Episode 1: NBA Top-10 Honorable Mention

using is going to be my guinea pig for that. Um. But I'm also planning on covering some basketball stuff and going over what I've got planned for the next few months as we head into the off season. So uh, first and foremost, today I'm going to be doing I did a list of my potential top ten players in the NBA going into next season, and I listed the nine four sure names, meaning that there's one spot available for you know what, you might consider that last top

ten player in the NBA. I know this kind of stuff seems silly, especially to the super super casual fans, but to me, I think it's a lot of fun. I think that you know, if you think of the NBA like a horse race that effectively pauses every offseason, and then when we start playing, everyone kind of jockeys for position as as they go up the NBA leader board. These kinds of conversations, to me, are what make this

league so interesting. It's the only league league in all of sports, in my opinion, and all of team sports, where a single player can have such a huge impact on whether or not a team wins. And I think that talking about the proverbial horse race, so to speak, is what makes it so much fun. Um. And I think that it's a it's an honor to call yourself one of the ten best basketball players in the world. And I think it's a position that we shouldn't take

very lightly. I think it's something that we should think hard about and uh, you know, pay additional and extra respect to those players who are considered in that tier of players. UM. And then also I plan on doing a little bit of Lebron and MJ stuff. I don't

want to go too far into it. I talked about that that this morning, But the reality is is that so many people are so entrenched in their position on the Lebron MJ debate that it's effectively a giant waste of everyone's time, because I saw someone this morning say that, uh, someone who works in the media say that the uh, there is a gap in the career accomplishments of Lebron and Michael Jordan's and that gap, in and of itself standing alone, that gap is a Hall of Famer and

in addition to being just absolutely not true. Um, it just goes to show you that people that are on that side of the debate are very well entrenched. And then you know, for me, as a guy who's a fan of Lebron, I didn't think before this title, I didn't think he had any case, any legitimate case at that um, as far as that goes to making that claim. And now I think that he does have a case.

But it just goes to show you that even before this title, there were large groups of people who thought that Lebron was the runaway, you know, greatest basketball player of all time, which just goes to show you that everyone's very entrenched, and that makes it extremely discouraging to discuss. It makes it an uninteresting topic in my opinion. That said, what I do think is interesting is the actual cases themselves. If you are having that conversation with somebody who's being honest.

If you're sitting at a bar with your friend and your friend is honestly having a you know, nuanced conversation with you about who the great greatest basketball player ever is, then those conversations and the cases for each player is are interesting in my opinion, and so I plan on doing something along those lines. And then a friend of mine named Tommy, who I think is perfect for this kind of thing because he is very, very on the

opposite end of the spectrum from me. I'm gonna have him kind of jump on at some point in the future to provide the dissenting opinion and him and I can go back and forth and try to kind of make some headway in that regard. And then I plan on a couple of other fun things. I want to

do some rehashes of NBA Finals series. I think the most fascinating thing in all of basketball is a seven game playoff series where coaches make adjustments, where players make adjustments, and over the course of time, the team that wins the chess match wins. And there are a lot of really classic playoff chess matches, particularly in the NBA Finals. So I plan on doing some stuff uh around those just to just to kill time during this three month or so period that we have until the NBA season

starts back up again. UH. And then as we get into the free agency period after the collective bargaining agreement that is amended to uh, you know, make up for the virus issues, and the Lakers actually start actively pursuing their offseason moves, I think there there will be some a lot of good content around that stuff. But so on that note, I want to get started with the uh,

the honorable mention for these top ten players. So I think there are nine guys in the league that are definitively top ten players, guys that there is no coherent, legitimate argument for why they would not be top ten players, and in no particular order, because we will eventually get to this order. Those players, in my opinion, are Anthony Davis, Janice Antenna, Compo, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Lebron Kawhi, Leonard

James Harden, Nicola Yokich, and Luca don Chich. Those nine players, if you argue for them outside of the top ten, I think you have to make some leaps into some discourse that I don't think is very honest, and you probably disliked the guy. I mean, I dislike Harden with a pretty fiery passion, and I can't even make a case for why he would not be in the top ten.

