Hoops Tonight - Top 25 Players of Last 25 Years: Why Paul Pierce & Tony Parker became champions

out of the league for a little while. You guys know the drip. Before we get started, subscribe to the volumes YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason lt so you guys don't miss an 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 podcasts under Hoops Tonight,

Last but not least, before we get started. Last night, I got to run up to Phoenix to watch an early screening of the Grand Turismo movie based on a

true story. Super super interesting story about this contest that Nissan held where they had all these really good Grand Tarisma players from around the world basically compete for an opportunity to then get to learn how to race real cars and then experience real success in the real racing scene from that, which is interesting based on the simple idea that Grand Arismo was a racing simulator, not a game we all played like Need for Speed and Road

Rash and all those like weird racing games that were more you know, comical and over the top and very you know, unrealistic, and then if you played Grand Turismo, you couldn't just floor it through every single turn you had to break. You had to actually embrace some of the realities of racing. And so it makes some sense that that would translate directly towards the actual racing experience.

And I thought it was really cool in the beginning part of the movie how they kind of broke down how the creator of Grand Arismo worked really really hard to make it as realistic as possible, which is kind of cool how those two things kind of bridged. But you know, the entire movie hinges on David Harbor and Archie Medeck we're doing just an incredible job acting because it's such a unique kind of premise, right, and David Harbor is just a freak talent and he's absolutely hilarious

throughout the entire movie. And then I thought Archie kind of stole the show. He's super, super talented actor. You have to be like super invested in a storyline like this as a watcher of the movie to enjoy it, and in order for that to happen, you've got to have really really high level acting, and Archie just straight up knocked it out of the park. The cinematography is

insaying I highly recommend seeing it in theaters. They use a bunch of different camera effects, like drones and different camera angles that are up close to the vehicle to really capture the intensity of that type of racing. Honestly, it's like a visceral experience when you're in the theater, especially when you're invested in the stakes that are at play, but you're like clinging to the seat because it's just this intense visceral experience because of the high quality cinematography.

I thoroughly enjoyed it. Like I said, I highly recommend you guys see in them theaters. It is a little bit of something for everyone. It's also super fast paced and keeps you engaged throughout it. I was looking just for fun at the Rotten Tomatoes this morning. Ninety eight percent of audience members who went to go see it gave it a thumbs up rating, which I think is not the least bit surprising because my wife and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a really cool little date night

for us. Grant There's Mill based on a true story, is exclusively in movie theaters tomorrow. Get your tickets today, rated PG thirteen. All right, let's talk some basketball. So before we get into twenty one, twenty nineteen and eighteen, a couple of things that I noticed in the comments. As is always the case when I do lists, I immediately pissed people off. That's just how it works. I had people complaining about Tracy McGrady not being in the list.

I'd someone say that I was vastly overrated or underrating Paul George in this particular discussion, but by far the biggest one that people got upset about was Chris Paul. So I d to elaborate on that really quick. Again. I chose thirty one players for this list, and then I had to narrow it down to twenty five. Chris

Paul was on that list of thirty one players. From there, I had a list of criteria that I used, and again, like everyone's criteria is different, Like, I'm sorry, but if I set different criteria, my list could look completely different, and the six guys that don't make it are probably

going to be a completely different six guys. Just like if I gave you guys a list of criteria and had you build the list, it could look completely different based on what you guys interpret those specific things to be. And I had six criteria yesterday that I broke down and Chris Paul didn't perform well in those specific six criteria, which is why he missed the cut of twenty five. It doesn't mean he wasn't one of the most impactful players of this era. He absolutely was. Obviously I had

him in that top thirty one, right. But the reality is anytime I set any sort of parameters, there are going to be people that get squeezed. The best example I can give you guys as like that. I was thinking about this this morning, about the ticket Master kind of fiasco I personally have had issues with ticket Master in the past, and so like I understand the plight of like Zach Bryan being like, I'm not gonna use

ticket Master anymore. I'm gonna use a lottery. And I actually happen to get fortunate and win one of those lotteries, and I'm going to see Zach Bryan on Friday. But like each system has holes, right, Like the ticket Master system favors the people with money. So if you're willing to pay an arm and a leg to go see a show, you can go see whatever you want because you can find a ticket at some price based on the market value, and you can go see a movie

but or the show. But the people that get squeezed are the people without money, right, And then you go to the Zach Bryan method, or it's like we're gonna do a lottery and all of a sudden, it's the people that are willing to pay more that gets squeezed. So you could be the biggest Zach Brian fan in the world and you could save up five hundred dollars to go see him in Phoenix. But if you lose

the lottery, you just don't get to see him. And so the point is like, no matter where you set your criteria, no matter where you set your parameters, there are gonna be things that slipped through the cracks. And for me, in my list, I was very heavy on, you know, playoff accomplishments and big career defining achievements, and

Chris Paul just doesn't really have one of those. Like he hit a really big shot in a first round series against the San Antonio Spurs in a Game seven to win the series, and then fell apart down the stretch in that Houston Rocket series, right, Like, it's just with Chris Paul, there's just like there's these big moments, but there's just everything is missing, the crescendo. And so again, like you guys know how much I value Chris Paul.

