Hoops Tonight - Top 25 NBA Players: Nikola Jokic UNSTOPPABLE, Nuggets will bounce back

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our player rankings journey. Today we are hitting number one Nicola jokicch and then I've got a mailbag for the tail end of the show. Next week we'll have two follow up videos to the player rankings list. I have the nerd sash guys coming on on Monday, we're gonna argue about our top ten, and then on Wednesday, I'm gonna be doing a video that's more of like a bragging rights focus, so kind of similar to last year's criteria, where we're just looking at who had the best season

in terms of bragging rights. Not gonna do top twenty five. We're just gonna focus on like the top five or so. But we'll do that next week and then we're turning our attention forward to next season. But we're gonna tie up our player rankings today. I hope you guys enjoyed the launch of the NFL season last night. Obviously a super entertaining game. I am always blown away every year at the start of the NFL season by just how like culturally resonant it is here in the United States.

Like I'm as big a basketball fan as you'll find, obviously, I mean, I've given my entire life to the game, but like, like I don't see anything in the game of basketball that like really engages the community the way that the NFL does. And like I'm with a bunch of friends and family last night and on that crazy last Baltimore drive, just the energy that's in that room, Like I don't when I go over and see my friends and family and I'm watching an NBA playoff game

or something like that. Let's just say it doesn't engage the entire room the way that the NFL can. And it's it's funny because like it's it's fascinating from a business standpoint, because the NBA in terms of revenue is closer to the NFL than you would think given that gap in cultural residence. But like I was just blown away last night, like the NFL is just an entirely

different animal with the way that it engages people. But for all of you psychopaths out there that are turning down the NFL content today to watch me talk about Nankola Jokic, I appreciate you guys for rocking with me. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops and Night YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at

underscore JSNLTS. You guys, don't miss you announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feed where we gout 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 not least, keep dropping mailback questions in those YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them over the course of the rest of this summer. So Nicole Yokich last year seventy nine games played. He's played in at least seventy

two games in eight of his nine NBA seasons. The only time he didn't was two years ago when they won the title, and he played sixty nine games in that year, So he's one of the most available stars in the league. He was the MVP of the league last year. He's won three out of the last four. The last guy to do that was Lebron James, who won four out of five, So obviously Jokich has a chance to match that run this year. But in terms of guys to win three MVPs in four seasons, before

Lebron was Magic Johnson. Before Magic Johnson was Larry Bird, Before Larry Bird was Kareem, before Kareem was Wilt, and before Wilt was Bill Russell. So that's Lebron, Magic, Larry Career, Wilt, and Russell. That's really rare company. That's some damn good company for Nikola Jokic to be in in terms of MVP production. You know, I had a lot of over the course of this Jokic stretch that he's been on.

One of the takes that I've had is that I think this is the most dominant individual stretch, like the most the highest ceiling individual stretch since Lebron James and I had a lot of Steph Curry fans in particular, get very upset at me for saying that, and like I want to just I want to just remind people, like what we're seeing from Jokic is exceedingly rare. Like I said, like the two guys to do it since Magic are Lebron and Nikola Jokic in terms of three

MVPs in four seasons. He finished second in the year that he didn't win it, and he won the title that year, and so like I want to like just shine a little bit of a light on the fact that, like, even though we're in the mix of this here and there's a lot of really good players in the league, and as we're going to discuss today, I think Jokic has slipped back to the pack a little bit in the last season because of some issues that he had

on defense and with his jump shot. But what we're seeing in terms of just sheer basketball accomplishment right now is pretty rare, and I hope that that doesn't just slide under the radar when we're looking back at Jokic this is it's not usual to see a guy rack up the accolades that we've seen Nicola rack up over

the last few years. His counting stats from last year twenty six points per game, twelve rebounds per game, nine as sister per game, two point three steals plus blocks per game is shooting splits.

throws to that equation. Shooting stats per s energy, he got one point zero one points per jump shot, considerably down from last year, but we'll talk about that in a little bit. One point zero five points per catch and shoot, zero point eighty three off the dribble, zero point eighty one in face up situation. So not a very good jump shooting season from Jokic relative to what you expect. Sixty three percent on floaters and sixty percent on hooks, three hundred and eighty nine total attempts on

hooks and floaters. That's the most dependable single possession scorer in the league right there in NIKOLEA.

