Hoops Tonight - Reaction to Trae Young-Hawks issue, LeBron & Lakers contenders? + Celtics-Nets

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dot net in West Virginia. All right, Welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by Fan Duel here at the Volume. Happy Monday, everybody. I hope all of you guys had an incredible weekend.

We got a jam packed show for you Today. We're gonna talk about this latest Trey Young drama, and then we're gonna talk a little bit about the Brooklyn Nets Boston Celtics game yesterday and some of the stuff with recent Brooklyn Nets basketball because they sneak E've been one of the best teams in the league up until that butt kicking at the hands of the Celtics. Yesterday, which seems to be a little bit of a recurring theme. We're gonna talk some Lakers after Anthony Davis dropped a

double nickel yesterday to beat the Washington Wizards. He's been the best player in the world for the last three weeks and I want to do a deep dive into that. And then, last, but not least, a big shout out today to the New Orleans Pelicans. After kicking the ship out of the Denver Nuggets yesterday, they are now up to second in the West. Zion Williamson is playing incredible, but they're doing a lot of spreading the wealth. It's

an equal opportunity offense over there. A lot of good Pelicans talk coming at the tail end of this show. You guys know the joke 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 Lts, you guys don't miss any show announcements. 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, you can find them wherever you

get your podcasts. Under Hoops tonight, all right, let's talk some basketball. So Trey Young, he's dealing with a little bit of a shoulder injury. Basically, the gist of this drama is Nate McMillan wanted him to show up to shoot around if you wanted to play in the game that night. Trede decided just to completely no show the shoot around and the game. And then Sham Sharania came out and reported that a couple of the specific quotes from the port that I think color the situation pretty well.

Quote the Hawks have held multiple team meetings early in the season to resolve various conflicts, sources with knowledge of the situation set so clearly this is not the first time this has happened for Young, who's strained relationship with former Hoax Hawks coach Lloyd Pierce played a large role

in his firing in March. It is the latest sensitive situation that has caused many people within the Hawks organization to question Young's leadership approach spicy um and then lastly here quote keep personnel around the team believe that Young simply must find a way to become any more productive and positive face of the franchise. One last note, this wasn't from his report, but sham's Um tweeted this out

this morning from his show. He also said that from what he's hearing, the franchise is completely behind Nate McMillan and that his job is safe. So I don't really have a ton of thoughts here. I'm gonna keep this really simple. I am pro player empowerment. Player empowerment as it pertains to the c B A like negotiating with the owners, building brands and businesses off the court, player movement, the ability to go wherever you want to go. I'm

uh pro player empowerment with all of that stuff. Why Because at the end of the day, yes, this is a you know, kind of an ecosystem where everyone is kind of playing a part. The media plays apart, the fans play apart, the owners play apart, the players play apart. But the players obviously play the biggest part, so they probably should have more player and more power than everyone else.

And also it's kind of just like a product of the way that the league works, right, because basketball is unique in the sense that your best player can single handedly change the outcomes of games and your outlook for

the whole season. Like look at Anthony Davis, the dude started playing like the best player in the world, and all of a sudden, the Lakers went from one of the worst teams in the league to their playing as good on both ends of the floor as anybody right now, that's how much power one player has, and so I support that to a certain extent. The players are powerful

for good reason. But as the cliche goes, with great power comes great responsibility, and there is a responsibility that comes with being the best basketball player on your team that involves leadership. This is why, in my opinion, Steph Curry is the best leader in the NBA. He probably hates this two timelines thing. You think he enjoys playing

basketball with James Wiseman, do you do? You don't. Don't you think he'd rather they flip some of those guys for a veteran player that gives Steph the best chance to win the title. I'm sure he's not happy about that. I would imagine he doesn't agree with everything Steve Kerr has done over the years, stuff with the rotation, stuff with playing style, asking him to be off the ball, probably more even than Steph wants to be. He probably he probably has plenty of reasons too vent or to

lash out, but he never, ever, ever has. You haven't even heard the slightest inkling of the slightest bit of disgruntled behavior from Steph. He is an extension of the leadership of the franchise because he understands that that's important. The other players on the team will not fall in line unless he falls in line, and so he sets that example and everyone else follows him. For instance, the shoot around thing with Trey Young guys like, don't let the name fool you. Every one of you who's played

basketball at any level knows this already. But for those of you who don't shoot around, is not just shoot around. You don't just go to the gym and shoot around, Okay, when every single college that I played at, you you would do some shooting. Usually typically we treat that as a warm up. So like we have an hour long shoot around. You'd go in and you do a bunch of shooting drills for maybe twenty minutes and would get a lot of shots of But then guess what would happen.

