Hoops Tonight - Top 25 Players in the NBA: Anthony Edwards' elite upside, Why Damian Lillard turns Heat into NBA Finals favorite

more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason lt so you guys don't miss any show announcements. And last but not least, for whatever reason, you guys miss one of these videos and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish, don't forget. You can find them wherever you get your podcasts. Under Hoops tonight, all right, let's talk some basketball. Number fifteen a player that I've already seen some people complaining about how high I have him on this list, but I'm going to kind of

dive into that a little bit later. This is one of my favorite players in the league, a specific archetype of player that I've always been a big fan of, and I believe that this type of player succeeds in the playoffs for some very important reasons that we're going to get into at number fifteen, I have Anthony Edwards the quick recap of the season. He got better in every single way this year. He had career highs in points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks,

field goal percentage, and three point percentage. Finished the year at twenty five six and four fifty six point four percent true shooting, and he went up a huge level against the Denver Nuggets in the playoffs, averaged thirty two points, five rebounds, and five assists on sixty percent true shooting. Now, if you guys remember last year against Memphis, he also played really well for his first playoff series as a

twenty year old. He averaged twenty five points per game on sixty percent true shooting against that Memphis team that was one of the best defenses in the league that season. So in eleven career playoff games and is averaging twenty eight points, five rebounds, and four assists on six two percenter shooting and he's twenty one years old. At age twenty one, he has already demonstrated the ability to be

productive and efficient in the NBA playoffs. Now, he still has a lot of room to grow, obviously, but again we have to remember in the playoffs a lot of players struggles. Even as we're getting into this ten to twenty five range, there are a lot of players that are inconsistent and up and down in the playoffs. So to me, even at this point in time, he's the

fifteenth best player in the NBA. The Timberwolves were five points better per one hundred possessions when Ant was on the floor versus off the floor in the regular season, thirteen points better per one hundred possessions with Ant on the floor in the playoffs versus when he was off the floor. Now, Ant's big foundational skill, the number one thing that he has as a leg up against all his peers, is he's just one of the best athletes in the league at his position, but not strictly as

a movement athlete, like a guy like John Morant. He also has that in combination with real size and strength. Now, some of you guys who have been listening for a long time might have heard me kind of come to a conclusion in this particular playoff run that big athletic guards are actually somewhat more valuable than the long, skinny wings.

And it's because they're fire hydrants, to steal a term from my friend petsas they literally cannot be moved off of their spot on both ends of the floor, so as they're driving past people, they tend to blow through their shoulder and get around them. As they are defending on the perimeter, they tend to beat guys to spots and hold them in their spot. Especially as physicality is

allowed at a higher level. In the postseason, they win a ton of perimeter battles, which is becoming more and more important as the NBA kind of enters into this new modern era. And so Anthony Edwards represents that archetype of athlete, but at the guard position, and that's what makes it as a I should say, he represents that type of athlete as a star, and that's what separates

him from a lot of his peers. He has that specific type of athletic build, but he has that skill set, the little bit of skill set and the unwavering confidence and competitiveness that you see in stars, and that puts together one of the best players in the league gets to the rim a ton. He made four point two shots per game in the restricted area this year on sixty four percent shooting That was third in the entire NBA among guards, behind only Shake Gilges, Alexander and John Morant.

As I've said before, he reminds me of a guard version of Lebron in the sense that, like he doesn't necessarily have to be the shiftiest guy in the world. When he just hits a gap, even if it's the tiniest gap, he's just blowing through people's shoulders and getting all the way to the rim with the sheer amount of downhill power that he brings to the table, which is why he went up a level against Denver and why he's been such a successful playoff player in my opinion.

