Hoops Tonight - Why Anthony Davis is BEST defensive player in NBA + Dame & Giannis are UNSTOPPABLE, NBA Team Rankings: Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo & Damian Lillard are NBA’s BEST duo

Jonathan Kminga is averaging twenty six points per game for the Warriors, a team that desperately needs a forward who's ready to play, not just in the season, but in the postseason. So we're gonna do a deep dive into Jonathan Kminga's preseason what translates to what they need from him in the long run. And then Victor Wentbinyama is putting up just absolutely staggering numbers so far in preseason

as well. We're gonna dive into his first two performances and then we're back up to number two in our power rank. The Milwaukee Bucks are up for a full season previews, so we're gonna do a full breakdown of everything the Bucks did this offseason and what I expect to see from them this season as well. So jam packed show. We're gonna be spending a lot of time on the Eastern Conference. You guys know the drill. Before

we get started. We did actually just launch a new YouTube channel under Hoops Tonight, So it would mean the world to me if you guys would take the time to hit that subscribe button and let's try to grow that channel up to some sort of cool, massive number. Let's go for it, and then follow me on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok wherever you can find me under Jason timp and then my podcast feed under Hoops Tonight. And then last but not least, we need more mailbag questions, so

keep dropping those under the YouTube comments. All right, let's talk some basketball. So it was interesting the Bucks came out and we were all waiting for the Dame Jannis pick and Roll, which we're gonna spend a lot of time talking about today. We're gonna talk a little bit about it in this particular breakdown. Then I'm gonna do a deep dive into the schematics of the Dame Jannis Pick and Roll. All the different ways to guard it.

I each one of those ways probably won't work and everything entailing those two playing together when we get to the season preview, so stick around to the end of the episode for that. But I thought it was interesting that they actually opened the game with back to back post ups. For Jannis on the left block, he had that kind of step through hook shot over Christian Wood and then he had to turn around fade away over

his right shoulder that he missed. But what was interesting is they ran a screening action with Dame to get Janis the ball on the block. Why is that important? That's an easy way to fight for easy post position. Now you might say it's Christian wood Yiannis probably doesn't need help getting deep post position, and that's true. But against certain matchups, especially fire hydrant forwards right like big strong. Imagine Grant Williams as an example, a guy that's had

some success guarding Gianis in the past. Imagine a guy like that. It can be hard for Jannis to bully down to specific spots closer to the basket. So if you run a screening action with a guy like Dame that is impossible to help off of, it makes it so that that forward has to navigate that screening action before they can beat Giannis to that spot. It will

help him catch deeper post position. I thought that was an interesting little wrinkle there that you saw right from the opening tip the first pick and roll they ran on the left wing, Christian Wood and D'Angelo Russell both kind of bracket around Dame. Dame throws that easy pocket pass to Giannis rolling down the middle. The Lakers actually tagged two guys on the roller, and in the process, Ruey Hachimura rotates down to brook Lopez. You have two

wide open shooters. You've got j Crowder on the right wing, who Jannis ended up making the pass too, and then you have an even better shooter who was even more wide open in the left corder in Malik Beasley at just one action with one simple example of how much chaos it can cause for the defense, and it goes even further than that because Crowder misses the three, but on the possession, brook Lopez rolls to the basket to crash the offensive glass. But because Ruey kind of rotated

on that possession, he was out of position. Because ad was tagging the roller, he was out of position. So what did brook Lopez do. He just went right under the basket and boxed eighty out, got an easy offensive rebound, and put it back in the basket. That's the kind of havoc that is caused when your defense gets put

into rotation. We're gonna talk about that specific concept a lot today, the concept of getting a defense into rotation and what that means for how much harder it is for them to do that job, especially when we get into the season preview. In the game, they ran a total of seven pick and rolls together, all in the first half, and here were the outcomes. That wide open three for Crowder that led to the easy put back

which I just told you about. Second one on the left wing, Dame got doubled, so they just straight up doubled and trapped Dame out by the three point line. Giannis rolled to the basket. When he rolled to the basket for like a post up position, Dame hits him with the pass at the block, and it's kind of like this weird possession where Ads pinned on his top side, in large part because Giannis was rolling to the basket unguarded, and Giannice kind of fumbled the ball and went up

and dunked it. It was ugly, but it's two points, right, So we're through two pick and rolls and we have four points already. The next one, Dame got fouled onto three pointer and he made all three to three points, all three free throws. Then we have a Dame missed pull up three. Then we had a Dame he got downhill on Christian Wood and tried to do like a foul grifty kind of pull up jump shot that he missed. Then there was a play that Dame rejected the screen

and got downhill like just toasted Torny and Prince. And on the play he had Brook Lopez wide open in the corner, but he misread the rotation and he actually ended up kicking to Malik Beasily instead, who wasn't as open. It got rotated to Lopez, but the close out opportunity was gone. Lopez ended up getting into the lane and missing like a little tough like kind of like high push shot. But still, I mean the action itself generated what it was supposed to generate, which was a straight

line drive and help defense to make a read. Dame just missed the read. And then the last one he split christian Wood on a pick and roll. So christian Wood showed and he split with the dribble, got downhill and made an and one layup and made the free throw.

So he made some bad reads and missed all of his pull up jump shots, and they still got ten points out of seven Jannis Dame ball screens, So like again, ten points on seven ball screens, and it didn't really go all that well and was still kind of sloppy. So like again, it's just gonna be nearly impossible to guard.

And again I'm gonna dive into the schematics of it later on in the show, because I do think it's interesting, because I've tried to think of any different way that you could guard it, different types of hedges versus high drop, versus blitzing, versus dropping versus switching, and all the different ramifications that can come into play there. We are going to dive into that later on in the show. Yannis

looked more and more or less like Yannis. He took five jumpers and made one of them, but he did make every other shot attempt heam made mostly dunks, as per usual. I thought Pat Conaton looked better at the two guard spot. Than Malik Beasley. I think he's just a little bigger, a little better rebounder, and in general, just a more consistent shooter. Something that we'll talk about. I covered Malik Beasley very closely with the Lakers last year, so we'll talk about that when we get to the

season preview. But I thought that that was a pat Coninton made four threes in the game at eight rebounds. I think he just makes more sense than that two guard spot in the long run, unless they have a trade in mind at some point down the road. And then Marjon Beauchamp had a really nice first half. He was out working Cam Reddish. There was a play where he kind of crashed the glass out of the corner. Cam kind of chased him down under the basket, but then Marjar just kept going kind of like in a

banana route around to the front of the rim. Just by being a body perpetually staying in motion, he ends up getting an offensive rebound put back. He had a nice pull up jump shot off of a curl where his defender was in a trail position. He got downhill

made a little fifteen footer. And then there was a play later in the first half where he took a dribble hand off from Pat Conenton, and the Lakers botched the switch and both guys ran with Pat, and he actually did a really nice job of looking down, identifying that he was open, seeing that he was in two point range, but along too, and just took a little step back that not only set his rhythm but got him to a point where it was a higher value

shot and he knocked down a three. He's gonna be a very important player for this Bucks team, especially with some of the depth that they lost in the Drew Holiday trade. But overall, I thought it was a really encouraging first performance for the Bucks. On the defensive end, Obviously, the talk was Dame on defense, what is he gonna be able to accomplish compared to what Drew accomplished, And you saw some of the downsides of that early on.

