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eight hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. All right, welcome to tonight presented by FanDuel here at the volume help all of you guys had a great week and that you're enjoying your weekends. So far, we've got a
completely packed show. Today. We're gonna continue our top twenty five NBA players list with number fifteen through number eleven, and then here At the top of the show, we're gonna go over the latest proposed Russell Westbrook trade, this time involving the Utah Jazz and a couple of really
interesting potential players heading back towards the Lakers. We're gonna go over the details of that trade when I think about the players involved, as well as where I would rank it compared to some of the other proposed Russell Westbrook trades that have been thrown out over the course of this summer. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the volume's YouTube channel so you
don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at under score Jason lt s. You guys, don't miss show announcements or any other content that I put out in the last but not least, if you can't finish one of these shows and you can't get back to YouTube, we do release them in podcast form wherever you get your podcasts. Under Hoops tonight. Alright, So on
that note, let's talk about this potential Lakers deal. So we've seen the Kyrie deal that's been proposed, which appears to be completely on hold depending on what happens with Kevin Durant. Right. We've also heard of this buddy healed in Miles Turner trade with the Indiana Pacers, one that I like a lot as a backup option to the Kyrie deal too, really good solid NBA starters potentially returning to the Lakers. They're both of those deals in the
immediate future. Appeal to be appeared to be held up based on whether or not the Lakers are willing to include that second first round draft pick draft pick, which who knows whether or not they'll ever be willing to include that. I hope that they will if it if it comes down to whether or not they have to take this roster into camp or not. Um Jovan Buja covers the Lakers for The Athletic. A friend of mine.
He put out a tweet the other day and in one of his reports about a proposed closing lineup for the Lakers this year, and it was like Austin Reeves, Troy Brown, Junr Juanta Scotto, Anderson, Lebron James and Anthony Davis. And then I wanted to be like, okay, Like if you don't think you have a contender and you're not willing to trade those picks, and this is the lineup, you're gonna march out there this year, you might as well trade Lebron James and Anthony Davis at that point.
I really like Austin Reeves. He's one of my favorite young players in the league, but he's not ready to be a you know, the third best player in a closing lineup, right, and Juantaskano Anderson and Troy Brown Jr. Are guys who should be coming off the bench their NBA players, but they shouldn't be starting for contenders so that they're They're just nowhere near where they need to be.
So you either need to put the picks on the table to make a deal happen, or you need to punt all of this and just send Lebron and Anthony Davis somewhere else to a team that actually cares about trying to win basketball games. But hopefully this is all just about leverage and the Lakers will eventually put that second draft pick on the table. So we have a third ward potential Russell Westbrook trade, this time involving the Utah Jazz. Michael Scota of Hoops Hype reported this yesterday.
The deal would involve It's a three team deal that would help facilitate the Jazz sending Donovan Mitchell to the Knicks, and in that deal, Patrick Beverley would be coming back to the Lakers, and then two additional players for salary filler. From the Jazz it would either be Jordan Clarkson, Malik Beasley, or Boyan Bogdanovitch, And from the Knicks it would be either Derrick Rose or Evan Fournier. So in both cases, I'm gonna tell you which players that I prefer, and
I'll tell you why. So I actually really like Malik Beasley's game. I just think that the Lakers are in desperate need of guys that are taller than six ft six, so I don't really see the point of going that route. I'd like to see them have some more lineup flexibility to So right now, with the way that the Lakers rosters put together, they've got two decent backup bigs, right and Thomas Bryant Damian Jones, and then you've got Anthony Davis,
who really should be playing the five. But with the way that the rosters put together, because they have so many short basketball players elsewhere on the roster, Anthony Davis at this point would have to play the vast majority of of his minutes at the four, you'd have to lean into interior size playing one of Bryant or Jones with a D at the four, Lebron and the three.
That way, you're smaller perimeter players are less damaging because you've got good aggregate size with the totality of the lineup right, if you get somebody that's taller than six six, like a starting level NBA player who's taller than six six, into that three spot, that gives you the flexibility of downsizing to Anthony Davis at the five while maintaining the necessary requisite aggregate size to be able to put together a functional, you know, NBA line that that can hold
up under the physicality, especially when you get to the playoffs. So as much as I like Malik Beasley, I think he's just a touch too small. I've never been a huge fan of Jordan Clarkson's game, very very inefficient score. I think specifically what he does, it can it can be some value in the regular season in terms of innings eating just because you can get somebody out there
that can get shots up. But I don't find him to be deeply impactful in a playoff setting still a negative defensive player at this point, which puts me to boy On Begdanovich. Now, you guys have heard me talk a lot about boy On over the course of this last postseason because he's the kind of player that I value as a role player a lot, because he can attack mismatches as a big win. He's six eight, but he's a big six eight. He can shoot the ball well, and he's got a good back to the basket game.
