Hoops Tonight - Curry & Warriors in "crisis mode," Giannis & Bucks big win, Donovan Mitchell trade?

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rematch the other night, which was highly entertaining. Not gonna talk about the basketball stealing shenanigans at the end, but there was a lot of interesting basketball to get into in that game. Then the Kings in the Thunder last night had the showdown of top tier young perimeter talent that the Kings ended up winning. We're gonna talk about that game from the perspective of both teams. Then the Cleveland Cavaliers have had a tough stretch of injuries injury news,

I should say coming out today. Darius Garland broke his jaw. Evan Mobley's having arthrosco. I think he's having some form of knee surgery. So the Cavs are now thrust into a position where they have some decisions to make. Because I want to talk about that a little bit. The Golden State Warriors now have negative odds to make the playoffs, which is super interesting. I want to dive into that

a little bit. And then, last but not least, at the end of the show, we're gonna do our first edition of a weekly MVP ladder that we're gonna start doing at the end of weeks so that we can kind of bounce around more to individual players and talk about how they're playing around the league. You guys are the drip before we get started. Subscribe to a brand new YouTube channel. I mean a lot to me if

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So if you guys remember the n Season tournament game, the Thursday night game last week, one of the ways that the Pacers were picking the Bucks apart at the end of the game was just bringing brook Lopez into pick and roll with Miles Turner, and when Miles Turner would come up into a high drop, it was an easy pocket pass where Miles Turner was finishing at the rim right when excuse me, when brook Lopez was in

his deeper drop. That was when Halliburton was getting downhill and making his floater and picking the team apart with his passing right when he was switching Tyres Aliburton was either driving right by him. It was even a big pull up jump shot that he hit at the end of the game over brook Lopez. He was just picking them apart by attacking with Miles Turner and pick and roll and taking advantage of brook Lopez in his lack

of foot speed. Right well, one of the adjustments the Bucks made in this game is they just put Giannis on Miles Turner, an adjustment I talked about a lot during that tournament as just a way to counter this specific Indiana pacers attack because, like Miles Turner had, Tyre's Haliburton pick and roll has been one of the most devastating actions in the league this year. They have other

actions that they run. They run guard screens, right, You're gonna see a lot of Tyre's Halliburton, a Buddy Heeled ghost screens and things like that, right, But their bread and butter is that Miles Turner pick and roll or pick and pop right, And in this particular case, by taking Giannis and putting him on Miles Turner, it allowed

them to aggressively switch those ball screens. You can tell right away from the opening tip and I clipped several examples of it and put it in a thread this morning and can find on my twitter feed at Underscore Jason lt. But Giannis was just aggressively switching. And again, there's different kinds of switching, right, Like there's a switch that's like a soft switch, where like you're taking on the new defensive assignment, but you're basically playing back and

waiting for them to kind of attack you. And then there's aggressive switching where as the player comes off the screen, he's kind of cut off guard by the fact that you're like coming up with ball pressure and he thinks he's gonna find an opening on the other side of that screen, but instead he's finding long arms in his face. Right early in that game, they forced a quick turnover by hitting Tyre Saliburn with one of those aggressive quick switches,

and then by putting brook Lopez on Obi Toppin. It opened up another set of problems for Indiana because one Milwaukee was kind of conceding the pick and pop three to Obi Toppin. And then when Obi Topan was rolling to the basket, he just doesn't have a lot of reps as like a pick and roll big man, right, and you could see plays where top would get the ball on the roll and he just wouldn't know how to navigate brook Lopez waiting for him at the rim. And so as a result of that, and then they

were doing a good job. They were doing a lot more switching in general, especially on guard to guard actions. They just kind of made it a lot harder for Indiana to get the openings that they typically get in

their offense. And then on the other end of the floor, Giannis goes for sixty four points and almost all in his bread and butter of the sixty four to thirty six of those points came in transition and in pick and roll, And again this is all about getting Yanis downhill towards the rim, because in pick and roll they were setting a lot of those ball screens pretty far away from the basket, and it was all geared around trying to get Yanni's downhill to where the guy that's

waiting for him is technically in position between Giannis and the rim, but he's got such a head of steam going that he's kind of slaloming around those guys and getting all the way to the basket for the easy buckets. And again, the pacers, they part of it is just

poor discipline. They're not a good help side team. A lot of it also, you know, some of it gets dressed up as schematics, like oh, they're chasing people off the three point line, and it's like, you know, what's a higher percentage shot than a three point shot even for a lead shooter. Is a wide open dunk for Giannis?

Like that's that's worth two points every single possession. I'm sorry, right, So, like some of that is I dislike that Indiana kind of plays that way, but it's It's about putting him into his into his advantage situations, which is getting downhill and taking advantage of the pacers weak help side. I did want to take a can to shout out Yanni's first footwork. I think we talk a lot about that. You know, Jannis is just like a bullyball bruiser, right.

