Trades Lakers, Warriors, Celtics can make to LEVEL UP + Nuggets & Thunder weak spots | NBA Mailbag

excited to get into it with you guys. You guys know the job before we get started. To subscribe to our YouTube channels. You don't miss any any more of our videos like this video. That helps us a lot. And if you want to get questions into our future mail bags in our full episodes on YouTube inn YouTube comments right mail bag with the colon, write your question, we'll get to them on Fridays throughout the rest of

the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So again, as promised, quick thoughts on those couple other games from Wednesday. One of the things important about our recording cadence, It's very important to me that we get our videos out

early in the day. With our daily kind of cadence, you know, if you release a video in the afternoon like we used to do a few years ago, you know, there's games that are tipping off at four o'clock Pacific time, and it's just the cadence of the league is so fast. It's very important that I get our reaction videos out early in the morning. And it just is tough when you've got a night like Wednesday night, where there's quite literally a half dozen awesome games and I can't get

to all of them. But I wanted to get to a couple more of these, So I figure to push him into our mailbag show for Friday, especially with how

week the Thursday night slate was so Nuggets Celtics. We had talked about after the right after the Okach injury happened, that there was going to be a formula for the Nuggets to lean on if they wanted to win without Jokic, and I said it would be leaning heavily into defense and then Jamal Murray essentially trying to bring you home in crunch time as long as you can keep games close.

And so I expected David Adelman to lean heavily or on more of his athletes to go smaller and to heavily emphasize in terms of his accountability the defensive end of the floor, because that's something they can control during this stretch without Nicola, and again once you get games close, Jamal Murray is an All Star, maybe even an All NBA candidate. He's the kind of guy who can pull

you home in those sorts of instances. And we saw a very good example of that in the win in Toronto and then another one on Wednesday night in Boston against a red hot Boston Celtics offense. I cannot say enough about how good Zeke Nausey has been in these couple of wins. He was one of the heroes in that big win in Philly when even Jamal Murray was out.

He was a hero again last night. He gave them the ability to stay kind of, you know, big and physically imposing in their small ball looks, but also keeping their switch ability, and that was really the story of the game against Boston. The Nuggets did a wonderful job of communicating and switching through Boston's actions, which prevented the easy catch and shoot threes that can come out of those screening actions allow guys to work easily downhill. In

ball screens, you're gonna have to help. That's gonna create easy kickouts. If you don't switch guard guard screens and three man action out at the top of the key, guys are gonna slip out and get wide open threes.

And especially in that fourth quarter run, I thought they just did an amazing job taking away any of the easy catch and shoot looks that Boston can generate in their offense, and then a lot of really high quality one on one possessions against Jalen Brown Jamal Murray held up a few times, you got like Peyton Watson stripping him on a steal, Zeke Naji coming over and blocking him at the rim. The Celtics did not get many quality looks in that fourth quarter. Again, that's a red

hot Celtics offense. They had an offensive rating north of one twenty five over the last few weeks, and the Nuggets pretty much kept them under control, especially down the stretch of that game, and then late in the game on offense, just surgical shot creation from John Murray Jamal Murray, who again like he deserves consideration for all NBA. With the level that he's been playing at this season, he's

just been completely amazing. They kept running him off of these like double wide pin downs out of the right corner, and essentially he was dragging Boston's bigs out to the perimeter as he was kind of coming off of that action. And so essentially if the big ended up meeting him on a switch on the other side of the screen, he would, you know, like Luca Garza would show and Jamal Murray would just hit a quick little step back jumper on him, or if they brought two to the ball,

so they're chasing and they have Luca up there. He was just hitting Zeke nausey over and over again rolling to the basket, and Zeke did a wonderful job throughout this game of finishing around the rim or drawing fouls on those rolls off of Jamal Murray. And then a couple of big plays late where Boston naturally, what's the progression there? If you're going to show on Jamal Murray at the level and you're going to tag the roller,

