August 13, 2025 • 46 mins
Jason continues with his NBA player rankings list, following up Joel Embiid at No. 14 and Kawhi Leonard at 13 with Donovan Mitchell and Kevin Durant. He breaks down why this range of players is so hard to rank, why he ultimately put Cleveland Cavaliers guard Spida Mitchell at 12 and why new member of the Houston Rockets, KD, slots in at 11.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. All right, welcome to Hoops tonight. You're at
the volume. Happy Wednesday, everybody. Hope all of you guys
are having a great week. It feels amazing to be
(00:21):
back from Alaska. Just an absolutely unbelievable trip. If you
stick around to the end of the show today, I'll
tell you guys about it, just because it just I
can't imagine it going any better than it did. You
know how, anybody who has ever been to Alaska knows
there's a little bit of a crap shoot with weather,
and we just got so lucky and I got to
see so many cool things. I'll talk about that trip
more at the tail end of the show today. We're
(00:41):
getting back into our player rankings with number twelve and
number eleven, the beginning of a segment of this list
that was far and away the hardest segment for me
to rank. But we're getting to two more players today.
You guys know the joke before we get started to
subscribe to the Hoops and Not YouTube channel so you
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(01:03):
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Jackson's doing great work on our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook,
and TikTok. Make sure you guys follow us there. The last,
but not least, if you guys want to get questions
into the mail bags, we're doing Friday mail bags geared
around the player rankings here for the next month or so. Again,
if you disagree with the ranking, if you think a
(01:23):
guy should be higher, lower, should have made the list,
shouldn't have made the list, whatever it is you disagree with,
just lay that out as concisely as you can. A
little elevator. Pitch in a comment under this video that
says mail bag with a colon, and we'll get to
it in our mail bags at on Fridays throughout the
remainder of this list. All right, let's talk some basketball,
(01:45):
all right, So this was by far the hardest section
of this list for me to rank. Kawhi Leonard and
Joel Embiid are very clearly at the bottom. Right, Like,
we all know that Kawhi can outplay the top players
in the league. We saw him do it against Jokichen
in Game two, if I remember correctly, in that first
round series, he's capable of reaching that level. We know
(02:05):
Joelmbi when he's healthy, could very well be one of
the top two or three players in the entire NBA, right,
But they both obviously have this injury history that pushes
them towards the bottom, and Kawi is obviously in better
shape now as someone who was able to finish his
last playoff run, so he got the nod for number thirteen.
Joel was at number fourteen. That was pretty straightforward, right,
But there is an incredibly minuscule gap between number twelve
(02:29):
on this list and number five. For example, I'll just
go ahead and spoil today's rankings. I have Donovan Mitchell
at number twelve and Kevin Durant at number eleven. We'll
obviously do deep dives into both of those players today.
Donovan Mitchell was just the best player on the second
best team in the league this year. He averaged thirty
points per game on fifty seven percent true shooting in
(02:49):
this year's playoff run. He made first team All NBA
and he finished fifth and MVP voting. He had a
forty eight point playoff game, Andy forty three point playoff
game just in this last playoff front and there isn'take
case for him to be above of anybody that I
have ahead of him on this list. For me, at
least personally, I think you could argue him to be higher.
(03:12):
But for me, I couldn't find a case to move
him up from twelve, top five in MVP voting, first
Team All NBA, and I struggle to put him higher
than twelve. That's the nature of this part of the list.
And Kevin Durant is Kevin Durant. KD catches a ton
(03:32):
of crap online and I disagree with most of it.
I don't blame him for what went wrong in Phoenix.
He was getting crap online for not leading his team
in shot attempts since twenty eighteen. I don't view that
as a negative for KD. Of you, that is a positive.
We're going to talk about that today. I think he's
going to massively improve Houston's ability to compete for a championship,
(03:53):
and I think he firmly meets the criteria of this tier,
which again this tier, the criteria is a player who
on any given night can outplay the very best players
in the world. They just struggle to consistently get to
that level. Kdi very much is in that tier, and
like I don't have him in my top ten. It's
just a testament to how deep this league is. The
(04:17):
top twelve is completely insane. I moved the names around
a half dozen times. Multiple guys went up and down
several spots in different versions of this list before I
landed where I landed. The point is, we are very
much splitting hairs at this point, and if you disagree
with me and you go, Jason, I have KD at five, Jason,
(04:41):
I have Donovan Mitchell at five. I know I'm going
to argue against it, but I'm not. There's such a
small gap there that I think it's at least defensible.
The guys that I have above these guys at this
point in the list, I just viewed having a more
liable night tonight trade. So maybe an apex athlete who
(05:05):
brings insane motor every night, or an offensive engine. You
guys know how I feel about offensive engines. I don't
think Durant or Mitchell kind of fall into that specific category.
Guys who make offense easier for everyone on the roster
every single night. Or a defensive monster, like a guy
who's just an absolute pain in the ass athlete with
super long arms that no one can deal with on
the defensive end of the floor. That just sets a
(05:27):
super high floor for everybody. Those are the kinds of
guys that I ended up favoring over Donovan Mitchell and
Kevin Durant. But these gaps are incredibly close. I just
wanted to emphasize that from five to twelve, I mean,
you could just shake it up and like a bunch
of yachtzi dice and just kind of see how it lands,
and you're gonna be able to make a decent case
(05:48):
for that rank. But let's get started. But number twelve,
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(07:20):
year in review for Donna, and he played in seventy
one games. That was his healthiest season since twenty nineteen,
which was his second year in the league. He averaged
twenty four points, five rebounds, and five assists, one point
five stocks, forty four percent from the field, thirty seven
percent from three to eighty two percent from the line
fifty three percent, and effective field goal percentage that's just
field goal percentage waited for threes in fifty eight percent
(07:41):
in true shooting. Really stacked up the accolades this year.
He finished his sixth consecutive All Star appearance, first Team
All NBA in fifth, and MVP voting for me like
a classic example of why box score watching is so silly, Donovan,
his numbers were down across the board year over year.
(08:02):
Points per game down, rebounds per game down. It's this
per game down, field goal percentage down, block steals down,
three point percentage down, free throw percentage down. Everything was
down year over year, and he was flat out better
this year than he was the previous year. Keep that
in mind when we get to KD and we start
talking about his field goal numbers, because it's the same
(08:23):
kind of idea that I think a lot of people
get hung up on now. To be clear, yes, box
score production is an important manifestation of how you're producing
for a basketball team, but it is not the only
manifestation of how well a basketball player is playing. The
evidence is in the play type data. Even though Donovan
(08:45):
Mitchell's individual statistics weren't as impressive as the previous season,
when Donovan did more with the basketball and when Donovan
had you know, he's running a lot more pick and
roll every game. He's just he was just more on
the right. Even though his numbers came down, even though
his individual statistics weren't as impressive, Donovan did things that
(09:09):
helped the Cleveland Cavaliers as a team score more points
just shot creation data. In twenty twenty four, Donovan ran
one thousand and sixty two pick and rolls, ISOs and
post ups including passes, got one thousand and eighty three points.
That's one point zero two points per possession, which is
decent FIR star guard, but it's nothing to write home about.
(09:31):
In twenty twenty five, he ran one thousand, three hundred
and sixteen pick and rolls, ISOs and post ups, obviously
higher volume with him being healthier, but fourteen hundred and
five points. That's one point zero seven points per possession.
That's five points better per one hundred possessions than he
was the previous year. That puts him into an elite
tier as a high volume shot creator. The Cleveland Cavaliers
(09:56):
functioned better as an offense with Donovan Mitchell this year
than they did last year, even though his individual scoring
volume in percentages went down. So the question is how
how did Donovan Mitchell help the Calves this year compared
to last year? And the short answer is he bought
him to what Kenny Atkinson was trying to do with
that Calves offense, getting them to play more fast paced,
(10:18):
more in transition, more ball in player movement. It required
quicker decision making, and most importantly, it required Donovan to
give up the basketball more and to play more in
the flow of the offense, and he did just that.
Here's a simple stat to demonstrate how much Donovan Mitchell
gave up the basketball last year premba dot COM's tracking
(10:40):
data in twenty twenty four, Donovan Mitchell averaged six point
three minutes of possession time per game. In twenty twenty five,
That dropped from six point three to four point nine.
Another way to put it is, Donovan's time of possession
dropped by twenty two point three per year over year.
(11:03):
That's a significant a decrease there. And yet despite a
twenty two point three percent decrease in his time of possession,
his scoring volume only dropped by less than ten percent,
a little over nine percent, from twenty six point six
points per game to twenty four points per game. He
(11:25):
basically refined his role to fit exactly what the team needed.
He took a step back and allowed the finally healthy
version of Darius Garland to do more of what Darius
does best, which is initiate the offense with his drivele penetration,
and that advantaged creation just greased the wheels in so
many different ways for the Cavs as we know. And
then in shorter bursts when the situation called for it,
(11:50):
Donovan stepped in and was super aggressive. He actually shot
the ball, or I should say, passed the ball less
per touch last year than the year before, So he
actually passed the ball less when he had it. But
that was what the team needed. The team needed him
to seed control of a large portion of the offense
(12:10):
to Darius in a larger extent than he did in
previous years, and for him to win, he had the
ball do what Donovan Mitchell does best, score the damn basketball.
