The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - AJ Dybantsa vs. Darryn Peterson in Summer League + Yaxel Lendeborg reaction & Kawhi trade chaos

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

Jason reacts to the NBA Summer League debut of AJ Dybantsa (Washington Wizards) as he faced off against Darryn Peterson (Utah Jazz). He also breaks down how Yaxel Lendeborg (Golden State Warriors) and Morez Johnson (Dallas Mavericks) looked, before discussing the update on the Kawhi Leonard trade saga between the Los Angeles Clippers and Toronto Raptors. All lines presented by Hard Rock Bet.  #VolumeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hope all of you guys are having a great end to your week. We're actually recording this on Thursday night right after the showdown between AJ DeBonsa and Darren Peterson, which very much lived up to the hype. We're going to break down that game from the perspective of both teams. I'll talk a little bit about Yaksa Lindenburg and Morris Johnson's debuts. that took place shortly before that game. And we got some news about the Kauai Saga tonight that I think is very interesting,

especially as it pertains to the title race out in the Eastern Conference. Champag Show, you guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. We have a goal before the end of this weekend to get to 150,000 subs. I know we get a long way to go,

but you guys can help us get there. We need about 8,000 more. Scroll down and hit that subscribe button. If you're already subscribed, like this video, sign up for post notifications. that helps us a lot. All right, let's talk some basketball. Before we get into the game,

to all of you guys who came by to say hi tonight, thank you so much. It's great to get to meet some of you guys for such important supporters of the show. We're going to be around all weekend. Jackson and I are going to go down to the rec center at UNLV tomorrow at about noon as well. So I should say today, Friday at about noon.

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If you see us, don't be shy. All right, let's talk some basketball. So this, the Darren Peterson versus AJ DeBonsa show, which kind of turned into the Trey Johnson show in the sense that this was a game where it felt like both Darren Peterson and A.J. DeBonsa wanted the moment bad, especially early on. That's what was so funny about the Trey Johnson experience is he somehow ended up taking more shots than both of them. And you guys know, those of you guys who have been listening to the show for a while,

actually a big fan of Trey Johnson. He was one of my favorite players scouting in the draft last year. He just, when he's coming off of any sort of screening action, he has an advantage. He's got all the shots. He ended up going 11 for 20 tonight, helped Washington close the deal as things got close late. But it was super, there was a palpable energy in the arena during warmups. Everyone was standing up for the entirety of warmups. They stood up to start the game.

It's very clear that AJ DeBonson, Darren Peterson, don't particularly, like each other. There's like that, that palpable intensity and rivalry between the two of them. And they both just came out guns blazing. Both took really bad shots in the opening minutes of the game, just a ton of aggression between the two guys. But as things really settled down, one of the kind of turning points in this entire game was the way that AJ DeBonso was able to handle ball pressure and consistently generate quality shots at the rim without turning the basketball over, versus the jazz. And Darren Peterson had eight turnovers tonight, but it wasn't just there. And it was really the entire jazz roster, just completely falling apart against the intense ball pressure

that Washington was bringing up and down the floor throughout the entire night. Jackson, what was the name of the guard who was picking up? Jamir Watkins, a two-way guy from Washington last season who played in about 50 games. J ends up picking up nine fouls. It was hilarious because every single one of them was a foul and yet he was complaining about every single one. But he was picking up Darren Peterson full court, super physical, kind of an interesting matchup for Darren in the sense that

one of the things we've talked about with Darren when we've been scouting him is that he doesn't necessarily have the greatest physical attributes. Like he's a big strong player for a guard, but he's not like an exceptional. big and strong player on a basketball court with all the positions on the floor, right? He's a, he's reasonably quick, but he doesn't have a lightning quick first step. He has some vertical pop, but he's not Anthony Edwards. Like, he's a very good NBA athlete, but not like a great or a transcendent NBA athlete. And so when you put a, a big athlete on him like Jemir

Watkins, and he kind of has that physical strength advantage, it kind of made it so that Darren was struggling to get to his spots for the most part during the game. And again, Jackson and I were talking a lot about this during the game. It's been interesting to see Darren Peterson have more of an on ball role the way he has in Summer League. He's running way more pick and rolls in Summer League than he ran when he was with Kansas. And it's unveiled a very fascinating part of his game. He's made quality reads out of the ball screens. He's shown the ability to score at a couple of really pretty floaters tonight, had a really nice lob pass coming out of like a curling action out of the right corner. He can make the reads. He can make the passes. When he's in that flow,

he definitely has a lot of potential. But I wouldn't say that he's a rock solid ball handling point guard type of talent yet. That's something that I think he's got a lot of development trajectory ahead of him to get to that point. Eight more turnovers tonight. He has six, excuse me, 18 turnovers through three summer league games so far. I think that's where like for all the talk before the draft about how you, you know, that kind of leak about how he didn't necessarily want to play with, with Keante George. Like I actually think Keonti George is really going to help him.