what's the next progression? It's the kickouts to the three point line and a couple of big shots Jalen Pickett hits a little wonderable pull up off of one of those sequences, and then Jamal makes a beautiful skip pass to the left corner where Peyton Watson hit three that pushes the lead up to thirteen and essentially closes the deal from there. Just a really, really impressive win for the Nuggets. Now three wins without Nikola Jokics. The Warriors game,

massive game for the Warriors half court offense. They posted a one to seventeen offensive rating and the half court according to Cleaning the Glass in that in that win against Milwaukee, I thought Steph did an awesome job of working the mid range in this game, especially with the way Milwaukee was kind of chasing him aggressively over the top of screens and essentially funneling him into the middle

of the floor. They were spamming this play in the third quarter where they were basically running him off of a wide pin down out of the right corner, and he just kept curling right into that kind of right elbow extended area, and he'd hit a little float or bank shot, he'd did a little jump shot, he'd you know, draw foul in that space. Did a ton of damage there, a couple of their shooters are starting to get going. Moses Moody and d Anthony Melton in particular, both got

hot from three in this game. I also thought the offensive glass was a massive factor. They only got eight offensive rebounds, but they scored on damn near every single one of them. There were twenty two to four second chance points advantage for Golden State. Little things like Steph missing a three off the top of the key, kind of coming off of a ball screen, and then offensive rebound kick out there it is another look from the left wing. He knocks it down, just turning misses into

makes with their offensive rebounding. And then lastly, I thought Draymond got several key stops on an island against Giannis in the middle of the paint during that third quarter run. Draymond has been very good since his blow up with Steve Kerr where he left the court. I think that's the kind of thing where confrontation can be good because it's how you hold people accountable. And I think Draymond need a little bit of a wake up call, especially

just with how sloppy he had been. And I think that blow up with Steve Kerr actually helped get him back on track. He's been very good as of Lake. I think the Warriors are gaining some real momentum. Al Horford looked great again in the Wednesday night game. If they can just stop losing games in the final seconds and horrifying fashion, I think they have real opportunity here to make a run in the second half of the season.

All right, let's get into our mail bag. First question, This was an interesting one that I got the other day, and I think it's worth diving into. Jason, longtime fan of the show. Before the season, you said the Hawks would be a case study for your basketball philosophy and what their performance this year would either validate or invalidate your perspective. So my question is, at has Atlanta season so far changed your mind in anyway. This's a two part question, and I'm going to get to the first

part first. So this is complicated because Atlanta season is really strange, because my belief in Atlanta stem from the idea that you would have this combination of rim protection with chrisps porzingis a depth of athletes around Chris Soops that would make it so Christops didn't have to come out to the perimeter, but that he could stay back and you'd have you know, Dyson Daniels and Nikhil Alexander Walker and Jalen Johnson and Zachary Rissasche and all these

athletes and around him basically doing all the dirty works so that Trey Young can focus on setting the table as an advantage creator and chrisps Porzingis could function as like a switch beater slash rim protector. And there, frankly, have been a lot of things that have gone wrong. I think that you dig into the Porzingis piece. He

hasn't been healthy. That fundamentally makes it so that you can't make as many mistakes on the perimeter because you don't have the level of rim protection that you have when chrisops Porzingis is sitting back like that. Right two, I don't think the Wings have been as good defensively as they've needed to be, particularly Zachary rissashean Jalen Johnson. I think the two of them have been actually pretty

disappointing on defense this year. And so when you have a less effective group of perimeter defenders and the lack of rimp protection, that's been kind of doomed for their defense.

They've had games like, especially without Trey Young, where they get up into the ball and they force a lot of turnovers and then they're just devastating in transition and they're doing a lot of work on the margins like that, and I think some of that has been some proof of concept, like the fact that they're above five hundred without Trey Young and with chrisops Porzingis being out as much as they've had as they've been is certainly something.

It's not like super impressive, but it's something. And then the last piece of it, whenever Trey Young was available, they just as a team didn't defend, and Trey deserves some blame for that, but as a team, they didn't defend.