The team needed him to be a score, and so
he took back some of his touches and refined and
simplified his approach to being more of a score. In short,
(12:31):
he cut down on his touches but focused on what
he does best and that led to a explosive scoring
season for the Cavs offense. Donovan was lethally efficient in
pick and roll this year. He's actually more efficient as
a scorer in pick and roll this year than he
was the year before, despite his shooting percentages being down
across the board. Overall, he was one of only six
(12:52):
players in the entire NBA last year to attempt at
least five hundred shots in pick and roll and to
get over a point per shot. He did this by
shooting fifty percent on twos. Again, that's a big part
of that shot making and pick and roll right fueled
by a deadly floater. He shot fifty two percent on
over one hundred and fifty floaters this year. Donovan was
(13:12):
one of only eight players in the NBA to attempt
at least one hundred and fifty floaters and make more
than half of them. We're gonna talk about it more
and when we get to here in just a second.
But he had a really useful set of counter moves
in the mid range, and he's always had these, but
he's really refined it into a super efficient part of
his game. We'll get to that in a second. Then
he shot thirty six point four percent on pull up threes,
(13:33):
and that's a very good number because of the efficiency
boost that you get from that three point shot. That
was one point zero nine points per pull up three
in pick and roll. That's very good. Classic for Donovan
Mitchell is a combination of what we've talked about with
a lot of the athletic guards in the league. The
combination of that downhill burst mixed with the pull up
(13:54):
jumper that can get defenders either on their heels or
he can easily pull up or up on their toes,
or he can ease the league go past them. And
again this is where the mid range counters come in.
Donovan had this ridiculous over the top gather, I should
say has. He's had it for years. This ridiculous over
the top gather that he would pull over a defender
that would step underneath him, and he'd step into a
(14:14):
floater out of that, and then he was really nasty
with that eurostep. Those little moves in the mid range
allowed him to quickly get separation, almost like John Morant esque,
with his ability to quickly get separation in that short range,
that five to ten foot range where he could get
to an easy shot that he could make over fifty
percent from of the time, which removed some of that
variants and gave him a reliable piece of shot making
(14:38):
that gave him the ability to be one of only
six players in the NBA a shot over fifty percent
pick and roll on a massive volume with that or
over a point per possession, I should say on that
massive volume of over five hundred attempts in pick and roll.
He also scored really efficiently off the ball. Donovan got
one point one one points per possession and spot up
(14:58):
situations fueled by him shooting a crazy forty seven percent
on unguarded catch and shoot threes and then some really
good close out attacking when guys would chase him off
the line. The biggest boost for Donovan Mitchell on this list.
The reason why he is higher than many of the
guys who scored more points per game than him this
(15:20):
year is the simple fact that Donovan is one of
the best playoff risers in the NBA. Darius Garland, who
did not make my list this year, he hits many
of the similar markers that Donovan hits that we've talked
about in this segment. Darius was excellent shooting in pick
and roll, had an excellent floater. He shot like forty
(15:43):
three percent unpull up threes in pick and roll. Darius,
I would actually argue, in terms of just the regular season,
is a better offensive engine than Donovan Mitchell because of
his ability to consistently cut teams to pieces with his
dribble penetration in pass effectively out of it. It really
greased the wheels for this Caps team. Their offense was
actually four points better per one hundre possessions this year
(16:05):
when Darius was on versus off, but consistently every single year,
whether it be because of health or him struggling in
that environment, or a combination of both, Darius just kind
of falls apart in the postseason relative to his regular
season impact. Meanwhile, Donovan Mitchell is like straight up one
(16:26):
of the very best playoff scorers of this era. Once
again last year, thirty points per game in the postseason
on fifty seven percent true shooting. For six consecutive playoff
runs spanning forty seven games, Donovan Mitchell is good for
thirty five and five on fifty nine percent truugh shooting
(16:47):
in the playoffs. To put it very simply, he is
one of the very best playoff scorers in the entire NBA,
and that puts him in this special tier of players
who is capable of out playing any top tier superstar
on any given night, which is what put him in
this grouping now, defense has always been a bit complicated
(17:11):
for Donovan, But I actually think Donovan's made real strides
over the last couple of years. He's ever been good
on the ball. He competes there better than he used to.
You guys remember how bad it was in Utah. Was
just a disaster on the ball there. But nowadays he
still struggles a little bit, even though he competes better
because he can get too handsy. He commits a lot
of fouls. He's just overly physical on the ball. As
(17:32):
a defender, but he's made major strides over the last
couple of years as an off ball defender. The main
thing is is it's an excellent opportunity for him to
weaponize that trait that he loves to be physically aggressive
and go after the basketball well on the ball that
can give up drill penetration too easily. Off the ball,
it actually is useful for him digging down on driving
(17:53):
lanes or digging down on cutters, and so Donovan has
gotten really good at like digging down into the lane
attacking the back basketball, but having the foot speed and
the fundamentals in terms of his closeouts to get back
out to the perimeter to a shooter, and that's made
him a very good help and recover player. So as
a result, like the Cavs defense was actually better this
(18:14):
year with Donovan Mitchell on the ball versus off and
it's given him the ability to meet that mandatory minimum
which we always talk about, like in order to be
one of these guys in this tier, you have to
be able to at least fill a role on a
team as a useful defender. You have to be able
to do something that helps your team on that end
(18:35):
of the floor, and Donovan has found that role off
the ball. He can dig down into the lane, attack
the basketball, and he can recover out to the perimeter
with really quality closeouts for a star player at that position.
You look at Darius Garland and we talked about it.
Like Darius Garland, He's not a better score than Donovan Mitchell.
(18:56):
I don't even think he's a better playoff offensive player
overall than Donovan Mitchell. But in the regular season, Darius
Garland is a better offensive engine than Donovan Mitchell. But
even in that context, the Cavs defense was five points
worse per one hundred possessions with Darius on versus off,
and it undercut a lot of his success. It's a
big part of why he didn't make this list this year.
(19:17):
In addition to the playoff struggles that we talked about,
Donovan has become a useful defender for a good defense.
That was the mandatory minimum that he needed to reach
as a small guard and he got there. So now,
why isn't Donovan Mitchell higher on this list? Jason, He's
fifth in MVP voting, he made First Team All NBA.
Why is he all the way down at twelve? The
(19:40):
big thing for Donovan is I just don't think he
has enough of that like game management, flow of the
game piece, that offensive engine piece that you need to
compete with the elite offensive players that are above him
on this list. So let's look at last year. In
the playoffs, the injuries start to stack up. Darius Garland's
(20:01):
got the bad toe. He's not moving as well as
he used to, He's not cutting the defense up the
way he used to. He's sitting out for entire games.
A lot of their shooters go cold in large part
because of that lack of advantage creation. And so Donovan
Mitchell like kind of flashed a lot of the old
Donovan Mitchell right, really taking control of the offense and
more to a heliocentric manner in the excuse me. In
(20:23):
the regular season, his usage rate was below thirty one percent.
In the postseason it was over thirty seven percent. So
he kind of like reverted back to that hyper aggressive
on ball, heliocentric, kind of ball hoggy type of player, right.
And for the record, I don't blame him for that.
It was the right thing for him to do in
that situation. Darius didn't have it. He needed to be
(20:46):
more in control of things. I do not blame Donovan
for that. It was the best chance that Cleveland had
to survive their set of circumstances. But when Donovan goes
that route, he this is a lot of the easy
reads that are available to him, and it can be
a lot of make or miss, feast or famine type
(21:06):
of stuff, and it can lead to him not having
the same level of offensive impact as the guys that
are above him on this list. For example, in this
postseason run, when Donovan Mitchell was on the floor, the
Caves managed one hundred and seventeen points six points per
one hundred possessions, which is fine, but it's well below
what the Cavs are producing in the regular season, and
it's well below what they did when Darius Garland was
(21:29):
in control, especially in the regular season. Right. So, like,
I just don't see Donovan as that overall offensive engine
that you get from the offensive players that have above
him on this list. I have a couple of guys
on the list above him that are more defensive minded players,
but are defensive weapons, I should say, But among the
offensive players in this tier, Donovan's lack of that high
(21:49):
level playmaking talent is what kept him kept him below.
The next step for Donovan if he wants to move
up this list and get into the top seven top eight,
for me, is that game management piece becoming the type
of guy who you can give control of the offense
to and he's gonna average eight nine assists per game
(22:11):
like the Damian Lillards of the world, right, because he
weaponizes that downhill force to generate advantages early in possession.
That greased the wheels for his offense. That's the next step.
But for right now, I have Donovan as the twelfth
best player in the NBA. Number eleven Kevin Durant. This
(22:36):
was an impossible one for me. I'm just such a
huge fan of Kevin Durant and his game, and I
really do believe he's gonna be amazing for Houston this year.
But again, every time I looked at a guy above him,
I just personally couldn't unseat one of those guys. But again,
if you argued KDE as high as five, I could
at least respect the case there. Same goes for Donovan.
(23:00):
Is this more again a testament to how talented the
rest of the NBA is. Our top twelve is insane, right, now,
as you guys will see as we continue to work
through this list. Last season in review, for KD sixty
two games played, he averaged twenty seven point six rebounds
and four assists two stocks per game. Fifty three percent
(23:22):
from the field, fifty seven percent on two is just
outrageous from two. We're gonna talk more about that in
a minute, because that's considering almost no rim attempts relative
to his peers. Forty three percent from three, eighty four
percent from the line for a sixty percent effective field
goal percentage, and sixty four percent in true shooting. The
shot making from KD is just completely outrageous. Like, just
(23:45):
just listen to these numbers. KD was the best jump
shooter in the entire NBA last year. He shot over
fifty percent on all jump shots, even if you wait
it for threes. He got one point two to one
points per attempt. That ranked number one out of the
fifty eight players to attempt at least five hundred jump shots.
Kevin Durant best jump shooter in the NBA last year.
(24:08):
End of story, forty eight percent off the catch, fifty
one percent one unguarded, fifty two percent on off the
dribble jump shots. He had a rough year and pull
up three he didn't take very many. He took seventy three.
