September 4, 2025 • 44 mins
Jason explains why he has Anthony Edwards of the Minnesota Timberwolves at No. 5 in his NBA player rankings—one spot ahead of Golden State Warriors guard Steph Curry—and what Ant could do to catapult even further up the rankings. He breaks down Ant's strengths, weaknesses, and what he could add to his game. Then Jason goes through the peak (whether past, present, or future) of the stars in his second tier of NBA superstars, Nos. 5-14.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. All right, we'll go to Hoops today. You're
at the volume. Happy Wednesday, everybody. Hope all you guys
are having a great week. We are continuing our player
rankings today, moving into our top five and the final
(00:25):
player in our second tier, Superstar Tier number five, Anthony
Edward's going to be doing a deep dive on him
today at the tail end of the show. Today, I'm
going to go through every single player in this five
through fourteen group, the second tier of superstars, and for
the younger guys, I want to talk about what I
think their peak can be one day. And for the
(00:46):
older guys, I want to talk about what their peak was,
look at the specific stretch of their career, where they
were playing, the best basketball that they played, and where
they stacked up in the league at that point in time.
Should be a fun little exercise at the tail end
of the show, you guys, before we get started, to
subscribe to The Hoops and my YouTube channel so you
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(01:07):
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Under hoops tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave
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the last but not at least keep dropping mail bag
questions in those YouTube comments. We'll get to him in
our Friday mail bags over the course of the remainder
of the offseason. All right, let's talk some basketball. So
it's funny because I put ants at number five last year,
(01:29):
and that was probably it was two things. It was
the pick that I got caught the most shit for,
and I would argue it was one of the bigger
mistakes that I made with that list. Again, the rankings
are supposed to predict who will be the most valuable
player in that coming season, and I thought Jason Tatum
(01:50):
in retrospect after watching last year, pretty clearly was the
fifth best player in the league. Last year, I thought,
at you know, in a lot of ways took a
big leap and many ways moved up the ladder, but
in the postseason in particular, continued to show some of
the flaws that you expect from a player. His age,
which are going to do a lot of talking about today,
(02:10):
but in retrospect, that was one of my bigger mistakes
last year was putting ant up at five. It should
have been Jason Tatum. But as I look at this season,
landed with antet number five, and I think it's the
right spot for him in this coming season. He's the
most reliable player in the league by a mile in
terms of availability, which we'll talk about in a minute.
(02:32):
He took a massive leap in both scoring volume and
efficiency last year. He's in a phase of his career
where we can expect substantial improvement year over year, and
I think in particular, his struggles against Oklahoma City were
very informative for him in his player development. Again, we're
going to spend a good amount of time talking about
that today. I think his playoff shortcomings are a little
overstated because he's basically been amazing outside of the two
(02:54):
Western Conference final series, and he's basically just struggling with
the highest levels of playoff basketball right now, which is
pretty typical for a superstar in his early twenties. The
way that Anthony Edwards is so like those shortcomings made
it a close call for me. Was Steph, but I
ended up landing on Ant at the number five spot,
and I feel pretty good about it this year. I
(03:15):
was a year two early with it last year, but
I think this is where he falls in the league's
hierarchy at this point in time. Let's look at last
season in review, seventy nine games played for Anthony Edwards.
He's played in seventy nine games three years in a row.
He's played in at least seventy games every season of
his career. This is a crazy stat. Here's a list
(03:35):
of players who missed more games just last season that
Anthony Edwards has missed in the last three seasons combined.
Excuse me, ah, I am under selling this. Here's a
list of players who missed more games last season, just
last season, that Anthony Edwards has missed in his entire career. Luka, Doncic, Tyrese,
(03:59):
Maxi Palla, Boncaro LaMelo, Ball, Anthony Davis, Kyrie Irving, Zion Williamson,
Cam Thomas, Joel Embiid, John Morant, Brandon Ingram Kawhi, Leonard,
Brandon Miller, Chris tops Porzingis, Lori, Markinen, John Collins, Jalen Johnson,
Jayden Ivy Dejohon, Tay Murray, Emmanuel Quickly, Paul George, Jordan Clarkson,
(04:19):
Jalen Suggs, Jared McCain, Jonathan gaminga, Mark Williams, chet Holmgren,
Aaron Gordon, Jeremy Grant, DeAndre Ayden, Aaron Nee Smith, Chris Middleton,
and Herb Jones. Every single one of those dudes miss
more games just last season that Anthony Edwards has missed
in his entire career, and he's never missed a playoff game.
(04:40):
So to put it very simply, he is by far
the most dependable night to night superstar in the NBA
right now. He reminds me of a young Lebron in
the sense that, like you'll see him turn the shit
out of his ankle and you'll be watching the TV
thinking there's no way he's gonna be good to keep playing,
and then he's ripping through the defense to the rim
(05:01):
like ninety seconds later. It's a big upside for him
on a list like this, Like we can talk about
Anthony Edwards's ceiling and we're certainly going to today, but
he is by far the most likely player in the
league to at least be at or near his ceiling
every night from October to late May or June, and
that's a big feather in his cap on a list
(05:22):
like this. Ended up being the major differentiator for me,
especially with that debate, was Steph, who I think is
a better basketball player in the small sample still to
this day. His averages last year in seventy nine games
twenty eight points per game, six rebounds, and five assists
with one point eight stocks, forty five percent from the field,
forty percent from three to eighty four percent from the line,
massive increase in his three point volume last year. One
(05:45):
of the things that I did predict correctly with Aunt
last summer was that his newfound shooting stroke was real,
and I predicted that he would shoot well that season,
and he did. He just leaned into it almost comically.
So with just the sheer amount of volume of three
point shots that he was putting up, he was one
of the top three to three point shooters in the
league last year. He was number one in makes if
(06:06):
you were to include shot quality, volume efficiency. There were
three guys who really separated themselves from the pack as
three point shooters last year Steph Curry, Malik Beasley and
Anthony Edwards. I would argue that Steph was the most
impressive three point shooter last year, especially considering quality. I
put Ant second in Malik Beasley third. So I thought
(06:28):
Ant was the second most impressive three point shooter in
the entire NBA last year. There's a big leap forward
for him in that very specific regard. That came with
both upsides and downsides. Again, with the upsides and the downsides,
they both fell in line with my basketball worldview. He
(06:48):
gained in the form of large sample efficiency. This is
a concept we've talked about a ton on this show.
High volume three point shooting. Leaning your into that shot profile,
you will gain in the form of large sample efficiency.
Very rarely well you see a player massively increase their
scoring volume, all simultaneously increasing their efficiency, and Ant did.
(07:11):
And the reason why is because of his three point volume.
He went from twenty six points per game to a
twenty eight points per game, and he logged from he
went from fifty eight percent through shooting to sixty percent
your shooting. So a substantial increase in volume and a
substantial increase in efficiency because of that increase in three
point volume. Again, when you tilt your volume, your shot
(07:32):
profile towards three point line. There is a lot to
gain in large sample efficiency. But as I always say,
skewing heavily towards three point shooting makes you highly susceptible
to variants. And in the Thunder series in particular, Ant
had three duds. He had a one for nine from
three game, and he had two to one for seven
from three games, and the Wolves lost all three of
(07:53):
those games. In fact, if you looked, you kind of
zoomed out from the Wolves in their postseason run last year.
There is a pretty clear correlation between his three point
shooting and his team winning. When he shot over forty
percent from three in the playoffs last year, they went
seven to zero, and when he shot below thirty percent
from three, they went one for five, one in five.
(08:14):
Excuse me. I think it would really benefit from better
balance in his approach, and we'll talk more about that later,
especially when we do a deep dive into OKC series.
But one of the things that I'm counting on here
for man is I do think he learned his lesson there.
I do think we'll see more balance enhanced shot profile
next season. Now let's look at the play type data.
(08:36):
He was an excellent pick and roll player. Last year,
he ran over twelve hundred of him and got one
point zero seven points per possession including passes. That was
in the eighty first percentile. Being over one thousand reps
puts you onto our high volume list as we go
over every summer. He ranked seventh out of the thirteen
players in the NBA last year to run at least
one thousand pick and rolls. For Guy in his early twenties,
(08:57):
big accomplishment for him. He shot extremely well of pick
and roll. He was forty percent on pull up threes
out of ball screens on massive volume. Trey Young was
the only NBA player last year to hit more threes
out of pick and roll than Ant did, and Ant
was the only player in the NBA to attempt at
(09:17):
least two hundred pull up threes in ball screens and
to make at least forty percent of them. That's obviously
going to drive up his pick and roll scoring efficiency.
Then he has a really good floater. He only takes
about once a game, but he made forty nine percent
of his floaters last year. Gets nice and close to
the basket, uses it as a deceleration move. He'll get
like downhill into the defender's chest and then he'll like
(09:39):
sidestep into a little floater that allows him to shoot
before getting to the rim protector, which has been vitally
important for him in some of the spacing issues that
they've dealt with with Gobert really impressive scoring in the
ball screen situations. We're going to talk a little bit
about Ant as a playmaker today, but the truth of
the matter is he's very very much a traditional score archetype.
