Durant on Rockets, Wemby's superstar leap w/ Spurs, intriguing Mavs | Southwest Division Predictions
October 8, 2025 • 38 mins
Jason gives his preview and predictions for the 2025 NBA season in the Southwest Division including how Kevin Durant will look on the Houston Rockets, Victor Wembanyama's superstar leap for the San Antonio Spurs, how Anthony Davis and Cooper Flagg will mesh on the Dallas Mavericks, whether Ja Morant and the Memphis Grizzlies can salvage their situation, and what Zion Williamson's New Orleans Pelicans will look like.
#Volume
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. All right, Well, good to Hoops tonight. Here
at the volume heavy Wednesday, everybody. Hope all you guys
are having a great week. We are continuing our season
previews series today with the Southwest Division. This is the
(00:25):
weirdest division that I've covered in this six episode series.
Every one of these teams has like kind of an
imbalanced roster that has at least very interesting talent, very
young talent with upside or insane amounts of talent that
might be misbalanced with teams like Dallas or Houston, for example,
(00:45):
lots of interesting stuff to get into. Will be hitting
on all five of those teams today. You guys are
the joke before we started. Subscribed to Hoops to not
YouTube channel, so you don't miss any more of our videos.
Follow me on Twitter and underscore JCNLT so you guys
don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about a podcast feed
wherever get your podcast under Hoops Tonight. It's super helpful
if you leave a rating and a review on that front.
Jackson's doing great work on our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook,
and TikTok. Make sure you guys follow us there. In
(01:07):
the last but not least you want to keep getting
questions into our mail bags. Drop them in our full
episodes on YouTube in the YouTube comments right mail bag
with the colon writes your question. We'll get to them
on our mailbags throughout the remainder of this season. We'll
be doing our next mail bag next week, so get
your questions in. We'll get to it at that point.
We're gonna start today with the Houston Rockets. They lost
(01:29):
Steelon Brooks, Jalen Green, Cam Whitmore, Jock Landale, and essentially
Fred Van Vliet for this season because of an ACL tear.
They added Kevin Freakin, Durant, Dorian Finney Smith. I rooted
for Dorian last year with the Lakers. He's a reliable
catch and shoot guy when he's open. He's a very
good team defender that plays hard every night, is always
(01:51):
in the right spot. It's a good leader, just a
really nice rotation player. The biggest limitations I noticed last year.
You don't want him putting the ball on the floor.
That can be an adventure. It's better to just keep
him in standstill catch and shoot situations. And if you
close out on him hard, he can struggle to shoot
his jumper gets a little squarely against those more intense contests.
(02:12):
Just something to keep in mind. But again, as just
a rotation player, I think he's a really solid option
and a nice pickup for Houston, especially a Houston team
that needed shooting right Clint Appella as Houston continues to
load up the front court for a potential matchup with
the Nuggets, beyond even just potentially that you've got the
ability to get rid of one of those two guys,
whether Clint or Steven Adams at some point during the
(02:34):
season if you needed to use them for trade filler,
you still have Shane Gun and you have a good
second center option in case you needed to go with
a two big look at some point in time. So
valuable to ads center depth there. And then Joshakog classic
kind of like d M three wing who's better at
the defensive end than he is at the shooting part,
but a high motor athlete can't have enough of those
in the NBA regular season. Also fits Houston's identity really well.
(02:57):
Let's start with Fred Van Vliet injury. This was a
huge bummer, as I've talked about throughout the summer, the
biggest on paper weakness for this new Houston roster was
ball handling. You have two experienced, high volume NBA ball
handlers on the entire roster between Kevin Durant and Fred
Van Vliet. Shanegud is obviously a player that you can
(03:20):
play offense through, but he's not a guy that's going
to necessarily help with ball handling duties and just heavy
like handling, ball pressure, getting the ball at the four,
possession after possession after possession, and that's a specific weakness
that could become an issue versus a team like Oklahoma
City we just talked about, for like a potential Denver matchup,
you want to have a deep center rotation and the
(03:40):
ability to go to a too big look. That's something
that Houston does have in their bag to potentially deal
with Jokich. But the problem with Oklahoma City is they
present you with a very different problem. It's ball pressure,
physicality on the perimeter, forcing turnovers. That is where this
injury could become a massive problem because without Bread, that
(04:02):
basically just leaves Kevin as your only experienced high volume
NBA ball handler. And as amazing as Kevin Durant is,
if there's one or two things he struggled with in
his career. One of them has been physical ball pressure.
He can turn the ball over in situations like that
from time to time throughout his career. So again, this
(04:22):
is a devastating loss for Houston. I had this team
as firmly third in the top tier contender list, but
I had them in the top tier contender list, and
I think you have to drop them at this point,
at least pending whatever they could get done. Right, So
there's a short term way of looking at this, and
there's a long term way of looking at this. In
(04:43):
the short term, because of all their free agent signings
that they made this summer and the guys that they
probably would not want to trade, they can't really make
a trade until December fifteenth, and to make matters worse,
as far as I understand, I don't think they can
even make a veteran minimum signing at this point without
causing restrictions in their flight ability down the line. Now
there's an upside there. It'll stop them from doing something
(05:04):
foolish like signing Russell Westbrook. And in all the ways
that Russell was a perfect basketball fit with Denver, I
think he would be an awful basketball fit on this
Houston Rockets team, So probably a good thing that they're
not able to go that route. But they're gonna have
to start this season with the current group that they have,
and that means a lot of emphasis on shot creation
(05:24):
for guys like Kevin Durant and Albern Shangoun and a
lot of pressure on Aaron Holliday and Reed Shepherd to
handle the basketball. Now we talked about this early in
the summer, but in the half court, I think when
it comes down to what they will have in terms
of reliable action, not like cutesy things they can run.
There's gonna be a lot of things they run, right
(05:46):
Like you're gonna have Reed Shepherd get his opportunities to
run ball screen solo, Aaron Holliday, a Men Thompson's gonna
get all sorts of different types of opportunities to attack
off the bounce and out of screening action. There's gonna
be other stuff that they run. But in terms of
like here are bread and butter, reliable actions that we
know will work night to night in the NBA, I
(06:07):
think they're gonna have to lean a lot on Kevin
Durant pick and roll because they're light on ball handling,
So they need to create really simple sequences that their
role players can finish. So, for instance, just imagine typical
spacing read Shepherd on the opposite wing. You've got you know,
Jabari Smith or Dorian Phinney Smith in one of the corners.
(06:29):
So one of the Smith's in one of the corners,
Amn Thompson in the opposite corner, and Shangoon's setting a
ball screen. Right, that sets up very basic simple reads.
If Kevin Durant can score coming off the ball screen,
he needs to look to score. He's the best scorer
in the NBA. Pure score right. But if Reed Shepherd's
man pinches down off the opposite wing into nail help
(06:52):
swing pass reach, Shepherd can either shoot the three or
drive the closed out. If Shane Guon's man steps up
to the level, that's a short roll pass over the
top to Shangoon. Katie's got good size, he can pass
over the top. Shangguon catches in the middle of the floor.
It's a simple three on two read right like it's
going to be either a kickout to one of the
Smiths in the corner, a drop off to a men
(07:14):
Thompson cutting along the baseline or Shanguon getting into the
middle of the floor for a little floater looking to
score if nobody picks him up right. That is a
simple progression of Reeds with guys in spots where they
can be effective. Reed Shepherd can hit above the break threes,
the Smiths can hit corner threes. A men Thompson can
cut out of the out of the corner and be
(07:35):
a vertical spacer on the baseline, something we saw plenty
of last year. And Shangun can play out of the
short role. Kevin Durant can score out of ball screens
if they switch alprin Shangun can beat a defender that's
set up for Kevin Durant's probably not big and strong
enough to handle Shangoon. A defender that's big and strong
enough to handle Shangoon is probably not fast enough or
(07:56):
nimble enough on the perimeter to handle a guy like
Kevin Durant. That is what they're going to be leaning
on for bread and butter early in the season. That
in Shangon post ups like yeah again, They're gonna see
a lot of stuff. You'll see Kevin Durant scoring off
the ball. You'll come off of off ball screens. He'll
play out of the high post. You'll see you know,
a Men Thompson screening for Kevin Durant instead of Shanegoon.
(08:18):
You'll see Javari Smith has a little bit of an
ISO game. You'll see him play out of the high post.
You'll see him play out of the low post. You'll
see all these guys get their different opportunities throughout as
they're just trying to find ways to squeeze out additional
offense throughout the early part of the season. But the
majority of their reliable offense is going to have to
come down to Kevin Durant, pick and roll in Alpern
Shangoon operating out of the post. So that's what they're
(08:41):
gonna have to lean on until December fifteenth. Again, the
other side of this too, I'm just talking about half
court offense. This is a Houston team that thrived with
physical ball pressure and defense forcing turnovers getting out in transition,
very similar to what Oklahoma City did. Houston should be
looking to avoid the half court as much as possible
(09:04):
so that they can leverage their athleticism, which is a
strength of the roster, rather than their ball handling, which
is a weakness of the roster, defending, forcing turnovers, getting
long rebounds off of those long misses, running the floor
with guys like Amn, Tari Easton, Jabari Smith, etc. Get
your athletes in the open floor as much as possible.
