
So just bringing that level of consistency will go a
long way towards helping him get to that next level.
But for right now, I was thinking about this a lot,
like I think jadav might already be the best small
forward in the NBA. I was looking at the rest
(13:29):
of the list, and every forward that I have ahead
of him is either like a point forward, someone like
Kay Cunningham or Luka Doncic, or more of a power forward.
Lebron James is a four, Pala Bancaro's of four, Kevin
Durants of four, Anthony Davis is a four. The only
real like small ford that I have ranked ahead of
him right now is Jimmy Butler, And I kind of
(13:51):
look at Jimmy Butler as almost more of a four
than a three at this point, because I think one
of the important characteristics of the three is you need
to be able to pick up the opposing ball handlers
and guard them on the perimeter at a really high
level at large volume. And Jimmy Butler when he was
in his prime could do that, But now I view
him as more of like a help side, you know,
kind of like team defender at this phase of his career.
(14:13):
But technically, I suppose you could call Jimmy Butler this
small forward that I have ranked ahead of ja Dubb.
But certainly within the next you know, eighteen months twenty
four months, Jadub I think will have a stranglehold as
the best like like real three, real small forward in
the NBA. And what's interesting about Jada or with Jimmy
(14:34):
is like Jimmy essentially represents what I view as the
older generation of Jadab. He's the guy that JDub reminds
me the most of. And again, the only reason why
I have Jimmy ahead of JDub right now is you
guys know how much I value veteran experience in the postseason,
and I just generally lean on that sort of guy
as a super valuable player to have on a team.
(14:56):
Like I Like, I know, it sounds crazy because we
look look at how much consistency and production you get
from these young athletes that are just there every single night.
But like I believe if you like swapped Jimmy and
JDub for just this season, that the Thunder would actually
be a better basketball team just for this season. But
(15:16):
in the big picture, I view Jdubb as the best
small forward in the NBA as we look forward into
the next era of NBA basketball. Currently sits at number
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(17:11):
season in review, he played just forty six games to
do an oblique injury came out the gates screaming, had
a fifty point game in the first week of the season,
then suffers this really unfortunate oblique injury that cuts a
massive swath of games out of his out of his
season his averages. He averaged a career high twenty six
points per game, career high eight rebounds per game, four
point eight assists per game, which was actually down from
(17:34):
last year one point four stocks per game, as well
as efficiency. Shot forty five percent from the field. He
actually shot fifty one percent on twos, which was a
career high for him, and thirty two percent from three,
which was slightly down year over year, but there was
an increase in volume. He was also at seventy three
percent from the line on a career high eight and
(17:55):
a half attempts per game, So this all amounted to
Paolo actually the substantially increasing his scoring volume substantially increasing
his usage rate while also increasing his efficiency, which is
a very rare feat in the NBA. He finished the
year over fifty five percent in true shooting percentage, which
(18:16):
was a career high. And again, if you consider that
Paalo Boncaro took the third most mid range jump shots
per game out of any player in the NBA last
year and shot just forty two percent on him, like
he was one of the worst volume mid range jump
shooters in the NBA, and he still went up in
efficiency and was over fifty five percent in true shooting.
(18:39):
That's actually pretty impressive, at least in terms of his
of like a of an example or a description of
his potential in the NBA, Like, holy shit, he's got
all this fat in his game that he needs to
trim and he's still like increasing in terms of efficiency
because of all of his natural ability that he brings
to the table. We're definitely gonna have a bigger conversation
about Palo in his mid range jump shooting here in
(19:01):
a few minutes, because it is an interesting debate and
it's already been. Something that's been discussed this offseason is
his videos of his workouts have kind of gone viral.
So let's look into some play type data. Now. Before
we go into any specific play types, it is important
for us to acknowledge a basic reality about Orlando's roster.
Last year. They were the very worst jump shooting team
in the league by a mile. They got just zero
(19:23):
point ninety three points per jump shot as a team,
that was four point three points per one hundred jump
shots worse than the twenty ninth ranked team. The gap
between Orlando at thirty and number twenty nine was the
same as the gap between number twenty nine and number
twenty one on that list, So they were far and
away the worst jump shooting team in the league. They
(19:44):
were the only team in the entire NBA to get
less than one point per catch and shoot jump shot.