And here's the thing. There are lots of really good athletes in the NBA, and for whatever reason, there are certain athletes that transcend everybody and are able to weaponize that in a way that you know, impacts winning at a much higher level. And then there are top tier athletes that just can't really put that together over the course of their careers. And you know, there are all

these different elements to athleticism that go under discuss. Like when it comes to Steph Curry, I don't think we talk enough about his stamina and just the simple fact that he's in such incredible shape and that he's constantly running around everywhere in the way that he will find openings just by capitalizing on those little bits of situation, like little tiny segments of possessions where a guy relaxes for two seconds and then Steph breaks open and he

kills you with the three right. Well, another very important part of athleticism is footwork, and footwork specifically is the best way for you to weaponize your athleticism because like this, if you are standing straight up with your feet together and I push you on the shoulder, you're just gonna fall over because you don't have a very strong base. Right. If your base is wide and your knees are bent a little bit and I shove you on the side, you're not going to fall over. That's a basic concept

as it relates to balance, right, But that's stationary. Now. Footwork is what allows you to stay balanced while you're making athletic moves in various directions, whether it's side steps, like for instance, if you're taking a step back. Three. One of the most important things that I teach my kids that I train, like, when you're taking any sort of step back move, you need to actually as you're stepping back, kick that Let let's say I'm stepping back

to my left. You have to stick that left foot really far out to catch your side to side momentum so that when you elevate, you go straight up and down and get good lift and balance into that step

back jump shot right. Little things like Jannis and his spin moves out of the There was a bucket that he had out of a drop off pass where I think it was Buddy heel that was waiting for him tagging the roller, and he caught a in a position where he was able to spin off of his right foot and had absolutely perfect footwork where he planted and spun off of two feet back towards his left side and went up and dunked with two hands. And it's like, how many guys do you see catch that ball there?

And they don't know what to do when the guys are right in front of him, so they either stop and hesitate and the advantage is gone, or they run the dude over because they don't know what they're doing. And it's like, no, Giannis is like I have practiced this spin move and nailed this footwork down one hundred thousand times in my life. I'm going to just go to this move and there's no way this dude's going to stay in front of me. Jannis has an excellent eurostep.

It's one of his best moves that he uses to navigate things in traffic. And again, eurosteps, they require a great deal of leg strength and balance, but when you have that footwork down, you have the ability to stay on your base and to stay balanced while slaloming between guys.

There are so many different elements to that that go underrated, and specifically footwork the ability to get to your spots without traveling and without losing your balance, while also making it so that you can absorb contact from defenders while they're swiping at you and digging down and bumping you

off your base. Those that sort of thing is what puts a top tier athlete in a position to be successful versus a top tier athlete being in position to be underwhelming or to underachieve, right, And I think it's something with the honest that we've constantly overlooked over the

years is this dude is incredibly coordinated. Maybe not up top in terms of his like touch and stuff like that, but in terms of down below and his ability to keep a solid base and to navigate any traffic situation with quality footwork is something that we have to give him more credit for. Brooke O. Lopez was incredible in this game. He had six blocks. The one of the nice things, or you know, I shouldn't say nice thing.

But one of the you know, bits of collateral damage here with with with Pat Connitton being out is it's forced the Bucks to play guys like Andre Jackson, right, guys like like marj On Bouchamp more often. Right. So they actually brought four guys off the bench in this game, and Campaign was the only guy they brought off the

bench that was a small guard. So in a nine man rotation, six of the guys that they were playing were all big in some way, shape or form, right, whether it's smaller with more athleticism or bigger with size. They just have a lot of size on the floor. And so when they're pressing up and chasing the pacers off the line, they're funneling him into Brook at the rim, and he was awesome protecting the rim in this game.

And then I wanted to shout out Bobby Portis. He had nineteen points in this game, three three point shots, but he scored ten of his nineteen points in the post. He was straight up attacking Obie Toppin in straight post ups. He's got a really good right handed hook. He also made like a right handed push shot as he kind of faded over his right shoulder. He had a turn and face like kind of jabstep jumper over Obie Topping. It was kind of like a nice offensive option for

the Bucks in this game. That like they did try to run some action to try to get Portis, Like they'd run like a wedge screen to try or a cross screen to try to get him in better post position. And Portis in general does a good job of fighting for position. But the beauty of it is like they're straight matchup, meaning they didn't need to force a switch or anything. Bobby Portis was able to attack his matchup head to head Obie Topping and get easy baskets there.

To get an nineteen out of him is huge. He was big in those pick and pop situations with Giannis. That's where hit a couple of his threes. And then on the Pacers front, I thought Halliburton in general was caught off guard by the aggressive switching that we saw from Milwaukee. You could tell like he just wasn't expecting that as a counter. And some of it too, is like he spazed out a little bit, Like there was a turnover where he kind of spazzed out when Jannis

got on him. There was a play in the second half where he'd like quickly settled for this like really tough step back three going to his right when there was like ten seconds on the shot clock, and it's like hold on, Like get Gianis on a switch. Okay, cool, Jannis is an excellent defender. But you're one of the quickest players in the NBA and you have one of the best pull up you have the best pull up

jump shot in the NBA this year. So you get Giannis on a switch, space him out because now the help side defense is not as good, and see if you can't beat him off the dribble more methodically rather

than just spazzing out and doing something silly. And so I think that's one of the things I love about playoff series is you know you you you have your first punch, and you know one team win based on both teams first punch, and then some team makes a counter and then usually the team that responds to the counter is a little slow to respond, and sometimes that'll

even up the series. And then Game three you'll be like the next adjustment to that whole thing, right, and like, because both teams wanted to win this game so bad after all of the stuff that surrounded last week's game.

