The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - NBA Player Rankings #20-18: Jalen Williams, Paolo Banchero, Cade Cunningham

Episode Date: August 5, 2025

Jason breaks down the next three NBA players on his rankings: Oklahoma City Thunder guard Jalen Williams, Orlando Magic forward Paolo Banchero, and Detroit Pistons star Cade Cunningham. #VolumeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at The Volume. Happy Monday, everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great start to your week. We are continuing our player rankings today with number 20 through number 18. Some really interesting young players in this version of the NBA. We've got a guy who's a number two for a team that just won the championship that we're going to dig into. A couple of number ones on a couple of number ones on a couple of. teams that are very different archetypes of players.

We're going to break down the differences in those archetypes. Why I have the guys ranked where I have them. I want to talk about the ceilings of these potential guys because I think there's a difference in the ceiling between a couple of these number ones. Lots of interesting stuff to get into today. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel.

So you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter and underscore Jason LT so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast fee wherever you get your podcast under Hoops tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front. Jackson's doing great work on our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, make sure you guys follow us over there. And last but not least, if you guys want to get mailbag questions in, our mailbags over the course of this player ranking series are going to be kind of geared towards the player

ranking. So if there's any specific guy that you disagree with where he's ranked too high, too low, on the list, off the list, whatever it is, give your elevator pitch, tell us as concisely as possible why you disagree. And we'll get to those in our mailbags on Fridays throughout the remainder of the list. All right, let's talk some basketball. Number 20, J-dub, J-Lan Williams. Last season in review for J-dub, played in 69 games,

average 22 points, five rebounds and five assists, all career highs for J-dub in his third year in the NBA. 2.3 stocks per game. He was 10th in the entire NBA and total steals last year, which again is impressive considering he missed 13 games. His efficiency marks. He was 48% from the first. field. This is where it gets a little complicated because his shooting actually was down across the board

last year, but he was dealing with a wrist that was so messed up. It had to be surgically repaired after the NBA finals. So I'm sure that played a substantial role in his shooting percentages throughout the year. He was 48% from the field. That was a career low for him. 37% from three. That was down 6% from the previous year. 79% from the foul line, also a career low. 54% in effective field goal percentage career low and 57% true shooting, which is a career low. So product is several things. Again, the biggest part of it was simply that he was injured. He had a torn ligament and a shooting wrist. He played a huge chunk of the season in the entire playoff run with that. As anybody knows who's played any basketball, your wrist is arguably the most important part of your follow through.

And an injury there would be problematic for anyone. Anybody who's ever dealt with everybody who's ever played basketball is at least at one point tweaked their shooting wrist. And it is just not fun when you're trying to shoot the basketball. And I'm sure that played a role. But there were other factors. For instance, his usage rate skyrocketed. In his first two years in the NBA, he was about a 21% usage percentage. Last year, he was at 28%.

And that obviously, like any massive increase in volume is likely to come with a drop in efficiency. There are some counter examples. For instance, the next guy on this list is a guy who upped his usage and up to his efficiency. But it's typically pretty rare. Anytime you experience a large increase in usage, you're typically going to see a little bit of a drop in efficiency because you're going to have to take some tougher, more difficult shots as more responsibility falls on you.

Some specific shots were failing him last year, which kind of hurt his percentages. He went down on layups from 59% to 54% year over year, and then on floaters, which again is another shot that's going to be impacted by his wrist, went down from 42% to 37%. But by far the biggest people, was just his jump shot, which again, I associate at least partially with the wrist injury.

A Jalen Williams jumper this year was worth 0.1-2 fewer points per shot than last year. Roughly 12%. That's a substantial dip year over year in his jump shooting. So, Jason, if he got worse year over year in all of these bits of shot making, how did he go from out of the list to into the top 20. Well, there are three reasons for that. One, his wrist is now surgically repaired, and I expect him to jump back up as a shot maker next year.

Again, the entire structure of this list, and this is the second piece of it, is to project forward to next season. And J-Dubb has improved in every other way as a basketball player, so I expect him to continue to get better coming into this year. It's something I'm factoring in. And then third, he really broke out, over the second half of his playoff run.

And frankly, over the second, you know, the second two rounds of that four-round sequence, he was one of the best players in the league at that point. Over his last 13 playoff games, stretching from Game 7 against Denver to him hoisting up the trophy, he averaged 23 points, six rebounds, and four assists per game on 57% true shooting.

