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Have you Monday? Everybody?
Hope all of you guys had an incredible weekend.
We are gonna talk.
About that Travis Steven All Star Game, but we're gonna do that in our mail bag portion later on in the show today to give you guys a breakdown of how this week is going to go. In this episode, we're doing power rankings like we do every Monday. Then we're gonna do a mail bag. I'd sent out a tweet earlier this morning. We had like forty to fifty something questions come in, so I've got a bunch from there as well as some from the YouTube comments over
the weekend. So we're gonna do a mailbag in that segment, gonna talk about the All Star Game, and then later today I'm actually recording with Sammssini from The Athletic, one of my favorite people to talk basketball with, one of the smartest basketball minds that I interact with. We're gonna go through contender rankings that will be coming on the YouTube feed on Tuesday, and then we'll actually run all of them as breakouts as well throughout the week, so
you guys can see your specific teams. But I think now is a great time to just kind of revisit the contenders and really put them into tears and really rank them based on what we've seen through fifty some games to this point in the season. So that's what we're gonna be doing over the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday portion of the week, and then Thursday evening when the league returns back to gameplay, we'll be back on YouTube Live after the final buzzer.
Of Warriors Lakers.
There's also a big showdown between the Suns and the MAVs that night that will probably have to hit the next day because of weird blackout rules involving the Phoenix Suns where I live here in Tucson. But we'll hit that show that game on Friday as well. But a big jam pack schedule over the next couple of weeks as the NBA kind of takes control of things now that football is over. But that gives you guys a little breadown how the week's gonna go again today, just
power rankings and our mailbag. You guys are the Joe fourget started. Subscribe to a brand new YouTube channel mean a lot to me, you guys. Take a second to scroll down hit that subscribe button. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops tonight. It's also super helpful if you guys leave a rating
and review on that front. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason lt for film threads as well as show announcements, and the last not least, keep dropping mail back questions in the YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them throughout this season. All right, So no in or out teams in this year's or this week's power rankings, but there is some shuffling based on where we were last week. Number ten, the team in free fall since changing their coach,
the Milwaukee Bucks. They start the week by kicking the shit out of the Denver Nuggets and then promptly lose two games in a row to the injury ravaged Heat and the injury ravaged Memphis Grizzlies. And once again, as has been the issue since Dock took over, it's the offense. The two losses to Memphis into Miami a one h two point five offensive rating, two more stinkers from Dame. He was twelve for thirty five from the field in those two losses. He has shot below forty percent from
the field in ten of his last fifteen games. It's becoming a pretty consistent trend. And again he's not going in the right on that front. He's going in the wrong direction on that front. He's had twenty three games already this year where he shot below forty percent from the field in fifty one games. I think in fifty five games last year if I remember quickly, that's the total.
But he had twenty three games or excuse me, sixteen all of last year where he shot below forty percent, so sixteen and fifty five games or so last year twenty three times in fifty one games this year, ten of the last fifteen. Definitely trending in the wrong direction
on that front. Here's the thing, the entire construct of the Milwaukee Bucks when you sent out one of your best two way athletes and Drew Holliday, and in general, when you look at the team and the fact that they just don't really have a ton of veteran speed. They've got athletes on the roster, but they're very young and not really involved in the rotation.
You're a slow team.
This team, the entire construct is built around them being a dominant offense, particularly in the half court, and so things won't really turn around for them until things turn around for Dame. And that's gonna be something we're gonna be keeping any I on down the stretch of the season. Number nine the New York Knicks, zero in two this last week losses to Orlando and Houston. The Knicks lost both of their starting forwards on January twenty seventh, oh
Jiananobi and Julius Randalls. Since then, they are four and five eleventh in offense, but twenty third in defense and ninth in rebounding. Just to give you guys an idea of how bad that it is relative to where they usually are at. At the time of their injuries, they were seventh in defense on the season and number one in rebounding. So the two biggest areas where they like to dominate basketball games are fundamentally altered by the fact that their
two best forwards are out of the lineup. And like, again, it doesn't matter how good Jalen Bruns is playing, It doesn't really matter, Like none of that matters. You know, basketball we have a tendency to like make it very video game as can. We focus on who's the best player, and what if this best player plays this well or you know so and so outplayed this guy, and it's like, yeah, don't get me wrong. Matchups are a big part of the game. But at the end of the day, basketball
is a team sport. It is a five man unit against a five man unit, and it doesn't matter how good your superstar is if you don't have quality role players around them. And this is a great example, like decimate one position group that forward position fundamentally alters their defense and their ability to dominate the glass of the way they do, and now they're struggling to win games. Not doesn't mean anything as far as the Knicks and their long term potential, because obviously we had to evaluate
them with og in Julius Randall. But right now it doesn't really make a lot of sense to take to have major takeaways from the Knicks because they're basically playing with a different identity right now while they're waiting to get healthy.
Knicks are down at nine number eight.
New Orleans Pelicans to beat Memphis and Washington last week, obviously a lighter stretch of their schedule. Big things standing out to me as of late with the Pelicans is Zion Williamson is really starting to pick up steam. His first thirty one games this year, he was at twenty one point seven points per game fifty eight percent from the field, just three thirty point games in thirty one tries.
