Hoops Tonight - Are Ja Morant & Memphis Grizzlies NBA Finals contenders?

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gambler dot net in West Virginia. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by fan Duel here at the volume. Happy Wednesday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are having a great week so far. We're hopping right back into the power rankings today with number eleven. The Memphis Grizzlies.

We'll be doing the power rankings today, tomorrow, and Friday this week, and then over the course of the next two weeks we'll get through the rest of the top ten, and then after that, starting on the thirty, when the Washington Wizards play the Golden State Warriors I believe in Japan, then we will begin our normal, you know, tape breakdowns.

Every single day. We'll be going into different line en ups, different players, checking out on the rookies in preseason, what kind of schemes the teams are using, what we're learning. It's gonna be all basketball from basically the start of October all the way through the middle of June, my favorite time of year. It is going to be a blast. Um. We also, for those of you who care, at the very end of the show today, I'll go over some of the little pieces I have behind me in my studios.

You guys can learn a little bit more about myself before we get started. You guys know the drill. Subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason Lts, you don't miss any show announcements, and last but not least, if you can't finish one of these videos and you can't get over to YouTube to finish it, you can always find them in audio form wherever you get your podcasts.

Under Hoops Tonight. And on that note, let's talk some basketball. So last year, the Memphis Grizzlies were fifty six and twenty six. They finished with the second seed. They were dominant with and without John Morant. There's a lot of high surrounding how well they played without John Morant. A

lot of strength of schedule stuff played into that. They ended up losing to the Golden State Warriors in the second round in six without John Morant, although they were getting sound pretty soundly outplayed with John Morant on the floor as well. They were fourth in offense during the regular season sixth and defense fifth and net rating UM. And then they had a really interesting Game five, a

game that I picked. It's always funny Warriors fans have been relentless against me this season because I picked against them a handful of times over the course of last year's playoff run. But I did get one big prediction right during that specific series Game five UM, when Golden State went into Memphis, I expected them to get destroyed

in buzz saw fashion, and they did. That was kind of a really exciting moment for Grizzlies fans, just to show you how physically imposing their roster is even when John Morant is not available. A ton of stuff to be optimistic about if you are a Grizzlies fan. And this offseason they traded de Anthony Melton for Danny Green in a first round draft pick. That was an interesting trade in the moment, but I actually kind of like it as long as the intel from Danny Green himself

that he believes he will play this year. As long as that intel is correct. He did say on his podcast that he expects to play this year, said some really interesting stuff I was I was reading about it this morning. He thinks that a lot of NBA players UH do some things over the course of their rehab that can cause rehab to take longer, and that he's disciplined enough to avoid those things. I'd be really interested to hear him elaborate on that specific topic. I I

really like Danny Green. I covered him with the Lakers in um. He can be a frustrating player at times because he's a little bit streaky and he has some ugly mistakes over the course of games because he's not a good ball handler, so when he puts the ball on the floor, especially attacking closeouts are going up the floor and transition, he can make some prey the ugly mistakes. But I can say that in my year covering Danny Green,

I thought he was an amazing role player. I loved having him on the team, and I think Memphis Grizzlies fans will love him overall. I think he's an above average spot up threat. So on the offensive end of the floor, that's great. He's a very competitive player, great crashing the defensive glass from the wing and on the offensive ends as well when he has opportunities. And on the defensive end of the floor, he's one of the better role players in the league at guarding bigger, stronger wings.

He can struggle a little bit with really quick and shifty players. He can get caught on screen sometimes because he's a little big. But I really like Danny Green. He's a great guy to throw at any of the big, strong wings he might have to guard to get out of the Western Conference, like a Lebron James or a Kawhi Leonards. So on and so forth. Big fan of Danny Green. I think the Memphis Grizzlies are going to

like him. The other, uh, the other guy that they picked with as part of that trade was David Roddy is a very interesting like gigantic trunky wings A little short, is about six five six six was shoes on, but he's two hundred and sixty pounds, which and he's got a lot of offensive polish which will make him interesting. I don't know a ton about him, as you guys know, I'm not so I direct all my attention towards the league. I direct very little of my attention towards the draft.

