Hoops Tonight - Reaction to Kyrie Irving's suspension, Top-5 most disappointing teams

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in West Virginia. Y Alright, welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by Vanduel here at the volume. Happy Friday, everybody, congrats on making it to the weekend. This morning, we're gonna be covering the Kyrie Irving suspension, obviously the biggest news of last night, and then later tonight we'll have one more video coming out that's gonna be breaking down some basketball one last time before we get into the weekend. Um,

here's the deal. I'm not going to discuss any of the actual subject matter as it pertains to the Kyrie Irving situation. For starters, that's just not what you guys come to me for. And secondly, there's just a lot of people much smarter than me that can dive into those specific topics. Um, you guys come to me for the basketball and that's what we're gonna do today. We're gonna discuss what this means for Kyrie Irving the basketball player, and what it means for the Brooklyn Nets, the NBA

basketball team. Um. So here's the situation. Kyrie Irving is suspended for at least five games for not being clear with his apology, and last night he came out with a much more clear apology. So he did take one step in the right direction. I do think, especially on

the apology front. Now there's other steps that Brooklyn is gonna have him go through, but I do think on the apology front as well, that Brooklyn is gonna want to see him do another press conference and hold up under questioning with the same you know, level of contriteness as it pertains to uh, you know, basically what he said on Instagram last night. Kyrie is a prideful person like so many other successful people are in the world,

and it's just different when you're typing it. You know, probably under advisement from somebody else, as opposed to in front of a camera in front of a bunch of

members of the media. Of the media that kind of you know, Kyrie already has a pretty contentious relationship with He's gonna need to hold up under some of that questioning in order for Brooklyn to trust him again, because if you put it back on the team and he's doing postgame pressers, there's no doubt that he's gonna face random questions from time to time that will try to incite that type of behavior, and they need to trust

Kyrie in those situations. So even though the Instagram apology was a step, my guess is they're gonna want a verbal version of that in front of a camera. But Kyrie has gone for at least five games no matter what. And yes, there's a version of this that goes further south, like maybe he does that press conference and it goes bad again, you know, or he fails to finish the

steps that Brooklyn wants him to finish. But for the sake of predicting, let's just pretend that Kyrie does everything Sean Marks and jos I asked of him over the course of the next couple of weeks and he returns after five games. Well, the upcoming schedule for Brooklyn as of right now, they are on the road tonight in Washington and the Wizards are favored by three. They will probably lose that game. Then they're on the road in Charlotte.

That's probably their easiest game over this span. But even in that game, Charlotte at home probably gonna be a one or two point favorite. And you gotta remember Ben Simmons is still out as of right now. Seth Curry is still out. T J Warren I saw report yesterday. He's not imminently returning, you know, anytime soon. So they're gonna be at a severe talent disadvantage in every single one of these games. And they're on the road for four of them, on the road at Washington, on the

road in Charlotte, on the road in Dallas. That's gonna be a loss at home for the Knicks. You know, the Knicks, they overhelp and give up three point shots. You know, Brooklyn has been having trouble making threes on the back end. That's gonna be a problem. And then they go on the road to l A to play the Clippers, so oh and five is on the table. Katie will have to play like an absolute superhero to

win any of those games. But even if we're nice and we give them one win out of that five game stretch, they're gonna be bringing Kyrie back sitting at three and ten. They would have to go thirty eight and thirty one the rest of the way to get to five hundred, which would still leave you probably in the playing tournament, having to win two games to get

into the postseason. And even if they happen to win those two games, you're gonna be on the road for a seven gamer against either Milwaukee or Cleveland, or Boston or Toronto, and all four of those teams are gonna be major favorites in the series, and you'll be staring down the barrel of of potentially another another sweep. So it's it looks super bleak right now for Brooklyn. That's just reality. Then we look at the Email Judoka situation. So it was pretty quickly reported after the Steve Nash

firing that Email Udoka was the guy. Now, it's worth noting that Adrian Zanowski was a little bit more reserved and talking about how things were heading in that direction and that a deal could happen in the next few days. Shan Sharanio was much more aggressive in his report, basically said it was a done deal, but several days have passed and it's been all quiet ever since. So it was kind of the quickness of the original report was strange because it led you to believe that the Nets

were very much invested in trying to salvage this situation. Email. Judoka was the obvious salvage this team type of pick. The Nets were scoring just fine, they were specifically struggling with rebounding and defense, and if you watched on tape, did they have the best personnel in the world for those situations. No, but they certainly weren't the worst personnel for those situations. You did have Ben Simmons for most

of the season. Kevin Durant is out there on the floor, Royce O'Neil, Kyrie Irving is a capable defensive player, and hell, he had a half where you grabbed nine defensive rebounds once this season. Like the the guys on the floor also weren't doing nearly a good enough job. You know, Udoka, famous tough guy, can look eye to eye with those guys try to get him to play hard. That was the obvious pick to try to like salvage this situation, obviously not looking at all of his drama and controversy

surrounding his exit from Boston. But it's been all quiet ever since, so it kind of leads you to believe that maybe the Nets brass has had some second thoughts after their initial quick reaction to the Steve Nash hiring and then the Kyrie Irving stuff goes off the rails and they blow a game that they had a big lead against the Chicago Bulls, and now they're staring down potentially a two and eleven start or a three intense start.

