HoopsTonight - NBA Power Rankings: Jimmy Butler & Miami Heat eyeing run to NBA Finals

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hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. Yeah, all right, Welcome to 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. We are almost to the weekend. Continuing our power rankings with number ten today and then number nine tomorrow and then into the next week.

We will hit the final eight over the course of the next couple of weeks, and then starting septe we're right back into game breakdown, something I'm very very excited for. You guys know the drill before we get started. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason lt S. You guys, don't miss any show announcements. Subscrib right to the volumes YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of a videos.

And if you miss one of these videos and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish, you can get you can get them in audio form wherever you

get your podcasts. Under Hoops tonight. So we're in a tier, a tier that I've called the puncher's chance tier, the tier of teams that I don't quite think have as much talent as the best teams in the league, but they have these wild cards, these players that have such big upsides that if they were to get hot for one reason or another, they could carry their team to

the ultimate goal. They're long shots, but they absolutely have a chance, Like the Lakers with Lebron James and a D the Memphis Grizzlies with John Morant, and at number ten the Miami Heat with Jimmy Butler. Now there's you've got a factor in this off season when we're projecting ford not just looking at what the team was last year. Memphis, for instance, lost in the second round of the playoffs in six game to the eventual champion and had the

second best record in basketball. So your gut tells you automatic top eight, right, But I'm looking at that and I'm going what was their biggest weakness? Well, it was shot creation and ball handling. Did they get any better on that front? No, I'd argue they got worse because they lost the Anthony Melton. He's probably their best bench shot creator in all likelihood. Um, So when you look at that situation and you factor in the Jaren Jackson injury, I have to move them down on my list, And

so they fell back to number ten. Also, I'm factoring in ultimate playoff ceiling, and I think their lack of shot creation makes it extremely difficult for them to eventually get the trophy after jaw. They just don't have enough. Moving forward to the Miami Heat's very similar. You know, this is a Miami Heat team that had a weakness and shot creation did they address it, No they did not. Did they get any better anywhere else on the roster,

No they did not. As a matter of fact, they lost p J. Tucker and now they're very thin in the front court. Um. So from that standpoint, and especially when I think other teams in the Eastern Conference are going to be better this year. I think Boston will be better with all the additions they've made. I think Milwaukee will be better just by being healthy. I think Philadelphia will be better just because James Harden will have

a better season, and I believe continuity will start to begin. Uh, trying to integrate hard in that late in the season, it's just very difficult to do. I think giving him a full training camp in full season will go a long way towards helping them. The Eastern Conference is better in the Miami Heat got worse, So that's gonna move them down the list for me. So again, And someone said this in the YouTube comments yesterday, and I got

a little chuckle out of it. But like someone said, like, I'm not really all that interested in Jason's numbers, Like the analysis is better. It's funny because that's the way I see it too. I'd be lying to you if I said that I care deeply about ranking, you know, the tenth and eleventh and twelfth best teams in the

league in terms of the number of ranking. I am obviously more drawn towards the the analysis portion and really diving into the film and seeing what the teams like to do, seeing what they're good at and what they're bad at. That's what interests me the most. But I do put a certain amount of effort in to where I ranked teams, and I will attempt to have some kind of reasoning, and I wanted to give a little bit of background on why teams are where they were

in that section of the list. So the Miami Heat last year, we're fifty three and twenty nine. They lost in Eastern Conference Finals to Boston, and they had one Jimmy pull up three in transition that had gone in would have sent Miami in all likelihood to the NBA Finals, although Boston would have had a chance to take the lead on the other end. They finished the season regular season twelfth in offense and fourth in defense. During the off season, like we mentioned before, they lost p J.

Tucker to the Sixers. They resigned Victor Oladipo, which I thought was good. I I like Victor Oladipo a lot. Offensively, he's not nearly what he was when he was in Indiana. Uh still isn't shooting the ball as well as he

needs to to be a real shot creator. But defensively he's still nearly as good as he used to be and as a point of attack defender, that just brings a lot of value in the NBA, and so I thought it was a good bet from Miami, hoping that some of his shot creation stuff improves over the course of this season, and with what he brings defensively, I

think he's a playoff player. I like Victor Oladipo. That was a smart resigning, but he was on the floor in the Eastern Conference finals last year, so it's not something that improves the roster. They drafted in there with their first round draft pick. Uh, big swing forward kind of like a um you know, he's a very very tall wing. I don't think he's big and strong enough to be a big but the Nicola Jovic just who

