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to Hoops tonight. You're at the volume. Happy Friday, everybody. I hope all of you guys had a great week. Got a jam packed show for you today. Got a little bit of NBA news today. Joel Embiid has signed a three year, one hundred and ninety three million dollars maximum extension, so he's now locked up for the next five years at an average annual salary of sixty million dollars. So we're gonna talk about that a little bit off
the top. And then we're continuing with our power rankings today with number fourteen through number twelve season preview style, so we'll be doing season previews on the New Orleans Pelicans, the Golden State Warriors, and the Indiana Pacers. You guys have the drope 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 at underscore Jason Lts.
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of this year. All right, let's talk some basketball. So the Joel Embiid extension three years, one hundred and ninety three million, locked up for five years at an average annual salary of sixty million, and there's a couple of different angles to look at this from. I understand why Daryl Morey and the Sixers did this. The Sixers have been a disappointing team, right. They haven't achieved as much as certainly people in Philly have hoped for over the
course of this last few years. Right. And it got a little weird last year, right, Like we had Joel Embiid showing up with Paul George to a playoff broadcast before that deal was done, which is like a legitimate, like kind of passive aggressive type of pressure move to be like we need more firepower. Right, And it's been a weird saga over the course of the Embiid experience, right, Like we had to hold Ben Simmons thing and how
that went south. Obviously, Joel Embiid was very fond of Jimmy Butler and wanted him, and then he ended up getting a Tobias Harris ended up getting preferred over Jimmy Butler over the course of that summer, which ended up being something that Joel Embiid did some passive aggressive stuff kind of surrounding that move. Right. So you're basically it seems as though you're one trade and record like one bad season away from potentially a trade demand. Right. So
locking up Joel Embiid helps that in two ways. One, it's a gesture of good faith. Right, You're offering an enormous amount of money to Joel Embiid after the specific season where most of your concerns about Embiid's floor came to the surface, right between him not even playing half the season and not being able to get his team out of the first round and looking like he was
wearing down at the end of those Knicks games. Right, So it's an act of good faith after a season like that to offer him such a massive guarantee that builds cachet in that relationship. Right. And then the second piece of it is it makes his contract borderline untradeable in the sense that even where if Embiid were to request a trade it would be difficult to find willing trade partners at that point, which almost kind of further
anchors Joel Embiid in Philly. Right. But I also understand the NBA fan base at large and how they would look at this and be like, what the hell are you guys doing, Because now you have, on average for the next four years, over one hundred and ten million dollars guaranteed tied up in Paul George and Joel Embiid, two players who are notoriously hurt all the time. I pulled this thatt this morning. In the last five years combined for those two guys, so ten total seasons, they've
reached sixty games three times. Between the two of them combined over the last five years. They're notoriously unavailable, and with exception of little short bursts, both of them notoriously seem to go down a signific level in terms of their winning impact when they get to the postseason. Right. So, like, I think that's fair criticism, and I understand how people from the outside looking in would say that. But this is where we have to be honest about the reality
of this situation. The Sixers are in the Joe l. Embiid business. There's really no version of that business that doesn't carry an enormous amount of risk. There's just as much risk in not extending him, because then what if he does end up requesting a trade, what if he
does end up testing free agency. There's risk there as as well as well, even if you were to offer him a lower extension like hey, like, hey, we want to lock you up for five years, but you know we're not going to come in at that super max number. Let's see if we can come in somewhere lower. That could just insult the guy. And now you're in the same boat. Right. There was risk in not going after
Paul George this summer. It's very possible that if you do nothing this summer, you end up in the same type of situation where Joel Embiid is unhappy and potentially requests to trade. I'm sure if you injected truth serum into Daryl Moury and asked him, like, would you prefer to build around a star who always plays seventy five games and consistently goes up a level in the postseason, I'm sure he would. But that's not the deck of
cards that Darryl Moury has been dealt. He took over as general manager of a team that is built around Joel Embiid. When you're building around Joel Embiid, there is inherent risk there. And as soon as you go out of the Joel Embiid business. Let's say you traded him this summer before you extended him when he's more tradable, then you immediately lose all relevance. I like Tyre's Maxy, good young player, but you're not getting Paul George without
Joel Embiid. And without Paul George or Joel Embiid, you're a basement of the Eastern Conference type of team. So like, I get it, how from the outside looking in, we might look at it and go man one hundred and ten million guaranteed for the next four years on average annually tied up in two players that routinely miss like at least a third of the season and both struggle
in the playoffs. I get why from the outside looking in that looks tricky, But if I was GM of the seventy six ers, I think I'd probably do the same thing, because as soon as you've decided we're building around Joel Embiid. This is kind of the reality of how this works. So to put it simply, Darryl Moury has made an extremely risky series of moves this summer, but his franchise is built around the riskiest star in
the league. So it's kind of just the reality of the way you have to do business when you're building around Joel. And there's another side to this, coin that you have to factor in when you're having this conversation. As of right now on DraftKings, the Sixers have the
third best odds to win the title. Now I don't have them quite that high, but I have them very high, and I have consistently said that Joel Embiid is one of the small handful of players in the NBA who is capable of legitimately going on a wrecking ball tour and just kicking everybody's ass and getting the trophy. Most gms aren't building around stars that have that type of upside, So maybe those gms can be more risk averse, but they're not winning the trophy anytime soon, right and beat
is thirty years old. He has this short window here, probably in that thirty to thirty three age where maybe if everything goes right, you can win the title. After that you're fucked anyway. He's been hurt way too many times, the wear and tear in every on his body. He's not the kind of guy that's gonna be good at thirty seven, thirty eight years old, So you like you're
there is no long term window here anyway. This is very much a short get it while you can type of window, so you might as well put all the support you possibly can behind him and see if you can get it done. The last example I would use for this is remember the Kauhi trade to Toronto, and again, like it's not exactly the same type of comparison, but it has some similarities in the sense that everyone around the league knew Kauhi wanted to go to Los Angeles.
