Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 137: Jaden Ivey’s First-Team All-Rookie Case

Episode Date: March 22, 2023

This episode checks in on Jaden Ivey, goes over his case for All-Rookie, compares him to Scoot Henderson, and answers some listener-submitted questions.

Welcome back, everybody. You're listening to another episode of Driving to the Basket, part of the Basketball Podcast Network. I am Mike coming to you with less than 10 games remaining in the season. Tonight's loss against the Atlanta Hawks was game number 72. Something worth noting the Pistons are at this point, more or less locked into a bottom three record alongside the San Antonio Spurs and the Houston Rockets. The Hornets have been doing pretty well lately, despite the absence of Flamella Bowl and the fact that they're really relying a ton on high usage. high volume, low efficiency, Kelly Ubre, and then Terry Rozier. In any case, with nine games left for each team, they are seven wins ahead. Needless to say, for a team like the Pistons, that has been losing a great deal for a long time. That's extremely unlikely.

So the Pistons are two games clear of the Rockets who have played 74, excuse me, today's game was game 73, and the Spurs who played 72. Pistons are three games clear of them. Both of those teams are doing better lately. So I'd just like to remind everybody that, yeah, the teams in the bottom four, excuse me, the bottom three all have the same odds in terms of at all of the top four lottery slots. However, being the worst team means you can only fall to number five. Being the second worst team means you can fall to number six, third worst team fell to number seven and so on down the line.

though once you get to number four, your chances of falling four slots become tiny, like 2.2 for number four, and then you're down to 0.6 for number 5, following to number 9. Point two, excuse me, 5 falling to number 9. Point 2 falling from 6 to 10 and then less than, yeah, basically nothing when you get beyond that. So in any case, if you're going to be bad, it's best to be really bad. The pistons right now are really bad through a combination of having kind of a mess of roster and basically being without a lot of their best players. You know, one question I would reasonably have if I were more, you know, if I were a fan

just kind of occasionally to check up on the pistons is where on earth is everybody? And the answer is that they're either being set or the team is being safe with them. The idea right now is to lose. Boy, I may have an injury to his Achilles, but I'm sure the team would just as soon sit him for the sake of losing. Burks just really seems to be on vacation. and that right there is two of your top three scores on the season, arguably your two best scores on the season.

Boyon, of course, averaging a highly efficient 21 and a half points per game on a high creation load scoring at all three levels efficiently. And as you can probably tell by my changing voice, I just stepped away to do something about congestion. Allergy season's hitting real hard. It's March that happens. Anyway, moving on. Alec Berks also very reliable from the team,

does quite a bit of creation, very reliable. Spacer. It's kind of a bummer that the team's two best players on the season have ended up to be veterans over the age of 30. Alex Berks is 31, Boyon's 33. I mean, he really would have appreciated seeing one of the youth, being one of the top scores. I mean, obvious technically up there on drastically worse efficiency. And I think Cape would have been there, but, you know, he only played 12 games and he was injured for all 12 with this. Whatever the case. So, I mean, these guys are pretty much just being held out. You know, Boyan may be a little bit injured, but these guys are being held out. I mean, the pistons have an excuse of some kind.

The NBA really doesn't crack down on this sort of thing. Last season, the Thunder waived the player for playing too well. So it just doesn't, it doesn't happen. And then you have four young players who are out, if you want to call Diallo, you're really one of the youth at this point, since I think really the ship has sailed on him because he still can't shoot. He's no, he's nowhere closer to shooting than he was two years ago. What if the case?

Lever's is out. Dielo is out. Dereon has been out a lot. Stewart is probably out for the rest of the season. The Pistons, I mean, the M.O, the last two seasons has not been to get the young guys as much in the way of reps as the Pistons can. It has not been to sit these guys. So my guess is that it's a mix of genuine injuries and the Pistons wanting to take no chances at this point. I mean, a young player at the end of the season when you're not trying to win anybody's any way is injured, you just let them sit out.

Now, the upshot for those of us watching these drudgerous last however many games and the rest of the season is that the roster's being put out there are not very exciting at all. And that sucks. It's how it is. We're on the home stretch. The Pistons want to lose. Now, it's fairly only looking at this point like a top three draft, sadly. The Pistons lock down one of those bottom three slots, which the more or less have already. You've got around a 40% chance picking top three.

