The volume TD Tuddy taking it to the house in for six. Whatever you call a touchdown, one thing is for sure. Touchdowns matter more at DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NFL. On the ground, in the air, from the special teams or defense, we don't care how they score them. We want to bet on touchdowns, and DraftKings Sportsbook is the number one place to bet touchdowns. Ready to place your first NFL bet? Try betting on
something simple like a player to score a touchdown. Go to the Draftking Sportsbook app and make your bet today. You can also bet on who's gonna win the Super Bowl right now. DraftKings has the Kansas City Chiefs as the favorite at plus five hundred, followed by the San Francisco forty nine ers at plus six hundred. Ready to do a touchdown dance of your own? New DraftKings customers bet five dollars to get two hundred and fifty dollars in bonus bets instantly and get one month of NFL
Plus Premium. Download the Draft Kings Sportsbook app and use code hoops that's hops, that's code hoops for new customers to get two hundred and fifty dollars in bonus bets when you bet just five bucks and at one month of NFL Plus premium only on DraftKings. The Crown is yours.
Gambling problem called one eight hundred gambler In New York call eight seven seven eight hope and why, or text hope and why to four six seven three six nine and Connecticut help is available for problem gambling Call eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot org. Please play responsibly on behalf of Boothill Casino and Resort in Kansas twenty one plus. Age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction void in Ontario. Bonus bets
expire one hundred and sixty eight hours after issuance. For eligibility terms and responsible gaming resources, see DKNG dot co slash ft ball. NFL Plus premium offer available only to new and former NFL Plus subscribers. Additional NFL Plus premium terms at NFL dot com slash terms. All Right, welcome to hoops tonight here at the Vaulume. Happy Wednesday, everybody. Hope all you guys are having a great week so far.
I got a jam pack show for you today we're hitting three more teams in our season preview series, the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Sacramento Kings, and the Orlando Magic. Some very very interesting teams, the Magic and the Kings in particular upgrading to starting spots, and the Cleveland Cavaliers more or less running back the same team. They're starting five locked in for the foreseeable future. So a couple of different types of pathways that we're going to be getting into.
You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter that underscore json LT so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about a podcast feed where you get your podcast on or Hoops Tonight. Don't forget it's also helpful if we leave a rating and a review on that front. In the last but not least, keep dropping mail bag
questions in those YouTube comments. Starting next week, when we go down to one team per day, we're going to start hitting a mail bag at the tail end of every episode. All right, let's talk some basketball. So number seventeen in our power rankings, the Cleveland Cavaliers not too much to get into. In their offseason, they lost Damian Jones,
Isaiah Mobley, and Marcus Morris. They added JT Thor from South Sudan who had that super impressive game against Team USA in the exhibition, Luke Travers, a player that drafted a while ago who's coming over from Australia on a two way contract, and they drafted Jalen Tyson in the late first round. All changes to their back end of their roster. They're more or less the same team they were last year. I don't think any of those guys
will be in their regular rotation this year. It'll be guys that probably come in and out of the lineup based on injuries. We'll see how things progress over the course of the season. So the Cavs are more or
less the same team that they were last year. They re upped with Donovan Mitchell, Jared Allen, and Isaac Accorro, so all five of their starters are now contractually locked up for each the next three seasons, including Isaac Accorro as presumably a bench player, he usually will only start if one of their main guys is out of the lineup.
