Hoops Tonight - Top 25 NBA Players: Wemby is SCARY, Haliburton's MVP potential, Bam vs. top big men

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at the Volume. I hope all of you guys are having a great week. We are continuing our player rankings today with number twenty, number nineteen and number eighteen. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JSNLT so you guys don't miss you announcements. Don't forget our podcast feed where you get your podcast on our Hoops Tonight.

Don't forget. It's also helpful if we leave your rating and a review on that front. And the last but not least, keep dropping mailbag questions in those YouTube comments. If you disagree with any of the rankings, make a basketball case and in the future we will come back to those YouTube comments to kind of debate the rankings at the tail end of our future videos in this series. So keep those mail bag questions coming in the comments.

All right, let's talk some basketball. Also, last note before I get to number twenty, I have a different set of rules that I'm using for this year's player rankings than I did last year. I didn't like some of the stuff that slipped through the cracks with the old system I was using, so I'm going from doing more of a bragging rights list and doing more of an

in a vacuum type of list. And so if you want to hear a breakdown of the set of kind of rules or criteria that I use for this list, it's in the very first video in the series we have. Number twenty five and number twenty four are in a video in any intro is where I kind of go over all of that stuff, So if you're looking for some of that reasoning, you can find that back there.

On that note, though, number twenty Tyrese Halliburton last year averaged twenty point one points per game, three point nine rebounds ten point nine zero, led the league in assists, also only had two point three turnovers per game. That's actually a crazy stat. So Tyres Haliburton had a four

point seven to three assist to turnover ratio. There were ten players in the league last year who played at least fifty games and had at least four assists per turnover, but none of them had a usage rate over twenty percent except for Tyrese Haliburton. In his usage er was up around like twenty four percent. So he's kind of in a class of his own in terms of high volume initiators who also don't turn the ball over. There's really nobody in his class there. He also got one

point nine steels plus blocks per game. We'll get to that in a little bit. You know, Tyree's left a lot to be desired desired defensively, but he did play hard, did a good job in some specific things in the Pacers scheme defensively, especially in their head and recover to get deflections. We'll talk about that in a little bit. Shooting splits forty seven point seven percent from the field, thirty six point four percent from three six percent from

the foul line. That amounts to fifty seven percent in effective field goal percentage. That's just field goal percentage waited for threes and then sixty one percent in true shooting percentage, which is field goal percentage waited for threes and free throws. But it was a tale of two seasons for Tyres Sliburton. In the thirty two games before he heard his hamstring, he was averaging a ridiculous twenty four points per game, thirteen assists per game on fifty percent from the field

and forty percent from three. Those of you guys who were following the show at this point heard me talk about how I viewed Tyres Sliburton as like an evolutionary version of Steve Nash, like the next great offensive engine in the NBA. And then he suffered his hamstring injury, and in his last thirty seven games after the injury, he was just seventeen points, nine assists on just forty six percent from the field and just thirty two percent

from three. Now, to his credit, he got a little bit closer to form in the postseason at nineteen points per game, five rebounds, eight assists on forty nine percent from the field in thirty eight percent from three, But he's yet to kind of get back to that level he was at before the hamstring injury. My lead producer Paul He asked me back during the playoff run, He's like, do you still believe what you said about Tyrese Haliburton

back then? Of course, that he's like on an all time great trajectory, that he's one of the next great offensive engines in the NBA. And like when he said that to me, it was crazy because we had been so far removed from what Tyrese Haliburton was that I think we kind of forgot. Like what Tyres did in the first roughly forty percent of the season was some pretty unprecedented stuff. Twenty four and thirteen is outrageous. Doing

it without pounding the air out of the basketball. Like he's got a little bit of that, like Lonzo Ball, like making those advance up the floor passes. Every single time he gets that inbound pass, he's looking up the floor for the first advantage. He's not a guy that really dominates the flow of the game, like we talked about, He's only had a twenty four percent usage. What makes him a great offensive engine is he is the definition of a guy who just takes the first advantage that's

available and always makes the right read. So imagine this inbound pass or defensive rebound. The first thing you're doing is you're looking up the floor. And one of the big reasons why those advanced passes are important is once you get the ball up the floor, the entire defense has to turn their head. As soon as the entire defense turns their head, the trailing guys have opportunities to