Everyone around the league knew if you traded for Kawhi that year and you weren't one of the LA teams, that it was a one year rental. There was like that tiny little crack of hope like maybe if you just wow him he might stay. But you can't do any better than Toronto did that summer anyway, and he still left. But here's the thing, Toronto made the trade. Kawhi did leave, and Toronto's been bad ever since, but they have the Larry O'Brian Trophy and that shit is forever.
So like, if I'm Daryl Moray, you know how we all know how Daryl Mourray does business too. He's got his algorithm where he basically calculates a percentage chance that he thinks his team has to win the title and most of his decision making his geared towards trying to increase that percentage. There's a lot of potential bad outcomes for the Sixers this year. We all know that maybe Paul George plays fifty games and NB plays forty five games and they end up in the fifth or sixth
seed and they lose a first round series. Maybe that's what happens, but there's also like a legitimate pathway here that ends in them holding the trophy. They're a lot closer to the trophy than most of the teams in the league, So once we acknowledge that they're in the high risk, high reward business, I think these moves make a lot of sense. You needed to substantially improve and beat supporting cast this summer. Going after Paul George was
the only real way to do that. You need to cement Joel Embiid in Philly to make it so that you have multiple years to try to make this work. Extending him was the best chance to do that. And if I was gm of the six Ers, I would
have done the same thing. So I think like it's easy to look at other situations around the league and to be like that situation's better, that situation's better, and you might be right, But Daryl Morey doesn't have the luxury of just cherry picking which situation he wants to be in. He's in Philly. He's got to deal with Philly's hand of cards, and I think these are the right moves within that context. All right, Let's get into
our season previews, starting with number fourteen. The New Orleans Pelicans. A lot of turnover for them this summer. They lose Dyson Daniels, Najie Marshall, Larry Nants Junior, Jonas Valanciunas, and Cody Zeller. They had Javonte Green, an athletic wing who played for Chicago last year, Daniel Tice. They drafted Eves Missy in the late first round. He's like an athletic
center prospect. And then the major move this summer, they traded for Jontey Murray, obviously giving up in that deal Dyson Daniels and Larry Ant Junior, as well as some draft compensation. He's one of my favorite players in the league and a guy that I desperately wanted the Lakers to get and a guy that I think Pelicans fans will love. So when we're talking about next season, Let's start with Dejonte. Dejontay brings an element to the Pelicans
backcourt that they didn't have. Zion obviously brings like real downhill force to his game, but Brandon Ingram and c Jim McCollum didn't or don't, I should say they're still in the roster. They are finesse pull up shooters. They can get to the rim. Brandon got to the rim plenty mostly as part of screening actions. When the coverage has the ability for them to get by their defender and get into the basket area. Those guys can take
advantage of that. But they're not like, face up with really good perimeter defenders and get dribble penetration type of guys. That's not what Brandon and CJ do. Dejonte's really good at that. De Jonte can beat good perimeter defenders off the dribble straight up. But he also has the same type of counter in pull up jump shooting situations that Brandon and CJ had. Brandon CJ both shot forty five
percent on pull up jump shots last year. De Jonte Murray shot forty five percent on pull up jump shots last year. There were sixteen players in the NBA that attempted at least five hundred pu up jump shots last year. Dejonte's one point zero three points per possession ranked eighth on that list. He was a good, efficient, high volume pull up jump shooter. He was more efficient on pull
up jump shots than Damian Lillard was last year. So like, there's a real drive and kick kind of element with Dejonte that you can get in terms of beating people off the dribble and getting people into rotation while also bringing that over the top shot making that has become a staple of what has made the Pelicans good over the years. Right, he made the fifth most clutch shots in the entire NBA last year because of his ability to knock down shots over the top. He's also a
good passer. He averaged six assists per game playing next to Trey Young his last season in San Antonio before he came over to Atlanta, he averaged nine point two assists with just two point six turnovers. That's awesome, and more importantly, he just had the best off ball season of his career. He converted spot ups at one point
one five points per possession. That's in the seventy ninth percentile out of the thirty seven players in the league to log at least three hundred spot up possessions, he ranked eleventh. That's really really good, and that's something that used to be weakness of his. Now I know there's some hesitancy surrounding him on the defensive end of the floor, and there's some reality there, like he was in all defense caliber guard when he was in San Antonio. Wasn't
like that in Atlanta. But I'm a big believer in basketball culture, and Atlanta did not have a defensive minded culture. And so this is a Pelicans team that was top ten in defense last year. It's part of the identity organizationally from the top down if you get buy in again. And then there's also just the sheer amount of offensive talent on this team when you have Trey Murphy, Zion Williamson,
Brandon Ingram CJ. McCollum. There's just a lot more ball handling and playmaking ability on this team than Atlanta had, which was a traditional four out, one in your turn, my turn type of offense between two guys. There's gonna be more resources that Dejonte can devote to that end.
