Hoops Tonight - NBA Reaction: Steph & Warriors SHINE with Butler, Edwards & Timberwolves dominate

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goon to hoops toight here at the volume heavy Friday. Everybody, hope all of you guys have had a great week. On a Jampacks show for you today. The Minnesota Timberwolves got a huge winner of the Oklahoma City Thunder last night. They've won nine out of thirteen and Anthony Edwards is showing a very interesting side of his game, aim that wasn't on display in the early part of the year thanks to some offensive production out of the front court.

We're gonna be talking about that. After that, we're gonna get into the Golden State Warriors getting a huge win on the road against the Houston Rockets. I'm gonna talk a little bit about Moses Moody and Brandon Pajemski in the way that their roles have become more defined and how that has helped them. And then after that, like we do always on Fridays, a mail bag gonna be bouncing around the league, a bunch of Laker stuff, bunch nick stuff, a bunch of other stuff from other teams

around the league. You guys know the joke before we get started, a subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos, follow me on Twitter and underscore jcnlts. You guys, don't miss ShW announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feet wherever you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight, and it's also super helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front. Don't forget about a brand new social media

feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We're releasing content throughout the year and last but not least, if you want to get questions in these mail bags in the YouTube comments, the word mail bag with a colon, write your question. That's how I sift them out of all those comments. Drop the mail bag questions in those YouTube comments and we'll get to them on Fridays throughout the remainder of the season. All right, let's talk in basketball. So Timberwolves

get a huge win against the Thunder last night. They've won nine out of thirteen. They are eighth in offense over that span, to go with also being fifth in defense six to net Ratings. Several quality wins in that span too, against Denver, Dallas, Atlanta, Phoenix, Houston, and then last night, culminating with the win against Oklahoma City. That's a hell of a run and most of it is centered around they're scoring the ball and a much more efficient clip to allow their defense to push them over

the top. And that's come down to the recent surge of Jaden McDaniels and nas Red. Jaden McDaniels in this span. In this thirteen game stretch, sixteen points per game to go with seven rebounds thirty seven percent from three on four attempts per game. He's finally starting to hit some shots. He's also doing more self creation. In the last four games, Jada McDaniels has scored sixteen points as the ball handler in ball screens, so he's doing some stuff on the

ball as well. Naz Reid since Julius Randall went down in his last seven games, twenty one points, ten rebounds, four assists, sixty percent true shooting, just frying teams and picking pop action. He's scoring out of the post. He's up to one point two to three points per post up including passes this year only fifty three reps. But

he's been doing it a lot more obviously as of late, as they've been leaning on him more. Just a bunch of excellent footwork and finishing moves going both directions. You know, I always talk about with big guys there being like a heavy emphasis on short range shot making like hook shots and floaters. Nasrid is fifty for ninety four this

season on floaters and hooks. That's fifty three percent. He's been really really effective in that range, and he's been one of the very best jump shooters in the entire NBA this year. A Nasried jump shot of any kind has been worth one point two to one points per shot this year. Among the eighty two players in the NBA to take at least three hundred jump shots this season, Nasrid ranks third in overall efficiency. A little trivia for you guys, who do he thinks above them? Number two

is Norman Powell. Number one, the guy who's been super hot as of late. Gary Trent Junior, the best jump shooter in the league at volume this year. But this is the important detail. Obviously, nas Reed's been incredible. It's been a revelation. He was the guy who's getting a

lot of the big buckets. The two guys that really stood out to me at the end of the Thunder game where nas Reed scoring the ball and then Luca Garza just kicking the thunders ass on the glass there underneath the basket, doing a bunch of damage during their late game run. But the extra production out of the

front court offensively has opened things up for Aunt to be more of a downhill score and he's been playing his best ball of the season. Anthony Edwards' last ten games thirty three points per game, six rebounds and five assists, sixty percent true shooting. And here's the big difference. Here's the obvious difference between before and how things look now. He's getting to the basket more. In the previous forty

four games. Before this ten game stretch to start the season, he was getting to the restricted area for a shot just four point one times per game. In the last ten games, he's at six point one, so literally a fifty percent increase there. Get this, his free throw attempts per game in this ten game span have doubled. He was at five free throws per game in the first

forty four games of the season. He's at ten free throws per game in the last ten games, so a legit fifty percent increase in attempts at the rim in doubling his free throw attempts. An interesting case study and something I've been talking about for years now, which is like, what would it look like if we just gave Anthony

