September 11, 2025 • 41 mins
Jason has reached the last few players on his NBA player rankings list and he dives into why he has Los Angeles Lakers star Luka Doncic at No. 2 and Oklahoma City Thunder MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander at No. 3. He breaks down each player's strengths and weaknesses, why they're ahead of Milwaukee Bucks big Giannis Antetokounmpo, and what separates Doncic from SGA.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. All right, Well, good to Hoops Tonight. Here
at the volume heavy Wednesday, everybody. Hope all you guys
are having a great week. We are hitting two players today.
(00:21):
I had originally thought about going three and then two
and one, but since two and three are going to
be by far the biggest debate out of that trio,
I figured what we do and I also want to
get to some of our mail bag questions. So what
I'm gonna do is I'm gonna do three and two
today and we'll specifically dive into the debate between those
two off the top, and then in our number one
(00:42):
video with Nicola Jokic on Friday, we'll hit some of
your guys's mail bag questions at the tail end. There,
you guys owe the joke before we get started. Subscribed
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(01:04):
work on our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook,
and TikTok. Make sure you guys follow us there. In
last but not least, keep dropping those mailbag questions in
the YouTube comments and we'll get to them in our
Friday mail bags throughout the remainder of the summer. All right,
let's talk some basketball. So I have shay Giljes Alexander
at number three and Luka Doncic at number two. This
(01:28):
is I'm certain the player ranking that I will catch
the most shit for in this year's list, just because
of what happened last season. But it's very important that
we remember the parameters for this list. Three years ago,
this list used to be more of a reflection of
what happened in the previous season. But for the last
two years, the criteria of this list has simply been
(01:51):
who do I think will be the best player to
lead your team from this coming October all the way
through this coming June and under those criteria. Under that criteria,
I should say I have look at two an SGA
at three. Before we even get started. I'm sure there
will be plenty of people will say Jason roots for
the Lakers. That's why he has Luke at number two.
(02:12):
But I had Luke at number two last year, long
before any of us had any idea that he would
be a Laker. So let's get into the Luca SGA
debate right off the top, and then we'll divide into
the specifics of where each guy is as a basketball player.
Right now, Again, two things are true. One, SGA definitely
(02:33):
had a way better season than Luca did last year.
I would even take it so far as to say
Luca was more like a second tier superstar last year
with his injury issues in the substantial declines he experienced
in some key areas because he was a particularly fat
version of himself, right, and that coincided with SGA winning
(02:55):
MVP and Finals MVP. So like, if that's what you're arguing,
that Shay was a better player than Luca last year,
I would just simply agree with you. There'd be no
more reason for us to argue. But the second truth
here is the set of parameters I set up at
the very beginning of this list. I've been very clear
that this list is designed to reflect who I will believe,
(03:17):
who I believe will be the best player in this
coming season, and irrespective of surrounding circumstances, Shay did an
admirable super bar an admirable superstar job leading that Oklahoma
City team last year, right and he hoisted two trophies
for his efforts. I'll be very clear right off the
(03:39):
top here, I believe that if you took Luka Doncicz
right now, the Luca that we're watching play in EuroBasket,
and you picked him up and you dropped him on
last year's Oklahoma City team, I think he wins MVP,
and I think he wins finals MVP. So for the
purposes of this debate, I want to focus on each
basketball player completely in a vacuum. That is the purpose
(04:03):
of this list. It is not who's playing on the
best team right now. It's not who accomplished the most
in a team context last season. I'm looking at shake
Yields Alexander in a vacuum as a basketball player, versus
Luka Doncic in a vacuum as a basketball player looking forward,
(04:23):
not looking backwards. The specific argument I am making is
that if we set up those circumstances, if we put
Luka Doncic on the best roster in the league, the Thunder,
I think they would have won more easily. I think
they would have avoided the massive offensive goals that they
(04:43):
dealt with in their playoff run. I think they would
have gotten rid of Denver in Indiana more quickly than
they did under Shay because I believe that Luca is
a better basketball player than Shay. The question is why now.
The first basketball argument in favor of SGA, and the
argument that many folks will make, is that, well, Sja's
(05:06):
the best scorer in the league right now, right and
he very much was. Last season. He averaged thirty three
points per game sixty four percent true shooting. He had
forty nine thirty point games, he had thirteen forty point games,
and he had three fifty point games. The problem with
making this case is that Luka Dancits, just one season prior,
(05:31):
had an even more impressive scoring season. He played seventy
games in twenty twenty four. He averaged thirty four points
per game on sixty two percent true shooting. He had
fifty thirty point games, he had thirteen forty point games,
he had two fifty point games, and he had a
seventy three point game. Even when we get down into
(05:54):
the nitty gritty, like we talk about reliable short range scoring.
It's a piece of scoring that I always talk that's
the most important part of crunch time scoring, like being
able to score at the end of games, being able
to get close to the basket for a shot you
can make more than half the time. In that twenty
twenty four season, Luca made one hundred and eighty nine
(06:15):
floaters in short jump shots inside of seventeen feet at
fifty one point four percent. He is every bit the
short range scorer that Sga is, and the reason why
Luca was actually able to hit higher scoring totals like
the seventy three point game that he did is Luca
is a guy that brings more high volume three point
(06:35):
shooting to the table. So in short, yes, Shay had
a fantastic scoring season last year, and within the confines
of just that season, he was way better than Luca,
especially as a scorer. But I view Luka Doncic heading
into this coming season as every bit the scoring talent
(06:56):
that Shay Geldess Alexander is, if not a little bit
better as he demonstrated just one year prior. Now. One
final note here, that does not mean that he'll put
up higher points per game in an average This year
than SGA. That is something that depends on the role
that you're in, and these guys are both in very
(07:17):
different roles. SGA is playing on a team that doesn't
have a ton of ball handling and really only has
one other player that's going to take high volume usage
in the form of Jada. Right Luka Doncic is now
going to play with Lebron James and Austin Reeves for
an entire season. Similar to Shay, He's got a guy
who's going to put up pretty good sized scoring numbers
(07:37):
at the center position, and DeAndre Ayton as well. Obviously,
there's a chance that the points per game average might
be slightly lower than Luca or excuse me for Luca
than SGA this season because of their team circumstances. But
going into this season healthy in shape, Luca, I view
him as much closer to the twenty twenty four version,
if not better, because he'll be older and more skilled
(07:59):
as time and his experience continues to add up. I
don't look at there as being a scoring gap between
Shay and Luca coming into this season. I am saying
that if Luca and SGA each played in the same
role in this upcoming season, I think their production would
be about the same. I think they'd both average somewhere
(08:20):
between thirty two and thirty four points per game on
somewhere between sixty two and sixty four percent true shooting.
So no, I don't view scoring as an advantage for
Shaye in this debate at all. I view it as
a dead heat, and that takes us to the playmaking
and advantage creation piece, something that I view as a
massive advantage towards Luca in this debate, and it's the
(08:44):
thing that I think makes Luca a much better offensive
player overall, and it's the main reason why I say
a healthy Luca is a better player than Sga and
would have done better in that role that Shae had
with Oklahoma City last year. I'm gonna start with a
very basic stat. Sga has twenty one games in his
(09:05):
entire career including the playoffs, or he logged at least
ten assists in a single game. Luca's done it one
hundred and sixty eight times. One hundred and sixty eight.
It's pretty clean math. Actually that's eight times as many.
So for every one time that Shay has put up
(09:25):
tennisists in an NBA game, including the playoffs, Luca's done
it eight times. He's in an entirely different class as
a playmaker and advantage creator than SGA. Thunder fans actually
experienced this directly in twenty twenty four. Still to this day,
I hear Thunder fans complain about PJ Washington knocking down shots.
(09:49):
Thunder players have even vented in press conferences about PJ
Washington killing them in that series. It actually kind of
reminds me of the Andre Guidala situation in twenty fifteen.
Everyone was so confused by what was happening that Andre
Gudala literally won a finals MVP he had no business winning.