and sixty six points. That's one point zero five points per possession, which is the seventy fourth percentile. And then Jokic is the best post up player in the league by any metric. He ran eight hundred and twenty nine post ups last year. Second place was Anthony Davis at four hundred and forty three, so just an entirely different

stratosphere in terms of volume. He also got one point one five points per possession, which including passes, which is first among the eighteen players in the NBA to log at least two hundred and fifty reps, and Lebron was in second place at one one point one point one points per possession, so a full four points per one hundred possessions above the rest of the field. In efficiency, as we mentioned, his volume is off the charts. He generated seventy six made threes for his teammates out of

post ups. That was thirty five more than anyone else on the list. He's just the best at it. But at the same time, when we're talking play type data with Jokich, we got to remember he can really score within the flow of the offense. He got one point two eight points per roleman possession that ranked second out of the twelve players to log at least two hundred roll man possessions. He personally shot sixty two percent on the roll, so just incredibly deadly when he catches there

in the pocket looking to finish. He scored one hundred and twenty times on cuts. He scored ninety two times on offensive rebound put backs. That was the fourth most in the entire NBA. So that's really a main differentiator for jokis he can play with real ball in player movement like he can score in the flow of an equal opportunity offense, which opens up opportunities for his other players to be confident looking to make plays. That's what

you'll see Aaron Gordon take possessions on. You'll see Michael Porter Junior and Contavious Calbo Pope look to do things with the ball in their hands. Obviously we know what Jamal Murray can do. It's an equal opportunity offense. Even though Jokic is the fulkrum of it. You know, when it comes to a baskets that he makes out of like straight up on the ball post ups and ISOs, it's a small percentage of the amount of baskets he

actually makes. And that's one of the things that I think is a ceiling razor for a team when you can say that a player is going to score and score efficiently, and can score as a singular force, but also can be plugged into a system where everybody is confident and involved in the offense. I think there's real value there, and that is, for the record, one of the four main reasons I have Jokic over Luca. But

we're gonna get to that later. So now that we've ripped through the numbers, let's get into some of the breakdown of the specific reasons why Jokic is the best player in the league. So it starts with looking at the offensive end of the flour in the big picture sense that I think Jokic among all the offensive engine archetypes, and like, these are guys that are like kind of an offense in and of themselves, and everybody is this

to a certain extent, but they're really good. Ones that we think of are guys like Jokic, guys like Luka Doncic. I think Steph Curry's kind of an engine unto himself. Lebron James is kind of like that. Tyres Halliburn is kind of like that, where it's almost like the player has like this unique play style that they inflict on a roster and they just seem to generate high level offense consistently, right, Like, that's kind of the identity of what we call an offensive engine.

So you know, we're gonna do a lot more as we head into the series season previews and as we head into the season, we're gonna go back to doing more video and we're gonna go back to doing more like when I show you guys the actual like x's and o's chart that.

they are the folk crumb. They are the guy that is dribbling at this one side of the floor to get the dribble handoff to the guy that's either coming off of a pin down or just coming out of the corner by himself, and he is setting a screen.

But as he sets that screen, he is turning into the middle of the floor and making himself available on the catch, and in many cases he will catch there and have to make the next play in terms of like shooting on the role if it's a floater or drawing that extra defender for a kickout pass two a three. But in the event that the play doesn't amount to anything,

the ball has to be reversed. And so if that's a drop off to Jokic that doesn't amount to anything, that he has to turn and look to the other end of the floor, or if the guard throws a swing pass, if the guard swings it to the other end of the floor, that role man, the guy who set the screen on the first side, has to sprint over to the other side and set another screen for

another player coming off of another dribble handoff. That player there, that big man, the five man in five out is critically important for greasing the wheels as the ball moves to both ends of the floor. It extends beyond that to making passes against overplays. So one of the most common plays you'll see defensively is you'll see a big guy dribble over to the wing to go do a