Edwards better space. By the way, that's with Rudy Gobert playing for the most part, but because Jadon McDaniels is scoring the basketball knocking down spot of jump shots at a higher clip because nasried is shooting better than anybody in the league except for a handful of guys this year. You're getting a lot of space for Ant to operate, and he is getting downhill and getting to the free throw line more than he had by a substantial margin

compared to the beginning of the season. That's the exciting part, and that's what I kind of envision is the big picture goal for this team as we get into like further iterations of it. I want to see Ant play

with space. That's his superpower, superpowers downhill, and I understand he cand settle from tough shots sometimes, Like it was interesting I saw a bunch of Wolves fans molenting the step back three that he took late in the game against the Bucks, and like, I get it, under the circumstances, you prefer the better shot. But like he was attacking, he got a like a really clean look at a mid range jump shot a couple possessions earlier, or a pump faked, and the dude ran by and he was like,

stand still fourteen feet from the basket. That's just a great look. He had a beautiful driving skip pass to nas Reid in the corner for the shot that it would either tie the game or game in the lead. I can't remember exactly. I think it put him up by two if I remember correctly. Like Ant is doing some attacking, he is doing getting closer, better shots in those situations. He just didn't love the shot that he

got at the very end of the game. But at the same time, like I kind of like we're spect in that situation in the sense that like he's been working relentlessly on that shot. It's been one of the most efficient shots in all of basketball this year. Is just Anthony Edwards taking a three of any kind. I think you had an opportunity there to go for the win. Again,

ideally you get something a little more reliable. But I have a feeling Ant's gonna hit some big ones like that over the years, and he has by the way that there was several examples this year where he's been able to go to that shot and knock it down when it matters. It just he's he's leaning a little much on variants there, and that's where him working closer to the basket, he can compete or contend against his own variants and rely a little bit less on long

distance shot making. But I mean, he's one of the best three point shooters in the league this year, So I can't like just say it's a terrible shot, you know, you could just argue that he could have gotten something better. But again, well you're getting some of the best basketball of Anthony Edwards's career just by virtue of him getting real scoring pop out of the three and four spot. Again, you're getting, like, damn, youre, what, thirty seven points a

game out of those guys in the last month. Like that, That's gonna just make life so much easier compared to the early part of the season when there was just very little in the way of shot making in that front court. But I had one more note I wanted to hit on before we move on from the Wolves. I thought Minnesota really mauled Oklahoma City physically in that fourth quarter. They held him to just fourteen points, They flipped the game into a blowout when it was tied

in the third quarter. They chewed them up on the glass. They had twenty offensive rebounds. I talked earlier about how Luca Garza just absolutely destroyed them on the offensive glass there in that run that they went on in the fourth quarter and they guarded Shae better than anyone has all year. It was the first time this entire season that anyone has held Shay to below twenty five points on less than thirty percent shooting. It's only the second time this year at all that any team held them

below thirty percent shooting. They did a number on him. It reminded It reminded me of what happened in the Denver Game seven last year. If you guys remember, Minnesota really ratcheted up the physical intensity and just basically ran them over the rest of the way on both ends of the floor. And he got me thinking as I was watching last night and I was recording with the Nerd Sash guys earlier today, was a fun one. You guys will get to see that if you go to

the Nerd Sash channel. Carson and I vehemently disagreed about I had the Lakers on the same tier with Denver, and he just views there as a gap then there being a gap there, and we got into this like debate for like twenty five minutes about it. You guys will enjoy that. But I got me thinking about the

contender tiers. And then after I finished that recording, I went and watched Minnesota Oklahoma City, and as I'm watching that, I'm just sitting there thinking, like, are we underrating Minnesota because we're forgetting that when we get to the postseason, their physicality is just a huge problem. Do you guys remember how the Suns just killed the Wolves last year in the regular season, including on like two days before the series started. Then what happened. They got absolutely annihilated

in the playoffs. They beat the shit out of Phoenix in large part because they ratchet up that physicality, and that's the environment where that trait becomes the most valuable. They're tricky things here, like you got to figure out where Julius Randall fits into all of this. But to me, Minnesota has shown some real upside. They have eleven wins now against teams in the top ten and point differential.

