Jason reacts to the Los Angeles Lakers signing center Deandre Ayton to pair with Luka Doncic and LeBron James. Then he gives his winners of NBA free agency including Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets for adding Cam Johnson and Bruce Brown, Nico Harrison's Dallas Mavericks for adding D'Angelo Russell, the Atlanta Hawks, the Houston Rockets for trading for Kevin Durant, and New York Knicks for getting Mike Brown.
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you're at the volume heavy Thursday. Everybody. I'll valve you
guys are having a great end to your week. We
got a jampackshow for you guys today. Deandreton has signed
with the Los Angeles Lakers. Talked a little bit on
Monday about just some of the realities surrounding the circumstance
and why it made sense for both of these teams.
But today I want to do a much deeper dive
into DeAndre Ayton's game and how it's going to fit
(02:13):
with the Lakers on both ends of the floor. So
a full scouting report on DeAndre Ayton as a basketball
player on both ends of the floor. Lots of detail there,
give you Lakers fans a good idea of what you
can expect from him this year. After that, for our
course correction segment this week, we're going to be covering
the biggest winners in free agency. I have four teams
that we're going to be shouting out in that segment.
(02:35):
After that, I'm going to do just a short mail
bag as we go into the holiday weekend, going to
be talking about Damian Lillard and where he could potentially
end up, Mike Brown as the new head coach of
the New York Knicks, talk a little bit about Luke
Cornette and the San Antonio Spurs, and then we have
a Lebron Lakers question at the tailing. You guys are
the job. Before we started to subscribe to Hoops and
(02:57):
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Follow me on Twitter a underscore so you guys don't
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leave a rating and a review on that front. Jackson's
doing great work on our social media feeds Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok.
Make sure you guys follow us there. The last, but
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in the full episodes in the comments put mail bag
(03:20):
and then Colin. That helps me sort through them quickly.
Drop your question and we'll get to them at the
end of each week until we get into next season.
All right, let's talk some basketball. So we talked on
Monday about how I thought this made sense for both
sides in the eight and Los Angeles Lakers deal. The
Lakers were in desperate need of a center. They don't
(03:40):
have one that they trusted in the playoffs last year,
and obviously there's some emergencies surrounding Luca and Lebron. The
free agency options were all decent backups, but none of
them were going to do well in a real starting role.
Deandreton has had two franchises at this point. Say good
riddance to him, and he's in desperate need of a
very public and successful season to give himself any chance
(04:05):
at another long term deal. As crazy as it sounds,
even though he's had his two NBA contracts, he's only
twenty six years old, and he's way too talented of
a guy to have this week of a market in
free agency, and so he needs to rehab his image.
Lakers desperately need a center, even when it comes to
eight And in some of his off court stuff, which
we'll talk about in a little bit, This in theory,
(04:26):
should be the year where you get eight And on
his best behavior, because he's effectively in what amounts to
a contract year that there's that player option for next
year that's basically just a safety net in case this
goes really poorly for eight and in the Lakers. But
if he has a great season this year, he could
potentially go into next year. And we've seen what the
starting caliber center market is. Guys, Deandreton has a great year,
(04:50):
he could easily look at over one hundred million on
a four year deal somewhere else. That is like absolutely
one hundred percent achievable for Deandreton. If he goes into
La and has a great season. So it's a perfect match.
The Lakers get a legitimate starting level talent to anchor
the center position for them this year, and Deandreyton gets
(05:10):
to play with Luka Doncic who has the potential to
help Ayton put together one of those career years on
the offensive end of the floor. Now, obviously the Lakers
and Aten's camp agreed with that assessment. Now he's a Laker,
So let's dig into some more of the basketball specifics
about his fit on that team. We're gonna start with offense,
(05:31):
and we're gonna start with the good. He is just
a absolute monster pick and role player. There is no
other way to characterize it. As we went over on Monday,
he's statistically been one of the highest volume and efficiency
role men in the NBA for the entire twenty twenties.
If you want to hear those numbers again, I went
over them in detail on Monday's show, So head over
to our show from Monday and you'll get to see
(05:53):
those specific numbers. But it starts with screening. He doesn't
necessarily set the most physical screens the world, but he's
very good at the timing and getting in and out
of screens quickly, reversing angles when the situation calls for it,
running up and getting set like he's gonna screen, and
then just jetting out like he'll it's it's hilarious because
(06:15):
he lacks the same verve in his pick and roll
coverages on defense, which we'll talk about in a minute.
But on the offensive end, he gets in and out
of screens quickly, and he will often get behind the
screen defender simply just because he sprints out of screens
and it like pops off the screen when you're watching film.
He is a very very good pick and roll roll
(06:38):
man in the NBA. He creates a very large vertical
spacing window, and he has great hands. He averaged almost
two dunks per game last year. That is going to
be a great fit alongside Luka Doncic. He's a legitimately
good mid range jump shooter. As a jump shooter at large,
it doesn't look good because he took a lot of
threes last not a lot, but he took almost forty
(06:58):
threes last year and he shot poorly on them. But
he was fifty five percent last year on two point
jump shots on almost seventy four attempts. So almost two
attempts per game. By the way, that does not include
post up fadeaway jump shots, which we'll talk about in
a minute. He's not very good at those, but off
the catch in ball screens or in short range spacing
situations around the elbows, he is a very good mid
(07:22):
range jump shooter. He also does a good job of
reading the back line, so he'll roll hard if there's
a lane, but then he'll short roll to the foul
line win there's traffic. And even on those short rolls,
there are some of them where he's very well set
and it's just an easy pocket pass and he rises up.
There are some of these where he's on the move,
he's rolling to the basket and he's like popping like
left right with his footwork like a movement shooter and
(07:44):
rising up from the elbow. And it's kind of a
legitimately feathery touch that he has on that little mid
range jump shot. It's a little flat, which is why
it doesn't go in when he shoots threes, but when
he's in that mid range it goes in at a
high rate. He's going to score a million points playing
off of Luka Doncic in pick and roll like there's
no way around it. The only thing I'm a little
(08:05):
bit worried about with pick and roll is when Luca
gets blitzed. He's not a great decision maker and he's
a little bit turnover prone, So that will probably be
the biggest issue that the Lakers have to deal with
in ball screens throughout the season is just if they
look to start blitzing Luka. I'd be curious to see
if the Lakers pivoted to situations like that where, oh,
you're blitzing Luca, Well, we're just gonna use Lebron as
(08:26):
the screener and then put Deandreton in the dunker spot
and see if you can work off of that. They're
gonna have to work out some stuff, but specifically in
ball screens outside of blitzes where Ayton has to make decisions.
I just think he's still one of the very best
role men in the league and it's just gonna be
a very, very impactful option alongside Luka. Doncic the bat
(08:46):
on offense mentioned the turnover prone short role stuff on blitzes,
He's never been able to put it together as a
post player. There are times when it looks great like
he has really good physical tools obviously, and then he's
got a nice jump pook. We talked about it yesterday.
He was a very efficient jump hoook shooter over the
course of his career. But like on occasion, you'll see him,
(09:08):
you know, post up Brook Lopez and just like bump
him off with that left shoulder and get to that
hook off of like a nice little spin move, and
you'll be like, man, Like, he's got the potential to
be such a monster down there, but he's constantly settling
for super difficult like turnaround fade away jump shots out
of the post, or like face up jumpers out of
the post. And while he's a good jump shooter off
(09:30):
the catch, he's pretty bad on these post up jump
shots and so he it craters his efficiency. And then
you add in the turnovers. He's extremely turnover prone on
post ups compared to some of his some of his peers.
He doesn't see the floor well, a little spastic you'll
like freak out a little bit when he gets into traffic.
So as a matter of fact, Ayton was actually the
least efficient post player in the entire NBA last year,
(09:52):
out of the fifty four players that attempted at least
fifty post ups. Now, he was especially bad last year.
He was like just over seven tenths of a point
per possession, and in previous years he was better, like
in the point nine and change kind of range. But
he's still below a point per possession for those same reasons,
turnovers and taking a lot of those tough turnaround jump shots.
(10:12):
The post is not going to be an area where
I think he's impactful for the Lakers as like a
legitimate high volume threat. He is going to have some
success attacking against switches, against smaller players. That's gonna be key.
It's I'm not saying you don't post up eight, and
I'm just saying you don't post up eight and unless
he does it, unless he has an advantage, right, So
(10:32):
he's going to significantly raise the ceiling of this Lakers offense.
The key, you will just be trimming the fat, keeping
his post ups down to just quick ducans against pick
and roll switches, keeping that volume down. And by the way,
it shouldn't be a problem. He posted up last year
for Portland six Excuse me, I should reverse this. In
twenty twenty three with the Suns, he posted up six
(10:55):
times as many times as he did last year with
the Blazers, so his post up volume has already been
I don't think that will be an issue. I think
there will be issues with Ayton. I just don't necessarily
think it'll be like, oh, he's demanding the ball in
the post too much, like he's prime Dwight Howard or
something like that. So on the offensive end, I view
it as nothing other than a substantial upgrade on defense.
(11:16):
The defensive tape with Ayton from last year is mostly
useless in the context of the Lakers because the Blazers
almost exclusively used him in a very deep drop coverage,
so he was primarily just sitting back very upright, like
not even really down in a defensive stance and just
kind of like backpedaling and keeping the roller. Is classic
no roller behind coverage, so he's keeping an eye on
(11:37):
the roller. He generally would ignore the ball handler and
just kind of get back to the roller as part
of Portland's defensive scheme, so he gave up a lot
of drop coverage shots, pull up threes floaters, things along
those lines. He even gives up some stuff at the rim,
which is what you don't want to give up as
a drop coverage big. That's the entire point of drop
coverage is to not give up stuff at the rim.
But he'll give up like layups to mediocre guards around
(12:00):
the league in ball screens, just simply because he's so
passive and so back on his heels in ball screens.
There are a lot of examples of frustrating effort. I
saw a play today against We've watched a ton of
film this morning on it, and he had a ball
screen against the Nuggets where Jokich was the screener, and
he just like hugged up on Jokic and like grabbed
(12:21):
his hips, and Strawther drove off the shoulder and ate
and just literally pointed at the rim and yelled out
help him. As Strawther just went down the lane and
laid it in, and everyone else is like, what are
you doing. You're supposed to be defending the ball screen
two on two, and you know how it is with Yokich.