(10:10):
The reality was Steph's advantage creation was spoon feeding Andre
Gudala fantastic opportunities. That's what happened with PJ Washington against
the Thunder in twenty twenty four. You Thunder fans will
clearly remember and probably have some PTSD about PJ Washington
hitting twenty three threes in that six game series, almost
(10:32):
four per game. I went back and watched every single
one of them this morning. Of those twenty three made
threes by PJ, fourteen of them were either directly assisted
by Luka doncic Or came off of an extra pass
after Luca generated some crazy advantage for someone else that
got PJ Washington a good look. It was the same
(10:54):
thing over and over again, Luca driving at ISO or
post ups and drawing double teams, kicking the PJ, Luca
beating low man help and pick and roll by hitting
the corner, hitting PJ wide open, you know, hitting that
first advantage in that extra pass to PJ. Just routinely
setting up PJ with fantastic looks that went in because
(11:16):
Luca is the sort of relentless playmaker that will make
you pay every single time when you leave someone open.
And by the way, thunderfans, guess who the guy was
that was guarding PJ Washington for most of that series,
The guy that Luca kept burning every time he turned
his head or lost focus or threw an aimless double team.
(11:39):
It was shake Yodas Alexander. Luca literally fried Shay and
Help over and over and over again. This is the
foundational case for why I have Luca above SGA going
into this season. I think Luca is every bit as
good as Shay as a score, and I think he's
just miles and miles ahead of him as a playmaker
(12:02):
and offensive engine. Flatley, I just think Luca is a
better offensive player than Shay. So the natural continuation of
this line of thinking would be, well, Jason, if Luca
is clearly better on offense, why is this even a
debate and why isn't Luca on a separate tier? And
(12:22):
this is where we have to talk about defense. I
don't think Shae is some elite defensive player. We just
talked about Luca torching his lack of offtball focus in
twenty twenty four. Luca has some similar issues with offtball
focus at time. I actually view both of them as
guys who are smart enough and big enough or long
enough to lock in and play useful defense off the
(12:44):
ball and to be a functioning part of a great defense.
I mean, we literally saw that Dallas was a great defense.
Oklahoma City was a great defense. They were able to
fill roles there. They're both actually really good defensive playmakers.
They're great at playing passing lanes, using their IQ to
kind of suss out what the offense is doing and
get in front of it and blow plays up. Luca
(13:05):
averaged one point eight steals per game last year. That's
a super high number. Shay averaged one point seven steals
per game last year. That's a super high number. Shay
also gets a lot of blocks around the rim compared
to most guards because of his length and his ability
to kind of read plays and make plays there where
Sga makes up a lot of ground here and where
he closes the gap with Luca and makes this more
(13:28):
of a debate. Is more situational defensively, I find Luca
to be much more susceptible to switch attacking than Shay is.
Both players are susceptible, like Shae can get targeted by
bigger players on like ducans or post ups on the
offensive glass shake and have some issues there too because
he's just not particularly big. But Luca is incredibly susceptible
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to quick athletes on the perimeter that can beat him
off the dribble, and it played a major role in
each of his last two playoff series exits against Boston
and Minnesota. I think that makes Sga clearly a better
defensive player than Luca is, and that closes the gap
to a certain extent. And we'll talk about this in
(14:14):
the Lucas specific segment. But I'm curious as to how
much his improved conditioning and his new body that he's
building will help him be better on the ball. But
we'll talk about that when we get to Luca later.
But in short, I put Luca at number two for
the same reason I put him at number two last year.
I think him and Jokic are the two best offensive
engines in the sport. They are the only two guys
(14:35):
that can bring transcendently great scoring and transcendently great playmaking
and an advantage creation to the table. They're the only
two in the entire league that can say that. And again,
Luca's situational defensive limitations keep guys like Shae and Giannis
close and in the same tier as him. But I'm
(14:56):
a huge believer in Luca as one of the very
best offensive players in the game today, and it was
pretty easy as a decision for me to put him
ahead of Sga in that number two spot. All right,
let's look at each of these two players individually for
a few minutes before we get out of here. Today.
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(16:46):
Number three Shay Gildas Alexander. This last season in review,
he played in seventy six games, thirty three points, five
rebounds and six assists per game, fifty two percent from
the field, thirty eight percent from three to ninety percent
from the line that amounted to sixty four percent, and
true shooting two point seven stocks per game. We talked
about this in the last segment, but Shay is a
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very good defensive playmaker. He's got high IQ, he's got
long arms. He can do a lot of damage in
passing lanes and in help side situations at the rim
as a defensive player. This was an award heavy season
for him. It was the rare regular season MVP and
finals MVP for Shay first team All NBA selection and
made the All Star Team. His playtype data, Shay was
(17:29):
extremely productive last year, fueled by his incredible scoring ability.
His numbers passing out of pick and roll in ice
own post up situations were fine, but that's not really
his game. He didn't put up elite playmaking numbers out
of action. His shooting numbers out of those situations were
transcendently great. He was the only player in the league
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last year to shoot out of pick and roll at
least five hundred times and to make more than half
of those shots. He was at fifty one percent, and
he in the second place guy on that list Darius
Garland again minimum five hundred reps forty seven percent, so
four percent better than the rest of the pack. In
high volume pick and roll shooting, he was thirty five
(18:12):
percent on pull up threes, which is good enough that's
one point zero five points per shot. But he shot
fifty six percent on twos out of pick and roll,
fueled by deadly midrange shooting and a floater that he
hits about forty nine percent of the time. He shot
the best percentage on twos out of ball screens in
the league by a wide margin. He was two point
(18:32):
five percent better than the second place guy on that list,
Damian Lillard. The data in his one on ones was
every bit as impressive. He got one point one points
per possession shooting out of ISO. That was second place
behind Kevin Durant out of the twenty two players who
logged at least two hundred shot attempts out ISO. He
got one point zero eight points per possession out of
the post as a shooter, hitting fifty four percent of
(18:54):
his shots there on eighty eight reps. That was seventh
out of the thirty seven players to log at least
seventy five shot attempts out of the post. He's just
deadly as a score. I find Shase's success as a
score to be incredibly fascinating from like a basketball technique
and skill development perspective, It all starts with the threat
of the drive. Shaye doesn't have an insanely quick first step,
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but he does have a quick first step, and he's
got really long strides, so once he actually gets an
angle and hits the gas, he can get past you
quick and he's a master of change of pace. He
lulls you to sleep with relaxed dribbles before exploding forward.
And you can't like play one side of him because
he's got really good balance driving right and left. As
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a matter of fact, according to Synergy, he drove left
just twenty one more times all season than he did
going right. And then lastly, he's one of the very
best players in the league at chaining together counter moves.
This is something we've talked about a lot on the show.
He can dribble through contact really well. If you managed
to beat him to the spot once or twice, he'll
(20:00):
just smoothly transition into another forward attacking move. Whether it's
on a scissor dribble or behind the back dribble, He's
just gonna keep going at you even if you beat
him to the spot once or twice. This allowed Shay
to generate a crazy amount of dribble penetration. According to
NBA dot Com, Shae logged fifteen hundred and sixty seven
drives last season. That's by far the most in the league.
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Second place on the list was Trey Young with thirteen
hundred and two, so one hundred and sixty five more
drives than anyone else in the entire MBA. And then
he finishes extremely well at the rim in traffic, on
insane volume and on pretty high difficulty considering some of
the spacing issues the Thunder had at times. Shay shot
sixty percent on layups, not dunks, layups. Once again, for
(20:46):
a guard, and at that volume and degree of difficulty,
that's a super impressive number. That's the foundational piece his
ability to get to the basket. From there, Shay had
two very useful counters to his dribble penetration, deadly short
range shot making and the ability to grift his way
(21:07):
to the line. Let's start with the short range shot making.
Shay shot fifty four percent on twos inside of seventeen
feet jump shots inside of seventeen feet last year, I mean,
two hundred and sixteen of them, which was the most
in the league by a pretty wide margin, and only
Kevin Durant and Bradley bual a Bial had a higher
percentage on those short twos on a minimum of one
(21:28):
hundred attempts. And again, as I always talk about, there's
a ton of value in short range scoring because of
the way it translates in physicality to the playoffs and
in clutch situations. A lot of times those deeper jump
shots that are less likely to go in when everyone's tired,
the whistles being swallowed, things are super physical. You need
something closer to the basket to be reliable in those situations, right.
