August 12, 2024 • 34 mins
Jason Timpf begins his rankings of the Top 25 NBA Players with Kyrie Irving of the Dallas Mavericks and De'Aaron Fox of the Sacramento Kings. Jason breaks down both players' biggest strengths and weaknesses and shares what he expects during the 2024 NBA season. Will Kyrie and Luka Doncic keep the Mavericks in NBA Finals contention? Is there another level for De'Aaron Fox and the Kings?
Players 25-24:
04:00 - Introduction to Player Rankings
16:00 - Jason's Tiers for Rankings
19:00 - Players in Contention for Top 25
26:00 - #25: Kyrie Irving
35:00 - #24: De'Aaron Fox
(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements.)
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Follow Jason Timpf on social:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
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m m M. All right, welcome to tonight here at
(01:32):
the Volume of Hope. All you guys are having a
great week. We are starting our annual player rankings today.
We're gonna take some time off the start of the
show to kind of go over the rules for this
particular list, the differences between this list and the list
we had last year, as well as the years that
preceded that, and then we're gonna get into the players
starting with number twenty five and number twenty four today.
(01:54):
You guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribe
to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any
more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter and underscore jcnlts.
You guys, don't miss you announcements. Don't forget about a
podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops Tonight
don't forget. It's also helpful if you leave a rating
and a review on that front in the last but
out least, keep dropping mailbag questions in those YouTube comments.
We can keep hitting them throughout the remainder of this list. Specifically,
(02:17):
if you guys disagree with anything on this list, drop
your case for it in the comments, and we'll take time,
especially when I get back from vacation, to actually go
over some of your guys's responses and we'll kind of
argue back and forth about some of the specific placements
of some of these guys on this list. So major
differences between this list and last year. So last year
(02:39):
I did a bragging rights list, and I laid out
explicitly at the beginning my particular rules, but it led
to a lot of confusion, and I think it was
a flawed process. And one of the main reasons why
is I really like that format for the top of
the list. And again for those of you guys who
missed it from last year, the bragging rights type of
(03:00):
format is like what did you accomplish last year?
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Right?
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Whereas an in a vacuum kind of list is more
of like if I was drafting a team irrespective of
any circumstances that actually exist in the NBA today. If
I was drafting in a vacuum players to build a
team for this upcoming season, that's a totally different perspective
than who had the most successful previous season, right. And
(03:29):
So while I like that format for the top because
I like having like a real bragging rights type of champ,
it really leads to some problems down the line. And
while I really believe that winning has to mean something
and that's why we need a bragging rights list, I
don't think it makes sense after we get past the top. So, like,
great example last year is like Luca, right, So, like
(03:51):
I've consistently in a vacuum had Luca as a top
five player, but he had a really rough year last year.
Not only did his team miss the playoffs, but it
was a tough end of the year for him. He
wasn't playing good basketball, especially on the defensive end of
the floor, right. And So that's one of those things
where that's not an appropriate way to really categorize the
fact that, like, sometimes you can just have a bad
(04:12):
year and everything can go wrong. And while it might
mean that you don't have the bragging rights. It's just
tough to kind of quantify all of that in a list.
So the way we're going to address that is we
are going to have an in a vacuum list, and
then at the very end, I'm gonna pick the three
or four guys that are candidates for the best possible
(04:34):
season from last year, our bragging rights guys. It will
rank those guys at the very end. It will just
do the top It'll be like three, four or five players.
You know, It'll be like, you know, is it Jason Tatum,
the guy who was the best player on the Celtics
most of the year and won the title. Was it
Luka Doncic who took his team to the finals? Was
it Nikola Jokic who won MVP? Like, We'll take a
(04:55):
list of those guys, the very short list at the top,
and we'll rank them for a bragging rights at the
very end. But for an actual top twenty five players
list this year, we're going to do it purely in
a vacuum. So the question is what does in a
vacuum mean for this particular list I want to go through.
I've got let's see, I've got four specific rules that
(05:18):
we're going to follow for this list. Rule number one,
it is completely irrespective of any team circumstances from last year.
So if your case for a player is but so
and so won a lot of games, that's a team accomplishment.
We're going to specifically be looking at how does this
(05:39):
player contribute personally to the success of his team within
the context of like if I was building a roster
from scratch, right, So, again, don't think of this purely
as a reward for success from last season. That's what
we're going to use our bragging rights list for. Secondly,
how would you build a team? How easy would it
(06:02):
be to build a championship contender around this player from scratch? So, like,
what responsibilities does he fulfill? Can he create shots in
the half court at high volume? Can he anchor a
high level defense? Can he guard opposing superstars? Can he
play off the ball and on the ball? Can he
(06:22):
play in different styles? Can he score in versatile ways
as circumstances shift around him in the playoffs? Right, We're
gonna be looking at a lot of different details into
how a player would impact winning if I was trying
to build around them, right, So, for instance, a lot
of you guys know that I highly value half court
(06:43):
offensive initiation, and I'll just give you guys, like a
basic kind of example. I tweeted out a poll today
between Jalen Brown and Devin Booker, and there are two
players that I have very close in my list. But
for me, as you guys know Devin Booker's ability to
put the ball in his hands and run twenty five
(07:03):
pick and rolls a game if I had to, and
to like really lean on him to create offense, it's
easier for me to build athleticism and dirty work around
that to construct a useful basketball team than it is
for me to take Jaylen Brown as the best player
on a team that I'm running everything through offensively and
(07:25):
then try to supplement hint specifically, because Jalen Brown doesn't
see the floor as well as Devin Booker does, he
doesn't shoot the ball as well as Devin Booker does,
he can't like really spam those kinds of actions. So
that's my basketball worldview. If you guys have a different
basketball worldview and you don't value that like surgical in
the half court offensive initiation as much as I do,
(07:48):
you're probably gonna have some different rankings than me. But
I have to let you guys know that up front
because that's a specific kind of framework for how this
list works. Like when I'm building a championship contender, my
number one priority is who's gonna run my offense. Who's
gonna be the primary guy who gets the defense into rotation.
(08:09):
Once the defense is in rotation, now it's everyone's playing
with an advantage, and I can make lesser players fulfill
achievable roles, but I gotta get the defense into rotation consistently,
and so that half court offensive initiation piece is really
valuable for me. The third piece that we're gonna be
looking at is durability. This is in a vacuum, not
(08:33):
for a playoff series that starts tomorrow, but for a
eighty two game season starting with the training camp. So
a month of ramping up into eighty two games over
damn near what is it October, November, December, January, February, March, April,
damn near seven months of basketball, basically six months of
(08:53):
basketball in the regular season, and then from there into
four two week rounds of post He's in basketball. Who
is best equipped to be reliably available for that long
of a stretch of basketball right, So that's a third
piece of it, and then the fourth piece we're looking
at is the ceiling. The ceiling still matters. I'll give
(09:18):
you an example. Kawhi Leonard. Kawhi Leonard has a major
issue with reliability. The dude hasn't been able to finish
a playoff run in four consecutive seasons. However, what if
the Clippers do get to the playoffs and they're healthy.
