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having a great week so far. We are continuing right along with our power rankings today with number six, the Brooklyn Nets, a very interesting, very talented team that has enormous variants heading into this season, probably among the largest gaps between worst case scenario and best case scenario in the league. Right now, before we get started, you guys know the drill. Subscribe to the volumes Youtube Channel so
you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on twitter at underscore Jason Lt s. You guys don't miss any show announcements. And, last but not least, for whatever reason you can't finish one of these shows you can't get over to youtube, you can always find them in podcast form, wherever you get your podcasts. Under hoops tonight. And on that note, let's talk some basketball. So last year the Brooklyn Nets went forty four and thirty eight. They were swept by Boston in the first round. We
are going to get into that. They were tenth in offense in defense, and Kyrie, Kevin Durant and Ben Simmons combined to play eighty one game, so less than one full season from their three best players heading into the playoff run. And then obviously they had all of that James Harden drama to start the season. I want to spend a little bit of time diving into some of the ancillary topics with this particular team because they're so
incredibly relevant to their potential success this season. You know, and all of our other videos, or most of them, we've gone like brief synopsis on whatever happened in their playoffs and then we head into what they did the off season. We had into the depth chart and then we head into the excess and OHS right, and we
are going to do that with this team. But the ancillary topics that bothered him last year haven't gone away and there's still very much a factor heading into this season and I think it's important that we acknowledge them and understand them and the way they could impact this team in this season. So I wanted to start with Kyrie because, you know, I'm sure from Kyrie's perspective, he feels justified and everything that he did over the course
the last couple of years. I mean he by by saying that the vaccine mandate is one of the most
horrible travesties in the history of human rights. He has doubled down, doubled down on the fact that he believes he was in the right last year with what he did, and he was available for both playoff runts, and so I imagine that would be his like rose colored glasses, glass half full, advocating for his self, way of expressing what happened, like okay, yeah, yeah, these things happened, but I was always there when you guys needed me in
the playoffs, unless I landed on Johanna's antenna COOMPO's foot like he did in that second round series two years ago. But the reality is that there was a huge direct
impact from his behavior. And for the record, I'm referencing him missing a boatload of games because of the vaccine mandate and then the previous season the two, you know, uh leaves of absence that he took that were unrelated to injury and that he did so without even telling Steve Nash, basically just piecing out on the team for a couple of weeks, and those things, even if it doesn't necessarily impact their roster at the end of the season,
it does impact their seating and that does matter, especially in this particular season. You know, they were banged up a lot of the season. Continuity was an issue. They were hoping to get Ben Simmons back towards the end of that Boston Celtics series, which means presumably he could have been available for a second or third round series.
Who knows, but there are a bunch of question marks there around the team that could have been solved by some continuity and buy some additional reps and allowing themselves a buffer to face somebody like the Boston Celtics, even just in the second round, even just buying yourself an extra two weeks could have gone a long way towards
that matchup. I think they would have lost anyway, but I think a big part of why they got destroyed in such resounding fashion in that first round series by Boston had to do with the fact that they had to play them in the first round and they didn't have a ton of time to get to the best version of themselves before they got there. That is a
direct effect of Kyrie Irving's behavior. That has to be acknowledged and I think that's a big part of why Brooklyn was so ready to be done with him this summer. That's why they did not offer him the long term deal and why they would have been quick to get rid of him had the Kevin Durant thing not gone
the way that they hoped it would this summer. Not to be clear, the reason why they're keeping Kyrie now is because they're in a win now mode and there's just no way they could have flipped Kyrie for comparable current talent. They would have had to do something like a Russell Westbrook or salary filler elsewhere around the league, which just wouldn't have helped them the way that Kyrie
Irving can help them. So they I would imagine, they view him as a necessary evil at this point, but unless his behavior and commitment to the team significantly improves this year, my guess is they'll be done with him after this season. Now kyrie is in a contract year and because of that I expect him to understand the gravity of the situation. He wanted that five year deal last summer. He probably still wants it next summer. He's young enough and he's got a long enough career ahead
of him that that's still achievable for him. But he has to Rehab his image and the best way for him to Rehab his image is to be at work every single day, committed to the team goal, playing hard on both ends of the floor, and I expect him to do so regardless of what you feel about Kyrie and I have my issues with him as a person off the court. Now I'm not talking about who who he is as a friend and as a family member
and a member of the community. I'm talking about in his commitment to the team off the court and the way he allows some of his court, you know, beliefs to take away from his commitment to the team. That's where I offer criticism to him. But the reality is is that on the court he is a damn good basketball players. Still, I had him twenty in my player rankings and that was factoring in some of his availability concerns. In terms of talent, he's right there and that ten
