Hoops Tonight - Top 25 NBA Players: LeBron James STILL KING for Lakers, buying Kevin Durant & Suns?

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varies by jurisdiction, Void and Ontario. Bonus bets expire one hundred and sixty eight hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkang dot co. Slash ft ball. All right, welcome to tonight. You're at the volume heavy Wednesday. Everybody, oh ball, If you guys are having a great week so far. We are continuing our player rankings today with number nine and number eight. We also, predictably whoever we put at number ten or number eleven. Those fan bases,

we're gonna be very upset. Got a lot of upset joelmb fans, a lot of upset Steph Curry fans. We have a male section at the tail end of the show where I took a bunch of your guys's stuff. I took some specific, well thought out basketball arguments against my case. We're gonna kind of have a little debate in the mail bag section at the tail end of the show. You guys know the Joe before we get started. Subscribe to Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any

more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JSNLTS. You guys don't miss show announcement. Don't forget about a podcast feed where you get your podcast on our Hoops Tonight. Don't forget it's helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front. And the last, but not least, keep dropping mail bag questions in those YouTube comments. We're gonna be using those mail bag questions to do the

debate segment at the tail end of the show. So if you disagree with the ranking, make a basketball case. We'll get into it in the mail bag. All right, let's talk some basketball. So before we go to number nine and number eight, as I've had to continually kind of reiterate, remember the purpose of this list. This is not a who's the best basketball player for a series that starts tomorrow. Obviously that would look very different, right,

and we're gonna make multiple references to this today. But if I was ranking my top five guys to start a series that started tomorrow, Lebron and Steph are both in that top five. They're probably not above Jokich and Luca for me, but they're in the top five. But I don't have them in the top five because this isn't how this particular list works. The pursuit of an NBA championship is not about a playoff series that starts tomorrow. It's not even about a playoff run that starts tomorrow.

You don't get to teleport to June and just play for all the marbles. Especially out in the Western Conference, where there's considerably more talent. There are thirteen teams that are actively trying to win the title out of the Western Conference, or at least actively trying to make the playoffs. I'd say eleven probably want to actually legitimately try to win the title, and thirteen are trying to make the playoffs.

Oklahoma City, Denver, Minnesota, the Clippers, Lakers, Dallas Mavericks, the Phoenix Suns, the New Orleans Pelicans, the Sacramento Kings, the Golden State Warriors, the Houston Rockets are gonna be trying to win. The Memphis Grizzlies are gonna be right back at the top of the conference. And you bet your ass Chris Paul and Victor wemb minyama Al in San

Antonio are gonna be trying to make the playoffs. So again, eleven teams desperately fighting in thirteen that are certainly going to think they're going to be a playoff team, only eight are going to get in. You have to navigate eighty two games from October all the way potentially to a seven game series that starts in June. That's a nine month span, guys. So to put it simply, who's the best player in a series that starts tomorrow just isn't a realistic way to rank players unless the series

actually starts tomorrow, which it doesn't. And so lebron KD and Steph are all players that I believe can outplay basically any star in the league in a series except for maybe Luka and Jokic, and I still think they can go toe to toe with those guys in a series.

But they all, all three of those, lebron KD and Steph do struggle to maintain that level over eighty two games at this point, which is something that if you were a GM and we were doing this actual exercise, meaning like all four hundred and fifty players are available, we are drafting for this upcoming season as a GM. You would have to account for that with the way that you build your roster. So let's keep that in

mind as we continue to move forward in this list. Now, why specifically do I have lebron kd and Steph in the order that I have them in on the list. I'm going to get to that when we get to the mail bag. I want to quick run through the numbers for both guys. First, So number nine in our player rankings this year goes to Kevin Durant. He had

his best regular season since he tore his achilles. He played in seventy five games, average twenty seven point one points per game, six point six rebounds and five assists per game, two point one stocks per game. His shooting splits fifty two point three percent from the field forty one point three percent from three. He's actually shot over forty percent from three in three of his last four seasons. A bunch of crazy stats today where you're going to

see some of these guys showing up. Only two players in the entire NBA last year averaged at least twenty five points on at least fifty percent from the field and at least forty percent from three, and it's the two guys we're talking about today, Kevin Durant and Lebron James. It is still really rare to be as efficient as

KD and Lebron were this year. Eighty six percent free throws for KD, fifty eight percent in effective field goal percentage when you take his field goal percentage and weait it for threes, sixty three percent in true shooting percentage when you add free throws to that equation. This is kd's twelfth consecutive season with a true shooting percentage over sixty percent, continuing his dominant run as the most efficient

volume score in the league. Shooting stats pers energy one point one to one points per jump shot, one point twenty four points per catch and shoot jump shot that's outstanding, one point zero three points per pull up jumper. A little lower on the efficiency there. He shoots forty eight percent overall on those pull up jump shots are just mostly pull up two, so he doesn't get as much

of the additional value from the three point shot. Did shoot fifty four percent on floaters, but he only made thirty one over the whole season, so not super high volume. Shot seventy two percent at the rim but this is where it gets tricky. Kevin Durant only attempted two point nine shots per game in the restricted area two point nine less than three. These are some of his forward peers.

His peers at the forward position, Giannis eleven point seven attempts per game, Lebron seven point seven, Franz Wagner six point three, Pascal Siakam five point nine, Julius Randall five point eight, Jalen Brown five point seven, Jason Tatum five point four, Pala Bonkaro five point two, Karl Anthony Towns another big forward who primarily operates from the perimeter, even he gets to the rim five point one times per game. Kyle Kuzma, like Kyle Kuzma gets to the rim four

point eight times per game. For restricted area attempts, Kevin Durant just two point nine, so he basically doesn't get to the and this has been a career long thing for him. By the way, his last year in Golden State in twenty nineteen just three point six, which would have been at the bottom of that list, and his last year in Oklahoma City going all the way back to before he went to Golden State, when he was in his Athletic Prime just four point three restricted area

attempts per game, So that's been a consistent thing with it. Now, to be clear, he's a way better jump shooter than those guys, but that's the main down mark with KD. Doesn't really have another weakness. He's one of the top tier scorers in the league who brings the efficiency to boot. He's a good passer. I don't think he's in that great passer tier, but I think he's a really good passer. He can do the offensive engine thing. You know, this was something that really kind of started to come to

the surface in Brooklyn. If you guys remember, and I did a lot of talking about this when I was covering the league separately from The Volume, and then even after that when I started with the Volume, there was a stretch there where Kevin Durant kind of figured out the Steph Curry thing, which was, you know, Kevin Durantz's dominant pull up shooter. Right, we talked about it earlier. Shot almost fifty percent on pull up jump shots this season.

