Embiid's Return, Charging Mavs, and Most Improved Player Candidates
01:46:57 Share

And now, The Low Post.

McMahon, how are you? Howdy, partner. You can't throw me off your game by throwing out a big word like coalesce right off the top. I'm Dartmouth versus North Texas. Let's go.

Yeah, it didn't work out for Dartmouth men's basketball team this year or any year. I'm sad. One year. One year. My wife knows if they ever make it, I'm on a bender until they're out. See you later. The camera will pan to the crowd and be like, and there's ESPN. Oh, Zach doesn't look so good here in the stands. It would have been like the guy in Minnesota a few years ago who puked all over the hardwood.

I'm an old man now. I can't hang with those college kids. Okay. The big news of the day, though, is Woj reporting this morning that Joel Embiid, that guy, the guy who was scoring more than a point a minute and playing some of the best defense of his career and maybe making a case for a second straight MVP, that guy without whom the Philadelphia 76ers have been up a creek, that dude...

The most fearsome scorer in the world may be returning as soon as tomorrow, Tuesday, Sixers Thunder. Whoa, boy, Tim McMahon. That's a whoa, boy, because obviously it goes without saying the whole world changes with Joel Embiid back. Here's where the Sixers are, however, having really gone into free fall without him. They're 40-35. They're kind of locked into eighth defensively.

They have one head-to-head game left against the Heat where they can make up some ground. The Heat are battling the Pacers in the 6-7 kind of race to get out of the play-in. But the Heat already have the tiebreaker against the Sixers. Both of them have kind of easy schedules. If the Sixers are indeed locked into eighth, safely above the Bulls, Hawks, Morass below them,

we are looking at a potential 7-8 play-in game between either the Pacers and the Sixers or the Heat and the Sixers. And we are looking at a potential Joel Embiid, Philadelphia 76ers team. If they win the play-in, you can't assume anything in the play-in. You can't assume anything. It's too dangerous. It's a no-assumption zone. But this dude with Tyrese Maxey,

And they are plus, let me see, 12 per 100 possessions with those two on the floor together this season. Could walk into the playoffs as a seventh seed. Oh boy, there's Giannis. Or as an eighth seed, Celtics, great regular season. Congratulations. Here's your draw. I don't really know what reaction there is to this, except I guess I would ask you this. In Joel Embiid's absence, they've obviously been bad.

It hasn't just been Joel Embiid's absence. The whole team feels different. The Anthony Melton is still out. He's a huge part of their team. He was part of a starting five that was destroying people before Joel Embiid got hurt. Um, Robert Covington's been out. Everyone's been in and out of the lineup. Kyle Lowry is like suddenly a big part of the team. Um,

it's Embiid and it's also like, can they get back to the rhythm, the team they were before? And I think Melton is a big part of that, Tim. Like they're starting five. This is not a typo. Now this was compiled against the Wizards seemingly like every other night, but Maxie, Melton, Batum, Harris, Embiid, that five-man lineup, which was their starting five, is plus 163 points to

In 219 minutes. That's like not even possible. What the hell are we supposed to make of this team? I mean, the thing you have to focus on, obviously, is how close to...

peak form can Joel Embiid get by the time the play-in slash playoffs roll around? And it is not reasonable and it is not fair to think that this guy who is having a historic season, as you mentioned, the first guy since Will Chamberlain to have more points than minutes played for a decent sample size,

He's not just going to, hey, Embiid is recovered from this knee procedure and he's back in rhythm. He's back in full shape. Obviously, there's going to be a ramp-up period. I don't know what the minutes restriction will be, but clearly there will be a minutes restriction. They'll take a cautious approach. Is two weeks enough time for him to get reasonably close to recovery?

Forget even MVP form, like superstar form, because if that doesn't happen, then the rest of the supporting pieces, let's be honest, really don't matter that much. They need Embiid to be the best player in whatever series they end up in, or maybe even the best player in a playing game to earn the right to get into a series. Now, if Embiid overcomes the odds and ends up by playoff time,

Which, by the way, it's not like he's been a dominant playoff performer anyways. But if he ends up being this efficient 35-minute, 12-rebound, dominant defensive presence, then anything's possible. As great as the Celtics are,

Listen, we've seen a 67-win team lose in the first round. Maybe this is the we believe Sixers and they're just going to pull something off in the first round. We've seen it. And what we haven't seen, I don't think, is a guy who is that level of talent who's the face of an eight seed. And obviously that's because the circumstances have just been so wild.

I think they need everybody realistically to beat a team like Boston or Milwaukee in the first round. Milwaukee is actually more interesting almost than Boston to me. Look, people laughed at the Sixers for the way they lost that series against Boston last year. And by the way, they deserved it. They totally no-showed Game 7. They choked in Game 6.

It took that team to seven and they had a shot to win that series at home. And obviously the team's different, Harden's gone, whatever. Like that was not better. The Celtics were better. And the Celtics beat the Sixers in the playoffs. Every time they meet that one was, it just, it feels like it gets narrower between them every time. And this sort of mini era, which is of course one era for the Celtics and like 17 different eras of Sixers basketball with MB. It is like the only common denominator. Remember the Ben Simmons era. That was cool. Um,

Look, their team fully formed is that starting five I mentioned, Maxie, Milton, Batum, Harris, Embiid. I assume if they had their druthers, that would be the starting five. The bench, I think, if you ask me, like, we're playing a nine-man rotation. The bench now is probably Oubre. Paul Reed is the backup center. Buddy Heald, because I want to see what Buddy Heald looks like with Embiid. And Kyle Lowry, I think, is probably outplayed campaign. And there are some other guys out there we could make.

mention of like, that's a, that's a really good team. It's dangerous. It's just so much is up in the air, not just about Embiid, but about Melton. Can Batum play every night? But it's, it's obviously a very good team. And Embiid was maybe the best player on earth before he got hurt. I'm just, I'm glad he's coming back. Obviously I love watching him play. I just hope that

You know, obviously, let's see how he looks, right? Like, I hope we don't end up thinking like, oh, he pushed himself and came back and was a shell of himself for a team that lost in the play-in. And they also don't get – if they're going to be in the play-in, they don't get that kind of week off that you get if you're in the top six. And I just want to correct myself a little bit before I said the Heat have won the tiebreaker over the Sixers. Yeah.

It's not technically done yet. The Sixers can tie the season series at two and put conference record in play, but the Heat have a pretty big edging conference record now. I don't really have a lot more to say about this other than

I mean, it's April 1st. He might come back tomorrow. Like that's, I think, earlier than people expected. That's great news. And from what I know of Embiid and his inner circle, like they're not, he's not going to throw caution to the wind. He knows what his injury history is. He knows that he's a very large human being with a history of foot, knee,

all of it. He's careful and he should be careful. His people are careful. If he's ready to come back this soon, that means these five-on-five scrimmages and stuff are going well. Yeah, no doubt about that. But again, be patient. Let's avoid knee-jerk reactions until at least the plan begins, honestly. How he looks for the rest of the regular season is important just because you're trying to figure out

how close he can be to himself. But I think everybody needs to understand what an insanely difficult situation this is for a guy who is that big to be coming off an injury where obviously he couldn't do regular conditioning for weeks. This is a really tough situation and a massive challenge for him.

Arizona football fans, picture this. You bet on your favorite player to score the first touchdown and he throws an awesome block so his teammate can score instead. If this happens, BetMGM wants to give you another chance at the end zone. With BetMGM's Second Chance Promotion, you'll get your stake back if your first touchdown scorer scores second instead.

That's right. Bet on any pro football player to score the first touchdown of the game. If you're right, you win. If your player scores second, you get your stake back in cash. Everyone knows the most exciting part of football is the score. With BetMGM's second chance promotion, you have a chance to keep the fun going after the first player crosses the goal line. Place a first touchdown scorer wager today.

BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. See BetMGM.com for terms. 21 plus only. Arizona only. Existing customer offer. Subject to eligibility requirements. Rewards vary. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP. Church's original recipe is back. You can never go wrong with original. Still tastes the same like back in the day. Right now, get two pieces of chicken starting at only $2.99 or 10 pieces starting at only $10.99. Church's. Offer valid at participating locations.

Let's switch gears and go West. Tim, when Luka Doncic made, I don't know, his fifth step back three over Jock Landale on a switch yesterday in the Mavericks rampaging win in Houston. Do you think...

in the force? Do you think there was a disturbance in the force in Ivica Zubac's life? Do you think somewhere he felt like a shutter down his spine? Because not only was Luka Doncic doing to Jock Landau what he has done against Ivica Zubac a million times on a million different high leverage games. In doing so, he elevated the Mavericks temporarily to number five. They have the tiebreaker over the Pelicans and it is an enormously complicated tiebreaker that comes down to division record, but they're fifth.

and setting up, potentially, if this holds, and who knows if it will hold, a third Clippers-Mavericks first-round series, potentially. They faced off in the bubble, and then in 2021, both were barn burners, both were Luka just raining fire over the world. The Mavericks...

Your hometown Dallas Mavericks are now 45-29, 11-1 in their last 12 games. For the season, they are 6th in offense and 21st in defense. Since the trade deadline, 2nd in offense...

Ninth in defense, the Daniel Gafford, Derek Lively, rim-running, rampaging, dunking everything on your face tag team is dominating at center. They seem to be figuring out the rotation, the right doses of Dante Exum, the right doses of Tim Hardaway Jr., the right doses of Derek Jones Jr.,

how to fit Maxi Kleba in when, if at all, to play him at the five. Luca is making an MVP push. He's at 34 points, 9.8 assists, nine rebounds. The Mavericks are plus five with Luca on the floor for the season minus two without him. And so that was the one sort of nitpick that a lot of people, you know, they're not that much better with Luca on the floor. It's plus four versus plus three. Well, not anymore. This team is absolutely terrifying and they seem to have a very good vibe about them.

What has stuck out to you about this surge and how real do you think it is in terms of, oh, okay. I mean, that net rating I mentioned since the trade deadline is like plus eight per 100 possessions. Like that's a real, that's a dangerous, dangerous, that's like a real contending kind of number.

The thing that stood out to me the most is defense because look, we knew going into the season that they were going to be able to score points if Luke and Kyrie were both healthy. We're talking about two of the very short list best creators in the NBA and the chemistry between them is...

Honestly, the only chemistry issues between them last year were they were deferring to each other too much with the game on the line. But they've gotten better playing off of each other. Luka has embraced playing at a much faster pace. I don't know what the pace numbers are now, but I think they're top 10 in the league, which is a huge, huge change. Again, with those two guys...