dribble handoff for a five out action. But it'll be a really good shooter or scorer coming out of the corner, and so his defender will top lock him, meaning he will slide up to his top side and literally deny him the use of the screen. Like if the screen is where the camera is, the defender is going to position himself right here, which makes it so that he

can't go that way, so he has to backcut. And it's very important for the big man, the big man who's dribbling to that side of the floor to be capable of making those reads and making those passes to guys cutting back door or slipping out of screening actions. You'll see the same thing where like you'll run like a Chicago action, which is where you have a guy screened down for the corner as he comes off into where the big man is right so it's like a

pin down into a dribble handoff. In that situation, you have two guards in the action. If they botch the switch in some way, shape or form, you have an opportunity to slip there into an opening. If that happens, you need your big man to be paying attention and to be able to make those reads and so like.

When it comes to modern NBA offense and the majority of teams now are starting to kind of tilt towards this kind of five out approach, you need to have a center that can grease the wheels and make all of that stuff work. Jokic is devastating in that sense. He's a very very good screener, meaning when guys are chasing over the top, they have a hard time staying attached. That's a big part of what allows Jamal Murray to get going. He can pass and score on the role.

So if he sets that screen and Jamal comes off or CACP comes off, or whoever it is comes off, and he catches in the middle of the floor, he's absolutely deadly with that floater at that ten foot range. I mean he makes him over sixty percent of the time. And if you show on him and come up to him on the catch. He can make all of the passing reads out of that as well, if not better

than anybody else in the league. Hitting the cutter's piece as well or better than anyone else in the league in terms of dribbling out an action and seeing somebody slip out of it, He's gonna make that pass even in the event that you get a shot up and it misses. He's one of the most effective offensive rebound scorers in the league. Is the fourth most offensive rebound put backs in the entire NBA last year. So like he's an efficient, high volume scorer who doesn't need to

dominate the basket. Everything is in the flow that frees up his teammates to go make plays. It empowers them, which is a ceiling razor for a team. But at the same time, when it's go time and you can't rely on a KCP, or you can't rely even on a Jamal Murray, potentially you can spam Helio centric stuff with Jokic to generate offense. So when the shit's not working and you can't just go down the floor and run a series of dribble handoffs to get a wide open cut or a wide open three, and you need

to try to make something out of nothing. You can throw the ball down to the block and just spam Yokic post ups, and if you leave him on an island, he's gonna make a hook shot at sixty percent. And if you double team, he's as good or better than everybody else in the league at making the spray out

passes to shooters from there. And then with two man game with Jamal Murray, which is a more helio centric kind of action where they just space the floor and it's just Jokic and Murray just like repeatedly setting dribble handoffs and ball screens until they get somebody open. That's an action they can spam and be one of the most devastating clutch time scoring duos in the league.

last year. So that means if if Luca goes to a step back three, he's actually only scoring a little over a third of the time. And so when things really slow down it becomes about one possession or two possessions or three possessions. Jokic is actually a more reliable scorer in those situations. Here's a simple stat to break

that down. If you factor in made field goals but also the foul rate, like getting to the foul line, it gives you something called score percentage, the percentage of your possessions that you actually score on Luka Dancic last year, score generated a generated points for his team on forty six point nine percent of his ISOs including passes. He generated a score for his team on forty nine point

eight percent of his post ups including passes. For Jokic, it was fifty one percent in ISOs and fifty three percent in post ups. And so in those situations where it's Yokich on an island one on one, he is generating points for his team more than half the time, whereas for Luka it's less than half the time. Slightly so in both directions, but that makes a big difference. You need a bucket. At the end of the game.

Jokic is going to get close to the rim into the short range and he's going to get a shot that he's going to hit about sixty percent of the time. That is a real tool to have in your bag. Call a time out. Down by four, there's forty seconds left. When need bucket. Stop bucket. You come out of the time out, you drop an action for yokch and you feel damn good about the fact that it might go in.

