Hoops Tonight - Top 25 Players in the NBA: Trae Young and Bam Adebayo begin our rankings

me on Twitter at Underscore Jason Lts. You guys don't miss any show announcements. And if, 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 podcast. Under Hoops tonight, all right, let's talk some basketball. So my personal criteria is gonna look at your overall winning impact on both ends of the floor. We're not just gonna be looking

at box score stats. We're gonna be looking at the various ways that players can impact winning in every single facet of the game. There's a particular player on today's list that does not have a very impressive statistical set of numbers to look at from this season. As a matter of fact, there are gonna be guys who don't make the list entirely that have more impressive stat lines

throughout the season. But I thought this player was monumentally important for his team on both ends of the floor on the way to a deep run in the playoffs that came very close to winning an NBA championship. And so that's the kind of thing we're gonna be looking at, overall winning impact on both ends of the floor. Secondly, specifically, how your game translates to.

And in order to win the Lario brian Trophy, you have to win sixteen games in late April, May and June, and so your game needs to be able to translate into that setting where it's more physical, where there's more scouting, where the crowds become more intense, where the pressure rises up a notch and everything becomes harder. The guys that thrive on that level, in my opinion, will always be more valuable than the guys that don't, and the last

but not least team success. Again, at the end of the day, we play the games to win, and we played to win games on the way to that Larry O'Brian trophy. So I will be giving preferential treatment in this list to guys that made longer playoff runs or at least made the playoffs or won in some capacity in the playoffs, compared to guys that did not either have that much success in the playoffs or that missed the playoffs entirely. So that's basically the criteria overall winning

impact on both ends of the floor. How your game translates to the playoffs, and did you lead to team success? All right, let's start with number twenty five, a guy who missed this list last year, but in his perpetual ability to get his team to the postseason and to give himself a fighting chance even in a matchup that I didn't think they had much of a chance against the Boston Celtics, this guy crawled into the list as a couple of other guys have backed out from last year.

Trey Young a little quick season recap. In the regular season, he played seventy three games, so it was very available. Averaged twenty six points and ten assists per game on fifty seven percent true shooting. Both of his scoring volume and efficiency were down from last year by just to touch. In the playoffs, they lost in six games to the Boston Celtics, he averaged twenty nine to four and ten on fifty two percent true shooting, so a little dip in a few but he did get crazy hot in

the fourth quarter of Game five. He had sixteen points in the quarter, including a bunch of threes down the stretch and the game winner to stretch that to a sixth game. But then in game six with the Hawks up by three with six minutes left, he went really cold, missed his last five shots in Boston won by eight. So that's kind of a quick recap of what tray Young season was like. He was as like an overview

of what he does as a basketball player. He was the highest volume pick and roll player in the league last year by a mile. They ran one seven and twenty six Tray Young pick and rolls, which was three hundred and fifty more than second place on that list, which was Luka Doncic at a little over thirteen hundred and seventy five I think, or thirteen hundred and seventy four, So not even in the same stratosphere as anybody in

the league. When it comes to just Trey Young comes down the floor and runs pick and roll every single trip down the floor. His strength in that setting is his passing ability. We think lot about Trey Young hitting crazy step back threes or floaters in the lane, and those are certainly things that he's capable of, but scoring is not his strength. The Hawks were much better when he passed out of pick and roll than when he shot.

He passed out of pick and roll almost half the time about forty seven percent of the time, to be exact, and that was when he was most deadly. The Hawks scored one point nine points per possession in pick and

roll when Trey Young passed the basketball. He specifically has an eye for his lob threats, whether that's out of the dunker spot or screening and rolling hard to the basket, and Landa constantly had guys like Clint Cappella and John Collins who could rise up over the top of the defense and catch passes above the rim and finish, and

Trey was just great at hitting those guys. They averaged one point three to six points per possession when Trey passed to the rollman in pick and roll, that's incredible, and one point six points per possession when he was hitting cutters along the baseline. So the bread and butter for Trey and his success in pick and roll is his ability to manipulate the back line defender and to

find openings for his dunkers at the rim. Overall, he scored just one point zero five points per possession in pick and roll, which is good, not great, and that's because when he would try to shoot out of pick and roll, they scored just zero point nine to four points per possession, and the reason why is he's not particularly great at actually making shots. He was thirty five point eight percent on pull up jumpers, which is below average for most pull up shooting guards high volume ones.

