The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Are Spurs & Nuggets new NBA title favorites? + 5 best breakout seasons | NBA Reaction

Episode Date: February 28, 2026

Jason reacts to the San Antonio Spurs beating the Toronto Raptors and Denver Nuggets beating the Boston Celtics as the two teams make impressive statements, potentially propelling them as title favorites ahead of the OKC Thunder. Then he breaks down five impressive breakout seasons for players that will be common household NBA names soon. All lines presented by Hard Rock Bet.  #VolumeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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All right, welcome to Hips tonight here at The Volume. Happy Thursday, everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great week. Got a jam-pack show for you guys today. We're going to hit two games from last night as the San Antonio Spurs came back from down 15. on the road in Toronto, held the Raptors to just two points over a six-minute span. Got the win with their defense. I want to dive into that. The Denver Nuggets, a team that desperately needed to demonstrate that they had a defensive ceiling that they could reach,

had an awesome performance holding the Boston Celtics, the second best offense in the NBA, to just 84 points. We're going to dive into that game. At the tail end of the show, when I went on with Colin Coward on Monday, we had a fun segment where he asked me about five new players that had become household names around the NBA. Didn't really get a chance to dive into it with Colin because it was such a surprise topic. So I wanted to dive into that.

So at the tail end of the show, I'm going to go through five names that I think have become household names this season. You guys know the Joe before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels so you don't miss any more of our videos. Don't forget to like this video, as well as sign up for post notifications.

That helps us a lot. And the last minute least, if you want to get mailbag questions into our mailbags, drop them in the YouTube comments and we'll get to them on Fridays throughout the remainder of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So the Spurs found themselves down

15 in Toronto last night. Toronto's feisty team, a decent middle tier Eastern conference team, a team that I actually like several individual players. They just little devoid of shooting. That's been the main thing that's really caused problems for them. And they've had some health issues at some key position groups throughout the season, mainly RJ Barrett and Yakopernel. But they were fully healthy last night. They were given the Spurs some issues. They were up 15 and Spurs ended up coming back to win and everybody contributed. Steph Castle didn't close this game. Mitch Johnson talked after the game about how Dylan Harper deserved to close with the way that he was playing. Dylan was having a great game,

very feisty on defense out of insane highlight pass that we'll talk about here in a minute during the run. But Steph did get the comeback started by hitting a couple of big catch and shoot threes. He's been kind of a weird shooter this year because he's shooting poorly by percentage, but he's been streaky and he has hit a lot of big shots over the course of the season. He hit a couple big ones to start the run. Devin Vassell got involved. He hit a really tough movement three coming off of the right wing had a really nice reverse dunk off of a cut. It was off of this back screen from Wemby, and this is something that's really been standing out to me over the last couple of weeks in Spurs games. We talked about this, if you guys remember when we talked about the Pistons game,

how there were some layups that Steph Castle was getting in pick and roll, literally because Victor Wemignyama, as he's rolling to the basket off of screens, no one wants to leave him. So he can screen to get Steph Castle open, but then as he's rolling, the man who's supposed to be there to help on the screen is just hugged up to Wemby. And same sort of thing happened on that back door, on that back screen for the dunk. Wemby screens for Devin Vassell. No one wants to leave Wemby. Vassel easily comes off of the screen, goes up for a nice little reverse dunk. And so Devin Vassel got involved. Dylan Harper again, played really well all night, but made some huge plays down the stretch. At a big steel, a strip away steel on defense. He had this ridiculous

spinning pass. He was getting pressured pretty heavy by R.J. Barrett up top and handled the pressure well, made a really tough move towards the middle, snatchback dribble, then got into a spin, forced Yaka Pertel to step up, saw the whole thing developing the whole time, beautiful little wraparound drop off pass of Luke Cornette for a dunk, just a beautiful highlight from Dylan Harper. It's a guy for a ridiculous offensive rebound.