So what that means is is as he comes off of ball screen, if you do not have a big up at the level of the screen, then KD is going to come off of that and he's going to shoot it, and he's gonna make it half the time, right, especially if he gets a decent screen set. So that puts you in a predicament as the defense where you almost always have to have your big up at the

level of the screen. From there, as we've talked about, every time you bring your big up to the level of the screen and the guard is or whoever's guarding KD is chasing over the top, those two guys are now effectively on the ball. So as your big man kind of slips out of that, you have a four on three there. And there are all sorts of different reads you can make. Right, if they tag that roller, there's a skip pass. If they don't tag the roller,

you hit the roller. There's an advantage with KD because he's so damn tall. What a lot of teams will do in those situations. And this is something that one of the reasons why Steph over the years has struggle a little bit with turnovers. He gets these super aggressive coverages, but he's six foot three and it's a little bit harder to get the ball over those traps and over those blitzes, and even just a good high hands contest from a big man who comes up to the level

of screen, it can be challenging. Kevin Durant's seven feet tall, so all he has to do and you can see it's so funny. I watched a bunch of Kevin Durant pick and roll this morning, and it's something that has always stood out to me as I've watched him over

the years. He can kind of take a relatively relaxed approach to pick and roll creation because all he really has to do is engage that screen defender by coming off the ball screen and then you'll see him kind of take a step back, just pick up his dribble and just pop it right over the top to the guy that slip into the rim, or throw that skip pass if it's there. And it's because he has that physical gift that height to be able to easily see

over the top. We talk about this all the time, but when it comes to defense, one of the best ways to give your defense an advantage in rotation is to either force one a looping pass, meaning like in order to get the ball over the contest, you have to throw it on an arc, which means the ball's in the air longer, which means as your guys are rotating, they have more time to get to their next rotation or to get a deflection. Doesn't matter how good your

four on three advantage is. If you get a deflection on the pass, now how all of a sudden that pass is going to be bobbled or the offensive player is gonna have to come back to get it or help maybe even get a force a turnover there. And so that's been a big part of what's made KD such a successful playmaker over the years is he's just become an unbelievable passer in those situations because of his height, it's like unfair. He can just easily just drop the

ball over the top. And so again he's one of the top tier scores in the league with the efficiency to bring it. He's a good passer. He can do the offensive engine thing like I just was breaking down for you guys, Like he can just bring the ball off the floor and get the defense in rotation consistently.

He's a very good defensive player both on the ball and off the ball, even if his effort can be inconsistent, which is something that is consistent with this tier of guys here below the top tier superstar tier, but the one down mark. The one thing with KD is he just doesn't really get to the rim. And that really

comes down to a couple of different things. I think part of it comes down to just how thin he is, and that manifests in a couple of different areas, right Like for starters, if Kd's trying to drive to the basket and someone gives him a little bit of contact like a forearm or a hip check or something like that, Katie's just more susceptible to getting bumped off of his line because of the fact that he's not bringing a lot of like momentum with him because he's not particularly

big and shrunk, and so that just makes it a little bit harder to kind of slide through those gaps.

Like take, for counterexample, a guy like Giannis. He only needs this tiny little gap because like he'll do that thing where he kind of gathers and like chicken wings the hell out of the on ball defender, and then like the two guys are coming over and helping, he'll just somehow just bulldoze through the two of them and get all the way to the rim, like Katie's gonna lose a lot of those battles, and that manifests in

some other areas too. Like Katie defensively is very useful off ball player, could play passing lanes, very good rim protector on that weak side, very good low man, very

good defensive rebounder. But like he's gonna get buried by a post threat, right because he's not particularly big and strongk So like he can't do like the Jason Tatum thing where I'm just gonna guard the opposing center if that opposing center has any sort of like offensive rebounding chops or post up chops, right, Like, that's gonna be

something that he struggles with. But that's really the one downside with KD is it's he's a little thin, which prevents him from getting to the rim and limits some of his ability to be a switchable defender as as it pertains a switching on to centers. But I still think that KD on the ball is an outstanding defender because he can guard guards and wings really well just

with his length and his mobility. The second piece of him not getting to the rim is just I think he's picky, and I think some of this comes down to what's happened after the injury. But the big debt, the debt giveaway there is the efficiency. He shoots seventy two percent at the rim. He shoots seventy two percent at the rim because he only goes if it's a pretty damn good opportunity, and so he'll be super efficient.

But he doesn't get there a ton. But again, guys who don't apply a ton of rim pressure, that's always gonna be something that I account for, just simply because I think there's a ton of advantage there in terms of collapsing the defense. When when a defense really views you as a threat to get to the rim, they're just more likely to pack the paint. The second piece

of it is occupying the rim protector. The more times you get to the rim and just shoot shots, it brings that big man over so that your big man can clean up stuff around the rim. It's an advantage, especially when you someone like Usef Nurkic, who can do some real damage on the offensive glass. Let's get into

some play type data. So Kevin in Pick and Roll was eighty seventh percentile last year five hundred and sixty possessions to be expected as he's sharing that load with Bradley Beal and Devin Booker, but got one point one

zero points per possession. That is outstanding. He personally shot fifty one point four percent in pick and roll, like we talked about it, shoots forty eight percent on the season on pull up jump shots, and as we mentioned earlier in detail, his ability to see over the defense and get passes over the top when they bring that second defender, that screen defender up to the level of the screen. Again, that started. That was a big thing that we started to see from KDE in Brooklyn, and

it's extended to Phoenix. They do a lot of guard guard stuff. You'll see them do it sometimes with Grayson Allen. You'll see them do it sometimes with like Josha Koge, like where he's more rolling towards the rim. Grayson Allen's more like ghost screens than just popping right back to the three point line. But even with Nurkic, he'll run

up to set the screen. He'll just kind of roll into the lane and then he can make the reads in those four on threes ISO situations down year for KD it's kind of an interesting little thing with KD. His efficiency as it pertains to one on one basketball actually was low for what we expect from KD. But

then he was outstanding coming off of screen. So as we talked about one point one zero coming off of on ball screens, one point one five points per possession coming off of off ball screens, he shot fifty five percent field goals on shots coming off of off ball screens. So like when KD has a screen, he's still one

of the most deadly scorers in the league. His on an island scoring did go down a level last year, though he had four hundred and twenty nine ISOs including passes, according to Synergy, got just three hundred and eighty eight points out of him. That zero point nine zero points per possession. That's in the forty first percent tile that ranked just twenty second out of twenty four players to attempt at least two hundred and fifty shots out of

ISO last year, or two hundred fifty possessions. I should say, just didn't shoot well individually. Kd's individual field goal percentage in ISOs last year was just forty three point nine percent, which is obviously down for what we expect from KD post ups. He was over a point per possession, but not by much. He was at two hundred and eighty four points and two hundred and seventy seven post ups. That comes out to one point zero three points per possession.

