The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Jayson Tatum is BACK from injury for Celtics + Reaction to SGA vs. Cade MVP battle | NBA Mailbag

Episode Date: March 7, 2026

Jason reacts to the news that Jayson Tatum is returning from injury for the Boston Celtics tonight in a battle against the Dallas Mavericks. He breaks down what this means for Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and the Celtics as a whole. Then he answers NBA mailbag questions involving Oklahoma City Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Detroit Pistons star Cade Cunningham's bids for MVP, whether Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs can win the NBA Finals this season, Cam Johnson's struggles for the Denver Nuggets, and more. All lines presented by Hard Rock Bet.  #VolumeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey guys, it's us. The Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin. And I'm Nick. And guess what? We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas.

We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it. But, you know, tired and sick. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you.

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 Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL'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 ice. Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano. It's our favorite time of the year on our podcast, Point Game, the playoffs. We're digging into the biggest surprises of the season. And I'm looking back on some of my greatest playoff moments. If we didn't talk ever again, I was crying. You just understood.

That's how personal it got. Wow. Then after that game seven, Marquis'clock, he's like, you know, I love you, dog. You know, it's all love. This was just playoffs. This was just basketball. So listen to Point Game on the, IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. The Volume. Welcome to Hoops Tonight here at The Volume. Happy Friday, everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great end to your week. As usual, today is Mailbag Day. I have a 10 pack of questions from you guys. Do you ever want to get questions into the mailbags?

All you got to do is go to our full episodes on YouTube, into the comments underneath. Right, mailbag with a colon, write your question that helps me sort through it when I'm looking through the comments. We'll get to them on Fridays throughout the remainder of the season. You guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribe to The Hoops Tonight. channel 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 then as mentioned, drop your mailbag questions if you want to get into future mailbags. All right, let's talk some basketball. Now, before we get to our actual mailbag questions, Jason Tatum is making his return tonight against the Dallas Mavericks, an incredible show of resilience and dedication to recover as quickly as he did. I think that's less than 10 months on an Achilles repair. That's really, really impressive work behind the scenes from Jason Tatum to make it back. I just imagine for any basketball player, that's probably the most discouraging injury that you can possibly suffer.

And so to keep your head down and stay focused on the work and to get through it the way that he did, I just think is super impressive. Now, I was talking about this with Colin Coward yesterday, but, you know, culture is a thing that I think is a foundational part of any perennially successful basketball program of any kind, whether it's a college in high school or in the pros, right? Like if you have a strong basketball culture, it's going to be the thing that helps you be competitive when you have a roster that's limited in one reason or another or to meet your absolute potential when you do have a lot of talent, right? Like there's just, the culture is the foundational skill, the foundational thing that allows you to be

successful year and year out. But it only can go so far. And I think that the Celtics this season have been an example of that in the sense that they've been one of the most impressive team statistically. A lot of the metrics coming out of them are super impressive. Like I was talking, I'm going to talk a little bit about this with Wemby later. The net rating data, when you pulled players with net rating at the top of the league, it's a lot of Celtics and it's a lot of thunder players. The Celtics have been a team that on the scoreboard, because of their strong culture, have done a lot of damage this year, and they've been very successful in the standings. I view them as every bit as good as the other teams in that top tier in the east.

Like, I view them more or less on the same level as Cleveland or Detroit or New York. Now, I personally have Cleveland and New York a tiny bit above them as of right this second, but that's because of the same thing that I was just discussing. I view this season as an incredibly impressive demonstration of the culture that Joe Missoula and Brad Stevens have built in Boston, but ultimately you need talent. one of the consistent things that has shown up for me this season when Boston is run into certain types of defense, a certain types of opponents,

the limitation in some of their personnel group starts to show up. So for instance, take the Charlotte game from Wednesday night, for example, they're bigs. They were sitting back in a deep drop, and they're not really fast enough to really get into some aggressive coverages out on the perimeter. Boston will have some small ball looks,

especially with Tatum coming back, but like they had some scheme versatility problems against the Hornets as they just barbecued their deep drop coverage with a variety of short range, midrange jump shots, floaters, six pull up threes in that game, four of which were directly at a ball screens into deep drop situations. And so one of the things I noticed when I was watching that game was like, this is the kind of thing that Jason Tatum used to be a solution for. You know, like a lot of teams, they, their pick and roll geometry is predicated on either having a center, that can roll or maybe a guard who can slip in and out of screens.