So back a couple of days ago, I asked all of you guys to present to me what you thought were the players who were candidates for that final spot, and the most common names that I saw were Jimmy Butler, Paul George, Dame Lillard, CP three, Joe l Embiid, and

Jayson Tatum. So the format for how I want to do this is I want to go to each player and just kind of quick recap how their season was last year, the things that I perceived to be their strengths and weaknesses, and just overall evaluating where I think they stand in the league after their most recent campaign. And then after all of that, I'll explain who I think is number one and why or who I think

is number ten I should say and why. So I want to start with uh, Paul George, because this is gonna be the guy who has received the most slander coming into this playoff exit, and for good reasons. So we uh in the regular season, Paul George average twenty two points, six rebounds, and four assists. He was effective

field goal percentage. I prefer to use effective field goal field goal percentage instead of true shooting percentage because effective field goal percentage factors shots that are actually taken in the flow of the game. One of the things that I think is foolish and inaccurate about true shooting percentage is it factors. A free throw is a normal field goal attempt, which two for lack of a better term, it's just not it's just not a real field goal attempt.

A a attempt to draw free throws. While it is valuable, it is not equally valuable to a made or missed shot because it doesn't come in the flow of a game. Every free throw is a a it's something that stops the flow of the game. It can stop the rhythm. So for a for instance, a team that loves to

play at a slow pace, free throws are good. For a team that likes to play at a high pace, free throws can actually hurt them and you I ironically saw that from the Lakers as that series progressed in the finals, as they got out and going in transition, which really opened things up for them. Particularly in Game six, they weren't getting to the free throw line, which was actually a good thing for them because it kept them

in the flow of their offense. It kept things from slowing down too much for them, you know, whereas a you know, something like Lebron drawing three free throws in Game seven of the two thousand sixteen Finals was an example of a free free throw line trip that has a ton of value because it did bog down the game and it, you know, manufactured points. So, you know, true shooting percentage is always gonna favorite players who get

to the free throw line a lot. And while I do think that's something that we should factor in, and it's something I did factor in with these players, it's I think the best and most accurate way to measure a player's efficiency is effective field goal percentage. It weighs, you know, because a three point shot made or missed absolutely carries more weight in the flow of a game, but is within the flow of a game, and so it's our field goal percentage waited for three point shots.

It's a really clean and easy metric. So anyway, Paul George six and four on fifty affective field goal percentage. In the regular season, he played fewer than fifty games. He wasn't very available. The Clippers were thirty four and fourteen when he played, which was very good. When the Clippers had their guys this year, they did play well, they just didn't have their guys all the time. And then moving into the postseason, he had that really, really

rough first round series against Dallas. He finished his postseason run with twenty six and four on forty percent effective field goal percentage. Now one of the things we've looked but like as far as Paul George's strengths. To start on the positive end, he has proven to be one of the best high volume three point shooters in the league.

He's up there in that Stephan Clay category, guys who shoot over you know seven, they're so attempts in a game and they're shooting in the high thirties, low forties. Uh in their efficiency. He's he can do with it from the spot up, he can do it off the dribble. He is That is the absolute you know, bread and butter. If his game is off the dribble and catch and shoot three point shooting. But the flip side of that

is he's not a very versatile score Paul George. While he can get into the mid range area, and while he can score at the rim, he's not great at either. And the reason why you see his playoff efficiency takes such a huge dip is because defense is over time know how to make Paul feel uncomfortable, which is a product of his lack of offensive versatility. And then the one other strength that Paul George provides something that separates him from his peers his defensive versatility. He can guard

multiple positions. He's never gonna hurt you on the defensive end of the floor, uh, you know, as a playoff player. And then last, but not least, And this was his biggest weakness and the biggest reason why I think Paul George is not a top ten player and the reason why I will not be giving him that tenth spot his lack of confidence or moxie or whatever it is you want to call it. He's not an alpha. He's not wired in a way to where when he finds himself struggling, he views it as just a blip and

not a trend. You know, a very confident player, when they miss shots, they view it as the blip, and they do whatever it takes to get out of that trend and to try to write the ship. Whereas a player that is not confident when they start to miss shots and gets in their head and they start to worry about whether or not, you know, they are even capable of getting out of whatever that rut is. You know. The greatest example I can think of is Lebron in