You saw Ruy Hachimura attacking Dame in the post, and there was a play where he got a deep seal and they were able to throw the pass over the top and Ruey got a dunk because Dame tried to front him. And then there was a player where they double teamed Dame or double teamed Ruey on a Dame post up. When Ruy was attacking Dame, Ruey made the skip pass that ended up working around back to Anthony

Davison rotation for an easy layup and one. So there are some things they're gonna have to work on, Like, for instance, like if Dame is gonna front the post, there has to be backside help, right If you're gonna double Dame in post up situations, there's got to be really sharp rotations. Again, like a lot of people are gonna hyper focus on that, And like, here's what I would say, Dame is not the only basketball player in the league that Ruy, Hatcha Mura, or other big forwards

around the league can post up. It's very nice that Drew was uniquely equipped to be able to kind of battle against that stuff, but he's unique in that sense. Every team in the league has those problems to some extent, some sort of smaller player in the back court that if you post him up, you can have problems. Right now, this particular Bucks team hasn't had that problem as much in years past, but this year that's something they're gonna

have to sharpen up in their defense. They're gonna have to have basically contingencies set up to make it so that they can come up or make up for Dame's lack of size and specific matchups. Overall, though, like I said, I thought it was very encouraging on the Lakers front. Another really solid performance from Anthony Davis sixteen points, seven rebounds, and five assists with zero turnovers, two steals, and two blocks in one half of play. Hard to do much

better than that. Another one of those plays that just kind of demonstrates how incredibly gifted Anthony Davis is defensively. Damian Lother comes off a dribble handoff in the right corner and he ends up kind of like right worthy above the break line, starts and he appears wide open if you freeze it. Dame has the ball and he's wide open, and Anthony Davis takes one step and rises up to contest and blocks a Damian Lillard pull up three.

I know the nbagms, for whatever reason, have it out for him, but I still think he's the best defensive player in the league, and that was just an unbelievable only he's only he can make that type of play performance from Anthony Davis. He is plus twenty five in his shifts so far in preseason, He's been a positive against every team that he's faced, and his jumper looks great. Anthony Davis has taken fourteen jump shots so far in preseason that have led to nineteen points. That's one point

three to six points per shot. Last year in the regular season, he was at zero point seven eight. So he's almost twice as efficient so far in preseason with his jump shot as he was last season. Now, again, small sample size preseason obviously, like I won't expect many players in the league to maintain that type of jump efficiency over the course of a season, but it's a really good sign that Anthony Davis has been working on that specifically a lot this offseason. His release looks smoother.

I think it's a very encouraging sign of what's to come because they need him to make those jump shots. One of our mailback questions later is involving Lebron's jump shot, and there's gonna be some talk there and it does matter. But at the end of the day, to me, especially at this phase in his career, Anthony Davis, in his over the top scoring is going to be the thing that kind of like separates their offense from what it

can be from what it was last year. He did hit a nice little step back jump shot over Brook Lopez that kind of like over the top shot making in particular is going to be super valuable for a Lakers team that struggled in the half court, especially in clutch situations last year. In the postseason, Torrian Prince as a starter is my last Lakers thing, and then we're gonna move on to the young guys. So I was

under the impression before the season. Well, Jovan Buja told us in the when he came on the show that he thought Ruey Hachimurro was the clubhouse favorite coming into preseason. Then after the start of camp and stuff, him and I were both leaning towards Jared Vanderbilt. But a couple things.

Jared Vanderbilt has been a little hurt, and Ruby Hatcha Mura makes a lot of sense coming off the bench, And as a result of that, Torrian Prince has got an opportunity, and Torrian Prince has been playing lights out in that starting three position. Now here's the thing. It's all about synergy that's making this work. In my opinion, and the reason why I think he's got a chance

to earn this spot. I don't think Torrian does any one thing as well as Jared Vanderbilt does defensively on the perimeter, or as Ruby Hatchimura can do as a scorer in general with his physical tools, right, But he does a lot of things pretty well right, and he's probably the best stand still jump shooter. Then, out of those three guys, here's the thing in a lineup that's

gonna have. Austin Reeves a high level shot creator, D'Angel Russell hi level shot creator, Lebron James a high level shot creator, and Anthony Day as a high level shot creator. You need a guy who's a specialist when it comes to knocking down spot up three point shots right or making plays attacking closeouts. And then on the defensive end of the floor, He's not as good of a perimeter defender as Jared Vanderbilt, but he is a better perimeter

defender than Ruby Hotcha. Murray is a little thinner, a little quicker with his feet, and better at navigating screens. And so, in a weird way, it's less about which player's best out of those three guys, and better about and more about which player compliments the core four players more. And it's clear that Torre and Prince compliments the core four Lakers starters at a really high level right now, and I think as of right now, it appears that he will be the starter on opening night at the

Small Ford. And then here's the thing that just opens up the ability to go to bench lineups that have Jared Vanderbilt, Ruby hot Chimura in them, which takes even further to the concept that I've been talking about with the Lakers all preseason, which is about their depth and the advantage that that provides over the course of the eighty two the ability to have guys out of the lineup and have your bench lineups still have guys that are high caliber players, Guys like Gabe Vincent who started

on a final team, Guys like Ruy Hatcha Mura who was a very important player on a conference finals team last year. Right, Jackson Hayes is a better backup center than what they had last year. Jared Vanderbilt is one of the better perimeter defenders in the league. So you can kind of piece that together and see that just from the sheer standpoint of down the roster talent, they're in a better position than they were in years past.