find cracks like a trailing shooter if the point. If the point guards bringing the ball up the floor, it's easier for the defender to track the ball and to track the shooter as soon as the pass gets put up the up one of the wings to a streaking

you know, small forward up the left sideline. Now, all of a sudden, that defender has to turn his attention and that movement shooter, whoever it is that's trailing to play, has an opportunity to kind of find a spot on the three point line where he can find an opening or a driving lane or something along those lines. You'll even see trailers get dunks and layups and stuff when the guy under the rim ends up having to close

out to a jump shot somewhere right. So like there's a lot of advantage in moving the ball up the floor. But then as soon as the ball gets up the floor. Tyre's Halliburton had a set of you know, kind of pet actions. At first it was you know, buddy heeled ghost screens and Miles Turner picking pop right or pick

and roll depending on the coverage. But the after the buddy heel trade had turned into more like it was more like a Andrew Nemhard would set a lot of those screens and many of those would end in switches, and then it would get into a lot of more ISO situations. But like there's a couple of pet actions, Tyrese runs the action from there. He makes the ree. If they're in a drop coverage, he's gonna get downhill. He's got one of the best floaters in the league.

Right duck under a pick, he can knock down the pull up three big man steps up to help, He'll hit the lob. Low man steps over, He'll make the skip pass to the weak side corner. He had really good chemistry with the obi top and he would cut along that baseline and he would hit lobs there right the ghost screens with buddy heel. As soon as he's slipping open space, he'd just make that read. It's very quick decisions, quick hit the advantage. From there, the Pacers

just have a ton of speed. A lot of guys were good at both knocking down threes but also driving closeouts, and so essentially Tyrese Haliburton was the advantage hunter, and he was so relentless with it and so consistent with it, never turned the basketball over. That basically allowed all of these Indiana Pacer players to play with an advantage consistently. And even though the Indiana Pacers, especially before the Siakam trade, didn't have a ton of high level offensive players, they

were just at an unprecedented offensive rate. I think, I want to say before at the time of the hamstring injury, their offensive rating was something insane like one twenty four, which was historically great. And they still finished the season even despite the hamstring injury, with the second best offense in the league, and so like again, the thing that's going to be really interesting as it pertains to the

future of Tyrese Haliburton is what is real? Is it that first thirty two games where he was twenty four and thirteen on damn near fifty forty ninety, or is it what he's been after the hamstring injury. Specifically, the hamstring is vitally important for hard driving moves, right, Like when any of you guys have ever pulled your hamstring.

I did it once. It was when I was younger, is just before I started playing college, and actually like reinjured it three additional times in that few month period. But like what you really feel it is when you make those really low aggressive driving moves you take like long lunging steps, it's your hammy that pulls you forward as you're making that next step, and so it can be a little bit of an issue. Where we saw

that affect Tyrese the most was beating switches. He was amazing beating switches early in the year, not as good in the late portion of the year. Because it's a very simple, you know, kind of two way dynamic for Tyrese in those switches. It's the pull up three and it's the hard drive right into the kind of scooping layup right. And if he doesn't have the hard drive as dynamic as it needs to be, then guys can press up a little bit on the three and then

both areas start to suffer. And so like again that's what it's going to be in terms of like kind of the The pivot point for Tyres's future is how much was that first thirty two games last year an indicator of what Tyres Saliburton is going to be for the long run. I actually believe that as long as he can get healthy and do a little bit better job of just prepping his body for the grind of the NBA season, that he can get back to that level.

And if he did, he's already entering into a stratosphere as one of the best offensive engines in the league. Some playtype data for you guys in pick and roll thirteen hundred and forty one possessions, fifteen hundred and sixty nine points. That's one point one to seven points per possession. That is number one on our high volume pick and roll list. So out of the fifteen guy who around at least a thousand pick and rolls including passes, last year,

