Hoops Tonight - NBA Predictions: Lakers ALL-IN? Nuggets disrespect, Celtics & Thunder top threats

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We've been doing this I think two maybe three years. I can't even remember exactly how many, but my friend Sam Vessini is coming on to break down our contender rankings. Sam, how are you, man, how is the early part of the season treating you?

has them just like firing from three. Like I'm all for that, right, But you know, I'm not gonna sit here and tell you I've watched every preseason team yet just because that's I don't know, that doesn't feel like a great use of my time yet, Yeah, I was.

teams listed in my realistic Contenders. I have a top tier with Boston, Denver, OKAC at New York, and then I have this tier of seven teams that I view as if things go right, and that could be like if they hit on a trade, if a young player pops. Maybe it's a team that specifically relies on health luck that's had really bad health luck in the past. Maybe it's matchups, like some of these teams have very specific

types of matchup weaknesses. And so those teams for me are Dallas in order, Dallas, Philly, Minnesota, the Lakers, the Bucks, the Suns in the Grizzly. So before I know, you have a different top tier than I do. But is there any team other than those eleven teams that you actually think has a realistic shot to win the title this year that I had not listed?

of spacing, they don't have a lot of shooting. It feels very cramped, and basically, until John Morant proves to me that he can make a pull up jump shot consistently, it's just gonna be really hard for me to buy them in the playoffs.

of success. I've been lower on three guard looks, but after I watched them, Bain and Smart are both so physical, and they're both so good at pushing guys off of their spots and keeping guys out of their like preferred ways to initiate offense. And then also just the perfect guy to like kind of connect things on offense, Like Marcus Smart. He kind of has a reputation for being a shot chucker, but he's actually become a pretty decent passer and connective piece at this face in his career,

and so that and then just the the the like. They just have so much of this like young exciting athleticism with Jaron Jackson and with John Moran, the like Gigi Jackson will see if he can get healthy. But to me, there it was a simple question of them having most likely a pretty decent seed going into the postseason.

the other team where I could see. I could see Calves fans being like, we're a contender. I just don't see it because of my fears with Evan Mobley and Darius Garland. I just think those two guys are so flawed at this point in their career. I think they're too exposable in a playoff setting.

But then you get to the Edy portion of it, and Edie is, you know, as you mentioned earlier this week in the game that he played against Indiana, best utilized in post ups in all likelihood right now, So

how does that push pool go? My idea for that was, Okay, you can start Zach Edie. That's fine. You play Edy with Jaw for the first five minutes, then you take him out, you play job for the first you know, tend to you know, first quarter basically, and then when John gets arrest you bring back Eadie and just just let him. But you let him just like totally eat against second units. I think that's where Edie's gonna like just feast. You give him second unit centers like Isaiah

Jackson against Indiana. I know he did really well against Miles Turner too, but you know, that's kind of my pride.

next to him, oh my goodness, he is enormous. The difference in height between those two is like the difference in height between Steven Adams and like Luca, Like, it's.

playing five out spacing right. And by that I mean if a team wants to go big against you, both of these teams have the wherewithal to be able to go as big as possible. Oklahoma City with Chet and Isaiah Hartenstein, Boston hopefully with chrisops Porzingis when he gets healthy and Al Horford, they have the ability to go.

Both organizations can really really pass the ball, They get good movement, and they set up their stars for success. That's the number one key of today's NBA, I think, is setting up your stars to play in the most space possible. Boston's scheme allows for them to invert post touches for Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown if they want to. They can have those guys drive because they constantly have five floor spacers out there on the court.

you defensively in a bevy of ways. And they have a way to match up with you defensively for any lineup that you put on the court.

But like the reason why I included Denver, New York are pretty simple. Denver has in my opinion, the best player in the world, and in New York, they have a lot of talent that is kind of point and shot in a very specific way that accentuates their gifts. So, for instance, like, does anybody think that Jalen Brunson is as good at basketball as Shay or as Luca, or as Jokic or as Tatum.

Karl Anthony Towns, I like, I know he's not shooting well in preseason, but the amount of wide open shots he's getting as like a trailer in transition or or popping out of any sort of screening action. He's going to get so many open looks and he is going to hit them this year. The obviously they're a team that lacks a little bit of center depth. There's some

question marks there. But like to me, Denver and New York are examples of teams where I think the total is more than the sum of their parts because of the uniqueness of New York's talent and the uniqueness of Nikole jokicch and specifically with Denver, there the the matchup problems that they present because Jokic is so unguardable. Do you have any pushback on my defenses of New York Denver?