And so if you can place your center on someone else, you can put the defense or the offense into a situation where they have to do a lot of things that they don't usually do. The problem is, if you do that, someone else has to guard their center. And if you end up with someone that's too small or physically incapable of hanging with that center, you can have all sorts of problems on the offensive glass. Certain centers will do issues or do damage to you in the post.

there's a problem if you don't have someone that can guard that center. Take this Hornets matchup, for example. Jason Tatum is healthy. As we saw so much last year, he's physically capable of guarding opponent centers because he can keep them off the glass and he's not a significant target as a post-miss match, right? So if he's able to guard Musa Diabate,

and I think Jason Tatum would throw Mosad Diabate around. He's got like a legit strength advantage there, a low center of gravity advantage there. Maybe you tuck your center onto Miles Bridges. Miles Bridges, who's shooting 33% from three this year, who has specifically struggled on three slipping out of ball screens, all of a sudden you make the Hornets do something that they don't necessarily want to do. That is a coverage option that was unavailable to the Celtics this season

because their forwards weren't big and strong enough. And so Jason Tatum coming back immediately gives you that optionality, that flexibility, that versatility in your defensive scheming because of his ability to guard centers. Not to mention, if you're going to pull, play small ball looks, you need a really strong defensive rebounding forward somewhere in there and Jason Tatum can play that role. The second piece of it is the shot creation element. We talked about this a lot over the course of this season in specific matchups. Like I talked about how Denver, for

example, used deep drop on Jalen Brown to cause problems. Charlotte, you know, was a mix. Diabate did some switching. Jalen had some success against those switches in the early fourth quarter. But for the most part in drop coverage looks, Jalen was running into problems. Backpack pressure kind of funneling him into the lane. He was rushing things over penetrating, missing shots around the basket. It was

not a great game for Jalen Brown as a shot creator, right? The only other option you have really, you know, is these lower level guards that on some nights have it, some nights know some nights Peyton Pritchard has it. Sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes Derek White has it. Sometimes he doesn't. Putting Jason Tatum into the equation. And I don't think it'll be perfect

right away. I think there will be some kind of like growing pains as they try to implement him into an offense that has such a different rhythm this year with a different kind of set of usage distribution, right? So it won't be perfect right away. But in the long run, Jason Tatum gives you a different vehicle with which to break down the defense, a different way to attack drop coverage, a different way to attack specific matchups on the floor. Jason Tatum is a better passer than Jalen Brown is. Like, you guys know how I feel. Generally speaking, as long as you guys are actually willing to take catch and shoot threes, which I think both Tatum and Brown are, this can work and everyone can coexist. And I mean, they want a championship together. So we don't need to

overthink that. So I just think Jason Tatum comes in and provides variety and flexibility in their shock creation and variety in flexibility in their defensive scheming. And immediately it's going to make them a lot better. Is it going to manifest in some massive improvement in the metrics that are coming out of this team? No, because they're already some of the strongest metrics in the league. all it is is going to give them a level of resilience against the upper level competition where they've had some issues. They got chewed up and spit out by Charlotte. They got their ass beat.

They got chewed up and spit out by Denver. They got their ass beat. These are teams that have, you know, Charlotte's been the best team in the league for the last, you know, since January 22nd. Denver obviously is the team that I have second in my list of championship contenders. So like there's an upper echelon in the league that Boston's really going to need Jason Tatum for. And I'm just really glad that he's back.

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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 a... We're the 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? name Hey Jonas, guys. I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. Oh, we were thinking. I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band before Jonas Brothers. 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, where people could call in and say, hey, Jonas. And then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, 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, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel. Help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? do some retirement homes.

Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Here's something that should not be as complicated as it is. Getting a racist statue removed. And here's something that should be a whole lot easier than it is. Getting a new one put up in its place. As long as there's a politics of race in America, there's going to be a politics of remembering

the Civil War. To get to school, I had to go down Robert Ely Boulevard. Get to the grocery store, I had to go down Jefferson Davis Parkway. If you're an historian and you leave out half of what the history is, you're not doing your job. I'm Akila Hughes. In Rebel Spirit, Season 2 goes deep on both of those things. The fights, the politics, the people who won, and my personal campaign to add something to the Kentucky State House that's actually worth the wall space. We are more than our bodies.

