Hoops Tonight - NBA Cup Predictions + What's next for Steph & Warriors, Luka & Mavericks, Nuggets

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and eligibility varies by jurisdiction void in Ontario. Bet must win to receive award. Bonus bets expire one hundred and sixty eight hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources to dkang dot co slash b Ball. All right, welcome to hoops tonight here at the Volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody, help all of you guys are having a great week.

Just have a quick show for you this morning. Since we only have one game last night, we're gonna go over my predictions for the first round of the Inn season tournament off the Top. Obviously, tomorrow and Thursday shows will be breakdowns of those games. We're probably gonna do some film in those shows as well. But today we'll be doing some predictions and then a bunch of you guys drop some really good mailbag question and the YouTube

comments yesterday. We're gonna hit some teams, but there's also a lot of big picture basketball concepts that you guys brought up, so it's gonna be fun to kind of get into the weeds of the bigger concepts that make this league work. We're gonna hit that mail bag that we'll be out of here for the day, and then, as I said, we will be breaking down the Ncason Tournament games starting tomorrow. You guys know the joke before we get started, and subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels.

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more content. Make sure you guys follow us there and then keep dropping mail bag questions and those YouTube comments. We'll have another mail bag like we always do on Friday towards the tail end of this week and the last, but not least, Before we get started, I want to talk to you guys about game Time. They have the best ticket buying experience in my opinion. I've used them many times in the past. I highly recommend you guys

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dollars off your first purchase terms apply again. Create an account and redeem code Hoops. That's hoops for twenty dollars off. Download game time today? What time is it? Game time? All right, let's talk some basketball. So four games. I'm just gonna get the first rounds and then we'll react to the later rounds as they come. Milwaukee over. You know, Milwaukee's just playing really well right now. When Orlando's down their two best players. The game is in Milwaukee, so

no need to get too much further into that one. Obviously, Orlando has an athleticism advantage on the perimeter, but I don't think it'll be enough to make up for it, especially playing in front of that home crowd. I also think that Milwaukee, similarly to the Lakers last year, after an uneven start to the season, can stamp a level of legitimacy to their you know what, they've accomplished to this point to mid December by winning this in season tournament.

I think they should go for it. I talked about this a little bit with Kevin o'connory yesterday. I went on his show, and I just I think the Ncason Tournament's awesome. My favorite team, the Lakers, aren't even in it this year, and I'm still super excited for it. I think anytime, as a competitor, you have an opportunity to compete for an accolade like this, that you should go for it. I think it's revealing and who you are as a competitor. I think it's revealing and how

serious you are as a basketball team. I think everybody should be trying to win this thing, and I think Milwaukee's really going to try to go after it. Dallas. Okay, See, this game is basically a coin flip in a single elimination type of setting. That's the other thing I want to say off the top here, Like this is single elimination,

anything can happen. The Celtics, who won the championship and the Lakers were both in the n Season Tournament last year and the Lakers ended up winning the whole damn thing. No one thinks the Lakers are better than the Celtics, right, So in single elimination there's more you're at higher risk

of variables knocking you out, so anything can happen. I'm just giving you my best predictions, right, But again, for a game like this, I think Dallas is I think Dallas when OKAC doesn't have Chet, is a slightly better team, and so that is an advantage in Dallas's favorite. But the game is being played in Oklahoma City, so this could really go either way. I think I'm gonna go

with Dallas. Though OKAC has struggled with rim decisions against them in the past, they have a lot of advantages in this particular matchup, especially on the offensive rebounding front as well as that rim protection. So in the coin flip, I will take Dallas and Atlanta New York should be a fun one. Atlanta's playing really good ball and they beat the Knicks earlier this year. But I also think New York has a defensive gear that they can get to in a big game, specifically that is better than

they've shown this year. And when the chips are down and both teams are at their best, I think the Knicks are a little better on defense and I think they're a lot better on offense. So I'm gonna go

