How good are Victor Wembanyama & Spurs? Breaking down San Antonio’s 5-0 start to NBA season

How good are Victor Wembanyama & Spurs? Breaking down San Antonio’s 5-0 start to NBA season

All right, welcome to hoops tonight here at the volume. Happy Friday, everybody. Hope all of you guys are having incredible end to your week. We have a jam-packed show for you guys today. We’re going to lead with a little instant reaction of last night’s really fun to watch showdown between Bam Adabio, Victor Wanyama, and the Heat and the Spurs. We’re going to be breaking that game down in detail. And then after that, as we typically do on Fridays, we’re going to get into a mailbag. I’ve got about eight or nine questions from around the league from you guys. You guys know the drill. Before we get started, subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don’t miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at_jasonlt so you guys don’t miss show announcements. Don’t forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight. It’s also super helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front. Jackson’s doing incredible work on our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Tik Tok. Make sure you guys follow us there throughout the year for additional content. And last but not least, if you want to get questions into these mailbags, go into our full episodes on YouTube in the comments. Write mailbag with a colon and then write your question. and we’ll get to them on Fridays throughout the remainder of the season. All right, let’s talk some basketball. So, both teams down some key players in this Heat Spurs game. The Spurs were down Luke Cornet, which led to these Bismac Biombo minutes that were particularly rough. And there was even a stretch where they went centerless to try to address that issue. And then the Heat were down Norman Powell, which was obviously a bummer for this matchup as a test for the Spurs. But we still got a good look at the dynamic because shout out to Simony Fonteo. He came in and played incredibly well and put on a Norman Pal impersonation just flying off of screens and hitting all of these tough movement threes that kind of brought that dynamic to the offense. And honestly, I thought the Heat threw a hell of a punch. Bam was very much not afraid of Victor Wmanyama and attacked him early and often. He had a rip through kind of chicken wing for a layup. He had another rip through on a close out in the left corner with WBY where he went and just threw down a vicious right hand dunk. He was going right at him in the post for a little baby hooks over his left shoulder. He hit a couple of threes when We WBY was roaming off of him. He threw a great punch. It was a nice challenge for Wemby and the Spurs. Andrew Wiggins did a ton of damage in this matchup as a score, driving one-on ones, hitting little pull-ups, hitting threes. I every time I watch Andrew just want him to be a Laker because he’s literally the one guy that I think would address all of their problems. But that’s just me channeling my uh fanhood there. And then the Spurs ended up taking control in the late third quarter. They won it by 15 to end the third quarter. And Eric Spolstra, as he’s known to do, broke out that famed Miami Heat 2-3 zone actually for the first time this season. And he had his two top guys in the zone extending out to pressure the ball. He had Bam kind of extending out from the middle on Wemby’s catches around the elbows. and the other four guys when Wemby would have the ball there. Did a great job of filling the gaps around him and closing those passing lanes and the Spurs kind of decomposed a bit. They blew the 15-point lead like that and all of a sudden we had a close game on our hands. So, shout out to the Miami Heat. They gave the Spurs a really good test last night. It was good opportunity for I was looking forward to seeing the Spurs play against a good team because they’ve had an incredibly light schedule to start and they rose to the occasion. I thought Julian Champagne was one of the key figures in that fourth quarter run when the Spurs finally pulled away. He had two massive offensive rebounds out of the left corner that both led to wide openen threes for the Spurs. One where he got his own rebound following along the baseline. That one got kicked out and moved over to Devin Vel on the left wing who had a three. And then another one where Weby’s posting up there on the right block. He takes a little right shoulder fade. You can see Julian just come flying in out of the corner and he rocks Simone Vonteio with a box out right there along the baseline. gets that inside position, taps the ball out, then has the wherewithal to turn and set a pin flare on Simone Vonio to prevent him from closing out to the corner where Harrison Barnes had relocated and he hits a wideopen three that ended up putting the Spurs up six. And then on the other end of the floor, he had a really nice drive uh defensive possession where he stonewalled a DaVon Mitchell drive and got a steal. Scrapped his way into a bunch of winning impact down the stretch. Julian’s been struggling to shoot the ball a little bit the start of the season, but in general, he just adds another layer to the overall scrainess of this Spurs team, which is something that I’ve been really keyed in on. Like Julian Champy is averaging eight rebounds per 36 minutes. He’s super active on the glass for a wing. This Spurs team as a unit has six rotation players that rebound at a rate of at least six rebounds per 36 minutes or better. Both bigs obviously Luke Cornet super active on the glass. Victor Wanyama is super active on the glass. We talked about Julian Champagne. Kell Johnson just comes in every single game off the bench and is just an athletic wrecking ball. He gets nine rebounds per 36. He’s had several late thirdarter stretches this year where he’s helped blow games open. He’s also just super physically aggressive around the rim. He had a play in the late third quarter where he posted up