(10:03):
Self awareness is key. Understand who you are when it
comes to that top tier of playmaking. That's almost always
something that you're born with. That's like a natural kind
of like processing thing. With the way you see the floor.
That's not a death sentence. There are a lot of
guys in NBA history who have been great as primarily scorers.
You know, we were talking about that with Kevin Durant
(10:24):
the other day. The other day. Michael Jordan is a example.
That's why Ant gets kind of compared to him a lot.
But like for An, it's not about becoming some surgical playmaker.
It's just about making the necessary strides to be good
enough at it right. He'll make nice driving kick reads
in ball screens, you'll see him elevate and rifle and
opposite corner pass Jaden McDaniels for a good look. He
(10:46):
has become a more willing passer over the years, but
he's very much a reactionary passer. He's not going to
anticipate things and pass people open. He's going to see
openings and throw the ball reacting to the defense reacting
to him. And that's fine because I think I think
he has the potential to be a true like a
(11:07):
APEX scorer in this league. And I also think he
has the chance to be an all defense level two
way player that is enough to make him a top
tier superstar one day. He just needs to become more
surgically reliable as a scorer the way a guy like
Shay Gilsis Alexander is, and he'll need to reach that
all defense level, which we'll get more into in a
(11:29):
little bit. His one on one stuff wasn't great last year,
and this is where I think the three point shooting
really came back to bite him. He ran six hundred
and thirty six ISOs and post ups last year, including passes,
and got just zero point nine to one points per possession,
not good. I just think this comes down to a
combination of two things. One the go Beart problem. Just
(11:50):
in general, in ISO situations, you're not getting the benefit
of Gobert as a screener. You're getting Gobert in the
dunker spot. And it's not a particularly good lob passer.
Gobert's particularly good lob finisher. It just creates some spacing
issues there. The second piece of it is just an't
bailed on the mid range shot. An shot fine on
pull up threes in ISO shot thirty eight percent. Not
(12:12):
as well as he did in other areas as a
three point shooter, but that's enough to like. Thirty eight
percent from three is like I was. I had a
comment on the Lebron video where someone was like, why
did he say thirty six percent is good on pull
up threes in ball screens? Thirty six percent on threes
in ball screens is fine. That's well over a point
per possession. Thirty six percent on pull up twos is bad.
(12:36):
You would be correct about that, But when it comes
to pull up twos, you want to be in the
high forties at a minimum. But when it comes to
pull up threes, as long as you're over thirty five percent.
You're getting enough points per shot out of it that
it's a good shot. An shot thirty eight percent on
pull up threes out of ISO, that's fine. The problem
is he shot just forty one percent on twos out
(12:58):
of ISO and just thirty one percent out of the post.
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the second piece of it is and just bailed on
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(14:45):
In twenty twenty four, so the year before last, and
had built out a pretty robust set of like short
fades over both shoulders little step back moves and you
just generally leaned on his short range scoring way more.
He ran five one hundred and seventy one to one
on ones that year and got one point zero three
points per possession, which is really solid one on one
(15:06):
work on substantially higher mid range volume, substantially higher post
up volume. That's a part of his game that he
just let go. And what that's what really concerns me
about what happened last year. It shows a lack of
emphasis on that part of his game. I want Aunt
(15:27):
to emphasize that as part of his development moving forward,
so that he's just more rounded. In twenty twenty four,
Aunt attempted to shoot out of the post sixty eight
times last year. That dropped it just thirty five times.
He posted up seven times total in this year's playoff run.
(15:47):
He did so twenty seven times two years ago, and
guess what, he got one point nine points per possession
out of the post. So he posted up to devastating
effect in the twenty twenty four playoff run like twice
a game and literally went down to doing it like
(16:08):
once every other game. That's abandoning a super efficient play
type that is just about proven to be more impactful
in the postseason because of the physicality than high volume
three point shooting is. Looking at short range jump shooting.
In twenty twenty four, attempted two hundred and ten jump
shots inside his seventeen feet. In twenty twenty five, that
(16:29):
dropped to one hundred and thirty six, almost half, and
it especially showed in the playoffs. He took forty of
those short twos in the twenty twenty four Western Conference
Finals run. He made twenty one of them. That's fifty
three percent. That's one point zero five points per shot.
He was getting great success out of mid range jump
(16:50):
shooting and post ups in that playoff runt, physical aggression,
using his athleticism to get more consistent shot making closer
to the rings him. He went from forty down to
just sixteen of those in this most recent playoff run. So,
in other words, despite making real progress as a short
(17:10):
range scorer and getting real reliable results in that twenty
twenty four playoff run, and bailed on it in the
name of large sample efficiency in the form of high
volume three point shooting. I thought this difference in philosophies
was especially glaring in the Western Conference final series against
(17:31):
Oklahoma City this year. To elite defenses going at each other, yeah,
did in like Minnesota's game plan picking up shape, you
know at half court. That was something that I think
it's more harm than good. But to elite defense is
going at each other two very different types of scorers.
Shay was able to get these consistent bits of short
(17:54):
range shot making that carried him in that series, and
he bolstered it with thebility to get to the foul line. Ant,
on the other hand, at several ice cold nights from three,
and he's not as good at getting to the line.
As a result, Sga was able to score more effectively
and I was digging into the numbers. The difference was
(18:16):
almost entirely short range scoring and free throws. So Shae
badly outscored Ant in that series. He had one hundred
and fifty seven points to Ant having just one hundred
and fifteen. It's a forty two point gap over the
course of the series. Excuse me, a yeah, forty two
point gap. That's massive, and it was almost entirely made
(18:36):
up of short range scoring and free throws. Shay made
twenty nine twos outside of the restricted area. It made
forty four free throws. That's one hundred and two points
right there. Ant made fourteen twos outside of the restricted area,
so less than half as many, and just twenty two
free throws half as many. That's fifty points. That oneh
(19:01):
two to fifty gap. That was literally the difference between
the two of them as scorers in that series. Ants
game built on three point shooting failed him. SGA's game
built on short range scoring and the ability to get
to the line that did not fail him. That's the
change in approach that we need to see from Aunt
(19:23):
in order for him to jump from that second tier
of stars into that first tier of stars. Again, like
we talked about earlier, Step one, self awareness, acknowledge the
type of player that you are. Aunt is never going
to be the type of dude who averages tennis sists
per game. A good portion of that playmaking talent is
what you're born with. I think that Aunt certainly could
(19:47):
be a guy who you know, in his early thirties
is around seven eight assists per game just because he
becomes super experienced at making the reads all the time.
But I don't see him getting into that APEX play tier.
So APEX as a player is basically best scorer in
the league, dominant perimeter defender, the Michael Jordan archetype that
(20:09):
is his path. So step two is identifying this flaw
in his approach, and I do believe that Aunt will.
I think we're going to see a massive increase in
Ant in short range scoring this year as soon as
this season, at the expense of large sample efficiency. Like
I am fine with Ant dropping a little bit in
(20:31):
his true shooting percentage this year, his post up volume
needs a skyrocket. I think he needs to lead the
league and guard post ups this year. He's built like
an am tank and it's going to be something he
can lean on in the postseason. Two, he needs to
emphasize short range shot making in his ISOs. Work guys
down closer ten feet from the basket, build out those
(20:55):
short step backs both directions, turn around over your right shoulder,
turn around over your left shoulder, maybe a left shoulder hook.
The advanced footwork like step throughs, things like that short
range scoring, and then lastly the foul drifting. I may
hate that shit, Aunt strikes me as the type of
dude who probably hates that shit too, But if you
could figure out a way to get to the line,
maybe one more time per half, like maybe just adding
(21:18):
pump fakes out of the post or taking some more
aggressive driving angles to get into defender's chests forcing the
reft to blow the whistle. But if you could find
a way to get a couple extra free throw attempts
per game, I think that would go a long way
as well. This is where Aunt actually has the capability
of one day surpassing a guy like Shake Gildas Alexander.