Tyres Saliburton was the most efficient ball handler in the league. ISO, even with the injury, finished the season at two hundred and nine points one hundred ninety nine possessions. That's one point zero five points per possession. That's seventy fourth percentile. That's really solid and as we know, he was better before the injury. Shooting stats jump shot pretty damn accurate last year, one point zero nine points per shot, one

point twenty four in catch and shoot situations. Obviously, he's got a little bit of a set shot, so he's better when he's unguarded, right, he was at one point three to eight points per shot when he was unguarded. He's not a guy who's gonna shoot contested jump shots well because he doesn't really elevate on that shot. His floater shot fifty four percent on one hundred and eighteen attempts. That was eighty third percent tile in the league. And

then he was sixty four percent at the rim. Low volume, but he shot high percentage, including sixty one percent on layups. And the main driving force there is he's just picky, right, like he's gonna be a little bit more selective about when he goes. But the big thing for him is he's got these big scooping layups out to the side where he can use his length to finish over other teams that have length at the rim. But that those are pretty damn good percentages for a guard like him

who doesn't have the craziest burst in the world. His weakness is right now. On defense, he plays hard, he throws good hedges, he gets his hands up on the recovery. I talked earlier about deflections. One point nine stocks per game is a really good number for a guard, especially for a guard that doesn't necessarily have a defensive reputation, and one of the things he saw on I saw this a lot in the postseason. So like Tyres is a bad defensive player on an island, can't guard straight

up right and can make some mistakes off ball. That's why he's still a bad defensive player at this point in his career. However, when teams would look to target him, they would use a textbook hedge and recover. What that means is Tyree's has to throw himself out in front of the ball handler just to cut him off and force him to retreat, dribble or take a move away

from the basket. From there, though, his man is slipping that screen and getting open at the three point line, so he has to ditch out of the hedge and recover to the shooter. And one of the things that Tyree's does, and he's got good length for the guard position as he's sprinting back to the shooter, he would just throw his hands up and kind of like do like kind of a three quarter front type of look.

But as he's running back to the shooter, and he would get deflections that way that would lead to runouts and opportunities the other way. And so like he did his job within the game plan which allowed him to not be a total disaster, but obviously kind of similar to Tyrese Maxi. It's that possession of possession, focus and limiting mistakes. It's not effort, it's more focus and doing your job within the scheme that it needs to improve on.

Then the second piece of it is offensive aggression, and this is the vice for most great playmakers that talks about this in the postseason, like the Jokic types, the Lebron types, the Tyress Aliburton types. The main issue that you get on them about is like, hey, man, like we need you to shoot the damn basketball, but their basketball brain is hardwired to make reads and sometimes the

game calls for your star to be more aggressive. The exact opposite is true for the great scorers in the NBA, the Kobe's, the Kevin Durant types, like the Kawhi Leonard types. Like these guys they fight fire with being more aggressive as a shooter, right, Like when things get tight, when

things get tough, they look to shoot more. And there are times where you have to kind of grab them by the shoulders and Jacob and be like, hey, make the right read, right, Like, there are opportunities here for you to create easy opportunities for your teammates and for both archetypes. Like, the more a great playmaker looks to score, the more impactful his playmaking is, because it keeps the

defense honest. The more a great score looks to pass, the more effective his scoring is because it keeps the defense honest. It's a very important part of that balance, right, And like, here's the thing. They had four playoff losses this year the Pacers did where Tyree's didn't even take ten shots. They were zero to four when he took less than ten shots, and you'd be looking at the screen, You're like, hey, dude, like we need you to be aggressive. He was six and two. The Pacers were six and

two when Tyres took at least fifteen shots. So as you can tell, like that's kind of another element for him. There is just like understanding that balance between aggression and looking to make the right reads and knowing when he needs to kind of like four go, just kind of being an engine and look more to leverage his supreme gifts as an offensive player. So the question is why do I have Tyres Haliburton ahead of his peers in

this lower tier of star guards. So like, if I look at the tiers of star guard, right, I kind of have them in like three tiers. There's like the top tier superstar guys. This is like your Shake Gills Alexander types. You're like Anthony Edwards types. Then I go down a level and there's like a tier of guys this is like your Donovan Mitchell, Jalen Brunson type of guys. Right then below that, I have this other tier, And

this is where we've had Tyrese Maxey. This is where we had John Moran, although his is more about availability. Who is the other guard that we had yesterday? I'm blanking off the top of my head, but like Tyrese Maxey, John Morant, these guards here at at the lower portion of it. The reason why I have Tyrese above all of those guys is because he's an offensive engine, like

