Hoops Tonight - NBA Mailbag: Is Steve Kerr holding Warriors back? + Lakers GM has FAILED LeBron

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let's talk some basketball. I had two or three people leave very similar questions along these lines, and this is a topic that I haven't had a chance to get to yet. So today's as good a day as any. First question. More and more people Nick Right, Bill Simmons, etc. Are advocating for a change of rules to make the NBA a better TV product. What's your take on that? Do you think the analytical approach leading to always more threes and dangers the game?

Anytime you're dealing with an entity like the NBA that is as large and as complicated as it is, there's just too many moving parts to kind of like try to point it at one particular issue, right, And I bet that's been one of the annoying things for me is I think there have been a lot of people out I'm not calling anybody in particular out, but there have been a lot of people out there that I feel like are taking this issue as a vehicle with

which to hammer at a specific narrative or something along those lines. I think that's silly, and quite frankly, I think a lot of people are glossing over what I think is the obvious reason ratings are down, which is that there's just an urgency problem. The NBA has a

massive inventory. Right, there's eighty two regular season games, but in addition to that, we also let twenty of the thirty teams into the NBA playoffs, Right, and like, what ends up happening as a result of that, is like, you can play bad basketball sometimes for weeks on end and it just doesn't matter. I watched a Lakers team

go off to a two to ten start and then make it to the Western Conference Finals. I've seen lots of teams have really bad stretches of basketball and it just doesn't matter. It's a fundamental difference between the NBA and the NFL, for instance, where you have a bad

couple of weeks, it could ruin your whole season. Like kind of what's happening to the Atlanta Falcons this year, right, Like, get off to a six and three start and then you drop four games in a row and suddenly things look very different, right Like, you have a bad four game stretch. In the NBA, it literally means nothing, Like, you guys know, I'm off the Lakers this year as a championship contender.

But like, theoretically they could still get into a six or seven seed, get out of the play in, maybe win a playing game and have a chance, right Like, everyone has a chance in the NBA. It's never too late to turn things around in the NBA. Remember Brian Winhorse at that whole speech about his like major takeaways since he's been covering the NBA, and one of his big takeaways was it's never too late. You want to

know why it's never too late? Because we play eighty two games and we let twenty of the thirty NBA teams in. Now here's the thing that's always been a problem in the NBA. Even when it was you know, eighty two games and sixteen teams instead of twenty, it was still more or less the same issue. What has changed though, What has changed from when Michael Jordan was in the league in ratings were at their peak versus now?

What has changed? All that has changed in terms of the surrounding circumstances are the sheer volume of options that people have to watch other things. I'm a diehard basketball fan, even myself with a smartphone. Now it's like, oh, Trey Young went over the top of that screen and jumped backwards into the guy. Now he's going to the foul line. I have thirty seconds. Let me get on my phone. I might, you know, text one of my buddies, or

talk shit on Twitter or scroll on Instagram. Right like you just there's just so much media at our fingertips that like it's a there's a lot less incentive to watch an NBA game that doesn't really matter in the big picture, And so like, the real reason why the NBA's ratings are down while the NFL ratings are still up is the NFL has a massive urgency factor and

the NBA simply does not. And so as over the years, as our options and the sheer amount of different content out there that we can consume has been available, casual fans not us guys, We're gonna watch basketball no matter what because we're basketball fans, We're die hard basketball fans. But the casual NBA fan has less incentive than ever to watch a random regular season game because there's just

other stuff that they can watch. And the point is is, like there are tons of factors, Like does the fact that the top four players in the league are all international players? Does that play a role?

moments last night. I'm recording this on a on a Tuesday, when I, uh, when I was watching that King's Nuggets game, or I was watching like a Heat Pistons game earlier tonight. Like when you catch like a really entertaining regular season game, it feels like a treat. We hang out for the moments, man, like Yo Kitchen, Sabona's just had a great battle. Lebron and Steph just had a great battle, you know, Luca

and and and Shaye just had a great battle. Like we're we're watching for those moments because we're big fans. But in terms of like the casual fan, they can kind of consume that moment as an Instagram reel or as a YouTube video, or or just watch the box score,

see a few highlights. They feel like they get the gist of it and they don't really need to start paying super close attention to their team until they get to April, because they're probably gonna be there no matter how unbalanced their season is, no matter how often they look good or look bad, They're probably gonna be playing in April because we let twenty of the thirty teams in.