That's pretty average. I want to say it's like forty eight percent tile. That was twelve out of the eighteen players to make our high volume post up list with two hundred and fifty reps. So definitely a down year for KD as it pertains to scoring one on one like man up with a defender. But he's still about as good as you'll find in the league anything coming off of a screen looking to score or coming off of a screen looking to pass, as we saw in

the points per possession data. So in summary, Katie has definitely lost some of his athletic juice and that's manifesting in his really low rim attempts and then just on an island scoring which has gone down. But he's still one of the most profoundly impactful two way players we have in the league for several reasons. One, he's still

a deadly efficient scorer coming off of any kind of screen. Two, he has the size and court vision to torch defenses as a passer coming off of those screens, and when he's engaged, he's an extremely versatile defender both on and off the ball. Most importantly, he fits the criteria of this list very well. I've talked about how this list is kind of a combination of like regular season availability and motor, Like how often you play at the top of your game in the regular season. Two how well

your games game translates to the playoffs? But three how easy is it to build around you? Again, remember, in this thought exercise, we're drafting these guys, but in theory, after we're done, we're going back around and we're drafting other players, right, and so like, if I had KD as my number one, how would it be to build around him? If I had Joel Embiid as my number one, how would it be to build around him? And as we've talked about, I find KD to be a much

easier player to build around than a Joel Embid. Joel and B can only defend in one type of defensive scheme. On offense, he kind of needs everything to run through him. He struggles with read and react with lots of other good basketball players on the floor. I know KD can be helio centric. I could ask KD to bring the ball to the floor on twenty five pick and rolls every single game and to just dominate as a helio central shock creator. He doesn't really play that style, but

he could if I needed him to. Kadie can also play five out on the ball as the guy who's making the decisions coming off the screens. He can also play five out off the ball, operating more with an advantage on the defensive end. I can use him in a switching scheme. He could pretty much guard one through four and most fives that aren't superstars right. He can guard off the ball in a bunch of different contexts, jumping, passing lanes. More as a guy who's playing above the break,

he could play the low man position. I could use him to blitz. He's got all sorts of length and athleticism to use flashing up high on the ball if for putting two on the ball. I can just do so much more with KD if I'm building a team around him, than I can with someone like Joel Embiid. And so that for me is like a great example, like if I'm looking at those three categories, regular season availability and motor is probably Kevin Durant's biggest weakness out

of those three categories. But he just had a season where he played what seventy five games was the number again, I'm looking at it, seventy five, So he just played seventy five games. So whatever your regular season availability concerns are, he just had his best season of that since his injury. Postseason translatability I actually had I had a comment yesterday talking about how KD isn't a good playoff player, and

I just very much disagree with that. He did have a rough series in twenty twenty two against Boston, but that was literally just four games. Overall. In thirty one playoff games since returning from his Achilles injury, he's averaging thirty points, eight rebounds in five assists on sixty one percent true shooting, So by any measure, he's still one of the most dependably good playoff players in the league. So again, had a good available regular season last year.

Although that I would argue that's his one main kind of weakness is how consistent can he be in the eighty two postseason translatability. I give him an a in versatility, how well he fits alongside other players, and how many different schemes he can play in. I'd give him an A plus. I think he's one of the best in the league plugging into playing in any different basketball circumstances. And even as it pertains to the injuries, they were

all regular season injuries. He never missed a playoff game since coming back in twenty twenty one, and a lot of them were fluky, like like there was the one weird one where he kind of twisted his ankle and warm ups, there was the I think he had two separate instances where someone fell into his knee, Like just someone fell into his knee. That's not necessarily a durability concern.

That's a fluky injury that might happen. So like again, I understand, and this for all three guys, for KD, Stephan Lebron, there's gonna be a lot of guys talking about like first round sweep or you know, first round gentlemen sweep, or always in the play in or whatever it is, or missed the playoffs and all that kind of stuff. Basketball is a team sport, and these are guys that are playing on rosters that literally do not

have good two way players outside of their stars. And that's just something as you go up in the league, as you look at Oklahoma City, as you look at Denver, as you look at Boston, as you look at the Knicks, like all these teams have like four or five role players who are legitimately good on both ends of the floor, which just makes playing basketball a lot easier and is certainly going to accentuate what stars bring to the table. Yeah, Katie was one of those guys a lot of people

had lower on their list. I still think he's firmly in the top ten I have met. I have him at number nine in this year's list.

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In the entire league. The all around play that Lebron brings to the table is still extremely rare around the league. One point eight stocks per game is shooting splits. This is insane. Fifty four percent from the field, forty one percent from three to seventy five percent from the line. That amounts to sixty percent in effective field goal percentage and sixty three percent in true shooting percentage. He's still, even as he's coming into his age forty season, one

of the most efficient volume scores in the league. Only two players in the NBA last year, as we mentioned earlier with Kevin Durant, averaged at least twenty five on fifty percent from the field and forty percent from three.

It was Kevin Durant and Lebron James. And the crazy thing is Lebron got better as the season went along from the over his last twenty two games, and I want to say this was like February twenty third on or something like that, I can't remember the exact number, but over Lebron's last twenty two games he averaged twenty eight points, eight rebounds in tennysis on fifty eight percent from the field and forty five percent from three twenty eight to eight to ten on sixty seven percent true shooting.

