Hoops Tonight - Bucks-Grizzlies Reaction: Giannis & Milwaukee MAJOR ISSUES, Ja Morant GOES OFF

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tonight here at the volume heavy Friday. Everybody. Hope all you guys are having a great week so far. Got a quick show for you guys today. The Memphis Grizzlies beat up on the Milwaukee Bucks yesterday, so one of you check ins on both of those teams are gonna do a little bit of a deep dive in the early season for both of those teams that at the tail end of the show, I've got a longer mail bag.

I think I've got twelve or thirteen questions about a bunch of teams around the league that we're going to hit. You guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops to Night YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JSNLT so you guys don't miss show announcements. So forget about podcast feed where we get your podcast under Hoops Tonight. Also, we have new social media accounts that we're going to be using a lot more for

content this year on Twitter, Instagram, and on facebooks. Make sure you follow Hoops Tonight on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. And the last but not least, keep dropping mail back questions in those YouTube comments so that we can keep hitting them throughout the remainder of the season. I was

talking with Paul this morning. He's our lead producer, and we're going to be kind of tweaking some things in terms of the layout of the show so that we can have some more consistency in terms of like the plan and what you guys can expect. Last year, we used to do power rankings on Friday, but I actually

we're gonna move it to Mondays. From now on. And the main reason why there is Mondays are like one of the hardest days to do instant reactions to games because we have games on Friday night, on Saturday night, and on Sunday night, so it's like three nights worth of games, and sometimes, like you know, a team wins on Friday and then loses on Sunday or vice versa, and it can get a little tricky to hit on individual teams or individual games, I should say, so, I

actually think that Mondays are the perfect day to do power rankings because then I can hit at least ten teams and talk about the whole weekend at large. So we're gonna do power Rankings on every Monday from now on, and we're gonna do mail bags on every Friday, so make sure you keep dropping mailbag questions in those YouTube comments. Those will come around every Friday, and then we'll do Power Rankings on Monday, our first edition coming up on

this coming Monday. And then obviously as we get into the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday stretch, that's when we'll do instant reactions to games. Timp's tape where we do some film that sort of thing as we kind of get into

our normal cadence here throughout the season, and during football season, we're not going to do as many shows at night, just because so many of them clashed with NFL games. But once we get into January and the NFL starts to slow down, we're going to be doing a lot more instant reactions live on YouTube after games. And we still will occasionally do instant reactions after games over this early part of the season. When we get really big

national TV matchups, I'll keep you guys posted. That's where it's good to follow me on Twitter because I always send out announcements before we do that sort of thing. All right, let's talk some basketball. So the Grizzlies just beat up on the Bucks last night. Really, it was just a transition track meet type of game. For example, Memphis had thirty one points in transition just in the first half. That is like a completely insane stat right there.

They went into the half up twenty two, and there just wasn't really anything that the Bucks could do to regain control from there. Part of it was the Bucks shot really poorly, and that's kind of one of their early season trends that we'll get into when we talk Bucks. But they generated thirteen unguarded catch and shoot jump shots in that first half and only made one of them.

So like, that's where I can get a little discouraging and start to kind of snowball on you and get into some bad body language and that sort of thing. But again, we'll talk about the Bucks in a little bit. But the Memphis Grizzlies made them look slow, they made them look old, they made them look like they didn't feel like competing with them the way that they were trying to play. Again, like, the Bucks are a bottom five transition defense. I've been talking about this with the

Lakers too. With teams like the Lakers and the Bucks, they have no choice but to try to figure their shit out in transition because it's a game plan thing. Now, it's the worst kept secret in the league that you can run on these guys. And so as a result of that, like every one of these teams when they're in their hotel room, if they're on the road, or if they're at home, or just in their home locker room planning before the game, doing a shoot around, whatever

it is they're doing. When they're talking game plan, it's like, run on these guys. They're lazy, they slow, they don't want to run. This is a consistent thing that we're going to see in Memphis. Really took it to them in that game last night. John Morant just put on an absolute masterpiece last night, his best game of the season so far. Had twenty six points and fourteen assists with only ten missed shots and turnovers combined. Absolutely fried Gary Trent Junior. It should be a crime what he

did to him. He figured out early in the game that Gary Trent really couldn't hang with his first step, and so he really started to use fakes, and Gary Trent was just biting on every single fake that he was throwing. There was a three that John Morant hit in the right corner where he caught and just did

like a hard jab step towards the baseline. That's literally all he did, and Gary Trent damn near ran out of the frame for how hardy bit on that fake is. Obviously with Gary Trent, he's giving up so much foot speed there. It didn't really have a choice but to try to overplay that first move, and Job was just doing a ton of damage to him in ball screens and in ISO. But it was an insane playmaking game

from Jah. It wasn't just the fourteen assists, it was the way that he was getting those assists and a playmaking is always been one of John Rant's underrated talents, but it was beautiful playmaking and pick and roll he had about Like you know I talk about the most important read in the ball screen is the lowman. Right, Like, as you come off the ball screen, you could pretty much assume that the guard is going to be pursuing one way or the other, whether that's chasing over the

top or that's ducking underneath. But the guard's going to stay attached as best as he can. And then the screen defender in most cases is either coming up higher to the level or dropping back. Right, there's the dynamic on the back side of the defense is the lowman and the screen defender. Right when the screen defender goes higher, the lowman typically comes over, and when the screen defender drops back, the lowman usually stays home. That is the

dynamic of help defense in ball screens. And so the read that you're primarily making as the on ball creator is that second guy, that lowman when he steps over to the rollman. The read is the skip right to the shooter in the corner that he's not guarding when he stays home, the red is the roll man, right, or if they both stay home, that's when his read

is to look to score. And like he had I think at least three of each where he like hit the rollman when the low man stayed home, or through the skip pass when the lowman came over, and just was consistently like just baiting those guys one way or another. There was one play in particular, I clipped this pass and I put it on my Twitter feed for you

guys to see at Underscore JSONLT. But it was the one where they're on the left side of the floor and Gary Trent Junior does tag the roller, but as John Morant comes off, he makes like a head fake towards Gary Trent Junior's man. If you look really closely on the video I posted, you can actually see his head turn to the left and look off Gary Trent. Gary Trent lunges back out to the shooter and he was even he wasn't even the right place because the

shooter had relocated to the corner. So that's how bad the relocation in the head fake fooled Gary Trent. But as a result of Gary Trent leaving and with brook Lopez being somewhat higher, he's able to make the pass to the roleman easy bucket, right. But then there was another play where like Bobby port was out there. Bobby Portis has done this all year, but Bobby Portis will like overhelp on low man rotations all the time where he just like sits in the paint even when it's

not necessary. And Joe was just burning him with skip passes right and so doing a lot of damage in ball screens, but also incredible playmaking in the open floor. And this is where jaw is so much fun. It's like the hard transition pushes and drawing the rim protector up to drop off for guys cutting along the baseline

