July 13, 2025 • 25 mins
Jason reacts to Dallas Mavericks top pick Cooper Flagg facing San Antonio Spurs guard Dylan Harper in Harper's NBA Summer League debut. He discusses both guys showing off their strengths and why they project to be high-level players. Then he discusses Reed Sheppard's impressive Summer League game for the Houston Rockets and why he's key for the team's success even after they acquired Kevin Durant.
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(01:45):
You're at the volume heavy Saturday. Everybody hope all you
guys are having a great weekend. We are here back
at the Series XM studios at the Win in Las Vegas.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Shout out to Series XM. They've taken amazing care of us.
Riding solo.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Today, we're going to talk a little bit about the
Summer League debut of Dylan Harper. Got another look at
Cooper Flag as well. I want to talk about Carter Bryant.
I'm from Tucson, Arizona obviously, so I'm of you a fan,
but I thought Carter has put on one heck of
a demonstration of his defensive capability through his first couple
Summer League games. We're going to talk a little bit
about that, and then at the tail end of the
show today, I want to talk a little bit about
(02:15):
Reed Shepherd's Summer League debut. And we've done some deep
evals of the contenders at the top of the Western
Conference over the course of the last week, involving Denver
and the Los Angeles Lakers. Obviously, we've covered Oklahoma City
extensively on their path to the NBA title, but there's
another team at the top of the West that many
people view in that tier, and that is the Houston Rocket.
(02:37):
So I want to talk a little bit about what
their pathway looks like, how they stack up with the
teams at the top of the Western Conference. You guys
know the joke for we get started. Subscribed to the
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once a week throughout the remainder of the season. All right,
let's talk some basketball, so really fun. First impression of
(03:18):
Dylan Harper. The first thing that flashed to me was
his defensive potential. You're not really expecting that this is
guy's famous for the dribble drive. He's a guy that's
drawn a lot of comparisons to Shae Gildas Alexander as
a bigger guard that can dribble through contact and can
consistently get paint touches. But right out the gates, he
was applying aggressive ball pressure, getting physical on the ball,
(03:39):
getting deflections. He had a crazy block on Ryan Emharten
transition where he elevated and swatted it away, just showing
a lot of that defensive upside. I've always been a
big believer that forward, aggressive, turnover forcing defenders fit well
with rim protection. And so guys like Darren Fox, guys
like Dylan Harper, I think they make a lot of
sense in the context of a partnership with Victor wemen Yama,
(04:01):
because forward aggression ball pressure that tends to give up
dribble penetration. And if you're giving up dribble penetration, you
need guys on the back line that can clean it up.
And there may not be a better player in NBA
history then Victor webmin Yama, who actually graced us with
his presence in the arena today.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
It was funny when he was walking in.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
He actually was sitting in the seat and kicked his
legs out as he was like relaxing, and his legs
were on the court.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
During the game.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
And that's just a problem that Victor wemen Yama has
that not many of us have. But that defensive potential
was flashing. And that second piece of it, and I
think this goes for both Cooper Flag and Dylan Harper,
is the dribbling through contact. For Cooper manifested a lot
through foul drawing which we'll talk about in a minute.
Dylan did draw some fouls in the fourth quarter as
the spur started to put some separation there, but for Dylan,
(04:47):
it was just consistently getting into the paint. And this
is that Shay Gildes Alexander esque chaining together of dribble combinations.
Right like when you get into traffic, you make a move,
the defender beats you to the spot, maybe he's plying
some physicalities putting his hands on you. You got to be
able to dribble through that contact and change direction and
attack again, and then potentially even change direction and attack
(05:10):
a third time. And that's one of the things that's
made Shay such a gifted dribble penetrator in the NBA.
There's a chasm between the amount of drives per game
that Shae Gills Alexander puts together compared to other guards
around the league. And that just comes from that downhill,
that relentless downhill force, constantly changing direction and being able
to control the basketball through that. And you saw that
(05:32):
with Dylan. The protected dribbles right like that between the legs.
Dribble is how you can protect the ball as you're
dribbling in traffic so the ball doesn't get swiped away,
and he showed.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
A lot of that. He drew some fouls.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
I just thought in general he was generating great offense,
especially in that fourth quarter run. The Spurs defense held
Dallas down most of the game, but in that fourth
quarter they went on a little offensive run, blew the
game open, and it got to the point where it
was too much for Dallas to overcome. You had a
really nice kickbackery to a lot of times when you're
running ball screens, they will use the guy out of
(06:03):
the weakside corner, out of the strong side corner to
tag the roller. He had a ball screen coming off
of the right wing where he got into the lane
the shooter in the right corner. His man tagged the roller,
and Dylan patiently pulled the ball out and pitched it
back to the right corner. One of the things you
notice a lot with NBA Summer League is poor decision making. Right,
it's a lot of young basketball players, it's a lot
of guys that are trying to make their imprint, the
(06:24):
guys that are trying to get a spot in the league,
and so that can come with the pressure of being
aggressive and a lot of times it's the guys that
can slow down and read the floor and not force
the issue to have the most success. And Dylan, I thought,
just similar to Cooper in the first game, just was patient,
took what the defense gave him, made the kickouts that
were there, didn't get into the middle of the floor
(06:46):
without a plan, without an idea of what he was
trying to accomplish. There's a pretty high floor for a
basketball player who can guard the ball, but that can
also get past the guy guarding the ball. It's such
a simple concept. But if you apply ball pressure and
make the opposing guard feel uncomfortable while also on the
other end of the floor handling ball pressure and consistently
(07:07):
getting into the paint, it's just such a strong foundation.