So then you start to ask yourself, is it too bleak to risk the massive public backlash of bringing in emi Udoka to try to salvage this basketball situation. Would you be better off going to someone like Quinn Snyder, you know, uh, desirable NBA coach just like emi Udoka is, But there's obviously all the baggage that comes with him that makes it a lot tougher. But you could get someone like Quinn Snyder potentially to sign a long term

deal to guide you through a rebuild. If you tell him that you're blowing the team up been getting all of the drama out of the building, would that potentially be a better pathway? Right? Because here here's the deal. My guess is that Kyrie never plays another game in a Brooklyn Nets Jersey. I said that yesterday in my instant reaction video that I did. I just if you think of it this way, at three and ten, at two and eleven, what is the point of bringing those

guys back and trying to salvage the situation? At what point do you consider trying to retrieve as much asset return as possible before this goes further and further off the rails and everyone's value starts to tank. And it's not a great situation. Like I'm not sure what Ben Simmons's value is around the league right now, Probably not much. That might be a guy that you're better off just keeping giving him like six months to get one healthy and then letting him kind of work his way back

onto the court to build some value there. But you know, I don't know what you can get for Kyrie anymore because most of the teams around the leagu league are not gonna want to touch him. Certainly not for assets. Yeah, the Lakers used to want to pay two first round picks for him, but that's not going to be the case anymore. They probably think they can get him in

a buyout, and that's probably where this is headed. My guess is that Kyrie's representation approaches Brooklyn at some point in the future and says, we want to buy out, and then Brooklyn's brass will say, okay, fine, but you're giving us back ten million dollars, you know, or something

along those lines, and there will be a negotiation. But my guess is that they eventually settle on some dollar amount that Kyrie concedes back to Brooklyn and gets the buy out so that he can go play basketball elsewhere. At that point, you know, there's no point in just having Kyrie Kevin Durant just run around floundering on this terrible basketball team, especially when you can get a bunch

of asset return for him. So I think that this is trending back towards the nets blowing up sooner than later, especially if it goes as badly as I expected to go over the next five games. So what kind of teams would be interested in Kevin Durant I still think Boston has the best chance. Um they're struggling a bit and crunch time again this year. They've lost their three and three in the six games that involved crunch time. Um. Kevin Durant is one of the best closers to ever

play the game of basketball. You could see a team like Boston potentially considering making that move. But then again, Jalen Brown has been so good this year there's a chance that they don't even consider it, which brings us back to a couple of specific teams, Phoenix and Toronto, two teams Toronto never wanted to include Scottie Barnes, and I don't blame them because Scotty Barnes has been off

to another incredible start this year. He's scoring efficiently and he's playmaking out of the post at an extremely high level for a young player. UM So Toronto without Scottie Barnes, their package was a little bit less desirable, and then Phoenix was like considered basically out of the running because they didn't have enough. Those are two teams that kind of like float back up to the surface here now that you can see that um uh that the Nets don't quite have as much leverage as they did over

the summer. Toronto is off to a really good start, so you could see them thinking that as an all in sort of trade, and MASSI you, Jerry has a history, as we've seen with the Kawhi Leonard situation, of being interested in making that type of of trade. So I think that I think that You'll Phoenix in Toronto would be the two teams that I'd keep an eye on.

But in general, I think leverage has shifted back towards the rest of the league in a different way than it was this summer when you kind of just believed Brooklyn that they would hang on to him for a while. But now it's like things have gone so far south so quickly in Brooklyn that it's headed in that direction. Um. And then on the Kyrie Irving front, you know, I said this on the on my Instant Reaction video yesterday, but the rest of the league's not going to touch

him in all likelihood. So you gotta look at teams that are desperate, that are one piece away from being legitimate contenders, and that specifically need high level guard creation. And the two teams that come to mind for me there are the Dallas Mavericks and the Lakers. Let's take a look at Dallas for a second. So you lose Jalen Brunson. The specific design of the roster is all of these spot up shooters that defend and three dribble creators.