Of the floor. But yeah, like, if you're asking me, what are some of the swing factors around this deal as to whether or not it'll work extremely well or not as well, one of those major swing factors is going to be does Dejonte defend the way that he's capable of? And that's totally fair to bring up. But I do think that New Orleans is more set up
to accentuate that part of Dejonte's game. I think New Orleans has a chance to be a devastating drive and kick team if they utilize Zion at the beginning of possessions to pressure the rim and make kickout passes. And by the way, Dejonte can do the same thing. There's now two layers to that. They have incredible spot up talent. De Jontay Murray one point one to five points per spot up possession. That's insanely good. CJ. McCollum one point
three to two points for spot up possession. That was one of the best marks in the league last year. Trey Murphy one point one eight, Brandon Ingram one point oh eight. That's solid. Herb Jones one point oh nine. That's solid. The Pelicans as a team last year we're second in spot up efficiency in the entire league, and you just added another guy who can both capitalize on spot up situation and pressure the rim consistently. I think it's a legitimate offensive upgrade. Now where it gets weird
is how does this all fit together? Right? Where does brandon Ingram fit into this? How do you start constructing lineups? There's a lot of talk because Daniel Tye is the only proven NBA center on the roster right now, and he's basically a backup. Right, there's a lot of talk of Zion starting at center. If they start Zion at center, your lineup is Cee, Jim McCollum, de Jontay Murray, Herb Jones,
Brandon Ingram, and Zion Williamson. Like, that's a ton of offensive skill, obviously coming with some downsides, right, very small and weak defensively on that front line with the with your forwards, But on the other end of the floor, you're going to be very fast and borderline impossible to guard in space. There's a given a take, right, So, Like, I think it's worth trying throw it out there for
twenty thirty games. See what happens if it ends up being an absolute disaster and your defense is not good enough and the offense isn't enough to make up for that gap, then you can get more aggressive about trying to make some sort of consolidation trade and try to turn one of these guys like cj Orbi into somebody that you can use on that frontline to anchor those units.
But I think it's worth giving a try, and I think there's enough talent there that even if you dropped some games, like if you lost to Denver or you lost to like another big physical frontline like the Lakers, because you just don't have that size on the front line, but you're still, you know, fifteen and seven because your offense is incredible and you beat the shit out of everyone else. Like that's fine, You're floating along. That's a decision that you can make and deal with in February.
I mean, the Knicks are in the same boat with this Julius Randall thing. It's like, yeah, it's a little clunky, don't know how he fits in the grand scheme of things, but like what's the rush. Send them all out there, let him hoop, see what happens. Basketball's more art than science. I talk about this all the time. Like sometimes you just put a bunch of guys together and it just magically comes together, and all of a sudden, it's like,
holy shit, what are we watching? And when you've got this kind of talent, it's at least worth throwing these guys out there and just seeing what happens. Now. On the defensive end, it is hard to build any sort of traditional look without a real defensive anchor, a guy that can defend in ball screens in some way, whether it's a high drop or a deep drop or whatever it is that you want to do, and then that
can also help control the defensive glass. It's challenging to do without a real center, but there is talent there. You have a lot of length, you have a lot of speed, especially on the perimeter right. You got a lot of guys that can guard at the point of attack. So like, if you don't have a giant guy underneath the basket that can drop in ball screens and defend a grab defensive rebounds, then as a team you have
to positionally be ready to protect the paint. What that means is one, you got to can the basketball and control dribble penetration. Another way, you could do that too. By switching ball screens, you can shut off dribble penetration. But it's going to be so much more important on the backside for guys to make their rotations quickly, because if you're going to protect the rim, it's not going to be vertically because you don't have real interior size.