Even last year when they were on the floor together, they averaged 119 points per 100 possessions. They just couldn't stop anybody. So it's the defense, the defense, the defense that has been –

most impressive and, to me, most relevant. And the numbers you threw out, I'll do you one better. They are fourth in the league offense, fourth in the league in defense during this 11-1 run. That 11-1 run started immediately after Jason Kidd made a couple of changes to the starting lineup. Remember, they came out, they went into the All-Star break hot.

And then they came out and it was ugly. They lost five of six. Lucas put up 35 point triple doubles. They still aren't, aren't winning games. They were dead last in the league and defense over that six game span. And Jake kid plug Gafford in as a starter, bringing lively off the bench. And I think most relevant to this defensive turnaround, he put Derek Jones jr. Who is their best on ball defender one through four. He's going to get the toughest assignment and,

And bringing Josh Green off the bench. Josh ended up hurting an ankle. But still, that was the major. What do we know about his return date, by the way? He's doing some basketball stuff now. When it originally happened, J. Kidd said at least a couple of weeks. I think he'll probably be back relatively soon, certainly before the end of the regular season.

We'll see how exactly he fits in the rotation. Honestly, we'll see how Hardaway is their best bucket getter off the bench, obviously, but we'll see how he fits because, again, this team's going to be – they haven't even really shot the ball that great from three. They've had some clunky three-point shooting games. When you have Luka and Kyrie, you're going to score points.

But that starting lineup during this, and it's really, it's an 11-game winning streak for the starting lineup. The one game they lost was when Lucas sat out with a little tight hamstring in OKC, which obviously was a minor thing. So it's essentially what we're talking about. It's an 11-game winning streak since J. Kidd changed the starting lineup. And that starting lineup is plus 61 in 120-something minutes. And their defensive rating is in the mid-90s.

I mean, look, I know there's been a couple games against the Jazz in there, Spurs, et cetera. Still, they are. And what they've got now is PJ Washington has actually been an impactful defensive player. And I'll be honest with you.

Did not see that coming. He was part of a horrible defense in Charlotte when they traded for him. Nico Harris and the Mavericks GM in the press conference stopped P.J. from answering a question real quick and kind of called him out and said, we think he can be a much better defensive player than he's shown. I'm challenging him to do that. He's 6'7", long wingspan, athletic. He

He's helped Gafford and Lively. They've got a couple of rim protectors. Lively did leave the one over the Rockets with a leg injury. We'll see what's up with that. But they've got a couple of rim protectors. And then, you know, it's interesting because I said Derek Jones Jr. is their best on ball defender. Dante Exum's second on that list.

And I think their preference would be to start him. And that's what they were going to do going into the new year. He played really well when Kyrie was out for those few weeks. They were sticking with him. He got hurt, came back again, got hurt again. They kind of realized we can't ramp this guy's minutes too far up.

But now they've got Exum, Maxi Kleba, and Derek Lively all coming off the bench. So you've got three good defensive players coming in in that second unit. And again, a starting five that has two superstars and just three really athletic guys that are playing extremely well defensively. And they're also, they can play very big now.

PJ even at the four with a big man. And Luka is a point guard offensively. He's a

Put him on the easiest matchup guy defensively, but he's 6'7", 200, whatever it is, 45, 50, big-time rebounder. When he's engaged defensively, he's competitive as far as you're not going to switch him and take advantage on post-ups and whatnot. He's going to rebound. He can be an outstanding help defender because he's so smart. He's got great hands. They do play Maxie a lot at the four with a big guy.

uh sometimes even with pj washington three they can be they can play very very big which they did a lot of when they were able to beat the nuggets and joker had a a rough night um look you can play great defense on joker and it might not matter and in this one he had an off night but i give the mavericks credit because i thought they played him really well a couple of things about their defensive improvement and these are encouraging things

It's not linked to bad opponent three-point shooting or quote-unquote jump shooting luck. Their opponent three-point shooting has been middle of the pack in this stretch. Opponent mid-range shooting has been cold, but those are a low volume of shots. It's really linked to two things that feel sustainable to me and feel very much linked to the acquisition of Gafford and the decision to play a big center more or less all the time. I mean, they'll play Kleba at the five now and then. We'll get to that. They're 10th in defensive rebounding since the trade deadline. They were 22nd before.

And teams are, they are allowing the third lowest shooting percentage at the rim. Maybe it's a, it might be up to second now during this 11 and one stretch. Those things don't feel like a coincidence to me. Those, those things feel like real sustainable parts of their defense and they do everything else pretty well. Defensively. You mentioned Exum who's shooting 50 something percent on threes, 50, not 40 something 50. It's a five. It starts with a five. Now it's a low volume, but still Jones, uh,

And it just feels like in turning Kleba at the five from a...

part of their rotation. Like this is like a big, we're going to play a huge amount of minutes this way to kind of an ace in the hole change up. I think that's been the correct way to find the best two way balance on their team and between Exum and Jones. And we'll see what Josh green brings. They've found the right sort of placeholder wings and forwards to a, um,

sort of make sure you have enough good defenders on the floor at all times. Like I'm not sure how much they can play the Luca Kyrie, Tim Hardaway, junior trio in big games, although the numbers have been okay. And honestly, or Josh, or Josh green, even though he's athletic, he's, he's struggled defensively and be, um,

They just have not played Washington, Kaliba, and a center altogether too much. I think they think that might be too big and too slow. And so they found these sort of right gap fillers to prevent either one of those lineup types from being too big a part of their team. It feels like a very well-balanced good team. They're plus eight per 100 possessions now with Kyrie and Luka on the floor. They're positive in the Luka-only minutes and the Kyrie-only minutes. And you nailed it. Like,

Their chemistry together is one of the happiest basketball stories of the season. They have met in the middle stylistically in almost every way. Luca has adapted to Kyrie's pace. He's throwing hit passes. He's running the floor. And Kyrie has basically been like, you're the guy. You'll cook and I'll be over here on the other side. Maybe I'll come set a screen for you. I'll move off the ball. When you're ready to kick it to me, like I'm going to do some damage because you've bent the defense. There's holes everywhere. I'm going to go through them. And...

Their two-man game, you know, it's off and on, but when they do it, it's really good. And it's just – they're just – I wouldn't want to face this team. I don't care if I'm the Clippers, the Pelicans, the Thunder, the Wolves. The Nuggets are a different story. Jamal Murray, I don't think, played that game that they beat – or did he play that game that they beat the Nuggets in? Yeah, he did. He actually had a not great shooting game, got hot. Oh, that's right. They went on the big comeback, and just before Kyrie's crazy 21-foot –

Made it look smooth, southpaw hook. Jamal Murray. Oh, duh. Yeah, that's that game. Yeah. Pretty clean, a really clean look from about 14 feet. That's right. I talked about this whole game with Moe Dekeo last week that I kind of liked that shot for Jamal Murray even though it left some time, some meat on the bone, so to speak, for the crazy Kyrie shot. This team is, look, you and I talked about this after the trade deadline.

The risk was all about the future, the future beyond Luka's current contract. And even, you know, assuming Luka resigns, happy times, all that, like, you know, unprotected pick swap went out the door for Gafford. And then Grant Williams and a top two protected first round pick went out the door for PJ Washington. Obviously an unprotected pick swap with San Antonio went out the door for Grant Williams. It's just a lot of stuff out the door. There was no argument that,

From me, from you, from anybody, particularly from me, that this was not going to help them this season. It was very clear they had made their team better now, better next season. The whole wager was, A, can we shore up that future? And if we can, if Luka's coming back, like those picks we don't care too much about. B...

Are we that much better today that this is all really worth it? They are, they have reached a level that I did. I knew they were going to be better. I didn't think they would be this much better, but,

The bill is going to come due on those trades, but Gafford has brought more than I anticipated. I liked P.J. Washington. I was telling teams on this podcast, telling teams privately, like someone's got to go get P.J. Washington out of Charlotte. This is just a really good team, man. And they swept – we should mention they swept the baseball series with the Kings last week and over the weekend. And in that baseball series, Malik Monk suffered a knee injury that is going to end his season unless the Kings advance in the playoffs. Yeah.

Kevin Herter's already injured. Trey Lyles thankfully came back. Just a tough series of breaks for the Kings who look very much like they're going to have to gut their way through probably the top half of the play. And at least they keep finding ways to win some of these games. It's just a bad weekend for the Kings. But these Mavs, man...

4-5 against the Clippers, 3-6 against whoever, 4-5 against the Pelicans. That's just a bloodbath all the way around. But the way Luka is playing and the way Kyrie is playing, and that, by the way, you mentioned ridiculous shots. That scoop shot last night from 22 feet out or whatever it was, was one of the rudest things I've ever seen anybody do in a basketball game. It was a beautiful up-and-under scoop that typically you see guys execute.

From the block, you know, in the paint. He did it with the threat of a step back three and then stepped through and scooped it up. Very rude. Those guys. Very rude. The shots they hit. And like, look, you know, with the shot that Kyrie hit to beat the Nuggets, you know, Michael Williams basically like, look, a left-handed hook from beyond the elbow. Like, what are you going to do? You know?

But if anybody makes that shot, it's Kyrie. And then second on the list might be Luka. I mean, they've got two of the best tough shot makers that we've ever seen. And again, offense was never, ever, ever going to be the concern. The fact that they've made so much progress defensively. And, you know, as far as the trade deadline goes, like the price of Luka's

Happiness is whatever you got to pay. But the thing is, his happiness can be fleeting. It can be temporary. And he definitely was excited about the moves to the deadline. If they hadn't worked out, they'd have had some... If the Mavericks would have kind of played at a 500-ish level, been a playing team, and not put up much of a fight in the first round, it...

Might not have been real pretty. They're rolling and he's got every right to feel like, hey, we've got something to cook in. And the risk there was always the worst case scenario risk. And basically you make the moves to try to avoid the worst case scenario. But by making the moves, you make the potential worst case scenario even worse.

But if Luke is here in 27, if he's here in 28, you know, you're not so worried about what the, you know, what the draft capital is at that point. Cause you ought to be pretty damn good with last season being a notable exception to that. With the guy who's a top five player, who's making a run for MVP right now. This is not like a guy who's like, Oh, maybe he's the 10th or 11th best player, man. Obviously this guy is one of the guys in the world. Yeah.

And one of the things, by the way, I love about the acquisition of Gafford, and I've written about this over the years, like for all the attention Luka gets as someone who sets up threes and he's among the best ever to do it.