Those of you guys have been listening to the show for a while, you probably remember the way I talked about him in the playoffs last year as he was destroying the New Orleans Pelicans and playing so well at the beginning of the Maverick series. You guys have heard me talk about Chris Paul and how much I appreciate and respect him. But within this particular list and the

specific set of parameters that I set up. He was one of the people that got squeezed out of a list of thirty one players, right, So I just wanted to kind of break that down again. Like, if I put Chris Paul in and I take Russell Westbrook out, there's gonna be a million people pissed off that Russell Westbrook's not in it. If I put Chris paul in and I take Jimmy Butler out, every single Miami Heat fan is gonna be like, what the hell, dude, He has eight forty point playoff games and has been the

best player on two NBA Finals teams. What the hell are you doing? Right, Like, there's no satisfying this type of list. But for me personally, I'm going to value playoff winning over just about anything else. There are players on this list that were frequently considered lesser players than Chris paul but they were major parts of championship teams. A couple of those guys we're going to talk about today in a couple of guards, right. So, Like, again,

this is just my system. It's not a perfect system. If I change the parameters, it's gonna turn out different. I know some of you guys disagree with me, but I just wanted to kind of lay out my pathway for you guys so that you understand it a little bit better. So yesterday we had four players who had never won an NBA championship. In that twenty five, twenty four, twenty three, and twenty two. From this point forward, every

single player except for two is an NBA champion. So that kind of gives you an idea of the way that I value that specific accomplishment. Also, the two players that did not win NBA championships were some of the most iconic players from this particular era. Actually, those of you guys in the comments, take a guess, there's two players in the rest of the list that are not champions. I want to see if any of you guys can

get that right. Put that in the comments, and none of them are in today's video, for whatever that's worth. All right, let's start with number twenty one, Tony Parker, the second best player on three championship teams. There was a couple of years there where he was a little closer to managing nobly, but if you watch the Spurs, you always feared Tony Parker a little bit more of than Manu. I viewed him as like the definitive second

best player on that team. Basically from five on. He was a four time NBA champion with the Spurs, though and three five seven in twenty fourteen, and he was the MVP of the two thousand and seven NBA Finals. Ever made a first team All NBA, but he did make four All NBA teams, including back to back to back second team All nbas in the early twenty tens.

His prime stats. Now again, keeping and those of you guys who didn't see the previous video, I'm going to talk about their stats and their prime, their claim to fame, basically the thing that they're remembered for, their archetype. Just kind of talk a little bit about what they were like as basketball players, their career defining achievement, basically whatever their absolute peak was, and the last, but not least, the biggest what if of their career. So Tony Parker's

prime stats. Now, keep in mind the Spurs were kind of like the Warriors. Before the Warriors, they were kind of equal opportunity, even more so than the Warriors are, and a ton of ball movement, a ton of player movement. It wasn't a lot of like, just give one guy the ball and let him run the entire offense, and so as a result, their accounting stats were never overly impressive.

So the two fourteen Spurs, for instance, the last championship of that dynasty, they didn't have a single player average over seventeen points for that entire season, and they won the championship. In the two thousand and seven and two thousand and five seasons, they didn't have a single player

average over twenty one points. Tim Duncan was right at about twenty in both of those seasons, So statistical production with the Spurs is never going to pop like some of the other players on this list, But they won a shit ton of basketball games, and Tony Parker was the second best player on that team. So that's why, again, box score numbers can't tell the entire story in this

particular case. Even like Tim Duncan, who was near the top of this list, is a guy that didn't necessarily have overwhelmingly eye popping statistical production over the second half of his career because of the way that team was put together. So I have Tony Parker's prime from two thousand and five to twenty fourteen, he had eighteen points, three rebounds, and six assists per game in that stretch

fifty six percent true shooting. In the playoffs, twenty points per game, three rebounds, and six assists on fifty three

percent true shooting. So, like again, as is always the case when you get to the later phases of the NBA playoffs, a lot of teams that rely heavily on motion teams can scout that and get ahead of it a little bit and things devolve more into traditional, you know, kind of static shot creation, like pick and rolls, post ups and ISOs right, and so Tony Parker was actually the guy that the Spurs leaned on a lot in those particular situations over the second half of their dynasty.