They were the worst off the dribble jump shooting team
in the NBA. Even if you added the ability to
drive closeouts, that only slid them up to twenty eighth
in spot up efficiency. They were also twenty eighth in
rollman efficiency. They only shot they shot below thirty percent
(20:05):
on pick and pop threes or ghost screen threes with
their guards. They were even twenty ninth in the league
on two point shots out of rollman possession. So in
other words, this team was far and away the worst
play finishing team in the NBA. The entire purpose of
running action or having a star that can break down
the defense is to generate clean looks for people either
(20:27):
as cutters, rollers or in spot up situations, and they
could not finish in those situations, and so that obviously
is going to have an effect on their efficiency out
of those types of actions. Even the one on one shots,
the shots that Palo and Franz take when they're dribbling
the basketball, those are more difficult because of all the
increased help that they have to face because guys can't
(20:49):
finish plays. So it's just an important context inside these
this data that we're about to look at. Even above
and beyond the issues with play finishing, I also thought
or had one of the over the last couple of years,
one of the least inventive offenses in the NBA. Very
little in the way of ball and player movement, a
lot of Franz and Polo just pounding the ball out
(21:10):
above the break and taking just simple ghost screens from
guards or simple ball screens from Wendell Carter Junior or
Googa to Toadze just a really basic, like unrefined offensive approach.
And here's the thing, like, when you have guys that
are supreme offensive initiators, you know, over the years, when
we look at guys that played in lower ball and
(21:31):
player movement offenses, like you know, Lebron James at the
peak of his powers or Luka Doncics recently, in those
sorts of situations, they're usually like one, a super high
level supreme ball handler like you know, Lebron arguably the
greatest player of all time, Luka Doncic one of the
top you know, four or five offensive engines of all time.
Those guys are going to make difficult basketball look easy.
(21:55):
In addition to that, they were typically surrounded by really smart,
high IQ veteran basketball players that could shoot, and that
goes a long way towards making that a viable way
to play basketball. But when you've got unrefined young stars
with a complete and total lack of refined offensive skill
off the ball, that's just a really dumb way to play.
(22:16):
For lack of a better word, there needs to be
Jamal Mooley needs to do a better job of adding
complication to that offense to make this easier to set
them up with more advantages, because right now it's just
letting Palo and Franz pound the ball out front and
taking a single screen late in the clock. That's just
making life harder on them than it needs to be.
(22:38):
Adding more complications, more ball in player movement will create
higher quality advantages. It will get some of their athletes
going downhill against a defense in motion instead of against
the defense that's loaded up. It's something that they've got
to change. But on that note, Poalo's play type data
wasn't great. Zero point nine to five points per possession
including passes on four hundred and sixty nine pick and rolls.
(22:59):
That's slightly below average. Zero point nine to seven points
per possession including passes on three hundred and eighteen ISOs
very slightly above average. Out of the twenty three players
in the NBA to run at least two hundred and
fifty ISOs. Last year, Pallow's zero point ninety seven points
per possession including passes ranked fourteenth, so just a little
below the middle of the pack. There zero point nine
(23:21):
to eight points per possession including passes one hundred and
sixty one post ups very below average and a big
part of that is, like Palo just doesn't take hook shots.
He takes turnaround fade aways, which is just a really
difficult way to play out of the post unless you're
Kobe or mj and or Kawhi Leonard and you're shooting
over fifty one percent or fifty percent on you know,
fade away jump shots over both shoulders, which Pallo does
(23:43):
not do. So there a lot of that is, like
I'd love to see Palo just add a little bit
more of a power kind of like hook shot game.
He shoots really well on floaters, which we're gonna get
to in a minute. So like I actually do think
he has the short range touch to eventually become a
guy that can lean on that hook shot. We're about
to talk about Kid Cunningham in a little bit. Kay
Cunningham is a player who's become a very impactful post
(24:03):
up player because he has a little baby hook over
his left shoulder that he hits well over fifty percent
of the time. That is a shot that Paolo needs
to add to his game that will make him a
more efficient post up player. So there are a lot
of different ways for Orlando to become more efficient with
Paalo having the ball in his hands. One is for
them to run more sophisticated offense, which we talked about earlier. Again,
(24:25):
all that is just complications getting up the ball, getting
the ball up the floor quickly, trying to play more
in transition when you get into the half court, getting
into multiple actions, so three man action at the beginning
of possessions, getting the ball flowing side to side, more
ball in player movement to prevent some of the stagnation
that they deal with. Two is for the play finishing
(24:46):
to improve. Like guys have to hit catch shot jump
shots when they're open. Guys have to be able to
drive closeouts. Guys have to be able to score when
they catch on the roll. Like we're going to talk
about Polo's playmaking here in a little bit, and you know,
if he's gonna why in the hell would Paalo trust
his teammates when they can't make shots, you know what
(25:06):
I mean? And that's not to say that he shouldn't
be learning how to do that anyway. The point is
is like, as a front office, if you want to
incentivize Palo's development as a playmaker, if you want to
accelerate Palo's development as a playmaker. You need to have
him feel like he's being rewarded for the decisions he's
making and when he's passing too far and away the
(25:27):
worst jump shooters in the NBA, that's going to have
an impact on the just trust that he has in
making the right play. That's something that's going to develop.