Kell Wear again over seven feet and just powered through him as like a post up for a little scoop shot and yelling and screaming while he’s doing everything. He’s just an athletic wrecking ball. And then both of the young guards, Steph Castle and Dylan Harper, they are both great rebounders for the guard position. This is a big part of what makes the Spurs such a dominant rebounding team. They are number one in rebound percentage in the entire NBA on both ends of the glass, too. They’re top five offensive rebounding team and they’re a top five defensive rebounding team. It is just a margin where they are winning and they’re just scrappy in general. Like, it’s been fun to watch Steph Castle and Dylan Harper pressure the ball and play passing lanes. They had the sequence against DaVon Mitchell where Da’Von drove off of the right wing and Steph Castle sliding with them and he swipes at the ball and kind of knocks it free and here comes Dylan Harper digging down from the wing. He takes it away. Now they’re running the other way. It’s just everybody’s big and athletic and scrappy and rebounds well and it’s a big thing that triggers their transition attack where they’ve been getting 28 transition points per game which ranks eighth in the entire NBA. That combination big athletic and scrappy on the perimeter with Victor Wemanyama that is what causes them to have so much success in these margins. They’re number two in defensive rating, number one in rebounding, and number eight in transition points scored per game per synergy. So, like that is a classic defense rebound run. Defense rebound run. And that is something that is going to be there for them every single night in the regular season. It’s one of the big things that I miscalculated about this team. I was so focused on like their refined offensive skill. How many like really good refined offensive players do they have? and that’s shown up. Like that’s part of why they struggled against the zone. They’ve been a mediocre half court offense to start the year. We’ll talk about that in a minute. But what I underestimated with this team here in the early going is they’re just really big and athletic off of WBY, which is going to give you just a really high floor night in the NBA regular season. I really like that game from Victor last night because it kind of showcases versatility. Like he didn’t have a good shooting night. His three-point shot was way off. He had some bricks. He uh shot out the Heat, too. They had some great contests on him and they had, you know, they were physical and up underneath him in his post ups and kind of stopped him from getting directly to the rim on his ISOs. He was kind of missing his mid-range jump shot last night. So, like what what do you do when that stuff’s not going for you, right? But I thought he was his usual dominant self on defense. Obviously, it you know, Bam stretched him out a few times with some threes and he got some one-on-one buckets on him, but outside of that, I thought he generally won the matchup. Like Bam tried so hard to space Webby out taking threes that he took 13 of them in the game and only made four. That’s less than a point per shot. Was especially cold down the stretch. And that’s a big part of what allowed Webby to roam and cause problems around the basket as a shot blocker. And then Victor’s defensive impact overall just continues to be really difficult to quantify. Like he had five blocks last night, but it’s deeper than that. Like there are a lot of possessions where guys are driving into the lane and running into him and Victor’s not getting a block or even a deflection sometimes, but he’s swarming and the dudes just don’t have the kickout angles. And so then it’ll end up being a turnover because the guy throws a bad kickout pass or a bad kickout pass that breaks the rhythm of the possession and the advantage is gone because it’s offtarget. So the guy who has to go get it has to like lunge out of position and by the time he gets it, the Spurs can rotate back out of it. He’s just literally breaking offenses with his length right around the basket. Now again, it’s not all perfect with San Antonio. They struggled Miami zone in the second half. They had just eight points on 16 possessions against that zone. Albeit they did get some offensive rebounds. I think they had three in the fourth quarter. And on this season so far, the zone has been a little bit of an issue. They faced 34 possessions of zone and they’ve gotten just 22 points on that. That’s a 65 offensive rating. They’re shooting just three for 10 on threes against zone so far to start this year. They’re five for 15 on twos and they’ve turned the ball over on 21% of their possessions against the zone. I think there’s a couple things they could do there. Like they’re using WBY a lot in the middle and they’re not getting easy like dunks. So, I’m wondering if it makes more sense to have Webby almost as a baseline outlet and try to get the ball to somebody else in the middle of the floor. Someone who’s really comfortable passing there. Someone like Steph Castle. If Steph Castle catches in the middle of the floor, he’s a guy that can quick turn and score, but he’s also a guy who’s got really good lob chemistry with Webby. And often, like when We Wi was catching there again at the middle. when BAM would step up, there’s opportunities at the rim, but often that’s not a pass that is available to some of the smaller athletes on the floor, right? But if Victor’s underneath the basket, that’s another vertical spacing window for you to go at. And again, some of this is just that refined offensive skill, right? Collectively as a team, the Spurs are just 14th in half court offensive rating to start the season. And by the way, three of their five wins have been against bottom five defenses in New Orleans, Toronto, and Brooklyn. And I I think that’s where you can see just a little bit of that these are young talented players that aren’t quite as refined yet as they will be in the long run. It’s been interesting