a true like offense unto himself. Like again, they were the second best offense in the league last year with pretty unremarkable offensive talent, despite the fact that he missed

a good chunk of the season. There's a ton of eighty two game value having a Tyrese Haliburton on your team, and so like, again, this is an in a vacuum list, and so like when I can just just pencil in the Pacers for fifty something wins because of the fact that Tyrese Haliburton is just this other worldly offensive engine, and I do believe that they'll get above fifty wins

next year with him in. Pascal Siakam, Like, as long as Haliburton's healthy, that just feels like a guarantee, Like you're gonna be out of the play in tournament, You're gonna be in the mix of the with the other

play playoff teams. That is a huge value piece, whereas some of these other teams that don't have as much eighty two game value, it's like they have to grind and like barely get into the play in tournament where maybe they can leverage their you know, veteran talent to try to make a playoff run, that's not a problem

you have with the Pacers and Tyress Halliburton. And so again that specific archetype, the offensive engine, the guy that consistently generates advantages for your team, that makes basketball easier and creates easy opportunities for limited players. That to me brings a ton of value. And so that's why when we look at our top twenty five list, in this tier of all these guards, that's why I have Tyres Haliburton as high as I do. And the other guy

is Kyrie Irving. So like Kyrie Irving, Darren Fox, John Morant, Damian Lillard, Tyrese Maxey, Tyre's Halliburton, our first six guys on this list have all been guards, and they're all in the same kind of like tier. There's not a ton separating them. To me. However, the reason why I have Tyres Alliburton as high as I do above those guys in that tier is because he is an offensive engine, and I view a great deal of value in that specifically.

All Right, one of the couple other things with Tyris Aliberton, he had a couple of bad playoff games, but that's to be expected. Again, that was his very first playoff run ever, and I'm still a huge believer in him.

I kind of view him, as I mentioned earlier, as like an evolutionary Steve Nash, Steve Nash with just better physical gifts with a little bit more offensive upside, and I think that that is a player that has the potential to win an MVP, and that me puts Tyres in a very unique class of players in.

But right now, you can put all that intel to the test by bringing those patterns directly into a mock draft and make your mock draft feel like the real thing. Check out Fantasypros Dot com slash volume today to get an edge over your league mates right now and forever.

six blocks per game. Shooting splits forty six point five percent from the field, thirty two point five percent from three to seventy nine point six percent from the line. That amounted to fifty two percent in effective field goal percentage in fifty seven percent in true shooting percentage. That said similar to Tyres Halliburton, although not for the same reasons. It was kind of a tale of two seasons for

Victor wen Minyama too. Something clicked for him about a third of the way through the season and he just went up a level. In his first twenty six games, he averaged just eighteen points, eleven rebounds, and three on just forty three percent from the field, twenty eight percent from the three point line, seventy seven percent from the

foul line. In his last forty five games, he averaged twenty three points per game, eleven rebounds, four assists per game, forty eight percent from the line, thirty five percent from three to eighty one percent from the foul line. I should say thirty five percent from the three point line, not from the line, but as you can tell, a substantial increase in both scoring volume and efficiency and playmaking

ability right around that third mark through the season. And the kind of like scary thing there for everybody is, like, you remember how bad that Spurs team was, right like, they had probably the worst core of ball handling that I've seen in the NBA last year, and just how ugly it was watching them try to figure out and like in most cases poorly utilized when min Yama, not because of Popovich or scheme, but just because they didn't have the talent to get him the ball into positions

of advantage. Despite all of that, in that last forty five games where I told you you kind of figured it out, that started December twenty eighth. From that point on in the season, the Spurs were plus twenty eight with Victor wem Minyama on the floor and minus two hundred and two with him off the floor, So they were winning his minutes in a forty five game sample

size with that roster. This guy's winning impact is already beyond our ability to quantify, and it's only going to skyrocket from here as you figures some things out, and we're going to get into some of the specific things that he could get better at here in a few minutes. So let's look at some play type data. Perc Entergy, he ran two hundred and seventy seven picking rolls that amounted to two hundred and forty five points. That zero

