Hoops Tonight - Warriors the NBA's best team? Lebron's Longevity, + best bets for 22-23' season

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Hoops Tonight, presented by FanDuel here at the volume. Happy Thursday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are having a great week so far. I am super excited for today's show. We're having my guy Carson back on to talk about best bets and NBA futures on FanDuel, as well as the annual GM survey, which is one of my favorite things to see each year. It'll be really nice way to measure the way that we talked about the game on this show versus the way that the gms around

the league view basketball in these days. Um, before we get started, you guys know the drill. Subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter, underscore Jason lts you guys don't miss any show announcements and any footage breakdowns that we do. And last but not least, for whatever reason, you miss one of these videos and you can't get over to YouTube to finish, you can find them wherever you get

your podcasts. Under Hoops Tonight. And on that note, let's bring Carson in. How's it going man? It is great, Jason. How are you. I'm doing well. It's good to see you, buddy. Good to see you too well. As you said, we're gonna start with the betting portion here, get some of your favorite picks ahead of the NBA season. All these odds are provided by FanDuel and as of the time. We're recording this on October five, are accurate, so things may change a bit, but correct for now. So we'll

start with the biggest one. Jason, you look at all the odds for these teams in the preseason, what is your favorite title bet right now? Oh Man, that's a good question because it's there's there's a difference between what is the team that I actually they believe is going to win the title and then betting opportunities right I thought it was really interesting that the Warriors had the third best odds at plus seven hundred. That feels like a pretty safe bet to me in terms of the

odds versus potential reward. I think that the Warriors have the best combination of talent basketball i Q, competent coaching and upper management experience and continuity in the league. There are three other teams that have similar amounts of talent, maybe even four if you consider teams like the Philadelphia seventy sixers, but they all have big question marks somewhere on the roster. The Warriors are a team without question marks.

So if you can get a team like that plus seven hundred, knowing that they've been there, done that, that they know how to handle adversity along the way. They weathered injuries last year, a lot more injuries than people are willing to give them credit for. I like them at plus seven hundred. A couple other bets that I like, though as long shot bets, as like interesting opportunities. As far as odds go, you get the Sixers at plus sixteen hundred. I think they have one of the most

talented rosters in the league. I had them as the fifth most likely team to win the title in my preseason power rankings. My James Harden agenda is in full force, with him allegedly being in much better shape coming into the season. I'm excited to see him play in some preseason action. I just have a big believer in them as as a as a pretty decent puncher's chance to win the title. So to get them at plus sixteen hundred, and then last but not least, Dallas at plus hundred.

Luca plus a good defense, and if their role players stay hot and shoot the way they did in the first two rounds of the playoffs, they can beat anybody. And they demonstrated that that They demonstrated that last year. So those are my three favorites. Right now, I think those are all really good value plays. Like you said, it's interesting, I mean the Brooklyn nets in the Golden State Warriors of the same odds to win the title

right now after completely polar opposites season last year. The only other one I might consider sprinkling in their Nuggets plus two thousands, so twenty two one. I don't think they're going to be good enough defensively to win it, but I think they could have the best offense in league, and that will give you a puncher's chance. But I really like all those choices. Who is your favorite m

v P bet for this season? Jason? Okay, So m VP is quickly becoming my least favorite award that they give out every year, just because it's becomes it's become so much more of like, uh weird, like hipster movement than it is about the best basketball player. And I know, I know you, I feel like that's just straight blasphemy

to you. Carson is such a huge fan, but but it's just it's just one of those things where I feel like sometimes this I feel like this is the award that NBA media overthinks the most, and so in this particular season, I really like Janice at plus seven hundred. He's still a complete machine on both ends of the floor in the regular season. He plays hard every single night.

I think he's the best defensive player in basketball. He's gonna sleepwalk to thirty point some twelve rebounds, right, And so if the Bucks have a bounce back season with better health and brook Lopez is available like he wasn't last year for the for the most part, they end up in the high fifties or low sixties with wins, Jana sustaining right there, and that voter fatigue from him winning two years in a row I think has gone now after everything that's gone on with Yokich, and I

think in general, people are forgetting just how much better he is than just about everybody in the entire league. This feels like kind of like a reminder type of season from him. So I like him at plus seven hundred. My favorite long shot bets Tatum at plus. We're gonna talk about this later when we talk over over unders, but I really think the Celtics are gonna win a

lot of games this year. And here's the thing. Let's say the Celtics are the one seed and they've won sixty two, sixty three games or sixty games or something like that, and Tatum is their leading score or close, and he makes an All defense team and he's obviously the best player on this best team in the Eastern Conference. That's just kind of like a xbook m v P case.