Yes. He has always seemed to really love the challenge of setting guys up at the rim. Like he loves to like manipulate and wait and wait and try to get that help defender at the rim to maybe take a half step out to the corner to open up the lob. He loves like high risk, high reward lob passes and just a little ball fakes that he has inside where he fakes a shot or fakes it behind the back pass to try and set. He has always loved

For all the attention on the threes, he has always played like someone who understands the dunk and the layup is still the best shot, and I want to hunt that until I can't hunt it anymore and the only thing left is a kickout pass. The other thing is defensively, just something that struck me in the Houston game from last night,

that shows kind of the level of engagement. When you saw Houston running pick and roll with two shooters on one side and one shooter on the other side, two shooters often on the strong side, one shooter on the weak side, typically you're supposed to help from the weak side. The Mavs were so dialed in. They were like, we're helping from the strong. We're helping from whatever side has two shooters, even if it's the strong side, because it's easier for us to guard two guys with one versus the

not having anyone if we help off the one shooter, just a good level of engagement defensively from everybody involved. This is a, this is a team. Here's where we are. This is a team that a month ago was like, eh, probably going to be a play in team underdog in the first round, like blah, blah. This is now a team that can re can make the conference finals. I don't beyond that. You just have to, it's going to be matchup health, by the way, could still lose in the first round. I mentioned Clippers, Pelicans, all wolves. All these teams are amazing. This team is good enough to,

to win two playoff series i do think they would probably need to avoid denver to do that because denver is on another level when they're healthy but that's that's the ceiling though i think that's that's the reality i don't know if it's a ceiling it's the reality yeah and and you know as far as gaffer goes a big part of that was luca's at his best when he's got a lob threat he's been hammering on the mavericks for a year i mean he even said after the deadline he's been trying to get

them to get that lob threat for years. They had one who was 19 years old, just turned 20 during the season and lively. And now they've got another one who's 25. That's the other thing with Washington Gafford. Both of those guys are 25 years old, so they could both be long-term fits. But Luka running pick and roll with a lob threat is as terrifying as anything because there's no good answers. If he's hitting his step back,

There are no answers. None. There's just no way to stop this guy when he's in a rhythm knocking down that three. The playoff matchup thing is interesting. First of all, you don't know who's going to be there in the three. You don't. You might not know until the end of the day, and I believe their last game is against the Thunder. It is.

Even if you wanted to try to manipulate to, let's say, stay on the other side of the bracket from the Nuggets, I don't think that might not be possible. You might end up being better off, arguably, as a sixth than as a five. But that's something you won't know. And I don't know. Let me ask you this. Just hypotheticals. Let's say the three is Oklahoma City or Minnesota.

Would you be better off seeing one of those teams in the first round with you're on the other side of the bracket from the Nuggets or seeing the Clippers in the first round? Whew.

Can you come back to me on that one in a week? Based just on how they've been playing lately, it's not much of an argument. Can I move to the East instead? I know. But the Clippers, they've still got Kawhi Leonard. They've still got Paul Storrs. They look a little better. They squeaked out that game in Orlando on Friday. I thought that was actually a good game. I thought they played with some juice in that game. They blew out the Hornets less. The Hornets stink. We'll see how they play this week.

I think I'd rather take my chances. I don't know. I think if Denver is going to be one, I'd rather take my chance. Give me a new opponent. I've done the Clippers thing. Give me a new opponent. Maybe I get Minnesota without Towns. Although that leads me to my next question to McMahon. Are you ready?

I am. By the way, another thing on their defense, speaking of Lively and Gafford, I love Lively. I love his toughness. They're also blitzing with those guys every once in a while to change up looks, and those guys are fast enough to do it. It's just been interesting to see the pieces together. Okay, here's my question for you. Take your pick of these three scenarios. The Atlanta Hawks are 10-8-0.

Since Trey Young's injury. Eighth in offense. 19th in defense, which doesn't sound like much. They were last. I was going to say that. I would say, let's just say drastically improved. 19th, 19th, 19th. Without Trey Young. Just swept the Celtics in a home and home and not a home and home, a home, home, home, home. The Minnesota Timberwolves are eight and four since Carl Anthony Towns injury. 17th in offense. Fifth in defense.

The Houston Rockets are 9-1 since Alper and Shingun went out with his injury. Two of those wins came against the Wizards. Two of them came against the Jazz. One of them came against the Spurs. One of them came against the Blazers. One of them came against the Thunder without SGA, although the Thunder also beat the Suns without SGA. So make up that what you will. Which of those three scenarios, Mr. McMahon, is most telling or interesting to you going forward?

I'll actually rank them for you. Ooh, look at you. Hawks minus Trey, numero uno. Rockets minus Shingun, dos. Wolves minus Cat, trace. So in that order. So I would rank them. My interest rankings would go like this. Actually, they were very different. So we'll start with Minnesota because I would rank Minnesota one.

I would rank the Hawks two only because like, I know the Murray young thing doesn't work. Like I already knew. I know it's interesting that they've been, they've like tread water. They've been just treading water the whole season, the water they're like almost drowning, whatever they're treading water and whatever. And then Shen Gu and I would rockets out rank three. So let's focus on Minnesota. Why do you have that rank of as the least interesting of these three situations? Because the,

it also like that that was by far the best of those teams with Cat Cat was contributing I don't think there's any need from a basketball standpoint it's not like you gotta say well

Is it, you know, is it cat versus ant? No, like they coexist just fine. It's ants team cat has slid into the second option role very comfortably. You know, he's fit. Obviously they're protecting him defensively, but they've been the number one defense team.

in the league all season long. I think the most interesting thing there is if they are in a situation where this ownership mess leads to them being forced to cut money, you know, maybe you look at that and say, Hey, we can move cat in a financial deal and not totally destroy our chances to be a really good team still. But again, if, if cats moved, again,

It's because they have to dump salary. It's not because the Wolves are playing well without him because they played awfully well with him. So that's kind of my thought process on that one. So you kind of explained why I have it at number one where, look, when Cat went down, I said, I think this team can win a round without Cat or without Cat at like 90%, maybe with like a limited Cat, and that's it. Like I don't think they can win two rounds without him. They've been better –

And more similar than I thought they would be to the team they were with Cat. I mentioned 17th in offense, 5th in defense. That's like essentially what they've been, like mediocre offense, elite defense. And their schedule has not been easy. They have some quality wins and some quality losses, including overtime against Cleveland and a buzzer shot miss against Denver without any of their big guys in the Denver game.

It's not a quality loss, but go on. No. Well, and, but it also that Chicago loss is at home is the first loss that

Of the type that I thought they would have more of without Cat, which is, oh, their offense is just completely stuck in the mud without his shooting and his ability to just like, oh, he just went off for 35 tonight. Like they just don't have like I thought their ceiling was just going to be so much lower game to game without his offense. They've just been so tough and together. And Mike Conley, what a goddamn season for Mike Conley, who just cannot miss a three lately. He's really stepped up.

But, you know, look, I still I'm going to stick by my they can't win more than a round without Kat. But if they can convince themselves internally that, hey, we just give Kat's role to Nas Reed, we trade Kat for all this other stuff that we can get back and we get out of this financial situation. Like the longer the database goes of like, hey, we're pretty good without Kat.

The more you at least have to put that scenario like on the map. I just think Cat is such a spectacular offensive player that they're going to miss him more than this. You mentioned the ownership situation earlier.

I mean, the amount of – can these guys stop doing interviews? Did they go on every – I never want to discourage people from doing interviews and making themselves look like fools. Did they go on every podcast? Is there a podcast left in the Twin Cities area that one of these, like Mark, Lori, Glenn, Taylor, or A-Rod didn't go on and trash the other one? Oh, my God. It's a mess. The wolves are just incredible. And so you have that hovering over it. That's why it's number one to me.

The Rockets thing, this is all gravy. They're just too young to come to any conclusions about their team, and they were starting to win without Shen Goon. And the Hawks won. It's like, okay, DeJounte plus Trey equals mediocre. One of the other equals mediocre. I just got to trade one and probably just trade whoever gets me the most stuff in the offseason. So it's not that interesting, but they're all interesting. So to me, the Hawks thing is interesting because –

It's only recently there have been legitimate, you know, whatever, I mean, think how I want to phrase this, rumblings about the possibility of Trae Young actually being traded. Like only recently has that been something that you would even think would be a consideration for the Hawks. Not people yelling into microphones that maybe they ought to consider, but you think it might be a realistic consideration.

And I think this pushes that into the relatively likely scenarios. And I do think that's a potential massive shift. And like a young trade, that's going to be a blockbuster type of deal if it happens. And I can think of one scenario. I have no idea what the thinking is on the other side of it as far as

interest, but I can think of one scenario where we would spend a whole lot of time talking about it if that happens. Crypto.com arena is right outside my window. That's not even the scenario I'm talking about. Oh, whoa. That's not even me. Oh, Wemby. Wemby. There you go. There you go. If that, I mean, and look, those aren't you. So you're right. I can think of two scenarios where we'd spend a whole lot of time talking about it. And

I've addressed both of those on previous episodes. They're both interesting. Let's put it that way. Very interesting. So to me, this seemingly increasing the likelihood of Trey Young being traded this summer is fascinating because fit-wise, where he might be moved –

Just saying it, my, my eyes would be glued to those situations. Well, it's a really interesting choice for the Hawks. And I do think it's a choice that now they, they just, they just have to make, because if there is no qualitative difference between any iteration of their teams to, or either one of the guards, you just have to find a way to recoup what you traded for Murray, no matter what path you take. It's interesting in the sense that they, and maybe exactly what you traded for Murray. Well, um, maybe, um,

It's interesting because, look, DeJounte's on one right now. I think he's averaging like 28, 29 a game since Trey went down and just shot a million times against the Celtics. I was going to say shots or points. Yeah, both of them. He's on one. I think what's painful for the Hawks to contemplate is, look, the Luka thing is a sunk cost. You know what you traded to get Trey, and that's just the reality. But I do think the highest ceiling for the Hawks in the next three years is –

Trey is just a spectacular offensive player. I think he's probably just a better player than DeJounte Murray. The highest ceiling is keep Trey young. Trey buys in to an acceptable level on defense, which he almost did this year. He got a little better defensively this year, which is, again, he's one of the most harmful defense players in the league. It's not a surprise that their defenses jump from 30th to acceptable without him.

But he buys in. He just shifts his game 10% in all the ways we've talked about him shifting his game 10%. He's never going to shift it too much. That's fine. You want the ball in his hands. A little more off-ball movement, a little more screening, a little more running around, a little more defense. You trade DeJounte for a bundle of stuff. You reorient the team that way. That feels like the highest ceiling next three years.

It's certainly kind of more exciting than like, oh, DeJounte Murray, one-time All-Star. Like we're going to build everything around him and Jalen Johnson, who's awesome. But you can probably get more for Trae Young than you can get for DeJounte Murray. So it's just going to come down to what's available and what appetite you have as a franchise for which player you prefer, which player Quinn Snyder prefers. But I do think...

