The Daily Zeitgeist - Embracing Analytics with Seth Partnow

Episode Date: September 15, 2022

Miles and Jack were pleased to be joined by the author of "The Midrange Theory" and NBA analyst Seth Partnow for this episode. Beyond discussing the fantastic book 'The Midrange Theory'. the trio did a bit of a deep-dive into some of the misconceptions and misrepresentations of analytics in the NBA.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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That's how many days separate us from the first preseason action of the new season when the Warriors actually head off to a country that's very close to me, Japan, to face the Wizards. But we'll be talking about the latest news and notes, as well as discussing some of the concepts introduced in the book, The Mid-Range Theory, with author and former Bucks Director of Research, Seth Partnow. I'm Miles Gray. And I'm Jack O'Brien.

And this is Miles and Jack. God, Matt. Matt Boosties. Nailed it. That was actually one of the best ones, I think. That was wild. I sound like I was coming in over a radio that was going out. Yeah.

What's up, Seth? Seth, part now. Welcome, welcome to the most wonderful, hilarious show about basketball. It's Park Here. Part now. It's a little fun I had with your name. about basketball. Park here. Park now. Wow. Fun I had with your name. Look, I was just saying,

look at me freeze right as you introduced me. Yeah. Modern technology. Nailed it. Nailed it so far. So, I got to ask you,

first of all, what was your favorite team? So, growing up, I was a Celtics fan. I grew up in Alaska, but my dad is from Boston. And so,

I just came by it honestly. I went to my freshman year of college. I'm struggling to remember back now. It was either the year before KG's rookie year or his second year. It was my freshman year of

college in Minnesota. Was that 96? 95. My freshman year of college in minnesota right was that 96 yeah so that's so yeah my sophomore yeah my freshman year of college was his uh whatever but yeah so long ago like i basically i was in i was living in minnesota for the start of the kg era so i became a timberwolves fan for basically until i lost fandom by starting to do basketball professionally right funny we talk about that a lot like a lot of people who are essentially at a certain point the fandom does erode

like i'm actually just enjoying what i'm seeing yeah i like things that are good now it's hard for me to be like you know that it's growing up a celtics fan it's i'll be honest it's hard for me to not take some schadenfreude over bad things happening to the Lakers. That's never going to go away. Yeah, same. But on the other hand... Fair, fair, fair. But that's what gets us out of bed sometimes.

Right. It's those small victories, right? And so now you're a back with a you know in a white robe like what like an ancient greek philosopher and just observe the sport for the pure beauty of it yes and i never get into arguments or have strong opinions or have play favorites or no that's not that's not at all true this is not remotely true but no it's but it's it's rather than being tied to a team, being tied to concepts and things like that. Yeah. Right.

And your book is about analytics, but you kind of approach it from an angle. This quote from the book, I think, is a good way of saying what you think analytics are. A mode of thought hoping to reduce the impact of the cognitive biases we all suffer from um which i that that's pretty cool i i know that makes it sound it's not like a catchy pull quote that i've pulled out but that that's the one that like really made it make sense to me you know i i did not set out to be in basketball analytics. I was a basketball fan and player first. And sort of by, I don't know, by education and sort of bent, it kind of led me back to it in sort of an economic slash numerical way. numerical way and figuring out a way to discuss the game in numbers and finding out sort of what works rather than from a standpoint of of i'm smarter because i'm doing it this way right i mean i hope that comes across in the book but that's that's really the approach to it is it's

just you know i've i've kind of always thought of things in in that way um all right it's any anytime you do something on the court you're not doing something else so figure out which is better and you know sometimes focus on yeah yeah and there's sometimes you can figure it out just by sort of watching and there's sometimes where you can't i mean the the classic example from like baseball analytics is uh the difference between a 300 hitter and a 275 hitter is one hit every two weeks now without without writing stuff down watch two weeks of baseball and tell me if you can tell one apart from the other right and so that's where you know that there's stuff that and there's you know there's shades

of gray as to when something is something you can tell purely from observation when something you need to collate for is. And everything exists along that continuum. But there's a lot of stuff that you can watch a guy shoot a couple jumpers, but you probably get a better understanding if he can shoot in games by letting him shoot 500 jumpers in games. And then seeing how many he made and missed i've always said that the reason i didn't end up in the nba is because people just judged it too much on watching me shoot a couple jumpers here and there and that didn't give me the chance to get up 500 shots in the nba uh like i like i told them hold on give me a run of games real quick you know what i mean it's a flawed data set just because okay maybe i hurt my wrist real bad shooting that free

throw i do like i i do think there's a pretty of all the like analytics shifts like big big shifts in the understanding and how we approach a major sport. I feel like what we saw with the NBA, I guess it was like decades after the advent of the three-point shot, everyone just being like, oh, that is a lot more points than a two-pointer. And just everyone realizing how much of an advantage that was,

