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eight hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by Thanduel here at the volume. Happy Wednesday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are having a great week so far packed show. Today we're getting into the top ten players in the NBA. Will be doing number ten through number six today and then actually when we do the rest of the list to one.
We're gonna go one player at a time, and I really want to take our sweet time as we dive into each player, their strengths and their weaknesses, their history, their resume. I want to dive into, you know, some of the greatest moments throughout their career. I want to take our sweet time there. I think it should be a lot of fun. We're also going to briefly touch
on the Nets drama some updates. After Josiah sent out a tweet having Sewn Marks's back, having Steve nash Is back, I thought that was a great indicate or of the direction this is all heading. So we're gonna touch on those things real quick. You guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our content. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason lt S, you guys don't miss
any show announcements and things along those lines. And last but not least, if you can't get over to YouTube to finish one of these shows, but you're driving around town, you can always find the audio version of these shows on our podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts. Under Hoops tonight. All right, let's get started. So Joe sigh, as I expected, came out in defense of Sean Marks and Steve Nash later in the day yesterday after we recorded are kind of instant reaction video. That was to
be expected. It's like the optics of him firing Steve Nash and Sean Marks after that report came back, even if he wanted to, even if he believed k D, it just would have been a really bad look for him. He would have come off looking like a week owner that was succumbing to the demands of a disgruntled star, which would have just said a bad precedent any other time in the future that he would try to put
his foot down with any player. Every relationship with every star he'd have in the future would come under the consideration that they are running the show as opposed to him, and it's just a simple question of principle. He chose principle,
and that was kind of to be expected. We actually heard um from I believe it was Jake Fisher from Bleacher Report reported today that Josiah is actually very very high on Sean Marks and is very pleased with the direction he has gone with the team and is very happy with Steve Nash and his ability to maximize the talent of the players that have come through Brooklyn. That's about his resounding a statement of support as you could find. Sham's also reported today that Katie is checked out mentally.
That obviously is not a shock generally speaking, when you think about making some sort of transition in your life, Once you've mentally made that transition, it's really hard to go back, think back to any time that you um made a career change, that you decided to quit a job, that you decided in your head, I'm gonna try this, or I'm gonna move there, or I'm gonna break up with this person, or try to do like whatever it
is that you're gonna do. When you make that decision in your head, you start to envision the other side, and then you focus on the positives there, and then it becomes really difficult to ever mentally accept coming back to your current predicament. It's really hard to buy back in. I'm sure many of you guys have similar examples in your life that feel that way, So I doubt that Katie is just gonna suddenly buy back in to the Brooklyn situation. The main reason why I wanted to talk
about this again today. You guys have heard me talk a lot about the idea of training camp threats like that. You see this all the time in UH when it comes to trade requests and trade demands and things along those lines. I'll be like, Oh, we're not afraid to take him into training camp this year. And what I've always said is like, how do you expect on day one of training camp when you're attempting to, you know, implement a set of core values and principles and an
offense and a defense and everything. And that's your best time to practice if you really think about the path of the NBA regular season and how when you really get into the grind of it, you might only have a handful of practices per month. And a lot of teams are scooting skipping shoot around these days in order to help teams with legs, especially older teams. So the reality is is like training camp is an immensely valuable period during the NBA season to implement who you are
as a basketball team. That's why I actually value things like preseason outcomes in a way that a lot of other analysts do not. I just really think that that's the time that you set the tone for who you are going to be, and then that tends to carry on throughout the season. Obviously, it's not a harder fast rule.
There are teams that succeed despite rough starts, kind of like the Boston Celtics last year, but it's usually those are the few and far between, and the general that generally training camp does matter and early season does matter. So now I want you to imagine that you're sitting with Steve Nash in a video room and they're getting ready to lay down their core principles for the year, maybe lay down uh some details of their their offense before they go out on the court to have their
first practice of the season. And you're a young player and you're sitting in the in the film room and Kevin Durant two rose behind you, and Kyrie's right next to him or nearby, and they're Steve Nash in front of the room, and Sean Marks is kind of standing on the side with his arms crossed, and everybody in the room is thinking the same damn thing. Our two best players do not believe in these guys. They do not believe in Steve Nash, they do not believe in
Sean Marks. That's not just reporting, that's essentially on the record, and Josiah confirmed that. I actually thought it was a little bit of a faux pa on Joe Size part to even send that tweet. He could have accomplished that with a phone call or a text message privately to the parties involved. He publicly stamped that report with that tweet. Now every one knows that Katie and Kyrie do not
believe in Sean Mark's and in Steve Nash. I do believe that Kyrie's influence on Katie is different than what his actual public position is. Kyrie is saying all the right things like oh, I want to be a net, I'm here to stay, blah blah blah. But we all know why that is. He wanted a long term extension this year, he didn't get it because of his reputation
from the previous two years. Next year, he's gonna want a long term extension because he's still pretty young and he's still got a lot of money to make in the n b A, so he's on the pathway to restoring his image. I believe he would say things publicly to cultivate that image for the sake of signing a deal next year. But you bet your ass behind the scenes, he's still the same guy that was yelling that he's going to the Lakers soon that on camera earlier in
this summer. You bet your ass that he's in Kevin Durants. You're saying, no, man, we gotta get out of here, even if that's privately and under the table. But in terms of this specific situation with training camp, I just don't see a real listic situation where you, as Brooklyn, would want to move forward and start your season in the most crucial phase with two people who are effectively malcontents in the locker room. I just don't think that'd
be a good idea. And then again, i've i've see it heard people say like, oh, well, what's the rush, like they're tanking anyway. No, they're not. They don't have their own draft picks. They have some draft picks, but they're not their draft picks. They've traded away the vast majority of their own draft capital, so they are not actually incentivized to lose. There a team that's going to
be looking to win and win right away. So if that's the case, and you're Josiah and Sean Marks, and you're looking at this as a basketball culture, and your basketball culture is not where you want it to be right now, because these two guys are in charge in the locker room and they come with this boatload of
baggageing issues. Right, you're going to want to cultivate a new basketball culture that's built around team first, and you know, uh, not allowing stars to exert control, and you're gonna want to have a basketball focus, not to focus on, you know, things off the court. If that's the case, you don't actually you're not actually incentivized to wait an additional year to do that. You can start that process now, especially
since your draft picks are not yours. So it's actually in their best interest to clean house before training camp so they can start fresh and begin the rebuilding of their culture this fall and get things started. And they can. They have a lot of assets to to start that process if they trade Katie, even if like Kyrie is worth at least first one first round draft pick as well, so they've got plenty to quickly kickstart this thing in
the in the right direction. So all of that that I just said to me makes it pretty clear that the Kevin Durant deal is going to go down sooner than later. Uh. My guest is still that it will be either Toronto or Boston. My guess is that if Toronto puts Scottie Barnes on the table, they'll get him. My theory is that Messi u Jerry wants him and would absolutely do that. But I think he's terrified that the Toronto fan base would revolt, and for good reason.