This is, it's just clear. Like one of them should be traded. I was going to say, if they could have traded the John D. Murray for a bundle of stuff, he'd be wearing a different uniform right now. It's not like they had any shortage of, of effort on that front before the deadline. So, you know, maybe that changes the summer. Obviously there's teams that will have more picks available to move this summer than they did at the deadline, all those kinds of things. I just think even with all the flaws that everybody talks about with Trey young, um,

There will be a higher market for him. And honestly, look, sometimes you get a situation where it's probably just time for a guy to get a fresh start somewhere. And from afar, it feels like that for Trae Young and Eliana. And look, if I get – I'm just making this up. If I get not only picks –

in a prospect of some kind, but I get a player of the ilk of Austin Reeves or of the ilk of – I'm just not sure what player I'm getting from the Spurs that would make me that excited. I mean, like I don't think you're getting Vassell, so you'd probably – No, no. Vassell is not – Vassell is untouchable in a Trae Young trade for me if I'm San Antonio. I agree. I think that would be more about draft capital than like –

The player you're getting back. Yeah. I just, if I got a player that I could put next to John Day Murray and Jalen Johnson, be like, this is another building block. Not as good maybe as those guys, but really good. That is interesting to me. But anyway, then the Shingun thing is, is fascinating to me because here the Rockets have after three really painful years of rebuilding, they've got a ton of young talent and they've done a great job of, uh,

that young talent. When you're in a total rebuild, you don't necessarily worry about fit. You just get all the talent you can. And they're getting to the point where you really start factoring in fit. And I just saw the Rockets. I was there for that game in Oklahoma City. And the guy who I'm hearing the most excitement about is Amon Thompson. And then obviously, Jalen Green cooled off last night when they had their win streak broken by the Mavericks. But he's been on a crazy heater. And more...

When I'm talking to people from other teams about the Rockets, I'm hearing a lot of questions of how much of that is because the floor is opened up without Shingun on the floor. And Thompson's basically playing the five for them on center. How much can he exist with Shingun? So you're hearing a lot of those kind of things. And the other thing that the Rockets did with the Harden deal, they have unprotected draft assets.

From the Nets, so I said this on the Hoop Collective, I did get a little bit of pushback, but essentially, the Rockets can take a big swing in the trade market. And there would be a good young player in that deal, and there would be picks in that deal. But again, I think they're at the point, or they're getting close to the point at least, where...

how the pieces they really like fit together is going to potentially drive some decisions that they make. I will say the same thing about this, as I said about Jalen Green ahead of the trade deadline. Be very careful, Houston Rockets, going too soon on one of these guys. For me...

it look i unless you're gonna name me a top 15 player in the league who's under 27 years old to me i'm like i just need more information about all these dudes

I'm too high on them as far as what their potential is to move them for a good but not great player. Even like a top 30 player. Like Jalen Green's got too much potential. Shen Goon's got too much potential. I don't know what some of these other guys are going to be yet. We've barely seen Cam Whitmore in the scheme of things. We've barely seen Amin Thompson, who's like an absolute world beater defensively and on the glass and is a great passer. Barely seen him. Haven't seen him much with Shen Goon.

you know, Tari Eason, who I love has missed most of the season. Like I just need more,

I don't know why there's this seeming rush to just not let it marinate. They already got Fred VanVleet and Dylan Brooks. I don't feel some urgency to rush this if I'm them. I understand there are financial decisions looming. I can't pay all of these guys the 25% max or whatever they're going to get after their rookie deals, but I don't need to worry so much about that now. I don't know what this... And to be clear, none of this would be for...

a very good player. It would have to be a bona fide, big time star that if they're going to do this sort of a deal, I'm just saying that, you know, I, I think they will continue to aggressively explore what those options might be. Um, but like, this is not for, um, Cal bridges. And, um,

Look, whatever happened before the deadline, the Rockets version of the story and the reported version of the story are different. Nobody's wearing polygraphs, I can say that. But my understanding is their conversations with Brooklyn about Macau bridges were basically like, hey, would you be interested in discussing bridges? No, absolutely not.

into that conversation. It didn't get to, here's the players that would be in the deal, that sort of thing. Like you can assume green would have come up if it would have progressed to that point. I was told it did not progress to that point.

Take that with a grain of salt, you know, for what it's worth, whatever you want to say. But that's what I was told. That's what he said. She said. Clutch the Bear said. The deceased Brooklyn Knight said. Mikhail Prokhorov said. I know he doesn't know the team anymore. That's a whole mess. I'll say this. I think there are a couple. I think there are. You know what? I think Jalen Greene.

I think teams missed the boat. Some teams should have gone all in to just test the Rockets' willingness on Jalen Green. And I think there are multiple teams who had the ability and the willingness to at least explore it and didn't, and I think they all regret it. All right, Tim McMahon, you got to go. I got to go do some NBA today with Malika Andrews. Thank you for your time and your insight on all things NBA. You're the best. Thank you, sir. Appreciate you. Adios, amigo.

This episode is brought to you by Allstate. Some people just know they could save hundreds on car insurance by checking Allstate first. Like, you know to check you have the tickets in your wallet first before you drive two hours to the big game.

Seriously, you had one job. Now the closest you'll get to the 50-yard line is parking lot D. Yeah, checking first is smart. So check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds. You're in good hands with Allstate. Savings vary. Terms apply. Allstate Fire and Casualty Insurance Company & Affiliates, Northbrook, Illinois.

Ryan Reynolds here for, I guess, my 100th Mint commercial. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, honestly, when I started this, I thought I'd only have to do like four of these. I mean, it's unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month. How are there still people paying two or three times that much? I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim blaming here. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash save whenever you're ready. For

$45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes. See details. All right, let's bring on one of my favorite guests for one of my favorite episodes of the year. Nobody knows improvement and gets into improvement, the granular details of improvement and the big picture mindset kind of improvements like a coach. Like a coach who has devoted his life to training young players from high school to college to the pros to

David Thorpe, my former colleague at ESPN, of True Hoop fame, of Basketball is Jazz by the Book fame, just reminded me that he once trained Demetri Hill, the meat hook who we were reminiscing about because NC State has my new favorite basketball player in the world. If I were a GM, David Thorpe,

I would be a horrible GM. I would be so horrible. I would be swayed by my heart. I would be like Kevin Costner in draft day. And I would have a little index card in my pocket that says, no matter what DJ Burns Jr. Number one pick or whatever his name is. I love that guy. How are you, sir? I am great. And yes, the NC State guy impressed me. I coached him each for four years in high school, but

But Zach, my boy Ryan Pannone is coaching Alabama very hard with Nate Oates. He is in the Final Four. He's like my son. So the Final Four was a special weekend for me. I normally don't watch college much, but other than my son. I'll tell you, I had some friends over Friday night. They didn't want to watch NBA basketball, so I had to catch up on all the games the next morning, which is fine. They wanted to watch March Madness, and that was my first extended look.

at this kid from NC State, and I'm all in. I want them to win the national championship. I don't care. I don't even know who they're playing. I don't know what's going on, and I don't know anybody else on their team. I just love that dude. Okay, we do this every year. We get our very long lists. Here's mine. This is all the names on it for most improved player of the year. Then I ask you to whittle it down to ballpark 10. You're like 10 finalists.

And this is always the hardest award to give out because you have guys who you could give it to a star who becomes a superstar, something that you've been passionate about before, like these guys at the upper echelon, Sheldon.

should be in the conversation. Then at the other end, you have, I think the archetype closest to this archetype this year is Peyton Watson, a guy who goes from like basically not playing at all to holding down a key rotation role. They're almost more like rookies than improved players because of their lack of experience. And then in between them, you've got a whole continuum of candidates. This is actually one of the most open fields that I can remember where

I think partly because of the 65 game rule that I'm not sure should really apply to the, it doesn't feel like it fits the spirit of this award. It doesn't apply to six man of the year because it doesn't really fit the spirit of that award either. Um,

Jalen Johnson would have been my choice. He's not going to be eligible because he's not going to get to 65 games. So I'm just going to seed the floor to you. You start wherever you want. I don't know if you ranked your guys, if you just have a bundle, if there's guys you're passionate about, but give me name number one and we'll see. I have my vague list of 10. We'll see how much overlap we got. Yeah. So just very quickly, I had third, my list doesn't look as deep as yours. I had 31 total. I got it down to 11. Uh,

that are qualified as to what you just described. And just very quickly, I ended up doing it. It worked out this way, kind of like a little bit of tears. I don't normally do it this way. I've got three guys, what I call below average to good. I thought you were going to say a little bit of tears because it just hurt you so much to separate them. I was a little worried for a second. Not emotional about this at all. I've got three guys in what I call average to great or at least very good. One guy went good to great, in my opinion, and four...

I think it's the hardest jump of all, which is great to elite or in one case, elite to uber elite or whatever, Superman. So if you want, I'll start on the bottom with my below average to good. And I'll start with Aaron Neesmith from Indiana.

who I've got to find my notes on all these guys. Listen, I watch the Pacers a lot. He's become one of their – he's really their wing guy. Nembhard, who was an honorable mention for me, guards their best guards. Neesmith is guarding Giannis and LeBron and those guys. Last year he was bad. His estimated plus-minus on dunks and threes was minus 1.8. He's now a plus 1.3. He's one of the more feared shooters, catch-and-shoot guys in the game.

He really improved a lot defensively. That's where I think people forget sometimes, Zach. He was not a good defensive player last year. It was just a couple years ago where he was getting mop-up time with Boston. And I don't know if he'd make it. Well, he's made it. His true shooting percentage has improved. Really, everything's improved. He's a legit player. He's starting on a playoff team. I didn't necessarily project that for him. I'm not sure he really... I mean, he was hoping to hang on the league. He got a nice deal with Indiana. He

he's paying off for them. He's, he's on my list. So long time listeners of this podcast will know that I bought a condo on Aaron Neesmith Island when values were at an all time low and he wasn't playing in Boston. And I was, I even asked him about this during the conference finals against Miami when I ran into him in person with his agent. I was like, how are you not? I don't understand what's going on here. He's on my long list.

Not sure he would crack my top eight, but you nailed it. You outlined it. The shooting is a game changer. And I think one thing that can't be underestimated for a candidate like Neesmith and some other guys is the jump from doing this. The stats are what they are. Like in a vacuum, they're impressive. But the jump from doing it as a backup against backups is...

to a starter against starters is really, really big. And he deserves a huge amount of praise. And between him, Siakam, Miles Turner, Nembhard, and with Buddy Heald gone and Matherin hurt, although Matherin I think is an okay defender and should become a good one.

They're quietly developing into like a passable defensive team with a little bit of an identity and a toughness and kind of handsiness on that end, which makes them, depending on who they draw in the first round, a little bit of a scary first round opponent. Okay, give me another name from this bucket of...