for dunks. He had this like insane pass to Jaron Jackson where he went up the floor hard and like it came up with crazy pace and then hit like a boom boom dribble combination and it brought brook Lopez over and out of the dribble combination. He just seamlessly whipped it to Jaron Jackson with his left hand on like this like spin away pass and Jared Jackson just went right over Giannis and finished tried to like it

went up like he was gonna dunk it. Yiannis walled him up pretty good, but Jaren was able to finish anyway with the foul. It just it's beautiful basketball that John Rample. He's one of the most aesthetically appealing players in the league at this point, has so much fun

doing it. Literally looks like an artist that's like painting a specific basketball masterpiece of every single game, just with the different things that he can do that are so exciting and that looks so different than what other basketball players in the league can do. It's just good to have jam Morian back. But anyway, yeah, the Bucks had no chance. So the one other thing I wanted to hit on the playmaking piece. Jah has like a really

special connection you can tell with Santi al Dama. And there's this thing that happens with basketball players sometimes where like they almost have like a mental connection where they have this firm understanding of where each other are all the time, and it's natural. It's not something that can

get coached. It is something that develops over time. But like that's the interesting thing is like Santi al Dama and Jamray have experience playing together, but they don't have a ton of experience playing together, and so sometimes it's like a natural organic basketball fit, and like part of it is there is like Jamran is great at it, attracting attention and passing out of it, and Santi al Dama is one of the more gifted off ball all

scorers in the league. He's just excellent transition in particular, He's been doing a ton of damage there and running the floor right, but he brings a vertical spacing element, like you can throw the ball up at the rim. I think Jaw hit him for four lobs last night, if I'm counting properly, Like that's insane, right, But then like he also can shoot the ball well, he can

drive close outs. He's like a guy who's an expert at capitalizing on defensive attention devoted elsewhere away from him, and then a guy who's an expert at getting defensive attention devoted to him and passing out of it. And so the two of them just kind of like seamlessly fit together. The Bucks had no chance. We'll talk about them in a minute, but quick check in at the Grizzlies at large. They're three and three. Had a huge win against Orlando last week. They had sixty six points

off the bench. They went on a huge run to end the second quarter where they basically went like stop bucket, stop bucket, stop, bucket, stop bucket. Next thing you know, they're up twenty six points going into the half on a finished with like another one of those John Morant kind of like gets everybody's attention in the middle of lane, drops it off to Marcus Smart. He lays in and at the buzzer going into halftime. So really impressive win against a new Orlando Magic team that had been playing

really good basketball. And then they dropped two games to Chicago and Brooklyn. But injuries played a huge role there, right, Like John Murran misses the Chicago game, and then both Desmond Bain and Marcus Smart got hurt in the Brooklyn Nets game. Marcus Smart tweaked his ankle and then Desmond Bain is dealing with an oblique injury. But then they come they go without those two guys and beat the shit out of the Bucks. And now they're three and three.

So obviously the injuries make the data kind of sketchy, and Memphis is one of those teams too that when they're playing at home and they're playing hard, even when they're down bodies, they have a certain amount of depth that allows them to continue to compete, right, But they I want to try to zoom in for a second

just on the core four guys. They haven't played that much, but Desmond Bain, Marcus Smart, John Moran, Jared Jackson have only played thirteen minutes together over the course of the entire season, but they have looked very good in those thirteen minutes. They've got had a one to twenty four offensive rating obviously very good, eighty three defensive rating that's excellent, forty one points per one hundred possessions net, eighty percent

defensive rebound percentage. They've been really really good with that group, and a good chunk of those minutes was against Orlando in a game where they looked really really good. And I like that grouping. Like starting on the defensive end, Jared Jackson is just kind of the versaal guy that

ties everything together. He's a versatile front court defender that you can put on someone like a Pala Bancaro, right, but then you also can use him as a rim protector and a bunch of different you know, kind of basic traditional defensive coverages, right, But Desmond Bin and Marcus marter A the two that make the whole thing go.

They're both just like two of my favorite types of defenders, which is like that shorter, stockier defender that instead of constantly obsessing with contesting shots, focuses more on disrupting the rhythm of the scorer or the shooter before the shot.

This is something I talked about all the time. But like Desmond Bin and Marcus Smart are masters of playing physical defense, fighting guys off of their spots, meaning like making them catch out of places where they typically catch, and then from there attacking the base and attacking the pocket.

What that means to me is like again, if I I, for instance, I work a ton on off the dribble shooting, and I'm sixty six and I have a six ten wingspan, So like if I get into my in and out crossover whatever I'm whatever dribble combination, I'm going into a pull up jump shot. Once I get into the pull up jump shot, like I don't see your hand, Like I have too high of a release point, And I practice shooting contested shots all the time, So like your hand just doesn't mean anything to me if I get

to my rhythm. But if like as I'm making those that dribble combination or trying to get to my footwork, if you're reaching at the ball and you can find a way to disrupt before I get it up into my shot, and maybe as a result, I like fumble the ball a little bit or on my gather one of my hands is kind of in like a slightly different spot than it normally would be because you managed to disrupt my rhythm. Then it doesn't matter if you

don't even contest my shot. Now as I'm rising up, I'm rising up into a shot that is unorthodox or awkward because it's different than the stuff that I do when I'm practicing in the gym by myself. Right, Like this is actually not to go too much deeper, but this is one of my big beliefs about like the best scorers in the world. They're all very improvisational. They're all very good at like when their rhythm gets disrupted.

They're good at like figuring shit out on the fly and finding a way to get like a decent look off anyway. But again, good defense. The best defense you can play, in my opinion, on a score is actually before the shot. And that's what makes this type of defender so useful is they're big, they're strong, they're good at getting up underneath professional scorers in disrupting everything they do before they get to the shot. Right, that's the key.

Like I mean, look at Kevin Durant shooting a right shoulder fade away over a double team against the Clippers on not Opening night, but the night after Opening night. Right, Like Katie doesn't see the hand because once he gets to his fade away, that's that he's just he's in his bag at that point. Like, you have to find a way to disrupt these guys before. And so des Bean and Marcus Smart, they're ball pressuring, they're fighting guys

off of spots. They're making them catching different spots. They're both switchable in a lot of these situations. They bring that point of attack defense or defending the other team's best players. And then John Muran has been pretty solid, Like he just competes, He hedges hard, he sprints back

to recover to shooters. He can dig down into the lane and recover like John Moran, Like he has his defensive limitations, but that dude tries and he's got some tools and that makes him pretty impactful, and so that all pieces together into a really useful defensive group. Then on offense, we know how John Moran plays, we talked

about it earlier. We know how Desmond Bane plays. He's your traditional five out or i should say modern five out offensive player in the sense that he's constantly coming off of screening actions as a threat to score, but really good at making the reads out of it. Like when the screen defender pops up, he's gonna drop it off.