And so you know, it's it's tricky because I would argue that my basketball philosophy, what you're referencing, specifically, the idea of having a bunch of athletes that can dribble, shoot and pass, that can get up into the ball, that can switch onto multiple multiple positions, that can run the floor and transition and generate advantages before you get into half court situations. All those things I still believe in. I just think the Atlanta Hawks have been have had

several things go against them. Chris Hops being hurt, that's a huge factor. Jalen Johnson and Zachary Ussachet not being very good on defense. That's a big factor, right, And Trey Young being a combination of unhealthy and then one he has been healthy, the team not playing well. It's

just been an unfortunate mix of events. So, like, I think where I would to your point, to your question, where I would have to, like more seriously consider the basketball basketball philosophy piece would be if Trey Young and krisops Porzingis had played in most of the games and the team was still below five hundred. I think that's where I'd have to take a bigger look at it. I'm so excited to tell you guys about our new

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and conditions Part two. When I've disagreed with you over the years, it usually comes down to the idea that I think you put too much value on the marginal advantage players have in surgical half court execution, and that you do so at the expense of general two way versatility and impact. So the second question is do you think there's any credence to the idea that you and or the general hoop community have undervalued two way versatility and impact. I have not changed my opinion on this

at all. I think Nikola Jokic has clearly been head and shoulders better than the rest of the league, and he's your textbook half court surgeon type of dude who has defensive limitations, but that finds a way to compete defensively within a scheme alongside other smart, high IQ defenders. I think that for all of the talk we want to talk about with Luca and whether or not he can succeed at the highest highest levels of the NBA, that's all fair. You know what happened to him in

the twenty twenty four finals against Boston. That's a completely fair criticism of Luka Doncicic. But the bottom line is they wake up today with the damn good record and at like what the fifth best record in the NBA, and a big part of that is because of how good their half court offense has been, especially in crunch time, and Luka Doncic has been the driving force behind that.

And so I think the bigger point that you're making about the half court execution piece and set it aside, do we value general two way versatility and impact enough?

I think that's a good question. I think that really comes down to more of the team concept, though, I think that if the ultimate not to be too reductive here, but the ultimate goal of a basketball team is to score more points than your opponent, right, and so on our very basic level, like if you're built the way Oklahoma City is and you're gonna get a shit ton of stops, I think you can have a team that's

built less around refined offensive skill. If you have a team like the twenty twenty three Denver Nuggets who's built around refined offensive skill, I think you can get away with a little bit less in terms of defensive personnel. Ultimately,

you're building a checklist. Like if you think of what happens on both ends of the floor as like a bunch of boxes you have to check, right, and the more boxes you check on both ends of the floor, the better team you are, right, And so if you have a player that can check a ton of boxes,

that's certainly valuable. Right. So's take a guy like Anthony Davis for example, Like he can check the rim protection box and the defensive rebounding box, and then if you go to the offensive end of the four, you can check an offensive rebounding box. He can check a ball screen threat box where he has the ability to do damage in the short roll and as a vertical spacer. There's things he can check like that. But there's one giant box that he can't check, and that's like breaking

down elite defense. When there's an elite defense in front of him, Anthony Davis ain't gonna be the guy that breaks down that defense. That's a pretty gaping flaw for a team that's trying to win a championship. When I'm building a roster and I have that guy. I have a guy that like this dude can break down elite defense at the highest level. Obviously, I feel like I can go around and find a guy that can get defensive rebounds. I can find a guy that can dunk

a lob as he's rolling hard down the lane. I can find a guy that can protect the rim a little bit. I can find guys who can defend on the permitive. Those are easier to find than the dude who can break the defense down. Now, the last kind of thing I would say is to a guy like Jason Tatum. So coming into the season, I would have ranked him as the fifth best player in the NBA

if not for his injury. Ideally, if you have a player that can anchor a defense the way that Jason Tatum can, that can anchor defensive glass the way that Jason Tatum can, that also brings some ability to break the defense down as an offensive player on the other

end of the floor. There's a ton of value there, and I think that's a big part of why like Jason Tatum, despite not necessarily being the most efficient half court surgeon type of guy in the league, I was viewing him as a legitimate top tier superstar in this league before his injury because of his all around versatility. In short, it's all an aggregate combination of all of these abilities. I just still think fundamentally the hardest trait to find in the NBA is can you break down

elite defense? And that's why I look at that as such a valuable trait. As Oklahoma City leaves corner shooters open, sometimes they get rich, the teams get really hot. I know it's their identity, but I feel like, when Jordan Goodwin makes eight corner threes, maybe it's time to change it up. It's happened multiple times this season, and Diagnault sticks with the same scheme, so with Oklahoma City. And this is an important detail. When you're looking at margin hunting.