He went up to four point six restricted area makes per game against Denver on the same efficiency sixty four percent. Now, do you guys remember when we were talking with about Paul Joora yesterday about the concept of defending on your heels versus defending on your toes. Anthony Edwards gets really good looks at pull up jump shots. Because defenders are

constantly on their heels. They have to concede shots to Anthony Edwards to have any chance of keeping him in front off the dribble, and so as a result, he gets to rise up into these relatively uncontested pull up jump shots and he makes them. He made forty six percent in effective field goal percentage on pull up jumpers in the regular season, which again not a great number, not great compared to his peers at the top of the league, but for a young player at age twenty one,

that's excellent. And then it's translating at a very high level to the postseason. He had a fifty five percent effective field goal percentage on pull up jumpers in the playoffs against Denver and fifty seven percent effective field goal percentage last year against Memphis. Now, keep that in mind that that is a top tier number. So in the playoffs he's hitting pull up jump shots at the same level as his superstar peers are on the league, and

again I think that's a huge part. I think a huge part of that is just him having defenders on their heels with how good he is at beating people off the dribble. Now, again, a lot of people in my comments were inferring that I had Anthony Edwards in my top fifteen and wondering why, and they were concerned that I had him too high, and so there are two quick things that I wanted to say about that. First, like I said in the first video, there's just not

that much of a gap between. Basically, my top tier drops off after number eleven, and I have the top tier kind of split into two tiers, but they're all what I would consider superstars. Right after number eleven, there's a drop off and in my opinion, from number twelve to number thirty nine. And if you remember, I had fourteen guys that I had as kind of like honorable mention who didn't quite make the list. Number twelve is definitely better than thirty nine in my opinion, but the

gap is pretty small. As a matter of fact, I would say the gap between number eleven and number twelve is probably bigger than the gap between number twelve and number thirty nine. On my list, these guys are all bunched together. So if you disagree with me about a specific spot in the rankings that you have, say, for instance, you're like, how in the hell can you have John Morant over Anthony Edwards. That's ridiculous. John Morant's a better

player than Anthony Edwards. Okay, even if You're right, I don't have much of a gap between those two guys, so we don't disagree by that much. It's not like I'm saying Anthony Edwards is incredible and John Rant's a bum, and you guys are disagreeing with that. No, I'm saying that I have Anthony Edwards is slightly better than John Morant, and in this particular list, that puts him at number fifteen for me. And that gets me to my second

thing that I want to say. The reason why I have Anthony Edwards as high as I do is it has to do with the way that I see the game of basketball, which is not necessarily the same way that you guys see the game. I don't think that I have the market cornered on basketball analysis. I don't

think I know everything. I have my own perspective, and that's why I love talking to you guys and reading comments and picking the brains of every other person who works in the business and talking to other basketball players.

I try to just take in as many perspectives as I can, and that's why my perspective shifts and change from year to year as I learn more about the game, not just from the people that I talk to, but also from watching games like just in this season, what I've learned about the value of the shorter, stockier athletic guards like Anthony Edwards. We are all learning throughout this process, but with my current view of the game, I gravitate

towards this archetype really well. And there's a specific reason for that. There are a lot of guys in the league that are more skilled than Anthony Edwards by a wide chasm. There are a lot of really skilled guards. Try Young, for instance, way behind Anthony Edwards on this list. Trey Young is not even as skilled as some of his peers. But Trey Jung is much more skilled than Anthony Edwards. But for whatever reason, Anthony Edwards is just capable of scoring the ball a lot easier and more

efficiently in the playoffs. Now he's again at this phase in his career. He is a different type of player too. Trey Jung's more of a passer. Try Young is a better passer, but like they're totally different archetypes of players. But as we zoom in strictly on thebility to score the basketball, for some reason, it's easier than ant than

it is for Trey Young. Why is that? It's because in that setting, when the refs allow more physicality, when scouting becomes a bigger part of the equation and the easy stuff gets taken away, the dudes that are bigger and stronger and faster, for whatever reason, are just capable of getting to their spots easier and making shots easier. It's just part of the way the game changes as you get to this phase. Now, again, I don't see much of a gap between Trey Young and Anthony Edwards. Again,