And then from there there's all the ceiling raising stuff,
the shot making. We saw him hitting off the dribble
three It got wiped or wiped out by a legal
screen call if I remember correctly, but showed some of
that more high level upside.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
As a shot creater.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
That's going to be the ceiling right Like, whether or
not Dylan can reach that all NBA level as a
player is going to come down to his development as
a jump shooter. And you know, one of the things
with Dylan that's different than most on ball guards is
he's a guy that typically on ball players, they struggle
to shoot off the catch, but they're comfortable shooting off
the dribble because throughout their entire youth basketball experience, they've
(07:44):
been the guy who's had to dribble and get to
their spots and they're not getting a ton of.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Clean catch and shoot looks.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
And Dylan was kind of different in that regard in
college and that he was actually better off the catch
than he was off the dribble because his release was
a little drawn out. It's a little low down in
front of his face, and so as he kind of
sharpens those details, gets a little bit more of a
crisp and fluid release, that will make things easier for
him when he gets into the NBA level. Before we
(08:09):
move on to Cooper, I wanted to shout out Carter
Bryant real quick. Carter was one of the guys that
the Spurs put an absolute defensive clinic together in their
first two Summer League games. Just absolutely strangled the life
out of the Philadelphia seventy six ers. The other night,
did it again tonight to Dallas. Carter is a traditional
small forward type of prospect in the sense that he's
(08:31):
got great length and size for the position, but he's very,
very quick laterally, which gives him the flexibility to guard
a bunch of different types of players, and I think
that's specifically exciting for San Antonio team. I didn't really
have that type of player in their core rotation right now.
They got a lot of guards, they got a lot
of forwards. You know, obviously when Harrison Barnes was there,
he was a slower forward. Jeremy Sohan has that ability
(08:53):
to guard out on the perimeter, but I view him
as more of like a four than a three defensively.
I think Harder is going to bring that relentless ball
pursuit and quickness to be able to be out on
the perimeter, getting over the tops of screens and doing
some of the tougher perimeter defense work. And I think
that that's just a role that that team really needs,
and that's going to be a really interesting thing to
(09:15):
watch with San Antonio this year. Shout out to the
Spurs Summer League team. They've put together a couple of
really nice defensive performances to start the tournament. Cooper for
all of the quality work that he did on Thursday
and again, I thought he was a lot better than
his box score showed in terms of just all the
winning plays he was making on both ends of the floor.
It was not an efficient scoring game for him, right.
(09:38):
I think he had ten points. Who's five for twenty
one from the field. He drew a lot of fouls,
but they weren't shooting fouls. They were ball pressure fouls
out in near half court. Really nice bounce back game
from Cooper. From a scoring perspective. The Spurs, as we
talked about, have done a defensive number to everyone they
faced in this Summer League so far. That's not an
(09:58):
easy team to put up thirty points on. That was
a pretty legit scoring performance there. The Spurs were doing
a lot more switching than the Lakers did on Thursday night.
So like Maxwell Lewis was struggling a little bit, Jordan
Hall was struggling. Ryan Nemhart's a guy who capitalized on
all the drop coverage looks that he was getting against
La And again, when you're facing a drop coverage, all
you got to do is go over the top of
(10:19):
the screen, and there's kind of like this baked in
dribble penetration that is actually being conceded as part of
the coverage, and so there's room to operate in the
middle of the floor for a guy who can show
some mid to short range shot making.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Right.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
But then as soon as you bring switching into the equation,
that baked in dribble penetration going over the top of
the screen isn't there anymore. Suddenly it turns into can
you get separation from elite athletes? It's just a much
tougher job, right, And so, to Cooper's credit, in a
matchup where a lot of guys were struggling to get loose,
he was able to get to the basket, he was
able to drop fouts. I think he's drawn like fifteen
(10:52):
fouls through the first two games, which I think is
a testament to his ability to dribble through contact without
turning the basketball over. And when you're facing a physical
defender is putting his hands on you, if you allow
that to make you retreat, you're not going to get
the call. But if you power through it, you actually
force the official to make a call. You actually put
the official in a position where there's too much contact
(11:15):
and now he has to make a decision about whether
or not he's going to let it go. And he
just was attacking Carter over and over again in fighting
through that contact, and he was drawing fouls. And I
think that's a strong sign of his ball handling, but
also his overall athleticism. In order to draw valves, you
have to get defenders out of position, and that's something
that he's done consistently through the first couple of games.
(11:36):
And again a Carter Brian, a defender who's done a
lot of damage to guys in the Summer League so far.
I keep getting excited with Cooper about the potential with
his jump shot. He hit a couple more. Three hit
three threes tonight, a couple more on the catch. She
hit a three at the top of the key in
the first half in a possession where Carter was They
were in a deeper drop coverage and Carter got caught
(11:58):
on the screen, so he had a clean look off
the dribble at the top of the key. He knocked
it down. But the thing that I'm excited about were
they dunks or the miss dunk as well. In the
second half, both of them came off of the catch
out of action with the defender sprinting at him. One
of them, he was able to just kind of pump
fake and then dip his right shoulder, And when he
dipped his right shoulder, he's able to get just a
tiny bit of an angle on the guy shot downhill,
(12:21):
got a big dunk, and then on the miss dunk
where he was up plenty high, he just missed it.
But on the miss dunk very similarly, just caught its
top of the key against the clothes out and just
showed the ball just pump fake. Defender jumped out of
his shoes. All of a sudden, he had a lane
to go downhill. Cooper is so good at the read
and react stuff. He's so good at like the fundamentals
in terms of footwork and using those bodies shoulder fakes
(12:45):
to get that initial advantage that he if he can
add the jump shot to where he's a real threat
there to where those shoulder fakes and head fakes get
the defender out of position consistently, that's where he has
real potential. Because again, as wealked about it, Summer League,
everyone's playing super hard, everyone's playing for their NBA career.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
They're playing for.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Their NBA livelihood, and so there's a lot of jumpiness,
and you know, going for those types of fakes, you're
going to face more discipline defenders in the NBA. They're
going to be less willing to jump for those fakes.