What did we call it? Average to good? Below average to good. Below average to good. To reinforce your point, I didn't focus as much on counting stats as I did winning possessions. Ultimately, people think I'm a skill developer. No, I'm a game developer. We're trying to help guys win games. That's how they get paid.

So I've got really one of the most surprising ones. People think Max Shrews is this great shooter from Miami. No, he was like 35. Isaac Okoro shot better than him last year when he was in Miami. And

He has become an excellent defensive player. Everyone always knew he was an athlete. I don't think people realize he could really defend. This year he's doing it, although Cleveland is thinking pretty good. Max is doing well, obviously. His shooting's about the same. That's what's kind of surprising. People thought, well, I guess if he's going to be in the MIP running, and I'm not predicting who's going to get votes for stuff. I'm not smart enough for that. But he's...

He's become a winning player. He was a minus 3.3, Zach. Minus 3.3 in EPM to plus 2.2. That's a jump you almost never see, quite frankly. He got so much better defensively. He was in the fourth percentile last year in defense. Fourth, meaning 96% were better. He's...

Top 10, top 5% in defense this year. We know what he does athletically. He's improved in all sorts of ways. His assist rate's gone up. He's more of a playmaker now. And that's how you win possessions. You make the easy play on offense. You guard your position well defensively. You're there. You're an available helper. You know how to execute the game plan. Until they really turned south recently, they were an elite defensive team. And he was a big part of that story. So he was my biggest surprise to make the list.

Well, and he's, you know, you mentioned that they're under 500 in like their last 22 games. It's close, but they've definitely hit a little bit of a roll. And guys have been in and out of the lineup and trying to find their rhythm again. Donovan Mitchell just came back over the weekend, looked okay, like not like Donovan Mitchell yet.

Struis is really like one of those glue guys who, because he doesn't need the ball but can do stuff with it, to your point, because he's a roving shooting threat and because he's tough and plays above his size on defense, he kind of rounds out a lot of the edges of some of their lineups, their best lineups, their starting lineup. And he's on my long list. Another guy who's on my short list, I might as well just bring him up now, my list of 10, where the improvement is less in the stats,

And more in the substance and style is his old teammate in Miami, Duncan Robinson, who you wouldn't look at his stats and be like, Oh, I mean, he's averaged this amount of points more or less before he's shot well from three before, but,

He's never gotten to the rim, gotten in the paint, worked off the dribble with this kind of frequency and this kind of skill level. And both of these guys, because of the new roles they have on their team, Duncan Robinson's role being new-ish in part because Max Schroos is gone to Cleveland, have kind of had to change the way they've played and do more stuff for their teams and discovered because of the threat of our shooting that

it effectively makes us much better off the dribble players than our dribbling skills and our speed do in a vacuum because these guys have to press us all over the floor and they're easy prey for us to get by. I think what Duncan Robinson has done getting into the paint and driving is like almost a stylistic approach

Overhaul is too strong a word, but he's... Did he make your list at all? Was he anywhere in there? He didn't because I didn't go into my filters. One of my filters, the obvious one, is playing games played. That's an NBA filter. One of mine was you can't have done this before and make it like... Daniel Gafford made my honorable mention list. He's been good before, but...

But it wasn't for a good team. And what he's done in Dallas, I think, is pretty obvious. It's huge. But if Duncan's had similar impact seasons, not last year necessarily, but my brother Mike, who's a radiologist out of Miami, has worked for the Heat for many years in many respects,

has been pounding me, Zach, to write an article on Duncan Robinson and what you just described. He is a different player. My brother watches all the games. He is such a different player. So I love that. I love that these guys expanded their game. Ironically, it's true to the same thing. It's just a good movement to another location to do it. All right. Dig out of this bucket again. Let's keep going. I like this. This is fun. My third guy below average to good.

I don't know if he'll make your list or not, but he's a favorite of mine. If you watch the Spurs play, you can't take your eyes off Victor. But if you're not paying attention to what 23-year-old Devin Vassell is doing, you're missing the boat. I don't think you are missing the boat. But Devin, when the Spurs are relevant, he's going to be their Chris Middleton.

He can create his own shot. I love that comp. I've said it since he was in college. I watched him a lot when he was in college. He gets a really high extension on his jumper. He leans back some. He's learned to be a playmaker. He was projected to be a defensive player. He's only now starting to really do that. It helps fairly enough to have the 7'4 guy behind you.

But he was a bad player last year. He's only plus 1.3 this year. His shooting is about the same. He's scoring more. He's so much better as a playmaker and at the rim. And that's something I think a lot of people will be surprised with. It's hard to finish at the rim. Everyone just assumes, oh, you can't let him go to the rim. A lot of guys don't make a lot of shots down there. Like when LaMelo's a rookie, he made like 52% at the rim. He's still making 52% at the rim, by the way, when he plays, which is never –

Right. It's true. It's hard. We coach our young guys a lot on, I call it the first box. You can't just drive into the first box and expect to score in this league. You just can't do it. There's either a crowd there or some footer there or both. Devin's so much better at that. But you just mentioned something about Duncan. Devin's

Devin's a very, very, I don't know Devin, but he's a very joyous person. And the Spurs were not having fun for a long time. And I even know Victor was getting frustrated. People around the team could see it. I think Devin's, he's a culture builder. He can't, he is such a decent, joyous person who's become a hell of a player. And so I think they make that jump next year, especially to make a couple of moves.

And Victor is the man. But Devin's going to be right there. And in the playoffs, when teams are surrounding their best player, Devin's going to have to make a tough 15-footer in traffic, and he can do it. And this year, to me, is the foundation he's building. We're going to notice it next year a lot.

The tough 15 footer was there before this season. And he is on my list, by the way. And I talked to him before the season because he was in my column, my five most intriguing players for the upcoming season. He was one of them. I remember. And we talked about his low rate at getting to the rim and his massively high rate of shooting long twos. Right. And he said to me, like, I know about it. I know I got to work on it.

And to your point about it being harder than you think, I would just get to the rim, get to the rim. He talked to me about how like you get in there and it's like, oh my God, these guys are huge. And he said to me, like, I'm just going to have to go for it sometimes. Like sometimes when it's a little uncomfortable, I'm just going to have to go and try and dunk on people. It might not work out all the time. The playmaking is ratcheted up and he's going to be a great secondary playmaker for them.

I like the Middleton comp almost for as a backhanded – in a backhanded way for exactly what you just said of he came into the league projected as like this 3 and D stopper type thing.

And I'm not sure the stopper thing is ever really going to get there. Like he's been a below average defender. He's a little better this year. I've been kind of disappointed by his defense and Middleton was the same way where I don't think he was ever quite as good as his reputation on defense, particularly guarding up in size, which is the same issue that Vassell has. But I love Devin Vassell as a player. I said from the day he signed that contract and people were like, what, how much like that's going to be a good contract. He's a good player. He's a winning player. And yeah,

Of all the other spurs around Wemba Nyama, he is by a metric ton the best fit long term around him, the easiest fit long term around him. I can't wait to see what they do this summer because Wemba Nyama is just insane. I mean, there's no other word for it. Okay, keep going. I like this bucket.

Okay, so... Last one. We got one more here? No, now we get to my average to great or at least very good. And in this grouping is the guy, if I had to vote, I think I'd vote him to win it. Okay. So I'll lead with him. Yeah. I got... I think you called him J-Dub. I have Jalen Williams. His jump from really average last year to...

Obviously such a terrific player. I think the metrics probably speak for themselves. He's in the 94th percentile on dunks and threes. After last year being the 67th at minus 0.3. The jump he's made offensively, he's done the same thing defensively. I think he's playing out of position and still doing it. His assist percentage is up compared to last year where his turnovers are down. He's in the 96th percentile on three-point shooting.

At 43%, that's pretty stunning. The three-point shooting, by the way, is crazy because there wasn't a ton in his track record that suggested he would get to this level this quickly. And you watch the Thunder. These are not easy threes. A lot of these are pull-up threes against – and he's just –

Anyway, continue. So I had an agent call me when he was at Santa Clara asking me. It was a West Coast guy. I said, hey, have you ever heard of this kid? I said, no. He said, I have a chance to recruit him. I don't know. I don't know if he's good enough for the NBA. He's not on the mock draft boards. Well, you watched one film and I swear I called him five minutes into this synergy film and said, he's a lottery pick. Are you kidding me? He's like lottery pick.

I said, he's going to blow out the draft situation. This guy's a lottery pick. Recruit him. He didn't sign him, but he started recruiting hard right away. But I didn't predict this. And one of the interesting things about him is, so when he's paired with SGA, they're plus 5.5, which leads the team.

I won't read the list. I think you have eight different combinations that are better. There's only, I think, one, two, three, four. There's eight combinations better. They're the world's greatest players. And then there's SGA and Jalen Williams. And that's what kind of did it for me because of what the team has done. I thought their hit front would be better last year. They won their 42nd game, whatever, this year months ago.

which is more than what they won all of last year. So to me, that's the biggest thing. They're, as we are recording this, the number one seed with a rookie at center and a little dude at point guard that is pretty good, Lou Dort, obviously, an Australian that's just now starting to play pretty well. How are they doing it? They have maybe the world's best player right now. We wrote an article about that and Jalen Williams. So for that, I gave him my top billing. I don't really care, but that's what I thought anyway. How about you?

He's on my short list. I don't have a vote this year. He will be an interesting test case of the second year thing where a lot of voters are like, well, second year you're supposed to improve. I'm not going to give it to a second year guy.

because the substance of his improvement, I mean, forget that his points are up five a game, assists are up almost two a game, his shooting is through the roof, his turnovers are down and his usage is up. And by the way, that's an underrated part of this equation. It's why Jalen Brunson should be in the conversation at a higher level. It's why you could make a case for SGA if you wanted to at a higher level to assume a bigger burden. And in this case,

a number two option burden who is becoming almost SGA's co-partner in crunch time. Like when the game is on the line, he's as big a part of the team as SGA is almost not quite an SGA just buried the Knicks yesterday with the last second shot, but J Dub buried them before that going 14 of 18, I think from the floor. Um,

to do that on an elite team where you're getting the other team's best shot every night and by the way to defend whoever the hell they need them to defend and like as much as Lou Dort gets praised for being the stopper on that team and he's elite when they run into a power forward who's a problem it's J Dub who guards that guy because he's bigger and longer than Lou Dort is and

And he can guard anybody. I just think he is. I hesitate to say that because the West is always so crowded. This may be the last year he doesn't make an all-star team. Like he's that good. Maybe one more year. You mentioned the Thunder are now the number one seed. Part of the reason they are the number one seed, and obviously this is going to come down to the wire between them

and Denver and Minnesota is over the weekend. They absolutely destroyed the suns without SGA in Oklahoma city in a game that the suns needed to win. Ironically, the,

The landscape for the play-in has changed a little bit over the weekend. Dallas has elevated itself out of the play-in. Now we'll see what happens. And that, I think, is a very dangerous team. I just talked with Tim McMahon about them. That loss put Phoenix kind of in the crosshairs of like they might actually have to come in as the eighth seed or the seventh seed and be Oklahoma City's potential first-round opponent depending on how all this shakes out. Like there's a million different permutations.