Like, he's just a deeply impactful athlete that I think, as he continues to develop, is going to bring a ton of positive impact in various parts of the game for the spurs. Julian Champany and Harrison Barnes both hit huge open. corner threes out of the left corner during that run. Champany missed some of his tougher ones, but he took his time and he knocked down that wide open one in the left corner. And Deeran Fox was cooking. He hit a big three in the left

corner. He was hitting spinning jump shots into the lane. He had this like, uh, kind of late clock situation where the play broke down where he just kind of worked along the baseline. And from behind the backboard sunk a floater just shot it super high in the air over the top of the backboard and went down. Just was a ridiculous shot. He was in full rhythm down the tail end of that game. And then Wemby, who had kind of had a miserable shooting night, he just found a way to make a play on offense, a drifting little corner three out of the right corner in Brandon Ingram's face that basically amounted to the dagger. We talked a lot after the Pistons game about just his vertical value and he had a big lob dunk during that stretch. And then he made one of the most

insane highlight blocks of the season that I've seen to this point. It was a four point game. I think it was 108, 104. And Deereon Fox, who was in a great rhythm, was driving downhill. caught Scotty Barnes in a switch and Scottie Barnes ripped the ball away from him. And it sparked this four on three fast break going the other way. And again, it was about like just under a minute left. So like had they gone down and got a layup, that cuts the lead to two. You go get a stop. You have a chance to go win the game, right? So big fast break. It's four on three. Brandon Ingram's leading the break down the middle. He engages Wembe on the drive. Wemby steps out almost to the foul line to pick up Brandon Ingram.

Brandon throws a perfect little bounce past the Yaka-Purdle. Wemby's going to cover obviously. So, Yacopurto goes smartly to the other side of the basket to try to go reverse. That's something they teach you when you're dealing with rim protection. Like, whenever you've got somebody that's pursuing you from behind to go for a block, go to the other side of the basket. You can use the basket as an extra kind of like screener, so to speak, to keep the rim protector away. Nope, Wembe just meets him on the other side of the basket and swats it. And like, it was the kind of play. And it felt a lot like this

during the comeback. It was the kind of play that just makes you feel hopeful. if you're a Raptors fan because you do everything right. You play great defense. You spark an advantage. You run the fast break well. You engage the rim protector out like damn near 13, 14 feet away from the rim. Beautiful drop off pass to another big, huge athletic dude and Yonka Pertil, no shot finishing against Victor Wem and Yam at the rim. And again, just probably one of the best highlight blocks I've seen this season when you factor in the situation and just the difficulty of the block when he's stepping up on Ingram and dealing with the player going reverse at the center position on the other side of the room. Just really impressive play

from Victor Wemanniama. I want to zoom in on the defense for a minute though. Like the Spurs won that game because in a six minute span over the end of the third quarter in the start of the fourth quarter, they held the rafters to just two points as they went from being down 90 to 75 to going up 93 to 92. Two points in six minutes of basketball. Two points in a half a quarter. Can you imagine if you were just watching a game from the opening tip and at the first TV timeout, one of the teams had only two points? That is an extremely rare stretch of dominant defense. And I know that this Raptors team is capable of going cold, but they have a lot of talent and a lot of playmaking talent in particular. And they should have been able to generate more than they did.

Wembe was at the heart of it all. The Raptors straight up decomposed against him down the stretch. There are all these like funny highlights or low lights, I should say, for the Raptors as they were just kind of throwing up bullshit because they didn't know what to do. Jamal Shed had this hilarious floater going down the right lane line against Wemby and drop coverage where it literally looked like he just flicked it up and prayed because he didn't look like it didn't even look like his usual floater form because he was panicking because Wemby's up there in the drop coverage and he doesn't know if he can even get the shot off. So he just like flicks up some bullshit that has no chance of going in.

At one point Scotty Barnes shot a face-up jumper right into Wemby's hand. Like it was, you were seeing them literally decomposed. Colin Murray Boyles in a pick and roll. There was one where it was on the left side of the floor. Wemby stunted towards the ball handler. So Murray Boyles got behind him and actually got like a clean look off the right side. Wemby just recovered and swatted the shit out of him. You could literally feel it in the crowd.