At least thirty seven percent on catch and shoot jumpers, again good, not great. Forty seven point seven percent at the rim. This is actually crazy. There were seventy one players last year that attempted I'm trying to find the exact number. Seventy one players attempted at least three hundred shots at the rim last year. Trace forty seven point seven percent ranked seventieth out of seventy one players. So he's literally one of the worst rim finishers in the league.

And the one thing he's great at making in pick and roll is his floater. He makes about half of them on massive volume, three hundred and eighty attempts last year. But all of the other stuff, the pull up jump shot, the catch and shoot jump shots, the shots at the rim just not as good as his peers there. And so it's ironic because the Trey Young kind of has a reputation as being a scoring guard, but his best strength is passing the basketball. I think part of the

reason for that is he's a little repetitive. Almost every ball screen comes from the top of the key. Almost every single time he uses the ball screen. He doesn't have good balance between rejecting the screen or using it. Using it, he uses the screen about almost eighty percent of the time. And then obviously with Trey Young, the book is out on him. If you can chase him off that three point line and funnel him into the basket, he will miss shots. It might amid all that congestion

around the rim. I think that's part of why his scoring efficiency isn't where it needs to be, but that playmaking efficiency brings everything up to where it is a dependable offensive engine. In the NBA, there were but that one went zero five points possession. Just to give you an idea fifteen players logged at least one thousand pick and rolls last year and Trey Young ranked ninth, So out of the super high volume pick and roll guys,

Trey was kind of in that bottom half. Luka Doncic, Damian Lillard, Donovan Mitchell, James Harden, Jalen Brunson, DeMar Derozen, Chris Paul and Tyrese Haliburton all were more efficient than Trey Young in high volume pick and roll situation, same type of thing in ISO. Not very efficient when he tried to score the basketball zero point nine to four points per possession, but when he passed out of ISO one point three to one points per possession. I was

watching a bunch of Trey Young ISOs this morning. He's at his best when he's manipulating that back line defender, same thing as the pick and roll concept. All he's doing is making some sort of quick move to get into some gap in the defense. Again in that ISO situation, getting that rim protector to just take his eyes and kind of lose focus for split second off ball. That's when he's throwing the lob or that's when he's throwing

that bounce pass for the dunk. I actually curious without John Collins there this year because of the fact that you can't really play a congu and capel at the same time. I'm kind of curious to see how they're going to build that front court around him, because he does need those lob threats. That's somebody that he's something that he's constantly trying to use when he's on the floor. So his strengths, he's one of the best passers in

the league. He's great at manipulating defenses to find openings around the rim for dunkers, and he's capable of making enough shots to keep the defense honest. Over a point per possession in both pick and roll and ISO at massive volume automatically makes you an above average offensive engine in the NBA, and to Tray's credit, he was able

to maintain that into the playoffs this year. He was over a point per possession in pick and roll in ISO in the playoffs against Boston, and that was a big part of why they pushed a super talented Celtics team to six games. His shot making took a little bit of a step back. He only shot forty percent in the Celtics series, but his playmaking actually went up a level as he picked Boston's defense apart. His weakness is he's not nearly as good as his as his

peers at actually making shots. He's an inefficient pull up jump shooter, one of the worst rim finishers in the league. Like we talked about earlier, he's a little too repetitive impredictable with his attacks. So I'd like to see him add more off ball stuff, and then he's the worst defensive player in the league at his position, although the Hawks have gotten pretty good at covering for him over

the year. So when you have one of the best offensive engines in the league, a top five scoring guard or top five passing guard in the league, in a top fifteen a scoring a guy in the league, to be down at twenty five, that's a product of the fact that he struggles so much defensively, and he struggles so much to actually put the ball in the basket efficiently. But I was on the fence between four guys for this twenty five spot. It was either going to be

