The Deep 3 Podcast - We Ranked Every Young Star In The NBA | Ep. 132

Episode Date: March 14, 2025

ranking the best young NBA stars 25 years old and under! #nba Check out the TD3 merch: https://the-deep-3-shop.fourthwall.com/ Listen on Spotify!: https://open.spotify.com/show/3elbbqVumwqz8wlIdknsLW Listen on Apple Podcasts!: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-deep-3-podcast/id1657940794 Follow us on TikTok!: https://www.tiktok.com/@thedeepthree Follow us on Instagram!: https://www.instagram.com/thedeep3podcast/ Isaac's twitter: https://twitter.com/byisaacg Mo's twitter: https://twitter.com/Mojo99_ Donnavan's twitter: https://twitter.com/Dsmoot3D 0:00- Intro 4:15- 25-21 17:20- 20-16 47:20- 15-11 1:12:20- 10-6 1:39:22- top 5 2:03:53- tiktok time Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The last time that we did, a player in ranking episode was our yearly Christmas show in which we stopped about a month and a half into the season on December, and we rank the top 50 players in the NBA. 30. 30. Oops. We did it this year. About a week later, it was horrible.

I hate every single thing I did. It aged terribly because a lot of things change real fast. So today, we have a little bit of a chance for redemption to write the wrongs we did when we had to react after a month sample size. Now we got about five months. we're going to rank the top 25 players that are 25 years old or younger. And we're going to do the same thing.

We're also going to make a list and maybe next week, you might be like, dang, now it's kind of crazy. At that point, like, we do it at that point, it's on you. You know what I'm saying? Like, when it happens in December,

it's like, all right, like, we know, we've only seen 20 games. You've seen enough. Now it's just your beliefs were wrong. Yeah. So now we have more of a sample size that, about 65 games in the season. You know who these players are.

there's no more room not not a lot's going to change so yeah man and it's really interesting because this might this is in the three years we've done this this is by far the most stacked under 25 list we've had bro don't they have like 16 17 maybe 18 is like all-star level players or players at least you can see like making an all-star game we do we have 18 I think and that's nice because that allows us to write a lot those wrongs from the earlier list because 18 these guys are like damn your top 30 players so we should get a good idea of how we all feel about the next up and coming group of people that are probably going to define the next five years of basketball. Yeah. Okay. It's going to be interesting.

There's going to be, there's so many players, a few players specifically who are so hard to rank. Oh yeah. Some of them made the top 30 list and now we're like, bro, I don't know how strong I feel about it because of circumstances, health, team sucks, whatever it might be. It's going to be a good one now. Yeah, yeah. Lots of flags we planted in the ground for certain agendas we have. Yeah, man. Let's jump and do it. Let's go. The cranium is crazy. Oh, my God.

I mean, I don't know what to say. Pray on eaters rejoice. Okay, so let's start this off by trying to do something that we fail at every single time we do a list. Let's get to a common agreement, the ground rules of what we're ranking. Well, it's too late. The list is already. Well, I guess I'm trying to say, let's communicate to the people what we're ranking and how we're going about this. To me, I'll speak for myself only because apparently we never have an agreement on this.

I'm working who you are today. No projection whatsoever. If there's injuries or there's context surrounding your team that like you're not in a position to succeed, you would obviously be better if you didn't get hurt and so forth, I'm going to account for that's projecting you would get better. It's just accounting for things that are outside of your control. But in terms of projection and like we'll think he'll be better two years from now three years. now zero of that my list is probably closer to yours because that's how I'm feeling as well projection maybe maybe about 5% of my list is projection and it kind of it was like a tiebreaker

for me where something was like truly truly close and I did not know where to go then I would use that projection be like all right like you your upside is probably still a little bit higher yeah but for the most part if I think that you can help me win right now that's why I rank you on the list for me when it comes to projection I only used it if you've been hurt and i'm assuming you're going to be better i'm assuming you're going to find some level of consistency but also there's on this on the other end of things i'm not sure how good you're going to be in the next 30 not 30 games but in the next 20 15 games because you've been hurt so long i need just more proof in the pudding okay i don't

so not that much for anything for me this episode okay fair enough i for now i don't believe you I'll say that. I call cat. Bullshit. King of projection. I think you do it inherently, not even on purpose. But, okay,

so we understand where we're all coming from. Let's jump into this list. Let's go. As you guys know, we do this in blocks of five where we go, since now stays top 25

instead of top 30, we're going to go 21 through 25 and so forth. We're going to take turns revealing our section by section. We're going to start this list with me, 21 through 25.

Here is my initial names for this list. 25, I have Dyson Daniels, 24, Tumani Kamara, 23, Jalen Suggs, 22, Trey Murphy the 3rd, 21, Denny Avdia. Okay, this makes sense. We call this tier the lockdown defenders that don't do a whole lot offensively, except for Jalen Suggs, I think has some offensive skills to his game, but this is the lockdown defender tier. I mean, even Trey Murphy. And then Trey Murphy, who's all, he's not.

He sticks out like a mug. He's more offensive, but you know, this is the role player tier, I guess. people that have they're on the top 25 so they have a ceiling we think they're like elite role players but once we get the next year we're going to be talking like all start level guys so this is the part where i feel you could put different names in here and i wouldn't be bad at you winners right these are guys where like glue guys you have to have them on your team some version of these players has to be on your team if you want to win at a high high level and they all do things that do that so right now nobody sticks out i i guess my question to you is why do you have denny at the

of this tier. The fuck is amazing. I don't know. He's so good. He is not a star. I don't think he'll ever be a star. Yeah. But one, he's a great defender,

which all these guys are. You have to be that when you're not an offensive of like engine star. Fantastic secondary. No idea is. He is diet Franz Wagner. He's Franz Wagner with like 12% less of a scoring bag.

His secondary passing, really on ball passing. He's fantastic at making pick and roll reads and keeping the ball moving in transition. There's a very well-rounded passer. Yeah. can attack the paint, very effective driver, just an extremely good secondary ball handler that as soon as they get a star guard, as soon as, I don't know, Scoo Henderson makes a leap, Shaden sharp,

they draft Dylan Harper, whoever may be, Denny will be the perfect guy to pair with him. Okay, yeah, I like where you have Denny. He's amazing when it comes, he's such, he's so all-round. He's an all-round, like, Swiss Army knife when it comes to the ability to basically everything on the courts, especially some special abilities that I like about him that stick out and what makes me so intrigued by him even dating back to when he was in washington is his ability to just like push the fucking pace yeah and get shit going and like masquerade as a point guard at time to just make simple breeds like the things that he's able to do it feels like it's him by nature and it just it's just certain skills that aren't developed you know it's just what

he is he's the best two-way player on this list I think of these role players and I think there's two more spots above this before we get the stars are also role players he's a much better defender than chair murphy i think maybe not much but he's better yeah for sure yeah whatever how it's hard to gauge chair murphy's defense when they're playing next to the worst defensive structure in the league this year and they have a terrible defense because of injuries so however you feel about that but he's also does way better offensively than kamara and dyson daniel's and suggs and i guess they're probably similar to way players but i feel a little bit better about denny's offense yeah i feel better about denny's offense too it feels more developed why do you

have dyson daniel so low i think he's better than kamara i don't with jillan sugs it's like like very debatable, but I think he's better than come on. Why do you think he's a lot better offensively right now? I think Dyson, he's made strides, you know, the last 12 games or so, especially would trade doing injuries. He's like taking small ball strides, but Suggs early in the year made a real shooting leap, really last year started. Shooting is a big difference.

Now Suggs for the season, you know, he's out, he finished like 34%. We're going to ignore that. That got fucking tanked because he was playing without Franz, without Palo Bancaro. He was out the number one option trying to make shit happen. With Jet Howard, bro. With Jet Howard. The shot quality was abysmal That tanked his averages

But early in the year When he was playing that secondary role He really developed into like a legit Honestly I think maybe He's a player who I have like projection for Because it's like I can't I can't blame me too hard

Yeah Loki now I'm thinking about it He should maybe be above Denny Because I feel like they're very similar And he's a better defender than Denny So if I could change it now I might put him at 21 aside Other two down

What about Too Money Kamara though I love Dexon Daniels I love too money Kamara also I shed on him the most Back when he was a part of the me a little trade, bro. Tumani Camara is the most versatile defender on this list. He's hellacious.

That man defends one through five, truly, which is so rare. He can defend fives. He can defend threes. He can defend ones. He's amazing. Thinking basketball is a great video where he compared him defensively to modern-day Scottie Pippen with that versatility. And I don't think he's gassing it.

Obviously, offensively, we're never going to say anything like that. But defensively, in terms of like the type of guys he can defend, he's insane. If you think the defense is that sizable, okay, cool. But I think Dyson Daniels and the offense that he's been providing, the rim pressure specifically he loves to get to his folder and also like people forget that this dude he's initially a point guard he's a secondary playmaker now and that's what he's best at this year or just in general in his career especially alongside train young but i think if he continues to scale that offensive presence he's going to surge up yeah and a little bit and i get you have hawks you

have hawks tax some hawks bias here that you're going to put him higher i respect it no no no no no it's like it's like five it's a little bit it's like five percent it's not crazy if you're going to have a hawks hill you want to die on this is no taxes buddy we've got some hawks tariffs in the building yeah i'm not mad at you putting dyes in higher i he's a he's i like his slashing a lot the handle is developing so i need some development in terms of like in the second you playing off for tray young his handle is good enough in minutes where you don't want tray on when trang is on the court you want him to be the second backup point guard i want to see the handle continue to develop and it's really the only difference is the off wall shooting

is the only thing is like that's yeah i can't argue that that's where he has his lapses jack on project 194 likes tell me he thinks he has like a derrick white ceiling and i'm like i understand why you're saying that and i think it's not crazy like it's caliber a player yeah but the quick trigger nature of derrick white's three that makes him so viable on an off ball dyson has a slowest jumper in the world it's just like never that smooth and especially like if you're going to be in this range of player and like in that specific role you you do need that exactly yeah and in general common theme is list i value playing off ball and being go to play next to other players incredibly.

Like that's going to be a big recurring thing when we talk about the stars up top who I think scales next to other good players when you're talking about role players. That's like the most important thing. You're not going to want Dyson Daniels's leading offense. So his ability to be really, really good off ball kind of decides the ceiling, I think.

Okay, yeah. There's a very real world. I'm sure we can all agree where he jumps up in this a little bit. Sure, sure. Yeah, it's not going to argue. I'm not going to argue you down on Dyson and Dennis and Dyson. I understand.

His real world is in five minutes. No, no, no, no. He gets released. Ten minutes. Okay. All right, well, let's move on. Let's go through this bottom five pretty quick. Next up, we have Mo.

Who is your bottom five? Okay, bottom five. I have Jalen Sugga, 25, Dyson Daniels, 24. One spot, lovely. 23, to Moni Kamara, 22. Your motherfucker. You're Kamara above Daniels. And then 21, I have a men Thompson.

Okay. Seeing a men, Thompson this low is so weird, but I mean, I just feel strongly about it. It's just because the stress that he had, like in the middle of, of the season, like that, seeing that and seeing what his ceiling could be and seeing the rockets, like, thrive. Everybody was all in on a man. And so now, like, you've kind of seen just a little bit of regression from him. And so it's like, dang, like, you were playing at this crazy, crazy level. But then you get brought back, brought back down to Earth. And you're like, yes, he still has a lot of development that needs to happen. So getting back, brought

to Earth got pulled up. His last 10 games, 15 points, 5.5 assists. 9.9 rebounds, 59% true shooting. He's still kicking ass. The ceiling that he was showing was like, oh my goodness. This is 100% going to be an all-star. This is going to be like an all-NBA guy. 15-5 and 10 is still pretty dope, so I'm okay with it. It's great.

It may not be an all-star, but like, well, I don't know. With his defense is crazy. But you see what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I understand. Man, 55% free throw percentage in that time. That's tough. Oh, my God.

Before that, the first 50 games was 71%. So it's a weird cold stretch. But yeah, I mean, I haven't been higher out of this tier, but they're just barely. So I'm not mad at you for that. Other than that, we agree. You also have Tumani Kumar above Dyson Daniels, so I love the conversation. The thing about Tumari that just like separates Dyson to me is just the shooting. Like you said, it's so much easier to envision someone like Tumani right now alongside another star player compared to somebody Dyson Daniels.

Although they're both, they both are very capable of doing it. At least Dyson right now, he's proving he can do so at the minute that Tumani has an opportunity to so he's going to thrive. but right now he's just more of a complete version of himself yeah and yeah it's not a big difference it's splitting hairs but yeah kamar is a little bit more versatile yeah yeah yeah i can hear that i can hear that all right well this a little we're clearly in alignment of the type of players that belong here move on adonovan at 21 i have tray murphy go the other way people hate me go this way my bad at 25 i have denny at 24 i have timon at 23 i have a man at 22 i have dyson daniels at 21 i have tray murphy wow okay so you have a men you have tray murphy above a man i think i think what

tray murphy has shown dyson above a man yes that's correct hammers i think i think so i'll start with with tray i think tray's offense is amazing and i think like in terms of in terms of everybody below him his offense is clearly the best on this on on this list and or in this tier and so i'm slanted obviously, offensively. And so I'm going to give him that. And obviously, like, he's no scrub defensively. So he's going to be at 21. Dyson, I love a man.

And maybe this recent stretch in terms of, like, coming back down to Earth. And, like, you saying his numbers is, like, he was so high that the fall may have seemed bigger than what it actually was just because he was playing at such a crazy level. But I do think that, like, Dyson Daniels, his defense. and his and his playmaking it's pretty insane pretty insane maybe i underplayed it it's pretty insane is is like that is like that and so like for and also for dyson daniels to like immediately step into this role with the hawks and then thrive and give them that that level of defense mind you to he was already on the he was in the NBA you get to the hawks and now everyone's like

oh my goodness this is the great barrier thing he gets it he gets a nickname within two weeks like yeah that's tough you know he was playing at an insane level and i think both of them are are all defense caliber players yeah so i'm gonna i'm gonna go with with dyson right now yeah he's a better defender he's probably the best defender on here but him or kamar's debatable i think kamar's more versatile but in terms of their role like it's hard to compete with three steals per game this year and i know some people like to push this like steel merchant dialogue so again i'm describing some terminally online conversations when people debate the like legitness of dyson daniel events the ethics of steel yeah like some people were

like oh he's just a what's the word they use uh an event creating merchant or something like that he's only an event creator on defense he's not actually good positionally and yada what does that mean i think dyson daniels has a well-runner defensive scheme i don't think he's a steel merchant what he means is like you know how like all and ivers and like the league and steals but he wasn't necessarily a lockdown defender yeah or when curry won't it or yeah yeah carrie litig and steals and his mvp a lot of smart guards and leek and seals with the not play-by-play elite defenders, and some people are pushing that narrative with Dyson, I think he's a pretty great defender in most aspects.

I 110% agree. But what's so interesting to me about this is that I am clearly the highest on someone like Trey Murphy. Yeah, how high do you have this guy? You don't mind in this tier. Listen, there's 18 all-stars. So if you have him above 18, then you love Trey-Murphy. I think he's going to be an all-star next year, 110%, I think, right now.

I don't know about that. He's kind of slowed down as of late. Has you? I mean, it's a stretch. That's that projection kicking in. It's a stretch. He said next year. We're in tier one.

I think if this team, things have changed. I think he's one of the first players where I have like, okay, I see you, I see what you're doing. I see the context of your team, how ass it is. But then I'll also see your team for the first time in your career really prioritize you and put you at the top shelf in terms of we need him to cook. He is one of the top chefs. Yeah, your top shelf. Back then.

1942. Wait, what? I know nothing about that But yeah Seeing him being prioritized And seeing some of the special qualities And traits that he has in his game They move me

No, he's great He's great He if you tell me next year He makes a Star Leap And belongs in top 15 On next year's list I completely understand I think his shot making

Has been ridiculous this year And he's fully He's taking the reins Of the touches he's been given But it's not to the level where I I get to it when we see When you put him above Because that's what we're really discussed

us is we all like him i have a feeling you love him which is fine i love him too but you're speaking like you have a much much higher so we'll see no lie we'll see we'll see we'll see okay listen this is a tier that it's all fun in games it's all great we're all in enjoyment loving these role players no arguments here shit might get toxic real soon when we get to the star players who we have some takes on right now it's all hunky dory let's go hunky door donovan who is your 16th through 20 at 20 i have jalen sugs at 19 i have jalen juggs at 19 i have jalen Johnson. At 18, I have Tyler Hero. 17, Tyrese. And at 16, I have

Auburn Sang Boone. Okay. So, yeah, 18 is the cut off where everybody above is either had made an All-Star game or we think what if we didn't get hurt. And so you think Tyler Hero is the worst All-Star on this list? Yes, I do. This is hard because we were obviously not, especially you fucking, we're not high on Tyler Hero before this season. Oh, 100%. I think he's a little bit better than somebody on your list that will see whenever I reveal mine.

Tyler Hero's passing is very underrated He has had legitimately very good playmaking this year I think he's averaging him around five assists And I think a large part of why there's two big line up They're doing right now where they're putting BAM At the 4 full time and having Weir be the center next to him I think a big reason that can work is Tyler Hero's passing has really developed He's really good off all really good on ball

Despite the shooting slump he's currently in I like him a little bit more than I think you do But only like a spot or two Yeah okay I can see those things I have no real qualms here. It's just very interesting to me to see someone like Sangoon over Tyrese Maxi. I think so. Singit's hard, man.

Singu famously you sangoon is so hard for all three of us to gauge. 16 through 18 is it's a little bit challenging for me because all of them like I don't, I don't think that any one of these three can be like a number one type of type of plan. I think Maxie has the highest ceiling of that. But even then, even. And even then we've seen him in this stretch without, you know, without Embed or with whatever the sixes have gone through. And he can, he can score, but he's not an amazing playmaker. And his scoring can be inefficient at times.