It was crazy. There was like this, this like it was like a buzz, but in the worst way, like a negative buzz in the arena. As you could tell the raptors were like, oh shit, we can't score on these guys. and the spurs just methodically worked their way down and completely erased that lead. It buys all sorts of leeway for the guards to get aggressive on the perimeter, too. They got a couple of steals in that run, one from Fox, one from Harper. Again, really good ball pressure out on the perimeter. You get that leeway because of the rim protection behind him.

I'm buying more and more of the Spurs stock every time I watch them. I'm having a really hard time. I saw a Spurs writer earlier, this morning actually when I woke up I was reading it before I even watched the game I was talking about how he was he was basically making the case that the spurs should be the championship favorite like even over Oklahoma City I'm having a hard time talking myself out of that I'm not ready to take that leap just yet but I am strongly considering it and I'm starting to think about it more from the standpoint of matchups and they just match up really well with

everybody out in the West because of all their defensive versatility and the ability of their to generate dribble penetration. And this Wemby defense is just going to be a really difficult puzzle for any of the other teams in the West to solve. And as we know, they match up so well with Oklahoma City. Now, we're going to have a couple more sessions of contender rankings before the end of the season. We're going to do one right around mid-March and one right around mid-April

right before the start of the postseason. And more can I get Nick Wright for one of those? I think that would be a ton of fun. I think we're going to most likely be able to pull that off. I'm not sure if it'll be March or April. I'll let you guys know. But we're going to get into contender rankings a couple more times and we'll see where San Antonio lands. Right now I'm firmly viewing them in the top tier of contenders. I haven't had them there at all this season, but I'm ready to move them there.

Whether or not I put them number one, we'll see when we get there. The next nine games will be super revealing. They play at Brooklyn tonight, tail in the back back, but then they go to New York to play the Knicks, two Philly to play the Sixers. And then on a homestand, they played Detroit, the Los Angeles Clippers, Houston, Boston, Denver, and Charlotte. A lot of teams that will challenge them in different ways. Charlotte by spacing the floor. Denver with the Nicola Yokic problem.

Boston has been a team that has spaced teams out a lot this year, although they showed some vulnerability to drop coverage last night. That would freak me out for that matchup if I was Boston. Houston obviously provides a very different type of look. Kauai Leonard's arguably been the best player in the league over the last few months. right so in Detroit a rematch of what happened the other night and i think that Detroit will throw a better punch in that game so a lot of like interesting challenges in the next couple of weeks for san Antonio which will set up nicely because that'll all end right around the time that we get into those contender rankings and so we'll have a much better feel

of where they stand at that point um one last thing I've had all sorts of spurs fans in my mentions and in my comments the last few weeks talking shit because of how high I am I am on them relative to where I was to start the season. For the record, I know most of you guys aren't like that. I know most of you spurs fans are just happy the spurs are playing well and understanding of the way this whole, uh, this job works, right? Like, I make dozens and dozens and dozens of predictions every single summer. It's just what you do. And sometimes I'm proven right on things. Sometimes I'm proven wrong on things. And I was really wrong about the spurs. I had them as like a middle tier team in the West that would be kind of flirting with the play in this season. I

was wrong. But at the same time, they've exceeded expectations by any measure. I don't know many spurs fans that I talked to or people who cover the team that had them as like a legitimate contender, like legitimate top tier contender either. So they've exceeded expectations by any measure. And most importantly, like, I come from that Colin Cowhard school of thinking. I don't think of it in terms of me trying to be right all the time. I want to get it right. And in this case, I was wrong to start the season. I'm not going to sit there and be in dengue. denial and just pretend as though I'm forced to be married to some stupid take that I had before the season. No, I'm going to admit that I was stupid, admit that I was wrong, and I'm going to get on

board because I'm always going to try to call it like I see it as I'm covering the league. And I, it's becoming undeniable what San Antonio is doing. And I'm going to continue to buy stock. And I understand that's going to upset some of you guys because of how I felt before the season. But at the end of the day, like, all I can do is taking new information and try to come up with the most accurate representational league that I can. And I am buying a ton of stock with this Spurs team. Today show is brought to you by presenting sponsor, Hard Rock Bet, the official sportsbook partner of the Miami Heat and the Orlando Magic. What's better than the sound of the ball on the hardwood, sneakers squeaking, and the switch of the net winning on Hard Rock Bet, your home for hoops action

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We have some big news. What's the news, huge news? We created our own podcast called, Hey, Jonas, we invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to our first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there. But this one's extra special. So how do we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas, guys?