But I think this story eventually ends with the Rockets
(09:28):
making a mid season trade for some kind of guard.
I think the roster is worth the investment. I think
they've got a talented enough roster to compete. And Kevin
Durant's gonna be thirty seven years old. He is thirty
seven years old, so time is of the essence. The
question is are there any guards that make sense for
the Rockets to target? And the good news is they
(09:49):
have tons of draft picks, so that helps. I want
to cast a really wide net here on purpose. So
I'm gonna come up with some names here in the
mix of this list that are gonna be long shots.
But again, we don't know how this season is going
to develop. We don't know which guys will become available,
we don't know which direction this is going to go.
So I think a wide net is for the best.
(10:11):
I heard a lot of talk of a guy like
Derek White Jackson, and I were talking about this the
other day. Like, I love Derek White. I think he's
an awesome player. He's certainly gonna be able to make
any team better that trades for him. But I wouldn't
exactly consider him to be a professional ball handler. I
think he's a super versatile two way guard that can
also handle the basketball a little bit. But like as
(10:33):
a cheaper option that wouldn't cost as much as Derek White,
Like I like a guy like Peyton Pritchard. He's been
dying to have that type of role on an NBA team.
Kobe White is a name that I thought about. Chicago
hasn't extended him yet. Obviously, he had an awesome end
to last season. We talked about that the other day.
Maybe Chicago wants to retain him, but maybe you can
(10:56):
entice them. Maybe Chicago's not completely in love with White,
and maybe you can entice them with some draft picks
to let him go in a trade that could give
you potentially the skill guard of the future for Rockets basketball,
a much more reliable over the top shooter than some
(11:18):
of the other pick and roll options that you've had
in recent years. I also think you could get it
done without having to give up too much. Like if
you believe again, you'd have to believe in Kobe White
long term in order to do this. But if you
believe in Kobe White long term, reed Shepherd in a
pick probably gets it done. You can probably entice Chicago
to let go of Kobe White. Now you have a
guy that can slide right into your offense average in
(11:42):
the mid twenties on good efficiency because he's a good
pull up shooter and a guy that provides a secondary
ball handler, a reliable secondary ball handler off of Kevin Durrant.
That's an option again, long shot, but I'm trying to
cast a wide net here. Tyler Harrow is an interesting
name that I've seen thrown around. Another guy a reasonable
salary to try to match, a guy who can really
(12:02):
play over the top, a guy who's grown a lot
as a passer over the course of the last couple
of years. Demarta Rosen was a guy I saw like
a middling salary, a guy that you could literally just
you could probably get him with just Fred van Vliet
and like a protected first round pick or something along
those lines. Demarta Rosen is a guy that like excels
at shooting over the top, which is something that would
be valuable in a Houston team that would struggle to
(12:24):
space the floor. And he's a high level playmaking talent.
He's good at making reads and getting the defense into rotation.
He's a guy that I think would be worth taking
a look at. Buy out guys that could come around
in February, Guys like CJ. McCollum, Guys like Chris Middleton.
I don't know who it will end up being, but
I do think Houston should go for it this year
by trading for a ball handler at some point in
(12:46):
time in the middle of the season. Now, looking at
the big picture for Houston, even with the Rockets losing
Fred Van Vliet, I still fully expect him to be
one of those second tier teams in the West. So
like in that mix with the Lakers and the Clippers
and the Warriors and the Wolves, they have a strong foundation,
a deep center rotation led by Shangun who I think
he has the potential to have a big time breakout
(13:07):
season this year. I've talked about this a lot. He
was the guy last year that on tape had me
like on my laptop in the morning watch drinking coffee,
being like Wow, he's whipping that guy's ass right now.
Like I said that more about Shangoon than any other
player last year. Like shang Gun, I wouldn't be like
I don't think it's completely out of the realm of
(13:28):
possibility that he could make an All NBA team this year.
That's how good Shangun is capable of being. I don't
think he's there yet, but that is a potential outcome
for him this season. Kevin Durant still one of the
second tier superstars in the league, excellent two way player.
You have a depth of young athletes on the wing,
really high upside players like a Men Thompson who could
potentially pop into a very high level offensive player this year.
(13:50):
And you have the strong identity, the identity of physicality
and toughness defense to transition all that stuff that carried
you last year as you were near the top of
the Western Conference. That gives you more that helps you
win night tonight. I don't think they'll end up with
the top seed anymore, like I don't think they'll be
the second or third seed. Even beyond the stuff with
the ball handling that we've discussed, I also think they'll
(14:11):
feel the loss of Dylan Brooks and Jalen Green. There.
Those guys were every night ers. Those two dudes. I
think Jalen played all eighty two and I think Dylan
played seventy five games, and they were just there every night,
just playing super hard, and they were a big part
of the identity of the team. Jalen Green say what
you want, That dude poured in a lot of points
on a nightly basis for that Rockets team. So I
(14:32):
think missing those guys will also hurt them in the
regular season context. So insummation, I see them as somewhere
in like the four to six range in the standings
for most of the season, and honestly, it's impossible to
know what kind of playoff ceiling they will have until
they finish whatever that midseason trade ends up being, which
we'll see when the time comes. If they don't make
(14:54):
a trade, I think they're a first round exit, second
round exit. Like absolute ceiling. I just think that that
lack of ball handling would be a death sentence, especially
with some of those specific types of matchups you could
run into in the Western Conference. Today's show is brought
to you by our new presenting sponsor, hard Rock Bet
the NBA season is right around the corner, and we're
(15:14):
incredibly excited. Haven't placed your first bet yet? Now is
the perfect time. Bet five dollars and if it wins,
you don't just get your payout, You've also cash in
one hundred and fifty dollars in bonus bets on top.
If you're looking to bet NBA futures, they're live on
hard Rock Bet. You can bet on the Finals, MVP,
Rookie of the Year, sixth Man, and a lot more.
(15:34):
Open up the app to see everything that's live and
lock in today's odds if you like what you see.
And on Wednesdays, if you're already betting on the hard
Rock Sports Book app, you know what that means. It's
the last day to use your legendary rewards drops. Open
up the app today you can have a bonus bet
or who knows what's in there? More drops every Thursday.
The rewards and promos are NonStop. Download the hard Rock
(15:57):
Bet app today and make your first deposit payable and
bonus bets not a cash offer offered by the Seminole
Tribe of Florida In Florida, Offered by Seminal hard Rock
Digital LLC in all other states. Must be twenty one
plus and physically present in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana,
New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, or Virginia to play. Terms and
(16:17):
conditions apply. Concerned about gambling in Florida, call one eight
eight eight admit it. In Indiana, if you or someone
you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call
one eight hundred and nine with it. Gambling problem called
one eight hundred gambler in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee,
or Virginia. The Dallas Mavericks quick offseason recap. They lost
(16:43):
Spencer Dinwoodie Kessler Edwards and Olivia Maxion's prosper They added
Cooper Flag the number one overall pick. Dangela Russell I
covered d Lo very closely with the Lakers, obviously as
a Lakers fan. He's James harden Light not a guy
that you want to depend on in playoff rotation. But
I do think that he's an incredibly underrated regular season
(17:05):
players as the playoff stuff. It's the same kind of thing.
He makes too many defensive mistakes and he struggles on
offense when the physicality and intensity go up a level
on the offensive end of the floor. Though. The reason
why he's such an underrated regular season player is he
just can run NBA offense. He can run pick and roll,
and he can score and make the reads out of it.
(17:26):
He can generate quality shots for your team. With the Lakers,
he was always the best guy at getting the ball
to Anthony Davis on the role With Lebron, teams mostly
just switched it, so it kind of neutralized that action
in many cases, and Austin just isn't as good as
a passer as D'Angel Russell was, so like, I expect
him to be a guy to help unlock Anthony Davis offensively.
I thought it was a really just savvy move from
(17:48):
that front office. And it looks like he's going to
start the season as the starting point guard, so they're
gonna need d Low to be good. And again, like,
as long as that can be addressed at some point
during the season, whether that's Kyrie Irving turning at some
point or that's a trade that balances the roster to
bring in another ball handler, I am perfectly fine with
d Angela Russell being my starting point guard in the
(18:10):
regular season because I think he's a good floor raising
offensive talent in the NBA regular season. They also added
Dennis Smith for more depth in ball handling. This is
one of the most talented rosters in the league, just
in a very unbalanced kind of way, right, Like, let
me just read these names. This is their top nine players.
(18:32):
Anthony Davis, Cooper Flagg, Klay Thompson, PJ. Washington, Derek Lively,
Max Christie, who I think is really good covered him
with the Lakers two, Daniel Gafford, D'angela Russell, and Njie Marshall.