But I think mass I u Jerry looks at that roster and goes, man, if I Kevin Muran here, we would win all of the basketball games. I think that's where mass eyes had head is at, so he's gonna have that decision to make. I think that the fallback option for Brooklyn will end up being Boston, and if no better option comes around, I think they'll go after Jealen Brown. Those of you guys who have listened to my player rankings list have seen how high I have
Jealen Brown ranked. I'm super high on him. I think could be a great option for Brooklyn to build around in the immediate future. And then and then hey, maybe you throw Ben Simmons out there with him and see see if it's a good fit there, all right. On that note, let's get into the top ten. Number ten Kauai Leonard. Now, to be clear, he's not the tenth best player in the league. He's probably much higher than
that if he is healthy. But in this case, I felt like this was a smart place to put him, or a safe place to put him that applies the appropriate respect to what he's done in this league, while giving favor to the players in front of him who have been more impactful lately because of their health and availability. Is apps revolutely on ability. But I do believe that people have massively overlooked I should I shouldn't put it
that way. I think that collectively as a basketball community, we've kind of forgotten a little bit just how damn good Kawhi Leonard is. So these are his stats from one season, uh, the year before he got hurt, obviously, or the year that he did get hurt. I should say, seven and five on sixty shooting in the regular season. In the playoffs, thirty eight and four on sixty eight percentury shooting. These numbers that I'm about to read you guys,
are just preposterous. Everything that you've heard from me in the last couple of weeks. As we've done these player rankings pales in comparison to the numbers that I'm about to read to you. Four point two made restricted area field goal attempts at seventy seven percent. Like I said, for a big power wing, I want that around seventy on the low end, he's at seventy seven percent. That's damn near a rim finisher, like a guy, like a big man in the dunker spot. Two point three additional
paint field goals at forty nine percent. That's incredible. Two point nine made excuse me, two point five made mid range jump shots per game on sixties six percent shooting. That's outrageously good. That's unconscionably good. That doesn't even make sense. There's that that's so unbelievably deadly from that range that it should take. It takes every analytical argument and just throws it out the window. On corner threes and thirty
on above the break threes, just outrageously efficient. He scored on fifty eight percent of his post stops. By the way, all these numbers are reading are from the postseason. These were from playoff series. He scored on fifty percent of his post stops resulting in one point to one points per possession. He took eighty one pull up jump shots off the dribble in that postseason run and made forty
of them. Damn ne ear half. He's just absolutely insanely good, and I'm very, very excited to watch him play basketball again this year. You Know, one of the things that I wanted to hit on here is the value of strength in basketball, because Kwhi Leonard is an extremely strong player. I had a food injury after my freshman season in junior college. My first season in junior college, I was about two hundred and five pounds and uh freaky athlete,
like give my head at the rim, I was. I was above the rim all the time, but I struggled to get to the rim as a slasher because I was pretty thin. So I suffered a stress fracture in that off season and I had to take a couple of months off, And during that time, all I did
was lift weights every single day. And I went into my second season at two hundred and twenty five pounds, So I add literally twenty pounds of muscle in one single off season, and I ended up making an All conference team that year, and a large part of that
was the value of strength. It made me a much better rebounder, It made me a much better UH defensive player, and it made it so that when I was driving to the basket, I had an easier time maintaining my line, staying where I was, staying where it was as opposed to people bumping me off my line. I think people basketball players in general are obsessed with keeping their weight down for the sake of mobility, and I do understand that, don't get me wrong. Like there's a balance here. One
of my favorite examples of this is Andrea Gudala. He talks all the time. I think he plays around to twenty as well, and like he talks about how like to two is about the high end of where he feels like he can be an impactful defender, but he's actually more comfortable about to twenty and he makes the decision to get up to two twenty two when he has to guard Lebron James in a playoff series because he needs the extra weight. It was from I think one of his books a while back, but it's an
interesting concept. There is a balance, There's a there's a healthy balance between strength and carrying extra weight and keeping your mobility. But I think strength has vastly become one of the most underrated skills in the game of basketball, and they're not enough young players putting attention to detail into their strength training. Think of it like this. Every time you do anything on a basketball court, there's contact. Basketball is a contact sport. You're not just running free
and loose all over the floor. People are grabbing you, people are holding you, people are trying to get in your way. People are fighting you for position. And in those situations, every little bit of muscle that you have is is an extra ability to fight and claw for position.