So the way I look at it, like the Spurs dynasty has kind of split into three phases. So there's like the first phase where they win the first two titles, where Tim Duncan is just arguably the best player in the league, depending on who you ask, I think it was shocked, but like he was right there with him right. It was like basically Shack, Kobe and Tim Duncan were the three best players in the league, and it was Tim Duncan's dominance that really carried the Spurs over that stretch.

Then there's kind of like this middle phase, and this is where you get to the five seven Championships, where Tim Duncan is still really really good, but man who and Tony Parker are on the rise. And as they're on the rise, you know, things are starting to become a little bit more equal opportunity and those guys are getting more touches and big playoff moments, and it's more of like a team dynamic rather than leaning heavily heavily on Tim Duncan, even though Tim Duncan was clearly the

best player on the team during that stretch. But then there was that stretch in the early twenty tents, right where they make it to the NBA Finals and nearly win against the Miami Heat and then beat the Miami Heat in twenty fourteen. During that stretch, like Tim Duncan was still probably the best player on the team depending on who you ask, but it was much more convoluted and on any given night, Tony Parker could have been the best player on their team, and that gap between

Tony Parker and Tim Duncan was actually very small. And so when we say Tony Parker was the second best player on a championship team, this is not you know, this is not the second best player on the team the way that like Andrew Wiggins was for Steph Curry last year. Right like this is we have Tim Duncan and Tony Parker were pretty close to each other and

overall impact at this point in their particular career. So Tony Parker was pretty resoundingly considered one of the ten best players in the league during the span I mean, second team All NBA twice, and was one of the best playoff players in the league at that particular stretch of time. But like I said, like things would break down in the playoffs and they'd have to rely more on static shock creation than they do in the regular season.

That's where Tony Parker's value came in big in those situations. So Tony's archetype. He was just a blazing quick speed guard, just like an absurdly quick little guard. He had one of the nastiest spin moves in the league, a spin move that I think a lot of players have copied from him. There's a specific set of footwork that he can use too, like he can do it off with two feet, but he also had like a one foot

spin that was kind of ridiculous. Or instead of like establishing like firm pivots with both feet, he's kind of like pure wetting through the lane off of one leg. He had a ridiculously good floater. Everyone called it the tear drop at the time, and it's interesting to me that no one calls it a tear drop anymore, because that was basically just the Tony Parker thing right. Synergy did not start tracking floaters until two thousand and eight, so I can't pull it up for the early stretch

of his career. But in two thousand and eight, Tony Parker shot seventy four percent on floaters. In two thousand and nine he shot sixty six percent on floaters, and in twenty ten he shot sixty four percent on floaters. He was like the Kola Jokic with that little pop shot in the lane on the drive. He had to lean on it a lot more in the early twenty tens as he started to slow down a little bit,

but he was still deadly with it. In twenty thirteen, he made ninety four of them at a fifty one percent clip, so he's taking them several times a game, but he was making more than half of them. He was always one of the highest volume pick and roll guys in the league. Super super gifted passer guys were obsessed with kind of going underneath screens on Tony Parker to try to cut off his driving lanes and try

to turn him into a jump shooter. Early in his career he struggled with jump shooting, but then he kind of figured it out towards the end. In two thousand and five, kind of the beginning of his prime, he only made sixty six pull up jump shots all year and only shot thirty seven percent effective field goal percentage on them. But by the time we got to twenty thirteen, he made one hundred and fifty nine pull up jump

shots on forty six percent effective field goal percentage. So he just worked incredibly hard to build out a reliable mid range pull up jump shot to use against teams that would go underneath on pick and roll, and then then he really started to use that to weaponize his passing, as he would kind of like bait guys into coming out, specifically the big man to come out to show on that pull up jump shot and then he'd flip it down to to Tim Duncan or Thiago Splitter underneath the basket.