with the Knicks. I think Golden State Houston. I think Golden State's a better team than Houston, and I think they're capable of going in there and strangling Houston's offense, but that crowd is going to be crazy and Houston is going to play super hard, so I kind of view that game as another coin flip, but I'll go with Golden State at this point. So again, I think New York and Milwaukee should both relatively easily dispatch of Atlanta and Orlando. Atlanta game might be a little closer,

but I think the Knicks will win. And then Dallas OKAC and Golden State Houston. As by virtue of the Western Conference and its depth of talent, I think both of those games are basically coin flips, but I'll go with Dallas and Golden State for now, and then I'll give my predictions on the later round games when we get to them. All Right, a lot of really good

questions from you guys today. Let's get into it. Hey, Jason, I'm sure you're tired of MAVs fans in your comments, but something I've noticed is that Luca is playing more off the ball. It looks to be a real development. At least a quarter of the way into the season, he's at much lower usage rate than usual, and especially since he's coming back, and it looks back to MVP candidate form, He's been averaging a thirty point triple double on a thirty percent usage rate, which is the lowest

of his career since his rookie season. Also, the percentage of his shots that are unassisted that sixty six percent, which is down from it being between seventy eight and eighty six percent in twenty twenty one to twenty twenty four. Not saying he's Steph Curry or anything, but I can do to try and slow the change of narratives of him being a selfish ballhog. Lol. First of all, that's I appreciate you going into the trouble of doing all

that research. This is something that I've noticed with the eye test, just periodically throughout the season, just a little bit more using Luca off the ball, not just as like a guy to run action, but as a screener.

He's coming off in advantage situations a lot, a lot of like seals around the elbow where they're trying to generate rim protection with his size fighting for position rather than trying to do it off the dribble coming off of off ball action, rather than having him just dribble into a ball screen We're gonna talk a little bit further about this in a warrior's question that we have.

I think it's two questions down the list, but like there's this obsession with the idea that like it's like motion offense or like spread pick and roll, and it's like, really, motion offense includes a lot of the same concepts of spread, pick and roll, just in a design that is supposed to keep everybody involved. And so like, you can still be Luca and be what makes Luca great without needing to dribble the ball off the floor slowly into a ball screen every single time. And so they're still gonna

do that. Like, I don't think Dallas needs to ditch that look. I think that's a valuable look, especially when you're trying to strangle the pace of games. But it's good to be able to do both. You want to be able to be like, hey, we're a little stagnant, this isn't working. Let's go to more of our ball and player movement stuff. Or it's like, hey, we got a matchup. We really like, let's just keep spamming this

because Luke is killing this guy. You know. Having the ability to go back and forth is going to be the path to the promised Land for the Dallas Mavericks. This is the only troll we're responding to today, and it's not because these a troll. It's just because I want to clarify something that I have to periodically clarify because people don't pay attention to some of the criteria

that I release earlier in the season. Not having the Knicks in the top ten of power rankings when their season, when they're season long, net rating and record are at the top of the league. They are the best offense in the NBA, and their recent stretch has been elite. This is just bad analysis. So again, our power rankings are not intended to be contender rankings or just a clear in a vacuum set of who the best teams

in the regular seasons have been. It is a opportunity for us to shine a light on teams who are playing well as of late. So it's kind of like a combination of like three factors, like one, who's having the best regular season? Two, who's been playing the best in the in like the last two weeks or so. In three, Hey, here's a team we haven't had a chance to talk about in a little while they're kind of up for debate around that nine to ten spot. Let's get him in there right. So, like, that's kind

of the purpose of my Power rankings. I understand that that's different than a lot of people do, but to me, I want to have that Power Rankings list be an opportunity for us to celebrate teams that are playing good basketball in the regular season, even over small bursts sometimes so at the bottom of the rankings. This week, the Miami Heat were team that I wanted to shine a line up. We hadn't talked about them a lot. I had watched a few of their games in the previous week.

