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gaming resources at DKG dot co. Slash MMA. All right, old hoops and I here at the volume. Happy Wednesday, everybody. Oh, well, if you guys are having a great week so far, Well, we got our first couple of trades over this NBA offseason a couple days ago. Alex Cruso got traded from the Chicago Bulls to the Oklahoma City Thunder. We have not had a chance to react to that yet, so we'll be reacting to that at the tail end of
today's show. But we're going to be starting with that massive deal from last night as McHale Bridges gets traded from the Brooklyn Nets to the New York Knicks for an absolute haul of draft compensations. So we're going to get into every angle of those trades from every team. I'm excited to get into it. You guys are the drip before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at Underscore Jason Lts. You guys
don't misshow announcements. Don't forget about a podcast few where you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight, and keep dropping mailbag questions in those YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them throughout the rest of this postseason. We're actually going to be doing a mail bag at the end of this week. All right, let's talk some basketball. So the first question everyone's going to be asking is was
this an overpay? And the Knicks paid a lot four unprotected first round picks, one protected first round pick, one swap, and a second round pick, so by any measure, an absolute haul of draft.
Compensation for McHale Bridges.
Now, the interesting piece here is I don't necessarily think this is an accurate measure of where the market will be this summer, mainly because I think a lot of teams are going to be looking to trade some pretty high quality players, and so that kind of shifts the supply and demand dynamic. Right Like, go back to last year's deadline, there just weren't very many players available, and so it was kind of a seller's market. Guys were waiting to get blown away with offers. It didn't really happen.
Right Like, this summer, I expect more player movement, and I expect there to be more deals that are kind of, let's just say, a lot less draft compensation than what we just saw. I think the backstory here it's important to keep in mind is the Brooklyn Nets are super high on Michale Bridges. They loved him, They viewed him as a franchise cornerstone. They did not want to trade him.
This is one of those situations where the Knicks basically put Brooklyn in a situation where they couldn't say no. They had to accept this incredible haul and pivot into a rebuild, especially going into a really interesting draft next year, because the Knicks just put too much on the table. So was it an overpay? Yeah, technically yes, but this is what it cost to get a player that's unavailable.
There are a lot of players around the league that front officers are not looking to trade, but if you call them and you offer just a ton of stuff, you might be able to pry him away. And this was a prime example of that. The Knicks knew they wanted this particular guy. I think there's a very we're gonna get into the basketball dynamics here in a minute, but I think there are some specific reasons why the Knicks really wanted McHale Bridges. I think they wanted a
functional plug and play piece. I didn't think they wanted the risk of a higher powered star, if.
That makes sense.
And so McHale kind of fits that mold and just kind of view as an easy glue guy that fits the culture of the Knicks.
Right.
So there's a particular guy that they really wanted that technically wasn't really available. This is something I was hearing way back into last season. The Nets loved McHale Bridges, they did not want to move him, and so the Knicks just put it all on the table and they were able to pull it off right and again, now the Nets can pivot into a full rebuild from here heading into a stacked draft. So is it an overpay, Yes, but that is just what it cost to get a
player that a franchise did not want to trade. Now, moving on to the fit with McHale Bridges on the Knicks, I want to start on the offensive end of the floor, So we're gonna get into a bunch of details here. First of all, he's an excellent off ball player, excellent spot up player. He was seventieth percentile or better in points per possession converting spot up situations in twenty twenty one,
twenty twenty two, and twenty twenty three. Had a little bit of a down year last year he was sixtieth percentile, just one point zero six points per spot up possession, but the spacing was pretty rough in Brooklyn, and he did still shoot pretty well in catch and shoot situations. He was thirty eight percent on catch and shoot jump shots, which amounted to fifty seven percent in effective field goal percentage or one point one four points per shot, which is.
Still a really good number.