What if Kawhi is on the floor tomorrow for the
(09:40):
game all of a sudden, it doesn't matter how you
feel about the eighty two if he's better than your
player right now for a series that starts today. What
that means is, while obviously durability is going to be
a hit for a guy like Kawhi, when the chips
are down and it's time to throw down and we're
trying to win game in an actual playoff setting, how
(10:02):
high of a level can your player reach. So, Kawhi Leonard,
even though he has some huge demerits in the sense
of his reliability, you always have to account for the well,
what if this is the year that Kawhi Leonard is healthy.
Another example is Lebron James. Lebron James gets a lot
of flak at this point in his career for he's
in his way through the regular season and missing time,
(10:25):
although he was available for the most part last season.
But guess what, last year he was healthy for the
playoffs and he played at a top five level in
the playoffs. So like again, as we factor in Lebron
obviously for the eighty two, there's a certain limitation there,
but his ceiling is still such that if he is available,
we have to factor that in. So those are the
(10:46):
four main character categories there. I do not care how
good your team was last year. I'm looking specifically at
how you can contribute to winning in a vacuum on
a fresh basketball team built from scratch. Two, How easy
is it to build around you, What responsibilities specifically do
you fill? Three? How available are you? And four when
(11:09):
you really need to hit the gas, how high of
a level can you hit? How high is your ceiling?
That's how we're gonna rank these top twenty five. And
then again at the very end, we're gonna do a
separate video that's gonna have nothing to do with this list,
where we're gonna zero in on a handful of guys
who are all candidates for the best possible season this
last year, and then we'll talk about who gets to
(11:29):
be the guy that walks around the league next year
saying like, I'm the dude who was the best last
year based on what I actually did, based on what
we actually accomplished. Team success will be a major factor
in that one. So those are kind of the initial
pieces of framework that make this list work. I do
have two other notes. One, the talent pool is insane.
(11:52):
Go ahead, just right now, if you have some time,
try to just make a list. Doesn't have to be perfect,
you're not sharing it, but just it down for a
minute and list out the top twenty five players. You'll
find out quickly that it's very, very difficult. Why because
there are a lot of players that if I threw
a name out, you would think that guy's a top
twenty five player. In fact, I started at when I
(12:16):
began this process, my preliminary list of candidates, the guys
were like I basically just treated it as like if
I looked at this guy and someone said, hey, I
have this guy in my top twenty five, it's like
it's like passable, meaning like there is a defensible case
for this player to be one of the top twenty
five players in the NBA. My preliminary list was forty
five players long, so there were twenty guys that reasonably
(12:40):
could be considered top twenty five guys who didn't make
my list. I'll give you guys one example, Paul George.
Paul George is a guy that was clearly in the
top twenty for me last year and a guy that
I think the majority of people would think like if
I said, oh, Paul George's top twenty five player, you'd
be like, yeah, sounds right, right. It's Paul George. He's
a top twenty five player, but I had him just
(13:03):
outside of my top twenty five because the league is
just incredibly stacked with talent. That said, there's not a
large gap, Like Paul George is not substantially worse than
the guy that I have ranked at twenty five. It's
a small gap because of how talented all these guys
in that list of forty five are. And by the way,
I'm gonna read the full list of forty five here
(13:23):
shortly so that you guys can see my preliminary list.
Point is, there will be a lot of guys that
could be top twenty five players that won't make this list,
so just be prepared for that. And the same goes
for the top of this list. I have a guy
outside of my top ten that I never in a
million years would have thought that I'd be ranking him
outside of the top ten in this list. But I
(13:45):
think there are eleven players that are kind of in
that tier and somebody has to be cut, and I
literally can't make the case for him over anybody above him.
That's not a product of that player not playing at
a top ten level. That's just the reality of how
much talent there is at the top of the league.
(14:05):
And that's my last note. We are splitting hairs here, guys.
I have four tiers for the list. I have top
tier Superstars. These are the perennial MVP candidates like I
expect for multiple years to come. They will be in
the MVP voting ray, so like in that top five
type of race for MVP. Then I have my second
(14:27):
tier Superstars. These are the guys that are not in
the MVP race, but on any given night can play
like one of those guys at the top of the league.
They're just not as consistent and reliable every night, but
on any given night they can outplay or be better
or as good as the dudes at the top of
the league. Then I have my third tier stars. These
are the last group of guys that can still be
(14:49):
the best player on a championship team, but they need
a ton of talent support to get there. And then
I have my fourth tier stars. These are the guys
that are not quite good enough to be the best
player on a championship team, but can be the second
best player on a championship team. Within those tiers, the
players are all bunched up on each other. So, for instance,
like the guy I have ranked sixth on my list
(15:10):
is very close to the guy I have ranked eleventh
on my list, the guy I have ranked eighteenth on
my list is very close to the guy I of
at twenty five. Because within those tiers, they're very close
the actual tiers themselves, and I will explain them to
you when we hit those brakes. The tiers themselves are
meant to actually represent a gap, but within those tiers
(15:34):
they're very close. Point is is this is up for debate.
It's very subjective, and like I said in the intro,
I want you guys to make the case for why
you think I'm wrong in the comments. I'm recording these,
these first few videos, I'm recording before I go to town
for vacation, so I won't be able to react to
your mail bag questions because these are going to be
released long after I record them. But when I get
(15:57):
back in town on the eighteenth, we're only going to
be a small portion of the way through this list.
And one of my plans is after I hit whatever
the next few players are, I'm gonna go to basically
a mini mail bag at the end, or I bounce
off of you guys in your disagreements. So if I
say something in these player rankings videos that you guys
disagree with, break it down, break down the basketball in
(16:18):
the comments, I promise you if you say, screw you, Jason,
you're wrong, You're an idiot, I'm not gonna respond. There's
just nothing. There's no conversation to be had there. But
if you say, hey, Jason, for instance number twenty five,
for me, I if you disagree with that guy or
you'd rank him outside, you say, hey, how do you
have that guy above? Paul George? Break it down for me,
Explain the basketball, and we'll talk about it, and we'll
(16:41):
talk about it in our mailbag sessions when I get
back from vacation. All right, this was my preliminary list.
These were the forty five guys that I considered for
the top twenty five players in the league. List. These
are not in order. These are specifically in order of
the NBA standings. What I did as I went team
by team, starting with the East one seed down and
(17:04):
then the West one seed down, and I just listed
the players on those particular rosters that I think could
be considered top twenty five players. This was my preliminary list.
Jason Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Jalen Brunson, Giannison, Tennacumpo, Damian Lillard,
Donovan Mitchell, Palla, Boncaro, Tyrese Halliburton, Pascal Siakam, Joel Embiid,
(17:27):
Tyrese Maxi, Paul George, Jimmy Butler, bam Adebayo, Trey Young,
Scottie Barnes, Cad Cunningham, Shay Gilgess, Alexander Jalen, Williams, chet Holmgren,
NIKOLEA Jokic, Jamal Murray, Anthony Edwards, Karl, Anthony Towns, Kawhi,
(17:50):
Leonard James Harden, Luka, Doncic, Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant, Devin Booker,
Lebron James, Anthony Davis, Zion Williamson, Dejonte Murray, Brandon Ingram,
Daron Fox, DeMar DeRozan, Demona Sabonis, Stephen Curry, Alpern, Shangoon,
(18:10):
Laurie Markinen, John Morant, Desmond Bain, Jaren Jackson Junior, and
Victor Wembgyama. That's the forty five players that I came with. Again,
Like obviously, there are guys in that list that a
lot of them that are that I never actually truly
considered to be in top twenty five. However, these are
guys that I just thought had a case. That was
my initial list that I worked with, and then I
(18:32):
broke it down from there to get to the top
twenty five.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
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Speaker 1 (19:36):
So starting with number twenty five, our first player in
this year's Least Kyrie Irvin. His twenty twenty four campaign,
these were his counting stats. Counting stats, he played fifty
eight games to average twenty five point six points per game,
five rebounds per game, five point two assists per game,
one point eight stocks per game that steals plus blocks.
