November 20, 2025 • 43 mins
Jason reacts to the Houston Rockets beating the Cleveland Cavaliers and does a deep dive into the three reasons why he feels they can become top tier NBA title contenders. He breaks down the growth in Alperen Sengun's game, how the Rockets different style is successful, Reed Sheppard's growth, and how Kevin Durant is bridging the timeline gap. Then he breaks down why Adam Silver should listen to Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr about shortening the season and why it would be better for the league than they realize.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. All right, welcome to him tonight here at
the Volume Heavy Thursday. Everybody, hope Bob, you guys are
having a great week. Got a quick show for you
(00:21):
guys today. We're just doing two segments. We're gonna do
a deep dive into the Houston Rockets. Off the top.
They had a dominant win last night in Cleveland. Got
a little squirrely there in the early part of the
fourth quarter, but they were able to regain control. I
want to deep dive into three specific concepts surrounding Houston
that I think are really important both in the short
term and in the long term for what we can
(00:43):
expect from them, both as a contender, but also in
terms of what their big picture potential is. We're gonna
get really into the weeds on Houston today. Then at
the tail end of the show, we had a couple
of bits of news. Steve Kurt was complaining about the
schedule after the Golden State Warriors have played seventeen games
in twenty eight days, including five back to backs to
start the season, as they basically punted a game in
(01:06):
Miami last night. And then we got an announcement that
Adam Silver is basically ordered an investigation into the rise
in injuries and how the schedule could potentially be playing
a role there. So it seems like the league is
just barely starting to crack the door open towards the
idea of potentially addressing some stuff with the schedule, and
so I want to dive into some specific ideas behind
(01:27):
what direction I think the league should be going with
the schedule. How I think that it's going to be
a lot more beneficial for the league financially than you
would think on the surface, because obviously everyone is obsessed
with revenue surrounding the amount of inventory they have. I
really want to dive into the idea of this schedule
at the tail end of the show. You guys have
the job before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops
(01:48):
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It's always super helpful you leave a rating and a
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Make sure you guys follow us there for more content
throughout the year, and then tomorrow's mail bag day. So
(02:08):
if you want to get into any of the other
games from this week that we didn't get a chance
to touch on, or if you want to have an
opportunity to ask a question about anything around the league
or anything at all, get it into the YouTube comments
today again anywhere in the full episodes on YouTube in
the comments right mail bag colon, write your question. It
helps me sort them out when I'm looking through the comments,
(02:29):
and we'll get to them in tomorrow's mail bag. And then, lastly,
our next playback stream for this week. Our last playback
stream for this week is going to be tomorrow night
for a showdown between the Denver Nuggets and the Houston Rockets,
a game I'm very very excited for. We will be
covering that game, watching along from start to finish on
playback tomorrow night. Make sure you guys come hang out
(02:51):
for that. All right, let's talk some basketball. So, Houston
looks pretty dominant last night against the Cavs in Cleveland.
Went up twenty in the first half, basically dominated every
face of the game, Cleveland looked completely unprepared for their
offensive rebounding attack. The guy that was screaming off the
screen for me as I was watching was DeAndre Hunter.
Is like, when you're dealing with a big, physical frontline
that's trying to crash the glass a lot a lot
(03:12):
of times you can box out to try to keep
a guy attached to the ground, But when it's Steven
Adams or some of these other bigs that Houston has,
you got a sandwich rebound, meaning you got to have
as you're boxing out, you're holding a guy on the ground, right,
you gotta have someone come flying in over the top
to come secure the rebound. And way too often, in particular,
I thought DeAndre Hunter was a spectator, just kind of
standing around while that fistfight for rebounds was happening around
(03:37):
the basket. And Jared Allen in many cases in there
boxing out for his life, and even in situations where
he was boxing out he was getting beat over the top.
Every time he stepped over and help Steven Adams or
Clint Capello would just come over and clean things up.
The Cavs just so completely unprepared for it. It was
a twenty one to six second chance points advantage for
(03:59):
the Houston Rockets. And we're gonna dig much deeper into
this concept of offensive rebounding for Houston, how it works,
how it provides spacing, the kind of problems it presents
to teams, what it means for playoff matchups. We're gonna
get all into that here in just a minute. Shane
Gouon absolutely torched them twenty eight points, eleven rebounds, and
seven assists. He looked super comfortable attacking different mismatches and
(04:19):
switches like he did a bunch of work against Lonzo
Ball and switches against Dean Wade in switches, also did
some damage to the Cavs starting frontline. We're going to
do a deep dive into Shanegon as well. I thought
the Rockets defended super well. Their bigs did a great
job making multiple efforts at the rim, like Steven Adams
would blitz Donovan Mitchell but then sprint back and somehow
get a contest on Jared Allen at the rim and
(04:40):
force a miss. Kevin Durant had an extra rotation to
Jared Allen at the rim that forced to miss. Shane
Goon forced a miss for Jared Allen around the rim.
A lot of misses around the rim for Cleveland's bigs
just because of that those extra rotation efforts that the
bigger forwards and centers for Houston that was making around
the basket. And by the way, they are tenth according
(05:02):
to Synergy in rim makes allowed per game and twelve
in rim percentage allowed. So some strong paint defense from
Houston to start this season. They came out blitzing Donovan Mitchell.
They lost control of him a little bit in the
fourth quarter, but for the most part, I thought they
defended him super well. And then on defense, you know,
Cleveland likes to attempt a lot of threes, but you
(05:23):
can do some work with the types of guys that
you leave open to kind of skew those percentages, and
I thought Houston did a great job of leaving the
right guys open. They would let Lonzo shoot by going
underscreens or closing out short because he's been shooting in
the low thirties from three this year. Naykwon Tomlins is
really interesting athletic fod that does a lot of work
on the offensive glass and is kind of just a
high motor athlete that flies around, but he's not a
(05:45):
guy that's going to burn you from the three point line.
They let Na Kwon Tomlin shoot, they let Evan Mobley shoot,
and so even though Cleveland got thirty nine threes up,
they were mostly threes that Houston was willing to live with,
and they worked out in Houston's favor in the percentage
as they got a comfortable win. Basically wire to wire
for the Rock, It's very, very impressive. Today's show is
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New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee or Virginia. So there are three
big picture Houston concepts that I want to dive into today.
We've fit several things throughout the season. We talked about
(07:53):
the Kevin Durant Albert Shangun kind of dynamic in terms
of those two stars, their ability to play with each
other and without each other. I want to focus though
on their offensive, rebounding attack, what it does to teams,
how effectively it acts as spacing for their stars, the
matchup problem it presents. Two, what is Albern shang Gun's ceiling.
You know, he's a guy who's been in the league
(08:14):
for five years, so he's been around for so long
that it kind of feels like he's older. But he's
only twenty three years old, like, and I think he's
barely scratching the surface of his potential. So I want
to talk about what Albern Shanggun can become. And then, third,
what can we make of this recent surge from Reed
Shepherd who's had double figure scoring in seven consecutive games,
And most importantly, I was skeptical about him as an
(08:34):
on ball player, but more quality on ball reps last
night against the Caves, and he's starting to put together
a decent little set of on ball data to start
the season. So those are the three different topics that
I want to dive into with Houston today, starting with
the offensive rebounding. Before the season, we were so obsessed
with the idea of spacing for this Houston team, right,
(08:56):
Like we talked about how life was going to be
harder for Kevin Durant because they were going to be
pinching in off the corners NonStop, and like, would they
be able to achieve high low spacing with a men
Thompson and Alburn shangun basically meaning like one of those
guys in the middle of the floor, one of those
guys working along the baseline, would they be able to
achieve the tic tac toe sequences that could pay off
with dunks and like easy shots in the just short
(09:17):
of the front of the rim, right, Like, will they
be able to figure out those elements of their spacing?
How will their shooters perform like well Jabari Smith knockdown shots, well,
Josha Koge knockdown shots, well, Tarry Easton knockdown shots, Will
Amen Thompson knockdown shots. Like all these different concepts that
we focused on regarding spacing, and to be clear, all
of that is actually working out really well for Houston.
(09:38):
Like their high low spacing has been incredible. We've seen
plenty of those tic tac toe sequences where Shanegun catches
in the middle of the floor and hits the men
Thompson cutting on the baseline or vice versa. We've seen
guys shooting the three ball really well, like Houston sneaky
been a very good jump shooting team. Tari Easton's shooting
fifty one percent from three, Jabari Smith is shooting thirty
(09:58):
nine percent. Really if you look at their core rotation players,
basically everybody is shooting thirty eight percent or better with
exception of Aman Thompson, and for the most part he's
operating in the middle of the floor and in the
dunker spot. He's only taken about two threes per game.
And so like the jump shooting hasn't been an issue.
In fact, the Rockets have been number one in the
league in both just plain old three point percentage but
(10:21):
also an overall jump shooting efficiency according to Synergy, even
when you include mid Rangers and off the dribble jump shots,
they've been the best jump shooting team in the league.
Now I'm not sure how sustainable that is. They certainly
aren't on paper the best jump shooting roster in the league.
So ultimately the determining factor of whether or not they
can remain the best offense in the Like they got
(10:41):
a one twenty three offensive rating, they're the best offense
in the league. Whether or not they can stay there,
you know, as surprisingly as they have been able to
reach that level, whether or not they can stay there
is going to come down to whether or not that
jump shooting can sustain. But a lot of those spacing
concepts that we talked about before the season have actually
trended very heavily in the post positive direction for Houston.