Last thirteen games twenty four point one points per game, fifty nine percent shooting, and he's had five thirty point games in the last thirteen games, so really starting to pick up seam on that front. The big one to me is his athleticism appears to be getting closer to what we expect from Zion. Early in the year, I thought he was like eighty percent of the athlete that
we've grown to custom to seeing with Zion. And then he had like that big transition game game winner against the Spurs where he got to that left handed scoop shot off the glass. That was a really athletic play. I can't remember which game it was last week, ILD think it was the Memphis game, but where he ended up getting his head above the rim on a block and like you could just tell like he's starting to get more of that vertical pop that we're accustomed to
seeing from Zion. And again, he relies a lot on his physical gifts, and so him getting back into you know, peak shape on that front could bode well for the additional level they can get to, especially on the offensive end of the floor. Number seven the Phoenix Suns. They beat Sacramento last week as well as Detroit. Kevin Durant
it's on a ridiculous heater right now. He shot over sixty percent in five of his last eight games, averaging twenty eight, eight and six over that span, shooting fifty seven percent from the field, forty percent from three, and eighty five percent from the line. Also two point nine stocks per game steals plus blocks per game over that span. The Suns are fourth in defense over their last fifteen games,
in large part because they're anchored by Kevin Durant. They have a big showdown on Thursday against the Dallas Mavericks that we will be covering, most likely on Friday morning because of the blackout restrictions here in Arizona. But I'm really looking forward to that game because both of those teams have been facing some easier opponents says of late and need a kind of a signature win, and they're kind of headed for a showdown there on Thursday night.
That's going to be a fun one. Number six the Oklahoma City Thunder only one game last week.
They beat the Orlando Magic.
Jadub and Shake Gilders Alexander were insane in that game. They combined for sixty five points.
Jalen Williams.
I can't say enough about this kid. He's an absolute stud. Absolute porched Orlando in transition. In particular, coming off of that wide dribble handoff that Oklahoma City always runs for him, hit a couple of nasty step back threes in this game, one where he pounded between his legs and the other one where he kind of did a hard side step and covered a bunch of ground. His pull up shooting
has been kind of a revelation this year. Fifty three percent overall, fifty nine percent an effective field goal percentage waited for threes one point one eight points per shot. I don't know if you guys remember about a week and a half ago, I was talking to you guys about how James Harden has been the best pull up jump shooter in the league this year. Guess who's second on that list. Jalen Williams. There are forty four players excuse me in the league that have attempted at least
two hundred pull up jump shots this year. Jalen Williams is second place on that list at one point one eight points per shot. That's highly unusual for a guy this early in his career. And again, like and you could see it with his ability to turn the corner against Orlando and get to that right handed layup off the glass, Like it's just a combination of downhill force that allows him to get great steparation on those step backs because again, as a defender, you got to make decisions.
And when Jayala Williams is hitting you with that hard between the legs dribble to the right, you have an option there. You can press up on it, take away
that step back three. But then you're giving this outstanding athlete the ability to blow by you to his strong hand to the right hand side, and like again, as you saw in that Orlando game in particular, he's just so good at getting that left shoulder lower in past the defender so that he can kind of turn around and pivot and get that right handed scoop shot off the glass. It's a really fundamentally sound game, which is what's allowing him to be so efficient. It is not
a reliance on super difficult shot making. It's using his athletic gifts to generate high quality shots for himself, and he's hitting them at a high rate. His scoring volume is going up as well. First thirty five games of the year eighteen points per game, his last thirteen games twenty two points per game. He's also twenty plus points in nine of his last thirteen nights. So hot strike
there for Jalen Williams. Again, light week for the Thunder, but a lot of encouraging stuff coming out of Oklahoma City. Number five, the Cleveland Cavaliers took a bad loss at home against the injury injury riddled Sixers with bad defensive effort game for them. They had a one thirty defensive rating in that game against Philly, but they did bounce back and beat the Bulls. Effort is a huge determining
factor for the Cleveland Cavaliers. They do not have talent advantages over their opponents on most knights, but they have a They're very well coached, they play super hard. Every guy does their job on defense, and then they're good enough running in transition when they have opportunities, and Donovan Mitchell's playing well enough that they're able to win games. But again, the effort has to be there. They do not have talent advantages over most of the teams in
the league. You see that in the record. By the way, they're twenty three and two this year when they play teams that are below five hundred, but they're just thirteen and fifteen when they play against five hundred or better teams. And so that effort, like when they bring nights like they did against Philly. They're going to lose in a lot of cases. Number four the Denver Nuggets. They dropped two games last week to the Bucks and the Kings.
Contavious Cabbo Pope and Jamal Murray both went down with injuries in the Bucks game. KCP I believe was a hamstring and then Murray I believe was shin splints if I remember correctly, but they were kind of getting punked anyway at the time that they left the game. Then both guys were out for the Sacramento game. The Sacramento loss was kind of weird because I felt like Denver was in position to win that one, and then they went to this bizarre.
Like coverage where like the guard was.
On the ball, which ended up being Justin Holliday and Aaron Gordon, but they were in their possessions on dearon Fox. They were defending like it was an ice coverage, like they were trying to deny the ball screen and force him away from the screen, but the actual screen defender.