He's actually a very good isolation player. He's a guy that can score, you know, twenty plus points on any given night to help you as a you know, as an ancillary scoring piece. And then on the defensive end of the floor, he's not great, particularly when it comes to guarding quick perimeter players, but he is good at guarding big wings. He can, he's he's a good post offender. He's good at guarding your Kais and your Lebrons of the world because he's big and strong and he doesn't
give ground in the physicality of fighting for positions. So again, you're not gonna get perfect players in a Russell Westbrook trade. I've been talking about this NonStop over the course of this last six months, but when you're trading so Westbrook and you only have distant first round draft picks, you're not gonna be getting back all stars. Okay, So you've got to change your perception of the type of player that you're targeting. You're gonna be targeting NBA starter level
players that have strengths and then have weaknesses. But Bogdanovitch's strength is that he can score the basketball, particularly against mismatches smaller players on the floor. Specifically with the Lakers. That's a great value add because if you've got big, strong defenders, they're probably gonna be on Lebron James and Anthony Davis. So there's a good chance that Bogdanovitch would consistently draw smaller defensive players that he'd be able to
take advantage of. Then, in spot up roles, he's a good spot up shooter. Not a great spot up shooter, but he's a good spot up shooter. So I like him there in terms of the spacing. And then, last but not least, he's big, and so like I said, you could slot him into that three spot, which allows you to line up flexibility of playing Lebron James and Anthony Davis at the four and five there. They need more guys like that to be able to consistently play
that way. But at least you'd have that punch, she'd be able to shift gears between playing big and playing small. Whereas if you don't have a guy like Bogdanovitch on the roster, I'm just not sure that you can play Anthony Davis at the five at all, unless you want
to go with Stanley Johnson in the closing lineup. And I like Stanley Johnson and he's a good basketball player, but I ideally you want him coming off the bench for you in a smaller role, particularly kind of unleashing him as a perimeter defender against some other teams score for short bursts over the course of the game. So out of those three guys, out of Jordan Clarkson, boy
On Bogdanovich, and Moli Beasley, I prefer Bogdanovitch. Now Patrick Beverley, who's also included in the deal, I'm not a huge fan of him as a as a player and as a person. I think he's kind of a jerk. I admire the fact that he's grinded his way into the NBA, but like stupid things like him shoving Chris Paul in the back after a playoff series. I just have no respect for that. I think he's a little bit like into the antics, and the antics at the antics don't
interest me. I'm I'm a basketball purist. You guys know that. I feel the same way when it comes to ref baiting and things along those lines. Not a huge fan to Patrick Beverley overall in terms of just the kind of guy he is, but as a basketball player, as a guy who can defend at the point of attack, he's immensely valuable, particularly with this type of roster construct. You know, I talk a lot about the difference between
positional defenders and disruptive defenders. Right, So, positional defenders they're not overly aggressive. They give ground, but they make you shoot over the top, and they typically are bigger and slower. Now, disruptive defenders are typically quicker and smaller, and their role is completely different. They are being aggressive defensively. They're trying to get into your shooting pocket. They're trying to disrupt your handle, and they will give up dribble penetration, but
they will also force a lot of turnovers. That kind of defender is a little bit more feasible alongside great rim protection, because when you're going to be giving up dribble drive penetration, right and Patrick Beverley is so committed to the defensive end of the floor that when he does give up dribble drive penetration, he'll either continue trying to disrupt from behind or he will get into his
next spot in rotation. So alongside Galing, Anthony Davis and Bron James, who's a great back line defender when he's bought in, I actually really like Patrick Beverley there. He's turned into a pretty solid spot up shooter. Like he's not an offensive liability by any stretch of the imagination. He actually flashed some bits of good offensive creation um for Minnesota in that playoff run, albeit against a guard and John Muran, who's really bad defensively at this point
in his career. But Patrick Beverley, say what you want about the guy, And again, like I said, not a huge fan of the guy, but with the Lakers, he's legitimately a good fit, a guy that would help them with their current roster construct and much better than any option they have at the point of attack in the backcourt at this specific point in time, so with the Jazz,
I would be targeting Patrick Beverley and Boy and Bogdanovitch. Now, the three names that have been thrown out from the New York Knicks potentially a salary filler are Derrick Rose, Evan Fournier, and Cam Reddish. So I'm gonna dismiss Cam Reddish out of hand because I just think I typically like the taller, athletic, defensive minded wing right but right now, he's just too young, and I don't think he'd be usable,
particularly in a playoff setting. I want, you know, if I'm running the Lakers, I'm gonna be targeting players that I believe can close playoff games for me. And right now, I've only got two that I know for sure can and Lebron James and Anthony Davis. And I've got a third and a maybe in Austin Reeves. If he gets his jump shot to the point where it's reliable, which
I believe he could, it's definitely doable. But and there's lots of reporting coming out that Austin Reeves has been putting on muscle and and working on a shooting NonStop in the off season, so we'll see. But that's that's a little bit of a question mark, right. I know Patrick Beverley can play playoff minutes for me. I know Boy and Bagdanovitch can play playoff minutes for me. There, so that gives me four players that I can trust. So I would like to target a fifth guy that
I can slide into that lineup. Derrick Rose. I like what he's done in the last phase of his career after his injury and turning himself into a serviable, serviceable backup point guard in the NBA. But to me, he's a backup and he's a guy that you bring bringing off the bench to run your bench offense, and so I wouldn't be targ getting him. I'd be targeting Evan Fournier. Now, Evan Fournier as a lead shot creator like he was for the Knicks for a long time, It's gonna be
underwhelming from time to time. But if you think of him as a second side creator, a guy that's gonna be constantly attacking already compromise defense and off ball with how good he is as a spot up shooter, I really like his fit with the Lakers. So Evan Fournier would be the player I'd be targeting from the Knicks as salary filler, and then we start to get a