I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. Well, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band. Before Jonas Brothers was... This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast,

for people could call in and say, hey Jonas, and then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy,

not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smigel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform?

We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The French Open is one of the toughest tests in tennis. And I know firsthand because I competed there myself. I'm Renee Stubbs. And on the Renee Stubbs' tennis podcast, I'm breaking down everything

happening at Roland Garris. Every match, every upset, and what it really takes to win on Clay. Jen she went. I mean, she went down at three to Rabakina, but I'm delighted. She's an outsider to win the French for me. And she likes Clay. Listen, Lena Rubakina is arguably the best player in the world right now, and I actually can win on any surface.

Because if she's serving, well, good luck. Consider this your court side seat to the French Open. Listen to the Renee Stubbs Tennis Podcast on the IHeart Radio Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. All right, moving on to Denver against Boston, a much needed win for a Denver Nuggets team that had been reeling under a brutal schedule and some injuries over the last few weeks. And they did it with their defense. And I think this is important for Denver on a few levels. The Nuggets have had a brutally bad defensive season relative to the talent that they have.

They've been in the bottom 10 in defensive rating for the majority of the season. That performance last night moved them just outside of the bottom 10 to 20th in the NBA. But notice I said relative to the defensive talent they have. Because this is not the Los Angeles Lakers, the Western Conference Playoff team that's devoid of defensive talent that isn't even really capable of a performance like this. Denver has, even without Aaron Gordon, a lot of capable defenders in their rotation,

and they have a stronger defensive culture overall that is capable of ramping it up in a way that can be a very good defense. And they've done that several times over the course of the last few years, sometimes with lesser rosters. But they did need to demonstrate to themselves and to coach Adelman that they're capable within this season of playing championship level defense. Boston came into the game as the second best offense in the NBA and one of only two offenses in the NBA that had an offensive rating over 120.

And the Nuggets held them to just 84. last night. They held him to just a 79 offensive rating in the half court. They kept him out of transition for most of the night. They kept them off the offensive glass, which is something that Boston's been killing teams with, just a dominant defensive performance against one of the best offenses in the league. And ironically, the Nuggets actually slowed down that Celtics offense with a taste of their own medicine. We talked after the Celtics Lakers game about how the Celtics really did a number on the Lakers with their drop coverage look, basically just sitting your bigs way back at the rim, staying home off the ball on shooters, and then chasing over ball screens and

daring Luca, daring Austin to beat the Celtics from the midrange, and they just couldn't. I love that David Adelman just unleashed that exact same game plan on Boston. You know, if you bring Yokic up to the level, it's going to unlock a lot of these rotation situations that Boston's really good at driving and kicking and spacing out of and getting great looks from three. Sitting Yokich back into a drop, turned the Celtics ball handlers into mid-range players, and they did not have a good mid-range game. As a team, the Celtics were just eight for 27 on twos that were outside of the restricted area.

Now, some of that was in ISO as well. It wasn't just the ball screen stuff. And this is where I want to credit all of the Nuggets role players. KJ Simpson had a strong shift there in the late third quarter. Spencer Jones, Christian Brown, Cam Johnson, Bruce Brown, Tim Hardaway, all those guys at various points in the game, slid their feet, held their ground, and force the Celtics into tough pull-up jump shots.