He had at least 24 points in six of those 13 games. He had a 34-point game. against the wolves in the conference finals, and he had a 40-point game in the NBA finals. So, like, he kind of figured a lot of his stuff out over the tail end of that playoff run and was playing arguably higher than where I have him ranked on this list.

He conquered a lot of his personal demons at that point played the best basketball of his career when he needed to to get the trophy. So as I project J-Dub forward into this coming season, I expect him to average around 24, 6 and 6. I expect him to be right back over 60% true shooting like he was each of the first two seasons of his career. And I expect him to continue to be the all defense level defender that he was this last season. 24, 6 and 6 on 60% true shooting and all defense, that's a top 20 player in the NBA.

And that's what I'm expecting out of J. Dub this coming season. Now, looking at his play type data. last year was the first time in J-dub's career where he logged over a thousand self-creation possessions, meaning pick-and-rolls, post-ups, and ISOs. Previous seasons, he was below that. And he was above-average in efficiency, despite the drop in his shot-making.

Again, these numbers are despite him being basically unable to make jump shots less likely to make floaters and layups, which is obviously going to nuke his percentages. He ran 1,025, pick-and-rolls, ISOs, and post-ups, including passes, and generated 0.96 points per possession, which is slightly above average.

Again, considering the wrist injury and the shot making issues, I expect him to be firmly over a point per possession at volume next year in his shot creation, somewhere around 1.01, 1.02 at about like, you know, somewhere around 1,200 to 1,400 play types there. So, like, I think J. Dub's going to be a very impactful shot creator in this league. We're going to talk about it a little bit in a minute as we compare him to Jalen Brown. who we covered in our video last week on Wednesday, but there's a level of like playmaking

and just general floor awareness that J-dub has for a third-year player on the wing that is really, really rare. In the playoffs last year, J-dub demonstrated a remarkable ability to get all the way to the rim. He attempted shots at the rim seven times per game,

which was the 10th highest mark out of the entire playoff field, regardless of how many, rounds your team played. So including teams who lost in the first round like the Milwaukee Bucks. The only players who played at least three rounds

and attempted more shots at the rim per game than J-Dubb were Carl Anthony Towns and Anthony Edwards. That's it. Now again, that obviously doesn't account for drawing fouls for guys like Shaggildes or Alexander, but even if you just look at drives among all players to play at least

10 playoff games last year, J-dub had the fourth-most drive per game. Only Shea, Jalen Brunson, and Anthony Edwards drove the basketball more. It's a legit problem for defenses. He brings like real downhill power on his drives. He had a lot of success in semi-transition in this playoff run where he would kind of like get going up the floor as the defense. You know, it's not really a full transition possession, but before the defense is really set. And then he would just take that power dribble and get into the lane and drop his right shoulder and then just power through the guy and get all the way to the rim.

He was doing a ton of damage that way. This is a big part of why I have Jalen Williams above a guy like Jalen Brown next year. Jalen Brown is a very similar archetype of player, right? Two-way athletic wing. Theoretically, he's far more experienced, right? But I think J-Dub will be better next year at the three key things that define that small forward position. One, I think J-dub is better at getting to the rim.

better at getting to the rim last year in less space. So I, as he continues to improve, I expect him. And as, you know, we're going to talk, we talked about it with Jalen Brown on Wednesday. Jalen Brown's got a lot of miles on his body. I don't expect him to get more athletic in the coming seasons. So I think J. Dub is better at getting to the rim. I think J. Dub will be a better jump shooter next year. Reminder, the previous year, J. Dub was good for 1.1 points per pull-up jump shot on over 300 attempts. J-dub was one of the very best pull-up shooters in the entire NBA the year before last.

I think J-dub will be a better jump shooter than J-Lan Brown next season. And lastly, I think J-Dub has already shown himself before this point to be a better passer than J-Lan Brown, despite the lack of experience. And I think that gap will

continue to grow. He's just a more natural playmaker. I do think Jalen Brown is a slightly better on-ball defender. Like if I had to deploy a single guy on the team's best player for a playoff series. I think Jalen Brown is better there. But I think J. Dub is nearly as good and is actually a better overall team defender. I just think J. Dub is a slightly better basketball player right now than Jalen Brown. And I think that gap will continue to grow next

year and will continue to grow in the coming year. So that's why I have J. Dub over Jalen Brown. The keys for J. Dub's development. Obviously getting a shot making ability back. A healthy wrist and a good summer in the gym will go a long way to fixing that. He still makes a few poor decisions at the rim. This kind of came to the surface during the series against Dallas two years ago, but continued to be an issue in this playoff run. He shot below 50% on layups in this playoff front.

