August 1, 2025 • 36 mins
Jason answers mailbag questions about his NBA player rankings list including on where Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton, Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum, and Portland Trail Blazers / Milwaukee Bucks guard Damian Lillard would rank if they were entering the season healthy. He also discusses why he put Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray ahead of New York Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns and Los Angeles Clippers guard James Harden, what Los Angeles Lakers guard Austin Reaves would have to do to crack the top 25, and why he has LeBron James inside the top 10.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
All right, well, good hoops tonight here at the volume
heavy Friday. Everybody, oh ball, if you guys are having
a great end to your week. It's our first mail
bag that will be debating our player rankings. Lots of
similar complaints down the list. Obviously, as you guys know,
I'm leaving, I'm leaving effect that I'm recording this on Tuesday,
the twenty ninth. I'm leaving on the thirtieth to go
to Alaska. So our first mail bag is going to
(00:35):
be primarily focused on that first video. So like final cuts,
questions about Kat and James Harden, complaints about Jamal Murray,
some talks along those lines, and then a lot of
people are wondering where the injured guys would have ranked,
guys like Tyrese Haliburt and Jason Tatum and Damian Lillard.
So we'll talk a little bit about that. For our
mail bags that are going to cover the rest of
(00:56):
our player rankings list. It won't be until two fridays
from now because obviously I'll still be in Alaska, but
job plenty of time to if you guys disagree with
any of our player rankings at all, drop him in
the mail bag questions, and we'll get to them in
our Friday Debate mail bags over the course of the
rest of the summer. You guys have the Joe before
we get started. Subscribe to Hoops and O my YouTube channels.
(01:18):
You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me
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Don't forget about a podcast feed where we get your
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doing great work on our social media feeds Twitter, Instagram, Facebook,
and TikTok. Make sure you guys follow us there. In
last but not least, keep dropping those mail bag questions
like we saw, like we talked about earlier in the
YouTube comments, so we can get to them in our
(01:40):
Friday mail bags over the course of the rest of
the summer. All right, let's talk some basketball. So a
couple of similar questions like this, here's one. I totally
understand why you would leave someone like Tyre's Halliburton off
this list, but I also have to say I'm a
little bit frustrated with it because I think he made
some real strides this season, particularly in the playoffs. Could
we just get a general sense of where he would
rank if he went into the season hell, because I'm
really curious if you would rank him top fifteen or
(02:03):
top ten. Similarly, had someone ask about Tatum and Damian
Lillard as well. So obviously I'm not gonna reveal the
top part of my list and talk about like where
they rank in respect to other players, because that would
kind of spoil the whole version, the whole reason why
we're doing this list. But what I will do is
I will tell you, guys where I would place all
of these three guys strictly by number going into next
(02:26):
season if there was no Achilles tear and they were
going into next season at one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Jason Tatum, to me, would be the easiest one. I
had a really hard time with the number five spot.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I viewed there to be four players that are the
clear top tier guys in the league. You can all
probably guess who those guys are. We'll get to the
order when we get there, and then after that you
fall into that second tier superstars, and kind of what
I've viewed as the differentiator is like the top tier
guys are just like consistently night tonight at that top
tier level, whereas the next tier for whether whatever reason,
if it's because they're just old, or they've had really
(02:59):
bad injury luck over the years, or maybe they're too young,
and so they're kind of sporadic in their quality of
play just simply because they're inconsistent young basketball players. All
those players can reach the top tier of Superstar play,
but they're inconsistent in one reason or another. And I think, Tyree,
I think Jason Tatum very clearly to me, is in
(03:21):
between those two groups. He still has these frustrating moments
like he fell apart in the playoffs, in fell apart
as a jump shooter in the playoffs, in the title
run or last year, he was like so good, and
then in the first couple games of the Knick series
he's like abysmally bad. He's just not quite as consistent
as the four guys above him. But there's also no
(03:42):
way you can argue any of the guys below him
ahead of him anywhere at this point. So like Jason
Tatum to me is like the most obvious guy on
the entire list, aside from the number one spot. It's
like you cannot argue anybody below him above him, and
you can't argue anybody above him below him. He's like
the most clear cut obvious number five on this list.
(04:04):
If he's healthy, you guys will find out who I
have at number five when we get there. Tyre's Aliburton
would come in at number nine for me. Now again,
this is firmly on that next tier. These are all
guys that you could argue him as high as number five,
or you could argue him as low as number fourteen.
In my opinion, I'm extremely high on these like advantage
creator offensive engine types like Tyrese Haliburton, Like it's hard
(04:27):
to explain, but above and beyond anything that would show
up in Tyreese Haliburton's box scores, he is the engine
that drives the Indiana Pacers. They play the way they
play because of him. And so even though his scoring
volume isn't anything exceptional, and obviously he puts up big
assist totals, but the box score doesn't look like a
guy who's like driving a ton of offense. But he
(04:49):
is flat out obviously driving a ton of offense for
the Pacers, And I thought it was evident by the
fact that they just really struggled to score when he
was off the floor last year in the postseason. I
just view him as one of the top tier offensive
engines in the NBA. Even though the scoring volume isn't
anything like exceptional. He somehow just finds a way to
score enough to give his team what they need, including
(05:11):
the craziest stretch of clutch shooting I've ever seen in
my life, hitting game winners in every single round of
the playoffs. He's he hit the first NBA Finals game
winners since Michael Jordan did almost thirty years ago. So
it's a total package of offense that is more than
enough to be one of the great offensive engines in
the league, which is going to put you very high
on my list no matter what. I also think he's
(05:34):
an underrated defender. He's fast, he does his job within
the defensive scheme. He's got good length and active hands,
so he gets lots of deflections and lots of steals.
So if you give me like a bona fide top
tier offensive engine with decent scoring chops and you can
realistically build a good playoff defense around him, that's a
(05:54):
top ten player in the modern NBA. So I had
Tyrese Halliburton at number nine Dame For me, this a
little tougher. I I think I'd put him right around
number twenty. He scored thirty points in just one of
his last seventeen games last season, including the playoffs. He
was clearly losing some of that juice before the injury.
(06:14):
He was already a bad defender, but he became a
truly awful defender when he was in Milwaukee. I was
just much lower on him than most people before the injury,
and I loved him. I'm a big believer in what
he was when he was at his peak, but he
just clearly is on the other side of the hill
at this point. I would have had him down at
number twenty. A couple of questions along these lines, Like Kat,
(06:35):
it was all NBA, So how did he not make
your top twenty five based on him making an Eastern
Conference Finals run.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Here's another one.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
I got Cat not making the list as wild To me,
there's no big in the East better than Kat, especially
when you add the durability factor. Unless you just have
Jokic as the only big in the top twenty five.
You talk about not being able to scale up with
him defensively in the playoffs. But Kat has been a
major contributor in the best defense in the NBA and
locked up the MVP in a game set. And you
also talk about his Game six in Indiana, But before
(07:03):
Game six, there was a Game three the Knicks were
on the brink of going down three to zero and
Kat carried all by himself. That isn't scaling up in
the biggest moment. I don't know what is Murray ahead
of Kat is ridiculous. So I want to get I
want to start with I have a lot of people
complaining about Jamal Murray and including Nuggets fans, which is
the funny part. I think some of that stems from
(07:25):
there is a good amount of just like natural frustration
with Jamal for not reaching his individual ceiling as a
player the way that he should have. But I think
it extends beyond to like, I think there's a lot
of like Jokic Stan behavior. And I've seen this with
Lebron fans over the years. I've seen this with Steph
fans over the years. They always like get super hyper
(07:45):
critical of teammates and then never criticize their guy. That's
the thing like, and that's that's the thing that gets
kind of frustrating. You guys know, I'm a big Lebron fan.
I have ripped him many new ones on this show before. Right, Like,
there's a certain amount of like stand behavior where it's
like we're going to elevate our star by like being
hyper critical of the other guy. And that's not to
(08:05):
say that Jamal has some sort of you know, perfect
criticism proof resume. Of course he doesn't. He deserves some
of the criticism that he gets. But I think that's
why we see so much negativity from Nuggets fans regarding
Jamal Murray. For me, like I would start with like
Murray and Kat, and then I'll talk a little bit
about Kat individually. So putting Jamal Murray over Kat was
(08:28):
a relatively easy decision for me. I think he's I
think he's a better playoff score. I just think he is.