these guys are all clustered up. But that's why I gravitate towards that type of player. It's a similar type of concept to Lebron James. There are a lot of players over the last fifteen years that have been considerably more skilled than Lebron James. Guys like Kevin Durant, Guys like Steph Curry. Right, why is it that I would even argue a guy like Paul George as like more tangible skill in terms of like ball handling and shooting

than Lebron James. But from twenty twelve to twenty twenty, none of those guys came remotely close to Lebron in consistent productivity and impacting winning in the NBA playoffs, Like not even close. I mean, that's why he's second in the goat debate for me and first for many other people. Why why is that? It's because he's bigger, stronger, faster, and when the game gets super competitive and and physical and the ref swallow the whistles, the dude who's bigger

and stronger just has a lot of success. And again, like that, that's just the reality of the NBA playoffs. That's why we see really weird outcomes. Like D'Angelo Russell is a lot more skilled than Bruce Brown, but Bruce Brown whooped his freaking ass in that Western Conference final series, utterly embarrassed him, you know, Like even Anthony Davis is one of the most skilled bigs in the league. Nicole Jokic is also very skilled and probably more skilled than

Anthony Davis. But the reason why he whooped Anthony Davis's ass is he's too big and strong for him. He physically bullied Anthony Davis in Game four when he was tied at one thirteen in the left corner. He had Anthony Davis on an island and he just ripped through and just suck like shucked him off with his left hand and went up and made it with his right like. At the end of the day, this is a contact sport and the bigger, stronger, more athletic players just tend

to play better. Four of the last five finals MVPs were the strongest guys in the league at their position. Nikole Jokicic last year, two years before that, Gianni Santanakompo year before that, Lebron James year before that, Kawhi Leonard. Once again. Steph is the exception that proves the rule, which is what makes him so ridiculous. But basketball is a contact sport. Overall, strength and athleticism wins most of

the time. And that is why I g gravitate towards guys like Anthony Edwards and that's why I'm so high on him. And I don't think it's a coincidence that even at age twenty one, he's been so successful in the NBA Playoff. It's because of that unbelievable, top tier, unstoppable athletic set of tools that he has. Now it has three primary areas for improvement, in my opinion, he needs at a floater. He shot just thirty seven percent on floaters in May, just thirty of them all season.

Why is that? It's just something that will help his overall rim efficiency go up. Anthony shot sixty four percent in the restricted area this year. That's very good compared to guards. But with his build in his athleticism, he should be closer to seventy percent, right, And a big part of that, in my opinion, is he's constantly challenging rim protectors. Adding a consistent floater so that he can make a read and say, oh, I've got this rim protector out of position, I'm going hard to the rim.

Or oh, he's waiting on me. This is going to be a tough shot. Let me stop short and make a little floater. Adding that to his game I think is going to go a long way towards raising his overall rim efficiency, raising his overall scoring volume, but also reducing the wear and tear on his body. So I'd like to see him out a floater. He needs to improve as a playmaker. Just four point four assists to three point three turnovers in the regular season this year

has been a tunnel vision. All of you Timberwolves fans have noticed this for sure. Where you can just you can just kind of tell when he's dribbling on the perimeter. It's like he's gonna drive or he's going to take a pull up jump shout. He's not looking to make a play for his teammates. And the reason why that's an issue is rim pressure opens up better passing opportunities than anything else. That's just the best way to create

opportunities for your teammates. The defense just sucks into the paint, all eyes are on you, and there's easy kickouts to shooters and drop offs to dunkers. That's why you see guys like John Murran and Russell Westbrook just rack up so many assists. They just pack the paint too much

and all those easy opportunities are there. So there's no reason with Anthony Edwards's ability to drive the basketball that he should be below six assists per game, and I'd like to see him get above that mark in the next couple of years. Lastly, he needs to learn to defend off the ball. Another big part of why I have Anthony Ewards as high as I do is I

think he's apps absolutely frightening on the ball. Defensively, he is too quick and too strong and when they allow that physicality in the playoffs, he just puts dudes in jail. And how many times did you watch during the regular season this year him and Jaden McDaniels just completely shut down the other two teams best perimeter players as Minnesota grinded out a win on the defensive end of the floor. It's a huge part of why I'm so high on end.

