The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - NBA Player Rankings #23-21: Bam Adebayo, Evan Mobley, Jaylen Brown

Episode Date: July 31, 2025

Jason breaks down the next set of players in his summer NBA player rankings including Miami Heat center Bam Adebayo, Cleveland Cavaliers big Evan Mobley, and Boston Celtics wing Jaylen Brown. #Volume See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart 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.

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individuals. Listen to cultivating her space on the IHeart Radio app. Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. The Volume. Welcome to Hoops Tonight here at The Volume. Happy Wednesday, everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great week so far. I got a jam-pack show for you guys today.

We're continuing our player rankings. We have three more players. We're getting to today. Number 23, number 22, and number 21. You guys are the Joe before we get started. Subscribe to 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 announcement. 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 is doing great work on our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Make sure you guys follow us there for more content throughout the year. Last but not least, keep dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments. We talked about this after the first video, but our mailbags over the course of the rest of the summer are going to be more geared towards the player rankings. Obviously, ask whatever questions you have.

And if I see a very interesting question that's not related to the player rankings, we'll get into it. But this is all very subjective in, all very up for debate. As we talked about in our first video, there's very little separating number five from number 14 on my list and number 15 all the way from the 40th guy that I considered for this list. There's a lot of room for argument there. And so if you guys disagree with any of my placement, a guy too high, a guy too low, a guy who missed the list who should have made it, a guy who made the list who shouldn't have made it, anything that you disagree with, right, mailbag with a colon, drop your kind of like counterpoint, keep it short, keep it brief,

elevator pitch for what you guys disagree with. And we'll argue about those in our mailbags throughout the rest of the summer. Now, it's going to be a little tricky. This Friday's mailbag is just going to be reacting to our first video because I'm going out of town. I'm going to Alaska and I'm going to be gone for like 10 days. So the first two Fridays will just have the one mailbag this Friday that reacts to the first video. But the rest of the list, we have like five additional mailbags that will be recording over the course of the list where you can, guys will have plenty of opportunity to argue about what you disagree with. So make sure you guys get those into the comments. So without any further ado, let's talk some basketball. Number 23,

bam out of bio, a guy who's dropped from where he was last year in the top 20 for me. His season in review, he played in 78 games, averaged 18.1 points per game. That was his lowest since 2020. 9.6 rebounds per game, 4.3 assists per game is highest since 2021. 2.0 stocks per game. As 1.3 steals per game last year was the second highest total of his career. Now, his efficiency is where things are going to get pretty interesting. And I have a lot of different stuff I want to get into with Bam here. So he was just 49% from the field last year.

That was the lowest mark of his career to this point. Now, part of it was the increase in his three point volume. people are going to shoot lower percentages on threes. That's going to affect your field goal percentage. He had never taken more than one three-point attempts per game in the first several seasons of his career last year was the first year that he attempted over one. He attempted almost three threes per game. So that obviously plays a certain role in the drop in his field goal percentage.

But he also shot poorly on twos. He shot 52% on twos, which is his lowest mark since his rookie season. He's had three straight years from 2020 to 2020. in the past, where he averaged the same points per game, 18 points per game, but shot 57% on twos over the course of those three seasons. So substantially lower this year than levels he's reached previously in his career. He's flat out regressing as a shot maker inside the arc. He shot below 40% on floaters and hooks last year, which is brutal for his position. At the center position when you do so much work rolling out of ball screens, your ability to short-range

shot make, either beating switches with quick quick hook shots or catching on the roll and spinning into a quick hook or making floaters on the roll, those are vitally important parts of shot-making at the center position. And he was below 40% on them last year. He used to just be better at it. He was 52% on floaters and hooks in 2021, 55% on floaters and hooks in 20,000. 55% on floaters and hooks in 2022. So for whatever reason, and I really don't have an explanation for it. He just hasn't been able to recreate what he did in years past and elevate from there to that next level. It kind of came to the surface, if you guys remember, as an issue for BAM during the 2023 finals in the series against Denver. He was consistently getting quality short range looks,

layups a little bit further away from the rim, short hooks. floaters, little bank shots. He was getting all of these looks and he just wasn't making them against Denver. And it was becoming a problem because they were the kind of shots that were open in their offense often. His touch, it's not just on hooks and floaters,

either. On layups, it's been an issue. He shot just 50% last year on layups. That's way below where his peers are at the center position. Again, bam, 50%. Anthony Davis, 60%. Carl Anthony Towns, 58%. Evita Zubats, 57%.