All Right, So a lot of talking the preseason for Golden State about what they're going to do at the forward position, right, And we saw last year that Steve Kerr did not trust Jonathan Kaminga, but he did trust Moses Moody. Especially towards the latter portion of that Lakers series. He was playing solid point of attack defense, although he's committing a few too many fouls, and he shot the ball well and that kind of ended up being the

reason why he got that spot. Now we know they brought in Dario Sarich, who's going to be a guy who helps with forward death, but that's gonna be matchup dependent. There are going to be teams out there where you can't afford to have a guy like Dario sarch on the floor of some of his limitations defensively, right, And so what they're hoping for is for one of these forwards to pop. And obviously Moses Moody is like your

higher floor, lower ceiling option, right. He's a guy that is a better standstill, knocked down three point shooter than Jonathan Kaminga, but not as good at putting the ball on the floor as Jonathan Kminga, right, not as athletic as Jonathan Kamina. He's a good physical point of attack defender, but he's not as good as Jonathan Kaminga can be

when he's at his peak at the perimeter. Jonathan Kaminga's got a little bit of that and Andrew Wiggins potential as a as an athletic perimeter defender, right, But in terms of decision making and just what he does well that fits alongside the core Warriors players. Moody's been in a better position over the course of the last couple of years, but Jonathan Kaminga is whooping his ass off

in preseason. He's averaging twenty six points, six rebounds, and three assists so far, fifty five percent from the field, forty seven percent from three on six attempts per game, and seventy six percent from the line. He's converting spot up possessions at one point two points per possession, and

his half court creation metrics have been outstanding. Nine points on eight pick and rolls that's over a point per possession, thirteen points on nine ISOs that's way over a point per possession, and eight points on six post ups that total's at thirty points on twenty three possessions against set half court defenses where he's initiating the action, and he's at one point three points per possession. That's outstanding. He's

made ten of his nineteen jump shots. He's taken four pull up jump shots and he's made three of them. So it's hard to be any better than what Jonathan k Ming has been so far in preseason. So the next question is what is replicable from that with the

core lineups? Right, because obviously free preseason has more of a free flowing type of feel compared to what you're gonna be asking this guy to do in Game three against the Lakers in the Western Conference semifinals, right, Like, it's gonna be different, right, So I wanted to take a closer look at that. So, first of all, the spot up possessions, obviously, whether it's him in the corner or cutting along the baseline, which he does pretty well for the most part, he needs to be able to

make defenses pay for not guarding him. Two points for spotup possessions so far, that's encouraging. If he can keep that up, that's a big step in that direction. Transition possessions.

The Golden State Warriors are constantly hunting transition possessions, which is something they need to do because last year they struggled with half court offense against the best defenses right So again, the best half court offenses are never going to be as efficient as an average transition offense, So having guys that can get up and down and run

the floor and score is a huge value. Second half of the Kings game the other night, he blew by Kevin Herder and semi transitions coming up the left wing, Herders backpedaling. Herders just a smaller, less athletic player, and Kaminga just hits him with a hard right handed dribble, just blows right by him, lays it up on the right side of the rim, right like that's something that he can continue to do even with the core guys.

He's had a couple of baskets trailing the play right, like we saw the Gary Payton drop off pass where a Kamingo was like floating head above the rim as he laid it in, and then he had that lob dunk in the in the Lakers game. These are easy buckets that he can get in the flow of the offense without having to command half court possessions or take the ball away from Steph Curry or do something that he's not gonna be able to do in some sort

of key postseason environment. That is a legitimate weapon to have an athlete that can run the floor and transition and score the matchup attacking I think has been really interesting. And again, are they going to run a bunch of Kaminga ISOs or post ups at the end of a

close playoff game. Probably not, but it is a useful weapon over the course of the eighty two, and if he demonstrates it over the eighty two, you might see it in bench runs during the playoffs, like late first quarter, early second quarter, late third quarter, early fourth quarter, where you might see Jonathan Kaminga get some opportunities to score.

He's just two damn big, strong and athletic for most of these NBA defenders, and they've done some stuff to make it easy on him, right, Like I've seen, especially against the Kings, they had a couple plays where they cleared the side for him. There's a play where he cleared the side against Aaron Fox. He was in the first half and like he patiently waited for the guys to go get spaced out, and then he literally didn't

do anything fancy. He just looked Darren Fox in the face, ripped through to the middle, shouldered him with that left arm, bumped him off and made an easy floater in the lane. That's easy basketball. Darren Fox is a good defensive player, but that's just a bigger, stronger athlete. There's nothing he can do about that. Then in the second half, same thing. They clear the right side this time and he's going against Sasha Vazankov. Same thing, just hard dribble towards the left.

Vzaykov cuts him off because he anticipated the move. But there's just no way in hell he's gonna be able to hang with him on the counter move. Hard dribble, spin all the way to the basket, easy layup at the rim, a layup he's going to literally make one hundred percent of the time. That's the type of physical advantage he brings to the table. Second half against Alex Lenni gets him on a switch. They're spaced out in

five out spacing. He doesn't even have a cleared side, but he just beats Alex Lenne with a really quick dribble to the left hand in a layup. And then I know you guys all remember the first Lakers game, the very first preseason game when he hit that spin move against Torrian Prince and the lane for the n one. He's just he just has such a physical advantage that

there's there's points there. And the Warriors again, they're they're they're putting him in positions where he has significant physical advantages and where he's got good spacing, meaning they are either clearing the side or making his reads easy. Why is clearing the side important because then you don't have to worry about help from one side of the court.

You can just face the other side. A lot of young players and guys that you know aren't accustomed to being floor generals, are not as good at kind of digesting everything that's happening on the court. So clear aside for him, you take away half of his decision making process and you make things easier for him. And then lastly, he's using his gifts. He's not taking dumb fait aways,

he's not settling. He is being physically aggressive towards the basket and elevating over the top of guys for easy shots. Now the question is what will be the keys for him to crack the playoff rotation to get more minutes than guys like Dario sarach or Moses Because here's the thing, Like Moses Moody to me is that higher floor, lower ceiling option, right, Like he's gonna be more consistent in

all likelihood. Dario sariz I would argue even higher floor, right because he's just a veteran who's been in a lot of a lot. He's just play a lot more basketball, right. So obviously the floor is higher for those guys, but unquestionably the ceiling is higher for Kaminga. There's a universe where if he gets eighteen minutes a game in the playoffs, that he could have a twenty point game or two. That's the type of ceiling that he has that a

guy like Moses Moody doesn't have. But in order to crack the rotation, he's got to be sharpened some specific areas. He has to defend on the perimeter at the same level that Andrew Wiggins does, which is something he's more than capable of. He has to shoot the ball close to as well as he has in the preseason. That's something he's capable of. But most importantly, he has to consistently make good decisions. That's the big pet peeve for

the Warriors. Ball stopping missing that extra pass to one of their shooters, lack of attention to detail and transition defense, help defense, things along those lines. Those are those areas where Kamina has to be sharp throughout this season in order to earn that spot in the playoff rotation. Now, no matter what, I think, it's plainly visible to all of us that this kid's going to be a star. It's just a matter of when the tools are too insane.