this playoff run. He had a handful of really bad games against Denver and a really bad half in Game four against Miami, and in both cases he was able to rebound and play extremely well in the Miami series in the second half of that game, and then in in Game three against Ever when a d made the game winner. He came out in the rest of the series and shot from the three point line extremely well

and from the mid range extremely well. So the a player that has the moxie and has the confidence when they struggle, they are far more likely to get out of that rut. And so Paul George is the really really bad combination of not very offensively versatile, which makes defenses kind of it gives defenses an advantage when it comes to trying to knock him off of his game, and then when he gets knocked off his game, he's far more likely to remain knocked off of his game

than to bounce back. Alrighty, So next we have Dame Lillard. So Dame Lillard regular season numbers thirty points a game, four rebounds a game, eight assists per game, fifty six percent effective field goal percentage. This was primarily a product of the fact that he shot from the three point line on high volume. But then in the postseason against now mind you, this was against that amazing Laker defense, he was twenty four four and four on effective field

goal percentage. Dames strengths are what you would guess. He's a great spot up shooter and a grade off the dribble shooter, which means at all times he's uh, he requires the defense's attention even when he doesn't have the ball,

and then he's great at playmaking. We saw this a lot from Portland's In the Bubble, where it got to the point where Dame was shooting so well that he was getting trapped on every single pick and roll up and down the floor, and then he was really good at making that quick drop off to the short roll man who was usually Nurkic and giving his teammates the

advantage to make plays off of him. But his biggest weakness right now, and I've talked a lot about this, the big thing that separates Dame from Steph is his ability to work off the ball. It's to maintain offensive versatility. So for instance, what Day did by drawing doubles off of those trapped pick and rolls and dropping the ball to Nurkics on the short roll, that's the exact same

thing that Steph Curry does. And what Dame does as a high volume three point shooter who shoots at a high percentage both off the ball and on the ball, That's exactly what Steph does. But the one thing that Steph doesn't do that or excuse me, that Steph does do that Dame does not do is continue to work after he's given up the ball. And that is what allowed an elite defense like the Lakers to completely shut

Portlands down. Like I said, Dame goes down to twenty four, four and four on affective field goal percentage because an elite defense is not gonna let you continually run the same thing if you want to, if you think you're gonna be able to continue to to come off of a pick and roll, draw trap, drop it off to Nurkics, and let Nurkics play four on three. That's gonna work a lot. But then what's gonna happen is a really elite defense. It's especially a defense that rotates as well

as the Lakers do. They're gonna be great in that recovery, and they're eventually gonna get really good at playing four on three, especially when the guy who's giving up the ball off of the pick and roll is not willing to stay engaged and involved in the play off the ball. And so that's one of those things where you know, if I'm Dame, the number one area of improving, there's

he's already so good at everything else. He's actually better than Steff at some of his At the rim stuff, he's a bit quicker, he can hit those straight line when the openings in the defense are there, he can hit those straight line drives a lot better. And then he's he's extremely athletic, a lot more athletic than Steff. Stuff is better in the mid range, and he's got better finishing moves around the basket, like floaters and scoop

shots and so on and so forth. But Dame has the ability of his athleticism makes up for that gap, the giant gap. The difference between Dame being you know, in that ten to fifteen range and where Steph is in the in the top range of the league. Is that a bill lead to work off the ball. And then obviously Dame has a defensive weakness. I'm not as as you know, I don't punish defensive weaknesses as much as long as players learned to be not negative defenders.

This is something that we've seen so much from guys like Steph and Uh. Trying to think of another good example at the top of the le Kevin Durant is a good example to you know, Kevin Durant and Steff are not great defensive players there. You know, Kevin Durant should be, but he just never cared enough. But neither of them are actively hurting their team. And that's the next step for guys like Yo Kitchen, Dame and Uh and Uh don Chitch is finding a way to not

be a gaping hole in your defense. Al right. Next is Jimmy Butler. So Jimmy Butler regular season twenty points seven rebounds, six assists, forty seven percent effective vehical percentage. Really, by any measure, just not a very good offensive. Regular season playoffs twenty two points a game, seven or excuse me, seven rebound and six assists effective field goal percentage. Jimmy Butler's strengths are what you would expect. He is a