That's the fourth most in the entire NBA top six in both offense and defensive rating in those matchups against top ten point differential teams, and that top six offense is interesting to me, and it just goes to show you, like their athletes can get to spots and can score even when the intensity ratchets up. Wolves playing some great basketball. Moving on to the Warriors versus the Rockets. Really good

defensive effort from the Warriors in this one. They were doubling Alpern Shangoun and rotating out of it well without giving up any advantage. They were doing a lot of short closing out, like baiting on the indecisive shooters from Houston that will shoot when they're wide open, but if you kind of stunt at them, they might pump fake and try to drive. And they were just focusing more on containing the ball instead of chasing people off the three point line, keeping the ball in front, making used

to make jump shots. But I thought the story of the game was the role player contributions. They got twenty eight points, eleven rebounds, and five assists with only one turnover from Moses Moody and Brandon Pajemski. And so I wanted to kind of zoom in on this concept of role player depth because this was something I was harping

on a lot before the Jimmy Butler trade. I talked a lot leading into the Jimmy Butler trade about the idea that you can afford to lose some role player depth with this group if all fifteen of your guys can realistically play a role, but only one guy can play a lead role, you're gonna get diminishing returns. It's obvious in the rotation pods is averaging thirty three minutes per game since the Jimmy Butler trade. As a result,

he's in more of a rhythm. He's averaging fifteen points, six rebounds, and five assists with two steals per game in that span. That's an excellent set of production. Before the trade, his minutes were all over the place, averaged twenty four minutes. He had ten games where he didn't even get to twenty minutes. Why because they had a million rotation players. Skurrz always trying new things. Oh this guy's not playing well, I'll try somebody else, and like

there was a shorter leash on everybody. The rotation was bouncing around. It was tricky, and that's what happens when you have so many guys that can play. Now he's averaging thirty three minutes per game. He's getting starter minutes consistently, Big Shot, he's playing his best basketball this season. Moses Moody was like a redundancy with Andrew Wiggins before the Jimmy trade. His minutes were crazy sporadic before the trade, eighteen minutes per game. He had four games where he

didn't even reach ten minutes. He was a garbage time guy some nights. He had twenty five games this season where he failed to reach twenty minutes. You could argue that's a waste of Moses Moody. He's capable of doing more. The Jimmy Butler trade balanced the roster more gave him a more clear cut roll. He's averaging thirty minutes per game since the trade, and he's struggling to shoot the ball a little bit. And by the way, that's part of what happens when your workload increases, you lose your

legs a little bit. I think the shots will fall once he gets more used to his higher minute load.

But I think he's been fantastic overall. As like a defender, closeout attacker. He's contributing well. I think he's giving you a reasonable facsimile of what Andrew Wiggins did. Everyone was so concerned about gutting the team's depth. Last night, Gary Payton the Second didn't play. Tray Sjackson Davis is still completely out of the rotation because Quinton Post is playing so much better than him. Kurran a ten man rotation last night, and you had two guys that absolutely could

play that were out. I guess I mean Gary Payton's hurt. But the point is is like you still have depth, you still have guys that can play, except for now you have Jimmy Butler on your team, and you've won three out of four while on a really tough road trip, including beating the Bucks in Milwaukee and beating the Rockets

in Houston. It was just about balancing things out. There were a lot of guys in Golden State Warriors jerseys that were capable of doing more role player stuff, but instead you were asking those role players to do more star starf and then bitching that they were all inconsistent. Of course they are. They're being asked to do stuff

that's beyond their pay grade. Now you've balanced things out better, and I think we will continue to see the rewards being reaped by Golden State throughout the rest of the season. As a result of that, they ended up going up by twenty four in this game, and the inevitable Houston ball pressure and physicality ran came right like they always bring. That. That's part of beating Houston and Houston that's just how it goes. They do to everybody. Their bench guys come in,

they just start playing super hard. They're big, they're athletic, they can make a mess of things in a good way. For Houston, I thought you could see Golden State's younger players get a little sped up and start making some mistakes. The one that was the dead giveaway to me was when Gies Santos got that pretty open three in the left corner, but there was a pretty hard close out and he like panicked and shot it off the corner of the backboard. That's kind of an example of what