that much value. It just will never happen because one, it's just it'll lead to a lot of injuries as guys are flying into each other at the basket. And then the second piece of it is it's like a little too subjective, right, Like what counts as a dunk is like it's a little bit subjective, and I think that would get complicated, there'd be reviews, it would just be difficult, right, So like, like I think there are some reasons why that wouldn't happen, but like, yeah, we

think about how it'd be fun. It'd be fun to do this rule change, it'd be fun to do that rule change. Let's just say that Adam Silver conceptualizes a rule change. I'm not even gonna talk about what it is, but just this, imagine this theoretical rule change that makes the game more fun. That still doesn't solve the problem that there's eighty two games and twenty of the thirty teams get in like it's still at the end of the day, is an urgency problem. And then the last

piece of this question, the three point shooting. I tend to think that there's a nostalgia element with this sort of thing, Like we're complaining about the three point and shooting now. But the truth of the matter is is if I actually made you guys sit down and watch a December slate in twenty fourteen or in two thousand and four or in nineteen ninety four, I have a feeling you're gonna watch a lot of bad basketball in

that slate. We just as a result of us having the Internet at our fingertips and our ability to like bitch and moan in public, has made it like more of a public topic. But the truth of the matter is is like ever since the beginning of basketball, anytime there's been a league, there have been teams that played

good basketball and teams that play bad basketball. So like the truth of the matter is, as it pertains to the threes, there are teams out there that take a lot of bad threes, but there are as also teams out there that take a lot of good threes, Like the Celtics take the most threes in the NBA. When I watch the Celtics, I like the way that they play. I think it's esthetically appealing. I was talking with my

buddy Combo. He had me on his Good Drill podcast on Tuesday earlier this week, and he was asking me the same question, and one of the things that I talked about was like, let's all of you guys who actually play in some capacity, whether it's you play with your men's league, you play pick up, or you played in college or whatever it is when you are on the floor and like you beat someone off the dribble and you throw a nice kickout pass as you draw and help, and then that guy drives and he draws

help and makes another kickout pass to the guy who makes an extra pass to the corner and he's wide open. He knocks down a three. It's such a great feeling. You're high five in each other on the way up the floor. You're like, great pass, great drive, great kick. It's like an infectious thing when you move the ball

around and get a great three point shot. The same goes as a fan when you're watching your favorite team, like Warriors fans when you're watching and Steph draws two at the level and he drops it off to Draymond and like he hits kaminga cutting out of the baseline, but another guy helps and he swings it out to the corner and there's Buddy Heal and he knocks down at three. It feels great both as and as a player. But then there are there are a lot of bad

threes getting taken. The classic one that I see a lot is like the early clock semi contested above the break three after a swing pass, like okay, I'm coming off a ball screen, there's a little bit of nail help. I just swing it over to the right, and the guy just takes like a moderately contested three with like twenty five seconds on the shot clock. Excuse me, like twenty five feet from the basket, but like fifteen seconds

on the shot clock. When that happens, if it doesn't go in, it kind of feels like bad basketball, right like when you're playing with your buddies and someone takes an early three, Like even if it's kind of open, sometimes you're like, man, like, we could have moved it around a little bit, Like it just felt like we didn't have any rhythm and flow. Same thing happens when you're a fan. You can feel it. You can feel it. It's like it's like that government definition of porn. It's

like you know it when you see it. That's kind of the way it is when you see a bad shot. You kind of are just like, ah, like I feel like we could have done a little better, Like we can get a moderately contested three seven seconds later and it's no issue. There are a lot of teams in the league, or I should say a few teams in the league. They're taking a lot of that type of three,

and that is bad basketball. But again, at the top of the league, there's a lot of teams that take a lot of threes, that do it in a very pretty way, in a way that is esthetically appealing, in a way that is infectious for their team, in a way that I do consider to be good basketball. And so again, what I think is happening is we're seeing the bad basketball that's being played by some of the teams in the league, and we're constantly complaining about it.

But the truth of the matter is there were five to ten teams playing really bad basketball in twenty fourteen. Same thing goes in two thousand and four, and the same thing goes in nineteen ninety four. I think it's a lot of nostalgia, a lot of like it's mid December and we're just coming up with stuff to talk about.