And obviously you saw from the basketball incident that there's some animosity between these two teams, like these were playoff style games, not just today but also or not just Thursday, but also in this particular game, and so like that, you're seeing a lot of that like playoff style adjustment

taking place. And those are the kinds of things that you know, Tyres Haliburton, those are the hurdles that Tyres Haliburton is gonna have to navigate over the rest of his career if he's gonna get where he wants to go. And then I mentioned this earlier, but the defense, the

health defense just has to be better. And again I understand the prioritizing the three point line and wanting to get out and run off a layups because there's usually so like essentially the take I've seen a lot, and I haven't actually seen this mentioned by the coaching staff. It's more from like pacers, reporters and fans who kind of accentuate this as if it's like a strength. But they'll be like, oh, pacers will chase you off the

three point line. They don't really care much about helping at the rim, and when they make when other teams make layups, they usually a bad floor balance. So like, think of it this way. If I drive, if you're the basket, if the basket is where the camera is, and I drive aggressively to the rim, and I lay it in, and I lay it in and I run past the stanchion, and the pacers just quickly grab the ball, get the inbound and they're running down the other way.

They're five and four, right, that's the way they look at that, right, And there is some advantage there in terms of like when that happens, those are good to opportunities to run. I'm pro running off of made baskets, but conceding may baskets is silly too. And like there were a lot of possessions where you'd see, you know, Buddy Heel just standing next to Malik Beasley rather than digging down on a drive out of the weekside corner. And it's like, I get it, Malik Beasley's shooting the

shit out of the ball this year. But at a certain point, even a Malik Beasley wide open catch and shoot three that might be worth you know, one point four points per shot or whatever, is a lower percentage shot than the wide open slashing layup, so and again, speed is an advantage in this roster, and I think they can rotate better. And to put it frankly, I saw them last week defend at a higher level than

what they showed in this particular game. And so it's just something that again, if if the Pacers want to get to where they want to go, they need to eventually upgrade that obi top and position. But that's a trade deadline issue. But on the court, they have to do a better job in their help and recover situations, all right, Moving on to Thunder Kinks souh okay, see makes a late game run here. The Thunder or the Kings kind of controlled this game. But okay, so he

goes on a late game run. They get it to two. It's one nineteen, one seventeen. The Mark Dagenal runs this hammer action. Now remember what a hammer action is is like they run like a ball screen or a dribble hand off on the right side of the floor. Then on the left side of the floor they have the guy in the corner basically set a flare screen for

a shooter coming off the wing. And so essentially what it does is you're taking advantage of these two help defenders and their tendency to be watching whatever the hell's going on over here with this dribble hand off or ball screen, and you might be able to catch the guy guarding the shoe off guard on that screen and have an opening for a skip pass for a wide

open three. They ran it for Chet Holmer, which like, initially you go like, this is what's so cool about Chet is as a center, and then in this particular play he had Trey Lyles on him, and Trey Lyles is more, you know, he's more capable of navigating these types of things. But you can imagine that working really, really well, and when Chet has a center on him too, because the center is gonna have no idea what the hell's going on because he's not used to dealing with

shooters coming off flare screens. Right, But it still works. But Josh Giddy puts the pass a little bit too far to the left of check if Chet's standing right here, a little bit to Chet's left, and it forced him to kind of break his rhythm a little bit, and Trey Lyles was able to recover and get a contest on. It was a really good example to me of the importance of precision passing, like when you're playing elite defenses.

And again, the Kings have been defending better in this recent stretch, but it's a problem when you get down the line, to the higher quality defenses that you face down the line, the openings are this big, and so something silly like making a bad pass is outside of the shooting pocket that breaks the shooter's rhythm could buy the defense enough time to rotate in that specific case. And I thought that was interesting because it ended up being one of those things where Josh Gitty misses him.

As a result, Trey Lyles is able to get a good contest, he misses that shot right they go down the other end in semi transition. The Thunder ended up getting an offensive rebound on that play, and Josh Gitty, I thought, forced a floater that he probably shouldn't have take.