point eighty eight points per possession. In ISO one hundred and twenty three possessions for one hundred and thirty one points including passes, that's one point zero seven points per possession. That was in the seventy eight percent pile. Not bad for a rookie. Three hundred and fifty four post ups leading three hundred and forty four points at zero point ninety seven points per possession. That cracked into a high volume post up list. This is our first high volume

post up guy in the league. Obviously is in our list obviously, as we've had all guards to this point. He ranked sixteenth out of eighteen players to log at least two hundred and fifty possessions. I've specifically been really fascinated by Victor wemen Yama's passing. As a matter of fact, like I just was watching France Germany, which was an

incredible game. Those of you guys who are listening to this video, I have already heard my instant reaction to that because I'm going to be recording it later today when I get to Vegas. I am recording this video on August eighth before I head out of town, so that we have some content while I'm running out of town. But there was like another He's been an incredible passing out of the post all year at a huge one in the game. God shure did they play in the quarterfinal.

I'm blanking now all of a sudden, But when they won that quarterfinal game, Evan fourtier hit. I was Canada. Evan Fotier hit a bomb on the right wing, came out of a post up double team of Victor women Yama. Huge play at the end of the game against Germany, and it didn't even lead to any points because Isaiah Quidine actually missed the dunk, but like caught the ball in the block, huge possession late, looked like he was

gonna look to score late. Double team came beautiful, little like shovel past at Cardine as he's cutting down the basket. He ends up getting an easy two and dunk. He just missed it. But like Victor is reading the floor very quickly, he is sharp with his reads. There's still so much room for improvement. But like, I don't think that the post up success was a it was a fluke at all. Like he has some real potential to

be a offensive folkrum down there on the block. And again, all of this you got a factor in as a rookie, like a point per possession in the post ups and huge volume as a rookie. That's impressive. Seventy eighth percentile and ISO on one hundred and twenty three reps as a rookie, that's impressive. So like, and we gotta remember too, he was better in the second half of the season and so those numbers don't reflect that. And then again, as

we mentioned, earlier. It was already basically the second best defensive player in the league as a rookie, and so his winning impact is just completely absurd already, and it's only going to go up from here. Rollman situations one point one four points per possession, that's pretty solid. That was in the fifty third percent tile. Some shooting stats

from Synergy zero point eighty eight points per jumper. He shot thirty percent field goals on catch and shoot jump shots, thirty four percent off the dribble, forty four percent on face up jumpers. So similarly to what some of the stuff we saw overseas like, he's actually a little bit more confident in fluid shooting the shot off the dribble than he is off the catch. That's something that he'll

be able to bridge in time. Thirty one percent on floaters, a'llbit only thirty five reps, forty four percent on hooks, albeit only forty one reps. Shot sixty five percent at the rim, but most of that was dunks. He shot just fifty three percent on layups. That obviously comes down

to some stuff with his strength. His main area is for improvement, mainly shot making, just getting a little more accurate with that jump shot, a little more accurate with that hook shot, a little more accurate with that floater. I'm gonna talk about this a little bit with Bam at a Bio two. But these are what I call pick and roll shots. So like in pick and roll right, there are there are two primary types of shot making that become vitally important when teams want to defend two

on two. So like a lot of teams will defend pick and roll three on two right, and then it's a totally different battle. Right, It's a simple dynamic having to do with how high the screen defender is. Right, So like, if the screen defender drops way back in the pick and roll, then the guard has some space as he comes off, and he needs to look to score. Right.

If the big man or the screen defender kind of shades towards the ball handler a little bit, then the rollman has openings in the middle of the flour where he has to have some shot making. Right. But when teams defend three on two, they bring the big way up to the level and attack the ball handler, which allows the rollman to get behind. As the roleman gets behind, now the weak side low man has to come over. Now the open man is all the way in the

opposite corner. Right now, it's much more of a passing game. And when they're defending three on two in ball screens, it's all about that ball handler's ability to make those reads or the role man's ability to make those reads

off the catches he runs into the lowman right. But when team's guard two on two, it's all about the guard's ability to make pull up jump shots and floaters, and it's all about the big man's ability if the big is if the defensive big is taking away the rim to make your little pop shots in the lane, or to catch and quick pivot into a hook shot or a little fifteen foot jumper around the elbow, or maybe a pick and pop jumper. That's pick and roll