But that Oklahoma Phoenix series, if it were to happen, it would be very interesting to see how people picked that series because you have this starry veteran hyped up Phoenix team and this young quote unquote unproven Thunder team who has outperformed the veteran sons by a mile this season. But I think a lot of people would just pick the sons in that series because of the names of Durant and Booker. I think it would be a good series for,

I don't know, man. Like, people are looking for weaknesses in Oklahoma City, and they're looking at the youth, and they're trying to kind of find reasons to be skeptical of them. I keep saying it, man. They're telling us with their play. Like, they're really good. And Phoenix would have an uphill battle in that series, I think. And we'll see how the seeds shake out. I just thought that win, I don't know if you saw that game. I didn't. They took it to Phoenix without SGA. And Phoenix just kind of like –

It wasn't on their level. It was a little eye-opening. It's really what you're describing. It's the brand name versus what's happening on the court.

Phoenix all year, we've been waiting for them to turn it around consistently. They just haven't done it. But Jalen Williams just doesn't have that brand name, but he's got the skill now. He's an athlete. He's a huge guy. He's not a small man. So anyway, I thought he was probably just, of all my guys, I like him best. So I mentioned some of the stars that could be in this conversation and Brunson and SGA. You said that if you had a vote, you would potentially vote for Jalen Williams. Yeah.

So now I'm going to read you a list of names that I think are the sort of more tailor-made candidates for this award that if voters heard you say Jalen Williams, they would say, what about this guy, this guy, this guy, and this guy? Sort of classic most improved cases. You pick one. If any of them are on your short list in any bucket, you pick them and go. I'm going to read you the names. Kobe White, Alperin Shengun, who is eligible despite not making 65 games, at least to date. Jonathan Kaminga.

And Cam Thomas. So all of them are on my honorable mention list, or I even have a special mention where I've got, I think Kobe's on my special mention. His defense just really fell, or maybe it was just bad to begin with. I have to look at my notes. Yeah, go ahead. I've watched him a lot, though. I really am very happy with the way Kobe's playing. I'm not friendly with him, but really, the Bulls were spunky. I was telling someone the other day, like, you know,

I talked to a player on the team earlier in the season and he was like, we're done. Billy's done with us. We're done with him. No, not anymore. They have found a way that as soon as you think, oh, here we go again, oh, they find a way to get a couple of wins.

Kobe's a big part of that. He's an interesting guy going forward now. The other ones all were honorable mention for me just because I was looking more metrics. But what you said is exactly right. That's what the average voter is looking at, what you're looking at, the points per game and all of that kind of stuff. I was looking for more. I mean, Kaminga was close.

Oh, Kameka's on my special mention too. He was second on my list for special mention. So he's a terrific story. I wrote about him recently where he kind of demanded, hey, I need to get out of here if y'all are going to play me more. And so they said, okay, and it's worked out pretty well. Is that your list of – They're all on my list of like 10 to 12 finalists. I agree on Kobe White's defense.

Yeah.

I don't know how much it will hurt his case that the Rockets have gone on this win streak without him. Although, again, I will keep hammering this. They were four and one in Shen Goon's last five games. This started with Shen Goon. Right. And their loss to Dallas yesterday was one of the first games where, and again, their schedule without Shen Goon has been really easy. And it was one of the first games where you felt like,

Oh, they are missing a bit of an offensive hub here, and their spacing is kind of messed up with the Mavs just ignoring Ahmed Thompson and all that. Kaminga...

I love Kaminga. I've always loved Kaminga. His scorings. I mean, it's a self-explanatory case. I'm actually not sure who I would vote for. Cam Thomas, you didn't mention, you didn't elaborate on Cam Thomas at all. He is a polarizing player. I was studying him this morning, actually. I happen to be a fan. We have a running joke at True Hoop because he can be a guy that metrics aren't great, but his numbers are good.

uh he's a hell of a scorer he is the bobby jackson that way back in the day vinnie johnson just whether you start him or not he he's a bucket getter he just isn't always efficient he he takes a lot of shots he's averaged over 20 a game recently but he's a hard guy to guard and for teams that have there are teams that really do struggle to get good shots he can get you a shot and it'll be good more than you think uh he's also young like

I don't like quitting on those kind of guys. I believe that he can really come around, and he is a hard guy to guard. As someone who has to help these players guard these elite scorers, he is not someone that I don't have to send clips for. No, you've got to get clips on him. He'll also get fouled. He'll surprise you. He's physical. He's not just beating you with some craft. He's physical too. He's a tough guy to guard. On the continuum of front office executives and coaches, the Cam Thomas continuum,

There's way too many cams in the NBA right now, by the way. There's like 24 cams. There's over here...

People who are like, I just wouldn't want him on my team. He's selfish. Teammates don't like playing with him. And over here, there's like, are you kidding? Look at the numbers. He's an incredible scorer. I'm 70% of the way towards like, I don't know if this is a six-man, seventh-man, or a low-end starter, but this dude's scoring is legit. Like, he can score. The stuff that he does off the dribble, the physicality, the tough shot-making is real. And I think the people on the other extreme negative side...

Probably haven't watched him play much in the last two months because there's a line of demarcation where either the negative press got to him or

The coaches got to him. His assist numbers started to jump about two months ago. The quality of his passing, his lob passing, his passing to the weak side corner in the pick and roll, he's not like Steve Nash, like settle down. But he went from like, dude, can you maybe pass it like once to, okay, you're passing it like almost an acceptable number of times. We don't, you know, like you're kind of like a regular basketball player now instead of like,

a guy playing one-on-one within a basketball game that's going on around you. I like him. His scoring's up 11 points a game over last season. Now, again, that's like apples to oranges, like bit player to starter. I think he's going to get a decent number of votes for this award. I don't know. I'm lost as to who I would vote for because I just wanted to vote for Jalen Johnson and I wouldn't be able to. The other name that's in the obvious candidate bucket who has a very good case to win it, I think, is

Although his season is a little hard to parse. He was in this conversation last year, too. And I wonder if he made your list is Tyrese Maxey. Oh, he's on my list. In fact, he has his own tier. I'll get I'll get to him in a second. OK, OK, good. The Tyrese Maxey tier. I like it. Go ahead. Go wherever you want. He has his own tier. So the other there's a third name. I'm curious what you say about it. I'm obviously I never missed your show. So I know you've talked about him before. This is the average to greater least very good tier tier.

What Jalen Suggs is doing in Orlando. He's on my list. That's a big story. You said it on your show, and it was funny because I just was watching him the day before.

He competes to the end of the possession. He does not stop. I mentioned Namhart earlier, but those guys shared a backcourt in college. There's a reason why they didn't lose the game until they ran out of gas. They were undefeated. If they had lost the game around this season, I think that it killed Baylor, but the weight of being undefeated to go in the very last game. How did anyone score on them? Right. Those two guys, but Suggs is, he can shoot now. Like all of a sudden you have to guard Jalen Suggs. I mean, I have his numbers here. He,

Yeah, first of all, he was a minus player last year, just a little bit. He's plus 3.1 on EPM. Defensively, he's in the 98th percentile. He was the 90th last year. And this is a theme I'm going to hit when we get to my top tiers today.

The hardest thing in this league to do is to go from very good to the best in the world. It's just more likely that you won't. So the fact that he was 90% last year and is even better this year, remember, look at Triple J. I realize his team is down, but if you only knew about Jackson Jr. for this season, you'd think he's just an okay defender. No, he was the best in the world a year ago. It's hard to maintain that. So I give subs a ton of credit for that. He

He's finishing better at the rim, 40% from three, which if he had done that, maybe he goes top four. I had him ranked fifth behind Barnes and Mobley and I think Cade was there because we don't know if he could shoot. Well, he could shoot. His true shooting percentage is better. I've watched Orlando in person. Obviously, they're close to me. The way they defend, he really sets the table of bringing that competitive edge to

And, I mean, they're competing for a 4-5 seed, and they're very young. Paolo's on my honorable mention list. He didn't make my top three. He's on my honorable mention list, too. His passing has hit another level. Incredible. His defense has been better. I mean, Paolo...

People don't think of him as a defensive player, and he's not driving the Magic's defense, I don't think. But he's not hurting the Magic's defense. I think he's probably neutral to a net-plus defender. He's big. He's fast. He competes. And that's the thing about this team. Maybe it's a combination of Mosley and a guy like Suggs at the point of attack, like...

No one views themselves – no one views defense as the responsibility mostly of everybody else. And I do all this stuff on offense so I can sort of not pull my weight on defense. Everybody feels like, no, I've got to pull my weight on defense. Otherwise, like these dudes like Jalen Suggs who are flying around, they're –

Like, they're going to embarrass me with their defensive effort. And I think that's a big part of their team. Jalen Suggs, as a rookie, shot 21% on threes.

21%. And before you say, well, he probably took like four, he's probably like, you know, nine for 40 or something. No, he was 42 of one 96 as a rookie. He's at 40% on seven threes per 36 minutes. It's one of the greatest shooting jumps that we've seen in a long time. Defensively. He's a monster. Um,

This team is a lot of fun to watch. Now, they still can't score very well. They still need more shooting. I don't know what's happened to Franz Wagner's three-point shot. I still have faith that it will recover. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. But he's on my list, and he's a delight to watch. And look, he's not going to get enough minutes to get any kind of awards consideration, I don't think. Jonathan Isaacs.

It's the most exciting thing happening in the NBA right now. I mean, I keep saying this and nobody watches the magic. I'm telling you right now, you watch the magic. This dude is hitting threes. He's a little more comfortable off the dribble. And his defense is like, it's like having seven defensive players on the floor. It's incredible. People who are not watching the magic, just watch Jonathan Isaac's minutes. It's the most exciting under the radar nerd thing happening in the NBA. It's the most exciting.

It's so true. Of course, you would recognize it. You watch a lot. He's the best defense player in the world right now. It's not even close. I actually don't even like I think he's better than Wemba Nyama. Like I think he's quicker. Yep. Wemba Nyama is a historian himself. But yeah, he and he's trying to play 20 plus minutes in these games, too. So in the playoffs.

