Hoops Tonight - NBA Team Rankings: What Joel Embiid needs to change to turn 76ers into a contender

two new offers every single game day this September. Football's more fun when you're in on the action, so download the app now and sign up with code Hoops. New customers can bet just five dollars to get two hundred dollars instantly in bonus bets only on the DraftKings Sportsbook app, an official sports betting partner of the NFL with Code Hoops. That's Hops. The Crown is yours. Gambling problem called one eight hundred gambler or visit www dot one eight hundred

gambler dot net. In New York call eight seven seven eight hope and why, or text hope and why to four to six seven three sixty nine. In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling called eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot org. Please play responsibly on behalf of Boothill Casino and Resort in Kansas. License partner Golden Nugget, Lake Charles and Louisiana twenty one plus age varies by jurisdiction void in Ontario.

See Sportsbook dot DraftKings dot com, slash Football terms for eligibility terms and responsible gambling resources. Bonus bets expire seven days after inach issuance. Eligibility and deposit restrictions apply. All right, welcome to tonight here at the Volume, Happy Thursday. Everybody of all of you guys are having a great week so far. We are live on app so if you're watching on YouTube or listening on the podcast feeds, don't forget that NAMP is the very first place that you

guys can get these shows. Continuing our Power rankings today with number eight eight, the Philadelphia seventy six er is going to do a season preview on them. Then I've got a couple of male bad questions for the end of the show as well. You guys are the joke before we get started. Subscribe to our YouTube channel, follow me on Twitter at Underscore JSNLT. Don't forget about our

podcast feed under Hoops tonight. Then I need mail back questions, so continue to drop those in the YouTube comments so that we can keep hitting them at the end of these shows. All right, let's talk some basketball so quick off season recap for the Philadelphia seventy six ers. They lost Dwayne Deadman and Jalen McDaniels. They also lost two of their better shooters in Shake Milton and George's Niang.

They added mop bomba a backup center, deadly above the break three point shooter, but he leaves a lot to be desired everywhere else. He'll put up rebounding numbers, but he'll struggle to grab certain types of rebounds. He can get shoved off of his box out spots a lot defensively, Like again, you're expecting him to be more impactful than he actually will be. But he is a deadly above the break three point shooter, and so when he's used as a pick and pop player, that's a legitimate weapon.

Patrick Beverly got signed by the Sixers, covered in with the Lakers last year. Still a very good point of attack defender against small guards when you put him in a position where his specific set of tools are most useful. He can still be deeply impactful if famously last year had a really big defensive game against Tyrese Haliburton. But the narrative that he can switch up in guard wings is overstated, at least in my opinion, as having covered

him with the Lakers last year. He just really struggles with those physical mismatches, and so I think a big key is going to be giving him the right types of matchups. But he can still be a very impactful

point of attack defender against smaller guards on offense. Just from my personal experience rooting for a team that he was on, he was a little bit of a ball stopper, Like the ball be popping around and then it'll end up in Patrick Beverly's hands in the corner and he'll pump fake and then jab step and then pump fake again, and then whatever advantage there was is lost. Now, he did shoot a lot better with the Timberwolves the year before last than he did with the Lakers last year

or the Bulls last year. So maybe if he's making a higher percentage of his shots, that ends up being less of a problem and he's more of a positive offensively, but I found him largely to be a frustrating player rooting for him last year. But also it's important to acknowledge that Lakers team had a lot of other problems before the deadline that go above and beyond Patrick Beverley. So again, if they use him right, I do think

he can be a useful player for them. And again in the team that struggles with point of attack defense, I think that's a legitimate asset. Danny Green shot really well for Cleveland last year, but wasn't moving super well, so he didn't play a ton, but he'll be an interesting shooting option for them. And then the big, probably splashiest signing of this summer for the Sixers, they get Kelly Ubre, who put up massive numbers for bad team last year. He averaged twenty points a game last year.

He also average won assist per game. Last year's fifty three percent true shooting, which is really low. He's still one of the best athletes in the league. He just struggles to put the ball in the basket. He was below fifty percent in effective field goal percentage on jump shots last year, and anytime you're converting jump shots at less than less than a point per possession. That's not good.