Kyrie Irvic was one of only seven players in the
(19:58):
league last year to average at least twenty five points,
five rebounds in five assists on at least sixty percent
true shooting, and to play a minimum of fifty games.
That's a very basic baseline, twenty five to five and
five at least sixty percent true shooting which is high
level of efficiency and a minimum of fifty games, meaning
you played the majority of the season. Kyrie did it
(20:20):
on sixty point eight percent true shooting basically fifty forty
ninety forty nine point seven percent from the field, forty
one point one percent from three to ninety point five
percent from the line. So he was a twenty five
to five to five fifty forty ninety guy. Again, one
of only seven players in the league to hit those benchmarks.
That's insane guys. In the playoffs twenty two to four
(20:42):
and five Worth mentioning his usage rate drop substantially. He
went from about twenty eight percent usage percentage in the
regular season to below twenty five percent in the postseason.
Had something to do with his scoring taking a little
bit of a drop, but he was still largely in
that like he still shot just below fifty percent from
the field in over four percent from three through the
(21:02):
first three rounds. It wasn't until the NBA Finals that
he kind of fell apart. He had a tough NBA
Finals and it basically came down to his pull up
jumper failing him. So to give you an idea, Kyrie
irving in the regular season one point zero four points
per pull up jump shot in the first three rounds
of the playoffs, one point zero six points per pull
up jump shot in the finals just forty two points
(21:23):
on fifty one shots, which is zero point eight to
two points per shot. So that was the main thing
that really let him down in the finals is he
just lost that little extra bit of efficiency when it
came to his pull up jump shot. And we're going
to talk about it later. That's a huge part of
Kyrie's shot. Diet takes almost half his shots or pull
up jump shots, and so when that failed him in
the Boston Series, it just led to his impact taking
(21:45):
a little bit of a dip, but still twenty two,
four and five. Most importantly, I thought he was still
pretty good on the margins, Like in terms of his
dirty work in the postseason run, I thought he competed
hard at the point of attack. He rebounds better than
most small guards. Like, Kyrie's never a guy as long
as you're good around him, you never really have to
worry about him not pulling his weight. Like obviously, if
(22:05):
you will have a bunch of bad defensive personnel around him,
it can be an issue. But Kyrie generally holds his
own when it comes to the details of the game.
Shot creation data. This percent energy in pick and roll
one point zero two points per possession including passes for
Kyrie that was in the sixty ninth percentile, So he's
one of the better pick and roll players in the league.
ISO one point zero three points per possession including passes,
(22:26):
that was sixty eighth percentile. He also, we're gonna do
high volume lists. Remember this is what we did last year.
If you're over one thousand pick and rolls, you're in
the high volume list. If you're over two hundred and
fifty ISOs, over two hundred and fifty post ups, you're
in the high volume list. And I have Kyrie just
over the minimum for ISOs. He at one point zero
(22:46):
three points posession. It was sixty eighth percentile league wide.
But he was fourteenth out of twenty four players to
run at least two hundred and fifty ISOs excellent spot
up player converted spot up possions at one point three
to one points per possession. That's insanely good. That's in
the ninety second percentile around the league. His shooting stats,
this is crazy. One point. I'm sorry one point three
(23:09):
points per catch and shoot jumper that was ninety second percentile.
He was one point three to one points per spot
up possession that was ninety fifth percentile. So I undersold
him in the spot up barrier a little bit, but
shot the ball extremely well in catching shoot situations. One
point zero four points per pull up jump shot that
was in the seventy ninth percentile. His face up jab
step jump shot one point one point eight points per
shot that was in the eighty fourth percentile. He shot
(23:30):
fifty five percent on floaters, he took almost two of
them a game, and he shot sixty one percent at
the rim, which is insanely good for a small guard.
So to put it simply, last year, Kyrie is one
of the best shot creators in the game, and as
we mentioned, he was one of only seven players to
hit at least twenty five points, five rebounds, and five
assists on at least sixty percent t shooting and at
least fifty games. The other guys on that list are
(23:51):
all big shots Anthony Edwards, Nikola Jokich, Luka, Doncics, Lebron,
James sche Giosos Alexander and Gianna Santana Koumpo. That's some
quality company for Kyrie Irving in terms of what he
did as an offensive initiator this year. He's a better
playmaker than he gets credit for him. He had a
two point eight to two assist to turnover ratio. He
was one of only twelve players in the league last
year to post a usage percentage over twenty five percent
(24:14):
and an assistant turnover ratio over two point five over
two point five. So like a much better playmaker than
you would think for Kyrie Irving, right, And he was
one of the most efficient, high volume scorers in the
league as well. So this is a guy that you know.
I think he's gone under the radar because of his past,
but he's still just like in the short list of
the best offensive players in the league and brings a
(24:36):
ton of value. As he saw as the second best
player on a team that made it within three wins
of an NBA championship last year. I was really impressed
by his versatility. Like I said, he rebounded out. It
was over five rebounds a game last year. In the
regular season, he defended better than most small guards at
his position. People will point to his rough NBA Finals
as like the reason that Dallas lost, but that's not
in my opinion, like Luca is just as destructive to
(24:59):
their defense as Kyrie irving was to their offense. And
the real problem in my opinion that broke down that
Dallas attack was they didn't have a role player who
they could count on to defend but also hit above
the break threes, which played perfectly into the schematic approach
that Boston had, which was essentially conceding those above the
break threes to their role players or couldn't make them.
(25:21):
I thought it was a roster issue. I didn't think
Luca and Kyrie were the Could they be better, Yeah,
Luca needs to be better defensively, Kyrie needs to be
more reliable as a scorer in those settings. But the
main reason they lost was that inability to space the
floor above the break and how Boston kind of capitalized
on that. Kyrie's weaknesses his health, I have three of
them down the health piece. He played more than sixty
(25:43):
games just once since leaving Cleveland, just fifty eight last year.