The Max Drews edition has been really fun for their offense in the sense that, like you know, a lot of times we talk about five out offense as a concept of like the ball moving from side to side and guys like dribbling off of off of ball screens, but it can be a lot more complicated than that, and we're going to talk about this when we get
into the Magic as well. But having a real movement shooter is another dynamic that comes in with five out offense, not just the side to side flow and having Max be able to come off of a dribble handoff and look to shoot, but also an off ballplayer movement, which is an important part of occupying help defenders to open things up for your main ball handlers. Right, and I went back and I watched game one of the Magic
Calves series this year. I've watched it on Monday morning as prep for the Calves as well as for the Magic as we were coming up on them in this list. And the very first play of that series for the Calves was a really, really nice example of beautiful five
out offense. Darius Garland came up the floor. He ran a ball screen that flowed into a dribble handoff for Donovan Mitchell coming off the opposite end of the floor, who then swung the ball and that flowed into kind of like a Chicago action coming out of the corner. It's a pin down into a dribble handoff where Max Druce comes flying off of it, and as he comes flying off, Darius Garland sets the first screen. The second screen I think was mobile if I remember correctly, and
Max comes off of it good pick. Darius throws a good pick, and so when that second pick comes, Max gets plenty of separation and he just gets that left foot, right foot down in textbook shooter footwork and rises up
off the move and knocks down that three. He's been a really a greaser of the wheel, so to speak, in that Calves five out offense because of his ability to hit threes while on the move, or at least his willingness to take them, including Struce and Georgis Niang, definitely helped with their spot up efficiency, which was their
ultimate goal with those moves. If you guys remember two years ago, the Calves were twentieth in spot up efficiency according to Synergy, the rate at which they converted spot up possessions into points that went all the way up to ninth last year with the additions of Struce and Kniyang, so definitely a significant increase there. That said, though they actually dipped in offensive efficiency as a team from eighth to sixteenth year over year, despite them massively increasing their
three point volume. They went from twenty fourth and three point volume to eighth and three point volume. But the main driver there the reason why their offense slipped. Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell combined to miss twenty five more games than they did the previous year. So a lot of offensive progress last year for the Caves, even though
it didn't necessarily show up in the metrics. The Evan Mobley issue on the offensive end kind of like took a different form this year in the sense that like he actually improved substantially as a spot up guy. Two years ago, Evan Mobley was converting spot up possessions at zero point six to one points per possession. Last year, he got it all the way up to one point zero four. That's like a gigantic improvement. That's almost like a two x year over year improvement, and he went
from atrociously bad to actually slightly above average. But the main issue the issue that rose in the Knick series, which was his inability to score on the role, actually took a dip. He went from one point zero nine points per possession in rollman situations two years ago to one point zero one, so roughly a eight percent decrease
in his efficiency on the role. Still shot just thirty nine percent on hooks and floaters and shot just fifty seven percent on layups, right, So for a big guy like that, we're hoping in the mid sixties for layup efficiency,
hopefully overall at the rim closer to seventy. Right. So that's the real issue with Evan Mobley is just when he's catching in the middle of the floor and he needs to make a quick move for a floater, a quick like drop step into a left shoulder hook, or even if he just needs to finish in traffic in a way that's not an easy dunk, he just can be relatively inefficient there compared to his peers. And that's
really the crux of the issue. Because Donovan Mitchell is awesome, Jared Allen is a rock solid NBA center, Max Struz is what he is, but Evan Mobley has significant offensive limitations. And then Darius Garland as even though he's a productive offensive player in the regular season, has consistently gone down a level when he's run into high level NBA playoff defenses.
So so far in Darius Garland's career, in seventeen playoff games, he's getting just seventeen points per game on fifty three point six percent true shooting with just five and a half assists. That is, both of those numbers, including the efficiency, significant dropoffs from his regular season production. And that is while he's also Cleveland's most targeted player on the defensive
end of the floor. And so he goes from being kind of like a net positive in a big way for the Calves in the regular season to somewhat of an issue when he gets into the postseason. And really you have to look beyond the individual production, even for Donovan Mitchell, and just look at the fact that the Cavs offense just hasn't been successful when they get to the playoffs. They had a one oh four point seven
offensive rating in the playoffs last year, that's putrid. The year before, when they lost to the Knicks, they had a one oh one point nine offensive rating. That's even worse.