Then you'd get together and you'd start to rehearse the game plan. Like shoot arounds are more dress rehearsal for game plan stuff than they are shooting the basketball. You know, whether it's a specific defensive scheme that you have for that specific opponent, whether it's some new offensive sets that you've gone through in practice, but maybe they aren't sharp enough yet and you want to wrap them out a few more times. Maybe it's just strictly implementing a new set.

Especially in the NBA regular season where you don't get much practice time, those shoot arounds are the time they have to implement stuff. They are monumentally important. Asking Trey Young, hey dude, if you're gonna play in the game tonight, during which we are going to have a game plan, you need to be there for the game plan. I don't think that's a ridiculous thing to ask. Now, some teams are more relaxed about it, and that's fine, but clearly Nate McMillan is not relax about it, and that's

also fine. Generally speaking, when I hear about guys missing shoot around, it's usually like flu like symptoms, where it's like, hey, dude, stay in bed so that maybe you can play tonight. That's not the case with Tray, and I get it. He was doing treatment but you could have taken an hour out of the day to go sit and learn

about the game plan before you go and get your treatment. So, you know, it kind of reminds me of like, you know, Colin Coward used to have this take about divorce where he'd say, like, you know, if it happens to you once, no one's gonna say a thing. It happens to you twice, you know, maybe someone might be like, hmm, that's interesting. But it happens to you three times, maybe people are just gonna start saying like, oh, something's that person might

just be difficult, you know what I mean. That was one of Colin's old old takes that always resonated with me, and this particularly seems like one of those situations. You run Lloyd Pierce out of town, maybe people just think okay, bad fit, or maybe Lord Lord Pierce just wasn't the guy. Now you're running Nate McMillan out of town. If that happens people, you know, it's gonna start to look like Trey Young might be the issue here. Now. Trey Young is not my favorite player, but he's a hell of

a player. He's once again one of the best pick and roll ball handlers in the league. This year, he's generating one point zero four points per possession when he passes out of pick and roll, which is one of the better numbers in the league. But he's got to grow up and he's got to accept the responsibility that comes with his power as one of the best players in the league and as the best player on his team, and the team's investing in him. They went out of

their way to get you, to john Ty Murray. They've drafted really well. You've got wings, you've got athletes all over the place, you've got shooting. You know, Nate McMillan is not going anywhere, and they're not gonna trade Trey Young, so the only thing to do is make it work. So you know it, Trad is not the first super talented basketball player to struggle with some you know, attitude stuff early in his career. You know, even amously Lebron James had some stuff like that when he was younger.

But we're getting to that point now, Ture. You've been in the league long enough, you gotta figure out, like it's for every star in the league, just like with Steph and what he's dealing with with the young players and what he's dealing with with the rotation and some of the responsibilities that he has. No one's in absolute paradise. Everyone's got good and bad things that they're dealing with. You can't use those bad things as an excuse to rock the boat. That's not what the that that that

goes beyond what your responsibilities are as a leader. All right, let's move on to the Celtics and the Nets. So the Nets had been the second best team in the entire NBA after their one in five start. Believe it or not, they were twelve and six from October thirty one to defend to December two, which was the before this last game, and only the Celtics had a better record.

They were tenth in offense, fourth and defense over that span, and Katie was playing like a straight up m v P. Not just on the offensive end, but he's also having one of his best defensive seasons of his career. In the spin He's averaging nine, seven and six shooting, He's twelveth in the league and blocks over that span, and his creation stats for the season are off the charts.

He's in the percentile and pick and roll to three points on a hundred eighty one possessions eight percentile, and isso two hundred points and a hundred eighty nine possessions seven percentile in post offs hundred nineteen points on a hundred one possessions all including passes. He is playing incredibly well rounded basketball for what had been over that stretch

the second best team in the league. They had figured out a lot of stuff, you know, getting Seth Curry back in the mix and what he brought offensively you to want Nabby is turned into like a pretty damn interesting three and D player and one of the best lower volume three point shooters that we have in the league this year. Five other Nets were averaging double figures

over this twelve and six span. You do want to be shooting fifty seven percent from three, which leads the entire league for players attempting at least three three three pointers per game. Now, i Will at Utah and Ben Simmons were both out for this Boston and Celtics game. But this Boston Celtics game was kind of an interesting, like benchmark test for the Nets to see if some of that legitimate basketball they've been playing for the previous month was real. And it went just like it usually

does when the Nets play Celtics. The Celtics played stifling, physical defense, making everything difficult. Kyrie and Katie combined for ten turnovers. They warmed down to the point where all those longer jump shots stopped following a lot of times people pay attention to shot quality and they go like, oh, I just missed my shots today. A lot of times

those things are related to defensive pressure. When a team wears you down with physicality, you get a wide open look and you don't quite get the unnecessary lift and you leave it short. Katie and Kyrie were two for ten from three. Kyrie was three for ten overall and pull up jump shots, and meanwhile, Jayson Tatum and jy Leon Brown got everything they wanted and the Celtics won comfortably.