It's got to be positionally, meaning it's about guys on the backside. When people do get beat off the dribble, those guys have to be quick and precise in their rotations and positionally put themselves between the ball handler and the rim where they can either take a charge or at least force that guy to veer off into a different direction. Right, So it's going to be a really difficult job. And then on the defensive glass, everyone's got to fly around, everyone's got to box out, everyone's got
to crack down from the wings. And then the last piece of it is when you have opportunities to use that speed against interior size, you have to take advance of it. That's spreading teams out and driving kicking them to death. And then when you see opportunities to get out and transition and beat slow foot and bigs up the floor, again, like we always talk about styles make fights,
but it's usually which style wins the fight. If there's a big team playing against a small team, if the big team is better at doing big guys stuff then the small team is at doing small guys stuff, then the big team will win and everyone will be like, man, they're just too small to guard us. But if the small team does more small guy stuff and does it more impactfully than the big team does, then you'll come out of that game and you'll be like, man, they're
just too slow for us. Those are the pushes and pulls that you have to win. That said, like, this was a team last year that was top ten in defense and top ten and rebounding. I'm not sure if they can get there without a real starting center in the fold. So it feels like this inevitably ends with Brandon Ingram being traded for front court depth. But it's
just really hard to find willing trade partners there. So this is like a really funky team that's around a built around a very funky traditional or non traditional i should say, foundational star in Zion. So it's really hard to predict what the Pelicans are going to look like
this year. Right now, I'm going to say a playing team, but this team has a very wide range of outcomes for the season, and I think the Pelicans are on the short list of teams that I think we're going to learn the most about in the first month or so of the season. All right, next number thirteen, the Golden State Warriors little bit of roster turnover. They lost Chris Paul Dariosarch and Klay Thompson. They added Kyle Anderson,
Buddy Healed, and Anthony Melton. Offseason for the Warriors actually reminds me a lot of the twenty twenty two offseason in that you're finding discounted role players, but not necessarily that are more talented than what you have, but just fit Warriors basketball better, Right, Like that twenty twenty one team that was like Kelly Ubray and Kent Bazemore and Brad Wannamaker. It's like, it's not like those guys are demonstrably better than Otto Porter, right or Na Manna Bielitsa.
It's more just that those guys fit better into what Golden State was trying to do, right. That's what I like about these three guys. Kyle Anderson very good defensive forward. You can play both on and off the ball. Of all of the guys that Minnesota tried on Luka Doncic in the Conference finals, I thought Kyle was by far their best option. He's particularly good at bigger forwards that like to use size and strength to get to spots,
but he's also a good off ball player. He's got great length, He's a very smart defender, and then on the offensive end. I think he'll thrive as a playmaker and Golden State system, he had four point two assists to just one point two turnovers last year. He was one of only fourteen players in the entire NBA to play at least twenty minutes per game but to log and assist a turnover ratio of at least three point
five to one. He's an efficient playmaker, and as we know, in Golden State system, they usually have two dribble handoff
folcrums that are non shooters. When they're flowing from side to side with action right Dreymonald dribble over into a dribble handoff with Padjemskik or Steph coming off one side, and then that guy comes off and throws a swing pass to the second guy usually Loony or Trace Jackson Davis or something like that, and it's like that guy turns and he runs the next dribble handoff, and usually one of those guys ends up drawing their screen defender out onto the ball handler of Steph or Pods or
Clay whoever it was last year, and then there's a slip opportunity there, and then that guy needs to make plays. Or if Kyle Anderson in this case, is dribbling at that second side action and the defender's top locking, meaning that defender is not allowing the use of the screen, he's forcing a backcut. You need a guy that can consistently make those backcut passes. I mean, Kyle Anderson's gonna do that really, really well. He scored well on the
role last year. He got one point twenty seven points per possession on rollman possessions. That's very good. And he's also just a good ball handler in general. I'm actually gonna be really curious to see if the Warriors run more inverted ball screens with Steph as the screener. They did a little bit of this over the last few years with Andrew Wiggins, but Anderson is a better decision
maker and a better ball handler in that spot. And so I'm actually really curious to see if we get a lot of that where it's like Kyle Anderson dribbling the ball while Steph just screens for him. Because Steph's man is not going to help on a Kyle Anderson drive and so so if he does, Steph's gonna get wide open on the slip, and if he doesn't, Kyle's going to turn the corner and get right downhill to
the rim. As soon as Kyle gets right downhill to the rim, because the guy set in the screens not helping Kyle's defender, He's gonna get downhill and be able to wreck havoc. As a playmaker at that point, I think it's going to be a really useful player on a discounted deal. Buddy healed Klay Thompson last year gave you eighteen points, three rebounds, and two assists on fifty eight percent true shooting, and he had his worst defensive season in a long time, and he wasn't very impactful
in the glass. Buddy healed twelve points, three rebounds, three assists on fifty eight percent true shooting, but he played fewer minutes. If you extrapolate both players out to per thirty six, Clay was about twenty two points per thirty six minutes, Buddy was at about seventeen, so not quite
the amount of scoring production. Here's a couple more key numbers for you guys, Klay Thompson one point one zero points per possession in off screen situations, one point zero nine points per possession in spot up situations, one point one one points per jump shot. Buddy healed zero point eighty seven points per possession off screen, so not as efficient, but he was much much lower volume. He was doing a lot of like ghost screens for Tyrese Haliburton, which
register actually has Rollman possessions on Synergy. But that was like one of Indiana's most impactful actions last year, and it still functions essentially as like a movement shot in his screening action. And then one point zero one points per possession and spot up situations. That's pretty mediocre, but he did shoot the ball well one point one to one points per jump shot. So here's the thing. Buddy.