I think he has better defensive potential than most of the young players in the league, and that's crazy from a six to six guard. But right now, he's a pretty bad off ball defender. He consistently overhelps, leaves shooters wide open, missus, box outs, all that kind of stuff. That's all just like focus and reps and instincts that he has to build over time. But it does undercut

his defensive value a bit. So if it can fix that off ball defense element out of floater become a better playmaker, that's where he enters into that superstar, top ten player of the league conversation. But to be clear, I expect him to be there within the next two or three years. That's how good I think this kid is. I already think he's really good right now and quite frankly, I think the Wolves are going to be a playoff team next year if they stay mostly healthy. Number fourteen

Damian Lillard quick recap of the season. Thirty two points, five rebounds, seven assists, career high in points per game, career high, sixty five percent true shooting, still one of

the most deadly shot makers in the league. Fifty six percent effective field goal percentage on catch and shoot jumpers, fifty four percent effective field goal percentage on pull up jumpers, forty five percent on floaters, three point five restricted area makes per game on sixty three percent shooting, which is like insanely good for a guard as small as Damian Lillard is. He did add another level to his foul

grifting game this season. He had a career high eight point eight made free throws per game, which is two more than any season in his career. You've shot ninety one percent there. And do you guys remember that list of fifteen players that I had as like the high volume pick and roll ball handlers that all ran at

least one thousand. Well, in that list of one thousand high volume pick and roll players, out of those fifteen guys, Dame finished second with only Luka Doncic ahead the Blazers scored one point one to four points for Damian Lillard pick and roll. Remember the two hundred and fifty ISO list, that's my high volume ISO list. Twenty five players in the league ran at least two hundred and fifty ISOs. Dame finished third on that list, scoring one point one

to three points per possession. Also an outstanding playmaker with a two point one seven assist to turnover ratio, he is still one of the very best offensive engines in the league. As a matter of fact, among the stars in the league, only Nikole Jokic, Diaron Fox, and Devin Booker logged higher offensive ratings than Damian Lillard did with the Blazers. And that even though the Blazers do have a decent amount of offensive talent, the Denver, Sacramento and

Phoenix teams had more offensive talent. But as we know, Portland was a very flawed roster. It did not have the interior defense that they needed to cover for the defensive shortcomings of their back court, which for the record, Dame plays a big part in. And so the Blazers were pretty farrassingly bad this year. They finished the season thirty three and forty nine. Missed the play in tournament entirely, which is unacceptable, But to be clear, Dame did his

best to fight off those problems. They were much closer to five hundred when he played. They were twenty seven and thirty one. This is a crazy stat I put on Twitter earlier today. They were plus one zh five this season with Dame on the floor. That was a better point differential than the Oklahoma City Thunder, for instance. So they were actually a decent team when he was on the floor, but they were minus four hundred and thirty four when he was off the floor, which is

absolutely insane. That's a big part of why I've been in support of Damien's trade request. I think he's too good to be wasted on a team this bad. Portland's had more than enough opportunity to try to put a contender around him, and they just haven't been able to. So for me, it's kind of a waste of his all time talent, and that's why I want to see

him in Miami now. If Dame is so good, if I just laid out second best pick and roll guy in the league, third best ISO guy in the league, you know sixty four percent for reshoot on thirty two points or sixty five per century shooting on thirty two points per game, which is insane. Fourth best offensive rating among stars in the league. If he's that high, why is he down at fourteen? What is the difference here?