When people help from the weak side, he can make those kickout pass He's very good at like driving past the rim and shooting those like kind of drifting scoop shots up off the glass right like they're just we know how those guys function. But Marcus Smart is the

connective piece. He's the one that makes everything work in terms of like bridging that gap between the attention that Desmond Band and John Morant garner and play finishing, whether that's hitting John Morant or Jared Jackson on rolls or shooters in spot up situations. In between that Marcus Smart as your advantage extender. He's the guy that can catch and make that next read, or drive that close out and make that next decision that turns a good shot

into a great shot. I again, we haven't seen anywhere near as much of it as we'd like, but I like that core a lot. I think it works. And I know that the Marcus Smart injuries are piling up and it's been a little frustrating. But if you can get to the point where he's healthy for an extended amount of time and we get a long look at that group, I think they're gonna win a lot of games. Lots of guys have been stepping up with the injuries,

like Scotty Pippen. Junr. Has been getting a lot of burn and pouring in eleven points and six assists per game on fifty one percent shooting and forty percent from three. But I think the most impressive thing that Scotty Pippen is doing is changing the like kind of the pace of the game through his ball pressure. Like when he comes in, he just starts picking up guy's full court starts poking at the basketball. This is something he's done

consistently throughout this season. He's been doing it to Orlando in their guards. He did it to Damian Lillard last night and like straight up like like was giving Damian Lillard fits in the bench groups with that in that particular game, Like that's been a really useful pick up for them. Santi al Domo we talked about earlier, just a classic off ball score. He's giving fourteen points on

sixty three percent true shooting. Jalen Wells has been playing a lot with the injuries to the guards, and he's just bringing aggressive three point shooting like he's just and he's been missing some of the ones when he's guarded, but he's been hitting most of the ones when he's open or when he's off the dribble. The big thing

there is like he's being guarded like a shooter. His aggressive three point shooting provides spacing that goes beyond even what the shooting percentage says as far as the bigs go. Zach Edies off to a weird start, like he hasn't been able to make his hook shot. He's just one for ten on hook shots. That has obviously limited his effectiveness in the post, and the team hasn't defended well with him on the floor. But I don't think we've had nearly a large enough sample of him with the

actual core of this team. And in the Orlando game, he started with the starters and they got off to a really good start. So like I would want to see a little bit more before we jump to any conclusions with Zach Edy and Zakid's going to make more than ten percent of his hook shots in the long run. And then Jay Huff he's played so well to start Deer,

he got himself a new contract. He's shooting fifty percent from three, He's converting spot up possessions at one point five to three points per possession in the early going. That's obviously very good. And the main thing with him is his mobility has been a differentiator, cutting along the baseline and running in transition and just like out running other bigs, which is ironic for a guy who's as big as he is, but he's done a lot of

damage this season as a cutter and in transition. Overall metrics from Memphis their twelfth in offense, sixteenth in defense, thirteenth and net rating and tenth and rebounding, so a lot of middle of the pack stuff there, But again that data is being influenced a lot by injuries, so

not too much to take out of that. On the Bucks front, they're bad everywhere right now twenty fourth and offense twenty fourth and defense twenty eight in net rating and twenty eighth in rebounding in their one and four start. We'll get into some of the basketball details later, but like everything starts with this team with their willingness to

compete right now, they look lifeless. And when you're older and slower already just in terms of the personnel that you have compared to the rest of the league, you have to make up for it by being an effort execution team. You have to because if like the young if the faster, the younger, faster team also plays much harder than you and is much more smarter in discipline, you're just gonna get your butt kicked every single night.

And that's basically what's happening right now. They're not just losing, they're getting ran off the floor in a lot of these games like this is this is this is really really ugly, and like the effort and focus level with this team is embarrassing. Their transition defense, they have bad floor balance. Every time they gave up a dunk against Memphis.

I think it was the Santiel Dama on a made layup by Damian Lillard, where as Dame was driving everybody who was sunk into the corners and was below the foul line, and it's like, what are you doing. You're never going to get a like you're never going to get stops in transition if you don't have guys above the break that actually get back on defense, that's just undisciplined basketball. That's sloppy, right, But even then it's like,

guys aren't sprinting. I had a coach when I was in college who always used to talk about like your first two steps being super important in transition, Like you when you turn your body and get your momentum going from scratch. Once you get running, you can kind of ride that wave back and then it's all about just

your transition defense principles. But like if you jog your first step or if you hesitate for a second, you're dead to rights against these fast teams, especially when you're on the road and they're playing in front of their home crowd, all juiced up with energy, and so it's like bad floor balance, guys not running back and then missing basic execution details, like the only two things that really matter and transition defense is take away the rim

and take away and stop the ball. If you can stop the ball and take away the rim, you'll at least force them to make a jump shot. And when guys are sprinting up the floor into jump shots, might it might get one point one points per attempt, and yeah, you're you're gonna have stretches where maybe they hit a couple of threes on you, and it can get and they can go on a little bit of a run. But like really bad transition defenses, they give up lots

of dunks, and that's where it can get. That's where it can become problematic, Like you have to at least if your transition defense is compromised, make them make a jump shot. Make them make a jump shot, and at automatically you'll improve your transition defense by limiting their efficiency in those situations. And they're just they're not stopping the ball.

That was a huge problem against Memphis, like straight up just not stopping the ball as guys were dribbling up the floor and getting where they wanted to go, and then in those transition situations, not protecting the rim, and they were giving up cutters along the baseline for easy basket. So like they've been one of the worst transition defenses

in the league. I don't know how they're gonna fix that problem until they start competing, because I mean, that's like the bare minimum is give a shit, then you can work on the execution pieces, and like none of that's there right now, and it doesn't look good. They're on ball defense is terrible. Pick and roll ball handlers are getting one point one to one points per shot attempt against them. That's dead last in the entire NBA.

They brought in Gary Trent Junior into lawn Wright specifically to help with that, and so far they've only gotten worse. Gary Trent was straight up awful against John Moran last night. I know it's a tough matchup, but like he didn't do anything to make him feel uncomfortable. They've in a bottom ten ISO defense as well. They're not forcing any turnovers. It's just they're not getting anything out of their ball pressure in on ball defense. Their help side defense guys

are sinking in the paint when it's completely unnecessary. We talked about that earlier with Bobby Portis. You have brook Lopez and Giannis and Tanakumpo down there. You do not need to pack the the the paint with guys that need to be guarding shooters out on the perimeter. Again, Bobby Portis is the main culprit here, but it's everybody. I've seen everybody in their role player corep make that

specific mistake. Again, Like, if brook Lopez is in a drop coverage and he can reasonably protect with the role man, you do not need to be digging down from the

weak side and giving away easy kickout threes. Their defensive rebounding statistically is okay, like they're giving up the ninth fewest offensive rebounds per game, but again, when you factor in they have such a massive frontline, the problem there is they're still giving away about a half dozen types of offensive rebounds a game that are long three point shot rebounds that come out towards the foul line area, and they're just not crashing from the corners. And that's

where Dame has had an issue there. Gary Trent's been losing a lot of fifty to fifty balls to start this year like that. He's supposed to be a more athletic version of what they had in that position last year. Like they're just not competing enough again in these like loose ball situations. They're losing on the margins every single night, and that just puts them at a massive disadvantage. On offense,

it really is mostly just extremely poor shooting. Like they're just one for thirteen on unguarded attempts in the first half last night against Memphis. That's always going to give you some issues. They're shooting just twenty nine percent total on all catch and shoot jump shots this year, so below thirty percent on catch and shoot jump shots. That's tough. Only the Spurs have been worse last year. They were top ten in that category with basically the same roster.