Whereas like if you're drawing up a play for let's say Steph Curry, for instance, and it's like we're gonna have him run off of this action, he's gonna get like an elevator's screen on the opposite side of the floor after running some decoy action on the primary side, and he's gonna get a good look. It's like, this is gonna be a good look for us. It's like he might make it forty two percent of the time, right, So that means there's a fifty eight percent chance on

that possession that he's going to miss. And so that short range scoring piece adds a layer of like reliability to Yokic's scoring that is super valuable, especially when you get into winning time in high leverage moments in the postseason. So he checks the versatility box in a major way

on the offensive end. Even from a team building perspective, like your ability to put him next to a non shooting four like Aaron Gordon because he's such a good passer that you can weaponize Aaron Gordon as a vertical spacer around the rim. That's a luxury that most teams can't pull off. And that's a credit to what Jokic does for a basketball team. Now, let's talk about his weaknesses for a second now, and before you get upset, Jokich fans. We've done this for every single player on

this list. There has not been a single player that we didn't discuss weak points and areas for improvement. I think Jokic is the clear number one in the league, but I think the gap is smaller than it was last year after the title. Last year, I thought Jokic was far and away the best player in the league. I thought there was like a sizeable gap between him and number two. I think he's fallen back to the pack a little bit in this last season, and it

really came down to two major areas of slimmage. He wasn't as good defensively as he was in the championship, and he went from a great jump shooter to being a mediocre jump shooter in the regular season and a bad jump shooter in the playoffs. So let's get into each of these individually for a minute. First, the defensive end of the floor, two main areas where he struggled last year, especially in the postseason. He got absolutely fried one on one in his individual defense by Anthony Davis.

Anthony Davis isoed or posted up Nikola Jokic one on one nine times in the first round and scored on him seven times by the end of the series.

rim protection. It's a simple stat I want to show you, guys. In twenty twenty three, the Denver Nuggets allowed just fifteen makes per game within five feet of the rim in the postseason on just sixty two percent shooting. That went up to twenty makes per game on sixty five percent shooting in this year's playoffs. So that's a substantial increase in the effectiveness of opponents attacking the rim against Denver's defense.

He just Jokic just didn't offer very much resistance against Lebron and AD and then again against Anthony Edwards in the second round, and I think fatigue played a role. Jokic looks tired in general, and especially so in that Minnesota series. There were some really ugly possessions at the end of Game seven where he just let guys dribble around him, or he gave up on defensive rebound situations

where guys crashed past him to get the ball. I did a whole film session on this after Game seven, so you can see video evidence of this if you just scroll back into our YouTube veed go right after game seven last year.

was in his playoff run. So like, there's levels to this, Like Jokich has declined to being like an average defensive player. To me, Luca is still firmly in that below average to even sometimes bad category on the defensive end of the floor. The second piece of his decline was jump shooting. And this was something those are you guys who followed the show. I was on this all year Last year.

I kept saying, Jokic's jumper doesn't look the same, this could be an issue, and it was in twenty twenty three. He's some basic numbers. Twenty twenty three, a Yokic jump shot in the regular season was worth one point one seven points per shot. In the playoffs, it went up to one point two to one points per shot. Just a dominant, great jump shooter all season long, all the

way to when he hoisted the trophy last year. In the regular season, one point zero one points per jump shot, so seek sixteen points per one hundred jump shots worse. And I was calling that out all year, and then it ended up being even worse. In the postseason. He got zero point eight seven points per jump shot.

There was a whole part of Yokic's game in twenty twenty three when they won the title that had to do with him picking and popping and knocking down shots and then driving closeouts as dudes tried to chase him off that line. That part of his game was gone. Last year. Teams were just closing out short to him because he wasn't making them. Here a couple of basic

stats to demonstrate that. In twenty twenty three in the postseason, Jokic got one point two six points per roleman possession and one point one six points per spot up possession. Last year in the postseason one point zero seven points per roleman possession, so nineteen points per one hundred possession worse, and then one point zero zero points per spot up possession, which is sixteen points per one hundred possessions worse, So

massive declines. There wasn't hitting those pick and pop threes, so he wasn't driving the close out, so drawing the clothes out so that he could drive it. It's a ceiling raiser for him. He's still the best player in the league without that jump shot because he's a center and he can do most of his scoring in the short to mid range and he doesn't have to pop. He can pick and roll and be a devastating score. And one of the things that Jokic very rarely does

