Hoops Tonight - Top 25 NBA Players: Luka Doncic ALL-TIME GREAT on Mavs? Giannis & Bucks rebound?

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with their player rankings. Today we have two more videos. Today we're hitting number three at number two. Tomorrow will be hit or Friday, I should say we'll be hitting number one. And the next week I have three different follow up videos that we're going to be doing from this list. I've got the guys from Nerd SESSH coming on and we're going to kind of debate the top eleven.

If any of them have any disagreements with me, we're going to kind of get into that, and then we're going to have that bragging rights video I told you about, where we just talk about ranking the top end of the players strictly based on what they accomplished last year. And then I also wanted to hit the GM Survey. That's always a fun way to kind of get into

some topics about the beginning of next season. So we'll do that as our three shows next week, and then after that we're getting into our season previews and we're going to just go team by team, power ranking style up the list, talking about their off seasons and what we expect them to do heading into next season. So that's basically our September, and then from there we're going to be covering actual real basketball games. Today, it was actually the first time this summer where I really started

to miss NBA basketball. I always used to miss it a ton before I started to do this for a living, but obviously I just I put in so much work during the playoffs that like, I actually could kind of look forward to the break when we get into the summer. And just this morning, I just got that little bit of an itch of like I was watching some Synergy footage of Yannis scoring in ball screens, and I was like, man, I miss just watching NBA games, and so I'm really

excited to get back into that. One month from today, we're gonna be like knee deep in training camp and like with actual regular season basketball games just two weeks away at that point. So I'm really really excited. But today number three and number two, and then I got a mail bag for the tail end of the show as well. You guys in the job before we get started, subscribed to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter. I

underscore jcnlts. You guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about a podcast feed wherever you get your podcast on our Hoops Tonight. Don't forget it's also helpful. Fore leave it in a review on that front. And the last, not least, keep dropping mailbag questions in those YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them at the tail end

of these rankings shows. Specifically, if you disagree with the ranking and you want to make a basketball case for why you disagree, drop it in those comments and we'll hit it at the tail end of these shows. All right, without any further ado, let's hit it. Number three. Janis on Tennecoompbo seventy three games played last year, finished fourth

in MVP voting. This is actually a crazy stat. Janis's sixth consecutive season finishing in the top five of MVP voting, So talking about a perennial MVP candidate doesn't get more consistent than Yannis on that front. Thirty point four points per game, eleven point five rebounds per game, a career high six point five assists per game, while also dropping his turnovers from three point nine to three point four year over year, although obviously Dame helps on that front.

He also got two point three stocks per game. Missed the All Defense team for the second consecutive year after making First Team All Defense four years in a row. Shooting splits, he shot sixty one percent from the field. That's a career high twenty seven percent from three sixty two percent in effective field goal percentage, which is also a career high and sixty five percent in true shooting percentage,

which is also a career high. So adding Dame to the equation relieving Yanis of some of the lower percentage shots that he had to take, predictably led into a massive increase in his efficiency. His shooting stats per Sentergy zero point seven to two points per jump shot, and he's trending in the wrong direction. He was zero point seven to seven the year before that, zero point eight seven the year before that, and he's about to turn

thirty this year. So I think we can go ahead and right off the whole gianis ever being a good jump shooter thing. He's just going in the wrong direction on that front, which is fine. As I've said, it's been way more about short range shot making like hook shots and stuff like that. We're gonna get more into that in a little bit, as well as his playmaking that are more important counters to his rim pressure than actually hitting jump shots. He took forty catch and shoot

jump shots last year, only made ten of them. Thirty eight of those forty were completely unguarded as well, So it's it's just even when he's standing still with all day, he just can't knock those shots down. Did. He took two hundred and ninety two pull up jump shots, made thirty four percent of them, but they were mostly pull up twos, so that's only zero point eighty seven points per shot, which obviously is not very efficient on a pull up jump shot. Fifty three percent on floaters, but

he only took seventeen all years. That's not really a part of his game. Forty two percent on hooks and he only took fifty seven of them all year. This is the shot that I've been begging on him to work a work on, just like a simple like post up on the left block with the ball in his right hand, like a drop step into the lane, just

a little left shoulder hook over the top. I don't think anybody can guard it, and I think it's a shot he could actually get to the point where he hits fifty to fifty five percent of them if he put the work in. But for whatever reason, that just does not really come together as a shot for him, and specifically in the playoffs. I just view that as a shot that he could use, but it just hasn't

really come together. But yeah, honest is still the most devastating attacking the rim in the league, and it's not close. Here are three stats to demonstrate that fact to you, guys. Yiannis made nine point one shots in the restricted area per game last year. Second place was Zion at six point nine, so by far the most made field goals

in the restricted area in the league. Among the fifty nine players who attempted at least three shots in the restricted area per game, Jannis was third in field goal percentage in the restricted area at seventy seven point five percent.

The only two guys that were ahead of him were Lively in Gafford, the two centers for Dallas, which are just getting spoon fed dunking opportunities on lobs and cuts, And so basically, out of fifty nine players that are high volume finishers around the rim, Giannis is the most efficient guy that's creating those opportunities, mostly for himself or at least partially for himself. Jannis finishes a lot on rolls and cuts, which we'll get into in a minute. But but the guys that are ahead of him are

only scoring on cuts and rolls. Jannis is just as efficient as those guys on massive volume despite creating a lot of those opportunities for himself. He also had two hundred and fifty one dunks, which was the most in the entire NBA. So, as we mentioned, Jannis the most devastating downhill force in the NBA, in conjunction with him having his best passing season of his career, that's where

he derives the majority of his offense. Now, as far as play types go, the majority of Giannis's offensive value comes on the margins. He made one hundred and ninety eight baskets in transition, that was the most in the NBA. Yeah, one point two to three points per transition push. So every Yannis transition push is worth a one to twenty

three offensive rating. Now to keep it to give you guys some perspective, remember the Pacers when they were cooking with Greece with the before Halliburton heard his hamstring, they were at a one to twenty four offensive rating, I think, and they were the best offense in the league at that point. So basically, Yanni's transition push is still one of the most devastating and efficient play types in the NBA. And that's why defensively, you have to build that wall.