You know, we talked a lot about UM Boston's defensive ceiling last week and how their numbers don't look that great. They're actually fourteenth and defense this year, even after that defensive performance they put on against Brooklyn. But they have these stretches where they look really good. Maybe it's a quarter here, maybe it's a crunch time there. They mess around for thirty minutes or so and then they put together like a four or five minute stretch where they

lock in the other team can't score. If they scored ten fifteen points in the game is over. And last night's game was just one giant example of that switch flipping that they've done. Now they from a schematic standpoint, they did a ton of switching. And this is the

advantage of having Robert Williams out of the lineup. You know, when Robert Williams is in there, and really all their backup bigs as well, they run drop coverage and I hate drop coverage, as you guys know for those of you have been following the show for a while, and I thought it was a big mistake that they ran drop even with al Horford uh so much during the

finals last year. But in this particular game, they just did a boatload of switching, including the Al Horford actions, which really took Brooklyn and turned them into an isolation team. And kadd did an okay job in ISA and Kyrie did a tough did a bad job and ISA and then their offense fell apart. And there were two things in particular that Boston was doing that I thought were really interesting that kind of helped lead to this bad

night for the nets. They were denying the easy passes, so like swing passes along the perimeter and entry passes to like the high post or the low post. They were you know, if Jalen Brown or Jayson Tatum was on Kevin Durant or Grant Williams is on Kevin Durant.

There like Kevin Durant's ceiling and calling for the basketball right and what's happening is Jalen Brown and Jayson Tatum are leaning on Katie and doing a three quarter front, extending the right arm as far out into the passing lane as they can, making it so that you have to throw that pass further away from Katie. Katie has to almost like push off a little bit to go get it. Now he's catching the ball further away from the basket, then he wants to same thing on. It

wasn't even just post ups. It was like if Katie was on the wing and Joe Harris had the ball, and Katie's just calling for the ball because there's twelve on the shot clock and he wants to try to make a play, he'd have to like v cut or fight for post position and just to get the basketball, those little details that helps wear out the legs, that helps lead to the team feeling generally uncomfortable and their shots missing. That helps lead to turnovers and sloppiness and

things like that. And then the other big thing I thought was impactful in this game was mixing up their helps and doubles. So like sometimes on Katie they double on the catch, but not very often. Sometimes they would double as soon as he started dribbling. That was the most frequent one that I'd see. Katie would put them all on the floor to kind of go towards the middle,

and then they would collapse on him. And then sometimes it'd be like right as you hit his counter move, so he dribble left, hit like behind the back dribble and start going right, and then someone would sneak from behind to come in and disrupt him. They mix that up a lot, and then other times they just wouldn't

throw a double. And so by keeping that, you know, inconsistent, it made it so that the reeds were inconsistent, and as a result, you know, it was more reactionary from Katie, and he really struggled with it and kept Katie and Kyrie off balance all night long, which again led to most of those turnervers. D had eight of those turnovers, which is becoming a problem in this specific matchup. And

I don't necessarily think Katie has a handle issue. It's more of a a difficult matchup because Boston attacks the basketball and plays passing lanes well, has their hands up all the time. So from a dribbling standpoint, Katie is so damn tall that the ball just has to cover more distance as it's going down to the ground and back, so it's a little bit more susceptible there. And then they're just a really good doubling, stunting, gambling team, and they made Katie pay for a lot of sloppy passing

in this game as well. I still think Boston has the best half court defensive ceiling i've ever seen. Goes a lot deeper than that. Their decision making on offense can throw them into bad transition situations, and they were a bad transition defense and last year's playoffs, which is different than some of the best defenses we've ever seen.

But they're when they're in the half court and they're locked in and they're switching everything and they've got the right lineup out there it's the best half court defense I've ever seen. So Jaylen Brown thirty were in ten last night with four blocks. And by the way, if you don't think the Celtics take extra pleasure and beating the Brooklyn Nets, how's this first at Jalen Brown didn't have a single blocked shot for seventeen games before last night,

and he had four blocks last night. Little little extra adrenaline for that matchup. Jalen Brown's last six games thirty two points, eight rebounds, and four assists, fifty seven percent from the field from three percent from the free throw line. That's a sixty for shooting percentage, and he's one of the best pick and roll creators in the league. This year, he's generated a hundred and forty nine points on a hundred and thirty possessions, which is in the eighty nine percentile.

