Hoops Tonight - Kevin Durant leads Suns past Cavs, Warriors beat Spurs + NBA Mailbag

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here at the volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody. If all of you guys are having an incredible week, we have a absolutely jam packed show today. We're gonna start off with the Suns, who continue to impress with a big win on the road over the Cleveland Cavaliers. Kevin Durant still red hot, big shock. Devin Booker made his return as well. We're that game down from the perspective of both teams.

After that, the Golden State Warriors, for the first time this season, one a basketball game without Steph Curry on the road against the Spurs, just after they had lost to the Spurs without Victor wen Benyam at home. A majorly important win considering their situation in the standings and

again how much they've struggled without Steph this year. After that we have not taken an opportunity this year to really do a deep dive on Victor wen Benyama's rookie season, and so I took a lot of time this morning digging into all of the numbers, watching a ton of film of all these different play types so that it can give you guys a little scouting report on what

Victor wenbin Yama's rookie season has been like. And then after that, we have a fun mail bag about a dozen questions, a bunch of different stuff involving NBA history, some stuff with the Lakers. We're gonna preview a Nuggets bucks potential series should they face in the NBA Finals, a fun mail bag for the end of the show. You guys are the Joe for we get started. Subscribe to our brand new YouTube channel. I mean a lot to me if you guys would take a second to

scroll down and hit that subscribe button. Don't forget about our podcast feed where you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a rating in a review on the podcast feed.

just weren't really sharp chasing over the top of screens. Again, when we talk about like the pick and roll coverages is like a bracket, that's usually the analogy that I use, in the sense that, like your on ball guy is the top half of the bracket and the screen defender is the bottom half of that bracket. And when you do a deep drop coverage, when you pull that side of the bracket further back, this side of the bracket

has to be especially sharp. You have to be chasing over the top extremely well in applying a ton of back pressure, because if you do, you can force the guy to keep driving into where screen defender is. But

when you're sloppy at the point of attack and you're in a deep drop coverage, you're gonna get killed and Darius Garland absolutely torched them in the first half of this game, was killing them with pull up three point shooting. And then they brought in Drew you Banks towards the end of the first quarter and they started they put Bradley Beal on Darius Garland and started blitzing, and at

that point he was already in rhythm. So he beat Bradley Beal by rejecting the screen once again, Like when you bring the screen defender way up to the level, he has to pick a side of the screen, and so it becomes that much more important for the on ball defender to not get beat the other way, because if you get beat the other way, you have no

backside help. Beal got beat the other way once. There was a possession where they hard blitzed and Darius Garland just hit like a crazy drifting three along the along the right corner because at that point he's just already in rhythm. Again, like a lot of times, we overlook what happens at the beginning of the game, like it doesn't set the tone. If you allow a ballhand to get comfortable and confident, then even when you ratchet up

the defensive intensity, that guy's already feeling good. That guy's already in rhythm. It's really hard to slow them down at that point. There is another play late first half where they lost Garland on a baseline out of bounds where U banks even though he was supposed to be up at the level blitzing, he was way far back in the lane on the baseline at of bounds. They just did a quick little dribble handoff with Damian Jones

in the left corner. Darius Garland got another three, so just nowhere near good enough defensively to start this game. They found themselves down by nineteen points. But then right around that middle of the second quarter, the Sun started

to get going offensively. They really started to attack George's niang. And this is one of those things where having Devin Booker back has a bunch of positive effects down the roster. And it's not just having the ability to have another

player the quality of Devin Booker to initiate offense. It affects the matchups down the core to it affects your off ball spacing for actions that KD and Bradley beal run right, Like, We're gonna be talking a lot about that over the course of the show, but specifically as

it pertains to them attacking George's kneeing. When you have Devin Booker out there and Devin Booker and Bradley Beal are both going to draw a significantly tough perimeter defense type of assignment, right in that situation, you just run

out of bodies. And so the Calves ended up opting to put George's kneeing on Kevin Durant straight up, and so Kad was doing a lot of work on him in ISO any screening action where he would get switched, Kevin Durant would just point at Devin Booker, a point at Bradley Beal and be like go, like go take him. And they were just literally taking turns, just cooking George's kneeing on an island. George Kneeing's credit like he was competing.

He was really trying. He's overmatched in those specific situations. They're also having a lot of success with Spain pick and roll. This is an action that the Sons used to run a ton back in the Monty Williams e era with Chris Paul and it's different players obviously, aside from Devin Booker, different coach now but it's more or

less the same concept. Again, it's just a ball screen, but you have a shooter come up to backscreen the Roman, the Roman's defender the screen defender as he's relocating to the top of the key, which opens up two different things. It opens up the lob pass, but it also makes it really difficult for the screen defender to get back and help protect the rim. So they were having success

with that as well. And then as they started to get going offensively attacking the Aang and scoring in ball screens, that triggered their defensive intensity and then from there they were able to regain control of the game. After being down nineteen, they did a much better job on Darius Garland in the second half. They brought use of Nurkic up into a high drop instead of a deep drop. That's where you're up at the level contesting and then just rotating back as best as you can. And Nurkis

was at like Nurkis every time I watch him. He had a a not his best game in this particular matchup, and they ended up closing with u Banks instead just because of his foot speed and because Nurkis wasn't quite as sharp, but Nirkis made some defensive plays in this game in his drop coverage, especially at the start of the second half. I've been like, honestly, every time I watch Nurkics, I'm always impressed by just how much he tries to make plays defensively despite his lack of foot speed.