I mean Malik Beasley. I would say Malik Beasley in the aggregate aggregate has been a better shooter than Gary Trent junior. But Gary Trent shot just as well as Malik Beasley last year, and he should shoot better than he's been shooting. A lot of guys are just shooting really really poorly. That tends to influence other things in the game, right, Like basketball is a we talked about basketball as a rhythm sport all the time, everything kind of

feeds into the next thing in line. And so like you can imagine a scenario where it's like you run offense and you get a wide open three and the guy misses it and it's a long rebound. They get it, they sprint it down your throat and they get a dunk because you're not running back on defense. Then you run up the floor again, you run another play and you generate another wide open three, and that one misses two, but maybe it's a better rebound, and so you're actually

able to get back and set your defense. But your point of attack defense is so bad that the ball screen just generates another wide open look and they score again, and then you go down, you generate another wide open look. Like it just kind of snowballs. The body language gets bad, guys are less willing to compete because they can feel the game slipping away, and it just kind of like snowballs into a massive problem, right, And so like that kind of stuff I think could turn around just by

some shots going in. You imagine the exact same situation, wide open look. This time it goes in. Gary Trent just hits the shot that he's been missing all season. Now you have a chance to set your defense. Gary Trent feels better about himself because he just hit a shot. Now he's really getting into the ball. You defend a little bit better in your ball screen. You get a stop, Now you get a rebound, you go back down the other end. Now you're starting to build that snowball in

your direction. That's that rhythm and momentum battle in basketball games. And just you missing a bunch of wide open and looks is certainly going to affect that. And so again it doesn't look good. There's a lot of bad body language. Dame in particular looks super disengaged on both ends. He's obviously just an awful defensive player, but he's also shooting poorly.

He's just six for thirty three from three in his last four games, and like last night, it was like one of the worst body language games I've seen from him. He looked like he just didn't want to play. He didn't really look to score with the starting group. And then he's just getting picked up full court by Scotti Pippen Junior and he's just like fumbling the ball everywhere and just really really sloppy. Their bench is giving them nothing like Bobby Portis is cold to start the year,

and he's a damaging defender. Pat Content is getting targeted every single time he's on the floor and he's not hitting threes. But I do want to give this a larger sample before we jump to any conclusions, because like, if they start hitting their open looks, that could just start making everything easier for them. But it doesn't get

any easier from here. They have the Calves twice after this, the Calves that are an excellent defensive team that forces a ton of turnovers and is always looking to run the floor in transition, Like, the Calves are a real bad matchup for the Bucks. They initiate a ton of offense from the guard position, and you're talking about the worst pick and roll ball handler defense in the league. Like,

there's a chance that the Calves win both of those games. Now, the first one is in Milwaukee, and so like that's the one you got to target. If you're Milwaukee, you have to beat the Calves at home. You have to rise your home crowd to just get some momentum there and see if you can't figure it out. But like there's that that's two really tough games, Okay, then you

play the Jazz, that's probably a win. But then it's the Nicks and the Celtics, So like, there's a chance if they get beat by the Calves twice, there's a chance they could be sitting at two and eight by the time they get through their first ten games. That is why they have to get their shit together. That

could be absolute crisis mode. Then you're looking at like, I mean, I saw a clip of Yiannis like sitting along the baseline in garbage time yesterday, Like you want to try to avoid that sort of storm cloud kind of forming over the team because that could be a runaway freight train in no time. But again, let's give it more, Let's give it a larger sample. All of these teams have only played, you know, basically a half dozen games or less, so let's give them some time

to figure their shit out. All right, let's get to the mailbag. Hi, Jason Big, thanks for the great content. For a relatively new NBA follower like me, your videos are really helpful in understanding the context of each playing situation. Wanted to ask, what is the ceiling and the floor this season for the Warriors in your opinion? So they're so good in terms of their depth of quality role players that always play hard and fly around on defense. That and they're so well coached that I think their

floor that's been the biggest change for me. Like I coming into the season viewed them as like in that like nine to ten seed range, and now I think like the absolute basement for them is like a home home court playing game. So like I think you're looking at like seven seed as the bottom, Like they're just gonna win so many regular season games on the strength of their depth of talent and how hard they play.

The NBA just has First of all, you have these like ten teams at the bottom that the Warriors should beat basically every time they play because they're sloppy and bad, and the Warriors are deep, well coached and play hard. Right. Then you have the next twenty teams, and there are a lot of serious teams, and they're like dead serious teams. Teams that are in that like top five to six group, that are super sharp and that have lots of talent.

They're gonna give the Warriors some issues. That's something I do believe because of their lack of firepower. But in that next fifteen teams there's a lot of teams like the Bucks, like the Lakers, you know, like the Sixers. There's the Suns are kind of in this group too, where it's like they have some older veteran guys, their effort inconsistency of execution could be an issue with them

throughout the season. And those are the groups of teams that I think the Warriors will fare pretty well against, even though like they might struggle against a team like that in a playoff series where the firepower becomes a bigger issue. In the night and night out schedule of their regular season, they're just pain in the ass speed and execution and ball pressure and all the shit that they do is gonna just cause them to upset those

teams a lot. And so, like, I really do think they're gonna win a good amount of regular season games. So I'd say at this point I would be surprised if the Warriors didn't finish above the play in just simply because of that super super high floor. But if I had to choose like their absolute floor with this group, if they made absolutely no trade, I think we're looking at like that seven to eight seed as the bottom.

But I do believe that they'll finish above the play in as far as their ceiling goes, it's entirely dependent

on whether or not they can make a trade. Like I know, Warriors, I know there is a segment of Warriors fans who disagrees with me about this and thinks that the Warriors arebstantially better than they're kind of like roster on paper looks, but like I'm of the opinion that if the Warriors ended up in let's say a five or six seed, they had to go on the road and win a playoff series against one of the

top four teams in the West. I don't think they could so, like I think as I think, this current roster kind of has a first round exit as a ceiling. But in order to reach their ultimate ceiling, it all comes down to what kind of player they can get back into trade. And then two, what level can Steph

Curry get to this year? If Steph Curry can get to the level that he was at in twenty twenty two, or maybe not quite that high, because I'm not sure he can get there anymore, but if you can get close, like if you can like legit play at a top ten level all season and you bring in a high powered number two. There's so much good in terms of the role players and the execution and the experience and the defensive ceiling with Draymond Green that I do think that there is a chance for them to get out

of the Western Conference. And then again, like get put a bunch of a ris scrappy defenders against Boston that can cover ground in space, and maybe Steph reaches a crazy level and he gets good contributions from his number two. You have a puncher's chance there, right, But like, in order to get there, they've got to have that ceiling, and that ceiling is dependent on Steph and who you

get as the number two. Next question, what archetype of player should Golden State target in a consolidation trade to take them over the top. Let's take a look at the strengths and weaknesses of the roster. Okay, they're super deep at guard and they're deep on the wing, right, Like that's that's that is a position group where there's not really much opportunity for anybody to play anyway. Right, they have plenty of athleticism, they have plenty of defense.