Nicola Yokic, 67%. You guys get the point. Compared to his peers, he really struggles on short-range shot making. Layups, hooks, floaters, that sort of thing. And that has ended up being an issue for him as he's failed to kind of take that next step as an offensive player. There was kind of like this inflection point for BAM.

in right around that 2022, 2022, phase when the heat made those back-to-back conference finals runs and their NBA finals run, where it kind of felt like he was either going to improve as a finisher and become like one of those legit second-tier stars like Anthony Davis, or he was going to plateau. And instead he's kind of regressed. This is actually crazy,

even with the influx of his three-point shooting, which is legitimate. Like he had never attempted more than one three-three per game. He attempted almost three-point three-pointers per game. game this year, and he made 36% of them, which is very respectable as a three-point shooter. But even with that influx of like a more efficient shot profile, he posted a true shooting percentage of just 56% last year, which was the lowest mark of his entire career. This is a big part of how he slipped out of the top 20 for me, despite the fact that Tyrese Halliburton,

Damien Lillard, and Jason Tatum have dropped out of the list entirely, which should in theory have bolstered him against that, but I dropped him because he's just regressing as an offensive player. And it's preventing the heat from getting to their ultimate goals in the postseason. The lack of shot making for BAM is especially frustrating because of how amazing he is at everything else, including passing out of the center position. When it comes to that part of offense,

being that five out, dribble handoff, fulcrum going side to side, making reads at a two-man game, being the guy that ties everything together for that offense, he's actually great at that. There are only four centers in the entire NBA who meet the following criteria. At least 25 minutes per game, so a guy who plays a lot, a usage rate of at least 20%, so a guy who has the ball a lot,

and an assisted turnover ratio of at least two to one. There's four guys in the entire NBA at the center position that meet those criteria. And the other three guys are not very athletic. De Manus Sabonis, Nicola Vucevich, those guys are right around two to one. And then Yokic, who's better than three to one, who obviously is kind of the anomaly. But those are like skill-focused centers who are great playmakers. And then it's Bam.

Bam is the fourth guy on that list. Another way to put it is like this. Bam is the only truly athletic center in the NBA who can playmake at that elite, like a that elite level of efficiency and volume. Or he's not turning the ball over. He's top five in assists per game among centers. He's the only guy who brings that athleticism in that, like, refined playmaking at that center position

in the entire league. You combine that with his unbelievable defensive versatility, which we're about to get more into in a minute. And you have a player that had a truly sky-high potential, like top-tier superstar potential, if he could have just added reliable shot making. That's why I've been so keyed in on that piece of his game over the last few years, and it just kind of feels like a missed opportunity.

He's regressing when it should be something that he's improving on. But again, he's an excellent playmaker. He's fifth and assists per game among centers overall. We talked about that modern dribble handoff fulcrum in the NBA. Like when you have guys that can score and pass out of action, guards, having a big who can flow from side to side, meaning like run that first action, oh, it doesn't work, quick, make yourself available at the top of the key catch, turn, and go to the other side of the floor, dribble handoff,

while always being able to make the reads out of it. Like, oh, they're overplaying me. I'm going to fake the dribble handoff and go to the rim or setting the good screens that free the guys up, passing to guards as they back cut, or if they get top locked and are forced to back cut, the playmaking that you do out of that. There's all of this stuff that in terms of decision-making and playmaking, you need from the center position in order to run five-out offense in the modern NBA an offense at the heat run more than many teams in the NBA,