Last year when they played teams in the top ten in point differential in the regular season, they went just ten and sixteen in overall record, and when they played against a top ten defense according to Cleaning the Glass, they scored just one hundred and eleven point three points per one hundred possessions in the regular season, which ranked twenty first among NBA teams against the top ten defenses in the league, and so like pretty consistently, when the
competition wraps a ramps up for the Cavs, they can't score, and that really is the main issue that puts a hard ceiling on this team. They're core five guys last year, Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, Max Strus, Evan Mobley, and Jared Allen. When they shared the floor together, they were just plus
one point four net per one hundred possessions. And so there seems to be kind of like a ceiling here and they're essentially locked in for the next three years with what I think is the seventh best team in the Eastern Conference. Boston is clearly better. New York is clearly better, Milwaukee is clearly better. I think Indiana's better. Philly I think is pretty clearly better. I even think
Orlando will be better than them this year. Obviously, Cleveland got the advantage in the playoff series over them last year, but they were trailing big in Game seven. Orlando upgraded a starting spot and their young players have a lot more potential for improvement year over year. I think Orlando is going to be better than them. So it's you know,
I get it. Not everybody has access to top to your free agents and the ability to manipulate the agent market to pull consistent high level talent, So like, not everybody gets to be a Boston, you know, and have five thirty million dollar players, So I get it. But at the same time, like that's a you're essentially locked
in to a play in team. With the way this is currently constructed, you might be able to leap one of those teams as a regular season team due to injuries or maybe just inconsistency of effort, and maybe you get into that five or six spot, but it's very possible that you're a playing team, and it seems very
unlikely that they'll win a playoff round this year. And so again, like I've I've been preaching about this for a long time, and maybe this is something they look to do the course of this season, but I would look to turn Darius Garland into more of a Ford weapon, and then I would try to slide Max Strus to the two. I don't know who that is. Maybe that's a brandon Ingram, maybe that ends up being a Julius Randall.
I'm not sure who it ends up being in the long run, but at a certain point, I think the Caves need to be a little more aggressive. Number sixteen The Sacramento Kinks. Significant offseason for them, a lot of roster turnover. They lost Harrison Barnes, Quis Duarte, Kessler Edwards, JaVale McGee, Davion Mitchell, and Sasha Vazankov. They added Devin Carter, their first round pick, guy I really like, but he injured his shoulder, so he's not going to be available
at least for the start of the season. Jalen McDaniels, the brother of Jaden McDaniels from the Minnesota Timberwolves. Jordan McLaughlin a backup guard from the Minnesota Timberwolves, more of a defensive minded guy. Orlando Robinson, a backup center is playing for the Miami Heat last year, and then Tomarta Rosen, a high usage two guard. We're gonna spend a good amount of time talking about today. That was the splashy move that Sacramento made their new depth chart at guard
really guard heavy. Darren Fox, Tomarta Rozen, Malik Monk, Kevin Herder, Devin Carter, and Keon Ellis who started for them in the playoffs and towards the tail end of the season last year. I should say not in the playoffs, but at the tail end of the season last year, because they didn't make the playoffs. The forward position they're a little thin. They have three guys that I look at as legitimate rotation guys, Keegan Murray, Trey Lyles, and Jalen McDaniels.
So when you got six guards and three forwards that presumably can play for you, that kind of like tends to push towards the obvious inevitable outcome that they will make some sort of consolidation trade where you try to turn some of that guard talent into talent at the forward position. The guy that kind of like obviously stands out there for me is Kevin Herder, because Demarta Rosen is clearly just going to slot into that starting spot.
He was already looking like a lesser option then Keon Ellis anyway, because of Keon Ellis's ability to defend at the point of attack, and so like I think that Kevin herd her ends up being the obvious guy that you could see Sacramento try to turn into a forward prospect or a forward rotation piece at some point this season at center demonas Sabonis, Alex lenn and Orlando Robinson. Question is who's going to start at the forward spots.
So again, as we know in the past, it used to be Hurd Heer at the two, than Keegan Murray at the three, Harrison Barnes at the four, and then it turned into Keon Ellis at the two. But that's obviously going to be DeMar Derozen now. So the question is, with Harrison Barnes gone, are you sliding Keegan Murray to the four and then cramming Kevin Herder in at the three, or are you just moving Trey Lyles into the starting lineup.