But bringing him up to the level and then just much better on ball defense helped them really cool off Darius Garland in the second half of this game. In general, their intensity went up to the level where we even saw Devin Booker flying around and getting a bunch offensive rebounds.

on both ends of the floor. Cleveland briefly tied the score at one oh four, but then Phoenix got an easy layup for Devin Booker out of another Spain pick and roll, and they just had They just had Grayson Allen come up and backscreen Jared Allen as they were running the ball screen and Devin Booker was able to kind of kind of gather through the digging down defender out of the left corner and finished with a left

handed layup. Then a couple of possessions later, they had a really good defensive possession where they blitzed Darius Garland at the top of the key and got into rotation as a Garland hit Jared Allen slipping and Jared Allen made a kick out to the left corner and it was like bang bang balls getting passed around, but every Sun was just on a string flying around. They ended up forcing a tough skip pass that Royce O'Neil was splitting the difference between two offensive players and was able

to get a steal. They ran out the other way and Kevin Durank got a layup. Sons built a little bit of a margin again and they were able to kind of stiff arm him from there, got a little sketchy late Phoenix got a little sloppy in the late fourth quarter here a couple of bad turnovers, gave up four offensive rebounds in the corner. They were just a quarter. They just weren't boxing out. But Grayson Allen got two key stops at the end of the game in ISO

against Darius Garland. The first time he slid his feet really well and stopped him in the middle of the floor, killed the possession. And then after that there was the play where Jared Allen actually had a decent opportunity to tie the game with the lob pass. But I want to give Grayson Allen some creditors, so I think it was one thirteen, one eleven, so it's a two point games. Darius Garland had just tried attacking Grayson Allen and couldn't beat him. So then on this possession, he's on the

left wing, Grayson Allen on the island. He's picking on him in a switch. They're specifically going after Grayson Allen. Here Grayson Allen slides his feet and cuts off like four or five different moves from Darius Garland. And then finally after like the fifth or sixth move, Garland's able to get a angle on Grayson and beat him off

the dribble. But at that point when he beat him off the dribble, he was so sped up by just the sheer number of moves he had just made that when he threw the lot pass, he threw it too high. And it's one of those things like you have your jobs in when you switch, when you're the weaker defender that someone's targeting. No one's expecting you to suddenly turn into Jada McDaniels and get a bunch of stops. Like what they're expecting you is just to do the best

you can. And in that situation against a quick guard like Darius Garland, especially one that had been shooting the three really well, and you got a factor in client at a time and score like in a two point game, the last thing you want to do is give up a step back three to a guy who's been hitting his three all night long, and suddenly you're down by one and it's a completely different game.

down big. But they methodically executed their way back into the game, and then they were able to close the game out in the fourth quarter, which obviously has been an issue for them at times this season. Major takeaways on the Suns front, A good comeback game for Devin Booker, twenty seven points and seven assists on fifty percent shooting. Really active as an athlete in the second half, not

just on the glass, but defensively as well. Interesting adjustment from Frank Vogel to go with Drew Eubanks late in the game so they had more speed on the floor to deal with Garland, especially. They did some switching and more blitzing at the end of the game with Garland, and they just needed more speed in that situation. Kevin Durant still on an absolute heater as this fourth straight game with at least thirty five points barbecuing George's kneeing

like we were talking about. But again, one of the key things for Phoenix that I've been paying attention to, real defensive runs. We've seen that in the Denver matchup. We saw that even for stretches in the Celtics game again to get back into the game in that third quarter run and then held the Cavs to twenty points in the fourth quarter as well.

better defensive personnel. But the Clippers have been pretty mediocre for like a month now, and the Suns are really starting to put together some high level basketball. They're starting to attach some high level defense to the work that they're doing offensively with the three stars, and it's really starting to take shape. I'm kind of like, let's just put it this way. I still think I leaned slightly towards the Clippers, but I'd put the Suns like pretty

much on that level at this point. Really starting to believe in them. I think they have some good matchup advantages across the board. Again, specifically like when Kadi is making his pull up jump shot, he doesn't really get bothered that much by Aaron Gordon. It's just a question of whether or not he can make them. And then Usuf Nurki, just a big body that can actually bang with jokicchen cause them some issues.

very aggressive on the ball. There wasn't a ton of ball pressure, and they were in just such a deep drop coverage, and so he was able to get going with what I call like baked in shots like these are shots that are the coverage itself is designed to

give up. So like in that the point being like if you can, if anybody at the like just take a random you know, college basketball player is capable of hitting a mid range sixteen footer, right like, then if this coverage literally concedes that shot, so like anybody can make that shot. Now the best players in the world can make it at a much higher rate, right And

Garland is absolutely barbecuing it. But there's a difference between the shot that is baked into the coverage versus what happens when the intensity picks up and suddenly there are no baked in shots and it's shots that you have to create yourself. And like, don't get me wrong, Garland still had some success getting downhill when they started bringing aggressive coverages and hitting the slipper, and that's still creating

an advantage in those situations. But when it comes to scoring the basketball, Darius Garland is definitely one of those guys that kind of needs some of the shots that are baked into the coverage. He's not a guy that, like against really elite locked in physical defense, can consistently

just generate his own shot on an island. And I thought that those last two possessions against Grayson Allen and just how difficult it was for Darius Garland to break free, I thought was a strong indicator of that because Grayson Allen at the guard position is very much an average defensive player, right. Just something to keep in mind, And honestly,

that's why you need a guy like Donovan Mitchell. And I've actually come around in a lot of ways on the Mitchell Garland back court in the sense that like, when Donovan Mitchell is defending the way that he's defended this season and really leveraging his athletic gifts, that's where it starts to look more like that skill guard athlete guard type of mold. It's when Donovan Mitchell leans into the skill guard stuff and doesn't compete as an athlete

that that back court becomes untenable. So like, I actually believe more in the Garland Mitchell back court now than I used to, just because of Donovan Mitchell's leap that he's taken just in the dirty work areas of the game this year. But I did think that game last night was just an indicator of the ceiling, the certain ceiling that Darius Garland has as a score, which depends so much on what the defensive coverages are.

one to thirteen game. And the real reason why they had that chance is because they are still capable of these crazy defensive runs like they went on in the late third quarter into the fourth quarter. And that again is like defense just will just keep you in basketball games.