pretty interesting closing line up there. Patrick Beverley, Evan Fournier, Boyan mcdonovitch, Lebron James, and Anthony Davis is a feasible closing lineup with plenty of shooting and plenty of size, and the hell of a lot better than that proposed closing group that Jovon bou hot throughout when he was pointing out the inadequacies of the Lakers roster at this point. Overall, compared to all of the Lakers trades that I've seen
thrown out involving Russell Westbrook, I'd brank this third. I'd put the Kyrie trade first, because again, you guys gotta think, what Kyrie does with the basketball is completely impossible to replica eight and defensively, it's completely impossible to scheme for prepare for like he's unguardable, right like if what he does in the postseason is impossible to replace, so you so, for instance, I would rather have Kyrie Irving and Stanley Johnson in my closing lineup then a buddy healed in
a Miles Turner, because even though I know Buddy Buddy Heild of Miles Turner are both starter level NBA players, there's a chance that when they get to the highest stages against the best defenses, their impact will be limited to a certain extent because they don't have that super high end elite skill right that the three the three level shot creation that Kyrie has with Stanley Johnson and
Kyrie Irving. I know Kyrie Irving is gonna bring that unguardability to a playoff series, which has a great deal of value. And then the third best trade that I've seen thrown out there because I would I put Healed in Turner second, just because I think Turner brings a really interesting defensive dynamic with Turner and Anthony Davis in the backcourt. Buddy Healed obviously and one of the best UH three point shooters that we have in the league
right now. I've broken it down on the show before, but the dynamic of having him running pick and roll with Anthony Davis is really interesting to me because they can't switch it because of the differences in size, as opposed to a Lebron James Anthony Davis pick and roll that typically ends in a switch with Buddy Yield run and pick and roll with Anthony Davis. You're going to have to chase him over the top of the screen
because he's a shooting threat. So many guards that have played for the Lakers over the course of the the last few years, like Russell Westbrook and Dennis Schroeder and right on Rondo, everybody's going underneath those screens, which makes them so much easier to guard because they're not willing shooters.
Getting a guy like Buddy Healed in there as a as a knockdown three point shooter coming off the top of those screens is a really interesting dynamic to open up a lebron excuse me and Anthony Davis, Buddy Healed pick and Roll. We've talked about this before and I don't I don't want to go too much deeper, but it just is so much harder to guard when you have to go over the screen versus going under the screen.
If you go back to my I did I did it while I was on vacation, But if you go back and look up my video that I did on Buddy Healed proposed Trade, check that out. I went further into the XS and nose of that specific dynamic, but I put that trade second. But third, I would put
this potential proposed Utah Jazz trade. I like it because I'm getting three NBA starters back in Patrick Beverley, boy and Bogdanovich and Evan Fournier, all three of them and bigger roles are gonna struggle for one reason or another when they're being depended on, Like the Utah Jazz were depending on Bedonovitch to create offense because of the struggles of Donovan Mitchell and Mike Conley in that series, right Like Patrick Beverley was was put in the basketball on
the floor and trying to create for himself a lot against the Memphis Grizzlies. Evan Fournier was dependent on a lot as a creator for the Knicks. With this Lakers team, they'd be downsized into roles that are more appropriate for their skill set, and I think they'd be good fits. There's that's three really solid options there, and all three of them I think would absolutely make the Lakers a
legitimate championship contender. Maybe not a top tier contender, but they put them in that second tier where like, if things break right, they can win. If Lebron James stays healthy. If Anthony Davison Davis recaptured his form and those guys are all available, that's a that's a team that can win a championship. And so that to me is a percent worth it to put those two picks on the table.
The only thing that is completely inexcusable as an option here for the Lakers is letting all three of these deals slip away and coming with the current roster into camp. All right, without any further ado, let's get started, uh, continuing our top twenty players in the NBA list with number fifteen Devin Booker. So in this regular season he averaged twenty seven five and five on fifty eight fifty
percent true shooting. That's excellent. In this postseason run, you average twenty three five and four on fifty nine percent true shooting, so four point dropping his scoring. One thing I'll say in his defense there is he had a hamstring injury. Any one of you guys out there has had a hamstring injury before. I had one shortly before I started playing in college, and I re injured it two additional times before I finally got it healed. But any of you guys who have had this injury. No,
it specifically hurts you with explosiveness. You could play a lazy brand of basketball and your hamstring will do okay if it's somewhere far somewhat far along in its recovery. But as soon as you start really trying to explode and take long steps, that's where it really tests that hamstring. And that's a very important thing to have as a
as a scorer in the NBA. So him having his hamstring, you know, compromised, even if it was just partially, I would get I've cut him some slack, especially after how good he looked in the playoff run in his final five games versus Dallas UM which they lost four of the average twenty two five and four on field goals, he had twenty assists with twenty four turnovers, so pretty ugly and to the Dallas series hard to look entirely past, especially because of his shot profile, which will get a
little bit further into here in a little bit involving his pull up jump shooting. But I would like to cut him some slack over that hamstring injury. He's as well round did of a three level score as we have in the league. Now when we you know, I use that phrase a lot three level score, but there's a difference between the three level score in name and the three level score in practice. It's kind of like when I'm talking about shooting. You're either a shooter or
a maker. You know, anybody can be a shooter. You're just taking shots, but a maker is someone who can consistently make them right. Well, it's the same thing with a three level scoring thing. There are guys who have the ability to three level score, but it doesn't actually manifest in balance scoring. You know, there you have there are three level scores out there that rely too much
on their jump shot. You know, Paul George used to be like this, although he's gotten better as as we'll talk about when we get to him later on in the list. But you actually need to in practice have balance in your offense to make yourself difficult to guard.
