September 14, 2025 • 50 mins
We've reached the conclusion of our NBA Player Rankings and Jason explains why Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets has such a stranglehold on the top spot. He also breaks down why the gap between him and the other top tier superstars (Luka Doncic, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and Giannis Antetokounmpo) is so large.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight. You're at
the volume heavy Friday. Everybody helpful. You guys had a
great week. We are finally bringing our player rankings list
(00:24):
to an end today, hitting number one Nicole Jokic briefly
off the top, and then we're going to get to
your last batch of player rankings. Mail bag questions, You
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(00:44):
It's also super helpfulf you leave a rating in a
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the year. The last, but not least, we are going
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the c and usually on Fridays, so keep dropping your
questions again under our full episodes. Go into the comments
(01:06):
right mail bag with a colent, write your question and
we will get to them in our mail bags throughout
the rest of the year. All right, let's talk some basketball.
So as mentioned, our player rankings list finally comes to
an end today, and with this one, there's no debate,
no lengthy argument to make, no need to pit him
up against someone else. For the third straight year, Nikole
(01:28):
Jokic has a stranglehold on the number one spot in
the NBA. His last season in review, he played in
seventy games. He's missed just seventy five games in his
entire ten season long NBA career, meaning he's averaged over
seventy four games played per season for a decade. Even
when he missed time this year this most recent season,
(01:50):
a good chunk of it centered around the birth of
his child, not an injury. He has simply been one
of the most reliable guys in the league for a decade,
as averages twenty nine point six points per game that
was a career high, twelve point seven rebounds per game,
the second highest rebound average of his career, ten point
two assists per game that was also a career high.
(02:10):
So yes, that represented the first time in Jokic's career
and just the third player in NBA history to average
a triple double for an entire season. Two point four
stocks per game that also tied a career high, fueled
by a career high one point eight steals per game.
It's interesting because I actually thought Jokic had a pretty
(02:31):
brutal regular season on defense, But at the same time,
I thought he's pretty damn good on defense in the playoffs,
certainly better than he had been in the previous in
the previous season. We'll talk more about Yokic's defense later.
Fifty eight percent from the field, forty two percent from three.
That was his best three point shooting season of his career.
Right on the heels of a season where his three
point shooting was kind of an issue, he rectified it
(02:53):
and he became the best shooter he's ever been. Eighty
percent from the foul line. That amounted to sixty three
percent in effect field goal percentage and sixty six percent
in true shooting, which was the second highest mark of
his career behind that crazy twenty twenty three season. So
to put it very simply, this was the best basketball
Jokic had ever played. Now, okay, see, you won too
(03:15):
many games too many more games than Denver in order
for Yokic to have a real shot at MVP. But
I thought Jokic was very clearly the best basketball player
on the planet again last year, his fifth straight Top
two MVP finish, his second straight first team All NBA selection.
Should be five straight there. He just got kicked off
on a technicality basically in twenty twenty three because of
(03:37):
Joel Embiid, just to flaw on how the system works,
play type data. We're just going to quickly go through
this and then we'll get into some big picture stuff.
One point one to three points per ball scream that
he ran as the handler, so those inverted ball screens
that was in the ninety second percent tile, one point
zero eight points per possession on ISOs including passes that
was in the eighty third percent tile, and then one
(03:57):
point one six points per per cent on post ups,
which is amazing for posterous volume two. Jokic generated eight
hundred and sixty seven points on post ups last year
including passes. That was three hundred and sixty three more
than second place, which was Yiannis. So just by far
the best post player in the entire game of basketball,
(04:18):
all of his off ball metrics were insane. He converted
spot ups at one point three to three points per possession.
It's literally in the ninety six percententile. Out of the
one hundred and seventy eight players to log at least
one hundred and fifty spot up opportunities last year, and
again that includes a lot of guards and wings. He
ranked fourth on that list in efficiency had of spot
(04:38):
up situations. He converted rollman opportunities at one point twenty
nine points per possession out of the ten role men
to log at least two hundred reps. That ranked second.
Jared Allen was the only guy above him, and as
we all know, Jared Allen was consistently getting easier opportunities.
Just a ridiculous regular season from nikolea Jokic, and he
capped it all off with what I thought was in
(05:00):
impressive playoff runt. Like the Nuggets looked dead in the
water going into the postseason. I even picked them against
the Clippers, as many folks did, because the Clippers looked
great and the Nuggets looked terrible. Over the final third
of the season, Aaron Gordon was banged up all year,
Jamal Murray was banged up at the end of the year,
the team was kind of splintering, they had just fired
their coach, and Yogic galvinized them and got them to
(05:22):
beat a very good Clippers team. And again, I like
I had actually picked against Denver in that series. I
thought the Clippers were gonna win, and Jokic just got
his team back in shape in time to win a
big series. And then that was a very good Oklahoma
City team that was a substantial favorite, and he pushed
them to the brink. And if it wasn't four, especially
(05:43):
down the stretch of Game four and in Game five,
if he just gets another couple of buckets from a
couple of his teammates, they probably have a very good
chance to win that series. And so I just was
really impressed by Jokic start to finish, including the postseason
last year, and then again really quickly I wanted to
talk about defense, Like I thought it was really impressive
(06:03):
the way that he just kind of locked in using
his IQ and active hands and stabilized the Denver defense
that looked awful all season. And they did as good
a job against Oklahoma City as you could possibly do.
They did better against Oklahoma City than Minnesota did. They
did about as good against Oklahoma City as Indiana did,
even though Indiana matched up better in terms of quickness
(06:24):
on the perimeter. I thought that Jokicic was far and
away the best player in that Oklahoma City series in
the second round. I just thought it was a really
impressive campaign from the best basketball player alive. Now, the
case for Jokics being the best player in the world
is very simple. He may not be the highest volume
score in the league statistically, although I believe he could
(06:45):
be if he wanted to. It's just not really the
way he's wired. Like Jekobs, Alexander took thirty shots per
one hundred possessions last year. He was an extremely high
volume shooter last year. If Jokics really approached the game
in that way, he put up astronomical scoring totals too.
But I think he's the most reliable small sample score
(07:05):
in the league, meaning like if you take away just
oh full season points per game total volume, and you
just focus in on like, hey, we got five minutes
of basketball here, and we gotta win this game, and
it's all gonna come down to these five you know this,
these final fifteen possessions or so I don't think there's
a better scorer in the league in terms of reliability
(07:27):
in those situations strictly small sample Brute for scoring, his
short range touch on floaters and hooks is literally unparalleled
in the sport. He was sixty four percent on floaters
last year, sixty one percent on hooks. He made one
hundred and eighty of those floaters in hooks last year.
That's insane volume, and like he's making damn near two
(07:49):
thirds of them. It's variants proof. Short jump shots inside
of seventeen feet he shot fifty five percent, He's forty
seven percent on long twos outside of his seventeen feet,
forty two on threes, and as we're going to talk about,
much better if you take out the heats, he is
the most variance proof and unstoppable single possession score in
(08:11):
the entire sport while also being the best passer in
the entire sport. So the result is you basically cannot
stop him from getting a good shot for himself or
a teammate. And that shows in a specific stat that
I actually brought to the forefront last summer. But I
want to go over what those numbers look like this
year to demonstrate. So. In Synergy, they have a stat
(08:34):
called score percentage, which simply just factors in, if we
run this play, how likely are we to put points
on the board. Essentially reliability of an action. If you
ran a post up for Jokic last year, regardless of
how you guarded it, if you shaded him, if you
hard double teamed him, if you left him on an island,
regardless of how you guarded it, it had a fifty
(08:56):
four percent chance and resulting in points. That's a pretty
name reliable play type. Throw the ball to Jokich, He's
probably going to score or get someone a shot that
they're going to make. If you ran an ISO for Jokich,
it resulted in points fifty two percent of the time,
regardless of how you guarded him. If you ran a
ball screen for him where he's the handler and you're
(09:18):
having a guard screen for him or Aaron Gordon screen
for him, it had a fifty two percent chance of
ending in points, regardless of how you defended it off
the ball, if you left him open. He shot forty
nine percent on pick and pop threes. He shot forty
nine percent on spot up threes. The only reason his
(09:38):
percentages fell to the low forties is because he missed
like thirty heaves last year. Took a ton of them,
like late shot clock bombs or half court shots. He
was incredibly reliab. If you let him get a good
look from three, he hit half of them. He is
quite simply the best offensive player I've ever seen, a
(10:01):
deadly variance proof on and off ball score while simultaneously
being the best passer in basketball. He's even a monster
on the margins. He had seventy five offensive rebound putbacks
last year. That was the seventh most in the entire NBA.
He was a dominant defensive rebounder. He had averaged the
second most defensive rebounds per game in the entire NBA
(10:22):
last year behind Giannis. We mentioned the career high in steels,
just defensive playmaking. He just impacts the game in an
absolute mountain of ways. I mentioned two weaknesses last summer
that I said had kind of brought him a little
bit closer to the pack. I said his three point
shooting and his defense were the two things that were
(10:45):
hurting him. He literally shot in the high forties on threes.
When you removed heaves from the equation. He was one
of the best picking pop bigs in the NBA. He
was one of the best spot up players in the
entire NBA if even if you include guards and wings,
so you can go ahead and scratch that shooting weakness
off the list. And again, while he had a brutal
(11:05):
defensive regular season, which was a team wide issue, I
thought he was really good in the playoffs. He still
has some situational weaknesses, and they're worth mentioning here. They
sound silly in the grand scheme of things, especially compared
to some of the weaknesses for players further down this list.
But if you put him up against a great pick
and roll player, a guy that can really shoot and
pull him out to the perimeter but can also pass
(11:25):
out of it. So guys like Steph Curry, Luka Doncic,
like those guys are going to give Jokic some issues
on defense or yeah, like if they didn't blow up
the Celtics and they stayed healthy and the Nuggets ran
into that Celtics team in a series, they would have
been able to space him out. It would have caused
some problems. But Boston's not a threat anymore. And for
any problems that Luca and Steph can cause for Jokic.
(11:48):
He's going to cause a mountain of problems for them.
On the other end of the floor. I would pick
Denver to beat Golden State or LA if they were
to meet in the playoffs this year, at least at
this point, I actually think Jokich is a particularly solid
defensive matchup for Oklahoma City. It's a matchup that allows
him to use his size and IQ doesn't force him
to cover as much ground out in space. It's a
(12:10):
good matchup for him. Ironically, Like, if you really get
dig into like the basketball specifics, a team like Cleveland
is a team that could potentially cause some issues for
Jokic with their speed and pull up shooting and all
of the ability to space the floor that they have.
But like, I actually think Jokic matches up pretty well
against Oklahoma City. And no, he's not a perfect defensive player,
(12:31):
but in a playoff context, I feel like he can
do plenty well enough to counterbalance what is the best
offensive player that I've ever seen on the other end
of the floor. And coming into the season, I think
this is the best roster that Jokic has ever had.