Of course, number one is the big prize this year. And then you're going to fall to five at the lowest, though, if the Pistons fall to four or five, it's kind of going to hurt. But that's true of the Spurs and the Rockets as well, or whoever ends up in the bottom three. All right. So, yeah, not fun. Nine games left.

And I'm not going to be sad when this season is over. However, after the end of the season and the final game of the season of the Pistons, April 9th, we have to wait about five and a half weeks until the draft lottery in the 16th of May and another five and a half weeks until the actual draft on June the 22nd. So that's, yeah, 11 weeks. I mean, getting close to three months there is pretty brutal, to be honest. That's a long, long wait. So I hope you all enjoy the playoffs like I do.

I love watching the NBA playoffs and start to finish. And, but it's going to be a long wait until anything really exciting happens with the Pistons or disappointing, depending on the outcome of the lottery. So one subject I've been asked to cover. This comes off of Pistons Discord. I talk of, you know, if the Pistons don't get number one, they get number two and number three. You know, hypothetically, would you package that from your culpruders? So this leaves aside whether Brooklyn would do it or not.

And Brooklyn, I'll remind everybody has no real incentive to tank because they owe so much. I mean, they owe picks and pick swaps to Houston for the foreseeable future. And Houston is presumably going to be an upward trajectory. though one never knows. I mean, the team's a bit of a mess right now. They've got a lot of promising youth, but they're a bit of a mess. You've got, say, you know, your back court of, sorry, I mean, Kevin Porter Jr. is pretty troubled, very lacking immaturity and highly volatile. Jalen Green is a lot of potential, but it seems like kind of a douchebag too. The team doesn't really seem to have a leader of any sort. There seems to be a lot of dysfunction there. But who knows? In any case, Brooklyn tanks, then they're probably going to be giving up their pick to Houston for a while. that way of picks and picks swaps. I mean, Brooklyn's roster is a bunch of, you know, is a mess too. Of course, they downgraded from having arguably the best offensive squad of all time with Kyrie, who sucks as a person, it seems, but he's an amazing basketball player. James Harden, who's an amazing basketball player,

Kevin Durant, who's an amazing basketball player, all future Hall of Famers, all guys who can play on and off the ball and all guys who can grade at a high level. Make no mistake, if those guys had been healthy at the same time in the playoffs, consistently throughout a playoffs, there would have been no beating them. That would have been the most dominant offense of all time because it would have presented defenses with an impossible problem to solve. Yeah, all of those guys can play on and off the ball. All of them can pass. All them can shoot threes.

All the league creators. There would have been no way to stop them. Even, like, Durant and one a half of Hardin almost beat the Bucks who went out to win the championship. You got a healthy hard on that series. The next probably won the championship. You had a healthy Kyrie, maybe. All three of them healthy, you're done. I mean, there's just no beating them.

But, of course, things did not work out. James Harden asked out because Kyrie's antics, basically sitting out the season, most of the season because he refused to get the vaccine. And then, of course, Kyrie asked out because I'm not going to get into Kyrie's Tom Fuller. And then Durant asked out because he was the last one. And now Michael Bridges is the best player. The Nets are in an unenviable position of just having a real mishmash of players, including maybe one of the worst contracts in terms of value on salary in the week,

Ben Simmons, who has been horrible this season. he was incomplete, certainly up until this season, but not like awful. I mean, badly incomplete in a way that really hurt on offense. But this season, he's just been dreadful when he has played. He's been terrible. The Nets have $145 million in salary applications next season, though they can get under that number by waving Spencer Dimwitty. It's fully non-guaranteed. So that leaves him at $120 up to 25, still very, very little in the way of cap space.

You can wave for you on it. Basically, they're not getting to a point where they have cap space. And they don't have a very good team. And I'm sure, I mean, they can just trade everybody. They have left for assets, which is basically just Bridges. Cam Johnson, whom they're presumably going to extend. They're not extend. They're going to give them a new contract this offseason.

