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In Maryland dial one eight seven seven eight Hope and Why, or text Hope and Why to four six seven three six nine in New York, called one D five to two four seven zero zero in Wyoming, or visit www dot one hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by Fantore here at the Volume. You guys know the drill before we get start. Subscribed to the Volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss any
more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at Underscore Jason lt so you guys don't miss any show announcements. And the last but not least, for whatever reason, you guys missed one of these videos and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish. Remember you can get them wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops Tonight. So the Nick led the Mavericks by nine points with half a minute left, um first time in something like thirteen thousand tries in NBA history that someone came back to
win that game. Ironically, very similar instance with the Lakers and the Sixers earlier this year where they were down by nine and with I think twenty eight seconds left and Anthony Davis actually had a free throughout the end to win that game and he missed it. So that was your other time that it almost happened earlier this season. UM, classic things you see in in big collapses, like there was a missed free throw at the end of the game, there was a turnover which was a jump ball effectively
UM that Luke end up winning the jump ball. And then just some bad Knicks defense, like they conceded an easy post up to Luca don Chich in the final minute on a on a sideline out of bounds. Uh, they just let Christian and would take a wide open three on the right wing, and then they botched a switch or Spencer didn't what he got open on the left wing and knocked down to three. Even on Lucas and one the crazy putback, not the put back after
the misfree throw, but the one before that. UM. Emmanuel quickly was guarding him and missed a box out and Luca ended up getting u an and one. So again little details. If you're up nine with thirty seconds left, you should be able to win that game. You just have to continue to do the job. And that's an important thing. I wanted to go on a quick rant about because we saw Chicago and Milwaukee. This happened again last night where Milwaukee had a big lead late in
the game and then they choked that one away. Um. You know, teams get accustomed to playing a certain way that allows them to gain an advantage in the game.
They build a lead playing their brand of basketball. But then what happens is is they get a lead and they get into the fourth quarter, and instead of continuing to play the style of basketball they played when they got the lead, they changed their style to play and they start to pull their foot off the gas and they start to try to strangle the pace and work the shot clock down every single time, and there's very little player movement, and then teams slowly start to chip
away them because usually those possessions end in lake clock jump shots. Jump shots lead to long rebounds. Long rebounds lead to transition opportunities. The other team is trying to play fast because they're desperate, and things tend to fall apart.
It's a little lesson there. Um. You know, obviously you want to reign in your decision making a little bit, like you want to take away the high difficulty plays or the high risk high reward passes, but you want to continue to play with the same style of play that you had when you got the lead in the first place. Sometimes teams are so obsessed with running the clock out that they end up costing themselves games in the process. But then Luca closed the deal in ot
with a nifty turnaround jump shot over Julius Randol. He finished the game with sixty points, twenty one rebounds, and ten assists, which is just ludicrous. I mean, what words am I supposed to use to say uh to you? What words should I use to describe what's effectively a stat line that not even Will Chamberlain at his peak could have pulled could have pulled off. Every time I dive into Luca film, I'm always amazed with the ease
with which that he gets to his spots. And you know, there's a combination of a couple of different things that he does to get to his spots that I think, in particular, young players should pay very close attention to. So there's two concepts that I wanted to talk about really quick with Luca. First of all, is the way that his ball fakes and his body fakes allow him to get defenders out of position because at its core, in order for Luca to get to his spots, he
has to beat supreme athletes off the dribble. We're talking about supreme athletes in the entire MBA because those are the types of defenders that are getting the Luca matchup in general and Luca. Look again, if we saw Luca playing in a pickup game, he'd be one of the most athletic players on the floor. But in the n b A, he's not. Like the vast majority of perimeter defenders he goes against are significantly quicker than him and probably have longer arms than him, probably can jump higher
than him. But he has to find a way to get around them, and step one is using amazing ball fakes and head fakes to get advantages that he can then attack with his size and physicality. UM. I talked about this all the time with my young players when I'm when I'm training them with the high school team that I coach. Uh, it doesn't matter if you do a drible combination like an in and out crossover through
the legs, if it's just the ball moving. Every single one of those moves has to be associated with a credible attack So if I'm in a high hesitation, the high hesitation isn't going to get a defender to step up on me unless I'm credibly able to rise up and knock down a jump shot. If I do a hard step forward into a step back, I'm not gonna get any separation from that unless there's a credible threat
that I'm going to drive to the basket. And the same thing goes with every single dribble move and in and out isn't gonna accomplish anything unless you've shown a tendency to cross over to the left side. If you've shown a tendency to cross over to the left side, then when you pull it back, the defender might lun that way. Same thing with the crossover, same thing with between the legs triple, same thing with the behind the back dribble. Everything needs to be associated with a credible attack.
And that's what's so cool. If you watch Luca, Luca might take a little fifteen foot fade away over Julius Randall, but if you watch the possession, he's making six or seven moves, and on every single move, if you pose it right when he's in the bridge of the move, you're gonna see that he could go that way, and he probably has gone that way during that game. Everything is built on a counter and so defenders are constantly
off balance. But this is where it's key, because if you beat a guy off the dribble and he's a better athlete than you, he can recover. And so this is the second lesson. Lesson one, You've got to sell every single move with every part of your body and you have to have a credible ability to do the counter to that move for it to work. Step two. This is the advantage of having real size and strength as a ball handler. In short, don't skip the weight room when you have an angle and you blow through
that angle like Luca does. In order to stop the recovery from the defender, you've got to be able to pin him on that shoulder or on your back side. That's where the weight room is so important. Luca gets these guys that are supreme athletes pinned on his side or pinned on his back side, and then they can't do anything with him because he has them in jail
and they're not gonna bother him at all. At that point, then he can methodically work down to either a mid range spot, a short range spot, or all the way to the rim, or to draw that help defender to start making those passes. You know, it's funny because coming into the league that was the big concern, and a lot of the Luca detractors were so heavily focused on the fact that he was slow that they didn't think
he'd be able to get drible penetration. But everything when it comes to drible penetration is a combination of what you can do to get defenders off balance. You know, it's kind of like route running in the NFL. If you sell everything well, you don't have to be the fastest guy. You just have to sell every move well to get people off balance. And then when people are off balance, what is your advantage? Are you super fast?