I pick up little things here and there from footage, but it's not something that I have, uh that I've invested a ton of time, and there are draft guys that that do better there. I will always throughout the season update you guys with what I think about these picks as I see them play basketball at this level.

I do say, though, every time I see a big, strong wing like that, I get really interested about the prospect of them potentially guarding bigger, stronger wings because I think that's such a huge weapon, especially in a playoff series. They did lose Kyle Anderson in free agency to the Timberwolves, and also in the first round, they drafted another wing named Jake Laravia, a role player who more of an

off ball type of player. Doesn't dribble the ball well, but he's pretty smart and just knows how to play basketball. He'll be an interesting guy. Um. The one thing that's gonna be tricky there again is as the league has gotten more towards five out, it's become more important than ever for guys to be able to dribble. That's not something He's great out. But again, don't know a ton about him, so I will be updating you guys over the course of the season as I watched him play

NBA basketball. They did trade two first round picks to move up only three spots to get him. I did think that was interesting. What that tells you is that they're scouting department is apparently very high on him. So that's kind of a bet or a gamble on their end. It'll be interesting to see if that pays off. And then, last, but not least, for the offseason, they did lose Jaren Jackson Junior to a foot injury. Who knows how Long that's gonna keep him out. It'll be really interesting to see.

That's gonna be a big swing factor for them this season. So their depth chart at the guard position, they have Ties Jones, John Moran, Desmond Bayin, and John Conchart. Desmond Bayin and John Contar are both kind of like wings to this team is really heavy on wings um at the wing position. They also have Dylan Brooks, um Uh, Danny Green, Zaire Williams, Jacob Robba, David Roddy, the two guys that just mentioned, and then bigs Jaren Jackson Jr.

Stephen Adams, Brandon Clark, and Xavier Tillman. You're gonna see a lot of Xavier Tilman and Brandon Clark, especially early in the season as Jaren Jackson Jr. Is coming back from that injury. So moving to the offensive ended for you guys know the drill. We're gonna look at offense, we're gonna look at defense, we're gonna look at best case scenario, we're gonna look at worst case scenario, and then we're gonna look at the biggest X factor on

the team. So, UM, I really like Taylor Jenkins. He's smart, he's super competitive, he's um a little bit of an asshole and kind of like the best way to lead a basketball team. I'm a genuine believer that you have to have a little bit of an asshole streak in you, even if you're a nice person off the court or away from your competition. Like I like the kind of people that that are willing to kind fudge that line between friend and foe when they're competitive, and Taylor Jenkins

is that kind of guy. He really likes horns sets. This is the primary like kind of bread and butter of Memphiss offense. You know, John Morant brings the ball up the floor, and you know in late clock scenarios they'll go four low and they'll let John Morant work off the dribble. But to begin possessions, they love running

out of horns. Now there's we've talked about this before during the off season, we were talking about what five out is in the principles of five out, but there are a bunch of like kind of core offensive concepts that teams kind of gravitate towards. For instance, like four high as you'll have two guys at the high post and two guys on the high wing, or you'll have you know, four low where both guys are on the

block and two guys in the deep corner. You have like pistol sets where you guys in the deep corner, guys up high, and one post player that's kind of operating out of the midpost, and he usually will set a lot of ball screens and and uh and dribble handoffs and things like that. Obviously five out basketball, which we talked about during that video. Over the course of the summer, this team runs a ton of horn sets, so horn sets, or you have your two post players,

or sometimes you even mix cards in there. Memphis really likes to mix Desmond Baine in there because he's so big and strong. He can be a problem for screeners. And then guys don't like to switch that screen, so they get good stuff out of it. But you have two guys at the high post, two guys in the deep corner. They run a ton of different stuff out of this. Sometimes they'll just have both guys step up and set you know, screens on both sides of John Moran with a live dribble and he'll come off of

those screens. Sometimes John Morantte will hang with the high dribble, dribble out top, and they'll cross screen for each other, run different actions as screeners off the ball, try to get guys going with the head of steam, and then everything tends to flow into a dribble handoff into whatever is coming out of the corner. So if they don't get something right away out of that set, Let's say John moran uh is up top, Steven Adams comes up and sets a screen on his left side, and he