cuz like their catch and shoot shooting from the role players has actually been fine. That’s been kind of a pleasant surprise this year after a lot of the talk around their shooting over the summer. But it’s actually been more of the ability of the defenses against their ball handlers to go under screens to force their guards to take pull-ups which they’re not making. And then Wemby has been kind of off, especially in his catch and shoots to start the year. But overall, like we knew the Spurs would have some issues with half court offense. We knew the Spurs would have some issues with refined offensive talent. I think the real story here in the early part of the season is that the Spurs are just way more physically imposing than we thought they would be night toight in the regular season. If they’re going to be a top five defense and a top five rebounding team with a top 10 transition attack all year, that’s just a really strong foundation to rack up regular season wins with or without a great offense. And again, the story of their ceiling, what they actually can achieve as a unit in the big picture will be determined by whether or not they can kind of polish up those things in the half court on offense. Some brief thought brief thoughts on the Heat before we move forward to the mailbag. There’s been a lot of hoopla about the offense. We talked about this in our five most impressive teams video um on Monday, but there’s this idea that um you’re essentially just pushing the ball up quickly and hitting gaps, right? Whoever has the ball is empowered to just attack their matchup one-on-one and with the idea that if the defense reacts, you can make these kickout passes and go from there. It’s a kind of a simple concept because we talk about the idea of running action. Why do you run action? Why do you run a pick and roll? Why do you run Chicago? Why do you run split cuts? Why do you run any of that? You run that sort of thing to get a situation where a guy is standing on the perimeter open with a kickout pass and a defender running at him, right? You’re running action to create an advantage. And so there’s this idea that the only way to create advantage is through running action. And that’s not true at all. I think the Indiana Pacers in particular demonstrated for us last year that you can generate a lot of advantage just by pushing the ball up the floor and by attacking gaps. And I said this in the most improved video, but I’m not the least bit surprised that Miami has adopted as a very smart organization has adopted something that we saw work to resounding success last year in the postseason with Indiana. Push the damn ball up the floor, attack gaps, take the kick outs that are available, and play drive and kick basketball off of that. It’s empowered guys like Andrew Wiggins who’s looked great at times this year. Haime Hakez who’s having a excellent third campaign. Simony Fontio obviously attacking and shooting coming off of uh off of movement and even off of dribble handoffs and things like that off the ball. Like there’s a lot of guys that are being empowered. The downside is though, it can also empower players to take bad shots sometimes. So, like if you give a guy the freedom to on a early possession sequence attack his man one-on-one, there’s a lot of those that are ending in some questionable shots. Like they took 11 mid-range jump shots in that game last night against the Spurs and made just four of them. A lot of like driving into Wemby and then turning it over or getting blocked. And so some of that I think is the growing pains of trying a new offense. Like it’s just very important that at the expense of pace, you don’t go and take bad shots early in the clock either. Like you want to get the ball up the floor quickly. You want to attack, attack, attack, but the purpose is to get layups and threes, layups and threes. You want to get the defense to react to you so that you have those kickout opportunities available. And I mean, one one last thing on the Heat, they’re kind of investing in this big man shooting threes kind of idea. and Bam shot him well to start the year, but last night Bam and Kell a combined four for 17 from three. And I do wonder if there’s a little bit of an overindexing on that side of things towards the three-point shot. But the Heat have been a fun team to watch here in the early part of the year. Obviously, they didn’t even have Norman Powell last night. Tyler Harrow is going to fit into this somehow. I wonder if he’ll bring more of a ball screen element. I don’t think Tyler Harrow is really much of a one-on-one player. Um, but this is an interesting new system. It’s a it’s a it’s a new idea that’s kind of taking hold in the NBA. The idea that like we can generate advantage just by pushing with pace and by attacking gaps rather than having to run action. All right, let us get into our mailbag. We’ve got about uh eight or nine questions here from around the league that we’ll be getting into. Today’s show is brought to you by our new presenting sponsor, Hard Rock Bet. The NBA Hardwood is heating up. If you haven’t placed your first bet on Hard Rock Bet, now’s the time to get off the bench and shoot your shot. Bet $5 and if it wins, you get $150 in bonus bets on top of your winnings. Plus, all week on Hard Rock Bet, you can get an NBA parlay boost for the games. There’s new promos every day. Boost your same game parlay or same game parlay max, so your bet pays extra winnings. But if you want to go from the hardwood to the grid iron, it’s a great week to bet on football. It’s week nine and you can get profit boost for every game day through Monday night, college and pro. There’s promos every day to help you get in on the action. Download the Hard Rock Bet app today and make your first deposit. First question. Hey Jason, thank you for your work from Sydney, Australia. Going into the next era, I feel like things are taking shape in regards to the power hierarchy in the league. Jokic and WBY feels like it could be the new LeBron Kobe. Shay