The leaps that he's making on a season by season basis with his specific skill set is you can't You can't deny it at this point. It's it might take another four or five years, but I think Jonathan Kaminga has all Star in his future.

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you guys to take advantage of. Get in on the game day greatness. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now and use code hoops. New customers can score two hundred dollars instantly in bonus bets when you bet five on the NFL. That's code Hoops hops only on the DraftKings Sportsbook app and official sports betting partner of the NFL. The Crown is yours all right, let's move on to Wembnyama. So far in two preseason games, Wemby is scoring at a rate of thirty seven points per thirty six minutes on

sixty four percent shooting. Now, why do I say per thirty six Because in preseason you're playing limited shifts, and the average NBA player is going to play around thirty six minutes per game during the course of the regular season. Maybe the Spurs limit him down to thirty two or thirty four or something like that. But I like per thirty six because it's a way to take small, sample sized stuff like, Oh, here's a bench big Let's see how he would produce in a bigger role. Oh here's

a preseason shift. How would this look over the course of a full regular season game?

put together. That's insane. And the crazy part is he hasn't even functioned like a big man like I expected him to For the most part, he had a couple of pick and pop reps against the Heat, but for the most part, he's acting like a scoring wing, which I did not see coming coming into the disease. I thought for sure that Popovich would kind of repurpose him into a textbook you know, pick and pop, scoring big and

get him a lot of advantage situations. And I'm sure he still will do a lot of that over the course of his career. I just figured his scoring polish would be kind of not quite ready to be used as a wing. But I couldn't have been more wrong about that so far through preseason. He made ten of his fifteen shots against the Heat the other night, and those ten makes included a pull up jumper at the foul line coming off of a dribble handoff. That's a

wing move. A step back jumper from the elbow in transition. That's a wing move. A face up jumper off of an iverson cut that's a wing move, a lot dunk off of a give and go. One of the craziest plays I've ever seen give and go from the wing just points to the rim, the guard just throws it up and he just catches it with two hands and dunks. It was one of the most ridiculous basketball plays I've ever seen. And then we had a transition pick and roll where Cheddy Osman sets the ball screen forty feet

from the basket. He gets into the screen defender, hits an in and out between the legs, step back jump shot, and then on a pick and pop, he had a jab step driving left hard dribble with his left hand spinning into a left shoulder fade. These are all super high level wing scoring plays. And here's the thing again, I thought he was going to be a big man who slowly learned how to shoot at a high level and how to score from the wing at a high level.

If he's just gonna come into the league and be a stretched out Kevin Durant from day one, we need to recalibrate everything about what this kid can be, because that's the hard stuff. When he's on good basketball teams,

there's gonna be easy stuff, the pick and pops. He had a wide open pick and pop three against Miami left shoulder Faid that was attacking a close out out of a pick and pop. He's gonna have lots of advantage situations that crazy left handed Dunkey had over Thomas Bryant, where Thomas Bryant like looked over at the sideline like

what the hell am I supposed to do with that? Which, by the way, is one of my favorite NBA clips ever that needs to be in the Webben Yama documentary twenty five Years from Now is just Thomas Bryant looking over like what am I supposed to do? Guys? You know, but that's off. That was off of a drop off to the dunker spot someone else was driving. He's standing there and the dunker sbody gets the ball and he

just takes the dribble and goes up and finishes. He's gonna get lots of easy stuff in his NBA career, especially when he starts playing alongside players that are at least nearby his caliber, right, But like, if he's already got the hard stuff, that's just like rescue possessions and you know, uh like late game, slow down, half court situations where that stuff becomes vitally important. Those are ceiling razors.

When he actually gets to a point where the game is super easy for him, that stuff will just push him to the next level of impact. But to put it simply, he is way way way more polished and way way closer to that wing score archetype level of skill than I would expect him to be at this point. I thought we'd see flashes. We saw flashes, right, We saw flashes in Europe. We saw him hit a one leg pull up three, we saw him take crazy off

the dribble jump shots. But like, we never anticipated that he'd be able to come into the NBA and then just immediately score at that rate, at that level of efficiency. And again it's just preseason, but like, it's hard not to be excited at this point. We're not seeing flashes. We're seeing a super confident score at this point. So far, he's at fifty eight percent an effective field goal percentage on jump shots. Overall, he's made five of his seven

pull up jump shot attempts. He's nine for nine at the rim, and he's at nine points on seven post ups and ISOs, which is well over a point possession. It's hard to get off to a much better stop than start than that. And again, guys like he don't underestimate the defensive impact there. Five point one stocks steals plus blocks per thirty six minutes. That's insane. Jaren Jackson led the league in stocks per game last year at

four a little under four. Like, we're talking about an unprecedented ability to disrupt NBA offenses with deflections and steals and blocks. This is it's not normal. And it's honestly funny looking back at the Summer League now, because you remember how everybody reacted after that first Victor Wembenyama game, And those are you guys who listened to the show. Do you remember what I said then? I said, this

is not what it's gonna look like. When he's playing on a real NBA roster, it's gonna be a lot easier for him. And I mean, how stupid does that all look now? The people that said, oh, it's just another Bowl Bowl, how does that look now? Like again, I tried to get people not to overthink it, because like, this isn't a guy that only showed potential in workouts or anything like that. He was a very, very a

good player playing against grown ass men last year. Professionally, I'm not mistaking his team made it to the championship. I think they lost in the finals. So like again, like there's a lot more that's proven about Victor than we thought, but he's also proving to be even better than we thought at the same time, and I hope everybody gets on board with it pretty quickly, all right, Moving on to our season preview for the Milwaukee Bucks,

so our offseason recap. They lost Grayson Allen, John Carter, Goran Rodgers, Drew Holliday, Joe Ingles Myers, Leonard, and Wesley Matthews.