is spot up. Like with exception of the occasional Jamal Murray post up, Jokic isn't spotting up, and even in those cases, he usually positions himself closer to the rim to be more of an offensive rebounder. But the jump shot can help him in three huge ways. One, it opens up his pick and pop game where he can start driving close out like we talked about. Two, it

allows him rest in the game. Those possessions where you pop to the three point line and take a three take very little energy and they are a way to supplement your offense without having to work as hard. And then the third piece of it is rescue possessions. You guys remember in the title run, a huge part of Jokic's game was hitting those crazy like somber shuffle shots at the end of the clock or just jab step jumpers in the in the mid range at the end of game, at the end of shot clocks. That's a

huge offensive boost for the Nuggets last year. And so again, I still think he's the best player in the world, but that decline as a defender and as a shooter have made it from being a gap to being something much smaller in that department. But I do want to explain why I have Jokic over Luca. So here are the four reasons why I have Nikola Jokic over Luka Doncic one right now. First of all, Jokic is more durable. He averages seventy five games played in his career and

he's generally been healthy in the playoffs. Luca sixty seven games played per year and he's been banged up in the postseason before, so you can basically book him miss twice as many regular season games as Jokic, and it's less consistent for him to be at his top level when he gets there. Secondly, Jokic is a far more versatile offensive player as a GM. I have a lot more options offensively with what I can do around Jokic

because he empowers ball in player movement. Like we talked about earlier, getting a guy like Aaron Gordon to fit into your offense, that's something that would be an issue. Imagine like PJ. Washington plays that role for Dallas. But he's a guy that can knock down corner threes at a high percentage and even shot like thirty mid thirties on above the break threes in the regular season before he kind of fell apart in the Boston series, right, But like he's a guy who's like at least a

average type of shooter. Aaron Gordon, with exception to the right corner, was a bad shooter last year. You know, Like he's not a guy that teams are going to guard at all at the three point line. That would be an issue for a Dallas offense in a way it wouldn't be in a in an offense for Denver because there's ball in player movement and Jokic empowers Aaron Gordon as a baseline cutter in a way that wouldn't work alongside of Derek Lively or Daniel Gafford. There's more

flexibility in the way you can build around him. But at the same time, if I need to just force feed Yokich the ball and have him just be devastating in a singular context, I can do that with Jokic to a similar level of impact to what I can get from Luca. Number three, he's a more reliable single possession score. I also think he's a better offensive engine in the large sample, which is a big part of

why Denver's offense has outperformed Dallas's offense every year. But also when you need a big moment, a big basket in a big moment, Jokic has these super reliable short range scoring moves that he can hit about sixty percent of the time, and that just takes away variants. There's more jump shooting variants with Luca in those situations because he's generally gonna take a step back jump shout of some kind, whether it's from the mid range or from

the from the three point line. And then lastly, at number four, he's a much easier defensive player to build around. Yokich can struggle to protect the rim, but he's a very useful high drop big because he's active with his hands and he's a good communicator, and he's also a dominant defensive rebounder. Luca can't do much on defense. He's too slow footed to hedge, so I pretty much have to switch with him, so I basically have to hide him off the ball and hope the other team doesn't

choose to attack him. He is a useful off ball defender, but not nearly as much as Yokich is. So to put it simply, as I mentioned earlier, Jokich is roughly an average defender even after his decline, which is perfectly respectable and I can build around that, whereas Luca is still like in that blow average to bad category for me outside of specific circumstances, which is not what you're gonna need when you face four different teams in the playoffs.

I sincerely appreciate it. Let's get into our mailbag. I think offense is more important than defense, but as a community, I think NBA fans greatly undervalue the defensive side of the ball. So this is an interesting kind of comment because I think it calls attention to trying to differentiate between what we're talking about when we're talking about defense.

So within the team context, defense and offense share equal value because it's simple, like if I stop you from scoring two points, it carries the same amount of impact as if I score two points, right in terms of the change on the scoreboard. Right, So like defensive value

is literally statistically equal. I would even argue that within the team context, when you get to the postseason, that defensive value actually ticks up a little bit more than offensive value because the game gets more physical, and so many of those games to grade down into rock fights and it becomes more about size and strength and winning physical battles, and generally speaking, teams that are elite on the defensive end have some more sustainability in those environments.

