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All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight.

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Happy Friday, everybody.

Hope all of you guys are having a great week.

Today's mail bag Day.

I have all sorts of great questions from you guys who are gonna be bouncing all around the league, some player ranking stuff, some stuff that's outside of player rankings as well, some stuff that has nothing to do with basketball, and we'll be getting to all of those questions today.

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Make sure you guys follow us over there, and then, last but not least, keep dropping those mail bag questions in the YouTube comments.

If you want to get a mail bag question in these shows, all you got to do is go into our full episodes in the comment that's right mail bag with a colon that so I can sort it out from the comments and they'll write your question there.

If you disagree with the player ranking, if you just have a question about anything around the league or anything at all, just drop it in our mail bags.

All right, let's talk some basket of a lots of Jalen Brunson questions today that we'll be getting into.

What is the argument for current Steph over Jalen Brunson.

Brunson has been flat out better than Steph for the past two seasons, during both the regular season and the postseason.

Considering the clear year over year regression for Steph, estimating him to be better than the player who's been better for two years seems unfair.

A small sample with Jimmy is nowhere near enough to put him over JB, especially when you take a sample about that size of Brunson's best play is better than that Steph sample.

So, first of all, there are several specific things here that we're going to continue to run into with Jalen Brunson.

Jalen Brunson dribbles the basketball and has the ball in his hands a lot more than Steph Curry does and a lot more than most NBA players, which allows I was Jalen Brunson to put up preposterous statistical performances over and over and over again.

I'm not trying to undersell what Jalen Brunson does here, I'm just saying on the list of guys who their impact is going to reflect more on the box score versus guys who their impact is not going to reflect on the box score as much, Brunson's closer to this end, and guys like Steph Tyres Halliburton, the offensive engine types, they're going to be more on the other side of the spectrum.

And a couple of specific things.

First of all, you want to know why they took off when Jimmy Butler entered the equation because there's no offensive talent on that roster.

Okay, I'm sorry, But like Andrew Wiggins and Brandon Pajemski and you know young Jonathan Kaminga who literally no one in the league seems to want right now, these are not the same offensive talent that Karl Anthony Towns is, that Michale Bridges is, that ogn Andobi is.

There is a substantially better offensive set of talent that he's playing with, which is making life easier for Jalen Brunson.

And as soon as you brought Jimmy Butler into the equation, the Warriors immediately took off and became a top ten offense again.

Despite like even Jimmy is a pretty limited offensive player and that still wasn't a very good offensive roster, Steph immediately vaulted them into being a top ten offense in that stretch.

And Steph, just by having the counterbalance of the star and the belief in his team's ability to accomplish something started producing at that top tier superstar level again.

Now, if you want to know why specifically I look at Stephen Curry as a better basketball player than Jalen Brunson, it's simply that he is a much better offensive engine.

Even to this day, it doesn't reflect as often on a Golden State roster that is so devoid of offensive talent, But Steph's ability to consistently draw two to the ball, both in pick and roll and just running off of offball action unlocks so much easy stuff for that team.

Another really easy way for me to put this is, I believe if you just plucked Steph and dropped him on the New York Nick and had him play with Michale Bridges and Og Andnobi and Karl Anthony Towns and all of those guys.

I believe the Nicks become a better basketball team.

I think that Steph is a better defensive player as well.

I think that like guys, like you'd think after watching what happened with Jannison, the Bucks, the last couple of years with Steph and the Warriors, the last couple of years hell with Lebron and Ad and the Lakers, and how they underachieved over the years.

Guys, you gotta have a great roster to be good in the NBA.

It is harder than ever to succeed purely based on the strength of superstar talent.

You have to have both.

You have to have superstar talent and you have to have strong support.

And again I would argue the New York Knicks underachieved this year outside of just simply the Celtics series.

They got killed by every good team in the regular season and generally underachieved.

They looked mediocre against the Pistons, and they got beat by the Pacers.

They just happened to beat the Boston Celtics in this couple weeks stretch where they struck lightning in a bottle, the Knicks underachieved.

I look at that Warriors team as a team that is basically full of a bunch of mediocre role player talent and Steph Curry, and he was able to keep them afloat long enough for the Jimmy support to come, and they were looking pretty damn good and beat a two seed before Steph Curry's hamstring went in large part because he had to carry such a heavy load.

Like to me, it wasn't even a debate.

I think Steph.

I think Steph is a better basketball player than Jalen Brunson right now.

And again, like there's gonna be a lot of this kind of stuff with the box score.

I have another one related to Tyrese Haliburton here in a bit.

Jalen Brunton's gonna put up insane box score stats because he is an elite scorer that dribbles the air out of the basketball most games.

That is going to lead to some really high box score performance.

And we can't grade a player simply on box score performance.

And I'll save the rest of it when we get to the Tyress Haliburton piece, Hi Jackson and Jason.

Chopping it up with you two on playback and watching this channel for years has made me a better basketball fan.

Thank you for all your hard work and knowledge.

My question is what can Brunson add to become a top five player.

I get Halle has the bragging rights after their series, but after games one and two, Brunson was averaging thirty nine point five points eight assists on fifty two percent from the field, another example of those like big box score numbers that I was talking about that took place in losses.

My concern with putting Halle over Brunson is I've seen Brunson go on a four game playoff stretch averaging forty two points in ten asists on fifty percent.

I'm almost certain Halle couldn't do that if he tried, as much as Hallie does facilitate TJ and Matherin going off has nothing to do with Halle.

Same with Siakam dominating ISOs or Nie Smith hitting six contested threes.

He was pretty bad in the finals, and even though he reached them, Brunson would not struggle that much back against the wall.

I know what it looks like for Lebron, Joki, Giannis, Sga, Brunson, etc.

To put on herculean efforts even in losses.

I just feel like Halle, if he's required, if his teammate, if his teammates are simply cold for a series, he wouldn't be able to reach that same herculean level on that the other elite offensive engines could reach because of his inconsistent scoring.