He's made a lot of improvements as a passer, averaging three and a half assist per game this year, which ties his career high. When he's passed out of pick and roll this year, fifty six times, he's generated fifty seven points, which is in the sixtycentile, which is above average. He used to be a well below average passer, So for him to make that type of improvement is big. His ascension has made that Tatum Brown pairing the best duo in the NBA in my opinion. All right, let's

tack some Lakers so solid road win in Washington. The Wizards had been eight and four at home before yesterday's game. The Lakers have now won eight out of ten. Should be nine out of ten. Their fourth and offense eighth and defense fourth and net rating. Lebron and Russ are both playing really good basketball. Russ is probably in his best three or four game stretch, three game stretch since he came to the Lakers, Lebron's best two game stretch

of this entire season. The Lakers are good, Like, uh, let's just get right to it. I know it sounds crazy, and if you look at the standings and all the slander that's been thrown their way over the years, it sounds ridiculous to say, but the Lakers are good all three, all three of their stars will have to maintain this level of play to stay good, and they'll definitely need to make a trade if they want to really compete for a title. But they defend really, really well, especially

in the half court. All three of their stars are playing really well, so they're scoring the ball really well as well as anybody in the NBA. They took that Bucks d defense in their home arena, the best defense in the NBA, the best half court defense in the NBA,

and they hung a one thirty three on them. The catalyst for everything is A D. It's been a weird few years for A D. So I wanted to take some time to talk about, like how A D has gone from being what he was in to what he was the last couple of years to what he's become this season, because I think it's kind of an interesting path and and it and it kind of is a is a lesson to a lot of young basketball players and just how important it is to keep your foot

on the gas as you're rising through the league. So in almost immediately when he came in, he was an impact defensive player, really started holding Lebron James accountable. He finished second and Defensive Player of the Year that year, but he should have been first. Kind of similar to the Lebron m v P case, Janice in the Bucks just had a preposterously easy schedule and Eastern Conference that year.

So all of their metrics were just completely off the charts because like the bottom seven teams in the East were all tanking, and the Bucks just beat the living ship out of them every single time they played them, which inflated everything. The Lakers were a better defense, They were the best defense in the Western Conference, which was the by far the better conference, and a D just simply was a better defensive player that year. He should

have been Defensive Player of the Year. Lebron should have been MVP that year. It's actually the only m v P that I think Lebron got robbed of, and Anthony Davis damn Shure deserved to get that Defensive Player of the Year aboard. But it was kind of a weird offensive season to start the year. They were really forced feeding him in the post. He was taking all of these like weird jump shots, like difficult jump shots, tough turnaround fadeaway step backs, and things along those lines. Laker

fans were all like, what's going on? Like A D is like trying to be like k D. He's never been Kadi k D. That's so strange. What is what's up with this? And he wasn't making any of them from the beginning of the season through New Year's Day, he shot just thirty five sent from mid range from three, and then all of a sudden everything started going in. I remember joking at the time it almost reminded me

of like that pathway to implementing high level offense. If you have a move you're working on a step back, for instance, or a fade away out of the post. Step one, work on it in the gym by yourself. Step two, work on it in practice. Step three, work on it in games. And all three of those phases come with a stretch where you're missing him. And it kind of seemed like a d was working on how to build out that high post, low post jump shot

scoring game and he was just missing them. But then it clicked, and when it clicked, he was making everything. After New Year's Day, you shot forty one percent from mid range and from three, and then he destroyed everyone in the bubble. These numbers are insane from mid range in the playoffs, thirty eight percent from three. He was

deadly in ISO and and post up. He ran sixty eight ISOs in that playoff run for seventy five points, which was in the nine percentile, and he ran a hundred and thirty post ups for a hundred and forty two points, which was in the nine percentile, So top top, top tier is SO and post player in that postseason run, and then it was arguably the best defensive playoff run from any player ever, culminating with the utter destruction of the Miami Heat in Game six of the finals when

they had no idea what to do with him hanging around the rim. I thought he was clearly in the conversation for the best player in the best player in the world at that point. I ended up ranking him fourth behind Lebron Stephen k D. But then he came into camp completely out of shape. You know, It's funny. At the time, no one really thought much of it.

The Lakers had a really quick turnaround. If I remember correctly, it was something bizarre like a month and a half, like they had like forty five days between because I think they started just before Christmas if I remember correctly, and then it was like early October when they won the trophy, So it's like a month and a half. So, you know, Lakers quick turnaround. He had a heavy workload

in the finals or through that whole playoff run. He was dealing with have like an ankle thing at that point during the playoffs, so like it was defensible that he would show up to camp out of shape, but it hurt him in a lot of different ways. He looked heavy, he looked like he had lost a significant chunk of mobility, and he completely lost his jump shot.