They'd been playing better basketball. I wanted to shine a light on them. The other team that the teams that were kind of like fighting for that nine to ten spot for me were like the Knicks the Warriors in the Heat. The Warriors have eight wins against teams that are five hundred or better and the Knicks have five wins against teams that are five hundred are better. That was what gave Golden State the edge for me, and again,

I just wanted to shine the light on Miami. New York is considerably higher than that in my contender rankings, which are strictly meant to reflect my belief on who has the best chance to win a championship. So again, I'm just gonna periodically do that after Monday shows, just to remind people that we have a criteria in a system that we use here and just for the people that missed it earlier in the season. Next question, I

don't have Warriors use pick and roll more often? Seems like when they stick to Steve Kerr's motion offense, they get bogged down and can't generate anything. When they stick to simple pick and roll, it seems like everything opens up. We saw this in their win versus the Rockets, heavy pick and roll with Kamina and Wiggins, then their loss versus Minnesota motion offense return, then in their win versus Minnesota, back to more pick and roll. Am I missing something?

Is Steve Kerr missing something? Thinks Love the show? This is something that I've seen a certain segment of Warriors fans complaining a lot about over the last couple of years, and I really think it's silly and frankly kind of a misunderstanding of a basic basketball principle, which is that which is what I talked about earlier when we were

talking about Dallas in the motion offense. If you have a guy like if you have a five out setup and you got Draymond at the top of the key, and you have let's call it Brandon Pajemski on the right wing and Steph Curry in the right corner, and you're running your flow from side to side, you're thinking of it as a motion offense, a bunch of guys moving, cutting, screening, blah blah blah. Yes, but at its core it's the same concept of what's happening in a pick and roll. Right.

In a pick and roll, Steph brings the ball up the floor, gets a screen, hopefully gets his defender and trail position, hopefully brings the big up to the level of the screen so that he can hit the guy slipping to the basket. If they don't show at the level of the screen with a screen defender, then Steph can come off and look to shoot right. So that's

the advantage of the of the pick and roll. There's one other advantage as it pertains to deal with dealing with top locking in denial, but which we'll get to that in just a second. But if you zoom in on a motion offense. If Brandon Pajamski runs down in screens in like a Chicago action for Steph coming out of the corner, and it flows into a dribble hand off with UH, with UH Draymond Green at the top of the key, it is still fundamentally the same concept.

Steph's defender in all likelihood is going to be trailing him over the top of the screen. Draymond's defender is going to show at the level of the screen. Draymond is going to slip out of it. So even though it's a chicag I Go action instead of a spread pick and roll, the same fundamental concept of a two man game is taking place. It's actually technically more of a three man game because you're setting a screen for Steph before at the beginning. So like let's look at

the Warriors split cuts. Okay, you make a post entry to Draymond, then Brandon Pajemski makes the post entry Steph Curry's at the top of the key. Pajemski sets a screen for Steph coming off towards the ball handler to try to get him a look or the opposite of that. Right, Well, let's talk it through. Steph's defender probably going to chase Steph in a lock and trail right his defender screens

for him when he's his teammate screens for him. That screen defender is likely going to show on Steph, and if they botch that, there's an opportunity to slip for the screener. Again, fundamentally, the exact same concept that happens in a pick and roll. It's just happening within the flow with everybody involved. So this is where it gets a little more complicated. When you're running Steph off ball.

There are downsides. Those downsides tend to be things like being really handsy and holding Steph top blocking, meaning like STEP's in the corner and he's getting ready to come off of that Chicago action. What if his defender just literally sits on Steph's top side so that he has no choice but to backcut into the lane. Right, Like, there are a denials, physical off ball defense. All those sorts of things can disrupt the motion offense, right, But the same can be said about the pick and roll.