That's where if he can add the threat of the
jump shot, that's where you can get more of that
baked in dribble penetration. I think he's cleaned up his
release quite a bit. Remember, he used to have a
(13:24):
little bit of a hitch and his elbow would get
a little bit out to the side. It's much more
fluid now. He's able to get to it out of
more dribble combinations quicker and in a way that just
looks more smooth and easy for him. So if he
can add the actual touch put it into the basket consistently,
I think there's a ton of upside there. I'm just
super excited to watch him play in a winning context
(13:45):
right away. Not very often do we get to see
a real super star type of prospect go into a
situation where they're not carrying a bunch of, you know,
younger players in a rebuilding context. He's going to have
a long an immediate instead of a long runway of
bad basketball. He's going to step into a winning context
(14:05):
right away, and that's really exciting for us as fans.
Let's talk a little Houston Rockets lean to start with
Reach Sheepherd. Really fun first game in Vegas. Twenty eight points,
eight rebounds in, four assists, seven stocks, four steals in
three blocks in a single summer league game for a
guard is frankly outrageous. He was super aggressive. He took
(14:28):
twenty five shots, showed a variety of shot making hesitation threes,
snatched back threes off of hard, a dribble like a dribble,
drive off of some ball pressure. Hit a super tough
left shoulder fade away in the lane in the first
half where he drove left and then just hard pivoted
over his left shoulder, knocked down the shot. He hit
some tough scoop shots in the lane. He pushed his
(14:50):
three point shot further out. He end hit like a
thirty footer when he got hot in the second half
out above the break on the left side. Just really
showing some of that shot making piece from a bunch
of different angles and a bunch of different dribble combinations
and a bunch of different spots on the floor. Again,
the seven stocks just getting into passing lanes. Really good
at stripping drivers and cutters down low right around the basket,
(15:11):
which is what you got to do when you obviously
don't have that vertical size, but just a super feisty
guard with good hands that can do a lot of damage.
Raphaelstone has specifically come out and said this, but his
development is super important to Houston's short term goals and
their long term goals. Stone came out and said and
specifically said, Reid is going to have to be really
(15:34):
good for us. We've penciled him in for a big role.
Remember we talked about the ball handling shortage for Houston
right after the Kevin Durant trade. This was a team
we talked about like, this was a team that would
have made sense for a guy like Tyas Jones in
the same way that Tis Jones made no sense for
Phoenix because Phoenix had a glut of ball handling and
a deficit in like physical defense and rebounding ties Jones
(15:59):
you experience, it's diminishing returns there, right, But in a
context like Houston or Orlando, who ended up signing Ties Jones.
There's an absence of ball handling and refined offensive skill.
You get to experience more of the upside from having
Tiest Jones on your team. But they didn't sign Ties Jones.
They're allowing Read Shepherd the opportunity to fill this role.
(16:21):
And I actually really like this approach from Raphaelstone of
allowing Read that runway because like Houston has a large
margin for air in the regular season, right like they're young,
they're athletic, they're super deep. We already saw that exact
same combination last year get the second seed in the
Western Conference. So even if Reed Shepherd comes in in
(16:42):
that backup guard role and struggles, and you know, it
becomes abundantly clear during that time that they need to
upgrade that position. It's not like they're gonna slip way
down in the standings and be in some predicament where
the season is lost because they didn't sign a backup guard.
They're so good in terms of their their floor as
a young athletic defense that they can afford to make
(17:05):
some mistakes at that backup guard spot. And so what's
perfect is you have the best of both worlds. The
best case scenario is he fills that role admirably and
all of a sudden, you got yourself a great basketball
team and a young player that can fill that role
for a long time, and you've got yourself a great
option there. But if he struggles, the worst case is
(17:26):
he still gets lots of valuable reps that will help
him become a better basketball player, and now you have
a knowledge and understanding of what your team needs. Okay,
we tried to read for forty games as our backup guard.
It's not quite working, but I'm glad he got the reps.
We have lots of draft compensation, We have salaries that
(17:46):
we can package together to go find a veteran, experienced,
more steady, more consistent ball handler. They don't need that
guy in October. They're not in that situation. They do
need that guy for the players. Might as well see
if Reed can do it, and if not, you can
kind of pivot from there. But I want to zoom
in on Houston for a minute, because they're rightfully being
(18:09):
penciled in as one of the top three teams in
the Western Conference. I think that's clear if you look
at the West. To me, it's you know, you have Denver, Houston,
and Oklahoma City in that top tier in some order,
and then I think there's a little drop off and
then you run into that second tier in the West
is where you're getting the Clippers, the Minnesota Timberwolves, the
Los Angeles Lakers. We'll see if a team like San
Antonio can get into that mix this year. We'll see
if a team like Memphis can bounce back this year.
(18:32):
There's a lot of different potential teams in that tier.