That's a sick top nine. That's a lot of really
good players. It's just that three of those dudes are
centers and only one of those dudes is actually a
(18:54):
professional ball handler, and ideally he'd be coming off the
bench for you. It makes this such a funky kind
of situation going on in Dallas. In many ways, I
think Cooper Flag and Anthony Davis are going to be
the key to the offensive end of the floor. Cooper's
gonna have to handle the ball a ton because they're
light on ball handling. Dallas straight up asked him to
(19:15):
do that in summer league. I was there, I got
to see it in person, and like, honestly, I was impressed.
I was impressed by the way he handled ball pressure.
I was impressed by his willingness to take simple reads
that were available to him. I think that's such a
key to game management and high level ball handling in
the NBA. But obviously at the NBA level it gets
different once you actually go from summer league to the
real NBA. It's different. His shot making, for instance, in
(19:37):
Vegas was so so and inconsistent. He'll need to learn
quickly on the job there. That's going to be a
big swing. And for Anthony Davis, it's very important that
he's able to play the four because otherwise you won't
be able to find minutes for their center rotation. Like
if Ad can't find a way to play the four,
then you got to get rid of want of Gafford
or Lively. It's just a waste of talent on that
(19:58):
particular roster, right. But that's going to require Anthony Davis
to reach a certain level of offensive polish that he
just hasn't really shown since the bubble. So all eyes
in the early season are going to be on Cooper
Flag and Anthony Davis and their overall offensive polish and
how well they can handle their elevated roles on that
side of the floor compared to what they've dealt with
(20:19):
in recent years. The lack of roster balance is probably
what will take them directly to a first round exit. Like,
even if Kyrie Irving returns, it's hard to believe they
can beat the top teams in the West with their
lack of overall playmaking. But make no mistake, this is
still going to be a super fun team to watch
and they're going to win a lot of regular season games.
(20:41):
They can take so many different shapes that can go small,
like the Lakers lineups with like DLO and Max Christy
in the backcourt, Anthony Davis at the five, Klay Thompson
and Cooper Flag in the middle. They can go huge
with Derek Lively, Anthony Davis, Cooper Flag, Klay Thompson, and
like switch everything with that two through four. Even d LO,
(21:04):
if you have to play him with those groups and
you need to leave him on an island and switches,
you're backing him up with three ridiculously rangy athletes. So like,
if you're gonna play a certain type of switching defense.
It would work with d Lo in that situation better
than it would work anywhere else. Like they're even if
they deal with some injuries, they are just so deep
(21:26):
with defensive talent that they're almost certainly going to be
a top five defense in the league. I would be
stunned if they didn't lead the league in points in
the paint defense or block shots like. They're going to
cause massive problems with their rangey, length and athleticism in
the front court for teams. Their ceiling if you want
(21:47):
something more than a first round exit, which is what
it feels destined for, and maybe second round if Kyrie
can come back. For them to have a ceiling beyond that,
it's going to come down to them pulling off some
kind of mid season trade. What kind of player or
players can they get back as they try to balance
the roster from the kind of like plethora of talent
(22:10):
they have at certain position groups versus the vacancies they
have at other groups. I also think this is going
to be an interesting test of Jason Kidd. When you
don't have really high level ball handling that can set
teams up with it to set your players up with advantages,
then you need to do that schematically. Anthony Davis is
(22:30):
not a guy that has shown really high level shot
creation in his career. Even just out of the post.
He struggled to handle double teams for the majority of
his career. So Jason Kidds schematically is going to have
to find ways to make things easier for his ball handlers.
Get them with an advantage three man action every time
Cooper or Clay's involved. Get them coming off of multiple
(22:51):
screens so they have an easier chance to get downhill
and weaponize their skill from that point. Help for d
Lo and ball screens. A lot of double drags, horns,
stack action, anything that gets d Low into a situation
where it's easier for him to get downhill into the
paint where he can be a problem with this floater
and his passing ability if he can't get past that
(23:11):
initial defender. It's going to be a lot of tough
mid rangers and tough contested pull up threes. So, like
Jason Kidds schematically is going to have a heavier load
this year in terms of setting this team up with
the advantages they're going to need with their lack of
like supreme advantage creation if that makes sense. But again,
Dallas is gonna be fun team to watch. They're just
another one of these really funky teams in this division
(23:32):
next to San Antonio Spurs. They lost Charles Bassi, Malachi Branham,
Sandra Mamokelos Villike Wesley, and Chris Paul. They had a
Carter Bryant, who's a D and three wing out of Arizona.
He was one of the most exciting players to watch
in Summer League. He did a really nice job making
Cooper Flag work really hard. Again, Cooper handled the ball
pressure well but I was also impressed by the ball pressure,
(23:54):
if that makes sense. But didn't shoot the ball super
well there, But I like his form, so I think
it's possible that his long as he just keeps repping
it out, that he can become a reliable three and
D weapon in the league. Alike to that as a pickup. Also,
this is a team that kind of needed more of
like a rangy perimeter forward. It was kind of a
position that was missing on the roster. Harrison Barnes at
his age more of a four obviously, Jeremy Sohan with
(24:18):
his lack of perimeter shooting abilities more of a four.
So like card Carter Bryant becoming like a legitimate three
and d Wing would be a big swing for San
Antonio's future. They got Dylan Harper, number two pick in
the draft, obviously a super high upside guard. A lot
of people just kind of talk about him as like
a left handed shake Yaldes Alexander. I see some similarities there,
but he's super young and super raw, so it's a
(24:38):
lot of a distance between where he is now and
whatever that version of him would be. Luke Cornette and
Kelly Olenick we covered this in our player ranking series,
but I'm actually very optimistic about Dearon Fox and Victor
wemen Yama and how they fit together on both ends
of the floor. On defense, Victor is this insane ground
covering mistake of racing rim protector, and Darren Fox is
(25:01):
like a fod aggressive turnover forcing guard that can give
up dribble penetration. So I think they're kind of a
natural compliment for each other on that side of the floor.
Then an offense, I know the handful of reps they
got last year didn't look great before the injury, but
I'm optimistic for several reasons, Like I think Dearen speed
is just a tough adjustment in terms of getting to
(25:23):
the point where they understand the right timing for how
to run ball screens. It's going to take a lot
of reps for those two to figure that timing out,
like when and where to screen, when and where to roll,
where Daron Fox is scoring opportunities are. I think that
will all take time, so like look for them to
start clicking on the offensive end of the floor a
couple of months into the season, not necessarily right away.
(25:44):
The second piece of it is Fox's shot making. He
just had a down year as a shot maker, especially
from three, and I expect him to have a bounce
back season there. That, coupled with internal improvement from Victor,
who I expect to continue to take insane leaps on
the offensive end of the floor, should to a devastating
two man attack in time. Everything else with san Antonio's
(26:05):
ball handling, I'm sure will be an adventure. Because they're
also young. Devin Vessel has made strides, especially as a scorer.
He's actually becoming a very nice one on one player.
He's just really good at rising up over the top
and shooting. He'll get in ISOs at a live dribbles
at the top of the key, and he'll just kind
of lull the guy to sleep with kind of a
slow dribble and he'll just elevate over the top. He's
got he can rise in fire going both ways, especially
(26:27):
going over his left shoulders. He can just dribble to
his spot and even if the defender's there, he'll just
shoot over the top. He's got a really high release
point and he shoots well over contests, which seems to
seems to work really well for him. He's built out
like a face up game, like a high post like
turn and face triple threat shoot over the top type
of game. He's become an Isottle one on one player,
but he hasn't really developed into much of a playmaker
(26:48):
yet at this point in his career. This guy's the
limit for Stefan Cassel, obviously, but he's still super raw.
He shot thirty one percent on jump shots last year
and he made less than half of his layups. There's
a lot of high upside there in visual games where
he was awesome. I'm a big believer in him, but
I think we're years away from getting reliably great Stefan
Castle and then Dylan Harper's a rookie. Like for all
(27:11):
of the talk about Victor wiman Yama's individual improvement, I
had him at seventh in my player ranking, so I'm
a big believer that he's gonna take another leap this
year the Spurs. There's all this talk about the Spurs
as a team like making a leap into the middle
of the pack in the West, and I just don't
think they necessarily have the talent. They're gonna need at
least one of those guards to really pop this year
(27:34):
if they're gonna make the playoffs. In my opinion, I
like the backup center rotation. I think Cornett's a good player.
He's got good size, he plays super hard, He's always
in the right spot, So that makes him like a
dependable nights to night, high floor kind of guy. In
Victor's ability to shoot the ball makes it so that
you can play both of them alongside each other. And
then Kelly Olynok basically gives them a true two big
(27:55):
five out spacing option, and I like that because that's
gonna give Victor all sorts of space in the middle
of the floor to work one on one. We saw
him have a lot of success attacking from the elbows
last year, So like that's something where I think Kelly
Olnik will help them have more versatility in ways to
give Victor size while having opportunities to attack. I'm always
(28:16):
getting yelled at by Spurs fans for not believing in
their team, which sucks because I really want them to
be good. And like I said, I'm a huge fan
of Victor women Yama. I mean he's even a big
Star Wars fan. You have to imagine, like, I love Victor,
I want the best for him. I want the best
for the Spurs. I believe he's going to take a
massive leap this year. But I just don't think this
roster has enough really good players to contend in the
(28:37):
Western Conference. After Deer and Fox and Victor wemen Yama,
it's a lot of flawed basketball players. A lot of
guys with real potential, like real upside, but a lot
of guys that come with big question marks. And again,
when you go to the other teams in the West,
they're just stacked with talent. Like take a random middle
of the West team that everyone views as a second
tier contender, like the Minnesota Timberwolves. They have Anthony Edwards,
(29:01):
Julius Randall, Rudy Gobert, nas Reed, Jayden McDaniels. That's five
really high level players. The Spurs have two really high
level players. They have guys that can become really high
level players, but right now they have two of them.