As far as on ball stuff, he struggles like one on one with the defender squared up with him, but he's actually a pretty solid off screen player, so he gets zero point seven to two points per ISO when he was shooting last year for Brooklyn. But in these off screen numbers, they're he's not like amazing finny stretch. But again, you got to look at this in the context of the type of players he was playing with
in Brooklyn. Coming off of screens. He was zero point nine to four points per possession in pick and roll including passes. That's not bad. That's pretty average, right, one point one two points per possession when he shot coming
off of screens, that's a really good number. So, like, he's one of those guys that when he's going against kind of traditional coverages, right, like a defender chasing over the top of the screen, and he's working against like a drop coverage big or some sort of like traditional screen coverage, he's actually really good at operating in that situation. Again, he was asked to do a ton of shot creation for Brooklyn.
Is that the ideal role for him?
No, So if you're like one of those guys that's like looking at his numbers in Brooklyn and you're like, oh, man, like you know, McHale Bridges is a pretty mediocre player, Like, yeah, is he mediocre within the context of the star role, meaning like the guy that's taking on a ton of shot creation, the guy that you're depending on late in games, Like, yeah, he's gonna un orwhelm you in some of those areas, But there is real value to the experience that he
got in Brooklyn. He just spent two years or a year and a half. He just spent a year and a half pretending or pretending is the wrong word, but practicing being that guy, right. And so as a result, he just got a ton of repetition coming off of dribble handoffs, coming off of ball screens, and just learning
how to operate and generate advantages for his team. And like, I watched about one hundred of his most recent pick and rolls in Dho's at the end of this last season, and he's just gotten so much better at it over the course of the last twelve months. Like he can he can make the reads at a much higher level. Now, he can hit the pocket pass when it's opening ball screens, he can read the low man and make the skip pass.
He takes advantage of the simple reads that are available to Like, this is something I've always appreciated about a good pick and role player. Like you come off a ball screen and a dude's helping down at the nail, just throw the swing pass because that guy now has a closeout opportunity. It's not going to be any different than if you walk into the lane and throw some super complicated over the top skip pass to the week side corner. It's still a close out opportunity for an
offensive player. So like he'll come off those ball screens and if he sees nail help, he'll just throw that simple pass over to the wing. He's just become kind of like a steady ball handler.
Right.
Again, not the guy that you want to have super high volume on a great team, but these reps that he got in Brooklyn are valuable for him becoming a more versatile offensive player than he was when he was in Phoenix. Right, this is where I want to talk about the New York Knicks offense for a little bit, and we're going to we're going to try a new kind of like format here on the show today where I'm going to try to use like essentially a clipboard
to demonstrate some of these concepts. But like before we go over to the clipboard, I want to talk a little bit surface level The Knicks ran five out concepts last year, but very much with a brute force finish. So they would like set up in some like five out kind of like sets to start possessions, but more often than not it would end with like a cleared ISO for Jalen Brunson, or a pick and roll for Brunson with Isaiah Hartenstein, or a guard guard screen at
the top of the key. It's trying to attack a weak defender that's guarding the other that's guarding like Dante DiVincenzo or Douce McBride. You know, we saw a lot of that Indiandiana Pacers series for instance, for instance. Right, So, like, even though these are five out concepts for the Knicks, it's been just a steady dose.
Of Jalen Brunson.
And one of the main reasons why that is is in order to run real five out concepts, like to get the biggest benefits of five out, which is ball and player movement. Right, it's ball and player movement, it's ball reversal, it's going side to side multiple actions in the same shot clock right. In order to get that, you need a certain amount of aggregate ball handling. You need lots of guys on the floor that can run action, lots of guys on the floor that can dribble, shoot and pass.
And it's not that the Knicks didn't have that.