And again like that, that's I think when you factor in the improvement that Donovan Mitchell has made and just the improvement in terms of the overall amount offensive skill on the floor, if they can compete defensively well enough to keep these games close as long as Donovan Mitchell's hitting shots, so they have a chance to beat anybody. It's just a question of whether or not he can kind of meet other stars at that level as a

shot maker. All Right, moving on to our next segment, We're gonna be breaking down the Golden State Warriors on the road, getting their first win of the season without Steph Curry in the lineup another defensive run, the Spurs had sixty eight points with ten minutes to go in the third quarter. They led by ten, sixty eight to fifty eight. And the Spurs had seventy two points with a little over three three minutes left in the third quarter, so they held him to just four points over a

seven minute span. At that point, the Warriors were at fourteen eighty six to seventy two, so twenty eight to four run in about seven minutes of basketball. They logged a defensive rating of seventy eight point three in that quarter on tape. Just really good game plan, discipline, lots of lineups because it spans the middle of the third quarter, multiple lineups for both teams were on the floor during

that stretch. But the gist of it was any screening action that involved Draymond Green, Andrew Wiggins and Jonathan Kminga was a switch. They were willing to switch Wiggins and Kminga on to Victor wmen Yama in those screening actions would shut those particular actions down. Obviously, they had some issues like Victor wemen Yama had a drop step dunk on Jonathan Kamena in a switch where he just didn't

really hold his ground well enough. But then when the guards were on the ball, So whether it's Pazamski or Gary Payton, they were just ducking under picks on Trey Jones, so they would live with pull up threes on Trey Jones, and then they were chasing like crazy on Devin Vessel, and both guys were awesome in the stretch. Both Brandon Pazemski and Gary Payton just really controlled that perimeter defense stretch.

After the middle portion of the fourth quarter when the guards checked in, I clipped a specific possession of Gary Payton the second just showing him chasing around on Devin Vessel. And you know, one of the things that Gary Payton does super well that's always impressed me is he's so incredibly athletic that he's capable of gambling or taking risks, jumping into passing lanes, or reaching and getting off a balance,

but still has the speed to recover. And in this specific play that I clip that you'll find on my Twitter feed at underscore jsonlt, there's an example of Gary Payton lunging on one side of the screen and then chasing over the top and reaching in aggressively and yet in both situations having the speed to recover. So when Devin Vessell got downhill and got to like a little pull up fifteen foot or along the left base, line.

He actually got a great contest on it, just because he has the crazy speed to be able to recover after being aggressive, and that I think that sort of thing, well, it's super frustrating for offensive players because like you have these counter move design like when a guy makes an aggressive move, I whip it behind my back this way

and I have an angle. But it's like against the best athletes in the world, they can just recover and it's like, shit, I did everything right on that possession, and he's still right in my face.

the offense. Clay was able to hit some jumpers against the Spurs and their drop coverage, and you know some of those classic like come off of a dribble hand off the guy's kind of in a trail position and just hits him with a hard like right shoulder step back, moving to his left and knock it down like that sort of thing. Chris has his usual Chris and his like Chris and Tray Jackson Davis pick and roll chemistry thing just on level ten throughout this entire game, hit

him for lobs and finishes around there. Trace had a ridiculous right handed finish around zat Collins where he jumped into him and then like scooped around with his offhand to finish. But just a ridiculous play. We haven't even

got to it yet. But like at the end of the game when Victor Wembinyama reached to his right hand side and he spun off of him, just one of the most ridiculous dunks you'll ever see, as he palmed it as best as he could have, just threw it over the top of the rim into Victor wemen Yama. That's a highlight that Trace will be looking at for the rest of his life, I'm sure, especially when Victor's running rough shot over the rest of the league in

five years. I'm sure that'll be a fun one for him to look back at but Chris had his mid range jump shot going as well. He hit six shots and the mid range in this game, which obviously is such an important part of Chris being able to navigate and pick and roll situations. He has to be a threat to score in order to bring the screen defender

up enough to open up those roleman opportunities. And that's what just kind of brings that two man game to fruition, is like Chris's willingness and ability to knock down those mid range jump shots and then trace after the screen, rolling hard to the rim and bringing that vertical spacing. Andrew Wiggins had sixteen points on eight shots. He had a massive three in the third quarter, kind of moving

to his right. He's really bringing confidence to the three point stroke now that we haven't seen really since the playoffs in twenty twenty two, shooting forty nine percent from three on three point three attempts per game in his last eighteen games, averaging fourteen points and shooting fifty four percent from the field overall. So Andrew Wiggins really encouraging stretch from him as of late. And johnathankaminga twenty two points the usual getting out transition in a couple ISO

jumpers attacking in face up situations. Big win for the Warriors. This was a tough one because again the Spurs have been sneaky, tough to play for a while now. As the Warriors know very well. They just lost to him

at home without Victor weman Yama, and so adding Wemby on the road really nice bounce back win, a very important one for them in the standings as well. So obviously we have not taken the time yet this season. We've had brief conversations about Wemby, but we haven't really talked about his season in totality, and I haven't because how bad the Spurs have been. I haven't really taken the time to dig into Victor wemben Yama and the

tape and the numbers this year. So that's what I wanted to do here for a few minutes, is just kind of do like a deep dive on Victor wemben Yama's rookie season. So for the season, averaging twenty one points, ten rebounds and three assists, one point three steals, three point four blocks on fifty seven percent tru shooting, obviously awesome, But since December twenty eighth, Victor took a leap in the middle of the season, which is something we'll talk

about in a little bit. But since December twenty eighth, so his last thirty one games, twenty three points per game, ten rebounds and four assists, one point two steals with three point seven blocks per game, fifty percent from the field, thirty eight percent from three to eighty two percent from

the line, so sixty point four percent for shooting. So, before we go any further, a rookie averaging twenty three to ten to four with five stocks per game on over sixty percent for shooting is completely insane, especially when you factor in that like most rookies around this time of year, start to hit a wall, they start to struggle with fatigue because the length of the season is just different than what they've dealt with and when they