For the most part, it's not just that specific margin in a vacuum that you're looking at. You're looking at how all of these things are intricate, intricately connected. So for example, if you are let's just take offensive rebounding for example, it used to be that the interpretation was if you crash the offensive glass, you make yourself vulnerable and transition defense. But then as teams started to look

at it in a more refined way. They're like, well, if we crash the offensive glass from the corners and we just have them run to the elbows, just classic corner crash. When they run to the elbows, the long rebound is going to come up off from a miss three and they have a high opportunity to get it. If they don't get it, two things happen. One, those guys out of the corners are always already running, so they can take that momentum, oh we didn't get the ball,

wheel back into transition defense. And two, if I crash to the elbow and I don't get the ball and on the primary point of attack defender, I can quick turn and pick up the basketball. Meaning like, let's say the other team's big gets the ball on a long rebound up around the elbow, and he dumps it to the point guard right around the block, and you're right there at the elbow. Didn't get the rebound, but you're

right there to pick up the guard full court. And if you can pick up the guard and make him turn twice or make him pick up his dribble or something like that, or make him throw another backcourt pass, that slows the team down enough that it doesn't hurt you in transition. And so what teams have essentially realized is, yeah, if you offensive rebound, there are going to be times where you know, a very unfortunate rebound comes off and your floor balance is bad and a team gets a

layup in transition. But like much of the time, you're either going to get the offensive rebound or you're already going to be in it kind of like inflicts a certain amount of like injects a certain amount of verve already in your team to where they're running, so they're kind of getting back better anyway. And three, we can apply ball pressure right away. So teams have basically figured out that the tradeoff of attacking the offensive glass is

actually worth whatever small downside there is to transition defense. Similarly, Oklahoma City has trade offs in the way that they play defense. So again, think of it like on a really basic level from the standpoint of the negative. Okay, so the negative is the when they pick up with a ton of ball pressure and they play super physical

and they attack the basketball, they commit a lot of fouls. Right, That's one of the things that they're going to do that's going to cause issues relative to most teams, they're going to foul. The second piece. They're better at that this year than they have been in recent years, but in other years they've had issues with fouling on the perimeter.

The second piece of it is the the open corner threes. Right, So like if you're picking up the ball and you are attacking with ball pressure, and anytime a guy gets beat off the dribble, you're sending aggressive help, and every time they try to post up, you're sending double teams. And it's just this very forward, aggressive attack, attack, attack defense. You're gonna commit some fouls and you're gonna give up

some corner threes. But the flip side of that is you're also going to get a good amount of opportunities to force turnovers. You're gonna get a good amount of opportunities to get out and transition off of those turnovers. The Oklahoma City Thunder generate twenty five points every single game off of turnovers. That's the most in the entire NBA by pretty wide margin. So the way they look at it is like, yeah, we're gonna give up some

open threes. Yeah we're gonna commit some fouls, but in the aggregate, it unlocks this transition part of our offense, which takes me to the the specific dynamic with Oklahoma City offensively. We've seen Oklahoma City at various points over the course of the last few years and especially recently, but even in the playoffs last year, especially in the playoffs in two thousand and twenty four, if you guys remember, we have seen Oklahoma City go very cold in the

half court on offense. So they want to drive as much of that transition avalanche type of attack as they can, and so it's all part of that trade off. They could give up fewer corner threes, they could commit fewer fouls, but then they wouldn't get out and transition as much, and they'd have to play more in the half court, which is not how they want to play offensively, and

so that's essentially the trade off for them. Now to the point you're making about the Jordan Goodwin game, I think it just comes down to in a playoff series, if there is a clear advance, So like let's say that let's say they run into a team like Denver, and Denver just takes really good care of the basketball, never turns it over for whatever reason, and they're just moving it methodically through your defense and hitting corner three