And yes, part of it is me, you know, punishing so to speak, or factoring in the fact that he missed the playoffs. But in my opinion, it has to

do with two key weaknesses. Because in my opinion, and I genuinely believe this, I think Dame is every bit as good as Steph Curry on the basketball in terms of just giving him the ball, spread, floor, pick and roll iso, Dame is just as good in my opinion, But there are two massive areas that Steph is much better than Damon And that's the difference between being the fourteenth best player in the league and being much much higher on the list the the way that I have Steph.

Those two things are Steph has committed himself to the defensive end of the floor, which has all allowed him to become an average to slightly above average defensive player, whereas Dame is a significant negative on the defensive end of the four that makes a big difference. Now, one thing I'll say in Dame's defense there is Steph is legitimately bigger. He's taller, as longer arms. That certainly helps.

The second piece of it is Steph does a really good amount of his work offensively off the ball, which helps in a bunch of different ways. It creates a bunch of opportunities for his teammates through the gravity right guys like Steph running off of a wide pin down and both defenders running with him, leaving a cutter wide open, or just a general chaosity causes running off the ball. But also it allows him to have real variety in

his attack. He's not just sitting from the top of the key attacking at a live pick and roll a high pick and roll in ISO all the time. There is a really good balance between his off ball action and his on ball action. That is, to me a significant part of what makes Steph a better playoff player offensively excuse me, than Dame does. Even if we look past the defense differences. Here's a stat to demonstrate what I'm talking about. Dam and Staph both played about the

same amount of games this year. Steph played fifty six games Dame played fifty eight. Steph ran eight hundred and eighty eight pick and rolls in ISOs. This year Dame ran fifteen hundred and ninety nine, almost double. So the live ball, all five eyes staring at you type of plays Dame ran twice as often, and again we no one's gonna complain. All the offensive numbers are there, sixty five percent true shooting, thirty two points per game, All

the point per possession numbers are off the charts. But that's not the first time we've seen a helio centric player succeed in the regular season but then experience a tailoff and efficiency when they get to the postseason. Steph Curry is sixty one percent true shooting for his career in the playoffs. That's counting the early years when he wasn't as good and the teams weren't as good. Dame

is at fifty six percent for his career. That chasm there, in my opinion, has a lot to do with the off ball on ball balance, avoiding that redundancy and repetitiveness of just pounding the ball at the top of the key every single possession, which makes you easier to guard. Over the course of a seven game series, and that's not even counting all of the easy baskets that Steph generates just by moving without the basketball and creating chaos

for the defense. And so again, like I'd believe, Dame is every bit as good as Steph on the ball, but because he doesn't embrace that off ball work that Steph does and the defensive end just working hard to not be a problem. That's the difference between being a top tier, bona fide championship winning superstar and being what Damian Lillard is, which is just one of the best offensive players in the league that has a ton of regular season success, but the playoff success isn't there to

match it. Although I do want to say in Dame's defense, Steph has definitely had better teams, but I also believe Steph is a better player. Those two concepts can both be true at the same time. So in summary, Dame is one of the best offensive engines in the NBA. He's a heliocentric pull up shooter that's an above average passer, top tier pick and roll ball handler, and top tier

ISO guy in the league. But he's somewhat repetitive in the way that he attacks and he's a bad defensive player, which have limited some of his top end playoff ceiling. But I personally am very excited to see Dame play in Miami. I think Eric Spolstra is the best guy to bring out the best of him on the defensive end and to weaponize him more as an off ball player, especially with how much they like to run action with Bam having the ball at the top of the key

or just with Jimmy Butler having the ball. So I think that this has a chance to be the year where Damian Lillard kind of achieves the peak version of himself as a basketball player, and that Heat team would be good enough to potentially win the title. And so again, we don't know for sure if he's going to Miami, but I would love to see him there because I think we'd get to see the best version of Dame as a basketball player. All right. Number thirteen Shay Gildess