I don't really think that they can do it. I think this team is almost I don't know that they can do it. I'm just saying the way that I think that, you know, Leon Rose and all that front office have built this team. I think that they have built this team to contend with Boston more so than the other teams in the Eastern Conference in a playoff series.

They're trying to win or trying to keep up basically with the math game, while also having a bunch of different options on the wing to be able to throw a Jayalen Brown and Jason Tatum. That's what I see when I see New York's team build. But if you look at them against Milwaukee, I'm honestly, like really interested in how they would match up with Milwaukee because they don't really have the interior strength and power unless Mitchell Robinson is fully healthy to be able to stop Jannis

from getting to the rim. Right, Like Karl Anthony, Town's phenomenal offensive player showcased real moments last year where he could match up one on one with bigger bodies like Nikole Jokic while they had but slower bodies, Right, I don't think he profiles super well against Giannis necessarily, And on top of it, what you typically want to do against Gianness is you want to have a help defender like Rudy Gobert there to be at the rim, as opposed to having og A Nanobi who is a fantastic,

phenomenal elite level perimeter defender. He's a smaller, right, He's not a primary rim protector. So I actually want under

how that series would go. If I'm being completely transparent, like I think that New York almost matches up slightly better on paper with Boston than it does with Milwaukee. It's just Milwaukee has its own shit to figure out, right, Like they have to figure out the dam and Gianni stuff. They have to figure out Doc Rivers, you know, figuring his stuff out, everything like that. But then you look at Philadelphia as well, like Philadelphia has like a weird matchup I think with New York.

bigger issue I would have. The bigger issue i'd have there is like, if you end up putting Kat as your back line, They're just gonna space Brook above the break on the opposite side and try to punish you in that regard. And I think you are a little weak on help Length simply because if you put Og on the ball, and in this case McHale, Bridges is the guy who's guarding Dame, right Like, that's the direction you're going in all likelihood.

you're right, there's not as much matchup versatility there. I want to be clear, like Boston, I would not put them on a separate tier, but I do think they're the clear number one. I don't think any team in the league, like if someone argued to me, I think Boston's not the favorite.

to tell me why you disagree or agree. So I was talking about this on my show yesterday. So much went wrong for Denver last year. Jokic jump shot in the postseason was worth zero point three to eight points lesser single attempt than it was in the previous jump previous postseason, so literally four tenths of a point less first shot from the previous postseason. Casep hurts his ankle in the first round. Jamal Murray hurts his calf muscle

in the first round. Jokich is also clearly gassed by the end of the Minnesota series and is just really really struggling to do some of the dirty work stuff that he did really well. And we're like, if you just turn maybe two or three minutes of that run from bad basketball into decent basketball. They're in the Western

Conference Finals. I think they get favored because Gafford and Lively would get eaten alive by Jokic. I also think Aaron Gordon is a better defensive matchup for LUCA than basically every forward in the league except for a small handful of guys, and so I just think that was a matchup that would have benefited Denver and then Denver Boston. I mean, who knows what would happen in that series. I probably would have picked Boston just because how banged

up Denver was. But Denver had a decent matchup in that series because of their front line and the poor zingis injury and things along those lines. So like for a second round loss, with so many things that got that went wrong, I think they were reasonably close to still making a very deep playoff run, at at a minimum at least making it to the conference finals. So with that being the case, as I look at the roster, I'm higher on Christian Brown with the starters than most people.

I think that he's bigger and stronger than KCP, which I think actually keeps them a little bit more versatile defensively in terms of like they won't have to put Aaron Gordon on big Fords all the time, and they could keep him in help more often. The bench is

a complete shit show. We all know that, everyone can can admit that, but that's been That was basically the case the entirety of this era, with the exception of they had this sixth starter in Bruce Brown, and I would argue that if they were going to win the title again, somebody's going to have to materialize from that group, whether it's Peyton Watson or who knows what, Maybe it's a Russell Westbrook vindication at some point. But like, the bench is a shit show, But to me, the starting

lineup it still is this really rock solid cores. I do think Jokic will shoot jump shots better this year, which is such an important ceiling razor for him. Obviously there's a question mark with Jamal Murray's help, but I think people are more like wishing on Denver's downfall than like some of the actual tangible basketball materializing that way. So where are you at with Denver? Are you much lower on them than I am? Do you think that this is the the they're on the way down.

of the situation here. Didn't play great at the Olympics, wasn't great for the last what three four months of the NBA season last year year.