(21:51):
And what's interesting is if you look at Shay's efficiency
numbers last year in the postseason, he experienced some substantial
drop offs in Kiev areas, like his rim finishing dropped
by six percent overall according to Synergy, his three point
shooting dropped by nine percent, his overall true shooting percentage
dropped by seven percent relative to the regular season. But
(22:16):
he was able to avoid the precipitous dropoffs that guys
like James Harden have experienced in the past, especially in
like big late series moments, because Shay had a part
of his game that he was able to stabilize, and
he was that short range scoring piece. He hit fifty
one point four percent of his two point jump shots
(22:37):
inside of seventeen feet. This is a big part of
how he was able to maintain his status as a
reliable playoff score night to night as he went through
those four rounds, even if he wasn't quite as good
as he was in the regular season, and it showed
up in the in clutch. In particular, Shay was the
only player in the playoff field last year to make
(22:59):
at least ten clutch shots on at least fifty percent shooting.
Is fourteen for twenty eight to be exact. But what's
really fascinating to me is if you actually look back
at every pivotal shot, you can say what you want
about the Thunder. I'd argue they made it like it
was more difficult than it should have been for them
through that postseason run. Of the stuff that I talked
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about all season, their youth, their inexperience, their inconsistencies on
offense fueled by their youth. It manifested in those longer
series against Denver in Indiana. But two Cha's credit, what
iced those series is short range shot making. Obviously in
the Memphis series in Game four is a deeper two,
(23:40):
but he hits a two. That ice is that series.
Look at Denver Game five, late in the game tied,
gets Jamal Murray on a switch hits a little fifteen
footer for an and one over the top is the
lead changing shot in that game. Game four the NBA
Finals literally one of the most pivotal shots in the
entire playoff runt, Indiana has a one point lead. He
(24:02):
hits a short step back jump shot along the left
baseline after pushing off Aaron Nee Smith. All of the
most pivotal moments for Oklahoma City offensively in this playoff
run swung on Shay's ability to get to close range
jump shots and to hit them at a high percentage.
And then the final counter to Shay's driving ability is
(24:24):
the ability to get to the foul line. He just
has every foul drifting trick in the book, the low gather,
the arm grab, the pump fakes, the weird release angles,
the flopping, the yelling. He's got it all. And by
the way, the same exact thing is true about Luca,
and Luca's every bit is bad. And again, as I
always say, I don't blame the players for this stuff,
(24:46):
I blame the league. If he didn't get rewarded with
free throws, the other guys wouldn't do it. Shay got
eight point eight free throw attempts per game last year.
That was the second most in the NBA behind Yannisntenankombo.
All of that amounted to Shae being the best scorer
in the league last year by good margin. The playmaking
piece with Shay is all about his frame of mind.
(25:07):
Shay is wired as his score, and at many points
during this playoff run, and he hurt his team on
offense by just coming out guns blazing as a shooter,
kind of overdoing it and taking the rest of his
team out of rhythm. But to his credit, and I
talked about this in the playoff run, every single time
the Thunder ended up in a do or die type
of game, with exception a Game four of the finals.
(25:27):
The game four of the finals was the one night
where like, obviously he made a couple of bit plays late,
but I thought he that was the zero assist game.
I thought he had a really poor job manage it,
Like his floor game was poor in that game. But
in every other pivotal game in that playoff run, he
came out and played a really good floor game, properly
balancing his attacks and advantage creation, taking easy kickout reads
(25:49):
when they were available, setting the table for his team
to have a successful night on offense. Again, he is
not a top tier play maker in this league. He's
never going to be that type of guy, but he
was able to figure out the proper balance in the
big spots the way he needed to. Now, it's just
(26:10):
for him in the future about fighting his natural tendencies.
I do expect him to get better at that each
passing year. We talked about this after they won the title.
That was why I viewed Oklahoma City as vulnerable, and
they proved to be vulnerable as they were pushed to
seven twice. They're young, they struggle to replicate successes and
minimize failures. But Shay, with each passing year, I expect
(26:33):
him to get better at understanding the importance of his
floor game on a night's night basis. That will be
a bigger deal as they head into the future of
this franchise. Right like in the coming years, three or
four years from now, and Shay's on his Max, Jdub's
on his Max chats on his Max, Oklahoma City won't
(26:53):
be able to surround him with as much talent as
they can right now. They're not going to be able
to make offseason moves for Alex Crusoe and Isaiah Hartenstein
the way that they did last summer. The margin for
error will be much smaller, and that's where Shay's development
is a game manager will become a bigger deal. Than
it was last year. I should also mention that chet
and Jadub's development will play role there as well, But
(27:15):
there was a massive difference between Oklahoma City's half court
offense performance and wins and losses in the playoffs this year.
They locked an eighty nine point three offensive rating in
the half court in their losses and a one hundred
point two in their wins. That often was tied to
the job that Shay was doing kind of managing the
flow of these games. Bottom line, Shay's the top tier
(27:37):
superstar because he's an absolute S tier score with reliable
short range shot making that makes him super dependable night
tonight and in clutch situations, more so than any other
star in the NBA last year. And he's a good
enough defensive playmaker as well as switch defender to be
an above average defender at his position in the NBA.
(27:59):
He has his inconsistencies as a game manager and playmaker,
but they're just what separates him from the two guys
that have above him, and to his credit, he was
able to come through in those areas in big moments
in this year's playoff run. For right now, I have
Shay at number three. All right, number two Luka Doncic.
(28:21):
Let's start by going over his last season, and then
we'll talk about what Luca is as a basketball player
at this point and what I expect from him this
coming season. Luca followed up his unbelievable breakout season in
twenty twenty four with the most embarrassing season of his career.
There's no way to describe it other than to use
the word embarrassing. Now we can all agree that Nico
(28:44):
Harrison trading Luka Doncic was the dumbest trade in the
history of sports. But even in that context, it's worth
mentioning that Nico had a reason. It wasn't nearly enough
of a reason to justify the trade, but the reason
was there. Luca came into camp, he got hurt, he
came back fatter, got hurt again, then he got traded,
(29:07):
came back to the Lakers the fattest I've ever seen him,
and then he got flatly outplayed by Anthony Edwards in
the first round as Aunt continually came on strong and
fourth quarters while Luca looked exhausted at the end of
every game because it wasn't in nearly as good as shape,
and he put together the worst defensive series of his career,
somehow eclipsing a pretty rough defensive series in the twenty
twenty four finals. I'm being very blunt here on purpose.
(29:32):
I obviously hold Luca in very highest team as a
basketball player. He's number two on my list for the
second year in a row. That means I hold him
to a very high standard. And his last season was
an embarrassing step backwards for a player that had had
one of the most impressive starts to a career in
the history of the NBA. It was embarrassing. There's no
(29:52):
way around it. But let's go through the numbers from
last year first, and then we'll start looking forward. Luca
played in fifty t total games spanning his time with
the MAVs and the Lakers, twenty eight points, eight rebounds,
and eight assists, forty five percent from the field, thirty
seven percent from the line. Excuse me from three seventy
eight percent from the line. That amounted to fifty four
percent in effective field goal percentage, fifty nine percent true shooting,
(30:15):
two point two stocks per game, fueled by a career
high one point eight steals per game. As we talked
about in the first segment today, Luca is a good
defensive playmaker off the ball, and he could play passing
lanes and sniff out actions there and blow them up.
So obviously a testament to how amazing Luca is that
twenty eight to eight to eight on fifty nine percent
true shooting is an embarrassing step backwards for him. But literally,
(30:37):
just one year prior, he played in twenty more games
averaged thirty four to nine to ten on sixty two
percent true shooting. That's what Luca is capable of. That's
the standard. That's closer to what I expect from Luca
moving forward. Again, like we talked about earlier, maybe not
(30:57):
the same points per game alongside Lebron Jay and Austin Reeves,
but that's the standard. Lucas playtype data last year good,
not great by his standards in Dallas one point one
to one points per possession in pick and roll including passes,
that's obviously very good, zero point eight to nine points
possession including passes in one on ones, which is obviously
(31:18):
not great. And Los Angeles was a little more balanced
one point zero eight points per possession and pick and roll.