They added Malik Beasley, Robin Lopez, Campaign, ty Ty Washington, and a backup card for the Rockets last year Drew Timmy was a Milwaukee Buck and Damian Lillard, who were going to talk about in a little bit their depth chart as of right now, Damian Lillard, Pat Conaton, Malik Beasley, campaign and ty Ty Washington at guard at Ford, Jannison, Tenna Kombo, Chris Middleton, marsh On Bouchamp, Jay Crowder, Bobby Portis depending on who you ask. And then Brook Lopez,

Robin Lopez, Andrew Timmy. Now, why was the Damian Lillard trade the right move? And before I frame this, I want to talk about like kind of the Devil's advocate case against it, right because there were some Galaxy Brain

people out there trying to overthink it. And the case was basically, you give up Grayson Allen and the deal it was a starting NBA two guard, and he was particularly important to the Bucks last year because not only was he announced standing spot up player, but he specifically was very good at deep above the break threes, So like you could position him on the left wing or on the right wing, like twenty five twenty six feet away from the basket, and he was gonna pull that

defender away from digging down because he could consistently knock that shot down. So he was pretty important, right. And then obviously you give up your best and most versatile perimeter defender and Drew Holliday, right, and a guy who was a huge part of their defensive identity when they won the title in twenty twenty one. I'd argue he was their second most important defensive right. So like that,

that's the Devil's advocate case. You give up that depth at the starting two guard spot, and you give up your defensive identity. But here's the harsh truth. And this is again like I talk all the time about NBA front offices and being honest with what your predicament is even above and beyond wins and losses, because like, whatever happened last year, it doesn't necessarily, you know, it doesn't

necessarily have anything to do with what your current predicament is. Right, So, like, you won the title in twenty twenty one, and it's completely legitimate, but that doesn't mean that your next title is going to look like that. It might have to look different, right, And see, here's the thing. You won your title in twenty twenty one off the strength of your defensive identity, but every playoff defeat outside of that over the last five years has come down to the

same thing every single time, half court offense. It's getting stuck in the half court against a better half court shot creator on the other team and not being able to score. Like again, like, there was some hope, especially after twenty twenty one, when he had the free throw shooting performance in Game six in the finals, there was some hope that Giannis would polish up as a score right and polish up as a free throw shooter, and that would fix the half court offense issues. But instead

the opposite is happening. Yannis dropped back below sixty five percent from the foul line last year, was his worst market from the foul line since twenty twenty, and last year on shot attempts outside of the restricted area, Yiannis was one hundred and seventy one for five hundred and sixty that's thirty point five percent. He doesn't even have a reliable hook shot. He only made thirteen all season last year on thirty five percent, and he was two for seven in the playoffs. And this is not a

young player anymore. He's been in the league ten seasons. He's going into his eleventh season, so that ship has sailed. And that's what I mean by self awareness and acknowledging problems in the front office. You have to you have to acknowledge the reality of your specific situation. Self awareness is the only pathway to identifying your flaws and making whatever changes need to be made so that you can

be better off in the long run. Right, And it's clear to me the Dame trade signifies the Bucks front office acknowledging Yiannis is never going to become that guy. He's never going to be the guy who's going to be able to out execute the best superstars in the league in the half court offensively. So that's why it's worth giving up your two guard. That's why it's worth giving up your defensive identity if you can take the biggest flaw in Giannis's game and turn it into something

that's actually a strength for your team. Again, you won the title in twenty twenty one. It was legit, as legit as any title in NBA history. I'm not undercutting it, but let's talk about what happened. You faced an injury riddled Nets team, right with James Harden on a bad hamstring and Kyrie Irving out of the lineup. You face the Atlanta Hawks, who are good basketball team, but not your team, typical conference finalist, right, and then you faced a Suns team in the final that did not have

a top ten player on the roster. So that defensive identity was good enough to overcome those circumstances. But usually in NBA history, you have to face one of those top tier shot creators. You have to face a Lebron, you have to face a steph you have to face a Jokic, you have to face a Luca. That's usually the kind of guy you have to face in those settings. Right, You lost in twenty nineteen to a Raptors team that

had a better half court offense. You lost in twenty twenty to a Miami Heat team that had a better half court offense. Twenty twenty two, I would say it was mostly the Chris Middleton injury, but chances are they would have run into Steph and had the exact same problem, a half court offense that can't compete with what Steph can do right. And then in lot you lost in

twenty twenty three because of your half court offense. Once again, the Bucks notched a clutch net rating of minus fifty three point eight in their two losses against the Miami Heat that involved clutch situations. They had a seventy seven offensive rating in those situations. They couldn't score time and time again, that's been the issue, and again it doesn't take away from the title. The title is the title

is the title. But if you look at the five year window, it's been four losses at the hands of half court shot creation or an injury that would have eventually lost because of half court shot creation, and then your title in the middle where you didn't have to

face one of those teams. So I think it was the right decision to understand the limitations of this roster and to make a move that puts your team in a better chance to compete at a year in, year out basis, because had you run it back, the only way you're winning is if all of the top tier shot creators somehow get knocked out and you end up running into some team like Minnesota in the finals, which this isn't gonna happen, right, So I thought, I thought

this was the right decision. Jianness, in my opinion, is by far the best player in the world if you remove that slow down half court environment, right, Like, he's top five defensive player in the world, by far, the best transition player in the world. It's a very very good passer. He does all these things exceedingly well, but he just can't make shots over the top of the defense,

right And so like that's where that limitation. And again, like Drew Holliday and Chris Middleton were good players, but

they were never consistently good enough to overcome that. Now, well, they have defensive questions to answer with dame of course, but now at the very least, when they end up in these slow down half court environments against the best shot creators in the league, they have one of the top tier guys in the League two in that situation, not to mention in just in general, throughout the whole season and throughout the entire playoff run, You've just given

a much better offensive fire power to your offense. That will make Giannis's job easier, That will allow him to devote more resources to what he's best at, which is dominating games on the defensive end of the four, which is being that freight train and in transition that nobody can stop. Do you remember in that Celtics series in twenty twenty two how tired Giannis looked at the end and he still almost won it. Imagine what I imagine what he can do as a wrecking ball in games.