I actually don't know that they have an answer to that question, and they've now extended Jamal Murray and extended him after the deadline where he can be moved this season.

really like Peyton Watson. There are people who have questions about if he's just like an interesting, you know, curious athlete who can cut and who can defend a little bit but doesn't really shoot it and is still developing into his overall game. There are questions about Julian Strawther. There are questions, like most people don't really think Jalen Pickett a is a player. You know, Hunter Tyson is

very polarizing as a player. All of these guys that they've drafted, they've just always been extremely polarizing, which means it's harder for them to make deals with teams involving those players, some evaluators and executives are maybe going to like those players more than others, or they might have like very different opinions on those players, which means if you're trying to foster a trade to go get like another real difference maker, it's like, well, we really like

Julian Strawther, but we don't like Hunter Tyson, or we don't like you know, Peyton Watson, or we really like Peyton Watson, but we don't like Strawther, we don't like X Y and Z. Right, we really like Doron Holmes, but Doron Holmes is out for the year now, so we don't know what to do with that. It's just going to be a moving target for them, I think, on the trade market in terms of trying to improve this group.

have a great shooting season. Aaron Gordon is obviously not really a great shooter, but plays off of jokicch incredibly well as a cutter. Michael Porter Junior is a guy that's had health issues in the past, so you never know, Like you could sell me on a number of things

they have. They have a number of cascading things that could go wrong for them, but they also still have Jamal Murray, Aaron Gordon, and Michael Porter Junior surrounding the best player on planet Earth doesn't really miss games who you can you can rely on to consistently play. So anybody that's writing them off is absolutely insane to me. It's just that there is more uncertainty there now, I think in terms of what they could look like by the time February rolls around, I.

regular season. I mean, you're leaning on You're leaning on a lot of young players. Like to be clear, like, I think I think Oklahoma City will finish at least five games ahead of Denver in the standings, like at least I think I think you'll probably have occ around like what fifty seven to fifty eight wins, And I think I'm with you. I think Denver is looking at the low fifties. I could argue that that's probably what Denver should do, because they looked tired at the end

of last season. And the reason for that is they depend on their starting units so much. And when you depend on your starting unit so much and you lean on those guys in big minutes and they determine the outcome of every single game, there's just a lot of pressure on them and you don't get to kind of

like manage their load throughout the season. And so there's a case to be made that, you know, forty eight wins is a is an outcome that should be the what happens if they take a more cautious approach to

this regular season, especially with Jamal Murrays knee injury. And to your point, like, because we've seen the knee injury flare up in the reason like, none of this is realistic if Jamal's not Jamal, And like, I don't think Jamal needs to be what he was in the twenty twenty three playoff run, because that was like, that was insane, but that was that was he was playing like an he was playing like a superstar guard. But he can't

be as bad as he was last year either. I do think I think one of the most important outcomes is Jokic's jump shot. I don't think people realize how important that was to them in the title run. He made thirty five threes in that title run, but it wasn't just the thirty five threes. He was doing a lot of work driving closeouts at the top of the key and against Minnesota, they were literally doing this, So like,

go ahead, man, like, yeah, that was it. Shoot it, you know, And so I'm really curious to see how that goes. But yeah, I'm with you. I think I think variance is the right way to put it. I'm just I'm more emphasizing that, Like, I think people are insane to not acknowledge that that top end is still there, because I think that Jokic that shoots forty five percent from three isn't just the best player in the world. I think he's by far the best player in the world.

I think that the jump shot declining is what has brought him down to the field a little bit. But I would take him head and shoulders over Luca if he's got his jump shot going in.

have talked about a ton with Timberwolves. It's just their late game offense, right, what does it look like throughout the course of this full season and the playoffs?

people do. Julius Randall is in a contract year. Chris Finch is a coach that has gotten extremely high level play out of him previously, and with Rudy Gobert backing him. To me, the defense is less of a concern. I thought Carl Towns did fine on defense last year. I don't think Carl Towns is now some magically positive defender. I think that I think Towns is a better defender than Randall. To be clear, but in Towns is a better player than Julius Randall. I don't mean to say

that the two are comparable. I think the difference between Towns and Randall is smaller than the addition of getting Dante DiVincenzo and the flexibility and spacing that he provides personally. And I totally understand why New York did the deal. Like, I'm not sitting here and saying it was a bad deal for New York. I have my questions, and we've

talked about that previously on my show. But I think that Minnesota, and what you've talked about with Minnesota is just the overall spacing and figuring out how to make it work with Edwards and Randall together, I think that they can figure out a way to make that work.