So like I just, I literally just impure talent. Don't
(29:21):
think they have what they need to truly threaten, like
to get up above the play in So I think
a successful season for the Spurs would be getting into
like the seventh or the eighth seed, winning a game there,
or getting into the ninth or tenth seed, winning two
games there, and getting into a first round playoff series
so that we can have a look at Victor women
Yama against a team like Denver Oklahoma City. That I
(29:43):
think would be a win for San Antonio this year
given the talent that they have on this roster. I'm
also very excited just to see what Victor can accomplish
this year. I put him at seven in our player
rankings because I think he's going to leap into that
superstar tier. I think like twenty seven point twelve rebounds,
five assists, sixty two percent true shooting, five stocks, far
(30:06):
and away the best defensive player in the league. I
think that's all on the table for him. That's like
a real potential outcome, and I think that is going
to be that like benchmark to at least see where
Victor's progressing, even if this roster can't get to where
they need to go yet. All Right, I'm gonna go
a bit quicker on these last two. The Memphis Grizzlies
lost Marvin Bagley Desmond Baine in the Orlando trade with
(30:28):
KCP James Huff and Luke Canard. They added Contavio's Callbo
Pope their lottery pick, with Cedric Coward kind of a
three and D wing prospect, insanely long arms, a lot
of potential upside there. Ty Jerome. I thought Ty was
the best backup guard in the league. Last year. He
had by far the best floater in the league. He
absolutely torched teams and pick a role, especially to start
fourth quarters, and often he would close the deal before
(30:50):
Cleveland starters even needed to come in and do the
job themselves. He did flame out rather spectacularly in the playoffs,
though his pull up three point shooting completely failed in
His floater completely failed him, and then he got relentlessly
picked on by Indiana's guards on the other end of
the floor. So if you're a Grizzlies fan and you're
looking for upside here, you're just hoping that that was
an outlier and that he's going to get back to
(31:11):
kicking ass this year, add a little bit of that
extra physicality and athleticism that he needs in the weight
room in order to thrive when he gets to the postseason.
Conditioning is also a big part of that as well.
They also had a jock landale is backup big and
they took a flyer on Olivia Maxon's prosper the athletic
forward that Dallas let go of that we were just
talking about. It feels like a gap year from Memphis
(31:32):
in a lot of ways, which is disappointing when it
kind of just feels like they wasted two years in
a row. Last year was bizarre. Pre All Star they
had the fourth best record in the NBA. They had
the fifth best offense in the league and the seventh
best defense, a team that we took genuinely seriously as
one of those top eight teams in the league, and
they were so bad down the stretch that we viewed
(31:53):
them in that eighth seed as like the one team
in the playoff eight that just didn't make sense to
be there. They were twelve and sixteen over their final
twenty eight games, bottom half of the league in both
offense and defense. The biggest obvious difference between the two
phases of the season was just they changed the way
they played on offense. They went from John Morant being
at a twenty nine point nine percent usage rate, averaging
(32:15):
about twenty one points per game, not even the leading
scorer on the team, almost no pick and roll relative
to what they were running in years past, a lot
of just like dribble drive attack and it was working
and they kind of just went away from it. Jaw's
usage rate skyrocketed up to thirty three point four post
All Star Break, he averaged twenty seven points per game,
(32:35):
but that that's when they started losing and they ran
a ton more pick and roll. Its crazy stat Jah
didn't shoot out a pick and roll more than ten
times in a game until January thirteenth against Houston, but
then from there he did so eleven times the rest
of the year. So they changed the way they were
playing on offense and it didn't work. It's tough because
(32:57):
on the one hand, I remain a big in John
Murran's core talent. I think he has a legit superstar
foundational skill, the ability to be anyone in the league
off the dribble to get into the paint, and he
combines it with short range scoring, which I always have
placed a ton of value on that short range scoring
(33:18):
because it's reliable late game scoring and John's legitimately great
at it, and there just aren't that many guys in
the league that like legitimately have a foundational superstar level talent.
Jo's one of those guys. But we're heading into year
seven now, and we're basically heading backwards. Jos declined basically
(33:41):
across the board in four consecutive seasons, so in many ways,
this feels like the last hurrah. If John doesn't come
out this season and show a substantial improvement with real
superstar upside, I think Memphis is going to have to
look towards the next era of Grizzlies basketball. I mean,
they basically already are off his trades. Desmond Bain, who's
(34:01):
a better player for Contavious calbwoll Pope. That's basically a
statement from the front office that they're more interested in
accumulating assets than they are in accumulating talent, at least
when I say when I say talent, I mean veteran
talent that's ready to win now. And that's the thing.
Like KCP would have been that veteran piece to add
to try to win now a couple of years ago.
(34:22):
But Desmond Bain is a better basketball player than him,
and Desmond Bain has been a consistent staple for this
Grizzlies team over the years, and they punted on it
this This roster this year is just not as good
as last year's roster was. And so again, like the
front office is already starting to show those signs, like
they're not pushing chips in to try to make a
run with Jaw, they're making asset related decisions because they're
(34:46):
kind of holding pat to see what Jo's got. And
so this year is the year. Jow's got to come
out this year and kick ass and remind everybody who
he is, to get this team to remind to remember
that he's worth building around. It is on Jaw. There's
no one else to blame here. The numbers are undeniable.
(35:06):
With his decline over the last few years, he has
to come out and remind everybody what he's capable of
this year. Lastly, the New Orleans Pelicans, they had an
insane amount of roster turnover. They lost Bruce Brown, CJ. McCollum,
Kelly Olynnock, and a half dozen other young players. They
added Jordan Poole, and we'll talk about in a minute.
Derek Queen as our lottery pick, a big post player
(35:27):
out of Maryland. Kevon Looney a solid backup center, awesome
screener for a guy like Jordan Poole, and is a
very good rebounder as well. Sadiq Bay a small forward
who have always liked, a big, strong, athletic Ford who
missed last year with the torn acl He's like pretty
good at everything, so I think that he's a good
guy to add into the rotation. And then again a
half dozen other young players, a lot of young player
turnover on the roster. I want to start with Jordan Poole.
(35:50):
He hasn't been my favorite guard in the league, but
he is a high upside option. I had some Wizards
fans tell me that they've loved how much that he's
matured in his time in Washington and that he actually
had become a solid leader of the team, and he
had a like really impressive season. Statistically, he ran seven
hundred and sixty six pick and rolls perc entergy and
got one point zero three points per possession including passes.
(36:13):
That's sixty nine percentile. It's pretty impressive on high volume.
He shot thirty nine percent on pull up threes on
insane volume. He made one hundred and thirty two pull
up threes. That was the eighth most in the entire NBA,
and he shot a higher percentage on those pull up
threes than every one of the seven guys that was
above him on that list, including Steph Curry, Like he
(36:35):
made one thirty two, Steph made one fifty something, and
Steph was like in the like thirty six and a
half percent, and Jordan Poole was like thirty nine and
a half percent. That's an incredibly impressive stat He was
also fifty nine percent at the rim, which I actually
think is a really impressive number for a player that's
kind of of his slight build. Although I think he's
an underrated athlete, really enjoyed in our rewatch when we
(36:57):
watched Game two, Game four of the he does a
twenty two NBA Finals against Boston, Jordan Poole came in
in that first half and just had a scoring burst,
and it was just like a reminder that of like,
he's got a decent track record of getting some big
buckets and big spots for a championship team. I just
thought this was a really nice talent play for Joe
Dumars and the Pelicans. You needed some upside, and Jordan
(37:18):
brings upside. Then you have to be excited about Skinny Zion.
Zion showed up for media day looking like he was
in the best shape that he's been in a long time.
And we all know that when Zion is healthy, in shape, fast, quick, explosive,
all of those things, he becomes one of the best
offensive players in the league because no one can keep
him in front, and he can finish at the rim
(37:39):
at an extremely high rate, and he can pass out
of help that comes in those situations. So that's super exciting.
I mean, the Pelicans are really far away from actually
winning anything substantial in the West, but they do have
some exciting young talent. Zion if he's in shape, different
type outlook for the future. Right Jordan Poole we just
talked about a high upside guard. Trey Murphy continues to
(38:00):
show growth on the offensive ended floor. Herb Jones is
one of the best. Herb Jones is one of the
best three and D wings in the league. They'll at
the very least be fun to watch this year. I'm
excited to see what the young Pelicans have for us.
All right, guys, It's all I have for today is
always to sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and
supporting the show. We'll be back on Friday with one
more set of season previews before we get into our
contender rankings and awards predictions and a mail bag next week,
(38:23):
and then after that, like we are, we're covering NBA basketball.