It's like, yeah, he can shoot pick and pop jumpers,
but you want to take away the layup before you
(12:43):
deal with Yokich on a pick and pop. It's just
lazy defense. Right. There was a Jaden McDaniels play where
he drove right at Ayton's chest and Aydon did a
good job going vertical with the size and forced to
miss and then ate and hit the ground and just
immediately entered chill mode. And Jada McDaniels hit the ground
and just went back up and got the offensive rebound
and laid it in. There is upside, but there's going
(13:05):
to be a lot of frustration with Ayton and just
random little bits of laziness. Like obviously, it's hard for
me to tell exactly what it'll look like with the
Lakers because I just don't think JJ Reddick is gonna
view Deandreton as a deep drop big which we'll talk
about in a minute, but a lot of ugly stuff
on tape last year with Portland. Just to put it
very simply, Portland's defense was five points better per one
(13:29):
hundred possessions last year when Deandrayton was off the floor.
He was a weak point in their defense last year,
even though that team had some legitimate defensive upside at
times throughout the season. Again, there is upside. He'll make
a big block and pick and roll where you're like, man,
this dude's got crazy physical tools, or he'll make some
recovery move where his foot speed shows, or he'll slide
his feet on the perimeter. You'll think he can do this,
(13:51):
but it's just few and far between, at least in
the Portland tape. So this is gonna be a massive
project for JJ Reddick. The first step will be finding
a scheme that worked. I'm a little worried about him
switching because he's so passive just naturally as a basketball
player on that end of the floor. There was a
couple of plays in a game against Minnesota this year
in crunch time, late game in the fourth quarter where
(14:13):
he gave up a couple of threes to nas Reed,
one on a switch where he kind of came out
passively and nas Reed was just like okay and just
hit like a little in and out dribble, got a
god separation, hit a three. And then after he hit
that shot and the game is now tied in crunch time,
big possession, they go back to the same action. They
switch eight and onto nas Reed, but he just hit
(14:36):
a three and he just kind of passively switched out
where he's like standing there but he's not getting out
to contest and Naz burned him again and hit a
three over the top, and you're like, what are you doing, man, Like,
you gotta be paying attention. This is nas Reed. He's
on a roll. He just hit a jumper in your face.
You got to be pushing out a little bit further now.
To his credit, again, in that same game, there was
(14:56):
another sequence late in the game where he switched, defended
nas well and got to stop. But it's like that
needs to be the attend the level of attention to
detail that's earlier in that sequence, not later in that sequence.
Everyone knows what Nasried wants to do. He's got that
quick release, he wants to take that above the break three.
You gotta be out there. So like switching, I'm a
(15:17):
little nervous about just because if you have passive switches,
he's gonna get burned over the top quite a bit.
I think he could be a good high drop coverage player.
What that means again is coming up to the level
and then recovering back after the action and getting up
to the level and then recovering back after the action.
And I look at that as a potential scheme that
could work for him because of what I was talking
(15:38):
to talking about earlier involving his offensive work in ball screens.
This dude gets in and out of ball screens quickly
on offense. He is a good athlete who's twenty six
years old. He is absolutely capable of riding that yo
yo in ball screens on defense, getting up to the
level showing, getting back, waiting for the next action, getting
(15:59):
up to the level show and getting back. I think
that's something that could work. But now that's requiring JJ
Reddick to get Ayton to embrace a certain level of
defensive motor that he just hasn't shown in recent years.
So it's kind of like a big question mark there
for me. But Aydan has a lot of natural talent,
and he has shown a high level of defensive competitiveness
in some big playoff spots before, like we've talked about
(16:21):
over the course of this week. So I don't want
to say he'll be useless here. It's just going to
be an adventure on that side of the four. It's
gonna be a lot of ups and a lot of downs.
And then of course there's the off court stuff with Ayton.
He's a bit injury prone. He hasn't played over seventy
games since his rookie year. He hasn't played over sixty
games since he had a Sun's jersey on. He's super flaky.
He'll show up late or miss team events, just generally
(16:43):
shows a lack of unprofessionalism. The one potential upside there
is this kind of feels like a fork in the
road for DeAndre Ayton's career. If he fucks this up
in LA, he's staring down the barrel of veteran minimum
contracts for the rest of his career and obviously substantially
hurting his earnings potential, and he could be out of
(17:03):
the league within a few years. If he locks in,
shows professionalism, puts up monster numbers alongside Luka Doncic, then
this could be I'm signing a four year, one hundred
and twenty five million dollar deal or one hundred and
twenty million dollar deal like some of the starting caliber
centers that we have in the NBA. That's the fork
in the road here for Deandrayton, and it's going to
(17:25):
come down to what he does with his professionalism and
with his on court play in this season, So insummation,
it's going to be a lot of good offset by
some bad that mitigates his value. I think he's going
to be an offensive monster with Luca. I'm calling it
right now. As long as he's relatively healthy, my guess
is he logs at least twenty games next year with
(17:46):
at least twenty points, just because he's going to have
so many opportunities on the role playing alongside Luka Doncic.
You will have games this year where Deandrayton has like
thirty two points and fifteen rebounds and he looks like
an All Star. But he's going to be a mess
on defense that will undercut his value. There will probably
be some off court unprofessionalism even if he's on his
(18:07):
better behavior, that's going to undercut his value. But to
be very clear, that still nets out as substantially better
than any center the Lakers have had in the last
few years other than Anthony Davis. So all in all,
I think it's a win for the Lakers, and I'm
at least excited to watch what DeAndre Ayton looks like
as a pick and roll partner with Luca. I think
(18:28):
it could be very scary. I like view it, to
be very clear, like with Ayton as a roleman, I
view it as like a substantial ceiling razor for the
Lakers offense. This is just a huge part of a
pick and roll attack. If you look at a pick
and roll attack as three pronged, meaning there's the on
(18:48):
ball guy who has to bring a certain amount of
scoring threat, and then you have the weak side guys
that all have to bring a certain amount of scoring threat.
The guy in the middle, the guy that makes it
all work, is the scoring threat on the role. If
that guy is in a substantial scoring threat, they don't
need to really tag rollers with that much intensity. If
they don't need to tag rollers with that much intensity,
(19:09):
all the weak side scoring guys are not going to
get nearly as many advantages off the catch. But if
that guy's a monster, now the defense has to make
a very difficult decision. Okay, we're going to get the
ball out of Luka Doncic's hands, So that means we
can choose one of two things. We can either play
the weak side or we can play the roller and
(19:30):
having Luke, having Austin Reeves on the weak side, having
Lebron on the weak side, having Dalton connect on the
week side, having Ruy Hachimura on the weak side. If
you give those guys awesome opportunities. They're going to score,
and if you stay glued to those guys, DeAndre Ayton
is going to dunk everything and make a bunch of
these wide open fifteen footers at well over fifty percent.
(19:51):
So this is the missing cog in a deadly pick
and roll attack. Last year because of some of the
difficulties that Jackson and Hayes had finishing in traffic and
all of his issues on the defensive end of the floor,
they had to bail on that and basically get rid
of that middle piece and play straight up five out
drive and kick, which basically only has two threats, right
(20:12):
the on ball guy and the people you're spraying it
out to on the perimeter. There's a much more layered
approach to this offense now, with the ability to have
a legitimate superstar level shot creator and pick and roll
one of the best scoring role men in the NBA,
and then all sorts of offensive talent on the weak side.
I would be surprised if this Laker offense isn't top
(20:35):
five in the NBA next season. All right, welcome to
course correction, brought to you by Microsoft. Just like the
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(20:56):
management and trustworthy responsible AI. And when you're in the NBA,
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Microsoft empowers you with the expertise to say bring it.
On this week's course correction segment, we're covering the biggest
winners of NBA free agency. We originally think of biggest
(21:20):
winners and losers, but here's the thing, if you really
look at the biggest losers conversation, it's complicated. Because I
saw a report yesterday that the Kevin Durant trade could
potentially be expanded to include five additional teams. The Warriors
are probably going to do something in the trade market,
the Lakers are probably going to do something in the
trade market. There's so many teams that still have things
that they can do. This is so far from over
(21:41):
that I don't want to necessarily focus on the losers.
Yet we will do that at some point in the postseason,
but today we're just going to focus on the winners.
The Denver Nuggets. After a couple of years of slippage
in the Western Conference, the Nuggets have completely reloaded, trading
Michael Porter Junior for Cam Johnson, significantly upgrading their starting
three spot and saving some salary. Trading Darios Harts for
Yonas Valentiunis, turning a useless backup center into a guy
(22:04):
that gives them a better chance to win when Nikole
Jokic is off the floor. It also will help them
maintain some schemes consistency. Yonas Valentiunas is obviously a substantially
lower level player than Nikola jokicch but there are some
similarities in their play style which I think will actually help.
You know, the bench units for Denver over the years,
we remember it was they generally went small, and it
(22:26):
usually turned into like the opponent would just switch against
that group, and in those units, it'd be a lot
of like we're hunting mismatches with Aaron Gordon for post
ups and Jamal Murray is picking on bigs or a
weaker perimeter defender and getting into his bag for like
a mid range pull up. I think that having a
yonas valentunis will allow them to run some of the
similar offensive concepts that they run when Yokic is on
(22:48):
the floor, and that scheme consistency could help them be
more reliable in their bench groups. Signing Bruce Brown and
Tim Hardaway Junior that gives them two substantial bench upgrades,
a guy in Bruce Brown who has proven to fit
with Yokich a championship context, and a guy in Tim
Hardwa Junior who should theoretically fit really well as a
movement shooter and a super aggressive spot up player as well.
(23:10):
Defense was also an issue for them in the regular
season last year. Cam Johnson and Bruce Brown are legitimately
upgrades on the defensive end of the four, and like
as we discussed on Tuesday, they both represent options on
the perimeter. And this matters because over the years, Denver's
had to deploy Aaron Gordon in a lot of those situations,
and every time you deploy a big forward out on
(23:30):
the perimeter, it limits your back line defensively in terms
of rim protection and defensive rebounding. Having Bruce Brown and
Cam Johnson as like substantially better perimeter defenders than anybody
that was on the roster last year not named Christian Brown.