They also have enough flexibility with their picks moving forward to where if you wanted to try and do like a Randall and a first round pick for something at the deadline, that will be available to you the other guy that like I'm sure Minnesota fans don't want to hear this because they love nas Reed, but nos Reed is in expiring contract and they need to figure out what their front core of the future looks like between these three guys, because in theory, all three of these

guys could leave after this year, Gobert, Randall, and nas Reed. So they have a real flexibility in terms of the way that they can attack the deadline here coming up that I think, you know, a team like Denver doesn't necessarily quite have in the same way because Denver doesn't have as many cheap contracts unless they're willing to move Brown. But Brown is now like an integral part of a team that doesn't have any depth. I would argue Minnesota right now might have the best top eight in the NBA.

I think that you can certainly make that case between Conley Edwards, Dante and Nikhil Alexander Walker and then in the front core Jaden McDaniels, Julius Randall, Nasried and Rudy Gobert. I mean that's eight, you know, top is I.

Now you can go Anthony Edwards, Dante, DiVincenzo, one of Mike Conley or Nikhil Alexander Walker depending on how big or small the opposing backboard is, and Jade McDaniels at the four with Rudy at the five if you want to, or you can go super big with these bigs that you have across the board. They have just for a ways to match up. And we haven't talked about the

biggest reason yetter I haven't. Anthony Edwards continues to get better and better every single season, and last year's playoff run was something special for a you know, third fourth year guy. I believe he's entering his fourth year. No, he's entering his fifth, I guess, But you know he is an absolute stud that I completely believe in him by in a playoff setting.

the bench, I guess I don't really care. But I do think there's a case for what you're saying to get Anthony Edwards more reps on the ball so that that decision making tree continues to improve, because that's that's

really the last step here for Aunt is consistency off the ball. Defensively, and then the decision making tree on his drives and on his ability to you know, find the open teammate regularly as opposed to take a terrible pull up mid range jumper or a drive into the trees where it's a lower percentage shot. That's really the last step for him.

is literally built like an F one fifty. So like, I wonder if you could start to explore looks too, where you have you know, Ant kind of functioning as the three defensively, but you go with Conley, Aunt and Dante with nas at the foe next to go Bear. I wonder, and you could get into some real four out one end stuff where it's like just spread, pick and roll, but you've got deadly shooters on both corners and Dante above the break who's deadly, and you can

really create some more spaced out environments for him. This is one of the issues, like because I mean, as I've watched Minnesota in preseason, their defense looks amazing, right, like like in these these spurts like that, it's a spurt against Philly where you're like, holy shit, you know they have this spurred against They had to spurt against the Lakers when Lebron and Nadi didn't play in the first game of the preseason, where like they just you

could just tell Austin and Dilo and Rui, we're just having a hell of a time getting free of those guys. But Nikhil, Alexander Walker and Jada McDaniels are both guys that are like very hot and cold on offense and can in terms of the game plan. You're pretty much helping off of those guys and offering late contests and you know, going underneath picks and doing.

twelve for twenty three in preseason. Again, I know it's a small sample, but like we are now on a seven month span going back to last April in three different, completely different situations between obviously some of the new guys he's playing with this year, the roster from last year, super high intense games in terms of the conference finals and conference semis. Last year, you've got the Olympic Games, where he shot well in both the exhibition games and

the Olympic Games themselves. This is a roughly three hundred rep seven month span of him making jump shots at like one point two points per shot, which is like insane. Off the dribble, off the catch, left shoulder fades, right

shoulder fades, like the jump shooting is ridiculous. And so that to me is where the upside is the reason why I'm still like Minnesota for me is a team that, like I just want to see them play in the regular season with Julie Randall, sure, because I'm just so interested to see how that front court shapes out with

the starting group with Jade and Julius and Rudy. So like, for me, like I have them loosely ranked at seven right now in my contender rankings, but like I could see that going way up or potentially even down a little bit, because I just it's so hard for me

to conceptualize it. Dane Moore does an amazing job covering the Wolves, and he had a tweet the other day where he basically broke down how like even though Julius doesn't shoot percentage wise the way that Kat does, yes, he does shoot a lot in so correct and his case was basically like he's respected and treated as a shooter even if he's not, and so maybe that materializes.