the definition of a a Swiss army knife. He is the definition of a poor man's version of Lebron James. He is both offensively versatile and defensively versatile. He can create shots, he can make plays for his teammates. He can score out of the post. He can score from the three point line. He can score at the basket, he can score off the dribble in the midrange. He can do all of those things. His biggest weakness is

that he's not great at anything. There's nothing that Jimmy Butler does that when a defense or an offense keys in on him, that that makes that that specific area of his game can overcome whatever someone's throwing at it, even on the defensive end. As great of a defensive player as Jimmy is, he's a little small. He's six ft seven, and so you know when Lebron really wanted

to bully him. There was nothing that Jimmy Butler could do with him, and so from that standpoint, I'm not sure if there's really an area Jimmy so developed in his game at this point, He's had such an advanced stage of his career, I'm not really sure there's an

opportunity for him to improve any of that. But you know, like you know, Jimmy Butler gained a lot of a lot of clout in the uh uh in the bubble from those handful of NBA Finals games where he put up monster numbers, and then he had a lot of you know, big time late game plays, particularly against Milwaukee and Boston, which, by the way, veteran players make big time late game plays. That's what Region Rondo did in

the in the finals as well. Like guys who've been around for a while, they just know how to make plays at the end of games that will help your team win games. But outside of those two games, the thirty five point triple double in Game five of the Finals and the forty point triple double in Game three of the Finals, Jimmy Butler was the same guy he was in the regular season, a twenty point of game guy right around forty seven percent effected field goal percentage.

The Lakers laid two big fat eggs on the defensive end of the ball in the finals, and it massively inflated the way we perceived Jimmy Butler. I do not think Jimmy Butler is one of the ten best players in the league. And the reason why is because of the fact that he's not great at anything. And while we did see, like you guys gotta remember, coming into that NBA Finals, no one was picking uh, No one was picking Jimmy Butler as the best player on the heat.

Everyone was thinking it was bam at a Bio or that it was you know, uh, Gore and Dragic. He became perceived as their alpha. He became perceived as their best player because of a handful of really really great outlier performances. And that's not to say that Jimmy doesn't deserve credit for that. He certainly does. But when I'm project thing forward, when I'm talking about who the ten best players in the league are, I just think there's a better option for that ten spot, and we'll get

to who that is in just a minute. So next is CP three. CP three eighteen, five and seven in the regular season on affect a field goal percentage one seven and five in the postseason affective field goal percentage. Uh CP three's biggest strength this his ability to control the pace of a game. He is the one guy outside of Lebron James in the entire league that I feel like, just by the way that he dribbles the basketball and makes decisions coming up and down the floor,

can actively change the flow of a game. He It is a d n a thing. It's not something anybody can be taught. It's not something anybody can learn. It's simply just what you are as a basketball player and the way you were born. And that is his biggest strength, his playmaking and ability to control the pace of a game to his roster, whether it's going fast when the game dictates that he needs to go fast, or whether it's going incredibly slow when the game dictates that it

needs to go slow. Um, and then he's good in isolation when you get Chris Paul in a mismatch against a big or we even saw him do it against Robert Covington in the Houston series, or p J. Tucker or Jeff Green. Uh CP three is incredibly good at finding what opening there is an isolation offense to get

a quality shot off. My biggest issue with CP three has to do with his size and the fact that when teams really, really, really really clamped down on him, he has a physical limitation that makes it difficult for him to generate quality shots, and this in turn has caused one of the weirdest phenomenons that I've seen since I've been following basketball, which is a guy with the clutch gene who makes a lot of clutch mistakes. See P three is wired like a guy who is not

afraid of the moment. He famously said that he's built different. You know that he wants this moment, that a lot of guys don't want this moment, and he's right. Chris Paul is one of those guys who genuinely is comfortable in those moments, but randomly he's not. And he has a lot of moments in his playoff career where when the chips got down and things got a little crazy that he kind of just spazzes out and makes an uncharacteristic mistake, And after doing it often in his career,

he did it again. In my opinion, in Game seven of that Houston Rockets series. So p J. Tucker attacks the close out, makes a little floater, puts the Rockets up one, and they dropped a final play for Chris Paul. Chris Paul is dribbling along the right wing and has Robert Covington on him, a player that he has torched in isolation multiple times in this series, particularly from the three point line, and he just he looks visibly uncomfortable.