even though it kind of always been there, that's pretty wild. I do feel like people now, when they think of analytics, are like, so they're going to say something radical like that. There's not a hidden gem like threes are actually worth a whole lot more than twos waiting to be discovered out there. It's more finding little

edges here and there, right? Yeah, there's there might be more than one, but there aren't that many big things. And I feel like the people who are kind of anti the three to begin with maybe get a little bit of a raw deal

because if you think about it we've only had like detailed data on where shots come from in the NBA since 1996 and that data didn't get like reliable till about 98 so okay I

yes you're going to shoot better from 18 feet than you are from 25 feet. And you could be forgiven for thinking that, well, no, 18 feet, I'm going to make that half the time, and I'm going to make the other one 30% of the time, and the math is still in my favor, until you can actually see it collated that way, see the data pulled out. It's like, actually, no, you shoot a little bit better, but it's like 40% 38% if nobody's guarding you and so yeah the extra point is worth a ton more but we have the information needed to make it that obvious until like the late

90s and then you know combine that with some of the rule changes in the early 2000s I'm actually not surprised it kind of took until some of that happened and people had success with it for it to start to accelerate and then you know you start to like then the quants came in and ruined the game that's right you are a former quant right like you you worked as we mentioned as the

bucks director of research so you you've kind of you're you're saying that self-effacingly. Yeah, yes. No, and I, yeah. And, you know, I also, I say that self-effacingly in both directions, both that, no, the quants didn't ruin the game. And on the scale of those things, I am certainly on the less quanty side than some people. Like, you know, the people who are coming in from like an engineering, computer science background, you know, can go much further in that direction. But you do still need kind of people in the middle to, I mean, translate is a little bit strong of a language. But, you know, you do have to, the language of math and statistics and the language of basketball are not the same thing. and the language of basketball are not the same thing.

And you have to make them talk to each other for any of the information to make any sense and, you know, affect decision-making, whether it's, you know, do we need a three here or who should we take in the draft? Right. What's kind of like the tension between those two sides? You know, like we're on one side, you're like, it's in the numbers right here.

Like this is something we need to address versus like you're saying, these are in the numbers right here. This is something we need to address versus, like you're saying, these are different languages. What's that reconciliation process like when you're trying to have the proper acknowledgement of what's born out of the statistics sort of be properly processed and, like you're saying, end up in a decision being made? I think there's a little bit of a misunderstanding on both sides, if you will, as to what's actually happening. This is something that I've told the students, I've told the people who work for me, is the last thing I want to hear you say is, well, the numbers say this. My maxim is the numbers don't say, you say.

If it was self-evident from the numbers, you wouldn't need someone to work on the numbers. If it was self-evident from the numbers, you wouldn't need someone to work on the numbers. You're making an argument about basketball based on numerical values and why this thing means basketball concepts. And I think from the traditional basketball side, I think there's a misunderstanding of that also. There's a perception that, oh, this guy with his numbers thinks he has all the answers. Like, no, here's a possible answer, and here's why I think it's true. Hear me out. Now, I think it's incumbent on the analyst side to be able to speak the language of basketball because we're doing basketball here.

So I'm not going to teach linear algebra to an assistant coach. I'm not going to teach linear algebra to an assistant coach. So I have to, like, okay, just here's maybe two sentences on what I'm doing. Trust me, I know what I'm doing. Here's the implications. Here's what it means on the floor. Let's talk about it. Do you think it helped your argument that you kept an abacus on the sideline and would say, I'm actually at half? No, I'm just joking.

No, Frank, I'll be honest. What helped me more than anything else is the fact that I had played. I played Division III basketball, so we could get on the court and I could make a jumper. And it's like, then that, rightly or wrongly, okay, well

that's... Alright, he's not a total tool about this stuff so like whoa you see numbers numbers got a got a wet day okay all right numbers there was there was a like my first year with the bucks we were playing like the staff was playing a pickup game and one of the coaches walked by then i hit a step back three and the guy was like okay numbers so i already felt that moment yeah yeah exactly it was always numbers numbers so because i'm like really interested and i love like data analysis and i love how much it offers people like a glimpse into the game and and how that can affect

decision making but can you kind of give me an example of just sort of like when you look at when you're looking at the numbers and you're trying to sort of find something uh in in the data that you're looking at like what are some what are some trends that you're seeing like in terms of underrated statistics that you feel are starting to begin sort of taking a little bit more or getting a little bit more attention whether it relates to like play style or even identifying like effective players um it's an interesting question i think that i would i would rather than focus on specific metrics i think like the the thing that is that is moving forward more is the idea of starting with ways to talk about player skills, not just say, this player is good, but this player does this well. Hold on, what?

Yeah. Okay. No, this, but like, okay, so this player, you know, in these circumstances, this, like, you know, for example, with, you know, the tracking data that we have in the NBA, you can say, all right, this player has made 43% of his uncontested threes. The average is 38. That's pretty good. So he's good at this. Now you put a contest on him. You put movement on him.