Bam's great at that. And then again, the defensive end of the floor is where Bam really separates himself. Bam didn't have his best defensive season last year. His 0.7 blocks per game were the lowest since his rookie year in the NBA. Now, context there, he's playing with more two big looks. That's going to put him in some different situations, playing alongside Killal Ware. And I generally think it was the least,

motivated he's been as a defender since he came into the league as the heat were just so far away from achieving their postseason goals. He finished outside of the top five and defensive player of the year voting for the first time since 2019 last year. I do still believe in BAM as an apex defender in this league. I think that he will continue to operate closer to that top five defensive player of a caliber player looking forward in his career. I look at last year as more of like an outlier. The big differentiator for BAM is that he's essentially a hybrid between a traditional rim-protecting big and kind of like a legitimate wing in terms of his ability to move his feet on the perimeter. He brings the best scheme versatility defensively out of any center in the league,

aside from maybe Victor Wembeyanama. I think he's the best switching center in the league, bam. There was a time when I thought it was Anthony Davis and you could argue AD is still maybe a better defender all around because of how good he is at the rim. But AD put on a bunch of weight and hasn't been able to move his feet on the perimeter as well, hasn't been as good defending switches. Bam is legitimately awesome switching out onto the perimeter. One of the unique things he does that many other big struggle with, we're going to talk about this when we get to Evan Mobley.

But one of the things that like Evan Mobley struggles with is when he gets switched onto quicker guards, he gives too much space. And those guys get really comfortable with their pull-up three-point shooting. Evan got lit on fire on pull-up threes and ISOs this year, kind of prevented him from being as good of an ISO big as he could have been, as good of a switching big as he could have been. Bam, you'll see him like two feet outside the three point line, picking up pull-up shooters way out on the perimeter.

He's way more active with his hands to disrupt the rhythm and flow of pull-up shooters so they can't comfortably settle into pull-up jump shots, while also having the speed laterally and the recovery athleticism to deal with quickness getting past him. He's unbelievable defending on switches. Even last year, and what everyone considers to be a down year, he was still amazing on the perimeter and switches statistically. There were 151 players in the NBA last year who defended at least 50 ISOs.

Bam allowed just 0.62 points per possession in ISO. That ranked third on that list. Third out of 151 players. He does this while also being very good in traditional coverages. He gets up to the level of screens quickly and at the level coverages and can disrupt pull-up shooters. He can contest in the mid-range. He can protect the rim. He obviously isn't as good protecting the rim as some of like the taller, longer centers in the NBA.

But he's good enough at it in conjunction with being one of those truly elite top-tier switching defenders. And he makes life very easy for Eric Spolstra schematically. Because they can build out any defensive scheme that they want. Bam can do literally anything you ask him to do. one of the most versatile defensive foundations in the game. Bam can be a frustrating player, and his lack of developing upside has certainly prevented Miami from reaching their ultimate goals,

and his regression there is, like I said, downright frustrating, especially if you're a fan of Bam in the heat. But you can't do a whole lot better in the modern NBA than a big man who can legitimately anchor any defensive coverage at a defensive player of the year level, giving you an enormous amount of flexibility from opponent opponent, both in the regular season and in the playoffs, while also being a legitimately good dribble handoff fulcrum on offense that can kind of get guys set up in in the right spot.

Now, his lack of touch, especially around the rim, prevents him from reaching that second tier of superstars in the NBA. But his overall value is still enough to put him at 23 on this year's list. All right. Number 22, Evan Mobley. Nothing says summer like long days, clutch plays, and 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.

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What's the news, name? Huge news. 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. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there.

But this one's extra special. So how do we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas, guys? I honestly don't remember I think it was on a call about what we should call it And 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 For people could call in and say hey Jonas And then I wrote down on my little notepad Hey Jonas and offered it up as a potential title For the podcast But thanks for remembering that

Guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL, late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert 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.

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And for more, follow Timbo Slic Life 12 and the TikTok podcast. network on TikTok. Jacob Kingston grew up in an isolated polygamous sect. We were God's chosen kingdom on earth. He felt destined for greatness. So when a swaggering Armenian businessman catapults Jacob into an extraordinary world, he doesn't look back. Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, meeting the president of Turkey.