Typically in an ice coverage, when a guy is like denying the use of the ball screen, the guy that's guarding the ball or the guy that's guarding the screen or typically drops into the lane so that you're forcing him to drive away from the screen right into your helper. But what Denver was doing, which was weird, is they had the on ball guy up denying the screen like he was icing, and then they had the screen defender all the way out on the other side of the
screen for a hedge, which doesn't make any sense. Why would you deny use of the ball screen but then also have help at the ball screen. The whole point is the on ball defenders not letting him get there. Darren Fox was just like literally just driving into a hand crafted, easy driving lane and just torched Denver at the end of the game with layups and floaters, and it was just a really really confusing defensive strategy down the stretch.
And again, like here's the thing.
I'm not worried about Denver, but the lifeless losses are starting to pile up just a little bit, and all it means is that they do need to kick in with a little bit more urgency here down the stretch of the season. Number three, the Los Angeles Clippers Minnesota loss was a bit concerning. They got strangled by the perimeter defense of Minnesota and then overwhelmed by their size on the offensive end of the floor. But I was
really impressed by the Golden State Warriors win the other night. No, Kawhi Leonard had a big run from Golden State like they typically bring in the third quarter as they went up double digits.
Would have been really easy just to be like not our night, but nope, they weathered it.
They played Clippers basketball down the stretch, really smart, driving kick possessions to great shooters in the corners, and they got a really impressive road win, hitting a lot of the checkboxes that I look for championship contenders. The Clippers at number three, number two, the Minnesota Timberwolves three and oh week followed up their dominance of the Clippers with back to back wins over the Blazers. They've won four to row since their clutch collapse against the Chicago Bulls
and all have been blowouts. And again, if you have issues with late game execution, that's a great way to
avoid those situations be a dominant basketball team. This was a big thing for the Lakers in the twenty twenty year, where like they leaned heavily on defensive personnel, ran a lot of big lineups where they play, you know, a center next to Anthony Davis and stuff like that, and what ended up happening is throughout that season they would struggle a little bit in the half court just because of the lack of offensive skill off of Lebron James
and Anthony Davis. But they just defended like crazy, got out in transition a bunch, and didn't let games get close late, you know, like and like even if you look in the finals, it's like they lose that one game where Jimmy Butler scores all those points, but then they just blow them out in Game six. And that's
got to be the pathway for Minnesota. They're not going they don't have the personnel to be a surgical half court offense, but they do have the personnel to win games by ten to fifteen points strangling teams with their defense, and that just needs to be their mo here down the stretch. Number one Boston Celtics two to zero with two wins over the Nets. As I predicted before the season, I thought they'd run away with the conference. They are
now six games up on the East two seed. They have a four game lead over the Minnesota Timberwolves for the Number one overall seed. They also have the third easiest remaining sky Like, they prove themselves to be the best regular season team while playing a very tough schedule.
Earlier in the year, most of.
Their tougher opponents were front loaded, and so they actually have a much easier schedule here down the stretch. And so their reward is they can be really cautious with injuries and guys that are a little banged up. They can mess with lineups, they can tweak strategies and and and they can They just have an enormous margin for air.
They have the ability to really kind of like flush things out in terms of what they want to have in their bag, is like punches and counters and adjustments when they get to the postseason, just because of all of the leeway that they've built for themselves in the standings, they do have a little bit of a tough schedule. To kick off the post All Star stretch. They go to Chicago, then to New York, although the Knicks are a little beat up right now. Then they come home
for Philly and Golden State. That's a little bit lighter stretch. But then they go to Cleveland to Denver too, Phoenix so gonna learn a lot about the Celtics and some of their offensive progression here in the next couple of weeks. But then they're like their schedules up again after that. So I don't think it'll matter in the standings at all. But this next few weeks is going to be a good opportunity for us to learn more about the Celtics.
We're going to be covering them very closely over that stretch. There you go, there's our power rankings for this Monday, February nineteenth. Have you guys ever had a bad ticket buying experience. Maybe you go to check out and ends up being way more expensive than it was when you clicked on it, or maybe you go to your seat and ends up being not what you expected when you bought it to begin with, or maybe it's just an
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let's move on to the mailbag. I got seventeen different versions of this particular question, but I just picked one how would you because I thought this was the best one that kind of encapsulated like the broader issue, how would you incentivize players to play more competitive in the All Star Game? It feels like the game becomes more boring to watch every year, and the offensive highlights cannot compensate for the lack of competition. Greetings from Germany. Really
enjoy watching the show. Thank you for supporting the show. As always, I appreciate the kind words that you guys drop in the comments. I didn't even watch the game last night. I was actually joking with my wife as we were just relaxing. We typically takes Sunday to kind of Saturdays, more of like a busy do stuff around the house day, and then Sunday's like a chill day.
And at one point I looked over at the clock and it was like seven, and I told my wife, I was like, I'm pretty sure the All Star Game is like on now or starting soon, and I was like, I could not care less about watching the game. I remember the last time that was like appointment viewing for me with the All Star was when they lunch the elam ending, just because I have always been a fan of the elam ending and I wanted to see it.