That's not just that's not like good for Lebron. That's MVP level production that he put up over the final third of the season or so. And then he followed it up with an impressive series against Denver twenty eight points, seven rebounds, nine to sis sixty four percent true shooting. He also shot four out of five from the field and clutched situations. Remember after the Western Conference Finals sweep, I said the Lakers needed to improve in three areas

to surpass Denver. The first two were roster related. I won't get him to it right now, but it had to do with Rob Plinket what he needed to do over the summer. The last one, though, if you guys, remember I said Lebron, James, and Anthony Davis had to hit jump shots. They had to hit jump shots over the top of the defense to keep up with Jokichen Murray in a shootout, especially in crunch time. And Lebron did that. He went in the gym, he figured it out,

and he did that. He shot thirty nine percent on threes in the series. After getting just zero point eighty six points per jump shot in the twenty twenty three sweep, he bumped that all the way up to one point zero six points per jump shot. So a massive improvement year over year in jump shooting. But the problem was is those first two roster related issues just simply were not addressed. So even though Lebron brought the jump shooting,

even though Lebron brought the clutch shot making. It just wasn't enough to make it any more than a competitive five game loss. And again, that series was closer than a you had two Jamal Murray game winners in that game. That series could have been three two Lakers very easily if a couple of things go differently. But then Lebron followed that up by winning MVP of the Olympics by essentially being a Swiss Army knife for them on both

ends of the floor. So the point is Lebron has actually been one of the five best basketball players on the planet since February. I'd argue he's been the third best player behind Yo Kitchen Luca. Lebron is the only player that he is the play He's been better than everyone else in the league since February except for those two guys. Now he's lower on this list for the same age related stuff that we're going to get too shortly, the same stuff that's plaguing everybody that's down on this

part of the list. But just make no mistake, Lebron is there's not many players playing better basketball than Lebron at this point in time. Shooting stats pers energy one point one to one points per jump shot one point twenty seven points per catch and shoot jump shot and out standing catch and shoot season for Lebron. There are one hundred and seventeen players in the league. Ten did

at least two hundred catch and shoot jump shots. Lebron ranked fifteenth out of one hundred and seventeen players in catch and shoot efficiency. He also got zero point ninety six points per off the dribble jumper. That was sixty

third percent tile, so above average. Obviously not as good as his skill oriented piers like I think Katie If I remember correctly, Katie was at one point zero three and then Steph was at one point zero five, so they're both like roughly ten percent better in that vicinity than Lebron is a pull up shooter, but Lebron had a I say ten percent relative, not ten percent in percentage.

But Lebron still a a above average pull up jump shooter forty four percent on floaters, forty seven percent on hooks. This is an interesting piece though. Lebron sixty seven percent at the rim. Now that's still outstanding. That's eighty third percent tile. But this is an interesting trend to keep

an eye on with Lebron. He is starting to trend down in that that department, sixty seven percent at the room this year, sixty nine percent at the rim the year before, seventy one percent at the rim the year before that, and seventy two percent at the rim the year before that. So I've seen a steady kind of like trending down very slightly in Lebron's rim finishing, and that's a big part of why this late career jump shooting surge that he's having is so important for him.

Playmaking stuff with Lebron pick and roll one point zero six points per possession, which is in the eightieth percentile. That's very good, however, just seven hundred and twenty seven possessions, so he didn't make our high volume list, but that's to be expected. He's sharing touches kind of similar to KD with Booker and Beal, Lebron's sharing pick and roll

touches with d LO and Austin Reeves. But he was again in the eightieth percentile for pick and roll ISO similar to KD, not as a two grade of a season zero point nine to seven points per possession on three hundred and twenty eight reps, only three spots ahead of where KD was in that high volume list, Lebron ranked nineteenth out of twenty four players to attempt at least two hundred and fifty. However, in the post, Lebron James was the second best high volume post player in

the entire NBA last year. He ran two hundred and ninety one post ups got one point one to two points per possession including passes. Only Nikola Jokic was better out of the eighteen players to run at least two hundred and fifty post ups. So Lebron is still absolutely dominant with his back to the basket when he can bully players towards the rim and playmake out of that as team send multiple defenders. There are two weaknesses with

Lebron that I want to call attention to. One, he can be one of the most inconsistent effort guys in the regular season among the stars, as to be expected he turns forty four months from today, But it's a reality when you're trying to build a roster around him. Right, Just like I was talking about Katie So on defense, the main area you'll see that manifest with Lebron is him just he has a very important job within the

Laker defense. He's typically the low man. That means AD is typically coming up higher to the level of the screen. Lebron is the guy kind of filling in behind him to tag the roller, contest shots at the rim, get defensive rebounds, and close out to the weak side. That is an incredibly important job on the defense. If you were ranking the roles on defense, obviously on the ball and you're pick and roll defender, probably your two most important.

But that next most important role is that low man position. And so when Lebron's being lazy down there, when he's letting role men catch and fit, like you will see dozens of times this year, Lebron will just let someone catch on the role in dunk because he just doesn't feel like making the rotation right. So like that's part of it, not fighting for defensive rebounds, that kind of thing, like you're gonna see. He'll always lock in and do it and crunch time or whenever the team needs to

go on a run or something like that. But he will have extended stretches during the course of the regular season where he just doesn't really try that hard on the defensive end of the four. I still think Lebron's one of the better defenders in the league. When he's trying, he just you're only going to see that big time moments, big time national TV games and like playoff games. That's

pretty much it at this phase of his career. On offense, or you see that laziness manifest is how physically aggressive he's being towards the rim. One being willing to post up, two being willing to drive hard in isolation situations. The big one you'll see three is lazy play ma in ball screens, as I've talked about a lot, in order to get an opening for to make a play as a passer in ball screens, you have to engage that screen defender by getting downhill or by being deadly enough

as a shooter that he has to come up. You have to make him guard you. If you do not make him guard you and he can drop back, there's

not gonna be anything open. And you'll see Lebron a lot in the regular season kind of dribble off picks lazy and just try to like jam a pocket pass in there that's not open, or throw a skip pass to a guy who's guarded and still have to put it really high and then the guy have to jump way back on his heels to grab it, and the advantage is gone right, so like, or there was no advantage to begin with, and so like. There are definitely

some things with Lebron where he can be lazy. In the regular season, He's simply not as good as his younger peers, the guys who are in their twenties, at just carrying the load time and time again over an eighty two game season. That is something you have to account for when you're building a roster around him when the season starts in October. The second piece of it. Even within the playoff context, when Lebron is engaged, he's not as good at doing everything as he was when

he was younger in terms of energy resources. He does seem to get a little fatigue. A couple of examples. Game one against Denver, in the third quarter, he had a stretch like I described just a second ago, where he got lazy with the ball as a playmaker because he was tired, had a couple of bad turnovers. It sparked a Denver run. Game five against Denver, they win that game if Lebron secures a defensive rebound against Aaron