When Yanna starts to get his head of steam. He made one hundred and eighteen baskets on cuts or dropoffs, that was the sixth most in the entire NBA. And he made seventy five baskets on rolls the rim in ball screens. For a perspective, this is a lot having to do with Dame. He only had forty five the previous year, so almost twice as many shots that he made on rolls to the rim in ball screens. As a virtue of bringing Dame into the equation, I expect

that to get even better this next year. Is there are some pretty basic things that Milwaukee can do to make some adjustments in the way that they set up their pick and roll, which I think will work better. Specifically just more to the empty side so that Jannis has easier reads to make when he's rolling. There was some struggles there with the way that they ran their pick and roll last year that we've obviously gone over

at length on this show. Made seventy four baskets on offensive rebounds, which is the ninth most in the entire NBA. So if you had those together on just offensive rebounds, cuts, rolls, and transitions, so all just like kind of on the margins of basketball, four hundred and sixty five total makes. So to give you an idea, fifty six percent of Giannis's total made baskets this year fell into those four categories, and so I wanted to give you guys some like

an example as a comparison. So fifty six percent of Gianni's made baskets were offensive rebounds, cuts and rolls, or transition pushes. Right, So let's the closest that I could come up to as a guy like Lebron. And the reason why I looked at Lebron is one, he's a big forward who plays kind of the same position to a lot of transition pushes. Like to this is a

crazy Lebron stat. So Jannis had one hundred and ninety eight made baskets in transition, Lebron had like one hundred and seventy five, which goes which is like crazy that a thirty nine year old was nearly as effective a transition weapons as Jannis was Just a completely insane stat. But Lebron's the second best player or the best player of all time in my opinion. So there you go.

That's going to take a while for me to learn how to say that properly, But anyway, he had a big forward, a lot of transition pushes, does a lot of work functioning as a big like ever since the Lakers brought in Austin Reeves and D'Angelo Russell, Lebron will set a lot of ball screens similar to Giannis does, And so I thought that he was among Giannis is

a unicorn and Lebron is not like Giannis. But among all the players in the league that play his position, Lebron's probably the closest in terms of like the way he functions in the Lakers offense transition pushes, functions as a big blah blah blah. Obviously, Lebron is so much more of like a surgical perimeter initiator than Yannis is. But he also just isn't the same athletic wrecking ball that Giannis is. Right, so they're not the same, But this is closest I can come up with. He made.

Lebron made six hundred and eighty five field goals last year. Two hundred and ninety six of his field goals were transition cuts, rolls, or offensive rebounds, which was just forty three percent of his total made field goals. So to give you an idea, like a player that kind of plays a somewhat similar kind of role. Lebron about forty three percent of his baskets on the margin, Yannis at

fifty six percent. So I just did that to try to give you guys some perspective on just how much Giannis relies on that basically just getting garbage baskets that are in transition or in cuts and rolls or offensive rebound. So, Yiannis is somewhat of an unusual superstar to rank on this list because he's actually a pretty limited half court shot creator, which we're going to get into in a minute.

But he's pouring in thirty points per game on sixty five percent true shooting, So like, like, how do you factor that sort of thing in? He's like, we're going to talk about his offensive limitations, and this guy's one of the highest volume in efficiency scorers in the NBA, and so that's where it gets a little bit complicated. But in the half court, that's where we see some of Giannis's limitations. Actually had a pretty solid pick and

roll season last year. He got one point zero seven points per possession including passes on four hundred and twenty six. The main thing there is he just got way better at identifying opportunities to get downhill in ball screens, and so it looked a little different, right, So like in four or five ball screens, meaning when Yannis was the four and he that brook Lopez set the pick for him, most teams would either switch it or run a drop coverage.

And so if there's a drop coverage, the guy who's guarding Gianis has to be big and strong enough to guard Yanis, and so that guy is gonna struggle to

get over the top of that screen. Now Giannis is going downhill at your center, and your center is gonna be probably a slow footed guy that you matched up with brook Lopez for obvious reasons, right, and Giannis will just swallow him around that guy and get all the way into the rim and lay it up, or you have to just completely pack the paint, which opens up those passing rereads. Right. But the guard guard screens are where I was actually most impressed by Giannis last year.