They had guys that were capable, but not very many high level ball handlers, right, like the old the other guy that was really handling the ball that much for them was Dante DiVincenzo over the course that playoff front right, And like again, Dante DiVincenzo, if he's your second best ball handler, you don't have enough ball handling on the floor to really capitalize on the ball in player movement
that you get out of five out sets. Right, If he's your third or fourth best ball handler on the floor, suddenly it becomes a more achievable goal. So I want to get over to the I want to get over to the clipboard here for a second so we can talk about some of these concepts in more detail. So what I have here is just a basic horn set, right, and we're gonna leave view number one here as Jalen Brunson.
So like this is a typical five out kind of start to a possession where what we would see the Knicks do last year is we would essentially see Hartenstein set essentially a cross screen for Brunson. He would come off into this area and this would be like Josh Hard or Dante de Vincenzo and then make an entry to Jalen Brunson here at the elbow, and then these guys would just clear out to the weak side.
And Brunson would just work in iso.
So it starts as like a five out concept, but it would end in essentially a just an opportunity for a brute force type of attack from Jalen Brunson. Or similarly, they would have like Jalen Brunton start down here in the corner and they'd have like a Horns type of setup where essentially they would have you know, a post entry here to Hartenstein and then Josh hart would come down and screen, and then Brunton would come up and
Hartenstein would come up for the ball screen. He'd come off, but then once again it would just turn into four out. These guys would space to the corner. The Vincenzo would be on the opposite wing above the brick. Now we're just running Jalen Brunts and Isaiah Hartenstein two man game, and it'd be like rescreen and rescreen and rescreen, and they'd get what they'd want and it would just effectively function as a brute force kind of four out attack at the end of the possession in order to run
true five out. And what I'm looking at there is, let's go back and set up in exactly what we were at the start of the possession, like a horn set is you want to be able to run multiple actions, right, So if Jalen Brunson's here in the corner, and let's say we just run more of like a Chicago action, So like Josh Hart just makes the post entry here to Hartenstegin and then Josh Hart sign down screens, Brunson
comes up, and then we run a dribble handoff. You want to be able to flow into it so that if this doesn't work and Brunson comes down and runs into help, he can kick over here to Josh Hart, Josh Hart can dribble down. Let's say this is Mikale Bridges.
Now McHale Bridges gets this dribble hand off, he comes off Hartenstein flows over to this side of the floor and sets another screen, and mchal Bridges comes into the to the lane from this side, and maybe he draws in some help and kicks to Jalen Brunston, and Jalen Brunson could run a third action, or Jalen Brunson can
attack a close out. It's being able to have multiple high level ball handlers so that you can flow from each side of the floor and get the defense like out of their strong side load up and into more of like kind of chaos right as you go from side to side. Doesn't even have to necessarily be horns. You can imagine a situation where they're in more or of like a pistol setup, where you've got guys on both wings and you have the big kind of operating out of the top of the key in Jalen Brunson
dribble handoff. Here comes Dante Devincenzo. Here comes a ball screen for hart and signed Devincenzo gets into the lane. Oh, there's Nail help. Let's kick over here to og annob og Anobi dribbles down and hands it off to Mikail Bridges. Mckel bridges comes off. Here comes Hartenstein to set the
second screen. Mckail bridges comes into the lane. There is just much more ball in player movement that you can accomplish by virtue of having multiple high level ball handlers on the floor, and that, to me is what makes this concept so fascinating. You have to have a certain amount of aggregate ball handling. If you think of a lineup with Jalen Brunson, McHale, Bridges, Dante DiVincenzo ogn Andobi O j Anobi's your fourth best ball handler in that lineup.