He was barely over sixty percent in the restricted area, which for an athlete like him, you're hoping for something closer to like sixty five percent. But I do like the fit in Philly because, like with Philly, again, if we look back at what happened in the Celtics series,

they had some highs in that series. Again, like, there's a lot of lows that we're going to talk about with Philly in this series and or in this episode, and some of them aren't going away right, Like we're gonna talk about a schematic thing here in a second that hurt the Sixers at the end of the Celtics series. But there was another thing that hurt them at the end of the Celtics series, and it's James Harden and Joel Embiid in their offensive struggles, which we'll get to.

But the reality is is that they were unable to play PJ. Tucker without suffering the offensive limitations of Boston ignoring him and offering a ton of extra help. And so ideally you have a forward that you can slot between Tobias Harrison and Joel Embiid that can handle a lot of the physical asks that you were giving to PJ. Tucker, but be more of an offensive threat. And so from that standpoint, like it's I like the risk. It's a low risk signing with Kelly Ubray that has a lot

of upside, and it's about it's about buy in. Like like I'm not I'm never gonna say a freaky athlete can't become a good defender, not after what happened with Andrew Wiggins. So maybe Nick Nurse can come in and and and get him to buy in. We've from Nick Nurse's book, We've learned that he's particularly hard on his

forwards defensively. He was famously really hard on Stanley Johnson and Rondi Hallis Jefferson when they were struggling to commit to the defensive end and make the impact that he wanted. And so maybe Nick Nurse will be the guy that can get Kelly Ubray to bring that next level of defensive intensity that we haven't seen from him in his career. But to put it simply, if Kelly embraces his role and plays hard in it, I think he'll help the

Sixers a lot. All Right, let's take a look at the depth chart, So at guard James Harden, Tyrese Maxi, d Anthony Melton, Patrick Beverley, and Jaden Springer. At forward Tobias Harris, PJ. Tucker for Concork Maas, Daniel House Junior and Danny Green. And then they're big Joel Embiid, Paul Reid, Montrez, Harrald and Mobamba. So about the James Harden situation, who the hell knows what's going to happen. Obviously, you guys

know my opinion. My opinion on this kind of stuff is like just make the move because it's not worth a distraction. I think that continuity from day one of training camp is ideal if you unless you're absolutely you know, like for instance, like if you're if you're stuck in a position where you signed a bunch of guys and you can't trade them until the deadline for whatever reason.

That's one thing. But like if you have the ability to bring in the team you want to finish the season with today one of camp, that's ideal because they're over the course of the NBA season. It's gonna get even harder now with the addition of the of the mid season tournament. But you need to have, you know, time to practice, and it's just really difficult to find time to practice during the season. And so training camp is literally when you ablish your identity as a basketball team,

and it's when you build that continuity through practice. And so in my opinion, it's better for you to resolve these sorts of problems during training camp. And Darryl Moray sees it very differently. He's much more of a a analytical type of thinker and he's looking at it as championship ods and so for him, like he views James Harden trades as only acceptable if they bring back, you know, some sort of of package that increases their championship bods.

So my guess is Daryl Moury is going to be patient. And we also know from his experience with the Ben Simmons situation that he has been rewarded for his patients in the past, and so my guess is that he's going to drag this thing out. I have no idea how that's gonna manifest. I have no idea if James

Harden's gonna show up and pout. I have no idea if he's gonna be a professional and show up and play obviously, like I think James Harden's trade value is really low, probably even lower than Darryl Morriy probably thinks. And so from that standpoint, I actually think it behooves James Harden to come into camp and play hard, because if you want to get out of there, you got to find a way to rehab your trade value. We're

going to talk about it in a little bit. But like, James Harden had the worst postseason of his career to follow up one of his better regular seasons of the last couple of years, and so I don't think his value is in a position where he's easy to move, and so I don't know what's going to happen. But for the purposes of this particular show, in this season preview, I'm going to preview the Sixers as though James Harden

is going to stay with the Sixers. All right, Let's take a look at the offensive end of the floor. So they were third in offense in the regular season by offensive raiding, fourth and half court offense. According to Clean the Glass, they were the best spacing team in the league. They shot thirty eight point seven percent from three,

That was the best mark in the league. They were also tenth and three pointers made per one hundred possessions, and they were the best spot up team in the league when you factor in attacking closeouts by points for possession. They converted spot possessions at one point one to three points per possession, which is the best mark in the league.