But where I think we all underestimated the Rockets in
(11:04):
terms of their spacing was offensive rebounding. And this is
where we have to kind of redefine spacing as a
very simple concept instead of thinking of it as like
vertical spacing like a dunker around the basket, or three
point spacing a guy knocking down three point shots, or
other like a little like more complicated spacing concepts like
driving closeouts or converting four on threes into dunks, layups
(11:25):
and open threes. You know, when you blitz ball handlers,
or you bring your big up to the level. Things
like that. Those are those basic spacing concepts that we
talk about all the time. But that's not the only
way to make a team pay for sending extra attention
to your stars. You can do it by getting offensive rebounds.
And this is where the rockets can cause serious problems
for teams who think about the game in a very
(11:46):
traditional way. On the defensive end of the floor, let's
start with Steven Adams. So the most common type of
traditional help defense that you'll see from teams is to
have their big man step over and help. He's typically
not gonna leave a three point shooter open because most
bigs in the league can't shoot. You don't see very
many big bruising centers around. There's a handful of him.
(12:09):
There's not a ton of big bruising centers. So you
feel like your backside guys can control the glass and
I'll often the big will step up to contest, but
then try to get back and box out. And so
it's one of those things where you're big is typically
the guy you're helping with. First, he's already situated around
the basket because his man is usually already in the
dunker spot. He's not leaving a three point shot open, right.
He's a rim protector, right because he's big and he's
(12:30):
got long arms, So he's gonna be a guy that
like when he helps, he's actually gonna be a rim
to turn it. Like there was a play last night
where Donovan Mitchell ended up being a low man for
Cleveland and he end up giving up an easy layup.
Like Donovan Mitchell, if he's standing under the basket and
help isn't gonna do much to deter players at the rim. Right.
You want your big man deterring stuff at the rim,
because that's the kind of guy that's actually gonna be
(12:51):
able to cause rim misses. That's traditional defense. You want
your big stepping over to help, right. But as soon
as your big man steps over, this is where the
rockets kill you. And Steven Adams had like three offensive
rebounds in the first like sixty seconds ninety seconds of
the game because Jared Allen was stepping over in help.
And when you step over and help, Steven Adams is
(13:12):
just mashing your back line on the glass for offensive rebounds.
He's getting over five offensive rebounds a game, and so
this puts you in a bind. If you keep your
big home on Adams, you cause two problems. One, Steven
Adams is still probably bigger and stronger than your center,
and he's gonna win that battle many times, so sometimes
(13:33):
it doesn't even solve the problem. And then two, you
start leaving these one on one players, these ridiculously talented
one on one players and Albert Shangun and Kevin Durant
to play on an island without help that can torch you.
And so then if you keep helping with your big
then you really have to sandwich rebound on Adams. You
got to have somebody in there, big four to box
(13:54):
him out, to try to keep him on the ground,
because remember it's very difficult to jump when a guy's
leaning on you, right, So you can keep Steven Adams
ground bound by boxing him out, But then you also
have to have that sandwich rebounder come over because Steven
Adams is bigger, so if he just holds the guy down,
he's gonna go get the rebound, right, So you got
to have these other dudes come flying in to come
snatch the rebound over the top of Steven Adams. Now
(14:14):
you're putting two effectively on Steven Adams, right. So if
I have two on the ball essentially in the form
of the guy guarding Kevin Durant or the guy guarding Shangun,
and I have a big stepping over to help on
that Iso, and I have a Ford boxing out Adams,
and I've got a fourth dude coming over trying to
scrap over the top with Adams. Now I've got basically
(14:36):
a four on two rebounding advantage for Houston. Elsewhere on
the floor, that's where their corner crashers come in. That's
where a men Thompson's getting rebounds out of the dunker spot.
That's where Josha Kogi and Tari Easton are crashing out
of the corner with their textbook corner crashes. This is
where Jabari Smith has been doing damage on the offensive glass.
When you start to devote attention to guarding Shanguon and
(14:57):
Kevin Durant while also dealing with Steven Adams on the
offensive glass, you're just always a man down, sometimes two
men down, trying to secure offensive rebounds. From corner crashers
and guys crashing out of the dunker spot like a
Men Thompson. It just puts you in an absolute mind,
and you know, it reminds me, you know, when we
look at some of the great teams in recent NBA
(15:20):
history that have one with kind of bizarre basketball, right,
Like think about you know, Golden State traditionally, right this
team that runs all this crazy action. You've got the
shooter running around and inverture spacing because you start sending
multiple defenders out to Steph twenty five feet from the basket.
All of a sudden, it starts opening up all these
layups and dunks for Golden State because the big man
(15:42):
is way out at the level showing on Steph. So
you don't have your big man on the back line.
So now you got these small guys who are both
undersized but also dealing with a man down advantage because
Golden State's running four on three. Causes all sorts of
problems for you. Right. We talk about Denver and the
weird thing that they can do to defense is like
you've got to guard Jokic and he's operating around by
(16:02):
the elbow or the top of the key a ton.
So now your big is out dealing with Jokic far
away from the basket, which is inverting spacing and causing
all these openings on the back line for cutters like
Aaron Gordon and Christian Brown, and they're just eviscerating you
with layups and dunks off of the back line, and
you help on those layups and dunks, and all of
a sudden, Michael Porter Junior is getting a wide open
three right Like we see these weird teams that come
(16:26):
and play a weird style and it causes problems. The
Milwaukee Bucks back in their absolute prime. The combination of
Jannis Antenna Kumpo's ridiculous rim pressure, you got to build
a massive wall that's very different than your traditional defensive scheme.
It causes problems right on the defensive end of the floor.
Jannis has a low man off of Brook Lopez and
(16:46):
his ability to basically be two places at once, essentially
to be at the rim behind the Brook Lopez, but
also back out to the corner to contest corner threes
or and if he cuts along the baseline, he's athletic
enough to recover. It can break you right when you
do something that's so bizarre, that's so different that it
breaks your base defense. Then, even if you end up
(17:10):
in this playoff matchup, it sometimes can take two or
three games for you to adjust from playing traditional basketball
against twenty seven of the thirty teams to suddenly having
to play a very different style against a very different
type of team. And to me, Houston is like the
next team in this line of thinking. Right, in this
(17:30):
kind of concept of playing weird, non traditional basketball, you
essentially can't play your traditional style because if you do,
they're just going to mash you on the offensive class.
And so it forces you to make some really difficult decisions.
You basically have to pick your poison. Do you want
to devote more energy to helping on the stars, Well,
(17:50):
that's going to cause problems for you on the glass.
Do you want to send all your resources to controlling
the defensive class, Well, now you're letting Kevin de Ranton
albernsche Gon operate on an island. There's more trickle down
effects because like, guess what if you have all five
of your dudes trying to stay back to secure defensive rebounds,
that dampens your transition attack because now instead of running
(18:12):
the floor for layups and threes and all the transition
stuff that everyone else in the league is doing. You're
staying in the backcourt trying to deal with Steven Adams
and Jabari Smith and Josha Kogie and a Men Thompson
on the offensive glass. Houston allows transition pushes so far
this season on just fourteen point six percent of opponents possessions,
(18:35):
which is the sixth the best mark in the league
according to Cleaning the Glass. That's one of those positive
side effects of their offensive rebounding. They bludgeon you. You
react by sending all your resources to the defensive glass.
Now you're not getting out in transition, which, by the way,
is one of the best ways to attack a big,
(18:55):
slow team. But if they're winning that battle so much
on the offensive glass that you're not running, it defeats
the purpose. It's just a fascinating example of how a
team's bizarre play style can cause problems for everybody, and
it's a casual reminder that there are many ways to
win a basketball game. Basketball is more art than science.
(19:16):
You don't have to win it with, you know, an
elite on ball defender that can chase over the top
and funnel into an elite rim protector and running spread
pick and roll. On the other end of you don't
have to run traditional basketball schemes in order to win.
You can win a basketball game in many different ways,
and Houston is finding a new way to do that.
(19:37):
Second big thing I wanted to deep dive in with
Houston Alburnshengun. How good can he become? He's averaging twenty
three points, ten rebounds, and seven assists on the season
so far in his last three games twenty eight, eleven,
and eight. And again, like we talked about at the
top of the show, he's been in the league five years,
(19:58):
so it feels like he's been around forever. But he's
only twenty three years old. And I was digging into
some of his numbers this morning, and I still think
he's barely even close to touching his potential. And again,
before we get any further into this, he's at this
point an All NBA player right now. If the season
(20:18):
ended today, he's making an All NBA team. So he's
already looking like a top fifteen player in the league
at age twenty three. And that's before any of these
things that we're about to get into, which are clear
areas of opportunity for him, like, for instance, his shot making.
He's shooting really well from three this year, shooting forty
one percent, but his short range shot making still has
(20:41):
a long way to go. He's just nine for twenty
five on mid range jump shots. He's just forty five
percent on hooks, he's just thirty one percent on floaters.
And what's crazy is I think he has good natural touch.
I think he's going to be way better in those areas.
I see, excuse me, I see Shangun in the big
(21:03):
picture is a guy who's going to be around like
sixty percent on short range shot making, a guy that's
gonna hit well over fifty percent of his floaters and
well over fifty percent of his hooks. Like by the
time Shang Gun gets twenty seven to twenty eight years old,
he's going to be deadly with that left shoulder hook.
He's gonna make that floater in the middle of the floor,
you know, well over half the time. I think he's
(21:24):
got like the kind of bag so to speak, meaning
like the dribble fluidity in the footwork to become a
guy that's going to be a very successful mid range score.
