Jason predicts what will happen in the 2025 NBA season within the Northwest division including Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder, Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves, Scoot Henderson and the Portland Trail Blazers, as well as Lauri Markkanen and the Utah Jazz.
#Volume
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. All right, welcome to Hoops tonight. You're at
the volume heavy Friday, everybody hopefull you guys are having
a great end of your week. We are continuing our
(00:21):
season preview series today with the Northwest Division, so that's
the Denver Nuggets, the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Minnesota Timberwolves,
the Portland Trailblazers, and the Utah Jazz. We're gonna be
touching on all five of those teams today. You guys
are the Joe before we get started. To subscribe to
the Hoops and I YouTube channel so you don't miss
any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter, Underscore JCNLTC.
You guysn't misshow announcement, so forget about a podcast fore
(00:42):
you wherever you get your podcast on our Hoops Tonight.
It's also super helpful if you leave a rating in
a review on that front. Jackson's doing incredible work on
our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.
Make sure you guys follow us over there. The last
one at least. If you guys want to get mailbag
questions into our mail bags, drop them in the full
episodes on YouTube in the comments and we'll get to
them regularly throughout the season. Our next mail bag will
(01:05):
be the week after we finish this season preview series.
All right, let's talk some basketball. So we're starting with
the Denver Nuggets today. A little quick recap of their offseason.
They lost Vlaco Konsar, They lost DeAndre Jordan, Michael Porter, Junior,
Dario Sarich, and Russell Westbrook. They added Cam Johnson, Tim Hardaway, Junior,
(01:26):
Bruce Brown, Jonas Valenschiunis, and essentially adding Deron Holmes who's
coming back from an achilles tear, a guy who was
drafted in the first round last year but got hurt
in training camp, I believe, or either right before training camp,
but he's gonna be coming back this season. Then another
guy they added this summer that I'm gonna have my
eye on is Kessler Edwards. I'll have to compete for
(01:47):
a roster spot. But his per thirty six numbers were
pretty impressive last season. In addition to being a big,
physical perimeter athlete, he averaged ten points and seven rebounds
per thirty six minutes with a two point five to
one and assist to turnover ratio. Shot fifty percent from
the field forty one percent from three ninety two percent
from the line, so fifty to forty ninety A good
(02:08):
playmaker relative to most role players in that type of slot.
Two point three stocks per thirty six minutes. Another guy
that I think has a decent chance to impress in Nuggets'
training camp, So no way to look at this as
anything other than a massive influx of talent. I have
issues with the guy like Jonas Valancunis in a starting role,
(02:30):
but he's unquestionably a substantial upgrade from DeAndre Jordan as
a backup center. Cam Johnson is a better player than MPJ,
but I also think he's a better fit than MPJ
in this phase of the Nuggets contention window, which will
dive deeper into here in a minute. It won't be
hard for Deron Holmes to be better than Dario Sarach was,
(02:53):
and I think that the combination of Bruce Brown and
Tim Hardaway Junior is a big step up from Russell
Westbrook coming off. So this is quite simply the best
roster that Nikola Joka just had to work with in
his entire NBA career, and it's a big part of
why I'm so high on the Nuggets coming into this
particular season. Let's start with the Cam Johnson fit. We've
talked about this plenty over the summer, but i'll go
(03:15):
over quickly again here. I think Cam represents an upgrade
over MPG in two clear areas that I think will
help the Nuggets on both ends of the floor. First
is the fact that he's just a much better ball
handler than Michael Porter Junior. The lack of reliable ball
handling outside of guys like Jamal Murray and a little
bit of Aaron Gordon was a big part of why
(03:36):
Denver had to take high risk options like Russell Westbrook
or leaning a lot on a young Julian Strawther. Now
Mike Coel Porter Junior could scale up his offense a bit,
as we've talked about over the years, especially versus lower
level competition, but mostly in handoffs, and again that had
some limitations as you went against the higher level teams
in the league. I think Cam Johnson is just a
(03:57):
much better ball handler than Mike. He should be able
to actually run action both with Jokic and without Jokich
on the floor. I also like this in the context
of Tim Hardaway Junior, who should be able to come
in and run many of those same dribble handoff actions
that Michael Porter Junior ran with nikolea Jokic. In short,
the team has substantially more offensive firepower. Now, if you,
(04:21):
as a Nuggets fan, are worried about the catch and
shoot side of the catch and shoot side of things, yes,
Michael Porter Junior was taller. I'd argue at like pure
stand still shooting because of his height and the slight
increase in percentage, he's a little better than Cam Johnson there,
but it doesn't really manifest much in the percentages. Cam
was forty percent on catch and shoot threes last year,
so was Michael Porter Junior. Cam was forty four percent
(04:44):
on unguarded catch and shoot threes. Michael Porter Junior was
forty five percent. So not much of a statistical difference there,
even though we can admit that Michael Porter Junior is
probably a little better just because of his size and
that specific side of things. The second piece here is
the defensive end of the floor. In last year's version
of the team, Christian Brown was their primary point of
attack defender, and then if they ran into a situation
(05:07):
where they needed to guard another perimeter player that would
handle the ball, or if it was a bigger forward
that was handling the ball, they would have to deploy
Aaron Gordon there. They had no choice because Michael Porter
Junior is not a good perimeter defender. When Michael Porter
Junior is locked in, he can be a solid weak
side defender. He could protect the rim a little bit.
(05:28):
He's a solid defensive rebounder, but he can't guard on
the perimeter. I'm not saying that needing to deploy Aaron
Gordon on the perimeter is the reason he got hurt,
but at this phase in his career, with the mileage
that Aaron has on his body, I'd prefer to not
ask him to do that as much. Certain matchups like Lebron,
James Kawhi Leonard, some guys that might be too strong
(05:52):
for Cam. Sure, but I think Cam is a perfectly
fine option to be your secondary point of attack defender
behind Christian Brown. That should allow you to keep Aaron
Gordon in helpside more, keep him rotating at the rim,
keep him there for defensive rebounding. Aaron Gordon had a
little bit of a drop off in his rebounding last year.
Wasn't just injuries. A lot of it has to do
(06:12):
with how often he had to be deployed on the perimeter.
I just think that that's a better all around foundation
for Denver's defense in general. I just think Km's a
better player than Michael Porter Junior, but he also is
a better option on both sides of the floor for
this phase of where Denver is in their title contention
with Jonis Valentcunis. The big thing I'm looking for is
(06:33):
scheme consistency. In years past, Denver would go small when
Yokich was off the floor much of the time. They
tried centers, obviously with to no avail, but they would
mostly go small and they do more switching on defense,
and Aaron Gordon and Jamal Murray would mostly go matchup hunting,
and frankly, it just didn't work in the large sample.
They didn't really have any other option though, and that's
(06:55):
really the big difference here. They didn't have any options
that they could go to other than that going small, switching,
attempting to pick teams apart through matchup hunting with Gordon
and with Murray. Having yonas will allow them to play
a very similar style on both ends of the floor.
To the way they played with Nikolea Jokic right dribil
(07:16):
Handoff's two man game with Jamal Murray. Yonis can pick
and pop a little bit. Yonis can play out of
the post, especially against favorable matchups. No, he can't do
any of that stuff as well as Jokic can, That's
not what I'm trying to say. But against inferior NBA
talent that's coming off the bench for teams, he can
be reasonably effective there, and it allows you to continue
(07:36):
to run the same things that you're running. Even on defense.
You can continue to run your higher drop coverage, perhaps
with a guy like Deron Holmes operating on the back
line behind Yonas when he has to come up to
the level. It's not necessarily about winning those minutes with
Nikole Jokic off the floor. It's just about not hemorrhaging
(07:56):
points the way they had been last year. Once again,
Denver lost ten points per one hundred possession when yokich
was off the floor. That's just that's gonna make it
really difficult to win basketball games in the playoffs. In
one hundred and eighty three possessions with Yokich off, they
lost by thirty one point one points per one hundred possessions.
(08:18):
That is devastating to you, to your chances. Despite this,
they pushed OKC to seven and might have won if
Aaron Gordon didn't get hurt. To be clear, it's not
just about Yonas either. I want to be clear as
you kind of look down the roster. To me, it's
about everything. It's about having Bruce Brown, it's about having
(08:38):
Tim Hardaway Junior. It's about having Yonas Valanciunas. It's about
having options. I once had someone tell me money doesn't
give you happiness, but it gives you options. And I
felt that personally last week when we were moving up
here to Denver. We were doing our last phase of
(08:59):
our move. It was a three phase move, and we
got a trailer and we were driving it up through
up Interseate twenty five and we hit Albuquerque and rush
hour traffic in the morning, and literally I blew a
tire on my truck and I was able to get
a tow truck and I was able to get a
couple of tires and get back on the road. I
(09:20):
remember when I was much younger, my wife and I
were moving from Charlotte to Tucson, and we had all
of our stuff loaded up in two cars, and we
had our dogs with us, and it was a twenty
eight hour drive, and we were so broke. We literally
couldn't afford a hotel, like literally because of the dogs
(09:43):
and knowing that if you wanted to get a place
that would allow dogs or that would charge a dog fee,
it was going to be like three or four hundred
bucks for us to spend the night. We couldn't afford it.