were younger. Although overseas, Victor obviously is had a different experience than most college players, so Victor is probably more capable of handling the physical nature of an eighty two game season, but still it's an adjustment. It's different than what he was dealing with, but for all rookies, that's an adjustment, right, We're seeing Brandon Bazemski run into this a little bit with the Warriors, right. Also, teams have

started to put together a good amount of film. So like again, when you look at scouting once you have like fifty games worth a sample, these scouting departments, they have really good data to look at and they can really find out like, Okay, this particular action, if we guard it like this, he struggles in ISO. If we sit on this hand and we prepare for this counter move,

we can handle it. Right, Like, there are a lot of ways that teams just get better at scouting rookies as more film becomes available, and so so many rookies run into a wall at this point in the year, and instead Victor women Yabas is going up a level. And again, twenty three ten four with five stocks and over sixty percent shooting is just completely insane for a rookie, regardless of the circumstances. So looking into play type data, it's having a tough spot up season zero point seven

to seven points per possession, which is really bad. There are one hundred and forty three players in the NBA that have logged at least one hundred and fifty spot up possessions and that rakes one fortieth. So he's been one of the worst spot up players in the league combination of a couple of things. He's really struggling in catch and shoot situations. He's been a good jump shooter, decent jump shooter in pull up situations, but he's been

really bad off the catch. That's a concept that we're going to dive into a little bit more when we get to the off the dribble shooting, but also just when he tax close outs. He has a tendency to drive into traffic, and tall guys have issues dribbling the basketball in general when it comes into traffic. By the way, this is something that happens with Kevin Durant, which is why he turns the ball over most more than most

of his peers that are perimeter ball handlers. It's because when you're just dribbling at that high off the ground, there's just a larger distance for devenders to get involved with disrupting the basketball, right, and so you have to be really careful as a tall player about when and where you drive the basketball, and so just struggle and shoot, catch and shoot and struggle struggling to maintain control of

the basketball when he drives into traffic. Those are the main things that are hurting him in spot up situations. He's been very good in ball screens as the screener. He's shooting fifty nine percent in effective field goal percentage when he pops or rolls, which is awesome. He's in the sixtieth percentile overall in points per possession on role man possessions, which especially when you factor in the spacing

that he's around, really impressive. There's a lot of guys on the spurs that teams just don't need a guard at the three point line. They're conceding threes to Keldon Johnson, they're ducking under picks on Trey Jones. No one's guarding Jeremy Soschein out there. Like there's just a lot of like ability to kind of pack the pain on him, which can cost some issues for any basketball player, let

alone a rookie. On the ball, he's run one hundred and eighty three inverted ball screens, resulting in zero point eighty six points per possession including passes. Passes out of those ball screens almost like almost about two thirds of the time. A lot of turnovers in those situations, he turns it over about thirty percent of the time that

he passes out of ball screens. Really, he just makes really aggressive passes to the slipper, So like when he sets those inverted ball screens, he's getting pretty aggressive coverages and those guards are slipping out of it, and like they get a lot of for the record, they get a lot of great stuff out of this too, where like he'll throw the pocket pass and the guard will have like a good angle and get into the paint and finish. They had a similar play in the second

half against the Warriors last night. I want to say it was Malchi Branham that slipped, but I can't remember exactly, but they hit a little pocket pass, get a lay up.

of ball screens as the handler, similar kind of stuff that we were talking about earlier. He's actually been pretty good shooting pull up threes in that situation, but when he puts on the ball on the floor and tries to drive again, when he gets into traffic, he can have some issues. It's always been awesome ninety four points on eighty eight ISOs, including passes, really deadly face up jumper. It's something that he's been shooting really well all season.

It's funny certain shot types he's been shooting really well. He's been really good in face up jumpers, pretty average and dribble jumpers, and then bad and catching shoot jumpers.

going both directions. When he drives, he likes to when he gets cut off moving towards his right, he likes to step back going right or spin back towards his left hand side, and sometimes when he gets into that spin, he can get into some trouble where he'll turn the basketball over. But overall, he's been really good in ISOs Okay in the post two hundred and fifty six possessions two hundred and forty one points at zero point ninety

four points per possession. That ranks ninth out of the ten guys in the league that are high volume post up players over two hundred and fifty possessions. Once again, surrounding talent and shooting are the important like kind of context there. He's just he's not in a situation where guys are gonna make team make him pay consistently, make

teams pay consistently for throwing second defenders at him. At his best in the post, it's when he's quick and decisive, like catching second defender, quick kickout pass, just like really fast decision making, and then also quick aggressive moves towards

the rim. It doesn't really need to shoot a hook shot, thankfully, just because how tall he is, and he'll just make like an aggressive move towards the middle and like almost shoot like a sliding scoop shot with his left hand into the lane or a sliding scoop shot with his right hand in the lane.

Sometimes to settle for unnecessary tough like turnaround jump shots off the glass and stuff like that, that's usually where he'll have misses in those situations. Had a really good post up sequence against Indiana late in a win last week. It was one o three to one oh two with four minutes left, the Spurs were up. He had an aggressive baseline move on Siakam, just one of those quick attacks to get a and one. And then he had an aggressive move on Turner on the opposite block where

he drew foul. Now on the next possession, the hard double teamed him and he hit Jeremy Socian on a cup on a cut and he made a layup at the basket. So like spamming an action to close a game against a really good team. And again, Indiana's defense has not been very good since Siakam came over, but that is in terms of personnel, a good defensive front line, and Miles Turner and Pascal Siakam and Wenby was just

going right through him like tissue paper. In terms of shot types, he's been a bad jump shooter zero point eighty eight points per shot overall. That's a twenty six percentile mark for jump shooting, catch and shoot zero point eight two points per shot overall, thirty percent field goals, forty one percent when you weaight it for threes, when he's guarded twenty eight percent, thirty eight percent weighted for threes, and when he's unguarded thirty two percent, forty six percent

weighted for threes. So just all really bad and all areas where he'll need to improve in the long run. But his pull up jump shot has been really, really deadly this year. He's got thirty five point four percent field goal percentage on pull up jump shots forty nine percent weighted for threes, so right around a point per possession to give you an idea, he's been about as effective hitting pull up jump shots as Jason Tatum, which again as a rookie, is a really really impressive mark.