Last year it was Luca, Spencer, Dinwoodie Jalen Bronson. They staggered it out nicely. You started with Luca and Jalen. One of them go to the bench, Spencer, Dinwood you would come in, then the other would go to the bench, and then the other guy would come in, and then maybe you close with all three, maybe you close with just two. That was the design of the team got you to the conference finals and gave you a legitimate chance to make it to the finals. Right, you lose

Jalen Brunson. Now, Luca Doncheuss usage is through the roof over and that's concerning in the long run, because you know high usage players generally speaking flame out early in the playoffs, at least when they get to that absurd of a level of usage. And I'm as big a

Luca fan as you'll find. Kyrie Irving brings you basically a better version of Jalen Brunson that can come in and if he buys into Jason Kidd's defensive scheme, he's capable as a perimeter defender as long as he's not going up against bigger, stronger players, and then he'll be a perfect fit in that drive in kicks system that Dallas has. Slots Spencer didn't what he back to his Bentrol that he had last year, and then gives you

like another really really legitimate playoff scoring option there. Again, you're gonna have a long conversation about all of the stuff that comes with Kyrie Irving and whether or not that's worth it, and there's a good chance that they still say no. But that's the type of team that I think would consider it. Lakers exact same situation. You have the second best defense in the league, and uh Anthony Davis in his last two games has played like a top ten player. Lebron James has been really bad

this season by his standards. His effective field goal percentages like forty seven point seven percent, which is the lowest since he was a rookie UM, but you're expecting him to get better. But their specific weakness is offensive skill, particularly in the backcourt. Kendrick Nunn has been a disaster. Patrick Beverley hasn't been nearly as good offensively as he

was in Minnesota last year. And then you've got some good wings like Lonnie Walker and Troy Brown Jr. Have been have been the two home runs signing so far from Rob Polinka this past summer. Got to give him some credit on that front, even though some of the rest of the you know want Sisconno Anderson completely out of the rotation. Beverley has been a disaster, Kendrick Nunn has been a disaster. There's about a lot of bad there,

but there's a couple of good pieces there. They just knee eat a legitimate scoring guard, specifically one that would force guards, defensive guards to chase over the top of screens, opening up the pocket pass and Anthony Davis screening actions.

Kyrie Irving fits that bill perfectly. He would turn them from one of the worst offenses in the league to a mid level or better offense like that, and from that guard position, the guys that are playing those minutes, I think he'd be enough defensively to kind of keep them afloat. So as we look at that situation, the Lakers would probably consider it, but it's still possible that they look at that situation and say no, So there's a chance that we don't see Kyrie Irving play basketball

at all this season. But those are the two teams that I would keep an eye on. And then the bottom line after all of this, if Joe Sigh tries to salvage this situation, if he brings Kyrie Irving after starting three intent or two and eleven, if he hires Ema Udoka to try to salvage this, then he deserves everything that happens after that because it will continue to go south in all likelihood, and and and again, he would just deserve that outcome. It kind of reminds me

of any of you guys. Ever Watch How I Met Your Mother? And Ted Moseby has this college girlfriend. Her name is Karen, and every time he gets together with her, she treats him like crap. And then every time he goes back his friends are always like, okay, buddy, like, I guess we'll see if it goes differently this time.

And that's kind of the way I feel about Josiah in this situation, Like every single time this is blown up in his face, he's gone back to the table and tried to make it work again, and if he does so again, he deserves what happens next. Today we're doing our top five most disappointing teams in the NBA through two and a half weeks, kind of like the opposite of our power Rankings list that we did yesterday, although there is one team that is on both lists

that you guys will see shortly. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at Underscore Jason lt s, you guys don't miss any show announcements as well as that's where I put NBA footage since I have limitations on my ability to use NBA footage here on YouTube. And then, last, but not least, for whatever reason, you guys miss one of these shows and you can't get back over to

YouTube to finish them. You find them wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops tonight. And then one last note before we get started, I had I had a few more complaints this week about how much we talked about the Lakers, nets and Warriors. Um. I've covered this a couple of times this season, but I just wanted to do it one more time and try to help you guys kind of sort through the way this content is um presented. First of all, the Lakers and the Warriors

are the two most popular teams in the NBA. They have the two most large they have the two largest fan bases. We have to talk about them. That's just good business this and at the end of the day, this is a business. Both of them are struggling to start the season. But the Warriors are obviously going to figure things out at some point. They're the defending champions

and their starting lineup is murdering everybody. And then the Lakers are the second best defense in the league, and just by virtue of that, they're going to be competitive throughout the season and they'll probably be relevant if they If either of them descend into irrelevance, like out of the playoff picture entirely after a good chunk of games, then yeah, we're gonna stop talking about them. But they are relevant right now and they have huge fan bases.