Roughly twenty percent of their three pointers made are gone now though George Kneeing and Shake Milton are out of the rotation, and then they added some inconsistent shooters in Kelly Ubray and Patrick Beverly into those spots. So I would say that chances are they're going to go down a little bit of a level from the standpoint of their overall spacing that they offer their stars. The Danny Green option that is there, but I just don't think he's physically gonna be able to do what they need

him to do. So I have a feeling you got to almost look at it straight up as you turned Shake Milton into Patrick Beverley, and you turned George Kneeing into Kelly Ubray, and those guys are probably gonna take those spots in the rotation, and they're inconsistent shooters. So that's just the reality of that situation. They were the very best post offense in the NBA last year on

the strength of Joel Embiid. They were the second best ISO offense in the NBA on the strength of both Embiid and James Harden, and they were the seventh best pick and roll offense in the league by points per possession. But here's the problem. They had a one to seventeen offensive rating in the regular season that dropped pretty quickly to one fourteen against the Nets, and then that crater

down to one oh eight against the Celtics. As a matter of fact, against the Celtics, they averaged just ninety five points per one hundred half court possessions. So for perspective, that would rank twenty fifth in the regular season among half court offensive ratings on cleaning the glass. So to put it simply, their offense, as great as it was

in the regular season, just completely fell apart in the postseason. Now, we said before the postseason, if you guys listened to the show, I said, I believe in what this Sixers team is capable of. But everything comes down to their two best players, James Harden and Joel Embiid, two players who historically have suffered big drop offs when they get to the postseason. It's going to come down to those two players reversing that trend and playing up to their

regular season level in the postseason. And we were gonna see if it would finally happen this year, right, Well, it didn't happen. As a matter of fact, it got worse, way worse than I think even anybody could have expected.

James Harden went from twenty one points and eleven assists on sixty one percent true shooting in the regular season to twenty to eight on fifty four percent true shooting in the playoffs, and that was bolstered by two incredible games and James Harden, for the record, two absolutely incredible games. They have no chance to beat the Celtics if they

don't get these two games out of James Harden. He had two forty plus point games, both of them resulting in a game winning shot at the end of the game. Can't do much better than those two. But here's some other James Harden's playoff games. In this playoff run, two for fourteen from the field, three for fourteen from the field, four for eighteen from the field, three for thirteen from the field, four for sixteen from the field, three for

eleven from the field all in this playoff run. That's six of their eleven games, all six of those he shot below thirty percent from the field. So I don't know, I don't care how good he played to lead the team to those two particular wins, that's downright damaging. In the other six games he shot just seventeen for forty eight in this playoff run at the rim. That's thirty five percent. Is ISO efficiency tanked, And quite frankly, if it wasn't for those two incredible games it was, it

could have been so much worse. It was literally the worst playoff run of his career. So like you needed a change from his own personal history, and instead you got an exaggerated version of it. And for Joe Embiid it wasn't much better. Joel Embiid tanked way further below his regular season mark thirty three points and ten rebounds on sixty six percent trough shooting in the regular season twenty four and ten on fifty six percent through shooting

in the playoffs. His jump shot completely fell apart. He was right around fifty percent in EFFECTI field goal percentage on jump shots in the regular season, he was just fifteen for fifty nine in the playoffs, just twenty nine nine point seven percent in effective field goal percentage. Those of you guys who listened to the show, you probably remember me saying, will Joe elmbid be able to make