Why because there's not a lot of urgency, because, like we talked about, off the top, there's eighty two games and twenty of the thirty teams get in, So like my thing is like the real thing that's going to fix all these problems is short in the season, and they're never going to shorten the season. So we have to appreciate at the NBA for what it is, which is an inventory sport. That's the difference between the NBA and the NFL. The NFL is an urgency sport. The

NBA is an inventory sport. Even though the NBA ratings are so so so much lower than the NFL's, the revenue that the NBA generates is considerably closer relative to

the NFL compared to the ratings situation. Why because they have a huge international footprint and they're great at monetizing the impressions that come from the NBA in all of the inventory that they have, there's just so many highlights and moments that they can get into because we do play eighty two games, and so again we got to just kind of accept the NBA for what it is, an inventory sport that's never going to have a great

deal of urgency during the regular season. The only people that are really going to be watching at night and night out are people like us. But that doesn't mean the league isn't in a healthy spot. That's the thing, like, don't confuse a ratings dip with an unhealthy league. Those are two very different things. The NBA has a ratings dip. They just signed a massive new TV deal. There were a lot of people. I remember Klay Travis bitching about

it NonStop. Oh, this NBA rights bubble, it's gonna blow up, It's gonna blow up. He was saying that ten years ago. Here we are, we got another massive deal. So, like, I'm not particularly concerned about it. I think that there's an urgency issue. But I think that same urgency issue has been there since the beginning, and all that really has changed is we just have more options in The NBA is losing out on some of that attention. But I still think that the NBA is in a very

very healthy spot. All right, let's move on to our next question. My question actually involves kam He's my favorite player of all time, so my opinion on him might be slightly biased. I like yourself, I try to stay as objective as possible. I've heard you called him, I've heard you call him a slightly above average defender before. I also heard you say players like Steph are slightly

above average. I just want to know how you defend that Kevin Durant can do everything on defense, which schematically is a coach's dream. You want to run small ball, Katie is capable of playing center as long as the opposing center doesn't have a deep post bag. You want to play drop, He's more than capable of playing on the perimeter. He's also one of the best help defenders in the league. You've said this several times yourself. He's capable of being in two places at once, protecting the

rim and recovering to the corner. He's, in my opinion, a pretty damn good one on one defenders. If you want to switch him, he's more than capable. I just don't see how Steph and him are comparable on the defensive end. Yes, Steph has improved from his earlier years as a defender. However, with his physical limitations, he's simply not capable of impacting the defensive end the way that Katie can. So a couple of things like I think Katie and Steph are two very very different types of

defensive players. Like Steph to me, is a very limited defensive player in terms of his athletic traits, but a guy that has competed on that end at a much higher level than most small guards in the league, and so he has become a slightly above average. Kevin Durant has the physical tools to be Anthony Davis or close. Maybe not Anthony Davis, but close in terms of his length and his ability to be in multiple places at once.

At many points in his career, he has demonstrated that, but it hasn't been an area where he's like he's devoted the majority of his resources, right, Like that's the thing. Like there's a version of Cade's career where he obsessively commits to the defensive end and he's the best two way player in the league. But instead he kind of over indexed on offense and he still has had a top twelve career in history of the NBA. But like, again,

like that's the difference. It's like Steph is a guy to me who like had serious limitations on that end and through obsessive work became above average defender. To me, Kevin Durant is a guy that has Tier one defensive tools but just didn't use them all the time throughout his NBA career. For the record, I think he's had an amazing defensive season this year.

and even layup ability. On many nights he looks unplayable on the offensive end due to his lack of willingness to even consider attempting a shot. I was of the impression that each team must have a professional psychologist that specialized in this type of issue, helping athletes get their mind back on track when going through phases like this. Given how much money he makes, the Nets should be super invested in getting him back on back to being

at least some type of offensive threat. But it feels like they've resigned. They have resigned and simply accepted that this is not an area of his game that they will benefit from just interested in your thoughts on this. So I'm not going to sit here and pretend like I don't think the mental aspect has played a role for Ben Simmons.