Similar issues to what Che Gilges Alexander was dealing with. I thought both of those guys just kind of went through extended stretches of the playoff run where they didn't trust their teammates on some of their kickout reads. and even though J-Dub is a more natural playmaker, he still was just kind of getting a little bit of tunnel vision on some of his drives over the last couple of playoff runs. That's something that I think will go along right.

Like layup percentage is like a combination of obviously your athleticism, but a big part of layup percentage is just decision-making, just not taking stupid contested layups because contested layups, they have potential to serve a purpose for offensive rebounding if you can engage a rim protector. but they also include the risk of floor balance issues when you come screaming down the lane and miss a layup, they could go the other way in transition.

Like, just making a few better decisions on those drives would go a long way to helping his layup efficiency. Again, he can see the reads. He just needs to get into the habit of making them. And then lastly, the consistency element. This is with all young players. Like, guys, like, I have the next two guys on this list are guys that I think that their respective fan bases

will be very, very, like, disappointed with where I have them rate. And one of my big kind of general philosophies with young players is that they're just, they have a lot of fat in their games. They have a lot of like mistake making that undercuts their success. And so it's really easy to look at their upside and all their potential and be like, oh my God, this is what they can do. But it's not until they trim the fat and get more consistent on the good stuff that they can actually enter the levels of impact and, you know, influence on the NBA landscape that the top

10 players in this league have. And when we look at the consistency with J-dub, like, when J-dub scored the ball well, the Thunder just won. They were 14 and 2 in the playoffs when J-dub scored at least 18 points. They were just two and five in the playoffs when he failed to score 18 points. So just bringing that level of consistency will go a long way towards helping him get to that next level. But for right now, I was thinking about this a lot. Like, I think J. Dove might already be the best small Ford in the NBA. I was looking at the rest of the list. And every Ford that I have ahead of him is either like a point forward, someone like Kate Cunningham or Luca Donchich, or more of a power forward. LeBron James is a four, Palo Bancarro is of four,

Kevin Durant's of four, Anthony Davis is a four. The only real like small Ford that I have ranked ahead of him right now is Jimmy Butler. And I kind of look at Jimmy Butler is almost more of a four than a three at this point. Because I think one of the important characteristics of the three is you need to be able to pick up the opposing ball handlers and guard them on the perimeter at a really high level at large volume. And Jimmy Butler, when he was in his prime, could do that. but now I view him as more of like a help side, you know, kind of like team defender at this phase of his career.

But technically, I suppose you could call Jimmy Butler this small forward that I have ranked ahead of J-dub. But certainly within the next, you know, 18 months, 24 months, J-dub, I think will have a stranglehold as the best like, like real three, real small forward in the NBA. And what's interesting about J-da or with Jimmy is like, Jimmy essentially represents what I view as the older generation of J. Dub. He's the guy that J. Dub reminds me the most of.

And again, the only reason why I have Jimmy ahead of J. Dub right now is you guys know how much I value veteran experience in the postseason. And I just generally lean on that sort of guy as a super valuable player to have on a team. Like I know it sounds crazy because we look at how much consistency and production you get from these young athletes. that are just there every single night. But I believe if you like swap Jimmy and J-dub for just this season that the Thunder would actually be a better basketball team, just for this season. But in the big picture, I view J-dub as the best small forward in the NBA

as we look forward into the next era of NBA basketball. Currently sits at number 20 on this list. Number 19. Nothing says summer like long days, clutch plays, firing off a few bets on the game, all with Draft King Sportsbook. As the season heats up, so do the bats. And Draft King Sportsbook has you covered with live betting, home run props, odds boosts, and more. Whether you're chasing dingers or jumping in midgame, there's always action to be had.

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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

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really be a good person join me Kear gains is we have real conversations about healing growth fatherhood pressure and purpose on my new podcast learn the hard way open your free iHeartRadio app search learn the hard way and listen now palo bonkara last season in review he played just 46 games due to an oblique injury came out the gates screaming had a 50 point game in the first week of the season then suffers this really unfortunate oblique injury that cuts a massive swath of games out of his out of his season his averages he average a career high 26 points per game career high eight rebounds per game four point eight assists per game which was actually down from last year year. 1.4 stocks per game as well. As efficiency, he shot 45% from the field. He actually shot 51% on

2s, which was a career high for him, and 32% from 3, which was slightly down year over year, but there was an increase in volume. He was also at 73% from the line on a career high, 8.5 attempts per game. So this all amounted to Paolo actually substantially increasing his scoring volume, substantially increasing his usage rate, while also increasing his efficiency, which is a very rare feat in the NBA. He finished the year over 55% in true shooting percentage, which was a career high. And again, if you consider that Paolo Boncaro took the third most mid-range jump shots per game out of any player in the NBA last year and shot just 42% on him, Like he was one of the worst volume mid-range jump shooters in the NBA.