So it's just an interesting long shot bet at plus and then Steph the exact same type of case, like proven playoff history that legitimizes everything he does in the regular season. The Western Conference is it's got a lot of teams with question marks, and the Warriors are one of the few teams that don't have question marks. So if they end up as the one seed and they win in the high fifties, low sixties, Steph is far and away the best player on the team. It's just

a textbook m v PK. So him being down at plus fift hundred feels like a really interesting opportunity to me. I like all those choices that you highlighted. Their Luca is the favorite entering the season, I believe for the second straight year. What's your reaction to that. I just and I know and this your Yokich guy had to ruin this again last year? Uh, the same goes for

Russell Westbrook in two thousand and seventeen. But like my gut just says, the Mavericks just won't win enough games, like if they like if I told you at everything went really well for the Mavericks this year, where do you think they would end up in the standings? Maybe third? Maybe if they just went really well, probably fourth or fifth. And if I told you the Mavericks were going to be in the playing tournament, you wouldn't be the least

bit surprised. They did lose some ball handling this summer as well with Jalen Brunson. So I just I'd like to say that they don't have the capability of racking

up enough wins for Luca to get that award. But then again, we keep having that be overruled by once again hipster NBA media and their love of of of getting behind the movement of regular season players that put up big numbers for teams that are only okay, Sorry, Carson, I'll take no more uh sideswipes at you and Yokich in the show, I promise, really not a not a fair characterization of what Nikola Yoki did last year when he was on the floor, Jason Monte Morris was the

primary perimeter initiator. But you're completely right about the historical precedent, and we have seen it way of a bit because Nico Yoka is the best offensive player alive and he's carrying these bomb squads to be you know, play like elite teams when he's out there. But between Michael Jordan and Russell Westbrook in every single m v P between those two was a top two seed in their conference. So you know, unless we've completely gone away from that precedent,

you should be right. That's what I've thought about Luke in the last two years. They're not gonna win enough games, and that's why I feel like, you honest has got to be the choice. Right He's the best two player in the world on two way player in the world on an elite team. Maybe if Embiid could be trusted to be healthy for an entire season, he would be an equally good choice. But I think it's gotta be honest,

especially given that he's not even the favorite. So one other note on the Luca thing, and I lied because I'm gonna take one more shot at Yok. So one of the things that helped legitimize his m v P case was the Yokich is a good defender thing, and uh and and like again, like you just need a narrative to drive that. So with with Yokich, it was like, oh, he's a good drop coverage big, he defend ends the rim. Well, you know, if you over the course of the regular season,

he's actually a net plus defender. All those things which were actually true, but we all knew that there was a lack of legitimacy there as it pertained to what would happen when teams really game plan to attack him in a playoff series. I don't think Luca could get that. I don't think. I think. I think in order for him to get the narrative support from the NBA media, he would have to come up with a legitimate case that he's a plus defender. And I just don't even

see a universe where that's the case. Because even Steph in two thousand fifteen and two thousand and sixteen had built a narrative that he was a at least an average too slightly above average defensive player. Luca is so far from that at this point. It's just that that would be such a stay away from me, stay away from that that it's just something I wouldn't touch with the ten foot pole. Totally with you on the Luca points.

Not sure we need all the Yokat references, but yet MVP, in spite of all these things, didn't have team success, didn't have defense, didn't have efficiency, and I put up a lot of big numbers and he got it. So we'll see. It seems that some of the historical standards have waivered a bed. Yes they have when you look, but Yoki's just not the example to point because he's incredible. I promised, I've done. Okay, thank you. Let's move on.