You could see Shay gildas Alexander getting a little annoyed, but they pushed the other way and Daron Fox h chet Holmgrin with this disgusting hesitation move like gets into the middle of the floor, gets the ball into his right hand and just looks up at the rim and it causes Chet to step up and open his body away from that left side of the rim and face this way. Darren crosses back over and that buys him the langle at the angle to get back to his left hand and finish at the rim. Now it's one

twenty one, one seventeen. And then on the other end the Thunder end up running a couple of They run a pick and a roll with Shay and in Josh Gitty or Josh Gitty short roles in the King's blitz, and in the process they get a wide open three again for Chet Holmgren on the left wing, this time plenty of time. This time the pass is in the right spot. Chet just misses it, and then on the other end the Kings miss on the next position, but they go down again. Shay has an isolation on the

right wing. They dig down. It's another wide open three for Jalen Williams and he misses it. So some tough shot luck there for Oklahoma City down the stretch. But then again again the Kings for the most part throughout that game got better shots. They were up ten before

the Thunder kind of had their wild comeback. I did think it was an interesting kind of late game sequence though, in an example of just some of the interesting stuff that this team has available to them from the standpoint of like Chet being able to run shooting actions and have it actually be a high percentage play, the ability to use Josh Getty as a screener and what he can do in the short role as a decision maker, and then just simple like if you put Shay and

you know, we talked about this in the Dallas Mavericks game against the when you put a score at the elbow and like Shay was attacking at the elbow on that dig down for Jalen Williams, but also like Luca was killing the Lakers with elbow ISOs. From the elbow, you're so much closer to the basket that guys have to kind of get into help position sooner, and so that forces them to come further off of shooters. When

you start your action thirty feet from the basket. Even if I do beat you off the dribble and get downhill, there's a lot more time for people to recover before I can really start causing problems. And I thought it was just an interesting kind of offensive approach from Oklahoma City, but obviously Kings win the game. Malik Monk and Darren Fox were incredible. They combined for fifty nine points in

sixteen assists. You know, I've been talking a lot about this idea of elite perimeter defense teams against the Kings, and this is the latest in a long line, right, Like, they really struggled with the Clippers, they really struggled with the Houston Rockets, they really struggled with the New Orleans Pelicans. Teams that can put long athletes on their guards can cause them some problems. Now the Thunder are not as long on the perimeter, like because they're guys like Lou

Dordan and Shay. They're not six ' eight, you know, they're They're not like some of these perimeter defenders they saw with the Clippers or or with the Pelicans that said, like they are excellent perimeter defenders, and sometimes it's like you just have to do better than the guy across from you, right, Like, this was a big thing in that series against the Warriors. It was a lot of Gary Payton, it was a lot of Andrew Wiggins. It was a lot of good on ball defenders for the Warriors.

That Deer and Fox and elite mounk just found a way to get downhill on And the big thing foundationally is Deeron Fox's pull up jump shot. He's just having an unbelievable pull up jump shot season this year. He'shooting forty six percent on them, fifty seven percent when you wait it for threes. That's one point one four points per shot. To give you an idea, there are eighteen players in the NBA this year that have taken at

least one hundred and fifty pull up jump shots. Fox is one point one four points per shot, is second in the league. So he's been the second best pull up jump shot maker in the league by volume or among that specific set of volume. Now, to give you an idea of just how insane Tyres Haliburton is, He's a full tenth of a point better per pull up jump shot than Dearon Fox in second place. So Tyres Haliburton is like head and shoulders better than everybody's shooting

pull up jump shots this year. So shout out to Tyrese, but Darren Fox. It's just that combination of elite pull up jump shooting and the downhill athleticism. I'll give you an example that little hesitation move I talked about when it was one nineteen one seventeen to put the King's

up one twenty one seventeen. If Dearen Fox makes that little hesitation move into the lane and he's a thirty five percent pull up jump shooter, Chet probably doesn't react to it because he's probably thinking, oh, yeah, he's gonna take a little short jump shot. I'd rather have him take that shot, right But because Dearn Fox has been knocking that thing down all year long, guys are starting to react to that, and that's allowing him to get

downhill easier. I just thought in general, Dearon Fox finished really really well at the rim against Chet, and again, like Chet has been, you know, Chet can get buried by some of these bigger bigs, but the dude can block shots, and Fox was just not bothered by him in this game. And to give you an idea of where his jump shot is right now, one point one to four points per pull up jump shot. Last year

he was at zero point nine to four. So he's literally more than twenty percent better than he was last year with this pull up jump shot, which is huge. I thought Milik Monk was awesome in this game. He had a couple of He had a ridiculous block and helpside in transition. He had this ridiculous bounce pass to a cutter. He had hit a between the legs side step pull up three that was just unbelievably nasty. Milik

Monk just has a bag man. It's ridiculous. Keon Ellis, It's been an interesting kind of a guy for the Kings this year that no one really expected. Hit five threes in this game, can take some point of attack assignments, has some decent length for the position. You know, this is kind a kind of archetype that we've been talking about with the Kings for a while, Like a guy that's more of an off ball player, that's more of a a an athlete that can help on the defensive

end of the floor. Is a point of attack. Metrics this year in isolation and in pick and roll have been excellent. I thought that was a kind of a revelation. Last night on the thunder front, Josh Giddy had his best game in a while. Teams are ignoring him off the ball and they're blitzing off of him in balls, but he's being aggressive in catch and shoot situations. He had three catch and shoot jump shots in this game.

He's also making really good reads out of the short role, which is a good use of him, to be honest, just because he has that passing ability, he's tall enough to kind of see over the defense as he's making those reads. Didn't like that floater he forced late in the game, but I thought it was an encouraging game from him. They also did a lot of hedging and recovering on deeron Fox to try to keep dort on him,

and I didn't think the hedges were particularly sharp. Derean was able to split a lot of them and it didn't really stop him from getting downhill. And I think they have the perimeter defenders to just switch more in those situations, and so I thought that tactically is something they could have adjusted. But overall, I thought they played pretty well. And again like Sacramento was really good and you got a chet Holmgren three in the corner that could have given you a lead. It was a decent look.