(21:41):
Those are you guys who've been following the show for
a while, might remember I got into a debate with
the nerd Sess guys years ago, it's like two or
three years ago about who had a higher potential ceiling
between Aunt and SGA. And the truth is Aunt does
have more potential. He has to earn it to actually
get there. But his size, strength, and athleticism is an
(22:04):
absurd tool. He's built like an absolute truck, and he
has the potential to build out a bully ball game
that SGA could never build out. He has a quicker
first step, He's far more explosive at the rim. Vertically,
Ant has the potential to be a much better defender,
(22:25):
But right now, SGA is better than him at all
those things. Sga is a far more polished post player
right now. He's better at using change of pace and
counter moves to get all the way to the rim,
so he gets to the rim more often and finishes
at a higher percentage when he gets there. He's a
better brim finisher, he's better at drawing fouls when he
(22:46):
gets there. And even though Ant has all this defensive potential,
Shay is a better defender than him right now. He's
more attentive off the ball. Ant would certainly be better
than SGA one on one playing on an island, but
who's stupid enough to attack Ant one on one? You
run him through screens where he can struggle to navigate screens,
(23:07):
and you take advantage of his lack of attention off
the ball. I think Ant has all world defensive potential,
but right now, Shay is the more useful off ball
defender because he's got good length and he's always in
the right spot he plays it, pays attention to the
defensive scheme and where he's supposed to be, and that
makes him a more useful defender, a more complete defender
(23:30):
right now. Now. None of that is a death sentence
for this rivalry. Shay is a solid three years older
than Ant, and if you actually compare the season Ant
just had to a season from SGA three years ago,
Aunt is actually considerably better than SGA was at that
(23:50):
point in time. So Ant is technically ahead of schedule,
but he's got a long way to go. SGA made
massive leaps in those three years. He's an It's got
his work cut out for him. I get super excited
about Ant because I think his potential is preposterous. We
talked a second ago about how Ant's defensive talent hasn't
(24:12):
really had high level impact yet, but he has the
potential to be like a game breaking defender. He could
easily become one of the two or three best perimeter
defenders in the entire NBA if he just got better
at navigating screens and he's got the quickness to do
it and the strength to do it. He has the
strength to switch onto bigger forwards and switches, and he
(24:35):
is ridiculous weak side potential jumping passing lanes and protecting
the rim if he can just become more attentive and
smarter in the game plan. So I absolutely think it
could be an all defense level player. That's not really
in the cards for a guy like SGA, in my opinion,
and he's quite literally just barely scratching the surface of
(24:58):
his offensive potential. This feels crazy to say, considering he
just averaged twenty eight points per game on sixty percent
for shooting for a full season. When he starts to
master like timing on his drives and change of pace
and just getting a little bit more methodical with the
way he attacks the basket, when he becomes a master
short range score, which I think is in his future,
(25:20):
when he goes up just that little bit of an
extra level as a playmaker just from making the same
reads thousands of times, when he starts to figure out
how to get defenders out of position to draw that
extra couple of fouls per game. He's got a long
way to go, But I think Aunt legitimately has best
player in the world potential. I'm not sure SGA has
(25:41):
that he has the physical talent to be an indomitable,
too way force in the playmaking talent, Like, when you're
looking at these guys in this tier, you have got
to be really, really great at multiple things to be
(26:03):
the best player in the world. Shay is transcendently great
as a score which is enough to move him into
this top tier, but he doesn't have the defensive talent
to be like extremely good on the defensive end, and
he doesn't have the playmaking talent to be extremely good
as a playmaker. I think you need to check two
(26:24):
of those boxes to enter into that conversation with like Jokish,
who is a transcendently great scorer and a transcendently great
playmaker and has the ability to check multiple boxes. One day,
I think he could be a transcendently good scorer and
a transcendently good defender. That is the pathway to him
(26:45):
becoming the best player in the world. I want to
be very clear, I'm just talking about potential. There is
a I would argue it's more likely than not that
Ant kind of ends up as just another guy in
the top tier for the majority of his career, But
that potential is there. It's going to take obsessive competitiveness,
(27:06):
obsessive work behind the scenes, dedication, and willingness to do
the dirty work. But I do think Ant has all
world potential, the ability to be remembered as one of
the guys who took the title of the best player
in the world at some point in time, and has
the potential in the meantime. I think number five is
(27:27):
a bet, a safe bet for Ant In this coming season.
He's gonna play at least seventy five games. He's going
to average at least twenty eight points per game on
at least fifty eight percent through shooting, assuming he cuts
down on his three point volume a little bit, I
expect him to invest more in short range scoring. I
think he did learn his lesson after last year, and
(27:48):
I don't think it would be a bad trade off
if he lost a little bit of that regular season efficiency,
but he became a more reliable playoff score And again,
like everything, I'm grading him on a curve here. When
I talk about best player in the world, I mean
he's played forty two playoff games, made two Western Conference
Finals run, and he is a career twenty seven points
(28:09):
per game on fifty nine percenter shooting in the playoffs.
That's the guy that we've all nitpicked into oblivion. Ant
is in the unfortunate position of being a player in
his early twenties who is consistently making deep playoff runs
and consistently facing off with experienced superstars, and those dudes
(28:31):
outplay him. This is causing everyone to hyper focus on
his flaws, but when the reality is he's crushing it
for a guy his age. In the meantime, I have
a ranked at number five, but I am really curious
to see if he can actually capitalize on that all
world potential. All right, now that we're done with our
second tier of superstars, I wanted to take some time
(28:53):
to look back at this grouping talk about what their
absolute peaks were, or for the younger guys, what their
actual peaks could be. I'm gonna start at number fourteen
and work our way up the list. So number fourteen
Joel Embiid. I actually had a hard time with this one.
I settled on the twenty twenty one season. I understand
(29:15):
that he won the MVP in twenty twenty three and
put up all those crazy scoring numbers, but that was
a phase of his career where he was super banged
up and he really struggled to get through seasons healthy
and he just wasn't very good when he would get
to the playoffs every year all banged up. In twenty
twenty one, that was really the only year where he
played multiple playoff rounds and didn't experience any sort of
substantial drop off in his scoring or efficiency in the
(29:38):
postseason compared to the regular season. In the twenty twenty
one regular season and Beat averaged twenty nine points and
eleven rebounds eleven rebounds on sixty four percent through shooting.
In the playoffs, he averaged twenty eight points eleven rebounds
on sixty three percent through shooting. He had some turnover issues,
especially at the end of the Hawk series, but if
(29:58):
you guys remember that was the series where Ben's Simmons
like just completely shit the bed and they probably advanced
to the conference finals and have a great shot to
win the title if they get a better performance out
of Ben Simmons in that series. I think at that
point in time, even including the playoffs, you would have
to consider Embiid in that top five, like he was
(30:18):
a consensus top five player at that point in time.
He had some best player in the World buzz in
later years, like when he was competing for MVPs, but
mostly from a regular season box score standpoint, and a
lot of like Philadelphia seventy six ers fans, a lot
of basketball people understood at that point that Embid was
(30:39):
too physically beat up and too inconsistent as a playoff
performer to actually be considered as one of the top
guys back in twenty twenty one. I think that was
the year where you look at him as a consensus
top five guy. Unfortunately, I think that will end up
being Embiid's peak. I don't think he'll ever be able
to get back to that level again with his knee troubles.
Number thirteen Kawhi Leonard, I think the answer to this
(31:00):
one is pretty clearly twenty nineteen. I think he hit
higher levels as a basketball player later on, but he
was unable to sustain them because of his knee troubles.
Like if you wanted to pick like a very small
window for a peak, I would look at his two
playoff runs in twenty twenty one and twenty twenty three
before he got hurt both years. In those thirteen playoff games,
he was like Robot Kawhi at his finest thirty one points,
(31:23):
eight rebounds, and five assists per game on fifty seven
percent from the field, forty two percent from three to
eighty eight percent from line, with two point one steals
per game. That's probably the highest individual peak he reached,
but thirteen games isn't enough to qualify for something like this.
I think twenty nineteen was like that mind body skill
peak for Kawhi Leonard. He wasn't quite as good as
(31:45):
he was in later years, but he was actually healthy
enough to sustain it. He aver hised twenty seven points
and seven rebounds on sixty one percent true shooting in
sixty regular season games. He played in all their playoff
games that year, he averaged thirty one points and nine
rebounds on sixty two percent tro shooting. In the playoffs,
he hit all sorts of iconic shots on his way
to a finals MVP for an awesome Raptors team and
(32:09):
hoisted the trophy. I think at this point in time,
he was the clear fourth best player in the world,
behind Lebron Stephan kd. Now, if you want to argue
Kawhi second because KDE and Lebron were both hurt that year,
sure go ahead, But I mean Lebron literally went right
back the next year, whipped Kawai's ass and was clearly
the best player alive and won the title. So I
(32:29):
don't I think that was more injury related, And then
I would argue that Kawhi's ceiling has been higher than
Kd's ceiling post Kd's Achilles tear. But I thought healthy
KD in twenty nineteen was still a better player than
Kawhi Leonard at that point in time. So I think
like Kawhi peaked as like the fourth best everyone's healthy
player in the world during that particular season. Number twelve
(32:54):
Donovan Mitchell. I think we're actually at Donovan Mitchell's peak
right now. More or less, that's the peak of his
mind body skill connection. Like we talked about earlier, he
might not be putting up the same numbers he did
in twenty twenty three, but I think he's a much
better game manager now, and he's a better defender now
than he was there towards the end with the Jazz,
and he just put together a monster playoff run this
(33:15):
last season. I do think this is the highest Donovan
Mitchell will ever get. I'm not gonna say that he
can't move up. I just don't necessarily think he will.
He relies very heavily on his athletic advantages at this
point in his career, but he's about to turn twenty
nine years old. I think he may plateau here for
a couple of years, but I would be surprised if
he ever moved up substantially, like I'd be surprised if
(33:37):
we were ever talking about Donovan Mitchell as the fifth
best player in the world. I think this is more
or less the peak for him. But I don't don't
get hung up on the number twelve thing. Like the
league is super deep with talent. The bottom line is
this year I considered him to be on the same
level as the second tier superstars in this league, which
I think is an amazing accomplishment, especially for a guy
who was a thirteenth pick, number eleven. Kevin Durants, I
(34:01):
think his peak was twenty eighteen. The numbers weren't super
impressive because of the fact that he was playing on
the most talented roster ever assembled, but they were impressive nonetheless.