And the main thing that I noticed is like most teams will have a hedge in that situation, right, So Giannis has the ball being guarded by a big Ford we're gonna have a guard come up and set the screen right, because you're trying to bring that guard into

the action as Jannis comes off. The guard who's guarding the guard is almost always going to hedge in that case and come way outside, right, and the big man is going to be fighting over the top of that screen to try to get back in front of Yiannis. And Giannis got really good at like opening up his hips like he was about to go off that screen and then whipping it back to the other side with

the crossover. And now you're fucked because the guy guarding the ball is now engaged with the screener and trying to fight over the top, and the other defender is in a hedge, so he's all the way on the opposite side of the screen. And so Giannis was able to come just cleanly downhill off of those types of actions and get a ton of really good looks in

the in the paint. So he personally shot sixty one percent on ball screens, got one point zero seven points per possession, which is actually really good but somewhat low volume though only four hundred and twenty six reps in ISO three hundred and sixty six points on three hundred and sixty six possessions including passes. You guys can do the math there. That ranks sixteenth out of twenty four players to attempt at least two hundred and fifty so on the lower end, in the lower third among high

volume ISO players. And then four hundred and eleven post steps for four hundred and twenty three points one point zero three points per possession. That ranked tenth out of the eighteen players to attempt at least two hundred and fifty post ups in our high volume post up list. So bottom third ISO player, high volume, bottom half post up player in the high volume list. So his total half court possessions two hundred and three possessions one two

hundred and forty four points. That's one point zero three points per possession. That's basically the worst out of all the guys that are in this list. In that top eleven, even Anthony Edwards in his regular season numbers where he was, but that was before he took his leap in the postseason with substantially less offensive talent around him more of a defensive minded roster. Even Ant was more efficient. I like, I think a solid two or three percent more than

Yannis was as a half court initiator. So that's really the only weakness with Yiannis, right, Like, we're gonna talk about his defense here in a minute, and I still think he's top tier for defensive impact and versatility, especially in the postseason, which we'll get into more detail here

in a minute. But the main downside with Giannis is that even though he's a statistical monster on offense, like thirty points per game on sixty five percent of shooting is like literally insane, but the reality is is that his style that a plus downhill rim pressure mixed with like average too slightly above average playmaking like b B plus playmaking that eventually runs into a ceiling when he hits the best defenses in the league, when the game slows down in the half court, like when he runs

into a front court that is big and strong and fast enough to just keep away his easy rim opportunities, and then a defensive scheme that takes away some of his easier passing reads. Suddenly it becomes about making more advanced reads as a passer and about hitting shots over the top of really good defenders, and both of those

things are weaknesses for Yiannis. His best go to over the top shot when he has to shoot over a defender is a left should hook, and he's only making that about forty two percent of the time right now, which is worth about zero point eighty four points per shot. And he's become a good passer, but he's he's not good enough to make up for the lack of that

solid over the top shot. He's not a surgical passer, and so most of Giannis's playoff failures have come down to him ending up in close games late and just not really having a consistent way to attack and generate quality shots, Like even as recently as two years ago when he was playing against the Heat. We saw what

happened in that series. It was Jimmy Butler going the other way and just surgically demolishing them with over the top shot making, while Jannis goes down in bricks a left shoulder hook over bam Adebayo because he can't cleanly beat him to the rim the way he can. Most of the lesser defenders that are in the league right now, for the purpose of the bucks, they have dame now,

so that counters a lot of these specific issues. But for the purpose of this exercise, which again remember the criteria is we're drafting from scratch, and Dame is also in the top twenty five, so he'd get drafted by a different team, which means that as we're kind of like drafting among this like kind of a vacant list of teams with all of the league's players available, as we're drafting for this upcoming season, when I'm building around Yannis as my third overall pick, I've got to fill

in that half court offensive initiation piece, and that's a challenging piece, especially when I'm gonna be circling back around with a guy who's outside of the top thirty in the NBA, and so it's a little challenging. Get to take it further, if I had the third overall pick, theoretically in a snake draft, I would have pick what

what's that pick? Fifty seven or fifty eight, right, So like I'm gonna get the I'm gonna get Yanis, and I'm gonna get the fifty eighth best player in the league, and is the fifty eighth best player in the league, gonna be someone that can help me address Giannis's limitations as a shot creator. That's just something that has to be factored in. And that's the main reason why I

have him behind Luka Doncic and Nikola Jokic. And I've gone over this in more detail before, but like it's it's really this simple to me, Like, if I'm building from scratch, I think it's easier to take a limited defensive player and craft him a small defensive role while building a functional defense around him with role players than it is to do the opposite, which is to take a limited offensive player and plug him into a and somehow like account for his weaknesses with role players in scheme.

On the offensive end, like elite high end offensive shot creation is a superpower that is impossible to replicate, whereas like elite team defense is something that I can do even with some limited offensive players. And so that's the main ethos for me that drives having a guy like Yannis behind guys like Luka Doncic and Nikola Jokic. As for the defensive end, Yiannis is an incredibly versatile frontline defender. You can use him in ball screens as like the

screen defender. We've seen amazing reps of that. Specifically, if you guys remember in the twenty twenty one finals. That was like one of the big ways that Yannas swung that series late was just just being a devastating ball screen defender, being able to get up on the ball handler while also recovering back to the lob threat. Famously, he had that huge block on the DeAndre Ayton lob. I think that was in game four, see the game

four game. No, he was in game five or six, I can't remember exactly which game it was of that series, but it's a very good ball screen defender, just an absolute devastating lowman. That's probably his best role. Meaning like if brook Lopez is on the screen and he's coming up to the level, Jannis has the roller brook Lopez's roller getting behind him, He's got to split the difference between the roleman and the guy in that week side corner.