The main position groups where they're a little weak is like at that like power forward spot for small ball groups. Right, Like when Draymond's at center, it's like, okay, there's cominga, but like we we have our question marks about cominga in high leverage situations against the best teams in the league. And then Kyle Anderson is like your other option there. And then when they go big, like do they have

a big enough center? Do they have like a big enough center to actually give themselves an ability to hang with some of the huge front lines in the league, teams like Denver, teams like Minnesota, teams like the Lakers, so on and so forth. Right, So, like it's like a backup center that is a legitimate big body that they can play, and then a ford that can score. And so that to me is what I would really be targeting, is a ford that can score the basketball

from the perimeter. This is why I was so high on Lori Markenen for them over the summer. Like, I don't think you want another skill guard next to Steph because then you run the trouble of like if I have Steph and another skill guard, I'm not super athletic in the backcourt anymore. I like those athletes that the Warriors are constantly playing at the two and three. The two and three between Pods and Wiggins and the Anthony Melton and Gary Payton, like all of those athletes that

they have at the two and three. You're golden. Ideally, you want a forward that can score the shit out of the basketball. There's a bunch of options there that could be available this year, like Laurie Markin and I don't think he becomes available for trade until the deadline, but he's a potential option even though you missed out on him the summer. There's Jeremy Grant, There's Brandon Ingram, there could be Jimmy Butler. Like there are a bunch

of guys that could become available in that grouping. Now, imagine a scenario orre you make that type of deal, right, you trade depth and draft compensation for one of those big, versatile scoring forwards. Now you can imagine a scenario where the and let's just say they managed to pull off a trade for a big bodied center. I don't think that.

I don't think that's as complicated of a deal. I think you're looking I don't think you're looking for a you know, a starting level player, because I think ultimately this team goes down with Draymond at the five. I mean not in the large sample eating regular season innings, but when push comes to shove in a playoff setting, you're going down with Draymond Graan at the five. I

felt the same way about the Lakers. It's like everyone wants to put Ad next to a center, and that's cute and all, but like, get a bench center of whatever you want to do to improve that situation. But when push comes to shove, you're going down with Ad at the five. Like you're you're playing your You need speed. It's it's just the way the league is. You need speed, you need to cover ground, you need to play five out, you need to create space. So you can imagine a scenario.

Let's say it's Steph Curry and whichever two guard Steve Kerr feels like playing in those high leverage situations, whether that's Brandon Pajemski, maybe that ends up being a Gary Paige, Maybe that ends up being a d Anthony Melton, right like, maybe that ends up being a Buddy Healed. But then three, I think I think Andrew Wiggins kind of is just the ideal three for this team. He's you can score the ball, he can defend the other team's best player,

can do all that stuff. Then you imagine Raymond Grand at the five, and then you have this big scoring forward basically, just imagine a better, more reliable veteran version, a grown man version of Jonathan Kaminga at the four. That's where it gets exciting, because now as I look at that group, like, let's say that at the two, we are looking at Brandon Pajemski and Andrew Wiggins at two and three. I've got Brandon Pajemski and Andrew Wiggins can

guard the other the other team's best two perimeter players. Right, I've got Draymond Green anchoring things at the five, and then Steph and whoever it is that you get at the four can bring the real offensive firepower piece. And then you've got this bench group that has Buddy Healed, Andy Anthony Melton, and Gary Payton, was this Moody whoever, John mccamingo, whoever it is that you have remaining after that trade with Kevon Looney, kind of anchoring that as

like a bench center. You have all of that there or whatever center you get back in that deal as Draymond's backup there's all of this potential for like piecing together a useful bench group because you're so damned deep and you have so many good basketball players that you can fit into that spot, right And so like that to me is like the direction that I see this going is like a forward that can really score the basketball that I think is so important for this team.

One is reliable backup scoring to Steph. Two being able to actually generate offense against the best defenses so you don't have that problem you had against the Clippers, or you go up against another team that has a bunch of fast guards and so suddenly they're fast guards can't

slat your fast guards, and you're not able to generate shots. Right, Like, a big scoring forward is a great counter to that, because then even if you run into a team like the Clippers that are doing a bunch of switching and they have a bunch of small guys, you have a guy who can dump the ball down to like ideally, like ideally it'd be Jonathan Kaminga in like four years, that would be like the perfect guy for that spot. But you don't have four years because Steph is getting older.

And so again I'm always looking at this through the context of like the reality that the Warriors have to make some attempts to try to contend with Steph. I know there's a kind of the schism that's happening with the Warriors fans where there's like a segment of Warriors fans it's like, I would rather, you know, kind of just stay status quo and try to make something work with the young players. Here's what I think is gonna happen.

If you do that, you're gonna be mediocre in the short term because you don't have enough firepower, and they're gonna be mediocre in the long term because none of these young players are superstars. A lot of them are good. I think Jonathan Kmica can be a star. I think there's all star potential there. Here's what Jonathan King is not. Jonathan Kming is not Anthony Edwards, Shake Gildess, Alexander Jannison, Tenakumpo, Nicola Joka, Luka Dancic. He is not going to be

one of the very best players in the league. You are a reputable franchise in this league because you had one of those guys. You had Steph Curry for his entire career, and he won you four championships. He is the guy that gave you that potential. As soon as he's gone, that potential is gone. You can pretty quickly become a team that's just kind of interesting and exciting and has a lot of young players. But it's like, who's the guy, right, who's the exciting piece that turns

all of this around? And there's just unless you had that, that would be the one thing that would change my mind. If there was one of these guys, if Moody or Kaminga or Prizemski or Trace Jackson Davis had true MVP potential, then I would totally understand your guys's point about not wanting to cash in things for this year. But you can either choose to be mediocre in the future or

mediocre now and mediocre in the future. Or you can move assets to try to improve your ceiling now, or you can move Steph and try to be better in the future, which you're not gonna do because he's the heart and soul of the franchise. So like, mediocre now, mediocre in the future, or give up some of your future flexibility and asset trove to try to drive something that gives you a chance to contend with this group. That's kind of my outlook on the Warriors through the

early part of the season. At this rate, would it surprise you if Ryan Dunn plays himself into the sun starting lineup. Lineups with Dunn have a plus sixteen net rating so far. It's early, but if he's making the long ball, he's exactly what they need. Their traditional starting five just seems to be too flawed. I think he should start. I don't think it's gonna happen. And the main reason why it's not going to happen is this Highest Jones thing, which there's a politics element. He took

a discount basically to get a starting spot. I don't. I've been from the beginning of this process. Do not understand the Ties Jones thing. Like, you're right, they struggled with ball pressure against Minnesota. You're right. There are times that Bradley Beal, Kevin Durant and Devin Booker struggled to like get the defense in rotation and like just trust

each other to play drive and kick basketball. Those things are true, But by far the biggest issue with this team is there like physical element, like their ability to win rock fights, their ability to handle just ugly basketball, and so I always thought that going the direction of someone like Ryan Dunn like putting if you have you know, Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, Bradley Beal on the floor, and you have a center of some kind, because that's the thing.