He shot. He was back down to thirty five percent from the mid range for the season, down to twenty from three, and he kind of just declined into a defensive anchor that wasn't as good as he was the previous year, who could vertically space and do some of the usual A D stuff, but you know, he wasn't

even nearly the same player that he was. He was also constantly dealing with nagging injuries, including this like weird to kill these tend to noses thing, which is a wear and tear injury, not a you know, it's not a bad luck type of injury, and that can be associated with your conditioning. He ended up playing a couple of really good playoff games against Phoenix in game two, in game three, and then he broke down pulled his

groin in the l because were eliminated. So his big follow up season two, securing a top a spot in the top tier of the league was a clunky, banged up, out of shape, injury plagued season where he lost a huge portion of his offensive skill set and finished the season averaging two and eight. Not the same player, and so how did he follow that? How did he follow up that tough campaign? It was widely reported that he showed up in training camp out of shape again and

there was no excuse this time. The Lakers had six months off and he couldn't shoot again. He had one of his worst defensive seasons of his entire career. He was plagued with injuries again, finished the year averaging three and ten thirty seven percent from mid range from three had turned into literally one of the worst jump shooters in the league at volume compared to what he had done in the bubble, which is insane. In the Lakes were terrible. They got outscored with Anthony Davis on the court.

The lineups in in the previous season when Lebron James and Anthony Davis were off the floor performed better then the Lebron and A D together lineups during last season, The A D of old felt like a distant memory. So how did it? How did we go from there to what it was two back to what we have now?

And I attribute it to three things. First of all, he's returned to that defensive player of the year for he showed up in shape to training camp this year and completely committed on the defensive end of the floor. He leads the entire league in stocks, which is steals plus blocks. You know, one of the most underrated things about Anthony Davis's defense is what he does with interior passing.

We always think of drop coverages in like funneling to the basket and trying to block layups or contest midrange pull ups or defend the role man right, and one of Anthony Davis's biggest gift is the disruption of interior passing drop passes, pocket passes, skip passes, swing passes. Anthony Davis is just getting deflections and blowing up plays constantly

that are open for other teams in the league. It's one of the biggest things that separates him from your traditional defensive anchors like a Brook Lopez or a Rudy Gobert. It's also the same thing that makes Draymond Green so great despite being less of a of a physical presence around the rim is what he does, disrupting interior passing.

This year, Anthony Davis is anchoring the fourth best half court defense in the entire NBA, despite having one legit wing defender Lebron who until recently it was giving really inconsistent defensive effort. These legit six eight athletic wings with long arms that can move and they have good instincts. Those guys are arguably the most important defensive weapon in the NBA these days, and the Lakers have one of them who's thirty seven years old and on a lot

of nights doesn't care to do it. That's what he's been set up with. It's a lot of short guys that are scrappy and compete in the aggregate. It's a blow average defensive set of role players, and he's got them at the fourth best half court defense in the NBA. He's not flanked by Jannis and Drew Holiday, He's doing it with some pretty average personnel. He got back to what he does best, and I think he's the defensive

player of the year at this point. I think that was the first catalyst, and then that in a lot of ways, drives confidence when you're messing up other teams with what you're doing on defense, you start to feel good about who you are as a basketball player, which fuels your ability to do things on the offensive end

of the floor. The second biggest thing that catalyzed that got this Anthony Davis trained back on the tracks was the high quality shots that he was able to get in pick and roll as a product of Lebron James and Russell Westbrook. So Lebron is pretty good last year, but a d was never available. Russell Westbrook had an atrocious season last year. This year, both Lebron James and Anthony Davis are available along side Anthony Davis, and both of them are having much better seasons as pick and

roll creators. Lebron had a rough start to the season, but in the last few games he's been very, very good. And it's so important because you know, I call this, I refer to this as supplementary offense. So you know, you have your offensive skill set what you do as a basketball player. Maybe that's creating shots and pick and roll. Maybe that's isolation, maybe that's pick and pop. Maybe that's

you know, uh, posting up. Whatever that is. You've got all these different things that are your fundamental basketball abilities, but you can supplement that in a bunch of different ways. Maybe that's getting into the foul line, Maybe that's offensive rebounds. Maybe that's running the floor and transition for layups in threes. For Anthony Davis, the one of his big pieces of supplementary offense is finishing as the rollman in pick and roll.

He scored a hundred and fifty one points in a hundred and eight rollman possessions this year, which is in the eight six percentile, and some of it is dunks. Right eight is probably the best vertical spacer in the league. He's probably the best lob catcher and dunker in the entire league. But it's not just that he's got this like little like pop shot where he just kind of holds.

It's almost like a floater, but like the big man version of a floater, where he catches, turns and just puts the ball up as high as he can and just kind of flips his wrists a little bit and puts it in. I always gonna be careful when I'm trying to demonstrate my shots and I end u knocking the microphone. But that that's such a huge thing because like what will end up happening is Lebron and Russell Westbrook will get downhill, and that downhill piece is so important.

