Hoops Tonight - MAILBAG: Boston vs. OKC Matchup, Draymond for DPOY, Bron’s last chance

and pick a team to win. It's that simple. I'm a big arizon A Wildcats fan, born and raised here in Tucson, Arizona. I'm a little skeptical about them on the offensive end of the floor, but they looked really good on defense again last night against Kansas, so I'll probably be betting on them this time around. First time. Here's something special just for you new Draft Kings customers. Bet five dollars to get two hundred dollars in bonus bets.

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the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. This is a fun one, off the top kind of a fun question. What with Boston and OKC looking like the clear two best teams, it's very likely they could end up facing each other in the finals. I'm curious to hear your take on how they match up. I would imagine Porzingis would defend chet, Tatum would defend Hartenstein, Brown would defend Shay Holiday would defend Dort, Derek White would defend Jalen Williams.

Is this close to what you'd expect or do you disagree with me? Also, if possible, could you maybe list what you think would be the key factors for each team to win a seven game series. Love the show, keep up the great work. I hope your skiing trip was tons of fun. Thank you for the kind words and for the support. I agree with you that Boston and OKAC are looking to me like the clear two

best teams. I don't think they're separated enough to be on completely different tier than the teams that I have below them, being right now Cleveland, Denver and the Lakers. But teams like the Knicks or the Warriors could potentially join that tier for me as well before the end of the season. But I do think that there's a slight gap between those two teams and the other teams. I think it's more likely that oka see gets upset in the Western Conference than Boston gets upset in the

Eastern Conference. That said, if I had to pick what I would expect to see in the finals at this point, I do believe it will be Boston versus Oklahoma City. Now, with the matchups that you talked about, there's an interesting dynamic that you're referencing that I think gets a little bit more complicated because of the way that Oklahoma City

can They're two bigs together. So we've seen the Celtics put Jason Tatum on centers before with the intention of being able to switch ball screens right and shut down

the team's primary ballscreen attack. Now, so much of this depends on what direction the Thunder go with their starters, Like is this gonna be a situation where they play Chet and Isaiah Hartenstein together with the starters, or is this gonna be a situation where they choose to start and Alex Caruso instead and go with Chet at center. Like those are the different dynamics that could change this. But I think it's actually far more likely that they

put Tatum on Chet than on Hartenstein. The main reason why is because Hartenstein is not a pick and pop threat, and he's not really much of a vertical spacing threat. So it's not like the Dallas Mavericks problem where you could open up a bunch of easy lob dunks. Because while Hartenstein does have some finishing ability, on the role and some really a good short role finishing ability with

this floater. He's not the vertical spacing threat that you see from some of the other vertical centers in the league, right, and so Chet's ability to pick and pop on Porzingis would be a problem because you're not gonna want to switch with Porzingis as much. And if you put Porzingis on Chet, they're just gonna spam, pick and pop and get Chet into space at the top of the key with an opportunity to shoot a three or drive a closeout.

So if you put Tatum on Chet, then you can switch the Shay Chet ball screen or the j Dub Chet ball screen, and with Porzingis you can at least force Hartenstein to make his little floater that he has to make as he attacks Porzingis helping in those ball screen situations. I think that's more likely how they'd match up. The JDub and Sha thing gets really tricky because conventional wisdom would tell you putting Jalen Brown on Shae, he's

your best perimeter defender. When he's locked in and engaged, he's your best opportunity to slow Shade down, so to speak. But I would argue that that creates a complicated matchup with a guy like a Jalen Williams, like I don't. I wouldn't put Derek White on Jalen Williams because I think you're giving up a little bit too much strength there. Derek White is such a good off ball defender, such

a good rim protector. As a guard, I would slide Drew Holliday onto Jalen Williams and put Derek White on Lou Dort and have him as the roamer, the guy who's helping but still offering contests in those situations, I think you could go either way with Drew on Jalen or excuse me with yeah, with Drew on Jalen and Jalen on Shay. Or you could go with Drew on

Shay or Jalen on Jalen. But either way, I think it's most important to keep Porzingis out of the pick and pop and to keep Derek White out of a situation where he's guarding somebody that's too strong for him, and I think that gives them their best chance. On the other end of the floor, I think it's pretty straightforward. You're gonna get Dort on Tatum. I think you're gonna

get j dub On. You're gonna get Jay dub On, Jalen Brown, right, I think you're gonna end up getting Hartenstein on Porzingis because he's more of a post up threat. And again with Boston, it also depends like are they you know, how often are you gonna see two big looks? How are you gonna match up when they do go to two big looks? There's gonna be situations where that

gets complicated. But I look at the Thunder as more of a switch and contained type of team with trying to guard Boston, and so I think we will see some small ball looks, we will see some chat at center, a lot of switching everything and trying to contain the ball. And to me, the biggest swing factor of the series