And so we pushed through the night and it was
terrifying and I probably shouldn't have done it, and we
damn near got ourselves killed driving through West Texas in
the middle of the night, as I'm damn near falling
(10:03):
asleep on the road. I didn't have options then, whereas
something far worse happened driving up pulling a trailer, But
I had options. I was able to get a tow truck.
I was able to get the tires. I was able
to get us back on the road. In the past
for the Nuggets, when they would be watching the wheels
(10:24):
come off, quite literally, David Adelman would look at the
end of the bench and he wouldn't have those options, right,
He wouldn't have this player that can go out there
and patch the holes that could make things work in
those units when Yokic was off the floor. This is
(10:44):
what I mean when I say going beyond just yonis
so for instance, like one of the things that Mike
Malone would also do over the years is he'd be like, well,
I'm just going to stagger the starters more in with
the bench unit and just have Yokic carrier. Inferior units
have much more flexibility to do that now because I
know that Bruce Brown and Tim Hardaway Junior can score
(11:08):
with Nikola Jokic. I know that those guys Bruce Brown
can run regular pick and roll and inverted pick and
roll slipping out of it with Jokic, Tim Hardaway Junior
can run many of the same dribble handoff actions that
Nikola Jokic ran with Michael Porter Junior. They have the
options now to put more of their talent. They could
(11:29):
run Cam Johnson, Jamal Murray, and Aaron Gordon with Jonas Valanciunis,
or in a bench group with Gordon at center and
have more talent on the floor during those units wellout
having to wear everybody out in the past, they have
to push minutes to do that. In general, this depth,
(11:49):
it gives them options. It gives them the ability to
commit more to the defensive end throughout the entirety of
the regular season because of the just the ability to
keep everybody's minutes down and ask people to do more
game to game, they have so much more in the
way of options. He's looking at his hand of cards
and he has like three or four different ways that
(12:10):
he can try to attack the situation. That did not
used to be the case. And again, it's not about
winning necessarily those minutes, but maybe losing the Yokichov minutes
by one or two points per one hundred possessions instead
of by ten to fifteen points. That could massively improve
their chances both night tonight in the regular season and
when they get to the playoffs. As for the defensive
(12:34):
end of the floor, I thought last year was a
good example of them straight up switching, like flipping the
switch right. It's a concept that's very dangerous. It's a
concept that has burned veteran teams over the years, but
it has worked a few times in NBA history, and
it usually is teams that have won championships in the past.
To be clear, the Nuggets did not lose because of
(12:54):
their defense. They guarded Oklahoma City about as well as
they possibly could have a combination of having some high
end defensive personnel like Aaron Gordon and Christian Brown, they're
weaker defenders. Nicole Jokic and Jamal Murray both have very
high IQs, which allows them to scale up in those
situations just by being in the right spots as part
of the game plan. And credit to David Adelman. I
(13:15):
thought he did an excellent job of keeping Oklahoma City
off balance by constantly mixing up coverages and using a
lot of zone. But they were a brutal regular season defense.
This year, I expect them to be closer to that
twelve to fifteen range. One because of depth. Like we
just mentioned, more good players means less of a necessity
to conserve energy night to night throughout the season because
(13:37):
you can keep people's minutes down, you know you got
enough good players to do it. And then two belief.
I think this team's going to go into training camp
feeling like they have the opportunity of a lifetime to
hoist the trophy again this year. That should lead to
more buy in throughout the season. I think this is
the best team in the league. I think Jokic is
a substantially better player than Shake Gildas Alexander. I think
(14:01):
this roster is tailor made to his strengths. I think
if they can stay healthy, if they can get anything
close to the Jamal Murray they had in twenty twenty three,
I think they're gonna win the trophy. They have their vulnerabilities,
especially against the second tier teams in the West, like
Minnesota has given issues because of their center rotation, the
Lakers because of Luka Doncicz Luca can cause some problems
(14:24):
for their pick and roll defense. But I still think
they're better than both of those teams, and I think
they match up really well with Oklahoma City, so they're
might pick to win the title this year. We'll get
into the actual contender rankings the week after we finish
our season previews. Today's show is brought to you by
our new presenting sponsor, hard Rock Bet. We are still
(14:45):
a month away from basketball tip off, but with hard
Rock Bet, the action never stops. The WNBA Finals start
this weekend. If you haven't placed your first bet, now
is the perfect time. Bet five dollars and if it wins,
you don't just get your payout, you also cash in
one hundred and fifty bonus bets on top. If you
don't want to wait, you need more hoops in your life.
NBA futures are already live on hard Rock Bet. You
(15:06):
can bet the Finals, MVP, Rookie of the Year, six Man,
and a lot more. Open up the app to see
everything that's live and lock in today's odds if you
like what you see. And on Wednesday, if you're already
betting on the hard Rock Bet sportsbook app, you know
what that means, It's the last day to use your
legendary rewards drops. Open up the app today you could
have a bonus bet or who knows what's in there?
(15:28):
More drops every Thursday. The rewards and promos are NonStop.
Download the hard rock Bet app today and make your
first deposit, payble and bonus bets not a cash offer
offered by the Seminal Tribe of Florida and Florida offered
by Seminal hard Rock Digital, LLC in all other states.
Must be twenty one plus and physically present in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana,
New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, or Virginia to play. Terms and
(15:51):
conditions apply. Concerned about gambling in Florida, call one eight
eight eight Admit it. In Indiana. If you or someone
you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call
one eight hundred and nine with it. Gambling problem called
one eight hundred gambler in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee,
or Virginia. Moving on to Oklahoma City Thunder. So, to
(16:14):
be clear, right off the top, I'm picking Denver to
win the title. But this isn't like a Denver with
Oklahoma City way down here. The gap is very small
to me. If anything, I'd say they're on the same tier.
I just would pick Denver to beat Oklahoma City in
a series quick off season recap, they're basically the same team,
plus nikoloatopicch is coming back from an injury that caused
him to miss all of last year. I actually think
(16:35):
Topics could end up having like a decent sized role
on this team, because, as Indiana kind of exposed last year,
they do have a little bit of a ball handling deficit,
and I think they could use someone to help them
run their offense. For stretches help with some advantage creation,
especially when Shay is off the floor, so I wouldn't
be surprised if he plays quite a bit this year.
The story of the Thunder is going to be internal
improvement in this season. It's been an arms race in
(16:58):
the Western Conference all summer. The Nuggets added a bunch
of talent. We just covered that. The Lakers are getting
a better version of Luca and a massive upgrade at center.
The Rockets. Obviously they lose Fred van Vliet, but if
they can pull off a trade for a guard, they'll
be a top tier contender. The Clippers added a bunch
of depth. We covered that the other day. The Warriors,
if they get Horford, will be better. We covered that
(17:20):
the other day the MAVs will be a pain in
the ass after being out of the equation last year.
The Spurs will likely join the mix in the Thunder. Rightfully,
for the record, they stood pat so if they're going
to keep up, they need internal improvements. Last year's Thunder
would lose to this year's Nuggets in my opinion. I mean, hell,
(17:41):
last year's Thunder damn near lost to last year's Nuggets, right,
So what does that internal improvement look like for Oklahoma
City to maintain the gap between them and the rest
of the league as they get better around them. First
and foremost, Shay's game management. She had a remarkable regular
season statistically, but his efficiency plummeted in the postseason, and
(18:03):
I thought his inconsistent game management was a big part
of how they had such an up and down postseason run.
Some nights he'd come out and do a great job
of setting up his teammates and looking for advantages, picking
his spots as a score and keeping everybody in rhythm.
And another Knights, he'd come out gunning, and he'd take
the team out of rhythm. The stats here, we're insane.
(18:23):
When the Thunder won in the postseason, they had a
one to twenty offensive rating. When they lost in the postseason,
they had a one to ozh three offensive rating out
of the sixteen playoff teams. If you took all their
offensive ratings just in losses, that ranked eleventh out of
the sixteen teams. In short, their offense was awesome when
(18:45):
they won and legitimately terrible when they lost. Now two
Shay's credit. Every time the shit hit the fan and
the Thunder found themselves in like a must win situation.
I thought he managed those games extremely well and he
got the job done. That's the beauty of everything that
happened with the Thunder last year. In many ways, they
showed the warts of their youth and won anyway. And
(19:09):
that's what's scary about the potential future. Outside of Game
four of the finals, Game four of the Finals was
the one time I thought Shay kind of had a
bad floor game in a big spot, but even then,
he came alive down the stretch in the final minutes,
made the big plays, got the win that they needed.
But this year, at all likelihood, the margin for air
will be smaller. The top six teams in the West
(19:30):
are just better than they were last year, so Shay
becoming a more consistent game manager would go a long
way towards them helping avoid an upset. Ja Dubb's overall
development Jada was incredible in this playoff run, and for
that reason he ended up cracking my top twenty players
in our player rankings this year, but he was inconsistent
(19:51):
as well as many young players are. Like when Jay
Dubbs scored at least eighteen points, the Thunder went fourteen
and two, when he failed to score eighteen points the
thunder went too five. The biggest piece was mostly his
three point shooting. He was five for thirty four from
three in those seven games where he failed to get
to eighteen points. He did really it seemed like right
towards the end of the Nugget series it like clicked
(20:14):
for him. You could tell he like realized that no
one can stop him from getting to the rim. It
felt like one of the big aha moments for him
in his career. He's just starting to realize that he's
one of the most gifted basket attackers in the NBA.