Gordon where he had inside position. Now, Lebron has been one of the best defensive rebounding forwards in the league for a long time. This is something he used to literally never lose. He never used to lose rebounding battles like that. The reason why he did is because he was doing so much and at this phase in his career, he still is susceptible to a little bit of fatigue, and he lost a physical battle that he doesn't typically lose. And so again, I thought he was mostly magnificent in

that series outside of those sorts of things. But the point is, in order to get the most out of Lebron James, you need to surround him with enough support for him to be able to conserve energy and pick his spots. Because when he engages himself, he's still one of the very best players in the world. But he can't be consistently engaged without running into fatigue related issues. And so again, in the regular season, it's more just like conserving energy. In the playoffs, it's like he legitimately

can run out of energy sometimes. But if I were draft like, it's just something that I'd have to account for. If I was a GM and I was drafting a team now if we tweaked the rules, if I were drafting players for a playoff series, just a playoff series, not a season, but a playoff series that started tomorrow. Nicole Jokitch and Luka Dancic are the only two players that I'd take over Lebron. That's how insane of a

high level he's been playing at Since February. He's still one of the top tier shot creators in the league in both volume and efficiency. As we know, there just are many players who can give you twenty five points and eight assists a game. Jokich, Luca and Trey Young were the only other guys in the league last year other than Lebron to give you twenty five points and eight assists. That's how rare that is still in this league.

In Lebron, when he's engaged, is a much better defender than all of those guys, and that's why I have him that high. I'd have him third if I just needed to win a series that starts tomorrow. But he requires a great deal of support in the regular season and can't quite scale up his athleticism in the postseason like he used to, which makes the job of building around him a little bit tougher than it was when he was in his prime, and certainly tougher than some

of the guys that are above him on this list. So for a list like this, I feel like number eight is the right spot for Lebron James on two hour mailback, here's our first question. This one is not necessarily a question, just an opportunity to kind of talk a little bit about the ranking. So what is my rationale for putting Lebron eight, KD nine, Steph ten? Why did I have them ranked in that order? Now, mind you, I have them minusculely separated. They're not. This is not tiers of players.

They're all jammed up with each other, right, as I've said multiple times, from five to eleven, they're all right next to each other. In my opinion, the tiers are more indicated as a separation in level of play. So here's the deal. Steph was a clear third place for me. In addition to missing the playoffs, Even if we all agree that it mostly had to do with the roster,

Steph just didn't play well to end the season. Post All Star Break, Steph Curry twenty three points, five rebounds, five assists, fifty seven percent tru shooting, Lebron James twenty eight points, eight rebounds, ten assists, sixty seven percent true shooting. Like that's just a simple example to show you, guys, the giant chasm and the level of play between those two guys. Ten percentage points in true shooting, ten additional assists,

three additional rebounds, five additional points every game. Katie and Lebron both are just simply playing at a higher level than Steph. Now, I understand Steph had two really good games at the end of the Olympics, and I personally am really excited about that, and that's a big part of why I think he's going to have a bounce back year. But I can't just take those two games to erase months of additional evidence that Katie and Lebron

are just playing at a higher level right now. And then between Katie and Lebron, I thought Lebron was clearly at the higher level among the three for all the reasons that I just broke down in the two breakdowns that I did, so that naturally left Katie in the middle. So, like again, I thought the Lebron, Katie Steph in that order was pretty straightforward. Had a bunch of Steph related questions,

So let's get into some of those right now. You're entitled to your opinion, but having Steph Curry below Anthony Davis KDI or Anthony Edwards at this at this point in their careers is blasphemous. Blasphemous. Ad cannot, I repeat, cannot be a number one option on a championship team. He's probably the best defender in the league, but he's insanely limited on offense. If your list is just based on October through June picking the best player for your team,

you're really taking Ad over Steph. Sounds a bit like Lakers fan biased to me coming from a Lakers fan myself, and is still way too raw to be taken over. Curry and Katie's team underachieves time and time again despite him really being a plug and play masterpiece of a player. It's just that you know you can't count on him being that alpha dog, and Steph is just a killer.

One could even argue that Tatum should be below Curry too, but defensive versatility, age, availability, and champ status certainly give him the case to be above. But again, are you really taking Tatum over your number one guy as your number one guy over steph friggin Curry Nah. As for Embiid,

I don't have a problem with him at eleven. He's an over hyped cry baby that's always hurt, always sulking, foulgrifting, and just looking for a whistle if he can't assert physical dominance or if his jumper isn't falling way too one dimensional, way too fragile, way too mentally weak to take for an eighty two game run, especially deep in the playoffs when his parlor tricks stop working with the refs. I'd take any of these top ten guys over him

any day of the week. Awesome show, brother, Keep up a good work and keep creating a platform for us hoop lovers to talk real basketball, unbiased and educated based on arguments and facts, not just blatant smack talk, fangirling and personal preference slash opinion. Thank you for taking the time to break down your basketball case. Thanks for supporting the show. One of my favorite things about what we do here at Hoops Tonight is make just a community

for hoopers to hang out and talk basketball. So that means a lot to me that you guys see it that way. I'll go kind of down the list. So the first comment you made about Anthony Davis saying that he's insanely limited on offense, I kind of disagree with that. First of all, we know Ad can be the best player on a championship team because Tatum just did it.

So like, you certainly can build a championship roster around Anthony Davis, who just probably would need a little more help than some of the guys that are above him. Right as far as the offense thing, Like, yeah, I think Tatum had a I think Anthony Davis had a rough series two years ago, the Western Conference final series. I thought Jokic kicked his ass. I thought Ad kind of went out soft, Like I didn't think he fought hard enough in that circumstance, Like I think he kind

of let Yokic walk all over him. But if you just kind of pull that specific series out, he's been an incredible playoff player Outside of that. He just averaged twenty eight points per game in the playoffs against Denver. He was straight up barbecuing Jokichen one on one. He ran thirty four ISOs and post ups in the series and got forty points. That's one point one to eight

points per possession, which is literally amazing. And I mean we got to like, obviously the twenty twenty two to twenty twenty one seasons he was hurt, but it's like twenty twenty best player or not best player, but like just as good as Lebron, Like I had Lebron one in eighty four after that playoff run, So like eighty was basically at Lebron's level for a title run and was an incredible offensive player and an incredible defensive player.