I think that's more or less that middle tier is
going to be Clippers, Lakers, and Timberwolves, right and so
when we look at that group in the West, we
kind of know what most of these teams are. We
know what the Clippers are going to be that got
healthy to the postseason last year and ended up not
being enough to beat Denver. We more or less know
what the Lakers are going to be. We got a
(18:53):
good look at that last year. Denver obviously upgraded a
starting position and added depth, but they're more or less
the same. You know, a continuous group that's been playing
for the last several years. Oklahoma City we've just covered
in depth winning the title, so we know a lot
about what those teams are. With Houston, they kind of
have a wide range of potential outcomes because they're fundamentally
(19:14):
different basketball team. With Kevin Durant, they're going to play
a different style on offense. This is a team that
ran a lot of their down the stretch go to
action when things got tough in the playoffs last year,
was that inverted ballscreen with shangoon at the top of
the key. Fred Van Vliet would set the screen, he'd
slip out of it, and they would just play that
two man game at the top of the key, and
it worked a little bit, but eventually they got to
a point where Gary Payton and Draymond Green just refused
(19:36):
to allow the switch and they stayed attached and Draymond
was able to get the stops he needed to get
on Alburn Shangun and they ended up losing. Right, Kevin
Durant's going to come in and just add a very
different action that they're going to run in those situations
and give them a lot more variety that they can
go to in those spots on the defensive end. I'm
a huge believer in a men Thompson. I think he's
one of the best defensive prospects to ever grace the league,
(19:57):
but he doesn't have that like big frame that Dylan
Brooks had, and Dylan Brooks gave them a great option
for some of the bigger forwards in the Western Conference,
guys like Lebron Luka, Doncic, Kawhi Leon or Jimmy Butler,
Julius Randall. There's a bunch of those types of dudes
that Amen Thompson might be too small for right So
they're a different team in that sense, But at the
same time, they never really had a rim protecting presence
(20:20):
before Kevin Durant, And like, if we look back the
last time Kevin Durant played on, you know, a championship
quality team going back to Golden State, he functioned a
lot as a back end rim protector for them. We've
talked a lot about this concept with Shanggoon. When you
have bigs like Shanggoon and you can't protect the rim,
you run into these tough situations where you're either running
(20:41):
like a deeper drop coverage with him and you're getting
picked a part in the mid range, or the guy's
getting downhill and Shanguon's not protecting the rim. Or you
bring shanguon out to the level and he's attacking the ball,
but now you're giving up these four on threes and
you don't have any rim protecting presence on the back line,
and that can cause problems. Right, Kevin Durant gives you
a solution to that problem, which is you can now
bring shangu up to the level to be aggressive on
(21:01):
the ball handler, knowing that you have a rangey long
athlete on the backside that can cover ground both at
the rim and out to the perimeter. Kevin Durant also
has switch ability to get out onto perimeter players.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Right.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
So they're a very different defense and a very different
offense than they were last year. So as we look,
we know what Oklahoma City is. There's this elite turnover
forcing offense that can get out in transition.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
And then on offense, we.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Know that they're going to lean a lot on Shake
Gills with Alexander Dribbil penetration.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Right. Denver, we know what Denver is.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
They're probably the most reliable playoff offense in the NBA
right now. But you add to it, they have a
very smart schematic approach on defense and they have a
lot of high IQ defenders, and so they actually defend
better than you would expect for a team that puts
weak regular season defensive metrics up and that doesn't necessarily
have a ton of high level defensive personnel. But they're
(21:50):
just really smart. They're always in the right spots. They
actually got more stops against Oklahoma City than everybody this
last playoff run other than Indiana, and even then it
would influenced a lot by that Game six where Indiana
really strangled Oklahoma City. So, like we know what Denver
is with Houston, I want to be clear, Kevin Durant
doesn't come in and just turn them into an elite,
(22:13):
well oiled machine on offense.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
It's not that easy.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Offense takes continuity, and that team still has a deficit
of ball handling, that team still has a deficit of shooting,
even with Dorian Finney Smith. I don't think it's necessarily
gonna be like just smooth sailing on offense. I think
it's gonna be tough for I think they're gonna have
to figure out ways to use Kevin Durant. I think
they're gonna have to lean into more what Kevin Durant
was in Brooklyn, which was more of like a high
(22:36):
pick and roll ball handler rather than like an off
ball scorer playing off the catch more like he did
in Phoenix. I'd like if you guys remember he was
super high volume in pick and roll in Brooklyn and
he had a year there. I think it was twenty
twenty one. He did a year there where Kevin Durant
ball screen including passes was over a one to twenty
offensive rating because he was just consistently drawing that second
(22:59):
defender so tall you can see over the top and
easily drop it over the top to the role man,
and then they're playing four on three out of it
with great spacing. And because James Harden was on that team,
Kyrie Irving was on that team, they just had a
lot offensive skill off the ball. Now again, it will
be a little more clunky with Houston, it's a lot
of young raw athletes. But I think I like the
idea of using a men Thompson in the short role
(23:21):
playing off of Kevin Durant coming out of high ball screens.
Shan Gun too is a guy that can score in
the middle of the floor and play make out of
the middle of the floor. I like giving him more
opportunities there off of Kevin Durant as a ball handler,
their ceiling on offense is going to be a work
in progress, and it may be something that they don't
achieve until close to the playoffs. Are potentially even in
the playoffs, or if they get beat. If someone asked
(23:43):
me how to shoot, like Houston loses in the playoffs
this year, how does it happen? I think it actually
happens because their offense bogs down, right, But how can
they separate themselves from Denver? How can they separate themselves
from Oklahoma City. It's the defensive end of the floor.
If they can get to that point where kd has
a throwback all defense type of season like he did
in twenty seventeen with Golden State, where he's protecting the rim,
(24:05):
he's doing defensive rebounding, he's doing all that stuff on
the back line, and they have that depth of perimeter
defense talent that they have. That's where they have some upside.
And so for me, I look at Houston as more
the same kind of like defensive juggernaut that they were
last year. Kevin Durant, if he can just provide a
little more advantaged creation, rescue possessions like three four seconds
(24:27):
on the shot clock. He's just a way better option
than anybody Houston had last year. Clutch situations no more
Fred van Vliet, Alpern shanggun two man game, a little
bit more of Kevin Durant, Fred Van Vliet two man game,
Kevin Durant, Alpern shangun two man game. I think that's
just a more reliable action there. It's like dragging teams
down into the mud, getting into close games, and then
(24:48):
in those close games just executing better because you have
Kevin Durant on the team. And I would argue, out
of all these teams in the West, they're the team
that has the widest range of possible outcomes because they
are fundamentally different on both ends of the four. With KD,
We're gonna be tracking it NonStop throughout the year. It's
going to be a team we covered very closely this year.