If you're good at shooting threes, good at scoring in the mid range, good at scoring in the short range, and good at scoring around the rim, but you don't actually try to get to the rim, then players will start to sit up on your jump shot and you'll have issues when you start to really dive into Devin Booker's numbers, there's remarkable balance, So check this out and um In the regular season, he averaged two restricted area makes per game at sixty percent, which is really good
for for a guard, a scoring guard like him, two additional paint field goals per game outside of the restricted area, that's really good, three mid range jump shots per game at that's outstanding, and then three three pointers made per game at thirty eight percent. So he's scoring twice in the twice in the restricted area, twice in the short range, three times in the mid range, and three times from
the three point line per game. That's outstanding balance. He's thirty percent on corner threes thirty eight percent and above the break threes. Doesn't really have a weak spot on the floor. He's comfortable scoring from absolutely anywhere. That's the appeal with Devin Booker, and that's what allowed him to have such a dominant playoff run like he had in in uh in two thousand one. Now, the one thing that can get a little tricky with Devin Booker is
he does rely heavily on pull up jump shooting. A good percentage of those shots regard ordless of where they are on the floor involved him getting to his spot and elevating over the top of a defender to knockdown shots even in the short to midrange that you've probably seen it before, but Devin Booker will work you down to seven or eight feet, pump fake, pump fake, and then rise up over the top and take a jump shot. A good percentage of his offense comes from pull up
jump shooting. The tricky thing with that is, even on your best day, you're gonna miss some pull up jump shots, right like you know, any one of you guys out there who has any sort of pull up jump shooting in your game, even if you're good at it, even if you work extremely hard, you're gonna miss more than
half of them. And what that means is you're gonna have hot streaks where you're you know, where you can go seven out of ten or make a bunch in a row, But then you're also gonna have cold streaks. In game six, in game seven versus Dallas, he was three for sixteen on pull up jump shots, and when that failed him, he didn't have a backup option to go to. When you rely on pull up jump shooting and the pull up jump shot fails you unless you're a great playmaker, or you can live at the rim.
You're not gonna have a back, a backup punch to go to. And Devin Booker has some balance to score at the rim, but he is not a guy who can live at the rim. And he's an okay playmaker, but he is not a good playmaker. And so that's why I've always prioritized his scores. Bigger wings, like the bigger, stronger, rim pressuring wings, because when their jump shot starts to fail them, they can at least put their head down and go to the rim and have some impact collapsing
the defense. And then that's where the playmakers in particular can bring great value. That's that's the story of Lebron James's career. When he's making his jump shot, there's absolutely nothing you can do with him. He's the best player in the world. But even when he's missing his jump shot, he's gonna go eight for twenty two, which is solid. He's gonna score twenty eight points, he's gonna get to the foul line eight times, and he's gonna have eleven assists.
Like That's that's the dynamic of the big rim pressuring forward. That's so interesting is they have the ability to impact the game in so many different ways beyond that of a pull up jump shooter. UH. Devin Booker, to his credit, has turned himself into a pretty solid on ball defender. He's scrappy, he's physical, he uses his hands. While he's kind of a disruptive defender, he's only okay and help side defense. That's a little area of opportunity for him.
And then, just like every other guard in the league, he's susceptible to bigger wings and mismatch situations. You saw that a lot against Dallas Luca, punishing him under the basket for layups and and ones and things along those lines. So the question here is can Devin Booker be the best player on a championship team. I don't think so. I think he's a number two. I don't think that's a hot take. I think most of you would probably agree.
I think you either need to be a great playmaker or be a much much bigger, stronger rim protector in order to be UH to be a top tier UH the best player on a championship team as a score
in the NBA. That's where I'm gonna lean more towards the Kauais and the Jason Tatums of the and the Kevin Durance of the world as big scoring wings than the smaller guys like Devin Booker, who basically have the same type of shot profile as those guys without the physicality to get easier shots around the rim and without the playmaking ability to make up for their lack of size. Alright.
Number fourteen Damian Lillard now Dame, is a top ten player when he's healthy, but obviously he's dropping here because health concerns. He's been saying things about how is abdominal muscles has kind of healed itself. He shared some pretty crazy stories about having a big lump that he would see like in his stomach after games and stuff that's freaky. Hopefully that's healed. Hopefully he'll be back on the horse now.
The two previous seasons combined, he averaged twenty nine points, four rebounds, eight assists on sixty three percent true shooting. That is ridiculously good on three or excuse me, on ten three point attempts per game. In the postseason, he averaged thirty four and eight on sixty five percent true shooting. He's also arguably the best pull up jump shooter in the game of basketball. Over the course of those two seasons, he averaged over ten pull up jumpers per game and
shot on them. Now, there's a huge difference between pull up shooting and spot up shooting. I wanted to break this down because we're gonna get into it a little bit deeper with Paul George, and I've actually been directly working on this with one of the college players that have been working out with over the course of the summer who's going from an off ball roll into an on ball roll this season, and so we're working on changing the shooting mechanics into the field of shooting off
the dribble versus shooting and spot up situations. And it's super interesting to me because in spot up shooting it's very mechanical. You want muscle memory, you want as few moving parts as possible, and you want it to be as replicable as possible, because at that point it's you're you're standing still waiting for the basketball, I mean, the
basketball comes to you. You want to be able to unleash something that is a muscle memory, thing that you've done thousands and thousands of times, that is more reliable pull up shooting is completely different. There's a fluidity to it as opposed to a mechanical field to it. The reason why is the ball is always in a different spot depending on what you're what work is, and what
your dribble combination is. In a spot up shooting situation, you might catch it wherever you catch it, you're bringing it to your shooting pocket and then you're starting your routine right. But in off the dribble situation, I might be doing it behind the back, dribble to my left hand and have the ball out here and have to flow right up into a shot, or if I have it out here, flow right up into a shot from the right side. It's a completely different type of field.