Even just last year, Jamal Murray had a higher point
per game average and was roughly in the same neighborhood
of efficiency in the high fifties. I think over the years,
from playoff run to playoff run, he's been a more
dependable playoff score. He's been like, arguably the best clutch
(08:52):
shot maker in the NBA over the last three playoff runs. Like,
I think he's a better passer. I literally just think
Jamal Murray's a better place player than Karl Anthony Town's
on offense and on defense. I don't think Jamal Murray
is a good defender by any stretch of the imagination,
but you can build a defensive scheme around Jamal. He's
going to do his job. He's not a downright damaging defender.
(09:14):
So like, honestly, putting Jamal Murray ahead of Karl Anthony
Towns was kind of an easy decision for me. The
discussion between him and James Harden gets a little bit
more complicated, which we'll get to in a later question.
But as I zum it on Kat before we move
on again, like when you look at the Knicks and
the big picture, there were some big moments, right, Like
you're right, Kat had a massive comeback at the tail
(09:38):
end of Game three, Right, that was an amazing performance
from him beating the Celtics. That was a big moment
for the Knicks in this postseason run. You know, obviously
upsetting the team that I picked to win the title
last year. But if you zoom out from that. It
has been an incredibly disappointing season for the Knicks. They
(09:58):
made all those moves and they wanted to be like
one of the bona fide top tier contenders in the league,
and they came right out the gates and got the
living shit kicked out of them by Boston. All season long,
they underachieved on defense and pretty consistently were farther below
in the standings than where they should have been for
a team as talented as they were. They were downright
abysmal every single time they played one of the top
(10:19):
teams in the league. What did they go like h
to eight or something like that against the top three
records in the NBA, Like, they just got their butts
kicked every time they played the good teams. I thought
they were disappointing against Detroit, that's a team they should
have disposed of in four or five games. They got
dragged to six and every game was close. And go
to the Pacers series, Yeah, sure you won Game five,
but you got ran out of the building basically the
(10:43):
rest of the series, in large part because Karl Anthony
Towns was downright damaging to your defensive scheme. That was
not just a playoff series problem. That was not just
an Indiana Pacers problem. That was not just a Detroit
Pistons problem. That was an entire season from October all
the way to late May when you got eliminated. Karl
(11:03):
Anthony Towns was a problem for your ability to run
that like coherent defensive scheme. There are certain things that
are like out of your control, right Like Jamal Murray's
had some rough shooting performances over the years in the playoffs.
There's a certain amount of that that is just basketball.
Like guys like Carl Anthony Towns. You remember last year
two years ago in the Dallas Maverick Series and the
(11:24):
conference finals where he just couldn't make a three point
shot to save his life. That's just basketball, brother, that's basketball.
Sometimes the jump shots don't go in. Sometimes they don't
go in for Cat, sometimes they don't go in for Jamal.
That is literally just basketball. The floor, the basement of
who you are as a basketball player is what happens
(11:44):
when those shots aren't going in. And I can trust Jamal,
let's just say take a replacement level player. So if
you could take Jamal in a replacement level center or
Karl Anthony Towns in a replacement level guard which player
which combination there do you have a better chance to
build a functional playoff defense, a functional playoff like foundation floor.
(12:10):
I like my chances with Jamal. Karl Anthony Towns is
the type of player that kind of prevents you from
ever winning the championship. If he is your foundational center,
you have to surround him with such an insane amount
of talent to cover for his weaknesses on the back
line defensively, the reckless hedges, the bad floor balance, the
(12:31):
bad transition defense, getting just out run up and down
the floor by opposing bigs. Every single time I was
watching the Knicks tape last year, Karl Anthony Towns was
front and center on their defensive issues. Even Jalen Brunson,
for the issues that he had, I never felt like
Brunson was the breaking point of their defense the way
that Karl Anthony Towns was. It's just too low a floor.
(12:54):
And again, I want to be clear about where we
were arguing here. I had had at twenty seven, so
it's not like I had him demonstrably lower than where
you guys are arguing for him to be. I just
think a guy like Jamal is a better basketball player
for me to build around and to thrive in the
like in that like, they're both players that we're going
to consider to be number twos, right, Like, no one's
(13:16):
winning a championship of Cats your best player. No one's
winning a championship with Jamal Murray as your best player.
But in that secondary supporting star role. I like my
chances with Jamal Murray more than I like him with Cat.
It was pretty It was actually kind of an easy
decision for me. Okay, I'm gonna give you, guys one
of the James Harden comments, and I have like literally
(13:36):
like six that I mark down here, various people just
saying that they viewed James Harden as a as a
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(15:20):
I can't get with Jamal over Harden. Jamal has such
an advantage playing with Jokic that other guards don't. I
don't think it's fair to bring up his points per
possession in pick and roll when comparing him to other guards.
As for the playoffs, like you said, Jamal himself has
a lot of lows. I think if Harden had Jokic
taking up the defensive attention and pick and roll, he
would do much better than Murray and his playoff lows
wouldn't be as frequent or bad. He doesn't have the
(15:41):
same mid range that Jamal has coming off of a
Jokic screen, but in these recent years, Harden has been
more willing to take middies. Plus Harden's floaters in a
different tier than Jamal's, not to mention, He'll also do
a better job of running the offense in the non
Yokich minutes. And even if Jamal does fit better than
Joki with Jokic than Harden does. What about every other
team given the criteria is about their current team. If
Jamal Murray had to play in a physical playoff series
(16:03):
with Jokic, I think his production would pale in comparison
to Harden's. Jamal's struggles getting past good defenders, struggles generating
advantages for his teammates, and isn't in the same tier
as a passer as Harden. He also isn't as good
at beating bigs in switches. Plus, Harden is the more
valuable regular season player. Okay, So when we're talking about
this ranking, and so let's kind of zoom out a
(16:24):
little bit. Remember I'm having kat at twenty seven and
Harden at twenty six and Murray at twenty five. So
if I have Murray and Harden at twenty six and
twenty five, I have them very close.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
What that means is I leaned very slightly towards Jamal
over James Harden. So obviously James Harden has some advantages.
I agree. I think James Harden is the better regular
season player because he is the better offensive engine. I
agree too that if we plucked James Harden and just
put him on his own team where the only goal
(16:57):
is to just get through the regular season and get
beat in the first round, which is exactly what would
happen if Jamal was the best player on a team,
and exactly what would happen if James Harden is on
the best team. Yeah, James Harden's probably gonna give you
a little bit better regular season offense, but when you
get into the postseason, you consistently run into the same
issue with Jamal or with James Harden, which is, Jamal's
gonna shoot, Jamal is gonna be mentally engaged. Jamal is
(17:21):
a less damaging defender than James Harden. Jamal is going
to bring me a certain a certain floor as a
basketball player. Once we get into those high intensity playoff environments,
James Harden time and time and time and time and
time again, literally loses what makes him James Harden, like
he won't even look at the basket anymore. And you know,
(17:44):
I kind of push back on this idea that, oh, well,
Jamal has an advantage playing with Jokic. I literally watched
James Harden play with Joel Embiid, Joel Empiiede at the
peak of his powers with a very similar level of
role gravity when he would work his way in to
the mid range of the floor. What happened when they
got to the postseason. Outside of two games where James
(18:05):
Harden was great and hit a couple of game winners,
he was fucking terrible. He was fucking terrible again alongside
Joel Embiid. So like for all of the talk about like, well,
what if you gave Jamal you know, a different roster
and you gave James Harden some Apex superstar to play with,
We've literally seen that. We've literally seen it, and it
(18:26):
was the same. There are so many examples of James
Harden running into that exact same issue when they get
to the postseason that it similar to kat it almost
like disqualifies you from competing for a championship. The amount
of support you would have to have for James Harden,
Like you'd have to have so much support around James
Harden that you could weather him having a single digit
(18:48):
scoring game in a must win playoff game, Like not
just single digits, but single digit shot attempts, Like you
have to have so much support that you can bank,
like literally bank on James Harden completely shitting the bed
in a big moment and you still winning like that.