comes downhill and they contain him. Let's say Dylan Brooks is in the left corner. He will then come off of a dribble handoff. Steven Adams will then and around again in screen for Dylon Brooks is man and it just kind of flows into a dribble handoff and then from there it's just playing basketball. From there, it's just what does the defense do. Does Delon Brooks get downhill? Is he able to collapse things in the paint or is it one of those things where he goes all

the way to the rim. From there, they just kind of play basketball. They have a lot of guys this team. This team does struggle with ball handling in particular, you know, outside of Tis Jones and John Morant. They don't have a ton of guys that can create their own shot. Delon Brooks is okay at it when he's when you catch him on the right night, but when the this team has a ton of guys that when you get them with an advantage, they can either extend that advantage

or score. So everything for this team comes down to that initial advantage. Now, as long as John Morant is on the floor and he can create that initial advantage,

they do great. And that extended into the postseason. They scored about a hundred and fifteen points per possession in both series against Minnesota and that great Golden State defense when John Morant was on the floor, but their offense completely fell apart every time John Morant was off the floor because they struggled to create their own shot or

to create that initial advantage without Jaw. That's something if you guys remember that I was concerned about even before last year's postseason run, and it ended up being what what beat them. One last note about the Horn sets

is the concept of screening the screener. So everything, uh, everything in these sets starts with some sort of screen from the high post, right like either coming up and screening the top ball handler and John Morand or Ties Jones, or a cross screen for Desmond Band or whoever it is. But almost always the guy coming off of that screen will come right into a screen, or someone will screen for the screener. Essentially, just imagine a bunch of screens

in rapid secession. Okay. The reason why that is such a effective basketball concept is for one, for for teams that like to switch, it gets super confused because now it's not just like, Okay, my guy comes and sets the screen, I'll take your guy, you take my guy. We're good, right, that's easy. But if it's three screens, or if I'm screening the screener, now gets a lot more complicated. Now it's more like, Okay, which one of these two players am I going to switch on too?

You know which one is he getting my guy? Is he getting my other teammates got? It can get really confusing for switching defenses. And then for teams that don't like to switch, it's just a matter of navigating screens. If you get over one screen and then immediately run into another, it can get complicated. The screen the screener actions that they run out of that hornset gets lots

of good stuff. So a lot of times when you have teams that struggle to score in the half court, and the Memphis Grizzlies are definitely one of those teams. According and cleaning the glass. The Grizzlies were twenty second in half court efficiency this year just a result of all those things. I was just talking about, lack of ball handling, relying too much on John Murray to create initial advantages. Guy that can create with an advantage, but

not create the advantage itself. That typically is going to lead to a team that struggles in the half court. That's what happened with the Memphis Grizzlies this year. Typically, in that type of situation, one of the best ways to counter that is to push. In transition, again this is the two best um half court team, but this was the fourth best offense by offensive rating in the league this year, and they did that in transition. We're gonna get to this more on the defensive end of

the floor. But it's not just pushing the ball off of mrs. It's not just pushing the ball off of makes. It's also forcing turnovers. This was a great defensive team that was extremely disruptive and caused a lot of turnovers that led to fast breaks. We will get to that more when we get to the defensive end of the floor. But according to the NBA dot com is tracking data, the Memphis Grizzlies ran more transition possessions than anybody in

the entire league this year. They were fourth in pace over all, They were second in fast break points scored per game, just in general. And you pick this up pretty quickly when you're watching him. John Morrand likes to bring up the bring the ball up the floor with as much pace as possible. He will push ahead to wings that run, but he's just trying to, you know, come with enough pace that the transition defense will suck into the painted area. Then he can kick out two

guys like Bane and Brooks that can attack with an advantage. Again, everything is designed about trying to create that advantage so that they're somewhat limited ball handlers can create for themselves in the chaos, and transition is the biggest way that they try to do that. You know, and this is

again to Taylor Jenkins and how smart he is. You You you, as a basketball team, you have to like identify what your strengths are and identify what your weaknesses are and cater your strategy towards what your strengths are. This is a team that struggles in the half court, so getting out on transition is just smart. They're also the fourth most frequent dribble handoff team. All four of John Morant, Desmond Bane, Jaren Jackson, and Dylan Brooks get