It was mildly contested. Chet Holmer and got another wide open three on the left wing late in the game. Jalen Williams had a wide open and three on the left wing in the game, So like, you shoot a little bit better, you have a chance to win that game. One other thing on the OKC front, there was a report this morning, I believe from Bleacher Report that the Jazz are gonna be listening to offers on Lauri marketIn.

And I've talked about this all year for the Pacers and the Thunder, but that is the specific archetype they need. They need a big forward that can help them on the defensive glass, that can help them and help defense situations and play well in their drive in kick system. And I think Lorde's absolutely perfect for that. The Thunder had the assets to make it happen. I saw some people on Twitter being like they shouldn't overpay. Danny Ainge is gonna make you want to overpay, and like I

get that, and like, don't get me wrong. From a negotiation standpoint, Danny Ainge is gonna have a really strong position. But here's the deal, Like, you have a shit ton of draft picks, you have all of the talent in the world. You're what the second seed in the West right now, you are literally on the precipice of being able to contend in the Western Conference. And like Louri market In is the perfect fit. And I understand the

patient approach. And I'm not saying you call them and you give them everything you have, but if you have to overpay a little bit to get LORII market in, you overpay a little bit to get Lori market in at the end of the day, like we've seen too often with this, uh, with this stuff, where like when teams like Miami get super super picky about what they're willing to pay and super picky about who they're willing to go after, and the next thing you know, you

move on and they don't have anybody, right, And again the Thunder don't have anybody in house that fits that big forward alongside chet kind of archetype. I think they're gonna have to go outside to find that. And to me, it's like it's pretty straightforward that a guy like Lorie kind of fills that need perfectly. All right, Moving on to the Warriors, So they dropped another game to the

Clippers last night. There now ten and fourteen. According to DraftKings, the Warriors are now plus one twenty five to make the playoffs in minus one fifty five to miss it. So again I have to bet one hundred and fifty five dollars on the Warriors to miss the playoffs. To make one hundred, that's a substantial, you know, a signal that Vegas thinks that there's a much better chance than not that Golden State misses the playoffs. And now here's

the thing. I've been mostly a Warriors positive force this year, right and I feel strongly that, given the information at the time, that that was the right approach at the time. But the Draymond suspension, like him taking himself out indefinitely officially puts them in a really challenging predicament. And I am for the first time this season seriously worried about

the Warriors. To give you an idea, as of today, they are three games out of the ten spot, So they are three games out of the play in at this point. And it's not just three games in a vacuum. The teams ahead of you are Phoenix, New Orleans, Houston, the Clippers, and the Lakers. I don't think the Suns, Clippers or Lakers are going to drop. They have too much talent. They have just significantly more talent in the regular season right now than the Warriors. Right Houston and

New Orleans. I see as like those are the teams you're targeting, is like, oh, maybe we'll be able to jump them before the end of the season. But again, it's not from today full strength Warriors versus full strength Appelicans and Rockets. Like you're gonna be with out Draymon for an undisclosed amount of time. And I would argue that you know, Draymond's probably your second or third best player, and if he's not available, then Houston and New Orleans

are better regular season teams than you. It's gonna be a challenge. And and like he just put him in a in a grind, in a bind because like now you have to finish three games better than one of those teams, and you're gonna be without Draymon for a while. A lot has to go right. You're gonna need bona fide MVP play from Steph Curry, Klay Thompson at a big night the other night. You need him to be incredible.

You're gonna need Pozemski to to to pop. And I saw that Kerr moved to Pazemski and Kaminga into the starting lineup. I thought that was interesting. You're gonna need a lot of huge contributions from everybody. It's gonna look a lot like again, like we've seen this before. This has happened before. Because the Warriors are in a position where they do have the ability to make a trade. Right.

They have a desirable asset in Jonathan Kaminga, They've got a salary filler in the form of Chris Paul, and they have draft compensation that they can offer. So they are in a position where they can go get somebody. So let's look at the Warriors or the Lakers last year as an example. All year last year, the Lakers were outside of the plane, right, similar kind of predicament, and they also had assets. They had two first round

draft picks that they could use. They ended up only using one, but they had two first round draft picks they could use. And they had this Russell Westbrook expiring contractors. I know everyone said last year no one wanted, but of course people wanted it. An expiring contract is real value. That's why they were able to make a trade. Right.

So the Lakers had this asset thing that they were sitting on that they could do something with, and the Warriors have this asset thing that they can do something with you. Remember what happened with the Lakers last year. Lebron James went down with injury, Anthony Davis played like a freaking MVP for a while and floated the ship. Then Anthony Davis went down, and it it was like Lebron, Dennis Schroeder and Russell Westbrook who just played like fucking

crazy and just hung around five hundred, right. They just lingered around five hundred, just staying alive long enough so that when the trade hit, they were then able to go on a run with the actual, you know, balanced roster that they needed to be significantly above five hundred team. So that's the mold that you're looking at for the Warriors. The question is do you have even as much firepower as that Lakers team did at that point in the year.