How much should a high scoring floor factor into who's better?

First of all, if you guys remember what I said, I said that Halliburton, if he was healthy this year, would have ranked ninth.

So that's literally just one spot ahead of where Brunson would have landed if Halliburton was in this list.

So I view the gap as extremely small.

And as I've said, you could really argue any of these guys ahead of each other all the way up to number five.

Like I'm sure there are Knicks fans out there who literally have Brunson at five.

I mean you, when you were listing your offensive engines, you literally listed Lebron, Jokic, Giannis Sga, and Brunson as in you have him basically as the fifth guy, right, So like you could argue him that high.

I'm not going to make that case, but like I do think that these things are up for debate, and I do think your position is absolutely defensible.

I just view, again, at the risk of repeating myself, I just view Halliburton as a better offensive engine, and the case for it is simply that the Pacers offense functioned at a higher level than the Knicks did in the playoffs.

I disagree with the idea that the Pacers went off without Halliburton.

Their offense cratered this year in the playoffs when he was off the floor, It's like thirteen points per one thirteen in changes, like almost fourteen points worse per one hundred possessions when he was off the floor versus on.

It also dipped substantially in the regular season and in the playoffs each of the last two years.

And by the way, the.

Same goes for Brunson.

The on off numbers for Jalen Brunson are crazy as well.

But the point is the Pacers don't just score the basketball with or without Tyre's Halliburton.

He is integral to their success.

Halliburton breeds a more free flowing offense that generates more easy shots and does a better job of keeping everyone else in rhythm.

Jalen Brunson was surrounded by every bit as much offensive talent as Halliburton, Karl Anthony Towns, Mikhale Bridges, O g n Anobi.

That's a hell of a trio to put next to Jalen Brunson, but it just never looked that easy for the Knicks.

When Halliburton was on the floor, the Pacers scored at a rate four points per one hundred possessions higher than the Knicks did with Brunson on the floor, and in the Pacers Knixt series, the difference was twice as large.

The Knicks had a one to fourteen offensive rating with Brunson on the floor in that series, the Pacers had a one to twenty offensive rating with Halliburton on the floor.

Brunson is a better passer than he usually gets credit for.

I think that that's worth mentioning, But he does dribble the air out of the basketball, and the offense doesn't flow as well as it does with Tyre's Halliburton.

Their play styles, the way they play with Haliburton trying to get rid of the ball as soon as he can in possessions to the first open guy.

That's naturally going to end up with Jalen Brunson putting up more impressive looking box score numbers.

Even though we can acknowledge Brunson's obviously a better score, there's obviously an approach difference that's gonna lead to an even bigger difference than those box scores.

Yeah, in theory, Jalen Brunson's ability to score in the clutch should make him a better option at the end of games than Tyrese Halliburton.

But this year head to head in that series, Haliburton was four for seven in the clutch and hit a shot that literally stole a game at Madison Square Garden, and Brunson was three for nine and the Pacers won the series.

And they won in twenty twenty four to two, albeit obviously with some injuries playing a role.

So in short, Jalen Brunson has had his opportunities to prove that he's better than Tyrese Halliburton at running head to head offense or excuse me, at running NBA offense in a head to head matchup, and yet in each of those situations, Halliburton's offense has just performed better, and Halliburton outperformed him in the Clutch this year in the Pacers Advance both times.

It's just really hard for me to make that case.

Now back to your first question, what does Brunson need to do to get into the top five?

I'm actually going to read another quote from another YouTube comment from the same video, this one from Jonathan Raymond on point as usual diehard Knicks fan, and I have felt over the last few years, Brunson is one step below the top five and that will come from unlocking kat and Og And it's really that simple.

One of the things that Tyres Haliburton does is he brings the absolute best out of Andrew Nemhard and Aaron E.

Smith and Ben matherin In, Pascal Siakam and Miles Turner.

If Jalen Brunson can figure out to get to that next level as a playmaker and as a game manager to where he can literally bring the most out of those guys, then he can not only leap Halliburton, but yes, absolutely get up into the conversation there for that fifth spot.

But I think he's a while away.

I think he's aways away from there.

That's something he's going to have to figure out.

This is related to the Denzel Washington question.

I don't think Denzel is talking about gatekeeping sports or other fields from people haven't been professional and said field.

He's more referring to the steven A's and Skips of the world to just give their opinions for entertainment, whether they are positive or negative, without actually backing why they feel that way and what in the field in question brought them to that conclusion.

Heck, even as you mentioned before, just because you're an athlete or professional doesn't mean your opinion should value more.

Case in point, Shak or Chuck, who never seemed to actually give an in depth argument and just go off how they feel based off of obvious biases, versus someone like yourself who has had professional playing career.

I haven't played professionally.

I just played in college and did not make the NBA.

But you still do your research and take time to come up with objective and fair takes that you really can't argue, and you even acknowledge your biases and point them out to the audience to let them know that not everyone will feel the same way.

Kyrie spoke about the same thing a while back about protecting basketball from those who just want to spew opinions about the game instead of actually trying to understand why and how basketball works.

So I think it gets a little more complicated because I agree with you in the sense that there are certain guys where it's like when I hear them talking about the game, I'm like, yeah, this isn't necessarily good for the game.

Where I disagree is like, I just think things are infinitely better.

It used to be if you went back longer into the past, it was mostly that sort of thing.

Now we have a little bit of that sort of thing, and we just have a ton of people who love the game passionately and cover it with their hearts and soul and just.

Do an amazing job.

I think where it gets tricky is like, I think one of it goes deeper than the stephen A and Skip part of this.

I think I've seen this from NBA players.

I think NBA players want people who love the game to cover it, but I just think they want no criticism at all.

Ever, I think it's all fair in game.

I think it's all, you know, like kind of fair game for them until you start being critical.