his jump shot? Everything comes down to that, and he just couldn't do it again, And it's been a recurring theme throughout his playoff career. Uh. He was seventy percent at the rim in the regular season, just sixty percent at the rim in the playoffs. And embiid Iso was worth one point one five points per possession in the regular season, it was worth just zero point eighty five points per possession in the postseason. That's a thirty point

drop per one hundred possessions. And you can't blame the role players. The sixer spot up shooting was every bit as good in the playoffs as it was in the regular season. Their two best players just fell apart. Again. Now, in terms of addressing that issue, let's just separate it. So you've got two main issues. You have the hardened problem and you have the embiid problem. Right, say a look at the hardened problem last year was supposed to

be James Harden's revenge campaign. I predicted that before the season, and he actually did have very good year again, over sixty percent true shooting, led the league and assists super efficient ISO and pick and roll. But he's thirty four now and he just had the worst playoff runt of his career, So it's very unlikely that you're going to suddenly get high level playoff production ever out of him at this point. So the way I see it, there's

two options you have to look forward. One, you can do what I expect Darylmore to do, which is hold him hostage, look at him as like a regular season innings Zeter. And then you know, never find the trade that ends up materializing into a star, because I don't think you're gonna get a star back for James Harden, and then you're gonna go into the postseason and chances are he'll have the same exact struggle that he had

last year, right Or you can move him. I don't think you're gonna be able to replace him in the regular season context. Right There's no package that you can get back for James Harden right now that makes you better regular season team. James Harden's just a really good

regular season player. But I would argue, if you look at those shooting numbers that just put out and you look at the defensive limitations that James Harden has, I would argue one or two quality role players actually would impact winning at a higher level in the postseason than

James Harden would. And so from that standpoint, I almost think you're better off moving James Harden now and trying to get just pieces that can help, because I mean, at the end of the day, you can't afford to punt this season, and what have we seen in the last few years that leads you to believe that James Harden's going to suddenly have postseason success this year. And again, it's not a drop off, it's a cratering. They legitimately fall apart and all of a sudden they don't functionally

operate the way they do in the regular season. But again, like the reason why I think he is going to hold him hostage is because he's done that before in its worked. He did that Ben Simmons and he ended up getting James Harden out of it, and so you know,

I think that probably gives him the hope and who knows. Like, and here's the thing, Like, if it works out, like if he manages to flip dere if Darrel Mory manages to flip James Harden into Drew Holliday or some other high level, like star ish level player, then I will be amazed and I'll have to eat my words, and Daryl Moury will be the evil genius that pulls it off. Once again, I just find it unlikely, you know, Like cause we're not the only ones who got to see

what happened to James Harden in the playoffs. So did everybody else, and they saw him healthy, in rhythm, going into that postseason run and playing like shit again. All the other twenty nine gms in the league saw that. And like when we're talking about contenders making moves, like cause if you're gonna go after James Harden, it's because you think he's gonna push you over the top into

a championship team. Like, after what you've seen from him in the postseason, what makes you think that that's going to be the piece that pushes you over the top, you know, So, like, I think it's more than likely that his best opportunity to play for a contender is with Philly. But even if even from Philly's perspective, like,

do you want to do this again? Do you want to have another great regular season and watch it all come together in February March and then get to April and he can't make a step back jump shot and he's not getting the same whistle that he got in the regular season, can't finish at the rim, and in general just isn't the same impactful player he was in the regular season, Like, do you want to see that happen again? Especially in an East that's getting better? The

Bucks got better, a lot better. The Celtics got better. They brought in a legitimate, you know, more reliable big man than Robert Williams and Al Horford. Right, So, like I look at this as like a step back in a lot of ways. The Embid problem is something only Joel Embiid can solve. And there's two issues. One is his health. He keeps getting banged up every postseason. Like I pointed out the obvious dip in numbers, but there's context there, Like Joel Embid was hurt, but like that's

been a consistent issue. He and the Sixers have to find a way to take better care of his body. And there's a couple different things to look at there. Maybe stop flopping all the damn time it's not good for you. Maybe a minute's restriction in the regular season. I don't know what it is. You gotta find a way. You gotta find a way to get Joel Embiid to the middle of April feeling good in his body. And