and the Thunder feel like the old Tim Duncan and the Spurs. So my question is, if you had to pick which players of this or the next generation are have a chance to go ringless, let’s say from the 2018 draft on, Ant, Luca, Trey, Zion, or Jaw? This is a really interesting question and it’s complicated because I don’t think it necessarily has to do with the player. Um, like it’s just really difficult to win a championship. I mean, we’ve seen, especially since KD left the Warriors, like it’s teams that are winning, not stars. It’s like a different star every single year. I think Jokic has been the best player in the world now for three, four years and he’s only got one of them, right? Like it’s a it’s very much a team construct that’s winning the title. And so as we kind of go through these players, it has less to do with who they are as a player and more to do with what their surrounding circumstances are. So let’s start with the I kind of put them into like three groups here. So the first group is Zion and J. And this is where it gets more related to the player because I would be shocked if either Zion or Jaw won a championship. Uh the reason why is like Zion is not close to as good as the top guys and he hasn’t taken great care of his body. So I feel like his window is relatively short compared to some of these team some of these stars. And the Pelicans are far far far away from accomplishing anything. They’ve been one of the worst teams in the league to start the season. Same with Jaw. He’s trending in the wrong direction with his player development. He’s this small guard that falls down and gets hurt a lot. So, it feels like his window is relatively short. And Memphis is worse than they were a couple years ago. And they don’t have like some direct pathway to contention that lies right in front of them. So, with that group, I think it’s it it seems pretty sa it seems like a long shot to me, I should say, for either of those two to win a championship. the kind of middle tier here is Trey Young, you know, kind of older, uh, a guy that could end up on a bunch of different teams at any point in the future. And what I thought about with Trey is if there’s somehow a shot that he gets paired with Giannis, then yeah, I feel like Trey and Giannis could win a title, but that feels like a long shot to me. So really for Trey, it’s so much so much comes down to which team he ends up with in the long run. And Luca is the really interesting group out of the names that you mentioned. Both guys are young. Both guys should theoretically have long championship windows in front of them, like the better part of a decade worth of championship contention in front of them. Both guys are in less than ideal situations. I don’t think the Lakers are a very well-run organization. So, Luca will have to contend with that his entire time in Los Angeles. Their front office has a convoluted decision-making process with some people that aren’t necessarily basketball experts making decisions. And they’ve demonstrated over the last decade that as a front office they don’t really have much in the way of core basketball beliefs. Every summer they’re doing something different. They’re indexing this way or that way or this way or that way. It’s not like you see with Indiana or Oklahoma City or Miami where they just seem to keep finding the same types of players. Golden State’s like that as well. They have a culture. They have an identity. They have a type of player they look for. They keep finding those guys. They always seem to fit into their system well and they’re able to win with that interchangeability. the Lakers don’t have that. And then with Minnesota, they’re in the awkward position of having some of their core talent being older and on the downs slope. So, the internal improvement of guys like Ant and Jaden. Jaden looks fantastic to start the year. Obviously, Anthony Edwards is going to continue to improve at his age, but that clashes with the downs slope of guys like Rudy Gobear and Mike Connley and who’s going to be their secondary ball handler in the long run. the clunkiness sometimes of the fit with Julius Randall, although I’m higher on that than I was last year. And the Wolves don’t really have a ton of draft comp like capital available to improve the team. So like both situations look less than ideal. If I had to guess which one of those guys is most likely to win, I’d say Luca just because he’s achieved the status of undeniable top tier superstar. He’s shown the ability to get closer to the goal. He got three wins away from the title. Ants never gotten any closer than seven wins away from the title. And in general, I kind of gravitate towards Luca’s archetype a little bit more. That said, I think there’s a version of this where both guys win. And I think there’s a version of this where both guys don’t because sometimes that’s how this goes. Sometimes you the opportunities slip and all of a sudden you’re a little older and not quite as good and then you can’t uplift rosters the way you used to. And you know, it does happen. It does happen in NBA history. But great question though. I enjoyed that one. How would you assess Aton’s defense so far? Will he be the rim protector the Lakers need based on his performances this season? So, let’s dig into this a little bit. Uh, first of all, teamwide, the Lakers have been a little better on defense than you’d think. They’ve avoided the bottom 10, and they are 12th in points in the paint allowed. But to be clear, a good portion of that is when Eightton’s off the floor. The defense has been pretty bad when Eightton’s been on the floor this year. They have a over a 120 defensive rating. with eight on the floor according to cleaning the glass. That goes down to 107 when he’s off the floor. That said, I don’t think it’s as simple as just the statistics. I think the foundational skills are there. We’re seeing a lot of just his size and athleticism make impact on defense, blocks, deflections, just a big body around the rim. We’re seeing a lot of the