All years shot just below thirty three percent. But Kevin
(24:30):
Durant shot fifty six percent on pull up mid range
jump shots. In short range when he got inside of
seventeen feet he hit fifty eight percent. That's that's one
of the most reliable shots in the NBA right now.
It's encroaching on that Yokich territory of like mid sixties,
(24:54):
high sixties, of like unbelievable reliability and immunity to variant.
Kd's become so incredibly deadly on those short range jump shots.
That shot making led to insanely efficient isolation numbers. KD
was the best ISO player in the NBA last year
by a mile. There were twenty two players that shot
(25:17):
out of ISO at least two hundred times. Kd's one
point one six points per possession was far and away
number one. Give you an idea. Shay was in second place,
and he was a full six points per one hundred
possessions less efficient shooting out of ISO than KD was
(25:38):
on twos In ISO. Last year, KD shot fifty nine
percent one hundred and nine for one eighty six. He's
just the best to ever do it. When you need
a bucket, There's never been a better guy to give
the ball to. I've seeing the clips going around on
(25:59):
social media the other day while I was gone of
that Serbia USA game, and that still to this day
is my very favorite basketball memory that I can think of.
Just the intensity, the stakes, the fear, the legitimate fear
that they were going to lose, and then seeing everyone
step up and specifically Katie, Steph and Lebron run the
(26:21):
show down the stretch, and each one of those three
guys show their greatness and unique ways, from like Steph
keeping the team afloat early in the game with his
shooting and then late in the game hitting that three
coming off the left wing that was the lead changing shot.
He had the transition layup as well. Lebron James showcasing
his versatility. He's guarding Yolkic on one end of the floor,
having those two somehow having the leg strength to get
(26:44):
those two crazy transition finishes in crunch time, and then
in the final minutes I think they were up to
at the time super important possession. I think it was
under a minute. If I remember quickly, they desperately need
a bucket, and Steph Lebron, all those dudes they turn
to Kevin Durant and they say, get us a bucket.
(27:05):
I'm staying off my couch screaming at the TV, like,
get a bucket, KD, we need a bucket. And he
hits that left to right crossover and hits that pull
up jumper and knocks that shit down to send him
to the gold medal game. It wasn't a fluke. He's
literally the very best player in the NBA still at
(27:25):
it today, and he's been the very best player at
it that I've ever seen. This is where I want
to touch on that shot attempts thing. So KD has
been very active on social media in the last couple
of days regarding several things, but the big one was
this idea that KD hasn't led a team in shot
attempts since twenty eighteen. As if it's a bad thing.
(27:49):
I think this is one of Kadi's strengths. This is
where we have to get away from box score watching. Look,
scoring the basketball is a very important basketball trade, and
I'm not going to roll my eyes a guys, who
are putting up big points per game numbers. It's too
hard to score in the NBA to just gloss over that,
But we had twenty five players in the NBA last
(28:09):
year average at least twenty four points per game. Not
all points per game totals are the same. The goal
of an NBA offense is for the team to score points,
not for an individual player to score points. And there
are a lot of guys in the NBA that can
score the basketball, but at the expense of the rhythm
(28:31):
and flow of their teammates and of the offense overall.
Kevin Durant is the best I've ever seen at scoring
the basketball in the flow of an offense, meaning doing
so without disrupting the rhythm of his teammates, without stopping
ball in player movement. This is what makes him so
easy to fit in any basketball situation. Every time he
(28:52):
changes teams, it just looks like such a natural fit
on the offensive end of the floor. This is why
I think it's gonna fit so great for him in Houston.
I think it comes down to how comes down to
two things. First of all, Katie is excellent at scoring
off the ball, both in spot up situations, and attacking
in the action that NBA offense runs. So like driving closeouts.
(29:16):
Kd when he drove closeouts shot sixty four percent on
twos last year. That's insane. That was on eighty one attempts,
so once a game, more than once a game, he'd
put the ball on the floor against the closeout and
shoot and make almost two thirds of them. Like that
(29:37):
goes in hand in hand with him shooting over fifty
percent on unguarded catch and shoot jump shots. So you
just an incredibly useful spot up player if you can
create an advantage for him. But then he also could
score out of action. He shot sixty percent out of
dribble handoffs. He shot forty eight percent coming off of
(29:58):
off ball screens. He's excellent at scoring in the flow
of NBA offense, and then when he's on the ball,
he's always super decisive and super efficient with his dribbles.
Kadi averaged just three point three seconds per touch last
year and just two dribbles per touch. That's per NBA
(30:21):
dot COM's tracking data. Now compare that to a guy
like Luka Doncic, who averaged seven seconds per touch and
four dribbles per touch. Now, Luca is a better player
than KD. But I'm trying to show the difference in
just the quickness, how quickly and how efficiently Katie attacks
when he has the ball. And even though I do
believe in Luca and his supreme ability, I have talked
(30:42):
about how him dribbling the air out of the basketball
can disrupt the rhythm and flow for other players. It's
been part of the reason why I've talked so much
about Lebron and Austin and how they have to become
better catch and shoot players, because a lot of Lebron
and Austin's on ball ability can get a little bit
of a diminishing return in the context of a Luca
led offense because he can dribble the air out of
the basketball Kadi. Him being hyper efficient, him taking less
(31:07):
than half as much time per touch and less than
half as many dribbles per touch as a Luka Doncic
is what makes him super easy to play with. You
know what he's gonna do. He's predictable in a good
way to play an offense alongside of you know when
to cut, when to relocate, when to screen because he's
not pausing. He's super decisive. We've all played with guys
(31:33):
like that before that dribble the air out of the
basketball and you don't know what to do. You don't
know if you're gonna cut a relocate. You don't even
know if he's looking at you. You don't know if
he's trying to set something else up. That unpredictability can
be difficult to play off of. If you're playing basketball
with Kevin Durrant and you pass him the ball and
he has an advantage he likes with some good spacing,
(31:55):
you can count on him to quickly put the ball
down or throw a jab stet and do something super efficient.
One or two dribbles, rise and fire within a like
two or three seconds max. He's not gonna stop and stare.
He's gonna attack quickly. And that makes him super easy
to play with. And it's not like, you know, I
(32:17):
saw some of the criticisms because KD doesn't want all
that response bullshit. Yeah, Like, every time the game's on
the line, KDI wants the ball. He's always been that guy.
He's literally one of the best clutch players ever. I
mean he literally the whole beef he had with Draymond
literally stemmed from him wanting the basketball at the end
of a game. It's it is this hyper efficient, quick,
(32:41):
decisive scoring that fits extremely well in the team context.
We've talked a lot about this idea, the scoring player
versus the offensive engine, and how scorers can be susceptible
to variance and scorers can disrupt the flow. A bad
game for a score is way worse than a bad
game for an advantage creator. Not as much so for
(33:03):
a guy like Kevin Durant, who shoots well over fifty
percent from two and on his pull up jump shots
he makes over half of his jump shots, so he's
less susceptible to variance, and he's so quick and so
decisive that he's just super easy to play with and
he's never going to disrupt the flow of your offense. Now,
why did I leave Katie down at eleven? It has
(33:24):
nothing to do with defense. Do I wish Katie would
have devoted more energy and focus to defense over his career? Sure,
but even in that context, he's still an excellent defender
even today. His tools are just insane, and he can move.
He's got good anticipation, He's good both on the ball
and off the ball. He's been well over a block
per game for years. That's that off ball anticipation and
(33:46):
his ability to use his length at the rim. And
he is a nasty ISO defender because he has that
length and mobility to give ground to keep the ball
in front, but also close that gap and get great contests.
Guys shot just twelve for forty five from the field
against KD and ISO last year out of one hundred
(34:10):
and fifty one players to guard at least fifty ISOs
last year. Is zero point seven to six point per possession,
ranked sixteenth sixteenth out of one hundred and fifty one.
He's literally one of the best isolation defenders in the NBA.
KD being being outside of the top ten came down
to three things for me. One, he's declined as a
defensive rebounder. He posted his lowest rebounds per game total
(34:32):
since rebounds per game number since his rookie season two.
He straight up does not pressure the rim. He averaged
just two point eight shot attempts per game at the
rim last year. That ranked two hundred and twenty eighth
in the NBA. Guys like Kevin Herder and Corey Kisspert
attempted more shots at the rim per game last year
than KD. A lot of it has to do with
(34:52):
the Achilles injury. He's stopping short a lot of the time,
but him not threatening the rim prevents him from generating
some of the advantages kickout opportunities that his peers generate.
And then lastly, he's just not the same level of
playmaker as his peers at the top of the league.
Now I'm hoping KD proves me wrong on this particular point.
(35:15):
I saw KD reach crazy heights as a pick and
roll passer in Brooklyn, and he's kind of just gone
away from that that role of the high volume pick
and roll weapon, and I actually think Houston could really
benefit from it. So I'm hoping they dig that back
out of KD. And I hope that we get to
see a higher level playmaker this year. But in the
(35:37):
last several years he has not been the same level
of advantage creator, the guy who generates easy opportunities for
his teammates as his peers that are above him. On
this list overall, this was one of the hardest rankings
for me to make. You could easily argue KD as
high as number five on this list, but for right now,
I haven't met number eleven. All right, before we get
(35:59):
out here, guys, I'll tell you a little bit about Alaska.
So we had gone on an Alaskan cruise when my
wife I was working for this company. She got an
incentive trip a while back where we got to go
with a bunch of the people that were in her industry,
and it was like a loop that went out of Seattle.