Keante has that speed burst. He has that ability to handle ball pressure, get the ball into the offense. And I think that Darren's going to benefit from playing with advantage more. And that's something I think he's going to be able to get playing alongside Keontay George, playing alongside Jared. Jackson. That's where to me, the ceiling with Darren Peterson as we talk about what he can be in the long run, like Devin Booker-esque, high volume pick and roll player that can be surgical in the mid-range and make all the reads and become the player that Devin Booker became,

which is a guy literally made first team all-N-Ba once in his career, right? Like, that's on the table as a potential outcome for Darren Peterson. But I think he's got a ways to go as an on-ball player in terms of managing ball pressure, especially against bigger, more physical players before we can get to that point. But in the short term, he's going to be awesome playing with advantage. And as long as he gets those advantages,

like he's going to get in Utah, he has all of the scoring touch from all the different spots on the floor, all of the counters. Big believer in the talent, I still think even though very disappointing game tonight, right, six for 18 from the field, gets pretty badly outplayed by AJ DeBonse,

we'll talk about in a minute, has eight turnovers, got really passive in the second half in particular, did face some double teams, but also even on opportunities when he did have an opportunity with single coverage or in a traditional kind of ball screen situation, wasn't looking to be super aggressive to score. Like, wasn't the best Aaron Peterson game, still think overwhelmingly through three games, he's been very impressive. It's just, I think in the short term in a winning context in Utah, he still projects to be more of a in the flow advantage score rather than a guy who's going to run 25 pick and rolls. I think that's more of a long-term goal for him to become that type of player. And I do think the potential is there.

And credit Washington, that was like a really, really good defensive effort from that Washington group. And again, like, like Jemir Watkins beat the shit out of him in that game. It was crazy to see. I was actually, Jackson and I were joking. we were disappointed. They didn't keep him out there to see if he could pick up his 10th foul. Darren Peterson himself had nine fouls. He got caught digging down on several of the DeBonsa possessions. It was physically active on defense. That's one thing like I want to juxtapose him against DeBonza in the sense that there's very much a willingness from Darren Peterson to be very active defensively. He wants to make an impact there. Whereas one of the big things that stood out to me tonight about AJ DeBonza is,

He's kind of saving energy on that end of the floor. And I think that's a real area of opportunity for him, who we'll talk about in a minute. But again, still very impressed by Darren Peterson through three games. Kind of got exposed as struggles against big physical defenders in ball pressure situations, has really struggled to handle the basketball against that pressure without turning it over, but flashed a ton of upside as a spread pick and roll handler. A lot of stuff to be excited about if you're a jazz fan.

on the AJ DeBonce a part of this. I talked about this after the second Darren Peterson game, if you guys remember, where it was like, everyone was so quick to be like, oh man, Darren Peterson, he's going to be better than AJ DeBonsa.

Like he's already looks like he's better than him. This is crazy. And all I was saying was like, yeah, what Darren's done has been super impressive. I don't want to undercut that at all. But can we, can we watch AJ DeBonce play a game?

Like, can we watch him play once too and see what he's got up his sleeve? I actually expected A.J. to struggle more tonight because that first summerly game can be tough. The flow is janky because you've got a lot of guys who will take dribble past shoot situations and opt to shoot more than they will pass or extend the advantage because they're trying to prove their spot in the NBA, right? Like the ball pressure tends to be super intense because guys are defending like their NBA live depends on it. You know, like these are hard basketball games to play well in. but AJ was awesome.

And, you know, by far, the first thing that stood out to me in this game was how successful AJ was at handling the ball pressure without turning the basketball over and then turning the corner and getting the basket and scoring points. But I want to take that part. It set it aside for a second. This was a game where nobody could dribble. The turnovers were seemingly on every other possession, the sloppy ball handling. no one seemed to have control over the basketball, except for one guy.