I'm Michelle McPhee, and this is one of the most shocking criminal conspiracies I've ever come across. When Jacob met Levan this went to a billion dollar fraud. But with two kings from entirely different worlds, just how long can their empire survive? The largest tax investigation in American history. You need to tell me what you know. Is somebody coming after me? Jacob told Levan, you're ruining my life. Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the I-Heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Last season in review for Evan, played 71 games, very award-heavy season for Evan.

He won defensive player of the year. He was first team all-defense, second-team all-NBA, made the All-Star game, and was 10th in MVP voting. It's a hell of a breakout season for the young star. His average is he averaged 19.9 rebounds and three assists, 2.5 stocks per game. his efficiency used 56% from the field, 62% on twos. He doesn't have amazing touch on short twos, like 40% on floaters and hooks,

53% on layups. Those marks are only slightly ahead of where Bamatabio was. But he had 194 dunks last year. Bam only had 140. Now, some of that is that Evan Mobley played with better ball handlers, but some of it is also that Evan Mobley's a better vertical spacer and that was something that allowed him to be way more efficient on twos than Bametabio was last year. He also shot 37% from three on 3.2 attempts per game last year in the regular season,

more than double the attempts of any previous season in his career, and he shot well in the postseason. He shot 45% from three in the postseason on four attempts per game. So the jump shot feels real. He's legitimately a substantially better jump shooter than Bamatabio. He was 60% in effective field goal percentage and a career high, 63% in true shooting 7 percentage points ahead of where Bametabio was last year.

Evan Mobley, in my opinion, has become flatly a better offensive player than Bam was or is. The perimeter jump shot is more reliable. He's added some of the ability to run action. I do think Bam is a better like five out, dribble handoff, fulcrum. But Evan Mobley has closed the gap

in terms of offensive initiation was some of his ability to run offense, to run inverted action, and his superior jump shooting and his vertical spacing like we talked about earlier. It made Evan Mobley a very dynamic role man. Evan Mobley scored 1.17 points per role man possession last year compared to just 0.97 for Bamaida, so 20 points better per 100 role man possessions. And again, some of that is the gap in ball handling, but most of it is just that Mobley has become a better offensive player. Evan Mobley shot 38% on pick and pop threes last year.

Bam shot 23% on pick and pop three. So three is when he was slipping out of ball screens. Those are generally wide open regardless of who the ball handler is. So like that, again, there is an obvious ball handling gap between those two teams, but I think there's an obvious gap in offensive refinement between Evan Mobley and Bam out of bio as well. Here's some play type data for Evan Mobley. he's a hyper-efficient play finisher.

1.17 points per roll man possession, that's 66th percentile, so pretty far above average. 1.59 points per possession on cuts, that's in the 92nd percentile. That's that awesome vertical spacing and his good hands around the basket. Very good in transition, very good in offensive rebound situations. In action, if you go back two years to 2024, Evan Mobley ran just 153 pick and rolls, ISOs, and post-ups, including passes. Last year, that skyrocketed up to 339, more than double. Now, the efficiency was only okay.

0.91 points per possession, including passes on all three play types combined. Again, not excellent, but it was his first season as like a high volume creator. And that's really not bad. He was specifically successful in inverted ball screen situations, meaning when he was handling the ball in either Donovan Mitchell or Darius Garland or one of the shooters like Sam Merrill or Max Drews will come up screen for him and then slip out to the three-point line. It kind of created some very simple reads for him.

Like if the guard screened and the guard's man didn't help, he would just turn the corner and go downhill and he'd either get all the way to the rim or he'd make a kick if someone stepped over to help. It was a pretty simple set of reads. If the guard lingered in a hedge, then the shooter would slip out free and he would just pitch it back to the shooter

as he got to the three-point line. It was a very simple kind of order of operations for Evan Mobley that allowed him to be effective in one of the hardest actions to guard in the NBA. that kind of like go screen action with a bigger ball handler involved. When he passed out of inverted ball screens, the Cavs got 1.06 points per possession last year, which is very good.