That's a lot to overcome because it happens literally year
after year after year after year after year after year
(19:08):
after year.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
It just is. It has happened too many times.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
So if we're talking about the ultimate goal of this,
and again, I agree, James Harden has some specific things
he's better at, Like he's better at getting to the
foul line. He's better I haven't looked at the floater stats,
but I think you're probably right if I remember correctly,
I think Harden's a better floater shooter. I think Carden
generally is a better regular season offensive engine. But if
our goal is to get from the first day of
the regular season to hoisting the trophy, I flat out
(19:34):
think that I have a better chance with Jamal Murray
because when we get to the postseason, I can count
on him to be roughly Jamal Murray at that point,
and in that environment, I can then at least count
on And again, we're talking about them in secondary roles here,
because neither of them are winning a championship in a
starting role. I can count on him at least pulling
his weight as that secondary player alongside Nikola Jokic in
(19:57):
a way that I could never count on James Harden
and doing that alongside Joe l Embiid, and that that
really is the uh is the separator. And like I've
had a lot of cause I had another question here
talking about Jamal. I'll read this one for you guys.
You keep seeing you guys can kind of get a
feel for how Nuggets fans feel. Not really a debate,
but I thought i'd throw this out anyways. I'm a
Nuggets fan and I love Jamal and everything he's done
(20:19):
for us, but he's a really he is really frustrating
as a fan because we've seen how highest ceiling can be,
and from the outside in looking in, it seems like
he's just satisfied with winning only one ring. He comes
into seasons out of shape, doesn't seem to take good
care of his body. He's flying the MMA fights, during
the playoffs or out of casinos. The narrative around Jamal
before twenty twenty three was he was a gym rat
and he worked incredibly hard. There was that famous story
(20:40):
that got mentioned during the title run a million times
by the announcers where his dad had him doing push
ups on ice and taught him to meditate for difficult moments.
Also almost as if he was training him to be
a fucking samurai. Where's that Jamal Murray? Like, seriously, what
happened between twenty twenty three and now I want to know?
Is the coaching staff and Nuggets oranization just letting his
(21:01):
lack of work ethics slide? Has nobody brought this up
to him? I don't know if the ACL tear in
twenty twenty one affected him more than people know, but
even though he's been in his late twenties, it seems
to he seems to have to wear and tear and
bodily breakdowns of a late thirty year old. Jason, do
you have any team insiders, I know you speak with
Adamars quite a bit that have given you any deeper
insight into the Jamal Murray situation. And now him and
(21:21):
the organization have handled his lack of conditioning.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
So that's a.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Really, really good comment that kind of gives you, guys,
like an understanding of how Nuggets fans feel about it,
and like, I want to be really clear about this.
In twenty twenty three, Jamal was in a different tier,
like he was one of those guys that on any
given night could rise to the level literally of the
top tier superstars. He average twenty six, six and seven
(21:45):
on sixty percent true shooting. He had like a ton
of like monster thirty thirty five point playoff games, tons
of huge shots, tough shots, and everyone's face. Like Jamal
was at a different level, is now a level below
that where in my opinion, he's worthy of the salary
that he's on, but you probably can't be the best
(22:06):
player on a championship team, and he clearly isn't in
that next tier the way that he was now. If
he can get back to that tier, I mean, if
Jamal Murray can get back to what he was in
twenty twenty three, you guys can just go ahead and
cash the check that Denver's gonna win the title next year,
because that's just an insanely good team. If you have
awesome Jamal Murray with Nikole Yoki's best player in the world,
with Aaron Gordon now able to shoot threes, with Cam
(22:28):
Johnson as a legitimate upgrade over Michael Porter Junior, and
a depth of talent beyond that, if Jamal gets back
to that level, cash the check. Denver's hoisting the trophy.
But as we look in that other tier, a couple
things I want to answer some of your specific questions.
When I've talked to Adam and other people around the Nuggets,
it's pretty simple.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
They are frustrated. They're frustrated, but.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
I think they all also are aware of the fact
that they need Jamal, and that's really the key. I
talked about this in my bit on Jamal Murray the
other day. But like, Jamal is a very rare combination
of like truly elite one on one scorer, but also
a high level pick and roll player. And like, yes,
(23:09):
I know that he plays alongside the best pick and
roll big in the league, And yes, that certainly makes
things easier for him. I don't want to like discount
that necessarily, But like he shoots over forty percent on
pull up threes, you don't think he'd be able to
do that in ball screen somewhere else. Like he is
a good floater shooter, He's an awesome mid range shot maker.
He is a legitimately great one on one player. Like
(23:31):
those are all traits that do translate elsewhere now in
his archetype as like a scoring guard, who's a mediocre playmaker.
He's a better playmaker than people think. He's over six
assists per games since his knee injury. But like as
a guy in that archetype, like he certainly if you
ask him to be the offensive engine for a team,
he's not gonna go win you the title. But neither
is James Harden, like we talked about, Like his archetype
(23:55):
is immensely valuable in the NBA and quite frankly indispensable
to what the Denver Nuggets are trying to do. I like,
if you swapped him, I mean, like literally, if you
swapped him for any other guard in the league that
is like in the similar kind of tiar or below him,
Like obviously Devin Booker would be awesome alongside Nikola Jokic,
(24:16):
Guys like that, Donovan Mitchell. These are all guys that
I have above Jamal Murray. But there's not a guard
like the guards that are below, like Jahn Morant's not
like a natural fit alongside Nikola Jokic. That's a weird,
clunky fit, you know, Like there's a read and react
element with Jamal Murray, with Nikola Jokic that is super important.
(24:37):
As you go further back on the list, like, I
don't think James Harden would be an awesome fit alongside
Nikola Jokic. Like, first of all, Jamal is a really
high IQ defender that's generally in the right spots and
does the right things in a big moment. James Harden
is the opposite of that. There's a certain amount of uh,
there's a certain amount of like straight up one on
one shot making from the mid range that Jamal has
(24:58):
that James Harden does not have. That's an important piece
of what Denver does against switching defenses. Like, I just
think Jamal's generally underrated. And like again, Nuggets fans disagree
with me, guys, this is just how I feel about
him as a basketball player. Next question, Hi, Jason, great
work as always. I really respect your basketball mind. Your
analysis consistently challenges me to think more deeply about the game.
(25:20):
You shift my perspective from just focusing on physical tools
and high end upside to considering a player's full impacting
growth that set. This might be one of those cases
where I'm still drawn to the upside, especially when it
comes to John Rank, Karl Anthony Towns versus Trey Young,
and Jamal Murray, particularly Jamal. I'll focus on Jaw for
this mailbag. While I agree with your point that he
hasn't added much to his game recently and he's missed
(25:41):
significant time, I still find his high end value as
a number one option hard to ignore. Even without the
notable development lately, his passing, rim pressure, and ability to
blow by defenders remain so freakishly etlite elite that I
think they outpace what Tray and Jamal bring, especially considering
Jamal as a number two option. To me, Jos still
has the potential to be the best player on a
championship team, even if that possibility is fading with time.
(26:02):
I don't feel the same way about Trey or Jamal.
So while I understand why John might be left off
a list like this, it's tough for me to give
Murray the nod over someone like Jaw who's already made
an All NBA team and carried a franchise. Curious how
much weight do you put on a player's role when
making these kinds of comparisons. Where do you draw the
line when deciding to rank a high level secondary option
like Murray over a true number one like job. Thanks again,
(26:23):
for all the great work looking forward to the next piece.
This is a great question, and I think there's two
angles that I want to get into. First of all,
once again, John only played in fifty games last year.
Once again John got hurt in the playoffs, couldn't finish
the series. It's not even the first time that's happened.