to fifteen range. That's how good he is. His basketball skill is unassailable and it's proven to translate to the playoffs. So if he buys in the season, I think he can rehab his image pretty quickly. But there's no mistaking the fact that his behavior did have a negative impact on the net's the last two years. The second thing I wanted to look at was Katie in the series
against Boston. Now, Um, I had the dynamic with Katie is super interesting to me because I think that Steph fans and Lebron fans have used him as their punching bag, and the main reason why is pretty obvious. K D is Katie represents a direct threat to the legacies of Stephen Lebron him and what he did to Lebron head to head in the two thousand seventeen and two thousand eighteen finals, basically playing, playing him to his stalemate. That
obviously threatens Lebron's legacies, a legacy. And then obviously with Steph and the fact that Steph won two titles with Katie and has one. He has one, obviously a couple without him, but those two. A lot of people attribute a great deal of that success to K d. So it's a direct threat to Steph and it's a direct threat to Lebron and as a result, the vast majority of the discourse surrounding K D is trolling, and you're just not gonna get that here. You're gonna find plenty
of Katie trolling everywhere, even on major media networks. You'RE NOT gonna get it. For me, I'm only interested in talking about the basketball now. The reality of what happened in that Boston Celtics series is there were two areas where Katie really struggled his pull up jump shooting, which is literally his best skill. He was on six hundred and twenty nine attempts pull up jump shooting last season. That's literally incredible. In the series against Boston he shot
just thirty six on pull up jumpers. So his bread and butter offensive go to move failed him. That happens sometimes. It's a reality of pull up jump shooting and in a very small sample size, four games, one week of basketball, that sort of thing can happen and that's what did. The other thing where Katie really dropped the ball was taking care of the basketball. Now I watched hours of footage of Brooklyn this morning, including some footage from that
Boston Celtics series. It was a physical blood bath and I have seen Katie handle physical blood baths well many times in his career. He just didn't handle this one. Well, it happens again, small sample size, one week of basketball, yet twenty one turnovers in four games. You could tell he was struggling with that. First of all, I want to give some credit to Boston's defense. They were swarm
from the opening tip of that series. I have been on the record saying that Boston was the best half court defense that I have seen in this era of basketball. So give them a bunch of credit there. The reality, though, is, we zoom out a little bit, Brooklyn Fared Better Against Boston's defense than anybody by a lot. The averaged a hundred and fifteen points per one hundred possessions against Boston's defense. Golden State was the second best team facing Boston last year,
with a hundred and ten points per one hundred possessions. Now, obviously Golden State is a much better team. They defend a million times better. That's why they have the trophy. But so much criticism and so much trolling is facing towards Kevin Durant and the job he did on offense, towards against the Boston Celtics and the job that Kyrie did on offense against the Boston Celtics. The reality is is that the ultimate goal is to put the ball in the basket and they did that better than anybody
else did against the Boston Celtics. To give you idea, everyone considers the Dallas Mavericks as having eviscerated Phoenix's defense and they only averaged about a hundred and fourteen points per one hunter possessions in that series. So Boston had a harder time stopping Brooklyn Than Phoenix did stopping Dallas in that series. That just gives you an idea of
how successful their offense was. The reality of what happened in that series is they were completely overmatched physically everywhere on the floor because they didn't have the athletes and the size and the defensive role players to hang in that type of physical series. That's why they lost. We all knew that going into this series. We just thought, Oh, maybe Katie and Kyrie could overcome that. We knew it
was a coin flip. I think I picked up Brooklyn and seven, if I remember correctly, just because I trusted K D in a way that he performed against Milwaukee the previous year in a very similar type of series where he was overmatched in talent because of the injury
to James Harden and the injury to Kyrie Irving. He was overmatched in physicality and the defense send of the floor and he had in Milwaukee had better role players, exact same dynamic and we saw Kevin Durant make those pull up jumpers and take better care of the basketball and he had a shot with one inch. If it was one inch further away, that would have won the series. That's why we were looking at that series and with
that type of optimism towards Brooklyn. But what happened in this case is Katie's jump shot did fail him and things got ugly, which is going to happen a lot of the time when there is that big of a of a talent disadvantage. Here's the way I'm gonna look at this. A lot of you are going to take that as an opportunity to dig a grade for Kevin Durant, and if you choose to do that, be my guest. I think that's a foolish gamble. I'm not going to
overreact to one week of basketball. The reality is that was one of the best seasons, regular seasons, of Katie's career. It was his third best scoring season ever. He shot six as a true shooting percentage, which was his ninth consecutive season doing so, which is literally insane. Over the same span, I think stephitely did it five out of
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of the NF. fell he also had the best playmaking season of his career and he still is an impact defensive player. So if you guys want to write him off, be my guest. I don't think that that's a good idea. I will not be writing him off. I expect him to play like a top tier superstar this season. Looking at the off season for a second so they traded for Royce O'Neil. This was Utah's best perimeter defender, although
that's not exactly saying much. He's a bit undersized but he's super scrappy and super physical, borderline dirty at times, but a good defensive player at six FT five Um.