I also thought Mowgli played well in the playoffs. His jump shot was going in at a higher clip than the regular season. He was making his hook shot. His shot creation was successful. He ran 15 of those inverted ball screens in the playoffs and got 19 points. That's great. That's a great number. He ran 14 post-ups and ISOs for 13 points, which is not amazing,

but it's above his regular season efficiency. I thought the Cavs held up well on the offensive glass in that series, where in years past, that was something that Evan Mobley and Jared Allen both had struggled with. I thought last year was just a monumental step forward in Evan Mobley's development as a basketball player. Now, on the defensive end, I actually think Evan Mobley is a tiny bit overrated. I would not have given him defensive player of the year last year. I do believe that Evan Mowley is a very, very good defender. But for instance, I do think that BAM at a bio is a better defensive player than Evan Moby.

I do not view Evan Mowbly in the conversation for best defenders in basketball. Again, a big part of it is he wasn't very good on switches. In that list of 151 players who defended at least 50 isos that BAM was third place on, Evan Mobley ranked 66th on that list. He allowed 27 more points per 100 isos than Bametabio did. And his weakness, again, we talked about it a little bit earlier when we were talking about Bam. Bam was picking up pull-up shooters outside the three-point line

and stunting at the ball, which allowed him to prevent himself from allowing easy pull-up jump shots over the top. Evan was consistently back on his heels further back behind the three-point line. And so he contained the ball well, excuse me, he contained the ball well, but he gave up a lot of easy pull-up three-point shots on his heels in those ISO situations. He does have a good amount of scheme versatility. It's worth mentioning. He does a lot of work in two big looks as like a low man on the back line.

he can do a decent job in Switches. Again, he's not bad at it. He's just not nearly as good as some of the other bigs in the league because of him being kind of passive and on his heels. And he does protect the rim reasonably well. Evan Mobley getting the defensive player the Year Award again, I disagreed with that. I thought that had more to do with the Cavs just winning a shit ton of games and it being kind of like an award geared around team success. I do still believe Evan Mobley is an excellent defender overall, even if I don't necessarily. believe he was deserving of the accolades that he got last year on the defensive end.

The best way for me to explain how I landed with BAM at 23 and Evan Mowley at 22 is to say that I believe Evan Mowgli is the better offensive player, and I believe BAM is the better defensive player. But I believe the gap between how good Evan Mowgli is on offense and how good BAM is on offense is bigger than the gap between how good BAM is on defense and Evan Mowgli is on defense. I think that gap is smaller. And no matter what, And it's a really impressive step forward for Evan Mowgli and his development. The next step is going to be improving as a switch defender and continuing to improve overall as an offensive initiator and as a three-point shooter.

All of this lands Evan at 22 in this year's rankings. All right, number 21. Number 21 in this year's player rankings is Jalen Brown. Last season in review for Jalen, he played 63 games. That was his lowest since 2021. He was dealing with a knee issue throughout the year, which is going to be a big part of the way we frame things for Jalen Brown in this particular segment.

He averaged 22 points per game. That was his lowest since 2020. Six rebounds. 4.5 assists, which was by far a career high from him. The increase in assists mainly stemmed from Jalen becoming a much more willing passer out of his one-on-one situations, specifically ISOs and post-ups. For example, in the 2024 season, when he passed out of ISO or passed out of post-ups,

he generated just 0.95 points per possession. In the 2025 season, he passed out of ISOs and post-ups about a time and a half as frequently, so he did it a lot more, and he generated 1.30 points per possession when he passed out of those situations. The specific improvement that I noticed the most on tape was him passing out of the post.

He did a lot better job this year when he would get in the post of just kind of probing until that second defender would come and making the appropriate kickout passes on time on target to shooters. The Celtics did shoot super well on his post kickouts this year, but there was also a market improvement in the quality of the threes that he was generating. And I tend to think those things are associated. So obviously a little bit of shooting luck, but a lot of shot quality as well. He generated 32 made threes out of post-ups for his teammates in just 63 games this year. Last year in 70 games, he generated just 20.