He managed to play in sixty games just once in
the last four years. So there's a theoretical element just
(26:45):
with him being able to stay on the floor. Then
there's another theoretical element, which is, like, anybody who's listened
to the show over the course of the last year
has seen I've three or four different times come on
the show and been like, John Morant has the potential
to be the best player on a championship team. I
genuinely agree with you, but he's not there yet. In
order for him to get to that point, he needs
to turn He's a jaw like, we'll have these really
(27:07):
good defensive possessions. He needs to turn that into a
higher floor where he's more consistent possession to possession. Right
on offense, there's a jump shooting piece and a playmaking
piece that he needs to continue to refine over time,
there's a decision making at the rim piece that he
has to refine over time. He has the potential to
be the best player on a championship team, but right
(27:27):
now he is neither that nor available. So when I'm
looking at this season, just this season, like if you're
asking me who do I want for the next five years,
John Ray or Jamal Murray, different question, but specifically for
this list, when we're just talking about who's the best
guy for me to have to lead this team this
coming year from October to June, I feel like I
(27:51):
can count on more from Jamal Murray than the super
wide range of outcomes from job. Now, for the record,
I know that there's a chance that Jaw happens to
come into camp in great shape and puts on a
little bit more muscle, takes really good care of his body,
plays seventy games, spends all summer in the gym working
on his three point shot, shoots thirty eight percent from
(28:12):
three finishes fourth and MVP voting. Memphis gets the five
or four seed, and he just looks fucking awesome. They
win a couple playoff rounds, losing the conference finals. That
is an upside that Jaw has that. I know Jamal
is not going to do this year obviously, right, But
that's the high end of the potential John Morant outcomes.
(28:35):
There's a very wide range of outcomes, and there's one
over here where they miss the playoffs. He plays in
forty three games and they and he shoots twenty eight
percent from three. That's still a potential outcome for John
Ran And I'd argue that's every bit as likely, if
not more likely, than the top end of that spectrum.
(28:56):
And so I'm a believer in Josh talent. We've talked
about this, his supreme ability to beat p off the dribble.
I actually think he has a really reliable shot making
piece close to the basket in that like short range
and it pops up off the ground and shoots those
little floaters. I'm a believer in jaw. But it's theoretical
in terms of availability, and it's theoretical in terms of
upside right now. So yeah, John's probably going to be
in that twenty eight twenty nine range for me on
(29:17):
this list, but he didn't crack the top twenty five
for me because of that theoretical element.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Two more questions.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
These are both one related to the Lakers at large,
and another one is related to Lebron and his ranking
on this list, which we haven't gotten to yet, but
it's just more about theoretically where he would be. Hey, Jason,
I have a question, as a Lakers Austin Reeves fan,
what do you think Austin needs to add to his
game to breach this tier of top twenty five ish players.
He's obviously nowhere near guys like Trey joh and playoff Jamal,
(29:44):
but I wonder how long it'll take him to reach
a ceiling. Considering he's already twenty seven. It would be
interesting to see some of Austin's stats as an offensive engine,
close out attacking next to Luca and Lebron, his defense rebounding,
which is obviously an issue. Thanks keep it up. So
I think there's a couple pieces for Austin. I don't
know that he'll ever breach the top twenty five on
this list, but to me, it's more like can he
get into that top forty? Like can he get into
(30:04):
the list of guys that I'm considering for the top
twenty five?
Speaker 1 (30:07):
And you could.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
I actually had him on an early version of the
list when I had like forty seven names and then
I cut seven guys and Austin was one of those
guys that I got cut before I like refined it
down to forty.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
And it's a couple things.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
One physicality, Austin pretty generally, especially against teams that can switch,
struggles to deal with big, physical perimeter defenders. So like
putting on a little bit more muscle and just getting
a little bit better at shedding physical ball pressure I
think will go a long way towards helping him. And
then the second pieces is his inconsistent jump shooting, Like
he is just very streaky, especially from the three point
(30:41):
line and especially in catch and shoot situations, and that
is a thing that limits his off ball utility, especially
in the context of playing alongside a guy like Luka Doncic.
I want to see Austin improve just generally as a
jump shooter from the three point from the three point line,
and then again that strengthened physicality so that he can
deal with ball sure better than he has been last one.
(31:03):
This was just an opportunity for me to vent about something.
How do you justify having Lebron in the top ten
when the Lakers were almost two points per game better
without him than with him on the floor and go
to a from a positive to a negative plus minus team.
It clearly isn't because the Lakers bench is that dominant,
nor because he makes the key plays in fourth quarter,
and that wasn't the case for either ad or Luca
(31:25):
or the other two comparable players. Don't get me wrong,
Lebron is still good, but you simply aren't nowhere near
a top ten player if your team is better without
you than with you on the floor. So let's talk
about what this has been caused by so per cleaning
the glass. The Lakers this year were six point nine
points worse with Lebron on the floor versus off, so
he had a bad plus minus year. Okay, there are
(31:48):
some reasons for that, which we'll get into for a minute,
but I think it's fucking hilarious because every Lebron hater,
every troll account, every sports media personality that doesn't like
Lebron that wants to have a moment at his expense,
every single one of those guys has flocked to this
damn plus minus number like it is the last TV
(32:10):
on a sale rack on Black Friday, Like it is
crazy to watch them piranha around this stat like it's
the craziest Lebron truth, truth or moment in the history
of his career in the league. Let me just read
a couple stats for you. These are Lebron's plus minus
(32:30):
stats is on off numbers in a Lakers jersey over
the course of his entire tenure there so twenty twenty five. Yeah,
they were roughly seven points worse with Lebron on the
floor versus off twenty twenty four, eight point three points
better per one hundre possessions twenty twenty three, nine point
seven points better per one hundre possessions twenty twenty two
three point one points better those the worst Laker team
(32:51):
in that era that was after the Russell Westbrook trade.
Still three points better with Lebron on the on the
floor versus off twenty twenty one, thirteen points better per
one hundre possession with Lebron versus off twenty twenty eleven
points better, twenty nineteen, nine points better. So consistently, literally
every single year, except for the twenty twenty two year
where Ad was hurt the whole season and Russ was
(33:11):
on the team, he was at least eight points as
a positive plus minus guy on the floor versus off
He is consistently throughout his entire career for decades, the
plus minus monster of the NBA. And he has one
season where there's this obvious statistical outlier and every Lebron
hater flocked to it like it was the craziest fucking
(33:34):
thing in the world. And it's just so transparent because
every one of you who jump on that, you're just
telling on yourself as someone that's unwilling to look more
than two inches in front of your face, like this
is completely absurd. It is literally the definition of a
statistical outlier. Because of the injuries to Anthony Davis and
Luka Doncic last year, and because J. J. Reddick made
(33:56):
a decision to try to pair Austin with Anthony Davis
as much as possible because they needed each other for offense,
and he trusted Lebron to try to lead those groups.
Lebron had to play over eight hundred possessions last year
with Austin, Luca and ad all off the floor at
the same time, and those groups got absolutely rolled. They
(34:17):
were minus eight point four points per one hundred possessions.
That's awful and It's not hard to see why their
most used lineup in that data set had Christian Coloco
at center. That's a two way contract, Dalton Connect, a
rookie who you guys know, I'm just not very high on,
and gave Vincent and DiAngelo Russell, who probably shouldn't be
in any starting lineup anywhere around the league. Of course,
(34:37):
those groups were getting rolled. That large chunk of data
is the kind of thing that's one of the elements
that can lead to a statistical outlier. Another way to
look at it is like this, Austin Reeves was an
awesome plus minus guy for the Lakers last year. Do
you think Austin is a much better basketball player than
Lebron James or do you think that it was just statistical?
(35:00):
It was obviously statistical noise. We have decades worth of data,
including as recently as last year, and various points in
last excuse me, as recently as the year before last,
and even in last year certain stretches, like in the
middle of the season where Lebron is a plus minus
monster in between the Anthony Davis injury and Luka Doncic
joining the Lakers. He was incredible during that strays during
(35:22):
that phase. Do we have so much data where they're
just clearly better when he's on the floor versus off.
So all of you people who suddenly fixated on that metric,
you're literally making a fool of yourselves. You sound stupid
when you're talking about it. So, like, I just I
just had to take a second to get that off
my chest because it just is completely absurd that everyone's
jumped on that like it's some sort of revealing metric
(35:45):
that shows, like it's some conspiracy theory that has finally
been brought to light. Like, oh, yeah, you're right, guys,
Lebron actually hurts the team. He's playing for good one.