Because if you're super fast, your job more rate. You're getting all the way to the rim every single time. Are you super strong like Luca is, Then you can pin guys on your backside or on your side and start to work yourself to your spots. Intention doesn't even make sense that I wanted to show you guys something just for a little perspective. Usually, when we see a big man put up twenty points, and twenty rebounds in
a game. We considered that complete physical dominance of the game. Right, that was like the shock stat or the Dwight Howard Staffard's like he's controlled that game. As a big man. A forty point ten assist game is considered like an offensive masterpiece for a perimeter initiator, right That means you're scoring the shift out of the ball and you're creating shots for your teammates. Luca did both in the same game. He had a game and a forty ten game separately.
In the same game. He dominated the game physically and he dominated the game as a perimeter initiator. Absolutely wild stuff. The talent in the NBA is getting out of control. So if we're talking MVP candidates, which we've done a lot over the last week, we talked about Jayson tatum Um, who I believe is the Vegas frontrunner right now. We talked about Janice, who was my pick before the season.
We talked about Yoki, who's on off stats are so ridiculous that if the Nuggets finished well enough, he's going to be in that conversation. We talked about k d Um the other day, who if the season ended right now, would be my pick for m v P, and Lucas just playing just as well as those four guys are. So we have like, obviously the Mavericks need to win more games, but we have like five guys that are really legitimate MVP candidates, and then you have like Steph Curry,
Joel and b John morand Zion Williamson. These are all guys that are kind of like on the fringe of that conversation. It's wild to see nine legitimate MVP candidates this far into the season, you know, if we look at the standings, so the top eight teams in the league right now are Boston, Brooklyn, New Orleans, Denver, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Memphis, Philadelphia. All eight of those teams are separated by just four
games in the standings. So what that means is any of those nine names that I mentioned are really just a few dominant weeks of basketball away from entering the MVP discussion with legitimacy. Obviously, Stephen Luca are the weird ones there because they're so far back, but in the Western Conference, both of them are still not that far back relative to how many games there are left in the season. So it's crazy to think that, like, I still think Janice will be the one who ends up
getting it at the end of the day. I think he's been dealing with a lot of injury issues and I believe that when they get healthy, they'll go on a run and Janice will remind everybody who's what he's capable of. But really it's any it's anybody's award at this point, and lucas just as capable as anybody else. And it seems like every day we focus on someone new, like today it's Luca. There's just another guy the next day that plays insanely well and then we have to
talk about him. But the league isn't credibly stacked with talent.
And then you look at it from a global standpoint, Janice, Nicola, Yogich, Luka don Chech and Joel Embid that's four of the top what six, seven eight players in the world, and they're all international players, which makes me really excited just for basketball in the future, because you know, like the NBA is never going to compete with the NFL from a ratings standpoint within the us UM, but because basketball is a global game, the actual gap in revenue that
their league generate is not that crazy. Like, if I'm not mistaken, I think the NFL makes about seventeen billion a year and I think the NBA makes about ten billion a year, right, and so like that's an achievable gap, but that gap can only be achieved outside of the United States because of the stranglehold that the NFL has
on the United States. So like to see the top of the league basically half of the top tier superstars in the league be international players is super exciting because what that means is over the course of the next ten to fifteen years, over the length of these guys careers, the league will only grow further and further in popularity outside of the United States of America. So it's just it's just a really good time to be an NBA fan, and I'm really excited to see where we're gonna be
ten fifteen years from now. Alright, So, the Minnesota Timberwolves in the New Orleans Pelicans had a super entertaining game last night. Uh, first of all, I am not going to talk about officiating in this game. Um, even on that last play with Gobert and Zion like he's a straight up. But then as soon as I went up, he came down on him. Refs are always gonna call verticality a foul if the arms come down, and like, yeah, are there some calls here there that I might have
disagreed with? Sure, But you guys know how I feel about officiating. Like officiating is on any given day going to benefit one team or the other. I think it's lame to focus on it. It's outside of your control. In general, I think the officiating in the NBA needs work, but it's goes with all thirty teams. No one's that there is no one that's benefiting from it more than another team or anything along those lines. And quite frankly, I just think it's boring and uninteresting. And you're not
gonna get me to talk about officiating much. Uh, We're just gonna focus on the basketball in this particular game. But it was a two point game early in the third, and then Rudy Gobert committed two quick fouls to start the third quarter. Then not naz Reid comes in, and uh. In today's episode of Jason Hates Centers That Can't Shoot, the Wolves were plus six and nas Reid's minutes last night and minus six with Gobert. Now I do want to say. I did think that Gobert played a really
nice shift in the fourth quarter. He had a nifty transition lay up where he took some long steps around a defender to the right. He had that kind of rondo fake where he stuck the ball out and then came around and shot a hook shot, and I thought he defended pretty well aside from that last play on Zion, like keep your hands up, like Zion was gonna miss that lay up, he was completely off balanced. Instead, he came down and bailed Zion out with the foul um.