During the third quarter in particular, the Nuggets basically shut off the Celtics catch-and-shoot looks. They got just two open catch-and-shoot looks in the entire third quarter. It was also sparking some of those turnovers that was getting Denver out in transition. Just a really strong defensive performance. Boston ran 35 pick and rolls against the deep drop conceded just Denver conceded just 0.8 points per possession, including passes. that's amazing. They hunted one-on-one 16 times, either through post-ups or ISOs, got just 10 points

on those 16 ISOs, including passes. So many guys deserve credit for holding up on an island. And again, it sparked a lot of that transition stuff. 11 of Denver's 21 transition points came in that third quarter run. And they had just enough offensive contributions during that stretch to put the game away. Yokic was manufacturing points all night. I thought it was one of those games that was kind of ugly and in the mud so the efficiency wasn't there. But I thought Yokic, it felt like every bucket that he had was super, super important. Those two threes that he hit in the late third quarter, those felt like backbreakers, especially that one where he kind of lost control the ball against Vucevich, and then just like dribbled back or like ran and dribbled back to the three point line and

threw up a shot. That one felt like an absolute backbreaking shot from Yokic. Tim Hardaway was amazing again with his shot making. He deserves a ton of credit for his screening. This screams at me off film. Every time I watch the nuggets, he sets some of the nastiest guard screens you'll see. And like he will lean in and almost looks like he's pushing a football sled, which again, when you're in really physical games like that, and that's how Boston's going to start that physicality, right? They're going to pick up full court. We literally talked about this in that Lakers game. Like Boston sets a tone with their ball pressure to start games that allows a lot of physicality in the game. It sets a tone that the refs get behind where it's like, oh, we're playing,

we're playing prison ball today. You know what I mean? Like that's, usually how it goes. And so when you, we talked about it with the Lakers, you can either complain about it and get beat or you can meet that physicality with physicality. I loved the screens that Tim Hardaway was setting during this game. He has a brilliant understanding of the positioning and angles of those screens against switches. Like he'll set a nasty screen, get the switch, but realize he has inside position and then just shove that guy off and cut down the middle of lane. He got to dunk like that during that second half run. I just can't say enough about how well, Tim Hardaway fits in this offense and how, especially in a game like this, where Jamal Murray ends up leaving early with that illness, how important he was to grease in the wheels for them offensively down the stretch. And then lastly, Jonas Valentinus, I thought he kicked Nimi Kda's ass to start that fourth quarter and really helped to get that final bit of separation. Just some work as a role man, some quick isos. He had this like little power ISO in the middle of the floor where he just dribbled at him and then spun over his right shoulder for an easy

little fade away. When you're dealing with some of these like modern rim protecting vertical bigs. They tend to be a little lightweight, you know, and in Valanchun is just, just too big for him. And he gave him all sorts of problems during that shift. I'd really like to see Denver continue to build defensive momentum as we start heading into this postseason. Like with Oklahoma City's guards banged up and they're going to have some question mark surrounding rhythm with those guys when they get to the postseason, like Jalen Williams in particular, is a guy who's always been a rhythm player. The other great teams at the top of the league are pretty young teams like Detroit, teams like San Antonio.

This thing is wide open. So the Nuggets just need to get healthy and they need to rebuild their defensive identity. I'd like to see a good runway here towards the end of the regular season where they put together some strong defensive performances. And if they do, I think they have a great shot to get this thing done. I have not moved off them as my second ranked contender this season. All right. Lastly, before we get out of here today, again, I was on with Colin and he just kind of surprised

me with this question. He goes like, hey, like, he's like, give me like five guys that you've been watching this year that have, that were not really household names that have really, really impressed you. And I had a couple guys off the top of my head, but it was just tough because I, I didn't see the question coming. And I was like, man, this is like a really fun segment. Like, you know, all of these guys that I listed in this segment here are guys that we've talked about on the show before this season. All of them are guys that, you know, I would not consider this show to be the kind of show that a lot of casual basketball fans watch. Like if you come here and you're listening to me,

break down pick and roll coverages and, you know, ranking players and doing all this kind of stuff, you guys are big basketball fans, right? Like this is a, we have a culture around this show that's really for the hoop heads, right? And so, yeah, we've talked a lot of Keante George,