You did good stuff there. All right, guys, It's all
I have for today. As always, as sincerely appreciate you
guys for supporting us, in supporting the show.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Again.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
It's gonna be two weeks before our next player rankings
mail bag. I have a pre recorded one that we're
running next Friday, just because I'll be on the cruise
ship and it's just impossible for me to work in
that environment. But keep dropping your mailbag questions, any disagreements
in the mail uh. The YouTube videos from now to
two weeks from now, and you guys will get an
opportunity to get those questions in, and I will see
(36:21):
you guys then
The volume.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
All right, well, good hoops tonight here at the volume
heavy Friday. Everybody, oh ball, if you guys are having
a great end to your week. It's our first mail
bag that will be debating our player rankings. Lots of
similar complaints down the list. Obviously, as you guys know,
I'm leaving, I'm leaving effect that I'm recording this on Tuesday,
the twenty ninth. I'm leaving on the thirtieth to go
to Alaska. So our first mail bag is going to
(00:35):
be primarily focused on that first video. So like final cuts,
questions about Kat and James Harden, complaints about Jamal Murray,
some talks along those lines, and then a lot of
people are wondering where the injured guys would have ranked,
guys like Tyrese Haliburt and Jason Tatum and Damian Lillard.
So we'll talk a little bit about that. For our
mail bags that are going to cover the rest of
(00:56):
our player rankings list. It won't be until two fridays
from now because obviously I'll still be in Alaska, but
job plenty of time to if you guys disagree with
any of our player rankings at all, drop him in
the mail bag questions, and we'll get to them in
our Friday Debate mail bags over the course of the
rest of the summer. You guys have the Joe before
we get started. Subscribe to Hoops and O my YouTube channels.
(01:18):
You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me
on Twitter, Underscore, json LTC. You guys don't miss show announcements.
Don't forget about a podcast feed where we get your
podcast uner Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you
leave a rating and a review on that front. Jackson's
doing great work on our social media feeds Twitter, Instagram, Facebook,
and TikTok. Make sure you guys follow us there. In
last but not least, keep dropping those mail bag questions
like we saw, like we talked about earlier in the
YouTube comments, so we can get to them in our
(01:40):
Friday mail bags over the course of the rest of
the summer. All right, let's talk some basketball. So a
couple of similar questions like this, here's one. I totally
understand why you would leave someone like Tyre's Halliburton off
this list, but I also have to say I'm a
little bit frustrated with it because I think he made
some real strides this season, particularly in the playoffs. Could
we just get a general sense of where he would
rank if he went into the season hell, because I'm
really curious if you would rank him top fifteen or
(02:03):
top ten. Similarly, had someone ask about Tatum and Damian
Lillard as well. So obviously I'm not gonna reveal the
top part of my list and talk about like where
they rank in respect to other players, because that would
kind of spoil the whole version, the whole reason why
we're doing this list. But what I will do is
I will tell you, guys where I would place all
of these three guys strictly by number going into next
(02:26):
season if there was no Achilles tear and they were
going into next season at one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Jason Tatum, to me, would be the easiest one. I
had a really hard time with the number five spot.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I viewed there to be four players that are the
clear top tier guys in the league. You can all
probably guess who those guys are. We'll get to the
order when we get there, and then after that you
fall into that second tier superstars, and kind of what
I've viewed as the differentiator is like the top tier
guys are just like consistently night tonight at that top
tier level, whereas the next tier for whether whatever reason,
if it's because they're just old, or they've had really
(02:59):
bad injury luck over the years, or maybe they're too young,
and so they're kind of sporadic in their quality of
play just simply because they're inconsistent young basketball players. All
those players can reach the top tier of Superstar play,
but they're inconsistent in one reason or another. And I think, Tyree,
I think Jason Tatum very clearly to me, is in
(03:21):
between those two groups. He still has these frustrating moments
like he fell apart in the playoffs, in fell apart
as a jump shooter in the playoffs, in the title
run or last year, he was like so good, and
then in the first couple games of the Knick series
he's like abysmally bad. He's just not quite as consistent
as the four guys above him. But there's also no
(03:42):
way you can argue any of the guys below him
ahead of him anywhere at this point. So like Jason
Tatum to me is like the most obvious guy on
the entire list, aside from the number one spot. It's
like you cannot argue anybody below him above him, and
you can't argue anybody above him below him. He's like
the most clear cut obvious number five on this list.
(04:04):
If he's healthy, you guys will find out who I
have at number five when we get there. Tyre's Aliburton
would come in at number nine for me. Now again,
this is firmly on that next tier. These are all
guys that you could argue him as high as number five,
or you could argue him as low as number fourteen.
In my opinion, I'm extremely high on these like advantage
creator offensive engine types like Tyrese Haliburton, Like it's hard
(04:27):
to explain, but above and beyond anything that would show
up in Tyreese Haliburton's box scores, he is the engine
that drives the Indiana Pacers. They play the way they
play because of him. And so even though his scoring
volume isn't anything exceptional, and obviously he puts up big
assist totals, but the box score doesn't look like a
guy who's like driving a ton of offense. But he
(04:49):
is flat out obviously driving a ton of offense for
the Pacers, And I thought it was evident by the
fact that they just really struggled to score when he
was off the floor last year in the postseason. I
just view him as one of the top tier offensive
engines in the NBA. Even though the scoring volume isn't
anything like exceptional. He somehow just finds a way to
score enough to give his team what they need, including
(05:11):
the craziest stretch of clutch shooting I've ever seen in
my life, hitting game winners in every single round of
the playoffs. He's he hit the first NBA Finals game
winners since Michael Jordan did almost thirty years ago. So
it's a total package of offense that is more than
enough to be one of the great offensive engines in
the league, which is going to put you very high
on my list no matter what. I also think he's
(05:34):
an underrated defender. He's fast, he does his job within
the defensive scheme. He's got good length and active hands,
so he gets lots of deflections and lots of steals.
So if you give me like a bona fide top
tier offensive engine with decent scoring chops and you can
realistically build a good playoff defense around him, that's a
(05:54):
top ten player in the modern NBA. So I had
Tyrese Halliburton at number nine Dame For me, this a
little tougher. I I think I'd put him right around
number twenty. He scored thirty points in just one of
his last seventeen games last season, including the playoffs. He
was clearly losing some of that juice before the injury.
(06:14):
He was already a bad defender, but he became a
truly awful defender when he was in Milwaukee. I was
just much lower on him than most people before the injury,
and I loved him. I'm a big believer in what
he was when he was at his peak, but he
just clearly is on the other side of the hill
at this point. I would have had him down at
number twenty. A couple of questions along these lines, Like Kat,
(06:35):
it was all NBA, So how did he not make
your top twenty five based on him making an Eastern
Conference Finals run.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Here's another one.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
I got Cat not making the list as wild To me,
there's no big in the East better than Kat, especially
when you add the durability factor. Unless you just have
Jokic as the only big in the top twenty five.
You talk about not being able to scale up with
him defensively in the playoffs. But Kat has been a
major contributor in the best defense in the NBA and
locked up the MVP in a game set. And you
also talk about his Game six in Indiana, But before
(07:03):
Game six, there was a Game three the Knicks were
on the brink of going down three to zero and
Kat carried all by himself. That isn't scaling up in
the biggest moment. I don't know what is Murray ahead
of Kat is ridiculous. So I want to get I
want to start with I have a lot of people
complaining about Jamal Murray and including Nuggets fans, which is
the funny part. I think some of that stems from
(07:25):
there is a good amount of just like natural frustration
with Jamal for not reaching his individual ceiling as a
player the way that he should have. But I think
it extends beyond to like, I think there's a lot
of like Jokic Stan behavior. And I've seen this with
Lebron fans over the years. I've seen this with Steph
fans over the years. They always like get super hyper
(07:45):
critical of teammates and then never criticize their guy. That's
the thing like, and that's that's the thing that gets
kind of frustrating. You guys know, I'm a big Lebron fan.
I have ripped him many new ones on this show before. Right, Like,
there's a certain amount of like stand behavior where it's
like we're going to elevate our star by like being
hyper critical of the other guy. And that's not to
(08:05):
say that Jamal has some sort of you know, perfect
criticism proof resume. Of course he doesn't. He deserves some
of the criticism that he gets. But I think that's
why we see so much negativity from Nuggets fans regarding
Jamal Murray. For me, like I would start with like
Murray and Kat, and then I'll talk a little bit
about Kat individually. So putting Jamal Murray over Kat was
(08:28):
a relatively easy decision for me. I think he's I
think he's a better playoff score. I just think he is.