You make him shoot off the move. How does that change? Then you can start to describe, is he, you know, is he a standstill shooter or movement shooter? Now we're getting into basketball concepts and, and you can, you can quantify that in a way that, you know, it's not perfect because there aren't enough. There aren't that many players who actually shoot like 200 movement threes in a season. I think if you're a really good idea, but it gets okay. If he's hit 45% of his, of his catch and shoot standstill, catch and shoot, and 45% of his of his catch and shoot standstill catch and shoot and 30% of his off

movement even if you only have 100 shots of each it's not you know it's not dispositive but it certainly gives you an idea of like yeah maybe he's better if we just kind of stick him there and don't run him off screen stuff like that so that's I think that the detailed

you know kind of event level data that we now have allows you to look at things more that way and it's not just shooting all the shooting stats have been the most developed because for whatever reason people care about buckets the most um and that's you know that that holds true for you know for for uh analysts as much as it does for bag twitter so right there's that there's rebound there's playmaking defense is still hard um there's a lot of kind of bad attempts at quantifying defense out there because some other you know learning lessons from other sports it's sometimes good but i think in many ways lessons from baseball in particular have served us poorly when measuring defense i mean

there's been a lot of stuff you can tell okay you can tell who the closest defender is to a shooter, and therefore you can say something about his defense by what players shoot against him, right? No, you can't. I mean, you can't, like, there's places on the floor you can't. But there's a thing that's missing when you're looking at that from a defensive perspective, which is, what about all the times the guy doesn't shoot?

You know, baseball, this analogy which is what about all the times the guy doesn't shoot, you know, baseball, this analogy I like to use all the time, baseball, you know, great left-handed hitter comes up. Uh, other team brings their, their lefty layer left.

He had a specialist receiver out of the, out of the bullpen. The guy can't be like now, wait, where like my teammate, where you get, where you get a kick out on the perimeter. The guy closes out.

Well, it's like, well, I got to shoot. There was a kick ass. Like, out like no let me let me do something else with it and so like from a defensive side that's a pretty good outcome and that shows up nowhere right yeah so if you're using like like you know jump shot defense as a way to evaluate what a certain player is doing you're missing almost their best reps. Right. Can you, because the quote I mentioned up top was the ability of analytics to address

cognitive biases. Can you talk about a journey you personally took when you, as somebody who played basketball and presumably watched a lot of basketball and was a big basketball fan coming into your career, a cognitive bias you had that analytics kind of helped you overcome? I think so. I mean, I, you know, the player types, when I was, when I was sort of a, uh, coming at it more from a fan angle, maybe play some fantasy stuff like that. There was a player type I kept missing on, which was, you know, coming into the draft, I thought he's going to be good. Randolph Children's, he's going to be like, you know, it's kind of this small scoring guard who, you know, has a lot of moxie and makes big shots in college and stuff like

that. And it's like, you know, you get this now is he's a winner. And so like, I, I was with that. and it's like, you know, you get this now, is he's a winner. And so, like, I was with that. And then you start to study and you realize, actually, that sort of mid-range,

rock a guy to sleep, pull up, that's the province of just, like, the very best players. So, yeah, some guys are going to do that, but you've got to be good to do that. Like, the guys who just do that okay are are actually pretty bad NBA players I mean they're bad basketball players but it means they're you know you end up being like Shane Larkin or something like that who is you know like a EuroLeague all-star but but because of his combination of size and skill set isn't necessarily an effective NBA player and so you know kind of

seeing those weird things where a skill given depending on like the context it can either be very valuable or not valuable at all that's wild i hadn't thought about shane larkin since he came into the league and he you know he was very very larkin's kid and i think he was like a you know definitely a first round draft pick right right? And I hadn't looked him up since then, but that makes sense. He's a very good European player. The best player I ever played pickup against was Khalid El-Ami,

and he kind of fell into that same kind of thing. Just not quite big enough, not quite good enough, but you put him over in a slightly different, you know, in a slightly different context of basketball and that's pretty good. What skill do you look for in a kind of smaller guard that, that yields a Chris Paul or someone like that? I mean, that's, you look for them to be Chris Paul. Yeah, like measuring, like measuring decision-making is, is, you know, know that's that's a little bit the the holy grail right now um that's something that uh i think right now football actually probably has the lead on because you can you can actually you know a quarterback's past decision

is actually a little more straightforward than because okay i can throw to this guy i can throw that guy i can wait a little bit maybe i can scramble around but your decisions are a little more straightforward than because okay i can throw to this guy i can throw that guy i can wait a little bit maybe i can scramble around but your decisions are a little bit more cabin than they are whereas the guy's coming off a pick and roll it's like i can throw the ball here i can take another dribble i can put the guy in jail so how do you even break down what the different decisions are and you can you can start to look at some sort of very abstract examples, but that's just like one tiny aspect of it. And the game of basketball, you're making so many decisions that you might not even realize a player's making in a short span of time. And the player who does that well, it's like, oh, look at how he knows how to be on the court, where to be on the court.