What's your favorite team win total over under for this season? Okay? So I had mentioned the Celtics earlier a couple of things. Um, So they're over under right now according to Vanduel um is fifty three and a half. And I get it. It's two and a half more than last year. They only won fifty one games, but they started last year seventeen and twenty one. That's one hell of a buffer

that they basically played against throughout the season. They finished the season thirty three and ten, and unlike the Dallas Mavericks who uh in the Phoenix Suns, who put up big numbers there but had major playoff shortcomings that undercut that. The Celtics, you know, translated that success into something that we knew was legitimate based on what happened in the playoffs. Now, usually there's some history to the idea that like you

are what your record says you are. So like, if you suck for a third of the year and then you're awesome for two thirds of the year and the result is your fifty one and thirty one, then chances are your one team. I get that, but I actually believe this was a case of a team that discovered its identity and actually took a leap and who they were as a basketball team. I also think that the reps that they got in that playoff run the development

of Tatum. I don't know if you saw Jalen Brown in his first preseason game, but he's picking up right where he left off in that playoff run. He's actually, I think a little bit better of a scorer than Tatum is at this point, at least in terms of versatility of where he gets his points on the floor. Like they're they're they're just damn good, and I think they're gonna win a ton of games. And they added Malcolm Brogden, who specifically targeted one of their biggest weaknesses.

I understand the depth issues, I understand the Robert Williams injury concerns, but I actually think I had I went over this in depth in our Boston Celtics season preview pod. But there's a lot of bad that comes with Robert Williams to he freelances way too much. He actually is responsible for a lot of their defensive breakdowns. He causes some issues for their spacing and their driving kick. I like Robert Williams. He's good for them, but I think they're just as good without him, So as long as

they don't suffer some sort of significant injury. I don't see any universe where they finished with fewer than fifty five wins. Do you have a team that you think is more of a sleeper where maybe the numbers a little bit lower, but you really like it. So the two that I put down as potential other opportunities the Sixers at fifty point five again, their talent is ridiculous. Again, I know, I know, there's not a lot of uh

you know, Tyres Maxie has flaws. He's not a great defensive player, and there's a question about whether or not he could be a great primary creator or Tobias Harris obviously is like can be extremely mediocre from time to time. But when he's the fourth best player on your roster and Maxie's the third best player on your roster, and they've already been dealing with all this bad luck with mbat he's due for a better luck year and James

Harden potentially having a bounce back season. I think they're one of the most talented teams in the Eastern Conference. I could see them winning a lot and then as far as the safe bet goes the Lakers under forty four and a half, I still believe in their ultimate ceiling. I think Anthony Davis is gonna have an amazing season. I think Lebron James is gonna have an amazing season.

But like if you're assigning percentage chances that things are gonna go one way or another, you know, if you were saying which side is the things go right and they end up a top four seed and contend in the West, versus things go off the rails quickly and horrifically like it's a better than fifty percent chance that

the negative side happens. And so as a bet for them to go under forty four and a half, you literally just need Lebron or Anthony Davis to miss maybe twenty games because they are so talent deprived that if one of those guys goes goes down, they instantly become the underdog in every single game they play. Like even like, do you think that Russell Westbrook, Anthony Davis, Patrick Beverley, and Dennis Schroeder can go beat the Detroit Pistons in Detroit, Like,

I don't think they can. They're like they're like they're that they're so devoid of talent that if Lebron James and Anthony Davis are on the floor playing at the top of their games, they're just not a good basketball team. So even though there's a good chance they go over that because of Lebron and a d on a revenge tour, there's just so much opportunity for that to go off the rails, And forty four and a half is such

a large number in a stacked Western conference. I like that as a decent opportunity as an under I like both those and just to give more context to your Philly pick, which by the way, I also really liked for the title at six to one. They won fifty one games last year, and now you think Max will be improved, Harden should be in much better form. They

added some quality role players. The last one I would throw out there that I'm sure a lot of people are looking at and probably like is the Pelicans that only forty three and a half. I think that number might have already come up a bit, but it feels like, you know, Zion is healthy for sixty plus games. I don't see how that number doesn't hit for a team that was top ten on both ends of the ball post All Star Break last year and still has young,

developing talent. The one thing that will be interesting to kind of factor in here is, uh, not so much for the lower level teams that when we're talking about the upper level teams so like. Part of the reason why the Celtics, box Clippers, Warriors, like all these teams sixers have somewhat low over unders is the league is considered deeper with talent than ever, which it absolutely is. There's a good reason for people to feel that way.