I appreciate you guys for supporting us. Like I said,
we'll also have another preseason reaction on Monday, going over
some of the preseason games from the last week. I
will see you guys on Friday.
The volume. All right, Well, good to Hoops tonight. Here
at the volume heavy Wednesday, everybody. Hope all you guys
are having a great week. We are continuing our season
previews series today with the Southwest Division. This is the
(00:25):
weirdest division that I've covered in this six episode series.
Every one of these teams has like kind of an
imbalanced roster that has at least very interesting talent, very
young talent with upside or insane amounts of talent that
might be misbalanced with teams like Dallas or Houston, for example,
(00:45):
lots of interesting stuff to get into. Will be hitting
on all five of those teams today. You guys are
the joke before we started. Subscribed to Hoops to not
YouTube channel, so you don't miss any more of our videos.
Follow me on Twitter and underscore JCNLT so you guys
don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about a podcast feed
wherever get your podcast under Hoops Tonight. It's super helpful
if you leave a rating and a review on that front.
Jackson's doing great work on our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook,
and TikTok. Make sure you guys follow us there. In
(01:07):
the last but not least you want to keep getting
questions into our mail bags. Drop them in our full
episodes on YouTube in the YouTube comments right mail bag
with the colon writes your question. We'll get to them
on our mailbags throughout the remainder of this season. We'll
be doing our next mail bag next week, so get
your questions in. We'll get to it at that point.
We're gonna start today with the Houston Rockets. They lost
(01:29):
Steelon Brooks, Jalen Green, Cam Whitmore, Jock Landale, and essentially
Fred Van Vliet for this season because of an ACL tear.
They added Kevin Freakin, Durant, Dorian Finney Smith. I rooted
for Dorian last year with the Lakers. He's a reliable
catch and shoot guy when he's open. He's a very
good team defender that plays hard every night, is always
(01:51):
in the right spot. It's a good leader, just a
really nice rotation player. The biggest limitations I noticed last year.
You don't want him putting the ball on the floor.
That can be an adventure. It's better to just keep
him in standstill catch and shoot situations. And if you
close out on him hard, he can struggle to shoot
his jumper gets a little squarely against those more intense contests.
(02:12):
Just something to keep in mind. But again, as just
a rotation player, I think he's a really solid option
and a nice pickup for Houston, especially a Houston team
that needed shooting right Clint Appella as Houston continues to
load up the front court for a potential matchup with
the Nuggets, beyond even just potentially that you've got the
ability to get rid of one of those two guys,
whether Clint or Steven Adams at some point during the
(02:34):
season if you needed to use them for trade filler,
you still have Shane Gun and you have a good
second center option in case you needed to go with
a two big look at some point in time. So
valuable to ads center depth there. And then Joshakog classic
kind of like d M three wing who's better at
the defensive end than he is at the shooting part,
but a high motor athlete can't have enough of those
in the NBA regular season. Also fits Houston's identity really well.
(02:57):
Let's start with Fred Van Vliet injury. This was a
huge bummer, as I've talked about throughout the summer, the
biggest on paper weakness for this new Houston roster was
ball handling. You have two experienced, high volume NBA ball
handlers on the entire roster between Kevin Durant and Fred
Van Vliet. Shanegud is obviously a player that you can
(03:20):
play offense through, but he's not a guy that's going
to necessarily help with ball handling duties and just heavy
like handling, ball pressure, getting the ball at the four,
possession after possession after possession, and that's a specific weakness
that could become an issue versus a team like Oklahoma
City we just talked about, for like a potential Denver matchup,
you want to have a deep center rotation and the
(03:40):
ability to go to a too big look. That's something
that Houston does have in their bag to potentially deal
with Jokich. But the problem with Oklahoma City is they
present you with a very different problem. It's ball pressure,
physicality on the perimeter, forcing turnovers. That is where this
injury could become a massive problem because without Bread, that
(04:02):
basically just leaves Kevin as your only experienced high volume
NBA ball handler. And as amazing as Kevin Durant is,
if there's one or two things he struggled with in
his career. One of them has been physical ball pressure.
He can turn the ball over in situations like that
from time to time throughout his career. So again, this
(04:22):
is a devastating loss for Houston. I had this team
as firmly third in the top tier contender list, but
I had them in the top tier contender list, and
I think you have to drop them at this point,
at least pending whatever they could get done. Right, So
there's a short term way of looking at this, and
there's a long term way of looking at this. In
(04:43):
the short term, because of all their free agent signings
that they made this summer and the guys that they
probably would not want to trade, they can't really make
a trade until December fifteenth, and to make matters worse,
as far as I understand, I don't think they can
even make a veteran minimum signing at this point without
causing restrictions in their flight ability down the line. Now
there's an upside there. It'll stop them from doing something
(05:04):
foolish like signing Russell Westbrook. And in all the ways
that Russell was a perfect basketball fit with Denver, I
think he would be an awful basketball fit on this
Houston Rockets team, So probably a good thing that they're
not able to go that route. But they're gonna have
to start this season with the current group that they have,
and that means a lot of emphasis on shot creation
(05:24):
for guys like Kevin Durant and Albern Shangoun and a
lot of pressure on Aaron Holliday and Reed Shepherd to
handle the basketball. Now we talked about this early in
the summer, but in the half court, I think when
it comes down to what they will have in terms
of reliable action, not like cutesy things they can run.
There's gonna be a lot of things they run, right
(05:46):
Like you're gonna have Reed Shepherd get his opportunities to
run ball screen solo, Aaron Holliday, a Men Thompson's gonna
get all sorts of different types of opportunities to attack
off the bounce and out of screening action. There's gonna
be other stuff that they run. But in terms of
like here are bread and butter, reliable actions that we
know will work night to night in the NBA, I
(06:07):
think they're gonna have to lean a lot on Kevin
Durant pick and roll because they're light on ball handling,
So they need to create really simple sequences that their
role players can finish. So, for instance, just imagine typical
spacing read Shepherd on the opposite wing. You've got you know,
Jabari Smith or Dorian Phinney Smith in one of the corners.
(06:29):
So one of the Smith's in one of the corners,
Amn Thompson in the opposite corner, and Shangoon's setting a
ball screen. Right, that sets up very basic simple reads.
If Kevin Durant can score coming off the ball screen,
he needs to look to score. He's the best scorer
in the NBA. Pure score right. But if Reed Shepherd's
man pinches down off the opposite wing into nail help
(06:52):
swing pass reach, Shepherd can either shoot the three or
drive the closed out. If Shane Guon's man steps up
to the level, that's a short roll pass over the
top to Shangoon. Katie's got good size, he can pass
over the top. Shangguon catches in the middle of the floor.
It's a simple three on two read right like it's
going to be either a kickout to one of the
Smiths in the corner, a drop off to a men
(07:14):
Thompson cutting along the baseline or Shanguon getting into the
middle of the floor for a little floater looking to
score if nobody picks him up right. That is a
simple progression of Reeds with guys in spots where they
can be effective. Reed Shepherd can hit above the break threes,
the Smiths can hit corner threes. A men Thompson can
cut out of the out of the corner and be
(07:35):
a vertical spacer on the baseline, something we saw plenty
of last year. And Shangun can play out of the
short role. Kevin Durant can score out of ball screens
if they switch alprin Shangun can beat a defender that's
set up for Kevin Durant's probably not big and strong
enough to handle Shangoon. A defender that's big and strong
enough to handle Shangoon is probably not fast enough or
(07:56):
nimble enough on the perimeter to handle a guy like
Kevin Durant. That is what they're going to be leaning
on for bread and butter early in the season. That
in Shangon post ups like yeah again, They're gonna see
a lot of stuff. You'll see Kevin Durant scoring off
the ball. You'll come off of off ball screens. He'll
play out of the high post. You'll see you know,
a Men Thompson screening for Kevin Durant instead of Shanegoon.
(08:18):
You'll see Javari Smith has a little bit of an
ISO game. You'll see him play out of the high post.
You'll see him play out of the low post. You'll
see all these guys get their different opportunities throughout as
they're just trying to find ways to squeeze out additional
offense throughout the early part of the season. But the
majority of their reliable offense is going to have to
come down to Kevin Durant, pick and roll in Alpern
Shangoon operating out of the post. So that's what they're
(08:41):
gonna have to lean on until December fifteenth. Again, the
other side of this too, I'm just talking about half
court offense. This is a Houston team that thrived with
physical ball pressure and defense forcing turnovers getting out in transition,
very similar to what Oklahoma City did. Houston should be
looking to avoid the half court as much as possible
(09:04):
so that they can leverage their athleticism, which is a
strength of the roster, rather than their ball handling, which
is a weakness of the roster, defending, forcing turnovers, getting
long rebounds off of those long misses, running the floor
with guys like Amn, Tari Easton, Jabari Smith, etc. Get
your athletes in the open floor as much as possible.
But I think this story eventually ends with the Rockets
(09:28):
making a mid season trade for some kind of guard.