When you rip through and try to go to the rim, if a guy does a little bit of hand checking, which is probably not going to get called, it might be the difference between him containing you and keeping you in front and you ripping right through him and getting all the way to the rim. It's an immensely valuable skill and it's one of the great reasons why Kawhi Leonard is so so successful in the basketball court. He can get to any spot he wants on the floor.
I've talked about this before ages ago, so a lot of you guys who have gotten onto the show recently won't remember this. But Kawhi Leonard uniquely with his fade away, uses his strength to get easy shots. You know, I always talked about the difference between making extremely difficult shots versus working really hard to get easy shots. You know, you'll see guys like Steph Curry do this by moving
without the basketball. You'll see Lebron James do this by quick ducans and seals around the basket to get easy layups. For Kawhi Leonard, you see it in his mid range game. When he is working you from the perimeter into the lane and he's got you on his hip, he'll give you a hard bump with his right shoulder and then rise up from seventeen feet. It's a wide open shot even though he was guarded, because he's so damned strong that he bumped you off with his fade away. I've
talked about this before. There's two different kinds of fade away jump shooters. Fade away jump shooters who do it with their athleticism and fadeaway jumper jump shooters that do it with their strength. Guy like Lebron ironically does it with his athleticism. He fades wildly away from the basket, almost like comically on his fade away Kawhi Leonard, it's like a hard bump with his shoulder before he turns in. It's almost straight up and down. But that's why he's
so deadly from that range. His fade away is not a difficult jump shot. It is a short, balanced, easy open jump shot that he gets to by using his strength to work you to a spot on the floor where he's comfortable and then bumping you off with one of his big, gass shoulders and getting up into his spot. They're getting up into his shot, and then that strength obviously continues to help you on the defensive end when you're the guy who's applying that physicality to the person
that you're guarding. More old the story here, work on your strength, like it's just like there's a fine line. You want to make sure that you're mobile and then you can cover the ground that you need to. But if you're a young basketball player, do not overlook the weight room. It's a very very important part of the game. Um, he's a dominant defensive player still, even though he's not quite what he was, but that's to be expected as
he became. You know, he was a defensive Player of the Year once, but that was in an era when he was not being used as much offensively, but still in high leverage moments, he can be a huge problem there. We even saw that as he made Obviously he can't shut down Luca, but he's made in his last two playoff runs where he went up against Luca Donch, there were stretches of those series where he put he got onto Luca, made things extremely difficult and had some success there.
On the playmaking front, he used to be pretty much the worst playmaking star in the entire league, like to the point where it was a glaring, glaring weakness. He's still in that conversation, but he has become respect the bowl, like he can make your basic pocket passes and pick and roll. If you run drop coverage to Amer, you can make basic kickouts. That is definitely a weakness of his those though, and then health is obviously a huge part of it as well. I've heard mixed intel and
quiet on Kawai knee. I've heard from people that would know that it's the generative and it may never get better, and then I've heard people say that, you know, that that that that's b s and he's fine. As is always the case, Kawhi Leonard keeps such a tight circle that it's really difficult to get a feel for for the truth coming out of when it comes to reports on kauai um. We talked a little bit about the Clippers last year their last last show and involving their roster.
But I do think this is an interesting kind of like pivotal year for this era of Clippers basketball. We all think of the Lakers as the ship show and the Clippers as the team that have it together, and there's a lot of truth to that. The Clippers have a better owner that's willing to spend and that gets out of the way of basketball making decision that he accepts advice from people that know what they're talking about.
The way that their rosters put together is extremely modern and forward thinking and well rounded in versatile, and they've got a really good basketball coach that they're well run from the top down. But the reality is is we've had three seasons of this battle for l A and the Lakers have one championship and the Clippers have zero. They and you know, for all you want to say about the the the for all you want to say about the unprofessionalism or whatever you want to say, the
chaotic nature of the Lakers, they want a championship. And then they had another year that was successful despite injuries, and then they had this disaster for the Clippers. They had an incredibly ugly, disappointing blown three one lead against the Denver Nuggets, and then they lost in the playoffs due to injuries. And they lost in two playoffs due
to injuries. So the reality is is that they have a big old bagel to show for their results, despite having for their efforts, despite having a fantastic roster, as we've laid out before, at the guard position, they're stacked. Reggie Jackson, John wall is a backup, Norman Pale is another small guard that can dribble, drive on the wing that got Paul George Kawhi, Leonard, Marcus Morris, Nicholas Betune, Robert Covington's terroris man Luke Kennard. Like, they are absolutely
stacked there. And then they have a big guy, a solid big in Zoobots that can go to when they want to play traditional drop coverages and things along those lines. The pressure is on now because if Kawai gets hurt again or Paul George gets hurt again, it's no longer a question of bad luck. It's a question of the reality of their bodies and the way that they hold up under the grind of the NBA season. Because Paul George is a consistent injury history, and so does Kawhi Leonard.
You have a roster completely stacked full of talent. You absolutely are a top tier championship contender when you are healthy. You had three shots, three shots, and nothing has come from it. This is the year Kawhi Leonard and Paul George have to get this done. If they get hurt again, it'll be time for the Clippers to consider the real lality of the fact that those guys can't hold up and if they get if they don't get the trophy when healthy, then that brings up an entirely different list
of concerns. So the Clippers are absolutely under a lot of pressure to get it done this year. Number nine Jimmy Butler in this regular season six and six on fifty nine percent shooting and in this playoff run and classic Jimmy fashion seven seven and five on six true shooting, four point seven restricted area makes on seventy one percent shooting. That's fantastic in this postseason run. One point six mid range makes ont uh in the mid range, that's pretty
damn good as well. Takes care of the basketball exceptionally well. He's never had a single post season where he's averaged over three turnovers per game. There's nothing exceptional in the averages. Let me look at Jimmy Butler's numbers throughout his even in playoff run, the one that he went to the finals and came within two wins of the title. There's nothing exceptional going on there in the averages. What happens with Jimmy Butler is one of the strangest things that
I've seen in the game of basketball. On any given night, and it's unlikely it's about a one out of every four chance, but on any given postseason night, he is capable of elevating his game to a level that is rivaled only by the all time grades. He is a guy that on the vast majority of nights plays like a top twenty NBA player, but on any one out of every three, one out of every four playoff games, he plays like a top five NBA NB NBA player.