But the reality is this Victor woman Yama is available this and we Carson and I were chatting about it before the show, just just just freaking out about all the amazing potential that he has in the NBA. But like with Victor on the table, with Scoot Henderson on the table, there's I'm not super informed on this draft, but I've heard that it's the can even go deeper than that. With what with players that are considered potential

star prospects. You could see a lot of teams towards the bottom of the league really pack it in sooner than later. And what inevitably ends up happening with that

is it inflates win totals for the top top team. So, for instance, when the Bucks had the best record in the league and Janice one m v P, I was screaming from the mountaintops that like the bottom of the Eastern Conference was just atrocious, like they were truly awful, and they the Bucks racked up like twenty wins against garbage teams and beat them all by like twenty five and it inflated all their advanced metrics and inflated them

in the standings. The West was a blood Bath that year and the Lakers were only like three games behind them in the standings. I thought Lebron should have won

the MVP that year. That's kind of my thought process there is like, if this particular draft drives a bunch of teams towards the bottom, if you have a year where instead of two or three teams tanking, you have six or seven teams tanking, You're gonna have a lot of teams that go from fifty four win seasons to fifty nine win seasons just because they're gonna have easy wins on the schedule. So overs at the top of the league I think become more interesting as the draft

it becomes more interesting. I like that logic. A lot nobody won under twenty games last year in the whole league. I could see three or four doing that this year, although there is also so much great competition at the top that you wonder if any one or two teams is gonna totally pull away. Give me, give me your favorite player prop for this season. Okay, so my favorite is go Bear at plus four fifty to win Defensive

Player of the Year. So here's why. First of all, Minnesota, he's he's a regular season defense machine because of the way that drop coverage functions so well during the NBA regular season. Also, that team has a bunch of hype around it, so they're gonna play really hard every night. They're gonna almost immediately be a top ten defense, maybe

even top five. Right, So from that standpoint, you have the refresh on voter fatigue because he's in a new situation, even though there's a bunch of things that are gonna lead to that, like uh, for instance, you know, uh, um, Anthony Edwards potentially making improvements. You know, Carl Town's moving to the four. You're gonna have a ton of size all over the floor. Um, there's gonna be a lot of reasons why Minnesota is gonna be better this year.

But just in terms of the narrative, all of the credits gonna go to Gobert, and with him being in a new situation, the refresh on the voter fatigue plus four fifty for Gobert to win Defensive Player of the Year. I really liked that. The other three that I really liked, James Harden is plus one nine two average twenty four points per game. Now why I like that is not only do I believe that he's gonna be much better

this season. It's clear that that's his mentality. He said in media Day that he believes he can win m v P this year. So up here he still thinks he's two thousand and eighteen. James Harden, if that affects his shot profile at all, this guy is so gifted at manufacturing points. I think in the in the player rankings, I pointed out that James Harden draws a foul still on like tent of his isolations. That's insane. Almost almost one out of every three times he isolates a defender,

he draws a foul. So he's just so good at manufacturing points. And that's such a low threshold twenty four points per game to get that at plus one nine, Anthony Davis, if you believe in his revenge campaign, is plus two seventy two average twenty six points per game, and then Janice is plus four twenty to lead the league in scorning all the guys that were at the top of the league last year Lebron James. This year,

Anthony Davis is going to be back. They have more ball handling with Kendrick Nunn right, So in Dennis Schroder. So the Lakers are scoring is gonna be more dispersed. Lebron scoring should come down. You look at the Sixers. Joel Embiid was near the top of that list last year. With the return of James Harden hopefully back to what he was. Tyrese Maxi's development, you could see m Beads scoring ticked down from thirty one points a game to

like twenty eight as that get gets dispersed more. Kevin Durant spent most of the season playing without Kyrie Irving. Last year, Kyrie Irving back in the picture. This year, Ben Simmons in the picture. You could see a little bit more dispersion of scoring, driving the average for Kevin Durant down. Those guys could be closer to eight. Janice, you're gonna you can book him for thirty every single night. He did it last year with Middleton and Drew. He'll

do it this year with Middleton and Drew. So for him at plus four twenty to lead the league in scoring, I really liked that. As a potential player prop I like those. I like that you're sticking with the revenge tour themes for a d and Harden and it is reasonable, it's good value. I mean, you know, for a d game was like automatic for four straight years hard and even two years ago in Brooklyn when he was more geared towards playmaking, was still putting up almost twenty five.

So I like all those numbers. All right, let's keep it moving here and talk about this GM survey. So we'll start again with the most important thing on the menu, the NBA title. Only four teams received votes from all the GMS as their title favorite, the Box, the Warriors, the Clippers, and the Celtics. What's your reaction to that, Jason.