But nasa Read came in early in that third quarter and the Wolves just took off from their natural five out space, driving lanes open up. Anthony Edwards started getting to the rim a lot um. There was even a really nice player with noz Reid caught on a pick and pop with ' angelo Russell and Pump faked and Jonas Valanjunis came out of his shoes. Naz Reid got downhill and made a really nice kick out past the Austin Rivers in the corner for three. The offense just
looks so fluid with nas Read on the floor. I also wanted to shot a shout out Jalen no Well here, uh, I think I think he only finished the game five for eleven, but he was really impressive with his shot making in the second half, and he's got some legit three level scoring ability with some real athletic pop. Um. He's actually a very exciting young player for them, someone that I think, you know, if you really start to look forward with the Timberwolves, it's hard to imagine D'Angel
Russell being here long term. Um. So if that's the case, Jalen Noel kind of is projecting to be a good two guard to put alongside Anthony Edwards in the long run. Um.
But you know. And then Adilo just Delo again after the game, was complaining about Zion playing football, and again I just think it's lame to complain about officiating and makes she sounds soft and the other thing too resigned before we get in design here, because obviously he's the hero the night, We're gonna talk about him a lot. The Yes, he drops his shoulder and tries to run everybody over. So does he Honest, so did Lebron in
his prime, so did Shack back in the day. But the reality is regardless of how you feel about it, it's allowed and it works. And the three guys who did it before Zion all one championships. So if we saw Shack do it, and we saw Lebron do it, we saw you honest do it. You have to understand that Zion is gonna do it and it's kind of part of the deal. So you had better build a wall and you had better put your body on the line or he's gonna be finishing around the rim all
game long. That's just the reality. No amount of complaining to the press is going to cover for that. It's the officially. I don't care how many a handful of calls either way that you might get to sway because you've been complaining. The reality is is if you can't stop Zion from getting to the rim, you're gonna lose, just like everyone else who came before him. So it's it's just a lesson that that uh, that DEALO and the Wolves need to learn. Really the rest of the
league needs to learn. Um. But I thought the story of this particular game was Zion's passing. He made really nice reads all night long. Um. There was actually a stat that came from the from the Wolves broadcast that I was watching. More than sixty percent of Zion's assist this year are the three point shooters. He's got really good chemistry with Trey Murphy. Two plays in the third quarter where he drew double teams and made really nice
cross court passes to Trey Murphy for three um. But then in the fourth quarter was just a complete wrecking ball of him going to the rim. He also hit a huge three with two minutes left that put the Pells back within two when they were down five, and then he had a defensive play a steel on a swing pass uh that he ran out for dunk to put the Pelicans up up by two with less than
a minute left. Then they go down to the other end and Anthony Edwards just hits Jackson Hayes with like a hesitation, gets downhill with his left hand and takes like a jump stop and then just elevates up and just dunks on the entire on the entire team. And I remember sitting there thinking like, remember what I told you guys about And I view him as like a kind of like a guard Lebron, just this relentless downhill threat.
And he's young now, so he's still trying to figure out, you know, the timing of one to do that and when not to. But when he gets going downhill, there's just really nothing anybody can do with him. His finishing ability is really impressed. He had a he had like a late I think it was in the fourth quarter, a drive along the right wing where he went up and under and finished with his left hand in traffic
on the other side of the rim. I think over you on his valancunis if I remember correctly, and I was like, this is this is just next level rim finishing from this guy. Um. But then we get to the final play and Zion draws a double team and he kicks it to Naji Marshall in the corner and he misses the three. Um Delo throws kind of a pitiful box out towards Dyson. Daniels just kind of turns
and puts his back on him. But Dyson's taller, more athletic, and was being more physically aggressive on this play, gets the offensive rebound, throws a kick pass to Zion who's cutting down the lane, and Anthony Edwards gambles into the passing lane instead of just keeping his body in front of Zion. He gambles and misses, so Zion's got a head of steamy. Rudy Gobert goes up with verticality and I think he would have got Zion to miss, but he came down with his arms and that's gonna be
a foul call every single time. Then they go down to the other end of the floor and Anthony Edwards misses. Uh. He kind of fell over trying to dribble towards the baseline and miss a little pull up jump shot, and then the game was over. But I want to talk about Zion because the Pelicans have now won four games in a row and they are now tied for the third best record in the league, just two and a half games back of first place UM in the entire league. Zion is starting to build a real M v P
case like we were talking about earlier. So for the season, he's averaging twenty seven and five on sixty troop shooting, which is a career high in efficiency last eleven games, thirty one points, eight rebounds and six assist six from the field from three on low volume, seventy from the line, two point three stocks per game, and the pell Kins are seven and four in that span, despite brandon Ingram
being out for every single one of those games. Um, you know, Zion's attack, his success is built on a similar It doesn't look the same, but it's built on a similar formula to what Janice does. Teams cannot keep him away from the rim with the single defender, even with teams building walls and stuff. He gets to the rim a ton. He's second in the league in restricted area makes per game at eight point three, and he
shoots seventy when he's there. Then, while he's not a surgical passer, he's very good at hitting shooters and cutters when teams build the wall in front of him. So it's one of those things where it's not the same as you honest, Like I said, he's not nearly the defensive player that Janice is, But in terms of fundamentally how he can warp a defense and create shots at the rim or passing to shooters or cutters, it is very similar um to what Zion does and or to
what Janice does. So when Zion passes out of the post this year, the Pelicans score one point one nine points per pos session, which is best in the league among players who have passed out of the post at least fifty times this year. When he passes out of ISO, the Pelicans score one point zero six points per possession, which is third best in the league among players who have done it at least fifty times, behind Janice and
Joel Embiid. So, like, it's not surgical, you know, it's not Luca, it's not Lebron, it's not Chris Paul, it's not Nickela Yokich. But because of the amount of gravity he has towards the rim, he is creating shots with the past at an extremely high level, arguably in the top tier of players in the league when you're looking at post ups and ISOs um So, detractors are gonna still point it like his defensive limitations, which there's some legitimacy there, Like, yes, he's better than he has been.