And that's where I disagree, because, like, I think it's important for us to be able to criticize NBA players, Otherwise our analysis carries no weight if this just turns into a propaganda channel where we talk about how teams play and we dive into the weeds and we do all that technical stuff that people love the analytical side of it.

But then I come on here after like Julius Randall in game four, for instance, against Oklahoma City when he like straight up no showed the game and was like bad body language and just throwing up bullshit catch and shoot shots and just not playing very well.

Like one game after he was like we're at home now, Like what am I gonna do?

Get on here and not say that Julius Randall like was awful and didn't back up what he was talking about in the previous game, Like I can't do that and then come up here with a straight face.

Like what gives the legitimacy to both sides, to the praise and to the criticism criticism, is that the other exists.

Praise without criticism is just propaganda.

Criticism without praise is just shit talk.

And one of the things that I've tried to do, even with the players that I don't particularly like.

Like, you guys know that I'm not a huge fan of Russell Westbrook, but like, I like to think that over the course of the entire era, including in the with the Lakers, when he would play well, I would come on the show and I'd be like, Russ was good tonight.

Here was a sequence where Russ was awesome.

When Russ did this, this, and this, he helped his team win the game.

I would talk about that.

It was important to me that my criticism of Russell Westbrook didn't come devoid of any praise when he would do something good, because again, Russell Westbrook was a player who would make good plays and would make bad plays, And that was the conundrum with him.

You know, that is so vital to this having any integrity.

If I'm gonna actually come up here and talk about the game and be perfectly honest, it requires that I both praise NBA players and criticize NBA players.

And I feel the same way about different types of out there.

Again, if you're strictly in the I'm teaching about NBA offense.

So for instance, like Craneous, when he's like breaking down different sets and counters, he's going to sit there and just break down what this is, what this means, how this works.

That's one thing, right, But even Crane, just when he covers the Lakers, he'll bring up when he's being critical of the Lakers' coaching staff or doing something that he disagrees with, it is important for you to balance criticism with praise and vice versa, to add integrity to your work.

And I think that that specifically is where it gets tough.

And that was the sentiment that I was picking up from Denzel.

I think he felt as though, like, you shouldn't be allowed to criticize any of these guys if you haven't been in the seat.

And while I agree that it's like a weird dynamic, it's weird.

It's weird for me, sitting in my basement in Denver, Colorado, a non professional basketball player, to criticize basketball players that play in the NBA.

I get that it's a weird dynamic, but I kind of feel as though it is absolutely necessary in order for there to be legitimate basketball analysis.

And as we talked about in that mail bag or in that episode on Monday, there are last week on Wednesday, excuse me, you need to have a certain amount of people who cover the game that didn't play, because so many of those people love the game every bit as much.

I'm not even talking about me.

I'm talking about people who like never played, who love the bat, who love the game of basketball so much that they pour their heart and soul into it and into the study of it, that are willing to legitimately go through the work and be honest and cover the game with integrity.

I see, like I talked about in that video, I've seen NBA players, legitimate NBA players and former NBA players criticize other NBA players and they're like flatly wrong, like where they'll just go on stage and they'll be like so and so does this, this and this, and he's weak as hell because of this or whatever it is, and I'm like, that's not even true about that guy.

Like if you actually took the time to watch the game, you would know that's not true.

Hell, there are some things sometimes you'll hear some player say stuff and it's like just go to their basketball reference page and like actually look at their stats and you'll see that you're wrong.

Like that sort of thing happened all the time because in many cases, those are players that are already millionaires, that have already become one of the very best in their profession, which was playing the game, and now they're collecting a check to talk about it, and their heart's not in it.

And because their heart's not in it, they're not putting in the same effort that some of these people out there that also love the game a ton but didn't play professionally or didn't play at all, And now they're channeling their love in work ethic because maybe they don't have the natural talent that some of these NBA players have, they're channeling that energy into their study of the game and they're producing, in my opinion, super high quality work that has integrity.

That guys who cover specific teams, who will talk about parts of their team that are not getting discussed nationally that deserve more attention, or at the same time criticizing people on the team when they're not doing their job and they're not pulling their end of the they're not holding up their end of the bargain.

Like to me, it's just complicated, and it's a part of it's a part of what makes the landscape work is that we have a mix of players who love the game, who still have their heart in it, who still do incredible work, mixed with people who are not in the game, who never played, who love it as much as anybody else in the world, and who is just as entitled to cover the game the way that they do, but they cover it with integrity, and they bring that mix of praise and criticism that is always backed up by the hard work and the study that comes from behind.

The people do all the other lanes that we talked about, like analytical study, the guys who do tactical breakdowns for people, the guys who do reporting on the league.

It's just a very complex ecosystem that I think is better than it's ever been.

And that's why I'm defending it and why I'm defending the people out there.

I just have.

I have so many buddies out there and people that I are that I admire from afar who just do really high quality work who didn't play in the NBA, and I think it's ridiculous that any would want in sinuate that they're not, you know, that they shouldn't be allowed to or that they shouldn't be in the situation that they're in.

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Slash audio.

Hey, Jason, I was watching the Nerd sash pot a month ago and they did an all time NBA draft, and I would like you to do a twelve NBA roster all time, obviously with the first six being the best of the best.

But the lower tier all star role players.

For your bench.

Figured it'd be cool since we're in the offseason.

Keep up the good work, brother man.

Thank you for supporting the show.

I'm not gonna do this right now, but I just was gonna announce because Jackson and I were talking about it.

The first thing we're doing in the.

Week after the player rankings are finished, is we're gonna do list week.

So we're gonna do a bunch of different lists.

I wrote down like six different examples, like the five best champions of the last twenty five years, or like the five best perimeter defenders of the last twenty five year, stuff like that.

We're gonna do like different lists that we're gonna hit over the course of that week, and we'll get to have a lot of fun as we get into the tail end of the summer.

We're also planning on doing some playback stuff, especially in late September.