But I'm very, very excited to watch Kevin Durant and
(25:08):
Houston Rockets play basketball. All right, guys, that is all
we have for today is always as sincerely appreciate you
guys for supporting us and supporting the show. Shout out
again to the guys at Series XM for taking care
of us here at the win.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
We will see you guys next week. What's up guys.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
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Guys supporting us, but if you could take a minute
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(01:45):
You're at the volume heavy Saturday. Everybody hope all you
guys are having a great weekend. We are here back
at the Series XM studios at the Win in Las Vegas.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Shout out to Series XM. They've taken amazing care of us.
Riding solo.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Today, we're going to talk a little bit about the
Summer League debut of Dylan Harper. Got another look at
Cooper Flag as well. I want to talk about Carter Bryant.
I'm from Tucson, Arizona obviously, so I'm of you a fan,
but I thought Carter has put on one heck of
a demonstration of his defensive capability through his first couple
Summer League games. We're going to talk a little bit
about that, and then at the tail end of the
show today, I want to talk a little bit about
(02:15):
Reed Shepherd's Summer League debut. And we've done some deep
evals of the contenders at the top of the Western
Conference over the course of the last week, involving Denver
and the Los Angeles Lakers. Obviously, we've covered Oklahoma City
extensively on their path to the NBA title, but there's
another team at the top of the West that many
people view in that tier, and that is the Houston Rocket.
(02:37):
So I want to talk a little bit about what
their pathway looks like, how they stack up with the
teams at the top of the Western Conference. You guys
know the joke for we get started. Subscribed to the
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(02:58):
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remember just underneath our full episodes, put mail bag with colon.
Write your question in. We'll get to our mail bags
once a week throughout the remainder of the season. All right,
let's talk some basketball, so really fun. First impression of
(03:18):
Dylan Harper. The first thing that flashed to me was
his defensive potential. You're not really expecting that this is
guy's famous for the dribble drive. He's a guy that's
drawn a lot of comparisons to Shae Gildas Alexander as
a bigger guard that can dribble through contact and can
consistently get paint touches. But right out the gates, he
was applying aggressive ball pressure, getting physical on the ball,
(03:39):
getting deflections. He had a crazy block on Ryan Emharten
transition where he elevated and swatted it away, just showing
a lot of that defensive upside. I've always been a
big believer that forward, aggressive, turnover forcing defenders fit well
with rim protection. And so guys like Darren Fox, guys
like Dylan Harper, I think they make a lot of
sense in the context of a partnership with Victor wemen Yama,
(04:01):
because forward aggression ball pressure that tends to give up
dribble penetration. And if you're giving up dribble penetration, you
need guys on the back line that can clean it up.
And there may not be a better player in NBA
history then Victor webmin Yama, who actually graced us with
his presence in the arena today.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
It was funny when he was walking in.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
He actually was sitting in the seat and kicked his
legs out as he was like relaxing, and his legs
were on the court.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
During the game.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
And that's just a problem that Victor wemen Yama has
that not many of us have. But that defensive potential
was flashing. And that second piece of it, and I
think this goes for both Cooper Flag and Dylan Harper,
is the dribbling through contact. For Cooper manifested a lot
through foul drawing which we'll talk about in a minute.
Dylan did draw some fouls in the fourth quarter as
the spur started to put some separation there, but for Dylan,
(04:47):
it was just consistently getting into the paint. And this
is that Shay Gildes Alexander esque chaining together of dribble combinations.
Right like when you get into traffic, you make a move,
the defender beats you to the spot, maybe he's plying
some physicalities putting his hands on you. You got to be
able to dribble through that contact and change direction and
attack again, and then potentially even change direction and attack
(05:10):
a third time. And that's one of the things that's
made Shay such a gifted dribble penetrator in the NBA.
There's a chasm between the amount of drives per game
that Shae Gills Alexander puts together compared to other guards
around the league. And that just comes from that downhill,
that relentless downhill force, constantly changing direction and being able
to control the basketball through that. And you saw that
(05:32):
with Dylan. The protected dribbles right like that between the legs.
Dribble is how you can protect the ball as you're
dribbling in traffic so the ball doesn't get swiped away,
and he showed.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
A lot of that. He drew some fouls.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
I just thought in general he was generating great offense,
especially in that fourth quarter run. The Spurs defense held
Dallas down most of the game, but in that fourth
quarter they went on a little offensive run, blew the
game open, and it got to the point where it
was too much for Dallas to overcome. You had a
really nice kickbackery to a lot of times when you're
running ball screens, they will use the guy out of
(06:03):
the weakside corner, out of the strong side corner to
tag the roller. He had a ball screen coming off
of the right wing where he got into the lane
the shooter in the right corner. His man tagged the roller,
and Dylan patiently pulled the ball out and pitched it
back to the right corner. One of the things you
notice a lot with NBA Summer League is poor decision making. Right,
it's a lot of young basketball players, it's a lot
of guys that are trying to make their imprint, the
(06:24):
guys that are trying to get a spot in the league,
and so that can come with the pressure of being
aggressive and a lot of times it's the guys that
can slow down and read the floor and not force
the issue to have the most success. And Dylan, I thought,
just similar to Cooper in the first game, just was patient,
took what the defense gave him, made the kickouts that
were there, didn't get into the middle of the floor
(06:46):
without a plan, without an idea of what he was
trying to accomplish. There's a pretty high floor for a
basketball player who can guard the ball, but that can
also get past the guy guarding the ball. It's such
a simple concept. But if you apply ball pressure and
make the opposing guard feel uncomfortable while also on the
other end of the floor handling ball pressure and consistently
(07:07):
getting into the paint, it's just such a strong foundation.