He shot thirty eight percent on catch and shoot threes and he fits the archetype of the player that they were missing last year, Guy that can make open shots when the defense sends attention elsewhere and that can actually thrive a little bit in the physicality and bring some of the things defensively that they did not have last year. They also signed T J Warren. Um Tj. TJ Warren is a super interesting player because he's barely played in the last two seasons, but if you look at what
he did in the previous season, it was outstanding. In not is counting the bubble, but for the whole season he shot forty on catching shoot jumpers on pull up jumpers, both outstanding numbers and also I didn't watch him a tunder in the regular season, but during that bubble run he was a pretty solid defensive player. I'd like to see more of that over a longer span before I call him a good defensive player, but I know he's capable of it. But health is the biggest question mark.
He only played four games in the two years since then, but he is only twenty nine years old and he's taken his sweet time getting over this foot injury, so hopefully he'll be ready to go. They also signed Markis Morris. We'll talk a little bit more about him later. They lost Bruce Brown. He signed a deal to year deal with Denver Um that pays about thirteen million a year or thirteen million total over two years. And then they're getting back Ben Simmons right because he was unable to
play last year, and they're getting back Joe Harris. Joe Harris is obviously one of the best shooters that we have in the League and is a great movement shooter. Ben Simmons is one of the best defensive players in the world and he's also super gifted getting to the rim. He made four point one shots in the restricted area per game in two thousand twenty one, which was fifth most among perimeter oriented players. He kind of fits into that Bruce Brown role and what they were using Bruce
Band for anyway. So that's why I'm not super critical of them letting Bruce Brown go for such a small number. Um, I just with with what he can do screening and rolling to the rim in the short roll and then some inverted pick and roll stuff in his ability to make reads as he's barreling down hill to the rim excellent, finding three point shooters all over the floor. I think he's gonna be a huge a piece of a great
fit in what they do offensively. Ideally, you want him, after the couple of years he's been away from the game, to be making his spot up threes now, at least two, you know, thirty, somewhere around there. But even if he's not, he's still a very impactful basketball player. That is a huge influx of talent on this team, especially on the defensive of the floor, defensive end of the floor, and he fits a very specific need on this roster. So
I think he's gonna help a lot. Um, looking at the depth chart at the guard position, Kyrie Irving, Joe Harris, Seth Curry, Addie Mills, Cam Thomas and Chris Ciosa. On the wing, Kevin Durant, Ben Simmons, Royce O'Neil T J, Warren Kessler Edwards and Mark Keith Morris, and then biggs, really only Nick Clackson. But I'm throwing Ben Simmons in here too because my guests is he'll play a lot of this season at the center position. It's hard to
say whether or not he'll start. Their best lineup is certainly him at center or Kevin Duran at center with him at the four, but you never know. This team really struggled with defensive rebounding last year's I wouldn't be surprised at all of Steve Nash wanted to start Claxton. I personally think that would be a mistake, especially with Simmons's inability to shoot. I would start small. I'd go with Katie and Ben, with Joe Harris and Seth Curry and Kyrie Irving. That's the way that I would go.
Before we get into some of the XS and Os, I I did want to touch on the Katie Trade Saga for just a second. That was one of the more confusing saga's that I've seen in my time following the NBA. After well, Kevin Durant did, which is not just request to trade but make it very clear that he did not like the coach in the GM, and then Kyrie also, with his antics, threatening to go to the Lakers and then openly pining for the Lakers to the tune of screaming at Laker fans that he'll be
a laker soon. With all of those things, I just thought for sure Brooklyn's front office would want a fresh start. They had enough assets to rapidly rebuild around quality players and even to be relatively interesting in the immediate future. I just thought they'd try to bail out from this experiment because it hasn't gone well for them. I think it's important to, you know, differentiate the difference between the
KD situation in the Kyrie situation too. Like Katie was never the problem, but then, you know, like it was just injuries with him, it was in his friendship with Kyrie and what that brought that ended up being an issue.
I think Brooklyn loved partnering with Kevin Durant, but because of the Kyrie that came with that, and then right there at the end, when he threw the coach in the GM under the bus the way he did in his uh, his demand to the owner, right there, it made it so that even the partnership with K D had some issues, and so I really thought that they'd move on and I was genuinely surprised that Josiah was openly pining and politicking and advocating for them coming back.