They've anchored him with substantially more depth substantially more athleticism
(12:53):
that should further allow Jokic to be more useful on defense.
They have a legit backup center to anchors, and again,
I think they match up well with Oklahoma City. Hell,
they pushed them to seven just last year. A couple
shots go different in Game five or in Game four,
they win that series. So in addition to me picking
Jokic is the best player in the world this season,
(13:15):
I can tell you guys right now that Denver is
my preseason pick to win the title. I think they're
going to be the best playoff team this year. I
may not get the one seed, but I think they're
going to be up there. And I like they got
the best player in the world or the best team
he's ever had, and I'm going to take those odds
against all of the other flaws that are presented further
(13:37):
down the list of contenders. Big shout out to Nikola
Jokich three straight years at number one on this list,
first player since Lebron James to have the league in
a stranglehold like this. We are extremely excited to announce
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and Virginia. All right, let's get into our mail bag
(15:24):
before we get out of here today. You've been very
forthcoming about your process going into this ranking, which I appreciate.
It really helps to know that the list has gone
through multiple drafts and that you spent multiple nights sleeping
on it. That said, I was wondering what your general
view on rankings is in more of a broad scope.
Do you watch other people's rankings, and if so, how
seriously do you take them? I tend to treat it
all as a fun way to engage with the game,
(15:46):
and it always baffles me to see people get so
heated over the rankings. Thank you and love the show.
Thank you so much for the kind words and for
supporting this show. Honestly, like I don't particularly care about,
like INDI visually ranking players in the sense that, like
I don't get too worked up about the lists and
(16:06):
where other people have people ranked. I think it's a
fun thought exercise. So for instance, like I like doing
this once a summer just to like zoom out and
take a look at the league. And one of the
things you guys will notice is, like the vast majority
of people who do lists will just share their lists,
and they might have like a little blurb that they
(16:27):
put underneath their ranking. But like, as you guys know,
we went into incredible detail on all of these players.
Like my primary purpose of this list is to zoom
out and take a look at where all these guys land,
and just my opinions, you guys can get a view
of where I see things and where I see the game.
That doesn't mean it has to be where you see
the game. But most importantly, regardless of how you feel
(16:48):
about the rankings with each guy, it's like kind of
like a performance review, so to speak. Not that I'm
these guys boss or anything, but the point is is,
like it's my opportunity to like dig back into the number,
dig back into the film, take a look at a
basketball player and be like, where's this dude at right now?
And that kind of helps me If I do that
every summer, it helps me just have a really firm
(17:10):
grasp on the individual trajectories of each player. This guy's
going up, this guy's going down, this guy's stagnating. Here's why.
Here are the numbers that show that. Here are the
things that I'm noticing on tape. Here's what Yiannis is
doing differently than he did in years past as a playmaker.
You know, here's where Lebron is struggling compared to when
he was in his prime. Like those, I learn a
(17:33):
ton from these lists. Like the ranking is the ranking.
I throw the ranking together, like you mentioned in the
first week, right like, I sleep on it several times
and I reorganize things. But once I settle on a ranking,
it effectively turns into a month long research project. It's
a research project where I spend an enormous amount of
time researching these players, and even though I've watched them
(17:57):
all season. It allows me to really just dive into
one particular player, look at both ends of the floor,
look at what he accomplished last season, where his areas
of opportunity are where for young players their development trajectory
needs to go. It's it's essentially a research project. And
so yeah, like I'm not gonna like when the ESPN
player rankings come out. I don't really get all worked
(18:19):
up about it. I do this for you guys and
for me. I do it for you guys so that
you guys can see kind of where I have each
of these players ranked as just kind of like a
big picture snapshot of the NBA, and then I do
it for me as a research project to learn about
where these players are in more detail. It's just an
opportunity in the summertime to take advantage of all the
(18:41):
time that we have there. Hi, Jason, you say that
Shay doesn't have best in the world potentially. I got
a lot of questions surrounding Shay, A lot of people
who were comparing him to prime MJ, people who were
saying that he does have potential to be the best player.
And there were a lot of thunder fans that were
unhappy with that particular conversation. And I am recording this
(19:03):
mail bag before our Shay Luca video releases. Which comes
out next week on Wednesday, or I should say two
days ago, but I am recording this in advance, so
I haven't seen those questions, and I'm sure there's going
to be a ton of thunder fans that are super
pissed off that I have Luca ahead of him, and
that are super pissed off that I said he doesn't
(19:23):
have best player in the world potential. So this question
kind of falls into that lens, and it allowed me
to hit a bunch of those points. The rest of
the question, I don't understand what else he needs to do.
He outplayed Anton Jokic this year in the playoffs, he
outplayed Luca. Last year he carried the offense on a
limited offensive team and took them to sixty eight wins
in a championship. Okay sees offensive system does not require
him to have high assist numbers on like Denver with
(19:45):
Jokich in LA with Luca, he impacts the game in
different ways. He averaged thirty three points on thirty four
minutes per game with great efficiency. I understand Yokic above him,
but with Sga already arguably the best player in the world,
love the show, so I couple I want to just
start by disagreeing with a couple of specific things that
you said. You said he outplayed Ant this last season.
(20:06):
I agree. I thought that he badly outplayed Ant in
that series, but Ant is not a top tier superstar.
You said he outplayed Yokich this year in the playoffs.
I thoroughly disagree. I thought Jokich was the best player
in that series. You said he outplayed Luca last year.
I also thoroughly disagree there, and I think this is
where before I get back into the Luca Shay piece,
(20:28):
I want to look at the other comment you said.
You said Oklahoma City's offensive system does not require him
to have high assist numbers, unlike Denver with Jokich, in
LA with Luca. That I fundamentally disagree with. They're not
putting up massive assist numbers while Shay's not because of
the offensive system. They're doing it because Jokiic and Luca
(20:50):
are just better offensive players than Shay, who are much
better at running a team offense and are much better
at setting those dudes up with quality opportunities. I just
think they're better. I think Shae and his kind of
tendency to have games where he goes rogue and forces
the issue a lot earlier, actually hurts his team and
hurts his rhythm, hurts his the rhythm of his teammates.
(21:11):
To be clear, we're splitting hairs here. I think Shane's
the third best player in the world. So I'm not
over here trying to say Shae's a bum. But if
you're asking me why I have Luca in Jokich above
the above Shay, I think both of those guys are like,
clearly and discernibly better offensive players than Shae, even the
scoring piece, like oh, he averaged thirty three points per game.
(21:32):
He had this prime MJ scoring type of season literally
just one season prior, when Luca was healthy, he had
a better scoring season than Shae. He had crazier totals.
He had like a seventy three point game this season.
That season he averaged like thirty four points per game
while also being in my opinion, the second best overall
offensive engine in the game with his ability to create
(21:53):
advantages for his teammates. Like, I just don't think Shae's
as good offensively as just his simple points per game metric,
would you lead you to believe? And again, the shot
totals are insane. He literally averaged thirty shot attempts per
one hundred possessions last year. It's like a he just
was shooting a ton and scoring a ton. And by
the way, I think Shay is a transcendently great score
(22:15):
I just don't think he's a transcendently great offensive player overall,
the way that Luca is and the way that jokiches
even to a greater extent, The question is can Shae
become that type of offensive engine. And throughout NBA history,
this is the unique thing, and it's just kind of tricky,
like you kind of have to be born with that trait.
(22:38):
I've seen players become better at it, and they become
more consistent making the reads, they become more consistent game managers.
I think Damian Lillard is a good example of this
kind of guy who like kind of maximized his individual
potential as a playmaker. But to be very clear, there
(22:58):
is still a gigantic chasm between that type of guy
and the relentless advantage creating deadly defense, beating passers that
you run into at the top of the league that
it's like they've just been born with it, Like Lebron
James in his prime, Chris Paul, you know, Trey Young
(23:18):
I think fits into this category the Nikola Jokic, Luka
Doncic types, And when you're looking at a guy like
to me, Jokic and Luca are both every bit as
talented as scorers as Shay. They may not lean into
it as much, and they may not shoot as many shots,
and they may not hit as many totals, although Luka
we've literally seen him do it. But I think if
(23:38):
Jokic was like, oh I have I have a fifty
million dollar incentive next year to average thirty five points
per game, I think Jokic could average thirty five points
per game like that. Like like, I think Shay is
a score first player who's really fucking good at it.
But I think Luka and Jokic are overall better offensive players.
(23:59):
So the question is if Shay's not going to progress
to become this like Grease the Wheels offensive engine that's
an unbelievable playmaker, where else can he make that improvement?
And like I do think that Shay is a good
defensive player, I think it's absurd that he got Defensive
Player of the Year votes like that to me is
crazy talk. I think that some of the talk about
(24:21):
him being like an elite like top end defensive player
is crazy talk. But I think he's a good defender.
He's a good playmaker, a defensive playmaker, like he can
jump passing lanes, play the ball well. He's a good
like help side guy at the ramis got good length,
he can block shots. But Shay doesn't have either the
bandwidth because of his offensive load or honestly, the athletic
(24:42):
traits to be the transcendently great defensive player. He would
need to become the best player in the world. So, like,
let's look at the guy by the way, I have
a question. I have a question later on where someone
talks about how they're skeptical that Ant can ever become
that elite defensive player too. I agree, like, and we'll
get to that more in a minute. As a matter
(25:03):
of fact, let me go to that real quick and
then we'll come back to that. We'll come back to
the Shaye piece this question. I take the bet that
Ant never becomes an all defensive guy. One, his offensive
role is too big to compete with the defensive specialists
around the league, and two he struggles with more than
just ball screens personally. He's not great off ball, I agree,
(25:23):
and I think his size limits him next to guys
like Dyson Daniels and Asar Thompson, Timanti Kamara, Jduve, etc.
So for the record, I agree, like I would bet
on Ant not becoming the all defense guy, and I
would bet on Ant not becoming the best player in
the world. I am just saying he has that potential.
(25:46):
The point you're making, the point about his offensive role
is what I think, Like, that's why I think he
won't get there. It's because his offensive role is too big,
and I just don't think he'll ever dedicate the necessary resources.
That second piece I disagree with, Like, you're right, he's
pretty bad off ball right now, and he's pretty bad
at navigating screens. But I think he can be great
(26:06):
at all of those things. The thing with his size,
and there's this kind of theory, and this is this
is not new. This is a theory that's existed in
the world of basketball for a while, which is like,
can guys be so big that they have a hard
time navigating screens? And I do think that that's true
for upright players, players that have high centers of gravity,
But Ant, I think is a guy who could blow
(26:26):
up screens. I think if Aunt really put in the
work and wanted to be he could be a guy
that was unscreenable because of how fast he is, because
how good his footwork is, and because of his strength
and his shoulders. He can blow screens up as he's
going through those actions and really become a guy that
big guys don't even want to screen. So like I
do think Ant has the potential to become a transcendently
(26:49):
great defensive player and a transcendently great score I just
think it's more likely that he becomes a transcendently great scorer,
but probably not as great on defense as he needs
to be, which means I think I think Shay's clearly
better than it now. But I think the most likely
scenario is Ant and Shay are more or less neck
and neck for the rest of their careers, and I
(27:10):
don't think either of them ever actually end up threatening
that best player in the world conversation. I think Ant
has that potential, to be clear because of his athletic traits.