I think he could be right around fifty percent on
mid range jump shots. In the big picture, I think
he's got that in his potential, like as a clear
possible outcome. And then the big thing that's different, you know,
(21:45):
because the the guy that everyone compares Shangun to is Jokic,
and there's a reason for that. Very similarly, he's such
a big bully ball player that you have to put
a big on him, and when you do, it causes
this problem where like he's quicker than that guy can
cause problems from the perimeter, but also if you extend
out on the perimeter to guard him, it can invert
your spacing. So then you start thinking about putting a
forward on him. And if you start putting a forward
(22:07):
on him, he's just gonna bully that guy and shoot it.
But he also has like the ability to score over
the top a la jokicch right, But like there's a
couple of big differences, right, Like he's his short range
shot making is nowhere near what Nikola Jokic is. Yet
that's a big thing He's got to work out, and
he's not quite as big, so it's not like the
same kind of like physical size disadvantage that Nikola Jokic
(22:29):
causes for every single player in the league. There are
like some clear differences between them. Shangun's a good passer,
He's not a Nicola Jokic level passer, right, So, like
there are some obvious differences, but there are also some
things that Shane Gum brings to the table that Jokic doesn't,
and that's what intrigues me, Like specifically his athleticism. There
is like a straight line speed, vertical like jumping ability,
(22:53):
slashing element to his game that I think he'll expand
this is a guy that's gonna drive and dunk on
you lot when he gets into his mid to late twenties.
I think he can be a very good defender in
his mid to late twenties. He is already starting to
flash some of that upside there. But there is a
level that I think Shang Gun can get to defensively
(23:13):
that most of the big European bigs can't get to. Like,
there is a lot of potential upside for Shannggun. There
is a version of Shangun that is so much better
than he is right now, and he's already a top
fifteen player in the league. A guy that's going to
be a sixty plus percent short range scorer, a guy
who's going to be a fifty plus percent mid range scorer.
(23:35):
A guy who's gonna have much more fluidity on off
the dribble game in the mid range, a guy who's
gonna slash to the basket and dunk on you more,
a guy who's gonna be a dominant two way player.
To be very clear, I think Shang Gun has legitimate
top tier superstar upside, like at the same level in
(23:57):
conversations with guys like Jokic, with guys like Shay, with
guys like Giannis, I actually think it's more likely than
not that he is firmly considered in that tier within
the next three years. It's just an unbelievable development for
the Rockets on the talent front that they could Amen
(24:18):
Thompson has that type of potential too, He's further out.
He's probably five to seven years out from that. But
like there's a version to the story where they have
two of the top tier guys in the league. When
we get to that point and now you have Kevin
Durant to bridge the gap between now and then. The
third thing that I wanted to dive into a little
bit today. Is Reed Shepherd really starting to find his groove.
(24:41):
He's had double figures in seven consecutive games. He's averaging
in that seven game span fifteen points, fifty seven percent
from the field, fifty one percent from three, and most importantly,
he's starting to find some success as an on ball player,
which was my main concern with him early in the season.
If you guys remember like I believed in the three
point shot. It was just there's too much of a
large sample of him being a good shooter. And the
(25:02):
people that I trust that cover the draft were like, yeah,
Reed can shoot. He's gonna shoot the ball. And then
I thought he could be better defensively than he was.
He had a rough few first games, and when I
was watching him in preseason, I'm like, he's scrappy. He
can get up underneath the basketball. He's kind of a
defensive playmaker that can get steels, play passing lanes, attack
the basketball on the dribble, that sort of stuff. But
what I didn't see where I was much lower on
(25:23):
Reed Shepherd than the consensus was the on ball stuff.
I just didn't see it. I thought he looked a
little too small. I didn't think he had the ability
to like get separation and elevate against elite defenders. I
didn't think there was enough on ball stuff there, and
like I've been flat out wrong about that to start
the season. It is legitimately coming around a couple more
(25:45):
really nice on ball screen attacks. Yesterday he had to
play against Craig Porter on the right side of the
floor where he rejected the screen on an ice, got
right down into the middle of the lane and shot
a little bank shot off the glass and knocked it down.
He had another one in the first half where he
put his defense in jail and kind of worked into
the middle of the lane and knocked down a little floater.
His shot making in ball screens has been really impressive.
(26:06):
He's seven for fourteen on pull up threes in pick
and roll, so when he comes off the screen, if
the guy goes under, if he dies on the pick,
he's hitting half of those pull up threes. He's shooting
forty four percent on twos in pick and roll, which
is pretty solid. He's five for nine on floaters. He's
ten for fifteen at the rim. He's doing really nice
job in his on ball reps to start this season
(26:29):
a lot better than I expected after seeing what I
saw in preseason. In his first few games of the season.
As a matter of fact, he's now run seventy one
ball screens including passes this season and he's getting one
point zero six points per possession. That's like really solid,
that's well above average. So, like, I'll freely admit I
was late to the party on Reed Shepherd, but I
(26:50):
am starting to come around, and it's been the on
ball stuff coming into the season with what I saw
in preseason. In the first couple games, I'm like three
and D guard, Like, this is a guy who can
guard a little bit, knock down an open three, drive
a close out. But he's showing so much more as
an on ball player than I thought I would see
from what I've seen from him in the NBA over
the first you know year and some change coming into
(27:11):
this recent stretch. I think we would all be very
foolish to underestimate what this Rockets team is capable of
as a championship contender, even in the context of teams
like Oklahoma City and Denver. I talked about after the
Fred Van Vlead injury that I just viewed Oklahoma City
and Denver as the top two contenders in the league.
We have not done an update on our contender rankings
(27:32):
since very early October, like since the start of camp.
We are going to do a We're about a month
into the season now. I want to do contender rankings
about once a month. Next week, we're going to do
something in the contender ranking department. I'm not sure what
that is yet. I will let you guys know, but
we are going to do something along those lines, and
(27:53):
I think probably Wednesday morning is my guest, but I'll
keep you guys posted. We'll do something in the contender
rankings department. I want to have the Nerd Sash guys
on too, because I was listening to them the other day.
They had the Lakers completely off of their top ten.
So I got to give them some shit for that
as well. Not saying the Lakers are going to be
a top tier contender, but they certainly should be in
the top ten. So we'll have the Nerd Sash guys
on next week. We'll do some contender rankings. But like
(28:15):
to me, I'm just going to spoilers. Houston is absolutely
going to be in the top tier. For me, they're
absolutely in that conversation with Oklahoma City and Denver. I think,
in addition to all of the strong performances we've seen
to start the season in the strong metrics, it's that weirdness.
They're weird. They play a style that is very different
(28:36):
from the rest in the league, and that can cause
problems in playoff matchups. I remember for years Golden State
would like just jump up two oh and like every
single series because you would get into a series with
them and they'd be doing this and it's so different
than what everybody else is doing that by the time
you get your bearings, you're down two to oh in
the series and you're climbing up hill. That's a real
advantage when you're playing weird basketball compared to the rest
(28:59):
of the league. I absolutely think Houston is on that
same level as Oklahoma City. In Denver, I think we
would be insane to think that they can't win the
championship this season. I am very much a believer in
what they're building down there in Houston. By the way,
tomorrow night, we will be covering them on playback again
for that Nuggets Rockets Showdown. Please come hang out. We'll
(29:20):
be on YouTube and on playback for that entire game.
Very much looking forward to that early season showdown between
two of our top tier contenders. I believe that will
be the first matchup of top tier contenders since technically
that Oklahoma City matchup on Opening Night, now that we
view Houston in that category. All Right, before we get
(29:45):
out of here today, I wanted to talk a little
bit about the schedule. There's been a lot of talk
surrounding injuries lately. Steve Kerr was venting about the schedule
after a loss earlier in the week. He has every
right to feel that way, by the way, I think
the Warriors have played something like seventeen games in twenty
eight days, with five back to backs, and it has
straight up mentally and physically defeated that team. I think
(30:06):
the Warriors are good, and they're like a little over
five hundred because they've been driven into the ground by
the schedule. Then Adam Silver came out basically said that
the league is going to be doing a big investigation
into the rise in injuries in the NBA, what's causing it,
what can be done, and so now I think is
as good a time as ever to discuss why it's
so important for the league to eventually shorten the regular
(30:28):
season and what I think it means in the big picture,
because the league has been going in the opposite direction
as of late. They've added in season tournament basketball, They've
added the play in tournament. We have more games than ever.
And it's because the league is obsessed with this idea
that if they shorten the season, they will lose money.
(30:49):
It's based on this concept of inventory. They want as
much sellable inventory as possible. I think this is incredibly
short sighted, and I also think it's an important logical fallacy.
It's always bothered me when people see money in the
short term but can't see the big picture of what
happens with that decision. A classic example that drives me
(31:12):
crazy is like when I see people do like home
projects on their own at home to try to save money,
like taking on some massive drywall project or taking on
some massive tile project or your roof or something like that,
And what ends up happening is in the short term,
it's a very simple decision. If I pay this roofer
(31:33):
to do my roof, it might cost me, you know,
X amount of thousand dollars. But if I do it myself.
I can save myself this many thousands of dollars, and
it like misses several key points, like, for instance, like
your best trait is what you do for a living.