upside. He’s run the floor really well. I think that’s been his strength. But there’s been downsides, too, like he’s had a propensity to commit fouls where he doesn’t quite get into position soon enough. There have been some offball sequences where he has, you know, just been a little bit too glued up to his man because of a switch and he’s not offering help at the rim the way that he’s capable of. He hasn’t been covering for his teammates as much with anticipatory like peeling off and helping at the rim. there’s been a ju just a little bit of that lack of like refined defense from him to start the year, but I actually look at that as like an area of opportunity that the Lakers should be able to help him with. Like I think you couldn’t conceptualize of a better player to anchor behind Aon to help him with his decision-making in his read and react play on defense than LeBron James. LeBron is the kind of guy that’s going to help right behind him to communicate actions. Help him see what’s coming before it gets there. Help, you know, yell at him to get up higher, to get down lower, to do this or to do that. He’s going to be the brains behind Aton’s bra, so to speak. Connecting his physical talents with having a high IQ anchor behind him. I think it’s something that has a lot of uh potential to be better. To be clear, I think the Eightton experiment has been a resounding success so far. He’s been so good on offense. His scoring on the roll has been vital to this offense in the early year. They do not win those games without Luca, without having a legitimate screen and roll partner with uh with Austin that can really make teams pay for keying in on Austin. I think it’s been a resounding success. I’m just saying the defensive end has been more like highlight good than statistically good. And I think connecting those two is going to be having a guy what will help connect those two is having higher IQ defenders on the floor like LeBron. Even having Luca back that can help him kind of get to a higher level on that side of the floor. Jason, what are your thoughts on the Rockets last two wins since the 0 and2 start? I’m a Rockets fan and I’ve seen some great signs of this team potentially being a high-scoring offense while some concerns with the defense, but I think that will be resolved once Dorian Finny Smith comes back. Another question I have is who in your eyes is is a realistic guard option the Rockets can obtain after December 15th. Derek White is the dream fit but not realistic. I’ve heard Drew Holidayiday and Kobe White as some names, but I think CJ McCollum is the most realistic with Houston’s cap situation. He’s on a lottery team with the potential of being bought out. And while CJ may not be a positive defender or the most athletic player, I believe he can provide the ball handling and playmaking aspect and the shooting shotmaking ability that can fill the void of what this team needs with Van Valet being out. when acquiring CJ moved the needle for you at all for Houston in your contender rankings? Thank you for your great basketball analysis and all the hard work that you provide in all your content. Thank you so much for supporting the show. Um, I agree with your kind of early assessment in the sense that they’ve been better on offense than I expected in terms of just having some really highlevel initiators that kind of counteracts a lot of the issues with their spacing. Also, all three of those guys have a little bit of like a uh a resilience against spacing concerns. Amen. Thompson is so good at just kind of popping off the ground in the short range and shooting little floaters and short jump shots over the tops of rim protectors. Kevin Durant obviously the best jump one of the best jump shooters in the league in recent history. Alurn Jangun and his ability to hit little hook shots over his left shoulder. They they have more resilience to spacing than I thought and I’ve been a little underwhelmed with the defense in the sense that their lack of foot speed has obviously come to the forefront on certain occasions against faster teams. Right. So, I agree with your assessment there. To be honest, as far as their last two games go, Brooklyn and Toronto have both been really, really bad to start the year. So, it’s kind of similar to what we talked about with San Antonio. It’s hard to really learn from those matchups. Uh, as far as the guards that you’re talking about, like I don’t think it’s off the table for Houston to trade for a bigger name, but I think a lot of it’s going to come to how they look over this larger sample. Like, you’re going to see over a larger sample. Do they think that they’re close and they need a high level ball handler or do they think that they’re, you know, uh, really close and they only need a mild upgrade that can sustain some of their long-term flexibility without having to give up draft assets? Like those are the kinds of decisions they have to make, right? A guy like CJ, for example, I think would be a great fit. He’s a methodical skill guard. Uh, Houston has really good screeners that can help free him up. An excellent over-the-top shooter, an underrated passer in those situations. If you could get him on a veteran minimum contract and a buyout, I I mean, let’s not overthink it. That would be a really nice fit. But I think it depends on how much Houston feels they need a modest upgrade versus a substantial upgrade. The problem with a guy like Kobe White is he’s going to be attached to a long-term deal at the end of that. Guys like Derek White, same thing. You’re matching a big salary. But I my my whole opinion on this is like we just need to see a lot more Rockets basketball before we start really defining what type of player they need. So like for instance a guy like Derek White, he provides a lot of pull-up shooting but not a lot of rim pressure. So I really want to see how much that specific dynamic what do they need more? Do they need a guy who can get to the rim more or do they need a guy who’s a better pull-up shooter? I