All of a sudden, takes a bunch of really like funky dribbles right into Robert Covington like dribbles into the help I can't remember who it was in the right corner. I think it was um. Uh, I think it was the guard. I'm blinking on his name now all of a sudden, but um, he's not open in the corner and there's a help defender over there. I can't remember exactly who it is. It might have been, Um, it

might have been Jeff Green. And he throws a pass that's not there because it's not open because he's in your classic help side defense where his right hand is up in the passing lane. The pass gets deflected. Uh, the young guard. I'm blinking on his name again, Shake gil Just Alexander's who it was? Shake guil Just Alexander has to like scramble to get the tipped pass and throws that looping cross court pass to Dort which he gets blocked on. So essentially like as you're as I'm saying,

they're like. Through that entire series and up until that moment, he was the man, he was the alf fun but once again, in a really weird and bizarre way, he randomly lost all of that confidence and fell apart at the end of a game and made, in my opinion, uh it took. He made a mistake that cost his

team a chance to win that series. Next is Joe LMB Joel Embiid twenty three, twelve and three in the regular season, fifty one percent affective field goal percentage in the playoffs, thirty twelve and one, one assist on affective field goal percentage. So Joel Embiad has a slew of strengths. He's one of the most talented players in the league, and he's incredibly gifted at drawing fouls. He gets to the free throw line better than any young player you'll

ever see. That's usually a veteran thing Joe ell Embiad has the the gene of the ability to manipulate refs and get fouls. He's a great one on one post score. If you get him downlow against just about anybody except for Al Horford, he can find openings in a defense um and then he's uh. He provides elite rim protection, so as long as an offense can't scheme him out of the paint, he will absolutely shut down the pain.

He's capable of doing what we saw Anthony Davis do in Game six of the Finals, which is, if I don't have to guard the guy who's guarding me, I can camp in the paint and I can absolutely shut down the paint. His weakness is he's not a consistent perimeter shooter, but he relies on the perimeter shot often and uh, he's not very defensively versatile. So if you get him out of the if you can somehow scheme him out of the paint, he cannot impact the game as well as he can when he can stay inside

the paint. Joe Labat's biggest weakness, in my opinion, the thing that will hold him back until further notice, is his ability to read defenses and make plays out of double teams. Think about what happened in that series you lose Ben Simmons. You know, Tobias Harris is just not an alpha. He's not a guy who can create for your offense often, so you're resorting to posting up Joe

l Embiid, you know, and trying to create plays. And the reason why, um, the reason why Philly went away from posting up Joel was because he wasn't handling the double teams. Well, think about how hard it is in a situation or you're the best player on your team by a mile, to only end up with one assist. It's damn near and possible considering the amount of defensive

attention that's being thrown his way. And it just goes to show you that he struggles with the basic concept of embracing the double team, letting them get closer to him, and being willing to turn the ball over, you know, accepting the risk that comes with letting the defense collapse on you, accepting the risk of the turnover to create openings for your teammates that they to create, you know, because in fear NBA players don't make mistakes when they're

left wide open. They will inevitably eventually have success, and it just was unfortunate in that series that that Joel never embraced that he got his thirty points a game.

You know, he put up his thirty and twelve. He can look himself in the mirror, I guess, and pretend like it wasn't his fault, But the reality is, as a player of his talent against a team like that that's really not that great, he should have been able to succeed to a higher level than he did, especially against the Boston team that never really provided much interior resistance. So last but not least is Jayson Tatum, and this is the player that I picked as the tenth best

player in the league. In the regular season, he averaged twenty three, seven and three on fifty effective field goal percentage, and in the postseason the average ten and five on effective field goal percentage. His strengths are three point shooting, off the dribble and off the catch three level scoring. He can score effectively with his back to the basket from that ten to fifteen foot range, and off the dribble in that fifteen ft range, he can score at

the basket. He's gotten a lot better at drawing fouls, and he can score off the dribble and pick and roll. He's he's he's a master of side step threes, which is a really good efficient way of turning um, you know, a defensive aggressive an aggressive defender that's going to chase

you off the line. It's a very effective and efficient way of turning that into a three point shot instead of Along to his weaknesses, though he's not a great decision maker, he's still struggling at feeling games out and understanding when and where to be aggressive his uh shot selection. This is a classic case, you know, you know, for instance, I've talked about this with Lebron. Lebron is really good at taking what we would consider settle shots, him settling