When Dame can take two thirds of those offensive, slow down half court possessions, then we have the natural synergy of the damieness two man game. And I want to dive into this concept for a little bit because I think it's it's you know, I've seen a lot of people, a lot of people have talked about how it's gonna be impossible to guard, including myself, But I wanted to dive into it schematically for a little bit, and you know, to me, it comes down to getting dribble penetration and

getting teams into rotation. Like I said at the very beginning of the show, getting a defense in rotation is kind of the theme of this show, and the reason why is because it's just an easier way to play basketball. Think of it simply, Okay, I'm guarding you. You're where

the camera is. If I'm just standing here ready to go, sitting in a defensive stands with my hand up, it's gonna be a lot harder for you to score than if I'm ten feet further back and I'm sprinting at you full speed in a closeout.

off the dribble. Now you engage another help defender, which leaves another open player, right, and then you can drive and kick until you get the right shot, which is gonna be a wide open three, or a layup or a dunk at the basket right. But the only way you can get a defense in rotation is to get dribble penetration. And again, drill penetration does not have to be me beating my guy off the dribble right, and we know Yiannis can do that, But there are other

ways to generate drimal penetration. What if you just beat someone back door right standing on the sideline, Guys overplaying the passing lane, I cut back door, you hit me with bounce pass. I'm gonna draw help defender right. And then a big one is slipping ball screens. Come to set a ball screen. Then I slip to the basket. You throw the ball over the top. If both defenders are behind me, you're gonna have to send a help defender.

Now you're in rotation. So you can find opportunities to get the defense in rotation without having to say, Yannis beat this guy off the dribble right. And so that's where the Damian Lillard Yannis two man game comes into the picture. It creates advantage situations and it's just way easier to play basketball that way. When you have an

advantage versus one defenses are set. This is why every defense tries to guard ISO's one on one, tries to guards post ups, one on one, tries to guard pick and roll in dribble handoffs, two on two, tries to guard spain pick and roll, and other three man actions

three on three. They do that because they're trying to stay out of rotation, because they know if they're in rotation, they're gonna give up open threes, they're gonna give up open layups, and they're gonna give up offensive rebounds because guys aren't matched up. Talked about that at the beginning of the show.

the the picture. So let's talk about all the different ways. And when I say two man game, it could look at a bunch of different ways, right Like, it could be a damianis pick and roll where Janni's just simply comes up and sets a ball screen. It could be a dribble handoff. It could be off of a wide pin down right like, it could just be Brooks standing at the top of the key, Dame in the corner, Giannis at the elbow, Giannis goes down and sets a

screen for Dame coming off. Any form of two man game involving those two will put you in the same predicament. First is a let's talk about the different defensive coverages you could run against this action in what would happen if you did right? So, first of all, if you run a deep drop coverage right meaning we also call this a no roller behind coverage, meaning the big man, the screen defender in the pick and roll, has to keep both the roller and the ball handler in front

of him. So if the roller is rolling hard, he's backing up with him. In that kind of coverage. What's gonna happen with Damian Lillard. He's going to come off of these ball screens and he's going to hit a bunch of pull up threes, pull up twos, and floaters, and again, the vast majority of guys in the league, you live with that. With Drew holl you live with that, he's not gonna make enough of them. He's not gonna make enough pull up threes, he's not gonna make enough floaters,

he's not gonna make enough fifteen footers. Right, But Dame is like one of just a small handful of guys that it's like, if we give him these shots, he's not just gonna make them, he's gonna make them at an untenable rate, meaning he's gonna be scoring one point two to one point three points per possession. When you run a deep drop coverage against him, that's not tenable. You will lose playoffs series that way. So that's option one.

That doesn't work. Now, the upside there is your defense stays out of rotation and that might end up being the best way to guard them for the simple fact that maybe Dame gets tired and he misses shots. But that's suicide. You're not gonna see a lot of teams run deep drop against Portland or Portland against Milwaukee for that reason. So that's option one. Option two is switching. Theoretically, they run a two man game, which the action. Now they have to ISO or post up. Right, if you

switch properly and you prevent them from slipping. Here's the problem. This isn't Lebron and Ad the Lebron and Ad pick and roll. Everyone's like, oh, Lebron and Ad pick and roll. It's gonna be so hard to guard. It has never been that damaging over the entire era. Why because who do you guard Lebron with a big strong forward deck can slide his feet? Who do you guard Anthony Davis with a big strong forward deck can slide his feet?

So you could switch, and it's more or less the same type of advantage, right, But the type of guy you need to guard Dame is extremely different from the type of guy you need to guard Giannis. You need a big, strong forward who moves his feet well to guard Giannis. You need a quick, nimble athlete with long arms to guard Dame. And that quick nimble athlete is gonna get pulverized in the post by Yannis And that big strong forward that moves his feet well is gonna

get absolutely barbecued by Damian Lillard. And it's either gonna be Giannis catching in the post an immediate double team, which gets your defense in rotation, or it's gonna be Dame beating his man off the dribble, the big man off the dribble, which is gonna get your defense in rotation.

Or you can force da him to take step back threes by giving him space, which he's gonna make at such a high rate it's untenable anyway, because he's one of the small handful of guys in the league that you can't afford to give that shot to, so switching

not gonna work. Last is any sort of aggressive pick and roll coverage, so a high drop where you're dropping but you're way up at the level of the screen, or a show where you actually come out above the level of the screen to stop the guard from turning the corner and then you recover back, or any sort of blitzer trap, and that's where both guys just double team and actually forced Dame to get rid of the basketball.

In any of those situations, Dame has been facing that coverage forever because he's been playing with lower quality role men than Giannis over the years, and so it's been smart for teams to blitz and trap and high high hedge and to show to the high drop against Dame right, and so he knows how to make the over the top pass or the pocket pass to Jannis barreling down

the basket. And now you put yourself in a predicament where if we saw this a bunch of the Lakers with Christian Wood right, if Christian Wood's gonna do a hedge or a high show or or a high drop, that means Giannis is rolling behind him. Now, when that pass is made, you have D'Angel Russell and Christian Wood

on Damian Lillard twenty five feet from the basket. Now Jannis is barreling down the hill running a four on three and in a lot of cases his role gravity is so crazy you'll pull multiple defenders, which he literally did against the Lakers. There were multiple pick and rolls where there were multiple wide open shooters. That's the predicament they put you in. Oh and Giannis is one of the best rim finishers in the league and one of