And the loop was kind of a bummer in a
couple of different ways because one, you just didn't get
(36:21):
to see all the same ports. When you're doing a
seven day loop, you've got to account for a return trip,
so there's like three of the seven days you're just
on the ocean, and so you just don't get to
spend as much time. Each port call is like five
hours four hours, so you're just like really not having
the time to explore all of the different areas that
you're going. And then secondly, because you're going in a loop,
(36:41):
you don't get to go as far up into Alaska,
which is like the further you get up, the cooler
it is. Right for those of you guys have been
you know what I'm talking about. And so we really
wanted to go back for two reasons. We wanted to
go outside of a work context. We wanted to be
able to enjoy it more, just like without the all
of the constraints that came from my wife's job at
the time. And then two, we wanted to do the
(37:03):
one way. We wanted to do a one way cruise
so that you could actually spend a lot of time
at each port. Now I'm not much of a cruise guy,
but you kind of need to do a cruise to
experience the majority of Alaska, just because a lot of
these places are not accessible by road, and you get
to see a lot of really cool things that you
only get to see on a boat in that sort
(37:25):
of instance. So like, for instance, we got to see
the Hubbard Glacier on this particular trip. That is the
largest title a title glacier in the entire world. So
you're not going to see that unless you take a
cruise ship into that bay, right. So I'm not much
of a cruise guy, but it's kind of the way
you have to do it. And so we traveled with
my parents, which is a lot of fun. I haven't
(37:46):
traveled with my parents since I was a kid, since
I was a teenager. Basically and so my dad was
always big into outdoorsy stuff, and so it kind of
just worked out with our schedules, and my dad and
mom are both finally retired, and so we were able
to do it, and we did a whole We did
a little trip to Victoria beforehand, so we went up
to Vancouver and we got an airbnb in Victoria. The
(38:06):
weather was amazing. In Victoria, we went to like Bouchart Gardens,
which is a really cool like basically like a botanical
garden that's up there where you can get to see
some incredible stuff and you know, hung out in that
area we had. The weather was just so great. I
got like great views of like Mount Olympus and you
could literally see Blue Glacier from inside Victoria. You like
got to see seaplanes landing and all this good food.
(38:28):
It's kind of a fun little trip before we went
on the cruise and got to take the ferry to
and from Victoria from Vancouver, which was beautiful as you
kind of get into all those islands that surround Vancouver Island.
And then we left out of Vancouver. And if you've
been on the Alaskan cruise before, you know that the
ports that are on the southern end are not super
interesting like ketch a can. It's not my favorite place.
(38:48):
It's just super rainy there all the time. The one
thing that was cool is when we went three years ago,
for whatever reason, there just wasn't a lot of same
in activity. I think we just got there a little
too early. But we got there at like the peak
of the salmon returning. It says, you know, the salmon
they like go out to ocean and then when they're
ready to reproduce, they go back up into fresh water,
(39:09):
like by jumping up these like like creeks and rivers
and stuff, and then they spawn and then they die,
right and so like you see them out in the
ocean up against these like uh, you know whatever you
call it the deltas, where like the rivers in the
in the ocean meet where it's like a mix of
fresh and ocean water, and they like practice jumping and
you just see them jumping. Just you literally look off
(39:29):
the shore and you just see hundreds of salmon just
jumping in and out of the water. And then like
you'd see them jumping up the creeks, you'd see them
climbing the salmon ladders. It's basically like a structure that
the locals build to help the salmon get upstream. So
that was kind of cool, but it's just so rainy,
up and catch a can And then we went to
Juneo and the weather was amazing and Juno we got
super lucky there again. But like we went to go
see Mendenhall Glacier and we like canoe up to super cool,
(39:52):
but it's retreated so far back that it's literally out
of the water now, Like when I went there three
years ago, it was in the wa and now Mendenhall
Glacier is like completely out of the water. And when
you're canoeing to it, they have all these like orange
signs that like demonstrate different times in the history where
the glacier was further out. I can't remember the exact number,
(40:12):
but like it retreats at some crazy pace. It was
like two hundred feet per year or something like that,
so that one's like really retreating back in there. And
thankfully we did all that stuff first, because each subsequent
port that we went to that was further to the
north was crazier and crazier that we got to see,
and like the Hudderd Glacier was absolutely unbelievable that we
(40:33):
just got perfectly clear weather. So as you're like pulling in,
you see this massive glacier, but out in the distance
just all these like fifteen thousand foot peaks. I have
always had a thing for super tall mountains, particularly volcanoes,
but I've also had a thing for super tall mountains,
and you get to see We got to see Mount
Saint Elias, which is over eighteen thousand feet. That's now
the tallest mountain that I've ever laid eyes on, So
(40:53):
that was super cool. We got to see it on
a very clear day. I got to see another big
volcano up there. I can't remember I think it was
I can't remember what it was called, but it's the
volcano right outside of Sidco. We got a crazy view
of it as we were going around on the cruise ship.
But then, you know, my mom and my wife were
shopping in Juno and I was looking at our itinerary
(41:14):
and we had we had like six hours to kill
in Seward and Seward was the final port, and we
never even thought of it as a place to do
an excursion because we're like, oh, we're just leaving, like
that's when we get off the boat and that's when
we'll go home, right, And then I looked at it,
I was like, Okay, we're getting off the boat at
seven point thirty and we're not getting on the train
until six pm. So we got all this time to do.
And so I did some research and then I heard
(41:36):
about this like keen I Fjords National Park, this big
national park that's like right by seward, but you can't
get there unless you go by boat or like helicopter, right,
And so I found an excursion like a boating company
that would take all four of us out into those fjords.
And that ended up being like by far the coolest
(41:56):
part of the trip, even though we had amazing weather
everywhere else. It was like super But even though the
rain had some downsides, what was cool about it was
the rain actually essentially like lubricates the glaciers and causes
them to move a little faster into calve a little
bit more calving for a glacier. All it means is
as the glacier kind of flows downhill, these big pieces
(42:18):
of ice like fall off into the ocean, and by
like sheer luck, I happened to have my iPhone out
like zoomed in on a spot where this massive piece
of ice fell off of the Iliic Glacier, which was
one of the two glaciers that we went to go see,
and it was the guy who was on the boat
said it was literally the biggest calving they had seen
(42:39):
in the entire season. It launched like this massive wave,
like this thirty foot wave that was like coming towards
us from the from the glacier. So we had to
like turn the boat away from it and like go
further away so that we could like wait for the
wave to spread out and like hit us at a
at a lower at a lower level. But I have
a video of this, you guys can find. It's on
(43:00):
my Instagram and it's on my Twitter at underscore jsonlt.
But it was like literally one of the coolest things
I've ever seen, just watching that piece of that glacier
fall off. And like one of the things that's cool
with glaciers too, is when it's super sunny, they appear white,
but when it's super cloudy, they appear like almost like
a radioactive shade of blue because of just the lesser
(43:21):
amount of light that they're absorbing. And so it just
was like this eerie, creepy, like cloudy, rainy day with
these beautiful glaciers that were just like having like crazy
in front of us because of the rain, and it
was just an incredible experience. And then, like I kept
waiting for things to get more difficult, but it's like
then we get on this train, this Alaska Railroad train,
(43:43):
and it goes from Seward up to Anchorage, and it's
just four hours of incredibly beautiful scenery outside of a train.
I saw three additional glaciers, beautiful mountains. The bay that
goes thereby I can't remember what it's called. The bay
that goes there right by Anchorage is super pretty. This
was like one thing after another of incredible sight seeing
(44:04):
and I just felt so lucky. I felt so lucky
that the weather was the way that it was. I
felt so lucky that we got to see the things
that we got to see. It was obviously super cool
to get to spend some time with my mom and dad,
which I who haven't traveled with in years, and it
just was a really special trip. I think it might
be my favorite trip that I've ever gone on. A
couple of things. If you're if you're ever gonna go
to Alaska. There's several cruise ships that do it, several
(44:28):
companies that do it. We use Celebrity. I've been pleased
with them. They give a very good experience. I actually
think they're relatively affordable too. Uh. They have really good food,
which is something that my wife and I are you know,
pretty picky on there were foodies. We just really like
to have good food. But a couple things to be
prepared for. Do the one way, don't do the loop,
because you actually get to spend so much more time
in each of your ports and less time at sea. Also,
(44:49):
the one way takes you further north in Alaska, Like
you'd get to see Hubbard Glacier. You don't get to
see that on the loop. You get to go up
into Seward, which you don't get to see if you're
on the loop, So you get to see the better
stuff that's further north Alaska. A couple things though, if
if you do the cruise, when you leave the last
port and you go into the Gulf of Alaska, it's
a famously rough ocean, and so like come prepared for
(45:12):
you know, seasickness by having you know, dramamine or you know,
weed or whatever it is you use to survive seasickness,
make sure you're prepared for that. And then if you
want to do Alaska without doing a cruise, Seward kind
of captures a lot of the same vibe as some
of the other ports, and so just fly to Anchorage
(45:33):
and then take the Alaska Railroad down to Seward, buying
an airbnb or a hotel somewhere there, and then just
make sure you do the ken I Fjords tour because
it's just super cool and it's an awesome way to
get to experience like the glaciers and a lot of
like that kind of stuff that you get to experience
in Alaska. But it was just a ton of fun.
And I Uh, it's kind of crazy because I'm we're
(45:54):
preparing for our phase two of our move to Denver
on Wednesday, so it's kind of hectic and obviously there's
works around, but like, it just felt really nice to
disconnect for him a little bit. There's like almost no
cell service out there and Wi Fi on cruise ships
is terrible, so it was like an opportunity for me
to disconnect from work a little bit. And I just
had a great time and I just I just highly
recommend if you ever have a chance to go check
(46:14):
out Alaska, go check it out. And if you want
to see some pictures, I've shared quite a few on
my twitter feed. You guys can see them there. All right, guys,
it's all I have for today. It's always a sincerely
appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show.