So I was I was really shocked when that resulted in him restending the request in him coming back. But that's where we're at at this point. Training camp is gonna be a little awkward. That goes without saying. Like I said, everyone on the in the team, in the locker room, on the team, knows that Katie and Kyrie don't believe in the coach and the GM. That's going
to add a little bit of tension. But the realities is that winning cures all so if they come out the gates and they start beating everybody's ass, which is absolutely a possibility with how talented they are, pretty quickly that's gonna erase any sort of animosity that lingers around this team. It's gonna be important for them to get off too hot start, but they're certainly capable of doing so. So I want to move on to the offensive end of the ball, and you guys know the drill here
we're gonna go through the offense. We're gonna go through the defense. Uh, not a whole lot of complexity to what Brooklyn does on either. into the floor. It's very brute force. But we'll get into that and then we'll talk a little bit about what their best case scenario is, their worst case scenario and who their biggest x factor is.
So on the offensive, en to the floor. Man, I poured over again hours of footage on Brooklyn this morning trying to chart some of their offensive sets, and they don't really run a ton in the way of offensive sets, at least not in terms of frequency. They do run stuff, Um, it's just it's typically after missing or typically after made free throws and after time outs, any sort of dead
ball situation. The vast majority of live ball possessions result in them bringing the ball up the floor, setting up their spacing and Katie and Kyrie going to work off the bounce. That's the way most live ball possessions will will work for Brooklyn. Get kind of similar to Dallas in that regard. That's not a bad thing, it's just it.
That's the kind of thing that will hurt you in the regular their season with your offense, but will help you in the postseason when brute force actually translates better than schematics and and set some things along those lines.
So they run this like occasional like dribble handoff motion thing where they'll just kind of bring the ball up the floor and Katie will do a dribble hand off to seth curry and then Seth Curry will dribble hand off to Kyrie and Kyrie will come back to Katie, who will then come off of like Nick Claxton to the top key, or last year was a lot of Andre Drummond. They'll do that kind of thing. Um they
do some stuff with Uh. They do some stuff with Claxton at the top of the key where they'll have Kyrie and k d kind of in like a pistol set, so it's like four out and then one at the high post and they'll both like run off faking like they're doing a dribble handoff and then Claxton will turn and Katie will screen for Seth Curry coming out of the corner and then Seth Curry will come off of Claxton. Obviously, with all of those interchanges and with Katie's defender being
unwilling to help off of Kadi. Seth Curry gets a lot of stuff coming off of those actions. They also run a ton of horns. That's the most frequent set that I would see. Typically they'll have their big. Last year was drum and this year will be Claxton or
Ben Simmons. They'll have their big and K D at the elbows and then they'll have like seth curry, drag over the top of both of them towards the side that the big man's guys on and then, like Nick Clackson's man will have to show or a lot of times just switch out onto that and then they'll flow from that into Seth Curry K D pick and rolls. Now that seth curry is being guarded by a big man, he'll pass the ball to Katie. Katie will call for Seth to comes at a screen and it's just impossible
to defend. It's difficult to defend guard guard screening actions or guard guard ball screens, even when they have the right types of defenders on them. But if they can come out of horns and get a switch onto seth curry, now you've got a big man trying to navigate that. They get all sorts of good stuff out of that kind of stuff. And then the other thing you'll see a lot of is is various screening actions that attempt to get Kadi to the elbow. Some of that is
like horns. But then after seth curry comes off of that drag screen, instead of passing to seth they'll just have Ben Simmons in this case or last year, and Nick Clackson and Andre Drummond turning cross screen for Katie to try to catch at the elbow. He's just so good catching shooting at the elbow. Of like if Katie gets a clean look catching and shooting at the elbow, he's making two thirds of those, you know what I mean.
And then if he doesn't get enough separation, he's really good operating out of the triple threat there because he's got such a good jab step jumper one like fade away. He can turn his back to the basket, he can rip through and go to the rim. A lot of like just sometimes it's as simple as just having kyrie
bring the ball up the floor. You Know Seth Curry and Joe Harris will be in the corners and Katie will work his man down to the block and then they'll have Ben Simmons come over instead a pin down and Katie will come up to catch at the elbow. A lot of like just a little basic screening actions to get Katie to catch at the elbow. Every once in a while you'll see like, you know, double double screens for a patty mills coming off for a shot
or Joe Harris coming off for a shot. They do have offensive organization that they on particularly, like I said, at a dead ball situations or out of time outs, but for the most part in live ball situations it's space things out. You know, last year, be Bruce Brown or Nick Klaxson or Andre Drummond in the dunker spot. You have your shooters in the corners, Kyrie on the opposite wing, and here comes somebody to come set a screen, usually one of the big men to come set a
screen for Katie or for Kyrie. That was usually what they got most of their stuff out of last year. Um, this concept of brute force offense. It works for Brooklyn for a couple of different reasons. One, in order to run a brute force offense you have to have outstanding advantage creators that's why it works. For Dallas, right you've got Luka Don Chich and obviously Jalen Brunson had a great season advantage creating at a pick and roll last year, and Spencer Dinwood. He had a great season out of