I don't think either of them has the potential to
be a transcendently great playmaker, but Ant has the potential
on defense. I just think it's more likely than not
that he doesn't get there now. So the question is
(27:30):
what about when Luca or what about when Jokic declines?
Like if Jokic declines, can Shay become that guy? And
I just I think it's more likely that it's a Luca.
I think it's more likely that it's a Victor wem
Minyama because Luca transcendently great, scores every bit as good
a score as Shaye, if not a little better, and
he's a substantially better passer, playmaker, offensive engine. Like, I
(27:52):
think he's going to stay above Shae for the most
part in his career too, the Victor women Yama piece, Like,
I think he's going to be a guy who averages
twenty eight thirty points per game on sixty plus percent
for shooting, while also being the defensive player of the
year perennially, year in and year out. That's a guy
that's a better basketball player than Shake Gildas Alexander. That's
a guy that's a better basketball player than the most
(28:14):
likely and eventual version of Anthony Edwards. So like again,
like to me, I think where people got confused is
like I don't necessarily expect Ant to become better than
Shae and to enter into that best player in the
world conversation. It's just I think Ant does have this
like freaky athletic potential that could theoretically manifest in the
(28:35):
most devastating two way player at the guard position in
the league. Which I don't think Shaye has the ability
to be the most devastating two way player at the
guard position in the league. I don't think that's something
that's in his potential, don't. I don't think he has
the athletic gifts or the size and strength to necessarily
be that guy. But like again, like this is okay, guys,
like there are people like do you understand, Like Kevin
(28:56):
Durant more or less was in that top tier but
never became the best guy. Steph might have done it
for one year in twenty twenty two. I think he
did do it for one year in twenty twenty two. Like,
if Shan ends up being a guy who's the second, third,
fourth best player in the league for seven eight years,
he's gonna be remembered with the likes of Steph Curry
(29:18):
and Kevin Durant. It's it's just it's a very, very
different conversation when you get into like this dude's the
best basketball player on planet Earth. That's the conversation that
Jokic just had in his stranglehold for three straight years,
and like that requires you to be transcendently great at
at least two things. You go back to twenty twenty
(29:40):
two when it was Steph he is one of the
great advantage creators in the NBA. Still to this day,
you can put a bunch of random dudes with him
and he's a one twenty offensive rating. And back in
twenty twenty two, he was still the guy who could
be the volume elite transcendently great score. If you think
it's Giannis in twenty twenty one, like transcendently great def
defensive player, transcendently great scorer. At that point in time,
(30:02):
he had figured some things out, especially at the foul line.
Lebron transcendently great playmaker, transcendently great score and one of
the elite defensive players in the league. That's why he's
in the goat conversation. Like you go back before that
to Kobe Bryant, it's same thing. Transcendently great defensive player
in his prime, transcendently great score. Like there's a very like,
(30:23):
when you get into that conversation best player on the planet,
it's an extremely high standard that you're looking to hit,
and I get it, Like this all gets convoluted because
he hoisted the trophy and like I had comments that were, like,
Shay just had the best scoring season since MJ. He
won the scoring title, he won MVP, he won finals, MVP.
(30:43):
I'm not hating on the season. There's a remarkable accomplishment season.
But Oklahoma City had the best roster, and in a
lot of ways, it was Shay's game management that became
an issue at various points in the playoffs, which is
why they got pushed to seven games by inferior basketball
teams this year. The reason Oklahoma City won the title
(31:06):
is they have the best defense of this era. Their
defense is so damn good it literally forced Nicole Jokic
into the first like stretch of mediocre basketball from him
that we've literally ever seen. That defense caused players to
piss down their leg Jaron Jackson completely decomposed, Julius Randall
completely decomposed. That was an all time great defense that
(31:31):
the third best player in the world ended up being
enough offense for them to win. That's the way I
look at it, and again, like I just am talking,
we are splitting hairs among the best players in the world.
I ranked Shaye above Yannis this year. You know how
hard it is to be above Giannis Antennacumpo as a
basketball player. I have a ton of respect for Shade.
(31:52):
Like I had another comment, someone said, like, you just
don't like Shae because of the aesthetics. I don't necessarily
like lucas aesthetics, the flopping, the grifting. He's not a
vertical player. He's not a guy that has like a
ton of fluidity in his jump shot. It's kind of
like a set shot. Like Luca is not a player
(32:12):
that I love aesthetically. I think he can pound the
air out of the basketball sometimes, something that I don't
necessarily love watching on television. I understand. I will be
fourthright with you guys and tell you how I feel
about a player. Yeah, Shay's not my favorite player. Joel
Embiid wasn't my favorite player, but I can promise you
that I will try like hell to rank them fairly
(32:34):
in that context. To me, Luca is above Shay because
he is every bit the score in a much better playmaker,
offensive engine same goes for Nikola Jokic. That's why I
have Shaye in third place. The reason why I don't
think he can become the best player in the world
is because we have other guys in his age group,
(32:54):
Luca who's transcendently great at two things, scoring and playmaking,
Wemby who's going to be transcendently great at two things
scoring in defense, and Jokic, who still literally just had
the best season of his career. So, like, I think
it's more likely that Shay is a perennial first team
All NBA, top tier superstar guy that just never cracks
(33:14):
that number one spot. And while Ant does have that potential,
I agree with you, thunder fans. I think it's more
likely than not that Ant doesn't become that he just
eventually catches up to Shay and those two dudes kind
of battle for the best two guard in the league spot.
Looking forward in the next era of the NBA, is
(33:36):
there any argument that supports an optimistic Warriors season that
would not also work for the Mavericks. Both of injury
prone players leading the team's offense, both have incredible depth
and can put out fourteen competent players during the season,
and both have a defensive floor that is relatively high.
I understand that the Warriors offense is better, but Butler
is an aging, injury prone player who does not value
the regular season but is very necessary for their success,
(33:59):
while the Mavericks have excuse me, a young core of
hungry players looking to get back into contention. I don't
see how someone could have the Warriors higher than the
MAVs when both teams have injury history, but the MAVs
are significantly younger. This is a regular season, by the way,
and not the playoffs. I won't argue against Steph in
the playoffs. That's truly I think. Honestly, I disagree with you.
Like I wouldn't be surprised if the MAVs ended up
(34:20):
above Golden State in the regular season. If Anthony Davis
comes back, and like I talk about Luca having a
revenge season, I think it's very possible that Anthony Davis
has a revenge season. He's had a long time to
rest and to get in shape. He's probably pissed off
if he got traded. I wouldn't be surprised if we
have an awesome season out of Anthony Davis. They have
an incredible depth of defensive talent. It's just simple about
(34:40):
simply about the offensive end of the floor. That's where
that could become an issue. But in the regular season,
I think defense matters more. When you get to the postseason,
you gotta have both. But in the regular season, as
we've seen with teams like Houston, if you get enough stops,
you can just exist in transition and score enough points
to win games. And so I wouldn't be surprised if
the MAVs and it up at a higher seed at
(35:02):
the end of the season. But the real thing is
is neither Kyrie nor Anthony Davis are like really truly
great offensive players overall. Running a team like we saw
what prime Kyrie looked like leading the Celtics. Like Steph
Curry even at age thirty seven, you just put him
out there with some dudes and you get a one
to twenty offensive rating because of his ability to fly
(35:23):
around and draw two to the ball consistently. So like
to me, I would view the Warriors as a more
dangerous playoff team because they're probably still going to be
great on defense with Draymond and Jimmy and especially if
Al Horford gets picked up and Steph Curry is still
just a way better offensive player than anybody wearing a
Dallas Mavericks jersey. Two more quick ones. Can you explain
(35:45):
pissel action? How works and what are the advantages and disadvantages?
I love this question. We don't get a ton of
this kind of stuff, but if you guys ever want
to dive into these concepts. I always find these very fascinating,
so I'd love to get into them. All you have
to do is continue to drop them in the mail
back question. Pistol is essentially a handoff that flows into
a ball screen. I've seen variations of this action called
(36:08):
a bunch of different things. You'll see it called Chicago
in the NBA. You'll see it called zoom in the NBA. Pistol, right,
pistol generally, let's set up the floor first and go
from there. Just imagine a big that's kind of hanging
out around the top of the key. You've got two
players spacing on the weak side, so corner wing on
the weak side, but let's focus on the strong side.
You got a big that's somewhere around the top of
(36:30):
the key, and you got a guy in the corner
and the guy in the corner is the guy we're
trying to get the ball to. I'm the point guard
bringing the ball up the floor. And if in a
pistol action, generally speaking, I'm just gonna dribble into the
corner and hand off the ball to the guy coming
out of the corner, and that is going to flow
into the big man at the top of the key
coming over to set a screen. So it's essentially a
(36:52):
dribble handoff into a ball screen. Right. That's usually called
pistol zoom or Chicago. It's the same principle, it just
looks a little different. You'll dump the ball to the
big and instead of the guard going in dribble hand offing,
the big will go in dribble handoff and the guard
will just set a screen first. So in either case,
regardless of how you set it up, the guard is
(37:13):
gonna come off of two screens, a guard screen first
and a big screen second. And whether or not he
gets the dribble hand off from the guard or the
dribble handoff from the big, it's still more or less
creates the same basketball dynamic. And again, I never get
too hung up on the names of actions because they
tend to differ from team to team. Like even just
when I was playing in college, we had the same
(37:36):
defensive actions or defensive coverages or offensive actions that would
just have different names depending on the team that I
was playing for. And I've seen similar when I've been
covering the NBA over the last several years. But that
word Chicago zoom pistol, all those actions more or less
mean the same thing. The guard is coming out of
the corner off of a dribble hand off either from
the big or the guard, but it's a double stagger
(37:57):
from the guard and from the big, and from there
it just creates It's a three man action, right, you
have three players involved in the action, and it just
forces the guys to make a bunch of decisions. Right. So, like,
let's say that the guy guardless, because we know the
target of the possession, the guy we're trying to get
the ball to, is in the corner. Let's say that
the defense decides to lock and trail, meaning the guy
(38:18):
guarding the man in the corner just prepares to chase
him over the top of those screens. Well, if he
chases him over the top of those screens, you've got
two chances to screen him. If you hit him right,
he's going to come off the other side of that
screen and he's gonna have an opening to potentially shoot.
If he stays attached, he's still going to be in
trail positions, so he should be able to curl around
(38:38):
the big and get downhill into the paint regardless of
what the regardless of what the guard does coming off
of that action, the defensive big has to make a decision.