And again, like Chris Finch knows this, He's he understands how to make Randall work. He understands how to make that tick. You know, he coached him before Randall had like the crazy outlier shooting year with the Knicks where he made like forty percent of his threes, right, So I think Finch really is like a savant in terms of spacing his big men and understanding how to make

that work. And while he doesn't bring the same spacing that Karl Anthony Towns does as a shooter where you do genuinely have to be uptight on him, I do think that Randall at least gets guarded out on the perimeter in a way that maybe it's not quite as like tightly on the clothes outs as Towns is, but it is still going to be a guy that gets guarded yeah, and accounted for. I have Minnesota three right now rankings.

gonna be interesting. They're definitely a team I'm gonna be watching a lot to start the year. Dallas, I have them as the top of my if things go right tier, I'm not as high on. I was never quite as high like I always viewed Dallas as Like last year after when we did our contender rankings before the postseason, I had Dallas, I think, if I remember correctly, I definitely had him in my top five, but they were in like that three or four spot, but I had

him beneath that Boston and Denver Tier. I've always had Dallas as like the best of the teams that I don't really view as like your traditional bona fide championship contenders. You know, Clay isn't shooting the ball well in preseason, who cares he's not playing with Steph, or he's not playing with Clay and or with with Kyrie and Luca. They are running him off of a considerable amount of action. But then I get worried about whether or not that'll

still be the case when those guys are back. But for them, I just it just views it looks to me like a bunch of decent role players around Kyrie and Luca, and I just don't think they have the overall firepower to contend with the teams in that top tier. Do you agree with me or you hire on them?

losing Josh Creen, bringing in Quinton Grimes like that. Klay Thompson obviously is the biggest piece of this in terms of their role players. It's just another team like Denver that has a wide degree of variants. I think I'm a little bit less high on this group tentatively than I was going into the playoffs last year. I remember that I had Dallas like obnoxiously high when we did our condender rankings and people were like, you're out of

your mind, and I was like, I don't know. I think that, you know, Luca, surrounded by spacing is a pretty good idea.

the weak side here. I have to make a decision on if I'm going to tag Derek Lively or I'm going to leave Klay Thompson in order to tag Derek Lively, or I'm just gonna leave Lively wide open at the rim for a rim run dunk. That's basically an impossible choice to me. Like, I know, like you said, Clay hasn't shot well in preseason. I don't really care. Klay Thompson, who's going to get, you know, the shot back? He always does. He always makes forty percent of his threes, so.

many different ways to just obliterate you and ball screens now, because they have theoretically, as long as Pj's shooting from the playoffs holds up. And that's a question, like that's a totally open question that I'm here to listen to and hear out right, they could go devastating like well, I guess four out with Lively as the role man, where Luca prefers to actually have the role man. I feel like as opposed to the five that is like

the floor spacer buying large. He likes to have that lab option because he likes to have that pressure being put on the defense with how excellent he is at hitting skip passes. So this is theoretically, as long as Clay is who he is, probably the best constructed offense that Luca has gotten a chance to play with in during his time. Now, the question for me is do they have enough two way players? And that's to come

down to Nausey Marshall making shots. It's going to come down to Quentin Grimes being more the guy we saw in New York as opposed to the guy we saw you know in the split year between New York and Detroit, can those guys step in and be able to give them honestly, probably close to forty to fifty minutes a night. And if they can do that, I think Dallas has a very real chance again to go to the NBA Finals.

It is just a real level and degree of uncertainty because it's a whole lot of new pieces being integrated.

shot creator he's ever had in Kyrie Irving. Jalen Brunston has become a better player than Kyrie, but when Jalen Brunson was with Dallas, he's not what Kyrie was. Right, You've got You've got this the second best shooter of all time playing the three basically in in uh Klay Thompson you've got Derek Lively, who is uniquely gifted as one of the rare athletes that is both great at vertical spacing and at making decisions on four on threes

on short roles. And then PJ Washington is like kind of this interesting forward who again above the breaks shooting is interesting because he did not shoot well in the postseason, but he actually shot okay on him in the regular season, And I think PJ has good form. Like Pj's form is it looks like a nice jump shot to me, And so like there's a version of this where like he's euro above the break spacer who can also hit corner threes, also can post up mismatches down low. That

unit all makes really good sense to me. On the offensive end of the floor. I am seriously concerned about them on defense though, I think I think I think they could into a let's outscore everybody team pretty quick. Yeah, and that's fun and that can win some regular season games, but then inevitably you just run into a real physical, tough playoff matchup and then things can get ugly. And so are you concerned at all about that? Do you think that this was the right trade off for Dallas to make.

would just literally outsore or everybody, right. I think it was like Kyrie and Kevin Love were on those teams too. It's somewhat this build is somewhat reminiscent of that to me. Just you know, Luca is amazing. He's not quite what Lebron was, yet it is ceiling Maybe, you know, he's one of the few guys that I'll at least not rule out in the half strictly in the half court.