You've got to engage the screen defender. You've got to get the big man to step up and help in order to drop the ball off to Anthony Davis for one of those shots. But it's not always a dunk. Sometimes they send a little guard or wing out of the week side corner to help on Anthony Davis. There. He's not gonna dunk that. But what he can do is he can quick catch it and finish pretty much anywhere within five to seven ft from the basket. And that's what separates him as a rollman from your usual

um vertical spaces that we have around the league. That's that supplementary offense that gets you to thirty seven points per game or what ever it is um uh that that he scores on any given night. And then, last but not least, he's making his perimeter shot in this nine game stretch. In this nine game stretch, Anthony Davis is fifty from mid range from three and it's helping

in two particular ways. Some of it is just spacing there was a specific play last night against the Washington Wizards in the fourth is third or fourth quarter, I can't remember. I think it was fourth um, but Kyle Kuzman Daniel Gafford were running an ice coverage on Lebron and a d on the left side of the floor. So a nice coverage is a typical um pick and roll covers that's used in the NBA and at all levels.

That involves usually the sides of the floor. You usually don't run it in the middle, you run it on the sides. And the idea is the screen is coming to try to get the ball handler towards the middle, and so that's the on ball defender will essentially force the offensive player to reject the screen, so he'll get way up high, says he's on the left side, He's gonna get way up on his right shoulder so that Lebron has no choice but to go towards the baseline.

Then Daniel Gafford will drop right in front of the block to basically corral that there. And they're basically saying, you're not going to use the screen, You're gonna drive into Daniel Gafford. We've got all this help to deal

with Anthony Davis in the lane. Good luck. There is one thing that beats an ice coverage consistently, and that's a pick and pop. Because if the ball handler is being funneled towards the baseline by the on ball defender and the screen defender is waiting at the block, nobody is there to guard Anthony Davis or the screener if he pops. And there was a play in this game, and I'm sitting there and I'm like, oh, they're icing it.

They're icing it, and Lebron and and a D kind of looked at each other for a second, but then A D simply just popped the three point line. Lebron took a hard dribble towards the baseline, passed it back to Anthony Davis, and he nailed the three. You sometimes need perimeter shooting to beat specific coverages. And then look at the Look at those base threes that he made against Milwaukee in the fourth quarter to bade two of him.

I think there was one in the right corner, and then I think the other one was on the left wing. But hey, guess what Brook Lopez is doing. He's sitting at the basket. Sometimes just to keep him honest, You've got to demonstrate your ability to knock that shot down. But the second big important part of this shot making piece is the iso released valve factor. So the best versions of Lebron James teams ever have had a player that Lebron can just throw the ball to and he

can go get a basket. Think Dwyane Wade, Think Kyrie Irving, think Anthony Davis. In the Bubble, Lebron controls so much. Now he can share some of those responsibilities with Rust, but he controls so much there's a fatigue element to it.

And so when you have the ability not just to rescue possessions in late shot clock situations or to attack the occasional mismatch that might pop up, but also just to throw the ball to Anthony Davis and know, hey, I'm going to get a point per possession here, because he's just gonna create his own shot. In order for him to do that, he has to be able to make the jump shot because a lot of teams have started to put big, strong centers on him knowing that

he can't bully them towards the basket. This Christaps Porzingis and Brook Lopez matchups are great examples of that, and a d lit those guys on fire with step backs and turnarounds and pull up jump shots. And it was that release valve. And that's what's the difference between the Lakers being an average offense and then being the fourth best offense in the league over the last ten games.

Getting some shot making in those isolation situations. So with all that coming together, him locking in on the defensive end, getting high quality shots and pick and roll from Lebron and Russ, and him finally getting his perimeter shot going, what do we have as a result in this ten game stretch eights played nine of them, he's averaging thirty five and sixteen on seventy true shooting, and he's been

the best defensive player in the world. Nobody in the world is playing better basketball right now than Anthony Davis in these last two weeks or three weeks. If you combine that guy with a top ten version of Lebron James, doesn't even have to be what Lebron James was in If he's just a top ten player and you get them quality role players, you can win a championship with that group. Now, Lonnie Walker has turned out to be

a solid signing. Austin Reeves from last year has been a solid role player for this team, and Troy Brown Jr. Has been a solid role player for this team. Even Russell Westbrook has won me over this season with what he's done in that bentroll. I'm my only concern with Russ really is the occasional bad night that can be you know, downright sabotage, but then also crunch time lineups. When you put him out there with Lebron James, it's just kind of a clunky fit. It's almost better when

they're staggered. But overall, he's been very good this season, and I'm not even sure they can afford to lose him, especially with Lebron and some of his injury history. But no matter what, they need one more really good role player, preferably a wing, because I think you know with what you're getting from when you and Gabriel and Thomas Bryant, and with how well Anthony Davis is playing at the five,