If that happens, that's where you can achieve some of the real upside that comes from five out offense. And again, there's gonna be force elements to it. You're still gonna have a lot of clearout ISOs for Jalen Brunson, You're still gonna have a lot of ojan Andobi playing bullyballer or Julius Randol if he's still there playing bullyball. It's not that you can't get to that more often. It's
just there is something to be said about. I talked about this a lot in my five Biggest Takeaways video if you guys remember that I released earlier this morning. One of the big things I talked about is I am a big believer now in that every team needs to be striving to run at least five out like setups to start possessions, meaning like horn sets, like specific actions at the beginning of possessions before you get into your five out motion, just to give yourself more opportunities
to break the set defense that you're going against. Again, when they're loaded up on the strong side and you run a pick and roll, it just makes things really hard. If you're running a ball screen on the third attack of the possession and there's been switches and there are guys that are out of position, and this guy's glued up on the weak side because he just was defending a guy running an action like that is where you kind of loosen things up against the set defense and
give yourself easier opportunities. And to me, mckel Bridges is not another brute for Star, He's another cog in a more ball and player movement type of offense. And so to me, like in short, I view Bridges not just as an individual offensive upgrade, but as a massive increase in the team's aggregate shooting, dribbling, passing ability that should allow them to substantially raise their offensive ceiling. And to me, that fit is just so easy. And that's before we
even get to the defensive end of the floor. Now, mckail Bridges was a bit lazy this year in Brooklyn. Big part of that was the scheme, though Nick Clackson was a big who could switch, and in general they had a lot of wings, and so what Brooklyn did was just switch almost everything, and so mckaal Bridges didn't have to fight over screens as often in Brooklyn as he did in Phoenix. In Phoenix, though, I went back this morning and watched a bunch of tape of him
in twenty twenty two with the Suns. He is so good at getting over the top of screens. He has amazing length to bother guards with back pressure. He's actually really good in general at guarding, kind of like quick perimeter players because he has the quickness to stay with them and the length to bother their pull up jump shots. He represents an archetype of defender that the Knicks just
simply didn't have before this trade. I view Ognanobi as more of the big forward rather than the perimeter forward in terms of what he can do defensively. Yes, he can chase Tyres Maxie around and try his best. He can guard on the perimeter better than most big forwards. But ideally you want him battling with the big bully ball forwards, right. You want him battling kind of against the matchup attacking guy that tries to use physical strength
as an advantage. That's where Ognnoby can hold up really well defensively. Ideally, you don't want him on the quickest guard. You want him on the biggest scoring forward. And so now you have a situation where if you can maintain or if you can retain ogn Andoby this summer, you have McHale Bridges to guard the opposing team's best guard, and then you have Dante DiVincenzo to guard the opposing
team's second best guard. Dante de Vincenzo is an excellent perimeter defender, right, And then you have Ognnoby to guard the other team's best like big strong forward right. So like there's just a lot of defensive versatility you gain by adding a true wing long guard defender in Michael Bridget.
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Looking back at the train, mckilbridges isn't a super splashy name. He doesn't have the splash of a Kevin Durant or a Paul George or Lebron James in terms of like the hype surrounding him, and the Knicks did give up a ton to get him, and so I can understand how it's like, oh man, seven picks or six picks in a swap and we're getting this like kind of like smaller name. But he's a damn good basketball player. And I think he's gonna be one hell of a force multiplier.
In this team.
I think he's gonna make everybody's job so much easier by slotting people more properly. You're turning Dante de Vincenzo into your primary perimeter defender into your secondary perimeter defender. You're turning o Jananobi from a perimeter defender into a forward defender, which is better. You're taking Dante de Vincenzo from your second best shot creator and turning him into your third best shot career. You're increasing the aggregate ball
handling and shooting ability of the team. There's so much like in terms of just making the game easier for every other player on the team that is achieved by bringing mckaal bridges into this situation. And then lastly, the Boston angle. To be the best, you have to beat the best. Boston is going to have the same core as they just won the championship with, and as we know, Boston's a very different type of five out offense in the sense that they don't have a ton of interchanges.
They will run screening actions, but they're more of a driving kick. They're more like a space you out beat you off the dribble and then play driving kick basketball. Right, the Nets or the Knicks are going to be different in the sense that Jalen Brunson and Jalen Brunson can iso. But Jalen Brunson and Chaal Bridges aren't like straight line drive, like toast you off the dribble type of guys, So they're not gonna beat you with that driving kick type
of game. They're gonna beat you with five out player motion, lots of screening actions, right, so.