Not quite as good as he was in Dallas, but
still above average one point zero four points per possession
in his one on ones, which was better than Dallas,
but still not great so across the board, last year
as a shot creator, just not a great year for
him by his standards. The strangest thing for Luca last
(31:40):
year was his dip in short range scoring, which again
has been one of his biggest strengths as an NBA player,
and it happened like right when he went to LA.
In Dallas last year, he shot fifty four percent on
jumpers inside his seventeen feet and forty six percent on floaters,
more in line with what his recent career performance is.
But in Los Angeles he dropped to just thirty seven
(32:01):
percent on jump shots inside of seventeen feet and just
thirty six percent on floaters. He's been a little better
with Slovenia this summer, seven for sixteen on twos inside
of seventeen feet. That's forty four percent. I think. I
think he's only taken like two floaters. But this is
the big category I have my eye on heading into
this coming season. I really want to see Luca get
back to being that high volume, high efficiency short range
(32:25):
score that he was before joining the Lakers. But let's
look forward and let's talk about what I expect from
Luca this coming season. Predictably, the immense criticism that Luca
has received over the last year has motivated him and
to getting into the best shape he's been in at
this phase in his career. I've seen two very important
things from Luca so far in EuroBasket. One, he's far
(32:49):
more explosive athletically. His first step is quicker, he's changing
directions more smoothly. I'm seeing explosiveness in transition. I was
watching a clip of him in a coast to coast
drive against Israel the other day where he just took
the ball, exploded forward in the open court, powered through
a dude with his left shoulder, and finished with his
right hand at the basket. That's not anything I saw
(33:09):
out of him last year. He's got side to side
pop on his spins and his euros that wasn't there
last year. He's simply far more athletic than he was
last year. But the second piece of it is that
he's retained most of his strength. I was worried about
this when I heard about him losing weight. Strength is
(33:30):
such a huge part of Luca's game, which we're about
to talk about more in a little bit here. In
just a second, you can tell that through this process
he has stayed dedicated in the weight room, and I'm
seeing a lot of power on his drives and on
his post ups, on his bumps when he's handling ball
pressure and box outs. I just think Luca looks great physically,
(33:50):
and I think we're going to get the best season
of his career from him this year on both ends
of the floor. So what does that look like. Luca's
approached offenses very different than Shay's and that it relies
heavily on his ability to generate dribble penetration through strength
rather than speed in finesse. To be clear, Luca has
excellent fundamentals, as we've discussed often on the show. He
(34:11):
sells his fakes well. I think he's a great ball
handler for young players to watch because it's all eyes
and like selling every part of his move with every
part of his body before he changes direction. He's very
good at getting that first tiny bit of an angle
on even the elite defenders in the NBA. From there, though,
that's where the difference is. It's about strength. He gets
(34:34):
you on that shoulder. He gets you on his back,
and he uses his size and strength to rumble downhill
to whatever spot he wants on the floor. That's what
gives him the ability to be so effective in pick
and rolling. In his one on ones in pick and roll,
he sets his man up for screen, gets him trapped
on his backside, and slowly works his way downhill. It's
a big part of why I'm not as worried about
(34:56):
the screening in the eight and partnership remains to be seen.
But Luke is really gifted at getting dribble penetration even
without necessarily needing a screen because of his strength. But
once he gets you downhill, he's just waiting for the
defense to react. Right, big man steps up, low man doesn't.
He's hitting the big either with a bounce pass or
he's got unbelievable touch on lobs. He's probably the best
(35:18):
lob thrower in the NBA. Right now, Right lowman steps over,
he can whip cross court passes left hand, right hand
to either corner easily. Right, he beats low man help
extremely well. You stay back. He's got the short range shot,
making the little short jumpers off the bump or little
floaters things along that those lines you die on the screen.
He can hit the pull up three. He is, in
(35:40):
my opinion, the best pick and roll passer in the NBA.
I think Jokich is a better overall passer, but strictly
within on ball pick and roll play. I think Luca's
passing ability is transcendent. I think he's the best at it.
In post up situations. He's also good. He can eat
up double teams. I saw a lot of examples of that,
generating those threes for PJ. Washington in the Oklahoma City
(36:03):
series last year. He can look defenders off with his eyes.
He is a profoundly good playmaker and advantage creator on
the offensive end. Out of every single type of action,
the key is going to be regaining his shot making.
The playmaking is s tire. I talked about the foul
drifting earlier with Shay Lucas the exact same. He's got
(36:24):
all the low gatherers and pump fakes, weird shot angles,
weird driving angles, the flops, the yelling. He's got it
all right. But the piece in the middle that he's
got to get back is that shot making piece. If
he can regain that shot making in twenty twenty four,
he was thirty seven percent on pull up threes. That's
a good number. We talked about the short range scoring.
(36:45):
He was well over fifty percent on floaters and jumpers
inside of seventeen feet. If he can get all that back,
that's what ties everything together and puts Luca in that position.
And that is a big part of it. As why
why I am percting him to be the second best
player in the league this coming season. This is not
going to be the fat Luca, out of shape Luca
(37:05):
that we got last year. This is an in shape,
strong and motivated Luca that should look like a better
version of what we saw in twenty twenty four, the
guy who dragged the Dallas Mavericks all the way to
the NBA Finals. To put it very simply, even though
his point per game averages won't look like they did
in Dallas because of how different the Lakers roster is,
(37:26):
I expect this will be the best offensive season of
Luca's career. I expect their resurgence in mobility. I expect
their resurgen, resurgence in shot making. I expect him to
be one of the top tier shot creators in the league.
Another career like kind of like specific area where I
expect Luca to improve this year is at the end
(37:46):
of games. Luca had some issues fatiguing last year in
the playoffs. This last year he was just six for
twenty and fourth quarters and was pretty badly outplayed by
Anthony Edwards in those spots. I think we'll see Luca
do a better job of maintaining his level of impact
later into games this season. But lastly, we have to
talk about the defensive end. The conversation around Luca as
(38:09):
a defender has been fascinating over the last couple of
years because it's complicated for starters. He's an excellent defensive rebounder,
closing out defensive possessions is a key part of defense.
He's also a good defensive playmaker off the ball, as
we discussed earlier. Those are useful traits that help a defense.
But he just has this gaping situational weakness with handling
(38:31):
dribble penetration. He gets picked on by quicker perimeter players
and he can give up super easy straight line drives.
And when you get compromised that badly at the point
of attack, it puts you in these really tough rotation
situations that they can be really hard to recover from.
It played a big role in their losses to Boston
and Minnesota. The question is what does Luca have to
(38:55):
get to, what does he have to become in order
to directify that issue. He doesn't need to become prime
Patrick Beverley or Daveon Mitchell. He doesn't need like drim a.
Penetration is a part of basketball. Every player is capable
of giving up drives from time to time, even the
best defenders in the league. Luca just has to find
(39:17):
a way to make it way harder than it has been.
More cutoffs, more flattened drives, fewer straight line drives. We
talk about it all the time, like if you flatten
out a drive, meaning like okay, you got past me,
but you had to make multiple counter moves and instead
of going directly towards the rim, it's kind of frayed
(39:40):
off to the side a little bit. You do that,
it makes it much easier for the defense around you
to rotate and help and recover. He doesn't need to
become an all world defensive player. He just simply needs
to be able to slide his feet and anticipate better.
(40:00):
The point where he can flatten out more of those drives.
Improved quickness and improved conditioning should help him in that department.
This is the weakness that Luca has to address, and
I do believe that this season we will get his
best performance in that particular facet of defense. So to
wrap everything up, I have Luke at number two because
(40:21):
despite his embarrassing previous season, I expect him to return
to the level he was at the season before, which
was the only player in the league other than Jokic
to be both a transcendently great scorer and a transcendently
great playmaker. It makes him the second best offensive engine
currently on the planet playing basketball. I also think is
(40:41):
improved conditioning will manifest with the best defensive season of
his career and better performance at the end of games
where he has struggled with fatigue in the past. And
that's why I have with Luca at number two this season.