So I have a couple questions about that. Kind of the same thing with Tyler Hero where he's, he's great and he's gone to a fantastic level. I still, and maybe, maybe I'm, like maybe I am underrating his passing. but I see and Tyler here is not small but like I see very like offensive leaning guards and it's like yes

you are having a great season but in terms of put like you do have to be in a very specific situation for you to not only thrive and get yours but also to have your skill set then contribute to winning so that's why I have that Sangoon and we talk all the time

about big man being able to you know needing to to defend and anchor your defense and stuff like that but I I do do think that having a big who can be a hub like that and whose passing can open up some other things, I do think that that is kind of valuable. And so that's why like right now I think I would put Sangun there. But it's not, it's very, very close in terms of those three. Okay. The Singoon thing, man, for the past two years of the show, Rockets fans have absolutely

hated me because I never have anything good about Sangu to say. And it's not even because I think he's bad. It's just because the nature. of comparison. I think he's worse to some of his contemporaries. And a large part of that last year was because I see a center who last year was not a good defender, really at all, and doesn't space the floor reliably. And I'm like, why the

fuck would I want to build around that? That's just a difficult difficult hole to build yourself out of defensively. And he's not making up for it with like amazing spacing. So I'm like, and this year he's been good defensively. He does have a really good situation where he's playing with nothing with elite defenders.

So it's, you know, context helps him but all you're asking for a player like him is it to be passable in that system and he has been he's been above passable positionally he's very smart and made good defensive IQ and rotation leaps he still like has a physical limitations

he's never going to be like amazing he's never going to be a shot blocker and never going to be like super switchable but he can hold his own he's not you get a switch on him and he's cooked he can hold his own for sure the problem is in the year in which he made a defensive leap and answer that question he forgot how to make fucking layups yeah this man Okay, if you can be a passable defender

But if you're not going to be above average And like super impactful You can't have a 54% true shooting And shoot 64% at the rim As a center It is a legitimate problem That his touch has been downright horrible this year He's also doesn't shoot threes

His biggest skill is he can draw two on the ball And keep the ball moving And create actions and be a good passer But he's not like a yokish level passer He's all about drawing attention And keeping him moving I have extreme doubts About how that'll translate to a playoff setting

yeah and because of that too when when it comes to how my view on sangu and i think he's a good player obviously he's like an all-star level player because he's this high in your list and he literally also made the all-star game this past year but because of the limitations within his game and how much the touch has regressed while also seeing the defense a level up as it should i have real concerns when it comes to how legitimate of a one maybe even two options that he is yeah i don't think he'll ever be the best player on like a championship team which is fine you don't have to be that's like an extremely high bar to have so I'm not holding

them to that standard there's like six players who can get that ceiling and as a secondary player you know you don't again I really really care about the scalability you know like your ability to play off ball and have your game be able to get off next to players that are better than you and have complimentary skill sets

if you're not a good spacer you're not a lob threat you're not a shot blocker you're not a switchable big that doesn't scream to me I'm going to thrive as a second and third option do I like the fact that he has missed a lot of layups? Obviously not. Am I a little bit worried? Maybe you can say a little bit worried.

Am I concerned long term that his touch is gone? No. And I think that between these three players, that's where a little bit of the projection comes in because I think that I don't think that he's going to be in a layup slump for the rest of his career. I don't think that he's going to be this bad. And so I think I think seeing him take a. cup like one step forward defensively and then assuming a little bit more positive

regression from his layups. I like that version and I like that player. And that's why I'm putting him at 16. Yeah. He just to make this archetype work, you have to have like extreme strengths. And just for his body type, not being an athletic finisher, to me it has to be shooting to have him have like the ceiling of being really high. And his career high in his second year is 36% from three for the year. Right now it's 25%. We just haven't seen a extended stretch where he has a confidence to really pull three at a high level. I got that that's the part to me that'll really swing me to being a big sangu guy well listen if he starts if he starts pulling three and knocking him down he's skyrocketing up this up this list

yeah yeah yeah I think like bottom half of the of the top 20 that's probably where he's going to be and move up and down over the next couple years especially if he even if he gets to where I think he can be as like a ceiling it'll probably just be around 15 through 20 and he'll be yeah see I'm not even really arguing your placement here I'm more so talking to the Sang-Goon fans that are inevitably going to be in the comments getting mad at us for not putting them top 10. That's why I think he's not stiffing like top 10. Yeah, that was never going to happen.

Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. Top 10 was crazy. Shout out the Turks. I appreciate you guys. Don't love your star, but I've, shout out the people. Okay, let's move on to the next person. I think, Mo, you're next.

Who you got? Cool. So at 20, I got Tyler Hero 19, 19, Sangoon, 18. I got Chet Hongren. Chet Hongren, 17. I got Jalen Johnson. And at 16, I have 20. Ray Murphy.

So the thing is, you wrote this down. Don't, don't, don't eat, don't even do it. You have to be doing this just to piss us all. Like, you're aware it's like insane, right? I don't want to use the S word or the D word or the I word, but it is insane. What's the D word? Not the dumb as fuck. That's what the D word is.

What the hell? Listen, shout out Jalen Johnson. I think he should be 19. He should be the best, not also on this list. If you think Trey Murphy is better basketball today than Chad Holmgren, we need to check into the psychiatric word. So when it comes to, okay, I don't know how to, I'm going to target this from a Trey Murphy standpoint. When it comes to like, he spoke on his last few days. Can you do Jalen Johnson first?

My bad. I want to see that one first. Oh, bro. He's been hooping. What are you talking about? Right before. So he had like two different injuries before he went out with his, with like his season ending injury. For sure.

So in that little stretch in that little stretch when he injured his right shoulder, I believe, first, he was averaging like 28 and 5. His ability to be one of the best connectors. in the NBA at that size, being a B plus A plus defender, just a player on both ends of the floor is ultra valuable. His ability to continuously grow his game, whether it be, okay, early in the season we see him, he's struggling mightily when it comes to his half court offense and his really his bag, seeing that being developed, seeing him eventually grow into a 34, 35 percent three-point shooter, seeing how well he moves the ball and how he can masquerade as a legitimate point guard at that big ass frame moves me so much and it I think the

proof is there now me personally believe it or not I would have put him higher if he was if he was able to stay healthy he was on track he was having real all-star conversations before he got hurt now is that dude to hell a dude's getting injured I don't get that I'm not talking about right that now he might be the fourth alter but he was in those conversations in accounts in my book He certainly played at a level that was All-Star conversation worthy. There was a point early in the season when we did a stream,

and I was like, he might get my last spot. That changed by the time the All-Star voting finally came around. I would have gave it to somebody else, but he had a point where he was in that conversation for sure. The Hawks were playing at the five-seat. I fully understand that.

Chad Holmgren is the top three rear protector in the NBA, probably the number two behind Victor Wambiama. He averaged just like 3.2 blocks for 36 minutes right now. He's playing 26 minutes because he's coming back from injury, and they're doing some funky stuff, trying him out of power forward, with Isaiah Hardinstein really as an experiment.

Mark Dagnol has pretty much said, we want to see if this is good or not. Yeah. It's not that great, I think, compared to when he's at center. So that slowed down his numbers a little bit post-injury. And obviously, you know,

just breaking your goddamn hips, slows you down a little bit. His numbers are down a little bit, especially because two days ago he hit the worst game of his career. But it's mostly, besides that terrible game, minutes, if you look at Perth 36,

he's scoring at the exact same rate as last year and being even better defensively, we saw him make that leap before he got hurt that we all probably think is going to continue once he gets his feeling. under him again. I love Jalen Johnson. Don't make me say anything bad about him. What the fuck are you talking about, number 18?

Brother, when he comes to Jalen Johnson, I think his impact all around the court, when he comes to the defense, the creating, the scoring. I'm not going to say the shooting, because obviously, Chet Hornwell, he's one of the better shooters for his size. Yeah. It's all there. I think when he comes to the impact all around the court, you see the same

level. When he comes to B.OI level, what do you mean? The same brother. Another thing that I want to touch on when he comes to Trey, when I said Trey, when he comes to Chet, and also Jalen Johnson too, these two players could easily soar up higher if they had the ability to remain healthy. Chet Hongram is injury prone like a motherfucker and no one has these types of conversations

about him just yet. Now, he broke his hip. Brother, he missed the entire first year of his career. He missed the first year's career because LeBron stepped on his foot and broke it. And then he, when somebody's injury prone, it's never because of broken bones. He doesn't have weak bones.

He got unlucky twice because the bronze stepped on his foot and he fell from the sky and landed on his hip and it broke. if he was spreading his ankle every week soft tissue injuries I would understand that is so goddamn unlucky you think he's gonna break bones on consistent level it's I was it

and especially as somebody who values like being able to be on the court that's fine if you want to knock him but still saying that Jalen Johnson is worse or saying that Jalen Johnson is better than Chet Hongren I disagree with you because you talk about impact but like Chet Hungren came back from

missing the whole year basically playing a quote unquote rookie season, whatever, and the thunder went from a fun playing team, right, getting waxed on the road in Minnesota to we're the number one seed and we have the number one defense. Like obviously, Shea's ascension helped that. Shea's ascension does not help the number one defense in that way. Like, Chet Hongren's presence, that's what gets them to be the number one defense in the league. And you've seen that, you've seen that last year.

This year, they just have defensive guards everywhere. but when you have the defensive infrastructure that they have and Chet playing at the level we were talking about the 10 games that he played

before he broke his hip you and I were both coming into the season like oh this is Wemby's award to lose he got it

he got it and after those 10 games we're like hey Chet is the DPOI right now he's playing better than Victor he is the best defender in the NBA

and so when you have that and a five who can stretch you talk about scalability you talk right I hate the word I know

I know When you talk about that, when you talk about impact, you talk about dropping him onto any other team, you don't even have to change the way that you play. You can just put in this 7-3 demon who can shoot from a fairly consistent rate and give you an elite defense. And it's just calling him an elite defender is an understatement. He's the best drop coverage defender in the NBA, even like accounting Webby. Webby's a better defender overall.

In terms of defending a pick and roll on drop coverage, it feels like I'm watching Rudy Gober v.2 watching chat. Like he is that level defender Like it is truly game breaking Like in the same way if if the top three Offensive value player was on this list And but he was mid defensively He'd be a lot fucking higher than 18

So like we're I don't even want to focus on Jalen Johnson I love Jalen Johnson You can hype him up putting him at 17 is defensible That's fine Chet should be like nine spots higher I don't know about that See when it comes to that I under when it comes to his defense

Untouchable I can't say anything about that And if you want to put him higher I would do that I'll be fine putting him at 16 because of the defense on that level bare minimum and i don't remember like a few guys that have had him but you can have those conversations but when i see chet hungum right now i see him for what his potential is i need to see an idolized version of that i need to see him again i understand like the injury stuff is it's concerning to me and i don't know why we just see him break major bones in his body and everyone's just like because that's not a

recurring thing that people struggle with recurring or not it's concerning or not it's concerning to see it happen this early in his career he had he's broken two bones in three years which is it's concerning in terms of like recurring like all right like you kind of got it's not just like that's just that's clearly you're hurt you're hurt and it's semi consistent it's very worrisome to me that's just so like I'm focusing on the result and not like what we know for injury prone players to be like it's clearly unlucky as fuck he jumped up fell down land on a hip hard as fucking broke it anytime somebody's ever been injury prone it's net can you name a single person ever who is repeatedly broken bones that's not a common injury prone thing

joel and bead he doesn't break his bones like i mean his face he broke his face go about bones bones or bones but his is like your knee car leg his face broke his face broke his ass broke his knee the chet thumb is not a recurring again he might end up being injury prone his body type like that could be a thing that happens if it happens it probably won't be because he's breaking his hip every year that probably won't be a part that you look back and say this is related to other injuries in a way that we can project. I'll kind of give you that. Now,

Jayon Johnson, out of the two guys right here that are above him, Jaylon Johnson has, while it might not be a great case, Jaylon Johnson has the best case to be above Chet. That's my guy. There is not really a scenario

where Trey Murphy is above Chetholy. I think Trey Murphy's offense can be really special in the type of growth that I've seen. Can be. He showcased it so far already. Now, again, I'm, I wasn't even reserved with when it comes to how I rated him because it's only been, I don't know, 40, 50 games of seeing Trey Murphy on this level.

He wasn't in Jalen Johnson or Chet Hong conversations or even saying Goon conversations last year. I agree. I understand. But this is based off of this year and what I've seen so far, what really sets them apart and what really makes me like so enamored with his potential and with what he's been doing right now is seeing how deep he shoots the ball and seeing that creation just scale up another level. now obviously again it's so hard to see how much how real this offensive load is considering like what he's been doing defensively which is it is what it is at this point in time because the pelicans are the pelicans I think he has potential to be a top 20 ish offensive clearing the week and that's and that's fine and he yeah that's fine if you feel

that way but it's just like he's not there right right now he's not he's not he's not there right now to put above chet hungry and like the fact that you have even just a little bit of question about how this is going to translate into next year with his offensive load whenever the pelicans do get to like a semi-healthy state that doubt in itself no i don't have a question when it comes to that i think it's going to fucking skyrocket next year with jeline johnson yeah i don't have questions with him no no no no no hey i'm talking about to my bed. Well, I'm talking about, Trey.

No questions. I think he's going to be an all-star next year once the opportunity prevails, without a doubt. Then next February, next March, cool. Like, I'm going to have to see it from, from Trey. Whereas Chet, I've already seen, I've already seen the production. And the question for Chet is, can you take what you learned in the playoffs last year and then do it here? But that's, that's a question that we'll have answers to in a month and a half. I think Tray still has to...

All I'm saying is they benched Hardinstein tonight, finally, because it hasn't been working very well with two bigs compared to what it was before. And Chet went back to the center, 23 points, 15 rebounds against the defending champion Boston Celtics without Jalen Williams, who was the other elite defender, I find it to be zero surprised that as soon as he goes back to center, the position that when they signed Hardinstein,

I said, I pray they don't put Holmgrenate Power 4. You knew they were going to try. They have to try. I do diligence. Yeah. But when they made that decision to sign Hardinstein, I said, great. They need to start Holmgrenat at Center

and have Hardinstein be a backup. And they play some together, but home green at center is what makes him special. Surprise, surprise, to go back to it. And he has a fantastic game after having the worst game of his career next to him to power forward. Yeah. If that continues to hold up to some level, then yes, I'll grant him that ability to skyrocket on this list. I believe so it will as well. But for now, the injuries concern me and the consistency offensively within a shot, not only this year.

Because I can't say anything about this year. I can't say anything about it. I better not. But in general, last year in the playoffs, I'm worried. I better not see a name high up on your list. And you are talking in 16 through 20 talking about injuries concerning me. I better not see your name super high on the list.

There's another asterisk to me. And there's an asterisk that's un-fucking denied it. I understand. I better not see it. You're not going to have Chet as high as I do, I understand. 18 is just crazy. Like we're focused on these two names here. There's going to be like five other names where I'm like, what, what?

Yeah. But let's keep it going. Let's see my players. I think they're similar. At 20, I have amended. Thompson, 19 Jalen Johnson, 18 Tyler Hero, 17 Alprinzenegoon. This one hurt me because I had a hard time with this decision. 16 lamello ball.

Honestly. So as you can see, the conversation was Lamello Ball or Tyre's Maxie. I went Maxie at 15. Shout out to you because I kind of feel the same way. And honestly, like, even though that these rankings may not show it, I feel like I low-key might be the lowest on the lamello ball out of us. Dude. If we're going to go band for band with Lamello worries.

Brother. Why the hell did I check out his field goal percentage Out of curiosity when I was making this list? Why is he shooting 40% from the field right now? You know exactly why. So this is hard because I allowed my... So when we did our rankings in December, when we do it in month into the season,

I try to be optimistic with players who are playing well and making a leap. I want to give them credit. I don't want to be a hater when we do our top 30 list in December. When we did it, during that episode, we had the parts of the mellow. I gave him like 20 or something like that. and while I was bigging him up

and telling you guys he made the lead to top 30 player in that combo I was like low key I have some worries because how much of this is better and how much of this is him shooting a ton of shots and being a crazy volume merchant at 30 points per game

I was like he's not that much more efficient the rim scoring hasn't came around that much he's just shooting a ton and he's in a heater I was like I'll give him the credit but we do need to talk about the fact that there's a little bit of reason to be worried how much better is he actually as soon as we did the rankings he got hurt

which was part of the equation that's a player we can call injury prone because always the ankles always joint related right he came back what do you know the heater hasn't been the same level

and it feels like we're just watching the same the mellow balls previous that is one in the worst situation ever the hornets are a fucking dumpster fire I'm keeping him top 16 because he will be better in a team that has a competent environment

for him to really playmate to players that will make shots a frame ring too I agree so I'm applying some idea that I know he can be better in a better structure. I'm getting more concerned that he will never be the player that makes that structure well, that he will never be the type of playmaker that rises all tides and like help steer the ship in a positive direction.

We've seen a lot of different players come in and out and it's just really hard to see Lamello ball as a big floor raiser. Yeah. The last time Lamella ball shot above 50% from the field, or 50% from the field, was in January. out of the 41 games that he played so far this season, he's only shot 50% from the field five or six times. That is absolutely abysmal. His efficiency is one, is very damning.

Seeing what he's doing in the paint, not too much of it. Seeing how he's jacking up all these shots, so sad. But again, because of the framework of the type of player that he is, when it comes to his ability to score, he may not be doing it too well, his ability to be a floor general. Again, he may not be showing it to his best capabilities right now. The talent is there. And I'm not going to give up on it yet because everything is in everything is ass around him pretty much.

That's the way we put it. I'm not giving up on him. He needs to be in a good structure, clearly. I'm giving up on him currently being a top 30 player. I'm not saying you can't get there. The ceiling is still there. The core skills that make him so tantalizing are still there. But just right now, he's, if we read a top 30, he would not be in consideration for me.

