Hoops Tonight - NBA Team Rankings: How Steph Curry & Draymond Green can win 5th title with Warriors

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See Sportsbook dot Draft, Kings dot com, slash Football terms for eligibility terms and responsible gambling resources. Bonus bets expire seven days after inch issuance. Eligibility and deposit restrictions apply. All right, welcome to hoops tonight here at the volume. Have you Monday? Everybody hopeful if you guys had an incredible weekend. We are live on AMPS, so if you're watching on YouTube, we're listening on our podcast feeds. Don't forget that DAMP is the very first place that you

guys can get these shows. We're moving on to number six in our Power rankings today with the Golden State Warriors, the full season preview for them. Then I've got three mail back questions for the end of the show as well.

You guys do the Joe four we get started. Subscribe to our YouTube channel, follow me on Twitter at underscore jsonlt don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get podcasts under Hoops Tonight and I need more mail bag questions, so keep dropping those in the YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them at the end of these shows throughout the season. All right, let's talk some basketball so

quick offseason recap on the Golden State Warriors. They lost Patrick Baldwin, Junior ppj, Dante DiVincenzo, Jamichael Green, Andrea Godalafer now who knows if he'll return at some point during the season, Ty Jerome, Anthony Lamb, Jordan Poole, and Ryan Rollins. They added Uzman Garuba is an undersized big. He was a good rebounder off the bench for the Rockets last year. He had a in his career, he's twelve rebounds per thirty six minutes. He can shoot a little bit too.

He was twenty four for fifty nine on jump shots last year. That's sixty one percent effective field goal percentage when weighted for threes, and he converted spot up possessions at one point one point seven points per possession. The biggest question offensively is if you're gonna be a big in the Golden State system, got to be able to make reads out of the short role, so that's gonna

be a thing he's gonna have to figure out. He only shot fifty six percent at the rim last year, which is not good for a big man, and he'll have to be able to make the reads, so we'll see in the long run. Defensively, he's best in a switching scheme, so I think he can have some success in Golden State teams. Iso Who's mant Garuba ninety one times last year and he allowed just seventy eight points, which is zero point eighty six points per possession, which

is really good. He's good at kind of like giving ground and baiting guards into taking tough shots over the top, and then he's got a really long wingspan. He's got a seven to three wingspan, so like he can bait guys and then get a really good late contest. So a nice little option there in camp for them to evaluate. Corey Joseph a backup guard, blow average shot creator, but he's a really good spot up player. He averaged one point one to five points per spot up possession last year.

Rodney McGruder an athletic guard, good point of attack defender. I think that's kind of the angle they were going there with him somewhat limited off the dribble, but he did shoot well last year sixty percent effective field goal percentage on jump shots last year with the Pisson, So Rodney McGruder will be an interesting guy for them to evaluate in camp as well. Dario Sarich very good stretch big, was watching him a lot with the Thunder last year.

Fifty seven percent effective field goal percentage on catch and shoot jump shots. He can pick and pop and short roll really well. So he's a really natural fit in the Warriors offense. And once again, like with most of these guys, it's just gonna be a question of whether or not whether or not he can hold up defensively, and I think he's perfectly fine as a bench, big slash forward option for the Warriors. They then we have to look at the the guys that they drafted this year.

I'm not going to talk too long about him today because I did full scouts on both of these guys earlier this offseason. So if you haven't seen those yet, scroll down through our feed down to draft day and you'll see that we did full scouts on Tray Jackson Davis and Brandon Potzimski, but Tray Jackson Davis, I think he's got a really good chance to crack the rotation this year. Why because he's a good switch defender, good athlete,

and was a good role man last year. He was one of the better role men in the country last year, despite him getting absolutely swarmed like he was rolling into traffic, because he was the best player on his team. I actually think in this Warrior system he could be deadly in the short role because he's gonna be catching with room to operate. So I think he's got a chance to play a little bit. He actually has a little bit of a face up game as well. I'm just

not sure how much they'll use it. And Brandon Patziemski is a skill guard with a skill set tailor made for the Warriors offense, a guy that I think is going to succeed there as well. But I'm not going to go any further because, like I said, you can get full scouts of those guys further back on our feed.

The biggest splashy acquisition for the Warriors this summer was flipping Jordan Pool into Chris Paul, who was still one of the best half court shot creators in the league last year, remember a high volume pick and roll list at least a thousand pick and rolls. Chris Paul, out of fifteen guys who ran at least a thousand pick and rolls, came in at seventh, so a little bit above average there. One point zero six points per isolation as well, that's seventieth percentile, so well above averag there.