Twenty six points, seven rebounds on five assists on sixty
four percent shooting, a career high one point eight blocks
per game that year in the playoff run, twenty nine
eight and five on sixty one percent tr shooting, culminating
(34:23):
in what I thought was the best game he ever
played in one of the best individual games I've ever
seen any NBA player in the history of the league.
Game three of the NBA Finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers.
That was a game if you guys remember Stephan Clay
both went completely ice cold and basically no showed the game,
and Katie went for forty three points, thirteen rebounds, and
(34:45):
seven assists on fifteen for twenty three from the field
in six for nine from three, and the box score
doesn't really tell the full story. I thought he was
masterful from start to finish. I thought he completely controlled
the flow of the game. He hit the dagger over
Lebron to end that game with from like twenty seven
feet away from the basket. That was Kd's peak in
(35:05):
my opinion. Now, the question is where did KD rank
at this point in time. You know what's funny is,
at the time, a younger version of me, almost a
decade ago, I thought KD was better than Steph at
that point in time. But it was a long time ago.
I was a much younger basketball fan. I didn't really
understand basketball the way that I do now. I didn't
(35:27):
understand advantage creation the way I do now. So I
now feel pretty strongly that Steph was the best player
on that team. So at that point in time, I
would have put KD third behind Lebron at one in
Steph at two. I just think Steph's advantage creation was
the actual thing that made that team go. Steph was
a little bit susceptible to variants, and yeah, like KD
(35:50):
was saved their ass, but that's what made it a sweep.
Like Steph was going toe to tote with Lebron without
Kevin Durant in the couple of years before that partnership.
I think Steph was a better player than KD at
that point in time. But that to me, like it's
interesting because I do think KD reached a higher point
in the league's hierarchy earlier on, Like from twenty twelve
(36:12):
to twenty fourteen, he was the second best player in
the world behind Lebron. I just think KD is a
basketball player, was better in twenty eighteen. Steph just had
surpassed him at that point. There's no shame in that.
I think Steph is the fifth best perimeter player of
all time. That's just what happens when Steph Curry comes
into the equation number ten. Anthony Davis, this one's easy
twenty twenty twenty six points and nine rebounds with four
(36:35):
stocks per game on sixty one percent through shooting. That
season an absolutely ridiculous playoff run twenty eight points and
ten rebounds per game on sixty seven percent through shooting.
Became an absolutely deadly jump shooter. In that playoff run,
he shot forty seven percent on all jump shots. He
shot sixty two percent on long twos outside of seventeen feet.
(36:59):
He was thirty one for fifty, He had a game winner.
He was a dominant defender the whole year, from start
to finish. It really answered the question of like, what
would it look like if you had the best defender
in the league but also a guy with a deadly
jump shot, And that guy, in my opinion at that
point in time, was the fourth best player in the world. Now, unfortunately,
as with Embiid, I just think Ad is too far
(37:21):
gone in terms of his injuries and the weight that
he's put on and the age that he's at now.
I don't think he'll ever pass that ceiling again. But
twenty twenty was the peak of Anthony Davis' career. Number nine.
Jalen Brunson, similarly to Donovan Mitchell. I think we're experiencing
his peak right now. By the time you guys see
this video, he'll be twenty nine years old, so he'll
begin to experience some age related declin and athleticism. But
(37:45):
I do think he'll hang at this level for like
similar to Mitchell, I think he'll plateau here for a
while before he go before he goes down. But we're
in a three year span. We're in the playoffs for
three consecutive seasons. He's averaged thirty points per game on
fifty seven percent through shooting with seven assists. That's one
hell of a run from a guy who's now entered
into that second tier of superstars. Again, we were talking
(38:06):
about this with like Shae at the top. Like, the
problem with guys like Mitchell and Brunson is they're not
transcendently great at scoring the way that Shay is, and
they don't have that I'm awesome at several different things.
Tier like Brunson's a better passer than Donovan Mitchell, but
(38:28):
Jalen Brunson still is not an elite passer, and he
still is not a guy who can impact the game defensively.
And so they're both really good scorers, but they just
don't have the versatility elements of their game to crack
into that top tier. And if you're gonna crack into
that top tier without versatility, you gotta be like Shae,
a guy who's gonna average damn near thirty four points
(38:49):
per game hyper efficiently. And that's just not what you're
getting out of those two guys. So I look at
Brunson and Mitchell is more or less at their ceilings
right now. Number eight Lebron James peak for me with
Lebron was twenty eighteen. It was unfortunately one of the
worst rosters he ever played on, but he still managed
(39:09):
to drag them to the finals. He averaged twenty eight
points nine rebounds in nine asists on sixty two percent
true shooting that year. Went up a massive level in
the playoffs, one of the best individual playoff runs you
will ever see in the history of the NBA. He
averaged thirty four points, nine rebounds in nine a sists
without a dip inefficiency stated sixty two percent true shooting.
He coasted on defense in the regular season, but he
(39:30):
was great on that end in the playoffs. He had
eight forty point games in that postseason run. He hung
fifty on the Warriors in the finals. He hit multiple
buzzer beating game winners. He won multiple series as the underdog.
To put it very simply, not only was Lebron the
best player in the league in twenty eighteen, I think
twenty eighteen Lebron is the best basketball player to ever
(39:52):
play in the NBA. Number seven Victor Wimenyama, obviously not
too much to dig into. Last season was his peak?
The hard to see why it was his second season,
obviously predictable leaps across the board. The question is what
will Wemby's peak be? And the answer is, I think
he will be the best player in the world someday.
(40:14):
I talked about Aunt today and how he had the
potential to one day become the best player in the world,
But it's far from a guarantee with Ant, I actually
think it's a safer bet with Ant that he cracks
the top tier of superstars but never actually claims the
top spot. I personally would be surprised if Wemby never
actually took the top spot in the NBA. He's already
(40:35):
the best defensive player in the world. He's very likely
to get even better on that end in the coming years,
as he gets better at reading and reacting to modern
NBA offenses, Like I think he'll become he's already the
best defender in the NBA. I think he'll become far, far, far, far,
far and away the best defender in the NBA in time.
But I also think it's almost a certainty that he'll
eventually average thirty points per game on sixty two percent
(40:57):
true shooting or so, probably in the next like two
or three years. So like I think he would require
an injury or for Wemby to like just straight up
not figure a lot of basic shit out for him
to not eventually become the consensus top player in the world.
Two more, number six Steph Curry. I think his peak
(41:18):
stretched from the end of the regular season in twenty
twenty one to the time he hoisted the trophy in
the twenty twenty two finals. I think that twenty twenty
two season was the one time in Steph's career where
I think he had a really strong, really hard to
refute case as the best basketball player alive. Like I
disagree with Warriors fans, I think he was better than
Lebron during Lebron's prime. I you know, it gets to
(41:41):
be a debate with him in Giannis in twenty twenty one,
I had Giannis as the best player in the world.
In twenty twenty one he won the title. Kind of
feels like you have to give it to him there. Jokic,
I think snatched it for good starting in twenty twenty three.
Twenty twenty two, is that one season in Steph's career
where I really do think he had a strong case
(42:02):
to be the best player in the world. At that point,
Giannis regressed a little bit off of his title winning
season in twenty twenty one. Jokic hadn't really peaked yet,
maybe because of his rosters, but still we'll just you know,
he hadn't made that successful deep playoff run where he
just alpha dogged everybody like he did the following season.
Lebron was never the same after his high ankle sprain
(42:23):
in twenty twenty one. Luca and Shakilvis Alexander weren't ready yet.
I think that was the window in time where Steph
had that best player in the world belt twenty twenty one,
the second half of the season that was insane. Steph's
last forty three games that year, despite the entire league
throwing everything at him. Because KD was out, Klay Thompson
(42:44):
was out, he was getting the most aggressive coverages in
the world. He averaged thirty four points per game on
sixty seven percent true shooting for forty three games. That
is far and away the most impressive scoring in afficiency
stretch of his career. He did battle a slight shooting
(43:04):
slump in the following season, but on a better roster,
he recaptured his touch in the playoffs, made the run
at the end, iconic game in Game four on the
road in Boston, gets that title that legitimizes everything and
shuts the haters up from the previous titles. Lastly, number
five Anthony Edwards. I'm going to go with the twenty
(43:26):
twenty four season, so two years ago. Obviously, he had
a much more impressive regular season this year with his
high volume three point shooting. But I thought that he
was more surgical and more physically aggressive as a scorer
in twenty twenty four, and I think that made him
a better player in the playoffs compared to the compared
to the following year. Now, as I said earlier, I
(43:46):
do think at has the potential to be the best
player in the world someday, but I think it will
require a lot of things to go right for him.
I think he needs to maximize his defensive potential and
become a much more reliable possession of possession score and
he just has a long way to go to get there.