John Morant, Bradley Beale, James Harden, or Trey Young. I actually tweeted this out as a poll, and most of you guys leaned towards John Morant, but I went with Trey because I think he has the best combination of current ability. I'm a little bit down on John Morant in general right now. I didn't think he played particularly well in the Lakers series, and then obviously all the off cour immaturity stuff is starting to hurt the team. But Trey Young also has the playoff pedigree just two

years ago, leading his team to a conference finals. So I decided to give the nod to Trey Young at twenty five all right, number twenty four BAM at a bio season recap. In the regular season, he played seventy five games avers twenty points, nine rebounds on three assists

on fifty nine percent true shooting. That was a career high for him in scoring volume, and the playoffs took a little bit of a dip eighteen points per game, ten rebounds, four assists, fifty three percent true shooting, lost a little bit of his touch around the rim in particular, as that playoff run progressed. They lost in five to the Denver Nuggets in the NBA Finals. And this is the one that I was referencing at the beginning of

the show. This is the guy that you look at the numbers and it's like eighteen, ten and four and we're considering him to be the twenty fourth best player in the league. I understand why that can be a little confusing, But again, if you watched Miami Heat this year and you look at the way that they were beating teams, a large part on the strength of Eric Spolstrow. In all of the curve balls he was throwing against

every team. In terms of mixing up defensive coverages, going to zone as often as he did, the ability for Bam at a bio to both switch and to work and drop coverage. I believe Bam is the most versatile defender in the NBA right now. Not necessarily the best defender. I think that guy's ahead of him on this list, but I do think he is the most versatile defender

in the NBA right now. And what he did as a versatile defender for Miami unlocked a lot of the things that they were capable of doing to throw other teams out of rhythm, and that's why I have him so high on this list. Again, I don't think he's the best rim protector in the world. That's Anthony Davis. I don't think he's the biggest or strongest guy at his position. That's either Jokic or Embiid right. And he's not the best perimeter defender in the world, but he's

really damn good at all of those things. He is an excellent rim protector. He can bang with bigger bodies, and he can switch out onto the perimeter with some of the best players in the world, and so being that great at all of those individual things allows Eric Spolser to be like, Hey, you're gonna guard Giannis this series. Okay, now it's the Knicks. Now we're gonna have you, you know, uh, mixing in drop coverages and switches, and the same thing

down the line against Boston and against Denver. The flexibility they had to use Bam in all these different coverages, Like, hey, like, we're gonna run a two three zone. The only way that's gonna work is if your big man is super active getting in and out of the paint to avoid the defense of three second call and securing all the defensive rebounds that he needs to secure. It's an extremely difficult job. That's why so many teams don't run zone

in the NBA. But it works because of Bam. BAM allowed them to run zone and to run it effectively. BAM allowed them to switch and to switch effectively. Bam allowed them to run drop coverage and run it effectively. He unlocks everything that they do on the defensive end

of the floor. And again, he may not be the best defender in the world, but that versatility uniquely brings a ton of winning impact to Miami on the offensive end of the floor, a career high twenty points per game this season, over a points per possession in both post ups and ISOs. The main thing that kind of drove that was he was really good from the left block, getting to like a short jump shot over his left shoulder or a short hook shot over his left shoulder.

He's actually shot forty four percent on his little short mid range pull up jump shot during the regular season, but in the playoffs that efficiency tanked. He made less than sixty percent of his shots at the rim. He only made thirty percent of his pull up jump shots. And you could probably tell Heat fans in particular, we'll remember this, But Bam, it just felt like he missed a lot of bunnies, whether it was in the short roll or whether it was in post ups against ISOs

or offensive rebound put backs. He just missed a lot of shots that he normally makes during the course of the regular season, and that ended up being an issue for the Heat, especially as they would cool off offensively from time to time. Now, one thing I want to say in BAM's defense, because we're gonna get to this when we talk about Anthony Davis at a later date.