I've never seen anything like it. It doesn't make any sense. In this playoff run, he scored forty plus four times. He also scored fifteen or less four times. Ins he scored forty twice. He scored forty in Game five to extend the series, and then scored twelve in the elimination game. That's is kind of the way it is. He saw it in this Boston Celtics series. It was like damn good at the beginning of the series, horrifically bad in the middle of the series, and then other worldly good
at the end of the series. It's a magic power. I have absolutely no way to describe it or explain it to you. It's just playoff Jimmy Butler. It's a phenomenon that I cannot possibly explain to you. He doesn't shoot the ball well enough consistently. He has legitimate weaknesses in his game that are the reason why he's a top twenty player, not a top five player. But those weaknesses just disappear and he becomes mini Lebron in these massive playoff games on occasion. It is it is it.
I guess if I had to if I had to try to explain it to you, I would say it's a couple of those specific playoff things that I've always valued, right, Like strength. He's strong, so he succeeds in the physicality of the playoffs. He's a good playmaker in the right setting, although it does again nothing exceptional playmaking in the averages. But then he turns into a guy who can get
you twelve assists a game in the right setting. Right, he's clutch shot making, he's he's he can make plays at the end of games as a huge deal in the finals. Obviously, he's an impact defensive player. He's turned into in the Miami heat like ball pressure system, he's turned into a menace. And then just the power of supreme irrational confidence. When Jimmy Butler gets in the arena with Lebron James, he thinks up here that he's every bit as good as Lebron James. That's obviously insane, but
that's what he thinks. I mean, you couple that with all those things that I just laid out, you get a playoff Jimmy performance. You know, if he could figure out how to keep his body healthy and to shoot the ball consistently, well, I do believe he would be a consistent top six or seven player in the NBA, a full blown superstar. But those are the things that end up being inconsistent from his body pretty consistently breaks down as the season progresses, and his jump shot leaves
him in a lot of important moments. But I have a ton of respect for Jimmy Butler. You know again, that supreme confidence is everything. Like you've You've seen Damar de Rosen be a better regular season player than Jimmy pretty consistently throughout his career. But then he'll get in the arena with Lebron James and he'll immediately kind of shrink and and fall apart mentally. And then you'll see Jimmy Butler be Liken, screw that, I'm better than this guy.
You know. It's it is. It is Heat culture personified. Everything about the Miami Heat franchise and what they've tried to do with pat Riley and Erik Spoelstra. Jimmy Butler is the embodiment of that, and he's kind of the perfect guy to lead their charge. As far as the Heat go. They need more offense. I mean that was what ended up ultimately holding them back. I think they would have absolutely made the finals if they had one
other guy who could create his own shot. Like I said yesterday, I don't really see the realistic path to them getting Kevin Durant, Yet their name there the Heat, keep getting mentioned in that conversation. God knows why I would be targeting Donovan Mitchell if I was the Miami Heat, because I think that's actually an achievable player that they can get with the current assets that they have, and that's a much more interesting player to put in the
backcourt alongside Jimmy Butler as a real scoring threat. I also think that Eric Spoelscher and pat Riley would get him to commit again to the defensive end of the floor. Number eight, Joel Embiat, This is gonna get me in trouble some people, but this is what it is. That's how this works. UH. In this regular season thirty one twelve and four on six true shooting. UH in the playoffs twenty four eleven and two on fifty nine percent
true shooting, albeit he did have an orbital bone fracture. UM. Before I get any further into this, because Yokich is coming up soon as well, I've talked about this before. UM. On this show, but I wanted to lay it out here for the sake of this list. I value perimmeter players more than bis. Like we're gonna get to it here in a second, but like I have Jayson Tatum
ahead of and beating Yogis. The reason for that is is I value you the role of what Jayson Tatum does for a basketball team more than the role that Joel e Beat or Nikola Yokich fulfills, even though they are the best centers that we've seen in recent NBA history.
First of all, foot speeds. As the game has evolved and has become more five out, meaning more perimeter players and less interior players, and faster pace meaning more pushing the ball in transition, foot speed has become immensely important in those situations, slow plotting bigs like Joel Embat and Nikola Yokich can be exposed. Also, with the way that floor spacing works, it's a lot easier to deny biggs the basketball than it is to deny a perimeter player
the basketball. The ability to dribble the basketball up the court against ball pressure allows you to as a perimeter player, to to control your own outcome as you initiate the offense. As a big man, you have to fight for position someplace on the floor and get a post century. Obviously, Nikkola Yokich can bring the ball up the floor if he has to, but if you put some pressure on him, he can struggle with that as well. Big Just in general,
it's a different dynamic on the basketball court. This is why when I do all time rankings, I keep bigs in a separate list from perimeter players. They play an entirely different position, and for me, I value what a perimeter player does more um perimeter shooting the like. Both Yogi Chen and Beat are really inconsistent putting the ball in the basket from the perimeter. We'll talk about this a little bit more with Yogi in a little bit, but that becomes an issue when it comes to floor
spacing and the way teams that can guard you. Also contact that is allowed in the low post. With the way that the game is evolved, perimeter players are officiated in a very tiki tack way. You can't touch them, you can't get up underneath them, you can't do that kind of stuff post players. It's anything goes. And so just with the way that the rules are it's disadvantageous to be a big man who's operating around the basket.