And in the playoffs he ran eighty nine pick and rolls in ISOs for eighty nine points, and that's about a point for possession. So even as bad as it looked at times in the postseason for the Suns last year, Chris Paul was still good for a point for possession when you tossed him in the basketball, which is anything over a point for possession in the playoffs has real value. And again, he was in a lot of disrupted rhythm

situations playing alongside Kevin Durant and Devin Booker. In this situation, I actually think he's gonna get the ball a little bit more with the Warriors. So again I look at it as just a more stable version of Jordan Poole. We won't have the highs that you got from Jordan Poole, because Jordan Poole obviously is a more talented player at this point in his career. But you have a much better chance over the course of the season of maintaining

leads with Chris Paul instead of Jordan Poole. And then we're gonna talk more about this later. But when you get to the postseason, when the team start to get in front of the Warriors motion offense, you need to have a guy that can run, pick and roll at in an extremely efficient and consistent level. And Jordan Poole was just very volatile there, and so having Chris Paul will just give you a better opportunity to thrive in

those environments. Looking at the depth chart at gart Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Chris Paul, Brandon Pazemski, Corey Joseph at Ford, Andrew Wiggins, Gary Payton, Jonathan Kaminga, and Moses Moody. So obviously very thin at Ford, which we're gonna talk about here in a minute. And then they're big men Draymond Green, Kevan Luoni, Darusarch who can play some forward in Uzmongaruba

as well. Now I want to talk about the roster and balances for a minute, because again, like we saw a couple of consistent problems last year, and it's really easy as a front office to blame something and to overlook some of the other factors at play. It's easy to say, Jordan Poole, Draymond Green chemistry, we didn't play well on the road, we needed to upgrade. Now we got Jordan Poole out of the situation, everyone's gonna love

each other again and everything's gonna be great. And I think that that overlooks the reality of their predicament that they they ran into in the Lakers series, which is when they're able to play all their bigs, Like when they could play Loony and Draymond, Andrew Wiggins, Clay and Steph, that's great and that works really well, and that lineup will definitely be fine in the regular season and they can beat a lot of specific teams in the postseason.

But when they ran into a team with real legitimate rim protection in this case the Los Angeles Lakers, and they couldn't play both bigs at the same time, suddenly they had a really hard time figuring out that fifth guy. Right, Oh, let's try down Ted Devincenzo Okay, we're too small. Let's try Jamichael Green. Okay, we're too slow. Let's try Gary Payton the second Oh, okay, he's missing his corner threes

and he's making good plays. But they just they couldn't get enough consistent production out of that second forward spot, or call it the fifth starter or whatever you want to call it. But when Steph and Clay, and Andrew Wiggins and Draymond Green were out there, or in Kevin Looney was out there, they were just always one perimeter players of the type of you know, consistent starter caliber production they needed out of that specific position. And the

size issues were legitimate, Like against the Lakers. I was rewatching Game six and uh the other day, and fourteen of the fifteen fourteen of the first fifteen Laker points in that game were straight up ISOs and post ups of smaller defenders, and like that, that problem is not going away. And you'd see D'Angelo Russell taking Steph to task. I mean, Dangel Russell even was attacking Gary Payton and

drawing fouls. Lebron James just bullying Andrew Wiggins, and like that, Andrew Wiggins on Lebron, you kind of have to live with, right, Draymond on Anthony Davis, Like Anthony Davis had a driving foul on Draymond that you're gonna have to live with to a certain extent. But you've got to limit some of the other parts in the roster where you're giving up size as well. Again, like it's a down the roster thing, you know, Like, and it's not just the Lakers.

You're gonna run into that problem with a team like the Nuggets as well. Right. The interesting thing with the way the league has changed is you have different types of teams that you have to go through now, Like I think there are you know I said this before, Like there's six teams at the top of the league in my opinion, the Warriors, Lakers, Suns, Celtics, Bucks, and Nuggets, right, in no particular order. And in that specific situation, you've got let's just take the Warriors out for a second.

Let's look at these other five. You have five completely different types of teams. Like I've got the Lakers and Nuggets, which are just pulverize you inside type of massive front lines, right, and then I've got teams like the Celtics and the Suns that are like stretch you out with multiple perimeter threats, right. And then the Bucks are kind of a little bit of both now with Damon with Giannis, right, but they're all very different, and so you do need to have

the ability to play multiple ways. And right now, like there's just a lot hanging on the young guys particular, there's a lot hanging on can Moses Moody or Jonathan Kaminga become a rotational level option on the perimeter, because I know they can go with the two big lineup against a team like Denver or a team like Milwaukee, but I don't think they can do it against and Milwaukee might even be a stretch with their rim protection.