And then I want to say, he had thirteen playoff games before twenty twenty and he averaged like thirty one points and thirteen rebounds a game. So like, the idea that he's an insanely limited offensive player is just something that I would disagree with. He just had a really rough offensive series against Denver two years ago when they faced him in the Western Conference finals. Now, is he as offensively as some of the other superstars in the league. No,

but he's still an insanely good offensive player. Like and here's the other thing too, even beyond the on ball stuff, I think it's unfair if we give Jokic like a ton of bonus points for being this deadly roll man who like catches on the roll with with Jamal Murray and hits those floaters in the lane. And there's no doubt that Joki is probably the best at that, and

he's certainly better than Ad. But Ad is also one of the best role men in the league, and he's a huge part of what makes the Laker pick and roll attack so deadly because he can short roll and make floaters right or he could short roll to the foul line and catch and make quick ISO moves. Off the catch, he can roll a little bit further into the lane and make floaters right or quick dribble moves

into hook shots. He can also roll hard to the raymany brings vertical gravity like the actual spacing to be able to throw lob passes to him. Like Ad is a far more useful offensive player than I think people give him credit for. As for Kevin Durant Anthony Edwards. Without getting into all the individual comparisons here what else, Here's what I'll say. Remember that if I said everyone is healthy and the series is starting tomorrow, I'm doing

a different list. As I mentioned earlier, I'm going Jokichen Luka and then I have Lebron three. Steph's probably four for me on that list, So when everyone's healthy, I do think Steph is a better player than it. I do think Steph is a better player than KD. I do think Steph is a better player than AD. But the point is Steph hasn't been playing at that level as of late. Here's a simple stat to break this down.

Steph in his last nineteen games to end last year, failed to reach twenty five points in nine of them. Think about that, when they desperately needed him to score because they don't have much offensive talent, he couldn't even get to twenty five points in half the games over the final fourth of the season. I am genuinely sincerely rooting for Steph to have a bounce back year, and I believe he will, but it's all theoretical at this point, which makes him a riskier pick, which puts him lower

on this type of list. As far as the MBD piece goes, I'm actually surprised and how many people kind

of agreed with me. There are obviously some pissed off Sixers fans that was to be expected, but seems to me like most of the other people, at least maybe not as far down as eleven, but at least agree that MB can't be on that top tier superstar list anymore when you're factoring in all of his physical limitations in terms of health and his inability to impact winning as as well as he does in the regular season

when he gets to the postseason. And the thing with NB two is now he's over thirty, so it's not like the health issues are going to get better for him at this point. Putting together a top twenty five list is tough work considering all the talent in the league, so I commend you doing the work and sharing with

the viewers. If your criteria for the list is based on who you would pick for an eighty two game season out of a vacuum, it doesn't make sense to put Curry at ten, considering the lack of help on his team was directly responsible for the efficiency slumps this past year. When you put Curry on an All Star team or an Olympic roster, or even when his team plays like above average NBA players allah of the twenty twenty two playoffs, he is clearly an MVP candidate, even

in this late stage of his career. An important note about Steph's game is the attention he demands when he's on the floor, which cannot be quantified from counting stats, since he's arguably the most heavily guarded player in NBA history. Put Shay on the Warriors, and I would argue they don't even sniff a play in spot in the stack Western Conference, having won the CHIP only two years ago.

Over a better team holds far more weight than Ant or Shay, who are projected to have better seasons, neither of which are guarded like Steph. So here's the thing. As far as I agree that the Warriors are extremely limited in terms of personnel, and I also agree that made things harder for Steph, here's where it's different. Though. The twenty twenty one team was very limited as well. They had no Klay Thompson if you remember, they had funky role players guys like Kelly Hubray Junior and Brad

Wanamaker and Kent Bazemore. And yet in that season Steph averaged thirty two points per game on sixty six percent true shooting. He had twenty six games with at least thirty five points. He wasn't even to that level this year, so like, if your case is Steph is still awesome, he just has a bad team. What happened in twenty twenty one, That's where I have an issue, and that team at the exact same issue made it to the

play in got eliminated in the play in tournament. And so yeah, Like, I sympathize with Steph for the plight, and I do believe he still has the ability to get to a top ten level this year, which is why I put him in the top ten, and I expect him to bounce back. But he was down in every major statistical category last year and was tailing off at the tail end of the season. So again, I, as I mentioned Big Game Tomorrow night, give me Steph as the fourth best player in the league. But that's

not the reality of this season. There's a great deal of risk involved with Steph being your foundational piece for this season. Therefore I had him at ten for the sake of the way this list works. I'm shocked Curry is this low. I understand why because he had a down year because he's old, But man, I might be biased as Warriors diehard, but I don't know how you could watch the metal rounds in the Olympics, and I feel like Steph is one of the five best players

in the world. Here's the thing. The Metal rounds are a big source of optimism for me as well. But two games when the chips are down, that falls into what I was talking about earlier. Yeah, you're right, two games chips are down. I think Steph is the fourth best player in the world. But this isn't two games where the chips are down. This is eighty two games and four series spanning nine months. Totally different type of criteria. Here's another Steph one, a bunch of them. But we

don't I promise we get into some other stuff. Hey, Jason, I have agreed for the most part so far in your rankings. However, Steph's ranking is the first time I strongly disagree with your ranking, and I'm a non Warriors fan. By the way, you begin your argument by referring to Steph's extended to end the regular season and through the

majority of the Olympics, I think this is fair criticism. However, I would argue Tatum's slump is equally as bad, if not worse than Steph's, and therefore should be ranked lower than Steph. In the rankings. I believe the main factor in this argument is their scenarios. Steph was dealing with

unideal situations in Golden State, unlike Draymond's excuse me. Steph was dealing with unideal situations in Golden State, like Draymond's emotional immaturity, Clay's frustrations, tons of lineup changes, roster injuries, etc. Meanwhile, Tatum was operating on the most talented roster in the league. I don't think it's fair to drop Steph this far

below the environment he was working in. Besides that, Curry is still a much better half court shot maker than Tatum, which is your main factor when making this list, not just as an on ball creator, but through is off ball ability. The amount of quality shots he generates for his team simply by existing in the half court greatly exceeds anything that Tatum showed during the playoffs in the last half of the year. I'd also argue for Curry above Anton Ad for the same reason, although the Tatum

comparison is my primary reason for commenting. Love the show. Thanks for supporting the show. I mean it means a lot to me. So a couple things Tatum sumps a little different. Tatum is a in his prime athlete who's in a jump shooting slump. Steph Curry declined in every single phase of the game last year, including the defensive end of the floor, including just his ability to get separation from defenders, all that kind of stuff, So it's

not necessarily the same to me. I will I will admit that I ranked Tatum under the impression that his shot is going to come back around, because again, over a large sample in his career, he's been a good jump shooter. He's had a bad jump shooting stretch. I mean, we've had our criticism with Tatum in terms of off the dribble shooting, but he's he should still be a much much better catch and shoot player than he has been.