But when you had that much on your plate defensively VI actually in the postseason, it wears on your legs, and so there's another level of conditioning and accuracy you need as an offensive player for your game to translate when you're that fatigued. And I think that's the next level for Bam. It's just getting to the point where he can bring all of the defensive versatility that he brings in the postseason while adding in the offensive reliability

that he brought during the regular season. But despite him not necessarily shooting particularly well, I thought he had a lot of offensive impact this year. His passing ability unlocked a lot of stuff for Miami. Obviously, only four assists per game, but I thought particularly in the short role, when multiple defenders would be drawn to somebody like Gave Vincent or Kyle Lowry or to Jimmy Butler, he was catching and making that hockey assist pass to the shooter

on the weak side. A lot of those hot shooting nights for Miami. The fulcrum of it all was Bam at a bio and his ability to pass out of the middle of the floor. He also was a really, really good offensive rebounder. In this playoff run, he average three offensive rebounds per game. Did a lot of damage to Al Horford in particular in that series, just throwing him around like a rag doll getting to offensive rebounds. His overwhelming athleticism at the position is just such a

huge weapon in the postseason, so his strengths. He's top tier versaal defender, a good screener and passer, making him a great connective piece for an offense. He was a capable post scorer. He actually was over a point per possession in the post in this postseason run as well, a dominant rebounder ten rebounds a game, three offensive rebounds a game, and an excellent foundational big that makes every other thing that your basketball team needs to do easier.

That's why we have to look beyond the box score. If you're the Miami Heat, if you're Eric Spolsure, you're going into a playoff series and you're game planning. Having bam Adebayo there to take a lot of the more difficult assignments just makes everything easier for you as a basketball team. I don't think it's a coincidence that we see duos like bam and Abio and Jimmy Butler, or Lebron James and Anthony Davis at least back in twenty twenty.

The versions of these two where they specialize in dirty work and things on the defensive end as well, those guys are just easier to build around and they make easier roles for the role players around them. For weaknesses, I just put struggling to make the leap into a more reliable offensive player in the postseason. That's again, fatigue is always going to be a factor with how well he has to defend for what that team needs from

him defensively. But getting back to the point where he's at twenty points per game on close to sixty percent true shooting like he is in the regular season in the postseason, that's the difference between where he is right now and being like a perennial All NBA guy. So there for the taking for BAM. He just needs to

keep making that progress, all right. Number twenty three Donovan Mitchell career high in both scoring volume and efficiency this year twenty eight points per game, sixty one percent true shooting, although just four rebounds and four assists. Remember that list, I told you guys are the fifteen high volume pick and roll shot creator the guys who're at least one thousand. Donovan Mitchell finished third on that list, scoring one point one points per possession including passes in pick and roll.

Really driven by his ability to score. It's the exact opposite of the tray young thing where he can't put the ball in the basket, but he's a great passer.

threes this year. That's an outstanding number, forty eight percent on pull up twos that's a really good number, fifty six percent on floaters that's an outstanding number, and sixty two percent at the rim, which if you're a guard, anything over sixty percent is excellent. So he's just deadly putting the ball in the basket. That was the driving force for most of his success in pick and roll this year, but in the playoffs he fell off in a big way. Twenty three points per game on fifty

two percent true shooting. In particular, his pull up three fell apart. He was just six for thirty against the Knicks on pull up threes. It's kind of a weird trend because Donovan Mitchell used to be one of the most reliable playoff scorers in the league. In his first four playoff runs, he averaged twenty nine points per game on fifty seven percent true shooting, which is insane for a young scoring guard. Last two playoff runs, twenty five

points per game on fifty one percent true shooting. Now, a lot of that has to do with the situation last year that Jazz team was kind of combusting in.

We talked about this with Kevin Durant fifty five percent on pull up jump shots the last two regular seasons, and then he just can't make him at the same rate when he gets to the postseason. But we've seen him have other postseason runs, like in twenty twenty one where he's making all of his pull up jump shots, right, So like it's just it's it's a finny pull up jump shots are are It's a very important skill in the NBA, but it's one of the most inconsistent. It's

like sometimes they go in, sometimes they don't. This year for Phoenix, it was like like Devin Booker couldn't miss him, but Kevin Durant was missing him, you know, And who knows if next year if it's the opposite, Right, it's not necessarily about them getting better or worse at it. It's just a very volatile skill. And Donovan Mitchell is one of those guys that just takes a ton of pull up jump shots and so guess what, sometimes you're gonna make twelve for thirty and sometimes you're gonna go

six for thirty. And against the Knicks this year he went six for thirty. But again, I do think that the the limitations of their off ball scoring played a role in that because you know, here's the thing, the Knicks also had a limitation in off ball scoring. But I picked the Knicks to win that series because I told you guys, I thought Jalen. Jalen Brunston was a slightly better player overall, even though he wasn't as good of like a top end talented score as Donovan Mitchell,