So like they might be able to do it against like Boston and Denver, but they might not be able to do it against teams like Milwaukee and Los Angeles. Right, So, like you've got to have both punches. Now, You've got to be able to play Draymond or Cavan Luoni at the five and have four legitimate starter caliber perimeter players, and then you need to be able to play the big lineup against different types of matchups. Right, the question is can you play Chris Paul in those lineups. I

don't know. Can you run Chris Paul, Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins and Draymond Green. Maybe we don't know, but chances are our NBA history tells us you're really small there. You're undersized in your back court with two small guards, and then you're asking Draymond Green to hold down the center position, right, which again he's been capable of doing that his whole career. But that's easier to do when it's you know, that's easier to do when it's you know,

Kevin Durant Andre Gudala next to him. Is my point. You put a lot of pressure on the rest of your lineup when you're small elsewhere, right, And so again that's going to be the big balancing act for this particular season from the standpoint of roster and balance. Do you trust Moses Moody and Jonathan Kaminga to become that reliable fifth guy in your smaller lineups? I don't know. And like, here's what NBA history tells us. Young players

typically don't play well consistently in the playoffs. You shruck Gold by getting what you got out of Jordan Pool in the championship run. What happened to him in last year's playoffs is way more consistent with what happens with young scoring guards in the NBA playoffs. I'm not trying to discount it. Luck Jordan Poole played great, but it was highly unusual, and what happened last year is much more consistent with what you'd expect now. Moses Moody just

turned twenty one years old. Jonathan Kaminga turns twenty one in December. I think, so that's really young. Like, just look at the NBA Finals this year, there was one rotation player, like significant rotation player for both teams who was below the age of twenty five like that played at least one hundred minutes in the series. Is Michael Porter Junior. Who is the one guy who didn't play well for the Nuggets in that series. It was Michael

Porter Junior. Like the time and time again throughout NBA history, when you're counting on super young players to succeed in the late rounds of the NBA Playoffs, they typically don't and so again you maybe it works out. Moses Moody had some moments. We'll talk about it in a little bit, but He shot the shit out the basketball this year in the playoffs, and he had some moments where he was impactful defensively, but he also struggled with foul trouble

and was a little inconsistent with his decision making. Right, Jonathan Kamingo was useless in this year's playoff run, So like, maybe that works out, but I think they need to be prepared for the possibility that they might have to upgrade their firepower with a reliable forward, preferably one that can slot either between Wiggins and Clay or between Wiggins and Draymond, So one with a little bit of size and athleticism, kind of like what Otto Porter Junior was

in the championship team year, right, Like, don't underestimate how important guys like Namanya b Elitza and Auto Porter were. Maybe Dario Sartz brings that Namanya b Alitza type of punch, But who's gonna bring the Auto Porter like legit spacing threat that can play his role on the defensive end and not hurts you in those lineups. Who's gonna be that guy? You know? And you have to accept the reality of your urgency as well, because like Steph Curry

is a transcendently great star. And NBA history tells us you don't win unless you have a transcendently great star. Last year Jokics, the year before Steph, the year before Johannis, the year before Lebron, the year before Kawhi, the year before Katie and Steph, Katie and Steph, Lebron, Steph. You get the point. You don't win championships unless you have a transcendently great star. Steph is a transcendently great star. He might only have two or three years left playing

at that superstar level. There is urgency here. Jonathan Kamingo, by the time Steph declines won't even be twenty five yet he may not be a like a legit reliable two way playoff player for a half decade. And so like I do think that, and again, like I know it sucks. It's like season preview, let's pitch trades, and I think they should try to start the season. I think it's a deadline type of deal, like give Moody and Kaminga a ton of reps and see if by

February they can figure it out. But you might have to consider pitching in some of these assets to try to give yourself a real veteran presence at the forward position that gives you a chance to hang. Because let's be one hundred percent clear, the Warriors are in that same tier in my opinion. But who's gonna be favored in a Warriors Lakers series that starts tomorrow? Sorry, guys, it's the Lakers. Who's gonna be favored in a Warrior

Sun series tomorrow? Probably the Suns. Who's gonna be favored in a Warrior's Nuggets series tomorrow? Probably the Nuggets. Who's gonna be favored in a Warrior Celtics in a Warriors Bucks series, It's gonna be the Celtics or the Bucks. So like, you're in that tier, but you're clearly at

the bottom of the tier. And the saving grace that even makes you consider them in that tier is Steph Curry, and you need to give him the firepower that he needs to compete with these groups, especially when all of them massively upgrade it, like Chris Paul is a very high risk, high reward type of move. Like, there's a version of this that works extremely well, and we're gonna break it down. We're gonna get into all the basketball

here in just a minute. I'm talking a big picture right now, but like, there's a version of this that works really well. But there's also a version of this where he's really old and he gets hurt. There's a version of this where he declines too much defensively. There's a version of this where it's a bad fit. The Warriors run by far the most off screen action of any team in the NBA. Chris Paul ran two off

screen plays last year. So like, there's a lot of volatility in this particular type of move So again, like it'll be interesting to see what kind of player they go after. But these kinds of Fords do become available. We saw last year Ruie Hatchamur and Jared Vanderbilt and the Kers struck Golden got him both. The year before that it was Ben Simmons and Tory Craig and Trey Lyles.