over one point per possession undrillable handoffs. That's a lot of Steven Adams being a great screener, as well as Jaren Jackson and the threat that he is with the basketball. Um. They ran the fifth most actions off of screens. A lot of wide pin downs, especially out of horns. Uh, like we were talking about earlier, as they're flowing out of stuff. This is a lot of Desmond Bain. He's one of the highest volume off of screen scores that we have in the league right now. As you can expect,

they don't run a ton of issos. They were and ISOs per game this year only zero point eight seven points per possession on ISOs, which is pretty bad. John Muran's pretty solid zero point nine nine points per possession. Jaren Jackson is slightly below average. Bain is super efficient, but on ridiculously low value volume. According to the NBA's

tracking data, he only ran twenty six isolations all season. Again, that falls in line with what I was picking up on tape all season long, towards the end of the season when we became Hoops Tonight. You know, I really like Desmond Bain's game. Love his competitiveness, Love what he can do defensively, love his body. Type two is like kind of like a modern power wing graded attacking closeouts. He might be one of the best closeout attackers in

the entire game of basketball. An outstanding shooter, like just just a knockdown jump shooter, but struggles to create his own shot. But again, that's smart to avoid isolation if that's not what you do best. They are a middle of the pack pick and roll team by volume. They were twenty three in pick and roll efficiency. John More is pretty solid as a pick and roll ball handler, not excellent. Brandon Clark is their only kind of traditional rim running threat in terms of a vertical spacer. It's

not that Jaren Jackson can't do that. It's not that Steven Adams can't operate as a rollman. It's just not their strength. UM, so they avoid pick and roll a good amount. They were also twenty four in post up volume. That's not a part of their game. Uh. As far as John Morey goes, I want to send you guys to our player rankings video. I believe I had him in the eleven to fifteen range. I think he was right around thirteen or fourteen, maybe even eleven, I can't remember.

But uh, go further back into our YouTube feed and there's like a solid ten fifteen minutes on John Moran and all of his strengths and weaknesses. I'm not gonna get too far into it today, so you can go there if you want more content. UM. The main core principle or driving force of John Morrand's success and in the way it propels the Grizzlies forward, is he's just completely impossible to keep out of the paint, and that fundamentally is what makes everything work. The exciting part is

that it translates to the postseason. Even when you look at what they did against that very good uh Golden State Warriors defense and a pretty good Minnesota Timberwolves defense. In both of those series, they scored extremely well. As long as John Morant was on the floor. What killed them in the Grizzlies series early on with Jaw was defense, and then when John went out and they couldn't score,

that's when ended up killing them at that point. Desmond Bay and I just talked about him a little bit earlier, so I won't go any further. Jaren Jackson Jr. Is a freak talent, but he's kind of a bull in

china shop. He is a tendency when he gets the ball to just try to run everybody over and go to the rim, and that that leads to your textbook up and down NBA playoffs performance because there's, as I talked about all the time on the show, there's a there's a huge upside to physically imposing your will in a playoff environment. You know, everyone's allowed to hold, everyone's allowed to hand check. It's just a blood bath of physicality.

And when you have a guy like Jaren Jackson Jr. Who can drive Draymond Green to the rim and finish the way he did several times towards the end of that series, then he's gonna bulldoze everybody in the league. The downside is is it gets predictable, and he does have a tendency to just over penetrate into traffic, get

himself into a mess, and turn the basketball over. He actually was really inefficient in terms of his field goal percentage in that Golden State Warriors series, in large part because of the types of low percentage shots that he was taking around the rim um. He did shoot the ball extremely well from three though, in that playoff run, and that's very exciting. The John Morant problem is the is the number one kind of like focal point of

this offense. In the NBA playoffs this year, they were thirteen point two points worse on offense with Jaw off the floor versus when he was on the floor right around a hundred fifteen points per possession when he was on right around a hundred and two when he was off. The upside is again Jaw has proven that his offensive

style does translate to the playoffs, and that's exciting. Moving on to the defensive end of the floor, So this is an extremely physical and strong, imposing defensive basketball team with tons of athleticism. They are super aggressive on ball handlers, trying to disrupt the dribble. The dribble their forward aggressive, willing to give up driving lanes they weren't a great