You can basically book Kyrie to miss one out of
every four games, so that's obviously an issue. He's undersized
his impact as a rebounder went down a level in
the postseason after the athleticism and effort ramped up. He
went from three point six attempts per game in the
restricted area in the regular season to just two point
(26:05):
eight in the playoffs. That's a sizeable reduction there, it's
basically twenty five percent. And then he's still a bit
reliant on pull up shooting. So he attempted eighteen point
one shots per game in the postseason, eight point six
of them were pull up jump shots, so that's basically half,
and that's how it should be given his skill set
and how big he is, and he's he's one of
those guys. This is not like Anthony Edwards or Jason
(26:27):
Tatum last year in the regular season where you're like, dude,
why are you taking so many of these? You're not
hitting enough of them. He got well over a point
per possession on those pull up jump shots, so he
needs to take them. But as we know, and this
is just how it leads to where he is in
the rankings. Despite being one of the better offensive initiators
in the league, he's way down at twenty five, and
a big part of that is he's undersized, so he's
(26:48):
relying on his pull up jump shot a lot, and
when you rely on your pull up jump shot, that
leads to a lot of variants. And he went cold
in the finals and that ended up impacting him quite
a bit. So. In summary, on Kyrie Irving still on
the short list of guys who are good enough to
be the second best player on a championship team. He's
one of the best offensive initiators in the league. Still,
he competes in the dirty work areas of the game,
(27:10):
which makes him easy to build around. He's an excellent
off ball score, making him even easier to build around,
and by all accounts, he's been an excellent locker room
guy in Dallas now that he has his financial future setup,
which is why in this current version of our NBA
player rankings, I have Kyrie Irving ranked at twenty five,
number twenty four dearon Fox. Last year's counting stats played
(27:33):
seventy four games. That was the second straight season with
at least seventy games played. He averaged twenty six point
six points per game, four point six rebounds per game,
five point six assists per game, and two point four
stocks that steals plus blocks per game. Last year, he
actually led the league in steals last year for the
first time in his career. His shooting splits. He was
forty six point five percent from the field thirty six
(27:53):
point nine percent from three on eight attempts, so that
was by far the best three point shooting season of
his career, seventy three point eight percent at the line
for a total of fifty seven percent in true shooting percentage.
Did miss the playoffs, but there's some important context there.
Malik Monk, Sacramento's second best perimeter shock creator, got hurt
at the end of the year, and as a result,
Sacramento lost five of their last seven games, and if
(28:15):
you look at where they were in the standings, they
finished one game behind the Lakers. So had they won
one of those last seven and then gone three and
four instead of two and five, they would have ended
up hosting the Lakers in that second playoff game, a
play in game, and they had the Lakers number all season,
especially at home. So, like I like, in all likelihood,
(28:38):
if Malik Monk doesn't get hurt, there's a much better
chance that the Kings just get in like obviously, like
Lebron ad single game setting, maybe they overpower them but
I look at it in a more encouraging sense. Dearon
Fox has been the best player on his team, the
primary offensive initiator on a team that has a terrible
defensive front court, which makes it way difficult to win
(28:59):
in the modern NBA. Second best perimeter shot creator is
the guy who comes off the bench for them, and
they won forty eight and forty six games in the
last two seasons in a jam packed Western Conference. So,
like I'm more of this is a great example of
what we were talking about at the very beginning when
I was going through the intro and just some of
the rules don't pay attention to the team's success piece
(29:19):
when it comes to Dearon Fox. Here he legitimately has
carried the Kings to being a very good team. In
a vacuum, he would be a more a higher contributing
winner than what he has been in Sacramento on a
team that isn't really set up to compete in the NBA. Again,
Dearon Fox is an example of a guy last year
(29:40):
on my more bragging rights format that he would have
suffered and he would have potentially fallen out of the
list entirely. But I don't want to do it that way.
I want to make sure that we acknowledge the realities
of the surrounding supporting cast within the context of this list.
I was generally very like even though we don't didn't
(30:00):
get a playoff sample size from Daron Fox this year.
I was generally very encouraged by Darren Fox's first playoff
series last year against Golden State. I thought he was
pretty impactful defensively when he wanted to be. I thought
he could really beat people off the dribble and generate
good shots. So I think he's going to be a
good playoff player in the long run. So that's not
something I'm worried about with him. Shot creation data percent
(30:21):
energy Darren Fox one point zero one points per pick
and roll including passes. He made our high volume pick
and roll list again minimum one thousand possessions. He out
of fifteen players that logged at least a thousand pick
and rolls. He ranked eleventh. Inefficiency ISO one point zero
four points per possession including passes, that was in the
seventieth percentile. He also made a high volume list minimum
two to fifty. He ranked thirteenth out of the twenty
(30:43):
five players to log at least two hundred fifty ISOs added.
In terms of his shooting stats, he added a semi
reliable pull up three this season. That was the major development.
So like two years ago fifty nine makes on off
the dribble threes just thirty percent. This year one hundred
and twenty makes forty six percent, so a substantial leap
for Dearn Fox as a pull up three point shooter,
(31:05):
pretty good catch and shoot player, not great though, one
point zero eight points per shot. Really good when he
was wide open, though he shot forty six percent field
goal percentage on unguarded catch and shoot jump shots. His
overall pull up shooting forty percent field goal percentage forty
nine percent when you weigh it for threes zero point
nine to eight points per shot. Still not where he
needs to get to, but a really big step in
(31:25):
the right direction for Dearon Fox. Forty nine percent on
floaters on one hundred and sixty one attempts. He was
a high volume floater guy. Again, took a lot of
them out of like euro steps where he'd like drive
into the lane and almost like slow himself down on
a euro and then get to that little left handed
floater shot sixty three percent at the rim, which is
solid for an athletic guard like him, like freaky athletes
(31:45):
like him, I like prefer above sixty five percent, but
that's still pretty good. Nothing to freak out about. His
biggest weaknesses. He's an ineffective off ball player. He converted
spot at possessions at a zero point nine to eight
points per possession, which is bad. That ranked sixty third
out of seventy five players to log at least two
hundred and fifty and he scored on a cut to
the basket just fifteen times all season, So a lot
(32:08):
to improve on in terms of playing off the ball.
That's gonna be something to keep an eye on with
Demarta Rosen joining the picture, and just how much more
he's going to have to be able to convert those
types of opportunities, especially since Demarta Rosen is a very
good passer. And then this is really not I don't
want to direct this purely at Dearon Fox because it's
not just him, but the uh there's an inconsistent defensive
(32:31):
effort piece with him, and again this was with everybody.
When the Kings wanted to be they were a very
good defensive team because they had all of this speed,
especially on the perimeter, but then they would have these
like extended weeks long stretches where they just didn't guard.
And Fox has the potential to be one of the
best perimeter defenders in the league. So like, obviously when
it comes to that defensive effort piece, you were hoping
(32:53):
for a little bit more from Darreon Fox. But I
mean the way I look at it, like with Dearon,
with Demrta Rosen in the picture, he's just going to
have more energy for that sort of thing. And I
think we're going to get a very good defensive season
out of Deer and Fox next year. In summary, deren
Fox is the leading offensive initiator for one of the
best offenses in the league. The Kings are nine point
four points per one hundred possessions better when Fox is
(33:15):
on the floor versus off, according to Cleaning the Glass,
and he has a real playoff superpower. He has good
size for the guard position, and he's remarkably fast, which
can be used for two of the most valuable physical
exertions in basketball, which both involved winning at the point
of attack on offense, beating people off the dribble on defense,
containing people off the dribble. That's his superpower that I
(33:35):
think is a real thing that you can build around.
And he's added a decent jump shot to counter that.
And if judging by the massive improvement he had year
over year, if he continues to improve on that trajectory,
he could quickly vault way higher on this list if
the jump shot comes around. Now, the Kings have issues
that extend far beyond Fox. Like I talked about, they're
a horrific defensive front court that makes things hard. They
(33:58):
didn't have another high volume shot. Now they do with
Demarto Rosen and again, ninety four wins in that stacked
Western Conference over the last two years I think is
pretty impressive given the limitations they have. So I've deer
and Fox as the twenty fourth best player in the
NBA going into next season. All right, guys, that is
all I have for a round one of our player rankings.
In our next video, we'll be getting a few more guys,
(34:20):
probably three or four guys in the next video that
I'll be coming out within the next couple of days.