I'll see you guys on Friday. Four Hour Mailbag
The volume. All right, welcome to Hoops tonight. You're at
the volume. Happy Wednesday, everybody. Hope all of you guys
are having a great week. It feels amazing to be
(00:21):
back from Alaska. Just an absolutely unbelievable trip. If you
stick around to the end of the show today, I'll
tell you guys about it, just because it just I
can't imagine it going any better than it did. You
know how, anybody who has ever been to Alaska knows
there's a little bit of a crap shoot with weather,
and we just got so lucky and I got to
see so many cool things. I'll talk about that trip
more at the tail end of the show today. We're
(00:41):
getting back into our player rankings with number twelve and
number eleven, the beginning of a segment of this list
that was far and away the hardest segment for me
to rank. But we're getting to two more players today.
You guys know the joke before we get started to
subscribe to the Hoops and Not YouTube channel so you
don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on
Twitter at underscore JCNLT so you guys don't miss show announcement.
SOTI forget about a podcast feed where you get your
(01:03):
podcast on our Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if
you leave a rating and a review on that front.
Jackson's doing great work on our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook,
and TikTok. Make sure you guys follow us there. The last,
but not least, if you guys want to get questions
into the mail bags, we're doing Friday mail bags geared
around the player rankings here for the next month or so. Again,
if you disagree with the ranking, if you think a
(01:23):
guy should be higher, lower, should have made the list,
shouldn't have made the list, whatever it is you disagree with,
just lay that out as concisely as you can. A
little elevator. Pitch in a comment under this video that
says mail bag with a colon, and we'll get to
it in our mail bags at on Fridays throughout the
remainder of this list. All right, let's talk some basketball,
(01:45):
all right, So this was by far the hardest section
of this list for me to rank. Kawhi Leonard and
Joel Embiid are very clearly at the bottom. Right, Like,
we all know that Kawhi can outplay the top players
in the league. We saw him do it against Jokichen
in Game two, if I remember correctly, in that first
round series, he's capable of reaching that level. We know
(02:05):
Joelmbi when he's healthy, could very well be one of
the top two or three players in the entire NBA, right,
But they both obviously have this injury history that pushes
them towards the bottom, and Kawi is obviously in better
shape now as someone who was able to finish his
last playoff run, so he got the nod for number thirteen.
Joel was at number fourteen. That was pretty straightforward, right,
But there is an incredibly minuscule gap between number twelve
(02:29):
on this list and number five. For example, I'll just
go ahead and spoil today's rankings. I have Donovan Mitchell
at number twelve and Kevin Durant at number eleven. We'll
obviously do deep dives into both of those players today.
Donovan Mitchell was just the best player on the second
best team in the league this year. He averaged thirty
points per game on fifty seven percent true shooting in
(02:49):
this year's playoff run. He made first team All NBA
and he finished fifth and MVP voting. He had a
forty eight point playoff game, Andy forty three point playoff
game just in this last playoff front and there isn'take
case for him to be above of anybody that I
have ahead of him on this list. For me, at
least personally, I think you could argue him to be higher.
(03:12):
But for me, I couldn't find a case to move
him up from twelve, top five in MVP voting, first
Team All NBA, and I struggle to put him higher
than twelve. That's the nature of this part of the list.
And Kevin Durant is Kevin Durant. KD catches a ton
(03:32):
of crap online and I disagree with most of it.
I don't blame him for what went wrong in Phoenix.
He was getting crap online for not leading his team
in shot attempts since twenty eighteen. I don't view that
as a negative for KD. Of you, that is a positive.
We're going to talk about that today. I think he's
going to massively improve Houston's ability to compete for a championship,
(03:53):
and I think he firmly meets the criteria of this tier,
which again this tier, the criteria is a player who
on any given night can outplay the very best players
in the world. They just struggle to consistently get to
that level. Kdi very much is in that tier, and
like I don't have him in my top ten. It's
just a testament to how deep this league is. The
(04:17):
top twelve is completely insane. I moved the names around
a half dozen times. Multiple guys went up and down
several spots in different versions of this list before I
landed where I landed. The point is, we are very
much splitting hairs at this point, and if you disagree
with me and you go, Jason, I have KD at five, Jason,
(04:41):
I have Donovan Mitchell at five. I know I'm going
to argue against it, but I'm not. There's such a
small gap there that I think it's at least defensible.
The guys that I have above these guys at this
point in the list, I just viewed having a more
liable night tonight trade. So maybe an apex athlete who
(05:05):
brings insane motor every night, or an offensive engine. You
guys know how I feel about offensive engines. I don't
think Durant or Mitchell kind of fall into that specific category.
Guys who make offense easier for everyone on the roster
every single night. Or a defensive monster, like a guy
who's just an absolute pain in the ass athlete with
super long arms that no one can deal with on
the defensive end of the floor. That just sets a
(05:27):
super high floor for everybody. Those are the kinds of
guys that I ended up favoring over Donovan Mitchell and
Kevin Durant. But these gaps are incredibly close. I just
wanted to emphasize that from five to twelve, I mean,
you could just shake it up and like a bunch
of yachtzi dice and just kind of see how it lands,
and you're gonna be able to make a decent case
(05:48):
for that rank. But let's get started. But number twelve,
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(07:20):
year in review for Donna, and he played in seventy
one games. That was his healthiest season since twenty nineteen,
which was his second year in the league. He averaged
twenty four points, five rebounds, and five assists, one point
five stocks, forty four percent from the field, thirty seven
percent from three to eighty two percent from the line
fifty three percent, and effective field goal percentage that's just
field goal percentage waited for threes in fifty eight percent
(07:41):
in true shooting. Really stacked up the accolades this year.
He finished his sixth consecutive All Star appearance, first Team
All NBA in fifth, and MVP voting for me like
a classic example of why box score watching is so silly, Donovan,
his numbers were down across the board year over year.
(08:02):
Points per game down, rebounds per game down. It's this
per game down, field goal percentage down, block steals down,
three point percentage down, free throw percentage down. Everything was
down year over year, and he was flat out better
this year than he was the previous year. Keep that
in mind when we get to KD and we start
talking about his field goal numbers, because it's the same
(08:23):
kind of idea that I think a lot of people
get hung up on now. To be clear, yes, box
score production is an important manifestation of how you're producing
for a basketball team, but it is not the only
manifestation of how well a basketball player is playing. The
evidence is in the play type data. Even though Donovan
(08:45):
Mitchell's individual statistics weren't as impressive as the previous season,
when Donovan did more with the basketball and when Donovan
had you know, he's running a lot more pick and
roll every game. He's just he was just more on
the right. Even though his numbers came down, even though
his individual statistics weren't as impressive, Donovan did things that
(09:09):
helped the Cleveland Cavaliers as a team score more points
just shot creation data. In twenty twenty four, Donovan ran
one thousand and sixty two pick and rolls, ISOs and
post ups including passes, got one thousand and eighty three points.
That's one point zero two points per possession, which is
decent FIR star guard, but it's nothing to write home about.
(09:31):
In twenty twenty five, he ran one thousand, three hundred
and sixteen pick and rolls, ISOs and post ups, obviously
higher volume with him being healthier, but fourteen hundred and
five points. That's one point zero seven points per possession.
That's five points better per one hundred possessions than he
was the previous year. That puts him into an elite
tier as a high volume shot creator. The Cleveland Cavaliers
(09:56):
functioned better as an offense with Donovan Mitchell this year
than they did last year, even though his individual scoring
volume in percentages went down. So the question is how
how did Donovan Mitchell help the Calves this year compared
to last year? And the short answer is he bought
him to what Kenny Atkinson was trying to do with
that Calves offense, getting them to play more fast paced,
(10:18):
more in transition, more ball in player movement. It required
quicker decision making, and most importantly, it required Donovan to
give up the basketball more and to play more in
the flow of the offense, and he did just that.
Here's a simple stat to demonstrate how much Donovan Mitchell
gave up the basketball last year premba dot COM's tracking
(10:40):
data in twenty twenty four, Donovan Mitchell averaged six point
three minutes of possession time per game. In twenty twenty five,
That dropped from six point three to four point nine.
Another way to put it is, Donovan's time of possession
dropped by twenty two point three per year over year.
(11:03):
That's a significant a decrease there. And yet despite a
twenty two point three percent decrease in his time of possession,
his scoring volume only dropped by less than ten percent,
a little over nine percent, from twenty six point six
points per game to twenty four points per game. He
(11:25):
basically refined his role to fit exactly what the team needed.
He took a step back and allowed the finally healthy
version of Darius Garland to do more of what Darius
does best, which is initiate the offense with his drivele penetration,
and that advantaged creation just greased the wheels in so
many different ways for the Cavs as we know. And
then in shorter bursts when the situation called for it,
(11:50):
Donovan stepped in and was super aggressive. He actually shot
the ball, or I should say, passed the ball less
per touch last year than the year before, So he
actually passed the ball less when he had it. But
that was what the team needed. The team needed him
to seed control of a large portion of the offense
(12:10):
to Darius in a larger extent than he did in
previous years, and for him to win, he had the
ball do what Donovan Mitchell does best, score the damn basketball.
The team needed him to be a score, and so
he took back some of his touches and refined and
simplified his approach to being more of a score. In short,
(12:31):
he cut down on his touches but focused on what
he does best and that led to a explosive scoring
season for the Cavs offense. Donovan was lethally efficient in
pick and roll this year. He's actually more efficient as
a scorer in pick and roll this year than he
was the year before, despite his shooting percentages being down
across the board. Overall, he was one of only six
(12:52):
players in the entire NBA last year to attempt at
least five hundred shots in pick and roll and to
get over a point per shot. He did this by
shooting fifty percent on twos. Again, that's a big part
of that shot making and pick and roll right fueled
by a deadly floater. He shot fifty two percent on
over one hundred and fifty floaters this year. Donovan was
(13:12):
one of only eight players in the NBA to attempt
at least one hundred and fifty floaters and make more
than half of them. We're gonna talk about it more
and when we get to here in just a second.