just want to see more of that dynamic bear out over the course of the season. Next question. I agree with your assessment of LeBron’s value. However, I would love to see him in a Manujinobi style role off the bench. Reduce his minutes slightly to ensure he’s fresh for the postseason, bolster the second unit offensively while making it even more dangerous defensively. He would still be a closer, but I think that with Luca usually being in attack mode from the get-go in matchups, that means LeBron is less needed at the start of a match. Your thoughts? So, I look at LeBron as very much a Swiss Army knife, and I think it’s very different than the dynamic when these guys all started playing together at the end of last season. I talked about this with Pete and Darius on the Laker Film Room podcast last night. You guys can check that out on their feed, but we went heavy into this concept, the idea of LeBron joining this team. And remember last year, LeBron was playing at one of the top levels in the league. He was literally looking like a first team allNBA guy in that, you know, February, March stretch before he got hurt. And so adding Luca and Austin to that is complicated because Luca came in and didn’t really want to step on LeBron’s toes and it was clunky at first and they lost games to Utah and Charlotte as they were kind of feeling that that transition out. This is very different. Luca and Austin are in full rhythm and LeBron’s coming back from sciatica and hasn’t touched a basketball or hasn’t played uh meaningful NBA basketball in a very long time. So like LeBron is going to very much ease his way into this situation. I look at him as a guy that can be really impactful off the ball. He’s a mid-40s catch and shoot player, a great cutter, a great short roll player off of blitzes. He’s going to be able to impact winning with the starting group. I don’t see any reason to bring him off the bench because the starters need him. Aton needs him as a defensive communicator. They’re not a good defensive rebounding team. They need LeBron to help with defensive rebounding. LeBron is additional offensive skill to help grease the wheels for that unit. He’s also 41 years old. You don’t want him warming up warming up for the game and then immediately sitting on the bench. You want him playing with the starters. There are ways to accomplish lineups through staggering to achieve some of the stuff you’re talking about in terms of lineup balance. And that’s something they’ll figure out, but I would keep starting LeBron. I don’t see any reason not to do that. I think a lot of people are overthinking the LeBron thing. He’s just going to help them. Hi, Jason. Detroit’s had a decent start to the season, but the W against Orlando might have set off a catalyst to jump start our sluggish half court offense. going back to using Kade in the post. In an episode last season, you mentioned how hyperefficient he is with that baby hook shot, but it also cuts down on his turnovers compared to when he initiates from high pick and roll or a drag screen. Combine that with Duran’s increased aggressiveness on dribble drives from the high post and Sar’s increased ball handling responsibilities, we just might have enough aggregate ball handling/initiation to craft an average offense until Ivy returns. My question is twofold. Do you think this approach is sustainable? and how would you defend against Kade in backdowns, especially given that he’s really the only true big point guard in the East. Thanks as always for your content. So, this is interesting. So, Kade has been only getting 0.91 points per possession in pick and roll, including passes to start the year. That that really is I I kind of synthesize the issues that the uh Pistons are having to start this year down to two things. One, Cade hasn’t been very good. He’s shooting just 12 for30 on twos in pick and roll in large part because he’s just five for 17 on mid-range jump shots and he’s just 53% at the rim. You’re right about him breaking out the postups against Orlando. He hit a little left shoulder hook over Desmond Bane. He got another one over Anthony Black, but he’s actually only run three post ups this entire season. So, I’d like to see him increase his volume there. You mentioned the turnovers. That’s a good point. the turnover percentage when Cage shoots at a pick and roll is like just shy of 20%. But like when you’re posting up, it’s easier to protect the basketball in traffic because you have your back turned to the def to the defender. So that’s an interesting kind of idea. I I think Cade will be a better pick and roll player in time. I just think he’s not playing well. So for me, it’s more about just variety, getting Cade back to form by adding variety. He needs more post-ups in his diet just so that he’s not doing the same thing every single time down the floor. the James Hardened in 2018 to 2020. That’s the case study. When you spam the exact same damn thing every single time, you make yourself easy to guard. You want to add variety, right? The biggest the second piece though, and this is arguably the most important piece, they’re not getting out in transition the way they used to. Like this, they used to be this big physical defense that they would ride to transition opportunities. They’re still the same big physical defense, but after being sixth in transition points per game last year, they’re sitting at 19th this year. I also think that’s on Cade. Your point guard drives your pace. We talked about this with Tyresese Hallebertton last year. Cade needs to do a better job of getting them up the floor in transition faster. As for how to defend Cade postups, to me, I’d force him over his right shoulder, especially when he like he likes to attack off the left block so that he can get to his left shoulder in the middle of the lane for that little right hook over his left shoulder, right? But if you can force him towards the baseline, the passing angles are harder and now he’s shooting over his right shoulder where he’s either going