He is just not nearly reliable. enough. And, you know, we, on one hand, we have to recognize that situation is very important and that simply being surrounded by bad players makes it pretty hard to be good for most players, right? But I've talked about this in the past with other players like Palo Bancaro when we had a discourse around that and like the lack of spacing. That excuse only gets you so far. There are certain concrete skills that aren't entirely because the people around you are making your life difficult. They do not control the fact that's how that Lamello Ball has had zero improvement as a rim score. They don't help. You know, it could be nicer if you had better

spacing, he does also stink at that. So, like, you have to acknowledge both. Yeah. Where some people want to write it off because of the situation, when you kind of have to do a balance of both, because there is certain skills that you can see that he's just not good at. Listen, 2017 Lonzo Ball at UCLA, special, right? I like Jello's two songs. I'm a big fan of LaVar Ball. I still want some Z-L-2 sent to me. So I don't want to bash LaMella Ball like that because there still is some hope but damn it guys i i'm on my last leg and i like and i'm worried that i'm worried that the hornets have ruined him i'm i'm worried that like obviously lemelo has a play style that needs to be free it needs to it needs to look like this for

him to to feel comfortable but also he has played so long in this in this system or in this situation and taxed with all of this that I have no idea if he's ever going to be able to have like that that Andrew Wiggins moment where he can go to a winning situation then instantly hear one of that

lock in and now you could be a legitimate piece on a championship team the first two years of Lamello Falls career when they actually had like decent pieces around him as he was growing as a score his playmaking was still good like you saw him play point guard for real And as the team has gotten worse, and as they have asked them to take more and more shots, the perception and ultimately the process in which he goes about getting his buckets has gotten worse.

Yeah. I am so, I'm so unbelievably worried that we're never going to get the lamella ball season where we're all the things that we're asking of him gets put together. And so I think that like that obviously there's stuff in his game that hasn't that hasn't, that hasn't. that hasn't grown that he has had specific control of but i also think that and you see this with a lot of players situation dictates a lot of players careers and just because like it can happen to role players it can also happen to star players as well and i think that lamello ball is probably on the wrong side of that star star player stuff and it's it's tough because the stuff that's yeah the stuff that we're seeing the shot chucking it seems like this is kind of like ingrained in

And it's hard because he hashed the shot shot because there's nothing else creation-wise so he's going to have to take bad quality looks and I would be able to give him credit like Tyre's Maxie is also not efficient right now because he's playing in basketball fucking hell also without Embed and without Paul George I gave him credit because we've seen him

be able to scale down into a second option role playing off of Embed and be fantastic we know when he doesn't have to take insane shots with terrible shot quality he can be efficient in a role that suits him and Lamello ball you've just never really seen him be efficient regardless of the situation. And again, he's year five. He's never had a fantastic

spot in this team. There's been a variety of structures, variety of skill sets, veterans around him, non-veterans around him. In none of those scenarios has he been wildly efficient. He had a good year in year two when he made the All-Star game. He had 52% effective field goal percentage. That's the only year he's been above average. Question. His habits are simply bad and hard to build around. Who are the two best players of the metal balls played within his entire career. Terry Rozier has some good moments and Gordon Hayward I suppose. That is

so damning. Who are the two best players that Tyrese Maxis played within his entire year? The MVP and James Hardin I guess. James Hardin did he play with Ben Simmons and Sue or was he etched out of that? He played one year with Ben Simmons as well. I think he's been put in a perfect role

to like ascend. There's been no... I'm glad. Sorry, finish. No, go ahead. You're cooking right now. The reason I have Maxie Bovich, Melo Ball, you're right. So people have an infatuation with best player on the team. Yeah. And I despise that. I think people think it's virtuous to be the best player your team and it makes you get points that even if you're bad at being the best player in your team, it's simply more impressive because you are the best player and that's a harder role. It is a harder role. It is not more valuable to be an average

or below average engine of an offense versus being an elite second option. Being in the elite complimentary star and having offball abilities, having secondary playmaking and bench units when you lead it and being the best at that is better than being a guy who's the best player and it's not going well. And that's Tyre's Maxi versus Lamello Ball.

And I'm betting that the offensive engine in him has an ability to really show, yeah, Lamello Ball has an ability to really show once he's put in the right

situation, in the right scheme, and obviously too, once he's put around like a fucking if he's not out of Charlotte, we're never going to see that. It's,

I don't know if there's a right scheme. I think you might just have enough good players around him. that his bad off-ball defense, his bad, I don't want to call shot chucking because that's a wrong verbiage, but we'll just call shot selection

to not get two in death right now so we can keep moving. His bad happens as a score. You really just need him to be next to players that are better than him, so he has to defer some and has to get into more of a playmaking-focused role.

So by scheme, you mean, he's got to play with players that are better than him, and we have to hope that he can scale up as a playmaker and not be asked to be both because I don't think he can handle the primary scoring

plus primary playmaker role. Yeah, like put him next to another All-Star, whatever big that you can imagine, put him next to, I don't know, a goddamn Jaron Jackson, Jr. Or whatever player that you can imagine, I just know that his decision-making and his ability to just really read the floor would be so much better because it's a more serious brain of basketball. You think I would take him seriously when he had like 10-15 games of Grant Williams as his like third best player on this. Hey, remember this was cooking last year? I'm not going to lie. He was cooking, bro. He was getting blown by by Dyson.

But we're talking about Grant Williams, bro. Yeah, I'm not going to. Tyree's Maxie is a fucking demon as a second option. He's a demon, bro. You're right. Tybee's playing off with Joel Embed, and even early in the year, he had some stretches when he was in one option where he was terrorizing some teams. It's hard for him to do that consistently.

I don't think he should be in that situation. Yeah. Give me the elite second option. It's so much higher of a floor, so much reliable value that I know he can provide. Yeah, we've seen it before literally time and time again with the Florida Ophys76ers, regardless of fact whether they were successful or not. He was very successful in the role, and he's one of the most surefire young players that the NBA can offer you. La Melle Ball is the complete opposite of the,

of that but I'm willing to bet that the pile of shit that he's in stinks so bad and it's masking how good of a really player how good of a player he really is. Yeah, you're right to some extent. I just, I need to be shown where that extent lies. I'm, I don't know which side of the bet to fall on anymore. I'm getting worried. If Tyrese Maxi was on the goddamn sharp horns, we would be calling him Malik and Montgomery. Hey, well, thank God he's not. He's not. So I thank God I live in the reality where that's not the case. Yeah. But you know what? I don't think if lamello ball was next to joll and beat he would be like i don't know he'd be bad he i don't know maybe that's a good fit maybe that's a good fit but like i think tyrie's max is a

better fit playing off a joll and beat than the mellow ball is i don't know it just it just depends it would look entirely difference that's yeah it's so different okay let's move on the next tier who who's your 15 through 11 this is one of the hardest tiers for me so 15 i have maxi 14 barn 13 lamell ball because of my again axtritch how I see him and how I see the abilities of them scaling. 12, Halliburton, and 11 Mowbly.

It's an understandable Astrich. Evan Moby's too low. I agree. He's a good amount too low. Like, he shouldn't be in this tier. I got to see who you have above him. I'll save my anger until I see who's at 10 and 9. But other than that, I mean,

Halliburton, I struggle with this tier, but let me see, I think I'm next. We'll reveal mine. We'll talk about it in comparison. Actually, no, Donovan's next. All right, well, at fifth, oh, we're going for 15 to 11, right? Yep. At 15, I have Lamello, 14, Scotty Barnes, 13, Zion, 12, 12, J-dub, 11, 11, Jabber 8.

So I know we've done this whole Zion thing forever. I'm not. Again, we'll just relitigate, we'll let people know. I think Zion at 13 is asinine, but that's because I have made the clear decision that I'm not going to factor in. That, then no, no, no, no, no matter what, Zion is going to be your guy. No, no, no, no, no. Just I don't factor in

Like I You put him low Because you're scared he'll get injured again And you know he will Because injury prone I have we've explained So many times And so these years

That is so arbitrary for me That I'm just like I'm gonna treat him On how he's playing right now On the court And right now he's playing really well I don't know how to factor In the looming fear of injury

That's so arbitrary How do I decide how much that weighs When I'm not gauging This isn't like a trade value Or a contract value list It's how good you are And that has no no impact on how good he is on the court

so I'm like I'm not going to consider that I get it it's not insane to consider it but I feel like there's no rational way to do it it's all feeling because of how good he is right like for any other player to me when it comes to the amount of injury concerns is he's top of that list because of how damn good he is

it doesn't matter and I have to rank him higher much higher than this like I get it I understand being out on Zion like you don't want to deal with paying him the max contract and building around him because it scares you but if you're just gauging how good people are on the court I don't know how you can say this with a straight face. Like, it just, like, yeah.

How do you say somebody's worse because they're injury pro? And, like, where does that line go? Like, you don't think Jadab's better than him at basketball? Yeah, it's like when it comes to guys like Jadab or Chet Hunger on my mind, there's real questions that I have within your game. When it comes to Zion, he is the final product already. He's been that since the year two of his NBA career. Oh, this is what you meant when you said,

he better not have Zion high. Yeah, you're right. You better shut your mouth because you were saying the same shit. I'm lying to hell right now, bro. When it comes to it, though, I have questions about Chetton's a fucking tree. I don't care. You can say it.

You cannot say it. No, I can because Zion is a finalized product. Chet, in my mind, he is on one end of the court, but I'm waiting for that offense. In your, in an offense you think, but now they're hearing or there. In your eyes, Chet has played three years and he has been hurt for one and a half of them. And Zion Williamson has been also had a season where he basically missed the entire, where he missed the entire season, has had multiple stretches in every single year where he has missed time. And so there's no reason. for you

Zon's a top 15 player when he's healthy That is a separator for me But that's also But that's not the same Like that doesn't make sense At all for that Like that's not

What's the word The principle of that Doesn't really make sense That you care about injuries When someone's not that good But you don't care When they're really good Either you care or you don't

I care And that and that's why And also like if you want to talk about it Like Zion I think that Zion is also in that space Where he is He is too good to

be like a second option. I don't know how Zahn would be as a second option. So I think that if he's on your team, you kind of, to maximize him, you kind of do have to build your team around him. And so because of that, that's also why on the injury side, I put, I do put a little bit more value on that because if you, that makes sense. Because like if you have to be the number one guy and the team is built around you and I do have injury concerns, then that does mean a little bit more. Yeah, it's a more important janga piece when you're out everything falls apart i get that and so like that's why that's why for him it means more to to me uh obviously we see every single year when he's on the floor we always get 10 to 20 to 25 game stretches where we're like oh my goodness zion is he's put it

together we saw it we've seen it in the playing like we've seen him get 40 points we've seen him we've seen point zion we're seeing zion get triple doubles now he's he's no longer at you know Glenn big baby Davis weight whatever like like he is he is playing very very well but that that for me when I know that you are the number one that is that is very concerning to me and then also because of some because of like he's he's also a tweener the type of team that you have to build around him is also very specific I understand I do understand some basketball concerns so I'll I just know that you're putting him this low because the injuries that's why I just like already know that that's your thing

if you also have basketball concerns for the defense for the lack of that I understand I get it the basketball concerns are like tangible I do think he's currently playing at a level where none of that fucking matters

because he's playing the best basketball which is saying something because he's played some damn good basketball but he's currently the lightest he's been since his rookie year and it shows that guy is goddamn shredded he looks like a monster he is passing the point Zion stuff

they're doing that they're running lineups with Kelly Olinick and Missy both starting so it looks like Zion's the three when you glance at the box score he's really the point guard they're really running him as the point zion stuff again it's just not getting as much notoriety he had the triple double shack said that's just not impressive because only had 20 points nothing makes shack happy yeah yeah whatever old man but it's amazing his defense nobody on this team is defending well right now it's been atrocious the the system is not in place because there's no herb jones and there's a

rookie center so i'm not going to put stock either way in his defense but he doesn't look bad to me but then again the whole defense is bad and swish cheese so i'm not going to say he's mid-defensively because you really can't tell unless you watch every single minute he plays. And I think the level of force he's playing with as a score, the utter dominance he's had in these last 15 games, I don't care at all about the lack of second option scalability or anything like that. Because if you're going to play at this level, you're one of the 10 best players in the world and we will build around you happily.

That's what I'm saying. Like I under, when it comes to scalability and it's like the defensive issues that you probably have when it comes to how you structure your team. You got it. I cannot say too much about that. But also, there's been so much, this roster has been so muddied by all the variants and all the centers that they tried to put around them, whether it be the Daniel Tyson's of the world, recently Kelly Olinic, they tried Jonas Valentuna, Stephen Adams.

Like, they tried so much stuff. Not Stephen Adams, my bad. But again, when he's on the court, outside of maybe five players, six, seven players, maybe he looks like he can look anyone in the eyes he's performing at i don't want to say an all-time level but god damn it feels like that when he's an all-time slasher for sure like without a doubt all-time level the driver of the basketball and it's people think it's just like running dunk man because he's so strong the level of touch he has around the rim the way that he jumps up into people's chest finishes around contact with the softest touch it's low-key like yokic's touch in like charles

barclay's body his ability to make tough layups and finish over and around you is truly insane. Like if he didn't have the issues he had, you would not be crazy by saying he has all-time level skills. And that's fair. And so if I obviously like the injury stuff, especially with him is always like on the top of my mind.

If we want, if I were to rearrange this right now, I would put, I would put Jada at 11 and I would put Zion at 12 and I would move John Morant down to 13. Because honestly, because honestly all the stuff that I'm saying about Zion, It happened in real time with John Moran

Let's talk about that I'm really real my next one Because we have to have some John Moran dialogue Because I In similar fashion of my little ball I'm having a hard time With my thoughts around John Moran Not out

But I do need to do some soul searching At 15 I have Tyre's Maxi 14 I have Scotty Barnes 13 I have Tyreys Halliburton 12 I have John Morant 11 I have Darry's Garland This is another one Where we did our top 30 players

In December John Morant was playing pretty well to start the year there was some signs of him having a slow year but it wasn't something terrible yet the worst was still yet to come and you know

it's a small sample size in December so I gave him benefit the doubt because previously we saw him play he's given the benefit of doubt man but he the reason he gets it is because he's a playoff riser he gives us a lot of moments that we have to say hey man

we do worry about your spacing we worry that despite being a great slasher you're never super efficient you're not a good defender you're a good passer, but not all world. We do have some concerns, but you goddamn produce constantly. You give us reasons to say you get shit done, so we got to respect you and put you high on the totem pole.

You were a top 15 player every time we've seen you healthy. So coming into this year in December, I gave him that grace. I still ranked him around 15 in the top 30 players list. Well, since then, he had the worst slump of his career playing as a second option to John Morant, I'm to Jared Jackson in a system that does not cater to him. We talked about it. I talked about it early in the year that I was a little bit worried that. that this new really free-flowing attacking closeouts,

everybody gets their touches and we fill spaces offensively and focus on off-ball shooting and off-ball cutting and really driving from a one through five, everybody can attack off the dribble away instead of John Morant's man pick and rolls. They're the lowest pick-and-roll volume team in the league. I talked early in the season. I feel like this is going to become an issue.

That shit became an issue. He had a rough, rough stretch in the middle of the year while Jaron Jackson thrived. And he is playing really well as of late the last six games. He's had several 30-point outings with Jaron Jackson out of the lineup and him getting the touches that are needed to get back in the groove. So I'm paying attention to that. I like what I'm seeing as of late.

Even if that does well, right, he gets back in the groove. I think the down part of the season, while I'm not going to overreact to him at his lowest, I don't think that's who he's going to be. That was clearly a slump. Yeah. It made me sit down and think about the floor and the ceiling of John Moran as a player.

And, you know, he probably shouldn't be your best offensive player on your team. Why so? He's not a good three-point shooter. He's a good slasher and fantastic at creating shots for others out of those roles. Not a hyper-efficient guy, mostly because of his size. And when he was the lead engine, they always had a bad half-court offense as a team. That's why they went to this new style of play because it didn't work in the playoffs. It was really hard to win playoff series and the 25th best half-court offense in the league.

So if the juice isn't necessarily worth to squeeze playing through John Morant, and we saw this year that while it was a stretch that's not going to be consistently that bad, there is some reasons to doubt his ability to be a second option playing next to other guys and continue to get his game off without having that great rhythm. So I guess the thing I talked about earlier

where amazing second option who can masquerade as a first every now and then like Darius Garland versus John Morant who needs to be the guy maybe but it isn't necessarily at the highest level so I went towards Garland who has the offball game the amazing off ball shooting to thrive next to Donovan Mitchell and also be the best player on nice

and Donald Mitchell isn't hitting or isn't available that versatility, I don't think John Morant might ever have that. And the ceiling isn't high enough with him as the guy to warrant it, I don't think. I think this season really, it's been taking a toll on John Moran and the Memphis Grizzies and all their fans, bro. I think because of the way how I feel like the season is going to play out, their head coaches probably can get fired, bro. Because I think the playoffs are going to go disasters for them. When it comes to John and how this team and Ross are set up, I understand you when it comes to the ceiling and how far John Moran. John Morant lead team can take you.

Their half core offense is certainly limited because of things within his game, aka his ability to shoot the bar, shoot the ball with confidence from distance, which has been a continuous. Conference is a thing. You know, it's clearly like not his bag.

And we've seen growth top for a little bit, like our way early in his career, but it's just like continues to regress, especially this season. And seeing him like deprioritized looks like it's shot his confidence and his will to go as a player. like his effort has dropped off.

100%. But when it comes to John Morant, I will say his body of work in the library of bangers that he has on his belt, he deserves to be high. Do we overreact to those bangers and do we let the cloud?

It is today, you're right. Do we let the cloud go back? So, you're right. The confidence is a real thing. He's been uncomfortable in this system. He's too reluctant to get to his jumper off the dribble from mid-range and from 3. He hesitates a lot.

It ends up driving. You know, in the system, they don't give him a lot of screens. So he gets a lot of opportunities to shoot open. shots that he doesn't take because of confidence and ends up trying to attack a close-out and drive and it just often ends up in a really, really contested, hard layup. Look at this shot that was on the screen right now.

Rewind. Look at this. Look at this play. So he's attacking, no screen, drives into the chest of a defender, gets swatted from behind by Kevin Durant. That happens a lot because he's not confident enough to shoot the jumper that he forces a lot, a little tough shots at the rim that don't lead to conducive offense in the system. So I'm glad you mentioned the confidence.