The year before that it was Aaron Gordon. There's gonna be some player that comes available, and they need to keep themselves in the mix and ready to pounce on that sort of thing if it arises as and again, depending on Moody and Kaminga's development, it wouldn't be completely unprecedented for a young player to succeed. It just is unlikely, but it's not completely unprecedented, and it can happen. And like I said, Moody, Moody feels the closest to me.

Kaminga obviously has a higher ceiling, but Moody feels the closest to me. And we'll see what happens in the long run. A couple of guys to keep an eye on Ojannanobi, although at this point I'm half convinced the Raptors will never trade him. Jeremy Grant now he would need to buy into a role and right now he's only interested in scoring, and that's to his own detriment.

But if they could do it with Andrew Wiggins and converting him into a committed role player, I don't think they couldn't do it with Jeremy Grant, and I think he'd be relatively inexpensive, So that's an option there. A weird name that I thought about was Carl Town's not exactly the type of Ford that I'm talking about, but from a talent perspective, he could be really inexpensive compared to other stars. And like Kat's offensive versatility with Raymond's

defensive versatility might allow them both to play together often. So, like, that's a name I'd keep an eye on if the if the Minnesota Timberwolves decide to make a move, and then like obviously for the Timberwolves getting one of those young forwards as an option to put between Jayden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert in the long term, that's an interesting idea, right,

Dorian Phinney Smith is a guy keep an eye on. Now, obviously the Nets are trying to do this whole We're gonna do five wings and switch everything and cause all sorts of problems, But they're kind of loaded in that middle round range, right, like, because you've got Spencer Dinwiddie at point guard, and you've got Nick Klaxton who's your center. But in the middle there you've got Cam Johnson, McHale, Bridges, Ben Simmons, and Dorian Finney Smith. Someone's gonna be the

odd man out there. And I think, because I think Dorian Finny Smith is a player that maybe if the Nets just suck to start the year and they start you know, fifteen and thirty or you know, fifteen and twenty five, maybe you can jump in there and grab Dorian Finney Smith for one of those forwards, right, and then there are less expensive options out there that might not even cost you Moody and kaminga like, what if CP three gets hurt and you call the Hornets and

you ask for Gordon Hayward, right, Or what if you call the Pistons and ask for boy and macdonovitch. Rightly, there are some options that they could go to there that are really inexpensive as well, that wouldn't be as risky.

But I just think I think it's something they're gonna have to keep an eye on, because again, we know how good the Warriors core lineup is, and if they start Looney and Draymond and they keep Chris Paul coming off the bench, and that lineup kicks everyone's ass, it's gonna be easy to lull yourself into sleep and thinking like we're good. But like, we know that lineup literally can't play against the Lakers, and probably can't play against the Bucks, and might not be able to play against

some other teams. So like, it's just something to keep an eye on over the course of the season. All right, let's move over to the offensive end of the floor for a little bit, so obviously we know everything we need to know about Golden State's offense. I've covered this team very closely over the last couple of years. You Warriors fans know this already from your time being fans of the team. I saw it the other day, since Damian Lillard and Draymond Green got drafted the same year

in twenty twelve. Now Draymond, Clay and Steph are the three longest tenured players in the league with the same team, so like they've been doing this forever for lack of for lack of a better term, right, they're the most organized offense in the league. They run more sets and actions than any team in the league. They run less pick and roll than they were literally thirtieth and pick

and roll frequency this year. We know their structure. Most of their sets are five out right and usually involved an off ball screen flowing into a dribble handoff, flowing into occasionally a pick and roll. It's a lot of structured two man game, meaning like they don't just dribble the ball up the floor and call for a ball screen. They run something to flow into some sort of ball screen, whether it's a handoff, a ball screen, or off ball screen, right, Like,

that's the way the Warriors were on their offense. I'm not going to go too far into it. The Warriors attempted nine hundred and forty seven shots in off ball screens last year, which was three hundred and eighteen more than any team in the league, in almost eight hundred more than the Philadelphia seventy six ers, to give you an idea of how it stacks up to a classic heliocentric,

you know, brute force offensive team. Right. So what I want to do offensively today is just primarily focus on the CP three fit, because that's going to be the one that's most different from what we see in previous Warriors seasons, and most of the rest of the roster is pretty consistent with what you had last year on the offensive end. So let's talk about CB three. First

of all, let's do it from two perspectives. What he's going to be able to do within the existing Golden State system, and what the Warriors might be able to do to bring out what Chris Paul's best at, which is more slow down, methodical, heliocentric basketball. Right. So, I have heard through the grape vine that CB three has gone to great lengths in this offense season to embrace this Warriors system. He's committed to trying to make this work.

