NBA fake trade proposals for Warriors, Pistons, Lakers + Raptors-Cavs reaction & Magic breakdown

NBA fake trade proposals for Warriors, Pistons, Lakers + Raptors-Cavs reaction & Magic breakdown

All right, welcome to Hoops tonight here at the volume. Happy Friday, everybody. Hope all of you guys have had an amazing week. It is mailbag day and as promised, we’re going to be heading out to the Eastern Conference today. We were heavy on the Western Conference yesterday. We’re be going to be doing deep dives on the Toronto Raptors, the Detroit Pistons, and the Orlando Magic. We’re going to be reacting to the Raptors Cavs game from last night. And then through mailbag questions, we’ll be hitting some other teams out east. In the tail end of the show, some mailbag questions centered around trades and some other ideas for some different Western Conference teams. Going to be a lot of fun as we bounce around the league today. 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 for more content throughout the year. And last but not least, if you want to get questions into these mailbags every Friday, make sure you drop them in our full episodes on YouTube in the comments. Just put mailbag with a colon, write your question, and that helps me kind of sort through them as I’m looking through the comments and then we’ll get to those in our mailbags on Fridays throughout the remainder of the season. Also, quick programming note, we have two playback streams coming in the next two nights. We are covering the second of a uh of a nice little twoame kind of playoff style series between the Spurs and the Warriors tonight. I think we will see a couple of adjustments uh particularly on the Spurs front as they had a hard time. We had a hard time scoring on Draymond. They got to find ways to get Draymond off of Webby. Also struggled to guard Steph. So I think we’ll see some adjustments from San Antonio. That’s going to be a fun game. We’ll be hanging out on playback tonight for that one. And then tomorrow night, we’ll also be going live on playback for the Los Angeles Lakers on the second night of a back-toback in Milwaukee against the Bucks. We’ll see how the Lakers manage that with their rotation. If they end up sitting a bunch of guys, we may end up taking Saturday night off. But as long as Luke Donic and Jannis antennako play on Saturday, um we should be going live on YouTube for that one as well. All right, let’s talk some basketball. So before we get to our mailbag questions, I want to zoom in on Raptors Cavs. uh mainly the the the Raptors specifically who have won six out of seven and have made a nice little run there in the Eastern Conference. Cavs got off to a good start in this one on the second night of a back-to-back. They went up double digits in the first uh in the first quarter, but Toronto goes on a 33-12 run spanning the end of the first quarter and the start of the second quarter to take control. Cleveland never got any closer than five from there. They effectively controlled the rest of the game. It was a pretty consistent dynamic. Toronto does a lot of switching. They switch just about everything one through four. And then with Purle and ball screens, they’ll bring them up to the level to contain the ball and then they’ll peel switch if the guard gets screened really at all. If he doesn’t just cleanly fight over the top, Purle will switch and they’ll uh peel with the guard. And so essentially what that does is it shuts down screening actions. And uh all of their guys are pretty switchable. Their bigger players can move their feet well. Their guards are all pretty big and athletic and have long arms. And so Cleveland had a hard time breaking their defense down. They had some success with three-man action. When they would run three-man action, occasionally Toronto would botch a switch and leave someone open, which would buy Cleveland an opportunity for an open three. Uh which Cleveland did shoot well on their unguarded catch and shoot threes in this game. Uh and it gave them a couple opportunities to start some of their driving kick attacks, but a lot of the game kind of bogged down for Cleveland in the half court as they struggled to break Toronto’s switching down. And more or less throughout the game, again, Cleveland made their open ones, but Toronto’s got some great length and they did a great job contesting shots. And Cleveland did not shoot well on contested shots. So, Cleveland was 7 for 16 on unguarded catch-and shoot threes. That’s 44% obviously a strong number, but just 1 for 10 on guarded catch-and threes. And uh that’s no coincidence. Toronto’s long. They they contest hard. They close out hard. They’re hard to shoot over. And this has been a seasonl long trend. teams are shooting just 30.6% on contested catch and shoot uh contested catch and shoot jumpers against Toronto, which ranks eighth in the NBA. And their length shows up in other areas as well. For instance, they’re