The one guy who seemed to be handling ball pressure well all night, not turning the basketball over. And like, again, he was both AJ DeBonsa and Darren Peterson saw a good amount of double team activity in this game. And, you know, both of them, AJ in particular shot over several double teams. There were some shot selection issues with AJ. We'll dig into that in a minute. But like both guys were facing physical ball pressure, you know, a coach. William is up in in debonses jersey every time another defender gets switched on to him he's up into bansas jersey both guys are facing physical ball pressure both guys were facing a good amount of double

teams debonsa showed a remarkable ability to protect to protect the basketball tonight and what really stood out to me is he can chain together these hesitation dribbles right like he always gets the ball sitting up in a high hesitation but when he gets the ball in the high hesitation he leans forward with his body and he holds the ball further back, and he effectively uses his body to shield the defender away. It's a size and physicality approach to ball handling. You know, when we talk about guys like LeBron and Janus, for example, no one's going to talk about LeBron's handle the way they talk about Steph Curry's handle. No one's going to talk about Janus's handle the way they talk about Steph Curry's handle. But Janus and LeBron are able to successfully protect

the basketball. Like, LeBron will have passing turnovers, right? But like in terms of ball handling turnovers and for the majority of LeBron's prime and for the majority of Janus's prime, they can protect the basketball because they're so damn big that all they have to do is hold the ball off to the side and use the rest of their body like a battering ram. And DeBonce has just shown that ability tonight in particular to handle the basketball against pressure with high hesitation dribbles and use his body to shield the defender so he can protect the basketball. He did it against guards. He did it against wings. He did against bigger players. He did it against a half dozen different types of defenders tonight. And he just handled the basketball well without turning

it over in a high usage role. From there, and this has been the piece that has been so enticing about DeBonce's game from the beginning when I first started scouting him, there is a relentlessness with his willingness to attack the basket that is unlike anything I've seen from a skinny, in all of my time watching basketball. Have I seen tanks do it? Sure. Saw Zion do it. Saw LeBron do it. You see Yonis do it. And that's not to say that AJ won't put on more muscle. He certainly will, but for like a relatively skinny, upright forward to have such a downhill mentality is unprecedented. And what's specifically fascinating about it is when you watch a Janus or a LeBron basket attacker, because again, I'm highlighting the basket attacking piece

because the numbers are really impressive there. Again, this was a guy in the college game, in college spacing, where the talent around him is not great and there's not exactly a ton of dribble drive seams. He was getting to the basket seven times a game and was incredibly efficient when he got there on both dunks and layups.

As you saw tonight, once again, a variety of very fancy dribble. drive layups off the glass, floaters, like different types of finishes in the short range that showed a deft touch in that area. He is one of the most prolific basket attacking prospects that we've had in recent NBA history. But he has that as a skinny forward.

And this is where I think his athleticism is fascinating. Does he have the same like power that a guy like Janus or LeBron has or Zion has? No, of course not. that's not in his body build. But one of the things that's fascinating about DeBanza is there's a real wiggle to his game, a real wiggle, a real change of pace. When you watch Janus, when you watch Zion, when you watch LeBron, it is sheer power.

It's I'm ripping through and my big ass shoulders are in the way and you can grab my arms all you want. I'm just going through you all the way to the basket. And DeBonza is going to have a certain amount of power to his game too. But there's like a like when he gets into that hesitant, dribble and he freezes, he like comes to a complete stop in the hesitation dribble and the defender freezes. And he's got a very quick first step. And if you watch his dribble attacks, it's fascinating. It's all like hesitation dribbles change side to side. So he's in high hesitation, left hand, scissor dribble back to the right hand. High hesitation, right hand, scissors dribble back to the

left hand. High hesitation. And he does that until you lean or you hesitate or you freeze as a defender, then he shoots the gap with that incredible first step. And then from there, we talked about this, if you guys remember in the very first scouting video we did about AJ DeBonds a months ago, one of the things that I've always found very fascinating about him is, yes, he will take his fadeaways and he missed, you know, two or three little right shoulder fades in this game. But there's a variety of counters that he uses. And the majority of the counters that he uses are towards the basket. You cut him off. He's spinning through you. He's pivoting or stepping through towards the rim. There is a wave after wave type of element to his