And he still went up in efficiency and was over 55% in true shooting. That's actually pretty impressive. At least in terms of like an example or a description of his potential in the NBA. Like, holy shit, he's got all this fat in his game that he needs to trim. And he's still like increasing in terms of efficiency because of all of his natural ability that he brings to the table. We're definitely going to have a bigger conversation about Palo and his. mid-range jump shooting here in a few minutes. Because it is an interesting debate,

and it's already been something that's been discussed this offseason as his videos of his workouts have kind of gone viral. So let's look into some play-type data. Now, before we go into any specific play-types, it is important for us to acknowledge a basic reality about Orlando's roster last year. They were the very worst jump-shooting team in the league by a mile. They got just 0.93 points per jump shot as a team.

That was 4.3 points per 100 jump shots worse than the 29th ranked team. The gap between Orlando at 30 and number 29 was the same as the gap between number 29 and number 21 on that list. So they were far and away the worst jump shooting team in the league. They were the only team in the entire NBA

to get less than one point per catch and shoot jump shot. They were the worst off the dribble jump shooting team in the NBA. Even if you added the ability to drive closeouts that only slid them up to 28th in spot-up efficiency. They were also 28th in roll man efficiency. They only shot, they shot below 30% on pick and pop threes or ghost screen threes with their guards.

They were even 29th in the league on two point shots out of roll man possession. So in other words, this team was far and away the worst play finishing team in the NBA. The entire purpose of running action or having a star that can break down the defense is to generate clean looks for people, either as cutters, rollers, or in spotter. up situations and they could not finish in those situations. And so that obviously is going to have an effect on their efficiency out of those types of actions. Even the one-on-one shots, the shots that Paolo and Franz take when they're dribbling to basketball, those are more difficult because of all the increased help that they have to face because guys can't finish play. So it's just an important

context inside this data that we're about to look at. Even above and beyond the issues with play finishing. I also thought Orlando had one of the, over the last couple of years, one of the least inventive offenses in the NBA. Very little in the way of ball and player movement. A lot of Franz and Pollo just pounding the ball out above the break and taking just simple go screens from guards or simple ball screens from Wendell Carter Jr. or Gogh Betadze. Just a really basic, like, unrefined offensive approach. And here's the thing. Like, when you have guys that are supreme offensive initiators, you know, over the years when we look at guys that played in lower ball and player movement offenses like, you know, LeBron James at the peak of his

powers or Luca Donchich recently. In those sorts of situations, they're usually like, one, a super high level supreme ball handler. Like, you know, LeBron, arguably the greatest player of all time. Luca Donchich, one of the top, you know, four or five offensive engines of all time, those guys are going to make difficult basketball look easy. In a to that, they were typically surrounded by really smart, high IQ veteran basketball players that could shoot. And that goes a long way towards making that a viable way to play basketball. But when you've got unrefined young stars with a complete and total lack of refined offensive skill off the ball, that's just a really dumb way to play, for lack of a better word.

They, there needs to be, Jamal Mosley needs to do a better job of adding complication to that offense to make this easier to set them up with more advantages because right now it's just it's just letting palo and franz pound the ball out front and taking a single screen late in the clock that's just making life harder on them than it needs to be adding more complications more ball and player movement will create higher quality advantages it will get some of their athletes going downhill against a defense in motion instead of against a defense that's loaded up it's something that they've got to change but on that note palo's play type data wasn't great 0.95 points per possession, including passes on 4169 pick and rolls. That's slightly below average.

0.97 points per possession, including passes on 318 ISOs, very slightly above average. Out of the 23 players in the NBA to run at least 250 ISOs last year, Palo's 0.97 points per possession, including passes, ranked 14th. So just a little below the middle of the pack there. 0.98 points per possession, including passes on 161 post-ups, very below average. And a big part of that is, like, Palo just doesn't take hook shots. He takes turnaround fadeaways, which is just a really difficult way to play out of the post, unless you're Kobe or MJ or Kauai Leonard and you're shooting over 51% or 50% on, you know, fadeaway jump shots over both shoulders, which Palo does not do.