fifth in deflections per game according to NBA.com’s tracking data. Their defense is also starting to come around in the sevename span. We’ll dig a little bit further into that in a little bit. And then on offense, they do a wonderful job of attacking in transition on both makes and misses. They had 38 transition points in this game, which obviously is a great number, and that’s a consistent trend. That’s the fourth time this season they’ve had at least 38 transition points in a game. We’ve talked a lot throughout the early part of the season about how Chicago, Miami, and Portland are the three teams that have been heavily emphasizing transition. Each of those three teams are averaging at least 33 transition points per game. But Toronto is only a little bit off of that pace. They’re at 31.2 two transition points per game, which ranks fourth in the NBA. And they’re super fun to watch in transition. They got some freight train guys like Scotty Barnes and and RJ Barrett will get that downhill, super forceful drive to the basket in transition or semi-transition. Emanuel Quickley will mix in transition threes. He took several of those against Cleveland last night. He’s actually hit 13 transition threes this game either or in this season either as a pull up three in transition off the dribble or as a trailer kind of uh running behind the play after a kick ahead pass. And he’s shooting 38% this year on transition threes. They’ll throw a lot of kick ahead passes. They run their lanes well. It’s a very fundamentally sound transition attack and it’s fun to watch. And then in the half court, their game is predicated on dribble penetration. Either from drives from their guards like Emanuel Quickley and Jamal Shed do a great job of hitting seams off the dribble. They were cutting Cleveland’s defense to pieces last night at the point of attack or they’ll use post ups and isos from guys like Scotty Barnes or Brandon Ingram to draw attention for their kickouts. And so as a result, they generate a lot of spot up opportunities. And for all the talk about their jump shooting, which was the big story coming into the season, like hey, they’ve got a lot of playmaking talent in that lineup. Like Scotty Barnes is a high level playmaker. RJ RJ Barrett is, you know, hit or miss, but he’s grown as a playmaker over the years. Emanuel Quickley can make reads. Brandon Ingram and Scotty Barnes are two of the better passing forwards in the league. Yaka Purle is a guy that can playmake out of the center position, so they have a lot of playmaking talent. The question was, will they be able to shoot enough? And we talked a lot over the early part of the season about how they were going to have to be a team that would break teams down with like multiple driving kick sequences because they have a playmaking advantage. But the thing is is they’ve been shooting the ball super well. They’re getting 1.08 points per jump shot to start the year, which ranks seventh in the NBA. So for a team that we thought would be a bottom 10 jump shooting team, they’ve been a top 10 jump shooting team to start. They’re shooting 43% on unguarded catch and shoot threes. And like there are certain guys that like maybe they’re shooting a little above their uh pay grade, so to speak. Scotty Barnes is shooting the ball super well to start the season. Jamal Shed’s shooting the ball super well, but it’s a lot of their good shooters that are knocking down shots. Like there’s some of this that feels translatable to me. And then they’ve been lethal off the dribble. They’re 49% on mid-range pull-ups and 40% on pull-up threes, which is driving the highle jump shooting. And so in a stretch where they’ve won six out of seven, they’ve actually logged offensive ratings in the half court, just in the half court of at least 107 in four of those seven games. That’s a really strong, consistent halfcourt offense. And it’s because you’re seeing the playmaking talent, which is abundant in that starting group, but guys are also knocking down jump shots, paying off those sequences. Now, whether or not they’re able to maintain that level of half court efficiency is going to come down to whether or not they can maintain the shooting. I trust the drive-in kick. They have dudes who can pressure the rim. They have dudes who can make the kickout passes. Collectively, they can manage the drive and kick sequences. They just have to continue to pay it off by knocking shots down. And so that heavy transition based attack, the heavy drive and kickbased attack, that’s causing them to have extremely balanced scoring. The ball is not sticking. It’s moving a lot. And so for instance, 69% of their baskets are assisted. That’s a super high assist percentage. That ranks fifth in the entire NBA here in the early going this season. In the seven game stretch during the six-1 stretch, they don’t have a single player averaging over 20 points per game, but they have six