I don't think they're going to start Ryan Downe at center long term. I think that would just be too much to ask Kevin Durant defensively to help Brian down on that back line with like just size and physicality. But like, I think we'll see some more small ball groups with Ryan Dunn and Ties Jones both out there. But in terms of the starters, if it's gonna be

the three stars in a center, your options there are like put another guard out there, or put a big forward that doesn't much a dirty work and can shoot threes, and so like I totally would go that direction. I would just start Booker, bokd Ryan Dunn, and then whichever centers not currently soiling himself like the Sun centers have been most of the year. I do think their centers will play better over time. Like Nurkis is just playing really the shitty right now, but I think he'll get

I think he'll be better than he has been. But like, the the thing with the Tyes Jones thing is like he does help you a little bit with managing ball pressure and managing the flow of the game, but he does not help you on defense. And I also do believe in diminishing returns off the ball, and so like there's just not that big of a gap off the ball between Tis Jones and some of these other role players that they have on the bench. And so my thing is like, by the way that's manifested in the

numbers for all the talk about Tis Jones. And I saw another article it this morning where people are acting like it was the most magical decision ever. They've been better without Ties Jones this year. They're negative with ties Jones on the floor, and they're like plus eleven net with ties Jones off the floor. And again that's small sample size that'll leaven out a little bit. I do think they'll have moments where they look great with Ties Jones.

But to me, that was like there was a small hole that you could plug there with Tyas Jones, and you chose to, but there's a giant hole, which is like your inability to hang in the physical areas of the game. Ryan Dunn is a massive like like he's Ryan Dunn. Developing this quickly into a useful offensive player is one of the biggest swing factors for a franchise that I've seen relative to what the deal seemed like at the time, which is just a mid first round

pick in recent NBA history. Like this is crazy, Like the Sun's got a like a wrecking ball of a defensive forward that is knocking down three. You say they got him in the tail like the latter portion of the first round, Like that is crazy, guys, that is crazy. That is like a soon super fortunate thing that happened

to this team. And like I just I in the long run would like to see the Sun's gear more towards like Hey, Kevin Durant, Bradley Beal, and Devin Booker, how about you guys figure out ball pressure and actually just hold yourselves accountable as decision makers to consistently make the right reads, get the defense in rotation, and play drive and kick basketball. And that way, Ryan Dunn can be out there helping you kick everyone's ass in the

rock fight areas of the game. And I think you're gonna do a lot more winning, So I'm hoping that's the direction they go in the long run. But again, they're four and one, so there's that too. The Cavs have been debatably the most debatably the most impressive team in the league this year, even with Donovan Mitchell playing well below his standards. What is their ceiling with him

playing like Donovan Mitchell? So this is the thing I talked about this yesterday, Like everything with Kenny Atkinson, has been about trying to improve their play on the margins, right, like forcing more turnovers, getting out in transition a ton, just in general, like hunting transition opportunities as much as possible, doing more switching. All these little things that they've done

that have helped them build advantage on the margins. But one of the things I talked about in yesterday's show is when you get to the later rounds of the playoffs, you inevitably run into other good teams, Like when you get to the conference finals and finals, or hell, let's just call it the conference semis and on. When you get to the top eight teams in the league, most of them are well coached, most of them are disciplined,

most of them have good habits. Most of them also do their best to win on the margins, and so suddenly it kind of turns into this, like how is your half court offense versus our half court defense? And how is your half court defense versus our half court offense? Right?

That is where Donovan Mitchell is the ultimate ceiling razer. Right, Like, if you can get Donovan Mitchell playing at or near the superstar level, and then the modest improvements we've seen, like Darius Garland played one of his best games as a pro the other day against the Knicks, that's exciting. Evan Mobley is having a really interesting start to the

offensive season, getting more on ball reps. If you can piece all of that together into a higher quality half court offense, that is where the ceiling lies for this Cliff and Cavaliers team. Why can't everyone just reacts to the career Wenby is having instead of reacting to the career they think Wenby is going to have. He's not anywhere near anywhere close to the top twenty five players in the league right now. Some of y'all are high on your own predictions. This is a confusing one to me.

Victor Weben Yama just had a twenty five five, five, five and five game last night, which I think has only been has only been done a handful of times

in the history of the NBA. It also had only been a handful of games, and over the tail end of last year, he was like literally awesome and turned a bad Spurs team into a net positive when he was on the floor over the tail end of the year, Like, I'm not going to just sit here and like rewrite the history of Victor Wembenyama over a bad week and a half, Like, yeah, I'm disappointed in how he's looked, talked a bunch of shit this summer about no one as hard as he does, and he came out playing

like shit, it's not a good look. But it's been a week and a half. Let's give him some time, guys, it'll be I would imagine that we're gonna see a lot more of like what we saw last night from Victor women Yam in the long run. The anticipated Luca Shake Gilless Alexander MVP race this year hasn't fully manifested itself yet. Have you noticed anything with either of them that's worth monitoring beyond shooting luck Luca got hurt to

start training camp. Anytime you go away from the game for a while and then come back, it takes a while to get your legs back underneath you. He's clearly just like playing his way into shape right now. He also, more or less in terms of physical conditioning, looks like where he was last year, and so Luca just has

a tendency to play his way into shape. And so that's always the thing with Luca is like, is he gonna play his way into shape before he gets banged up, because if he gets banged up, that's where it can start to snowball on him a little bit. But like him getting hurt to start camp is really the only reason that went the way it did on the shave front. He's really just trying to build out a part of

his game that's new. He's attempting more than twice as many pull up three point shots this year as he did last year, and so as he's working, that's investing. He knows that if there was a must win playoff game tomorrow, Shay's probably going to not take seven pull

up threes a game. Right He's trying to invest in that now so that he has that in his bag when he gets to the postseason this year, I would imagine that Luca and SGA will be our front runners for MVP in the long run, given the plethora of picks, depth of Kurt roster, and the need to pay young stars in the not too distant future. If you were the Thunder, would you consolidate assets sooner than later? It's tough to rock about this sturdy, but they won't slash

can't play everybody. This is where you got to look at the difference between deadline deals and deals over the summer. You're right if you make some sort of giant deal over the course of this season that has the potential to rock the boat, so to speak, and mess with the rock solid chemistry that this team has. Right, deals over the summer though, that's just part about being a