And we've got a couple of good ones, and then the elam ending even ended up kind of crapping out there towards the end, and like, I think part of the issue too, like one of my like fundamental things that I think causes the poor effort. First of all, Anthony Edwards is right. The guys just they're looking for a break. They don't want to compete, they want to break. Just imagine the grind of the eighty two game regular season and then suddenly it's like, okay, from Thursday to Thursday,
there's no games, so you can take a break. And it's like, okay, but I have to fly to Indiana for this All Star event. You know, even Lebron like comes in the day of the game, right, you know, like these guys are they're they're exhausted from the eighty two This is just another thing they have to deal with. During the season, and so I think I think that's why they don't necessarily want to go all out while they're there. But then the format itself, it kind of
like breeds a certain amount of lackadaisical effort. What I mean by that is like, let's say I'm throwing in the opening there's forty eight minutes of basketball to play. If there's forty eight minutes of basketball to play, like, of course you're gonna be chilling at the start of that game. One of the things that I think made the elam ending work, at least there at the beginning, was like it was a very small sample size of basketball at the end of the game, twenty four points.
You get twenty four points here.
At the end.
But even then, when we got to the later phases of that elam ending phase, one team would be up ten twelve points by the time they got to the fourth quarter, and so it didn't really feel like it was in flux. But and so like there's different things you can try. I've seen people say, well, what if we did USA versus the World? Yeah, I think that would I think that's a little thing that would breed more competitiveness. Is like the guys just out of pride
might feel more interested in competing. But that's never gonna work because you can't have a system where you pick twelve All Stars from outside the US and twelve All Stars from inside the US. It doesn't balance out equally with the with the talent or the conferences. It just would never work. And so there would be you know, maybe eight four and All Stars and you know, fourteen US All Stars. It just wouldn't work. You could never do that. So it's a good idea, but would never work.
What if you had the home court advantage in the NBA Finals determined by who wins that game. That's a terrible idea because that specific format is already so loose and sloppy, and it's way too big of a swing to leave in the hands of basically just for fun type of event. You know, Baseball doesn't rely on effort. That's why they can get away with that. Baseball doesn't
rely on effort. So like they can have an All Star game, and like, guys are gonna still have like a pretty normal looking baseball game because it's not that type of environment, right, So, like, I don't think that's a good idea for an NBA All Star Game to have some sort of massive like swinging factor of the NBA Playoffs at stake in that environment. They're what I would do if I wanted to try to manufacture some competitiveness is create a shorter game.
And what that.
Means is like, what if you just took ten all stars from both conferences and you made four teams of five and you played four or you played two elam ending games. Just game to twenty four twos and threes, toss up the ball, let's play. Then do another game to twenty four twos and threes, toss up the ball.
Let's play.
Maybe you add a king of the court element by position group, Like how fun would that be to watch like Jokicen ANDMB just play one on one against each other, or like the stuff that you see at Team USA where you see Paul George and Kevin Durant and all these guys just playing king of the court from the elbow to dribble limit that kind of stuff, Like I would turn it into an event where you have these shorter bursts of higher competitive energy two five on five
pickup games where all the bench guys goes all the bench guys go against each other, all the starters go against each other, because that's the thing, Like you throw the ball up at center court and it's like first one to make ten baskets basically, like that's a way more like achievable effort thing then to throw the ball up center court in a forty eight minute game and be like, come on, guys, play hard at the at the very least, they're sitting there going like, we're gonna
at least chill for twenty of these minutes, maybe thirty of these minutes, and maybe we'll pick it up towards the end. Like forty eight minutes is way too long to expect guys to go hard.
In that environment.
But at the end of the day, make no mistake, even with my idea, the idea of like having a couple of pickup games and maybe some king of the Court stuff, even in that specific format, it doesn't matter unless the guys compete. And so everything fundamentally comes back to what Anthony Edwards says. We can do whatever we want to try to foist some competitive energy onto them, but they have to bring it. It's inevitably on the players, and the players have told us they don't care about
playing hard in this environment. And so what I've always told everybody on the show is like, if you're a fan of a team and the team you're rooting for is not bought into the goal and they're not playing hard on a nightly basis, then you need to adjust your expectations with what you expect from that team. Same thing goes for the All Star Game. If the players aren't interested in it, adjust your expectations and then you
won't be disappointed. Like, it's very clear that they don't care, but if I was the league and I was trying to force them to care, that I think is the move smaller bits of basketball that don't have this long, forty eight minute commitment, where you can get guys to
play hard for a short burst of time. The one thing I like about the King of the Court format, too, is I think guys would be a little less worried about injuries because you're not as worried about, you know, stepping on a help defender's foot or going up for a rebound and having a guy come up underneath you. It's a little bit easier to avoid injuries in a one on one format, which I think could could bring
some more effort out of the guys. But I mean, here's the thing, guys, your guess is as good as mine.
The leagu's tried everything and nothing's worked. So it is what it is at this point.
Next question, Hey, Jason, thoughts on the biggest MV peace snub ever? Is there a year that sticks out to you and makes you think, for instance, twenty seventeen Harden instead of Russ. For example, twenty seventeen Harden over Us is a really good example. The one that always sticks in micro obviously as a Lebron fan is twenty twenty. I thought, who is the best basketball player in twenty twenty Lebron? Who is the best basketball team in twenty twenty?
The Los Angeles Lakers. Literally, the league was incredibly deep in the Western Conference, and then the bottom of the Eastern Conference was historically bad.
There were like eight terrible.