And there's few players in the league that are even close to as impactful as Giannis in terms of stepping up and bothering that role man in some way, shape or form. But also if the skip pass is made or if the roller makes the skip pass, being able

to RecA to the corner. One of my favorite examples of that was a game against the Mavericks a few years back, where I watched Luka Doncicic deliberately bring Yiannis into the action in switches just so that he didn't have to use him as the low man had no

interest in shooting over. Jiannis wasn't even trying, but was just making sure that the guy he was throwing the skip pass over was a different guy than Yannis because he was so scared of Yannis's ability to scared the wrong word, but because he was concerned about Yannis's ability to shut that action down. You can use him in

a switching scheme. I don't think he's as great on the perimeter guarding some quicker players as some of the other big guys in the league, guys like Ad, guys like guys like even Gobert, even guys like Bam, but he's still really good at it. He's just not as good as some of the guys at the top of the league. But you can certainly use him in a

switching scheme. And he's an elite defensive rebounders like so like with When you combine all that together, it just makes an incredible defensive foundation, and specifically that ability to be in two places at once is what unlocks aggressive coverages. So if you've got a guy that in a ball screen can guard the ball handler but also recover to the lob, or a guy that as the lowman can recover, or that can shut down the lob threat but also

recover to the corner. That makes it so that you can give up a four on three without having to worry about actually giving up an open shot. Right. What that means is you can put two on the ball. That's an amazing bit of flexibility. Right, Like in a low man situation, you can have Brooke come way out to the level of the screen because Giannis is one of the best in the world at being two places

at once on that back line. And then as far as the ball handler goes in ball screens, if Yiannis is in the action as the screen defender, his ability to split the difference between those two guys makes it so that you don't have to use your lowman. You can keep your lowman in the corner at least closer to the corner, which allows you to kind of keep your defense out of rotation. It's a huge value. Like

when you're building a a team from scratch. You can't do much better than Janis Santana Kumpo as a defensive foundation. But as I said, the reason why that does it because that's the inevitable question, right Jason. If Giannis is a much better defensive foundation than Luka Jokic, why is any above them. That's where we get into that bit. I was just talking to you guys about as it pertains to building an offense around a limited offensive player

versus building a defense around a limited defensive player. One other issue with janis that is somewhat concerning. He's starting to encounter some more health issues, specifically with his knee, which is scary and a crazy stat To demonstrate this to you guys, Giannis has been available to play in just three of Milwaukee's last eleven playoff games, and he played just eleven minutes in one of those games. So he's played in basically two and a half playoff games

total in the last twenty seven months. That's sketchy, that's a little bit concerning. He's also in his last five years averaging only sixty five regular season games played, so Yiannis is no longer what I would consider to be like a sure thing. In terms of availability, like he's closer to Ad than he is to Joki in terms of like actual being actually being ready to play all of the time. And so I think that that's become an interesting little curveball to throw in here. But in summer,

Yiannis is a rock solid foundation to build around. He's one of the top five defensive players in the world, with an abundance of different ways to use him, which obviously helps for roster building. And you can just book him for thirty points per game on sixty plus ture shooting every single year, and that is incredibly steady production that you can take and build around, and it makes

for an easier job for the GM. But his weakness as a half court shot creator and that strange availability issue that I just talked about, excuse me, put him behind the top two guys for the time being. Number two Luca don Chic seventy games played thirty three point nine points per game, that was our scoring champion last year, most in the NBA, nine point two rebounds per game, nine point eight assists per game that was third in

the NBA behind Trey Young and Tyrese Haliburton. He got one point nine stocks per game one point four steals per game, did some really solid work as a weak side defender, playing passing lanes like Luca. Did take significant strides as an off ball defender this year. Most of his defensive issues were on the ball, particularly in switches, which we'll get into more later. His shooting splits forty eight point seven percent from the field, thirty eight point

two percent from three on ten point six attempts. That was the major revelation last year, massive increase in three point volume in efficiency, had a step back three going like never before. I think he shot thirty eight percent on step back threes during the regular season last year, seventy nine percent in free throws, fifty seven percent in field goal percent effective field goal percentage, and just under

sixty two percent in true shooting. The shooting stats perc energy one point zero eight points per jump shot, one point one two points per catch and shoot jump shot shot, forty eight percent field goals when he was unguarded. That was a really useful thing, alongside Kyrie Irving seventy two percent in catch and shoot unguarded jump shots. When you count for threes, that's when you weigh it for threes. Luca was the best pull up jump shooter in all

of basketball last year. He got one point zero nine points per shot. Among the sixteen players in the NBA to attempt at least five hundred, Luca was first. He also made the most in the league at three hundred and fifty eight, so the highest volume and efficiency pulled up jump shooter in the league last year. That's a really impressive stat. He got one point zero six points per face up jumper took about two per game last year,

so that was a really effective shot for him. And then his go too shot in ball screens fifty five percent on floaters, he made eighty three of them. The deadly move. He just come over the top of the screen, put the defender and jail on his backside, kind of work his way up that right lane line, and then just shoot that little floater into lane. He can just make it at such a high rate. And then he shot seventy one percent at the rim. But he doesn't

get there a ton. He had two point nine makes in the restricted area per game, less than you'd hope for a big Ford, but at the same time, kind of somewhat what you'd expect for a guy who's not necessarily a great athlete. I want to dive some more into Luca, like putting defenders in jail in the way that he scores. Here at a minute, when we get done with their play type data. So playtype data, this is Luca's claim to fame. Right, fifteen hundred ball screens

including passes for sixteen hundred and fifty six points. That's one point one zero points per possession. That ranked fifth out of the fifteen players to log at least a thousand reps this year. He ran the most ISOs in the league, with seven hundred and thirty six, eighty more than the second person on that list, which was Shay Gil Just Alexander still got one point zero nine points

per possession. That was seventh out of the twenty four players to run at least two hundred fifty and then he ran two hundred and thirty three post ups for two hundred and fifty points including passes. That's one point zero seven points per possession. That's in the sixty fourth percentile. So if you total those all together, Luca ran two four hundred and sixty nine possessions of half court shot creation.