He was really really gifted pick and role player. In the twenty thirteen season, there were fifteen players in the league. Similar to this year, there were fifteen players in the league ran at least one thousand pick and rolls, and Tony Parker ranked second in the entire NBA inefficiency. First was Chris Paul, which I'm sure all of you Chris Paul fans will want to rub in my face to

further make me pay for my outrageous pick. His crowning achievement two thousand and seven NBA Finals MVP, Tim Duncan was the best player on that team pretty clearly. Like in twenty fourteen, it was up for debate two thousand and seven, Tim Duncan was the best player on that team, but Tony Parker scoring was a huge part in that specific playoff run. It's also one of the big reasons why I'm not a huge fan of the Finals MVP

award as it's currently constructed. To me, the Finals MVP should always go to the player who is the best player on the championship team, and just because a specific matchup leads to one player performing better in an NBA Finals shouldn't a lot of times, just statistically, not in what's actually happening on the court, because a lot of times schematics are what's pushing opportunities to a different player.

See Andre Gudala in the twenty fifteen finals, right. But to me, I would rather call it instead of like a Finals MVP, I would just call it like a championship MVP. And then whoever wins the championship, you give the trophy to the player that's clearly their best player from the start of the regular season all the way through to the end when they hoist the trophy. To me, that's what that trophy should be for. But that's not

how it works. We have a Finals MVP trophy, and Tony Parker was the second best player on that team, but he averaged twenty one points per game in that playoff run and averaged twenty five points per game in the NBA Finals series against the Cleveland Cavaliers on sixty percent true shooting, winning his first and only Finals MVP award. Biggest one if of Tony Parker's career, in my opinion, was the Ray Allen three point shot. So I actually posted a video not of the three but of the

two shots that preceded it on my Twitter feeds. You guys can find it there if you go look. But this is a huge what if in my opinion, because I just broke down kind of for you guys. The crowning achievement of Tony Parker. Right, he wins back to back to back second team All NBA's right, he's arguably the best player, second best player on the twenty thirteen twenty fourteen Spurs that make it to the finals twice

and wins the championship in twenty fourteen. But in twenty thirteen, there was a moment where the Heat were up by three and the series was the series was three to two San Antonio, right, and they're in Miami. So San Antonio wins, they win the finals, and there's this play.

I want to say, there's about a minute and a half left if I remember correctly, but there's this play where Tony Parker's working on Lebron James and you know this is prime Lebron, right, Like he's switching onto any player that he needs to guard, and he's one of the best defensive players in the league, probably the best player in the league defensively and offensively at that phase in his career. He's switched out on to Tony Parker.

He's got to shut him down because the game's on the line, right Well, they start trying to set picks to get somebody else switched on to Tony Parker, and Lebron just like screw that. He's fighting through every pick. He stays with him, and the shot clock runs out and Tony Parker has to take this ridiculous step back three from the top of the key and he drains

it to tie the game. And then on the very next possession, he's working in pick and roll and he gets downhill on Mario Chalmers, and Chalmers kind of cuts him off, and he's stuck with his back to the basket, like literally stuck with his left foot pivot foot with the rim over here, with his back to the basket, and he just kind of pivots over his shoulder and makes this like ridiculous short right handed jump shot in the lane, just a ridiculously difficult shot, and it actually

puts the Spurs up by two and from there, we get into the free throw contest. Lebron has those turnovers, but then he get into the free throw contest, and then Lebron hits the three, and then I think Kawhi misses the free throw on the next one, and then ray Allen hits the three that ties the game. We go to overtime, the Heat win, and then he'd end up winning the series. But literally, that entire arena was

shell shocked after those two shots. The Spurs were up by two, and if they would have made their free throws, they would have literally won the NBA Championship. I think, man who Genobii missed one, and I think Kawhi Leonard missed one. Those are the two guys you missed in that situation. But let's just pretend that ray Allen doesn't make that crazy corner three. Tony Parker has now stolen

the twenty thirteen NBA Finals. And again, like obviously you lose that game, Miami's favored in Game seven, they're probably gonna win. They end up actually winning in Game seven, right, So like game six essentially determines the series, it flips. The entire series flips on that particular outcome and Tony

Parker came this close to stealing it. Now, let me reframe this era from the standpoint of Tony Parker making back to back to back second team All NBA's a two time champion the Finals MVP potentially in two thousand and twenty thirteen, and arguably the best player on the team during those two years, depending on who you ask. Suddenly that vaults Tony Parker into some ridiculous conversations, right, So, like that's a really interesting what if. And Tony Parker's curb.