These are restricted free agent. Cam Thomas has some promise. Nick Claxton is a good center. But altogether, they don't really have a team capable of competing for anything. At the same time, you turn around and just dump everybody. Maybe you're depending on, oh, I'm going to sign some guys with the cap space like we did in 2019, though now compared to back then, I mean, you know how many good free agents hitting the market? And people saw what just happened. I mean, there's no guarantee you're going to be able

to go and just sign a couple of superstars. It's worth looking back to 2019 and noting that the Nets didn't really want Kyrie if Durant were coming and weren't coming along. But you take Kyrie alongside Durant. I mean, Kyrie has gotten progressively more malicious in terms of how bad way he's screwed over the teams. I mean, Cleveland was just, you know, I want to go off and be a leader. I don't want to play behind what Braun. Of course, he got to the Celtics and found out that being a lead came, you know, what came along with being the leader on the court in terms of being the highest, you know, the number one option, the focal point of the offense was leadership and said in an example, neither of what you wanted to do at all. And on the way out, he completely

screwed up with the Celtics in the series against the box, just shot them out of the series. And he couldn't have cared less. And then he left. And they replaced him with Kemba, who was a downgrade and much too injured. Though, of course, the Celtics rebounded. And then he goes to the nets and, you know, The rest is history there. We'll see with the Mavericks. So all of this is to say, I know I just talked about a team that most you don't really care about. But would they trade Mikal? I don't know.

Maybe they just scratch and gasp to be competitive to some degree, just to not give up good stuff to Houston. And that's probably what I would do if I were them. Anyway, moving on to the piston. So here's the scoop on Mikal Bridges. So since coming over to Brooklyn and the trade with the Sons, I saw Duranko in the other way. McCall Bridges was the primary piece. Well, aside from the first round picks.

And yeah, okay, those are important to do. Anyway, so McCall, we all know as an Ironman, a great defender. Like, there was this spectacle of horrible management in Philadelphia. Like Steve Hinky, Sam Hinky, excuse me, built up quite a treasure trod of assets and set up his successors very well. Colangelo was a mess. Elton Bram was a disaster. Brett Brown got to be interim GM for one draft after Colangelo got dismissed because of Burnergate.

And the one thing he did was draft McCall Bridges and everybody was super psyched. It's like, oh, you know, we played college in town. You know, he's a hometown boy. And then, you know, and he's this kind of three and D wing that would have fit perfectly. And that sixers roster. And then Brett Brown deciding he's going to be a real smart guy trades him away for Zaira Smith, Pistons Legend. and a first-round draft pick for Miami,

which would later be used by Elton Brands to acquire Tobias Harris to play fourth option. And then Elton Brand would go on and Max him and let Butler go while also keeping Brett Brown as coach. And they would eventually replace him with Doc Rivers, who is, in my opinion, going to be the chief confounding factor this season, this offseason and the six was potentially winning a championship because he's a horrible playoff coach. Anyway, all that aside.

Okay, Iron Man, great defender, strong player. Just really, really strong three-n-deep player for the Sons. It was pretty much just a perfect role player. Strong forward spacer. Again, strong defender, able to really play within any offense. And he's exploded since coming into the Nets. He's only played 16 games, but he's increased his scoring at his points per game from 17 to 26, also increasing his true shooting from 57.5 to 63.5.

And he's doing it on a very much more difficult shot diet. He was only attempting, basically unassisted offense accounted for 29% of his field goals with the Sons. Now he's up to 45.6 with the Nets. So much, much more difficult shot, diet, much bigger role, much higher usage, and he's just putting up a ton of points and even better efficiency. Now, what you ask yourself is, has he been unleashed or is he a regression candidate? I don't buy that this is just who he is. I think he's going to regress to a degree. I mean, maybe I'll end up being stupid for saying this, but I think he's likely to be that good, you know, that really viable number three option on the championship teams.

So somewhere in the middle. Now, does it make sense for the Pistons to draft to trade pick number two or three? I would say no. They're not a me called Bridges away from contending. Scoot has a ton of upside in my opinion. There's the fit question, but I'll talk about that a little bit later. And then there's Brennan Miller at number three, who I think has a lot of potential. Of course, the whole, you know, potentially knowingly giving a gun to somebody who wanted to commit murder is going to hang over his head until the draft.