That's more than twice as much as Gianni's just for some perspective, one point one zero points per possession including passes. That's a massive volume, obviously, but like the efficiency is obviously crazy, one point one zero points per possession. But I don't think people realize how crazy that that straight up total number of possessions is almost twenty five hundred

pick and rolls, ISOs and post ups. That is that that's a one man offense the likes of which we haven't seen since James Harden, and without the playoff limitations that James Harden has because lucas so much more versatile offensively. So what is the secret what makes Luca such a deadly half court shot creator? And to me, it comes down to the size and strength that allows him to get to his spots, combined with the footwork to make sure he's getting there efficiently in terms of movement, and

then the playmaking is attached to it. So I want you to think give it from a very basic standpoint. When Luca is faced up with the defender one on one, even though he's not particularly quick, his ability to change direction by selling moves is what allows him to beat people off the dribble. Luca I've said this a lot to my young players, the ones that I train in

high school. They when you're learning how to dribble, it's less about making big, sweeping crossover dribbles and more about when you were facing to the right, where your eyes to the right, where your shoulders to the right, or your hips to the right, did you look like you were going to go to the right before you brought the ball back to the left, Because that matters way more than how nifty your actual ball ball handling move is. It's about selling a change of direction right, and Luca

is the best at this in my opinion. Luca will hit multiple dribble combinations and if you watch him, he will literally in slow motion. He will sell every single part of every single move with every part of his body. I think he's an excellent player to watch if you're a young basketball player out there in terms of just learning how to disguise your moves better. So that's piece number one. Then there's the size and strength piece. So one of the things that Luca does that kills everyone

is putting a defender in jail. So think of it like this, If you go underneath the ball screen, Lucas just gonna hit a pull up three. Right. He shot thirty eight percent ou on him last year. That's one point one four points per shot. Just not a good idea. He can't go under the ball screen on Luca, so you have to chase him over the top. Now, as soon as you chase him over the top, here's the ball screen, right, Lucas coming off shoulder to shoulder with

that screener. So if he comes off shoulder to shoulder, there's no gap in there for you to beat him around and get in front of him. Right, So now you're behind him. But then what Luca does instead, Like like guys like Anthony Edwards and other downhill athletes, they'll come off shoulder to shoulder and then they'll attack immediately. And that's because that's their advantage. Their biggest advantage is just trying to get downhill with real force and speed. Right,

Lucas not a downhill force and speed guy. So what he does is as soon as he comes off that ball screen, and this is what he did to Jada McDaniels the entire Western Conference finals. Now Jada McDaniels is behind him, and Luca is just so much bigger and stronger than him. He's basically doing a reverse post up. So like in a post up, Luca is gonna be backing a guy like Jada McDaniels down right and using power dribbles to get closer and closer to the rim.

He's doing the opposite in those ball screens. He's coming off the ball screens and Jayden is behind him, and he's taking slow dribbles forward while also sealing with his backside and his shoulders to make sure Jaden stays behind him. From there, he's just gonna work downhill while reading the screen defender. So in this case, Go Bear right and all he's doing is he's sitting there and he's reading Gobart as he's got Jaden trapped on his backside. He's

getting downhill. If Go Bear steps up, boom lob pass to Lively or Gafford. If Go Bear steps up and you know someone like a Karl Anthony Towns like steps over and checks the roll man, that's when he's throwing that looping skip pass over the top to the weak

side corner. And then if Gobert stays back and the lowman cat stays back, he's just gonna keep working with Jaden on his backside until he gets about seven eight feet from the basket, and that's where he's gonna take that little floater that he's hitting at damn near fifty five percent right now. And so that's really what makes him so devastating is there's not really a coverage that

you can use against him if you blitz him. They have such wonderful four out spacing that it's gonna be Derek Lively catching on the roll with two options in the corner, and there's only going to be two guys to guard those three guys, right because Lively's man is on Luca now, So all you have is a read in the corner or read in the corner, or you as the role man going downhill. If they don't tag him, he's dunking. If they do tag him, he's throwing an

easy swing pass out to the corner. That's one of the for all of the downsides of four out spacing, one of the upsides of four out spacing is it it's like really set up easy for reads out of a blitz because it's so spread out and the reads

are just very simple. As Luca comes off the screen and gets the double he's gonna throw it to Lively over the top, and Lively just has a simple three on two to make at that point because Kyrie's above the break on the left wing and he's probably not going to get helped off of it, and if he does, it's just an extra pass out of the corner. So you really can't blitz. They're gonna score to high right there. If you duck under picks, he's hitting thirty eight percent

of off the dribble threes. If you chase over the top, he's gonna get you trapped in trail position and work downhill until he can make a read. And then if you do switch, he's a deadly io and post up thread. He's damn near one point one points per io and post ups. So like there's just not really like a defensive scheme that you can throw at him that will

shut him down. Like even in the Boston series, like it specifically came down to Boston tilting those attempts towards above the break threes for limited shooters, but that was more about the roster, like to be clear, Like if you put Luca in Boston in Jason Tatum spot and he runs the exact same ball screen sequence with Chris hops Porzingis, and it's always Derek White or Drew Holliday or Jalen Brown that's catching above the break threes out of that, like those are gonna all of a sudden

be great shots that Luca's demonstrating. So like there's another conversation to have about roster building and like whether or not some of the offensive limitations of those guys that created the elite Dallas defense that if there's like a

give and take that comes with that. But in terms of just strictly in a vacuum, if I'm building a roster from scratch, Luca is the best perimeter initiator in the league right now, and and there's no coverage that works against him, and it creates these small, easy opportunities for your offensive players, which like it's like there's a lack of versatility with Luca, right Like with Luca, I kind of have to play four out and I kind

of have to be heliocentric. Luca is not exactly Remember those stats that I read to you with uh with Yannis about Remember those stats I read to you about Giannis about the percentage of his buckets that came as a play finisher, So fifty six percent of Yannis's buckets came as a plate play play finisher. Sixty five percent of Luca's made baskets came directly out of post ups,