We went over some of the stats in our player
rankings video that showed he's already one of the most
gifted drivers of the basketball in the entire league. But
if you can balance that out with the reliable three
(20:36):
point shot, that's where he's going to become a very
dependable night to night player. And again, when I'm talking
about this and I'm about to talk about chet in
a second, I'm not trying to be super critical of
these guys. I'm pointing this stuff out as a as
a reason to get excited these guys. How many teams.
You don't how any fans around the league are looking
at their team and they're like, we kind of are
(20:56):
what we are. We just have to hope we have
enough pieces. Like Oklahoma City can sit there and go like,
I don't know how much better we're going to get
this year, but these guys are going to be better.
It's very possible that even just over the course of
the season, like sometimes guys take leaps in big spots,
like you could have Chet figure it out and it
could all click in a big Western Conference finals series.
(21:18):
That's a potential that this team has that many teams
around the league don't have. With Chet, it's his offensive development.
I thought Chet was phenomenal on defense in the entire
playoff run. His combination of rim protection and his ability
to switch out onto guards was a huge part of
how Oklahoma City reached the level they reached defensively on
their way to get the trophy. But obviously on offense
(21:39):
it was an adventure. Right. He had six twenty point games,
but he had four single digit games, and similarly to
Jay Dubb, it was tied to the team's success when
Chet scored at least thirteen points. The Thunder were thirteen
and three. When he failed to score thirteen points, they
were three and four. Obviously, a big part of that
offensive rating we talked about in losses showed up in
(22:00):
a variety of areas. He was forty six percent on
layups in the playoff run. Obviously a player of his size,
he just needs to get better at finishing around the
rim through contact. He took twenty six off the dribble
jump shots and only made six of them, so he
either needs to massively improve there or kind of trim
that fan out of his game. We'll see, it'll probably
be a little bit of both. He shot thirty two
(22:22):
percent on catch and shoot jumpers, including thirty two percent
when he was unguarded, so he's got to be able
to knock down open shots. And again, these are not criticisms.
You literally just won the title and Chet is twenty
three years old. He's going to get way better, and
when he does, he's gonna be one of the best
players in the league. Like I genuinely believe Chet has
like Anthony Davis level two way potential. That's what he's
(22:44):
capable of getting to. He's obviously years from that, but
he has that capability and how far he gets in
that direction this season is going to be a big
part of whether or not they can stif arm the
rest of the Western Conference. And again, like whether it's
Chet or it's Jadub, or it's Shay or it's guys
like case on Wallace, or whether or not Nicoleo Topitch
ends up succeeding in a decent sized role, that will
(23:07):
be the difference in whether or not that can stiff
arm these teams or not. The West is an absolute beast.
The top six teams are insane. I found the stat
the other day and I found it very interesting. The
big reason Oklahoma City got to sixty eight wins wasn't
that they outclassed the West. They only won three more
games against the West than the Los Angeles Lakers did.
(23:29):
Led by old man Lebron James, they went twenty nine
to one against the East. That game where Oklahoma City
barely lost in Cleveland, that was their only loss against
an Eastern Conference team all season. This is not an
unbeatable team. As I said, I have them right there
with Denver as the best team in the league. And again,
(23:50):
all of those teams below, whether it be Houston or
the Lakers or Minnesota. Minnesota Anthony Edwards got his ass
kicked last year. You don't think he's coming back with
a little bit more of an attitude, a little bit
more of an effort to improve in the areas where
Shay kicked his ass. We're going to talk about it
in a second. The Clippers are a threat, Golden State's
a threat. These are all upset threats, right, and then
(24:11):
Denver's right there with them. This is not going to
be easy for Oklahoma City to repeat. They're going to
need that internal improvement. But to make it very clear,
if they do get substantial leaps out of Shae, out
of j Dub, out of Chet, they'll kick everyone's ass
and they'll hoist the trophy again as the first repeat
(24:32):
champion since twenty eighteen. Moving on to the Minnesota Timberwolves,
relatively on event for off season. They lost to kill.
Alexander Walker is really good player that I like, but
it's a big loss for sure, Luca Garza and Josh Minatt.
They added Joan Bearinger in the draft is like a
super raw French big and some end of the bench guys.
I think it's more likely that we just see more
(24:53):
of like Terrence Shannon and Jalen Clark rather than a
guy like Johnny Juzeng, for example. But we'll see the
Timberwolves painful. As a Lakers fan reminded me last year
that they are one of the best playoff teams in
the NBA, regardless of how they look on any given
night in the regular season. They're just sodamn big and
sodamn strong and sodamn physical and athletic and sodamn competitive
(25:13):
that they can just physically overwhelm you over the course
of a series. But in each of the last two years,
they've run into a combination of three things, an elite
defense that can protect the rim, and a superior superstar
on the other team that could pick apart Minnesota's defense,
(25:33):
and in both cases, their impressive playoff runs came to
screeching halts. Now, on the defensive end, there's only so
much you can do with the supreme superstars of the NBA.
But I do think it's worth talking about the game planning,
like I do think Chris Finch was foolish for having
Jaden McDaniels pick up Shakeous Alexander that far away from
the basket. That was foolish, but I don't necessarily think
(25:56):
it changes the outcome of the series. It's just like
one of the things it's worth mentioning for. As good
as Minnesota's defense was, both Oklahoma City and Dallas lit
them up, so game planning obviously is going to be
part of it as well, getting the most out of
your defensive talent. But the biggest issue was their offense.
Minnesota logged a one oh four offensive rating in the
(26:17):
four losses versus Oklahoma City. That's just not going to
get it done. It starts with Ant. He's got to
become a more resilient, less variance dependent score. I talked
a ton after the Western Conference Finals about how Shay
badly outclassed Ant as a mid to short range score,
and I thought it was literally the difference in the series.
(26:40):
Shay outscored Ant one fifty seven to one fifteen in
that series. If your superstar gets outplayed to that extent,
it's almost impossible to overcome. Now, what I said at
the time was that Ant needed to build out reliable
short range scoring, the ability to use his size and
strength to get closer to the against the elite perimeter
(27:01):
defenders of the league. But also to have a shot
that he can shoot over the rim protector so he
doesn't have to contend with those guys at the rim.
So I was relieved when Shaan Sharani had reported last
week that Ant had spent all summer working on his
post game and his mid to short range scoring. That
means Ant is paying attention to what happened. It means
(27:21):
he went back and watched the tape. He went back
and looked at the numbers, and he saw where the
area of opportunity was. We shared these stats during our
player ranking series, but I want to share him again.
Ant posted up twenty seven times in the twenty twenty
four playoff run and got one point one nine points
per possession. That's awesome. He posted up just seven times
total in the twenty twenty five playoff run. It was
(27:43):
a thing that really worked for him and he like
straight up abandoned it. There's a lot of talk about
Ant's playmaking, and it's certainly something you want to see
him to continue to incrementally improve on over the years.
But he's averaging six assists per game on a two
to one assist to turnover ratio over the last two
playoff runs like he's getting better. He'll continue to get
better there, but his supreme gift is scoring the basketball,
(28:06):
and right now he's struggling to do that against the
absolute best defenses in the league. That's where he needs
to become more reliable. That heavy shift towards three point
shooting and helped him in true shooting percentage in the
regular season. It helped him hit higher scoring volume. I'm
not saying he needs to stop taking threes, but he
was six for thirty one from three again in the
four losses against Oklahoma City. Because that's something that can
(28:28):
happen when you rely on heavy, high volume three point shooting.
Building out a reliable short range scoring game. It will
help him go bucket for bucket with guys like Shay
and the best greats in the NBA. I thought the
Julius Randall experiment went about as well as it could
have gone given the clunky fit. He shot better from
(28:50):
three than you would think, like he was forty percent
over his last twenty one regular season games and then
thirty nine percent in the playoffs. He also provided like
a face up and low post creation element to kind
of get the defense into rotation. I hated his game two.
In Game four against Oklahoma City, it felt like he
was like openly pouting on the floor. But I'm trying
to cut him at least a little bit of slack,
(29:11):
just simply because Oklahoma City embarrassed a lot of guys
with their defense in that playoff run. In general, I
think he fits the identity of the team really well.
He's a big, physical ass kicking forward that can really
leverage that physicality in the postseason. He had twenty seven
offensive rebounds in the playoffs, and he was a pretty
(29:32):
efficient twenty four points per game before the Minnesota series.
I think that that trade and that experiment worked out
about as well as it possibly could have given the
way it looked at the time of the trade. Those
two guys ultimately control this team's destiny. The defense is
the defense. They definitely need more from Chris Finch and
game planning, like we talked about to prevent your defense
(29:54):
from just completely falling apart against Luca and SGA. More
mixing up of coverages, including some zone, more willingness to
adjust when things aren't working. I don't think the Nikil
Alexander Walker loss greatly affects their fortunes like he wasn't
in their best five. He's very good. I like Alexander Walker.