He's he's more of a defensive playmaker now than he used to be. Kind of like that steel, like the steel for the dunk. That's defensive playmaking. That's not the same as like being consistently good on the defensive end on a possession by possession basis. But he's adding defensive playmaking, which is good. But detractors are gonna point to the defensive end, and they're also going to point to the fact that he's missed eight games, which will hurt him in the in the m v P case, but he
unquestionably has a case. And most importantly, you know, you gotta look at um where we are in this field right now. All the top eight teams are four games apart. It might stay jumbled all year, but somebody might pull away, and if somebody pulls away from that group, that guy is gonna end up getting the m v P. Even
like he would. I would be really hard for me to vote for Zion, just because you guys know my criteria, Like you've got to be in the conversation for best player in the world, and I don't think Zion is UM And then you know, obviously the defensive end of factor is going to factor in significantly for me. So just me. But that's just me that wouldn't necessarily vote for him based on my criteria. Everyone's got different criteria.
The voting pool loves new young players. I wouldn't be surprised at all um if Zion ended up getting some MVP votes, especially if the Pelicans end up pulling away from the field last on Anthony Edwards. He's really picking up steam over the course of the last couple of weeks. Obviously he's great last night. He's averaging twenty nine points, seven rebounds, and six assists in his last six games, really benefiting benefiting from the spacing provided from those lineups.
With Nazrid at center shooting fifty from the field from three and seventy from the line. We're not gonna do a deep dive into and today. I'm gonna save that for some other time, but I did want to give him a quick shout out. Looking to get more out of the NFL this season, well, now is the perfect time to download FanDuel America's number one sports book because new customers can get a no sweat first bet up to one thousand dollars. That's free bets back if your
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sports betting partner of the NFL. So the Warriors an impressive come from behind win against the Jazz last night for their third straight win, UH, finishing up at one twelve one oh seven at home against Utah. Um. What I'm gonna do because there's a couple of specific UH things that I want to talk about it with specific players, But I think the easiest way for me to do that is to go through the comeback on a play by play type of basis, kind of dive into each
guy as we go along. So we're gonna zoom in on the Warriors trailing one oh one to nine seven in the fourth quarter. So Jonathan com agaends up making a great rotation on Jared Vanderbilt at the rim and forces to stop the Warriors run out and UH Anthony Lamb leads the break, drops it off to tie Jerome.
He makes a couple of shot fakes and makes a layup, and then on the other end Lori Markt and Mrs the Three, they go to Jonathan Comina on the post on the right block and he ends up drawing a foul on a post up and making both free throws
to tie the game at one oh one. So, first of all, Jonathan Comina has been a nice little release valve over the course of the last few games, particularly in the post for a team that's needed shot creation obviously with Steph Curry being out UM, which is exciting obviously for his individual development, but most importantly, they just need options right now as they're trying to float this
particular stretch. And Uh, Jonathan cominga scored on a post up to the tune of two points in each of the last three games, so UH, and I don't think he had done a scored out of the post at all in the previous five or six games overall in
the season. UM, with his recent success, he's elevated himself to thirty one points on thirty four post ups total, which is zero point nine one points per possession, which really is not mad for a player his age, especially since you have to factor in that that's been much better as of late. Um. So it was one o one, one on one and Jordan Clarkson runs a pick and
roll with Jared Vanderbilt and Kevin Luney comes up. Come on, Luny comes up to the level of the screen, so Jared Vanderbilt ends up getting behind him on the roll to the basket and tie. Jerome is in the week side corner, and because Luney is up at the level of the screen, Jared Vanderbilt is rolling behind the looney to the rim. And what Jerome does is he fakes like he's going to tag the roller and then comes out back to the shooter, and it completely fools D'Angelo Russell.
He throws the skip pass to the corner and Jerome just picks it off, takes it down the length of the floor and shoots a transition pull up three sticks it to put them up one oh four to one oh one. I thought it was the play of the game last night. That kind of changed the momentum. Obviously, it was a tie game at that point, but that was the play that really you can tell the crowd is in it at that point, and you could tell that the team really believed they could win in at
that point. Um. After that really nice game against the Grizzlies the other night, ty Jerome followed that up last night. Was seventeen points on fifty percent shooting and he grabs seven rebounds. Um, he's playing some good ball again. They just needed some ball handling and ty Jerome stepped up. He's plus twenty seven in his minutes during this three game winning streaks. So it's one O four, one oh one.
Lori markt and misses a wide open corner three. Uh. The Warriors go down and Dante DiVincenzo runs pick and roll with Kevan Luney Kelly Oh because Kelly Olynnic is guarding uh, Kevon Looney and he's in drops so he's way back. Lori Marken in his guarding Dante DiVincenzo on the ball and he goes under the screen. Dante de Vincenzo just dribbles over the top of the screen and just sticks a pull up three. He's had three seventeen
plus point games since the Steph Curry injury. Again, like I said, before we tied Jerome, they needed somebody to step up on offense, and those two guys in particular, Dante and Ty have done some really nice work during this uh stretch without staff. So it's one of seven to one oh one at that point, and we're gonna fast forward a few possessions. Now it's one oh seven to one oh three with two and a half minutes left.