Look at his feel, look at his basketball IQ, whatever you want to call it. That's the sum of 20 decisions a second that the guy is making better than the next player. So how do you even start to quantify that? We have some things that proxy for that. People wonder why college steal rate is such a strong projector of NBA success. And I think that's it. It's like,

okay, you have a combination of physical ability to get there and sort of mental recognition and like speed of, of translating thought to action that you can then use whatever your physical abilities are. So like, I got the ball now I saw it coming. I got the ball.

Right. And that, and that like that sort of represents, I can, I know how to play. Amazing. All right. I got the ball. That sort of represents I know how to play. Amazing. Should we take a break and come back? I'm just going to keep asking you questions. I'll be like, who's your favorite player?

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Sure, totally normal humans. Embark on a journey across the stars, discovering the wonders of the universe one episode at a time. We'll talk about life, love, laughter, and why you should never argue with your co-pilot. Especially when she's always right. Right, and if we hit turbulence, just blame it on Mercury retrograde.

Or Emily's questionable space piloting skills. Hey, join us on In Our Own World for cosmic conversations, stellar laughs, and super corny dad jokes. Listen to In Our Own World as cosmic conversations, stellar laughs, and super corny dad jokes. Listen to In Our Own World as a part of the My Cultura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And don't worry, we promise to avoid any black holes. Most of the time. and we're back and yeah just i i'm having a great time sort of hearing you kind of talk talk about these things i was i was curious to hear if you have a current player uh or former

player and or former player that you feel like contributed to more wins than people realize because of cognitive biases or like just kind of what what we look for on a basketball court versus what's actually happening out there so i i mean the the easy answer for the current player is the player who seems like there's the biggest disconnect between how they're perceived and how good they are is is rudy gobert like people just clown rudy so much i can't the i can't believe the timber was traded all this for him it's like okay he's a walking top 10 defense and it's not sexy he's he's annoying like people are annoyed by his personality which that's fine there's players who annoy whose personality annoy me but like

and maybe maybe his game isn't perfectly suited to playoff basketball. That's all fine. He's still like a top three defensive player in the league and probably a top 20 overall player. Who just, it's because he doesn't get buckets. It's like the stuff he does is just like undervalued. And it's weird because like there are other players who you know similar like of the other kind of great top level defenders who are you know top 20 you know you know maybe draymond is kind of aged out of being a top 20 ish player top 25 ish player but

the other kind of defense first guys who are up that high like draymond bam out of bio they don't seem to get the same maybe because they have a little bit more at the ball in their hands, but neither of them are really bucket getters. But it's Rudy is just like it because his offensive game is like dive and catch lobs and get fouled and rebound. It's sort of, well, that doesn't matter. It's like, well, that's actually pretty impactful. The Draymond thing that, you know, it took for him going out last, them being absolutely rolling and dominant for a while, him going out with an injury,

and them seeming to be completely average, him coming back and them winning the title, I was like, all right, there might be something going on here. I think I knew, you can kind of watch and be like, he really does a lot of smart things out there but that was a pretty clean case

that was made last season with regards to Draymond and what he does kind of off ball yeah and I think that's not to go too deep into that I think the worry is how much longer does he have at that level? Because as you say, you saw

healthy Draymond at the start of the year, no Draymond, and then kind of hurt Draymond second half of the year. Ramping into form, Draymond over the players, Draymond forgetting how to play offensive basketball for a few games of the finals. And then from, what was it, late in game four of the finals and then like from what was it like late game four of the finals to the end he was spectacular again just like oh yeah that's that team suddenly becomes you know you can have a you know a third point guard on the floor who's also your defensive center yes yeah that's kind of nice did a part of the question was a past player i don't know if i want to go impactful because frankly don't have the tools

to measure this player's impact but my favorite player of all time is reggie lewis wow um both you know both because he so i grew up in alaska he came to the great alaska shootout which is a really good college tournament until it wasn't and doesn't exist anymore he was with north he's at northeastern northeastern and he gave he gave buckets yeah and then and then he went to the celtics and was like the next great Celtics star. And also his game was so interesting because he... I still don't see a lot of players like that.

Jimmy Butler might almost be the closest. There's a certain rhythm that guys play with. You can kind of pump, fake, jab, go. Whereas he sort of played the in-between notes. Like pump, fake, jab go. Whereas, you know, uh, sort of, he sort of played the in between notes. Yeah. Like,

like pump fake and go like, like, and not bring it down to like, like playing on, you know, how like reggae is playing on the upstroke a little bit, a little bit like that. And that was just super,