is gonna be decision making for both teams. To me, the Thunder actually remind me a lot of the Celtics back in twenty twenty two, where they just have this sky high potential based on what they do on the defensive end of the floor, and they have all this offensive talent, but they just make some sketchy decisions a lot in big spots and Boston has outgrown a lot of that over the last couple of years in their

growth into becoming a champion. And that's my number one concern with Oklahoma City is when they get into high leverage situation, their decision making. That said, as we saw, we can see Oklahoma City do similar things to Boston that Boston struggled with in the past in terms of decision making, handling perimeter defenders that contain the ball and force them into tough, contested pull up jump shots instead of the wide open catch and shoot jump shots that

make their offense so unguardable. And so I think decision making on offense is going to be the biggest key for both teams in that series. Again, I'll go much deeper into that. If we get to that point, we're gonna do season We're gonna do series previews for every single playoff series like we do every single year, and so no matter who ends up playing in the finals, we will do deep dive breakdowns before the series when the time comes. Hey, Jason commenting from all the way

across the Pond and not so Sunny England. Love the show and I've been watching for years. How much of a realistic shot. Do you think Draymond has a defensive player of the Year this year? With Wemby unfortunately getting hurt, it opened up for someone else to sneak in and grabble in this year. The Warriors went say ten and three in their last games this year, and drey plays excellent defense as he did its Milwaukee. Is he in with a real shot again? Love the show and hope

all as well. Thanks again for support, and hopefully he get some better weather over there here in Tucson. It's gonna be like yesterday it was ninety six degrees, so we're already heeading into the summertime. I think Draymond would be my pick for defensive player of the year if the season ended today. I think Evan Mobley's had a great defensive season. I just think Draymond Green is a

better and more disruptive defensive player. I think Draymond suffers a little bit from the reputation in the sense that, like he's just been such a good defender for so long that people just don't think about it as often and mobilely, even though he's been a defensive prospect his whole life. This season has just been a lot of narrative weight behind him and what the Cavs have accomplished

this year. But like I don't think you have to do much more than just watch some some of these two teams play and just watch how important Draymond is to what they do defensively and his ability to show up at the level but get back and he's one of the best defenders in the league at being two places at once, having a foot in the pint disrupting things, but being able to close out and get excellent contests on three point shots on the weak side. He's such

a great defensive playmaker. To me, he's the best defensive player that I've watched this season. On DraftKings, Draymond right now is the favorite at minus one p thirty, Evan Mobley at plus one ten, and then Dyson Daniels at plus thirteen hundred in third place. I like that value for Draymond simply because Golden State has a lot more to play for over the course of this final stretch

of the season. Cleveland has nothing to play for but get to mid April healthy, and so you're just gonna see a higher level of intensity out of the Warriors over the course of these final few weeks of the season, and I think that just bodes well for Draymond's capability to lock up that award. I understand resting your team during the regular season is really important. Don't you think teams like the Cavs or even OKC should practice their

playoff rotation more. I doubt they are both going to be running ten man units with their stars playing thirty minutes per game. I like what Missoula is doing, playing Tatum and Brown forty plus minutes important games to kind of prepare their bodies for that grind. What do you think the balance should be. I think any sort of upside from pushing minutes like that is counteracted by just

the process of getting to the postseason healthy. I think it's important context that Joe Miszula, like, for instance, in the Lakers game, he pushes Jason Tatum's minutes way up, but he sits them for the two games surrounding that game. So, yeah, he played, you know, forty six minutes or whatever it was, but that was the only basketball he played in like a five day span, and so I don't think it's as straightforward as like, oh, Missoula's pushing his guys a

lot harder. I think both of these teams, in just different ways, are conserving themselves to make sure that they're ready to go when they get into the postseason. And like again, it's like it's like with Tatum's ankle injury, it's like there's just absolutely no reason to push it because you're gonna end up in a first round series. Again,

if you think about okay See, think about Boston. Boston is gonna end up playing a playing team from the Eastern Conference and Oklahoma City is gonna end up playing a playing team from the Western Conference. Right now, if the season ended today and the Seeds stayed where they were,

Boston's gonna get a seven game series against the Atlanta Hawks. Okay, if the season ended today, Oklahoma City is gonna get a tougher matchup someone like a Clippers or a Wolves, but they're gonna be a substantial favorite in that series. I would argue okay See has a little bit more

danger in terms of a first round potential upset. But like if you're Boston, for instance, like you could theoretically use the Atlanta Hawks series as like a playoff training camp to get ready for the rest of the postseason. I mean, I remember the Warriors the year they won the title. Steph came off the bench in the Nuggets series as he was coming back from a footstrain, and it just didn't matter because they had the Nuggets without Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Junior as a tune up

to prepare for the rest of the postseason. And by the way, that's the reward you get when you win a shit ton of regular season, you get a little bit more of a lighter opponent in that first round. Now get to Oklahoma City. That is such a dude, that's so brutal that like, if Oklahoma City has to face like the full strength Minnesota Timberwolves as a first round opponent as their reward for starting the season sixty

to twelve, it's just completely insane. But that said, I don't think either team is making any sort of mistake in the way they're managing their health over the course of the final phase of the season. Where would a second title put yanis all time I assume top ten. If that is the case, does he become undoubtedly undoubtedly the greatest player of this generation. So, first of all, I think Giannis is very far away from a second title.