But I do think he has that potential. All right, guys,
It's all I have for today is always to sincerely
appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show.
(44:08):
We will be back on Friday with a mailbag. I
will see you guys back
The volume. All right, we'll go to Hoops today. You're
at the volume. Happy Wednesday, everybody. Hope all you guys
are having a great week. We are continuing our player
rankings today, moving into our top five and the final
(00:25):
player in our second tier, Superstar Tier number five, Anthony
Edward's going to be doing a deep dive on him
today at the tail end of the show. Today, I'm
going to go through every single player in this five
through fourteen group, the second tier of superstars, and for
the younger guys, I want to talk about what I
think their peak can be one day. And for the
(00:46):
older guys, I want to talk about what their peak was,
look at the specific stretch of their career, where they
were playing, the best basketball that they played, and where
they stacked up in the league at that point in time.
Should be a fun little exercise at the tail end
of the show, you guys, before we get started, to
subscribe to The Hoops and my YouTube channel so you
don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter,
Underscore JCNLTS. You guys, don't miss sho announcements. Don't forget
(01:07):
about a podcast feed wherever you get your podcast. Unders
Under hoops tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave
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the last but not at least keep dropping mail bag
questions in those YouTube comments. We'll get to him in
our Friday mail bags over the course of the remainder
of the offseason. All right, let's talk some basketball. So
it's funny because I put ants at number five last year,
(01:29):
and that was probably it was two things. It was
the pick that I got caught the most shit for,
and I would argue it was one of the bigger
mistakes that I made with that list. Again, the rankings
are supposed to predict who will be the most valuable
player in that coming season, and I thought Jason Tatum
(01:50):
in retrospect after watching last year, pretty clearly was the
fifth best player in the league. Last year, I thought,
at you know, in a lot of ways took a
big leap and many ways moved up the ladder, but
in the postseason in particular, continued to show some of
the flaws that you expect from a player. His age,
which are going to do a lot of talking about today,
(02:10):
but in retrospect, that was one of my bigger mistakes
last year was putting ant up at five. It should
have been Jason Tatum. But as I look at this season,
landed with antet number five, and I think it's the
right spot for him in this coming season. He's the
most reliable player in the league by a mile in
terms of availability, which we'll talk about in a minute.
(02:32):
He took a massive leap in both scoring volume and
efficiency last year. He's in a phase of his career
where we can expect substantial improvement year over year, and
I think in particular, his struggles against Oklahoma City were
very informative for him in his player development. Again, we're
going to spend a good amount of time talking about
that today. I think his playoff shortcomings are a little
overstated because he's basically been amazing outside of the two
(02:54):
Western Conference final series, and he's basically just struggling with
the highest levels of playoff basketball right now, which is
pretty typical for a superstar in his early twenties. The
way that Anthony Edwards is so like those shortcomings made
it a close call for me. Was Steph, but I
ended up landing on Ant at the number five spot,
and I feel pretty good about it this year. I
(03:15):
was a year two early with it last year, but
I think this is where he falls in the league's
hierarchy at this point in time. Let's look at last
season in review, seventy nine games played for Anthony Edwards.
He's played in seventy nine games three years in a row.
He's played in at least seventy games every season of
his career. This is a crazy stat. Here's a list
(03:35):
of players who missed more games just last season that
Anthony Edwards has missed in the last three seasons combined.
Excuse me, ah, I am under selling this. Here's a
list of players who missed more games last season, just
last season, that Anthony Edwards has missed in his entire career. Luka, Doncic, Tyrese,
(03:59):
Maxi Palla, Boncaro LaMelo, Ball, Anthony Davis, Kyrie Irving, Zion Williamson,
Cam Thomas, Joel Embiid, John Morant, Brandon Ingram Kawhi, Leonard,
Brandon Miller, Chris tops Porzingis, Lori, Markinen, John Collins, Jalen Johnson,
Jayden Ivy Dejohon, Tay Murray, Emmanuel Quickly, Paul George, Jordan Clarkson,
(04:19):
Jalen Suggs, Jared McCain, Jonathan gaminga, Mark Williams, chet Holmgren,
Aaron Gordon, Jeremy Grant, DeAndre Ayden, Aaron Nee Smith, Chris Middleton,
and Herb Jones. Every single one of those dudes miss
more games just last season that Anthony Edwards has missed
in his entire career, and he's never missed a playoff game.
(04:40):
So to put it very simply, he is by far
the most dependable night to night superstar in the NBA
right now. He reminds me of a young Lebron in
the sense that, like you'll see him turn the shit
out of his ankle and you'll be watching the TV
thinking there's no way he's gonna be good to keep playing,
and then he's ripping through the defense to the rim
(05:01):
like ninety seconds later. It's a big upside for him
on a list like this, Like we can talk about
Anthony Edwards's ceiling and we're certainly going to today, but
he is by far the most likely player in the
league to at least be at or near his ceiling
every night from October to late May or June, and
that's a big feather in his cap on a list
(05:22):
like this. Ended up being the major differentiator for me,
especially with that debate, was Steph, who I think is
a better basketball player in the small sample still to
this day. His averages last year in seventy nine games
twenty eight points per game, six rebounds, and five assists
with one point eight stocks, forty five percent from the field,
forty percent from three to eighty four percent from the line,
massive increase in his three point volume last year. One
(05:45):
of the things that I did predict correctly with Aunt
last summer was that his newfound shooting stroke was real,
and I predicted that he would shoot well that season,
and he did. He just leaned into it almost comically.
So with just the sheer amount of volume of three
point shots that he was putting up, he was one
of the top three to three point shooters in the
league last year. He was number one in makes if
(06:06):
you were to include shot quality, volume efficiency. There were
three guys who really separated themselves from the pack as
three point shooters last year Steph Curry, Malik Beasley and
Anthony Edwards. I would argue that Steph was the most
impressive three point shooter last year, especially considering quality. I
put Ant second in Malik Beasley third. So I thought
(06:28):
Ant was the second most impressive three point shooter in
the entire NBA last year. There's a big leap forward
for him in that very specific regard. That came with
both upsides and downsides. Again, with the upsides and the downsides,
they both fell in line with my basketball worldview. He
(06:48):
gained in the form of large sample efficiency. This is
a concept we've talked about a ton on this show.
High volume three point shooting. Leaning your into that shot profile,
you will gain in the form of large sample efficiency.
Very rarely well you see a player massively increase their
scoring volume, all simultaneously increasing their efficiency, and Ant did.
(07:11):
And the reason why is because of his three point volume.
He went from twenty six points per game to a
twenty eight points per game, and he logged from he
went from fifty eight percent through shooting to sixty percent
your shooting. So a substantial increase in volume and a
substantial increase in efficiency because of that increase in three
point volume. Again, when you tilt your volume, your shot
(07:32):
profile towards three point line. There is a lot to
gain in large sample efficiency. But as I always say,
skewing heavily towards three point shooting makes you highly susceptible
to variants. And in the Thunder series in particular, Ant
had three duds. He had a one for nine from
three game, and he had two to one for seven
from three games, and the Wolves lost all three of
(07:53):
those games. In fact, if you looked, you kind of
zoomed out from the Wolves in their postseason run last year.
There is a pretty clear correlation between his three point
shooting and his team winning. When he shot over forty
percent from three in the playoffs last year, they went
seven to zero, and when he shot below thirty percent
from three, they went one for five, one in five.
(08:14):
Excuse me. I think it would really benefit from better
balance in his approach, and we'll talk more about that later,
especially when we do a deep dive into OKC series.
But one of the things that I'm counting on here
for man is I do think he learned his lesson there.
I do think we'll see more balance enhanced shot profile
next season. Now let's look at the play type data.
(08:36):
He was an excellent pick and roll player. Last year,
he ran over twelve hundred of him and got one
point zero seven points per possession including passes. That was
in the eighty first percentile. Being over one thousand reps
puts you onto our high volume list as we go
over every summer. He ranked seventh out of the thirteen
players in the NBA last year to run at least
one thousand pick and rolls. For Guy in his early twenties,
(08:57):
big accomplishment for him. He shot extremely well of pick
and roll. He was forty percent on pull up threes
out of ball screens on massive volume. Trey Young was
the only NBA player last year to hit more threes
out of pick and roll than Ant did, and Ant
was the only player in the NBA to attempt at
(09:17):
least two hundred pull up threes in ball screens and
to make at least forty percent of them. That's obviously
going to drive up his pick and roll scoring efficiency.
Then he has a really good floater. He only takes
about once a game, but he made forty nine percent
of his floaters last year. Gets nice and close to
the basket, uses it as a deceleration move. He'll get
like downhill into the defender's chest and then he'll like
(09:39):
sidestep into a little floater that allows him to shoot
before getting to the rim protector, which has been vitally
important for him in some of the spacing issues that
they've dealt with with Gobert really impressive scoring in the
ball screen situations. We're going to talk a little bit
about Ant as a playmaker today, but the truth of
the matter is he's very very much a traditional score archetype.
(10:03):
Self awareness is key. Understand who you are when it
comes to that top tier of playmaking. That's almost always
something that you're born with. That's like a natural kind
of like processing thing. With the way you see the floor.