He's either got to be up to contest the shot
or he's got to be back preparing to contain the
ball if it comes at him. And so if it's defended.
Let's say that the guy chases over the top and
(39:00):
the guy gets downhill and he attacks, in all likelihood
the big is gonna have to step up to help
on that drive. That leaves your big the offensive big
open to either pop out or to roll into space
off of that. But there's all sorts of reads that
can be made out of it. Let's say that the
guards decide to switch, so they go run that first
(39:20):
dribble handoff and those two guards decide to switch. Well,
the second guard who's taking the guy coming out of
the corner is now highly susceptible to a screen because
he was just guarding a ball handler going in the
opposite direction. His shoulders are probably turned, his hips are
probably turned. The BIG's gonna have an easier chance to
hit him. If he hits him, he can come off
and shoot, or force the big to step up and
drop it off to the big. There's also overplays, right,
(39:43):
so like when we pistol was actually our our main
five out motion when my first year coaching, when I
was coaching high school and two son is like five
years ago, and the way we ran it, it was
like you were encouraged if you were the ball handler
and you're bringing the ball up to dribble hand off
with the guy out of the corner, if your man
wasn't paying attention and the dude was locking and trailing,
(40:05):
you could fake the hand off and just try to
turn the corner and get all the way to the basket.
And it's a five out concept, so the help defense
might be looser. You might have an opportunity for a layup.
Let's say they top lock, so the guy in the
corner is overplaying the defensive guy in the corner is
overplaying the offensive guy in the corner and forcing him
to backcut. Well, there are reads there, right, like especially
(40:26):
out of Zoom or Chicago. You throw the ball to
the Big, you go to set it, he's top locking,
he backcuts. Guys like Draymond have been killing teams with
like passes, in back cuts, out of overplays, out of
that sort of thing throughout their entire careers, right, So, like,
it's essentially just a three man action that flows into
a dribble handoff with the guard out of the corner,
(40:47):
coming off of the Big at the top of the key,
and that screen usually gets set a little bit further
towards the sideline. The Big just usually starts at the
top of the key, but he'll set it closer to
the elbow extended, and then there's a lot of room
in the middle of the floor for that guy to
attack downhill and just force the defense to react. Like
what if the big stays home, but the two helpers
(41:07):
on the weak side step over, Well, that's a pitch
out for three or an opportunity to drive a close
out right Chicago Zoom pistol. It's one of my favorite
early offense actions because has really good natural flow to it,
especially pistol. So like say you're playing pick up with
your buddies or in your men's league, such an easy
action to run to just get an easy advantage. Have
(41:29):
your big run the floor to the top of the key.
Have your point guard just run up the floor and
dribble hand off to the guy in the corner, and
have him come off a ball screen. It is super easy.
It has this very natural flow to it, and you
just play basketball off of it. He gets into the
paint and the guy helps and you kick it to
the wing. Once you have an advantage, once you have
(41:49):
any advantage, there's no reason to plays anymore. There's no
reason to run a set. You just play basketball. The
entire purpose of running a set is to either get
a or to get a guy and open catch at
the three point line with the defender sprinting out at him.
Once you've done that, you've done the job. He chases
(42:09):
him too hard off the line, he's gonna drive. Now
it's a five on four. You can wait for the
defense to react the key. There is the spacing, right,
so like once you get into the middle of the floor,
you can kind of imagine it, right. So like, let's
say that I come off of that dribble handoff and
I get into the middle of the floor and I
swing to the left wing. Because I didn't have an
opportunity to score, it's very important that I cycle back
(42:33):
through to that strong side corner and the guy that
was in the corner cycles up. You want to make
sure you maintain your spacing within the action, otherwise guys
can get in each other's way. But like, essentially, you
run action to get an advantage. And once you have
an advantage, as long as you're spacing is set up properly,
you just play basketball. And so those are the two
keys to running successful offense. It's action that generates advantage
(42:54):
in spacing once you have your advantage. If you have
those two things figured out, it's talent will show through
as guys get those advantages and capitalize on them. Again,
love that stuff. Anything like that, You guys are welcome
to dropping the questions and we'll get into it, Hi, Jason,
love your show. More of an operating business question. How
substantial of a drop off do you see in views
when the NBA is on versus when it's off, And
(43:16):
how much do you try to include Steph Lebron jokicch
Lakers or Warriors when you're picking mailbag questions and just
content in general. So we obviously do see a drop
off in the summer. That's natural, like it actually the
our numbers, our numbers are up year over year consistently
thanks to you guys. You guys have done an amazing
job supporting the show. But that's in like the big picture,
(43:39):
it's not a linear growth like it always kind of
looks like this, and there are several peaks and valleys
throughout the season, right, So let's start with the summer.
There's usually a peak during free agency, and then there's
a lull after free agency when things really slow down.
Then there's a peak at the start of the season.
Our numbers are usually really good in October, but then
(44:01):
you get into November and December and things kind of
like slow down a little bit. The NFL becomes a
bigger part of the deal. We did have a peak,
another peak in December two years ago because of the
n season tournament, and the Lakers are a massive brand,
so we hit some really big numbers during that time.
Bucks Thunder not as big a brands. We covered that game,
(44:23):
but it you know, obviously didn't hit the same quite
a number. We had a little bit of a lull there.
You get into trade deadline, huge peak, right, you get
a peak because you have new players changing teams, and
then for a few weeks after that, everyone's really curious
about how the new teams look. Right, But then once
you get into late March, it slows down again because
it's like, Okay, now we're in the stretch run. A
(44:43):
lot of the good teams are resting players, you know,
there's tanking teams that are barely even playing their guys. Like,
there can be a little lull there. Then you get
into the postseason and it peaks again, right. But like,
even within this year's postseason, there's like the market thing.
When we got to the final four, we had three
of the final four markets. We're small markets, and so
our numbers took a little bit of a dip across
(45:05):
the board when you get into those final two playoff rounds. Right. So, like,
there's natural peaks and valleys that exist throughout the season
based on the natural peaks of the season. But to me,
the natural peaks are the trade the free agency period
in early July, the first month of the season in
October the trade deadline in the NBA playoffs. Those are
like the four peaks that we ride throughout the season.
(45:26):
As far as like the strategy of including our big markets,
I have like a very simple kind of ideology about
this kind of thing. I want to cover the whole league,
but I want to do it within reason because this
is a business. So I'm not going to spend like
an entire week covering the Hornets and the Pistons and
a bunch of teams that are Pistons are actually a
(45:46):
bad example now because the Pistons are good, but years
ago when the Pistons were bad. I'm not going to
just sit there and cover a bunch of bad teams
because that would be bad for the performance of this show.
It would be bad for the future of everything I'm
trying to build here, right, So, like my general idea
is I try to in every episode have at least
one of our larger fan bases represented. We have several
(46:08):
larger fan bases. The Celtics are a big one for us,
The Mavericks, Nuggets like teams that make long playoff runs.
Because we cover them so intensively during the playoffs. We
tend to build a fan base there. Denver's one of
our bigger fan bases. The Knicks are one of our
bigger ones. We hit a bunch of big numbers with
the Indiana Pacers last year. You have like your seven
(46:28):
or eight bigger market slash more engaged fan bases, and
I always try to get at least one of those
in a full episode, and we're usually gonna lead with it.
That's the business, right, I'm gonna market the full episode
around that, but we're always gonna have three or four segments,
and in those segments behind, that's where we get into
(46:48):
the rest of the league. And so one of the
big things that I fought for in earlier this year,
and one of the things that Jackson's done an amazing
job of, is if we cover a team in any way,
shape or form with a full segment on the show,
it's getting its own breakout clip. And we're also sorting
them by teams. So if you go into our playlists
(47:08):
under playlist, there's a playlist for every single team in
the NBA manifested there. So, like, if you're a Bulls fan,
you know, obviously the Bulls are a lower tier team
in the Eastern Conference, so We're not going to cover
them as often, but I usually cover them a few
times a year, and when we do, it'll drop in
the Chicago Bulls folder. If you are a Nuggets fan,
we're gonna hit you more often. If you go to
(47:29):
the playlist and you click on Denver Nuggets, every time
I cover the Nuggets, there will be a video that
is represented there. It's very important to me that the
channel is organized in a way that, yeah, we're gonna
have our full episodes be branded usually around one of
our bigger markets or a bigger fan base is not
necessarily even a big market. Some of our smaller markets
have very engaged fan bases that we lean into. Right
(47:52):
I expect Victor Wiman Yama and the Spurs to be
kind of one of those markets in the next couple
of years. No one views San Antonio as a massive market,
but there are a lot of Spurs fans that are
ravenous for Spurs content, and so we're gonna work. That's
gonna be a fan base that we continue to build out.
But for me, the cutoff is like unserious teams, like
we're gonna hit the top twenty twenty three teams in
(48:13):
the league, the teams that are actually trying to win.
But I'm not gonna waste a bunch of time watching
a ton of footage in the middle of the season
on one of the bottom six or seven teams in
the league, except for occasionally evaluating rookies, right like, oh,
this guy got drafted. Let's check in on Brandon Miller
and see how he's doing, like that kind of thing.
But our general our general layout is we're gonna lead
(48:36):
shows with bigger markets, bigger things, because that's just smart business.
But we are gonna cover the rest of the league
diligently in subsequent segments. And I have fought for the
way we build our production plan around you guys, making
sure that you get a full breakout clip for every
single team that I cover. So the thing that got
frustrating for me in the past was, like I hated
(48:57):
it when like I would cover the sh Cogo Bulls
for like eleven minutes, or I would cover the New
Orleans Pelicans for fifteen minutes, but it would be tucked
at the end of a show and it wouldn't get
marketed at all, Like wouldn't be in the thumbnail, and
it wouldn't be in the title and we wouldn't have
a breakout clip, and I'd be like, I just put
in all that work covering that team and it's not
(49:18):
actually showing up on the channel. We got to make
sure that everyone can actually see this stuff, and so
we've been doing that. Jackson has like completely transformed the
production flow of the show for the better. I'm sure
you guys have noticed. Ever since Jackson came in in February,
he's done an amazing job of just of just bringing
us to like a more well rounded production approach that
(49:41):
you guys will see. But yeah, essentially, it's a business.
You got to hit big markets, you got to hit
big names. But I try to do it within the
context of covering the league at large, and we primarily
focus on the serious teams right in that like top twenty,
top twenty three, twenty four teams, depending on how many
teams are tanking in any given season. This season in
(50:01):
the Eastern Conference, once you get off that top you know,
six or seven teams, there's a lot of bad teams
in the Eastern Conference, and so that's gonna be tricky
this year and we'll see how it goes. But but
again that uh, that's just kind of more or less
a little look behind the curtain as to how we
structure our production. All right, guys, it's all I have
for today. I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us.
(50:22):
I'm stoked that we made it through the player rankings
list again this year. Thank you guys so much for
your comments and for your support. We will have list
week next week. I'll see you guys then.