players averaging at least 10 points per game. Basically, all of the starters and then Sandro Mamu Kellashi who came into the game and really kicked Laren’s butt last night, especially in that first half shift. And then for being a team that passes the ball a ton, they don’t turn it over much. They have the seventh best turnover rate in the league. So a really bright spot on offense for a team that we were worried about coming into the season about whether or not they would be able to score the basketball enough, especially in the half court. So winning six out of seven has moved Toronto up to sixth in the East. They’re seventh in offense for the whole season, 16th in defense for the whole season. If I was trying to pick them apart, I’d say, well, their jump shooting will probably cool off a bit. But if I was defending them, I’d counter that by saying they’re probably going to be much better defensively as we get into the larger sample, right? That’s what we saw post Allstar break last year, a dominant Toronto Raptor defense. And that’s already starting to happen. In their last seven games, they’re fourth in defensive rating while maintaining a top 10 offense. So even if their offense does cool off a little bit, they still look like a pretty good team off of the strength of that defense. And again, that playmaking is manifesting in some highlevel driving kick sequences for some quality shots. They’re just a scrappy and fun team to watch. They defend and run the floor super well. They play a fun brand of selfless drive and kick basketball in the half court. Really nice start to the season for the Toronto Raptors. All right, let’s get into our mailbag. First question. Although on a li limited sample size, I think uh Dannis Jenkins showed flashes of great shot creation as a lead ball handler and can be a long-term solution for the Pistons backup point guard. He defended well and was impressive in the pick and roll. Thanks, Jason. You’re the best basketball we got. Thank you so much for the kind words and for supporting the show. I’m excited for you Pistons fans. We got a couple of Pistons questions here uh to start the mailbag and they are playing some really damn good basketball to start the year. So Danis has had a couple of big games in a row now in more of an offball role in the Washington game off of Cade. He had 25 points uh including some huge catch and shoot threes late in regulation that sent that game to overtime. And then against the Bulls with Cade Cunningham and Jaylen Duran out of the game, he steps into a featured ball handling role. He ran 20 ball screens in that game including passes and generated 25 points. That’s 1.25 25 points per possession, which is great. Now, obviously, it’s way too small of a sample size for us to just be like, he’s the best backup ball handler option they have. They’re going to be fine. This is the perfect guy for this role. You obviously need to see a lot more uh over time in order to make that sort of judgment call. But, he’s definitely an interesting player. He’s got some real wiggle to his game, a good change of pace. His handle is pretty uh sharp. He’s able to get to his spots for little mid-range pull-ups. There’s good energy transfer and good fluidity going from his dribble into his shot. He’s a pretty good rim uh rim finisher for a slender guard. Like he’s 62% on layups so far this year. That’s a strong number. He broke through a few times all the way to the rim in the Chicago game. Although Chicago’s a pretty bad paint defense. And then he can make the pick and roll reads like he made simple reads like a little, oh, you’re digging down off of Duncan Robinson all the way down to the nail. let me just throw this swing pass to Duncan Robinson. Or he can make the pocket passes. He hit Paul Reed several times in the pocket throughout the game, including twice in crunch time for big time shots to help close that game out. There was a nasty one where uh Paul had kind of like spun into a seal, opening up his right hand for a layup on the left side of the basket, or right hand for the pass, I should say. He finished with his left, but on the play, Dennis Jenkins ends up kind of like throwing like an underhanded bounce pass off of a live dribble that fit through a really tight window and just kind of fed beautifully up into Paul Reed’s gather so that he could just go up and finish with his left hand. It was a really high level piece of playmaking. And then he’s starting to make some of the more advanced reads as well, like he made two corner skips in the second half, including a left-handed bounce pass driving along the left side that got all the way to the corner, generated some quality three-point looks. So, it was some highle pick and roll basketball from Dannis Jenkins in that game. The thing I like the most about his game is he’s a good offball scorer. Like, he can be aggressive off the catch, uh, spotting up off of Cade, which means