I think the roster is worth the investment. I think
they've got a talented enough roster to compete. And Kevin
Durant's gonna be thirty seven years old. He is thirty
seven years old, so time is of the essence. The
question is are there any guards that make sense for
the Rockets to target? And the good news is they
(09:49):
have tons of draft picks, so that helps. I want
to cast a really wide net here on purpose. So
I'm gonna come up with some names here in the
mix of this list that are gonna be long shots.
But again, we don't know how this season is going
to develop. We don't know which guys will become available,
we don't know which direction this is going to go.
So I think a wide net is for the best.
(10:11):
I heard a lot of talk of a guy like
Derek White Jackson, and I were talking about this the
other day. Like, I love Derek White. I think he's
an awesome player. He's certainly gonna be able to make
any team better that trades for him. But I wouldn't
exactly consider him to be a professional ball handler. I
think he's a super versatile two way guard that can
also handle the basketball a little bit. But like as
(10:33):
a cheaper option that wouldn't cost as much as Derek White,
Like I like a guy like Peyton Pritchard. He's been
dying to have that type of role on an NBA team.
Kobe White is a name that I thought about. Chicago
hasn't extended him yet. Obviously, he had an awesome end
to last season. We talked about that the other day.
Maybe Chicago wants to retain him, but maybe you can
(10:56):
entice them. Maybe Chicago's not completely in love with White,
and maybe you can entice them with some draft picks
to let him go in a trade that could give
you potentially the skill guard of the future for Rockets basketball,
a much more reliable over the top shooter than some
(11:18):
of the other pick and roll options that you've had
in recent years. I also think you could get it
done without having to give up too much. Like if
you believe again, you'd have to believe in Kobe White
long term in order to do this. But if you
believe in Kobe White long term, reed Shepherd in a
pick probably gets it done. You can probably entice Chicago
to let go of Kobe White. Now you have a
guy that can slide right into your offense average in
(11:42):
the mid twenties on good efficiency because he's a good
pull up shooter and a guy that provides a secondary
ball handler, a reliable secondary ball handler off of Kevin Durrant.
That's an option again, long shot, but I'm trying to
cast a wide net here. Tyler Harrow is an interesting
name that I've seen thrown around. Another guy a reasonable
salary to try to match, a guy who can really
(12:02):
play over the top, a guy who's grown a lot
as a passer over the course of the last couple
of years. Demarta Rosen was a guy I saw like
a middling salary, a guy that you could literally just
you could probably get him with just Fred van Vliet
and like a protected first round pick or something along
those lines. Demarta Rosen is a guy that like excels
at shooting over the top, which is something that would
be valuable in a Houston team that would struggle to
(12:24):
space the floor. And he's a high level playmaking talent.
He's good at making reads and getting the defense into rotation.
He's a guy that I think would be worth taking
a look at. Buy out guys that could come around
in February, Guys like CJ. McCollum, Guys like Chris Middleton.
I don't know who it will end up being, but
I do think Houston should go for it this year
by trading for a ball handler at some point in
(12:46):
time in the middle of the season. Now, looking at
the big picture for Houston, even with the Rockets losing
Fred Van Vliet, I still fully expect him to be
one of those second tier teams in the West. So
like in that mix with the Lakers and the Clippers
and the Warriors and the Wolves, they have a strong foundation,
a deep center rotation led by Shangun who I think
he has the potential to have a big time breakout
(13:07):
season this year. I've talked about this a lot. He
was the guy last year that on tape had me
like on my laptop in the morning watch drinking coffee,
being like Wow, he's whipping that guy's ass right now.
Like I said that more about Shangoon than any other
player last year. Like shang Gun, I wouldn't be like
I don't think it's completely out of the realm of
(13:28):
possibility that he could make an All NBA team this year.
That's how good Shangun is capable of being. I don't
think he's there yet, but that is a potential outcome
for him this season. Kevin Durant still one of the
second tier superstars in the league, excellent two way player.
You have a depth of young athletes on the wing,
really high upside players like a Men Thompson who could
potentially pop into a very high level offensive player this year.
(13:50):
And you have the strong identity, the identity of physicality
and toughness defense to transition all that stuff that carried
you last year as you were near the top of
the Western Conference. That gives you more that helps you
win night tonight. I don't think they'll end up with
the top seed anymore, like I don't think they'll be
the second or third seed. Even beyond the stuff with
the ball handling that we've discussed, I also think they'll
(14:11):
feel the loss of Dylan Brooks and Jalen Green. There.
Those guys were every night ers. Those two dudes. I
think Jalen played all eighty two and I think Dylan
played seventy five games, and they were just there every night,
just playing super hard, and they were a big part
of the identity of the team. Jalen Green say what
you want, That dude poured in a lot of points
on a nightly basis for that Rockets team. So I
(14:32):
think missing those guys will also hurt them in the
regular season context. So insummation, I see them as somewhere
in like the four to six range in the standings
for most of the season, and honestly, it's impossible to
know what kind of playoff ceiling they will have until
they finish whatever that midseason trade ends up being, which
we'll see when the time comes. If they don't make
(14:54):
a trade, I think they're a first round exit, second
round exit. Like absolute ceiling. I just think that that
lack of ball handling would be a death sentence, especially
with some of those specific types of matchups you could
run into in the Western Conference. Today's show is brought
to you by our new presenting sponsor, hard Rock Bet
the NBA season is right around the corner, and we're
(15:14):
incredibly excited. Haven't placed your first bet yet? Now is
the perfect time. Bet five dollars and if it wins,
you don't just get your payout, You've also cash in
one hundred and fifty dollars in bonus bets on top.
If you're looking to bet NBA futures, they're live on
hard Rock Bet. You can bet on the Finals, MVP,
Rookie of the Year, sixth Man, and a lot more.
(15:34):
Open up the app to see everything that's live and
lock in today's odds if you like what you see.
And on Wednesdays, if you're already betting on the hard
Rock Sports Book app, you know what that means. It's
the last day to use your legendary rewards drops. Open
up the app today you can have a bonus bet
or who knows what's in there? More drops every Thursday.
The rewards and promos are NonStop. Download the hard Rock
(15:57):
Bet app today and make your first deposit payable and
bonus bets not a cash offer offered by the Seminole
Tribe of Florida In Florida, Offered by Seminal hard Rock
Digital LLC in all other states. Must be twenty one
plus and physically present in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana,
New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, or Virginia to play. Terms and
(16:17):
conditions apply. Concerned about gambling in Florida, call one eight
eight eight admit it. In Indiana, if you or someone
you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call
one eight hundred and nine with it. Gambling problem called
one eight hundred gambler in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee,
or Virginia. The Dallas Mavericks quick offseason recap. They lost
(16:43):
Spencer Dinwoodie Kessler Edwards and Olivia Maxion's prosper They added
Cooper Flag the number one overall pick. Dangela Russell I
covered d Lo very closely with the Lakers, obviously as
a Lakers fan. He's James harden Light not a guy
that you want to depend on in playoff rotation. But
I do think that he's an incredibly underrated regular season
(17:05):
players as the playoff stuff. It's the same kind of thing.
He makes too many defensive mistakes and he struggles on
offense when the physicality and intensity go up a level
on the offensive end of the floor. Though. The reason
why he's such an underrated regular season player is he
just can run NBA offense. He can run pick and roll,
and he can score and make the reads out of it.
(17:26):
He can generate quality shots for your team. With the Lakers,
he was always the best guy at getting the ball
to Anthony Davis on the role With Lebron, teams mostly
just switched it, so it kind of neutralized that action
in many cases, and Austin just isn't as good as
a passer as D'Angel Russell was, so like, I expect
him to be a guy to help unlock Anthony Davis offensively.
I thought it was a really just savvy move from
(17:48):
that front office. And it looks like he's going to
start the season as the starting point guard, so they're
gonna need d Low to be good. And again, like,
as long as that can be addressed at some point
during the season, whether that's Kyrie Irving turning at some
point or that's a trade that balances the roster to
bring in another ball handler, I am perfectly fine with
d Angela Russell being my starting point guard in the
(18:10):
regular season because I think he's a good floor raising
offensive talent in the NBA regular season. They also added
Dennis Smith for more depth in ball handling. This is
one of the most talented rosters in the league, just
in a very unbalanced kind of way, right, Like, let
me just read these names. This is their top nine players.
(18:32):
Anthony Davis, Cooper Flagg, Klay Thompson, PJ. Washington, Derek Lively,
Max Christie, who I think is really good covered him
with the Lakers two, Daniel Gafford, D'angela Russell, and Njie Marshall.
That's a sick top nine. That's a lot of really
good players. It's just that three of those dudes are
centers and only one of those dudes is actually a
(18:54):
professional ball handler, and ideally he'd be coming off the
bench for you. It makes this such a funky kind
of situation going on in Dallas. In many ways, I
think Cooper Flag and Anthony Davis are going to be
the key to the offensive end of the floor. Cooper's
gonna have to handle the ball a ton because they're
light on ball handling. Dallas straight up asked him to
(19:15):
do that in summer league. I was there, I got
to see it in person, and like, honestly, I was impressed.