Like if they get, even if they're not going to get to six, I'll probably stay above that. But Danvers Milwaukee, that could be just because he can give Giannis some trouble. I just don't think he'll get enough minutes to do it at least this year. All right. So let's get to the Tyrese Maxey tier, which he's the one guy that went from good. He was good last year. He's great this year. And that again, he's had opportunities to be because then beads out. But Tyrese Maxey, who went from a 2.2 EPM to 3.3, which is a big jump against him in a very good territory.

I really made a big jump offensively has not defensively, but I, I always remind people when they look at defensive metrics, we still evaluate defense based on whether they score or not. And so it's, you're, you're, you can't help but be better when the guys around you are better defensively because the ball goes in less. You're not going to ding a guy for just a good contest. You have to look at where the ball goes in or not.

And without the big fella, guess what? They're not as good defensively as they were before. So I think that's probably the biggest reason. But his points for 40 is up. His assists for 40 is up. His turnovers are down. His free throws are way up to 5.6. Obviously scoring 25 a game from 20. To me, it's a pretty... He was one of the easiest guys. He was always going to be on my list of top 10, top 11. I just didn't know where exactly, but...

What he's done is – and I was a huge fan. I actually spoke to him and his father when they were looking at agents and everything. I really thought he could be a great player. I was right. He's a tremendous player. Yeah, he was in the short list last year. I think he finished top six or seven in voting for this award last year. You made the case. Like, I just –

I've been watching the Sixers in the last two months. I almost feel pity for him. They're just missing so much with Embiid, and they've been missing so much around Embiid, and he's just tireless. Some nights it's not as efficient anymore. It's like 10 of 24, but they just need him to do...

damn near everything on offense i mean tobias harris went a month where it was like is he is he engaged and now he's back engaged and that's been helpful batum's been making shots kelly uber is always engaged man kelly uber will shoot you don't need to ask kelly uber to take more off more of an offensive load that dude will shoot um he's on he's on my list um

Let's see who else. I'm going to give you, do you want to talk about, give me another name. Give me some other names. I've got four names to go. Let's do your name. Let's do your names. Okay. I don't know if you'll have these because these are just unique to me. They've made the jump from great to elite. They're the best players in the world that made a jump to get there. It wasn't like they just maintained it. Like Giannis went down. Some of these guys went down a little bit. They're still the best players in the world.

Let me stop you there. Go ahead. I was having this same, this conversation about the, but I was talking to an executive on an Eastern conference team last week about the bucks and just how puzzling they've been. And every time you think they've turned the corner, they turn back the other way and how I still, I'm like, I just can't,

I need to see this team more with their best players. Middleton's just getting back. He finally had a good shooting game the other day. Like I can't dismiss this team. And he actually said what you just said that he doesn't think Giannis is quite as good this season. And I was like, really, man, the numbers are like outrageous. Um,

Defense is still pretty goddamn good to me. What am I missing? You're the second or third person to say this. And you're not saying that he's not one of the five best players in the world or anything like that. Just saying that he's a teeny, teeny bit down. I haven't seen it. What am I missing? So, first of all, I think Jokic, who's also down this year, I think they're just as competitive as Giannis is. And he's more competitive than...

typically than Jokic in the regular season. And he comes out in different ways because he's so much more athletic to begin with, plays more explosively. He's not the same defender at the point of attack that he was. That's, to me, the biggest thing I noticed. When I'm coaching, when I'm helping guys against him, we try to attack him from the perimeter.

I just don't think he cares as much. I may be wrong. We may find out in the postseason. He's got it. He doesn't have it in the regular season as much. He's seven feet tall. It's hard to do it anyway. Jonathan Isaac does it. Jonathan used to do it. This is why Bud –

was who was ripped apart for it was always hesitant to throw him on the elite perimeter scores on the other teams even though that was the demand from the media from fans they just didn't think that that was his strength defensively and I agree with you like he gets roasted sometimes this year now he's so big that it doesn't even matter but

But it's never been a major plus strength of his defense. Like, put him on Jimmy Butler. Put him on this guy. They didn't want to do that. No. No. People forget. When you're that high-waisted, your center of gravity is just so high. And these players are so expert at breaking, stopping, starting, and changing directions. So think about doing that when you're that tall. It's hard to do.

I, they'll scheme it up probably in the postseason. Some we'll see, I think we'll see premier Giannis when it, when it matters. I've also struggled. I've been wrong a few times already. Just when I think, Oh, they figured it out. They didn't. And then I thought, Oh, they're screwed. Then they start winning a bunch of games.

They're allowed to kind of work some things. I know this. When I was breaking down the best duos for Jalen Williams and SGA, boy, there was a lot of Milwaukee players on that list. And Dame was involved in all of them. Dame was really good. Plus 16 per 100 possessions with their four best guys on the floor, the two stars, Milton and Lopez. The depth is an issue in Milwaukee because those other guys are good. All right. So give me the four. Give me the four. Great, great, super, super.

This might be everyone's favorite player that isn't superstar status, but Derek White has done deserves mention on my list. He is, he was the 94th percentile last year. And Zach, let me, he's a 97th this year, by the way.

Daryl Morey taught me something many years ago. You remember my kid, Kevin Martin, and Daryl told me Kevin improved like 87.5% from free throw line to like 88.5 and then 89.1. He said to me, David, that's like lightning striking. When you're that level, you can't just keep getting better. So I always think about that. So Derek White at the 94th percentile last year, how are you getting better than that? Well, he did.

He is, if you look at the best duos, he's right there with the Boston players. He's not just improved offensively. His defenses stayed the same. That's all he needed to stay because it's elite to begin with.

He's finishing better at the rim. 68.8% at the rim is really hard to do. It's 40% from three free throw 89.8. Two shooting is up to 61.6. These are like career bests, big jumps. If you follow his chart, he's never had a season like this before. That was one of my rules. I filtered you out. If you'd done this before, he's never, he's never done it. And,

And so I felt like I, when I'm honoring these, the world's best players who weren't necessarily quite there last year, I felt like I had to include Derek on that list. I love that you put him in this tier because when I was going through my all NBA list, he's on the long list. Like he's not quite dynamic enough as a score to get in that conversation, but like he, he's been such a fantastic all around player that he deserves a look. And he,

Like to your point, he's an engine on offense for them. He's not a bystander. Like I haven't checked in a couple of weeks. If you look at who's run the most pick and rolls per 100 possessions on the Celtics, run them, not screened, not stood in the corner, run pick and rolls with the ball in their hand. It's been neck and neck between Tatum and Derek White all season long. Their two man game together, whether it's on the ball or off the ball is an engine of what they do.

And his floater game, his rim game is one of the reasons why they're able to just give him the ball so much. Say, hey, look, why don't you take some of the load off Jason and you run things for a bit. While we're on Derek White, who's also on my long list, not on my short list. I don't know why. I have no good reason. The one other non-MIP question I wanted to ask you was, you know, in the wake of these two Atlanta losses, the 30-point comeback for the Hawks and then the overtime thriller,

Celtics right to ship a little bit over the weekend with a big win over the Pelicans. They play the Hornets tonight. Let's bank that as a win for the Celtics. Their crunch time offense is a talking point. Every time they lose, they can't lose a normal game ever. Every single loss they have is like a cataclysmic event because they lose so rarely and they win by so much that they rarely like win a normal crunch time game. So it's almost to their credit that we treat every one of their losses like a cataclysm. How big of a,

alarm bell is their crunch time offense. And what do you, maybe you dismiss it as like, if you look at the numbers, they're kind of middle of the pack points per possession, last five minutes of close games, last three minutes of close games. Now you could say that's disappointing. They shouldn't be in the middle of the pack. This is the best offensive team in the league. That's a big drop off. And it is.

to some degree, every team's crunch time offense has the same problems that the Celtics have. It gets sticky. They give it to their stars and get out of the way. Everyone's like, where's the movement? Where's the screens? But I just want your take on how big of a deal this is and what you see.

Well, it can be a big deal. I studied this morning when you told me about this. It can be a big deal in the sense that it can create a narrative that they buy into and start worrying about it. That's a big part of all these guys. And they're human beings. They ruminate through stuff. They think they're not they're not psychopaths.

They're conscious of these things and they're conscious of these narratives. And so it can be concerning. Like, for example, I studied them this morning, a shot profile in basically in clutch in crunch moments. They're missing a lot of shots in the paint. And then I went back and watched that second Atlanta game, the John Murray game. KP took like one three. He just wasn't involved at all. It was all mostly Tatum and he was fine. They weren't they were fine. They weren't great.

I don't notice a lot of throw the ball in to KP and play it off him. If he can get a bucket, great. If he draws help, pass out, which is what I thought was smart to get him to begin with, is I thought it gave them a better paint presence that didn't have to require a perimeter attack. They're also posting Brown and Tatum more, and not necessarily in mismatches, just these are large men that are bucket getters and free throw generators now.

But they're not finishing in there. I just think they're going to do better when it comes down to it. They don't have a lot of experience with it. As you said, it doesn't happen often. But listen, the reality is in every situation, these are coin flip games. When you get down to these coin flip games, I say this all the time, you're going to win half, you're going to lose half. That's why they're called coin flip games. Their superpower is they just don't have many of them.

And so, yeah, we get better when they lose, but you're going to lose half your coin flip games, which I've not looked it up, but it's probably what they've been. Unless you have Chris Paul, Dirk Nowitzki or LeBron James who have been sort of the cheat codes late in. People laugh at Chris Paul's name in there. Don't look at the current time numbers for every one of his teams. Everyone in their prime outperformed. Dirk, same thing.

Zach, you're exactly right. I remember talking to Henry Abbott about this, my partner, a decade ago. He said, David, who do you think are the two best players in crunch time in terms of points per possession? Not for themselves. Who cares who scores for the team? And I didn't remember the answer or not. He said it was CP and LeBron. This was 10 years ago, but it hasn't much has changed. That's decision-making. That's where I wonder too. I want to say something about Derek White. Something I've never noticed him before is he's

if you score on him, he now is at a point where he realizes, I'm coming right back at you, bro. It's not just Tatum doing it in Brown. He'll do it too. He'll steal your heart away. When you finally get a bucket on him, which is not easy, he won't just let a teammate do it. He'll do it. But to your point, Drew Holiday ran the Bucs along with Giannis, but Derek White's running the Celtics. It's not Drew. It's Derek much more so.

And so he's got, this is not something he's done a lot of in clutch moments for a heavy favorite.

I like – I don't know, Joe, but I like their mentality and how they've just kind of played through all the drama, and they still bring it and bring it and bring it. That starting five is so amazing. They need to suffer a bad loss in the first round and survive. Like, guys, it's okay. This is part of the playoffs and not panic. When they start panicking, I'll worry about it. So –

You said a lot of smart things. Number one, the narrative in their head, I think is, I mean, Joe Missoula has addressed that head on and said, you know, I want our guys to enjoy this. I want our guys to enjoy the process, even though it's going to come with all this noise. I think that's his way of saying like, you just got to live with this noise and keep playing. Number two,

Look, this is not a media creation. This is a real issue for the Celtics. I don't think it's necessarily a dire issue. They don't have a lot of issues. This is one. You mentioned Porzingis and his lack of involvement. If you watch the last two minutes of that Hawks game in overtime...