Like they're different.
But defensively, to guard Boston, the job comes down to containing in space. With Boston, you have to contain the basketball, flatten out drives so you don't have to help as hard so that you can bait them into pull up jump shots instead of letting them get easy drive and kick layups and catch and shoot threes. Right from there, that's where your aggregate foot speed, your aggregate length becomes
an advantage. And again you imagine a lineup that has Dante DiVincenzo, that has Mikael Bridges, that has og Andnobi Jalen Brunson can slide his feet. You know, when you have that much perimeter talent on the team, you can actually do a better job of containing dribble drive teams like the Boston Celtics. And so again, you have to beat Boston in order to get over the top, in
order to get out of that Eastern Conference. This is a move that not only improves the Knicks in the grand scheme of the NBA, but is specifically a piece that could help you with a Boston matchup. Now, would I pick this Knixt team over Boston in a series at this point, No, I think Boston's better than them, but they are certainly a lot closer. And we will see how all of this stuff gels together when they get into training camp and we start seeing this group
play basketball together. So where do we go from here? As we mentioned earlier, for Brooklyn, they pivot full rebuild. You're hoping to get into the Cooper Flag sweepstakes as we had into next season. Right, the reporting looks like on the Knicks front that the Knicks are going to prioritize og Ananobi over Isaiah Hartenstein. Now that makes sense.
Hartenstein is an awesome player, super valuable, and I think the Knicks are going to miss him, especially in some of their five out sets because Hartenstein was such a good passer. He was a guy that in a five out system his ability to read back cuts to function as a dribble handoff guy, a guy who can roll into the short area and make those floaters with his left hand at such a high rate. He's a super valuable offensive piece and the Knicks are going to miss
that if they end up losing Hartenstein. But I think the overall increase in perimeter talent can go a long way towards making up for that. And then again, I think keeping og instead of Hartenstein is much more valuable
within the context of a matchup with Boston. With Boston, you need as many of these long, quick wings or perimeter players that can contain on the dribble as possible, and so within the context of that specific matchup, I think I'd rather have og Anobi than Isaiah Hartenstein, and I do think that's the route to go if they can only afford to keep one of them. Right, the real question for the Knicks is where does Julius Randall fit in all of this, And honestly.
He doesn't.
He's not a great read and react player, which makes him a better fit in more of a brute force system than in a five out system, but they might also be able to play him at center in matchups
with Boston. Imagine if Mitchell Robinson just for whatever reason, maybe against Boston switching he becomes a liability offensively, or if he struggles with health or whatever, it may be maybe a look where you put Julius Randall at the five, because again Boston is not exactly a super physically imposing front line, right, So like maybe in a matchup with Boston you look at it as like a Julius Randall at the with Og at the four, Mikhale Bridges, Donte
Di Vincenzo, Jalen Brunson. That is a really good, like five perimeter player type of lineup that still has a good amount of physicality and Ogn Andnobi and Julius Randall on the front line. That would be an interesting kind of card to have in your back pocket for a
matchup with Boston. But again it all comes down to what his value is league wide, because if you could flip him and get rid of Julius Randald and get back functional players that can help you another center that can run five out, maybe some depth at the guard position, whatever it is. That's where if you have the ability to make an upgrade using Julius Randall's salary, you have to at least consider it, right, because I do think the fit is a little clunky in terms of actually
trying to achieve real ball in player movement. So I'll be interested to see whether or not there's any values surrounding Julius Randall and if the Knicks look.
To move him.