That's the biggest thing. It's tough. Like, do you think John Moran can be the best player offensively, the engine of an offense that can have a top 10 offense and contend? I think he has a strong chance to. I think he has the ability to. Now, with this roster, you have a, you need to have a very specific roster to do so.

What kind? What is it like? I think you're three, you need a wing who has an absurd mid-range game or an absurd, like, ability to just like, someone who has a ratchet. By Leonard, gotcha. Someone like, KD.

You need Kevin Durantz. Someone like that, bro. Or not even that. I feel like if you put like 20, 21, Chris Middleton on this goddamn team. Pretty players still. Okay. You know, this team right here. All-star drop 40 in the finals.

So it's like. Yeah. And someone instead of goddamn G.D. Jackson or Vince Williams or whoever they have currently running at that spot, like you need more conducive players who can cater around John Morancing him and fulfilling the gaps time and time again. And right now, that's asking for best case scenario. I understand that. trying to trade from Macau Bridges for a reason, bro, last year when they, I think they offered

him the feeling sounds like four or five first-round picks or whatever insanity it is. They understand his gaps. I think sooner than later, next off-season, they'll probably revert to John Moran ball and realize, like, if he really want to have a shot, a sucker's chance of doing something special, we need to lean all in on him instead of playing this like, happy, go, lucky. But you know what that's scary too, though? You know what he just described? Who he described when he was talking about these.

wings he was describing 2025 jaron jackson who's essentially a small forward playing power forward to center and he's playing very well as an in between score attacking in the short midrange and john morat has fit terribly in jaren jackson conducive games well no it's different because again yeah because they're not priorit they're not prioritizing someone like jah due to the screen setting and how the offense is set up you know yeah yeah i agree i agree but that that's why jaren like jaren is thriving in the system so like you want that player you got him, but you have to adapt. And I don't know if John Morant has the adaptability.

And again, this is clearly the worst case system for him. So I'm not saying every system would be bad for him. That's not ideal. So I'm also, it sounds like I'm like, I'm tearing apart the concept of John Moran. Like I wouldn't want him on my team. I would. I'm just comparing him to other all-star level players. And Daris Garland is a lot less of a problem to fit in.

He fits in a lot better situations, a lot more, I should say. There's no headache there in terms of trying to imagine him next to players better than him. Do you think John Morant could thrive next to a shooting guard like Donovan Mitchell? I think he could. Yeah, just because of, yeah, because of the level of shooter and how explosive Donovan Mitchell is, he absolutely could. And also, like, D. Mitz can handle some of the playmaking stuff. So, like, John Morant, I think if you, I think if you had those two together and you had a very creative coach. Yeah.

That, that can, they can understand, like, how to, how to use job in, in, like, an off ball and, like, yeah, we're just going to have you running around, cut and catching lobs stuff like that like that now he's not that good at it uh no i know they're not they're not fully though they're not fully because it took away his screens if you had a better playmate without his case i'm talking about his part if you had a if you had a better playmaker around him that that can that can basically like run point around around john morant he's a point card you need a playmaker to set your point guard like i'm saying if we're asking for a lot if first of all i don't think that john moran should be used off ball like that. Anyways, I think that John Morant has to be on ball. I'm saying if you're going to try and

play this style of basketball, you should have, and again, it's very hard to find these kinds of players, but you need to have somebody like DeMitch who can do that and who can still have elite playmaking or very high and above average playmaking. Obviously, you are asking to put another all-MBA type guard next to John Moran. That is not going to happen. But this situation is so interesting because we've, and we've talked about it all years that you are lower in the ceiling of John Morant. You are raising the floor of your team. Correct. And this is one of the issues that John Morant may not, he might be in that Zion category. Keep in mind, he is playing well now. So we'll see if it sticks, but he is playing well now. And, but can you, can you give

context to it? Jaron. Jaron's not there. Okay. So he might be in that Zion, in that Zion category where I know you are you might be too quote unquote too good to be a second option and to maximize you you have to be the number one now if you are the number one two things yeah you have to play you have to play five games in a row minimum okay you got and then and then two you're gonna have to be able you know I can't say it you're you're gonna have to have to you're gonna have to do that and then two you are going to have to learn how to how to shoot you just you just have to when it comes to that's what I mean that's what I mean by the awful stuff like Darius Garland where you talk about the Demich thing

sure they can play together and they can do well they're really talented I'm not saying it's impossible but that you need a shoe is a big thing to ask for someone who's never been a off the dribble or a catch and shoot guy to that degree whereas Darius Garland is fucking incredible at that

and that makes a huge value difference you know how I view him like in terms I use the phrase like punch your chance I view him the same light same level of player same type of opportunity with all the flaws in his game as someone like Alan Iverson because you can get to the it would not surprise me if there was one time in his in John Moran's career where a team was

perfectly built on him where he finds his way into the MVP files slips his way into the NBA finals or if he fucking miraculously wins an MVP one and guess what that is very possible first of all saying miraculously wins MVP is funny but if that's the if that's the if that's the player cool John Morant is top 10 if you're if you're talking about Alan Iverson style guy who can win MVP of the league. I don't think John Morant right now can win MVP. I don't think that John Morant two years in 2022. I don't even think that that player was like a top five.

That dude averaged like 27. He was amazing. He was fucking crazy. I still don't know if he was like an MVP candidate in that way. I just think it's so muddy because if you take someone's superpower away, they look so different. Like, and that's what the Memphis is did to him. Okay.

I mean, I understand what you're saying. They're not asking him like every possession. an ISO out of the corner, taking his two part away is a bit dramatic. They definitely made it harder for him. But you, again, if you're not going to be able to lead a good half-court offense, you've got to be able to be adaptable. That's true. And that's the problem.

We've seen it plenty of times where... Why the fuck would you draft someone like Zach Edy and tell me not to use him, bro? Where are my bigz at? There is a misalignment right now going on between the front office and the head coach. What is the point of drafting if you're not going to play him like that and also not allow me to cook like how I'm used to cooking? Then it doesn't a little more of it as a year has gone on.

But yeah, it's a weird point to start from. And in general, we agreed this. Why would you give me something that I can't have? We agree this situation is not the best for Jha and it's a slump that we're not running him off because of it. I just highlight some issues that you say it's a big problem here. It might be a small problem forever. I need to see it not be a problem for a couple of times

before I fully, fully have as much faith as I once did. Yeah. And I can, I'm okay with Garland over him because I think in general. I struggle with Halliburon versus Jha. I'm not going to lie. I love Halliburton right now. Oh, yeah, fuck that. I'm never putting Halliborne over John.

Dude, how are you hooping? I don't know. He's been hooping and he's special. He is the antithesis of everything we're describing. The way I'm describing John Morant making team building difficult at times, Halliburton makes team building so unbelievably easy. He's back to clicking. He can shoot threes again.

He's the easiest point guard in the NBA to build around, besides I guess Steph Curry, who's like fits with anybody. Halliburton's ability to push offense, push pace, keep the ball moving fast, not dominate the ball whatsoever and still rack up 10 assists a game with the smallest amount of time dribbling because he just makes fast decisions that's insanely valuable and he can shoot off ball doesn't take away from anybody in any way

and as you can see he has not shown up on my list I'm not bad at you I'm giving John Moran that that's the part where I'm choosing to believe on what I once thought about John Moran and really what I'm saying is I'm holding on to prior biases and I'm just willingly doing it for Joe a little bit because I want to believe, I do think today

I'd rather have Tyreys Halliburton. You gotta believe. But I do, this is the part where I said, while I'm not projecting, I'm gonna apply some common sense context with bad situations. And it still feels so weird

to call John Martin a bad situation. The team is great. It's just not conducive to him. But we think he'd be better at a different place. So I'm giving him that tiebreaker. But man, it's difficult. Yeah.

Halberton is playing some undeniably fantastic basketball, some of the best of his career over the last year. This guy's hitting Peter Griffin Corner Threes. Peter Griffin to win games.

Like he's putting two hands tongue out like Michael Jordan and he's going crazy. Shout out to Scotty Barnes. We all have my 14. Perfect agreement. Good point.

Yeah, we're sort of worried about the Toronto Raptors. I know we have it all lately and if you were like Raptors fans like always have chip on the shoulder because nobody in the league cares with them. We'll talk about you guys next year. I like Scottie Barnes a lot.

I'm at a place with him though that I don't like him quite as much as I once did as the best player on a team I have lower expectations now because I don't think he can be your best player which people are still holding on to but I think that's okay because I think when they get in the situation

where he can be the second best player or God forbid the third he's gonna be goddamn amazing as a secondary star if he I have said this all year as the number one option I could think of if I could pair him with Anthony Edwards in my perfect world

he would be a monster who would look like a top 20 NBA player bro absolutely I think he will be amazing his defense has been great this year his offense has been fucking bad because he's asked to be a primary creator shooting a lot of off the dribble jumpers because he's not that good at

creating rim attempts his rim pressure on ball is not that good because he's not that fast not that quick struggles to beat his man one-on-one which leads to a lot of ugly mid-range jumpers to pull-up threes and what it once was a couple years ago when he's playing off of Siakum when I had a few years ago when I had

faith he was like a top 20 player in the world the jump shooting isn't quite what i thought it was so the scoring on ball is really bad right now but it's because he's asked to be the lead creator and he shouldn't be so i think when brand ingram comes in he's in like a lot better and a lot better of a situation for him and i think when you get to a place where you have an even better player to play off him than brandon ingram he's going to have a great career as a secondary guy i agree i have not sold any stock on scotty barns or whatever it's still there it's just like i just changed the description on the stock i've changed the description entirely i'm still just in love with him but like in a much it's a smaller role than i once was yeah there's a little bit of dust on it right now can't

so i get maybe that means i sold stock i don't know i just i just rest on it don't don't tell me i just recalibur don't show your cards don't show your cards i changed my expectations i still like them just not in the same way i once did okay great yeah other than that that's that's that's it's here i think that's all right this is the hardest one for me loki dude same the 11 through 13 point guard range is difficult hell these three guards garland moran haliburton is just just like philosophy of what kind of guards you want. You have the balanced guy in Garland. He needs to be on-ball guy

in Morant versus the less on-ball juice but incredible at setting everybody else up in Halliburton. Like it's really two polar opposites and a guy in between. And I said the guy in between is the best. Good job. Let's roll into the next tier. All right. Time for the top 10, y'all. Time for it to get ugly. Time for us to start arguing.

I know where it's going. I'm first. Oops. At 10, I have Franz Wagner. At 9, I have j-dub eight chet holngren seven palo bancaro six jaron jackson junior hmm very difficult as you guys know i have become a palo bancaro hater and i feel like i'm being fair i don't think i'm hating here you're not that's not even the interesting thing here the interesting thing is j-dub over franz i think that i think that's that that's the most interesting okay let's talk with magic because i okay so early in the season palo ban caro came out five games was

fucking phenomenal, right? He was scoring 30 a game because he had 15 one of those games. The rim scoring was back. We ranked him in top 25, despite him missing every game after the top five because we were like, let's be positive. He made no leap. He's a goddamn beast. And we ranked him off those five games. He heard his oblique, came back. For the first 20 games or so, he was goddamn ass. It was horrible. And after 16, I think, we came up a pre-rated conversation. And I said, I'm kind of worried. I'm not writing him off because I will give him 20 games. to get back in form you were like it's 20 games a line i guess so i don't know we got to figure out when because it's been 16 and it looks shitty so i'm kind of worried and we were like right now franz is

playing better than palo like it's undeniable he's more effective the on-off numbers were insane they were so effective with franz on the court and so horrible with palo on the court since then palo's bounced back in his last 10 games the rim percentage is back up to 70% at the rim which is the number one thing he needed and what he did in those first five games that we didn't see for a while post-obleak and it stands the reason that no bleak injury will limit your driving ability for a while and you've got to get back. So I've been encouraged the last 10 games.

He's also a free throw merchant. Great. He's amazing at drawing free throws. And I say merchant, which I never say, he actually relies upon it in a merchant style where he has bad shooting games, but he's so amazing at being physical and drawing fouls that it bolsters his efficiency in games, which I'm not saying it as an insult to be a free throw merchant.

it gives him a high floor so he's back in the last 10 games of dominating at the rim shooting 71% he's getting to the line like crazy the jumper still not great I'm not gonna lie I still don't like

the mellow instinct in his head to always go for these hard jumpers but he's playing well enough that I'm willing to I'm willing to give him credit for the injury derailing him and not being who he is forever in the same way I did chat

that's why they're both as high right I simultaneously have realized that Palo is getting back to himself I also have realized that I hate the Orlando Magic and I do not have faith than Palo Van Caro and Franz Wagner long term. Part of it is everything that we talked about before with Palo and his style of play,

not being as conducive with the ball in his hands as Franz is, who's a much better driver and playmaker. That's still true, despite Palo's scoring better. You still have more effective offense with Franz Wagner being the lead guy, because Palo is not a good driver of offense for others still. That'll come in time when that happens will be top four in this list probably. So I'm accounting for that. Franz needs to learn how to fucking shoot and play off ball.

These two are currently in the same place. I think Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown were a few years ago when they weren't fitting and weren't making each other better but those guys could both shoot so even when they weren't playing making each other better they still could survive on the court Magic have the worst space in the league

that's not their fault they also don't make it better it's not their fault that the team construction is so bad they legitimately I think are reaching the point where they don't fit very well together I feel okay saying that I don't think they should blow it up

they should give more time to gel but right now they are not a particularly good duo Yeah, I think it's and obviously like- Oh my bad and that's why Franz is below J-Dub because he's fucking bad off ball despite being amazing on ball and J-D-B is more versatile. Okay, I think,

all right, so to the J-D-Up piece, cool. Like I think we all agree like J-D-W is amazing and the only question that we have about J-D-U is his shot creation going to be able to either be at a certain level or rise to a level

that we didn't see in the playoffs last year. But other than that, J-D-U is fantastic. So cool. I'm with that. Franz and Palo, I was very, very high. I was the highest out of all of us. And I was like, listen, they could potentially go on a run. Like Palo's going to come back. Franz is going to be back. It's going to be amazing. I think that we have, we have not seen them in a, in like a one, everybody on the team is healthy. Two, both of them are healthy because both of them had the same injury. They both had, they both had right oblique injuries. And so I would like to see them. Obviously, this season is lost. And I'm, oh, so sad that this season has gone the way that it is. So my vision for them is next October when the season starts. Can we see this team be good?

And can we see both of them at their, can we see both of them be at their best level and or be at a healthy level and see what that looks like? Because when Franz was hooping, Paolo was out and then he had to, you know, come back into the fold, vice versa, all that. Jalen Suggs is out for the year, even last year when Paolo was like starting to take the leap, Franz was having a horrible shooting season. So we haven't seen them at quote unquote like this level in really ever in their career. So my eyes are towards October in terms of like a team building thing. And I'm looking at them both as individuals and this is where the 5% of projection comes in for both of them because this season has just been so weird. Yeah.

It's not their fault. You're right. This is wash. and again I'm not saying they can't play together or they should be blown up or anything I don't believe that they should be given time it is no coincidence that the time Franz made the Star Leap

and looked so good is a time Palo was on the court because that has been a running theme all season even when Palo is healthy I got this pulled up I have a stat put up from Data Baller which has a good system that lets you see player stats

playing with each other and without when Franz Wagner plays with Palo Mancaro these are per 75 possession stats 25 points 3.2 assists six rebounds, 56% true shooting. 25, 3 and 6, right? That's with Palo on the court.

With Palo off the court, 29 points, 6.6 assist. Same efficiency. 29 in damn near, round up to 7 with Palo off the court. Part of that is simply because, you know, there's one less star so they need more usage from those guys.

That happens a lot. This isn't something that's super different. You see this with star duos. It matches the goddamn eye test. The fact that his assists are so much lower with Palo on the court, he is minimized with Palo Bencarrier. Palo Vancouver does not play a style of offense

that helps Franz Wagner get his game off It's straight up, Franz Wagner, stand there and wait your turn When Palo Van Giro touches the ball Because he is a ball stopper And when he's dominant making 56% of his bidet jumpers Like in the playoffs last year, you'll live with that That hasn't consistently been the case So while I don't think Palo is bad

He doesn't make a lot of guys better right now I think it's fair to say And Franz needs to be prioritized with the ball in his hands he's not versatile enough off ball and that's a both of their problems. Yes, I 100% agree and that's why when my ratings or rankings show up, it's going to be quite

jarring. I think it's more so that I was like you, Donovan. Maybe I didn't like ride for Paula as hard as you, but I was like, yeah, he is that guy, the guy. I envision a world in which he is going to be like a top seven, eight player one day, bare minimum. And because of the

how jagged his game has been this entire season, Now, of course, he went through his injuries and he's been looking so much better. He's one of the top scores that the NBA has to offer right behind Chegoos-Alexander right after the off-y-wise. I understand that. He is like that when it comes to the score, but there's so much more to it when it comes to how he gets those buckets. Yeah. And so because I see someone like Franz, he just looks so much more deployable in any instance.

Offense with him just run so much smoother, bro. Like, I have no worries, no lapses. he's not like necessarily ball stopping things like that completely kill the offense and what ruins what's been letting me down when it comes to paulo throughout the entirety of the year i'm not talking about the last 10 games because again he's been much better when he comes to getting into the rim the the the stuttering in his games and how we just like kind of messes up the flow of the offense it's hard to surpass that and i don't know if that's like a again it looks way worse when it when it comes to his team construction but when it comes to like how he thinks about

the game how he wants to destroy team he destroys them but is it in the most effective way possible are you making your life easier are you making franz's life easier i look at stuff like that and i'm not gonna lie i kind of my the boat has sailed a little bit when it comes to seeing paolo as that guy and like you said it's hard as fuck to see someone like paulo as like a number two option i think i think palo's ceiling and this is probably my my personal bias of just i've obviously like i love buckets and whatever But like, I think, I think that Palo's ceiling is higher. I also think that Palo needs more to reach a ceiling.

And so, like, I think that Franz can get out the mud a little bit easier. And Palo probably just needs a little bit of help. Now, if you want to take that and say, well, you need all this help, then you aren't the better player. Okay, cool. This offense also sucks. And it's like, I, like, like, yes. They're the reason to. No, I know.