So the idea would be, Okay, they're denying Stephan the ball, we're having trouble getting him the ball in the motion offense. Okay, let's get him the ball in the back court and have him dribble up the floor into a ball screen. Okay, now he has to navigate ball pressure. That adds a layer of fatigue on the ball as Steph has to

navigate ball pressure up the court. You think the same team that would top block and grab and hold and be super physical with Steph off ball, it's just going to let him dribble the ball seamlessly up the floor into action. No, they're probably going to ball pressure him be physical the same sort of issues, Right, And there's also a downside that with that, which is the rhythm

of the flow of the entire offense. If Steph runs that Chicago action and he comes off and it's not open, there's all of these counters and additional layers to it so that they can keep flowing from side to side. Right, in the event that you're just running spread, pick and roll every time down the floor, you're basically admitting that no one else is going to be in rhythm. You're basically admitting that this is now the step show. Whereas if you're trying to make sure that you have some

consistent contributions down the roster. Everyone's got to get touches, everyone's got to get opportunity. And by the way, the last time in the playoffs I saw them lean super heavily into ball screens. If you remember, it was in that Lakers series in the second round. That was a series where they didn't get any consistent contributions down the roster. Klay Thompson in particular, really struggled in that series, in large part because the Warriors just went to a lot

of spread, pick and roll. Now that team was so damaged offensively down the roster, with how much Clay was struggling, with how much Jordan Poole was struggling, that may or may not have been their best option in that specific situation. There was also some game plan stuff the Lakers were

doing that was disrupting it. But the point is Steve Kerr wants to stick with the motion as much as possible because one, fundamentally, it's the same concept as a ball screen, it's just coming out of real ball in player movement. And two, it provides the best opportunity to continue to keep everyone involved. I would also argue that the motion offense generates a lot of really easy shots in a way that kind of flies under the radar.

How many times a game do you see Steph just sprint from under the basket out to the perimeter and the guy who's guarding his screener is just standing why or the guy who is guarding a screen or just goes with Steph and the screeners just standing wide open under the basket. That happens like five or six times a game. Like that's ten to twelve points that you're getting every game by running the motion offense. Like any sort of perceived increase in efficiency from spread pick and

roll is kind of countered by that. Now, again, as I talked about with Dallas, you want to be able to do both because certain situations call for it. But there's a very specific reason why Steve Kerr is doing both, and it's because you need to be able to do

both in order to win a championship. And again, like one of the things is like it would be nice to have a second option in those situations, so that you can run spread pick and roll with Steph, but you could also run st a spread pick and roll with the second player or two man game with those two guys. It action at the top of the key,

just like him and Kadi used to run right. You want to be able to do both and then when you run your motion, if you've got a second high level threat in the motion, that increases the efficiency of that offense there as well. Hey, Jason, obviously no stats can fully capture the nuances of what leads to wins and losses. But what would you say are the best metrics that correlate with success in today's NBA huge fan of the show thinks, So, I am really really anti

catch alls. I have a feeling, my personal belief is that basketball is far too complicated to be able to just like distill everything down to one specific number to capture an entire side of the floor. There's a lot of complications that are involved there, So like I look more at some of the more some of the more

detailed data surrounding like specific basketball situations. So a five on five game has so many basketball battles, so many basketball situations taking place that it's too difficult to distill down to one number. But in any one spot on the floor, there are one excuse me, there's one or two things that are happening that are less complicated that are a little bit easier to quantify. That's where I try to hunt down some numbers. So I'll give you guys an example some stats that I use, So like

per possession stats. This is specifically in play types, right, So like, for instance, like how well does a player convert spot up situations? That means it's a combination of your ability to hit catch and shoes threes and your ability to drive it close out and score in those situations. Right. By the way, none of these are perfect either. Even a per possession spot up a piece of data doesn't

quantify for playmaking. It doesn't quantify for what if you catch pump, fake, beat your man off the dribble, and drop it off to a guy for dunk at the basket. That doesn't quantify in spot up points per possession, right, So that's even a flawed piece of data. But again we're looking for data with less flaws by getting more concise. So like spot up possessions, I really like it in a shot creation situation, So like pick and roll post up ISO synergy has a version of that that includes passes.