And that's really, this really just going to depend. So I don't buy that. Nicole Bridges is like exploited into, you know, really a star score. And so no, I wouldn't make that trade at number two. Probably not on number three either. Maybe I look like an idiot. Who knows? Another question before I get to scoot, actually.

Why is Wiseman starting over Duren? Duren is struggling with injuries. Pistons would not be held holding him out unless they were a good reason. I'm guessing that they just didn't really see much need to toss him back into the starting lineup right away. It was coming back from injury. They were conservative with him. He got injured again. I don't recall exactly.

Okay, this wasn't his ankles. This was a whiplash. Whatever the case. I think also, I think beyond just bringing him back slowly, it's a question of the starting lineup being really, really offense light at the moment. Like, you've got Jaden Ivy who can score. And then you're playing Bagley and Wiseman together, and that's a question. basically like one and one quarter guys who can score. So maybe the logic in playing the two of them together.

Maybe my thinking I'm playing the two of them together, more offense isn't entirely work well because the guys have a horrendous amount of overlap and only one of them is really going to go off in any given game. But maybe it's for the offense. Maybe it's just for seeing what they got. Maybe it's just for getting the reps on the court. He hasn't gotten the reps on the court. And the biggest question about Wiseman is how much is his poor decision making the product

of rawness versus just poor IQ? And make no mistake. Some players just have poor IQ. You look at Bagley. This is an immediate example. He has been in the league. This is his fifth season. I'm sure he spent a lot of time injured, but, you know, unlike Wiseman, he's played a lot of minutes in the NBA and he played a full season in college.

But he's been bad since college at defense. Shashefsky had to make Duke play his own defense to protect him and Wendell-Carter Jr. from the pick-and-roll because they could not defend the pick-and-roll. And while, whereas Wendon Carter Jr. has gone on to improve a great deal on defense. Bagley has not. And then basically it boils down to his defensive IQ. being absolutely and utterly horrendous. You make him your primary interior defender at center.

He's a complete disaster. And on the perimeter, I talked about this last episode, he's going to make a mistake eventually on a lot of possessions, particularly if you put him through switches or make him rotate a lot. He's eventually going to screw up and you're going to get a good opportunity out of it. So some players don't improve their IQ. And certainly at center, being an outright poor defender, I mean, unless you're real good on offense, it's kind of hard to stomach.

So I would actually say that it's probably the primary reason. I mean, even of Durham are in the lineup, which is not lately. But, you know, when he's been back, I think it's a combination. It's why I just bringing him back slowly. But I think also that's probably it. Getting Wiseman reps is also a good thing. It's certainly been a little bit awkward because he and Bagley are the only bigs who are healthy on the roster right now with Stuart and Duren out. So it's one of them or the other on the court.

They start together for the most part. And then, I mean, you see, oh, my hearing, am I pronouncing his name right? whatever. He's been on the team for like, I think, like two weeks at this point and seems to have decent potential. But for the most part, he's just playing minutes on a really bad team and getting an opportunity on a really bad team. Something worth noting, you can only sign two 10-day contracts. So if the person wants to sign him to, if they want to keep him on the roster, they have to sign him to an actual deal, actual standard NBA contract or move him to a two-way swap. They could just say

goodbye buddy Beheim, who serves no perceptible purpose whatsoever. Seems to have extremely limited NBA upside. He's a relatively poor athlete and doesn't really, well, poor athlete with a bad wingspan who's going to have trouble on defense and is not an only perimeter shooter. I don't know why he's holding a two-way contract spot. I mean, I can speculate. It's like the Syracuse connection, whatever.

So kick him off, put Omiyore on there. Cool. Or you wave somebody, like RJ Hampton, for example. But I don't think the pistons are, nah, who knows? I don't really see anybody but potentially Hampton being waived. I mean, you're not going to wave Kojo. you're not going to waive Magruder. These are both very well-loved guys in the locker room.