That increase in overall playmaking ability from Jalen made up for some of what was a pretty down year for Jalen Brown as a shooter. But I want to get into some of the specific reasons why, because it's very fascinating. First of all, let's just get through the numbers. He was 46% from the field. That's the lowest since his rookie year. He was 53% on twos, lowest since his second year in the league. 32% from three, lowest since his rookie year. 52% in effective field goal percentage.

Excuse me, the 32% from three, that was the lowest of his entire career. 52% in effective field goal percentage, lowest since his rookie year. 56% in true shooting percentage, lowest since 2019. So why did his efficiency dip the way that it did this year? I think it mostly had to do with his knee. There's this thing that I talk about a lot in this show called energy transfer. It's a concept for jump shooting and general shot making in basketball. Essentially, like, if you make a move to get to anywhere on the floor,

or even if you're just in a catch-and-shoots situation, at the end of that sequence, you are transferring energy from your feet, up through your knees, up through your hips, up through your shoulder, elbow, forearm, all the way through the wrist on the snap of the real, the snap of the jump shot, right? And if you get less power, then you usually get out of one part of that system,

the entire calibration of it gets thrown off. I thought it was evidenced by a couple of key areas in his shooting efficiency. Take a look at this. His jump shooting was down mostly across the board. Like overall, 1.04 points per shot on jump shots in 2020, 0.92 points per shot in 2025. So 12 points per 100 jump shots,

worse overall on jump shots. Off the dribble, 0.85 points per shot last year, the year before, 1.00 points per shot. So 15 points per 100 off the dribble jump shots worse. Contested catch and shoots, 2024, 1.04, 24, 24, 24, 2025, 0.98, 6 per 100 worse, right? but in wide open catch and shoot shooting, he was actually up year over year.

He was 1.14, 2024, 1.18 in 2025. Now, before we dig into why that's interesting, let's talk about his rim finishing too. In 2024, he got to the rim 7.3 times per game and shot 62% there, according to Synergy. 2025, just 6.7 attempts per game and just 60% at the rim. a little bit worse in both volume and efficiency. So what does it tell us that Jalen has improved as a playmaker and improved as a wide open catch and shoot guy year over year, but that he struggled on contested jump shots,

off the dribble jump shots, and his rim volume and efficiency both dropped year over year? It sounds to me like the game continues to slow down for him and his skill set is continuing to refine but that he was obviously dealing with a struggle to get lift and separation, which is going to make a lot of sense for a guy who's dealing with knee issues. What are the shots that are going to require extra umph in your lower body in that energy transfer? Contested catch and shoot jump shots,

shooting off the dribble and out of footwork, and getting to and finishing at the rim. That's where he saw the drop ball. Now, it's at least worth mentioning that he's about to turn 29 years old. And he has a ton of miles on his body relative to most NBA players his age. For perspective, he's played 4,500 playoff minutes. LeBron James has played 12,000. So a way to look at it is Jalen Brown already at just age 28

has played 38% of the playoff minutes that LeBron James has played. and he's well into his 40s now. So Jalen's dip in athleticism and the associated struggles, as well as the reality of his age and the amount of mileage on his body, that's a big part of how he slipped a little bit down the list for me this year. I'll be curious to see if he's able to overcome that knee issue and get back to 100% next year, or if it's something that lingers and that can become a problem

as things continue throughout his career. Next year will be our first opportunity to see Jalen Brown in a truly featured primary shot creator role. Last year, Jalen's volume was sizable, especially in one-on-one situations. He ran over 500 pick and rolls, or excuse me, over 500 post-ups and ISOs. But his overall shot creation volume

is still low relative to his peers at the top of the league. He was good, though. 1.01 points per possession in pick and roll, including passes on 453 reps. That's slightly above average. one point per ISO including passes on pretty high volume, 302 reps, that was the 13th most in the entire NBA.