That gives them a better opportunity to keep Aaron Gordon
in a more realistic not realistic, but in a better
(23:51):
fit role for him as a back line defender. It's
also be easier on Aaron Gordon's body throughout the season,
which may allow him to hold up better physically throughout
the season. I was already a big believer in Denver's
Corps four, and with these substantial upgrades, I'm now seriously
considering the Denver Nuggets as my favorite to win the
title next year. By the way, I view this as
a value right now, all of our odds are provided
(24:11):
by DraftKings. The Denver Nuggets right now are plus eleven
hundred to win the title. That is the fifth best
odds in the NBA. I would like that to me,
looks like a great value at this point because you're
getting the best player in the world, a team that
last year already pushed Oklahoma City to the brink. There
are great matchups specifically with Oklahoma City, and they significantly
(24:34):
addressed some of their biggest needs backup, center, bench depth,
upgraded that fifth starter I would have if I was
placing odds like right at this point in time, I
don't see any reason why they should be anywhere lower
than two behind the Oklahoma City Thunder. They seem to
me like such a safe bet compared to some of
(24:55):
these more volatile teams that we haven't actually seen them
play yet. Secondly, four teams today in our biggest winners,
the Dallas Mavericks. Hard to imagine a scenario where a
team can pivot off of a superstar trade faster than
the MAVs have. Obviously, you get a superstar talent back
in the trade in Anthony Davis. You get a starting
caliber two guard and Max Christi in the deal. You
(25:17):
also get a first round pick from the Lakers. In
the deal, you fortunately get the number one pick in
the draft out of the lottery, which turns into Cooper Flagg,
who has the potential to be a monster defensive player
next to Anthony Davis, and who knows what he's gonna
be on the offensive end, but chances are he'll be
a very very good player there as well. And you
make a very savvy signing of di'angelo Russell, you needed
ball handling, and you got a guy who fits perfectly
(25:39):
alongside Ad and the rest of the I think you
just fits that roster really well at a team friendly number.
I don't really know what the MAVs are yet, and
I would imagine they'll make a trade still at this
point with their glut of forward talent, but just simply
an aggregate talent, Like if I was just saying which
team has the most on paper talent in the league.
(26:00):
Have one of the more talented rosters in the NBA
right now if you really zoom out. So I'm super
excited to watch them next season. Three the Atlanta Hawks
in an Eastern Conference that's there for the taking. They went
for it. They made a couple of substantial upgrades. We've
seen teams not do that. Cleveland has basically stood pat
(26:20):
that made a swap from Ty Jerome to Lonzo Ball.
You get Larry and Junior as a good big man
in their rotation on a discounted deal. But Cleveland is
more or less talent wise where they were last year.
The Knicks have made some upgrades on their bench, which
we'll talk about in a minute, but they're not exactly
loading up. The Hawks are like, we're going for this thing.
(26:41):
We're gonna try to make this happen. They you know,
Kristaps Porzingis had health issues in Boston and that obviously
will be the wild card here. But he's a substantially
more talented player than Clinton Pella, and I still view
him as a massive upgrade at the starting center spot.
They won the Nakhil Alexander Walker sweepstakes. He's one of
my favorite three and D guards in the lead. I
think he's like, I don't think ideally he's not starting
(27:03):
for you, but he is a quality playoff rotation piece.
Get Jalen Johnson back, another year of improvement for Zachary Risachet,
another year of improvement for Dyson Daniels. The Hawks are
going to be a ton of fun this year. I
mentioned this on the show on Tuesday. I think it's
a legitimate goal for them. They should be shooting for
home court advantage in the first round of playoffs. I
(27:24):
think they should be looking for a top four seed.
And then lastly, the Houston Rockets getting Kevin Durant, adding
Clint Capella, adding Dorian Finney Smith for signing many of
their young players, including Jabari Smith Junior, maintaining their trove
of draft compensation for future flexibility. They ended free agency
(27:44):
according to DraftKings as the second favorite to win the
title at plus seven hundred, getting KD increasing your depth
re signing your young talent. Hard to not consider the
Houston Rockets as one of the big winners in free agency.
That's it for this week's course correction. Remember Microsoft's AI
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(28:07):
sparking new ideas to help drive your business forward. With
Microsoft as your trusted partner, you can navigate your journey
with confidence, finding innovative solutions and reaching new possibilities. Visit
Microsoft dot com Slash Challengers to learn more. All right, guys,
as promised. Mini mailbag as we head into the weekend.
First question with the Dame Wave, could a team like
(28:29):
the Nuggets sign him just for postseason help? So, obviously,
with the Achilles terror, there's no way of knowing what
it's going to look like in terms of his recovery.
There is a chance, we've seen it before that he
could come back in less than a year. I would
imagine that unless he's feeling great, he would take the
time he needs to get one hundred percent healthy. But
(28:51):
let's evaluate just this theoretical scenario. Damian Lillard races through,
heab does a great job, his body heals quickly, and
right around, like right around the stretch run like early April,
he's just ready to go okay, So that's eleven months
(29:12):
post surgery. Theoretically, this would be a situation where it's
not like he's coming back to take on a starting
point guard role in a dead serious, like massive usage context.
There's no way he's doing that this year. But a
guy who could come off the bench for you in
a playoff series and provides some better shot creation than
(29:34):
many of the backup guards that are around the NBA,
even on an surgically repaired achilles. That's an interesting content concept, right,
So let's talk about some teams that would make sense
for Damian Lillard. I don't actually love the Nuggets fit.
I think that that Nuggets team is kind of like
geared in a way where they have ways to run
(29:56):
offense in various groups. I think you see Jamal Murray
in cases lead the bench group when Nikole Jokic is
off the floor. I'm not saying it's a bad fit
for Dame, but I just see some less value there
compared to some other potential units around the league. So
I put together six teams. These are the six teams
that I think would be fun fits for Damian Lillard
(30:17):
as like a just oh, I'm here for the playoffs
as a backup guard who's going to play fifteen minutes
a night. The Dallas Mavericks, a team that's desperately in
need of ball handling, and like if they're in a
situation where Kyrie Irving is just not ready to come
back this season, Damian Lillard would be a guy who
steps in and plays some bench ball handling role for
(30:39):
the Dallas Mavericks in a postseason context. The Golden State Warriors.
This is a team that Jimmy Butler has come in
and helped a lot in terms of secondary shock creation.
It has certainly allowed them to have some more flexibility
when Steph is off the floor and obviously a great
defensive playmaker Jimmy. I think the Jimmy fit with Golden
State has been a resounding success so far, but they
(30:59):
still struggle a little bit with creating shots outside of
the context of Steph Curry. Damian Lillard would be a
really interesting fit to come into Golden State and play
a small role off the bench for them in a
postseason context. Cleveland Cavaliers. This is a team once again
that we talked about when we were talking about the
Lebron trade. In the postseason, Darius Garland has just really
struggled to create shots, and so Donovan Mitchell has had
(31:22):
to basically revert back to helio centric ball to keep
the offensive float. At times you lose ty. Jerome Lonzo
Ball is a good backup guard. He's just a very
different backup guard, and what he's not is like some
supreme shot creator. Damian Lillard could fit a role there
as a bench guard for them. The Detroit Pistons, they
signed Karris Lavert as a replacement for Dennis Schroeder, and
(31:44):
Karris is a good player, but similarly, they're a team
that could use some shot creation beyond KD Cunningham. Damien
would be a nice fit there. Houston Rockets. They're still
light on ball handling on that roster. They're obviously they
Britain Fred van Vliet. You bring in Kevin Durant that
really helps. Shangoon can help, but they don't really have
a guy off the bench unless Reed Shepherd can develop
(32:06):
into it. They don't really have a guy off the
bench that can come in and consistently provide high level
ball handling for them. Dame would be a great fit
in Houston. Last the Minnesota Timberwolves. This is a team that,
once they go to their bench, similarly has a little
bit of a lack of depth in ball handling. You
lose Nikhil Alexander Walker used to run some second side
action for them. I like the idea of a high
(32:28):
level skill guard playing alongside Anthony Edwards that can set
him up with some more off ball opportunities as well.
Minnesota would be a fun destination for Dame. Again, I
think the far more likely scenarios that Dame doesn't play
a minute in the NBA this year and that he
ends up coming back next year, and that's going to
be a completely different discussion, because now we're talking about
a healthy Dame that's had eighteen months to recover and
(32:49):
that's got a full training camp to join a team,
probably in a starting role. But in the short term,
those are the teams that I think would be fun
for like a late postseason addition, Jason, what can Mike
Brown do to help the Knicks? So, as we heard yesterday,
Mike Brown will be the new head coach of the
New York Knicks, a well respected defensive coach who keeps
getting opportunities in the NBA based on that respect. Now,
(33:11):
it's worth mentioning that Sacramento for the most part, was
not a very good defense underneath Mike Brown. But it's complicated.
They didn't just lack talent defensively at the center position.
Their entire front court was weak in defensive talent. Wasn't
just Sibonis. And by the way, I'd argue Sabonis as
still a better defender than someone like Karl Anthony Towns,
but he has some similarities in terms of some foot
(33:33):
speed weaknesses and some verticality, like he just doesn't have
as much of a vertical deterrent as some other centers
around the league. But it wasn't just Sabonis, Like the
Kings just did not have a legit athlete at the
ford position to cover Sibonis as a back line defender.
The Knicks present similar roster issues at the center position,
(33:54):
but they have legitimate size and athleticism and length at
the forward position, WHI should give them a stronger foundation
to work with. Essentially, when we talk about like ballscreen coverages,
there's like a bracket on the backside as well. We
talked about the bracket in the form of the ball handler,
the guy guarding the ball, and the guy coming up
to the level as the big, But on the back
(34:14):
line there's a similar bracket. The more ground that this
big can cover, the less that the back line defender
needs to do. The less ground that the big can cover,
the more that the back line defender needs to do. Right. So,
like if Karl Anthony Towns is that at the level big,
it's easier to build a back line with an og
An Andobi with the Michale bridges as like athleticism on
(34:35):
the off the ball Josh Hart as well to help
structure a more resilient defense. So I do think Mike
has a little bit more to work with in New
York in terms of defensive talent relative to what he
had in Sacramento. But what I talked about after the
season in terms of whether or not Mike Brown's gonna
work out with the Knicks, it's all about cleaning up
their fundamentals. There are certain realities, right like Cat and
(34:56):
Brunson have their defensive weaknesses, and they will make mista
and they will compromise their defense. There's no way around that.
But there are some pieces of low hanging fruit, some
fixable mistakes that can raise the level of this defense,
mainly getting rid of those easy transition opportunities that we
saw in the Pacer series because of bad floor balance,
(35:16):
Like doesn't matter if you have bad defensive talent or
if you have good defensive talent, if you have five
dudes below the foul line when the shot goes up,
you're probably gonna give up a transition opportunity the other way.
So having basic floor spacing principles to where there's always
two guys above the break so that you're set up
for transition defense, that'll go a long way. Some of
the avoidable errors like Cat showing way too high on
(35:36):
ball screens or committing to one side of a ball
screen before the ball handler even has like he gets
rejected more than any other big I've seen in the league,
where he'll sprint up to the right side of the
screen and the ball handlers like, all right, I'm just
going to go the other way and then when he
crosses over, there's nobody there and he'll go all the
way downhill. Cleaning up some of the like basic fundamental
stuff with cat and ball screens that is avoidable, Deepening
(35:58):
the rotation so that you can keep your star minutes
down so that fatigue doesn't cause laziness within that roster.