it looks like when players are rushing right. But I've always found it fascinating how the best players in the world just somehow seem to slow down when things speed up like that, Steph just kept making plays by weaponizing their aggression against them. He had a huge three on the left wing off of a pump fake or he just pump faked, waited for the guy to go by, and then just calmly settled into that three above the

break on the left wing and knocked it down. It's a huge shot in the game that put him backed up seven and then the action that ice the game, a play I loved. They put pods in Moody on the right wing in corners out of the way, and Draymond Green's in the left corner. Steph's right under the basket.

Jimmy Butler's got the ball on the left wing, and all he does is just pitch it to Draymond and back cut off of Steph and Jay Chon Taate like hesitates because he's not sure if they're switching or not, which, by the way, that's what happens when you're playing against Steph Curry. He's gonna cause confusion with your switching because you don't want to leave Steph. Draymond throws a beautiful

bounce past to Jimmy Butler for dunk. Every time I watched that group, it just seems like such a more dynamic trio to run three man action and just to have versatility on both ends of the floor. It just it makes a lot of sense for me. It's impressive one on the road, the three and one so far with Jimmy fifteenth and offense fourth and defense on the rockets. It's just a tough matchup for them without Fred van Vliet.

Draymond Green gave Shangun all sorts of issues album to four for ten, shooting only four assists and three turnovers. The Warriors just swarmed every Jalen Green drive, and of course Jalen Green just never wants to pass out of those drives. I thought Aaron Holliday did an admirable job

of trying to fill the Fred van Vliet role. But this team just really needs advantages to succeed, and they didn't have anybody who could consistently generate advantages except through the strength of their defense and trying to run out and transition, which worked until Steph, Jimmy and Draymond just reasserted control because they're the grown ups that can slow down and play patient discipline basketball. Little shout outs for

Jock Landale and Nate Williams. I thought they did the majority of the damage during that run, just but playing hard, grabbing rebounds, pressuring the rim. Jock Landell's shooting was valuable in that run as well. Again, they're gonna be fine. They're playing a lot of weird lineups right now. We saw Jeff Green last night. Red Shepherd, who's been bad, is still playing a lot like they're the Rockets are just in a little bit of a funk right now. That has to do with injuries to core guys in

their rotation. All right, let's get to our mail bag first thing. Before we get in any questions. I always have to clarify this, guys, I don't make the thumbnails. I am in charge of content. The volume is in charge of distribution. They are got the people that come up with the marketing strategy for the show. If you see a thumbnail, that's not something that or or a title or something like that, I had no take. I have no say in anything like that. I'm just here

making the content. So like I just say. I just say that because I constantly see comments of people freaking out about the thumbnails, and that's that's just not something I have anything to do with. It seems more likely than not that Mitchell, Robinson and og And and Obi will return to the Knicks after the All Star break. Does it make sense for the Knicks to experiment with Mitch in the starting lineup alongside Kat or should he continue to come off the bench Considering how well the current

starting lineup has been performing. I think you absolutely have to experiment with Karl Anthony Towns alongside Mitchell Robinson. There's several reasons for this one. It's a matchup thing. I've always just been a big believer that you want to have different looks when you get into the postseason if you can afford it. It's one of the big reasons why I'm bummed out about the Lakers not getting a center,

like I believe in their small ball looks. I think their small ball looks are going to be tough to contend with, but I think it's advantageous if the situation arises in the postseason and you need to go bigger that you're able to do so. Right like not the least of which is for Nikola Jokich. Right as far as New York goes like, there's not necessarily a team

in the there are certain teams. Milwaukee is an example of the team, especially with Kyle Kuzman now, that can provide a very big frontline to where you might want to try to match size for size. I think a

big part of it is the defense of flexibility. A big part of what's caused problems for the Knicks defense over the course of the season is teams picking on Brunson and Cat, usually at the same time, getting Cat into the screening action after they bring Brunson in onto the primary ball handler as a defender by just setting