I know it sucks. You can't have your two stars healthy and. be the worst offense in the league. I understand the space doesn't help. That is damning, you cannot have two All-Star help. That is damning. You can't have two All-Star caliber players and tell me that it's not their fault at all. I'm not saying it's not their fault.

I'm saying it's more on them than the spacing. I'm saying that I'm joking. We've been, we've been watching these magic talent. Anytime anybody is driving towards the basket, there's four people around them. It's bad. It's bad. You know, like they, who, it doesn't matter if it's Palo, if it's Franz, if it's whoever, if you are driving to the basket

you are getting clobbered in this offense and it's so it's so so get it out the mud I don't like But with the way Paolo plays it just It amplifies to get it out the muddness When it comes to France I don't feel like that

I understand and that's why I'm saying That's what I'm saying He specifically needs More to get there He also has to improve And it's the same thing And I'm glad you brought up Tatum and Brown We were saying that they were redundant for a long time

And then guess what? Jason Tatum made a playmaking leave Like Jason Tatum learn how to play in a different style You learn how to be more versatile Paolo's going to have to do that Does he have to be point guard like Franz? No. No, he can't be.

Yeah. He needs to get off the ball more. Again, so seven, I think I'm setting aside my warriors for Palo and I'm giving him benefit for the doubt and really this might just be like pure pressure where I feel obligate to you if everyone calls me a hater It might just be seeping in. I think I'm being generous right now.

And this will be the last time in a ranking I'm generous. If we see another, if next year starts and these things aren't improved, I will give up on this benefit of doubt. You might as well expose our rankings, bro, because I'll do it for you. Okay. So like, so with Palo, I'm being generous, but also you're, you said. You probably have Palo a 10 in front at night. His pacing offensively is so bad.

He refuses to set screens in any effective way. He sets screens like a diva. Like he's like a point guard and it's like, slips real fast does not make contact he plays too slow makes decisions too slow gets into these things so like he's the best part of their offense in terms of when he's on and his scoring but also the worst because he makes everything else really hard to build around when your spacing is that bad that's an abusive relationship you're in Donovan do you understand that he makes you feel one way the best but also makes you feel the worst at the same time and it's hard because like the casual

fan that isn't watching that closely and it's just like ooh number one pick he gets buckets thinks he's like a superstar and then stats nerds who I see on Twitter act like he's fucking garbage because his impact numbers are like hilariously ass I don't usually bring up

the nerdy nerdy advanced stats on here because like for our audience it's like hard to digest I'm just going to be spouting numbers but there are good advanced analytics that gauge your impact his are routinely every single year of his career

say that he's a player who makes his team worse and he's on the court I don't necessarily I refuse to believe yeah well he just they don't score more points when he's on the court so regardless of what you want to believe they don't score more or defend better when he's on the court so like i didn't advance ones the basic ones also say they score a lot worse than him playing and i think we need to balance that with talent but at the day when you're a young player on this list i can give you the talent nod because you know you're developing talent doesn't mean shit if it doesn't impact well this isn't this isn't a this isn't like an aesthetic contest it doesn't matter who looks the best or who's the coolest If you're not making your team win games, that shit doesn't matter.

And eventually Palovin Caro has to translate this talent to impact. Let's see the rest of the ratings. See the next year's. Okay. So at 10, I got Paulo. Nine, Franz Wagner, eight, Garland, seven, Jared Jackson, Jr. And six, I got Jadov.

My god damn. Jadab at six is okay. I wouldn't argue. I love Jada, but his game is tough, bro. It's ambitious. The shot making is coming around this past week. The best version of Jado is six. Yeah, and this past week we're getting it again.

Defensively, he is goddamn amazing. He's made a crazy defensive leap. He's one of the most viable players in the NBA defensively. Offensively this year, his shot, he really relies on tough shot making. Last year he shot like 44% from 3 and like 52% from midrange. So if you had that shooting season plus his defense this year, he would be a goddamn goon. But he's had a rough shooting year. TBD on which version of that is true, I think it's a slump and he'll be closer what he

has been the past week or two. It hasn't been consistent enough for me to go six. That's fair. That's fine. When it comes to me going six, again, like this is like pretty much the best version of J-Dub. And because of the context of the team, aka your man, Chet Holman being back in the fold,

I think we're going to see the best version of J-Dub because I think Chet, again, like, relieves so much pressure off of all players. Oh, shit. At 6, Chet at 18. God damn. Bro. You're going to feel crazy in a month.

I'm not going to feel crazy. You will. I'm being patient. I can catapult him for sure. I'm going to be okay doing it. I can see him being as high as, like, I don't know, 12, maybe in two, three weeks from that when he gets more reps under his game and whatnot. But I have to see what he does in regards to the fact, seeing J-dub, what really separates

me for him is seeing how well he was able. He touches all aspects of the basketball court. He does everything at an above-average rate. And then seeing someone like Chet be out for God knows how long and seeing jada be able to mask as a rim protector being the biggest guy out there and a lot of times the cart on the court when iHeart was out too is special and now yes like his offensively he's down the percentages are not that good points you up cool whatever but in general he's not that efficient anymore because i think he's being tasked to do so much and he might be overcomposing

a little bit defensively but seeing that ability when that leap makes things makes me feel so much higher of a pair like him compared to Jaron Jackson, Jr., Darry's Garland, and the other two line of magic guys, because J-dub has so much more to fall back on in his game, so many layers at a higher level to fall back in his game than everyone

else right below him. You see something funny, and why Chet is so important to his team? You mentioned he's over tasked. Dunder fans don't talk about this stuff. Dunder fans bully the shit out of J-Dub. They call him J-Tubbs. They say all this shit. Because he added a lot of weight to be such a good defender. He got bulky, and he's slower now, and

it's hurt his burst, hurt his offense. Back to data baller. With Chet, he averaged just 22 points, 60% true shooting. Without Chet, 55% true shooting. Surprise, surprise. Having Chet Holgren, who is your second best player, makes your third best player better in J-dub. Surprise, surprise.

He is more efficient when Chet's there to relieve some pressure to give you five-out spacing, open things up for him, to give you another passer in Chet, another scoring threat because Chet, contrary to what we might believe, is a very good score still. J-dub needs Chet It's a very symbiotic relationship I don't know

Okay you need better players around him And Chet is a better player than whatever the fuck They're rolling out They have some good players though They had some good players in those minutes It wasn't like they're playing scrubs You're right but like the size just wasn't there Like straight up when it comes to O'KC

They're strictly relying on him for the most part And then when I heart came into the fold Officially naturally is going to rise up a little bit Naturally so I don't want I give credit to Chet I'm not going there just to call him the second best player i'm not standing by that flag but that can be a very fluid conversation later not for me right now you keep saying this like like like chent's a rookie like we haven't seen

anything we had a whole season in which he was better last year the beginning of this year he was going crazy we gave palo ban caro the credit for the first five games we just forget that chet also made that leap in those 10 games and he hasn't even been that much worse he's just playing less minutes like you're blinded by the stat sheet saying less points per game he has not been that much worse and the situation has been worse and he's recovering from injury. You're treating him like he dropped 10% across the board and every field goal percentage and that's not the case at all. No, I'm not treating him like that whatsoever. Like when I see Chet, I worry about injuries and then also I'm thinking about like how effective offensively he can be. And actually the spacing is

going to be there so he's going to provide so much value. Why are you dropping your jobs? What do you see? I just spout it. No, I saw I saw what's about to happen. And continue. Oh, you saw the hypocrisy loading? Yeah. Yeah. Are you talking about Zion Williamson? Maybe. If you want to talk about it, we can get into it. Hold on. Hold your horses. Look at Donovan in the next list. Wow. Okay. At 10, I have Jerry Jackson Jr. At 9, at 9, I have Jailene Jules. At 9, I have Jet Homerokee. Ooh, Halber and 9. I like it. I respect it. I fully like, he's tough because people are going to remember those first 15 games in which he was goddamn awful. But there is a, we said it last week,

I think he is a type of player that is three-point reliant as a score. He will have cold stretches and he will have hot stretches both ways. Don't react either way. The truth is he's 20 and 10, instant offense, very conducive to winning offensively. The truth is in between. If you want to say the in-between consistent level is something like this, I respect it. He, obviously, he was at 27 and 12. Never happened again.

Then he's like, oh, he fell off, he fell off. All right, I'm just going to be 20 and 10. I'm just not going to turn the ball over. Like, if that is your point guard, if your point guard is 20 and 10, no turnovers, you are going to be fantastic. You are going to be fine. And if the Pacers were any other, any other team or had a player, like, if you had Tyrese with a more, what, traditional wing that's like a go getter, bucket getter, you write KD type, obviously best case scenario, whatever. But if you had them with that, that is a match made in heaven. And so your offense is going to be fantastic.

Yacom is that to some regard, diet version, obviously, but he is a go-to score of block isolation. And they fit pretty goddamn well. And they're a good team. And that's what I'm saying. Like, if you have a, like the best version of that, there is a world with Tyrus Halliburian can lead a championship level team. Yeah.

I truly do believe that even with his defensive flaws, he can be an engine for a team that is very, very good and makes a deep playoff run. I mean, listen, they made the conference finals last year. Obviously, right, context, but still, it happened. You've seen Halliburton, even when he wasn't playing his best, still be able to be an engine 418 that makes a deep playoff run. Now that he has kind of like stabilized and all that stuff, he's awesome. He's awesome. So yeah, he's at 9.

Besides Franz, everybody on this tier for you are people that, like I've said earlier all episode, can be stars. I can play next to other stars and make people better. Jaron Jackson, it might win DPOI. Well, he's hurt now, so maybe not. But was on track to maybe win DPOI after Victor Mom and Yama got hurt, made a scoring leap and shoot off ball, clearly fits at other stars. Halliburton clearly fits other stars. We see Darius Garland right now play with goddamn three other stars.

Chet is perhaps the best fitter with stars in the NBA. Why do you have, why is Chet so much lower than Duran Jack and Jr.? Or is so much higher? Yeah, my bad. So much higher. It's a personal bias. He's way better defensively. We can say that.

He's a weight. I understand Jackson's a great defender. Ched is the second best rimmed protector in the NBA. He is generational. Chet's more, his defense is more game-changing than Jerry Jackson's. And again, it's just a personal preference.

What is it? Say it with your test. Don't dance around it. Want me say it for you? Jaron Jackson Jr. averages five rebounds a game. He is six and 11. He plays half his mince at center.

Get your big ass in the paint. That's what he wants to say. It's 2025. Things just don't look the same. I can't I can't do it I can't do it I need and this has been a thing throughout his his career I need I need seven I need seven rebounds a game like please I it hurts to look at at the box score and see him averaging five five rebounds game also like he's six 11 he's not the best score at the room which is also like I'm you're that big I need I do need I do need I do need

you to be much better in that area as well. So those two things are always just like pet peeves of mine to where like you might drop down a little bit below. But the season he's having is fantastic. We've talked about the Grizzlies all, you know, this whole time. And he has, he has taken a leap. And so he is great. Everybody else on this list.

And you will see with the magic guys, apparently I'm just in love with the Orlando magic. Like, it's just not their fault, you know? So like, I'm going to give Franz some love. And I'm going to give Palo some, some love as well. But Halliburton, Garland, Hongren, they are game changers. Okay. I can understand that.

I understand that. When it comes to Garland, I love that me and you are like super lockstep. I'm assuming we're like, yeah, we're the highest on him compared to Isaac. I'm sure if Isaac wouldn't mind putting him in top 10 without it out because his game is so fucking just blueproof stance. Like I've had my concerns when it comes to Garland, seeing him play against much bigger teams like the Boston. Celtics, but regardless of the matter, like, he's always going to be effective on the court, no matter what, because he's a threat from so

far out from distance, and also his ability to play make is just special. I've changed my list on the fly. Chet, hungry, welcome to six. Jaron Jackson, won't know. I swapped him. I don't care. I didn't do it at first because shout out, after we talked about it, I simply... This is breaking TD3 rules and

violations. You do not, you do not change your list on the fly. That's actually false. We've done that so much. You do what you want when you make the graphics. You do what you want when you make the graphics. Chet, you are at six. I simply think he's better than Jaron Jackson. I think he's a better defender, more valuable. Offensively, when he's at center, he is just as lethal attacking.

He's way more, I should never say that. He's way more lethal attacking off the dribble as a center that he has as a power forward. That's why he hasn't looked quite as explosive coming back playing next to Iheart. There's a reason he plays center. He's fantastic attacking mismatches there. His spacing is incredible from that position. The size, he's a better rebounder. I'll beat just a little bit.

He's also not an amazing rebounder. But the defense, there's levels to this shit Chet is a different tier of defender than Jaron Jackson And he is just The most scalable star in the league Which I guess I'm being generous calling him a star already The scalable player Swapping him. Now I did put him above Palo and Kara

Which I didn't mean to do I meant to swap his other two But I'll stand on it fuck it I'm still picking shit to chat I'm going to over Palo any day of the week You know what I'm not even going to argue that whatsoever I feel like Jaron Jackson Jun is being disrespected Just a bit

Like I think seeing his He's top 10 for sure I got him one spot below you He's top 10 for sure But I think I'm more so stuck on the Chet Versus Jaron Jackson Jr. Think the defense I can't have much of a conversation for it The rebounding of course I can't have any conversation when it comes to

Because he is five rebounds versus seven eight rebounds It's still better at the end of the day But Jaron Jackson's ability to score I think you just stretch straight up flat out a better score Chet was making that lead And now like and so JWT he's hurt for for a little bit You will see over the next couple of games you're going to see a return of like you are of scoring chet hungren so so chet if

even if jaron jason jr's averaging like 25 a game if chet hungren is averaging 22 or 23 his defense is that much better to where 22 and 10 with three blocks a game from chet that's going to be better in my eyes than like 25 and 5 so so jaren's average in 22 and like chet's going to get a pop the back up like 19 or so after you know the slow start not a lot of games and games. And again, we're not, it isn't, that's just box score watching. Jaron, Jaron's going to average more because he's going to shoot more. He's going to shoot more. He's going to shoot more than Chet does. He's going to average more points. And you look at what besides the box score, he's going to be more impactful, very clearly, especially defensively, you'll see in June.

You'll see in June. Well, you see the grisies go outside? No, no, no, no. He'll see the thunder in June. Oh, we win the finals? He'll see Chet's value. But again, yeah, tonight is the first night post J-dub when they put Chet back at center. 23 points, 15 rebounds. I think you'll see this continue to get back on track. It's not box score watching when it comes to looking at how well these, like, the shooting difference is really there. Jenner Jackson Jr. is generally one of the three best big man shooters that the entire

NBA has to offer from the three point line specifically. And Chet is just not there. He has that ability. I've seen him over the course of last year do that. But in the players, I said, my bet. In the playoff, that shit just like withers away. We've seen that last year again. Fucking rookie here.

I'm not like. Well, we haven't even seen this version of Jaron, and like him be in the leap in the playoffs yet either. Jared's also not as efficient as you think. I know what you're getting at. He is a tough shot diet. So it's, of course,

Chet's more efficient. Right now it's about the same true shooting because Chet had that terrible game. He's only to play 20s. Yeah, I can't look at that for time. Chet's going to be more efficient. Jaron does have a harder shot diet.

Only kind of. It's not like you're, I think you have a outsized idea of how efficient he is. He's 22 points your game on good efficiency. I don't think Jerry is that much more. I just think he's a better score. literally it. I think his game is more polished naturally because he's older been in the league

for a minute. I think his game is more fine tuned right now. Yeah. So I can't be... That's initially why I did do that. He's 25. He's a little bit more advanced. So that's why he ranked him higher too. But when we talked through it, I was like, fuck that. Give me check. In 15 games, I will not have concerns about Chet. Let me just stand on it. I don't have

any concerns right now. I don't either, but I just tried to like account for it like a little bit. But I also didn't do it for Palo. I gave him all the Benin for the Devil and put aside my biases. So I'm going to do the same shit for Chet. Put him higher. I've always wanted him over Palo. I'm sticking with it. All right. Let's go. Top five. Top five. Top five. Donovan, who's your top five? At number five, I have Evan Mobley. At number five, I have Palo Bancaro, three Kate Cunningham, two Anthony Edwards, and at one, Victor Women, Yama. Who I have? I have five Zon

Williamson, four Evan Mobley, three Katie Cunningham, two Anthony Edwards, one Victor Woman Yama. Fair for you. And you know the thing is, now that I'm thinking about it, I put Zion at 5, right? Because, again, I understand he's injury prone. I understand he will break my heart and get hurt again. It is a cycle. I can't, I can't account for that in any rational way. I can't, you know, there's no way to put that into a rational, like, numerical-based.

Not a numerical, that's the wrong way to put it. But, like, analysis. In like an actual, like, tangible way. Yeah, tangible is my word. I can't tangibly apply that, so I just ignore it, which I understand. That's just a personal choice. Now that I'm thinking about it, I also think he's better than Kate Cunningham right now. I love Cade

I love Kevin Mowley But dude Zion is that much A better player Yeah When he's there But with that being said Caden and Moli are playing good enough So it's not a big

No no your sense is just scared Can you put up his top five Yeah Cade and Mowgli are close enough To Zines level that I went with them Because there is no reliability issues And they're also playing amazing But I

If I had to pick win one game today I pick Zion third But I'm okay with putting him at five I'm not going to change it Let's roll mine in All right so number five i got kade four zanlon williamson three jama rand two anthony a word and one victor okay and bina bina obviously i'm okay with his eye on jama rand i completely forgot that he didn't

be two giant three is nut shit what the fuck i love john morant so much i can tell i see what taylor jenkins is doing to him in his game and i understand it but brother you need to leave tomorrow i need to see john morant place as the number one option i need to see offense catered around on John Merritt once again, I need to see John Barant be the face of this team. I love Jerry's acting junior ball, but I've seen Jha do too many special things early in his career to be a snatched away. But there are a better offense now playing this way. Come up, but you, you haven't seen that from Jai in two years.