Jordan Clarkson is an upgrade over campaigns On. Yabuseli is
a guy that will provide some front court depth. They've
added some of those pieces, Mike Brown just needs to
actually make use of them in a way that Tom
Thabodau did not. And then adding aggression for defense to transition.
(36:20):
A couple of things. One, I thought the Knicks were
at their best last year when they were forcing turnovers
and getting out in transition. We saw that a lot,
even in some of their big runs that they had
in the in the Celtics series. If you guys remember,
just like Og and McHale flying around in passing lanes,
forcing turnovers, getting out in transition. The second piece of
it is that when you have weaker defensive players like
(36:42):
Pat and Jalen Brunson, sometimes like just running traditional coverages
that concede openings will just lead to really comfortable basketball
for the opponent. So, like, if I know, all I
gotta do is bring Brunson into the action, he's going
to hedge. So once he hedges, that effectively leaves two
on the ball for a minute. I just pitch it
over to his defender who's or his offensive his assignment.
Excuse me as he's slipping out, and then he's gonna
(37:03):
have a four on three and he's gonna drive. That's
really comfortable offense, right, But like, if you attack the
ball at least, like it's like we're putting two on
the ball anyway, we're bringing cat in this high drop anyway,
they're already leaving all these openings. Why not attack the
ball and try to force some more looping passes, some deflections,
some of that kind of stuff to try to breed
more of those transition opportunities. Try to add a little
(37:25):
bit more of a defense to transition element for this team.
The Knicks just need to get more of the low
hanging fruit in basketball, and Mike Brown is certainly a
capable coach to improve the team in that regard. What
do you think of Luke Cornett to the Spurs to
help Wemby. Is his contract too risky for a thirty
year old forty one million at four years? So I
(37:46):
didn't think of it as that risky considering. I view
Cornett as like if you were looking at like different
tiers of players around the league. There's like your starting
caliber players, and then there's like your backups. But then
there's always like a middle tier, which is like, this
guy could start, and if he started for us, we'd
be fine, but like, ideally he's not our like day
(38:09):
one starter for eighty two games, right, And to me,
Luke Cornette fits into that mold. And when you really
start to look at it from an expense standpoint, and
it's like, okay, we have backup centers back like legitimate
just backup centers going for like mid level exception money
or veteran minimum money. Ten million a year, Really isn't
that crazy for a guy that could spots start for
(38:31):
you at times? And then also if you look at
the way that the salary cap is going to continue
to go up in future years, like ten million is
just not that big of a number. I don't view
that as a problematic contract at all for san Antonio.
I look at it as kind of a hedge on
Wemby's availability because Cornett can start for them at times,
an opportunity for them to explore Victor wemen Yama more
(38:53):
as a forward alongside a like a two big type
of look. I look at Luke Cornette as a really
really useful player on a cost controlled deal. He's thirty
years old, that's right in the heart of his prime.
I think it was a good move. I think it's
a move that makes the Spurs a better basketball team,
and I'm excited to watch him in that fit. Last question, Jason,
huge fan of your work if you're a lebron in.
(39:14):
The best outcome this year roster wise for the Lakers
is signing Ayighton while losing Dori and Finney Smith. This
was in the Monday video, by the way, but Ayton
did end up signing with the Lakers, so it's still relevant.
And then a couple of moves on the margins. Would
you prefer to stay on the Lakers or swap with
Jimmy and go to Golden State? Who is going to
defend slash dude the dirty work on a Luca Austin
Reeves Ruy Lebron, DeAndre Ayton's starting five. Conversely, you can't
(39:36):
tell if Golden State's roster offers a higher ceiling for
Lebron next season. It's the cleanest trade by far for LBJ,
but it's also messy for Lebron's legacy. But I think
the last couple games of the Minnesota Series last year,
Lebron knew the Lakers had no shot, and I'm not
sure if they can improve much at all this year.
So maybe he thinks him in step with Kerr in
the movement offense, offers a better ceiling. They would have
something to do at center. Though. Can Ayton go to
(39:57):
Golden State? Obviously, Aidan's not going to Golden State. He's
going to the Lakers, all right, So let's zoom out
from this for a second couple of things. I agree
with you that the Luca Austin Reeves, Ruey Hachimura, Lebron,
James DeAndre and starting five is at this point there's
not a single professional defender in that group, and I
will not take the Lakers seriously as a championship contender
(40:20):
unless they can turn Ruby Hatchimura into a player that
is of the ilk of like An Andrew Wiggins, A
freaky athlete, primary point of attack defender that's also a
useful offensive player with what they do. So I do
think that there are some serious limitations there, but it's
worth mentioning as we look around the league, those same
limitations exist elsewhere. I view the Lakers right now as
(40:43):
like a second tier contender. I viewed the Warriors right
now as a second tier contender. If Lebron were to
swap with Jimmy Butler, I think it makes the Warriors better,
but I don't think it makes the Warriors a top
tier contender. They still have issues on the roster. Don't
get me wrong, I'd love to watch it. As a
basketball fan. I can't think of a more fun basketball
(41:06):
fit than Lebron, and Steph would love to watch it.
I just don't think it makes sense for Lebron to
go anywhere unless it's like this obvious dead series. We're
favored to win the title if we go there, and
even some of the options out East, like Cleveland, for instance,
or New York, they are options that are more appealing
(41:26):
in the sense that the Eastern Conference is so weak
that Lebron would just have a better chance to make
it to the finals. But I don't view any of
them as like he gets there and they're just like
automatically right there with Oklahoma City gonna win the title.
Lebron's only chance to do that was to opt out
and to go sign somewhere on the mid level exception,
and he just wasn't going to do that for all
of the reasons that he's given over the years involving
(41:48):
him not taking a discount. But ultimately, as I look
at the situation, for all those things you talked about
with Luca and Austin and Ruie and Lebron and DeAndre
Ayton and some of their defensive shortcomings, for all of
those issues, I still think that group has just about
the same chance to win the title as a Golden
(42:09):
State if Lebron went there as some of these maybe
a little better in the East, just simply because they
could get out of the conference easier, but they're still
gonna have to face somebody from the West, probably a
Denver or a OKC or a Houston, And those three
teams are still gonna be better than those teams out
in the Eastern Conference would be with Lebron on them.
(42:29):
So would that be in the case he lives in
Los Angeles. His family's here. I just don't see Lebron
uprooting his family unless it's just such a uprooting himself,
I should say, his whole routine, unless there's just this
shoe in obvious fit. And like, look we went over
I went over what four Lebron options in the Monday Show,
(42:49):
and they'd be fun. I'm not gonna sit here and
pretend like I wouldn't enjoy covering a Lebron Warrior season
or a Lebron Cavs season or a Lebron nixt season.
But I just the reason why I never saw it
as that likely, and the reason why I said in
that video that I would just be surprised if Lebron
wasn't a Laker again, is because the Lakers situation is
nearly as good still even with the flaws, and he
(43:12):
gets to stay home and kind of ride things out
in his current comfort and routine. And again, I do
think the Lakers have an outside chance of entering into
a higher level of contention if they can flip ruy
Hacha Mura into a starting caliber, legitimate upgrade at the three,
like if Andrew Wiggins get in there, and it's Luka Doncic,
(43:32):
Austin Reeves, Andrew Wiggins, Lebron, James Deandreen. That's a lot
of talent. And now I kind of view them as
more like in the in between tier one and Tier two,
like either at the very bottom of Tier one or
at the very top of Tier two. So I think
for Lebron, it still makes sense to stick with the Lakers,
even though it's been frustrating. And Polinka's you know, just
fucked around for the last several years and just kind
(43:53):
of prevented any sort of like substantial commitment to trying
to win in Lebron's tail end of his prime. And
here we are, and now the situation is entirely different
because of Luca, and now they can't go all in.
I know, I'll say this is the last thing before
we leave in terms of the Lakers and strategy, Like,
I don't think the Lakers should be mortgaging their future
(44:15):
to try to win around Lebron James. That would be stupid.
You got, Luka Doncic, He's gonna be twenty seven next year.
You've got to be more prudent with your approach. But
I still think you owe it to Lebron and Luka
Doncic in his competitiveness to try to maximize the short
term as well. So Jason, how do you do that? Well,
you just need to go for assets that don't lose
(44:37):
as much value. So, for instance, trading a bunch of
second round draft picks for Dorian Phinney Smith, obviously that
trade was made before the Luka Doncic trade. You're trading
for an older role player on the tail end of
his prime. That's going to lead to a massive downturn
in assets, right, And by the way, the Lakers ended
(44:57):
up losing Dorian Phinney Smith for nothing, But even if
they kept Dorriane Finney Smith, he would have declined quickly
over the course of the next few years and it
would have been a depreciating asset. It would have led
to an eventual decline in talent on the roster. Right
with the Lakers moving forward, I do think you should
consider trading Dalton connect trading that first round pick if
(45:19):
it brings back a player who is a legitimate core
piece alongside Luka Doncic who's in his mid to late twenties,
Because then it's like, Okay, we gave up a first
round pick. We gave up a first round talent in Dalton,
but what we got back is a player that we
can use for four to five years and he's gonna
(45:43):
still be in his prime during all that time, and
then still at age thirty one, he'll be that generation's
Dorian Phinney Smith. He can be the guy that they
look to move for some sort of asset return at
that point in time. If they can get a starting
caliber talent that's no older than like thirty, then that
makes sense because there's still some long term value in
(46:05):
the asset. You just can't trade the first round pick
in Dalton connect for like Paul George from the seventy
six ers. That would be stupid because now you're giving
up assets for a player that's gonna quickly depreciate and
you're gonna have such a huge net negative in your
total roster talent available. Right, But if you can move
assets for other assets that will retain their value, that
(46:30):
is something you can do that helps capitalize on the
Lebron James era while still allowing for long term flexibility
surrounding Luka Doncic. All right, guys, it's all have for
today is always a sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting
us and supporting the show. We're gonna take the holiday
weekend off so all you all spend some time with
your family and relax, and we will be back on Monday.
We have a very busy week next week for Summer
(46:50):
League and headed out to Vegas with Jackson. We're going
Thursday through Sundays, so hopefully you guys will stop by
and see us at some point while we're in Vegas.
I'll keep you know show announcements and stuff on Twitter
in terms of just letting you know, letting you guys
know where we're at during the week and when we're
releasing content. Busy week next week. We'll see you guys
on Monday. What's up guys? As always, I appreciate you
for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. They would actually
(47:12):
be really helpful for us if you guys would take
a second and leave a rating and a review. As always,
I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could
take a minute to do that, I really appreciate it.