We contain essence. We contain spirit. How do you represent that? They are just fueling a fire that is really catching. You'll see what I mean. Listen to Rebel Spirit Season 2 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Jason, thanks for all the great work. My question is, is it time to acknowledge Cam Johnson doesn't have that competitive gene

to show up in big games or in the playoffs? I don't think I would go that far, but I do think it's time to acknowledge that at least to this point, at least to this point in the regular season, the Cam Johnson trade looks like a disaster. I am not trying to preach at any point here because you guys know that I advocated for this trade. This was a trade that I really liked. The specific thought process I had was pretty simple.

I thought Denver was rocking two power forwards. And I thought that having a small forward, a traditional small forward who has more perimeter utility, especially defensively, the ability to guard on the perimeter more and just more foot speed. It would increase the foot speed of their lineup. give them more perimeter defenders in their lineup. It wouldn't be as good of a defensive rebounder or secondary rim protector as Michael Porter,

Jr. But he'd be able to bring a lot of the jump shooting. And what's ended up happening is Cam just hasn't shot the ball well enough. And that's really been the disaster. Say what you want. Like, even the, like, I would argue that the, the, like off the dribble coming off of screens type stuff that Michael Porter Jr. did. Cam has kind of made up for with those things, meaning the foot speed, the perimeter defense, things along those lines. Cam Johnson has been a very useful player for Denver this year. He just hasn't had anything close to Michael Porter Jr's upside. And then when you add into that,

the fact that he hasn't been able to hit a catch and shoot jumper, it's been a disaster. So like, we don't need to overthink this. You send out a first round pick for a player that you expect to be an upgrade and instead he's been a downgrade. Of course, it's been a disaster to this point. However, it's not over. All I mean by that is the thing with shooting slumps is eventually you get out of them, especially if you're working hard behind the scenes and you're staying strong and can by all indications from everybody I talked to is working his butt off and doing everything he can to get out of the shooting slump. And all you have to do is go into a postseason series and have a big game and a big spot. They hit a couple of big shots. And guess what? Michael Porter Jr. did hit a

catch and shoot threes, did put up better numbers, did have all this utility as a secondary room protector and defensive rebounder. But guess what? In the big spots against Oklahoma City, he couldn't hit a catch and shoot three. So all of it didn't matter. because he couldn't hit a catch and shoot three against Oklahoma City, which is why they traded him, right? So, like, Cam has the, like, I'm not going to sit here and pretend and try to propagandize this idea that Cam Johnson's been good when he hasn't.

He's been a disappointment. There's no way around it. He's been a disappointment. I thought he'd be a slam dunk move. I've been wrong to this point. But all you have to do is play well in the postseason, and no one's going to give a shit what happened in February and March. So it's incumbent on Cam to just continue to put that work in.

and to get ready for this postseason run. And if he can make an impact in that stage, no one will give a damn. No one will be talking about Michael Porter Jr. anymore. Next question. Hey, Jason, love the show. As a Brazilian, I've been really surprised by Guy Santos's play this season. He made a big leap and got a new contract.

I think he's been a very competent role player. He crashes the offensive glass, shoots the three effectively, plays hard on defense, and can dribble and pass. Have you been watching Golden State games? What do you think of him? Can he become an important player on a contender in a winning context, or is he just getting those numbers because the Warriors are a bad team right now?

I had been tuned down on Golden State for a little bit, but I went on sports radio in the Bay Area, I think yesterday or the day before. And so I did a bunch of prep for that, and I ended up catching up on a bunch of the Warriors games that I had been missing. And here's the thing, I like Guy Santos a lot. He plays that power forward spot in the way you're supposed to in the modern NBA. Simple and effective. He rebounds very well. He has a career eight rebounds per 30. minutes. That's an outstanding number. He's a good catch and shoot player who's equally proficient, both when he's wide open and under duress. He's about 39% in both cases this season, about 60 reps in both cases this

season. So I love that balance when you're not just taking the open ones. You're taking both and you're able to hit both. He cuts baseline when the opening is there. He's been over a cut per game this season. He makes good decisions in the middle of the floor when he's driving closeouts or when he's slipping out of screens. Like all of this stuff is just basic. things that make a huge difference at that power forward spot when you're playing alongside stars because again, you're functioning as a cog, you're not relied upon to break down the defense. He's been an attentive defender that does his job. The simplest way I could describe it to Warriors fans is like I'd much rather pay Guy Santos five million a year than pay