I thought he was a much better game manager. Now what does that mean. It means managing the flow of the game, making sure that your team gets the right shot on every single possession, being very deliberate to get the right advantages, whereas with Donovan Mitchell it can be a little bit flying by the seat of his pants. Sometimes a lot of times he's just coming down the floor calling for a ball screen, jacking up a shot.

A big part of it is versatility, though, like for Donovan Mitchell, almost everything he does right now is look to score out of pick and roll. Not a great passer out of pick and roll isolation. He's somewhat low volume, although he has some success there, doesn't have a post game. I think you ran one post up all season long. Jalen Brunson has won during the regular season, ran almost twice as many ISOs and post ups as Donovan Mitchell.

He's got this whole other side to his game. He can run pick and roll and yeah, if you go underneath the screen, he's gonna knock down pull up jump shot. You go over the top, he's gonna work his way downhill.

But he'll also be like, oh, like you got cheddy Osman on the court, We're gonna run a guard guard screen and get cheddy Osman switched on to me and I'm just gonna hit him with a series of dribbles into a little short step back jump shot that I'm gonna make two thirds of the time because of how much separation I'm getting, Like Donovan Mitchell struggles with that part of the game. Again, if you're not a dominant defensive player and you're not a dominant playmaker, you've got

to find a way to score efficiently consistently. And if you rely too heavily on one thing in this case pull up, jump shooting and pick and roll, you can run into some limitations when you go cold. But having other punches, Donovan Mitchell's a big straw guard. Adding a post up game so that you can do a little bit of what Jalen Brunson did during this postseason run,

that would help a lot. Adding a looking to score more in switches, clearing the side, do what Jimmy Butler did with the heat, get the matchup you want, clear the side, beat your man off the dribble, and play driving kick basketball from there, that methodical, more surgical part of the game is the next area of improvement for

Donovan Mitchell. So in summary, top five scoring guard in the league, I would say, if you're looking at small guards to get a bucket, I'd say Steph Damon Kyrie are the only three guys I'd take over him, so he's the fourth best SMALLT scoring guard in the league. He's also hyper efficient, although he hasn't been in the

last two playoff runs. But he's a bit one dimensional as a score and he does almost all of his work out of pick and roll, so he needs to add some either like either an off ball element like what Steph Curry does, or more of a physical element in terms of posting or isoing specific matchups and adding some of that half court surgery the table. Again, he's not a great playmaker or defender, so consistency with his scoring is an absolute must all right. Number twenty two

Dearon Fox, another new entry into the list. Regular season twenty five points, four rebound, six assists on sixty percent true shooting, just a deadly mix of paint scoring and a reliable pull up jump shot. He averaged twelve point two points in the paint per game this year, which was third in the league among guards. Only Shake Gill, Just Alexander and John Morant were guards that were ahead of him in paint scoring. Super reliable short jump shot

and floater. He shot forty six percent on pull up jump shots inside the three point line and fifty four percent on floaters. Combining that with his ridiculous rim finishing, he was seventy two percent at the rim in the regular season.

playoff basketball. Why because it's high pressure usually there they teams will start switching everything at that point, so your sets will stop working, and then it's like a lot of physicality, the rest swallow the whistle, right, It kind of replicates the playoff environment in an end of game environment. And so I don't think it's a coincidence that Dearon Fox as good as he was in crunch time during this regular season, that he ended up having as successful

a playoff run as he did. He ended up going up a level in scoring volume at twenty seven points per game, five rebounds and eight assists, fifty two percent true shooting. His efficiency went down a little bit. The big one there was at the rim He was seventy two percent at the rim in the regular season, but forty nine percent against Golden State. They just put their best athletes on him as a lot of Andrew Wiggins, a lot of Gary Payton, with Raymond Green and caval