if JB Vickers ends up in a situation where he wants to skew a little bit more towards ball handling and shooting, um, like a guy that could play off of Cade as a catch-and shoot player, but that can also run second side action at a higher level. I think that Dennis just gives him another option to go to there. So overall, even if you’re not sure what his role looks like in the big picture, it’s certainly never a bad thing to have a young player pop the way that Danis is popping here early in the season. Uh, one more Pistons question, and this was a really interesting kind of case that was brought up. Hi Jason. Given Detroit’s strong start to the season, everyone seems to be automatically running mock uh running mock drafts Lori to running mock Lori to Detroit trades, excuse me. I love Lorie’s theoretical fit alongside Cade alongside Kade. However, he doesn’t solve the secondary playmaking initiation issues, assuming Ivy is part of the deal. Instead, I’m more interested in someone like MPJ. It wouldn’t cost nearly as much to get him compared to Lorie. He adds more size to our wing rotation and his role would essentially be the Malik Beasley irrational confidence jackup shots at a 610 frame. In this scenario, Kade doesn’t have a clear co-star, but between MPJ, Duran, and Ivy, we’d have three guys who could drop 20 on any given night. And you’d trust Cade to keep everyone fed. How do you envision this theoretical Cade, Ivy, MPJ, Assar, Duran lineup working? And would you inquire about MPJ? The deal would likely be Tobias, Duncan, and Sasser or Clintman, plus second round picks. Thanks as always for your content. This one got me thinking this morning. Uh the marketing stuff has been flying around for a while, and you make some interesting points about how, you know, Lori’s having a great season, but he’s definitely not what I would consider to be like a highle ball handler initiator. And that reflects on synergy. doesn’t run a ton of self-created possessions and when he has, he hasn’t been super efficient. That’s never really been his game. He is very much the textbook example of the weak side scoring forward, the guy that’s going to attack and do a lot of damage as a score off the catch, usually off of an advantage that someone else creates for him. And then he’ll mix in some scoring off of uh off of screens and, you know, he’ll do a lot of damage in transition and stuff like that. But for the most part, he is a weak side scorer, right? And so what you’re talking about here is a guy who makes over $50 million that basically fulfills the role of weak side scorer that is not that secondary playmaker initiator, right? And so your pitch here, which is basically like, hey, Michael Porter Jr. can do 80% of what Lori does as a weak side scoring forward and you probably don’t have to include nearly as much in terms of draft compensation or salary. And I just think that makes a ton of sense. You’re looking theoretically for an upgrade on what that Tobias Harris position is. Tobias Harris is also that weak side score maybe you can throw it down to the post to him a little bit kind of guy. Tobias obviously is a better perimeter defender than a guy like Michael Porter Jr., but Michael Porter Jr. is a uh when he’s locked in and engaged, which I would assume he would be in Detroit. He is a good helpside like secondary rim protector. He’s a very good defensive rebounder. There’s a lot of stuff that Michael Porter Jr. does that would add layers to this team. And as good of a rebounding team as Detroit has been on the offensive end of the floor, they are not a very good defensive rebounding team. And so I think Michael Porter Jr. could actually help anchor them there. This makes a lot of sense to me. I mean, obviously, you still have that secondary playmaking initiation piece to figure out, but like you’re not burning any real assets to go after this type of deal. And so, you still have time to essentially see if Jaden Ivy can come back and become that player or, you know, see if Dannis Jenkins can continue to become, you know, a secondary like off the bench type of ball handler. could get more time to take uh take data in and then at the end of the season if you need to turn around and make a bigger deal for someone like a Devin Booker or if something like that happens to materialize down the line, you can confront that. But I I think the Michael Porter Jr. type of target makes a ton of sense. He’s achievable. He’s not going to cost a ton. You don’t have to do as much to match salaries. If you’re Brooklyn, you already got a first round pick in the Michael Porter Jr. deal. So, say you turned that into say you turned Cam Johnson into a first and two seconds plus whatever else you get in that uh uh in that trade package. It’s it’s it’s an interesting idea. I think it makes a lot of sense. I love the idea. Michael Porter Jr. did a ton of damage with uh Denver as a transition three-point shooter running his lane, running to the corners, trailing the play at the top of the key, knocking down shots. That was such a huge aspect to Detroit’s transition attack last year. Kick ahead shooting to guys like Tim Hardaway Jr. and Malik Beasley. It makes a lot of sense. You make a great pitch. I’ve been thinking about it a lot this morning. I like the idea of Detroit targeting someone like Michael Porter Jr. Today’s show is brought to you by our new presenting sponsor, Hard Rock Bet. We’ve entered into our favorite time of the year. 