corner three corner three corner three, Cam Johnson, Aaron Gordon, Cam Johnson, Aaron Gordon, over and over and over again. Then yeah, you might have to tweak it and be like, we need to see Nicole Jokic score one on one against Isaiah Hartenstein a few more times. We need to see Jamal Murray score one on one against a big

or against one of our smaller guards more times. They might have to make an adjustment in a series if it gets to that point, but in the large sample of the regular season, I think they want to lean on getting out in transition as much as possible. We'd love to hear your thoughts on what trade the Celtics should look for. Zubots is apparently not an asset the Clippers are willing to give up, and I've heard mixed

things about the availability of Gafford Claxton. I think all these guys could be a great fit, but obviously not sure with the package the other teams would be looking for in return. Anforty Simons definitely carries some value and he could definitely be packaged with picks and some bench guys a Kowser or Shireman. Ideally in any of these trades, I would like to see the Seas keep Hugo Gonzalez and Jordan Wall, but not sure how realistic that is.

What are your thoughts? So, I actually because I'm about to record here in about twenty minutes with a group of Lakers guys, and we're going to be talking about the specific dynamic of the center position because Deandreyton got his ass kicked by Victor women Yama in the game on Wednesday night, and so I've seen him just too often get his butt kicked by the higher level centers around the league, and I just don't think he's the

guy for Luke a long term. So I've been looking around at the centers, and so I was like, who are the guys that could like realistically start at center around the league that are also somewhat realistically available for trade. And the list that I came up with was Demona Sabonis,

Walker Kessler, Nikola Vusovich, Nick Claxton, Daniel Gafford, and Robert Williams. Now, where it gets tricky for the Celtics is you got to think about the salaries with Tatum on a MAX with Jalen Brown on a Max, and you're gonna have to pay, you know, like like you want to keep Derek White in the situation. You know, he makes a lot of money. You got a lot of money tied

up in your perimeter guys. So ideally you want to try to find a center that gives you a useful look, but that also is a guy that you could theoretically have for a couple of years without spending too much money. And that's where it gets interesting because like you look at a guy like Walker Kessler, you trade for him,

you're gonna have to extend him. That could provide a money crunch for a team like the Celtics, right, Like Nick Claxton is a guy that financially is not gonna be cheaper, not gonna be cheap to keep around long term. That's where I start to look at like, Okay, what about a Daniel Gafford, what about a Nikola Vucevich? Right Like you've seen how Luca Garza is given some you know, kind of a unique look to the Celtics at the center position. As a guy who can space the floor

a little bit. You know you already have Nimi Kita and Kate is actually pretty good. But Kate is a little one dimensional. He's more of like a drop coverage big a guy who does some ceiling inside and finishing, vertical spacing, that kind of that kind of stuff. So

what if you had two different looks. You had this me Kada drop coverage, vertical spacing, rim protection look, and then you traded for a guy like Vucevich and you kept him around at a discounted deal, Like you go to vuc and you go, hey, dude, you've made a good amount of money in your career getting pretty old. What if you stick around with us for you know, two years on this like really heavily discounted deal and it's like Kada Vucevich, the two different looks that the

Celtics go with that center. And one of the things with vouch is he gives you like a legitimate post up threat, like he can pick and pop and hit pick and pop threes and space the floor as a center. But he's also like a big physical dude download that could do some rebounding and can do a bunch of damage in the post. And so I think he'd be an interesting kind of way to look Robert Williams. It's

the health issue. Daniel Gafford, there's a little bit of a money issue with him too, where I think he's, you know, potentially gonna want a longer term deal where he's making you ten to fifteen million a year. There's something to be said about finding somebody that gives you the best combination of production relative to the sound dollary

under the situation that the Celtics are in. And that's why I was thinking the guy like Vusovich would be just kind of an interesting option for them to consider as a kind of like a two different looks alongside Nimi Keda. Today's show is brought to you by presenting sponsor hard Rock Bet, the official sportsbook partner of the Miami Heat and the Orlando Magic. When it's cold outside,

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wise in Indiana. If you were someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call one eight hundred and nine with it gambling problem called one eight hundred gambler in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, or Virginia. How much of good defense is physical gifts? How much of it is effort? How much of it is knowledge? Could someone with very limited physical gifts become a good defender if he has good knowledge and hustle.