I think it will require him changing teams, But like we talked about in the show on Wednesday, there's a version of this where he gets traded to Oklahoma City and he can win a title as soon as next year.

My thing is like, you have to start digging into it, Like, let's say that Yannis has two titles in this era, and his two titles are in twenty twenty one in the COVID year, beating the injury demolished Nets, the Trey Young Hawks and the Devin Booker Sons, and winning a title on the Oklahoma City Thunder team that we've talked about would be the most talented roster since the twenty

eighteen Warriors versus what Nikola Jokis has accomplished in his era. Again, I think all titles are titles, but we can all agree that no two titles are the same in terms of just the degree of difficulty in the way they resonate in the court of public opinion. I just think Jokic has been a better basketball player over the course of this generation than Yannis, and so unless Yanis did something insane, like let's say, win the title with this year's Bucks, I would have a hard time moving in

past Jokic. Now, to be clear, if Yannis goes and carries this Bucks team to a title, totally different conversation. I would argue that Yannis winning with this Bucks team would be a more impres accomplishment than anything Jokic has done over the course of his career so far. So like a lot of it just depends on the circumstances surrounding that second title. How do you view career accolades

factoring into your all time rankings? Accolades like titles, Gold medals, MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, All NBA career point rebound, assist totals, scoring champion, et cetera, compared to eye test and who's better. I would argue, compared to most people who cover the league, I look at awards less, there's a certain amount of politics involved, There's a certain amount of like data and advanced metrics involved, and how that can kind of kind of poison that sort of situation.

I do pay attention to that sort of thing, Like I think you know All NBA for instance, like if a guy is racking up first team All nbas it's a pretty good sign that he's just been, you know, perennially considered one of the five best players in the league. If a guy is, you know, perennially get it, like like Jokic winning three MVPs in four years, I don't think that's an accomplishment that you can just ignore or

make light of. That said, to me, ultimately, what I look at as the number one accomplishment is a singular player performing for a team in long playoff runs slash

championship runs. You can't only look at championship runs because only one of the thirty teams wins, and so there's a certain amount of Like if a guy just routinely every year, like Jimmy Butler, for instance, like him just routinely taking his team to the conference finals and finals year after year like he did with the Heat there for a while, that to me is more impressive than a guy racking up a bunch of regular season accolades, right Like, for instance, like if you asked me who

I thought was a better basketball player, Jimmy Butler or James Harden, I'm going to pick Jimmy Butler because James Harden has all of these accolades, but he struggled to get it translated to the phase of basketball that determines who wins the trophy. Ultimately, why do we play NBA basketball. We play NBA basketball for the Larry O'Brian Trophy. That

is the one thing that everything comes down to. From the moment you show up to training camp and you have those first meetings with the coaching staff and they start establishing their expectations and culture and stuff. What do they talk about, We're here to get to Larry O'Brien trophy. That goes that same goal translates all the way through. They've added things. You know, we have our in season tournament now as a mix up. You know, obviously Olympic

basketball carries its own weight. But ultimately, the dream for every professional basketball player in the world is to make it to the NBA and to win the Larry O'Brien Trophy. And so to me, everything in the context of the pursuit of that and what translates to the pursuit of that is going to outweigh the accolades. Doesn't mean the accolades don't matter, doesn't mean the accolades aren't something that I factor in and on the on the pursuit of

the Larry O'Brien trophy front. You don't even necessarily have to get it for me to think that you're capable of getting it. Like there's a version of Jimmy Butler's career where he plays with more talent and he has two or three titles. You know, there's there's a version of it where he plays for the San Antonio Spurs and the Toronto Raptors and he gets multiple titles the

way that a guy like Kawhi Leonard did. Right, And so even though I think Kawhi Leonard at his peak was a better player than Jimmy Butler, I think Jimmy's closer to that level than he is to the James Harden type of regular season accolade machine that can struggle to succeed in the postseason context. Is an interesting one. Who's a bigger liability on defense between Jokic and Luca?