The volume. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight. You're at
the volume heavy Friday. Everybody helpful. You guys had a
great week. We are finally bringing our player rankings list
(00:24):
to an end today, hitting number one Nicole Jokic briefly
off the top, and then we're going to get to
your last batch of player rankings. Mail bag questions, You
guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to
Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of
our videos. Follow me on Twitter, underscore jsonlt so you
guys don't miss you announcements. Don't forget about a podcast
feed wherever you get your podcast on our Hoops Tonight.
(00:44):
It's also super helpfulf you leave a rating in a
review on that front. Jackson's doing amazing work on our
social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. Make
sure you guys follow us there for more content throughout
the year. The last, but not least, we are going
to continue to play mail bags throughout the remainder of
the c and usually on Fridays, so keep dropping your
questions again under our full episodes. Go into the comments
(01:06):
right mail bag with a colent, write your question and
we will get to them in our mail bags throughout
the rest of the year. All right, let's talk some basketball.
So as mentioned, our player rankings list finally comes to
an end today, and with this one, there's no debate,
no lengthy argument to make, no need to pit him
up against someone else. For the third straight year, Nikole
(01:28):
Jokic has a stranglehold on the number one spot in
the NBA. His last season in review, he played in
seventy games. He's missed just seventy five games in his
entire ten season long NBA career, meaning he's averaged over
seventy four games played per season for a decade. Even
when he missed time this year this most recent season,
(01:50):
a good chunk of it centered around the birth of
his child, not an injury. He has simply been one
of the most reliable guys in the league for a decade,
as averages twenty nine point six points per game that
was a career high, twelve point seven rebounds per game,
the second highest rebound average of his career, ten point
two assists per game that was also a career high.
(02:10):
So yes, that represented the first time in Jokic's career
and just the third player in NBA history to average
a triple double for an entire season. Two point four
stocks per game that also tied a career high, fueled
by a career high one point eight steals per game.
It's interesting because I actually thought Jokic had a pretty
(02:31):
brutal regular season on defense, But at the same time,
I thought he's pretty damn good on defense in the playoffs,
certainly better than he had been in the previous in
the previous season. We'll talk more about Yokic's defense later.
Fifty eight percent from the field, forty two percent from three.
That was his best three point shooting season of his career.
Right on the heels of a season where his three
point shooting was kind of an issue, he rectified it
(02:53):
and he became the best shooter he's ever been. Eighty
percent from the foul line. That amounted to sixty three
percent in effect field goal percentage and sixty six percent
in true shooting, which was the second highest mark of
his career behind that crazy twenty twenty three season. So
to put it very simply, this was the best basketball
Jokic had ever played. Now, okay, see, you won too
(03:15):
many games too many more games than Denver in order
for Yokic to have a real shot at MVP. But
I thought Jokic was very clearly the best basketball player
on the planet again last year, his fifth straight Top
two MVP finish, his second straight first team All NBA selection.
Should be five straight there. He just got kicked off
on a technicality basically in twenty twenty three because of
(03:37):
Joel Embiid, just to flaw on how the system works,
play type data. We're just going to quickly go through
this and then we'll get into some big picture stuff.
One point one to three points per ball scream that
he ran as the handler, so those inverted ball screens
that was in the ninety second percent tile, one point
zero eight points per possession on ISOs including passes that
was in the eighty third percent tile, and then one
(03:57):
point one six points per per cent on post ups,
which is amazing for posterous volume two. Jokic generated eight
hundred and sixty seven points on post ups last year
including passes. That was three hundred and sixty three more
than second place, which was Yiannis. So just by far
the best post player in the entire game of basketball,
(04:18):
all of his off ball metrics were insane. He converted
spot ups at one point three to three points per possession.
It's literally in the ninety six percententile. Out of the
one hundred and seventy eight players to log at least
one hundred and fifty spot up opportunities last year, and
again that includes a lot of guards and wings. He
ranked fourth on that list in efficiency had of spot
(04:38):
up situations. He converted rollman opportunities at one point twenty
nine points per possession out of the ten role men
to log at least two hundred reps. That ranked second.
Jared Allen was the only guy above him, and as
we all know, Jared Allen was consistently getting easier opportunities.
Just a ridiculous regular season from nikolea Jokic, and he
capped it all off with what I thought was in
(05:00):
impressive playoff runt. Like the Nuggets looked dead in the
water going into the postseason. I even picked them against
the Clippers, as many folks did, because the Clippers looked
great and the Nuggets looked terrible. Over the final third
of the season, Aaron Gordon was banged up all year,
Jamal Murray was banged up at the end of the year,
the team was kind of splintering, they had just fired
their coach, and Yogic galvinized them and got them to
(05:22):
beat a very good Clippers team. And again, I like
I had actually picked against Denver in that series. I
thought the Clippers were gonna win, and Jokic just got
his team back in shape in time to win a
big series. And then that was a very good Oklahoma
City team that was a substantial favorite, and he pushed
them to the brink. And if it wasn't four, especially
(05:43):
down the stretch of Game four and in Game five,
if he just gets another couple of buckets from a
couple of his teammates, they probably have a very good
chance to win that series. And so I just was
really impressed by Jokic start to finish, including the postseason
last year, and then again really quickly I wanted to
talk about defense, Like I thought it was really impressive
(06:03):
the way that he just kind of locked in using
his IQ and active hands and stabilized the Denver defense
that looked awful all season. And they did as good
a job against Oklahoma City as you could possibly do.
They did better against Oklahoma City than Minnesota did. They
did about as good against Oklahoma City as Indiana did,
even though Indiana matched up better in terms of quickness
(06:24):
on the perimeter. I thought that Jokicic was far and
away the best player in that Oklahoma City series in
the second round. I just thought it was a really
impressive campaign from the best basketball player alive. Now, the
case for Jokics being the best player in the world
is very simple. He may not be the highest volume
score in the league statistically, although I believe he could
(06:45):
be if he wanted to. It's just not really the
way he's wired. Like Jekobs, Alexander took thirty shots per
one hundred possessions last year. He was an extremely high
volume shooter last year. If Jokics really approached the game
in that way, he put up astronomical scoring totals too.
But I think he's the most reliable small sample score
(07:05):
in the league, meaning like if you take away just
oh full season points per game total volume, and you
just focus in on like, hey, we got five minutes
of basketball here, and we gotta win this game, and
it's all gonna come down to these five you know this,
these final fifteen possessions or so I don't think there's
a better scorer in the league in terms of reliability
(07:27):
in those situations strictly small sample Brute for scoring, his
short range touch on floaters and hooks is literally unparalleled
in the sport. He was sixty four percent on floaters
last year, sixty one percent on hooks. He made one
hundred and eighty of those floaters in hooks last year.
That's insane volume, and like he's making damn near two
(07:49):
thirds of them. It's variants proof. Short jump shots inside
of seventeen feet he shot fifty five percent, He's forty
seven percent on long twos outside of his seventeen feet,
forty two on threes, and as we're going to talk about,
much better if you take out the heats, he is
the most variance proof and unstoppable single possession score in
(08:11):
the entire sport while also being the best passer in
the entire sport. So the result is you basically cannot
stop him from getting a good shot for himself or
a teammate. And that shows in a specific stat that
I actually brought to the forefront last summer. But I
want to go over what those numbers look like this
year to demonstrate. So. In Synergy, they have a stat
(08:34):
called score percentage, which simply just factors in, if we
run this play, how likely are we to put points
on the board. Essentially reliability of an action. If you
ran a post up for Jokic last year, regardless of
how you guarded it, if you shaded him, if you
hard double teamed him, if you left him on an island,
regardless of how you guarded it, it had a fifty
(08:56):
four percent chance and resulting in points. That's a pretty
name reliable play type. Throw the ball to Jokich, He's
probably going to score or get someone a shot that
they're going to make. If you ran an ISO for Jokich,
it resulted in points fifty two percent of the time,
regardless of how you guarded him. If you ran a
ball screen for him where he's the handler and you're
(09:18):
having a guard screen for him or Aaron Gordon screen
for him, it had a fifty two percent chance of
ending in points, regardless of how you defended it off
the ball, if you left him open. He shot forty
nine percent on pick and pop threes. He shot forty
nine percent on spot up threes. The only reason his
(09:38):
percentages fell to the low forties is because he missed
like thirty heaves last year. Took a ton of them,
like late shot clock bombs or half court shots. He
was incredibly reliab. If you let him get a good
look from three, he hit half of them. He is
quite simply the best offensive player I've ever seen, a
(10:01):
deadly variance proof on and off ball score while simultaneously
being the best passer in basketball. He's even a monster
on the margins. He had seventy five offensive rebound putbacks
last year. That was the seventh most in the entire NBA.
He was a dominant defensive rebounder. He had averaged the
second most defensive rebounds per game in the entire NBA
(10:22):
last year behind Giannis. We mentioned the career high in steels,
just defensive playmaking. He just impacts the game in an
absolute mountain of ways. I mentioned two weaknesses last summer
that I said had kind of brought him a little
bit closer to the pack. I said his three point
shooting and his defense were the two things that were
(10:45):
hurting him. He literally shot in the high forties on threes.
When you removed heaves from the equation. He was one
of the best picking pop bigs in the NBA. He
was one of the best spot up players in the
entire NBA if even if you include guards and wings,
so you can go ahead and scratch that shooting weakness
off the list. And again, while he had a brutal
(11:05):
defensive regular season, which was a team wide issue, I
thought he was really good in the playoffs. He still
has some situational weaknesses, and they're worth mentioning here. They
sound silly in the grand scheme of things, especially compared
to some of the weaknesses for players further down this list.
But if you put him up against a great pick
and roll player, a guy that can really shoot and
pull him out to the perimeter but can also pass
(11:25):
out of it. So guys like Steph Curry, Luka Doncic,
like those guys are going to give Jokic some issues
on defense or yeah, like if they didn't blow up
the Celtics and they stayed healthy and the Nuggets ran
into that Celtics team in a series, they would have
been able to space him out. It would have caused
some problems. But Boston's not a threat anymore. And for
any problems that Luca and Steph can cause for Jokic.
(11:48):
He's going to cause a mountain of problems for them.
On the other end of the floor. I would pick
Denver to beat Golden State or LA if they were
to meet in the playoffs this year, at least at
this point, I actually think Jokich is a particularly solid
defensive matchup for Oklahoma City. It's a matchup that allows
him to use his size and IQ doesn't force him
to cover as much ground out in space. It's a
(12:10):
good matchup for him. Ironically, Like, if you really get
dig into like the basketball specifics, a team like Cleveland
is a team that could potentially cause some issues for
Jokic with their speed and pull up shooting and all
of the ability to space the floor that they have.
But like, I actually think Jokic matches up pretty well
against Oklahoma City. And no, he's not a perfect defensive player,
(12:31):
but in a playoff context, I feel like he can
do plenty well enough to counterbalance what is the best
offensive player that I've ever seen on the other end
of the floor. And coming into the season, I think
this is the best roster that Jokic has ever had.