Appreciate your show. You and your team clearly work your butts offt to create such polished content. Thank you, Thank you so much for the kind words, and thanks for shouting out the team. Jackson's literally just amazing. I just think he's the best in the world at what he does.

So we talked about this concept within the idea of a team, but I would argue that the largest chunk of defense is the execution piece, meaning like always being in the right spot, having good instincts like There have been a lot of guys over the years that have been good perimeter defenders relative to their actual talent because

they're good at anticipating. They can look at a guy and they can like kind of identify where his center of gravity is and they can kind of see where his body's shifting, or like they could pick up on physical cues, or maybe they watch a lot of film and they're just good at scouting like little tips on, you know, the way that a perimeter player kind of tips off what he's gonna do. And then it's just anticipation, right,

Like it's all about angle. So like if if I'm defending a player who's faster than me, but if I take the right angle and I anticipate which way he's going, I can beat him to a spot, right, So like there is a very much an anticipatory position element to defense. Now, I would argue that you can't be terrible at either. So like if you're incredibly slow or if you're incredibly small, it's really difficult to overcome that no matter how disciplined

you are. But let's say you're a mediocre athlete, like a mediocre size and speed guard, a mediocre size and speed forward, or a mediocre size and speed center. Let me just take like Jake la Ravia, for example, a guy that I root for on the Lakers. He's not exceptionally big for a forward. You know, he's like six seven, right, and he's strong, but he's not like jacked or anything. And like he's mobile, but he's not like super fast

or anything. Like he's a little too small to be like a traditional power forward and a little too slow to be like a traditional small forward in terms of just his athletic profile. Right. But he's been one of the most useful defenders for the Lakers this year. Why because he has the kind of like bare minimum set of physical gifts you need, Like he's got enough size and mobility to be at least somewhat useful in terms of the trades he's working with. He's a high effort guy.

That's the third piece of this that we haven't even talked about yet, Like you gotta be someone as motor you got to play really hard on that end of the floor. And then the third piece of it is he's got the positioning and anticipation elements down, and so he's just very good at kind of being in the right spot, following the defensive game plan, scouting the guy that he's guarding, and anticipating which direction he's going he's been especially good this year guarding some of the bigger

forwards that look to attack off the dribble. But yeah, it's definitely a combination of all of those things. But

physical you kind of have to have all three. Like if you have great physical gifts and you've got the anticipation in positioning, but you got a shit motor and you don't play hard, that's a problem, right, Like that's some of the issue that we've seen with Lebron over the last few years, and it's just because he doesn't want to play hard for an eighty two game regular season, right, But like he certainly can, he certainly understands the game plan,

and he can anticipate like crazy, and he's got still at his age, some pretty good physical gifts. But it's just like when Lebron's effort drops off, he dropped. But when the efforts there, you know, we saw Lebron look like an all defense guy in the middle of the season last year, right, Or like, if you have the motor and you have the anticipation in the in the game plan piece, but you're just super tiny or you're super slow, that's going to be a problem. And then

you know, We've seen it with guys like Karl Anthony Towns. Like, I don't think Carl Anthony Towns is necessarily lazy. He's got decent physical gifts. He's like, he's a competitive dude. He just the anticipation and positioning piece of it is like absolute garbage with him, and it's a huge problem. So you can't be dreadfully weak in any area, but you don't necessarily have to be strong in all three areas. Hi, Jason, big fan of your form of content and your wisdom

around the NBA. You suggested a mega trade of Michael Porter Junior and Nick Claxton to help catapult the Warriors to becoming more competitive. Within this suggestion, are you saying that Claxton would help the Warriors more than Draymond? Especially the mega trade you mentioned is swapping Claxton for Draymond. Can the Warriors still be title contenders if they just traded for MPJ and kept Draymond with a starting five of Curry, Mountain Butler, Michael Porter Junior, and Green be