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(01:51):
you're at the volume heavy Thursday. Everybody. I'll valve you
guys are having a great end to your week. We
got a jampackshow for you guys today. Deandreton has signed
with the Los Angeles Lakers. Talked a little bit on
Monday about just some of the realities surrounding the circumstance
and why it made sense for both of these teams.
But today I want to do a much deeper dive
into DeAndre Ayton's game and how it's going to fit
(02:13):
with the Lakers on both ends of the floor. So
a full scouting report on DeAndre Ayton as a basketball
player on both ends of the floor. Lots of detail there,
give you Lakers fans a good idea of what you
can expect from him this year. After that, for our
course correction segment this week, we're going to be covering
the biggest winners in free agency. I have four teams
that we're going to be shouting out in that segment.
(02:35):
After that, I'm going to do just a short mail
bag as we go into the holiday weekend, going to
be talking about Damian Lillard and where he could potentially
end up, Mike Brown as the new head coach of
the New York Knicks, talk a little bit about Luke
Cornette and the San Antonio Spurs, and then we have
a Lebron Lakers question at the tailing. You guys are
the job. Before we started to subscribe to Hoops and
(02:57):
Not YouTube channels, you don't miss any more of our videos.
Follow me on Twitter a underscore so you guys don't
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Make sure you guys follow us there. The last, but
not least, if you want to get into these mail
bags at the end of each week, drop your questions
in the full episodes in the comments put mail bag
(03:20):
and then Colin. That helps me sort through them quickly.
Drop your question and we'll get to them at the
end of each week until we get into next season.
All right, let's talk some basketball. So we talked on
Monday about how I thought this made sense for both
sides in the eight and Los Angeles Lakers deal. The
Lakers were in desperate need of a center. They don't
(03:40):
have one that they trusted in the playoffs last year,
and obviously there's some emergencies surrounding Luca and Lebron. The
free agency options were all decent backups, but none of
them were going to do well in a real starting role.
Deandreton has had two franchises at this point. Say good
riddance to him, and he's in desperate need of a
very public and successful season to give himself any chance
(04:05):
at another long term deal. As crazy as it sounds,
even though he's had his two NBA contracts, he's only
twenty six years old, and he's way too talented of
a guy to have this week of a market in
free agency, and so he needs to rehab his image.
Lakers desperately need a center, even when it comes to
eight And in some of his off court stuff, which
we'll talk about in a little bit, This in theory,
(04:26):
should be the year where you get eight And on
his best behavior, because he's effectively in what amounts to
a contract year that there's that player option for next
year that's basically just a safety net in case this
goes really poorly for eight and in the Lakers. But
if he has a great season this year, he could
potentially go into next year. And we've seen what the
starting caliber center market is. Guys, Deandreton has a great year,
(04:50):
he could easily look at over one hundred million on
a four year deal somewhere else. That is like absolutely
one hundred percent achievable for Deandreton. If he goes into
La and has a great season. So it's a perfect match.
The Lakers get a legitimate starting level talent to anchor
the center position for them this year, and Deandreyton gets
(05:10):
to play with Luka Doncic who has the potential to
help Ayton put together one of those career years on
the offensive end of the floor. Now, obviously the Lakers
and Aten's camp agreed with that assessment. Now he's a Laker,
So let's dig into some more of the basketball specifics
about his fit on that team. We're gonna start with offense,
(05:31):
and we're gonna start with the good. He is just
a absolute monster pick and role player. There is no
other way to characterize it. As we went over on Monday,
he's statistically been one of the highest volume and efficiency
role men in the NBA for the entire twenty twenties.
If you want to hear those numbers again, I went
over them in detail on Monday's show, So head over
to our show from Monday and you'll get to see
(05:53):
those specific numbers. But it starts with screening. He doesn't
necessarily set the most physical screens the world, but he's
very good at the timing and getting in and out
of screens quickly, reversing angles when the situation calls for it,
running up and getting set like he's gonna screen, and
then just jetting out like he'll it's it's hilarious because
(06:15):
he lacks the same verve in his pick and roll
coverages on defense, which we'll talk about in a minute.
But on the offensive end, he gets in and out
of screens quickly, and he will often get behind the
screen defender simply just because he sprints out of screens
and it like pops off the screen when you're watching film.
He is a very very good pick and roll roll
(06:38):
man in the NBA. He creates a very large vertical
spacing window, and he has great hands. He averaged almost
two dunks per game last year. That is going to
be a great fit alongside Luka Doncic. He's a legitimately
good mid range jump shooter. As a jump shooter at large,
it doesn't look good because he took a lot of
threes last not a lot, but he took almost forty
(06:58):
threes last year and he shot poorly on them. But
he was fifty five percent last year on two point
jump shots on almost seventy four attempts. So almost two
attempts per game. By the way, that does not include
post up fadeaway jump shots, which we'll talk about in
a minute. He's not very good at those, but off
the catch in ball screens or in short range spacing
situations around the elbows, he is a very good mid
(07:22):
range jump shooter. He also does a good job of
reading the back line, so he'll roll hard if there's
a lane, but then he'll short roll to the foul
line win there's traffic. And even on those short rolls,
there are some of them where he's very well set
and it's just an easy pocket pass and he rises up.
There are some of these where he's on the move,
he's rolling to the basket and he's like popping like
left right with his footwork like a movement shooter and
(07:44):
rising up from the elbow. And it's kind of a
legitimately feathery touch that he has on that little mid
range jump shot. It's a little flat, which is why
it doesn't go in when he shoots threes, but when
he's in that mid range it goes in at a
high rate. He's going to score a million points playing
off of Luka Doncic in pick and roll like there's
no way around it. The only thing I'm a little
(08:05):
bit worried about with pick and roll is when Luca
gets blitzed. He's not a great decision maker and he's
a little bit turnover prone, So that will probably be
the biggest issue that the Lakers have to deal with
in ball screens throughout the season is just if they
look to start blitzing Luka. I'd be curious to see
if the Lakers pivoted to situations like that where, oh,
you're blitzing Luca, Well, we're just gonna use Lebron as
(08:26):
the screener and then put Deandreton in the dunker spot
and see if you can work off of that. They're
gonna have to work out some stuff, but specifically in
ball screens outside of blitzes where Ayton has to make decisions.
I just think he's still one of the very best
role men in the league and it's just gonna be
a very, very impactful option alongside Luka. Doncic the bat
(08:46):
on offense mentioned the turnover prone short role stuff on blitzes,
He's never been able to put it together as a
post player. There are times when it looks great like
he has really good physical tools obviously, and then he's
got a nice jump pook. We talked about it yesterday.
He was a very efficient jump hoook shooter over the
course of his career. But like on occasion, you'll see him,
(09:08):
you know, post up Brook Lopez and just like bump
him off with that left shoulder and get to that
hook off of like a nice little spin move, and
you'll be like, man, Like, he's got the potential to
be such a monster down there, but he's constantly settling
for super difficult like turnaround fade away jump shots out
of the post, or like face up jumpers out of
the post. And while he's a good jump shooter off
(09:30):
the catch, he's pretty bad on these post up jump
shots and so he it craters his efficiency. And then
you add in the turnovers. He's extremely turnover prone on
post ups compared to some of his some of his peers.
He doesn't see the floor well, a little spastic you'll
like freak out a little bit when he gets into traffic.
So as a matter of fact, Ayton was actually the
least efficient post player in the entire NBA last year,
(09:52):
out of the fifty four players that attempted at least
fifty post ups. Now, he was especially bad last year.
He was like just over seven tenths of a point
per possession, and in previous years he was better, like
in the point nine and change kind of range. But
he's still below a point per possession for those same reasons,
turnovers and taking a lot of those tough turnaround jump shots.
(10:12):
The post is not going to be an area where
I think he's impactful for the Lakers as like a
legitimate high volume threat. He is going to have some
success attacking against switches, against smaller players. That's gonna be key.
It's I'm not saying you don't post up eight, and
I'm just saying you don't post up eight and unless
he does it, unless he has an advantage, right, So
(10:32):
he's going to significantly raise the ceiling of this Lakers offense.
The key, you will just be trimming the fat, keeping
his post ups down to just quick ducans against pick
and roll switches, keeping that volume down. And by the way,
it shouldn't be a problem. He posted up last year
for Portland six Excuse me, I should reverse this. In
twenty twenty three with the Suns, he posted up six
(10:55):
times as many times as he did last year with
the Blazers, so his post up volume has already been
I don't think that will be an issue. I think
there will be issues with Ayton. I just don't necessarily
think it'll be like, oh, he's demanding the ball in
the post too much, like he's prime Dwight Howard or
something like that. So on the offensive end, I view
it as nothing other than a substantial upgrade on defense.
(11:16):
The defensive tape with Ayton from last year is mostly
useless in the context of the Lakers because the Blazers
almost exclusively used him in a very deep drop coverage,
so he was primarily just sitting back very upright, like
not even really down in a defensive stance and just
kind of like backpedaling and keeping the roller. Is classic
no roller behind coverage, so he's keeping an eye on
(11:37):
the roller. He generally would ignore the ball handler and
just kind of get back to the roller as part
of Portland's defensive scheme, so he gave up a lot
of drop coverage shots, pull up threes floaters, things along
those lines. He even gives up some stuff at the rim,
which is what you don't want to give up as
a drop coverage big. That's the entire point of drop
coverage is to not give up stuff at the rim.
But he'll give up like layups to mediocre guards around
(12:00):
the league in ball screens, just simply because he's so
passive and so back on his heels in ball screens.
There are a lot of examples of frustrating effort. I
saw a play today against We've watched a ton of
film this morning on it, and he had a ball
screen against the Nuggets where Jokich was the screener, and
he just like hugged up on Jokic and like grabbed
(12:21):
his hips, and Strawther drove off the shoulder and ate
and just literally pointed at the rim and yelled out
help him. As Strawther just went down the lane and
laid it in, and everyone else is like, what are
you doing. You're supposed to be defending the ball screen
two on two, and you know how it is with Yokich.
It's like, yeah, he can shoot pick and pop jumpers,
but you want to take away the layup before you
(12:43):
deal with Yokich on a pick and pop. It's just
lazy defense. Right. There was a Jaden McDaniels play where
he drove right at Ayton's chest and Aydon did a
good job going vertical with the size and forced to
miss and then ate and hit the ground and just
immediately entered chill mode. And Jada McDaniels hit the ground
and just went back up and got the offensive rebound
and laid it in. There is upside, but there's going
(13:05):
to be a lot of frustration with Ayton and just
random little bits of laziness. Like obviously, it's hard for
me to tell exactly what it'll look like with the
Lakers because I just don't think JJ Reddick is gonna
view Deandreton as a deep drop big which we'll talk
about in a minute, but a lot of ugly stuff
on tape last year with Portland. Just to put it
very simply, Portland's defense was five points better per one
(13:29):
hundred possessions last year when Deandrayton was off the floor.