best guard and he could completely shut them down. He was a guy that was like a freight train in transition kicking out to three point shooters. He had such an athletically imposing build. And since it's mostly been back stuff and like nerve stuff from what I understand, But since then, he just hasn't been his mobile and I think that has probably affected his skill development. Do I think that Ben would have ever become a sniper type

of shooter. No, but like chances are if he had stayed healthy, he would have had more opportunities over the years to work on his skill, and he probably would have become a little bit more of.

shooting forty nine percent on above the break threes. You guys might remember in the NBA Finals that was one of the big things that went wrong for the MAVs, specifically PJ. Washington and Derek Jones Junior. Derek Jones is gone, brought in different guys, Klay Thompson, and Quinton Grimes are both shooting over forty percent on above the break threes this year.

to use in your analysis. So I'd be down to try this, but I like, there's just so many different concepts. So what I would like for you guys to do again, like when you put in your comment, if you put mail bag with a colon at the beginning of the comment, that's like a big shining light that tells me that's a mail bag question, which helps me when I'm scrolling through like two hundred comments, right, so like mail bag and then just put like can you please explain this?

So like if you hey, can you please explain you know, how like a can you please explain how stack pick and roll? Works, or can you please explain how can you please explain what a post split is and how that works? Like you, if you want me to do that, just put it in the mail bag and just put play a mail bag. Can you please explain whatever? And then I will add that as a segment into our

mail bag to our Friday mail bags. I think that's an easy way to do that, and then you guys can direct me into the stuff that you specifically want to see explained. This is one troll, but it's just something I need to clarify. Someone goes out on the Lakers, you can't be from LA or be a real Lakers fan. I would just assume you are an LBJ fan.

got super lucky and I got super tall unlike the rest of my family, and like that kind of like sent my life down that trajectory. But like Lebron has is the one player in the league right now that I have kind of a sentimental attachment to, simply because he was the guy that literally altered the trajectory of my life. Like I fell in love with the game watching Lebron in two thousand and six try to take

the Pistons down and lose in seven games. That was when I first started watching him, and then I, you know, like again, I became a huge basketball fan. But like Lebron has always been like my favorite player centering around that. Like again, it happened when I was a kid, so you can imagine there's like a sentimental type of deal there. But yeah, I've been upfront about that from the beginning, even to Lakers fans, like I root for the Lakers because of Lebron. I have no attachment to the Lakers.

And when Lebron's retires, like I won't have a single team that I actively emotionally root for. I'll have teams that I like as a fan and dislike as a fan. Like not within the realm of any sort of emotion, if that makes sense. Question for the mailbag, why is the Lakers GM incompetent and doing absolutely nothing for the Lakers? What is his actual role for the Lakers? So I do think Rob Polinka is not very good at his job.

it's not really it's a very subjective thing. And so like there's a certain amount of this where it's like, I'm sure if you asked Rob, he would probably make a case that defends all the decisions that he made.

the perimeter. You need big, functional athletes on the perimeter because this is a game that is played in space and in transition. Right, Like, I don't know what Rob Polinka's basketball philosophy is because every year he's done something different and so there's no coherent like this, I don't know what Rob Polinka thinks about the game of basketball, which I feel like I should right when I watch Boston.

I know what Brad Stevens' basketball vision is. He wants guys that can dribble, shoot, pass, and defend on the perimeter. So like even the guys that are like coming off the bench for them, the Samhuser's and Peyton Pritchards, they guard, they defend, they can play, read and react basketball. There is a very specific type of player that you see them go after Oklahoma City Sam Presty, same sort of thing.

You can tell Sam Presty has a basketball vision and that every draft pick that he brings in seems to fall into that same vision. In that same kind of belief system surrounding the game. Golden State, over the last

two gms, they've had there's been a consistent basketball culture, a basketball vision that you see there. The second big thing with rob is a strategic mistake that I again, there's a bunch that you can get into right Like, there's a boatload of mistakes over the years, like letting Brook Lopez walk for absolutely nothing, letting Julius Randall walk

for absolutely nothing. Trading all of your best role players for Russell Westbrook was a huge mistake, but even more recently, the idea of oh, we're gonna wait to make the right deal. Well, you've been waiting two years to make the right deal, and now Lebron's about to turn forty instead of turning thirty eight. It's very possible that last year in April, when Lebron was playing like one of the top three or four players in the league, that that was the last time that he will ever be

that good. And so any benefit you gained by waiting for the better trade has been undercut by Lebron's older