an early screen with a go or something along those lines. Right, But if you have a legitimate rim protector like Mitchell Robinson behind the play, or if you can bring Mitchell Robinson up into action and have Karl Anthony Towns operate as a low man, that's just a more achievable defensive role for Kat. If Kat knows I've got help on the back line, or I don't have to be the guy that's coming up into these ball screens, that goes a long way towards towards giving you an easier job

for Kat to do. Like, for instance, right now, Kat is pretty much guarding the center as often as you can imagine to try to give him an achievable defensive role. You can tuck him away on a week forward. If you have a center that can guard the opposing center, I think it's absolutely worth trying to build out that look, even though, yeah, you're obviously going to stagger them a lot throughout the game. It's only been two games. But if you've seen any differences in how the Lakers are

using Luca as opposed to Dallas. Here's the thing. Luke has been very unaggressive over the course of the first two games. That's been especially the first like the game on Wednesday, it was just like one of the worst Laker efforts of the season. I basically just crumple up that game and throw it away. The Monday game, though, like Lebron and Austin were super aggressive, like right out the gates, and Luca was kind of passive and just kind of watching things and not really getting very involved

in the offense. I don't think either of those games represent what this is going to look like. My guess is that JJ Reddick, over the course of this weekend and running into practice on Monday and Tuesday, is going to heavily emphasize at least either specific lineups that will flow through Luca, or even with the starting lineup, asking Lebron and Austin to just play off of Luca more and let Luca get the ball, because, like again, Luca's

best asset to this team is shot creation. You could argue the more you put on Luca offensively, the more you can rely on Lebron as a defender and as a rebounder, the more you can rely on Austin as like a close out attacker, as like a guess what Austin is a capable defender. This is one of the things Carson and I got into an argument with about earlier today. But like you, Austin, when he doesn't have to do everything on offense, he actually can be a

dependable defensive player at the guard position. Not a great defender, but he can be a good defender. Shouldn't be guarding the other team's best player, but he can guard. And so like putting him in a situation where he doesn't have to do as much offensively as advantageous in this situation, right, So, like I think we will see a lot more Luca helio centric type of stuff coming out of the All

Star Break. But the flip side of that is what I talk about after the Finals with Dallas, I talked about how there's certain limitations on Helio centric basketball, and there is an upside to Luca being more of a willing like cog in an offensive system rather than just the head of the stake, because it'll give them more

versatility against the best defenses. And here's the bottom line, Like when they play against the best defenses, like when they play against Oklahoma City, it's not gonna be Luca picking them apart and just throwing out for catching shoot threes. It's gonna have to be against an elite defense like that that skip pass, driving a close out, really good driving kick possessions, deliberate offense to get great shots. And

that is going to require all three of them. It might be Luca running the first ball screen, but I might be Lebron attacking on the skip or Austin cutting along the baseline after Lebron attacks off the skip. It might be three, four or five attacks on a possession before they actually get what they want out of it. And so again, like I think it'll be a lot more heliocentric post All Star Break, but I do think we're gonna see a good amount of equal opportunity basketball

from them against the best teams in the league. Hey Jason, longtime listener, congrats on all your success. I noticed a few months ago you tweeted out a Stanley Johnson and how he should be on an NBA roster. Sure enough, the Lakers get him on their G League team. Are you someone that ever watches the G League? And if so, would you ever do a segment on G League guys or out of country guys we should watch or you

think are ready to play in the NBA. So I've just found that the NBA itself is so damn difficult to cover just because of the sheer amount of games, the seer amount of teams that like, I don't focus on scouting much at all, Like when we get into July or late August or excuse me, late June, I should say I will spend time learning as much as I can about draft prospects in that short period of time.

But like, there are people that devote a lot more time and energy to scouting outside of the NBA, and those people are just going to do a much better job than ever I than I can ever hope to do. So I'm a big believer and like I'd rather be great at this than try to be have my hands in like you know, six different pots, but that I'm not particularly good at any of them, right, So, like I'm I really like to focus on NBA basketball. That said, Stanley Johnson, I do think is a guy that could

play at the NBA level. He's a career six rebounds and two stocks per thirty six minutes in the NBA. Like he's a useful athlete, he does have switchability. He's a fire hydrant that's difficult to go through. And the biggest issue was he couldn't shoot, and over the course of the last two seasons in the G League, he's shooting forty one percent from three on five attempts per game. I don't think the Lakers are gonna pick him up. I think if they converted a wing, it'll be Jordan Goodwin.