You're better off channeling your energy into whatever that is,
whether it's picking up an extra shift or look at
(31:55):
looking for an extra gig in earning money with what
you do best every single day, then taking that money
and paying a person that is a professional contractor in
that area so that they can take care of it
because that's what they do for a living and they're
gonna do a much better job than you. I can't
tell you how many times over either myself over the years,
(32:17):
like I've I've flipped a house and done most of
the work myself before. Like when you do that kind
of stuff, you end up fucking up and making mistakes
and having to buy additional materials and wasting enormous amounts
of time. Like oh, I'm gonna be able to do
this in twelve hours, No one ends up being more
like sixty hours because half the time you don't know
what you're doing, you're having to redo work, and then
(32:38):
when the finished product is done, you don't end up
saving anywhere near as much money as you thought you
were gonna save, and the quality of your work is shit,
And like there are exemptions. Like my best buddy Luke
back in Tucson, he's like a craftsman and he's a hobbyist,
so like for him, he just loves doing that. So
like for him, like if he paid a contractor, he
(32:58):
would just get pissed off because he microanalyze their work,
and like he actually genuinely enjoys doing it. So like
there are exceptions, but for most of us, we're better
off just trying to find ways to make our own
money doing what we do best, and then paying the
people who do that work best to do it. But
we don't because we can't see past that initial savings.
(33:18):
I might be able to save two thousand bucks if
I do my own roof coating, and then you end
up doing a shitty job, burning through more materials than
you thought, spending way much more time doing it than
you thought you were gonna do. It's that short sighted
approach to money, and I think the NBA is making
a very similar mistake. All they can see is if
they shorten the season, they'll have less sellable inventory and
(33:43):
What they can't see is that if you shorten the season,
your inventory becomes more valuable. Maybe not right away, but
within a few years when the quality of your product
dramatically improves. In my opinion, shortening the season what proved
the value of your inventory more than commensurate to the
(34:04):
drop in your total amount of inventory. The NBA regular
season has a big problem with availability and intensity. Just
take last night, for example, the Golden State Warriors basically
punted a game in Miami because of the schedule, sat
out all their stars, and that was just like one
(34:25):
of the things. Chicago beats Portland. Drew Holidays out with
a soft tissue injury. By the way, shout out to
Nikola Vusovich, yet another game winner on a spacing three.
On the week side on a drive, the Knicks beat
the MAVs in Dallas. Injuries all over the place, So
Giannanobi with a soft tissue injury and Anthony Davis has
a soft tissue injury, like just different versions of both teams,
(34:46):
by the way, kind of a bogus offensive foul called
on that late game tying layup from Brandon Williams. I
know he chicken winged him a little bit. But that's
just a super physical late gameplay. I thought they should
have counted that bucket. Denver's down two starters on the
road in New Orleans. Massive night for payd Watson. By
the way, Nicholas or excuse me, Demonisa Bonus is out
in Oklahoma City with a sore knee. Like it's just
that is par for the course. In the NBA these days,
(35:11):
you're going to see every single night three fourths of
the game basically representing shells of both teams. The regular season,
more than ever, is now about surviving rather than about
providing a showcase for the best basketball players in the world.
(35:32):
It's now becoming like who wins in the regular season
now is every bit as much about your depth of
talent as well as like how well coached are you
and how disciplined are you in your system so that
you can win on the margins and do like these
little things as a team, as guys slot into roles,
so that you can like basically manufacture wins in the
(35:54):
regular season when important starters are missing games. That's what
the regular season has become about. It's not become about
can the Rockets at their best beat Denver at their best.
It's not about like like actually matching up the stars
of the league and the best teams of the league
against each other as a showcase to see you who's
the best basketball team. It's like how good is your
(36:15):
ninth and tenth man, and like, do you have a
good enough system that can manufacture wins when key guys
are out of the lineup? That's driving the regular season. Now,
by the way, that's fun for us. Yeah, us basketball
nut jobs. Who can you know, spend time, you know,
like to take Ni Kwan Tomlin it. We can sit
at him and be like, yeah, this is this is awesome.
(36:36):
We found this other high motor athlete. He's really good.
He grabs all these offensive rebounds, he runs the four,
he can guard the other team's best player. That's great.
He might not be in their rotation if they get
to the playoffs and Darius Garland's healthy and Max Struce
is healthy, he might not play. It's fun for us
to dive into that kind of stuff, but that's not
(36:57):
going to capture the attention in the passion of the
masses the way that actually matching up the best versions
of these teams against each other consistently in a showcase
every night would So now imagine this scenario. You shorten
the season to sixty six games, roughly a twenty percent
increase in your volume. Right, you keep it over the
(37:19):
same calendar length. You still play from mid October to
mid June. As a result, teams are only playing like
three times a week, sometimes less. You completely get rid
of back to backs every single week. Teams are basically
guaranteed at least one stretch of two consecutive nights off.
I believe that would lead to at least a twenty
(37:42):
percent increase in the value of each game in the standings,
the level of participation from the stars, the practice time
the teams could get so that they could be sharper
and more organized. Right now, your average star plays like
sixty five to seventy out of the eighty two games
I think give. You shortened the season to sixty six games,
(38:03):
you're gonna get sixty to sixty two sixty three games
out of your stars. So, yeah, you might shorten the
inventory of the season by sixteen games, but you're not
gonna be cutting all the stars by sixteen games. You're
gonna watch Luca and Giannis and Anthony Edwards and Donovan
Mitchell and Jalen Brunson. You're gonna watch those guys about
(38:26):
the same amount of times as if you kept an
eighty two game season, because they will only miss games
when they're legitimately injured. Because of the fact that the
load management is essentially baked into the schedule, injuries would
happen less often, So like the actual reasons for which
a player has to miss a game would happen less often.
(38:48):
Every national TV game would be a legit showcase for
the league. The stars would play, they would have practiced
that week, so they would have a game plan, and
they'd be organized on both ends of the floor. The
intensity would rise, why because the games more important than
the standings, but also because of this the love for
the game. How many times have we watched a regular
season game this season or in recent seasons where it
(39:08):
looked like a team didn't even want to be out
there because it's like their fifth game and eight nights
and their beat, or because they're at the tail end
of a super long road trip that has had multiple
back to backs and all this crazy travel and these
dudes just want to go home bet with their families. Like,
think of how many fewer blowouts we would have because
(39:30):
a team just let go of the rope because they're
just defeated from fatigue. Think about how much more hyped
your stars would be for every game if they were
happening less frequently, so that their love for basketball could
be more prevalent than the level of fatigue they're feeling
from how much the schedule is beating them into the ground.
(39:52):
And again, ultimately you only need to account for roughly
a twenty percent decrease in revenue only from the regular season. Like,
I don't think you should shorten the playoffs. Playoffs are
the best product the NBA has. There's something to be
said about, like whether or not you should continue to
add urgency to the regular season through you know, getting
(40:13):
rid of the idea of like having ten teams get
into the playoffs with the play in tournament. Like there's
different things you could potentially do to try to address that,
but for the most part, I don't think that's a
huge deal. Like, teams don't want to be in the
play and I promise you they don't want to have
their season come down to a single elimination game. But like,
if you can decrease your regular season inventory by twenty percent.
(40:36):
All you need to increase is twenty percent in the
overall value of each regular season game. And if your
stars are playing, and the teams have practiced and game
plan for each each other appropriately, and there's way fewer
blowouts because teams aren't letting go of the rope, and
the games matter more in the standings, and the stars
are like hyped because they're like, Hey, we're playing basketball
(40:58):
tonight instead of fuck, we're playing bass tonight. Like those
are the kinds of things that I think would more
than account for whatever sort of downside you experience from
dropping revenue. I just the NBA season has become so
much less about which team is better on any given
(41:19):
night in terms of their ceiling, and more about depth
and system, because depth and system is what allows you
to succeed when three of your top six guys are out,
and on any any given night, you're probably gonna have
three of your top six guys out. I watched the
Lakers play with a fully healthy roster two nights ago
against the Jazz. I think that might be the first
(41:40):
time in the last like five years I've seen that happen,
because every time someone's got a little bit of cash soreness.
They're out. Every time Luka Doncic is on tailing of
back to back, he's like, no, not like you finally
played in the back to back the other day. That's
against Milwaukee. That's not happening for the most part for
most of these guys. I just I'm I am encouraged
(42:03):
because seeing this pressure applied from guys like Steve Kerr,
seeing the additional efforts from the league talked about by
Adam Silver, like this to me just signifies that they're
at least starting to consider it. It ain't gonna change
things for us. There's still gonna be games on seven
nights a week. We're still gonna have hoops to talk
about all the time. Just instead of having eight games
(42:26):
on a Tuesday slate, they'll have five games on a
Tuesday slate. And in those five games, instead of having
six of the eight games have three four key rotation
players missing between the two teams, you're more likely to
have full strength. We'd be sitting here today talking about
Anthony Davis versus og Ananobi in the matchup with the
(42:48):
Knicks and the MAVs, rather than the shells of both teams.
Does Kyrie Irving Terra's acl if he doesn't wear himself
into the ground the way he did at the tail
end of last season. I think these things are all
connect to each other, and I don't think the solution
is all that complicated. All right, guys, that's all I
have for today. As always, as sincerely appreciate you guys
for supporting us and supporting the show. Tomorrow is mail
(43:10):
bag Day, so make sure you get your questions into
the full episodes. So lots of extra content coming this week.
I have Lakers Collective coming today, so make sure you
get head over there to get a little deep dive
on the early returns from the lebron Lakers. Tomorrow, I'm
going on the All NBA Show with Adam Marres. We'll
be talking about stuff around the league. Got playback on
Friday night between Denver and Houston. Lots of content still
(43:33):
coming this week, and we have our mail bag tomorrow.