isolation last year. It's that same kind of concept. If you don't have the personnel to run brute force, then you have to run a lot of sets, you have to run a ton of screening actions off the ball and stuff like that. But because they have Katie and Kyrie they're uniquely equipped to run this type of offense. And, like I said, brute force translates to the playoffs because scheming and scouting make it so the teams can get
ahead of your sets. Like, guess what, you're not gonna run seth curry off of like a couple of interchanges in a dribble handoff and just get wide open looks for an entire playoff series. That's not gonna happen. They're gonna find ways to get in front of that or they'll play personnel where they don't have big men on the floor and they'll just switch things. They're gonna find
ways to shut your actions down. But they can't stop brute force without a simple decision of even leaving, either leaving you on an island to try to make you score or sending help. There is no like magic schematic fix for Kevin Freaking durant or for Kyrie Irving. It's brute force. It translates to the playoffs. It's a proven method. I believe in it. And again let's look at that
Boston Celtics Stat. We're talking about a team that lacked off ball role players that could consistently pass, dribble and shoot. You know, obviously they'd have seth curry out there doing really well, but it's a lot of Bruce Round, it's
a lot of Andre Drummond, some somewhat limited offensive players. Right. So, even despite of that, even despite the lack of continuity, even despite how poorly Kevin durant shot, despite how poorly Kyrie shot towards end of the series, despite the turnovers, despite everything, despite the lack of offensive sets, despite the you know, you know, rudimentary high pick and roll repetitively in that kind of stuff, despite all of that, they
scored more than anybody against Boston. That's the reality of brute force. Offense and it's a it's a reality that we have to acknowledge. Just because it's not as pretty as some of the other offenses we see around the league doesn't mean it's not as effective. Um. So, looking at their brute force, brute force offense, I wanted to
just kind of dive into each player really quickly. So, Kevin Durant, amongst seventeen players who registered at least two hundred ISOS last year, Katie was fourth inefficiency, at one point one points per possession, behind just a Martinoz and Carl towns and Luca Don Chech. Among seventy nine players registered at least two hundred pick and roll ball handler possessions, he was third in if eitiency at one point zero
four points per possession. Among thirty nine players who registered at least eighty dribble handoffs, Katie was seventh in efficiency, at one point zero four points per possession. So he's still the best in the world at what he does, which is create shots for himself off the bounce. That's always been what he's better than everybody at and that's what he's still better than everybody at. That's his best skill. Kyrie Irving. Last year volume was low, obviously because of
the because of the vaccine thing. Kind of had a rough season in terms of efficiency based on these specific scenarios. One point zero one points per possession and ISO, zero point nine eight and pick and roll, zero point eight eight and dribble handoff. But all three of those were way, way higher the previous season. In almost Katie esque with his production in that previous season. So I'd attribute most of that to him just being out of rhythm from
not being around the team enough last year. This season I would expect him to be back around where Katie was with his numbers there. Seth Curry's also really good with the advantages they create for him in his offense. Zero point nine six points per possession and pick and roll, one point zero five off screen, one point zero eight
in drible handoffs. He shot fifty three percent on catching shoe jumpers, which is just absolutely outrageously good, like it fits the eye test of when you're watching Brooklyn and every time seth curry gets a good look you just feel like it's going in. You also shot on pull up Jumpers and then T J Warren, like we talked about earlier in the show on catching shoe jumpers and on pull up jumpers in season, the year of the bubble.
So they're even adding to this another wing that's extremely gifted making jump shots off the balance and off the catch. That's just gonna make them even that much more dynamic offensively and, most importantly, Ben Simmons factoring in as that Short roll, screen and Roll Guy, inverted pick and rolls, everything under the sun that he can do. We'll kind of go one by one through these. So in the short role I expect once again that he should be their starting center. Even if he's not, he will close
at the center position in the short role. This year you're you're seeing Kevin Durant and Kyrie come off these screens and hit Andre Drummond with a pocket pass and he can make plays out of there when he's got his head on straight, but he also makes a ton of mistakes. First Brown's somewhat limited. Now imagine that's Ben Simmons, who's one of the most gifted passers in the League when it comes to finding three point shooters when he's
barreling down the lane. So that's great and he's just a much better athlete than both of those guys and, like we said earlier in the season, he was fifth among perimeter players in getting to the rim and finishing in the restricted area. So I expect him to be a much better short role threat than any of the players they've had in recent years. Inverted pick and rolls. We talked about this a lot with Nicola yokits when we did our player rankings. This is something that Denver
does quite a bit. Essentially, the idea there is when a big man is a ball handler, or in this case, Ben Simmons is operating as the big man and will be guarded by a center. You can imagine if Ben Simmons is starting at center and you're playing against the you know, let's say you're playing against the Minnesota Timberwolves, like that's Rudy Gobert, that's gonna have to be navigating