basket attacking that is really difficult to handle. And again, like, just like we saw in college, the incredible rim attacking volume, we saw it again tonight. He was living in the paint. I mean, 27 points, and I think he made one jump shot. He had that little and one jump shot drifting to the short corner. And by the way, guys, he missed those little short range fadeaways today. He was 54% on jump shots inside of 17 feet at BYU last year. That is a great look for him. Jackson and I were watching him in warmups. He was money on those little 15 footers. That is a great shot for him. He wouldn't making him tonight, but he was able to live at the basket and live at the foul line because he was constantly playing like the court was tilted downhill towards the rim, just

downhill, downhill, downhill attack. And again, it's not, perfect. I'll dive a little bit further into like some of the ball hoggy stuff and some of the defense stuff in just a second. But that is such a strong foundational trait. And I get it. Like he wouldn't be the first guy. Like there was a lot of buzz around Darren Peterson. It's not over. Darren Peterson, we could be sitting here five years from now going Darren Peterson's a better player still. We could be sitting here 10 years from now saying Darren Peterson should have gone number one. I'm not saying it's over. But one of the reasons why I believed in in AJ DeBonce as a number one pick is he has such a strong foundational trait.

And that is his relentless downhill attacking. He pressures the rim at an S-tier level. Today's show is brought to you by presenting sponsor Hard Rock Bed, Florida's Sportsbook. We talk a lot of basketball here, but the world's biggest soccer tournament is here. Everyone is watching. National Pride is on the line. Superstars are chasing immortality. And for the next month, every match feels like a football.

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Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And that is such a strong foundational trade, especially in the context of him not turning the basketball over. And one of the things that, you know, we've seen this a lot in NBA history. It's not as aesthetically appealing all the time. This, the Darren Peterson buzz over the more physically imposing athlete DeBanza, it's not the first time in NBA history we've seen that conversation. It's been had between Kauai and LeBron and KD and LeBron. It can be mesmerizing when you watch a guy hit incredible jump shots

and do incredible things from a skill, with the basketball. But the reality is, especially as basketball reaches more high-leverage situations, it becomes a damn rock fight. It becomes a fist fight. It becomes ugly. The pretty beautiful skill combinations are few and far between. Even the most skill guards in our playoff field,

Che Guildas Alexander, Jalen Brunson, their efficiency tanks. Because it's hard in that environment. and having a dominant physical attribute that causes matchup problems for teams is still the best physical, the best foundational trait that a basketball player can have. And AJ DeBonsa, just chaining together hesitation dribbles, waiting for you to get off balance with a lightning quick first step and good counter moves when he gets there. And he has a little bit of an over-the-top game in the short range. A lot to develop outside of that.

but that is such a strong foundational trait, and it's going to make him a great basketball player right away. Now, to get nitpicky, the jump shot, he was way short on all of his threes in particular. I think that stems from the fact that he's so mid-range focused. I think the mid-range shot and the three-point shot is just two very different types of shots. And I think that there's a lot of jump shot refinement with him that's got to come over the years. There's the ball hoggy piece of this.

I'm less concerned about that with both Peterson and DeBonson. in the sense that if you were in that arena tonight, it felt like a moment and it felt like both of them wanted it. And it felt like both of them wanted to do it by scoring. And I think there was a lot of like past shoot decisions that both players made that they probably wouldn't have made in a larger sample like an 82 game season. DeBanza is going to face a lot of aggressive coverages.

And I think in the long run, he's going to project to be a player that makes enough of those reads to keep the defense honest. It's not something I have a long-term concern about it. with. In the short term, though, that is part of his personality. He's going to have games where he takes really bad shots. He took a turnaround left shoulder fade away over double team tonight where you're like, dude, you're double teams. Like, you did your job. Just make the simple read, right? And there's definitely going to be growth there. And there's going to be bad games early in the season where he goes

four for 23 and he takes a lot of bad shots. And that's kind of part of the territory with that archetype as he grows. But I do think in the long run he has that potential. The bigger one to me is the defensive energy and effort piece of this. He had a couple of one-on-one stops in the second half. And I saw this in the BYU film too, where like if you attack DeBonsa one-on-one, his pride kicks in. And his physical attributes are ridiculous.

And he can guard just extremely well in those situations. Like I think DeBonce is going to be a great switch defender. And I don't think he's going to be a guy that you can pick on one-on-one much at all. But you could see two specific types of situations, off-ball situations where the action is elsewhere. And then two like transition situations. A lot of like transition opportunities were like an athlete if his caliber could have like ran back into the play and blocked a dude or shut down a fast break. And he's kind of like jogging, trailing the play or like standing up out of his stance and losing a shooter off ball.