And I think you need all the help you can keeping the locker room together down the stretch of this horrible season. And you could always get rid of Jared Broden as well. I feel like the guy is more on the A upside and Beheim. Whatever, both of them are disposable. It's occasionally you find a guy in a two-way contract who goes on to become a very useful role player,

but it's definitely very rare. I don't know a ton about Jared Roden. He hasn't really getting a ton of time playing. But whatever. Anyway, he's played some small ball center. when Bagway has been out. So I hope that answers the question. I think they were just bringing Durham back slowly.

And now he's out again. All right. So we spoke about Scoot. So my next question, is Scoop really the second best player in this draft and the Zoffer much more upside in comparison to Ivy. It's hard for me to peg who is the second best player in this draft right now. Miller has definitely made his case for number two.

But what's happening with the whole gun thing is going to, again, it's going to, at the very least, it was spectacularly poor judgment. At the very worst, he knew what was. happening. So I'm just not willing to make a statement right now as if I think the person should even draft him. Of course, the police haven't charged him with anything. And by the accounts of the police department, they're not going to. But it's definitely something to think about. But in terms of Ivy, I would say Scoot does offer more upside to Ivy. So here's where I see the comparison. And bear in mind that Scoot is still pretty raw. His shooting splits aren't great. But I think he's got a ton of

upside. And I see some James Hardin in this game and his ability as a creator for himself. and first teammates. So 10 to 10 athleticism across the board. I mean, the guy goes from zero to 60 insanely fast and faster than Ivy, who I'd rate of like nine and a half out of 10 athleticism, or maybe nine, because his verticality is only kind of like decent rather than really good, as you'd expect from a guy who has the elite acceleration and top speed that he has. So Scoot, much better leaping ability. He's smooth rather than jerky. I mean, he has extremely smooth elite athleticism. So I'd rank him above I mean that capacity, and Ivy is a very, elite NBA athlete. Scoot also better body control than Ivy. Ivy kind of has some issues with body

control and I think that plays into his difficulty in attacking the basket, which I'll get in, you know, I'm going to talk about that as well as I talk about where he is waiting on this episode and his case for the all-rooky team. So Ivy doesn't really do as well with contorting his body. He just kind of goes right at it. And I think that's played a part in his difficulty in attacking the basket. Scoot has no such issue. Great body control. I mean, he's super shifting. He has a much better handle than Ivy 2, despite being two years older at this point, two years younger, excuse me. They're almost exactly two years of age. Better passing, more in the way of league guard skills.

I mean, Ivy has made a lot of progress as a playmaker. I continue to think that he's going to top off his secondary playmaker because he's just a driving kick guy. He's not really a guy who's going to judge a defense and make, you know, and make kind of like a high, a really high level read on just how to break it down. Just a driving kick guy, which is helpful, but it doesn't really lend itself to being kind of an elite playmaker. I mean, I'm definitely very happy with his progress. I'll put it that way, because prior to the season, I thought that one of his main question marks was the ability to

make the right reads and passes off the drive and the willingness to make the right passes off the drive. He's been a very willing passer, and he's often found the open man. He has a share of turnovers, but he's made a ton of progress, and I'm happy with it. And I just, I don't think his ceiling is that really high-level playmaker. Scoot, who knows about his defense? But a solid pull-up guy, like really solid pull-up guy. He's out of ID in that capacity. He's just being two years younger, and the worst three-point shooter at this point, but I see upside there because of his bull-up shooting. So does he offer much more upset? I would say yes. I just think that he's likely to be a much more well-rounded player in terms of his ability to create both for himself

and for others, smoother athleticism. And in some ways, he's less raw than Ivy, though definitely, of course, he's playing at the G-League level, whereas Ivy is playing against the best players in the world. But also, the G-League is no joke. It's just, I mean, it's one of the best weeks in the world. It's just a huge step down from the NBA. In terms of the first of the first, fit. I'm not going to take Killian Hayes into account in this. Killian's definitely a hand, or Killian has been, he's in year three and he's still absolutely terrible. At high level playmaker, you know, elite court vision, great passer, can't really take as much advantage of it as you would like because he's unwilling to attack the basket and cannot break down defenses