(30:16):
I wanted him on the Lakers this summer, but like
he's not in their best five. And I do think
in the regular season, guys like Terrence Shannon and Jalen
Clark can be productive enough to prevent much of a
drop off there, and one of those guys, one of
those two dudes will end up popping just enough to
be able to give you a shift or two per
game when they get to the postseason. They also match
(30:37):
up really well with Denver, which I think is a
strong foundation for a case that Minnesota could win the conference.
They just need to be able to score the ball
when they face an elite defense that can protect the rim.
So essentially, what I'm saying is they've got to be
able to handle Oklahoma City if they can get there,
and that's going to depend on Julius Randall avoiding those
(30:58):
disaster games than the Edwards becoming a better and more
reliable score hopefully built around the idea of short to
mid range scoring as well as the incremental improvements as
a playmaker. The pathways there for Minnesota, like it's easy
to see Minnesota gets on the opposite side of the
bracket from Oklahoma City and Denver, and Denver upsets Oklahoma City.
(31:19):
You get Minnesota Denver in the conference finals, repeat of
what happened two years ago. All of a sudden, you're
in the finals and you're probably favored when you get there,
but again that's not guaranteed. There's a chance. There's a
good chance you run into Oklahoma City somewhere along the way,
especially if they end up with the one and two seed.
So at that point you're going to have to solve
(31:39):
that puzzle when you get there. Right, We're going to
go more quickly through these last two Portland Trailblazers off
season recap. They lost dere And and Andrey Simons. They added
Drew Holliday and Damian Lillard, who's going to miss all
of the season, and Young Hansen, who was their first
round pick at number sixteen. Kind of an interesting pick.
Most draft boards graded him as a second rounder. My
(32:01):
guy Sam Vessini, who is the person I trust the
most with the draft, he had him at forty eight.
The Blazers also had just drafted Donovan Klingen, so I
guess they're looking at this as like a center by
committee thing. I was looking at some quotes and apparently
they're looking at as like Donovan Klingon is your big,
physical ass kicking center, and then Yang Hansen is basically
like your finesse you know, offensive skill oriented center. The
(32:24):
Blazers have some really interesting young talent. Shade and Sharp
had a bunch of really big scoring games down the
stretch of the season. Although that was a lot of
like high usage chucking. Denny Avdya really popped at the
end of the year. In his final thirteen games. This
is crazy. Denny Avdia averaged twenty seven points, eleven rebounds,
and six assists, and he won his minutes. And he
(32:45):
did it on fifty two percent from the field, forty
six percent from three, and eighty two percent from the line.
And the big thing is, like, again, you see a
lot of noise at the end of the year, especially
with teams that don't really have anything to play for.
They put the ball in the hands of a bunch
of random do dudes, and sometimes they can put up
numbers like I like Shaden Sharp, but I don't expect
Shadon Sharp to be a guy that's gonna average twenty
(33:06):
six points a game like he did down the stretch
of the season. Right Like to me, like the major
on ball stuff isn't really coming forward for me as
something that I think he's ready for just yet. But
like the Denny Ovdyus stuff, I view that as real.
You know, maybe not to the extent is of him
like averaging twenty seven points per game for a whole season,
(33:26):
but especially with the Scoot Henderson injury, who apparently tore
his hamstring the other day. I wouldn't be surprised if
they start with Denny as like their primary shot creators
start the year. And I wouldn't be surprised if we're
twenty games into the season and Denny's averaging like twenty
five points, ten rebounds, five assists on sixty percent through shooting.
He's just he's a really gifted offensive player. He shot
(33:48):
pull up threes insanely well. He's got forty one percent
on seventy pull up threes with Portland. He showed that
in ball screens when guys would go under. He showed
it in ISO out of dribble combinations on like step
backs and things like that. He's got like real downhill
burst you'll see it in ISOs where he'll just catch
and he'll get a big on a switch and he'll
just hit the gas going to the right and he'll
dust somebody off the dribble. He'll in a ball screen
(34:11):
if the BIG's not up at the level, he'll get
downhill into the lane, driving clothes out, so he'll hit
a really hard like left handed or like a jab
step to the left and then drive to the right
where he gets really good first step quickness. He's got
some bullyball to his game where he'll just power through guys.
He'll drop that right shoulder and just go through guys
all the way to the basket. He's got like really
(34:32):
nice change of pace on his drives, like in ball screens,
he'll put the defender in jail and trap him on
the backside and hit a little floater or like a
step through something like that. He'll like burst downhill and
then slow way down with slow down steps. His bigs
jump around him, and then he'll find a little angle
he'll euro or he'll slide through some weird gap where
(34:52):
it'll look like he's driving towards the left and then
somehow finish on the right as he swalloms through the
lane like it's honestly a little Luca Lights. Sometimes he's
he's got pump fakes and like up and unders and
step throughs where he'll get to little short floaters and
short jump shots. Honestly, I think it's a really impressive
move from this Portland front office to find an underappreciated
(35:16):
talent in this league. And to be clear, I wasn't
watching the Wizards a ton back then. I wasn't aware
of this upside myself. But he has my attention now
and I think he's really really good. As I was
digging into the Portland tape this morning, you know, you're
gonna see a lot of noise, like we talked about,
but in that noise, you're gonna see things that you
think are real, And Denny Avdia being like potentially a
(35:38):
legitimate like shot creator in this league is something that
I think is real and I'm really really excited to
watch him this year. Tamani Kamara and Drew Holliday will
make a formidable pairing of defensive weapons, and they have
a strong defensive center rotation with Donovan Klingen and Rob Williams.
They don't have their clear foundational superstar yet and I'm
(35:59):
not sure if Scoot hender will ever be that, but
they do have some really strong foundational pieces. I think
the main goals for this season are find out if
Denny is good enough to be a championship number two,
give him the ball a ton, and then see what
the upside is trending towards with guys like Scoot Henderson,
if he can be healthy and shade and sharp right.
(36:19):
If they're not, then it's time for you to start
planning how to get that foundational superstar again. The thought
process is, you need a number one, you need a
number two, and you need complimentary role players. And you
don't know what complimentary role players you need until you
know what your number one and your number two are.
And I think getting Denny and like seeing that upside
and we'll see. It's got to you know, it's one
(36:40):
thing to do it for twenty games or whatever. At
the end of the season, you got to you gotta
figure out how to do it. Over the course of
a season. There's gonna be attempts to figure him out
in scouting, and teams will figure out ways to guard
him better than they did. There was a lot of
like going underpicks on Denny. There are certain teams that
chase him over, Like I watched the game with the
Knicks where they chased him over the entire game, and
(37:00):
that's where he showed a lot of that like putting
the defender in jail type of stuff. But then there
are other games where dudes are dying on picks and
it's like, yeah, if you're going to hit pull up
threes at forty percent, they're gonna start chasing you over
the top. Right, We're going to see the league try
to figure Denny out and then we will find out
if Denny is worth building around as that like secondary
star on a real team with real chances. But Portland's
(37:23):
going to be a really fun league pass team this year.
I wouldn't be surprised if they got up around thirty
to thirty five wins. But we will see. Lastly, today
the Utah Jazz. They lost Jordan Clarkson, John Collins, Colin Sexton,
Johnny Juzang, Jaden Springer, and they added Mobamba, a bunch
of vets that they'll probably trade or buy out at
some point, like Kyle Anderson. Kevin loved George's Kniang and
(37:45):
use Nurkic. A couple of really interesting draft picks, like
Ace Bailey out of Rutgers, who's the He's like a
tough shot maker that can't make tough shots yet and
a lot of unrealized defensive upside, so, in other words,
like a big upside pick. So well if he can
reach that upside. And then Walter Clayton Junior is the
guard out of Florida who made a name for himself
in the NCAA Tournament in a deep run. I don't
(38:07):
have a ton to say about the Jazz. They don't
feel like they've made any progress towards their big picture plans.
They clearly don't have their franchise superstar yet. I mean,
Ace Bailey has that upside, I suppose, but that's a
long shot. It's certainly like a half decade away. And
I like Lori Markinen is a potential number two for
the right superstar. We're going to talk about him in
the context of the Detroit Pistons in the video coming
(38:28):
up on Monday, but he's twenty eight years old now,
so I'm not sure how he fits Utah's timeline unless
you have a plan to bring in a superstar that's older. Right.
I continue to see reports coming out of Utah that
they have no intention of trading him, which makes no
sense to me. Like, I get that he's a great
guy and a great player, and you like having him
in the organization, but he's a great vehicle with which
(38:49):
to give your team more opportunities to find the foundational superstar,
which you don't have yet. There's no young player on
this roster below the age of twenty five that has
real big picture upside other than Ace Bailey, who you
just brought in and we've never seen play in the
pros and in college was a mess. Right, So I
guess this year there's some interesting stuff, right, Like we'll
(39:11):
see if the Jazz trade Lori to a contender. We'll
see if Ace Bailey pops it all. But I'm kind
of unfamiliar with where Utah is trying to get at
this point in time. All Right, guys, It's all I
have for today is always to sincerely appreciate you guys
for supporting us and supporting the show. We'll be back
on Monday, going back out yeast. I believe the Central Division,
if I remember correctly, so I will see you guys.