to have to go to his left hand or a fadeaway jump shot, which is going to be a lower percentage. That’s how I would guard him there. But again, I just want to see him do it more. Couple more. Hey Jason and Jackson, hope you’re enjoying the season so far. Got a Warriors question. There’s been a lot of debate about whether the missing piece is a scoring guard or an athletic two-way wing. In light of the start to their season, could the missing piece actually be a regular season innings eater at center? With Horford sidelined at times, their depth at the five dwindles rather fast. And in the five games, we’ve already seen how valuable it is to have bodies to hang in the West. Not to mention the possibility of injuries. Could a consolidation trade involving some of the guards and maybe even some future picks be the right move? Thanks. So, this is one of those things where it’s very easy to tell yourself like, “Oh, we need this, we need that, we need this, we need that.” because every team has three or four holes. And you’re absolutely right that like, you know, I thought the Horford minutes last night were a classic example. We’ve talked about this before. When you’re an older player and you’re not quite as locked in and engaged because you’re playing against a team that is sitting their best player and Jiannis and Tennako, older players when they let go of the rope a little bit tend to look really bad. And the Warriors got rolled in the Horford minutes. And there have been times when you look at it, it’s like, oh, Horford’s out tonight. all of a sudden there’s a lot of Trace Jackson Davis and Quinton Post and it doesn’t look very good, right? And I ideally you’d have a better backup center to fuel that situation. My thing is when it comes to expending assets, you want to expend assets on players that are going to play a serious role in your rotation. And when I look at the playoff rotation at the center position, there’s going to be a lot of Horford. There’s going to be a lot of Draymond. There might be a little bit of room because you’re going to have Draymond at five a lot of the time. and the Horford at the five alongside Draymond or Horford at the five by himself a lot of the time there’s not a huge opportunity for minutes there at the center position however swing forward two three four there are going to be potentially some opportunities there for an upgrade over the course of the uh of a playoff run minutes that are available that’s where it makes sense to spend whether it’s for a scoring guard or for a versatile forward you know anywhere from that two to that four it doesn’t matter which guy you go with there, there’s minutes available in the playoff rotation. So like, yeah, ideally in a perfect world, you’d have a big beast of a center that you can ride for stretches of the regular season. And if you can get that sort of thing on the cheap, sure, but if it’s going to be expending assets, I would spend it on more of a perimeter upgrade. Next question. Have you seen the book written on the drama within the Lakers? They seem so incompetent and entitled compared to smart front offices like the Warriors and Seltz. Love the show. Thank you for supporting the show. Uh, yeah. So, this you’re referencing the book, A Hollywood Ending by Yarn Whitesman. I read it this summer. Uh, I highly recommend it if you’re a Lakers fan. If you’re a Lakers fan who’s rooted for the team over the LeBron era, it’s basically just like a behind thescenes history of that entire era. And it’s kind of a trip down memory lane in both a good way and a bad way. You’re going to be frustrated at times, you’re going to be excited at times. It just was fun. As someone who rooted for that team to go read that book, I highly recommend that you guys go check that out. It’s a Hollywood ending by Yarn Whitesman. That said, uh the specific point you’re making about the front offices, that is the frustrating part is like you watch these teams like the Warriors, the Celtics, the Thunder, the Pacers, these teams that have like really strong basketball culture. Cleveland is another team that I would include in that mix. There’s several of them around the league, but there’s this like idea where it’s like basketball experts are in charge. There’s a clear basketball identity that comes from the top down that continues to percolate down into even the end of the bench guys in the rotation. There’s a culture that is strong there that doesn’t exist with the Lakers in large part because it’s been a very parochial family-based small business where you know the decision-m process is convoluted and there are people that don’t dedicate their lives to basketball that are making decisions for them. It just it just it’s discouraging and it’s you know part of life as a Lakers fan. I know that you consider Joic as the greatest offensive player of all time and Steph as the second with your main winning point being for Joic that he takes more short- range shots which are less affected by shot variance. You consider both their gravity to be simil similar, but I think Steph’s gravity creates more spacing near the basket as there are multiple defenders running after him at the three-point line, hence creating more short-range shots which are less affected by shot variance. I know a lot of Joic’s playmaking also leads to cut straight to the basket, but he is still occupying that space inside the three-point line, which allows help to recover at times and leads to cycle passes to open threes, which is still a great shot, but like you said, high variance. Another underrated thing about Steph’s offense, which I don’t know if you’ve considered, is how much he wears down defenders. Last year in the playoffs, Aman Thompson, who was considered maybe the best athlete in the league, was gassed by the end of the series, pulled his calf, I think, which also leads to him being worse on offense. I’ve really been enjoying the show. Thank you for supporting the show. interesting kind of breakdown of your point of view there. I think there