screening actions. It's not even a good example. Let's talk about like, you know, the Atlanta Hawks, you know, or or a team like Boston, where it's like a Robert Williams or Clint Capella. These those players struggle to navigate screens. It's just the reality of that situation. When you put them in a situation where they have to navigate screens. It's just difficult for them because they're big, they're lumbering, they're they have high centers of gravity. They're easy targets
for screeners. It just when you put yourself in a situation where, Imagine Kevin Durant is setting a ball screen for Ben Simmons and he's being guarded by someone the likes of Clint Capella. As he comes off of that screen, Katie's man is going to have to hedge or switch because if he doesn't, Ben Simmons is going to go right down the lane and dunk on your entire team. So chances are they're gonna heade or switch it, which is going to give Kevin Durant an advantage as he
pops to the three point line. To either have an opportun you need to attack a Clint Capella on a switch or there's gonna be a delay in the interchange. As as you know, Capella is fighting over the screen and as Ben Simmons Man is hedging, in which case Kevin Durant is gonna get catch and shoot threes all night long. That's kind of how inverted pick and roll works and I think with Ben Simmons on the roster,
they can run a bunch of stuff like that. Again, it's not inverted in the sense that Ben Simmons is a big but he will function as an inverted pick and roll because he'll have to be guarded by biggs with the way their lineup goes together. Um, the other thing to do there is Ben Simmons in general is going to draw defensive players that specialize in help rather than isolation, even when they're playing him alongside Claxton, which
I think is a bad idea for spacing. But even in those situations, like who are you gonna put on Ben Simmons when you're getting your matchups put together, like you're gonna put better, you know, perimeter defenders, on kd on Kyrie, on Seth Curry, on a T J Warren, if he's out there right, or on Patty Mills. So Ben Simmons is gonna draw slower footed players that they that defenses can trust to rotate to the rim and help, because they don't worry about Ben Simmons as a shooter.
So now you can imagine putting that guy in on ball situations and the way that that would cause teams to struggle. Matchups are gonna be a nightmare with the Brooklyn Nets, make no mistake. Another spot I expect Ben Simmons to help a lot is in transition. Brooklyn was
efficient in transition last year, but really low volume. Ben's gonna add a new dynamic there because of the way that he can grab the rebound and run up the floor, allowing Kevin Durant and Kyrie to run the wings, allowing Joe Harris and seth curry to run the wings and
get shots out of there. Um, he'll be in the dunker spot a lot, but Brooklyn's used to having a body down there and Katie and Kyrie are immune to spacing concerns relative to their peers around the league because they are specialists shooting over the top of the defense. To make that to put that simply, you can imagine if you're a Lebron James or you're a, you know, Russell Westbrooker or any other player that specializes in going
downhill to the rim, Janice, for instance. Excuse me. In those situations teams are just gonna collapse the paint and they're gonna Ignore Your Ben Simmons is and your Nick Claxton's and just try to put bodies between you and the rim. But if that's Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, like, they're so comfortable just shooting over the top of the defense, so they don't necessarily care who's waiting underneath the rim.
So Ben Simmons in the Dunker spot hurt Philly in a way that it won't hurt Brooklyn, and so that's that's another fit piece there that makes sense. And then, last not least, on the Ben Simmons Front, Rim pressure, like we talked about earlier. This guy was getting to the Rim almost seven times a game back that that is going to be the type of thing that I shouldn't even say getting to the rim, attempting shots at
the Rim seven times a game. So because of that, we talked about rim pressure and all the benefits there. It just collapses the defense and opens up offensive rebounding opportunities. Rim pressure has all sorts of positive impacts that follow it. So kind of zooming out a little bit from Brooklyn on the offensive end of the floor, what do I expect? If they're a hell see, they'll be a top five
offense and they'll be contending for number one again. Even with just one combined games of Kyrie and Katie last year they were a top ten offense. So you can imagine with the if, if it's a healthy season and with the addition of T J Warren, with the return of Joe Harris, with the Ben Simmons fit as an improved short role player, it's just gonna make them significantly
better on the offensive end of the floor. I still think Denver ends up getting the number one offense that I see Brooklyn in the running there and then again it's about playoff translatability. Like even if they finished as the fourth or fifth best offense, because they're not, as you know, set heavy during the regular season, they will translate to the playoffs as the number one offense. I believe if healthy this season, Brooklyn will be the best
playoff offense no matter what. So if they're good enough on the defensive end of the floor, they have a chance to get the trophy. It's that simple um like and with Denver's you know, I I view them as the best regular season offense. A lot of their stuff can be planned for in a playoff series in a way that makes things more difficult. Not that they won't be a good playoff offense, but less so than Brooklyn. The one last thing I wanted to touch on really
quickly as far as a UH offense organization. Thing for Brooklyn is they rely really heavily on pull up jump shooting. They led the league in pull up jump shots attempted per game last year. They were second inefficiency, which is to be expected with how good they are. That's affective fieldgal percentage waited for threes. But the reality is is pull up jump shooting is inconsistent even on your best day. Kevin Durant be the first guy to tell you that.