I, you can see it in his demeanor. He views the defensive end as an opportunity to save energy. I, I think that is an immaturity in him as a basketball player that he will eventually. grow out of in the sense that he actually has the tools to be a deeply impactful defensive player off the ball. And when he figures out that that's a part of how he can help his team win basketball games, I think he'll embrace that. And he's going to be a dynamic defensive player off the basketball in time. It's a lesson that a lot of basketball players have to learn. And it extends even deeper than just winning basketball games.

extends to your offense. When you struggle to make shots, when you're turning the basketball over, when you're having a bad offensive game, one of the best ways to get out of that hole is to regain your confidence by making plays elsewhere on the floor. Getting big contested rebounds,

making big defensive plays. You make two or three big defensive plays. It creates this dynamic in your brain where you can beat yourself up as a competitor, right? You miss a bad shot. You have a bad turnover. you're walking down the corner, you're like, shit, I'm letting my team down.

It can get to you a little bit mentally. If you go down and you make a big defensive play, it has the opposite effect. You feel great about yourself. You know you're helping your team. Hell, like, you have a game where you're playing great on defense and great on the glass. You can go for for 23 and still be really helping your team win.

And in many ways, it can help you get out of a slump by helping you regain your confidence. So, like, I was a little disappointed in that, aspect, it just, you can tell it just hasn't really clicked for him yet that like, like, dude, you can be just every, like, you dominated that game in a game where no one could dribble by handling ball pressure, not turning the basketball over and pressuring the rim unbelievably well. But like, you could have had an equally large impact on that game or in any basketball game with your defensive activity. When that clicks for him, the sky is the limit. And

ultimately that was why I was so high on DeBonse coming into the draft. I just think he has an enormously high ceiling as this high volume score that is efficient because of his shot diet living close to the rim, but that also has the ability to be a dynamic two-way player in this league. I thought that was an outstanding debut. And as far as like the head-to-head goes, I also thought Washington had a better team than Utah tonight. And that's worth mentioning. I that Washington's defense had a lot to do with how bad Peterson and the rest of the jazz struggled. But like, that dynamic is exactly why I thought it was ridiculous to say that Darren Peterson outplayed DeBonza in all the games at Kansas or in his previous stops in his career. Like, I watched all the DeBonsa Peterson, Kansas BYU games this year.

And BYU's team was just way worse. And like that had a, that played a role in how the basketball looked. and it's worth mentioning. And it's similarly tonight. Like I'm not saying DeBonce is better than Peterson or outplayed Peterson tonight because the Wizards beat the Jazz and led by 1820 points at various points. I think DeBonce outplayed Peterson because of the individual things he did on the basketball court. And like we have to try to see through that.

And you saw a script flipped there that Kansas team was a lot better than BYU. This wizard's summer league roster is better than that Jazz Summer League roster. but really, really entertaining first showdown between those two guys. I'm really excited to watch them as NBA players. All right, we're going to move a little bit quicker through these last two segments. The Yaxel-Lenderberg-Morris-Johnson game. So I've caught quite a bit of Yaxel to this point because I watched a couple of the games that he played earlier in Summer League.

And you can kind of like see all of the realities of who he's going to be as an NBA player rise to the surface immediately, right? Like there were things that were obviously strengths for him coming in as, as we all scouted him. And then there were things that were obvious weaknesses for him. And the week, you know,

we saw some of those weaknesses today. Like, uh, when he tries to run action off the dribble, he's a little loose with his handle and not super explosive, uh, in like one on one situations or even getting downhill off of the screen. And so it,

you know, it's not going to be something that where I think he walks into golden state and runs a bunch of action right away, right? Right. He got switched on to, uh, a Ryan Emhart a couple times. And Ryan just hit him with,

simple aggressive driving moves and he committed fouls. So like, do I think, uh, Yaxel's going to just be able to switch on to point guards in the NBA and get stops right away? No, I don't, right? But like that when I look at the weaknesses for Yaxel, they kind of land, they, they line up with what I expect his warriors experience to look like. Do I think he's a really high level on ball creator? No, but I don't think that's something he's going to be doing a lot for Golden State. Do I think he can switch on to super quick perimeter players? No. But like, I think in general, when he,

they're going to try to protect him from those situations. And Jackson and I were talking about this during the game. It's a little bit different when you're defending a guy like a quick guard like a Ryan Nemhard when you've got Draymond Green behind you who's coaching you and letting you know which way to send him and helping you pick up on little keys as you rack up reps against those types of matchups. Yaxel's weaknesses line up well with what I think Golden State needs from him. And then you've seen tons of the upside, right? Like we knew Yaxil was going to be a dynamic open floor athlete.