But he's one of those guys that, like, because of his statistical production, he's never gonna be viewed on the same level as some of his peers. But like, if you were there, you were terrified of Tony Parker when he had the ball and there was a big moment where he had an opportunity to beat you. I remember, even after the Ray Allen three, Lebron James guarded Tony Parker full court, and I still remember as a fan,

and you guys, I'm a big Lebron fan. I'm watching that like just scared the hell that that Tony Parker's gonna dribble down and score. He ends up throwing up some crazy shot along the baseline and misses it. But like Tony Parker was a terrifying player to root against. He was one of those guys that in any playoff setting could outplay any of the best stars in the league. And then if you were there, you'd probably remember Tony

Parker in a similar fashion. And he's probably a good example of that thing I'm talking about with Chris Paul, right, because like most gms would probably take Chris Paul over those years, right, But like you know, I'm a big believer in actual playoff results, and just Tony Arker was just there on the biggest stage, just doing it time and time again, and it's a big part of why

he's a four time NBA champion. All Right, number twenty Paul Pierce, he was the second best player on one championship team, never made a first team All NBA, three All NBA teams though, and he won the NBA Finals MVP in two thousand and eight. This is another kind of guy that kind of fits that mold, right, Like you look at Paul George and he's got all of the All NBA selections more than Paul Pierce does, right, And he's you know that the highs or the regular

season highs with Paul George or so high. Right, But like anybody who was in the league during Paul Pierce's era thought more highly of Paul Pierce than this era thinks of Paul George in terms of how what he's capable of relative to his peers. So it's another good example of this particular dynamic. His prime stats I put his prime down from two thousand and one to twenty thirteen.

In that stretch, in the regular season, he averaged twenty two six to four on fifty seven percent through shooting, and in the playoffs he average twenty one six and four on fifty five percent tru shooting. His claim to fame. It's funny I saw this the yesterday or two days ago on Twitter, someone like took a video of Paul Pierce shooting some random game and someone goes like, man, you know, Twitter would have you thinking Paul Pierce was

just another Jimmy Butler or another Paul George. Now, to be clear, as you guys know, I obviously have Paul Pierce over both, right, because Jimmy Butler is further back on this list and Paul George is one of the guys who was like in the running but didn't actually make it right. So I agree in principle in the sense that I view Paul Pierce above those guys. But I think Jimmy Butler is the perfect cop for Paul Pierce. I wouldn't say he's the Jimmy Butler of this era.

I'd say Jimmy Butler is the Paul Pierce of his era, right, because Paul Pierce came first, and I think Paul Pierce is the better player. But he's another one of those guys. It's kind of a super weird archetype and was never truly considered to be on the same level as the guys at the buried top of the league. But in any one game setting against those guys, he was capable of out playing them. To me, that is like the

spitting image of that Jimmy Butler type of archetype. And I think when I saw that tweet, all I thought was like, Oh, people are massively underrating Jimmy Butler. I've said this before on the show, but Jimmy Butler has scored forty points in a playoff game eight times. He's scored thirty points in a playoff game like twenty something times and more times than Paul Pierce. I think Paul Pierce only has three forty point playoff games. Now, different era,

higher usage, higher pace, all those different things. But the point is is, like, it's not an insult to Paul Pierce to put him in the same conversation as Jimmy Butler. You guys know how highly I think of Jimmy Butler. I just think Paul Pierce kind of fits a similar mold in his particular era. And while I've alway talked about Jimmy Butler is kind of like a miniature version of Lebron James, to me, Paul Pierce was kind of

like a chubbier, less athletic version of Kobe Bryant. There were a lot of similarities in his footwork and his shot form and the types of shots that he used to take. Like he kind of attacked in a very similar style, which is a big part of what made

him so dynamic in playoff situations. He spent the first half of his career playing on some limited Celtics teams and put up a lot of big numbers, had some big playoff series, but never really had the talent necessary to compete, and then KG and Ray Allen came and he finally had an opportunity to demonstrate it on the biggest stage, and he immediately did. So I'm just gonna go ahead, and I'm going to come back to his archetype.

I want to skip ahead to his claim to fame and his just kind of talk a little bit about what he accomplished with the Celtics, and then we'll go back and talk about what kind of basketball player he was. So in the two thousand and eight playoff run, Paul Pierce average twenty five and five on fifty seven percent true shooting. He outplayed a young Lebron James in Game seven and a Game seven where Lebron scored forty five points.