So Mike Conley runs a staggered pick and roll with a guard at the front and then a big at the end, and uh, Jordan Pool and Dante DiVincenzo switched the first screen, but right as he's about to go off the second screen, Mike condly rejects it and just completely dust everybody. Now he's heading downhill. So he's going downhill with uh Jared Vanderbilt coming out of the dunker spot two on one with only Draymond Green there, and Draymond Green steps up, forces Mike Conley to throw the
drop off pass. Then Draymond turns and just on a drop step, rises up and blocks Jared Vanderbilt at the rim. Then they go down the other end and the Warriors missed a couple of shots at the rim. They missed a couple offensive rebound putbacks. I think uh, Jordan Pool missed like a floater, and then Draymond missed to put back,
and then Jonathan Comingo miss to put back. Um then uh the uh Lori Marketing and Kelly Olynnok run a pick and roll on the other end of the floor and Cominga and tie Jerome switch Rome switches out onto market and Marketing just quick spins like a really nasty spin move to get downhill again. Dust everybody, and he's just going right down towards the rim. All there is is Draymond Green and Jared Vanderbilt in the dunker spot,
except for this time. Lori Marketing is scared to throw the drop off past because he just saw Draymond he raced that shot at the rim, so instead he tries to score over Draymond. Draymond contests it, beautifully, forces him to double pump, and he misses the layout again. It was one oh seven to one oh three. Those two on one downhill pick and roll possessions are a bucket for every single other defensive player in the league except for maybe three or four. It's like, it's like Rudy Gobert,
Anthony Davis, Johanna Antenna Coompo, and Draymond Green. That would have tied the game those two possessions, but Draymond just erased those possessions um with just ridiculous defensive plays around the rim. A couple of possessions later, Jordan Clarkson hits a super tough step back three, so it's one or seven to one oh six. Then Jordan Pool gets into the mix with a nasty crossover driving layup on Mike Conley to put them up one o nine, one oh six.
He's averaging twenty eight points since Steph went down. He hasn't been super efficient, but he's been getting to the line a lot. He's attempting eight free throws a game during that span. Again, I'm not a huge fan of of I'm not I'm not like guys that can draw fouls. Obviously,
I complain about that a lot on this show. I do think there's a difference between grifting and getting players out of position to draw fouls, and I don't get the vibe from Jordan Pool that he's grifting, So let's just call them eight honorable free throw attempts per game. But most importantly with with free throw attempts, it allows you to set your defense because on those possessions you're resting everyone's back. It's just you're much more likely to
get a stop in that specific static situation. So even though Jordan Pool hasn't been super efficient, I think when you factor in the free throw attempts, it actually kind of evens out to some pretty productive twenty eight point per game scoring from Jordan Pool. So Mike commonly goes down and he misses a floater, and Kelly Olynnok gets an offensive rebound, rises up to take a hook shot, and Draymond Green, off of a straight vert with no momentum,
rises up and blocks Kelly olynox hook shot. The Warriors allowed just six points over the last seven and a half minutes of the fourth quarter. And all I can say here is, do not take Draymond Green for granted. And I'm not sure why he's so polarizing even among Warriors fans. Um. I think a lot of people really struggle with his box score numbers. If they you know, it's just it's surface level type of stuff, like he was only two for seven from the field from from
U two for seven from the field last night. I can get why that's discouraging in some In some ways, I actually think Draymond Green is a good offensive player if you factor in the fact that he's one of the better short role passers in the league. So when Steph is drawing traps or when Jordan Pool is drawing traps, he's so good at making the right reads, barreling down the barreling down the lane. He's also just a great
passer in general. With a live dribble in the open floor, so the Warriors get a lot of good stuff and fast break because Draymond can rise up and grab a rebound and start to break by himself to find open shooters, and then most of his spacing concerns by his inability to shoot her. He's been knocking down some shots lately, but most of his spacing concerns are mitigated by him just quickly going into dribble handoffs, like we've talked about so much on the show that the Warriors do with
Looney and Draymond to get open shots. So you know, like I actually think Draymond is pretty good offensively, but regardless, he's polarizing for some reason. And I think one of the big reasons why is I think people don't really quite see the defensive value to the extent that it really is um And I think that's sad because I think he's one of the best defensive players of all time.
And you know, when we look at this Warriors era, like Steph is the ultimate foundational piece that goes without saying I think he might be the best offensive player ever. Like the guys who are above him all time are all monsters on the defensive end, but he might be the best offensive player ever. He makes everything work on that end of the floor. Steph Curry is the ultimate foundational piece of this dynasty. But what is the second
biggest foundational piece of this dynasty. I think it's Draymond Green and what he can do on the defensive end of the floor. He is their defensive ceiling, his ability to protect the rim. What he does is a captain of the defense in terms of communicating and organizing guys. You know, obviously he's loud, he's talking through coverages, can snuff out plays before you know, he can see plays
before they're happening, that kind of thing. And then also what he can do switching onto the perimeter to guard wings and guards like what he did did to Jalen Brown in the finals last year. All of that makes him, you know, especially with him being only six ft six, he's kind of one of the great anomalies in NBA history. But what he does on the defensive end of the floor is the second most important foundational piece of this entire dynasty. You know, it doesn't take away from steps greatness.