I was always super intrigued by that. And also he was like one of the guys who guarded MJ the best, which I, which I thought was cool. That's right i'm curious like with the all the information that we have right sometimes in any industry or just job whatever a lot of information can be a good thing sometimes it can be not a great thing because it can maybe complicate people's thinking or whatever or they get too in focused on things like that. How do you see like,

because when I look at just a lot of sports, right. And I'm seeing just this general push to really embracing the analytics to really finding these like margins to play more efficiently, whether that's to get score, more baskets, score more goals or whatever. And another sport,

there's a lot of really like i'm constantly blown away at like how people are looking at a sport and how much it's influencing it is do you see that like this sort of you know influx of analytics and things like that is helping to create like change even how people even set a team up to play like because they're really really focused or really acknowledge that like some of these things they they add up over time these margins and that's really something to focus on or is it still kind of like okay i like what you're saying that's food for thought but it won't completely impact the strategy or the x's and o's

i mean again this is one of those things where you you don't want to say that, you know, you can. Analytics did this or that. I think that I've always find those comments pretty funny because that's like, I wish I had that kind of power. Sure, sure. But I imagine on one level, it's a it catalyzes the process of something for sure, because we're going from a information desert to one where it's very rich. Right. Mike D'Antoni didn't need me or anyone else to tell him, hey, let's put some shooters around and give Steve Nash and Amari Stoudemire some space.

You don't have to come at it from a numerical sense. Yeah, that makes more sense. If this guy's standing at 24 feet instead of 18 feet, there's more space for this thing to happen. Great. So I think that the analysis can work in tandem with that. But again, I don't think we should divorce it from strategy completely. And we can't because it's like, okay, that's a good thing to do. How? So they do need to work hand right you still need to so you do they

do need to work in hand hand in hand to implement you can't just like you know just shoot more threes that's not what happens you know it's not like you know maybe now there are a few players who can literally just walk the ball up the floor and jack a three right that's like there's three guys in the league who can do that two guys in the league who should do that maybe one depending on you know if if uh if dame's abs are are better or not like staff like trade probably shouldn't um but but it was like okay so how do we get more three well part of it is okay instead of having the guy on the opposite side of the court stand at the on the short corner have him stand all at the in the short corner have him stand all the way in the corner and and so that's a that's that's a strategic thing that allowed

there to be more threes and then there's some additional benefits like well if he's actually that far out all of a sudden his defender has more ground to cover that seems good and so it's it's sort of builds on itself right away and so i again i'm I'm reticent to say that it's all or primarily, it's a part of it. I don't mean to suggest that. It's like, well, what do you come in with your notebook and tell them? But more just like, what do you say when someone goes, all right, then what do I need you for?

I knew that. I mean, like if they said, of course that makes sense. Honestly, that's great. Like that's sort of, because no, that's sort of the, almost some of the best way to get stuff implemented is, you know this, but...

You know? Let me show you the degree to which this is true. It's like, oh, so you can look at rebounding data and see, okay, yeah, if I shoot from the right side, rebound's going to go over here to the left side, you know, uh, but it's, but it's still, it's useful to have that reinforced and confirmed. Like, I think that's one of the things that's

least understood is like, you know, 90% of the stuff we study probably confirm sort of the conventional wisdom because coaches have been, you know, it's not you know it's not like it's not like there hasn't been enough rewards to being a winner right right you know keeping your job is trying yeah keeping your job is a pretty good incentive to to do things better and so a lot of the things that are done are you know have been tried and true and like no you win more games by doing it this way yeah some of that's trial and error maybe we can speed up that trial and error process a little bit by suggesting a thing that seems likely to work. But, I mean, you know, some pretty dedicated people over 60, 70 years have been picking at this thing for a while. And, you know, a lot of them knew some stuff.

So it's not like you're going to come in and say, nope, you're all wrong. Throw it out. Throw the book out. Not true. I mean, you go as, you know, the foundation of basketball analytics is the four factors. And that's effective field goal percentage, turnover percentage, free throw rate,

defensive rebound rate. What does every coach you've ever had tell you? Get good shots, take care of the ball, get to the free throw line right protect the backboard right it's all it is so it's basically we're winning with that formula yeah you do those things everything you've ever heard and it's just like the basis of of you know how you look at a team from a statistical standpoint is those four things right but i guess that's where like because everyone does have the same sort of agreed upon way to do things i think that's where it's probably beneficial now to say given that we all believe these things now where are these where where can

we find these other ways to be more effective and how important is each of them relative to the other like yeah you know that's this is one of those those areas where i found that sort of people who come at things from a more observational are very good at identifying things not always as good at weighing them against each other and so that's a you know and and those and the interesting thing is those things change like the environment of the nba will change the degree to which the ability to hit a corner three versus the ability to stay in front of a guy on a switch. Like which of those things is more, is more valuable or how valuable it is or who else is on your team makes it

valuable. So it's not like these are, it's not, this is a set thing to do this and it's good. It's like in this environment, this is more helpful than it's maybe given credit for. There's a clip of golden states gm bob myers at uh the sports analytics conference talking about like the difference between

playoff basketball versus regular season basketball like has that is that something that kind of came up from an analytic standpoint in terms of like the shift in style and overall approach for playoff teams versus regular season teams yeah i i mean i i wrote about this in the in the playoff chapter in the book and there's i so i have a among the professions i've done before this that was a professional poker player and there's there's um kind of two modes of play. And again, as with most things, it's not like one or the other, it's somewhere in between. But there's what's called game theory option,

which is I don't know what you are as a poker player, but amongst the set of poker players, I know about what that means you do. So how do I play knowing you're from this group? Versus exploitive play is I know exactly how you play. What can I do best to beat you? Now tell me the first bit doesn't sound like regular season where you're playing Sacramento tonight,

Houston tomorrow, Orlando the third night and the exploitive play is the playoffs. So it's a very different like, you know, design how to do best in each of those things. It's, it's not surprising that different coaches, you know, design how to do best in each of those things. It's not surprising that different coaches, different players, different skill sets function better in one environment versus the other.