He is a competitor, He is a winner. He may not have won a championship, but he is a winner, and most of the time has been his body that's let him down in recent years. Right like, he's doing his part to try to figure out how to play with the Warriors. And I think that's great because I do think even though he hasn't done those things in the past, excuse me, I think he has all the necessary skills to be able to do so. So, for instance,

we talked about it. Chris Paul last year logged three total off screen possessions, and one of them I don't even think counts. We'll go through him real quick. He scored on all three of them, by the way. Against Oklahoma City in February, he came off of a double wide pin down at a left corner, so two guys went to set a screen. Chris Paul came off, lou Dort was guarding him, tried to cheat the screen and

meet him on the other side. Chris Paul came off clean, caught right around the wing, extended right around the slot and took one dribble into the elbow and knock down an easy, like little eighteen foot jump shot. And then secondly, it was a little bit earlier in February the same year, a baseline out of bounds play against the Hawks, and he kind of started up at the top of the key and he came off of a screen towards the baseline and rose up off the catch and knocked down

a shot. And then the third one was out of a horn set where he had Aaron Gordon on him and Aaron Gordon was over pressuring him. It was in the Christmas Day game and Chris Paul just did a rip through amove and was able to get to the vuel line. But that doesn't really count. That's not really an off screen play. So twice all year did Steph or excuse me, did Chris Paul run a play coming off of a screen? And he's going to have to

do that a lot more with the Warriors. But let's simplify it from a skill standpoint, what does it take to do that. You need to be able to rise and fire, which Chris Paul has the ability to do, and then you need to be able to read a lock and trail and know that you're going downhill. And when you go downhill, you need to be able to

make reads because Golden State's gonna invert. They're spacing and there's gonna be a lot of space going down towards the rim, and there's gonna have to be somebody that steps over to help, and you have to be able to make reads. Chris Paul's gonna be able to do that. There's no reason why he shouldn't be able to do that. So like, even though he hasn't done it in the past, I do think he's going to be able to step in and run a lot of Golden State's organic motion offense.

The biggest question is is gonna be how quickly will he pick it up. I think there will be some growing pains. I think there will be some times early in the season where it doesn't flows easy. And like, here's the thing, Like Chris Paul's a little bit of a ball stopper, Like he's not a person who plays with tempo in the half court. He likes to take

his time to interpret the defense. And Stephan Klay just couldn't be any further from that, Like Stephen Klayer are guys that like when one of their role players catches and holds the ball for more than a second, they get pissed off about it. Right, So there's gonna be some growing pains early on. But I do think Chris is a smart player, and I think he's gonna figure it out pretty quickly. The biggest question to me is how much will the Warriors allow Chris to play his style? Now?

I think you're primarily going to see this in two environments steph off the floor and later playoff rounds against teams that force him to run more pick and roll, I e. The Lakers, Right, But like, this is the classic Chris Paul offense. This is the shooter in the left corner, shooter in the right corner, ball screener, and shooter in the right wing. Right. That's and just all the space in the world operate basically everything that Chris

Paul has been doing for years with the Suns. Now, similarly to what they did with the Suns, they ran a ton of Spain pick and roll right with Devin Booker. So as Ayton's rolling, you have Booker ever setting either setting a backscreen for aighten or Ayton's down screening for Booker as he's flashing a high It's like a three man game basically, right, and you know, the Warriors do a lot of that with Klay Thompson. Is like a

flare screen. So like they'll have you know, Steph start on the left wing and Looney will come up and set a ball screen and as Steph comes off, like Clay will run from the left wing over the top of that that screen back the opposite way, which kind of functions as a Spain pick and roll, but gives Klay Thompson the entire left side of the floor to operate. It's one of their five outsets that they run a lot.

That's something Chris Paul can run, right, So like they can add some of the Warrior complications and flair to it. But I would I do think it's smart to slow down a little bit with Chris Paul and let him run his style a little bit. He's just that's just what he's been doing his whole career, and I think it'll help in two ways. Like one, it'll help you maintain leads in the regular season better by allowing Chris

to play his style when Steph's off the floor. But two, when we get into the postseason, it's just one of those things where we saw what happened. Jordan Poole crumbled, Klay Thompson struggled, and Steph had to do everything and his efficiency tanked. It was his worst least efficient series since the twenty nineteen Rocket Series. Right, So, like we saw what can happen when Steph has to do everything offensively when he doesn't get the punch that he got

out of Jordan Pool and Klay Thompson last year. Right, So Chris Paul could be that fix. Now Chris Paul takes a third of those pick and roll touches. Now Steph Curry doesn't have to deal with the fatigue as much and the repetition as much. Chris brings a different punch to the situation. Obviously, now you're weaponizing Steph as an off ball player in those pick and roll situations.