But again it's the face up jumpers where he's been best, shooting forty one percent overall on face up jump shots fifty four percent weighted for threes. So question is, why is it that Victor woman Yama has struggled so much in catch and shoot situations but has been pretty good

and pull up and face up situations. To me, it's all about rhythm and Wemby as a tendency to get a little bit loose with his jump shot form in the sense that like he's relying a lot on just the release at the end, his base gets a little funky on these, where like he'll he's drifting a lot on his like off the dribble shots, he'll drift to

the left or drift to the right. There was a flashing like kind of like a movement shooter type of shot he took against the Warriors in the second half last night where Draymond was guarding him and he was under the basket, and he flashed up to the left wing and he caught and like quick turn and pivot and shot literally looked like a movement shooter, but on it like he randomly jumped like forward into the left quite a bit, even though he was unguarded, he jumped

like forward to the Draymond got a late contest on it, but he jumped like forward into the left a little bit. And it's just like different than what he does on a bunch of other possessions. And so one of the and by the way, this is super typical for young basketball players, and like one of the things that that he'll just have to you're out in the long run,

is getting super consistent with his form. And like to me, you actually want to build it out out of catch and shoot, So like you want to have like this perfect muscle memory from the base up in your catch and shoot shots.

across the board. But right now, it's like when he's in a rhythm because he's touching the basketball, he shoots well, but when he has to catch and shoot not so well. When he can actually build out his catch and shoot as the foundation of his jump shot and then connect that to his off the dribble shooting, that's when I think we'll see some real shooting consistency from him. But the touch is there. I have no doubt that in the long run he's going to be a great shooter.

Thirty five percent on floaters, only ten makes on the season, though, so it's not a shot he takes a lot. Only forty three percent on hooks sixteen makes, though on the entire season. Like we talked about earlier, doesn't really need it because he's so damn tall. So it's more like he'll, like most players while on the black like drop step and then shoot like a little half hook over their

left shoulder. Wemby can go out to the side and almost like take a scoop shot, so like it's not really relevant to him just because it's not a shot he needs to take. At the RIM, one hundred and thirty one dunks. That's tied for the sixth most in

the NBA. Here's a little trivia. You guys want to guess who the six players are that are either tied or above him number six, Nick Claxton, number five, Jarrett Allen number four, Aaron Gordon number three, Anthony Davis number two, Rudy Gobert number one, drum Roll Joannis, and Tana Kumbo. Big shot, I know, but still Victor Wiman yamun limited minutes, that's sixth in the most dunks in the NBA. Only fifty four percent on layups, obviously a big area of

improvement for him. Gets knocked off of his base relatively easily, and it has some can occasionally have some bad misses around the rim, but that again is just something I think it comes down to both driving into traffic and just being better about his drive pass decisions, and then too, just putting on a little bit more bulk. On the defensive end, He's already one of the best defensive players

in the world. He currently has the second best odds on DraftKings in the league to win Defensive Player of the Year. Leads the league in blocks in limited minutes. As a matter of fact, if you extrapolated out to a thirty six minute shift, he's averaging four point three blocks for thirty six minutes, fourth in deflection rate among players who've played at least fifteen hundred minutes this season, So just wreaking havoc on the defensive end of the floor.

He has this tendency, this ability that most players don't have to hang back and make it look like there's an opening, but then just take a simple drop step in reach and be able to cover like fifteen feet of space, and it just makes it so that he can really bait players into situations that they don't want to get into. Most of the I shouldn't say most, but a good percentage of the blocks that victor women Yama women Yama have. They're not like a players or

guys are challenging him. They're plays where they don't even think he's around, and then suddenly he's just there. And that's just the advantage of his ability to kind of disguise whether or not he's coming in help or not. So in summary, he's already impacting winning at a high level. The Spurs are six point two points better per one hundred possessions when he's on the court versus when he's off. He's already a top twenty five player in the league in my opinion, and he can still get so, so,

so much better on both ends of the floor. Some specifics again, improving as a shooter in every phase of the game, which we talked about already, so I won't get into again limiting turnovers, specifically being more careful that when he tries to thread the needle and pick and roll passing situations, just being more deliberate. Again, if it's not open, you can literally just swing the pass, get it back and run another one, like you don't need

to force it in that specific action. Dribbling into traffic as well, just when he's attacking closeouts or driving in ball screens or ISO situations, just being more picky about when he exposes the basketball. And then lastly, like all young players, just kind of shot selection stuff, so like finding the right place for tough shot making and then

maximizing the capitalizing on the low hanging fruit. Right like what we talk about Jokic all the time, Like the dude is the best in the league at grabbing all of the low hanging fruit on offense. And Victor has that type of potential to be a guy who gets twenty twenty five points a game just on the easy stuff that's sitting there right in front of him, and so then the tough shot making stuff can push him

over the top. Now, right now, despite all of these classic rookie issues, he's averaging twenty six points and thirteen rebounds per thirty six minutes right now for the season,

and he's still adjusting to the league. So like, there's no reason at all why we couldn't see a five year run in Victor women Ya's Victor wemen Yama's prime where he averages like thirty two, fifteen and seven with like six stocks per game, Like that's on the table for him, that's not even a long shot that almost feels like a certainty, Like, right now, he's getting you twenty six and thirteen per thirty as a rookie. That's for the season, not including this latest leap that he's

been on. There's no reason at all to think that it's some improved shooting bumping his minutes up, just overall better decision making in veteran experience, that he can't be up around thirty two points per game. He's already grabbing thirteen rebounds per game, that's not a big leap to get.