That would you know, he did it last year and it wouldn't surprise me if he did it again this year.

break threes. And so if Clay addresses that at the very least, even if you run intown problems elsewhere that you have to address, Like your offense crumbled at this one break point and you've now turned that into the second best shooter of all time. So like that, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna overthink it, Okay, all right, So I'm gonna bitch and moan to you for a second about the Lakers, and then I want you to tell me if I'm being.

obsessively trying to increase three point volume. Okay, So I'm watching the Golden State Warriors game last night, and I'm watching them like throw the ball out the floor and semi transition and Ruby Hotchamura just jacks up and above the break three with twenty one seconds on the shot clock. And then the very next possession, Austin Reeves does the exact same thing. And then here's d Lo on the right wing taking a heavily contested three off the catch.

Here's you know, Anthony Davis taking a bunch of threes in a very basic stat to put this together, last night, they took thirty four catch and shoe jump shots, and twenty seven of them were classified as guarded by Synergy. Last year, in the regular season forty nine percent of the Lakers catch and shoot shot attempts were classified as guarded, so less than half this year. So far, in pre season, sixty four percent of the Lakers catch and shoot shot

attempts are classified as guarded. So I'm a big believer in increasing your shot value, and that means as many quality rim attempts as possible than as many catch and shoot quality catch and shoot three attempts as possible, and you need to try to turn any other shot attempt and as into as many more of those as possible. But I think that just jacking up contest to catch and shoot three is not a way to actually improve shot value, even if it improves your three point volume.

But I am irritated with the Lakers shots selection in preseason so far. What if What has been your takeaway on the early returns on the JJ Reddick offense.

is the key. I think JJ's trying to like instill in them the way that they want to play and the way that they want to think almost about shock quality.

can be for this Lakers team. Right, Austin Reeves like is a guy where I've always felt like there's more, there's a bigger propensity there to be able to up your three point volume, right, to have a chance to really be that kind of guy who can get up seven or eight threes a game realistically and make them at a thirty eight to forty two percent clip depending on the season. Right, Dangela Russell's always had no problem

with this, so like we can remove him. But when darvinham was there, it felt like offense didn't really have an overarching kind of shot that it was trying to get. It felt like unorganized chaos maybe is the way I would put it. I like basketball teams that are organized chaos and they are forcing defenders to fly around and you know, make reads off of one thing and then

you counter off of it on the backside. Right, I want to always see those kind of structures offensively, and it does feel like the Lakers are at least running more intriguing sets as I watch them in half court settings. I don't want to take too too much away from the overall shot quality to this point, because I think that a lot of it is trying to instill a process that is working and that is been proven frankly to be the driver of key offenses in the league.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you I'm an expert, is that they are not getting as much downhill pressure from Lebron because it's preseason, so he's not forcing like defenses to collapse. Nobody is really forcing defenses to collapse where you get that ball spraying out and

you know, creating a shot that way. It just feels more like they are trying to instill the right processes as opposed to worrying about what the results are now because they're just not concerned about you know, what is you know, the actual is the ball going in or not? Or are are we actually winning preseason games? Does that kind of make sense?

That's usually where they get their rim pressure. And like they actually are a very good three point shooting team percentage wise, last year they were just very picky. It was a ton of stuff in the paint and then wide open catch and shoot threes. And I am generally of the opinion that like there are, I think that the threshold for what should be considered go point, like a go point for a catch and shoot three, needs to be moved a little bit. For the Lakers. Austin

Reeves is a great example of this. Austin passes up so many ketch and shoot threes to pump, fake and drive all. He was doing that a lot in the last few years. I want to see him shoot the ball more, and I do. I do think that the majority of this is just let's breed a bunch of confidence and let's let's kind of parse things back.

get it. If it's like, Okay, Jackson hayeses on the floor, let's have him setting pin in flares out of the dunker spot to try to get skip passes for threes or kind of operating like a dunker spot to dunker spot, just kind of making yourself available on the catch.

the floor. I don't love the idea of putting a guy who can knock down threes, even Ad, because, like I'm I'm generally of opinion with Ad that he's a good shooter who stopped shooting and he had a like he shot well, he got hurt, and then he kind of just stopped taking shots. And then he always would take like two or three a game and he'd miss them. But it's like you need to take six or seven it jump shots a game in order to actually have your rhythm. And I do think that Ad is a

capable shooter. I think I don't think there's any reason why he couldn't shoot thirty three percent from three if you actually let him take five shots a game out there, or three shots at the four shots a game out there, you know. So, like I want to see them create some more of that space. I have found it interesting how often they are occupying that dunker spot. The second thing that I think is interesting is last year was a ton of horn sets and a ton of like traditional five out concepts.

This is a good offense. They just needed some small tweaks, a little bit more, a little bit more commitment to organized action. Let's turn some of these contested twos into threes.