Buddy's smaller, and he's overall a less impactful movement shooter than Clay is, but Buddy Yield is three years younger and costs about half as much in guaranteed money. Also, Klay Thompson is very clearly on the downslope and had his first big drop off last year. It was his first time failing to hit twenty points per game since twenty fourteen, it was his worst defensive rebounding season since twenty fourteen, and overall I thought he struggled defensively last year.
So essentially, you got a player who can roughly approximate what Klay Thompson does with about half as much guaranteed money and less risk of age related decline. The other part of it, too, is I think he's more willing to accept a smaller bench role right like Clay, Even in his bench games, still played about twenty nine minutes per game. There were only three times all season last
year that Klay Thompson did not play twenty minutes. The last day of the regular season against the Jazz in a game they didn't need him, the fifty two point loss against Boston because everyone was sitting the bench in the second half, and then the Minnesota game where he got ejected in the first couple of minutes. That's it. Because Clay was like under the expectation that he needed to play a lot, and there would have been issues if Steve Kirk cut his minutes way down and they
needed him to play for what it's worth. But like if there was a reason to play someone else, Kerr wasn't going that route, not in any sort of like substantial sample size. That is, now you'll be able to get away with like heavily oscillating buddy, heals minutes from high to low based on the matchup without having to worry about fallout in team chemistry. I think that's an advantage. So like, obviously you don't want to lose Clay, but if you're going to, you did pretty well to try
to replace that archetype. And there's another element to that. D Anthony Melton another guy who plays a similar position, a rock solid starting caliber guard when he's healthy. Going back to his twenty twenty three season, that was the last time he was healthy, he played seventy seven games.
He actually played seventy plus games in each of the two seasons before last year, So if you're looking for optimism around Anthony Melton's health, you could hope that last year was an outlier in recent years, but d Anthony Meltain in twenty twenty three one point one to two points per spot up possession. That's really good. He was an efficient on ball creator. He ran two hundred and forty eight pick and rolls for two hundred and fifty
nine points. That's one point zero four points per possession including passes. That's really good. He's a high level jump shooter. He shot thirty nine percent from three on five attempts per game, one point one to three points per possession overall. On jump shots, he shot forty one percent on catch and shoot jump shots in that twenty twenty three year. And he can knock down jump shots off the dribble.
He hit like forty or fifty I can't remember exactly off the top of my head, but he hit a bunch of pull up jump shots that year as well. I've talked about this a lot, but I view him as like a like a like a slightly poor man's version of Contavious Callwell Pope, but with more off the dribble pop. And that's like the main difference. Kcp's more of like a movement shooter. D Anthony Melton is a guy that can actually like put the ball on the
floor and make plays. I think he's a guy that's actually gonna have some success running action coming off of screens in Golden State system. He rebounds well for guard, He's a good point of attack defender. I think he's just a rock solid player provided that he's healthy. So as long as he has healthy, that's that to me is a big get. So you got three quality rotation players, all for about thirty million dollars annually combined, all uneasily
tradable contracts. So like, given the lack of options that were available to Golden State this summer, I actually thought they did about as well as you possibly can while maintaining their ability to make a move during the season. Now, looking at last year's team, I actually thought the Warriors performed well relative to the talent they had on the roster. They won forty six games. They finished ninth in offensive rating.
That is a testament to Steph Curry's greatness because given the talent on that roster for them to finish top ten in offense, even during Steph's slump to end the year his final twenty five games in that span, they were eighth in offense, which just goes to show you how impactful Steph is offensively, just when he's running around, even when he's not making shots. He can fuel an above average offense with below average talent even without making shots.