off the drive. But the hard worker for the most part that he's been a bit listless lately, above average defender, not elite, horrendous, absolutely terrible, tear your hair as a tear your hair out bad score, like comically bad, which really nukes his entire game. He, if you look at, like, if you look at the worst players in the league by efficiency, by true shooting percentage, you'll find that Killian is about 3% worse. He's by far the worst in the league. We'll put it this way amongst qualifying players. We saw it, for example, by like, I don't know, 30 games play, which is less than half of the season

and, you know, 15 minutes average per game, which makes you a significant rotation player. Killian is, yeah, I think, if I remember correctly, more than 3% worse than the second worst guy who is Dennis and Jr. He is, yeah, I'm just not going to think about killing. If he gets together, I say maybe a pretty good NBA backup. But he's not the kind of guy you take into account when you're making this decision. You have Cade, obviously, looking at as your primary handle or the future. You have Ivy who does a lot of his good work on the ball as well.

You bring Scoot into this. It's unlikely you're going to keep all of them on the team. Do you have the ability to develop all three of them? That's a consideration. So that's the point at which you, you, you think. think about, I mean, you have three guys who are all best on the ball. And, I mean, you're never going to get the most out of any of them. It does present, again, developmental challenges. Miller, you're kind of looking more on the side of fit. And like I said, it's just tough for me to

think about him while this whole gun thing is hanging over his head, because that'd be a pretty big deal. But I would call Scoot, the second best player in the draft. I would call his fit worse than Miller's, but I'd have trouble passing up on him, to be honest. All right, so let's get on to Ivy, but first a quick word from our sponsor. Ready for the underdogs, the upsets and the unbelievable action from drafting sports book. The biggest tournament in college basketball is here. Right now, new customers bet just $5 in college hoops and get $200 in bonus bets instantly. Plus, for a limited time, all customers can do our no sweat bet during round one and two at the tournament. Go to the app, opt in and place a no sweat bet this weekend. If it doesn't hit, you get a bonus bet

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So where's Jade and Ivy? We're going to go with this sort of new year, new use sort of analysis. First half of the season, or excuse me, in 2022 versus in 2020. 2020 contains just under half the games in the season. So we're getting close to being an equal number of games between the two years. So Ivy in 2022, 41. slash 31 and a half from 3, 73% from the free pro line splits, 15 points, 4 assists, four rebounds, about five free throws average per game, close to three turnovers,

51.5% true shooting. And in 2023, same percentage from 2, 41.2, he's up to 35.6% from 3, still below 70s from the line, and 15 points, 6 assists, 4 rebounds, still averaging about 5 free throws, more turnover because he's passing more. 52.8% for shooting, which is, you know, fairly significant improvement. Still a little average, but an improvement. And it's worth noting, of course, since he's been passing more, his assist percentage. Siss percentage is what percentage would be assist to your response before when you're on the floor. Oh, pardon me.

It's percentage of teammate field goals, you put player assisted while that player is on the floor. So, Ivy basically in 20203 is assisting on 28.5% of the field goal is made while his teammates, excuse me, well, made by his team, it's when he's on the four. In terms of a shooting, it's sort of been opposite trajectory. So you would think that Jaden Ivy would be at his best attacking downhill with the ball in his hands and scoring the basket. And in 2022, 58% from the restricted area, which is solid, bad from three. Excuse me, yeah, from mid-range, bad as well, about 32%. And this was another one of those things going into the season was getting a development in-between games. So his opponent's won't just completely abandon him

when he's not either the three-point line or the basket. So 32% for mid-range, which is real bad. 32% on above the break threes. He was still about 37% on catch and shoots, but 25% on pull-ups and he loves his pull-up threes. So in 2023, he is doing a lot better from three and a tremendous amount worse than the restricted area. 48.6% the restricted area, horrendous for anybody.

They're just terrible. He's been having just awful struggles to get into the basket. Like he just has trouble even penetrating, which is bizarre. he would think for a player with his elite athleticism and decent handle. A decent handle as far as he's not just, you know, he can maintain the ball when he's on his way at the basket. But he just has trouble getting past guys.