So when I when I was looking at the GM survey, I look at it from a couple of different angles, getting different perspectives of where people uh, where general managers around the league see the game going, which players that

they prefer. And then also it's just a great chance to kind of see how you know, because I it's funny when I started doing this show, like so many of you guys, the fans of the show, like I listened to every single basketball podcast, listened to Bill Simmons, I listened to Zach low I listened to you know, the pizzeis who runs like your Film Room. I listened to like a half dozen different basketball podcasts, and I

still occasionally do, but nowhere near as much. One of the big reasons why is I don't want them to color my analysis. I want to come at it with an unbiased perspective and reach my own conclusions to the best of my ability. And it's good to see how the way that I see the game, if it actually is, stacks up with some things that GM's around the league see the game, or if there's disagreement, because that doesn't

necessarily mean I'm wrong either, it's different perspective, right. And so this was an example where I saw an immediate parallel because I saw a top tier and then a big drop off. I saw Clippers, Bucks, Warriors, and Celtics.

And to see that the other four, or that the other gms in the league viewed those four as the only teams that really had a good, legitimate chance to win the title, it just shows that that, at least in this particular case, our line of thinking is in line with what most of the front offices around the league are thinking. I think that it is honestly a the solid tier of the top four. In my opinion, and I also, you know, would not say that I'm

overly surprised by seeing the GM results reflect that. Okay, something else that stood out. There was a lot of love given to Steph and to the Warriors offense makes sense given that they just won the title, but Steph was awarded as the player who causes teams to make the most adjustments. The Warriors were given best offense. So what's your reaction to that? And do you expect them to be the best team in the league this year?

So I expect them to be that. I have them as number one in my power rankings, meaning meaning I expect them to be the best team with the biggest likelihood to win the title. But specifically on the offensive end, I don't think you know. In that GM survey, they specifically said that the Warriors run the best offense in the league. Now, that to me is a separate topic from production. Offensive production, because the Warriors were sixteenth in

offense last year. And if as you go back in time, like two title went to the Golden State Warriors, who were an unbelievable defensive team in an average half court offense, then we go to last year with the Milwaukee Bucks, and it's like they were the best, one of the best defensive teams in the league, and their offense got clunky when they got in the half court. And then we go to the Lakers and they were the best defense in the league, and their offense got really clunky

in the half court. And the main reason why is one, they play defensive personnel, and then two they devote large portions of energy and effort to the defensive end of the floor. For instance, I think Denver is gonna finish with the best offense overall by offensive raiding in basketball this year. Big part of that is they prioritize offensive personnel.

You know. They they believe that they are a better team with Michael Porter Jr. Giving up more points on defense than they are with going with a three and d wing and limiting what they can do on the

offensive end of the flour. Even with their effort and focus and energy, they're not devote outing as much effort to the defensive end as teams like the Warriors and the Bucks are right, and so in terms of offensive rating, I don't think the Warriors will be towards the top, but it is important to acknowledge that they do run by far the most sophisticated offense in the league in every single metric. In terms of screening actions run, they're

miles ahead of the other teams in the league. When I was doing my season preview, the vast majority of teams are just running a basic motion when they come up the floor and live ball situations, maybe a ball screen, maybe a dribble handoff, not a whole lot going on in terms of player movement. And then they'll run sets out of dead ball situations, so like free throws or occasionally after a made basket or out of a time out. The Warriors run sets almost every time down the floor.

They get down, they get in their five out, and they run multiple interchanges every single time. It's one of the it's one of the big ways that allows them to have their offense translate to success in the postseason. Teams are just not even used to guard teams that

run sets as often as they do. So it's important to acknowledge that the Warriors run the most sophisticated offense in the league, but in terms of production, they'll never be as high as the other teams in the league because they play guys like Draymond and Andrew Wiggins, who are defensive minded role players and they devote large portions of their energy and focus and attention to the defensive end of the floor. And then, last, but not least, there was a little a little plug for Steph Curry.