That's incredible. But it was abundantly clear throughout the year last year that the Warriors were not as good as their record ship like. They were twenty four and five against teams that were below five hundred. That's the same record that Oklahoma City had against teams that were five hundred or below or below five hundred, I should say, so they took care of business against the bad teams, but they were just nine and twenty one against teams
that were in the top ten in point differential. According to Cleaning the Glass, they had a minus two point seven net ratings, so they got outscored by two point seven points per one hundred possessions in those matchups that ranked twenty second in the NBA. Charlotte, Memphis, San Antonio, Portland, Utah, Detroit, Atlanta, and Chicago all had better net ratings against teams in the top ten in point differential last year than Golden
State did. So that screams to me, this team doesn't have enough talent, but has excellent leadership because anytime a win was realistically achievable, those guys got the job done through excellent coaching and leadership from Steph Kurr. But when they ran into teams with real firepower, they got exposed
for being a roster with severe limitations. So that to me is like a special shout out to Steve Kerr and Steph Curry last year because given the circumstances, given the Draymond suspension, given the amount of talent they had around them, that looks like a thirty five win team to me, and they got forty six wins. So like I thought, they squeezed that sponge for everything it was
worth last year. And that's why it's so dumb every single time we do the whole like, oh, they missed the playoffs thing, it's like, usually there's reasons for that, and like, look, Steph didn't play very well down the tail end of the season, but it wasn't for lack of trying. He was leaving it out there every single night. This wasn't like you know, UCA and last year, the year before the final run, where at the tail end of the year, every time he watched him on TV.
It was an I sore like they were trying like hell to get in. They just didn't have the talent to get it done. So we talked about the three new free agent signings the summer. Let's talk about what needs to happen in the house for the Warriors to return to the middle tier of the Western Conference, to get back in with those groups, that group that has like Dallas and Minnesota and the Lakers and Memphis and all those teams in the middle of the West. How
do they get back into that group. I have three things. One, Brandon Pajemski needs to take the next leap as a shot creator. He had an awesome rookie season, finished fifth in Rookie of the Year voting. He shot the ball well. He was Golden State's second best on off guy in terms of differential behind Draymond. They were six point two points per one hundred possessions better with Pademski on the floor versus off the floor. He was excellent fit in
their five out offensive attack. He made good decisions consistently, he kept the ball moving, and he's already a solid defensive player at the guard position. But Golden State needs more offensive production out of that off guard spot in supportive steph. POD's got over fifteen points in a game just nine times last season, and it really comes down
to just being more aggressive. And I get it. For the record, I get it in his circumstance why he didn't come in as a rookie into the Golden State Damn Warriors and just start jacking up shots, I get it. I'm not blaming him for last year. I'm talking about what he needs to do moving forward. He shot over forty percent on one hundred and two pull up jump shots last year, and a bunch of them were threes, so he was at one point one to two points
per pull up jump shot. That's insane. As a matter of fact, out of the one hundred and thirty five players to attempt at least a hundred pull up jump shots, Pods ranked eighth eight out of one hundred and thirty five guys inefficiency. I actually view that is a bad stat and the main reason why is it means he's being too picky. He needs to take more of them. He needs to take more pull up jump shots and
he needs to take more floaters. Those are the two shots that I think when he's getting downhill on screens and he sees opportunities to get to that floater, he needs to take it more and more and just every time he gets a little bit of separation and he needs to let that thing fly off the dribble. Brandon pe Zemski averaged twenty points per game at Santa Clara. He's got real scoring chops, and I think that this
team actually needs him to unleash them. When I talk to Warriors guys that cover the league, there's a lot of buzz. There's some disagreement about Pazemski. There's some guys that aren't very high on him, but the people that I trust are actually very high on the The people that watch him every day think he has legitimate all star upside, and I just want to see how much closer you can get to that in this season two. Jonathan Kamina needs to learn how to channel his abilities
more consistently in a winning text. Kamika showed real scoring upside last year. He had twenty three twenty point games, did a lot of damage and transition, and in those baseline cuts out of that classic Golden State tic tac toe or Steph draws two short roll man baseline, defender steps over, Kaminka cuts out of the baseline, he gets dunk. A lot of stuff like that. But he also showed real upside as a post scorer. He was consistently getting
around his defender or just going through his defender. He's getting to the foul line a bunch. Really. The main thing that nuked his efficiency in the post was turnovers. He turned the ball over on thirteen percent of his post ups, which was to be expected start the year. He's getting a lot of single coverage. He was cooking everybody. Second part of the year. They started bringing that second defender to his left hand side, and he just wasn't