I think we're going to try to pick three really big NBA playoff games from my time being a basketball fan, and we're going to rewatch them and just kind of hang out.

So that'll look for something along those lines in late September, but I will announce it as.

We get closer.

Got a WNBA question, not a question about the rankings, but WNBA related Pagebeckers has taken the w by storm this season for her rookie year.

She doesn't have a cultural and ratings impact as much as Kaitlyn Clark.

My question is, how would you compare and differentiate page to Kaitlin?

Who would you pick to build a team around.

Who's better in a vacuum, who would be their NBA comparison?

As a Lakers fan, we are spoiled to have you, Pete, Crangis and Trevor cover our team with in depth data, schematic cap and narrative analysis.

Love all those dudes, They're all awesome.

I couldn't agree with more with you about the quality of work that they do, and thank you so much for the kind words about our show as well.

Page is absolutely crushing it and the fun thing is that she's doing it with short range scoring, which is insanely impressive.

We talked about this a lot with Jalen Brunson in his video.

But if you can find a way to be like consistently reliable as a shot maker closer to the basket, that will drive scoring that is variance proof.

Page is shooting fifty percent on jump shots inside of seventeen feet and she's doing it on massive volume, one hundred and nineteen attempts percentergy there are only two players in the entire WNBA who took at least one hundred jump shots inside of seventeen feet to this point, Page and Ajia Wilson and Page is hitting them at a six percent higher rate than Aja Wilson is.

You got to remember too, like fifty percent from that range for WNBA players.

Insane.

Scoring efficiency in general in the WNBA is lower than the NBA, right, just because of the difference in athleticism.

Now, whether or not Page can achieve the cultural resonance of someone like Caitlin Clark, it's gonna come down to the same concept that we've been talking about NonStop on the show over the last couple of weeks.

Can you drive offensive success for your team beyond yourself.

Kaitlin Clark stepped into the WNBA and the fever offense literally exploded.

She drives like a Steph Curry esque gravity from defenses that generates a ton of openings, especially at the rim.

And she could take it to an even higher level because she does so much more of her work.

I shouldn't say not at a higher level, but she does it with more versatility in the sense that she does a lot of her work on the ball as well, which is kind of like Steve Nash esques.

It's like Nash mixed with Curry.

It's crazy, and Caitlyn's just a supremely gifted passer.

These stats are they don't even make sense.

Over the final fifteen games of the season last year, the Indiana Fever posted the number one offensive rating in the WNBA by a mile.

They had a one to ten offensive rating and second place was the Liberty at one oh six.

So she literally stepped into the WNBA and made the best offense in the league by a mile.

That's being an offensive engine.

That's making life easier for everybody on the team.

And that's why I gravitate towards that type of player.

And I'm not trying to come at Page Becker's here.

She's a rookie and she's kicking ass, and I actually I'm really stoked that we might have a rivalry between these two over the years.

I think that'd be great for the league, especially two very different types of players.

But it's just an example of if people are wondering why Caitlyn resonates at a higher level, that's why Caitlyn is like a transcendently great offensive player, potentially the best offensive player to ever go into the WNBA.

She has to.

Achieve that first, but that's the potential that she has.

This year with Caitlin largely out of the lineup, the Fevers offense has come right back down to earth.

And yet when Caitlyn's been on the floor this year, even banged up Caitlin, their offensive rating has been up at one oh nine, which is right up at that level where they were at last year at the end of the season.

The second piece of it actually comes down to a fallacy that I saw on a YouTube comment the other day that I want to dive a little bit further into.

It was in the KD video when we were talking about the score versus offensive engine archetype.

I can't remember the exact comment, but he said something along the lines of, I can't believe we've somehow convinced ourselves that scorers are inferior when the greatest player of all time was a score And I laughed because on one hand, like the goat thing is very up for debate for anybody aside from the people who you know, literally are of a certain age group that are old, like older and more invested emotionally in that era.

Outside of that group, it's pretty up in the air, Like it's a lot of people who think it's lebron right.

But even if we set that aside, if you go through most all time lists, there's not a whole lot of the traditional scorer archetype.

It's like Kobe and MJ.

And then it's a lot of really versatile players and bigs outside of that that make up a lot of top ten lists, a lot of guys like Magic Johnson, a lot of guys like Steph Curry and Lebron, Nikole Jokic, guys along those lines, right, Also, the guys who are at the top of the all time lists aren't any one thing.

Yeah, MJ is either.

The best scorer ever or the second best scorer ever, depending on who you ask, but he was undoubtedly a better passer than someone like Katie was.

I mean, he had a season in the NBA where he averaged eight assists per game.

So, yeah, MJ is the scoring archetype, but he's so much more of a basketball player than just breaking it down simply to scoring versus offensive initiation.

Similarly, guys like Lebron and Jokic and Steph, Yeah they're offensive engines, but they're also fucking awesome scores.

Lebron literally is the all time leading scorer in NBA.

His has hit more playoff buzzer beaters than anybody in the history of the league.

He has twelve seasons averaging over twenty seven points per game.

That's what like when you're talking about the goat case with Lebron, it's completely unfair to not also characterize him as one of the best scorers to ever touch the basketball.

We talked about NICOLEA.

Jokicic and his reliable short range scoring and how indomitable he can be there.

Steph Curry obviously can reach incredible heights as a score and the same goes with Caitlyn Clark.

She's arguably already the best offensive engine in the WNBA, as we discussed, and yet during that fifteen game stretch where she was leading that kick ass Indiana offense, she was also second in the league in scoring, averaging twenty three points per game on sixty percent true shooting.

The one person above her was Asia Wilson, and Caitlyn was three percent more efficient and true shooting.

At that point.

Caitlyn was a kick ass scorer.

And by the way, I'm not denigrating scoring as a talent.

It's vitally important to win basketball games.

I'm saying that I personally am going to gravitate towards players who can both score and generate tons of high quality offense for their entire team, even if they're not quite as good at scoring as the best pure scorers in the world.