You can't be mechanical and pull up shooting because if you are, if you take time to get set into your shot after every single dribble combination, you're never gonna have enough time to get the shot off. And so what impresses me the most about Damian Lillard and Paul George, who we're gonna get into here in a little bit, is they have remarkable fluidity into their pull up jump shooting. Dame's go to move and pull up jump shooting situations.
Is he kind of ULLs you to sleep with the dribble in his right hand, and he does a hard pound dribble with his right hand and steps back to his right, kicks his right foot out to help square up in mid air, and he knocks it down. There's a I always have. I'm a nerd when it comes to the little d tales of skill development, just because I personally my archetype was always a scorer, So I'm always looking to add a little like scoring moves and
things to my game. And Dame's pound dribble step back to the right is one that I think every score should have in their game, and have always been very, very impressed by the fluidity in his jump shooting ability. Dame is every bit as good as Steph on the ball. The numbers are unassailable. Last two playoff runs, thirty points per game on sixty true shooting, eight assists per game, a knockdown, pull up jump shooter. He's every bit as
good as step on the ball. But why is he usually hovering around the tenth best player in the league while Steph is in the conversation for the best player in the league. Well, that's the best example of the differences between focusing on the aesthetically appealing things in basketball and the things that actually impact winning. You guys probably remember the Mike James quote that came out the other
day saying that Steph was one dimensional. A couple of different interesting things they're one That's the best example I can give you that playing the game of basketball has nothing to do with your understanding of the game. Mike James is a very successful basketball player who has played in the NBA before. If you think Steph is one dimensional,
you do not understand what you are seeing. Okay. That's why I I give a great deal of respect to the people out there who have not played the game, but that have taken the time to try to learn the game. So because it's just it's it's a lot easier said than done, and it does take a lot of work to understand what you're seeing on the basketball court.
But even in that specific case, uh, Steph is an excellent score and we just talked about that with Dame on the same level as step and Steph demonstrated that in this playoff run, particularly in the NBA Finals against Boston's drop coverage just routinely barbecuing them for going underneath screening actions and things along those lines. But Steph has always been massively underrated with this winning characteristics, the little
things he does to impact winning. And that's not just his leadership, even though he's one of the best leaders in the game of basketball. It's not just his mentality and his competitive of nature and any of those things, even though that's as good as you'll find in the game of basketball. It's actual on the court work. First of all, step is considerably bigger than Dame. He's six ft three and pretty well built. He's also very committed
to the defensive end of the floor. That has turned step into an above average defensive guard in this league. Dame is in the bottom tier of defensive guards in the league. He's a good athlete, but he's pretty undersized. He's much smaller than Staff. That makes it tougher for him to hold his own and positional defensive situations. Guys can go through and around him pretty easily. And then, lastly,
the moving without the basketball. Steph Curry is the best off ball guard in the league, and Dame Lillard seems pretty uninterested in doing that. Moving without the basketball is super important for a bunch of different reasons. First of all, it helps create quality shots for yourself. Pull up jumping, like we talked about earlier, is hard. The shot profile is hard. It's not reliable. Sometimes they'll go in, sometimes they won't, So you need to supplement your offense with
easy He looks for bigger rim pressuring forwards. That's living at the rim, that's putting your head down and going through people to try to get layups. For a guy like Steph, he does it by moving without the basketball. He's gonna get himself three or four wide open. Three's a game just by constantly staying in motion and capitalizing on defenders having brief lapses in attention. And when they had that brief those brief lapses and attention, he sparks
open for a second. Draymond or someone else hits him, he knocks down to three. That's how you supplement the more difficult areas of your offensive attack with easy shots. And then secondly, it's the decoy effect. We've all seen this with Steph a million times. But he'll come running off the screen and the guy who's setting the screen, his man will go out with step and then steps Man will go out with Steph and then all of a sudden, whoever set in the screen, and maybe it's
Kevin Looney or Draymond Green or somebody. They just flashed to the basket and they're wide open for a dunk. That decoy, the decoy attention that Steph draws moving without the basketball creates shots first teammates, and then he also creates open shots for himself to help supplement his offense. Dame Lillard has everything he needs to do that. He's such a deadly shooter that if he embraced that off ball movement, he would generate himself easier shots throughout the game,
and he would get his teammates open looks. But for whatever reason, he's been pretty uninterested in doing that. And so that's that's the biggest area of opportunity for Damon. I'm not sure if he'll ever take advantage of that, but if he does, I don't think he could ever be in the same conversation as Steff because of his defensive limitations, but he could get up into that six or seventh best player in the league if he started
doing those things. You've seen what Steff is capable of offensively, He's arguably, I would say he is the best offensive engine in basketball right now. Dame could be a nearly as impactful offensive engine if he embraced those winning things that Steff does without the basketball. So what can the Blazers accomplish this year? They're actually putting together They they actually have put together a pretty interesting roster. I really really like the Jeremy Grant trade. I think he's a
perfect number two to have alongside Dame. He's he had a rough year last year because of the the injuries, but the previous year he demonstrated that he can be a relatively efficient volume score. So you put him alongside Dame Jeremy Granton. Dame Anthony Simmons has blossomed into a pretty decent scoring guard in the NBA, so you've got three pretty good scoring options. Jeremy Grant is a capable defensive player, and they added some really important role players over the