team defending the paint. I know, uh Jaren Jackson Jr. Was one of the best shot blockers in the league, and we'll get more into him here in a minute, but they weren't actually great at taking away the painted area because they're so aggressive on the perimit to try to force turnovers and things like that to try to squeeze out transition possessions. That they did give up a lot of straight line drives and give up a lot of baskets around the paint, but they did lead the

league and steals and blocks, which is amazing. That's how you end up with the sixth best defense in the league despite giving up quite a few points in the paint. They were third in points off of turnovers compared to the rest of the league, and they did defend the three point line pretty well. I think they were eleventh and three pointers made per game, which when you factor in pace there, it probably would have been even higher than that. Almost everyone outside of John Morant on the

roster is an above average defensive player. That is what allows them to line up consistency throughout the game to be an imposing defensive team, and that's why when John Morant checked out of that series with the knee injury, the Grizzly still were such a problem for Golden State because of what they were capable of doing on the defensive end of the four. Jaren Jackson Jr. Is the anchor of this defense. He led the league in total bocks by forty. He had forty more blocks than Rudy Gobert,

who was second in total blocks in the league. Their scheme is pretty traditional outside of that they run drop coverage with all three of their bigs, although they're more willing to switch if things go haywire with Jaren Jackson and Brandon Clark than they are with Steven Adams. That's pretty standard across the league at this point. And once again, the biggest problem with their defense is the John Morant problem.

So John Morant and what they can do without him is the biggest problem on the offensive end of the floor, and John Morand and what they can do with him is their biggest problem on the defensive end of the floor. Grizzlies fans probably remember this with more rose colored glasses than everybody else, But the truth of the matter was

is that in that Minnesota Timberwolves series. Patrick Beverley was looking like a primary ball ball handler consistently attacking John Morant, not even in advantage situations a lot of times just off the dribble, a lot of times in isolation, just taking John Moran to task and scoring at will. In general,

their defense was horrific with him on the floor. They gave up I want to say about a hundred and thirteen points per one hundred possessions in the Golden State series with him on the floor, which is pretty damn bad. That is That's gonna be the biggest one of the bigger indicators of this team's future success is given John Morant's athleticism, and we all see the highlight plays like him getting an insane block in transition, flying above the

rim and things along those lines. But at some point, John Moran is going to have to be able to hold his own defensively for this team to reach their ceiling um, which is a great transition into their ceiling. So the ceiling for this Golden State Warriors team is if Jaren Jackson Jr. Comes back quickly Again. Feet are feet are tough um, not just for big men but for everybody. I the one major injury I suffered when

I was playing in college was a broken foot. That was between my uh JUCO season in Tucson and my second JUCO season, which was in Utah, and I really struggled with that. The main reason why is there's like a physical healing phase and then there's a mental healing phase. And when I got back on the basketball court, even though I physically could do everything I needed to do, I didn't really trust my foot to hold up, and so I became very passive, especially as a rebounder and

on the defensive end of the floor. That was the main part in the early portion of that season where I struggled. I really struggled in nonconference play that season, and then right around January I kind of broke through that mental wall and I regained the confidence in my foot and then I took off from there and actually ended up making an All conference team that year. But the first chunk of that season I was pretty bad

just by struggling with confidence with my foot. And so it'll be really interesting to see one how quickly Jared comes back into how quickly he becomes he was before the injury, and that's gonna be something that needs UH that Grizzlies fans could should keep an eye on. But if he comes back quickly, if Desmond Baine takes a leap as a shot creator, if he impludes improves in ball handling to the point where he can create his

own shot. I don't think he has a quick enough first step to consistently beat high level defenders off the dribble, But he's so big and strong that if he could learn to understand angles while also having a really tight handle, he might be able to have a little bit more of a Luca esque advantage creation type of deal, where it's not about you know, toasting dudes off the dribble and getting tons of separation, but rather getting a tiny bit of separation and shooting the gap with physicality and

using your upper body to pin the defender out of position so you can methodically work your way into the lane. It's it's a long shot to me because that's the type of thing takes years and years of diligent practice. But that would be a great UH indicator of what

this team ceiling could be. If John Muran could make improvements to offensively, if Jo can stay healthy and all those things, I just said, if Joa can stay healthy because he did break down in this postseason run, and if he gets hot, especially as a jump shooter in the postseason, and I do believe that John Marine will one day be a knockdown jump shooter. That's the textbook

puncher's chance. When we were talking about tears and we had the non contenders, and now we're in the puncher's chance contenders, right, Like the Lakers aren't the most talented team in the league, but if Lebron and n A d get hot, what are you gonna do with him? You know? Same thing Cleveland Cavaliers, like not as talented as best teams in the league, but if Donovan Mitchell gets hot, with how good their defense is, that could be a problem. Same thing goes for this Memphis Grizzlies team.