He was a weak point in their defense last year,
even though that team had some legitimate defensive upside at
times throughout the season. Again, there is upside. He'll make
a big block and pick and roll where you're like, man,
this dude's got crazy physical tools, or he'll make some
recovery move where his foot speed shows, or he'll slide
his feet on the perimeter. You'll think he can do this,
(13:51):
but it's just few and far between, at least in
the Portland tape. So this is gonna be a massive
project for JJ Reddick. The first step will be finding
a scheme that worked. I'm a little worried about him
switching because he's so passive just naturally as a basketball
player on that end of the floor. There was a
couple of plays in a game against Minnesota this year
in crunch time, late game in the fourth quarter where
(14:13):
he gave up a couple of threes to nas Reed,
one on a switch where he kind of came out
passively and nas Reed was just like okay and just
hit like a little in and out dribble, got a
god separation, hit a three. And then after he hit
that shot and the game is now tied in crunch time,
big possession, they go back to the same action. They
switch eight and onto nas Reed, but he just hit
(14:36):
a three and he just kind of passively switched out
where he's like standing there but he's not getting out
to contest and Naz burned him again and hit a
three over the top, and you're like, what are you doing, man, Like,
you gotta be paying attention. This is nas Reed. He's
on a roll. He just hit a jumper in your face.
You got to be pushing out a little bit further now.
To his credit, again, in that same game, there was
(14:56):
another sequence late in the game where he switched, defended
nas well and got to stop. But it's like that
needs to be the attend the level of attention to
detail that's earlier in that sequence, not later in that sequence.
Everyone knows what Nasried wants to do. He's got that
quick release, he wants to take that above the break three.
You gotta be out there. So like switching, I'm a
(15:17):
little nervous about just because if you have passive switches,
he's gonna get burned over the top quite a bit.
I think he could be a good high drop coverage player.
What that means again is coming up to the level
and then recovering back after the action and getting up
to the level and then recovering back after the action.
And I look at that as a potential scheme that
could work for him because of what I was talking
(15:38):
to talking about earlier involving his offensive work in ball screens.
This dude gets in and out of ball screens quickly
on offense. He is a good athlete who's twenty six
years old. He is absolutely capable of riding that yo
yo in ball screens on defense, getting up to the
level showing, getting back, waiting for the next action, getting
(15:59):
up to the level show and getting back. I think
that's something that could work. But now that's requiring JJ
Reddick to get Ayton to embrace a certain level of
defensive motor that he just hasn't shown in recent years.
So it's kind of like a big question mark there
for me. But Aydan has a lot of natural talent,
and he has shown a high level of defensive competitiveness
in some big playoff spots before, like we've talked about
(16:21):
over the course of this week. So I don't want
to say he'll be useless here. It's just going to
be an adventure on that side of the four. It's
gonna be a lot of ups and a lot of downs.
And then of course there's the off court stuff with Ayton.
He's a bit injury prone. He hasn't played over seventy
games since his rookie year. He hasn't played over sixty
games since he had a Sun's jersey on. He's super flaky.
He'll show up late or miss team events, just generally
(16:43):
shows a lack of unprofessionalism. The one potential upside there
is this kind of feels like a fork in the
road for DeAndre Ayton's career. If he fucks this up
in LA, he's staring down the barrel of veteran minimum
contracts for the rest of his career and obviously substantially
hurting his earnings potential, and he could be out of
(17:03):
the league within a few years. If he locks in,
shows professionalism, puts up monster numbers alongside Luka Doncic, then
this could be I'm signing a four year, one hundred
and twenty five million dollar deal or one hundred and
twenty million dollar deal like some of the starting caliber
centers that we have in the NBA. That's the fork
in the road here for Deandrayton, and it's going to
(17:25):
come down to what he does with his professionalism and
with his on court play in this season, So insummation,
it's going to be a lot of good offset by
some bad that mitigates his value. I think he's going
to be an offensive monster with Luca. I'm calling it
right now. As long as he's relatively healthy, my guess
is he logs at least twenty games next year with
(17:46):
at least twenty points, just because he's going to have
so many opportunities on the role playing alongside Luka Doncic.
You will have games this year where Deandrayton has like
thirty two points and fifteen rebounds and he looks like
an All Star. But he's going to be a mess
on defense that will undercut his value. There will probably
be some off court unprofessionalism even if he's on his
(18:07):
better behavior, that's going to undercut his value. But to
be very clear, that still nets out as substantially better
than any center the Lakers have had in the last
few years other than Anthony Davis. So all in all,
I think it's a win for the Lakers, and I'm
at least excited to watch what DeAndre Ayton looks like
as a pick and roll partner with Luca. I think
(18:28):
it could be very scary. I like view it, to
be very clear, like with Ayton as a roleman, I
view it as like a substantial ceiling razor for the
Lakers offense. This is just a huge part of a
pick and roll attack. If you look at a pick
and roll attack as three pronged, meaning there's the on
(18:48):
ball guy who has to bring a certain amount of
scoring threat, and then you have the weak side guys
that all have to bring a certain amount of scoring threat.
The guy in the middle, the guy that makes it
all work, is the scoring threat on the role. If
that guy is in a substantial scoring threat, they don't
need to really tag rollers with that much intensity. If
they don't need to tag rollers with that much intensity,
(19:09):
all the weak side scoring guys are not going to
get nearly as many advantages off the catch. But if
that guy's a monster, now the defense has to make
a very difficult decision. Okay, we're going to get the
ball out of Luka Doncic's hands, So that means we
can choose one of two things. We can either play
the weak side or we can play the roller and
(19:30):
having Luke, having Austin Reeves on the weak side, having
Lebron on the weak side, having Dalton connect on the
week side, having Ruy Hachimura on the weak side. If
you give those guys awesome opportunities. They're going to score,
and if you stay glued to those guys, DeAndre Ayton
is going to dunk everything and make a bunch of
these wide open fifteen footers at well over fifty percent.
(19:51):
So this is the missing cog in a deadly pick
and roll attack. Last year because of some of the
difficulties that Jackson and Hayes had finishing in traffic and
all of his issues on the defensive end of the floor,
they had to bail on that and basically get rid
of that middle piece and play straight up five out
drive and kick, which basically only has two threats, right
(20:12):
the on ball guy and the people you're spraying it
out to on the perimeter. There's a much more layered
approach to this offense now, with the ability to have
a legitimate superstar level shot creator and pick and roll
one of the best scoring role men in the NBA,
and then all sorts of offensive talent on the weak side.
I would be surprised if this Laker offense isn't top
(20:35):
five in the NBA next season. All right, welcome to
course correction, brought to you by Microsoft. Just like the
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(20:56):
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you have your own hurdles to face. In this segment,
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Microsoft empowers you with the expertise to say bring it.
On this week's course correction segment, we're covering the biggest
winners of NBA free agency. We originally think of biggest
(21:20):
winners and losers, but here's the thing, if you really
look at the biggest losers conversation, it's complicated. Because I
saw a report yesterday that the Kevin Durant trade could
potentially be expanded to include five additional teams. The Warriors
are probably going to do something in the trade market,
the Lakers are probably going to do something in the
trade market. There's so many teams that still have things
that they can do. This is so far from over
(21:41):
that I don't want to necessarily focus on the losers.
Yet we will do that at some point in the postseason,
but today we're just going to focus on the winners.
The Denver Nuggets. After a couple of years of slippage
in the Western Conference, the Nuggets have completely reloaded, trading
Michael Porter Junior for Cam Johnson, significantly upgrading their starting
three spot and saving some salary. Trading Darios Harts for
Yonas Valentiunis, turning a useless backup center into a guy
(22:04):
that gives them a better chance to win when Nikole
Jokic is off the floor. It also will help them
maintain some schemes consistency. Yonas Valentiunas is obviously a substantially
lower level player than Nikola jokicch but there are some
similarities in their play style which I think will actually help.
You know, the bench units for Denver over the years,
we remember it was they generally went small, and it
(22:26):
usually turned into like the opponent would just switch against
that group, and in those units, it'd be a lot
of like we're hunting mismatches with Aaron Gordon for post
ups and Jamal Murray is picking on bigs or a
weaker perimeter defender and getting into his bag for like
a mid range pull up. I think that having a
yonas valentunis will allow them to run some of the
similar offensive concepts that they run when Yokic is on
(22:48):
the floor, and that scheme consistency could help them be
more reliable in their bench groups. Signing Bruce Brown and
Tim Hardaway Junior that gives them two substantial bench upgrades,
a guy in Bruce Brown who has proven to fit
with Yokich a championship context, and a guy in Tim
Hardwa Junior who should theoretically fit really well as a
movement shooter and a super aggressive spot up player as well.
(23:10):
Defense was also an issue for them in the regular
season last year. Cam Johnson and Bruce Brown are legitimately
upgrades on the defensive end of the four, and like
as we discussed on Tuesday, they both represent options on
the perimeter. And this matters because over the years, Denver's
had to deploy Aaron Gordon in a lot of those situations,
and every time you deploy a big forward out on
(23:30):
the perimeter, it limits your back line defensively in terms
of rim protection and defensive rebounding. Having Bruce Brown and
Cam Johnson as like substantially better perimeter defenders than anybody
that was on the roster last year not named Christian Brown.