He can be the guy that's taking that Klay Thompson kind of like the Spain flair whatever, I don't I don't know what the Warriors call it, but that that specific action I just broke down. So like in that's in that situation, Chris like legitimately raises your playoff ceiling and and and that that to me is like the upside of this move. I don't view it at because Jordan Poole's volatility is not as damaging in the regular

season as it is in the playoffs. I do think Chris will do a good job maintaining leads, But Jordan Poole won you some games last year, like straight up one ye some games, and Chris Paul may not have that type of upside, But I do think in the playoffs or where you're gonna see the real upside there. Uh. The other thing I'd like to see is I'd like to see a lot of Jonathan Kaminga setting ball screens

for Chris Paul. He's a more natural vertic spacer, and that's something that Chris Paul's always thrived with, is a good vertical spacer. He didn't get a ton of short role reps last year. I think he only had like fifteen made baskets all year out of the short role. But I think that's something that he can do more frequently, and I think Chris Paul is a good partner for him there. My biggest concern for CP three is his

defensive capabilities at this point in his career. I kind of got this feeling while watching him throughout the season last year, but I kind of got it again when I started watching the film this morning. I watched a bunch of Chris Paul guarding and pick and roll, and it was kind of like what I remembered from the season. It was a mixed bag. Occasionally you'd see the old Chris where he'd be super physical at the point of attack, and he navigated screen super well, and he's really good

at like bothering the shooting pocket. It's what all good little guy defenders are good at this, which is like, I'm not going to contest you up high as you're trying to gather the ball. I'm going to try to disrupt that flow somehow, just with a swipe, even if it just makes you move the ball a little bit or just slightly lose control. We talk about any energy for all the time, like going from your feet up through the shot. When you disrupt that energy transfer at all,

it throws off the muscle memory. And so it's a great way to be impactful defensively below the ground, like below the rim right and Chris Paul has moments still where he can do that and do that well, but then also there are other plays where he's like, he took more defensive possessions off last year than I'm accustomed to seeing. He doesn't have the same quickness that he used to have, So like, I'm curious to see how

Chris Paul fits in defensively. But at the same time, Golden State has a better defensive culture than really any team Chris has ever played for, so it is possible that he has a throwback season on that end, and quite frankly, the Warriors are gonna need it. To the defensive end of the four. The Warriors basically had two defenses last year, their home defense and their road defense.

They were great at home third and defensive rating ninth and rebounding tenth and protecting the paint ninth and guarding the three point line, but they were awful on the road twenty eighth and defensive rating. So they went from third best at home to third worst on the road for the record twenty third in rebounding six then protecting

the paint, but twenty eighth them protecting the three point line. Now, how do we interpret that if you're great defensively at home, great rebounding, great protecting the paint, great protecting the three point line. But then you go on the road and your paint defense stays the same, but you're giving up a lot more threes, you're giving up a lot more offensive rebounds, and in general giving up a lot more points. What does that tell me? That tells me it's a

perimeter defense and rotation issue. So if you're gonna be protecting the paint still as well as you usually do, but you're giving up a lot of threes and a lot of offensive rebounds, that tells me you're in rotation a lot. And to be in rotation you have to give up dribble penetration. So as a team, their perimeter defense was not as good when they went on the road.

They gave up a lot more dribble penetration, which forced a lot more hard help, which forced a lot more defensive rotation situations where you're giving up threes and guys aren't matched up so you can't box out, which gives up a lot of offensive rebounds. Drible pen talk about this all the time on the show, but perimeter defense is becoming one of the most important elements of defense in the NBA. If you don't contain on the perimeter,

there is a domino effect that destroys your defense. And so in this particular situation, like they just didn't defend on the road on the perimeter well enough. I don't think it was Looney and Draymond. I think it was

the perimeter players. That's you know, obviously, there's a lot of different elements at play there, right, Like, because you have to ask yourself how much of it is personnel related and how much of it was the chemistry issues that played the team last year, Because clearly at home, you did those things, and you did them well and you want a shit ton of games, but it didn't work on the road. And like, as is always the case,

I think it's a little bit of both. Like the team clearly didn't play as hard as they did at on the road as they did at home, right, And that might have something to do with chemistry, And maybe Jordan Poole getting out of the situation helps you there. Obviously, Andrew Wiggins going a wall during a significant chunk of the season hurts you. But I think it's on everybody.