You've got to improve in your play finishing, and then three,
their ball handlers have to become more efficient as scores.
And again we're not going to talk about frauds today
because he's not on the list we're talking. We're zooming
in on Polo. Palo's shot making is generally okay. It's
(25:50):
fifty nine percent at the rim. That's not where he
should be for an athlete like himself, Like I'd like
to see Palo closer to sixty five percent at the rim.
But again, we'd be foolish to not can consider the
awful team wide jump shooting as a factor in his
ability to get all the way to the paint. Right,
he was forty nine percent on floaters, which is solid.
Doesn't take a ton of them, but he can knock
(26:12):
down floaters. That's a piece of that short range shot making,
which is a big part of why I want to
see him build out that left shoulder hook. Thirty eight
percent on unguarded catch and shoot threes. Not amazing, but
that's one point one five points per shot. That's an
efficient shot for him, So he has some efficient bits
of shot making in his game. The problem is is
he's one of the least efficient pull up jump shooters
(26:33):
in the league. There were forty two players in the
NBA last year to take at least three hundred pull
up jump shots. Pallow zero point nine points per shot,
ranked thirty eighth out of those forty two players. There's
a couple of specific details I want to get into, though,
because it's more complicated than just looking at the big
picture percentages. First of all, I'd like to see him
just cut down a little bit on his volume. Despite
(26:55):
being one of the worst pull up jump shooters in
the sport, he took the sixth most to pull up
jump shots per game out of anybody on that forty
two player list. Let's take Lebron James for example. Lebron
was also near the bottom of that list for pull
up jump shot efficiency. But Lebron knows that he's not
a great pull up jump shooter. So he takes fewer
(27:15):
of them. He takes about half as many as Polo.
And so despite Lebron being a poor pull up jump
shooter last year, he cut his volume substantially down and
he was super efficient at the rim. So Lebron was
still over sixty percent true shooting last year, substantially ahead
of where Palo was. That's a simple thing trimming the fat,
cutting down on some of that volume. That will help
(27:37):
Paalo in his overall efficiency. So if Paallo's going to
take fewer pull up jumpers per game, where should he
cut out these pull up jump shots? So we want
to look at where on the floor he's taken them
and when he's taking them on the shot clock. First
of all, where there are short twos, long twos, and
(27:58):
pull up threes. Right, Pallo is thirty percent on pull
up threes last year. That's zero point nine per points
per shot. That's not good. But that is the area
where if you just tweak it up a couple percentage points,
it suddenly becomes a good shot. If he can get
from thirty percent to thirty four percent, suddenly that's a
plenty fine efficient half court jump shot for his team. So,
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like a lot of skill development work geared towards the
pull up three will go a long way towards allowing
Palo to become more efficient. I also just think for
a guy his size, he's gonna get a lot of
clean looks on pull up three. So like, if he
can get to the point where that's a shot that
he knocks down just a touch more reliably, that could
be something that's more efficient for him. He was thirty
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one percent on long twos outside of seventeen feet, zero
point six to two points per shot. That's really bad.
And the problem was is he takes them at volume.
About a third of his pull up twos are outside
of seventeen feet. Those are shots that he basically needs
to cut out entirely unless he's in like, you know,
two three seconds on the shot, like I gotta put
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something up. He was fifty one point four percent on
short twos inside of seventeen feet. It's one point zero
three points possession. That's pretty good. He's actually one of
the best players in the league at that shot. Out
of the thirty six players to take at least one
hundred short twos, he ranked eighth out of those thirty
six players, So he's actually a very good short range
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pull up shooter. So the easy answer is he just
needs to tick up his three point shooting off the
jibble a little bit for it to become a more
efficient shot, and then he needs to cut out the
long twos entirely. Again, about a third of his pull
up twos are outside of seventeen feet. That just nukes
his efficiency. He's gotta cut those out. Like so, when
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we talk about the shot clock piece of it, Paolo
took four point seven mid range jump shots per game.