And then from there there's all the ceiling raising stuff,
the shot making. We saw him hitting off the dribble
three It got wiped or wiped out by a legal
screen call if I remember correctly, but showed some of
that more high level upside.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
As a shot creater.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
That's going to be the ceiling right Like, whether or
not Dylan can reach that all NBA level as a
player is going to come down to his development as
a jump shooter. And you know, one of the things
with Dylan that's different than most on ball guards is
he's a guy that typically on ball players, they struggle
to shoot off the catch, but they're comfortable shooting off
the dribble because throughout their entire youth basketball experience, they've
(07:44):
been the guy who's had to dribble and get to
their spots and they're not getting a ton of.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Clean catch and shoot looks.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
And Dylan was kind of different in that regard in
college and that he was actually better off the catch
than he was off the dribble because his release was
a little drawn out. It's a little low down in
front of his face, and so as he kind of
sharpens those details, gets a little bit more of a
crisp and fluid release, that will make things easier for
him when he gets into the NBA level. Before we
(08:09):
move on to Cooper, I wanted to shout out Carter
Bryant real quick. Carter was one of the guys that
the Spurs put an absolute defensive clinic together in their
first two Summer League games. Just absolutely strangled the life
out of the Philadelphia seventy six ers. The other night,
did it again tonight to Dallas. Carter is a traditional
small forward type of prospect in the sense that he's
(08:31):
got great length and size for the position, but he's very,
very quick laterally, which gives him the flexibility to guard
a bunch of different types of players, and I think
that's specifically exciting for San Antonio team. I didn't really
have that type of player in their core rotation right now.
They got a lot of guards, they got a lot
of forwards. You know, obviously when Harrison Barnes was there,
he was a slower forward. Jeremy Sohan has that ability
(08:53):
to guard out on the perimeter, but I view him
as more of like a four than a three defensively.
I think Harder is going to bring that relentless ball
pursuit and quickness to be able to be out on
the perimeter, getting over the tops of screens and doing
some of the tougher perimeter defense work. And I think
that that's just a role that that team really needs,
and that's going to be a really interesting thing to
(09:15):
watch with San Antonio this year. Shout out to the
Spurs Summer League team. They've put together a couple of
really nice defensive performances to start the tournament. Cooper for
all of the quality work that he did on Thursday
and again, I thought he was a lot better than
his box score showed in terms of just all the
winning plays he was making on both ends of the floor.
It was not an efficient scoring game for him, right.
(09:38):
I think he had ten points. Who's five for twenty
one from the field. He drew a lot of fouls,
but they weren't shooting fouls. They were ball pressure fouls
out in near half court. Really nice bounce back game
from Cooper. From a scoring perspective. The Spurs, as we
talked about, have done a defensive number to everyone they
faced in this Summer League so far. That's not an
(09:58):
easy team to put up thirty points on. That was
a pretty legit scoring performance there. The Spurs were doing
a lot more switching than the Lakers did on Thursday night.
So like Maxwell Lewis was struggling a little bit, Jordan
Hall was struggling. Ryan Nemhart's a guy who capitalized on
all the drop coverage looks that he was getting against
La And again, when you're facing a drop coverage, all
you got to do is go over the top of
(10:19):
the screen, and there's kind of like this baked in
dribble penetration that is actually being conceded as part of
the coverage, and so there's room to operate in the
middle of the floor for a guy who can show
some mid to short range shot making.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Right.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
But then as soon as you bring switching into the equation,
that baked in dribble penetration going over the top of
the screen isn't there anymore. Suddenly it turns into can
you get separation from elite athletes? It's just a much
tougher job, right, And so, to Cooper's credit, in a
matchup where a lot of guys were struggling to get loose,
he was able to get to the basket, he was
able to drop fouts. I think he's drawn like fifteen
(10:52):
fouls through the first two games, which I think is
a testament to his ability to dribble through contact without
turning the basketball over. And when you're facing a physical
defender is putting his hands on you, if you allow
that to make you retreat, you're not going to get
the call. But if you power through it, you actually
force the official to make a call. You actually put
the official in a position where there's too much contact
(11:15):
and now he has to make a decision about whether
or not he's going to let it go. And he
just was attacking Carter over and over again in fighting
through that contact, and he was drawing fouls. And I
think that's a strong sign of his ball handling, but
also his overall athleticism. In order to draw valves, you
have to get defenders out of position, and that's something
that he's done consistently through the first couple of games.
(11:36):
And again a Carter Brian, a defender who's done a
lot of damage to guys in the Summer League so far.
I keep getting excited with Cooper about the potential with
his jump shot. He hit a couple more. Three hit
three threes tonight, a couple more on the catch. She
hit a three at the top of the key in
the first half in a possession where Carter was They
were in a deeper drop coverage and Carter got caught
(11:58):
on the screen, so he had a clean look off
the dribble at the top of the key. He knocked
it down. But the thing that I'm excited about were
they dunks or the miss dunk as well. In the
second half, both of them came off of the catch
out of action with the defender sprinting at him. One
of them, he was able to just kind of pump
fake and then dip his right shoulder, And when he
dipped his right shoulder, he's able to get just a
tiny bit of an angle on the guy shot downhill,
(12:21):
got a big dunk, and then on the miss dunk
where he was up plenty high, he just missed it.
But on the miss dunk very similarly, just caught its
top of the key against the clothes out and just
showed the ball just pump fake. Defender jumped out of
his shoes. All of a sudden, he had a lane
to go downhill. Cooper is so good at the read
and react stuff. He's so good at like the fundamentals
in terms of footwork and using those bodies shoulder fakes
(12:45):
to get that initial advantage that he if he can
add the jump shot to where he's a real threat
there to where those shoulder fakes and head fakes get
the defender out of position consistently, that's where he has
real potential. Because again, as wealked about it, Summer League,
everyone's playing super hard, everyone's playing for their NBA career.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
They're playing for.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Their NBA livelihood, and so there's a lot of jumpiness,
and you know, going for those types of fakes, you're
going to face more discipline defenders in the NBA. They're
going to be less willing to jump for those fakes.