That's not a death sentence. There are a lot of
guys in NBA history who have been great as primarily scorers.
You know, we were talking about that with Kevin Durant
(10:24):
the other day. The other day. Michael Jordan is a example.
That's why Ant gets kind of compared to him a lot.
But like for An, it's not about becoming some surgical playmaker.
It's just about making the necessary strides to be good
enough at it right. He'll make nice driving kick reads
in ball screens, you'll see him elevate and rifle and
opposite corner pass Jaden McDaniels for a good look. He
(10:46):
has become a more willing passer over the years, but
he's very much a reactionary passer. He's not going to
anticipate things and pass people open. He's going to see
openings and throw the ball reacting to the defense reacting
to him. And that's fine because I think I think
he has the potential to be a true like a
(11:07):
APEX scorer in this league. And I also think he
has the chance to be an all defense level two
way player that is enough to make him a top
tier superstar one day. He just needs to become more
surgically reliable as a scorer the way a guy like
Shay Gilsis Alexander is, and he'll need to reach that
all defense level, which we'll get more into in a
(11:29):
little bit. His one on one stuff wasn't great last year,
and this is where I think the three point shooting
really came back to bite him. He ran six hundred
and thirty six ISOs and post ups last year, including passes,
and got just zero point nine to one points per possession,
not good. I just think this comes down to a
combination of two things. One the go Beart problem. Just
(11:50):
in general, in ISO situations, you're not getting the benefit
of Gobert as a screener. You're getting Gobert in the
dunker spot. And it's not a particularly good lob passer.
Gobert's particularly good lob finisher. It just creates some spacing
issues there. The second piece of it is just an't
bailed on the mid range shot. An shot fine on
pull up threes in ISO shot thirty eight percent. Not
(12:12):
as well as he did in other areas as a
three point shooter, but that's enough to like. Thirty eight
percent from three is like I was. I had a
comment on the Lebron video where someone was like, why
did he say thirty six percent is good on pull
up threes in ball screens? Thirty six percent on threes
in ball screens is fine. That's well over a point
per possession. Thirty six percent on pull up twos is bad.
(12:36):
You would be correct about that, But when it comes
to pull up twos, you want to be in the
high forties at a minimum. But when it comes to
pull up threes, as long as you're over thirty five percent.
You're getting enough points per shot out of it that
it's a good shot. An shot thirty eight percent on
pull up threes out of ISO, that's fine. The problem
is he shot just forty one percent on twos out
(12:58):
of ISO and just thirty one percent out of the post.
Now again, like we talked about the spacing piece, but
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(14:45):
In twenty twenty four, so the year before last, and
had built out a pretty robust set of like short
fades over both shoulders little step back moves and you
just generally leaned on his short range scoring way more.
He ran five one hundred and seventy one to one
on ones that year and got one point zero three
points per possession, which is really solid one on one
(15:06):
work on substantially higher mid range volume, substantially higher post
up volume. That's a part of his game that he
just let go. And what that's what really concerns me
about what happened last year. It shows a lack of
emphasis on that part of his game. I want Aunt
(15:27):
to emphasize that as part of his development moving forward,
so that he's just more rounded. In twenty twenty four,
Aunt attempted to shoot out of the post sixty eight
times last year. That dropped it just thirty five times.
He posted up seven times total in this year's playoff run.
(15:47):
He did so twenty seven times two years ago, and
guess what, he got one point nine points per possession
out of the post. So he posted up to devastating
effect in the twenty twenty four playoff run like twice
a game and literally went down to doing it like
(16:08):
once every other game. That's abandoning a super efficient play
type that is just about proven to be more impactful
in the postseason because of the physicality than high volume
three point shooting is. Looking at short range jump shooting.
In twenty twenty four, attempted two hundred and ten jump
shots inside his seventeen feet. In twenty twenty five, that
(16:29):
dropped to one hundred and thirty six, almost half, and
it especially showed in the playoffs. He took forty of
those short twos in the twenty twenty four Western Conference
Finals run. He made twenty one of them. That's fifty
three percent. That's one point zero five points per shot.
He was getting great success out of mid range jump
(16:50):
shooting and post ups in that playoff runt, physical aggression,
using his athleticism to get more consistent shot making closer
to the rings him. He went from forty down to
just sixteen of those in this most recent playoff run. So,
in other words, despite making real progress as a short
(17:10):
range scorer and getting real reliable results in that twenty
twenty four playoff run, and bailed on it in the
name of large sample efficiency in the form of high
volume three point shooting. I thought this difference in philosophies
was especially glaring in the Western Conference final series against
(17:31):
Oklahoma City this year. To elite defenses going at each other, yeah,
did in like Minnesota's game plan picking up shape, you
know at half court. That was something that I think
it's more harm than good. But to elite defense is
going at each other two very different types of scorers.
Shay was able to get these consistent bits of short
(17:54):
range shot making that carried him in that series, and
he bolstered it with thebility to get to the foul line. Ant,
on the other hand, at several ice cold nights from three,
and he's not as good at getting to the line.
As a result, Sga was able to score more effectively
and I was digging into the numbers. The difference was
(18:16):
almost entirely short range scoring and free throws. So Shae
badly outscored Ant in that series. He had one hundred
and fifty seven points to Ant having just one hundred
and fifteen. It's a forty two point gap over the
course of the series. Excuse me, a yeah, forty two
point gap. That's massive, and it was almost entirely made
(18:36):
up of short range scoring and free throws. Shay made
twenty nine twos outside of the restricted area. It made
forty four free throws. That's one hundred and two points
right there. Ant made fourteen twos outside of the restricted area,
so less than half as many, and just twenty two
free throws half as many. That's fifty points. That oneh
(19:01):
two to fifty gap. That was literally the difference between
the two of them as scorers in that series. Ants
game built on three point shooting failed him. SGA's game
built on short range scoring and the ability to get
to the line that did not fail him. That's the
change in approach that we need to see from Aunt
(19:23):
in order for him to jump from that second tier
of stars into that first tier of stars. Again, like
we talked about earlier, Step one, self awareness, acknowledge the
type of player that you are. Aunt is never going
to be the type of dude who averages tennis sists
per game. A good portion of that playmaking talent is
what you're born with. I think that Aunt certainly could
(19:47):
be a guy who you know, in his early thirties
is around seven eight assists per game just because he
becomes super experienced at making the reads all the time.
But I don't see him getting into that APEX play tier.
So APEX as a player is basically best scorer in
the league, dominant perimeter defender, the Michael Jordan archetype that
(20:09):
is his path. So step two is identifying this flaw
in his approach, and I do believe that Aunt will.
I think we're going to see a massive increase in
Ant in short range scoring this year as soon as
this season, at the expense of large sample efficiency. Like
I am fine with Ant dropping a little bit in
(20:31):
his true shooting percentage this year, his post up volume
needs a skyrocket. I think he needs to lead the
league and guard post ups this year. He's built like
an am tank and it's going to be something he
can lean on in the postseason. Two, he needs to
emphasize short range shot making in his ISOs. Work guys
down closer ten feet from the basket, build out those
(20:55):
short step backs both directions, turn around over your right shoulder,
turn around over your left shoulder, maybe a left shoulder hook.
The advanced footwork like step throughs, things like that short
range scoring, and then lastly the foul drifting. I may
hate that shit, Aunt strikes me as the type of
dude who probably hates that shit too, But if you
could figure out a way to get to the line,
maybe one more time per half, like maybe just adding
(21:18):
pump fakes out of the post or taking some more
aggressive driving angles to get into defender's chests forcing the
reft to blow the whistle. But if you could find
a way to get a couple extra free throw attempts
per game, I think that would go a long way
as well. This is where Aunt actually has the capability
of one day surpassing a guy like Shake Gildas Alexander.