Yeah. All right. A piece of news that we've been kind of putting off, but I'm definitely eager to, like, kind of bring it up and get any thoughts that you have, is the news about Donovan Mitchell going to the Cavs, which that got me very excited. I feel like in terms of fit for him,

continuing to have a great defensive stopper behind him is great for his game. The one thing that occurred to me is usage. I guess I hadn't even realized, but he's a top 10 usage guy in, in the NBA in terms of how much he dominates the ball. And then Garland is also a big usage guy. But I mean,

first of all, just overall, this makes me more excited to watch NBA basketball next season, having Donovan Mitchell on the caps. So I'm excited. Yeah. I love that trade for both sides i really did i thought i thought that jazz did a you know in terms of pivoting off of their

looking at sort of their off season as a whole like all right we knew that team was kind of had reached its its conclusion it's a pretty strong pivot to what to you know go into whatever's next and i don't know how much you guys follow draft stuff, but, uh, this would not be a bad year to end up with the first pick. Yeah. When the Yama.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's if you, you know, basically if you had color, uh, film of what Luell Cinder looked like in high school,

I think it would look a lot like Victor Wimba. And Yama, Yama's film does. Right. So like in high school, I think he would look a lot like Victor Wimbenyana, Yama's used film does. So, like, no pressure, young man. But, yeah. And then at the same time, I like, I love the fit with Mitchell and Cleveland.

I'm amused by the fact that he's going to continue to be sort of the face of the team, and if they're going anywhere, he won't be the best player on the team, again. You know, that's the, you know, that's essentially,

it's a pretty huge bet that Evan Mobley is going to be like that guy. And, but he's going to be that guy without having to be like, throw him the ball and get out of the way. And a version of that guy. Yeah. Which I think is frankly is probably beneficial to him because maybe he develops that,

but there actually isn't a lot profile at this point that suggests that's hugely likely so you know turning him into sort of the the the almost the next iteration of anthony davis rather than than having to be you know having to be like joelleiid or something like that. First option. Yeah. Jabari in the comments was like KG in Boston as opposed to KG in many. I think that's recent play.

Frankly, KG in many tried to play. I think they were always trying to get him to be more. That was the biggest difference between him and Duncan was Duncan was like, I got to get a bucket. I'm going to get a bucket. Whereas KG always was like, let's move it around

and do some stuff. I can blend a little bit. Never quite got to the point of needing to just have the ball in his hands. We got very off track. Where am I going? I think we were all going to talk about the fact that the real

story, despite Donovan Mitchell, is that Montrezl Harrell is with Philly, and that makes Philly just undoubtedly the championship favorite. Warms your heart, huh, Jack? Yeah. 2017 Rockets assemble. I know. There we go.

So to your point about Mitchell and Gar garland i don't think we've seen much in the last couple years of nba basketball to suggest that it's bad thing to have multiple guys who can make plays with the ball in their hands i think that that's sort of the and as the person who unwittingly coined the term um i don't think the heliocentric style is i don't think it's desirable i think certain teams have found expedient and necessary but having two dudes who can do that is probably better than one especially if they can if if neither of them actually needs to have ball both garland and mitchell are good enough shooters that um and willing enough you know catch and shoot players that the,

you know, from a pure basketball standpoint, there's no reason it shouldn't work offensively, but I'm very excited to, to see that team because I think there could be a lot of fun too. Speaking of having like multiple people who could, who can put it in, like what I,

I'm just curious for your thoughts on the nets, you know, when they were peak form nets they were so fun to watch so unstoppable like even in that first round against Boston and then you know injuries got in the way but like I think people are now like sort of settling into this idea that like well that didn't work and i don't know that that's true because when it was working it was wildly dominant like on a game by game basis even though it was that anomalous yeah right i mean like the way we talk about that stuff is so jacked like

janice couldn't be the best player on a championship team until he was. Right. You know, and it's just like, okay, how many teams work in a given year? Like last year, would you say one and a half? Yeah. Like the Warriors and Boston, but then they got to the finals and oh no. Like, well, I think, I think that Boston worked. I think that Cleveland worked last year when they were healthy. Like, I, like our definition of that is like, you know, you think about the, the Rockets teams that took the Warriors, that pushed the

KD Warriors in the playoffs. This is one of the great teams ever assembled, and you took them to seven games in the conference finals, and that didn't work. What are we talking about here? I don't know. Same, you know, those

like the Mitchell-Gobert Jazz team. They were plenty good, and just, you know, did they catch every break? No. Were they the best team? No. Could they have made the finals or won a championship if things broke their way a little? I mean, it's counterfactual, but yeah, I think so. Like, could the Hard Rockets have won a championship?