(39:32):
Then
The volume. All right, welcome to Hoops tonight. You're at
the volume heavy Friday, everybody hopefull you guys are having
a great end of your week. We are continuing our
(00:21):
season preview series today with the Northwest Division, so that's
the Denver Nuggets, the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Minnesota Timberwolves,
the Portland Trailblazers, and the Utah Jazz. We're gonna be
touching on all five of those teams today. You guys
are the Joe before we get started. To subscribe to
the Hoops and I YouTube channel so you don't miss
any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter, Underscore JCNLTC.
You guysn't misshow announcement, so forget about a podcast fore
(00:42):
you wherever you get your podcast on our Hoops Tonight.
It's also super helpful if you leave a rating in
a review on that front. Jackson's doing incredible work on
our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.
Make sure you guys follow us over there. The last
one at least. If you guys want to get mailbag
questions into our mail bags, drop them in the full
episodes on YouTube in the comments and we'll get to
them regularly throughout the season. Our next mail bag will
(01:05):
be the week after we finish this season preview series.
All right, let's talk some basketball. So we're starting with
the Denver Nuggets today. A little quick recap of their offseason.
They lost Vlaco Konsar, They lost DeAndre Jordan, Michael Porter, Junior,
Dario Sarich, and Russell Westbrook. They added Cam Johnson, Tim Hardaway, Junior,
(01:26):
Bruce Brown, Jonas Valenschiunis, and essentially adding Deron Holmes who's
coming back from an achilles tear, a guy who was
drafted in the first round last year but got hurt
in training camp, I believe, or either right before training camp,
but he's gonna be coming back this season. Then another
guy they added this summer that I'm gonna have my
eye on is Kessler Edwards. I'll have to compete for
(01:47):
a roster spot. But his per thirty six numbers were
pretty impressive last season. In addition to being a big,
physical perimeter athlete, he averaged ten points and seven rebounds
per thirty six minutes with a two point five to
one and assist to turnover ratio. Shot fifty percent from
the field forty one percent from three ninety two percent
from the line, so fifty to forty ninety A good
(02:08):
playmaker relative to most role players in that type of slot.
Two point three stocks per thirty six minutes. Another guy
that I think has a decent chance to impress in Nuggets'
training camp, So no way to look at this as
anything other than a massive influx of talent. I have
issues with the guy like Jonas Valancunis in a starting role,
(02:30):
but he's unquestionably a substantial upgrade from DeAndre Jordan as
a backup center. Cam Johnson is a better player than MPJ,
but I also think he's a better fit than MPJ
in this phase of the Nuggets contention window, which will
dive deeper into here in a minute. It won't be
hard for Deron Holmes to be better than Dario Sarach was,
(02:53):
and I think that the combination of Bruce Brown and
Tim Hardaway Junior is a big step up from Russell
Westbrook coming off. So this is quite simply the best
roster that Nikola Joka just had to work with in
his entire NBA career, and it's a big part of
why I'm so high on the Nuggets coming into this
particular season. Let's start with the Cam Johnson fit. We've
talked about this plenty over the summer, but i'll go
(03:15):
over quickly again here. I think Cam represents an upgrade
over MPG in two clear areas that I think will
help the Nuggets on both ends of the floor. First
is the fact that he's just a much better ball
handler than Michael Porter Junior. The lack of reliable ball
handling outside of guys like Jamal Murray and a little
bit of Aaron Gordon was a big part of why
(03:36):
Denver had to take high risk options like Russell Westbrook
or leaning a lot on a young Julian Strawther. Now
Mike Coel Porter Junior could scale up his offense a bit,
as we've talked about over the years, especially versus lower
level competition, but mostly in handoffs, and again that had
some limitations as you went against the higher level teams
in the league. I think Cam Johnson is just a
(03:57):
much better ball handler than Mike. He should be able
to actually run action both with Jokic and without Jokich
on the floor. I also like this in the context
of Tim Hardaway Junior, who should be able to come
in and run many of those same dribble handoff actions
that Michael Porter Junior ran with nikolea Jokic. In short,
the team has substantially more offensive firepower. Now, if you,
(04:21):
as a Nuggets fan, are worried about the catch and
shoot side of the catch and shoot side of things, yes,
Michael Porter Junior was taller. I'd argue at like pure
stand still shooting because of his height and the slight
increase in percentage, he's a little better than Cam Johnson there,
but it doesn't really manifest much in the percentages. Cam
was forty percent on catch and shoot threes last year,
so was Michael Porter Junior. Cam was forty four percent
(04:44):
on unguarded catch and shoot threes. Michael Porter Junior was
forty five percent. So not much of a statistical difference there,
even though we can admit that Michael Porter Junior is
probably a little better just because of his size and
that specific side of things. The second piece here is
the defensive end of the floor. In last year's version
of the team, Christian Brown was their primary point of
attack defender, and then if they ran into a situation
(05:07):
where they needed to guard another perimeter player that would
handle the ball, or if it was a bigger forward
that was handling the ball, they would have to deploy
Aaron Gordon there. They had no choice because Michael Porter
Junior is not a good perimeter defender. When Michael Porter
Junior is locked in, he can be a solid weak
side defender. He could protect the rim a little bit.
(05:28):
He's a solid defensive rebounder, but he can't guard on
the perimeter. I'm not saying that needing to deploy Aaron
Gordon on the perimeter is the reason he got hurt,
but at this phase in his career, with the mileage
that Aaron has on his body, I'd prefer to not
ask him to do that as much. Certain matchups like Lebron,
James Kawhi Leonard, some guys that might be too strong
(05:52):
for Cam. Sure, but I think Cam is a perfectly
fine option to be your secondary point of attack defender
behind Christian Brown. That should allow you to keep Aaron
Gordon in helpside more, keep him rotating at the rim,
keep him there for defensive rebounding. Aaron Gordon had a
little bit of a drop off in his rebounding last year.
Wasn't just injuries. A lot of it has to do
(06:12):
with how often he had to be deployed on the perimeter.
I just think that that's a better all around foundation
for Denver's defense in general. I just think Km's a
better player than Michael Porter Junior, but he also is
a better option on both sides of the floor for
this phase of where Denver is in their title contention
with Jonis Valentcunis. The big thing I'm looking for is
(06:33):
scheme consistency. In years past, Denver would go small when
Yokich was off the floor much of the time. They
tried centers, obviously with to no avail, but they would
mostly go small and they do more switching on defense,
and Aaron Gordon and Jamal Murray would mostly go matchup hunting,
and frankly, it just didn't work in the large sample.
They didn't really have any other option though, and that's
(06:55):
really the big difference here. They didn't have any options
that they could go to other than that going small, switching,
attempting to pick teams apart through matchup hunting with Gordon
and with Murray. Having yonas will allow them to play
a very similar style on both ends of the floor.
To the way they played with Nikolea Jokic right dribil
(07:16):
Handoff's two man game with Jamal Murray. Yonis can pick
and pop a little bit. Yonis can play out of
the post, especially against favorable matchups. No, he can't do
any of that stuff as well as Jokic can, That's
not what I'm trying to say. But against inferior NBA
talent that's coming off the bench for teams, he can
be reasonably effective there, and it allows you to continue
(07:36):
to run the same things that you're running. Even on defense.
You can continue to run your higher drop coverage, perhaps
with a guy like Deron Holmes operating on the back
line behind Yonas when he has to come up to
the level. It's not necessarily about winning those minutes with
Nikole Jokic off the floor. It's just about not hemorrhaging
(07:56):
points the way they had been last year. Once again,
Denver lost ten points per one hundred possession when yokich
was off the floor. That's just that's gonna make it
really difficult to win basketball games in the playoffs. In
one hundred and eighty three possessions with Yokich off, they
lost by thirty one point one points per one hundred possessions.
(08:18):
That is devastating to you, to your chances. Despite this,
they pushed OKC to seven and might have won if
Aaron Gordon didn't get hurt. To be clear, it's not
just about Yonas either. I want to be clear as
you kind of look down the roster. To me, it's
about everything. It's about having Bruce Brown, it's about having
(08:38):
Tim Hardaway Junior. It's about having Yonas Valanciunas. It's about
having options. I once had someone tell me money doesn't
give you happiness, but it gives you options. And I
felt that personally last week when we were moving up
here to Denver. We were doing our last phase of
(08:59):
our move. It was a three phase move, and we
got a trailer and we were driving it up through
up Interseate twenty five and we hit Albuquerque and rush
hour traffic in the morning, and literally I blew a
tire on my truck and I was able to get
a tow truck and I was able to get a
couple of tires and get back on the road. I
(09:20):
remember when I was much younger, my wife and I
were moving from Charlotte to Tucson, and we had all
of our stuff loaded up in two cars, and we
had our dogs with us, and it was a twenty
eight hour drive, and we were so broke. We literally
couldn't afford a hotel, like literally because of the dogs
(09:43):
and knowing that if you wanted to get a place
that would allow dogs or that would charge a dog fee,
it was going to be like three or four hundred
bucks for us to spend the night. We couldn't afford it.