As always, as sincerely appreciate you guys your supporting the show,
and I'll see you guys. Then the Volume the NFL
seasons right around the corner. We'll be breaking down all
the off season storylines on the Colin Cowherd podcast, my
best Takes guests like my buddy Nick Wright. Check out
(34:42):
the Colin Coward podcast, part of the Volume network, available
on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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m m M. All right, welcome to tonight here at
(01:32):
the Volume of Hope. All you guys are having a
great week. We are starting our annual player rankings today.
We're gonna take some time off the start of the
show to kind of go over the rules for this
particular list, the differences between this list and the list
we had last year, as well as the years that
preceded that, and then we're gonna get into the players
starting with number twenty five and number twenty four today.
(01:54):
You guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribe
to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any
more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter and underscore jcnlts.
You guys, don't miss you announcements. Don't forget about a
podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops Tonight
don't forget. It's also helpful if you leave a rating
and a review on that front in the last but
out least, keep dropping mailbag questions in those YouTube comments.
We can keep hitting them throughout the remainder of this list. Specifically,
(02:17):
if you guys disagree with anything on this list, drop
your case for it in the comments, and we'll take time,
especially when I get back from vacation, to actually go
over some of your guys's responses and we'll kind of
argue back and forth about some of the specific placements
of some of these guys on this list. So major
differences between this list and last year. So last year
(02:39):
I did a bragging rights list, and I laid out
explicitly at the beginning my particular rules, but it led
to a lot of confusion, and I think it was
a flawed process. And one of the main reasons why
is I really like that format for the top of
the list. And again for those of you guys who
missed it from last year, the bragging rights type of
(03:00):
format is like what did you accomplish last year?
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Right?
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Whereas an in a vacuum kind of list is more
of like if I was drafting a team irrespective of
any circumstances that actually exist in the NBA today. If
I was drafting in a vacuum players to build a
team for this upcoming season, that's a totally different perspective
than who had the most successful previous season, right. And
(03:29):
So while I like that format for the top because
I like having like a real bragging rights type of champ,
it really leads to some problems down the line. And
while I really believe that winning has to mean something
and that's why we need a bragging rights list, I
don't think it makes sense after we get past the top. So, like,
great example last year is like Luca, right, So, like
(03:51):
I've consistently in a vacuum had Luca as a top
five player, but he had a really rough year last year.
Not only did his team miss the playoffs, but it
was a tough end of the year for him. He
wasn't playing good basketball, especially on the defensive end of
the floor, right. And So that's one of those things
where that's not an appropriate way to really categorize the
fact that, like, sometimes you can just have a bad
(04:12):
year and everything can go wrong. And while it might
mean that you don't have the bragging rights. It's just
tough to kind of quantify all of that in a list.
So the way we're going to address that is we
are going to have an in a vacuum list, and
then at the very end, I'm gonna pick the three
or four guys that are candidates for the best possible
(04:34):
season from last year, our bragging rights guys. It will
rank those guys at the very end. It will just
do the top It'll be like three, four or five players.
You know, It'll be like, you know, is it Jason Tatum,
the guy who was the best player on the Celtics
most of the year and won the title. Was it
Luka Doncic who took his team to the finals? Was
it Nikola Jokic who won MVP? Like, We'll take a
(04:55):
list of those guys, the very short list at the top,
and we'll rank them for a bragging rights at the
very end. But for an actual top twenty five players
list this year, we're going to do it purely in
a vacuum. So the question is what does in a
vacuum mean for this particular list I want to go through.
I've got let's see, I've got four specific rules that
(05:18):
we're going to follow for this list. Rule number one,
it is completely irrespective of any team circumstances from last year.
So if your case for a player is but so
and so won a lot of games, that's a team accomplishment.
We're going to specifically be looking at how does this
(05:39):
player contribute personally to the success of his team within
the context of like if I was building a roster
from scratch, right, So, again, don't think of this purely
as a reward for success from last season. That's what
we're going to use our bragging rights list for. Secondly,
how would you build a team? How easy would it
(06:02):
be to build a championship contender around this player from scratch? So, like,
what responsibilities does he fulfill? Can he create shots in
the half court at high volume? Can he anchor a
high level defense? Can he guard opposing superstars? Can he
play off the ball and on the ball? Can he
(06:22):
play in different styles? Can he score in versatile ways
as circumstances shift around him in the playoffs? Right, We're
gonna be looking at a lot of different details into
how a player would impact winning if I was trying
to build around them, right, So, for instance, a lot
of you guys know that I highly value half court
(06:43):
offensive initiation, and I'll just give you guys, like a
basic kind of example. I tweeted out a poll today
between Jalen Brown and Devin Booker, and there are two
players that I have very close in my list. But
for me, as you guys know Devin Booker's ability to
put the ball in his hands and run twenty five
(07:03):
pick and rolls a game if I had to, and
to like really lean on him to create offense, it's
easier for me to build athleticism and dirty work around
that to construct a useful basketball team than it is
for me to take Jaylen Brown as the best player
on a team that I'm running everything through offensively and
(07:25):
then try to supplement hint specifically, because Jalen Brown doesn't
see the floor as well as Devin Booker does, he
doesn't shoot the ball as well as Devin Booker does,
he can't like really spam those kinds of actions. So
that's my basketball worldview. If you guys have a different
basketball worldview and you don't value that like surgical in
the half court offensive initiation as much as I do,
(07:48):
you're probably gonna have some different rankings than me. But
I have to let you guys know that up front
because that's a specific kind of framework for how this
list works. Like when I'm building a championship contender, my
number one priority is who's gonna run my offense. Who's
gonna be the primary guy who gets the defense into rotation.
(08:09):
Once the defense is in rotation, now it's everyone's playing
with an advantage, and I can make lesser players fulfill
achievable roles, but I gotta get the defense into rotation consistently,
and so that half court offensive initiation piece is really
valuable for me. The third piece that we're gonna be
looking at is durability. This is in a vacuum, not
(08:33):
for a playoff series that starts tomorrow, but for a
eighty two game season starting with the training camp. So
a month of ramping up into eighty two games over
damn near what is it October, November, December, January, February, March, April,
damn near seven months of basketball, basically six months of
(08:53):
basketball in the regular season, and then from there into
four two week rounds of post He's in basketball. Who
is best equipped to be reliably available for that long
of a stretch of basketball right, So that's a third
piece of it, and then the fourth piece we're looking
at is the ceiling. The ceiling still matters. I'll give
(09:18):
you an example. Kawhi Leonard. Kawhi Leonard has a major
issue with reliability. The dude hasn't been able to finish
a playoff run in four consecutive seasons. However, what if
the Clippers do get to the playoffs and they're healthy.
What if Kawhi is on the floor tomorrow for the
(09:40):
game all of a sudden, it doesn't matter how you
feel about the eighty two if he's better than your
player right now for a series that starts today. What
that means is, while obviously durability is going to be
a hit for a guy like Kawhi, when the chips
are down and it's time to throw down and we're
trying to win game in an actual playoff setting, how
(10:02):
high of a level can your player reach. So, Kawhi Leonard,
even though he has some huge demerits in the sense
of his reliability, you always have to account for the well,
what if this is the year that Kawhi Leonard is healthy.