Teams in the Eastern Conference, and so Jannis in the Bucks would just beat the living shit out of all of these bad teams. And remember, you play the other conference for thirty of your games. You play your conference for fifty two of your games. So like when the East and by the way, it's happening again this year, same things happening in the Eastern Conference this year, a less dramatic version of it. But the bottom of the Eastern Conference is substantially weaker than the him of the
Western Conference. That's why when you look at the cross conference record, the West is kicking the shit out of the East in their interconference play. But anyway, in that twenty twenty season, the Bucks kicked the shit out of everybody. Giannis only played like thirty two minutes a game or something like that, and it was because they were playing all these bad teams, and it massively inflated all the
advanced metrics. Remember the whole thing about per thirty six, and like Giannis is averaging this per thirty six, and it's like Lebron was a better basketball player, playing better basketball for a better team and a tougher conference. Still was right next to him in the standings. It just beat him head to head. Before the end of the season. The only reason they won in Milwaukee is Milwaukee won in Milwaukee was because Jannis made five threes in the game.
Like the Lakers were just better. Lebron was just better. I thought he clearly deserved MVP. That season. It's actually of all of the season in Lebron's career, it's the one time I thought he got robbed. Lebron fans like to say that he deserves to have ten MVPs and voter fatigue is what killed him, and I tend to go the other way on that, because Lebron tends to be a guy after Miami who super chills in the
regular season. But that one year, that twenty twenty season with the Lakers, from the started training camp to the moment he hoisted the trophy, he attacked the season with a crazy level of intensity. I thought he was by far the best player in the world that year. I thought he got robbed of the MVP that should have been his number five. Next question, it's no secret that's
Steph and Lebron draw the best ratings. However, is it a factor of Stephan Lebron just being simply better or is it an issue of the NBA failing to market the new the newer teams better in Minnesota, Oklahoma City,
et cetera. So I actually think the league does a better job of marketing, maybe not relative to what we want, but relative to what it used to be because of the tools we have at our disposal because of social media, because of even like little things like just League Pass, and how easy it is to find NBA content, whether it's team specific podcasts, YouTube channels. So many people out there do such an amazing job covering the league. But like when people complain about, like, oh, ESPN, they never
talk about these other teams. All they do is talk about Lebron and stuff on first take, And it's like, I'm like, okay, sure, but like, you don't have to turn on ESPN. I never ever ever turn on ESPN unless I'm watching an NBA game on ESPN. Like, if I want to listen to NBA content, I go to the people I want to listen to. So that to me,
and it's easy to find that stuff. So like, to me, I've never understood the like like the league is responsible for no, we all are all of us as fans by virtue of the way this new ecosystem works, we are responsible for how the league is marketed. There's Oklahoma City fans and media members who do an amazing job marketing their talent, Minnesota fans and they all do a great job. You want to know why, Stephan Lebron are more famous and popular than all these other players because
they've won eight of the last twelve championships. Guys, they've won eight of the last twelve. Think about that. The rest of the league has won the same number of titles as Lebron and Steph individually have won over the last twelve years. That is why Steph and Lebron are revered the way that they are. That is why they are the face of the league. That is why they
are such a big draw on national television. By the way, you know what, one of our at hoops tonight, one of our more successful teams to cover as of late in terms of performance on the channel, the Denver Nuggets. You know why, because they're a truly special basketball team with an all time great player who, in my opinion, as long as he stays healthy and his team stays healthy, is going to win a bunch of championships over course
in the next five years. And guess what, by the time we get further down the line there, Nicole Jokic will have a level of fame and notoriety here in the US similar to what Steph Curry and Lebron James do throughout NBA history, throughout all of history. That's the way it works. Who are the most famous players in NBA history. Michael Jordan's six championships, Kobe Bryant five championships, Magic Johnson five championships, Larry Bird three championships. Like that's
that's how you become a legend. That's how you become famous in this league. You hoist the damn trophy. And by the way, that is why I'm the loyalist to the banner. That's why I care about it so much. It is eternal, it is everlasting. It is the thing that it's the one thing you can do in this league that transcends everything else. Stephen Lebron have done it more than everybody else. That's why they're the faces of the league. That's why they're as popular as they are.
Thanks question, what do you think of the Paul George fit with the Warriors if they somehow manage to sign him as a free agent next season. So the idea behind this kind of idea is and by the way, like Paul George has not signed an extension yet, the idea here is the second apron And the more and more I talk to people around the league or other
people cover the league. The biggest thing that's becoming like a talking point as of late is the new CBA and the fact that, like starting next year, there's all of these crazy rules in place that make it a lot harder to work around the margins once you enter into that second apron And so I think in general, you're going to see a lot of teams that are going to make tough decisions on who they retain and
who they don't. So like, for the record, my guess is, knowing Steve Balmer, he's probably going to find a way to bring Paul George back. I expect him to be a Clipper. But if there's a version of this where goes south, what it would look like is the Clippers would sit down and they go, hey, we want to have a sustainably great team. We just built this brand new arena. It's going to I think they're moving into it next year, Like, we need to build.
A sustainable model.