My guess is that's what they'll do. My guess is they'll end up starting the season with Trey Lyles at the four and then you roll with Fox and de Rozen in the back court. With Keegan Murray at three and Demonisa Bonis at the five. But that's just again a really weak defensive front line, which it already was under Harrison Barnes. But it's just it's not super vertically athletic. It's not a group that is great at contesting shots on the front line, and that just puts a lot
of trouble or responsibility on your perimeter defenders. And again, if we're talking Deer and Fox, Keegan Murray and Demart Rosen, you know, Keegan Murray has shown a lot of defensive potential. We're going to talk about that in a little bit. Deer and Fox. I think that's a huge untapped part of his game that we might get to see more of in the future. But as a core right now, with those three perimeter guys, it's not a lot of
defensive pedigree there at that point in time. So we'll get a little bit more into the defensive end here in a minute, but my guess is that they will look to bolster that frontline at some point in the future with Kevin Herder in a trade. Uh the Demart de rozen fit I actually really like. I think he brings a great combination of scoring and playmaking that'll work really well in dribble handoffs and the King system. He's was one of the most efficient shot creators in the
league last year. He made all three of our high volume lists. So those are the guys who've watched their player rankings videos, we'll know what I'm talking about. Yeah, one point zero six points per pick and roll that was eight out of fifteen players to run at least a thousand, one point one to five points per ISO including passes. That was second out of twenty four players to run at leastwo hundred fifty, so second best ISO
player in the league. And then one point one to one points per post up that was third out of the eighteen players to run at least two hundred and fifty including passes. That was just behind Yo Kitchen Lebron. So like, he's gonna eat up a ton of usage and he's gonna generate high quality offense for you with that usage. That's going to open up a lot in terms of like resources of energy that Deer and Fox
was having to spend throughout the season last year. Malik Monk was a guy that was capable of taking up usage, but there was a little bit more of an inconsistency factor there, and then anytime you tried to play him alongside Deer and Fox, things got a little bit undersized, Things could get a little bit sketchy on the defensive end. To Marta, Rozen obviously brings his own defensive limitations, but at the very least a little bit bigger and a little bit more got a little bit more like strength
and girth in that starting lineup. But what I like is like it allows it frees up Deer and Fox on offense to one be more picky and efficient, meaning like he doesn't have to take as many bad shots when he's tired because he can actually depend on his his co star there to eat up that usage successfully.
And then the second piece of it is it'll allow Deer and Fox to devote more resources to the defensive end of the four, which I think is an area of Daran's Dearen's game that is really untapped at this
point in his career. I saw a lot of reps during that Warrior series in the playoffs two years ago where I was like, man, this guy has the potential to be a truly outstanding guard defender in this league, and so if you put him next to a guy that can eat up massive amounts of usage, then he can be more picky and be more of like a twenty three to twenty four point per game guy that is a all defense its candidate instead of a twenty eight point per game guy that picks and chooses his spots
on the defensive end of the floor. With that, even though it might hurt Dearren Fox in terms of his overall scoring output, I think it will increase something like a version of that, a version of himself that looks like that. I think would earn him more respect around the league and also would make the Kings a better basketball team, which is really the ultimate goal here right. One of the big question marks for this season is what type of ceiling can Keegan Murray get to as
a two way player. He was actually the best ISO defender in the league last year to hit at least one hundred ISOs defended. He allowed to zero point six to eight points per possession one hundred and thirteen reps.
Really good at like understanding his advantage's length, meaning he gives a little bit more space so that he can contain the drive, and then he offers great contests after absorbing contact, he anticipates which direction the player is driving, beats him to the spot by virtue of the fact that he can give more space, and then he's got the long arms to close that gap and get really
good contests. Again, one hundred and thirteen ISOs defended last year just zero points six to eight points per possession allowed. But he was a twenty ninth percentile ball screen defender. Now, some of that is their frontline. Again, anytime you're defending a ball screen, there's two sides to that bracket, right, there's the big guy in his ability to bother the ball handler, and then there's the back pressure element. Right.