Efficiency for that, once again, slightly above average. He was 1.28 points per possession and post-ups including passes, which is excellent. That ranked number one. Jalen Brown was number one out of the 18 players to run at least 200 post-ups last year. Now, again, some of that is influenced by the fact that the Celtics shot super well on his kickouts. they shot like 60% on his kickout threes out of post-ups. But it's worth mentioning again when I looked at the film, the kickouts were happening more frequently

and he was generating better shots than he did in previous years. So some of it was shooting variants. Some of it was also the quality of shots he was generating. I expect Jaylen Brown to continue to thrive at volume in ISO and post-up situations. They tend to present the simplest reads in a four-out one-in system. So for instance, if you're on a cleared side, post up for Jalen Brown. Very easy reads for him. If you put him on the left block and he's got the

ball in his right hand, you double from the top. It's an easy kickout up to the wing for a three-point shot. You double off the opposite wing. He can rifle that pass to the opposite wing. I've seen to make that specific pass many times. They can get a little tougher when they load up and make the weak side corner available, but Jalen is typically pretty good at getting deeper into the paint making the kickouts. They're easier reads. Iso. Same sort of thing. Cleared side ISO, exact same reeds we just covered wing isos in four out one in it's pretty simple the defender is funneling you towards the baseline and you drive if you drive and they don't help off the strong side corner you're going to face help off of the weak side corner if they rotate down the reads to the wing if they don't the reads to the corner it's a pretty simple set of reeds out of an iso

if you do get to the middle if they pinch down from the nail you pinch up to you pitch it out to the wing if they stay glued to the wing and you get past that guy they're probably going to help off the corner you make the kick to corner. It's like those one-on-one situations present reads that I think Jalen Brown can handle really well. So increasing his volume because he's the primary guy, he's just going to get into a better rhythm and it'll make him even better at making those basic reads. I think he's going to be fine in ISO and post-up situations. Now, whether or not Jailen Brown has a truly great season leading the Celtics will come down to his work and pick and roll. That is not a skill set that comes naturally to Jalen Brown.

When he has to read lots of moving parts, navigating a defender behind him and in front of him, looking off defenders, some of the more complex help and recover situations that you see in pick and roll, tougher angles, tougher passing reads, that's where it can get tough for him. I do think it's a coverage he's going to see quite a lot this year too,

especially since he'll be surrounded by less talent. Teams will switch less against the Celtics. there will be more loaded up pick and roll traditional coverages. My guess is that Jalen Brown struggles here. I think we'll see a pretty high turnover rate from him this year. I think his efficiency in pick and roll per possession, including passes, will flirt with a point and maybe dip below a point. But if you can prove me wrong here,

he does have the potential to have a special offensive season, especially if you can get his knee back to 100%. But my guess is it's going to be really nice in ISO in post-substition. about that he'll struggle and pick and roll, and that overall it'll be kind of a mixed bag from him this year. On defense, I have a tremendous amount of respect for Jalen Brown. I think he's just one of the absolute apex perimeter defenders in the league when he really locks in there.

Certainly in the top tier, he's just such an amazing weapon to have on a roster. He even brings the switch ability that gave Boston the championship ceiling they had in the past. We talked so much about Jason Tatum and his ability to guard centers and how that made things work because they could switch. Well, that only works if the guy that's guarding the guard can also switch on to centers, which Jaylen Brown could effectively do.

Obviously, this year will be different and that you probably have way too much offensive responsibility to be that apex defender while also doing everything he needs to do on offense. But it's still an important part of his skill set that we have to factor in when we're considering a list like this. Jalen Brown's dropped a bit on this list as his body has started to let him down a bit.

In the playoffs, especially, he shot very poorly on long jump shots, very poorly at the rim. He was just 55% at the rim in the postseason. But again, as an apex perimeter defender and a bona fide secondary shot creator in this league, I think he's firmly entrenched in the top 25, and I have him at spot number 21 this year. 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. Remember to get your mailback questions in. It won't be for a couple Friday. that we get to this particular episode in our mailbags just because I'm going out of town to Alaska.

But I do plan on going through all the videos and finding all of the arguments for our mailbags. So if you disagree with any of the rankings in any way, shape, or form, give a quick elevator pitch and the YouTube comments

as a mailbag question and we'll get to them in our mailbags throughout the remainder of the list. Again, as always, I appreciate you guys for support me and support in the show. And I'll see you guys next time.

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