No one wins championships by themselves, but make no mistake, there is no Warriors dynasty without Draymond Green. I just wanted to I like, I thought he was so incredible defensively down the stretch that game. Um, they probably lose that game if anybody other than Draymond Green is out there defensively in that fourth quarter. UM. But this three game win streak means the Warriors in now four and
three since the staph injury, so they're above five. Their upcoming schedule Portland's at home, Atlanta at home, Detroit at home, Orlando at home, the Phoenix Suns without Devin Booker at home. Those are all winnable games like four and one is on the table for that stretch, and then they go on the road, but it's on the road for San Antonio, Chicago,
and Washington. Those are all winnable games. Now. Then things get really tough and they go to do a pretty pretty crazy stretch of their schedule, but that doesn't start until January nineteen, and Steph Curry should be back at that point because he did say he's gonna start getting back onto the court probably January one, which is what Sunday, So like he is gonna maybe take a week or two to get his conditioning, but he should be back
out on the floor at that point. So all things considered, this really couldn't have gone much better for the Warriors under the circumstances. This stretch without staff is probably gonna end several games above five hundred. That's crazy. They're gonna gain ground considering the fact that they were below five hundred when the injury actually took place on that night
against Indiana. Um, you know, my theory is, as we talked about, like so many of the Warrior's problems this year, there's some depth, depth stuff with the bench, but they really solved that to a good extent, not completely solved, but they remedied that problem to a good extent by
staggering their starters with their bench better. So, like I believe that a good portion of their issues were was a lack of urgency and a blessing in disguise with the staff injuries, it seems to have triggered that urgency because the night and night out commitment to the work has been much better, and they're actually playing some pretty damn good basketball without staff right now. They are one of the most talented teams in the league. Do I
think there is talent did as Boston? Probably not. Do I think there's talented as the Clippers are top to bottom? Probably not, But they're right up there, and they just weren't playing hard enough, consistently enough, especially on the road for the first chunk of this season. But there is a lot of talent there and you're seeing that with
them winning some games without staff. Now, this show is gonna be a little bit different than most of the stuff that we've done over the course of this season. It's gonna be entirely focused around a hypothetical trade. So no, that sounds crazy, but it gives us a chance to talk about two teams that are kind of struggling right now, and I find this particular trade very interesting. So last night I was just talking with the buddy of my name, Sam,
Sam covers the Warriors with Light Years. Those of you guys who listen to that show, Him and Andy do an amazing job covering covering that team. I love their engagement with the fans. It's a very engaging show, and
they're all also really smart basketball minds as well. And I was bouncing my big trade idea off of Sam, that idea being Darius Garland for o Ganna Nobi, which I think is makes so much sense on so many different levels for both of those teams, and he came back at me with a trade involving the Los Angeles Lakers and the Phoenix Suns that I thought about a lot this morning, and I think it makes a ton
of sense. So what we're gonna do today is we're gonna dive into that trade from a bunch of different angles. And I'm really curious to hear what you guys think. If you think it's insane, tell me in the comments if you dislike it for one reason or another, If you tweak it in any way, put that in the comments as well, and I'll check that out later tonight. You guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss any
more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason lt so you guys don't miss any show announcements. Then, last, but not least, for whatever reason, you guys miss one of these shows and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish. Remember, you can find them wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops tonight. So foundationally, the reason why this trade makes sense is both of these teams,
the Sons and the Lakers, are in crisis mode. The Phoenix Suns were the runaway best team in the NBA and in the NBA last year. They won sixty four games that they started hot. This year, they started fifteen and six, which was the third best record in basketball when the calendar flipped over to December. But then December happened and they've been five and ten during this month, which is the fifth worst record in the league. Their
defense has completely fallen apart. They have the seven best defensive rating in the league in December and they have slipped all the way down to fifth in the West, and now they're going to be without Devin Booker, who's their best player, for at least a month. But more importantly, and this is the big reason why I view the Sons is in crisis, because when you look at the standings, they're not that far back. But more importantly, we've seen
the ceiling of this team. We know fundamentally that when you have Booker and Paul, with DeAndre and and the role players that they have, even with all the talent they have down the roster at the very highest levels, when they play against the best players in the world, there seems to be a ceiling to what they can do. Booker and Paul have not been able to rise to that level. So I think they are in full crisis mode, and I think that they probably be more willing to
break things apart than people realize. Then we have the Lakers who lost to Miami last night. They're now fourteen and twenty one. They're still playing solid basketball with Lebron on the floor, but they can't do a damn thing on either end of the floor when he's off the floor.
After the game, Lebron said quote, I am a winner, and I want to win and give myself a chance to win and still compete for a championship playing basketball at this level, just to be playing basketball is not in my d N. A, it's not in my DNA anymore. End quote. So Lebron now starting to come basically publicly come out and imply that he's not happy with where
the rosters at. And now they're in this weird predicament where they're so far down in the standings that things look kind of bleak, even with Anthony Davis returning in a few weeks. We had a report a couple of days ago that Anthony Davis is not feeling any pain in his foot, and seven to ten days from now they're going to reevaluate him and probably ramp him back up. Um. But this idea that you know, the Warriors are gonna probably not do anything, Uh, that's something that we kind
of saw coming coming into the season. They set the team up for failure. Then they'd failed, then they wouldn't do anything. We're not gonna hash that out again. We've hashed that a million times on this show. But Sam proposed a trade between the Sons and the Lakers that I think makes an alarming amount of sense for both teams. So what I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna give you guys the framework of the trade. Then I'm gonna look at it from the Lakers perspective, and then I'm gonna
look at it from the Sun's perspective. So the framework of this trade would be Anthony Davis to the Sons and Jay Crowder DeAndre Ayton in three first round picks to the Lakers. So now there's a couple of there's a couple of caveats first, so the trade cannot be executed till January per the CBA rules surrounding the new deal that Eton signed, and DeAndre Ayton would have veto power over any trade for the rest of this season. Um.