I was impressed by the way he handled ball pressure.
I was impressed by his willingness to take simple reads
that were available to him. I think that's such a
key to game management and high level ball handling in
the NBA. But obviously at the NBA level it gets
different once you actually go from summer league to the
real NBA. It's different. His shot making, for instance, in
(19:37):
Vegas was so so and inconsistent. He'll need to learn
quickly on the job there. That's going to be a
big swing. And for Anthony Davis, it's very important that
he's able to play the four because otherwise you won't
be able to find minutes for their center rotation. Like
if Ad can't find a way to play the four,
then you got to get rid of want of Gafford
or Lively. It's just a waste of talent on that
(19:58):
particular roster, right. But that's going to require Anthony Davis
to reach a certain level of offensive polish that he
just hasn't really shown since the bubble. So all eyes
in the early season are going to be on Cooper
Flag and Anthony Davis and their overall offensive polish and
how well they can handle their elevated roles on that
side of the floor compared to what they've dealt with
(20:19):
in recent years. The lack of roster balance is probably
what will take them directly to a first round exit. Like,
even if Kyrie Irving returns, it's hard to believe they
can beat the top teams in the West with their
lack of overall playmaking. But make no mistake, this is
still going to be a super fun team to watch
and they're going to win a lot of regular season games.
(20:41):
They can take so many different shapes that can go small,
like the Lakers lineups with like DLO and Max Christy
in the backcourt, Anthony Davis at the five, Klay Thompson
and Cooper Flag in the middle. They can go huge
with Derek Lively, Anthony Davis, Cooper Flag, Klay Thompson, and
like switch everything with that two through four. Even d LO,
(21:04):
if you have to play him with those groups and
you need to leave him on an island and switches,
you're backing him up with three ridiculously rangy athletes. So like,
if you're gonna play a certain type of switching defense.
It would work with d Lo in that situation better
than it would work anywhere else. Like they're even if
they deal with some injuries, they are just so deep
(21:26):
with defensive talent that they're almost certainly going to be
a top five defense in the league. I would be
stunned if they didn't lead the league in points in
the paint defense or block shots like. They're going to
cause massive problems with their rangey, length and athleticism in
the front court for teams. Their ceiling if you want
(21:47):
something more than a first round exit, which is what
it feels destined for, and maybe second round if Kyrie
can come back. For them to have a ceiling beyond that,
it's going to come down to them pulling off some
kind of mid season trade. What kind of player or
players can they get back as they try to balance
the roster from the kind of like plethora of talent
(22:10):
they have at certain position groups versus the vacancies they
have at other groups. I also think this is going
to be an interesting test of Jason Kidd. When you
don't have really high level ball handling that can set
teams up with it to set your players up with advantages,
then you need to do that schematically. Anthony Davis is
(22:30):
not a guy that has shown really high level shot
creation in his career. Even just out of the post.
He struggled to handle double teams for the majority of
his career. So Jason Kidds schematically is going to have
to find ways to make things easier for his ball handlers.
Get them with an advantage three man action every time
Cooper or Clay's involved. Get them coming off of multiple
(22:51):
screens so they have an easier chance to get downhill
and weaponize their skill from that point. Help for d
Lo and ball screens. A lot of double drags, horns,
stack action, anything that gets d Low into a situation
where it's easier for him to get downhill into the
paint where he can be a problem with this floater
and his passing ability if he can't get past that
(23:11):
initial defender. It's going to be a lot of tough
mid rangers and tough contested pull up threes. So, like
Jason Kidds schematically is going to have a heavier load
this year in terms of setting this team up with
the advantages they're going to need with their lack of
like supreme advantage creation if that makes sense. But again,
Dallas is gonna be fun team to watch. They're just
another one of these really funky teams in this division
(23:32):
next to San Antonio Spurs. They lost Charles Bassi, Malachi Branham,
Sandra Mamokelos Villike Wesley, and Chris Paul. They had a
Carter Bryant, who's a D and three wing out of Arizona.
He was one of the most exciting players to watch
in Summer League. He did a really nice job making
Cooper Flag work really hard. Again, Cooper handled the ball
pressure well but I was also impressed by the ball pressure,
(23:54):
if that makes sense. But didn't shoot the ball super
well there, But I like his form, so I think
it's possible that his long as he just keeps repping
it out, that he can become a reliable three and
D weapon in the league. Alike to that as a pickup. Also,
this is a team that kind of needed more of
like a rangy perimeter forward. It was kind of a
position that was missing on the roster. Harrison Barnes at
his age more of a four obviously, Jeremy Sohan with
(24:18):
his lack of perimeter shooting abilities more of a four.
So like card Carter Bryant becoming like a legitimate three
and d Wing would be a big swing for San
Antonio's future. They got Dylan Harper, number two pick in
the draft, obviously a super high upside guard. A lot
of people just kind of talk about him as like
a left handed shake Yaldes Alexander. I see some similarities there,
but he's super young and super raw, so it's a
(24:38):
lot of a distance between where he is now and
whatever that version of him would be. Luke Cornette and
Kelly Olenick we covered this in our player ranking series,
but I'm actually very optimistic about Dearon Fox and Victor
wemen Yama and how they fit together on both ends
of the floor. On defense, Victor is this insane ground
covering mistake of racing rim protector, and Darren Fox is
(25:01):
like a fod aggressive turnover forcing guard that can give
up dribble penetration. So I think they're kind of a
natural compliment for each other on that side of the floor.
Then an offense, I know the handful of reps they
got last year didn't look great before the injury, but
I'm optimistic for several reasons, Like I think Dearen speed
is just a tough adjustment in terms of getting to
(25:23):
the point where they understand the right timing for how
to run ball screens. It's going to take a lot
of reps for those two to figure that timing out,
like when and where to screen, when and where to roll,
where Daron Fox is scoring opportunities are. I think that
will all take time, so like look for them to
start clicking on the offensive end of the floor a
couple of months into the season, not necessarily right away.
(25:44):
The second piece of it is Fox's shot making. He
just had a down year as a shot maker, especially
from three, and I expect him to have a bounce
back season there. That, coupled with internal improvement from Victor,
who I expect to continue to take insane leaps on
the offensive end of the floor, should to a devastating
two man attack in time. Everything else with san Antonio's
(26:05):
ball handling, I'm sure will be an adventure. Because they're
also young. Devin Vessel has made strides, especially as a scorer.
He's actually becoming a very nice one on one player.
He's just really good at rising up over the top
and shooting. He'll get in ISOs at a live dribbles
at the top of the key, and he'll just kind
of lull the guy to sleep with kind of a
slow dribble and he'll just elevate over the top. He's
got he can rise in fire going both ways, especially
(26:27):
going over his left shoulders. He can just dribble to
his spot and even if the defender's there, he'll just
shoot over the top. He's got a really high release
point and he shoots well over contests, which seems to
seems to work really well for him. He's built out
like a face up game, like a high post like
turn and face triple threat shoot over the top type
of game. He's become an Isottle one on one player,
but he hasn't really developed into much of a playmaker
(26:48):
yet at this point in his career. This guy's the
limit for Stefan Cassel, obviously, but he's still super raw.
He shot thirty one percent on jump shots last year
and he made less than half of his layups. There's
a lot of high upside there in visual games where
he was awesome. I'm a big believer in him, but
I think we're years away from getting reliably great Stefan
Castle and then Dylan Harper's a rookie. Like for all
(27:11):
of the talk about Victor wiman Yama's individual improvement, I
had him at seventh in my player ranking, so I'm
a big believer that he's gonna take another leap this
year the Spurs. There's all this talk about the Spurs
as a team like making a leap into the middle
of the pack in the West, and I just don't
think they necessarily have the talent. They're gonna need at
least one of those guards to really pop this year
(27:34):
if they're gonna make the playoffs. In my opinion, I
like the backup center rotation. I think Cornett's a good player.
He's got good size, he plays super hard, He's always
in the right spot, So that makes him like a
dependable nights to night, high floor kind of guy. In
Victor's ability to shoot the ball makes it so that
you can play both of them alongside each other. And
then Kelly Olynok basically gives them a true two big
(27:55):
five out spacing option, and I like that because that's
gonna give Victor all sorts of space in the middle
of the floor to work one on one. We saw
him have a lot of success attacking from the elbows
last year, So like that's something where I think Kelly
Olnik will help them have more versatility in ways to
give Victor size while having opportunities to attack. I'm always
(28:16):
getting yelled at by Spurs fans for not believing in
their team, which sucks because I really want them to
be good. And like I said, I'm a huge fan
of Victor women Yama. I mean he's even a big
Star Wars fan. You have to imagine, like, I love Victor,
I want the best for him. I want the best
for the Spurs. I believe he's going to take a
massive leap this year. But I just don't think this
roster has enough really good players to contend in the
(28:37):
Western Conference. After Deer and Fox and Victor wemen Yama,
it's a lot of flawed basketball players. A lot of
guys with real potential, like real upside, but a lot
of guys that come with big question marks. And again,
when you go to the other teams in the West,
they're just stacked with talent. Like take a random middle
of the West team that everyone views as a second
tier contender, like the Minnesota Timberwolves. They have Anthony Edwards,
(29:01):
Julius Randall, Rudy Gobert, nas Reed, Jayden McDaniels. That's five
really high level players. The Spurs have two really high
level players. They have guys that can become really high
level players, but right now they have two of them.