And when he does get past them, he gets swatted at the basket a lot. On the plus side, he's really improved in mid-range, closing out on 45%, which is still not an efficient shot. But if you're left wide open, you know, it gives you a fair chance of making that. And though he's actually gotten worse on catch-and-shoots, he's improved up to 37%. He's 34% in catching shoots. He's improved from 25% to 37% on pull-ups. So basically what you have here is a player who is still very raw. So still streaking from the three-point line, and I think he's going to need to revamp his form.

And he's really struggling to get to the basket. Still turns over the ball quite a bit. His defense is absolutely terrible. And he's another player, kind of like Bagley, you look at, and you just hope that's because goodness knows he works hard. And he's got the athleticism to reposition and the wing's been a challenge. but he constantly finds himself out of position, sometimes literally spinning to try to find the man that he's supposed to be on. So we just hope that that's just a matter of needing to acclimate to the NBA game

because he wasn't a horrendous defender in the NCAA. The NCAA is the NCAA, but that's encouraging. At least Bag, we was a horrible defendant in the NCAA. Continues to give up a lot at the free throw line. Low 70s is not good enough, especially for a player who's going to want, who's probably going to draw a lot of free, continue to draw a lot of free throws in his NBA career as he attacks downhill. He's managed to maintain his numbers in 2023 in terms.

of how many free throws he's attempting. He's only a bit less than he was in 2020. And he just can't weave that many points down there. I mean, low 70s is just straight bad in the NBA right now and certainly for a guard. So still a raw player has really improved as a passer. He hoped that he can put together that restricted area scoring is showed in 2022. It's possible defense has just caught on to the fact that they only need to play a certain type of defense against him to keep him away from the restricted area or really deny him good opportunities there because he's very predictable. He seems to just not really be able to plan where he's going to go ahead of time. And that's something he's going to need to do. Now, he has been

thrust into a primary creator role by the absence of Cade, and presumably he would have an easier time if he were playing more of a secondary role with somebody else to attract the attention. Goodness knows it's not going to be Killian. And then somebody else were with a primary handler who were able to break down defense is better. But you just see him go around a pick. And in case, he does him no favors by basically saying just attack an isolation or I'll give you a simple pick, off them with a guy Bagley or Wiseman who's not even going to set a proper screen for you because they both suck at it or really aren't all that willing rather. They just slip screens instead. And cool.

Then try to attack the basket in an offense that most likely doesn't have anywhere near enough spacing. And that doesn't do Ivy any favors. But he also is just struggling to do it. And Dwayne Casey, when Kate is back, is not the coach to make these two guys work together since he just completely lacks the imagination on offense. But nonetheless, a more spread out offense with another. creation threat who can also playmate for others. I think that'll help Ivy next season and hopefully continues to develop in that capacity. Now, moving on to his case for all rookie, he has something to know for all rookie.

I'm like all NBA positions don't matter. Last season, there were five guards in zero centers. This season before, there were five guards in one center. Assuming last center, last season, you don't peg Mobley as a power forward. And for most of the season, he was not a power forward. That was, excuse me, not a center. He was playing power forward because Jared Allen was on the forward or in the rotation with him. He played more center during a period in which Allen was injured.

later on the season, but primarily power forward, and that continues to be his primary position. So let's talk about the definite least. There's Boncaro, needless to say, really the frontrunner for a rookie the year right now, has pretty much devolved into high volume, low efficiency weightly, the sub-50% true shooting in the last, you know, from February 1st downward famously shot, I think. It was out of 2% or 3% from 3 in February, which is impressively bad. Basically, his efficiency is saved from being absolutely horrible. It wasn't really all that great before February.

and save from being horrible by the fact that he gets to the line a lot. He's basically a one-trick pony at this point. He scores in the restricted area. That's about it. For all that people point to his mid-range, I mean, he's shooting 38% from there. But he is averaging about 20 points per game. He's been one of the most notable rookies. The fact that he run rookie at a month in February was ridiculous.

That really should have gone to Ivy. But whatever. So in any case, he's a shoe-in for all rookie. And I would say still the odds-on-favor to win rookie the year. J-O. and Williams. Second best rookie. He's been great lately. And I saw him going into the draft. It's a very well-rounded player who's going to struggle because of his lack of athleticism, and he's not. He's not struggling at all. And he's been very, very good. He's the only guy who could realistically challenge Don Caro for a rookie to year.