In that particular game, Paul Pierce scored forty one points on twenty three shots and beat Lebron to a key loose ball at the end of the game. Just I thought kind of out played him in that particular game. And then in the NBA Finals in two thousand and eight,

I thought he flat out out played Kobe Bryant. Kobe averaged twenty five points, but he was super inefficient in that particular series, Paul Pierce averaged twenty two to five and six on fifty nine percent true shooting in beating the Lakers and winning the two thousand and eight NBA Finals MVP kind of similar to like we were talking

about with Tony Parker. I thought Kevin Garnett was the best player on that particular team, but it was close, and Paul Pierce absolutely played like a superstar on the biggest stage and made a lot of the big plays in route to them winning a championship. He kind of like took on that role as the closer, kind of similarly to Tony Parker with the Spurs. His archetype, like I said before, it's like it's kind of is just like a chubbier, like shifty, like less athletic version of

Kobe Bryant. Right. He was only about six seven, but he had ridiculously long arms. He had a seven foot three wingspan. He was kind of strangely coordinated and weirdly agile. Still had a lot of poster dunks over the top of people, even though he wasn't a great athlete, just because his arms were so damn long and he was just one of the best rise in fire guys in

the league. Now, to me, rise and fire is like, get to your spot, even if you don't have a ton of separation, just elevate over the top of everyone and knock down a jump shot. That, to me is what reminds me the most of Kobe. Like, if you just go pull up a bunch of footage of Paul Pierce scoring on YouTube, you're gonna notice a lot of similarities and the footwork and the pivots and the pump

fakes and the like. Even the long drawn out release on his jump shot where he's kind of like elevating as high as he can and like holding onto the ball a little bit longer. That a lot of that stuff just kind of reminds me of Kobe. Obviously, Kobe is a much better player, but like a lot of there were some similarities there, and I think that led to some of his high level impact in that specific

playoff environment. He was consistently viewed as one of the fifteen best players in the league during his era and one of the ten best playoff players in the league during his era. Is also one of the best foul drifters in the league, utilize the pump fake extremely well to get to the line. Here's a crazy stat for you. Paul Pierce made susan nine and eighteen free throws in his career. That is tenth in NBA history, regardless of era, not just last twenty five years, but regardless of era.

He was just one of those guys you know. And again it's a similar kind of thing like those of you guys who are in your thirties or older are gonna remember that. Like when you had to root against Paul Pearson a playoff series, he was terrifying. It was just one of those guys, kind of like Jimmy Butler that you just knew that, even if you had the best player in the series, that he was capable of going toe to toe with your guy in beating you. And he did on several occasions over the course of

his career. Biggest what if of Paul Pierce's career, in my opinion, what if KG did not get hurt at the start of the two thousand and nine season. A lot of people don't remember this, but the Celtics started the year after they won the title. They started twenty seven and two. Now, to give you some perspective, the twenty sixteen Warriors are the best regular season team of all time, and they started twenty eight and one, so they were one game behind the Golden State Warriors to

start that particular season. Before Kevin Guard goes down with the injury. You end up missing the playoffs and then they end up losing to Orlando in the Conference semis. But again, that was the best Celtics team. That was

better than the two thousand and seven team. And you know, obviously, if Paul Pierce becomes a guy with two NBA championships and two Finals MVPs, it gets a lot more complicated in terms of him in all time conversations, especially if you like, we look back at that era as like, you know, the Laker Celtics era and Kobe got two, Paul Pierce got one. What if it was Paul Pierce got two and Kobe got one. You could see how that would kind of make things a little bit more complicated.

Number nineteen Chauncey Billups, mister big shot, best player on one championship team, never made a first team All NBA, but he did make three All NBA teams. He had two All Defense teams as well. He also won the NBA Finals MVP in two thousand and four. I thought he was the best player on the Pistons in that

particular era. It's obviously, obviously it's convoluted because it's similar to the Spurs situation with Tony Parker, where like nobody on the team averaged over twenty points in two thousand and five, was more equal opportunity. They had a lot of really good players on the team. So like, obviously it's not the same type of statistical production that you see from some of his peers. But he was the best player on a team the hoisted the trophy, and that has to be worth a ton, as you guys know.

In my particular list, so I put down on his prime two thousand and three to twenty ten, seventeen points, three rebounds and six assists on fifty nine percent true shooting, and then in the playoffs eighteen points, three rebounds and six assists on fifty eight percent true shooting. His claim to fame. He was the offensive engine of one of the best defensive teams of all time, So he filled a very important role for a team that tried to win with defense but needed to get baskets. Obviously, he

was the engine that made that all work. Every kind of player. You know. It's funny when I think back and think about the Detroit Pistons. They were a team I watched a lot when I was young, because obviously I was rooting for Lebron in the Eastern Conference. And I think they made it to five consecutive Eastern Conference

finals if I remember correctly. But like each they had like this perfect starting five where like each guy kind of filled a different archetype, right, Like Billups was this like unbelievable skill guard who just had this ridiculous pull up jump shot, and he was kind of the point guard ran the show and like ran a lot of pick and roll things like that. Richard Hamilton was like the classic throwback two guard that was just flying off

of screens. I looked up this stat today. In two thousand and five, which is when they started tracking this particular data, Rip Hamilton shot two hundred and sixty four shots flying off of screens. That's more than nine NBA teams did this year. So rich Rip Hamilton by himself would have been right around the twenty two spot in the NBA this year in total off screen attempts going against the other thirty NBA team, So that just gives you an idea of how the league has changed a lot.