But on film, I watched a bunch of clips of Keegan Murray defending ball screens just kind of refamiliarize myself with it. This morning, he did not navigate screens very well. He was a little slow with his back pressure, and so combined with that front line, they need Keegan Murray to just do a better job just staying attached in
those trailing situations where he has to navigate screens. And again, like if they're gonna have any chance to make real noise in the Western Conference, especially with Demarto's and demonis bonus on the floor and a weak power forward owing to need Keegan, Murray and Deer and Fox to be all defense level defenders, maybe not receiving the award, but
certainly in that conversation to make any real noise. And then on the offensive end, he increased his scoring volume last year, but he did take a dip in efficiency. The main reason why there is he massively increased the volume of pull up jump shots he was taking. He took sixty six two years ago, took one hundred and ninety six last year, but only got zero point eighty five points per shot on them, So like a lot of long twos, not hitting them at a super high rate.
That's going to hurt his efficiency. But he's going into year three now, so what type of improvement can he make on both ends of the floor. That's a major swing factor for the Kings this year. In summary, I expect the Kings to take a leap offensively this year. They were thirteenth in offensive rating last year. I could see them getting up to six or seven just with more consistency of shot creation. But I could also see a dip for them on the defensive end of the floor.
Tomarta Rozen is not a good defender, and they're very limited on the front line this year. If you guys remember, they finished the year with Kean Ellis in the starting lineup. He's more of a traditional three and D guard, and they had some really high level defensive performances sporadically throughout the season. Now you're going to be having Deer and Fox and Keegan Murray take the primary perimeter assignments every
single game. That's a lot to ask for them, So a lot is going to come down to how they do. As of right now, though, I have the Sacramento Kings as a play in team number fifteen. One of the most interesting teams going into next year the Orlando Magic. A little bit of roster tunnover. They lost Markel Foltz, Joe ingles Chumo Keke and Admiral Schofield. They added Centavious Caldwell Pope. That's the splashy addition for them this summer.
Jared Kulver, a former lottery pick two guard from who was originally drafted by Minnesota, Corey Joseph backup point guard, and then they drafted Tristan to Silva in the first round, who is a kind of traditional three and D wing type of prospect. So presumably KCP is going to get the Gary Harris starting job. That'll put our starting lineup at KCP, Jalen Suggs, Franz Wagner, Palo Buoncara, and Wendell Carter Junior. I think Orlando Magic fans are gonna love KCP.
I obviously covered him very closely with the Lakers as a fan rooting for that team and then eventually covering the league. And I also covered him very closely with the Nuggets. That's a team that I covered extremely closely over the last three years. Right, he's getting a little bit older and a little bit more worn down. He's thirty one years old now. But I have a little bit of a positive outlook on that that we'll get to in a little bit, and that has to do
with Jalen Suggs we'll get to in a minute. But he is just a rock solid starting guard in the NBA. He's a very good guard defender. He can struggle a little bit against size and strength guys that can overpower him. Right. We saw that in the second round series against Anthony Edwards. He just was hopeless. The ant is built like an F one fifty, you know. But I also saw that back when he was with the Lakers. Whenever the Lakers would use him to guard opposing forwards, he just would
struggle with those types of matchups. But against guards guards that don't have outstanding size and strength. He pressures the ball really well, he navigates screens well, he applies back pressure. He's actually one of the better point of attack defenders in the league. He just needs to be aimed at somebody that's not quite as big and strong. But that is where the Jalen Suggs factor is a huge advantage. KCP was the primary point of attack defender in Denver.