they drafted. I think with the loss of of p J. Tucker, they'll end up needing him to play a lot in a likelihood. Um, you'll notice that as we start to look at the at the depth chart. So it's gonna be really important for Heat culture to engage early on and get him ready to play NBA basketball. But I do not think that that is beyond the capabilities of the Miami Heat organization and beyond the capabilities of Eric Spoelstra. I've said this before, but I view the Miami Heat

as Warriors East. I think that they maximize their talent better than anybody in the Eastern Conference. I think Eric Spoelstra is the best coach in the Eastern Conference, I think, and in terms of taking what they get and getting the absolute most out of it, they are the best at that. So maybe they'll be able to maximize that. However, they do have legitimate talent deficiencies, and we will get

into that as we get further into this show. So, looking at the depth chart, at the guard position, they have Kyle Lowry, Victor Oladipo, Caleb Martin, Gabe Vincent and Max s Truce. Although Max Rus is big and strong enough to guard wings. On the wing, they have Jimmy Butler, Duncan Robinson, Tyler Harrow and Nikola Jovich. I'm calling him a wing because I don't think he'll be able to guard Biggs. And the general rule of thumb in basketball is your position is who you can guard, not what

you do on the offensive end of the floor. Um, Big, bam At a Bio, and Dwayne Dedman. They also have Omer your seven and Orlando Robinson, but I don't view either of them as impactful players. Your seven will probably have to play quite a bit if with the loss of p J. Tucker, They're probably gonna have to go bigger than they're used to going. But at the end of the day, this is a team that's gonna go down with bam At a Bio at the five, and

none of those other guys are gonna play. So this is a team that is a little bit thin at the forward position, especially with size and strength. With the loss of p J. Tucker. My guess is at some point during this regular season, either in the buy out market or in the trade market, they will attempt to address that shortcoming. UM. Looking at the offensive end of

the four, Miami runs an incredibly diverse said of offensive sets. UM. I think they're the most diverse offense in the Eastern Conference by organization, just in terms of the the just the deep repertoire of things that they run. They run a ton of like Denver Nuggets esque drible handoff stuff um with bam at a bio operating out of the high post on top of the key uh. General idea there is guards are coming over the top and getting

handoffs from bam at a bio. Guys are gonna have to chase over the top because of the shooting ability that allows them to get downhill. If bam Ata bios man drops back to help on those drives, he can turn and face and now he has an advantage, so they can get a lot of stuff out of that.

They do a lot of like four high sets. We went over this yesterday when when we were talking about Memphis, But four high sets you have to two players at the the high post and you have two players on the extended wing, and then they run a lot of flex cuts out of that. So they'll have the guy at the high post run over and set a screen or sometimes just stay and then that wing will cut

off of that downhill to get into the paint. They do that a lot with screening actions involving Kyle Lowry and Jimmy Butler because both of them screen really well and they're usually guarded by different positions, which allows one of them to get switches in a lot of cases. They also do a lot of clearing the side for BAM and Jimmy to run pick and roll pretty simple shooter at the top of the key shooter on the

wing shooter in the left corner. Then they'll put Jimmy on the right side of the floor with Bam run pick and roll, it almost always results in a switch, and then the two of them frequently go into post ups from there. They do run a considerable amount of of post ups with Bam at a bio and Jimmy Butler, and then um a lot of mismatch attacking and isolation, specifically with Jimmy Butler. They do not run a lot of isolations as a team, but Jimmy Butler himself still

runs quite a bit, especially attacking mismatches. Didn't have a great season with that in the regular season last year, but as you guys saw in the Saw in the postseason, he always takes it up a level and can generate great stuff out of that. The majority of their offense is dribble, handoffs, and off screen actions. The main reason for this is they lack legitimate shot creation. Outside of Jimmy Butler, they don't have another player on the team

that can consistently create his own shot. They have guys that do okay in specific matchups, and we'll put up decent efficiency numbers on really low volume because they're picky about it. But in terms of volume, the only player that isolates and does it well and frequently is Jimmy Butler. Because of that, they can't run an offense that is primarily predicated on attacking matchups. They have to run sets

to get their guys in advantage. A lot of the guys on the roster, Kyle Lowry, even Max s trus Gave, gave Vincent, Tyler, Tyler Harrow, these are all guys that can attack with an advantage. They're good advantage extenders, they're good play finishers, but they're not guys that create that

initial advantage. It's a big part of why, in spite of the fact that they're so well coached, in spite of the fact that their player development is so good, that they were the twelve best offense in the league last year, their half court offense ended up being disastrous for them against Boston, and it was something they had