And I would say it's close, certainly, if Steph Curry can reach that MVP level, but I think they might have to start looking to make that move sooner than later. That doesn't mean you go make a stupid move, that doesn't mean you go overpay or go for the wrong guy,

but you gotta start looking now. And what's concerning about that specifically is Mike don Levy had this pod or ex just me this interview the other day where he basically said, like, we'll see how it goes over the next fifteen to twenty games, which is concerned on a couple of different levels, because first of all, it's like, are you insinuating that Draymond's gonna be out that long? Because that might be a death sentence. And then two, like, let's say Draymond is out that long? What if you

wait and see and then the season's over. Steph Curry's thirty five. You cannot afford to don't do what the Lakers did in a waste prime seasons of Lebron James's career with stupidity. Don't do that. Like it's time right now to start looking for what you can do to kind of revamp the situation. Originally, had Raymond not been suspended, I would have been like, wait for the deadline. Had

drama not been suspended, you lean into it. This season, you're hovering around the plane in that seven, eight nine range, right like you're a little bit mediocre the Lake. The Warriors have the sixth easiest remaining schedule, I believe by opponent win percentage, So like there's some opportunity there to regain some ground in the standings, and then you pull the trigger at the deadline. You negotiate more staunchly, you

try to make something happen in February. But with Draymond being out this next month now could literally submarine the season, because if you fall from three games back of the ten seed to six games back of the ten seed, it's over at that point. You're not out playing those teams by six games in a couple of months. That's not happening. So we are officially in crisis mode with the Warriors, is my point. If Draymond's gonna be out for a long period of time, you don't have the

horses to rack up regular season wins. So you either got to blow the whole damn thing up or you've got to pivot pretty quickly. Here you got the pieces to do. So, I think it's time to start calling Toronto. I think it's time to start calling Utah. I think it's time to start calling Portland. See if you can't get some firepower in the building to help. We're gonna talk about here in a minute, but I'd even be keeping an eye on Cleveland there and see if maybe

you can approach Donovan Mitchell. That's another guy I'd be keeping an eye on. Speaking of Donovan Mitchell, let's move on. So Darius Garland breaks his jaw, He's gonna be out for a while. Evan Mobley is that knee surgery, is gonna be out for probably at least two months. They're already in the nine seed right now. The bottom can fall out here pretty quickly. And Donovan Mitchell is a guy that could be a free agent as soon as next summer. Not this coming summer, but the one after.

He's got one guaranteed year left on a deal. He's got a player option for like thirty seven million after that, probably gonna drop out of that one and look to become a free agent. I've also talked consistently when I talk Calves that the too small guard model is kind of doomed to fail. I also know that Cavs fans love Darius Garland, so to me, it points a lot of signs in the direction of what happens if Donovan Mitchell gets to the end of next season and just

simply doesn't want to stay. He's worth too much to let go for nothing. Right in the short term. Right now, you're a nine seed and two of your top four players are going to be out for a considerable amount

of time. Here now you could say, hey, Donovan, just do the best you can keep us as close to five hundred as possible, and when you cut and when all these guys come back, we'll fight our way up to a play in spot so that we could go play Boston in the first round, so that we could go play Milwaukee in the first round and be gigantic

underdogs and probably lose. So at a certain point, like if you are under the impression, and again this is up to Donovan, because if Donovan's like I want to stay, like let's work out it, like, let's figure out a deal. I want to stay, then you can make decisions accordingly. But it's worth approaching Donovan Mitchell and being like, hey, man, like, are you going to stay? Because you're gonna be bad

this year? Like that's almost a certainty. This season. It's I don't want to say it's completely a lost cause, but like at this point for Cleveland, this season is in a really dark spot. So if there was a year to be bad, it'd be this year. And from that standpoint, That's where I see Donovan Mitchell as the obvious target for a trade around this deadline. Because when we envision the idealized version of the Calves, what do

I always talk about. I envision one of those guards and Evan Mobley at the five in the long run, next to a big athletic forward, preferably another big athletic forward, and then a perimeter defender at the two guard spot. That's kind of the what I of you is the idealized version of the Calves. I talk a lot about. This is like the the ideal modern basketball bill. Do you want a skill guard, Then you want like a point of attack off ball guard. Then you want like

a slender forward that can defend on the perimeter. Then you want a big forward that can defend inside and help and help defense and defense and rebounding situations. Then you want an athletic center that can switch and run and drop coverage while also being an offensive threat. Evan Mobley fits that mold. Darius Garland fits the skill guard mold,

you know, like Max Strus. In the short term, I think would be perfectly fine as a point of attack guy who plays off the ball at the two, like I like Carris Lavert, but you probably don't want him

as your starting three. So it's that three and four spot that you're looking to bolster at this point, right, that's where you could potentially use Donovan Mitchell as the vehicle with which to shore that up and then be ready to make a run either you know, next season essentially, right, and I think I think, like, so, now, let's see what type of teams would be interested in Donovan Mitchell. Teams that have size on the perimeter, that can afford

to bring in a small guard. Teams that can offer big athletic forwards to Cleveland because that's what they would want, clear big athletic forwards that fit their timeline, and also that have the ability to put that size next to Donovan Mitchell so that they are not in a similar predictament that Cleveland was in. Right. Then you're also looking at, like what Donovan Mitchell's specific archetype is. He's a scoring guard,