Only one point two of those four point seven in
mid range jump shots, so you know, roughly a fourth.
Only one point two of them took place in the
final seven seconds of the shot clock. So seventy five
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percent of the twos that he's taking off the dribble
are in a phase of the shot clock where there's
plenty of time left to try to get something better.
So everything for Palo is about order of operations. When
he gets a favorable matchup and gets close to the rim,
his pull up twos are fine. He's good at those
(30:31):
short jump shots, but if there's time on the clock,
he needs to work it around and look for better
shots and only take those tougher twos when he's up
against the shot clock, and then as a skill development
piece to help save energy during the course of an
eighty two game season. If he could build out that
pull up three point shot to just a touch more reliable,
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that could be something that is a reliable shot of
more efficient shot for him to look at. But again,
despite the poor spacing and the poor shot selection, he
still raised. His efficiency was still over fifty five per
century shooting, which isn't terrible. This is what has always
had me so excited about Palo Bonkarra. Despite the poor spacing,
Plow still shot at the rim seven times per game
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last year and got to the foul line a ton.
Truly big and strong ball handlers like that are just
so hard to deal with for a defense. His seven
attempts per game at the rim was top twenty in
the NBA this year. Again, despite the awful spacing and
that big size, it just brings so much utility as
(31:36):
a rebounder and as a defender. He's not particularly great
and any of that stuff. He's not a great reboundary,
he's not a great defensive player, but he's just so
gifted with his size and strength that he just adds
to the identity of the team. It feels like he's
adding to it, not taking away. Everything for Palo right
now is about refining. We talked about refining the shot selection.
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It's a us about the playmaking. And again this is
on the front office. If you want Palo to see
the best benefits of trusting his teammates, if you want
him to get addicted to making the right play, you
need to put players around him that will pay those
plays off with makes so that the magic can win
those games and so that Palo can start to develop
a more well rounded approach to offense. He was over
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thirty three percent in usage rate last year and was
below five assists per game. That's not just on Pallo,
that's also in the team construct here. I'm hoping Desmond
Bain entering the equation will actually help a lot with this,
creating more openings, creating a two man game partner that
Pallo will trust every single time down the floor that
he can feed the ball to consistently. I think Palo
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is one of the most naturally gifted young players in
the league, not even twenty three years old, yet barely
scratching the surface of what he's capable of being, and
I already have him as the nineteenth best player in
the NBA. All right, last guy for today, Kate Cunningham.
Last season interview. He played seventy games, average twenty six
point six rebounds and nine assists, one point eight stocks,
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a career high in points and assists for Kid, forty
seven percent from the field, career high, thirty six percent
from three career high, eighty five percent from the line
on five point three attempts, which was a career high,
fifty two percent effective field goal percentage which was a
career high, and fifty seven percent in true shooting, which
was a career high. He made the All NBA Team
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for the first time. He made the All Star Team
for the first time, finished seventh in MVP voting, which
was his first time at receiving MVP votes. So a
resounding step forward for Caid Cunningham as one of the
next great offensive engines in the NBA. I want to
talk a little bit about just kind of where I
have these guys ranked for a minute before we get
into some of the specifics with Kid, so on a
(33:44):
foundational level, if you're wondering why I have a guy
like Cad over a guy like Paalo, And again this
is projecting forward. Obviously Cad had a better season, but
if we're looking at, you know, healthy Paalo going into
next season, healthy Caid, why do I project KD to
be a better player. A lot of this has to
do just simply with my personal view of the game
of basketball, which is I just value advantage creation and
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offensive engines, guys that just are supremely gifted at setting
up their teammates with so many advantages that they just
have a super high offensive floor. It's a concept we've
talked endlessly about over the course of the last few months,
especially with guys like Tyrese Halibert making a deep playoff
run right. I generally value Cade's archetype more than I
(34:28):
value Palo Boncaro's archetype. That's a big part of why
I have him ahead. It's also probably worth mentioning here.
I know that there will be Pistons fans especially, and
probably some Magic fans as well, who are pissed off
that I have these guys as low as I do
this a lot. This generally has a lot to do
with my feelings about young basketball players. Cad and Palo
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both have worlds of potential and they're already showing so
much of their upside, But both players have so much
fat in their games right now. We talked about Pallow
his shot selection and like his trust in his teammates.
Right with Caid, his jump shot fell apart in the postseason,
especially from three point land. The turnovers were a big issue.
(35:10):
He had at least six turnovers and three of the
six first round games against the Knicks. Young players are
extremely mistake prone and that undercuts so much of their upside.