the best passers for his position. So to put a simply, there is no defensive strategy that can successfully guard the Janna Stain pick and roll without either conceding a jump shot to one of the best jump shooters in the history of the NBA, or putting your defense into rotation which allows the other team to play, which a lies your offense to play with an advantage the entire game. So,

in short, everyone is screwed. I literally can't. If I was coaching against the Bucks, your best bet is to find the very best point of attack defender on your roster, put him on Dame, and pray to god he misses. That's a tough spot to be in. You run a deeper drop, take away those four on threes, take away those Roman possessions, and you pray he misses. It's just it's probably not going to work. But there are some questions about this Bucks roster, so let's dig into him

a little bit. Can the Bucks piece together a functional rotation around those two guys? The first question is the two guard spot. This was the Grayson Allen's we talked better earlier, but he was a deadly spot up threat and specifically with deep three point shooting in the value that brought. So in the Laker game, they started Malik Beasley. I covered him with the Lakers last year. He's just not very good. He's he was out of the rotation

for the Lakers after the Grizzly series. He's a really aggressive shooter that just doesn't really make shots, and he doesn't attack closeouts really well because he can't put the ball on the floor and he doesn't have a mid range game. He converted one hundred and four spot up opportunities for the Lakers last year into just seventy five points at zero point seven to two points per possession, and trust me, they were pretty damn good looks as teams were loading up on Lebron and Ad and Austin

and d Lo and all those guys. He was also one of the worst defenders on the Lakers last year. Now, he did shoot much better a couple of years ago, so maybe he gets to the point where he shoots better, but again, the defense and rebounding limitations I think make

him not a great option. The second option is Pat Conaton, and he had a downshooting year last year, but even despite that, he still converted spot of possesion is at one point zero five points per possession, which is solid, and if you go back two years to the twenty twenty two season, he was one of the best spot up players in the league. Shot sixty percent in effective field goal percentage on catch two jump shots. He converted spot up possessions at one point one six points per possession,

which is outstanding. Now, he's not his athletic as Malik Beasley, but he's a little bigger and a little stronger. He's a better rebounder, and he's a more committed and smarter team defender. So I think in the long run, unless they make a trade for two guard, I think Pat Conton is actually the better option to go in that spot. I don't think you can go with Campaign because in your way too small, so Pat Contenton to me feels like the guy who inevitably ends up starting at the

two in the long run. The second question is depth, and I'm not super concerned here. Campaign is a perfectly fine backup guard. He's actually one of the best guards in the league at generating dribble penetration, which we just talked about for a while how important that is. He's just so damn fast guys can't keep him in front. Malik Beasley again, for all his flaws, perfectly fine as a backup guard. Marjon Beauchamp has looked pretty good in

preseason so far. Jay Crowder perfectly fine as a backup four, right, And those both of those guys kind of are the different archetypes, right, Ja crowd are the bigger, stronger for Marjhon the longer, more athletic forward right, and then Robin Lopez and Bobby Portis are a perfectly fine backup front court.

twenty twenty two bucks. So you really just need three more out of Ja Crowder Bobby Portis, who I think both of them will be fine. That's seven. So you really just need one of campaign Malik Beasley or Marjon Beauchamp to pop before the end of the season, and or to find someone in the trade or buy out market right. So like, again, you need injury luck, but NBA history tells us you need injury luck anyway to win the title. So I'm not overly concerned about their depth.

The only real question mark that has me somewhat concerned about this team is their point of attack defense. They have the star talent, they have the shooting, they have the defensive foundation of Giannison Brook in the front court, but they are not a good perimeter defense team on paper. You know, like if you face there are certain teams that it might not matter against. Like if you face Miami tomorrow in the playoffs, you're fine with Chris Middleton

guard and Jimmy Butler. None of those other guards are gonna hurt you enough for it to matter. But specific matchups, teams like Cleveland, multiple shot creators in the backcourt, right teams like Boston, or loaded with shot creation right like Philly as a little bit of that with a Tyree Smacks and James Harden. Potentially right teams in the Western Conference they could see in the finals, teams like you know, Golden State, teams like Denver. There are teams like Phoenix.

There are a lot of teams that are gonna have a lot of perimeter options that they can go at the bucks with, and so that that's gonna be the one thing that I'm gonna have to look at with them over the course of the season and whether or not that could be a problem. And again, like we talked about that defensive rotation concept that goes both ways. If your point of attack defenders are giving up too easy dribble penetration, then your defense is in rotation all

the time, which can be a problem. But here's where I'm at with it. I think you can guard Cleveland just like New York did right because of the Evan Mobley Jared Allen problem. A guy like Brook Lopez is gonna be able to kind of split that difference and guard both of those guys as Evan Mobley's rolling down to the basket. So I'm not too worried about Cleveland. I know, I know they brought in some shooting, but it's the front court that I think makes them easy

to guard. Miami's not gonna hit enough pull up jump shots, not unless they make a trade. Philly I don't think is gonna hit enough pull up jump shots. Boston, I mean, I think they have enough aggregate ball handling to really spread the Bucks out and cause some problems, but their execution is so sloppy I ever trust their offense to really be a weapon at that phase. It's the West

where I really start to get concerned. Team like teams like Denver, teams like Golden State, teams like Phoenix that have a ton of pull up shooting, a ton of perimeter talent. Those are the teams that are gonna be able to pull Brook Lopez and pull Giannis away from the rim and get them into rotation. But again, those dynamics play both ways, right Like, if if you've got a team that's able to stretch the Bucks out, they're gonna be doing the same thing to you on the

other end with Damon pick and roll. So again, it goes both ways. I just think it's something that's worth mentioning. You know, Pat Connaton, Malik Beasley, Damian Lillard, Marjon Beauchamp, that that's a Jay crowder at this phase in his career. Chris Middleton's a pretty good point of attack defender, but he's not great, So like that's gonna be a limitation for them, And you know, even against a team like Boston, You're gonna have to ask Giannis to guard one of

the Jayson, either Jason Tatum or Jaylen Brown. So they're definitely not gonna be as good as they were defensively last year. And I mean, as far as predictions go for this, and that's where I have to start, because I do think that the Bucks will go down a level in the regular season, like I think the Celtics are gonna run away with the one seed. I bet you they have about a five game lead over everybody

when it's all said and done. They just aren't as good defensively and aren't as deep the Bucks, which I think is gonna hurt them over the course of the regular season. But at the end of the day, you combine, you shrink the rotation, you combine the Yiannis Dame factor.