So those are and you know, just in general, when when it comes to a a confined half court environment, a big perimeter player that can dissect the the defense from all three levels, I think that's a level of a value in the game of basketball that a big man cannot replicate. For the record, that's just my philosophy. This is just the way I see the game. So if you guys are at home and you're like Jason, that's stupid. Yoki is the best player in the world,
or and Be's the best player in the world. Big men are going to run the league. You're crazy. That's fine as a matter of fact, right it out in the comments. I want to see you guys tell me why you feel that way. I'm I'm not mr. I have everything in the game of basketball figured out. I have my belief systems, you guys have yours. I try to listen to as many smart basketball minds as I can to try to learn. You guys know, I'm not married to any sort of ideas. So I want to
hear why you guys think I'm wrong. If that's the case. But just so you know, as an explanation moving forward, I value permitter players more so. And bead Uh was on four point two restricted area makes in the playoffs. That's excellent. He continues to be completely unguardable in single coverage. There are may be three guys that had like their chances in that situation, Anthony Davis, Janice Antenna Cumbo and Rudy Gobert. But even with them, yeah, Joel Embiad's gonna
have some wins in those situations. The revelation since the James Harden trade has been how good Joel Embiid is
in short roll situations. James Harden, because of his ability to shoot off the dribble, forces guards to chase him over the top, and even though he struggled to get downhill penetration the way he used to, teams are forced to bracket him because as he's coming off of that ball screen the defenders caught in behind him and so the roll man, excuse me, the screen defender, the big has to come up to contain James Harden, and so Joel Embiads getting all of these opportunities in the short role,
catching the ball on short lobs or bounce passes righted around the semi circle, and he has been absolutely unstoppable in that position, getting fouls and finishes at the rim, even making some reads out of that situation. Albeit that's a specific weakness of his, but that was the revelation of this playoff running of this season, the James Harden
pairing has unlocked Joel Embiid as a short roller. He's another guy that has supreme confidence, genuinely believes he's the best player in the world that shows up in clutch shooting despite him being pretty bad putting the ball in the basket away from the basket. Uh as he gets further away from the rim, he's pent of believer in his ability to make those shots. And you see that in big situations, just like it was at the end of that Toronto Raptors game that he stole um up
there in Toronto. And then he's a very good defensive anchor as long as he's allowed to stay at the rim. But that again brings up the shortcoming that I was talking about with Bigs. Any scheme can force any smart team that has the personnel can go out there and force Joel and Bad to cover on the perimeter pull him away from the rim, and that limits his impact. Now obviously have Joel e Bead way down at eight. So there are some weaknesses that I'm gonna point out here.
In this playoff run, Joel and Bead shot just thirty on all attempts outside of the restricted area. So again that's not paint, that's not short range, that's restricted area. So if he's not right under the basket, he's missing two out of every three shots. That was just in this playoff rum. But it's been an issue for him throughout his career. And this is what I keep saying this on the show, and every time I get people that get upset, Joel Embiad is actually not that good
at putting the ball in the basket. As he gets further away, he relies on finishing at the rim and drawing fouls. That's where the vast majority of his offense comes. He has these highlight players, a dream shake for a fadeaway jump shot, a nasty pull up three over the top of nicola like nicolayotkitch off of a dribble combo. That all looks great, but in the percentages it's not actually manifesting in results. That is a specific weakness of his.
He relies heavily on the whistle. He's a very poor playmaker average just to assist per game in this playoff run. This is something that I've talked about going into the season coming out of the season. It's just a reality if you double team Joel Embiad, he's not good at making reads. Out of that not a hyper criticism of him in general, because almost every big is like that, even your kitchen. This postseason, on average, six assists with
five turnovers. So he's considered the best playmaking big in the world, and he had a pretty rough postseason as a playmaker. Anthony Davis can't readouble teams, Carl Anthony Towns can't readouble teams, so and Beads not. It is not like uniquely weak at that. It's just the reality of the way bigs are. And it also has a lot to do with the way floor spacing works in post up situations. It's just it's just it's just tough to
succeed there. He's always gonna put up monster numbers, but his impact can be limited in a playoff series due to scoutable weaknesses. If you run the floor on him, he's gonna struggle. If you double him in the post, he's gonna struggle. If you make him guard in space, he's gonna struggle. If you defend without fouling away from the basket, he's gonna miss shots. So in a playoff setting, when when a coach has a chance to scout and try out different things with personnel to see what works best,
you can vast lee limit Joel Embiad's impact. That's why he's at number eight despite being potentially the best regular season player in the entire game and last but not least. And this is this is just a really I have to reveal my biases. I'm not a huge fan of Joel Embiad in general, and the main reason has to do with his foul bating approach. Um, I'm not gonna lie to you guys about that and act like I'm
being a percent you know, unbiased. I'm not a huge fan of Joel Embiad the way he approaches the game that you know, I've I've tweeted out dozens of clips over the years of him like being wide open, you know, four ft from the basket and like jumping into a guy's chest and kicking his legs and falling over and
me being like, dude, what are you doing? Man? And then you watch him in interviews and he genuinely thinks he's getting fouled all the time, which, guess what, he does get fouled a lot, just like every NBA superstar. The difference is is he makes a clown show out of himself trying to draw free throws in those situations. Now, I would never accuse him of doing this on purpose.