course of the last couple of years. The Josh Hart acquisition I really appreciated. I think that's gonna help them a lot. Josh Hard is a solid three and D wing in this league, and Gary Payton the second. This is a player that I wanted the Warriors to keep I was really disappointed in them for letting him go. I pointed out the numbers to you guys, but the difference between the way the Warriors played in this postseason run with Gary Payton on the floor versus Gary Payton
off the floor was jarring. He's an impact playoff player in the NBA right now, a perfect guy to put alongside Dame on the wing or in the backcourt to help him with all of the dirty work responsibilities on the floor and then use off. Nurkic is a fine role players center in this league. Shade and sharp he got, he ended up getting hurt. I believe he had like a shoulder injury or something along those lines in summer league. But he's a really intriguing young player, very high ceiling,
low floor type of guy. He could be like a more athletic version of Devin Booker as a guy who creates shots off the dribble, who has a ton of fluidity with the basketball and is a fantastic athlete. But there's also a version of his story where he becomes Kevin Porter Jr. So it's because maybe he just doesn't pick up on the maturity necessary to become a winning basketball player. So it's an interesting prospect there to kind of potentially extend their window. If he pans out into
a decent player, what does that make them? If Dame can recapture what he was before he was hurt, and Jeremy Grants the player from two years ago, and Anthony Simons is the type of score that he was this last year, and if Gary Payton and Josh Hart stay healthy on the wing and they do their job defending, they're absolutely in the mix as a middle tier UH
playoff team in the West. I wouldn't put them near the Clippers or the Warriors, but they're absolutely UH in that tier with like Denver and maybe the Lakers if they if they make decent trade this offseason. That's how much I respect Dame Lillard and what he can do with the basketball alright. Number thirteen John Moran this regular season twenty seven six and seven on fifty eight percent
true shooting. This playoff run twe eight and ten on fifty five percent true shooting, shot thirty four percent from three in the regular season and in the playoffs, and he went up in volume a little bit in the playoffs. That's good in bad. It's good in the sense that his stroke translates to the playoffs in terms of his confidence, like it's not like a sharp it's not like a
shot fell apart when he got to the playoffs. The bad there is thirty four percent is not good enough, so he will eventually need to get that up to about thirty seven thirty eight percent to get teams to really respect him and guard him more intentionally out there.
Um I I told you guys about how I thought a really interesting element of John Moran's potential development is the fact that he's impossible to officiate because he's so skinny, and he goes flying through the lane and can fall down a lot, and the refs just don't know what to do. I compared him to Dwyane Wade in that respect. Now, it didn't materialize in a finals run the way it did for a championship round, the way it did for Dwyane Wade, but he did go up to ten free
throw attempts per game in the postseason. That's an excellent sign of a replicable, dependable offense uh for the Grizzlies, and later attempts to to make deeper runs into the playoffs, He's just he's just impossible to contain with a live dribble at the top of the key. If he gets a live dribble and the floors space and he's working against any defender in the league, he's getting into the paint and he's getting grible penetration. He's gonna make something happen.
Couple that with his athleticism and the way he flies through the lane, He's gonna draw a ton of house. He's your classic hyper athletic slashing guard, right in the mold of Derrick Rose and John Wall and Russell Westbrook. Obviously there's a little differences between those guys and jaw Like Wall and Westbrook were more big and strong, Rose was a little bit was skinnier, kind of like jaw um.
John I think is the best passer out of any of them, except for maybe Westbrook, although I can be critical of Westbrook's passing sometimes because I think it's a little reactionary. It's a it's a little bit like, uh reactive as the people in the in the comments try to tell me last show, Uh, He's he's a little bit of like a hill pass when he has to kind of guy I find John Moran to be a little bit more willing of a passer, and so with his ability to collapse the defense by getting into the paint,
that can be really impactful. And then his room for his room, finishing his room, finishing his outstanding. He was uh. He was finishing five point three layups in the restricted area per game in the regular season, and that only dropped to four point three in the playoffs. Now, in the playoffs, typically the teams scout more and they packed the paint more. That's why you're gonna see that a little bit of a drop off, but that's not much of a drop off. He was getting into the basket. Now,
his percentages dropped. He shot sixty seven percent in the restricted area in the regular season. That dropped up fifty two in the postseason. But that's offset a bit by the free throws. Like a lot of those drives are ending in him getting foul and going to the foul line and that specific free throw in that specific postseason.
So you'd like to see that a little higher, but him getting into the line, him making four point three layups per game and getting to the line ten times per game, there's no way I can twist that into anything but a massive positive for him as one of the most dynamic rim attackers that we have in the league. Now, this is a crazy stat. So in the clutch in
this postseason run per thirty six minutes. So if I took just his clutch minutes and extrapolated them out to what he would typically play in a game, so thirty six minutes. His per thirty six minutes in the clutch this year in the postseason or fifty five points, thirteen rebounds, and seven assists. So his production in his clutch minutes mimics that of a player who in the thirty six minute game would average fifty five points per game and
thirteen rebounds and seven assists. In clutch situations in this postseason, he shot fifty two percent from the field and fifty from three. That's ridiculous. So that's another huge thing if you're a Memphis Grizzlies, Memphis cruizes, he's fan to cling to. Jaw looks like a comfortable and confident clutch basketball player in the NBA playoffs. But the big negative with Jaw, and this is something he's gonna eventually have to figure out.