shot making. Whenever team's guard two on two, you need a guard who can make shots in pick and roll, and you need a big who can make shots in pick and roll. And that's a big area of improvement for Victor, especially as he's gonna get a ton of

reps with Chris Paul and ball screens next year. And again, I think a lot of teams are gonna try to dare Chris Paul to make fifteen footers, but on the games when in the games where Chris Paul's making those fifteen footers, it's gonna be on Victor to make all of those shots kind of on the roll in the short range. So that's a main area of improvement. The

second big one for me is handling the ball through contact. Again, very different than just handling the ball in general, Like dribbling through cones easy once you figure out how to actually dribble the basketball. But then the second phase of that is like when you're driving into the lane and there's a guy hanging on your arm and another dude to swiping down over here, Like how good are you

at maintaining control the basketball while going through contact? And a major piece there is getting lower to the ground. This is an issue that Kevin Durant ran into a lot earlier in his career, where like, when you're very upright and you're dribbling up high, the ball has to travel very far, and that's a lot easier for guys to get in and either swipe at the basketball or for you to lose control because there's just more space

for the ball to travel. But as you get lower to the ground and you get tighter with your handle. That allows you to kind of operate more in congestion. And that's something that Victor will get better at in time. He's already one of the two or three best defensive players in the league, and I believe he'll be the best defender in the league as soon as next season.

I think his scoring is going to go up a level. Again, we were at a forty five game stample where he was over sixty percent true shooting on twenty three points per game. I think next year he's going to average about t twenty five points per game on probably about sixty percent true shooting for the season. I said this to Colin Coward the other day on the show, But I think he has the potential to be regarded as

a top ten player as soon as this season. He's got the competitiveness for it, he's got the work ethic for it, he takes care of his body. We're gonna cover him very closely this year. I think this is going to be a huge year for Victor Wembanyama as he kind of bursts onto the NBA scene in a

real meaningful way. And again, as I mentioned, earlier. The scary part for the rest of the league is with that garbage roster through a forty five game stample, they were winning Victor Wembanyama's minutes, and you guys saw what he did to Denver. He knocked them down in the playoff standings and in a major way impacted their ability to get out of the conference. Like, that's the type

of ability that this guy has. Again, like I mentioned earlier, this guy's winning impact is beyond our ability to quantify already, and it's only gonna go up from here. Really excited to cover Victor Weinmanyama this year, all right. Bam Adebayo at number eighteen. Last year seventy one games, played, nineteen point three points per game, ten point four rebounds per game, three point nine is seen per game, and two stocks

per game. His shooting splits. He shot fifty two point one percent from the field thirty five point seven percent from three. He also made fifteen threes total last year. He had eight in his entire career before last year. So a real shooting leap from bam that's continued into Team USA. He's shooting thirty eight percent on catch and shoot jump shots. Overall with Team USA and one point one three points per catch and shoot jump shot when

you weighed for three, which is really good. And that again is not counting the shots in the semi final game or the gold medal game because I'm recording this before the tip off on Thursday, August eighth, I shot seventy six percent from the foul line last year. That amounted to fifty three percent in effective field goal percentage waited for threes and fifty eight percent true shooting percentage

waited for threes and free throws. Playtype data percentergy Bam ran thirty inverted ball screens last year for thirty four points. That was one point one to three points per possession, albeit low volume. That's probably something that the Heat could look to explore again next year. And again, all inverted ball screen is you have the big handle the ball and you have a smaller player set the screen for him.

And the main thing there is you're putting the defensive guard and the defensive forward in different positions than they're usually in. Usually the defensive big is in something like a drop coverage and the defensive guard is chasing through a screen. But in this case you've got a guard who's got to be the guy who's helping on the screen, and he doesn't really know how to do that right.