He absolutely did not do this on purpose. But on the play where Joel embiad fell over and ran into Danny Green, he is flopping, and he flopped and fell with his giant frame on the floor and slid into his own teammate and ripped up his knee. Now, in general, when we are when when we all go up to l a fitness and we play, or you're playing in your men's league, or hell, if you're playing a different sport, it's generally considered reckless to throw your body on the
floor around knees and ankles. But to Joel Embid it's all about getting those two free throws. And I have a I genuinely have a problem with that as a basketball fan, so that that I just feel I feel like it's important for me to point that out because that absolutely is going to color my analysis of him. I'm human, just like all of you guys. I'm not immune to biases. I have a problem with his fal bating approach. I thought he played a role in Danny
Green's injury, even though it wasn't on purpose. And it's just it's just he's just he's just not my favorite NBA player, all right. Number seven Nicola yokichen and eight on sixty sent try shooting in the regular season, that's insane. Thirty one thirteen and six on sixty four percent true shooting in that playoff series against against Golden State Warriors, really damn good. Four point seven made restricted area attempts one three point four other paint makes on sixty that's great.
Um more methodical and under control than him, beat uh like more, he is more of like a view of the full scope of the game. He's I talked about flow of the game all the time, but understanding the value of sixty possessions over the value of six possessions. The best example that I can think of to demonstrate this to you, guys. Was their regular season matchup this
year in Philly, which Denver won by the way. But early in the game uh and Bead was having his way with yo kich on a handful of isolation possessions. There were he was hitting crazy, wild crossover jump shots and drawing fouls and just having his way with Yokich on a handful of possessions. Then on the other end of the floor there are a couple of players where Yoki tried to score over and beat and struggled against
his size and length. If you look at that as the one on one matchup for a small handful of possessions, you might think, oh, Joel embids the better player. But each player impacts the game beyond those moments, because there are sixty seventy eighty possessions in a game, depending on the pace right, and it's actually about what happens with your team in the totality of those possessions, not in the small handful. I did a video on this, You'd have to dig way back into my Twitter mentions to
find it. But in the regular season, towards the end, after uh Phley lost at home to Denver, I did a video breakdown of exactly what I'm talking about, so you can see some representations of this. But in that game, Yokich won it in the second half with little things that didn't show up in the box score. He would consistently get the rebound after getting stopped and make a quick outlet pass to a shrieking Denver nugget who would run a quick two on three, two on one break
or three on two break and get a layout. And on most of those plays he did not get an assist because there'd be an additional pass after. But Yokich one of his best strengths is kick starting a break with with quick rebounds and outlet passes. It's a unique skill that not many bigs in the league have. It used to be Kevin Love one of Kevin Love's greatest
skills back in the day. But that he won that game by kickstarting their fast break, which got bones Highland going, and then bones Hiland made a couple of massive threes at the end, and then the same way that Embiad has always struggled, Denver crowded him and got the ball out of his hands at the end of the game and he couldn't score, and they lost, so again, like there, I've always believed that basketball is a very intricately complicated game,
that there's a hundred different moving parts and it can never be simplified down to one thing like a one on one possession. And I say that, I like I'm a score. I build my game around things like what embid does. I love the footwork and and the fluidity that Joel Embiid has. That that to me, I have a great deal of respect for the amount of work
he put in to do those things. I'm just saying that's one small part of the larger organ him that is the game of basketball, and Nicola Yokich is so much better at things surrounding that that he's actually a better basketball player. You know. I talked about this earlier, but most big struggle with playmaking. Yogis had a pretty rough postseason. I'll be missing a bunch of his personnel. Only had six assists on with five turnovers per game.
But he is the best playmaking big that we have in the league, and there's a great deal of value when it comes to playmaking out of the high posts. Denver's offense is primarily predicated on Yoki catching the ball at the elbow extended up okay and having running dribble handoff actions or screening role actions with guys like Michael Porter Jr. Guys like Jomal Murray who are both were
hurt and in this past season lesser guards right. But in that situation, the threat of his ability to turn and shoot and his the threat of his passing ability makes it extremely difficult to guard because most of the
guards that they play could shoot. So he'd run that dribble handoff and the guard would have to chase them over the top, and the guards either gonna get ahead his team as the role as the Yokis defender has to step over to contain, or he's got to stay with Yokis, in which case the guard gets easy stuff there. The reason why his playmaking is so valuable there is the middle of the floor is known in the game
of basketball is the hardest place to double team. If you double team in the low block, there's it's easy to kind of set up your spacing in a way that you can help out of the week side corner, but make them throw a looping skip pass. It's really difficult. Uh, It's really difficult to make them pay for double teaming there if you double you know, on the perimeter right, like if you double uh, you know, on the left
wing or on the right wing. It there's there's a lot of ground to cover on the other side of the floor that allows you to rotate right. The ball has to be thrown in a looping manner across the floor. But if I'm dead center of the floor, if I'm at the elbow, if they double team me there, it's a quick pass to the open man. And that specifically is what makes Yoki such an effective playmaker out of
the high post. It's the location on the floor, the way that it makes teams, it makes difficent, makes it difficult for teams to double in the way that it frees things up for his guards. The one thing that that that is a massive red flag for Nikel Yogis
right now is the deterioration of his perimeter shooting. And I was on this a little bit towards the end of the regular season, and I thought it was a big part of what made him struggle so much towards the end of the season, opening the door for other m VP candidates, and also what ended up hurting him
in the Golden State Warrior Series. Not that I thought he had a realistic chance to win that series, but um, he's a career forty one percent three point shooter in the postseason before this year on two hundred and seven attempts, So Yokich used to be a deadly three point shooter. Something happened, Not sure what it is. He was nineteen percent from three over his last twenty one regular season games,