Even just last year, Jamal Murray had a higher point
per game average and was roughly in the same neighborhood
of efficiency in the high fifties. I think over the years,
from playoff run to playoff run, he's been a more
dependable playoff score. He's been like, arguably the best clutch
(08:52):
shot maker in the NBA over the last three playoff runs. Like,
I think he's a better passer. I literally just think
Jamal Murray's a better place player than Karl Anthony Town's
on offense and on defense. I don't think Jamal Murray
is a good defender by any stretch of the imagination,
but you can build a defensive scheme around Jamal. He's
going to do his job. He's not a downright damaging defender.
(09:14):
So like, honestly, putting Jamal Murray ahead of Karl Anthony
Towns was kind of an easy decision for me. The
discussion between him and James Harden gets a little bit
more complicated, which we'll get to in a later question.
But as I zum it on Kat before we move
on again, like when you look at the Knicks and
the big picture, there were some big moments, right, Like
you're right, Kat had a massive comeback at the tail
(09:38):
end of Game three, Right, that was an amazing performance
from him beating the Celtics. That was a big moment
for the Knicks in this postseason run. You know, obviously
upsetting the team that I picked to win the title
last year. But if you zoom out from that. It
has been an incredibly disappointing season for the Knicks. They
(09:58):
made all those moves and they wanted to be like
one of the bona fide top tier contenders in the league,
and they came right out the gates and got the
living shit kicked out of them by Boston. All season long,
they underachieved on defense and pretty consistently were farther below
in the standings than where they should have been for
a team as talented as they were. They were downright
abysmal every single time they played one of the top
(10:19):
teams in the league. What did they go like h
to eight or something like that against the top three
records in the NBA, Like, they just got their butts
kicked every time they played the good teams. I thought
they were disappointing against Detroit, that's a team they should
have disposed of in four or five games. They got
dragged to six and every game was close. And go
to the Pacers series, Yeah, sure you won Game five,
but you got ran out of the building basically the
(10:43):
rest of the series, in large part because Karl Anthony
Towns was downright damaging to your defensive scheme. That was
not just a playoff series problem. That was not just
an Indiana Pacers problem. That was not just a Detroit
Pistons problem. That was an entire season from October all
the way to late May when you got eliminated. Karl
(11:03):
Anthony Towns was a problem for your ability to run
that like coherent defensive scheme. There are certain things that
are like out of your control, right Like Jamal Murray's
had some rough shooting performances over the years in the playoffs.
There's a certain amount of that that is just basketball.
Like guys like Carl Anthony Towns. You remember last year
two years ago in the Dallas Maverick Series and the
(11:24):
conference finals where he just couldn't make a three point
shot to save his life. That's just basketball, brother, that's basketball.
Sometimes the jump shots don't go in. Sometimes they don't
go in for Cat, sometimes they don't go in for Jamal.
That is literally just basketball. The floor, the basement of
who you are as a basketball player is what happens
(11:44):
when those shots aren't going in. And I can trust Jamal,
let's just say take a replacement level player. So if
you could take Jamal in a replacement level center or
Karl Anthony Towns in a replacement level guard which player
which combination there do you have a better chance to
build a functional playoff defense, a functional playoff like foundation floor.
(12:10):
I like my chances with Jamal. Karl Anthony Towns is
the type of player that kind of prevents you from
ever winning the championship. If he is your foundational center,
you have to surround him with such an insane amount
of talent to cover for his weaknesses on the back
line defensively, the reckless hedges, the bad floor balance, the
(12:31):
bad transition defense, getting just out run up and down
the floor by opposing bigs. Every single time I was
watching the Knicks tape last year, Karl Anthony Towns was
front and center on their defensive issues. Even Jalen Brunson,
for the issues that he had, I never felt like
Brunson was the breaking point of their defense the way
that Karl Anthony Towns was. It's just too low a floor.
(12:54):
And again, I want to be clear about where we
were arguing here. I had had at twenty seven, so
it's not like I had him demonstrably lower than where
you guys are arguing for him to be. I just
think a guy like Jamal is a better basketball player
for me to build around and to thrive in the
like in that like, they're both players that we're going
to consider to be number twos, right, Like, no one's
(13:16):
winning a championship of Cats your best player. No one's
winning a championship with Jamal Murray as your best player.
But in that secondary supporting star role. I like my
chances with Jamal Murray more than I like him with Cat.
It was pretty It was actually kind of an easy
decision for me. Okay, I'm gonna give you, guys one
of the James Harden comments, and I have like literally
(13:36):
like six that I mark down here, various people just
saying that they viewed James Harden as a as a
better player than Jamal Murray. Nothing says summer like long days,
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(15:20):
I can't get with Jamal over Harden. Jamal has such
an advantage playing with Jokic that other guards don't. I
don't think it's fair to bring up his points per
possession in pick and roll when comparing him to other guards.
As for the playoffs, like you said, Jamal himself has
a lot of lows. I think if Harden had Jokic
taking up the defensive attention and pick and roll, he
would do much better than Murray and his playoff lows
wouldn't be as frequent or bad. He doesn't have the
(15:41):
same mid range that Jamal has coming off of a
Jokic screen, but in these recent years, Harden has been
more willing to take middies. Plus Harden's floaters in a
different tier than Jamal's, not to mention, He'll also do
a better job of running the offense in the non
Yokich minutes. And even if Jamal does fit better than
Joki with Jokic than Harden does. What about every other
team given the criteria is about their current team. If
Jamal Murray had to play in a physical playoff series
(16:03):
with Jokic, I think his production would pale in comparison
to Harden's. Jamal's struggles getting past good defenders, struggles generating
advantages for his teammates, and isn't in the same tier
as a passer as Harden. He also isn't as good
at beating bigs in switches. Plus, Harden is the more
valuable regular season player. Okay, So when we're talking about
this ranking, and so let's kind of zoom out a
(16:24):
little bit. Remember I'm having kat at twenty seven and
Harden at twenty six and Murray at twenty five. So
if I have Murray and Harden at twenty six and
twenty five, I have them very close.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
What that means is I leaned very slightly towards Jamal
over James Harden. So obviously James Harden has some advantages.
I agree. I think James Harden is the better regular
season player because he is the better offensive engine. I
agree too that if we plucked James Harden and just
put him on his own team where the only goal
(16:57):
is to just get through the regular season and get
beat in the first round, which is exactly what would
happen if Jamal was the best player on a team,
and exactly what would happen if James Harden is on
the best team. Yeah, James Harden's probably gonna give you
a little bit better regular season offense, but when you
get into the postseason, you consistently run into the same
issue with Jamal or with James Harden, which is, Jamal's
gonna shoot, Jamal is gonna be mentally engaged. Jamal is
(17:21):
a less damaging defender than James Harden. Jamal is going
to bring me a certain a certain floor as a
basketball player. Once we get into those high intensity playoff environments,
James Harden time and time and time and time and
time again, literally loses what makes him James Harden, like
he won't even look at the basket anymore. And you know,
(17:44):
I kind of push back on this idea that, oh, well,
Jamal has an advantage playing with Jokic. I literally watched
James Harden play with Joel Embiid, Joel Empiiede at the
peak of his powers with a very similar level of
role gravity when he would work his way in to
the mid range of the floor. What happened when they
got to the postseason. Outside of two games where James
(18:05):
Harden was great and hit a couple of game winners,
he was fucking terrible. He was fucking terrible again alongside
Joel Embiid. So like for all of the talk about like, well,
what if you gave Jamal you know, a different roster
and you gave James Harden some Apex superstar to play with,
We've literally seen that. We've literally seen it, and it
(18:26):
was the same. There are so many examples of James
Harden running into that exact same issue when they get
to the postseason that it similar to kat it almost
like disqualifies you from competing for a championship. The amount
of support you would have to have for James Harden,
Like you'd have to have so much support around James
Harden that you could weather him having a single digit
(18:48):
scoring game in a must win playoff game, Like not
just single digits, but single digit shot attempts, Like you
have to have so much support that you can bank,
like literally bank on James Harden completely shitting the bed
in a big moment and you still winning like that.