Make sure you get your questions in the comments. We'll
get to it then. I will see you guys tomorrow
The volume. All right, welcome to him tonight here at
the Volume Heavy Thursday. Everybody, hope Bob, you guys are
having a great week. Got a quick show for you
(00:21):
guys today. We're just doing two segments. We're gonna do
a deep dive into the Houston Rockets. Off the top.
They had a dominant win last night in Cleveland. Got
a little squirrely there in the early part of the
fourth quarter, but they were able to regain control. I
want to deep dive into three specific concepts surrounding Houston
that I think are really important both in the short
term and in the long term for what we can
(00:43):
expect from them, both as a contender, but also in
terms of what their big picture potential is. We're gonna
get really into the weeds on Houston today. Then at
the tail end of the show, we had a couple
of bits of news. Steve Kurt was complaining about the
schedule after the Golden State Warriors have played seventeen games
in twenty eight days, including five back to backs to
start the season, as they basically punted a game in
(01:06):
Miami last night. And then we got an announcement that
Adam Silver is basically ordered an investigation into the rise
in injuries and how the schedule could potentially be playing
a role there. So it seems like the league is
just barely starting to crack the door open towards the
idea of potentially addressing some stuff with the schedule, and
so I want to dive into some specific ideas behind
(01:27):
what direction I think the league should be going with
the schedule. How I think that it's going to be
a lot more beneficial for the league financially than you
would think on the surface, because obviously everyone is obsessed
with revenue surrounding the amount of inventory they have. I
really want to dive into the idea of this schedule
at the tail end of the show. You guys have
the job before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops
(01:48):
and I YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of
our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason lt
so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about
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It's always super helpful you leave a rating and a
review on that front. Jackson's doing amazing work on all
of our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.
Make sure you guys follow us there for more content
throughout the year, and then tomorrow's mail bag day. So
(02:08):
if you want to get into any of the other
games from this week that we didn't get a chance
to touch on, or if you want to have an
opportunity to ask a question about anything around the league
or anything at all, get it into the YouTube comments
today again anywhere in the full episodes on YouTube in
the comments right mail bag colon, write your question. It
helps me sort them out when I'm looking through the comments,
(02:29):
and we'll get to them in tomorrow's mail bag. And then, lastly,
our next playback stream for this week. Our last playback
stream for this week is going to be tomorrow night
for a showdown between the Denver Nuggets and the Houston Rockets,
a game I'm very very excited for. We will be
covering that game, watching along from start to finish on
playback tomorrow night. Make sure you guys come hang out
(02:51):
for that. All right, let's talk some basketball. So, Houston
looks pretty dominant last night against the Cavs in Cleveland.
Went up twenty in the first half, basically dominated every
face of the game, Cleveland looked completely unprepared for their
offensive rebounding attack. The guy that was screaming off the
screen for me as I was watching was DeAndre Hunter.
Is like, when you're dealing with a big, physical frontline
that's trying to crash the glass a lot a lot
(03:12):
of times you can box out to try to keep
a guy attached to the ground, But when it's Steven
Adams or some of these other bigs that Houston has,
you got a sandwich rebound, meaning you got to have
as you're boxing out, you're holding a guy on the ground, right,
you gotta have someone come flying in over the top
to come secure the rebound. And way too often, in particular,
I thought DeAndre Hunter was a spectator, just kind of
standing around while that fistfight for rebounds was happening around
(03:37):
the basket. And Jared Allen in many cases in there
boxing out for his life, and even in situations where
he was boxing out he was getting beat over the top.
Every time he stepped over and help Steven Adams or
Clint Capello would just come over and clean things up.
The Cavs just so completely unprepared for it. It was
a twenty one to six second chance points advantage for
(03:59):
the Houston Rockets. And we're gonna dig much deeper into
this concept of offensive rebounding for Houston, how it works,
how it provides spacing, the kind of problems it presents
to teams, what it means for playoff matchups. We're gonna
get all into that here in just a minute. Shane
Gouon absolutely torched them twenty eight points, eleven rebounds, and
seven assists. He looked super comfortable attacking different mismatches and
(04:19):
switches like he did a bunch of work against Lonzo
Ball and switches against Dean Wade in switches, also did
some damage to the Cavs starting frontline. We're going to
do a deep dive into Shanegon as well. I thought
the Rockets defended super well. Their bigs did a great
job making multiple efforts at the rim, like Steven Adams
would blitz Donovan Mitchell but then sprint back and somehow
get a contest on Jared Allen at the rim and
(04:40):
force a miss. Kevin Durant had an extra rotation to
Jared Allen at the rim that forced to miss. Shane
Goon forced a miss for Jared Allen around the rim.
A lot of misses around the rim for Cleveland's bigs
just because of that those extra rotation efforts that the
bigger forwards and centers for Houston that was making around
the basket. And by the way, they are tenth according
(05:02):
to Synergy in rim makes allowed per game and twelve
in rim percentage allowed. So some strong paint defense from
Houston to start this season. They came out blitzing Donovan Mitchell.
They lost control of him a little bit in the
fourth quarter, but for the most part, I thought they
defended him super well. And then on defense, you know,
Cleveland likes to attempt a lot of threes, but you
(05:23):
can do some work with the types of guys that
you leave open to kind of skew those percentages, and
I thought Houston did a great job of leaving the
right guys open. They would let Lonzo shoot by going
underscreens or closing out short because he's been shooting in
the low thirties from three this year. Naykwon Tomlins is
really interesting athletic fod that does a lot of work
on the offensive glass and is kind of just a
high motor athlete that flies around, but he's not a
(05:45):
guy that's going to burn you from the three point line.
They let Na Kwon Tomlin shoot, they let Evan Mobley shoot,
and so even though Cleveland got thirty nine threes up,
they were mostly threes that Houston was willing to live with,
and they worked out in Houston's favor in the percentage
as they got a comfortable win. Basically wire to wire
for the Rock, It's very, very impressive. Today's show is
(06:06):
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New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee or Virginia. So there are three
big picture Houston concepts that I want to dive into today.
We've fit several things throughout the season. We talked about
(07:53):
the Kevin Durant Albert Shangun kind of dynamic in terms
of those two stars, their ability to play with each
other and without each other. I want to focus though
on their offensive, rebounding attack, what it does to teams,
how effectively it acts as spacing for their stars, the
matchup problem it presents. Two, what is Albern shang Gun's ceiling.
You know, he's a guy who's been in the league
(08:14):
for five years, so he's been around for so long
that it kind of feels like he's older. But he's
only twenty three years old, like, and I think he's
barely scratching the surface of his potential. So I want
to talk about what Albern Shanggun can become. And then, third,
what can we make of this recent surge from Reed
Shepherd who's had double figure scoring in seven consecutive games,
And most importantly, I was skeptical about him as an
(08:34):
on ball player, but more quality on ball reps last
night against the Caves, and he's starting to put together
a decent little set of on ball data to start
the season. So those are the three different topics that
I want to dive into with Houston today, starting with
the offensive rebounding. Before the season, we were so obsessed
with the idea of spacing for this Houston team, right,
(08:56):
Like we talked about how life was going to be
harder for Kevin Durant because they were going to be
pinching in off the corners NonStop, and like, would they
be able to achieve high low spacing with a men
Thompson and Alburn shangun basically meaning like one of those
guys in the middle of the floor, one of those
guys working along the baseline, would they be able to
achieve the tic tac toe sequences that could pay off
with dunks and like easy shots in the just short
(09:17):
of the front of the rim, right, Like, will they
be able to figure out those elements of their spacing?
How will their shooters perform like well Jabari Smith knockdown shots, well,
Josha Koge knockdown shots, well, Tarry Easton knockdown shots, Will
Amen Thompson knockdown shots. Like all these different concepts that
we focused on regarding spacing, and to be clear, all
of that is actually working out really well for Houston.
(09:38):
Like their high low spacing has been incredible. We've seen
plenty of those tic tac toe sequences where Shanegun catches
in the middle of the floor and hits the men
Thompson cutting on the baseline or vice versa. We've seen
guys shooting the three ball really well, like Houston sneaky
been a very good jump shooting team. Tari Easton's shooting
fifty one percent from three, Jabari Smith is shooting thirty
(09:58):
nine percent. Really if you look at their core rotation players,
basically everybody is shooting thirty eight percent or better with
exception of Aman Thompson, and for the most part he's
operating in the middle of the floor and in the
dunker spot. He's only taken about two threes per game.
And so like the jump shooting hasn't been an issue.
In fact, the Rockets have been number one in the
league in both just plain old three point percentage but
(10:21):
also an overall jump shooting efficiency according to Synergy, even
when you include mid Rangers and off the dribble jump shots,
they've been the best jump shooting team in the league.
Now I'm not sure how sustainable that is. They certainly
aren't on paper the best jump shooting roster in the league.
So ultimately the determining factor of whether or not they
can remain the best offense in the Like they got
(10:41):
a one twenty three offensive rating, they're the best offense
in the league. Whether or not they can stay there,
you know, as surprisingly as they have been able to
reach that level, whether or not they can stay there
is going to come down to whether or not that
jump shooting can sustain. But a lot of those spacing
concepts that we talked about before the season have actually
trended very heavily in the post positive direction for Houston.