Kyrie Irving would be the first guy to tell you that. Like sometimes, no matter how hard you work at it, sometimes, no matter how skilled you are, sometimes you just go out and you shoot three for nine on pull up jump shots because sometimes you just start leaving them an in short on the rim or whatever it is. There's just an inconsistency there, lack of dependability and in any sort of small sample size, missed pull up jump shots can cost you a playoff series. We saw this with
Boston and Brooklyn last year. We saw this with the clippers in the bubble in it's a legitimate risk that comes with any team that relies on pull up jump shooting. I could even extend that to jump shooting in general. Ask The two thousand sixteen warriors. When steph and clay went cold for a series and a seventy three one team ended up losing Um. It's just something to keep
in mind. It it's more likely than not that it won't be the thing that beats them, but it's always a risk when you play offense that with that specific style and and uh in structure. So moving on to the defensive end of the floor. So last year they were the worst defensive rebounding team in all of basketball. They allowed the fifth most fast breakpoints. They were middle of the pack defending the paint. They were middle of the pack defending the three point line. Some of that
is like what do I always tell you guys? When you're a bad transition defense and when you don't rebound well, these are all and you don't take away the paint or the three point line, like if you don't prioritize one of the two for analytics purposes. That always points me towards the coach and we'll talk a little bit more about Steve Nash here in a minute. But like just reading those numbers, you start to see a little
bit of where Kevin Durant's coming from. If if this is a team that does not depend on offensive structure because their brute force and they're not well coached on the defensive end of the floor, what is Steve Nash doing now? The flip side of that is it's way too early in Steve Nash's coaching career to make sweeping statements about the type of coach he is. I would prefer to reserve that type of opinion for a few
more years. But there's no question that in the areas that are typically attributed to coaching that this Brooklyn Nets team is not doing particularly well. And one thing I'll say in Steve Nash's defense, they are completely overmatched physically last year. That will be different this year, so maybe it'll be a better gauge of what he's capable of. Lots of new defensive players. Like I said, Ben Simmons
one of the best defensive players in the league. He's an awesome weapon to throw at a star in a playoff series. I can't tell you how many times I've seen on tape. Ben Simmons like legitimately flummix the best players in the league. I've seen him give Lebron issues, I've seen him give is landard issues, I've seen him give I saw him once like completely shut down Damian Lillard in a game to the point where dame was struggling to get shots off. Like that's the level of
perimeter defender that Ben Simmons is. He wasn't healthy last year so I didn't bring him up. But UH, when I'm talking about the best perimeter defenders in basketball and I'm talking about Jayson tatum and I'm talking about Andrew Wiggins, like, when healthy, Ben Simmons might be better than all of those guys. That's the level of defensive talent that he is. Um Royce O'Neil, scrappy, physical, decent perimeter to contained guy. That's an improvement at the position compared to what they
had last year. T J Warren Um, like I said earlier, he has had good stretches of defense. I wouldn't say he's been consistent enough to call him a good defensive player, but he certainly is capable of being an above average defensive player. Mark Kith Morris I covered him with the Lakers in two thousand twenty. Really good post defender, uh
and a good health defender. Plays Hard, knows what to do on the offensive end of the floor to his decent spot up player, but he does struggle to could to contain on the perimeter against really quick guards and wings. So it's it's important that the players around him are better at a perimeter contain. Overall, this is a significant increase in defensive talent, in athleticism and and in care
and giving a crap about getting stops Um. So from that standpoint, like I just think in terms of the physical mismatches that they dealt with on the defensive end of the floor last year, they're going to be vastly improved in that regard. In terms of their offensive or defensive structure, last year it was pretty in line with what you saw from the rest of the League in terms of what they're schematically trying to do, switching a ton.
One through four drop coverages with Drummond and Claxton. Uh. In those drop coverages, their guards and wings died on screens a lot. So it did result in switching a lot, but I actually prefer switching anyway. But everything they did was just sloppy and you watch them on film and the types of mistakes they make are almost hilarious. Sometimes
kind of confusion and communicate s related. I can't tell you how many times watching Boston film where you'd see, you know, one player think it's a switch and the other not, and next thing you know two players are running off a ball screen with Marcus smart of all people, right or like guys tripping over each other because they're just like unaware of where they're supposed to be on the floor. They're just sloppy because they didn't care as much.