That gives them a better opportunity to keep Aaron Gordon
in a more realistic not realistic, but in a better
(23:51):
fit role for him as a back line defender. It's
also be easier on Aaron Gordon's body throughout the season,
which may allow him to hold up better physically throughout
the season. I was already a big believer in Denver's
Corps four, and with these substantial upgrades, I'm now seriously
considering the Denver Nuggets as my favorite to win the
title next year. By the way, I view this as
a value right now, all of our odds are provided
(24:11):
by DraftKings. The Denver Nuggets right now are plus eleven
hundred to win the title. That is the fifth best
odds in the NBA. I would like that to me,
looks like a great value at this point because you're
getting the best player in the world, a team that
last year already pushed Oklahoma City to the brink. There
are great matchups specifically with Oklahoma City, and they significantly
(24:34):
addressed some of their biggest needs backup, center, bench depth,
upgraded that fifth starter I would have if I was
placing odds like right at this point in time, I
don't see any reason why they should be anywhere lower
than two behind the Oklahoma City Thunder. They seem to
me like such a safe bet compared to some of
(24:55):
these more volatile teams that we haven't actually seen them
play yet. Secondly, four teams today in our biggest winners,
the Dallas Mavericks. Hard to imagine a scenario where a
team can pivot off of a superstar trade faster than
the MAVs have. Obviously, you get a superstar talent back
in the trade in Anthony Davis. You get a starting
caliber two guard and Max Christi in the deal. You
(25:17):
also get a first round pick from the Lakers. In
the deal, you fortunately get the number one pick in
the draft out of the lottery, which turns into Cooper Flagg,
who has the potential to be a monster defensive player
next to Anthony Davis, and who knows what he's gonna
be on the offensive end, but chances are he'll be
a very very good player there as well. And you
make a very savvy signing of di'angelo Russell, you needed
ball handling, and you got a guy who fits perfectly
(25:39):
alongside Ad and the rest of the I think you
just fits that roster really well at a team friendly number.
I don't really know what the MAVs are yet, and
I would imagine they'll make a trade still at this
point with their glut of forward talent, but just simply
an aggregate talent, Like if I was just saying which
team has the most on paper talent in the league.
(26:00):
Have one of the more talented rosters in the NBA
right now if you really zoom out. So I'm super
excited to watch them next season. Three the Atlanta Hawks
in an Eastern Conference that's there for the taking. They went
for it. They made a couple of substantial upgrades. We've
seen teams not do that. Cleveland has basically stood pat
(26:20):
that made a swap from Ty Jerome to Lonzo Ball.
You get Larry and Junior as a good big man
in their rotation on a discounted deal. But Cleveland is
more or less talent wise where they were last year.
The Knicks have made some upgrades on their bench, which
we'll talk about in a minute, but they're not exactly
loading up. The Hawks are like, we're going for this thing.
(26:41):
We're gonna try to make this happen. They you know,
Kristaps Porzingis had health issues in Boston and that obviously
will be the wild card here. But he's a substantially
more talented player than Clinton Pella, and I still view
him as a massive upgrade at the starting center spot.
They won the Nakhil Alexander Walker sweepstakes. He's one of
my favorite three and D guards in the lead. I
think he's like, I don't think ideally he's not starting
(27:03):
for you, but he is a quality playoff rotation piece.
Get Jalen Johnson back, another year of improvement for Zachary Risachet,
another year of improvement for Dyson Daniels. The Hawks are
going to be a ton of fun this year. I
mentioned this on the show on Tuesday. I think it's
a legitimate goal for them. They should be shooting for
home court advantage in the first round of playoffs. I
(27:24):
think they should be looking for a top four seed.
And then lastly, the Houston Rockets getting Kevin Durant, adding
Clint Capella, adding Dorian Finney Smith for signing many of
their young players, including Jabari Smith Junior, maintaining their trove
of draft compensation for future flexibility. They ended free agency
(27:44):
according to DraftKings as the second favorite to win the
title at plus seven hundred, getting KD increasing your depth
re signing your young talent. Hard to not consider the
Houston Rockets as one of the big winners in free agency.
That's it for this week's course correction. Remember Microsoft's AI
solutions empower you take bold steps and make informed decisions,
(28:07):
sparking new ideas to help drive your business forward. With
Microsoft as your trusted partner, you can navigate your journey
with confidence, finding innovative solutions and reaching new possibilities. Visit
Microsoft dot com Slash Challengers to learn more. All right, guys,
as promised. Mini mailbag as we head into the weekend.
First question with the Dame Wave, could a team like
(28:29):
the Nuggets sign him just for postseason help? So, obviously,
with the Achilles terror, there's no way of knowing what
it's going to look like in terms of his recovery.
There is a chance, we've seen it before that he
could come back in less than a year. I would
imagine that unless he's feeling great, he would take the
time he needs to get one hundred percent healthy. But
(28:51):
let's evaluate just this theoretical scenario. Damian Lillard races through,
heab does a great job, his body heals quickly, and
right around, like right around the stretch run like early April,
he's just ready to go okay, So that's eleven months
(29:12):
post surgery. Theoretically, this would be a situation where it's
not like he's coming back to take on a starting
point guard role in a dead serious, like massive usage context.
There's no way he's doing that this year. But a
guy who could come off the bench for you in
a playoff series and provides some better shot creation than
(29:34):
many of the backup guards that are around the NBA,
even on an surgically repaired achilles. That's an interesting content concept, right,
So let's talk about some teams that would make sense
for Damian Lillard. I don't actually love the Nuggets fit.
I think that that Nuggets team is kind of like
geared in a way where they have ways to run
(29:56):
offense in various groups. I think you see Jamal Murray
in cases lead the bench group when Nikole Jokic is
off the floor. I'm not saying it's a bad fit
for Dame, but I just see some less value there
compared to some other potential units around the league. So
I put together six teams. These are the six teams
that I think would be fun fits for Damian Lillard
(30:17):
as like a just oh, I'm here for the playoffs
as a backup guard who's going to play fifteen minutes
a night. The Dallas Mavericks, a team that's desperately in
need of ball handling, and like if they're in a
situation where Kyrie Irving is just not ready to come
back this season, Damian Lillard would be a guy who
steps in and plays some bench ball handling role for
(30:39):
the Dallas Mavericks in a postseason context. The Golden State Warriors.
This is a team that Jimmy Butler has come in
and helped a lot in terms of secondary shock creation.
It has certainly allowed them to have some more flexibility
when Steph is off the floor and obviously a great
defensive playmaker Jimmy. I think the Jimmy fit with Golden
State has been a resounding success so far, but they
(30:59):
still struggle a little bit with creating shots outside of
the context of Steph Curry. Damian Lillard would be a
really interesting fit to come into Golden State and play
a small role off the bench for them in a
postseason context. Cleveland Cavaliers. This is a team once again
that we talked about when we were talking about the
Lebron trade. In the postseason, Darius Garland has just really
struggled to create shots, and so Donovan Mitchell has had
(31:22):
to basically revert back to helio centric ball to keep
the offensive float. At times you lose ty. Jerome Lonzo
Ball is a good backup guard. He's just a very
different backup guard, and what he's not is like some
supreme shot creator. Damian Lillard could fit a role there
as a bench guard for them. The Detroit Pistons, they
signed Karris Lavert as a replacement for Dennis Schroeder, and
(31:44):
Karris is a good player, but similarly, they're a team
that could use some shot creation beyond KD Cunningham. Damien
would be a nice fit there. Houston Rockets. They're still
light on ball handling on that roster. They're obviously they
Britain Fred van Vliet. You bring in Kevin Durant that
really helps. Shangoon can help, but they don't really have
a guy off the bench unless Reed Shepherd can develop
(32:06):
into it. They don't really have a guy off the
bench that can come in and consistently provide high level
ball handling for them. Dame would be a great fit
in Houston. Last the Minnesota Timberwolves. This is a team that,
once they go to their bench, similarly has a little
bit of a lack of depth in ball handling. You
lose Nikhil Alexander Walker used to run some second side
action for them. I like the idea of a high
(32:28):
level skill guard playing alongside Anthony Edwards that can set
him up with some more off ball opportunities as well.
Minnesota would be a fun destination for Dame. Again, I
think the far more likely scenarios that Dame doesn't play
a minute in the NBA this year and that he
ends up coming back next year, and that's going to
be a completely different discussion, because now we're talking about
a healthy Dame that's had eighteen months to recover and
(32:49):
that's got a full training camp to join a team,
probably in a starting role. But in the short term,
those are the teams that I think would be fun
for like a late postseason addition, Jason, what can Mike
Brown do to help the Knicks? So, as we heard yesterday,
Mike Brown will be the new head coach of the
New York Knicks, a well respected defensive coach who keeps
getting opportunities in the NBA based on that respect. Now,
(33:11):
it's worth mentioning that Sacramento for the most part, was
not a very good defense underneath Mike Brown. But it's complicated.
They didn't just lack talent defensively at the center position.
Their entire front court was weak in defensive talent. Wasn't
just Sibonis. And by the way, I'd argue Sabonis as
still a better defender than someone like Karl Anthony Towns,
but he has some similarities in terms of some foot
(33:33):
speed weaknesses and some verticality, like he just doesn't have
as much of a vertical deterrent as some other centers
around the league. But it wasn't just Sabonis, Like the
Kings just did not have a legit athlete at the
ford position to cover Sibonis as a back line defender.
The Knicks present similar roster issues at the center position,
(33:54):
but they have legitimate size and athleticism and length at
the forward position, WHI should give them a stronger foundation
to work with. Essentially, when we talk about like ballscreen coverages,
there's like a bracket on the backside as well. We
talked about the bracket in the form of the ball handler,
the guy guarding the ball, and the guy coming up
to the level as the big, But on the back
(34:14):
line there's a similar bracket. The more ground that this
big can cover, the less that the back line defender
needs to do. The less ground that the big can cover,
the more that the back line defender needs to do. Right. So,
like if Karl Anthony Towns is that at the level big,
it's easier to build a back line with an og
An Andobi with the Michale bridges as like athleticism on
(34:35):
the off the ball Josh Hart as well to help
structure a more resilient defense. So I do think Mike
has a little bit more to work with in New
York in terms of defensive talent relative to what he
had in Sacramento. But what I talked about after the
season in terms of whether or not Mike Brown's gonna
work out with the Knicks, it's all about cleaning up
their fundamentals. There are certain realities, right like Cat and
(34:56):
Brunson have their defensive weaknesses, and they will make mista
and they will compromise their defense. There's no way around that.
But there are some pieces of low hanging fruit, some
fixable mistakes that can raise the level of this defense,
mainly getting rid of those easy transition opportunities that we
saw in the Pacer series because of bad floor balance,
(35:16):
Like doesn't matter if you have bad defensive talent or
if you have good defensive talent, if you have five
dudes below the foul line when the shot goes up,
you're probably gonna give up a transition opportunity the other way.
So having basic floor spacing principles to where there's always
two guys above the break so that you're set up
for transition defense, that'll go a long way. Some of
the avoidable errors like Cat showing way too high on
(35:36):
ball screens or committing to one side of a ball
screen before the ball handler even has like he gets
rejected more than any other big I've seen in the league,
where he'll sprint up to the right side of the
screen and the ball handlers like, all right, I'm just
going to go the other way and then when he
crosses over, there's nobody there and he'll go all the
way downhill. Cleaning up some of the like basic fundamental
stuff with cat and ball screens that is avoidable, Deepening
(35:58):
the rotation so that you can keep your star minutes
down so that fatigue doesn't cause laziness within that roster.