ISOs and pick and rolls as the shooter. So like that there is there's some truth to the fact that, like he has some limitations in terms of the way you can build around him. But at the same time, I can flip that around and be like, Okay, there's only one way to build, but it's pretty simple, Like, give me a secondary shot creator that can run the offense when Luca's on the bench, and run the offense when Luca needs a possession off and then I need a couple of guys who can screen and roll hard

to the rim as like vertical spacers. And then I just need three and D guys. I need guys that can guard and go stand in the corner and just make really simple reads and so like there's a lack of versatility. But the flip side is like his method is a proven method. Give me an elite defense and a legit secondary shot creator with Luca, and I have a really good chance to win the title. And that's the main reason why I have him up at number two on this list. He this was the first Finals

run of Luca's career. He averaged twenty nine points, ten rebounds, and eight assists on fifty six percent and true shooting. Struggled a bit with efficiency, that's a six percent drop in true shooting. But he also was a bit banged up. I'm not going to get into that right now, though, we'll get into that later when we're talking about his weaknesses.

But he had several big moments. He went crazy in the fourth quarter against against the Clippers in Game two, if you remember, that's when he hit the pair of step back threes and assisted a couple more in that stretch. He made the raid to PJ Washington in Game six against the thunder that got the that essentially ended up

winning the series for Dallas. He hit the game winner over Rudy Gobert in Game two against Minnesota, and they also had that crazy scoring burst in the first quarter of a Game five against Minnesota that basically executed the Timberwolves at that point. So like, really really impressive playoffrun, although he did run into some issues in the finals.

We'll get more into that in a minute. Basically proved though to that point that I was making that if you give Luca an elite defense and a secondary shot creator, you just have a really good chance to win the title. And that's a strong foundation to build off now weaknesses. Everything for Luke in terms of untapped potential comes down to his physical conditioning. There are two primary reasons that are areas I should say where he runs into issues

with his physical conditioning fatigue and on ball defense. Let's talk about fatigue first, Luca pretty consistently wore down at the end of playoff games this year. He shot just six for seventeen in clutch situations in the finals run. I think that's like right around thirty five percent, and he shot just two for eight from three in clutch situations again, anytime the game was within five with less than five minutes left. Luca's efficiency tanked as he struggled

to get separation and lyft on his jump shot. He also shot just three for twenty four from three over the final three games of the NBA Finals, And like most of that to me, especially on the eye test as you're watching, he's just not getting the same amount of lift in separation that he needs to get. Now, obviously there's a health element to that. Will get more into that here in just a minute. The second thing, the second area where we see Luca's lack of conditioning

manifest is on the defensive end. And I thought he had the most embarrassingly bad defensive performance I've ever seen in the finals against Boston. They were routinely putting him in action and beating him off the dribble to get their defense into rotation. And from there, obviously you're dead

against Boston because they have so much shooting in ball handling. Now, the conversation around Luke on the defensive end is complicated because there's on the ball and then there's off the ball, right, the off ball situation like playing passing lanes and like reading the ball handler. He's actually been very very good. I shouldn't say very very good, but he's been useful, right,

And he has some big plays like that. You guys remember the big steal on the lob pass against Minnesota where he baited Mike Conley into not taking the floater, but then like stepped back and got the steal on the lob pass. Like that's him understanding reading the ball handler and baiting and making a defensive play like he's actually become a useful off ball player but on the ball,

which we primarily saw against the Clippers and Celtics. And that's there's some truth to the match part of this, right, Like certain teams are space you out and attack matchup teams, and other teams are kind of like running a different type of offensive style, right, And so the Clippers and Celtics are both like drive and kick teams, and so

they were hunting matchups. And one of the unique things about Luca is like, usually when you're trying to save a on ball defender that can't guard, you want to do a hedge and recover scheme. We see this a ton with guards, right, Like Steph Curry's been doing this with the Warriors forever. Oh, you're trying to pick on

Steph in a switch. All he's gonna do is as you're coming off that like, as you're coming off the screen this side, he's gonna throw a hedge to force you to take a negative dribble away from the basket, and then he's going to recover to the screener because as that screener sets the screen he's slipping out of it to the three point line. So the hedge is here, and this guy's running all the way over here to shoot right. So Steph will throw the hedge and then

he'll sprint back to the shooter right. Well, Luca is so slow footed that you can't hedge with him. If he he hedges out here and that guy slips to the three point line, he's just gonna be wide open because lukea is not the kind of guy that can throw a hedge and then sprint back out on a closeout. That makes it so he pretty much has to switch and from there, like, there are some good possessions to his credit. He had some big stops against Paul George

in the first round series in ISO. However, Paul George is a pull up shooting wing who attempted who made just one point nine shots in the restricted area per game last year. He's a guy who basically doesn't drive to the basket right. And when he ran into real driving guards and wings against Boston, he had serious issues and he was giving blowbys up to everybody right, and

that was the main issue. And like that I think does come down to his conditioning, just like the just like the tailing off at the tail end of games like we saw in the postseason run. Now I heard three main excuses from MAVs fans for the stuff with Luca's health and his defense. The first one i'd hear would be his job is to get beat off the dribble and to funnel guys into rim protection. That's literally not a thing. It's actually one of the most absurd