So we're looking at teams that need backcourt scoring. Now, the first two obvious ones are the power players, right, Miami and Philly. But Philly's got a ton of assets, they feel some urgency to try to get something done. Alongside Joel Embiid. Right now, they're clearly below Boston and Milwaukee. That's an obvious target, right, Philly could be like, we're gonna put Donovan Mitchell next to Tyrese Maxine. We're just gonna have a shit ton of offensive skill next to Joel Embiid.

Right The Miami piece is like they missed out on Dame, they missed out on Brad Beal, Like they gotta get one of these guys that team desperately needs backcourt shot creation. Donovan Mitchell's an obvious kind of like fit there. Philly does have the advantage there though, because they have more assets to give than Miami does. The Knicks or another team I look at, they lean so much on Jaylen Brunson and Julius Randall to create everything. They don't have

great options at the two spot. Like they just benched Quentin Grimes. He was a blow average starter. They benched him for Dante DiVincenzo. But Dante de Vincenzo is better as a backup guard too, So like you're in a weird spot there. RJ. Barrett is having the most efficient scoring season of his career and kind of fits more of like a complimentary piece next to Darius Garland. So

that'd be an interesting kind of salary filler piece. And the Knicks have plenty of draft compensation that they can offer, So like that's a team that I'd keep an eye on. Toronto, simple case if they have too many forwards and not enough guards, And like a couple guys like an Og and Anobi would be super interesting in Cleveland, right, Like

a Pascal Siakam would be super interesting in Cleveland. But Toronto desperately needs guards because like Dennis Schroeder and Gary Trent Junior are good, but they're not They're they're compared to the other serious teams in the league, that's not a very good backcourt. So like you're looking at an option there. Chicago already apparently has made calls trying to trade for Darius Garland, so like, why not try for Donovan Mitchell if that was the case. Minnesota is another

interesting team. I was thinking of their eighteenth in offense this year and they have legit title last Inspirations, and like the one week spot in that lineup that you look at is Mike Conley, just given his age and athleticism, right, the Pelicans, if they wanted to pivot off as Ion Williamson, that'd be an interesting option. And then lastly, like I said in the last segment the Golden State Warriors, it's

worth a phone call. It's worth a phone call. You'd be like, Hey, Jonathan Comingo would be perfect next to Evan Mobley. How does that sound to you? Guys? You know, Chris Paul just can help mentor Darius Garland, you know, and then we can at least give Steph a bona fide number two next to him, you know. And like, if you have Donovan Mitchell and Steph Curry, you have the ability to play bigger on the front line because of all the pull up shooting you have in that lineup.

So again, like it's too early to say for sure if Donovan Mitchell will even you know, is even not wanting to resign, or if Cleveland would be even willing to deal him, But I think some signs are pointing in that direction. So I thought it was kind of doing a brief deep dive into it, all right, my MVP ladder, So I'm gonna start doing this every weekend. And I was thinking long and hard about this because I wanted to talk MVP. But I don't want it to look like what my prediction would be for who's

going to win the MVP, because it just is. It's so much based on narrative, which I find profoundly oninteresting. It's so much based on voting trends that like, I disagree with and specific things that like I don't think should factor into MVP. So what I'm gonna do instead is like, I'm just gonna do this MVP latter every weekend as though it's my own meaning, Like this is just simply how I think the MVP award should work.

I've made one tweak to my MVP criteria I used to in the past be like, hey, like you got a factor in postseason success. All of this is part of a journey towards the playoffs and towards the Larry O'Brien. It's a stepping stone in that direction. But the league has made it abundantly clear through their voting tendencies that they don't care about the postseason. So what I'm gonna do is my off season player rankings that I do

every August. Those are going to be based on playoff success, and I want my MVP ladders during the season to strictly be a recognition of overall two way impact on winning by a single player. And the one thing I'll do to weigh it is like degree of difficulty and like what your team needs out of you compared to the you know, the roster availabilities. I'm gonna use that as like kind of a swing factor in some of these cases. All right, so I'm gonna do I'm gonna

be counting down from ten this first week. I'm gonna hit all ten players. In the future, I'm just gonna talk about the movement from specific guys, but number ten. So far for our first MVP ladder, Kevin Durant, He's been the one stable force for a team that's been

riddled with injuries. To start the season. He's averaging thirty one points per game, which is the second highest mark of his career, on sixty four percent true shooting, and he's legitimately flirting with a fifty to fifty ninety season, meaning fifty percent from the field, fifty percent from three, and ninety percent from the line. He's still one of the most efficient scorers in basketball, and he's done a lot to stabilize. Like I said, a pretty inconsistent environment