And again, lastly, because I don't want to under sell Page here because he's kicking ass, this would be a really fun rivalry to take the stage in the WNBA in the coming years.

To have like a Steph Curry meets Steve Nash level point guard in Caitlyn Clark versus the surgical scorer type in Page Beckers.

That could be a ton of fun and more awesome basketball players is always a good thing for us.

Next question.

In twenty twelve, the Mimy Heat had a higher net rating with Lebron on the court without Weide than when they were both on the court together.

However, they all they closed all of their games with Lebron and Wade on the court together.

Naturally, it seems like an obvious decision to close games with all your best players on the floor, But what is the value of doing so if your statistically works.

Love the show, keep it the good work.

Thank you so much for the kind works.

This is an interesting question on a couple different levels, because on the one hand, Wade and Lebron were a clunky offensive fit, and it was a big part of how they lost the first year, and it is a big part about how in general over those years they became more of like a defense to transition group because Lebron was an offensive engine who inverted spacing or who created natural spacing for the shooters, meaning like inverted spacing, are guys that bring rim protectors away from the basket, guys that bring guys out to the perimeters.

So like Jokic does it because he is a center and has to be guarded by centers, he's pulling centers away from the basket.

And then Steph by coming off of screen action forcing centers to show would open up space around the basket.

They generate openings for read and react sequences at the rim.

Guys like Luca and Lebron the rim pressuring big forwards that can pass.

They bring everybody in and generate all the crazy spray outs to shooters.

Right, and so for a guy like Lebron, you know he would have benefited from a star that was more of like a perimeter shooter.

For example, like Lebron and Kevin Durant, for example, would have been an unbelievable basketball fit if they would have been able to play together.

Kevin Durant is a bad example because he's the most seamless fit with anybody in NBA history.

Hell, he was amazing with Steph too, But like a just a straight up, like an excellent jump shooting a player at that position would have been like a Ray Allen for example, in his prime, would have been a better natural basketball fit with Lebron than a Dwayne Wade.

Right now, they made it work because of how good they were defensively, and over the years, Lebron built enough chemistry with d Wade as a cutter where they were able to make things work and they were so good defense to transition.

It all functioned, But there was definitely a little bit of a kind of like diminishing return there in terms of having two playmaking downhill scores kind of playing alongside each other.

Now in terms of like the decision to close games like that, you weren't gonna bench Dwayne Waye.

It would come with so many ripple effects in terms of the chemistry and confidence of the team, And ultimately I think they were just invested in constantly trying to figure it out because the best version of that team was always going to be Wade and Lebron on the floor together.

They just needed to figure it out, and they did.

I thought they, you know, under the circumstances with Wade immediately getting hurt and immediately having his knee really bog him down, and with the clunky spacing in the first year in twenty eleven, they got two championships, and I think that that sounds about right for that particular group of talent.

I think the only way they would have won more is I d Wade would have stayed healthy the whole way through.

Hey, Jason, love your content.

It's looking like eight of the top ten players on your list will be in the Western Conference.

Clearly, the West is much deeper than the East.

What would you do to help balance the conferences?

There's really nothing you can do.

And there's also a bad luck element to this too, because if Tyre's Haliburton's healthy and Jason Tatum is healthy, those are two guys that I have in the top ten.

Tatum's in the top five for me if he's healthy, So like there's that piece of it.

Damian Lillard being hurt nukes any chance for the Bucks to be a real threat.

Honestly, Joel Embiid getting hurt too, Like if that had all stayed together, if Joel Embid could have stayed healthy, you'd have an awesome Sixers team, an awesome Celtics team, an awesome Cavs team, an awesome Pacers team, an awesome Bucks team.

Like you have a lot of really good teams at the top of the Eastern Conference.

You just have Dame knocked chopped the Bucks off at the knees, Haliburton chopped the Pacers off at the knees, and Tatum chopped the Celtics off at the knees.

So you basically have now and I left the Knicks off that list earlier as a sixth team, but now you're basically limited down to ow Embiid in the Sixers obviously got chopped off at the knees too, So now you basically just have the Calves and Knicks left at the top of the conference.

And honestly, what'll be fun is it'll give us an opportunity this year to see some more playoff basketball from some of the younger talent in the East.

I think we'll get to see Trey Young and the Hawks get another shot at this.

I think we'll get to see Cad Cunningham potentially get to a second playoff series, a second playoff round.

I think we're going to get to see some of that element there, get some exposure for some of those guys.

The Orlando Magic is another example of a team that could benefit from that, but it's just bad luck, injury luck, and there's not really anything the league can do about it.

Next question, Lebron was better than Steph last year.

Even in their head to head matchups.

Lebron hit more clutch shots and led his team to victory, while Steph was often not hyper fit from the field when the Warriors needed him.

When Lebron is playing on an injured foot, Steph was better, but Lebron is playing like a shell of himself.

He just had no choice but to play because of the play in situation.

Lebron was definitely better than Steph for pretty much the entire Olympics as well.

And while Lebron does slack on defense for possessions, he has a gear on defense that Steph has never been able to approach in his career.

Like you can't take points for Lebron's mediocre defense at times when Steph's defense is consistently mediocre even when he tries.

Teams constantly attack Steph on offense while rarely, while very rarely, do teams run plays to attack forty year old Lebron, and Lebron still runs the defense at times even when he's not actively in the play by calling out plays and telling players where they need to be.

Draymond does all of that for Steph.

So if you were going to make a case for while Lebron was better than Steph over the last couple of years, I think you broke it down really well.

So I want to give you credit for that.

I think there are a couple of specific things I've pushed back on, So, for instance, like Lebron being better in the head to head matchups, the Lakers have had a better roster over the last couple of years, So I think it's just worth mentioning that basketball's easier when you're surrounded by more talent, and so I think that that played a big role in the head to head matchups.