All right, guys, It's all I have for today is
always to sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and
supporting the show. We will be back on Friday with
number one Nikole Jokich as well well as our mail bag.
(41:01):
I will see you guys though h
The volume. All right, Well, good to Hoops Tonight. Here
at the volume heavy Wednesday, everybody. Hope all you guys
are having a great week. We are hitting two players today.
(00:21):
I had originally thought about going three and then two
and one, but since two and three are going to
be by far the biggest debate out of that trio,
I figured what we do and I also want to
get to some of our mail bag questions. So what
I'm gonna do is I'm gonna do three and two
today and we'll specifically dive into the debate between those
two off the top, and then in our number one
(00:42):
video with Nicola Jokic on Friday, we'll hit some of
your guys's mail bag questions at the tail end. There,
you guys owe the joke before we get started. Subscribed
to Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any more
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(01:04):
work on our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook,
and TikTok. Make sure you guys follow us there. In
last but not least, keep dropping those mailbag questions in
the YouTube comments and we'll get to them in our
Friday mail bags throughout the remainder of the summer. All right,
let's talk some basketball. So I have shay Giljes Alexander
at number three and Luka Doncic at number two. This
(01:28):
is I'm certain the player ranking that I will catch
the most shit for in this year's list, just because
of what happened last season. But it's very important that
we remember the parameters for this list. Three years ago,
this list used to be more of a reflection of
what happened in the previous season. But for the last
two years, the criteria of this list has simply been
(01:51):
who do I think will be the best player to
lead your team from this coming October all the way
through this coming June and under those criteria. Under that criteria,
I should say I have look at two an SGA
at three. Before we even get started. I'm sure there
will be plenty of people will say Jason roots for
the Lakers. That's why he has Luke at number two.
(02:12):
But I had Luke at number two last year, long
before any of us had any idea that he would
be a Laker. So let's get into the Luca SGA
debate right off the top, and then we'll divide into
the specifics of where each guy is as a basketball player.
Right now, Again, two things are true. One, SGA definitely
(02:33):
had a way better season than Luca did last year.
I would even take it so far as to say
Luca was more like a second tier superstar last year
with his injury issues in the substantial declines he experienced
in some key areas because he was a particularly fat
version of himself, right, and that coincided with SGA winning
(02:55):
MVP and Finals MVP. So like, if that's what you're arguing,
that Shay was a better player than Luca last year,
I would just simply agree with you. There'd be no
more reason for us to argue. But the second truth
here is the set of parameters I set up at
the very beginning of this list. I've been very clear
that this list is designed to reflect who I will believe,
(03:17):
who I believe will be the best player in this
coming season, and irrespective of surrounding circumstances, Shay did an
admirable super bar an admirable superstar job leading that Oklahoma
City team last year, right and he hoisted two trophies
for his efforts. I'll be very clear right off the
(03:39):
top here, I believe that if you took Luka Doncicz
right now, the Luca that we're watching play in EuroBasket,
and you picked him up and you dropped him on
last year's Oklahoma City team, I think he wins MVP,
and I think he wins finals MVP. So for the
purposes of this debate, I want to focus on each
basketball player completely in a vacuum. That is the purpose
(04:03):
of this list. It is not who's playing on the
best team right now. It's not who accomplished the most
in a team context last season. I'm looking at shake
Yields Alexander in a vacuum as a basketball player, versus
Luka Doncic in a vacuum as a basketball player looking forward,
(04:23):
not looking backwards. The specific argument I am making is
that if we set up those circumstances, if we put
Luka Doncic on the best roster in the league, the Thunder,
I think they would have won more easily. I think
they would have avoided the massive offensive goals that they
(04:43):
dealt with in their playoff run. I think they would
have gotten rid of Denver in Indiana more quickly than
they did under Shay because I believe that Luca is
a better basketball player than Shay. The question is why now.
The first basketball argument in favor of SGA, and the
argument that many folks will make, is that, well, Sja's
(05:06):
the best scorer in the league right now, right and
he very much was. Last season. He averaged thirty three
points per game sixty four percent true shooting. He had
forty nine thirty point games, he had thirteen forty point games,
and he had three fifty point games. The problem with
making this case is that Luka Dancits, just one season prior,
(05:31):
had an even more impressive scoring season. He played seventy
games in twenty twenty four. He averaged thirty four points
per game on sixty two percent true shooting. He had
fifty thirty point games, he had thirteen forty point games,
he had two fifty point games, and he had a
seventy three point game. Even when we get down into
(05:54):
the nitty gritty, like we talk about reliable short range scoring.
It's a piece of scoring that I always talk that's
the most important part of crunch time scoring, like being
able to score at the end of games, being able
to get close to the basket for a shot you
can make more than half the time. In that twenty
twenty four season, Luca made one hundred and eighty nine
(06:15):
floaters in short jump shots inside of seventeen feet at
fifty one point four percent. He is every bit the
short range scorer that Sga is, and the reason why
Luca was actually able to hit higher scoring totals like
the seventy three point game that he did is Luca
is a guy that brings more high volume three point
(06:35):
shooting to the table. So in short, yes, Shay had
a fantastic scoring season last year, and within the confines
of just that season, he was way better than Luca,
especially as a scorer. But I view Luka Doncic heading
into this coming season as every bit the scoring talent
(06:56):
that Shay Geldess Alexander is, if not a little bit
better as he demonstrated just one year prior. Now. One
final note here, that does not mean that he'll put
up higher points per game in an average This year
than SGA. That is something that depends on the role
that you're in, and these guys are both in very
(07:17):
different roles. SGA is playing on a team that doesn't
have a ton of ball handling and really only has
one other player that's going to take high volume usage
in the form of Jada. Right Luka Doncic is now
going to play with Lebron James and Austin Reeves for
an entire season. Similar to Shay, He's got a guy
who's going to put up pretty good sized scoring numbers
(07:37):
at the center position, and DeAndre Ayton as well. Obviously,
there's a chance that the points per game average might
be slightly lower than Luca or excuse me for Luca
than SGA this season because of their team circumstances. But
going into this season healthy in shape, Luca, I view
him as much closer to the twenty twenty four version,
if not better, because he'll be older and more skilled
(07:59):
as time and his experience continues to add up. I
don't look at there as being a scoring gap between
Shay and Luca coming into this season. I am saying
that if Luca and SGA each played in the same
role in this upcoming season, I think their production would
be about the same. I think they'd both average somewhere
(08:20):
between thirty two and thirty four points per game on
somewhere between sixty two and sixty four percent true shooting.
So no, I don't view scoring as an advantage for
Shaye in this debate at all. I view it as
a dead heat, and that takes us to the playmaking
and advantage creation piece, something that I view as a
massive advantage towards Luca in this debate, and it's the
(08:44):
thing that I think makes Luca a much better offensive
player overall, and it's the main reason why I say
a healthy Luca is a better player than Sga and
would have done better in that role that Shae had
with Oklahoma City last year. I'm gonna start with a
very basic stat. Sga has twenty one games in his
(09:05):
entire career including the playoffs, or he logged at least
ten assists in a single game. Luca's done it one
hundred and sixty eight times. One hundred and sixty eight.
It's pretty clean math. Actually that's eight times as many.
So for every one time that Shay has put up
(09:25):
tennisists in an NBA game, including the playoffs, Luca's done
it eight times. He's in an entirely different class as
a playmaker and advantage creator than SGA. Thunder fans actually
experienced this directly in twenty twenty four. Still to this day,
I hear Thunder fans complain about PJ Washington knocking down shots.
(09:49):
Thunder players have even vented in press conferences about PJ
Washington killing them in that series. It actually kind of
reminds me of the Andre Guidala situation in twenty fifteen.
Everyone was so confused by what was happening that Andre
Gudala literally won a finals MVP he had no business winning.