I think so. Could last year's Celtics have won? You know. Could last year's Lakers? You know. I mean, that's what we're all saying. I'm going to put my foot down there and say no. Even last year's Bucs. Could they have repeated if Chris Middleton doesn't get hurt?

Yeah, right. Would I have picked them over the Warriors? Probably not. But you can't dismiss it. Alright, should we take another break and come back firing rapidly with rapid fire? Time for the rapid fire question. Uh-oh.

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rapid fire round of questions they almost forgot what the bit was but i came back to it there you optimal optimal podcast we're optimizing min maxing yeah yeah so you might listen to it and be like wow they're kind of dumb about basketball and this is a basketball podcast. But then when you actually dig into the numbers, it's pretty impressive. Wildly efficient. Just FYI.

Engagement per point made. Thank you, Seth. Seth, you may or may not have heard about this infamous segment on the show. This is the rapid fire round of questions. We are going to hit you with questions back to back at lightning speed. Do not think,

just respond with whatever your brain or your heart is telling you. Don't ramble on. This is rapid. Okay? Here we go. Start the clock! So angry. Let's play the feud! I just have to get, you know, I have to set a baseline

you know just here for what where this is going energetically okay rapid here we go the clock is ticking Jack do you want to go or who should go first

you I'll go for yeah let me just see yeah let me go first is that cool okay well I was gonna

I want to do the third but no okay you go you go okay you want to do third all right let me just highlight yeah just move that copy no you're putting in I want to do the third. You go. You want to do third? Let me just highlight.

Just move that copy. You're putting in the wrong doc now. That's the wrong doc. That's the TGV doc. Copy from the other one. Okay, good. Start the clock. I'm actually using hotkeys here.

All right, cool. Seth, Jack from Miles and Jack. I'm Matt Boosties here asking you a question. We're asking all of our guests. Nope, that's the wrong one. Better chance of happening. Building on last year's playoff berth, the Timberwolves, the

NBA team from Minnesota, make the conference finals, or we get copious amounts of what that trick in the Western conference finals as the Grizzlies take it to the next level. Oof. That is a good one. Thank you. That is,

that is, that is, I think, man, I think I, I trust the roster up and down from Memphis a little bit more. So I think that's where like the top end talent on Minnesota, I think, is superior. But there's some question marks about who's going to be on the floor when.

And whereas Memphis has some versatility, they can make choices, whereas the Timberwolves have questions. Even though you yourself were saying Rudy Gobert was the best player in the league mere moments ago. No, that's not what you were saying. But that is probably how it would happen on first take or what one of those shows were. Anyway, I got it. I'm sorry, Seth. I got to tell you, you got to keep the answers just a little bit quicker. Okay, let's keep this moving.

Seth, what are we underrating about the upcoming season? The number of teams that legitimately think they have a chance at the title. We're underrating the number of the teams that think that. So usually you go

into a season and you think, ah, there's about five teams that really matter. I think that number is a season and you think, ah, there's about five teams that really matter. And I think that number is closer to 10 this year. Oh, okay. So you think legit there are 10 teams that could win it? I mean, I'd have to go through, but you think about, you know, let me just

start ripping them off. Bucks, Celtics, Warriors, Sixers, Nets, Nuggets, Clippers, you know, Grizzlies, like you just, Sixers, Nets, Nuggets, Clippers, Grizzlies. You just go heat. Yeah. People keep forgetting about the heat. A lot of these teams.

Okay, no. A lot of these teams. Did you say Clippers? Yeah, I said Clippers. But a lot of these teams, things are going to have to go right for them. But that's a lot more teams than usually enter the season really thinking that legitimate. A lot of teams talk themselves into thinking it.

But there are a lot of teams that are legit. We're right there. And okay, I'm low on Dallas, but you've got to put Dallas on that list too. Luka could be the best player in the league this year. Do you have to put the Suns on that list? I completely forgot about the Suns. Yeah, that is exciting. And even at this time last year,

would most people have even put the Warriors on that list as one of the teams that has a legit shot? I went on Bay Area Radio on the eve of last season and questioned whether they would be a top six seed.

Wow. Now I'm an idiot. But I don't think a lot of people saw that coming, right? I don't think a lot. There's reasons to. It had been a little bit since Steph did that over a full season.

We didn't know what we were going to get from Draymond. They had a lot of questions. Right. And, you know, things, you know, their support players all broke right. They came back better than we could expect. Jordan developed. Kevin Looney stayed healthy. Like, these are all things that were pretty important to them last year.