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So, whenever you’re listening, just open the app and check out what you’ve got any day of the week. Download the Hard Rock Bet app and make your first deposit. Quick one here. Hey, Jason. When are we going to get to see you on an episode of DNVR? It would be cool to see you on the couch at the bar with the DNVR guys. Best crossover ever. I’m not sure uh when uh if at all I’ll be able to link up with the DNVR guys. We’ll see. I won’t write it off, but I am working with Adam Maharez from DMVr on Fridays. I’m actually going to be recording with him here in about a half hour uh live on the AllNBA podcast where we go every Friday at uh 9:00 a.m. Pacific time. So, working with Adam a little bit this year. Not sure what’s going to happen with the MVR. We’ll see in the long run. I’m not opposed to popping in and hanging out with those guys for a game. Next question. After the Magic bullied the Knicks last night, I just wanted to know where you stand with them. Obviously, they have been underwhelming this season and Paulo is out for a few games now with the groin injury, but it seemed like Bane is finding his role with the team and understanding how to get his shots. This along with Fron shooting the three better and already being one of the best drivers in the league makes me optimistic about them if Paulo can find his form, which he hasn’t so far. Great show. Keep up the good work. Thank you for supporting the show. So, the Magic have found a little bit of rhythm. They’ve won five out of seven. Starting to show some signs of life on offense. They have a 119 offensive rating in that span. You mentioned uh Fron shooting the ball well from three. I’d include Anthony Black in that discussion as well. And like here’s the thing, it’s not like either of those guys are lighting the nets on fire, but just starting to pay off more of those sequences that end up in wide openen looks for an Anthony Black or for Fans Vagner. those going in closer to 40% of the time rather than, you know, in the low 30s, high 20s. That makes a big difference in paying off some of those sequences. I’d also say Anthony Black, you know, I didn’t really enjoy his on ball reps early in the season, but he’s starting to get a little better. He had a couple really nice finishes in that second half against New York, and his floater is looking really nice. He’s actually five for seven on floaters to uh to start this season. and he had a couple of big floaters down the stretch against the Knicks. I think the transition game has played a big role. It makes sense. You’re such a big athletic defense. You should be defending and you should be running. They torched the Knicks in transition in that game. They just have so many big downhill athletes that they can hit seams before the defense gets set and they can get to the rim pretty easily. There’s a classic example of that in the first half from Tristan Dilva where they run the ball up the floor. It’s a semi-transition sequence. Tristan has it on the right wing and Jaylen Brunson’s on him. But because the Knicks don’t have their defense set, no one’s gapping. And because no one’s gapping, it effectively is like a big old wide open one-on-one for Tristan against Jaylen. He just hits a little dribble move off to his left, gets his right shoulder into Brunson, and just kind of fends him off because he’s so much bigger and stronger than him, and gets an easy little left-handed layup. That’s a driving lane that’s not going to be there for the halfcourt situations for Orlando because of some of their jump shooting problems, right? So like those defense to transition sequences are a huge way that they can bolster their otherwise limited offense from time to time. France is torching teams with those semi-transition drives. Had a bunch against the Knicks as well. And I did like some of their intentionality in the half court against the Knicks. I still wish they’d run more two-man game with Paulo and Bane. They ran one in the first quarter where Bane came off of a Paulo screen. So it wasn’t inverted. It was just a regular ball screen with Palace screening for Bane. But once again, Knicks didn’t want to switch because most teams don’t want to switch that action. So Bane was able to essentially just easily turn the corner and got a wideopen left-handed layup. And every time I see that, I just want to scream at