If they are as good defensively as they are capable of being, as long as John Morien, it takes that leap and he gets hot in a postseason run, particularly as a jump shooter, because how gifted he is getting to the basket. This team absolutely has a puncher's chance to win the title, But because of their limitations and shot creation, I don't think they're in that next tier you know of that second tier contenders are the top tier contenders. The other thing that's interesting here is the

Jaw officiating conundrum. I've talked about this three or four times on the show, UM, But basically, John Murrain is so gifted at beating people off the jubble, and he's so thin, and he's so athletic that when he goes flying through the lane that even slight bumps can send him flying. Even slight bumps that wouldn't be considered a foul against the vast majority of ball handlers in the league.

And so the bottom line is is that if John Murand catches a Dwyane Wade OH six type of officiating run, that could go a long way towards helping this team reach their ultimate ceiling. The worst case scenario is if Jaren Jackson Jr. Misses most of the season, which can affect their seating. Now they can end up in a five, six, seven, eight seed, which could put them on the road against a very good team in the first round of the playoffs, a team that they very well might be um an

underdog against. If Jaw continues to struggle on defense and

chakra Asian limitations. If they don't improve as uh in terms of shot creation outside of John Moran, they will continue to struggle in the half court even with jaw, and they will really mightily struggle when John Morant is off the floor, which will eventually get them beat if those things take place, you know, if John doesn't improve defensively, if they don't improve creating shots, if Jaren Jackson's injury cost them in seeding, this is a team that's gonna

lose in the first round. So I kind of I view that as the range of outcomes, kind of first round loss all the way to championship with anything in between based on how those factors turn out. The biggest X factor on this team is Jaren Jackson Jr. Um.

I I think that, like he's such a freak talent with such hot and cold moments that he's a textbook X factor in my opinion, because he could just as easily lose you a playoff series with poor decision making as he can win it with incredibly imposing defensive rim protection and physically imposing rim pressure on the offensive end of the floor, to go with outstanding perimeter shooting like he shot seven threes per game over the last seven

playoff games and shot him over his last seven playoff games, he averaged nineteen points per game. He was an outstanding defensive player during that stretch. You know, I've compared him defensively to Anthony Davis with his combination of length and mobility. Um, obviously he's not that level of defensive player yet, but it's certainly something that he's capable of doing. That's kind of the Anthony Davis mold though, right like dominant defensive player,

hyper versatile, stretch big. He could be a poor man's version of Anthony Davis if he could get to that level, which again, Anthony Davis I think was eighteen in my top twenty five this year because of how much he's regressed. If if Jaren Jackson Jr. Can get up to the eighteenth best basketball player in the world this season, which is absolutely doable with how talented he is, that could

be a massive swing factor for this team. And if that sort of thing happens, they go from puncher's chance contender to that next here that if things go right contender, meaning if they stay healthy and they catch an injury break here there they are absolutely in that mix so very interesting. Memphis Grizzlies team. Grizzlies fans, uh, you know, we'll be covering them throughout the season. This is a team that I find to be extremely interesting. We'll learn

more about their draft picks as they play along. It'll be interesting to see how they play without Jaren Jackson for chunks of the season. This is gonna be one of the most interesting teams in the league over the course of the next half decade, and I'm excited to cover them. So that's all I have on the Memphis Grizzlies. I I did as I promised at the beginning. I wanted to spend just a couple of minutes talking about uh my set, just to tell you guys a little

bit more about myself. So obviously I am a die hard other way diehard Star Wars fan. Um. I grew up uh watching the VHS tapes when I was a little kid, and I've been in love with it ever

since the beginning. I'm one of those diehard Star Wars fans that like reads all the Expanded Universe novels and like I've seen Clone Wars all the way through twice, and I've seen Rebels all the way through twice and and uh, I actually do a Star Wars podcast with with a buddy of mine, my best friend, my buddy Luke, who also happens to be a diehard Star Wars fan. We release episodes typically every Wednesday. UM. It's called the