and we've talked a lot of Steph Castle in previous seasons. But what are the guys this year, who are the guys this year, that have become household names? that have become guys that more casual fans recognize because of the performances they've had this year as they've come onto the scene. And so I wanted to, now that we've had more time to prep,

actually take some time to break down the five guys that I think have become household names this season. Number one, Keante George. I remember I had a question before the season, a mailbag question from a jazz fan that was like, what do you need to see from Keontay George for him to become like a real foundational piece? for the jazz. And I had a very simple answer. Consistency and efficiency. That's more or less the case

with all scoring guards. There are a lot of scoring guards in the league that can go off for big nights, right? I mean, I'd argue there's 30 of them in the NBA on any given night, a guard that can go for 25 points on, you know, 12 for 18 shooting and or, you know, eight for 14 shooting with some threes and free throws or whatever it is. Like, there are a lot of guys that can go for efficient scoring nights on any given night. And Keante George in his first couple of seasons, had some nights like that where it all came together. The pull-up jumper was there.

The playmaking was there. The rim finishing was there. And it all just comes together into this game where it looks like the potential that Keonti George had. But ultimately, in a league that's got a glut of this type of player, if you're going to become a guy that can be a foundational guy, there's got to be a consistency and an efficiency that allows you to take that, to stake that claim as a primary.

on ball guard for a serious team in the NBA. Keante George became that this season. He averaged 24 points, four rebounds, and seven assists on 61% true shooting. Some ankle injuries and issues that pulled those numbers down a little bit of late. And I'm not sure how much we're going to see them the rest of the season with the jazz's approach to all this kind of stuff. But what we saw from Keontay was an ability to get to the rim and finish efficiently, which is something that I think when you're talking about smaller guards is usually

a negative with most of those guys. Keonta got to the rim plenty and finished well there, showed legit three level scoring, the ability to score from the mid range and from the three point line, the ability to do it out of one-on-ones as well as at a ball screens, the ability to make all of the reads in those situations and the efficiency to boot. When you're in the mid-20s and points per game and you're over 60% true shooting, that's a level of scoring and efficiency that puts you in a pretty rare class in the NBA. And by the way, you want to know why, Ains decided to make that move for Jaron Jackson. Like there was two different directions this whole thing could have gone.

It could have been we're trading Lori Markinen. We're trading Walker Kessler to the Pacers for two first round picks. We're, you know, selling this guy, selling that guy, accumulating draft picks and restarting this whole process and just giving the ball to Ace Bailey and letting him take 20 shots again. That was a direction they could have gone. But instead, you go all in behind Jaron Jackson and you plan on keeping Walker Kessler.

And I think they'll match just about any offer that Walker gets in restricted free agency this year. And the reason why is because Keante George has popped into a legitimate potential star guard in this league. Lori Markinen, incredible season. The team itself had several nights where they just beat, you know, good team, serious teams because they're just really, really hard to guard. And I talked about it like the main kind of driving force behind my optimism with Utah is they with Keontay and Lori on the floor have scored at an extremely high rate this season. and there's some really strong offensive metrics there. And so Keante has put the jazz into a situation where now they make this move, if Jaron Jackson and Walker Kessler are healthy to start next season and Lori Marketing is healthy to start next season,

I expect them to be a legitimate middle tier playoff team in the West. I expect them to be on the same level as the teams we've seen this year, like the Lakers and the Rockets and the Minnesota Timberwolves. Number two, Jalen Duren, with the rise of the Detroit Pistons this season up until this week, the most impressive regular season team in the league this year, averaging 18 points and 11 rebounds on 67% true shooting, been on an absolute tear as of late his last three games, 27 and 14 on 68% from the field.