So it's a little bit more detailed than some of the stuff I see with spot ups, but those are important pieces of play type data. I even like looking at play type data by location. So for instance, like certain players are much better posting up on the left block than they are posting up on the right block. Some players, you know, have more success running pick role in the middle of the floor than they do on

the side of the floor. Like there's a bunch of like different aspects there, and that's valuable data because if you find out, like, hey, let's say that Palo Banca is far more efficient as a post player on the left block because he can get to his left shoulder hook in the lane. Well, okay, then we need to make sure that we're running our offense so that we get palot touches on the left block as much as possible. We don't want to just be running left right, left, right,

left right. If he's three tenths of a point more efficient per possession if we put him on the left block, So, like you want to pay attention to those sorts of things score percentage. I talked about this yesterday. Basically, the idea of like taking distilling efficiency down to like how

likely are we to score on this possession? This throws an extra level of value on players that get high percentage field goal percentage shots or get to the foul line a lot, because again, that is more valuable on a per possession or excuse me, on a single possession basis, rather than the large sample. In the large sample, I want per possession stats, like how efficient is this guy if I let him run five hundred pick and rolls over the course of the of the season, is like

a secondary shot creator. Okay, well, I've got these five hundred pick and rolls that I need to give to somebody. Do I want to give them to Gabe Vincent or do I want to give them to you know, a guy like a guy like you know, Jalen hou Chafino or or something like that. Right, Well, as I look at this, each guy's run one hundred pick and roll

so far this year, Gabe's been more efficient. Maybe we lean into him a little bit more for those like secondary shot creation opportunities, right, Like, that's the large sample points per possession stet. At the end of games, though, when you're trying to win five or six possessions, that's where something like score percentage is more valuable because in five or six possessions. If I have a score percentage over fifty percent, I can count on myself scoring two

or three buckets over that span. Whereas if I'm a high per possession guy but I rely on a lot of tougher three point shots, then my score percentage is going to be closer to the mid thirties. And now I might only get a bucket on one or two of those possessions, and it kind of affects the value there right. Defensive rating, I look at it more as an indicator of overall effort and commitment to attention to

detail over the course of the regular season. There are a lot of really good defenses that they excuse me, there are a lot of really bad defenses that put up good defensive ratings over the course of the regular season. To me, that as an indicator of their overall level of focus and attention to detail. So I do think that's important. By the way, That's why the vast majority of teams in NBA history that win the title, the vast, fast,

vast majority, have top ten defensive ratings. Denver was an exception. The vast fast majority of top ten defensive ratings, and the reason why is because that is an overall indicator of how well they attack the regular season from start to finish. Half court offensive and defensive rating, I look

at this as a cleaning the glass stat. I look at this one a lot simply because it is an example of what happens when the game gets strangled into the half court, which is something that happens more frequently in the postseason. Even bad transition defenses do a better job of running back in the playoffs, they can still get burned in transition. I've seen teams lose series in transition.

I've seen teams win the title running in transition, like the twenty twenty one Milli Walkee Bucks of the twenty twenty Los Angeles Lakers. Right, Like, there are lots of teams that thrive in transition offensively, but half court offensive and defensive rating is like, we're in this strangled, slow down situation. Who's going to have an easier time generating shot?

So that would be a piece that I look at points per shot on various shot types, So like I look at like, how good is this player making a float or a hook? In terms of like big guys on the role, especially centers, like a center that's got a hook shot that he can make fifty five percent of the time. I think that's high value. Right. Layups is a big one because there's a lot of guys that when they get dunks, they can make it, but when they get anything that's a touch shot around the rim,

they struggle to finish. That's a problem. The difference between unguarded catch and shoot jump shots versus guarded catch and shoot jump shots, the difference between off the dribble and face up jump shots versus catch and shoot jump shots. Looking at all that data, I can see where specific players thrive as shot makers and where they have gaping holes in shot making where they need to improve. That's

a piece of data that I like. Lineup data. This is again like trying to capture that science as best as you can, so like it's a every single basketball lineup is like this intricately connected group of strengths and weaknesses, right, and it kind of pieces together to make a certain type of success or failure on the basketball court that can be captured by lineup data. Again, never something you want to take a take as like a as the end all be all, but it's a piece of information