Let's work out some of these details, and then most of it is like details on the margins, like transition defense, crashing the offensive glass, overall defensive details and game planning night to night regular season game planning, like those are the real things that I think need improvement, and so I'm just really curious to see how it goes over

the rest of the season. But we have about fifteen minutes here, and there are two teams that I really want to hit before we're done, the Bucks and the Suns.

felt like, you know, be it. Adrian Griffin just didn't make it a priority early in the season and they were winning games, so nobody really said anything until he got fired. And then Doc Rivers comes in, and I felt like Doc tried to do a little bit of that later in the year, but it was just too late at that point, and then Jannis got hurt and

it became more difficult, right. So I think that's what I've liked most is I know there was like a storyline where, you know, somebody's I think Day might have said like he didn't work out with Giannis at all in the summer, and people took that to mean some type of thing, and I was just like, okay, guys, like let's.

this summer. Do you know how good Chris Middleton was last year in the playoffs?

fighter's chance against Boston. Right That's the absolute, unequivocal, biggest you know swing to me is can Chris Middleton come back be at one hundred percent be that guy that we saw in the playoffs last year. If he's that guy, like,

the Bucks are in an interesting position. While also acknowledging that I don't trust Doc Rivers, I'm one of those people who just doesn't really buy it. But they still have the bones of a great interior defense. I think that the Gary Trent in for Malik Beasley defensive decision is a bigger upgrade than what people think.

fifteen to twenty minutes a game. Let's hope right and give them, you know, ball movement, organization and some point of attack defense with his length and athleticism, even though he's a little bit older now. I overall like the structure of this Bucks team a little bit better, but it all swings on Middleton because if without Middleton, they don't really have that secondary perimeter shot creator unless Gary Trent takes another lead.

whether or not they can guard on the perimeter. And you know, I'm glad you mentioned the Gary Trade junior piece, like because I didn't thin think he was particularly good defensively last year either. I think you could even make the case he was on the lower end of the spectrum. However, he's specifically good at one thing on defense, and that's like ball pressure and poking at the basketball, which like has a tendency to speed guys up and force them

to go downhill to get away from that pressure. And that feeds into the strength of the defense, which is their interior size and length and ability to cover ground. Right, So, like that Gary Trent piece, I would be so much more worried about him if he was like playing on the Knicks and Karl Anthony Towns was the center and you were asking him to like contain the ball. But like in this particular defensive scheme, I actually really like I think Gary Trent is a massive upgrade over over

Malik Beasley. Dylan Wright I think is an interesting option too. We'll see how he pans out this season. But I'm with you, it so much comes down to, like, can Chris Middleton be just the rock solid two way player

and ken Yannis gets to the playoffs healthy? But I think they are a textbook if things go right, contender because there's just a lot of question marks and there's a version of this for all those question marks tilt in Milwaukee's favor and suddenly they're in an Eastern Conference final series with a real chance to beat Boston and maybe we're looking at a contender. But yeah, it's just so much is up in the air. Phoenix, this is

a team that you've been texting me about. You said to me in a text message the other day that you think coach Budd has worked wonders for their approach on offense. Can you break down for our audience what you've been seeing and what you like about that approach?

a counter off of it on the backside. This year, like it's you know, at least in preseason and preseason is where I'm willing to take like stylistic takeaways, right Like, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that, oh, I think that Ti John Salon for the Charlotte Hornets is a shooter now because he drilled six threes in a game or whatever. I'm not gonna sit here and tell you I think Ryan Dunn's like a definite shooter right now for Phoenix because he hit six threes in

a game or whatever. But what I can tell you is that their ball is moving a lot better. It feels like it's just a little bit freer in terms of what they're running. It felt like they ran like a decent amount of like empty stuff last year. They're utilizing like the full court this year, which is a little bit more interesting. It feels like they're playing faster. To me, that could just be a function of the preseason by and large, but you know, it just feels

a little bit quicker. It feels like the decisions are being made. I really just feel like overall, whereas last year they were a lot more happy to settle in that mid range area, and it felt like there was no accountability for stopping those guys.

it go. And to me, there's letting it go a little bit quicker now.

I think it's also a big part of Phoenix's approach to make themselves tougher to guard when things slow down, meaning in the playoffs or in clutch situations, and kind of getting away from the reality that for guys like Brad, Kevin and Devin this is kind of their natural tendency as basketball players, just to operate out of the mid range and to lean on their tough shot making ability.