the screen about how it could all be so easy if you guys just continued to target that sort of uh defensive conundrum that you can put teams in with that action. But I do want to give them some credit. They were ruthless posting Fron Vagner against New York’s Smalls in that game and he killed them right at the front of the rim throughout that game. That’s good intentionality. I liked how often they put Desmond Bane in the weak side corner when they were attacking on the opposite side of the floor. That’s the spot where teams are most likely to help off of him. So, if he’s not going to be involved in the action, put him somewhere where he can pay it off. And he was getting left open in that left corner by the Knicks. He had a couple of huge threes. I think he had three total out of the left corner in the game, but two big ones in the second half. That’s another good bit of intentionality. This team is super talented. If they defend and get out in transition, and if they play a little bit more intentional in the half court in terms of how they attack, they’re going to win a lot of games. They have the pieces. Let’s just hope that Paulo can recover from his groin injury quickly. Next question. And I don’t see the Warriors roster being good enough to win two or more series in the West. The Warriors had often been interested in Anthony Davis over the years since KD left the Warriors. From the salaries, AD for Butler or AD for Green and Kaminga plus any non-minimum player. Would you trade for AD? Love your show, Jason. Thank you so much for supporting the show. So, here’s the thing. In principle, I love the idea of Anthony Davis playing for the Warriors. You don’t have to overthink that. It’s just really fun to imagine like a real athletic switchable rim protector in Golden State’s defensive system. Uh I think offense it’s a little more uh clunky. AD is not the best read and react player that I’ve ever watched at the center position. He can be a little slow uh to interpret what the defense is doing and he can struggle with double teams and guys that come swarming from his backside when he’s not looking. Uh there’s also like a opportunity kind of element here where it’s like what if Anthony Davis could be got for cheap. But really it falls apart for two reasons for me. One, Anthony Davis has consistently in his career shown up in camp out of shape which has led to him putting a ton of mileage on his body early in the season when he’s trying to drop weight and then he inevitably gets hurt because he’s not in playing shape when he’s trying to play. And then he comes into camp this year, bigger than he’s ever been. There’s another photo floating around the other day of him looking kind of big. Anthony Davis is the, in my opinion, the textbook example of a guy that kind of exacerbates his own injury issues because of his consistent problem with showing into camp overweight. And his reasoning is like, well, I drop weight during the season. I need to come in heavy so that I can drop weight to the right playing weight. But whatever benefit he’s getting from like being at the right playing weight later on in the season, he’s losing in the form of his body just getting beat to hell from him carrying all this extra weight in a league that is heavily up and down in transition. And that’s asking him to cover a lot of ground in rotation as a big that can be mobile on the perimeter. And so I don’t think it’s an a trade-off that has worked for AD. And so there’s a huge injury risk for AD who’s once again injured again. And then the second piece of it is with the salaries, like you trade Jimmy Butler for AD, you’re plugging one hole and creating another. Jimmy Butler’s your secondary shot creator, right? And do I think Anthony Davis when he’s healthy is a better player than Jimmy Butler? Probably, but not by enough of a margin to justify that swap. When you’re creating another hole and Jimmy’s demonstrated himself to be more available as of late. And then as soon as you include Draymond Green in the mix, I think you’re just so fundamentally altering the way the team plays on offense because of Draymond Green’s ability to play in that, you know, high post like passing fulcrum type of role, hitting back cutters and slipping out of ball screens. And, you know, I I was watching the game against Spurs on against the Spurs on Wednesday, and it’s just like so apparent when you watch the Warriors how important Draymond is as a passing fulcrum for that offense. And so as soon as you give up Draymond, whatever benefit you get from AD is mitigated to a certain extent and then you bring the the injury issues to the to the forefront. So it’s worth exploring just simply because Anthony Davis could be had for relatively cheap. But every as soon as I dug into it a little bit, I didn’t really like the move for the Warriors. Next question. Whenever I watch the Warriors defense, I noticed that a lot of their defense