Secondly, I do think Lebron reached a higher level last year in that stretch from late January to early March than Steph did at any point last year.

But Lebron was only there for sixteen games, and for the rest of the year.

There's just that Steph offensive engine thing.

We're still to this day.

When he's running around, they're still sending two guys to him, and all these guys are getting these open shots.

And again, a pretty limited roster for the Warriors, just adding Jimmy Butler but losing Andrew Wiggins in the process, a bunch of mediocre role player talent.

Steph took those guys, I think twenty and seven after the All Star Break with the number one defense in the league and the number seven offense.

Again, I do think that Lebron very briefly hit a level last year that was higher than anything Steph did last year.

But for the totality of when they were available as basketball players, I did have Steph just to touch higher.

And for the record, you guys will see where Steph ends up on this list.

I don't have him much higher than Lebron, but I do think especially over these last couple of years, basically since twenty twenty three, I mean even in twenty twenty two, I thought that Lebron to me, stopped being able to consistently reach the top tier when Solomon Hill dove into his ankle in twenty twenty one, which, by the way, is right about the same age that Steph is right now.

So we'll see if Steph can maintain it.

And who knows, maybe Lebron is a big forward who can rely on size and strength and intelligence.

Maybe he'll pass Steph again in the next coming a couple of years, maybe that'll happen.

But right now, to me, that supreme gift Steph has to just run in circles and fuck things up for a defense by getting two to the ball.

That to me just kind of keeps him just that hair's bread the head of Lebron in the meantime.

But again, I think you made a good case.

Next question, why is it that you grade Steph a LBJ on past year's success instead of focusing on what they're currently doing.

This is from a troll who's always commenting underneath the videos.

But I don't really know what to say other than to say that Stephen Lebron both made second team All NBA last year, so everybody seems to think that they were awesome.

Except for you, So I think that's something that you need to evaluate.

Hey, Jason, I can't express enough my appreciation for your show.

You've helped me discover a love for analytical basketball and I and have completely changed my perspective when watching the NBA.

Thanks for everything you do.

Curious about your past experience with media and whether you studied journalism or something communications adjacent.

How did you develop the skills for script writing and public speaking.

It's evident that a lot of effort and experience goes into your work, and wonder about how the evolution has come about over the years.

So my pathway into sports media was different, and like I don't want to say, I hate when anyone says that, like, oh, this is the way to do it, because there's always just a different.

Way to do it.

There's a million different way I used to crack into this space.

I remember when I was starting with the educational background.

My educational background was I was naturally good at math, and so I ended up getting into a lot of like pre engineering stuff and engineering focused stuff.

I have an associates and pre engineering from Utah State University, and I hated math.

I just was good at it.

The classes that I had the most fun in when I was in college were my English classes.

And when you're just talking about like doing research and forming an argument and laying out your argument analytically and you know, in the form of writing, that was where I had the most fun when I was in college.

So, like, it's funny because when I look back now, I actually wish I would have studied English or studied something along those lines, because I just think I would have had more fun while I was in college.

The math thing just really.

Bummed me out while I was there most of the time, which was a bummer because like, again, I was good at it, and I had the problem of like everybody telling me I should do math, Like my high school math teachers are like, you need to do engineering.

Here's the classes you need to be taking, here's the program you need to go into.

Like I got into the.

University of Arizona School of Engineering like as a freshman, and I like hated it so much that I immediately flunked out of the UBA because I just I've legitimately hated it and all I wanted to do was play basketball, And I was just going down and playing pick up basketball every day.

And I just I was not mentally engaged by math or by engineering at all.

I've told this full story with Ethan Strauss on his podcast before, but the very short version of it is I was bad in school until I was on a basketball team in college, a juco team, and I was loving it, having the time of my life in practice.

And one day I got called into the office by the eligibility coordinator and he was like, yo, dude, your grades are fucking terrible, Like how are you going to play?

Like we can't get you on the floor.

And I was like, oh shit, yeah, Like you can't just not go to class and get to play college basketball.

It's not how it works, right.

And so I sat down with the guy and I was like, what do I need to do to get eligible?

And he's like, all right, well, first of all, you're not playing this semester at all.

This was the fall semester.

And he's like, if you want to play in the spring, you've got to take a full sixteen unit load over winter break.

And I did.

I took sixteen classes or sixteen units worth of classes that winter break and got or no, it wasn't sixteen, it was twelve whatever.

Four classes is four three unit classes, so I had to take a full twelve unit class load over like a three week period over winter break, got a's and all four of them got eligible for the next semester.

I had to take a full semester load that semester, and then I had to take it again another full load in the summer because the way that it worked was like you had to average your first two years together in order to form your like GPA for the following season.

So I had to like make up all of my shitty not paying attention and not putting in the work in school by taking extra classes over the winter break and over the summer break, basically the two full class loads during that time.

And it was funny because if you like look at my schooling history, I legitimately was one of the worst students you've ever seen.

And then I became a good student the minute someone sat me down and was like, you can't play basketball unless you get your school together.

And it just goes to show you.

Like I talked about this with Ethan in that show.

It's something I kind of hate about myself, but like I have a really strong work ethic when I'm doing something that I love, and then I can be pretty lazy when I don't care about it, and I hate that about myself.

I wish I had more mental fortitude to be able to motivate myself to do things that are harder in life, and I really hope that doesn't come back to bite me in the ass one day.

But like, fortunately that I have been able to find things like this that have kept me focused and have kept me energized and have allowed me to bring work ethic to the equation and actually pour my heart and soul into something and do quality work.

But I was definitely not a good student up until I had to be, and then I just did what I had to do to get through school.

And like even when I was in college.

My last year in college, I transferred from JUCO for a basketball situation.

So I wanted to go to the best basketball team and so I got recruited by this team in Phoenix called Arizona Christian University, and they were this incredible basketball team.