are a couple things that I disagree with. One, one of the pieces with Jokic’s gravity is he pulls centers away from the basket. So, he removes rim protection from the equation. That’s why they get so many cuts. And so, in a lot of ways, like he does generate a lot of those easier twos. I think the biggest thing that I disagree with you about is when I’m discussing the short range shot making, it’s in the context of elite defense. So yeah, if Steph runs around, he’s going to have sequences where he draws two with his classic gravity and a guy gets wide open for a layup. And there are going to be plays with Jokic where he looks at one guy while like Jamal Murray’s back screening for Christian Brown and getting ready to come off of a handoff and he looks at Jamal Murray and the defense goes with Jamal and he pitches the ball to Christian Brown for a wide open layup and that looks beautiful and it makes highlights. These are things that help carry Stephan Joic’s offense over the course of the season. Here’s the thing though. you end up in a big game late, you’re playing against a great defense. They don’t [ __ ] up. They don’t botch the switches. They stay attached. And all of a sudden, it becomes about your guy having to get a bucket. And that is where Joic has the advantage. He can get 5 to 10 feet from the basket and he can get to left shoulder, right shoulder moves that he can hit at like 65, sometimes even close to 70%. That’s the specific dynamic that Yokic has presented that has made me view him as the greatest offensive player that I’ve ever seen. He is this guy that generates countless wide openen threes, countless wide openen uh buckets underneath the basket, countless kick ahead opportunities. Yokic is one of the best transition passers in the league while also being this postup threat that has a score percentage possession to possession that is much higher than most of the perimeterbased stars including LeBron over the course of NBA history. All right, two more quick ones. With the Sixers back court of Maxine Edgecomb setting the league on fire to start the year, how does that change what the Sixers do with Embiid and Paul George? The speed and athleticism of the back court seems to clash with the more slow and methodical style of Embiid and Paul George, let alone their injury concerns. Both players value seems like it’s currently in the tank right now, and it is a small sample size for Edgecomb, who may not be putting up 20 a night the whole year. But does this make the Sixers consider finding a way to move on from their two highly paid veteran stars and lean fully into rebuilding and retooling around their young back court? Love the show. So, it’s complicated because who are you trading Embiid and Paul George to? They both make so much money and both have looked quite frankly physically decrepit. Right now, my thing is I look at it as more of an upside. Like it’s like you whatever you get from Embiid is gravy in the sense that like you’ve got all these talented young players. You’re playing this super fun style. Look, with Embiid, he’s still finding opportunities to score the basketball in his face ups. He’s providing like a pick and pop threat with Tyrese Maxi. I think there’s a lot of a potential for Embiid to eventually find a way to contribute through his talent. Paul George, we’ll see. Again, he occupies a massive salary slot, but there are a lot of these minutes going to guys like Jabari Walker and Dominique Barlo who are playing super hard and they’re athletic and they’re doing things. But Paul George, if he comes in for a couple shifts here and there and can hit some threes and run some second side action, I think he can add some value, too. I look at it very simply, like you’re not going to be able to trade them. So, if you’re not going to be able to trade them, you kind of just have to try to find roles with them on this team. And they’re so talented still, even at their old age, that I think in smaller roles under the guise of minute limits and load management, you can find a way for them to impact winning for you on your team. Last question. In your opinion, what will it take production-wise and team record-wise for WBY to capture MVP this year? Really, the production he’s at right now is more than enough. him averaging, you know, over six stocks per game and being a dominant defensive rebounder and averaging close to 30, that’s plenty. The main thing is going to be the team’s record. They’re already off to such a great start, 5-0. To me, it’s like if they if the Spurs get that like three seed or the two seed, I think he has to be MVP because the other MVP candidates are all playing with substantially more talent relative to that MVP conversation. But, I think he’s on track. The Spurs look a lot better with their defense and their rebounding and their transition attack than I expected them to. So, I do think it’s on the table. All right, guys. That’s all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. We will be back on Monday. I will see you guys then.

Jason reacts to the San Antonio Spurs getting a hard-fought win against the Miami Heat including a good game from Victor Wembanyama in a tough matchup against Bam Adebayo. He breaks down how the Spurs have exceeded expectations and how good they can be when they get fully healthy. Then he answers mailbag questions on a variety of topics including comparing Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic and Golden State Warriors guard Steph Curry, whether the Los Angeles Lakers should bring LeBron James off the bench, and more.

All lines provided by @hardrockbet

Timeline
0:00 – Start
1:00 – Spurs/Heat reaction
16:10 – What stars could go “ringless”
20:50 – Deandre Ayton’s defense
23:40 – Rockets turning things around
27:00 – Lakers plan for LeBron James
29:15 – Cade Cunningham’s season
32:15 – What do the Warriors need
34:30 – Lakers book
36:00 – Comparing Jokic and Steph
38:45 – 76ers future
40:30 – Can Wemby win MVP

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