I think it's on Stephan Clay a little bit. Like remember they they lost a game in Charlotte last year because Steph was like just not sliding his feet in front of Dennis Smith Junior. Right, Like, they all have to do better. It's not all Jordan Poole's fault, Like from the top down. They need to have a better

commitment to the work when they're on the road. But I do think bringing in a starting caliber perimeter player a lah what Auto Porter Junior was on the championship team, a guy that allows you to play small but well. And that's more of a that's more of a playoff thing, the playing small things more in the playoffs thing. In

the regular season, it's just depth. But having a starting caliber forward somewhere in there that fits your timeline more could go a long way to helping with those specific issues. Now here's my prediction. Where I have the Warriors in this ranking at sixth is pretty much where I see

them finishing this year. Like if they stand Pat and Moses Moody and Jonathan Minga do it most one year old basketball players do, which is get like a little bit better and not quite ready to play in the playoffs, I think they have a puncher's chance to beat any of those five, like I gave I went over the odds earlier, but like, yeah, the Lakers would be favored over the Warriors, but obviously the Warriors can beat the Lakers.

I mean, I like Game four could have gone either way with the the Lannie Walker stuff, right, and then even D'angela Russell hit a big shot at the end of Game one, right, But like at the end of the day when push games to shove in Game six, you got your ass kicked, And so like, the Lakers deserve to be favored, but you know, the Warriors are

certainly capable of winning that series. And I'd say the same thing about all of them, Like this, if they played the Suns, Like there's a version of that where they you know, Andrew Wiggins defends Kevin Durant super well, and Klay Thompson is a throwback series against Devin Booker and Steph just outplays everybody and you win, Like you can beat everybody, but the odds are stacked against you. You are a legitimate, like considerable underdog against all five

of those teams. So if they say in pat and they don't get a significant leap out of one of the young guys. I think they'll lose, probably in the second round, but I think they're just one piece away from vaulting into that next tier. And I'll give you an example, if they just got og And Andobi. If they got og And Andobi, I think that would overnight put them on equal footing with the teams above them

on this list. Overnight, they'd have as good a chance to win as the Bucks, as the Celtics, as the Nuggets, as the Lakers, as the Suns. They'd be like og And Andobi just gives you infinitely more defensive flexibility. It gives you the ability to thrive on the road more. It gives you, like the ability to hang with small ball teams and big teams. It changes everything for you.

And so that's an example of the type of move that vaults you from being a definitive sixth to one of six And I think I think that's the kind of move that we gotta be on the lookout for if you're the Warriors now again. Jonathan Kamina thirteen minutes a game last year in the playoffs, made fourteen of his twenty seven jump shots, shot nine to fifteen at the rim converted spot at possessions at one point six to three points per possession, but he foult too much.

He committed four fouls for thirty six minutes in his playoff run. Obviously there's some issues there that he's got to work out. Maybe it all works, but I don't think you can. I think it's too big of a risk with the timeline that Stepf's on in his career to not make a bigger investment in this particular group. And I do think Mike Dunlevy is more aggressive in his approach, and I think it's possible that he does.

All right, let's hit these mailback questions real quick, and before we go to our three mailback questions, I wanted to respond. There was a comment in yesterday's video being like said something along the lines of like, hey, like you said Damian Lillard is so much better in pick and roll than Drew, and then you told us about how great Drew is and pick and roll, Like what, like, just what's the deal? I'll clarify this. I thought I

thought it was pretty obvious, but I'll clarify it. Like Drewaliday had a productive season in pick and roll last year, Like I think we I think we pointed it out like fourth best among players ran at least seven hundred and fifty. I'm not trying to undercut that Drew's a good pick and roll player and he can be very productive, and he had great chemistry with Brook Lopez. But look at the way he's guarded, Like you're running basically a soft drop against Drew Holliday and you're not panic chasing

him and putting two on the ball. Like we can acknowledge that Drew is a good pick and roll player who against vanilla coverages last year put up a good points per possession number, while also acknowledging that Damian Lillard is way better than him on the offensive end, Like it's it's just a fact, Like Dame's gonna put up the same level of efficiency in pick and roll against hyper aggressive coverages that are blitzing him and showing like crazy and like like literally in a Yanna's Dame pick

and roll, you probably still are going to just concede roleman possessions, to be honest, like that, that's how insanely deadly that pairing can be. So like, again, Drew's a good basketball player. There's just levels to this. There's there's levels to this, like like Drew's really damn good. Dame is clearly way better than him, and I thought that was clear in the in the in the videos. But in case you didn't understand that, I wanted to kind

of clarify that really quick. First, male, bad question, love this question. With parody increasing in the league and the amount of talent at an insane level right now, do you think luck will become a major factor more a more major factor than before And if so, do you think it will be bad for the league. First of all, I never think parody is bad for the league. I see a lot of talk like this. I saw a lot of talk like this from Warriors fans when the when KD was there. Oh, we need a big, bad

guy villain. Like, no, you don't like bad guy villains are good for the league as well, Like you want, you want to have teams that you hate, but parody is always best. Look at the NFL. The NFL literally has become monumentally more popular in the United States because of parody in a lot of ways. Like you watch any Sunday and any team can beat any team, and that that's the any teams capable of winning the Super Bowl.