you should look at oh, these guys. These three guys always seem to play well together. We should lean into that more. For the last month, we've been playing these three guys and they've been sucking. Okay, maybe we need to mix it up a little bit. That's where lineup data can have advantage. But again, those are just some

examples of data that I look at a lot. Last season, Luca had the best season of his career stat wise, thirty four points per game, nine rebounds almost tennisis top ten steals is a league top score, but did not get enough votes because the MAVs only finished fifth despite having fifty wins in a loaded West. Just like Westbrook when he won his MVP, with Okce finishing only sixth in the West and Yokich went he only won his

second MVP with the Nuggets finishing likewise at sixth. Jokics could probably win another one even if the Nuggets are currently struggling at seventh. So does winning a lot matter or not? As Nick Wright just pointed out a few days ago, the MVP narrative criteria keeps changing. I agree with Nick right on that. First of all, you guys have notice I periodically will mention MVP or talk a little bit about MVP, but I'm not a big MVP guy. One of the main reasons why is because the criteria

has shifted so many times over the years. It's so much a narrative contest. There are like substantial chunks of the MVP voter base who legitimately just look at advanced metrics or that allow advanced metrics like catch alls to be the determining factor in their vote. I think that's fucking insane. So, like, I distance myself from that debate

as much as possible because it just frustrates me. I tend to agree though that, like, especially when you look at the Western Conference and actually, let's just get to the next question for this, what is the lowest seed the Nuggets can be for Jokics to still earn his fourth MVP if Yokic keeps averaging a massive triple double. So the way I look at it personally, for me, with MVP, it's a combination of a bunch of factors.

It's a combination of like who's playing the best basketball, who's the most valuable to their team, and who's playing on the best team. So it's a combination of all those factors. So if you look at it, who's playing the best basketball? I'm looking specifically at like just overall, in a vacuum basketball impact, Yo Kich is dominating that for me right now? Okay, who's the most valuable to

their team? Well, jokicch Just just watch the Nuggets. It's very clear that jo Kich is the most valuable to his specific team. Like, I'm a big Luka Doncic fan. The MAVs have been pretty good without him this year, right, so that's something that works against him to a certain extent. They have a very good roster. I think Dallas is a better team than Denver. I think Dallas is a

better roster than Denver. I would pick Dallas over Denver in a playoff series as of right now, So like that's a big part of that, right, And then the best team part. I think Dallas will have an edge there.

I think they'll finish higher in the standings. Right. If Luca wanted to win an MVP based on my voting, he would need to get closer to matching Jokic's overall level of impact, which right now is a thirty five point triple double or whatever the hell it is, and then he's going to need to demonstrate such a high level of play with the MAVs that there is a little bit of a drop off compared to when he's

off the floor. He's capable of doing that. Right As far as the Western Conference goes, though, stop looking at seeding. I don't care about seeding. The West is two stacked. You could be a five or six seed out West and win fifty games, okay, So like to me, that's to me, it doesn't make sense to split hairs there.

If there's a two seed that is fifty three wins and a six seed that has fifty wins, and the guy who's leading the sixth seed is a better basketball player, who's having a better season, who is more valuable to that fifty wins than the other guy is to his two seed fifty three wins, I think that that guy who won fifty games should be the guy who gets the awards. So again, it's a complicated combination of a

bunch of factors. I do agree with you, though, that over indexing on the standings is silly when we're only talking about a couple of games in a really jam packed conference. I'd like your opinion on what the Nuggets should do. Is there a missing piece they could grab at the deadline? Do they need better coaching or scheme on defense? I've not seen anything on the coaching slash

scheme front. This happens with a lot of teams after they start to have success, where it's like there's this huge chunk of Warriors fans that think Steve Kerr is bad coach. Like I just could not disagree more. I think he's the second or third best coach in the entire NBA. I think Mike Malone is a top five coach. I've seen a lot of Nuggets fans complaining about Mike Malone.