then the second issue is his approach. Joel Embiid has built his game around a lot of mid range jump shots and a lot of free throw attempts. And here's the problem. Every year he gets to the postseason, the jumper stops going in and he stops getting the calls. Once again, last year, Joel Embiid's seventeen free throw attempts per one hundred possessions in the regular season thirteen free throw attempts per one hundred posessions in the playoffs. That's

a twenty four percent drop. That's substantial. That's a significant chunk of his offense. That's several points a game. So like, if he's not gonna get the whistle and he's not gonna be able to make the jump shot, he's going to have to build an offensive game that is more reliable when he gets to the postseason. Obviously, he's capable of being a dominant defender. The Celtics, and we'll talk

about this in a minute. The Celtics had some success stretching him out and pick and roll, but like, the reality is, everybody can do that to every center in the league. And after seeing Jokic win the title and Embiid just clearly being a better defensive player than Jokic, then I don't think that that's going to be the thing that breaks makes or breaks the Sixers team. But so let's put the defensive end aside for a minute.

Let's focus on the offensive end. He's got to find a way to get higher percentage shots closer to them. Joel Embiid last year just made thirty four hooks and floaters. So again, like these are shorter range shots, most within five feet of the rim. You know, maybe a floater out to six or seven feet on the short roll. These are all close range shots that are much easier to make it a higher percentage. Like think of it like this, like KD is the very best mid range

jump shooter in the world. Joel Embiid has no chance to ever become as good as a pull up jump shooter as KD. He makes sixty percent of them last year, KD sixty percent of his twos pull up twos. As insane as that is, but he's the alien. Joel Embiid's probably gonna make fifty percent on his best day. I shouldn't say his best day, but in his best season, Like, he's gonna peak around fifty percent as a pull up jump shooter at the best possible outcome, right, chances are

probably a little lower. So in that case, that's a point per possession that's not enough. A defense is gonna live with that. Like we talked about earlier, zero point ninety five points per possession in the half court is like one of the worst marks in the league, right, So that goes to show you how inefficient a pull up mid range jump shot is in the big grand scheme of things. I think it's an important part of

a player's game. You need to have that for rescue possessions and when it's what the defense is giving you. But it's it's embiids bread and butter, and that's the difference. It can't be your bread and butter. Unless you're hitting it at sixty percent, which is one point two points per possession. See the difference. That's a one twenty offensive rating.

That's untenable for a defense to live with. And I would argue, I mean, if you look at the Suns last year and the year before, or Suns last year in the nets of the year before, Kd's mid range jump shot has become less efficient in the postseason, and it's been a problem. But like what makes the Jokic thing work, it's because he's making those floaters and hooks

two out of three times. He If you let Jokic get looks and don't double him, he's gonna make them at an incredibly efficient rate because he's not relying on tougher jump shots. He's taking floaters and hooks in by the basket. Again, these numbers are crazy. Joel Embiid made just thirty four hooks and floaters all season last year, Nikole Jokic made one hundred and eighty one of them. Jokic ha just built his game around things that he

can rely on in the postseason. He knows, come hell or high water, he's gonna be able to get to and make those hooks and floaters with Embiid, it's like he didn't even trust himself anymore after he missed a bunch of them early in the playoff run. He like kind of didn't he didn't take them as often and beat like legit lost confidence in it. And that's a shot that he hit all the time in the regular season.

And so that's the thing, Like if it's a hook or a floater, he's always gonna feel good about those chances. So I mean, I think that's I think that's the important area offensively that he has to build out a little bit more of a bully ball and a little bit less of a finesse approach. And then lastly, playmaking. Joelanbid once again way more turnovers than assists. In this playoff run, he had thirty five turnovers to just twenty four assists. In his playoff career, he has one hundred

and ninety three turnovers to one hundred and forty eight assists. Now, he actually had forty eight more assists than turnovers in the regular season. This is a playoff problem. Teams double him, and they stunt at him, and they jump passing lanes and they sneak along the baseline and he has no idea how to handle it. Like twenty four assists for an MVP caliber offensive folkrum in eleven playoff games is