He kind of is this interesting modern center in the sense that he's not as like tall in your traditional vertical rim protector like you see in a lot of these younger centers, but what he is is very athletic and big and strong on the ground. He dominates the game on the ground. ground by throwing guys around and controlling that space, uh, that kind of radius around him, which has made him a dominant offensive rebounder. It's made him a dominant finisher on rolls. He's flashed a lot of, uh, viable offensive game, face up game this year. That's where he gets the Amari Stademeyer comps. Like if he can become a little bit more reliable with that face up,

mid range pull up jump shot and a little, more just at higher volume while maintaining efficiency, he's actually shot pretty well on it this year. But if you can continue to piece that together, He becomes this like evolutionary like mix between Dwight Howard and, and Amari Stademeyer, like a real strength-based power game under the basket with a face-up game to match, an excellent two-man game partner with Cade. He's come onto the scene as one of the more dominant young players in the league this season. Number three, Denny Avdia, this is one of those predictions from before the season that I was correct about.

Like I dove a lot into the film before the season between him and Shaden Sharp because those were two guys that had incredible ends the season last year. And when I watched all the film with Denny, I'm like, this works. Like, he's getting to the basket a ton. He has the ability to really change pace. Like he can slash. But then he could also slow down and play Lucas style like big body ball handler in the middle of the floor that puts the defender in jail and can grift his way to the foul line and can make all the passing reads there. He just kind of had it all. Really the only thing that was a red flag for me was his jump shot because he's a little hitchy. So like if he gets his flow disrupted at all, he's going to leave it short.

And I think that's the next step for him. If he can add the jump shot to a more fluid level, I think that will make him a more well-rounded primary ball handler. But this season, 24.7 rebounds and seven assists on 61% true shooting. He's been the most prolific driver of the basketball in the league. A little bit of a tail off there, but most of that stems from that gnarly back injury that he suffered. I think when Denny kind of gets back to 100%, we'll see that again. but a lot of people talk about the grifting, and he grifts just like anybody else does,

but one of the primary drivers of his free throw attempts has just been his relentless driving to the basket. And there's also some pretty strong indicators of his value offensively because the Blazers' offense falls apart when he's off the floor. Number four, Steph Castle. One of my favorite young players in the league really feels like he's become a household named this season. Feels like a modern kind of like evolutionary hybrid between a Jimmy Butler-esque forward. who plays always off of two feet and can really get to wherever he wants on the floor and is gifted at drawing fouls and getting defenders out of position,

but also mixed with more of like a on-ball guard type of archetype. He's averaging 17 points, 5 rebounds and 7 assists per game this season. 57% true shooting, a little bit streaky as a jump shooter. It can go cold from the perimeter. He's a little turnover prone at times, but he continues to flash insane upside as a shot creator. Because again, he controls his radius around him, always playing off two feet, has the physical strength to keep people from knocking him off of his

base, has all the footwork that you need to get to spots. He's an excellent passer. Again, he's turnover prone, but he's an excellent passer. He's got a great feel on Lobbs to both Cornette and Boiminyama. He's got a great feel for reading the low man and making skip passes. Just a really, really high-level shot creator, a guy that I believe strongly in is one of the next great young players in this league. Still a lot to piece together. And that's what makes him so exciting because he's already so damn good. He's a very good on ball defender as well. And I mean, you want to talk about a household name. As long as he's attached to Victor Wemann Yama and playing well, he's going to continue to gain notoriety around the league. And then lastly, Jalen Johnson. 23 points, 11 rebounds, and eight assists

per game this year on 58% true shooting. One of the best open floor players in the league, just a really difficult player to deal with in a straight line because of his athleticism. Excellent feel for the game passing out of those situations has improved as a jump shooter. I would like to see some improvement as an on-ball creator in the half court from him. That's the next step. It's one of the reasons why I haven't been as high on him as some of my peers who cover the league. But overall, a lot to, too much to deny, I should say, they'll rise from him this season.

He has three 30-point triple doubles this season, nine games with at least 30 points and 10 rebounds. Clearly a foundational piece for Atlanta. And if he can improve as a half-court shot creator, there's a lot to like there. Another thing, not to be too nitpicky, but the off ball defense with Jalen Johnson. I think there has to be an improvement

and his overall focus and attention to details as an off ball defender to reach where he wants to get. Those are the five guys that I think that we've talked about in years past, but for casual basketball fans that have become household names this season, Keante, George, Jalen Duren, Denny Obdiya, Steph Castle, and Jalen Johnson.

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