The Celtics are running sets. In fact, they ran the same set about 10 times in a row. They call it horn small, and it involves in a triangle, one guy at the top of the arc, two guys at the elbows. There are three, I think, best players this season, Tatum, Brown, and White. And one of them enters the ball to another at the elbow. There's a bunch of screening action. They go from there.

It's a good idea. Like it involves your three best players. There's some movement built into it. It involved DeJounte Murray. And if you get him switched on to Tatum or Brown, that's a matchup they can bully. Tatum bullied Veit Krejci a couple of times out of that action. Derek White got a three when the Hawks messed up a switch. So they ran stuff. On the other hand, a lot of times it just sort of was slow and mucky and devolved into just Tatum against the world. And I think one of the tug of wars that the Celtics are going to have to have internally is like,

Hey, man, you're an amazing player, Jason Tatum. Amazing. First team All-NBA, second team All-NBA, whatever you want to put him. I'd probably put him first team right now. Like it's not working that well, particularly when you don't have a mismatch. And while that horn small was happening over and over again –

in one corner stood Drew Holiday doing nothing with Bogdan Bogdanovich on him. And the other corner stood Kristaps Porzingis doing nothing with Clint Capella on him. And I just was screaming at my screen saying, can

Can they just have Porzingis set one pick? Give me a pick and pop just to get the floor moving a little bit. Make Clint drop. Maybe they rotate a guy at Porzingis and the passing game starts. Get Bogdan Bogdanovich involved. Like Drew Holiday is good. Have him come set a screen for Jason Tatum. Just give me a little more juice and variety. That's all. Okay, go. Give me your three other good to greats. I suspect we've mentioned two of them.

Oh, yeah. You have in this conversation so far, you've mentioned two. I'll go to the one you haven't mentioned. I guess they call them AE because we're lazy now with our nicknames. I grew up when we had some real nicknames, right? I had all the posters on my wall. Iceman, all of them. Anthony Edwards has made the leap, right? He's made that jump. And again, it's as the other two guys on this list and what we just mentioned with Derek.

It's just really hard to do. 89th percentile last year, 96th percentile on APM this year, plus 4.6%.

He's top 6% in offensive EPM. He's top 10% in the league in defensive EPM. And that's what jumped it for me. He didn't just improve on offense, which everyone assumes is going to happen. He made the jump defensively. He's at a career high now, 65% finishing at the rim. Career high in mid-range, which isn't great at 38.7%. It's still the best he's done.

82.9% from the line. His assist rate is up. His turnover percentage is down. 58% true shooting. Points for 40 up to 27.4. No, 29.7, 27 last year. Up to 6.3 free throws. And there are 42 to 51 wins. And Rudy Gobert didn't get better. And even McDaniels, to me, has been a little bit disappointing.

Edwards has been the absolute engine behind it. His highlights are his highlights, but he has been a possession monster on both ends of the court. And for that, I have to recognize it because it's the hardest jump to make. He could have just tweaked up a little bit, a little bit. No, he made a big leap, 89th percentile to 96th and overall effectiveness, not just one side. I had to recognize that.

So depending on how you qualify Tyrese Maxey, whether he's in this group or not, I didn't have him in this group, but you could if you wanted to. I would say there are at least three guys I would have said were established stars or superstars coming into this season who I think belong here.

In this discussion, despite what they had established coming into the season, SGA is one. We talked about him. Brunson is another. Now, Brunson hadn't made an all-star game before this season, but I think we all knew, like, this is an all-star caliber player. He was on the fringes of the all-NBA discussion last year. Like, he's made a leap, but I think he was already recognized as like a... But the leap is big enough that he belongs in this conversation. Anthony Edwards was the third. And...

I just co-signed everything you said. He's just a better all-around player. And much like the case with SGA and Brunson, he has maintained his efficiency, actually increased it, decreased his turnovers under a higher level of responsibility and usage, particularly in the last 12 games with Carl Anthony Towns out. A span in which, by the way, the Wolves are 8-4 behind.

17th in offense, 5th in defense. So their profile has not really even changed all that much. Beat Denver over the weekend in Denver. Denver did not have Jamal Murray, so I don't really read a lot into any Denver loss without Jamal Murray. But it is an interesting matchup, and their size does give Denver some issues. They did the same thing with Nas Reed as they did with Kat. They put Nas Reed on Jokic and had Gobert on Gordon.

And had Gobert kind of rove around and try to muck things up along the baseline. And Nas Reed has been really good in place of Towns. But Anthony Edwards is just, I mean, the craft. I've talked about it before. The craft, the decelerations, the bank shots, the step throughs. Like this guy is in the lab, obviously working. And I'm glad you brought him up because he's on my list too. Yeah. So, you know.

I want to go back to just connect to something you said regarding Jason Tatum, who has arrived as one of the world's best players. It's a quote from Pop that when he was asked, what is it that happened to Kawhi when he made the jump to be from very good to one of the best players in the world? And Pop said, and this is a quote I use to my young players all the time, he said he made the jump when he learned that when I run a play, it's not for him to score, it's for us to score.

You have to always be mindful of that. And so when I watch, I watch, when I watch games, I'm always thinking about that prism when I'm watching the world's best players. Are they, are they really thinking, okay, the hero shots better because you shouldn't, we're trying to score as a team. It's an us score. It's not a me score. And I think Edwards has gotten really at such a young age,

I just think he gets it. It's about the right shot, the best shot. And it doesn't have to be me that does it with my gravity. I can make it happen. And then the other thing, you said this regarding the Celtics and Porzingis screaming.

is, to me, the single smartest nugget of wisdom I've ever heard a coach say. Hubie Brown wrote, and he and I talked about it once, we set screens for one reason, make defenders think. And so to your point with Boston, and now we'll see with Minnesota as their offense could be kind of dry in the regular season, it'll be worse in the postseason.

Set more screens, make defenders think more because they'll think poorly. They'll make bad decisions if you do it fast, right? Indiana has the blur screen action. I call it blur ball. They're flying around. You got to make a decision instantaneously a lot. So I like to, when I watch these guys, I like to evaluate, are they wait for the ball kind of guys? No, the best ones are recognizing that. So I don't get to, my last two brats in an SGA are self-explanatory other than to say what SGA has done

I think he's the MVP. I can't believe he isn't the favorite for the MVP now that Embiid's out because he was clearly deserving.

I don't understand. His metrics are so far above. His metrics are above where Jokic was and Embiid was for the last couple years. His metrics are extraordinary. He's become an elite defender. I didn't see that coming. It's amazing. Don't quit on young players, teams. Like, he was pretty good when he was young. No one ever saw this. He worked at it. He's become a – obviously, his percentile is incredible.

Incredible. But he was a very good defender last year. He's the 96% on defense this year, according to Ducks and Threes, which is just one of many. His true-to-true percentage is amazing. I can go on his stats forever. Again, he is the biggest reasons why. I realized they had a big win the other day without him. He's the heart and soul of that team. I don't know where you picked him in your preseason stuff, but I have a hard time believing you thought they competed for a one seed. I didn't, for sure. Oh, no, I was...

I was way too low. We all were. We all were too low. No one had him won. And I think what he's done, if we're playing for wins, which I thought we were doing, he's the biggest reason why I think he's the MVP. And then Brunson, same thing. What he's done, you mentioned it, with the load he's carrying, with the injuries they've had, not just the trades, but the injuries,

The Knicks are legit and they're, they're, you know, everyone deserves credit from the top down, but their best player deserves the most credit. And he could have easily exactly make this last point on this.

A lot of players, I studied this, a lot of players have great years and just go down a little bit, and they're still amazing. All these guys I mentioned have found a way to continue to, they just went up, they went up considerably in terms of percentages. And what Brunton has done in the teeth of everything the Knicks are facing, he and SGA both deserve to be, as I saw in my top 10. I'm just now going to read a list of names of guys that deserve a little love. Io Dissoumouneau.

Peyton Watson, Cade Cunningham, Jalen Duren. Some of these guys are not going to be eligible. Simone Fontecchio, I like saying his name. Vince Williams Jr. Herb Jones, who we should have mentioned earlier. His shooting improvement and his playmaking improvement have been massive. Dante DiVincenzo feels like maybe more of an opportunity case. And boy, does he have a lot of opportunity. I don't know if he's come out of a game in the last two months. Isaiah Hartenstein.

More than an opportunity case. He's been unbelievable. Unbelievable. Grayson Allen, Denny Avdia. He's on my special mention, as is Isaiah, along with Kamega. And I got, oh, by the way, I have Jalen Brown. He had a career year.

Jalen Brown had a career year when he just got paid as a Max guy. Again, just recognizing how hard that is. Oh, I got Nikhil Alexander-Walker, Hachimura, Keegan Murray. Those guys. Hachimura. That's a great name, too. Not eligible. I don't think he's going to hit the games. Dean Wade improved. Like, there's a – oh, here's the funniest one. Because he wasn't in the NBA last year. Dante Exum.

has gone from out of the league to way better than he ever was when he was in the league before. So I included him too. He is not going to make the games limits. So that's why he wasn't on my list just now. I have a longer list of guys who are like, oh, he's not eligible. Sam Merrill maybe deserves a little bit of a mention. Jabari Walker. Okay. Now we're just two guys naming guys.

No, that's good, though. Karis LeVert. Scotty Barnes isn't going to qualify. Those guys. Listen, I'm in the development business. When you improve, I better take notice and mention it.

David Thorpe, just indispensable knowledge. Subscribe to True Hoop. Listen to David Thorpe talk about basketball. Are you game to reconvene in a couple weeks to do our annual 8x8 first round playoff rapid fire madness preview? I appreciate you asking because I have to start now to be ready then. There's a lot of stuff we do. But yes, sir. Thank you. So there's a lot in flux. There's a lot in flux. Okay. Thank you, sir. Be well. David Thorpe, everybody. Thank you.

For the first time, Monday Night Football streams exclusively on ESPN+.

Jim Harbaugh makes his long-awaited return to the Monday Night Lights. Touchdown, LA! And the Chargers add to their lead. As the Chargers meet rookie Marvin Harrison Jr. and the Cardinals in the down. Murray scrambling. Harrison! 60 yards. Touchdown. Chargers-Cardinals. Monday, October 21st at 9 p.m. Eastern. Streaming exclusively on ESPN+. Sign up now at ESPN+.com.