to overcome throughout that throughout that specific series. One of the big reasons why that Boston series dragged out as long as it did to seven games was Boston running that stupid ass drop coverage that I was criticizing them for the entire playoff run. It nearly got them beat against Miami, and it did get them beat against Golden State. I thought it was email Judoka's biggest mistake of that

playoff run. But by by running that drop coverage, it allowed Miami's weakness, which is shot creation, to go unchallenged. And and that was why that series extended the way that it did. UM There, in dribble handoff situations, they were second in frequency in the league, so they ran the second most drible handoffs out of anybody in the NBA, and they were fourth inefficiency. So when you let them get to their dribble handoff offense, that you will score

pretty well. That's why switching is the best defense to run against the Miami offense. UM It gives advantages to players that struggle to create advantages. Duncan uh Duncan Robinson, Kyle Lowry, Gabe Vincent and Jay uh and Jimmy Butler were all in the seventie percentile or better in dribble handoff situations, so they all did really well. Tyler Harrow was surprisingly inefficient, We're gonna get to that later on in the show. And their off screen offense that was all.

They were also the third most frequent off screen offense in the entire league. They were ninth in post up frequency, eleventh in post up efficiency. Like I said, when they would clear the side for Jimmy Butler and Bam at a bio, nine times out of ten it would result in a switch and they'd pull the ball out and whichever player they thought had a better matchup would take them down to the block. And that was where they

were getting that type of offense. Jimmy and Bam combined for five and a half post ups per game and scored at about one point per possession, which is really good for post ups. Football season is underway, so now is the perfect time to download FanDuel America's number one sports book because right now new customers get a no sweat first bet up to one thousand dollars. That's free bets back. If your first bet doesn't win. Just sign up with promo code Jason T. There are two bets

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It's one of my favorit features. So sign up today with promo code Jason T for your no sweat first pet Make every moment more this season with FanDuel, the official sports book partner of the NFL um they were tent in ISO efficiency, but their volume was incredibly low. They only ran about six isolations per game, including six point one in the postseason. To give you some perspective, the Raptors, the Wolves, the Nets, the Bucks, the MAVs, and the Sixers all ran at least ten or more

isolations per game, some of them more than fifteen. So that they're an extremely low volume isolation team because they're picky about when they do it, but they were relatively efficient slightly above average when they did so. They also pushed the ball in transition selectively. They were very efficient transition team. They just didn't do it often. They were one of the slowest paced teams in the league. Some of that's to be expected because of the age of

their roster and athleticism is not necessarily a strength. They do have great athletes on the team, guys like Jimmy Butler in bam At a bio but intend that like Jimmy Butler is a little older, he's a little bit more of a strangle the pace type of forward, which I actually like. I like. I prefer to strangle the pace because I think it throws other teams out of rhythm. But what Miami does really well, especially with their defense, by being forwardly aggressive, by playing passing lanes and being

aggressive on ball handlers. It for it forces turnovers that allow you to push the ball in transition. They were twenty two and transition attempts, but six and transition efficiency. That's how it manifests when you're picky about when you're when you run, when you run when you have an advantage rather than just running for the sake of running. They were only an okay pick and roll team low and volume lowan efficiency. That's that's one of the biggest

reasons why. And as we zoom out from them on the offensive end of the floor, and only pat Riley knows what he offered, and only Danny Ainge knows whether or not he was really willing to consider it. But I was really surprised that Miami didn't go more. We're all in for Donovan Mitchell. He was a specific type of player that I thought would have been a really good fit for them because of BAM's offensive versatility and

what he could do as a ball screener. We talked a lot about this when we were doing the uh um, the Utah Jazz stuff, excuse me, the Donovi Donovan Mitchell trade stuff in the in the Cleveland Cavalier stuff. Donovan Mitchell is one of the best volume pick and role players in all of basketball. That would have been a really interesting dynamic to add to this team. He also did really well in isolation, so like it was kind of a no brainer to fix a very specific need

on this roster. In addition to that, like, Donovan Mitchell's biggest weakness is defense, is defense right now, right, And the Miami Heat a kind of famous for pulling the best out of each other in that regard, and so I thought it was it was it was the perfect type of player for them to go after, a player that I thought was somewhat achievable, and it just didn't

pan out. And again, like only pat Riley knows how close he came to actually pulling that off, or whether it was something that he was passive about or not. I know there are lots of complications as it comes to the c b A for that kind of thing too, But that would have been a player that I really would have liked to see with Miami moving on to the defensive end of the floor. So they are a very, very switch heavy team. Um, this is to be expected.