So like, this is a typical thing that happens. It's like the burden of success, right, you've become really good, you have high expectations, and then you start looking for people to blame when you don't reach those expectations. So I don't really go down that route as it pertains

to the list of guys at the top of the league. Again, for me, that's like kylu Eric Spolstra, Steve Kerr, Mike Malone, Like there's a bunch of guys in that Mark Daginal there's a bunch of guys in that tier in that like top ten guy, a group of coaches where like, like I think that there's gonna be a lot of criticism of them that's misplaced, just because their teams have such high expectations. Also, even the best coaches in the world are gonna make decisions that are fifty to fifty

calls that if they go wrong, could be criticized. But like, if you're in that position, you can't say that you wouldn't make the same decision. And it's a difficult decision on its face to begin with. And now you're just

playing the results. As far as the Nuggets go, the problem is is that in order to go about getting real offensive reinforcements, like similar to what we talked about with the Warriors, just like another reliable twenty plus point per game score, which the Nuggets have not been getting because of you know, Michael Porter junior being Michael Porter junior and Jamal Murray just not having a very good season, right, But in order to go about getting one of those

higher level players, if I'm another team, I'm asking for a Christian Brown or Peyton Watson in that deal, and those two guys have become vitally important to making this whole situation work, and so with the Nuggets, their best bet is continued improvement in the roster. You got to cross your fingers and pray that you mul Murray gets it back together. As not to say you don't keep your eyes open on the market and if a good opportunity jumps you, it comes up, you jump on it.

Of course, I'm just saying it's gonna be a It's gonna be a There's gonna be a lot of people looking to buy at the trademarket this year, and Denver's gonna have to give up a lot to get what they want, and at this point, I think their better option is to just hope for internal improvement. You said you're not concerned with the amount of three point shooting because you think defenses will evolve and guard the three

point line better. How do you expect defenses to mold over the next five years to guard the three point line better? Thanks for the content, Love the show. I think it's gonna mostly come down to what teams do in rotation as speed becomes more at the forefront of what makes modern NBA defense successful. I think we're gonna see a lot more aggression with really sharp backside rotations.

So in theory, even when you double team as soon as a guy, as soon as the guy who has the ball gives it up, there is a sequence where if you nail it in rotation, you can get out of it. So for instance, if you let's say it's a post up double team and there's a passer on the left wing, he drops the ball to the post and maybe they run a little split cut clear out

whatever it is. Now the guy's posting on the left block, if he draws a second defender, you can set it up so that the only opening is the skip pass on the weak side. And you can have it set up as well because there's usually a guy in a dunker spot in that situation, or a guy setting a pin and flare somebody around the opposite kind of short corner area. If you have a good defender in that spot who's being active with his hands, it'll have to be a lob. If it has to be a lobb,

then there's a chance to rotate. And if you're really sharpening your rotations and everyone quickly spread out to where they're supposed to go, the advantage can be gone, and so like whether it's a four on three and a ball screen or a four on three in a post up or whatever it is, I do eventually think teams will get better and better and better at rotating out of those situations, and that will be something that takes

away shots at the three point line. And then what will happen is the teams offensively that thrive are the teams that stay with their ball in player movement, that stay difficult to guard in rotation by not just standing in single spots and waiting for guys to close out at him. But again, I think most of the defensive approach to guarding the three point line will center around just really really sharp rotations and closeouts or right will do a couple more. Hey, Jason love the pod. It's

my daily watch. I have a mailbag question that I for sure needs your take on more than any other analyst out there. I want your take on another POD's take on Gobart's value to sum it up. The take was, defensive versatility is undervalued and rim protection is overvalued. What do you think about that? I agree defensive value defensive versatility is undervalued in rim protection is overvalued. What that means to me is like if you have a guy like Jolanbie. To me is the case study for this.