(21:41):
Those are you guys who've been following the show for
a while, might remember I got into a debate with
the nerd Sess guys years ago, it's like two or
three years ago about who had a higher potential ceiling
between Aunt and SGA. And the truth is Aunt does
have more potential. He has to earn it to actually
get there. But his size, strength, and athleticism is an
(22:04):
absurd tool. He's built like an absolute truck, and he
has the potential to build out a bully ball game
that SGA could never build out. He has a quicker
first step, He's far more explosive at the rim. Vertically,
Ant has the potential to be a much better defender,
(22:25):
But right now, SGA is better than him at all
those things. Sga is a far more polished post player
right now. He's better at using change of pace and
counter moves to get all the way to the rim,
so he gets to the rim more often and finishes
at a higher percentage when he gets there. He's a
better brim finisher, he's better at drawing fouls when he
(22:46):
gets there. And even though Ant has all this defensive potential,
Shay is a better defender than him right now. He's
more attentive off the ball. Ant would certainly be better
than SGA one on one playing on an island, but
who's stupid enough to attack Ant one on one? You
run him through screens where he can struggle to navigate screens,
(23:07):
and you take advantage of his lack of attention off
the ball. I think Ant has all world defensive potential,
but right now, Shay is the more useful off ball
defender because he's got good length and he's always in
the right spot he plays it, pays attention to the
defensive scheme and where he's supposed to be, and that
makes him a more useful defender, a more complete defender
(23:30):
right now. Now. None of that is a death sentence
for this rivalry. Shay is a solid three years older
than Ant, and if you actually compare the season Ant
just had to a season from SGA three years ago,
Aunt is actually considerably better than SGA was at that
(23:50):
point in time. So Ant is technically ahead of schedule,
but he's got a long way to go. SGA made
massive leaps in those three years. He's an It's got
his work cut out for him. I get super excited
about Ant because I think his potential is preposterous. We
talked a second ago about how Ant's defensive talent hasn't
(24:12):
really had high level impact yet, but he has the
potential to be like a game breaking defender. He could
easily become one of the two or three best perimeter
defenders in the entire NBA if he just got better
at navigating screens and he's got the quickness to do
it and the strength to do it. He has the
strength to switch onto bigger forwards and switches, and he
(24:35):
is ridiculous weak side potential jumping passing lanes and protecting
the rim if he can just become more attentive and
smarter in the game plan. So I absolutely think it
could be an all defense level player. That's not really
in the cards for a guy like SGA, in my opinion,
and he's quite literally just barely scratching the surface of
(24:58):
his offensive potential. This feels crazy to say, considering he
just averaged twenty eight points per game on sixty percent
for shooting for a full season. When he starts to
master like timing on his drives and change of pace
and just getting a little bit more methodical with the
way he attacks the basket, when he becomes a master
short range score, which I think is in his future,
(25:20):
when he goes up just that little bit of an
extra level as a playmaker just from making the same
reads thousands of times, when he starts to figure out
how to get defenders out of position to draw that
extra couple of fouls per game. He's got a long
way to go, But I think Aunt legitimately has best
player in the world potential. I'm not sure SGA has
(25:41):
that he has the physical talent to be an indomitable,
too way force in the playmaking talent, Like, when you're
looking at these guys in this tier, you have got
to be really, really great at multiple things to be
(26:03):
the best player in the world. Shay is transcendently great
as a score which is enough to move him into
this top tier, but he doesn't have the defensive talent
to be like extremely good on the defensive end, and
he doesn't have the playmaking talent to be extremely good
as a playmaker. I think you need to check two
(26:24):
of those boxes to enter into that conversation with like Jokish,
who is a transcendently great scorer and a transcendently great
playmaker and has the ability to check multiple boxes. One day,
I think he could be a transcendently good scorer and
a transcendently good defender. That is the pathway to him
(26:45):
becoming the best player in the world. I want to
be very clear, I'm just talking about potential. There is
a I would argue it's more likely than not that
Ant kind of ends up as just another guy in
the top tier for the majority of his career, But
that potential is there. It's going to take obsessive competitiveness,
(27:06):
obsessive work behind the scenes, dedication, and willingness to do
the dirty work. But I do think Ant has all
world potential, the ability to be remembered as one of
the guys who took the title of the best player
in the world at some point in time, and has
the potential in the meantime. I think number five is
(27:27):
a bet, a safe bet for Ant In this coming season.
He's gonna play at least seventy five games. He's going
to average at least twenty eight points per game on
at least fifty eight percent through shooting, assuming he cuts
down on his three point volume a little bit, I
expect him to invest more in short range scoring. I
think he did learn his lesson after last year, and
(27:48):
I don't think it would be a bad trade off
if he lost a little bit of that regular season efficiency,
but he became a more reliable playoff score And again,
like everything, I'm grading him on a curve here. When
I talk about best player in the world, I mean
he's played forty two playoff games, made two Western Conference
Finals run, and he is a career twenty seven points
(28:09):
per game on fifty nine percenter shooting in the playoffs.
That's the guy that we've all nitpicked into oblivion. Ant
is in the unfortunate position of being a player in
his early twenties who is consistently making deep playoff runs
and consistently facing off with experienced superstars, and those dudes
(28:31):
outplay him. This is causing everyone to hyper focus on
his flaws, but when the reality is he's crushing it
for a guy his age. In the meantime, I have
a ranked at number five, but I am really curious
to see if he can actually capitalize on that all
world potential. All right, now that we're done with our
second tier of superstars, I wanted to take some time
(28:53):
to look back at this grouping talk about what their
absolute peaks were, or for the younger guys, what their
actual peaks could be. I'm gonna start at number fourteen
and work our way up the list. So number fourteen
Joel Embiid. I actually had a hard time with this one.
I settled on the twenty twenty one season. I understand
(29:15):
that he won the MVP in twenty twenty three and
put up all those crazy scoring numbers, but that was
a phase of his career where he was super banged
up and he really struggled to get through seasons healthy
and he just wasn't very good when he would get
to the playoffs every year all banged up. In twenty
twenty one, that was really the only year where he
played multiple playoff rounds and didn't experience any sort of
substantial drop off in his scoring or efficiency in the
(29:38):
postseason compared to the regular season. In the twenty twenty
one regular season and Beat averaged twenty nine points and
eleven rebounds eleven rebounds on sixty four percent through shooting.
In the playoffs, he averaged twenty eight points eleven rebounds
on sixty three percent through shooting. He had some turnover issues,
especially at the end of the Hawk series, but if
(29:58):
you guys remember that was the series where Ben's Simmons
like just completely shit the bed and they probably advanced
to the conference finals and have a great shot to
win the title if they get a better performance out
of Ben Simmons in that series. I think at that
point in time, even including the playoffs, you would have
to consider Embiid in that top five, like he was
(30:18):
a consensus top five player at that point in time.
He had some best player in the World buzz in
later years, like when he was competing for MVPs, but
mostly from a regular season box score standpoint, and a
lot of like Philadelphia seventy six ers fans, a lot
of basketball people understood at that point that Embid was
(30:39):
too physically beat up and too inconsistent as a playoff
performer to actually be considered as one of the top
guys back in twenty twenty one. I think that was
the year where you look at him as a consensus
top five guy. Unfortunately, I think that will end up
being Embiid's peak. I don't think he'll ever be able
to get back to that level again with his knee troubles.
Number thirteen Kawhi Leonard, I think the answer to this
(31:00):
one is pretty clearly twenty nineteen. I think he hit
higher levels as a basketball player later on, but he
was unable to sustain them because of his knee troubles.
Like if you wanted to pick like a very small
window for a peak, I would look at his two
playoff runs in twenty twenty one and twenty twenty three
before he got hurt both years. In those thirteen playoff games,
he was like Robot Kawhi at his finest thirty one points,
(31:23):
eight rebounds, and five assists per game on fifty seven
percent from the field, forty two percent from three to
eighty eight percent from line, with two point one steals
per game. That's probably the highest individual peak he reached,
but thirteen games isn't enough to qualify for something like this.
I think twenty nineteen was like that mind body skill
peak for Kawhi Leonard. He wasn't quite as good as
(31:45):
he was in later years, but he was actually healthy
enough to sustain it. He aver hised twenty seven points
and seven rebounds on sixty one percent true shooting in
sixty regular season games. He played in all their playoff
games that year, he averaged thirty one points and nine
rebounds on sixty two percent tro shooting. In the playoffs,
he hit all sorts of iconic shots on his way
to a finals MVP for an awesome Raptors team and
(32:09):
hoisted the trophy. I think at this point in time,
he was the clear fourth best player in the world,
behind Lebron Stephan kd. Now, if you want to argue
Kawhi second because KDE and Lebron were both hurt that year,
sure go ahead, But I mean Lebron literally went right
back the next year, whipped Kawai's ass and was clearly
the best player alive and won the title. So I
(32:29):
don't I think that was more injury related, And then
I would argue that Kawhi's ceiling has been higher than
Kd's ceiling post Kd's Achilles tear. But I thought healthy
KD in twenty nineteen was still a better player than
Kawhi Leonard at that point in time. So I think
like Kawhi peaked as like the fourth best everyone's healthy
player in the world during that particular season. Number twelve
(32:54):
Donovan Mitchell. I think we're actually at Donovan Mitchell's peak
right now. More or less, that's the peak of his
mind body skill connection. Like we talked about earlier, he
might not be putting up the same numbers he did
in twenty twenty three, but I think he's a much
better game manager now, and he's a better defender now
than he was there towards the end with the Jazz,
and he just put together a monster playoff run this
(33:15):
last season. I do think this is the highest Donovan
Mitchell will ever get. I'm not gonna say that he
can't move up. I just don't necessarily think he will.
He relies very heavily on his athletic advantages at this
point in his career, but he's about to turn twenty
nine years old. I think he may plateau here for
a couple of years, but I would be surprised if
he ever moved up substantially, like I'd be surprised if
(33:37):
we were ever talking about Donovan Mitchell as the fifth
best player in the world. I think this is more
or less the peak for him. But I don't don't
get hung up on the number twelve thing. Like the
league is super deep with talent. The bottom line is
this year I considered him to be on the same
level as the second tier superstars in this league, which
I think is an amazing accomplishment, especially for a guy
who was a thirteenth pick, number eleven. Kevin Durants, I
(34:01):
think his peak was twenty eighteen. The numbers weren't super
impressive because of the fact that he was playing on
the most talented roster ever assembled, but they were impressive nonetheless.