We're going to cover them heavily. And then the nets because of their drama, I've just persistently been one of the top stories in the league on a daily basis. That said, my goal has always been to cover the entire league, and that's what we do. Those of you guys who have been following the show for a while, No, I'm doing like six or seven videos a week, Okay, So yeah, there's gonna be a lot of Lakers, Warriors Nets content in there, But the other half of it

is covering the rest of the league. And so what I've been doing and what I will continue to do is at the beginning of these videos, all hell you the teams were covering. And if you're if you hate the Lakers and you're sick of hearing me talk about them, you can always just fast forward until we get to the other teams. And it will always be a consistent goal of mine throughout this season to continue to touch

on as many of the teams as possible. Um I even want to spend some time, especially here in the next couple of weeks, to dive into the bottom of the barrel teams and talk about some of the young up and coming talent in the NBA. We will always get to that stuff. You just obviously there's gonna be a lot of Lakers, Warriors and nets surrounding that that's just the nature of the business. Um So, top five

most disappointing teams in the NBA. Now, to be clear, this is based on expectations and performance that's under your control. There always going to be things that I find um you know more more like the players have control over versus some things that are beyond your control. For instance, the Lakers are not on this list for me. I had them thirteenth in my power rankings before the season, right and I even only had them that high because of the potential of a Russell Westbrook trade and what

that might bring down the pike. They're opening schedule was damn near impossible. They had a really good team every single night, and during that stretch because they had not made the Rush trade, they had severe limitations and offensive talent. I expected them to lose those games. I expected the Lakers to get off to a bad start. You guys remember me saying that to start the season. I predicted they'd be a top five defense. That's gone well so far.

But they're shooting horrifically bad. But they're competing. At least, they're going out there, they're playing as hard as they possibly can. They're just losing games because they're not making shots, and then in the last couple of games they've made more shots. They've won a couple of games. But the Lakers are kind of performing to expectations to start the season.

That's why they're not at this on this list. If they do go on a run and win some games, it'll be now that their schedule softens up a little bit. The teams that I have on this list have no business being on this list. All five of these teams should be significantly higher in the standings and should be playing better basketball than they actually are. Alright, So number

five the Minnesota Timberwolves. They are four and four to start the season, two wins against the Thunder, one against the Spurs, and one against the Lakers without a d so nothing overly impressive there. They also have two losses to the Spurs, a loss to the Suns, which is a tough game in Phoenix. You're probably gonna lose that game even if you're a good team on most nights, and then they lost at home to the Utah Jazz in overtime game where they got beat by Lorie Market

in a game they had no business losing. My biggest concern about the Gobert trade coming into the summer. If you guys remember, there were two things that I talked about. One was their loss of perimeter defense. You know, say what you want about Molik Beasley as a shooter. He uh, you know, a lot of Timberwolves fans were not exactly you know, devastated when he left. But the truth of the matter is is towards the end of that season and into the postseason, he had become a pretty solid

perimeter defender. He was competing for them, Patrick Beverley. That was his best skill. That was the thing he did better than most players in the league. He could defend on the perimeter. Jared Vanderbilt, say what you want about him on the offensive end of the floor, freak athlete, played super hard every single night, a great perimeter defensive player. They gave that all away for a defensive anchor. They were betting on a player that was going to give

them an outstanding regular season defense. But I was concerned about that lack of perimeter defense because when you get into the postseason, teams find a way to scheme around Rudy Gobert and get him out to the perimeter, so that he can't help around the rim, and then they will score or drive and kick and get wide open threes because you lack perimeter defense. That's literally what happened to the Utah Jazz over the course of the last

few years. And then in the process, when you bring in Rudy Gobert, you fundamentally changed the geometry of your offense. Outside of um, outside of Jared Vanderbilt, every single lineup that the Timberwolves played had a five out concept because Carl Anthony Towns could shoot, Nasa Read could shoot, you know, Jada McDaniels could shoot. So essentially outside of the minutes when Jared Vanderbilt was out there, they had a real

five out concept. So everyone's operating around the rim. Anthony Edwards is getting downhill, Carl Towns is operating a lot downhill. His face up game was really effective in their five outsets. By bringing in Go Bear, you're now basically perpetually running a four out one in offense, and now it's more of like a screen and dive offense, or put Rudy

Gobert in the dunker spot type of offense. And as I've always told you, guys, vertical spacing brings value, but not nearly the same type of value as five out spacing. The rotations are just so much easier to make in those cases. So what I was concerned about is that their defense would be a little better but not good enough because of their like a perimeter defense, and that their offense would take a hit. And that's exactly what

has happened. The defense is only slightly better than last year overall, and you make a go bear trade to be a top five defense, and that's not what's happened. They've been tent and then they're spacing with Anthony Edwards has been a problem. I've Anthony Everarde is one of my favorite young players in the league. I think I ranked him twenty in my player rankings, which is higher than most people have him. That's how high I am on Anthony Edwards. I view him as a mini Lebron.