professional athlete. And then, no matter what happens, if guys come in and out of the door over the summer, you have the ability to from the start of training camp re establish your culture and move on, which, by the way, they've done with Alex Crusoe in Isaiah Hartenstein

this year. Right, So like the offseason is the best time to make deals, right, here's the only thing that's tricky though, There is a certain amount of like, yeah, you do have a lot of talent now, and you might not have as much talent in the future, and you might lose some of these assets for nothing, right, So that's where you have to make a call based on this season. That's what deadline deals are for. When we get to February, Isaiah Hartenstein will hopefully have returned

and played a good amount of basketball. You'll have a lot of exposure to Alex Caruso. You'll get to see where Chet Holmgren is, Like Chet Holman has been playing like one of the top fifteen players in the league to start the year. By the way, side note, I had a lot of people upset, like I do player rankings in the summer as like a very in depth look at how I expect things to go this season once we start playing basketball. I'm only going to talk

about the way guys are actually playing. Like you're right, I had Victor wemen Yama ranked eighteenth and Chet wasn't in my top twenty five. Chet's playing better basketball than him to start this year. I'm trying to acknowledge that, Like the purpose of these shows is to react to the basketball that's actually happening. It's very different than in the summer. In the summer, everything is very big picture, it's theoretical, it's a lot of that kind of stuff.

Right during the season. I really am only interested in covering what's actually happening in these games. And so like when I talk about, oh, this guy's playing at a top ten level, this guy's playing at a top fifteen level, I don't care about my power rankings in the past

or player rankings. I'm talking about what's actually happening. We're talking about the actual games that Like, there's games on tonight that no one's gonna care about what the player rankings were back in August in this particular game, games that are happening tonight. Okay, so like that's just a little side Dia tribe. But anyway, on the thunderfront, Chet's been playing at a top fifteen level to start this year.

Let's see if it lasts. If we get to February and CHET seems kind of limited and the stuff at the start of the year was kind of fluky, and there appears to be a substantial hole somewhere on the roster. This is a team with real championship potential, you kind of owe it to your team to make the investment to try to give them what they need to win. Like last year, they were just kind of a cute story in a lot of ways. They were one seed. I never thought they were gonna win multiple playoff rounds,

and they did it. They lost in the second round. They actually impressed me by pushing Dallas the way that they did in that second round. Series this year is real. They came into the year as one of the biggest championship favorites. They have huge pressure and expectations. Shake kills. Alexander is in his late twenties now, like this is winning time for the Oklahoma City Thunder. And so when you get to February, if you sit there and you're like, I like our point of attack defense. I like the

depth and versatility of our point of attack defense. I like our defensive front line. I like our defensive versatility. In terms of the scheme, I think our shot creation is good. Shay Jalen and Chets seem totally up for it. We have tons of shooting. I like our transition speed.

We're holding up well on the glass. Our size is good, like if you look at it and you go, everything's good, then yeah, you don't make a deal, yeah, like because it's not worth messing with the chemistry, right, But yeah, if you get to February and it's like, all right, everything looks good. But like this Isaiah Hartenstein thing at the five next to Chet really isn't solving that problem at the power forward spot. Guys, we got to go get a power forward. You know what, we talked about

this forever. We never really thought it was worth pulling the trigger. I think I think we should pull the trigger on Lorii market In. Let's just go let's just call Danny Ainge and let's offer him everything, and let's try to make this thing happen, right, Like, because at that point, you have a gaping hole in your roster and you have real championship pressure and expectations, and yeah, you've got some assets that are burning a hole in

your pocket. You better do something with them, right, and you take the risk of whatever could happen with team chemistry at that point. But like that, that is a decision you make in February, and you only do it if you feel like you have a big hole that you have to fix. In order to actually reach the promised land in the playoffs. Do you believe the Orlando Magic can stay around five hundred while Pala while Pallo is out and who do you believe needs to step

up in doing so? So? Yes? I think they can. Main reason why is they're a really good defense and rebounding team. That's like another extremely high floor concept. Right. If you defend hard and you rebound well, you're going to be in a lot of basketball games from there. It's just about the fact that you still have a high level shot creator. In this case, Franz. Franz Wagner

is the guy that's got to step up. If Franz Wagner can maintain the high offensive floor, which, by the way, he's been shooting the ball really well to start this year. He's such a gifted playmaker at the forward spot. If Franz can be a decent offensive engine and you defend well and you rebound well, you got a chance to stay around five hundred in that Eastern Conference schedule. Should

we have seen this coming with the Bucks? They were a mess since the Dock hiring, and with their effort this year, it seems more like a continuation rather than a new issue. Is this core really lost in needing a change or is this something that can be rectified

by playing more. I kind of I didn't see this bad of a start this year, but like I did talk a lot this summer about how the Bucks were below fifty wins last year and a week Eastern Conference, despite the fact that Damon Honest both played seventy three games, and there was a good segment of Bucks fans that were like all over my case about that, because oh, we're gonna big bounce back year, We're gonna win fifty

something games. We're a top tier championship contender. And I just was like, if you were, you would have won more with Damon Giannis last year than you did. And I'm not talking about like, oh, they should have won sixty games last year, but they didn't even get to fifty. Like if they I would have been more on board with that, if they were like a fifty three fifty four win team last year, and you're like, Okay, we're a fifty three to fifty four win team. We're adding

in another training camp with Dame. Dame's in a better place emotionally and mentally. We made these roster upgrades, Let's go do it. I was kind of under the impression that they would be more or less the same team that they were last year, which is a mediocre regular season team that has somewhat of a high playoff ceiling because of Dame and Giannis. They even worse than that

to start this year. But mostly that comes down to they're shooting the ball like shit, and as they're shooting the ball like shit, it's exacerbating their transition defense issues, and it's manifesting in a lot of bad body language and the vibes are really bad. So, like, I think it's way too early to completely write the Bucks off because they might just start making shots and that might just snowball into a bunch of good for them. But

right now, definitely a bad look. But I will say I didn't understand any of the Bucks fans that had like really high expectations for this particular team. I just didn't see where they were getting that sense of optimism from. Do you think that Lakers might have a legitimate chance to go to the finals this season, or at least the second round of the playoffs. I don't think they have any chance to go to the finals. Is currently constructed.

They just are too slow on the perimeter. This is a big thing that I've been talking about for years now, Like your ability to move and cover ground on the perimeter is one of the most important parts of the game, right, Like, that's how you guard, that's how you pressure the ball, that's how you chase shooters around, That's how you get up and down the floor in transition. That's how you generate dribble penetration, which is one of the big sources

of wide open three point looks. Like perimeter athleticism is one of the most important elements of modern NBA basketball, and the Lakers just don't they're athletic. Perimeter players are either rookies like Dalton connector Brownie James, or a guy that is super young and inexperienced like Max Christi, who has been a disaster on offense to start the year. Right, So, like, those are your athletes at the guard position. The Lakers are actually really strong in so many ways on their roster.