And they're better now this way. Like, they are a better offense team. They have a better floor for sure. Anseal, they're a top 10 offense. They were never that with Jha. Let me say, I don't know what their main offensive ratings were. They were never a top 17, half-court offense. They were more often around 25 in half-court offense playing the John Morant ball.

You love so much. I agree, but I think that's more roster issues than like John Moran and his limitations, bro. Like his, the roster has been good. It's been, I would say great. One of the better rosters that a team has been able to put on one side, their young star, their young player. They empowered him. When they've been healthy over the last like three years. they've either been the two or the three seed like their roster is fine you've had an all

NBA player slash all star slash two all stars on your team for a majority of this yeah we can't play the help thing but is the roster fine enough to see him yes is a is it fine enough to witness him like lead his team to an NBA champion's a front that's what I'm saying he's part of that problem he wasn't good enough as the lead engine they had to change it up because it wasn't giving you the fruits also part of that I think is to your just like reliability injury-wise that that doesn't have to do with his ability but there was never a time in which they performed in a good offensive level so like if your best player is the guy who has a ball in his hands and your offensive ratings aren't good and then

you change that dynamic and now it is good i feel like part of that is applied to him it's not completely out of his hands also once again your logic is just all how okay how jamborett does not play for two weeks straight at all. He just doesn't do that. He's a lot more injury prone than Chetot Holmgren. He legitimately He has more of a sample size obviously, yes.

But when it comes to John Morant, I see him in his special abilities glaring clear as day. He is a final product. Chet, he's still pending in my, like defense. I'm not talking about defense. His defense is a lot better than Jaws' offense. A lot

better. John Morant, immediately as soon as you view like that then i can understand we have not we have not seen john morant be in a playoff game since april of twenty twenty three the last playoff game that he played he went three for sixteen okay well to be fair that was the laker series 80 shut them down also all as big got hurt so i won't hold that one against him but he did not perform well but i there's some context three and now now that now that all three three for sixteen also missed the game in that in that series has hurt his hand in that series yes john morant has been injury prone even even after he came back from from the suspension he played nine games and then

guess what happened he yeah like he he if he's on the court consistently you are looking at him and you're like oh wow this is crazy you're in a bit of a bind i'm not going to like oh wait how am i in a bind the injury the the consistency no we're in a bit of a bind here no it's not if you hear what i'm talking about when it comes to see i don't think chet is a finalized product just yet i need to see a little bit more consistency from his game right now. And I've seen that already when it comes to dog. But even then you're docking Chet. But you're docking Chet.

Yeah. For. You're not docking them. Simply the point, you're docking Chet for injury. You're mentioning injuries. Not only injury. I don't say only.

I didn't say only. But you're docking for injury. You said you put him at 12. You'd put him at 12 if it wasn't for the injuries. And alongside him being a final product. Whereas you're putting them at their ceiling and not because they are a final product. That doesn't matter. That matters for me.

Not to you. But that's where you missing this argument. But that's why he's like assistant. But two things. One, one. And to be fair to them, you don't know if they're at their final product. They're a lot closer than Chech though. That's what I'm saying.

Even then, even if I am like further along in my race, Chet might just be that good that me at 20% is better than you at 50. You know what I'm saying? Like, like Chet is, Chet has proven to be that impactful. And again, Zion, Zion, Zion doesn't play. Brother, when he's on the court, he is one of the 12, 11 best. players in the entire NBA. There's nothing that I can say about that.

I'm not arguing about Zion Williams. He didn't look better than 10 play. Bro, I can't name that many players better than when he's on the court. Let's beat his ass with hammers. When it comes to the check, I don't care. Zion, Zion Williamson has been in the NBA for six years. Yes. First season, 24 games.

Yes. Third season, did not play. Four season, 29 games. This year, 27 games. He has four of his six seasons. where and we can even we can take this one out because it's still going he has he has what three of his five seasons where he has played less than 30 games and you're going to sit here and tell me that he's top four you know why because when he's played when he's played every single

game that he's played for the most part he looks like the best player on the court oh that is so fucking crazy do you know how good you have to be to miss that much time and still look like that guy on the court that's generational kick his ass I hope that's crazy I hope you like going 21 and 61 with your best player playing less than 30 games a year. Well, that's never happened. 21 and 16. That's never happened. You understand what I'm saying.

I do, but it does matter to say that. Obviously, I'm trying to jump in my knee. Brother, I see you as, Zion Williamson. If you're not going to help me, stay quiet. You know what I see. I've seen this dude, Zion Williams. I was trying to be loud and dramatic and you've got to kid it. Just last year, when there's Anthony Davis and LeBron James on the court,

he looks like he is the best He dropped 40 on their heads But he dropped 40 on their heads still And then he got hurt And then he got hurt and then he got hurt 40 and I'm talking about when he's on the court I'm taking out everything aside I understand he looks generational dude

Anthony Davis and LeBron James Not a single player on this list Outside of maybe Anthony Edwards and Wembe Can't have the same effect on the court Not a single one You can't name another player I love Chet He's just not like that yet

I love John Morant Kade, Mowgli. He's not doing the same thing than the court on a broader level compared to Zion. Mowgli right now, especially in the situation.

Let's move on past the screaming argument about these two injury prone that are injury prone either you care or you don't. I don't care. I don't care. But you have to care

or you have to don't care. The skill of those players doesn't affect whether or not you care about injuries or not. But names you mentioned, I understand. Zion's way better

than chat right now. Evan Mowley might just be better. Evan Mowley might just be better. That's two-way ability. He is close. to Chet. Him and Chet, he's the only one that's list besides Victor Woman Yama, who you can tell me he's as good if not better of a defender than Chet. Those are the top three defenders on this list easily. Evan Mowley's leap he made this year as a score on ball is incredible. We worried

last year about the two big lineup, in part because there was two non-spacers, and J.B. Biggersap didn't do a good job of that, right? We've glazed the shit out of Kenny Ackinson all year for putting them in the better position to succeed and figuring it out. It also helps when Evan Mowley, becomes one of the best big man attackers of mismatches in the NBA and he can shoot threes now at a very effective level. He is straight up,

he's straight up better than Chet right now. That's why I didn't even consider that despite my pre-week-concy process for Chet. He's way better attacking off the dribble. He is amazing attacking smaller defenders. He does it in this big plotting way where he just backs him down

and just uses these long-ass limbs to reach around and finish over them. He can legitimately shoot threes now. Be a DPOI. He'll probably win it now. Great on the boards. He got a lot strong. He uses that on both sides of the ball

You could argue that he's like Even health aside a better two-way More impactful players than Zion Because of the lack of offball skills A lack of skill in each other stars A lack of a defensive eye for Zion Who's just average at best defensively You could just say Evan Moby's stripped a better player now

It's not ridiculous It's not ridiculous to say that at all Cade I don't Cade's tough I'm giving I don't know if I know Cade's tough very tough Is he better than Evan Mowably I think that's a debate

I went towards him but it's close the playoffs will tell me a lot about Cade I went there because I anticipate Cade being a playoff problem because he has similar

skill sets to Tyrese Halliburton in the crazy fast decision making as a passer that I think he's kind of like Tyre's Halliburin with good defense and with an in-between scoring bag so I think that I'll translate to a playoff setting perfectly

that's why I went with him over Mowbly but that's a debate like if we're talking like in our minds on like 2K overalls they're the same guy them overall. Yeah, they are. I'm giving K the nod just because the one time that we've seen him with an average situation. He's a beast. He's an awesome, right? And I think like that, that growth and that jump and then obviously, like being, being the one option and the leader and the engine

of the team and all that, like obviously, like Mowgli, Mowgli can play on a lot of teams. And he, he is valuable on a lot of teams. Kay Cunningham is the same way where if you put him, like, if you put Kate Cunningham on the magic and you swap him out for one of the different team, bro. It's a completely different team. And obviously we've talked to all about that team's poor spacing. Kate Cunningham is fantastic.

And if he is average, the Pistons, I have been one of their best seasons in a long, long time. And why? It's because Kay Cunningham got Tobias Harris and Malibis and Beasley. And, like, that's the reason. The moment you get adults in the room and people who

can be league average and in that way there they are potentially there is a world with the Detroit Pistons end up as the four seed out east that's an insane and that's a that's a real possibility and Kate Cunningham has been a massive factor he's still not an efficient score that's still a problem and if he was that he would be above Anthony Edwards yeah so he he's so good and leading a team so well despite not being that efficient because the playmaking is at that level he does provide defensive value he has some shot blocking capabilities to point guard, which is crazy valuable to have with that kind of size that you're one.

It gives you a big floor defensively and makes it easier to hide a guy like Jalen Dern who struggles at times defensively. And again, the only thing missing is reliable inside the arc scoring. That's still not pretty. He still struggles to get to the rim and is too prone to back to the basket, like post-up touches when he doesn't create a good mismatch

that keeps him around league average of true shooting. But man, it doesn't matter when that passing is at that level when you pick teams apart that well, it would be a luxury. If he was efficient, he would be a top 10 player in the league. And some people would shoot him like he is already. There's a little bit too much glazing in that way.

Which I understand it. Like, glazing him like, he's on top of the world right now. Give him credit. I'm not going to be like, he's not as good as you think. Yeah. He's probably not for those people that are like he's an MVP Canada already. He's not that.

But he's a top 20 player in the world. Yeah. Probably top 15. I agree. Literally as soon as we made our top 30 ranking, he would fucking bizarre. Yeah, I regret it immediately. He was cooking like no other, bro.

Yeah. I agree with you for all. those things. I see him in his game. And I wish I could put him a little bit higher, but there's just a certain framework where I just haven't seen yet. There's a library work. We're going to haven't seen yet. And I think you can get there. I think he can find a way to be top four, top three in these conversations for sure. But as of now, I'm going to refrain from that. Mowgli. So obviously, I hate the chat thing. Mowgli is the other one I don't like. I get him at 12, I think. I would put him, I think I had him at 11, but I will put him higher for

sure okay we can mention you you'll concede on that one yeah when it comes to moby again i think he's going to be the defensive player of the year if it wasn't for wemby being out and i don't know about the jaron jackson junior thing i still think moby's better defensively than him but yeah i can i can definitely give him kudos for his growth offensively last year mid-season or maybe it was a year and a half girl or whatever i forget who said i think it was tim bontas or something like that he said that he derrick favors was good he was comparing with the derrick favors but he said It's giving Derek favors. Yeah, exactly.

It was the most damning, but accurate thing that I've heard in a long time. It's giving favors. He's giving Derek. He's talking. Fuck off to him. Yeah, that was crazy. When we all thought that was crazy at the time, we thought it was crazy, we were also like. It was funny, though.

It was funny. We said, like, that's ridiculous. He's young, but we were like, you got to develop, Evan. We need to deduct these allegations. We need you to do something about this, put some, make him forced into respect to you. And he did. That's precisely what we did this year. We asked him to improve, and he did.

He's on schedule. And he's still, I was like, he can get a lot better. So, like, he could be, if you tell me next season, end of the next year, we consider him a top 10 player in the NBA, I'm not going to predict it, but I will not be shocked. I think I'll be surprised a little bit. But, yeah, it won't be the craziest thing at all because his skills all around. If he becomes the best player on that team, that will. People debate that now.

Like, it's not, that would be shocking at all. What he needs is the in-between scoring to come more. He needs the jump-shot developments to become off-the-dribble mid-range jump-shot developments. If he can do that and, like, get more like a little post-vade going on. He runs, like, some inverted-picking rolls and, like, does that slow prodding thing. If he can get to some, like, Kevin Garnett, mid-range jumpers than that, Donovan Mitchell, your spot is not secure. That leap, man, that, if he's able to make that leap, bro.

Loki! A little bit slower, Kevin Garnett, Loki. If he makes that leap, man. It is not the passing, though, either. Sure, but Kevin Garnett is like... Oh, yeah, you're right. It's not comparable. But, again, like, passing to me when it comes to Evan Mowbly, seeing how he's able to direct traffic sometimes for guys like Jared Allen and throw lobs and all that easy dump off passes.

Like, I can see a world where he becomes a top 10 player for sure without a doubt. Oh, you have palo of four. You're glazing. Oh, he's glazing super hard right now. Yeah, but if we're going to talk to him glazing, you're glazing hard too. I have to defend it. Yeah, I get it. Whatever.

Nobody else will defend it. I gave him seven. I feel like that's fair. I don't think. No, it is fair. I just, it's not his fault. Again, as soon as, again, the league average true shooting is like 56.5, 57, depending on the year. The second I see a season in which he finishes higher than that, you can have it.

He can be top five. But if your guy is a bucket getter who is a good, he's a fine if he's a solid defender. But if he's a bucket getter that doesn't get buckets that well, I'm not putting above something like Evan Mowgli. Get the buckets well for a whole season. I'll talk to you in October. Yeah. Okay. And I'm being reductive. I'm joking. Like he did get hurt. There is some things. But it's, man, it's the third year of this shit. Consistently get buckets at a high level. And then you can be one dimensional bucket together. That's allowed. He just got to do it well. And you must be efficient if you're going to be a volume score without playmaking without a style of play that. I shouldn't say without playing. He's a good passer. He's a good passer. He's a good player. He's a good playmaker. That whole, like, distinction. He does not lead good offense with his pace. But he can pass the ball. He can make accurate passes. Yeah. He has that ability. He doesn't create a advantages very well but once he learns how to do that the passing will really explode different conversations if he's able to do that i think i can put him as high as like the peak version of paulo

which i had for those are the expectations i had from earlier in this season is top three on this list without a doubt palo loki like makes me break a lot of my basketball philosophies with how much slack i'm going to give him for sucking at so many important skills because i know that there's a world in which he doesn't suck with those skills because he gets older and gets better and then everything will really come together to being a beast. Like I'm giving him so much grace because I think the ceiling is so amazing

even though we haven't seen it in a lot of ways that I don't ever do that for most people. So I know. I'm running out of patience. Next year will be the year where it makes it for me. Yeah. Yeah.

That's fair. That's what I like doing these so much because it's literally an ongoing storyline. There's nothing that's necessarily like set up and there's nowhere like food from the pudding. Yeah. Exactly. There's constant flow.

lux and there's going to be a player in this tier a la someone like sheikos alexander from a couple years ago who just makes an absurd leap and he's literally he's literally going to become a top five player besides one being aunt yeah besides what i mean because they're already there i don't know it might just be them because those two are going to be there if you were to like cash all your tips who is most likely to like make that next leap i don't think kate has that ceiling because i don't think he has the physical traits to be a dominant score like efficiency-wise because he's always going to be jump-shot reliant because he's just not that fast.

So I don't think he's ever going to be an elite room finisher. And that would be what Kate has to do to hit that level. I just don't think he's that quick. So I'm not going to go him. Go on Mowgli? I mean, Zion's a good bet if he'd ever got healthy, but we'd have to be hoping for the best injury reversal like an NBA history.

You don't often see guys this down bad immediately become healthy. So that's hard. So I guess you've got to go Mowgli. Yeah. My bet is either probably, I don't go chat. I'd go chat. I don't think Chet is top five.

But he's certainly going to be top 10 in the league. People don't get credit when their defense is slanted. Like, Rudy Goberer has never considered top 10, even though he's one of the most dominant defensive seasons we've ever seen. That's fair. But he's also a lot better offensively than Rudy Gaubert, so maybe not. All right. You know, it's fine.

I think, I do think that Chet's offense is, I think that he's going to have partially the most room to grow offensively. Absolutely. Because, especially like, from whatever we're going to see in this, this playoff run. If J-dub's offense doesn't get to a certain level, there's going to be space and a need for Chet to grow his offensive game and to start like creating for himself off the dribble, attacking, attacking even more. He already does that a good amount. We like, we act like he doesn't. He does that a good amount. He's going to, he's going to have to like,

because obviously like J-Dub is, is a creative. They're going to ask for more out-of-chat offensively. And especially if it's proven like two years in the playoffs, if we don't see J-dub take that leap forward, Chet is going to have to, is going to have to ascend. Yeah, ascend it and do that. So I think that there's a possibility of him having that responsibility. So I will take him to get to the top of it.

Yeah, him or Mowgli are the best bets. And you're asking Chet to put on muscle and add onto that frame to be more physically dominant and you're asking Mowgli to add more shooting touch. Whatever bet you like more, that's the one you should take. For me, personally, I'm going to stick to Mowgli. and then also probably someone like Palo Van Caro. Zon-Wenson is naturally. Yeah.

So naturally, of course, like Zion, in my mind, he's literally an anomaly. Like, he just doesn't make any sense and he can just break so much shit. He's the definition of that. I'm sorry. So if he just gets it together, he's the clear cut.

He really is an anomaly. That's honestly, like a good nickname for him. The way he moves is not regular. But you're right for out. Palo is the best answer. Because like you said, if Palo, I think Palo needs a new coach, honestly. Yeah, I think he needs a new coach.

I wasn't trying to say anything, but like... I don't know. I don't know enough about their assistant. They need new assistants at the very least to reconfigure their offense. He has bad habits that nobody wants to talk about because they think the habits are cool. And they think the bucket getting shit is like cool. But the legs leave, the headband, the tattoo, the rocker steps. His habits are, he has some like, I don't know, ego habits a little bit.

Like set some hard screens, palo, keep the ball moving, like do the small stuff. that's hard to I think you see that a lot from young scores I think he needs new assistants or a new head coach to like instill that in

him because that's the biggest part buying in on small skills is really important I need to see the maturity in his game for sure

that's the biggest thing all right man that's our 25-25 I can't wait to see what happens next year and what player just like it sends and what player

just like I'm human you're human you're human you're human what are you feeling about Zion yeah

I'm just I'm sorry he's so good we've had this like debate in like every single player who you've ever done we always go back to the zon injury thing and we've fully comprehended the fact that some of us are going to care some of us aren't and we still get mad about it it's just it's just crazy because honestly and like over the course of this conversation

I've been thinking and it's like and I knew I knew he was going to be high for you guys I really do think that injury and like availability and that skill or trait whatever is kind of rising up for me a little bit of a little key saying A little bit more just because every single year you look at the teams who make the deep playoff runs, it's like, who's the healthiest? And being able to be available for your team is a really, really big thing when you look at a lot of the most successful teams. So that's why, especially if you're like the number one option, being available so important to me. Yeah. I don't think it's crazy at all.