So there, a lot of that is like I'd love to see Palo just add a little bit more of a power, kind of like hook shot game. He shoots really well on floaters, which we're going to get to in a minute. So I actually do think he has the short range touch to eventually become a guy that can lean on that hook shot. We're about to talk about Cade Cunningham in a little bit. Cade Cunningham is a player who's become a very impactful post-up player

because he has a little baby hook over his left shoulder that he hits well over 50% of the time. That is a shot that Palo needs to add to his game that will make him a more efficient post-up player. So there are a lot of different ways for Orlando to become more efficient with Palo having the ball in his hands. One is for them to run more sophisticated offense, which we talked about earlier.

Again, all that is just complications. Getting up the ball, getting the ball up the floor quickly, trying to play more in transition when you get into the half court, getting into multiple actions. So three-man action at the beginning of possessions, getting the ball flowing side-to-side, more ball-in player movement to prevent some of the stagnation

that they deal with. Two is for the play finishing to improve. like guys have to hit catch and shoot jump shots when they're open. Guys have to be able to drive closeouts. Guys have to be able to score when they catch on the roll. Like we're going to talk about Palo's playmaking here in a little bit. And, you know, Palo, if he's going to, why in the hell would Palo trust his teammates when they can't make shots?

You know what I mean? And that's not to say that he shouldn't be learning how to do that anyway. The point is, as a front office, if you want to incentivize Palo's development as a playmaker, if you want to accelerate Palo's development as a playmaker, you need to have him feel like he's being rewarded for the decisions he's making. And when he's passing too far and away the worst jump shooters in the NBA, that's going to have an impact on the just trust that he has in making the right play.

That's something that's going to develop. You've got to improve in your play finishing. And then three, their ball handlers have to become more efficient as scores. And again, we're not going to talk about Franz today. because he's not on the list. We're talking, we're zooming in on Palo. Palo's shot making is generally okay. It's 59% at the rim.

That's not where you should be for an athlete like himself. Like I'd like to see Palo closer to 65% at the rim. But again, we'd be foolish to not consider the awful team-wide jump shooting as a factor in his ability to get all the way to the paint, right? He was 49% on floaters, which is solid. Doesn't take a ton of them, but he can knock down floaters. That's a piece of that short-range shot-making, which is a big part of why I want to see him build out that left-shoulder hook.

38% on unguarded catch-and-shoot-3s. Not amazing, but that's 1.15 points per shot. That's an efficient shot for him. So he has some efficient bits of shot-making in his game. The problem is he's one of the least efficient pull-up jump shooters in the league. There were 42 players in the NBA last year to take at least 300 pull-up jump shots. Paolo's 0.9 points per shot ranked 38th out of the NBA. of those 42 players. There's a couple of specific details I want to get into, though,

because it's more complicated than just looking at the big picture percentages. First of all, I'd like to see him just cut down a little bit on his volume. Despite being one of the worst pull-up jump shooters in the sport, he took the sixth most pull-up jump shots per game out of anybody on that 42-player list. Let's take LeBron James, for example. LeBron was also near the bottom of that list for pull-up jump shot efficiency. but LeBron knows that he's not a great pull-up jump shooter, so he takes fewer of them.

He takes about half as many as Paolo. And so despite LeBron being a poor pull-up jump shooter last year, he cut his volume substantially down, and he was super efficient at the rim, so LeBron was still over 60% true shooting last year, substantially ahead of where Palo was. That's a simple thing trimming the fat, cutting down on some of that volume,

that will help Palo in his overall efficiency. So if Palo is going to take fewer pull-up jumpers per game, where should he cut out these pull-up jump shots? So we want to look at where on the floor he's taking them and when he's taking them on the shot clock. First of all, where? There are short twos, long twos, and pull-up threes, right? Palo was 30% on pull-up threes last year.

That's 0.9 points per shot. That's not good. But that is the area where if you just tweak it up a couple percentage points, it suddenly becomes a good shot. If you can get from 30% to 34%, suddenly that's a plenty fine, efficient half court jump shot for his team. So like a lot of skill development work geared towards the pull-up three will go a long way towards allowing Palo to become more efficient. I also just think for a guy his size, he's going to get a lot of clean looks on pull-up three. So like if you can get to the point where that's a shot that he knocks down just a touch more

reliably, that could be something that's more efficient for him. He was 31% on long twos outside of 17 feet. 0.62 points per shot. That's really bad. And the problem was, is he takes them at volume. About a third of his pull-up twos are outside of 17 feet. Those are shots that he basically needs to cut out entirely, unless he's in like, you know, two, three seconds on the shock, like I got to put something up.