and slower Now, is that was an I've those of you guys have been watching the show. I have preached that exact same take for years. Now, what's the point of waiting, like you might get someone a little better. But Lebron's really good right now? Why aren't we doing this right now? Lebron and Ad were playing at such a high level last April. It's very possible that if they had put in their draft picks and made some sort of ceiling raising move that they get that they

make a run. It's very possible they led the majority of that Nugget series. Two Jamal Murray shots turn the series around. It's I'm not saying they would have beat Denver, but they might have had a much better chance had they been more aggressive last year. So it's been the lack of a coherent basketball vision, tons and tons of mistakes, and then now just the complete botching of the Lebron

James tail end of his prime. I think that it's very, very important for the Lakers to have synergy between their coaching staff and their front office. They absolutely need to

get Rob Polinka out of there and get somebody in there that's not an agency figurehead, that's not a personality type, but is rather just a basketball mind, a grinder, someone who has a vision, someone who understands what wins in the modern NBA and is willing to build that vision out over years and years as a culture builds within connection and against synergy with the coaching staff to make sure you're on the same page as you build a

basketball culture for the future. And until they do that, until Genie Buss empowers a basketball mind and not a buddy of hers, it's going to continue to be an issue. Anyway, I'm off my sobbocks. Next question, does increased three point volume also correlate with higher offensive rebounding rates? If so, do you think the greater chance for a second possession is a meaningful stat when it comes to shot selection? So interestingly enough, I just wanted to do like a

little tiny bit of research for this one. Top ten and three point volume right now per one hundred possessions Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Golden State, Brooklyn, Minnesota, San Antonio, Phoenix, Oklahoma City, Miami, Top ten and offensive rebound percentage so percentage of their own misses that they recover Houston, Toronto, Memphis, Charlotte, Atlanta, Utah, Portland, Golden State, New Orleans, Orlando. So Charlotte and Golden State are the only two teams that are on both lists.

So again, I haven't done any sort of substantial research, but on the surface level, it looks like there's not much correlation between high volume three point teams and offensive rebounding. So again, there are gonna be data departments in some of these teams that could do more detailed research, but that's just my kind of quick research there that looks like there's not too much.

been brought up by the Thinking Basketball channel. They recently uploaded a video talking about how the Grizzlies are not running pick and roll, but instead having their ball handler driving into space and then everyone just rotating around. Accordingly, Draymond Green also mentioned it in some postgame interview, said that he almost never has seen it before.

it nearly as much. To give you an idea, the Grizzlies run only twenty pick and rolls including passes per game. That's the fewest in the MBA. To give you any idea, the Calves run the most in the league. They run forty four per game. Twenty seven of the thirty NBA teams run at least thirty one ball screens per game. Golden State, Denver, and Memphis are the only three teams to run less than thirty. But Golden State and Denver

are both top five in handoffs. Memphis is dead last in handoffs two so to put it very light, to put it very simply, Memphis runs the fewest two man on ball possession like two man game on ball possessions in the league. So like Dho's ball screens, things along those lines, they do it the least. Okay, the way that Memphis offense works, it's a lot. They do run some screening action. They run a lot off ball action.

Like a lot of times they'll have John Murray bring the ball up the right side of the floor and they'll be running a set to get Desmond Bain coming off of something right. And then again, they do still run ball screens. They run twenty of them a game. Again, not as frequently as other NBA teams, but they do still do it.

get downhill. That's literally why we do it. And so if I can get downhill without a ball screen, then there's just no necessary there's no need for me to get a screener involved, right, that's the idea.

stays fluid. So like if Ja Morant is driving off the left wing, and Desmond Bain's in the corner, and you know, Jared Jackson is kind of flashing to the high post, and there's let's call it Jalen Wells in the left wing as Jaws driving, Desmond Baine will cut out of the corner along the baseline to try to make himself available under the basket. Jalen Wells will wheel

to the left corner. Everyone just kind of stays in motion around because of the simple fact that it's difficult to track man and ball right as a help side defender if you're standing still it's easier for me to track the ball handler. If you're in motion, it's harder

for me to track the ball handler. You get the point, right, So the gist of it is they basically just get the defense in rotation via Ja Morant and everyone else's but mainly John Moran's dribble penetration, and they play drive and kick basketball out of it.

as we talked about in the Monday Show. They're also fourth in baskets made off of cuts per game. The interesting thing is is like they're fifth in offense, but I checked it for resilience. They're only eleventh in offense against the top ten defenses, which is not bad, but not as good as they are in the large sample but then they also went into Boston and beat the Celtics. And like, if you were asking me, like, oh, Jason, what's the type of problem that this type of offense

could run into? Is like, what if you get some a team that really can contain the ball well? And the two teams I would look at there are Boston and Oklahoma City. Right, Boston and Oklahoma City lots of good perimeter defenders. What if they just contained the ball.