He's an incredible downhill threat. He's very difficult to knock off of his line. He's so big and physically imposing that in the postseason he can continue to pressure the rim, which a lot of guards and wings that get downhill in the regular season struggled to do. So. When you get to the postseason. He's also flashing high level pull up jump shooting over the course of the end of last season, right, So there's a lot of potential on

that front. I'm a huge Aunt fan. But at the end of the day, he's at his best when they're five out and he has plenty of space to operate. And the story of the early season has been how bad their offense has been with the starting group. So their starting lineup is d Angela Russell, Anthony Edwards, Jada McDaniels, Carl Towns, and Rudy Gobert. We've already seen Anthony Everards make comments about the starting lineup. We had Carl Towns

go respond to that by criticizing Ant's diet. There's a whole thing going on there where Carl Towns was kind of like the darling of the Minnesota fan base, and now that's becoming Anthony Edwards, which is changing that entire dynamic. You saw a similar thing happened to Ben Simmons and Joel and Beat over the years, where Ben Simmons was kind of that guy and then it became Joel embiad and then like kind of a rift forms between the

two players. You're seeing a similar thing happened there. And then there was that weird moment the other night, I think it was after the Sun's game where Anthony Edwards is like with Majorite McLoughlin at the at the uh press conference table and he's looking at the box score, like realizing that the starters are getting are getting rolled and it's a real problem. That starting lineup is played

two d and sixty possessions. They have a ninety nine offensive rating and a one oh four defensive rating, so the defensive right is good but not outstanding, and their offense is atrocious and you can see it on tape. The paint is a complete shit show. Historically, when you when you see things kind of crowded like that, you need half court surgeons to succeed in those environments. And what I mean by that half court surgeon is like

super high level playmaking. So like a Lebron with the Lakers, for instance, like it's crowded, there's two bigs, everything is packed in the paint, but Lebron is such a gifted shot maker and passer that they can still functionally run an offense there. Dilo is never going to be that guy Anthony Edwards might one day be that guy, but he's not that guy yet. Right now. He's more of a downhill score mixed with some pull up jump shooting. A lot of potential there, but he's not quite that

guy yet. I watched the Sun's game earlier this week, I think he was on Tuesday, and Anthony Edwards had a couple of nasty pull up threes to get it down. I think it was like five after that um and they call it time out. Timberwolves are rolling, but those are two difficult oots over the top of a set defense. And ever after that time out, the Timberwolves offense the rest of the game was hilariously bad. So after that we had that These are literally their next eight or

so possessions, nine or so possessions. Anthony Edwards turns the basketball over, then D'Angelo Russell turns the basketball over. Then Delo hits a pull up jumper. Then Anthony Edwards turns the basketball over. Then Carl Town's turns the basketball over. Then Anthony Edwards misses a super long three that had almost no chance of going in. Then D'Angelo Russell turns the basketball over. Then Torre and Prince bails them out with like a ridiculous step back jump shot at the

end of the shot clock in the right corner. And then Carl Anthony Towns gets a guard on a switch and opts to take a step back three rather than bullying him to the basket, and now you're down fourteen with three minutes left in the game is over. They just have no idea how to operate with that type of spacing because they don't have the offensive personnel to

pick teams apart in that type of spacing. I preferred the old Timberwolves from last year, and I'm really curious if you're a Timberwolves fan, please drop that in the comments. I want to hear your thoughts about how you feel about last year's Timberwolves compared to this year's. Now. I know there's a lot of basketball left and they might figure it out with this group, but obviously through this eight game sample size, I'm just curious to hear your

guys opinions. Like I said earlier, they basically played five out all the time, except for when Jared Vanderbilt was out there, and he was so damn athletic and played so damn hard that it was worth it um, their perimeter defense was much better, Anthony Edwards was downhill all the time. And then the big guy that it's hurting

right now is Carl Town's. Like they're basically turning Carl Towns into a wing instead of what he was last year and for most of his career, which is like this hyper versatile downhill forward that um that kills people in face up but also have some uh spacing effects with his ability to shoot the three. But he was operating around the basket a lot. Last year, Carl Town's made four point two shots per game in the restricted area. At this year it's at two point one, so half