I'm not like, I don't not want anybody Mr. Schumie saying I think it's like dumb to care about injuries. I don't think that at all. It's more so like for your like ranking. ranking, do you, I think you look at people more in a vacuum than, yeah, I think in terms of who you'd rather take to build around, you need to care about that for a exercise of ranking and like mental, it's more like, like, two K overalls for you, where you're like, who do I think is like better? No, I would say who impacts the game more, but it's like, it's not two key overalls for me

explicitly. But for the mental exercise of ranking players, I want to keep this like what they do when they're on the court and how they impact winning. Yeah. So in that instance, when that's the equation, it's so hard. arbitrary you can be arbitrary when you're talking about who I'd rather have because it's just like yeah like if this is just a straight up like player ranking then this list would probably look a little bit different but this is like top 25 under 25 and there's a little bit of

flux and flex to that to me I'm not even saying that necessarily I that also makes sense I guess but I just when I want to rank a player how good they are I want to focus on how good they are not how much I'd want them on my roster necessarily because that's different that's that's a different equation. Then we have to factor other elements that are outside of how good they are. At that point, if you're going to get in the fucking contracts and who they are, and that's where the top 30 for me, like, that's where, that's where I, like, have those influences in my mind. I'd rather keep it like level. And it's hard to do that with the injury thing because that's just like asking for biases to be entered in. Because there's

other players that are also injury prone to varying degrees. And you're going to factor in this one because it's so dramatic, but not the other one proportionally. And that gets kind of hard for me. I'd rather just remove that factor. Yeah. That's, that's better. Yeah. I just thing at the at the top of it again it's not crazy yeah so with that being said it's on the tic-tok time here we go let's roll tic-tok time we prevail let's go iPad in the building this is the first appearance over here in the new studio legendary things will be made and done with this thing I'm letting you know that right now yeah I'm not playing fair it's a legendary cell on the way stay tuned who how about you said

Welcome back to Mo whoops their ass in TikTok time. We're never doing that again. Welcome back. We're never doing that again. Welcome to TikTok time. As usual, we're going to start with a draft. This time we're going to do a draft of only players who played for the Cleveland Cavaliers at some point in their career. The draft order is Mo, me, Donovan.

So Mo gets blessed. What's new? You better not sell. Why would I sell? It's never, never sold anything a day in my life. You're right. It's not your nature, my bed. I should have known better. You're different. With this iPad, I literally am. Yeah. Yeah, sure. You're moving different this year. 2025 Mo. What's a? March Mo. No, I'm actually going on a run, bro. All right. So you guys know how this works. Let's see who can build the best lineup. Mo, where are we starting with this draft?

LeBron James! Clap it up for me. Brony James, okay. This list is now over. You're going to put small forward? naturally whack-ass pick whatever give me Shaquille O'Neal at center weak

old grumpy man he's ruining the vise for your locker room I'm picking him as a player not a media personality I'm not looking him as a good teammate

I'm picking him as a ability to dunk shooting guard Duane Wade fair enough it's people probably forget people are going to see this and be like

oh he played for the calves I forgot we should just block that out of our memories it wasn't good it wasn't good for the legacy of Dwayne Wade or the team but hey you can draft them it was kind of cool though it was kind of cool it wasn't

even that cool i can't lie he's a lebron rider die bro it's a bro it's a bromance i didn't think it was very cool and that's why at for positional value at my power forward every moment oh okay interesting okay uh who do i want to pair with shack give me MVP derrick rose from you. Yeah. It mix it up a little bit. MVP. I pick the same players every time.

It doesn't get interesting. Okay, I like it. Okay. So. Playing to the comments. Know your audience. I think I'm going to roll with someone like Donovan Mitchell at my two. LeBron and D.

Michigan would be amazing. That'll be fucking nasty. It's just like LeBron and Kyrie, but maybe a little bit better. Yeah, exactly. Don't slaughter me. They will. And then for the sake of, again, positional value at my four

give me Sean Marion fuck I was right about to pick him I hate that yeah this guy is such a cheater you got fucking LeBron James it's the iPad not me well what do you need next to Shaquille O'Neal

shooting give me Kevin Love okay there we go space that floor and for Derek Rose need it all right all right well at this point you know what at my center

I would like Jared Allen nice proven concept I understand I like that I like that a lot and I'm going to need a three I'm going to need somebody who can guard LeBron really nobody can guard LeBron but you got to make it work

you're setting yourself up Lou all dang welcome to the squad oh brother this is a throwback Holy shit That's a good pick That's a great pick Yeah There is very little forwards here

Give me prime Young With hair A little bit of it Richard Jefferson At the three Okay Give you Richard Jefferson

Okay This team is bid Okay So I need So I need a one N8 to five No yeah I mean listen

You're building like You know Kind of like I'm born a fantastic nasty ass team they all mesh together so well. Give me something that I seen before. Kyrie Irving at my point guard position

and to run this all out. At my five, I can go so many ways. But I see that big motherfucker Shaq over there, bro. I need a real run deterrence. I need someone who's going to do something. Can you Perkins? Absolutely not, bro.

Give me Ben Wallace. He played exactly 22 games for the Cavaliers. I was hoping you guys didn't know about that. I saw him and I thought you'd forget. I need someone who's going to body slam shack. He might not be. able to do it but he can try my cat's gonna knock them off the desk your noise he's

misbehaving hey got to make all these noises i get your attention you want me to play a cat attraction noise it'll work it'll attract the kitty cat attraction you're gonna do with your mouth no no with my mouth bro hell no you never did that before oh you're playing on your iPad okay yeah my app that you can do mating calls no absolutely no it would be nice if the cat doesn't I know look oh my god her head we heard perked up look look Oh my gosh, she's coming. I wish the audience could see her. Look at it.

Oh, my God. She's going to come up here. She came over so fast. You guys see her in the watchout. Oh, my God. She's all over move. iPad Mo got superpowers. I'm in this bitch.

I just want to drive and cat called. I'm unstoppable. That's crazy. All right. You're torturing her turn it off now. That's okay. Listen, I need all the shooting I can get. I'm going small.

Give me Darius Garland. Give me an offball shooter. Darius Garland. Okay. Yeah, listen, it's an unconventional. I didn't think you were going to pair him with D. Rose. You were going to pair another 20-25 cap? That would be filthy.

I really was trying to do that. Ha, okay. I need some more scorn. Like, Dwayne Wade isn't enough. So we are going to take, listen, again, not a lot of... You said, if you're so nasty. Not a lot of people remember, and I feel like I try to educate people. There were times.

where it was Chris Paul or Derek Wooden conversations. Give me Derek Williams. Oh, my God. This is such a you pick. And hey, I respect you. Your spacing is horrendous. I can't believe what I'm seeing. This is a mad 2014.

You could have picked Mark Price. It is. A phenomenal second round to exit. Not going to lie. Oh, my God. This cat on the couch. Yeah, nah. I got some.

She's all over you now. Wait, she's knocking over the susses. Yeah, she only talks for small things, like mouses and air pods and stuff. It's going to be so funny when she knocks it over. I would be so upset. All right. So I do not like my team, but it's not terrible. I do have Shaq and Spacing.

So Shaq and Spacing. I have Derek Rose, Darius Garland, Richard Jefferson, Kevin Love, and Shaq. It's not too bad. If you play this game in 2007, I'm giving everybody a wrong for their money. I don't even think you would. In 2007? I have Shaq and Derek Rose. Shack and Derek Rose was in college, so what's up?

Memphis was special. So what's up? Trout it out. I got Kyrie, D. Mitch, LeBron, Sean Marion, and Ben Wallace. This is arguing my best draft ever. You're telling me, again, in 2007, right before we get the redeemed team, you're telling me I get Darren Williams and do it away? No one give a damn about Darren Williams.

I don't care. Yeah, there's not a single great shooter on your team. Shout to Evan will be shooting late, but it's good. Who's the best friend on your team? My team? Yeah, Shaq's low-key, a better defendant than people think. But yeah, perimeter-wise Richard Jefferson. Damn.

Yeah, you're getting blown by Hey Defend Shack I dare you I dare you Then when you're done with that Defend Eric Rose First of all

Jared Allen is locking up Shack And then he's gonna go play With Legos Who are the lights too bright against? The magic And you think The lights are gonna be bright He's learned from that experience

iPad Moe prevails again You got LeBron First Triggs Yeah It's not whatever fuck you And Sean Marion Sean Mare is where I That was a good pick

Yeah Okay He didn't sell for once. Next thing we're going to do, we're going to bring back a TD3 classic we haven't done in quite a long time in this regard. I'm going to show you some NBA face swaps.

And this time, I don't want you to rate them. I want you to tell me which players they are combined. I mean, hair swaps. I'm going to show some NBA hair swaps and I want you to tell me which players they are combined.

So whose face and whose hair you're looking at? You don't know the face. Basically, I'm saying whose haircut is this. Okay, this is going to be tough. Oh, man. I lost my man, no man nor title. but I got my iPad in my hands

and although I'm not using it to cheat it gives me powers okay first up whose haircut is this on Anthony Davis this is kind of hard not gonna lie

you fuck with this he might have to do this to look for him he might do this yet yeah it fits he looked like he giving people 32 and 14 on every single night given

listen this is a college basketball player he was trying this gives me college basketball vibes I don't know why it's like another variation of like Montreuxed Manchres Harold is even

Montres Harold literally Yeah he does He looks like a light screen Montres Yeah I mean obviously Caltwell This is John Moran

Yeah I said Coltswell Cool ass Phil A little bit of glaze there But yep This is John Moran's hair And Anthony Davis

It works It's fitting Solid 8 out of 10 Yeah Okay Yeah we can rate it to Why not This is a move

This is a solid 8 out of 10 Next up We got Janus Oh God God. So, rate it and tell me who's haircut it is. All right.

I'm writing this definitely a... Almost had three. I'm going three out of ten. Four because it doesn't look terrible. You know who this looks like? Bro, that's Bilalcula Bali. What are you talking about right now? Oh, my God.

What's up? That is below. That's a lot of cool of body. That's crazy. He literally has the same move, bro. We got the headband, the braids, and all that. Wow. He changed the way I look.

Look at Janice's face. I think I may put a five at this, bro. Good job. I guess, yeah, since it looks like an actual person, I'll go five. You can call you can call Balala ugly. You better get a five. Where Balala stands over here, me personally. There's no smoke with Bal.

I didn't mean to say anything disrespect. If I did, I apologize. Word to Balaw. This is a 10, bro. Word to Belal. Word to Kula Bali. Word to the French pronunciation. Facts.

Alan Arvison. and brids? These are Alan Iris's braids, correct? Yeah. Climb it up. Next up, what are you rating this? And whose hair is this on James Hardin?

This is a Karen-ass haircut, bro. I'm not going to lie. It's a chat haircut. This feels like Shane Gillis and Blackburn. I don't like this. Oh, man. This is like an orange polo shirt and some tan khaki shorts, some dockers.

Yeah, he looks like a snitch with this haircut, bro. Just like not a good person. This is the way that Dave Chappelle will put on with him. He looks like he has a friend who, who's trying to get him an internship. His friend's dad trying to get him an internship. But it connects, man.

I swear. Who is the one right there? Dude, it's all about who you know. Some redhead. I mean, it's obviously some white, is it?

Is it Kevin Hurder? This is not Kevin. It's not Red. It's not Kevin Hurder. Ah. It's more brown. Yeah. Ooh, man.

It's on you. Is it on me? It is. Yeah, Mr. Mandoer. You better reclaim that crown. But I was in like 2024. Oh, you're washed? You have the iPad.

You said it gave you. powers uh we might be cut i don't want to be cooked but it's kind of looking like that okay is this fuck yeah i have no idea who this is the mottis subonis his hair oh man i was gonna say pound two this goddamn brown hair what did you think it was black no demontissa bonus no not black i thought you said blonde no it's late yeah it's it's it's it's like a dirty blonde light light brown yeah what are you gonna say he he do be at this along i I see that. My bad.

We're getting his tones in. We're getting us a solid rating? It's a solid eight as ten? No, this is for sure. No, it's definitely like a two out of ten. Yeah, I don't want to see it. No, no, it's ass. Let it be clear.

It's not good. Don't do this, James. You know, I don't think you will. I'll go on a limb. He won't do this. It's hard on the eyes. We got Jason Tatum. More or less, ORA.

Actually, more. Does this make Colin Cowher consider him a superstar? brother he can flip his hair now this is this is a look exactly when you close your eyes and you think of Jason Tatum and you see his locks yes this looks like he'd be in the movie dodgeball there's like a costume like a TV prop this is I mean the headband it looks like a Disney Channel wig for sure but does it look oddly misplaced no it doesn't yeah low key kind of works I'm giving this a six out of ten if he was to grow his hair I think we'll Look, something like this actually.

And I'm, okay. And I'm giving Jason Tatum and Kelly Olinick's hair is six out of ten. This is Kelly. W. I agree. Okay. Oh, God. We got Luca Donchitz.

Bro, he has a lineup from hell. Who has this lineup in the league? Brother. It looks sharpied on. No. Brother. This is the worst. This is one of the worst we've ever seen.

He looks like a rejected gang member right now. Who's haircut is this? Who the hell is this? I'm not trying to disrespect either with this high with this high hair line. He looks like an elbow. It would be very funny if this was like Stephen A. Smith. He looks like a Vienna sausage. Yeah.

Brother. Looks like a dirty thumb. Well, we're baloney vibes. It's not, it's not LeBron. Yes, it is. This is LeBron. No! No!

No! No! This is too dark to be LeBron. What do you mean? LeBron is his hair is black. What do you mean? This is LeBron with that fiction. This is LeBron with a spray paint.

I take everything. I take everything back. This is LeBron after going to see Slide Hunter. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. With the sharpest razor in the city. I hit him with another spice bomb. 10 out of 10, fuck all that. 10.

This prevails. Listen, you got to have your allegiances. Listen, Luca, this is a look. This is a look for sure. Get that low tape. face he has a bright future ahead of him this is crazy what about this what about michael jordan oh he loses crazy bro i don't know what it is i kind of like it what do you mean what is it he has green hair like i kind of like it i kind of like it i kind of like

it i don't know jolly green giant vibes stop but it looks less serious like i don't feel like he's going to kill me i think he's going to entertain me then kill me of course it looks less serious i think it's dope i don't know it doesn't look bad stop it he He looks like he's going through our time in life. Mid-life crisis, Jordan. Deep in gambling debt. I got to chase something of. Just to feel something.

I'm going to give this a three. This is a zero out of ten. Oh, you guys are haters. No, I'm a hero. You're right. I think I'm going to give it a seven because it looks real. It looks fine. It does not look real.

I'm going zero out of ten. Is this a current player? Is Dennis Robbins? Okay. Yeah. It's not terrible. Listen, Jordan, I think it's not too late. Make it happen.

Grow it out. Don't do it It's far too late Shaquille O'Neal It's far too late He's over We got Shaq He was like a cartoon

bro He definitely looks like He looked like he got a couple Comic Camajas In his talk right now He looks like Jake the Dragon For that guy's over? Yes it does

Drake the American Dragon or whatever the hell it is Very funny because I don't think This is the first mention of Jake the Dragon I think you mentioned him before. It's a classic, bro. Kobokamiamii is a crazy.

That's how Goku looked in a live action movie. Yes, literally. The jersey doesn't help. They had the white dude from Shayless with spiky hair. This is a 10-assus. It breaks the scale. Shack should do this. Actually, bro.

They call them Shaq Food. Again, far too late. Far too late. Shack and Jeremy Lynn? Correct. Correct. Next up We got Trey Young

This just don't look right Looks right to me Loki Looks odd Loki this can kind of work I don't know I actually kind of like this I'm giving this an 8 out of 10

You want to see Trey with the pro It works It balances out his head It does It does I like this I think it lessens his quickness If you ask me

Too much hair on his head May be a disservice to his game I think he's perfect as he is right now. He's less aerodynamic. Exactly. I'm thinking about his acceleration, his ability to blow by. It's going to be like running with a parachute behind you. But his parents blocking him to win.

I think this makes him worse. I'm going 8 out of 10. And I'm guessing that this is obviously this Jared Alex. This is Jared Allen. It's not the worst in the world. It looks fine. It's one of the better ones we've seen. Definitely.

Okay. Tyrese Halliburton. because it's like you didn't just put the hair on tyris haliborne you put that big his forehead on a tree if tyrese halliburton had the power of the brunson noggin if he had brunson dome to his name he could be unstoppable bro he looks just so different like he looks like rich the kid or something like that bro i'm so cute who's the other dude Who's this duo guy? I forgot the other dude.

Damn. Oh, what's his name? Dexter? Dexter? Yeah. Dexter? Yeah. Like, Dexter.

Like a famous Dexter. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't look bad, though. It doesn't look bad. It looked. It could happen in this day and eight. I'm going seven out of ten. Obviously, it's Tyrese and Jalen Brunson.

Ultimate point guard. You combine those two? Oh, my God. This is the ultimate point guard? Is this just like Luca Dantze? She was passing? Yeah I guess so

Yeah No this works I give this a nine I think This wouldn't be a bad idea for Tyrese He looks like a real person For so

Well I hope he looks Like a real person He is a real person I give this an eight Okay It looks like Trevor Reza Holy shit

We got Palo Bancaro Oh my God I know he has a Throwback type game I know he likes A pallop ball Not a room like this Don't do it like

Who And his ear Gone bad too Oh Lord No This is A substitute Dude teacher. God damn, this is Nate Thurman.