Um they said that Steph Curry is the player that commands teams to make the most to make to make the most adjustments. And that just goes right back to what we were saying every other player that you're guarding that's at the top of the league, whether that's Luca Donche or Lebron or Kevin Durant or even with the post players, it's maybe a double and recover scheme, but with those other heliocentric players, it's like you're setting up pick and roll coverages. You're talking about where help is

coming from. But like when you've played seven or eight games in a row and you get to the Golden State Warriors game, it's like everything's got to be crumpled up and thrown in the track because like now, everything we're doing to guard this team has to be specifically catered to them. And so when I saw that Steph Kirk that that point about Steph Curry being the player

that dictates the most adjustments. I thought that was a really interesting a piece of information coming from the front offices because it means that they they see what we all see, which is they're just very different from every other team in the league. They command you to play a completely different way. I talked about in the season preview. The Warriors almost always go up to one in a

two oh in a playoff series. It's very rare for them to lose a game like they did in Game one against the Celtics in the Finals, and even in that game, they controlled the game through three quarters, they just blew it with a bad fourth quarter. They catch every team off guard with what they do offensively, and it's a huge part of what allows them to get early advantages in series. And when you're up to oh, it's like, man, I just need to win two of

the next five games. It buys you a lot of leeway, and so I I just I thought it was cool to see that MS acknowledge that they're they're the most sophisticated offensive team in the league, and I don't think it's particularly close. I think you make a really interesting point though, with this question about sort of the results versus the methodology split almost or the method just the structure of the offense, because there's a pretty strong consensus.

Thirty eight percent of GM's said that the Warriors would have the most efficient offense in basketball. And like you said, I mean, even last year with Steph on the floor, they played at just below the fifth best offensive level in the league and the most adjustments questions. Very interesting. Steph makes a ton of sense. And the top five overall is very logical. It's Yo, honest, Yoki, Embiide and Lucas, So you know, I would think that's pretty much what

you would expect. Those are really overwhelming offensive forces who demand those, you know, entire shifts in scheme and approach. So there's a lot from the NBA g M survey that will get grabbed and highlighted. People love to look at m VP, favorite title favorite oftentimes who's the player it GM's would most like to have five years from now? What were your favorite selections out of this whole survey That may not have grabbed those headlines as much, So

I put down two um for starters. I thought it was really interesting that they said the two best coaches in the league were Spolstra and cur Once again, that has mimiced something I've been saying all summer long. So it's just good to see that that we're reaching similar conclusions to the guys that do this for the big bucks, you know what I mean, UM and just they din't

they split that into two separate dynamics. They think that spoils sture ones that runs the most sophisticated defensive schemes. That immediately brought me to the way that they almost completely erased Joel Embiide from the Eastern Conference SEMIS with that kind of like that bracketing scheme where they were fronting him and offering backside help. They're really good at taking you out of what you like to do and making you do stuff that you don't want to do.

They're very malleable, willing to make adjustments. That staff is really impressive. And then we just talked about everything that Steve Kurt does on the offensive end of the floor. So it's cool to see that UM represented in the GM survey. And then the second one, I put Malcolm Brogden as the one the underrated player acquisition question. I still don't think people realize just how much he's going to help Boston. And you know, Marcus Smart kind of does a lot of what Brogden does, but in a

way more volatile way. Um he can go off script, take bad shots a lot of the time, and and and just try to do too much from time to time. And I like Marcus Smart, but he just he wasn't enough to fix the ball handling issues that Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown brought to the table. Adding Malcolm Brogden out there and immediately you saw it in the preseason opener. I think he had nine assists in that game, especially when he was running the offense with the bench unit

to start the second quarter. He's just got such a natural feel for running an offense out high pick and roll with the intention of generating driving kick opportunities. He already has a natural chemistry with Grant Williams. They have a good connection with each other on how to relocate to get good shots and and and Brogden's always hunting him. He's getting the ball to players on time and on target.

That's an underrated ability as a passer when you factor in the athleticism of these players, especially in the late rounds of the playoffs, Like if you throw the pass a little bit low into the side and the guy has to bobble it or go out of his way to catch it before he can get balanced again, that fraction of a second can be long enough for a great athlete to to close out and to take the

shot opportunity away. Malcolm Brogden's precision with the way he locates passes two shooters on the wing will open up that driving kick game that Boston is so good at. I I just I think he's a huge influx of talent that directly attacks one of their very specific needs and weaknesses. I agreed that it was the most underrated player acquisition into the summer. A lot of people are down on the Celtics. I don't understand why. It's like, oh, they would have lost to the Bucks if it wasn't