Rui Hachamura 18 million a year. And they play the same position. Ruiz a better wide open three-point shooter. I can shoot over 50% on wide open threes. but he only shoots when he's wide open. You can chase him off the line with a hard closeout. He does have a mid-range jump shot that he can go to. Like, Rui's got a, you know, Rui will have nights where he's hitting everything, and there's a certain ceiling there,

but he only shoots when he's wide open. He can be chased off the line or played into misses when he's against like really good defenses or in big playoff spots. He's a, Rui is a terrible rebounder for his position, and he's incredibly prone to defensive mistakes. And so with Ghee, you know, it's a lower ceiling.

type of option, but you're paying a tiny fraction of it. And there's actually a possession to possession dependability that matters more when it comes to the winningest levels of basketball in the NBA. Last thing with Ghee, he's shown me quite a bit this year, putting the ball on the floor in situations where he's had to. He kind of like in sometimes in ISO situations, the Warriors will be running off ball action, you know, Steph will be running off of the screen or something and he will just rip through and on the rip through he'll beat his man and then he'll kind of body him and knock him off his base and be able to get to little scoop shots or finger rolls around the basket he's got a little bit of utility off the bounce that I think is going

to continue to get better. I think his playmaking chops are stronger than most role players that you'll see in this phase of their development. Just I think he projects to be a guy who can be a completely useful rotation power forward on a serious team. And I think that getting that on the margins, the way that Golden State did is just a testament to their culture and the types of guys that they continue to find year in and year out. Next question. We talk a lot about the hypotheticals of players playing in different eras. What about coaches?

Do you think all the great coaches could coach in any era? Is there any past coaches you think that would be even more exceptional now? Love the show and excited to hear your thoughts. Thanks for, thank you for supporting the show. So I think that there are certain things that work in any era no matter what. Like I would say the motivational part of it. Like this is boring because it's not really something that, has a lot of tangible subject matter to discuss in terms of, you know, X's and O's or

basketball philosophies. But when a coach is able to get buy-in from his team, just on a very basic level in terms of like playing hard, I would add to that like selflessness, getting guys to believe in each other and believe in the roles that they have and to play for each other and to set individual goals aside in the pursuit of team goals. All of that stuff, I think, is like, it's independent of the era that you're playing. And that's just a fundamental basketball, or fundamental coaching thing that matters in basketball, it matters in football, it matters in any team sport out there in the world. Can you get you guys to play hard and can you get them to play for each other?

And so I think that part, I think, is indiscriminate of the eras. but the part of it that I think is important in terms of transitioning between eras or being a coach that has a skill set that translates between eras comes down to being open-minded and willing to embrace change and paying attention to league-wide trends. The best example I can think of with this is Greg Popovich. There was a phase there with the Spurs about 10 years ago where they were shooting a ton of threes, just a shit ton of threes compared to the rest of the league. And he was interviewed about it. And Popovich is sitting there. He's like, I don't like this. He's like, I don't like shooting a ton of threes. Like this isn't, in my opinion, good for the game of basketball, but this is what you got to do to win. It's a simple math problem, right? And like, that's the thing. Greg Popovich had that basketball philosophy,

but he wasn't stubbornly tied to that. He was willing to read the room, pay attention to what was happening around the rest of the league and make a change in his approach that gave him a better chance to win. And so I'd argue in this era, it's the possession battle. It's emphasis on ball pressure, emphasis on corner crashing, emphasis on running your lanes and transition to get easy opportunities there. Like all of the little things that can increase your possession margin that give you a better chance to win. If you're a coach that's not finding you, like, and that doesn't mean every team can do that. Like, it wouldn't matter if you got, you know, the greatest coach in the history of world,

of the world that could ever be conceived. If you put them in charge of the Los Angeles Lakers, they're not going to go force a ton of turnovers. They don't have the personnel for it, right? But like every coach needs to be sitting down and looking at their roster, looking at what they're good at, what they're bad at, and being like, where can I generate margin? Where can I generate, you know,

two or three extra possessions a game that might give me a better chance to win outside of just the static half-court environment? So again, I think, I think it's, It's just a combination of can you get guys to play hard and play for each other? And can you be open-minded and willing to change as the league changes around you? If it's those two things, I think that you're going to be successful regardless of what error you're in. And I think all of the top coaches in the NBA kind of fall into that category. There's a lot of talk about offense being better than ever, but defensive schemes are also more sophisticated than ever.