Jamal Murray was not getting those types of assignments. Aaron Gordon was guarding bigger forwards, right, So having Jalen Suggs to one be able to guard the bigger, stronger types of guards, and two to primarily put KCP on the
second and best perimeter initiator for the other team. That is going to make a thirty one year old guard who looks a little bit on the downslope into a guard that's actually staying within matchups that he can handle, which will make him look younger and more effective than he was last year in Denver, and so it's I actually look at this as a as an interesting move for Cacp's career because now he's slotted more in an achievable role for him on an elite defensive team, and
I think he's going to benefit from that. He's also a very good off ball defender. He's always where he's supposed to be. He shoots passing lanes well, he can jump those gaps, just does his job on every single possession. He is a rock solid NBA starter. Again, I just think I think Magic fans are really going to like him. On offense, Cacp is a master at scoring on the margins. He's a good spot up player. He converts spot up possessions at one point one to six points per possession.
That's in the eighty second percentile. That ranked twenty seventh out of one hundred and nineteen players in the NBA last year to log at least two hundred spot up reps, so a very very good floor spacer. He's an excellent transition player. He was over eightieth percentile in both volume and efficiency for transition scoring last year. He's a very
fast straight line runner. When he runs the rim, he's a very good leaper off of his left leg and single leg jumping situations, which allows him to extend and get the ball to the backboard before defenders that are pursuing behind him. But he also runs his lane to the corners well. He can run and quickly get his feet set in transition in the corner, knockdown corner threes. He's a very good three point shooter from the corner. He knocked down forty two percent of his corner threes
last year, so very effective transition score. And he's a legitimate movement shooter. Whenever he's curling around screens or slipping out of guard screens, he can quickly get his feet set on the move and knockdown shots. And as we know,
that's a significant part of The Magic's offense. They run a lot of inverted ball screens where they'll have Fronz or Pollo with the ball, but they'll have you know, someone like a Gary Harris or Jalen Suggs set the screen and then quickly slip out of it and try to make themselves available at the three point line, and those guys can knock down those shots, but they are
not as consistent with it. I think ACP comes in immediately as a better movement shooter than both of those guys to help kind of unlock a little bit more of that inverted ball screen game that Orlando likes to play again. Just a rock solid starter, a legitimate upgrade over Gary Harris. I think that Magic fans are going to love rooting for KCP. The strength of this Orlando Magic team as a in totality is their defensive end of the floor. Right. They finished third in defensive rating
last year. They did a wonderful job in the playoff series of grinding offense Cleveland's offense down into the mud. It's not hard to figure out why they have top tier guard defenders, right. Jalen Suggs is about as good a guard defender as you'll find in the league. Gary Harris is also solid. Contavious Cobop Hope is better than Gary Harris too, so it'll be even better this year. So they can get after the damn basketball like they can pressure the ball, but they also have a ton
of interior size behind that. This is a massive frontline with Franz Wagner, Palo Buoncaro, Wendell Carter, Junior Jonathan Isaac when he's out there. They have a ton of length and size on the interior. So you combine good perimeter defense that funnels into a ton of interior size, and they are a dominant defensive rebounding team. They grabbed seventy four percent of opponents misses last year. That was the
second best mark in the entire NBA. So that's just an end of the floor that I don't worry about. Elit defensively and just about every phase. An elite defensive rebounding team, that's not something I worry about. I think they're gonna be another top three defense in the NBA this year. The offensive end is Worlando gets really hard to watch. Obviously, the numbers aren't pretty. Just a couple
examples for you guys. They were twenty second in offensive rating last year thirtieth so dead last, and three point volume three pointers made per game twenty fourth and three point percentage twenty eighth, and assists here's the weird one, twenty seventh in fast break points scored per game, twenty
fifth in overall transition frequency. According to Cleaning the Glass, twenty fourth in transition efficiency according to Cleaning the Glass, So they don't For an athletic team that defends really well, they don't capitalize on that in transition, which just feels like a waste of an opportunity there, which we'll get a little bit more into in a little bit, but I want to start in the half court because it's
just a really ugly brand of offense. I rewatched, as I mentioned earlier, I rewatched Game one of the Caves Magic Series earlier this week to help prep for both of these teams, and it's just jarring to watch the difference in ball in player movement between those two teams.