Another example is Lebron James. Lebron James gets a lot
of flak at this point in his career for he's
in his way through the regular season and missing time,
(10:25):
although he was available for the most part last season.
But guess what, last year he was healthy for the
playoffs and he played at a top five level in
the playoffs. So like again, as we factor in Lebron
obviously for the eighty two, there's a certain limitation there,
but his ceiling is still such that if he is available,
we have to factor that in. So those are the
(10:46):
four main character categories there. I do not care how
good your team was last year. I'm looking specifically at
how you can contribute to winning in a vacuum on
a fresh basketball team built from scratch. Two, How easy
is it to build around you, What responsibilities specifically do
you fill? Three? How available are you? And four when
(11:09):
you really need to hit the gas, how high of
a level can you hit? How high is your ceiling?
That's how we're gonna rank these top twenty five. And
then again at the very end, we're gonna do a
separate video that's gonna have nothing to do with this list,
where we're gonna zero in on a handful of guys
who are all candidates for the best possible season this
last year, and then we'll talk about who gets to
(11:29):
be the guy that walks around the league next year
saying like, I'm the dude who was the best last
year based on what I actually did, based on what
we actually accomplished. Team success will be a major factor
in that one. So those are kind of the initial
pieces of framework that make this list work. I do
have two other notes. One, the talent pool is insane.
(11:52):
Go ahead, just right now, if you have some time,
try to just make a list. Doesn't have to be perfect,
you're not sharing it, but just it down for a
minute and list out the top twenty five players. You'll
find out quickly that it's very, very difficult. Why because
there are a lot of players that if I threw
a name out, you would think that guy's a top
twenty five player. In fact, I started at when I
(12:16):
began this process, my preliminary list of candidates, the guys
were like I basically just treated it as like if
I looked at this guy and someone said, hey, I
have this guy in my top twenty five, it's like
it's like passable, meaning like there is a defensible case
for this player to be one of the top twenty
five players in the NBA. My preliminary list was forty
five players long, so there were twenty guys that reasonably
(12:40):
could be considered top twenty five guys who didn't make
my list. I'll give you guys one example, Paul George.
Paul George is a guy that was clearly in the
top twenty for me last year and a guy that
I think the majority of people would think like if
I said, oh, Paul George's top twenty five player, you'd
be like, yeah, sounds right, right. It's Paul George. He's
a top twenty five player, but I had him just
(13:03):
outside of my top twenty five because the league is
just incredibly stacked with talent. That said, there's not a
large gap, Like Paul George is not substantially worse than
the guy that I have ranked at twenty five. It's
a small gap because of how talented all these guys
in that list of forty five are. And by the way,
I'm gonna read the full list of forty five here
(13:23):
shortly so that you guys can see my preliminary list.
Point is, there will be a lot of guys that
could be top twenty five players that won't make this list,
so just be prepared for that. And the same goes
for the top of this list. I have a guy
outside of my top ten that I never in a
million years would have thought that I'd be ranking him
outside of the top ten in this list. But I
(13:45):
think there are eleven players that are kind of in
that tier and somebody has to be cut, and I
literally can't make the case for him over anybody above him.
That's not a product of that player not playing at
a top ten level. That's just the reality of how
much talent there is at the top of the league.
(14:05):
And that's my last note. We are splitting hairs here, guys.
I have four tiers for the list. I have top
tier Superstars. These are the perennial MVP candidates like I
expect for multiple years to come. They will be in
the MVP voting ray, so like in that top five
type of race for MVP. Then I have my second
(14:27):
tier Superstars. These are the guys that are not in
the MVP race, but on any given night can play
like one of those guys at the top of the league.
They're just not as consistent and reliable every night, but
on any given night they can outplay or be better
or as good as the dudes at the top of
the league. Then I have my third tier stars. These
are the last group of guys that can still be
(14:49):
the best player on a championship team, but they need
a ton of talent support to get there. And then
I have my fourth tier stars. These are the guys
that are not quite good enough to be the best
player on a championship team, but can be the second
best player on a championship team. Within those tiers, the
players are all bunched up on each other. So, for instance,
like the guy I have ranked sixth on my list
(15:10):
is very close to the guy I have ranked eleventh
on my list, the guy I have ranked eighteenth on
my list is very close to the guy I of
at twenty five. Because within those tiers, they're very close
the actual tiers themselves, and I will explain them to
you when we hit those brakes. The tiers themselves are
meant to actually represent a gap, but within those tiers
(15:34):
they're very close. Point is is this is up for debate.
It's very subjective, and like I said in the intro,
I want you guys to make the case for why
you think I'm wrong in the comments. I'm recording these,
these first few videos, I'm recording before I go to town
for vacation, so I won't be able to react to
your mail bag questions because these are going to be
released long after I record them. But when I get
(15:57):
back in town on the eighteenth, we're only going to
be a small portion of the way through this list.
And one of my plans is after I hit whatever
the next few players are, I'm gonna go to basically
a mini mail bag at the end, or I bounce
off of you guys in your disagreements. So if I
say something in these player rankings videos that you guys
disagree with, break it down, break down the basketball in
(16:18):
the comments, I promise you if you say, screw you, Jason,
you're wrong, You're an idiot, I'm not gonna respond. There's
just nothing. There's no conversation to be had there. But
if you say, hey, Jason, for instance number twenty five,
for me, I if you disagree with that guy or
you'd rank him outside, you say, hey, how do you
have that guy above? Paul George? Break it down for me,
Explain the basketball, and we'll talk about it, and we'll
(16:41):
talk about it in our mailbag sessions when I get
back from vacation. All right, this was my preliminary list.
These were the forty five guys that I considered for
the top twenty five players in the league. List. These
are not in order. These are specifically in order of
the NBA standings. What I did as I went team
by team, starting with the East one seed down and
(17:04):
then the West one seed down, and I just listed
the players on those particular rosters that I think could
be considered top twenty five players. This was my preliminary list.
Jason Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Jalen Brunson, Giannison, Tennacumpo, Damian Lillard,
Donovan Mitchell, Palla, Boncaro, Tyrese Halliburton, Pascal Siakam, Joel Embiid,
(17:27):
Tyrese Maxi, Paul George, Jimmy Butler, bam Adebayo, Trey Young,
Scottie Barnes, Cad Cunningham, Shay Gilgess, Alexander Jalen, Williams, chet Holmgren,
NIKOLEA Jokic, Jamal Murray, Anthony Edwards, Karl, Anthony Towns, Kawhi,
(17:50):
Leonard James Harden, Luka, Doncic, Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant, Devin Booker,
Lebron James, Anthony Davis, Zion Williamson, Dejonte Murray, Brandon Ingram,
Daron Fox, DeMar DeRozan, Demona Sabonis, Stephen Curry, Alpern, Shangoon,
(18:10):
Laurie Markinen, John Morant, Desmond Bain, Jaren Jackson Junior, and
Victor Wembgyama. That's the forty five players that I came with. Again,
Like obviously, there are guys in that list that a
lot of them that are that I never actually truly
considered to be in top twenty five. However, these are
guys that I just thought had a case. That was
my initial list that I worked with, and then I
(18:32):
broke it down from there to get to the top
twenty five.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
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Speaker 1 (19:36):
So starting with number twenty five, our first player in
this year's Least Kyrie Irvin. His twenty twenty four campaign,
these were his counting stats. Counting stats, he played fifty
eight games to average twenty five point six points per game,
five rebounds per game, five point two assists per game,
one point eight stocks per game that steals plus blocks.