and he was five for eighteen from three in the playoffs. Overall, in this playoff run, I think he was thirty eight percent when he got away from the restricted area if I remember correctly. Uh, don't quote me on that because I didn't put that stat down in my notes, But he struggled to shoot as he got further away from the basket. What that causes now, that same dynamic I was talking about earlier with those dribble handoffs with Yoki. Obviously the guard has to chase over the top right
because of the shooting ability of the guard right. So in that situation, the fear is I have to leave Yokich as the big man defender in order to help
my guard get back into the play. On that dribble handoff, that's terrifying if Yoki can shoot, But if he becomes a non shooting threat, which he was over the course of the end of this season, the last quarter of the season and in the playoffs, if he's a non shooting threat, there's way more freedom for the big man who's guarding Yokich to drop back off of Yokitchen help in those dribble handoff actions. That is something he's going to have to fix in time for this next season
for Denver to reach their ultimate ceiling. And then last se there's some major defensive limitations. He's turned himself into a solid drop coverage big against teams that drive right into him. But I did another video on this that you can find in my Twitter feed if you're willing to scroll back far enough, from a game that the Boston Celtics beat the Denver Nuggets, and in that game, Boston was routinely barbecuing Yoki in a drop coverage because
he was sitting too far back. He lacks foot speed, so the only way to utilize him as a defensive player is to have him drop back and have him hover around the rim so that he doesn't have to cover out on the perimeter. You saw this in further detail in the Golden State series when they when Steph Curry kept attacking him and drop coverage and was just going right around him to get to the rim whenever he wants. That's not necessarily a Yokich weakness. That's more
of just a big slow center weakness. It's one of the many reasons why I'm kind of anti big slow center in general. Um, But that makes him a functional regular season defensive big, but a defensive big the has some limitations in the playoffs. That's one of the many reasons that I have him lower on this list. It's time for Nikola Yokes to have his guys, to get Jamal Murray back, to get Michael Porter Jr. Back, because I'm ready to see him play with some stakes again.
The last time we saw Yo play with real steaks and with a real team, he straight up out played Kawhi Leonard in a playoff series. Now, the unique thing there, I'm saying that for a specific reason, I was really hard on Anthony Davis when I think I had him back at like eight team in this list. That's a reminder of just how damn good Anthony Davis was in the bubble because in the same way that Yokich outplayed Kauai in that first round of second round series, Anthony
Davis outplayed Nikola Yokich in the conference finals. So it's just a it's it's a reminder of just how damn good Anthony Davis can be when his head is right, when he's healthy, when he has his body weight down, and when he can actually knock down perimeter jump shots. But I'm ready to see Nikola Yokich uh um play with some stakes again so we can see what he's got. And last note there, my guy Carson thinks that Nicol Yokes might be the best player in the league, So
sincere apologies to Carson for ranking him solo. I'm sure I'll be hearing about that soon enough. Um number six Jason Tatum and four in the regular season on fifty percentury shooting six seven and six on fifty six per century shooting in the postseason. A lot of that was taken away by a bad finals performance. He average seven and seven on thirty seven percent from the field from three and sixty six percent from the free throw line
in the finals. That bad series against Golden State kind of took away and kind of took the shine off the apple from what was an incredibly dominant regular season in postseason run, and then that's why I have him as high as I do. He's kind of like the reverse Dmarda Rosen or Brandon Ingram. I talked to a lot about those guys being like three level scores that are primarily him in mid range oriented that struggle as they get out to, especially above the break. Tatum. Tatum
is like the opposite of that. He only shoots six. He only shot sixty percent in the restricted area in this postseason run. That's bad for a player of his size and athleticism and strength. Like I always say for big wings, I want that number at least in the paint non restricted area only that's bad. Uh, mid range scent, that's not great. But he was fort on seven above the break threes per game. That's outrageous efficiency for overall
from three in that postseason run. So that's a great example for how shot value can overcome shot conversion rate. Because those numbers that I threw out, you know, the restricted area, in the paint, non restricted area seven percent from the mid range. That should not amount to a
fifty percent shooting percentage. The reason why it does is because three pointers are worth fifty more than any other shot on the floor, and if you make those ones, it will offset a lot of your inefficiencies elsewhere on the floor. But that's a great area of opportunity for Jayson Tatum because what I would tell Jayson Tatum as it be like, hey man, you shot from three in the postseason, you shot forty one above the break. You're probably not going to get much better there. You have
just about maxed out that ability. If you can polish up these other areas of the game, you can be the type of offensive engine that a you know, Lebron James or Kevin Durantis. That's the next step for him in terms of his of his of his three level scoring, he had eight plus assists seven times in this postseason run. And in those games the Celtics went seven and oh. Tatum is an interesting player in the sense that if you catch him on the right night, he looks like
a legitimately great playmaker. But if you catch him on the wrong night, he looks like a tunnel vision player that doesn't understand and how to run a team. Some of that's youth. Some of that is this is still really only like his like two and a half seasons of him being a primary ball handler, so he just needs a lot more reps um. But make no mistake,
he's got that high endplaymaking potential. Eight plus assists seven times in a postseason is a very very good marker, and a seven oh record is a demonstration of the way that impacts the team. That's why I was pleading all postseason long, past the ball of Tatum. Past the ball, Jason, That's how you're winning games, you know. Um. I tweeted this out earlier today and people were actually pretty receptive
to it, which I was surprised. Uh. In all of my evaluations over the course of this last season, postseason, and this summer, I'm not sure that I saw a perimeter defensive player better than Jayson Tatum. If you watch the tape of the first round against Brooklyn. Yes, there was a team defense that was backing him up, an outstanding team defense, but the job that Jayson Tatum did
on Kevin Durant was extraordinary. He was kind of this unique capability of a lying pressure like getting up and being disruptive with Durant while at the same time having the lateral quickness to contain his dribble drives. I was talking about the difference between positional and aggressive defense. He can do both, which is what makes him so damn impactful on that end of the floor. Again, he's not the best defensive player in the league. I think that's you, honest.