He was 51.4% on short twos inside of, 17 feet. It's 1.03 points per possession. That's pretty good. He's actually one of the best players in the league at that shot. Out of the 36 players to take at least 100 short twos, he ranked eighth out of those 36 players. So he's actually a very good short range pull-up shoot. So the easy answer is he just needs to tick up his three-point shooting off the dribble a little bit for it to become a more efficient shot. and then he needs to cut out the long twos entirely. Again, about a third of his pull-up twos are outside of 17 feet. That just nukes his efficiency.

Got to cut those out. Like, so when we talk about the shot clock piece of it, Paolo took 4.7 mid-range jump shots per game. Only 1.2 of those 4.7 mid-range jump shots. So, you know, roughly a fourth. only 1.2 of them took place in the final seven seconds of the shot clock. So 75% of the twos that he's taking off the dribble are in a phase of the shock clock where there's plenty of time left

to try to get something better. So everything for Palo is about order of operations. When he gets a favorable matchup and gets close to the rim, his pull-up twos are fine. He's good at those short jump shots. But if the time, he's the one of the time, but if there's time on the clock, he needs to work it around and look for better shots and only take those tougher twos when he's up against the shot clock. And then as a skill development piece to help save energy during the course of an 82 game season, if he could build out that pull up three point shot to just a touch more reliable, that could be something that is a reliable, a more efficient shot for him to look at.

But again, despite the poor spacing and the poor shot selection, he still raised his efficiency, was still over 55% true shooting, which isn't terrible. This is what has always had me so excited about Palo Boncarat. Despite the poor spacing, Paulo still shot at the rim seven times per game last year and got to the foul line a ton. Truly big and strong ball handlers like that

are just so hard to deal with for a defense. His seven attempts per game at the rim was top 20 in the NBA this year. again, despite the awful spacing. And that big size, it just brings so much utility as a rebounder and as a defender. Like, he's not particularly great at any of that stuff. He's not a great rebounder. He's not a great defensive player. But he's just so gifted with his size and strength that he just adds to the identity of the team.

It feels like he's adding to it, not taking away. Everything for Palo right now is about refining. We talked about refining the shot selection. It's also about the playmaking. And again, this is on the front office. if you want Palo to see the benefits of trusting his teammates, if you want him to get addicted to making the right play, you need to put players around him that will pay those plays off with makes

so that the magic can win those games and so that Palo can start to develop a more well-rounded approach to offense. He was over 33% in usage rate last year and was below five assists per game. That's not just on Palo. That's also in the team construct here. I'm hoping Desmond Bain entering the equation will actually help a lot with this, creating more openings, creating a two-man game partner that Palo will trust every single time down the floor that he can feed the ball to consistently.

I think Palo is one of the most naturally gifted young players in the league, not even 23 years old yet, barely scratching the surface of what he's capable of being, and I already have him as the 19th best player in the NBA. All right, last guy for today, Kate Cunningham. Last season in review, he played 70 games, averaged 26.6.6 rebounds and nine assists, 1.8 stocks, a career high in points and assists for Cade. 47% from the field, career high, 36% from three, career high, 85% from the line on 5.3 attempts, which was a career high. 52% in effective field goal percentage, which was career high,

and 57% in true shooting, which was a career high. He made the all-MBA team for the first time. He made the All-Star team for the first time. finished seventh in MVP voting, which was his first time receiving MVP votes. So a resounding step forward for Cade Cunningham as one of the next great offensive engines in the NBA. I want to talk a little bit about just kind of where I have these guys ranked for a minute

before we get into some of the specifics with Cade. So on a foundational level, if you're wondering why I have a guy like Cade over a guy like Pallow, and again, this is projecting forward. Obviously Cade had a better season. But if we're looking at, you know, healthy Pallow going into next season, healthy Cade. Why do I project Cade to be a better play? A lot of this has to do just simply with my personal view of the game of basketball, which is I just value advantage creation or