They've anchored him with substantially more depth substantially more athleticism
(12:53):
that should further allow Jokic to be more useful on defense.
They have a legit backup center to anchors, and again,
I think they match up well with Oklahoma City. Hell,
they pushed them to seven just last year. A couple
shots go different in Game five or in Game four,
they win that series. So in addition to me picking
Jokic is the best player in the world this season,
(13:15):
I can tell you guys right now that Denver is
my preseason pick to win the title. I think they're
going to be the best playoff team this year. I
may not get the one seed, but I think they're
going to be up there. And I like they got
the best player in the world or the best team
he's ever had, and I'm going to take those odds
against all of the other flaws that are presented further
(13:37):
down the list of contenders. Big shout out to Nikola
Jokich three straight years at number one on this list,
first player since Lebron James to have the league in
a stranglehold like this. We are extremely excited to announce
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and Virginia. All right, let's get into our mail bag
(15:24):
before we get out of here today. You've been very
forthcoming about your process going into this ranking, which I appreciate.
It really helps to know that the list has gone
through multiple drafts and that you spent multiple nights sleeping
on it. That said, I was wondering what your general
view on rankings is in more of a broad scope.
Do you watch other people's rankings, and if so, how
seriously do you take them? I tend to treat it
all as a fun way to engage with the game,
(15:46):
and it always baffles me to see people get so
heated over the rankings. Thank you and love the show.
Thank you so much for the kind words and for
supporting this show. Honestly, like I don't particularly care about,
like INDI visually ranking players in the sense that, like
I don't get too worked up about the lists and
(16:06):
where other people have people ranked. I think it's a
fun thought exercise. So for instance, like I like doing
this once a summer just to like zoom out and
take a look at the league. And one of the
things you guys will notice is, like the vast majority
of people who do lists will just share their lists,
and they might have like a little blurb that they
(16:27):
put underneath their ranking. But like, as you guys know,
we went into incredible detail on all of these players.
Like my primary purpose of this list is to zoom
out and take a look at where all these guys land,
and just my opinions, you guys can get a view
of where I see things and where I see the game.
That doesn't mean it has to be where you see
the game. But most importantly, regardless of how you feel
(16:48):
about the rankings with each guy, it's like kind of
like a performance review, so to speak. Not that I'm
these guys boss or anything, but the point is is,
like it's my opportunity to like dig back into the number,
dig back into the film, take a look at a
basketball player and be like, where's this dude at right now?
And that kind of helps me If I do that
every summer, it helps me just have a really firm
(17:10):
grasp on the individual trajectories of each player. This guy's
going up, this guy's going down, this guy's stagnating. Here's why.
Here are the numbers that show that. Here are the
things that I'm noticing on tape. Here's what Yiannis is
doing differently than he did in years past as a playmaker.
You know, here's where Lebron is struggling compared to when
he was in his prime. Like those, I learn a
(17:33):
ton from these lists. Like the ranking is the ranking.
I throw the ranking together, like you mentioned in the
first week, right like, I sleep on it several times
and I reorganize things. But once I settle on a ranking,
it effectively turns into a month long research project. It's
a research project where I spend an enormous amount of
time researching these players, and even though I've watched them
(17:57):
all season. It allows me to really just dive into
one particular player, look at both ends of the floor,
look at what he accomplished last season, where his areas
of opportunity are where for young players their development trajectory
needs to go. It's it's essentially a research project. And
so yeah, like I'm not gonna like when the ESPN
player rankings come out. I don't really get all worked
(18:19):
up about it. I do this for you guys and
for me. I do it for you guys so that
you guys can see kind of where I have each
of these players ranked as just kind of like a
big picture snapshot of the NBA, and then I do
it for me as a research project to learn about
where these players are in more detail. It's just an
opportunity in the summertime to take advantage of all the
(18:41):
time that we have there. Hi, Jason, you say that
Shay doesn't have best in the world potentially. I got
a lot of questions surrounding Shay, A lot of people
who were comparing him to prime MJ, people who were
saying that he does have potential to be the best player.
And there were a lot of thunder fans that were
unhappy with that particular conversation. And I am recording this
(19:03):
mail bag before our Shay Luca video releases. Which comes
out next week on Wednesday, or I should say two
days ago, but I am recording this in advance, so
I haven't seen those questions, and I'm sure there's going
to be a ton of thunder fans that are super
pissed off that I have Luca ahead of him, and
that are super pissed off that I said he doesn't
(19:23):
have best player in the world potential. So this question
kind of falls into that lens, and it allowed me
to hit a bunch of those points. The rest of
the question, I don't understand what else he needs to do.
He outplayed Anton Jokic this year in the playoffs, he
outplayed Luca. Last year he carried the offense on a
limited offensive team and took them to sixty eight wins
in a championship. Okay sees offensive system does not require
him to have high assist numbers on like Denver with
(19:45):
Jokich in LA with Luca, he impacts the game in
different ways. He averaged thirty three points on thirty four
minutes per game with great efficiency. I understand Yokic above him,
but with Sga already arguably the best player in the world,
love the show, so I couple I want to just
start by disagreeing with a couple of specific things that
you said. You said he outplayed Ant this last season.
(20:06):
I agree. I thought that he badly outplayed Ant in
that series, but Ant is not a top tier superstar.
You said he outplayed Yokich this year in the playoffs.
I thoroughly disagree. I thought Jokich was the best player
in that series. You said he outplayed Luca last year.
I also thoroughly disagree there, and I think this is
where before I get back into the Luca Shay piece,
(20:28):
I want to look at the other comment you said.
You said Oklahoma City's offensive system does not require him
to have high assist numbers, unlike Denver with Jokich, in
LA with Luca. That I fundamentally disagree with. They're not
putting up massive assist numbers while Shay's not because of
the offensive system. They're doing it because Jokiic and Luca
(20:50):
are just better offensive players than Shay, who are much
better at running a team offense and are much better
at setting those dudes up with quality opportunities. I just
think they're better. I think Shae and his kind of
tendency to have games where he goes rogue and forces
the issue a lot earlier, actually hurts his team and
hurts his rhythm, hurts his the rhythm of his teammates.
(21:11):
To be clear, we're splitting hairs here. I think Shane's
the third best player in the world. So I'm not
over here trying to say Shae's a bum. But if
you're asking me why I have Luca in Jokich above
the above Shay, I think both of those guys are like,
clearly and discernibly better offensive players than Shae, even the
scoring piece, like oh, he averaged thirty three points per game.
(21:32):
He had this prime MJ scoring type of season literally
just one season prior, when Luca was healthy, he had
a better scoring season than Shae. He had crazier totals.
He had like a seventy three point game this season.
That season he averaged like thirty four points per game
while also being in my opinion, the second best overall
offensive engine in the game with his ability to create
(21:53):
advantages for his teammates. Like, I just don't think Shae's
as good offensively as just his simple points per game metric,
would you lead you to believe? And again, the shot
totals are insane. He literally averaged thirty shot attempts per
one hundred possessions last year. It's like a he just
was shooting a ton and scoring a ton. And by
the way, I think Shay is a transcendently great score
(22:15):
I just don't think he's a transcendently great offensive player overall,
the way that Luca is and the way that jokiches
even to a greater extent, The question is can Shae
become that type of offensive engine. And throughout NBA history,
this is the unique thing, and it's just kind of tricky,
like you kind of have to be born with that trait.
(22:38):
I've seen players become better at it, and they become
more consistent making the reads, they become more consistent game managers.
I think Damian Lillard is a good example of this
kind of guy who like kind of maximized his individual
potential as a playmaker. But to be very clear, there
(22:58):
is still a gigantic chasm between that type of guy
and the relentless advantage creating deadly defense, beating passers that
you run into at the top of the league that
it's like they've just been born with it, Like Lebron
James in his prime, Chris Paul, you know, Trey Young
(23:18):
I think fits into this category the Nikola Jokic, Luka
Doncic types, And when you're looking at a guy like
to me, Jokic and Luca are both every bit as
talented as scorers as Shay. They may not lean into
it as much, and they may not shoot as many shots,
and they may not hit as many totals, although Luka
we've literally seen him do it. But I think if
(23:38):
Jokic was like, oh I have I have a fifty
million dollar incentive next year to average thirty five points
per game, I think Jokic could average thirty five points
per game like that. Like like, I think Shay is
a score first player who's really fucking good at it.
But I think Luka and Jokic are overall better offensive players.
(23:59):
So the question is if Shay's not going to progress
to become this like Grease the Wheels offensive engine that's
an unbelievable playmaker, where else can he make that improvement?
And like I do think that Shay is a good
defensive player, I think it's absurd that he got Defensive
Player of the Year votes like that to me is
crazy talk. I think that some of the talk about
(24:21):
him being like an elite like top end defensive player
is crazy talk. But I think he's a good defender.
He's a good playmaker, a defensive playmaker, like he can
jump passing lanes, play the ball well. He's a good
like help side guy at the ramis got good length,
he can block shots. But Shay doesn't have either the
bandwidth because of his offensive load or honestly, the athletic
(24:42):
traits to be the transcendently great defensive player. He would
need to become the best player in the world. So, like,
let's look at the guy by the way, I have
a question. I have a question later on where someone
talks about how they're skeptical that Ant can ever become
that elite defensive player too. I agree, like, and we'll
get to that more in a minute. As a matter
(25:03):
of fact, let me go to that real quick and
then we'll come back to that. We'll come back to
the Shaye piece this question. I take the bet that
Ant never becomes an all defensive guy. One, his offensive
role is too big to compete with the defensive specialists
around the league, and two he struggles with more than
just ball screens personally. He's not great off ball, I agree,
(25:23):
and I think his size limits him next to guys
like Dyson Daniels and Asar Thompson, Timanti Kamara, Jduve, etc.
So for the record, I agree, like I would bet
on Ant not becoming the all defense guy, and I
would bet on Ant not becoming the best player in
the world. I am just saying he has that potential.
(25:46):
The point you're making, the point about his offensive role
is what I think, Like, that's why I think he
won't get there. It's because his offensive role is too big,
and I just don't think he'll ever dedicate the necessary resources.
That second piece I disagree with, Like, you're right, he's
pretty bad off ball right now, and he's pretty bad
at navigating screens. But I think he can be great
(26:06):
at all of those things. The thing with his size,
and there's this kind of theory, and this is this
is not new. This is a theory that's existed in
the world of basketball for a while, which is like,
can guys be so big that they have a hard
time navigating screens? And I do think that that's true
for upright players, players that have high centers of gravity,
But Ant, I think is a guy who could blow
(26:26):
up screens. I think if Aunt really put in the
work and wanted to be he could be a guy
that was unscreenable because of how fast he is, because
how good his footwork is, and because of his strength
and his shoulders. He can blow screens up as he's
going through those actions and really become a guy that
big guys don't even want to screen. So like I
do think Ant has the potential to become a transcendently
(26:49):
great defensive player and a transcendently great score I just
think it's more likely that he becomes a transcendently great scorer,
but probably not as great on defense as he needs
to be, which means I think I think Shay's clearly
better than it now. But I think the most likely
scenario is Ant and Shay are more or less neck
and neck for the rest of their careers, and I
(27:10):
don't think either of them ever actually end up threatening
that best player in the world conversation. I think Ant
has that potential, to be clear because of his athletic traits.