But where I think we all underestimated the Rockets in
(11:04):
terms of their spacing was offensive rebounding. And this is
where we have to kind of redefine spacing as a
very simple concept instead of thinking of it as like
vertical spacing like a dunker around the basket, or three
point spacing a guy knocking down three point shots, or
other like a little like more complicated spacing concepts like
driving closeouts or converting four on threes into dunks, layups
(11:25):
and open threes. You know, when you blitz ball handlers,
or you bring your big up to the level. Things
like that. Those are those basic spacing concepts that we
talk about all the time. But that's not the only
way to make a team pay for sending extra attention
to your stars. You can do it by getting offensive rebounds.
And this is where the rockets can cause serious problems
for teams who think about the game in a very
(11:46):
traditional way. On the defensive end of the floor, let's
start with Steven Adams. So the most common type of
traditional help defense that you'll see from teams is to
have their big man step over and help. He's typically
not gonna leave a three point shooter open because most
bigs in the league can't shoot. You don't see very
many big bruising centers around. There's a handful of him.
(12:09):
There's not a ton of big bruising centers. So you
feel like your backside guys can control the glass and
I'll often the big will step up to contest, but
then try to get back and box out. And so
it's one of those things where you're big is typically
the guy you're helping with. First, he's already situated around
the basket because his man is usually already in the
dunker spot. He's not leaving a three point shot open, right.
He's a rim protector, right because he's big and he's
(12:30):
got long arms, So he's gonna be a guy that
like when he helps, he's actually gonna be a rim
to turn it. Like there was a play last night
where Donovan Mitchell ended up being a low man for
Cleveland and he end up giving up an easy layup.
Like Donovan Mitchell, if he's standing under the basket and
help isn't gonna do much to deter players at the rim. Right.
You want your big man deterring stuff at the rim,
because that's the kind of guy that's actually gonna be
(12:51):
able to cause rim misses. That's traditional defense. You want
your big stepping over to help, right. But as soon
as your big man steps over, this is where the
rockets kill you. And Steven Adams had like three offensive
rebounds in the first like sixty seconds ninety seconds of
the game because Jared Allen was stepping over in help.
And when you step over and help, Steven Adams is
(13:12):
just mashing your back line on the glass for offensive rebounds.
He's getting over five offensive rebounds a game, and so
this puts you in a bind. If you keep your
big home on Adams, you cause two problems. One, Steven
Adams is still probably bigger and stronger than your center,
and he's gonna win that battle many times, so sometimes
(13:33):
it doesn't even solve the problem. And then two, you
start leaving these one on one players, these ridiculously talented
one on one players and Albert Shangun and Kevin Durant
to play on an island without help that can torch you.
And so then if you keep helping with your big
then you really have to sandwich rebound on Adams. You
got to have somebody in there, big four to box
(13:54):
him out, to try to keep him on the ground,
because remember it's very difficult to jump when a guy's
leaning on you, right, So you can keep Steven Adams
ground bound by boxing him out, But then you also
have to have that sandwich rebounder come over because Steven
Adams is bigger, so if he just holds the guy down,
he's gonna go get the rebound, right, So you got
to have these other dudes come flying in to come
snatch the rebound over the top of Steven Adams. Now
(14:14):
you're putting two effectively on Steven Adams, right. So if
I have two on the ball essentially in the form
of the guy guarding Kevin Durant or the guy guarding Shangun,
and I have a big stepping over to help on
that Iso, and I have a Ford boxing out Adams,
and I've got a fourth dude coming over trying to
scrap over the top with Adams. Now I've got basically
(14:36):
a four on two rebounding advantage for Houston. Elsewhere on
the floor, that's where their corner crashers come in. That's
where a men Thompson's getting rebounds out of the dunker spot.
That's where Josha Kogi and Tari Easton are crashing out
of the corner with their textbook corner crashes. This is
where Jabari Smith has been doing damage on the offensive glass.
When you start to devote attention to guarding Shanguon and
(14:57):
Kevin Durant while also dealing with Steven Adams on the
offensive glass, you're just always a man down, sometimes two
men down, trying to secure offensive rebounds. From corner crashers
and guys crashing out of the dunker spot like a
Men Thompson. It just puts you in an absolute mind,
and you know, it reminds me, you know, when we
look at some of the great teams in recent NBA
(15:20):
history that have one with kind of bizarre basketball, right,
Like think about you know, Golden State traditionally, right this
team that runs all this crazy action. You've got the
shooter running around and inverture spacing because you start sending
multiple defenders out to Steph twenty five feet from the basket.
All of a sudden, it starts opening up all these
layups and dunks for Golden State because the big man
(15:42):
is way out at the level showing on Steph. So
you don't have your big man on the back line.
So now you got these small guys who are both
undersized but also dealing with a man down advantage because
Golden State's running four on three. Causes all sorts of
problems for you. Right. We talk about Denver and the
weird thing that they can do to defense is like
you've got to guard Jokic and he's operating around by
(16:02):
the elbow or the top of the key a ton.
So now your big is out dealing with Jokic far
away from the basket, which is inverting spacing and causing
all these openings on the back line for cutters like
Aaron Gordon and Christian Brown, and they're just eviscerating you
with layups and dunks off of the back line, and
you help on those layups and dunks, and all of
a sudden, Michael Porter Junior is getting a wide open
three right Like we see these weird teams that come
(16:26):
and play a weird style and it causes problems. The
Milwaukee Bucks back in their absolute prime. The combination of
Jannis Antenna Kumpo's ridiculous rim pressure, you got to build
a massive wall that's very different than your traditional defensive scheme.
It causes problems right on the defensive end of the floor.
Jannis has a low man off of Brook Lopez and
(16:46):
his ability to basically be two places at once, essentially
to be at the rim behind the Brook Lopez, but
also back out to the corner to contest corner threes
or and if he cuts along the baseline, he's athletic
enough to recover. It can break you right when you
do something that's so bizarre, that's so different that it
breaks your base defense. Then, even if you end up
(17:10):
in this playoff matchup, it sometimes can take two or
three games for you to adjust from playing traditional basketball
against twenty seven of the thirty teams to suddenly having
to play a very different style against a very different
type of team. And to me, Houston is like the
next team in this line of thinking. Right, in this
(17:30):
kind of concept of playing weird, non traditional basketball, you
essentially can't play your traditional style because if you do,
they're just going to mash you on the offensive class.
And so it forces you to make some really difficult decisions.
You basically have to pick your poison. Do you want
to devote more energy to helping on the stars, Well,
(17:50):
that's going to cause problems for you on the glass.
Do you want to send all your resources to controlling
the defensive class, Well, now you're letting Kevin de Ranton
albernsche Gon operate on an island. There's more trickle down
effects because like, guess what if you have all five
of your dudes trying to stay back to secure defensive rebounds,
that dampens your transition attack because now instead of running
(18:12):
the floor for layups and threes and all the transition
stuff that everyone else in the league is doing. You're
staying in the backcourt trying to deal with Steven Adams
and Jabari Smith and Josha Kogie and a Men Thompson
on the offensive glass. Houston allows transition pushes so far
this season on just fourteen point six percent of opponents possessions,
(18:35):
which is the sixth the best mark in the league
according to Cleaning the Glass. That's one of those positive
side effects of their offensive rebounding. They bludgeon you. You
react by sending all your resources to the defensive glass.
Now you're not getting out in transition, which, by the way,
is one of the best ways to attack a big,
(18:55):
slow team. But if they're winning that battle so much
on the offensive glass that you're not running, it defeats
the purpose. It's just a fascinating example of how a
team's bizarre play style can cause problems for everybody, and
it's a casual reminder that there are many ways to
win a basketball game. Basketball is more art than science.
(19:16):
You don't have to win it with, you know, an
elite on ball defender that can chase over the top
and funnel into an elite rim protector and running spread
pick and roll. On the other end of you don't
have to run traditional basketball schemes in order to win.
You can win a basketball game in many different ways,
and Houston is finding a new way to do that.
(19:37):
Second big thing I wanted to deep dive in with
Houston Alburnshengun. How good can he become? He's averaging twenty
three points, ten rebounds, and seven assists on the season
so far in his last three games twenty eight, eleven,
and eight. And again, like we talked about at the
top of the show, he's been in the league five years,
(19:58):
so it feels like he's been around forever. But he's
only twenty three years old. And I was digging into
some of his numbers this morning, and I still think
he's barely even close to touching his potential. And again,
before we get any further into this, he's at this
point an All NBA player right now. If the season
(20:18):
ended today, he's making an All NBA team. So he's
already looking like a top fifteen player in the league
at age twenty three. And that's before any of these
things that we're about to get into, which are clear
areas of opportunity for him, like, for instance, his shot making.
He's shooting really well from three this year, shooting forty
one percent, but his short range shot making still has
(20:41):
a long way to go. He's just nine for twenty
five on mid range jump shots. He's just forty five
percent on hooks, he's just thirty one percent on floaters.
And what's crazy is I think he has good natural touch.
I think he's going to be way better in those areas.
I see, excuse me, I see Shangun in the big
(21:03):
picture is a guy who's going to be around like
sixty percent on short range shot making, a guy that's
gonna hit well over fifty percent of his floaters and
well over fifty percent of his hooks. Like by the
time Shang Gun gets twenty seven to twenty eight years old,
he's going to be deadly with that left shoulder hook.
He's gonna make that floater in the middle of the floor,
you know, well over half the time. I think he's
(21:24):
got like the kind of bag so to speak, meaning
like the dribble fluidity in the footwork to become a
guy that's going to be a very successful mid range score.