Which one do you think has a harder time adjusting to the other? Is it harder for offenses to find new ways to score against those, new defensive schemes or is it harder for defenses to find ways to stop the offensive talent that we have in our league now? In a sense, is the evolution of the game more dictated by offensive development or defensive development? This is a really good question. I would argue that it's gone back and forth throughout NBA history. This is something I've talked about on the show in the distant past. It's been years since I've talked about it. But just to give you some perspective, as you look at NBA history, offensive ratings go up.

and they go down and they go up and they go down. Now, in the big picture, they're still trending upwards because of the fact that the three-point shot has just undergone this massive inflation in the temps. And it's just a simple math problem that early generations of the NBA could never hope to keep up with, right? But inside of that trend, they're still up and down. the season, this season, the league average for offensive rating is 1.15.3. So if you took all 30 NBA teams and you just added all their possessions and all their points, what would be their points per 100 possessions? 115.3. That's the highest ever in the recorded history of the league.

But it's kind of certain to plateau. I think we're getting ready to have a downturn. I would not be surprised that that happened in the next year or two. So we're still on the way up. But it does go back and forth. So famously, it peaked about 17 years ago in 2009. It peaked right around like 108. And then it went through a decline phase and it went down for several years. It peaked back in 1995.

Peaked, I think, right around like 105, if I remember correctly. And then it declined for several years. So like, it is part of that process around the NBA is, it's not just the schematics. So part of it is like offensive schemes go one way defensive schemes respond or defensive schemes enter the equation and offensive struggle for a little while, but then they respond, one of those two. But there's also like a physicality piece with officiating.

I think that as the league starts to trend towards really high scoring totals, I think there's phone calls that take place from Adam Silver or David Stern in the distant pass where it's like, hey, can we tighten this up a little bit, make it a little more physical? all of a sudden, offensive ratings go down. And then sometimes I think it gets too stuck in the mud. And you have times like the early 2000s where David Stern's making a very different phone call. And it's like, hey, like we can't be having dudes grabbing and hold in every offensive player. The game is too ugly and low scoring.

We need to open it up. So like it's a combination of the officiating and the schematics. But ultimately like it's just that it's that battle of schematic proficiency. So like, you know, you have a team that's switching. well, the offense gets really good at hunting your smaller or slower defenders. Okay, well, now that you're good at hunting smaller or slower defenders, the really good defenses get good at pre-switching or scram switching, different things to get guys out of those matchups or they get really good at doubling and

gaping to make the floor feel smaller than it is. And then with the doubling and the gaping, you have teams working on things like pin in flares and different ideas to try to create openings out of what is a very difficult defensive coverage to go. against, right? So, like, that battle is constantly going back and forth. It'll always go back and forth. But, like, I think we're seeing kind of a renaissance of deep drop coverage this year, like really deep drop coverage this year, because teams are realizing that actually, like, on many nights, guys just won't make enough shots against the deep drop coverage to beat you. And

so, like, I've seen a lot more of that, particularly this season. So, like, there's always going to be that kind of chess match back and forth going between the two sides. And it'll always kind of go up and down as the two sides react to, to each other mixed in with the, physicality that the referees allowed. Today's show is brought to you by our presenting sponsor, Hard Rock Bet, Florida's Sportsbook. March is here, and that means college basketball takes center stage. The stakes are rising, the shots are falling,

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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 where 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 Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL'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. Here's something that should not be as complicated as it is. Getting a racist statue removed. And here's something that should be a whole lot easier than it is. Getting a new one put up in its place. As long as there's a politics of race in America, There's going to be a politics of remembering the Civil War.

To get to school, I had to go down Robert Lee Boulevard. Get to the grocery store, I had to go down Jefferson Davis Parkway. If you're an historian and you leave out half of what the history is, you're not doing your job. I'm Akila Hughes. In Rebel Spirit, Season 2 goes deep on both of those things. The fights, the politics, the people who won, and my personal campaign to add something to the Kentucky State House that's actually worth the wall space. We are more than our bodies.

we contain essence, we contain Spirit. How do you represent that? They are just fueling a fire that is really catching. You'll see what I mean. Listen to Rebel Spirit Season 2 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey Jason, why don't you think assists get as much importance in MVP conversations as point per game? A player like Shea averages six more points per game than Cade,

but Cade averages three more assists per game. So wouldn't that mean they contribute the same number of points? but Kade gets his team more involved, aka more valuable to his team. So I don't really look at just straight counting stats very much at all. I tend to think that they are a product of play style and usage distribution and all these like different things. I look at a lot of like play type data, like how efficient is a Kade pick and roll on a points per possession basis.