Although I doubt that DeAndre Ayton would veto a Lakers trade. Um, why we'll let's just talk about what his role would look like with the Lakers. Obviously it's great to go to l A. I also think he'd just be used a lot more there. Um. So, first of all, with the Lakers, I'm a huge believer in the Lebron and
Anthony Davis corp. When they're healthy, as you guys know, when Anthony Davis is actually good the way he was over the course of this season and not kind of disengaged in out of shape the way the way he was the previous two seasons. When Anthony Davis is playing like that and Lebron James is playing the way he's been playing, you saw what happened when they went into Milwaukee and beat the Bucks. They still have a ceiling
as high as anybody else in the league. But this is the third consecutive season that Anthony Davis has suffered a significant injury causing him to miss significant time. And I also think he's had a huge workload in Los Angeles because of the roster limitations that has exacerbated that particular issue. Then we look at DeAndre Ayton. Deandreyton is a super talented twenty four year old player that immediately
gives you a legit center to build your defensive foundation on. Yes, he's had some issues with missing games himself, but not nearly to the extent that Anthony Davis has had. And he's younger. He's twenty four years old, so it's far more likely that he'll be available in the coming years than Anthony Davis has been uh and most importantly, and this is a big part of it, you know, I think I think DeAndre is capable of a lot more
offensive creation than what he's shown in Phoenix. They're a pick and roll offense with two outstanding pick and roll ball handlers. The vast majority of their offensive organization is geared towards those guards and not towards getting DeAndre in touches. He does get touches, but they're typically as a rollman or as a popman, not usually in the post. When he does get the ball in the post, he's been good. He scored one point zero two points per possession on
post ups, which is really solid. That sixteenth in the league among players who have attempted at least fifty shots on post ups. He's also shooting forty six on jumpers this year, including from three, albeit on low volume. I think when DeAndre gets into his late twenties, he's gonna be a very reliable jump shooter on volume. He's already a pretty dependable jump shooter right now on lower volume. He's not a perfect player, like he can take some possessions off. We know he can be pouty. He can
have bad defensive games. Um, but mean I also want to cut him some slack because clearly he doesn't want to be in Phoenix. He went out and signed with another team, and Phoenix made him come back with it with obviously with an arrangement that's in the c b A to protect your draft right, So I don't have any problem with it. But make no mistake, the Sons don't really want him and he doesn't really want to be there, so I think that probably factors into his
behavior a little bit. That said, I do believe it's a little bit in his personality where he can take some possessions and games off and have a bad attitude from time to time. But to zoom out, Deandreton is very very good and he probably will get much better. That's just a fact. At this point, what would the Lakers do with DeAndre and if they got him in that kind of trade, So there's basically two directions you can go from there. You can because we gotta look
at it like this. You're also getting Jay Crowder in that deal, who's not my favorite wing in the world. But with how I say thin, the Lakers do not have wings. They just they just don't, so even though crowd is not my favorite wing in the world, he would immediately feel a very specific roster and need and make them a lot better in that specific area their roster. And with the influx of three first round picks, you would now have five tradeable first round picks within this season.
So from there you'd have two directions. You could go as the Lakers. You could win now with Lebron. You have a solid front court rotation there with Lebron, Deandreton, Jay Crowder, and Thomas Bryant. You flip Russell Westbrook, Patrick Beverley, Kendrick Nunn and all of those draft picks for as much talent as you possibly can find. I'd call the Wizards and try to throw russ and at A in three, four or five picks to try to get Bradley Beal. You could call the Pistons and try to get Boy
and Bogdanovitch. You could call the Jazz and try to get some real shooting that they don't really have on the roster. You could call Charlotte and try to get some of the younger athletic wings. They have over sixty million in tradeable salary that doesn't really touch their core players and five draft picks. There's a lot you can do there and still have Austin Reeves, Lawn You Walker,
Dennis Shrewder, Lebron, J DeAndre and J Crowder. It's still have like a little foundation to pair with whatever you can bring back in the trade market. And the key there is Lebron has been a top five player in the world over the last five weeks. In his last seventeen games, he's averaging thirty points, eight rebounds, and six assists on six true shooting, which is outrageous box score production.
And the Lakers are outscoring teams by five points per one possessions over that span, when Lebron is on the floor with arguably the worst supporting cast in the league. So as ridiculous as it might sound, you know, when we're talking about retooling around a guy who's thirty eight years old, it's a legitimate option that's on the table. But the second option there is full rebuild. If you do nothing, or if you trade Anthony Davis this season and you don't invest in him after that, Lebron will
probably request a trade in this offseason. Now that's a whole separate conversation, because that'll be a really ugly moment in Lakers history for Lebron's first raid request to be before his twenty feet season. And there's a case to be made that that big of a fiasco would make it very difficult for the Lakers to bring in stars in the future because as long as Rob Polink is at the Helm, they won't get anybody. But even if they fired Rob Polink and brought somebody else in, Genie
Buss is now the poorest owner in the NBA. And as we know, when you want to compete at the highest levels on a year by year basis, you have to be willing to dip into the tax and Genie Bustlett Alex Cruso go a player that would be monumentally helpful to them for ten million a year, obviously with a luxury at tax of thirty but Genie Buss can't
foot that bill. She's the poorest owner in the NBA, So that you know, this whole thing going up in flames would be a disaster for Genie Buss, which is precisely why it's so important for her to protect competency during this phase. But with how if they did decide to go the whole rebuild route. Even at Lebron's age, he still has some kind of value and he would bring back some kind of asset return. How much we
don't know. I mean, Lebron being this good at his age is so unprecedented that we don't really have anything to fall back on there. I don't really have any idea what he would fetch. I mean, I would imagine on the low end of the spectrum, you're gonna get to a combination of two young players and picks, whether that's two young players or two first or one player one first. I would think that would be the low end.