If Joelanbe can sit in a deep drop coverage and play in the half court all night long, then he's one of the best defenders in the league. But as soon as the game enters into a phase where there's a lot of transition play or where he has to cover ground on the perimeter, he becomes a bad defender. And that's an example of like rim protection that is not defensively versatile and thus a weakness. That's it. I think Gobert is defensively versatile and is a rim protector.

All of my concerns with Rudy Gobert stem on the offensive end of the four in his ability to ever catch a damn thing around the basket and finish it unless it's an easy dunk. He struggles on offense. It limits the Minnesota Timberwolves. That's the criticism of Gobert that makes sense to me. On the defensive end, Rudy Gobert is one of the best rim protectors in the league while also being one of the best guy bigs that can defend out on the perimeter and defend in a

bunch of different circumstances. I don't understand the criticism of Rudy as a defensive player. Hi, Jason love the show. By the way, what do you think the Grizzlies need to become a true championship contender? Time and repetition At this point, talent is not an issue. Depth is not

an issue. It's just a simple case of like John Morant, Jaron Jackson, Desmond Bain, these guys need continuity, lots of repetition, lots of experience, lots of big games under their belt so that they can get to where they need to get as individual basketball players to carry a team to

a title. Memphis all the ingredients as long as there's internal improvement, so that is like John ran becoming more consistent as a pull up jump shooter so that teams can't just pack the pain on him in ball screens. Jared Jackson just becoming a more reliable version of what he's been the last few weeks, which is a guy that can really knock down threes and hit hook shots

over both shoulders against size mismatches in the post. Right, Like tying all that together and then there's like a scar tissue element, right Like I talked about this a lot like failure breeds a fear of losing. A fear of losing breeds better attention to detail. Better attention to detail carries you in in any sort of like adversity that you have faced, the that you face in the postseason. So like, there's a lot of opportunity to to get

better through loss in a lot of ways. And so it might take two three years for Memphis with this group to get to where they need to be. But right now, you just got to let them play, and guys got to stay healthy, they got to stay on the court, and they need lots of repetition and experience together. Last question, why is it you consider Luca better than Yannis Gianna says the championship edge, multiple MVPs, Defensive Player of the Year Trophy, all NBA defensive teams, and actually

competes on defense while being the league's leading score. Not sure there's ever been a time in the NBA when a guy with those accolades at the peak of his powers isn't considered top two in the world. Luca's thirty slash forty point triple doubles are awesome, but that would be like putting prime James Harden over Lebron simply because of the offensive brilliant, brilliant, slash volumes, volume of stats. In a helio centric offense, usually their teams fall short

in the postseason due to their awful defense. So Giannis is having a better season than Luca this year. It's the last year. Luca had a better season because he came on super strong at the end, and he had a much better playoff run because Gianni's got hurt again. So here's the thing, Like, Yeah, if Giannis finishes this season playing the way he's playing and then has a more impressive playoff run than Luca, then he will take that spot back to me. Last year, I thought Luca

was better. Luca has been playing really well since he came back, been getting closer to that Giannis Jokic level, and I think he'll stay there and it'll be a more complicated debate as a basketball concept, though, simply put, as I've said many times, it is much easier to cover for defensive deficiencies in a star through scheme and through defensive role players and allowing your offensive superpower to carry over the top than it is to do the reverse,

which is to have a star that is a defensive minded player, but then to try to have to cover for his offensive weaknesses. It's a lot harder to just find a Damian Lillard like lying around somewhere for you to bring in to run your offense in big late game situations. Now, for the record, Giannis has been pretty good this year, even as an over the top shot maker. He's a better half court player than he's ever been

in his career. Giannis is having a great season. It's December tenth, though, I'm going to wait for a whole season before we start having big picture topics about who a player might be better. That's why we do player rankings in August and September and not in the middle of the season. So hopefully that explains that for you guys. All right, This all have for today is always to sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show.

We'll be back tomorrow with a breakdown of the nd season tournament games with some film. I'll see you guys then the volume what so, guys, As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting Hoops 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.