That's a lot to overcome because it happens literally year
after year after year after year after year after year
(19:08):
after year.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
It just is. It has happened too many times.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
So if we're talking about the ultimate goal of this,
and again, I agree, James Harden has some specific things
he's better at, Like he's better at getting to the
foul line. He's better I haven't looked at the floater stats,
but I think you're probably right if I remember correctly,
I think Harden's a better floater shooter. I think Carden
generally is a better regular season offensive engine. But if
our goal is to get from the first day of
the regular season to hoisting the trophy, I flat out
(19:34):
think that I have a better chance with Jamal Murray
because when we get to the postseason, I can count
on him to be roughly Jamal Murray at that point,
and in that environment, I can then at least count
on And again, we're talking about them in secondary roles here,
because neither of them are winning a championship in a
starting role. I can count on him at least pulling
his weight as that secondary player alongside Nikola Jokic in
(19:57):
a way that I could never count on James Harden
and doing that alongside Joe l Embiid, and that that
really is the uh is the separator. And like I've
had a lot of cause I had another question here
talking about Jamal. I'll read this one for you guys.
You keep seeing you guys can kind of get a
feel for how Nuggets fans feel. Not really a debate,
but I thought i'd throw this out anyways. I'm a
Nuggets fan and I love Jamal and everything he's done
(20:19):
for us, but he's a really he is really frustrating
as a fan because we've seen how highest ceiling can be,
and from the outside in looking in, it seems like
he's just satisfied with winning only one ring. He comes
into seasons out of shape, doesn't seem to take good
care of his body. He's flying the MMA fights, during
the playoffs or out of casinos. The narrative around Jamal
before twenty twenty three was he was a gym rat
and he worked incredibly hard. There was that famous story
(20:40):
that got mentioned during the title run a million times
by the announcers where his dad had him doing push
ups on ice and taught him to meditate for difficult moments.
Also almost as if he was training him to be
a fucking samurai. Where's that Jamal Murray? Like, seriously, what
happened between twenty twenty three and now I want to know?
Is the coaching staff and Nuggets oranization just letting his
(21:01):
lack of work ethics slide? Has nobody brought this up
to him? I don't know if the ACL tear in
twenty twenty one affected him more than people know, but
even though he's been in his late twenties, it seems
to he seems to have to wear and tear and
bodily breakdowns of a late thirty year old. Jason, do
you have any team insiders, I know you speak with
Adamars quite a bit that have given you any deeper
insight into the Jamal Murray situation. And now him and
(21:21):
the organization have handled his lack of conditioning.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
So that's a.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Really, really good comment that kind of gives you, guys,
like an understanding of how Nuggets fans feel about it,
and like, I want to be really clear about this.
In twenty twenty three, Jamal was in a different tier,
like he was one of those guys that on any
given night could rise to the level literally of the
top tier superstars. He average twenty six, six and seven
(21:45):
on sixty percent true shooting. He had like a ton
of like monster thirty thirty five point playoff games, tons
of huge shots, tough shots, and everyone's face. Like Jamal
was at a different level, is now a level below
that where in my opinion, he's worthy of the salary
that he's on, but you probably can't be the best
(22:06):
player on a championship team, and he clearly isn't in
that next tier the way that he was now. If
he can get back to that tier, I mean, if
Jamal Murray can get back to what he was in
twenty twenty three, you guys can just go ahead and
cash the check that Denver's gonna win the title next year,
because that's just an insanely good team. If you have
awesome Jamal Murray with Nikole Yoki's best player in the world,
with Aaron Gordon now able to shoot threes, with Cam
(22:28):
Johnson as a legitimate upgrade over Michael Porter Junior, and
a depth of talent beyond that, if Jamal gets back
to that level, cash the check. Denver's hoisting the trophy.
But as we look in that other tier, a couple
things I want to answer some of your specific questions.
When I've talked to Adam and other people around the Nuggets,
it's pretty simple.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
They are frustrated. They're frustrated, but.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
I think they all also are aware of the fact
that they need Jamal, and that's really the key. I
talked about this in my bit on Jamal Murray the
other day. But like, Jamal is a very rare combination
of like truly elite one on one scorer, but also
a high level pick and roll player. And like, yes,
(23:09):
I know that he plays alongside the best pick and
roll big in the league, And yes, that certainly makes
things easier for him. I don't want to like discount
that necessarily, But like he shoots over forty percent on
pull up threes, you don't think he'd be able to
do that in ball screen somewhere else. Like he is
a good floater shooter, He's an awesome mid range shot maker.
He is a legitimately great one on one player. Like
(23:31):
those are all traits that do translate elsewhere now in
his archetype as like a scoring guard, who's a mediocre playmaker.
He's a better playmaker than people think. He's over six
assists per games since his knee injury. But like as
a guy in that archetype, like he certainly if you
ask him to be the offensive engine for a team,
he's not gonna go win you the title. But neither
is James Harden, like we talked about, Like his archetype
(23:55):
is immensely valuable in the NBA and quite frankly indispensable
to what the Denver Nuggets are trying to do. I like,
if you swapped him, I mean, like literally, if you
swapped him for any other guard in the league that
is like in the similar kind of tiar or below him,
Like obviously Devin Booker would be awesome alongside Nikola Jokic,
(24:16):
Guys like that, Donovan Mitchell. These are all guys that
I have above Jamal Murray. But there's not a guard
like the guards that are below, like Jahn Morant's not
like a natural fit alongside Nikola Jokic. That's a weird,
clunky fit, you know, Like there's a read and react
element with Jamal Murray, with Nikola Jokic that is super important.
(24:37):
As you go further back on the list, like, I
don't think James Harden would be an awesome fit alongside
Nikola Jokic. Like, first of all, Jamal is a really
high IQ defender that's generally in the right spots and
does the right things in a big moment. James Harden
is the opposite of that. There's a certain amount of uh,
there's a certain amount of like straight up one on
one shot making from the mid range that Jamal has
(24:58):
that James Harden does not have. That's an important piece
of what Denver does against switching defenses. Like, I just
think Jamal's generally underrated. And like again, Nuggets fans disagree
with me, guys, this is just how I feel about
him as a basketball player. Next question, Hi, Jason, great
work as always. I really respect your basketball mind. Your
analysis consistently challenges me to think more deeply about the game.
(25:20):
You shift my perspective from just focusing on physical tools
and high end upside to considering a player's full impacting
growth that set. This might be one of those cases
where I'm still drawn to the upside, especially when it
comes to John Rank, Karl Anthony Towns versus Trey Young,
and Jamal Murray, particularly Jamal. I'll focus on Jaw for
this mailbag. While I agree with your point that he
hasn't added much to his game recently and he's missed
(25:41):
significant time, I still find his high end value as
a number one option hard to ignore. Even without the
notable development lately, his passing, rim pressure, and ability to
blow by defenders remain so freakishly etlite elite that I
think they outpace what Tray and Jamal bring, especially considering
Jamal as a number two option. To me, Jos still
has the potential to be the best player on a
championship team, even if that possibility is fading with time.
(26:02):
I don't feel the same way about Trey or Jamal.
So while I understand why John might be left off
a list like this, it's tough for me to give
Murray the nod over someone like Jaw who's already made
an All NBA team and carried a franchise. Curious how
much weight do you put on a player's role when
making these kinds of comparisons. Where do you draw the
line when deciding to rank a high level secondary option
like Murray over a true number one like job. Thanks again,
(26:23):
for all the great work looking forward to the next piece.
This is a great question, and I think there's two
angles that I want to get into. First of all,
once again, John only played in fifty games last year.
Once again John got hurt in the playoffs, couldn't finish
the series. It's not even the first time that's happened.
He managed to play in sixty games just once in
the last four years. So there's a theoretical element just
(26:45):
with him being able to stay on the floor. Then
there's another theoretical element, which is, like, anybody who's listened
to the show over the course of the last year
has seen I've three or four different times come on
the show and been like, John Morant has the potential
to be the best player on a championship team. I
genuinely agree with you, but he's not there yet. In
order for him to get to that point, he needs
to turn He's a jaw like, we'll have these really
(27:07):
good defensive possessions. He needs to turn that into a
higher floor where he's more consistent possession to possession. Right
on offense, there's a jump shooting piece and a playmaking
piece that he needs to continue to refine over time,
there's a decision making at the rim piece that he
has to refine over time. He has the potential to
be the best player on a championship team, but right
(27:27):
now he is neither that nor available. So when I'm
looking at this season, just this season, like if you're
asking me who do I want for the next five years,
John Ray or Jamal Murray, different question, but specifically for
this list, when we're just talking about who's the best
guy for me to have to lead this team this
coming year from October to June, I feel like I
(27:51):
can count on more from Jamal Murray than the super
wide range of outcomes from job. Now, for the record,
I know that there's a chance that Jaw happens to
come into camp in great shape and puts on a
little bit more muscle, takes really good care of his body,
plays seventy games, spends all summer in the gym working
on his three point shot, shoots thirty eight percent from
(28:12):
three finishes fourth and MVP voting. Memphis gets the five
or four seed, and he just looks fucking awesome. They
win a couple playoff rounds, losing the conference finals. That
is an upside that Jaw has that. I know Jamal
is not going to do this year obviously, right, But
that's the high end of the potential John Morant outcomes.