reading that defender really well. That comes obviously with repetition. But his impact didn't match up with his production Compared to his actual counting stats. He wasn't as good. Wasn't as good in the plus minus categories. Zero point ninety nine points per spot up possession because he kind of struggled to space the floor when he was off ball. Zero point ninety seven points per catch and shoot jump shots,
So those numbers aren't good enough. He's a bit of a ball stopper, a little bit of a clunky fit on offense and then on defense. A lot of really good moments, a lot of really bad moments, typical for young players. Like I talk about this all the time with young players when it comes to replicating successes and diminishing mistakes, meaning like, oh, I fucked up, let's try to not do that again, or oh this is working,
let's keep doing it. Like a lot of times, young players will do something easy for a basket because of a simple basketball read, and instead of going back to it, they'll do something random on the next possession. Like veteran players, they'll spam something until it stops working. They know, if I run this lane, if I set the screen and I slip out of it like this, if I do if I move the ball quickly, it'll get its way
back to me. Like all these like little details about how to replicate successes in minimize failures, they take time. That is a classic young basketball player issue. So the question is how fast will Jonathan Caminga make those progressions into being more of a winning basketball player. I'm not worried about his production. I think he averaged something like
sixteen points a game last year. If you average sixteen points a game this year that'd be great within the context of doing all of those little things more consistently and minimizing mistakes. And then, lastly, can Steph return to four last twenty five games last year? Those of you guys who've been following the show, I've read these stats a million times, But last twenty five games last year twenty two point eight points per game, forty two percent
from the field, thirty eight percent from three. That's just not superstar production anymore out of Steph Curry, and it was part of the reason why they struggled against the top teams. The example I always use is that twenty twenty one team that was an equally limited funky roster, but they went ten to fifteen against the top ten point differential teams. That's a forty percent win percentage, whereas last year they had a thirty percent win percentage against
the top ten teams. So Steph was able to lift them over the top for a ten percent increase in win percentage based on his super duper star level of play. He was playing like the best player in the world in twenty twenty one, So how close can he get back to that form is going to be one of the major swing factors of this season. For the record, I believe he will. I think we're going to get a major bounce back season from Steph. I think he's too competitive. I think he knows his team needs him,
and I think he knows what it takes. I have a feeling that when we get through ten games or so of the year, Steph's going to be back up around twenty seven points per game on roughly forty five percent from the field and forty percent from three. That's what I think we're going to get. And just like that, just that, just that goes a long way towards returning
this team to the middle of the Western Conference. So, in summary, I think Golden State is firmly in the play in picture again this year, but in a different way than last year. Last year, I thought they outkicked their coverage to barely scrape into the plane. I think this is a better roster. I think they have more veteran role players that fit the scheme better on both ends of the floor, and I think Steph's going to
be better. But I also think they're well positioned to make an aggressive move should the opportunity arise at some point this year. So for right now they're playing team, but they have some real upside if they can get a deal done at some point this year. Our last team for the day at number twelve, the Indiana Pacers. Not too much roster turnover. They lost Doug McDermott, lost Jalen Smith, brought in Cole Swider and James Wiseman, so basically trading out of bench wing that won't play and
their third string center is basically all they did. So they're more or less running it back with the same roster as last year. But let's take a quick look back at last year because it's a confusing team in the sense that they have these really impressive metrics that also just didn't seem to really amount to anything when
it was nut crunching time. So in the regular season, the five man lineup of Tyrese Haliburt n Anger, Nemhard Aeronnie Smith, Pascal Siakim and Miles Turner their starters, they had nine hundred and twenty two possessions according to Cleaning the Glass plus seven point five net rating. That's really good. They were actually very good defensively. They had a one to oh eight defensive rating. And they rebounded really well. They grabbed seventy five percent of their opponent's missus. That's
a really good number. In the playoffs, two hundred and eighty eight minutes played between those five guys plus fourteen point one net rating a one twenty nine offensive rating. Those are insane numbers in the large sample. But a couple of concerns popped up. One. Their rebounding didn't hold. They gave up an offensive rebound on thirty one point two percent of opponents misses in the playoffs. That is bad. And then the big one, they got absolutely annihilated in
clutch situations. They went two and five. Overall. Their offense got strangled. They went down to a one to oh one offensive rating when the game was within five points with at least five minutes left or with less than five minutes left one oh one. Think about that. Their offensive rating, i said earlier, was one twenty nine with those five guys in the postseason in the large sample. So they were like really good until it got to the end of games, and then they could not score.