Kyrie Irvic was one of only seven players in the
(19:58):
league last year to average at least twenty five points,
five rebounds in five assists on at least sixty percent
true shooting, and to play a minimum of fifty games.
That's a very basic baseline, twenty five to five and
five at least sixty percent true shooting which is high
level of efficiency and a minimum of fifty games, meaning
you played the majority of the season. Kyrie did it
(20:20):
on sixty point eight percent true shooting basically fifty forty
ninety forty nine point seven percent from the field, forty
one point one percent from three to ninety point five
percent from the line. So he was a twenty five
to five to five fifty forty ninety guy. Again, one
of only seven players in the league to hit those benchmarks.
That's insane guys. In the playoffs twenty two to four
(20:42):
and five Worth mentioning his usage rate drop substantially. He
went from about twenty eight percent usage percentage in the
regular season to below twenty five percent in the postseason.
Had something to do with his scoring taking a little
bit of a drop, but he was still largely in
that like he still shot just below fifty percent from
the field in over four percent from three through the
(21:02):
first three rounds. It wasn't until the NBA Finals that
he kind of fell apart. He had a tough NBA
Finals and it basically came down to his pull up
jumper failing him. So to give you an idea, Kyrie
irving in the regular season one point zero four points
per pull up jump shot in the first three rounds
of the playoffs, one point zero six points per pull
up jump shot in the finals just forty two points
(21:23):
on fifty one shots, which is zero point eight to
two points per shot. So that was the main thing
that really let him down in the finals is he
just lost that little extra bit of efficiency when it
came to his pull up jump shot. And we're going
to talk about it later. That's a huge part of
Kyrie's shot. Diet takes almost half his shots or pull
up jump shots, and so when that failed him in
the Boston Series, it just led to his impact taking
(21:45):
a little bit of a dip, but still twenty two,
four and five. Most importantly, I thought he was still
pretty good on the margins, Like in terms of his
dirty work in the postseason run, I thought he competed
hard at the point of attack. He rebounds better than
most small guards. Like, Kyrie's never a guy as long
as you're good around him, you never really have to
worry about him not pulling his weight. Like obviously, if
(22:05):
you will have a bunch of bad defensive personnel around him,
it can be an issue. But Kyrie generally holds his
own when it comes to the details of the game.
Shot creation data. This percent energy in pick and roll
one point zero two points per possession including passes for
Kyrie that was in the sixty ninth percentile, So he's
one of the better pick and roll players in the league.
ISO one point zero three points per possession including passes,
(22:26):
that was sixty eighth percentile. He also, we're gonna do
high volume lists. Remember this is what we did last year.
If you're over one thousand pick and rolls, you're in
the high volume list. If you're over two hundred and
fifty ISOs, over two hundred and fifty post ups, you're
in the high volume list. And I have Kyrie just
over the minimum for ISOs. He at one point zero
(22:46):
three points posession. It was sixty eighth percentile league wide.
But he was fourteenth out of twenty four players to
run at least two hundred and fifty ISOs excellent spot
up player converted spot up possions at one point three
to one points per possession. That's insanely good. That's in
the ninety second percentile around the league. His shooting stats,
this is crazy. One point. I'm sorry one point three
(23:09):
points per catch and shoot jumper that was ninety second percentile.
He was one point three to one points per spot
up possession that was ninety fifth percentile. So I undersold
him in the spot up barrier a little bit, but
shot the ball extremely well in catching shoot situations. One
point zero four points per pull up jump shot that
was in the seventy ninth percentile. His face up jab
step jump shot one point one point eight points per
shot that was in the eighty fourth percentile. He shot
(23:30):
fifty five percent on floaters, he took almost two of
them a game, and he shot sixty one percent at
the rim, which is insanely good for a small guard.
So to put it simply, last year, Kyrie is one
of the best shot creators in the game, and as
we mentioned, he was one of only seven players to
hit at least twenty five points, five rebounds, and five
assists on at least sixty percent t shooting and at
least fifty games. The other guys on that list are
(23:51):
all big shots Anthony Edwards, Nikola Jokich, Luka, Doncics, Lebron,
James sche Giosos Alexander and Gianna Santana Koumpo. That's some
quality company for Kyrie Irving in terms of what he
did as an offensive initiator this year. He's a better
playmaker than he gets credit for him. He had a
two point eight to two assist to turnover ratio. He
was one of only twelve players in the league last
year to post a usage percentage over twenty five percent
(24:14):
and an assistant turnover ratio over two point five over
two point five. So like a much better playmaker than
you would think for Kyrie Irving, right, And he was
one of the most efficient, high volume scorers in the
league as well. So this is a guy that you know.
I think he's gone under the radar because of his past,
but he's still just like in the short list of
the best offensive players in the league and brings a
(24:36):
ton of value. As he saw as the second best
player on a team that made it within three wins
of an NBA championship last year. I was really impressed
by his versatility. Like I said, he rebounded out. It
was over five rebounds a game last year. In the
regular season, he defended better than most small guards at
his position. People will point to his rough NBA Finals
as like the reason that Dallas lost, but that's not
in my opinion, like Luca is just as destructive to
(24:59):
their defense as Kyrie irving was to their offense. And
the real problem in my opinion that broke down that
Dallas attack was they didn't have a role player who
they could count on to defend but also hit above
the break threes, which played perfectly into the schematic approach
that Boston had, which was essentially conceding those above the
break threes to their role players or couldn't make them.
(25:21):
I thought it was a roster issue. I didn't think
Luca and Kyrie were the Could they be better, Yeah,
Luca needs to be better defensively, Kyrie needs to be
more reliable as a scorer in those settings. But the
main reason they lost was that inability to space the
floor above the break and how Boston kind of capitalized
on that. Kyrie's weaknesses his health, I have three of
them down the health piece. He played more than sixty
(25:43):
games just once since leaving Cleveland, just fifty eight last year.
You can basically book Kyrie to miss one out of
every four games, so that's obviously an issue. He's undersized
his impact as a rebounder went down a level in
the postseason after the athleticism and effort ramped up. He
went from three point six attempts per game in the
restricted area in the regular season to just two point
(26:05):
eight in the playoffs. That's a sizeable reduction there, it's
basically twenty five percent. And then he's still a bit
reliant on pull up shooting. So he attempted eighteen point
one shots per game in the postseason, eight point six
of them were pull up jump shots, so that's basically half,
and that's how it should be given his skill set
and how big he is, and he's he's one of
those guys. This is not like Anthony Edwards or Jason
(26:27):
Tatum last year in the regular season where you're like, dude,
why are you taking so many of these? You're not
hitting enough of them. He got well over a point
per possession on those pull up jump shots, so he
needs to take them. But as we know, and this
is just how it leads to where he is in
the rankings. Despite being one of the better offensive initiators
in the league, he's way down at twenty five, and
a big part of that is he's undersized, so he's
(26:48):
relying on his pull up jump shot a lot, and
when you rely on your pull up jump shot, that
leads to a lot of variants. And he went cold
in the finals and that ended up impacting him quite
a bit. So. In summary, on Kyrie Irving still on
the short list of guys who are good enough to
be the second best player on a championship team. He's
one of the best offensive initiators in the league. Still,
he competes in the dirty work areas of the game,
(27:10):
which makes him easy to build around. He's an excellent
off ball score, making him even easier to build around,
and by all accounts, he's been an excellent locker room
guy in Dallas now that he has his financial future setup,
which is why in this current version of our NBA
player rankings, I have Kyrie Irving ranked at twenty five,
number twenty four dearon Fox. Last year's counting stats played
(27:33):
seventy four games. That was the second straight season with
at least seventy games played. He averaged twenty six point
six points per game, four point six rebounds per game,
five point six assists per game, and two point four
stocks that steals plus blocks per game. Last year, he
actually led the league in steals last year for the
first time in his career. His shooting splits. He was
forty six point five percent from the field thirty six
(27:53):
point nine percent from three on eight attempts, so that
was by far the best three point shooting season of
his career, seventy three point eight percent at the line
for a total of fifty seven percent in true shooting percentage.