But like if you told me stan only Johnson was on this roster, I would be happy with it because I like Stanley. And I'm a little biased too because I'm from Tucson, Arizona. He came through Arizona. Stanley and I played against and with each other at times while he was here, just playing pickup and stuff. So I'm a big fan of Stanley. But that said, I do

think that he can help and I hope he gets another opportunity in the NBA at some point, and with the growth as a shooter and with his impactfulness as an athlete, I think he should get that opportunity. With Mataspizzellis now hitting the double digit scoring mark eight games in a row and Zach Lavine gone, what can Slash should the Bulls do this season to ensure they are rebuilding the right way? Continue to give him the ball

as much as possible. Everything about being bad with a purpose has big picture goals, right, Like, if you're going to be bad, you want to be bad while accumulating assets, and you want to be bad while evaluating young talent. I've joked about how like a lot of times when you're rebuilding, you'll take on bad contracts with draft compensation

being the reward for the bad contracts. Then what ends up happening is you have a bunch of guys on these rookie deals where they're making somewhere between you know, two and eight million a year that are on these like cost controlled contracts that you're actually playing while you take those guys, you need to determine which ones of those guys can be extended, should be extended, are part of your big picture goals as a franchise and the team that you're trying to build. You need to find

out what modest Bozellis is? Is he just like a Michael Porter Junior week side wing defender, rebounder, guy who attacks with an advantage, or see a guy that can run action and run a lot of it, right, Like, that's the kind of stuff that you got to figure out because which one of those two players he becomes plays a big role. You might find out, Oh, he'll never be good enough defensively for this to work. Okay,

well we need to find out. We need to play him a large amounts of minutes, give him lots of repetition, right, and so the best thing you could do is put the ball in his hands and just find out what this kid is capable of in these moments where where you can afford to give them that opportunity as currently constructed, Where do you believe that the expectations should be for

the Lakers this postseason? I'm borderline wanting to consider them contenders because of the sheer fact that they have Luca and Lebron, who are two of the most consistent guys in the league. But I want to be cautious. I'm going to say exactly what I said to the Nerd Sesh guys earlier today. I don't know what the Lakers are going to be I haven't seen them play nearly enough basketball. I need to see a lot more. That said, there's somewhere between, in my opinion, a second tier contender

and a third tier contender. To me, right now, I kind of you as of like Boston Oka. See at the top, I'm starting to slot Cleveland in that second tier these days. Denver to me, is in that second tier. The Lakers are either going to be in that second tier with Denver and Cleveland or in the tier right below. But we need to watch them play a lot more basketball. I think here's the thing. If they're a second tier contender, let's say that we end up putting them in that

second tier. I'm still worried about a Yokich matchup. I'm still really worried about a Celtics matchup because it's the same reasons that Dallas struggled last year trying to guard Boston at times. Right, So, like, I think they have matchup weaknesses. But I also just put this like simple, I've presented this Carson today. If it's Lebron, Luca Austin, Dorian Phinney, Smith, and Ruey, how are you getting stops against the Lakers in a big spot, Like, how who

are you helping off of? Dorian Phinney. Smith is a knockdown three point shooter. Ruey can drive close outs, Austin can drive close outs, Lebron can drive close outs, Luca can drive close out. So you can't leave any of them open. Like they're gonna have legitimate five out spacing with that group, Like Lebron and Lucas should be able to get to the room whenever they want. Okay, you have a big enough let's take Oklahoma City for example, to have lou Dort. They're gonna put lou Dort on

Luca and it's gonna make life really difficult for Luca. Okay, who's guarding Lebron Jalen Williams? Like Lebron's gonna do a lot of damage to Jalen Williams, you know what I mean. So like that, that's not to say that I wouldn't that I would pick the Lakers over the Thunder. I don't know. I honestly got him. Not going to give you guys my like contender ranking for the Lakers until