with injuries there in Phoenix. Number nine Jason Tatum. I am a little disappointed in him this season. He's settling for a shit ton of pull up jump shots even though he can't make him. I've been a little bit disappointed with him in the end of games as well. That said, still the most efficient scoring season of his career in the lower volume mostly has to just do with some of the roster changes they went over the went through over the summer. He's also been the fourth

best post up player in the league this year. Twenty two players in the NBA have run at least seventy five post ups, and he's fourth in efficiency at one point one five points per possession. Number eight Lebron James. He's averaging twenty five eight and seven, shooting a career high from two point range forty one percent from three, which matches his best season in twenty thirteen, which was sixty four percent through shooting. Also averaging his highest amout

of steals per game since twenty fifteen. And this is the crazy one for Lebron. In his MVP case, the Lakers are eighteen points better per one hundred possessions when he's on the floor versus when he's off. He also had the most impressive individual accomplishment of this season so far, winning the n Season Tournament MVP, dominating a field that included Kevin Durant, that included Giannison tenakumpo, that included Damian Lillard,

that included Jason Tatum, that included Tyree Saliburton. Just a stacked field that he ended up at the top of the pile at the end of it and won the MVP. Lebron's at number eight, number seven. Dearon Fox. He is the best combination of pull up shooting and downhill speed in the NBA. This year, he's been the second best pull up jump shooter in the league behind Tyres Haliburton, making his jump shots at a pull up jump shots at one point one four points per shot, which is insane.

He also is the third best guard at scoring in the paint. He scored two hundred and twenty points in the paint this year, which is behind only Shay Gills as Alexander and Tyree s Maa See, both of which are lesser pull up shooters than Darren Fox. This season, he's led the Kings to a lot of wins over good teams, most recently SGA in the Thunder. He's gone head to head with a lot of the best players in the league and come out on top. This season, I have him at number seven. Number six Nicole Jokic.

His jumper has been off this year. A Jokic jumper has been worth zero point two to two points fewer than they were worth last year, but still averaging a career high in points, still at sixty one percent in true shooting, leeds the league, and rebounds at thirteen rebounds per game, and the Nuggets are the two seed in the West despite Jamal Murray missing a lot of time

in and out of the lineup. Number five Luka Doncics also having the most efficient scoring season of his career, fueled by excellent pull up shooting and shooting fifty four percent in EFFECTI field goal percentage on his pull up jump shot. That reliable step back jump shot that he's sitting right now is is just killing teams, and he's been also, similar to Kevin Durant, the most consistent force on a surprisingly good team despite his co star being

out a lot. Kyrie Irving has played in just five hundred and forty one of eleven hundred and fifty two minutes for the MAVs this year, and the Mavericks are fifteen to nine in the four seat, which is a far cry from where they were last year. I have him at number five, shake Gil just Alexander at number four. The Thunder are just three games back to the best

record in the league at fifteen and eight. He's averaging thirty one, six and six on a career high sixty four percent true shooting percentage, and his self creation metrics are off the charts. One point two to three points per post up, one point one to nine points per ISO, one point zero nine points per pick and roll. Those

are all off the charts. And now he's consistently drawing two to the ball and pick and roll, which for all of the ball handling and shooting and passing that they have on the backside there when they run those four on threes has been deadly for the Thunder. They get great shots every time. Ivesga at number three or four. Number three, Tyre's Halliburn. He's the best pick and roll ball handler in the year by mile. He's the best pull up shooter in the league by a mile. He's

entered into my top tier of passers this year. He's just single handedly anchoring the best offense in basketball. I think he's on an all time great trajectory. He's having an incredible season. I'm a huge tyres Aaliburton fan. Even against that ridiculously aggressive Bucks coverage the other day, I thought he did really well given the amount of talent that's around him. Number two Jannis and Tanakoumpo feels kind

of like a revenge campaign for him. His night to night effort is the highest that I've seen since his MVP seasons. Career high thirty two points per game, career high sixty six percent true shooting, career high offensive rebounds per game big one for him, and his touch away from the rim is better than it's been in a couple of seasons. All super super encouraging. He's also have

an excellent having an excellent defensive season. Changed that Pacers game the other night just by aggressively switching on to Tyrese Haliburton and taking away some of the advantages he naturally gets in ball screens. But number one, clear Number one at this point in the season is Joel Embid thirty four points per game, twelve rebounds and six assists on sixty four percent through shooting. They are sixteen and seven, despite losing James Harden, and just two games back of

the best record in basketball. Here's an encouraging stat for you too. Two years ago, Joel Embiid made just six field goals per game in the paint. Last year seven point four, this year seven points seven. He's also shooting seventy percent on hook shots, and he's taking hook shots about twice as often as he did last year. If you guys remember after the postseason last year, I talked about how Joel Embiid is too reliable on that mid range pull up jump shot. He's got to have a

more consistent shot making game closer to the rim. We're seeing some encouraging staf there that could bode well for him in the playoffs. Really just needs to stay healthy at this point so we can see him in what he's capable of in April and May. All right, guys, that is all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate your support. Taking the rest of the weekend off, We'll be back on Monday with power rankings as well as some reactions to the weekends games. I will see

you guys. Then the volume