But Rip Hamilton was a lot of off ball stuff, a lot of flying off screens. He did a little bit of post up ISOs as well. Tayshaun Prince was just this terrifying defensive wing with a ridiculous wingspan. He did most of his work in transition and in spot up situations, but he also could score a little bit as well. Rashid Wallace was a post up full grumbley throw the ball down to him on the block a lot. He also could knock down a spot up jump shot.

He was also a great rim protector. And then Ben Wallace was just like far and away the best defensive player in the league at the time. And so at the front line you had Tayshawn Prince who's one of the very best defensive players in the league, Rashide Wallace, who was an excellent defensive player, and then Ben Wallace,

who was the best defensive player in the league. And those three guys just completely screwed up every single team they played against offensively and caused all sorts of problems. And that was the bread and butter for how they won. But Rip Hamilton and Chauncey Billups had to carry most of the offensive load, and Chauncey in particular did the most in terms of scoring and facilitating for his teammates. Now,

he was a big, strong guard. He was about six foot three and weighed in at about two hundred and ten pounds. He was an absolutely dead eye pull up shooter. Now, pull up shooting data was not tracked on Synergy before two thousand and five, so I can't go back that far. But in the two thousand and five season, Chauncey Billups shot forty five percent on pull up jump shots and

fifty two percent when you weighed it for threes. He had this everything for Jouncey Billups was built out of a high hesitation in his left hand, so like he would kind of go through his legs or in a crossover and he kind of sit in a high hesitation in his left hand. This is a move that I teach a ton to the younger players that I coach, and a big part of it is it's the bridge

move that bridges everything together. When you're in that high hesitation in your left hand, you can rise up into a jump shot, you can continue to push the ball forward as a drive to the left. You can hit it in and out dribble, you can cross over to the right, you can go between your legs, you can go behind the back, you can literally do anything out of a high hesitation dribble. It is the bridge move

that connects everything else. And so with Chauncey, he was just like a pretty damn reliable pull up jump shooter out of that left handed high hesitation. Now he almost exclusively drove left. He drove left about seventy percent of the time, but it was still too super hard to guard because it was a give and to take. You could press up to take away the jump shot and he's dusting you to your left hand to his left hand, or you can play off and he's gonna rise up

up and knocked that shot down. Use that threat of that shot to generate a lot of rim pressure. Who was also a great passer. He also was pretty big and strong, so he's a great post up player among guards. Just kind of would like back smaller guards down, get closer to the basket, and take like little short fadeaway jump shots in lane. It was a big time short jump shot maker out of the post. His crowning achievement

was winning Finals MVP in two thousand and forty. He averaged twenty one points, three rebounds, and five assists on that series on seventy seventy percent through shooting, knocking out the vaunted shock Kobe Lakers in five games. The biggest what if of Chauncey Phillips's career, in my opinion, is what if Robert Ori misses the three point shot with six seconds left in Game five of the two thousand and five NBA Finals. The Pistons were up by two

and the series was tied. It too, so they were gone to San Antonio with two opportunities to win an NBA championship. Now once again, kind of like I was talking about with Tony Parker and Paul Pierce, let's reframe this as a back to back champion in two thousand and four to two thousand and five with two finals MVPs knock out literally the Spurs and the Lakers along the way. You can imagine how that would put Chauncey Billups and really that whole Pistons team all time if

that's how it would have gone down. But that's not how it went. Robert ori made the shot, Spurs won in seven, and the Pistons ended up only getting one championship. You know, it's funny, Robert ORRII showed up in a lot of like the the filters and stuff that I was running as I was tracking championship players and stuff. It's just kind of crazy how many big playoff moments Robert Oriy has been there for all right, last guy for today, Number eighteen Pau Gasol, second best player on

two championship teams. Never made a first team All NBA, but he made four All NBA teams in his prime I put down from two thousand and six to twenty fifteen. In the regular season, he averaged nineteen points, ten rebounds, and four assists fifty seven percent true shooting. In the playoffs, he averaged seventeen points, ten rebounds and four assists on fifty six percent true shooting. His claimed to favor really as he was the second most skilled big man in