But I don't really have an idea at this point which direction that's going to go. But this is a fun deal and I'm really happy for Knicks fans. This is going to be a really fun team next year. Obviously the Villanova connections run strong. We're going to be covering the Nicks very closely next year. But hopefully that's a quick synopsis of how I feel about the trade and give you guys a better idea of the basketball fit there. All right, let's talk Alex Cruso to the
Oklahoma City Thunder. So this is a super interesting deal on so many levels. I want to focus on kind of the weird part first and then we'll get into the part that makes a lot of sense to me. So the weird parts it's bizarre to me that the Bulls value Josh Gitty so much that they didn't ask
for any additional draft compensation in this deal. Like, Josh Gitty is an interesting player, but he kind of has to be on the ball to be effective, and he's not good enough at being on the ball to be a primary ball handler for a great team.
Right. That really is the issue in my opinion.
If I look at Giddy as the future version of himself, He's got to become a better shooter. He's got to become a better cutter, he's got to become a better just functional off ball piece in order to make himself be valuable as a secondary creator or a ter creator. In order for his value to make sense. I just think if you put the ball in his hands a ton, you're going to be a pretty mediocre team at this point, given some of his limitations, especially as a shooter.
Right.
So, like, I don't really understand the value there from Boston or excuse me, from Chicago, but it's very clear that the Bulls just valued Josh Gitty because they did not ask for any additional draft compensation in the deal. Also, like Alex Cruzoe seemed from some of the reporting to be capable of fetching at least a good first round pick in the market, So they looked at Giddy over even first round draft compensation, which I think is fascinating.
Also on the Oklahoma City front, Cruso is a little bit of a redundancy, right, Like, if you're looking at the lineup for Oklahoma City, you imagine shay Jad dort As, you're one, two three. When you think about what you know Oklahoma City really needs to do to get to the next level, you think about either a good, physical, bruising center that you can slot Chet Homegren at the four with, or a big, physical, bruising forward that can keep Chet at the five. Right, You're looking for something
that can beef up the front court. So like going for Alex Caruso, especially at a position where you already kind of have a plethora of talent, seems a little confusing. So on the surface, the trade seems weird, But here's why I love it for Oklahoma City. Obviously, it's a discounted deal. You just traded a player that doesn't really fit with the idealized version of what you are, especially in the playoffs, for a guy who has started games in the NBA Finals for the team that won the championship.
Like he's one of the most highly regarded role players in the NBA. I, as a Lakers fan, rooted for this guy. I was devastated when Genie Bus let him go simply because of money. It was one of the many catastrophic mistakes that Genie Bus and the ownership group of the Los Angeles Lakers have made over the course of the last few years. I promise you Alex Cruzo has always been this good. It's not something that just happened in Chicago. He's been someone that I've really valued
and appreciated for appreciated for a really long time. And it's un fortunate hit that he made his way to Chicago to begin with. I promise you Thunder fans, as long as he can stay healthy, you guys are gonna love this guy. He's one of the very best perimeter defenders in the NBA. He's a proven effective playoff role player.
But what's fascinating to me is like, if you actually look at Caruso and the way you want him to fit into a championship team, he's actually kind of better when you keep him down around like twenty five minutes. One of the main reasons why is this is a guy who plays extremely hard all the time. That doesn't say that you can't scale his minutes up if you want him to close a big game or play thirty two to thirty three minutes in a big playoff game.
It's not like Alex is not capable of that.
It's just that he is a guy that goes balls to the walls the entire time that he's in the game, and so keeping in that kind of twenty five minute range is a way to get really good effectiveness out of him in those twenty five minutes. Right, So the Thunder shouldn't have too much of a problem carving out a twenty five minute type of role for him, even with the talent that they have already in the backcourt with shay J.
Dubb and Lou Door.