He's just been in a slump. But again, it's a little different when you're Tatum's age, you're in your late twenties, in your prime. I would be shocked if Tatum didn't come into next season with a event jump shot ready to go. But like the bottom, let's just take Tatum for an example as what I mean when I talked about the value over the eighty two. Okay, Tate, Let's say I drafted Tatum because I had, you know, the pick that I have Tatum ranked at, which I'm not

gonna reveal yet, but let's say I drafted Tatum. I'm gonna get seventy five games out of him. Like he's gonna play seventy five games at least around there. You know, I think he played seventy four the last two years, right, So like gonna play mid seventies and games. He's gonna bring motor every single night because he's in his twenties and he's got he's just young, and you know, he just has a lot of that youthful exuberans. Right, He's gonna play hard. We're gonna get the better version of

Tatum the vast majority of nights three. He's gonna be a foundational piece to my defense and rebounding backline. I'm gonna be able to use him to guard star forwards if I need to. I'm gonna be able to use him to guard guards even if I need to. I'm gonna be able to use him to guard centers if I want to, just like Boston did through their entire playoff runt, I can use him as the lowman if I need to I could count on him to help secure the defensive rebounding part of my defensive back line.

That's a huge asset to me as I'm building a team around him. For he's going to give me somewhere between twenty seven and thirty points per game. That's basically guaranteed. He's going to give me eight or nine rebounds. That's basically guaranteed. He's going to give me five plus assists. It's a super safe bet. If I take Tatum, I know what I'm getting from October all the way to June. If I take Steph, there's two versions of that story.

There's everything somehow breaks right and he gets back to form and he stays healthy, and I get superstar Stephan. Yeah, you're You're damn right. That's a better player. Put it simply, guys, like basketball is a team sport. If I put Steph on the Boston Celtics for Jason Tatum, the Celtics are winning the title again. So like, yeah, I'm not debating that Tatum's had it easy. Of course he has. He's flat out had it easy at the easiest title run

I've seen from a star in a very long time time. Right, So, like I'm not trying to debate that, but we're looking at these guys in a vacuum. If I was drafting players at Tatum's age, I know I'm getting seventy five games. I know I'm getting high motor, I'm getting excellent defense and rebounding, and I'm getting twenty seven and five at least in terms of points and assists. He is a super safe bet. And so in this list that has a very very tight grouping from five to eleven, I'm

giving Tatum a slight edge for the eighty two. Now. To be clear, if I had to win a single game tomorrow or a single series tomorrow, give me Steph over Tatum one hundred out of one hundred times. I do not think Tatum is better at basketball than Steph. I just think he's younger and healthier and more likely to provide more winning impact over a nine month span or anything can happen. And I know I've explained that one hundred times during this list. I just feel like

I need to hammer that home. The rankings are not important. Basketball talk is the only thing that matters. It's our next comment. Amen. We do this to kill time in the summer and to give us something to argue about. But in the words of Kevin Durant, when October comes around, it's check ball and we're playing basketball and everyone's zero and zero and every player's averaging zero point, zero rebound,

zero sists. Let's see what everyone can do. If I have Steph at ten and I'm actively rooting for him to bounce back, that has no bearing on what actually is going to happen for the Warriors this year, and we're gonna cover it thoroughly, like this is what we do during the summer. But what I love to do. My favorite thing about this show is to talk about basketball games. It's why I was so thankful for those

Team USA games this summer. Well, how great was that that we got another couple dozen games between TMUOSA and some of the other teams that we covered to just talk about basketball, actual basketball games that are actually happening. And so I appreciated that comment because that is the truth.

The rankings are not important. The basketball talk, well, I would just remove talk from that, just say the basketball is the only thing that matters, and that's what I love to talk about the most, and that's what we're gonna do. Literally here in less than two months. Can you believe that we're less than two months away? We are one month away from training camp. Guys, it's right around the corner. Next question, or I should say comment.

Y'all have to understand this is a business. Having Curry at ten is going to get him a lot of clicks and engagement. He knows Curry is top five at worst. This is just silly. I mean, the Warriors are probably still our largest fan base within the Hoops to Night community. We have some big ones, right Like we have a lot of Laker fans, a lot of Denver Nugget fans, a lot of Dallas Mavericks fans, a lot of Boston

Celtics fans. We've built up like certain fan bases that we have a good chunk of that follow our show. But I still think the Warriors are the largest fan base that we have, and a big part of that is step Steph's one of the most popular players in the world. But like, I would have gotten more views by putting Steph number one. That's what would have gotten views. But it's legitimately hard for me to do this and to actually put these guys in the right spot and

I'm working really hard to follow my own criteria. It was tough for me to put Kdi, Steph and Lebron as low as I did. But I'm not here to propagandaz. I'm not here to lie and say things I don't believe for clicks. That's not even how it works. I put Kde, Stephan, Lebron where I would draft them in a snake draft style or a snake draft doesn't even

it's not even relevant. But just in a straight up draft between twenty five teams starting with all four hundred and fifty players, if I just to start a franchise with, that's the entire purpose of it. Only for this upcoming season from October to June. I put Steph at ten because I view him as the tenth safest bet to build a franchise around for this upcoming season. For eighty two games in four series, dude is saying I still think he's top ten, like that's a compliment. It is

a compliment. Steph didn't play at a top ten level last year. Steph did not have a top ten season last year by any measure. Guys like Donovan Mitchell had a better season. Guys like Jalen Brunson had a better season, Like there are a lot of players had better seasons than Steph Curry last year. I'm giving him top ten as a payment of respect to what I believe he is capable of on a better roster and how and because I think he's going to bounce back. I'm projecting

a better season from Steph next year. That's why I have him at number ten. He requires a ton of regular season support as well as postseason support. Who are you talking about Tatum or Embiid and you got Tatum higher? That's comedy. So in my opinion, Tatum is the far more available regular season player, and he's actually been a better playoff player than Embiid, including out playing him head

to head. Specifically in Game seven a few years back, he exposed one of Embiid's biggest weaknesses that we talked about on this show, his ability to come out and guard in space, either switching in pick and roll or coming up to the level of the screen. Tatum was just repeatedly torching him in that Game seven. So putting Tatum over Embiid was a very easy decision for me. He's a more available regular season player and he's been a better postseason player in his career. That was just

a no brainer for me. Here's another basketball case from somebody as it associates to Embiid, specifically with regard to Anthony Davis. Hey, Jason love the video. I know you haven't released AD's ranking, but here's a basketball reason why I'm taking Embiid over Anthony Davis. First, both players have struggled with injuries. I know Ad has been more durable than Embid the past two years, but it's undeniable that if you're concerned about that, you're concerned with both's long

term health in any given season. So durability is mostly a wash between these two players. Second, I think Embiid's playoff struggles are almost exclusively due to injury, whereas AD's playoff struggles post twenty twenty have been consistency and mentality related. Against Yokich and the last couple of playoff runs, AD would have thirty plus points one night and then fifteen or sixteen the next night, even though he wasn't injured.