offensive engines, guys that just are supremely gifted at setting up their teammates with so many advantages that they just have a super high offensive floor. It's a concept we've talked endlessly about over the course of the last few months, especially with guys like Tyrese Halliburton making a deep playoff run, right? I generally value Cade's archetype more than I value Palo Boncaro's archetype. That's a big part of why I have him ahead. It's also probably worth mentioning here. I know that there will be Pistons fans, especially, and probably some Magic fans as well who are pissed off that I have these guys as low as I do. This a lot, this generally has a lot to do with my feelings about young basketball players. Kate and Palo both have worlds of potential,

and they're already showing so much of their upside, but both players have so much fat in their games right now. We talked about with Palo, his shot selection and, like, his trust in his teammates, right? With Cade, his jump shot fell apart in the postseason, especially from three-point land. The turnovers were a big issue. He had at least six turnovers

in three of the six first-round games against the Knicks. Young players are extremely mistake-prone, and that undercuts so much of their upside. So in other words, I'm a really big believer in both Cade and Pallow, even as different archetypes for different reasons. But I think both of them are a few years away from like really being impactful in the NBA landscape because it just has to do with my big picture feelings about young players in the NBA. Let's look at Cade's play type data. Pick and roll.

Cade was an excellent pick and roll player last year. 1566 pick and rolls including passes 1.04 points per possession, which is good. basically middle of the pack for our high volume list for the players that ran over a thousand of them. He's just your textbook methodical pick and roll player. It brings the combination of size and strength and ball handling that can consistently get players out of position, like on his hip, on his backside, right? And then from there, he just methodically makes reads as he's working down the lane. It's Luke a light, right? It's that ability to just get the defender in jail, work his way through the lane, and basically wait for the defense to react. Oh, the screen defender stepped up.

I'm going to drop it off to Jalen Duren for a dunk or throw a lob to Jail and Dern for a dunk. Oh, they're picking me up at the level and they're bringing a low man over for Duren. I'm making the swing pass over to the weak side corner to beat the guy who's tagging the roller. These basic sequences of reads, he's even above and beyond pick and roll play. He's just an excellent transition passer, constantly hunting shooters. He was doing it with Tim Hardaway Jr. and Malik Beasley last year. He'll be doing it with Duncan Robinson this year, right? It's that relentless just advantage hunting.

Every single time a help defender really sinks in off of a guy, he's going to make that breed. And just you want to know why as a young ball handler, again, a super young ball handler, he's already cracking the high volume list as one of the more efficient ball handlers in a league. Like he was just as efficient as a pick and roll player as an experienced veteran like James Hardin was last year.

It all comes down to the fact that when you consistently set up, up NBA level talent with advantages, with guys sprinting at them. When you do that constantly at high volume throughout basketball games, you're just going to score a lot of points. It's going to naturally lead to efficient offense. It's why I'm such a big believer in that archetype. He's that big ball handler that relentlessly makes all the reads. That is going to give you such a high offensive floor in the modern NBA.

Shot making. Mix bag for K. He was only 32% on pull-up threes in the regular season. He was abysmal on them in the playoffs. So that's definitely going to need to be a big area of improvement for him. He's actually a very gifted short-range shotmaker, which we're going to talk about in a minute. But the long-range shot-making is super inconsistent for him right now.

He's going to have to figure that out. He was really good about indexing his mid-range pull-ups towards the shorter ones closer to the basket. We talked about how with Paolo, the VAT, like legitimately a third of his twos were outside of 17. For Cade, it's a much higher percentage. It's like closer to 80% of his twos are inside of 17 feet. He just takes a lot more of these floaters, hooks, short range jump shots, not too many

of the long twos, which helps his efficiency a lot. He took 221 pull-up twos inside of 17 feet and made 51% of them. That's a really strong number. He even kept that up at about 46% in the postseason, which isn't terrible considering how poor he shot on his other jump shots. He's also 51.4% on floaters and hooks. He's just a very good short-range shotmaker, which works really well because of his ability

to shield defenders off and to get closer to the rim where he can be so deadly with that shot-making. Again, if you combine that with him blossoming into one of the best passers in the NBA, he's just a very, very good pick and roll player, a bona fide offensive engine, a foundational, a foundational offensive. engine that just makes life easier in the modern NBA.

He was a very good post-up player as well. We were talking about this with Palo earlier. The big difference between Cade and Pallow and why Pallow was an inefficient post-up player and why Cade was getting 1.16 points per possession on 181 possessions, including passes, which is literally one of the best post-up players in the league. Out of the 24 players to run at least 150 post-ups, Cade ranked 6th inefficiency. The reason why is he built out a super-reliable. baby hook shot over his left shoulder.