(10:10):
The reality was Steph's advantage creation was spoon feeding Andre
Gudala fantastic opportunities. That's what happened with PJ Washington against
the Thunder in twenty twenty four. You Thunder fans will
clearly remember and probably have some PTSD about PJ Washington
hitting twenty three threes in that six game series, almost
(10:32):
four per game. I went back and watched every single
one of them this morning. Of those twenty three made
threes by PJ, fourteen of them were either directly assisted
by Luka doncic Or came off of an extra pass
after Luca generated some crazy advantage for someone else that
got PJ Washington a good look. It was the same
(10:54):
thing over and over again, Luca driving at ISO or
post ups and drawing double teams, kicking the PJ, Luca
beating low man help and pick and roll by hitting
the corner, hitting PJ wide open, you know, hitting that
first advantage in that extra pass to PJ. Just routinely
setting up PJ with fantastic looks that went in because
(11:16):
Luca is the sort of relentless playmaker that will make
you pay every single time when you leave someone open.
And by the way, thunderfans, guess who the guy was
that was guarding PJ Washington for most of that series,
The guy that Luca kept burning every time he turned
his head or lost focus or threw an aimless double team.
(11:39):
It was shake Yodas Alexander. Luca literally fried Shay and
Help over and over and over again. This is the
foundational case for why I have Luca above SGA going
into this season. I think Luca is every bit as
good as Shay as a score, and I think he's
just miles and miles ahead of him as a playmaker
(12:02):
and offensive engine. Flatley, I just think Luca is a
better offensive player than Shay. So the natural continuation of
this line of thinking would be, well, Jason, if Luca
is clearly better on offense, why is this even a
debate and why isn't Luca on a separate tier? And
(12:22):
this is where we have to talk about defense. I
don't think Shae is some elite defensive player. We just
talked about Luca torching his lack of offtball focus in
twenty twenty four. Luca has some similar issues with offtball
focus at time. I actually view both of them as
guys who are smart enough and big enough or long
enough to lock in and play useful defense off the
(12:44):
ball and to be a functioning part of a great defense.
I mean, we literally saw that Dallas was a great defense.
Oklahoma City was a great defense. They were able to
fill roles there. They're both actually really good defensive playmakers.
They're great at playing passing lanes, using their IQ to
kind of suss out what the offense is doing and
get in front of it and blow plays up. Luca
(13:05):
averaged one point eight steals per game last year. That's
a super high number. Shay averaged one point seven steals
per game last year. That's a super high number. Shay
also gets a lot of blocks around the rim compared
to most guards because of his length and his ability
to kind of read plays and make plays there where
Sga makes up a lot of ground here and where
he closes the gap with Luca and makes this more
(13:28):
of a debate. Is more situational defensively, I find Luca
to be much more susceptible to switch attacking than Shay is.
Both players are susceptible, like Shae can get targeted by
bigger players on like ducans or post ups on the
offensive glass shake and have some issues there too because
he's just not particularly big. But Luca is incredibly susceptible
(13:52):
to quick athletes on the perimeter that can beat him
off the dribble, and it played a major role in
each of his last two playoff series exits against Boston
and Minnesota. I think that makes Sga clearly a better
defensive player than Luca is, and that closes the gap
to a certain extent. And we'll talk about this in
(14:14):
the Lucas specific segment. But I'm curious as to how
much his improved conditioning and his new body that he's
building will help him be better on the ball. But
we'll talk about that when we get to Luca later.
But in short, I put Luca at number two for
the same reason I put him at number two last year.
I think him and Jokic are the two best offensive
engines in the sport. They are the only two guys
(14:35):
that can bring transcendently great scoring and transcendently great playmaking
and an advantage creation to the table. They're the only
two in the entire league that can say that. And again,
Luca's situational defensive limitations keep guys like Shae and Giannis
close and in the same tier as him. But I'm
(14:56):
a huge believer in Luca as one of the very
best offensive players in the game today, and it was
pretty easy as a decision for me to put him
ahead of Sga in that number two spot. All right,
let's look at each of these two players individually for
a few minutes before we get out of here. Today.
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(16:46):
Number three Shay Gildas Alexander. This last season in review,
he played in seventy six games, thirty three points, five
rebounds and six assists per game, fifty two percent from
the field, thirty eight percent from three to ninety percent
from the line that amounted to sixty four percent, and
true shooting two point seven stocks per game. We talked
about this in the last segment, but Shay is a
(17:07):
very good defensive playmaker. He's got high IQ, he's got
long arms. He can do a lot of damage in
passing lanes and in help side situations at the rim
as a defensive player. This was an award heavy season
for him. It was the rare regular season MVP and
finals MVP for Shay first team All NBA selection and
made the All Star Team. His playtype data, Shay was
(17:29):
extremely productive last year, fueled by his incredible scoring ability.
His numbers passing out of pick and roll in ice
own post up situations were fine, but that's not really
his game. He didn't put up elite playmaking numbers out
of action. His shooting numbers out of those situations were
transcendently great. He was the only player in the league
(17:51):
last year to shoot out of pick and roll at
least five hundred times and to make more than half
of those shots. He was at fifty one percent, and
he in the second place guy on that list Darius
Garland again minimum five hundred reps forty seven percent, so
four percent better than the rest of the pack. In
high volume pick and roll shooting, he was thirty five
(18:12):
percent on pull up threes, which is good enough that's
one point zero five points per shot. But he shot
fifty six percent on twos out of pick and roll,
fueled by deadly midrange shooting and a floater that he
hits about forty nine percent of the time. He shot
the best percentage on twos out of ball screens in
the league by a wide margin. He was two point
(18:32):
five percent better than the second place guy on that list,
Damian Lillard. The data in his one on ones was
every bit as impressive. He got one point one points
per possession shooting out of ISO. That was second place
behind Kevin Durant out of the twenty two players who
logged at least two hundred shot attempts out ISO. He
got one point zero eight points per possession out of
the post as a shooter, hitting fifty four percent of
(18:54):
his shots there on eighty eight reps. That was seventh
out of the thirty seven players to log at least
seventy five shot attempts out of the post. He's just
deadly as a score. I find Shase's success as a
score to be incredibly fascinating from like a basketball technique
and skill development perspective, It all starts with the threat
of the drive. Shaye doesn't have an insanely quick first step,
(19:18):
but he does have a quick first step, and he's
got really long strides, so once he actually gets an
angle and hits the gas, he can get past you
quick and he's a master of change of pace. He
lulls you to sleep with relaxed dribbles before exploding forward.
And you can't like play one side of him because
he's got really good balance driving right and left. As
(19:39):
a matter of fact, according to Synergy, he drove left
just twenty one more times all season than he did
going right. And then lastly, he's one of the very
best players in the league at chaining together counter moves.
This is something we've talked about a lot on the show.
He can dribble through contact really well. If you managed
to beat him to the spot once or twice, he'll
(20:00):
just smoothly transition into another forward attacking move. Whether it's
on a scissor dribble or behind the back dribble, He's
just gonna keep going at you even if you beat
him to the spot once or twice. This allowed Shay
to generate a crazy amount of dribble penetration. According to
NBA dot Com, Shae logged fifteen hundred and sixty seven
drives last season. That's by far the most in the league.
(20:22):
Second place on the list was Trey Young with thirteen
hundred and two, so one hundred and sixty five more
drives than anyone else in the entire MBA. And then
he finishes extremely well at the rim in traffic, on
insane volume and on pretty high difficulty considering some of
the spacing issues the Thunder had at times. Shay shot
sixty percent on layups, not dunks, layups. Once again, for
(20:46):
a guard, and at that volume and degree of difficulty,
that's a super impressive number. That's the foundational piece his
ability to get to the basket. From there, Shay had
two very useful counters to his dribble penetration, deadly short
range shot making and the ability to grift his way
(21:07):
to the line. Let's start with the short range shot making.
Shay shot fifty four percent on twos inside of seventeen
feet jump shots inside of seventeen feet last year, I mean,
two hundred and sixteen of them, which was the most
in the league by a pretty wide margin, and only
Kevin Durant and Bradley bual a Bial had a higher
percentage on those short twos on a minimum of one
(21:28):
hundred attempts. And again, as I always talk about, there's
a ton of value in short range scoring because of
the way it translates in physicality to the playoffs and
in clutch situations. A lot of times those deeper jump
shots that are less likely to go in when everyone's tired,
the whistles being swallowed, things are super physical. You need
something closer to the basket to be reliable in those situations, right.