I talked about how the first possession for the Caves, they come up the floor and they run a beautiful five out sequence with two different ball screen actions that switch sides to the floor, and then they switch sides to the floor again for a Chicago action with Max Strews coming off and hitting a movement jump shot. You
go over to the other end of the floor. Orlando just consistently walks the ball up the floor and everyone stands around while Franz Apollo decide if they want to go one on one and if they decide not to go one on one. They'll call for a guard to comes set a screen and then slip out of it. And then so many of those palo ISOs turn into tough, fade away jump shots that he just doesn't hit a high percentage of. Franz tends to get a little closer to the rim and he takes more floaters, but he's
been nightmarishly bad as a jump shooter. He shot below thirty percent overall and field goal percentage on jump shots last year. So, like it just was an issue, right And when they get into the half court, it's so stagnant. There's no off ball movement, there's no getting the ball from side to side, there's no flowing into multiple actions on the same possession. It just it just is ugly.
It's ugly basketball to watch, and like a lot of it is personnel, I want to be clear, but there are ways to get more out of that personnel and make things easier for them. There are two main areas where I'm looking for improvement from the Orlando Magic this year. One, I want them to look to score and transition more frequently. You're a dominant defense, that means you're going to get a lot of live ball rebounds, right, live ball defensive rebounds where you can get up and down the floor.
You're also a very athletic team. You're athletic now, especially in a different way in the sense that KCP is one of the best transition scoring guards in the league. So when you struggle to score in the half court, you need to try to turn defense into easy offense as much as possible, to supplement that and to avoid that static half court situation as much as possible. Then two, when you get into the half court, incorporate more ball
and player movement. Now, to be clear, I understand some of the reason why teams like Orlando don't move the ball a time. Right when your primary ball handlers are bigger bullyball players forwards like Palo in fronts, most NBA defenses will just switch actions that are involve those big guys because you don't want to ask your big forwards on defense to navigate screens. That's always a recipe for disaster. So teams will do a lot of switching, so screening
actions aren't as effective. But this is where I actually want to use the Lakers as an example, because I actually think they're a perfect example of why that shouldn't matter when you're designing your offense. The Lakers have a similar construct on their frontline. They have Rui Hachimura, Lebron James, and Anthony Davis, three really big, offensively gifted forwards, and they ran into similar issues two years ago. Teams were
switching against their front line. Things were getting stagnant, and they were a bad offense. Now to a lesser extent because they have a lot more talent offensively, but a similar issue in terms of a ball handling, big front line that teams were switching against a lot. In twenty twenty three, there were fourth in excuse me, fifteenth in assists, and nineteenth in offensive raiding, so an average ball movement
team and a bad offense. But then they moved to a lot more ball in player movement in a five out context last year and their offense exploded with the exact same front line. In their last forty six games last year, they were fourth in assists in third in offense, just by getting the ball flowing from side to side
and having more on and off ball player movement. Right now, to be clear, the guard ball handling situation in Orlando is not as good as Austin Reeves and D'Angelo Russell, right, So I'm not expecting it to look as fluid and nice as it did for the Lakers towards the tail end of the year last year. But KCP is an awesome five out guard. He can make a play coming off of a dribble handoff, but he's also an extremely
gifted off ball cutter and screener. We talked about this in the Cavs segment, right, Like five out offense, there's a lot of misconceptions about five out offense. One, you need a shooting five No, you don't. The Warriors run a beautiful five out attack with two non shooters on
the floor at all times. It's not about that. It is about ball and player movement going from side to side, and then two thinking that it's about flowing only with on ball action, meaning like a lot of people think five out is like dho's and ball screens just alternating sides. That's a way that some teams play five out, but that's not the only way. Another way to play play five out is to have your bigs, your non shooting fulcrums or whatever you want to call them, operating at
the elbows while you're running off ball screening actions. The Nuggets are really good at this. Right, Like Yokis should be dribbling at the elbow, and like you'll have KCP and Jamal Murray like screening for each other, and like one of them will go to get a dribble handoff from Yokics, but then the other guy will just quick slip to the basket and Yoki, you'll throw them a pass. Right.