that and he's only making six of them. You're basically using Carl Towns as a wing on both ends of the floor, which is literally the worst way to use him. So you brought in Rudy Gobert to kind of redefine and re anchor your defense, but in the process you took an all star level player and are using him in literally the worst possible way, and in a way that dramatically diminishes his value. I hated the Gobert deal when it went down. I'm not surprised that we're seeing

disappointing results so far. And again, maybe it all works out in the long run, and if it does, I'll be the first to admit that I was wrong. But right now I'm not optimistic. And again, Wolves fans, I want I want to hear your take dropping in the comments alright. Number four, the Brooklyn Nets. I'm not going to talk long about them, because we've done that a ton in recent weeks, and more than they honestly deserve. Um. I had them in my list is the if things

go right contender, and I wasn't the only one. I was listening to a Zachlo podcast the other day and he said that he called them before the season the dunder Mifflin NBA team because they were good on paper and you could tell looking at the talent on the roster. You're looking at Kevin Durant, who's one of the best two way superstars in the league. You have, you know, Ben Simmons, who's one of the best defensive players in the league. Are allegedly as you know, you bring in

Royce O'Neil that bolsters your perimeter defense. Nick Claxton is a big athlete with long arms that clogs up the lane, and can grab contested rebounds. And then Kyrie Irving, for all of his flaws when he's locked in, is actually an okay perimeter defender and he can grab contested rebounds. He grabbed nine defensive rebounds in a single game once, or excuse me, in a single half earlier this season once.

So like they had on paper the potential to be a good basketball team, and instead things have gone horribly wrong. They're seventeenth in offense, which is nowhere near good enough for their talent. They're dead last in defense the net ratings on point deferential, they're the third worst team in the entire league. And then they're dead last and rebounding. So they had plenty of on paper talent to be a good basketball team, but instead they completely mailed in

every single winning basketball trade. And now they're staring down the barrel of a two and eleven start if they go oh and five during this Kyrie suspension. So horrifically disappointing team. Brooklyn nets at number four, number three the Philadelphia seventy sixers. I got on a three game winning streak and then immediately had an awful game at home against Washington on Wednesday, where they didn't defend and got killed on the glass again. And really what the Sixers

are is just a slightly better version of the Nets. Offensively, they're great, and Brooklyn was good offensively for the most part up until the last couple of games. Um of Philly's fourth and offense overall third and half court offense according to Cleaning the Last, but their twenty three in defense, twenty nine and rebounding. The only team worse is the Nets, and they're dead last in transition defense. So similar kind of concept. Like, I'm disappointed in this team. I had

them fifth in my preseason power rankings. I thought they were just as talented as the most talented teams in the league. The league is wide open. Anybody can win this thing, and they came out with no urgency in the winning areas of the game. And they're clearly not bought into Doc Rivers, which is why I thought, similar to the cur things, similar to the Vogel thing, they might need to consider just bringing in a new voice just to get the guys in the locker room to

buy into the winning details again. And now they have this James Harden injury. He's gonna be out for at least a month with the foot ligament issue. And I'm bummed out for James Harden because you finally get back in shape and you're honestly looking great to start the season. Maybe not quite two thousand nineteen James Harden, but a lot better than he looked last year. And now you're

gonna be heard again. And the tough thing with that is, you know, this is a guy that historically has struggle keeping weight off, and now he can't play basketball for a month. So I'm really curious to see how well he takes care of his body over this next month. And now for the next month, everything is gonna have to flow through Joel Embiid, so so much is gonna depend on how well he defends, how well he handles double teams, because he's gonna get doubled everywhere on the court.

Like his body language is gonna be a key thing to watch, Like when things go poorly, is he gonna keep his team galvanized or not, because even without Harden, they have enough talent to float around five hundred until James Harden gets back, which gives you a fighting chance down the stretch of the season. And I'm you know, I'm challenging Joel Embid. I'm really you know, you probably

fancy yourself the best player in the league. You know, um, you put yourself in the same conversations with guys like Nicola Yo Kitchen, guys like Janice. This is your chance. James Harden's out, He's gonna be back. Your team is incredibly talented. The league is wide open. You have to keep your team afloat for a month here, and I'm really curious to see how he does in that month. But they had a complete lack of urgency from the jump this season and kind of blew an opportunity to

come out and just start whooping everybody's ass. And so I have them as my third most disappointing team to start the season. Number two the l A Clippers, kind of similar to Minnesota there four and four, but their actual quality of winds is not good. Uh. They beat the Lakers, uh, the King's, the Rockets, and the Rockets again. They have two losses to the Thunder and then they got destroyed by the two good teams they played, the