(21:51):
And what's interesting is if you look at Shay's efficiency
numbers last year in the postseason, he experienced some substantial
drop offs in Kiev areas, like his rim finishing dropped
by six percent overall according to Synergy, his three point
shooting dropped by nine percent, his overall true shooting percentage
dropped by seven percent relative to the regular season. But
(22:16):
he was able to avoid the precipitous dropoffs that guys
like James Harden have experienced in the past, especially in
like big late series moments, because Shay had a part
of his game that he was able to stabilize, and
he was that short range scoring piece. He hit fifty
one point four percent of his two point jump shots
(22:37):
inside of seventeen feet. This is a big part of
how he was able to maintain his status as a
reliable playoff score night to night as he went through
those four rounds, even if he wasn't quite as good
as he was in the regular season, and it showed
up in the in clutch. In particular, Shay was the
only player in the playoff field last year to make
(22:59):
at least ten clutch shots on at least fifty percent shooting.
Is fourteen for twenty eight to be exact. But what's
really fascinating to me is if you actually look back
at every pivotal shot, you can say what you want
about the Thunder. I'd argue they made it like it
was more difficult than it should have been for them
through that postseason run. Of the stuff that I talked
(23:19):
about all season, their youth, their inexperience, their inconsistencies on
offense fueled by their youth. It manifested in those longer
series against Denver in Indiana. But two Cha's credit, what
iced those series is short range shot making. Obviously in
the Memphis series in Game four is a deeper two,
(23:40):
but he hits a two. That ice is that series.
Look at Denver Game five, late in the game tied,
gets Jamal Murray on a switch hits a little fifteen
footer for an and one over the top is the
lead changing shot in that game. Game four the NBA
Finals literally one of the most pivotal shots in the
entire playoff runt, Indiana has a one point lead. He
(24:02):
hits a short step back jump shot along the left
baseline after pushing off Aaron Nee Smith. All of the
most pivotal moments for Oklahoma City offensively in this playoff
run swung on Shay's ability to get to close range
jump shots and to hit them at a high percentage.
And then the final counter to Shay's driving ability is
(24:24):
the ability to get to the foul line. He just
has every foul drifting trick in the book, the low gather,
the arm grab, the pump fakes, the weird release angles,
the flopping, the yelling. He's got it all. And by
the way, the same exact thing is true about Luca,
and Luca's every bit is bad. And again, as I
always say, I don't blame the players for this stuff,
(24:46):
I blame the league. If he didn't get rewarded with
free throws, the other guys wouldn't do it. Shay got
eight point eight free throw attempts per game last year.
That was the second most in the NBA behind Yannisntenankombo.
All of that amounted to Shae being the best scorer
in the league last year by good margin. The playmaking
piece with Shay is all about his frame of mind.
(25:07):
Shay is wired as his score, and at many points
during this playoff run, and he hurt his team on
offense by just coming out guns blazing as a shooter,
kind of overdoing it and taking the rest of his
team out of rhythm. But to his credit, and I
talked about this in the playoff run, every single time
the Thunder ended up in a do or die type
of game, with exception a Game four of the finals.
(25:27):
The game four of the finals was the one night
where like, obviously he made a couple of bit plays late,
but I thought he that was the zero assist game.
I thought he had a really poor job manage it,
Like his floor game was poor in that game. But
in every other pivotal game in that playoff run, he
came out and played a really good floor game, properly
balancing his attacks and advantage creation, taking easy kickout reads
(25:49):
when they were available, setting the table for his team
to have a successful night on offense. Again, he is
not a top tier play maker in this league. He's
never going to be that type of guy, but he
was able to figure out the proper balance in the
big spots the way he needed to. Now, it's just
(26:10):
for him in the future about fighting his natural tendencies.
I do expect him to get better at that each
passing year. We talked about this after they won the title.
That was why I viewed Oklahoma City as vulnerable, and
they proved to be vulnerable as they were pushed to
seven twice. They're young, they struggle to replicate successes and
minimize failures. But Shay, with each passing year, I expect
(26:33):
him to get better at understanding the importance of his
floor game on a night's night basis. That will be
a bigger deal as they head into the future of
this franchise. Right like in the coming years, three or
four years from now, and Shay's on his Max, Jdub's
on his Max chats on his Max, Oklahoma City won't
(26:53):
be able to surround him with as much talent as
they can right now. They're not going to be able
to make offseason moves for Alex Crusoe and Isaiah Hartenstein
the way that they did last summer. The margin for
error will be much smaller, and that's where Shay's development
is a game manager will become a bigger deal. Than
it was last year. I should also mention that chet
and Jadub's development will play role there as well, But
(27:15):
there was a massive difference between Oklahoma City's half court
offense performance and wins and losses in the playoffs this year.
They locked an eighty nine point three offensive rating in
the half court in their losses and a one hundred
point two in their wins. That often was tied to
the job that Shay was doing kind of managing the
flow of these games. Bottom line, Shay's the top tier
(27:37):
superstar because he's an absolute S tier score with reliable
short range shot making that makes him super dependable night
tonight and in clutch situations, more so than any other
star in the NBA last year. And he's a good
enough defensive playmaker as well as switch defender to be
an above average defender at his position in the NBA.
(27:59):
He has his inconsistencies as a game manager and playmaker,
but they're just what separates him from the two guys
that have above him, and to his credit, he was
able to come through in those areas in big moments
in this year's playoff run. For right now, I have
Shay at number three. All right, number two Luka Doncic.
(28:21):
Let's start by going over his last season, and then
we'll talk about what Luca is as a basketball player
at this point and what I expect from him this
coming season. Luca followed up his unbelievable breakout season in
twenty twenty four with the most embarrassing season of his career.
There's no way to describe it other than to use
the word embarrassing. Now we can all agree that Nico
(28:44):
Harrison trading Luka Doncic was the dumbest trade in the
history of sports. But even in that context, it's worth
mentioning that Nico had a reason. It wasn't nearly enough
of a reason to justify the trade, but the reason
was there. Luca came into camp, he got hurt, he
came back fatter, got hurt again, then he got traded,
(29:07):
came back to the Lakers the fattest I've ever seen him,
and then he got flatly outplayed by Anthony Edwards in
the first round as Aunt continually came on strong and
fourth quarters while Luca looked exhausted at the end of
every game because it wasn't in nearly as good as shape,
and he put together the worst defensive series of his career,
somehow eclipsing a pretty rough defensive series in the twenty
twenty four finals. I'm being very blunt here on purpose.
(29:32):
I obviously hold Luca in very highest team as a
basketball player. He's number two on my list for the
second year in a row. That means I hold him
to a very high standard. And his last season was
an embarrassing step backwards for a player that had had
one of the most impressive starts to a career in
the history of the NBA. It was embarrassing. There's no
(29:52):
way around it. But let's go through the numbers from
last year first, and then we'll start looking forward. Luca
played in fifty t total games spanning his time with
the MAVs and the Lakers, twenty eight points, eight rebounds,
and eight assists, forty five percent from the field, thirty
seven percent from the line. Excuse me from three seventy
eight percent from the line. That amounted to fifty four
percent in effective field goal percentage, fifty nine percent true shooting,
(30:15):
two point two stocks per game, fueled by a career
high one point eight steals per game. As we talked
about in the first segment today, Luca is a good
defensive playmaker off the ball, and he could play passing
lanes and sniff out actions there and blow them up.
So obviously a testament to how amazing Luca is that
twenty eight to eight to eight on fifty nine percent
true shooting is an embarrassing step backwards for him. But literally,
(30:37):
just one year prior, he played in twenty more games
averaged thirty four to nine to ten on sixty two
percent true shooting. That's what Luca is capable of. That's
the standard. That's closer to what I expect from Luca
moving forward. Again, like we talked about earlier, maybe not
(30:57):
the same points per game alongside Lebron Jay and Austin Reeves,
but that's the standard. Lucas playtype data last year good,
not great by his standards in Dallas one point one
to one points per possession in pick and roll including passes,
that's obviously very good, zero point eight to nine points
possession including passes in one on ones, which is obviously
(31:18):
not great. And Los Angeles was a little more balanced
one point zero eight points per possession and pick and roll.