But he had a really useful set of counter moves
in the mid range, and he's always had these, but
he's really refined it into a super efficient part of
his game. We'll get to that in a second. Then
he shot thirty six point four percent on pull up threes,
(13:33):
and that's a very good number because of the efficiency
boost that you get from that three point shot. That
was one point zero nine points per pull up three
in pick and roll. That's very good. Classic for Donovan
Mitchell is a combination of what we've talked about with
a lot of the athletic guards in the league. The
combination of that downhill burst mixed with the pull up
(13:54):
jumper that can get defenders either on their heels or
he can easily pull up or up on their toes,
or he can ease the league go past them. And
again this is where the mid range counters come in.
Donovan had this ridiculous over the top gather, I should
say has. He's had it for years. This ridiculous over
the top gather that he would pull over a defender
that would step underneath him, and he'd step into a
(14:14):
floater out of that, and then he was really nasty
with that eurostep. Those little moves in the mid range
allowed him to quickly get separation, almost like John Morant esque,
with his ability to quickly get separation in that short range,
that five to ten foot range where he could get
to an easy shot that he could make over fifty
percent from of the time, which removed some of that
variants and gave him a reliable piece of shot making
(14:38):
that gave him the ability to be one of only
six players in the NBA a shot over fifty percent
pick and roll on a massive volume with that or
over a point per possession, I should say on that
massive volume of over five hundred attempts in pick and roll.
He also scored really efficiently off the ball. Donovan got
one point one one points per possession and spot up
(14:58):
situations fueled by him shooting a crazy forty seven percent
on unguarded catch and shoot threes and then some really
good close out attacking when guys would chase him off
the line. The biggest boost for Donovan Mitchell on this list.
The reason why he is higher than many of the
guys who scored more points per game than him this
(15:20):
year is the simple fact that Donovan is one of
the best playoff risers in the NBA. Darius Garland, who
did not make my list this year, he hits many
of the similar markers that Donovan hits that we've talked
about in this segment. Darius was excellent shooting in pick
and roll, had an excellent floater. He shot like forty
(15:43):
three percent unpull up threes in pick and roll. Darius,
I would actually argue, in terms of just the regular season,
is a better offensive engine than Donovan Mitchell because of
his ability to consistently cut teams to pieces with his
dribble penetration in pass effectively out of it. It really
greased the wheels for this Caps team. Their offense was
actually four points better per one hundre possessions this year
(16:05):
when Darius was on versus off, but consistently every single year,
whether it be because of health or him struggling in
that environment, or a combination of both, Darius just kind
of falls apart in the postseason relative to his regular
season impact. Meanwhile, Donovan Mitchell is like straight up one
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of the very best playoff scorers of this era. Once
again last year, thirty points per game in the postseason
on fifty seven percent true shooting. For six consecutive playoff
runs spanning forty seven games, Donovan Mitchell is good for
thirty five and five on fifty nine percent truugh shooting
(16:47):
in the playoffs. To put it very simply, he is
one of the very best playoff scorers in the entire NBA,
and that puts him in this special tier of players
who is capable of out playing any top tier superstar
on any given night, which is what put him in
this grouping now, defense has always been a bit complicated
(17:11):
for Donovan, But I actually think Donovan's made real strides
over the last couple of years. He's ever been good
on the ball. He competes there better than he used to.
You guys remember how bad it was in Utah. Was
just a disaster on the ball there. But nowadays he
still struggles a little bit, even though he competes better
because he can get too handsy. He commits a lot
of fouls. He's just overly physical on the ball. As
(17:32):
a defender, but he's made major strides over the last
couple of years as an off ball defender. The main
thing is is it's an excellent opportunity for him to
weaponize that trait that he loves to be physically aggressive
and go after the basketball well on the ball that
can give up drill penetration too easily. Off the ball,
it actually is useful for him digging down on driving
(17:53):
lanes or digging down on cutters, and so Donovan has
gotten really good at like digging down into the lane
attacking the back basketball, but having the foot speed and
the fundamentals in terms of his closeouts to get back
out to the perimeter to a shooter, and that's made
him a very good help and recover player. So as
a result, like the Cavs defense was actually better this
(18:14):
year with Donovan Mitchell on the ball versus off and
it's given him the ability to meet that mandatory minimum
which we always talk about, like in order to be
one of these guys in this tier, you have to
be able to at least fill a role on a
team as a useful defender. You have to be able
to do something that helps your team on that end
(18:35):
of the floor, and Donovan has found that role off
the ball. He can dig down into the lane, attack
the basketball, and he can recover out to the perimeter
with really quality closeouts for a star player at that position.
You look at Darius Garland and we talked about it.
Like Darius Garland, He's not a better score than Donovan Mitchell.
(18:56):
I don't even think he's a better playoff offensive player
overall than Donovan Mitchell. But in the regular season, Darius
Garland is a better offensive engine than Donovan Mitchell. But
even in that context, the Cavs defense was five points
worse per one hundred possessions with Darius on versus off,
and it undercut a lot of his success. It's a
big part of why he didn't make this list this year.
(19:17):
In addition to the playoff struggles that we talked about,
Donovan has become a useful defender for a good defense.
That was the mandatory minimum that he needed to reach
as a small guard and he got there. So now,
why isn't Donovan Mitchell higher on this list? Jason, He's
fifth in MVP voting, he made First Team All NBA.
Why is he all the way down at twelve? The
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big thing for Donovan is I just don't think he
has enough of that like game management, flow of the
game piece, that offensive engine piece that you need to
compete with the elite offensive players that are above him
on this list. So let's look at last year. In
the playoffs, the injuries start to stack up. Darius Garland's
(20:01):
got the bad toe. He's not moving as well as
he used to, He's not cutting the defense up the
way he used to. He's sitting out for entire games.
A lot of their shooters go cold in large part
because of that lack of advantage creation. And so Donovan
Mitchell like kind of flashed a lot of the old
Donovan Mitchell right, really taking control of the offense and
more to a heliocentric manner in the excuse me. In
(20:23):
the regular season, his usage rate was below thirty one percent.
In the postseason it was over thirty seven percent. So
he kind of like reverted back to that hyper aggressive
on ball, heliocentric, kind of ball hoggy type of player, right.
And for the record, I don't blame him for that.
It was the right thing for him to do in
that situation. Darius didn't have it. He needed to be
(20:46):
more in control of things. I do not blame Donovan
for that. It was the best chance that Cleveland had
to survive their set of circumstances. But when Donovan goes
that route, he this is a lot of the easy
reads that are available to him, and it can be
a lot of make or miss, feast or famine type
(21:06):
of stuff, and it can lead to him not having
the same level of offensive impact as the guys that
are above him on this list. For example, in this
postseason run, when Donovan Mitchell was on the floor, the
Caves managed one hundred and seventeen points six points per
one hundred possessions, which is fine, but it's well below
what the Cavs are producing in the regular season, and
it's well below what they did when Darius Garland was
(21:29):
in control, especially in the regular season. Right. So, like,
I just don't see Donovan as that overall offensive engine
that you get from the offensive players that have above
him on this list. I have a couple of guys
on the list above him that are more defensive minded players,
but are defensive weapons, I should say, But among the
offensive players in this tier, Donovan's lack of that high
(21:49):
level playmaking talent is what kept him kept him below.
The next step for Donovan if he wants to move
up this list and get into the top seven top eight,
for me, is that game management piece becoming the type
of guy who you can give control of the offense
to and he's gonna average eight nine assists per game
(22:11):
like the Damian Lillards of the world, right, because he
weaponizes that downhill force to generate advantages early in possession.
That greased the wheels for his offense. That's the next step.
But for right now, I have Donovan as the twelfth
best player in the NBA. Number eleven Kevin Durant. This
(22:36):
was an impossible one for me. I'm just such a
huge fan of Kevin Durant and his game, and I
really do believe he's gonna be amazing for Houston this year.
But again, every time I looked at a guy above him,
I just personally couldn't unseat one of those guys. But again,
if you argued KDE as high as five, I could
at least respect the case there. Same goes for Donovan.
(23:00):
Is this more again a testament to how talented the
rest of the NBA is. Our top twelve is insane, right, now,
as you guys will see as we continue to work
through this list. Last season in review, for KD sixty
two games played, he averaged twenty seven point six rebounds
and four assists two stocks per game. Fifty three percent
(23:22):
from the field, fifty seven percent on two is just
outrageous from two. We're gonna talk more about that in
a minute, because that's considering almost no rim attempts relative
to his peers. Forty three percent from three, eighty four
percent from the line for a sixty percent effective field
goal percentage, and sixty four percent in true shooting. The
shot making from KD is just completely outrageous. Like, just
(23:45):
just listen to these numbers. KD was the best jump
shooter in the entire NBA last year. He shot over
fifty percent on all jump shots, even if you wait
it for threes. He got one point two to one
points per attempt. That ranked number one out of the
fifty eight players to attempt at least five hundred jump shots.
Kevin Durant best jump shooter in the NBA last year.
(24:08):
End of story, forty eight percent off the catch, fifty
one percent one unguarded, fifty two percent on off the
dribble jump shots. He had a rough year and pull
up three he didn't take very many. He took seventy three.