excuses I've ever heard. Yes, coaching staffs will set up their weakest perimeter defenders with lots of backside help in case they do get beat, but they still have a job to try to flatten out drives as much as possible, meaning instead of giving up a straight line drive, you need to flatten them out and make them go laterally as much as possible. And Luca just didn't do a

good job of that. And Jason Kidd, the head coach of his team, specifically called Luca out in the playoff run for not defending well enough, which is something he wouldn't do if he was, you know, schematically being asked to give up blowbys like that's completely absurd. The second big excuse I heard from Mavms fans was he was injured, Yes he was, but he also looked chunky and out of shape most of the last few seasons. Those things

are directly related. Like, if Luca was in keeik physical condition like most of his peers are, he'd be less susceptible to injuries. That's just to fact. And then the third excuse, if Luca was in better shape, he'd be smaller and he wouldn't be able to bully guys the

way that he does. And that's based on the fact that Luca's been getting bigger each year, not smaller, right, Like, Luca's not losing weight, he's actually putting weight on, right, And the counterexamples to that are like, if you look up video of him in the bubble cooking the clippers,

he looks small and thin and quick. If you look up that video that was going around of him as a rookie having all those dunks, he looks small in thin and quick and so like, there's a lot of like uh uh, there's a lot of like focus on him being bigger and stronger than everybody. But here's the thing.

First of all, if he trimmed his body fat and replaced that with functional muscle mass, he would be big and strong enough to bully people while also being mobile enough and conditioned enough to defend and to stay strong late into games. So like, that's the thing. Is like, that's not a valid excuse in my opinion. And then there's a bonus excuse, which I've heard from a lot of people, which is like, this is just this is

just what happens when you get older, you put on weight. Yeah, regular dudes who are not professional athletes get a little dowe in their mid twenties. That's a thing, but that's not a thing for professional athletes. Luca's twenty five years old. He should be in the best shape of his life, and he's just not. He's and he's seeing some diminishing returns there. It feels silly to say because he's the second best basketball player in the world, but it's all

about unfulfilled potential. Luca is already the second best player in the world, despite not putting in the work behind the scenes that he needs to directify those issues. I think Luca could literally rule this league, like run this damn league the way the all time greats do if he pushed himself to the next level in terms of his physical conditioning. I think it's valid criticism. So in summary,

Luca has some shortcomings. He doesn't take as good a care of body as he needs to, he's not super versatile, there aren't many defensive roles he can fill, and he kind of is stuck in four out one in helio centric offense at this point, so building around him does kind of require you to go one specific direction on both ends of the floor. But he is such a profoundly gifted offensive initiator that building a championship contender around him is easier than it is for almost every other

player in the league. You just need a handful of things secondary JACQ creator to run the offense when Luca's off the floor and when he needs a break, rim running screener, and then three and D play finishers guys that they don't have to initiate offense. They don't have

to run action, they don't have to make reads. All they have to do is guard on the other end of the floor and go stand in the corner until Lucas Spoon feeds you threes, and just like that, you're automatically one of the top seven or eight teams in the league, which gives you a good chance to win the title. So to put it simply, I like my chances to win a title building from scratch around Luca this year, more than any player in the league except for Nicola Jokitch, which is why I've put him at

number two. All right, let's get to the mail bag and then we'll get out of here for the day. Out of just sheer curiosity, Say Tatum almost completely shuts off the stupid pull up threes and just spends the entire season attacking the rim while improving his net three point percentage to close to close to his catch and shoot one of about thirty nine point six percent. Say he becomes a thirty eight percent three point shooter and a like a fifty to fifty two percent overall shooter.

Where would you say he'd ran a rank at that point? Because if the projection is ant is awful in the wait hold on, because if the projection is ant, is somehow going to magically do that when we haven't seen it apart from short bursts in the playoffs. Remember Aunt was awful in the Western Conference finals, whereas Tatum legitimately could get to that point if he eliminates some of

the Kobe shots from his game. I think, to me, it makes more sense to have Tatum above him, not saying you'll ever actually do that, but if we were to make the effort, he probably could get to that elite offensive engine status. So it's tricky because you can't completely stop taking pull up threes because you got to take certain amount of him to keep the defense honest. Right. The best example I use is Lebron, Right, Like, Tatum takes about seven and a half pull up jump shots

in a game. Lebron takes about three and a half. Lebron's like he's only getting like zero point nine to seven points per possession, which is like solid but not great. But it's like that's not the purpose. He's not doing that to like drive his offense. He's using as it as a counter to keep the defense honest. Right, That's what I want Tatum to get down to, is like right around that three to four pull up jump shot attempts per game. But if he did that, he would

become more efficient, especially in the postseason. Here's a real basic stat to demonstrate this to you, guys. Jason Tatum has never had a playoff run over fifty nine percent true shooting, which by the way, Anthony Edwards just did. But his peers at the ford position have all done it pretty consistently. Lebron has done it seven times, KD has done it seven times, Kawhi has done it nine times.

Tatum's done it bagel times in seven playoff runs. And that comes down to the fact that he's not getting enough of the high value efficient shots closer to the rim. So like if Jason Tatum took four pull up jump shots a game less than he usually did and directed those all towards post up attempts, drives additional things that

kind of drive more efficient shot shot types. I do think he could enter into a higher echelon of efficiency in the postseason, but I don't think he'll ever enter the ranks of like the great offensive engines, just simply because he doesn't have an A plus offensive skill, Like he's just pretty good at everything, but he's not great at anything on the offensive ends. So what that means is he'll inevitably run into an elite defense that can

stop him from getting to his spots consistently. And then when that happens, that's where his efficiency can run into some issues. Compared to the regular season. Just to mention, Jason Tatum is a career eighty four percent free throw shooter, never shot below eighty one percent in a season. Just thought it was worth bringing up in reference to Ant's best fe throw shooting season in the connection with overall shooting.