Two Sons Podcast. We've been going through the Thrown trilogy. Uh. We just went through the thron trilogy from when he was with the Empire, the books that they released a few years ago. Now we're going through the Thrown Ascendancy trilogy, which is based on Grand Admiral Thrown when he was with the Chiss Ascendancy, which is super super interesting. He's one of my favorite Star Wars characters and he's gonna be a big one uh coming up I think in the future as they go with a Soca and some

of these other series. Anyway, Star Wars is a huge passion of mine. I wanted this to kind of represent the things that I love, and Star Wars is a thing that I love a great deal, uh, and it's something that I invest a lot of time. And if you ever want to hear me talk more about Star Wars, you can find that in my Star Wars podcast. My second favorite thing to do in the entire world is to play guitar, and I it's one thousand percent an amateur thing. At least at this point in my life.

You will never hear me play. It's not something that I that I show off. It's something I do strictly

for myself. My dad raised me on blues a lot of like The Grateful Dead in the Allmond Brothers band, and from I got my first guitar for my birthday when I was a kid from my grandmother was an Epiphone s G and I played it for years and then when I turned when I started playing basketball in college, I got away from it for a little while just because I couldn't travel with it from with everything that I was doing, and and I kind of got out

of playing. And then a few years ago with my wife, Uh, we were talking about it and I decided to get into it again. And a big part of why I got back into it is this guy, Mr John Mayer, who you guys all probably know from his mainstream stuff, which I could take it or leave it. I don't dislike it. I find him to be freakishly talented, but with his mainstream stuff, um, I never really thought it

captured what he was capable of. And back in two thousand fifteen, he started playing with the other older gentlemen you see there, Mr Bob Weir, who was one of the original guitarists for the Grateful Dead, and ever since two thousand sixteen, they've been touring, going to a bunch of cities around the country and playing old Grateful Dead songs. And Grateful Dead is more of a jam band, you know. The songs are like fifteen minutes long. Drives my wife

freaking crazy. I'll never listen to that stuff around her because she doesn't really enjoy it all that much. But it really has exposed what John Mayor is capable of as a guitar player. And I think John Mayor, I personally think John Mayor is the best guitar player of this particular generation. Some people would disagree with me. Some people would say Gary Clark Jr. Some people would say

Derek Trucks. I I think technically in terms of his core style as well as his versatility, the different types of music that he can play, not entirely unlike his mainstream stuff that he plays versus this blue stuff all the way to old Texas blues like Stevie ray Van and Jimmy Hendricks and things along those lines. He's just as well rounded as it gets, and I I he's like my personal role model as a guitar player. Um. This right here is the first Dead and Company concert

that I went to in Phoenix, Arizona. That was the poster that they made. Vote They pay a professional artist to make a detailed painting like that for every single show that they do, which I think is a really really cool, uh kind of like niche thing that they do. These are two of my favorite guitars. This was the one that my wife got me for my thirtieth birthday. This is a PRS CEO. Um. Just an incredible piece

of woodworking. Gibson and Fender kind of have run the guitar game forever and PRS has kind of grinded their way up to about third place on that list. They're they're all their core models are American made and there I find their woodworking to be exquisite. One of my one of my dreams is in the future. It costs about twenty dollars, so I don't plan on doing it for a long time, but one of my dreams is to go to their factory in Maryland and build a

guitar from scratch. They call it their private stock collection. But you can actually like pick the kinds of wood that you want to use. You can do special designs on the neck and things like that. That's one of my dreams. This is a good old fashioned Fender Stratocaster, a very unique guitar sound that no other guitar can replicate. But yeah, so this just this a little bit about about myself. My number one love is basketball. It always

will be. I live and breathe the game every single day of my life, and I will until the day I die. But when it comes to things outside of that, love me some Star Wars and I love me some uh blues guitar. So anyway, I hope that get Uh teaches you, teaches you guys a little bit more about myself. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys supporting the show and we will be back tomorrow with number ten the volume