That's the advantage with the NFL, right, And like with the NBA, I think they're in a better place than they've been in a long time with parody, which is great, but I don't think it's bad for the league. I think I think you can have but I think you do have both. I think there are villains. I think the Lakers are villains. I think the Warriors are villains. Like the teams that have won multiple championships in the year. Over the years, they're villains. But you also have parody,

which is great. Now is it luck a little bit? Injury? Luck will play a role. Injury luck always plays a role, but there's a lot of stuff that's not luck. Continuity is gonna matter more than ever before. We talked about that after the Nuggets won. Natural basketball fit will matter a lot, Like we have a lot of teams that like look at the Suns. We're gonna find out a lot this year about total talent versus natural basket ball fit and how much that matters coaching. That's a big differentiator.

Look at Eric spols for the last couple of years. Star performances can yo if Yokich just kicks Anthony Davis's ass, It doesn't really matter what else is going on, right, Like individual matchups among stars can make a big difference. That's why Steph Curry and the Warriors is the sixth best team can't be written off because if Steph just monumentally outplays any of the other teams, like they're gonna win, right, commitment to the dirty work, these are all things that

are gonna be separators. That that's something that could be an issue for the Suns if they're not careful. So like all of these things matter. You know that the star performances thing the Lakers have, like this beautiful deep roster, but like Lebron is declining and Anthony Davis is not as good as some of the guys at the top of the league. So like the Lakers might lose just

because of their top tier stars. Like we're gonna do a Lakers video a couple of them later in the next couple of weeks, and it's like, what really, what it really comes down to for the Lakers is candle Lebron the out execute in the half court some of these other stars, and if he doesn't find his jump shot, and get to that point with his foot healthy, they're not beating anybody, right, So like that's where that's where

all those little things are gonna become differentiators. When then you've got talent parody at the top of the league. Next mail back question, who do you think are the next stars slash all Stars that could be on the move? Obviously Harden wants out, but who could be a mid season Trey Trey Trey Trey Young is one of the names I put down. Joel Embiid is a guy to watch out for with the situation in Philly, and then Karl Anthony Towns is another guy that I could see

getting moved this year. All right. Lastly, this offseason, Boston has in essence switched up its guard core by replacing Smart with Drew Holliday. Defensively, how do the two compare and how much of an upgrade is Drew over Smart? Now, from the standpoint of archetype, I think Drew and Marcus Smarter like incredibly similar basketball players. Like they're both a little over aggressive sometimes where you're like, yeah, I wish

he wouldn't have taken that shot. They're both like kind of versatile guards in the sense that they can play in the post right defensively, they're both elite point of attack defenders that have the flexibility to play in switching schemes because they can guard up. So they're very similar. Drew's just a better version of Marcus in my opinion, at all of those things. I think he's just a little bit better than Marcus at everything, and I think

that makes him an upgrade. And so it kind of worked out beautifully for the Celtics because you needed Smart's contract to get Porzingis, and then you ended up using Robert Williams, who was another big that you got to bring back to bring back Drew Holiday, and so now you and again Malcolm Brogden good player. I like Malcolm.

He is going to help somebody this year, but I didn't see him as like that big of a needle mover for Boston, especially since Derek White just kind of ended up being better than him in a lot of ways, especially on the defensive end. So like I tend to look at it as like, really, the only major sacrifice is a couple of things. Robert Williams. Losing him hurts your center depth. That's gonna be an issue we'll talk

about that in the Celtics video. Grant Williams obviously didn't need him much last year, but against teams like the Bucks, he could be serious value because he can guard Giannis a little bit. Right against a team like the Nuggets, he could be the foundation for your guard yokitch with a forward and help from behind scheme that everybody likes to use. Right. So, like, I do think that they've cost themselves a little bit of front court depth and versatility.

But bottom line is they brought in a better version of Marcus Smart and if Porzingis can stay healthy, he's a better big than the bigs you were playing last year. So again, as long as you have the health luck that you're gonna need, I think Boston is actually significantly better today than they were last year. All right, guys, that is all I have for today is always a

sincerely appreciate your support. Tomorrow we're probably gonna do because we got like three and a half weeks before we get to the season, So our last five season preview videos we're still gonna do them. They're just gonna be

a little more spaced out. So like tomorrow, I'm probably gonna do a Media Day reaction just to all of the interest quotes and stuff I saw Media Day, and then we'll probably do number five on Wednesday, and then we might do on Thursday a preseason reaction to the Abu Dhabi games, and then we might do number four

on Friday. Right, So like they're gonna be a little more spaced out over the course the next couple of weeks, but hopefully by the end of the next week we'll be through our season previews and then we'll just be covering preseason games at that point. And then three and I think exactly three weeks from Thursday, I believe is the season opener, So right around the corner, we're getting to NBA basketball. All right, guys, I appreciate you, and I will see you tomorrow. The volume