For the record, I've said this many times. I think Tatum is a good shooter who's just in a slump. Do I think he's a good pull up shooter. No, but there are some reasons there. I think the main reason for Tatum not being a good pull up shooter is he has a really long mechanical gather, Like he really tucks that elbow and gets the ball up underneath before he rises up, and that just stops fluidity and

stops energy transfer. Like, really good pull up shooters are usually super fluid and there's no hitch and they have a quick gather, which Tatum just doesn't have. So like, do I think Tatum will ever be a great pull up shooter at volume? Probably not. I think he'll have good seasons and good playoff runs over the course of his career because he just works so hard on it, But I don't think it'll be something that ever becomes a consistent foundational skill for him. But I do think

he's a very good shooter. He's just in a shooting slump right now and he will eventually get out of it. I think the idea of ant getting exposed comes from him finally playing a team with good rim protection and not doing well. Teams are going to exploit that. Again, Guys, he averaged twenty five nine to eight in the conference finals, so like, it's not like he like completely fell flat

on his ass. He really struggled in the first two games, and then I want to say, he was like, what was he like twenty eight, ten and eight or something in the final three games of that series, Like he was still putting up crazy numbers, and like, rim protection certainly makes things tougher for everybody, Like elite rim protection has historically won in the NBA for a long time, right, Like that goes without saying, especially with already Gobert on

the floor. But that was only part of the issue.

The major issue was actually not about rim protection. It was more about just getting the ball out of Anthony Edwards's hands, and that started at the tail end of the Denver series when they started getting really aggressive with Jokic up to the level of the screen, bringing two defenders on ant in ball screens and then go Bear and Nikil, Alexander Walker and Jade McDaniels and Kyle Anderson and some of their limited offensive players not being able

to convert those four on threes. That was the real issue that was hurting Minnesota as much as anything else. My main criticism with Ant is in the first two game of that series, in particular, he just was really passive when Dallas was forcing the ball out of his hands. People are too focused on how high Ant is. They are completely ignoring how fucking high Shade is as well, relative to his accomplishments or lack thereof. Remember, guys, this

list is not about accomplishments at all whatsoever. It is entirely about projection for this coming October through June. All of these people complaining in the comments about your Anthony Edwards ranking, but you dropped the video ten minutes ago. They didn't watch anything you said. This is a super common thing that I see on the show. People just complain for the sake of complaining. They don't actually ever

hear me out and what I have to say. But for the record, like, that's kind of an inherent part of this business. I've experienced that ever since I started podcasting or even just talking about basketball on Twitter. Like there's good faith debating, and then there's bad faith debating. There are people that are like, hey, I disagree with you, here's why, and then there's the fuck you, you asshole, you're wrong. Like that's an eternal part of this business that will

never go away. No matter how much work I put in, no matter how much I defend my stances, no matter how open minded I try to be, no matter how unbiased I try to be, there will always be angry people yelling in the comments. It's just kind of a natural part of this job. It just comes with the territory. Tatum has been and is already a perennial MVP candidate. He has one top five MVP finish in seven seasons.

Right now, DraftKings has Anthony Edwards at plus twelve hundred to win MVP and they have Tatum at plus eighteen hundred to win MVP. So I mean, that's pretty strong indicator that Tatum's just not in that group of guys that we would consider to be perennial MVP candidates. There are zero things that Aunt does better than Jason Tatum on a basketball court. Zero. I'm saving this video and coming back in next June. Two things. Ant is substantially quicker with his first step and is a better pull

up shooter. Those are two very simple things on offense that he's better than Tatum. I don't have to get any further into it. Second piece, I also think Tatum will be playing in June, and I think Ant probably won't because the Celtics have the most talent in the league by far, and the Wolves have a roster with several limits. I'm worried with Gobert that they'll ever be able to win at the highest levels because he just clogs things up for their offense. Last question, how do

you think Minnesota and OKC would fare? This is a really interesting question. How do you think Minnesota and OKAC would fare if they switched superstars for the twenty twenty four to twenty twenty five season in playoffs? Ant with more spacing and SGA with a more experienced cast. Weirdly enough, I actually think both teams would be better. And this is a super interesting kind of like thought exercise with basketball.

Ant is a downhill driving force, so putting him in real five out spacing would unlock that in a major way. Do you Timberwolves because they have such limited offensive personnel like guys on the floor like Jaden and like we talked about so many times, those guys actually make it so that you have to be more surgical on offense.

So like I look at it like this, Ant in Oklahoma City would be more valuable because of the spacing, and Shay in Minnesota alongside that elite defense would be more value well because he could be the surgical offensive player to create something out of nothing in bad spacing situation. So like ironically, like I did give you swat both of them, I think Minnesota and Oklahoma City both get better, which is a really interesting basketball concept. All right, guys,

that is all I have for today. Is always a sincerely appreciate you for supporting the show. If you're a Lord of the Rings fan, I did a reaction with my buddy Luke on the first three episode of Rings of Power. You can find that we're on YouTube under two Sons Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast under two Sons podcast And then tomorrow will be recording a reaction to the episode four as well, so make sure

you guys check that out again. We'll be back on Friday with number one on this list, and the next week we have some fun stuff before we get into our season previews. Again. I appreciate you guys for supporting the show and for rocking with me, and I'll see you guys in a couple of days the volume What's Up guys? As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take a second and

leave a rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.