And you've got a big man who has to fight through a screen, which is something that he probably hasn't spent much of his time in his career practicing right. And so there are real opportunities for big guys to come off of those ball screens and get downhill because the defensive coverage isn't really set up to handle it. It's something that I'd like to see the Heat explore a little bit more next season. In ISO, Bam ran one hundred and fifty nine possessions for one hundred and

sixty points. That's one point zero one points per possession. That's pretty average, but not bad. In post up situations, three hundred and ninety four possessions for three hundred and ninety seven points. That's one point zero one points per possession. That made our High volume post up list as well. They ranked fourteenth out of eighteen players to attempt at

least two hundred and fifty possessions in that list. So still a lot to be desired for Bam in terms of as an initiator but the main area of concern for me is his ability to finish on the roll. Again, this was something that really started to flash in a big way in that twenty twenty three finals, if you guys remember but against Yo Kitchen in the Nuggets. But Bam gets just zero one point zero four points per

possession in roll man situations. That's just the thirty ninth percent tile And it really just comes down to his ability to finish close to the basket, which we're going to talk about here in just a second. Let's talk about BAM's shooting. So jump shot zero point nine points per shot, zero point eighty seven points per catch and shoot, and again the big big one here, one point one five points per shot when unguarded, which is really good.

Bam shot forty five percent fueld goal percentage on unguarded catch and choo jumpers, So when BAM's open, he's making damn near half of them. That's a real point of optimism. He got zero point nine to one points per pull up jumper in zero point eighty five points per face up jumper. Good step forward for Bam in that department

that it has continued for him into the Olympics. He shot fifty six percent on floaters, which is actually a really good number, but he only had seventy three reps all season, so it's not a shot that he uses a lot. Shot forty eight percent on hooks, but once again, only twenty nine makes all seasons, so not one that he leans on a lot. At the RAM, he shot sixty four percent, but there's one hundred and thirty four dunks in there. He shot just forty eight point five

percent on one hundred and ninety six layup attempts. And that's really the main differentiator between BAM and the top tier centers when you talk about Jokic, Embiid, Anthony Davis, and BAM. The reason why I think the other three guys are a clear level above BAM, and you'll notice that on this list is that specific ability for him to finish on the roll and to finish at the rim, like for instance, I know a lot of Heat fans

think Bam is better than AD. I know because I see you guys talking about it in the YouTube comments. Sometimes really comes down to this, eighty is a much much better offense player. He's a much better shot creator. He has higher volume and higher efficiency in both ISO and post up situations, and he gets one point one seven points per role man possession. That's way more efficient

than BAM. Now, I actually think Bam is a little better as a passer in ball screens than AD is a little better, but not enough, not nearly enough to make up for that discrepancy as a score. And AD shoots seventy percent at the rim and he shoots sixty percent on layups. He's just a much better, much more high volume, much more efficient offensive player. I also think

Ad is a better defensive player than BAM two. But again, that's the main kind of point of contention I think for a lot of Heat fans is that like BAM kind of AD group, and I think there's a clear gap between the two, and that main gap is just the ability to be a threat offensively, and that's really

the main opportunity. Again, I'm less concerned about him initiating stuff like I'm less concerned about like pick and roll, or like him running inverted ball screens, or like sewing dudes straight up in face up situations or backing dudes

down in the post. The main thing I'm worried about with BAM is can he run ball screens and get into the middle of the floor and be as deadly there as his peers, the guys like Jokic, the guys like Himbiid, the guys like ad If Bam can get up into that tier, he immediately makes himself a substantially more valuable offensive player. We saw that in a big way in the twenty twenty three finals. How many times did Bam catch and finish or fail to finish close

to the rim? As a matter of fact, within eight feet of the rim in the twenty twenty three finals, Bam shot just fifty two percent, and that's really the big area of opportunity. I'm a huge believer in Bam. I think he's one of the great defensive foundations in this league. He can defend in any coverage he's You can make the case he's the best switching big in the league because of his mobility, and he's a really useful five out offensive fulkrium in the modern NBA context

because of his ability to make reads. He can quickly flow from side to side, set good screens, roll into space, get the ball back, roll back to the other side. He's a really useful offense player in every way. Except for his ability to finish, and as long as he can improve that, he can move into that next tier of players. All right, guys, that is all I have for today is always I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show. Our next video, I

should be back in town. And when I'm back in town, we will then start adding a mailbag section to the tail end of these where we can kind of debate some of these rankings based on your guys' disagreements in the content comments. As always, appreciate you, guys, and I'll see you then. The Volume, the NFL season's right around the corner, will be breaking down all the off season storylines on the Colin Cowherd podcast My best takes guests

like my buddy Nick Wright. Check out the Colin Coward podcast, part of the Volume network, available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.