Memphis went into Boston and got to win. They haven't played Oklahoma City yet, but I would like to see Oklahoma City in the type of matchup as well, because Oklahoma City, it's like, what if Keason Wallace is on the ball and there's just a bunch of athletes around him and they're just they're just good at containing and then it becomes an issue.

different offensive systems in my time playing organized basketball. Ironically, the only time I ever played in a system like this was my last year playing in high school. So my senior year, our head coach at that time, Tim Batton,

he had a system. We had a guard, a really really fast guard, and we played a driving kick system. So we would do four out with a big in the opposite block and then basically like there was no screen, was like, just beat that dude off the dribble and we play driving kick, and that was that was what we ran for the majority of that season. But it's not something I ran in any other place that I played, and kind of like what Draymond was saying, it is

a pretty uncommon offensive style. But the reason why is because not many teams have John Morant, and so most of the time you just kind of feel comfortable with your best ball, with your best ball, like on ball defenders being able to contain the ball well enough to kind of render that type of offense useless, right, But

like John Morant's a superpower. It's kind of like how you know with It's kind of like with teams like Denver, they play a very different offensive style than most teams in the league because they have Nikola Jokic and Nicole Jokich just unlocks of different capability that other teams don't have. Right,

But very very interesting question, and I'll continue to try to build out my understanding of Memphis offense and try to help break it down.

into question. Where are you on Steve Kerr and the job that he's done coaching the Warriors the last three seasons, including this one. Thanks, love the show and always appreciate you answering our mail back questions. Thanks for the support and thanks for the kind words. So here's the thing. I'm always hesitant to get on the coach when there are roster flaws, like we can we have to call it what it is. This roster does have issues as

it pertains to shot creation beyond steph and interior size. Right, that's just the reality of this roster. So like Steve Kerr is always trying to confront those problems, right, And whenever there's a flawed roster and you have a basketball mind trying shit to try to fix it, he's gonna

have to take some risks. And it's very easy to play the results and be like like I don't think this is working, or like like, man, he should have just done this instead, And it's like you don't think he's sitting there thinking like, man, I don't know what to do.

But at the same time, there's a flip side to that coin, which is the Warriors compete really really hard and play really really fast, and it's just hard to ask a nine or eight man rotation to do that compared to an eleven or twelve man rotation. Right like that, there's two sides to that coin, and so it's a more complicated discussion than just Steve Kerr is doing the

wrong thing. I disagree with benching Draymond. I understand why they did it to try to open up opportunity for Jonathan Kamingo with the starters and hopefully inflate his trade value. Here's the thing, your starter's got your butts kicked by the Mavericks starters, and in the large part because they're five best players on the floor and you have one of your best players sitting on the bench. That's a

decision that I disagree with. But also smart coaches have a tendency to audible and do what they need to do when the time calls for it. I don't think Steve Kerr is gonna leave Raymond on the bench for much longer. I wouldn't be surprised if he's back starting within the next game or two, Like, I don't think that's a decision he's going to stick to. To me, it's totally okay for coaches to try shit when they're

dealing with flawed rosters. To me, it's about adaptability. Can you accept when something's not working and make an audible right. To JJ Reddick's credit, for the Lakers, he's been trying this switching scheme. I really like switching as a fundamental

back basketball concept. But in order to switch, because there's so many disadvantageous rebounding situations and disadvantageous io post up situations, you kind of need like five guys that are all pretty big and athletic, and the Lakers just aren't big and athletics, so they probably shouldn't be switching. They should probably be keeping Anthony Davis and Lebron James at the

rim as much as possible. But to JJ Reddick's credit, he tried it for twenty something games, and he's been slowly kind of tweaking the system and going back to traditional ballscreen coverages where they're asking their guards to chase over the top. It's like, again, you try shit, Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