I've talked a lot about modern basketball, and if you guys have heard me talk about this, I've I've discussed that, in my opinion, the most effective modern offense strategy is five out because of how difficult it is to cover ground in space in the improved ball handling, shooting and decision making around the league, if you can really spread a team and make them make multiple defensive rotations, you can get great stuff out of it. That's something I

believe very strongly in. On the defensive end of the floor, I think that the best strategy is switching. We talked a lot about this. There there's pros and cons to it. You the downsides are as you tend to give up rebounding mismatches, you tend to give up isolation mismatches. There are downsides. Guys will make shots over the top, guys

will get offensive rebound putbacks. But the flip side of that is it requires a great deal of communication and if as long as you communicate well, it takes away physical exertion. It's hard physically to fight over the top. Of the screens, you get beat up, especially over the course of a series, even great chase over the top of screen teams, teams like Boston were eventually dying on screens because it's just really hard to do. It wears

on you physically. It changes the exertion to something mental. So as long as you're focused and as long as you've put in the rep UH the amount of reps in practice, you can get good at switching so that you don't have to exert yourself physically. You just are paying attention in terms of UH, in terms of mental exertion. And then most importantly, it stagnates the opponent when you

switch actions. It neutralizes offensive sets. Especially again, like we said, if you do it right and you do it well, as soon as you neutralize offensive sets, as soon as you neutralize pick and rolls, it turns teams into isolation teams. You know, in that first round series against Atlanta for instance, and you Miami Heat fans probably remember this very well. Almost from the opening UH tip there was Trey Young

just didn't know what to do. He's coming off these ball screens and instead of switching, Bamata Bio is just running out on him, and when he runs out on him, all of a sudden, he's just kind of looking around like, Okay, what am I gonna do? I slate bam outa Bio like I'm not gonna get around him. I'm gonna shoot a crazy step back three and and it turned Atlanta's offense into the mud and slowed them down. They lost their rhythm and they really fell apart, and Trey Young

had a nightmare series. I am a huge believer in switching and now there are a couple of different things. You need to have the right personnel right like Bamata Bio and we're gonna talk about this a little bit more later. He's one of the best switching bigs in all of basketball. Personnel helps their guards. Guys like Max Struss and Kyle Lowry can guard up a position like they're not gonna get bullied by big forwards, at least

not very easily. So that helps. So you gotta have the right personnel, and you also have to do it well. Like we talked a lot about schemes on the show. Different offensive sets, you know, h uh, floor spacing, different pick and roll concepts, and then on the defensive end of the form. We talked about different pick and roll coverages, different defensive concepts. None of that matters if you don't do it well. A switching defense that is run like

shit isn't gonna get stops. You know. Like if you have really good spacing in terms of where your players are positioned on the floor, but none of them can shoot and dribble, then you don't really have spacing, you know what I mean. So, like execution is also a big part of it. But I do think that switching is the best modern defensive concept, and I think it's really interesting and smart that pat Riley has built the roster in a man inner that makes them capable of

running that type of defensive scheme. And it's their head coach, who's very forward thinking and ahead of the times, who's leaning very strongly into that defensive concept. You know, Still, to this day, even with that successful switching as ben, even with what the Houston Rockets in two thousand eighteen did to the most talented roster ever in the Golden State Warriors in the Conference finals by switching everything, even with all of that, teams are still slow to adopt it.

And the main reason why is drop coverage is just easier. It's easier on your bigs, it's easier to use in the regular season. It's an innings eater. It's airring on the side of protecting the paint and giving up pull up jump shooting. It's just the easy way out. And kudos to the Miami Heat and to Rik Spoelshred pat Riley and everybody on that roster for being more willing to do the more difficult job because it translates better

to playoff success. And again all comes down to why Miami is so much better at maximizing their talent than the other teams in the league. Um, but again, they're one of the the more switch heavy teams in the league, even in pick and roll. Um bamad Bio, like I mentioned earlier, he's the guy who unlocks all of that. He's not quite as gifted as a rim protector as like an Anthony Davis or as a you know, Rudy Gobert, Jana Santana Coumpo, but he's actually better than all three

of those guys switching out onto the perimeter. He's more mobile and just has better instincts on how to move his feet against the perimeter. Player. That kind of makes him into the ultimate switching forward because he can functionally play rim protector while also playing the role in a five out switching scheme. He unlocks everything that they do defensively, and it's why bam At a Bio is as effective