And then again, the last thing I'll say about Victor took a big leap in the middle of the season, when most rookies go down a level that to me, is just a huge indicator of his work ethic and his competitiveness, and that to me just that's like the swing factor in what if you look at like Victor's career as a spectrum of results, meaning like the best possible version of his career and the worst possible version of his career based on his talent, it's his competitiveness

and work ethic, along with some injury luck that will determine where he lands on that scale. Injury lucks outside of your control. But Victor, for the record, works extremely hard on pliability and flexibility and all that kind of stuff, and so he's doing everything he can on his end to avoid injuries. Obviously, the Spurs have been really careful with his minutes and stuff as well, so that you do what you can to control that. But his competitiveness and his work ethic I think are going to help

him hit the high end of that spectrum. Sky's the limit for Victor, And it was really fun diving into his film this morning. All right, let's get to the mailbag. Since the twenties twenty one season, ad bulked up a bit to better center position, what are the pros and

cons of this bigger build and playing center overall. So I think it's the pros are in theory it should help him bang with other big centers underneath the basket, and he for the record, he does do better than he used to in that regard, and there are guys that he can bully now that he didn't used to be able to buoy.

whatever that's worth. Like I tend to think, like lean into your advantage, like don't play big guy basketball when you're not as good at playing big guy basketball as Nukolea Yokich, right, Like, don't you're not good Like you're still running into the zubatches and the some bonuses and the Nurkices and the Yokitches of the world and struggling, and that's the only matchup where that size really makes

that much of a difference. So if it were up to me, I would have leaned more into ads speed and been like, yeah, there are gonna be some matchups before we struggle, because you know, Ad is getting buried. But like, as long as we're playing hard around him and we have advantage of his ability to cover ground in rotation, there's gonna be so much more good than

bad that comes from that. Also, I just think the Lakers would have been in a much better position offensive if they had the Anthony Davis from the bubble that was capable of being really a high level perimeter score and he's just gone down a massive level in that department, which I do think is connected to some of his strength. So again, there are pros that have come with it, and I understand why, like conceptually why he did it, but personally, if I was Anthony Davis, I would have

lingered more around the body type he was in twenty twenty. Hey, Jason, I love this channel and I think you provide desperately needed insightful content, especially for a casual viewer, and keep up the great work. Thank you for the kind words and for supporting the show. I'm not a guy who generally likes plug and play players and certain into certain eras and teams, but I cannot help but wonder what if someone like Demarta Rosen or Paul George was on

AI's Final Team Finals Team. I think the type of player that would greatly benefit the chances of that series being at least more competitive. But then again, who is

guarding Shaq still? Yeah, Shack still would have been a massive problem, But that was a team that grinded it out and just depended on Alan Iverson to take and make tough shots, and so specific the guy that I think would have been an interesting option, there is a DeMar de Rozen, just because he was the kind of guy that like you could really he's, in my opinion, a better like on an island score than Paul George can be because Paul George is just a little bit

too dependent on his three point shot, He's not as good at drawing fouls. DeMar de Rozen, I think like, is a little bit bigger and sturdier for some of the more physical playback then I think Paul George, for the record, is a better player than Demarta Rozen. Right now, That's not what I'm trying to say, but I just think in that like kind of boxed in, like we just need someone to grind out points type of environment.

Alongside that, that Sixers team in two thousand and one, I think Demarta Rozen would have been a really interesting fit. Next question, Hey Jason. First off, I love the show, big Lebron fan here, and I know you are as well. I've said for years that I think personally the twenty seventeen Cavs were better than the twenty sixteen title team and that they just ran into the best team ever. I know the regular season wasn't great, but when you

look at the playoffs, their run was insane. Curious if you agree, and if you can provide some context as well. So I thought the seventeen Calves were obviously a much better offensive team than the twenty sixteen team. Lebron James kind of went up a level as a scorer between that from twenty sixteen into that twenty seventeen twenty eighteen stretch. Lebron really went up a level in terms of his consistency, and his jump shot and just his overall feel as a score.

so here's the thing. I don't think it would have mattered under any circumstances with how good that twenty seventeen Warriors team was. However, had Kevin Durant not gunn to the Warriors and twenty seventeen was more or less a rematch of the Harrison Barnes Warriors versus the twenty seventeen Calves,

I think it would have been a great series. But the Calves would have been in some trouble in the sense that, like even in that playoff run, they didn't really need to defend that much, and so I wonder if their defense in twenty sixteen they were just much sharper defensively overall from start to finish in the season, and so I don't know what would have happened if

the Caves and Warriors rematch in twenty seventeen. I really wanted to see that, which is what kind of sucked about Kevin Durant going there, is it just kind of ruined what would have been a really fun rubber match because the twenty seventeen Warriors are the best roster ever assembled in my opinion, and they, I mean, the twenty

seventeen Warriors won fifteen consecutive playoff games. Think about that, like, I don't even I don't even know if we've had a team won fifteen win fifteen straight regular season games this year, and the Warriors literally won fifteen straight playoff games in that twenty seventeen run, so like they were

just completely unbeatable. But I do think that twenty seventeen Caves is playing with a little bit of fire, just with where they were at defensively at that point in the season, and it was really just effort and focus and like discipline type stuff. Hey, Jason, I like your explanation on why it's a better strategy to lean into higher field goal percentage shots at the end close games.