All years shot just below thirty three percent. But Kevin
(24:30):
Durant shot fifty six percent on pull up mid range
jump shots. In short range when he got inside of
seventeen feet he hit fifty eight percent. That's that's one
of the most reliable shots in the NBA right now.
It's encroaching on that Yokich territory of like mid sixties,
(24:54):
high sixties, of like unbelievable reliability and immunity to variant.
Kd's become so incredibly deadly on those short range jump shots.
That shot making led to insanely efficient isolation numbers. KD
was the best ISO player in the NBA last year
by a mile. There were twenty two players that shot
(25:17):
out of ISO at least two hundred times. Kd's one
point one six points per possession was far and away
number one. Give you an idea. Shay was in second place,
and he was a full six points per one hundred
possessions less efficient shooting out of ISO than KD was
(25:38):
on twos In ISO. Last year, KD shot fifty nine
percent one hundred and nine for one eighty six. He's
just the best to ever do it. When you need
a bucket, There's never been a better guy to give
the ball to. I've seeing the clips going around on
(25:59):
social media the other day while I was gone of
that Serbia USA game, and that still to this day
is my very favorite basketball memory that I can think of.
Just the intensity, the stakes, the fear, the legitimate fear
that they were going to lose, and then seeing everyone
step up and specifically Katie, Steph and Lebron run the
(26:21):
show down the stretch, and each one of those three
guys show their greatness and unique ways, from like Steph
keeping the team afloat early in the game with his
shooting and then late in the game hitting that three
coming off the left wing that was the lead changing shot.
He had the transition layup as well. Lebron James showcasing
his versatility. He's guarding Yolkic on one end of the floor,
having those two somehow having the leg strength to get
(26:44):
those two crazy transition finishes in crunch time, and then
in the final minutes I think they were up to
at the time super important possession. I think it was
under a minute. If I remember quickly, they desperately need
a bucket, and Steph Lebron, all those dudes they turn
to Kevin Durant and they say, get us a bucket.
(27:05):
I'm staying off my couch screaming at the TV, like,
get a bucket, KD, we need a bucket. And he
hits that left to right crossover and hits that pull
up jumper and knocks that shit down to send him
to the gold medal game. It wasn't a fluke. He's
literally the very best player in the NBA still at
(27:25):
it today, and he's been the very best player at
it that I've ever seen. This is where I want
to touch on that shot attempts thing. So KD has
been very active on social media in the last couple
of days regarding several things, but the big one was
this idea that KD hasn't led a team in shot
attempts since twenty eighteen. As if it's a bad thing.
(27:49):
I think this is one of Kadi's strengths. This is
where we have to get away from box score watching. Look,
scoring the basketball is a very important basketball trade, and
I'm not going to roll my eyes a guys, who
are putting up big points per game numbers. It's too
hard to score in the NBA to just gloss over that,
But we had twenty five players in the NBA last
(28:09):
year average at least twenty four points per game. Not
all points per game totals are the same. The goal
of an NBA offense is for the team to score points,
not for an individual player to score points. And there
are a lot of guys in the NBA that can
score the basketball, but at the expense of the rhythm
(28:31):
and flow of their teammates and of the offense overall.
Kevin Durant is the best I've ever seen at scoring
the basketball in the flow of an offense, meaning doing
so without disrupting the rhythm of his teammates, without stopping
ball in player movement. This is what makes him so
easy to fit in any basketball situation. Every time he
(28:52):
changes teams, it just looks like such a natural fit
on the offensive end of the floor. This is why
I think it's gonna fit so great for him in Houston.
I think it comes down to how comes down to
two things. First of all, Katie is excellent at scoring
off the ball, both in spot up situations, and attacking
in the action that NBA offense runs. So like driving closeouts.
(29:16):
Kd when he drove closeouts shot sixty four percent on
twos last year. That's insane. That was on eighty one attempts,
so once a game, more than once a game, he'd
put the ball on the floor against the closeout and
shoot and make almost two thirds of them. Like that
(29:37):
goes in hand in hand with him shooting over fifty
percent on unguarded catch and shoot jump shots. So you
just an incredibly useful spot up player if you can
create an advantage for him. But then he also could
score out of action. He shot sixty percent out of
dribble handoffs. He shot forty eight percent coming off of
(29:58):
off ball screens. He's excellent at scoring in the flow
of NBA offense, and then when he's on the ball,
he's always super decisive and super efficient with his dribbles.
Kadi averaged just three point three seconds per touch last
year and just two dribbles per touch. That's per NBA
(30:21):
dot COM's tracking data. Now compare that to a guy
like Luka Doncic, who averaged seven seconds per touch and
four dribbles per touch. Now, Luca is a better player
than KD. But I'm trying to show the difference in
just the quickness, how quickly and how efficiently Katie attacks
when he has the ball. And even though I do
believe in Luca and his supreme ability, I have talked
(30:42):
about how him dribbling the air out of the basketball
can disrupt the rhythm and flow for other players. It's
been part of the reason why I've talked so much
about Lebron and Austin and how they have to become
better catch and shoot players, because a lot of Lebron
and Austin's on ball ability can get a little bit
of a diminishing return in the context of a Luca
led offense because he can dribble the air out of
the basketball Kadi. Him being hyper efficient, him taking less
(31:07):
than half as much time per touch and less than
half as many dribbles per touch as a Luka Doncic
is what makes him super easy to play with. You
know what he's gonna do. He's predictable in a good
way to play an offense alongside of you know when
to cut, when to relocate, when to screen because he's
not pausing. He's super decisive. We've all played with guys
(31:33):
like that before that dribble the air out of the
basketball and you don't know what to do. You don't
know if you're gonna cut a relocate. You don't even
know if he's looking at you. You don't know if
he's trying to set something else up. That unpredictability can
be difficult to play off of. If you're playing basketball
with Kevin Durrant and you pass him the ball and
he has an advantage he likes with some good spacing,
(31:55):
you can count on him to quickly put the ball
down or throw a jab stet and do something super efficient.
One or two dribbles, rise and fire within a like
two or three seconds max. He's not gonna stop and stare.
He's gonna attack quickly. And that makes him super easy
to play with. And it's not like, you know, I
(32:17):
saw some of the criticisms because KD doesn't want all
that response bullshit. Yeah, Like, every time the game's on
the line, KDI wants the ball. He's always been that guy.
He's literally one of the best clutch players ever. I
mean he literally the whole beef he had with Draymond
literally stemmed from him wanting the basketball at the end
of a game. It's it is this hyper efficient, quick,
(32:41):
decisive scoring that fits extremely well in the team context.
We've talked a lot about this idea, the scoring player
versus the offensive engine, and how scorers can be susceptible
to variance and scorers can disrupt the flow. A bad
game for a score is way worse than a bad
game for an advantage creator. Not as much so for
(33:03):
a guy like Kevin Durant, who shoots well over fifty
percent from two and on his pull up jump shots
he makes over half of his jump shots, so he's
less susceptible to variance, and he's so quick and so
decisive that he's just super easy to play with and
he's never going to disrupt the flow of your offense. Now,
why did I leave Katie down at eleven? It has
(33:24):
nothing to do with defense. Do I wish Katie would
have devoted more energy and focus to defense over his career? Sure,
but even in that context, he's still an excellent defender
even today. His tools are just insane, and he can move.
He's got good anticipation, He's good both on the ball
and off the ball. He's been well over a block
per game for years. That's that off ball anticipation and
(33:46):
his ability to use his length at the rim. And
he is a nasty ISO defender because he has that
length and mobility to give ground to keep the ball
in front, but also close that gap and get great contests.
Guys shot just twelve for forty five from the field
against KD and ISO last year out of one hundred
(34:10):
and fifty one players to guard at least fifty ISOs
last year. Is zero point seven to six point per possession,
ranked sixteenth sixteenth out of one hundred and fifty one.
He's literally one of the best isolation defenders in the NBA.
KD being being outside of the top ten came down
to three things for me. One, he's declined as a
defensive rebounder. He posted his lowest rebounds per game total
(34:32):
since rebounds per game number since his rookie season two.
He straight up does not pressure the rim. He averaged
just two point eight shot attempts per game at the
rim last year. That ranked two hundred and twenty eighth
in the NBA. Guys like Kevin Herder and Corey Kisspert
attempted more shots at the rim per game last year
than KD. A lot of it has to do with
(34:52):
the Achilles injury. He's stopping short a lot of the time,
but him not threatening the rim prevents him from generating
some of the advantages kickout opportunities that his peers generate.
And then lastly, he's just not the same level of
playmaker as his peers at the top of the league.
Now I'm hoping KD proves me wrong on this particular point.
(35:15):
I saw KD reach crazy heights as a pick and
roll passer in Brooklyn, and he's kind of just gone
away from that that role of the high volume pick
and roll weapon, and I actually think Houston could really
benefit from it. So I'm hoping they dig that back
out of KD. And I hope that we get to
see a higher level playmaker this year. But in the
(35:37):
last several years he has not been the same level
of advantage creator, the guy who generates easy opportunities for
his teammates as his peers that are above him. On
this list overall, this was one of the hardest rankings
for me to make. You could easily argue KD as
high as number five on this list, but for right now,
I haven't met number eleven. All right, before we get
(35:59):
out here, guys, I'll tell you a little bit about Alaska.
So we had gone on an Alaskan cruise when my
wife I was working for this company. She got an
incentive trip a while back where we got to go
with a bunch of the people that were in her industry,
and it was like a loop that went out of Seattle.