for Chris Middleton. You're right, but then the Bucks didn't get better and the Celtics got better. And you know, Tatum and Brown are rapidly ascending, and like Robert Williams was playing with a balky knew during the entire playoffs, like they're gonna be better too, And and I think we're too quick. And if it wasn't for Jason Tatum completely following apart in the NBA Finals, they might be the defending champs. I think, I think teams I know,

they're the Vegas favorite. That's the That's the funny subplot here is the is the Celtics are actually the Vegas favorite right now. But in terms of the sentiment that I pick up talking to people and what I see on Twitter, it seems like people are too low on the Celtics right now, and and that puzzles me. I'm with you, and I think that the broad didn't pick up is massive. I mean you mentioned just the versatility,

the the stability that he brings to an offense. He's been twenty five and six on solid efficiency and it is going to compete defensively for the last couple of years, and I think introduced him into a role where he doesn't have to try to be a you know, leading star offensive force and he can settle in as like a third option. I think he will do some really great things as a playmaker and then also getting his

own just a really good all around player. So let's flip here from sort of pleasant surprises some of your favorites with that last one to what disappointed you most about this survey. So I put two things, um one, a couple of picks that I disagreed with, and then to a formatting thing that didn't make any sense to me. So, first of all, uh, for best perimeter defender in the NBA, they put Marcus Smart and Drew Holiday as the top two, and I just don't think that you can put small

players at the top of the league. That doesn't mean that those guys aren't good defensive players. They are, like Drew Holidays, incredible, Marcus Smart literally just one defensive player of the year. Although I disagreed with that pick. When you when you look at those guys, they're great perimeter contain guys. They can get into ball handlers, but their

size does add an element of matchup attacking. You see Drew Holiday struggle with bigger wings from time to time, especially the bigger, stronger ones like the khiele Enards and the Lebron James of the world. I still prefer the bigger wing. And then the other thing, too, is perimeter defense to me is not just about dribble contain. It's also about the ability to rotate as as plays break

down in a driving kick system. And so for me, I look at like guys like Jayson Tatum, guys like Mikhail Bridges, Guys like Andrew Wiggins, Guys like Ben Simmons, that six seven to six ten long arms, freak athlete that can contain the ball but also cover tons of ground in rotation and be kind of frightening there, but also hold their own against mismatches against bigger wings that might try to back them down, Like could any of those guys guardianess know, but neither can Drew Holiday or

and Marcus Smart. But I just prefer that archetype. And I disagreed with that. It's are is the the kind of formatting thing that I disagreed with. I they ordered the player rankings by position type, and that just screwed everything up because then it was like Steph Curry's the best point guard, Devin Booker's the best to guard, and then they go right to the forwards and so then you're getting into your Lebron's or kadis and your honestes

and stuff like that. And what bothered me about that is, I'm like I'm sitting there thinking, like so you're saying the two best perimeter players in the league, or Steph Curry and Devin Booker. Like at a certain point, like the one thing means literally nothing. Now it means literally nothing. I I would say maybe the five when you're talking about pick and roll coverages, you can it's like a

specific position. Yeah, but and like maybe you're playing the guy who brings the ball up the floor versus the guy that runs the wings. Yeah. Like there it's I simplified it down in my season previews to guards, wings, bigs. That's what it is. That's the way they need to rank these things. It just then it comes out weird, where like why isn't Luca don Chich near the top of that list, Like like he's you know, behind Booker as a two guard, but also behind step as a

point guard. That just doesn't make any sense. So at a certain point, like I know, the position list thing gets thrown around a little too much. But the reality is is like we don't have a shooting guard anymore. That's not a thing in the NBA. And we have we have guards, we have wings, we have bigs. That's

what we have. That's the way it should be ordered from that one, And to take your point even further, I think there's an argument that shooting guards specifically will consistently be a weaker position because of the way that they classified. In that historical sense, most of the great scoring guards convert to primary ball handlers. James Hart goes from being a quote unquote shooting guard to okay, now he's running the entire offense, is going to be a

point guard. So to be a shooting guard you probably need to have some sort of playmaking limitation. Like it's Devin Booker, Demard Rose, and Zach Lavine, Bradley Beale. None of those guys are like lead playmaker types. So I and agree with you more. I mean, you're disqualifying players. Luca dont is a shooting guard size, but yeah, he's a primary ball handler, so he's clearly better. Do away with it. I think do away with it across the board down to certainly the five specific positions. I think

that's just ridiculous. And I agree with you on the best perimeter defender point. I thought it should have been Ben Simmons, and he was in the like others receiving votes category, but last time we saw him out there, I thought he was the best perimeter defender on the planet. So you know, it's very interesting obviously all these results. But I I completely agree with both those things that you highlighted there. So really quick, really quickly, really quickly.