I think he could be right around fifty percent on
mid range jump shots. In the big picture, I think
he's got that in his potential, like as a clear
possible outcome. And then the big thing that's different, you know,
(21:45):
because the the guy that everyone compares Shangun to is Jokic,
and there's a reason for that. Very similarly, he's such
a big bully ball player that you have to put
a big on him, and when you do, it causes
this problem where like he's quicker than that guy can
cause problems from the perimeter, but also if you extend
out on the perimeter to guard him, it can invert
your spacing. So then you start thinking about putting a
forward on him. And if you start putting a forward
(22:07):
on him, he's just gonna bully that guy and shoot it.
But he also has like the ability to score over
the top a la jokicch right, But like there's a
couple of big differences, right, Like he's his short range
shot making is nowhere near what Nikola Jokic is. Yet
that's a big thing He's got to work out, and
he's not quite as big, so it's not like the
same kind of like physical size disadvantage that Nikola Jokic
(22:29):
causes for every single player in the league. There are
like some clear differences between them. Shangun's a good passer,
He's not a Nicola Jokic level passer, right, So, like
there are some obvious differences, but there are also some
things that Shane Gum brings to the table that Jokic doesn't,
and that's what intrigues me, Like specifically his athleticism. There
is like a straight line speed, vertical like jumping ability,
(22:53):
slashing element to his game that I think he'll expand
this is a guy that's gonna drive and dunk on
you lot when he gets into his mid to late twenties.
I think he can be a very good defender in
his mid to late twenties. He is already starting to
flash some of that upside there. But there is a
level that I think Shang Gun can get to defensively
(23:13):
that most of the big European bigs can't get to. Like,
there is a lot of potential upside for Shannggun. There
is a version of Shangun that is so much better
than he is right now, and he's already a top
fifteen player in the league. A guy that's going to
be a sixty plus percent short range scorer, a guy
who's going to be a fifty plus percent mid range scorer.
(23:35):
A guy who's gonna have much more fluidity on off
the dribble game in the mid range, a guy who's
gonna slash to the basket and dunk on you more,
a guy who's gonna be a dominant two way player.
To be very clear, I think Shang Gun has legitimate
top tier superstar upside, like at the same level in
(23:57):
conversations with guys like Jokic, with guys like Shay, with
guys like Giannis, I actually think it's more likely than
not that he is firmly considered in that tier within
the next three years. It's just an unbelievable development for
the Rockets on the talent front that they could Amen
(24:18):
Thompson has that type of potential too, He's further out.
He's probably five to seven years out from that. But
like there's a version to the story where they have
two of the top tier guys in the league. When
we get to that point and now you have Kevin
Durant to bridge the gap between now and then. The
third thing that I wanted to dive into a little
bit today. Is Reed Shepherd really starting to find his groove.
(24:41):
He's had double figures in seven consecutive games. He's averaging
in that seven game span fifteen points, fifty seven percent
from the field, fifty one percent from three, and most importantly,
he's starting to find some success as an on ball player,
which was my main concern with him early in the season.
If you guys remember like I believed in the three
point shot. It was just there's too much of a
large sample of him being a good shooter. And the
(25:02):
people that I trust that cover the draft were like, yeah,
Reed can shoot. He's gonna shoot the ball. And then
I thought he could be better defensively than he was.
He had a rough few first games, and when I
was watching him in preseason, I'm like, he's scrappy. He
can get up underneath the basketball. He's kind of a
defensive playmaker that can get steels, play passing lanes, attack
the basketball on the dribble, that sort of stuff. But
what I didn't see where I was much lower on
(25:23):
Reed Shepherd than the consensus was the on ball stuff.
I just didn't see it. I thought he looked a
little too small. I didn't think he had the ability
to like get separation and elevate against elite defenders. I
didn't think there was enough on ball stuff there, and
like I've been flat out wrong about that to start
the season. It is legitimately coming around a couple more
(25:45):
really nice on ball screen attacks. Yesterday he had to
play against Craig Porter on the right side of the
floor where he rejected the screen on an ice, got
right down into the middle of the lane and shot
a little bank shot off the glass and knocked it down.
He had another one in the first half where he
put his defense in jail and kind of worked into
the middle of the lane and knocked down a little floater.
His shot making in ball screens has been really impressive.
(26:06):
He's seven for fourteen on pull up threes in pick
and roll, so when he comes off the screen, if
the guy goes under, if he dies on the pick,
he's hitting half of those pull up threes. He's shooting
forty four percent on twos in pick and roll, which
is pretty solid. He's five for nine on floaters. He's
ten for fifteen at the rim. He's doing really nice
job in his on ball reps to start this season
(26:29):
a lot better than I expected after seeing what I
saw in preseason. In his first few games of the season.
As a matter of fact, he's now run seventy one
ball screens including passes this season and he's getting one
point zero six points per possession. That's like really solid,
that's well above average. So, like, I'll freely admit I
was late to the party on Reed Shepherd, but I
(26:50):
am starting to come around, and it's been the on
ball stuff coming into the season with what I saw
in preseason. In the first couple games, I'm like three
and D guard, Like, this is a guy who can
guard a little bit, knock down an open three, drive
a close out. But he's showing so much more as
an on ball player than I thought I would see
from what I've seen from him in the NBA over
the first you know year and some change coming into
(27:11):
this recent stretch. I think we would all be very
foolish to underestimate what this Rockets team is capable of
as a championship contender, even in the context of teams
like Oklahoma City and Denver. I talked about after the
Fred Van Vlead injury that I just viewed Oklahoma City
and Denver as the top two contenders in the league.
We have not done an update on our contender rankings
(27:32):
since very early October, like since the start of camp.
We are going to do a We're about a month
into the season now. I want to do contender rankings
about once a month. Next week, we're going to do
something in the contender ranking department. I'm not sure what
that is yet. I will let you guys know, but
we are going to do something along those lines, and
(27:53):
I think probably Wednesday morning is my guest, but I'll
keep you guys posted. We'll do something in the contender
rankings department. I want to have the Nerd Sash guys
on too, because I was listening to them the other day.
They had the Lakers completely off of their top ten.
So I got to give them some shit for that
as well. Not saying the Lakers are going to be
a top tier contender, but they certainly should be in
the top ten. So we'll have the Nerd Sash guys
on next week. We'll do some contender rankings. But like
(28:15):
to me, I'm just going to spoilers. Houston is absolutely
going to be in the top tier. For me, they're
absolutely in that conversation with Oklahoma City and Denver. I think,
in addition to all of the strong performances we've seen
to start the season in the strong metrics, it's that weirdness.
They're weird. They play a style that is very different
(28:36):
from the rest in the league, and that can cause
problems in playoff matchups. I remember for years Golden State
would like just jump up two oh and like every
single series because you would get into a series with
them and they'd be doing this and it's so different
than what everybody else is doing that by the time
you get your bearings, you're down two to oh in
the series and you're climbing up hill. That's a real
advantage when you're playing weird basketball compared to the rest
(28:59):
of the league. I absolutely think Houston is on that
same level as Oklahoma City. In Denver, I think we
would be insane to think that they can't win the
championship this season. I am very much a believer in
what they're building down there in Houston. By the way,
tomorrow night, we will be covering them on playback again
for that Nuggets Rockets Showdown. Please come hang out. We'll
(29:20):
be on YouTube and on playback for that entire game.
Very much looking forward to that early season showdown between
two of our top tier contenders. I believe that will
be the first matchup of top tier contenders since technically
that Oklahoma City matchup on Opening Night, now that we
view Houston in that category. All Right, before we get
(29:45):
out of here today, I wanted to talk a little
bit about the schedule. There's been a lot of talk
surrounding injuries lately. Steve Kerr was venting about the schedule
after a loss earlier in the week. He has every
right to feel that way, by the way, I think
the Warriors have played something like seventeen games in twenty
eight days, with five back to backs, and it has
straight up mentally and physically defeated that team. I think
(30:06):
the Warriors are good, and they're like a little over
five hundred because they've been driven into the ground by
the schedule. Then Adam Silver came out basically said that
the league is going to be doing a big investigation
into the rise in injuries in the NBA, what's causing it,
what can be done, and so now I think is
as good a time as ever to discuss why it's
so important for the league to eventually shorten the regular
(30:28):
season and what I think it means in the big picture,
because the league has been going in the opposite direction
as of late. They've added in season tournament basketball, They've
added the play in tournament. We have more games than ever.
And it's because the league is obsessed with this idea
that if they shorten the season, they will lose money.
(30:49):
It's based on this concept of inventory. They want as
much sellable inventory as possible. I think this is incredibly
short sighted, and I also think it's an important logical fallacy.
It's always bothered me when people see money in the
short term but can't see the big picture of what
happens with that decision. A classic example that drives me
(31:12):
crazy is like when I see people do like home
projects on their own at home to try to save money,
like taking on some massive drywall project or taking on
some massive tile project or your roof or something like that,
And what ends up happening is in the short term,
it's a very simple decision. If I pay this roofer
(31:33):
to do my roof, it might cost me, you know,
X amount of thousand dollars. But if I do it myself.
I can save myself this many thousands of dollars, and
it like misses several key points, like, for instance, like
your best trait is what you do for a living.