a basketball player as he is. Um the Mighty Heat are are big on FOURD aggression picking up ball handlers, you know, sooner than other teams are willing to, at least when they cross half court in many situations in full court scenarios. Uh, it's it seems to me that Sposter seems to prefer kind of attacking as soon as they cross half court because you can't use retreat dribbles at that point. They had a lot of success against Boston with that. They were seventh in points off of

turnovers this year. That tells you all you need to know. They understand that their weaknesses in the half court offensively, and they use that as an opportunity to to understand their weakness and push the advantage in transition as much as possible. We talked about that a lot with Memphis yesterday as well. I'll give you an example. So in that Boston Celtics series, the Miami Heat got utterly obliterated in the half court. They averaged zero point eight six

points per possession against Boston in the half court. On the other end of the floor, when they were in the half court, defensively, Boston was getting zero point seven points per possession in the half court. That's the equivalent to a plus eleven net rating if the game stayed in the half court. That's dominant. That would in most seasons be the best net rating and all of basketball in the aggregate for the whole season. So with as dominant as Boston was over Miami and the half court,

how did that series drag to seven games? How did they have a chance to win it at the end? They did it in transition. They had fifty eight steals in that series, and they averaged one point three one

points per possession pushing in transition office steals. So again, like there are many facets to basketball, and obviously the core facet is half court shot creation and half court defense, and it's very important for you to be good in those areas, but there are all these other ancillary parts of the game of basketball that you need to be great at, whether that's you know, taking care of the

basketball voting turnovers. Take a look at the Boss and Celtics, whether that's squeezing out fringe possessions, offensive rebounds, pushing in transition, the reverse to that on defense securing defensive rebounds transition defense. Boston was a great half court defense, they were a horrific transition defense because they would frequently fall down and beg for foul calls on the other end of the

floor rather than prioritizing getting back in transition. It's kind of like special teams in football, or like manufacturing runs in baseball by stealing bases and sacrifice bunds, sacrifice flies, things along those lines. You know, in the core facets of the game, winning is part of it, but there are a lot of other elements to the game, and the best teams are always the teams that maximize the

fringe elements of the game. In Miami as a team that has always maximized those fringe elements, last thing I wanted to say about the defensive end of the floor with Miami is uh, the defensive adjustments and the power that Eric Spoelster has in a playoff series to win in the chess match, So I'll give you just two examples. Uh and and this is a big part of why they have such a high playoff upside. Um. Boston is

a week ball handling team, as we all know. As that series progressed, um Eric Spoelstra was more intent on pressuring the basketball and gambling more, even if at the risk of getting out of position and giving up baskets. On the other end, I thought it was a really smart adjustment from Marik Spoelstra because it actually caused Boston to lose their head for extended stretches in that series, and it's a huge part of why it extended as long as it did. That was an adjustment for Marik Spoelstra.

Look at the Philadelphia seventy series. Joel Embiid. They didn't have anybody who could really guard him straight up, not even beam at a bio. He's too big, right. But one of the things they were doing that I thought was really really smart was they were fronting Joel Embiid and bringing backside help, and when they did, it made it so that Philly just kind of passed the ball around the perimeter and didn't know how to get it into em beat and that kind of site them beat out,

and don't get me wrong, injuries played a role. He ended up getting hurt in that series or in it might have been the previous series. It was, Yeah, he got hurt in the previous series against Toronto, but I know his head wasn't a percent in it because of the orble fracture or whatever. But I also think that Eric Spelser did a really nice job of finding out how to frustrate Joel Embiid through bal denial, and it was a really really smart scheme he used to do. So.

Fronting the post is difficult. It's a very physically taxing job, and it also requires really sound rotations on the back end because you're obviously giving up the over the top lob pass and when you're offering help on the backside, it also opens up the skip pass. But their rotations were so sound around that that it did a pretty damn good job of disrupting Phillies offense, and towards the end of the series it kind of came down to James Harden his ability to create shots, which obviously he

wasn't able to do so credit to Erik Spoelstra. That's a huge wild card for them. In any playoff series is that he's usually the smartest guy on the bench on both benches, and his ability to make those adjustments and make other teams feel uncomfortable as a huge weapon in Miami's in Miami's toolbox. So moving on to the best case scenarios, and before we do that, I kind of want to summarize really really quick. This is an excellent defensive team that is built for playoff basketball. They