Potentially more if Lebron finishes the year healthy. But let's just say for the sake of argument, that it's two first round picks. Okay, that puts you because at that point they also get another draft pick going in the next season that's tradeable. So going in the next season, they would then have eight I can't get my fingers right, eight tradeable first round draft picks, crowders and expiring, so
he'd be off the books. All you'd have on the cap sheet would be DeAndre Ayton, who's a max contract but an affordable and tradeable max contract. He only makes thirty two the next year, thirty four the following thirty six the year after that, Damien Jones has a player option for two point six million in max. Christie is on the books for one point seven million, which is very little. So if you flip Lebron after the season, you've got a ton of draft picks to work with
and an open cap sheet. Or there's another direction you can go, because when when the Lebron if they trade Lebron, there's two directions they can go. You can target expiring contracts for cap flexibility, in which case you're probably gonna get less in the way of draft draft compensation. Like maybe it's expiring contracts, but you only get one first round pick, you know, or one first round pick in
a second round pick, right. But the other route you can go as you take on salary with draft picks and you use that salary partnered with those eight draft picks to go trade for a star. Like we talked about earlier, the incompetency that the Lakers have demonstrated to the league will make it hard for them to get stars. So having draft capital that you can pair up with salary is actually a good thing for them, especially in the modern NBA where that's turned out kind of one
of the better ways to get stars in the first place. So, no matter what, you have like some real flexibility there with lots of draft picks and either cap space or salary filler. That leaves two interesting options for the Lakers. You can win now with Ayton, or you can go the full rebuild route. Um looking over at the Sun's Crowder isn't with the team right now, so there's no
real loss there. Phoenix clearly doesn't like Atan. Like we talked about earlier, it's mutual and happiness and Anthony Davis, when healthy this year, was one of the five best players in basketball. He's been the best defensive player in the league this year when he was available. He rediscovered his jump shot during this recent run, which was making
him a terrifying ISO and post up threat. And in Phoenix's pick and roll attack, which is basically the line share of where they were in their offense, he'd be a much better version of Aten. He's a better vertical spacer, he's a better passer out of the short role. He's got better hands. Deandreton also has great hands, but Anthony Davis's ability to catch and finish and pick and rolls insane,
and he's better at beating switches. Sixteen players in the league this year have logged at least seventy five rollman possessions, and a d is second in the league on a points per possession basis at one point three seven Trivia Who's first? Christian would um, that's what the Lakers team too. That's so devoid of talent that Anthony Davis is typically catching in traffic surrounded by two or three bodies at a time. So I think he significantly raises phoenix Is
ceiling on both ends of the floor. But most importantly, he gives Phoenix a player that can go toe to toe with the best players in the world. They ran into Janice, and Janice was too much for them. They ran into Luca and Luco is too much for them. This year, it'll be someone else. Do you want to have Anthony Davis on your team so that you can look at eye with that guy and feel like you like your chances or do you to have a repeat of the same history that we've had over the last
couple of seasons. I've seen Anthony Davis give Nicola Yokis fits and out play him in a playoff series. I've seen Anthony Davis give Joel and Bead fits. I've seen Anthony Davis give Jana Sanntenna Kumpo fits. He's like like he's he's that ultimate ceiling raising peace that the Son's need. And because of his injury history, he's gettable in a way that Kevin Durant is not. And and that's what
I think makes them so interesting. I've seen a lot of Sons fans saying like, oh, we should go get Kyle Kuzma, and I really like Kyle Kuzma, and I think that he would really help a team with legitimate title aspirations. But specifically for the Sons, I don't think it raises their ceiling enough because the stars are still the issue. But most importantly, if you make that trade,
it kind of resets the culture. Like ever since that loss to Luca, the Sons have had a weird energy around them um and a lot of that I think stems from the negativity of the eight in relations and ship. So not only does it make you much better within this season because you alleviate some of that negativity, but then you kind of have an interesting cord to move forward with between Devin Booker and Cam Johnson, who I
really like, and Anthony Davis. That's a really interesting core that you can build even new teams around in the future. So to me, I think it makes a lot of sense for both teams. Gives the Lakers some options to potentially contend in the immediate future and to contend in the future, and I think it gives the Sons a real championship ceiling that they've lacked over the last couple
of years. So I think it makes sense. Um. Obviously, with any of these trades, there's a great deal of unlikeliness or unlikelihood just because of the fact that so many things have to break right for a trade um to get consummated. But I'm really interested to hear what you guys think. So if you guys think it's stupid, tell me. If you don't like it for one team more than the other, tell me, if you would tweak it in any way, tell me. But I'm genuinely curious
what you guys think. And I also want to hear some other a D trade ideas because I do think that's a direction the Lakers could end up going before the deadline. Al Right, guys, that is all I have for today. We're going to take the rest of the weekend off, and then we'll be back Monday to talk about the m v P showdown between Nicola Yokich and Jayson Tatum. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys support, and I'll see you guys on Monday. The Volume