Another just ridiculous jackhammer dunk tonight. That was something that we saw in the NCAA tournament. We saw from him at Michigan this year. If he gets in the open floor, he's got enough like ability to read the floor and enough ball handling ability and enough size strength and vertical athleticism to be like a real impactful athlete in the open floor. The simple reads, I think this is one of the strengths of his game.

And it was one of the big differences between him and some of the other big forwards around the league that struggle with it. like Jonathan Kaminga, like Rui Hachamura. He's very good at just making simple reads. If he comes off of an action and you pinch down off of the wing, he's going to throw that little swing pass to beat the nail help. If he applies rim pressure and transition and multiple bodies coalesce around him, he's going to hit the trailer.

If he drives a closeout and draws a helper at the rim, he's going to make the next decision in that chain. He makes simple reads and you've seen it all over the place in Summer League so far. and his, I think he's playing three games so far, just knocked down three-point shooter. And that's really the most exciting part. Now, when I dug into his tape earlier this season a couple months ago, the numbers were showing that he kind of showed a little bit of a downtick in his efficiency

when his face would get disrupted. So, like, if he had all day to get his feet set, he just was very accurate. But, like, on the move, in transition, more heavily contested shots. you saw some of the misses start to rack up. And you saw an example of that tonight. There was a little bit of like a rushed movement three

that he took off of the right wing that he left way short because that's usually what happens is as your feet or your handle or your gather in some way, shape, or form get disrupted. You lose energy transfer, right? Like every shot, you transfer energy from your feet up through the basketball, from off the catch, up through the basketball or off the dribble, up through the release at the top, right? and if you have something that disrupts that, that chain gets disrupted.

And all of the high level pull-up shooters and high-level contested shooters, they're great at making adjustments in the middle of their release, right? Like, oh, this got disrupted, but I can fix it at the end, right? That's something that I think is a long-term goal for Yaxil. But the exciting part is in the short term, if you leave them open, he can knock it down. And as we know, there's just been a lot of open shots that Golden State's offense generates when Steph Curry's on the floor that they've struggled to pay off. And I think Yaxil, just by virtue of making simple reads, being able to knock down open shots, being an athlete that can

be impactful defensively and in transition, it just brings a lot of traits that that Golden State roster needs. And I think that he's had a very successful opening showing in Summer League. Boris Johnson ended up having a box score filling night for his summer league debut. We were watching him in warm-ups and he was really working on the short-range stuff. He was working on, like, slipping out of screens and hitting little pop shots in the lane and little short jump shots. And he ended up breaking all of that out in this particular game. Just ended up hitting a couple of those little short pop shots in the lane, had like a spinning right shoulder fade from like that seven to 10 foot range. And, you know, if you're going to spend that type of

draft pick on a player that plays a position where you already have some redundancy in Dallas, right, which is that power forward center group, you need like some real offensive upside. And to see more, I said, a big scoring total in his first game, I think that's an important part of this. Like I think, I think he's going to have to score the basketball at a pretty high rate relative to other like role player center archetypes in order to justify the pick. And there's certain elements that that's going to tax, right? The short range of little floaters, right? The little short jump shots on little post moves. The three point shot. Like he, uh, you, he has a kind of a little cork in his release.

He kind of leans forward with the right half of his body. And he kind of loses some of his balance on his jump shot. And that's a form thing that I think he'll work on as the years go by. He did end up hitting a three in the second half of this game. The three point shot is the one like big question mark where like I really think he's going to have to hit some threes. But he showed a lot of like kind of offensive versatility as a finisher, both above the rim, but in the short range, the little turnaround jumper that he hit.