And so we pushed through the night and it was
terrifying and I probably shouldn't have done it, and we
damn near got ourselves killed driving through West Texas in
the middle of the night, as I'm damn near falling
(10:03):
asleep on the road. I didn't have options then, whereas
something far worse happened driving up pulling a trailer, But
I had options. I was able to get a tow truck.
I was able to get the tires. I was able
to get us back on the road. In the past
for the Nuggets, when they would be watching the wheels
(10:24):
come off, quite literally, David Adelman would look at the
end of the bench and he wouldn't have those options, right,
He wouldn't have this player that can go out there
and patch the holes that could make things work in
those units when Yokic was off the floor. This is
(10:44):
what I mean when I say going beyond just yonis
so for instance, like one of the things that Mike
Malone would also do over the years is he'd be like, well,
I'm just going to stagger the starters more in with
the bench unit and just have Yokic carrier. Inferior units
have much more flexibility to do that now because I
know that Bruce Brown and Tim Hardaway Junior can score
(11:08):
with Nikola Jokic. I know that those guys Bruce Brown
can run regular pick and roll and inverted pick and
roll slipping out of it with Jokic, Tim Hardaway Junior
can run many of the same dribble handoff actions that
Nikola Jokic ran with Michael Porter Junior. They have the
options now to put more of their talent. They could
(11:29):
run Cam Johnson, Jamal Murray, and Aaron Gordon with Jonas Valanciunis,
or in a bench group with Gordon at center and
have more talent on the floor during those units wellout
having to wear everybody out in the past, they have
to push minutes to do that. In general, this depth,
(11:49):
it gives them options. It gives them the ability to
commit more to the defensive end throughout the entirety of
the regular season because of the just the ability to
keep everybody's minutes down and ask people to do more
game to game, they have so much more in the
way of options. He's looking at his hand of cards
and he has like three or four different ways that
(12:10):
he can try to attack the situation. That did not
used to be the case. And again, it's not about
winning necessarily those minutes, but maybe losing the Yokichov minutes
by one or two points per one hundred possessions instead
of by ten to fifteen points. That could massively improve
their chances both night tonight in the regular season and
when they get to the playoffs. As for the defensive
(12:34):
end of the floor, I thought last year was a
good example of them straight up switching, like flipping the
switch right. It's a concept that's very dangerous. It's a
concept that has burned veteran teams over the years, but
it has worked a few times in NBA history, and
it usually is teams that have won championships in the past.
To be clear, the Nuggets did not lose because of
(12:54):
their defense. They guarded Oklahoma City about as well as
they possibly could have a combination of having some high
end defensive personnel like Aaron Gordon and Christian Brown, they're
weaker defenders. Nicole Jokic and Jamal Murray both have very
high IQs, which allows them to scale up in those
situations just by being in the right spots as part
of the game plan. And credit to David Adelman. I
(13:15):
thought he did an excellent job of keeping Oklahoma City
off balance by constantly mixing up coverages and using a
lot of zone. But they were a brutal regular season defense.
This year, I expect them to be closer to that
twelve to fifteen range. One because of depth. Like we
just mentioned, more good players means less of a necessity
to conserve energy night to night throughout the season because
(13:37):
you can keep people's minutes down, you know you got
enough good players to do it. And then two belief.
I think this team's going to go into training camp
feeling like they have the opportunity of a lifetime to
hoist the trophy again this year. That should lead to
more buy in throughout the season. I think this is
the best team in the league. I think Jokic is
a substantially better player than Shake Gildas Alexander. I think
(14:01):
this roster is tailor made to his strengths. I think
if they can stay healthy, if they can get anything
close to the Jamal Murray they had in twenty twenty three,
I think they're gonna win the trophy. They have their vulnerabilities,
especially against the second tier teams in the West, like
Minnesota has given issues because of their center rotation, the
Lakers because of Luka Doncicz Luca can cause some problems
(14:24):
for their pick and roll defense. But I still think
they're better than both of those teams, and I think
they match up really well with Oklahoma City, so they're
might pick to win the title this year. We'll get
into the actual contender rankings the week after we finish
our season previews. Today's show is brought to you by
our new presenting sponsor, hard Rock Bet. We are still
(14:45):
a month away from basketball tip off, but with hard
Rock Bet, the action never stops. The WNBA Finals start
this weekend. If you haven't placed your first bet, now
is the perfect time. Bet five dollars and if it wins,
you don't just get your payout, you also cash in
one hundred and fifty bonus bets on top. If you
don't want to wait, you need more hoops in your life.
NBA futures are already live on hard Rock Bet. You
(15:06):
can bet the Finals, MVP, Rookie of the Year, six Man,
and a lot more. Open up the app to see
everything that's live and lock in today's odds if you
like what you see. And on Wednesday, if you're already
betting on the hard Rock Bet sportsbook app, you know
what that means, It's the last day to use your
legendary rewards drops. Open up the app today you could
have a bonus bet or who knows what's in there?
(15:28):
More drops every Thursday. The rewards and promos are NonStop.
Download the hard rock Bet app today and make your
first deposit, payble and bonus bets not a cash offer
offered by the Seminal Tribe of Florida and Florida offered
by Seminal hard Rock Digital, LLC in all other states.
Must be twenty one plus and physically present in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana,
New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, or Virginia to play. Terms and
(15:51):
conditions apply. Concerned about gambling in Florida, call one eight
eight eight Admit it. In Indiana. If you or someone
you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call
one eight hundred and nine with it. Gambling problem called
one eight hundred gambler in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee,
or Virginia. Moving on to Oklahoma City Thunder. So, to
(16:14):
be clear, right off the top, I'm picking Denver to
win the title. But this isn't like a Denver with
Oklahoma City way down here. The gap is very small
to me. If anything, I'd say they're on the same tier.
I just would pick Denver to beat Oklahoma City in
a series quick off season recap, they're basically the same team,
plus nikoloatopicch is coming back from an injury that caused
him to miss all of last year. I actually think
(16:35):
Topics could end up having like a decent sized role
on this team, because, as Indiana kind of exposed last year,
they do have a little bit of a ball handling deficit,
and I think they could use someone to help them
run their offense. For stretches help with some advantage creation,
especially when Shay is off the floor, so I wouldn't
be surprised if he plays quite a bit this year.
The story of the Thunder is going to be internal
improvement in this season. It's been an arms race in
(16:58):
the Western Conference all summer. The Nuggets added a bunch
of talent. We just covered that. The Lakers are getting
a better version of Luca and a massive upgrade at center.
The Rockets. Obviously they lose Fred van Vliet, but if
they can pull off a trade for a guard, they'll
be a top tier contender. The Clippers added a bunch
of depth. We covered that the other day. The Warriors,
if they get Horford, will be better. We covered that
(17:20):
the other day the MAVs will be a pain in
the ass after being out of the equation last year.
The Spurs will likely join the mix in the Thunder. Rightfully,
for the record, they stood pat so if they're going
to keep up, they need internal improvements. Last year's Thunder
would lose to this year's Nuggets in my opinion. I mean, hell,
(17:41):
last year's Thunder damn near lost to last year's Nuggets, right,
So what does that internal improvement look like for Oklahoma
City to maintain the gap between them and the rest
of the league as they get better around them. First
and foremost, Shay's game management. She had a remarkable regular
season statistically, but his efficiency plummeted in the postseason, and
(18:03):
I thought his inconsistent game management was a big part
of how they had such an up and down postseason run.
Some nights he'd come out and do a great job
of setting up his teammates and looking for advantages, picking
his spots as a score and keeping everybody in rhythm.
And another Knights, he'd come out gunning, and he'd take
the team out of rhythm. The stats here, we're insane.
(18:23):
When the Thunder won in the postseason, they had a
one to twenty offensive rating. When they lost in the postseason,
they had a one to ozh three offensive rating out
of the sixteen playoff teams. If you took all their
offensive ratings just in losses, that ranked eleventh out of
the sixteen teams. In short, their offense was awesome when
(18:45):
they won and legitimately terrible when they lost. Now two
Shay's credit. Every time the shit hit the fan and
the Thunder found themselves in like a must win situation.
I thought he managed those games extremely well and he
got the job done. That's the beauty of everything that
happened with the Thunder last year. In many ways, they
showed the warts of their youth and won anyway. And
(19:09):
that's what's scary about the potential future. Outside of Game
four of the finals, Game four of the Finals was
the one time I thought Shay kind of had a
bad floor game in a big spot, but even then,
he came alive down the stretch in the final minutes,
made the big plays, got the win that they needed.
But this year, at all likelihood, the margin for air
will be smaller. The top six teams in the West
(19:30):
are just better than they were last year, so Shay
becoming a more consistent game manager would go a long
way towards them helping avoid an upset. Ja Dubb's overall
development Jada was incredible in this playoff run, and for
that reason he ended up cracking my top twenty players
in our player rankings this year, but he was inconsistent
(19:51):
as well as many young players are. Like when Jay
Dubbs scored at least eighteen points, the Thunder went fourteen
and two, when he failed to score eighteen points the
thunder went too five. The biggest piece was mostly his
three point shooting. He was five for thirty four from
three in those seven games where he failed to get
to eighteen points. He did really it seemed like right
towards the end of the Nugget series it like clicked
(20:14):
for him. You could tell he like realized that no
one can stop him from getting to the rim. It
felt like one of the big aha moments for him
in his career. He's just starting to realize that he's
one of the most gifted basket attackers in the NBA.