I watched them play a lot more basketball. They're brand new theoretical team right now that's played the Utah Jazz twice. They tried in one game and kick the shit out of them. They didn't try in the next game and got their shit kicked out of them. So, like, I don't know exactly what they're going to be yet. We

will find out. But like I mean, Lebron is forty years old and he's a championship or bust kind of guy, and I'm sure that he thinks that they can win, and I would imagine they're gonna view anything other than them winning as a failure. But like, I don't know what they're going to be, and we just need to see a lot more basketball before we can make that kind of decision. So with the Mark Williams trade falling through, the Lakers are obviously aiming for free agency to grab

that lob threat big. How would you feel about Jalen Duran to the Lakers. He's only twenty one years old, six ten, two hundred and fifty pounds and is a lot threat and is a free agent this summer. He's also averaging seventy percent from the field. And I know it's early, but any for realistic free agents you see on the Lakers, I have a hard time believing Detroit

is gonna give up on Jaalen Duran. He's had some issues with like guarding on the perimeter against stretch fives, but I think he's been really good outside of that, and he's a really nice fit with Kate, got good hands,

finishes everything around the basket. So I mean, when I look at this summer for the Lakers, I think they're gonna be keyen in on guys like Rob Williams, Nick Klaxton, guys in that like less than twenty five million a year range that they think they can piece together a couple of guys to just match salary and get I inclined to say Robert Williams because he's a little bit more affordable, but Nick Claxon would be a little bit more of a big picture option because he's younger and

it doesn't have the injury history. Actually, I think Nick Claxon might be a little older than Rob Williams. I'm actually not sure which one of those guys is younger, but his body's younger. He has men is injured in his career, as Robert Williams has been. But my guess is that they're kind of key in on those two guys this summer, Nuggets in four, just kidding, but not so much. Without Ad, I don't see how the Lakers

stand a chance against Yokic. How do you feel about the Lakers vers Nuggets playoffs with the current rosters injuries aside? Got into this with Carson today extensively. Like I said, so you guys can find that on the nerd set feed. But like, again, the way I look at it, like I don't think the Lakers are gonna be able to guard Denver, but I also don't think Denver's gonna be able to guard the Lakers. So if neither team can stop the other team from getting good shots, it's gonna

be a shot making series. So I think it'll be it'll come down to like game planning, Like will Mike Malone be able to punish the Lakers for playing guys

like Jackson Hayes Jared Vanderbilt? Right? Will jj Reddick be able to punish Mike Malone for playing guys like Christian Brown or Russell Westbrook, right, And both of those guys have been awesome this year, right, and and so like it's it's it's one of those things where like I don't think either team has an answer like he was the Carson was saying, like, there's nobody on this team

that can stop Jokics from getting great shot. You're absolutely right, But I'm gonna present you the exact same thing I just said earlier. If Denver has to guard a lineup with Lebron, Luca Austin, Dorian Finney Smith, and Ruby Hotcha Mura, how are they going to stop the Lakers from getting good shots? How they're not going to be able to So, like, I think it would be a very very high scoring series relative to other playoff series. Is I think it

would be a very interesting playoff series. I will admit freely that as as a Lakers fan, when I saw this trade go down in the aftermath, the two teams that I got legitimately concerned about were Denver and Boston. So like, for the record, I would be scared in that kind of matchup, But I just think, given how theoretical the Lakers are, I think it'd be foolish just

to completely write them off. Four more, Hey, Jason, with the Spurs now fall into twenty three and twenty nine, in the refusal to replace Chris Paul in the starting lineup with Stefan Cassel. Do you think the Spurs should semi tank the rest of the season to secure two lottery picks other via Atlanta to help complete their rebuild.

I think that the entire purpose behind making a Deer and Fox move is to advance the timeline, specifically to appease Victor Weminyama and his competitive nature, but also to get these guys reps so you can start to learn you have a core. Now your core is Fox, Vecel Castle, wemb soh right, Like that's your core, five guys that

you're building around. You need to get those guys into a high leverage situation against an elite team in a playoff series so that you can learn about what they need to be supported with over the course of the next few years. So again, they're in a tough spot, but you go for it. You absolutely go for it. You want to find as much high leverage basketball for these guys as early as possible. That was the entire

purpose behind the Daron Fox trade. Do you think that Lebron and Yokiic are the only players in NBA history to have seen every adjustment, every coverage, every double or blitz thrown and have always found new angles to dominate the game at the level they've dominated for so long and with such offensive consistency. I don't think it's only those two. I generally think that all basketball players have

gotten better, even just in this era. I think Steph Curry is another guy where like he's competed against switching by just running around like crazy and forcing teams to make mistakes when they're switching. He's beat switching big looks by just attacking them off the bounce. Famously did a lot of picking on Horford and Robert Williams in the NBA Finals twenty twenty two. He's a drop coverage killer.