not going to get the job done. He has got to figure out how to read defenses at a higher level, and to me, like that is about actually hunting and looking for those opportunities. He almost needs to make that his goal during the regular season to shoot less, make reeds more, because it's a skill he has to build out in order to become a more impactful playoff player. Now, defensive versatility was an issue as well. The Sixers were

eighth in defense in the regular season. They were twelfth and half court defense according to Cleaning the Glass, tenth, protecting the paint seventh, protecting the three point line fourteenth, and defensive rebounding. They did foul a lot. They were twentieth in opponent free throw attempts per hundred possessions. But

mostly good not great. Right. The problem was is they had a good base scheme that worked in the regular season, right like emb playing a pretty deep drop, he'd occasionally come up to the level of screen against more pull up shooting heavy guys, and he was pretty good at riding at Yo yo, getting up and down back to the basket after showing high and like they last year, they would just give tougher perimeter assignments to guys like Tobias Harris and Anthony Milton and Daniel House and PJ.

Tucker right and then they would hide James Harden and Tyres Maxi whenever they could. And that worked in the regular season, but then they ran up like Boston lit them up one hundred and seventeen points per one hundred posessions. I was one to seventeen offensive rating against the Sixers in that series. Now, I don't really blame him beat here we like we mentioned earlier, Yes, Tatum cooked him and switches in Game seven. In general, embiid got lit

on fire and pick and roll in Game seven. But I think it's a team wide issue cause, like I mentioned before, every rim protector in the league is going to struggle on switches against NBA superstars, except for maybe like Jannis and Ad Right and guys like Bam, But the vast majority of defense bigs are going to struggle in those situations like flip the rolls like Yo kich Is getting barbecued and pick and roll By Tatum too. That's just a fact. As a matter of fact, I've

seen him do it in the regular season. I did a whole video on it last year. So, like, that's not what I'm worried about it. To me, it's an overall aggregate defensive talent issue. Like I think you need to improve your point of attack defense. Patrick Beverley will help there, but ideally he's not starting, right. I think the big one is Kelly Ubray. If Kelly Ubray can kind of become the defensive element that PJ. Tucker brought with some of the offensive element that George's Kneeing brought.

And George Kneeing is a way better shooter than Pat Kelly, but Kelly can be a much better offensive player than PJ. Tucker. But like, that's where it can get more interested as a group. You need to improve on the perimeter in your overall athleticism and ability to cover ground. But like I start to look at it from the standpoint of, like, if I'm not getting anything out of Harden in the playoffs, wouldn't I be better off having a really good two

way guard in that spot, wouldn't I? Like, what if it was Alex Crusoe, and I'm just putting just don't even think about the machinations of a deal. Let's just look at the lineup just for the sake of basket cake ball. Let's say I've got Alice Crusoe and d Anthony Melton with Tobias Harris, and let's say Kelly Ubray

buys in defensively and it has become a legitimate perimeter weapon. Defensively, I've got Alex Cruso outstanding point of attack defender, d Anthony Melton, pretty good point of attack defender, Tobias Harris, pretty good point of attack defender, Kelly youu Bray. Let's imagine in this scenario he becomes a pretty good point

of attack defender. Then you can do things like switch and pick and roll with and beat if you need to, and just have him simply press up a little bit, and you have the athleticism on the back end to rotate right, because Cruso is just better at making rotations

than James Harden. Then you might not be able to switch at all and just actually have him beats, sit and drop because you trust your point of attack defenders to get over to the top of screens better, Like an overall increase in aggregate defensive talent might actually be a better playoff weapon than what the heart and situation was, because if you're not if you're getting two for thirteen out of James Harden literally every other playoff game, Like

what does he bring it? How much more imposing are you as a team if you run everything through Maxi embi it on one end and you have better defense on the other end. Right, And that's part of the issue too, is like Tyree Maxy, we didn't even talk about him, but like Tyras, Maxey legitimately like and he took a leap last year, averaged a career high twenty points per game, sixty one percent for shooting. It's the best pick and roll season of his career. He's legitimately