So in other words, I'm a really big believer in
both Caid and Palo, even as different archetypes for different reasons,
but I think both of them are a few years
away from like really being impactful in the NBA landscape,
(35:33):
because it just has to do with my big picture
feelings about young players in the NBA. Let's look at
Kaid's play type data pick and roll. Caid was an
excellent pick and roll player last year fifteen hundred and
sixty six pick and rolls including passes one point zero
four points per possession, which is good basically middle of
the pack for our high volume list for the players
who ran over a thousand of them. He's just your
(35:55):
textbook methodical pick and roll player. It brings the combination
of size and strength and ball handling that can consistently
get players out of position, like on his hip, on
his backside right, and then from there he just methodically
makes reads as he's working down the lane. It's Luke
a light, right. It's that ability to just get the
defender in jail, work his way through the lane and
(36:16):
basically wait for the defense to react. Oh, the screen
defender stepped up. I'm gonna drop it off to Jalen
Duran for a dunk, or throw a lot to Jalen
Durn for a dunk. Oh, they're picking me up at
the level, and they're bringing a low man over for Duran.
I'm making the swing pass over to the weak side
corner to beat the guy who's tagging the roller. These
basic sequences of reeds. He's even above and beyond pick
(36:37):
and roll play. He's just an excellent transition passer, constantly
hunting shooters. He was doing it with Tim Hardaway Junior
and Malik Beasley last year. He'll be doing it with
Duncan Robinson this year. Right, It's that relentless, just advantage hunting.
Every single time a help defender really sinks in off
of a guy, he's going to make that read. And
just you want to know why as a young ball handler, again,
(36:59):
a super young ball handler, he's already cracking the high
volume list as one of the more efficient ball handlers
in the league, like he was just as efficient as
a pick and roll player as an experienced veteran like
James Harden was last year. It all comes down to
the fact that when you consistently set up NBA level
talent with advantages with guys sprinting at them, when you
(37:21):
do that constantly at high volume throughout basketball games, You're
just gonna score a lot of points. It's going to
naturally lead to efficient offense. It's why I'm such a
big believer in that archetype. He's that big ball handler
that relentlessly makes all the reads that is going to
give you such a high offensive floor in the modern
(37:43):
NBA shot making mix bag. For Kate, he was only
thirty two percent on pull up threes in the regular season.
He was abysmal on them in the playoffs. So that's
definitely going to need to be a big area of
improve it for him. He's actually a very gifted short
range shot maker, which we're going to talk about in
a minute, but the long range shot making is super
inconsistent for him right now. He's gonna have to figure
that out. He was really good about indexing his mid
(38:05):
range pull ups towards the shorter ones closer to the basket.
We talked about how with Paollo the that like legitimately
a third of his twos were outside of seventeen feet,
four kaid it's a much higher percentage. It's like closer
to eighty percent of his two's are inside of seventeen feet.
He just takes a lot more of these floaters, hooks,
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short range jump shots, not too many of the long twos,
which helps his efficiency a lot. He took two hundred
and twenty one pull up twos inside of seventeen feet
and made fifty one percent of them. That's a really
strong number. He even kept that up at about forty
six percent in the postseason, which isn't terrible considering how
poorly he shot on his other jump shots. He's also
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fifty one point four percent on floaters and hooks. He's
just a very good short range shot maker, which works
really well because of his ability to shield defenders off
and to get close to the rim where he can
be so deadly with that shot making. Again, if you
combine that with him blossoming into one of the best
passers in the NBA, he's just a very very good
(39:09):
pick and roll player, a bonafide offensive engine, a foundational,
foundational offensive engine that just makes life easier in the
modern NBA. He was a very good post up player
as well. We were talking about this with Paalo earlier,
the big difference between Caid and Palo and why Palo
y Palo was an inefficient post up player, and why
(39:30):
Cade was getting one point one six points per possession
one hundred and eighty one possessions including passes, which is
literally one of the best post up players in the league.
Out of the twenty four players to run at least
one hundred and fifty post ups, Kid ranked sixth inefficiency.
The reason why is he built out a super reliable
baby hook shot over his left shoulder fifty five percent
(39:50):
on them, so he can make very simple reads against
smaller defenders. Clear the side, get to that left block,
back them down, work towards the middle the defense doesn't come.
I'm just going right over that left shoulder with the hook.