The best defensive player in the league has to be able to succeed as a back line defender, as a screening role defender, and as a perimeter defender. He has to be able to guard guards, wings and biggs. Janice is the only player in the world. Really they can do that, really, really well. They're handful of players also can Anthony Davis, Rudy Gobert. Right, He's not the only one,
but I think I think Janice is the best. But strictly when it comes to like I need someone to guard a superstar wing or guard for a playoff series, I think Tatum is the best guy you could have for that role. It's a testament to the muscle that he's put on to become more stout and difficult to bully two spots on the floor. It's a testament to the length of his arms. It's a testament to his
a leticism. It's a testament to his basketball i Q and his ability to anticipate the moves that people are making. And lastly, it's a testament to his effort and focus and him devoting resources to being a dominant defensive player. The biggest weakness for Tatum right now, and it's the reason why he lost in the NBA Finals his offensive process. Like I said, he had eight plus assists um seven times and when seven and oh in this playoff run.
He also had four or fewer assists seven times in this postseason run and went one and six in those games. He had six plus turnovers seven times. Celtics went three and four in those games. So him, his focus, you know, and this isn't entirely his fault. He grew up a classic wing score and he is being he's been grooming himself to become a traditional point forward ala Lebron James, the player that starts from the top of the key, runs you know, forty fifty actions a game and is
responsible for creating shots first teammates. That's a different role than more of like an unlocked perimeter score. That is more like the tip of a spear. He's going from being the tip of the spear to being the actual total total spear. It's a totally different role. So that's why he's undergoing kind of like an identity crisis. On any given night. Catch him on the right night, he's bought into that role. He's passing the ball, the team looks great. But if you catch him on the wrong night,
it's more like the old Jason Tatum. It's really bad shot selection, it's all of those things and the team struggles. I think he'll get better that with that as things as time goes on in his career. His rim finishing is another huge weakness. Like I said, like I've always said, for big, strong, rim pressuring wings, I want at least seventy in the restricted area. He was down to sixty percent in this playoff run. Huge part of the problem
there is him seeking fouls. He does that James Harden thing where he constantly like extends his elbows out and tries to go up through people to draw fouls. That's great when it works and you draw a foul, but what ends up mostly happening, especially as you get deeper into the playoffs, is they let that stuff go. And now what you did is you extended the ball out and made it a lot easier for guys to knock
the ball out of your hands. And so that leads to him missing layups, falling into camera row, and complaining at the refs while the team is running down the other way to get a layoup. And so that's where I've talked about this before. But he needs to adopt that Lebron James approach. Tuck the basketball like a football player as you pick up your dribble ripped through the traffic, and then extend with both hands and finish at the rim.
That's the that will be the difference between him finishing in the restricted area and getting back up into the seventies where he belongs. And then, like I said earlier, paint non restricted area seven percent for mid range. That's not good enough either. You want you want to be as versatile and and you want to be like Kawhi Leonard. You wanna be you want to be like Paul George. You want to be like these guys where they don't really have a weak spot on the floor. You want
to be comfortable everywhere on the floor. The only way to do that is to polish up those short range jump shots in the paint and getting more proficient with his mid range jump shooting. Um. The last thing I wanted to say about Jayson Tatum is it's easy to get really down about what happened in that in that NBA Finals. It's easy to look at that as a huge negative, like, Oh, he's not that guy, or he's not ready, or whatever it is that you want to say.
I view great value in the failure in playing poorly, particularly on a big stage. I've talked about this with Lebron a lot over the years, but I think the best thing that happened to Lebron James and his career was losing the two thousand eleven finals. I think he was accustomed to a certain level of work and then he got humiliated, and then the dominance that followed that was directly results to a directly a result of the
lesson that he learned in two thousand eleven. The Lebron post two thousand eleven doesn't even resemble the Lebron pre two thousand eleven in demeanor, in professionalism, in work ethic, and it showed in the diversity of his offensive attack That's what caused him to put in the work to become a reliable jump shooter. That's what allowed unlocked his low post game, which has become a huge part of
his career as he's gotten older. That two thousand and eleven is viewed as a black mark by most people. I don't really think that's the right way to look at it. If he had a black mark like that and it became like James Harden, what was like that year in and year out, that's a different story. But he responded to that black mark by putting on a stretch of and remarkably dominant NBA basketball. Four championships in eight years or whatever it was. I can't remember off
the top of my head. But the point is is that failure could be the catalyst to the next phase of his career. Right, that's the way you look at it with Jayson Tatum. He got this close to an NBA championship. In fact, he should have one. As I said after Game three of the Finals, the Celtics were the more talented team, not the better team, but they were the more talented team. The reason why they lost
was in large part due to tatum struggles. So he there was an Hilarry O'Brian trophy right there for the taking. He was this close, and his weakness has led to him losing that trophy. He slipped out of his ers. I expect him to view that as the cataly as a catalyst moment in his career, and I think moving forward, he will understand the fact that him being the point forward versus the scoring forward was the reason why he
had so much success in that run. I believe you will replicate that, and I think Jayson Tatum is gonna have a really dominant stretch of basketball over the course of the next few years. All Right, So we are going to be doing the top five over the course of the next week or so. Again, I'm gonna do
one player at a time. There. I'm also going to be doing some not revisionist history, but kind of reviewing their history, talking about their major moments and their career, their major achievements, uh their their development over the course of their career, intricate details of their skill set. I want to take my sweet time getting into those players.
I'll be reading the comments section later tonight. I want you guys to drop any suggestions for things that you guys would like to see in those videos um, so that I can cater them to you guys a little bit better. As always, I sincerely appreciate your support and I'll see you guys in a couple of days. The volume