They're huge, The Ruy Lebron ad front line is awesome. They're excellent scoring in the paint. Big shout out to Lebron James and Anthony Davis. There. Their defensive front line when they need to be is really good. When when Lebron is engaged in flying around, when Ruey is engaged, when Ad is being ad their defensive front line is great. I think they have plenty of shooting. I think they have plenty of ball handling. I think they have plenty

of playmaking talent. They have all of those boxes checked, and then they just have like an empty box for perimeter athleticism, and it's just like a death sentence for this particular team. And that's why that's why I keep talking about them needing to upgrade that D'angela Russell spot into an athletic guard. As far as their ceiling goes, that's really like that's the first got to do something

to upgrade the perimeter athleticism. After that, it's like Lebron and Ad right, Like, can Lebron get like if you can do that, if you can bring in a real athlete at the two for d Low and you get the same Lebron you got last year in the playoffs, and you get the same Anthony Davis who got last year in the playoffs, and to start this year, and you have JJ Reddick adding that focus and attention to detail over the course of the season so that the

established championship habits. Now we're talking about a team that I think can win the conference and who knows what would happen in the NBA Finals, But like the lebron hasn't been very good to start this year, that's a little tricky. And then that guard athleticism piece is just a huge problem. And so again I think that we're gonna learn Again, it's super early in the season still, so I think we're gonna learn a lot more about

the Lakers in the long run. But no matter what happens, because I think I think JJ Reddick's is really good, and I think that this roster is pretty good, and so I think that they're gonna win a lot of games no matter what. But like they could be, let's say we fast forward and they're you know, twenty and twelve.

You know, once we get through the first thirty two games of the season, I will still be sitting here at twenty and twelve saying this is cute and all, but they're not going to be able to beat four good teams without real guard athleticism, which they don't have right now. So That's kind of where I'm at. Do you think the way Ruey is playing can be suitable

next to Lebron if they upgrade the two? Also, do you think the Lakers one through four shooting pack a switching package will change once they get a defensive minded too. So a couple things. So, first of all, I think Ruey has been much better this year than he was towards the tail end of last year. He had a really rough playoff series against Denver. A bad matchup too, because it's Michael Porter Junior as a movement shooter, and his biggest weakness on defense right now is tracking shooters

on the perimeter. But here's the thing, excuse me, if you turnd Lo into a real perimeter athlete. Now, I think Austin Reeves is actually a good perimeter defender, He's just miscast as a lead perimeter defender. You can't have him guarding Donovan Mitchell or the best perimeter player on the other team every night. He needs to be guarding the second best perimeter player. So at that point, if you have two of those guys, because right now you also have to hide d Lo, that's the fucking problem.

So like, if you find a way to where you have a guard at the two that can guard the other team's best guard, and you have a guard at the one in Austin that can guard the second best perimeter player or the movement shooter. Chances are you'll find somebody for Ruiy to guard that kind of fits more into his skill set. But like everything comes down to the upgrade at the two for that specific reason. But I've been happy with Rui. I think he's a rebounding better.

His decision making is getting crisper. He brings all of that waves of athleticism that the Lakers can bring from their front line. He's off to a good start this year. Three more, Hey Jason, do you think the Celtics can be stopped? And how high is their ceiling with chrisops Porzingis coming back? Love the show, Keep up the good work. The ceiling is enormous with this particular team. With chrisops Porzingis, he brings the rim protection that they don't have without him.

He brings the ability to attack switches on the other end with size, which is something they don't have without him. And then he's just like one of the better above the break shooting bigs that we have in the league. Right, So he's a huge ceiling raiser for them. How can they be stopped? It would require a team that can match them in perimeter speed, that can contain the ball, stagnate their offense, and at least allow your best player, whoever that is, to go toe to toe with Tatum

and Brown and hopefully out execute them. But that's only going to happen if you have such a strong defense that you can force Tatum and Brown to play a lot of one on one. That's going to require switching, right, So, any team that has five players that can all reasonably well guard on the perimeter, you start switching everything. If you switch everything, you shut down the Celtics pet actions. If you shut down the Celtics pet actions, you can make them play io ball. If you make them play

iceo ball, you might be able to outexecute them. The problem is you have to be There's a lot of different elements that it's actually very complicated, right, Like, the Celtics attack a lot of switching with inside seals right where they screen on the bottom side and slip into

the open end of the floor. So you have to be a switching team that has a good amount of physical size, and you have to be really sharp in terms of like little details like navigating those actions and getting out in front of them, in terms of like avoiding those inside seals. So like, there's so many different elements that go into it. It's so much easier said

than done. But if Boston loses this year, it will probably be to a team that can switch everything and has a lot of good perimeter defenders that will force Tatum and Brown to play a lot of one on one and that that team, the team that's beating Boston, would need to have a player that can outplay those

guys in slow down half court environments. Right now, the only roster I look at that I really think has a good chance to do it is Oklahoma City, And even then I would pick Boston, but at this point in time, we'll see how it goes over time. But they're the only team that I think can really defend, can get away with switching looks. And yeah, I do think that Shay is a better half initiator in the Tatum and Brown, so that would be the advantage for

Oklahoma City there. Once your take on the future of the Pelicans, the way I see it, the entire decade of rebuild and resources have led to such a whatever outcome, and it makes me wonder if they just end up the way they did at the end of the Eight Days. The problem is is the Zion the concept Zion is such a bad defensive player that you have to put an athletics center next to him that can anchor a defense.

But Zion at his best has always played with space as a driving kick player, and that's why they keep going away from their big looks. And that's why Larry Ants was so important to them last year. That's why youonas Valentiunis was off the floor in every big, high leverage moment like that. That's the main issue is like if you bring in a stretch five, a guy that spaces the floor for Zion, then you're not as good

defensively as you need to be. If you bring in the athletic center that can anchor a defense, then you don't have the benefit that comes from Zion and his driving kick potential. So it's kind of just like Zion's kind of like unique build making him a difficult player to build around. But I do want to see again,

guys don't over evaluate the Pelicans right now. They had I talked about this with the Lakers a lot of times in star trades, when you send out multiple good role players, you need your star to come in and play really well to justify it. Right, as are happening to the Lakers. They give up kuzmun KCP, they bring in Russell Westbrook. Russell doesn't play well. It looks really bad. Right in this case, you give up Dyson Daniels, you

give up Larry Nance Junr. You bring in to Jontey Murray, but now he's hurt, so you're not getting anything from him, and you've lost your depth and you're just not as good as your defensively, and so that's what ends up being the problem. And so let's give them some time to get healthy and see what they look like. All right. So that's gonna be it for today, guys. As always, sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. We'll be

back on Monday with Power Rankings. I sincerely appreciate you guys for rocking with me and I'll see you on Monday the volume. What's Up? Guys? As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us if you guys take a second and leave a rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.