But it was like awful for me academically because they didn't have anything engineering wise, and they had all these like Bible courses, so like I had like one hundred and twenty something college credits, but I only have an associates degree because I pursued just basketball situations and just took class loads that fit whatever that school had available to them.

So again, thankfully I was able to find something like this.

That was a big part of why I ended up in real estate actually before I did.

This was because real estate was something where I could essentially just connect with people and try to drive business that way rather than needing like a specific degree or needing a specific technical skill, if that makes sense.

But everything was driven for me by basketball, and in effect, I kind of bet my life on basketball, and so I'm very, very lucky to have landed where I landed.

But to make a long story short, like if I had to guess where the communication skills came from, like I credit a lot of it to just being put in really uncomfortable situations.

So like going to play college basketball, being dropped off by my parents in Utah at a juco where I'm living in a dorm with a bunch of other people, I was like literally forced to like learn how to engage with people and to build relationships that like kind of forced me to be uncomfortable in that sense, and then the second piece of it was real estate.

I think real estate was really good for me in the real estate business.

My first year and a half, I was in the investment side, so I was working on like flips and renovations and things along those lines, right, and so I learned a ton about that.

And then when I got into the actual like resale part of it, meaning like helping families buy and sell houses.

At that point it was like I'd meet them at an open house, and the way I'd earn their business was by connecting with them and by expressing to them that I had an area of expertise, right obviously what I knew about the industry from flipping, and what I knew about the buying and selling process, right.

And I think just having those conversations over and over and over and over and over again again, I would I would hold like five open houses a week.

That was how I drove business when I was doing that.

But when I would when I was doing that stuff, I think that just gave me a lot of really good reps, and so I think that was a big part of it.

I think in general, like the English classes and writing classes that I took while I was in college.

I think helped a lot, but a lot of it just is again just me loving basketball and me happening to land into a situation where I can channel that through my work ethic because I love the game.

Now, as far as like getting into the industry, I've talked about this on the show before, but the long and short of it is, I don't think it's very complicated anymore.

I think if you want to get into sports media, I think you just need to start making content.

I don't think, like, you know, it's so funny.

I remember hitting up radio stations and asking to work the board, and like trying to write for a blog, and like trying to do these things that like were the traditional route to getting into a position.

And what's so funny about that is like, in retrospect, I feel like everything could have gone faster if I just started making content.

The bottom line is is it's less expensive than ever for any of you guys to go on Amazon and to get a microphone and a webcam, and you can go on Facebook Marketplace and get a MacBook for a few hundred bucks, and you can go home and you can put in the work.

In terms of learning about whatever it is kind of content you want to make finding that lane and then recording and uploading to YouTube, uploading to social media.

They have natural algorithms built in there that promote your content based on how many people watch it and how long they watch it for, and so you have the ability to create your own content, and naturally it will get discovered.

It just will.

If it's good, if it's value, if it brings value to the space, people will find it naturally through the algorithm, and it will start to build momentum.

The only things I would say is like one, it is more flooded than ever two, which I think is a good thing, like we've talked about earlier.

But what that means is it's harder to stand out, which means you've got to put in the work.

So like, make sure that you put your heart and soul into it, give it everything you got.

And secondly, be yourself.

Don't try to be someone else.

Don't try to run in a lane that someone's already running in because you're not going to do a very good job of it because it's not you.

The best chance you have to be the best version of yourself is to be yourself and channel whatever it is that you love through your own personality and how that reflects in your content.

And I think if you just do that, you give yourself a chance.

And like again, like you can do that on the side, have a job.

I did it while I was selling real estate, talked about those open houses.

You want to know what I was doing when I was not when I was not talking actively to clients, when I was sitting in houses waiting for people to show up, I was watching film, I was talking about the game.

I was writing for a blog.

Like, those are phases where you can if you can find a job that has some amount of flexibility to where like when you're done with work, you just channel that energy into content creation.

Just do it at home, do it on social media, do it on YouTube, get it out there.

Let the algorithm do the work.

That would be the best advice I can give at this point.

Next question, I've got a couple more quick ones.

Now that you move to Denver, should we expect you being a Nuggets fan?

No, I enjoy watching the Nuggets.

I enjoy Nuggets fans.

I have nothing against the Nuggets.

I think they play a beautiful brand of basketball.

But I won't actively root for the Nuggets next part of the question.

I also hope you will talk more about the Nuggets and maybe some collaborations with the DNVR guys.

I will talk more about the Nuggets because think the Nuggets are gonna win the title this year.

I have a feeling they're gonna end up being my pick when I finalize my picks.

I think they're a much better version of any team Nicola Jokic has had, and as long as they're kicking butt, as it is always the case, we will continue to cover the teams at the top of the league more so Denver will naturally get more coverage that way.

As far as the DMVR guys go, I got to meet I've met Adam before several times, as I've mentioned on the show.

He's been very kind to my wife and I since we moved here.

But I went to Chicken Fight on Thursday night, which was at this basically this place called Yelich Gardens I believe it is what it's called.

It's in downtown Denver.

It's like a basically like a kind of an older amusement park.

But I met a bunch of the DNVR crew there, all very nice people.

It's great to meet them, great to hang out with them.

Chicken Fight was basically just like a bunch of chicken restaurants coming down and showcasing their chicken.

So got to try a bunch of good local food.

But I'm sure I'll be hanging out with the DMVR guys on occasion, just because I love basketball and there are going to be some of the basketball fans here in town, and obviously Adam is already a big friend of mine.

But like, I don't think I'll actively root for the Nuggets.

I think that it'll just clash too hard with my current rooting interests.

And still is digging at me that I had to come on this show and work after two Jamal Murray game winners two seasons ago.

But thank you so much for the kind words and for supporting the show.

Do you think Lebron is a better three point shooter than MJ?

I was arguing with someone in My arguments were that if MJ and Lebron were drafted in two thousand and three, MJ would be a better three point shooter simply due to his shooting for mechanics.