So like I just, I literally just impure talent. Don't
(29:21):
think they have what they need to truly threaten, like
to get up above the play in So I think
a successful season for the Spurs would be getting into
like the seventh or the eighth seed, winning a game there,
or getting into the ninth or tenth seed, winning two
games there, and getting into a first round playoff series
so that we can have a look at Victor women
Yama against a team like Denver Oklahoma City. That I
(29:43):
think would be a win for San Antonio this year
given the talent that they have on this roster. I'm
also very excited just to see what Victor can accomplish
this year. I put him at seven in our player
rankings because I think he's going to leap into that
superstar tier. I think like twenty seven point twelve rebounds,
five assists, sixty two percent true shooting, five stocks, far
(30:06):
and away the best defensive player in the league. I
think that's all on the table for him. That's like
a real potential outcome, and I think that is going
to be that like benchmark to at least see where
Victor's progressing, even if this roster can't get to where
they need to go yet. All Right, I'm gonna go
a bit quicker on these last two. The Memphis Grizzlies
lost Marvin Bagley Desmond Baine in the Orlando trade with
(30:28):
KCP James Huff and Luke Canard. They added Contavio's Callbo
Pope their lottery pick, with Cedric Coward kind of a
three and D wing prospect, insanely long arms, a lot
of potential upside there. Ty Jerome. I thought Ty was
the best backup guard in the league. Last year. He
had by far the best floater in the league. He
absolutely torched teams and pick a role, especially to start
fourth quarters, and often he would close the deal before
(30:50):
Cleveland starters even needed to come in and do the
job themselves. He did flame out rather spectacularly in the playoffs,
though his pull up three point shooting completely failed in
His floater completely failed him, and then he got relentlessly
picked on by Indiana's guards on the other end of
the floor. So if you're a Grizzlies fan and you're
looking for upside here, you're just hoping that that was
an outlier and that he's going to get back to
(31:11):
kicking ass this year, add a little bit of that
extra physicality and athleticism that he needs in the weight
room in order to thrive when he gets to the postseason.
Conditioning is also a big part of that as well.
They also had a jock landale is backup big and
they took a flyer on Olivia Maxon's prosper the athletic
forward that Dallas let go of that we were just
talking about. It feels like a gap year from Memphis
(31:32):
in a lot of ways, which is disappointing when it
kind of just feels like they wasted two years in
a row. Last year was bizarre. Pre All Star they
had the fourth best record in the NBA. They had
the fifth best offense in the league and the seventh
best defense, a team that we took genuinely seriously as
one of those top eight teams in the league, and
they were so bad down the stretch that we viewed
(31:53):
them in that eighth seed as like the one team
in the playoff eight that just didn't make sense to
be there. They were twelve and sixteen over their final
twenty eight games, bottom half of the league in both
offense and defense. The biggest obvious difference between the two
phases of the season was just they changed the way
they played on offense. They went from John Morant being
at a twenty nine point nine percent usage rate, averaging
(32:15):
about twenty one points per game, not even the leading
scorer on the team, almost no pick and roll relative
to what they were running in years past, a lot
of just like dribble drive attack and it was working
and they kind of just went away from it. Jaw's
usage rate skyrocketed up to thirty three point four post
All Star Break, he averaged twenty seven points per game,
(32:35):
but that that's when they started losing and they ran
a ton more pick and roll. Its crazy stat Jah
didn't shoot out a pick and roll more than ten
times in a game until January thirteenth against Houston, but
then from there he did so eleven times the rest
of the year. So they changed the way they were
playing on offense and it didn't work. It's tough because
(32:57):
on the one hand, I remain a big in John
Murran's core talent. I think he has a legit superstar
foundational skill, the ability to be anyone in the league
off the dribble to get into the paint, and he
combines it with short range scoring, which I always have
placed a ton of value on that short range scoring
(33:18):
because it's reliable late game scoring and John's legitimately great
at it, and there just aren't that many guys in
the league that like legitimately have a foundational superstar level talent.
Jo's one of those guys. But we're heading into year
seven now, and we're basically heading backwards. Jos declined basically
(33:41):
across the board in four consecutive seasons, so in many ways,
this feels like the last hurrah. If John doesn't come
out this season and show a substantial improvement with real
superstar upside, I think Memphis is going to have to
look towards the next era of Grizzlies basketball. I mean,
they basically already are off his trades. Desmond Bain, who's
(34:01):
a better player for Contavious calbwoll Pope. That's basically a
statement from the front office that they're more interested in
accumulating assets than they are in accumulating talent, at least
when I say when I say talent, I mean veteran
talent that's ready to win now. And that's the thing.
Like KCP would have been that veteran piece to add
to try to win now a couple of years ago.
(34:22):
But Desmond Bain is a better basketball player than him,
and Desmond Bain has been a consistent staple for this
Grizzlies team over the years, and they punted on it
this This roster this year is just not as good
as last year's roster was. And so again, like the
front office is already starting to show those signs, like
they're not pushing chips in to try to make a
run with Jaw, they're making asset related decisions because they're
(34:46):
kind of holding pat to see what Jo's got. And
so this year is the year. Jow's got to come
out this year and kick ass and remind everybody who
he is, to get this team to remind to remember
that he's worth building around. It is on Jaw. There's
no one else to blame here. The numbers are undeniable.
(35:06):
With his decline over the last few years, he has
to come out and remind everybody what he's capable of
this year. Lastly, the New Orleans Pelicans, they had an
insane amount of roster turnover. They lost Bruce Brown, CJ. McCollum,
Kelly Olynnock, and a half dozen other young players. They
added Jordan Poole, and we'll talk about in a minute.
Derek Queen as our lottery pick, a big post player
(35:27):
out of Maryland. Kevon Looney a solid backup center, awesome
screener for a guy like Jordan Poole, and is a
very good rebounder as well. Sadiq Bay a small forward
who have always liked, a big, strong, athletic Ford who
missed last year with the torn acl He's like pretty
good at everything, so I think that he's a good
guy to add into the rotation. And then again a
half dozen other young players, a lot of young player
turnover on the roster. I want to start with Jordan Poole.
(35:50):
He hasn't been my favorite guard in the league, but
he is a high upside option. I had some Wizards
fans tell me that they've loved how much that he's
matured in his time in Washington and that he actually
had become a solid leader of the team, and he
had a like really impressive season. Statistically, he ran seven
hundred and sixty six pick and rolls perc entergy and
got one point zero three points per possession including passes.
(36:13):
That's sixty nine percentile. It's pretty impressive on high volume.
He shot thirty nine percent on pull up threes on
insane volume. He made one hundred and thirty two pull
up threes. That was the eighth most in the entire NBA,
and he shot a higher percentage on those pull up
threes than every one of the seven guys that was
above him on that list, including Steph Curry, Like he
(36:35):
made one thirty two, Steph made one fifty something, and
Steph was like in the like thirty six and a
half percent, and Jordan Poole was like thirty nine and
a half percent. That's an incredibly impressive stat He was
also fifty nine percent at the rim, which I actually
think is a really impressive number for a player that's
kind of of his slight build. Although I think he's
an underrated athlete, really enjoyed in our rewatch when we
(36:57):
watched Game two, Game four of the he does a
twenty two NBA Finals against Boston, Jordan Poole came in
in that first half and just had a scoring burst,
and it was just like a reminder that of like,
he's got a decent track record of getting some big
buckets and big spots for a championship team. I just
thought this was a really nice talent play for Joe
Dumars and the Pelicans. You needed some upside, and Jordan
(37:18):
brings upside. Then you have to be excited about Skinny Zion.
Zion showed up for media day looking like he was
in the best shape that he's been in a long time.
And we all know that when Zion is healthy, in shape, fast, quick, explosive,
all of those things, he becomes one of the best
offensive players in the league because no one can keep
him in front, and he can finish at the rim
(37:39):
at an extremely high rate, and he can pass out
of help that comes in those situations. So that's super exciting.
I mean, the Pelicans are really far away from actually
winning anything substantial in the West, but they do have
some exciting young talent. Zion if he's in shape, different
type outlook for the future. Right Jordan Poole we just
talked about a high upside guard. Trey Murphy continues to
(38:00):
show growth on the offensive ended floor. Herb Jones is
one of the best. Herb Jones is one of the
best three and D wings in the league. They'll at
the very least be fun to watch this year. I'm
excited to see what the young Pelicans have for us.
All right, guys, It's all I have for today is
always to sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and
supporting the show. We'll be back on Friday with one
more set of season previews before we get into our
contender rankings and awards predictions and a mail bag next week,
(38:23):
and then after that, like we are, we're covering NBA basketball.
I appreciate you guys for supporting us. Like I said,
we'll also have another preseason reaction on Monday, going over
some of the preseason games from the last week. I
will see you guys on Friday.
Host
Jason Timpf
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!