I don't think you need another big necessarily. I think it'd be ideal to find they could get Kyle Kuzma. Could you imagine that's the type of player that would just round out this roster perfectly. But I just need one more really good role player. I would say package Kendrick Nunn, Patrick Beverley and another minimum contractor two with both picks for a wing and you'll let the chips fall ward. They may give these guys a chance to

win the title. Alright. The New Orleans Pelicans. Long time since we talked about them, but they deserve a good shout out here. So they had some early trouble with Denver yesterday, but then they completely dominated them in the second half. The Pelicans are nine in two in their last eleven games. They're tied with Boston for the best record in the league during that span. Their sixth and offense and second in defense over that span. Despite having

a lot of guys missed a lot of games. Brandon Ingram's missed four of those eleven games, Zion's missed three of them, CJ's miss four of them. They're just so deep with talent that guys just kind of slot into the roles that they need to and they just keep winning. I want to talk about Zion for a second. So in the span, he's only averaging seven and four, but

it's very efficient. Six century shooting. And again, even though the scoring might seem low, you gotta look at the way that this team is actually put together because New Orleans as a unit has a ton of ball handling. There are a lot of guys on this team that can make decisions like Brandon Ingram, CJ. McCollum and Jose Albreda are literally or Alvarado are literally three of the best pick and rollball handlers in the league on a

per possession basis this year. So you've got three outstanding creators and Zion is the one who's primarily featured, so those responsibilities are getting shared a lot. So I wouldn't look so much at volume with any individual player on this team, like Brandon Ingram's individual stats don't look amazing, but he's playing great basketball right now, and so it's just it's just one of those things we gotta look.

You gotta look beyond that. Um Zion, C J. B I, and Jose are all averaging between four and six assists. Nobody on the team in this span is taking more than fifteen shots per game. Zion has been one of the best is players in the entire league this year.

He Zion has scored a hundred nineteen points on nine, which is percentile, and a big part of it is passing, which we're gonna get to a second um and then posting up same type of deal a hundred thirty points on a hundred nineteen possessions, which is in the seventy three percent time. One of his most impressive offensive traits right now is passing. You know, you gotta start from the foundation piece, which is that he gets to the rim as much as anybody in the league not named Benas.

He averages eight restricted area makes per game, which is second in the league. TI honest, So teams are treating him like Janice when he's bringing the ball up the floor and when he gets the ball and one of his spots gets ready to attack, they're packing the paint like crazy, even like good shooters like Trey Murphy. They're digging four or five ft off of him into the lane to try to contain Zion. That's how much trouble

he's causing for teams, causing teams in the paint. You know, specifically, what makes Zion a great passer, it's part of it's the reads, and he makes a lot of high level reads. There was a specific play where um, I want to say it was against it was either against Denver, it was against the Spurs, I can't remember. It was last week. But Trey Murphy was on the right wing and Zion wanted to go to work, but he didn't like the space sing there because they were digging off of him,

so he had to relocate to the corner. And then Larry and Anson ended up sending like a flare screen and Zion just kind of like took a stutter step dribble and elevated and throw a rifle pass to the corner to Trey Murphy and he knocked down to three. And I'm sitting there and I'm like, that's really high level passing that we're seeing from this kid. But it's not just the reads. It's also you know, there's a cliche in in basketball on time on target. It's not

even just in basketball's in all sports. But you know, a big part of passing is if there's a read. So say, for instance, the paint is packed and you have a shooter that's clearly open in the weak side corner on the right wing or whatever it is, when you make the pass, the defense will rotate right someone's gonna close out on the shooter. The entire defense is gonna shift because the ball has crossed the midline. New guys are gonna be in different spots and help. Everything

kind of shifts, right. There is a contingency in the defense for how to handle that skip pass. So essentially, there is a a fine line between how much space that person has and what his individual skill set is. You know, certain shooters need more time, you know, because they have a slow gather, and then other shooters have a lightning quick release. You know, some shooters have no drive threat other shooters, if you chase them off the line, they'll dunk on your head. You know. So everyone that

that's a delicate balance. But one of the ways that you can buy every single one of your role players at her opportunity to capitalize on that is to get the ball to them quickly and in a spot where they don't have to waste time gathering the basketball. And Zion just throws these rifle passes. He's so damned strong, and it's not just like you know, because a lot of players can throw slingshot pass is hard because it's like a baseball pass. You can generate a lot of