Also, guys like Aaron Higgins are going to be a free agent next year. You're eventually going to have to pay him if you want him to stay on board. You're eventually gonna have to pay case On Wallace in the long run if he stays on board. Right, So, like, if you can lock up Alex Cruso on an affordable deal for four to five years. Then you can afford
to lose an Aaron Wiggins to restricted free agency. You can afford to lose a case On Wallace in a few years if you have Alex Cruso to kind of fill that role as your first bench guard or bench wing that comes in and guards the other team's best player. Right, Cruso is also a better fit within this timeline. This team has real championship potential as soon as next season. If they can get a high quality front court player, I will be moving them into my top tier of
championship contenders. That's how impressed I was in general by Oklahoma City and how well they fared against the Dallas Mavericks in that second round series, which by the way, they were this close to winning. If they don't foul PJ. Washington in the left corner in Game six, they're going home for Game seven, which statistically speaking, goes to the home team. That's not to say that it's a guarantee.
The MAVs might very well have gone into Oklahoma City in one, but the thunder were very close to making it to the conference finals, right, So like they're like one piece away, and Cruso is a substantial piece, But the biggest weakness of the team is that front court athleticism and like and just kind of like, like, uh, just someone that can just be a pain in the ass on the glass. It was just kind of a hard worker that just kind of solves some of their dirty work issues on the front line.
Right.
If they get that type of guy, and you add Alex Cruso to this equation, and you add a year of experience, a year of the pain and suffering of losing in that second round series painfully the way that they did, that's a team that I think is a top tier championship contender. So like Caruso fits within the urgency of your opportunity to win right now.
Like he is a.
Veteran piece, he's thirty years old, he brings championship level playoff experience. I love that fit. And so who's that front court piece. This is where I want to kind of tie everything back to the Brooklyn Nets New York Knicks trade. So in the as a byproduct of the New York Knicks trade, the reporting is that Isaiah Hartenstein looks to be the guy that the Knicks may not be able to retain. If Isaiah Hartenstein enters free agency in Oklahoma City can.
Jump on him.
What a perfect piece that would be alongside Chet Holmgren at the four Several reasons why I like this First of all, in five out offense, as we talked about it earlier for the Knicks, Isaiah Hartstein is just such a good dribble handoff folkrum, such a good screener, such a good backdoor passer, such a good roll man right, such a good offensive reboundary. Does all of these things that can really unlock a five out offense. He's also
just an absolute, an absolute star on the glass. This dude can crash the offensive glass with the best of them. He can clean up defensive possessions. If you put him next to Chet Holmgren, you fundamentally alter the physical file of your front line. Even next to Chet, you can imagine running a high drop coverage where, and this is a thunder team that likes to be aggressive, you can put Chet as the lowman. Now you can put Hartensteign
on the other team's center. Hartenstein can come out high in a drop coverage and be active with his hands. Now Chet is the guy that is functioning as that lowman who can help at the rim and ball screens while also having the length to close to the corner and contest corner shooters on skip passes. This would be if the Thunder can get Isaiah Hartenstein. That to me or a similar type of player, but Isaia Hartenstein, to me,
is my favorite kind of fit there. If they can get Isaiah Hartenstein, I would put them in my top tier of championship contenders. I would put them up there with Denver and Boston. That is how good I think this Thunder team can be if they beef up the front court. All right, guys, that's all I have for today. Only last thing I wanted to hit really quickly before
we get out. I cover Acolyte. Episode five came out last night and it was just absolutely epic, just the Sith Lord just cutting down a dozen Jedi.
It was amazing.
I broke that down, that episode down with my buddy Luke on our two Sons podcast feed.
That's this podcast over here.
That's the one that I cover all like TV shows and movies and stuff like that. We also hit House of the Dragon episode two a couple of days ago, so make sure you Guys, head over there. If you're into non basketball content, we're gonna be back. If there's another trade, we'll be back tonight, but if there's no trades, we'll be back tomorrow morning to break down everything from
the NBA Draft. I would imagine over the course of the next two days just a lot of reacting to draft trades, and then we're gonna do a mailbag on Friday, so don't forget to keep dropping mailbag questions in those YouTube comments. All right, guys, that is all I have for you guys today. I sincerely appreciate you for supporting the show. We will see you shortly, depending on what kind of chaos we see.
The volume