I don't think either of them has the potential to
be a transcendently great playmaker, but Ant has the potential
on defense. I just think it's more likely than not
that he doesn't get there now. So the question is
(27:30):
what about when Luca or what about when Jokic declines?
Like if Jokic declines, can Shay become that guy? And
I just I think it's more likely that it's a Luca.
I think it's more likely that it's a Victor wem
Minyama because Luca transcendently great, scores every bit as good
a score as Shaye, if not a little better, and
he's a substantially better passer, playmaker, offensive engine. Like, I
(27:52):
think he's going to stay above Shae for the most
part in his career too, the Victor women Yama piece, Like,
I think he's going to be a guy who averages
twenty eight thirty points per game on sixty plus percent
for shooting, while also being the defensive player of the
year perennially, year in and year out. That's a guy
that's a better basketball player than Shake Gildas Alexander. That's
a guy that's a better basketball player than the most
(28:14):
likely and eventual version of Anthony Edwards. So like again,
like to me, I think where people got confused is
like I don't necessarily expect Ant to become better than
Shae and to enter into that best player in the
world conversation. It's just I think Ant does have this
like freaky athletic potential that could theoretically manifest in the
(28:35):
most devastating two way player at the guard position in
the league. Which I don't think Shaye has the ability
to be the most devastating two way player at the
guard position in the league. I don't think that's something
that's in his potential, don't. I don't think he has
the athletic gifts or the size and strength to necessarily
be that guy. But like again, like this is okay, guys,
like there are people like do you understand, Like Kevin
(28:56):
Durant more or less was in that top tier but
never became the best guy. Steph might have done it
for one year in twenty twenty two. I think he
did do it for one year in twenty twenty two. Like,
if Shan ends up being a guy who's the second, third,
fourth best player in the league for seven eight years,
he's gonna be remembered with the likes of Steph Curry
(29:18):
and Kevin Durant. It's it's just it's a very, very
different conversation when you get into like this dude's the
best basketball player on planet Earth. That's the conversation that
Jokic just had in his stranglehold for three straight years,
and like that requires you to be transcendently great at
at least two things. You go back to twenty twenty
(29:40):
two when it was Steph he is one of the
great advantage creators in the NBA. Still to this day,
you can put a bunch of random dudes with him
and he's a one twenty offensive rating. And back in
twenty twenty two, he was still the guy who could
be the volume elite transcendently great score. If you think
it's Giannis in twenty twenty one, like transcendently great def
defensive player, transcendently great scorer. At that point in time,
(30:02):
he had figured some things out, especially at the foul line.
Lebron transcendently great playmaker, transcendently great score and one of
the elite defensive players in the league. That's why he's
in the goat conversation. Like you go back before that
to Kobe Bryant, it's same thing. Transcendently great defensive player
in his prime, transcendently great score. Like there's a very like,
(30:23):
when you get into that conversation best player on the planet,
it's an extremely high standard that you're looking to hit,
and I get it, Like this all gets convoluted because
he hoisted the trophy and like I had comments that were, like,
Shay just had the best scoring season since MJ. He
won the scoring title, he won MVP, he won finals, MVP.
(30:43):
I'm not hating on the season. There's a remarkable accomplishment season.
But Oklahoma City had the best roster, and in a
lot of ways, it was Shay's game management that became
an issue at various points in the playoffs, which is
why they got pushed to seven games by inferior basketball
teams this year. The reason Oklahoma City won the title
(31:06):
is they have the best defense of this era. Their
defense is so damn good it literally forced Nicole Jokic
into the first like stretch of mediocre basketball from him
that we've literally ever seen. That defense caused players to
piss down their leg Jaron Jackson completely decomposed, Julius Randall
completely decomposed. That was an all time great defense that
(31:31):
the third best player in the world ended up being
enough offense for them to win. That's the way I
look at it, and again, like I just am talking,
we are splitting hairs among the best players in the world.
I ranked Shaye above Yannis this year. You know how
hard it is to be above Giannis Antennacumpo as a
basketball player. I have a ton of respect for Shade.
(31:52):
Like I had another comment, someone said, like, you just
don't like Shae because of the aesthetics. I don't necessarily
like lucas aesthetics, the flopping, the grifting. He's not a
vertical player. He's not a guy that has like a
ton of fluidity in his jump shot. It's kind of
like a set shot. Like Luca is not a player
(32:12):
that I love aesthetically. I think he can pound the
air out of the basketball sometimes, something that I don't
necessarily love watching on television. I understand. I will be
fourthright with you guys and tell you how I feel
about a player. Yeah, Shay's not my favorite player. Joel
Embiid wasn't my favorite player, but I can promise you
that I will try like hell to rank them fairly
(32:34):
in that context. To me, Luca is above Shay because
he is every bit the score in a much better playmaker,
offensive engine same goes for Nikola Jokic. That's why I
have Shaye in third place. The reason why I don't
think he can become the best player in the world
is because we have other guys in his age group,
(32:54):
Luca who's transcendently great at two things, scoring and playmaking,
Wemby who's going to be transcendently great at two things
scoring in defense, and Jokic, who still literally just had
the best season of his career. So, like, I think
it's more likely that Shay is a perennial first team
All NBA, top tier superstar guy that just never cracks
(33:14):
that number one spot. And while Ant does have that potential,
I agree with you, thunder fans. I think it's more
likely than not that Ant doesn't become that he just
eventually catches up to Shay and those two dudes kind
of battle for the best two guard in the league spot.
Looking forward in the next era of the NBA, is
(33:36):
there any argument that supports an optimistic Warriors season that
would not also work for the Mavericks. Both of injury
prone players leading the team's offense, both have incredible depth
and can put out fourteen competent players during the season,
and both have a defensive floor that is relatively high.
I understand that the Warriors offense is better, but Butler
is an aging, injury prone player who does not value
the regular season but is very necessary for their success,
(33:59):
while the Mavericks have excuse me, a young core of
hungry players looking to get back into contention. I don't
see how someone could have the Warriors higher than the
MAVs when both teams have injury history, but the MAVs
are significantly younger. This is a regular season, by the way,
and not the playoffs. I won't argue against Steph in
the playoffs. That's truly I think. Honestly, I disagree with you.
Like I wouldn't be surprised if the MAVs ended up
(34:20):
above Golden State in the regular season. If Anthony Davis
comes back, and like I talk about Luca having a
revenge season, I think it's very possible that Anthony Davis
has a revenge season. He's had a long time to
rest and to get in shape. He's probably pissed off
if he got traded. I wouldn't be surprised if we
have an awesome season out of Anthony Davis. They have
an incredible depth of defensive talent. It's just simple about
(34:40):
simply about the offensive end of the floor. That's where
that could become an issue. But in the regular season,
I think defense matters more. When you get to the postseason,
you gotta have both. But in the regular season, as
we've seen with teams like Houston, if you get enough stops,
you can just exist in transition and score enough points
to win games. And so I wouldn't be surprised if
the MAVs and it up at a higher seed at
(35:02):
the end of the season. But the real thing is
is neither Kyrie nor Anthony Davis are like really truly
great offensive players overall. Running a team like we saw
what prime Kyrie looked like leading the Celtics. Like Steph
Curry even at age thirty seven, you just put him
out there with some dudes and you get a one
to twenty offensive rating because of his ability to fly
(35:23):
around and draw two to the ball consistently. So like
to me, I would view the Warriors as a more
dangerous playoff team because they're probably still going to be
great on defense with Draymond and Jimmy and especially if
Al Horford gets picked up and Steph Curry is still
just a way better offensive player than anybody wearing a
Dallas Mavericks jersey. Two more quick ones. Can you explain
(35:45):
pissel action? How works and what are the advantages and disadvantages?
I love this question. We don't get a ton of
this kind of stuff, but if you guys ever want
to dive into these concepts. I always find these very fascinating,
so I'd love to get into them. All you have
to do is continue to drop them in the mail
back question. Pistol is essentially a handoff that flows into
a ball screen. I've seen variations of this action called
(36:08):
a bunch of different things. You'll see it called Chicago
in the NBA. You'll see it called zoom in the NBA. Pistol, right,
pistol generally, let's set up the floor first and go
from there. Just imagine a big that's kind of hanging
out around the top of the key. You've got two
players spacing on the weak side, so corner wing on
the weak side, but let's focus on the strong side.
You got a big that's somewhere around the top of
(36:30):
the key, and you got a guy in the corner
and the guy in the corner is the guy we're
trying to get the ball to. I'm the point guard
bringing the ball up the floor. And if in a
pistol action, generally speaking, I'm just gonna dribble into the
corner and hand off the ball to the guy coming
out of the corner, and that is going to flow
into the big man at the top of the key
coming over to set a screen. So it's essentially a
(36:52):
dribble handoff into a ball screen. Right. That's usually called
pistol zoom or Chicago. It's the same principle, it just
looks a little different. You'll dump the ball to the
big and instead of the guard going in dribble hand offing,
the big will go in dribble handoff and the guard
will just set a screen first. So in either case,
regardless of how you set it up, the guard is
(37:13):
gonna come off of two screens, a guard screen first
and a big screen second. And whether or not he
gets the dribble hand off from the guard or the
dribble handoff from the big, it's still more or less
creates the same basketball dynamic. And again, I never get
too hung up on the names of actions because they
tend to differ from team to team. Like even just
when I was playing in college, we had the same
(37:36):
defensive actions or defensive coverages or offensive actions that would
just have different names depending on the team that I
was playing for. And I've seen similar when I've been
covering the NBA over the last several years. But that
word Chicago zoom pistol, all those actions more or less
mean the same thing. The guard is coming out of
the corner off of a dribble hand off either from
the big or the guard, but it's a double stagger
(37:57):
from the guard and from the big, and from there
it just creates It's a three man action, right, you
have three players involved in the action, and it just
forces the guys to make a bunch of decisions. Right. So, like,
let's say that the guy guardless, because we know the
target of the possession, the guy we're trying to get
the ball to, is in the corner. Let's say that
the defense decides to lock and trail, meaning the guy
(38:18):
guarding the man in the corner just prepares to chase
him over the top of those screens. Well, if he
chases him over the top of those screens, you've got
two chances to screen him. If you hit him right,
he's going to come off the other side of that
screen and he's gonna have an opening to potentially shoot.
If he stays attached, he's still going to be in
trail positions, so he should be able to curl around
(38:38):
the big and get downhill into the paint regardless of
what the regardless of what the guard does coming off
of that action, the defensive big has to make a decision.