You're better off channeling your energy into whatever that is,
whether it's picking up an extra shift or look at
(31:55):
looking for an extra gig in earning money with what
you do best every single day, then taking that money
and paying a person that is a professional contractor in
that area so that they can take care of it
because that's what they do for a living and they're
gonna do a much better job than you. I can't
tell you how many times over either myself over the years,
(32:17):
like I've I've flipped a house and done most of
the work myself before. Like when you do that kind
of stuff, you end up fucking up and making mistakes
and having to buy additional materials and wasting enormous amounts
of time. Like oh, I'm gonna be able to do
this in twelve hours, No one ends up being more
like sixty hours because half the time you don't know
what you're doing, you're having to redo work, and then
(32:38):
when the finished product is done, you don't end up
saving anywhere near as much money as you thought you
were gonna save, and the quality of your work is shit,
And like there are exemptions. Like my best buddy Luke
back in Tucson, he's like a craftsman and he's a hobbyist,
so like for him, he just loves doing that. So
like for him, like if he paid a contractor, he
(32:58):
would just get pissed off because he microanalyze their work,
and like he actually genuinely enjoys doing it. So like
there are exceptions, but for most of us, we're better
off just trying to find ways to make our own
money doing what we do best, and then paying the
people who do that work best to do it. But
we don't because we can't see past that initial savings.
(33:18):
I might be able to save two thousand bucks if
I do my own roof coating, and then you end
up doing a shitty job, burning through more materials than
you thought, spending way much more time doing it than
you thought you were gonna do. It's that short sighted
approach to money, and I think the NBA is making
a very similar mistake. All they can see is if
they shorten the season, they'll have less sellable inventory and
(33:43):
What they can't see is that if you shorten the season,
your inventory becomes more valuable. Maybe not right away, but
within a few years when the quality of your product
dramatically improves. In my opinion, shortening the season what proved
the value of your inventory more than commensurate to the
(34:04):
drop in your total amount of inventory. The NBA regular
season has a big problem with availability and intensity. Just
take last night, for example, the Golden State Warriors basically
punted a game in Miami because of the schedule, sat
out all their stars, and that was just like one
(34:25):
of the things. Chicago beats Portland. Drew Holidays out with
a soft tissue injury. By the way, shout out to
Nikola Vusovich, yet another game winner on a spacing three.
On the week side on a drive, the Knicks beat
the MAVs in Dallas. Injuries all over the place, So
Giannanobi with a soft tissue injury and Anthony Davis has
a soft tissue injury, like just different versions of both teams,
(34:46):
by the way, kind of a bogus offensive foul called
on that late game tying layup from Brandon Williams. I
know he chicken winged him a little bit. But that's
just a super physical late gameplay. I thought they should
have counted that bucket. Denver's down two starters on the
road in New Orleans. Massive night for payd Watson. By
the way, Nicholas or excuse me, Demonisa Bonus is out
in Oklahoma City with a sore knee. Like it's just
that is par for the course. In the NBA these days,
(35:11):
you're going to see every single night three fourths of
the game basically representing shells of both teams. The regular season,
more than ever, is now about surviving rather than about
providing a showcase for the best basketball players in the world.
(35:32):
It's now becoming like who wins in the regular season
now is every bit as much about your depth of
talent as well as like how well coached are you
and how disciplined are you in your system so that
you can win on the margins and do like these
little things as a team, as guys slot into roles,
so that you can like basically manufacture wins in the
(35:54):
regular season when important starters are missing games. That's what
the regular season has become about. It's not become about
can the Rockets at their best beat Denver at their best.
It's not about like like actually matching up the stars
of the league and the best teams of the league
against each other as a showcase to see you who's
the best basketball team. It's like how good is your
(36:15):
ninth and tenth man, and like, do you have a
good enough system that can manufacture wins when key guys
are out of the lineup? That's driving the regular season. Now,
by the way, that's fun for us. Yeah, us basketball
nut jobs. Who can you know, spend time, you know,
like to take Ni Kwan Tomlin it. We can sit
at him and be like, yeah, this is this is awesome.
(36:36):
We found this other high motor athlete. He's really good.
He grabs all these offensive rebounds, he runs the four,
he can guard the other team's best player. That's great.
He might not be in their rotation if they get
to the playoffs and Darius Garland's healthy and Max Struce
is healthy, he might not play. It's fun for us
to dive into that kind of stuff, but that's not
(36:57):
going to capture the attention in the passion of the
masses the way that actually matching up the best versions
of these teams against each other consistently in a showcase
every night would So now imagine this scenario. You shorten
the season to sixty six games, roughly a twenty percent
increase in your volume. Right, you keep it over the
(37:19):
same calendar length. You still play from mid October to
mid June. As a result, teams are only playing like
three times a week, sometimes less. You completely get rid
of back to backs every single week. Teams are basically
guaranteed at least one stretch of two consecutive nights off.
I believe that would lead to at least a twenty
(37:42):
percent increase in the value of each game in the standings,
the level of participation from the stars, the practice time
the teams could get so that they could be sharper
and more organized. Right now, your average star plays like
sixty five to seventy out of the eighty two games
I think give. You shortened the season to sixty six games,
(38:03):
you're gonna get sixty to sixty two sixty three games
out of your stars. So, yeah, you might shorten the
inventory of the season by sixteen games, but you're not
gonna be cutting all the stars by sixteen games. You're
gonna watch Luca and Giannis and Anthony Edwards and Donovan
Mitchell and Jalen Brunson. You're gonna watch those guys about
(38:26):
the same amount of times as if you kept an
eighty two game season, because they will only miss games
when they're legitimately injured. Because of the fact that the
load management is essentially baked into the schedule, injuries would
happen less often, So like the actual reasons for which
a player has to miss a game would happen less often.
(38:48):
Every national TV game would be a legit showcase for
the league. The stars would play, they would have practiced
that week, so they would have a game plan, and
they'd be organized on both ends of the floor. The
intensity would rise, why because the games more important than
the standings, but also because of this the love for
the game. How many times have we watched a regular
season game this season or in recent seasons where it
(39:08):
looked like a team didn't even want to be out
there because it's like their fifth game and eight nights
and their beat, or because they're at the tail end
of a super long road trip that has had multiple
back to backs and all this crazy travel and these
dudes just want to go home bet with their families. Like,
think of how many fewer blowouts we would have because
(39:30):
a team just let go of the rope because they're
just defeated from fatigue. Think about how much more hyped
your stars would be for every game if they were
happening less frequently, so that their love for basketball could
be more prevalent than the level of fatigue they're feeling
from how much the schedule is beating them into the ground.
(39:52):
And again, ultimately you only need to account for roughly
a twenty percent decrease in revenue only from the regular season. Like,
I don't think you should shorten the playoffs. Playoffs are
the best product the NBA has. There's something to be
said about, like whether or not you should continue to
add urgency to the regular season through you know, getting
(40:13):
rid of the idea of like having ten teams get
into the playoffs with the play in tournament. Like there's
different things you could potentially do to try to address that,
but for the most part, I don't think that's a
huge deal. Like, teams don't want to be in the
play and I promise you they don't want to have
their season come down to a single elimination game. But like,
if you can decrease your regular season inventory by twenty percent.
(40:36):
All you need to increase is twenty percent in the
overall value of each regular season game. And if your
stars are playing, and the teams have practiced and game
plan for each each other appropriately, and there's way fewer
blowouts because teams aren't letting go of the rope, and
the games matter more in the standings, and the stars
are like hyped because they're like, Hey, we're playing basketball
(40:58):
tonight instead of fuck, we're playing bass tonight. Like those
are the kinds of things that I think would more
than account for whatever sort of downside you experience from
dropping revenue. I just the NBA season has become so
much less about which team is better on any given
(41:19):
night in terms of their ceiling, and more about depth
and system, because depth and system is what allows you
to succeed when three of your top six guys are out,
and on any any given night, you're probably gonna have
three of your top six guys out. I watched the
Lakers play with a fully healthy roster two nights ago
against the Jazz. I think that might be the first
(41:40):
time in the last like five years I've seen that happen,
because every time someone's got a little bit of cash soreness.
They're out. Every time Luka Doncic is on tailing of
back to back, he's like, no, not like you finally
played in the back to back the other day. That's
against Milwaukee. That's not happening for the most part for
most of these guys. I just I'm I am encouraged
(42:03):
because seeing this pressure applied from guys like Steve Kerr,
seeing the additional efforts from the league talked about by
Adam Silver, like this to me just signifies that they're
at least starting to consider it. It ain't gonna change
things for us. There's still gonna be games on seven
nights a week. We're still gonna have hoops to talk
about all the time. Just instead of having eight games
(42:26):
on a Tuesday slate, they'll have five games on a
Tuesday slate. And in those five games, instead of having
six of the eight games have three four key rotation
players missing between the two teams, you're more likely to
have full strength. We'd be sitting here today talking about
Anthony Davis versus og Ananobi in the matchup with the
(42:48):
Knicks and the MAVs, rather than the shells of both teams.
Does Kyrie Irving Terra's acl if he doesn't wear himself
into the ground the way he did at the tail
end of last season. I think these things are all
connect to each other, and I don't think the solution
is all that complicated. All right, guys, that's all I
have for today. As always, as sincerely appreciate you guys
for supporting us and supporting the show. Tomorrow is mail
(43:10):
bag Day, so make sure you get your questions into
the full episodes. So lots of extra content coming this week.
I have Lakers Collective coming today, so make sure you
get head over there to get a little deep dive
on the early returns from the lebron Lakers. Tomorrow, I'm
going on the All NBA Show with Adam Marres. We'll
be talking about stuff around the league. Got playback on
Friday night between Denver and Houston. Lots of content still
(43:33):
coming this week, and we have our mail bag tomorrow.
Make sure you get your questions in the comments. We'll
get to it then. I will see you guys tomorrow
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