On Loney just waiting at the under the basket. That's that high level playoff scouting that he's gonna have to work his way around. But again for his first playoff run, I was incredibly impressed just by his ability to get to his spots, his ability to consistently beat people off the dribble. His playmaking has been a revelation eight assists

per game in this postseason run. But he actually was really good during the regular season one point six points per possession when he passed out of pick and roll. This year one point two to six points per possession when he passed out of ISO. Just a really good driven kick player. Went back and watched a bunch of tape today. Just doesn't over complicate things, beats guys off the dribble, finds the help defender, kick out pass to the guy on the wing or underneath the basket for

a dunk. He just is a really underrated passer. For a guy that gets so much attention as a score. But you can always tell right away when you watch playoff basketball if a player has a skill or a trait that translates to that level. And almost immediately you could tell watching dearon Fox, this dude can play in the playoffs. He's too quick, These dudes can't guard him, and he's got enough touch to make the show over the top that he needs to make. I thought it

was a really impressive first playoff run for him. In summary, he was the primary engine for the best offense in the NBA this season. He's a dribble drive guard that no one can keep in front, that has a reliable jump shot to keep people honest. He's a good playmaker and a good point of attack defender. That was another thing that stood out to me in the Warriors series. He was one of their best options to put on

the Warriors perimeter players. Obviously there's an engagement factor there, and sometimes he conserves energy and takes possessions off, but he's a very capable point of attack defender. And I thought overall he had a more impactful playoff series than Donovan Mitchell, and I think right now he's a slightly

better player overall. And that's why I have Dearn Fox at twenty two, just so you guys know, like I have this all kind of split up into tears, and I'll tell you guys when we get to the next tier. But there are there's not really much of a gap between these guys. Like you'll notice when I get to the top of this list, number eleven is not that much worse than number four, Like it's tiniest of margin. As a matter of fact, number eleven kind of outplayed

number four a little bit. It's a little hint for you guys, see if you can figure that out. But like, there's just not a big gap. The league is stacked with talent, you know. The gap between number twelve and the guys that I went over today is this small. And so when it comes to kind of like hand ringing over which particular number, just keep that in mind.

If I have a player that is on the list at a specific number that you disagree with, it's probably not because we have that different of an opinion of that player. It's just where he landed in my particular list, where everything is super closed. It's like these criticisms like I'm offering, you know, criticisms of these players, but that's all relative. These are the twenty five best basketball players on the planet. These guys are incredible, you know, so like,

let's not overthink that side of things. This is a fun exercise for the offseason, and at the end of the day, all of these guys are incredible. These were the list of guys that I considered that did not make the list. Bradley Beal, John Morant, although John Morant was the toughest one for me, but again, like I said, I went off of what I thought was a rough series in the Lakers series and just the immaturity off

the court which is starting to hurt his team. James Harden, the playoff decline was too much to look past this year. I was rooting for him last year, but the decline has just been too substantial. Lori Markinen, first time I kind of considered him. Damnure a fifty to forty ninety guy on high volume scoring. Julius Raynel made an All NBA team this year, but I thought his playoff struggles although he was hurt or just a little too much.

DeMar De Rosen obviously missing the playoffs, Zach Lavine missing the playoffs, Pascal Siakam missing the playoffs, Zion Williamson availability, Carl Town's inconsistency was what dropped him for me. Tyres Halliburton's kind of entering into that conversation but needs to have some playoff moments. McHale bridges another guy entering into those conversations. And then Drew Holliday I thought had a really good season this year, someone that I considered for

that spot as well. Again, all those guys, that's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen players, So that means one of those guys would have ranked thirty nine for me. Like, that's just how crazy the league is. Imagine, let's say that it's Drew Holiday is thirty nine, the thirty ninth best player in

the league. Drew Holiday is a hell of a lot better than the guy who would have been the thirty ninth best player in the league back in two thousand and five.