Is it also better to take higher field goal percentage shots when you have a decent lead, to lower the variant of the game and lean into the trending outcome. So in general, I believe you lean on shot value in the large sample at the end of games. Yes, you want to hunt high field goal percentage. Also, it's

about feeling the game. So for instance, like when you have a guy that you need to get in rhythm that hasn't been involved in the offense, you want to find a way to get him in rhythm when the other team, let's say you have an eighteen point lead and the other team scores three four baskets in a row and they're starting to regain control. That's a possession where it's really important for you to identify a high field goal percentage shot rather than a high shot value

type of shot. And again, for those of you gus who don't understand what I'm saying, like, shooting thirty five percent from three is a higher value shot than shooting forty five percent on a two, right, But in that singular possession, forty five percent is more than thirty five percent. So that's what I mean. In the large sample. I

want to lean into shot value. You want to take the highest value shot, but feeling out the game, identifying when it's important, and you need baskets those pivotal possessions, having really smart ball handlers that will track down high value shots within that specific possession. In terms of field goal percentage, usually are the teams that manage the flow of offense over a game better. Next question, Really want to get into podcasting, but I really don't know where

to start. Love basketball, but I would primarily talk about football at the college and professional level. Any tips on how to start, So a couple of things. I think

it's a blessing and a curse. I think it's the best possible time in the history of the industry to get involved because anybody can do it and you don't need a ton in terms of investment upfront, Like, I personally have a podcast that I do separate from this that I produce myself still to this day, just like I used to with my basketball stuff before the volume came on board, and for two Suns podcasts, what I'll do is like we recorded an episode at my buddy's

house talking about Showgun the other day and literally I set up my phone on a tripod and it automatically

pairs with my MacBook as a webcam. And then I had a microphone that I used to plug a cheap plug in microphone that I had, So like, you can literally for like you could buy a used MacBook, you know, for what three four hundred bucks, and you can use whatever iPhone you have and buy a tripod for thirty bucks on Amazon, and get a microphone for thirty bucks on Amazon and have all the equipment you need to produce a podcast you can use like there are apps

like Spotify for podcasters that allow you literally to host a podcast for free, right like there, Like YouTube is an incredible tool that is completely free for you to distribute content. Social media is an incredible place for you to put content out and advertise your podcast, right So, like, it has never been a better time for you to get involved. The flip side of that, though, is that

it's a very flooded field. So if you do it very casually and you don't invest a ton of time into it, you have to be prepared for that process to be more slow because there are going to be a lot of people out there that are relentless with content. That was a big thing that separated for me when I was getting into this industry. I covered every single

Lakers game after the game. We we went live right after every single Lakers game, and so like we were first and we were going every day basically, and then in between, I'd cover the rest of the league by myself in these like other podcasts that I would do. So like, I was really really grinding at it, and I was fortunate I had a flexible job at the time, so I was able to kind of just fit it in there. I had a wife was very supportive and was helping me, you know, pursue my dream of trying

to make this happen. So like, just keep in mind it is flooded. So like if you want to separate yourself, you have to separate yourself through quality work and through consistency of your work. As far as how to do it, like it's really the simple. Set up your shit and record, get something out there when you do, distribute it everywhere. Have it on a podcast feed, have it on YouTube, make sure you take clips of it, put it on

social media to direct people to those feeds. As far as what content you cover, that's a beautiful thing about YouTube. You can have a podcast titled whatever, but on YouTube you can just target whatever that specific subject matter is.

So for me my two Sons podcast with my buddy Luke, we cover a lot of like TV shows and specific and movies, but specifically I'm big into fantasy, right, so, like I love Star Wars, I love Lord of the Rings, I love Game of Thrones, Like Showgun is something that's right up my alley in terms of what I enjoy and appreciate obviously with the history element of it, and so like the branding of the episode is surrounding the

subject matter. It's kind of like these shows, like you guys see, like we I just do a show, but we have a team of people that is really smart about identifying what is most you know, like like interesting about whatever we're talking about, and they brand it accordingly. But like, make sure you're using YouTube, make sure you're

using social media. The reason why the algorithms on those apps they do the work for you in the sense that like, as long as you're talking about something interesting and as long as you're being interesting in terms of the watch time, those algorithms will continue to push your content out to other people, and so the point is never been a time to do it. I highly recommend that if it's something you're interested in doing, that you do it just because, like you can do it on

the side of another career. It's a hobby for lack of a better term, right, But as long as you in order to separate yourself, you really have to make quality and quantity of content. And that's just something to keep in mind because it is a very flooded industry at this point. In one last little note on that front,

what works for me doesn't necessarily work for everybody. This is just my own personal experience being in this industry, and as is always the case, I think it's important to pick the brains of lots of different people that bring different perspectives, because again, what works for me might not work for you, and what works for you might not work for me. It's just, you know, everyone's unique in that regard. How important will it improve Jalen Brown

be in a playoff series. Over the last fifteen games, he has a blistering sixty seven percent field goal percentage and eight point two half court drives per game, while only turning the ball over three point one percent of the time, how useful will his paint penetration be in a potential mil Milwaukee or Cleveland series. I think Jalen Brown's improvement is super exciting, mainly just because he's found a way to impact games in a way that doesn't

rely on his skill as much. Obviously, he's playing a very high level skill game right now, but he's really leveraging his athletic tools on both ends of the floor, both as an on ball defender and also as a physical rim pressure guy. As you've been talking, he's been one of the main drivers of the Celtics have been the third best paint offense in the league of over the last seven games so by like two weeks or so, and Jenn Brown's been the primary driving force behind that.