He's a little too skinny right now that that's gonna be a big part, and then a commitment from him in terms of of his the way he allocates his resources and his energy. He's just flat out bad defensive player right now. He's bad at the point of attack, he's bad in help. He has some highlight shot blocks from time to time, but he's not a like a
volume miss shot blocker. He in this in this playoff series against Minnesota this year, Patrick Beverley was straight up looking him in the eye and dog walking him down to the rim and scoring like just he couldn't do anything to contain Patrick Beverley. That's a problem. Patrick Beverley is a below average offensive guard in this league, so he's absolutely gonna have to figure out that defensive piece
to reach his ultimate ceiling. So I compared him to Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, and John wall I think he has the potential to be better than any of those guys. He already has better shooting form, which I think will translate to him being a knockdown three point shooter later on in his career. And he's better in the short range than any of them, stopping short and getting too little floaters and push shots in the lane. He's already better than any of those guys were, especially at his age,
at that specific skill. Right now, he's a better passer than Rose and Russ Rose and Wall where I think he will be a better passer than Russ in the long run. If he can figure out the defensive peace and get his jump shot to where I believe he can get, he has the potential to win multiple m vps and be a better player than any of those guys were at any of their peaks. Number twelve. This one's gonna be a little controversial for some of you guys,
but I've always valued this player, particularly Brandon Ingram. So in this regular season he averaged twenty three six and six one shooting somewhat underwhelming right um, But his breakout came in this postseason run. He was there a handful of break out players in this post season around Anthony Edwards, Jalen Brown, you know John Muran obviously in his first
postseason run, their second postseason run. But Brandon Ingram was magnificent in this playoff run, seven six and six on fifty percent true shooting against the third ranked defense in the NBA, and his primary defender finished second and Defensive Player of the Year voting. That's Michael Bridges, as was his coming out party, really really versatile scoring. You average two point five made restricted area field goal attempts made restricted area field goals per game at eighty three percent.
That's unbelievably good. He averaged three point seven made mid range shots per game at fifty percent. That's unbelievably good. And then the thing that stood out to me the most, and you guys will remember me talking about this during um during the first round when we were doing our
post game shows, he flashed high end playmaking. We have a lot of wings in this league, guys like Paul George, guys like Kawhile Leonard, guys like Kevin Rank, guys like Jayson Tatum that can pass, but they're clearly like reactive passers that are just making reads right, just the basic reads that come from the way that defense has collapse on them. Brandon Ingram is flashing higher level playmaking than even that. Now, what makes it interesting to me is
his age. Like I've seen Kevin Durant in the late stage of his career start to flash this higher level playmaking. But for Brandon Ingram at his age to start to show this is super impressive. And again it's like Luca don chech Lebron James esque high pick and roll reads. He's getting the ball screen, he's working it down to the elbow. He's being patient, he's putting the defender and
jail on his backside. He's waiting to bait the rim protector into stepping up and waiting for the week side corner guy to star to step in to help against the lob threat. And he's throwing like a big, looping across court pass that hits the shooter in the pocket in the week side corner. These are high level reads from the best playmakers in the league that I was seeing from Brandon Ingram in that playoff series against the Suns. That's what excites me the most. To be that good
around the rim. Two point five makes at to be a knockdown mid range jump shooter at three point seven, made attempts are made shots at fifty and to be flashing that type of high level playmaking, that's like, that's top tier superstar stuff. And he's not a top tier SuPAR superstar yet he has to be consistent in that regard. But that's why I have him all the way up
here at number twelve. He showed something in that playoff run that demonstrated to me that he's poised to take a big leap this season, and I believe he will. He was an impact defensive player against the Suns in that playoff series, albeit as a weakness, he's a little bit inconsistent on the defensive end ever since he left
the Lakers in two thousand nineteen. He had a great defensive season and he kind of let go of the rope there for a little while, but he flashed that potential again against the Sun, So that'll be a huge thing for him, his defensive consistency. The one other UH weakness that I wanted to point out. He was thirty on above the break three's in both the regular season in the playoffs. He's knocked down three point shooter from the corner, and he's a knockdown mid rain shooter, but
he struggles above the break. Who does that? Reminds you of Mr Dmarda Rosen And if you watch them, they both have similar jump shot for him in the sense that they shoot high above their head and they catapult forward. It's lower arc now, lower arc actually is less of an issue the closer you are to the basket because you have more margin for error in there. But when you get further away from the rim, you need more
arc on the basketball. That's gonna be something that Brandon's gonna have to figure out because, as we pointed out with DeMar de Rosen earlier, that inability to score from the above the break as a three point shooter, particularly off the dribble, will really hurt your ability to get downhill. I don't want Brandon Ingram to become the next to Mar de Rosen. I want him to show more of that Paul George fluidity scoring from the three point line
above the break. So getting that above the break three point shot figured out and getting the getting more consistent defense, Civilly showing what he did in that postseason run consistently for eighty two games. That's the difference between where he is and getting into the top ten. Also his rim finishing.
He shot extremely well in that playoff series, but he was only sixty seven percent in the regular season, And as you guys know, when it comes to guy's six eight and above, big rim attacking forwards, I like to see that number higher than seventy. But he's just a little He's a little thin, so that's gonna hurt him a little bit. But I'd like to see him getting a little bit better at finishing around the rim. So
I'm super high on Brandon Ingram. Obviously. This is why I thought the Pelicans should trade Zion Williamson for Kevin Durant. I'm worried about Zion's health. I'm worried about Zion's ability to eventually become an impact defensive player. I'm worried about how long it'll be before he can really really really help them on a championship level. And they've got such a good roster around that was c J. Mccollin, and with Herb Jones and with Trey Murphy. I love the
way that roster is put together. So I like the idea of pairing Brandon Ingram with Kevin Durant. And you can do that by trading Zion and and and and getting Kevin Durant back. It's a super uh It's a super interesting potential dynamic there with the two of them. They I'm not sure how it would work with salary filler if they'd have to include c J or something along those lines. But I'm super high on Brandon Ingram.