Than offenses do. Offenses can crumble sometimes under physicality, whereas defenses tend to thrive in those settings. However, that's all

within the team context. Within the individual context, I still strongly believe that it is easier to build a good defense around a limited defensive star than it is to build a good offense around a limited offensive star, simply because the superpower of offense is impossible to coach and scheme for, whereas the superpower of defense you can throw together as a coach a scheme, and as a GM you can supplement your star with certain archetypes of players

and construct something that works defensively. It's just my kind of basketball worldview, if that makes sense. Having now gone through the entire list, how do you feel about the new criteria and the system for ranking these players you use this year? Thanks a ton for making these I appreciate it every minute of the series, even when I disagreed. Keep up the good work. Thank you for supporting the show.

I sincerely appreciate it. You know, this has been an interesting year in the sense that, like everyone was really upset with me for the way I did things in the past. In terms of the bragging rights and so I came up with this system as a way to try to be like more realistic and hopefully kind of find more common ground with people, and everyone just got

pissed off for different reasons. And so part of it is, like, you know, it's interesting because like I love this list I do, and I do it every year, and I'm never gonna stop doing it. At least I don't think I'm gonna stop doing it. But like, at the same time, like it's always the time that it gets nastiest, and

that part always sucks. But one of the things that I've gotten better at understanding is like there's a certain amount of negativity that's going to come out no matter what, Like, no matter what I do, there's going to be negativity. Like there I even see when I praise players, I'll see comments from people saying I didn't praise them enough for what they do, and so like at a certain point, you just kind of got to accept that it's a losing battle. And so I'm getting a little better at that.

But in terms of like learning a lesson, I'm sure I'll make slight tweaks here and there, but I do think I prefer this format to the format of doing bragging rights, and like if I were to tweak it again, like if I were to just do like like straight up just like who's the best basketball player right now everyone's healthy, I think that could open up a whole other can of worms, because then I'm gonna have a bunch of older guys up at the top, Like I

would have probably had Lebron at number three if that was the case, And if I had Lebron at number three, I'm gonna get roasted for that. So like it's just at the end of the day, you just you can't win with the internet, you know how that goes. So I think this kind of general format makes the most sense to me, Like who would I rather have from October June for this coming season. That's a way of ranking players in a way that seems kind of like

practical to what an NBA season actually looks like. And so I did enjoy that part, even though I felt like I was constantly having to try to explain it. And I still feel like some people didn't really understand what the criteria was. And so at a certain point you just kind of have to accept that there's no perfect system. Can you please make a power ranking list of the teams and how teams are positioned heading into

the twenty twenty four to twenty twenty five seasons. So another thing that I do every year is I do power rankings before the season in the format of season previews.

really hope my comment gets through. You're one of my favorite basketball pundits due to your unbiased logical way of thinking the game. I just noticed, Though I greatly disagree with Jaw's position, I think he's likely to have a greater season than Ant just had due to the trajectory he was on prior to his suspension. His first step rim attacking and his ability to guard it an above and average to good level to me placed him closer

to eleven to thirteen. So I agree with you in terms of like, if Jah had not just missed an entire season, he probably ends up in that eleven to thirteen range. She's in that top twelve twelve for me, the top twelve guys after Jimmy and after Jimmy and and Kawhi. That eleven guys that I used in that like top two tiers. I would have grown that to two and included Jot if he was healthy last year. I just had him back because he's had health issues and off court issues that have kept him away from

his team. I can't remember the exact stat but he's missed like eighty percent of his teams likes a one hundred something games, So like he's just he just hasn't.