We went over some of the stats in our player
rankings video that showed he's already one of the most
gifted drivers of the basketball in the entire league. But
if you can balance that out with the reliable three
(20:36):
point shot, that's where he's going to become a very
dependable night to night player. And again, when I'm talking
about this and I'm about to talk about chet in
a second, I'm not trying to be super critical of
these guys. I'm pointing this stuff out as a as
a reason to get excited these guys. How many teams.
You don't how any fans around the league are looking
at their team and they're like, we kind of are
(20:56):
what we are. We just have to hope we have
enough pieces. Like Oklahoma City can sit there and go like,
I don't know how much better we're going to get
this year, but these guys are going to be better.
It's very possible that even just over the course of
the season, like sometimes guys take leaps in big spots,
like you could have Chet figure it out and it
could all click in a big Western Conference finals series.
(21:18):
That's a potential that this team has that many teams
around the league don't have. With Chet, it's his offensive development.
I thought Chet was phenomenal on defense in the entire
playoff run. His combination of rim protection and his ability
to switch out onto guards was a huge part of
how Oklahoma City reached the level they reached defensively on
their way to get the trophy. But obviously on offense
(21:39):
it was an adventure. Right. He had six twenty point games,
but he had four single digit games, and similarly to
Jay Dubb, it was tied to the team's success when
Chet scored at least thirteen points. The Thunder were thirteen
and three. When he failed to score thirteen points, they
were three and four. Obviously, a big part of that
offensive rating we talked about in losses showed up in
(22:00):
a variety of areas. He was forty six percent on
layups in the playoff run. Obviously a player of his size,
he just needs to get better at finishing around the
rim through contact. He took twenty six off the dribble
jump shots and only made six of them, so he
either needs to massively improve there or kind of trim
that fan out of his game. We'll see, it'll probably
be a little bit of both. He shot thirty two
(22:22):
percent on catch and shoot jumpers, including thirty two percent
when he was unguarded, so he's got to be able
to knock down open shots. And again, these are not criticisms.
You literally just won the title and Chet is twenty
three years old. He's going to get way better, and
when he does, he's gonna be one of the best
players in the league. Like I genuinely believe Chet has
like Anthony Davis level two way potential. That's what he's
(22:44):
capable of getting to. He's obviously years from that, but
he has that capability and how far he gets in
that direction this season is going to be a big
part of whether or not they can stif arm the
rest of the Western Conference. And again, like whether it's
Chet or it's Jadub, or it's Shay or it's guys
like case on Wallace, or whether or not Nicoleo Topitch
ends up succeeding in a decent sized role, that will
(23:07):
be the difference in whether or not that can stiff
arm these teams or not. The West is an absolute beast.
The top six teams are insane. I found the stat
the other day and I found it very interesting. The
big reason Oklahoma City got to sixty eight wins wasn't
that they outclassed the West. They only won three more
games against the West than the Los Angeles Lakers did.
(23:29):
Led by old man Lebron James, they went twenty nine
to one against the East. That game where Oklahoma City
barely lost in Cleveland, that was their only loss against
an Eastern Conference team all season. This is not an
unbeatable team. As I said, I have them right there
with Denver as the best team in the league. And again,
(23:50):
all of those teams below, whether it be Houston or
the Lakers or Minnesota. Minnesota Anthony Edwards got his ass
kicked last year. You don't think he's coming back with
a little bit more of an attitude, a little bit
more of an effort to improve in the areas where
Shay kicked his ass. We're going to talk about it
in a second. The Clippers are a threat, Golden State's
a threat. These are all upset threats, right, and then
(24:11):
Denver's right there with them. This is not going to
be easy for Oklahoma City to repeat. They're going to
need that internal improvement. But to make it very clear,
if they do get substantial leaps out of Shae, out
of j Dub, out of Chet, they'll kick everyone's ass
and they'll hoist the trophy again as the first repeat
(24:32):
champion since twenty eighteen. Moving on to the Minnesota Timberwolves,
relatively on event for off season. They lost to kill.
Alexander Walker is really good player that I like, but
it's a big loss for sure, Luca Garza and Josh Minatt.
They added Joan Bearinger in the draft is like a
super raw French big and some end of the bench guys.
I think it's more likely that we just see more
(24:53):
of like Terrence Shannon and Jalen Clark rather than a
guy like Johnny Juzeng, for example. But we'll see the
Timberwolves painful. As a Lakers fan reminded me last year
that they are one of the best playoff teams in
the NBA, regardless of how they look on any given
night in the regular season. They're just sodamn big and
sodamn strong and sodamn physical and athletic and sodamn competitive
(25:13):
that they can just physically overwhelm you over the course
of a series. But in each of the last two years,
they've run into a combination of three things, an elite
defense that can protect the rim, and a superior superstar
on the other team that could pick apart Minnesota's defense,
(25:33):
and in both cases, their impressive playoff runs came to
screeching halts. Now, on the defensive end, there's only so
much you can do with the supreme superstars of the NBA.
But I do think it's worth talking about the game planning,
like I do think Chris Finch was foolish for having
Jaden McDaniels pick up Shakeous Alexander that far away from
the basket. That was foolish, but I don't necessarily think
(25:56):
it changes the outcome of the series. It's just like
one of the things it's worth mentioning for. As good
as Minnesota's defense was, both Oklahoma City and Dallas lit
them up, so game planning obviously is going to be
part of it as well, getting the most out of
your defensive talent. But the biggest issue was their offense.
Minnesota logged a one oh four offensive rating in the
(26:17):
four losses versus Oklahoma City. That's just not going to
get it done. It starts with Ant. He's got to
become a more resilient, less variance dependent score. I talked
a ton after the Western Conference Finals about how Shay
badly outclassed Ant as a mid to short range score,
and I thought it was literally the difference in the series.
(26:40):
Shay outscored Ant one fifty seven to one fifteen in
that series. If your superstar gets outplayed to that extent,
it's almost impossible to overcome. Now, what I said at
the time was that Ant needed to build out reliable
short range scoring, the ability to use his size and
strength to get closer to the against the elite perimeter
(27:01):
defenders of the league. But also to have a shot
that he can shoot over the rim protector so he
doesn't have to contend with those guys at the rim.
So I was relieved when Shaan Sharani had reported last
week that Ant had spent all summer working on his
post game and his mid to short range scoring. That
means Ant is paying attention to what happened. It means
(27:21):
he went back and watched the tape. He went back
and looked at the numbers, and he saw where the
area of opportunity was. We shared these stats during our
player ranking series, but I want to share him again.
Ant posted up twenty seven times in the twenty twenty
four playoff run and got one point one nine points
per possession. That's awesome. He posted up just seven times
total in the twenty twenty five playoff run. It was
(27:43):
a thing that really worked for him and he like
straight up abandoned it. There's a lot of talk about
Ant's playmaking, and it's certainly something you want to see
him to continue to incrementally improve on over the years.
But he's averaging six assists per game on a two
to one assist to turnover ratio over the last two
playoff runs like he's getting better. He'll continue to get
better there, but his supreme gift is scoring the basketball,
(28:06):
and right now he's struggling to do that against the
absolute best defenses in the league. That's where he needs
to become more reliable. That heavy shift towards three point
shooting and helped him in true shooting percentage in the
regular season. It helped him hit higher scoring volume. I'm
not saying he needs to stop taking threes, but he
was six for thirty one from three again in the
four losses against Oklahoma City. Because that's something that can
(28:28):
happen when you rely on heavy, high volume three point shooting.
Building out a reliable short range scoring game. It will
help him go bucket for bucket with guys like Shay
and the best greats in the NBA. I thought the
Julius Randall experiment went about as well as it could
have gone given the clunky fit. He shot better from
(28:50):
three than you would think, like he was forty percent
over his last twenty one regular season games and then
thirty nine percent in the playoffs. He also provided like
a face up and low post creation element to kind
of get the defense into rotation. I hated his game two.
In Game four against Oklahoma City, it felt like he
was like openly pouting on the floor. But I'm trying
to cut him at least a little bit of slack,
(29:11):
just simply because Oklahoma City embarrassed a lot of guys
with their defense in that playoff run. In general, I
think he fits the identity of the team really well.
He's a big, physical ass kicking forward that can really
leverage that physicality in the postseason. He had twenty seven
offensive rebounds in the playoffs, and he was a pretty
(29:32):
efficient twenty four points per game before the Minnesota series.
I think that that trade and that experiment worked out
about as well as it possibly could have given the
way it looked at the time of the trade. Those
two guys ultimately control this team's destiny. The defense is
the defense. They definitely need more from Chris Finch and
game planning, like we talked about to prevent your defense
(29:54):
from just completely falling apart against Luca and SGA. More
mixing up of coverages, including some zone, more willingness to
adjust when things aren't working. I don't think the Nikil
Alexander Walker loss greatly affects their fortunes like he wasn't
in their best five. He's very good. I like Alexander Walker.