55% on them. So he can make very simple reads against smaller defenders. Clear the side, get to that left block, back him down, work towards the middle. The defense doesn't come. I'm just going right over that left shoulder with the hook. The defense reacts. I'm spraying out to the right shooter or the cutter

along the baseline every single time. It made him a hyper-reliable post-up player. Again, he was 19 points per 100 post-ups more efficient than Palo Boncaro because of that simple dynamic of his ability to trust his teammates to make the sprayouts while also hitting the hooks. And again, we're going to continue to factor in the fact that Detroit had better shooting than Orlando did. But Detroit was roughly a middle of the pack jump shooting team. It wasn't like they were an elite jump shooting team.

And there was a substantial increase in Cade's efficiency in that specific spot on the floor. Again, he's cut from the same cloth as Luca Donchich, just like a slow, methodical, offensive engine that brings lots of size and strength to that position. But there are three main areas is where Cade needs to improve. We mentioned the turnovers earlier. He just needs to clean up those mistakes. They were particularly a problem for him in the postseason. Secondly, he needs to improve his distance jump shooting,

specifically his pull-up three-point shooting. He's very good off the catch. It's 39% 1.16 points per shot, which is good. Even against contest, he's actually a little bit better. He's 41% on guarded catch-and-shoot jump shot. So the touch is there on the long-range shooting. He just needs to refine his fluidity, connecting dribble combinations and footwork to the end of what he uses as his catch and shoot shot.

If he can refine all of that fluidity, he will start knocking those down. And then lastly, it's his rim finishing, particularly layups. On the one hand, Cade attempted 524 layups last year. I was the second most in the entire NBA. Only Janice and Tenacompo attempted more layups than Cade Cunningham did last year. But shot just 50% on them, which is legitimately awful. out of the 38 players in the NBA who attempted at least 300 layups last year,

he ranked 36th in efficiency on layups. Similarly to what we were talking about with J-dub, a lot of that is just decision-making, just forcing the issue when he gets to the rim, figuring out that there's a little bit better balance in his decision-making at the rim to limit the bad lay-ups

that are going to nuke his percentage. Again, we talked about this earlier, but to me, lay-up percentage is mostly about, there's a size in the athleticism piece, but a lot of lay-up percentage it just comes down to decision-making, just when you take a layup. Because, again, a contested layup is just as bad as a tough pull-up two-point shot. It's the same type of problematic, low percentage of low-efficiency shot because it's only worth two points, right?

But uncontested layups or easier layups, they tend to go in 70-80% of the time. Those are the ones that are going to increase your efficiency substantially. The Luca comparison is interesting to me because I don't actually think Cade will ever. reached the level that Luca has reached on offense. Although I do think he can get close. I just don't think he has quite the natural ability that Luca has. It kind of just reminds me of a poor man's version of him. But Cade is a substantially more capable defender. I've actually seen Cade on one occasion do a really good job in some on-ball matchups. That was a big thing that stood out to me in my prep for the Pistons Nick series was the job that Cade Cunningham did in the

regular season guarding Jalen Brunson. He's got really good instincts. He's good at being physical with his hands without picking up too many fouls. There's a version of this story where Cade becomes a legitimate two-way superstar. I think Cade has real potential to enter into the top tier of superstars in this league. I think he's a few years away from getting there, but I think that potential is really there. Let's take a guy like Pallow, for instance. Because Pallow is neither a high-level jump shooter or a high-level playmaker or an otherworldly defender, I think that kind of caps Palo out at being a second-tier star.

Like, I think he can get into the backside of the top 10. I think Palo one day could be a, you know, six, seventh, eighth, best player in the NBA. But when we're talking about the real top tier, the tier that Janice and Shay and Lukah and Yokic occupy right now, I'm not sure that Kate can, or excuse me, I'm not sure that Palo can ever get to that point because he just doesn't have that one supreme gift

that will drive him to true unguardability, so to speak. Cade's combination of being like a legitimate bonified offensive engine, like one of the guys that's going to be a top tier offensive engine in this league, while also having legitimate two-way potential, I think that actually makes him one of the special franchise cornerstones. One of the guys that only comes around a few times each decade. Right now I haven't met 18th on this list, but I do believe that Cade has the potential to get up into that top five

at some point in the next five years. All right, guys, that's all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for support me and support in the show. We'll be back on Wednesday with more players in our player rankings. I'll see you guys. Hey, guys, it's us. The Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe.

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