a title contender? Thank you love your content. So it's a couple of things. So one the reason why I kind of like talked about structuring it that way is Michael Porter Junior just has a really large salary, and so by having Draymond in there, it just kind of makes it easier to feasibly piece the rest of it together. That said, like getting just MPJA would still be a

huge win for the Warriors. The reason why I was looking at Claxton specifically is I find him to be both a good fit defensively within the Warrior's scheme, because the Warriors do a bunch of different schemes defensively and they do do a decent amount of switching with their bigs. And then the second piece of it is I've seen as a matchup thing teams like San Antonio and Oklahoma City,

the two top teams in the Western Conference. I've seen both of them struggle with rim protection at times, and so it's one of those things where even though Draymond's a very good defensive player, what he doesn't necessarily provide is that vertical rim protection. And so I just thought Nick Clackson would provide an element to the Warriors defense that they basically haven't haven't had since, like Andrew Boguet was healthy. So I just thought it was worth considering

as an option. But to your point, if they just got Michael Porter Junior, I'd still view that as a huge boost for the Warriors. Three more, I was on Twitter and someone suggested that the Lakers offense is smoother when Lebron is running it as he looks to create then score, as opposed to Luca as more heliocentric in approach. What are your thoughts on this and which approach do

you think is better for the Lakers offense. So this is a general idea that I just disagree with, the idea that like you have to play one way to win, or that multiple ball handlers can't play together well. Like I don't think that lebron Is style. I don't think Lebron's style is better than Luca's necessarily based on what happened in the last few weeks, I just thought Luca

wasn't playing well. Like Luca's been every bit as heliocentric in that game against the Spurs, or the second half against the Pelicans, or the second half against Grizzlies on Sunday. He's been every bit as heliocentric as he was in

all the other games. He just wanted to turn the ball over the I want to cut Lucas slack for the turnovers and myss threes, specifically against the Spurs, because without Luca, or without Lebron and aust And available, he basically had no choice but to bump his usage way up, and that means he had to say yes a lot more to situations that he might otherwise say no, meaning like, oh,

high risk pass. When Lebron and Austin are healthy, you move it around and let one of them attack, But when no one else can do shit with the basketball, like, he almost has to take that high risk pass. Similarly, bad threes when when Lebron and Austin are out there, don't take the bad three, move the ball around if you get cut off off the dribble, but when Lebron and Austin are out, he kind of has to take

the bad three, right. So, like, I'm not too critical of the turnovers and the misshots in that particular Spurs game, but overall, I thought Luca's shot creation was ridiculous in that Spurs game, and in the second half of the Pelicans game, and in the second half of the Grizzlies game, even though he was heliocentric and so I don't think Luca needs to play more like Lebron. I just think Luca needs to play like the best version of Luca, and Lebron needs to keep playing like the best version

of Lebron. I actually had a little bit of a debate with my buddy Demon. He pitched this idea that when Austin comes back, maybe Luca or Lebron should stay kind of as the second option. That kind of clashes with my core basketball believe I generally believe you can have three guys all kind of working in unison as long as they're all trusting each other, and I think all three of them can put up massive point totals.

I don't think you're confined toabbing two ball handlers, especially when you've got guys like Lebron and Austin who can run action together and they can both be involved, even though maybe Austin has the ball for five minutes or Lebron has the ball for five minutes. Hey, Jason, I've always been a huge Jokich fan and still think he's

clearly the best player in the league. But does a performance like the win over Philly missing four or five starters, plus what we're seeing from MPG this year off the Nuggets make you ever so slightly think that maybe we are marginally overrating Yokic's impact and have been underplaying his teammates. I don't necessarily think so, but I'm interested to hear your thoughts. It's as simple as diminishing returns thing why a player like MPJA has been broken out since leaving.

So the MPJA thing is complicated to me. I never thought MPJ was a bad player. I just thought MPJ a four, and the Nuggets already had a starting four, and as the league had tilted in recent seasons to more speed on the perimeter, I don't think you can play at Michael Porter Junior Aaron Gordon nicolea Jokic frontline against a team like Oklahoma City. I think you're too slow. So I think shifting from Michael Porter Junior to Cam was more just trading a starting four for a starting three.