He then brought up DeMar DeRozan and my counter argument was MJ is was cleaner and more impressive athlete that didn't rely on shooting as much as most perimeter guards.

Also, Damar's jumper has a weird hitch.

I agree Jamar has like a Damar has like a catapult forward in his shot, which I think is uniquely good for the mid range, but not so much for the three point line.

I think MJ did have a much more natural shooting release.

And to support my claim, I brought up Kawhi, do you agree with me or him?

I think bronze jumper is just naturally flawed and it allows him to take certain types of threes.

It's a mechanics problem in my opinion, so I one hundred percent agree with you.

I think that if MJ was drafted in two thousand and three, he would have eventually become a forty percent three point shooter.

I think he's too obsessively competitive.

I think his position group demands it in the modern MBA, and I think that he does have the shooting mechanics to be an excellent three point shooter.

So on that level, I absolutely agree with you.

The lebron thing is a little more complicated.

On the one hand, I do agree that he has naturally kind of flawed mechanics, and I think that that limits him on certain types of situations.

Like he cross fires a bit, which means he's really good going to his left, but not so much going to his right.

I think that's a hurt him in the post a little bit, and I think that's hurt him as a movement shooter going to his right, like shooting off the dribble going to his right.

That said, like, one of the things with Lebron is like he just gets really good looks.

And one of the.

Reasons he gets really good looks is he's still one of the most gifted players in the league at getting to the basket, and especially in his prime, Like you can't press up on Lebron on a closeout because he's just going to go right around you and break your break your defense.

So like with Lebron, it's kind of fascinating because I look at him as being like a guy that shoots the ball well even though he has bad form because he gets such great looks.

But he deserves the credit for getting such great looks because he gets himself opened by the threat of his downhill force.

Two more quick ones.

So I report recently where it said Reeves is apparently asking for Tyler Harrow.

Question is who you got between the two a couple of years ago.

I think it was easily Tyler.

But after last season, I think Reeves's IQ and confidence is at a new level where he learned how to be effective when all the stars are gone while also being a great second third option next to stars.

What do you think, Jason So?

On the one hand, I'm a big Austin Reeves fan, and there's a part of me that wants to immediately scream Austin Reeves is better.

But the reason why I couldn't say that, and why I wouldn't say that until a couple of years from now, is it's just different when you're in the situation Tyler Harrow was in last year, where you're at the top of the scouting report every single day.

That's the role that Tyler Harrow is in.

Austin's really never been in that role.

Yeah, Austin had his moments like the Indiana game last year where Lebron and Luke are out and he just single handedly beats the Pacers, And that is what makes me optimistic that Austin Reeves could be a better player than Tyler Harrow, but I don't think it's fair to just put Reeves on that level and till he faces a whole season where he's like in that sort of situation where he's at the top of the scouting report, and he may never be in that situation as a Laker.

But I just think it makes it complicated.

Like when you were deciding how to guard the Miami Heat last year, you were always thinking about Tyler Harrow first, and I think that just I think that just makes things a little bit tougher.

Tyler Harrow is certainly a more gifted perimeter shooter.

Austin Reeves feels like a more natural passer.

I think Austin's a better defensive player too.

Austin's probably a little bit more crafty getting to the basket.

But again, it's just really difficult to compare those two roles directly head to head.

Lastly, what is the best ski mountain?

On the Epic pass ski related question, I was talking with Carly the other day.

We're trying to decide if we want to get another We got Epic passes for this year, our first time getting full Epic passes because now we're actually living in Denver.

That was the whole upside.

But Breck has always been my favorite mountain just because we used to go with friends and family all the time.

And Breck brings the unique combination of like really versatile mountain, meaning like there's really easy terrain for amateurs, there's all sorts of intermediate terrain, and there's really tough terrain.

They have two high speed lifts that go up over twelve thousand feet on Peak seven and on Peak eight, and on Peak six, and they have like a groomed blue off the top of Peak six called Reverie, which is like one of my favorite runs in the world.

You're above the tree line, you're at like twelve thousand, five hundred feet and you just ski down the face of a mountain.

It's incredible.

Peak eight is the highest high speed chair in the entire North American in all of North America if I'm not mistaken.

And then Peak ten has a bunch of really cool advanced trains, so it's got really versatile terrain.

But then it also has this sick town with lots of good you know, like a really nice bar and restaurant scene.

So like it's a great place for us to go with my friends and family.

This year is gonna be different though, because we're gonna mostly be commuting in from Denver to ski every day.

Like we're not gonna be staying on the mountains very much.

So I'm wondering which mountain all end up liking.

The four epic mountains there are Breckenridge Keystone, which I've only skied once and it was in a blizzard, so I want to try it again.

Keystone is a little closer to me too, so I'm excited to try it more.

It's like ten minutes closer, which could make it a go to for us.

Then there's Veil and then there's Beaver Creek, and those two I haven't skied either of those, so this year will be my first time skiing both of those.

So stand by, I'll tell you guys which one I like out of those two.

My favorite mountain back there is actually Copper Mountain though, and then a lot of people have been trying to get us to try Winter Park, which I've never tried.

Winter Park and Copper are both on the Icon Pass, so we'll look into it and maybe if we get bored with the Epic Mountains.

We might get an icon pass as well, But if I had to say right now, I'd say Breck just because it's so versatile.

But I think my circumstances this year are different since we won't be staying on the mountain as much.

But looking forward to my goal this year is to get fifty days in.

It's going to make me do all sorts of crazy shit with work, like a lot of two A days and stuff like that, but I'll do whatever it takes to make skiing happen.

It's just I view this as like a little tiny window in time before my wife and I have kids, where where like what if this is where we look back and go like, hey, remember when we just skeed our asses off for two years.

That's kind of what I'm hoping this looks like.

So that's our plan at this point.

But we'll see.

I'll keep you guys updated all right.

As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show.

We will be back on Monday with number six.

I'll see you guys then.