And then their defense got thrashed too. For as good as their defense was in the large sample in the regular season, they had a one to twenty one defensive rating and clutch situations in the postseason, And that's really the main reason why I'm lower on the Pacers than most people. I think their regular season engine is real Tyres Halliburton is one of the best large sample offensive engines in the league. Does everything that I want in
an offensive engine. Consistently throws kick ahead passes in transition. Anytime somebody's open up the floor, he's throwing those kickhead passes. They're so valuable because defensive transition is always geared looking up the floor, looking back towards the ball handler. When you throw it over their head, they all turn to go identify where the ball is, and that opens up opportunities for trailers. It's also opportunities to attack and slash or get wide open threes before the defense is set.
So like those kickhead passes are great. And then when he gets into the half court, he's just like an incredible playmaker out of ball screens. If you die on the pick or you duck underneath, he's a deadly pull up jump shooter. If you die on the pick, but he gets downhill, he's a deadly floater shooter. If you
switch the screen. He routinely toasted bigs in ISOs last year, and then he's one of the best passers in those situations that you'll meet with the early phases, when it was Buddy Healed and Miles Turner just picking and popping all season long, and him just routinely hitting that guy wide open for three or when it was a lot, a lot more like traditional ball screens post deadline, he's reading Obi Toppin or Pascal Siakam out of the weak side corner. Whenever his man steps over to tag the roller.
He just routinely made the right read every single time. It generated all these high efficiency shots for all of these players that, like a lot of these players were mediocre players elsewhere in the league. Boston didn't want Aaron E. Smith, the Knicks had no use for Obi Toppin. These are guys that turned into like legitimate large role contributors for Indiana, like Tyres is the master at just getting defenses into
rotation so that guys can capitalize on it. Dockham was a really nice fit that juiced him up on both ends of the floor. A lot of upside there. But when things slow down and get stuck in the half court, and defenses are more attentive to detail and more physical on the ball and fly around in rotation better they can struggle. Tyres Halliburton shot three for fifteen in clutch situations in the playoffs and had seven turnovers to his
eight assists. Now, one thing I'll say is I thought that Tyres, before he heard his hamstring, had more athletic juice to get separation from elite defenders. And that's the case, right, Tyres was so good in the clutch before he hurt his hammy, So like, maybe that translates better at the postseason, but there is a certain amount of that, Like, it really looked like they ran into a brick wall when
they got into some intense playoff situations. Now, but Jason, they made it to the Eastern Conference finals last year. I think a healthy Knicks team beats them in five, and I think a healthy Bucks team beats them in six. The Bucks were a tough matchup for the Pacers were a tough matchup for the Bucks, and they gave them
a lot of issues. But I think if Giannis and Dame are one hundred percent healthy in full, go for a playoff series I think the Bucks probably get the job done, so like, yeah, they made the conference finals, but they were extremely fortunate in getting here. So the question is, how can the Pacers enter into that next tier of teams? How can they get into that tier because like starting on Monday, I'm covering teams that legitimately have a championship ceiling if things go right. I don't
think this Pacers team does. So how do they get there? I think they need an upgrade at the two or the three. Aaron Ne Smith and Adrian m Hardn are two really solid basketball players, and I think they are definitely championship level rotation players, but ideally they should be coming off the bench. For you, you need more high level closeout attacking out of those spots, and you need better contested rebound. This was a team that did not rebound
well in the postseason. If you can basically imagine aaron Ne Smith but like a six ' eight version of him with a little bit more off the dribble pop, I think just that if you did a substantial upgrade to one of those two spots, I think that goes a long way, like kind of like with the Knicks did bringing in Michale bridges as an upgrade at the three dramatically increases their ceiling. A player of that type of caliber at the two or the three, I think
moves the Pacers into those discussions. And they have the means to make that type of deal. They have a young player that doesn't seem to fit their long term vision and Ben Matherin. They have draft picks to spend, they have lots of mid level salaries that can be combined to get to a higher level player. And then the last piece of it is just Tyree solving that playoff puzzle. He was a little bit weird in this playoff run. A lot of high highs, but a lot
of low lows. He had seven games where he didn't even take fifteen shots. He had four games where he didn't even take ten shots. There was like a little bit of like a he either hazard or he does in on this particular night kind of thing. And that's just part of the puzzle of the playoffs. You get attacked on the defensive end a lot, and on offense everything gets way harder and you have to maintain that
consistency throughout that four round setup. Now, to be clear, the Pacers to me feel like the next great Eastern Conference Titan. Remember how like Milwaukee, Miami, and Boston kind of ran the East over the previous half decade. I feel like the Pacers are going to be in that type of group for the future. But I feel like they're one more roster shakeup, in a little bit more
player development away from actually making that a reality. So for this season, I just have them as the best team that doesn't have a real chance to win the title this year at number twelve. All right, guys, that is all I have for today. As always, I sincerely ap pursuit you guys for suporting me and supporting the show. We'll be back on Monday, getting in to number eleven in our next tier of teams that can win the championship. If things go right, I will see you guys then
the volume. What's up guys? As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take a second and leave a rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.