Did miss the playoffs, but there's some important context there.
Malik Monk, Sacramento's second best perimeter shock creator, got hurt
at the end of the year, and as a result,
Sacramento lost five of their last seven games, and if
(28:15):
you look at where they were in the standings, they
finished one game behind the Lakers. So had they won
one of those last seven and then gone three and
four instead of two and five, they would have ended
up hosting the Lakers in that second playoff game, a
play in game, and they had the Lakers number all season,
especially at home. So, like I like, in all likelihood,
(28:38):
if Malik Monk doesn't get hurt, there's a much better
chance that the Kings just get in like obviously, like
Lebron ad single game setting, maybe they overpower them but
I look at it in a more encouraging sense. Dearon
Fox has been the best player on his team, the
primary offensive initiator on a team that has a terrible
defensive front court, which makes it way difficult to win
(28:59):
in the modern NBA. Second best perimeter shot creator is
the guy who comes off the bench for them, and
they won forty eight and forty six games in the
last two seasons in a jam packed Western Conference. So,
like I'm more of this is a great example of
what we were talking about at the very beginning when
I was going through the intro and just some of
the rules don't pay attention to the team's success piece
(29:19):
when it comes to Dearon Fox. Here he legitimately has
carried the Kings to being a very good team. In
a vacuum, he would be a more a higher contributing
winner than what he has been in Sacramento on a
team that isn't really set up to compete in the NBA. Again,
Dearon Fox is an example of a guy last year
(29:40):
on my more bragging rights format that he would have
suffered and he would have potentially fallen out of the
list entirely. But I don't want to do it that way.
I want to make sure that we acknowledge the realities
of the surrounding supporting cast within the context of this list.
I was generally very like even though we don't didn't
(30:00):
get a playoff sample size from Daron Fox this year.
I was generally very encouraged by Darren Fox's first playoff
series last year against Golden State. I thought he was
pretty impactful defensively when he wanted to be. I thought
he could really beat people off the dribble and generate
good shots. So I think he's going to be a
good playoff player in the long run. So that's not
something I'm worried about with him. Shot creation data percent
(30:21):
energy Darren Fox one point zero one points per pick
and roll including passes. He made our high volume pick
and roll list again minimum one thousand possessions. He out
of fifteen players that logged at least a thousand pick
and rolls. He ranked eleventh. Inefficiency ISO one point zero
four points per possession including passes, that was in the
seventieth percentile. He also made a high volume list minimum
two to fifty. He ranked thirteenth out of the twenty
(30:43):
five players to log at least two hundred fifty ISOs added.
In terms of his shooting stats, he added a semi
reliable pull up three this season. That was the major development.
So like two years ago fifty nine makes on off
the dribble threes just thirty percent. This year one hundred
and twenty makes forty six percent, so a substantial leap
for Dearn Fox as a pull up three point shooter,
(31:05):
pretty good catch and shoot player, not great though, one
point zero eight points per shot. Really good when he
was wide open, though he shot forty six percent field
goal percentage on unguarded catch and shoot jump shots. His
overall pull up shooting forty percent field goal percentage forty
nine percent when you weigh it for threes zero point
nine to eight points per shot. Still not where he
needs to get to, but a really big step in
(31:25):
the right direction for Dearon Fox. Forty nine percent on
floaters on one hundred and sixty one attempts. He was
a high volume floater guy. Again, took a lot of
them out of like euro steps where he'd like drive
into the lane and almost like slow himself down on
a euro and then get to that little left handed
floater shot sixty three percent at the rim, which is
solid for an athletic guard like him, like freaky athletes
(31:45):
like him, I like prefer above sixty five percent, but
that's still pretty good. Nothing to freak out about. His
biggest weaknesses. He's an ineffective off ball player. He converted
spot at possessions at a zero point nine to eight
points per possession, which is bad. That ranked sixty third
out of seventy five players to log at least two
hundred and fifty and he scored on a cut to
the basket just fifteen times all season, So a lot
(32:08):
to improve on in terms of playing off the ball.
That's gonna be something to keep an eye on with
Demarta Rosen joining the picture, and just how much more
he's going to have to be able to convert those
types of opportunities, especially since Demarta Rosen is a very
good passer. And then this is really not I don't
want to direct this purely at Dearon Fox because it's
not just him, but the uh there's an inconsistent defensive
(32:31):
effort piece with him, and again this was with everybody.
When the Kings wanted to be they were a very
good defensive team because they had all of this speed,
especially on the perimeter, but then they would have these
like extended weeks long stretches where they just didn't guard.
And Fox has the potential to be one of the
best perimeter defenders in the league. So like, obviously when
it comes to that defensive effort piece, you were hoping
(32:53):
for a little bit more from Darreon Fox. But I
mean the way I look at it, like with Dearon,
with Demrta Rosen in the picture, he's just going to
have more energy for that sort of thing. And I
think we're going to get a very good defensive season
out of Deer and Fox next year. In summary, deren
Fox is the leading offensive initiator for one of the
best offenses in the league. The Kings are nine point
four points per one hundred possessions better when Fox is
(33:15):
on the floor versus off, according to Cleaning the Glass,
and he has a real playoff superpower. He has good
size for the guard position, and he's remarkably fast, which
can be used for two of the most valuable physical
exertions in basketball, which both involved winning at the point
of attack on offense, beating people off the dribble on defense,
containing people off the dribble. That's his superpower that I
(33:35):
think is a real thing that you can build around.
And he's added a decent jump shot to counter that.
And if judging by the massive improvement he had year
over year, if he continues to improve on that trajectory,
he could quickly vault way higher on this list if
the jump shot comes around. Now, the Kings have issues
that extend far beyond Fox. Like I talked about, they're
a horrific defensive front court that makes things hard. They
(33:58):
didn't have another high volume shot. Now they do with
Demarto Rosen and again, ninety four wins in that stacked
Western Conference over the last two years I think is
pretty impressive given the limitations they have. So I've deer
and Fox as the twenty fourth best player in the
NBA going into next season. All right, guys, that is
all I have for a round one of our player rankings.
In our next video, we'll be getting a few more guys,
(34:20):
probably three or four guys in the next video that
I'll be coming out within the next couple of days.
As always, as sincerely appreciate you guys your supporting the show,
and I'll see you guys. Then the Volume the NFL
seasons right around the corner. We'll be breaking down all
the off season storylines on the Colin Cowherd podcast, my
best Takes guests like my buddy Nick Wright. Check out
(34:42):
the Colin Coward podcast, part of the Volume network, available
on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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