How efficient is a Shea Gilder's Alexander pick and roll on a per possession basis. Those are usually the kinds of things I look at or like team-wide stats. Like your job as a as a offensive engine is to create offense for your entire team, right? It's not just to create offense for yourself. I've been critical about this specifically with with Luca this season. Like there are times where I feel like Luke is putting up his numbers, but it's not necessarily leading to success team-wide in the in the goal of the team to generate as much as much team offense as possible. I'm pulling up the pick and roll efficiency numbers right now. So like, for example, Shay, when Shea runs a ball screen, it's worth 1.12 points per possession

including passes. When Cade runs a ball screen, it's worth 1.03 points per possession, including passes. Now, that gets a little bit more complicated because the off ball personnel is different. So there's no harder fast rule. I say to talk about this all the time with some of the people that I've debated about analytics with. I've talked to people who have. have NBA, like actual media votes who are like, oh, I have to use numbers because otherwise my biases will get in the way. And I'm like, that would make sense if the numbers actually were like a harder, fast rule to interpret the value of a basketball player, but it's just not. Ultimately, basketball is more art than science. Ultimately, there are too many moving parts

for it to be synthesized down to a single number or even a set of numbers. And so I, the data has value, but I'm always going to trust my eyes. And like, just very simply, how many times have you watched Cade or Shea this year and been like, man, Cade's a better player than Shea? It's not something you're thinking when you're watching the two games. Kate's having an incredible season. To your point about the MVP, like, I think there's a version of this. Actually, I'll skip ahead to another question because it mentions this specifically. Big fan and watch it from Australia. Is it just me or is Kate Cunningham's MVP hype really overrated? That's twice in the last two weeks, he's been taking completely out of the game with good game plans. Harden had a

terrible game by his standards and still the calves looked well in control with no Donovan. So that's the thing. Like I talked about with Cade, like there was a chance for him to get MVP right around the All-Star break. If he would have come out and just kicked everyone's ass the rest of the season, average like 28 point triple double and like 62% true shooting and the Pistons finished with the best record in the league. I think Cade would have had a case. But ultimately it's play the games. And when you play the games, Cades had some bad games, particularly against teams that can really protect the rim and they can put big physical perimeter defenders on him.

What will happen with Kate, he's in this phase of his career right now that you see with a lot of stars where they're really putting out wow performances, the big picture numbers look really good, the team's success is there, but there's the lack of like the really refined stuff you need to succeed at the highest levels.

That usually comes a few years later. That's kind of where we're at with Kate. Like, Shea's numbers look more or less the same, as they have as efficiency has gone up with the addition of the three-point shot this year. But with Shea, it's, it's less about the big picture numbers or even the team's success. The Thunder haven't been as good as they were last year. But what it comes down to is in any big game, Shay just looks so in command and in control. He's like he'll have bad games, but there's so much more rare than they used to be.

And like you, like if you were going into a big, let's say that you have like a Thunder a big game, game five between the Thunder and some second round opponent like Houston. And you go into the game, do you go into that game thinking like, man, I wonder if Shea's going to have it tonight. Like, no, you're like,

She's probably going to have it tonight because he's just, he seems to have figured out so much over the years. He's clicked into a different phase of his career in terms of confidence and inconsistency. Cade, big game five, you're like, man, like maybe he'll be great. Maybe he won't, right?

I grew up as a LeBron fan. That was how I felt in his first Cavs stint. I was like, I wonder if LeBron's going to have it tonight, right? Towards the, like by 2015, 2016, I used to talk about it all the time. Like, like, there was no safer bet in the NBA to play great in a big game than LeBron. It was just like, big playoff game tonight. LeBron's going to have at least a 28, 8, and 8, and he's going to be efficient. He's going to look like the best player on the floor.

And he's going to look in complete command and control of everything, even if they lose. There's just like a level of consistency that you get to when you reach that later phase. So to make a long story short, yeah, Kade's averaging more assists than Shea this year doesn't mean he's been better at creating shots for himself or for his team.