That's where you use the guys at the elbows as passing fulkrums while the dudes are running off ball action looking to slip to the three point line into the for easy catch and shoot threes and layups when teams
botch switches right. So like KCP may not be able to dribble the way that d Loo and Austin does, But why can't you have Polo and Franz operating around the elbows the way they do a lot, but then just have an off ball action running near by them that either one will occupy help defenders show that Palo and Frans operate with more space, or two give them opportunities to throw passes over the top for easy offense off the ball again more ball in player movement five
out does not mean you take the ball out of Palo in Franz's hands. It's just as simple as running a lot of the same stuff you do with more off ball ball in player movement, right clearing the side, run a two man game with like Jalen Suggs and plow like you always do, and then just have KCP screening and cutting along the backside while guys are moving, and it will make life easier for you. Again, I'm not expecting the Magic to turn in to a well
oiled machine on offense, certainly not right away. But if they incorporated more of those sorts of things and they built that rhythm over the course of the season, it might just squeeze a little bit more out of this sponge. When you're a top three defense and a top three rebounding team, you only need to be average on offense to be a real threat to win. You can get up into that eleven to fifteen range on offense. Now, all of a sudden, you have a shot to win
the conference in a way that you wouldn't otherwise. And this is stuff in the long run that will make this a better team. There are very few teams in NBA. I can't even think of one off the top of my head that don't have ball and player movement in that win. It's a difficult style to win. You've got to get the ball moving from side to side. You got to get the ball popping around. Last piece of this,
Palo and Franz have to become better jump shooters. Specifically, Franz has to become a better catch and shoot shooter and Palo needs to become a better off the dribble shooter. Franz was overall twelve for forty on jump shots in the playoffs and shot below thirty percent in the regular season.
His jumpers just broke. Got to figure that out. Paolo actually shot his catch and shoot jump shot pretty well in the postseason, but he took fifty eight pull up jump shots in that seven game series and got just zero point eighty six points per shot out of them. That ended up hurting his efficiency. He ran forty six ISOs in that series and got just thirty one points including passes. That's just zero points sixty seven points per possession,
which is awful. So again, like Frauds, has to be able to knock down an open ketch and shoot jumper when his man's helping off of him. Polo needs to be able to become more efficient as a score in those ISO situations. For me, I love him to turn more of those like left shoulder fades where he's taking really tough fades, and turn them more into hooks. There's a reason why, like NBA two guards will take tough left shoulder fades. They're freaky, vertically athletic, and they're typically
shooting over tall, lanky wing defenders. Polow has a size advantage on everyone. I'd love for him to turn those more into a physically aggressive move that's a hook rather than a fade over that left shoulder. He basically doesn't take hooks right now. He made six all season and made zero in the playoffs. I think that's a part of his game that he could build out. But improving as a jump shooter overall for both players is important.
Polo just being a little bit more of a bully ball player rather than a fadeaway jump shooter I think would go a long way. But I'm very excited to watch the Orlando Magic this year. They are built to one day be a great playoff team because they defend, they rebound, and they're really physically imposing. They can drag
games down into the mud. But they have to find ways to make things easier for them on the offensive end of the floor, and there are just some proven ways to do that that are untapped for them, including running the ball more in transition and just more ball in player movement in the half court. I have them as the sixth best team in the East this year, and the teams above them are all just a little bit more older and experienced, and they made some substantial
improvements to their roster over the offseason as well. But this team obviously the sky's the limit with their young players and the growth that we project for them over the course of the next few years. Very much looking forward to covering them closely this year. All right, guys, that is all I have for today. Is always as sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. We'll be back on Friday with three more teams. I will see
you guys then the volume. What's up guys. As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting hoops tonight. They would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take a second and leave a rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.