the league over that era, basically behind Dirk Novitsky. He was also the guy who helped hersuscitate Kobe Bryant's career in Los Angeles. As we know, Kobe threatening straight up asked for a trade. It looked like that era was coming too close. Power Gasol comes in gives them the necessary boost and talent that they needed. Suddenly they become a championship caliber team. His archetype, he was a classic throwback post up big man. Over forty percent of his

shot attempts came out of post up situations. He preferred the left block. Actually, as a right handed player, he preferred to take look hooks over his right shoulder with his left hand. Like his most common post up play type was just dump it to him on the on the left block. He'd kind of work with his right hand into the lane and then he quick spin back to his left hand and make a hook shot over the top of the defender. But that was just one

of his go to moves. He obviously had everything. He had a left shoulder hook, he had a right shoulder hook. He had up in under moves. He had fadeaways over both shoulders. He could make pop shots in the lane out of pick and roll. He was a good pick and pop jump shooter as well. Like he just was, like I said, the second most skilled big man in that era. Unfortunately, Synergy did not start tracking hook shots until twenty eleven, so I can't pull up his exact accuracy.

But in two twenty ten, which I look at his POW's best season as a pro, he shot forty eight percent in field goal attempts out of the post, which is insanely good for any sort of static half court shot creating situation. His crowning achievement was thoroughly out playing Kevin Garnett in the twenty ten NBA Finals. He averaged nineteen and twelve in that series on fifty six percent true shooting. He utterly demolished the Celtics on the glass

in that series. It's funny because like early on in Powe's careers, and this was a reputation that followed a lot of European players, but a lot of people looked at him as soft, and he didn't play particularly great in the two thousand and eight season, right specifically in the NBA Finals, And so as we look forward at the twenty ten season, it's kind of crazy to see that transformation because he straight up bullied the Celtics front court.

He had thirty five thirty five offensive rebounds in the twenty ten NBA Finals. That's five per game. He had nine offensive rebounds in Game seven. He had nineteen points and eighteen rebounds overall in Game seven, and then he hit the biggest shot of the series again. This was

Game seven, series tied at three, winner take all. The Lakers were ugh four with just under two minutes left, and he was posting abrasheid Wallace once again on that left block like he always likes, spun back towards the baseline like he always likes to do, and the Celtics actually came to the triple team. They brought Paul Pierson

Kevin Garnett over and just smothered him. He ended up having to double pump and take this weird, kind of like jump shot as he was falling to the ground, but he made it, put the Lakers up six with a minut and a half left, and that essentially iced the series as the Lakers went on twin their second

consecutive NBA championship. He was definitely the best player on the floor in Game seven of that series, and you could even make a case that he was the best player on the Lakers in that particular series, But that is a take that I personally disagree with. I tend to think that Kobe, especially with what Boston was throwing at him and with all the stuff that he did throughout the entire season. Kind of back to what we were talking about with Finals MVP versus Championship MVP, I

thought Kobe was a deserving Finals MVP. Biggest what if I Paul Pierce's excuse me, Palagassol's career. This was one that I had a hard time with because I feel like Pawa Gasol's career went the way it was supposed to, Like he kind of learned how to play in the NBA in Memphis, and then he played his best years with a really, really good Lakers team and got to

experience what his individual ceiling was like. Twenty eleven twenty twelve, they clearly just weren't good enough anymore, so they make an all in trade for Steve Nash and for Dwight Howard, and then everyone breaks down that season, Like Dwight Howard played all the time, but he wasn't the same Dwight Howard. He was just stiffer than he used to be. Steve Nash was in and out of the lineup with injuries

all season. Power Gasol himself only played I think forty nine games in that particular season, and then Kobe ends up tearing his achilles, and then from there, basically all those guys careers were over. Dwight Howard ended up transitioning with the other three guys were basically done at that point, Right, So I don't really have a really good one if just simply based on the fact that the I feel like things kind of went the way they were supposed

to for Palgasol. But if I had to choose one, I'd say, what if the Lakers did not blow Game four of the two thousand and eight NBA Finals. They were up by twenty seventy to fifty in the middle of the third quarter of Game four, down two games to one, and they scored just twenty one points over the final eighteen minutes of that game as the Celtics came back to win and take a three to one

lead in the series. Obviously, it's not a sure thing from there, because they would have had to win Game five at home to go up three to two, and then they'd have to win a game in Boston. But they would have been in a commanding position in the series had they not blown that lead, so it's significant what if and then obviously now we're talking about a three peat if the Lakers win that particular series. So that's all I have for today with Paucasol at number eighteen.

We'll be back tomorrow with number seventeen, sixteen, fifteen, and fourteen the volume