Some of that's on Steve Nash, some of that's on the stars, some of that's on the rest of the personnel in general. They'RE gonna have to be way better on that front to contend this year. A huge part and I'm I'm really interested to see what Kevin Durant does here, because I have been critical of Kevin Durant in his career for inconsistent defensive care and the problem there is he's so damn gifted physically that even when
he's barely caring, he's an impact defensive player. He's an above average defensive player just by putting his shoes on and running out there like that's the reality of Kevin Durant. When he cares, he's one of the best defensive players in the League and we saw that in two thousand
seventeen with golden state. I'm really interested to see what we get out of him on that end of the floor this year because with the influx of Ben Simmons, with T J Warren, if Kyrie is they're unhealthy, they won't need as much from him offensively as they've needed the last two years when he's carried such a massive burden. If he could relocate some of his resources, reallocate some of his resources towards the defensive end of the four,
they could be a top ten defense. You can imagine in Universe where Ben Simmons is locked in and Katie is locked in on the defensive end of the floor and their ability to clean up messes on the back line that are created by Seth Curry and Kyrie Irving. They're capable of being a good defensive team. They will have lineups that they'll have access to where they can play Kyrie Irving with Joe Harris and Royce O'Neil Ben Simmons and Kevin Durant and they can be a good
defensive team. Kyrie Irving, when he's engaged, even though he struggles guarding bigger players, can slide his feet on the perimeter and compete and contain on the on the defensive end. I'm really curious to see Kevin Durant Kyrie the tone that they set this year in the way that trickles down the roster. If they are a top ten defense and the number one offense in the league, they're gonna be right there in the mix with everybody. So what's
the best case scenario? If they get off to a hot start, that will be vitally important to erasing the drama from this off season. Like I said before, winning cures all. Staying healthy is obviously a key. Kevin Durant has had issues with health. Kyrie irving his at issues with health. Ben Simmons had issues with health, physically and mentally. That's all stuff that they're gonna have to deal with. T J Warren and his foot issues, all lots of
health question marks there. Kyrie Irving being bought in. It's a contract here, so I expect him to do so. Overall, defensive buy in. Ben Simmons and Royce O'Neil are not gonna be able to clean up all of these defensive messes. They need Kyrie and Katie to dedicate themselves to the
defensive end of the floor. If they do all of those things and they stay healthy, they will be a top tier contender, not just in this you know, if things go right tier there will be a top tier contender if those things go right, and that's what the whole purpose of this tier is. Like I was saying yesterday with the Phoenix Suns. They have all this talent, but the question is whether or not their top end talent will hold up their end of the bargain. Right
with Brooklyn it's the opposite type of effect. I can count on K D and what he's gonna Bring this here when he's healthy. I can count on Kyrie. It's the drama stuff. It's the Ben Simmons thing, it's the T J warren healthy thing, it's the Steve Nash thing. There's all these question marks surrounding Kevin Durant. That makes this team and, if things go right, contender. But in terms of talent and fit they are every bit as good as the top teams in the league and you
would be foolish to underestimate them. I absolutely think I think they're capable of being uh winning the NBA Championship. Make no mistake, if you find yourself in a playoff series against a healthy Brooklyn Nets team that cares about what they're doing on both ends of the floor, you will have to go down against lineups with Kyrie Irving, Joe Harris, or Kyrie Irvings, Seth Curry, Joe Harris, Ben Simmons and Kevin Durant, and that's gonna Be Really Damn
hard to beats. Four Times out of seven. It's just don't write them off. Don't make that mistake. Worst case scenario, obviously they get off to a rough start, which exacerbates all of the drama stuff surrounding the team. All of those question marks I just referenced go south. This could be a situation where they're blown up before the deadline and Kyrie and Katie are on different teams by March. So that's how far things can go south. Like I said,
a really wide range between outcomes here. For this particular team, the biggest x factor is Ben Simmons. In my opinion. Obviously as major health concerns, both mentally and physically. Obviously he's got back issues. His mental health reared. It's a rear it's head again in the in the late series against Boston last year when he said he wasn't gonna pull Um. And then obviously he's got offensive shortcomings, particularly
when he loses confidence. When Ben Simmons is confident and he's bringing the ball up the floor and spraying the shooters and attacking the rim aggressively and just playing free, he has the winning impact of a top ten player because of how good he is on the defensive end of the floor. But when he loses his confidence he becomes borderline unplayable because he doesn't want to do anything with the basketball. He wants to get rid of it. He won't even attempt shots when things get tight at
the end of games. He has a very wide range of outcomes and that's why he's the x factor for this team. There's a version of this story where Brooklyn wins the NBA Championship and in that Universe Ben Simmons is a top fifteen player and that's what they're going to need out of him in order to get that Larry O'Brien trophy. It's absolutely within the realm of possibility that it's gonna be on Ben Simmons to hold up his end of the bargain there, but I think he's
the big as x factor for this team. All right, guys, that is all I have for today. We got one more show this week. Tomorrow we'll be back with number five, the last of our, if things go right, contenders. You guys could probably take a wild guess at who that is. As a matter of fact, I bet you most of you could probably figure it out. I sincerely appreciate you guys, rocking with us and we'll see you tomorrow. The Volume