Doesn't mean he's better than Shay as a basketball player. Doesn't mean Kay can't win MVP one day. It's just going to be a little while. He's got some stuff he's got to figure out before then. While the Spurs are clearly an elite regular season team, it would be unprecedented for them to win a championship with a small amount of playoff experience on this roster. Do you believe this is a factor that will hinder their ability

to be actually a threat to win the championship this year. So what happens with these kinds of teams is you end up looking at the discussion and you go, okay, they have all the things that you would want to see with the championship contender. Like, let's go back to 2024 O'KC, like number one overall seed. Shea looks like one of the best players in the world. All the role players are putting it together, really strong net rating data, like all of these really strong indicators, right? but there's an age

kind of like inexperienced factor that you want to consider. And so what ends up happening? They get into the postseason. They run into an older veteran, more experienced, Dallas Mavericks team. Luke has already been on a conference finals run.

Kyrie Irving has literally been to the NBA finals four times and won a championship in 2016. Like they're better, they're more comfortable. They end up getting out of there with a win, right? but then OKC the following year off of the experience that they gained in that season, even though they're the one seed, they come back to next season. They kick everyone's ass to the runaway one seed. They end up winning the championship.

And even with their youth, they still flirted with disaster against Denver and Indiana, right? So with San Antonio, like, they're going to be the two seed this year. This is that they're in their like OKC 2024 season. They're super talented. It's abundantly clear that their star is super legit as like a foundational guy who can win a championship. all the metrics that you want to see, offense, defense, rebounding, controlling margins, all that kind of stuff.

Everything looks good, but they're young. And so that's what leads you to believe that they're likely headed to something like a second round exit. But the one thing I'll say that makes this Spurs team a little different, Victor Wemniama doesn't resemble any other young player that came before.

There are parts of his game that don't need experience. There are parts of his game that don't need playoff reps in order to be impactful. that's the defensive end of the floor. I was looking at these numbers the other day because I think Underdog ended up tweeting them out

and I thought it was really fascinating. They had a tweet where they just listed all of the top net ratings in the league among players. Of the top eight, seven of them were Celtics or Thunder players. And then fifth on that list was Victor Wehman Yamah. Victor is a game-breaking talent on the defensive end of the floor in a way that we've never seen before. So while all those things I said about young teams,

are true, I wouldn't be surprised if San Antonio won the title this year. I can't, I can't write them out or write them off because this Victor thing is such a strange variable. It's such a different variable. So like, honestly, it's really this simple to me. I could see them losing in the second round. I don't think they'll lose a first round series because they'll get a playing in team and I think they'll beat whoever gets at it. Like, even if it's the Clippers, I think the spurs will beat the Clippers. But like, whatever they get out of the, uh, once they get out of the first round, whoever they play in the second round, I could see them losing there. I could see them beat in Oklahoma City in the conference finals and making it to the finals and, you know, losing to the

Knicks or beating one of the other Eastern Conference teams. Like, there's really not a playoff outcome with San Antonio this year that I feel off the table. Whereas with other examples of young teams, like take Charlotte, for example, Charlotte's been the best team in the league for the last month and a half, you know, like Charlotte just kicked Boston's ass. But if Charlotte played Boston in a playoff series, I'd pick Boston because Charlotte as good as they are, they don't have a Victor Women Yama game-breaking type of talent. They're just a really good young team and really good young teams tend to run into really good veteran teams and get beat when they get to the postseason. Two more. Jason, is it possible for the Pelicans to build a defense around Derek

Queen in the same way that the Nuggets have built a defense around Yokic? If not, will Queen ever be able to truly be an effective star or All-Star with the holes in his defense? So the big difference between Derek Queen and Nicole Yokic is there is the lack of the strong defensive foundation that comes from Yokic's defensive rebounding. So Yokic is such a good defensive rebounder and he's such a big body that like he's a bona fide center. And there's a way to build around a bona fide center with his defensive limitations. And that's usually with a big athletic forward behind him, a guy like Aaron Gordon that can

operate as the other side of the bracket in his pick and roll coverages, right? like a guy who can be a secondary rim protector who could be a low man when Nicole Yokich comes up to the level. Those are all the things that work. But Yokic is just an unbelievable defensive rebounder. That's a really strong defensive trade. He's also a very high IQ defender. Derek Queen could become a very high IQ defender. He's never going to be a good enough defensive rebounder, I think, for that to be the one thing he's great at on defense. And so I think if your goal is to view Derek Queen as a legitimate, like, foundational player, not like a backup center who can kill teams for 15 minutes a night, but like a real foundational player, I think he's got to be alongside

a guy who can both shoot threes and protect the rim. Like, he's got to essentially play the four. And like, think more like Carl Anthony Towns, right? Carl Anthony Towns is the guy that you're looking at in that specific case. But that's hard to do. It's really hard to find a rim protecting center that can really shoot. Like we're talking about Victor Wem, Yama, and Chet. And then Christophe's Porzingis who can't stay healthy. You know, like there's very few of these guys in the league and most of them are considered, all of them are considered stars when they're healthy. So it's just going to be really hard from that specific standpoint.