is predicated on overhelping, which leads to open threes for the other team. What is the thought process of always overhelping? I’m trying to understand whether this is happening due to the lack of size and mobility on the roster or if it’s more of a defensive philosophy that they’re sticking to. Definitely a defensive philosophy. This has been a consistent thing throughout the Steve Kerr area era. This is a team that swarms and they do it. There’s a couple of different elements to keep in mind here. One, this is an excellent closeout team. Every year that I watch the Warriors, I find them to be one of the best two or three teams that I watch every year in terms of flying around in rotation and chasing guys off the line. Commitment to being in the paint to help to swarm, but also getting back out to the perimeter. Now, they can have nights where their closeouts aren’t as sharp and then it looks like they’re just leaving a bunch of dudes open and it can look like a flawed defensive scheme, but ultimately, especially in high leverage moments, clutch situations, the playoffs, whenever they’re really locked in for a regular season game, I look at them as a team that can swarm and recover, and I think it’s a strong foundation for them defensively. The second piece of it is very much by design, which is this is a team that wants to try to get Steph Curry in chaos as much as possible. They want Steph Curry to be operating without a set defense. So instead of like this guy’s locking and trailing, he’s grabbing his jersey and he’s holding him all over the floor and every one of the other four defenders is keyed in on him so that they can be ready for him as he comes off the screens, they want like offensive rebounds off of corner crashes where he can get open. Kind of like the shot that he hit off of the Gary Payeyton offensive rebound to help close the game against San Antonio, right? Like they want chaos. And one of the best ways to generate chaos for Steph Curry to to where he can find openings is in transition. And one of the best ways to get into transition is to force turnovers. And one of the best ways to force turnovers is to swarm in the paint and get deflections as guys are trying to make kickouts. And then even on the kickouts, whenever they miss a three, missed threes usually lead to long rebounds. Long rebounds usually lead to transition opportunities. So even if they give up a certain amount of, you know, wide openen catch and three opportunities as a part of that defensive scheme, it is made up for in the long rebounds, the turnovers, and the transition opportunities. This is a Warriors team that is top 10 in forcing turnovers, and I think they’re uh they get like 20 points a game off of turnovers. It’s like a huge part of the way that they score the basketball. So ultimately, it’s by design. And then whenever they end up in high leverage moments, I never feel like teams are comfortably shooting threes. I feel like they’re facing pretty intense closeouts from one of the best closeout teams in the league. Hey Jason, really enjoy your show. Question. If you were to pick any role player from the Thunder to put on the Lakers, irrespective of contracts, who would you select and why? Lou Dort. Absolutely no question. I think Lou Dort is that perfect combination of like stick him on the other team’s best player and he’s going to be unscreenable and he’s going to make that dude uh super uncomfortable all game. I think it unlocks more deep drop looks for DeAndre Aton, which I think is a better set better kind of configuration for him because right now his best defensive trait is just that he’s big and athletic around the rim. Once you start asking him to cover in space or to really, you know, switch and and be in different spots on the floor, it can be a little bit more complicated. So, a guy like Lou Dort would slot in and just solve a lot of their issues defensively. And then he’s a guy who can knock down catch and shoot threes, drive closeouts, has a little bit of off the dribble pop, plays super hard every single game. Lou Dort would be the kind of guy that I think would be perfect in fantasy world because obviously that’s never going to happen. All right, two more questions, guys. Thoughts on a Devin Vel trade to the Lakers? Vel doesn’t fully fit the timeline in San Antonio. Fox is already an established guard and Castle and Harper are very young and therefore projects would be a good trade for both teams it looks like. Thanks again Jason. Love the show. Keep up the great work. Thank you so much for supporting the show. I really appreciate it. I’m not the big Devon the biggest Deon Vacell fan in the world. He’s certainly a good player. I don’t want to like undercut him here but he’s a scoring guard that doesn’t particularly score the ball that well or at that uh in terms of volume or efficiency. And then in terms of like the scrappy defense stuff, he’s not as good a defender