Sons and the Pelicans. All of their issues are on the offensive end of the floor, kind of similar to the Lakers the only teams scoring less points per possession in the half court then the Lakers, according to Cleaning the Glass, are the Clippers in the rockets. Yes, you heard that right. The Clippers are are a worse half court offense than the Lakers. And so many people are gonna blame the Kauai thing, and the Kauai thing is weird, man,

Like he's gonna be out for this upcoming road trip again. Um. I told you guys. I had a guy who covers who's been covering the league for a long time, who told me that Kawais knee was degenerative years ago. And I was kind of like up in the air about it because I'm like, who the hell knows what's going on with Kauai. His camp is so air tight you're not getting any intel out of anything. So I just didn't know what to make of it. But here's the deal, man, It's been a year and a half since his a

c L surgery. It wasn't even a complete a c L tear, is a partial a c L tear. The dude played basketball for a couple of weeks and now he's out again, So like something's going on there. But either way regardless, Let's put the quay thing on a side for them on the side for a minute. This is largely the same assembly of players that destroyed the

Jazz in the two thousand one playoffs. A good defensive team on paper again in the regular season, and then they nearly beat the Suns there were two wins away from making it to the NBA Finals. Basically, you know, Paul George, Reggie Jackson, and a bunch of wings that can shoot and defend. It's the same group I put them. If you watch on on film, you can tell immediately watching the Clippers that they are just hunting pull up

jump shots off the dribble. It's a lot of ice, so a lot of just your turn, my turn, and they're getting away from what made them good at the beginning, which was this was if you remember when we did our season previews, I had the Clippers as the best driving kick team and all of basketball. What they do is they beat people off the dribble, draw, help, kick, drive, kick, drive, wide open three. That's what they do. That's what they do best and what the majority of the blame for

this season, and you could see it on tape. Reggie Jackson, Paul George. They're not doing their job of drawing that initial help and drawing and starting the driving kick, and instead they're hunting, as is a players kind of similar to the Tatum Brown thing in the finals, where when they're driving and kicking the offenses fluid, but when they're driving to ISO things kind of tend to fall apart, and you can see it in the metrics. It's actually

pretty wild. Um only twenty two point three attempts per game in the restricted area for the Clippers, which is twenty nine in the NBA. They aren't putting any pressure on the rim, so as a result, they aren't generating any wide open threes. The Clippers are generating eight point one wide open threes per game. Remember, wide open is defender at least six ft away. They're only generating eight

point one, which is dead last in the NBA. Instead, they're taking twenty five pull up jumpers per game, which is top ten in the NBA. Their assists are down in one that season I'm referencing, they were thirteen in the league, and assists this year there seven. So instead of being the driving kick team that generates high quality three point shots, that they were high quality three point shots and layups at the rim that they were in

This same group is basically turning into your turn. My turn is a team that's not generating high quality shots. Their offense is tanking as a result, and as a result, they're not achieving at the level you'd expect given the softness of their early schedule. You know, any Driving Kicks system, as the initial initiator, you have to understand your role and it's hard because these got you know, you're primary

perimeter initiators are usually super skilled. So they're usually guys that you know when they're taking step back three is they feel good about that shot because they've worked on it all summer for the last ten years and they're damn good at it. And so for them when they're taking those shots, they're like, man, I like the shot. I like my chances. This is probably gonna go in. If they get a post mismatch against a player on the left wing, they're like, I like my chances here.

This is a good matchup for me. But when you're in that perimeter initiator role on a driving Kick team, that's not your job. You pull that stuff out of the bag in late clock situations or every once in a while when you get a fantastic matchup. But when you actively hunt those possessions, you're undercutting your own offense. The job of that perimeter initiator Paul George bringing the ball up the right wing Clippers possession seventeen on the shot clock, his job is to beat someone off the

dribble and kick it. That's it. That's all you need to do. Now if it, if it kicks, and then that guy drives, and it kicks, and that guy drives and there's no advantage, and Paul George has the ball with six on the shot clock, then yeah, go to work. Hunt your pull up jump shot to salvage the possession. But this team is not getting into their driving kicked the way they're supposed to, and as a result, their

offense is suffering. As soon as they do that, as soon as they start attacking the rim again, things will turn around for them. Things will click immediately for them. They are fourth and defense. So like the Lakers, when you're that good on defense, all you gotta do is get your offense going a little bit and the winds will follow. So I still believe in the Clippers in the long run, but right now they've kind of lost