Commentators often lament during games how Ad seems to be out of it and not being aggressive, which is never a problem for Embiid AD post twenty twenty has not been that great of a playoff performer in my view, at least not good enough for the Lakers to beat Denver. Finally, and most importantly, Embiid eats eighty's lunch every time they play. Yes, it's regular season, but Embid is seven and one against AD.

In their last two matchups, Embiid had thirty eight and twelve and a thirty point triple double on seventy five percent and sixty percent shooting, respectively. Ady's best case for being higher than Embiid is he's a much better defender than Embiid. The fact that he that his superior defense doesn't infect it doesn't affect Embiid when they play, is evidence to me that Embiid is a full tier above eighty is a player. Appreciate the content and I'm looking

forward to the rest of the rankings. Again, thank you for taking the time to break down your basketball case, and thank you for supporting the show. It means a lot to me. So, starting with the injury risk, I disagree there. I don't think it's a wash between both players. AD has had some health concerns, particularly in the twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two seasons, but he's been good since then, and I actually think it's far more likely that Embiid has a health related issue this year

than Ad. Now, obviously anything happened, and we'll see, but my read on things is like Embiid is a guy that like it almost feels like a certainty that he'll break down, whereas Ad it feels like it's a maybe, And so I don't think that they're on the same tier. Although I agree with you that both of them do have some health concerns, I just think it's Embid to

a larger extent. As I mentioned earlier, AD did have a rough series in twenty twenty three against Denver, There's no question about it, and I was very critical of him after that series, But he's been literally awesome in

every playoff run outside of that. Even just before that series, like before the Denver series where they got swept, AD was like so good defensively in the Golden State Warrior series that every adjustment that both teams was making, it was geared around the Warriors trying to avoid Ad and the Lakers trying to keep Ad in the action. That's how dominant. He was defensively in that playoff run, the best player on the Kers because Lebron wasn't as good.

He was playing with that hurt foot, if you remember, during that playoff run. So like he was awesome in the playoff run before the Warrior or before the Nuggets series. Then this past year, I thought he basically played Jokic to a draw. He averaged twenty eight points and sixteen rebounds, like straight up fried Nicole Jokicic one on one. Then again obviously hurt twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two, but twenty twenty incredible both ends of the four they win

the title. First thirteen playoff games before twenty twenty, he averaged thirty one and thirteen. So like, I think AD's playoff resume is substantially better than him. Beats just flat

out bar none. I don't think it's close, to be honest, and to put it more aggressively, I just think Ad is a better basketball player in that setting because he's so good defensively, because he thrives in rock fights, because he can like win when things get ugly, because his impact on winning is not tied to whether or not he's getting to the foul line or knocking down his jump shot. Now here's the thing. Everything with em beat is theoretical. He has a roum remarkably dominant level that

he can get to. He's certainly had remarkably dominant regular seasons that if eclipsed what Ad has done in the regular season. But like, we can keep imagining that all coming together all we want. We can imagine him be just wrecking ball everybody through the playoffs. Hell, I've been imagining it. We talked about it on the show, but

for whatever reason, that has never actually materialized. And then the last piece of it to the big piece of our criteria that, like versatility, how easy it is to build around you, Ad is much easier to build around. He is a prototypical five out big man who excels as a roleman, as a screening and rolling into space as a scorer with and without the ball. He plays

really well alongside other stars. He doesn't require the ball to be in his hands all the time, and he's the best defensive player in the world that can defend in any scheme that you want him to defend. In deep drop, you know, catch Hedge up at the level blitzing, switching, he can do it all. So like that's the thing, Like there's no doubt that embeads ceiling is higher than AD. That just goes without saying. But and B just can't

get there often enough. And when things really like when things get to those higher levels, AD is just played at a much higher level, far more consistently than MB. And again like, yes, he has some offensive limitations, but in the regular season, even as I'm as I'm drafting players, if I draft a D, you know, much easier everything else gets from me at that point. Look at the

Lakers defense. They were playing literally literally to like Austin Reeves an average defensive player, d Lo a bad defensive player, Ruey Hachimura a bad defensive player, Lebron James good DEFENSEI player when he's trying. Most of the time he's not trying, and AD anchors it all, just hides them all. That's a huge asset to a general manager. Yeah, so like yeah, the I again, I it's hard to do this kind

of thing, guys, it really is. It's painstaking. I just say, let's say the two guys that everyone kept throwing out today, if I would have put ant at eleven in eighty at ten. You don't think Minnesota Timberwolves fans are gonna be crying to me NonStop about how Anthony Edwards averaged twenty eight points on sixty percent through shooting in the playoffs and like eliminated the defending champs straight up alpha dog to everybody on the Phoenix Suns and got within

three wins of the NBA Finals. You don't think I'm gonna have people crying about that. Anthony Davis, like he was, what the fourth best player on the Olympic team, the fifth best player on the Olympic team. He is the best defensive player in the world. Just played Nikolea Jokic to pretty much even in that Like the differentiators in that series were like Michael Porter Junior and the fact that Ruey was terrible, Like they're like they're the swinge.

Lebron and ad went. Lebron and eighty out played Murray and Jokic in that series, and they lost the series in five because Lebron out played Jamal Murray. Just Jamal Murray hit two big shots and Michael Porter Junior made everything he got his hands on, and Aaron Gordon had a at Game three, and the Lakers just got no contributions from role players outside of Austin Reeves and like and again, like, if I would have put a DA ten, it just would have been an issue. It has just

been a whole other issue. And that's the thing. There was no version of this top eleven that wasn't going to piss people off. But at the end of the day, all I can do is kind of give you guys my reasoning and hear you guys out when you disagree, and we can go from there. But as I'm going to reread this comment from earlier, as the Gentleman shared earlier, the rankings are not important. Basketball is the only thing

that matters, all right, guys. That is all I have for today is always sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. We'll be back on Friday with number seven at number six. I will see you guys. Then the Volume the NFL seasons right around the corner. We'll be breaking down all the off season storylines on the Colin Cowherd podcast my best takes guests like my buddy Nick Wright.

Check out the Colin Coward Podcast, part of the Volume network, available on Apple Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.