wouldn't have been surprised at all. You'd have been like, this feels like a fourteen and eleven roster, right. But because they got off to a hot start and kicked everybody's butt for a few weeks at the start of the season, it like tweaked everybody's expectations and now we think they're underachieving. But the truth of the matter is is just start ranking players around the league. Every team out there has two or three Any team that's competing for a title has two or three players that are

in the top thirty forty players in the league. And the Warriors have won. It's just really, really difficult to compete on a talent level in that sort of circumstance. Hey, Jason, love your show. I'm going to try to rapid fire through these because I got to be out of here in just a few minutes. Hey Jason, love your show. What does OKC style of defense look like against an offense like the Celtics the thunder play and aggressive ball

pressure passing lane, Steel's blitzing style of defense. Boston is at their best when teams blitz and or double and put two on the ball, which allows them to drive and kick and get defenses into rotation. I've thought about this a lot too, and I'm really really excited to watch ok S versus Boston. I was looking, there's one. There's one coming up in like the next like month or so. I think it's uh, I think it's like yeah, I think it's like in the next month or so.

And it's like not even not even on national television, which is like crazy to me because that game just needs to be on national television. But we'll be covering it when the time comes. But yeah, that's that's the thing.

when we finally get to see it. Jason, why do you insist Yokich is the best player in the world even though Yannis demonstrates the same ability to pass and play make is a better score is better off ball offensively, is an elite ball handler, and his EON's better defensively. I know it's hard to admit you're wrong, but there's literally no case for Jokich. Riyanis metrics are not a reliable way to evaluate player performance. With all due respect,

I just disagree with it about everything you said. He does not pass as well as Jokich, not even close. He doesn't play make as well as Jokich, not even close. He's not a better scorer than Yokich. Joll Kich is a much better scorer in my opinion, especially when things slow down in the half court. Jo Kich is a much better off ball offensive player jokicch I would argue is a better ball handler too, although I can at

least see that one closer. The one thing I agree with you is, yeah, you're right, Giannis is EON's better than Yokic defensively. But I think I disagree with just about everything else you said. Another great Jason, what do you think Detroit needs to be a top five team in the East. Their ceiling looks higher with Thompson back

in the lineup. Would you be targeting a stretch forward or more high motor center to pair with Ivan Cunningham did a little bit of Pistons talk in the show on Tuesday morning, so you guys, Pistons fans will want to get back over and see that. The big thing that I'm looking at here is I want upgraded versions of Malik Beasley and Tim Hardaway Junior. That game against the Heat is such a great example of what happens when you put aggressive shooting next to Caid. Kate is

just so good at hunting shooters. You stole that game by just finding the hot hand and Tim Hardaway Junior over and over and over again.

the ceiling of this group. And it kind of coincides with their plans, right Like upper lottery draft picks, that's where you get like star prospects, right, but in that mid lottery and that like seven to fifteen range, that's where you can find some pretty high level role players. That's where Detroit needs to start hunting for that type of off ball talent.

Two more quick ones. A bit of a random question based on the video, but the Spurs currently have exactly a five hundred record but aren't even in the play in as a Spurs fan, I would like to know would it be better for them to have a round of a round playoff experience or first round draft pick

this year. In general, I'm a big believer in building basketball culture, meaning like it would absolutely be better for you to try to win and try to get into the playoffs and try to compete even if you don't think you can win the title, because it's part of the culture. Like winning has to be the number one goal, it needs to be the entire identity of your franchise.

And the only way you can do that is if you intentionally go about the process of winning every single day, even if it might hurt your draft position by one or two points. It's one thing if you're not going to make the playoffs and you're not even close to making the playoffs and you're just trying to tank, but like if you're on the fringe, I always think you should go for it. Last question, what are your thoughts

on the new All Star game format? Is the All Star Game dead And for those of you guys that can't see, They're gonna split the guys into three teams and then like one of the young teams play and then they're basically gonna do like semi finals and finals games to forty. It's a good idea, but it's only gonna work if the guys compete, So whether or not they compete will end up being the determining factor, and there's only one way to find out. We gotta try it optimistic, but

we'll see when we get there. All right, guys, that's all I have for today, is always it. Sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show. We will be back on Monday morning without power rankings.