power and torque there. But Zion will like throw like like flip of the wrist over his head, passes on a dime to somebody on a rope, bounce passes, chest passes that got like some some pace to them. That are hitting these shooters in the shooting pocket accurately where they can either quickly rise up or they can make a play, and that kind of opens up so much more for them, not not just passing at ice or

passing out of the post. He's also been pretty solid passing out of pick and roll this year and the last week or so. He's also been much more active defensively that was the rub on him for a long time. He's averaging five point five stocks, steals plus blocks per game in his last four games, which is incredible. A

couple of the guys that wanted to shout out. Trey Murphy, who was one of my favorite rookies in the league last year, is just classic big long athlete with like a really nice jump shot and I love his form. He's got one of my favorite jump shot forms that I've seen in the league this year, in this last few years, there's no wasted movement his body doesn't have any like weird jankie hitch going on. It's compact, it's quick, it's high and soft. He shoots the ball with plenty

of arc. And he's also comfortable out to like thirty thirty five ft, which I've always said is a huge deal. When you're comfortable to shoot a few feet behind the line, or even five ft behind the line, it extends spacing further out, and it's like, generally speaking, the further you're willing to shoot, the less the defender is willing to go out there. Excuse me, you get higher shot quality. So like, yeah, if you're in a gym by yourself, you'll shoot better at twenty three ft than you would

at twenty seven ft. That's a fact. But in a game setting, if all the twenty three footers are mildly contested, in all the twenty seven footers are barely contested, you know, might be a shot that you make at a higher rate. Trays averaging fifteen points per game in this span on from the field, from from the line, and in the last few games, he's been demonstrating a lot of really high level clothes out attacking. I'm sure you guys saw that play in the Denver game where he did that

like double pump dunk um attacking a close out. But he had a similar play against San Antonio, the same type of thing. Pump fake, drove towards the middle, elevated off two ft and just cocked it back with two hands and dunked it. That's at like next level stuff and spotting up that will get because this spot up. His actual spot up numbers are not great this year. He's in like the sixty percentile or something like that. You'll get higher as he gets even better in that

closing out they're closeout attacking. But he's been demonstrating a lot of that too high level during this span. Um. David Griffin has done an outstanding job of loading this team up at the wing position, brandon Ingram the unsung hero here. You know, it's it's funny because his numbers don't look as good. He's player that has a lot

of um. He's a player that has a lot of like negative energy surrounding him from like the weird debate between Pelicans and Lakers fans about the trade that happened forever go which who cares? And then anybody who's ever been a Laker always gets slandered any time to go anywhere else. It took forever from people to realize that

Kyle Kuzmo was a good basketball player. For instance, I had brand In Ingram up at like twelve in my player rankings this year because that's how much I value what Brandon Ingram does on both ends of the floor. But he's quietly doing just an outstanding job initiating offense for them in the lower volume, in this equal opportunity offense.

He's always been an underrated passer. I think he's he's above and beyond what you typically see from wings, like he's among the best wing passers that we have in the league when he passes out of pick and roll. This year, the Pelicans have scored seventy nine points on sixty nine possessions, which is in thee percentile. He's nine four percentile overall and pick and roll creation. Brandon Ingram is a damn good basketball player. And then see Jim

McCollum and Jose Alvarado both also been great. The Pelicans are for real. They have a ton of ball handling. All of their ball handlers are above average passers. They have a ton of spot up shooting their seventh in the league and three point percentage this year. They completely dominate the painted area their fourth and paint points per one possessions, and they're an elite defensive team with a ton of lanky wings that that pressures the ball and

makes you feel uncomfortable all night long. They're up a third in defensive rating for the season, and then they have an awesome bench. This is crazy. Listen to this.

Three of the top fifteen lineups in the entire league that have played at least twenty minutes are Pelicans bench groups Larry Nance, Davante, Graham, Zion, uh Zion, Williamson, Naji Marshall and Jose Alvarado plus seventy net rating and twenty one minutes c J. McCollum, Larry Na, Zion, Williamson, Trey Murphy, Jose Alvarado plus fifty nine and twenty six minutes c J. McCollum, Larry Nance, Devanta, Graham, Nagi Marshall, Trey Murphy plus sixty

eight in twenty minutes overall this year. When Brandon Ingram, Zion, Williamson, Jonas Valanciunas and Herb Jones are all off the floor. The team is plus four point three per one possessions in a hundred and eighty seven possessions. That's insane. They're deep and they're good at everything. I trust them more than I trust the Clippers. Right now, I put them right with Phoenix in Denver as the three teams that are the biggest threat to Golden State to get out

of the West. All right, guys, that is all I have for today is always I sincerely appreciate your support. We will be back tomorrow breaking down tonight's slate of games, and I will see you guys. Then the volume