(30:16):
I wanted him on the Lakers this summer, but like
he's not in their best five. And I do think
in the regular season, guys like Terrence Shannon and Jalen
Clark can be productive enough to prevent much of a
drop off there, and one of those guys, one of
those two dudes will end up popping just enough to
be able to give you a shift or two per
game when they get to the postseason. They also match
(30:37):
up really well with Denver, which I think is a
strong foundation for a case that Minnesota could win the conference.
They just need to be able to score the ball
when they face an elite defense that can protect the rim.
So essentially, what I'm saying is they've got to be
able to handle Oklahoma City if they can get there,
and that's going to depend on Julius Randall avoiding those
(30:58):
disaster games than the Edwards becoming a better and more
reliable score hopefully built around the idea of short to
mid range scoring as well as the incremental improvements as
a playmaker. The pathways there for Minnesota, like it's easy
to see Minnesota gets on the opposite side of the
bracket from Oklahoma City and Denver, and Denver upsets Oklahoma City.
(31:19):
You get Minnesota Denver in the conference finals, repeat of
what happened two years ago. All of a sudden, you're
in the finals and you're probably favored when you get there,
but again that's not guaranteed. There's a chance. There's a
good chance you run into Oklahoma City somewhere along the way,
especially if they end up with the one and two seed.
So at that point you're going to have to solve
(31:39):
that puzzle when you get there. Right, We're going to
go more quickly through these last two Portland Trailblazers off
season recap. They lost dere And and Andrey Simons. They added
Drew Holliday and Damian Lillard, who's going to miss all
of the season, and Young Hansen, who was their first
round pick at number sixteen. Kind of an interesting pick.
Most draft boards graded him as a second rounder. My
(32:01):
guy Sam Vessini, who is the person I trust the
most with the draft, he had him at forty eight.
The Blazers also had just drafted Donovan Klingen, so I
guess they're looking at this as like a center by
committee thing. I was looking at some quotes and apparently
they're looking at as like Donovan Klingon is your big,
physical ass kicking center, and then Yang Hansen is basically
like your finesse you know, offensive skill oriented center. The
(32:24):
Blazers have some really interesting young talent. Shade and Sharp
had a bunch of really big scoring games down the
stretch of the season. Although that was a lot of
like high usage chucking. Denny Avdya really popped at the
end of the year. In his final thirteen games. This
is crazy. Denny Avdia averaged twenty seven points, eleven rebounds,
and six assists, and he won his minutes. And he
(32:45):
did it on fifty two percent from the field, forty
six percent from three, and eighty two percent from the line.
And the big thing is, like, again, you see a
lot of noise at the end of the year, especially
with teams that don't really have anything to play for.
They put the ball in the hands of a bunch
of random do dudes, and sometimes they can put up
numbers like I like Shaden Sharp, but I don't expect
Shadon Sharp to be a guy that's gonna average twenty
(33:06):
six points a game like he did down the stretch
of the season. Right Like to me, like the major
on ball stuff isn't really coming forward for me as
something that I think he's ready for just yet. But
like the Denny Ovdyus stuff, I view that as real.
You know, maybe not to the extent is of him
like averaging twenty seven points per game for a whole season,
(33:26):
but especially with the Scoot Henderson injury, who apparently tore
his hamstring the other day. I wouldn't be surprised if
they start with Denny as like their primary shot creators
start the year. And I wouldn't be surprised if we're
twenty games into the season and Denny's averaging like twenty
five points, ten rebounds, five assists on sixty percent through shooting.
He's just he's a really gifted offensive player. He shot
(33:48):
pull up threes insanely well. He's got forty one percent
on seventy pull up threes with Portland. He showed that
in ball screens when guys would go under. He showed
it in ISO out of dribble combinations on like step
backs and things like that. He's got like real downhill
burst you'll see it in ISOs where he'll just catch
and he'll get a big on a switch and he'll
just hit the gas going to the right and he'll
dust somebody off the dribble. He'll in a ball screen
(34:11):
if the BIG's not up at the level, he'll get
downhill into the lane, driving clothes out, so he'll hit
a really hard like left handed or like a jab
step to the left and then drive to the right
where he gets really good first step quickness. He's got
some bullyball to his game where he'll just power through guys.
He'll drop that right shoulder and just go through guys
all the way to the basket. He's got like really
(34:32):
nice change of pace on his drives, like in ball screens,
he'll put the defender in jail and trap him on
the backside and hit a little floater or like a
step through something like that. He'll like burst downhill and
then slow way down with slow down steps. His bigs
jump around him, and then he'll find a little angle
he'll euro or he'll slide through some weird gap where
(34:52):
it'll look like he's driving towards the left and then
somehow finish on the right as he swalloms through the
lane like it's honestly a little Luca Lights. Sometimes he's
he's got pump fakes and like up and unders and
step throughs where he'll get to little short floaters and
short jump shots. Honestly, I think it's a really impressive
move from this Portland front office to find an underappreciated
(35:16):
talent in this league. And to be clear, I wasn't
watching the Wizards a ton back then. I wasn't aware
of this upside myself. But he has my attention now
and I think he's really really good. As I was
digging into the Portland tape this morning, you know, you're
gonna see a lot of noise, like we talked about,
but in that noise, you're gonna see things that you
think are real, And Denny Avdia being like potentially a
(35:38):
legitimate like shot creator in this league is something that
I think is real and I'm really really excited to
watch him this year. Tamani Kamara and Drew Holliday will
make a formidable pairing of defensive weapons, and they have
a strong defensive center rotation with Donovan Klingen and Rob Williams.
They don't have their clear foundational superstar yet and I'm
(35:59):
not sure if Scoot hender will ever be that, but
they do have some really strong foundational pieces. I think
the main goals for this season are find out if
Denny is good enough to be a championship number two,
give him the ball a ton, and then see what
the upside is trending towards with guys like Scoot Henderson,
if he can be healthy and shade and sharp right.
(36:19):
If they're not, then it's time for you to start
planning how to get that foundational superstar again. The thought
process is, you need a number one, you need a
number two, and you need complimentary role players. And you
don't know what complimentary role players you need until you
know what your number one and your number two are.
And I think getting Denny and like seeing that upside
and we'll see. It's got to you know, it's one
(36:40):
thing to do it for twenty games or whatever. At
the end of the season, you got to you gotta
figure out how to do it. Over the course of
a season. There's gonna be attempts to figure him out
in scouting, and teams will figure out ways to guard
him better than they did. There was a lot of
like going underpicks on Denny. There are certain teams that
chase him over, Like I watched the game with the
Knicks where they chased him over the entire game, and
(37:00):
that's where he showed a lot of that like putting
the defender in jail type of stuff. But then there
are other games where dudes are dying on picks and
it's like, yeah, if you're going to hit pull up
threes at forty percent, they're gonna start chasing you over
the top. Right, We're going to see the league try
to figure Denny out and then we will find out
if Denny is worth building around as that like secondary
star on a real team with real chances. But Portland's
(37:23):
going to be a really fun league pass team this year.
I wouldn't be surprised if they got up around thirty
to thirty five wins. But we will see. Lastly, today
the Utah Jazz. They lost Jordan Clarkson, John Collins, Colin Sexton,
Johnny Juzang, Jaden Springer, and they added Mobamba, a bunch
of vets that they'll probably trade or buy out at
some point, like Kyle Anderson. Kevin loved George's Kniang and
(37:45):
use Nurkic. A couple of really interesting draft picks, like
Ace Bailey out of Rutgers, who's the He's like a
tough shot maker that can't make tough shots yet and
a lot of unrealized defensive upside, so, in other words,
like a big upside pick. So well if he can
reach that upside. And then Walter Clayton Junior is the
guard out of Florida who made a name for himself
in the NCAA Tournament in a deep run. I don't
(38:07):
have a ton to say about the Jazz. They don't
feel like they've made any progress towards their big picture plans.
They clearly don't have their franchise superstar yet. I mean,
Ace Bailey has that upside, I suppose, but that's a
long shot. It's certainly like a half decade away. And
I like Lori Markinen is a potential number two for
the right superstar. We're going to talk about him in
the context of the Detroit Pistons in the video coming
(38:28):
up on Monday, but he's twenty eight years old now,
so I'm not sure how he fits Utah's timeline unless
you have a plan to bring in a superstar that's older. Right.
I continue to see reports coming out of Utah that
they have no intention of trading him, which makes no
sense to me. Like, I get that he's a great
guy and a great player, and you like having him
in the organization, but he's a great vehicle with which
(38:49):
to give your team more opportunities to find the foundational superstar,
which you don't have yet. There's no young player on
this roster below the age of twenty five that has
real big picture upside other than Ace Bailey, who you
just brought in and we've never seen play in the
pros and in college was a mess. Right, So I
guess this year there's some interesting stuff, right, Like we'll
(39:11):
see if the Jazz trade Lori to a contender. We'll
see if Ace Bailey pops it all. But I'm kind
of unfamiliar with where Utah is trying to get at
this point in time. All Right, guys, It's all I
have for today is always to sincerely appreciate you guys
for supporting us and supporting the show. We'll be back
on Monday, going back out yeast. I believe the Central Division,
if I remember correctly, so I will see you guys.
(39:32):
Then
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.