Not quite as good as he was in Dallas, but
still above average one point zero four points per possession
in his one on ones, which was better than Dallas,
but still not great so across the board, last year
as a shot creator, just not a great year for
him by his standards. The strangest thing for Luca last
(31:40):
year was his dip in short range scoring, which again
has been one of his biggest strengths as an NBA player,
and it happened like right when he went to LA.
In Dallas last year, he shot fifty four percent on
jumpers inside his seventeen feet and forty six percent on floaters,
more in line with what his recent career performance is.
But in Los Angeles he dropped to just thirty seven
(32:01):
percent on jump shots inside of seventeen feet and just
thirty six percent on floaters. He's been a little better
with Slovenia this summer, seven for sixteen on twos inside
of seventeen feet. That's forty four percent. I think. I
think he's only taken like two floaters. But this is
the big category I have my eye on heading into
this coming season. I really want to see Luca get
back to being that high volume, high efficiency short range
(32:25):
score that he was before joining the Lakers. But let's
look forward and let's talk about what I expect from
Luca this coming season. Predictably, the immense criticism that Luca
has received over the last year has motivated him and
to getting into the best shape he's been in at
this phase in his career. I've seen two very important
things from Luca so far in EuroBasket. One, he's far
(32:49):
more explosive athletically. His first step is quicker, he's changing
directions more smoothly. I'm seeing explosiveness in transition. I was
watching a clip of him in a coast to coast
drive against Israel the other day where he just took
the ball, exploded forward in the open court, powered through
a dude with his left shoulder, and finished with his
right hand at the basket. That's not anything I saw
(33:09):
out of him last year. He's got side to side
pop on his spins and his euros that wasn't there
last year. He's simply far more athletic than he was
last year. But the second piece of it is that
he's retained most of his strength. I was worried about
this when I heard about him losing weight. Strength is
(33:30):
such a huge part of Luca's game, which we're about
to talk about more in a little bit here. In
just a second, you can tell that through this process
he has stayed dedicated in the weight room, and I'm
seeing a lot of power on his drives and on
his post ups, on his bumps when he's handling ball
pressure and box outs. I just think Luca looks great physically,
(33:50):
and I think we're going to get the best season
of his career from him this year on both ends
of the floor. So what does that look like. Luca's
approached offenses very different than Shay's and that it relies
heavily on his ability to generate dribble penetration through strength
rather than speed in finesse. To be clear, Luca has
excellent fundamentals, as we've discussed often on the show. He
(34:11):
sells his fakes well. I think he's a great ball
handler for young players to watch because it's all eyes
and like selling every part of his move with every
part of his body before he changes direction. He's very
good at getting that first tiny bit of an angle
on even the elite defenders in the NBA. From there, though,
that's where the difference is. It's about strength. He gets
(34:34):
you on that shoulder. He gets you on his back,
and he uses his size and strength to rumble downhill
to whatever spot he wants on the floor. That's what
gives him the ability to be so effective in pick
and rolling. In his one on ones in pick and roll,
he sets his man up for screen, gets him trapped
on his backside, and slowly works his way downhill. It's
a big part of why I'm not as worried about
(34:56):
the screening in the eight and partnership remains to be seen.
But Luke is really gifted at getting dribble penetration even
without necessarily needing a screen because of his strength. But
once he gets you downhill, he's just waiting for the
defense to react. Right, big man steps up, low man doesn't.
He's hitting the big either with a bounce pass or
he's got unbelievable touch on lobs. He's probably the best
(35:18):
lob thrower in the NBA. Right now, Right lowman steps over,
he can whip cross court passes left hand, right hand
to either corner easily. Right, he beats low man help
extremely well. You stay back. He's got the short range shot,
making the little short jumpers off the bump or little
floaters things along that those lines you die on the screen.
He can hit the pull up three. He is, in
(35:40):
my opinion, the best pick and roll passer in the NBA.
I think Jokich is a better overall passer, but strictly
within on ball pick and roll play. I think Luca's
passing ability is transcendent. I think he's the best at it.
In post up situations. He's also good. He can eat
up double teams. I saw a lot of examples of that,
generating those threes for PJ. Washington in the Oklahoma City
(36:03):
series last year. He can look defenders off with his eyes.
He is a profoundly good playmaker and advantage creator on
the offensive end. Out of every single type of action,
the key is going to be regaining his shot making.
The playmaking is s tire. I talked about the foul
drifting earlier with Shay Lucas the exact same. He's got
(36:24):
all the low gatherers and pump fakes, weird shot angles,
weird driving angles, the flops, the yelling. He's got it
all right. But the piece in the middle that he's
got to get back is that shot making piece. If
he can regain that shot making in twenty twenty four,
he was thirty seven percent on pull up threes. That's
a good number. We talked about the short range scoring.
(36:45):
He was well over fifty percent on floaters and jumpers
inside of seventeen feet. If he can get all that back,
that's what ties everything together and puts Luca in that position.
And that is a big part of it. As why
why I am percting him to be the second best
player in the league this coming season. This is not
going to be the fat Luca, out of shape Luca
(37:05):
that we got last year. This is an in shape,
strong and motivated Luca that should look like a better
version of what we saw in twenty twenty four, the
guy who dragged the Dallas Mavericks all the way to
the NBA Finals. To put it very simply, even though
his point per game averages won't look like they did
in Dallas because of how different the Lakers roster is,
(37:26):
I expect this will be the best offensive season of
Luca's career. I expect their resurgence in mobility. I expect
their resurgen, resurgence in shot making. I expect him to
be one of the top tier shot creators in the league.
Another career like kind of like specific area where I
expect Luca to improve this year is at the end
(37:46):
of games. Luca had some issues fatiguing last year in
the playoffs. This last year he was just six for
twenty and fourth quarters and was pretty badly outplayed by
Anthony Edwards in those spots. I think we'll see Luca
do a better job of maintaining his level of impact
later into games this season. But lastly, we have to
talk about the defensive end. The conversation around Luca as
(38:09):
a defender has been fascinating over the last couple of
years because it's complicated for starters. He's an excellent defensive rebounder,
closing out defensive possessions is a key part of defense.
He's also a good defensive playmaker off the ball, as
we discussed earlier. Those are useful traits that help a defense.
But he just has this gaping situational weakness with handling
(38:31):
dribble penetration. He gets picked on by quicker perimeter players
and he can give up super easy straight line drives.
And when you get compromised that badly at the point
of attack, it puts you in these really tough rotation
situations that they can be really hard to recover from.
It played a big role in their losses to Boston
and Minnesota. The question is what does Luca have to
(38:55):
get to, what does he have to become in order
to directify that issue. He doesn't need to become prime
Patrick Beverley or Daveon Mitchell. He doesn't need like drim a.
Penetration is a part of basketball. Every player is capable
of giving up drives from time to time, even the
best defenders in the league. Luca just has to find
(39:17):
a way to make it way harder than it has been.
More cutoffs, more flattened drives, fewer straight line drives. We
talk about it all the time, like if you flatten
out a drive, meaning like okay, you got past me,
but you had to make multiple counter moves and instead
of going directly towards the rim, it's kind of frayed
(39:40):
off to the side a little bit. You do that,
it makes it much easier for the defense around you
to rotate and help and recover. He doesn't need to
become an all world defensive player. He just simply needs
to be able to slide his feet and anticipate better.
(40:00):
The point where he can flatten out more of those drives.
Improved quickness and improved conditioning should help him in that department.
This is the weakness that Luca has to address, and
I do believe that this season we will get his
best performance in that particular facet of defense. So to
wrap everything up, I have Luke at number two because
(40:21):
despite his embarrassing previous season, I expect him to return
to the level he was at the season before, which
was the only player in the league other than Jokic
to be both a transcendently great scorer and a transcendently
great playmaker. It makes him the second best offensive engine
currently on the planet playing basketball. I also think is
(40:41):
improved conditioning will manifest with the best defensive season of
his career and better performance at the end of games
where he has struggled with fatigue in the past. And
that's why I have with Luca at number two this season.
All right, guys, It's all I have for today is
always to sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and
supporting the show. We will be back on Friday with
number one Nikole Jokich as well well as our mail bag.
(41:01):
I will see you guys though h
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Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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