are stout on the perimeter. You know, Max rus and Kyle Lowry are strong and can guard up a position, and then Bam has position flexibility to switch out of the center position. So as a team, they're constructed for playoff defense and especially with switching, that's great. Offensively, they maximize their talent with lots of scheme diversity. They run tons of different sets. They are not repetitive, they're not predictable. They're very good at creating advantage is for their guards,

who are bad at creating advantages for themselves. But this is a weak ball handling team that struggles to create advantages against defense that can get ahead of their sets, especially when teams don't run drop coverage against them and are willing to switch it forces them to rely on shock creation, and it's not a strength of theirs. The only superpower they have that can overcome this is Jimmy Butler and his ability to play above and beyond even

his own capability in a playoff setting. He this is why I thought they needed Donovan Mitchell. This is why I thought they should have been more aggressive on that front. But Jimmy Butler. Let's say they stay healthy with Eric Boelscher and what he does to maximize them on the offensive and defensive end of the floor. If Jimmy Butler can play is to the to the highest end of his capability like he did in that playoff front, they're

capable of beating anybody. All of these weaknesses I've described were true last year too, and they came one shot away from making it to the NBA Finals. Now, I think they would have lost soundly to Golden State, but make no mistake like they absolutely have a puncher's chance because of what Jimmy Butler is capable of. He has demonstrated that that will always put them in this mix. If they stay healthy and Jimmy Butler's stays healthy and he gets hot, they can beat anybody. Therefore, they are

a contender end of story. For me, that is their best case scenario, but their worst case scenario health can rear it's ugly head again. Jimmy Butler and Kyle Lowrty both broke down towards the end of the season. They were playing, but they were limited. Jimmy was in really rough physical shape in the middle of that Boston Celtics series, and the loss of p J. Tucker makes them really thin in the front court. Um, you're probably gonna have to play Jimmy Butler a lot at the four now.

I hope that they addressed that this off during the season, either in the trade market or in the buying market by beating up that forward position. Otherwise, they need Nikola Yovich to be ready or Jovic or Yovich, I'm not sure how to pronounce it. They need him to be ready to lay and I'm just not sure that he's going to be. And also I think he's a little too thin to be able to guard bigger forwards in

the league. This team is with their lack of depth, they are one severe injury away from basically being a first round exit, or worse, like if Kyle Lowry gets hurt, it greatly limits their perimeter size and switch ability. Same goes for Jimmy Butler, same goes for Bamata Bio. They're just kind of heavily exposed on that front. I don't think they can weather an injury. That to me, has moved them down the list. The biggest X factor on this team is Tyler Harrow. The Miami Heat desperately need

him to take a significant leap as a shot creator. Now. I know when you look at the numbers and Miami Heat fans are gonna want to say this, Hey, he averaged twenty one points per game last year on fifty true shooting. How is that not a legitimate shot creator? Well, you have to dig deeper into it. The vast majority of Tyler Harrow's offensive success came in spot up situations. He is amazing attacking closeouts, one of the very best

in the league. Why because he's a knockdown three point shooter and he's very good at continuing that advantage into the lane. Because he could shoot a pull up fifteen footer, he could shoot floaters in the lane, and he's athletic enough to get all the way to the rim right so in spot up situations, he's one of the very best in the league. He was in the percentile for spot up possessions out of all NBA players. That's excellent. He averaged one point to three points per spot up possession.

That's freaking incredible. That's where he succelled. But he was either average to below average in everything else. Below average in isolations, you know, average to below average in dribble handoffs, average to below average coming off the screens. In any situation where they were actually running plays for him, he wasn't producing at a high level. The vast majority of his offensive creation that was efficient was coming out of

spot up situations. The scoring production is unassailable, but in ord her for this team to have a real playoff ceiling that can contend with the Boston's and the Golden States and the Clippers and the Bucks of the world, they need Tyler Harrow to get to the point where he can create his own shot. They also need him to be able to stay on the floor defensively. He's a little bit more of a defensive liability right now

than the Miami Heat would like for him to be. So, from that standpoint, if this team desperately needs a high level shot creator, and they desperately need a high level shot creator creator that can stay on the floor. Tyler Harrow is the answer to that question. But he's only gonna be able to stay on the floor if he can defend. And he only could be a high level shot creator if he learns how to succeed out of

one of those situations office screens, driple handoffs, isolations. He needs to get to the point where he can create his own shot. All right, guys, that is all I have for today. We will be back tomorrow with number nine. As always, I sincerely appreciate your support and we'll see you next time. And the volume