We cannot just go all in on this Kawhi Paul George fit and then have a situation where they both age out and then suddenly we're a complete full rebuild team. So let's figure out a way to do this. How about James Harden. We could bring him back for twenty million a year and how him long term? Or we can bring Paul George back and we have to pay him fifty to sixty million a year. Well what if we just bring back James Harden and what if we
you know, kind of let Paul George go. Is our means with which to have a more sustainable model in terms of having more flexibility to make moves on the margins and to come up with cap space quickly if needed, and things along those lines. Okay, all of a sudden, Paul George becomes a free agent, or the Clippers look to trade him to get asset return so that they
don't lose him for nothing. Okay, Now a team like Golden State jumps in and goes, here's Jonathan kaminga, here's you know, two first round draft picks, whatever it is like that, that would be the framework of how that would work. I don't think that's going to happen. I think Paul George is going to stay with the Clippers. But I do think you will see teams around the league that will make tough decisions about really great players because of their goal to avoid that second apron and
all of the limitations that come with it. Does Paul George fit with the Clippers, Absolutely, He'd be amazing in that situation, not just as one of the best closed out attackers in the league, but I think he's a good enough passer and off screen player to thrive in their five out system. He's an excellent two way player, can defend the other team's best player.
He's just a way way, way, way, way way way.
Better version of either Andrew Wiggins or Jonathan Kaminga. And like now, I think Jonathan Mingka has the potential to be better than Paul George in the long run. But the idea there is you put Steph Curry with Paul George and Draymond Green, you instantaneously become a top tier championship contender.
That's the idea.
So again, we're gonna talk about this in a bunch of ways over the course of this summer, when we get into free agency and stuff like, don't Galaxy brain this stuff. When you put two gall when you put two all time great basketball players next to each other, they tend to figure it out. So the fit with the Warriors for Paul George would be excellent, but again it's unlikely, although I do think we'll see some more
player movement in the future surrounding the CBA. Next question, what are your most intriguing teams coming back from the break? What will you be looking for with the team? So I'm gonna for this question, I picked one from each conference. In the Eastern Conference, I'm really gonna be watching the Milwaukee Bucks. They have the third toughest remaining schedule by opponent win percentage, and they're already in free fall, have
lost seven of their last ten games. I think over the next twenty six games, the final twenty six games of the season, in order for the Bucks to be on track for their ultimate goal to win the title, I think they need an offensive rating over one twenty and a defensive rating below one fifteen.
I don't care about anything else to this point in the season.
If from right now, over the final twenty six an offensive rating over one twenty tells me that they have gotten to their own offensive ceiling. They've figured out with that group how to score a high enough rate to buy them margin for air on the defensive end of the floor. A defensive rating below one to fifteen to me, would tell me that they are committed enough to the details to positionally be in the right spots enough on defense to at least defend well enough so that their
offense can put them over the top. That to me is the is the benchmark. An offensive rating over one twenty, a defensive rating below one fifteen. Here down the stretch of the season, that's gonna be what we're watching with Milwaukee on a night in, night out basis out West. The team I'm gonna be watching most closely is the Dallas Mavericks. I've had a lot of people say why even she talked about Dallas more. Dallas has been a really hard team for me to learn about.
And one of the main.
Reasons why is they're just they've they've every time I turn them on, it's a different team. They've had sixteen different players start a game. They've had eleven different players start at least five games. As a point of reference, Sacramento Kings have had only eight different players start a game as opposed to sixteen for the Maps. That's half as many. They've had six different players start at least
five games. That's half as many, So that it gives you an idea of just the level of turnover they've had. Luca and Kyrie themselves have combined to miss thirty games. Even it's like, I really want to watch some more Daniel Gafford. I really want to watch some more Jal
McDaniels as we're trying to not Janie McDaniels, excuse me, PJ. Washington, as we're trying to figure out whether or not these additions can kind of move the needle for Dallas post deadline, and it's like I'm watching them against the San Antonio Spurs, like,
for instance, Daniel Gafford. Daniel Gafford fits into a mold that we've seen a lot around the league, which is like the undersized big that's a really good athlete and a really solid role man with his ability to finish around the rim, but has some defensive limitations and it because he's not necessarily the biggest guy to have around
the rim. We've seen a lot of these guys over the years, whether it's like a Montrez Harrol or like a like a Thomas Bryant, where they're like good athletes, they play hard there, they have length and they can finish above the rim, but they're just they're just a little bit undersized for the position, and they're not great defensive players, and so like, for instance, like there are some possessions where we're watching Daniel Gafford against San Antonio
and I'm like, Yeah, this is not gonna be good enough pick and roll defense to get the job done. But at the same time, it's against the damn San Antonio Spurs. You don't need to play hard necessarily to beat those guys. And so I'm excited just to see them post deadline, get healthy, have a bunch of games in a row where they have you know, consistency in the lineup, so we can learn about them. Finally, it's been tough to learn about them. Even in the six
game winning streak. It's like they blew out the Thunder. That was a huge win, dominant, impressive performance. But there are other five wins. We're against the injury ravaged Sixers, the injury ravaged Nicks, the Washington Wizards, the San Antonio Spurs, and the Brooklyn Nets.
We are going to learn.
A ton about the Dallas Mavericks over the course of the next few weeks. And they've played Phoenix on Thursday and that major showdown I told you guys about. Then they immediately go on the road to Indy, on the road to Cleveland, on the road to Boston, and so we're gonna find out a lot more about Dallas over that span. I just want to see some consistency in the rotation so we can actually learn about what this group is capable of, specifically defensively and on the glass.