Alexander another one of my favorite players. Spoiler alert, I really like good basketball players. Season Reecat, this is shayspa out. You're finished fourth in the league and scoring at thirty one point four points per game. Finished with thirty one points, five rebounds, and six assists per game, sixty three percent true shooting. At this point, he doesn't really have an offensive weakness. He's the best rim pressuring guard in the

entire NBA. He led all guards with four point seven restricted area makes per game on sixty four percent shooting. He is one of the deadliest short range pull up jump shooters in the league. He actually shot forty seven percent on pull up jumpers overall. He also shot forty four percent on floaters. All of that combined to make Shay literally one of the very best paint scorers in the NBA. He averaged fifteen point nine points per game in the paint. That was third place in the entire

league regardless of position. The only two guys ahead of him are Giannis and Zion Williamson. So aside from the two guys who literally all they do is bulldoze to the basket, say Gildes, Alexander's the very best at getting to and scoring in the paint. He also shot thirty six percent on pull up which is really good. Remember that's one of the toughest shots in the game. Anything

over thirty five percent is really good. One point ninety three assists to turnover ratio which is really good, and again, playing with lesser offensive talent than you see elsewhere around the league, gets to the foul line a ton ninety one percent on eleven attempts per game. If you absolutely had to pick a weakness to focus on, it would

be his catch and shoot jump shot. He only shot twenty eight percent on those, although they were all threes, so it's forty two percent effective field goal percentage, but he barely ever took them. He actually took them less than once per game, and mostly a couple of reasons. One he mostly had the ball in his hands, and two, when he caught on the perimeter in a spot up situation, he tended to drive those closeouts. And guess what, he

was really good at that too. Despite shooting just twenty eight percent on catch and shoot jumpers, Shay converted spot up possessions at one point zero three points per possession, which is above average. So he just really damn good at everything. And the one weakness he has is one that doesn't really matter in this current situation. And my guess is he played on a team with more talent and he got more catch and shoot reps, he probably

shoot better on catch shoot jumpers. All you basketball players know, if you ever have to do a thing only once per game or less, it's really hard to do it well because you don't really build a rhythm in that specific area. She's an old school guard, plays super physical, works hard for easy shots at the rim, which is a huge part of what makes him so efficiency efficient. He's way bigger than people think. He's six foot six with a seven foot wingspan six eleven and a half wingspan.

He's capable of making every conceivable type of short range shot from any footwork, from any dribble combination, from any shooting pocket. If he needs to extend the release higher, hold on to it longer, shoot it lower, shoot it off to the side, shoot a float or shoot a jump shot, shoot a hook shot. He's got them all and that is what makes him so difficult to guard,

especially at the end of games. We saw him hit several huge shots to win games this year, including making the game winner in the play in tournament against the

New Orleans Hornets. And that's why I actually do because we've never actually seen him a playoff series as the number one option, and that's a big part of why he's down low on this list, like, Shaye made First Team All NBA and I have him thirteen and a big part of that is you got to see something in the postseason, right, I mean, that's that's going to be an important step for anybody to dislodge players that we have above him on this list, But we are

going to see him in those environments and I expect him to succeed. And the main reason why is because he's just so versatile and so creative that is incredibly unpredictable and difficult to guard in late game situations, which is why he consistently gets to a spot that he knows he can make a shot and he has a high percentage chance of making it. So I'm very, very excited to see Shay gil just Alexander this year for the Thunder. I think they're going to make the postseason

this year. I think Shaye is the North American player, so counting Canada in the United States, that is most capable of challenging Giannis, Luca and Jokic over the course of the next ten years. I'm excited. He got his coming out party lot last year and I'm excited to see him and what he can accomplish this year. All right, guys, that is all I have for today, Just two guys. Tomorrow, I'm hitting number twelve and number eleven before we head into the final two weeks before we go one player

at a time. As always, I sincerely appreciate your support and I will see you guys tomorrow. The volume