Um the on the position types thing, you can get really crazy with like different archetypes, Like it is more complicated than guard wing, big, but it certainly is not point guard shooting, guard small forward powerful. Like it's more like you have your primary ball handlers and they need to be able to shoot off the drible because I they can't shoot off the ribble, then you can't run pick and roll with them. Then you have like movement shooters, guys that you run off of screens, right, might have

high post threats, low post threats. You have guys who screen and run to the rim, or screen and popped to the three point line. There's all these different archetypes of offensive players, but I'm just saying they don't fall into position groupings. And we were just talking before the show that Victor Weiman Yama might be a movement shooter and he's a five. So like, at the end of the day, it's like your skill set slots you into a specific archetype of player, but not a position. That's

the that's the line of thinking. We've got a ditch, completely agree with you there. We got one last question, because Lebron still made his mark on this survey. He was ranked the fifth most athletic and the second most versatile player in the entire NBA. What are your expectations for him in year twenty Uh? You know, health is going to be the big thing. I mean, he was cruiser right along last year and then one day he

woke up in his knee was swollen. But I think you know, I saw that Lebron is the fifth most athletic player in the league, and I was like, man, that's probably right. I'm sure you guys all saw that that clip from this from training camp last week where he dunked all over I'm blanking on his name now, but that the big white dude shop blocker that the Lakers have, that's that played in the G League last year. And I'm just sitting there and I'm like, how many

players in the league are doing that right now? And there was a I don't know if you saw this, Carson, there was a missed dunk from Scottie Barnes in the Raptors first preseason game at the end of the first quarter, and he kinda it was eerily reminiscent to Lebron's dunk on Yusuf Nurkitch back in two thousand eighteen, the ridiculous one. Uh they had Jr. Smith freaking out and running out

onto the floor. Scotty Barnes kind of starts really high and they run like a ball screen, kind of almost at like half court, and he gets downhill and he takes off from the same spot Lebron did, and it gets rim stuffed and he wasn't high enough, he didn't get there. And I'm sitting there thinking, I'm like, at thirty three, Lebron dumped that over somebody, like the exact same type of movement. And we consider Scottie Barnes one of the most young, one of the best young athletes

in the entire league. Like he's kind of like a mini Janice in a lot of different ways. So, like, you know, it's just a ridiculous testament to the way he's taking care of his body and just the type of unicorn athletic prospect that he was. And then he got voted the second most versatile player in the league as well, as you had mentioned, that's what's keeping him around in this league in terms of his overall impact. As he's gotten older, he's improved massively in all of

the areas he was weaker as a younger player. He's still one of the more efficient is players in the league's STI one of the more efficient post up players in the league. He's efficient as a pull up jump shooter. Now. His rim finishing. We talked about this over the off season. Jannice like was considered one of the very Janice was the best rim finisher in basketball this year with like six point seven makes per game in the restricted area at like seventy, and Lebron was right there at six

point six on like seventy. So Like, he just over the years has continued to evolve his game and add things so that as his athleticism is waned, he's just as versatile and impactful as he's ever been. I had him as the fourth best player in the league still, and I expect big big things from him this year, provided that his body holds up, which is obviously a

big question mark. I think he makes a case for most versatile player, I mean certainly offensively, like who else just shifts their desires from Okay, I want to be, you know, the leading playmaker in the league, to leading score in the league, and I want to attack from all these different places on the floor, dominating out of the post more one year, leaning more on the jump shot another Like, I don't think anybody else has had the level of ability to just pick how they want

to kill you like that. I don't think anybody else in the league has that. You honest doesn't have that. I mean, you know, he has his go twos where he's overwhelmingly dominant, but he does not have the offensive versatility, certainly of Lebron, which is just a marvel about a dude entering year twenties, so unprecedented. Yep, I agree. Alright, guys, that is all we have for today. As always, we

sincerely appreciate your support. We'll have one more video coming out on Friday, and then we will be back after the weekend on Monday. Thanks. As always, we'll see you guys next time. The volume