That's where if he can add the threat of the
jump shot, that's where you can get more of that
baked in dribble penetration. I think he's cleaned up his
release quite a bit. Remember, he used to have a
(13:24):
little bit of a hitch and his elbow would get
a little bit out to the side. It's much more
fluid now. He's able to get to it out of
more dribble combinations quicker and in a way that just
looks more smooth and easy for him. So if he
can add the actual touch put it into the basket consistently,
I think there's a ton of upside there. I'm just
super excited to watch him play in a winning context
(13:45):
right away. Not very often do we get to see
a real super star type of prospect go into a
situation where they're not carrying a bunch of, you know,
younger players in a rebuilding context. He's going to have
a long an immediate instead of a long runway of
bad basketball. He's going to step into a winning context
(14:05):
right away, and that's really exciting for us as fans.
Let's talk a little Houston Rockets lean to start with
Reach Sheepherd. Really fun first game in Vegas. Twenty eight points,
eight rebounds in, four assists, seven stocks, four steals in
three blocks in a single summer league game for a
guard is frankly outrageous. He was super aggressive. He took
(14:28):
twenty five shots, showed a variety of shot making hesitation threes,
snatched back threes off of hard, a dribble like a dribble,
drive off of some ball pressure. Hit a super tough
left shoulder fade away in the lane in the first
half where he drove left and then just hard pivoted
over his left shoulder, knocked down the shot. He hit
some tough scoop shots in the lane. He pushed his
(14:50):
three point shot further out. He end hit like a
thirty footer when he got hot in the second half
out above the break on the left side. Just really
showing some of that shot making piece from a bunch
of different angles and a bunch of different dribble combinations
and a bunch of different spots on the floor. Again,
the seven stocks just getting into passing lanes. Really good
at stripping drivers and cutters down low right around the basket,
(15:11):
which is what you got to do when you obviously
don't have that vertical size, but just a super feisty
guard with good hands that can do a lot of damage.
Raphaelstone has specifically come out and said this, but his
development is super important to Houston's short term goals and
their long term goals. Stone came out and said and
specifically said, Reid is going to have to be really
(15:34):
good for us. We've penciled him in for a big role.
Remember we talked about the ball handling shortage for Houston
right after the Kevin Durant trade. This was a team
we talked about like, this was a team that would
have made sense for a guy like Tyas Jones in
the same way that Tis Jones made no sense for
Phoenix because Phoenix had a glut of ball handling and
a deficit in like physical defense and rebounding ties Jones
(15:59):
you experience, it's diminishing returns there, right, But in a
context like Houston or Orlando, who ended up signing Ties Jones.
There's an absence of ball handling and refined offensive skill.
You get to experience more of the upside from having
Tiest Jones on your team. But they didn't sign Ties Jones.
They're allowing Read Shepherd the opportunity to fill this role.
(16:21):
And I actually really like this approach from Raphaelstone of
allowing Read that runway because like Houston has a large
margin for air in the regular season, right like they're young,
they're athletic, they're super deep. We already saw that exact
same combination last year get the second seed in the
Western Conference. So even if Reed Shepherd comes in in
(16:42):
that backup guard role and struggles, and you know, it
becomes abundantly clear during that time that they need to
upgrade that position. It's not like they're gonna slip way
down in the standings and be in some predicament where
the season is lost because they didn't sign a backup guard.
They're so good in terms of their their floor as
a young athletic defense that they can afford to make
(17:05):
some mistakes at that backup guard spot. And so what's
perfect is you have the best of both worlds. The
best case scenario is he fills that role admirably and
all of a sudden, you got yourself a great basketball
team and a young player that can fill that role
for a long time, and you've got yourself a great
option there. But if he struggles, the worst case is
(17:26):
he still gets lots of valuable reps that will help
him become a better basketball player, and now you have
a knowledge and understanding of what your team needs. Okay,
we tried to read for forty games as our backup guard.
It's not quite working, but I'm glad he got the reps.
We have lots of draft compensation, We have salaries that
(17:46):
we can package together to go find a veteran, experienced,
more steady, more consistent ball handler. They don't need that
guy in October. They're not in that situation. They do
need that guy for the players. Might as well see
if Reed can do it, and if not, you can
kind of pivot from there. But I want to zoom
in on Houston for a minute, because they're rightfully being
(18:09):
penciled in as one of the top three teams in
the Western Conference. I think that's clear if you look
at the West. To me, it's you know, you have Denver, Houston,
and Oklahoma City in that top tier in some order,
and then I think there's a little drop off and
then you run into that second tier in the West
is where you're getting the Clippers, the Minnesota Timberwolves, the
Los Angeles Lakers. We'll see if a team like San
Antonio can get into that mix this year. We'll see
if a team like Memphis can bounce back this year.
(18:32):
There's a lot of different potential teams in that tier.