for long jump shots over the defense. He's really good at taking those shots when he's specifically using it for rest. So for instance, middle of the fourth quarter, teams on a run, his team is on a run, he's recently got to the basket a couple of times, either drawing fouls, making shots at the rim, or kicking the shooters, and it's a late shot clock situation or whatever reason, the defense was in his face, and you know, there's only

six seconds left on the shot clock. He'll take a long three when the defender goes underneath the screen because he knows it's a low, it's a it's a it's not a very strenuous shot for him, and it's effectively him saving energy. But you're not going to see him take that shot in moments like pivotal moments of the game where the team desperately needs a higher quality shot. That's one of the things that from a shot a

shot selection standpoint that Lebron has figured out. You know, Jayson Tatum struggles with the basic concept of understanding that you know, just because you can get a shot doesn't

mean you should take it in that moment. And you know he has a tendency to take extremely tough shots out of the flow of the offense when there are easier shots that he's capable of in that given moment, Like especially on that Boston team, you would see Kemba and Jaylen Brown be aggressive and the ball would eventually make it's a way around a Tatum, and Tatum would have fresh leg because he hasn't taken a shot in a few possessions, and he would go to some ridiculously

tough step back instead of using his fresh legs to go to his more dependable moves at the rim, or getting using his size to get closer to the basket, so that instead of a you know, a side step eighteen foot over a contest, it's a ten foot over a defender that's shorter than him at a higher release point. You know, the like it's a It's a classic case of of just experience and repetition that will eventually fix that flaw. And one of the biggest things that I

look for in a situation like this. This happened to Steph Curry in two thousand fifteen. Steph Curry in two thousand fifteen in the regular season was a twenty three point a game guy, but in the postseason those numbers went way up, and then immediately as the season has started in two thousand sixteen, he just took off right where he left off in two thousand fifteen in the playoffs or two in the two thousand fifteen playoffs. Similar

thing happened with Tatum this year. Twenty three point of game guy in the regular season, kind of feeling things out on his team in this weird role that he has along a lot of alongside a lot of ball handling players, and then all of a sudden, he's uh point game in the postseason and still let fifty effective field goal percentage. So from that standpoint, I expect him to kind of pick up right where he left off next season and be that tenth best player in the league.

And then I, you know, I talk a lot about how I stick to. I stick to kind of overarching themes of basketball that I've always believed in, which is that the most the most valuable skills in all of basketball our defensive versatility, elite playmaking, an elite three level scoring. And if you look at all of these six guys, none of them are good at all three. But Tatum is the one guy who's good at two of them.

He's elite in terms of his defensive versatility and eas elite as a three level score And in my opinion, those two that feels two of those three boxes. As we get into the higher ranked players, you know, from one to nine, we're going to run into a lot of guys who are grade at all three. But for the tenth best player in the league, to separate yourself from guys like Jimmy Butler, who's not really great at anything.

From Paul George, who's not an alpha you know, like Jayson Tatum literally will try to dunk on you to end a playoff game, as he showed he will try to dunk on you if you're Lebron James in game seven of an Eastern Conference Finals playoff series. Jason Tatum has that confidence that Paul George doesn't have. You know, Damian Lillard does not bring the defensive versatility. You know, CP three does not have the size and that ability to create shots at an elite level late in playoff games.

And Joe l Embiid just literally has no idea how to handle a double team and he lacks the defensive versatility to guard outside of the paint. So for me, Jayson Tatum clearly separates himself from those guys. It's a tough decision. This is a deep this is a deeper league than we've seen pretty much since the since the late eighties. So it's not a slight against any of these guys, but I think Jayson Tatum has a clear case for that number ten spot as of right now. Anyway,

thank you to you guys for listening. Like I said, I'm gonna try to re release this as a podcast. We will see how that goes. This is effectively going to be a guinea pig of sorts. And then I'm going to early next week release my one through nine list and go through why I've ranked those players in that one through nine range, and then I'm gonna have Tommy on to talk Lebron and Michael Jordan's stuff and to talk uh his interpretation of the top ten players

in the league as well. So thank you guys so much for listening, and I sincerely appreciate your support and I will let you know next time I'm coming on three