rankings player rankings, guys, where are two on the same team? Like, Tatum's clearly better than Jlen Brown, Giannis is clearly better than Dame, But with the ad Lebron won. It's tricky because, like, if everyone's healthy and we're playing tomorrow, I think Lebron's the best player, But like Ad, I think, at age thirty, is just like a more reliable, you know, October to June kind of guy. So for this case, I'm either

getting Ad or Lebron. I decided to just call Lebron the best player on the team, so Ad automatically becomes my center at that point. So I've got a d at center. Dame is your obvious point guard because he's the second best player on his team with Jannis. Jalen Brown is your three, So I've got a five Ad. I've got Dame as a one. I've got Jalen Brown as a three. So I need a power forward and

a shooting guard. I was looking at a couple of different options a power forward, the two main guys looking at or Bam at a bio and then a guy like Chet Holmgren and his shooting next to eighty is interesting, but he's really young and a little thin, so I kind of leaned towards Bam there, and then at shooting guard, I'm looking at guys like Kyrie Irving, who's second behind Luca, Jabal Murray, who second behind Jokic, and Devin Booker, who

second behind KD. I think I leaned towards Devin Booker there, and so if I was building a roster of starting five, I should say, with a team made of entirely players that are not the best player on their team, I'd have Dame at the one, Devin Booker at the two, Jalen Brown at the three, Bam at the four, and Ad at the five. I feel like I'm definitely winning the title with that five. Like Jalen Brown is now my primary point of attack defender, which is where I'd

like book like. I think Devin Booker can be a useful point of attack defender, but I prefer him guarding the second best perimeter player, which is a nice way to slot him there. I've got tons of length behind Dame. Obviously, Dame brings defensive issues, but if I've got Bam at a bio and Anthony Davis on the back line, that

makes things easier. I uh, pro League can run a switching look as long as I kind of load up things behind Dame when he switches, and then I really like the idea of Bam and AD playing together, not based just solely off of what we saw at the Olympics, but you can kind of think of them playing like the Warriors, like two non shooting bigs going side to

side as five out folkrums. But I've got Dame and Devin Booker coming off as these like awesome pull up shooters, and Jalen Brown who can come off and look to score and get downhill and get to the rim. I think that's a damn good lineup entirely out of players that are not the best player on their team. Last question, the fact is that Luca's production has gone up every season. So how can you claim the skinnier quicker version was better when the stats and the results have shown otherwise.

Never said the skinnier and quicker version was better. I just said he was skinnier and quicker. He's clearly gotten better. He's the second best player in the league now, which is the first time I felt that this is all about potential. He's the second best player in the league because from age nineteen to age twenty five, he's gotten

better at basketball. He solved the NBA. He's improved in some specific skill area, but He's done that while trending down in terms of his foot speed and his conditioning, and so again like, there's some benefit from it. He's become bigger and stronger, which has helped him with some of the physical battles. But if you replace you know, I saw someone in the comments say, like, if he dropped twenty pounds of body fat and replace it with ten pounds of functional muscle, like, how far that would

go to improving him as a player. And I sincerely believe that. I think like, I think that in overall, Like would he not be able to bully as many matchups, probably, but the increase in terms of his conditioning, in terms of his ability to stay effective late in games, which he struggled with last year in the postseason, and his ability to be just again, I saw another comment I actually screenshoted today.

Like the guys who are all time greats, they all played defense at a certain level. You know, I'm not expecting him to be like all world, but like he should at least be competing on that end of the floor to a higher level than he has been. You know what, like what you're discussing, the guy who led his team in points to reybound assists, sent all these stars home, and is the primary offensive vege blah blah blah. That's literally what Lebron James did for the entirety of

his prime. Like he took some regular season games off defensively towards the tail end in Cleveland, but for the most part in that twenty ten to twenty twenty stretch when he was running the league, he was defending. That was a big part of his identity. And again, I'm not asking for Luca to literally make an all defense team, but is it too much to ask for him to devote resources and compete on that end. I don't think so.

It's what his peers have done in NBA history. Steph Curry, without anywhere near the physical tools as some of his all time great peers, has become an average to above average defensive player because he competes on that end of the floor. We talked about it with Jokic earlier, like that's all like, there's no doubt that Luca is better now than he's ever been, But there's also no doubt that he's leaving some meat on the bone, and I think that that's fair criticism to send in that direction.

All right, guys, that is all I have for today. Is always as sincerely, appreciate you guys for supporting the show. I hope you enjoy the weekend. We'll be back on Monday with the Nerd Sesh guys to get further into the top ten debate.