And the loop was kind of a bummer in a
couple of different ways because one, you just didn't get
(36:21):
to see all the same ports. When you're doing a
seven day loop, you've got to account for a return trip,
so there's like three of the seven days you're just
on the ocean, and so you just don't get to
spend as much time. Each port call is like five
hours four hours, so you're just like really not having
the time to explore all of the different areas that
you're going. And then secondly, because you're going in a loop,
(36:41):
you don't get to go as far up into Alaska,
which is like the further you get up, the cooler
it is. Right for those of you guys have been
you know what I'm talking about. And so we really
wanted to go back for two reasons. We wanted to
go outside of a work context. We wanted to be
able to enjoy it more, just like without the all
of the constraints that came from my wife's job at
the time. And then two, we wanted to do the
(37:03):
one way. We wanted to do a one way cruise
so that you could actually spend a lot of time
at each port. Now I'm not much of a cruise guy,
but you kind of need to do a cruise to
experience the majority of Alaska, just because a lot of
these places are not accessible by road, and you get
to see a lot of really cool things that you
only get to see on a boat in that sort
(37:25):
of instance. So like, for instance, we got to see
the Hubbard Glacier on this particular trip. That is the
largest title a title glacier in the entire world. So
you're not going to see that unless you take a
cruise ship into that bay, right. So I'm not much
of a cruise guy, but it's kind of the way
you have to do it. And so we traveled with
my parents, which is a lot of fun. I haven't
(37:46):
traveled with my parents since I was a kid, since
I was a teenager. Basically and so my dad was
always big into outdoorsy stuff, and so it kind of
just worked out with our schedules, and my dad and
mom are both finally retired, and so we were able
to do it, and we did a whole We did
a little trip to Victoria beforehand, so we went up
to Vancouver and we got an airbnb in Victoria. The
(38:06):
weather was amazing. In Victoria, we went to like Bouchart Gardens,
which is a really cool like basically like a botanical
garden that's up there where you can get to see
some incredible stuff and you know, hung out in that
area we had. The weather was just so great. I
got like great views of like Mount Olympus and you
could literally see Blue Glacier from inside Victoria. You like
got to see seaplanes landing and all this good food.
(38:28):
It's kind of a fun little trip before we went
on the cruise and got to take the ferry to
and from Victoria from Vancouver, which was beautiful as you
kind of get into all those islands that surround Vancouver Island.
And then we left out of Vancouver. And if you've
been on the Alaskan cruise before, you know that the
ports that are on the southern end are not super
interesting like ketch a can. It's not my favorite place.
(38:48):
It's just super rainy there all the time. The one
thing that was cool is when we went three years ago,
for whatever reason, there just wasn't a lot of same
in activity. I think we just got there a little
too early. But we got there at like the peak
of the salmon returning. It says, you know, the salmon
they like go out to ocean and then when they're
ready to reproduce, they go back up into fresh water,
(39:09):
like by jumping up these like like creeks and rivers
and stuff, and then they spawn and then they die,
right and so like you see them out in the
ocean up against these like uh, you know whatever you
call it the deltas, where like the rivers in the
in the ocean meet where it's like a mix of
fresh and ocean water, and they like practice jumping and
you just see them jumping. Just you literally look off
(39:29):
the shore and you just see hundreds of salmon just
jumping in and out of the water. And then like
you'd see them jumping up the creeks, you'd see them
climbing the salmon ladders. It's basically like a structure that
the locals build to help the salmon get upstream. So
that was kind of cool, but it's just so rainy,
up and catch a can And then we went to
Juneo and the weather was amazing and Juno we got
super lucky there again. But like we went to go
see Mendenhall Glacier and we like canoe up to super cool,
(39:52):
but it's retreated so far back that it's literally out
of the water now, Like when I went there three
years ago, it was in the wa and now Mendenhall
Glacier is like completely out of the water. And when
you're canoeing to it, they have all these like orange
signs that like demonstrate different times in the history where
the glacier was further out. I can't remember the exact number,
(40:12):
but like it retreats at some crazy pace. It was
like two hundred feet per year or something like that,
so that one's like really retreating back in there. And
thankfully we did all that stuff first, because each subsequent
port that we went to that was further to the
north was crazier and crazier that we got to see,
and like the Hudderd Glacier was absolutely unbelievable that we
(40:33):
just got perfectly clear weather. So as you're like pulling in,
you see this massive glacier, but out in the distance
just all these like fifteen thousand foot peaks. I have
always had a thing for super tall mountains, particularly volcanoes,
but I've also had a thing for super tall mountains,
and you get to see We got to see Mount
Saint Elias, which is over eighteen thousand feet. That's now
the tallest mountain that I've ever laid eyes on, So
(40:53):
that was super cool. We got to see it on
a very clear day. I got to see another big
volcano up there. I can't remember I think it was
I can't remember what it was called, but it's the
volcano right outside of Sidco. We got a crazy view
of it as we were going around on the cruise ship.
But then, you know, my mom and my wife were
shopping in Juno and I was looking at our itinerary
(41:14):
and we had we had like six hours to kill
in Seward and Seward was the final port, and we
never even thought of it as a place to do
an excursion because we're like, oh, we're just leaving, like
that's when we get off the boat and that's when
we'll go home, right, And then I looked at it,
I was like, Okay, we're getting off the boat at
seven point thirty and we're not getting on the train
until six pm. So we got all this time to do.
And so I did some research and then I heard
(41:36):
about this like keen I Fjords National Park, this big
national park that's like right by seward, but you can't
get there unless you go by boat or like helicopter, right,
And so I found an excursion like a boating company
that would take all four of us out into those fjords.
And that ended up being like by far the coolest
(41:56):
part of the trip, even though we had amazing weather
everywhere else. It was like super But even though the
rain had some downsides, what was cool about it was
the rain actually essentially like lubricates the glaciers and causes
them to move a little faster into calve a little
bit more calving for a glacier. All it means is
as the glacier kind of flows downhill, these big pieces
(42:18):
of ice like fall off into the ocean, and by
like sheer luck, I happened to have my iPhone out
like zoomed in on a spot where this massive piece
of ice fell off of the Iliic Glacier, which was
one of the two glaciers that we went to go see,
and it was the guy who was on the boat
said it was literally the biggest calving they had seen
(42:39):
in the entire season. It launched like this massive wave,
like this thirty foot wave that was like coming towards
us from the from the glacier. So we had to
like turn the boat away from it and like go
further away so that we could like wait for the
wave to spread out and like hit us at a
at a lower at a lower level. But I have
a video of this, you guys can find. It's on
(43:00):
my Instagram and it's on my Twitter at underscore jsonlt.
But it was like literally one of the coolest things
I've ever seen, just watching that piece of that glacier
fall off. And like one of the things that's cool
with glaciers too, is when it's super sunny, they appear white,
but when it's super cloudy, they appear like almost like
a radioactive shade of blue because of just the lesser
(43:21):
amount of light that they're absorbing. And so it just
was like this eerie, creepy, like cloudy, rainy day with
these beautiful glaciers that were just like having like crazy
in front of us because of the rain, and it
was just an incredible experience. And then, like I kept
waiting for things to get more difficult, but it's like
then we get on this train, this Alaska Railroad train,
(43:43):
and it goes from Seward up to Anchorage, and it's
just four hours of incredibly beautiful scenery outside of a train.
I saw three additional glaciers, beautiful mountains. The bay that
goes thereby I can't remember what it's called. The bay
that goes there right by Anchorage is super pretty. This
was like one thing after another of incredible sight seeing
(44:04):
and I just felt so lucky. I felt so lucky
that the weather was the way that it was. I
felt so lucky that we got to see the things
that we got to see. It was obviously super cool
to get to spend some time with my mom and dad,
which I who haven't traveled with in years, and it
just was a really special trip. I think it might
be my favorite trip that I've ever gone on. A
couple of things. If you're if you're ever gonna go
to Alaska. There's several cruise ships that do it, several
(44:28):
companies that do it. We use Celebrity. I've been pleased
with them. They give a very good experience. I actually
think they're relatively affordable too. Uh. They have really good food,
which is something that my wife and I are you know,
pretty picky on there were foodies. We just really like
to have good food. But a couple things to be
prepared for. Do the one way, don't do the loop,
because you actually get to spend so much more time
in each of your ports and less time at sea. Also,
(44:49):
the one way takes you further north in Alaska, Like
you'd get to see Hubbard Glacier. You don't get to
see that on the loop. You get to go up
into Seward, which you don't get to see if you're
on the loop, So you get to see the better
stuff that's further north Alaska. A couple things though, if
if you do the cruise, when you leave the last
port and you go into the Gulf of Alaska, it's
a famously rough ocean, and so like come prepared for
(45:12):
you know, seasickness by having you know, dramamine or you know,
weed or whatever it is you use to survive seasickness,
make sure you're prepared for that. And then if you
want to do Alaska without doing a cruise, Seward kind
of captures a lot of the same vibe as some
of the other ports, and so just fly to Anchorage
(45:33):
and then take the Alaska Railroad down to Seward, buying
an airbnb or a hotel somewhere there, and then just
make sure you do the ken I Fjords tour because
it's just super cool and it's an awesome way to
get to experience like the glaciers and a lot of
like that kind of stuff that you get to experience
in Alaska. But it was just a ton of fun.
And I Uh, it's kind of crazy because I'm we're
(45:54):
preparing for our phase two of our move to Denver
on Wednesday, so it's kind of hectic and obviously there's
works around, but like, it just felt really nice to
disconnect for him a little bit. There's like almost no
cell service out there and Wi Fi on cruise ships
is terrible, so it was like an opportunity for me
to disconnect from work a little bit. And I just
had a great time and I just I just highly
recommend if you ever have a chance to go check
(46:14):
out Alaska, go check it out. And if you want
to see some pictures, I've shared quite a few on
my twitter feed. You guys can see them there. All right, guys,
it's all I have for today. It's always a sincerely
appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show.
I'll see you guys on Friday. Four Hour Mailbag
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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