The Ryan dun thing is really exciting. If for no other reason, then even with the shooting, which is obviously going to go up and down, he's just a big, functional athlete, which is something that they just haven't had in years past, at least not within the context of being able to do it on both ends of the

floor in a way that really helps them. Frank Vogel, I think is a profoundly underrated defensive coach in the NBA, but he is He is way way way behind the times on the offensive end of the floor, and so I do think that this is a big part of just bringing a more modern approach schematically and in terms of just like order of operations and the type of

shots that they're hunting. But most of it to me in terms of, like, this is why I have Phoenix, and that if things go right category because they're so small, because they're so thin, they desperately need guys like Kevin Durant and Devin Booker to like play like all defense players and to be total ass kickers and like the physical parts of the game. And that is just where

I continue to be concerned about Phoenix. There's just a team like Oklahoma City with Caruso and Lou Dort flying around being physical and Isaiah Hartenstein just throwing guys around on the front line, a team like the Lakers, a team like Minnesota, just these big, strong front lines, like the Lakers have always matched up really well with Phoenix because they have to run drop coverage with the Nurkic and they just can't guard the lebron ad pick and roll.

There's the Minnesota just grabs and holds their perimeter players and just strangles them in space. And so let me pitch it back to you like this, we both agree Mike Budenholzer is bringing better offensive organization and approach to Phoenix. Where do you have them in your rankings? How do you feel about them as a championship contender?

six percent from three this year on four attempts per game, he is an immediately like exceptionally valuable player. Because I'm not exaggerating this to you, Jason, he is one of arguably could be the best defensive wing I have evaluated pre draft. Really is unbelievable as a havoc creator defensive playmaker on that end, and he has experienced playing at

the big position. I honestly wonder if there is a world where you could do some weird things where like he's flying over, rotating across from the weak side, and play lineups that are like him and KD at the four or five with Booker and Beale and Grayson Allen, and like you have this weird, big, switchable ish group that can hopefully get enough rim protection with him like rotating across and like being like a havo guy, Like he averaged over two blocks a game last year at

Virginia playing that like slow dragout style of basketball that Virginia plays, So that that's like a ways away. Still probably that might not be this year that that happens. But if he can shoot, he is truly a ready made defender.

a very good idea. But that's high praise from Sam, who I think is the best person covering the draft in the business, and so your son's fans should be excited. The one team we skipped over, I'll just pitch it to you for like, do you have thirty seconds and how you feel about Philly.

He's gonna, you know, try and get healthy for the playoffs, which is the way that they should handle it. I think ty Resee makes all NBA this year. I think he is going to take in another leap from what

we have already seen from him previously. Paul George is a big addition for them because he allows them to keep the offense afloat when Joel is out, having both him and ty Resee being able to stagger them potentially you don't have to have, you know, fourteen minutes a game where ty Resee isn't out there and you just have no way to generate offense, right like Tobias Harris generating offense was not something that worked well as all

Philadelphia fans value so much better team, very interesting team. I do have them ahead of Phoenix because I think if it all goes right, you can very easily make a choice that they just have more talent, right, but a lot of uncertainty, that's the reality. And look like the last team that we haven't mentioned here, and they will be very angry if we don't mention them. Would I miss the Eastern Conference finalists from last year, the Indiana.

genuinely an unstoppable offense. When they're on the court and when ty Reese is running the show, they do at least like deserve our respect in some way, shape or form or you know, we didn't mention Orlando or Cleveland as well. Orlando is going to be a top three defense probably this year. They're fantastic. I just don't know that they have the shot creation yet to make it work in the playoffs at this point.

I think they're going to be really I think they might win fifty games in the regular season. I just don't know what it's going to look like in the playoffs for them, so I can't quite put them into this. You know, top ten is contender group.

I do think that they could work in the playoffs. Again, Halliburt and running the show and making elite level decisions. Sam being able to be that kind of half court you know, they're in full transition, you know forward who can guard on the perimeter against certain guys, and who can create shots from the mid post and create shots from the wing and attack and then you know you can play five out with Turner right, Like they have

real options, is all I'm saying here. Well, yeah, they have a scheme that really I think flows upward when it comes to successful playoff runs.

me employed over there, that'd be great. I enjoy working there.

My Arizona Wildcats are ranked ten. We have a Cooper Cooper flag making his college debut with two which should be fun.

leader out there. Like I've kind of talked to, you know, some folks down there and they're just like he's just like already just so good at being our leaders a freshman this year, So yeah, he's a he's a good one.

your time. Everyone, I appreciate for supporting the show. I have one more show this week on Friday, we're gonna do a season preview on the Boston Celtics, as well as probably hit another preseason game or two, and then literally next Tuesday live on YouTube after the final buzzer of Lakers timber Wolves should be a really fun one. I appreciate you guys for supporting the show and for rocking with me. And we'll see you guys next time.