turned himself into a reliable jump shooter. I've told you guys this story before, but one of my favorite Maxi memories is I've bumped into him in Vegas and he was out there working his ass off, like coming out of the gym, just doing a workout like every other NBA player I saw. Not to say that they weren't working out there, but like it was kind of cool to see that Tyras Maxey was out there taking his

job seriously. And I don't think it's a coincidence that he's experienced the leaps that he's experienced in his career. But like that's another issue. Is like Tyre's Maxi right now is blow average point of attack defender. So like if you run Hardened and Maxi together, you have severe limitations there. Maybe you're better off with one guy like that Tyrese Maxi and then really good point of attack defense around him. Maybe that gives you a better chance

to contend. But I don't I don't think that. I don't think they're good enough in the playoff context on either end of the floor right now, as a matter of fact, it feels like they took a step back, like I mentioned earlier, and Boston's just better, Milwaukee's just better. Both of them got better, like Miami has gotten no better. But you know they're better than Philly. So like right now,

they're firmly the fourth best team in the East. And so this season just kind of screams of another fifty wins and another second round exit, is what it looks like to me. All Right, let's talk mailbag before we get out of here today, what do you think of Jabari Parker's take on leaving the NBA to play in Europe wherever game matters. The quote from Jabari Parker was there are ten to twelve teams to try to win every game and the other half try to get a

draft pick. Where does that leave good players? It's no excuse to see Boogie Dwight or John Wall, guys who are potentially going into the Hall of Fame. Seeing those guys not have a job end quote. This one was funny to me, first of all, because the whole way, the whole interview is framed, it's like I'm leaving the NBA. It's like, I something tells me, if your agent actually got you an offer, you would have stayed in the NBA. Also, he's just wrong. The NBA is incredibly stacked with talent.

I pointed it out earlier in our series. But like I think, there are nineteen teams in the league that are legitimately very good. And the night in, night out schedule in the NBA is tougher and it's ever been.

And even as we go down the line, it's like you're gonna have an easy matchup against the San Antonio Spurs have fun with Victor Weman Yama and Jeremy Sohan and uh, you know, like uh Keldon Johnson and like you get they even picked up Reggie Bullock as like a veteran lock and trail defender, and yeah, like like it's it's not gonna be easy, you know, like going to Portland in front of their home crowd to play against Shadon Sharp and and it's Scoot Henderson and Anthony

Simons and DeAndre Ayton not gonna be an easy game. It's just not. So like the league is tougher than it's ever been and that probably has a lot to do with why Jabari Parker doesn't have a spot in it right now. But like his take is just flat out wrong. Like the NBA does have a tanking issue in the big picture, like there is tanking, but it's usually just a handful of teams at the bottom the

playing team. Is that the play tournament has done a really nice job of engaging the league from top to bottom in a way that it hasn't in the past. I just disagree with with Jabari and it strikes me as a kind of a deflection from a bigger issue, which is that he just doesn't have a spot in the league. Obviously, he's a great fit for Milwaukee with his skill set, but as far as chemistry, what does it take for a new star player to successfully integrate

into an already contending team. This was in our Dame video, so it's a Dame question. This is interesting. I you know, again, when you're coming into a situation like this where you're less of a foundational piece and more of like a mercenary edition, it's all about communication with the coaching staff,

finding out exactly what they need from you. And I think the big one is going to be defensively, Like if you're Damian Lillard today, you woke up and you're like feeling good, right, Like, I have an opportunity to go play with the second best player in the league in my opinion, and an opportunity to or third best player in the league behind Staph But regardless of what you want to call it, bona fide top tier superstar defending.