The idea of pairing him with Kevin Durant and two really good three and D players sounds like a championship level roster to me. Um But it seems to me like if the Pelicans make the deal, they'd include Brandon, which I think would be a mistake, but it is what it is alright. Number eleven, our last player that did not make the top ten Paul George seven and six percent shooting this regular season. In his defense, it
was completely injury riddled. He only played thirty one games, but in one playoffs, so the playoff series before this season he averaged twenty seven ten and five on fifty eight percent try shooting, which is excellent. He had a
bad playoff reputation leading into that playoff run. I think he had lost five consecutive playoffs series going into that playoff run if remember correctly, or going into the Bubble when they made it to the second round to lose the Denver they had lost five consecutive playoff series, so call that six out of his previous seven playoff series he had lost. He had struggled in a lot of those situations. He got locked up by Joe Ingles in
a series against the Utah Jazz. It was all bad and he had a bad reputation, and in one playoff run, he demonstrated that he was no longer that guy. He demonstrated that he was capable of being that best guy on a championship team level player when he took the Clippers within two wins of the NBA Finals without Kawhi Leonard. I thought the big change for him that allowed him to change that perception of himself was making a concerted
effort to get to the rent. He averaged one point eight made shots in the restricted area in the season, he averaged two point nine. That's literally a hundred and fifty percent of what he did the previous season. That's a significant increase. Why does that matter, Because do you guys remember when I was talking about the give and take with Pascal se at him and with James Harden, the need to have a threat to counter your primary strength so that players can't sit on your primary strength.
We're gonna talk about it in a minute. Paul George is one of the best pull up jump shooters that I've seen and He's as fluid as it gets at getting to his jump shot off the dribble. So if players are not scared of him going to the basket, they can press up into his jump shot. More that get makes it harder for him to get separation, It
makes it harder for him to knock down shots. Him making that concerted effort in to get to the rim completely changed the type of basketball player that he was and turned him from an inconsistent, unreliable playoff player into a dominant playoff basketball player. Two point nine made shots in the restricted area per game in the playoffs is outstanding. And so that move counter move concept, adding the threat
of consistently going to the rim transformed Paul George. Now, like I talked about earlier, that fluidity in the handle and jump shooting compared to spot up shooting, I think the best guy to uh to replicate in this specific skill as Paul George. Like I told you guys, obviously I'm not an NBA player, but the player that I think I play closest to when I'm playing pickup is Paul George, and that specific concept of fluidity into his jump shot is what I try to build in my game.
The advantage of being able to pull up out of any footwork and any dribble combination is it makes it so that you can be reactive as an offensive player because when you hit a dribble combination, you don't know where the defender is gonna buckle. So, for instance, if I do in and out through the legs to the left and behind my back to the right, he might lunge at the in and out. He might lunge at the cross, he might lunge at the behind the back.
I'm not sure, but wherever he is, I need to be able to transfer energy from that specific spot to either advance the basketball or to go up into a jump shot. That's where that fluidity comes in. I need to always be a threat at any point in time with the basketball to either advance to the basket or to go up into a jump shot. And Paul George, I think is one of the best in the league at this picularly at the wing position, and that fluid it he just makes him so much fun to watch
his dribble combination jumpers. I could watch a highlight film of that with Paul George all day long. He's a deeply impactful defensive wing. I I'll never forget watching him in Oklahoma City, just completely locked down. James Harden at the peak of his powers, like it just a joy to watch him. Defensively, He's somewhat limited as a playmaker, but like we talked about earlier, almost every scoring wing
in the league is like that. We just talked about Brandoning where I'm showing flashes of being kind of better and Kevin Durant being better in the late portion of his career, but just for most big scoring wings, it's just not something that's a strength for them. He's a damn good basketball player, and him being outside of the top ten is everything you need to know about how talented the league is right now. So the big question is this the year the Clippers can win the title.
So You've got Kawhi Leonard, Reggie Jackson and Paul George excellent trio there at the top of the at the top of the rosters, offensive creators, and then they have as deep a repertoire of three and D wings that you'll find in the league. Robert Covington's, Norman Powell, Nick Betune, Terrence Man, Marcus Morris, Luke Kennard, and then Zoombaka I
really like as a center in this league. So they can play big and play drop covers with zoo Bach, or they can go five out, you know, classic Tyler basketball, switch everything and and mismatch attack on the other end of the floor. They have one of my favorite roster constructions in the league. It captures my specific basketball philosophy
that I believe in so much. I've said it before, but I think the Clippers are the biggest threat in the Western Conference to beat the Warriors, and I absolutely view them as a top tier contender. And Tyler, as I mentioned earlier, is one of my favorite young coaches in the league. I think he's got a very modern approach, very uniquely equipped to handle modern basketball, and his roster is perfectly catered to the way he likes to coach
the game. I'm very, very high on the Clippers, and Paula George is as good a number eleven that you'll find in NBA his tree. Al Right, guys, that is all I have for today. Next week we'll be doing the top ten. We're gonna be spending a lot more time on those guys, especially when we get to the top five. I have some special plans. As always, I appreciate your guys of support. We'll see in a couple of days. The volume