And he's a shoe-in. Matherin started strong, has really tailed off, but is also still a shoe-in because he's been altogether still one of the best rookies. Kegan Murray has been a solid number four, number five option, especially strong from the perimeter for a king's team that is really surprised. He's been a solid role player. Not a ton is being asked of him, but he's been definitely a solid role player. Jalen Duren, second best center on the crop, that doesn't matter. But I think overall has been a really strong rookie, whatever. We have all seen him play. He still struggles on defense, but he's definitely made an impact. Walker Kessler has been a major surprise, and this just makes the Goberra trade hurt even more for Timberwell's fans, because while he is still nowhere near, I mean, Gober is just a game-changing interior defender. Kessler isn't there.

he's been very good. I don't think he's going to be quite as good in the playoffs because he'll have to switch and he's not quite as great at that. But he's definitely going to make all-ricky. And then you had Ivy on top. The other players who could probably make it in there, I would say Sohan and Sharp, Sharp because he's super explosive and people love that. So-Han because he's got really a lot of potential as a five-position defender if he can just shoot those threes. And he's done some attacking off the dribble. Easton has an outside shot. None of these three guys are better than Ivy. in terms of who's not making it. We're going to look at Jalen Smith Jr.

Not J.1. Smith, J.Bari Smith, Jr., excuse me. Jalen Smith, of course, placed with the basers, who has come on wait a week but had just an absolutely disastrous start of the season. I don't think he's going to be considered. Dyson Daniels. The Pelicans had remained good. They did not. Ingram spent time injured.

Zion, of course, has been out. I mean, Zion, man, potentially is a fantastic player who, thanks to that combination of a ton of bulk with, you know, that he couples with just amazing agility for that size, explosiveness, and of course, skill. But those first three factors, you know, that bulk, that strength, you know, ability to take it, ability to knock guys out of the way. And though he's still explosive as well, and, you know, and still a good weeper, just still super athletic. But that's hard in the body. That's really hard in the lower body. And I think that even if the guy to this stage had remained in perfect health,

which he did not, the guy did not watch his weight, and he has to be at the healthiest weight he can be yet. And he's only going to get so low because the guy just naturally has a huge frame and is going to maintain a lot of muscle. But he's got to be as low as he can reasonably get. Maybe not. Even if he did everything right, I think he would have, the guy basically probably would begin just breaking down in his early 30s. In any case, the Pelicans fell. Dyson Daniels has been extremely inefficient as a score. The difficulties that I foresaw with him coming into the league. He's not athletic. He can't really beat guys. I mean, he's got a very poor first step. He's not going beat guys off the dribble. He's nothing special in terms of his shifting his shiffyness stacking the

basket. And his shooting was a major concern with the G League ignites. And both of those have continued to dog him into the NBA. And then there's AJ Griffin, who I just don't really think has done enough. It was Malachi Branham, who really hasn't been very impressive at all. So let's leave it here. Ivy is going to make the all-urkey team. Bill He make the first team. Benkerro will be first team. Williams will be first team. Kessel will be first team. It's going to come down to Mathuron or Ivy, and Mathrim may get it on the basis of narrative alone because he had a very strong start the season, though Ivy is. And he's continued actually to be a little bit more efficient than Ivy, but Ivy is taken on a much, much more difficult load in the starting

lineup as the primary handler and has developed a lot as better. So it'll come down to the two of them for first team. I'd give the edge to Ivy at this point. I think it's been long enough since Matherin's strong start, that he continues to have big games here and there, that he's not going to, that's not going to stick out in the eyes and the minds rather of the people voting for this award. And the people voting from the media are not always the, I can't really necessarily depend on them. You like to think that you can to make a decision that is both informed and reasonable. So we'll see. I'd say if Matherin is going to win out over Ivy, it's going to be because of guys who are just looking at narrative.

And oh, hey, he had a lot of big games at the beginning of the season. So that'll be it for this episode. Thank you, folks, as always, for listening. And that will catch you in the next episode.