It was a roster balancing, starting lineup balancing type of move for them. I thoroughly expected Michael Porter Junior to go into Brooklyn and put up scoring numbers this year. Maybe not quite to this extent, but I'd always thought that he was a guy that could go get buckets. I generally hate this specific idea that like, in order for a player to be recognized as successful, the team

has to suck without him. You'll notice when I would talk about Jokiic as the best player in the world, or when I would talk about Jokich is the best offensive player ever, I never mentioned his on off. That's not really the angle I go with. Basketball is a team sport. No one wins a championship unless they have excellent supporting talent, whether it's a great head coach or a great secondary star or an awesome depth of role

player talent. Like and we've seen it every which way over the course of the years, different constructs of teams. But this idea that SuperStar's going to win titles by their own is just flat out stupid. It's just never how it works. Jokic was the best player in the world last year, he was overwhelmed by Oklahoma City in the second round. Lebron was the best player in the world by a mile. In twenty eighteen. He didn't even stand a chance in the finals against Golden State, Like

there is, This is a team sport. Ultimately, now, the

Nuggets having success without NICOLEA Jokic this year. I think it comes down to fundamentally, this team being on a fucking mission, like this Nuggets team wants to win the title, and there is a level of commitment from the top down of the roster from day one of training camp that has allowed this team to sustain success in various different looks, whether it's when they were healthy at the beginning of the year, to Gordon and Christian Brown being

out to now Jokic being out, they have just found a way over and over again. There have been a lot of key guys that have stepped up. Jalen Pickett has been awesome stepping up with the injuries. Peyton Watson has been awesome stepping up with the injuries. Look at Zeke Nagi these last couple of games. So like, I just think it's a testament to the type of team this Denver Nuggets team is and it should be a big part of why people believe in them as a

threat to win the championship this year. All right, lastly, Timberwolves fan here, I'm curious what you think about Julius Randall's bullyball and the sustainability of it come playoff time. I'm obviously interested in whether or not this team, as presently constructed can win a championship. I tend to lean towards now a factor that I think doesn't really get

talked about as much as the way Randall scores. I know he did his thing against the old Man Lakers with no centers and the Steph Lest Warriors last year, but it seems like once the t Wolves inevitably meet a team that can match their physicality, Randall's scoring is bound to fall apart. So I actually think Julius Randall's ability as a big forward to attack size mismatches and do a good mix of scoring and playmaking is a huge playoff asset. My main concern with Randall is more

like what happened in the Bad Game. So if you look at the Oklahoma City games, he had a couple of games where he put up numbers, but then he had a couple of games where it almost looked like he quit. It almost looked like when things weren't going as way, he like completely disengaged. Stop being aggressive, Stop focusing on the details. My issues with Randal are not

necessarily his style, it's just his mentality. I would like to see Julius Randall, like on the nights where maybe he has a couple of turnovers early, or he misses a couple of shots early, or he finds himself in the middle of the second quarter with doing everything and

he's two for nine, you know, with six points. Like I'd prefer to see those nights and in him doing everything in his power to try to find a way to win the damn game rather than pouting and standing around at the three point line and shooting catch and shoot threes two or three times the rest of the night. He had a couple of these games against Oka see where I felt like he kind of like mentally gave in to the circumstances. That's really the main thing that

I'd like to see him work on. I'm actually really high on the timber Wolves. I think Anthony Edwards is the best version of himself that he's ever been. I think the supporting offensive talent with the rise of Julius Randall, excuse me, the rise of Jaden McDaniels, Rudigobert being a better offensive player than he's been in recent years, and they have shown the defensive ceiling, especially in these last

few weeks. I am if the Timberwolves can keep this up over the next over the next you know, three weeks or so, I'm going to put them in my top tier of contenders in our next Contender rankings. All right, guys, It's all I have for today is always to sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. I hope all of you guys have a wonderful weekend, and I'll see you guys on Money.