Jordan Clarkson is an upgrade over campaigns On. Yabuseli is
a guy that will provide some front court depth. They've
added some of those pieces, Mike Brown just needs to
actually make use of them in a way that Tom
Thabodau did not. And then adding aggression for defense to transition.
(36:20):
A couple of things. One, I thought the Knicks were
at their best last year when they were forcing turnovers
and getting out in transition. We saw that a lot,
even in some of their big runs that they had
in the in the Celtics series. If you guys remember,
just like Og and McHale flying around in passing lanes,
forcing turnovers, getting out in transition. The second piece of
it is that when you have weaker defensive players like
(36:42):
Pat and Jalen Brunson, sometimes like just running traditional coverages
that concede openings will just lead to really comfortable basketball
for the opponent. So, like, if I know, all I
gotta do is bring Brunson into the action, he's going
to hedge. So once he hedges, that effectively leaves two
on the ball for a minute. I just pitch it
over to his defender who's or his offensive his assignment.
Excuse me as he's slipping out, and then he's gonna
(37:03):
have a four on three and he's gonna drive. That's
really comfortable offense, right, But like, if you attack the
ball at least, like it's like we're putting two on
the ball anyway, we're bringing cat in this high drop anyway,
they're already leaving all these openings. Why not attack the
ball and try to force some more looping passes, some deflections,
some of that kind of stuff to try to breed
more of those transition opportunities. Try to add a little
(37:25):
bit more of a defense to transition element for this team.
The Knicks just need to get more of the low
hanging fruit in basketball, and Mike Brown is certainly a
capable coach to improve the team in that regard. What
do you think of Luke Cornett to the Spurs to
help Wemby. Is his contract too risky for a thirty
year old forty one million at four years? So I
(37:46):
didn't think of it as that risky considering. I view
Cornett as like if you were looking at like different
tiers of players around the league. There's like your starting
caliber players, and then there's like your backups. But then
there's always like a middle tier, which is like, this
guy could start, and if he started for us, we'd
be fine, but like, ideally he's not our like day
(38:09):
one starter for eighty two games, right, And to me,
Luke Cornette fits into that mold. And when you really
start to look at it from an expense standpoint, and
it's like, okay, we have backup centers back like legitimate
just backup centers going for like mid level exception money
or veteran minimum money. Ten million a year, Really isn't
that crazy for a guy that could spots start for
(38:31):
you at times? And then also if you look at
the way that the salary cap is going to continue
to go up in future years, like ten million is
just not that big of a number. I don't view
that as a problematic contract at all for san Antonio.
I look at it as kind of a hedge on
Wemby's availability because Cornett can start for them at times,
an opportunity for them to explore Victor wemen Yama more
(38:53):
as a forward alongside a like a two big type
of look. I look at Luke Cornette as a really
really useful player on a cost controlled deal. He's thirty
years old, that's right in the heart of his prime.
I think it was a good move. I think it's
a move that makes the Spurs a better basketball team,
and I'm excited to watch him in that fit. Last question, Jason,
huge fan of your work if you're a lebron in.
(39:14):
The best outcome this year roster wise for the Lakers
is signing Ayighton while losing Dori and Finney Smith. This
was in the Monday video, by the way, but Ayton
did end up signing with the Lakers, so it's still relevant.
And then a couple of moves on the margins. Would
you prefer to stay on the Lakers or swap with
Jimmy and go to Golden State? Who is going to
defend slash dude the dirty work on a Luca Austin
Reeves Ruy Lebron, DeAndre Ayton's starting five. Conversely, you can't
(39:36):
tell if Golden State's roster offers a higher ceiling for
Lebron next season. It's the cleanest trade by far for LBJ,
but it's also messy for Lebron's legacy. But I think
the last couple games of the Minnesota Series last year,
Lebron knew the Lakers had no shot, and I'm not
sure if they can improve much at all this year.
So maybe he thinks him in step with Kerr in
the movement offense, offers a better ceiling. They would have
something to do at center. Though. Can Ayton go to
(39:57):
Golden State? Obviously, Aidan's not going to Golden State. He's
going to the Lakers, all right, So let's zoom out
from this for a second couple of things. I agree
with you that the Luca Austin Reeves, Ruey Hachimura, Lebron,
James DeAndre and starting five is at this point there's
not a single professional defender in that group, and I
will not take the Lakers seriously as a championship contender
(40:20):
unless they can turn Ruby Hatchimura into a player that
is of the ilk of like An Andrew Wiggins, A
freaky athlete, primary point of attack defender that's also a
useful offensive player with what they do. So I do
think that there are some serious limitations there, but it's
worth mentioning as we look around the league, those same
limitations exist elsewhere. I view the Lakers right now as
(40:43):
like a second tier contender. I viewed the Warriors right
now as a second tier contender. If Lebron were to
swap with Jimmy Butler, I think it makes the Warriors better,
but I don't think it makes the Warriors a top
tier contender. They still have issues on the roster. Don't
get me wrong, I'd love to watch it. As a
basketball fan. I can't think of a more fun basketball
(41:06):
fit than Lebron, and Steph would love to watch it.
I just don't think it makes sense for Lebron to
go anywhere unless it's like this obvious dead series. We're
favored to win the title if we go there, and
even some of the options out East, like Cleveland, for instance,
or New York, they are options that are more appealing
(41:26):
in the sense that the Eastern Conference is so weak
that Lebron would just have a better chance to make
it to the finals. But I don't view any of
them as like he gets there and they're just like
automatically right there with Oklahoma City gonna win the title.
Lebron's only chance to do that was to opt out
and to go sign somewhere on the mid level exception,
and he just wasn't going to do that for all
of the reasons that he's given over the years involving
(41:48):
him not taking a discount. But ultimately, as I look
at the situation, for all those things you talked about
with Luca and Austin and Ruie and Lebron and DeAndre
Ayton and some of their defensive shortcomings, for all of
those issues, I still think that group has just about
the same chance to win the title as a Golden
(42:09):
State if Lebron went there as some of these maybe
a little better in the East, just simply because they
could get out of the conference easier, but they're still
gonna have to face somebody from the West, probably a
Denver or a OKC or a Houston, And those three
teams are still gonna be better than those teams out
in the Eastern Conference would be with Lebron on them.
(42:29):
So would that be in the case he lives in
Los Angeles. His family's here. I just don't see Lebron
uprooting his family unless it's just such a uprooting himself,
I should say, his whole routine, unless there's just this
shoe in obvious fit. And like, look we went over
I went over what four Lebron options in the Monday Show,
(42:49):
and they'd be fun. I'm not gonna sit here and
pretend like I wouldn't enjoy covering a Lebron Warrior season
or a Lebron Cavs season or a Lebron nixt season.
But I just the reason why I never saw it
as that likely, and the reason why I said in
that video that I would just be surprised if Lebron
wasn't a Laker again, is because the Lakers situation is
nearly as good still even with the flaws, and he
(43:12):
gets to stay home and kind of ride things out
in his current comfort and routine. And again, I do
think the Lakers have an outside chance of entering into
a higher level of contention if they can flip ruy
Hacha Mura into a starting caliber, legitimate upgrade at the three,
like if Andrew Wiggins get in there, and it's Luka Doncic,
(43:32):
Austin Reeves, Andrew Wiggins, Lebron, James Deandreen. That's a lot
of talent. And now I kind of view them as
more like in the in between tier one and Tier two,
like either at the very bottom of Tier one or
at the very top of Tier two. So I think
for Lebron, it still makes sense to stick with the Lakers,
even though it's been frustrating. And Polinka's you know, just
fucked around for the last several years and just kind
(43:53):
of prevented any sort of like substantial commitment to trying
to win in Lebron's tail end of his prime. And
here we are, and now the situation is entirely different
because of Luca, and now they can't go all in.
I know, I'll say this is the last thing before
we leave in terms of the Lakers and strategy, Like,
I don't think the Lakers should be mortgaging their future
(44:15):
to try to win around Lebron James. That would be stupid.
You got, Luka Doncic, He's gonna be twenty seven next year.
You've got to be more prudent with your approach. But
I still think you owe it to Lebron and Luka
Doncic in his competitiveness to try to maximize the short
term as well. So Jason, how do you do that? Well,
you just need to go for assets that don't lose
(44:37):
as much value. So, for instance, trading a bunch of
second round draft picks for Dorian Phinney Smith, obviously that
trade was made before the Luka Doncic trade. You're trading
for an older role player on the tail end of
his prime. That's going to lead to a massive downturn
in assets, right, And by the way, the Lakers ended
(44:57):
up losing Dorian Phinney Smith for nothing, But even if
they kept Dorriane Finney Smith, he would have declined quickly
over the course of the next few years and it
would have been a depreciating asset. It would have led
to an eventual decline in talent on the roster. Right
with the Lakers moving forward, I do think you should
consider trading Dalton connect trading that first round pick if
(45:19):
it brings back a player who is a legitimate core
piece alongside Luka Doncic who's in his mid to late twenties,
Because then it's like, Okay, we gave up a first
round pick. We gave up a first round talent in Dalton,
but what we got back is a player that we
can use for four to five years and he's gonna
(45:43):
still be in his prime during all that time, and
then still at age thirty one, he'll be that generation's
Dorian Phinney Smith. He can be the guy that they
look to move for some sort of asset return at
that point in time. If they can get a starting
caliber talent that's no older than like thirty, then that
makes sense because there's still some long term value in
(46:05):
the asset. You just can't trade the first round pick
in Dalton connect for like Paul George from the seventy
six ers. That would be stupid because now you're giving
up assets for a player that's gonna quickly depreciate and
you're gonna have such a huge net negative in your
total roster talent available. Right, But if you can move
assets for other assets that will retain their value, that
(46:30):
is something you can do that helps capitalize on the
Lebron James era while still allowing for long term flexibility
surrounding Luka Doncic. All right, guys, it's all have for
today is always a sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting
us and supporting the show. We're gonna take the holiday
weekend off so all you all spend some time with
your family and relax, and we will be back on Monday.
We have a very busy week next week for Summer
(46:50):
League and headed out to Vegas with Jackson. We're going
Thursday through Sundays, so hopefully you guys will stop by
and see us at some point while we're in Vegas.
I'll keep you know show announcements and stuff on Twitter
in terms of just letting you know, letting you guys
know where we're at during the week and when we're
releasing content. Busy week next week. We'll see you guys
on Monday. What's up guys? As always, I appreciate you
for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. They would actually
(47:12):
be really helpful for us if you guys would take
a second and leave a rating and a review. As always,
I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could
take a minute to do that, I really appreciate it.
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Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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