He annihilated the Celtics drop coverage for the most part over the course of that series, which is a big part of why they had to switch at times. Right, Like, he's done a ton of days it blitz him. Yeah, yeah, be my guest. That was literally how they won the twenty fifteen finals. Like that was how Andre Gudalla got Finals MVP. So like, I think he's countered all these different coverages as well. Again, like when I think about like peaks, I think Jokich has reached an offensive peak

that no player ever has. I think Lebron has reached a two way peak that no player ever has. And I think at Lebron's peak, Steph was also about as good on the offensive end of the floor when he was at that point. So like again, they all have like these different kind of calling cards, But there are definitely a lot of players in NBA history that have overcome anything a coach can do, Like Michael Jordan wasn't a guy that in the nineties was struggling with any

specific coverage. If that makes sense, Why aren't people, including you, talking about what the Thunder are doing at the All Star break? They have the best net rating of time, as well as the best relative defense ever. I just don't understand why they're not being talked about at all, much less like the all time great team they've been to this point. It's not a small sample size anymore. A couple of things. I did just talk about them yesterday.

I think we just got into them in the defensive run that they went on at the tail end of the game against was it the Mimay Heat, Yeah, Miami Heat, and I talked about their defense now it was so exceptionally great. The other thing, too, is like the dominant regular season team is always the least interesting NBA regular season story. It's unfair that it works that way, but it's just the reality. Like there's no debate about it.

There is debate surrounding bad teams or teams that have more significant flaws, because then you can argue these are their flaws or these are their strengths, right, Like, it's kind of weird out works in the NBA how the teams that dominate kind of disappear into the top, and the teams that suck disappear into the bottom, and then we spend all this time debating the middle tier. Like that's kind of like how it works for whatever reason.

So I understand that I don't talk about the Thunder as much as I do some of the other teams in the league, but we do talk about them. We hit them a few times a month, and we just hit them earlier this week. I again, I have a similar type of response to the all time great stuff that I do with Boston, Like, I don't think all time great is something you accomplished in the regular season. I don't think it's something you accomplished with advanced metrics.

I think it's something you accomplished with multiple deep playoff runs where you win multiple championships. That's how you achieve all time great that is, it's just a different kind of like goalpost for me. I guess I view the Thunder as kind of like a combination of a legitimate championship contender while also being a little bit Houston Rocket see in the sense that, like they're young and freakishly athletic, and they're playing harder than everybody every night. That's going

to go a long way in the eighty two. So like on one hand, on the one hand, I viewed them as a legitimate contender, but I don't think they're as good as their record or their net rating would lead you to believe. And they still have some big question marks to me, Like Minnesota kind of mauled them in the in the fourth quarter yesterday, got a bunch of stops, ate them up on the offense. They had

twenty offensive rebounds in that game. And like I do think about certain teams that have physical size mismatches that they can present. I do worry about the multiple times this year in big spots, whether it's against a good team on the road or whether it's in the n Ceason Tournament championship where their offense just falls apart and

it becomes can Shay make shots? And he takes a lot of mid range shots that he just has to hit at a super high efficiency for them to be worth it, right, and he does for the record, But like, there's a certain amount of like frail tea with them that I see with every team in the league except for basically Boston, and even then there's there's a little bit of frailty just in there defending championship itis where they've been so sloppy with their shot selection at times

this year last. Actually, we already that's my bad. I have the Mitchell Robinson one in here again, so I already hit that one. So we're actually done for the day. All right, guys, It's all I have for today is always to sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show. I hope you guys enjoy the weekend. We'll be back on We'll enjoy the All Star break.

We're gonna do. We're gonna do some stuff that the games get started back up on Wednesday, but we're gonna do some stuff on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, like contender rankings, maybe a check in with the nerd Sash guys. We'll see. We're gonna do some stuff in early next week to kill time before we get into the rest of the season. But again, as always, I appreciate you, guys, and I'll

see you next week 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.