We're going to keep it moving, Seth. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, but we got to keep it moving. Next question. Will some of the Eurobasket success from guys like Al Schengen or Laurie Markkinen translate into the upcoming regular season? What do you think? Or the player that I'm prepared to take my biggest L on in a long time, Franz Wagner. Oh, yeah?

Yeah, I did not think he would be good. Can they play that way in the nba is always the question i think you know on those three guys like the from the scale of yes to no it's probably like bogner market and shengun in terms of can they play the same way and have it work at the nba level so yeah yes they are they are good players but i don't think you're like you know as as like i said kade was a hipster guy like shengun is the hipsterist of hipster players and i'm still not completely convinced like i think he's a good player he's going to be a good player in the league for a long time whether we're talking like a legit star i'm not sure uh we will ask you to just keep it a little tighter.

If you could change one rule to the game, to the NBA game, just for fun, just to make it, throw things off balance, make it fun, what would it be? Time limit on replay review.

Yeah, that would make it much more watchable. What are we limiting it to? Three seconds. Just super quick? First glance? Yeah, 30 seconds or a minute. Something like that. If you can't figure it out by then, keep it moving.

There's a little bit of, what are we doing here? We're making a TV show here. It's not a court case. Right. Keep it moving. The refs have ordered pizza show here. It's not a court case. Right. Such is the fruit of the film we're looking at. The refs have ordered pizza so it seems like they might have a

decision soon. Or, conversely, extend the amount of time to an infinite amount of time for them to make a decision. The refs are upset that the concessions have closed in the arena by now. They are protesting by dragging this out. Those carvery sandwiches are done.

Well, I can't work under these conditions. Okay. Next question. This kind of goes along with how you said, you know, we maybe have 10 teams contending, but what is to you?

Maybe the group going to be the biggest surprise contender that no one is considering. And I get that. You're not saying that they are going to win, but someone, if you said, oh, they surprised people, I'm not surprised about that. The Grizzlies from last year, so. I think

people haven't been given the nuggets enough. Like, I think everything people are saying about the Clippers, why aren't they also saying it about the nuggets? Right. Okay. That's a great question um and the final question another great one yeah is it jack uh which is me or miles uh that guy over there has been kind of

rude like to you during this thing jack or miles i think he was actually kind of rude to me yeah well i'm talking about reality-based analysis yeah i mean i prefer i prefer people a little spikier so i'm gonna go miles what oh my gosh he's done it again i haven't won a single one all right wow that's fine my man i'm sorry i'm sorry but i knew we were people when he was talking about the reggae bubble on the on the end end. You know what I mean? I was like, okay, now we're talking meter. Okay. I like this. I like this.

Seth Hart. Now you blessed guests. Thank you so much for stopping by miles and Jack got mad boosties. Where can people hear more from you? Uh, read your analysis or read your book, the mid range theory, which,

Oh, by the way, we never get to touch on it, but that has something to do with a tribe called quest because we're like all right this has got something to do low-end theory was it inspired it does so like one of the i think that was probably the second hip-hop album i ever owned we don't have to talk about what the first one was yeah it might have been please hammer don't hurt him uh that's fine okay uh see then you're good in the bay you should be good as my face run up on hammer as uh no and so

that was uh so i've always been a big fan of of tribe and then when we were starting the blog that became nylon calculus we were thinking of like uh thinking of names so like because i had i like that album and just like the idea of theory and how that works together with right analytics like the mid-range theory and that so that we voted that finished second so i always had it in my back pocket or if i ever write a book i'll call it the mid-range theory and here we are there it is all right respect um that tribe question by the way or the tribe observation that there might be a connection there was me actually at the at the beginning. That's pretty clutch. The guy who you didn't pick.

I think probably Seth was feeling the vibes and stuff. Me and the Golden State Warriors. Me and the Golden State Warriors looked like two people Seth underestimated. Seth didn't believe it. Seth, where can people find you on Twitter? I'm at Seth Partnow on Twitter.

I rate once every couple weeks at The Athletic. I have a weekly podcast with David Moore and Moe DeKeele on The Athletic's NBA show. It's called Nerdish You Wrote, which is, of course. I do my own podcast on the Colin app. And the book is available, Midrange Theory. The paperback edition comes out at the beginning of November and is available for pre-order now wherever books are sold.

A Christmas gift for your NBA. And an NBA season starting gift as well. Yeah. Happy NBA season to you. Happy NBA season. And you as well. And to you. You have to say as well. Yeah. So happy NBA season. Happy NBA season. And you as well. And to you. And also to you.

And don't forget, guys, you can follow us on Twitter at Mad Boosties. Also Instagram. M-A-D-B-O-O-S-T-I-E-S. That's how you spell Boosties. So follow us there. Until next time, I'll be Miles. I'll be Jack. All right., I'll be Miles. I'll be Jack. All right.

And we'll be Mad Boosty. I'm Carrie Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. Every great player needs a foil. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports.

Listen to the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry, Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. People are talking about women's basketball

just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's basketball. And on this new season, we'll cover all things sports and culture. Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio apps,

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