The defense reacts, I'm spraying out to the right shooter
or the cutter along the baseline. Every single time. It
made him a hyper reliable post up player. Again, he
was nineteen points per one hundred post ups more efficient
(40:12):
than Pala Boncaro because of that simple dynamic of his
ability to trust his teammates to make the spray outs
while also hitting the hooks. And again we're gonna continue
to factor in the fact that Detroit had better shooting
than Orlando did. But Detroit was roughly a middle of
the pack jump shooting team. It wasn't like they were
an elite jump shooting team, and there was a substantial
increase in CAD's efficiency in that specific spot on the floor. Again,
(40:36):
he's cut from the same cloth as Lukadanciic, just like
a slow, methodical offensive engine that brings lots of size
and strength to that position. But there are three main
areas where Kid needs to improve. We mentioned the turnovers earlier.
He just needs to clean up those mistakes. They were
particularly a problem for him in the postseason. Secondly, he
needs to improve his distance jump shooting. Specifically his pull
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up three point shooting. He's very good off the catch.
He's thirty nine percent one point one to six points
per shot, which is good. Even against contests, he's actually
a little bit better. He's forty one percent on guarded
catch and shoot jump shot, so the touch is there.
On the long range shooting, he just seems to refine
his fluidity connecting dribble combinations and footwork to the end
of what he uses as his catch and shoot shot.
(41:19):
If he can refine all of that fluidity, he will
start knocking those down, and then lastly it's his rim finishing,
particularly layups. On the one hand, Kate attempted five hundred
and twenty four layups last year. That was the second
most in the entire NBA. Only Jannis and Tanacumbo attempted
more layups than Kay Cunningham did last year, but shot
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just fifty percent on them, which is legitimately awful. Out
of the thirty eight players in the NBA who attempted
at least three hund layups last year, he ranked thirty
sixth an efficiency on layups. Similarly to what we were
talking about with JDub A lot of that is just
decision making, just forcing the issue when he gets to
the rim, figuring out that there's a little bit better
balance in decision making at the rim to limit the
(42:02):
bad layups that are gonna Nucas percentage. Again, we talked
about this earlier, but to me, layup percentage is mostly
about there's a size in athleticism piece, but a lot
of layup percentage just comes down to decision making just
when you take a layup, because again, the contested layup
is just as bad as a tough pull up two
point shot. It's the same type of problematic low percentage
(42:25):
of low efficiency shot because it's only worth two points, right.
But uncontested layups are easier layups. They tend to go
in seventy eighty percent of the time. Those are the
ones that are gonna increase your efficiency substantially. The Luca
comparison is interesting to me because I don't actually think
Caid will ever reach the level that Luca has reached
on offense, although I do think he can get close.
(42:46):
I just don't think he has quite the natural ability
that Luca has. He kind of just reminds me of
a poor man's version of him. But Caid is a
substantially more capable defender. I've actually seen Cad on more
than one occasion do a really good job in some
on ball matchups. That was a big thing that stood
out to me in my prep for the Pistons Knicks
series was the job that Kad Cunningham did in the
(43:06):
regular season guarding Jalen Brunson. He's got really good instincts.
He's good at being physical with his hands without picking
up too many fouls. There's a version of this story
where Caid becomes a legitimate two way superstar. I think
Kid has real potential to enter into the top tier
of superstars in this league. I think he's a few
years away from getting there, but I think that potential
(43:30):
is really there. Let's take a guy like Palo, for instance.
Because Polo is neither a high level jump shooter or
a high level playmaker or an other worldly defender. I
think that kind of caps pallow out at being a
second tier star, like I think he can get into
the backside of the top ten. I think Paalo one
day could be a six, seventh, eighth best player in
(43:50):
the NBA. But when we're talking about the real top tier,
the tier that Jannis and Shay and Luca and Jokic occupy.
Right now, I'm not sure that Caid can, or excuse me,
I'm not sure that Palo can ever get to that
point because he just doesn't have that one supreme gift
that will drive him to true unguardability, so to speak.
Caid's combination of being like a legitimate, bonafide offensive engine,
(44:15):
like one of the guys that's going to be a
top tier offensive engine in this league, while also having
legitimate two way potential, I think that actually makes him
one of these special franchise cornerstones, one of the guys
that only comes around a few times each decade. Right now,
I have him at eighteenth on this list, but I
do believe that Caid has the potential to get up
into that top five at some point in the next
(44:38):
five years. All Right, guys, that's all I have for
today is always as sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting
me and supporting the show. We'll be back on Wednesday
with more players than our player rankings. I'll see you
guys then.