They've defended extremely well. They have the number one defensive rating in the league over this six game span. But again, they're playing against some inferior competition, and so I really want to see what holds up what is translatable to the postseason among their upcoming opponents in the tougher stretch of their schedule here in the next couple of weeks. So those are the two teams that I'm most intrigued by after the break, and that will probably be covering
pretty closely Milwaukee and Dallas. Next question not a question about the All Star events, but I've been thinking about about how you brought up that young and fast teams tends to win a lot of games in the January to February part of the season, and with the Cavs recent and out of nowhere explosion. Do you think it's legit or just January woes. So here's the thing, I don't I think it's I think it's always a combination of factors. I don't want to undercut the success of
some specific players on the Cavs. Donovan Mitchell's having the best season of his career in my opinion. His playmaking is better than it's ever been, his defense is better than it's ever been. That's going a long way towards helping that situation. Dean Wade turning into like a really impressive two way player very important for the turnaround of this particular team. Just around the board, Jared Allen's playing incredibly well. They're just getting really impressive two way performances
from these guys. But there's something to be said about the fact that they're young, they're hungry, they're well coached, they're playing harder than everybody, and that absolutely will manifest and wins, particularly in the January February stretch of the season. This is the stretch of the year where the younger, more athletic teams that play hard more consistently will carry
weight in the standings. This is also the stretch of the year where the older veteran teams that have had a lot of playoff experience that struggle to get up for regular season games, You'll see them drop a bunch of games in this stretch of the season. I think, like I mentioned earlier in the power rankings, I think you see that in the way that the Cavs wins
have broken down. They're thirteen and fifteen when they play teams that are five hundred or better, and they're twenty three and two when they play teams that are below five hundred. They are very much an effort in energy and speed type of team. Next question, which of these teams do you think is more of a threat in the playoffs this year? The Pelicans, the MAVs or the Kings. I love this question. By the way, these types of questions. More of those please in the mailbags, like little choices
between different options. I've always had fun with those. So bigger threat in the playoffs the Pelicans, the MAVs or the Kings. I go with the MAVs, no question. And it's really a simple. If you're ranking playoff performers out of that group, Luca is a clear number one. Number two in my opinion, it's like a toss up between either Brandon Ingram, Dearn Fox, or Kyrie Irving. I think Kyrie Irving's in that group as one of his three level shot creation is just so incredibly valuable, especially in
a secondary role. Like and again everyone wants to say, like, oh, who's the best player in a vacuum, That doesn't matter. All that matters is how much you impact winning in your specific situation. That's what actually translates to the goal of getting the trophy. And so I'm always going to like, like Jamal Murray with the Nuggets for instance, to me, it doesn't matter how he stacks up against you know, a Deer and Fox who was in a different role.
It doesn't matter. It's not his role.
His role is next to Nicole Jokic, and he impacts winning at an incredibly high level next to Nicolejokic. That's who he is as a basketball player in the real sense of what matters in this season in the pursuit
of the trophy. And so again, give me Luca and Kyrie with athletes versus Brandon Ingram with athletes, versus Daron Fox and Malik Monk with athletes and Demonisabonis with athletes like I just think I think when they get into that setting that Luca and Kyrie just bring so much more to the table in terms of that slow down, half court environment.
I would lean into the MAVs. There.
Next question, why isn't Luca the MVP right now? The answer is really simple. They have the twelfth best record in the league. The last time a team with a bad record won the MVP was Russell Westbrook in twenty seventeen. They had the tenth best record in the league. So if Luca won the MVP right now, he would literally be an even bigger stretch in terms of where they are relative to the rest of the field in the standings.
Then Russell Westbrook was in twenty seventeen, which retrospectively most people look back at as a mistake as someone who didn't deserve it right. We talked about that earlier with James Harden. So again, do I think Luca can win the MVP? Yeah, but they've got to win a ton of games over the last twenty six and by the way I get it, they've been ravaged by injuries.
We talked about all of that.
Luca's been incredible this year massively, especially as a pull up jump shooter. I also think he's having a better defense and rebounding season than he's had in either of the last couple of seasons. Like, I'm not trying to undercut what Luca is doing at all. They just have the twelve best record in the league, and like again, NBA history tells us the MVP is typically a guy from one of the best teams in the league in
terms of where they land in the standings. Two more questions than we're out of here, how do you analyze clutch time defense? Feels like everyone makes a big deal about clutch offense, but I don't hear a lot of analys about what makes clutch defense successful. So clutch defense, in my opinion, becomes more about personnel than it does about execution. It's the biggest difference between the kind of like run of the mill regular season defensive rating stuff.
It's a big reason why I view clutched numbers as an important indicator of what a playoff team is capable of. By the way, while we're talking about Dallas, you know he's been an excellent clutch team this year on both ends of the floor. Dallas they've actually been like an elite, like top tier late game, clutch situation defense this year. I think their defensive rating is like around a one
oh four if I remember correctly. In clutch situations, they've been a team that's demonstrated that they have the personnel to get stops in late game situations. Why do I say it leans more on personnel than scheme? Over the course of eighty two, there's a lot of traditional coverages, there's a lot of base schemes. As a result of that, It's more about effort on a night in, night out basis right, And that's why I view defensive rating is
more of an effort stat than a defense stat. But when you get into late game situations, typically you're just running a set. Isn't gonna get you a bucket because they're probably gonna switch it, and chances are they scouted a lot of your late game stuff and they know how to get in front of it.