He's either got to be up to contest the shot
or he's got to be back preparing to contain the
ball if it comes at him. And so if it's defended.
Let's say that the guy chases over the top and
(39:00):
the guy gets downhill and he attacks, in all likelihood
the big is gonna have to step up to help
on that drive. That leaves your big the offensive big
open to either pop out or to roll into space
off of that. But there's all sorts of reads that
can be made out of it. Let's say that the
guards decide to switch, so they go run that first
(39:20):
dribble handoff and those two guards decide to switch. Well,
the second guard who's taking the guy coming out of
the corner is now highly susceptible to a screen because
he was just guarding a ball handler going in the
opposite direction. His shoulders are probably turned, his hips are
probably turned. The BIG's gonna have an easier chance to
hit him. If he hits him, he can come off
and shoot, or force the big to step up and
drop it off to the big. There's also overplays, right,
(39:43):
so like when we pistol was actually our our main
five out motion when my first year coaching, when I
was coaching high school and two son is like five
years ago, and the way we ran it, it was
like you were encouraged if you were the ball handler
and you're bringing the ball up to dribble hand off
with the guy out of the corner, if your man
wasn't paying attention and the dude was locking and trailing,
(40:05):
you could fake the hand off and just try to
turn the corner and get all the way to the basket.
And it's a five out concept, so the help defense
might be looser. You might have an opportunity for a layup.
Let's say they top lock, so the guy in the
corner is overplaying the defensive guy in the corner is
overplaying the offensive guy in the corner and forcing him
to backcut. Well, there are reads there, right, like especially
(40:26):
out of Zoom or Chicago. You throw the ball to
the Big, you go to set it, he's top locking,
he backcuts. Guys like Draymond have been killing teams with
like passes, in back cuts, out of overplays, out of
that sort of thing throughout their entire careers, right, So, like,
it's essentially just a three man action that flows into
a dribble handoff with the guard out of the corner,
(40:47):
coming off of the Big at the top of the key,
and that screen usually gets set a little bit further
towards the sideline. The Big just usually starts at the
top of the key, but he'll set it closer to
the elbow extended, and then there's a lot of room
in the middle of the floor for that guy to
attack downhill and just force the defense to react. Like
what if the big stays home, but the two helpers
(41:07):
on the weak side step over, Well, that's a pitch
out for three or an opportunity to drive a close
out right Chicago Zoom pistol. It's one of my favorite
early offense actions because has really good natural flow to it,
especially pistol. So like say you're playing pick up with
your buddies or in your men's league, such an easy
action to run to just get an easy advantage. Have
(41:29):
your big run the floor to the top of the key.
Have your point guard just run up the floor and
dribble hand off to the guy in the corner, and
have him come off a ball screen. It is super easy.
It has this very natural flow to it, and you
just play basketball off of it. He gets into the
paint and the guy helps and you kick it to
the wing. Once you have an advantage, once you have
(41:49):
any advantage, there's no reason to plays anymore. There's no
reason to run a set. You just play basketball. The
entire purpose of running a set is to either get
a or to get a guy and open catch at
the three point line with the defender sprinting out at him.
Once you've done that, you've done the job. He chases
(42:09):
him too hard off the line, he's gonna drive. Now
it's a five on four. You can wait for the
defense to react the key. There is the spacing, right,
so like once you get into the middle of the floor,
you can kind of imagine it, right. So like, let's
say that I come off of that dribble handoff and
I get into the middle of the floor and I
swing to the left wing. Because I didn't have an
opportunity to score, it's very important that I cycle back
(42:33):
through to that strong side corner and the guy that
was in the corner cycles up. You want to make
sure you maintain your spacing within the action, otherwise guys
can get in each other's way. But like, essentially, you
run action to get an advantage. And once you have
an advantage, as long as you're spacing is set up properly,
you just play basketball. And so those are the two
keys to running successful offense. It's action that generates advantage
(42:54):
in spacing once you have your advantage. If you have
those two things figured out, it's talent will show through
as guys get those advantages and capitalize on them. Again,
love that stuff. Anything like that, You guys are welcome
to dropping the questions and we'll get into it, Hi, Jason,
love your show. More of an operating business question. How
substantial of a drop off do you see in views
when the NBA is on versus when it's off, And
(43:16):
how much do you try to include Steph Lebron jokicch
Lakers or Warriors when you're picking mailbag questions and just
content in general. So we obviously do see a drop
off in the summer. That's natural, like it actually the
our numbers, our numbers are up year over year consistently
thanks to you guys. You guys have done an amazing
job supporting the show. But that's in like the big picture,
(43:39):
it's not a linear growth like it always kind of
looks like this, and there are several peaks and valleys
throughout the season, right, So let's start with the summer.
There's usually a peak during free agency, and then there's
a lull after free agency when things really slow down.
Then there's a peak at the start of the season.
Our numbers are usually really good in October, but then
(44:01):
you get into November and December and things kind of
like slow down a little bit. The NFL becomes a
bigger part of the deal. We did have a peak,
another peak in December two years ago because of the
n season tournament, and the Lakers are a massive brand,
so we hit some really big numbers during that time.
Bucks Thunder not as big a brands. We covered that game,
(44:23):
but it you know, obviously didn't hit the same quite
a number. We had a little bit of a lull there.
You get into trade deadline, huge peak, right, you get
a peak because you have new players changing teams, and
then for a few weeks after that, everyone's really curious
about how the new teams look. Right, But then once
you get into late March, it slows down again because
it's like, Okay, now we're in the stretch run. A
(44:43):
lot of the good teams are resting players, you know,
there's tanking teams that are barely even playing their guys. Like,
there can be a little lull there. Then you get
into the postseason and it peaks again, right. But like,
even within this year's postseason, there's like the market thing.
When we got to the final four, we had three
of the final four markets. We're small markets, and so
our numbers took a little bit of a dip across
(45:05):
the board when you get into those final two playoff rounds. Right. So, like,
there's natural peaks and valleys that exist throughout the season
based on the natural peaks of the season. But to me,
the natural peaks are the trade the free agency period
in early July, the first month of the season in
October the trade deadline in the NBA playoffs. Those are
like the four peaks that we ride throughout the season.
(45:26):
As far as like the strategy of including our big markets,
I have like a very simple kind of ideology about
this kind of thing. I want to cover the whole league,
but I want to do it within reason because this
is a business. So I'm not going to spend like
an entire week covering the Hornets and the Pistons and
a bunch of teams that are Pistons are actually a
(45:46):
bad example now because the Pistons are good, but years
ago when the Pistons were bad. I'm not going to
just sit there and cover a bunch of bad teams
because that would be bad for the performance of this show.
It would be bad for the future of everything I'm
trying to build here, right, So, like my general idea
is I try to in every episode have at least
one of our larger fan bases represented. We have several
(46:08):
larger fan bases. The Celtics are a big one for us,
The Mavericks, Nuggets like teams that make long playoff runs.
Because we cover them so intensively during the playoffs. We
tend to build a fan base there. Denver's one of
our bigger fan bases. The Knicks are one of our
bigger ones. We hit a bunch of big numbers with
the Indiana Pacers last year. You have like your seven
(46:28):
or eight bigger market slash more engaged fan bases, and
I always try to get at least one of those
in a full episode, and we're usually gonna lead with it.
That's the business, right, I'm gonna market the full episode
around that, but we're always gonna have three or four segments,
and in those segments behind, that's where we get into
(46:48):
the rest of the league. And so one of the
big things that I fought for in earlier this year,
and one of the things that Jackson's done an amazing
job of, is if we cover a team in any way,
shape or form with a full segment on the show,
it's getting its own breakout clip. And we're also sorting
them by teams. So if you go into our playlists
(47:08):
under playlist, there's a playlist for every single team in
the NBA manifested there. So, like, if you're a Bulls fan,
you know, obviously the Bulls are a lower tier team
in the Eastern Conference, so We're not going to cover
them as often, but I usually cover them a few
times a year, and when we do, it'll drop in
the Chicago Bulls folder. If you are a Nuggets fan,
we're gonna hit you more often. If you go to
(47:29):
the playlist and you click on Denver Nuggets, every time
I cover the Nuggets, there will be a video that
is represented there. It's very important to me that the
channel is organized in a way that, yeah, we're gonna
have our full episodes be branded usually around one of
our bigger markets or a bigger fan base is not
necessarily even a big market. Some of our smaller markets
have very engaged fan bases that we lean into. Right
(47:52):
I expect Victor Wiman Yama and the Spurs to be
kind of one of those markets in the next couple
of years. No one views San Antonio as a massive market,
but there are a lot of Spurs fans that are
ravenous for Spurs content, and so we're gonna work. That's
gonna be a fan base that we continue to build out.
But for me, the cutoff is like unserious teams, like
we're gonna hit the top twenty twenty three teams in
(48:13):
the league, the teams that are actually trying to win.
But I'm not gonna waste a bunch of time watching
a ton of footage in the middle of the season
on one of the bottom six or seven teams in
the league, except for occasionally evaluating rookies, right like, oh,
this guy got drafted. Let's check in on Brandon Miller
and see how he's doing, like that kind of thing.
But our general our general layout is we're gonna lead
(48:36):
shows with bigger markets, bigger things, because that's just smart business.
But we are gonna cover the rest of the league
diligently in subsequent segments. And I have fought for the
way we build our production plan around you guys, making
sure that you get a full breakout clip for every
single team that I cover. So the thing that got
frustrating for me in the past was, like I hated
(48:57):
it when like I would cover the sh Cogo Bulls
for like eleven minutes, or I would cover the New
Orleans Pelicans for fifteen minutes, but it would be tucked
at the end of a show and it wouldn't get
marketed at all, Like wouldn't be in the thumbnail, and
it wouldn't be in the title and we wouldn't have
a breakout clip, and I'd be like, I just put
in all that work covering that team and it's not
(49:18):
actually showing up on the channel. We got to make
sure that everyone can actually see this stuff, and so
we've been doing that. Jackson has like completely transformed the
production flow of the show for the better. I'm sure
you guys have noticed. Ever since Jackson came in in February,
he's done an amazing job of just of just bringing
us to like a more well rounded production approach that
(49:41):
you guys will see. But yeah, essentially, it's a business.
You got to hit big markets, you got to hit
big names. But I try to do it within the
context of covering the league at large, and we primarily
focus on the serious teams right in that like top twenty,
top twenty three, twenty four teams, depending on how many
teams are tanking in any given season. This season in
(50:01):
the Eastern Conference, once you get off that top you know,
six or seven teams, there's a lot of bad teams
in the Eastern Conference, and so that's gonna be tricky
this year and we'll see how it goes. But but
again that uh, that's just kind of more or less
a little look behind the curtain as to how we
structure our production. All right, guys, it's all I have
for today. I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us.
(50:22):
I'm stoked that we made it through the player rankings
list again this year. Thank you guys so much for
your comments and for your support. We will have list
week next week. I'll see you guys then.
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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