(28:35):
There's a very wide range of outcomes, and there's one
over here where they miss the playoffs. He plays in
forty three games and they and he shoots twenty eight
percent from three. That's still a potential outcome for John
Ran And I'd argue that's every bit as likely, if
not more likely, than the top end of that spectrum.
(28:56):
And so I'm a believer in Josh talent. We've talked
about this, his supreme ability to beat p off the dribble.
I actually think he has a really reliable shot making
piece close to the basket in that like short range
and it pops up off the ground and shoots those
little floaters. I'm a believer in jaw. But it's theoretical
in terms of availability, and it's theoretical in terms of
upside right now. So yeah, John's probably going to be
in that twenty eight twenty nine range for me on
(29:17):
this list, but he didn't crack the top twenty five
for me because of that theoretical element.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Two more questions.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
These are both one related to the Lakers at large,
and another one is related to Lebron and his ranking
on this list, which we haven't gotten to yet, but
it's just more about theoretically where he would be. Hey, Jason,
I have a question, as a Lakers Austin Reeves fan,
what do you think Austin needs to add to his
game to breach this tier of top twenty five ish players.
He's obviously nowhere near guys like Trey joh and playoff Jamal,
(29:44):
but I wonder how long it'll take him to reach
a ceiling. Considering he's already twenty seven. It would be
interesting to see some of Austin's stats as an offensive engine,
close out attacking next to Luca and Lebron, his defense rebounding,
which is obviously an issue. Thanks keep it up. So
I think there's a couple pieces for Austin. I don't
know that he'll ever breach the top twenty five on
this list, but to me, it's more like can he
get into that top forty? Like can he get into
(30:04):
the list of guys that I'm considering for the top
twenty five?
Speaker 1 (30:07):
And you could.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
I actually had him on an early version of the
list when I had like forty seven names and then
I cut seven guys and Austin was one of those
guys that I got cut before I like refined it
down to forty.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
And it's a couple things.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
One physicality, Austin pretty generally, especially against teams that can switch,
struggles to deal with big, physical perimeter defenders. So like
putting on a little bit more muscle and just getting
a little bit better at shedding physical ball pressure I
think will go a long way towards helping him. And
then the second pieces is his inconsistent jump shooting, Like
he is just very streaky, especially from the three point
(30:41):
line and especially in catch and shoot situations, and that
is a thing that limits his off ball utility, especially
in the context of playing alongside a guy like Luka Doncic.
I want to see Austin improve just generally as a
jump shooter from the three point from the three point line,
and then again that strengthened physicality so that he can
deal with ball sure better than he has been last one.
(31:03):
This was just an opportunity for me to vent about something.
How do you justify having Lebron in the top ten
when the Lakers were almost two points per game better
without him than with him on the floor and go
to a from a positive to a negative plus minus team.
It clearly isn't because the Lakers bench is that dominant,
nor because he makes the key plays in fourth quarter,
and that wasn't the case for either ad or Luca
(31:25):
or the other two comparable players. Don't get me wrong,
Lebron is still good, but you simply aren't nowhere near
a top ten player if your team is better without
you than with you on the floor. So let's talk
about what this has been caused by so per cleaning
the glass. The Lakers this year were six point nine
points worse with Lebron on the floor versus off, so
he had a bad plus minus year. Okay, there are
(31:48):
some reasons for that, which we'll get into for a minute,
but I think it's fucking hilarious because every Lebron hater,
every troll account, every sports media personality that doesn't like
Lebron that wants to have a moment at his expense,
every single one of those guys has flocked to this
damn plus minus number like it is the last TV
(32:10):
on a sale rack on Black Friday, Like it is
crazy to watch them piranha around this stat like it's
the craziest Lebron truth, truth or moment in the history
of his career in the league. Let me just read
a couple stats for you. These are Lebron's plus minus
(32:30):
stats is on off numbers in a Lakers jersey over
the course of his entire tenure there so twenty twenty five. Yeah,
they were roughly seven points worse with Lebron on the
floor versus off twenty twenty four, eight point three points
better per one hundre possessions twenty twenty three, nine point
seven points better per one hundre possessions twenty twenty two
three point one points better those the worst Laker team
(32:51):
in that era that was after the Russell Westbrook trade.
Still three points better with Lebron on the on the
floor versus off twenty twenty one, thirteen points better per
one hundre possession with Lebron versus off twenty twenty eleven
points better, twenty nineteen, nine points better. So consistently, literally
every single year, except for the twenty twenty two year
where Ad was hurt the whole season and Russ was
(33:11):
on the team, he was at least eight points as
a positive plus minus guy on the floor versus off
He is consistently throughout his entire career for decades, the
plus minus monster of the NBA. And he has one
season where there's this obvious statistical outlier and every Lebron
hater flocked to it like it was the craziest fucking
(33:34):
thing in the world. And it's just so transparent because
every one of you who jump on that, you're just
telling on yourself as someone that's unwilling to look more
than two inches in front of your face, like this
is completely absurd. It is literally the definition of a
statistical outlier. Because of the injuries to Anthony Davis and
Luka Doncic last year, and because J. J. Reddick made
(33:56):
a decision to try to pair Austin with Anthony Davis
as much as possible because they needed each other for offense,
and he trusted Lebron to try to lead those groups.
Lebron had to play over eight hundred possessions last year
with Austin, Luca and ad all off the floor at
the same time, and those groups got absolutely rolled. They
(34:17):
were minus eight point four points per one hundred possessions.
That's awful and It's not hard to see why their
most used lineup in that data set had Christian Coloco
at center. That's a two way contract, Dalton Connect, a
rookie who you guys know, I'm just not very high on,
and gave Vincent and DiAngelo Russell, who probably shouldn't be
in any starting lineup anywhere around the league. Of course,
(34:37):
those groups were getting rolled. That large chunk of data
is the kind of thing that's one of the elements
that can lead to a statistical outlier. Another way to
look at it is like this, Austin Reeves was an
awesome plus minus guy for the Lakers last year. Do
you think Austin is a much better basketball player than
Lebron James or do you think that it was just statistical?
(35:00):
It was obviously statistical noise. We have decades worth of data,
including as recently as last year, and various points in
last excuse me, as recently as the year before last,
and even in last year certain stretches, like in the
middle of the season where Lebron is a plus minus
monster in between the Anthony Davis injury and Luka Doncic
joining the Lakers. He was incredible during that strays during
(35:22):
that phase. Do we have so much data where they're
just clearly better when he's on the floor versus off.
So all of you people who suddenly fixated on that metric,
you're literally making a fool of yourselves. You sound stupid
when you're talking about it. So, like, I just I
just had to take a second to get that off
my chest because it just is completely absurd that everyone's
jumped on that like it's some sort of revealing metric
(35:45):
that shows, like it's some conspiracy theory that has finally
been brought to light. Like, oh, yeah, you're right, guys,
Lebron actually hurts the team. He's playing for good one.
You did good stuff there. All right, guys, It's all
I have for today. As always, as sincerely appreciate you
guys for supporting us, in supporting the show.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Again.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
It's gonna be two weeks before our next player rankings
mail bag. I have a pre recorded one that we're
running next Friday, just because I'll be on the cruise
ship and it's just impossible for me to work in
that environment. But keep dropping your mailbag questions, any disagreements
in the mail uh. The YouTube videos from now to
two weeks from now, and you guys will get an
opportunity to get those questions in, and I will see
(36:21):
you guys then
Host
Jason Timpf
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