This one's tough. I think they're close, but I would give a slight edge in terms to who's a bigger liability to Luca, And ultimately it just comes down to size. They both really struggle. Neither of them can guard one on one on the perimeter very well in space. They're both elite defensive rebounders, which I think is an asset on the defensive end of the floor that is under discussed.

Like Luca has helped make the Lakers a serviceable rebounding team despite a lack of size at the center position, because he's an excellent defensive rebounder, not as an athlete, but he just has a nose for the ball, meaning he's just good at anticipating where the ball is going to come off the rim, and he's got a good pursuit of the ball that allows him to get a

lot of defensive rebounders rebounds. That's said, two things, Jokich is a little bit better defensive rebounder than Luca, and two Jokic is big, which allows you to set up potential defensive schemes that keep him around the rim or put him in situations where he can be successful. It's harder to do with Luca. Point being, if you're building an a Lee defense from scratch, I think it's a little bit easier to build one around Jokic than it is to build one around Luca. That said, they're both

defensive liabilities. Jokic has been a substantial defensive liability since he won the title. I don't know what's going on there. He just hasn't really committed to that end of the floor as well as he used to. They're both bad on that end, but I would give Jokic a slight edge as a better defender than Luca. Do you think that this is Lebron's last chance to win a title? Next year, even they improve the team, he will be on the same level and get the Lakers to come

back into contention. I don't think this is Lebron's last chance. I think the next year will certainly be his last chance in terms of like at a star level, there's an offseason here where the Lakers immediately become a buyout destination or not a biout gestation, a veteran minimum destination.

The Lakers are going to get some discounted talent this summer because you want to go play in La for Luka Dancich and Lebron James and have an opportunity to contend for a title like that's going to be really appealing to people, especially players that are play finishers that would benefit from what Luka Doncic does. Next year's Lakers I expect to be a top tier contender right out the gates. I think they're going to be a really, really good team with a summer to rebuild around Luca

and Lebron. That said, right before Lebron tour not tour, but strained his groin against the Celtics, he was playing

at a top five level. You combine that with Luka Doncic, who has been playing at a top five level since then, the two of them together with Austin Reeves, with Ruby Hotchi Murau, with Jackson Hayes as the vertical spacer, with Dorian Finney, Smith gave Vincent Jared Vanderbilt is as this is certainly the best chance he's had since twenty twenty one, and I certainly consider this to be a real chance. I just think he'll probably have a slightly better chance

next year. Now to your point, Lebron will be forty one next year when they get to the postseason, he'll be older, probably won't be as good. There will be some small amount of decline barring a severe injury. If that's the case. Though, with better supporting talent and now that Luca's in the picture, they don't need Lebron's top

end as much anymore. They need a consistent floor with him, which I still think will be there next year, and I think that that's something that they will be able to leverage into competing again for a title one more time next season. Last one Denver fan here, with the roster shortcomings of the Nuggets, what are some off season things you think they should consider. Players they should think

about trading, players they should go after. Seems they could use it restructuring the roster, but I still love the ceiling of the core five when firing on all cylinders. I've thought about this a lot, and it's complicated because Michael Porter Junior in particular has been so important to this team and what they do on offense over the

course of this era. That said, if they lose again and it looks like defense is the issue which has been an issue over the course of the last couple of years, I would strongly consider doing everything in my power to upgrade the Michael Porter junior spot with more of a two way type of talent. It'd be really interesting, For example, if you could imagine a scenario where let's just just as a theoretical example. I'm not saying this

is gonna happen. Let's take a theoretical example. What if you were to swap Michael Porter Junior and Jada McDaniels. You bring Jada McDaniels in. Suddenly you have Christian Brown, Jaden McDaniels, and Aaron Gordon anchoring Yokichen Murray. That is a version of this team that has a level they can get to defensively that is different than what they're at right now. Aaron Gordon has turned himself into a

knockdown three point shooter. You can invert the roles so that Jaden McDaniels is operating more as that baseline finisher and Aaron Gordon is operating more as the floor spacer. Right in that sort of scenario, you reconfigure the team to being good enough defensively. You can imagine a version with Minnesota where you're putting just this knockdown week side

score spacer. That creates a lot more space for Julius Randall, but he might not even be there anymore, but for Anthony Edwards to get downhill and get to the basket.

And so that's just an example. But like I would just straw only consider actively hunting for a defensive minded three so that you can up your defensive floor and count more on Yo Kitchen Murray to just score enough to push you over the top, versus being in this situation now where they have to beat this world beating offense to have any chance to win, which I think is unsustainable. All right, guys, it's all I have for this week's mail bag. Is always as sincerely appreciate you

guys for supporting me and supporting the show. We will be back with our breakdown with Samus fondi Ari on the Warriors, which would be coming up tomorrow. I'll see you guys then, Lovo, what's up guys. As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take a second and leave a rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.