Is the world be free? Glad for Ration. This is definitely Nick Thurman. Why I got to do my guy? And he had no face in here, too. That's what makes it worse. The blank expression on his face looks like he got his head shamed as a punishment from his mom. Like he was bad at school

They shaved off his brains Palo I'm sorry They should have never did you like this palong sorry They sent to the military academy Face of pure despair Bro, he knows it's over He knows it's over He looks like he broke the floor of the wall

He knows he's bald He's not returning back to his fire for him bro It's over Listen if he doesn't start making jump shots We might have to do this we might have to do this has motivation 10 out of 10 I like it oh man

this is the 10 I don't even care who's hair this is who's baldness is this come on whoever you watch the ball that I just made them balls the end of that oh shit I'm crying next thing we're going to do we're talking about Zion a lot in this ranking

we're going to do a five level game with Zion Williamson I'm going to name you some NBA players you let me know who you would rather have them or Zion Williamson okay let's do it let's test on his levels level one Zion Williamson or Julius Randall I'll take Zion Williamson Julius Randall has been cooking as a late they're 10 and no the last 10 games with them tough with that being said if they had Zion they would also be 10 and no in those 10 games yeah exactly exactly this one's easy we'll go Zion shout out Julius though proving people wrong he's some degree it's crazy

picture level two Alprin Sangoon you should have had these switch The Julius is better than Sengoon? No Either way, I'm going Zion again. Exactly. Zon and Zon no matter what. Zaham, a good situation. Shout out Sengoon.

The Rockers are having a great year. I couldn't imagine watching Zion Williamson play next to all those guys out there. It would be amazing. Oh, my goodness. I'm in Tops and throwing lobs. To Zion. That's the most athletic team of all time. Oh, my God.

Staling Green, two and one in that. So much jumping, so much just leaping ability. Yeah. Verticality. It would be wonderful. It's amazing. who goes on level three palo bancaro now we have a debate so who's better today

better at basketball better at basketball it's zon williamson today some people would argue against that but as soon as palo ban caro has a league average shoe shooting for 40 games in a row we can give it to him before now zan understand his strength in row he knows what he's better at he knows how to get to his spots a lot quicker more willing of a passion and all that if palo had the downhill like desire that Zion has different conversations different player yeah yeah and he can take his jumpers i need him to make more of them before i gave him over zion i think i agree paolo's not playing you know what we'll go zion zion's playing some of the best basketball of his

career in this moment zion is playing better so i will take zion right now at least until the next injury we're going zion william i agree that was close level four jaw marant ooh quintessential debate bit a debate for five years where do you currently stand At this moment in time, Zion again is playing better basketball. They both don't play, but whenever they are playing, Zion is producing a little bit more. I will go with Zion in this moment today. This one's tough. I understand if you want to go towards Jacques, he's more reliable, which he's not even that reliable.

But if you want to, like it's versus Zion's, it's a low bar. I've always been a guy, I think he's better at most aspects of the game. I'm willing to deal with the downside. He might get hurt again. It's so interesting. They're both flawed in very similar ways, too. I'm still leaning in Zion. They're both slashers.

One's a bigger, faster, stronger slasher. Give me Zion Williamson. Exactly. Level five. Anthony Davis. I'm going to 80. I'm going to 80. I understand he got hurt in his first game as a Maverick.

I don't care. Quite unfortunate. I don't care. He put up 32 and 15, whatever. I don't care what he put up. It was amazing. But look at that smile. You'd say no to that.

Instantly. If Anthony Davis is the other option, yes. I'm taking Anthony Davis. Anthony Davis is going to wipe that smile off his goddamn face. I'll tell you that. That defense is a big difference. Zion is amazing offensively, very average defensively. We're going to a two-way player.

We're going Anthony Davis. I can't turn that. You just think Zion's hotter that has nothing. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm not saying. You saw how Ripty is now. You saw the 2% body fat. I ain't saying none of that. I ain't saying none of that.

All right. To avoid those allegations? I made that up. I don't know. We'd be dead. I'm being AD. How did they calculate percentage of body fat? I've never known.

Yeah, I don't know. Like, what do they measure to know the percentage of your body? Is that a made-up stat? Like, do people really know what percentage they are? They do. No. Is it, like, estimated on, like, your waistline or something? You have, like...

No, estimate on your, like, your muscle mass. Like, lean body mass. How do you know that, though? Like, how do you weigh that? You have, there's, like, official machines. There's like a Dexas scan, that's what it's called? It, like, does insane test on your body. I have no idea what the science.

And, like, the easier version, you can, like, stand on the machine and they'll send, like, electric, like, shockwaves, and then depending on, like, what they get they can determine how much like lean body mass is in you and then how much is like they send electric shockwaves that's interesting that you're not getting electric you to me i know what you mean i i get it i know i didn't know that's how it worked yeah okay so all right well next thing we're gonna do something we haven't done in quite a while something we should do every time we're not every time in person because we're going pretty soon we'll be in person all the time spoiler this might be the next time you see it here it might be for good let's play the imposter game okay you guys

know how this works we haven't done it in quite a while i'm gonna have right now my girlfriend's in texas she's in a text two of us an NBA player and one of us she's in a text imposter our job is to take turns naming saying something about that player and we have to figure out who the imposter is who doesn't actually know who they're talking about who's making shit up okay and you guys have seen to do this before it's been a while but i don't know i usually we're pretty bad at it usually it goes pretty terribly and we know who the imposter is right away we shoot our load too fast and immediately we know so hopefully we do better

this time. Y'all got your text? Let's do it. Let's do it. Okay. I'll start off. Wait, I forgot, do we ask a question or do we say?

You just say a trait. You say a trait of the guy. Okay. All-Star. This player is an All-Star. Okay. Fuck. Okay.

All-to-D say up first to not get away too much. You don't want to give away too much. I struggle too because I don't want to like... Usually when we do this, you can't immediately jump to like a defining characteristic because it makes it too obvious. That's our problem. So you got to be vague.

Okay. Maybe also is too specific. I don't know. Exposive. Versetal. I said we got to be vague. You got extremely vague. Okay.

Winning player. Conduasive to winning. Hmm. Okay. Shooter. black brother what are we talking we're playing the numbers game here

I think we'd say has aura I think that's fair okay white teeth you got great pearly whites is there anybody that eliminates like is there anybody in the league

I don't want to say names but I could say name white teeth is ridiculous it's the truth it's the truth bro No, no, no, no. You got the burly whites on them.

No, no. If you're going to say white teeth, you got to say like baneers or something. Call somebody up. Call them and say what you mean. White teeth. They are nice white teeth. Some of the best in the league. Okay.

Athletic. Okay. White teeth feels more along the lines. I feel like I'm noticing something. Multiple haircuts. Beard. He does. Okay.

He does have a beard. Many players do. Elite. Just elite. He's just elite. So I have never seen a more guilty of my fucking life. You were the imposter I was thinking about a trait to put after it

And I just got frozen So I was just like, yeah man They're good Elite He's an elite They nodded Who was it, man Who was it?

The player was Jalen Brown And I had no idea Shout to your small Jalen Brown Keep going Apparently watch are perfect Yeah so you weren't the apostasy You do with Jalen Brown I mean, Jaylen Brown does have some pearly whites

So I guess that makes sense You threw me off You said aura I think Jaylen Brown is Orra He has more than Tatum for sure Yes, I've just never thought about Jayne and Brown having like In those combos

He's referred to as like one of the hotter players In the league He's, he's, he's orer I think he's like I think I've seen lists of like Handsome players He's high up there You care

Yeah Anyways yeah that was That was hilarious I'm having We're gonna play one more match I'm having round two of Texas being set right now as we speak I'm never going to forget that

elite let me know you guys get your text top tier all right I'm ready to continue when you guys are you can go first this time oh you can start off with us we'll rotate around let's guess who the imposter is hopefully it's better this time

all right we go with shooting sleeve shooting sleeve okay shooter can I say or again fair? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Or. Okay.

Having or not having or is a good place to start. Yeah. I agree. Was traded. At some point. At some point. A lot of players are. Black. Why did you guys get to much? Are you unsure if he is or not?

No, no reason. I'm just. i'm trying to process some things right now what are you trying to process this just keep going black elite more offensive value than defensive hmm okay i will say good finish why you staring at me like that he's like he's like he's like he's life leader leader leader Okay. Okay. Positional size.

What does that mean? Like, you know, like, I guess like the position, he's big. I don't know, like, for his size, for his position. I don't want to say large, but like, positionally. Okay. I will say, good handis. I hate y'all so much. Lie again.

man struggling I triple dog dare you tough bro what is he talking about right now get out of here I can tell what he thinks from that he don't know nothing right now bro he said light skin

no you said black then you went ahead and said fucking tough black what what do we talk about right now are you ready to call him the imposter are you accusing him or something I'm ready to shoot my load wait no no one more

round. One more round. You ready to shoot your load? Let's shoot a load together. I'm made to explode. All over you. Imposter! Fire! Y'all didn't kill the wrong man.

I don't know who the fuck we're talking about. I was saying bullshit. Double. I said positional size. Who is it? Jalen Brunson. Are you stupid? He has not a positional size.

When you said positional size, I'm like, what do you mean by that like this is and that's why i was stuck because you said was traded he was never traded he was he left him free agency oh and so he said he said he said that and so i thought he was the imposter but you said position of size and i was like yo what's going on right one of y'all is right but both y'all said something incorrect so i had no idea what was going on my my misinformation is crazy was trade that's hilarious damn i forget he wasn't traded but then when you try to to call me out you said light skin so i was like it's probably him that's why i wanted to go one more round i knew it was me so i hell yeah let's vote yeah i baited on that one uh masterfully

damn i baited on that one tough okay last thing we're going to do come on man it's so hard we do the imposter i hate being the imposter it's awful it's the worst i hate being the posther. I was like, Garthy. Ironically, I would have been better off saying Gurthi. That would have done them good for me.

Does Jayden Bruns have aura? I guess so. Yeah, he does. Shout out the aura Hail Mary to start. Okay. I'm going to name an NBA player. Varing levels, star players. You let me know the most underrated

part of their game. Something they do well that's underappreciated by the masses. You can let's do it. First off, let's start with an interesting one. Steph Curry. Something underrated about his game. His lungs.

His stamina. That motherfucker can run and run and run. This man is a marathon runner. Every single night he runs around. Nobody can keep up with him. It's 100% the most underrated part about his game. And because of that, his playmaking is underrated because some people think he's not a point guard, that dumbass narrative. Because his playmaking is running around off ball and getting everybody open because all five players are staring at him, praying he doesn't get open.

something that I'll say that doesn't get talked about enough is he is the most pocketful of Sunshine NBA player ever He doesn't get that shit at all, bro He's nothing but good vibes all the time Don't get into arguments When he literally always started on the court last year Whenever Draymond

When Draymond got ejected He was like oh my God, no not again And that's a testament to the sunshine levels Bramon was so disastrous He took away sunshine from Mr. Sunshine That's just generational disaster class By Draymond right there I bet he apologized

But in general I'll never touch your sunscreen shine ever again. I bet you he didn't. I'm out of here. I'm not out of here. This is what interesting what you guys say about this one. Nicole Yokic.

Oka. He doesn't give a fuck, bro. He's just so like, yeah, it is what it is. The attitude is underrated. Yeah. He's very even killed because of that. Actually, no, he has, he rages sometimes. He's just very, like, stoic.

Maybe he permanently injured somebody's neck because he's so unsteoic. But, neither you're there I think his offense of rebounding is underrated people don't realize that he has like

the best touch of anybody down low and also if he misses he can probably get his board and keep going back up with that elite touch that makes him one of the more one of the most dominant interior sports like ever

and that's not something that he gets a label of I don't do people think of him as tough I don't know but he gets fucking hacked if you look at

if you look at his arms there's cuts and scratches and he's only player that like proudly wears that all the time yeah i i do think he is like people don't think of him as like tough in that way he's tough feel different she's the human shield bro it's him and stuff when he comes to scratches all over your body he's like uh he's like big hero six where he gets like hit and just boom he just exorves it a big old body yeah jason tatum oh he's easily his passing easily his passing i think it's probably that he can defend centers like

very well like the fact that you can have this like small forward that can play three through five and switch on to ones and twos like his defensive versatility is insane and i think people think he's a good defender but he's like one of the more valuable defenders in the league this is why he has no aura if you ask me i'm gonna say rebounding he's one of the best rebounders that his position that's true maybe the best he is the most underrated parts of jason tim is that he's amazing at all the role player stuff that most stars aren't willing to do and that's how people don't value him enough because that shit matters rebounding

you're a top five player to me yeah he's top five he's top five yeah he's fifth exactly low key this year listen with and without a cut he's top five this season he's played better than the guy

on my team I'll say that Jalen Brunson hmm Jalen Brunson it's hard because a lot of his skills are recognized because the skills are insane very loud

so what goes under the radar his clutchness i think this year people are starting to notice really maybe is he the favorite to one clutch player of the year he should be he 100% okay he needs one clutch player of the year and i think some people so disrespect them a little bit he is just late game terrifying he's gonna make the right play and get to a spot every single time i think he has top 10 handles in the NBA oh that's and no one really talks about that like his matchbacks ridiculous that's a good answer I go handles that's good Yeah, when people say handles, they think about the kairies of the world.

The, I don't know, you can say Paul, not Paul George, but Darius Garns of the world. They don't really throw Darius, Jalen Bruns into those conversations at all for whatever reason. Yeah. I think it's ability of buckets is outside and everything. I would, people, his balance is crazy. Ooh, that's a great balance. Because to be able to be that herky jerky and to have that big of a head is crazy. gravity alone is hard to compensate for it

to be going like this and still be able to lock in on the basket oh that's how he does it yeah it's crazy you don't have the hang time though so like that yeah but yeah his balance hang time plus big head that's a lot of gravitational pool flinging in every direction he does the impossible that's why that's a strong neck the head of the tape maybe his neck is the most underrated part of his game he had he has to take jama mean before everything Jamie

Jayne, we love you Go on the show, man. Please. LeBron James. What's underrated about the goat? This season, and specifically since Luca and right before Luca came onto the team,

his defense. And when Luca got traded for, they're like, there's only one ball. They won't fit. So clearly his off-ball game is extremely underrated. And noted is also, his mid-range scoring is underrated

I think people view that as like when you compare him to Jordan His fade away has been For a long time It's been like just as good But people probably view that It's a big thing That like Jordan and Kobe do a lot better

LeBron is like just as amazing At that shit Yeah I was gonna say It's three-point shooting bro Yeah like legitimate 40% three-point shoot Over the last few years of his career It's insane

Maybe everything is underrated about him This is why he's my sunshine This is why he is the chosen one The glorious king The one and only six say 250 when Brian Ramon James. And we're ducking around the real topic conversation here. The most underrated part is he's a leadership.

He's a father. That's what I'm saying his leadership. He stands up for his own. Not only a father, a philanthropist. He helps a community. Be in these streets. It doesn't matter the situation. He will step up and he would challenge anybody

who's going after his team and his teammates or his son. True, true. You got it right there. In any situation. Kobe Bryant. I don't know, I feel like everything is glorified with Kobe. I can't think of it. Hard to say underrated because he's like extremely appreciated.

Yeah, every aspect of his game is. Loki, his passing, his ability, his ability to pass is underrated. That's so anti-Cobie. His ability to pass. Now, his willingness to pass, that is properly rated. But he could pass the ball. He just chose not to, which you can say whatever about his, telling me or about whatever, but he could do it.

All right. If there was anything that's underrated, it would be that. I don't know, bro. All right. Yeah. Man, put Kobe today, let him run a heliocentric offense. He'll be out here. Out here.

Seven assists, eight assists a game. Minimum. I struggle to imagine eight, but. He could have like a Shay type season. She has a six, but you still a good playmaker? Eight's a bit much. mentality is not going to be that much different. He can get eight.

I mean, he can. Will he, no, I don't think. I think it'd be much closer to Shea, like 32 and 6. I agree. Which is, you know, the MVP, so I'm not exactly saying he'd be bad. He'd average 36 and 8. All right. Jesus Christ.

Come on. Joel Embed. I got it. Underrated, he's one of the best drop coverage defenders I've ever seen. His ability to, like, back up and play the big man while also containing the driver and, like, specifically break up passes on the role. Fantastic. You knows how to get low, bro.

He has a wagon in the back that helps him stabilize all that motion in the front. He is fantastic when he comes to that, bro. What? Yes. He has great stabilization.

I'm not talking about this, man. This guy's... He wears extra padding always because he has to fall on his butt instead of fall in his leg. Devin Booker. Basketball. It's still his off ball.

It's still his off ball movement. Second best offball and Garbershans Curry. I wish his team was in a situation where they could fucking use it. And he didn't have to be the point guard because they wanted to trade for Bradley Biel. So I can't wait until he gets traded and he can run and run off ball again and get back to being extremely versatile. It's like no one talks about him anymore, but he's just a foregone conclusion in the NBA. Because he's in hell.

He's playing the worst situation ever. They add Mike Boonehose or it gets worse. Bow, bowl has two good games and we're like, that's the savior. Nick Richards has two good games. That's the savior. We're grasping for straws. Free Devin Booker. Please.

Send him to Houston. Any other underrated parts of his game? Has his Was Devin Booker ever? Is he still top five or in the league? I don't know about top five. Top five roster? Fair.

Allow it. I will allow it. I will allow it. Les when I will allow it. Janus. His memes are generational. Stop it. I will say that.

They're not underrated. They're not underrated. Still, it's probably. still his passing. I think he's his ball handling. I think he like whatever you consider a big man, is he the greatest ball handling big man of all time? Is he taking in transition? Half court playmaking, isolation scoring, can run inverted pick and rolls. How many better big man dribblers are there? It's crazy because like 6-11 and higher. I can't even say he's a great ball handler in transition because it takes him one dribble to get to get to half-court. That makes he great, don't

he? He's the best ball handler. I didn't say it's a best dribble packages, but effective ball handling. He might be the most first one. I think it might be that. I like that all. Who else is in the conversation of best ball handling 6-11 or higher? I mean, if you want to consider Kevin Durant that tall, but you know, he's not listed that high. He refuses to admit he's that tall, so I guess we'll disqualify him. That might be honest. All right, Yonis, you got it. Dwell and B also as a handle, but it's a little less mobility. Yeah. His dribble combos are better, but the mobility of Yonis is different. Yeah. All right, we'll go to Yonis. Ball handling ability. Go big man ball handler. Look at that. Shout out to you.

because of deer and with that being said that's the end of this episode if people are still here they should comment I'm not going to say that Donovan what should they comment no say it

shout out Jail them brus his neck Yeah.