In a playoff series, I just I just trust them a tiny bit more to generate higher quality shots than Boston over the course of a seven game series, which is going to be a slow down, knockdown, drag out fight of a series, right, And I also expect Giannis to be much more devastating in the margins of the game without the offensive workload he had to carry in the past. So that's where I'm at with the Bucks right now. I think they're gonna win the Eastern Conference.

They might pick to win the East, but as of right now, I'm going with the Denver Nuggets at number one in my power rankings. I think they're the team that has proven but obviously most recently, but I think got the best player in the world, the best offense in the world, the most unguardable offense in the world. I'm going with the Nuggets for right now. We'll do a full season preview on them later this week. All right, moving on to the mailbag, we have two questions today

versus from Alejandro. Last year, you were very high on James Harden's revenge season, but now after his performance last playoffs, you no longer trust his ability to contribute to a team in the playoffs. What was the last straw and why last season? First of all, great question, al, but that's the reason. If there was a season where James would finally pop in the playoffs, it was last year. Why no longer the best player on his team? So it hard embiads getting the line share of the defensive

coverages and attention. Right the pressures off of him as well, and he looked better in the regular season, Like he looked in shape and like it looked like the best version of James Harden that could have existed within that age of his career. Right, and he still was atrocious in the playoffs outside of two games. So it's hard for me to believe that another year is going to

suddenly fix that problem. The reality is is the stuff that he does, specifically is rim finishing tanked in the postseason, but also timely turnovers and decision making like always so like again, like, if there was a year where it would have come together for him, it was last year and it didn't happen, which leaves me utterly discouraged regardless of what happens for James Harden this season as to what he could potentially accomplish in this postseason. All right,

last mail back question, This one's from Nelson. How'd you settle on PRS guitars as your brand of choice? Which one do you use the most? And why? So? I got into PRS from the standpoint of like learning of its existence through Debt and Company and John Mayer. Right, John was playing this guy right here was playing the that's the what they call the Super Eagle. It was

a custom guitar that they made. I think, I want to say they were charging like twenty grand for them, but they only made like a hundred of them, I think. And it was like kind of this cool custom guitar. It was a semi hollow and had these this three pickup setup. It was supposed to mimic Jerry Garcia's guitars

that he was using. It also had a preamp built into it, like a treble boost, and these like vintage, these vintage style pickups that what they call their fifty eight fifteen's, And I just fell in love with this guitar. But obviously I was never gonna be able to get a twenty thousand dollars guitar, so I just started looking

into prs. It's funny because I always look at sales as like a two pronged approach, like you gotta have something that catches people's attention, and then you have to have the long form sales pitch, which is like, Okay, now I have your attention, let me tell you why you know, using our product is best. And so obviously John Mayer got my initial attention to the guitar. I just thought it looked really cool with that, like the birds on the neck. I love the way it sounded

when he was playing it. And so then I started doing research and they are made in Maryland, and their quality control is just legendary. Every piece of the guitar. When they finished the guitar tech who's working that piece has to initial in a part that's invisible. They have to initial that piece so that if like this guitar had an issue and I sent it back, they would literally disassemble it and they would be able to basically hold the person accountable for making that particular mistake. So

they have really high level quality control in general. It just feel I felt like a real passion from this from the whole company in their overall quality and their guitar making. And then I've really been a fan of their the curly maple stuff that they do. So this is what they call CE twenty four, So this is

one of their lower level pieces of wood. But you could just see this like beautiful, like kind of like striations in the maple, and all they do is stain it and it pulls out all those lines, which gives you like that tiger stripe, and then this one above here, this one above me here, this is the uh, the hollow body two. So it's a whole thing because it does the acoustic sound out of the bridge. But this is a ten top. So this is one of their

higher quality pieces of wood. And it's just this beautiful maple you can see in there throughout but it and it has that kind of like a black color behind it, which I think is really pretty. But so I've always been drawn to their craftsmanship. But they're also just beautiful sounding guitars. And so these are the two that I have. The CEE twenty four, this is like their modern pickup.

This is actually the guitar that I think is the best for the price from PRS because you save money with a little bit of the cheaper wood, and then they do a bolt on neck and they do a maple neck, and then they do a steel bridge. So it's got some cheaper components, but the key components are just as good. It's still a solid piece of mahogany. This is still their top tier pickups. I think it's

called eighty five to fifteen. So you can get this guitar for like I think you're right around like twenty five hundred bucks. But that's that's all the electron equipment that you get from a five thousand dollars guitar and something half as expensive. So that was after I did a bunch of research. I had a bunch of cheaper guitars. I'm surrounded by guitars in here, so like I had when I first started playing, I was using epiphone a lot. So I've got an SG and un let's Paul over

here their epiphone, but they're just I was. I was ready to get a real guitar, and so that was when I saved up and got that one. Really again a really good price point. This one. I just really wanted the vintage sound and then I wanted to be able to play acoustic, and so this one does both

of those. This guitar is really really cool. Like literally you can plug and see how there's two ports on it, so that port is just for the acoustic and then this is for both, and then there's a switch and you can actually blend the two sounds together, so you can get like a bunch of really cool sounds out of this. And then, in my opinion, the fifty eight

to fifteen vintage pickups are just unbelievable sounding. But the one downside with that one is with the way that it's set up, it's a little harder to reach the top of the neck. So ironically, this is the easiest guitar for me to play, and just in terms of like mobility with my hands. But I think this one sounds the best. So I kind of alternate through, and like I have a Fender stratocaster that's behind the camera.

Those of you guys who play guitar, No, like there's super unique sounds that you get from every guitar type, right, Like there's these prs is Like this this PRS I can actually pop this tone knob out, which turns this

into a single coil. But the single coil sound that the prs is make when you pop the knob are not even remotely close to what a stratocaster sounds like, you know, like you just can't replicate a stratocaster neck pickup or like neck middle or treble middle right, or like you just can't you can't beat those very very unique stratocaster sounds. So like I kind of rotate through based on what mood I'm in right, and but again that's just a hobby of mine. It's not something I

take in you really as seriously as basketball. I'd say it's like a very very clear second place. But it is something that I love to do for fun. Great question, Nelson, Thank you Alejandro as well. Don't forget to keep dropping mailbag questions and the YouTube comments does not have to be related to basketball. I actually think it's fun to

occasionally talk about something different. As always, I appreciate you guys for supporting the show, and I will see you tomorrow for some more preseason breaking