I thought was super impressive. The three point shot, the touch is. I think it's just cleaning up the form stuff. We talk about energy transfer. When you drift and you have kind of sloppiness in your base, that costs you energy on every single shot, even the ones when you're open, right? It's like we talked about,

it's one thing if you have to make adjustments because you're on the move, because you're contested, but when you're in a static, staying still jump shooting situation, you don't want wasted energy. You want to start square, you want to finish square,

you don't want to have a hitch, you don't want to have any sort of loss of power on those sorts of shots. because those are the ones that are muscle memory. Those are the ones that you repeat over and over and over again, right? But overall, you saw the help side defense. He ended up getting a little bit of foul trouble. He picked up two fouls on Yaxel where like he went vertical,

but then like there was one where he swiped down first and fouled Yaxel, then went vertical. There's one where he started vertical, but then swipe down, where it's like you're big, you're strong, you have long arms, you're in the way. Just be in the way. Make them make a shot. Don't get too a greedy.

in those situations because that's how you end up picking up fouls and he ended up getting a little bit of foul trouble. But overall, I have more as I think getting a big scoring total bodes well for him. I think that that's going to be something to keep an eye on with him. I think he's going to have to score the basketball. All right, before we get out of here tonight, just briefly on this Kauai story. So Shams-Therrani reported today that the, that if the Toronto Raptors consummate the Kauai Leonard deal, that they are going to have to assume any of the associated punishments that come from the Kauai aspiration scandal. And as a result, both teams release statements that they're going to hold off on the trade

until the results of the scandal come out. And, you know, I am not a lawyer. I do not have a full grasp of all of the things that this. I obviously have paid attention to Pablo Torre's reporting and I'm familiar with the majority of the evidence, but I don't really understand what separates, you know, circumstantial evidence versus like real concrete evidence that the league could be could find actionable right so like i don't want to sit here and pontificate about something that i'm not an expert about what i find fascinating about the whole situation is this has severe this has a real possibility to undo this trade

if you think about it let's say that there is a draft picked penalty for the clipper if they if that ends up being the case there's a version of this deal like say let's say Toronto goes we want to consummate it but there's a draft pick penalty potentially down the line they could renegotiate the deal and try to remove one of the draft picks from the deal let's say Kauai is suspended let's say that there ends up being like a season long suspension for Kauai that might completely remove Toronto's interest in even doing the deal to begin with they might be like all this makes sense if we get Kauai this year and we got a shot to compete for the but if we have to wait two years,

then it's not worth it for us, right? And like, I say that because this Toronto team with Kauai is a team that I take dead serious as a championship contender. There's not a real top tier contender in the east, but now that Boston has been disassembled from a talent perspective, and I know they read it, Mitchell Robinson and I know Jason Tatum's healthy this year,

and Paul George should, in theory, fit well, but that is not the same firepower that was on that 2024 Celtics team. It's really the Knicks. And then that Toronto Raptors team with Kauai is the second best team in that conference, in my opinion. After that it's like, yeah, Miami, if they get LeBron, sure. Boston, if they make some other move for some firepower, sure. There's other teams that Cleveland, if they get LeBron, sure. But like, those are all question marks at this point.

The Knicks are the only rock solid like second tier contender on that in that conference. Everyone else, there's some major question marks. And Toronto with Kauai, like, rises to that level of team. my opinion. And at that point, they, you know, win a couple series. They find themselves in the conference finals against the Knicks. They win that series. They're in the finals. They get to the finals. They have a lot of things that they bring to the table athletically that are difficult for teams to match up with. And so I just found this story to be, you know, really impactful to the title landscape this year. Because unless Toronto is under the impression that this is going to

be resolved without any punishment, this is probably going to get delayed as a lot of the end up. And at the very least. And if the punishment ends up coming down as pretty severe as it pertains to Kauai, it could end up undoing this deal. And so, I mean, we'll see the league ended up coming out. The whole length that this whole saga has taken doesn't make a ton of sense to me. And again, I'm not a legal expert, but it just seems like this has taken a lot longer than it's needed to take.

The league did come out and announce today that they expect a resolution in the coming weeks. So hopefully we get an answer on this sooner than later. but man, like I was super excited about Toronto getting Kauai. I went on with J.D. Bunkus in Toronto last week and we were talking about how excited we were about this team. I said after the trade that I took them dead seriously as a championship contender and this whole thing could get undone by this Kauai aspiration scandal, which would be crazy to see. But that's all we got for tonight, guys, as always, I should say for this morning.

As always, we sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. Got a jam-pack schedule coming up over the course of the next week. We're recording with Samus Fondiari to break down the Warriors in LeBron saga. We got Yovon Buha and Trevor Lane coming on the show to talk Lakers. We're going to have all sorts of good content coming over the course of the next week and over the course of the weekend here in Vegas. As always, I appreciate you guys for supporting us and rocking with the show. We'll see you next time.

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