or as scrappy as like a rebounder, grab loose balls kind of guy as some of the other San Antonio guards. And I think the Lakers need Scrappy. I also think they need more of a small forward than they need a two guard. So I don’t love the Deon Vel fit uh for the Lakers. It wouldn’t be a guy that I’d be targeting. Now what will San Antonio do with Deon Vel? I have no idea. He makes a lot of money now. And once you enter into that situation, it becomes more complicated. You have to match salaries. I’m not sure there’s going to be much of a market for him in a trade. If you had to, if you put a gun to my head and ask me to guess what’s going to happen with Deon Vel, I think he’s more likely going to be salary filler. Uh like the interesting young player that is like the salary filler that the Spurs attach assets to to try to get a better player back. And that’s if they move him at all. But I definitely don’t like him as a target for the Lakers. Last question. Is the addition of Jonas Valenunis the most significant change to the Nuggets versus last year? More than a coach, player development, and other personnel ads. Jokic looks fresher with the longer bench stays and expresses it by being more efficient. Even for him, he only played 34 minutes to get to his 55. Also, how are you liking Colorado? Uh, love it in Colorado. I’m a little frustrated by the lack of snow. It’s made our skiing venture a little bit delayed, but allegedly at some point in the next like two weeks or so, temperatures are going to drop significantly, which should help their snow making operations. And then um there’s allegedly going to be some storms coming through. So hopefully some snow comes through. But loving it here. Love the weather. It’s like sunny all the time, which is amazing. Uh the basketball scene here is incredible. I’m playing in a couple of men’s leagues and one in particular the Charles Whitlock League on Wednesday nights that is like awesome competition and like every team has like a half dozen dudes who used to play in college and every Wednesday I’m getting like engaged competitively in a way that I haven’t in a long time which I’ve really enjoyed. Just need to get back on the slopes. So, uh, hopefully the I’ve done three days so far this season, but it’s been a Keystone in Breenidge where they’ve only had one run open, so it hasn’t been the best skiing in the world, but hopefully within the next month or so, I’ll be able to get that going. As far as Denver goes, so I would argue that it’s a little bit deeper than just Yonis Valenunis. It’s Jonas and just overall the amount of bench talent. It’s it’s weird to look at statistically because they’re still minus seven net. So, losing the Jokic off minutes by seven points per 100 possessions, that seems like a high number. I mean, like a bad high number, right? Uh, but that’s actually better than usual. They’re pretty traditionally in that like 11 11 and a half points war uh like negative with Joic off the floor. So, it’s better than it used to be. But the way I think it’s manifesting is that they’re still having some really bad games where they lose their ass with Joic off the floor. Clippers was another example of that. But uh the the big thing that’s standing out to me is they’re having more good bench games. Like they’re having games like the Kings game where their bench comes in and Jonas Valenudas is bullying them on the offensive glass and Bruce Brown’s hitting threes and Jamal Murray’s cooking the other team’s backup guard and they blow a game open with Joic off the floor. Like so in the large sample, it’s better. Not that much better, but they’re winning some games with their bench this year, which is something that didn’t happen in the past. And I think the point you’re making about keeping Joic’s minutes down is another big part of what is driving that success relative to previous seasons. All right, guys. That’s all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. Again, feel free to join us on playback tonight for Spurs Warriors or tomorrow night for Lakers Bucks. I will see you guys then. If not, then I will see you on Monday for our usual power rankings episode. I will see you guys then.

Jason reacts to the Toronto Raptors’ win over the Cleveland Cavaliers before answering mailbag questions from fans on NBA trade proposals involving the Golden State Warriors, Detroit Pistons, and Los Angeles Lakers for players including Anthony Davis, Lauri Markkanen, Devin Vassell, Michael Porter Jr., Jonathan Kuminga, and more.

All lines provided by @hardrockbet

Timeline
0:00 – Start
2:05 – Raptors/Cavs reaction
10:05 – Pistons backup guards
13:30 – Pistons trade options
19:45 – Orlando Magic breakdown
23:50 – Warriors trade for Anthony Davis?
27:10 – Warriors defensive scheme
29:50 – Thunder role player on Lakers
30:50 – Lakers trade for Devin Vassell?
32:20 – JV on the Nuggets

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