Right.
Also, more contact is allowed on both ends of the floor, so you're not gonna get some of the kind of cheap whistles that you get elsewhere in the game. So in that situation where there's more switching, more scouting, less foul calling. It becomes way more about picking on matchups
and what athletic gifts your lineup has. And so there are a lot of teams, for instance, that will be able to get stops for large portions of the game, and then they get into the final minutes and they struggle to get stops, and that to me is a big indicator of some of the issues they might have down the line when they get into the postseason. And so on that note, I mean, like I'll give you an example, like, do you remember the Utah Jazz teams
with Rudy Gobert. They would consistently be an excellent defense in the regular season. Then they get to the postseason and their defense fell apart because it turned out base scheme of chasing guys over the top and funneling them to Rudy Gobert worked great over the eighty two but when they got into the postseason, it was like, Oh, all we have to do is get Rudy into rotation, and as long as we're a little bit more deliberate about the next layer of our attack, Rudy won't be
there anymore. That's when we can kind of pick them apart. For catch and shoot threes and or driving layups, and like that was when they started to kind of figure things out, and the Clippers just picked the Jazz apart at that point. So like again, when you get into the clutch situations, it more closely resembles playoff basketball. It becomes more about the actual athletic tools of your defensive lineup. That's why I look at clutch defense as closely as
I do. Last question, and I actually have two of them here because I wanted to just kind of make a larger point about the way.
We do the show.
The way Jason has ditched Cleveland all season long is disappointing. The second one I got was from the nerd sesh guys. Seventeen minutes of talking about a trade that is very unlikely and can't happen until the summer while we are in the middle of one of the best NBA regular seasons. Is an interesting decision. So usually when I see stuff like this, it annoys me just because of the fact that, like, we structure the show for this very reason, So you
got to think of it like this. There is the basketball nerd side of this show, but then there's the business side of this show, and in a typical situation, it's difficult to manage that dynamic from a time standpoint, and so you kind of have to pick one or the other, right And so you'll see major television shows lean big into the business side, and it's a lot of lebron it's a lot of Lakers, it's a lot of Warriors, it's a lot of you know, big picture
NBA topics being argued about on TV, and then the niche podcasting world, they'll devote all their energy to more of the basketball nerd stuff.
Well, our show is.
Unique in the sense that we just do more than most shows, meaning like in terms of the hours of content that we do. Like I, on average during the season do like six episodes a week. How many niche podcasts out there are doing six episodes a week, you know what I mean? Like they're usually they're doing three, you know what I mean. So what we do is both Like guess what, I did a deep dive on the Cleveland Cavaliers with Carter Rodriguez from the Chase Down
podcast less than a month ago, brought them on. We did forty eight minutes of calves for that episode. I watched a bunch of Calves tape this year. I've watched plenty of Calves. The difference is like what happens is over the course of a week, we'll have three hours of content that we put out. Usually it's more it's like four hours, and so yeah, in that four hours of content, you know, half of it might be business stuff. Here's Lebron topics. We cover the Warriors very closely. You
know why we have a large Warriors fan base. We cover the Lakers very closely. You know why we have a large Lakers fan base. We cover the top teams in the league a lot. Why they are the ones that have the most engaged fan bases because their teams are good, and so we can get more of the business side out of it. But we work so much here that we're able to hit on everything. This one
is the funniest one to me. Seventeen minutes of talking about a trade that is very unlikely and can't happen until the summer while we are in the middle of one of the best NBA regular seasons is an interesting decision.
It was an hour and a half long show. It was an hour and a half.
We talked like we got into an argument forever about like the Timberwolves versus the Oklahoma City like we were we did rookie rankings.
We were all over the weeds in that episode. That's the beauty of it.
When you talk for an hour and a half, you can spend seventeen minutes talking about a tray young Anthony Davis duo and how it stacks up to the rest of the league.
That's the way it works here.
Like, yes, you're gonna get a lot of Lakers, You're gonna get a lot of Warriors. But I don't just do Lakers and Warriors. I do a ton of additional stuff. We break it all out into additional clips, and we market it so you guys can see it. Like I, I go above and beyond to make sure that we get to as much of this stuff as possible. Our staff behind the scenes works really hard to edit all that stuff and get it put out in a way
that is easily digestible for you guys. So, like again, like I, chances are if you want to hear me talk about your team, all you have to do is look in the feed. It's in there somewhere. It just it might not be at the start of the show. It might not be marketed in the full show thumbnail, but it's in there somewhere. You just got to look for it. We do that much content for that very reason. And again, the only reason why I'm kind of ranting about this right now is like, I want these people
to know that stuff's there. Like, if you're like, I encourage you CALVS fans. We did a big deep dive, not just on the group that went on a run without Evan Mobley and without Darius Carlin. We even broke down how those two guys when they return to the lineup, how it's going to kind of change things. We even broke down big picture, what the Calves look like in five years. It was an hour of Calves content. Go find it.
It's there. I encourage you to check it out. Carter does great work.
It was awesome that he came on the show and gave us his time and gave us an interesting perspective. I just want you guys to know that stuff's there because we work too hard for it to go unnoticed. If that makes sense, all right, I'm off my soapbox. I appreciate you guys for supporting the show. We'll be back with Sam Bessini for contender rankings tomorrow.
I will see you guys there.
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