I think that's more or less that middle tier is
going to be Clippers, Lakers, and Timberwolves, right and so
when we look at that group in the West, we
kind of know what most of these teams are. We
know what the Clippers are going to be that got
healthy to the postseason last year and ended up not
being enough to beat Denver. We more or less know
what the Lakers are going to be. We got a
(18:53):
good look at that last year. Denver obviously upgraded a
starting position and added depth, but they're more or less
the same. You know, a continuous group that's been playing
for the last several years. Oklahoma City we've just covered
in depth winning the title, so we know a lot
about what those teams are. With Houston, they kind of
have a wide range of potential outcomes because they're fundamentally
(19:14):
different basketball team. With Kevin Durant, they're going to play
a different style on offense. This is a team that
ran a lot of their down the stretch go to
action when things got tough in the playoffs last year,
was that inverted ballscreen with shangoon at the top of
the key. Fred Van Vliet would set the screen, he'd
slip out of it, and they would just play that
two man game at the top of the key, and
it worked a little bit, but eventually they got to
a point where Gary Payton and Draymond Green just refused
(19:36):
to allow the switch and they stayed attached and Draymond
was able to get the stops he needed to get
on Alburn Shangun and they ended up losing. Right, Kevin
Durant's going to come in and just add a very
different action that they're going to run in those situations
and give them a lot more variety that they can
go to in those spots on the defensive end. I'm
a huge believer in a men Thompson. I think he's
one of the best defensive prospects to ever grace the league,
(19:57):
but he doesn't have that like big frame that Dylan
Brooks had, and Dylan Brooks gave them a great option
for some of the bigger forwards in the Western Conference,
guys like Lebron Luka, Doncic, Kawhi Leon or Jimmy Butler,
Julius Randall. There's a bunch of those types of dudes
that Amen Thompson might be too small for right So
they're a different team in that sense, But at the
same time, they never really had a rim protecting presence
(20:20):
before Kevin Durant, And like, if we look back the
last time Kevin Durant played on, you know, a championship
quality team going back to Golden State, he functioned a
lot as a back end rim protector for them. We've
talked a lot about this concept with Shanggoon. When you
have bigs like Shanggoon and you can't protect the rim,
you run into these tough situations where you're either running
(20:41):
like a deeper drop coverage with him and you're getting
picked a part in the mid range, or the guy's
getting downhill and Shanguon's not protecting the rim. Or you
bring shanguon out to the level and he's attacking the ball,
but now you're giving up these four on threes and
you don't have any rim protecting presence on the back line,
and that can cause problems. Right, Kevin Durant gives you
a solution to that problem, which is you can now
bring shangu up to the level to be aggressive on
(21:01):
the ball handler, knowing that you have a rangey long
athlete on the backside that can cover ground both at
the rim and out to the perimeter. Kevin Durant also
has switch ability to get out onto perimeter players.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Right.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
So they're a very different defense and a very different
offense than they were last year. So as we look,
we know what Oklahoma City is. There's this elite turnover
forcing offense that can get out in transition.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
And then on offense, we.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Know that they're going to lean a lot on Shake
Gills with Alexander Dribbil penetration.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Right. Denver, we know what Denver is.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
They're probably the most reliable playoff offense in the NBA
right now. But you add to it, they have a
very smart schematic approach on defense and they have a
lot of high IQ defenders, and so they actually defend
better than you would expect for a team that puts
weak regular season defensive metrics up and that doesn't necessarily
have a ton of high level defensive personnel. But they're
(21:50):
just really smart. They're always in the right spots. They
actually got more stops against Oklahoma City than everybody this
last playoff run other than Indiana, and even then it
would influenced a lot by that Game six where Indiana
really strangled Oklahoma City. So, like we know what Denver
is with Houston, I want to be clear, Kevin Durant
doesn't come in and just turn them into an elite,
(22:13):
well oiled machine on offense.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
It's not that easy.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Offense takes continuity, and that team still has a deficit
of ball handling, that team still has a deficit of shooting,
even with Dorian Finney Smith. I don't think it's necessarily
gonna be like just smooth sailing on offense. I think
it's gonna be tough for I think they're gonna have
to figure out ways to use Kevin Durant. I think
they're gonna have to lean into more what Kevin Durant
was in Brooklyn, which was more of like a high
(22:36):
pick and roll ball handler rather than like an off
ball scorer playing off the catch more like he did
in Phoenix. I'd like if you guys remember he was
super high volume in pick and roll in Brooklyn and
he had a year there. I think it was twenty
twenty one. He did a year there where Kevin Durant
ball screen including passes was over a one to twenty
offensive rating because he was just consistently drawing that second
(22:59):
defender so tall you can see over the top and
easily drop it over the top to the role man,
and then they're playing four on three out of it
with great spacing. And because James Harden was on that team,
Kyrie Irving was on that team, they just had a
lot offensive skill off the ball. Now again, it will
be a little more clunky with Houston, it's a lot
of young raw athletes. But I think I like the
idea of using a men Thompson in the short role
(23:21):
playing off of Kevin Durant coming out of high ball screens.
Shan Gun too is a guy that can score in
the middle of the floor and play make out of
the middle of the floor. I like giving him more
opportunities there off of Kevin Durant as a ball handler,
their ceiling on offense is going to be a work
in progress, and it may be something that they don't
achieve until close to the playoffs. Are potentially even in
the playoffs, or if they get beat. If someone asked
(23:43):
me how to shoot, like Houston loses in the playoffs
this year, how does it happen? I think it actually
happens because their offense bogs down, right, But how can
they separate themselves from Denver? How can they separate themselves
from Oklahoma City. It's the defensive end of the floor.
If they can get to that point where kd has
a throwback all defense type of season like he did
in twenty seventeen with Golden State, where he's protecting the rim,
(24:05):
he's doing defensive rebounding, he's doing all that stuff on
the back line, and they have that depth of perimeter
defense talent that they have. That's where they have some upside.
And so for me, I look at Houston as more
the same kind of like defensive juggernaut that they were
last year. Kevin Durant, if he can just provide a
little more advantaged creation, rescue possessions like three four seconds
(24:27):
on the shot clock. He's just a way better option
than anybody Houston had last year. Clutch situations no more
Fred van Vliet, Alpern shanggun two man game, a little
bit more of Kevin Durant, Fred Van Vliet two man game,
Kevin Durant, Alpern shangun two man game. I think that's
just a more reliable action there. It's like dragging teams
down into the mud, getting into close games, and then
(24:48):
in those close games just executing better because you have
Kevin Durant on the team. And I would argue, out
of all these teams in the West, they're the team
that has the widest range of possible outcomes because they
are fundamentally different on both ends of the four. With KD,
We're gonna be tracking it NonStop throughout the year. It's
going to be a team we covered very closely this year.
But I'm very, very excited to watch Kevin Durant and
(25:08):
Houston Rockets play basketball. All right, guys, that is all
we have for today is always as sincerely appreciate you
guys for supporting us and supporting the show. Shout out
again to the guys at Series XM for taking care
of us here at the win.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
We will see you guys next week. What's up guys.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us
if you guys would take a second and leave a
rating and a review.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
As always, I appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Guys supporting us, but if you could take a minute
to do that, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
The volume
Host
Jason Timpf
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