But the, there's always that opportunity for him as a bench guy who can score in, in bunches and short shifts off the bench against units that are smaller and don't have the same issues that starting lineups present. Just going to be really hard for him to anchor as a five because I don't think he's a good enough defensive rebounder. Last question. Has the problem of how to guard Yokic been solved? Sandwich him, grapple him, hold on to him, knowing you won't get many foul calls, or do you think there's a way that you can work around it? And yes, I do concede that he's flopping a lot. Thanks for having

a great show, as always. Thanks for supporting the show. I don't think he's been solved. I just think he's in a really bad shooting slump. And the numbers are actually crazy. So since he came back from his injury, he's shooting just 24% from three, shooting just 40% from mid-range, and he's shooting 49% on non-restricted area twos. So like in the paint. So like short range shots, floaters, hooks, things along those lines. Typically, like before all that, he's about 45%

from three. He's about 55% from midrange and he's like 65% on those non-restricted area paint two. So like we're talking about a dramatic shooting slump from Nicola Yokic. I would not overthink it. I think this is going to eventually come back around for him and I would imagine that by the time we get to

the postseason, he's going to look very much like Nicola Yokic. I'm recording this Thursday. I'm actually going tonight to Lakers Nuggets, which I'm very, very excited about sitting a couple rows behind the Lakers bench. And I've been to three NBA games before, but they were all kind of lower profile games. It was a random Pelican Suns game back in the day when Anthony Davis was with the Pelicans. AD got a game winner in that game, like an offensive rebound putback. I saw Kyrie Irving's first game back from his Pateler injury in the year that they won the title in 2016. It's actually in December of 2015. It was before

Ty Lou became the coach. And Kyrie's first came back. He didn't really play great, but he ended up hitting a huge clutch three off of the left wing. And then I watched LeBron in the Cavs in 2017 in Charlotte against a really bad Hornets team. LeBron won off for like 38 points and hit a bunch of threes. It was a big game from him there. But so like the three games I've been to are like like either two bad teams playing or LeBron Cavs teams

playing against bad teams. So like tonight I'm going to get to see two of the best teams in the Western Conference, at least by record, I think the Lakers kind of stick out like a sore thumb. But two of the best teams in the Western Conference, I don't think either team's going to be able to guard each other. The Star Power is going to be crazy. Luca, LeBron, Nicole Yokich,

Jamal Murray. The crowd should be insane. Both teams really, really need this game. The Nuggets have been slipping for a while. The Lakers desperately need a win against a good team. So like, I'm really, really excited to go watch that. I know you guys are hearing this on Friday, so you already know what happens. But I will be, I'll be going on, for those of you guys listening to the mailbag, I'll be going on with the Lakers Collective guys at 11 a.m. Pacific on Friday today. So you'll get to hear my

reaction to the game then. And I'll also talk about it in more detail when we get some Monday. But thanks as always for supporting the show, guys. I will see you guys on Monday for our power rankings. Have a great weekend. Hey guys, it's us. The Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin. And I'm Nick.

And guess what? We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it.

But, you know, tired and sick. 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 Smygel 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 Smygle and friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

podcast. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano. It's our favorite time of the year on our podcast, Point Game, the playoffs. We're digging into the biggest surprises of the season. And I'm looking back on some of my greatest playoff moments. If we didn't talk ever again, I was crying.

You just understood. That's how personal it got. Wow. Then after that game seven, Marquis come until he's like, you know I love you, dog. You know, it's all love. This was just playoffs. This was just basketball. So listen to Point Game on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your

Podcasts. Therapy is fantastic, but once again, it does not have a monopoly on healing. That's why I create the resources and that's why I create the community because I really just want you to have more access. On the podcast, Cultivating HerSpace, Dr. Dom and Terry Lomax create a space where black women can show up fully and be heard. It's tough because we're suppressing our emotions and so many of us are like high achieving individuals. Listen to cultivating her space on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.