their identity a little bit offensively. Alright. Number one, the most disappointing team in the NBA to start the season, the team that I had a tenth in my power rankings yesterday based on how good their starters have been. Obviously paying respect as the defending champions, the Golden State Warriors. So they lost again last night in embarrassing fashion to the Magic I just caught crunch time of this one, but I did see on the box score that the

bench was a problem again. Um shout out to Jalen Suggs. By the way, he was the one who was the big made all the big plays at the end of this game. I talked a lot about his pull up

jump shooting in the opening week of the season. If you guys remember, well, he's fifty on pull up threes to start this season, and he hit two more massive pull up threes in crunch time last night, one where he kind of came off of a ball screen to the left and the Warriors botch to switch and he was completely unguarded on the left wing, and then he had a disgusting step back like kind of pound through the legs step back on the right wing that was

a deep one is like twenty seven ft two. And then he had two huge steals on Steph Curry a ball pressure steel at the top of the key and then a play where he made a defensive rotation sprinting back into the play um to get his steal off of his Steph Curry pass. Big time plays from him, weird up and down crunch time from Steph Curry. It was like gigantic shot, big turnover, gigantic shot, big turn over, gigantic show. Like it was just so up and down.

It was like he wasn't missing anything, but he tossed away a couple of possessions at the end of the game, being sloppy with the basketball, and it costs him the game. And look again, like the bench struggled again. You could see it in the box score. And it's still a huge problem. But we've talked that to death and I'm not going to get into that right now. And quite frankly, we can't keep making excuses for the starters. Let's look

at the reality of this losing streak real quick. So every single team that the Warriors lost to in this four game losing streak. As a losing record, their combined record is eleven and twenty four. Each of the four teams the Warriors lost to our bottom ten offenses in the league. In this four game stretch, the Warriors are allowing a hundred and twenty one points per one hundred possessions to these four terrible offenses. If you just took

every team's last four games, that's dead last. So nobody in the league is defending worse than the Warriors over this last week, and the starters are blameless. During this four game stretch, the Curry, Thompson, Wiggins Green Looney lineup has played forty two minutes. They have a one fifteen point four offensive rating, which is good, in a one eleven point four defensive rating, which is bad. They're only

plus four net against this type of competition. Your starters, who have been destroying everybody, should be destroying these teams, especially when you know your bench is struggling and you need to buy them more margin for error. Instead, they're only slightly positive and they're struggling at the end of games. Do the Warriors need to figure their bench out, Yes, but the starters are also not nearly playing well enough. Here's why I'm disappointed in the Warriors. This is why

I have him as my most disappointing team. They aren't like the other teams on this list. This is not the Minnesota Timberwolves who are undergoing a massive identity change after a trade. These are not the Brooklyn Nets, who even coming into the season, we knew were could be a title contender or could completely employ ode, like we

knew that was a potential outcome. The Sixers same thing, Like, yeah, I had some optimism around James Harden in their roster, but like, would you be stunned if Joel and beat and James Harden came out and didn't play any transition defense, or if James already got hurt, or if the team didn't want to compete for Doc Rivers. No, you're not overly stunned, right, And then the Clippers have had a

ton of health issues. We knew they'd have a ton of health issues, like Kawhi Leonard's injury history is kind of speaks for itself. And then none of those teams recently won an NBA championship. What did I say about the Warriors coming into the season when I picked them as my championship favorite. I said they were the best combination of talent, coaching, management, experienced continuity. They don't have an excuse to be this bad, especially against the type

of competition that they've played in the last week. So they just like guys, the Lakers have a better net rating right now than the Golden State Warriors. It's embarrassing for them, and I'm sure they're in barrassed. I still have them as my championship favorite. I believe they will figure this out. If you're a betting man, betting on Steph Curry, Clay Thompson and Draymond Green is just a

smart bet, they'll figure it out. But without a doubt, sitting at three and six, with the soft schedule they've played, you have to be disappointed in the Warriors, and I would hope if you're a Warriors fan that you're disappointed as well. Do they need to figure out their bench, Yes, but they also should not be going oh in four against this type of competition. I don't care if it's me out there playing on the bench. It's just it's just inexcusable at this point. All right, that is all

I have for this week. We're taking Saturday and Sunday off, we will be back on Monday night. The game plan for this week coming week is on Monday night on AMP,

we're gonna be covering the early slate from Monday. Then on Tuesday, Election Day, there's no NBA games, but on AMP that evening will be covering the later slate from Monday night, and then on Wednesday it's Lakers Clippers, so we'll be covering the early slate on AMP and then YouTube live at the end of the night after Lakers Clippers, and then we'll have two normal film breakdowns on Thursday and Friday next week, including our first player rankings of

the season. As always, I sincerely appreciate your guys support and I will see you next week. The volume