So I absolutely think it's encouraging and I absolutely think that it can help in the playoffs. And the main reason why is like so much of basketball can be mental, and so having the ability to lean on athletic gifts when you're not confident mentally is a great way to keep impacting winning And I just feel better about Jalen Brown's resiliency as a playoff impactor this year as a result.

do that just because of travel. It's just too unrealistic to be imagine a game five, game four, five, six, seven in basically the two cities going back and forth like it just it wouldn't work if you were going across the country. What do you think is the realistic ceiling of the Timberwolves and what is their championship windub? This team is clearly well built right now, but it's interesting to see that there's an age gap between the Anthony Edwards, Cat McDaniels group and the Rudy Gobert Mike

Conley group. I see the issue of relying too heavily on ant to generate for us in grind down half court offense situations, and I don't see how that is improved without some sort of big roster moved via trade because the Cold Soda ain't exactly the hottest free agent destination in the nation. I've never heard that saying before the Cold Soda my wife actually went and played college basketball up in Minnesota, though she's told me a little

bit about it. I just feel like by the time ant Man matures enough to make the right decisions and is able to be the best player on a championship team, it'll be three to four years from now and those guys will be too old, and we actually win a ship with this group. Given the deepness of the league and the odd age gaps with the core guys, a couple of things I don't like right now. What's exciting

is the combination of perimeter defense and Gobert. But when you have elite perimeter defense, you don't need as much in terms of rim protection. This is something we've seen with the Nuggets. Right when you have KCP and Aaron Gordon, it doesn't make Nikola Jokic's limitations matter as much. As a matter of fact, it gives him a role that he can really thrive in defensively, right, So, like that's kind of way I look at it.

power forward to put next to him. You got to find somebody that can essentially be the low man, that can be a rim protector and rebounder that allows Carl Towns to be aggressive and pick and roll coverages up at the level where he can use his intelligence more than the physical gifts that he has, right And so from that perspective, From that perspective, like, I actually am not really worried about the timeline stuff, And I do think Aunt is advancing at a fast enough rate that

I think you'll be able to capitalize on the go Bear window at some point a few more Do you feel like it is a lock for the twenty twenty four Lario Brian Trophy to be hoisted up by a Western Conference or Eastern Conference team. I argue that the West has arguably been the more difficult conference, particularly this season with the amount of tanking, slash unorganized teams in

the East. So I'm on the fence because I kind of look, I look at the Clippers and the Bucks as like, I put the Clippers slightly above the Bucks, but they've been struggling as of late, and then now the Suns are playing better, so I got to kind of like kind of factor them into that.

I think the Bucks might be the best chance to beat the Nuggets in the finals. The gap between the two teams isn't as large as people make it seem. I'm a fan of both teams, mainly because of Jannis and Jokic are my favorite players to watch over the past three years. Can you provide in details advantages that either team has if this wants to play out potentially in the finals, because I don't believe any other team,

even the Celtics, can beat Milwaukee in the East. So I disagree in the sense that I think Milwaukee has their work cut out for them to get out of the East. But I do think they have a legitimate chance to get out. So with that being the case, looking quickly at matchups, Brook Lopez is another guy who will struggle to gard nikolea Jokic over the course of his series. He's had some success with him over the years, but he's got a high enough center of gravity that

Jokic can kind of bump him off. Aaron Gordon is actually a decent matchup for Giannis. I think that on the let's look first at the Denver on offense, Jokic working against Lopez Giannis on the back line, that's like as good of a duo as you can find there. Because Giannis has that ability to kind of be in two places at once, and I think they will have some success there where I worry about Milwaukee's at the guard position. We just saw D'Angelo Russell Cook Dame Lillard

in large part because of the size differential. These bigger skill guards are starting to give Milwaukee some issues. This has been an issue that we've seen kind of as of late in general with Milwaukee. And I worry about Jamal Murray just like really really causing problems for their backcourt, just because of how much bigger he is than all of them. And then I don't think like a guy like Jay Crowder can hang with a guy like Jamal either,

So I worry about that a little bit. You need to keep that size on the weak side because Michael Porter Junior is the guy who can really do damage on the offensive glass, and then obviously you need a guy who can bother him with contests at his height. So I like how they match up with Denver in the front court, just in the sense that I think Giannis is as good of a low man as you can have in that situation, kind of helping off of

Aaron Gordon. But I worry about them in the back court on the other end of the floor, Yo Kitchen and Aaron Gordon is about as good a frontline as you could have to deal with the Yiannis problem, right, and then they're gonna throw KCP on Dame for the entire series. Again, to Aaron Gordon with Yokics behind him, is gonna be something they're gonna be able to do against Giannis and have some success.

can't win. I think it would absolutely utterly depend on Dame just being an absolute superstar because in that event, you if you can actually force the Nuggets to bring Jokic way up to the level of the screen and exist in rotation and kill teams with the dam Giannis pick and roll, I think they can have some success. But I would still lean Denver in that matchup two more quick ones. A lot of people upset that I didn't mention D'Angelo Russell in the In the last podcast,

I swear I talked about her. He's the hero of the game. He made the biggest play of the game at the end with that floater. I mentioned him having twenty one points in the fourth quarter. I don't really understand there's a segment of Lakers fans I think I hate dl which is just completely nonsensical. Delo's won me over this year. I'm a huge fan of Dlo. Even

before the season, I had no issues with Delo. I just looked at it as next to Austin Reeves, he was the obvious guy that you had to trade, just based on his salary number, the years left on his contract, and the fact that he wasn't as playable in the playoffs last year. Two things have changed. One, I was super impressed even when Delo wasn't playing very well. I was impressed with his professionalism. And then since he rejoined the starting lineup a couple months ago, he's just been

a better player. And like, again this is something I harp about on the show, but like I'm going to respond to new information, and so like, Delo is a better basketball player now than he was when I was saying some of the things I said about him over the summer, like that's just a fact, and so I'm not married to any opinion. I don't have any personal

beef with del I like Dlo a lot. He's now become one of my favorite players because I've learned to love not just his personality and his professionalism, but now he's also in roved so much that there's a lot to love just on the basketball side of things. So, like I did mention him last night, big fan of him. Don't really know what else to say. Last question, Hey, Jason, do you really think the Bucks defense got so awesome just because the Bucks won on a small win streak

against bad teams except the Clippers. It doesn't seem like they are really any better than they were before Doc Rivers got there, and the offense is definitely slower.

you guys for supporting the show. The plan as of right now, we're gonna be going tomorrow with a quick instant reaction on a couple of games and another our mail bag in the morning, and then we will have a live reaction to Kings Lakers tomorrow night on YouTube after the final buzzer, I will see you guys. Then the volume