You know, guy who's won a championship in a multiple time MVP got an opportunity to go play with this guy and they already have good role players around him, right, like Brook Lopez and Chris Middleton, Like, you're not gonna do much better than that around the league. So the question becomes do you feel good about your chances to win a title? And my guess is Dame does. But then you start to think about it and you go

reality sets it. Excuse me, reality sets in and you realize, like, in order to win a championship, we're going to have to beat other great teams and those series are going to come down to the smallest of margins. So I, Dame have to have the best season of my career in all of the winning details. So I think Dame is aware of the narrative about his defense, and I think he's aware that he's going to have to be the best defensive version of himself to put the Bucks

over the top. So from there, it's about communication with the coaching staff to find doubt what they need from you in the defensive scheme, and then from day one of training camp demonstrating it on the court. And like, if you see Dame from day one make that commitment, then it could trickle down. It's a leadership thing, and that could be the beginning the foundation of a defensive

culture that allows you to win a championship. So that's what I expect, and my guess is we'll end up seeing quotes coming out of Milwaukee's training camp four or five days after they get started about how Dame has been competing defensively and has been an impact player there.

He's too good of an athlete and has too good a law of like a strong low center of gravity to not at least be able to do a job defensively, and so I think he will end up last question from John, how is this referring to the Dame trade? How is this that much different than Katie to Golden State, which Dame said he'd never do. It is so so, so so so much different. Again, Like, there are a lot of examples of stars joining great teams in NBA history.

This is another example of them, right, And yeah, Milwaukee became the favorite, but there's nothing that comes remotely close. Two, Literally, Kevin freaking Durant going and signing straight up as a free agent for a team that won sixty seven games in a championship two years prior seventy three games and was literally one shot away from a championship one year prior there's nothing close to that, and everyone goes like, it's so funny when I hear guys go like, oh,

kat and Steph, Katie and Steph. Yeah, it was crazy to see Katie and Steph together literally the second and third best players in the world in my opinion. But it wasn't just that. It was Katie and Steph and Klay Thompson in the heart of his prime Andreamond Green in the heart of his prime and Andre Guadala at the tail end of his prime. Like literally, like does not compare. The KD Warriors are by far the most

talented team ever assembled. It's not close. They literally went into the season as a negative favorite, like you had to give up points or money I should say, like you had to bet one hundred and something in dollars to win one hundred bucks. When the Warriors signed KD. It was not the same. Like, this is another example of a star joining a great team, right, It's like Bradley Beale joined in the Suns. Maybe a higher level than that, but this is another example of a great

player joining a great team. But there is there, there is It's KD to the Warriors, gigantic chasm. Everything else like even even the Lebron Wade Bosh thing was different, Like like when you really factor in that that Mike Bibbie was starting for that team and and their problems at the set position, in the spacing and everything, like they were so much easier to guard, it was a totally different thing. Like even Lebron wasn't close to the player that he was going to become at that point.

Like the heat I think were better than their performance showed, because I think Wade's declined kind of undercut that. But like to me, it's the Katie to the Warriors giant chasm than everything else. I've not seen anything close to it,

and I don't think this is close to it. And it's hard to even conceptualize something that would be crazier, like it would literally be like I'm trying to think of a team that would that was already loaded, Like it'd be like if the Denver Nuggets literally just had cap space and just signed Giannis and Tenecumpo into the

Aaron Gordon spot. That's what that would be like, because Jannis and Jokic would be two of the top three players in the league, just like Katie and Steph were and you'd have three other really really good role players next to them, and a dynamic guard that could score a million points like Klay Thompson or Jamal Murray. Like, I think we have to be careful with comparing things

to that, because there really wasn't anything like it. Like go, just for fun, go google preseason title odds in twenty seventeen in twenty eighteen, just go look at them and compare them to what we saw now with the Bucks, who I think are still like a plus three to fifty favorite, like their favorite, but it's still considered somewhat of a long shot in the fact, in the sense that if I bet one hundred bucks and the Bucks win the title, I win three hundred and fifty bucks.

It's a totally different situation. All right, guys, That is all I have for today. We will be back tomorrow with number seven. My power rankings got all jumbled by the Dame trade, so a couple of different teams. The team I was gonna do tomorrow got moved up. A team that was involved in the trade in a vicarious, you know, kind of tangential way is gonna end up being number seven. So hang tight, we have number seven. Tomorrow and then training camp literally starts next week, so

lots of good basketball ahead. I appreciate you guys, and i'll see tomorrow. The volume