Twenty six points, seven rebounds on five assists on sixty
four percent shooting, a career high one point eight blocks
per game that year in the playoff run, twenty nine
eight and five on sixty one percent tr shooting, culminating
(34:23):
in what I thought was the best game he ever
played in one of the best individual games I've ever
seen any NBA player in the history of the league.
Game three of the NBA Finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers.
That was a game if you guys remember Stephan Clay
both went completely ice cold and basically no showed the game,
and Katie went for forty three points, thirteen rebounds, and
(34:45):
seven assists on fifteen for twenty three from the field
in six for nine from three, and the box score
doesn't really tell the full story. I thought he was
masterful from start to finish. I thought he completely controlled
the flow of the game. He hit the dagger over
Lebron to end that game with from like twenty seven
feet away from the basket. That was Kd's peak in
(35:05):
my opinion. Now, the question is where did KD rank
at this point in time. You know what's funny is,
at the time, a younger version of me, almost a
decade ago, I thought KD was better than Steph at
that point in time. But it was a long time ago.
I was a much younger basketball fan. I didn't really
understand basketball the way that I do now. I didn't
(35:27):
understand advantage creation the way I do now. So I
now feel pretty strongly that Steph was the best player
on that team. So at that point in time, I
would have put KD third behind Lebron at one in
Steph at two. I just think Steph's advantage creation was
the actual thing that made that team go. Steph was
a little bit susceptible to variants, and yeah, like KD
(35:50):
was saved their ass, but that's what made it a sweep.
Like Steph was going toe to tote with Lebron without
Kevin Durant in the couple of years before that partnership.
I think Steph was a better player than KD at
that point in time. But that to me, like it's
interesting because I do think KD reached a higher point
in the league's hierarchy earlier on, Like from twenty twelve
(36:12):
to twenty fourteen, he was the second best player in
the world behind Lebron. I just think KD is a
basketball player, was better in twenty eighteen. Steph just had
surpassed him at that point. There's no shame in that.
I think Steph is the fifth best perimeter player of
all time. That's just what happens when Steph Curry comes
into the equation number ten. Anthony Davis, this one's easy
twenty twenty twenty six points and nine rebounds with four
(36:35):
stocks per game on sixty one percent through shooting. That
season an absolutely ridiculous playoff run twenty eight points and
ten rebounds per game on sixty seven percent through shooting.
Became an absolutely deadly jump shooter. In that playoff run,
he shot forty seven percent on all jump shots. He
shot sixty two percent on long twos outside of seventeen feet.
(36:59):
He was thirty one for fifty, He had a game winner.
He was a dominant defender the whole year, from start
to finish. It really answered the question of like, what
would it look like if you had the best defender
in the league but also a guy with a deadly
jump shot, And that guy, in my opinion at that
point in time, was the fourth best player in the world. Now, unfortunately,
as with Embiid, I just think Ad is too far
(37:21):
gone in terms of his injuries and the weight that
he's put on and the age that he's at now.
I don't think he'll ever pass that ceiling again. But
twenty twenty was the peak of Anthony Davis' career. Number nine.
Jalen Brunson, similarly to Donovan Mitchell. I think we're experiencing
his peak right now. By the time you guys see
this video, he'll be twenty nine years old, so he'll
begin to experience some age related declin and athleticism. But
(37:45):
I do think he'll hang at this level for like
similar to Mitchell, I think he'll plateau here for a
while before he go before he goes down. But we're
in a three year span. We're in the playoffs for
three consecutive seasons. He's averaged thirty points per game on
fifty seven percent through shooting with seven assists. That's one
hell of a run from a guy who's now entered
into that second tier of superstars. Again, we were talking
(38:06):
about this with like Shae at the top. Like, the
problem with guys like Mitchell and Brunson is they're not
transcendently great at scoring the way that Shay is, and
they don't have that I'm awesome at several different things.
Tier like Brunson's a better passer than Donovan Mitchell, but
(38:28):
Jalen Brunson still is not an elite passer, and he
still is not a guy who can impact the game defensively.
And so they're both really good scorers, but they just
don't have the versatility elements of their game to crack
into that top tier. And if you're gonna crack into
that top tier without versatility, you gotta be like Shae,
a guy who's gonna average damn near thirty four points
(38:49):
per game hyper efficiently. And that's just not what you're
getting out of those two guys. So I look at
Brunson and Mitchell is more or less at their ceilings
right now. Number eight Lebron James peak for me with
Lebron was twenty eighteen. It was unfortunately one of the
worst rosters he ever played on, but he still managed
(39:09):
to drag them to the finals. He averaged twenty eight
points nine rebounds in nine asists on sixty two percent
true shooting that year. Went up a massive level in
the playoffs, one of the best individual playoff runs you
will ever see in the history of the NBA. He
averaged thirty four points, nine rebounds in nine a sists
without a dip inefficiency stated sixty two percent true shooting.
He coasted on defense in the regular season, but he
(39:30):
was great on that end in the playoffs. He had
eight forty point games in that postseason run. He hung
fifty on the Warriors in the finals. He hit multiple
buzzer beating game winners. He won multiple series as the underdog.
To put it very simply, not only was Lebron the
best player in the league in twenty eighteen, I think
twenty eighteen Lebron is the best basketball player to ever
(39:52):
play in the NBA. Number seven Victor Wimenyama, obviously not
too much to dig into. Last season was his peak?
The hard to see why it was his second season,
obviously predictable leaps across the board. The question is what
will Wemby's peak be? And the answer is, I think
he will be the best player in the world someday.
(40:14):
I talked about Aunt today and how he had the
potential to one day become the best player in the world,
But it's far from a guarantee with Ant, I actually
think it's a safer bet with Ant that he cracks
the top tier of superstars but never actually claims the
top spot. I personally would be surprised if Wemby never
actually took the top spot in the NBA. He's already
(40:35):
the best defensive player in the world. He's very likely
to get even better on that end in the coming years,
as he gets better at reading and reacting to modern
NBA offenses, Like I think he'll become he's already the
best defender in the NBA. I think he'll become far, far, far, far,
far and away the best defender in the NBA in time.
But I also think it's almost a certainty that he'll
eventually average thirty points per game on sixty two percent
(40:57):
true shooting or so, probably in the next like two
or three years. So like I think he would require
an injury or for Wemby to like just straight up
not figure a lot of basic shit out for him
to not eventually become the consensus top player in the world.
Two more, number six Steph Curry. I think his peak
(41:18):
stretched from the end of the regular season in twenty
twenty one to the time he hoisted the trophy in
the twenty twenty two finals. I think that twenty twenty
two season was the one time in Steph's career where
I think he had a really strong, really hard to
refute case as the best basketball player alive. Like I
disagree with Warriors fans, I think he was better than
Lebron during Lebron's prime. I you know, it gets to
(41:41):
be a debate with him in Giannis in twenty twenty one,
I had Giannis as the best player in the world.
In twenty twenty one he won the title. Kind of
feels like you have to give it to him there. Jokic,
I think snatched it for good starting in twenty twenty three.
Twenty twenty two, is that one season in Steph's career
where I really do think he had a strong case
(42:02):
to be the best player in the world. At that point,
Giannis regressed a little bit off of his title winning
season in twenty twenty one. Jokic hadn't really peaked yet,
maybe because of his rosters, but still we'll just you know,
he hadn't made that successful deep playoff run where he
just alpha dogged everybody like he did the following season.
Lebron was never the same after his high ankle sprain
(42:23):
in twenty twenty one. Luca and Shakilvis Alexander weren't ready yet.
I think that was the window in time where Steph
had that best player in the world belt twenty twenty one,
the second half of the season that was insane. Steph's
last forty three games that year, despite the entire league
throwing everything at him. Because KD was out, Klay Thompson
(42:44):
was out, he was getting the most aggressive coverages in
the world. He averaged thirty four points per game on
sixty seven percent true shooting for forty three games. That
is far and away the most impressive scoring in afficiency
stretch of his career. He did battle a slight shooting
(43:04):
slump in the following season, but on a better roster,
he recaptured his touch in the playoffs, made the run
at the end, iconic game in Game four on the
road in Boston, gets that title that legitimizes everything and
shuts the haters up from the previous titles. Lastly, number
five Anthony Edwards. I'm going to go with the twenty
(43:26):
twenty four season, so two years ago. Obviously, he had
a much more impressive regular season this year with his
high volume three point shooting. But I thought that he
was more surgical and more physically aggressive as a scorer
in twenty twenty four, and I think that made him
a better player in the playoffs compared to the compared
to the following year. Now, as I said earlier, I
(43:46):
do think at has the potential to be the best
player in the world someday, but I think it will
require a lot of things to go right for him.
I think he needs to maximize his defensive potential and
become a much more reliable possession of possession score and
he just has a long way to go to get there.
But I do think he has that potential. All right, guys,
It's all I have for today is always to sincerely
appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show.
(44:08):
We will be back on Friday with a mailbag. I
will see you guys back
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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